Dave Zeltserman's Blog, page 27

Bullet of Prose #6 from A KILLER'S ESSENCE

Thursday’s one of the nights when I get to call my kids. After our divorce, Cheryl remarried and moved a hundred and ninety miles away to Cumberland, Rhode Island. My lawyer told me I had little chance of joint custody with the hours I worked and the nature of my job, so I didn’t fight her on moving our kids out of state, and as such, she pretty much agreed to what I asked in return. Still, it wasn’t as amiable as it might sound. There were a lot of hard feelings between of us—she had her long laundry list of issues, and me, I felt blindsided by the divorce. I guess I shouldn’t have. I knew there were problems. The last year or so together I could feel the frost building up, but I was just too damn tired from the job to figure out what it was that was eating at her, and according to Cheryl that was the final straw, the one thing she couldn’t forgive me for. I think she was full of shit about that part of it. If she were completely honest about it she’d admit that her biggest issue with me was that she ended up a stay-at-home mom instead of a big-time Hollywood actress like one of her cousins. She always felt as if there were bigger things in store for her and that it was my fault that none of those bigger things ever happened.

Bullet of Prose #1 from A KILLER'S ESSENCE

Thursday’s one of the nights when I get to call my kids. After our divorce, Cheryl remarried and moved a hundred and ninety miles away to Cumberland, Rhode Island. My lawyer told me I had little chance of joint custody with the hours I worked and the nature of my job, so I didn’t fight her on moving our kids out of state, and as such, she pretty much agreed to what I asked in return. Still, it wasn’t as amiable as it might sound. There were a lot of hard feelings between of us—she had her long laundry list of issues, and me, I felt blindsided by the divorce. I guess I shouldn’t have. I knew there were problems. The last year or so together I could feel the frost building up, but I was just too damn tired from the job to figure out what it was that was eating at her, and according to Cheryl that was the final straw, the one thing she couldn’t forgive me for. I think she was full of shit about that part of it. If she were completely honest about it she’d admit that her biggest issue with me was that she ended up a stay-at-home mom instead of a big-time Hollywood actress like one of her cousins. She always felt as if there were bigger things in store for her and that it was my fault that none of those bigger things ever happened.

Bullet of Prose #5 from THE CARETAKER OF LORNE FIELD

Whether or not the rest of the town still understood it, his position was one of the greatest responsibility. He had never yet forsaken it, and he wasn’t about to. No matter how miserable the weather was, no matter how poorly he felt, he had been out there every day since his twenty-first birthday doing his job as stipulated by the contract. Even when he was nearly dead with pneumonia he was out tending Lorne Field. Lydia had been near hysterical trying to get him to the hospital, but he wouldn’t be deterred. Stayed there seven in the morning to seven at night as he always did. Even though he was almost blind from fever and had chipped a tooth ’cause he was shaking so bad, he weeded out the Aukowies and kept the world safe. Took him two years to lose the cough that pneumonia had given him. But he did his job.

Bullet of Prose #1 from THE CARETAKER OF LORNE FIELD

Whether or not the rest of the town still understood it, his position was one of the greatest responsibility. He had never yet forsaken it, and he wasn’t about to. No matter how miserable the weather was, no matter how poorly he felt, he had been out there every day since his twenty-first birthday doing his job as stipulated by the contract. Even when he was nearly dead with pneumonia he was out tending Lorne Field. Lydia had been near hysterical trying to get him to the hospital, but he wouldn’t be deterred. Stayed there seven in the morning to seven at night as he always did. Even though he was almost blind from fever and had chipped a tooth ’cause he was shaking so bad, he weeded out the Aukowies and kept the world safe. Took him two years to lose the cough that pneumonia had given him. But he did his job.

The Canary

The Canary is a short crime story that I originally wrote back in 2008 as part of a blog experiment that I participated in along with several dozen other crime writers. The Canary is now up on my website.

Bullet of Prose #4 from OUTSOURCED

Petrenko sat in the back room of a small Italian restaurant on Prince Street. Yuri stood to his right. Across from him sat “Uncle Pete” Stellini. Stellini, close to three hundred pounds and almost as wide as he was tall, was in his sixties with gray hair that had been dyed black and a face as round as the moon. Petrenko had dug around enough to find out that Stellini’s nickname “Uncle” didn’t come from his friendly fatherly appearance, but from when he was younger and doing collections. The story was that when he got his hands on a deadbeat, he’d twist the guy’s arm behind his back and make the guy say “uncle” before he broke it.

Bullet of Prose #1 from OUTSOURCED

Petrenko sat in the back room of a small Italian restaurant on Prince Street. Yuri stood to his right. Across from him sat “Uncle Pete” Stellini. Stellini, close to three hundred pounds and almost as wide as he was tall, was in his sixties with gray hair that had been dyed black and a face as round as the moon. Petrenko had dug around enough to find out that Stellini’s nickname “Uncle” didn’t come from his friendly fatherly appearance, but from when he was younger and doing collections. The story was that when he got his hands on a deadbeat, he’d twist the guy’s arm behind his back and make the guy say “uncle” before he broke it.

Bullet of Prose #3 from SMALL CRIMES

It’s funny, it wouldn’t be this way now if Phil had died that night. The memory of what I did would’ve faded and the hard feelings would’ve worn away. The problem is Phil is there to face them every day. Every day they have to be repulsed once again by my crime. Because of me they have to feel awkward and self-conscious around him and try to pretend he’s not some sideshow freak. There’s just no forgiveness for that.

Bullet of Prose #1 from SMALL CRIMES

It’s funny, it wouldn’t be this way now if Phil had died that night. The memory of what I did would’ve faded and the hard feelings would’ve worn away. The problem is Phil is there to face them every day. Every day they have to be repulsed once again by my crime. Because of me they have to feel awkward and self-conscious around him and try to pretend he’s not some sideshow freak. There’s just no forgiveness for that.

Bullet of Prose #2 from KILLER

His new-found boldness was annoying and I decided I liked it better when he was too afraid to say much of anything. I leaned in closer to him and told him how he looked like a guy I once knew, and it was the truth.

“Duane Halvin,” I said. “Big roly-poly kid. Thirty years old and still had baby fat. Christ, the two of you could’ve been separated at birth.” I leaned in closer, added, “I had to put an ice pick through his eye, and the thing was, I used to see Duane all the time at the track and I liked the guy. He was fun to hang around. You, not so much.”