You were warned.
I’ve published a new short story, and this one is, how shall we say . . . not commercial fiction :-)
Here’s the description:
This atmospheric short examines a young woman’s coming of age in Upstate New York in the late 1970s.
The ‘Vette is available as an e-story on Amazon and other places via Direct 2 Digital.
“Jeebus. Again?”
The girl was swaying slightly.
“Hey sexy. Vampire. Give the kiddies their candy won’t you please?”
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzt. Sean could barely hear the doorbell over the music, the ruckus of everyone talking.
Couldn’t they just ignore it?
“There.” She pointed at a candy bowl on the floor next to the door. The skin of her arm where it thrust out of the shiny black of her dress sleeve was painted, silvery white slashed with long drizzles of red — he looked at her again as he grabbed a handful of candy. Her face was painted white, too. But his eyes weren’t on her face. They’d dropped lower, to the black lace gathered in ruffles at her bodice . . .
“Hey sexy yourself,” he said. “What did you say you were supposed to be?”
“I’m Death’s Bridesmaid.” She giggled, swaying.
“I liiiiike.” He grinned at her, a leering sloppy grin. He was drunk, too. They all were. They’d started early.
The door stuck a little but he yanked it open finally. Trio of kids stood on the step looking up at him expectantly. A pirate. A gremliny-looking thing. A Harry Potter. Lit by the porch light against the odd quiet of the dark night behind them.
“Trick or treat.”
Sean dripped a bit of candy into three orange pumpkin-shaped buckets.
Three “thank you’s,” polite, not quite in chorus. But Sean barely heard them — he was thinking about the girl, he slammed the door clumsily while the kids were still standing there, in a hurry to get to her. Before someone else did.
Metallica playing now. Sean mouthed the words as he weaved through the party, looking for her.
‘Cause we hunt you down without mercy
Hunt you down all nightmare long
Dimly, through the music and the laughing and the screeching he thought he heard the doorbell again but this time he did ignore it.
Stupid kids. Babies. Think Halloween is about candy. Ha.
Someone handed him a bottle of Grey Goose as he pushed by a skeleton and another vampire — not as good a costume as his, not by a long shot — he grinned and tipped the bottle to his mouth.
Where was she where was she?
There! With another girl, store-bought French maid costume. Also hot. Yowsa. How to choose how to choose . . . he sidled up to Death’s Bridesmaid, pretended to join their nonesense chitchat, his hunch was right, she was into him. Into him. Booyah. Touching his arm, laughing, sexy sideways looks.
The feeling, he knew that feeling, I’m gonna get me some —
Pause in the music. Album over . . .
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzt.
Death’s Bridesmaid groaned, lost her balance, fell into Sean. “They’re baaack,” she slurred. “Be a good vampire and go feed the kiddies for me –”
He hesitated. Annoyed. But the music wasn’t back on yet and the doorbell buzzed again.
“Don’t move,” he said to her and wove back through the packed room and yanked the door open.
He started a bit when he saw her. He guessed it was a her. A little girl — had to be, but yowsa that was a good costume, nothing cutesy about that, that black hair was freaky, tangled like that —
“What took you so long?” The little girls eyes were narrowed, fixed on his.
He stared. “Nice, uh, costume.”
He held out a handful of candy.
She didn’t move. “You haven’t been answering the door,” she said.
It was a little girl’s voice. He relaxed a bit. “The music’s kinda loud. Hard to hear.” He moved his hand up and down a bit to remind her to take the candy. Get this over with.
But the little girl didn’t move.
“That’s not the reason.”
Damn it, this wasn’t nice. Not nice at all. “Look. You want your candy or not.”
She just looked at him. Ew. Creepy.
Creepy.
Screw it.
He had better things to do than deal with a six year old’s temper tantrum.
He shut the door, left her there on the step. No candy for you, you little —
Damn. Where was I . . .
Where is that vodka . . . and that girl . . .
He found her, finally, on the floor, behind the bed where they’d all piled their coats. She was half passed out but roused herself when she felt him kissing her, began kissing him back, eager, he stroked her neck then bit it, she moaned, he slid his hand down her neck to the top of her costume —
That was weird. He couldn’t get his hand inside her costume.
“Ow,” she said. “Ow, stop it, you’re hurting me.”
“Sorry.” He pulled at the shoulder of her dress — it wouldn’t —
“OUCH.” She sat up now, her eyes still unfocused, her head lolling slightly. “That HURTS.”
What?
“It’s stuck,” he said. “Your dress is, like — stuck to you.”
She’d begun pulling at it herself.
“OW!” She said. “Ow, it hurts — ow!” She started crying. “OW!”
He stared at her pulling at her dress.
And then he had a horrible thought.
A horrible thought.
And he looked down at his sleeve.
The long satiny sleeve of his shirt, the vampire shirt —
He touched the cuff.
And realized as he touched it that something was very very wrong.
And he cried out, grabbed the edge of the cuff and pulled but it was fused to his skin, it hurt to pull the sharp pain and he cried out again and then heard around him that nobody was laughing any more, they were screaming all screaming, screaming and their screams were joined with his own, the loudest screaming in his ears his own scream
Five times that night, her mother called her, and five times that night she didn’t pick up.
It wasn’t a bad night, overall, at least at first. The cold snap had finally broken. When she took Crisscross out for his last walk of the day there was finally no more ice on the road, she could have worn sneakers instead of boots. The air was damp and ripe with the smell of mud, and a half block from the farmhouse she suddenly passed into a current of air that had been tinged by the sweet-sour musk of a passing skunk — such a contrast to the sterility of the past weeks’ bitter cold, of the arid piles of snow that had smothered the countryside end to end all winter.
But then Derrick had stopped by.
Her mother loved Derrick.
“If you don’t marry him, I will!” she’d said the last time they’d talked.
Janice had no answer. She was still shocked that there was a ring — that her mother had seen a ring.
“He’s so sweet and old-fashioned.”
“If he was old-fashioned he would have gone to Dad, not you.”
They both knew why he hadn’t.
Janice waited.
“That was a long time ago,” her mother said. “He paid the money back. Every penny.”
“I have to go.”
“He’s got the ring,” her mother repeated. “You’ll break his heart. It’s all arranged.”
Arranged?
Really?
Three days passed with Janice left waiting — what else could she do? — and then that night as the clouds pressed their darkness across the sky the doorbell finally rang and everything changed.
“Hush, Crisscross.”
The dog stopped barking, stood behind her as she opened the door.
Derrick knew her answer as soon as he saw her face.
She didn’t invite him in.
“I’m not ready,” she told him.
But they both knew what she really meant. She was 35. There was no more getting ready.
She heard him slam his car door — but he wasn’t the only one who was angry. Janice was, too. Hearing her own words as they slid out of her mouth . . .
By the time her cell started ringing she was already online.
She was thinking about debts.
But she was writing down the phone numbers of realtors . . .
I tripped over the broomstick — YES I knew it was there. Quit interrupting, please.
It always falls out of the broom closet. The broom closet is too damned jammed full. Everything in my life is too damned jammed full. Especially my closets. Would you like an inventory of my broom closet? The vacuum cleaner, the mop, the bucket, the steamer, the rag bag. All expected. But wait! There’s more! Bag of sidewalk salt. Old school backpack. Plastic jug of distilled water. The ex’s shortwave radio (!!!!)
Nothing fits. Things spill out all the time, do you think I don’t know what’s going on? This is Chaos herself — Khaos! Respect her! She can’t be stuffed in a closet you know!
So the broom spilled out, I don’t know when, maybe the kids needed something from the closet this morning — the handle spilt across the doorway to the mud room, I was hurrying back from the bus stop, late for work, tripped, coffee all over.
I was flying for a moment, floating.
It seemed like a very long moment.
But that’s an illusion, a trick the mind plays — and why? To divert your attention? You’re about to get the bruising of your life, your floating is about to meets its bruising end on the hard, hard floor.
Don’t think about it yet don’t think about it yet . . .
I called Derrick afterwards, of course, and he could tell I was crying — I shouldn’t have called — one of those girlie things we do and shouldn’t because what was there to fix?
Nothing. Nothing. The fixing maybe could have happened yesterday, by cleaning out the closet, I suppose.
But he came over anyway, and drove me to work . . .
So I take it back, actually, now that I think it over again. Because I realized after he kissed me and I got out of the car and ran up to the glass doors and through and flashed my ID at the security guard:
“He drove me to work . . . he’ll pick me up after work.”
So maybe the little breaks our mind gives us are not the breaks but the thing itself. Like those optical illusions.
Is it a picture of two ladies’ profiles or a vase?
He’ll pick me up after work. Maybe we’ll grab a bite to eat. Maybe I’ll ask him about his day.
Maybe tripping over a broom handle isn’t the accident so much as the start of the floating . . .
Is that even possible, I wonder?
I wonder . . .
