"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
NOTE: A version of this review first appeared on Goodreads. —-jeff
“Upon The Midnight Queer” ‘Nathan Burgoine’s New Collection
Reviewed by Jeff Baker
‘Nathan Burgoine’s second short fiction collection “Upon the Midnight Clear,” features a group of short Christmas tales featuring LGBT characters in stories ranging from retellings of classic Christmas stories (“Dolph,” “Frost”) to fully original stories. Many of them first appeared on his blog where his yearly Christmas stories became a holiday tradition. The new collection includes those, some stories published elsewhere and “Folly,” a story first published in “Upon the Midnight Queer.”
Tales range from contemporary romance to a look at one of the characters from “A Christmas Carol” after that story ended to a story set in the Canada of 1981, a very bad year for the LGBT Community there. Characters often have the sort of perceptual gifts that appear frequently in Burgoine’s stories. Romance, while sometimes only hinted at, is present throughout the book, as is social commentary if only from the fact that LGBT people are generally underrepresented in popular fiction. In that, Burgoine is carrying on the tradition of Charles Dickens whose works were peopled with appealing characters and filled with exposure of society’s ills.
Running through it all is Burgoine’s masterful command of the written word, slipping convincingly into the prose styles of earlier times when required. Whatever the era, the words are perfect.
Words like:
I learned fear and bravery are companions and how the fellowship of someone else tipped the scales to bravery’s side every time.
Or:
Holding forever in her hand, she asked for help.
And:
If you live in a garret, you get two views.
Following on the heels of Burgoine’s first collection “Of Echoes Born,” and several holiday romances (not always around Christmas!) “Upon The Midnight Queer” is a welcome addition to any bookshelf.
The skeleton astride the motorcycle in the parking lot cackled in a ghostly voice; “Beware! I am the Hell-Spawned Spirit of Vengeance!”
“Sounds good to me,” said a voice from the van parked in the space next to the bike.
The skeleton looked up, startled. A read-headed kid apparently in his 20s leaned out the van’s driver’s side window grinning.
“How come you can see me?” the skeleton asked.
“How do you think?” the kid said. “Shawn McKenzie, at your service. I bought it back in ‘85. Hey, how long you been a skeleton?”
“I’m usually not,” said the skeleton. “I just appear like this for Halloween. Usually I stay at the house I used to live in. The kid renting it never sees me, but when when he gets stoned sometimes after work he hears me. That’s the way it is, some people can notice us sometimes. But he didn’t notice me riding along on his bike.”
“Mommy! Mommy!” The little girl walking out of the bank with her mother pointed. “A Halloween skeleton and it’s moving!”
“That’s nice dear,” her mother said, guiding the girl to their car.
The skeleton waved. “Happy Halloween!” he said. He and McKenzie laughed as they watched the pair drive off.
“So,” said the skeleton, standing up and stretching. “You haunt their warehouse and ride along in the van or what?”
“Naaah!” McKenzie said, opening the driver’s side door and stepping out. “I drive this thing all day!”
McKenzie walked around and opened the van’s back doors. He was wearing boots, jeans and a blue shirt with a company logo on the sleeve and SHAWN on a label sewn on the front pocket.
He pulled out a hand cart and started stacking boxes on it. “This is the good thing about being able to make anybody see me,” he said. “I can do this job and they pay me under the table.” He grinned again. “Of course, they don’t know exactly why I need to be paid under the table!”
“So why work?” the skeleton asked. “Aren’t we permanently retired?”
“I don’t eat, but this way I get money for beer,” McKenzie said. “Besides, I got bored.” He locked the van and started pushing the cart to the delivery door. He turned and waved.
“Happy Halloween!”
“Yeah, you too!” the skeleton said, starting to look like his human self and not a skeleton.
The brown-haired kid in the ripped tank top and tattoos walked out of the building and hopped on his motorcycle.
“Hey! Happy Halloween!” the former skeleton said, clinging to the back of the seat he was on. He now looked about the same age as McKenzie and the kid on the bike who gunned the engine oblivious to the ghostly passenger or the voice.
“Oh well,” the skeleton said, looking like a skeleton again even if most people couldn’t see him.
As the bike roared out of the parking lot, the skeleton laughed. “Beware, mortals! I, the Ghost, uh, Hanger-Oner am here to deliver vengeance!”
Wrote the regular flash fictions, (One of them the start of another serial!!) plotted out something and otherwise kind of piddled on the writing but I DID send some things off to magazines and I got a request from an anthology I have a story in for an author bio. (I’d forgotten the book was coming out!)
The big writing news is I finally finished the first draft of the longer story I’ve been working on since around February. I told myself “no longer projects until you finish this.” I’ve read through it and it needs some tweaking but it looks good!
So now I can get to a few other longer stories I have in the synopsis stage.
And I have the two Queer Sci Fi columns for November and December to do.
So, since the next couple of days will be a little busy, that’s about it for now!
Started reading Dave Musson’s “Once More Round the Sun.” Read the stories “Start As You Mean To Go On,” “The Strange Phenomenon of Epping Manor,” “Time Capsule” and “You’re Melting.”
Like his inspiration, Stephen King, (Musson runs “Dave Reads King,” a You Tube Channel devoted to King’s works) Musson captures the reader with the ordinary details told in a captivating way; the sounds of breakfast being made, the smells of bacon, before hitting the reader with a kicker line when the character hearing and smelling these things remembers “He lived alone.”
The book contains many sneaky references to King’s work; the number nineteen, men wearing yellow coats, a town named “Kingsworth,” but Musson is his own writer with his own voice. “Once More Round the Sun” has the nifty premise of a story for every month of the year. (I’d never read a horror story for April Fool’s Day before!) Like other writers before him, Musson sets his stories in prosaically normal-seeming locations the reader will feel they know.
One note here; the stories are excellent but in some of them, Musson goes for the gross-out.
Read (online) “Full Report Of the Second Meeting Of the Mudfog Association For the Advancement Of Everything Section B-Display Of Models And Mechanical Science.” This is an 1837 science fiction story, by Charles Dickens no less, that presages “Westworld” by about 130 years! Also, there’s a scathing and brilliant bit about eyeglasses that let the viewer see things far away but not nearby.
“…a large number of most excellent persons and great statesmen could see, with the naked eye, most marvelous horrors of West India plantations, while they could discern nothing whatever in the interior of Manchester cotton mills.”
Early science-fiction and pointed commentary by Dickens.
Bummed through Jim Beard’s “Breaking Bold and Brave,” his non-fiction book about “The Brave And the Bold” comic book. There’s some history, a few personal recollections and a guide to/review of every one of the 200 issues (and a few specials!) An informative nostalgia trip, very well-done!
Got a couple of books to read stories by Hildegarde Hawthorne. (Daughter of Julian, Granddaughter of Nathaniel.) Read “Unawares,” a sweetly sentimental Christmas ghost story in “Spirits of Christmas,” edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. A fine writer. Sentiment usually doesn’t fly today but some writers (like Runyon) were damn good at it!)
The other Hawthorne story I read was “A Legend Of Sonora.” I’d probably read it before. Reminicent of Ambrose Bierce’s work. Read this one in “100 Fiendish Little Frightmares” one of the anthologies Barnes & Noble published thirty-some years ago.
And I had seen the title mentioned a few times so I read Bierce’s “An Inhabitant Of Carcosa.” May have read it before. An influential horror story, if only for all the authors who have re-used the name.
Another story I couldn’t resist re-reading was Louisa Baldwin’s spooky tale “How He Left the Hotel.” Both of the above in “The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories”
Read John Kendrick Bang’s “The Mystery Of My Grandmother’s Hair Sofa.” A spoof of long-winded prose and 19th-century ghost stories from an absolute master. In the anthology “Spirits Of Christmas.”
And from the same anthology I read “Breakdown,” a spooky and sweet little ghost story (with a happy ending!) by Marjorie Bowen. I saw a talk given on her at the World Fantasy Convention last year in Kansas City.
Read Robert Duncan Milne’s story “A Base-Ball Mystery” from 1887. The story starts off being told in a room at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel (!!!) but then moves to Indianapolis. Fun 19th-Century Sci-Fi.
Milne’s stories are full of references to landmarks people in the San Francisco of the 1880s would have known; the Bay, Market Street, Woodward’s Gardens and others. In his fun (but implausible!) story “Into The Sun,” those landmarks do not fare well. His description of a fire engulfing the City with toppled buildings is startling, considering it was published 1882.
I ordered a copy of the 1980 Sam Moskowitz edited Milne collection “Into The Sun And Other Stories.” Well worth it and I’ll be reading more as I have a thing for 19th-Century Sci-Fi.
(There’s a companion volume; “Science Fiction In Old San Francisco; Volume One, History Of the Movement From 1854 to 1890,” a non-fiction work by Moskowitz which I don’t have. The collection is actually Volume two.)
Recently there was a collection of more Milne stories available on Kindle and a very pricey hardback collection. These and the Moskowitz books are the first collected Milne ever. (Bring on the mass-market paperback!)
Read “Kindergarten” by James Gunn, a short-short collected in the Asimov anthology “Comets” 40-some years ago.
Pulled out my copy of “Night Shadows: Queer Horror” edited by Greg Herren and realized I hadn’t read every story, including a couple by writers I know;
“Filth” by ‘Nathan Burgoine. I love ‘Nathan’s work and a full-fledged horror story from him is rare. This one was excellent.
“Blackout” by Jeffrey Ricker. A fine and frightening haunted-house story with sweet touches as the loving couple’s wonderful house in the country becomes a nightmare.
Michael Rowe’s “All the Pretty Boys” gives us a young hustler who becomes prey.
And also from “Night Shadows” I read “A Letter To My Brother Relating Recent Events With Unintended Consequences,” by Carol Rosenfeld. A funny vampire tale.
Read “The Flimflam Affair,” one of the fine mystery novels by Bill Pronzini about Carpenter and Quincannon Professional Detective Services. Set in and around San Francisco around the turn of the last century it’s a series that almost never would have happened except an editor asked for a short-story sequel to a somewhat downer Western novel Pronzini had written. In this latest series of novels the focus is also on John and Sabina’s relationship as well.
Read a few of Jack Cole’s Plastic Man comic book stories from “The Plastic Man Archives, Volume Two.” Cole was a genius.
Re-read my own story “The Ghannidor-Ra” in the paperback copy of “Schlock! Webzine,” April 2024. Looks good and has a Weird-Talesy illustration of a bottle and a skull in the middle of one page of text!
Read an extra Kaje Harper story on he blog she posted: “Fake Boyfriend’s Choice.” Perfect! Sweet and romantic.
Read a couple of entries in the Bay Area Queer Writer’s Association Antholgy called “Together.” “The poem “Together,” by K. S. Trenten and the story “Bon Appetit” by Pat Henshaw.
Tracked down Fritz Leiber’s “When they Openly Walk,” a cat story I didn’t think I’d read (but I had!) in the August 1969 Galaxy Magazine. Also read Leiber’s “The Cat Hotel,” from the October 1983 Magazine Of Fantasy And Science Fiction. There’s a hint of the “L” in “LGBT” in the story!
Also read Leiber’s “Schizo Jimmy. Excellent, and somewhat topical!
Read Manly Wade Wellman’s early story “At The Bend Of The Trail.” Only story of his I’ve read set in Africa where he was born!
Read H. Warner Munn’s “Out Of the Night.” Never read Munn before. (Oh, the last three stories were in the fun Barnes and Noble “100…” series of anthologies from thirty-some years ago!)
Got on a Julian Hawthorne jag (love his stuff!) and started reading “Absolute Evil” and realized I’d read it before (under the title “Island Of Ghosts.”) I WILL re-read it because it’s just good! Ordered a book with two stories about the same character from the story; Martha Klemm.”
Read Hawthorne’s “Rumpty Dudget’s Tower” an okay fairy tale he wrote for his kids. Has a couple of clever touches. And I started reading the stories in Hawthorne’s “Six Cent Sam’s” which I really hadn’t looked at. Club stories from the 1890s. Started with “Mr. Dunton’s Invention.”
AND I read Bram Stoker’s recently re-discovered story “Gibbet Hill.” Very much a weird tale that would have fit in E. C. Comics. Read it off a photo of the newspaper story from December 1890!
Jorge Alabaster turned the motorcycle off the highway as he drove into the city. He rode down the street into what had been the downtown area He passed what had been a fast food place with it’s fake 50s dined décor. The windows were dark in the mid-afternoon sun and the raccoon perched on Jorge’s shoulders didn’t so much as glance at the building.
Jorge smiled. So far, Cooter’s instincts had been pretty good. He’d sniffed out food in the last big city they’d been through and even in the little towns along the highway that hadn’t been evacuated after everything went blooey a couple of years ago.
He glanced around. He thought he’d seen a neon sign in the distance somewhere. Some of the cities were partially opened up. That’s how he was able to keep the bike gassed up.
Jorge turned onto what had been the main street through town and headed East, past a bunch of closed businesses, some with boarded-up windows. Some showed signs of being open, one even had a hand printed sign in the window reading “Yes, We’re Open Sometimes.”
Jorge smiled at that. Some things were getting back to normal. After a few minutes he found himself in an area of old brick buildings that more than likely had been warehouses converted into shops. There were still some street signs: Mead and Mosley and the like. Jorge turned down a street still paved with bricks. The city had probably been keeping the Old Town ambiance up for tourists. What there would have been here to tour he didn’t know.
Cooter shifted on his shoulders. There was a neon sign lit in a lower window by a stone archway with a railing and a flight of stairs going down to a level under the street.
“May as well see,” Jorge said parking deliberately beneath an old NO PARKING sign on the wall. He cautiously walked down the stairs, Cooter eagerly sniffing the air. Cooter seemed interested which was a good sign. A few weeks earlier he had ignored Cooter’s fidgeting and walked into a knife fight.
The room was small with the feel of a small-town bar and it probably had been a bar at one time. It was lit by a few lights to the side as well as a few small windows that were at street level. There were a couple of people sitting in a booth. Music was playing low from an old boombox set on the end of the bar. Jorge could smell good smells from the kitchen. The bartender smiled as Jorge walked up.
“What’ll you have?” the man said.
“What’ve you got?” Jorge asked.
“We grilled out some burgers earlier, we even have some buns today. No cheese, I’m afraid.”
“Sounds like you’re getting deliveries in at least,” Jorge said. “Any fresh produce?”
“Sometimes,” said the man. “Tell you what; if your friend…” he pointed at Cooter “wouldn’t be too picky I think I have a few scraps from the trash. Even remains of a tomato.”
Cooter looked up wide-eyed as if he understood the word “tomato.”
“Sure,” Jorge said. “And I’ll have a burger.”
“Coming up,” the man said.
“Oh, what’s this gonna cost?” Jorge asked.
“Money’s no good here,” said the man. “But if you like you can do a little work around here. Maybe help hauling the trash barrel a few blocks from here to the refuse dump. No trash service anymore.”
“Okay,” Jorge said. “Oh, I’m Jorge Alabaster, at least I am now, and this is Cooter.”
“Bob Mills,” the man said with a nod. Nobody shook hands anymore.
In a few minutes the bartender had heated up the burger and set it on a plate on the bar in front of Jorge. Then he went back into the kitchen and returned with a piece of tomato, some crumpled green lettuce and a chunk of burger. He set this on a plate in front of Cooter who happily dug in after holding the tomato up in his front paws to inspect it.
Jorge found the burger surprisingly good. Cooter seemed to agree.
“Nice place you’ve got here,” Jorge said finishing the meal.
“We like it,”Mills said. “And there’s actually more of the city open than it looks. We just don’t advertise. We think of it as the Secret City.”
“Sounds like an old movie serial,” Jorge said.
“Yeah,” Mills said. “You’re not planning on staying are you?”
“No, Jorge said. “Cooter and I are headed out West. Wanna see if some friends of ours are still alive.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Well, I didn’t intend to start another serial but this sure has the feel of one! We’ll see what adventures await Jorge and Cooter in the Secret City at a later date. Again, thanks to Victor for the picture.
Posting this and the prompt pic for next week a day early because I’m going to be busy and a little out of it on Friday. ——-mike, AKA jeff
Kyle walked up the stairs to the second floor of the new Public Library. He was a little out of breath and realized he wasn’t a kid on the High School track team like he’d been ten years before.
He wandered around the bookcases, picking out the little things that he remembered from the older library building that was now being used for storage. A couple of framed posters for the Grade School Summer Reading Club; a little wooden box full of pencils that used to be for call slips for things from the downstairs storage area; ceramic busts of two ancient writers that had been stuck high on shelves staring across each other in the old Reading Room, now in a glass case and the big, plastic globe in the doorway to the Reference and Genealogy Area with it’s white spot where generations of kids had rubbed where Kansas was.
Kyle sighed. He hadn’t been anything but anxious since he had visited the Fortune Teller and she’d warned him about the End Of the World. He walked up to the third floor, went past the bookcases and the tables where patrons plugged-in their laptops to do homework or play video games and sat down in his favorite spot; the big couch by the big window with its view of the city skyline and the river.
Kyle let his gaze roam over the rows of bookcases that were just close to being a maze. Over the top of one of them he saw what looked like the tip of a red plume bobbing back and forth. Kyle realized that was part of what the Fortune Teller had warned him about; a literal sign that the time was drawing near.
Then the thirty-something man in the red stocking cap (which almost matched his red hair) and wearing sweats stepped from behind the stacks, saw Kyle and stared.
He walked over to where Kyle was sitting.
“That shirt and those green shoes,” the stranger said. “I know who you are. The…”
Kyle interrupted him.
“The Fortune Teller told you. And you’re Fritz.”
“Yeah,” Fritz said. “And you’re Kyle.”
Kyle nodded. Then said; “Hey, you want to sit down here? You get a great view.”
“Sure,” Fritz said with a half-smile. “I guess we don’t have a lot of time left.”
They sat down there on the couch and stared out the window. Fritz edged his hand over to Kyle’s and Kyle grabbed it and smiled. The Fortune Teller had told them they would be “playing for the same team.”
The two of them sat and watched the sky become dusk then night. They realized there was no better way to spend Earth’s last day.
And, of course it wasn’t the end of the world.
But it was a beginning.
Because fortune tellers are sneaky.
—end—
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Title is from Fritz Leiber’s story “I’m Looking For Jeff.” How could I resist? —-jeff
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The draws for the October 2024 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were A Monster Story set in a Cake Shop involving a Rubber Duck. Here’s the story, but can you spot the real monster? —-jeff
The last time I’d been in the shop it had been different.
Even the sign over the door reading Shrewsbury’s Cake Shop had been one of those bright neon things that looked so retro. Now, there was an old wooden sign hanging from a pole over the door. Glossy, painted and worn. Nonetheless, I went in.
Even though it was midnight and the store was closed and dark the door was unlocked.
The Girl was standing there, tall and slender and ageless in front of the glass counter laden with cakes. I knew something had lured me in here. She’s the lure, I thought. She eyed me hungrily in the dim light from the outside street lamp.
“Good dawning to thee, friend,” she said. She knew my vulnerability to the Bard.
“The bird of dawning singeth all night long,” I replied.
“Very nice, Conried,” she said, her tongue slithering against her mouth. “Your team won the previous battle, hence this store is as it is not as it was.”
“Yes,” I said, wishing I had not changed with it. My immaculate jacket and suit had become a ragged coat. My stubbly beard smelled of spilled whiskey. I’d had a house. Now I didn’t even have a car. “But the winning will not be changed,” I said.
“All things change,” the Girl said. “In fact they change always.” She raised a hand and pulled something from the darkness. The yellowish item in her hand squeaked and looked almost funny, as if the rubber duck longed for its bathtub. But I knew better. There was an air of cold menace about it.
She tossed it in the air as she hissed “Dolggna! Nyarlothotep! Danikoth! In the name of the Snakes I your Lady summon your darkness!”
Someone else would have expected the rubber duck to sprout wings, instead it fell to the floor as I knew it would. Sitting in the long rectangle of blue light from the front window, it’s shadow began to spread like spilled ink on water, cloudy tendrils with sharp points. The light began to flicker and I caught a glimpse of the cakes in the glass cases shivering expectantly.
I raised my arms and intoned “By the No-When! In the name of the Swordsmen! By the soaring Dragonet, I who walk the Living City summon thee in the name of the Spiders!”
There was a rush of wind from around and under the coat I was wearing. Shadows of a different sort swirled out from my own shadow and around the shadows produced by the duck thing. The pointed shadows around it rippled and became a huge shadowy claw accompanied by a piercing call that sounded like a prolonged squeak that was from the toy that was no longer a toy. In turn, my shadowy defenders dived and battered the claw thing letting out a hissing like a thousand angry cats ready for bloody battle.
Beyond them the Girl swelled, mouth open in a huge black “0,”becoming somehow taller than the small room could hold but still standing there in the shop and not touching the low ceiling.
The conflicting shadows swirled around each other, becoming at once a Mobius strip and a closing bloom of a dark flower. And from that bloom was a burst of negative light and an echo of an indescribable sound. The light engulfed the Girl (who had never been a girl) and shadows and girl vanished leaving not even a trace of the other creature which had certainly not really been a rubber duck.
The cake shop was silent. Nothing seemed to have changed. But the light had changed, I realized. The blue light of the lamp from outside was now a mellow yellow. I glanced down at myself. I was attired in a professorial set of tweeds. I smiled.
I stepped outside. The sign on the shop was now painted on the wood above the door. It read in simple flowing cursive: “Konditorei.”
“German for Cake Shop,” I mused aloud. I looked up.
There, in the cloudy sky a Zeppelin slowly edged through the night, carrying passengers towards the station on Telegraph Hill.
I smiled again and wandered toward my car, wondering what brand it was this time.
—end—
AUTHOR’S NOTE: An homage to one of my very favorite authors who also liked Shakespeare and cats and Lovecraft. Don’t know how he felt about rubber ducks! —-jeff
First, here’s the prompts for the October 2024 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge. Then my usual long-winded explanation:
A Monster Story
Involving A Rubber Duck
Set at A Cake Shop
Now, on to the details.
Hi! I’m Mike Mayak, I also write as Jeff Baker and I’m the current moderator for the monthly Flash Fiction Draw Challenge, which was started by ‘Nathan Burgoine a few years ago and carried on by Cait Gordon and Jeffrey Ricker. It’s a monthly writing challenge mainly for stress-free fun that anyone can play.
Here’s how it works: the first Monday of every month I draw three cards; a heart, a diamond and a club. These correspond to a list naming a genre, a setting and an object that must appear in the story. Participants write up a flash fiction story, 1,000 words or less, post it to their website and link it here in the comments. I’ll post the results (including, hopefully, one of my own!) My schedule is a little wonky this week so I’m posting it all a day early.
As I’m no good making videos I did the drawing offstage. So, the results were the Eight of Hearts (a Monster Story), the Twelve of Diamonds (A Cake Shop) and the Two of Clubs (A Rubber Duck.) So we will write a Monster Story, set in a Cake Shop, involving A Rubber Duck.
We’ll have the results here in this same space around Monday October 14, 2024.
So, get to writing and I’ll post the results next week! And I’m putting the 2024 Flash Draw sheet at the end of this message, again! (* indicates those have been used.)
Thanks for playing, and I’ll see you in about week!
And have fun!
——mike
Flash Draw Sheet for 2024 (“*” indicates prompt has been used.)
“How can you tell?” Kurt said. “It’s a highway in the Mojave Desert. It all looks the same.”
“Naah! Look over there!” Charlie said pointing over the steering wheel. “It’s the old shed. The one with the roof missing!”
He pulled the car over to the side of the road and the two of them sat in the air conditioning.
“The car broke down right about here,” Kurt said.
“Right about this time of year.” Charlie said. “It was hot.” He glanced at the dashboard thermometer. “Even hotter today.”
“And we had been fighting.” Kurt said. “I threatened to move out when we got back home.”
“And then it became if we got back home.”
“Yeah.” Kurt said. “No cellphone service.”
“We either would sit in the hot car and wait or risk walking.” Charlie said. “And we pulled out these.”
He reached behind the seat where he’d stashed the cooler and pulled out two plastic bottles of water.
“Oh yeah.” Kurt said grinning. “The stash.”
“Glad I had a case of bottled water in the trunk of the old car!” Charlie said.
“We got out of the car and started walking up the road,” Kurt said. “And I apologized. I said I didn’t know what we’d been fighting about, and that I didn’t want to leave you ever.”
“And I just got down on one knee, short pants, hot pavement and said if we make it out of here let’s make it official out in California. Let’s not wait.”
“And I about busted down crying and we hugged and kissed and toasted it with the bottles of water.” Kurt said.
“And I said we each ought to have an extra bottle of water with us and so we walked back to the car.” Charlie said.
“And that’s when we saw the bus coming down the highway.” Kurt said.
“Yeah,” Charlie laughed. “From the Flagstaff Jewish Student’s Association!”
“They’d been at a basketball tournament in Needles,” Kurt laughed. “We flagged them down and they gave us a lift!”
“That was what? Five years ago?” Charlie said.
“Happiest years of my life.” Kurt said.
They sat in the air conditioned car, kissed, toasted each other silently with the bottled water, and sat sipping the water.
“So,” Kurt said. “You wanna go out and re-enact our proposal?”
“Hell no! It’s 105 degrees out there! I’m not even turning off this car!” Charlie said. “We can do that when we get to the motel in L. A. How many more miles to needles anyway?”
He glanced at his smartphone and scrolled.
“Hey!” Charlie said. “Guess what? NOW we have cellphone service out here!”
The two of them laughed as they drove on to Needles.
authorjeffbaker 