TWISTED TALES 2014 - Interview

http://annieonwriting.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/g-g-nota-author-in-the-spotlight-for-twisted-tales-2014/

FISH SHACK

We were six willing, skinny, and broke blokes gone clear up coast to Harkum to salvage us a boat. An old trawler it was, sunk just off the coast, and the plan was to get her afloat, out of the lanes and back into port, where we, this scrappy crew, would proceed to dismantle her…being the wharf rats we were, and the men we were about to become.

Oh, she could have been towed out to deep water and sunk, but the owner had personal effects, trinkets and gear and was just plain, attached after some thirty year. It’s what we do, this ragamuffin crew…stripping and scrapping, in the ‘yards back home. Besides, you go find the work, the work don’t find you. This was our big chance. We shipped out in advance and were put up in a fish shack and sat cramped…eating scant from the icebox…pot pies, odd frozen ‘steaks’ textured and packed with little butter pats, some canned stew, beans, stale bread, beer and jerky… Just passing gas, and time, while making due. It was not at all plush, rather damn bleak, but it had a pooper, a hot plate and an old wood-burner stove for heat. She nested, this crate, moaning with the wind and tide while suspended amongst the pier pilings, like a fly in a web, or a crab in a pot. It was…oh, 10 meter, or so, over the waterline below, which is none too secure with heavy seas, but we were in port and you put your trust in the break wall, which is not too reassuring, come a Nor’easter.  But it was a good job with some last-minute cash, to help us get through a long winter. So we sit, and we wait, and then the trouble begins. The trawler, was finally drained, rigged, and buoyed for balance,  but as her towing commences, so too, does the bluster. As they approached the mouth of the harbor, the swells rose and the tow lines broke, sending the lame vessel aimlessly adrift, until she washed up, and broke up, out on the jetty. Now we had us some dilemma. Do we walk away or stay and see what we can do at sea? Heading back with no scrap…the last job of the season would be a crapper. It was clear the weather wasn’t going to cooperate, it was building into a cold snap, and if it persisted we ran the risk of being stranded inside an ice-packed port and there’d be no getting out until thaw, and meanwhile We being ‘the meat in the ice-box’ in that event.

So we gave it a go. We’d take daily soirees into the unrelenting seas in a leaky little skiff, or scrambled along the battered seawall, for four days straight we lay it on the line, but once Pete went in the water, and we almost lost him, we took a vote amongst us and decided to shut her down and wait her out. Then we faced the "locals", who was startin’ to rumble ‘bout us –  and, for what? We’re just the strangers come to take your scrap, livin' under the pier... 'wharf rats'...we didn’t cause this, didn’t sink the old girl, didn’t obstruct the lane, didn’t bring winter in a month early. Nothin'.  We did no harm to your economy or ruin your friggin’ Holidays! Hell, our personal economy was about to be absolute squat after this gig! So we haggled a bit with the towners, a few days at least, then the hammer came down as the final nor’easter comes in like a beast and smack…we’re all stuck. So we hunkered down in our bunks. Six bloody blokes stuck in this drafty box with waves this-close to lickin’ the friggin’ floorboards, groanin’ beneath our feet.

We passed the time playin’ cards for matchsticks, and swapping tales, but a few days of that and it all goes stale...all goes flat  – the air, the food, the attitude. When the front did break, for a short time there, we got out, got some sun, and just hung around. The locals had calmed, their frustration resigned by the weather, but not all that much resolved to us, as some surly pockets remained - fishermen mostly, so we knew, and continued to avoid trouble by being invisible as could be, in this tight little town.

Then the boy showed up…washed up, wrapped up in ropes, netting, and floats, entangled in the pilings, directly beneath our suspended shed. Poor lad. We all looked down as he floated face up, staring back at us. He was a cherubic little school-boy, pale and so very innocent, drifting gently now in calm waters, as if an angel floating overhead, but now just below, down in the drink, instead.

Well that caused a stir on the docks of this small port, as people poured out of their houses for the first time in days, only to find the dead child, a local boy, who’s mother wailed and father railed, and suspicious eyes stared at the six of us, strangers in their midst, huddled against the railing and now in a bit of a fix. Wasn’t us that brought this, but it was Us, now in their nets.

The Shadow Self

The ugly dark side

‘til now they could hide

bubbles to the surface

no longer confined.

You, now a servant

They come not to confide

But to confront

Life’s lie

And it’s you who must listen

And you who abides

The abuses

To come

from their poison inside

It’s in there.

and damn ugly,

but you’ve seen the signs.

Mind’s Miscorrelations,

Screaming skulls blare

Wild-eyed headlight’s glare,

Flailed swings

fists flare

in confused directions,

fatal anger pent,

but denied,

as they once were,

so damn angry at the thought,

grown old left to rot,
...in endless halls

No rescue today

No tomorrow
then, 
if that be
My Fate...?
   
"To hell with you all!"

I am allowed to Rage

you know!

It’s not supposed 
to be this way

they say,

and dare not attempt 
to anticipate

because it’s coming from someplace unforeseen,

buried deep in gut, like a bile in the spleen,

oozing a grudge

that bore on their minds

born of anger

built-up

o'er a lifetime.

Going, 
but begrudgingly...

Gone, 
but
Not Resigned.

DARLA DIDN'T MAKE IT

Hey now how you doing? Sit your ass down and have a cold one. I was just espoundin’ to my old friend Lou...Lou, from Honolulu….That’s Lou over there…the big Dude.

Dude!

We were just shootin’ the shit about the immigrates. I say if they want to stay here then fine! Hand them a rifle and send ‘em over there and fight these fucking wars we got going. You know, wherever they might be goin’ on. If there's some oil, then there's your war! Hell, we might be sending ‘em back to where they just came from…maybe fighting their own fuckin cousins, but still, man, you want to stay free, you know? …go fight fo’it. You come back a hero, we hand you your papers. You come back in a box?...fukman, you’re still a hero, you know? It’s your name on that wall. Pretty fuckin awesome…ask me. Shitman, I woulda fought if they’da let me, but this neck...? I told you about the wreck, right? That was one cherry bike. I showed you the pictures, right? Well, so-what I can’t turn my head? Shitman, I could be dead. Darla didn’t make it….goddamn…took a header…haunts me still. I told you that story right? How shit-faced we was that night? Yeah, probably a thousand times, right? I won’t bore you with the facts, I’m sure you got them straight by now, but I close my eyes and I see her flyin’…flyin’ on, to oblivion. Haunts me still. Weren’t for that fuck-up I’d probably be dead somewhere like Darla. Hell at least she landed on her home soil, you know? Who the fuck knows where I might’a died? Ain’t that the truth, Lou?

Fuckin’ bet your ass, dude! 

Look at Lou, he woulda fought, too, but his big ass just don't move. You gotta wonder what life’s got in line, sometimes its trouble, sometimes you’re fine.

To you, Lou! From one lucky motherfucker to the other!

THREE DADDYs

Sometime during the night the phone rang, harsh and loud, startling me awake. It wasn't so much the fact that no one calls at this hour, but more a case of nobody ever calling. I have the phone for one reason, and that is to talk to my mother, who is terminally ill. One would think, given the circumstance, that I would keep the phone next to my bed, but I have enough clutter about me, that the addition of another seldom-used utility that I frequently found off it's cradle, beeping busily and useless beneath a mound of laundry...now sits across the untidy room on the floor next to the floor lamp, where it might not be as easily misplaced or dislodged. So here I scramble across that treacherous floor in a room lit by a singular nite-lite, anxiety building expecting to hear the inevitable, yet ill-prepared to receive it, my pulse raises - I sense my blood pressure mount as my ears ring, and my breaths are short and tight. I grasp the receiver, and gasp into the mouthpiece "HELLO!?"

“Hey. Sorry.” It was female, soft, low, and slurred...the "eyyy" trailing off... "shorry", meek and contrite.

"You...You have the wrong number."

"Not this time..." He instantly knew ‘Who’. It was the foul-mouthed 'wrong number' that he had incurred that afternoon...or rather, given the hour it must be...last afternoon. 

"You have no reason to call here. What time is it?" Where was his clock?

"S'late..."

"No shit. Why are calling?! You told me to fuck off...to fuck off on my own phone, that you dialed and got  pissed off because I'm not fucking Carla..."

"I called Kayla. Carla wouldn't fuck you...but then neither would Kayla..."

"Well thanks for verifying your identity. You are the same self-involved foul-mouthed, conceited little bitch that interrupted my solitude this afternoon!"

"The same."

"So why you haunting me?"

"I'm not like that, and I think I came off badly...I called to apologize."

"What do you mean you're not like that - you just pulled the same shit!"

"I know. I'm rich...I'm spoiled...I'm fucked..."

“Oh, poor you, and fuck me, stop yanking my chain. Is that what this is? You and Sherry having a laugh in the back of your limo?”

“Kayla.”

“Who gives a fuck. Hang up.”

“You hang up...”

“Oh let's not play that...”

“I'm lonely.”

“So? Who isn’t? Buy yourself a friend and let me sleep.”

“You're lonely...”

“I am not.”

“You said you had solitude…”

“I said you disrupted my solitude. There's a big difference from being lonely...”

“Not where I live. Privacy! Security! Luxury! Tranquility!… and Loneliness. Come on…”

“Sounds like you got it made. How about using all that, to concentrate on yourself?”

“Concentrate on what?”

“I don't know...maybe who you might be?... what you might learn or accomplish?...little things...like, how you Feel?”

“I know all that, and I can Accomplisshhh... I DO,I don't make those decisions...so I don't think very hard.”

“Did you just state that someone else decides that?”

“They all do. But People know...they know who I am...”

“Not YOU.”

“In a manner of speaking, I do too... but that's not important.”

“So…It's a show.”

“...it's a show. Want to come over?”

“Why, where, and what the fuck for?”

“We can do that...I got a show I can show you...”

“No. Not happening.”

“Why? I'm pretty...you should see me…”

“You're drunk...you don't like old men...”

“I never said that...”

“You said that – ‘who'd want to fuck a gross old man like you’...?"

“I got to say, half the time my medication does most of the talking...and I'm talking the 'Dr.-shit', and not even the fun stuff. I am really sorry. I like old men. I do. My Daddys are old...”

“I'm not that old and I don't want to know about your Daddys.”

“I have three daddys! Really! It's what my Mother does! My real Dad, he died on the freeway. She keeps getting richer...not smarter, but her tits look great...we go to botox together. People think we're sisters...I hate that...I... Come on over. Be with me. I need...”

“I am a stranger. A random...old...hardly sympathetic, and totally put-off nobody...and you could be in danger. Don't be doing this shit.”

“I am reaching out. I need to reach out. They tell me, 'reach out'... I am reaching...c'mon reach me...touch me...”

“Okay, you're drifting off. What are you on?”

“I'm on the roof.”

MOTHBALL MEMORIES

She had dreams she once had family. She'd had a mother that loved her, a father that provided and hugged like a bear, and a sister with missing front teeth that teased her eternally. She missed them, yet never knew them, not really.

What she does remember so very well, from the reality she endured, was a father that would rage in violent acts within the domicile. He beat the shit out of them all,  until finally splitting open mother’s head with a hot frying pan…she burned his sausages…because she was sick…from a flu 
the child had given her…she sat down at the table while getting dizzy at the stove…she lay her head to rest and may have passed out. We can only pray. She did not hear his rage storm over head before crushing hers.

From under her bed she saw him approach. The room filled with the smell of burnt sausage. His feet now inches from where she huddled, He dropped the pan to the floor with a dull clang. Seeing the blood, she attempted in vain to stifle the scream.

“I won’t hurt you again…” he said. To his promise, he walked the eight blocks and turned himself in at the station. He had the blood on his hands. They locked him in a cell, then cops and Marta, came for the girls. Marta was her martyr, she’d say, and for good reason. She missed her sister who went to live with ‘Aunt Ri’ out of state.

The smell of fried meat haunts and nauseates her. The vegan, ever since, she’d cover her nose when driving by burger joints, less she lurch her lunch …again, and often took routes to avoid them. She learned to adjust, and enjoyed a stuffy sinus and her persistent allergies. But…

Moth balls…moth balls will trigger these memories. Mothballs in her sweater box tucked under her bed, and the round ones that hung in her closet – places they’d huddle.

The dreams? That family? She lives with them, not so much welcoming them, …oh, enjoying them in their moment, but simply being in that space with them was reassuring. Like walking in the front door of a house she grew up in. As if, she belonged.

WINDOW LIGHT

w o r k i n g   w /  w i n d o w ' s   l i g h t

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3:00. P. M   -   w e d,   -    S u n  /. S h a d e s  /. 

Reflection