Category: Daily Story Project

Impound – Daily Story Project #18

Daily Story Project, fiction

The taxi dropped him off but didn’t stick around.

After Blaine provided his bona fides to the man in the booth, he had to fill out the paperwork, balancing the clipboard on his knee as he sat in a folding chair under gray skies, on a dreary Tuesday evening. Once he had that filled out, he signed a release form, and the man got out of his booth, putting up a “BE BACK IN 10 MINUTES” sign, and led Blaine across the gravel to the chain-link fenced area full of cars of all types. The man swiped a white plastic card on a battered black box; a red light turned green and a sharp click indicated the fence was unlocked.

“Thanks, man. This must be a boring job, huh?” Blaine tried some small talk. He felt overdressed in his navy suit and tie. His dress shoes crunched especially loud on the gravel.

“You might not know this,” the man said, “but I’m an officer of the law.” The man was wearing a polo shirt, jeans, and running shoes, but when he lifted the hem of his untucked shirt, he showed a badge hanging from his belt.

“Oh. Oh, I didn’t. I mean, I know this is a police impound lot, but.” Blaine stammered.

“Technically you should be calling me Officer.” The man stepped through the gate. Not looking back, he said, “I had to go to Police Academy, too. Had to pass DPSST Certfication and everything.”

“Geeze, I’m sorry, man, I mean, Officer. It’s been a long day, long week, even. Had my car stolen, had to take the bus for, like, three days… I don’t know what DPTS or whatever is. I didn’t mean any disrespect. I mean, ha, ha, you’re not carrying a gun or anything…”

The man stopped and turned around. “They took my gun away when I killed that kid.”

Blaine’s mouth moved but no sound came out.

“Sorry. Little joke.” The officer turned around, began walking again. “This is probably the most boring police job in the city. Here’s your car.”

The silver Chevrolet parked there was in bad shape. Covered in dirt and mud, with a crack in the windshield, and scratches and dents in the hood. One hubcap was missing that Blaine could see, and the driver’s side window was shattered entirely. He walked around, and found that the trunk had been forcibly opened and then tied shut with several white plastic zip ties.

“Oh, my… This is how they found it?” Blaine saw that the seats were filthy and he hoped it was just mud. There were fast food wrappers on nearly every surface inside, including in the driver’s seat, where they had been apparently compacted into a mosaic of waxed and foil-lined paper of various shades of red, white, and gold.

“Yup.” The man walked away.

“Wait, wait, this is it? I just get in and drive away? What about my car?”

“We’re done. That’s your car. Your insurance will probably cover everything. You’ve got insurance, right?”

“Of course I do, but. OK. Right. It’s… it’s safe to drive now, right?”

“As far as I know. I’ll hold the gate for you.”

Blaine opened the driver’s door, which creaked alarmingly, and caused little bits of safety glass to tumble out. He grabbed handfuls of the trash on the seat and pulled it out, ready to drop it to the ground, made eye contact with the man, whose name he still did not know, and then tossed the trash into the backseat. There was a sweet but musty odor in the car; he dutifully ignored it. The engine started, but he immediately noticed it was nearly out of gas.

“Of course,” he said. On his way out, he asked the man for the nearest gas station, the man just shrugged.

“We got gas here but I can’t let you use it. It belongs to the department.” The man waved Blaine on.

The gas station attendant gave Blaine some serious side-eye, prompting Blaine to stammer out “It was stolen. They gave it back to me like this. Can you imagine?” which softened the gas station attendant’s skepticism.

“That’s some shitty good luck,” she said, as Blaine handed her his debit card.

“Right?”

With the window broken and the windshield cracked, he didn’t want to risk running it through a car wash, so he drove it straight home, parking in the driveway. Changing into shorts and a t-shirt, with the October light fading to nighttime but the temperature still in the 70s, he brought some garbage bags out to collect all the trash.

In the passenger footwell he found some used needles.

The only gloves he could find were his wife’s gardening gloves, which barely fit, so he found some zipper lock plastic bags to handle the needles with. He drained a bottle of beer, after scrubbing his hands until they were red under hot soapy water, and put the baggie of needles in the bottle, and then tossed the bottle into the trash bag.

He was taping a plastic bag over the driver’s side window when his wife walked up, having taken the bus to work herself.

“Looks good. I’m so glad we got it in the two tone: brown and silver,” she said.

“Jesus, would you look at it? And the cops think this is OK? I’d almost rather not have gotten it back at all! You wouldn’t believe what I found in there! When they stole it they must have had some kind of party. It’s tainted, Yvonne. This car will never be the same.”

“You’re stressed out. It’s been a tough week. Have you called our insurance guy yet?”

“No. I have not called the insurance guy yet. I’m still adjusting to this.” He sighed. “It’s late. I’ll call them in the morning.”

“What the Hell did they do to the trunk?”

“It’s zip tied shut, apparently. They drilled holes in it.” Blaine opened the garage door and when he emerged he had a pair of diagonal cutters. Snip, snip, snip.

“Are you sure you should do that? How are you going to keep it closed?” Yvonne asked.

The trunk lid popped open. More trash filled the trunk, almost overflowing.

“It’s almost like they were hiding something,” Blaine said. He began stuffing the trash into his garbage bag. Suddenly he stopped.

“What?”

“There’s something in here. Something solid.” He frantically scooped the remaining trash out onto the driveway, and uncovered a soft, plastic wrapped yellowish brick about the size of a milk crate.

“That’s heroin. It’s got to be. What the Hell is a giant brick of heroin doing in the trunk? Didn’t you get it back from the police?”

Minutes later, with the car safely in the garage, Blaine sat on a stool in his kitchen, on the phone to the police non-emergency line.

“Hi. So, my car was stolen, and it was recovered, and I picked it up, but, well, the thieves have left some things in the car. Yes. Well, funny thing. Mostly trash, and some bio hazard needles and things, and… I don’t really know how to say this, because it kinda feels incriminating, but… Yes. I’ll hold.”

Yvonne handed him a beer and she drank from one herself. “This is insane. Maybe you should call a lawyer first? Do we have a lawyer?”

“We have a lawyer. Wait. I have a lawyer. From my first marriage. But that’s a different special – Yes, I’m still here. I’m trying to report that there’s something in my car. My stolen car. No, no, no, I’ve got it back. Yes, the police, your department. Listen, this is super complicated but it doesn’t really have to be. I just have a question. What should I do with something that the thieves who stole my car left in – Yes. I’ll hold.”

Yvonne leaned against the center island. “Blaine. Are you on hold?”

“Yes, goddammit, I’m on hold. What?”

She smiled, her brown eyes lighting up under her brunette curls. “What do you think that brick is worth?”

“Jesus, Yvonne!” Blaine whispered to her, covering his entire phone with both hands. “I’m on the phone to the police right now!”

“I’m just saying. It’s got to be worth a lot. It’s, what, 10 pounds. 20 pounds?”

He waved his finger at her and listened to the phone again, turning away from her, hunching over. “Yes, I’m here. Look, this is simple. This may be a crime but I’m not confessing. Whoever stole my car left a substantial amount of drugs in the car. I don’t want it. Can I return it to the police department? Is there some kind of, of, drug impound, like there was a car impound? Surely this happens from time to – Yes. I’ll hold.” Blaine was softly but firmly pounding his fist on the counter, expressing his frustration, but his voice was affectless and calm.

Meanwhile, Yvonne had been typing things on her own phone. She looked up. “There’s a lot of variation in the results, and the latest information I can get is from 6 years ago, but heroin is, was at that time, I mean, at least $80-100 a gram. How many grams in a pound, Blaine? A lot, right?” She was whispering, too, but she was talking quickly, while still typing out searches on her phone with her thumbs.

“I’m here, officer, I’m here – Oh, sorry, ma’am, I just assumed. I met the guy at the impound lot and he was kinda pissy about it. I mean, I’m sorry, I’m proud of our police and all they do, but can I just find out where I can take this package I found in my trunk? Uh huh. Yes. OK. Really? Really? I… I guess. OK, then. Thank you. You, too.” He tapped Disconnect.

“If that’s 20 pounds, then we could be looking at almost a million dollars of heroin, Blaine. And it just fell in our lap.” She walked around the island, took his chin in her hand, and looked him dead in the eye. “And you just told the police that we have it. Why the fuck did you do that, Blaine?”

Blaine’s face was pale, but his voice was soft. “It doesn’t matter. They don’t want it. She said it was too big of a hassle. They don’t want it, Yvonne. I think I was just talking to some receptionist or something, because she, she brushed me off. That was a brush off. She didn’t want to bother a superior, and she never got my name or anything, and she told me to just destroy it myself.

“They don’t want it. It’s ours. Our problem, as she said.” Blaine sighed. “Can… can we just dump it somewhere? Would that be illegal?”

They sat and looked at each other for a long moment.

“Well,” Blaine said, “we are going to need some money to get the car fixed up…”

In The Valley – Daily Story Project #17

Daily Story Project, fiction

Feeling a little emo tonight? You’re in luck. Me, too. Enjoy.

I can’t live in the valley.

I’ve spent all my life searching for the valley. The hills and plains I’ve traveled are nice, but they’re lonely. Only in the valleys can I find peace and happiness. Everything good in life, everything that makes life worth living is in the valleys.

In my wanderings, I’ve found a few like it, but there are none others that match the abundance found in this one, the one. I knew, from the moment I topped the hill and peered down at it’s lush greens and the welcoming stream flowing through it, that none other could compare.

I was wary, at first. I’d been hurt before, and I knew enough to be cautious. I waited a while, peering from my vantage point on the hill, looking for dangers, looking for any traps that might be laid for those who would rush in, eager to partake of the treasures hidden there. And I was right to be cautious.

Because as I finally made my descent into the valley, I discovered that an ogre lived there.

His spoor was unmistakable. His tracks were everywhere; there was no place in the valley that he did not tread. Even with the abundance of fruit hanging from the limbs of trees, the ogre had to taste of each one, and having tasted it, dropped it to move on to the next. He wasted it, tossed it aside, obviously did not savor and contemplate each special gift. Even with the herds of game flocking the valley’s pathways and trails, the ogre smashed through and snatched up one morsel after another.

The more I saw, the more I hated the ogre. He did not have to spoil this beautiful landscape with his rapacious appetite! If it weren’t for his untender ministrations, this valley could easily support and sustain, or even advance, more than just his predacious self.

It was easy at first to avoid the ogre. I found places within the valley that the ogre rarely went, or where he would not even fit. A grotto near a waterfall, small enough for me, but unwelcome to the brute. I would sit and listen to the laughter of the water, and delight in the sparkle of the light through the waterfall’s curtain. Or an open glen filled with wildflowers, where I could lie on my back and watch the shapes that clouds make against the blue sky. Or high up suspended by a soft bough, swaying to the gentle wind, where I could see to the edge of forever across the spiky green carpet of treetops. I observed the birds and small animals, the valley’s children, cavorting and capering in simple play.

Surely the ogre, a creature of base pleasures, could not appreciate the subtlety of my simple hiding places, I thought. But eventually the ogre’s desires would lead him near my den, and I would have to scramble off and find another bolthole. Never did I directly confront the beast, but my secretive skill was a poor match for his awesome, barbaric strength.

Eventually, fat and daring from the bounty that the valley had to offer me, I dared. I felt that surely I could challenge the ogre and take his place in the valley. If he could not share the valley with me, then only one or the other could win this contest. If the prize were this magical place, so full of serene beauty and subtle delights, then perhaps I could risk a battle against the animalistic master of it.

So, one day, I took up arms; I found a stick and fashioned a crude club from it. I stripped myself of all encumberments, the better to move and fight. I made directly for the creature’s lair, and felt confident in my ability to best him.

But when I approached it, it was as if I saw the thing for the first time. He, too, carried a club. He, too, was clothed only in the mud and dirt gained from trampling the byways of the valley. There, near his lair, lay the bones of those he had defeated in order to gain control of this garden. To the victor go the spoils.

But… in my haste to defeat the master of the valley, I had become him. Our eyes met. And in them, I saw his jealous hatred of me, yes. But I also saw in them a recognition.

I knew in that moment that I could spar with him, and I might even win. The valley that had made me strong with it’s richness, had made the ogre soft and complacent. The odds were even. But I also knew that in defeating this creature, I would be lost. I would lose everything that made me able to appreciate the valley. If I defeated him, I would have to defend the valley from any future travelers, and I would have to patrol constantly, which would take away the time I had previously spent in quiet meditation. If I defeated him, I would be giving in to the base emotions of rage and fear; those powerful passions would overwhelm me and they would consume me. Further the battle between us would be mighty; we seemed evenly matched. Therefore the contest would be long and difficult, and would likely cause terrible damage to the spoils of our war; the valley itself would suffer because of our rage.

I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to become the thing I fought against. I didn’t want to lose the ability to enjoy the thing I most admired. And I didn’t want to hurt the valley, the green and lovely valley. That, most of all, I did not wish to happen.

I ran. With a mighty roar, the ogre gave chase. But I was fleet of foot and had the advantage of rest. I could not be caught. I ran into the hills again, leaving the valley that had seemed so welcoming and lush, and found myself again in the rocky barrens. The ogre, sensing that I would not come back, stopped his pursuit, consoling himself with some parting screams of anger, warning me of my fate should I change my mind. But I knew, with a terrible certainty, what that fate would be, and I would not, could not, bring myself to risk that fate.

I can survive in the hills. There is food, and water, to be found, although not in the quantity of the valley. It takes more work, but the work is good for me. It builds character. I’m not as strong as I was when I lived down below, but it will do.

Yes, there may be other valleys. I could go and search, again. I could brave the plains and the dangers that lurk in those awesome vast empty places, and hope that somewhere there exists a valley as inviting as this one, one with no ogre to guard it, or even a less fearsome ogre, one I could defeat without causing the thing I love to suffer.

Sure I could.

But, instead, I sit here, in the hills, dreaming of the times I spent in the valley. The grottoes I will never again view. The wildflowers, whose perfume I will never again taste. The trees in which I will never again find shelter. The laughter of the waterfalls, the sigh of the wind… all gone. Given up so that they might remain, untouched by hatefulness. I think about it constantly; not a day goes by that I do not feel moved to tears over what I have given up.

I would be a gentle master, I know it. I would not abuse the gifts it produces. Perhaps the valley itself knows it, too, but it can do nothing to hasten that day.

Perhaps, I think, the ogre will tire of the valley and wander off to find another home. Perhaps another will come and defeat the ogre for me, and the victor will be too spent from his battle, and I can take advantage and seize control. Or (it’s possible, don’t tell me it’s not) the ogre will simple pass away of old age, and leave the valley without a master, ripe for me to tend to it.

But thinking hateful thoughts at the ogre only diminish me. I try not to spend much time dwelling on him.

Instead, I simply remember what it was like, in the valley.

And I wait.

Moondance – Daily Story Project #16

Daily Story Project, fiction

Apologies. Apologies because this is short, and for the title, but you can’t blame me for at least referencing it once, right? Very tired tonight. Back tomorrow.

The rational mind, that is to say my rational mind, kept trying to categorize it, carve the scene down so it would fit into my stable, boring worldview. The worldview that had carried me through hopscotch and tetherball, through ABCs and cursive writing, through bag lunches and midterms and car loans and mortgage payments and insurance.

I think the little guy was doing the Charleston. But I’m no expert.

It would be so much easier to laugh it off as a dream. But I can’t.

I wanted to get away from it all, take a break from my em-to-eff nine-to-five. Backpacking, sleeping under the stars, smelling the pine-fresh air. Oh, I got that alright.

I think it was the music that woke me. And the singing, if that’s what you can call it. Beastly grunts and groans, paws thumping time against the underbrush, the occassional ribbet. The fire had died down, only coals softly glowing. And the noise.

I unzipped the nylon that cocooned me and rose to my 50% cotton/50% polyester covered feet. To the west of me, a clearing was highlighted in the silver glow of Earth’s moon. Men of Science had walked on that moon. Or so I believed. Until I had seen the racoon dance.

I crawled closer, trying to avoid the attentions of the creatures that played audience to the strange, jitterbugging rodent. A wolf, a bear, a fox. And where had the crocodile come from? I was in Montana, for God’s sake! What twist of reason had brought me to this place?

What was more disturbing? Hard to say. The pink tongue the masked furball showed as he obviously was lost in concentration? No. The oppossum’s friendly smile? No. The bear, slapping his paws in applause? No.

The most disturbing moment was when I joined in.

It was fun.

Last Song – Daily Story Project #15

Daily Story Project, fiction

“A warm mid-summer night in the Emerald City and we’re off to see the wizard,” Raul said.

“I’ve never understood why Seattle got that nickname and not Portland,” Terrence said. “Or which one was the Rose City first: Portland or Pasadena.”

“City nicknames are clearly unregulated,” Raul agreed.

The two men were approaching a square, cinder block building in Seattle, within view of the Space Needle, under sodium amber streetlights. The building, or at least the wall facing the sidewalk on which they stood, was painted with a large green crocodile but otherwise doorless and windowless.

Milling, listless people roamed only generally in the direction of around the far corner. Some of the crowd were smoking, some were holding a drink, some were talking to each other, a few doing all those. It wasn’t a tight-knit crowd Raul and Terrence approached. They were bored, apathetic, cool. They didn’t shout or speak forcefully, their hand gestures were lazy and slow. And they were mostly young, though not all.

Raul, on the other hand, was energetic and smiling, moving quickly enough that his friend had to push to keep up. “Is this the right night? I can’t believe these folks are here to see the same band we are,” he said.

“It’s probably a bigger deal for you because we drove 4 hours to get here,” Terrence said. “And this is the last night they’re playing, in, like, ever.”

“Don’t remind me! I’m just glad I get to see them one last time before they end it all.”

Terrence laughed. “They’re not committing suicide. When did you see them last?”

“Can’t believe you’d ask me that,” Raul said.

“…Oh. Was it…?”

“With… yeah.”

They’d arrived near the door, where a nebulous line of people hovered, some facing the doorman, others talking amongst themselves. Raul craned his neck then looked at his friend, helplessly.

“Excuse me, is this the line to get in?” Terrence asked some random woman.

She blew smoke from one side of her mouth. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Do you know if the main act has gone on yet?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. There was music before.”

Raul rolled his eyes.

The men handed their tickets, printed at home a week ago, to the bouncer, who scanned it and waved them inside. Raul rushed past into a hallway that sharply bent right, right past a man sitting on a tall barstool next to a podium, holding out a rubber stamp, shouting. Terrence, right behind him, tried to get his friend’s attention in the noisy venue interior, but the pre-show music drowned him out.

The stage was back in the corner to their left, the bar against the far wall to their right. The whole room was maybe 40 or 50 feet square, bathed in dim red light. There were two or three booths and tables along the closest wall, but other than that no tables at all; the floor in front of the stage was open and filled with more, milling, mumbling people, the crowd thickening in the direction of the bar.

Raul gasped. His body tensed. The ambient noise seemed to fade away.

20 feet away, among the throng near the bar, but facing half towards the stage: red hair, a few inches shorter than him, the woman had a distinct profile, hooded sultry eyes, a specific demeanor, a tense but expectant attitude.

“They need to stamp your hand!” Terrence bellowed directly into Raul’s ear, breaking his trance.

“What the fuck?”

“Don’t get us kicked out!” Terrence grabbed the other man’s shoulders and pointed him back towards the man on the stool.

“Fine, fine, OK.”

It was Terrence’s turn to scan the crowd, although his attention was on the farthest corner and the sound equipment, and the stage. When Raul returned to him, he said, “This seems like a bad room for acoustics.”

People were on the stage, moving things into position. The crowd noise muted slightly, an anticipation suddenly taking hold. “What do you want to drink?”

“Terrence. I saw someone, just now. I…”

“Drink, motherfucker. Do you want one?” Terrence pointed towards the bar. “I’m buying.”

“Beer me. I’ll be there, closer to the stage.”

Raul moved through the crowd, ill at ease and shaken. He tried not to look at every face, every woman’s face, he passed by.

The band they’d all been waiting to see bounced up onto the stage. Raul was surprised at how tall the lead singer was, how curly his hair was for a white guy, how confident he looked. The rest of the band seemed composed and controlled, practiced, smooth.

“Looks like we got here just in time! Anymore traffic and we’d have missed the opening song!” Terrence once again made his friend jump by shouting into Raul’s ear. Handed him a bottle. “Sorry, that’s all they had. Cheers! We made it!”

“Did we?” But Raul’s voice didn’t carry farther than his own head, as the lead singer suddenly shouted greetings and thanks over the speakers, and the crowd, all at once, was energized in unison. The band laid into the frenetic opening riffs of a deep cut from their second album and the people bounced and shimmied in time.

The first several songs were hard and fast, the lyrics were clever and convoluted, the tone ironic and sincere at the same time. The band were on their A game, and they controlled the crowd with panache. The energy in the room filled the fans up with the power of song.

Alone in the crowd, Raul kept looking around, half present, half wondering. Was she here? Did he imagine her? They’d been on and off again for so long, and had been out of touch for months now, after the final breakup, the one that left the deepest scars.

As the band moved from song to song, they reached a point where they wanted to slow things down. They pulled out a song a bit more contemplative, less driving and more brooding, and as before, the crowd reacted, swaying instead of bouncing or dancing, their upturned faces now lit by the brighter white light picking out the tall, curly haired lead singer, who crooned into the microphone.

And in the light spilling off the band, casting a silver one-sided glow on those watching, near the stage, Raul saw her, again.

She was facing the stage, arms wrapped around her as if in a hug, but somehow seeming separate from the crowd, as Raul felt. She was swaying. She was in quarter profile, oddly, instead of facing directly toward the band, considering she was almost directly in line from Raul to the lead singer.

She had a soft smile on her face, a dream-like cast to her eyes.

Raul stepped forward.

The crowd suddenly resisted his advance, closing like a curtain between her and him.

And just like that, the song was over.

“Hang tight, boys and girls! Just give us a minute to get a drink. We shall return for another set!” The singer shouted, drenched in effort. The spot light shut off; the room went dim red again, then suddenly the house lights went up. The spell broken, the crowd became restless again.

“Wow, that was incredible! Such a great set!” Terrence was laughing, powered up by the music. “You OK?”

“Seeing them was our first date,” Raul said.

“Dude, we’ve been friends forever but I’m not putting out tonight,” Terrence laughed.

“No. No! I mean…” He scanned the crowd. Had he imagined her? “Nevermind.” He clinked his bottle with his friends’, chugged the remaining drink. “Let’s get another beer.”

Last Bus for the Night – Daily Story Project #13

Daily Story Project, fiction

It was 10 blocks from his girlfriend’s house to the bus stop, and he didn’t want her to have to walk all that way, at night, after he’d gotten on the bus to his own neighborhood, so he and she walked downstairs, quietly, and he put on his coat, and said goodnight.

But of course he didn’t want to go, and so he lingered, and they kissed and whispered at the door, hoping that her mom didn’t hear, or, if she did, that she didn’t care enough to wake up and interrupt or embarrass them. And so the minutes passed; his easy, plenty-of-time walk quickly became a more difficult, walking-fast-I-should-be-OK walk, and she had enough presence of mind to push him out the door before it turned into a must-run-the-entire-way run, or, even worse, a have-to-walk-all-the-way-home walk.

Her house was one side of a duplex, set oddly angled on a patch of grass at the end of the road; beyond it was only a railroad track, and then a yachting club, and finally the river. But he was going the other direction, past houses both small and large, affordable and overpriced, under low hanging tree branches and past giant hedgerows.

There was a black and gray cat he nearly always saw when he walked to and from the bus stop to her house, and tonight was no exception. The cat gave him an almost bored look, and got up off his haunches to slowly walk towards him, but he whispered, “I’m in a hurry tonight, cat, some other time,” and he kept up his fast pace.

He wasn’t in the best of shape, the boy, and he started to feel a cramp in his calves, but he kept going. Once per block, he’d pull out his phone and pull up the bus app to see how much time he had. He didn’t have much but he should make it.

Four blocks from her, he nearly tripped on a piece of sidewalk that had been uprooted by a growing tree, hidden in the dark under that same tree’s canopy. His eyes hadn’t had time to adapt. He tumbled. When he got up, his palm had a dark sticky smear on it, black in the dim night, and it stung. He wiped it on his jeans and kept going.

In the very next block, his phone chirped, and it was loud. Carefully pulling it out with his injured hand, he read

luv U – A

He chuckled because she didn’t have to sign it. But she did, and he adored that. He tapped out

Love you, too. Not there yet. – B

and felt a smugness at his software-assisted punctuation and capitalization.

7 blocks and he had to cross a busier street, but it was late, and there were no cars, and he ran. He began to scan ahead the remaining blocks to watch for the bus driving by, or hear the distinctive roar and squeak of the coach. Sometimes the bus would be early, and the driver would go into the convenience store next to the stop. The shop let the drivers use their bathroom, and he’d seen a driver once who had picked up some beer, in a plain brown paper bag, and tucked it behind her seat.

He hoped the bus was early tonight.

He ran flat out the last two blocks, his sneakers slapping against the concrete, his arms jangly and awkwardly pumping, his coat flying behind him. But when he got to the stop and looked down the street, he couldn’t see the bus. He looked the other direction, in case he’d missed it and it had gone past, but it wasn’t there, either.

A car drove past on the other side of the street, its tires hissing on the damp asphalt.

The light around him went suddenly dark; the convenience store had gone dark, startling him.

This stop had no seat or bench. He sat on the curb.

His phone chirped again.

On bus? – A

He tapped back,

No. I’m at the stop. No bus. Hope I di

and he was startled again by the sudden halogen glow and roar of the giant coach rumbling past. He stood up, waving his phone’s screen in the air, his only light, and yelled. Out of breath, hand still stinging, he ran after the bus, making as much noise as a quiet chubby boy can make when running, a hoarse cry for help.

Red brake lights. The rattle of the bus stopping. The hydraulic hiss of the door opening.

He stepped up, unable to speak, out of oxygen, fumbling for his fare.

“Didn’t see you in the dark. With your dark clothes. Almost didn’t stop,” she said, the driver who’d bought the beer before, an older blonde woman with a stoic smile but kind eyes.

“Thank you.”

She waved off his attempt to pay. “Call us even.”

He took a seat right by the door, and rode home.

The Empire Always Wins This One – Daily Story Project #12

Daily Story Project, fiction

Inspired by reality but this is entirely fictional, as far as I can tell. Another short one, I hope.

He opened the video store for the last time on a Thursday afternoon.

Not a Friday, not a Sunday, not a Monday. It was because he had announced that the store would be closing at the end of the month, because that’s how the bills came in, and the last day of the month was a Thursday.

In retrospect it seemed off-kilter to him, but once he’d announced it, and posted the giant “GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE” and notified the landlord and talked to the phone company and the internet company and the electric company, it seemed like such work to change it to a Friday or stay open through that weekend that he decided not to.

He had a wife at home, taking care of their child, and he had spent the final month feeling torn in two. He’d had the video store since he was a bachelor, and it felt like his first love. The shelves packed with hand-selected titles, DVDs of movies that were hard to find elsewhere, jammed in with a lot of more common stuff. Most customers had wanted the new releases, but every once in a while, he’d get a customer looking for something obscure, and he had taken a lot of pride in being able to show that he got it.

But then, running the store after the first year, when he’d finally built up a reputation and a regular clientele, his new confidence had attracted the woman who was now his wife, and their courtship had been the catalyst to him finally hiring a second employee, and then another one when they’d wanted to plan and carry off a nice wedding.

His personal life had blended with his professional life in the sweetest way possible.

But as time had gone on, his sales had dropped. Customers were avoiding mentioning the N word around him. Netflix. Netflix had first threatened him by offering simple home delivery of DVDs, from a much larger selection, and then had dipped into streaming over the internet. Customers didn’t have to leave home for those obscure titles. He’d gotten some diehards to stay around. But he couldn’t keep the lights on on a handful of customers once or twice a month.

So it had come to this. The final month, and the final day, and now the final hours. He’d seen a few customers come in to return their last, guilty rentals. Some had even been able to look him in the eye, stay and chat. He tried to be positive and welcoming. He still lived in the neighborhood, he still saw his customers when he went to the grocery store or got coffee or went out to dinner. Even after he closed this store he wanted to be friends, or at least friendly, with these folk.

With two hours left until his closing time, the store as empty as it had been on his first night, he put in a movie to pass the time: The Empire Strikes Back. It was the Special Edition, with windows at Cloud City, but it was still a great film, the one George Lucas had altered the least of the original trilogy. It distracted him from the empty aisles, but as the ending wound to its conclusion, he realized too late that it was not a conclusion at all, but a cliffhanger, and that made him sad.

When midnight rolled around, he had already counted up the till and gotten his final deposit ready. $6.00 total income. Three rentals. At least it wasn’t the slowest night this week.

He tucked the cash bag under his arm, made sure he shut down the computer, and turned out the lights. In the dark, he walked to the front door, and moved the basket so that it would be under the return slot when he closed the door.

Then he walked home. It was a warm, late summer night. He almost wished it was raining.

The next morning the baby woke him up. He offered to check the diaper and feed her. He let his wife keep sleeping.

Hundred Dollar Dave – Daily Story Project #11

Daily Story Project, fiction

Daniella shut off the engine and turned off the lights, putting the transmission into neutral and coasting down the hill. From the grade, the pale yellow Toyota had enough momentum to continue coasting down and around the corner. In the warm summer air, with the windows down, she could hear the squeak of her tires on the asphalt and then the crunch when the asphalt gave out and became gravel. She hoped it wasn’t as loud outside as it seemed to her. In particular she hoped it wasn’t audible inside the house where her landlord and roommate lived. Or, better yet, that Laurelee was asleep or even not home. The chances of that on a Tuesday night, however, were slim.

Navigating silently (she hoped) past the other parked cars on the dark West Hills street, she craned her neck as she pulled up to the house. The light in front of the garage was on but that was on a motion-detector and something else might have tripped it. The garage door was closed, which was a bitch, because that could mean Laurelee was home or wasn’t home. As the windows of the house came into view, slowly, so very slowly, she saw that there was a dim light in the kitchen and from the back of the house, where her landlord’s bedroom and computer room were.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

The street was at the bottom of the hill, and Daniella would have had to start the engine again to drive up and out of this cul-de-sac. Her stomach full of acid, she coasted as far as she could, two houses down, and swung up next to the curb. She pulled the emergency brake in the center console up with more force than necessary and nearly screamed when the handle gave a snap and went limp on it’s hinge; a cable snapped or something.

One more fucking repair bill. She hoped it was a cheap one.

She leaned forward, her arms on the steering wheel and her forehead on her arms. A shitty night on a shitty day in a shitty week of the shittiest month of her 27 years. She considered just starting the engine again, driving far away from here, changing her name and coming up with a clever story and never looking back.

She took the keys out, and opened the door as quietly as she could, closing it with the quietest push she could muster. It barely latched, and she sighed. Fuck it, she thought, if someone steals it they’ll be stuck with the repair bill. She used the spare key to open the hatch, because her main key didn’t work for some unknown reason, and got out the packing tape and the flattened boxes she’d cadged from the corner store up the hill. She needed at least two, maybe three.

From this angle she could approach the house and keep the separate garage between her and the main living room windows. The basement door was on the rear corner of the house. If she circled around the garage she could stay out of sight, climbing down the embankment through the ivy into the backyard, hopping the fence if necessary, and probably get to the door without being seen.

That happened.

But when she got to the basement door, she saw, in the dark, a piece of paper tacked up. She used the flashlight app on her phone to read it, hiding the light as best as she could.

Daniella,

You are now two full months behind in rent. I’ve been lenient but I must demand payment. I know you’ve been working. If you pay me $400 in 24 hours, I will let you have until the end of the month to pay the rest.

Irregardless you must find other accommodations by the end of the month. I cannot put up with this.

(signed)

Laurelee Chilvers

The acid in her stomach grew, and Daniella’s face burned. Steeling herself she put her key in the lock. “C’mon, c’mon, don’t have changed the locks,” she whispered. The key turned, and she opened it and stepped inside, willing the door to make no noise at all.

The basement was dark and smelled of mildew and bleach. She crept past the washer and dryer, and angled around the brass pole mounted vertically in the middle of the room. Putting her Chucks down on the concrete floor carefully. Made it to the door to her room, which was closed. Another copy of the note was pinned to this door, too, goddammit. Again, with as much stealth as she could muster, she opened the door and went inside.

This would have been easier if I could have done it in the daytime, she thought. But the daytime had been spent driving out to the boonies to visit her aunt, using most of her tank of gas and coming back with a plate of chocolate chip cookies and a lecture on budgeting. Daniella hadn’t even had the courage to ask for a loan but somehow Aunt Sam had just known.

I haven’t really changed much in the last couple of years, have I?

The packing tape, she decided, would be too loud, so she assembled one of the boxes without it. She’d just grab some clothes, including some bikinis and lingerie she could work in, her favorite pair of heels, her spare phone charger, her journal… they all went into the box. She looked around. She didn’t have a lot, at the moment. A bookshelf full of old textbooks and used books that even Powell’s wouldn’t buy back, with empty spaces for the books she had been able to sell. Some posters. Her futon. Should she bring a blanket? To keep her warm when her car breaks down and she has to sleep on the street?

Getting on her hands and knees she reached under the dresser she’d paid $20 for at Goodwill. Tucked up underneath and behind the drawer was a flask of cheap vodka, half gone. She took a quick swig for courage, sat back.

Tears, hot tears blurred her vision, ran down her cheek. She swiped at them angrily and spilled some vodka on herself. Great. I guess I can change my shirt now that I’m here.

She stood, in the dark, and stripped off her shirt, then pulled open a dresser drawer.

There was a polite knock at the door. “Daniella? Can we talk?”

Daniella froze.

“I know you’re in there. I can hear you.”

Daniella carefully screwed the lid on the bottle and set it on top of the dresser. It seemed worse to be caught with that than without a shirt. “Fine. Come in.”

Laurelee stepped in, turning on the light, making the room seem suddenly smaller; no dark corners anymore. She was dressed for bed, in a cheap t-shirt and basketball shorts and ridiculous Pokemon slippers. “The note is gone so I know you’ve got it. Were you really just going to slip out in the middle of the night? Oh my god can you put a shirt on? It smells like booze in here.”

“I don’t know how to respond to any of that. I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t have the money.”

“You’ve had the money but you spent it on… what? Gas, I suppose, and eating out, since you never eat here anymore. Where does the rest of it go?”

“Kyle is pissed at me and hasn’t given me an evening shift for two fucking weeks, Laur’. I’ve been having to make do with breakfast shifts. Nobody makes any money on breakfast shifts at a strip club.”

“That’s probably not true, or why have them?” Laurelee countered. “But that’s just the last two weeks; you’ve been behind since May.” She kicked the box Daniella had been filling up. “At least I see you’re planning on continuing to work.”

There was a sharp loud bell ring, a chime like a giant clock. Daniella jumped, and Laurelee jumped in response.

“I see you’ve been paying your phone bill,” Laurelee said as her tenant pulled her phone out.

“Holy shit! My bacon is saved! I can have your money by tomorrow evening!” Daniella waved her phone in front of her landlord’s face.

The phone showed a text:

From: Kyle

$100 Dave wants 2 C U. Tmrw nite. Git UR azz in by 9

 

Daniella was whooping it up and jumping around like a crazy person. “Please, this is going to work, he hasn’t been in for months and months. He loves me, and he never leaves without dropping at least a thousand! If I get some rest and maybe get my hair done, and a full set, hmmm, maybe I can talk Gordon into fronting that for me…” She looked at her landlord and old friend. “I can pull this off. I can get you the money, I know I can. If nothing else, I can get you the $400 you’re asking for, and probably the whole thing!”

Laurelee was silent a moment. Shaking her head, she turned and walked out, pausing at the door.

“Do you want this light on, or off?”

“On, please,” Daniella responded. She’d expected a much bigger reaction. Maybe not happy, but at least relieved.

First, though, she needed some beauty sleep.

Fast In The Life Lane – Daily Story Project #10

Daily Story Project, fiction

Apologies. Another short one tonight. Apparently I’ve got cars on my brain lately; this is all I can come up with.

Gregory Caldecott shifted down from fourth to third, tapped the brakes lightly, and late-apexed into the corner. The tires squealed a little, and the car did a neat four-wheel drift to the outside of the turn, coming dangerously close to gravel that was the only separation between the asphalt and the cliff, but there was very little body roll from the nearly ancient Triumph.

Gregory (never Greg) loved the little British car with an affection that his girlfriends could never fathom, and he enjoyed immensely the times when he could take it out, put down the top, and put it through it’s paces on smooth dry pavement. The mountain air was fresh, but not biting. The coupe surged, it purred, it roared.

It was alive.

Much more alive than the rest of Gregory’s material possessions. Come to think of it, Gregory readily admitted to himself, he didn’t own that much more than the car. He had the furniture in his apartment, his clothes, a decent teevee and stereo, a cell phone that he rarely used (he’d justified it’s purchase with the familiar “it will be of use to me in ’emergencies'”), and a few knick knacks that tried to fill the empty spaces in the five small rooms he called his “box”.

Gregory was counting the books in his modest library when the tire blew, causing Gregory to miss a shift, a turn, and the rest of his life. In that order.

One person mourned his passing: his mechanic.

Well, two more, for certain definitions of mourning. But that’s another story.

Meta post about Daily Story Project

Daily Story Project

I’m thinking of doing short interviews with people I find interesting around my neighborhood and running them. Since I can’t just sit down and bang them out in an hour, since I’d have to actually go out and do the interviews and maybe get a picture or two and then write them up, maybe one a week? I’m not committing to it, mind you, I’m just putting the idea out there that this might be coming.

After the first 9 days, I’m having a lot of fun with this. Well, 8 days of stories. I’ve learned I can go from “I have nothing to write about!” to “I can’t stop writing this story!” in about 20 minutes flat.

I’ve posted 8 stories so far; one of them, the longest, was actually written years ago and posted as-is. A total of ~17,100 words. Three of them are fantasy of various sorts, and one of those might count as horror; the other 5 are literary fiction (or fictionalized memoir-ish).

I worry about posting these since they’re first drafts. Most of them were written right up against my personal deadline of midnight in my time zone, so I don’t even get a chance to look them over for typos or obvious errors before I hit Publish. And in the back of my mind I wonder if I’m somehow wasting these ideas by putting them out there for free, when I could be polishing them and sending them off to be actually-really published somewhere, somewhere I might get paid for them.

And then I remember that ideas are cheap; it’s the doing that’s difficult. The fact that I’ve tossed so many ideas up to see what sticks in a week and a half should be testament to that. If I want to be published I just need to do what I’ve been doing daily, then take one of those a step farther. I spend between 20 minutes to an hour and a half on these; I can devote another 90 minutes, one day a week, and see what happens. That seems like an easy stretch to make.

If you’re reading this and you have strong feelings about it one way or another, or an awesome suggestion of someone I should talk to (if you’re local) or a story idea (no matter where you are), leave that in the comments.

Mountain roads – Daily Story Project #8

Daily Story Project, fiction

It was just past the Elderberry Inn when I lost the RX-7 for the first time. By the time I crossed into Washington County they’d got their reward.

I’d been working a contractor job at the coast that summer, wiring up a new little shopping mall for the tourists.  I’d spend the week working 10 or 12 hour days, and going back to my cheap motel room and crashing. Then I’d drive home as soon as I finished on Friday, see my friends and family, and head back late Sunday or early Monday morning. It was a pain in the ass but I was making so much money on overtime, I’d hoped it was worth it.

The drive back was always a lot of fun. Let me tell you about my car. Some car guys liked muscle: Mustangs, Trans Am, Corvette. They’re all right, I guess, for straight-line horsepower. But I liked it when the curves got a little twisty. Indy Cars use four cylinders, folks, and they use all four to their full potential. I had dropped my bucks on a little 2 door sedan from Japan, gutted it, and then dropped a finely-tuned 2 liter engine under the hood. Stiffened up the suspension, put tires on it that barely fit under the fender flares, then flared the fenders just a bit more to squeeze in a bit more rubber. What’s that guy in that silly star war movie the kids loved say? It may not look like much but it’s got it where it counts.

In my little yellow shitbox I could haul ass, and Friday nights, after a long week stringing up wires, all I wanted was to book it back to the City of Roses, to my own bed and to the people I wanted to be around. The sooner I got back, the more time I got there. I’d gas up, plug in my radar detector (in those days they were important), strap myself in and go.

And I enjoyed the trip back. The engine I’d rebuilt with my own two hands singing, stirring the gear shift to match the power to the hills and descents of the coast mountain range, the gut feeling of waiting to ease into the brakes at the last possible minute as the corner bent down and away. That was fun. That was living. Just me and my machine, and the lonely mountain highway that led from the Pacific Ocean, through the forests of western Oregon, until I reached the city lights of Portland.

Generally it’s an hour and a half. That’s if you follow the speed limits. I can make it in an hour, easy. I’d done it that way so many times, it was almost a dance. My best time was close to 50 minutes, though I don’t have any witnesses. You’ll have to take my word for it.

And this night was perfect. I was in the zone and felt I was close to setting a new record. My harness kept me affixed to the seat so I felt safe, my arms steered and shifted, and my feet moved from clutch to brake to go-faster without a thought in the world. I had the windows down just because air-conditioning had been the first thing to go; plus it was a warm summer night, even near the summit of the mountains. When I looked up, which wasn’t often, I could see the hard shining points of light in the indigo sky, and my halogen high beams gave a glow to the doug fir on either side of the asphalt.

I hadn’t climbed much at all when I came up behind the RX-7, a sleek white sports car. The driver wasn’t using their car at their full potential, though, and it was right around the speed limit. I had to mash the brakes to prevent rear-ending it. I cursed and downshifted and my engine’s whine matched the feeling of frustration I felt.

Highway 26 has curves and curves, and I was stuck behind this slowpoke asshole, but there wasn’t any safe place to pass for a while. I bided my time, knowing there’d be a passing lane soon, but knowing that didn’t make driving under 55 any easier. Every time their brake lights flashed, I’m sure I edged that much closer to an ulcer.

Finally I got my chance: the single lane east widened and split into two. The asshole in the RX-7, though, broke left and sped up. I just reached for another gear and floored it. The torque that my car still had at 60 MPH pressed me back in my seat, and I sailed by, passing the white sports car on their right.

A girl! – sorry, woman – in the passenger seat, a redhead, and in the driver’s seat a blonde. I was probably old enough to be their dad. No time for looking, though, the passing lane was running out fast enough. I could hear them shouting but not for long. I blew past them like they were standing still and then lost them behind the crest of a hill as I kept going. Once their headlights were no longer in my rear-view I slowed just a bit, just a bit. Bridgetown, here I come.

Long minutes went by as I kept three of four tires in contact with the road, left and right and the occasional straight, through lonely mountain highway. But when I’d glance back, every once in a while, I’d see the twin white lights appearing for a second from around a corner, or on top of a rise.

And they were getting closer.

I passed the turn off to Saddle Mountain and knew I was on the eastern slope. I could go a bit faster but I was in a groove, and for some reason I thought they were far behind me. What’s the first rule of Italian driving? What’s behind me does not concern me.

As long as it stays behind me. I thought I was doing a good job at making that happen.

In hindsight, I don’t remember which happened first, because they happened at almost the same time. Suddenly my rear view mirror was filled with the sharp glare of halogens, and over the sound of the engine and the wind in the windows came the chirping of my radar detector. The highway was just one lane in each direction but it was fairly straight. I grabbed for a lower gear and tipped into the brakes. My tires held on, and there was a hint of fishtail, and it felt like I was going to be torn into quadrants by my five-point harness, but the car slowed down and kept going straight ahead.

The lights behind me angled off to my left, going from my interior mirror to my driver’s side mirror. The little Mazda rotary engine hum got loud, louder, peaked, and then quickly dropped as the white sports car zoomed past. The redhead in the passenger seat was leaning half out the window, screaming cheerful obscenities at me and by God she must have taken off her shirt because I’m pretty sure I saw nipples. I don’t know. They went by pretty fast, considering our relative speeds.

Those crazy… girls (I want to keep this family friendly)! I yelled back at them but it was an incoherent shout; and I pointed at my radar detector with my shifting hand. Not likely they’d see anything inside the dark cockpit of my little Japanese sedan, though. Hey, I tried.

I glanced down at the speedometer and saw I was within spitting distance of the legal speed so I steadied the car. My heart must have been beating a hole in my chest.

Sure enough, as they kept going at full throttle, almost a quarter-mile ahead, there was a sudden flare of red-and-blues, and a white Oregon State Police cruiser pulled out of a parking lot for a rest stop on the left hand side of the highway, and gave chase to the girls in the RX-7, following them around a long curve.

When I passed the cop he was parked behind the white sports car, and he had his little coupon book out writing them out a reminder. I gave them a little toot of my horn and a wave as I went.