Lonnie Busch's Blog - Posts Tagged "flash-fiction"
BOOK CLUB
Book club had dwindled over the past few years; Joan overdosed; Carla ate her husband’s service revolver when hubby Don sold her personal library for 3.2 million and fled to Belize with a coffee shop waitress; Marianne was beaten to death when thugs broke in and carted her entire book collection away in a rented van; Shawna slit her wrists in the tub reading her signed copy of “Damage.” The other four women met similar fates, losing interest in life by degrees. Justine, Margo, Blossom, and Dee were the only ones left. This month’s book: “Lake House Strangers.”
They all said they loved the new novel by author, Argos Intrigue. Of course, they would.
“I knew when they got to the secluded lake house Deke would do something horrible to that airhead Isabel. Chaining her in the bedroom like that! Abusing her in that way… Jeez!” Margo said, smirking, her eyes glistening with lust.
“No, Deke was a perfect gentleman. I loved how they worked together fixing up that old shack together, Deke giving the lake house to Isabel’s aging mother,” Blossom said, cooing with her palm over her heart. “Then getting married on the boat dock.”
“Oh, brother!” Dee said. “Deke was no good from the start, all that bullshit about the Peace Corp. I knew he was an evil bastard, trying to enslave Isabel at the lake house, but Isabel surprised me, turning into that conniving monster, inviting all her cannibal friends to feast on Deke!”
“Wow, I loved Deke!” Justine said, despising the insipid novel. But she loved her friends, and book club, at least the memory of it. “I hated how Isabel took advantage of him at the lake house, auctioning off his organs and eyes online to the highest bidder! Her elaborate life support system was a shocker! I had no idea a human could be kept alive after having that many organs harvested!”
The women talked for another few hours before the evening broke up. Alone, Justine dropped “Lake House Strangers” in the trash compacter and made herself a cup of tea. Flipping on the basement light, she slowly descended the long flight of wooden steps. At the bottom, she set her tea down and went to her husband’s enormous gun safe, the size of a double-wide refrigerator and twice as deep. Twisting the numbers into the mechanism until it clicked she pulled the huge door open, the sight always bringing her infinite joy, the rare colorful book spines shining back, all of them written by human authors before AI devoured the entire publishing industry; eliminating brick and mortar bookstores, churning out derivative drivel— each new title individually created and printed on demand for the intended buyer based on their likes and dislikes, social media posts and reviews they’d written.
She pulled a novel from the safe and sat down near the furnace, sipping her tea. This book she could almost recite by heart, having read it so many times, but it didn’t matter. Kevin, her husband, had insisted they could get five mil for her amazing book collection, but she wasn’t about to sell. Glancing toward the corner, at the lighter patch of concrete that had hardened months ago, she wondered if the color would ever match the rest of the floor. She still missed Kevin, but the longing had faded. She opened her novel to the bookmark, settled back into her chair and let the words wash over her like warm summer sunshine.
Spoken With Authority
***(contains profanity)***
The barbershop. That’s where I first heard it. I was almost eleven when my parents let me go by myself.
“…this fucking big around!”
That one word spoken with authority, not in anger, but with masculine passion to put the point on a point! Jesus, it was like being thrust into the world of men, where men discussed things that required words with more amperage than the watered-down versions of profanity I heard at home.
No, this place was real, a place my father wouldn’t even fit in, a place that shot me skyward past my dad’s stilted station as husband, breadwinner, and swearing flunky, a place crusted over with stubble-faced old men leaning forward on rock-hard knees, a place where arms swung wide like the blades of arthritic windmills and gnarled fingers poked sternly into imaginary chests if a tale was to be told correctly, a place where no one was ever surprised, or shocked, or dismayed, a place where the story of one man’s tragic tale was met—with no attempt to top—by another’s in the spirit of solidarity, conspiring against the cosmos with the same tenacity the gods had conspired against them, a place where men’s spittle and fire fueled the gravity of every yarn and landed on your forehead if you were unfortunate enough to be sitting too close.
I can still picture that old man sitting there, blue shirt and matching pants, some sort of mechanic’s jumpsuit, an oval sewn onto the left chest of the shirt and the name Earl stitched elegantly in satiny scarlet thread. His hands were maroon and bent, the fingers amber near the tips where his cigarette rested. His face was a craggy leather bag, his skull narrow with thick slate hair rolling back in a natural wave on top, trimmed thin as sprinkled pepper down his neck and around his ears. His knees poked at the material of his trousers like the fat ends of Louisville Sluggers, while the bottom cuffs crept up his bony ankles exposing droopy thin white socks and black shoes sturdy as cinderblocks.
“A maple tree! That bastard was this fucking big around!”
Earl’s voice was a rusty razor on a grainy strop, his spittle glittering through the shaft of sunlight, red eyes narrowed like a killer’s, arms bear-hugging some invisible trunk for us to see. Us. He didn’t exclude me because I was a kid. A couple of times he even looked right at me, those big mitts of his clamped to his knees. Veins thick as lamp-cords crisscrossing the backs of his hands, winding around his wrists. Scared the hell out of me and the only words I heard for the duration of my time in the chair were cocksuckersonofabitch spoken as one word, and all derivations and compound varieties of fuck. I was astonished, terrified and relieved when the barber swung the apron from my chest with a matador’s flourish and held up the mirror for me to admire the back of my head. I nodded, smiled nervously and dug in my pocket for the crumpled bills, still picturing Earl clutching that bastard of a tree, praying I’d never see him again.
(This is a 500-word flash fiction piece I wrote a several years back about an impressionable eleven-year old Catholic boy (me), who, in the early sixties made his first solo trip to the neighborhood barbershop. That skinny little fair-haired kid was introduced to a raft of swear words he hadn’t even known existed!
The funny thing was, a few years after this barbershop incident, I started working at a local grocery store a mile or so from my home, Gus’s Market, and met Bob who also worked there. Bob was a few years older than I was, and we became fast friends. One day I went to his house after school and met his two sisters and his mom. Bob’s dad was also there that day, and I just about fainted when I recognized him as “Earl” from the barbershop!
It turned out his dad was a golden-gloves boxer in his youth, worked as a mechanic, and was just a regular guy. Earl even took Bob and me fishing several times up on the Missouri River and we had a lot of fun, though I’m not sure I was ever able to see Earl as anyone other than the rugged, sinewy dude sitting in one of the dark wooden chairs along the back wall of the barbershop. Earl of course never recognized me, how could he, but I never told Bob. Of course by that time I was maybe 15 or 16, and already swearing like a merchant marine myself!
Fascinating how the threads of fate weave in and out of our lives.)
Lonnie Busch
The barbershop. That’s where I first heard it. I was almost eleven when my parents let me go by myself.
“…this fucking big around!”
That one word spoken with authority, not in anger, but with masculine passion to put the point on a point! Jesus, it was like being thrust into the world of men, where men discussed things that required words with more amperage than the watered-down versions of profanity I heard at home.
No, this place was real, a place my father wouldn’t even fit in, a place that shot me skyward past my dad’s stilted station as husband, breadwinner, and swearing flunky, a place crusted over with stubble-faced old men leaning forward on rock-hard knees, a place where arms swung wide like the blades of arthritic windmills and gnarled fingers poked sternly into imaginary chests if a tale was to be told correctly, a place where no one was ever surprised, or shocked, or dismayed, a place where the story of one man’s tragic tale was met—with no attempt to top—by another’s in the spirit of solidarity, conspiring against the cosmos with the same tenacity the gods had conspired against them, a place where men’s spittle and fire fueled the gravity of every yarn and landed on your forehead if you were unfortunate enough to be sitting too close.
I can still picture that old man sitting there, blue shirt and matching pants, some sort of mechanic’s jumpsuit, an oval sewn onto the left chest of the shirt and the name Earl stitched elegantly in satiny scarlet thread. His hands were maroon and bent, the fingers amber near the tips where his cigarette rested. His face was a craggy leather bag, his skull narrow with thick slate hair rolling back in a natural wave on top, trimmed thin as sprinkled pepper down his neck and around his ears. His knees poked at the material of his trousers like the fat ends of Louisville Sluggers, while the bottom cuffs crept up his bony ankles exposing droopy thin white socks and black shoes sturdy as cinderblocks.
“A maple tree! That bastard was this fucking big around!”
Earl’s voice was a rusty razor on a grainy strop, his spittle glittering through the shaft of sunlight, red eyes narrowed like a killer’s, arms bear-hugging some invisible trunk for us to see. Us. He didn’t exclude me because I was a kid. A couple of times he even looked right at me, those big mitts of his clamped to his knees. Veins thick as lamp-cords crisscrossing the backs of his hands, winding around his wrists. Scared the hell out of me and the only words I heard for the duration of my time in the chair were cocksuckersonofabitch spoken as one word, and all derivations and compound varieties of fuck. I was astonished, terrified and relieved when the barber swung the apron from my chest with a matador’s flourish and held up the mirror for me to admire the back of my head. I nodded, smiled nervously and dug in my pocket for the crumpled bills, still picturing Earl clutching that bastard of a tree, praying I’d never see him again.
(This is a 500-word flash fiction piece I wrote a several years back about an impressionable eleven-year old Catholic boy (me), who, in the early sixties made his first solo trip to the neighborhood barbershop. That skinny little fair-haired kid was introduced to a raft of swear words he hadn’t even known existed!
The funny thing was, a few years after this barbershop incident, I started working at a local grocery store a mile or so from my home, Gus’s Market, and met Bob who also worked there. Bob was a few years older than I was, and we became fast friends. One day I went to his house after school and met his two sisters and his mom. Bob’s dad was also there that day, and I just about fainted when I recognized him as “Earl” from the barbershop!
It turned out his dad was a golden-gloves boxer in his youth, worked as a mechanic, and was just a regular guy. Earl even took Bob and me fishing several times up on the Missouri River and we had a lot of fun, though I’m not sure I was ever able to see Earl as anyone other than the rugged, sinewy dude sitting in one of the dark wooden chairs along the back wall of the barbershop. Earl of course never recognized me, how could he, but I never told Bob. Of course by that time I was maybe 15 or 16, and already swearing like a merchant marine myself!
Fascinating how the threads of fate weave in and out of our lives.)
Lonnie Busch
