"…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 of a story of ours, a work-in-progress or from someone else’s work we recommend that has LGBT characters on Rainbow Snippets here https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets
Josh and I had been hired to find some missing jewelry, gems that hadn’t even been reported stolen yet, the owner felt he was to embarrassed to do what he should have done and called the police.
Early Breakfast usually had more customers in the morning but that was the morning of the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade downtown. I had said something about the big rooster on top of the building being the Saint Patrick’s Day Chicken and Josh grumbled something about sticking to business.
In this case, “business” meant sipping coffee at a back corner table and keeping track of everyone in the restaurant. Including the owner.
That’s it for this week! Join us next time for an encounter in a motel. —-jeff
The draws for the April 2023 Challenge were a Hardboiled Detective Story, a Prison Work Farm and a Model T Ford. Here’s my story.
All Work and No Play
by Jeff Baker
In the two weeks I’d been at Prairie County Correctional Work Farm I’d gotten into two fights, nearly got myself thrown in solitary (they call it “The Hole”) and picked lots of potatoes. So I was fitting right in.
The blue denim shirt itched, the plastic badge with my name and picture on it kept poking me, the food sucked and I knew I really didn’t belong there. I mean, I really didn’t but it was part of the job.
The badge identified me as Jack Adamski (which I was) but omitted the fact that I was a private detective or that I was in prison because several friends I have in the legal system had sold the State on hiring me to discreetly act to prevent a killing of somebody they might need later.
They didn’t know whether he really was who they needed, they didn’t want to draw attention to him by putting him in protective custody and, oh yes; they didn’t know which of the inmates was their man.
Swell.
I wasn’t known by any of the cons here, the Pen up in Millington was another matter but we’d checked the roster of inmates before I’d been put in. Nobody but the Warden knew who I was.
Prairie County Correctional was on a few acres just off the highway in Western Kansas. A front gate and low, wooden office building and several rows of metal barracks with large fields of various vegetables which the inmates harvested to help feed the prisoners. They also were marched out to clean highway rubbish and clear fallen trees and the like.
Across the road was an overgrown lot wit junk cars including a Model T Ford and a rusted V.W. Bug.
I was lying on my cot exhausted after a work detail in the little cubicle all the inmates had in the barracks; a brick wall about waist-high when one of the old movie cliches walked in. In the movies, it’s the tall blonde walking into the P. I.’s office. This blonde was short, male with bunchy muscles and tattoos. And he knew who I really was.
“I know who you’re looking for,” the blonde said in a low whisper. “They’ve got him in the hole.”
“What did he do?” I asked, sitting up in my cot.
“Asked for protection,” the blonde said. “He knows someone’s after him.”
“He got a name?” I asked.
“It’ll cost you,” the blonde said.
I forked over a pack of cigarettes, feeling like a real cliche. I’d had friends on the outside put some money on my books for the smokes from the canteen. That got me his first name: Morty.
It took some wrangling but I got on a detail sweeping the floor in the barracks where they had Morty. Basically a row of standard prison cells and Morty’s was the only one occupied. We were able to talk and I found that while he was the guy I was looking for, he was also part of a smuggling ring inside the prison. That was the reason he had been targeted, not anything he’d done on the outside.
The “drop” was across the road in the old Model T Ford.
Morty was telling me all this when I was jumped by two big cons who had snuck up on me. Security was pretty lax in this place I thought as I brawled for my life. One of them punched me in the face,
Guards showed up.
All three of us were thrown in the hole, and yes the other two were involved in the smuggling.
I spent the night in the hole with the two yelling at me and spoke to the warden the next day. I got sprung and I got paid my fee.
I guess I was persona non grata in that prison from now on. Fine with me. I filled out my report and went back to my apartment to sleep.
All in all it was a lot safer than some of my divorce cases had been.
“Yes! Finally!” Gewe said, bending over, clutching his knees and catching his breath.
They had been running these last few yards.
The silvery dome, surmounted by a silver spire, was atop a low-roofed white building behind a low wall.
“Think there are guards?” Inole asked cautiously.
“Yeah. There’d have to be.” Gewe said.
“Let’s go.” Inole said.
Gewe nodded and they started up the hill.
The crouched and walked stealthily around the wall. Then Gewe peeked over.
“No guards,” he said.
“No guards?” Inole asked. “How come?”
“Don’t know.” Gewe said. “Maybe they’re as scared as we are.”
Inole nodded and pointed at the top of the wall. Gewe scrambled and hoisted himself over the wall. After a moment, Inole followed.
The area inside the wall was smaller than Inole had thought.
“Now what?” Inole asked.
“We use it.” Gewe said. “And maybe we get home.
“But how,” Inole said walking around the dome, “do we even get in?”
“With this.” Gewe said, holding up a small silver sphere that glowed in the dimming light.
—end—
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
This story was written early this week at the hospital when I believed my husband Darryl was going to get better and go through some physical therapy and be back home in a few months. Then we found out how really sick he was and he passed away a day or so later. So this story is for Darryl.
Mark Russell, America’s foremost political satirist, has died at the age of 90. His live comedy specials were fixtures of PBS from the Ford to G. W. Bush administrations. His live performances in Washington D.C. made him a fixture of the political scene with many of the political figures he skewered in the audience.
Several commentators, noting Russell’s fifty year career as a performer said that Russell represented an era of civility in politics that has seemingly vanished. Because Russell’s satire, while incisive, was never mean-spirited. And his satire was up-to-the-minute topical.
In his TV special following the 9/11 and anthrax attacks he told the live audience: “Welcome to the Mark Russell Comedy Special, brought to you by Cipro.”
Russell was as well-known for his topical song parodies as anything and they were masterpieces of lyric and of satiric commentary. To the tune of the famous Willie Nelson song, Russell wrote the spoof “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Consultants” that included the lines:
“Consultin’ ain’t easy
The life’s kinda sleazy
And sometimes he rides into town
He coulda gone straighter
Four martinis later
He’s shakin’ a bureaucrat down.”
I saw Russell perform live several times, and heard him deliver one of my favorite lines. Commenting that he’d been traveling through the Midwest and seen a headline that read “Supreme Court Considers Homosexuality,” Russell quipped: “All nine of them?!”
I met him once after he did a show here in Wichita and got his autograph on his book of comedic essays. I patterned my own topical comedy act during my brief performing career after his own. I was no Mark Russell.
Decades later when I’d become a writer I submitted a song I’d written “on speculation” (as we writers say.) Russell e-mailed me back, saying he had recently retired.
His e-mail compliment on the song, a compliment from one of my comedy heroes, meant more to me than anything else ever could.
To paraphrase what Russell used to tell his audiences as the show ended: “Thank you very much, Mark.”
First, here’s the prompts for the April 2023 Flash Fiction Draw Challenge. Then my usual long-winded explanation:
A Hardboiled Detective Story
Involving a Model T. Ford
Set at a Prison Work Farm
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 (and hopefully have one of my own written!) the week of April 10th, 2023.
As I’m no good making videos I did the drawing offstage and the results were the Seven of Hearts (A Hardboiled Detective Story), the Four of Clubs (A Model T Ford) and the Eight of Diamonds (A Prison Work Farm.)
So we will write a Hardboiled Detective Story, set at a Prison Work Farm involving a Model T Ford!
So, get to writing and I’ll post the results next week!
Every week we post six lines of a story of ours, a work-in-progress or from someone else’s work we recommend that has LGBT characters on Rainbow Snippets here https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets
This story (“Crisis at Pride”) comes with a built-in introduction, and I’ll talk about the whole thing after the snippets.
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.
Let’s jump right into the action! Snippet two:
“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.
Okay, one more!
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.
Steven First Enters the Tower and Views the Magical City
by Jeff Baker
I turned fifteen years old in the Summer of 1974 and spent most of July flat on my back in a hospital bed on the seventh floor. I wasn’t in for anything life-threatening but I wasn’t going to be running after baseballs for a while.
I wasn’t that bored, Mom & Dad kept me supplied with comic books , I got to watch a lot of TV. Lots of game shows back then and local reruns of “I Dream of Jeannie” at four in the afternoon. And my older brother slipped me a crumbling paperback of something called “Topper,” presumably because it had a cover drawing showing a topless lady in panties (her top turned discreetly away from the reader!) I hid that one from Mom &b Dad.
“Don’t show the Folks, Stevie,” my Brother said with a conspiratorial wink.
Then, of course, there was the Tower.
The Tower was a large radio-T. V. antenna sticking out of the seeming forest of front-yard trees in the neighborhoods that stretched out across the city, and which I could see if I leaned over and angled my head just right.
I couldn’t miss it. It was at least a mile away but it dominated the view from my big window. It was black in the early morning light, then when the mid-morning sun hit it the Tower became a wonder of red and white etched against the blue sky.
In that month of TV., comics and tests watching the Tower as it changed through the day was as fascinating a show as the tube could offer.
I would watch it sink into the dusk it’s red lights flashed into the darkness.
And in the darkness, I would sleep and dream, lying there under hospital sheets, that I was climbing the tower in the dark, the lights smiling at me and then I would reach the top and sit down on the large, flat surface and survey the glittering city and the blue-white stripe of river and drink soda out of Styrofoam cups with my Brother and a couple of the interns and Granddad (who had passed away two years before.) We were all on top of the tower somehow and we partied the dream-night away.
In the decades since, I caught a glimpse of the Tower from time to time, not looming as large from a distance viewed from the ground. But one afternoon I drove to the seedy neighborhood where the tower stood and I saw it up close for the first time. It’s base protected by a fence topped with barbed wire on a lot surrounded by boarded-up houses. It hadn’t aged. Sturdy. Strong. From a Summer when I was not. I glanced upward and shielded my eyes from the Sun’s glare. The Tower was still red and white slipping into dark shadow on the ground around the trees.
As I drove away I heard in my mind the echoes of that long-ago dream party atop a tower that touched the stars in my sleep.
—end—
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Although this story is largely fictionalized, most of it really happened to me in the Summer of (I think) 1974. The picture is the actual tower I saw in those long-ago days. And it was my folks who got me the copy of “Topper,” which I still have, including the racy cover! —–jeff
Every week we post six lines of a story of ours, a work-in-progress or from someone else’s work we recommend that has LGBT characters on Rainbow Snippets here https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets
Here’s the first snippet, a bit more than six lines from “Caliburnus and Chocolate.”
“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.”
Here’s another snippet:
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.
Here’s one more snippet:
“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.”
Okay, that’s it for now! Did you recognize Foremann Aurelian? Our two young lads didn’t! And I promise someday I’ll uncover what the chronicles say about Gruffudd yn Aur and his adventures. Oh, and check my response in the comments of the original post where I identify the easter eggs in the story! Next week, more snippets I’m sure you’ll enjoy! Until then, goodnight! ——jeff
This all happened to me my Junior Year in High School. I had a job working at Movie Palace (that was the name of the place!) in a cheap shopping center. Back when shopping centers were a big deal.
Movie Palace had just one theater, metal seats with cushions, no big decorations like the older theaters but we kept the theater clean, and sold tickets at the right price. Nowadays there’s a laundromat where the theater was and I wouldn’t go near their snack machine but back in the 1970s it was kind of a cool place to work.
Two little restaurants, the dress shop my Mom went to all the time, a little bookstore and the theater at the far end of the building. And we were about the only kids Mr. Lotan hired that stuck with the job for a year.
Louis went to a different High School than I did but he always said “Augie, we gotta be crazy to keep this job.” Maybe we were but we were awfully young.
That was the year “Jaws” was making a big splash (I know, sorry!) and so my Boss, Mr. Lotan, was quick to capitalize by booking a quickly-made knockoff; “Teeth of Terror” was an hour-and-thirty five minutes long but it felt longer. It would have been shown on one of those cable shows where they show bad movies if they had been around then and besides the film just wasn’t that good.
Anyway, my boss loved gimmicks, his patron saint was probably William Castle so he paid a couple of local carpenters to build an open shark’s mouth, big enough to walk through and put it at the entrance to the theater, right beside the ticket window. Of course, the skittish customers could walk around the mouth and some of them did.
It worked like a charm, getting attention and publicity even a picture in the local paper.
Luis cracked that the caption of the picture was better-written than the script for the movie.
Amazingly, the movie actually played for longer than we expected it to.
The first odd thing came a couple of weeks after it opened. Somebody came in looking for their grown daughter. She’d said she was going to see the movie and her car was parked in the parking lot but it had been there for several days. He showed us a picture and I remembered her; she’d come in to see the movie wearing a bikini top. I remember thinking she’d be wishing she’d brought a sweater.
A couple of weeks later, a cop actually chased a guy into the theater, right through the open jaws. He’d robbed a store and probably thought he’d be able to hide in the theater. No dice.
But they never came out.
At first, I thought they’d gone out the emergency exit but then I remembered Mr. Lotan had put alarms on the doors in case somebody left them open to let someone in.
Then there was the afternoon some old guy, smelling of gin bought his ticket and was the only one in the theater for that showing. He walked through the jaws and didn’t come out of the theater when the show was over. Louis and I checked the theater, even looking under the seats.
Most of the people who walked through the shark’s teeth came back out, but not everybody. Several people had disappeared and Louis and I had stopped kidding about it. It wasn’t part of any gimmick.
So, I went up to Mr. Lotan’s office and was about to knock on his door when I heard his voice, talking on the phone?
No, singing on the phone.
No, chanting. Chanting something about “Leviathan.”
That was when I quit.
Louis walked out right after I did.
I had them mail me my paycheck, and I stayed away from that shopping center and saw all my movies at the Westlink Multiplex across town.
—end—
———-for Joel
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Again, special thanks to Joel Sanderson for the picture. (That’s him in the wetsuit.) Theater showing “Jaws” in 1976.
Every week we post six lines of a story of ours, a work-in-progress or from someone else’s work we recommend that has LGBT characters on Rainbow Snippets here https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets
“Seriously, boss. I’m not from this world, and even I know it’s a bad idea to steal from the sea master.”
Though only he could hear Spin’s voice, Raven wished the little silver ay-eye would just shut up.
The hencha cloth-wrapped package in the carriage above was calling to him. He’d wanted it since he’d first seen it through the open door. No, needed it. Like he needed air, even though he had no idea what was inside. He scratched the back of his hand hard to distract himself from its disturbing pull.
Hope that tantalizes you! (I also hope you don’t go around swallowing dragons and stealing stuff!) I can highly recommend this and anything Scott writes https://www.jscottcoatsworth.com/
See you for more snippets next week when two young men find wonder in a junkyard! —-jeff
authorjeffbaker 