"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974
“But we have made progress,” Cliff said looking around the house. “All that furniture we had crammed into the living room and kitchen yesterday.”
“And all your folks’ and my folks’ stuff was, well, still where it was.” Terry said with a laugh.
“Yeah.” Cliff said. “I wish you could have met my Mom. She would have liked you.”
“Thanks.” Terry said, holding Cliff’s hand and reaching over to kiss his husband.
“Look at that stuff,” Terry said. “It’s kind of like Christmas in reverse!”
“And we gotta put it all back. “Ho-ho-ho.” Cliff said.
I based this a little on helping some family move furniture last week. Next week, since it’s hot, something hot. In fact, NSFW! Till then, I am ever yours—-jeff
“Okay…OOOMPF! Watch the carpet!” Cliff Rogers grunted as he and Terry Slater edged the sofa back to its usual position under the living room window.
“Yeah…got it!” Terry said, carefully edging the end of the sofa against the corner. “Just gotta watch my feet!”
“You’re the one going barefoot!” Cliff said with a grin.
“No shoes on the carpet, remember?” Terry said grinning back. “There! Got it perfect.”
The two forty-somethings who still thought of themselves as young men surveyed the sofa pushed against the corner of the wall.
“Not perfect,” Cliff said. “The little cabinet goes in the corner there, remember? Next to the plug for our chargers and you Mom’s old lamp?”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Terry said, glancing over at the stacks of furniture in the dining room which covered and blocked the table they’d pushed against the back wall. “And I think the cabinet is under all that stuff.”
“Swell.” Cliff said. “We can get that all done. But I’m taking a break!”
Cliff plopped down on the sofa and Terry sat down right next to him.
“But we have made progress,” Cliff said looking around the house. “All that furniture we had crammed into the living room and kitchen yesterday.”
“And all your folks’ and my folks’ stuff was, well, still where it was.” Terry said with a laugh.
“Yeah.” Cliff said. “I wish you could have met my Mom. She would have liked you.”
“Thanks.” Terry said, holding Cliff’s hand and reaching over to kiss his husband.
“Look at that stuff,” Terry said after a minute. “It’s kind of like Christmas in reverse! And we have to put all the presents back where we found them!”
In another moment an orange streak bounded up to the couch and jumped onto Cliff and Terry, stretching onto their laps and kneading with her paws in their chests.
“Hey, Scooter!” Terry said. “No, we didn’t lose the cat food! Or your bowl.”
“Where was he?” Cliff asked. “I thought he was outside?”
“Hid under the bed as soon as we put it back in the bedroom.” Terry said.
“Bed sounds good.” Cliff said.
“Yeah. After we get that stuff…”
“I know! I know!” Cliff said with another grin.
“Hey,” Terry said to the cat. “We’re getting up. You want to help?”
Scooter looked from one of them to the other, then hopped off their laps and down the hallway to the bedroom as they started getting up.
“Oh well, once more unto the breach?” Cliff said.
“Yeah.” Terry said. “Order pizza later?”
“Sounds good.” Cliff said.
“Okay,” Terry said. “Grab that end of the couch and I got this end. Move it back just…about…yeah.”
Here’s a couple of stories from my long (4,000+ miles!) drive from Wichita through Arizona, New Mexico and California and back again.
“We left for Frisco in your Rambler…” —Diesel, Sausilito Summernight
I left the kitties with my Brother’s family in Western Kansas in early June 2024 and barreled out to drive to San Francisco, California (actually Livermore!) to scatter Darryl’s ashes in the Bay. I packed water, food bars and notebooks along with necessities like clothes. But I had a multiple purpose in driving out there.
The route I was taking was through New Mexico and Arizona. Decades ago I had family in the Southwest and I wanted to see a few places again. (I planned a stop in Albuquerque where my Great-Grandmother and Great-Aunt had lived for the trip back. I almost didn’t realize I was in Albuquerque because of the high wall on the highway!) I drove through New Mexico, gawked at the beauty of the desert and continued on into Arizona.
My plan was to do the trip in two stages; I had originally planned to drive to Needles, CA and stay the night, but I changed it to a stop in Flagstaff, Arizona. That would make it a ten-hour drive both days. Well, actually a twelve-hour drive as I stopped to use the loo and do just a bit of sightseeing.
I took note of the signs for turnoffs to the Grand Canyon (been there about 50 years ago!) and Phoenix. We had gone through Phoenix on our way to the Grand Canyon about 1973 or so. Not this time.
So twelve hours it was and I was getting pooped when I hit Flagstaff (a really beautiful area!) found a Super 8 Motel just off the highway and pulled in to the parking lot. The clock on my dashboard said about 6:00pm.
But that wasn’t quite right—I had crossed into the Arizona Time Zone and it was about Four in the afternoon. I realized that through a quirk of geography I had two extra hours and that I had arrived for my first overnight stay in late afternoon, just like my Grandparents and I did when we would drive to Albuquerque from Wichita decades ago. I checked in, unpacked, set my alarm and crashed. Woke up a few hours later, heated up the food I brought (thank you Super 8 Motel for microwaves and cups in the rooms!) and sat around watching videos on my smartphone.
At no point during either of my motel stays on the trip did I even think of turning on the television.
Alarm set I snoozed and got up before the alarm, somewhere around five thirty to throw my stuff into my bag, toss the stuff into my car, check out and continue the drive to California.
I’ll go into more of my adventures getting to Livermore another time. Right now I want to talk about the return trip, heading back to my Brother’s house from Flagstaff and another Super 8 Motel and losing two hours.
I slept in more than I should, had breakfast at the motel (Yum! No, really!) and hit the road about seven-ish or so. I’ll go into my first visit to Albuquerque in 45 years in a later post. But here’s what happened after I left there.
Pretty simple heading back to Tucumcari, New Mexico on I-40 but I got turned around looking for Highway 54 in the dusk there—it was not clearly marked. I had to ask directions. Stupid! I came in on the road heading to the mountain two weeks earlier, and even took a picture! I should just go away from the mountain on the only paved road heading to/away from it. Finally did that and headed through Arizona, a bit of Texas and the Oklahoma Panhandle, Highway 54 a two lane highway, feeling very much like a backroads trip or like I was on the highway in the 1960s. I fueled up and used the facilities at a convenience store in maybe Dalhart as the wind was whipping up and it did sprinkle on me just a bit during the trip. My companion through those late-night hours was the SIRIUS XM radio station “Radio Classics” which was playing episodes of the fun show “Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.” Somehow the 40s/50s ambiance fit with the ancient-seeming back road drive in the dark.
I hit Kansas after midnight and pulled into my Brother’s driveway about One in the morning. Sat there for a few minutes relieved to be back. Texted the family to tell them I was finally there and wondered what my kitties would think of me bailing and leaving them. I needn’t have worried. I unlocked the door and went in through the back porch, snuck downstairs in the quiet house and left my bags (and laptop) in the guest room. Then I hopped upstairs to grab something from the fridge.
At least one of my kitties greeted me, sort of indifferently like they hadn’t noticed I was gone. But they were sweet. It was good to be at the home-away-from-home.
I ate, hopped back downstairs, checked mail and then crashed, realizing that if I ever got back to California I wouldn’t be doing the driving but I was glad I did it this way this time!
Woke up next afternoon and wandered through the house. Nobody there but me and the kitties.
—end—
——jeff baker, July 31, 2024.
NOTE: Borrowed the title from a piece by Arnold Schoenberg. —-j
Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974
“Hey, Tommy, hold my sparkler, okay?” Kip handed the nearly burned down sparkler to Tommy and rushed off, yelling over his shoulder. “I gotta go take a leak.”
Tommy stared. “Shoulda done that before you left the house,” he muttered.
Okay, just a bit more
Kip ducked between two of the tall old apartment buildings and darted into the alley behind them, quickly shucking off his duster, t-shirt, shoes and jeans, pulling a pair of welder’s goggles out of the duster pocket, wadded the clothes up and tossed them behind a dumpster as he muttered
“Fire, fire, blazing way
Carry me to the sky today”
In an instant, his skin radiated heat, then fire, then a sheen like molten rock, rippled with streaks of flame. In another moment, a twister of fire surrounded Kip and he swiftly rose into the sky, what was left of the clothes he’d been wearing reduced to cinders.
Maybe more than six lines but it’s a superhero transformation and takeoff. Gotta have that! I’ve written a few stories about the superheroes (and villains) in Hudson City and this may be my favorite. Next week, more snippets.—jeff
The dead of night at Liverwurst Labs at the edge of Goat’s Town. Home to the nation’s preeminent scientists and their cutting edge discoveries. But what’s this? Two familiar figures skulking about in the dark?
“Golly Captain Ecology!” Compost Boy whispered. “Why are we staking out the Labs on tonight of all nights?”
“My sources tell me that The Chicken Queen has been nesting in Goat’s Town, and with his vast intellect and thirst for power the labs are his most likely target.” Captain Ecology said. “Why their work on computers alone could…Compost Boy are you all right?”
“Uh, yeah, Cap. It’s just that…well I guess…”
“There you are, caped do-gooders!” came the familiar, nasal voice, a voice somehow tinged with a leer. Captain Ecology thought it sounded like the actor who was in the center of that tick-tack-toe game show. “I’ve got the plans for the technology that will revolutionize storing information right here in my grubby hand!”
He was wearing a dark blue suit, a thin mask over his eyes and a shirt emblazoned with a yellow chicken emblem. He laughed evilly and nasally as he waved a sheaf of papers.
“And I’ll destroy it all unless you give me what I want!” The Chicken Queen laughed again. Again evilly and nasally.
“What could we possibly give a megalomaniac like you?” Captain Ecology said through grit teeth.
“Him, that’s what!” said the super villain, pointing at Compost Boy.
“Me? Golly!” Compost Boy said, a shocked look on his masked face.
“You fiend!” Captain Ecology said, striding up to the villain, fists upraised. “How dare you endanger an innocent lad with your…”
“Uh, hold it Captain.” Compost Boy said raising a hand. “Um, everything’s fine. I don’t think those are the plans of anything.”
“What?” Captain Ecology said.
“Remember that long phone call I made this afternoon? That was, uh, with him.” Compost Boy pointed at the Chicken Queen. “We kind of set this up.”
“Set this up?” Captain Ecology said.
“We used to date,” the Chicken Queen said with a shrug.
“Date?!” Captain Ecology said, floored. “I know he plays around but I will not let you soil the innocence of…”
“Hey, I’m twenty-five years old, remember?” Compost Boy said. “And I just work with you, you don’t plan my social life.”
“But this criminal broke in here…” Captain Ecology started to say.
“Not exactly broke in,” Compost Boy said. “He works here.”
“I have a key,” the Chicken Queen said with another shrug.
“Um, so you take the Ecolo-Car back and I’ll call a cab,” Compost Boy said grinning at the Chicken Queen. “Later!”
The Captain gave a halfhearted wave as Compost Boy walked over to the Chicken Queen.
“Hey, you’re not gonna tie me up again are you?” Compost Boy asked.
“Heavens no!” The Chicken Queen said. “A little dinner, some wine, some dancing and then…”
Captain Ecology waved again as the pair walked out of sight. The Nineteen-Seventies were getting weird.
—end—
NOTE: The Chicken Queen character was from an idea by the late Darryl Thompson. Thanks.
I turned 64 on Saturday July 20th, 2024! Celebrated with some good friends (like kitty above!) and grilled burgers and ate too much cake.
The night sky was cloudy or I would have gone out Moon-watching. The near-full Moon on my birthday is also on the anniversary of the July 20, 1969 arrival of astronauts on the Moon. Literally the first Moonwalk! And I watched it on our old black-and-white TV on our back patio (extension cord) keeping an eye on the Moon in the evening sky above me as history played out on the screen. Fifty-Five years ago.
Every week we post six lines from a work of ours, a work-in-progress or published or a recommendation of someone else’s work with at least one LGBT character. Posted at Rainbow Snippets here:https://www.facebook.com/groups/963484217054974
The prompt pic (above) was one I took in New Mexico on my recent travels. The Continental Divide is the elevated point where water drains toward the Atlantic on one side and the Pacific on the other. The marker was too good not to use for a story.
“Over here,” Dad/Mom said, actually walking on the road. “Just a short ways.”
I followed him/her, breathing in uncycled air and feeling the flat, hard road under my shoes.
“Right here,” Dad/Mom said. There was a large sign, almost as tall as Dad/Mom and taller than me just off the road. It was some kind of sturdy board. “Do you read Murcan?”
“Of course,” I said. “I did my Languology last year.” I stared at the board. “But this is Ancient Languology. Old Murcan.”
A little more than six lines, but too good not to use. Here’s more.
I studied the words. The Ancient words were slightly different but not that hard to read.
Continental Divide
Elevation 7,295 feet
Rainfall divides at this point
To the West it drains
Into the Pacific Ocean
And the remaining words were worn away. Maybe by the curious feeling antiquity with their fingers.
And we leave it there. Next week, we celebrate a holiday a bit late in Hudson City. —jeff
Really not a lot of progress to report this month. Maybe I was coming down from driving 4,000 miles last month.
I did the usual Friday Flash Fiction stories and wrote the Flash Fiction Draw Challenge story. Also did a couple of the columns for Queer Sci Fi, including one about going to Sacramento and finally meeting J. Scott Coatsworth. A delight to meet, a delight to write!
Also finished reading through an anthology that will be the QSF column for Halloween.
I sort of did some writing. Read through the longer story that I am going to finish soon and did a little research (and even some tweaking) on some stories I have in the pipe. Started a story and an essay that I will finish. And I wrote and revised at least two poems.
Plus, I scoped-out markets for some of my stories.
I have only really kicked it back into high gear in the last week or so.
So, that’s about it for now! (And tomorrow I turn 64!)
Not a lot of actual reading done this period. Maybe I was coming down from the long car trip.
Read my usual online delights: Kaje Harper’s weekly story and J. Scott Coatsworth’s serial novel-in-progress (“Down The River”) which is updated weekly. (See previous Reading Reports for links; both author’s works are highly recommended!)
Started reading “We Mostly Come Out At Night,” a YA anthology edited by Rob Costello. Bummed through it and used it to write a column.
Speaking of Rob Costello; I read a fine story of his, “The Hole Of Dark Kill Hollow” in a Y.A. anthology called “Rural Voices.”
Read the graphic novel “Nightwing; Get Grayson.”
And read more of Scotty Bowers’ book “Full Service.” (Took me a bit to get the double meaning of the title!)
“You’re kidding!” Jasper Wheeler said gawking at the old heap parked in the garage. “Old Man Kingston left you that?”
“Yeah!” Eddie Shooter said. “Isn’t it great?”
“Maybe about 1956 it would’ve been great, but now…” Jasper’s voice trailed off. He stared at the ancient garage, really a carport on the side of the old garage separate from Eddie’s parent’s house on the edge of town. The house had been rebuilt and refurbished, the garage just shored up. The carport looked like a lean-to.
The car wasn’t in much better shape. Rust seemed to be its best feature. Seats covered by towels, worn interior, dashboard looked okay at least.
“How’d you get this here anyway?” Jasper asked.
“Drove it,” Eddie said. “Well, kind of. Towed it last night but the engine works enough that it kinda helped to get the car right in here. It was Old Man Kingston’s son’s big project.”
Jasper nodded. Kingston’s son had died before either of the twenty somethings had been born.
“He rebuilt some of it, I know that,” Eddie said. “And he was working on the engine. I have a box of parts, and…” Eddie waved a roll of paper in the air. “…plans he wrote out!”
“It’s why his Dad never got rid of the car,” Jasper said.”
“Yeah.” Eddie said. “Look, I figure it’ll take a few months to actually get this in working order again. The wheels and all are okay…”
“Amazingly enough.” Jasper said.
“Look, when I get it running again, I want you to be my first official passenger. After the inspection and the licensing that is.” Eddie took Jasper’s hand and looked into his eyes. “There’s a big question I want to ask you. But not now.”
Eddie grinned. This was like the night they’d first kissed four years ago when they were both going to school and working and grabbing every moment together. He was sure what his answer was going to be.
authorjeffbaker 