Introduction:
The following are fictional(ized) stories I wrote between 2000 and 2011, with the exception of Star Trek: White Trash which was originally written in 1995, but for the most part, lost and re-written in 2009. I have collected these stories into one volume for the purpose of sharing my writing with the public.
In this collection of short stories we are introduced to a city of depravity, a misanthrope who is compelled to blast away others’ delusions of grandeur, a psych ward terrorized by an author, the entropic boredom at the heart of a car plant, a man who finds himself caught in the act of becoming a spider, a building with character encompassing several eras, a fellow who must come to terms with how he treated his brother, two love stories that defy expectations, two tales of the fantastic to be found in the Middle-East, childlike theism and a trailer park in space.
Excerpt
City on a Hill
This is the tale of a city that situated itself salaciously unsilent on a hill with its highways, byways, parkways and overpasses snaking around through, under and above the city as the thundering rumble of various vehicles vroomed, zoomed and entombed the city, imprisoning the sound, smell, sight, taste and touch of every soul who made it their dwelling within a spiring aesthetic of steel, concrete, plastic, glass and 'eat drink and be merry: for tomorrow we die'.
The hill itself being man-made, shared the same sense of exponential escapism encapsulating the city as it had been raised eleventy eight years ago in the face of battles to which no one remembered the name of and that had ravaged women and children as men on an adventure tore through the land taking their own little piece of heaven and defecating on it until the men to oppose them emerged and erected a shining citadel from which they let fly bombs and bullets until all the men of honour were dead and the living were marginally at peace.
Of course this war to unite the land had simply dissolved into internal inspiration within each and every person as they tore their eyes from the blood running in rivers and looked to the shining sun that rose in the sky spreading hope to each individual as they decided to go it alone and call it freedom.
But, even though the times had changed in the heart of society, the world itself rambled along to the beat of its own drum: 'bam bam bam,' it cried, 'here comes industry!' and 'woe are you,' it howled 'here comes collectivization!' even though the people cried out 'no' the answer was 'yes' for many on the periphery.
Not so for those in the nation of the people who lived in the city on a hill, for they soon had planes, trains and automobiles and then came radio, television and the internet whilst all of these events were preceded by a march to the polls every so often to reassert and resurrect freedom.
So, these people bought themselves out of slavery and indebted themselves to freedom, stealing as much as they could from the tightly controlled anarchy.
This, then, is the tale of that city of freedom, that city of splendour: why, it is the tale of many fists raised in defiance of whatever one has a need to defy. When you cross the threshold into this city (Lord Bloodbath's tunnel on the approach to 35th ave) you too will be agape and join in on the rampant revulsion to teetotaling tribalism. And, therefore, into the city we shall go so that you can see for yourself what all the fuss is about.
For instance, on this very day from the suburbs to the corner of Lord Bloodbath and 35th there begins a parade, a procession of individuals come together on this day each year for a collective remembrance of an event to which no one alive experienced and so it has been renamed Merry Day; they take the day off to watch the parade as it marches with enthusiasm and partial nudity toward Central Boulevard where the crowds swell and gather to wait for a show of lights in the sky and merriment in the streets, along the canals and especially in the saloons.
And this is where Angel is, in a saloon called 'the Underground' where freedom loving goths come to canoodle as if in a dank patchouli scented cave possibly filled with vampires and/or zombies but certainly with the expectation of Queen Victoria's imminent arrival. “Say,” Angel says as she grabs the arm of a passerby, “Merry Day to you.”
Steel, whose arm it is, looks over his shoulder into her dancing green eyes and notes her crooked smile before he bequeaths upon her a sly smile of his own. “Why Angel,” says he, “myself and the others were wondering where you had gone. Some of us were certain you'd joined the growing ranks of the hipsters.”
“No,” she snorts, “skinny jeans are for Saturdays and Sundays and today is but Friday.”
“Well,” he sits atop the stool beside her and caresses her knee lightly, “it certainly is. What say do let's get out of here and make merry at my place?”
She giggles and covers her mouth with a frilly silk kerchief.
Chucking a thumb over a shoulder he says, “My condominium is but a block from here and the night is young and warm.”
She withdraws her cell phone from a pocket along the midriff of her corset, glances at the fob watch it is chained to and raises her eyebrow. Her dark purple hair, knotted above her head, shows off the splendour of the nape of her neck in the yesteryear fashion and is held fast by two chopsticks criss-crossed. “Hmmm…”
He tilts his head and brushes a lock of hair from her eyes. “You are intrigued, I can tell.”
“But you only just arrived and the night is still young.”
“So we'll cojoin for a short time and soon rejoin the revelling fun.”
“I would like to join you and see your new place.”
“Then we’ll head that way now and make it a race.”
Before she completes her nod, his thick hand wraps itself around hers and she can feel a caged heat seeping through the lace of her white gloves. He tugs her along behind them and soon they are out into the street. He begins to sprint lightly and she laughs softly, gathering up her skirt and petticoat as she follows at what speed she can muster while her stilettos tap tap tap along the ground behind him. They travel through a cesspool of safe sex and soon are inside the lobby of his building. As she catches her breath, he gathers her toward him, his arms slipping along her waist and gathering about her hips. A remixed, techno version of La Marseillaise sounds from his pantaloons and so, he leaves off before kissing her to retrieve the instrument producing it. He clutches his cell phone and pressing a button, causes its lower half to drop down. “Good evening to you!”
“Steel are you there?”
“Why yes indeed.”
“And that would be where?”
“At my home on Bruce Street.”
At the other end of this conversation, Yorky is ordering another martini whilst screaming into his cell phone through a din of blaring back beats. He signals to the bartender, pointing at his glass and the man behind the counter nods, producing another.
“Are you coming to Scenester?”
“I think I might make it.”
“Will you be bringing her?”
“We’ll be there for the Crickets.”
Yorky tips his glass, pouring half the cocktail down his throat and then places it back on the bar. “Right then.” He hangs up the phone and leans toward Spectre. “He says he’ll be here when the Crickets chirp.”
“Good.” Spectre removes his fedora, wiping his brow on the sleeve of his zoot-suit’s jacket and then checks his fob. “More than enough time I’d say.”
Around them sweaty youths writhe on the dance floor as boys spoon the girls and the girls kiss one another. Spencer’s mouth twists and his brows rise slightly. “This place has become tired, right?”
“Well,” replies Yorky as he cocks his head on his hand, “it does seem unchanged since its heyday and could use some nouveau splendour.”
“Indeed.”
He casts his hand in an arch. “I mean, we used to come here and get dirty but now it’s all so… Mundane.”
“I say!” Spectre snaps his fingers twice and points to the air, “That’s it exactly! We’ve become accustomed and inured to this scene. Why even that girl –”
“Which one?”
“She just passed by, falling out of her halter; you missed it.” He sighs. “In the twilight of our youth but a scant year ago I would have followed her into hell.”
“Too right!” Yorky looks around, “Did I really miss the show?” He shrugs then nods once more with purpose. “Ah well, there will be more areola, I’m sure of it.”
More martinis are plopped down before them and they circle their stools back to the bar to pay homage to lord vermouth. Lights and lasers lasso around them, while the sweaty youth on the dance floor continue to gyrate to bombastic beats blasting from boom-boxes.
Time marches on and more martinis are consumed before more of their group arrive. Yorky sees them first, gathering at the edge of the dance floor after checking in their trampy fur coats. “It’s the stock ticker boys,” he says to his companion as he holds two fingers in the air, eventually making eye contact with Paxton. Paxton nods back at him and drags his zoot-suit clad companions, Percy and Concord, to the fore along with him to the bar.
“Hail fellows!” they croon as they hold their hands to their breasts, and “Well met,” they bellow as they shake hands in earnest.
Spencer disengages himself from the group but nods when asked if he would partake in another round of martinis. He winds his way to a booth off in the corner of the club where the blaring bass bounds on by, leaving a tiny section of harmonious solitude from the din. Tapping on the screen of his cell phone, he accepts a call.
“I’m hatching a scheme.”
“What kind of thing?”
“Assault Park at high moon: it’ll be a scream.”
“I’ll see who I can bring.”
Returning to the group while they were on another round, he finds that his drink is warm and perspiration dribbles down the stem of the glass. He presses the stem between his two fingers and absently runs his hand up and down while he watches his compatriots discuss equine futures. They finish scouring the internet for sources of interest and Paxton places his phone on the bar and looks over at Yorky. “Who was that one the phone?”
“Poltroon,” he takes a sip, “wants us to join her in the park later on.”
“Well that sounds like fun: we’ll all come along.”
They drink and then dance, dance more and then drink when eventually a sound-check begins. ‘Check one’ says the front-man, ‘brrrrappp’ says the guitar, ‘bwom bwom’ says the bass and ‘bam clang’ says the drums. The Crickets are satisfied, asking for more flood lights and then the youth turn to the stage as the guitar starts to chirp.
Angel and Steel arrive at that moment; they join the group at the bar and their waiting martinis. Halfway through a squealing epic, Angel disengages and heads to the sound-booth. She leaps up the three steps before her and swings open the door. Damian, sitting upon a throne, turns to look at her as his hands move with the rhythm of the music over his instrumentation. He nods as she passes by him, her fingers running along the back of his shoulders before she leans on the table in front of him. “Can you come to the park later?”
He adjusts a riser on a sound board. “This Poltroon’s thing?”
She nods.
He hands her his cell phone and she reads a text message about a scheme in Assault Park.
“Well then,” she says as she leans forward and kisses him lightly on the cheek, “no need to tell you that it’ll be the greatest Merry Day story ever told.”
“Can’t be much else when that girl’s planning it.”
She ruffles his hair as she passes him again and exits the sound-booth. Damian flicks the switch on his macro-board and the stage lighting dances a merry jig in blues and yellows across the stage. After running his fingers idly along the treated pine framework of his equipment, he flips open his cell phone, dials and Mercy responds, “Hello?”
“High moon in Assault Park.”
“When it’s cold and dark?”
“We’re seeing to that.”
“Then that’s where we’re at.”
Mercy ends the call and stuffs her cell phone, with its ivory jacket and ebony buttons, into her leopard-print moleskin purse. She’s sitting in a window of the barbican on Watchmen Esplanade with Phoenix. The two girls are snuggled tightly together, their arms draped around one another as they look up, toward the downtown core of the city. A sleek, chrome Maglev speeds along five stories above them and enters the heart of the Red-light district. They pass a flask between them as they sway back and forth to the rhythmically riotous ruckus.
Down in the Entertainment District every saloon blasts music and it filters through their frames, twisting together in the streets to rise up into the night and proclaim that all are aroused. Laughter, too, flies up from the streets and entwines itself within the hymnal of a city at play. The streets, pregnant with people, seem to burst at the seams.
The two girls become mesmerized by the headlights and break-lights of the vehicles that zip hither and thither, into the Banking District, out of the Garment District, along the eastern edge of the Marine District and straight through the heart of the Little-bit-of-everything District. They pass their flask back and forth, kiss a little until the flask runs dry, then they finally stand up and walk to a nearby Maglev platform where they are transported into the mass frenzy beneath them.
Thinking that they need a pick-me-up they hail a boxy cab, coloured like a bumble bee, and are dropped off at the foot of a building that soars into the mists settling high above. This cream-bricked building spreads itself out along the block and claims its own tiny piece of the city. They enter the lobby and key in a code on the black-and-white elliptical television screen that hangs from the ceiling.
The face of Barabbas appears on the screen and he is brushing his teeth, “You’re early.” He mumbles as he looks down and reaches toward something. “C’mon up then.”
A chime beeps and a grinding buzz sounds on the latch of the bronze door beside the girls. They open the door and head to the magnetic lifts. Upstairs, they knock on his door and he answers it wrapped a towel. Motioning them inside, he heads down a connecting hall to the bathroom and removes his towel.
They drop themselves onto a chaise lounge in the living room having grabbed a bottle of mead on their way through the kitchen. Rasputin is settled comfortably into the love-seat across from them and he smiles at the girls when they pass the bottle to him. “Mercy and Phoenix, I say it’s been ages;” He takes a swig, grimaces and shudders and then hands the bottle back to them, “what good word do you scrumptious tribadists bring?”
Phoenix, hugging the other girl from behind answers him in a low sultry voice. “We heard tell of a happening in the Park…”
“And this might be?”
She shrugs and scratches Mercy’s back. While Phoenix scratches low, Mercy arches her back and emits a soft moan. “Poltroon. So: song, pomp and circumstance.”
“Indeed,” he smiles broadly at the two girls while his eyes track a fly that buzzes around his head, “I think that’s just the right way to put a party planned by the eminent Lady Poltroon.”
“Mmmm, she’s got it going on.”
He nods and puts a finger to his lips. “Might you girls wish to see a miracle?”
“What kind?” Mercy sits forward and Phoenix stops scratching her back; both sets of eyes zone in on Rasputin.
“Shhh,” he says, “I’ll show you a resurrection.”
The fly meanders around him; so, Rasputin sways this way and that until, as if out of nowhere, his hand streaks into the air and snatches the fly from it. He grabs a half-filled glass of water and shoves the fly into it. Holding it under the water until its wings stop vibrating, he slides the glass onto the coffee table. Picking up a beer cap from the table, he drops it into the glass over the fly. The fly, under the cap is sent to the bottom of the glass.
“You’re water-boarding it!” Mercy’s eyes glisten as her finely sculpted eyebrows crinkle together and her lush, lower lip sticks out. “Killing it!”
Rasputin nods slowly. “Yes. And, in fact, when I said that I would show you one miracle I really meant that I would show you two. The fly will die before it will rise.”
He leaps from the love-seat, trots to the kitchen and returns with a box of salt and a spoon. They pass the mead back and forth. While they wait, a blimp comes into view from the vista through the living room window and docks at a dark building in the centre of the city. Finally, he nods again and lifts the beer cap out of the glass. The fly floats to the top but shows no activity. He pokes it a few times and nods again and again when it fails to respond. Taking the fly out of the water, he places it on an old copy of ‘Hedonism Magazine’ and spoons a heap of salt atop the fly. After a few moments he takes the fly into his cupped hands. He blows gently into his hands over and over while the girls watch, enraptured, taking swigs of mead every so often.
“I don’t think –”
He shushes Phoenix and throws his hands into the air, separating them. The fly whips toward the ceiling, buzz buzz buzzing this way and that. “Do you understand now?”
The two girls nod and pass him the mead. Barabbas emerges from the bathroom and looks around the corner into the reverently silent living room. “What did I miss?”
A large mass of youth descends upon Assault Park, every one of them baptized with booze. The crowd gathers ‘round a hastily constructed stage where Damian spins his vinyl. Poltroon emerges, dragging a goat from the back of the stage, chaining it before the front line of gatherers. She pulls out a knife, pointing it to the goat’s head and declares, “In days of yore this goat would have paid for our freedom with a splash of its blood on the stage.” She throws the knife to the stage and pulls out a plastic baggy, “But those days are gone and we have found our freedom in other substances. I offer these then to this goat and the gods above and below to ensure that we retain the right to party!”
Poltroon shoves the baggy in the face of the goat which begins to devour an assorted collection of chemicals and herbs. When it has finished, with Damian’s beats blasting in the background, she waits for a song until the goat begins to look around wildly and pull on its chain. She laughs then and unhooks it from the stage and the ninny takes off, leaping from the stage, charging towards the woods until it is lost in the foliage. With a smile that spreads ear to ear she extends her hands to the audience, “Go now wild animals,” Damian lowers the music and increases the output on the microphone in front of her, “be free and make merry on this Merry Day!”
The crowd erupts, pumping their fists into the air and dancing to the music as Damian raises the volume. As the night winds on, twosomes or threesomes and sometimes foursomes or fivesomes enter the wood and celebrate Merry Day. They naturally set about their nature and their bodies naturalize as they twine and unwind.
As the sun begins to crest over the great monoliths of industry, with buildings like stone columns that soak in the light and others like goblets that refract it all over the place, the youths in the park tire and head home as if they are a confluence of headwaters spreading every which way. Some take the Generalissimo Overpass which the homeless shelter under. Others brave the Bastinado Autovía which travels through rival gang territories. But most take the common way to the downtown core or even to the suburbs: the Highway Parkway which starts at Central Boulevard and turns into Lord Bloodbath Highway, a nasty stretch of pavement lined with its cloud-choking smokestacks.
Youths of all types from goth, prep, hipster to geek, find their way home to nestle their sheets, while police cruisers roam widely out in the streets. As well, sirens blast from fire-trucks who travel en route, to reports of fires they`ll locate and put out. All the while, every ambulance has dumped, at least one youth at the hospital whose gut must be pumped.
Helios is an award winning novel about a brilliant inventor of new technology, a fallen CEO seeking redemption, and an idealistic youth who comes of age in corporate America.
High school student Kevin Borden has a secret and his name is Louis Lannegan. He also has an overbearing mother. A tale of coming out in the shadow of parents and friends. Award winning novella.
The bulk of the collection is eight short stories that are set in yesteryear. The compilation is filled out with four entertaining fantasy pieces and three poems.
