Book Preview

Here is a preview from my latest story, which still goes without a name:

Why is the door so hard to open? Turn already, you stupid knob! Turn, or else I’ll rip you out! Oh great: my brand new house is broken. My first real house in seven years, the first real house I’ve ever had, and somebody was mean and broke the knob. Now I can’t go in.

“Hun, it’s not going to turn.” She steps out of the car and walks down the sidewalk.

“Who broke it?”

“Nobody broke it.”

Her hand chills me like ice as she brushes me aside. Sifting through her collection, she finds the right key.

Oh… I see. The door was locked.

Inside, I survey the room, and what a great place! My mom must devote her time to tidying each inch. She sorts out every speck, then polishes the specks themselves.

“Not much of a place, but I think you will enjoy your time here.”

“Living here?”

“Yes, living here. Oh, and here are your siblings.”

My gosh, I've never beheld a pair so odd. Are they even children? By their looks, they must be children. Their heights don't peak much higher than around four feet, and their faces appear to me so far from finished. And now they strut towards me with sophistication. They don't break out with excitement or skipping or joy; I bet they've never even dirtied those clothes. But, under their form, I really do hope that they're at least jumping to meet me inside their hearts.

Now, I do admit, I don't fancy their clothes much; at least not for me. But I also admit that they model them very nicely - the girl in a blue and frilly, flowing dress, the boy in a button-down shirt, tucked in his slacks. Did they dress in these fancy clothes just for me?

“Arthur, Beatrice,” my new mom gestors. “This is Gregory.”

“Hi!” I cheer. Do I look silly right now? I feel my cheeks on my ears. “It’s great to meet you!”

They nod, and I don’t quite know what that suggests, but I guess that means it’s great to meet me too. They strut off the way they came, like a movie set on rewind.

“We are glad to have you here, Gregory.”

“You know, you could just call me Greg and not Gregory, if you want. I like it that way.”

She twists her nose a bit. “Okay. If you prefer that.”

My attention teases me with its tongue when I ask it to quit bouncing all over the room. Honestly, how can it quit? How can it quit when somebody has crammed a ship into a bottle and placed it onto a table? How can it quit when an ancient vinyl player in the far corner hums groovy rhythm and tunes? How can it quit when somebody has decorated the walls with every painting I can imagine of war generals in blue jackets and kepi hats, and girls sipping Coca-Cola? How can it quit with that giant globe of earth that I just want to push with my fingers and watch it spin? The place is a treasure-trove!

“You have a lot of great stuff here. Where’d you even get all of it?”

“Well, the majority of these things are left over from when your dad – who you’ll meet later, of course – and I were kids. And a lot of the other things are from our parents: your grandparents. Shows a bit of history, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, it’s all so old!”

She chuckles to herself. “You know, most things the inventors ‘invent’ these days aren’t as innovative as they think. They’re really just improvements and combinations of all the old junk that already exists. You can never kill the old times; a bit of them always exists in everything, because everything comes from them.”

Wow, this is boring. I tap my toes a bit, and I play and dance somewhere else in my head. How can talking progress so slowly? But I gift her with a smile and pretend she rivets me; I feel I must because she treated me so nicely: She let me live in her house as her son.

But I intend to never mention the decorations again

Her lips curve to a smile. “Do you want me to show you where I set up your bed? I’ve been putting your room together all week.”

“Yeah! Let’s go!”

“I hope you like it.”

I trail behind her as she walks. She leads me far away from our boring conversation. She leads me to my room in the basement.

Later that night I stretch on the floor, centered in the room my mom made me. She decorated it so prettily. She gave me a bed to grow into, in the corner she placed an old dresser, she hid the floor with a rug, and painted the walls light brown. The bed hides under cozy sheets, the dresser is so old it might crumble at a poke, little x’s are stitched on the border of the rug, and the brown walls are painted just ordinary brown. She also put in a mirror, wrapped shelves around my walls, filled the shelves with models, and hooked some hooks on my doors. It’s a great room.

I push myself up onto my feet and shimmy out of my worn-out blue jeans. Why did I dirty them so much? I hope my new mom doesn’t mind. Maybe she wants me to dress like Arthur in his button-down tucked into his slacks. I pull my flannel off my arms and yank my undershirt over my head, both as filthy as my jeans.

Yawn! I’m tired. Maybe I’ll get some sleep. One day has felt like five.


Was I really playing this morning with twenty kids my age?

Am I in bed? How’d I get here?

What a pretty room.

A great house.

I’m going to close my eyes just for a mome…..........

Short Story: Fishnets and Shopping Malls

"How much for a night with one of your girls?" asked the old and ugly man with greasy hair and some missing teeth.

The door cracked open to a paper-thin slit, only wide enough for one green eye to peak through. For just a few seconds the eye frisked the man like an officer, and then must have marked him clean, for the door opened the rest of the way. In the rectangular gap which the door once filled, there stood a rich and gorgeous man, clothed in glamours of golden necklaces, glittering rings, and no shirt. He grinned a welcoming grin and gestured the man into his home.

At the invite, the man scanned the halls to his left and right with a wary eye, but then entered the bowels of the room.

Right as the man entered, the pimp also scanned the hall, then shut them in. He turned to face the man. "One of my girls, you say? What kind of girl you asking for, buddy? Want one of these lovelies over here? They're some of my best."

He pointed into the room. Three girls were lounging on the floor and chairs, smoke floating from their cigarettes. Even though their faces were numb, the man knew their eyes would light instantly at the sight of dollar bills.

"How old?" asked the man.

"Girls," he hollered out. "Be a bit friendly, yeah? Tell our customer your age."

Under their smoke they uttered their ages. 

"Too old," said the man. "Do you have anybody younger?"

"Of course, my good man!" The pimp patted him on the shoulder. "How young we talkin'?"

"The youngest you have to offer."

The pimp chewed his lip. "How does fourteen sound? Pretty fresh, yeah?"

"Fourteen sounds fine."

"You want a virgin or someone a little more experienced?"

"I'll take a virgin," he requested this with a stolid stare, and was 
answered with a filthy grin. 

"Good choice. How long?"

"All night."

"Ah, now that might cost you a bit more. Seven-hundred."

Without a first or second thought, the man slipped out seven-hundred and pushed it into the pimp's palm.

"My man." He still glittered his golden grin. "I'll call her up."

The pimp slipped out of the room to call his girl - or perhaps, the man thought, the girl's parents.

"May I join you?" Then man turned to the girls. One of them shrugged.

As he lowered himself onto the dusty couch, he looked around for the grey and buzzing lamp that he felt was lighting the room.

The girls continued to smoke dully, moods drooping as they monotonously watched their fumes curl and twist from their mouths. The man knew that they had no intention to say anything.

"Mind if I steal a cigarette?"

The one in the fishnets and frizzy red hair tossed him a cig.

"Thank you," the man beamed. He bent over and placed a twenty dollar bill into her lap.

"You think I'm gonna fuck you for twenty?"

The man looked confused. "That is for the cigarette."

With the bill still unmoved in her lap, she stared at it like something foreign. "Twenty dollar for a cig? You know it's just a cig, right? It's not like I jacked it with anything special."

"Then I guess I'm twenty dollars poorer now." He lit the cigarette and joined their lounging. As the girl took the bill off her lap, the man saw her bend her lip into a faint grin for just a moment, and then return to sucking on the stick, staring at nothing.

Behind him, the door clicked open and the pimp once again joined them. Ten minutes later, so did the girl.

"Ah, here she is!" the pimp cheered.

The girl was doubtlessly fourteen, sullen, and her curly, blonde hair shadowed over her baby face. The man knew this would be the greatest night of his life.

She took reluctant steps forward, and the pimp nudged her along. "Come on, now, sweetie. Look happy to see him. He's paying you good money."

A tear caught on her check. She dismissed it with her dimply hand, lifted her wet, blue eyes, and smiled. "Hello, baby," she said. "Are you ready for me to make you happy?"

"That's my girl," the pimp bragged. "Now you two get outta here." He slipped open the door and gestured them out with one slick motion. "I hope you get money's worth."

"I plan to," the man assured on his way out.

As the pimp shut the door behind them, the man wrapped his arm around the girl, and they progressed to the exit and stepped into the cold night. He led her through the lot, and felt her head turning upward for a grim view of the sky. It shadowed over them, so dark that perhaps the sun would fail to overthrow it in the morning.

He drew his keys from his blue jeans, sifted through, and found the remote for the doors. The girl reached to open the passenger side, but he opened it for her, and she took a seat on the grey fabric. He closed it behind her.

The girl hardly spoke a word as he drove the roads to his home. She smiled the whole length, and would return his occasional glimpses with a wink, but she stayed as wordless as a corpse. When cars flashed past them, their glowing headlights lighting her face for only a second, she looked as pale as a ghost. The man hoped that they would arrive to his house soon so that he wouldn’t have to look at her anymore.

“What’s your name, baby?” she shakily purred, only the second time she uttered words since they started the drive.

“Simon.”

“My name is Sugar.”

“Is that your real name?”

“Do you want my real name?”

“Do you want to tell it to me?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“It’s Donna.”

“You have the same name as my daughter.”

“You… Have a daughter?”

“I do.”

She returned to her silence until they stepped through his door. “Nice house,” she muttered, her arm hooked in his.

Various portraits of his wife, children, and other family members were scattered around Simon’s bedroom. They were the only decorations other than his bed, on which Donna sat in wait while Simon rummaged through his closet.

“What are you looking for?” By now she had adapted to her discomfort and seduced with ease. “I don’t think we’re going to need any more clothes, baby.”

Simon felt two scrawny arms slip around his stomach. He gently pushed them off and turned to her.

She rubbed his cheek and whispered, “I’m getting impatient.” Then with a twinkle in her eye, she moved back and few steps and started to slip off her top.

She had only lifted to the bottom of her bra when Simon lunged forward to stop her and pull her shirt back down to where it belonged. “Please don’t do that, Donna.”

“Would you prefer we start with you?” She pulled on his belt, but he stopped that, too.

“No. We’re not doing that, either.”

“Ummm… Then how about-”

He quickly swatted her arm away. 
“No.”

A puzzled look appeared on her face, and she could do nothing but just look at him in wonder. “W-Well then what?”

"Where do you want to go?"

And still, her expressions hung unmoving. A gestalt of every subtle, ambient, humming sound - the whooshing of the fan above, the blowing of the vent - they suffused throughout the bedroom, around their frozen bodies. The cool blue light from the moon glowed through the glazed window, onto the walls, the floors, and it colored the sides of their faces.

"What do you mean?"

"Donna, I don't want to have sex with you. I'm going to take you somewhere you want to go."

"Then why did you- why did you pay money?"

He smiled. "To give you the best night ever."

She hugged him and wept. "So then am I never gonna go back?"

Simon breathed a long sigh. "No. I have to bring you back or else somebody might kill us. It wouldn't be safe. But let's not think about that."

Donna borrowed clothes from Simon's daughter, and they went shopping for more. After they shopped, they bought food, and after they stuffed their faces, they returned to the quiet, blue, and restful room. Simon let Donna sleep on his bed while he slept on the couch. When they woke, he fed her the best breakfast he could cook, and then drove her back. She cried. And she hugged him for life. He cried as well with as much grief as she. But he promised to come back.

And he did.