Blackbird Wine | Sledgehammer Writing Contest

Mini Sledgehammer March 2012: Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese

Posted on March 16, 2012 by writer

The wine shop was packed this month! We had eleven writers, all competing for some great prizes. Kathleen Valle shocked the crowd with the following piece and, not coincidentally, was crowned champion.

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Prompts:
Character: The bearer of bad news
Action: Selling something
Setting: Neither here nor there
Prop: Boots

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Women’s Health: Neither Here Nor There

by Kathleen Valle

I walked through the café door and the screen door slammed behind me, but customers were not alarmed.

This town was in the middle of neither here nor there, meaning that in any which direction you choose to set off in from this café—there would be no significant destination to reach. They might-as-well have a sign out front showing each direction:

“North 553 miles to Neither”

“West 4,492 miles to Here”

“East 996 miles to Land of Nor”

“South 130 miles to There”

And at each of these places is a dusty old café with people like this—withdrawn and unalarmed not only by the screen door, but also unresponsive to my boots walking their badass selves down the room. Passed the counter, and passed the booths of people that looked like they should be sitting in front of a gambling machine rather than across from another person.

I walk towards the back of the room where I see Rodney with his headphones on. He’s unable to hear the sound of my boots. I personally don’t know how I could live without the sound of these boots. They’re the sound track to my life. Some women like bangles, some men like keys on their belt loop; I like the sound of my boots. But, that’s neither here nor there in this town where people clearly have had too many years of doctor prescribed meds.

Rodney, now he’s a character who always has the sound track of his life playing. His hands are always moving to jazz beats when his headphones are on. Rodney’s always listens to jazz. He sees me approaching, removes his headphones, and sits up all proper-like as if he’s been caught off guard or if he’s the bearer of bad news.

I sit across from him. His pigmented eyes are more clouded over than I recall. There is an orbiting to his eyes—like jazz records spinning…moving tracks as he scans my presence. It’s been a while. His black hands are still now and I see the aging spots on them. The kind that look like moles or freckles, but aren’t—it’s just a by-product of being old.

“Well,” he said, “Welcome home.”

“Thanks, Rodney. It was 4,492 miles from “Here” to get here.”

“Is that right?” Rodney says shifting a bit in his seat and looking away from my gaze. He eventually returns his gaze with purpose and asks, “So do you want the good news first or the bad news first?”

I laugh so loud that people actually turn to look.

“Is this some kind of fucking joke? What kind of question is that?”

“I know it’s a hard decision. Now, which is it going to be” Rodney says hoping to proceed.

I think on it for a bit. Long enough to order coffee—black.

“Bad news first,” I say grasping tight onto the mug.

“She’s pregnant,” Rodney says.

“Okay, and the good news?” I ask.

“She’s pregnant,” he says.

“Well, there’s no good news and there’s no bad news, its just news Rodney. This is the land of neither here nor there, remember?”

The screen door slams. In comes the “Prescription Sales Team” ready for their afternoon pitch. A doctor in a lab coat tells how these meds will help this, that, and the other. The doctor’s assistant, like an announcer at a horse race, rattles off as quickly as possible the many side effects. The people in the café instantly take out their pocket books out to pay for medications.

The exchanges are going on and I ask Rodney if the abortion pill has made it’s way here yet.

“Oh, that? Man where you’ve been. You been gone a long time ain’t you?” Rodney laughs. “Didn’t you hear that they give those out free now? These here doctors don’t even sell those. Can’t even find ‘em on the black market no more.”

“What do you mean, free?” I ask.

“Well, they’s made up them minds to not give no more health care to the womens. So, instead, they give out the abortion pill. It’s cheaper than takin’ care of the womens they say.”

“So, she has a pill then already, if she wants?” I inquire.

“Yes, she do” Rodney said.

***

Kathleen Culla Valle has lived in six different states and is calling Portland, Oregon home for now. She is a Writing Facilitator with Write Around Portland, because she loves writing. Kathleen has been journaling and penning stories ever since she can remember, but has never actively sought publication. She has an MA in English Education from Brooklyn College and is currently substitute teaching.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: Blackbird Wine, free, Kathleen Valle, Mini Sledgehammer, Portland, prizes, writing contest | 1 Comment »

Mini Sledgehammer February 2012: Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese

Posted on February 16, 2012 by writer

Some people theorized that a Valentine’s Day Mini Sledgehammer would result in a serious lack of contestants, but lo, the crowd came out! Thanks to everyone who spent their V-Day with us.

Congratulations to Jarrod Schuster, whose disturbingly delicious story claimed first place.

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Prompts:
Character: A twenty-something dog walker
Action:
Setting: An abandoned hotel on Valentine’s Day
Prop: Wrinkle cream

***

Untitled

by Jarrod Schuster

The Long Goodbye had seen better days. Once the pride of honeymooning couples and Valentine’s sweethearts, today it was a derelict monument to art-deco excess, and decay.

Chas had been trying to get Henri’s dog to commit suicide there for two whole weeks.

Henri, at home grading papers for her “day job” (as she so often felt the need to remind Chas of) had long relegated to him the task of taking Grief for her nightly constitutional. A more aptly named creature Chas could not imagine. Henri claimed she was named for how she acquired her – an impulse purchase after the ‘tragic’ death of her sister. Chas explained to anyone out of Henri’s earshot how she had been named for the misery her presence inflicted.

Grief was some kind of purebred freak of genetic casualty; an inbred, wheezing, bow-legged, smoosh-sinused terror of patchy fur and wrinkled flesh, whose appearance was long announced by nasal snufflings and whine riddled hacking coughs. Every morning, Grief was subjected to a series of vitamins, pills, drops and inspections that would make the most cancer ridden of geriatrics feel relieved at their own plight. And yet, in spite of the genetic minefield the dog straddled, every day Chas awoke to it’s wheezing hiccoughing need for ablutions.

The Long Goodbye had seemed like the perfect place to finally rid himself of the dog. A warren of exposed, still sparking wires, tetanus laced bed springs, disease breeding leaky pipes and a pool long reclaimed by the wet wild. Henri would never forgive him for outright “losing” the dog, but as Grief was born of accident, her demise by such would seem poetic to Henri’s literary attuned mind. “God bless English majors,” Chas had initially thought. Now his musings revolved around the capricious cruelty of heavenly beings who plagued him with the thrice-damned burden of ‘designer’ dogs.

Chas stumbled over the half-sealed front doors, hopelessly released Grief as he had a hundred times before, and prayed to half-believed in deities that tonight the damned dog would finally meet its end. Grief took off, as she always did, investigating the depths of the darkened lobby with a nose that Chas absolutely knew, could-not-possibly, smell any more than he could.

“I can help your dog, mister.”

Chas fell on his own ass in shock, trying to turn the panicked yip he had made in fear into a rough cough. A man in the shabbily mismatched layers of professional street people stepped into the partial light of distant street lamps, the miraculous buzz and stutter of the still functional ‘Hotel’ sign above the door lintel.

“Yore dog. I can help ‘er.” he said again, with the earnest sincerity of the evangelical. Or the insane.

“Ex-hrmm-excuse me?” managed Chas, back-peddaling on his bottom away from the ancient stranger.

“I can help yer dog,” stated the derelict, “With this!” He flourished a half-used, generic white tube. In black marker, long faded, someone had scribbled ‘Wrinkel Creem’.

Chas just stared at the man.

Taking the silence as assent, the stranger confidently strode over to Grief, scooped her up in one begloved hand. He unscrewed the cap of the ‘Wrinkel Creem’ with his stained teeth, liberally squirted out a line of dirty yellow gelatin onto the dog’s back. Pocketing the still uncapped tube, the vagrant began to vigorously scrub the cream into the dog.

Like a child scrubbing at an unworthy drawing with a fat pink eraser – the dog began to vanish. Tufts of fur, curls of flesh pattered to the floor as the dog, with only a slight snuffle, disappeared.

“T’ain’t right to do that to no beast,” said the derelict, “What you need is a proper mutt.”

As the man shuffled into the empty hotel’s depths, Chas realized his dream had come true.

He was so screwed.

***

The author of this work, like any good author, is entirely implied. Feel free to grace him, her or it with whatever characteristics, attributes, or opinions you may wish. Just do not be boring with your details. Everyone abhors a bore.

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Mini Sledgehammer: January 2012, Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese

Posted on January 16, 2012 by writer

This month’s Mini Sledgehammer added a new twist: write for thirty-six minutes in a wine shop with forty-plus wine tasters chattering around you! While it wasn’t an ideal setting, our brave writers powered through. Thanks to everyone who came out, and congratulations to winner Amy Seaholt.

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Prompts:
Character: A writer
Action: Moving in
Setting: A vet’s office
Phrase: “Out of nowhere came…”

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Simon, Ariel, and the Cat

by Amy Seaholt

When Ariel moved in with Simon she expected that he would be an eccentric roommate. He was a freelance writer, working on his second novel.

He paid for his little house with the advance from his first book. Not long after he closed on the house and got his keys he realized that the royalty checks weren’t as big as he imagined they would be. He decided to get a roommate.

Being a bit disorganized, combined with his focus on writing rather than living, he didn’t manage to unpack until Ariel decided to agree to live in his extra bedroom. Actually, she took the master bedroom. A caveat of living with him was that she was allowed to assume the largest bedroom and the adjoining bathroom. A princess needed her privacy, you know. And she was willing to pay a little extra for the privilege.

So Ariel’s moving day was Sam’s moving day. She unpacked quickly and efficiently, knowing that she would need to put her prickling feet up later. Some days the pins-and-needles were bad. Today they were worse.

When she finally took a moment to lay back on her freshly made bed with the seafoam green duvet, she closed her eyes and hummed a little tune she knew from her childhood. She started to think of her father and the song trailed off.

“Don’t stop,” Simon said from the doorway. “You have a beautiful voice.”

Ariel smiled and touched the base of her throat, but didn’t continue singing.

“Do you need any help unpacking?” Simon asked.

“I’m done,” Ariel said in her prim, high pitched voice. She swung her legs, both at once, off the bed. “Do you need any help?”

“Uh, I don’t – well, sure,” Simon said.

They unpacked the kitchen together, starting by throwing away all the pizza boxes and takeout containers that had accumulated over the past several weeks.

Ariel had been right about his eccentricism. Simon only owned a few plates, all mismatched. He enthusiastically told her about each of their stories as she put them in the cupboard. All told it took over an hour to clean up the kitchen and put away four plates.

They had moved on to the pans, pots and griddles in a large box in the middle of the room.

“Do you actually use these?” Ariel asked him.

“I love to cook, when I’m not writing,” Simon said. “You?”

“I never really had to cook for myself.”

“Oh,” Simon said, not really knowing what to make of that comment. “What do you like to do when you’re not,” Simon paused there, because he didn’t know what Ariel actually did. “Uh, in your free time.”

“I used to like to sing, but I don’t really any more. And I like to swim.”

“Oh, that’s good,” said Simon. “I’m not really into working out. Why don’t you sing anymore?”

“I used to sing with my sisters,” Ariel said, “It’s not actually much fun without them. And Eric got sick of it after a while.”

“That’s your ex?” Simon asked. He and Ariel had met through a mutual friend and had only met once before becoming roommates. They didn’t know a lot about each other.

“Yes,” Ariel said. “He turned out to be…not what I imagined.”

“I was married once, too,” Simon said. “She was a bitch.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ariel said. She turned prim again, uncomfortable with revealing her background. Out of nowhere came a cat that leapt up on the counter and stared at Ariel. “What’s that?” she said, startled. She was staring at the black and white cat, sitting on the counter.

“That’s Princess, my cat,” Simon said.

Ariel glared at the cat, who was still staring at Ariel, switching her tail back and forth, back and forth. The cat batted Simon’s arm away when he came toward her.

He held his arm and drew in a breath. “Damn! She is usually really sweet,” Simon said. She hissed at Ariel. “I’ve only ever seen her attack a goldfish. I don’t know what’s going on.”

A few minutes later, as they were waiting with the cat in the vet’s office, Simon said, “I don’t see why you had to hit her with a pan!”

“I’m sorry,” Ariel said, hoping she wouldn’t have to find a new place to live. “Cat’s just really freak me out.”

She peered down at the cat in the box on Simon’s lap.

***

Amy Seaholt is a realtor by day and a writer by night. She is learning that if you actually want to get published, you have to let people read your work. You can read a little of hers here: www.awkwardlaugh.com. She lives in Northeast Portland with her husband and two young children.

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Mini Sledgehammer: December 2011, Blackbird Wine & Atomic Cheese

Posted on December 20, 2011 by writer

Indigo’s Susan DeFreitas hosted this month’s Mini Sledgehammer at Blackbird, and Kerrie Farris earned the prize package. Congratulations, Kerrie!

The prompts were:

Character: An out-of-work sign painter
Setting: Walmart
Prop: A pair of jumper cables
Phrase: “The meaning of life…”

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Untitled

by Kerrie Farris

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Chris had been hanging around Walmart for at least an hour, waiting for Jill. It was the only place in town after 11, besides the bars, which he was still too young to go to. By the time he was old enough to go, Chris thought, he’d be out of this shitty little town.

Jill was late. Very late. Getting later all the time. They’d been seeing each other for three months, and Chris wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about her. When she laughed, she was bright and beautiful, and Chris felt good reflecting that light.

An hour and a quarter. An hour and a half. Chris bought a pack of cigarettes, going through the same quiet check stand and quiet girl he had when he got to the store and bought two sodas. He realized halfway through the transaction that he must’ve set Jill’s soda down somewhere as he wandered through the fluorescent catacombs of electronics and sporting goods. He lunged for another Cherry Coke and thanked it down on the belt before the cashier had finished ringing him up. She looked at it for a moment with her colorless eyes, then smiled, revealing crooked teeth.

Chris stuffed the soda in his pocket and walked out the electric doors. He rounded the corner of the building, the pack of cigarettes smacking into his palm as he went. He shivered and shuddered and wondered when the hell Jill was going to get there as he lit a cigarette. It was clamped between his teeth, but he nearly swallowed it when he heard a voice call “Hey!”

A man with shaggy gray hair was calling and waving from beside a parked car. Chris looked behind him – no one there. The man was definitely calling to him.

Chris didn’t recognize the guy. It was a small town, and he had lived there too long and knew nearly everyone. Still, he walked over to the man.

“Hey, buddy, you got any jumper cables? My car won’t start.”

Chris shook his head. He’d walked to the store. Since he’d graduated, he walked often at night. Sometimes to the 24-hour Walmart, sometimes nowhere.

“Well, hell.” The guy said.

Chris didn’t know how to help, but he didn’t just want to walk away. He was about to offer his cell phone, but the things in the backseat of the car caught his eye and instead he asked “What’s all that?”

“Oh, that’s my painting gear.”

Chris was puzzled. The debris in the backseat did not include an easel, and this guy didn’t look like a Rembrandt, or even have the crazy-panache of a Van Gogh. But then, neither do I, Chris thought.

“Painting…?” Chris echoed.

“Yeah.” The creases between the man’s eyes melted as he shifted his gaze from the open hood of the car to the jumble of pots and brushes and towels and hoses in the backseat. “I paint windows. You ever see those storefronts, at Christmastime, with Sanna Clause and snowflakes and angels and shit like that? I paint that stuff. Sometimes anyway. It’s getting harder because there are hardly any Main Streets left. Just these big ugly hummers now.” He pointed at the looming, spotlit store. “Yeah, hardly any little shops with windows that need something pretty for the holidays…sometimes I wonder a little bit what the meaning of it all is, if there’s nothing little left.”

Chris pictured the guy, traveling from town to town, leaving little bits of art in his wake, Chris wondered if he could get a gig like that.

Chris turned at the sound of another “Hey!” It was Jill. He smiled at the man, who grinned and nodded with a faraway look.

He jogged over to Jill.

“Chris, I’m late.”

“Yeah, I know.” He smiled at her, waiting for her laugh.

“No, Chris, I’m late. I’m pregnant.”

***

Kerrie Farris is currently working on her first novel, which was supposed to have been done by now. She lives in Northwest Portland with her fiancé and two cats. She enjoys reading, rain, conversation, and waffles.

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