Something dark for Friday Flash Fics, for June 22, 2018 by Jeff Baker.

Posted on June 21, 2018 by jeffbaker307

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                             At the Bottom of One of These Abysses          

                                                  By Jeff Baker

            I am writing these lines in the hope that my mind would be freed. My conscience is clear, despite what the reader, my confessor, may consider a devilish act.

            I had met Ambrose through the auspices of what I will call “The Quiet Club,” one of a number of “gentlemen’s clubs” in Baltimore where gentlemen could meet gentlemen. And while formal attire was required for entry into the club’s outer environs, once in the deep recesses of the club members and guests would shed their attire and fraternize with drinks and sandwiches. Discreet deals would be made. And men in pairs would retire either to other rooms in the club or to alternative quarters. Among the crowd of near-naked men, Ambrose stood out. His only adornment was a pet crow which he described as his “avatar” and remained perched on his bare shoulder throughout our conversation, feathers glistening in the gaslight, eying me warily.

The crow remained perched on Ambrose’s shoulder when we, now clothed, walked through the dark streets to the basement rooms I rented for such encounters.

It was easy to slaughter somebody who was expecting an embrace. As always the thick stone walls blocked the sound and the stone floors held the prospect of washing the blood down the floor drains. The crow was another matter; it hurled itself at me like an avenging fury. But it was not a fury and soon it fell. Disposing of the bodies, after use of my surgical implements was made easy by the nearby harbor. Disposal of my clothes and the latest deed was complete.

It was not long after that I decided to take my leave of Baltimore and try my luck in mighty Philadelphia. I was there unexpected for several weeks when I noticed a single crow perched on a ledge outside my rooming-house. I thought nothing of it at first, but then I realized the crow was in the same spot whenever I entered or left my rooms staring at me with a watchful eye—the same eye from the stone basement room!

I left Philadelphia by the stage and headed for New York City, where I found my mysterious watcher had followed me! And it was the same bird; Ambrose’s bird that I had left for dead in Baltimore! Of this I was sure! I heard its steely cry day and night!

I had some acquaintances in New York and I made public my plans to head for Boston. Instead, I made my way to Richmond. There I believed I had lost my accuser, the monstrous black-feathered avatar of Ambrose. But to no avail! I soon noticed it on the streets, in the trees, in the sky above me. Always with the accusing stare and the noisesome cry of its loathsome breed!

I could take no more! I went to the local police, who did not believe my tale of blood and murders and avatars. Even when I took them outside and showed them the dark avenger in a tree outside their very police station. Something in my manner, in my insistence must have struck a chord, for doctors were soon summoned and, following a barrage of questions, I found lodging in the city’s official version of Bedlam.

I still do not know whether they believe my confession. I do not know whether they have even checked my route of blood from Baltimore, Providence, Boston, New Orleans and other cities where I plied my trade. I merely remain here. Undisturbed. No visitors from outside. No windows in this room.

But in my dreams, even in my waking hours I still see the accusing eye and hear the tuneless cry of the avenger of Ambrose; that hideous bird!

 

                                                             —end—

Posted in Edgar Allan Poe, Fantasy, Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, Horror, LGBT, Short-Stories, Suspense, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

A Crisis in June, for Friday Flash Fics, June 15, 2018 by Jeff Baker

Posted on June 14, 2018 by jeffbaker307

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Crisis at Pride

                                                       By Jeff Baker

            The strength of Poseidon! The warrior skill of Sappho! The power of Phoebus! The agility of Thelixinoe! The mystical wisdom of Tiresias! And the innocence of Ganymede!

            Stu Dulare seems like an ordinary young man, but when he invokes this untold power, he transforms! Now, he and his partner Jason have been charged by these ancients to expose untruths, to battle for diversity and to protect the innocent! Join them now on their journey!

            Two young men stood in the shadow of a brick building.

            “You got the stuff?” Brad said.

            “Yeah, right here,” Steve said, holding up the large bag. “Hey, you still think this is a good idea?”

            “It’s not like we’re going to hurt anybody, we’re just going to stir things up a little. Make ‘em listen to our side of things!” Brad said. “You got the key?”

            “Yup!” Steve said. “My Dad never missed it!”

            The day of the pride festival was warm and sunny. Stu and Jason walked around the area the locals called Olden Town, taking the Festival all in.

            “Seriously, Jason, you look goofy. Take off the flag and put on a shirt.”

            “C’mon, Stu,” Jason said with a grin, “What’s wrong with literally wrapping yourself in the Pride flag?”

            “Nothing, but every time I see that, I keep thinking of all those guys wrapped in the American flag with a swastika tattooed on their beerguts!” Stu said. Jason loved Stu when he got that determined look on his face.

            “Well, maybe I should get a shirt,” Jason said. “Let’s walk around and see if I can find a good one.”

            “Let’s walk around and get one from the SUV.” Stu said, grinning again.

            “You mean the Gay Dadmobile Without The Kids we ride around in?”

            Stu was laughing when he heard the popping noise.

            “My gosh, gunshots!” Stu exclaimed.

            “No! They sound different!” Jason said. “I was in the Army, remember? Those sound more like firecrackers. Part of the celebration?”

            Jason and Stu glanced across the crowd to see people on the other side of the closed-off streets running and pointing.

            “Somebody’s throwing fireworks into the crowd,” Stu said. “I think from one of those buildings.”

            “Jumping Castro Street! Somebody could get hurt!” Jason said.

            “Not if I can help it!” Stu said, dashing behind a building. He looked around, checking more for security cameras than people and then he mentally invoked the Six Ancient Names. He felt a rush of power, there was a thunderous roar in his ears, and a blaze of multicolored light burst from his body like a prism as time stood momentarily still. He glanced down for an instant; he was taller, buffer, in a tight-fitting costume that glistened the way black hair sometimes shows glimpses of every color. And a cape that he imagined was like one ancient temple priests or priestesses would have worn.

            Instantly his mind was filled with images; the gift of Tiresias. Two men, in their twenties, in an unlit office by an open window, a bag of fireworks spilled on the floor beside them. The men were arguing. The one grabbed the bag of fireworks; the other hit him in the face.

            Stu rose into the air, calling on Phoebus’ power, which was exceptionally strong in bright sunlight. In an instant, he was hovering over the buildings, enough to see the fight through the window of the five story brick building across the street without mystical aid. One of the men punched the other who fell backward, slipping on the spilled fireworks and falling out the window. Clutched at the last minute, his hand holding the windowsill was a lifeline. The fight forgotten, the other man tried to pull the falling man inside, but he wasn’t strong enough.

            “Jumping Castro Street!” Stu’s other form said. He invoked the power of Poseidon and Ganymede, both with control over liquids. In another instant, the water cooler in the office burst open and a watery hand grabbed the man, holding him there in mid-fall. At the same time, the ice from several ice chests at the festival rose and formed a swirling platform, lowering the man safely to the ground.

            “What were you trying to do?” Stu’s other self asked Brad. “Someone could have been killed!”

            “We didn’t mean that!” Brad said as the security guard brought Steve over. “We just wanted to draw attention to some things. Like, they call this the Gay Pride Festival. Well I’m Bi and my buddy here is Transgender. There’s a lot of others who don’t get a mention!”

            “But nearly causing a stampede and a riot is no way to go about this,” Jason said.

            “Yeah, we should have thought it out,” Steve said. “We shouldn’t have done this.”

            Stu’s other self paused thoughtfully for a moment, and when he spoke he realized it wasn’t with the mystical wisdom of Tiresias, but the hard-earned wisdom of Stu Dulare.

“You two need to realize that the Pride rainbow covers all of us, don’t get hung up on semantics. We are stronger together than split apart.”

It was later in the afternoon and Stu (in his ordinary form) and Jason were walking back to their SUV, Jason with a couple of Pride shirts in a bag he’d also bought.

“That’s the problem, Stu,” Jason said. “We still haven’t come up with a name for that super-powered paragon you turn into.”

“Would have been nice if they had given a name to go with those powers.”

“How about Captain Wonderful?” Jason said.

“Nah. Too showy.” Stu said. “What about Anti-Bigot Man?”

“Ick!” Jason said. “What about Captain Nicebutt?”

“Can’t use that!” Stu said! That’s what I ought to call you!”

Jason grinned back.

“You know,” Stu said, “Today Steve and Brad learned that violence is no way to spread a message. It may even damage your cause, no matter how worthy it is. Talking and reason are always better.”

“Who you talking to?” Jason asked.

“Hmmm? Oh, nobody,” Stu said with a wink and a grin.

 

                        —end—

           

            Dedication: In Memory of the Elders; Norm Prescott and Lou Scheimer.

 

           

Posted in Fantasy, Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, LGBT, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Chocolate in a Junkyard, for the monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, by Jeff Baker, June 11, 2018.

Posted on June 11, 2018 by jeffbaker307

The random selections for this month’s Flash Fiction Draw Challenge (as drawn by ‘Nathan Burgoine) were; a fantasy, involving hot chocolate, set in a junkyard or scrapyard. Here’s what I came up with: 

 

                                    Caliburnus and Chocolate

                                                By Jeff Baker

                           

            “Okay, there it is!” I pointed at the rusted sign on the side of the muddy road, next to the gate.

            “Watch where you’re aiming that thing!” Terry said, almost dropping his thermos.

            “Sorry!” I said, pulling to one side of the fence. I didn’t want the old pickup to be mistaken for scrap which was a distinct possibility. I’d borrowed my Dad’s old pickup because I couldn’t use my car and Terry didn’t have one.

            “Gate’s locked,” Terry said, pulling on it with one hand clutching the thermos with the other. I stared at the gate; wire mesh, with what looked like metal siding wired to the sides, surrounding the yard. I could see piles of scrap towering over the fence. There was a sign that said 7 to 5.

            “No doorbell,” I said. “Guess we’ll have to knock.”

            “Or yell,” Terry said banging on the front gate. I hadn’t seen a number anywhere or I would have used my phone.

            “Who are you?” came a voice. I jumped. The siding had moved and an old man was peering out of the closed gate.

            “Uh, hi,” I said. “I’m Geoff Monmouth…”

            “They call him Mouthy,” Terry said with a grin. I glared.

            “We’re looking for a couple of replacement parts for my, uh, for a 1974 Chevy Nova,” I said. “A rear bumper and a left rear taillight.” 

            The man stared at us another moment, then unlocked the gate.

            “Enter, then,” he said. “I am Foremann Aurelian, keeper of this place.” The man was old, he was so weather beaten I couldn’t tell whether he was Native American, Latino or any ethnicity. His hair was scraggly and pure white with a fringe of beard around his chin. And he was big. At least six-foot-two. I was six feet even, but this guy looked like he might be solid muscle under his jacket. Of course, it could have been the layered flannel shirts.

            I wished I’d worn my jacket. At least Terry had his damn thermos of hot chocolate.

            “I will let you in, but first I must know of your lineage,” Aurelian said. He stared at us squinting with one eye. “Ah, you!” He pointed at Terry. “You did not know your father!”

            Terry bristled. That was a sore spot with him.

            “Yeah, so what? He ran off before I was born,” Terry said. “My stepdad’s the one who…”

            “I know, I know,” Aurelian said. “You might be the Destined One, the Fulfiller of Prophecy. Enter and behold.” Aurelian stepped back and the gate swung open. We walked in and I checked behind the gate expecting to see a couple of goons. Nobody.

            We stared. Junk. Cars. Old engines, torn up stoves, refrigerators (minus their doors) and a glittering, shining pile of what I thought were steel rods of some kind.

            “Man, those are swords!” Terry breathed.

            “Only one is important, mighty Caliburnus,” Aurelian said. “Destined to be wielded again in battle by the mightiest of warriors or his descendent. Caladbolg was found, but it is not part of the prophecy. You may select and if this is the Time of Need you may select Caliburnus.”

            “Um, how about that bumper for my Nova?” I said.

            Aurelian stared at us.

            “Yes, yes, I have been blind! If it is his destiny, it is yours as well! For you are linked for life in love as well as honor.”

            We stared at each other. We didn’t wear it on our t-shirts; we were careful.

            “Gruffudd yn Aur was such as you,” Aurelian said. “A paladin of honor and duty, loyal to the crown and to the man he had chosen. Later generations had his name stricken from the Chronicles, but I recall him battling, and also raising high the tankard, and, wait, put that down.”

            I had picked up an old bulb horn from a stack of hubcaps.

            “That is a destiny for others,” Aurelian said, “Though it may not be the Horn of Bran Galed, The search for mighty Caliburnus is your destiny.”

            I set the bulb horn down.

            “Sounds like thirsty work,” Terry said, unscrewing the thermos and slurping his hot chocolate.

            “That scent!” Aurelian said. “Where did you find it? The sacred draught of the Aztecs! its power rivaling Caladbolg!”

            “This?” Terry said. “It’s hot chocolate. You can buy it all over the place.”

            “I have truly been away,” Aurelian said. “Now, what destiny do you feel calls to you?”

            I pulled the pickup back onto the highway, having a funny feeling that even if we went back down that old dirt road we wouldn’t find the junkyard again. The bumper and parts for the Nova clattered in the truck bed. The silvery sword lay wrapped in a cloth in the storage box.

            “Crazy old man just gave us the bumper, and that old sword he said was, what did he call it?” Terry said.

            “Caladbolg,” I said.

            “Yeah, something-blog. I knew that was it,” Terry said. “What did he call hot chocolate? A holy grate?”

            “Something like that,” I said. “When you’ve been living in a junkyard like that, you’re bound to go little nuts.”

 

                                                —end—

 

             

Posted in Fantasy, Fiction, LGBT, Monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, Uncategorized | 10 Comments

Inked, for Friday Flash Fics, June 1, 2018 by Jeff Baker.

Posted on May 31, 2018 by jeffbaker307

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                                    The Spirits of the Air

                                         By Jeff Baker

            I was seventeen years old, and in my third year of my apprenticeship to the Sorcerer Thabbas. Known in some places as “Thabbas, The Ravager,” a name given by his adversaries, which he lived up to some of the time.

            I was cleaning the room with its western view which Thabbas used on occasion; an ancient desk in the center, scrolls and books on the shelves, bottles tightly corked in various places, and spread over the desk a large paper full of hand-drawn images of the stars, the three moons and random planets. Thabbas’ star charts, which he had been laboring on for decades. There was a bottle of ink, tightly sealed and a set of quill pens next to the ink bottle. I picked up one of the quills, trying to see what kind of bird it had come from when my jacket caught an edge of the star chart and as I stepped away, several of the items were pulled over, including a small, clear, stoppered bottle, smaller than my thumb. I lunged for it and knocked it off the opposite side of the desk. Using what little art I knew I caused the bottle to rise upward, keeping it from falling to the floor, but causing it to hurtle towards the ceiling, where it shattered.

            With the shower of glass came a shower of silvery mist which formed into a silvery, transparent man who stared at me a moment, then took flight.

            “You have provided me a service, and I thank you,” he said as he swirled around the roof. “I am one of the Spirits of the Air, whose powers are at the beck and call of your Master, as you are. But now, I am free to return to my brethren and I bid you adieu!”

            The Spirit headed for the window but burst against the thick glass like a breath does when puffed against a wall on a frosty morning. In another instant, it re-formed and looked around the room.

            “Another way, another way,” it said, almost to itself. It was looking to escape.

            He was right, Thabbas was my Master and losing this tool would make him most displeased. I remembered and invoked a spell I had learned for spilled wine and used it upon the Spirit. In another instant, the Spirit was drawn to the ink bottle and sucked in as the cap popped off. Yet another instant and the Spirit spewed out of the bottle, mixed with a quantity of the ink. It floated there and stared down at itself; it was still misty and transparent, but splotches of black ink were swirling about inside it, like ink dripped into a large clear glass of water.

            The Spirit looked up at me and smiled. “Do not be amazed, the air I am made of is the air of early morning, with mist and dew. Liquid blends well with me. But this is not me, so!”

            The Spirit hurtled itself at the wall, poofed again into a burst of misty air, leaving the wall splotched with ink. In another instant, the Spirit was standing in front of me, staring at the closed, wooden door. Could it breeze under the door or go through the keyhole? No, there were wards of protection on every door in the house. The Spirit’s face became grim and determined and it suddenly began to swirl and spin hurling itself at the door. As papers blew off the shelves I saw the large, flat door handle twist as the swirling wind moved it and brushed the door open just enough. Then the wind was gone and I heard laughter from the hallway outside, the hallway with the open window.

            My Master was not pleased. I was made to scrub the walls and floor and re-arrange everything that had fallen from the shelves. In his main office chamber, Thabbas gave me a lecture on caution and carelessness and said I would have time to think. He placed a finger under my chin and I rose in the air.

            “The smallest of the Moons will be new to-morrow. In six weeks it will be full. On that night, you will be restored to the form you have now. Until then…”

            A shiver ran through my body. I saw shafts of light surround me, firming into the bars of a cage. I was flat on my belly as the room and Thabbas swelled to immense size. Thabbas lifted my small cage and hooked it to a chain hanging from the ceiling lamp.

            I was a cricket.

            “Worry not, you will be fed.” Thabbas grinned broadly. “For the next few weeks, you will amuse me. Come cricket, chirp for your master.”

            I chirped.

 

                                                —end—

 

Posted in Fantasy, Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, The Spirits of the Air, Uncategorized, World of Three Moons | Leave a comment

My Second Anniversary Weekly Flash Fiction Post, for Friday Flash Fics May 25, 2018, by Jeff Baker.

Posted on May 24, 2018 by jeffbaker307

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AUTHOR’S NOTE  from Jeff Baker: May 25, 2016, I did my first flash fiction post for Monday Flash Fics. (As I recall, a couple of days early!) I had been wanting to use this blog to regularly post fiction and promote myself, maybe by posting a serial version of a novel-in-progress as J. Scott Coatsworth has done (my novel stalled, glad I didn’t do that!) Instead I began posting flash fiction stories, one a week, (sometimes more!) with varying results. The best result being that I have exercised my writing muscles and maybe become a better writer as well as developing better and more regular work habits when it comes to writing. (Skills that would have served me well had I developed them and started regularly writing in College about 36 years ago!) I’ve written the weekly story when I was eager and motivated and when the words flowed as well as when I didn’t feel like writing. I’ve written standard stories as well as taken the advantage of the form to experiment with themes, styles (drabbles?) and new or series characters. Plus, I have written about a hundred stories, most for Monday and Friday Flash Fics, a handful for ‘Nathan Burgoine’s monthly flash fiction challenges and a few for submissions calls. A few of them are out in submissions right now, some originals, some reprints of stories posted on this blog. I owe a lot of thanks to Helena Stone, ‘Nathan Smith, Brigham Vaughn, Kelly Jensen, Elizabeth Lister and others too numerous to mention for their encouragement in maintaining these prompt sites. Again, many thanks!

            Ray Bradbury and Anthony Boucher were both believers in writing at least one story a week, although I usually don’t have time to pull off a full-length one each week, I hope they’d approve of my efforts and persistence.

            Without further ado, I turn this entry over to my occasional pseudonym and examine an entry from:

The Biffle Papers

By Mike Mayak

 

“All right, Mr. Biffle, where were we?” the interviewer said.

“Chicago, 1962,” Biffle said.

The interviewer riffled through his notebook. “You weren’t in Chicago in 1962,” he said.

“Oh. New York City then,” Biffle said, looking out the window of his penthouse.

1962, late spring, (Biffle said.) I had a cheap little walk-up in the Village, working a couple of jobs and getting by. Had a roommate who was in the theatre and in a drag show but he was never there, so I largely had the place to myself. And I kept to myself, mostly. I was working in a back kitchen straight out of a gangster movie when I met Rico. We spent our spare time wandering the streets, eating or ducking in somewhere for a drink and a new adventure despite both of us having to work second jobs at night. But we were young and tough; we’d both been in the Army in the late ‘50s,

“Uh, Mr. Biffle,” the interviewer said, “I think Rico Mangini was in the Navy. You were in the Army.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Biffle said. “Well we both wound up in New York, back when Greenwich Village was a village of dreams.”

That year we took it easy (Biffle said.) We spent our afternoons walking around the Village. We saw them tear down a section of the Highline over at Perry Street. We ate lunch in the shadow of the old Gothic building that had been City Hall and was now a Public Library.

One afternoon I got off work at my day dishwashing job and was gonna kill time with Rico until we both had to go to work that night so I walked over to where Rico worked to wait for him. One of the guys comes out of the back of the place, into the alley where I was smoking a cigarette and tells me ‘Your boyfriend never showed up for work.’ Well, Rico wasn’t my boyfriend, neither one of us was out. Not in 1962; but it wasn’t as much of a secret as you would think it was. They had no idea where Rico was, just that he hadn’t shown up for his shift and so he didn’t work there anymore.

I had a couple of ideas where he was; I found Rico in a bar rambling about how his life had gone down the toilet. I paid his tab, becoming officially broke and helped him out of the bar. Thank God I was bigger than he was because I wound up carrying him down the street to my apartment. It was closer and I had a key. And I was glad I’d done a lot of heavy lifting in the Army.

I managed to get him to walk up the stairs and he just staggered into the apartment, muttered “Thanks, Biff,” and collapsed on the couch (the only other furniture besides a table and two beds we had.)

That evening, I showed up at his night job and explained that Rico had been called out of town and couldn’t make it in and I was filling in for him.

“And they let you do that?” the interviewer asked.

“The guy who ran the kitchen knew me. He liked me. His boss was an idiot who was probably passed out on somebody else’s couch at that moment. Besides, the kitchen was short-handed even with Rico. Of course, in saving Rico’s night job I couldn’t show up for my own, so we were both down to one job apiece, so Rico moved in with me for a while. Saved money. Like I said, my official roommate was never there, so I don’t think he even noticed.”

“And this was all Greenwich Village, right?” the interviewer asked.

“Yes,” Biffle sighed. “I thought I’d made that clear. Greenwich Village, 1962. Maybe part of ’61, I’m not sure. Oh, well. It was almost sixty years ago. Turn off the recorder, we can do more later.”

 

—end—

 

Posted in Anniversary, Fiction, Friday Flash Fics, LGBT, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

“The River City Chronicles,” J. Scott Coatsworth’s new book!

Posted on May 23, 2018 by jeffbaker307

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“A group of strangers meets at Ragazzi, an Italian restaurant, for a cooking lesson that will change them all. They quickly become intertwined in each other’s lives, and a bit of magic touches each of them…Everyone in the River City has a secret, and sooner or later secrets always come out.”

River City Chronicles started as a serialized story on Coatsworth’s blog, set in Sacramento, California. The local paper favorably compared it to “Tales of the City,” likewise a story that began as a serial. River City Chronicles, however, includes a dash of magic. Done with Coatsworth’s usual style and sense of place, whether that place be the alien worlds of his Skythane series or in contemporary California, River City is a damn good read.

“River City Chronicles,” by J. Scott Coatsworth, is available for pre-order now. It’s worth it.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-river-city-chronicles-j-scott-coatsworth/1128593446?ean=9781732307506

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-river-city-chronicles-1

https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-river-city-chronicles/id1381215078?mt=11

 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29246443-the-river-city-chronicles

Posted in Books, Fiction, J. Scott Coatsworth, LGBT, Promo, River City Chronicles, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Passing Parade—Friday Flash Fics by Jeff Baker, for May 18, 2018.

Posted on May 17, 2018 by jeffbaker307

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            The Long Island to San Francisco By Way of Alexandria Blues

By Jeff Baker

I’d been staring at the parade for a while and my eyes were starting to frizz over. The drag queens and shirtless guys were starting to look alike. I glanced to my left and saw the folks at the other window. Three, no, four guys with a rainbow flag. I glanced above them; guy in a leather harness who had the virtue of being kind of buff. With another rainbow flag. I smiled to myself. I needed to work out. But I was in pretty good health for my age. I looked across the street, over the rooftops. Coit Tower was off in the distance, hidden by one of the buildings. I smiled. I remembered when the tower had been shiny and new, when the bridge had been just a fantasy.

I glanced to the left again; the youngish guy in a white t-shirt was staring over at us. I focused on the parade; a line of men and women in business attire were marching past, waving at the crowd.

“Oh, yeah!” came a voice from the above window. “Cubicle-dwellers! My people!”

I laughed along with several others. Good to see the Pride parade wasn’t dominated by the nudists and whackos that gave video ammo to the homophobes.

I heard a measured “thump, thump, thump” behind me. I turned. There was a guy in white t-shirt and jeans, the guy from the window at left. There was a thick cast on his right foot. He grinned at me.

“Sorry about the noise. I should be using that damn crutch but it makes me feel like Tiny Tim. I’m supposed to be marching in that parade, but I busted my foot a week or so ago. I mean, well, aren’t you Matthew Reynolds?”

He held up the book; “Missouri-To-San Francisco-by-Way-Of-Nevada: Mark Twain in the West” with my name underneath the photo of Twain.

“Yes,” I said smiling. At least it had been my name for the last several decades.

“I actually work in one of the offices here,” he said. “I had this book in my desk and I, oh gosh; I’m Barry Osaka.” We shook hands. “I recognized you from the book jacket. I loved the book by the way, and is there any way I could get you to, you know, sign this?”

I grinned again. “Seeing as how you bought the book and helped pay part of my cable bill, how can I say no? I didn’t just come here from Long Island to watch the Pride parade.”

After I signed the book we stood at the window and watched the parade. It was a beautiful, sunny day.

“Wow,” Osaka said softly. “It’s like, well, I’m thinking about…well…”

“People who should be there.” I finished. “Ghosts.”

“Yeah,” Osaka said. “I just turned forty, and I still remember the nineties pretty well. I grew up around here, and I lost a bunch of friends.”

I hadn’t been back here for years, but I still knew all about losing people. I sighed and smiled and closed my eyes, remembering the beautiful men from the decade I’d lived in Alexandria. But I still preferred the present.

I fished in my pocket for my cellphone.

“Zap me your address,” I said to Osaka. “I’ll e-mail you a picture of Twain and my great-great Grandfather the family had. Probably taken not too far from here, maybe around 1864.”

Definitely 1864, probably near where Market Street is now.  I thought as he tapped out his e-mail. I smiled again. This kid and his friends were the future.

 

—end—

 

 

 

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Murder Above the Clouds; May Flash Fiction Draw story by Jeff Baker

Posted on May 14, 2018 by jeffbaker307

May 8, 2018: for ’Nathan Burgoine’s monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge. This month’s prompts; a science fiction story involving a dog whistle set “above the clouds.” This put me in mind of a sci-fi riff on “Burke’s Law” I dreamed up a few years ago. As good a time as any to pull the idea out of mothballs to tell the tale of…

The Murder of Cumulo Nimbus

By Jeff Baker

 

Cumulo Nimbus was one of the richest men in the solar system. But he was as dead as anybody I’d ever seen, despite the elegant surroundings. The place had cost a fortune, the bullets that killed him probably cost a lot less. I stared at the body; silk bathrobe, silk pajamas, tassled slippers. Seeming out of place on a floating platform designed to look like a cloud, several hundred feet off the Earth’s surface.

“No sign of the gun yet?” said Captain Aimes, Chief of Detectives of the Air Police, and my boss.

“No sir,” I said. “Little hard to find anything with the ground covered by this fake cloud stuff.” It wasn’t like dry ice but it did look like cloud covering the edges of the platform. The whole thing was the size of a huge yard, with the 18-room mansion at the center completing the image of a grand estate. Green grass and a fence around most of the property.

“Fence is a good idea,” Captain Aimes said. “Keeps somebody from sleepwalking off the edge. Didn’t help Nimbus much.”

Cumulo Nimbus wasn’t his real name, but he’d had the clout to keep his biography off the regular channels, but now that he was dead, the barriers were being taken down and details were being snapped up by newshawks.

“Ah, here they come,” Aimes said. “Right on time.” He pointed to the pad opposite the mansion where three small coupes were landing. “The grieving relatives and the lawyer. I called the lawyer as soon as I got here.”

“You called the lawyer?” I asked.

“The better to get the magpies up here,” Aimes said. “As soon as they found out Nimbus was dead and somebody was going to inherit his vast fortune.”

“Took them all of an hour to get here.” I said.

“Yes,” Aimes said. “And one of them was here before. Nimbus’ killer.”

The survivors of Cumulo Nimbus, nee Jake Hanlon, gathered in his palatial living room, watched over by the framed portrait of the deceased. We were quick to explain our presence and that nobody was supposed to leave until we were through. Tellingly, nobody asked to see the deceased. They were already arguing; Price Hanlon saying that his cousin Allen Boyd had almost run them out of the sky in his coupe with tinted windows.

“Who found the body?” asked an aging woman in vermillion. This was “Peaches” Melba Hanlon, Nimbus’ estranged wife.

“Nobody,” Aimes explained. “When his vital signs ceased, his saver automatically signaled the authorities.” I’d been using my saver to get a rundown on the suspects, but the screen kept flickering.

“Speaking of savers, mine’s not working.”

“They don’t, at least not in the house,” said Price Hanlon. “Uncle Jake, uh, I mean, Uncle Cumulo had a baffler put in. Awfully hard to get a signal in here, and sometimes on the, uh, grounds. He was kind of paranoid.”

“It would seem he had a reason to be,” Aimes said. “But he still carried one around?”

“Had to,” said Melba. “His I.D., his credit. All those stories about Cumulo carrying around old-fashioned cards were baloney. He was an eccentric nut but he wasn’t that nuts.”

That was when one of the uniformed officers walked up to Captain Aimes, whispered something and placed a small object in his hand. Aimes looked at the object, whispered something else and nodded. And I thought he smiled. And then he asked everyone to step outside.

“When he struck it rich, Jake Hanlon took the name Cumulo Nimbus and decided to live above everybody else,” Captain Aimes said. “He added the cloud effects out of ego but it does lend atmosphere.”

“The only way he’d ever lend anybody anything,” Price said. The others laughed and so did I.

“As his only surviving family, you are all considerably richer upon his death. And one of you hastened that death,” Aimes said. “Jake Hanlon’s saver registered his death at 1100 hours. It didn’t take us long to get here and we had a clear view. No other cruisers or coupes in the area, according to the scans. But that didn’t make sense. Somebody had to get here today, kill Nimbus/Hanlon and, most importantly, leave undetected. The only conclusion is that someone got here much earlier and never left. Ms Hanlon, could you activate your coupe from here. Just to demonstrate something, please?”

Puzzled and dismayed, “Peaches” Melba Hanlon clicked on her saver and keyed in her code for her coupe. No response.

“You see, thanks to the baffler, remote activators don’t work. You would have to operate a coupe manually to arrive and to leave, unless you had an accomplice, to make it look like our killer had only just arrived and was not hiding here. And our killer, you will agree, had a perfect accomplice.”

Captain Aimes put the small object he had been handed to his lips and puffed his cheeks. Three things happened at once: One of the three heirs made a panicked run for the house, only to be tackled by a uniformed officer. Captain Aimes began telling how in the 21st Century home connection systems could be tapped into by sonics inaudible to human ears, “like this dog whistle,” simple enough to program a coupe to leave and then fly back here at an ultrasonic signal. Thirdly, the sight of  Allen Boyle’s coupe rising into the air, tinted windows hiding the fact that it was driverless.

“You know,” Aimes said when Boyle had been taken away, “I remember watching those ancient movies from, what, two hundred years ago, where someone would step out of a hotel, whistle loudly and get one of those old cabs right off. And you know, I never believed it until now!”

We walked across the yard to where the police cruiser was parked, clouds from the ground curling around our feet.

 

—end—

Posted in Captain Aimes, Fiction, Monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, Mystery, Science Fiction, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

“The Only Begetter,” Friday Flash Fics by Jeff Baker for May 11, 2018.

Posted on May 11, 2018 by jeffbaker307

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The Only Begetter 

 

By Jeff Baker

 

“Hey how long do I…”

“Hush! Don’t move!”

“Okay, I’ll…”

“Uh! Uh! Uh!”

Willie sighed to himself. He shifted just a little in the chair. He talked without moving his lips. It came out. “Whurgga grro grffrmm?”

Dennis sighed and set down his paintbrush.

“Okay, what?”

“When do I go to the bathroom?” Will said.

“Now. Take five. We’ve been at this since nine,” Dennis said. “But hurry! I don’t want to lose the light from the window.”

“Yeah, that’s the one thing I’m not paying for.” Willie said. Yeah there were cheaper anniversary gifts, but after sharing anniversary dinners of cheap burgers, it was nice to do this.

He was lucky he’d remembered Dennis and that he was still doing portraits. Will wondered if he should have shaved off the beard. He stared in the bathroom mirror as he washed his hands. Nah, he thought, the beard matches the bow tie.

Five minutes to get Willie positioned back in the chair exactly right. Willie had made the mistake early on of saying something about Norman Rockwell working from photographs. Dennis had grumbled that he couldn’t work that way, not for something special.

“And you think Thomas is special don’t you? That’s why you want this for him?”

Willie had smiled and nodded.

“I read where Shakespeare dedicated; I think his sonnets, to ‘the only begetter.’ Everybody wonders what he meant by that. I think it was to the guy the sonnets were dedicated to, y’know. Not Shakespeare’s boyfriend, but the boyfriend of the guy who commissioned the sonnets. They’re really erotic and powerful and I’m glad I don’t write dangerous potent stuff like that.” Willie grinned.

“Okay, now, quit smiling,” Dennis said. “This should look good. Your anniversary’s when?”

“Next month…” Willie started to say.

“Don’t talk!” Dennis said. “We’ll have this done by then, but only if you don’t talk. All right?”

“Mmmmmph!”

“Good,” Dennis said. “You know, I heard when Michelangelo sculpted David he actually had the guy stand still for hours at a time, and wearing clothes, (he added the nudity in later) and when the kid’s parent’s saw the finished product they were shocked. All they wanted was a little cameo for their son’s graduation before he went off to make his fortune, but you know what artists are like, right? Well anyway, Michelangelo…”

 

—end—

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“To The Ends of the Earth,” by Jeff Baker. Friday Flash Fics for May 4, 2018.

Posted on May 3, 2018 by jeffbaker307

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                                         To The Ends of the Earth

By Jeff Baker

It isn’t even like “The Jetsons.”

No moving sidewalks, no flying cars, no robots everywhere. I got a big payment (we all did) after “The Incident” (as they call it) that slipped the flight to San Francisco I was on ahead twenty years. The card the airline gave each of us gave us access to any cash we had left in our savings accounts (assuming we hadn’t been declared dead when the plane disappeared from radar back in 2018) and also gave us a large settlement from the airline. I was glad for the settlement, because the first part was pretty much worthless to me as I’d spent everything following Kyle to Japan and then back to the U.S. when I heard he’d left.

If only we’d gotten on the same plane.

I stare out the window. I’m amazed they still do passenger trains. I can at least afford that, the airline is giving the passengers a settlement. I spent the last month trying to track Kyle down. I even went to Greenleaf Produce, where he’d been working when we met five years, I mean, twenty-five years ago. They didn’t have any address in their files, and couldn’t give it to me if they had, but one of the managers (who had been a forklift operator when Kyle worked there) remembered me and gave me Kyle’s address off a Christmas card Kyle had sent the company about ten years ago. I’d gone to the address, an apartment, and had stood there for five minutes before I’d pressed the buzzer.

The woman who answered the door proved to me that women still wore hair curlers and kept cats in the year 2038. I asked if she knew a Kyle Carruthers, as I was thinking: please don’t be his wife, please don’t be his wife, please don’t be his wife.

She wasn’t. She said she didn’t know Kyle and she slammed the door in my face even as I was showing her the plane ticket I’d bought in 2018. I figured I had nothing to lose and nothing else to do, so I started knocking on the doors of the apartments on that floor and asking until I found someone who knew Kyle. It took me about an hour, but I lucked out. I found somebody who’d known Kyle when he’d been living there. And, yeah, they got the address with a Christmas card.

That’s why I’m on this train; it’s about the last thing I can afford after using the rest of the airline’s money to search for Kyle. I called him up. Yeah, called him. Something simple and it worked. He was living out in Colorado. We talked. A lot. For about a month and a half. He had been married to a girl he’d met, he was bi after all. He got divorced a few years later. He blurted out that the problem had been she wasn’t me. (I actually blushed when he said that!) So, I got on the train and moved out there. Of course, there was an age difference, something there hadn’t been the last time we’d been together. I was glad I’d been a couple of years older; it meant I was now only about eighteen years younger than Kyle.

The instant I kissed Kyle we knew all that wouldn’t matter.

So, I’m out here to stay and we’re happier than we’ve ever been. Of course, I was flat broke, but I won’t be for long. My kid brother (who now has a son who’s eighteen!) had my car put in storage when I disappeared. He said he couldn’t bear to look at it. It’s still in my name and it still works although, of course, they don’t let me actually drive it anymore. But I go around with it to car shows and somebody made me a pretty good offer for it. I guess I didn’t waste my time restoring the thing we found in a barn just out of high school. I laugh sometimes at the idea that I own the last ’57 Chevy since they took all the cars off the road. And that an eighty year old car that still runs would be a cash cow.

Enough cash for Kyle and me to honeymoon somewhere. Maybe Illinois.

I’ve always wanted to see the East Coast.

—end—

 

AUTHOR’S NOTE: A lot longer than it should be, but this is a slightly disjointed version of a story I started writing for a theme anthology I found out about right before the deadline. The theme being that a jetliner en route from Tokyo to L.A. gets in a time warp and lands in the L.A. of 2037. I figured someday I would re-do what I had and write up the full story, but for now here it is. I am too much a romantic not to want to present this version of this tale!  

 

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