"…his stories are always sharp and compact and interesting." ——Angel Martinez "(One of) the hottest authors in the independent horror scene…" —-Hellbound Books
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.
For the last three years I have been a happy participant in the Rainbow Snippets group where every week we posted 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. The group was moderated by Paula Wyant. I was taking a break from doing that (I was running out of stories) when I heard the news that Paula had died last weekend. I had already planned this bit from my friend J. Scott Coatsworth’s new book which was released last week. So I’m posting it here with thanks to Paula for all the fun and making Rainbow Snippets a welcoming site which became a little community for all of us. I’ll just post it as I wrote it a few days ago.—-jeff
Okay, I’m back, (for this week anyway!) My friend J. Scott Coatsworth’s new book “The Death Bringer” is out! https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com/book/the-death-bringer/ The fourth book in his Tharassas Cycle (which was supposed to be a trilogy, but it grew!) Let’s jump right in, shall we?
He’d been someone else. Before.
Who was I? Memories of a face—dark hair, intense eyes that nevertheless twinkled at him. Raven.
It came flooding back to him. His mother. His life in Gullton. Training to be a guard and meeting Raven for the first time. My name is Aik.
He reached for the mask that covered his face. It was suffocating. Something was stuck in his throat, and he coughed hard, trying to force it out, whipping around and causing the liquid around him to flash red in alarm.
Okay. Here’s more…
Calm yourself. The voice was as thick and heavy as an ix hide, and just as soft and warm.
Aik pushed back. What are you doing to me? I don’t want this! Let me out! He thrashed about, trying to force his way through the suffocating liquid. The metal crept up his shoulder. If it covered all of him, he would be lost.
Calm yourself! It was more insistent this time.
Still more…
Aik stiffened as an enforced lethargy settled over him. He lost control of his limbs, falling still in his floating prison. The voice pressed against his mind. You’re safe. Be calm, my little one.
He closed his eyes and thought of Raven, trying to stay fixed on that face. I can’t let myself forget again.
Then the world around him dissolved, and he was swept up in a torrent of memories that weren’t his own.
Whet your appetite? Good! I’ll go all fanboy and say that I’m crazy about anything Scott writes! (And I’ve met him; he’s an awfully nice guy!)
And with that I will once more say thanks to Paula and express my sympathies to her family, friends and readers —-jeff
The French Quarter Just Off Douglas, or A Streetcar Named Rock Island
by Jeff Baker
The girl in the print dress stepped out the door, past the hanging plants, walked up to the metal railing, put her hand to her forehead and exclaimed: “Oh, what are we going to do? There’s a hurricane on the way, it’s almost Mardi Gras and I can’t make up my mind between…”
The kid behind the super-8 camera on the tripod sighed.
“Becky, what are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m improvising, Bryant, remember?” Becky said.
“Yeah, but stick to the story,” Bryant said. “Besides, it’s not Mardi Gras and there’s no hurricane in the script.”
“There’s hardly any script either,” Johnny grumbled standing behind Bryant watching the whole thing.
“Never mind that, you just remember what you’re supposed to do.” Bryant took a deep breath trying not to be too exasperated. He’d written the script for their film class after seeing the spot in downtown Wichita that he thought could pass for New Orleans. He’d never been to New Orleans but he’d seen pictures. Anyway, they wouldn’t be up for the Academy Award for 1977. Hopefully, they’d just get an “A” on the project.
“Okay, let’s start up again.” Bryant said. “Marco, this is your big scene.”
“I still don’t have my lines,” Marco said.
“There really aren’t any. We don’t have sound, remember?” Bryant said. “Just remember the story, okay? You’re the Creole guy she’s really in love with, not her stuffy boyfriend she has to marry for…”
“That’s another thing; I’m not Creole, I’m Mexican…” Marco said.
“The guy who played Charlie Chan wasn’t Chinese either.” Bryant said. “You’re an actor, it’s the magic of the movies. I know, this is not exactly Tennessee Williams but this project is due in three weeks and there’s developing and editing…”
“Okay,” Marco said, getting into position by the stairs at the outside of the old warehouse they were using to film.
“All ready…Action!” Bryant said.
It actually looked good. Marco walked up to Becky and pleaded with her to run off with him, while she professed her love to him but her need to marry her rich fiance, played by Johnny. In reality, Marco and Becky couldn’t stand each other.
Behind the camera, Bryant waved with one hand. “Okay, Johnny. This is your scene. “Get up there and break that up.” That would lead to the climactic final fight where one of them would get shot. Bryant hadn’t decided which one yet.
Bryant was standing at the other side of the street so he could get the scene by the doorway in the scene. It looked perfect. Johnny walked up to Marco and Becky and got between them, looking angry.
There was a rumble as a tall truck passed between the camera and the actors behind the railing.
Bryant thought for a moment about yelling “Cut” like a director he’d seen on a TV show once.
Johnny shrugged as Marco called out: “I’m going to the movies. And I’m going to get a glass menagerie.”
Bryant smiled. At least somebody else had read Tennessee Williams.
—end—
Author’s Note: Two of the streets in the downtown Delano District of Wichita (where I took the picture and set the story) are Rock Island and Douglas.
authorjeffbaker 