A New Story Most Thursdays

Another Edition of Thursday Stories for a New Year!

Happy New Year, Friends and Neighbors, and welcome to Thursday Stories. Looking back over my herd of short stories, I realize that more than three dozen of the little rascals have appeared only in print. Some of you may have forked over the dough for this or that literary review, but I don’t expect everyone to buy all of the reviews all of the time. And so, drumroll please, I give you Thursday Stories. I’m not guaranteeing a new story every Thursday, but I will do my best until all the print-only tales have been set free.

Note: I’m in Sri Lanka and my WordPress scheduling plugin went wonky, so this post is late. My apologies.

You can find all of my stories and more at the Marco Etheridge Fiction Website:

Marco Etheridge Fiction

This week’s edition of Thursday Stories features Warts, a wild story about two crazy desert rats and a few (possibly) hallucinogenic toads. This story first appeared in the forthright journal Bullshit Lit, published in 2023. Now, without further ado, I give you another edition of Thursday Stories. I hope you enjoy it.

Warts

by Marco Etheridge

Come sunup I told Jimmy we was gonna have an intervention on his ass, but he knows there ain’t no we except him and me which don’t carry no weight. Jimmy and me been together going on forty years now. He says how could he tell an intervention from any old regular day in the desert. The skinny old sonofabitch has a point, but he’s also aggravating as a teddy bear cholla spine.

My name’s Jake. Me and Jimmy live out past Saguaro West. Got us a forty-acre parcel smack in the Sonoran Desert. Bought it back when land was cheap. Been here ever since, the both of us. After four decades living with a crazy man in the sunbaked desert, you’d think a fella would get accustomed to most anything. That’s exactly what I thought myself before Jimmy took to licking toads.

Jimmy calls our place the Double-Flying-J, on account of us being Jake and Jimmy. He even sculpted what he calls our cattle brand. Two hundred pounds of scrap steel and rebar welded together. We hung that monstrosity over our entry gate back when we were young and spry. It’s still hanging out there like a rusty steel vulture. Lord help the poor bastard it falls on.

The Double-Flying-J ain’t changed much in forty years. Not that Jimmy and I are lazy, you understand. It’s more that we take a natural approach to things. For example, it ain’t natural to work too hard when it’s a hundred degrees in the shade, so we don’t. Course, the same goes for too cold. Much below eighty-five and a man might take a chill. Days between eighty-five and a hundred are just right. No sense spoiling a fine day with any sort of work.

Now, your average desert critter appreciates a hunk of land where nothing changes. Being as me and Jimmy are accidental preservationists, the Double-Flying-J is an accidental nature preserve. Hell, we got mule deer, javelina, bobcat, coyotes, kit fox, and more kinds of ground squirrels than I can name. We got birds up the yin-yang, and lizards crawling on every dang surface.

And then there’s that damned Sonoran Desert Toad. Bufo alvarius if you want to get all technical. Big, ugly things that excrete a psychotropic goo from their backsides. The very same toads that Jimmy is addicted to licking.

Jimmy insists them toads are natural as any other critter. I tell him that may be so, but licking the warty bastards is a whole new level of weird. And believe me when I tell you that Jimmy and I are no strangers to weirdness.

Natural is all fine and good. I myself have always taken the natural approach to mind-altering substances. My preferences lean toward the M-line: mescaline, mezcal, and marijuana. But that’s just me. Far be it from me to criticize a brother’s choices.

Jimmy, on the other hand, prefers bourbon and peyote. Live and let live as the man says. Then, about a month ago, he started licking toads. Much as I try to be open-minded about his habits, last night’s shenanigans might just have been the kicker. When one fella’s toad-licking interferes with another fella’s love life, I say that’s one amphibian too far.

I’m a truthful old codger for the most part, so I don’t harbor any illusions about my appearance. Fact is, I’m seventy-two and scrawny as an underfed chicken. Romance don’t come my way all that often. So, when opportunity knocks, I answer, especially when opportunity takes the form of a willing gal who wants to get naked.

It took me the better part of Friday night and all my spare folding money to coax Sylvia back to the Double-Flying-J. I might have disappointed Syl once or twice in the past, but over many rounds of drinks, I promised to make it up to her. Laugh all you want, but when you get to be my age, you’ll learn all about your gear letting you down at just the wrong moment.

 Eventually, I wrangled Syl out under the ramada attached to the back of our shack. It was one of those magical desert nights. A big moon hovered over Wasson Peak, dripping silver light down through the ocotillo wands above our heads. The song dogs were in full throat, whole choirs of them yipping and yowling. The sort of night that makes old folks frisky and clothing optional.

Well sir, one thing led to another, and me and Sylvia managed to work up a pretty good head of steam out there on the daybed. I was right tickled with myself and Syl seemed right tickled with me. We were giggling like a couple of teenagers and going at it with natural abandon. That’s when Jimmy went streaking by wearing nothing but his tennis shoes, howling like a banshee.

Jimmy’s first pass broke my rhythm, but I did my best to ignore him. But then he come around a second time and knocked my concentration all to hell. Distracted Sylvia as well. Next thing you know, she’s dragging me off the daybed. Hauled my ass right up to the edge of the ramada to get a better view of the proceedings.

Now, a skinny old man running naked under the moonlight is not a pretty sight, but it damn sure is arresting. You don’t want to look but you can’t look away. Jimmy was tearing hell-for-leather, his dingus flopping up and down as his sneakers pounded the desert. Running so fast he had to lean into the turns as he rounded the corner of our shack.

Jimmy disappeared, but we could still hear him hollering. There was a sort of Doppler effect, like an ambulance racing by. I heard the old boy sprinting around the front of the house, his howls going almost quiet, then there he come again full-throat and flopping. The coyotes joined in the chorus, giving it all they were worth, and Sylvia next to me cackling like a crazy woman. It was a hell of a thing.

Four or five more laps under the moonlight and Jimmy started to fade. On the last go-round, he staggered past us and collapsed onto the day bed. He lay there face down and panting, giving us another moon to look at.

I reckon that was all the show Sylvia could stand. She was still laughing when she slipped her dress over her head. Told me I sure as hell knew how to show a lady a good time. Promised me a raincheck, so I suppose the night weren’t a total loss. Gave me a big sloppy kiss and left me there under the ramada with Jimmy’s bony ass pointed up at the night sky. Damn toad-licking sonofabitch.

The sun is well up now, blazing heat down over the mesquite and barrel cactus. I’m nursing a beer out on the ramada. Jimmy stomped off in a huff after I threatened him with the intervention. I ain’t worried about him right now. He can’t get up to much mischief this time of day. It’s too hot, for one thing. And them durn toads stay hid until nightfall.

But afore the sun goes down me and Jimmy going to have ourselves another chat. I love him like a brother, always have, and always will. But I can’t stand the thought of Jimmy going all warty-tongued and toad-crazy. We got to get a halter on this toad-licking thing. Be a hell of a shame to ruin our perfect relationship.

Fini

You can find Bullshit Lit here:

https://www.bullshitlit.com/

That’s it for this week’s edition of Thursday Stories. More stories are coming your way. How will you know when a new story breaks? Glad you asked, Friends. Read On! Drumroll and… Meanwhile, don’t miss any upcoming stories. You can stay tuned for all the latest by following the MEF blog:

https://bro.uxw.mybluehost.me/whats-new-in-marcos-world-the-blog

And… if you desire more flash and micro-fiction, look no further than my collection Broken Luggage:

Broken Luggage Collected Flash Fiction

Broken Luggage: Two dozen flash fiction tales of love lost and love found, of darkness at the end of life, and light at the beginning.

A man's life condensed into the broken luggage that will contain it. A young woman alone in the Sonoran Desert. Memories of dangerous eggs, thunderstorms, and a gunshot man. A character tours his self-made hell. Another steps from between the pages. Parables of sand and migration A labyrinth into new love, and the remembrance of love past. These two dozen flash stories tell swift tales of love lost and love found, of darkness at the end of life, and light at the beginning.

Order Now!

About the Book

Marco Etheridge is a writer of fiction, an occasional playwright, and a part-time poet. He lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. His stories have been published in reviews, journals, and magazines in Canada, Australia, the UK, and the USA. Broken Luggage gathers twenty-four of his best flash stories into one collection. A man’s life condensed into the broken luggage that will contain it. A young woman alone in the Sonoran Desert. Memories of dangerous eggs, thunderstorms, and a gunshot man. A character tours his self-made hell. Another steps from between the pages. Parables of sand and migration A labyrinth into new love, and the remembrance of love past. These two dozen flash stories tell swift tales of love lost and love found, of darkness at the end of life, and light at the beginning. Unforgettable characters struggle against the tides and pressures of an impersonal world, and against the burdens they carry within. There is joy and despair, defiance and acceptance. The inhabitants of these pages learn who they are, and sometimes, who they are not. Welcome, Reader, to the world of Broken Luggage.

Details

Genre: Short Stories
Tags: Recommended Books, Short Stories
Publisher: Marco Etheridge Fiction
Publication Year: 2022
Format: Paperback & eBook
Length: 137 Pages
ASIN: B0B3CSJR2C
ISBN: 9798833773079
List Price: $8.95
eBook Price: $2.99

Order Now

Kobo, Nook, Apple, and More!

Preview

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the page above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

A New Story Most Thursdays

Another Edition of Thursday Stories… And a New Year!

Happy New Year, Friends and Neighbors, and welcome to Thursday Stories. Looking back over my herd of short stories, I realize that more than three dozen of the little rascals have appeared only in print. Some of you may have forked over the dough for this or that literary review, but I don’t expect everyone to buy all of the reviews all of the time. And so, drumroll please, I give you Thursday Stories. I’m not guaranteeing a new story every Thursday, but I will do my best until all the print-only tales have been set free.

Note: My WordPress scheduling plugin went wonky while I am here in Sri Lanka, so this post is late. My apologies.

You can find all of my stories and more at the Marco Etheridge Fiction Website:

Marco Etheridge Fiction

This week’s edition of Thursday Stories features Saragamous, a retelling of the mad Maenads, followers of the Greek god of wine, Dionysus, and their deadly beef with Orpheus. This story first appeared in Mason Jar Press, published in 2023. Content warning: This is a hard story about grisly murder at the hands of demented cult followers. Now, without further ado, I give you another edition of Thursday Stories. I hope you enjoy it.

Sparagamos

by Marco Etheridge

Thus are we come to terrible times when musicians lie in wait for other musicians, intent on murder, and the protection of the nine sisters is null and void. A stage door bathed in a cone of artificial light, a dark alley, the assassins gathered. The would-be victim is deep inside the theater, just leaving the stage after the third encore. This will not be pretty.

Seven women stand under a dismal rain that threatens to soak through their hoodies. Each hoodie is adorned with the logo of The New Followers. Puddles of rainwater liquify the grey-green sludge that leaches from the dumpster, poisonous tendrils flowing across the cobblestones.

The women scowl at the stage door and pass flasks from hand to hand. Nine were to have been here, the full number of the band, but their ranks are thinned. One New Follower is laid low on her thrift store couch, doubled up by the cramps from hell. The other is passed out in a tangle of naked bodies, most still aspirating thank the gods.

One of the seven tosses back a flask and her uplifted face catches a fat drop of rain in one bloodshot eye. She ducks her head, curses the rain, the closed door, and the man behind it.

— How much longer we gotta wait on the old asshole?

— Chill, Maeve. Orson always does three encores. You know that. Then he’s outta there as fast as he can get to his limo.

— Nobody likes a know-it-all bitch, Mame.

— This alley’s creepy. Someone remind me why we’re doing this stupid shit.

— Seriously, Maybelle? Orson has been playing the same tired shit for three decades. Went to hell and lost everything he cared about. No fire, no heart, just pablum, junk for the masses.

— Yeah, and the masses love him for it.

— Wrong, Maya. They love the idea of a time capsule. Orson is a dinosaur, and his fans are mired in the past. We’re going to set them free.

— Naw, we’re going to tear Orson limb from bloody limb. That’s what we’re going to do. Fuck his fans.

— Damn, Megan. Way to keep things in focus.

— Keep it simple, stupid. Gimme a drink.

The flask slides from hand to hand. Megan drains it dry.

— Empty. C’mon, Mason, cough up a fresh dose.

The tallest of the seven fumbles in the pocket of her hoodie. Her left hand appears clutching a huge knife, then her right holding a flask.

— Gods on a stick, Mason, where’d you get the sword? We’re supposed to tear him apart, not slice him in half.

The tall woman shrugs and tosses the flask across the ring. Macy catches it, takes a long swig, and passes it along.

— The gods are dead.

— So you’re always saying, Macy.

— Orson claims his strings came from the gods. That’s reason enough to kill him. I mean, who the hell plays strings anymore?

A hissing frenzy rises from the circle of The New Followers.

— Hair of the dead gods.

— Strings of deceit.

— Webs, not strings.

— Webs to snare fools.

— Spider webs.

— I hate spiders.

— Hubris! The same noose that throttled Arachne and look how that turned out.

— The gods are dead, Mame.

— Yeah, Macy, we got it the first ten times already.

— The squawk boxes killed them. Everyone staring at their tiny screens.

— The people killed them.

— Death by vox populi.

Maybelle raises the flask, then holds up her hand.

— You don’t have to raise your hand, Grrl. Just talk.

— I’m confused. If the gods are dead, why do we have to kill Orson?

— You’re always confused. Tell her, Mame.

A long sigh and a slow head shake.

— Orson has defiled the real music, the dark music of drink and the night. And not only once, but over and over again, show after show.

— And that’s the kind of music we make, right?

— That’s right, Macy. Our music, the sacred music of The New Followers.

— How can our music be sacred if the gods are dead and gone? And who are we following?

— For fuck’s sake, Maya. Do we have to go over this again? It’s irony, right? Drink, debauchery, and dark music for dark times. C’mon, Maeve, back me up here.

— Mame’s right, Grrls. We follow an ancient and holy tradition. Doesn’t matter who’s dead, the tradition carries on. When someone, anyone, shits on our tradition, they gotta pay the piper.

— More like pay the Fates.

— Naw, you can’t buy off those bitches. Bribes don’t sway them.

— I thought they were all dead?

— Try to keep up, Maybelle. Fate comes before everything and goes on after everything. No escape, no mercy. Right, Grrls?

— Damn straight.

— Spin, measure, cut, that’s all those bitches know. They never stop, not even for happy hour.

— Will they cut us too, Mame?

— Everyone, Maybelle, even us. But not tonight. Tonight, we do the cutting.

— I wish that old sonofabitch would get his ass out the door. I’m ready to be an agent of Fate.

— Give him the chop.

— Tear him apart.

— Bloodbath, here we come.

— Quit hogging the booze.

— Dammit, Mame, we’re going to run dry before that old hedgehog climbs out of his hole. What if the limo shows up?

— Always the worrier, Maya. Don’t worry about the limo. Macy took care of him.

— I damn sure did. Got the driver drunk as a hog and then screwed him silly. He’ll be sleeping it off for a good long while, the pig.

A metallic click cuts through the pattering rhythm of rain on cobblestones. Seven heads turn at the sound. The stage door opens. An aged man steps into the cone of light cast down from above. He stands on a concrete landing two steps above the alley, holding an instrument case to his chest. The door hisses closed behind his back, and the lock falls into place.

His eyes search for a waiting limousine, but there is no vehicle. For one long breath, the alley is empty except for raindrops exploding on the oily pavement. Then the seven New Followers stalk from behind the dumpster. Blades flash in the darkness.

The dark women form a semicircle at the base of the steps. The man named Orson does not try to flee. He stands on the landing as a sacrificial ram upon the altar. As the seven women draw near, he throws back his grey head, opens his mouth, and begins to sing.

The tune is a lament of all that has gone before, a dirge of laurel trees in sunlight and thunderbolts from stormy skies. The words pour from his mouth, mixing horror and rain, filling the alley with the sweet final funeral song that once stopped death, if only for a short time.

Orson’s song rises into the night. Death pauses to listen, but only for the span of two heartbeats. Then the New Followers fall upon him, stabbing and hacking. Still on his feet, Orson slumps back against the metal door.

The woman named Mason wraps her clawing hand into Orson’s hair and stretches his throat. Swinging her huge knife, she hews Orson’s head from his shoulders. The headless corpse falls to the concrete landing, but the song does not cease.

The disembodied head continues to sing, even as the others hack the fallen body to pieces. Mason waves the singing head at Mame, her face plastered with a mask of horror and sprayed blood.

— Ye gods, Mason, hold the old bastard still.

Reaching into a pocket of her sodden jeans, Mame pulls out a silver coin. She stuffs the silver dollar into the decapitated mouth and clamps the dead jaws closed. The song falls to a gurgle and then goes silent.

— There you go, Orson. A silver coin to pay the ferryman for your crossing. Don’t say I never gave you anything.

She drops her bloody hand and turns to face the bespattered assassins. Mason is frozen in the cone of light, Orson’s head still dangling from her hand, dead eyes staring wide. But death has not stilled the old man’s song. Orson’s dead jaws gnaw back and forth. His mouth opens and spits. The mercury-head silver dollar flies through the air, pings to the pavement, and rolls away into the night.

Mame spins around as the song once more floods the alley. Mason drops the old man’s skull and leaps down from the concrete platform. Orson’s head lands amidst the torn pieces of his body, face up to the night’s rain, the song still pouring from his lips. Mame backs away from the carnage, and the others backpedal with her.

— Fuck this noise, we’re outta here.

The New Followers flee into the darkness, boot soles splashing time through filthy puddles. Behind them, Orson’s head raises his song to the night, the song he has sung for three decades of mourning.

Long into that wet night, the denizens of the rainy streets draw near the dolorous song. Lame beggars, homeless waifs, babbling madmen, vacant-eyed women, they gather around Orson’s butchered corpse and listen to the undying melody issuing from his dead lips.

Leaving the skull to its song, the broken ones collect the pieces of the dead man’s body. They bear the severed parts away to a secret place and lay them to rest with words known only to those who suffer and mourn.

In time, the wounded and hopeless build a shrine to Orson’s deathless song. The skull is enthroned on a makeshift altar festooned with wilted flowers and broken offerings.

The alley becomes a place of pilgrimage. Hungry mouths whisper that the singing skull is an oracle. People travel from the far corners of that blighted country to wait their turn at the mouth of a sacred alley.

Approaching with what little they have to offer, the people hear Orson’s sweet sorrowful voice singing a song beyond death, raising the music of light to brighten dark times. And there he will sing until the day the gods return to take him away.

Fini

You can find Mason Jar Press here:

Mason Jar Press

That’s it for this week’s edition of Thursday Stories. More stories are coming your way. How will you know when a new story breaks? Glad you asked, Friends. Read On! Drumroll and… Meanwhile, don’t miss any upcoming stories. You can stay tuned for all the latest by following the MEF blog:

https://bro.uxw.mybluehost.me/whats-new-in-marcos-world-the-blog

And… if you desire more flash and micro-fiction, look no further than my collection Broken Luggage:

Broken Luggage Collected Flash Fiction

Broken Luggage: Two dozen flash fiction tales of love lost and love found, of darkness at the end of life, and light at the beginning.

A man's life condensed into the broken luggage that will contain it. A young woman alone in the Sonoran Desert. Memories of dangerous eggs, thunderstorms, and a gunshot man. A character tours his self-made hell. Another steps from between the pages. Parables of sand and migration A labyrinth into new love, and the remembrance of love past. These two dozen flash stories tell swift tales of love lost and love found, of darkness at the end of life, and light at the beginning.

Order Now!

About the Book

Marco Etheridge is a writer of fiction, an occasional playwright, and a part-time poet. He lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. His stories have been published in reviews, journals, and magazines in Canada, Australia, the UK, and the USA. Broken Luggage gathers twenty-four of his best flash stories into one collection. A man’s life condensed into the broken luggage that will contain it. A young woman alone in the Sonoran Desert. Memories of dangerous eggs, thunderstorms, and a gunshot man. A character tours his self-made hell. Another steps from between the pages. Parables of sand and migration A labyrinth into new love, and the remembrance of love past. These two dozen flash stories tell swift tales of love lost and love found, of darkness at the end of life, and light at the beginning. Unforgettable characters struggle against the tides and pressures of an impersonal world, and against the burdens they carry within. There is joy and despair, defiance and acceptance. The inhabitants of these pages learn who they are, and sometimes, who they are not. Welcome, Reader, to the world of Broken Luggage.

Details

Genre: Short Stories
Tags: Recommended Books, Short Stories
Publisher: Marco Etheridge Fiction
Publication Year: 2022
Format: Paperback & eBook
Length: 137 Pages
ASIN: B0B3CSJR2C
ISBN: 9798833773079
List Price: $8.95
eBook Price: $2.99

Order Now

Kobo, Nook, Apple, and More!

Preview

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the page above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

A New Story Most Thursdays

Another Edition of Thursday Stories…

Hello Friends and Neighbors, and welcome to Thursday Stories. Looking back over my herd of short stories, I realize that more than three dozen of the little rascals have appeared only in print. Some of you may have forked over the dough for this or that literary review, but I don’t expect everyone to buy all of the reviews all of the time. And so, drumroll please, I give you Thursday Stories. I’m not guaranteeing a new story every Thursday, but I will do my best until all the print-only tales have been set free.

This week’s edition of Thursday Stories features Things Broken, Things Lost. This story first appeared in The McNeeese Review Journal, published in 2023. Content warning: This is a hard story about hard times, including the murders of two young girls. Now, without further ado, I give you another edition of Thursday Stories. I hope you enjoy it.

Things Broken, Things Lost

Marco Etheridge

Everyone loves him now that he is the famous James Hill, but back when he was Jamie Tyler, and a monster, it was a different story. You have to tell it so they understand you. They have to know that the real story is dangerous. It’s not any of James Hill’s revenge you worry about. He can’t do anything worse to you than he’s already done. You’ve known him since you were both boys, back when he still answered to Jamie. Back before those two little girls disappeared.

No, the high and mighty James Hill isn’t any danger to you. He’s just another two-bit hero. But you can’t forget about the townsfolk, how Sheriff James Hill is their local myth. You can deface small-town icons, but only at your own peril. Sheriff Hill is their myth, and you’re no more than the local crackpot. People get angry when their mythology is threatened. Angry folks are fearful, and fearful people are dangerous. You damn sure better keep that in mind.

Whatever names they hang on you, you remember it all. Don’t matter what everyone else chooses to forget. It’s you that can see the creek running through this dying town, you who can follow it upstream to where it cuts through the shale and the years.

There are patches of bottomland scattered along that rocky creek, and small farms where the soil isn’t too rocky to plow. You grew up on one of those farms. The Tylers, they had the farm opposite your daddy’s patch, just the other side of that wandering creek.

You and Jamie were both born after the war when country boys made their way back from the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific. Some of them came back whole and some of them came back broken. Those boys, newly forged into men, they settled down, picked up what there was to pick up, and got on with it.

Your daddy was one of the broken ones. He lost some of himself on those Pacific Islands, like pieces missing from a jigsaw puzzle. He came back, married your ma, took up working the farm, but he never found those fractured pieces.

The world wouldn’t fit with his brokenness, so he tried to break everything around him, including you. It was the only way he could make the inside and outside match up. That’s how you ended up with your gimpy leg. It was whiskey, your daddy, and his emptiness that broke your leg in three places. Like everything else that got close to your daddy, it never did heal straight.

You were thirteen when a tractor and harrow broke him for good. It goes to show you that whiskey and tractors don’t mix. That big rear tire ran over him when he fell off the seat, then the harrow disks carved him up good.

He was a tough old cob, your daddy. Even sliced and harrowed as bad as he was, the old man might have survived if someone had gone for help. But you didn’t see much point in that. You watched until that leg-breaking bastard bled out. Then you shut off the tractor engine and limped back up to the house to tell your ma.

It was four years later when those two girls disappeared. You remember that June afternoon like it was yesterday. It was a Thursday. School was out, and come September, you’d be going back as a senior. The plowing and planting were wrapped up. Your chores were done.

You ended up on the other side of the creek, hanging around while Jamie and his crew bent over the engine of an old pickup. They were all a year older than you, just graduated high school. Three of them, Kurt Banks, Billy Russell, and Jamie the lead hound.

They weren’t friends of yours or even friendly. They tolerated you, that was it, and only as long as you kept quiet. You always figured that Miz Taylor told Jamie he had to be decent to you on account of your being an orphan and crippled. Jamie’s idea of decent probably differed some from what his mama intended.

Those three boys were messing with that old pickup, jawing about being free of high school and what was coming next. You were leaned up against a stack of firewood, smiling at whatever crap they were spewing. Jamie’s folks were down to Springfield with an aunt and uncle, shopping at the big town stores.

The adults left Jamie in charge of his kid sister and her cousin. Those two little girls got bologna sandwiches and threats about what would happen to them if Jamie caught them near the creek. After that, he left them on their own.

You were just happy to be there, happy to be anywhere away from the farm and your mama’s sad eyes. Mostly you were just the butt of their jokes, but it beat sitting alone in the barn. Jamie and his pals were talking shit about Vietnam, whether it was better to wait for the draft or sign up now. Jamie was arguing the Marines as a better choice. Then they shifted to Vietnamese girls, and how great they were, talking like they knew a damn thing.

You forgot yourself and let out a chuckle over their bullshit. Then an oily rag smacked you in the face. Those three had swung away from the pickup, looking at you like you were dogshit.

“What the fuck are you laughing at, Gimp?”

“Yeah, like you know anything about it.”

“Better watch him, Jamie. He’s gonna be hounding all the girls around here while we’re over in Nam. Won’t be no competition for the Gimp, what with all the able-bodied boys gone off to war. Ain’t that right, Gimpy?”

You ducked your head, smiling like always, hoping to pass it off as a joke. It was Jamie cut in the hardest, and he wasn’t smiling.

“I got nothing to worry about and neither do you two clowns. Gimpy here hobbles around like Chester on Gunsmoke. They wouldn’t even take him in the damn Coast Guard. Ain’t no girl in her right mind going to give old Gimp a second look.”

That was just like Jamie Tyler, always ready and willing to kick you back into your place at the bottom. You laughed along with Jamie’s pals, nodding your head, but inside it was different. Inside, down in your guts, it burned like you were being cooked alive.

They turned back to the truck, ignored you like you didn’t exist. That’s when you saw the keyring. It was sitting right there beside you on the woodpile, a steel ring with two keys. Attached to the ring was a big fob.

It was the kind of thing you got from a booth at the county fair, where a carney would engrave your initials on the fob while you wait. The initials cut into the cheap pot metal read JT. Without a thought, your hand covered the keyring and slipped it into the pocket of your overalls.

Those three never noticed a thing, all of them still bent over that broken-down pickup. You leaned against the woodpile, felt those stolen keys poking against your thigh. You heard girlish shrieks coming from the old barn, the high-pitched notes of giggling and chasing. Behind the barn, where oaks and hickory pushed up against the cleared land, the cicadas were singing like buzzsaws. For a heartbeat, two, three, time froze.

Then Jamie pushed himself out from under the hood and wiped his forehead on the sleeve of his t-shirt.

“It’s getting too hot for this shit. Time for a beer. The old man left me a six-pack. We best drink it before they get back.”

Them other two started to fall in with him, but Jamie stopped and gave you the eye.

“You still here, Gimpy? Best you head on home. You ain’t legal to drink yet, and six beers don’t split four ways.”

He threw a thumb over his shoulder, back down over the creek towards your patch of farm. Then they were gone, the three of them, heading up to the house and you already forgotten.

Twenty years ago and you can still picture every detail of that moment like you’re watching it on a movie screen. Three boys walk up to an old farmhouse, leaving you leaning against a woodpile. You push yourself up, dust off the seat of your overalls, feel the stolen keys jangling in your pocket.

You walk down to the old barn and stop. The shrieking of the girls has gone quiet now. Not a sound comes from the dusty shadows inside. The cicadas under the trees cease their shrill buzzing. You look past the barn, see the well-worn path that leads between the tree trunks to the shale banks of the creek. Across the creek is the farm, your own land, where no one laughs at you.

That was the start of it, right there in that moment. Whatever happened next, the panic that followed, all the uproar, the searching, the frustration, all of it stemmed from that single tick in time.

Looking back over the years, the facts are simple. Two young girls disappeared from an old barn. No one saw them leave, no one saw any sign of an intruder, no one found the tracks of some murderous tramp. The two girls vanished into thin air as completely as if they’d been conjured away. And no one ever found their bodies. Whatever fate took those children, no trace of them was ever found.

And yet somehow, twenty and more years later, those missing girls have been erased from the local history. It’s like some kind of collective amnesia. You can’t explain it any other way. Are you the only one with a conscience left in this town? You remember that day like it was yesterday. You know for a fact that it happened, that those two girls are dead and gone. But god help you if you mutter one of their names out loud.

When Jamie Tyler’s folks drove back up to their farm, it was just another Thursday in June, a too-warm afternoon breaking towards evening. The adults rousted Jamie from a nap, sent him out to call the girls in to wash up for supper. Jamie came back empty-handed. The two women went out to find those girls and give them what for. It wasn’t long after that when all hell broke loose.

It was Bill Tyler, Jamie’s pa, who showed up at your farmhouse, his face twisted up with worry. He apologized to my ma for interrupting our supper, asked if he could speak to you. You remember the way he asked it of your ma, could he speak to Thomas for a moment. Something important. Thomas, not Gimpy.

The big man nodded his head towards the door and you followed him out onto the porch. Outside, away from your ma, his voice was ragged.

“Thomas, have you seen those two girls, our Ellen, and her cousin? We can’t find them and we don’t know what the hell they could have got up to.”

“No sir, I haven’t seen them. They were playing in the barn when I come back down here.”

Jamie’s pa kneaded the side of his face, looked back down your field to the trees along the creek line.

“Son, what time do you reckon that was?”

“I don’t know exactly, sir, but it was getting hot. I guess it must have been two, two-thirty.”

“Dammit, that’s four hours, and no one’s seen them.”

“Maybe they fell asleep in the barn.”

“They ain’t in the barn and they ain’t in the house. The women are going crazy looking for them two girls, screaming and carrying on. Jamie was asleep when we got home. He says the girls were right there the whole time, but they sure as hell aren’t there now.”

Bill Tyler looked up at the evening sky.

“Three hours till full dark. I better call the sheriff so we can get up a search.”

“You can use our phone, Mister Tyler. I’ll get some flashlights and such.”

While Bill Tyler was on the phone to the sheriff, you explained to your ma. She didn’t understand, but that was nothing new. Instead of asking questions, she wrapped up the last of the meat and cornbread from your supper.

You grabbed the big nine-volt light from the shelf by the back door, then grabbed an extra battery. You remember that, the weight of that second battery in your hand, like you knew you were going to be out in the woods all night.

Your ma had everything packed in a tote sack by the time you laced up your boots. Then you were outside and walking fast beside Bill Tyler, taking the field down to the creek in long strides.

You were out beating the brush all that evening and most of that night. Counting the Tyler clan, the sheriff and his two deputies, and what neighbors could be rounded up, there must have been twenty-five flashlight beams slicing through the night. And the whole time folks were crashing through the brush or splashing into the creek, they were yelling those girls’ names. The only thing anyone found was a broken ankle when one of the Tyler women fell into a shale hole.

The next day, the searchers were at it again. You were already there when the sheriff rolled down the drive to the Tyler farm. Driving in behind the sheriff was a flatbed with kennel pens on the back.

The men thought a pair of bloodhounds would make short work of finding those missing girls, but that proved not to be the case. There were two hounds in the back of that truck and they came out eager and yanking at their thick leather leads. Missus Tyler gave the bloodhound fella some clothes the girls had been wearing. You remember seeing a pink sweater and some sort of leggings.

Those bloodhounds dug their noses deep into those clothes, staining them with slobber. Once they got the scent in their heads, the dogs started baying around inside the barn like they’d gone nuts. But when that old boy tried to lead them outside, the hounds went to whining and looking back and forth. They sniffed and snorted around the packed dirt, kicking up little puffs of dust and hay.

The search went on all that day. The sheriff and his deputies led the way with the bloodhound fella, but the dogs never found nothing. Those girls vanished as if they were snatched from the sky. Wherever those two little girls got to or were taken to, their feet didn’t touch the ground getting there.

The search went on. You were out there most of the time, dodging copperheads and getting chewed by chiggers. As the days passed, folks yelled less often. They started to figure out that they were looking for bodies. Even for all the volunteers, probably a hundred folks by the second day, no one ever found so much as a single footprint.

After two weeks without finding a trace, the sheriff called off the search. The sheriff said wherever those girls might be, they weren’t in the woods. That’s when the talk around town changed. Folks started lamenting the poor dead girls instead of speaking about the missing children. Even the ones who figured the girls were kidnapped assumed they never lived long enough to see their eleventh birthdays.

With no more searching to do, the townsfolk had time to start figuring out what had happened. Somebody had to be guilty. That’s about the time a cloud of blame started to float around like a hatch of mayflies looking for somewhere to land.

The sheriff set aside plenty of time to find the murdering bastard, which is what it came down to in his mind. He drove out to the farm to have a talk with you, man to man as he called it. You told him everything you could remember about that afternoon, going over it again and again. He was satisfied with your answers by the time he drove off, but the sheriff wasn’t done asking questions.

Jamie Tyler was surprised when some of the townsfolk turned on him. You didn’t know why it would come as a surprise, but then again, Jamie never was as smart as he gave himself credit for.

The sheriff kept after Jamie, trying to find out what happened in the last hours of that afternoon. Jamie stuck to his story. The three boys went up to the house. It was him, Kurt Banks, and Billy Russell. No sir, he had shooed Gimpy Carlisle on home before that. Yessir, they drank some beer, two cans apiece. After drinking the beer, Kurt and Billy drove off in Billy’s truck. Then Jamie fell asleep on the porch glider. Yessir, the girls were playing in the barn the whole time. No sir, he didn’t go down to check on them.

When the blame finally did settle, most of it fell on Jamie Tyler. The general feeling in town was that if he had been minding those girls, none of this would have happened.

Looking back at it, you have to guess Jamie figured he was a golden boy, captain of the high school football team and all of that. Maybe he thought everyone in town would just forgive and forget. The townsfolk did forget, once it became easier than remembering, but that took most of a decade. Jamie Tyler was long gone by then. But in the hard days after those girls went missing, while the hurt was still fresh and vivid, no one was much for forgiving or forgetting.

Given the hateful things folks were saying, Jamie Tyler saw the error in his thinking. Absence was what was needed, and the Marines were happy to supply it. His pa drove him down to the enlistment office in Springfield. Jamie joined up using his mother’s maiden name and his pa signed the papers.

Those enlistment fellas in their shiny uniforms didn’t quibble over the fine details. They needed warm bodies for Vietnam. If a particular warm body had a past that needed burying, and maybe a name as well, that was okay with them. After all, his father signed for him.

James Hill learned how to be a Marine crawling through the mud and the bugs and the sand of Parris Island, South Carolina. Most of those brand-new marines rushed on home on leave as soon as they were done with their training. Private Hill didn’t bother. He spent two weeks in a cheap motel on the Carolina coast. Then he shipped out to Vietnam.

The rest of his pathetic little crew weren’t far behind him, slinking away from the sneers and snubs back home.

Kurt Banks waited for his draft number to come up. He didn’t have long to wait, not in sixty-seven. The army scooped him up soon enough. Like his hero Jamie, Kurt made it to Vietnam. He was killed his first week in country, standing in the wrong spot at the wrong time, not knowing which way to jump when the rockets started screaming in.

Billy Russell kept out of sight and started drinking real hard. After a few months of hiding, Billy vanished completely. No one in town ever saw him again.

Of the four boys who were on the Tyler farm that hot June afternoon, it was just you and Jamie Tyler left. And you were the only one left behind, still on your dead daddy’s land. Jamie had disappeared in a puff of smoke and reappeared in Southeast Asia, transformed into James Hill.

In the jungles and highlands of Vietnam, James Hill served out his thirteen-month tour, ending up a Lance Corporal. The guys in his squad nicknamed him Gung Ho Hill. He volunteered for every extra duty, every patrol. When his time was up, Corporal Hill volunteered for another tour of combat.

Sergeant Hill was a squad leader during his second tour. He was still known as Gung Ho Hill, but he was also known for being lucky. He spent twenty-six months in Vietnam, much of it in combat, and yet he was never wounded, not even a scratch. After his four years were up, the Marines sent him back home.

That homecoming was the damndest thing you’d ever seen. It was as if four years had thrown a blanket of amnesia over the whole damn town. James Hill came back from his soldiering and overnight he was the town hero. You’d swear he’d been washed in the blood of the lamb and sanctified. Washed in blood might be true, but whatever blood he washed in didn’t come from no animal.

It didn’t seem to matter what you remembered about James Hill. The town was bent on forgetting and forget they did. The past was washed clean, packed away, and that was that. James Hill became a deputy sheriff and you plowed your farm.

In the meantime, two decades have passed. James Hill is still the county sheriff. And he is still the town hero. You’re a bachelor farmer with a game leg, eking out a living from a farm that should have been let go years ago. You are no one’s idea of a hero.

Standing on the porch, you look out over the field. The empty furrows run back and forth down to the creek. The rising sun catches the turned earth, setting it to gleaming. It frosted last night, the first hard frost of October. That’s the signal that you need to go gather persimmons. You step off the porch, gather up a tote sack and a long hickory pole.

The trail that runs along the creek isn’t much used. There’s less folks living out here every year. The path is mostly just a deer run, overgrown here and there where it slips under the banks of the creek. It’s a thirty-minute hike from the farm. Out past the edge of your fields, the creek gouges a slot into low hills and woodland. The creek banks get steeper, showing fractured walls of cert and shale.

You come to a tiny side stream that falls to the creek, cutting a narrow trough in the crumbling wall. That spray of water is your marker. You climb the wall like a set of broken stairs, boots edging the rock, one hand clutching at a low branch that drapes down from overhead.

Pushing through the brush that guards the top of the rocky ledge, you walk under hickory and oak trees painted silver by the frost. The faint trail winds through a tangle of spicebush, pawpaw, and buckeye.

You walk through a short stretch of woods, forty jerky paces swinging your lame leg. Then the trunks of hickory and oak stop. Beyond the edge of the wood is a hidden grove of persimmon trees. The gnarled old fruit trees grow in a hollow scooped out of the layers of soft rock, rooted deep into a pocket of good bottomland loam.

There are maybe a dozen trees, rough-barked and scraggly. The leaves are half-ruined by the frost. They droop limp and ugly, like dog ears. Red-orange fruit hangs from the branches within easy reach of your hickory pole.

You’ve always had a taste for the pulpy fruit, ever since you were a boy. You’ve been picking these persimmons for years. You know this place, know every tree, the way the ground slants, and how the little creek cuts a furrow through the glade. The morning is frost-cold, and your breath hangs in the still air. But your mind runs back to another time when you stood in almost the very spot you stand now.

It was the dog-end of a hot June evening, twenty-one years ago. The cicadas were sawing through the gloaming of the day. Long shadows fell from the persimmon trees, turning the green tangle of pawpaw and buckeye to grey. Then you saw the rectangle of ground stripped bare of undergrowth.

No light reflected from the disturbed ground. It stood out black against the grey shadows, a void of darkness the size and shape of a kitchen table. Leaves were scattered over the wounded soil in unnatural clumps, catching the eye more than camouflaging.

You stood there as the light faded, staring at that piece of broken ground. The shouts of other searchers echoed through the gloaming, from down along the creek, from the woods on the far side of it. You did not call out to them, did not bring their booted feet running. You heard their voices moving upstream, as the search parties swept the creek banks and the darkening woods. You turned away then, away from that wounded ground, out from under the persimmon trees. Leaving it all behind, you followed the shouting voices.

A shaft of winter sun slants through the branches, catching your breath and transforming it into a silver cloud. The cloud drifts away through the branches of the persimmon trees. You wish those awful memories would drift away as well, but they won’t. Those images are anchored in your brain. It’s been two decades and more. You’re tired of keeping it all locked up in your head.

What will the townsfolk think when you tell them about this place? They won’t want to believe, not after all this time. They will turn their backs on you, call you a liar. But the seed will have been planted. Even bad seeds grow if you care for them.

A few of them will come out here and start digging. They will bring beers, say it’s all a joke. But what will they think when one of their shovels uncovers beetle-stripped bones in a shallow grave? The joke will be on them, but it won’t seem so funny now.

The others will crowd around the hole. The diggers will cast aside their shovels, removing the crumbling earth with shaking hands. Then they will find not one set of bones, but two. The remains are human, obviously human. The men hunching over that grave wish that they had not found this thing.

Fingers slide earth from bone, more careful now, more reverent. The diggers uncover enough to see the tableau unfold in the earth, see the thin girlish bones joined in a death embrace, skeletal arms intertwined, ribs fallen together.

And when someone’s trembling fingers lift a moldering keyfob from amongst those delicate remains, what then? They will pass it from hand to hand, hold it up to the light, wipe the earth from the fob, read out the engraved initials: JT, who is JT? Then memory will spark in the mind of one of the diggers. He will speak the name aloud, in a wondering voice, and the others will hear the name, shake their heads.

Damnation will surely fall on the boy James Hill used to be, but there is more than enough damnation to go around. Jamie Tyler was a monster long before he was a hero. A monster is dangerous, and you know there is more than one monster in this story. Are you sure you want the people of this town to understand the real story? The truth of a story can be dangerous, and not just for the listeners.

The persimmon grove is shining as sunlight slants through the frosty mist. You lean on your hickory pole and look up through the branches. Your breath comes in silver clouds. You push the long pole against a laden bough and set it to swaying. The red-orange persimmons fall through the silver-bright air. Some of them split open when they strike the ground. You gather the frost-sweetened fruit and place it in your tote sack.

Fini

You can find The McNeese Review here:

The McNeese Review

That’s it for this week’s edition of Thursday Stories. More stories are coming your way. How will you know when a new story breaks? Glad you asked, Friends. Read On! Drumroll and… Meanwhile, don’t miss any upcoming stories. You can stay tuned for all the latest by following the MEF blog:

https://bro.uxw.mybluehost.me/whats-new-in-marcos-world-the-blog/

And… if you desire more flash and micro-fiction, look no further than my collection Power Tools:

Power Tools

There are moments in life when having the right tool makes all the difference.

An elderly woman sets out alone on a journey into a new life. Two soldiers in a bunker share candy and memories. A widower takes on the Supreme Court with a robot. Grief is sung over the cobbled streets of Valletta. Two old heroes question their purpose. These stories tell tales of love lost and found, of the fight for justice, and the glimmering flame of hope that keeps us afloat. Unforgettable characters push back against the crushing weight of the world and shoulder the burdens they carry within. Love, laugh, dance, weep; these are the stories of Power Tools.

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About the Book

Marco Etheridge is a writer of fiction, an occasional playwright, and a part-time poet. He lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. His stories have been published in more than eighty reviews, journals, and magazines in Canada, Australia, the UK, and the USA. Power Tools gathers twenty-one of his best short stories into one collection. An elderly woman sets out alone on a journey into a new life. Two soldiers in a bunker share candy and memories. A widower takes on the Supreme Court with a robot. Grief is sung over the cobbled streets of Valletta. Two old heroes question their purpose. These stories tell tales of love lost and found, of the fight for justice, and the glimmering flame of hope that keeps us afloat. Unforgettable characters push back against the crushing weight of the world and shoulder the burdens they carry within. Love, laugh, dance, weep; these are the stories of Power Tools.

Details

Genre: Literary Fiction
Tag: Literary Fiction
Publisher: Marco Etheridge Fiction
Publication Year: 2024
ASIN: B0CXMV1HS4
ISBN: 9798884290907
List Price: 11.95
eBook Price: 3.99

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Preview

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the page above are "affiliate links." This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Thursday Stories – A New Story Most Thursdays

Hello Friends and Neighbors, and welcome to Thursday Stories. Looking back over my herd of short stories, I realize that more than three dozen of the little rascals have appeared only in print. Some of you may have forked over the dough for this or that literary review, but I don’t expect everyone to buy all of the reviews all of the time. And so, drumroll please, I give you Thursday Stories. I’m not guaranteeing a new story every Thursday, but I will do my best until all the print-only tales have been set free.

This week’s edition of Thursday Stories features Moon Drunk Angel Mine. This lyrical flash first appeared in Santa Barbara Literary Journal, published in 2022. You might detect a strong note of Tom Waits in the background, and if so, no surprise. The theme of this anthology was Moon Drunk. Now, without further ado, I give you another edition of Thursday Stories. I hope you enjoy it.

Moon Drunk Angel Mine

by Marco Etheridge

This swayback old town, it’s stuck in the dog days of August, full of broken-down people, and nothing to write home about. Dirt and grit blowing on a bone-dry wind, swirling in the gutters outside this two-bit garage I’m working in, rattling the rollup door and setting a man’s teeth on edge.

Spinning wrenches all day, backhanding sweat and grease that runs into your eyes, you bet it’s a hard-earned dollar. Fat boss paying you almost nothing to keep someone’s rundown Pontiac on the road for another desperate month. Same fat man moaning how you’re costing him money every time you need to take a piss.

But come nightfall, it’s a whole different story. Hell, might as well be another town altogether. Dark hides a lot of the ugly, and everything looks better under a blinking bar sign. All that grit and grime vanishes under the neon. The sidewalks shimmer and gleam rose, purple, and green, swirling and mixing.

That neon promise is a siren’s call hurrying my feet as I punch the clock and bust out the back door. Sun’s still in the sky, but she’s dropping as I hump on back to my room. I’m filthy and dog-tired, but when did that ever stop a determined fella?

My place ain’t much, one room and a hotplate, but I got my own bathroom, so I figure I’m living high. It takes some doing, but with enough scrubbing that grease and grit swirl down the drain. I comb my hair back, shave my face, then go after my fingernails with my pocketknife. I pare away at that black grease, digging in under the nails until they’re as clean as they’re ever going to get. Working man can’t hide his hands, no matter what he does.

By the time my boots hit that sidewalk, I’m as clean as a man can be and ready. My dungarees cuffed up just right over my boots. They’re worn milk-white at the knees, sure, but still got life in them, no holes or skin shining through. My shirt smells okay, clean enough, no telltale stains or missing buttons.

Got almost a hundred bucks, a full pack of Luckies, and a half-good cigar, in case I find some small thing worth celebrating. You never can tell what might happen, bad luck or good, but always be ready to celebrate a lucky turn of the dice.

The way I figure it, the big things in this life, births, deaths, going to jail, they take care of themselves. Not like you can’t notice them the way they grab a fella by the throat, shake him like a terrier worrying a worn-out sock.

It’s those small beauties that catch you by surprise, a rusty piece of junk that turns out to be a treasure. I’m talking about the silver moon floating in the night sky, or a pretty woman’s smile, or the dealer flipping one more heart to fill the flush in your hand. Something like that is worth a slow cigar to mark the passing of a good thing. If Lady Luck brushes you with her wings, I believe a smart fella better take a pause to acknowledge her, lest she forgets you exist.

My boots click down the sidewalk with a solid beat, mixing with the evening traffic just starting up. Polished drop-tops prowl the street, hot wind flowing over the drivers and their girls, ruffling fresh-combed hair and perfumed curls. And all of them, headlights shining, looking for somewhere to go.

The shadows are falling long and the bar signs flicking into life. I stop at Charlie’s shack. He’s perched on his stool, chewing a dead stogie behind a tilted display of newspapers and glamour magazines. He gives me a heya and a nod. I grab up the racing form, throw him a fin, pocket my change, and wave the pony form adios.

I slip into Mel’s diner, grab a stool at the counter. A man needs a solid feeding before he takes on a long night out. Throw some lines at Mabel, flirting with her even though she’s old enough to be my auntie, blue hair and all. She sasses me right back, an old hand at this game. I don’t bother with the menu, just the special, thank you Mabel, you sweet thing. And a cuppa java too, gorgeous. She rolls her eyes at me, but that don’t stop her giving those big hips a roll when she reaches to clip my order over the cook’s window.

Tonight, the blue plate is veal cutlet, mashed spuds, with a spoonful of corn for color. I top it off with a slice of pie and another splash of java, fueled and ready. I pay my tab, count out the tip, and promise Mabel the moon. She waves me off with a raspberry, but she’s smiling all the same.

Out the door of Mel’s, tapping down the sidewalk, I’ve got a toothpick in the corner of my mouth and a tune humming in my head. The first joint I come to is as good as any other for a start, so I mosey in. Past the door, the cloud inside the bar embraces me with an electric funk of cigarette smoke, stale beer, and hungry dreams.

I slide up to the bar, order a beer, lean an elbow. The air is jittering with expectation, what with everyone just starting out their night. Hopes are high that this might be it, the night when the world busts wide open. Wild anticipation cutting across the grain of doubt, that nagging bully in the back of the brain that says most likely it’s gonna be just another night.

But to hell with that noise, that’s what I say. The bar is hot, the beer is cold, and my glass sweating. Someone pumps quarters into the jukebox and a saxophone wails out of the speaker hiss. I try to settle into the moan, let the wail of it anchor me, but the music slips past me and I can’t grab hold.

I joke with the guy at my elbow, finish my beer, wave off another. I’m restless, looking for the sweet spot and not finding it here. Out the door and prowling, I’m into the next bar, hunting for the heart of the night.

Four hours and three joints later, I’m back out on the street. I’m half-blind in the neon staring up to find the stars. People walk on past me, drunken lovers hand-in-hand, and out across the pavement I hear the honking of the cars. And I think I might just find the thing if I give it one more try, so I shuffle up the sidewalk and push another door.

Three steps inside and I feel my heart flutter like it’s on to something my brain can’t catch. Then I see her. She’s walking toward me cased in tight black jeans, a wife-beater, her jet-black hair curling out from under a snap brim cocked backward on that pretty head. An angel, someone’s beatnik lovechild dropped down from a sultry heaven where no one wears wings.

Two steps more and she breaks my heart, smashes it with a hammer and I never saw it coming. I’m frozen there in the middle of the barroom, and she just saunters right up, aiming to scatter what’s left of me. She cocks her head, smiling a crooked smile.

Planning on painting a picture, handsome?

Her eyes are laughing and that smile of hers stabs my brain. Somehow the words roll out of my mouth in more or less the right order.

I can’t paint a house, much less a picture, but I can buy us a pitcher to make up for it.

She flips that angel face up straight and gives me a nod.

You’re on.

Smooth as a pickpocket, her arm slides into mine and she steers me to an empty table. My boots must be touching the floor, but I damn sure can’t feel them.

Somewhere in that blur, a waitress appears with a foaming pitcher and two schooner glasses. I can’t remember ordering, but it happens just the same. The barroom is fading farther and farther out of focus, and at the same time, that girl is getting clearer, the outlines of her face etched sharp and diamond bright.

The pitcher empties as our words get fuller and our lips closer. She’s leaning into me like she is meant to be there, has always been there, and always will be. Then she’s laughing with her head thrown back, and I feel the world spin off its axis and wander off without me.

We switch to shots, tossing them off on the count, holding tight while the burn burrows its way down into our guts. The night is bumping near to closing time, but not for us. We’re above it and beyond it, sailing away to some other shore, someplace I’ve never been before.

I’m carried off with the current of the thing, hoping she’s falling for me the same way I’m falling for her. Maybe, or maybe not, but wherever I wash up, I’m praying to all the gods, great and small, that this girl winds up on the sand beside me. Hell, I’ll follow her anywhere, all the way to Kathmandu, or even Cleveland.

I kiss her and she’s kissing me back with lips full of promise. She leans back for a heartbeat or two, gives me a look that shakes me. I mumble an excuse, push myself to my feet, and float off to the gents.

I’m standing at the porcelain with my whole world busted wide open. There is no doubt in my head, not the smallest bit. Just show me the cliff edge and give me a bit of room for a running start. Tonight is the night that changes everything.

When I come back from the gents, the table is empty, not a trace of her to be seen. Empty shot glasses, two empty chairs, and a void sucking me into a fall that has no bottom to it.

My knees half buckle and I have to catch myself on the back of her empty chair. I scan the room for her, but I know she’s gone.

I hail the waitress to settle our tab, rushing her even though I know it’s too late. Sure enough, when I roll out onto the sidewalk, that girl has vanished, not even a neon ghost left behind.

Back inside, the clock ticks down. The bartender shouts out the last call. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here. So I take him at his word and order a pint of rye to keep me company. That’s how I come to be sitting here on an upturned apple crate, crowned king and jester of an empty backlot behind a closed-up bar.

I’m watching the last of the night eke away beyond dark, scrubby hills. The silver moon slides a slow dance down into the West. Behind me, the faintest glow is rising in the East. And that cigar I was saving is tasting mighty fine, might fine indeed.

No matter what, tonight was some kinda night. I’m sipping at my whiskey, smoking my cigar, and remembering every sweet curve, line, and laugh of the girl who got away. Got away for tonight anyway.

See, Lady Luck was with me tonight. Now I know who I’m looking for because I already found her. And I’m not worrying about tomorrow, because tomorrow is just a promise without a payday, sure as the last glimmer of this night is the real thing right now. The dawn can mind its own without any special help from yours truly, bet on that.

Gonna have to do it all again, damn sure will. I’m going to catch the one that got away. She slipped past me, but she’s not gone forever. Because the night folks, they gotta come back to the night, drawn like metal shaving to a dime store magnet. And that’s where I’ll find her.

Another sip from that pint, just a nip to keep it going. My head is swimming from the last light of the drunken moon as it slips down to touch the jagged edge of the dark horizon. I’m a night angel haloed in the smoke of my cigar. I’ve got no wings, but I’m not fallen all the way. And there’s another angel out there now. I know her, heart and soul.

I’ll be seeing you again, little darling, no matter how many nights I have to search. That is a thing you can count on for sure.

Fini

You can find Santa Barbara Literary Journal here:

Santa Barbara Literary Journal

That’s it for this week’s edition of Thursday Stories. More stories are coming your way. How will you know when a new story breaks? Glad you asked, Friends. Read On! Drumroll and… Meanwhile, don’t miss any upcoming stories. You can stay tuned for all the latest by following the MEF blog:

https://bro.uxw.mybluehost.me/whats-new-in-marcos-world-the-blog/

Marco Etheridge is a writer of prose, an occasional playwright, and a part-time poet. He lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. His work has been featured in over one hundred and fifty reviews across Canada, Australia, Europe, the UK, and the USA. Marco’s short story “Power Tools” was nominated for Best of the Web for 2023 and is the title of his latest collection of short fiction. When he isn’t crafting stories, Marco is a contributing editor for a ‘Zine called Hotch Potch. In his other life, Marco travels the world with his lovely wife Sabine.

Thursday Stories – A New Story Most Thursdays

Hello Friends and Neighbors, and welcome to Thursday Stories. Looking back over my herd of short stories, I realize that more than three dozen of the little rascals have appeared only in print. Some of you may have forked over the dough for this or that literary review, but I don’t expect everyone to buy all of the reviews all of the time. And so, drumroll please, I give you Thursday Stories. I’m not guaranteeing a new story every Thursday, but I will do my best until all the print-only tales have been set free.

This week’s edition of Thursday Stories features Dreams of Horses. This story first appeared in Concho River Review, published in 2022. Without further ado, I give you another edition of Thursday Stories. I hope you enjoy it.

Dreams of Horses

by Marco Etheridge

The girl materialized out of the warm Las Vegas night the way a phantom steps through a portal. A lesser daemon, she, or perhaps an angel of one of the lower choirs. He would find out that there’s not much difference between the two.

From empty sidewalk to a fully embodied girl was the span of one heartbeat. He saw her through the visor of his helmet, saw her smile and her white tank top and low-slung jeans, her bare feet and nothing else. No bag, no purse, no shoes, just a waif popped from nowhere and moving with a purpose.

Her bare foot flashed white under the streetlight as she slid a leg over the back of his motorcycle. He heard the click of the passenger pegs, felt her hands wrap around his leather-armored ribs. Her voice purred into the nape of his neck like she’d been there before, like she belonged there.

— Get me out of here, Lover.

The motorcycle idled at the end of a narrow alley, growling between the legs of the man and now the girl. The street before them was an empty Vegas boulevard a long way from The Strip. No headlights broke the pre-dawn stillness.

Until two heartbeats ago, he had been on the mellow edge of a long night with old friends gathered from all over the West Coast. Now he had a strange girl perched on the pillion. His thumb hovered over the engine kill switch but did not touch it.

He looked out over the empty boulevard, out to where he could see the future, or at least all the many ways the future could end badly. The night waited, and the bike and the girl. A waste of time to bother looking; he knew what he was going to do, what he always did, bad ending or no.

— Which way?

A lean bare arm flashed past his visor, pointing.

His thumb wrapped around the throttle grip, and he twisted it open. The bike roared and pulled as he leaned hard through a right turn onto the empty street. He heard the girl laugh, felt her arms wrapped around his chest, her knees pressed into his thighs.

The way led further from the glare and burn of The Strip, into the pre-dawn silence of shabby strip malls and rundown apartment blocks. The girl gave him directions, purring into his ear or pointing over his shoulder.

It was one of those cheap apartment buildings that look like a court motel. Cracked parking lot out front, everything that wasn’t paved was covered with crushed rock. Not a leaf or twig anywhere, not even a cactus. Metal stairways climbed to either end of an open-air walkway that ran the length of the second storey. Numbered doorways and blacked-out windows lined the deserted airway.

He took it all in from behind his visor, one foot on the pavement, the girl still on the back of the bike. Thinking the worst of it, he burped the throttle and rolled the bike to the side of the parking lot furthest from the building. He back-paddled the motorcycle into an empty spot, front tire facing out. His thumb hit the kill switch, but he stayed astride the bike.

She slipped off the left side of the bike and was standing at his knee, quick as a cat. Thumbs hooked into the pockets of her jeans, she stood there smiling into his visor.

He flipped the thing up for his first good look at her. Too short to be a showgirl, teeth just a little crooked, barely a touch of makeup. There were freckles on her cheeks, and they showed up dark under the mercury vapor lights that lit the parking lot. A gold chain around her bare neck led to a Saint Christopher dangling in the cleavage where her small breasts pushed up the white tank. Twenty-five, tops, not beautiful but pretty in a farm girl sort of way. She unlocked one thumb and waved a hand toward his helmet.

— You gonna take that thing off so I can ogle you back?

This was another point on the line, a chance to ride away and leave it be, but he didn’t take it. Instead, he reached for the strap under his chin. The helmet slid over his head, and he laid it on the tankbag. She gave him a good once-over and smiled her crooked smile.

— Well now, you’re easy enough on the eyes. A handsome knight in leather armor.

The girl raised her free hand and gestured over her bare shoulder. He saw no rings on her thin fingers.

— I got cold drinks upstairs. It’s a shithole, but you’re welcome to come up.

Another point and another clear warning. He looked past her hand, scanned the stairs, the walkway, the dark windows. There was not another soul in sight. His eyes fell to her face, and she was still smiling. He made no move to dismount the motorcycle. The girl nodded her head and the smile faded.

— Right, I get it, strange girl, strange apartment, some badass boyfriend waiting behind the door all set to thump you on the head.

She shrugged, dug her right hand into the front pocket of her jeans, fished out a thick wad of cash. She peeled off a fifty and held it out.

— Here, for rescuing me. A brave knight deserves a reward or at least a decent breakfast.

He looked down at the outstretched hand and the rumpled bill but made no move to take it. She laughed and waved the bill in the air between them, then stuffed it back into her pocket.

— Sort of ruins the look of my evil scheme, don’t it? There ain’t nobody up there waiting to thump you. You can believe that or not, your choice, but the invitation still stands. What are you gonna do, Cowboy?

The leather of his jacket creaked softly when he shrugged his shoulders. He pulled the gloves from his hands, stuffed them into his helmet, and swung up and off the bike. Helmet dangling from one hand, he stood a head taller than the girl and then some. She smiled up at him, then turned and led the way across the empty parking lot. He walked a half step behind her, his eyes on the silent doorways.

She padded up one of the stairways and he followed. As he climbed the concrete treads, the metal framework shifted and swayed under his boots. It felt like he was on a boat.

The girl passed by two doors and stopped at the third, number two-oh-seven. She pulled a single key from the fob pocket of her jeans. No ring, no ribbon, just a key. The door opened with a sound like sticking paint. She stood with her back against the doorframe so he could look past her.

— Nothing in there but dark, Cowboy.

He wasn’t a cowboy, not by any stretch, but it sounded as good as anything else. He stepped beside her, felt the closeness of her as he looked into the gloomy apartment. A scattering of second-hand furniture, bare walls, and the glow of the vapor lights leaking through cheap window blinds. The place was empty; he could feel it. Not just empty of guys hidden in the shadows, but empty of living. It was nothing more than a stopping place, and it felt familiar.

He stepped through the doorway, and she followed, pulling the thin door closed behind her. She spun the deadbolt but did not reach for the light switch.

— It’s better in the dark. The light just makes it uglier. You’ll see.

The light from the parking lot gave the room a silver glow. She waved her hand towards a sagging sofa. A saddle blanket was thrown over the back of it.

— Make yourself at home. I don’t believe I’ve got any beer, just colas and some sweet tea.

He looked down at her. She glowed silver as well, a white tank top stretched over her pale skin, freckled face framed by sable hair, and that upturned smile of hers.

— Don’t drink beer. Some tea would be fine.

She scrunched her nose at that like something just occurred to her.

— You don’t drink beer now, or you don’t drink beer never?

— Never.

— Huh. I bet you’re full of surprises. Well, sit yourself down and I’ll rustle us up some tea.

The girl disappeared. He heard a refrigerator open and the clink of glass on glass. He edged around a low coffee table and eased himself down onto the end of the sofa nearest the outside door. He listened past the sounds of the girl in the kitchen, but the whole building was silent as a held breath in a tomb.

When the girl reappeared, she held an enormous glass in each hand. She bent forward at the waist, and the glasses clacked against the coffee table. The Saint Christopher medal popped from its hiding place, and he watched it until she straightened up. Then she slid onto the sofa, leaving a gap between their thighs.

— Tell me about Washington. That’s where you’re from, right? I saw it on your plates.

— Where I live. It’s wet, wet and green, not like here.

— And you rode all the way down here?

He nodded and reached for the glass of tea. His hand stopped just short. The girl laughed and he felt the vibration of it.

— You can drink mine if you’d rather.

He picked up his glass and took a drink. The tea was cold and sweet enough to set his teeth on edge. He put the glass back on the coffee table.

— Are you from around here, from Vegas?

She shook her head and her dark hair shimmered.

— Nobody’s from Las Vegas, least not more than three generations. There wasn’t nothing here before that. It’ll be the same in a few more generations, you watch and see. The casinos will pump the aquifer dry, and then this whole shithole will dry up and blow away, guaranteed.

A lean white arm reached for his glass. She raised it and took a drink, then did the same from her own. She laughed again, kicked her bare feet up onto the coffee table, and leaned back into the saddle blanket.

— See? Nothing to worry about. Tell me a story, something about your ride down here. That’s a long damn way. Something interesting must have happened.

He looked at her bare feet and thought about all the things that happen on any long ride. Dodging the weather up north, knowing how to spot the speed traps, seeing old friends along the way. He weighed out what might interest this girl, then he told her about the wild horses.

It was late afternoon, and he was dropping down from the high country east of the Sierra Nevada. It was the open, empty land before the Nevada state line. He twisted through another spur of rocky foothills, just him and the bike, not another vehicle for miles.

A wide valley spread out ahead of him, miles of arid basin land. A caution sign slid past on the side of the road, the yellow diamond of it lit bright by the sun that gleamed over his shoulders. There were no words on the sign, just a black pictograph of a scruffy horse kicking up its back hooves. The meaning clicked in his brain after the sign passed.

A song filled his helmet, two guitar parts, and Mick Jagger singing about wild horses. The moto thrummed between his knees and the song played in his head. He watched the valley roll towards him as if he was sitting still and it was the thing moving. Then he saw them.

The herd was south of the ribbon of road, maybe thirty head of wild horses. The mares and a few foals were clumped together, feeding on whatever meager green they could find in that dry country. The stallion stood off by himself, head up and eyeing the road.

The noise of the approaching moto grew loud enough to spook the stallion, and it snorted and tossed its head. In a heartbeat, it was running, and the mares and foals were running behind it. The descendants of horses run off from the conquistadores four hundred years ago; they were still here and still running. Their hooves danced over the undulating ground and threw up dust as they galloped.

He loosed the throttle and raised himself in the saddle, turning to watch the wild horses disappear. Their long manes and tails flowed tangled in the wind of their passage. The herd of wild horses crested a low rise and disappeared, leaving behind a trail of dust that floated on the dry air.

His hand found the throttle, and he banged it open, dropping down into a crouch over the bars. The revs climbed and the toe of his boot snicked through two gears until the bike was screaming a buck-twenty across the empty blacktop.

His words hung in the air between them as he finished the telling. He looked at the girl and saw her eyes on his, her face silver-dark like a black-and-white photo.

— Damn, that’s a lot more than just interesting. I guess I expected you to tell me something else, some guy thing. I’d give about anything to see those mustangs. Are there lots of them? I mean, do you see them all the time?

— No, I’d never seen them before. They used to kill them.

The crooked smile disappeared from her face, wiped clean by something hard and cold. He regretted his words, but there was no fetching them back. There never was.

— Who used to kill them?

He wasn’t much for lying, so he told the girl about the roundups, the horses slaughtered for dog meat. He told her about the hired riflemen shooting the mustangs from helicopters. And as he spoke, he felt the heat of her anger growing, like a wood stove stoked too full.

When he was done speaking, he waited for the flood of her words, but none came. The girl rocked forward and back, her hands on her thighs, like a hunting cat coiling up to pounce.

Then the sound of a diesel engine broke the silence, filling the parking lot and thrumming through the window glass. The engine shut down, but the crankshaft loped and shuddered a time of two. The quiet that followed was the waiting kind and it did not last long.

A truck door creaked open, protesting a sprung hinge, then slammed hard and loud. From inside the apartment, he heard the footsteps, then the groaning of the stairs. Then the boots were on the second storey walkway, and he knew where they would stop.

There was a silence outside the door and then a pounding—Bam, Bam, Bam—that rattled the window blinds. An angry voice bawled through the thin door.

— Open up, May. Goddamnit, girl, I know you’re in there.

The girl beside him did not move or answer. He stared at the thin door, not even a chain lock, and cursed himself for a fool. One good kick would blow the door in like cardboard. Regrets ran through his brain while he waited for the door to explode.

The girl of course, first mistake, not throwing her off the pillion and leaving her flat. His K-Bar knife, heavy and sharp, tucked into the side pocket of his tankbag as useless as if it were on the moon. He tried to conjure a weapon. The best he could do was a huge crystal ashtray sitting on the coffee table, the kind you steal from a casino lounge when you’re dead drunk.

Bam, Bam, Bam—slower now, as if the fist behind it was losing steam. And still there was no kick, only the shuffle of heavy work boots. The voice again, mournful now instead of angry.

— Aw, goddamnit, May, goddamnit to hell.

A long pause, so quiet he thought he could hear the heartbeat on the other side of the door. Boots shuffled as if uncertain which way to go. Then the footsteps thudded along the walkway, back down the stairs. The truck door groaned, slammed, and the diesel engine loped and sprang to life. The truck whined in reverse, gears engaged, and then the sound of the diesel lurched away and faded into the night.

The girl did not move when she spoke, did not turn her head.

— He ain’t nothing.

He looked down at her profile.

— No?

— He ain’t nothing to me.

— Does he know that?

Then she turned and her eyes were fierce.

— I guess that’s for him to figure out, ain’t it?

She turned on the sofa, coiled her legs under, and leaned in close to him. He could smell the sharp sweet tang of her.

— You know what I always wanted, ever since I was a little girl?

— I don’t know. What did you want?

— All my life I wanted to be a cowgirl. I still do. I know lots of girls talk like that, but what they really mean is they want to be a prissy little princess with a pony. That ain’t what I ever wanted. I want all of it, the work and the sweat and the dust. Fixing fences and herding cows, wearing a pistol on my belt if I felt like it. Being saddle sore and never wanting to see another goddamn horse until the next morning when it’s time to do it all over again. You understand what I’m saying?

He listened to her words and held them, rolling them over to see the shape of them.

— I think I understand.

She nodded, her face close to his.

— Good. And if any man don’t like that, well, he can just go take a flying fuck at the moon for all I care. You understand that too, I bet.

He nodded and then her hand was on his cheek, forefinger slipping behind his ear. The warmth of her hand lingered even after it fell away.

— It’s a damn shame you didn’t show up sooner. Or maybe later. One of the two anyway. C’mon, Cowboy. I got money burning a hole in my pocket, and I believe I promised you breakfast.

He was long gone out of Las Vegas with the sun still low in the East. His head was ragged from no sleep and too much coffee with the girl. The moto hummed down a two-lane road that ran across the middle of nowhere near the California state line.

Scrub desert rolled like ocean swells, and the road crew that made this blacktop had not wasted a thought on flattening it. Maybe the cat-skinner had been drunk, or maybe he hadn’t given a damn. Whatever the reason, he just bladed up one swell and down into the next trough, and the pavers followed. The tarmac they left behind rose and fell like the back of a sea serpent.

The moto climbed and fell and his stomach along with it. Hit the apex, and the suspension fell away as the bike tried to leave the pavement. At the bottom of the trough the bike coiled taut, and his guts as well, then it sprang up the face of the next swell.

He laughed in his helmet and cracked the throttle open and the moto rocketed up towards the sky. The earth fell away and he was flying, along with five hundred pounds of motorcycle that was not meant to fly. He saw the future, an immediate future of mangled flesh and broken bones, but the choice was made, and he rode it out.

The moto landed true. The free-spinning tires chirped and smoked. The suspension compressed and the force of it pulled him down onto the tank. He tucked into the motorcycle as to the neck of a galloping horse. Two melded into one, they rose over the last crest and the valley opened ahead of them.

The road ran straight and true into the dry valley. The sun was behind his shoulders, and it illuminated the miles of arid basin. Scrub and rock cast long shadows to the West as he flew down the pavement. In those shadows, he saw more shadows, hundreds of them on both sides of the black ribbon he traveled.

Long manes flew in the wind and their tails streamed behind, a thousand wild horses racing their shadows into the West. Their hooves made no sound and raised no dust into the dry air clear as crystal.

He thought of the girl, how she should be here to see this, bare feet on the passenger pegs, hands tight around his ribs, her body pressed into his back. He closed his eyes and felt the touch of her hand on his cheek, the curl of that forefinger behind his ear. When he opened his eyes again, the valley was empty.

Fini

The Condo River Review is currently on hiatus, so I cannot list its website. I’m hoping they return soon.

That’s it for this week’s edition of Thursday Stories. More stories are coming your way. How will you know when a new story breaks? Glad you asked, Friends. Read On! Drumroll and… Meanwhile, don’t miss any upcoming stories. You can stay tuned for all the latest by following the MEF blog:

https://bro.uxw.mybluehost.me/whats-new-in-marcos-world-the-blog/

Marco Etheridge is a writer of prose, an occasional playwright, and a part-time poet. He lives and writes in Vienna, Austria. His work has been featured in over one hundred and fifty reviews across Canada, Australia, Europe, the UK, and the USA. Marco’s short story “Power Tools” was nominated for Best of the Web for 2023 and is the title of his latest collection of short fiction. When he isn’t crafting stories, Marco is a contributing editor for a ‘Zine called Hotch Potch. In his other life, Marco travels the world with his lovely wife Sabine.