OLD McDONALD PARK By Mark Barkawitz

My little brother Bruce and I were renowned as Speedy and Swifty in the tackle football games at McDonald Park in the early-to-mid ’60s.  I don’t recall who of us was which—Speedy or Swifty?—but I do remember that I learned to swear like a barroom brawler, while playing in those games.

If you go to McDonald Park today, you’ll find a square-block of grass fields for youth soccer and football, lots of park toys for the younger kids, basketball, handball, and volleyball courts.  But back in the ’60s, the geography was quite different.  The northernmost area of the block bordered by Bell Street was actually a fenced-off, covered reservoir, which of course had to be totally flat to accommodate water storage.  That created a steep drop-off on the southern half of the block, which was then the accessible park.  A few swings and a small merry-go-round, benches, and the concrete bathroom were at the top of the evergreen-lined hill.  But the largest part of McDonald Park in those days was its grass-covered hillside on Mountain Street on which we waged merciless tackle football games on weekends and after school in the football season.  I say merciless because we played without helmets or shoulder pads and the out-of-bounds line on the downhill side of the field was the sidewalk—and there were no referees—which made for brutal, high-speed tackles onto concrete, plenty of unnecessary roughness, and the accompanying profanities.

“Get off me, you mother *#x#/*!”

I broke my left wrist there and was in a cast for six weeks.  So I switched to offensive lineman and used my mortared forearm to block.
I still remember the de-cleating tackle I put on my seventh-grade classmate and good friend Gary Mercado, which separated him from the football when he landed upside-down on his head.   He was a big guy at tight end but I hit him just right from behind while he was still in the air after catching a pass.  Luckily, he didn’t break his neck.
“Oh-h-h, *#x#!” he swore.

My little brother and I were small for our age.  But we were both quick-as-a-puma ball-carriers, who could reverse course at will, running thirty yards—up and down that hill—to gain ten yards from the line of scrimmage, thus wearing down our larger opponents.  We earned our nicknames as two impossible-to-tackle halfbacks—Speedy and Swifty.   Thirty years later, a guy named Cal Yocum—who reads scripts for the studios now and still lives on Mar Vista Avenue just up the block from my mother and the park—recognized me as Speedy.   “Or was it Swifty?” he asked.  I couldn’t tell him.

We played pick-up games with Bobby Hatch and his Michigan Avenue buddies, the fraternal twins Alvin and Melvin Johnson, who lived on Bell Street, and Chris Swayne and Michael F_____, who was a few years older.  Tall and strong-armed, Mike played quarterback, launching field-long, end-zone bombs.  He later changed his name to Michael L__ because the FBI was after him for draft evasion.   He sang in a rock band called Dust and played lead guitar—a Jimi Hendrix wanna-be—with Swayne on the keyboard.  They were pretty good, too.  And though they always bragged of a pending record deal, it never materialized.  Hard drugs and alcohol did.  The last time I bumped into Mike was at Memorial Park.  He was homeless—an alcoholic-crack head wrapped in a dirty blanket—and didn’t even recognize me.

“Remember—McDonald Park?  Speedy?  Swifty?”

He just shook his downcast head slowly—no.  “You gotta unnerstan’,” he said, barely above a whisper.  “I’m not right no more.”
I heard he died a few months later.

CANNONBALL EXPRESS by F.N. Wright

He traveled the globe with the world’s most famous circus. His specialty being shot from a cannon. The night before they were to open at Madison Square garden his lover, The Bearded Lady ended their relationship.

Opening night he primed the cannon with enough black powder to fire a 16 incher from the U.S.S. Missouri. He had the cannon’s barrel pointed in such a way his body would peak near the top of the tent, center ring.

His blood and body parts and bone splattered the entire audience who cried in unison for an encore as the gore dripped from their skyward looking faces.

Life Among the Mangled by RD Armstrong

Click on the beard

The Ghost in Cell #6 by DB Cox

I sit in this monochrome room, nodding into the dusty half-light that filters through air holes in the ceiling. My mind is wrapped in defective daydreams that have become one with the dreamer. My fists are down to the bone from pointless pounding against stone. My heart is wasting away, one burnt-out cell at a time. It continues to beat, only because it can.

Nothing in this gray box is real. Not the bench where I sit. Not the filthy, sweat-stained mattress on the floor. Not the meaningless words of defiance scratched into concrete walls. Rallying cries that once burned blood red—now as cold as the rebels who breathed them.
____

Somewhere, close by, a steel door slams. The “laughing man” makes his way down the corridor with his “tools of persuasion.”

The revolt has been crushed. My brother has been found and executed. I have nothing else of value to give up. I have become a “lab animal” for the imagineers of torture—twisted men in white collars who stand with the guards and watch as the fat man in the tan uniform puts the puppet through his paces.
_____

When the beam of light is turned on my face, they expect a show. I will not let them down. There are no longer any limits to my capacity for pain.

I have learned to play out the implications of my sacred role in this comedy of suffering. Every inquiry and response from the repetitious interrogation has been burned by time into my brain. When prodded with the electric baton, I ask the standard questions and reply with my usual denying answers. I am both the “inquisitor” and the “accused.”

To carry on with this insanity, I must convince myself that the cause is real. To survive, I have to believe that my brother is still alive. To prove that I exist, I must feel the sting—I must hear the sound of my voice…

“Jose de Rivera, where is your brother, Miguel, the anarchist?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you hidden him in the past?”

“No.”

“We will free you if you tell us where he is.”

“I do not know where he is.”

Another searing jolt—I do not scream. I begin to cry the idiot tears of a madman. The audience is amused. The fat man howls with derisive laughter.
_____

I am a ghost in revolt, abiding inside a forever-hungry leviathan—a bone-cold manhole where no rebels march—no banners fly—no drums roll—no fires blaze.

There are no dying cries from the martyr. No holy names to invoke.

Sometimes, hurt is just hurt.

Flash Fiction X 6

Click on photo

The Day of the Dead by Alan Catlin

I marked the day on my calendar as the first Sunday of the month, the Day of the Dead. It was the pits of summer chronologically but it was a November of the mind inside the bar I was working in. Never work someone else’s shift is a golden rule to live by, especially a Sunday shift.  I’d learned from that mistake long ago but do I  remember these things when in a moment of weakness or intoxication? No. I most definitely was under the influence of Something when I agreed to work behind the stick.

It wasn’t The War of the Worlds outside that last Sunday I filled in.  It was more like  Creatures from the Black Lagoon on parade. I swore I saw one of the bozos whip out a copy of War of the Newts for an inspirational reading before the whole sick crew went into a spontaneous scrum in the middle of the barroom. They seemed intent on reenacting their last rugby game inside the Washington Tavern and what followed could  be described as free style, indoor, Australian Rules Football using furniture for blocks and the unsuspecting customers for tackling dummies.  Even the police were impressed when they finally got enough of them to the bar to quell the disturbance.  The whole time they were filling out reports and dragging away screaming Neanderthals tranquilized by well placed nightstick shots, all I could think of was, “What kind of plausible story would explain this?’

I’d learned a long time ago that there are three sides to every story; your version, my version and the truth.  No one would believe the truth in this case.  At least, not the owner and he was the only one that mattered.
“You allowed what to happen?”
“It looked like a spontaneous indoor rugby game to me.”
“A spontaneous indoor rugby game?”
“That’s what I said.”

He looked incredulous despite the fact that  my shifts had a reputation for the unusual, even the spectacular but rarely the impossible.  Having a police report to back up my strange tale certainly helped. At least, I wasn’t fired but it was enough to make me swear off Sundays.  Until the next time.
That Sunday was almost in the books as just another boring night in jukebox hell when she hit the door. I couldn’t tell how old she was, not that it really mattered. She was into cadging Gin Rickeys from the bar flies by showing way too much of her ample breasts an exuding and icy sexual fire. Her slick body language almost compensated for her washed-out eyes, steely demeanor and a nerve deadening horse laugh that penetrated right to the core of the bar rack Calvert’s Extra Dry.

Looking into her eyes revealed a personality that sucked in souls  somewhere beyond  the absolute zeros of her mind. Wavering in body but not in spirit she said, with a very determined air, “I ain’t having no welfare baby, dude, that’s for sure so mind your face and shut your trap.  Ain’t nobody here gonna be causing you no trouble. Ease up and keep the drinks flowing.”

I watched as she sucked down a handful of different colored pills with the new double ration of gin on the bar.  Finishing the whole drink in one swallow, she slid the empty glass across the wood and said,” Make it the same way. And while you’re at it, one for all my friends at the bar.”
“Not ’til I see some long green.”
“No problema.” She said, pulling a rumpled fifty from her too tight pants. “This oughta cover whatever the boys and I are having.  Take out for one for yourself.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” I said pouring myself an industrial strength Dewar’s and water, overcharging her five bucks for the tip she would forget to leave at the end of the transaction.
“What this babe really needs is a slim hipped dude for some slow dancing and some under cover work, up close and personal.” She said to no one in particular. I almost pitied the next character who would be coming through the door, the father of her premature child. It would be his own fault for not knowing any better than to mess with a crazy bitch in heat on a Sunday night, acting as if free love in this life were really free. It didn’t take a philosopher or a history major to know:’ain’t nothing free in this life’. Especially not a crazy woman with a tricky drinking problem, an almost endless supply of illegal bad drugs and a tendency for strange accidents.

I sucked on my scotch as she popped quarters in the jukebox selecting tunes that went over the edge after Santana doing “Evil Ways.” I could even see the lucky couple to be, late on a Sunday morning, grinding away in the back room, staring at each other as they sang along to “Bette Davis Eyes”.  In my mind, I could see them as silhouettes, limned by a neon jukebox glow, sliding into an endless night toward a fire door that always flashed, No Exit.

Cognitive Distortion by Michael Estabrook

“It’s not an ego thing is it? I don’t like thinking it is an ego thing.” I am trying to sit calmly, relaxed. Nicole crosses her arms over her chest, thoughtfully.
“No, I don’t think it is. I really don’t.” She pauses, one of those full, ripe, pregnant psychologist’s pauses. “It’s more of a cognitive distortion.”
“A what? Not sure of ever heard of that one.”
“Also known as an irrational thought.”
“Oh yes, I’m familiar with those,” I quip.

Nicole smiles one of those reserved psychologist’s smiles as if to say, “Here, here, clueless man, this is nothing to be taking lightly.” Then she explains how certain situations or events or even feelings can trigger an automatic irrational thought, a bad memory usually, seemingly from out of nowhere which in turn can trigger fear or anguish or even panic of some kind, the back of your neck getting all cold and sweaty.

“Yes, I see. I can see exactly how that is happening to me.”
“Excellent,” she responds, “So give me an example.”

I stop and think. There are so many examples, or should I say so many situations or events conjuring up the same miserable memory from my past which in turn triggers anxiety or fear in me today. “And it’s always the same cascade of feelings. Something uncomfortable occurs which immediately, in the blink of a moment, flings me back to that time in college when I could have lost my girl, that time she sent me away so she could go on a blind date with another guy. That unforeseen event was quite a shock to my system.”

“Yes, I imagine it could have been. What kind of feeling does it produce in you today?”

I flick through them in my mind. “Rejection, abandonment, betrayal, but mostly fear, the fear of losing her. It overwhelms me like a tsunami. An instantaneous massive depression pulls me right under and I feel the same way I did back then. – confused, shocked, lost, hopeless, helpless, alone, useless, unworthy. I could have lost her, the most beautiful girl I have ever known, I could have lost her.”

Nicole nods her head, “Now the question is, what do you think the probability is that this bad thing, her leaving you, will actually happen?  What are the chances that today, after being married to each other for 40 years, she will suddenly pick up and leave you, find some other man and leave you?”
I blow our some air. “Well, she’s the most honest, conscientious and loyal person I’ve ever . . .”
“So what are the odds she would leave you now, today, for another man or for any reason at all?”
I cringe. “Intellectually, I have a hard time imagining her leaving me.”
“OK, so there you have it. Now we just have to get you there emotionally.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. But how do we do that?”
“We start by making another appointment for next week.”

I-79 by Benjamin Morris

Morgantown, West Virginia

It’s real hot outside. We’re on our way to buy pop for mom when we find this car just sitting by the side of the road. It doesn’t look like much of a car anymore.  It’s all beat up like somebody fought with it all night, like something wrong happened. I see glass and a t-shirt. I’m with my little brother. All the windows are rolled down.

Grace Makes up for Beauty by Ally Malinenko

Grace makes up for beauty. That was her mother’s motto, one hand pressed firmly against the girl’s back, the other on her already bulging stomach. Her mother’s fingers were cold, always.

Grace makes up for beauty. She would repeat it, her hands held carefully over her head. She kept her eyes trained on the mirror, always at the face, never at the body, never at the ripples, never at the pockets of flesh that started to bubble around the upper thigh, which you could still see through her thick tights.

Grace makes up for beauty. She whispered it, sweeping down one hand, laying it near her thigh. As a reminder, once for her behavior her mother made her do this naked. Now she could never get the image of her fat rippling over her hip as she bent down out of her mind.

Grace makes up for beauty. Smile, her mother said. Smile. You have beautiful teeth. Head back, chin up. Smile. When I was a child, her mother said, I could eat whatever I wanted. Then I became a teenager and turned stocky. You have my genes. We must be careful.

Grace makes up for beauty. Hold your back straight, her mother snapped. She would nod slightly, barely maintaining her balance, and retreat to a place inside her head. Inside there was a story she told herself, about a girl on another planet where it always rained. And the one day it didn’t, the one day the girl predicted it wouldn’t rain, she was locked in the basement. Suffering.
Grace makes up for beauty, she said out loud, the hanger in her shaking hand, the acid eating her throat, the blood in the toilet. Suffering is beautiful she thought, it makes up for humiliation. It makes up for her urgent need. It makes up for sin. It makes up for her sex and the burning need she felt there. Suffering makes up for loss. Her bladder constricted, held for hours too long, strained and released just a bit. Just a small warm amount. She smiled at the warmth. Suffering makes up for beauty too, just like Grace.

Judgment Day by ED MARKOWSKI

At  the  last  second  of  the  last  minute  of  the  last  hour  on  the  last  day,  he  arrived  at  the  corner  of  Broadway  and  Waverly  in  a  super  nova  silver  1962  T – Bird  convertible  that  was  decked  out  with  full  moon  hubcaps,  black  velvet  bucket  seats,  skirts,  four – hundred  ravenous  white,  red,  black,  and  pale  horsemen  galloping  under  the  hood,  and  an  absolutely  wicked  bundle  of  blonde  dynamite  who  was  wrapped  from  north  to  south,  east  to  west,  head  to  toe,  and  beginning  to  end,  in  a  magnetic  black  dress,  woven  from  the  finest  ancient  threads  of  pure  lust  and  desire.  The  man  lit  a  cigarette,   hopped  up  on  the  T – Bird’ s  trunk,  brushed  a  fly  off  of  his  Jeter  Jersey,  and addressed  the  crowd  ……..

“ Ladies  and  gentlemen,  pimps,  priests,  evangelists,  faith  healers,  popes,  deacons, preachers,  televangelists,  stock  market  shills,  and,  all  of  you  bookies,  thieves, tea leave  seers,  tarot  card  readers,  bag  ladies,  drunks,  dopers,  and  blind  beggars  with 20 – 20  vision  who  work  vigilantly  every  day  to  earn  an  honest  dollar,  the  woman  with me  today  is  my  beloved  wife,  the  former  Miss  Sarah  Good  of  Salem,  Massachusetts, who  along  with  eighteen  other  innocents  dangled,  swung,  and  died  at  the  peak  of Gallows  Hill,  put  to  death  by  those  who  dwelt  in  and defended  the  stench  of  my  old man ‘s  brutal  philosophy  in  1692.

Now,  in  defense  of  my  own  name,  I  want  each  and  every  one  of  you  to  know  that  I  had  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  any  of  the  fucking  lunacy  that  has  stalked,  surrounded,  mocked,  and  terrorized  all  of  us  for  the  past  two – thousand four – hundred  and  eighty  years.  Look  at  the  world  you  inhabit.  War,  famine,  drought, children  killing  children,  pedophilia,  aids,  ebola,  cancer,  heroin,  cocaine,  and  religion.

Think  about  Adam  and  Eve.  Think  Job.  Think  Cain  and  Abel.  Think  about  forcing entire  families,  including  defenseless  infants  and  elders,  to  wander  through  a  desert for  forty  years.  If  those  examples  don ‘t  shed  enough  light  on  what  constitutes  a good  time  in  my  old  man’ s  mind,  think  about  this  ……..  Not  only  did  my  old  man allow  those  Roman  freaks  to  hang  me,  pound  nails  through  my  hands  and  feet,  spear me,  and  quench  my  thirst  with  a  vinegar  soaked  sponge,  he  set  the  whole  thing  up.

What  kind  of  father  allows  his  only  begotten  son  to  suffer  that  degree  of  pain  and humiliation?  Now,  answer  this  question,  If  your  kids  were  running  a  lemonade  stand, would  you  hire  the  neighborhood  rapist  to  pound  nails  through  their  hands  and  feet in  order  to  satisfy  some  sick  craving  for  power?  Would  you  pull  out  the  extension ladder   so  you  could  witness  the  horror  from  the  roof  of  your  house?   What  kind  of man  would  commit  such  crimes ?  My  father.

Remember,  my  old  man ‘s  the  guy  who  breathed  life  into  Rasputin,  The  Marquise  de Sade, the  puritan  serial  killers  who   hung  my  wife,  George  Custer,  Hitler,  Stalin,  Pol  Pot,  Chuck Manson,  Susie  Atkins,  Ted  Bundy,  Jong  IL,  IL  Sung,  Osama  B.,  and  the  guy  who  runs  the other  aspect  of  the  old  man ‘s  empire,  Lucifer.

Well,  we  got  together  last  night.  We  decided  we  just  couldn’ t  let  things  end  the  way  the  old  man  had  written  it,  so  we  changed  the  script.  He  was  executed  last  night  at 11 : 59  and  59  seconds pm.  We  canceled  his  insane  rapture  event.  None  of  you,  your friends,  loved  ones,  paper  boy,  grocer,  barber,  bookie  or  mechanic  will  be  going  anywhere.

You can rest easy.  When  your  kids  board  the  bus,  you  won’ t  have  to  worry  about  the driver  ascending  or  descending  on  a  cloud  from  behind  the  steering  wheel.

We  also  decided  to  shut  down  the  old  man ‘s  concentration  camps.  After  the  inmates  were released,  heaven  and  hell  were  razed.  For  all  of  you  Catholics  in  the  crowd,  we  sent  in the  heavy  equipment  this  morning,  purgatory  and  limbo  are  no  more,  so  be  prepared  to meet  all  the  fence  sitters  and  unbaptized  infants  you  thought  you’ d  never  see  again.

Ok  New  York  City,  Frank  told  me  if  I  could  make  it  here,  the  rest  would  be  cake  and I’d  have  the  rest  of  the  world  on  a  string.  Sarah  and  I  have  to  be  in  Boston  by  eight tonight.  We ‘ve  got  reservations  at  the  Motel  Six  in  Salem.  After  we  tie  up  a  few  loose ends,  it’ s  on  to  Buffalo,  Erie,  Cleveland,  Detroit,  and  that  Toddlin’  Town.

So,  have  a  great  time  tonight.  Eat,  drink,  dance,  do  it  with  the  one  you  love,  or  at least  like  a  little  bit,  and  one last  thing,  now  that  he’ s  been  judged,  removed,  eliminated, and exposed,  we ‘re  renaming  the  planet  Eden. “