GINGERSNAP by Karen E.

ONE

My name is Ginger and I just killed myself.

OK, I lied. My name’s not Ginger.

All right, I’ll stop. Actually, I told myself when I sat down just now that if I do this, I’m going to do it right: I’ll tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. If that means “no more fooling around,” so be it. The truth is, that’s just me, being silly. Honest. All that happy shit about killing myself is just a bunch of crap that I threw in there because:

A.       I thought it was funny (I mean, come on);

B.        I thought it would be a real kick-ass story starter (which it was, by the way); plus,

C.        if I started writing extraneous bullshit, I wouldn’t have to deal with the dreaded “main issue,” which is the real reason I sat down at this computer in the first place.

OK, then. No more fun and games; quit wasting time; it’s time to tell the truth:  My name is Mary. God help me, it really is.

Funny, and now I‘ll hop off the pity potty and talk “truth” here for a minute. The truth is, my name doesn’t matter one little bit right now. What matters is how I got here, how I got to this place, and I don’t mean “here” in the physical sense; what I mean is, how did I get into this mess, the mess I’m in right now?

This mess—

I’ve got to wonder if I’ve really, finally done it, e.g., snapped, dove off the deep end, lost my fucking mind. The truth is, I may be, at this very moment, a few clowns short of a circus. . .and if that isn’t bad enough, I can’t stop singing that Kinks song:

‘Cause there’s a red, under my bed

And there’s a little yellow man in my head--

Hey! Maybe that’s my problem. . .but seriously, folks,  I think I’m in dire straits here. Maybe I’d better rewind for a minute.

OK, try to picture the scene: I’m driving in my car and thinking about nothing in particular; just cruising along on autopilot, listening to my Best of The Kinks CD and savoring that sweet, delicious cigarette—

Sidebar: In keeping with my "truth theme," I confess that I was on the road yesterday, not because I had to buy toilet paper (although we did need some; we were almost out), but because I had to fulfill that nagging urge to sneak a Marlboro out there on the road, away from the loving but watchful eyes of my husband. (No matter that he wasn't even home; he was at work. I just didn't want my smoke to mingle with his lingering presence and permeate everything.) Anyway, if that's the worse thing I ever do, it's not so bad, and anyway, it was going to be just the one; my first this week--

(Actually, the truth is, I’ve already had four this week and it’s only Wednesday. It usually happens five or six times a week: I’m folding laundry and suddenly I think, I could go for a cigarette; I’m making the bed and I think, I sure could go for a smoke right now. I drink a beer. . .)

Anyway, back to my story: I bought TP and a pack of cigs and I was back on the road, smoking that cigarette and kicking out the jams and thinking about nothing much at all. I remember looking at the clock and it was almost “on the twos,” as they say, so I shut off the music and switched on the radio to catch the weather report. A commercial came on: it was with this guy who owns a ritzy grocery down on Main who’s always pitching some new product or another, and he’s always trying to sound real “down-homey,” like he’s Garrison Keillor or somebody--

“When I was a young’un,” he starts, I wince, “my mother told me, ‘Little Joe, everybody’s got problems, but here’s something your Grandma taught me years ago: any problem you ever face in life can be solved by one fantastic gingersnap cookie.” 

I’m thinking, Did he just say what I think he said?

He keeps going. “Now, folks, ever since then, I’ve made it my life’s work to find such a cookie, and now I can say that I’ve finally done it:  I’ve finally found the best little gingersnap cookie in America, and it’s made right here in Ohio!”

I’m thinking, What? Is this guy nuts? What does he think we are: morons? Does he actually think we’ll believe that any problem can be solved by a fucking gingersnap? I mean, come on—

And the next thing you know, I’m driving my car right into the path of a big Mack truck and--

OK, let’s stop right there. I swerved my car, that’s true. But I didn’t go through with it; I didn’t do it. The proof is in the fact that I’m sitting here right now, listening to The Kinks and typing away on this computer, and not flat on my back in some basement morgue wearing nothing but a toe tag.

That was yesterday.

So, today (no surprise), I’ve been sitting here, trying to figure out what happened, and I’ve come to the conclusion that yesterday’s event was a red warning flag flapping in front of my face; no, it was a freaking neon sign flashing an inch from my eyes; a blinding pulse of neon, warning me to

DO SOMETHING--DO SOMETHING—DO SOMETHING--

I’m taking this thing seriously.

Needless to say, I’ve thought long and hard about what that “something” should be, and I know this is going to sound ludicrous, but here’s what I came up with, not ten minutes ago: I think I’m supposed to sit down and write myself a book.

No, that’s not true: I know I’m supposed to write a book.

And then (not five minutes ago), I knew exactly what my book should be about. Let me set the stage for you:

The title came to me like a bolt out of the blue: GINGERSNAP It makes perfect sense: Ginger, because that’s going to be my name, and snap, because what happens: I go for a drive and then I snap, just like that.

Now, picture this: GINGERSNAP is an “autobiography.” We meet Ginger (that would be me) at a moment of crisis: she’s a writer, but she cannot seem to find the words; her inspiration has run dry. Her distress blooms into crisis—she snaps (the truck!)—and then she finds herself slip-sliding toward deep despair. In a flash of clarity (insanity?), Ginger realizes that this could be her defining moment as a writer—so (in the first half of her book), she forces herself to chronicle her journey down, down, down; writing everything, sparing nothing, laying herself bare.  .  .

Then (in the second half of the book), Ginger takes us along for the ride of her life as she stumbles and falls and rights herself again; as she confronts her demons and struggles to find her way back. . .

And she succeeds! By the end of the book, Ginger has healed herself and, in the process, she's written a best-selling autobiography and that's exactly what I'm going to do with this book Ginger I love you--

Stop. Hold on.

Why? It’s brilliant.

No. It’s. . .unrealistic.

I disagree.

Well, what makes you think you can actually do it?

Do what?

Write yourself out of all of this. Come on, Mary, you nearly plowed your car into a truck. This is serious business. You need to talk to somebody, a professional--

Probably. Maybe. Bullshit, I can do this by myself. Why not? I’m smart, I’ve been through it before, and anyway, I’m a writer, that’s what I do. I’ll figure it out. And the best part? When all is said and done, not only will I have written a kick-ass novel, but in the process, I’ll get what Ginger gets: a big, fat, juicy dose of sanity, wrapped up in a nice, warm, sesame seed bun. Plus, the cost to me this time will be zilch, zero, nada, which is a shitload less than a bunch of actual therapy sessions would cost; plus, I’ll make myself some major dough from the thing. OK, that’s a “maybe.” But do you know what? It doesn’t matter. I have it all figured out: it’s “win-win,” as they say. I just have to tie up a couple of loose ends first. Cases in point:

A.                It’s Ginger’s autobiography.

B.                 I ain’t Ginger (minor sticking point).

C.                 The “snap” part is still being debated by certain individuals (e.g., me, myself and I, ha ha).

Here’s a sidebar to point C: Actually, I don’t think that yesterday’s event was actually a “snap,” per se; at least, not yet. What I think happened yesterday was that I had myself a little epiphany of sorts; what Oprah might call an Aha! moment; what Little Joe might call a li’l ol’ jolt of veracity. The truth is, I don’t care what they call it, here’s what I think: I think that I haven’t snapped yet, but it could happen, I could lose it, I’m definitely bending in that general direction; I haven’t snapped yet but I’m pretty damn close; I’m close—

I think you understand what I’m saying. OK, back to business:

D.                As far as the whole “story” idea goes, well, that’s something to consider, too, because that would mean I’d actually have to write something (funny, I know), and it would have to be something substantial; something coming in at what. . .60,000 words, absolute minimum? I just checked: I’m only at a little over 2,500 words right now and anyway, I can’t count any of this ramble as part of my story, so I’m actually holding steady at a big, fat zero

Crap. Anything less than 60,000 words won't be an easy sell; it won't be something I could easily peddle; it won't have the weight of "import" behind it that will allow me to saunter into some agent's office, swinging my big ol' balls of confidence, knowing for a fact that I wrote something good, something to be reconed with, something--dare I say it--marketable. . . 

No doubt about it, it would have to be marketable: first, to a go-getter agent; then, to a powerhouse publisher; then, to some high class book reviewers; and then--maybe, if I’m lucky--to a statistically significant portion of the U.S. population.

But then--if I were extremely lucky--that thing might make me some serious dough; and then, finally, it might prove, once and for all, that YES, that gal’s got some serious talent; there is no doubt about it: that hot little gal can write--

Funny, but true: I’ve wanted that since the day I was born. OK, that’s a slight exaggeration; but honestly now, I’ve always felt like writer, I love to write, and I want the world to know that I bloody well can write.

I’ve been a writer my entire life. You want cases in point? All right, let’s see:

When I was a kid, I was always writing poems and cute little plays and stuff like that. (Admittedly, this fits the proverbial “Everybody has to start somewhere” model; in other words, it’s trite, but true.)

When I was eight or nine, I switched to writing scary short stories and they were pretty good, I don’t mind saying; hell, I even scared myself. Seriously.

At thirteen, I started a diary and I’m still keeping a journal, which is what--twenty years later? Yep, I’m thirty-three, so it’s been over two decades now.

Anyway, when I was about nineteen, I put pen to paper in a serious way--

OK, sidebar:  It was all—choke--poetry, and if I’m going to be truthful here, I’d have to admit that probably ninety-eight percent of it was nothing more than cheesy crap. If you think I’m being too hard on myself, here are two examples that I thought of, just now:  

What does it mean? I mean, what do I do?

I mean, scared and alone, I feel lost, frightened, too.

Not good. Not good.

Lay still, open handed; there a butterfly has landed.

Ouch.

I did write a couple of things that didn’t outright suck, if I recall, like the poem that started:

Though rarely be the brilliant wrath,

Attained through sorrow, midnight blue;

Attained through love lost, ethereal flight—

That one wasn’t too bad, but oh, the misery: those poems reeked of it. No wonder: I was awash in angst when I wrote that stuff--no, I was enveloped by it, consumed by it--for what, three months? I was nineteen and crazy in love with a jerk who didn’t love me back, and for three months, all I did was cry and drink cheap wine and write bad poetry. (Sidebar Number 2: I’ve kept those poems all these years. They’re in a beat-up yellow folder in my top dresser drawer, under the socks, still stinking up the joint and oh, Sidebar Number 3: The asshole wasn’t worth it.)

Anyway, then there’s the novel I wrote the spring before I started college. I was just twenty-one when I wrote “The Great American Novel” (aka: WEB OF LOVE): one hundred-and-two pages; typed, single space); banged out in three weeks’ time on my weary Smith-Corona.

Here’s another little nugget of truth for you: it wasn’t very good. I still have the five (brutally honest) rejection letters to prove it, and although I am loathe to admit this, I deserved every one of them because that novel was bad and I’m not just talking about the writing now; I’m talking about the story itself. (Case in point: there were pirates in it, and I’m not making that up.)

Still, I wrote a novel and that’s something, right? Of course, I’ve kept that momentous (if ridiculous) achievement, too: it’s in a floppy old cardboard box in my bedroom closet, shoved way in the back behind my tennis shoes.

I kept writing, and when I cranked out some pretty decent work then; sometimes, more than decent:  I still have the stuff with red A-pluses scrawled across the top, and accolades from professors like Wow! and Can I keep this? and Keep on writing! Never stop!

Now, to be truthful, I must admit that, for a few years there, I didn’t follow their advice. My output was spotty; most of the time, I just wrote in my journal. You might be wondering what was happening during that time and I guess my answer would have to be “Life,” and some of it wasn’t pretty. If you were so inclined, you could fast-forward through that bad movie in 20 seconds flat:

There she is, sweating in her wet, food-splattered uniform, piling a never-ending stack of dirty dishes into that steaming industrial dishwasher; there she is, hunched over her tiny desk, cranking out newspaper ads for men’s cologne and cat food; look, she’s getting married and now she’s struggling to balance marriage and homework and everything else so she can get that teaching certificate; there she is, exhausted after another day teaching those little kids. . .oh, no! The accident! And there’s the aftermath, and there’s the moment when she realizes she’s too messed up, she’ll have to resign, she just can’t do it anymore--

Last year was the worst year of my life.

I think that’s when I started to bend again. Before that, I’d always be able to pull myself out of it—clinical depression, I mean. Writing helped, I know it did. I wrote a lot as a kid after my mother died. I wrote after that asshole stomped on my heart. I wrote in my journal after the accident and again, last year, when I realized I couldn’t handle teaching anymore, but that last time was the toughest. I felt like everything good in my life just slipped away and I found myself slipping away right along with it; slipping down into that deep, dark well of despair again. No, the truth is, I sank right down in there, just like a rock and the worst thing was the sound when she hit the water. I don’t know where that just came from, but that’s exactly how it felt. The point is, it took a lot of crying on my husband’s shoulder, and hours of introspection in my therapist’s office, and Percocet and Flexeril and spilling my guts out in my journal. . .all of that, together, to drag me up, up, up and finally, out of that dark and hopeless place.

I thought I was all better. I thought I was OK. Then came yesterday, when I almost made a great big mess out of everything; when I almost splattered myself like a stupid little bug across the grill of that big Mack truck.

Maybe I shouldn’t try to do this by myself.

_________________________________________________________
Robert L. Bacon
theperfectwrite.com

For authors, The Perfect Write® is now providing
FREE QUERY LETTER REVIEW AND ANALYSIS.

Post your query to mailto:theperfectwrite@aol.com(no attachments) and visit the Sample Letters Page for examples of successful query letters.

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TAKEN AWAY, by Ali A.

“Death solves all problems--no man, no problem.”
-- Joseph Stalin

  “I looked around. Everything was the way it should be. My books were under my feet, the rope was in my hands, the door and windows were shut. I raised my head toward the ceiling, pulled on the rope again for good measure, and swallowed. I hesitated for a moment, then jumped.” He stopped, his eyes staring off into nowhere.
  “And then what do you remember, Mark?” the doctor asked.
  His eyes snapped back. “Nothing.”
  The psychiatrist leaned forward and took a deep breath. “But Mr. Williamson, the rope was cut by a knife that had your fingerprints on it, forensics confirmed this. It seems you cut the rope yourself after the jump failed to break your neck.” Dr. Solomon glanced at his papers. “Thankfully, your friend, Mr. Michael, came in shortly after you decided to do what you did. He found you sprawled unconscious on the floor with the knife in your hand.” The doctor looked at his patient the way a parent would at a lying child.
  “I told you what happened. Nothing else happened.”
  Solomon nodded. “Yes, of course. Mr. Williamson, were you under the influence of any substances.  Medication, drugs?” He waited for an answer. “No? Do you have a medical history we should know about? Mental issues perhaps?”
  Mark smashed his fists on the table. “I'm not crazy! Leave me alone!” He got up and turned to a wall with a mirror. He could see the red ring, still fresh and raw around his neck.
  A guard opened the door and stepped in the room, his hands on his club and belt, behind him a stream of light from the hall. “Everything alright, doctor?”
  “Everything’s fine, thank you, officer." Solomon turned to Mark. "If you will excuse me, Mr. Williamson."
  He got up from his chair and headed out the door.
  The sergeant on duty was in the hall by the room. He was dwarfed by two other policemen who were at his side. He took a cigar out of his mouth and put his arms to his waist. “Well, Doctor Solomon here to grace my police station again, what an honor.” He put out his hand.
  Solomon took it. “An honor it must be indeed.”
  The sergeant was a little man and put all of his strength into his grip. “So what brings you here, checking out my police station to see how a real place works?”
  Solomon thought he would toy with him, the sergeant’s power plays reminding him of the basics. He lifted his chin. “You called me.”

  The sergeant puffed his chest, inhaling a deep breath through his cigar. “Oh right, right, for that nut bar, Williamson, or something or other.” With the smoky end of the stogie he pointed to the room. “We got him here for observation while we clear out the mess with his apartment. The landlord’s got some major complaints, some we need to pursue, but it’s police business, nothing you need to worry about.”
  “I’ll be the judge of that. What happened exactly? I need to know.”
  “The damned nut bar won’t cooperate, he’ll barely talk. The only thing he did say was that he’s supposed to be dead, that he didn’t cut the rope. We even showed him his own fingerprints on his own knife, but all he says is he’s supposed to be dead. Are you going to take him or what?”
  Some baggage, Solomon thought. “No, just send him back off to the psych ward for observation. Everybody gets suicidal once in a while, especially in New York. He wanted to try it, and he did, then he cut the rope, but just a little bit too late and now he’s understandably grouchy. It’s called depression and shock, the staff can handle it.”
  “I’m afraid we can't do that, doc. The psych ward’s full and you have to take him. That’s what they said, that’s why I called you.”
  “We’re understaffed as is, and if we took every guy off the street, we’d never finish. Send him home. At least he won’t try to kill himself again, you can take my word on that." Solomon looked the sergeant up and down.
  “For a psychiatrist, you don’t hear well enough yourself. I said the landlord doesn’t want him there. He hasn’t been paying his rent, and he doesn’t even have the lease to the damn place.
  It’s his brother's or something, and the big man hasn’t been coughing up the dough like he's supposed to. Basically the landlord wants him out. Besides, the place stinks, like a dead body stinks. We're getting a warrant to search the dump, again on landlord's grievances. I told you, police business.” The sergeant blew out smoke.
  Solomon took a while. “I’m going back, I'll talk to him again.”


  The guard opened the door and nodded as the doctor passed him. Mark was still by the mirror, his head straight ahead, looking into it. Solomon took his seat. “Mr. Williamson?”
  Mark stood there, still staring into the mirror.
  “Mr. Williamson, I've no more time to waste. I’m here to help you not get put in jail, and all you have to do is listen, so listen.” Solomon slid a paper and pencil onto the metal table. “I want you to give me the name and phone number of somebody I can call, since the good folks here don’t seem to have adequate information on you.”
  Mark didn’t budge.
  “I need the number, Mr. Williamson, because, unfortunately, you've been evicted from your apartment. I can't let you go out in the streets a homeless suicidal with no police or medical records."
  Solomon waited.
  Mark said nothing.
  “It’s either this or getting thrown in a cell in this hole until you get cleared by some suited government drone from immigration or whatever department handles people like you. It’s your choice, either way, you’ll have to give us a number.”
  Mark got to the table, wrote down something, and went back. Solomon took the paper. It only had a number, nothing else, scratched out in horrible penmanship. He put it in his pocket and went outside, to a room behind the mirror. When he entered, Dr. Ronald Johnson, another staff psychiatrist, was leaning against a file cabinet, his eyes glued on Mark.
  “So, tell me, what do you think?” Solomon asked, as he grabbed his thermos from a nearby table.
  “Do you think it's wise to push a patient on the initial consult? It's not even the first night here yet.”
  Solomon took a sip of coffee. “What do you mean?”
  “Seriously? By not so subtly asking him about his medical history and calling him a lunatic, badgering him like that, then also telling him he's homeless? And all at once, one after the other? You've outdone yourself, again.” Johnson clapped his hands. "Congratulations, I really mean that.”
  Solomon laughed, slurping his drink. “So says the naysayer. It worked out wonderfully well, all of it. It’s good that you came down here with me, you should just be thankful, you’re so lucky you have the pleasure, the privilege, to see such topnotch psychoanalysis firsthand.
  “Let me elaborate, and don't worry, especially for you I'll pronounce each word slowly. You second-rate psychiatrists need all the help you can get.” Solomon took one last sip and put the thermos back on the table.
  “First of all I didn’t call him crazy because it entertained me, and even though it did, it more importantly showed us if he had any hidden emotions, which clearly he does as emphasized by all the gorilla slamming and pushing away. But it’s okay that you missed that. I understand.
  “And the so-called badgering, it was done very tastefully, and it got him to listen more intently, as it does for all people who are so lucky as to be in my company.
  “The third accusation, if you are able to follow any pattern, an ability I doubt you have, is also unsound. Why? Because that perfect addition, added so adeptly, got me this number." Solomon pulled the paper out from his pocket. "And it will solve all our problems. We get one of his relatives, question the person, then we get his life back on track and have him out of our hair before any of it's old and gray.” He walked to the phone. “You see, it’s all really simple.”

  Johnson laughed. “Don’t you ever get your head too big for even that meaty neck?”
  “Perfection comes at high cost, and people like you will never understand.” He grabbed the handset and dialed the number.
  The first tone sank his heart to his stomach. Something felt wrong. “Hello, good evening, thanks for choosing Luigi’s Pizza, home of the best pizza, pasta, and more.”
   Solomon slammed down the phone. It flew off the carriage, startling the speaker. “Hello? Hello? May I take your order?”
   He pulled the cord from the socket.
  “You didn’t tell me you were ordering pizza tonight,” Johnson said, laughing.
   Solomon clenched his fist. “Not another word.”
  “How wonderfully, perfectly simple. You know I was going to have to get you back for all those insults you slurred my way, but I love it when the universe does my work for me.”
  “Are you done?”
   Johnson tried to keep a straight face. “No!” He laughed again.
  “That’s it, we have to bring him to Santa Rosa,” Solomon said.
  “What? Why? Couldn’t it just be like what you said to the sergeant?”
  “I was just playing with the sergeant. Didn't you hear everything? I told Mr. Williamson about the eviction and he didn’t budge. He has some serious issues, more than what Prozac can handle, and we don’t have any records on him. There’s something odd about that. This one’s more than skin deep. We have to take him in and see where it goes. Besides, we have no other choice, the psych ward’s full. We can’t just let him go out of here like he is.”
  Johnson looked at Mark through the mirror. “So we really have no records of him, at all?”
  “No police records, no medical files, nothing, all the more reason we have to take him. He’s practically a ghost. Do you have any idea what they would do to him, what they would put him through? It’s enough to push anybody over the edge, and he’s already there, he doesn’t need another shove.”
   Mark pulled himself up from the chair and walked over to the mirror. He stared at Johnson, then Solomon.
   “A ghost with a burning death wish. Look at those eyes, you can see there isn’t much he cares about. It’s like he’s looking straight at us.” Johnson moved his hand and Mark tracked it with his eyes. The psychiatrist stepped back. “How the hell can he see us?”
   Solomon shrugged. “Whatever. Keep yourself occupied with that, I’m going to talk to my friend the sergeant and arrange everything.”
  “I’ll go talk to him," Johnson said, then smirked. "I can stand him, at least."
  “No, it’s okay, his behavior entertains me. It’s so simple and predictable. Annoying, but amusing nonetheless.”
  “Well, have fun.” Johnson turned back to the mirror. “I swear though, he’s looking right at me.”
_______________________________________________________________
Robert L. Bacon
theperfectwrite.com
For authors, The Perfect Write® is now providing
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Virgin Territory Opening Chapter by Buck B.

                                                          Chapter 1

Memorial Day weekend, traditionally the start of a summer filled with beach parties, scuba diving, and Keys vacations for Florida folks.  Fewer tourists, lower prices, slower pace.  Good times… if you’re lucky enough not to get stuck with an investigation that darkens your soul and wrecks your life.  I wasn’t lucky, not even close.

Flies buzzed and flitted over her naked body lying face up by the picnic table.  A line of ants marched across her torso, skin dappled by early morning sun penetrating the leafy canopy.  A faint smell of necrosis assaulted my nostrils.  Then an irrational feeling of failure engulfed me, draining my soul as the death of a young woman always did, but stronger than usual, maybe the strongest ever.

“Is this her, Luke?”

She wasn’t the smuggler’s girlfriend I’d been trying to find, but there was something about her… something familiar.  I glanced at OC and said what I was sure he already knew, “This isn’t the girl I’m looking for.”

Though death had slackened her face, she was still beautiful.  I couldn’t pinpoint what was familiar.  Around twenty years old, long blonde hair, glazed-over blue eyes, medium height, good body, not much makeup, pale lipstick, clear fingernail and toenail polish.  A black beetle crawled over blonde pubic hair trimmed short and shaved into a small triangle.

Flawless, except for a bullet hole under her left breast, but not much blood.  The bullet must have wiped out her heart instantly.  What a fucking waste.  I failed her.  The world failed her.

“Is this how she was found?”

OC shook his head.  “White panties pulled down to her knees and red sandals on her feet.  A red top and bra and a white skirt were next to her body.  Harlan bagged all of it.  That was the only evidence besides the shell casing.  No tire prints or footprints in this sand and rock.”

I was glad the panties were gone.  Somehow that intimate garment would have made her seem even more violated than her total nakedness.  I squatted and touched her left shoulder… flesh cold, so different from the warmth she radiated just hours earlier.  My feeling of failing her deepened.

I looked up at OC.  “What’d the medical examiner say about time of death?”

“Between ten and midnight, maybe as late as one this morning.”

No blood around her.  I lifted her shoulder.  Flies swarmed off.  No blood on the ground underneath her.  “Exit wound?”

“No exit wound.  Doc rolled her far enough to see her back.  And no sign of sexual assault.”

I stood but a translucent image of me touching her shoulder remained.  I shook my head to clear the illusion and said, “Obviously shot while undressing.  Gunpowder stippling on her chest.  The killer wasn’t far from her.”

“The casing’s a .380.  With that stippling pattern Harlan thinks it was about two feet.  He’s going to check his charts.”

I leaned forward and studied her face, trying to visualize her alive.  “Any idea of who she is?”

“Not yet.”

A second beetle caught my attention and the flies were bringing in reinforcements.  Masking the emotions the dead girl had churned up, I said, “Might as well let the meat wagon take her while there’s something left to autopsy.”

OC turned and waved his arm.  A deputy moved the crime scene tape blocking the park entrance and the ambulance rolled in.  We were silent while the paramedics put the body on a gurney, loaded it, and closed the doors.  After the ambulance started back toward the highway, we walked in the same direction.

“The ME finished up a few minutes before you got here,” OC said, “but I wouldn’t let them haul the body till you saw it.”

“Thanks, we don’t usually get called in until the body’s been six feet under long enough to be a fossil and the case is colder than a penguin’s ass.”

I stopped and looked around.  Tall water oaks shaded River Bluff Park.  Calling a strip of land on the Persimmon River with one picnic table a park was a stretch.  A moonlit night about six years ago with a woman who worked for the Treasure County Sheriff’s Department entered my mind.  That pleasurable memory of the park was quickly ruined by the dead girl’s glazed-over blue eyes fading in.  I blinked them away.

“Really appreciate you comin’, Luke, swamped as you always are.”

Although concentration lines and thinning gray hair had always made OC appear older than his years, my good friend had aged more than he should have in what?  Six months?  Six months since I’d seen OC.  Hard to believe.  A hell of a way to get together.

“When,” I said, “did the Florida Department of Law Enforcement ever turn down your request?  I’m damn sure I haven’t personally because I’d still be hearing about it.”

“This is different.  You don’t work this area anymore and could’ve gotten out of it.  But it’s a bad situation and I’ve seen you figure out what happened before anybody else even realized a crime had been committed.”

I held up a hand as though stopping traffic.  “You don’t have to lay it on so thick.  I’m already here.  Did you really think this girl was the one I’ve been looking for, or was that a con job for Tallahassee’s benefit?”

We ducked under the crime scene tape, walked past two sheriff’s department marked units, and crossed River Road where our cars were parked on the shoulder.

“Both,” OC said.  “She looked enough like the girl in the photo that I couldn’t positively say it wasn’t her.  And I knew your Fort Pierce office couldn’t help much what with the vacancies and some major cases they’re involved in, but most of all, I need you on this.”

OC looked at his watch.  “Roughly two hours ago, which was about fifteen minutes before I called you, Harlan had just finished the other crime scene.  He got the call to come here and found the same caliber shell casing.  With the bodies only bein’ about two miles apart, the homicides could be connected, and the girl maybe bein’ the one you’re interested in, I figured it was an FDLE case.”

“The part about possibly being the girl I’m looking for was a masterstroke.  Tallahassee didn’t hesitate about me coming up here.  What’s the story on the other victim?”

“Alvin Wayne Reynolds, called Big Al.  His body was found inside his house in Persimmon Estates.  You know where that is, don’t you?”

I nodded. I knew the place. I’d made an arrest there six years ago.  If I’d gone straight on Bridge Road instead of turning toward the park, I’d have come to it about a mile past the bridge.

A strident electronic tone blared out of OC’s cell phone.  He pulled it off his belt.  “Sheriff Lofton.”  He listened but didn’t speak.

Thinking about Persimmon Estates, I looked west down River Road toward Bridge Road, the area as rural as when I’d first driven into Treasure County eight years ago as a rookie agent.  Back then, 606 east from I-95 to Treasure Beach was rural too, with only a mom-and-pop gas station and a small local airport along that five mile stretch.  I could cruise at a hundred plus and only have an occasional wayward cow to worry about.

This morning after driving past big gas stations and fast food joints crammed around the interchange, I almost rear-ended an idiot stopped in the road gawking at decorated conch shells and coconuts in front of a souvenir shop.  Then before turning north, I got stuck behind a truck creeping through a construction zone.

Well, what the hell did I expect in a coastal county between West Palm Beach and Orlando in the budding twenty-first century?  Fortunately, the zero-lot-line housing and strip malls sprouting in pastures and citrus groves soon petered out on Bridge Road.  By the time I reached River Road, the terrain looked about the same as ever.  The closer I got to the park, the more I realized it wasn’t overdevelopment aggravating me.  It was knowing I was about to investigate the death of a young woman.

I took a deep breath of clean country air and tried to detach myself from the dead blonde.  Some Memorial Day weekend, and it was only Saturday.

OC finally spoke into his cell phone.  “Stevenson Community?  Be right there.”

He disconnected.  OC’s eyes were narrowed and his mouth was set in a hard line.  “A three-year-old girl just died at the hospital.  Parents brought her in a half hour ago, said she’d fallen into an abandoned well.  The doc’s not buying it.”

I tried to talk but something had me by the throat.  A faceless toddler under bright hospital lights taking her last breath filled my mind.  A child, the only thing that hit me as hard as a young woman, maybe harder.  Both, back to back.  My neck spasmed.  Bile in my throat.

OC blew out his breath.  “All my investigators and six special-assignment deputies are working Big Al and this one.  I know I got you up here for these cases, but I don’t have anybody to handle the little girl, except you and me.”

I forced out gravelly words.  “Meet you at the hospital."                                                  ____________________________________________________________                                    

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"A New Beginning" by Mike H. Narrative Opening

                                                             Prologue

            The clouds hung full, bunched like ripe grapes in the sky.  The air was stagnant, the humidity high, and the smell of approaching rain unmistakable.  These were the precursors of Tropical Storm Beatrice, which was disrupting the normal currents and trade winds. 

            For two days the humidity had been building until it was now unbearable.  Even with all the windows open, no member of the O’Rourke family was able to sleep soundly.  Mary found it especially hard, since she was pregnant with her fourth child and it was due at any time. 

Another day dawned, and even though the clouds appeared thicker on this morning as they blocked the sun, there was no relief—the temperature in the 80s before noon and a humidity near 100 percent.

            At 1:40 p.m. both waters broke and chaos started.  Beatrice lashed the island with intense rains while Mary prepared for the new birth. 

            The family was startled three hours later by a bolt of lightning that fried the landscape just outside their ranch-style home.  A long rumble and a crash of thunder followed to drown out the woman’s cries of pain. 

            Beatrice continued to pummel the island.  Howling winds created horizontal sheets of rain.  Eerily, thunder and lightning would arrive just in time to announce another contraction and obscure Mary’s latest wail.  On it went, an opera playing
out over many hours, Beatrice roaring across the island in a rhythm reminiscent of Wagner’s Ring cycle.  Finally, it was over, and a different cry filled the room.  At 10:35 p.m., as John O'Rourke held his new son, the skies cleared to reveal the constellation Capricorn rising on the horizon.

            The child was named Beetle Makena Bailey O’Rourke, born August 4, 1953, on the island of Maui, Hawaii, on the north slope of Haleakala Mountain, in an area later known as Paia.

                                                         Chapter 1

                  June 14, 1957, began with an atmospheric cover that obscured any light from the sky.  Dressed all in black, and with grease on his face, an intruder watched the headquarters of Fortunes United Building America’s Resources, acronym FUBAR, from his hiding place in the trees.  He saw the lights go out.  Then he observed personnel leaving The Organization’s building.  He waited.  At 3 a.m., he observed a guard walk from the headquarters to sweep the grounds.  He knew from previous surveillance that there were two guards, and the other was likely still inside in the control room. 

                  In the northeast corner of the premises, a dart felled the first guard at 3:07 a.m.  The second guard came out to check on his partner and was knocked out at 3:27, less than two feet from where the first guard lay.   The intruder entered the building.  Wherever he went, he upturned bookshelves and kicked over wastebaskets. 

                  In the secretary’s room next to the boardroom he found copious notes, many handwritten from industry and government leaders, detailing changes that would be coming during the next six months.  It riled him that these men were circumventing the will of the people to line their own pockets.  He knew very well the work of The Organization and its elites, and how they subverted people and the legitimacy and sovereignty of the government.  In disgust, he scattered the papers.

                  On one wall he noticed a large map of the world stuck with pins of many colors.  Areas of known conflict were identified by yellow pins.  He perused the map and made a mental note of the orange and red pins and their locations.  He recognized the orange pins as denoting locations of “natural” disasters.  The few red ones had no immediate significance for him, but he noted that one red pin was placed in Peru, another in Italy, a third in Greece, a fourth in Egypt, and a fifth in London.   

                  He entered the personnel offices, picked the file cabinet’s lock, and with the aid of his flashlight located six hanging files.  After securing these in the backpack he was wearing, he slammed the cabinet door shut.  This would be a meticulously studied crime scene.  No need to draw attention to one file cabinet, so he tossed the rest of the office before he set off.  In the computer room, he lit a match and threw it onto the punch cards before leaving the building.  It was 3:37 a.m..  He smiled.  Ten minutes, no more, no less.

                  Returning to his perch, he watched quietly as the sedative wore off and the guards revived.  The guards awoke in time to see flames inside the building and fire trucks approaching.  An hour later, the intruder left.

                  The next morning, the intruder placed the files in a safe deposit box.

                                                       Chapter 2

            Beetle began to put his puzzlement into words.  “What’s going on?” he wondered aloud.  “Why can I see colors that show me how people are feeling?  Where is this coming from?  What does it mean?”

            His family was leaving Green’s Grocer where his mother had bought food
and other supplies.  It was a bright, sunny day, and the temperature was already into the 80s.  As they left the grocery and crossed Dairy Street, Beetle looked at the various people.  Every time he focused on a person, a color and emotion pushed into his mind.  He was two days past his fifth birthday.

            “Mama, what color is that lady over there?”

            “Color is not important," Mary said, observing an ocean of Hawaiian brown and tan.  "No one’s different from anyone else.” 

            He turned to his older sister, Angela, and asked her, “Do you get their feelings when people walk past you?  Do you see people in different colors, like that blue woman over there?”

            Angela gave him a quizzical look. “There is no blue woman over there.  Nobody has blue skin, Beetle.  And no, I don’t feel emotions when people pass by.
I don’t notice anything special about them at all.”

            They entered a clothing store.  Mary spent a few minutes sifting through outfits before the family noticed a man approaching.  It was the store’s salesclerk, but what Beetle saw was red, and what he experienced was hatred and rage.  He ran to his mother, wrapped his arms tightly around her leg, and shivered in fear.

            Mary tried to move but was unsuccessful with her youngest holding firm to her leg.  “Angela, come get your brother,” she implored.

            Angela pried Beetle from his mother’s leg.  His sister held him close, asking, “What’s wrong, Beetle?  What frightened you?”

            He cowered in Angela’s arms, and only after she took him outside did he speak.  “That man came toward me, and I could feel he was red and angry and hateful.  He scared me.”  

            Angela said, “Nobody sees into other people like that, Beetle.  It’s your imagination.  Just relax and it will pass.”

            It didn’t, though.  It just got stronger.

            Mary brought everyone else outside after she finished with the clerk, remarking about him, “That young man was very rude.  He must be having a hard day.”

            Beetle turned away from his sister and looked at his mother.  “Mama, that boy over there is all black.  What’s wrong with him?”

            Mary glanced around, but couldn’t see the boy he was talking about.  There were no black people on the street.  She did, however, see the boy he was referring to.

             As they watched, the boy picked up his walk to a faster gait.  Then, passing by an older woman, he reached out and grasped her purse by the strap and pulled hard.  Beetle saw the strap break and the boy run away with the purse in his grip, leaving the woman to fall.

            One of Beetle’s older brothers spotted the boy just as the purse came free.  He lit out after him.  It required sprinting three blocks, but the purse-snatcher was finally caught and the handbag returned to the woman, who was being attended to by other passersby.

            Angela stared at Beetle and asked, “How did you do that, brother?  How did you see that boy was bad?”

            Beetle didn't know but shrugged and said, "He was all black, just like the night."

 _______________________________________________________ 

Robert L. Bacon
theperfectwrite.com

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FREE QUERY LETTER REVIEW AND ANALYSIS.

Post your query to mailto:theperfectwrite@aol.com (no attachments) and visit
the Sample Letters Page for examples of successful query letters.

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critiques to complete revisions, including line-editing, along with query letter
design and composition. For pricing, send your project requirements to mailto:theperfectwrite@aol.com

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"The Other Side of Happy" Opening-Chapter Critique By Robert L. Bacon

                                                      Chapter 1

       Carleigh closed the door behind her and stopped mid-stride when she recognized the heavy footsteps. Her body tensed, then began to tremble. The brassy taste of fear filled her mouth. She slid her backpack around, pressed it protectively against her stomach, and became statue-still.
       Appearing to concentrate on the bare floor in front of him, a man with a weathered complexion and muttonchops tramped down the hallway. His right hand clutched a Budweiser, left hand a cigarette.
       Dean.
       She took a step backward. A floorboard creaked. She sucked in a sharp breath.
       Dean's head snapped up and he slowly arched one eyebrow. “Well, now.”
       Carleigh squeezed her backpack and focused her eyes on the wall behind him.
       Dean inhaled a long drag from his cigarette and came to within a foot of where she stood. “Didn’t hear you come in, precious.”
       The stench of nicotine and alcohol assaulted her nostrils. But she held her position, feet and hands frozen in place.
       Dean tucked the Marlboro between his lips, reached out a calloused finger, and stroked the side of her face. “Where you been?”
       Recoiling from his touch, she jumped sideways. Hatred lurked behind his eyes, as obvious to Carleigh as his gold-capped teeth. He pulled back his finger. “That how it’s gonna be?” He took another deep drag and drained his beer. “Don’t think so.” He held up the can and crushed it. “Listen here, young lady, we ain’t finished. Not by a long shot.”
       Carleigh flinched, but kept her gaze steady. She thought about running but knew
it would be futile. Even inebriated, he’d catch up with her. She’d learned that the last time he came home wasted. A shudder ran down her spine. She lowered her gaze to a spot on the floor.
       Dean exhaled a cloud of smoke in her face. With a snicker, he chucked the beer can across the room.
       Carleigh looked up and saw him heading toward the door. Good riddance.
       But before he reached the end of the hall, he paused and turned to her. Carleigh could hear her heart pounding. He folded his arms across his chest and shot her a razor-sharp look. “You tell your momma, I’ll be back. Tell her we got…unsettled business.”
       Carleigh's throat muscles constricted. Business, no doubt, meant money or drugs. Regardless, Dean certainly would return. She tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry, the room too warm.
       Two men appeared at the door. Muscular. Bullnecked. Matching Neanderthal brows. “That everything?” one of the men asked.
       Dean motioned toward the kitchen with his thumb. “Two more. Rest is garbage.” He let out a soft laugh. “Let ’em have it.”
       Carleigh looked down and dug her fingernails into her palms. After everything Dean had done, did he have to shame them as well?
       The men went into the kitchen, and each came out carrying a large cardboard box. As they walked through the foyer, she heard them mutter something about her and share garbled laughs. From the corner of her eye she caught them gawking at her breasts, just like Dean always did. She hunched her shoulders, moved her backpack to cover her upper body, and kept quiet. Experience had taught her the less she said to adults, the better.
       Dean finished his cigarette, flicked it onto the floor, and crushed it beneath his heel. While it smoldered he pulled out another smoke and popped it between his lips. Outside, a loud car horn honked repeatedly. He pushed back his sleeve and checked his watch. “Time to go.”
       But instead of leaving, he walked back to Carleigh in what to her were agonizingly slow steps. When he was inches away, he leaned down and whispered, “Don’t forget what I told you.” He pressed his finger against her cheek and ran it alongside her mouth.
       Carleigh remained still as Dean moved his ragged fingernail across her neck, her collarbone, then lower. He was so close, she saw the gray roots in his beard. His hand paused in the valley between her breasts. She felt his breath hot on her shoulder. Her legs quivered but she willed herself to remain steady, her heart not to beat as it slammed in her chest, her diaphragm not to expand as her lungs filled with air, her hands not to shake. She closed her eyes and forced down the panic rising from her abdomen.
       Don’t move. Don’t even breathe.
       She felt him pull away.
       “Remember what I said,” he snarled as his boots slapped the linoleum on the foyer floor. “Tell your momma I’ll be back.”
___________________________________________________________

Robert L. Bacon
theperfectwrite.com

For authors, The Perfect Write® is now providing
FREE QUERY LETTER REVIEW AND ANALYSIS.
Post your query to mailto:theperfectwrite@aol.com (no attachments)
and visit the Sample Letters Page for examples of successful query letters.

The Perfect Write® offers comprehensive editing services, from manuscript critiques to complete revisions, including line-editing, along with query letter design and composition. For pricing, send your project requirements to mailto:theperfectwrite@aol.com.

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BARRY FLYNN Opening-Chapter Critique By Robert L. Bacon

Barry Flynn Opening-Chapter Critique
by Robert L. Bacon
April 26, 2011


Hello Sterling,

If every opening chapter I received was in the condition of the material you sent me,
I wouldn't have a job. (You'll notice I wrote "was" and not "were" as the verb in this subjunctive clause, since what I'm stating is unassailable, ha ha). You're obviously an accomplished writer, and very much so, I might add.

Of course it's impossible to know the strength of a plot by an opening chapter, and literary fiction has a great deal more leeway than many other genres with respect
to pacing necessities, especially when the writer does a superb job of presenting a character with inherently redemptive qualities, such as how Barry came across to
me. (You old enabler, you.) So I can't offer anything remotely negative about your narrative, except to state that I'd like to have had something more happen with the
trio on the beach other than Barry wondering if he could latch a ride off them. And
I guess there are a few commas I might delete, but this is tomato/tomato stuff and
not even worth throwing spit at.

I'm curious what you've done with this story. Did you already have it published and just wanted to test me, ha ha? Or are you currently querying it? If you are looking for an agent, I might have one or two in mind, but I don't want to get the cart in front of horse if you've got a game plan firmly in place. Regardless, I want to wish you the very best of luck with your story. You're a dandy writer.

Regards,

Robert L. (Rob) Bacon, Founder
The Perfect Write®

Barry Flynn

PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE

Although he’d have sworn he was earning a living, Barry Flynn was out stealing again. Crabs this time, since the eel pots were empty. Blue points all of them, beauties, the color the sky might have chosen if given a choice. But of course it had no choice, and Barry would have said he hadn’t one either. He’d have said many such things, mostly bullshit, with the truth sprinkled here and there. Now though he said nothing, unable to hear himself with the motor so loud. It hung beside him on his garvey’s stern as if trying to climb in, growling an angry waah! as the boat swerved round the river’s
bend. His flat-bottomed girl, that’s what Barry called his garvey. Flat-chested too, he sometimes added. For once he wasn’t lying. The boat hadn’t a girlish curve anywhere, but was built like a box—a shallow box skidding from the bend toward a floating white jug.

Despite the tide rushing in, the jug didn’t move. It pointed down river, toward the brown bay, cutting a V in the current. Coming near, Barry twisted the throttle and the waah! subsided. The garvey’s bow lowered, and he scratched his bearded face. It was a young face, but weathered. Tired, you might say. Actually, Barry and his boat looked in about the same condition. As the boat needed paint and showed scrapes and gouges, Barry’s clothes needed mending and his hands and arms showed scars. This Flynn and his garvey, it seemed, were of the same tough Jersey cedar, but in need of an overhaul.

After drifting to the jug, the motor huff-huffing, Barry stood and reached out with his boat hook, snagging the rope tied to the jug’s handle. He tugged upward and the jug arose dripping, half white, half black with algae. For a moment he stared, as if he hadn’t noticed its two-faced appearance before. He seemed about to say something, but instead dropped the jug to the floorboards and began hauling up the rope. Soon a rusty trap broke the surface.

“Morning, friends,” he said, swinging the trap onto the gunnel. Barry smiled down
at the crabs clinging inside to the wire. “Interrupt something?” Sometimes he hated barging in on them, especially when they were eating. These crabs appeared in deep communion, and ignored him.

“Be that way,” Barry snorted. He heaved his anchor over the bow, yanked the line to set the flukes, then shut off the motor. “Be whatever you want,” he said, opening a red cooler near the stern. “’Cause soon you’ll be sautéed.” He snatched up a beer can and popped the tab. The can hissed, and dripping foam on the crabs he took a long drink. Sighing, he took a longer drink, then crushed the can and tossed it in the water. It began floating upriver.

Barry brought out two more cans, opened them, and flopped back in the stern with
a can in each hand, sipping from one then the other. He raised the brim of his greasy cap, exhaled contentedly and looked around. The Egg Harbor River was wider here near the last bend before emptying into the bay. No houses bordered the bank; just marsh, then trees. The sky was as grey as the paint on his boat, and across it, far ahead, rising from a single pale stack, stretched the plume from the power plant. It veered to the north hard and white, then spread and was gone.

“Gone where?” Barry asked. Lips pursed, he took a right-hand sip of beer. The sip continued and he felt its icy flow spread like the plume. “Everywhere!” he belched, and tossed the can.

Smiling, he turned on his portable radio. A favorite song was playing, black girls shouting, a wild saxophone, and Barry sucked down his left-hand beer and flung the can over his shoulder. From inside the trap a crab stared up at him, its mouthparts working silently.

“Don’t wait so long,” Barry sang. He stood and opened the trap. “Got to have it,” he whined, pumping his hips. The music quickened and Barry reached in and grabbed the crab. “Let’s dance!”

Holding the crab by the points of its shell, he rocked round the boat to the music. The crab tapped its claws as if keeping time. “Can you hully gully?” Barry cried, shuffling his feet, wagging his heels in and out. He scrunched his bearded face, moaning “ooh mama yeah.” Then he lowered the crab and hopped around the floorboards. The radio crackled and the black girls sang. The crab clicked its claws, the saxophone howled, and Barry’s bottom swung like a sack full of clams . . . against the trap, knocking it off the gunnel.

“Cheeses!” he yelled, lunging for the jug as the crab pinched his finger. “Cheeses Christ!” Flicking his hand he flung the crab upward, then watched it spin as it climbed through the air. At the top of the arc it hung for an instant as if grabbing hold, reaching out with its claws like a crabby star. But immediately came its tumbling drop, its awkward splash.

“Hully sea-gully,” Barry said, standing there holding the jug. The song stopped and he switched off the radio. He hauled up the trap and set it once more on the gunnel. All but three crabs had escaped. “Lucky bastards,” he muttered. Then he flipped the trap and shook it. The crabs fell into the river.

“Go on—beat it,” he said. “Old Curt Madison won’t miss you.”

After fastening the lid, Barry dropped the trap over the side. The jug leaped after it and flopped on the water. Only its white half showed again. Then Barry smiled toward the galvanized tub under the bow seat. “But you guys ain’t going nowheres.” He pulled out the tub and winked inside. Hundreds of blue crabs lay piled on one another—damp feathery crabs, bubbles at their mouths. He kicked the tub under the seat.

Kneeling at the stern he yanked the cord and the motor started. Then he pulled up
the anchor and the motor stopped—it idled, coughed and died. Barry swore loudly and threw out the anchor. He stomped back to the motor and squeezed the siphon ball on the gas line. The motor was fifteen years old, a ’60, so anything was possible. All the same, this wasn’t how he’d planned to spend his morning. “Don’t do this to me, you bastard.” He pulled the starter cord, nothing happened, and he punched the gas can, shouting, “I’m warning you,” and pulled the cord once more. The motor sputtered to life. “That’s better.” He brought in the anchor.

Soon he was heading down river. Behind him the bleach jug bobbed. The motor now released an undeviating howl and Barry, grasping its steering arm, guided the garvey around the last bend. An egret watched one-eyed from the bank. With a cry Barry couldn’t hear, the tall bird lifted its white wings and swept itself into the air, its serpent neck curved and thin legs straight, and flew slowly across the marsh. Then Barry surged out of the bend and could see, distant to starboard, the massive blue power plant, all straight lines and corners, with at its center the tall stack, and the white plume rising from the stack before catching the breeze across the bay. Beneath the plume stretched a line of grey electric towers, and beyond them, where the bay narrowed before spreading again, two shadowed bridges. Each familiar image aligned snugly
in his mind, and he was heading for the towers, cruising down the center of the bay where it was wide and deep, no longer a river, telling himself he was almost home, when the engine died again. First it made a puffing noise, “unh uh,” as if saying no.

Suddenly the bay was quiet, with only the sound of water lapping the hull. Barry sat saying nothing. He sniffed, seeking the scent of gasoline, but instead smelled the salt
of the ocean filling the bay. The tide, he knew, would be against him for hours. With
a groan he looked out over the water, toward the electric towers. He thought about crabs crawling deep beneath them, immersed in their concerns. He thought about Curt Madison’s crabs, and wondered briefly if it was wrong to steal them. Of course, he didn’t exactly steal them, or clams either, because he just took a few when needed. But he wondered if taking them was related to his engine not starting, or to other things for him not starting. “That’s stupid,” he said. “Crabs and such belong to none but theirselves.” That settled, he brought out the oars.

Apart from the slowness, there was one big problem with rowing a boat. It was something Barry had never gotten used to, although his father, Big Barry, when Barry was young, made him row boats in the rain, the cold and the heat, on the theory that a bayman should be able to extricate himself, under his own power, from any situation. “The predicaments of life,” Big Barry had said, “will sneak up and grab your posterior, and your posterior had best be prepared.”

So now a fly in the fuel line, or maybe a fouled plug had stopped Barry’s outboard, sneaked up on his posterior, and Barry was ready, could row to Atlantic City if he
had to, but he would have preferred to face forward. That was the problem—the backwardness of rowing, not seeing where he was going. Backward, maybe nothing could sneak up on you, because you were already looking back, but you could sneak yourself into a predicament just the same.

He rowed. Seated on the red cooler, with the outboard tilted up and one foot braced against the stern seat he rowed the wide cedar boat toward the power lines, toward the reach between the fourth and fifth tower . . . and farther north toward Patcong Creek where he would turn and keep rowing until he reached the boat yard. That was miles, with the tide coming in and the wind picking up. Everything was pushing against him and he felt the muscles in his back and his breath in his throat. It made him thirsty. So he opened another beer, and rowed and drank, while the waves hit the bow with a smack, smack—little shoves. The wind whistled. Then he heard something and turned to see under the power lines a cabin cruiser heading fast in his direction. “Holy shit,” he whispered, spotting the insignia of the marine police. “The bastards wanta help me.” He couldn’t allow that. Yanking in the oars he stood and waved the police away. But they came near.

“You okay?” a skinny officer shouted, standing by the transom as the boat slowed. Barry knew him—Sergeant Brochard.

“Getting my exercise!” Barry shouted back. “Fitness first, I always say!”

“Need a tow?” Brochard yelled.

Barry with a smile gazed down at his feet. “Nah—I got all ten. You go chase some robbers.”

Something about the joke made Brochard grimace. “Right,” he said. He gave a nod to the helmsman and the boat sped away.

“And while you’re at it, fuck yourselves!” Barry called after them, snapping a jaunty salute.

He sat down and picked up his beer. Taking a long drink, he felt the tension drain
away. That had been close. But those crabs in the tub weren’t branded like cows,
he reminded himself. “Ain’t no robbers out here, or cattle rustlers neither.” He was guiltless—Barry the Blameless, as innocent as the day he was born—and with that certainty he gazed toward the distant towers. The sun was appearing now, burning away the overcast and lighting up the water. The bay sparkled around him, and he lowered the brim of his cap as something caught his eye. Far off on the left bank, a short beach stretched in front of a big brown house. A small white house sat nearby. Three figures were leaving the brown house. They ran to the beach and seemed to jump. They merged, then separated again.

Barry watched them awhile. He finished his beer and lobbed the can toward them, then began rowing once more. He watched them as he rowed. He had seen people
on that beach before but ignored them. Now they seemed to want his attention, and
the sun was hotter, and the beach was closer than the boat yard. He turned his garvey and headed for the beach. Maybe someone would give him a lift to Vanderbilt’s.
_______________________________________________________
Robert L. Bacon
theperfectwrite.com

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