Portlanders | Sledgehammer Writing Contest

“Untitled” by Sean Proctor

Posted on August 3, 2014 by writer

Untitled

by Sean Proctor

It was happening again. Isaac’s held his breath and put his eye to the peephole. John, his elderly neighbor, was struggling to open the chain link gate. Again. How could this keep happening? Isaac turned from the peephole, put his back to the door and gulped for the air he restricted while diving into the peephole. It always took John several tries to open the gate, one of the few perks of being hounded by a neighbor with Alzheimer’s. Sometimes he’d forget what he was doing before he could even open the “newfangled latching mechanism” on Isaac’s gate. It was always new. Everytime. For the past two years.

When Isaac first bought the little house he thought he had it all figured out. Save your money. Find a quiet neighborhood. Become the local Boo Radley. He had endured the apartments of his twenties like an iron maiden of humanity closing on him. He was past it now. No more snooping landlords dropping by to “fix” the heating. No more children knocking on his door and running down the halls. No more neighbor’s posturing in the parking lot while fixing their cars. He had worked hard, saved his money and was finally able to get out. He was finally free, his trials were over. But then there was John. Over and over again, there was John.

Isaac’s anxiety intensified as he heard John finally figure out the gate. In his more dramatic moments he compared himself to Anne Frank but would instantly reprimand himself for such hyperbole. John wasn’t a Nazi, just an outstanding citizen who continued to serve god and country with his little neighborhood patrols. John got the abandoned cars moved. John made sure everyone knew about any shady character. John got the burned out street lights fixed that shined into Isaac’s window and kept him up at nights. Most of all, John was the block ambassador, welcoming new neighbors to the block. Again and again in Isaac’s case. Isaac knew he had little hope of avoiding him. He paged through the mental Cliff Notes of John’s previous visits. They usually came in five parts.

Part 1, introductions (mostly painless)

“Hey there, welcome to the neighborhood. The name’s John. I live over in the blue house there with my wife, Shelly. What’s your name? (Firm handshake) Isaac? Nice to meet you, Isaac.

Part 2- Sizing up.(mostly awkward)

“So what do you do Isaac? Computers? (Isaac just says computers, it’s easier that way) Don’t like computers myself. Me, I’m retired. Airforce. Flew Huey’s and the like. Now my son’s are having all the fun. (This is when John would squint his eyes and silently measure Isaac up to his son’s. Slowly the 33 year old Isaac would get filed somewhere between Snot Nosed Kid and Ungrateful Punk.)

Part 3- The old neighbors (cautionary sermon).

“Yeah, they old people who lived here never quite fit in. Put up this awful chain link fence, never mowed their lawn, had too many cars, etc etc etc… Nobody liked them much.”

Part 4- Goodbyes. (The glimmer of an end)

“Welp, it was nice meeting you Isaac. Welcome to the neighborhood.”

Part 5- Post script (The final jab)

“You should think of cutting your lawn soon.”

Sometimes John’s dementia would work out to Isaac’s advantage. He would walk by the house and assume no one was home because there wasn’t a car in the driveway, always forgetting that Isaac took the bus every time the hard drive was wiped clean. But that wasn’t going to happen this time. John had been on one of his “constitutionals” when Isaac was walking home from the bus stop. From down the street Isaac saw he had been spotted and now the odds were low that John would forget he saw Isaac by the time he reached the front door. But it wasn’t out of the question.

Isaac took a deep breath and turned to the peephole again. John had finished struggling to close the gate and was now shuffling up the walk. Isaac’s panic spiked as he remembered the orange electrical cord stretched across his front walk that John was currently making his way to. Isaac had been meaning to put it away but ignoring it also helped to dull his anxiety about the mower. He had been cutting the grass earlier in the week, an attempt to keep John at bay, when he ran over a rock and the electric mower sputtered to a stop. This set off a chain of events in Isaac that ended with him, as he often did, doing nothing to fix the situation. He knew what part he needed but couldn’t find it in the infinite expansion of the hardware store. When he felt he had been in the store long enough that the false smile of customer service would soon be electrifying the hairs on the back of his neck he grabbed a clawhammer and bought it. He could use a second one anyway.

All of this flashed in Isaac’s mind and how all this could have been avoided if he wasn’t such a freak. As John got closer to the cord Isaac shamed himself into action. He took a deep breath, grasped the doorknob and stopped. John’s squinted eyes traced the orange cord’s path and Isaac silently celebrated the victory. John was safe and Isaac had bought a few more precious moments to prepare if John didn’t forget that he saw Isaac.

The lawnmower! In a flash of genius Isaac whipped out his phone and checked his google search history from the past week. Isaac knew there was going to be a conversation about the lawnmower and if he could sound like he knew what he was doing, shit, what was the name of that part? And what was the size of that allen wrench he needed? Just mentioning these things by name might raise John’s esteem of Isaac to the level of College Ass; a step up that could do wonders for their relationship. Well, wonders until the next time John stopped by to introduce himself. Again.

Isaac was congratulating himself on this hypothetical success with John when he heard a thud outside. He turned to the door and almost gave himself a black eye slamming his face against the peephole. There was John, sprawled out on the sidewalk, his face painted with blood, stumbling like a deer that had been hit by a truck. Shit. John saw the cord alright but he had little success navigating it. A man who once recklessly flew Huey’s through clouds of Agent Orange in Vietnam had been cut down by an orange extension cord stretched six inches high across his path.

Isaac pressed his eye deeper into the peephole as John had untangled himself and stormed his way up the front steps. The only thing that kept Isaac standing now was the paralyzing fear of John hearing him move. Stiff as a corpse Isaac felt John’s knocks banging through the door in and straight into his heart.

“Come out here! It’s your neighbor! I saw you just get home so I know you’re in there! I just tripped over your eyesore of an extension cord you can’t be bothered to put away! Come out here before I go and get my boys and we knock your door in!” John punctuated his last four words with thunder peels from his fist. Then he stopped and that’s when the change happened. John took a step back from the door as confusion sculpted itself into his face. He scratched his chin as he of did to think but was distracted when he felt a warm wetness. Looking at his hand he saw the blood and stared at it as if it he was thinking “Is this art?”

John turned and sat down on the front step. An old muffled fight song trumpeted from his front pocket as he fought to find his phone. He looked at it like it as if it had been planted on him then finally flipped it open. “Hello? Yes, this is John. Honey, is that you? Honey, I’m… I’m at the rental property but someone has painted it. We what? We sold it? No, I… I remember. No, I’m okay. Yes, I’m coming home now. No, nothing is wrong it’s just I… I think I must have fallen down. No, I’m okay. I’m bleeding but… I must have stopped at the rental house for help and blacked out. Yes! I remember we don’t own it! No, I’m fine. I can get home myself. No, don’t send David over. Wait. David’s home? But… it’s not September yet, is it? His deployments over? Then is Donnie is home too? Honey, why are you crying? Yes, I… I remember now. I’m sorry. I’m… I’m coming home now. I’m coming home.”

Isaac relaxed a bit but still didn’t dare move. John stood up and wiped the blood from under his nose. He looked back at the house and Isaac felt the shame that all of this could have been avoided had he summoned the strength to be a normal person. He knew he needed help and Isaac resolved to get better.

However, this clarity lasted only moments as John tripped on the cord for the second time that day, cracking his skull open on the pavement and sending Isaac back into the spiraling black abyss.

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“Untitled” by Jason W. LaPier

Posted on August 3, 2014 by writer

Untitled

by Jason W. LaPier
The lights in the garage were off, but the morning sun came through the windows, smearing through waves of dust to dimly illuminate the space. Emilio’s Mustang, white, gleaming. Shelves of neatly stacked paint cans. The rack of long-handled lawn and garden tools, each meticulously cleaned before being hung. Golf clubs. Fishing poles. Hunting shotguns.

In the middle of it all, Emilio hovered above. As if someone had taken a snapshot as he began his ascent to Heaven, his hands spread, his head bowing, tilted slightly to one side to say a last goodbye to his favorite Earthly possessions. Though his pale face was not serene; it was bunched and angry, cheeks bulging into squinting eyes, neck stretched long and reddened by the orange extension cord that snaked around it twice before slithering up into the rafter. Dancing among the motor oil, paint fumes, and cleaning chemicals was the distant but unmistakable smell of excrement.

“Why haven’t you cut him down yet?”

At the sound of her voice, the three living men in the garage flinched and turned to face her. They were all in their tracksuits, bright, gaudy blues, contrasting with Emilio’s understated pinstripe pajamas.

“Angela.” Chance stepped in front of her, his broad shoulders blocking her view. He rubbed his bristly gray hair with a thick hand. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to see him like this.”

He shifted, and though he didn’t touch her or step closer, he had a way of using the weight of his physical presence to push others away. She could see in his body language that he didn’t want her there. His hands went out to the sides in a non-aggressive, sympathetic gesture, but she felt it as the spreading of wings, the cornered animal making itself bigger to drive off a threat.

“Joey called me,” she said, because she knew Chance hadn’t known.

“I thought she should know,” Joey said apologetically from the other side of the garage.

Chance turned to direct a heavy frown at his young associate. The glare caused Joey to fidget, and he pointed up at Emilio. “You want me and Buck to get him down?”

Joey’s twin was stalking around the garage, looking up and down, hand on his chin like he was playing detective. “Has to be a hit,” he said with a short, decisive nod.

Chance turned away from the boys, once again spreading those hands in front of her. “Angela, you should go. Let us take care of this. I’ll have Joey call you.”

She stepped to the side. “What did you say?”

“Definitely a hit.”

“Clam it, Buck,” Chance grunted.

“A hit?” Angela shook her head. “You think this is a hit? Where’s the gunshot?”

Buck blinked and pointed vaguely. “There’s no gunshot. He was just hung.”

“That’s not a hit. That’s suicide.”

“A hanging can be a hit. Joey, remember two years ago over in Mills End? Remember Lefty?”

“Lefty Mason,” Joey murmured. “Southside Crew hung him in his own garden shed.”

“Hey, what’d they hang ol’ Lefty with?”

Joey cocked his head in thought. “I don’t know. It was a garden shed. Maybe an extension cord?”

“Well did anyone look for a note?” Angela said.

“A note?”

“A suicide note.”

They all looked around dumbly for a moment, as if a note might appear suddenly and bite one of them on the hand. She didn’t want to believe someone would do this to Emilio. It was too much work, too elaborate. It was easier to believe he took the time to do it to himself. He could have been depressed. He should have been depressed.

She stepped closer to the twins before Chance could start flapping those wings at her. She tugged a flask from inside her jacket and unscrewed the top. “Who was with him last?” She took a swig, savoring the burn of the gin on her throat. “Last night.”

“Well,” Joey said sheepishly. “Buck dropped off Candy at about eight o’clock.”

“Yep,” Buck said. “She didn’t stay though. Called me for a ride home at ten.”

“And who found him here in the morning?”

“I did,” Chance grunted. “Ten AM.”

She took another hit. “So he was alone from ten last night until ten this morning?”

“Ain’t you supposed to be in AA?” Buck said.

Joey slapped his twin on the shoulder. “Don’t be a dick, Buck.”

“He sent the girl home at ten,” Angela said, thinking out loud. “I still think this could be suicide.”

“But there ain’t no note,” Buck said.

She glared at him, screwing the top back on her flask. “Selfish to commit suicide, even more selfish to not leave a note. Sounds like Emilio to me.”

Buck’s hands fell to his sides and he frowned. “You know, he was like a father to me and Joey.”

Joey slapped his twin’s shoulder again.

“I want to talk to the girl,” Angela said, tucking the flask back into her jacket.

“Angela, you should really let us handle this,” Chance said. “It’s our responsibility.”

She ignored him and pointed at Buck. “Text me her address. I want to talk to her now.”

It was a tiny apartment, the kind where the kitchen, living room, and dining room were all one room. The couch as pink as the dishes stacked in the doorless cabinets, the carpet worn and patchy, dust-gray shades covering the single, small window. The place smelled like sugary candles and stale cigarettes. The girl stepped aside to let Angela in and a shimmer of silver blurred toward her, stopping short just inches away. The German Shepherd widened his stance, bared his teeth, and rumbled a low growl.

“Justice!” the girl said, bending down to clap her hands in front of him. “Stop it! Go lay down.”

The dog blinked and looked from the girl to Angela and back, then straightened up nonchalantly. Ignoring them, he began sniffing around the carpet in lazy circles.

“I’m sorry,” the girl said. “He’s very protective.” She stuck out a hand. “You’re Angela, right? Joey told me-” the upbeat note caught in her throat and she sobbed suddenly, redacting the offered hand to cover her mouth.

“Let’s sit down.” Angela took a step toward the couch, then opted for one of the two chairs at the small, round table. “What’s your name?”

“It’s Candy,” the girl said quietly, sliding into the other chair and dabbing at her eyes with the sleeves of a long, black night shirt.

“What’s your real name?”

She looked at Angela, blinking tears away and clearing her throat. “Candy. Short for Candice.”

“I’m sorry, I just thought…” Angela trailed off.

“It’s okay.”

“What did Joey tell you.”

Candice fought with a sob, shuttered it back. “Emilio’s dead.”

“What else?”

“He said he thinks it was a heart attack.”

“Anything else?”

She sniffed and cocked her head, dark roots showing at the base of her white-blond hair. “No. Well. He said to be careful who I talk to.”

Angela sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Candice. You might have been the last person to see Emilio.”

“Oh, God,” she said, and began crying openly.

The German Shepherd came around and nosed her gently in the leg, but she kept her face in her hands, making a muted squeaking sound. The dog gave up and moved on to Angela, dropping his head into her lap and peering up at her with arched eyebrows. She ran her fingers through the soft fur on his head and scratched him behind his ears.

“Oh, he likes you,” Candice said, momentarily breaking from her suffering.

The tip of the dog’s tail wiggled. “Yeah, I guess he does,” Angela said. “Maybe I should get a dog like this. I bet he’s a good guard dog.”

“Oh, yeah,” the girl said. “Nobody fucks with me when Justice is around.”

Angela’s hands moved down the dog’s neck and kneaded into his thick shoulder fur. “We had a dog just like this when I was a kid.”

She took her hands away as a memory overtook her. She must have been eleven years old. The dog had been in the family since the day she was born. Her parents had gotten him as a puppy when her mother was pregnant. Named him Kevin, but Angela renamed him Chewie as soon as she was old enough to talk. That dog never left her side, they spent every single day together. Then one day there was something wrong with him. He was always so loving, so gentle, but something had changed. Her father said he just went screwy in the brain, that it happened sometimes with dogs.

There was an incident, and Chewie bit one of her father’s friends. He wasn’t Chewie in that moment, he was something else. Chewie was gentle, always licking and nosing everyone, but this dog was an animal, eyes bulging, baring teeth and locking onto the man’s forearm. Blood streaming onto the carpet. The man clamoring and cursing. Her father punching the dog to get him to release his grip.

The dog had to be put down after that. Her father put a leash on Chewie and dragged him into the back yard. She wanted to go, but her mother held her back. She heard the pop, like it was nothing more than a branch breaking. The sound was so innocent, she thought maybe he hadn’t done it, maybe Chewie was coming back. But her father came back into the house alone and set down a black-as-night pistol onto the table and then went to the liquor cabinet.

It wasn’t until several years later, when she was a teenager – after her parents split – that she realized when a dog has to be put down, most people take it to the vet. Get a shot, watch the dog drift into breathless sleep. Until that realization, she thought that shooting an old dog with a Glock 17 was the normal way to deal with it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t offer you anything,” Candice said. “I only have soda. Do you want some?”

Angela felt the flask in her left hand, the fingers of her right working open the screw top. She must have pulled it out without thinking, and froze for a second, caught in the act. Then she opened it and took a hit. “I’m good, thank you. You want some gin?”

“I don’t drink.”

“Yeah me neither. Four years sober.” She took another pull and closed the flask. “Listen, Candice-”

“Call me Candy. I hate Candice.”

“I want you to tell me about last night.”

The girl shifted uncomfortably. “About … last night?”

“I don’t mean that. I mean – Emilio. I want you tell me how he was acting. What was his mood?”

“He was happy,” she said, and looked down at her hands. “When I got there. Later he was upset.”

“Was that when you went home?”

“Yes. He – he got a phone call.”

“From who?”

“I don’t know. But he was upset. He was yelling. I – I’m sorry, but I don’t like to be around when he gets like that.” She lifted her head, a fleeting moment of defiance. “So I called Buck. I went outside to wait for him, and then I came home.”

She found his cellphone on the kitchen table back at the house. The call history ended at 6:22PM, when he had called Buck, presumably to arrange for Candy to come over. She looked around for a suicide note while she was at it, but the place was uncluttered, as usual, and if there was a note, it would have jumped out.

She fell to the couch, sinking into the fat cushion. She could hear the faint murmur of men barking at each other in the garage. The flask came out of her jacket and she let the taste and the burn close her mind for a moment. To be nothing – nothing but heat and flame. What it would be like, to be fire. She squeezed her eyes tight, but nothing would come. No tears, not even a tickle of wetness.

She opened her eyes and found the flask light. Not empty, but she might as well top it off from Emilio’s reserves. He wouldn’t need it. When she stood, the keys she’d left on her lap slid onto the floor. When she bent down for them, she saw another phone, just under the couch.

It was a prepay, cheap and clunky in design. It took her several minutes of trial and error to find anything in its abbreviated menus. Then she began to piece something together.

Text message received, 9:32AM: getting everything set up. expect call tonight.
Text message received, 1:19PM: last chance. we good?
Text message sent, 1:28PM: were good
Call received, 9:58PM, lasted 18 minutes.
Missed call, 10:19PM.
Text message received, 10:32PM: where r u? call back?
Missed call, 10:46PM.
Missed call, 11:27PM.
Missed call, 12:14AM.
Text message received, 12:19AM: call me back

The texts and calls were all to the same number, and it was the only number in the phone’s history.

She went to the liquor cabinet. She selected a bottle of Hendrick’s, topped off her flask, and screwed the top back on. Then she sent a text.

still there?

She stood in the silence of the house. She had nothing, no idea what to do. She should be letting Chance handle things. He’d been around forever, and this was the kind of shit he knew how to deal with. But for some reason, she couldn’t leave it be.

The phone chimed.

we need to meet. safe to call?

She breathed out long, slow. Her finger danced around the top of the bottle she’d just poured from. She pulled it back. Hit the call button on the phone.

“Jesus, where the fuck you been?” The voice was a man’s, but not one she recognized. When she didn’t answer, he said, “Hey, you there?”

She made her voice low, quiet, distant. “Yeah.”

“Everything got all fucked up. We need to regroup. You still wanna do this?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright. We’ll talk more in person.” There was a shuffling in the background. “Go to the Southeast Shore Marina. Come to the drydock. Look for a sloop called Trermuda Biangle. Forty-five minutes. Okay?”

“Yeah.”

She hung up and stood there numbly for a moment. Was that voice familiar at all? She couldn’t grasp anything. She never paid attention to the people around her, around Emilio.

She opened the cabinet below the liquor shelf. Inside was a wooden box, in the same place it had always been, at least for twenty years. She opened the box. The Glock 17 was still there. She had not looked at it in a long time. When she was a girl, she saw her father put it there. He never used it again, and when no one was around, she would pull out the box and open it. She would sit cross-legged on the floor and cry for Chewie.

She took the gun and a clip out of the felt lined-box. She slid the clip into place and checked the safety. She tucked the piece between her stomach and waistband and headed for the garage.

Joey slipped out of the narrowly-opened door in the kitchen as she approached. He closed it behind him and stood in front of it. “You don’t want to go in there right now, Ang. Dr. Pisco is examining the body.”

“For what? On the off-chance he didn’t die of strangulation?”

“Ang…”

“I’m sorry, Joey.” She stared him in the face, and his eyes met hers with an unchallenging softness. “Look, I need your help with something.”

“Um, okay. Of course.” He reached a hand toward her, stopping just short of touching her. “What do you need?”

“I need you to come with me somewhere. I need to meet with someone, and I might need … backup.”

“What? Who?”

“No questions, Joey. I need you to do this.”

“Okay, Ang. Whatever you say.” He frowned and looked at the door to the garage. “You want to talk to Chance about it?”

“No,” she said, too quickly, so quickly she surprised herself. “I mean, I just want to leave him out of it, just for now. We’ll come to him later if we need to.”

“Well, I gotta tell him something.”

She sighed, then tried to cut it off, tried to hide her anxiety, her impatience. Joey was right, he would need an excuse to leave with her. “Tell him I’m inconsolable. Tell him I’m going to pieces out here. Tell him you need to get me home. Tell him you’re worried about me.”

“I am worried about you, Ang.”

“Then tell him. And hurry up. We need to move.”

She lay in the grass on the hill just above the marina and scanned the drydock with binoculars. She couldn’t see any of the boat names, but there were only a couple of sailboats. In front of one, a black man in a brown suit jacket that looked too hot for summer paced back and forth.

She texted on the prepaid, almost there

Through the binoculars, she saw the man reach into his pocket and look at his phone.

“Okay, down there, just on the other side of that chain-link fence,” she said. She pulled down the binoculars to see Joey squinting into the distance. “Here, get a good look.”

He took the binoculars, then groaned. “What the fuck. Angela, that’s one of Roberto’s guys.”

“What’s his name?”

“Shit, I can’t remember.” Joey put down the binoculars and his eyes turned up in thought. “Jackie or Jackson or something. Why are you meeting with this guy?”

Roberto was a name she’d heard before, but she didn’t know what it meant, who he was. She never paid any attention to the organized crime political landscape. She avoided it as much as she could, and drank away any of it she accidentally learned.

“You just keep an eye on my sweet ass, Joey.” She allowed herself a faint smile, which she quickly dispatched. “Don’t get close unless you have to.”

She went down the other side of the hill and circled back around to one of the marina’s entrances. When she came through the gate of the drydock, she strolled around the middle aimlessly for a few minutes, sparing an occasional glance at Jackie-or-Jackson. He continued to pace, checking his phone and watching the entrance, paying no mind to the blonde woman who looked lost among the big-boy boats.

When she sidled up behind him, she surprised herself at how easy it was. The Glock poked into his kidney. “Don’t move. Breathe slow.”

He sighed and dared a glance over his shoulder. “You robbin’ me, Blondie? Gonna be disappointed if you is.”

“Call me Angela. Turn around slowly.” She kept the gun low but held steady. They were shielded from view of most of the world by the barnacle-coated hull of a sailboat.

“Alright, shit.” He turned, not quite raising his hands, but showing his empty palms. He looked her up and down. “Yeah, I know I know you from somewhere.”

She felt pressed to move things along. “You’re name is Jackie, or Jackson, or something?”

“Jackie Robinson.”

She laughed in genuine amusement, surprising herself. “You must have disappointed parents.”

He ignored her; instead realization creased across his face and he looked around, turning his eyes but not his head. “Where’s Emilio?”

“He’s dead, Jackie.”

His jaw went slack. “Aw, shit. Aw, man.”

“What kind of deal were you two cooking up?”

“Look, Blondie, I don’t know you-”

“I told you, my name is Angela. You made a deal with Emilio, now you deal with me. Got it?”

He stared at her long and hard, his dark eyebrows bending inward, his eyelids narrowing, then widening. “Shit. I know who you are. You a little Emilio-ette.”

“Good,” she said, cringing. “So talk. Make it fast, I don’t like standing around out here any more than you do.”

“Yeah, okay. It’s about treaty negotiations.” He put up his hands and made talking-puppet gestures with them. “Roberto and Emilio. Turf disputes. The three month truce expires next week and talks are set up. Emilio wants – wanted – the lower half of Chinatown back. But he needed leverage.”

“And you were going to help him?” She lowered her gun to see if the show of trust would get him talking faster.

“Yeah. See, one of Emilio’s guys shot my boy Randall in the back last Winter. Fucked him up real good, put him in a wheelchair, know what I’m sayin? So we were going to take care of this guy. Make it all dramatic, send a message. The kind of hit that Emilio would have to come back on.”

She chewed it over in her mind, wishing she didn’t have to sort out these political games. “So when Roberto and Emilio come to the table to renegotiate their truce, Emilio gets to play the outrage card because one of his guys just got whacked?”

“Exactly. My boy Randall gets payback – that we can’t get now cuz of the truce – and Emilio gets Chinatown back.”

“So I’m supposed to believe he would sell out one of his own like that?” She acted the part with indignity, but the truth was that she wouldn’t put it past Emilio.

“You know him better than I do,” Jackie said levelly. “Knew him, I mean. Besides, this guy-” he started, hesitating. “Our target; he’d had been a pain in Emilio’s ass for a while now. It’s what ya’ll white people call ‘win-win’.”

She knew she had to ask who the target was, but she didn’t want another name, another player. Someone else she was supposed to know and didn’t. She switched the gun to her left hand and pulled out the flask with her right. “Drink, Jackie?”

“Yo wait a sec, how did he die?” he said, stepping close to her. “How did Emilio die?”

“We found him in the garage this morning, swinging from the rafters.” She shoved the pistol into her waistband to free up both hands so she could get the top of the flask unscrewed.

“Oh, shit. This is bad.” Jackie’s long fingers went to his open mouth and he started pacing.

“Hey, don’t plan on going anywhere,” she said, aiming the flask at him. “I want some answers.”

“What I said before. Making the hit dramatic.”

“To send a message.” She brought the gin to her mouth, then paused, pulled it back down. “Oh, don’t tell me-”

“Randall’s idea. Everyone remembers that Lefty Mason hit a couple years ago. An old school hanging.”

“Who was the target, Jackie?” She grabbed at his jacket lapel with her free hand. “Which one of Emilio’s guys shot your friend in the back?” Again, she knew she’d heard these conversations when they happened months ago, but her willful ignorance clouded her memory.

“Oh, shit, oh, shit. Someone found out. If Emilio was hanging, someone found out what we were planning.”

Jackie Robertson’s head kicked to one side and the hull of the boat went red. After a delay, his body slumped awkwardly, his jacket sliding away from her hand, and her mind registered the high-pitched pop that had preceded it all.

She turned to see Chance, a silencer at the end of his pistol, still wearing his gaudy blue tracksuit, fifty yards distant.

He slow-jogged up to the body and leaned over it, then seemed to be satisfied with his work. “I always hated that prick,” he grunted. He turned to her, the gun not trained on her, but at the ready. “I told you to leave this alone, Angela.”

“You killed Emilio.” The flask in her hand trembled impotently. She stared at his gun, unable to to bring herself to pull her own from her waist. “You hung him with an extension cord in his own garage.”

“He was going to sell me out.” He kicked at the corpse. “To this asshole. They were going to hang me. All for turf.”

“Chance,” she whispered.

“Well now I get to take over,” he said, pointing his gun at his own chest. He turned it outward, waving it around at nothing in particular. “Now I get to go to war with all those motherfuckers. Roberto and all his bitches.”

There was a shadow that caused them both to turn, too late for Chance as the butt of Joey’s pistol came down on the back of his head. Chance’s gun dangled from his fingertips, then clattered to the concrete. He dropped to one knee, then to the other, then to all fours.

“Thanks, Joey,” Angela said. She heard her voice quiver, felt the flask of gin slip from her fingers, hitting the ground with a slap. She turned to him, her eyes finally tearing. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, Ang.” He put his hand on her shoulder and steadied her, but only for a moment. She looked into his eyes and saw the fear in them. She felt the Earth stop its rotation and restart in the opposite direction. Now he was steadying himself against her. “You’re the head of this family now,” he said.

“I thought maybe when he died, all of this would be over,” she said. “That I could just go my own way.”

“Your dad wasn’t a saint, Ang. But he was our boss.” Joey pulled his hand away and stood up straight and nodded at her, honoring her. He gestured at the barely-conscious Chance. “So, whachu wanna do with him?”

“I guess I’ll start with what my father would have done,” she said quietly. “Don’t expect me to make a habit of it.”

She raised the old Glock 17 and put down the disloyal man.

Filed under: 2014 Submissions, Portlanders | Tagged: 2014 Sledgehammer, Jason LaPier, writing contest | 1 Comment »

“Give An Inch” by Jeremiah Reinmiller

Posted on August 3, 2014 by writer

Give An Inch

by Jeremiah Reinmiller

Molly cursed.

Not loudly, that would’ve been stupid and dangerous, but curse she did, in a ground teeth, pinched lip, sort of way. Each near silent word was delivered with some enthusiasm toward the plastic faced source of her frustrations.

There it sat, nestled snug in its ecru face plate at knee height; its narrow slits of eyes and tiny ‘o’ of a mouth staring out at her with mock surprise. As if it couldn’t possibly imagine what the problem was. She restrained the urge to punch in the tiny face, or the twin below it.

It wasn’t the power outlet’s fault. She knew that. Blaming an innocent inanimate object like that would’ve been silly.

It was clearly the extension cord’s fault!

Yes, she had come to that conclusion some moments before. The useless strand of bright orange, plastic clad wire dangled from one clenched fist. Its equally orange plug scraped against her steel toed boot. The other end ran across the floor, through the front room, and out the cracked open door at the front of the house.

She still felt the cable really should be grey like her jumpsuit, or black like, well, all of her other gear, but she also knew that regulations dictated a cable of this obnoxious orange hue. Heaven knew they couldn’t risk something as dangerous as someone tripping over a power cord. It wasn’t as if there weren’t any other dangers around them at all times. Like metric tons of high explosives, or unstable batteries the size of small block V-8s, or numerous aggressive hostiles packing god only knew what in their grubby fists.

Molly forced her hand open before something in her arm started to cramp, and stared down at the orange line dangling over the black leather of her glove.

The stupid thing still reminded her of the one her father had kept under the sink. The one he coiled in a particular way to keep it from tangling, and used for the seemingly endless string of household repairs he had to complete. They could’ve been made by the same company for all she knew. This one even felt the same.

Not that any of this did her a lick of good. The issue before her remained the issue before her. And what a stupid issue it was. She glared at the face plate again, then sighed. One more try, she’d give it one more try. Maybe she’d gotten the angle wrong last time. Or the time before. Or the time before that. She cursed again then made herself take a long, deep breath. She held it, then let the air out. It didn’t help at all, so she swore and got back to it.

She carefully planted her boots against the carpeted floor and put one hand down for balance, then crouched with the power plug in her other hand. A nice strong pressure should do it. She just needed to find a good angle and —

She threw herself forward, as if perhaps she’d catch the cord and outlet off guard and surprise them into a union. There it was. Just like before. The plug remained a rage inducing inch from the outlet.

Molly jerked and heaved and pulled with everything her small frame had. Digging with her boot heels, she pulled with both arms, threw her weight against the cable. And none of it did the slightest bit of good. The power cord was guitar string tight, and goodness knew the other end wasn’t budging. The outlet sat an inch away. Still looking surprised.

With a cry of frustration she hurled down the cord and scrambled to her feet.

It had been one of those nights; one of those weeks really. First they’d gotten lost, then ambushed, and then she got cut off from everyone else. She shouldn’t have expected anything less, and yet here she remained, stranded in the middle of middle-class nowhere, an inch away from salvaging any kind of success from a disaster of a day.

She blew stands of black hair from her face, snarled, and looked around again.

The drab, clichéd decor of the unlit room around her — a living room she supposed from the TV on the wall to her left– only served to remind her of her predicament. The smiling pictures on the walls, a monstrosity of a sofa before the TV, a small table of some kind beside her against the wall. It looked expensive and pointless. Much like her mission.

The wooden tabletop cracked as her boot heel slammed the bit of furniture into the wall. It made a terrible noise, but helped her feel slightly better.

Who built an entire room with no power outlets anyway! If the front room had contained a single one like she’d expected, she wouldn’t be having this problem. But oh no, that would’ve been too easy. She’d yanked furniture from walls, scoured every surface, and found nothing, not one outlet. It didn’t make any sense!

In her apartment — the one she hadn’t seen in over a year, and probably didn’t exist anymore if she was honest — there’d been so many outlets she’d could’ve thrown the damn cable and accidentally plugged it in. But not here. Not in some hundred year old ranch style house where people had nothing more to plug in than one TV and a refrigerator. So here she stood in the living room, with only this one outlet anywhere close to the end of her cord; tethered by a piece of government issued orange cable that regulations dictated be manufactured at one hundred feet, instead of one hundred feet, and one inch.

She looked around for anything else she could break, and froze.

There had either been movement outside the front windows or–

The screen door outside creaked.

They’d probably seen the damn orange cable. Or her Heavy at the other end of it. Her loathing for the cable aside, she had to admit that was probably more likely. Ten foot tall robots were hard to miss. Something started to say they’d actually heard the little stunt she’d pulled with the sideboard, but she shut that voice up right quick as she snatched up her rifle and darted to the side of the doorway into the front room.

The front door groaned open and shuffling footsteps followed. She waited a moment, hoping they’d go somewhere else and knowing they wouldn’t. You couldn’t get a much larger ‘over here’ sign than the neon orange one strung out at her feet. She winced then risked a peek.

Three of them, the Baugot, stood just inside the room. Bloat class. Looking ridiculous as ever.

Even knowing what she did about them, which was quite a lot, she couldn’t help it. Two years ago, when that first pod had plunked down, people had thought they looked silly, and right then, crouched against an eggshell white, flat finish wall, Molly thought exactly the same thing. There were no two ways about it, they simply induced a head scratching dose of, ‘seriously?’

Short, and thick wasted, the drones waddled into the room like the world’s largest pears with arms and legs stuck on. Their tiny heads perched atop thin necks. Tufts of hair sprouted about their faces in a kind of hair / beard combination. Centered in this mess were a cluster of black eyes. Like always, no mouths were visible. No one had yet figured out how they communicated.

Their equally tiny arms ended in tiny hands holding tiny firearms. Molly had seen bigger water pistols, but that didn’t change the fact that–

A picture frame hanging on the wall across from her decided right then it had had enough, and was giving up, and clattered to the floor. The lead alien spun surprisingly fast, and a light at the end of its gun winked red. The floor exploded. Burning bits of wood and carpeting, and what had once been a graduation photo pelted Molly’s face, dug into her skin. She scrambled back, stomach twisted tight, hating the aliens and their silent guns which left basketball sized holes in things.

If they weren’t going to investigate the entire house before, they certain were now. She had only seconds at best to find a place to hide.

The lead Bloat stuck its fuzzy pip of a head around the corner of the doorway. A number of its eyes widened. There wasn’t even time to curse.

She’d managed to keep the muzzle of her rifle pointed in the direction of the doorway. Instead of hiding, she pulled the trigger. Half sprawled on the floor she couldn’t aim, but she was so close it hardly mattered.

7.62 mm rounds might be primitive by Baugot standards, and they certainly weren’t silent, but they still got the job done. The alien stepped into the room, and popped like a twenty gallon water balloon. Something decidedly not wood or carpeting splashed over her. Something much wetter, and much, much worse smelling.

Scientists told them their absurdly proportioned opponents were 90% water and the stuff inside their bulbous bodies was almost chemically equivalent to saline. But that didn’t explain the smell, or the way the somehow both sticky and oily stuff clung to everything. Molly gagged while her ears rang from the dying echoes of six tiny explosions pounded out in two seconds.

Stunned and drained, she lay there feeling suddenly very tired. None of that mattered though, because they were coming, and if she didn’t want to quickly feel much worse, she needed to get moving.

As if to punctuate this point a basketball sized hole appeared over her head, pelting her with plaster and 2×4 splinters. Another joined it. Another. She hauled herself up and ran.

Burned carpet leapt up beside her boot, and then she could see the backyard through a hole in the far wall. She threw herself over the couch and tumbled to the floor.

The thing was a huge, maroon, faux velvet monstrosity, but unless the owners had opted for some kind of a Kevlar option, it wasn’t going to provide her much protection. Burning foam landed in her hair as one of the couch cushions erupted into half a zillion tiny bits. They clearly had not.

She sucked in a deep breath, shoved her rifle over the back of the couch and rattled off a long burst, trying to arc the fire across the room. A satisfying pop greeted her ears, followed by a wet splash. She hadn’t expected to get so lucky, but she’d take it. Especially as the last one was quickly testing the flammability of faux velvet. Turned out the stuff burned pretty well.

Molly flattened herself to the floor, coughing on the noxious fumes as a new barrage turned the couch into a polyester Vesuvius. She couldn’t stay there unless she wanted to find out what having her torso forcibly removed felt like, but she couldn’t run either. The nearest doorway was fifteen feet away and the carpet looked like a slippery sodden mess. More fingers of the fluid leaked past the edge of the couch before her eyes.

That gave her an idea. Not a good one mind you, she’d run out of those hours ago, but hey, it was better than opting for 100% organ removal via alien squirt gun.

She scrambled back against the wall, watched the last of the couch go up in an unflattering puff of yellow foam and burning maroon fabric, then dove forward with every ounce of force she could muster. She’d been right about the carpet. She shot forward on her stomach past the burning wreckage of the couch — she thought it was an improvement in design actually — and right for one surprised Baugot.

It swung its gun toward her, but even their deceptive speed was no match for the sheer velocity of an alien innards slip and slide. Its first shot landed somewhere behind her, its second closer. She flipped over on to her back mid-slide, before it could fire a third time, and then she was there, beneath the Bloat’s over proportioned body, staring up as it craned over trying to find her.

She grinned and unloaded her clip into the Bloat’s nether regions. Or what would’ve been its nethers, if they had any, which they did not, for which Molly was grateful as Baugot’s didn’t wear any pants.

Grinning was a mistake. That’s how alien juice landed in her mouth when it popped, and soaked her through. She wound up retching on the floor for a good minute amidst a truly ruined living room.

When’d she regained control of her gag reflex, Molly spat a couple more times then stood. A bit of alien glop ran down her cheek, she wiped it off and flicked it away. The aliens remained dead, looking like nothing so much as punctured balance balls with limbs sewn on.

She was lucky these Bloats had found her. There were a quarter billion of them — by scientists most recent guesses — but they were easy-ish to kill. If something else had shown up, it might’ve been a different story.

That thought had just crossed her mind, when the head of the alien family scuttled in through the front door.

Family might not be the correct term, she thought it was more like clan, or whatever Meligoup, translated too, but head most certainly was. It was hard to get that wrong when you were staring at a 3 foot tall skull that looked like a cross between an Easter Island statue and a giant baby doll head, crawling toward you on a half dozen limbs that were neither arms, legs, or tentacles. Not exactly.

The Head crawled forward a few inches at a time, its appendages writhing in creepy motion as it reached the living room door. When you’re from an alien species that snaps together like building blocks to form Ultras, those towering alien monstrosities Molly and her crew feared, she was sure being the head instead of the butt had its advantages, but speed of movement when you’re on your own wasn’t one of them. On the other hand–

The head squinted its two large white eyes, and that wasn’t good. Not even a little bit. Molly threw herself toward the nearest doorway as blue light lit the room.

She slid / tumbled / fell into the kitchen and looked back in time to see twin blue lasers carve a gash through the far wall and then wink out.

Yeah, it had laser eyes. Laser eyes! She felt exactly as terrified and amazed, and bit jealous, as she’d been the first time she saw one of the Heads light it up on the battlefield. Bodiless it might be, but that didn’t make it any less deadly. One of them had wiped out Baker squad two weeks ago, and they’d had their Heavies.

She stared at the orange extension cord where it lay, still short of the outlet, and cursed again. And here she was all on her own, feeling quite squishy and easily punctured outside of her armor.

Out in the living room the Head peered around, glowing eyes now wide. The one disadvantage with laser eyes was that you apparently couldn’t see the slightest thing while you were burning the world to cinders. That meant she had one chance before it located her and started playing human soldier disect-o-rama with its lasers again.

She could take a shot at it, but that would do about as much good as a toddler flinging peas at the wall. And would probably result in a bigger mess. For her. All her other weapons were outside, with the Heavy, and still very much out of power.

She couldn’t very well run either. Not without her heavy. She had about as much chance of making it back to base skin side out as a snow ball did of escaping a 4^th of July BBQ. Besides, through some fluke in the power grid, this neighborhood was the only one that had registered any power readings before her Heavy decided to take a cold nap. If she didn’t get it recharged here, it wasn’t waking up.

On the other side of the living room, past the still burning couch, a set of stairs led to the second story. She hadn’t been up there yet, but when the options were: trapped burning death, sure burning death, or possible burning death. She had to go with the one with the least terrible qualifier, and hope she’d find something to help her, or she’d gain some kind of inspiration with another ten feet of elevation.

She snagged a kitchen towel and wiped the worst of the muck from the bottom of her boots then crouched like a sprinter in the gates. Thirty feet to the stairs. She could do that. She just needed a couple seconds.

There was no time like the present.

Molly lunged forward, feet pounding linoleum, then gore soaked carpet. The Head turned, its eyes saw her. Just one more second and she’d be past. Its eyes squinted, lit blue.

Molly tripped. On the extension cord.

Apparently the powers that be had been wrong. Apparently painting the cord bright orange had not been a strong enough safety measure. She tried to catch herself, failed, and fell wind milling. The stinking carpet met her hard, and she slid stop, just beyond the burning sofa.

Behind her she heard the sizzle of lasers slicing through housing and was sure she was dead. This was it, grilled Molly flambé served ala middle class. She squeezed her eyes shut and hoped it shot her in the head.

Only she wasn’t dead. Plaster rained down on her instead, and after the stuff she’d had raining down recently, that was pretty mild. She looked up.

The Head was down on its back, laser eyes doing a number on the ceiling. The orange extension cord hung tangled amidst its numerous hand-feet things. Maybe after all the torment it had imparted, the extension cord was paying her back. Or maybe the alien was just really top heavy and had as much trouble with safety as Molly. In either case, she didn’t have any time to sort it out, because as awkward as the alien looked, it was coming back to its feet, hands, whatever.

She scrambled up and pelted up the stairs. At the top were three doors, the one in front of her was open. She rushed through, and skidded to a stop.

Sometimes she hated the terrible generic lower-middle class suburbia she found herself in. And sometimes, rarely, she didn’t mind so much. As she stared down at the six propane tanks clustered in the corner, she had to admit she felt a little love for crazy, survivalist hoarders everywhere.

Not that it had done them much good. When the pixie dust fell, everything with so much as a pulse was reduced to nothing larger than dust on the wind, but, just maybe, their mad planning might get her out of this mess.

If she hurried.

Behind her the squishing tearing sounds meant Mr. Head was on its way up after her. She couldn’t think it was in a super happy mood either.

She seized a propane tank in each hand, and flexing every muscled in her 150 lbs. body, she drug them to the door. Then she went back and drug over two more. There wouldn’t be any time for the others. The bobbing, pale skinned ridge of the Baugot’s head was clearing the top of the stairs.

Through the dirty windows at the back of the room, she made out the backyard, long unmowed. A rusting swing set and the ever present middle-class chain link fence that marked the back of every yard. It would be a hell of a fall, but the earth couldn’t hurt as bad was one of those lasers in her chest.

The Head scuttled into the room, eyes already squinting.

With gritted teeth Molly heaved up one more tank, turned, and flung it toward the alien, then gave herself the same treatment through the nearest window.

She hurtled out past the side of the house, feeling the soft sharp sensation of breaking glass. Then the Head fired and the rest of the house joined her as a force, like the middle finger of an angry god, flicked her away from the world.

She tasted dirt. And blood, probably her own, but mostly dirt. That was the first sensation that shuddered through her mind when her brain snapped back to itself. Everything felt disjointed and wrong, and out of place.

She forced her eyes open.

The world had inverted itself while she was away. That was nice to see. It would take some getting used to walking around upside down, but that might be a nice change. She blinked, more of her brain came back online and she felt the dirt against her cheek, in her mouth, the sharp jabbing in her back, and she realized she was hanging upside down against the chain-link fence.

Using a combination of elbows and curses, she pulled herself down and flopped back to earth. Where she lay for some reasonable amount of time before staggering back up right again. After a few seconds groaning and gentle prodding, she found herself in quite a bit of pain, bit entirely intact.

She couldn’t say the same for the house. Part of it was burning, and most of the second floor had accepted gravity’s invitation and joined the first floor at a more reasonable elevation. Basically it now looked like the rest of the mostly smoking neighborhood. Or the crumbling remains of the city in the far distance for that matter.

The propane tanks had apparently done their job and sent the Baugot Head into an alternate spiritual, metaphysical, and or geographic reality. She didn’t really care which as long as it wasn’t near her. The were no signs of any other unfriendly visitors.

Through the now gaping holes in the house, her Heavy still stood, stoic, and silent on the front lawn. Bristling with and armor and weapons, and still utterly useless.

She wanted to rush over and kick it in the shin, but that wouldn’t do any good. It hadn’t designed itself with eight hours of battery life and then sent itself into a ten hour mission. Men in white lab coats and tight green jackets and done those things, and she’d be having a very serious talk with both of them when she got back.

If she got back.

Neither dead aliens or a collapsed house and done anything to solve her stupid basic problem, and until she sorted that out, she wasn’t going anywhere. It would be easier to remove a rusted sedan from a redneck’s lawn than to move the two ton Heavy a single inch.

Without anything else to do, she started back across the rubble of the house, picking her way amongst sheet rock and 2×4 remains. And there, atop a few chunks of concrete, and a bit of melted maroon velvet, lay her orange extension cord. It looked remarkably intact and unharmed for the all the chaos that had ensued around it. Beside it stood a plastic ecru power outlet, still staring out from the wall with wide eyes; perhaps located closer toward the front of the house now that the entire wall was sagging toward collapse.

It was pointless, and stupid, but at that moment, she only wanted to do one thing.

She knelt, plucked up the power cord, and plugged it into the outlet. Just like that.

It was a futile gesture, but dammit if she was going to let an orange power cord beat her.

Behind her, a tiny light came on with a soft beep. Molly’s head whipped around. It was a very small light on the back of the Heavy, but it was an important one, with an important meaning.

Her arms rocketed skyward on their own, and a shout of triumph escaped her lips. Right then she didn’t care who heard.

She’d done it! Victory was hers! She’d make it out of this middle class nowhere after all.

The metallic sound of a breaker popping somewhere within the rubble of the house was unmistakable in the silence. The light on the Heavy went out. She stared frozen, unbelieving for a very long time. Eventually her lips parted, closed, then parted again.

Molly cursed, and eyed the distance to the neighbor’s house.

Filed under: 2014 Submissions, 2014 Winners, Portlanders | Tagged: 2014 Sledgehammer, Jeremiah Reinmiller, writing contest | Leave a comment »

“Foul Hook” by J.B. Kish

Posted on August 3, 2014 by writer

Foul Hook

By J.B. Kish

“Finding the right person is—arguably—the same as fly fishing the Kenai in July. It’s less about the salmon. Understand? There’s plenty of salmon.”

“It’s all about where you set that hook.”

Mary opened and closed her fist. The flesh on the outside of her index finger yawned, splaying open three cuts where fishing line had repeatedly eaten into her knuckle. She examined each wound mindlessly, picking at a few specs of dirt that had become embedded inside the flesh. She squinted and blinked wildly—only half aware of how exhausted she really was. Her eyes were sore, and they burned from all the crying. She was out of tears for now. But that truly was just for now. There were always more tears in this place.

The Central Peninsula Hospital Emergency Room was a sterile, white canvas that had been handed over to a community college art major of an interior decorator. Below was your obligatory checkerboard tile floor. Above were picturesque lake-scape paintings and a small TV that played old episodes of Roseanne. The vending machine—though she couldn’t see one, but was sure existed—was likely filled with junk food and crap microwavable burritos.

Mary—61 years old and peppered grey—was still in her waders when the doctor came out to break the news. They were tan with brown boots and clips that fastened over her shoulders. With these waders, she could walk out up to her tits and fish for salmon until her toes went numb. And she did often.

She remembered thinking that he had a familiar face. But then again, didn’t they all? Soldotna was a small town. His name was Doctor Jimmy…or…Doctor Eddie. Or something of the like. She was fairly certain they’d met on the river once or twice before. This Jimmy or Eddie always wore his backpack in the water. He never set it on the bank. He’d retie his leaders right there in the current because he didn’t want to lose his spot.

Tourists are always trying to steal what isn’t theirs.

When Jimmy or Eddie was speaking, Mary couldn’t quite make out the words. The world was stretching to a sluggish halt around her, and the man’s huge bottom lip was flapping incomprehensibly. His long, pointed face resembled that of a sockeye. And she couldn’t help but think of her leader sliding across his cheeks. She imagined herself whipping back and setting a barbed fishing hook right in ole Jimmy or Eddie’s cheek. A single, graceful maneuver.

A legally set hook.

Anywhere else, and Fish and Game would have your ass and a pretty pink fine too. Not the belly, not the back, and definitely not the tail—that was foul. A salmon had to be hooked right in the mouth for you to keep it.

Before she blacked out completely, she thought she’d heard her husband’s name—Nathan—sputter out from ole Jimmy or Eddie’s throat. She was sure she had. And she was sure it was bad too. Terribly bad. As she crumpled to the floor, all she could make out in the darkness was the phantom of a salmon. A single, beautiful fish breaching the water and trying wildly to shake the foul hook from its back.

Later, when she woke on a stiff hospital bed, Mary felt the unmistakable tickle of a cold coming on.

“Nathan, stop screwing around. You’re sick.” Something pricked Mary, and she frowned. The summer rain had brought the mosquitos from the woods. She slapped her neck and wiped the tiny insect onto her blue jeans.

The sky above their cabin that day was overcast and washed out. It threw no shadows, but still it covered the woods with a darkened veil. Everything—the trees, the creek, even her husband—it was all muted.

“It’s July, Mary,” said Nathan. “People don’t get sick in July.” He swung his backpack up onto the truck bed and pushed it back. Then he walked to the shed and returned with his fly rod.

Nathan’s face had always been a charming one. His chin was large and chiseled, like the edge of a cliff, and his hair was golden blonde and gently curled. He was six feet tall and barrel chested. But today his appearance was unfamiliar somehow. He was slouched and slow-moving. His nose was bright red, and that charm in his eyes was missing from his gaze. His eyelids were drooping and he sniffed a lot. Too much for a man about stand in a freezing cold river.

“Nathan—”

“—Six, Mary.” When he spoke, his voice was gravelly and congested. “They just raised the limit to six fish this morning. You know I won’t miss that.” Despite the way he sounded, his words had still come across as intended: curt and final. He turned and slid his pole into the back of the truck.

Mary sighed and crossed her arms. “Then I’ll come with you.”

Nathan stiffened. It was a single, fleeting moment, but Mary was sure she’d seen it happen. His broad shoulders slouched and he turned. “I thought you had book club today?” he asked, his tone noticeably softer.

Mary shrugged. “The book is shit anyways.”

“Won’t the club be upset?”

“Let them,” said Mary. She turned toward the shed and retrieved her pole. “Besides,” she continued, “twelve fish is better than six.”

Nathan didn’t respond. He stared at her incredulously before climbing into the truck and starting the engine.

Their trip down to the river was familiarly quiet. Mary felt like she’d interrupted her husband somehow. She got that feeling a lot lately. He was agitated of late, and typically spoke in grunts or nods. But it was probably just his cold, she told herself, handing him a hanky. She thought, he’ll be right as rain on the other side.

Nathan took the rag and blew his nose, pinching his nostrils and wiggling. He coughed—that deep, chest cough of a man who should be in bed—and rolled his window down, spitting some phlegm into the breeze. Mary smiled shyly, and then she turned to look out her window, her heart skipping a gentle beat.

They were coming up on Redoubt Avenue.

Nathan slowed the truck, stopping just before the tilted sign. The four-way intersection was empty. Straight ahead, the Kenai River awaited, along with a 6 fish limit. But the truck was steadfast and unmoving. Nathan sat with his foot on the break, the engine rumbling, and stared out the windshield. Mary smiled nervously, glancing down Redoubt Avenue. The road stretched half a mile, and there was a large white house at the end. Its enormous French doors smiled back at her. The vaulted roof wiggled like a suggestive eyebrow. There was a greenhouse along the north side next to a well and clothes line. Mary studied the house, and then looked back to her husband, placing a hand on the back of his neck. “Nate?”

Her husband’s upper lip rolled, and he sucked in through his front teeth. He took his foot off the brake and accelerated through the intersection.

The funeral home was surely decorated by the same person who’d done the ER. The walls were paneled with dark oak and mahogany. It conjured images of age and refinement. It said to Mary, “Only the best are laid on display here.”

“This is where the head of your family will say his goodbyes.”

Pictures of sunsets and clouds and even a painting or two of Christ lined the halls toward the room where Nathan was lying in a box. She hadn’t walked down to see him yet. She wasn’t ready for all the people and their eyes and the God damned sympathy. She’d had enough of it the past 72 hours. On top of that, her head was splitting. She felt like her brain was ballooning out against her skull. This cold had overtaken her faster than she thought physically possible, and it made thinking all the more difficult. Planning a funeral is devastating enough.

But planning a funeral on three bottles of NyQuil is next to impossible.

“Mrs. Blake, we’re ready for you now.” The funeral director was a short, balding man with a thick beard and soft eyes. He placed a comforting hand on Mary’s shoulder.

Mary feigned a smile and placed her palm on his own. This man was the closest thing she’d had to a best friend since Nathan died. He’d practically planned the entire service for Mary, and still she couldn’t remember his name.

“Try to remember the good times,” the funeral director suggested. “His touch. His smile. Perhaps talk about the first time you met.”

A single cry leapt from Mary’s throat and she cupped her mouth, nodding her head. She started down the hallway, blowing her nose into her handkerchief. She just wanted it to be over with. She wanted to be done with the whole mess. Wanted to be done with this ceremony and this funeral. As she blew her nose—her nostrils aching and raw—she wanted more than anything just to be done with this cold.

She stopped just short of the doorway and took a deep breath. From where she was standing, she could make out the top of the casket and the lectern. Nathan was lying peacefully on display—like a trophy salmon.

Mary’s trophy salmon.

She thought in some ways he was lucky for the heart attack. Some people die terrible gruesome deaths. Some get mangled or eaten. Bear maulings are not all that uncommon in these parts. But at least a heart attack kept you clean. At least it gifted you an open casket and one last chance to say goodbye.

May turned and stepped into the room. The audience of friends and family turned, and all the air was collectively sucked from the room. Mary took a step toward the lectern, nodding politely at a vast number of people that had taken puddle jumpers from Anchorage to attend the funeral. There was Bill, Nathan’s younger brother. His wife and two children. Doctor Brents was there—and old family friend. Shannon O’Riley from the salon. And there was—

Mary tripped over a long orange extension chord, and Doctor Brents leapt up from his chair to catch her. Her heart leapt into her throat, and she struggled to swallow it back down.

She was here.

The woman from Redoubt Avenue. The one from the white house with the French doors. Mary watched her from the corner of her eye, hunched over in Doctor Brents arms. Why? She asked herself. How could she be here?

Mary thanked the good doctor and corrected herself. She flattened her dress and approached the lectern, turning to face the audience. It was a good long while before she found the courage to speak. She thanked everyone for coming but wasn’t exactly sure what to say next.

“Perhaps talk about the first time you met,” the funeral director had suggested.

So Mary took a deep breath and said the first thing that came into her mind. “Finding the right person is—arguably—the same as fly fishing the Kenai in July.”

The audience laughed quietly.

Mary continued. “It’s less about the salmon. Understand? There’s plenty of salmon. It’s all about where you set that hook.”

As Mary spoke, she tried to look around the room. She tried to make eye contact with everyone in the audience. But after a few moments of painful pretending, she simply gave up. Mary was done. She wanted to be free from the weight. Free from 25 years of marriage and fishing. She flashed a short, polite smile. Then she folded her hands over the lectern and turned, looking to the woman from Redoubt Avenue.

“Nathan left another woman for me.”

An unexpected wave of discomfort rolled across the audience. Those in attendance were understandably quiet. Mary wasn’t quite sure what she was trying to say herself. She could feel a chord of snot slipping from her nostril, and she wiped it with the back of her hand. The woman from Redoubt Avenue’s expression was flat. Mary realized that she too had a bright pink nose and flushed cheeks.

“Back in California,” Mary continued. “He was engaged. Not many people know this story actually. His Fiancé’s name was Catherine. She eventually married someone else and lived in Germany for a short while. She was—” Mary took a deep breath. “—killed during a robbery. A gas station or maybe it was a grocery store. I’m afraid I forget which.”

The woman from Redoubt Avenue shifted uncomfortably. She glanced around the room.

“Nathan broke it off with Catherine in a letter. It was one week before she was supposed to return from the Peace Corps.” Mary chuckled, as if unable to believe the words coming from her own mouth. “They were supposed to be getting married, and instead we were running away together. To Alaska.” She paused to blow her nose before looking down at her husband’s face. “It was a particularly cruel thing to do. And I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. A whole lot.”

The chain-link fence behind the funeral home rested atop a small ridge that looked down on the Kenai River. Fisherman lined both sides of the water. Every few seconds, someone below shouted out for more room as they walked a salmon down the line. “Fish on!” they called. It was music to one’s ears. The reds were running thick—the limit still holding at six a day.

The woman from Redoubt Avenue leaned against the fence, smoking a cigarette and watching the fishermen. She was a thin, blond creature with pale skin and a mess of freckles. Mary thought her quite beautiful actually, though she wouldn’t have admitted that out loud.

Mary approached her from behind, but her cough gave her away. The woman from Redoubt Avenue turned, and her eyes widened. She bit the cigarette nervously and pulled. Mary paid her little mind and leaned against the fence. She looked down on the fishermen below.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” said the woman. Her eyes were watery. She balled up a few tissues in her palm and stuffed them in her pocket.

“It’s Interesting,” Mary said flatly.

“Excuse me?”

Mary smiled. “Just something Nathan said to me the other day. He said, ‘Mary, people don’t get sick in July.’”

The woman from Redoubt Avenue lifted her eyebrows.

“Anyways,” Mary continued. “Shows you what he knew.” She took out her handkerchief and trumpeted her nose. Then she offered it to the stranger.

The woman from Redoubt Avenue studied her closely. She licked her lips and turned back toward the river. “No, thanks,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I’m on the mend. Another day. Maybe two, and I’ll be fine again.”

Mary nodded and then—much to the woman’s surprise—held her hand out, motioning for the cigarette. The woman from Redoubt Avenue stared at it coldly. For a moment, Mary thought she might be stupid enough to argue with her. “Don’t stop sharing now,” she said bluntly.

The woman from Redoubt Avenue blinked, swallowed nervously, and handed her the cigarette. Mary placed it between her lips and inhaled. She filled her lungs with the smoke. Filled them with harsh tobacco and the taste of this woman’s lipstick and saliva. She took it all.

Below a young boy—maybe twenty or so—shouted “Fish on!” and his pole bent sharply toward the water. But he held his ground. For a second, his line hissed across the water, and Mary thought he’d forgotten to set his drag. But the boy placed his palm on the reel and it came to a halt. The women watched as he slowly began to reel and step back toward the bank.

With a sharp jerk, the line changed direction and headed down river. It was moving fast—too fast. The boy grabbed the reel, and Mary watched skeptically as the sockeye salmon breached the water, flipping marvelously through the air. The boy’s green yarn winked at them from the salmon’s back, and it crashed down into the water.

Mary took another drag. The hook was foul.

The boy’s shrinking posture was sign enough that he’d realized the same. Angrily, he fought the salmon up onto shore. It was a lengthy battle. They always are when you foul them. It’s like trying to ride a bucking bronco instead of walking it by the reins. When he’d finally pulled it up onto shore, the fish thrashed around, and threw river stones like shotgun rock salt. But once suffocation set in, the fish slowed and then all together stopped moving. The boy dropped down, placing a knee on either side of the fish. He pulled a pair of needle nose pliers from his vest and ripped the hook from the fish’s back.

Slipping his finger up into the fish’s gill, he walked it back out into the river and placed it in the water, but the salmon rolled belly up. Carefully, the boy took it with both hands and rolled it back over. Slowly, he pushed and pulled the fish through the water, forcing oxygen back into its gills. He did this five or six times before the fish snapped back to life. With a few quick jerks, it freed itself from his hands and disappeared into the river.

Both women watched. Each taking a drag.

Filed under: 2014 Submissions, 2014 Winners, Portlanders | Tagged: 2014 Sledgehammer, j.b. kish, writing contest | Leave a comment »

“Fab Moon Rising” by Lee Waverly and Madison Thorne

Posted on August 3, 2014 by writer

Fab Moon Rising

by Lee Waverly and Madison Thorne

Suzanne let her bicycle coast as she looked for the Clinton Street address she’d been given at the office. She was a little surprised that it led to a business, a kosher deli named “O Tannenbaum’s.” Ah, Portland.

In fact, the whole block was nothing but storefronts. Maybe the address referred to an apartment on the second floor? As she secured her bike to the rack, a man came around from the back of the building, dragging a recycling bin toward the curb. His expression suggested that life was hard, and someone else was to blame.

Spotting her staring at the deli uncertainly, he set down the bin and said, “Can I help you?” It was more challenge than offer, which heightened her sense of uncertainty.

“I’m Suzanne Watts,” she said, “from Child–”

“Child Protective Services,” he finished. “I know. I’m Gabe Tannenbaum. I’m the one who called you.”

He shook her hand perfunctorily, then pointed a finger at the business next to his. “That’s the place, right there.” He paused, as though expecting her to charge in without delay.

Feeling as though she’d walked into a movie mid-scene, Suzanne hesitated. When no further information seemed forthcoming, she said, “Your complaint seemed to be accusing your neighbors of child abuse?”

“That’s right,” Gabe said, nodding vigorously. “There’s a continuous stream of weirdos coming and going in there. You wouldn’t believe it.”

“Sir,” Suzanne said as politely as possible, “this is Portland. Can you be more specific?”

“You gotta see it for yourself. It defies description.”

Sighing discreetly, Suzanne persisted. “I’m not clear on how having a diverse clientele constitutes child abuse?”

Scowling, which made his bushy eyebrows meet as though plotting their next move, Gabe became more animated. “They got at least one kid in there. A little one, four or five, maybe.”

“Okaay…” she said, prompting for further detail.

Shifting his weight and folding his arms, Gabe visibly fumed and eyed her slyly, before saying, “I think… he’s working in the restaurant.”

Suzanne was young and fairly new to her job, but even she knew an accusation made up on the spot when she heard one. Glancing at the two businesses, she saw one or two customers in the deli, while the cafe next door, “Just Like Home,” was bustling. This had every sign of a business owner seeking to make trouble for a more successful rival.

Still, the complaint had to be investigated. She thanked Gabe and walked into Just Like Home.

It was a charming little place, cheerful and inviting. There were homey curtains on the big windows, checkered tablecloths, and bouquets of wildflowers on every table. A counter with old-fashioned swivel stools accommodated those who couldn’t get tables, which were mostly full.

Two servers buzzed around the room, tending to customers. She was standing at the Please Wait To Be Seated sign, figuring it was her best chance to get someone’s attention, but twice they zoomed by, holding up one finger and flashing apologetic smiles. After the second round of this, Suzanne starting thrusting out her business card in hopes of getting someone to stop and talk to her.

One of the servers, a woman of perhaps nineteen, stopped then, looking at the card without taking it. Suzanne had the impression she didn’t know what to make of it. The girl smiled uncertainly and pointed Suzanne toward the counter.

“Uncle Jorgie,” she said. Suzanne couldn’t place the accent. “He will help you.”

She made her way to the counter. An older man with thick black hair, most likely Uncle Jorgie, was chatting up the customers, who were laughing and clearly enjoying themselves.

“I can’t believe you’re going clubbing in that,” a middle-aged woman with long graying hair said to the man next to her.

“What?” the young man said, pulling at his flamboyant Hawaiian shirt. It was at least two sizes too large. “It’s not like I won’t grow into it.” He laughed uproariously. Uncle Jorgie and a man sitting on the other side of the long-haired woman joined him. The woman herself simply rolled her eyes.

Leaning forward to speak around the long-haired woman, the guy in the Hawaiian shirt said, “Tibor, I really think you should come with me. I guarantee you’d find someone to hook up with. Last week, I met the most fabulous boy.”

Tibor, who looked like the Incredible Hulk’s uglier, whiter cousin, looked doubtful. “You know I’m not looking for a boy, right, Jack?”

With an airy wave, Jack said, “Whatever. My advice still applies. There are plenty of girls looking for a ‘big’ man, if you get my drift.”

The long-haired woman snorted. “Maybe, but what happens when he takes her back to his place under the Morrison Bridge?”

Tibor’s head drooped. Jack retorted, “Well, at least we know he won’t melt if he gets wet.”

Flashing Jack a nasty look, the woman slid off the stool. “I’m outta here. I’m meeting Darren on Mt. Tabor. Full moon and all, you know.”

“No, really?” Jack replied, feigning shock. The sarcasm seemed out of place to Suzanne. She hadn’t realized it was a full moon tonight.

The long-haired woman headed out. “Thanks, Jorgie.”

“Bye-bye, Ruth.” Jorgie waved.

Jack slid over to the now-unoccupied seat next to Tibor. “So, have you seen her new boyfriend? Oh, my God! He’s to die for!”

“Wow, really?”

“I know, right? Who’d have thought a witch like her could reel in a hottie?”

Suzanne cleared her throat ostentatiously, drawing the attention of the Uncle Jorgie. He smiled broadly and came toward her.

“Yes, ma’am! I get you something?”

He spoke with the same accent as the server. Suzanne still couldn’t quite recognize it. She smiled back and handed him her card. Squinting, he spent a long enough time looking at the card for Suzanne to get the uncomfortable feeling he couldn’t read English. Just as she was about to say something, he leaned over the counter to show the card to Jack.

“Child protective services,” Jack explained in an uncharacteristically discreet tone. “It’s a government agency that shows up to make sure nobody’s hurting the kids. Why on earth are you here?” he said, addressing Suzanne. “I mean, these are good people. And they make these incredible protein shakes.” He held up a glass of what appeared to be a strawberry smoothie.

“Give her a taste,” Tibor suggested.

Jack looked at Suzanne, sniffed, then said, “I really think she’d prefer the vanilla.”

Feeling very uncomfortable, Suzanne said, “I’m sorry, I really need to discuss this matter with the family of the child in question.”

“Okay, sure,” Jack said. “Uncle Jorgie here is part of the boy’s family.”

Uncle Jorgie had been following the exchange with a look of confusion mixed with concern. Suzanne moved further down the counter, beside one of the few empty seats, for a modicum of privacy. “I’m investigating a claim that you have a four-year-old child working in the restaurant.”

“Yes.” Uncle Jorgie nodded cooperatively.

“Are you saying you have a four-year-old working here?”

“Yes!” Uncle Jorgie nodded harder, smiling. He seemed very happy with his answer.

Confused by his enthusiasm for admitting to violating child labor laws, Suzanne asked, “Where is the child now?” She didn’t see a young child working. Maybe he was in the kitchen?

His smile broadening, Uncle Jorgie pointed to a booth in the corner of the restaurant, where a little boy sat coloring with crayons.

“I thought you said he was working here.”

“Yes! Working on picture. Draws good! You see.” Uncle Jorgie came around the counter and took Suzanne by the elbow, guiding her to the boy’s booth. “Joe, show lady picture. See? Good, yes?”

Not prepared to become an art critic, Suzanne smiled at Joe, then turned to Uncle Jorgie. “Could I speak to Joe’s parents?” When the man’s smile turned uncertain, she said, “His mother? His father?”

“He’s not here,” Joe said, continuing with his drawing.

“The mother, then,” Suzanne said. When Uncle Jorgie still hesitated, she resorted to the kind of behavior she’d always detested in English-speakers when dealing with immigrants–speaking louder and slower to make herself understood. “The mother. I need to speak to the mother.”

“The mother,” Uncle Jorgie repeated, suddenly smiling again. “Okay. I get. You need something?”

“No, thank you, I’m fine. I’ll wait here.” As Uncle Jorgie hurried off, Suzanne sat down in the booth opposite Joe. “Hi, Joe. I’m Suzanne.”

“Hi.” He was a slight child, with the same thick, dark hair as his uncle, and large brown eyes that were too interested in his coloring to meet hers.

“Coloring, huh?”

With the undiluted contempt that only a preschooler can get away with, Joe corrected her. “No. Drawing.”

“Oh, right. I wonder what this is,” pointing to a figure in the drawing. “I see you used a lot of brown in this part.”

“That’s my pet brother, Hank.”

“Your… pet brother?” Suzanne smiled, stifling a chuckle. Either Joe was expressing feelings of displacement toward a little brother, or had been hoping for a puppy instead.

“Hello,” said a voice beside her. Suzanne looked up into the delicate features of the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen outside of a magazine. She was tall and slender, wearing a shawl of woven silk , which somehow looked like a queen’s robe. But her smile was warm and bathed Suzanne in a sense of security and contentment. “I’m Daphne Celeste. Jorgie said you were asking for me? No, please don’t get up.” She ruffled Joe’s hair as she sat regally in the booth beside him.

Clearing her throat because it was as close as she could come to physically clearing her head, Suzanne nodded and started to hand Daphne her card.

“No, I have the one Jorgie gave me,” Daphne told her, producing it from beneath the shawl and glancing at it. “But I’m at a loss for why Child Protective Services would want to see me.” Her hazel eyes looked into Suzanne’s, calm but puzzled.

Suzanne looked from Daphne to Joe and back again, confused. Taking this in, Daphne suddenly said, “Oh, I see! You think I’m Joe’s mother. I’m his godmother, actually. Jorgie was confused. His English is somewhat lacking outside of restaurant operations.”

“Oh,” Suzanne responded lamely. This visit was becoming more and more complicated. “So, where is his mother? I really need to speak directly with her.”

“Of course,” Daphne said, smiling and standing. “I’ll go tell her you’re here.” She rose with exquisite grace and glided away.

Suzanne turned back to Joe. Might as well try to get a feel for the boy’s perception of his home life. She pointed back to the same blob they’d talked about before. “So this is your puppy-brother?”

“Hank. See? This is me. I’m taking him for a walk.” Using his finger to trace a wobbly line between himself and Hank, Joe added, “See? This is the leash.”

Knowing the love Portlanders have for their dogs, Suzanne realized the boy was describing a pet that probably seemed more like a brother to him. “So you and Hank hang out a lot?”

Getting back to drawing, Joe nodded. “Sometimes I get to feed him.”

“Wow, that’s a big responsibility.”

“Yeah. Sometimes I spill.” He dropped the crayon to grab the collar of his t-shirt, pointing out some old stains that looked like chocolate.

Suzanne wondered what kind of dog food would leave stains like that. “What happens when you spill?”

“Mama teaches me how to do it right.” Joe’s earnest eyes looked down guiltily. “Sometimes I still do it wrong, though.”

Suzanne knew that old blood stains could be confused for chocolate. She also knew that a bloody nose might leave stains in much the same place on Joe’s shirt. A distant alarm bell sounded in her head.

“I’m sorry,” Daphne said, startling Suzanne. The godmother seemed a little more tense than when she left. “Mathilde–Joe’s mother–is too busy to come talk to you right now. Maybe she could call you at another time?”

Standing, Suzanne said, “I’m afraid I really have to insist on seeing her now. I can go to her if she’s too busy to come here. She’s in the building, right?”

“Yes, she’s in the basement,” Daphne said, biting her gorgeous lip. “It’s a little… unpleasant. She’s–”

“She’s milking the pig,” Joe said, still coloring.

Both women looked to him in surprise, then Daphne laughed uncomfortably. “It’s not exactly what it sounds like.”

“Okay,” Suzanne said, waiting.

With a sigh of resignation, Daphne said, “Very well. Come with me. Joe, you stay here.”

“‘Kay.” The boy didn’t even look up.

Suzanne followed Daphne past and around the counter, where Jorgie watched in obvious trepidation. Daphne patted his arm as she passed, leading Suzanne through the kitchen to a tiny vestibule. To their left was a door that led to the street; to the right, a staircase leading up to the second floor. Directly in front was another door, to which Daphne went, pausing with her hand on the knob. “Now, I must warn you about the smell–”

From up the stairs, an elderly female voice called, “Daphne? Tea, please! Daphne? ”

Clearly torn, Daphne looked toward the stairs, then back to Suzanne. “That’s Joe’s great-grandmother. The family has an apartment upstairs.”

“You can take care of her,” Suzanne said, more confidently than she felt. “I’ll go on downstairs.”

Daphne hesitated, then started moving toward the stairs. “All right. FYI, Mathilde’s English isn’t a lot better than Jorgie’s. If you need a translator, I’ll be right upstairs.” She didn’t climb the stairs so much as ascend them. Suzanne noticed that the back of the shawl bulged oddly, and there were the tips of very expensive costume wings just peeking beneath the hem. Suzanne wouldn’t have taken the queenly woman for a cosplayer, but Portland had geeks from all walks of life.

Taking a deep breath, Suzanne turned the knob and headed down to the basement. She was nostalgic for that breath once it was time to take the next one, because the stench was almost other-worldly. As she got to the bottom of the stairs, she was surprised to see that the smell was from just a single animal–the largest pig Suzanne had ever seen.

The pig was ignoring her from within a pen of chain link, staring off in another direction. A banging sound simultaneously startled her and disclosed the object of the pig’s fascination, as Suzanne moved further into the basement to see a short, stocky woman slapping the side of an overworked air purifier, cursing in some foreign tongue. As she straightened, she caught sight of Suzanne and smiled sheepishly.

“Not working,” she said. “Sorry for smell.”

Looking at the air purifier, Suzanne absently traced its electrical cord to the place where its plug lay next to an orange extension cord. The extension cord was plugged into the wall, but had become disconnected from the purifier.

Following Suzanne’s gaze, Mathilde barked a short exclamation and hurried over to plug the two together. Beaming her thanks to Suzanne, she returned to her original task: feeding the pig.

“Um, Ms…” Suzanne realized she didn’t know the family’s last name. “You’re Joe’s mother, right?”

“Yes, right. Joe’s mother.” Mathilde was pouring kibble from a bag of something called Flying Pig Hog Chow.

“Well, I’m Suzanne Watts from the office of Child Protective Services. I’m responding to a complaint that Joe might be working in the cafe.”

“Yes,” Mathilde said, “he’s working.” She was patting the pig, who had come instantly to the fence as the food was poured.

Keeping the frustration out of her voice, Suzanne tried again. “So, are you saying that you have Joe working as part of the cafe’s staff?”

Mathilde was engrossed in what she was doing with the pig, which seemed to involve an object embedded in his (her?) neck. Mathilde brandished an impressively large syringe and carefully poked it into what was apparently an IV port. The syringe began to fill up with the pig’s blood.

Suzanne put more authority into her tone. “Mathilde, this is very important. Is Joe working in the restaurant?”

Frowning, Mathilde said, “Yes. He works on drawing upstairs.”

“I’m not talking about the drawing!” Suzanne shouted, then stopped herself, mortified. It was unprofessional to yell at parents during an investigation. She rubbed her forehead. Maybe the stench was getting to her. That had to be it. She apologized to Mathilde and added, “Maybe I could talk to your husband?”

Mathilde merely cocked her head to one side, clearly not understanding. Maybe she hadn’t married the boy’s father.

“The father? Could I speak to the father?”

“No father.”

Suzanne was reluctant to go back to Daphne, who seemed not to be a blood relation. “Um… Could I talk to the… person in charge? The head of the family?”

Mathilde brightened. “Head of family, yes! Upstairs. You come.”

She ushered Suzanne toward the stairs and followed as they went up. Suzanne was unendingly grateful to be heading toward fresh air. “You know, I really don’t think it’s legal to keep a pig in the basement.”

“Yes, pig in basement.”

Deciding that was a battle to fight later, Suzanne said no more about the pig. Once the basement door was closed behind them, she followed Mathilde as she hurried up the stairs to the second floor.

The apartment was small and cluttered with furniture and strange decor. There were shelves on the walls filled with odd knickknacks that were clearly very old; winged creatures that seemed more appropriate to a fantasy shop than a family sitting room and figures that Suzanne could only describe as nightmarish. Fascinated, she was admiring the intricate detail of a hawk with bat wings when she detected movement in her peripheral vision. Staring at the blocky figurine that had seemed to move, it occurred to her that it bore more than a passing resemblance to the man at the cafe counter, Tibor. That thought fled her mind when a faint breeze on her cheek took her attention back to the bat-hawk.

“Oh, you’re still here.” Daphne’s voice drew Suzanne back to the business at hand. The regal woman pushed a wheelchair, in which was seated an old woman. Her hair was less thick than her relatives’ and shot through with white strands, but the resemblance was unmistakable, as was the broad smile. She sat stiffly, as though strapped into the chair under the heavy crocheted throw draped around her.

“This is head of family,” Mathilde said, “my…” She closed her eyes in concentration. “Grandmother. My grandmother, Sasha.” She then said something to Sasha in their language, finishing with Suzanne’s name.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Suzanne said, awkwardly. She didn’t extend her hand or a card, since it seemed obvious the woman was paralyzed.

Sasha said, very carefully in heavily accented English, “Welcome to our home.” It sounded as though she had memorized the greeting syllable by syllable. Sasha then simply smiled, her eyes moving first to Mathilde and then to Daphne. Suzanne thought she was probably as confused as everyone else seemed to be.

“Did you get everything sorted out?” Daphne asked.

“Not really,” Suzanne replied. She guessed it was time to bring Daphne into it, since no one else seemed able to answer questions. “I’m here to investigate a complaint that Joe has been working in the restaurant.”

“Yes, Joe working downstairs,” Mathilde said proudly. Sasha beamed.

“Uh, no,” Daphne said gently. “I think what Suzanne means is that we’ve been making Joe do restaurant work. Cooking, cleaning, waiting tables. That sort of thing.”

Mathilde processed this, then looked aghast. “No! Joe no work restaurant!” She shot an accusing look at Suzanne. “You say such thing! Not true. Not true!”

“I didn’t say it,” Suzanne corrected. “Someone else reported it.”

“You say just now!”

“No, I was…” Suzanne looked helplessly toward Daphne.

Daphne said something in the native tongue. Mathilde wasn’t assuaged, rattling off more words in response. Daphne said to Suzanne, “She wants to know what filthy, um… rat dared to make such an accusation. I’m paraphrasing.”

“I can’t disclose that, I’m afraid. But I–”

She was interrupted by a small voice. Or more accurately, a very loud voice from a very young child, coming from the kitchen. “Mama, shake now! Shake now!”

Mathilde looked toward the kitchen, then back toward Suzanne.

“You have another child?” Suzanne asked.

Mathilde nodded. “Hungry.”

Daphne put a hand to Mathilde’s shoulder. “Go ahead and feed him.”

Mathilde glanced again at Suzanne, then hurried into the kitchen.

“So, Suzanne,” Daphne said, “I hope we’ve demonstrated that the complaint about Joe is baseless. I mean, you’ve seen that he’s not working in the restaurant.”

“Joe,” said Sasha proudly. Daphne stroked her hair and smiled.

“Yes, I believe that the child labor laws aren’t being violated here,” Suzanne said. “I’m a little concerned about keeping a pig in the building. However, the initial complaint that brought me here seems unfounded.”

Daphne sighed. Somehow, she did it more beautifully than anyone else. “I’m so glad. You’re welcome to have dinner in the cafe before you go. On the house.”

“Oh, thank you, but I’m pretty sure that’s against the rules. However, I do need to look in on the other child before I go.” She walked past Sasha and Daphne toward the kitchen. She didn’t want to drag this out unnecessarily. It was getting late, and she didn’t want to ride back in total darkness.

The scene in the kitchen surprised her, which, given everything that had happened, was in itself surprising. Mathilde was at the sink preparing a bottle, and in the middle of the kitchen floor was a large dog crate. Inside the crate was a boy of about two years, repetitively shouting, “Shake, Mama! Shake now!”

“Coming, Hank,” Mathilde said soothingly. “Mama’s coming.”

Suzanne had tried to weather this entire call with as much calm professionalism as she could muster. Her mustering failed her now. “What the hell? You can’t keep your kid in a dog crate!”

Spinning around, startled, Mathilde spilled some of syringe’s contents as she was filling the bottle. Dark red droplets dotted the pitted vinyl of the kitchen floor.

Blood. She was putting blood into the bottle for her baby. The baby she kept in the dog crate. Suzanne’s mind was suddenly playing back Joe’s voice. “That’s Hank, my pet brother. See the leash?”

Hank was demanding his “shake” ever more stridently, and Mathilde finished adding the blood. As she shook it up to mix all the contents, Suzanne struggled to formulate a plan. The original complaint wasn’t valid, but it was clear she had to get the kids out of this house. She started to run through the steps needed, the calls she needed to make.

But it was really hard to concentrate after all of the things that had happened and with little Hank screaming, “Shake, Mama! Shake now! Shake, Yip! Yip yip! Yip, yip! Yip!”

Jerking her eyes back toward the crate, Suzanne struggled to process what she was seeing. Where Hank had been before, there was now a creature that looked a lot like him, but had fur on its face, arms, and legs; pointed ears; and a doglike snout. Mathilde rushed to affix the bottle–which had a long metal spout instead of a nipple–to the side of the crate, where the creature promptly began to lap from it greedily.

Suzanne felt her heart begin to hammer against her sternum. Backing up in horror, she stopped worrying about professionalism. “Oh, my God! Is that Hank? What happened to him? Oh, my God!”

“I’m so sorry, it’s an early moon tonight,” Daphne said, from behind her.

Suzanne whirled around wildly. All thoughts of protocols and phone calls had fled her mind, which was now intent only on escaping the apartment. She moved to shoulder past Daphne, who tried to stop her with a hand on her arm. “Wait, please. We can explain.”

Desperate and terrified, Suzanne pulled away, knocking the elegant shawl from Daphne’s shoulders. The wings she had glimpsed earlier sprung free, wafting with eerily realistic motion. As Suzanne moved to get around Daphne, one of the wings brushed her cheek. It felt like touching an electric dragonfly.

Suzanne shrieked. More than once.

In the kitchen, she heard Hank start to howl. Mathilde tried to calm him, but the agitation in her tone just couldn’t get the job done. It didn’t do much to calm Suzanne, either.

Daphne was reaching out to her now, trying desperately to get Suzanne to listen to her, but all Suzanne cared about was getting the hell out. She darted toward the door, but Daphne stepped into her path. “Please, just let me tell you–”

Suzanne gave her a shove. Daphne lost her balance, starting to fall, but saved herself by flapping those terrifyingly beautiful wings. For a moment, Suzanne was rooted to the spot watching them, right up to the point where one of the wings accidentally slapped Sasha on the side of the head. Her head not only turned with the slap, but fell to one side. It took Suzanne a few seconds to realize that the head was dangling from some sort of strapped contraption that kept it upright… atop the neck of what appeared to be a mannequin.

“Daphne!” Sasha’s head was crying. “Help! Fall! Daphne!”

Suzanne proved that the earlier shrieks were merely warm-ups as she lumbered toward the apartment door. She had a vague sense of being glared at, scolded, and generally disapproved of by the knickknacks as she crashed through the door. All the way down the stairs, Suzanne heard herself chanting, “Ohgod, ohgod, ohgod, ohgod.” When she reached the bottom, she discovered that the door to the street was locked (or maybe she was just too panicked to operate the knob), so she bolted through the door to the cafe’s kitchen.

Some part of her noted that the kitchen staff turned their heads in alarm before they had seen her, which told her she was still screaming. Well, screw professionalism. This was about survival.

Uncle Jorgie looked up as she barreled into the back of the counter area. Incongruously, he was smiling as though she were a clearly happy camper. “Everything okay?” he said. “You want shake now? Very good for your hair.”

With a fresh wail, she backed away from him, feeling her way around the counter. When she cleared it, she spun to make a break for the outside door, but slammed into a faceful of Hawaiian shirt. Stunned, she stared into the chest, noting that it was now much more filled out.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Jack said.

His voice sounded different. She looked up into a face that was recognizably Jack’s, but with a lot more hair, and a jaw distended to accommodate his wolf-like snout.

“Oh, my God! You too?”

“Yeah, early moon,” he said. “Hate when that happens.”

Suzanne had been terrified enough when she’d thought that the weirdness was confined to the family. Now, she whipped her head from side to side, scanning the cafe patrons (who were now staring at her as though she were the weirdo). A pale girl at a nearby table smiled at her. Weren’t those canines just a bit too long? And did that man by the window just scoop something off his plate with his tongue… without lowering his head?

Her eyes landed on Tibor, who ducked his head and shrugged apologetically. “Troll.”

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no…” Suzanne’s feet propelled her to the door as though they had bypassed her conscious mind entirely.

“Wait, come back!” Jack called after her. “I don’t bite… women.”

Suzanne was already at the door, but something was wrong. She pulled and pulled, but it wouldn’t budge. This was their plan! They’d trapped her in this chamber of horrors! What would they do to her? Who at the office even knew she was coming here? Would it be too late when they sent someone to–

Her thoughts were cut short by a huge hand as Tibor reached out… and gave the door a push.

“Doors open out,” he said. “Fire laws.”

Shoving her way out, Suzanne dashed to the bike rack, fumbling with the key to her lock. The door from the apartment vestibule opened and Daphne hurried out. Suzanne noticed that she was elegant even in panic, which seemed just really unfair.

“Wait, please,” Daphne said. She kept her distance and her hands out, palms up in a supplicating posture. “Just tell me–what will you say in your report?”

Suzanne wasn’t buying the harmless act. The bitch had wings. Holding a hand in a gesture of stay right there, she said, “Unfounded! He obviously isn’t working in the restaurant.”

“Yes, but, what about the rest?”

Suzanne had finally gotten the lock open. There wasn’t time to attach it to the bike, so she just tossed it to the sidewalk. “Nothing. Nothing at all. I didn’t see a thing.”

She hauled herself onto the saddle and pushed off. It was a wobbly start, but just as she steadied the bike, Gabe Tannenbaum stepped into her path.

“What do you mean, you didn’t see a thing? They’re a bunch of freakin’ weirdos! Don’t tell me you’re just going to turn your head? Plus, I know they’ve got a pig in there somewhere!”

He looked at Daphne, who remained where she’d stopped, covered again in her elegant shawl, hands clasped in worry. Turning back to Suzanne, Gabe said, “You’ve seen what these people are like. They’re scaring away all my customers. If you don’t do something about it, I’ll have to take matters into my own hands.”

Suzanne laughed, despite herself. “Yeah, good luck with that, Gabe.”

Steering the front wheel to the left of him, Suzanne pushed off again and pedaled for all she was worth. As she put distance between herself and the cafe, she noted a big, lovely full moon visible against the fading light of the evening sky.

“Early moon,” she muttered. She started to giggle. She couldn’t seem to stop .

Filed under: 2014 Submissions, Portlanders | Tagged: 2014 Sledgehammer, Lee Waverly, Madison Thorne, writing contest | Leave a comment »

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