The River

I don't know Edan Aldridge. He shares a passion for pocketknives that means we end up on the same forum sometimes. A piece Edan wrote struck me, and I asked him if he would like to publish something on my blog. He promptly produced this awesomeness. Oh, and Edan is 16. 

The sky looked like death that day, not that it mattered much to him. He kept his eyes on the mottled gravel below his feet as he followed the meandering path down the river. The gazebos and seesaws of the WPA park that had stood there had long ago gone to seed, and the rough-hewn track that lay nestled on the bank was all the remained. He walked it slow and steady, knowing where it began, and where it ended, and what would be there to greet him.

    

On occasion, the long way gave him solace, but today the river path gave him no comfort. That morning he'd woken up to the same aches and bruises, as well as some new ones that had appeared after the previous night's altercation, if you could call it that. The man had made good on his drunken threat yet again and, as the boy had come to learn, there would be more to come when he got home. The home in question was a tired, cramped mill house bolted to a sparsely wooded hillside on the fringe of town. The view from the small, listing porch was disheartening at best. Off to the right, the wide, green river with it's ponderous barges and soot spewing mills wound out of sight among the hills. On the opposite bank, the sharp rim of West Virginia jutted high into the gunmetal sky. To the left of the house, the oppressed downtown clung to the flattest land that the Ohio valley had to offer and extended slightly up into the hills away from the river.  It was a dark place. He ran these scenes through his head as he walked, and managed to stay preoccupied with them until he scaled the hill and found himself standing before his blue, weathered door. He looked into the narrow front window, braced himself, and stepped into the house.

He'd never quite gotten used to the smell. It assailed him as he shut the door. The stench of cheap cigarettes, mildew, and one hopeless, worthless old man. He felt it settle on his clothes and in his hair. God, he hated that house. When he first entered, the air was still and dank, but the silence was soon fractured by the man (as long as he could remember, he'd been "the man", never much of a father) lurching up from his chair and swaggering toward the boy. Long years of practice had told him what was coming, and he ducked the initial blow. The man let go an inhuman growl, and took another swing. By then, however, the boy had run down the hall and was in his room, door shut and the homemade barricade set tightly in its slots in the door frame. He huddled on the bed, listening to the wind buffeting the outer walls, and the man battering the door with his huge fists. Eventually the barrage ceased, and the room was silent.

The young man sat pensively on the bank, examining the pistol. It was a week later, and he had two less teeth, and had decided he'd had enough. The new cut on his cheekbone had begun to heal, but his right eye was still black and both were bloodshot. It had been days since he'd had any real sleep, and he hadn't been back to the house on the hill in almost a week. After the last onslaught, instead of running to the safety of his room, he'd gone to the man's small dresser and retrieved the pistol. It was a Smith and Wesson Detective Special. The barrel was scratched and rusted in places, but the original bluing was intact in spots, the checking on the walnut grip was worn almost smooth. He palmed it, along with a small box of .38 cartridges, and ran out the door. He'd been sleeping on the path by the bridge since then, slowly eating down the $5 in his pocket and biding his time. He wanted the man to be sober for this.

The 9th dawn after his exodus was a long time coming. When it did come, he hopped on the road at the end of the bridge and followed it into town. He went past the hardware store and into the small diner next door, spending his last quarter on a cup of coffee. He drank meditatively, and, when he finished, he got up slowly and headed back to the house on the hill. He loaded the pistol carefully as he walked. Soon, he knew, there would be no more little, weathered house with its murky windows, no more endless showers to relieve himself of the stinking smoke and sweat, and no more man. At this thought, he quickened his step. Soon, he told himself. Soon.

He stood on the porch for what felt like a century. The pistol hung loosely in his right hand, hammer back, waiting. He should be up soon. And then he heard him. A faint rustling in the front room, a muffled curse, then the sound of him banging around in the small kitchen in the rear of the house. Enjoy your last meal, old man. Then the slow, steady steps. Coming from the back, growing louder and closer till they were just to the other side of the door. Then it opened, and the young man fired.

The first blast knocked the old man back into the living room. The shot had been carefully aimed, and hit him  just over his left knee. He staggered back and fell against the small couch that squatted by the foot of the stairs. The second shot hit him square in the stomach, and the next two shots hit a few inches higher and to the left. The last one caught him three inches above the right eye, and, just like that, it was all over. The young man looked at him for a moment, then rolled the body over and grabbed the wallet out of his back pocket. He went back into the kitchen, grabbed the keys and the coffee can from under the sink, and walked out of the house for the last time. The sage green Plymouth Duster cranked after the fourth try, and he rolled down the hill and toward the river. When he reached the bottom, he wound his way down the road leading toward the river, and crossed into West Virginia. The car ascended the switchbacks laboriously, until he was finally at the top of the bluff. The road kept to the edge, a thousand feet above the river. Eventually, he came to a stop, and left the car on the side of the road. He went to the edge and looked across the river into town. Only then did he look down at his hands. He had always been pale, and this made the blood look particularly fresh and nauseating as it slowly dried on his palms and under his fingernails. He wiped them on his jeans, and looked across the water again. He could see his street through the trees, and he watched as two black and white Fairlanes with bubble lights climbed toward the summit. It was then that it occurred to him that he was on borrowed time, but this didn't detract from the flood of relief. The man could never touch him again and, at least for now, he was free.

Edan Aldridge lives in the suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina and began writing and drawing comics at a very young age. An overwhelmingly negative response to his initial work led to a transition into songwriting. He soon tired of this as well and has been honing his craft as a writer for the past five years. He also likes to call himself a photographer, and operates the blog, "Moveable Feast." He hates cats.

'The Plumber' by Richard Godwin

A fantastic writer - one who I am proud to call friend - Brits up the blog for us today. (Cheers, mate.) Enjoy this story, and check Godwin out...trust me.

He sat at the back of the cafe, egg dripping from his stained spoon, greased mobile clenched in his hand.

‘Na, fuck off, I ain’t doin that.’

He laid his mobile down and bit hard into the two slices of toast wedged together with plastic egg, yolk squirting out of the sides and landing on the front cover of the Sun which read:

‘This country’s gone loony’.

He was six foot and overweight, and he ignored the trainee who was looking bored and staring out of the window at two teenage girls who were laughing at something.

The plumber looked at his trainee and followed the line of his eyes.

‘Fuckin slags,’ he said.

‘Why d’you ave to say that Arry? They ain’t’.

‘Look at them. Arses hanging out, beer bellies, dear oh dear, whatever appened to decency, they look like a couple of scrubbers.’

‘They’s just young women, Arry.’

‘Na. you wanna get yourself a nice girl, Mick.’

Mick stirred his cold tea with disinterest and yawned while Harry flicked open The Sun.

‘Now look at that,’ he said.

‘What’s the difference?’

‘The difference?’

‘Between them girls there and them out there?’

‘They’re fuckin models you prat. Class paper this’, Harry said, leafing through its pages. ‘Ere, these geezers go out for a Ruby right, get slaughtered and one of em moons the waiter. Is mate bites his arse and gets his false teeth stuck up is crack. Fucking classic.’

Soon, they left, and headed to the first job.

Mick was pale skinned and in the sunshine looked like a blank sheet ready to be imprinted by Harry. He wore a look of permanent dissatisfaction and looked too clean for the van which was strewn with litter. Here and there were signs that he was trying to blend in with Harry. His trousers were overly dirty and he had a large rip in his T shirt that looked manufactured. He was unshaven and the resulting effect of this was a small wispy beard.

Harry didn’t stop talking all the way to the job and Mick stared from time to time at Harry’s hands, which were covered in tattoos.

‘So what we doing Arry?’ he said.

‘Blocked drain in Wandsworth.’

‘It’s always blocked drains or toilets.’ 

‘No it ain’t, two fucking minutes on the job and he thinks he knows it all. Mick I’ve seen things I could put in a novel doing this game, it’d be a bestseller I can tell ya.’

‘Like what?’

‘I know all sorts, all fucking sorts.’

‘Yeah?’

‘I tell ya, one night I ad to fix some loos in a nightclub in London. The ladies toilets were overflowing with piss and water, like a fucking swimming pool they were.’

‘An why was that?’

‘OK. I goes in there and wade through it all in me wellies.’

‘Right.’

‘I can tell right away it’s this one loo, bunged up it was, something terrible.’

‘So what d’you do?’

‘I fuckin fixed it you burke.’

‘Na, I mean-.’

‘I know what you mean Mick. I get me old plunger out but nothing’s appening, know what I’m saying?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So I rod down, deep down in there and in this job me old son you gotta get your ands dirty, that’s what I always say to the fucking smartarses who mouth off about ow much plumbers charge. Ow much fu-cking plumbers charge! You stick your arms in someone else’s shit every day and you’d fucking charge, you cunt.’

‘So what appened?’

‘I tell you my old lady as two washing machines, cause we’re posh. If I stuck me workclothes in the one she washes the kids’ clothes in they’d be covered in shit, know what I’m saying?’

‘What d’you find in the toilet?’

‘I stick me arm in and fish out a pair of knickers.’

‘Knickers?’

‘Yeah, some old tart had crapped erself an flushed them down the loo.’

‘Ah that’s fuckin disgusting.’

‘All part of the job me old man. Get out of the way you cunt.’

Harry leant out of the window and spat a large gob of phlegm that looked like a piece of potato. It arced and landed on the offending driver’s windscreen.

‘Yeah well I don’t plan on doing this for long,’ Mick said.

‘Oh yeah, what you got planned, running for parliament?’

‘No need for that.’

‘I tell you me old son, I seen some things. You learn a lot about human nature on this job and you get an insight into crime.’

‘Crime?’

‘You know how many wallets I’ve fished out of loos?’

‘Na.’

‘Undreds, fucking undreds mate. Pickpockets steal em, knick the contents an flush em.’

‘Fuckin stupid if you ask me.’

‘Well I ain’t askin you, I’m telling ya. This is like sociology this job, you see what people are made of, what they’re about and it ain’t just the low lifes, it’s the posh ones too.’

‘You charge em more?’

‘Course I fuckin charge em more, the cunts. They look down their noses at people like us and we go into their ouses and fix their shit for em. Tell you what Mick, I was called to this job once in Amstead, big fuckin gaff, massive and the loos were all flooded and I took one look at the slag who opened the door and I knew.’

‘Knew what?’

‘It was er.’

‘What was er?’

‘I’ll tell ya. She ad guilt written all over er face. You see, I know ow loos work and what goes where and I know when someone’s lyin, I’ve heard all the lies under the sun and it’s made me a bit of a psychologist see.’

‘So what appened on this job?’

‘What appened was all the loos were bunged up with condoms, undreds of the fuckers.’

‘So?’

‘The lady she’s wafting around in a negligee, showing a bit ere and there if you know what I mean.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Good looker she was, but a slag. Anyway, when I tell er about the condoms, she starts adjusting er belt and flashes er gash at me, just a little glimpse and then she looks me right in the eye and says, don’t tell my husband.’

‘She was screwing someone else.’

‘Course she fucking was. Er old man’s doddering about in the next room writing a cheque and e’s a bout a undred and she’s not bad as I said.’

‘Did she?’

‘Did she what?’

‘You know.’

‘Fuck off. I’m a appily married man.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘I fu-cking overcharged em so much it paid for me missus’s Range Rover.’

‘Look at that.’

Mick was staring at some scantily dressed women who were walking across the road.

Harry took one look at them and said, ‘You’d catch something nasty off them.’

‘Ow d’you know?’

‘I fuckin know me old son.’

‘I think they’re tasty.’

‘You wouldn’t know tasty if it sucked your knob.’

‘Why’s it always loos?’

‘It ain’t, there’s sinks and boilers , cockstops and drains, external soil pipes with shit running down em and all sorts of pipe work. Son, you’re in the right game. Fuck off you wanker!’

This last comment was aimed at a man who was loitering in front of Harry’s van.

He put two fingers up at Harry who hurled his half-drunk can of Red Bull at him, spraying him with its contents.

‘That’s a waste,’ Mick said.

‘I ate fuckin cunts like that. Where was I? You see, this is an old trade and what you want, Mick, is a trade. We’s got words that go back to Chaucer.’

‘Oo?’

‘Chaucer, ain’t you never eard of im?’

‘No.’

‘E wrote plays. There’s something we call a bastard in this game and it was used in is day, fourteenth century.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘The cunts in Europe want us to change our terms cause they ain’t fuckin politically correct. They say they demean women.’

‘Why do they say that?’

‘Cause they want to get rid of our Englishness.’ He tapped the George flag that was stuck to the roof of his van. ‘Still flyin.’

‘Ever seen something really gruesome?’

‘Oh yeah. I could be a copper I could with what I’ve seen, and they need fellas like me.’

‘Ow come?’

‘Cause I can tell if a crime’s been committed.’

‘What crimes you seen?’

‘Mainly theft. But I tell you it’s only a matter of time.’

He pulled over and parked outside a large white house.

‘This it?’ Mick said.

Harry nodded.

‘I seen tampons, sanitary towels, rags, and clothes stuck where they shouldn’t be, but one time I ad me and down a drain and I felt all this hair.’

‘Hair?’

‘Hair me old son.’

‘What was it?’

‘I tell ya Mick I thought it was a fuckin ead.  I was pullin on it wondering what state of decay it would be in.’

‘Was it an ead Arry?’

‘The ouse belonged to some pop star, e ad this long air see?’

‘Yeah.’

‘E’d been washing is air and it ad all gone down the plug ole and accumulated into this big thick ball, I fished it out and it was huge.’

Mick was laughing when they got out of the van.

A pile of puke was hardening in the morning sun and two empty beer bottles were propped against the gate to the house.

‘This shouldn’t take long,’ Harry said.

He rang and they were admitted by a maid in a starched white uniform.

            ‘Typical, she never even offered us a cup of tea,’ Harry said as he assembled his rods.

            ‘Ere give us a hand.’

He prodded for an hour or so and the water level didn’t drop.

The owner came out, a man in a pinstripe suit looking sweaty. He offered them tea and the maid brought it to them on a tray.

‘That’s better,’ Harry said.

Mick looked down at the drain.

‘What now?’

‘We get in.’

He donned his Wellingtons and water proofs and stood waist high in the water. He reached a hand down into it.

‘There’s something in the way there. I can feel it.’

He fetched the jet hose from the van and started up the pump and after an hour the water had dropped.

Harry stood in it again while Mick watched.

‘I tell you, this job shows you a lot Mick,’ he said. ‘You see what people really get up to.’

Harry reached his hand down into the water and started to pull on something. 

‘There are a lot of crazy fuckers in London and a lot of crime. This is a tough fucker I tell you, ere it goes, it’s coming, fuck me!’

Harry stood with a head in his hand.

The flesh of the neck had sealed off and was a whitish blue and the discoloration of the face was so grotesque Mick started to retch.

Harry stood there staring at it.

‘Call the fucking police.’

He placed it on the ground and clambered out of the water.

The head lay like a rotten wound in the sun.

Soon the stench of it overpowered the smell of excrement and stagnant water.

Mick stood at the edge of the garden looking away.

‘I told you this job was full of surprises,’ Harry said.

The police took a while arriving and when the owner saw what had been blocking up his drain he vomited on the flagstones in the yard.

He sprayed remnants of food and bile everywhere and the sharp smell rose into the air and foundered on the rank aroma of decay.

When the police arrived Harry said, ‘Let me do the talking’.

******

Richard Godwin is the author of crime novels Mr. Glamour and Apostle Rising and is a widely published crime and horror writer. Mr. Glamour is his second novel and was published in paperback in April 2012 by Black Jackal Books. It is available online at Amazon  and at all good retailers. Mr.Glamour is Hannibal Lecter in Gucci. The novel is about a glamorous world obsessed with designer labels with a predator in its midst and has received great reviews.  Apostle Rising, in which a serial killer crucifies politicians, is available everywhere books are sold. It is also available for the first time as an E-Book with some juicy extras, an excerpt from Mr. Glamour and four deliciously dark Noir stories, like the finest handmade chocolate.

Here in the US
Here in the UK

He is an active member of the CWA and HWA.

It's My Fault

A guest story today from the one and only Jo-Anne Teal.  One of my personal heroes and favorite people.  Thanks for sharing, Jo! 

He’d tried, I knew he had tried his best, but an entire evening was too much to expect. Dinner planned for eight o’clock, dessert with coffee afterwards, the Taylors should have been saying goodbye on our front porch by ten. But when the doorbell rang an hour early, I braced myself.

The evening started nicely, we drank wine while Al drank his apple juice. Barry and Susan didn’t notice. I always make sure to match the colors as closely as possible. As a precaution, I store white grape, cranberry and ginger ale in our pantry too, in case someone brings us a bottle of wine or champagne.

The pre-dinner conversation was congenial: weather highlights, sailing last summer. I should have kept us on neutral topics, but during the main course, Barry began talking about the recent city council election, and Al began to clench and release his fists under the table.

“Geez, when Mark O’Brian said he was going to run for office, I thought he’d stop sleeping on the job like he did when he worked in the warehouse! Man, those city workers never change!”

“Barry, you know that Al works in the city warehouse. Apologize to him.”

“Al knows I’m kidding. Geez, Suzy, calm down! Al, you know I’m not talking about you, don’t you, buddy. I know you gave up sleeping on the job for Lent. Ha ha ha!”

Al smiled his tight-lipped smile, stood up from the dining table and went into the kitchen. I wanted to follow but he’s told me to leave him alone. I’m not to nag or baby him. So I left him alone, to go into the pantry, reach behind the packages of couscous and take a sip of vodka – just enough to take the edge off.

Three and a half hours in, Al had made four trips to the pantry and I was trying to wrap up the evening by clearing away dishes. Al was starting to slur his words. When he disappeared for the fifth time, Barry asked me if Al was feeling okay. I told him Al takes medicine in regular intervals for his migraines, and sometimes needs to go into the cool night air.  Barry nodded his concern, but Suzy looked at me the same way she did in the supermarket when she’d seen Al take a quick sip from his flask. I told her about his medicine then. She must understand medication because she began helping me clean up in the dining room. She didn’t go through to the kitchen though, which I appreciated.

When I closed the front door after they left, Al stumbled through the living room and started up the stairs to bed.

“Be careful on the landing, dear. I put a vase of flowers there, just for tonight.”

“You’re a goddamn bitch. I’ll walk where I want to walk in my own house.”

So you see, it really was my fault. I always seem to get things wrong.

Jo-Anne began writing fiction just over one year ago.  She is particularly interested in telling stories of the hidden, the hurt, the silent, the unheard. Jo-Anne has concentrated on flash fiction as she developed her writing voice.  She is now working on longer short stories and planning her first novel (literary fiction).  Jo-Anne lives in Vancouver, British Columbia where she happily shuffles from one Starbucks to another, drinking espresso, and taking notes while she listens to the conversations around her.  

"Each person I’ve ever met has, in varying degrees, shaped the person I’ve become.  It seems only right that I would want to tell their stories.  Ultimately, their stories are mine too." 


To read more of her fiction, visit: www.goingforcoffee.net.

"Day of the Dead"

Today, I am pleased to bring you a bit of short fiction by Salvatore Buttaci.  Check out more of his work-->  Click Here!

I held her in my arms, mi hermana, broken and bloody, her life slipping away. My young sister Renata who loved all God’s creation, raped and beaten. Abandoned here for dead.

“Renata, no me dejes!” Don’t leave me!

She locked her dark eyes into mine in a stare I feared gazed through me and touched that final veil.

“Who did this to you, mi querida?

Bubbles of blood popped from black swollen lips.  “Pañuelo,” she gasped. Handkerchief.

Quickly I withdrew from my back pocket a white handkerchief, shook it like a flag, then gently patted Renata’s lips. She moved her head away.

“No, no.”  A faint whisper. “pañuelo negro.” Black handkerchief.

Then my sister’s head lolled towards her left shoulder where a last breath breezed against my trembling hand.

A black handkerchief…Words of delirium?  A misunderstood whisper?

Not until five months later, on the eve of La Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead, All Soul’s Day, did it come to me. At the grave of Renata, corazon de mi vida, heart of my life, I spoke aloud my prayers and my promise of venganza, sweet revenge.

At once, I saw in the muddled mind of my sorrow Renata’s unvoiced screams and the man with the black handkerchief now approaching her grave, a bouquet of carnations in his hand.

I threw all to the wind! My very soul into the pits of Hell! Dagger in hand, a family heirloom of honor, I struck down the dishonorable. Repeatedly I plunged the avenging steel into the heart of the demon Don Carlos, hurling him in a splashing aura of blood into the ranks of los muertos.

“Renata,” I whispered over her grave, “Descanse en el reposo ahora.”  Rest in peace.

And the law would never have found out if it weren’t for the fingerprints of my gloveless hand on the dagger jutting from the demon’s chest.