#SampleSunday

          3/6/2011

       Flash Fiction– “What if Jerry Seinfeld married Lady Gaga?”

   

    “TAKE IT OFF,” Seinfeld screamed.

     Stefani stopped in her tracks, placed her hands on her hips, and tossed Jerry a penetrating look over her shoulder.

     “That’s my ruffled shirt, Stefani! Please … it’s not one of your costumes. I LOVE THAT SHIRT!”

     “Jerry … you know damn well I no longer respond to that name. You have to start calling me Lady Gaga like everyone else.”

     Your my wife for crying out loud! Why do I need to call you a name taken from a QUEEN song? IT’S ABSURD. And what’s with the slacks made from our empty tuna-fish cans?

     “This is my ‘ruffled-recycler’ costume. Why are you getting all worked up over this, anyways? You’ve known since you met me on the lower east side back in 2003 that this is what I do.”

     “But that’s not part of a costume. That’s MY ruffled shirt. Please take it off.”

     Lady Gaga paused then reluctantly began the arduous process of un-doing the twenty-nine buttons required to remove Jerry’s beloved garment.

     “What the—?

     “Don’t start,” Gaga shot back.

     Seinfelds jaw hung agape as he tried to make sense of what was suddenly revealed. His glam-rocker wife had pastys attached to the nipples of her bare breasts. From each pasty, curling copper tubing ran up over her shoulders and down her back, disappearing beneath her fish-scale-like trousers.

     “Oh, for the love of God—what on earth is THAT all about?” Seinfeld asked.

     Gaga ignored the comedian’s question. She allowed Seinfeld’s ruffled blouse to slide slowly off her slender shoulders and fall to the floor. “I’ve got a limo to catch. I don’t know when I’ll be home tonight. Don’t wait up.” Without another word, Gaga clinkity-clanked out the door.

     Jerry Seinfeld was left standing with his arms outstretched and palms up. A virtual human question-mark, the comedian stood shaking his head, the Seinfeld trademark half-smile frozen on his bewildered face.

     Right on cue, Kramer appeared in Jerry’s doorway, head vibrating back and forth like a man posessed. “Mmmm … Giddyup” was all he could say.

    

    

    

                2/27/2011

     Flash Fiction – “Goodfellas meets Pretty Woman”

     He felt lucky for a few seconds. No doubt, the feeling wouldn’t stick … it never did. He slid himself sideways across her moist skin. The beads of sweat glistened like a party dress, lit up by the pin-point ray of sunshine that found its way through a small tear in the flimsy window shade. He felt a weird sympathy for the bright beam. Neither he nor the ray had any choice in the matter. Both were forced to end up inside this new place he called “dump.” He let the full weight of his steroid-laden, goomba frame fall heavily onto the mattress then adjusted himself to face her. His unemployed trigger finger traced a few laps around her navel ring, now rising and falling in sync with the rapid rhythm of her heart. She was just about as perfect a broad as anyone he’d been with. The life had supplied him with a constant bevy of dancer types. This one was different. Yet, he knew she would never be enough.

     “I don’t know if I can do this,” he said.

     “Did I do something wrong, Steven? Her sincerity hurt his heart more each time she spoke.

     “It’s not you, Adele. I mean this witness protection thing. I don’t think I can do it.”

     “You don’t really have any choice now, Baby. Besides, I kinda like your new look. You were gorgeous—“

     “Oh, cut the crap! I’m a dead man … I just know it. No way are they gonna let this stand.”

     Adele remained silent. She’d seen that temper too many times in the past six months since Steven, aka “Stevie two step” had made his grand entrance into The Bare Hug, his entourage in tow. She still remembered the look in his eyes when he said, “This is the last lap dance you’re ever gonna do.” He had meant it and she hadn’t argued. She had known right away that this man was someone who would not take being denied lightly.

     He rolled over to the edge of the bed, grabbed his new jeans and pulled them on. Adele followed his every move as he headed off toward the bathroom. He didn’t offer a glance. It would be better for both of them this way. He grabbed his piece and the rest of his normal-guy street clothes before walking inside the dated, olive green bathroom. The color reminded him of how he felt inside. The whole apartment was a prison of sorts, much like the real thing. He had spent more years inside than out. There was no point in prolonging the sentence.

     The revolver was loaded … it was always loaded. He checked it anyways. The chrome steel object was more of a friend now than any living, breathing thing around him. He slid it between the waist of his jeans and the small of his back. Just a couple more minutes inside the sallow confines would insure that Adele had drifted off. He avoided looking in the mirror at all costs. The shock at the surgeons office had been enough. He slowly opened the bathroom door and killed the light. A telltale, muted snore gave the green light to his escape. She’d be fine and go back to the city. And he, straight to hell, a permanent respite from a world to which he could never belong. 

          2/20/2011

This piece is written in response to a flash fiction challange from friend, and fellow author, Marni Mann.

       She said; “Take me to a happy place … The Hangover meets Bourne Identity.”

     Aldo Chambers could hear his own laughter echo off Chambers Peak and back around through the valley. It was his favorite time of day. The morning sun lit up the steep slopes surrounding the six-hundred acre, Rocky Mountain compound he had always called home. The place had belonged to his family for seven generations. His would be the last. The fourteen inch long spike buried in his chest insured it.

     He looked back over at the human waste-product he’d just cut down and burst out laughing again. “Parish James, you son-of-a-bitch. The only slippery bastard that ever got away from me.”

     The metallic taste of blood overwhelmed his ability to ignore it. He let his revolver slide out of his hand. The only weapon he’d ever carried had been used twice in his career to shoot another human. Both times had been at the same man. The first time was nearly eight years back while on a bounty hunt with his old man. James had jumped Pa Chambers as the old man searched the fugitives shack over in nearby, Everett Junction.

     Aldo remembered it as if it had happened last week. The old man had been just a hare’s breath away from gettin’ his tonsils handed to him by way of Parish James’s survival knife. Two shots were all he had gotten off, ’cause of the way the pair had been shuffling around like a couple old grizzlys. One shot ended up in the old man’s ass cheek … the other created the bodacious scar on the left side of James’s face. Had he survived this mornings stunt, good old Parish James would have spent a few minutes each mornin’ shaving over a matching scar on the other side. That wasn’t happenin’ now.

     As the blood continued to find its way outbound from Chambers’s chest, he thought about how damn dumb most people would think he was right now. He felt happy. It had always gnawed at him like a beaver on a sapling that James had gotten away. Now, the dumb ass had delivered a two-for-one special to him. A second chance to tie up a nagging loose end and a quick solution to what he faced on the horizon—a slow, painful death. News of the lousy cancer he couldn’t pronounce, coursing through his veins, had sealed his fate. He’d always been a loner … a mountain man with no wife and kids to miss him. He never knew his mother and the old man had passed five years back.

     Parish James’s timing couldn’t have been better. It was damn near a gift … the sun, the mountains, and the laughter bouncin’ around the canyon. He knew the mail gal would most likely be the one to find he and James. What the hell is she gonna think when she gets a load of us? He shook his head and used up his final breath on the best thing he could think of… one last laugh.