Southern Gothic

Hoodyhoo!

2008-05-01T07:17:00.000-07:00

I am pleased to announce that two stories published at Southern Gothic in 2007 have been recognized as Notable Stories by the storySouth Million Writer's Award.

They are:

The Tennessee Scrambler by Stephen Roger Powers
MisLiza was Soothsaid by Lucious Vaughn

In late May or early June, Jason Sanford will select the Top Ten stories from the list of Notables. Then, readers will have the chance to vote for the best story published online in 2007.

Last year, Mark MacNamara's story Vertically Divided, Blue-Red-White made the Top Ten list and ultimately finished tied for 5th place in the reader poll. I hope that we can at least repeat that performance this year, and maybe even better it! Certainly, both of Stephen's and Lucious' stories deserve to make the Top Ten, but then again, I am rather prejudiced toward them.

As a side note, a novella written by your humble editor was also recognized as a Notable Story. Ananke was published in 2007 at Theaker's Quarterly.

Full Disclosure: I was once again honored to serve as a preliminary judge for the Million Writers Award. However, I did not know who the other judges were at the time I made my selections, nor was I allowed to choose stories from Southern Gothic or any of my own published stories. Not that I would have. Jason Sanford takes great care not to prevent any conflicts of interest or even the appearance of conflicts of interest which could jeopardize the credibility of the contest. And if you don't know Jason, he edits storySouth, which is a damn good online literary magazine.

The Grimoire of Reverend Levesque

2008-03-04T18:42:00.000-08:00

"The Grimoire of Reverend Levesque"
by Wendy Koenigsmann

The Haunters or the Haunted?

It was many years ago, yet they still tell the story of Rose and the man known as Leroi Levesque, a scoundrel if ever there was, known as much for his hollow words of faith as much as his sordid dealings with the devil. He was a hollow man, they say. He wound her, like the tale I am about to tell, in the hollowness of his whispers, wound her hair in ringlets and reeds where she drowned many years ago. Here in this white house they often met.

It was here, where lush foliage creeps around a small white house, the wet grass prickling white, blood-strained feet. Leroi Levesque tipped his hat and the sun disappeared when he smiled. Rows of corn, endless, and then appeared another harsh light, the light of unreality and dreams. His smile, also endless.

It was the time of gaslight and absinthe and also wild decadence, under scrutiny of high-mannered folk who still clung to illusion, who still clung to the reeds, like Rose. But the banks full of reeds were steep. Rose was drenched wet that summer's day when she heard Leroi Levesque's lone whistle. A hot torrent of rain fell across the bayou as the damp foliage strangled the white house. The wet, sharp grass against her blood-stained feet.

Leroi Levesque stood in the field, walking with sure strides, his boots dragging through the mud; his eyes were flickering with a sort of unusual fervor. Rose turned around on her knees. She smiled as Leroi anointed her with the spirit – she smiled, because she seemed to see the Angel of her dreams. The man's eyes were the type that dazzled, set in a face of patrician-like stillness, like the busts of ancient Rome, or Byzantine saints. Leroi Levesque spoke many languages it seemed, for he spun his words now from a marble-like maw – voudoudaje – charms like swamp fevers and dreams that meant dust and death. Rose could not comprehend the words, but she turned her eyes towards Heaven.

It was many years ago, but some say that to this day, you can see Rose's lost gaze in the stained-glass windows. The house of God is haunted and no one dares go near it. It sits in ruins. But perhaps Rose was only a ghost in the mind's eye, perhaps she never existed; and so the people would have liked to believe, were it not for the grave in the church cemetery ("Rose Belanger , beloved daughter, daughter of sin, daughter of lost souls . . .") No one really knows what became of Leroi Levesque, but it is whispered that he still walks, elegant and striding, more lost than Rose ever was, and devil-may-care; absinthe on his tongue and blood on his mind. Some say he had the look of hunger in him, a lean hunger that menaced and grew into full-blown madness.

Perhaps he could not understand his own torment.

Perhaps he could not understand his own careless deceit. He wandered, tormented by some thirst that could not be slaked or commanded, a thirst born out of the soul of the girl.

The girl's tomb is also said to be empty. They say he took her with him to hell. The same house still hangs, though in shambles, and the corn fields and the sullen mirror of big blue sky still endless, like a bad dream.

The Seance

It was early summer, and it all seemed so gay and endless, the tin roofs echoing the coming release of summer storms and not a care in the world. So simple it seemed, yet this is how it all began. Encased in a house of ivy and spiraling balustrade, the glistening lids of the medium released tears like rain. Candles flickered as hands were held tight and the incantations began. The medium, Madame Malvide, her voice was very soft and plaintive.

"I feel a presence... a... perverse presence entering." Madame Malvide seemed dead. Hands were tensed in a circle. "Who is it?" someone asked.

Rose Belanger was seated at the table but looked up as a dashing of glass and weeping willows broke the spell and sent the broken glass at them, and the wind seemed to whip black silks from a figure near the door, black over a tall, thin man with pale hands in motion. The house shook intensely as blue eyes like mosaic singled-out the medium.

"Madame Malvide . . ."

"Leroi Levesque I did not expect you so soon, I thought you were to arrive..." she motioned to him as the frightened seance broke. Only Rose remained, somehow unmoved. She seemed transfixed by his perfect yet somehow detestable beauty. His smile was dark, but comely. His voice, a soft whisper, but somehow soothing to her, like a song.

"Rose, dearest, do fetch Mr. Levesque a glass of water."

Rose nodded and lowered her head. Already a bit on fire with the summer heat, she felt a bit dizzy now as she climbed pantry stairs; she poured a glass of water and put the rim of the glass against her face. For a brief moment, she felt herself falling into a cool slumber of water. She shook her head and returned to Madame Malvide and the tall man's gaze. He looked at her briefly and nodded. In that moment, an odd electricity seemed to burn. A flash of some recognition. The stranger remained quiet, yet his eyes glowed blue coals. She was reminded of Scheherazade and the tales she had to tell to save her life. And the desert. Nothing at all like the rain. Nothing at all.

She noticed that the pale gentleman had queer movements, all at once strange and bold, and hands all expressive, like he was telling a story. They said the devil's men talked with their hands, too. They were talking about a... carnival of sorts. How exciting, she thought, for all children loved carnivals. The gentleman removed his gloves and smiled.

"All children love carnivals, don't they, Madame Malvide?"

Rose reached out very tentatively and felt his hand ensnare hers. His eyes were so big and round, deep ponds, whirlpools. She felt the heat on her brow and her lungs stifle. The pale man smiled and caught her.

"Oh, Rose," said Madame Malvide. "Excuse us," said the medium, "she often passes out from the humidity. Such a hot spell we're having this year, seems like it will never end..."

The Storm

The rain wasn't exactly over yet, nor would it stop for another two months. Rose dreamt now of the sun turning the green grass into a field of emerald gems, the rain a shower of diamonds.

Everywhere, dazzling white and iridescent deep green. Rose was on the porch of the mansion, watching someone riding away on a galloping white steed. Whoever he was, he turned to her and smiled, and she lifted her head and waved.

"Yes, I will work with her, she is the one." The voice was dark and yet sweet now in its intent; it trailed off in the hallway.

Rose continued to dream of the diamonds and a white horse; the galloping of hooves rung in her head. She could not see the rider's invisible face but the horse soon turned to that of a nightmarish steed, and she woke in cold sweat. There were echoes of rain on glass drumming endlessly, and the door to her room opened slowly. She felt a hand against her warm face. Someone sat next to her and prayed, but in a strange, unknown tongue.

A voice half-whispered and Rose opened up her eyes, but there wasn't anyone there. She saw only the moon and the shadow of hanging trees. She went back to sleep only to dream once more of those fields of green gemstones. But as she slept, that voice came back again, and spoke to her strange words from the ones who called themselves The Decadents...

"Even your darkest shade a canvas fears
Wherever my eyes must multiply in swarms
Familiar looks of shapes no longer there..."

Obsession

And so it had started innocently enough, or so it is thought.

One Sunday morning, around the bend of a bayou, lush with ripened and rotting moss, Rose took a walk to the church, a favourite haunt of hers. She liked the little white temple with its pointed steeple and clean cool floors. She often prayed on her knees to those saints she had been taught about not very long ago, by her mother Sophie Belanger, God rest her soul.

It was on one of these pleasant afternoons that she had been treading the green grass, which glistened from the rain. Corn stalks rustled behind her and footsteps trudged through mud. Rows and rows of stalks separated them but she heard a lonely whistle. Shading her eyes, she peered beneath her soft white hand. Drunk on the summer heat.

Even if she already was as beautiful a young women could be, with yellow-red hair and hazel eyes, her young and goodly nature made her all the more radiant. He removed his hat as he entered church. It was her gentleness that enticed the most. Taking her wrist in his, he pinned it gently behind her and brushed a leather-bound fist against her cheek. In God's own house he embraced her as the good saints wept. She felt something now, the reeds all around her, and the sharp cat tails, and her breath was heavier still.

One, two, three, she was awake again.

Next Sunday, much on a day like this one, he stopped to give her a present: a book of po-e-try by a man named Charles Baudelaire. Lover of poisoned flowers and gardens of evil. One poem in particular, caught her eye, and its name: Obsession... Leroi often read to her in church. The rain kept falling but they would stay dry inside by flickering candles and flickering hearts. He would turn to her, after reading, and she would drink deep of sea-blue eyes, touched by hints of green, and always like glassy marbles, or emeralds. Something about his gaze reminded her of the green emeralds of her dreams. In the reflection of his mirror-like eyes, eyes gleamed soft amber and green against her features. She resembled, with fragile bones, Boticelli's Venus, sexless like the angels, but still more beautiful then as any woman he had ever known. Still, and more.

La Fee Verte

It was in August of that year, in the harshness of half-light, that the strange Carnival came to life. Under the swirl of maroons and lurid tapestries, Rose was led to the stage. Levique said she would enjoy it, and Madame had no choice but to sit still. Elmira Malvide was frightened of this man beyond all reason and did everything he told her, too. Rose's mother had died long ago and left her to Madame Malvide, her only living relative, the outcast. So Rose would become a part of this sideshow. But it wasn't what you thought. Here, her lips were painted red, and the men were full of odd glances. Here, Leroi Levesque would pause and tell her to smile.

But by the third night of such lurid displays, after the men began to complain about the young girl's "unwillingness," Leroi Levesque grew moody. Moodier still he grew when he contemplated while he drank. Absinthe, drowned his sights. Absinthe, drowned his eyes. Everywhere, a green haze and everything a dream. She was given a gift. She wore the green too, on her wrist – a charm, spun in silver and green stones, like the green emerald-coloured glass. He drunk of his glass and drunk of her eyes – read her thoughts. Deep in the drought of her heart, he contemplated it. Something tender.

As of late he tired of the girl himself, and that heart clutched tighter and tighter. She was strangling him. Oftentimes, Rose woke beside him, because she could not bear to be with those men. So he kept her as his pet, and kept her close by. He seemed to soothe her for some time, but he was restless yet. She often dreamt of him, riding on a white horse, his smile, dazzling. And she dreamt of him, and the absinthe, the damned elixir -- and something strange began to happen. She dreamt of breathing out ashes, spread around her like dust, and the fear in her mind became a grim labyrinth.

Leroi dreamt too, but he was ridden by the devil himself, and while Rose slept near him he would escape to the throng of men below, to find what he wanted. Beneath the writhing tendrils of art nouveau lamplights, her eyes glowed eerily, reminiscent of jade, or La Fee Verte. This sideshow angel was the devil's new pet, who did not flinch. Emerging from smoke and haze, lips painted into a permanent cherry smile. Leroi tipped his hat at the girl with the green eyes and she took his hand.

Madame Malvide knew his affections for Rose could not last. No, not even for a minute could she believe, for his affections were more than just that, they were only affectations.

House of Smoke and Mirrors

The Reverend's trysts grew to infamy, and he drifted from Rose. Truth be known, Rose had drifted as well. She started to know too much. Once, he came to her, only to find her fingering his leather-bound book, full of pictures and strange things. She set the book down and looked at him sadly. Lately, Rose also felt that she had been wandering a house full of smoke and mirrors. Dead things filled her dreams; not only rabbits and birds but the living dead; she saw grim faces and cries.

Leroi Levesque once found her in a state of frightening trance and he helped her to flee, helped her to forget. He could soothe her soul like any good absinthe, and so she slept again, if only for a while. Rose had learned much of his secrets while he would go away every night. For one, she learned how to fight the sleep. He did not yet know this. Many times she battled him and won. He did not realize her eyes were full of sadness, not enchantment. It was only a matter of time.

They say too that the Magician's girl could not fight her addiction to the devil, and she could not bear the pain of it. Ultimately, she only grew more sullen, and as she grew more tired and grey, she grew invisible, then dead. Meanwhile, Leroi Levesque knew that Rose was discovering too much. He did not wish to hurt her, but he had to. It was one day in summer that he took her to the old haunt, the church, and she finally understood what it all meant.

It was the bayou, not his kiss, that stopped her breath. There was something down there; it tangled her hair up, and the cattails were much too far to grab a hold of. She was falling deeper into sleep. By the banks of the bayou, Leroi Levesque wept, for as much as he was restless and mean, he made himself believe that he had only meant to stifle her fears and soothe her soul.

Before she slept forever, he gave her the ultimate gift. He strung her around him, like radiant pearls, fishing for her thoughts... and he saw himself in her mind's eye, gallant and proud, riding away on a white steed. She was on the porch of the mansion, waving, and he looked back at her, smile bedazzling. Everything was perfect and everything shone around her like a brilliant palace of gems, all around, nothing but sunshine and fire reflecting in the facade of glittering water.

He could not, would not let it end this way. He would not give her such a pretty ending at all.

It was a matter of time, as well, that the Nine O'Swords conquered La Fee Verte, the Magician's New Pet. Leroi had found others to entertain himself with. Leroi, gone. The world was dead and she sat there, eyes without tears. The room was empty of him. Empty and alone. He would never return. Absentmindedly, she got dressed. The cherry red smile curved unnaturally. The Magician's pet who did not flinch.

They found her dead the next day, blood upon her lips now. A case of self-induced poisoning. The card for the Nine O'Swords fluttering by her feet.

Awaken from Slumber

It was after this latest scandal that Leroi Levesque seemed to have become a ghost, spoken of often, hardly seen. Nothing was heard of him for many years. The dead sleep for many years too, and silence pervaded the gravestones of those he had vanquished, of those he had killed.

One Sunday morning, full of gloom, it was said Leroi Levesque had finally been seen once more, this time, it was certain.

It was at the white church, under a dream-led daze of sunlit fog, creating an unreal reality: the long elegant form of Leroi Levesque floated across the corn field, and closer and closer he came to the church door, now ramshackled. And a young girl was said to be kneeling inside, on her knees. They say she has a lifeless gaze. They say Leroi spoke words to her, only backwards, and the girl, thought dead, was not yet alive either – for she closed her eyes now and seemed pleased somehow.

Leroi Levesque made her dream again, her favourite dream. She still saw herself on a porch of a white plantation, waving at Leroi on his white stallion. She did not see much else. Day and night were all the same to her. She only saw now the white horse and his figure against the oppressive heat of the sun, and they never ceased to burn behind her dead eyes. The air there continually smelled of wildflowers.

Leroi Levesque could not give her back the one thing she needed most: her soul. It was cold in her grave, green and mossy. She slept and dreamt , repeating-like, till her head was as much a stone as the gravestone her pillow. She was a shade. "Une revenant," they said.

So she raised her eyes to him as if seeking sunlight, and he said nothing. Only the coldness of the years wore at him, until he too turned into a ghost of nothingness, with nothing on his mind but ugly thoughts, and ugly faces looking back at him... the memories of those long dead, turned into the living dead, until at long last he couldn't find his own way out of the labyrinth.

(c)2008 Wendy Koenigsmann

Small Press Month

2008-03-03T07:44:00.000-08:00

My fan belt broke up on the four lane and I need twelve dollars to fix it so I can get back home because I went off and forgot my cat's asthma medication on the kitchen counter and he's allergic to cats, you see. We're headed to Dallas to visit my mother who is sick and can't get to the doctor because the warranty's gone out on her artificial hip and you know how these things are - they break as soon as the warranty expires. My children have been looking forward to seeing their grandma one more time before she dies, bless her poor old arhythmic heart, but they haven't eaten since yesterday, when we shared a Twinkie between the five of us. Things would be better if my wife didn't have to live in an iron lung.

March is Small Press Month, or so I've been told. So why not help out an old altar boy and make a tax deductible donation to WordArts and Southern Gothic today?

storySouth Million Writers Award

2008-03-01T19:40:00.000-08:00

The nomination period for the 2007 storySouth Million Writers Award is open until March 31, 2008. If you liked any of the stories published here in 2007, please head on over and nominate your favorite. A word, though - to qualify, the story must be more than 1,000 words long, which disqualifies several excellent stories from our list. We're working on recitifying this regretable prejudice for next year.

The stories that qualify are:
Dry Rub
The Dream Machine
MisLiza was Soothsaid
The Tennessee Scrambler
(although if you want to nominate Mrs. Z's Beauty Parlor, it's damn close to 1,000 words - maybe nobody will notice ;)

Last year, Mark MacNamara's story, "Vertically Divided, Blue-Red-White," made the Top Ten and tied for 5th with a story published at Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. This was a tremendous honor for Mark, as it was his first published story, and for Southern Gothic, as 2006 was our first full year of publication.

Slush Pile Update

2008-01-03T13:07:00.000-08:00

Dear authors,

I have no more stories from 2007. If you sent a story in 2007 and you have not heard back from me, your story either never arrived, or you sent it in the form of an attachment and it was deleted unread, per the note in the submission guidelines.

Just thought you'd like to know.

Dry Rub

2007-12-26T08:42:00.000-08:00

"Dry Rub"
Nicholas Ripatrazone

Ninety-seven degrees at the Clarence D. Wilkens Memorial Barbeque Stand. Named after a Confederate veteran who allegedly died on the very spot. Conveniently located at the junction of county roads 316 and 514. Parking available in the back. Line for orders in the front. Owned by Malcolm Crooks. Malcolm smoked while grilling. Ashes rose and stuck to the carnival-style tent overhead. Often Malcolm grilled with no shirt. Heat came from all angles: the sun, the asphalt, the coals, the air. A set of speakers powered by a generator played rock from sunrise to sunset. Always rock. Rush, Bad Company.

On the rare occasions he did wear a shirt he wore the Rush 2112 starman shirt. A woman once complimented him on the shirt, and Neil crawled from beneath the table. He didn’t show teeth, he didn’t bark, but he gave a long look that said my master is taken. Well, he wasn’t exactly taken. Not anymore at least.

Neil was a coonhound. Pure breed. Bought from a raccoon hunter in Lafayette who could no longer hunt after his knees gave out in a field. Malcolm’s knees had never given out so he could not empathize but he tried to imagine the scene: the old hunter wore a hat, crouched behind a tree, shot, and then Neil, or whatever his name was back then, bounded forward to find the kill, and the old hunter stepped in a hole and fell. The coonhound currently known as Neil ran back and licked the old hunter’s face until it felt like his skin was covered in syrup. The scene had no basis in reality, but neither did most of Malcolm’s memories.

Neil spent his days spread beneath the grill. He lapped droppings of grease and fat from the asphalt. A commercial-size fan whirred behind him, slightly flapping his coat, which was mostly black but his chest was an uneven tan, as if someone had spilt coffee and it stained. When business was slow Neil slept and Malcolm read Wisconsin Death Trip. Between noon and one the stand was busy. The phone company was next door and employees arrived in groups wearing white shirts and short black ties. They complained about the heat and waved napkins in front of their faces and their razor burns flared pink. They said the dog looked like he was cool and Malcolm agreed. They sat at the benches and ordered chicken with blueberry sauce and ribs glazed with lime and lemon and invariably stained their starched shirts which they dabbed with ice and left a water ring around a nipple.

Neil was awake during lunch hour and was usually ogled by men and women alike.

He has a beautiful coat, they said.

One of his eyes is a different color. It’s almost grey. Like smoke.

He’s so docile for a hunting dog.

Occasionally lunch scraps were offered to Neil and occasionally Malcolm allowed them. Neil’s tongue could be seen while he chewed. Feeding a dog is a rare activity that is both transient in result yet repeated endlessly.

The stand normally closed at dusk. Malcolm flipped the shutters, locked the back, and pulled chain across the entrance. They drove to an overgrown ball field where Malcolm threw a football incomprehensible distances and Neil, still graceful despite age, fetched the pigskin. Malcolm worked the dog until a flapping tongue was seen, and then they would go home.

Neil had his own couch and black and white television. He especially enjoyed Man from Atlantis. The home felt empty. Malcolm’s wife left three months earlier. Said she was going to her sister’s but never came back. Malcolm called the sister and she said he had half a brain to have fallen for the oldest trick. His wife sent a postcard from New York that said she was going to be gone for awhile.

Her reasons for leaving were simple: at least the way they came out of her mouth. Malcolm worked the stand year round and business was thin during the cold months. She wanted to know what kind of grown man had a lemonade stand? Malcolm had plans to open a restaurant but never did. She said he should moonlight at least. Bus table at the local diner, clean businesses after hours. He said no, and said no one too many times.

Her income as a teacher had helped, but now it was gone. So, after staring at Neil’s slobbering, sleeping face for an entire night, Malcolm took his wife’s advice. Somewhat. He decided to stay open late during the summer.

He slept on the idea and woke confident and committed. He brought all his vinyl from home. Everything. Burnt River Band, Chico Magnetic Band. He found a copy of Vulcan’s Meet Your Ghost beneath his bathroom sink. The sleeve was warped but the album was fine. He painted a new sign that said ‘we close when I fall asleep’. He stapled flyers to telephone posts and bought an ad in the sports section of the local paper. He spread the word to the phone company employees, who either appeared uncomfortable by the idea of midnight barbeque or seemed overexcited. He considered a laser-light show but knew the generator could only support the speakers. Music was absolutely necessary.

The first few nights were slow, and only a few guys from the phone company showed up. They brought beer in a cooler and inhaled ribs. Neil offered barks at regular intervals. Midnight came and the telephone company guys dropped bottles on the ground and drove away any reasonable persons so Malcolm replaced Robert Palmer with Chico Magnetic Band to scare them away. He blasted “Explosion.” The grill shook and Neil cooed. The telephone company guys rumbled. One jumped on the bench, a rib in his fist.

Out of the heavy darkness walked a group of teenagers. Late teens: nineteen. All in sandals or thongs. Tight jeans with holes on the knees. Hair tucked behind ears. Wiry waifs. Neil stood at their arrival. Malcolm set down the skewer and waited. And waited.

We’ve come for Chico, one of them said. To hear him scream. Nobody played Chico’s shit. It was golden. It was beautiful.

One of the telephone company guys said it sucked. Acid kids’ shit. The man standing on the bench rifled the rib against a kid’s bare chest.

A riff cranked from the speakers and fuzzed out, as if the world was consumed in television snow. Sandals slipped off clammy feet and bottles crashed against the grill. Malcolm swiped Neil’s leash and tied him to the pick-up’s hitch. He ran out front and took the skewer in one hand and a knife in the other and said to get the hell away you fuckers. Get the hell out of here.

The kids flung last-ditch punches and scattered. One of the telephone guys was already in his car, waving the rest to leave. Another appeared to hold his jaw in place. The last one, the instigator, told Malcolm he was going to lose business. Malcolm said business wouldn’t be lost. It would merely be gone for a while.

Mrs. Z's Beauty Parlor

2007-11-09T09:53:00.000-08:00

"Mrs. Z's Beauty Parlor"
by Priscilla Rhoades

I used to date a mortician, but he died. Worked himself to death. The undertaking business is booming here in Huntsville, retirement capital of North Carolina, and he put in more hours than anyone I know. I'll miss him.

I've worked at the funeral home now for close to twenty-five years. This was my first job out of beauty college and I can tell you honestly that I never expected to stay this long. I even left once, got a job at Hair Today out on Biltmore Boulevard. But when I got tired of listening to all the doctors' wives gab and bitch, I came back. At least here the clients are quiet.

This morning for instance, Mrs. Cooke was laid out as pretty as a lily on a pond. After I'd given her hair a proper Baptist coif, powdered her face, and shaded her eyelids Burnt Sienna, you wouldn't have known that she was ninety-three the day she got called up to those condominiums in the sky. Cosmetology is a tricky science; you have to be careful with the lips, for instance; too much color and you get a cartoon; too little and you see death smiling up at you. When I finished with Mrs. Cooke she looked as beautiful as a queen, more dignified in death than she ever was in life.

I should tell you about John, the mortician whose heart gave out. He was possibly the gentlest man I've ever known. More gentle even than Stephen, my husband. Stephen was killed in the Vietnam War, a long time ago. He was a medic and the Army sent him into Cambodia, where we weren't even supposed to be, and he was loading a wounded soldier into a helicopter when he caught a stray bullet. VC or friendly fire, no one could ever tell me. Stephen and I were high school sweethearts and if he'd lived, I'd be one of those doctors' wives, getting a henna rinse and gossiping at Hair Today.

After Stephen died, I finished school and got my diploma and when I answered an ad in the Citizen Times, John gave me this job. The first thing I noticed about John was that he wore foundation: turned out it was Christian Dior, medium coverage. Probably no one else would have noticed but of course I did. Much later I found out it was to cover the scars; he'd had terrible acne as a teenager.

John was a third-generation mortician so I suppose you could say that embalming was in his blood. He was very good at it. Embalming is another tricky science. People don't realize how much skill it takes to make a dead body appealing.

We didn't date right away. John had just come through a hard divorce, and I was still in love with my dead soldier; neither of us was ready. It happened slowly, the way women like it - friendship first, then romance. But I can tell you the day it changed. I should explain first that all my life I've had hypoglycemia and on that particular day I had forgotten to eat. The hospitals had been paging Mr. Post like crazy that week, and I'd pulled an all-nighter and then had a cup of coffee to get through the morning.

John found me at work on Mrs. Duckworth; the Duckworths are an old family around here; they go way back, before the War of Northern Aggression. I was trying to make Mrs. Duckworth look presentable, and I was having a hard time of it. No matter what I did, her color was still wrong. John felt my frustration and put a sympathetic hand on my wrist.

"You're cold," he said. He looked at me then like he was seeing me for the first time.

"It's my blood sugar," I told him.

That was the moment I knew. John was not like other men, like the grunge I met at the Round-Up, where I would occasionally spend a Saturday night with girlfriends. John was a gentleman. He didn't rush at me for sex; he took his time. Another thing about John, he was meticulous: shirts starched, slacks pressed, shoes shined. And his hands - they were as smooth as a baby's butt, manicured, clean, and I'll tell you a little secret. That hair on his knuckles that so many men have? John dyed his so you wouldn't see it.

The first night we made love he insisted we both shower first, that's how fastidious he was. After we'd undressed and he'd hung our clothes in his closet, I followed him into the shower. He placed me carefully, respectfully, under the spray and I jumped a little without meaning to, startled by the sudden cold splash on my back. He kissed me then and after a while I forgot the chill of the water and concentrated on the heat growing inside me.

As I say I always knew, at least from our first touch I knew about John, but I found out for certain by accident. Working late one night I walked in on him with Mrs. Fluharty. Mrs. Fluharty was younger by half than most of our clients - a car accident victim, cut up pretty bad. She took a lot of work on my part.

The way I learned to think about it was this: what John did with other women was his business. And if those other women happened to be corpses, well, who was I to judge?

When he died, I did his face in Christian Dior, and he looked as beautiful as a lily on a pond. The orator said, "John was a man who loved hiswork."

And I, more than anyone, knew it was true.

About Southern Gothic

2007-11-09T09:28:00.000-08:00

Southern Gothic is a blog journal of the best Southern voices and Southern stories that fall into the subgenre called Southern Gothic. The first issue of SGO went live in May 2005, and in the first year we published two stories that were honored as Notable stories by the storySouth Million Writers Award. In 2006, Mark MacNamara's story "Vertically Divided, Blue-Red-White" was a Million Writers top ten finalist. Visit our incomparible Fiction Archive and Poetry Archive to see what you done missed.

Southern Gothic is published through WordArts, Inc. WordArts is dedicated to supporting and promoting the southern literary voice. WordArts, Inc., is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) corporation based in Memphis, TN. Contributions to WordArts, Inc. are tax deductible and go directly to the cost of producing the Southern Gothic journal and Southern Gothic Online. Help promote this uniquely Southern literary form by making a tax deductible donation today.

Southern Gothic is edited by Memphis author Jeff Crook. He is the author of four novels and numerous short stories.

Submission Guidelines

2007-11-09T08:55:00.000-08:00

The Encyclopedia Britannica describes Southern Gothic as a style of story set in the American South that is characterized by grotesque, macabre, or fantastic incidents or characters.

Southern Gothic is fiction written by Southerners (native, imported, and honorary) that involves the grotesque, the mysterious, the desolate, and/or the fantastic, to some degree.

What is Gothic?To be Gothic, there needs to be something ugly in the beauty, or something beautiful amidst ugliness. A juxtaposition of the startling with the mundane, the sacred with the profane. Gothic requires a certain eccentricity of phrase or imagery or subject or mood, or of the writer herself.

Gothic also encompasses its more traditional definitions, involving haunting encounters, strange curses, deadly secrets, hidden doorways into alternate realities, and mysterious encounters with supposedly dead rock stars in empty train stations. Gothic rarely involves cthonic monsters emerging from the darkness to consume helpless protagonists and protagonistas.

What we're looking for:

Gothic tales set in the American South or about people from the American South. At Southern Gothic, we want to see the South in all its savage, haunted beauty.

We want to see well-written stories as well as stories that are well-written. Brilliant language is meaningless without the context of plot and characterization, and the most exciting plot ever devised lies dead upon the page if written poorly.

One of the best sets of Writer's Guidelines around is to be found at Weird Tales. I won't go through the trouble of rewriting them here, so please, take a gander and take it to heart. These suggestions apply to all writing, not just fantasy and horror.

And hell, what are we talking about at Southern Gothic if not some pretty weird tales?
Since this is an electronic publication, we prefer shorter works under 7,500 words. We like good flash fiction and short-shorts, but please be aware that we have very high standards for the ultra short form.

Do we accept non-fiction? Maybe. Try us.

What we're not looking for:

Stories that don't have a Southern element. That element can be slight, but the stronger it is, the more likely we are to like it. Within reason. We reject a good many stories for being outrageously Southern. If we see the words "Mama/Grandma always said" anywhere in the first three paragraphs, we usually stop reading. We aren't looking for feel good stories filled with Southern homilies, nostalgic remembrances of a simpler time in a golden age in your good ole Southern home, or delightfully endearing stereotypes of Southern culture or characters. If your story reads like a Blue Bell Ice Cream commercial, you might want to rethink sending it to Southern Gothic.

Stories that don't have a Gothic quality, as described above. Most of the stories we reject have a weak or nonexistant Gothic quality.

In particular, we aren't interested in brilliantly written stories of Southern life in which nothing at all extraordinary happens, either with the plot, the characterization, the setting, or the writing.

Southern Gothic no longer publishes poetry.

Southern Gothic is published continuously. Authors published at Southern Gothic retain all rights to their work. Southern Gothic is not a paying market at this time. We hope to one day pay a professional rate, but we have discovered that paying a penny a word only increases the quantity of submissions, not the quality.

Format Requirements

Please follow these guidelines religiously if you wish to get into the good graces of the editor. By following his guidelines, he will know that you care enough about your story to dress it properly before sending it out into the cold cruel world. Why should he care about your story if you don't?

Send your fiction submission in the body of an email to the email address below. Be sure to put SUBMISSION in the subject of your email. Do not send attachments unless you want your email deleted unread - if we decide to use your work, we may ask for a Word document at that time. Do not send hardcopy submissions - email submissions only. The editor has been lax in the past about the attachments rule, but no longer. If your story is deleted unread, you only have yourself to blame.

Single-space your text and place a line space after each paragraph. Do not indent paragraphs. Do not use italics. Where you want italics to appear, offset those areas with underlines, _like this_.

We are open to Simultaneous Submissions, as long as you indicate it in your email. We are less willing to entertain previously published work unless the story is of exceptional quality and/or has been out of print for a long time and/or was more recently published in a journal of equal or greater obscurity. Please submit one story at a time, and wait until you hear from us before submitting another one. No more multiple submissions. We used to be ok with multiple submissions, but we grew weary of wading through every unpublished story people could dig out of their trunks going all the way back to high school.

We try to respond within 90 days. According to Duotrope.com, our current acceptance rate is a little under 6%, and average response time within 37 days. Our actual acceptance rate is around 1%.

Send your submissions to wordartsinc at yahoo dot com.

The Dream Machine

2007-09-14T17:37:00.000-07:00

"The Dream Machine"

by Justin C. Gordon

Click here for the Podcast

Successful people have successful thoughts. That’s from page one of The Dream Machine rep’s handbook. In the hall mirror, I repeat this mantra as I fasten my silver cufflinks. These were my prize for selling the most Dream Machines last October. Forget it’s May; they’re real silver. They have enough value to pawn.

I gather the Dream Machine’s large box and move to the kitchen. My wife, Debbie, reads the want ads while our ten-year-old son, Jimmy, chomps cereal. I lift my lunch bag off the table. It feels light. “P.B.N.J?”

“There isn’t anymore lunchmeat.” Debbie says and looks away. In most households this means inconvenience, but for us it’s an economic barometer.

“Peanut butter ‘n’ jelly is great, Mom.” Jimmy wraps his arms around us. He’s become our glue. “I know you’re gonna sell lots of Dream Machines today, Dad.”

After Jimmy runs off to school, Debbie’s pretty “mom” face fractures into deep worry lines. “Bill, we’re going to lose everything.”

“I’ll break this streak, like before.” I say to my shoes.

From a box underneath the calendar Debbie picks up a pile of collection notices and says, “That stupid vacuum cleaner is going to destroy us!”

I plead, “Honey, it’s a Dream Machine: it guarantees success.”

Debbie pitches the mail at me then runs out of the room crying. Unpaid bills smack and slide off me. Some land into the sink where scraped clean jars of P.B.N.J. sit. An empty bread bag hangs out of the trashcan. My successful thoughts stumble.

At work, the room is filled with two-dozen salespeople trying to sound casual while reciting a sales pitch script into phones. Mornings are for cold calls, which are just any number in the white pages my pencil tip falls on. Everyone’s goal is to set up afternoon appointments and demonstrate the Dream Machine.

My boss calls himself Dick Diamond. He has a speck of glass on a gold front tooth bought by selling so many Dream Machines. Near lunchtime, Dick Diamond carries in a bucket of chicken drowned in barbeque sauce and signals for silence.

“Everyone stay seated.” Dick asks. “Is anyone hungry today?”

My mouth drools. I look at my squished PBNJ in a sandwich bag. I stare at the bucket in his hand longingly. Dick tells me to stand up. He walks around to all of the other salespeople, offers them some chicken, and then asks loudly, “Does anyone know what kind of animal a salesman is?”

Someone behind me howls.

“Yes, a wolf! A salesman is a wolf on a hunt!” Dick finishes circling the room, reaches into the bucket, and pulls out a drumstick. “A wolf catches the hunt! A wolf bring home the hunt to the pack and no one goes hungry!” My boss points the drumstick at the sales chart on the wall, walks over to it, and taps the chicken against an empty row. Barbecue sauce is smeared by my name, “Bill, you’re not selling, so you’re not…”

Everyone glares at me with greasy lips because I’m holding up their cold calls and interrupting their hunt. I answer, “A wolf.”

Dick turns away “And that makes you a goddamn possum.”

My voice pleads, “I’ll sell it.”

“Sell it today or you’re fired.” He walks out of the room, “I don’t need a possum.”

The PBNJ feels so cold and so thick in my throat, I worry about choking on it.

I drive to the first address on my sales list and ring the doorbell. I think successful thoughts. I will sell this machine and when the door opens, I explain they’ve won a free shampooing of their house with The Dream Machine.

If the customer has a baby crawling on the carpet, I tailor the pitch. The Dream Machine stops assailants from preying on our families. I attach a paper filter to the Dream Machine and sample a small area of their carpet. The filter becomes swollen with black clumps of pollen, pet dander, and dust mites. I show them a large laminated photo of a magnified dust mite eating dead skin cells.

The customer always snatches their baby off the floor.

I ask if they have any stains they can’t remove. They usually show me something red, like cranberry juice or spaghetti sauce on beige carpeting. I switch on the shampoo attachment; spray the area, and the Dream Machine takes action.

“Well look, where’d the stain go?” I ask.

They ask the price. This is where my dry spell begins: Two grand.

I live at the bottom of the Louisiana food chain. We work in casinos, oil refineries, or chemical factories and everyone lives from P.B.N.J. to P.B.N.J.

I am not a possum.

I vacuum their mattresses to show them the toxic molds they sleep in. They say no. I put on the extension wands and suck spider webs out of hard to reach places. They say no. I convert the vacuum into a leaf blower and clear refuse from their rain gutters. They say no. Dick Diamond phones to drop the price again and again. No. The price ends at nine hundred dollars, meaning both my Boss and I won’t get anything but a star on the sales chart. No. Every month the sales channels offer a free trip for anyone that brings in fifteen stars. No.

I get in five “No’s” before dusk.

My cold calls have sent me onto the other side of Lake Pontchartrain. This is middle of nowhere swamps. I finally find a gas station and it has a bar in the back. A pasta strainer is fastened above the entrance. The air stinks of fish and factory belch. I claw coins from dark places in my car for a beer. It’s sick that a beer costs less then a sandwich.

The bar is busy with an after-work crowd from the refineries. It’s coon-ass-ville: warped wooden floors, frayed seats, an alligator head near a crucifix, and no free snacks on the bar. No one talks. Their thoughts are like mine; drink to ignore the panic that comes from creditor calls and repo threats. There’s a stool at the far end, beside an old man with a face like an albino raisin. He balances himself between a cane and the lip of the counter.

A draft is in my budget. I use my phone quickly, uncertain when they’ll cut service off for nonpayment. Three calls just ring and one hangs up twice.

“You look like you just lost your best friend in the whole world.” The old man props his hands and chin on his cane’s handle.

“If you call a paycheck a best friend.” I say and put away my phone.

“Then what are you doing out here in these swamps?” He smiles. “Let me guess, either your car broke down or you’re a door-to-door dancer?”

I take a sip of my flat draft and say, “The second one.”

He drums his lips with a finger thoughtfully for a minute and then asks, “Do you know why there’s a colander above the door out there?”

“No clue.”

“It’s for the Cajun werewolf; Loup-garous.” He says. “The Loup-garous has to count all the colander’s holes before it can enter.”

“You’re joking?”

He shakes his head, “Ask anyone here.” “

What happens when the thing finishes counting?” “Usually, by then the sun’s up and they’re human again. It’s easier to shoot them when they’re human.” He shrugs, “Otherwise throw a frog at them.”

“Why a frog?”

“Frogs make them explode for some reason.”

I laugh in disbelief, “I’ll remember that.”

“So unless you’re selling colanders, I don’t think you’d have a good audience here.”

I notice his clothes are casual expensive and ask, “So did you break down or are you a salesman?”

“Not door-to-door. I dabble with old things for auctions.” He smiles slyly, “There’s lots of old things in these swamps and oil companies help me get them.”

He explains that by profession, he’s an archeologist. Oil companies can’t drill anywhere without excavating first. It’s a federal law they haven’t been able to get rid of. His business squares off so many feet, hires students to dig up artifacts, and then he assess if the location has a significant historical value. This determines if the oil companies can drill there.

“You ever stop them from digging anywhere?”

His face changes so fast I feel like I slapped him. The cane touches his right foot. “Once, but the findings didn’t suggest it was a good place to drill.” He relaxes. “I mean, for historical reasons of course.”

I ask, “Where do you sell artifacts?”

“There’s no money in museum collections. Better to go with private collectors.” He offers his hand, “My name is Milton. Milton Throckmorton.”

We shake, “Bill Maxwell, Dream Machine representative.”

“That sounds wonderful. What is it?”

I’m careful not to give him a pitch. When salesmen meet, they know the pitch is bullshit. I talk about technical details and what I’ve seen the product do. The more calmly I speak, the more excited Milton becomes.

“I have a problem.” He says. “I have a rather big dog, an Irish Wolfhound. Ever see one? Loves to hunt, but brings his catch inside. Ruins the carpet.”

“Is this your Loup-garous?” I ask. There are too many wolf references today.

“Wolfhounds hunt wolves.” He shrugs. “Bring a frog if you want. I’m old and need a large dog for security. Your machine might be a solution to cleaning up after my dog. Show me it in action. Maybe you can go home without it.”

Successful thoughts.

Outside, it’s dark. Milton starts his red MGB. “Just follow me in your car.”

I get into my beat-up Rabbit. Milton floors it. I chase. The winding road seems to leads further into swampland forever, but then a train of ground lights begins to appear. These end at a large security gate and we slow to a stop. Out his window Milton waves a remote. The massive iron door opens to a painfully manicured lawn and a giant plantation house. The front porch has columns too wide to hug.

Scarlet O’Hara, eat your heart out.

As I get The Dream Machine out of my trunk, Milton excitedly talks about his houses’ renovation project, how the details matter more then the whole. “Like this stain in my study; nutria blood. Ruins the feeling of the whole house.”

The house is a museum. Milton passionately points out ancient treasures: Spanish coins, pirate’s swords, a Capuchin Friar’s bible, and Arcadian dueling pistols. “These are just a few things I’ve acquired. I also have warehouses.”

Milton leads me into a study with double doors to a patio. Thick books fill the shelves. On the wall is our state’s topical map dotted with thumbtacks for digs and finds. Below it is a slanted top desk with a laptop displaying a Japanese auction website. Across the room, a black ceramic mug with two handles sits on an end table beside a leather sofa. On the white carpet is a dark red football-sized stain.

“This is called a tyg. It’s a seventeenth century beer mug.” Milton picks up the mug, “The second handle is for passing it on.” He hands it to me and then stabs the stain with his cane. “I’ve made my cleaning woman cry over this damn spot. Skip the song and dance, show me what you can do, and I’ll get us some wine.”

I gently place the tyg back on the end table. I set up The Dream Machine; plug in the cable, attach the shampoo piece, pour the cleaner, and saturate the spot. The machine creeps over the shiny reflective bubbles and pulls on the edges of the stain. It’s possible the stain is set, that the cards are against me, but I have a chance. I have the Dream Machine.

The stain goes from red to pink, slowly lifting. I give it another shampoo treatment and pay attention to the details like he said.

Nutria is the rabbit’s ugly cousin. They have big buckteeth, grow to about knee high, and have long rat-tails. Poor people train them to charge salesmen.

The stain is gone.

I’m dizzy. I’m loopy. I’ve won. I’ll really close this deal. I run the Dream Machine over the rest of the room and under the couch. There is an ugly clicking sound from something the silver-plated motor has sucked in.

I turn off the machine; drop to my knees, and pop open the motor. Inside is a hard white piece no larger then a fingertip and I’m terrified I’ve destroyed a dinosaur bone.

“What do you have there?” Milton holds two wine glasses.

“The machine sucked this in.”

“Take this.” He exchanges a glass for my find.

Milton turns it over carefully. “Do you know what this is?”

Sweat dots my upper lip as I say, “Nutria tooth?”

“Why yes.” He pockets the damn thing and offers a toast.

We clink glasses. I watch Milton drain his glass in one swallow. I copy him. The wine is smooth. Milton moves to his desk, sits down, leans to the side, and disappears from view. I hear a lock spin and a metal door open. Milton sits back up and asks for the price.

I lower my eyes and answer.

“I see.” He says and touches his fingertips together, “You do take cash?”

I can’t hide my smile and feel dizzy. The room blurs. My legs are numb. I try to steady myself with the Dream Machine’s handle.

Milton stands. “Bill, are you okay?”

“No.” I fall on my back.

Milton opens the double doors to a dark patio. “Good.”

I am paralyzed. Indigo spots swim before my eyes almost covering a full moon over the backyard. I go blind and hear Milton hobble away until his footsteps are lost in crickets and cicadas songs.

I blew the sale.

The insects become silent. A panting starts. It gets closer and louder. The room feels hotter. An incredible pressure builds against my skull with each pant, like my brain will squirt out my nose.

My eyes open slowly and focus on a large grey dog sniffing The Dream Machine. Green snot trails from its nose over the chrome finish. Large doesn’t define the animal’s size; hulking comes closer. It has shaggy matted hair and rows of sharp yellow teeth with strings of drool.

Milton’s dog notices me. It growls like a revving diesel truck.

I am a possum. Possums play dead and get left alone. This beast wants to hunt. It wants to chase something that’s alive. If I flinch it will pounce and rip open my throat. If I blink I will never see my beautiful wife or child again.

A big furry front paw rises and lands next to my face. It sinks deeply into the carpet and black nails graze my nose. I stare past it ignoring how my dry eyes feel like cigarette cherries are being slowly ground down into them. Milton’s Dog steps awkwardly over me. One of its back legs hops to keep balance.

Its breath stinks of dead foul things. My stomach turns sour. I’m going to puke. I feel it rising up my throat when a cold wet nose presses against the middle of my neck, shoving down on my vertebrae. This keeps the puke down. Then, Milton’s dog starts sniffing my armpits. I almost shudder because it tickles.

I am a possum.

It sits back and howls. The windows seem ready to shatter.

I am a possum.

Milton’s dog whines disappointed, steps over me, and pisses on my chest.

I am a marked possum fire hydrant.

It slowly pads out the patio doors.

There is no such thing as Loup-garous.

The full moon turns the dog’s gray hair silver before it struts into the night. I must get out. Forget the machine. If Milton wants it that badly, he can keep it. Dick Diamond can come pick it up and get eaten. I’ll never go door-to-door again.

Slowly I stand and stare out the open back doors. There’s nothing but the moon. I step to the left, trip on the Dream Machine’s cable, and crash into the end table. The tyg slides over the edge. Suddenly, there is so much damn noise.

Milton’s dog bolts in. My leg is in its mouth. Its teeth dig down. Its head shakes, trying to rip my ankle off. I’m reaching for anything to stop it. The Dream Machine rises up and I smash it down on that damn dog’s head. I smash again and again. The gray hair turns red. My ankle is ready to snap like a toothpick, but The Dream Machine stops assailants from preying on our families.

Milton’s dog collapses.

A yellow mist rises from its fur with a rotten-egg stench. Smoke chugs out of the beast’s mouth and I get the hell away. The dog deflates. Its hair singes like Fourth of July sparklers. My eyes sting so I wave madly at the smoke. It parts and I can see the side of the dog’s broken face with a human eye. I swear to God it sees me, winks, but then the awful yellow smoke covers it up.

When the smoke finally clears, there’s a really bad stain on the carpet.

I’m feverish. My leg looks like ground meat with yellow puss. I’m going to puke and I don’t know why it matters, but I don’t want to throw up on any of the museum stuff. I don’t know why I’m not sprinting out of the house. I barely make it to a wastebasket behind the desk before everything inside me rips out of my mouth. I puke and puke and puke.

I’ve let my family down.

With what remains of my suit, I wipe up tears and snot strings. I hate successful people with successful thoughts. I probably have rabies. I check on my leg. I have no insurance.

There is no wound.

I sit there, staring at my ripped pants and studying my intact leg. I piece together a story. I tripped and hit my head on the end table. The dog came to eat me, Milton got in the way, and I used the Dream Machine to kill them both.

There is no such thing as a loup-garous, so the words ‘murderer’ and ‘self-defense’ jockey for first place.

Then I see something behind the desk; an open safe with enough money for five machines. The house is empty. The MGB is parked outside. The Dream Machine erases the evidence that anyone was ever here tonight.

No more P.B.N.J. ever again.

I’ve watched enough movies to know I have to keep quiet.

The day after Milton’s dog, I call in sick on Dick Diamond’s answering machine. I seal stacks of hundred dollar bills in plastic wrap. I tuck them under the attic’s insulation, because sometimes it floods here. I take a full wallet to the casinos. I buy lots of chips, sit at a table and lose. If I win, I tip it to the staff. After an hour I cash out into twenty-dollar bills. No one at the supermarket inspects the serial numbers on a twenty.

I buy my display model and when my boss asks for the paper work, I tell him I sold it to a crack house. Dick Diamond loves selling to dealers because they pay cash and there’s no sales tax. He slaps me on the back, calls me a wolf and puts a silver star on the sales chart.

I read the news every day. There’s no mention of a Throckmorton murder or obituary. Milton’s Dream Machine doesn’t have a scratch on it. I throw it off the Huey P. Long Bridge and watch the heavy vacuum sink out of sight.

Almost every day I sell a machine. It’s a simple game of deciding whose family is going to eat tonight and nothing is going to make mine go without ever again. Price doesn’t matter; there are financing plans. I am a wolf on the hunt and catch the sale. Stars go up on the board. The boss puts a bucket of barbeque chicken on my desk and tells me not to share it with anyone. The other salespeople turn away, hiding their hungry faces, and quickly dial cold calls.

I savor the new smoothness in Debbie’s face.

On the calendar in the kitchen, I mark off paid bills and see symbols for the cycles of the moon. Today’s date is marked with a white circle in a black outline. At the table, Debbie asks Jimmy about a girl at school. He blushes brightly. My stomach drops and I think they’re in danger. Maybe, Milton’s dog could follow me home.

Even though there is no such thing as a Loup-garous.

I say I have a late sales call. Debbie complains, but kisses me for luck.

At a cheap hotel two hours from home I nail eight strainers throughout the room. I sit on the bed in my underwear, sweating, no a/c, and hold a colander by both handles.

I must look like a complete idiot.

Counting holes is hard work. I keep losing my place and have to start over. Hours pass. Nothing happens. I get bored, turn on the television, and “Braveheart” is on. I love that movie, except the end. When it’s over, the clock says four: same time I left Milton’s house.

See, there is no such thing as a Loup-garous.

As I check out, the clerk bumps his Bloody Mary and it spills on the carpet. He complains that inheriting a chain of seedy hotels is depressing. They’re all filthy and stained buildings he wants to convert to business class. If there were just something that could help, he’d buy it in a heartbeat.

I close a deal with a chain of hotels. I win the trip. It’s an all-expenses-paid vacation for my family to Disney World. So what if it’s really a sales meeting.

We arrive at the dense and sweaty Orlando Airport, then get whisked to the Mouse compound. Our room is in the Caribbean area, not posh, but still lovely. You know something good is happening when you can leave your shaving hairs in the bathroom sink and someone else cleans it.

The meeting is at Epcot. Debbie and Jimmy love it. They hit the rides. I get face time with the Dream Machine’s Inventor and CEO, Roffe Grandholm. He’s a buff Swedish immigrant that carries himself like a Viking God of Vacuums. “I owe my success to two things. The first is my nationality. Swedes insist on very neat orderly houses.”

“Like IKEA?” I ask.

“Exactly; boxes that neatly fit into other boxes.” Roffe Grandholm laugh sounds like thunder. He shakes my hand and inspects my new gold Dream Machine cufflinks. “The second is successful thoughts. I see you have them too.”

I attribute these solely to his machine and feel dirty, like I just gave him a hand job. He smiles pleased.

At dinner that night, marketing pages me. They feel the hotel chain is a hot topic and want to use me as a success story. Arrangements have been made for a photo of me with the Inventor and a Dream Machine at The World Showcase Lagoon. There, eleven different countries are represented as restaurants around a 41-acre lake.

And all you have to do to be here is kill someone and his pet. While the photographer sets up, I try to convince myself the hotel chain got me here. It doesn’t work. Floating on the big silver Epcot golf ball is that dog’s human eye.

It finds me and winks.

The Illuminations light show starts. A recorded female announcer is pleased to present an international fantasy of music and light. The Floridian sky is filled with fireworks. From behind the marketing pack, Debbie and Jimmy wave at me. The Flight of the Bumblebee symphony, with its seizure sounds blasts over the water. Lights flare on and off at the different countries. Machine-made smoke from the surrounding shore crawls across the lagoon’s surface and meets in the center. There, a giant metal ball lights up with the names of each country.

The photographer calls me over.

“Clear sky tonight.” Roffe Grandholm says as someone uses a lint brush on him.

“Good for the fireworks.” I wince as someone else puts hairspray on me.

“I wonder where the moon is?” Roffe Grandholm cranes his neck around. “It’s supposed to be a full moon tonight. Maybe Disney doesn’t own it yet.”

“The full moon was two weeks ago. I saw it on my calendar.” “That was the new moon.” he pulls out his white cuffs. His gold cufflinks show. “Most calendars mark both phases.”

I’m beginning to sweat. I don’t need to. There is no such thing as a…

“Say, cheese.” Roffe Grandholm suggests.

I crack a smile and it feels like a nail shoves through one of my top teeth. I stand there, shaking the hand of Roffe Grandholm with a Dream Machine between us, and have a pain so intense my legs are buckling. I grab my face. Roffe Grandholm looks concerned. I reach between my lips. My eyetooth gashes my finger.

The photographer gets huffy having missed his shot and then goes white. He drops the camera. The lens cracks against the asphalt. Blood spills out of my mouth as more teeth push down. From behind the Epcot ball peeks a full moon.

Success will never be mine.

Debbie covers Jimmy’s eyes. She can’t scream. I cover my mouth with a furry hand. Someone pulls Roffe Grandholm away. People collide. Parents grab kids. Sandals stomp pink cotton candy. An old woman makes the sign of the cross.

My family is frozen on the sidelines.

I tell them it’s only a phase. It will pass. As long as they chain me up once a month, make me count holes; we can still be a family.

My explanation comes out as a piercing roar that flattens the hairs on their heads.

Time is running out. They don’t know about strainers. There are no frogs available. The only thing between my family and a monster is a Dream Machine.

It stops assailants from preying on your family.

Milton can’t have them. I’m not going to be a tyg and pass this on. I grab The Dream Machine and leap with powerful hind legs at the water. The bumblebee music shrieks. I splash into the deep lagoon filled with hundreds of lighting fixtures on miles of rollercoaster tracks.

Milton’s dog wants out. It hates water. It knows I can’t swim.

I quickly tie the Dream Machine’s cable to a light fixture on a track that a chain is pulling toward the center of the lagoon. I loop the slack many times around my hairy neck. Dogs need leashes. The cable tightens. I’m dragged away from the shore, a graceless water skier on a noose while the Dream Machine trails along behind.

Milton’s dog struggles and breaks the surface howling. Behind me, The Dream Machine gets caught in a cross shaped piece of track. I’m yanked back underwater. The light fixture moves forward while the trapped Dream Machine pulls back. The cord between them closes tightly on my throat.

Milton’s dog resists. The light fixture is jerked to a stop and shines a white shimmering circle on the lagoon’s underside. A gold cufflink sinks to the bottom. The Dream Machine looks ready to give, that the cable will rip out, but I’ve seen it in action. Even as metal chains pull the light fixture forward, as the shimmering circle turns a red the color of barbeque chicken, as my successful thoughts converge, it holds.

MisLiza was Soothsaid

2007-06-01T19:13:00.000-07:00

"MisLiza was Soothsaid"

by Lucious Vaughn

This story took place on the Southside; this is the true account of it.

DING DING DING DONG --was when I heard Denny Chimes. I sat on my porch and looked away, toward those chimes. I saw MisLiza Jemisen arriving via Six Row. She possessed the gaunt ministrations of an olden woman. She sauntered. She staggered. Her individual liberty should not have nettled any of her admirers. As last night, MisLiza slumbered. Her window shade was pulled unto a hand’s length above her windowsill. A July night breeze blew the warm air into her slumber room. And a stalker walked through the row house alleyway. He paused by her window. He lit up a cigarette. He kept walking.

"If Your Sweetheart Sends A letter Of Goodbye- Cry, Cry, Cry!" That was her clock radio awakening her.

DING DING DING DONG- was when she heard Denny Chimes. She rose up and synchronized her movements to the chimes. She pattered barefooted to her kitchen.

She sung a ditty, "Corn Bread and Buttermilk is Good enough for me!"

"This refrigerator sure does keep buttermilk cool. Ooh, my rheumatism is below my back bone. No better. No worse. But I won’t rub with camphorated oil. The smell of camphorated oil is compulsory, in July heat."

She pulled on her favorite black dress. She looked at herself in the length mirror. She put on orthopedic stockings. She put some folding money and coins in a handkerchief. She stuffed the handkerchief down her bosom, into the top of her brassiere. She left home and walked some miles to the Southside.

She came by Fifteenth Street viaduct. She crossed the field of railroad tracks. She came by the Box Factory. She came through the pathway that was the valley of the blossoming phylum weeds. She came into the foreground where the new Beer Warehouse was recently built. She crossed dirt road Sixteenth Avenue, walked the plank over Six Row ditch. She arrived on Six Row---a row of six shotgun houses in a row---Six Row! MisJenny Dorling hailed her. MisJenny watered some yellow wild flowers within a flowers trough upon a porch banister. She exchanged her pleasantries with MisLiza.

“I admire you for your individual liberty. Your coming and going via Six Row does not nettle me, you are sauntering, walking like that. Don’t you catch heat? July heat is compulsory. Your amulet penny about your ankle is a new penny, your pendant about your neck is heart shaped. It is stuck in your perspiration. I am churning some ice cream, myself. Won’t you come and have some ice cream, for the Fourth of July?”

“I should keep on my way at this time, thank you for the kind invitation, though.”

MisLiza then came into the intersection of Nineteenth Street. Denny Chimes chimed at 8 a.m., in the year of our Lord, 1957.

There was some news heard on WAPT radio about Arthurine Lucey was enrolled at the University of Alabama, there was a strike, her enrollment was cancelled, she was ousted from the university. Clara and Maryliza were on the way to work as maids on campus. “If we cross the strike line, they will strike, on our asses-” They retreated from going to work that time.

Duny Boy hailed her, “Here comes MisLiza, and, Eddie man, do not shoot your chinaberry popgun and pop MisLiza with a chinaberry while she is arriving, she is retired, she is over 65 years old.”

MisLiza arrived at Blind John’s house. She was the babysitter for her favorite nephew Phan, and her baby niece Anne. She hoped Phan hadn't burnt the toast or scorched the grits when Blind John let Phan start the breakfast. MisLiza fried some bacon and scrambled some eggs to complete the breakfast.

Phan and Anne wrestled with MisLiza. They towed her. They rolled MisLiza’s heels over her head in a backward somersault. Her sandals sailed off her feet, landed in the red clay sand. Phan dived into the sand, retrieved her sandals, dumped the sand out of them, gave them to MisLiza. MisLiza surrendered to Phan and Anne in the wrestling jamboree. Baby Anne climbed into Blind John’s lap and went to sleep. Blind John rocked back and forth in his straight back chair; rockerty-tockerty. MisLiza sat upon the row house porch. She let her feet swing down. She let the red sand sift through her toes. The red clay sifted differently when it was bone dry sand like that. She languished, until sundown. She rubbed her lower backbone.

“Sister MisLiza, I believe it was pan trout frying I smelled-"

“The Willing Workers Club fish fry has begun. Their lawn party is in the combined back yards of Clara and Maryliza!”

“Sister MisLiza, go and purchase four gourmet fried pan trout fish sandwiches and Upper Ten bottled pops. I’m treating all of us-”

MisLiza came to the fish fry and lawn party to purchase Blind John's order.

"If Your Sweetheart Sends A Letter of Goodbye- Cry, Cry, Cry-" played on the club stereo.

Avalora and Gwen hailed MisLiza, in unison. “Hell-o MisLiza!”

MisLiza went to the condiments table. She ordered four pan trout fish sandwiches and Upper Tens. She wanted the works. Hot sauce. Mustard. Catsup. Maryliza and Mag hosted the condiments tabled. They wrapped MisLiza’s order in Cut-Rite wax paper. They put in some club condiment napkins.

“I want a shot of red seal whiskey,” MisLiza said.

“Pay that club coffer to Mrs. Moot.”

Big Sister and Little Sister were the best duo. They came to the fish fry and lawn party, without JT.

The lawn party children made themselves at home when they were strewn up and down Clara’s steps. They leaned aside and allowed Big Sister and Little Sister to stretch their long legs up the steps onto the high back porch.

Big Sister and Little Sister turned, looking out, scanning. The fish fry and lawn party was surrounding the combined back yards. They spotted Boochie.

Redee dunked his hand into the tub of ice and beer. He pulled up two cans of Falstaf. He passed a can of beer to Cedee. The cans of beer made shsst-pop sounds when they pulled off the tabs. They paid the club coffer to Mrs. Moot.

Mr. Blackhair, Mr. Anonize and Theowood came. They took their seats at a card table. Mr. Anonize tapped the deck of cards. Theowood dealt them a hand of Gin Rummy. Mr. Blackhair put a fifth of red seal whiskey on the table. He beckoned for a club hostess. Hostess Josephine came. And so did hostess Mrs. Moot come with a round hostess tray. Mr. Blackhair hugged Josephine around her midriff. He ordered the set ups of ice and shot glasses. He ordered Upper Tens. “The drinks from our fifth are on the house! And we paid for complimentary pan trout fish sandwiches for all club members. That is, times seventy-five cents each. And do not pass on our offer, and do not resell these particular drinks on the house to someone else!”

“It pays to be a Willing Workers Club member,” cooed Mrs. Moot.

Big Sister and Little Sister went inside Clara‘s kitchen. The party stretched unto Clara’s middle room. “Stop right there, one to another Sister Girls. My grandson has the front room for his curfew. You two sisters are distinguished; you adopted your daughter, Lela Rae. She was an orphan, now, she is both of your daughter! Our club members Johnnie and Mrs. Moot are a Big and Little Sister team-”

“We want four gourmet fried pan trout fish sandwiches and Upper Ten drinks. Both of us want a shot of red seal whiskey--Red Seal, only! Not bootleg; we heard that Mrs. Perzetta was purging from her mouth when she died. She was poisoned from a whiskey she peddled it herself, possibility!”

“Distillery-”

“Boochie just ate you up when he and you made the moonshine delivery?”

“He chewed me out; when he and I took a gallon of it out of his car trunk, I was the one not taking it out, correctly. I could not do anything like that correct, if you let Boochie tell it.”

“I tell you the truth, Little Sister, I felt sorry for you, and, it was like I said; you came away from him at the still location looking like you fought for life and death about a mistake, your arm was in a sling--are you and Boochie secretly married?”

Big and Little Sister departed from the party inside. They came down the steps.

“He ate her up!”

“He chewed her out!”

The lawn party children moved aside. Avalora and Gwen said in unison, “Excuse us, one to another Sister Girls!”

When Mrs. Moot went away to hostess a table, the lawn party children commandeered the stereo. They took off Bobby Blue Bland and they put on Tossin’ And Turnin’ All Night for some rock and roll, by Bobby Head.

Lucille had a shot of whiskey from the complimentary fifth on the house. Lucille kicked off her sandals and danced the Sloop barefooted by herself and she shuffled her bare feet over some clumps of Johnson grass and kicked up some red sand.

Mrs. Moot came back to the stereo. She demanded that the lawn party children turn it over to her. For the adults.

“And lawn party children should have curfew now!”

“Aw, not now, Mrs. Moot-” Avalora and Gwen said.

“Yes, now-” Josephine agreed.

“Fix us up, then, with another fish sandwich before we go to curfew.”

“You know not to bribe me, before you obey me, go to curfew, like Mrs. Moot said- but, take this money. Get as many sandwiches and pops as it will purchase!”

The lawn party children had stayed up until a fish fry and lawn party shut down past 11 p.m., by tradition. The lawn party children were ordered to their first curfew. The Willing Workers Club members were the lawn party children’s parents. The lawn party children set up the party tables. Strung the party lights along the clothesline. Ran the errand to McPherson’s Store. Purchased the pan trout frozen with the heads off in boxes of twelve each. The trout were thawed. The lawn party children scraped off the scales and cut open the trout. The lawn party children crowded around the condiments table. Mag and Maryliza breaded the trout for gourmet frying.

Her fish order was completed. MisLiza said, “And I’ll have another shot of red seal whiskey.”

“We are glad you came; thank you for your kind patronage, we must impose a limit now; that one more shot is your last one and pay that club coffer to Mrs. Moot and good night to you, MisLiza.” MisLiza went away from the fish fry and lawn party.

I passed by MisLiza on my way to curfew. I said, “Good night, MisLiza!” I went to curfew upon Clara’s front porch. The porch light was on. I sat in the metal glider. I rocked forward in it and slid out. The chair fell back and banged upon the porch.

Larry said to me, Junior, “Cooch, come inside and watch Friday Night Boxing. Open and close the screen door quickly so the candle flies won‘t fly inside.”

The television light flickered through the screen door. I peered inside looking through the screen door. Will and Sid were at curfew with Larry. We purchased deck pants alike so we match the way would dress for the Fourth of July. Mrs. Moot said our deck pants made us look like knickerbocker deck hands on a patriot ship.

Friday Night Boxing was “Brought to you by Falstaf Beer and Garchaux sugar.”

I saw the boxers were not Joe Louis and Walcott. I sat back in the glider.

Phan and Anne let go a gleeful- whoopee and a hug upon MisLiza when she got back to Blind John’s. Their porch light was on. The candle flies circled around the light.

“I’ll pick the bones out of your trout. Here’s your Upper Ten, you pulled the crusts off the Merita light bread. You strewed the crusts over the porch. The crusts are the best part of Merita bread, wipe the crumbs off your mouths with the condiment napkins!”

DING DING DING DONG. She was ready to leave Blind John’s at 11 p.m.

“Arber came home from Reformatory School and the children’s mother was on vacation from her live-in maid’s job and we got together and we celebrated and we served some vanilla fudge ice cream--didn‘t we?”

Phan and Anne waved MisLiza double good-bye.

She sauntered. She staggered. She went into the dark entrance to Six Row.

The hunting dogs Black and Blue barked inside the dog pen at her passing. She walked the plank over the ditch. She crossed dirt road Sixteenth Avenue. She was in the foreground. A shaded bulb light on the Beer Warehouse lighted the conveyor doors. She went through the pathway through the valley of the blossoming phylum weeds. “Phew!”

And all those crickets chirped o’ crickets!

Neon lights glowed over the Shoppes of AGS. The neon lights lit up all of Greensboro. The hill houses were dark silhouettes over the field of railroad tracks. And Zippier came into the shadows. Zippier whiffled, as a running and sweating horse. Zippier warbled, as thirst was lodged in the throat of a thirsty bird. Zippier dashed. And MisLiza was stultified. She stumble-blundered. Zippier had up a railroad trestle build-up rock. Zippier hit MisLiza with that rock. Zippier bludgeoned MisLiza to death. Without an outcry, she bled from that gash upon scalp. Zippier dashed away from that blotter scene.

An amorphous phantasm rose up in that pathway through the valley of the blossoming phylum weeds. That amorphous phantasm was MisLiza’s haunt. Her haunt rose up without her bones. It was a boneless haunt. Her haunt gave chased after Zippier. Zippier crawled under an idle strand of freight train boxcars. He was over the field of railroad tracks. He was below the hill houses. Her haunt came where Zippier was----and was blatant! Zippier retreated back across the field of railroad tracks. He crawled under the boxcars. He turned away from the pathway through the blossoming phylum weeds. He went up the portal turn in dirt road Sixteenth Avenue. That road became the first part of Eighteenth, a paved street.

On the middle part of Eighteenth, without JT at home, Big Sister and Little Sister said Lela Rae could have the extra fish sandwich and Upper Ten drink.

Zippier arrived on the corner of Eighteenth and Fifteenth Avenue. Zippier went into the high thorn bush. The high thorn bush respected a tradition of respectfully segregating White Mrs. Day’s house from Black Mrs. Snow's yard next door. Zippier held up there.

Inside her house, Mrs. Day commented to Mr. Day how Clara used Faultless starch and starched her doilies and ironed them and made them doilies stand up stiff as wire mesh around her porcelain whatnots and Clara picked up and delivered the ironing.

Now, a thirsty bird warbled, in the thorn bush- “Who-” asked Mr. Snow-

"The hoot says Whoo-” said Mrs. Snow.

MisLiza’s haunt came upon Zippier, who was still hiding in that thorn bush, and was greatly blatant. Zippier tore out of the thorn bush. Some thorns ripped through his torso and tore the flesh. Zippier dashed on Fifteenth Avenue. The haunt trailed Zippier to the gravel pit. Zippier tore off his shirt and threw it away----around the gravel pit perimeter.

Her blatant Haunt spoke unto Zippier.

----“You could have admired MisLiza. Her liberty nettled you! The postman left her pension in confidence with Blind John. You did not rob her. You stalked her, not far from where Phan and Anne waved her double good-bye. She was not fragile, as yellow wild flowers yield an oration; she languished in that pathway, the valley was through the blossoming phylum weeds. She did not do a two-step dance with you! You dashed upon her, she stumble-blundered. You hit her. She fell, you had the railroad trestle buildup rock picked up. Was a railroad trestle build-up rock any rock for you to pick up and bludgeoned her to death? Your throat pulsated for a shot of red seal whiskey. She did not have a flask of it stashed down her bosom to share a shot of it with you, that reason--and rude force. You dashed away from that scene; a Zippier dash was a dash over an otherwise blank space on a police blotter, a blank otherwise left without a dash to show nothing precise was omitted in the blank space! So, do finally let them know who you are Zippier and the swarm of gnats will swarm like a halo around your head.”

Zippier let out a throaty holler that was heard far into the night.

Crow Man escorted his neighbor Mrs. Moot home from the fish fry and lawn party last night. They talked about the curfew that came for the lawn party children was when the shots of whiskey were on the house was strictly for adults to consume, not for the lawn party children to hang out about. For what was that scream about. Crow Man said it reverberated through the alleyways of Nineteenth Street. Crow Man came upon the gravel pit in the morning. He found JT was wandering around the perimeter. He was aimlessly boxing the air around him. Nothing he aimed for boxing could be seen around him. Crow Man picked up the shirt. He compared it to his shirtless torso. He got a seemly statement out of him about the blood on it was from his tattered torso from the thorn bush. And the swarm of gnats swarmed like a halo around his head-

Saturday morning was bright with the sun already hot at 7 a.m. All the leaves were chinaberry tree green. You were up early anticipating Mag stirring to get ready to go to work. I went outside and sat on the porch. I walked barefooted around to the combined back yards. I walked on some sun hot rocks. The bottoms of my feet got burnt. I cooled off my feet on some patches of Johnson grass. Dew was on the grass. Dew came off the grass onto my feet. Some sand clung with the dew on my feet- it was red clay.

It was a sizable blue sky that morning, meshed like, out of the blue sky came Sky King. The ghost of last night’s fish fry and lawn party already hung over the back yards--ready like the same kind was going to continue Saturday night. Dew was on the glossy white condiments table. And the cast iron skillet. Heat rivulets rose from the mound of fish fry ashes.

I went back to the front just in time to see Mama off to be at work at 8 o’clock. She hugged my chin and kissed me goodbye. She went via Six Row and went through the pathway, through the blossoming phylum weeds.

Upon the Hill of Nineteenth Street, the red clay was undulating and heat mirages were rising at 8 in the morning.

Crow Man came over the hill and down the hill with some folks. They went via Six Row. Crow Man stopped in the intersection. He looked over at me. He issued me a silent summons. You too, come and witness! And Crow Man went via Six Row. I went via Six Row. I walked the plank over the ditch.

I gathered with them in the foreground. Some flora in the foreground was yellow wild flowers; the valley was the pathway through the blossoming phylum weeds. The Beer Warehouse would not open for the morning shift until 9 a.m. I saw them when they strung the outline and the mound of sand where the Beer Warehouse was to be built and the concrete blocks went up and up. The first beer rolled from the freight car down the conveyor was Flagstaf beer. That boxcar emptied of its freight stayed idle standing there.

Later that day, I told Mag, that she went through that pathway and did not see MisLiza’s dead body lying there. But I went there. I saw her dead body. I had never seen anybody found dead, like I saw MisLiza, in that pathway through the valley of the blossoming phylum weeds, on the Southside, in Tuscaloosa!

July heat was compulsory. Two-uniformed policeman were already there when we gathered. One knelt in the phylum weeds. He examined the scene around where her body was sprawled. The policeman broke a twig off a phylum weed. He tapped the twig atop her head. It went deep like an arrow into the blood clotted in the matte crop of her gray hair. The blood was swollen olden blood. Her dress hem was slid up. To the top of her opaque hosiery was exposed. The policeman lifted up her dress hem with the phylum weed twig. Her undergarment had not been disturbed. That heart shaped pendant was in-situ about her neck where her perspiration had cooled and dried.

The standing-up policeman asked us gathered, “Does anyone know this lady?”

MisJenny Dorling swooned.

“Yes, officer, she was MisLiza Jemisen. She was retired. I’d say from Northern General. She was over sixty-five years old. She taught baby niece Anne her first steps. She cuddled her favorite nephew Phan when he knocked out his two front teeth. Her next of kin, her brother Blind John was not yet notified MisLiza was dead. The gnats have swarmed like a halo around her head! We had gathered together. MisLiza was soothsaid.

"When I saw MisLiza last Easter, I was stepping high soled in some yellow patent leather shoes. I came off Six Row. I nearly collided with her in the intersection. I swayed this way and back. My shoe heels sunk into a gully--it was red sand; all other ground was sinking sand. I came up out of the sinking sand. I said, MisLiza, it is you; what are you doing on the Southside the first thing on Easter in the morning? You must be prepared to go to church with me; you do have on your favorite dress, the high shoulder pads rivaled my style. My Easter bonnet was yellow matched my yellow frock. It was my bonnet arrayed with mine own MisJenny yellow wild flowers that caught on in the intersection. Quote me, ‘Come and go to Saint John Church with me, MisLiza’--MisLiza said no, ‘Go along to your Church service without me, MisJenny.’--She would not go with me. MisLiza sauntered. She staggered. I said did you come to the Southside for a shot of red seal whiskey on Easter in the morning--in dry Tuscaloosa? MisLiza said the red seal is a tax stamp the state put on the whiskey--and it made us to call it--- red seal whiskey. One shot in a shot glass was a shot of red seal whiskey. Wet or dry! Well, Sir, MisLiza’s language would be salty, but, I was not salty-daunted, I soothsaid MisLiza!”

Maggie-"Lord have Mercy," and sung a hymn a cappella.

Clara-"Do have Mercy Lord."

Maryliza-"Do have Mercy Jesus."

Mary Alice-“Oooh--MisLiza is a haunt!”

JT was Zippier; he was at large circumstantially.

Her funeral was at Saint John Church.

A spray of MisJenny yellow wild flowers swayed the Bunton bier, AJ Bunton, LFD.

Her haunt did languor, the swarm of gnats were swarming like a halo.

(c) 2007 Lucious Vaughn

Wish You Were Here

2007-05-24T10:53:00.000-07:00

"Wish You Were Here"
by C. A. McAndrew

It's a beach house. I ought to be happy here.

You thought so. You went on about the golden days on the shore, the seashells, sea gulls, sea stink, salt air. You called me a golden idol of the South Seas, lying on the sand, knowing just how ornamental I looked lounging there.

It was a stupid thing to say. You meant it to be flattering. I let you think so.

They aren't golden days now. You'd say, I think, the gold was transmuted into lead. It's the sort of thing you would say.

I say, it was the universe's dirty trick. Like hurricanes. The universe throws hurricanes at beach houses.

(I could love a hurricane. Better a whirling suffocating thrill than this everlasting calm.)

You'd like to hear that, wouldn't you? Puffed up like a gull picking over fish bones, to hear me say I missed you.

I won't say it.

You made this place for me--this world, the golden shore, the beach house. Then you caught a case of the scruples and wanted to go back to the true world, the dutiful world. No South Sea idols there.

You chose. I chose. You were the alchemist. And this world began to die.

Now the days stretch, like the sea to the horizon I can never quite see. Out there it's all frantic, ugly, scrabbling life, nothing to enjoy.

I know you've come back.

The step's creak gives you away. The flap-flop of your sandals, the whine of the door you don't open. I don't answer. I've heard it all before. It's only in my mind, now.

You never think of me; you're long gone. I lounge on the veranda, watching the lifeless waves. There aren't many seagulls now. The dead ones fall into the sea, and the wavelets gulp them up. Just bare sand and ripples, and the salt stink sunk into my bones.

I could have gone to you. The door was open.

Leave the beach house for the anthill. Of course. I ought to have my head examined.

I said that about you, remember? When you came out with one of your mad flatteries. And you'd laugh and bow and say something even worse. It made me crazy sometimes.

Am I crazy now? To be unhappy here? No one depending, demanding, draining my life away.

You'd say so. I think you would. I don't know any more.

You'll never come, I know. I don't want anyone coming here. It's my place, my world, now.

The water's cold, so I stay on the veranda looking ornamental, for no one but myself and the dead little waves, and the leaden sky.

The Rapture

2007-05-15T13:41:00.000-07:00

"The Rapture"

by Skip Horack

Biz Folsom, that's my new floor boss. You should see the son of a bitch -- pressed Wranglers, George Strait Resistol -- thinks he's a cowboy. He cradles his pie plate of a belt buckle, daring me to push him. "Either pull yourself together," he says, "or get your sweet ass on home."

He's sore at me for refusing a lap dance. "I don't know how y'all did it in New Orleans," he says, "but you don't get to choose your customers here." Fuck this. I don't say nothing, just walk out the door. I didn't make it through the storm to put up with his small-town bullshit.

Outside, a Pentecostal screams at deer hunters from the shoulder of the highway. He calls me a whore. "You're going to burn in hell," he says.

My ride home is back inside swinging on a pole so I holler right back at the Bible-beater. "Give me a lift," I tell him. "Be a good Christian." A logging truck rumbles by and the headlights play across his face. He looks scared to death as I prepare to jump the ditch.

The man's station wagon smells like insect repellant. We pull out onto the highway and his courage returns. "You dance for the devil," he preaches. "The Enemy has made you his servant."

"Take a left here," I say, pointing at my turnoff.

It's a clear, cool evening and deer are moving with the full moon, night feeding in the soybean fields. A doe and two yearlings skitter across the gravel road, eyes phosphorescent. We brake then roll on.

I'm back living with my momma in the same little clapboard where I grew up. The preacher pulls in front of the house and kills the engine. "Will you pray with me?" he asks.

I figure that's the least I can do, seeing as how he gave me a ride and all. I take his hand and listen to him ramble. The prayer drags on and on until finally I realize that he's stalling, doesn't really want to let me loose. I think that's pretty funny so I inch my hand closer to his thigh. My little finger brushes up against his hard-on and his palm goes slippery with sweat. "Sister," he asks, his voice raspy, "is there anything at all that you would like to pray for?"

"I'll finish you off for fifty bucks," I tell him. "Amen."

He gives a little gasp when I say that, pushes my hand away like it's on fire. "Get away from me," he whispers.

I've never turned a trick in my life and don't plan on starting outside my momma's house with this clown. "Relax," I say. "I was only joking."

"Get away from me now," he repeats. "Please don't make me ask you again."

I take my time but do as he says. Coyotes are yipping in the distance and I sit on the porch to have a smoke and listen. I keep waiting for him to crank up his station wagon but the creepy fucker never does. The moonlight's reflecting off his windshield and I wonder what he's doing. He can see me but I can't see him, and since there was a time when I believed what he believes I wonder whether it's finally happened. I wonder if he's gone and disappeared on me. Is it possible that the Tribulation has just now begun?

Copyright (c) 2007 Skip Horack