Shea's Story Creek Star

One Millennial's Major Complaints

Mon, 10 May 2010 08:21:00 -0500

One Millennial's Major Complaints

By Charles Shea LeMone

Twenty-two-year-old Russell Weldon's fingers tapped at a steady rhythm. With his laptop resting on his thighs, he listened to Jay-Z rap through his I-phone headphones, composing a letter to his psychiatrist.

To Dr. H. W. Moorehouse

Saturday, May 8, 2010 -- Noon-ish:

I am writing in response to six-months of you hounding me to open up and tell you what I think my problems are. So I will school you here in print. Most of my problems start and end with my parents. Is that what you've wanted me to admit for so long? Well, to start, let's make it clear in no uncertain terms. I hate them!

My mother is the born liberal, tree-hugger type, as you may have already suspected, a college librarian, who is still trying to worm her way into me considering her my best friend. She is thick-skinned, determined in this lost cause. Nevertheless, I have to give her an A for effort. She likes repeating, “I just don't want you to make the same mistakes I made.”

Often I want to shout back at her, “Then give me the space to make my own mistakes. Okie-dokie?”

Various forms of this conversation have played out over the last eight years. That's when she caught me smoking a blunt in the garage one afternoon. And I'd be puffing on a big fat one right this instant, too, if my contact hadn't grounded me for two days running while waiting (like all the other pot dealers I know) to replenish his stash.

On the other side of the parental coin, my father, the junior partner corporate accountant, earns a D- for having tried to understand me. Lately, though, the only thing he'll discuss is why I've been unemployed for so damn long? Or how hard am I trying to find a real job and keep it for more than a couple of weeks.

About once a month, almost as regular as a woman's menstrual cycle, he lets off steam and threatens to physically kick my ass out the house. It's almost amusing the way his bifocals practically steam up; and his face turns so red it's almost blue. And dear, old dad also likes blaming me--his one and only child--for his high blood pressure and other health related issues. It's times like these, I wish I'd been born twins or maybe quadruplets to see how he'd like dealing with that.

If they think I confuse and frustrate them, it's only because they have no idea how much they have confused the hell out of me ever since I began forming my own opinions. So what that I could not stomach college life for more than a year-and-a-half and can't keep a job? Do they have to broadcast it whenever I'm in earshot of their telephone conversations with concerned friends and relatives. Talk about being an invisible man, sometimes I feel less than zero. That's why I stay in my room most of the time. It's off-limits to them with it's own bathroom, too.

You may ask: why am I so angry and choose to be distant and selfish? I could write dissertations on those topics as thick as redwood logs. For one thing: look at the world they--and their generation--are leaving young people like me and any children we might have. They've polluted the skies and oceans and the land under our feet. So tell me who inherits those problems? From jump street, they've misled us about everything, duty, responsibilities, religion, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, too.

Let's not even talk about the national deficit. I'll be lucky if I ever earn enough for a down-payment on a house, which does not get foreclosed on leaving me homeless with nobody to give a shit and without a pot to piss in. It's my brothers and sisters in Iraq and Afghanistan whom I feel the most pity for; killing and being killed and maimed, and getting psychologically screwed up for life because some politicians gave them the green-light to fight and kill. And who, but my generation is going to pick up the tab when Social Security and Medicare--and so many other entitlements--run out of dough? I'll answer that question. It'll be the suckers my parent's generation gave birth to trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

I have a cousin who is only twelve years older than me. For three years his widowed mother, all crippled and shriveled up, has been living in a cramped little house with him and his wife and three children. At the turn of the last century, life expectancy was 47 point something. Now people live forty years longer and more; and it won't be too long before every day of the week more and more people will be seeing their hundredth birthdays. As much as I try avoiding it, I can easily imagine tripping over a bunch of old prune faced people and their walkers—while trying to take a leisurely stroll in the park. Although I have no intention of ever getting handcuffed into maaried life, merely imagining myself in a similar situation, as my cousin, taking care of my mother, is a nauseating thought.

If everything I have written so far was all I had to complain about, I'd still be in college with all kinds of normal goals and plans that would please my old man. But that would be unrealistic; because all the complaining I've done so far pales to near non-existence, petty annoyances, really, next to my fears, the motivating factors that stir my life. My parents had contagious germs and the Russians and nuclear war to fear, the possibility of total extinction measured in odds. More and more, though, it has become clear to me that the doomsday scenario they feared so deeply is far less horrific, and all encompassing, as what I see coming our way in about two and a half years.

There is a big secret that governments, the NSA, and everyone in the loop do not discuss with regular people like you and me. But Nibiru, a planet the size of Jupiter, is hurtling through the cosmos closer and closer to our solar system day-by-day. Signs of it's approach are the increasing prevalence of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions--and a long list of lesser noted, yet, unprecedented natural occurrences and uncommon weather phenomena.

Coincidentally, the arrival of Nibiru, as a true, next-door neighbor in the sky coincides with the end of the Mayan Calender. Biblical passages also sagely predict lightening and thunder in the sky, a scorching of the earth and a cleansing by fire of the impure. Well, guess who the impure are according to the Anunnakai, the 80 to 100 foot warriors, set to swoop down and invade us during the mop-up process. And that, Dr. Moorehouse, in case you don't already know, will be our fate one day in mid-December 2012.

And all my father wants to talk about is me finding a job?

There are those I know who believe the Anunnakai created us with the advanced scientific knowledge they inherited from their creators. What sets earthlings apart is our ability and our willingness to kill our own kind and everything around us; and even though we have been informed of our fate we remain firmly indifferent to the outcome.

It is also believed, by some, that there was one scientist, I shall call the Prince of Peace, who lobbied on our behalf many eons ago, which prevented another scientist, I will call the Prince of Darkness, from destroying mankind long ago. In an effort to save us in an allotted period of time, the Prince of Peace sent (what he thought to be) his healing messages and his wisdom by way of a long series of prophets, who attempted to teach homo sapiens to love and have compassion for one another. The Prince of Darkness scoffed at the notion that man could ever change his savage nature but consented to the experiment knowing in his heart that the Prince of Peace would fail.

If any of this is true, and I am a microcosm of mankind, the Prince of Peace, indeed, accepted a doomed mission. I know enough psycho-babble to realize that the label psychopath fits me like custom made armor. Because I know I could kill. Though I’ve never have done it, I know I'd kill if I was confronted with harm. I'd do it in an instant with no remorse. In fact, if I could, I'd kill the Anunnakai. What's more, if it was me against Him, and I could, I'd kill God.

Russel reread what he'd written twice while chuckling to himself each time until he came near the end of the message. Then he said good-bye to it before deleting the file—meant for his eyes only--with a click of a forefinger and a wry smile on his curled lips and a glint in his blue eyes. So far, he thought, the day had started out pretty well.

Now if his contact came through, Saturday night would be another blast. Once again he'd convinced himself that the best he could do was enjoy whatever life he had left to the max of his ability.

Irony to the Ninth Degree

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 07:13:06 -0500

Irony to the Ninth Degree

By Charles Shea LeMone

Karen Maloney was fuming as she composed an angry e-mail to her husband and noticed a Facebook message notification pop up on her office computer's monitor.

“How’s it going today, girlfriend?”

“Mad as hell!!!”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Yesterday morning Tim left the apartment without his cell phone. When it rang, for some reason I was curious who might be calling at such an early hour because it was only 7:30, and he was on his way to the airport to attend a business conference in Denver. Turns out it was a hang-up from an unfamiliar area code. That’s when I decided to check his recent text messages. Boy was that a major wake up call for me! They were all from the same phone number.”

“From who?”

“Some woman named Nina. According to the messages sent over a two-day period, they have known each other for about three years.”

“I take it that they have more than a friendly relationship, eh?”

“I’m not sure if they have ever met face-to-face. But she did write she LOVED him too.”

“Where does she live?”

“In Wisconsin. I doubt if he has ever been up there that I can recall. Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean she has never come here to New York to be with him. Or maybe they met somewhere during one or more of his business trips.”

“What does Tim have to say about all of this?”

“His story has changed three or four times since we talked on the phone. At first he denied he was doing any more than having a little fun, playing around and fantasizing with her. Then later he admitted he would like to meet her. That’s what bothers me so much, him changing his story from one conversation to the next. And that makes me wonder what else he may have lied to me about over the years… or if I can ever trust another word that comes out of his mouth. Also, he has been treating me so good lately, which has me thinking it’s out of guilt on his part and not because our marriage means a damn thing to him.”

“You two have been together, if my memory serves me correctly, for about 20 years?”

“Come June, it will be 21 years. But this could be the beginning of the end for me. I’m so pissed I can’t even begin to concentrate on a proposal due by the end of the day. I swear I feel as though my insides are rotting away from disgust and my skin is crawling. Just when I was thinking things were going so well in my life, too, with the promotion to sales manager and my wrists and elbow feeling so much better since I started acupuncture.”

“Remember the conversation we had last week about objectivity and how sometimes we can let our emotions cloud our reasoning powers and cause us to make faulty decisions we later regret?”

“I hear you. But what really upsets me so much is that Tim said he got involved with this woman out of boredom. I bit my tongue and didn’t respond to that remark. But I was thinking that no one could possibly be more boring than he is. He never wants to do anything new. We’re stuck in a routine, especially true when it comes to sex. It doesn’t take anything to get him excited, and it’s usually all over before I get warmed up right.”

“I have made suggestions to you in that regard. How about the books I suggested or video support?”

“Like I said, Frank, he is not into anything new. If he had his way we’d be eating pot roast and mashed potatoes with gravy every night of the week, watching an occasional movie and the same old TV shows until the late night news is over.”

“I still think you should ask yourself a series of questions before you make any hasty decisions. As a sex therapist, I will write some off the top of my head, maybe ten or more, and e-mail them to you. Okay?”

“OK. I just hope I’m in the mood to follow through with the rendezvous plans we made for the start of weekend. That is, if you can still get away from home.”

“I told Margie I’d be staying over in town late Friday, so she has made plans to take the kids and a couple of their friends to see How to Train Your Dragon. And not realizing you would be facing a crisis situation, I already made reservations for our favorite room in our favorite hotel. So please let me know if I should cancel.”

“Maybe what I need more than anything is what you provide me with so well, the way you make me feel so hot and shivering and trembling all over for so doggone long.”

“I’ll leave that up to you, dear. But merely reading your last words back has me stimulated in a most taboo, loving and sensual way.”

“In that case, I’m sold. Two hours with you would be far too good an opportunity to pass up just because of Tim being such a stupid jerk.”

“You do think he might have learned something from the Tiger Woods fiasco, huh, girlfriend?”

“Exactly! Oh, by the way, I will be bringing a new toy with me Friday night that just arrived in the mail, batteries not included, of course.”

“As Al Pacino said in the movie Scarface. ‘Now you’re talking to me, baby. That I like!’”

A Meteor Shower

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:07:53 -0500

A Meteor Shower E-Mail to My Loyal Muse

Q: Did you remember to watch the meteor shower Wednesday morning?

A: Yes, Barbara, I saw the show. I woke up at about 5:00 a.m., which is pretty normal for me. While the computer was booting up and a pot of coffee brewing, I stepped out on the back porch. Here on my mountaintop with no neighbors or roads within a quarter-mile--in a cloudless sky--all the constellations were amazingly bright with clusters and clusters of smaller stars packed between them, especially directly overhead. I found myself wishing you were here with your knowledge of the heavens to point out the major constellation. Right away, I saw one meteor streak by from east to west and burn out as it neared the horizon, and I made a wish.

After I e-mailed my quote of the day, I took a cup of coffee back outside. That’s when I noticed private planes in the sky passing by on a consistent basis. I guess they were enjoying the show from a higher vantage point. About every five to ten minutes another meteor streaked by in the northern sky. Some came from a southeasterly direction and others from the east. I stayed out there in the brisk chill for about thirty minutes, wondering if the time you told me to expect the most meteor sightings was based on my time or yours on the Left Coast.

Then just as I began to delight in the vast, cosmic and infinite wonders of the universe, that’s when things got eerie.

Down the hill from me, I noticed a faint flickering light. The more I stared the brighter this light source became—soon clearly silhouetting the trees on the ridge directly in front of me. Before long, it had my complete attention. With my imagination working overtime, I wondered if it was a forest fire. But it was not that kind of orange, red or yellow light and there were no trails of smoke rising in the air.

Instead, it was a bright glaring blue/white light. I also concluded that it was not coming from the road across the valley, which runs east and west. Progressively brighter, this light came straight up the hill from the creek side, directly at me. To make matters more mystifying, every dog within ear reach began baying and howling.

At one point I wondered, a bit irrationally, if aliens had landed on a mission to perform all kinds of weird experiments on me. I didn’t know whether to hold my ground on the porch, unafraid, or flee inside where I would no longer have to see or fear what I couldn’t explain. I did step in and out of the house for more coffee (and to use the indoor plumbing) until the sky was too light for any more meteor viewing.

Later that day, during a hurried conversation I described the light to a friend who grew up nearby. He said, “Someone was search-lighting on your property, hunting deer illegally with a bow.”

Ahaa, I thought. That explains it!

However, I still wonder how this search lighting works. Seems the deer would run at the first sight of the light and not wait to be blinded by it and freeze in their tracks. But what would a guy like me, born and raised in North Philadelphia, know about a technique like that without asking?

I’ve given a couple of hunters I know permission to use my property during deer and turkey hunting season. They reward me with cuts of venison. But for four years running, the turkeys (often bodaciously loud whenever they are not around) have proven too clever to be bagged. I’ll have to ask the hunters about this search-lighting trick and try to get some straight answers without causing them to worry about me reporting them to the game warden.

Oh yeah, now that I’ve rambled off at the fingertips for so long, it’s time for me to ask: Did you catch the meteor shower too?

Three African-American Centric Poemss

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 07:36:00 -0500

African-American Centric Poems

By Charles Shea LeMone

Drum

Deep in the heart of Africa

After the fires and the chaos and the storm

All life was born.

Inside every man and woman and child

The beast of the wild and every living thing

Inside every animate and inanimate object

From the smallest conceivable stone

Lives the magical rhythms of the drum.

Drum.

For eons we sailed the Seven Seas

We mapped the heavenly galaxies

We erected the mighty pyramids

Fashioned the dance of dusk and dawn

And sang the songs of life in hues of reds and blues

Which live on in the magical rhythms of the drum.

Drum… Drum.

We’ve been the loyal scapegoats of history

We’ve suffered the shackles and stigmas of slavery

We’ve been called many ungodly names

But fortunately our natural compassion

And our magnificent resilience

Lives on in the magical rhythms of the drum.

Drum… Drum… Drum.

Listen closely…

And you will surely hear

The original heartbeat so pure and sweet

A zillion serendipitous spirits

Ancient blessed souls

Which live on in the magical rhythms of the drum.

For deep in the heart of Africa

All life was born.

Adam Meets Eve

Adam awoke with a pounding headache

In a deep corner of his mind a misty dream lingered

He stood, yawned and stretched

Oww!! He grimaced

From a sharp pain in his rib.

Slowly his sleepy eyes began to focus

Across a clearing in the Garden of Eden

An apparition of some kind appeared

From the far edge of the lush forest

She watched him with intrigue.

Uncertainly, Adam approached her

With each step he took his heart raced faster

The trees swayed and the songbirds sang

In four part harmony as golden rays dappled sunlight

Graced her form and magnified her uncommon beauty.

At arm’s length from Eve

Adam paused as a sweet jasmine scented breeze

Whispered a brand-new name…

And despite the dry lump in his throat

Adam asked: Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?

Loretta at Serendipitous-Seventeen

Walking along Susquehanna Avenue

on our way from a late Sunday night movie,

when all the bars and other shops were closed,

I’d sing songs like Misty under the streetlights

as though I was Johnny Mathis holding her hand and

pouring out my undisputed love for her.

We would kiss goodbye on her doorstep,

ending another night too soon,

rubbing our young bodies together lustfully,

she would grow weak in the knees

in less than five minutes.

She even followed me up a stream

on more than one summer day,

all the way for two miles to reach Wissahickon Creek.

And we would be up to our knees at times

in the cool turquoise water flowing by.

She’d never be more than a few steps behind.

Through the marshes or around the waterfalls,

her chocolate-brown skin I can still see,

glowing in the sunlight and even more enticing

in the dappled shadows under the trees

we passed along our trek.

We were so alive, so natural and free and

too awe inspired to speak a word

after we made slow love for the first time

in that small clearing big enough for a cozy two.

Me and Loretta,

carving our names indelibly

into each other’s open hearts.

Both of us a “serendipitous-seventeen” and so

happy to be away from the Raymond Rosen projects

for a few hours in the warm light of day.

I Can Imagine

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 09:24:00 -0500

I Can Imagine

By Charles Shea LeMone

With my semi-autobiographical, anti-gang novel, Corner Pride, about to be released by the Multicultural Educational Publishing Company, I see my next goal clearly defined. It’s back to the corner of Gratz and Oxford in North Philadelphia where my life and the story began unfolding. I’ll return there more than fifty-years later to write a brand-new act: the opening of a cultural arts center.

There, I said it!

It would be nice if the center is located near the corner--even sweeter if the venue was physically located right on the corner of Gratz and Oxford Streets.

Maybe that’s possible.

You see, while coming up with the cover for the novel, I contacted a Philadelphia photographer about taking shots of the old corner. He e-mailed me back, “You can’t take pictures of what’s no longer there.” Reading those cryptic words, I assumed change had once again come to the corner of Gratz and Oxford.

My family moved to West Oak Lane in the autumn of1959. By the early ‘70s, most of the crumbling-from-neglect, three-story tenement buildings were abandoned shells, half burned down or empty lots. In the early-eighties, the entire 1500 block (the one I was born on) was renovated. I’d bet my life that a lot of crack cocaine was sold on the corner in the coming years following that.

Then, some twenty odd years later, in an article my sister sent me, I read a reporter for the Enquire or Daily News describe the block as defined by a resident, “…the most dangerous street in North Philadelphia.”

So reading the photographer’s cryptic message, I figured all or most of the buildings on the block had been leveled to the ground. It would not be the first block in the vicinity to suffer the demolition ball. From a satellite’s view, take a look and you’ll see most of the surrounding neighborhood looks bombed out. But rising up from the present day ashes and dust, from my mountaintop in Virginia, it’s easy to imagine The Gratz and Oxford Cultural Arts Center.

Hmmm! Maybe it will take up a half-block or even more.

I love the thought of a structure that can stand the test of time, stronger than flesh and bones with a sea of tears tossed in yet a monument to all the families and friends I was close to for the first fourteen-and-a-half-years of my life.

Yes, I can easily imagine it as though it already stands—that building. For I first began to use my imagination, right there, on that block. I was born in the seventh house from the corner on the west side of the street; son to Charlie (no middle name) and Edna Rose, two supplanted New Yorkers who had grown up, met and married in the Bronx; younger brother to Norma Jean and Vivian Antoinette and young uncle to Antoinette (Toni) Jean Butler—four years younger.

Vivian, Toni and I often pretended we were characters from the “Boxcar Kids” books--stories about orphans on their own in the world with a freight train boxcar as their only shelter.

How brave we were back then, I write with a sniffle.

In the streets, playing with friends, we often imagined we were somewhere else, living adventurously. Sometimes we were cowboys or Indians, riding on the dusty plains, using broomsticks for horses. Other times, we’d slip back to the days of Samson and Delilah. If I was Samson then pretty walnut-skinned Pamela Hall was Delilah. She was also Dale Evans to my Roy Rogers and Jane in the jungle when I was Tarzan of the Apes.

Wherever we imagined we were, though, we saw far past those otherwise confining three-story redbrick walls on that narrow rat and roach infested side-street. Under the bright and strong summer sun, while we played, we saw through those barriers as though they did not exist because we were too far away from them in our minds. That was the nature of our play and the potency and power of our imaginations.

And we had plenty to spare.

Beyond how to use my imagination, as I mentioned in a recently written press release, there are some major lessons learned that I still apply from those Gratz and Oxford Street days: like how to be diplomatic rather than confrontational in the face of impending violence. How to build bridges and bonds to avoid future confrontations that might turn violent. Most importantly, I learned to be there for my friends in their times of need even if that meant confronting obstacles or violence.

With all that noted, there is no more important goal for me than to see that building stand (that cultural art center I mentioned earlier) right back where it all began for me on the Corner of Gratz and Oxford Streets in North Philadelphia.

I imagine the center surviving for many years, providing an enlightening oasis for thousands of children, a place where they can learn about art, dance, music, writing, acting and filmmaking. I can almost see the faces of many of them and the sparks of creative light that can change the very way they see and react to the world around them, a more optimistic, proactive view. I’ll hold on to that vision, and corresponding ones, until the day the center opens its door to the real world.

Now a shout out to all my boys wherever they may be along their journeys, whether it be on this planet or as roving spirits in other dimensions or angelic souls in the flow of some other galaxy:

William (Monkmeat) Hall,

George (Brother) Jackson,

Raymond (Ray Ray) Robinson,

Joseph (Reds) Brisco,

Poppy,

Ernest,

Cannonball,

Coon,

Hunky,

Peachy,

Bunknose,

Andy Panda,

Boo,

Randy Pierce

Moses Pierce,

Peanut from Gratz Street,

and Peanut from Garnet Street, too, and so many more.

Most of all, here’s a special word of thanks and a respectful nod of adoration to James Garnet, who taught so many others and me how to use our fists.

“Do you remember those days when the winner of a “fair one”, one person versus another, could settle arguments and even prevent a gang war?” someone in the crowd shouted.

The guys named on the list above do? They were there in the summer of 1957, when we knew the meaning of the words corner pride.

To see the cover of Corner Pride, click: www.allwordman.com

Lessons My Mother Taught Me

Sun, 10 May 2009 09:01:00 -0500

Lessons My Mother Taught Me

By Charles Shea LeMone 5/10/09

Through her every day actions my mother taught me

Lessons I am still learning as I write this poem.

She taught me to wake up with a smile

And end each day with a prayer.

I learned to dream and respect the dreams of others;

When to speak my mind and when to bite my tongue.

She knew how to laugh at a good joke

Even when it was made at her expense;

To be tough at times and compassionate at others;

To not be ashamed to weep and to face my battles, too;

That being right was less important than admitting wrongs,

And that new days bring new rewards and challenges.

Her reading books to me are part of my earliest memories,

And she made those picture book stories come alive;

The lessons and the principles grounded in wisdom,

So I would learn to use reason and logic as tools

To carry me through the trials and tribulations

She knew we all have to accept and face as part of living.

Most importantly, she encouraged me to set goals

As high as my imagination would allow me to go;

And to climb up no matter how often I was knocked down;

To forgive and to love and share and convey sweetness

And that old age and illness are no excuses to forget

To remain young at heart and embrace the love of life.

A Pulpy Spoof

Fri, 8 May 2009 04:48:21 -0500

A Pulpy Spoof

By Charles Shea LeMone

Outside a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside a dog, it is too dark to read.

Groucho Marx

The California rain beat on my office windowpane like an angry flock of Baltimore ravens with nothing better to do on a Friday night in Los Angeles than torment me. As usual I was hosting a fleet load of regrets as familiar as the nagging pain in my gut from decades of guzzling cheap whiskey and chain-smoking Lucky Strikes like I was still scared shitless in a foxhole somewhere in Normandy wishing Adolph Hitler had been born a woman bent on pleasing everyone within a twelve mile radius of her.

Naturally, thinking along those lines summoned up the unwanted memory of Olga dumping me after catching me making a play for her burlesques dancer roommate while I thought she was conked out in the next room. Larger than the entire screen at the Chinese Theater, I will always remember the sight of her, crazed and infuriated, that night before I tried ducking under her roommate’s Murphy bed.

“Fooled again, you jackass, you!” I could also hear her saying as she swung a wrought-iron floor lamp at my head when I stuck it out to explain I’d mistaken her friend for her in the dark, a lie she was not about to buy even if I’d been offering a-hundred-thousand books of Green Stamps to top the deal off.

When the phone on the desk beside my still-aching head rang, it took a second or more to realize it was not an alarm clock—so unnatural to my ears was the sound.

“Doghouse Riley speaking,” I managed to utter after the third ring reminded me of all the bills left unpaid in the overflowing trash basket I’d stolen years ago from my first client.

“You the same Doghouse Riley private dick I see listed here in the telephone book?” a woman sounding like Greta Garbo with a mouth-full of marbles asked.

“Last time I checked I was the one and only doing business here in the City of Angels.”

“Good!” she said with a prolonged sigh. “I trust you’ve got a license to pack a rod.”

“Sure as fat hogs fart, I do. I drive a car, too, but that license expired ten years ago. But I don’t have a license to kill or maim, either. Not that that stops me when the notion crosses my mind hard enough. So how can I help you on this wet night, sweetheart?”

There was a long pause that I’d grown to expect from femme fatales whenever it came down to straight talk, especially the type with Hungarian accents.

“Do you know where Alphonzo’s Clown Den is located?” she finally inquired.

“If I remember correctly, I’ve bent an elbow in that dump more than once and it wasn’t playing a fiddle.”

“Meet me outside there as soon as you can. I’ll be the blonde standing near the corner. The tall one wearing a red dress, not the ugly midget in pink.”

I drove like the drenched streets were desert dry--pretending I was as sober as the day my mother dropped me into the world and dumped me into a garbage pail. The midget must have thought she recognized my Hudson as it peeled to the curb between a pawnshop and a greasy-spoon joint that served as a front for the mob’s gambling operations.

My blonde wasted no time stiff-arming the midget in perfect Jim Thorpe form and kicked her in the teeth while she was down. As she slid into the passenger seat, she was still cursing something about hating lousy, half-pint freaks more than crooked cops with their trouser snakes in hand. Considering how hard the rain must’ve fallen on her while she was waiting for me, I was surprised by how clean she smelled up close, like a two-week-old kitten after a big dog gives it a good tongue bath.

Peeling rubber, I swerved into traffic before the midget could get to her feet and start hurling empty wine bottles at my already dented-in-too-many-places car. It was two blocks up Sunset before the blonde spoke after wringing her long hair on the floor mat with two tight fists.

“Make sure no one follows us,” she said glancing across a shoulder.

“Is that the kind of hardboiled trouble I’ve gotten myself into even before we get to talk about my terms, dear?” I said adjusting the rearview mirror to survey the headlights behind us.

Ignoring my question, she said, “I was expecting a bigger fellow with a name like yours. What are you, about five-foot-two in Cuban heeled shoes?”

“Depends on the lighting.”

“Not that I’m really complaining or anything,” she said resting a hand on the forearm of my frayed overcoat. “Matter-of-fact, I’ve found guy’s your size have a tendency to be so much more appreciative of a full-bodied woman like me—if you know what I mean, daddy-o?”

“I’m reading you loud and clear like my favorite Sunday comics, and I like what I’m seeing of the colored pictures, too.” I said taking my eyes off the road to give her good-looking over. She was stacked higher than a longshoreman could toss coffee bean sacks in a contest of might and will. She also had a great pair of punching bags stretching her blouse taut as a battered boxer’s eyes in the fifteenth-round of a classic slug feast with no referee to impede the bloody action.

“Turn right here,” she said suddenly as I almost ran a red light and fishtailed into the turn. “I know a secluded spot on Mulholland where I can fill you in on my problems without worrying if we’ve been tailed or not.”

“Done deal,” I said out of the side of my mouth, “If you’re sure I can trust you to not pounce on my tender bones the minute we’re parked.”

“You can park the sarcasm where you last saw your wit before it wandered off and left you crying in your gin glass,” she said in that garbled manner she had of speaking—which was beginning to grow on me like an overripe wood tick in a place I couldn’t reach on my own.

By the time I parked in a turnout, the rain had stopped and the clouds had vanished like a pack of scurrying rats trailed by an pest exterminator’s flashlight. The view of the San Fernando Valley was spread out like a truckload of stolen jewels beckoning the moonlight to give them back their showcase glitter to appeal to fat women with rich, impotent husbands.

“So are you going to open up like the San Pedro fish market at the first light of day or what?” I asked her, firing up another cancer stick with the butt end of one I’d puffed into almost non-existence.

“How about a sip from that flask you carry in your overcoat pocket next to your heart, first?” she said turning her entire upper body to face me like a dare I couldn’t resist without questioning my manhood for the rest of my life.

She guzzled from the flask like a Irish sailor on a weekend pass with no concerns outside of getting so plastered he’d fall square on his face in a mound of cow poop with pleasure.

“You can really knock back the hard stuff, can’t you, angel?”

“How observant of you, Riley. Now I bet you want an Ivy League cookie with a buckle in the back for being so bright.”

She handed me back the near-empty flask and was out of the car before I could drain it dry. I caught up with her as she stopped shy of a big drop-off and spun around. Before she could make any more quick moves to elude what was on my mind, I had both arms wrapped around her in a fierce hug that would have impressed Smokey the Bear himself. Surprisingly, she didn’t try to resist as I pressed myself firmly into all her mounds of the curves I could easily imagine surrendering to my lascivious desires during a long night in a cheap motel by the beach.

“Want to give me the skinny of these problems that have you wound up tight as a high E-string about to pop?”

“Manmade problems! But are there any others you know about on this planet?”

“Maybe you’ll be obliged to be more specific after we do the do a couple of times like wild jungle animals in heat.” I sucked on the side of her neck, which I found to have a plastic feel and taste to it. Maybe it was the suddenness of it all, I told myself, in the intense heat of the moment.

However, as my hands got more familiar with her bodily moldings, feeling a slight sense of de ja vu come over me, she shoved me back with amazing strength I’d only imagine a professional weightlifter possessing.

“You didn’t even ask my name yet,” she said, no longer doing a Greta Garbo impersonation and sounding more like John Wayne in drag. “And you’re trying to mash me up like you’ve already wined and dined me and laid your cash on the nightstand, too?”

“If you want me to recite a line of poetry or two before you give it up, darling, I’m game,” I cracked without a pause. “Roses are red. Violets are blue. I think I like you, babe, so let’s cut the crap and screw.”

It was then she ripped off the mask she was wearing—one her Hollywood makeup friend had obviously fixed her up with to trick me. Then there was no denying it, once again Olga had caught me—metaphorically speaking—with my pants down around my ankles for the umpteenth time.

“For a so-called private eye, Doghouse,” she spat each word out contemptuously, “you’re dumber than a box of rocks.”

“Olga, darling” I tried recovering my composure by feigning elated glee. “Of course I knew it was you all the time. But I know how much you like surprising me, so don’t blame a fella for going along just to see how far you’d take this elaborate charade of yours.”

“Sure, Buster Brown, I’d believe that line of baloney if I lived in a shoe and couldn’t always tell when you’re lying straight through your lil’ chipmunk teeth.”

“Me…” I said with an exaggerated shrug, “try pulling the wool over your beautiful all-knowing eyes?”

Before I realized she was winding up, and too late to duck, she connected a Brown Bomber right hook with the same side of my head that was still recovering from the floor lamp she’d crowned me with a few days earlier.

Now that’s real love, I thought wistfully as I shook off the punch and sat up to watch her roaring away in my Hudson.

“What a broad!” I marveled, spitting blood, as I began making plans to win her back one more time. “My sweet Olga, the one true love of my wretched life.”

Down in the Well

Mon, 4 May 2009 10:17:19 -0500

Down in the Well

By Charles Shea LeMone

Roger Grant owned 42 acres of remote hillside property in Southwest Virginia—which he’d purchased two years prior when living in Washington, D.C. became too stressful. At least twice a week he explored new corners of the land with his German shepherd, Ginger. On one of those cold spring mornings the sun was still low in the sky and masked by dark rain clouds as Ginger bounded ahead on the return hike. Using a walking stick to aid his ascent, Roger followed her up a steep incline that cut through a stand of birch trees. It was a deer path he’d never traversed before; and the surrounding oaks were tall and massive. He made a mental note of each one of them.

Straining from the physical demands of the climb, and short of breath, he finally neared the ridge of a plateau and the gravel road leading to his split-level house. An old wooden palette covered the abandoned water-well located in the middle of a patch of tall saw grass. By the time Roger noticed it he’d already taken the step he would later regret. The moment his full weight came down the rotted wood gave way. A cry of despair escaped his lips as he plunged down the hole too fast for his grasping fingers to cling to an edge.

The long fall he expected was broken by the protruding roots of two old oak trees. The immensity of his shock was momentarily mollified. Then a few planks from the broken pallet slipped through the joined roots. Several seconds passed before he heard them splash into the water some three-to-four-hundred-feet below. Clutching an arm around one of the mighty roots, and telling himself not to panic, he evaluated his situation. The opening to the well was about twelve feet above. Ginger stared down, barking.

“It’s okay, girl,” he said in a calm voice that, under the circumstances, surprised him. “I’m all right!”

Unabated by his words, Ginger began digging frantically. Then Roger noticed a rock not too far above his head. It stuck out of the earthen surface like a huge Pinocchio nose. Carefully, he found footing on what was left of the pallet. Daring to reach up, he gripped the rock with the intention of pulling himself up, praying he’d find more footing at a higher level to climb to the rim of the well where Ginger was still digging. But as soon as he lifted himself off the pallet the rock became dislodged. It fell to his left and crashed through the roots, mangling two of them.

The passage of time it took until the rock splashed down seemed even greater than the rotted plank’s descent. Anxiously, Roger turned his attention to the roots that had offered him a safe haven to that point. The rock had created a larger opening as it crashed through, making his position on the remains of the pallet more precarious. Meanwhile, Ginger had obviously realized that digging her way to him was futile. Instead, she gazed down at him whimpering.

“Too bad you’re not Lassie,” Roger said. “I’d tell you to go find help.”

Time slowed in the dank hole. With each passing hour Roger tried to imagine someone coming along to rescue him. However, he knew the possibility of that happening was remote. About noon, torrential rains slashed down from the sky. Soon his clothes were soaked through to his skin and the ever-present thought of dying in the well, thirty-two-years-young, made him shiver even more than the cold weather.

How ironic, he thought in a maze of fleeting and jumbled reflections, moving away from the city to be safe only to die hopelessly alone in an abandoned well. It would have been better to chance getting robbed again at gunpoint—shot in the heart instead of conked over the head by his assailant and dumped unconscious in an alley. Then his mind leapt back to a conversation he’d had with the realtor on his first trip to inspect the house and land. She’d told him there was once another home on the property that was razed after a tree fell on it during a thunderstorm.

“But,” she’d added, “you’d be hard pressed to find any evidence of that place still standing.”

More irony at work, he thought, having stumbled upon the former home’s well opening.

“No,” he declared to himself, “no evidence still standing.”

When the faint light from the circular shape above him grew murky with the coming of night, the rain slackened. Occasionally, Ginger looked down then backed away. He feared falling asleep only to slip through the opening in the roots and go crashing to the very bottom of the well to drown. Maybe that would be a better fate, he mused, wondering if hypothermia was affecting his thoughts almost to the point of giddiness.

Oddly enough, he’d stayed wide-awake most of the previous night worrying about his financial security. How groundless those concerns now seemed. During his first year away from the city he was able to stay busy as a commercial artist, freelancing for three advertising agencies. Working from home also allowed him more time to devote to his abstract paintings and sculptors—dreaming of the day his eventual success would allow him to stop accepting commercial assignments all together. But he was still waiting for that day to arrive—having only sold three works in all that time. The long hike he’d taken that morning was primarily done to estimate how much the oldest trees on his land were worth.

In fact, the money he’d earn by selling the timber was exactly what he was calculating when he looked down to see the rotten pallet covering the well opening. More irony piled on irony, because it was the roots of two old oak trees that had broken his fall and were all that separated him from the bottom of the well.

He dozed off on several occasions during the night. Each time he awoke his stiff-muscles ached more from the confined position he was forced to adapt. Consequently, he preferred sleep as a willful way to avoid the obvious futility of his situation.

“There’s no avoiding it,” he said in a woozy voice. “I’m going to die down here.”

During one of the vivid dreams he experienced, he was sitting by the fireplace in his house with his girlfriend, Karen, who was also his agent. The champagne glass she held up sparkled from the firelight as she spoke with a gleaming smile and animated brown eyes, “Let’s celebrate your success with a toast and spend the rest of the evening making sweet love.”

Her hale and hearty body was so warm and willing. He caressed her closely, inhaling the scent of her lavender-fragranced soap and the brand of lemon shampoo she used to wash her soft and silky auburn-hued hair. It was as though she was melting by osmosis into his very being to become united as one with him. Then like a whiff of smoke she faded in his arms leaving him alone in a burning house. Roger shook himself awake from the alarming dream, but it lingered like a stake buried in his heart; the fresh memory of how such a divinely sensuous moment could transmogrify into horror.

He assuaged his dry mouth by sucking moisture from a shirtsleeve. For the next hour his thoughts overflowed with memories of Karen. She was so unlike his former girlfriend, Teresa, the runway model and social butterfly who was never happy unless her calendar for the month was full of cocktail parties to attend. Karen, conversely, savored the frequent weekend visits she spent on his hilltop. Diners she’d whip up and a rented movie to watch and she was more than content. She also understood the long hours of solitude he needed to create and would curl up on the couch in the living room or on a chaise lounge outside in the sun reading a magazine or book. Easy going, articulate, self-assured and witty Karen now seemed like a phantasm he’d only imagined as a real person of flesh and blood--as unattainable as the surface of the ground above him.

As the sun brightened the sky on a new day, he flashed back to a conversation he’d had with Karen the previous morning. He’d call her to find out if there was any news about a pending art show at a respected New York gallery. She was on her cell phone and the background noise of Washington D.C. traffic irritated him as they talked. More annoying was the fact that Karen directed their conversation to cover a detailed report about a friend’s illness and her long day dealing with conflicting reports from two doctors. Normally, he accepted what he labeled Karen’s bleeding-heart compassion and her overly involved concern for her friends and family’s problems. But having spent a restless night estimating how long he could survive as a freelance commercial artist without seeking full-time employment, he interrupted her curtly.

“Do you think I called you to hear all this? You’re supposed to be my agent.”

There was a long pause before Karen responded, “I’ll call you back at a better time.”

Roger squeezed his eyes tight in the well wishing he could erase the memory of that last conversation. How insensitive and selfishly motivated he’d reacted to the woman who showed him nothing but love and devotion. Was that how Karen would remember him most? Moreover, was his behavior that morning indicative of the kind of person he’d become? Those were some of the questions he asked himself. As he examined his sense of self-worth the answers he received were not encouraging. He thought back on all of the friends he never called anymore and the friends who had eventually quit calling him. Yes, he had to admit, he’d become a cold and indifferent person to any concerns that were not directly related to his success or immediate pleasure. He’d forgotten how to care for anyone but himself. That was as clear to him now as the sure death he was due to suffer, alone and regretful.

Late that afternoon he dreamt Ginger was leaning over the entrance to the well barking. The shape of a vaguely familiar face was beside hers gazing down. He smiled, relishing the moment even though he realized he was merely dreaming.

“Wake up!” he heard a voice shouting as Ginger licked his face while they were lying in his bed at home.

The dream changed and he found himself back in the well. Then a spider landed on his face. He swatted at it.

“Wake up!” the voice repeated.

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the screw-on end of a water hose dangling in front of his face.

“Tie it around your waist and I’ll pull you up.”

Later that night, when Roger regained consciousness in a dimly lit hospital room, it took him several minutes to put fragments of the recent past together so that it made sense to him. Chester, a neighbor who he allowed to hunt turkeys on his property was responsible for rescuing him. He’d related the circumstances to Roger while they waited for an ambulance to arrive—moments before he passed out due to a lack of water, nourishment and hypothermia.

Lying still in the bed, he reviewed what he’d learned. Chester had driven to his house that afternoon, the first day of spring turkey hunting season. Finding no one home, he decided to wait until another day to see if he’d have any luck outsmarting the turkeys for a change. He’d ignored the presence of Ginger, barking by the side of the road when he drove up to the house. But it was impossible to dismiss her as she stood in the middle of the road blocking his truck on the way down. Having established a friendly relationship with the German shepherd, Chester correctly surmised that something was wrong. Grabbing his 30-30 Winchester, he followed Ginger straight to the well about a-hundred-feet into the woods. Seeing the predicament Roger was in, Chester ran back to the house and returned with the water hose.

“Thank God for turkey hunting season,” Roger said to himself.

From the corner of his eyes, he noticed movement. Quickly, Karen was on her feet and beside the bed.

“Roger,” she said in a reverential voice. “You’re awake at last.”

“Seems that way.” He reached out to her and they embraced for a long time in silence. Then her body trembled noticeably a second before they released each other.

“I’m still shuddering from the thought that I almost lost you,” she explained.

He gripped one of her hands in both of his and said, “I’m not the same man who fell down into that well. If you liked him, though, you’ll love the new me.”

“Then the new you is going to love the good news I’ve been dying to tell you as soon as you woke up.”

“Hold that thought.” He pressed a finger to her lips. “For the time being, let’s just celebrate what’s most important to me right now.”

She cocked her pretty head to the side and asked, “Which is?”

“You love me and I love you.”

With a smile bright enough to light the entire room, Karen snuggled into the bed beside Roger.

Witnessing Change

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:53:00 -0500

Witnessing Change

By Charles Shea LeMone

From my mountaintop, over the years I’ve seen so much change about the landscape in all four directions. I used to watch the buffalo herds as they migrated through a nearby pass, kicking up swirls of dust that seemed to travel a mile into the sky. Eagles and falcons once soared above them, too, in a sky that was so much bluer back then.

I also miss seeing the red men and their women and children who camped near the creek below me during the spring. Then they’d leave and return in late summer. But that was before the pale men came with their fire sticks, and the iron horse brought the thundering of its wheels, announcing the coming of a new age.

Gone too are the roaming families of wolves; and now their cousins the coyotes and the sly foxes are so scarce they are seldom seen. So many breeds of birds that once made this mountainous region their home no longer exist. Could it be pesticides and toxic waste from factories poisoning the streams and rivers that are killing them all off? Is that why the honeybee and bat population is dwindling so dramatically year-by-year?

Oh, how I miss the days long ago, when the red men had a spiritual connection to the land and their songs and dances reflected their respect for Mother Nature, and the wind whispered their beliefs. They lived in perfect harmony with their surroundings. Now it seems the pale men’s desire to conquer nature has only made their own extinction an inevitable fact of life.

As I watch another bulldozer demolish the birch, cedar, maple, elm, pine and brother oak trees on a nearby rise, I wonder about my own fate. How many more seasons will I see before my roots are buried below a slab of cement? For my rings have now reached the count of 196 years, and reflections of more glorious times fill my days and nights with sad whisperings passing through the leaves on my limbs.

If only I could speak and share my laments to the present day humans who have lost touch with the beauty and significance of what nature has to offer them in so many countless ways. I’d tell them of their connection to all living things and that even inanimate objects have a story to tell. I’d tell them about the power of the unseen world too.

Unfortunately, though, even if I could speak their language I doubt if any of them would take the time to listen to the words spoken by an old oak tree.

A Literary Agency From Hell

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 07:28:39 -0500

A Literary Agency From Hell

By Charles Shea LeMone

In her usual efficient manner, Kim Lange stepped off the elevator on the eleventh-floor and marched down the newly carpeted hallway to the office of McCall’s Literary Agency and let herself inside. Fifteen minutes later, she sipped her first cup of black coffee and glanced at the ticking hands on the big wall clock. She knew within a few minutes a deluge of phone calls from disgruntled clients would begin jamming the phone lines. With an exasperated sigh, she comforted herself with the fact that this would be her final day on the job, a fact that only she knew.

As she absently stared out the window onto Wilshire Boulevard at the snarled Los Angeles traffic--a few blocks west of La Cienega Boulevard--she reflected on the journey that brought her to this crossroad in life. Alfred (Freddy) McCall left the well-known agency she’d worked for as a receptionist to start his own company. In the weeks leading up to his departure, he begged her to come work for him. He promised her double the pay and more responsibilities, referring to her as the dynamo he needed to make his business flourish.

The flattering words had their desired affect on 5’1”, 97 pound Kim, who, despite her diminutive body, possessed the driving force of a cyclone in the making. The way her bright green eyes gazed at the world from beneath her straight black bangs--trimmed just above her eyebrows--expressed a determined fierceness that Freddy claimed to have recognized the moment she was hired.

“I’m taking six of their best writers with me,” he’d explained across the candle lit table of a trendy Rodeo Drive restaurant. “Both of us have worked too hard for these selfish assholes for too many years. Believe me, the only way we’ll get the proper compensation we deserve is to strike out on our own. I’ve had ten years of their broken promises. And you, what has it been, five years now? Think about it, Kim, at last you’ll be an agent too.”

He then systematically laid out what he called the facts of life for her: a long list of editors who had left their former employees to amass a fortune working for themselves.

The ringing phone snapped Kim from her reverie while blankly staring at the traffic below. She crossed the reception area and passed six cubicles that were now empty. The other staff members, all five of them, were long gone. Now it was only Kim and Freddy--whenever his lower back was not bothering him too much to come into the office. Lately, though, that was seldom. Inside his plush office, she pushed a button to field the first call of the day on the speakerphone. She dealt with problems best when she paced in a tight circle.

“McCall’s Agency. Kimberly speaking. How may I help you?”

“I need to speak to Mr. McCall,” a woman demanded. “The same as yesterday and the day before and the day before that!”

Kim recognized the voice as that of a woman from Maine who had paid five-thousand-dollars four months ago to have her romance novel polished by an editor—of the agency’s choosing--before submitting it to publishing houses.

“He’s still out, Jenna,” Kim responded calmly. “But he has promised to give you a ring first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, yeah!” The woman’s temper flared. “Are you promising me that because tomorrow is Friday, and you’ll have the whole weekend to avoid dealing with me?”

“As I told you yesterday, Mr. McCall is still in traction and in too much pain to deal with anything else at the moment. But I have checked with the editor assigned to your novel. And you should be very pleased to know he’s assured me that it’s coming along just fine. He even said he’s positive that it’s going to be a major blockbuster.”

“Okay.” The woman sounded somewhat appeased. “I’ll trust your word again… one more time. But I better be able to speak to him tomorrow. If not, I’ll be on a flight out there and in your office Monday morning.”

Before the lunch hour, Kim fielded three-dozen more calls, each of an urgent nature. The last came from the landlord, inquiring about three month’s rent due. All the while she wondered how she’d managed to maintain her sanity and keep the angry clients and creditors at bay for so long with so many lies. It had been almost a year since Freddy convinced her the only way out of the financial mess he’d found himself in was to run scams on all the out-of-town writers who submitted their work.

His dream of having a successful agency began coming unglued shortly after he opened the office. Only two of the writers from the other agency kept their promises to let him represent them. Consequently, to maintain his overhead he was forced to borrow money from friends and family. When that proved insufficient, he got a second mortgage on his Los Felix home. That’s when his wife left him and filed for divorce.

In time, Kim became his sympathetic companion and then his lover too. For despite the twenty-year difference in their ages, and the fact that fifty-year-old Freddy was not physically appealing to her, she believed against all odds he’d find a way to right the ship. Also, being his rudder and anchor in turbulent waters fulfilled a need within Kim—who was raised in an Iowa home for orphans. Besides, she discovered that he was a dedicated and passionate lover who brought out an insatiable side of her in bed she never knew existed. Then there was his natural gift of gab that had always attracted her. And under his tutelage, she’d become an even more convincing liar than Freddy.

While taking a lunch break at a nearby delicatessen, she recalled the night when she became a partner in Freddy’s scheme. They were at the same restaurant where he’d talked her into leaving the other company. This time, however, there was nothing confident or suave about his approach; he was far too desperate to fool her or even try. That morning the last editor manning one of the cubicles had quit.

“From now on we accept at least half the manuscripts we receive, and pour it on the writers about how great their books are. Then we charge them a fee for signing with us and let them believe we plan to send fifteen copies or more off to the top houses. Of course, we’ll do none of the above and charge them for the copies and postage, too.”

Kim sat dumbfounded, as Freddy went on, “I’ve been doing it for the last two weeks. You’d be surprised how easy it is. I just play on their egos and never read more than the first two or three pages and the last two or three. But watch how the checks start rolling in, Kim. Maybe as soon as tomorrow.”

“You can’t go on fooling them forever,” Kim protested. “They’ll have to wise up to your bullshit at some point.”

That’s when he explained his bailout plan. “You and me, baby. About a year from now, we’ll be off to some remote tropical island with new identities.” Before she could interrupt, he continued, “I mean what choice do I have? If I stick around here too much longer, I’ll be toast. The couple of writers we have making the real bucks for us just don’t cut the mustard. You should know, you keep the books and pay all the bills that are piling up.”

He looked so pitiful that she could not restrain from reaching across the table and taking one of his hands into both of hers.

“There’s got to be a better way than that, Freddy,” she said soothingly.

“If that’s true,” he muttered with downcast eyes, “you tell me what it is because I sure can’t see any other way out of this hell of a mess.”

The next morning she dutifully began following his instructions by opening a back load of unsolicited manuscripts, perusing the first two or three pages to determine whether or not the authors possessed a modicum of talent. Within a few weeks she’d signed thirty-five of them. And the numbers grew as she milked each one of them for every cent she could, one-hundred-dollars for signing as clients, gradually adding additional costs for doing business. It was her idea to charge for editing work that was never commissioned, which brought in thousands of extra dollars each week. Her biggest catch, an anthologist, netted ten-thousand-dollars all told. But as far as she was concerned, every contracted dollar and bill left unpaid counted toward her unencumbered future with Freddy.

For the first few months, she allowed herself to feel guilty about the scams she was running. Over time, though, she kept reminding herself that no one had ever done anything to help her get ahead. Nabbing the job at the other agency had seemed like a blessing; and she’d gone on at nights to earn a bachelor’s degree in English. But with the economy in a nosedive, where would she find a job--if Freddy went down and she found herself unemployed—working at a McDonald’s?

Moreover, she began to scorn the people she was so easily deceiving for being so dumb. If they had any talent, and common sense knowledge about the book business, they could easily forgo the need of representation by learning to write good query letters and book proposals to send directly to publishing houses. It was as though they wanted her to take their money so they could go on believing they had the rare talent it takes to break into a business where so many failed.

Then, the same day she discovered the proverbial needle in a haystack among all the lousy manuscripts—a true gem of a writer--she also learned something about Freddy that changed everything. Driving home to her small apartment one rainy night, while stopped at a streetlight, she saw him coming out of a restaurant when he was supposedly in New York. Right away, she recognized the tall, blonde woman on his arm, the one he was shielding from the rain with a newspaper.

It was the agency’s best-selling author, Sabrina Crosse. Smiling the way she was, she appeared even more attractive than she did in the photograph on the back cover of all her mystery novels. Laughing like infatuated teenagers without a care in the world, a mere few feet away, they jogged right in front of her car as they crossed the street. And all of this came only hours after Freddy had complained he had to get off the phone with her and rest his bad back. It was like one of those sappy plots Sabrina was famous for writing.

“You filthy lying bastard!” she kept saying to herself as she followed his car back to the turnoff for Sabrina’s estate in Brentwood.

Three months later, she had to congratulate herself for being a better con artist than Freddy could ever hope to be. Never once did she give him reason to suspect that she had changed allegiances and was thinking of no one but herself while loathing him with a monumental contempt just below the surface of all her actions. By the time he discovered anything was wrong, he’d be penniless and she’d be long gone, sunning on the beach in front of a four-star hotel.

However, a close call had come two days ago. On a rare day he’d made it into the office, on his way out for one of his long lunch meetings that never amounted to anything worthwhile, he’d run into the mailman. Bringing the stack of letters to her, he flipped through the first six missives and stopped before laying the stack on her desk. There, under the utilities bill, was the letter she’d been anxiously awaiting for several days. Inside was a check for two-million-dollars from Newborn Publishers. The one manuscript in a million had paid off in record time—all without Freddy having a clue.

Now, at three o’clock on her last day in the office, she’d transfer all of the money they’d swindled plus the two-million into the offshore account she’d set up for herself. Then with her brand-new passport, and a new identity, it was off to the Tahiti as a first stop--and a life of leisure. Meanwhile, she had Freddy believing she could single-handily stall things for another week. A very fitting end, she felt, to her relationship with him. As he was fond of reminding her about story plots: poetic justice should always determine the outcome of every climax and set the tone for all resolutions.

Kim laughed, thinking back to when Freddy had estimated their scams would net four to six million dollars--if they also failed to pay the agency’s best writers the quartiles they’d earned. She knew then that was wishful thinking. However, as things had turned out with her newly discovered writing genius, she was expecting their corporate account figures to be close to that four million mark when she checked the account later in the day. The two-million-dollars had been listed as pending the previous day.

On impulse, though, she ignored an incoming call and went online to the banking account. She was shocked to see the amount had not changed and the big check was no longer listed as pending. Fifteen minutes on hold to her contact at Newborn Publishing, in New York, had her sweating even though the air-conditioner was on high. And each new blinking line that went unanswered seemed to bode bad tidings. Finally, her contact greeted her.

“What’s going on back there, Mike?” She wasted no time on pleasantries. “That check was supposed to clear by today.”

“Oh, didn’t you hear there’s a snag in the procedures?”

“What snag?”

“Your most talented newly discovered writer gave us a call a few days ago. Seems he was suspicious about your agency. Says a year ago he submitted the same manuscript in a different name and got a rejection notice. This time around, you gave him reason to believe he was in with us. But he never heard from you again.”

“He’s got to be mistaken. I’m sure Alfred’s been in touch with him.”

“Well, there are more complications, Kim. You see, we faxed the guy a copy of the contract and he claims it’s not his signature on any of the pages.”

“I… I… ah[W1] …” Kim stuttered and flopped down in a chair, her elbow knocking a lamp off the desk. “I… I better call Alfred right now and get to the bottom of all this.”

She hung up before Mike could say more. With feverish fingers, she transferred the balance of the company account into the offshore one. Then she dug into her purse with a trembling hand, tuning out the ringing phone lines and their six blinking lights. The way things were going, she was surprised to find her plane ticket and her passport were still in the zipped pouch where she’d left them.

When she looked up, there was a dark, bulky figure blocking the doorway of the office. As he stepped closer she saw a gun in his right hand, pointed at her.

“Who… are you?” she gasped the words with a thick tongue.

“I’m the man you tried to cheat out of two million dollars.”

“But… you would have gotten paid, anyway,” she whimpered. “So why… why… kill me?”

“Because I’m the man who put such a believable story together about a serial killer who enjoys killing figures of authority and getting away with it.”

Kim saw the spark from the gun but never heard the sound it made or the numerous phone lines--which kept on ringing long after the intruder was gone.

Author’s Note: This is a fictional tale and no way represents any real-life agencies. For most of them are reputable companies. However, there is truth in the fact that many successful writers have learned the art of preparing query letters and book proposal to obtain agent representation or direct deals with publishing houses. Below is a link to a Website where informative books on these subjects can be found.

http://www.writersweekly.com/books/3332.html

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