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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

***

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And at each of these places is a dusty old café with people like this—withdrawn and unalarmed not only by the screen door, but also unresponsive to my boots walking their badass selves down the room.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.

***

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.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: Blackbird Wine, free, Indigo Editing, Jarrod Schuster, Mini Sledgehammer, prizes, Valentine's Day, writing contest | Leave a comment »

Mini Sledgehammer: January 2012: St. Johns Booksellers

Posted on January 25, 2012 by writer

This month’s Mini Sledge at St. Johns Booksellers was a blast! Eight writers came out, and they even brought a couple bottles of wine. Congratulations to Lisa Galloway for winning the judge’s favor.

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Prompts:
Character: Cake decorator
Action: Washing feet
Setting: Childcare center
Prop: Strong scented candle

***

Jesus Comes Around

by Lisa Galloway

The gift smelled like cinnamon buns, so to unwrap a Yankee candle was not a surprise. My family is from the Midwest, if I haven’t mentioned it. I rewrapped the candle and brought it home to my housemate telling her it was from my parents for her. They did not buy her a present in actuality, but I felt bad, because she’d spent Christmas alone.

Well, not completely alone, she’d decorated ginger bread houses with brats at Kindercare and after got so wasted that she burnt her Stouffer’s lasagna in the oven. At least watching kids quells her need to make her own babies. Her boyfriend was with his brother’s family. She was not invited. She says it is because they are not married, but I doubt they know about her.

I should mention that he wears a 2 inch by 4 inch crucifix around his fat tattooed neck, and he hates me because I’m queer. Queer like short hair and all my friends are gluten-free vegetarians that change their names. He’s never said as much, but I gather by his tacky, Catholic icons. Not just the necklace but the god-awful tattoos. That and he never speaks to me. In fact, he stops talking when I enter the room or the door.

Her job before Kindercare was as a cake decorator, but she was too high most days to keep the iced piping even and straight. She smokes a lot more pot now that Jesus comes around. I’m not kidding. His name really is Jesus. Oh and in case you hadn’t guessed, he needs a green card. Well, yes, a medical marijuana card would probably help too, but I mean he’s not legal.

She loved the candle. I knew she would. She desperately wants to be suburban, live in one of those half-tan siding, half-tan brick, 2-car garage houses. Jesus is the first boyfriend that she’s had since high school. She’s 32. After she un-wrapped the candle, he picked up the glass jar with his fat kid-like fingers and took a big whiff. He smiled at me, lit it, and then nodded.

My housemate and I get along fine, but we have nothing in common except for eating junk food like dehydrated shrimp and pork rinds and watching Criminal Minds. I said my friends were vegetarian, but I am not. And yes, my real name is Lisa.

The last fight that I overheard between them was this summer. She’d worn flip flops all day. I think it was the 4^th of July. They’d been to that abhorrence at the waterfront, and basically her feet were dusty and caked with dirt. He’d told her that she couldn’t come to her own goddamned bed without washing them. She was drunk on $6 solo cups of beer, and she wasn’t moving. Laziness was one of her hallmark characteristics. So, he ended up washing them with a washcloth on the end of the bed. I thought it was tender in a fucked up way, like he was saving her from herself.

***

Lisa Galloway graduated from Pacific University’s MFA in writing program in 2007. She’s a Pushcart Nominee and author of the book of poetry Liminal: A Life of Cleavage. A NW transplant, Lisa grew up in Indiana where she was adopted into a family with Southern Baptist roots, she contends that the Bible Belt still leaves welts.

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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.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: Amy Seaholt, Blackbird Wine, free, prizes, Sledgehammer, writing contest | Leave a comment »

Mini Sledgehammer: December 2011, St. Johns Booksellers

Posted on December 20, 2011 by writer

Sledgehammer First Place Individual Dora Raymaker read at this month’s Mini Sledgehammer in St. Johns. Thanks to all the people who came out for the reading!

The writing contest was a lot of fun too. Our prompts were:

Character: the baby Jesus
Action: pitching a tent
Setting: the enchanted forest
Prop: a quart of store brand eggnog

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Untitled

by Pat Jewett

***

My favorite eggnog is at Safeway that’s where I’m going now. Tis the season for eggnog. It’s my favorite time of the year.

The eggnog is lined up next to the milk in the milk section in the cooler. I like the feel of the carton, it is cool to touch and the carton is smooth.

It’s cold and foggy outside but the eggnog is safe inside the bag inside my backpack. I take a step and my foot slips a bit on the frozen ground. I’m headed across the St Johns Bridge and into Forest Park for the night. The bridge looks down into the Willamette River. People sometimes jump from the bridge into the murky river. I think maybe they see the baby Jesus down there.

I pull the collar tighter around my neck. It is very cold up here. There are semi trucks and cars speeding across the bridge and it is windy tonight. The moon is full and I like to look at the moon through the cathedral towers on the bridge. Forest Park is there in the haze and from this end of the bridge it looks enchanted. It is enchanted. Very few people know that. Most people come to hike the 80 plus miles of trails but they don’t see how the Forest is enchanted. I know it is.

Halfway across the bridge there are flowers along the rail. I am always respectful of the flowers. Someone has jumped and taken their story with them to the baby Jesus in the water.

I hit the traffic button for the walk signal. The entry into Forest Park are numerous but I like the stairs. Hiking books call the stairs the Ridge Trail Stairs. To me they are just stairs that go up into the enchanted forest.

I adjust my pack by lifting my shoulders up. I can feel the tent pushing against my sleeping bag into the small of my back. That’s the problem with just having one compartment in a backpack. Soon I’ll find a place to camp and be able to sit on a log and warm my hands over a small illegal campfire.

Most people come up into the park and they stay on the main trails. I don’t blame them. It is safer on the trails. Most people don’t realize how many of us live in Forest Park. If you ever are hiking and feel like you are being watched you probably are.

There are people who live in the park and during the day if they don’t go into town they will climb a tree and hide up there during the daytime.

I haven’t been here for awhile. I had been living in St Johns and was working part time at the gas station on Fessenden but it didn’t work out. Too many people, too much noise and someone telling me what to do. I preferred the forest with it’s quiet enchantment.

I step off the main trail and follow a slight path probably made by a raccoon. I try not to damage the undergrowth as I walk my way further off the main trail. I am slightly downhill but there is a place that is level and not readily seen by the nearest trail. For tonight it will good enough. Tomorrow I will go deeper into the forest.

The moon is still shining through the trees but I still need my flashlight. I set my pack on the ground and pull out my tent and poles and sleeping bag and the eggnog. I open the carton and take a small swig of eggnog. It is cold and thick as I swallow it.

The poles are the kind that snap into each other and then I have to weave them through the tent holes. I bought the tent on Craig’s list last year. It is a Mountaineer 2 person tent that I only paid $100.00 for. I had to save for it.

With a rock I pound the stakes into the ground and I unzip the tent and throw my backpack and sleeping bag inside.

I clear the ground in a small circle and start breaking off small twigs and find small branches on the ground. Some of them are damp but I have some dry twigs in my backpack.

I have some newspaper that makes good tinder and I piled my sticks in a teepee around and over the timber. I reach into my pocket and pull out the lighter I found this afternoon.

The tinder lights and the campfire lights up the surrounding trees. I lean against the trunk and take another drink of eggnog. If I sit here quietly the little people will come out of their hiding places and join me in the campfire. Forest Park is home to many things that are unseen by the traveler who just hikes across the trails. I’ve seen people who walk on all fours, deer, elk, even a bear, dead bodies, even baby Jesus. I drink the eggnog and wait in the enchanted forest.

Filed under: Mini Sledgehammers | Tagged: free, Indigo Editing, Pat Jewett, prizes, Sledgehammer, St.-Johns-Booksellers, writing contest | Leave a comment »

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