LT Saloon

May Edition 2009

The Day the Dead Walked the Streets

Written by Ken Carman

Had I seen too many movies?

I admit I spent my popcorn munching youth watching Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead type fare’. Or maybe it was from watching Twilight Zone all the time, or Alfred Hitchcock flicks.

Who knows.

Except I thought I knew exactly what to expect when the dead clawed out of their coffins and then dug themselves out of their own graves. They came down the hill from Oak Hill Cemetery: my mother, my neighbor, the preacher I hated, the teacher too quick with the paddle, the murderer who killed the lady across the street. The sound of the moaning was horrible and the night before just right; dark, spooky; yet a full moon peaking out now and then. That was last night, and it was perfect: quiet as a blade of grass, gently brushing thier gravestones with an annoying “whisk, whisk, whisk…” the exact kind of atmosphere any self respecting ghoul would sloppily drool all over himself for.

Do ghouls respect themselves? After what has happened to our little town, I wonder.

We should have figured it out that something was wrong. Very wrong.

Why would they rise from their graves at 10 in the morning?

Children screamed. Dogs howled and left town. Cats did what cats always do: stare and look away as they lazed in the hot summer sun. At 10 am it was already 100 degrees. The stench was incredible.

A couple of brave; I would admit now “foolish,” souls ran out with their guns, swords, knives and bats… but nothing seemed to stop them. Besides, after a while we all just stared like our cats at them, only we couldn’t look away. Our loved ones, the bullies, the bastards… they just walked by us. They ignored us.

What the hell?

I; one of the many formerly “brave” souls, finally started to plead with them, “What do you want? Why are you here? Do you even remember me?”

One of the dead, a once sexy seductress who had worms feasting, looked through me, but said with her raggedy, raspy, rotting, vocal chords…

“I could kill for a shower.”

Then she showed her rotted teeth to me with a growl as if to bite. No one dared do anything to stop them after that. Yeah, they had us fooled.

How would you feel if you were locked in a small box for years and years, other than crazed? What would you long for? We never guessed…

Now we can’t get rid of them. They stay in the showers all day, all night, trying to eliminate a smell that will never: ever, go away. But they do drag themselves out every once in a while and then empty our fridges; threatening us if we don’t refill them with more food…. hoping to satisfy a hunger that can never go away. Cleaning up after them is impossible. Only plumbers are getting rich: what few there are. Once they see what plugs up the plumbing they quickly decide they’d rather do something; anything, else for a living.

The dead don’t bite. That’s a myth. They do lay in our beds, on our couches… spreading their stench everywhere. Their stench is impossible to get rid of. The best place for the dead is in the shower. It cuts down on the smell.

Nothing “kills” them, and even the legs and arms hang around if you cut them off, and drag themselves everywhere. They even reintegrate whole bodies out of puffs of blood red mist when you use dynamite on them.

Who could have guessed the dead; many who worked good, steady jobs when they were alive, would be such freeloaders?

There’s nothing we can do. The expense alone almost makes me wish they would kill me so I could become one, instead of put up with one.

Damn, I hate house guests.

_____________________________

©Copyright 2009
Ken Carman
all rights reserved

"I''m still hungry!!! Is the fridge full?"

OVERHEATING AGAIN

Written by Millie Jenny C.

(7/12/2005)

All of a sudden. . .
WHAM. . .
A BOILING THAT SEEMS TO RISE AND RISE.
OK . . .
HERE I GO “OVERHEATING AGAIN. . .”
Waking in the middle of the night. . .
Throwing off the covers.
Starting to cool off again.
Slip serenely off to sleep.
Then I’m startled awake
Try to find the discarded covers
Without totally waking myself up again.
Now I’m Cold. . .
Alright. . .ALRIGHT.
Enough of this.
I was with a friend over the weekend,
All of a sudden, I saw her picking up a menu to fan herself.
You too, huh?
Her tale was of night sweats
That soaked her bed. . . .
And I noticed beads of sweat the next time
The makeshift fan came out.
Maybe it’s not so bad with me.
I feel flushed, but the sweat doesn’t pour off me.
I guess I should be glad. . .
But then again at 3 AM. . .
I’m not quite as patient. . .
Time to STOP!
Hot flashes!
________________________________
©Copyright 2005
Millie Jenny C.
all rights reserved

WMD We

Written by Ken Carman

Weapons we choose
Phrases abused
Shorthand for suicide
Homilies
To homicide
How easy
How odd
How strange…
How very deranged
When words
Become weaponized
_________________________
©Copyright 2009
Ken Carman
all rights reserved

"Two for you, four for me?"

The Burden

Written by Jenn Weinshenker

“Storm’s comin in from the west
looks rough
we’d better put up those chairs in the shed.”

“You think we’ll have a tornado this time?”

“Might, could.”

“Look at those clouds.
Don’t they look like the scales of a fish?
Have you ever seen such a thing before?”

“The wind is ripping through them trees
they’re all over the place
we’d better pull in that table too.
Grab that end?”

“You know, I never thought about it before
But I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what people thought.
Tornadoes were dragons flying around,
shaking the earth,
breathing smoke and fire
and destroying everything in its way?”

“It makes total sense.”

“I mean, we talk about it now and we know what tornadoes do.
If something heavy like a truck
Finds its way to the top of some tree
We are confounded by it.
People must have seen lots of immoveable things
Picked up and thrown the distance only a god could have?
Lightning must have been quite the arrow,
Thunder, thunder that could run through a tree
And electrocute a whole herd of sheep
Huddling together in the midst of the storm
How do you explain something like that
when you don’t know what it is?”

“I can see that.
I know what tornadoes are
and they still scare me.
The sky is turning neon green.
We’d better get inside.
Have you seen Ruby?”

“No.
Is she out?”

“I think so.”

“Rubeee.
There you are girl.
Let’s get you inside.”

We hurried down the basement stairs
and crawled beneath the mattresses
we had propped up
against the far back
cement block wall.

We felt the wind rattling around our old brick house as
rain and hale pelted through the windows and walls.
It sounded like a war zone out there.

“You think the house will hold?”

“Hope so.”

The ground under the foundation
started to move,
like it was floating on waves of water.
For a brief instant it felt like all of the air
had been sucked out of the room,
and then
it got quiet.
No birds, no crickets,
not the sound of a human being,
nothing.
And then it hit again.

All night storms
carved their way through the prairieland corridor.
In the morning we heard voices murmuring outside.
We looked around.
There were streaks of light across the concrete floor.

Ruby was gone.
So was the house.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, are you?”

“I’m still alive
but my muscles are sore as hell.”

We crawled out from under our soggy cave
and walked up the stairs into a
great big wide open.

Bright sparks of sun reflected off of shards of broken glass.
Bricks, splintered wood, kitchen appliances
and cars had been indiscriminately thrown over the
remaining
scrap yard.

At the corner we could see young people
walking away
so many of them
walking right off the end of the earth.
It was as though the whole planet was encircled by them.
And it didn’t matter where you were in the line
Because it never ended
Not the spinning and
Not the people

They were hauling this bloodstained rope.
It was thicker than a mason’s fist.
From one shoulder to the next
they strained forward
and marched.

“What are you carrying?”

“Don’t know
but don’t worry.”
“We’re almost there.”

We stood there and watched the living organism
carrying its burden
of muscle and flesh
without end
without complaint.

____________________________
©2009
Jenn Weinshenker
All Rights Reserved

Too Early for Cold Coffee

Written by Sennebec

“Jacob Trufelman, eh,” I set tomorrow’s paper down so I could finish my coffee before it got cold. Don’t get me wrong, cold coffee has its place, but never before lunchtime, and absolutely not until the first job of the day is out of the way. A guy in my profession has to have standards. Bourbon before the sun’s over the yardarm is verboten too, although there are times…

After rinsing my cup and setting it just so in the strainer, I checked the paper again before folding it. I was sure I had the address memorized, but better safe than sorry when working on a tight schedule.

It was a typical early April day, clammy, overcast, with a sharp northwest breeze which made me really glad the company issued good quality windbreakers. I let the engine warm while I rummaged through my toolkit in the trunk. Yeah, I know the operations staff downtown is good, but I’ve been nipped a couple times when a rookie repacked things and I wasn’t in any mood for starting Monday with someone else’s screw up.

According to the paper, Trufelman lived just off the interstate where it curved around Lake Auburn. If the details were correct, I had just over an hour to get there. I backed out, taking care to look left twice. You never know when one of those Kawasaki jockeys from Marble St. is going to come over the crest of that blind hill and mash his brains all over the side of my car. It has nearly happened twice, screwing up my schedule both times. Sorry if I don’t sound compassionate, but when you’re on a tight schedule, compassion has to take a back seat. Same reason I don’t stop when I pass an accident.

Fog was rolling across all four lanes of I-77 when I reached the exit. I made certain I was going slowly as I banked into the looping curve which took me onto Lake Auburn Drive. The temperature reading on my dash said 35, but I’ve seen it drop like a bad stock market this time of year. No sense tempting fate with all the moisture in the air this morning.

Trufelman answered the door almost immediately. He wasn’t as old as I expected, although he had that telltale grayness which I see all too often in my line of work. Although we had never met, he was expecting me.

“You know where it happens?”

I nodded, again, another part of the job. I’m used to it by now. Hey, if I didn’t know, why the heck would I be here now, but there’s no point in stating the obvious in my line of work. “In the bathroom while you’re toweling off after your shower. No hurry though, you have almost half an hour.”

He blanched at my bluntness. Coming face to face with your own mortality does that, I guess. Even though our services are included as an employee benefit, I don’t know anyone who has signed up. I’m not that curious about my future.

I accepted a cup of very strong coffee, declining cream and sugar. The less I had to clean up after the fact, the happier I’d be. Weak rays of sunshine were breaking through over the lake when I set my cup down and raised an eyebrow inquiringly.

“This going to hurt?”

“Beats me,” I said. “Never had the pleasure, so I can’t say.”

I let Trufelman lead the way, waiting outside the bathroom as he showered. I opened my bag and got out the kit when I heard the water shut off. I’ll give him credit, he displayed no false modesty when he stood on the bath mat and started drying off.

He uttered a nearly inaudible gasp as the towel slid from his hands. I made certain I stood clear as he crumpled to the bathroom floor. No need to create any suspicions. I pulled on a pair of disposable gloves and extended the TR20. After checking to make sure it was functioning and connected to the laptop on the front seat of my car, I went to work. Because he was naked and not terribly large, the procedure took less than five minutes. I did a quick rescan before shutting the wand off and putting it away. After rinsing the two coffee cups, I dried mine and put it back in the cupboard, leaving Trufelman’s in the strainer. As soon as I closed the front door, I stripped off the gloves and stuck them in my pocket.

As I sat at my kitchen table, sipping cold coffee while adding notes to the scan report. I had to wonder why the guy had bothered to buy a policy. Truth to tell, his sin profile was among the dullest I’d seen in the past couple years. Heck that grossly obese woman last Friday had taken ten times as long to clean up and there were things on her list that still made my ears burn. Now that his soul cleansing was complete, Mr. T. was gonna be on the express lane to heaven for sure.
___________________________________
©Copyright 2009
Sennebec
all rights reserved

Trufelman's coffee... black

Philosopher Debutantes

Written by R.S. Janes

The philosopher debutantes
were gathered at the mall
“He has a nice car,” said one,
“But he makes my skin crawl.”

Batting eyes at a window reflection
another mentato said,
“Chip’s buff but, like,
he doesn’t have any money
and without money you’re dead.”

“Does my ass look fat in these jeans?”
Another in the gaggle snapped
head turned backwards
to admire her pants
that rode just south of her
thonged crack.

“Like, stop being so vain, girl,”
one of her colleagues carped
as she stopped to smooth her hair
without a mirror,
vanity bumbling around in the dark.

Another piped up,
“What about Einstein’s theories on time?”
which brought the rest to a dead halt,
eying her like a freak-show mystery
floating in a jar of brine.

They stared at her for a moment
perhaps pondering her query,
then Jeans Girl offered,
“So, anyway, like, Brad asked me out again,”
her statement dropped thick and weary.

As her jeans worked themselves down,
gravity itself was on display
showing a sliver of red thong strap
between her adolescent bass cleft
two kittens in a bag at play.

“Oh,” exclaimed Thongie,
top so tight she must’ve been
breathing through gills,
“this is all, like, such a bore,”
and you just know
the Bohr wasn’t Nils.
____________________________________
© 2004-2009
R. S. Janes
All Rights Reserved.

A Simple Thong for Ms. Einstein

Our Enemy Flicka

Written by Ken Carman

The detective could hear her over sized Playboy Bunny slippers softly slap their way to answering the doorbell he had just rung. The door opened and he was face to face with a barely clothed woman: full figured in a way that was popular in films many years before his TV set dominated earlier days… back when he himself was a big star.

“Ma’am, could you please go put on some clothes and I’ll wait here? I would like to keep this professional.”

She smiled seductively. The detective wondered if she knew how to smile any other way…

“I’m sorry, this is all I own, really. I’m a well kept woman, officer, my husband even put it in his will; as long as I never left the house, my every wish would be provided for, so I rarely get out. It’s pretty lonely. Would you like to come in?”

“‘Detective,’ Ma’am, and I would like to just stick to…”

“Wait, don’t I know you from somewhere? I think you’ve been on TV or something.”

He sighed and repeated, “Ma’am, I would like to just stick to…”

“Well, if you’re not going to come in, this is getting cold, tell me what you’re here for…”

“Yes, Ma’am, we’re looking for your husband.”

“Well, yesterday one of your detectives came to my door he did come in…” she smiled as if remembering something fondly… “and he told me there had been an accident they were investigating where my husband’s head had been torn off.” She smiled again, seductively. “But it seems you’d know about all this, being a detective and all.”

His lips twitched a little and his demeanor turned even more stern than very formal and serious; never crack the slightest smile, attitude that, if poured, would be like dumping used motor oil over an ice cream sundae.

“Different department, Ma’am, but let’s just stick with the facts.”

“How could that be? Aren’t you both detectives?” …she asked herself silently.

“You don’t seem very unhappy, Ma’am; especially after your husband’s death.”

“Look, Detective, ours was mostly a loveless arrangement. He was a horn dog, I’ll admit that, and if you’re so interested in ‘facts,’ Detective,’ I’m glad he’s gone. I just discovered an old movie reel; he was apparently out ‘editing’ the other. Oh, how he loved the old ‘flickas,’ as he used to call them. Then I found a lot of pictures of women dressed up like old movie stars. I know he would have claimed they were trying out for some role but I went on the net and found out that “Flicka” was actually a horse. Knowing him he was ‘auditioning’ them for some porno flick involving a horse. Take it from me, Detective, he was that ‘out there.’ And he did like to use old movie equipment to make ‘movies’ of us when we were, um… intimate.”

She smiled that seductive smile, only with more than an extra dash of “seduct.”

“We know all that, Ma’am. We’re here to ask him where he put the second roll of film so we can find out what’s going to happen.”

“Well, I had some very sexy young man go out and burn everything like that after we, um… uh, well, it’s gone.”

“That’s very unfortunate, Ma’am, we really needed to know what was on the second roll so we know how to defeat…”

“Why, Detective, do you need the second roll? I’d never guess you might be such a horn dog too by your serious attitude.”

“Ma’am, we’re not looking for porno. Your husband had his film ‘blessed’ by a witch doctor who found out your husband had just had relations with his very young daughter… so he hexed it instead.”

“Wait, he wasn’t making porno?”

“No, Ma’am.”

There were some screams in the background that seemed to be getting closer.

“What was he making Detective… Detective…”

“‘Friday,’ Ma’am.”

There were some screams in the background that seemed to be getting closer.

“You’re kidding, right? ‘Friday?’”

“No. Ma’am, I’m not ‘kidding,’ and he was filming a monster film with every monster ever imagined, and with look-a-likes, and act-a-likes, of old stars; both TV shows and movies.

The screams were getting louder and louder.

“And the hex…”

“Yes, Ma’am, your husband was murdered by a werewolf.”

Just then fire shot around the corner coming from something as high as the building.

“And that…”

“That, Ma’am, is Godzilla, and he is only one of thousands that came alive. I’m sure even ‘My Friend Flicka‘ is out there somewhere, but the process drove the animals and monsters insane. So he’s no “friend;’ probably trampling a citizen right now. The hex was pretty complete. Fiction became fact. So Ironsides, Kojack, Perry Mason… even Mike Hammer are out there somewhere trying to solve this. So, Ma’am…”

“Yes, Detective?”

Screams getting very, very loud; the sounds of flesh being burned, ripped, shredded… and the disturbing sound of some huge bug-like creature eating something.

“…is it OK if I take you up on your offer to come inside now?”

_____________________________________
©Copyright 2009
Ken Carman
all rights reserved

"Me thinks you might taste good."

Mud Puddle Muddle

Written by R.S. Janes

Yes we are all lying in the gutter
Looking up at the stars
But some of us have had too
Much mud puddle to drink.
Let’s shirk off then
Into the night
Our mortal coil that
Traps souls like a bullwhip
In paradise.
(Hint: Here lies the tomb of
The Unknown Sulker,
abbreviate in speech,
tinker of thinking,
bounded only by limitless
boundaries.)

It’s a quantum quirk that meets
itself going in and out
of the revolving door all alone.
So, let’s not bore too deep
Else we find mystic harp strings
Singing below the concrete street;
dirt and asphalt underlie
each – we all know that –
What does it teach?

Better the Buddhas of
Irreverent flotsam
Than the Jesuits of
Impertinent jetsam,
with all the rye to catch them,
Always on the beach
and yet never wet.

Beneath, the sewers surge on forever
Put your ear to the ground
And sup on the manifold wages
of pleasure squared and
indignity divine –
where the stink of decay
is the sign of a growth leap.
________________________________
©2008
R. S. Janes.
All Rights Reserved.

Drink deep

Pretty Little Housewife

Written by C. J. Fox

“So… you don’t love me?” I asked, calmly despite the loaded question. I leaned up against our blue Camry and folded two skinny, dingy arms across my chest.

He threw a hoe down into the ground but not with anger or any sort of feeling that might have made me feel better. It was emotionless. He was contemplative only in what he was doing, not what he had done to me. He rubbed a dirty fist against his eyebrow, slowly revolving around on two brown, unlaced, muddy boots. I bent over and picked up a red screwdriver and handed it to him.

Taking it, he said, “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

This was not my soap opera and this sure as hell wasn’t my fairytale. Plain and simple, not even then the concern over a business deal. I was just a bottle of antifreeze he had decided not to buy.

He moved from his project in the yard and started wrenching at something in the car, the source of the loud gurgling noise I got when I tried to get to work.

“So what now?”

He looked up at me with two brown eyes, the color of the richest dirt. He snuffed out an itch on his nose with his forearm and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, nothing.”

“You can’t stay married to me if you don’t love me anymore.”

He pressed his arms down on the front of the car, the answer so obvious to him. “Sure I can. People do it.”

I bit the inside of my cheek and nodded. This was my life. I had a car that didn’t work, a garden that wouldn’t produce a bloom, and a husband that didn’t love me. The way it should have gone, what I should have done was pick up a Phillips and chuck it at his head and then leave him triumphantly. But I didn’t. I knew what happened to the women who did that. They ended up living in shabby one rooms just off the highway out of town and watching television that came in and out like their love lives. Maybe that was for them but it certainly wasn’t for me. I went back inside and sat at the wicker dining table, finishing my crossword. The last clue was “a postnuptial tradition” and it was a nine letter word. I scribbled “honeymoon” into the white spaces and dropped my pencil, shoving the puzzle away. The puzzle was done and I’d found my answer. Nobody ever said the key to your puzzle unlocked your dream life anyways. My father wasn’t madly in love with my mom any more than my husband was with me. My key didn’t unlock Barbie’s dreamhouse. It unlocked my inheritance and I can’t say I was altogether surprised. I’d been taught long ago that you keep the other woman around because you love her. You keep the wife around because you need something to make you seem honest, no different than adding high school to your resume.
_____________________________________
©Copyright 2009
C. J. Fox
all rights reserved