There’d be silence in the seconds before the explosion. Even the crash and roar, the shifting of the sand and silt above would momentarily cease. Then you’d sit there crouched in the dark wondering what had happened to your breath. You’d count it in as somewhere ahead there’d be the movement of a body in scurrying retreat.
The fight starts in the kitchen between a couple of chefs, which means it could be about any number of things (drugs, booze, girls, hours, pay), but because Terry and Sean are a pair of obnoxious, stupid assholes, it’s about some soup. Terry thinks the bisque could use some paprika, but Sean fucking hates paprika.
That’s it. That’s all it takes to set them off.
“Here. We’ve got to get some sleep.” Bob hands his wife a pill and takes one himself.
Elaine pretends to put it in her mouth.
With a beard the color of November clouds, the man came in most mornings at seven o’clock sharp when the gas station’s convenience store opened. The electric door chime sounded and he shuffled through in his tufty shoes, schlepping his plastic bag bounteous with empty bottles. The smells of earth, sweat and cypress clung to him.
I’m deep in the blues, down in the Bottom, bottom of the Bucket of Blood, the bottoms of beer bottles, consumed by rotgut, roiled by raw, ripping, crosscut blues.
A heavy left-handed boogie on the piano.
Richard looked at his half-grown mustache, and couldn’t decide whether to shave or not. He was about fifty with receding brown hair, and a John Doe face, and brown eyes. He wore khaki pants, white shirts, and canvas shoes, and lived in a small apartment over the hardware store. He was married to Martha up until about a year ago when he came across Robert and Martha, and Robert’s pants were around his ankles. Martha felt bad she hurt him, but Robert gave her pleasure the way Richard couldn’t. Richard saw how Robert had a mustache which gave him the idea. It took him almost a year to talk himself into it. He had a job at the liquor store which had been for quite awhile now. He went to work, and opened cases of vodka and gin, and put them on the shelf. Monday was his hardest day, you know, because of the weekend. After he lost his marriage, his liquor store job kept him going. There were two things he didn’t like about Robert, the first being that he had sex with his wife, and the second was he drank whisky. That meant he had to see Robert when he came in to buy his Jack Daniels. It was all right if he was behind the shelves, and could ignore Robert, but when he was on the register, they had to pretend to be friendly which drove him nuts. The last time Robert came to Richard’s register as he picked up his bag; he pointed to Richard’s mustache, and said,
“Hey, another year or so; you might have something.”
Richard gave a wicked fake laugh. He glanced out the window and saw Martha waiting in the car.
When the new patient was installed in the next bed, Frankel didn’t pay much attention. Friendships in his ward were apt to be short lived. As in the army during the war, you were not sure if it paid to get acquainted. Still, Frankel didn’t feel like reading. It was too much of an effort lately. His eyes would tire easily, or he would get headaches. Speaking was less tiring.
My friends thought it was a big deal that I was flying out to Los Angeles for a call back on a film. I had the initial audition when the director was in New York. A month later, he called to see if I was still interested. I was. I didn’t have anything else going on. The trip would also give me a chance to visit my father. I hadn’t seen him in years.
Sirens blared nearby, but as James sat, they sounded distant. Distorted. Like a baby’s cry from a monitor. People rushed by, screaming, sobbing, but the world was silent and still. His heart slowed as emotion slipped from his body. All that remained where he sat were functioning organs under worthless skin.
A guy I know had the telly on one evening, wasn’t taking much notice of it, and then one of those telly chefs came on. That made this guy get out of his chair and kick fuck out of the thing. He’s a happier man now, so everybody says. In fact, I don’t know him, but I think I believe it because telly chefs, they have to be a sort of conspiracy to piss people off, isn’t it, a sort of programmers’ revenge on the people who put them where they are. Think about it this way: you dream of a life in television, want to make your mark on the spirit of the age, and they make you set up a programme featuring a telly chef?
literally stories 