Disenthralled Souls

A best friend is the hardest thing to come by
By Ryan Sayles

Looking at Diesel, my aging bull mastiff, now there’s a best friend. Never judges, never gets all pissy when I come home drunk at three in the morning. Just waits like an old buddy, tail thumping and happy to see me.

Better than Diane, that’s for sure. I tried to give her the best of everything because she was the best of everything. Best cheerleader, best lay in the Ford’s back seat, best russet potato and cheddar casserole. Some things you just can’t touch. But Diane, she had a mean streak. Diesel, a dog bigger than some racing horses, he didn’t. Not a bad bone in his body and he had all the sharp teeth.
Now Diane, when we said we was getting married, she said she was my best friend. And for thirty years of hell, she was anything but. Diesel is the latest and last in a long line of dogs for me. I’ve hit my end, for sure. Stomach cancer. Diane always said it was too many beers, too many chasers, too many of whatever it was I did when she wasn’t looking.

Bitch.

Right before she left, she said all that fire and spit rising up from my gut was all them sins I committed. Nights I’d raise a hand to her, and some such. Sometimes the only way to get her to shut up was to show her my backhand.
Maybe a boot heel.

But you know, a man’s just a man and a man gets tired of hearing some broad talking shit for thirty years about how she had everything and she wasted it all on that man. I gave her the best. I swear it. Maybe my best wasn’t the same kind of best that Clarence could give, or Robbie or Alex. But fuck them. I won out with Diane. She just regretted it later.

Diesel, he don’t complain about nothing. Not the table scraps I fed him his whole life. Not about how sometimes I’d forget to fill the water bowl. Or how sometimes I’d give him beer instead. After a while you regret every accidental piece of onion he ate. Every nibble of chocolate. Both bad for dogs, you know. He deserves the best. He deserves probably better than I gave him.

Now, I already said Diane got up and left. Bitch. Talking about my death sentence like it was payment for her bullshit suffering all our lives. Like I was responsible for that. She went to her older sister’s house. I followed her.

That didn’t work out well, to say the least.

So I came home, knowing my life is over. Sit down at the dinner table, call Diesel over. Best friend, ever. Never complained when I showed him my backhand, neither. Diane said it made him mean, but I think she lied. I ask forgiveness for every accidental piece of onion he ate. Every nibble of chocolate. My stomach’s killing me. I’d hate for his to do the same.

I feed him strips of fresh meat, hoping that since it’s still warm and gooey, only the best will keep him around longer. He eagerly licks my fingers, doesn’t complain, and I give him another chunk of Diane.

 

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Ryan Sayles’s novel The Subtle Art of Brutality is out through Snubnose Press. He is the editor of The Noir Affliction, a column at Out of the Gutter. His works appears at sites such as Shotgun Honey, Flash Fiction Offensive, Beat to a Pulp and Crime Factory. He may be contacted at http://www.vitriolandbarbies.wordpress.com
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End
By Gary Hewitt

Moisture smoulders
Ultimate sleep
Sun blackens
Halo winking

Blueblood sky
Jungles quiver
Porous shelter
Demon star

Earth gasps
Oceans cry
Hurricanes quake
Tsunamis wither

Ziggurats blaze
Corpulent rivers
Satan’s steam
Angels choke

Life flies
Blasted rock

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Gary Hewitt is a writer who lives in a small village in Kent in the UK. He has had several stories and poems published including editions of M-Brane and Morpheus Tales. His style does tend to be dark and is rather unique. He is a member of the Hazlitt Arts Writers’ Group.
Website: http://ghwt9996.wix.com/tales#!mystery
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I DON’T KNOW YOU
By Janet Shell Anderson
 

I know they’re outside the house, Viktor, Leland, Finn, waiting in the black van. The moon’s a sickle, about to be eclipsed by storm. Viktor never remembers my cell number.

My father said I could walk through night and never be seen, could live forever, like him. He shot himself in Idaho when I was fifteen.

I know too much. I was at Salt Creek on the fifth of May. Two meth dealers from Beatrice, Nebraska, died. I never thought Leland would come here after that or Viktor either, but I was wrong. They’ve never been inside this house, my mother’s new house, my house now. It’s huge, beautiful. My mother’s dead. That’s another story.

Viktor waits in deep darkness under the hundred-year-old ash tree. If the storm comes, it’s a bad place to park. The limbs are two feet thick, could crush the van. Viktor’s afraid of nothing, except me. He says I make things that should not happen, happen. I’m afraid of everything.

He and Leland, Finn, they’re hunters now. They hunt people.

There’s a door in the basement under the porch. Viktor doesn’t know about the door. I go down the servants’ staircase as the landlines ring, crawl behind the basement shelving, try not to let it scrape as I move it. The door beneath the porch is only two feet high. What was it for? God knows. It’s a good thing I’m thin. I open the door, slide into the dirt underneath the porch, behind bridal-wreath spirea in full bloom, see eyes in the hedge, a cat. It skitters toward the van. As it moves, I move, slide under the hedge. Car lights probe the street, show the passage between my house and the neighbor’s. A cigarette glows in the van. I hear the voices.

“Man, go in, she’s there.”

“No car.”

“In the garage.”

“She parks out front.”

“This is just a bad idea, Viktor.”

“Call her again, Leland; she trusts you.”

I move; thin branches tear my hair. Viktor was my husband, Leland, Finn, my friends. From Park Middle School until now, we were Lincoln, Nebraska’s darkest, wildest children, always together. Until we weren’t.

I get past the open garden gate into the backyard, into darkness so thick I am afraid to stand up; I’ll fall. Then lights go on in the house behind the alley, and I can see too well. The landline rings. I go under three yew bushes, reach the back fence, crawl toward the gate, slip into the narrow passage between garage and wall, creep into the alley. The men argue in the van.

I married Viktor, had a son. He only lived a day. When I was pregnant, I called my mother from a payphone. She pretended not to know me, would not tell me where she lived. I found her. We are dysfunctional. When I think maybe life’s not real, I remember her saying, “I don’t know you.” I felt the baby kick that moment.

In the alley, the lights are murderous. I move shadow to shadow, edge by the neighbor’s house, cross Sixteenth Street. If Viktor starts the van, turns right, they’ll see me. I move quickly but don’t run. I parallel “A” Street, walk toward the sickle moon. I cross Seventeenth, no traffic, climb the steep alley between “A” and “B”. Gusts of wind circle. Eighteenth, Nineteenth, Twentieth, no more alleys, I chance walking straight down “C” Street, hear a car, find shadow.

It’s a van. My mouth is full of copper.

When my father died, my mother said, “I wish it had been you.” She never knew if I had a son or daughter. The baby kicked when I asked her how to find my way to her new house and she said “I don’t know you.” We’re dysfunctional.

The van goes by.

Viktor was sleek and beautiful and I loved him more than anyone I ever saw, would watch him sleeping, that beauty, the only one I ever wanted. Afraid of nothing, except me, he knows too much.

Twenty-seventh Street is four lanes wide. Cars rush past. Lightning flashes. I stand away from the streetlight. When the street’s empty, I run. The Lincoln Chidren’s Zoo, the bike trail, are both close. Viktor never biked. The trail cuts through yards and parks away from streets, follows an old railroad right of way.

“She’s just a dumb bitch,” Finn said when I was under the bridal-wreath spirea.

“You know what she can do.” Viktor.

“You think she’ll kill us. Some kind of spell or crap.” Leland.

“She set us up, you idiot. She killed those bastards herself at Salt Creek. She’s got the money and the meth.”

“Man, that’s just not possible.”

I pass behind a strip mall, cross a bike trail bridge over Highway 2. The wind’s coming up; the storm is near. Lethal weather.

“She killed her mother, right?”

My car waits in the parking lot where I left it near Salt Creek. I drive south and east and south below frantic skies, forked lightning, to Beatrice, then Blue Springs, then Wymore. Out of the storm. Into Kansas. Safe, the way I planned.

I picture it: at last Viktor remembers. My cell phone in my house rings. I left a message on it. Same as for my Mom.

“I don’t know you.”

 

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Nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Janet Shell Anderson writes flash fiction and was published by Vestal Review, Grey Sparrow, Larks Fiction, The Scruffy Dog, Long Story Short, and others. She is an attorney.
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Angels
By Gale Acuff
 

In Sunday School today I fell asleep
so Miss Hooker woke me. She’s my teacher.
When I opened my eyes I thought she was
an angel, though she didn’t have wings and
I’m not sure if angels have red hair and
green eyes and freckles. And glasses, the kind
with lenses inside the lenses, I guess
to see into souls. Anyway, she said
Welcome back, Gale, I thought we’d lost you, and
my classmates laughed. If you’re lost you go to
Hell, Miss Hooker says that the Bible says,
but I don’t think that’s what she meant, I hope
not, because I’d rather go to Heaven
if I’ve got to go anywhere at all,
I don’t really want to die, I like life

so far, summer vacations and Christmas
holidays and my dog and baseball and
comic books and checkers and Yahtzee and
farting and bubblegum and Bonanza
and wrestling and Woody Woodpecker. What
am I leaving out? Maybe in Heaven
I could have all these things but I doubt it,
they’re not in the Bible, not that I read
it much. And they’re sure as Hell not in Hell
–ha, that’s funny. Then Miss Hooker said
if I was sure that I’d had enough rest
then we could continue with class but if
I thought I needed more then everyone
would join me. I think that’s called sarcasm
because we really wouldn’t take a nap
together. My classmates laughed again. I
sat up straight and said, No ma’am, I’m ready
and I’m sorry, but I guess the damage
had been done and so I sinned again–and
in church of all places–but if I was
a lawyer I’d point out that Sunday School
isn’t exactly the same as church no
matter that they’re on the same property
and connected to each other but who
would I point that out to? God? Or Jesus?
Maybe to Miss Hooker but she might think
I’m being a smart ass–aleck I mean.
At the end of class she called on me to

lead us all in the Lord’s Prayer, which
I did, without a single mistake save
I peeked at her as we were all praying
just so I could see what she looks like dead
even though she was sitting up pretty
straight and breathing and her lips were moving
and I heard her voice. But her eyes were closed
is what I mean, like dead folks on TV
at least. And then we all hollered Amen
and I was almost free but Miss Hooker
called me back and as I stood before her
stood up and said, Try to get more sleep on
Saturday nights, and then passed her fingers
through my hair, which was alright because I
always comb it before I come to church,
Mother used to do that but she’s dead so
she doesn’t do it nearly as often.
And then I’m damned if she didn’t kiss me

on the forehead, I guess because Mother
is still pretty newly gone. Seven weeks.
Then Miss Hooker said, Say hello to your
father for me. I said, Yes ma’am, I will,
and Please say hello to Mother for me
–it just slipped out, or not even that, I
just said it and hadn’t thought to say it.
I certainly will, Miss Hooker said–she
covered her mouth but too late, the words got
away. I said, Thank you, anyway. Now
I know who she really is. Holy cow.

 

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Gale Acuff has had poetry published in several literary magazines including Ascent, Ohio Journal, Descant, Adirondack Review, Ottawa Arts Review, Worcester Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, Arkansas Review, Carolina Quarterly, Poem, South Dakota Review, Santa Barbara Review, Sequential Art Narrative in Education, and many other journals. He has authored three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel (BrickHouse Press, 2004), The Weight of the World (BrickHouse, 2006), and The Story of My Lives (BrickHouse, 2008). He has taught university English in the US, China, and the Palestinian West Bank.

This piece of poetry has been picked from a series of poems where Gale Acuff has portrayed a young boy writing about being in love with Miss Hooker, his Sunday School teacher.
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Mature
By Gale Acuff
 

There’s nobody I love more than God save
Miss Hooker, my Sunday School teacher
and more beautiful than God is handsome,
though it may be a sin to say so but
I’ll risk it because I’ve got nothing to
lose except maybe my soul, of course, since
Miss Hooker’s old, 25 I guess, to
my 10. So even if I marry her
her red hair and green eyes and those freckles,
she’ll die on me. When I’m 16, say, and
mature, she’ll be 31 and if we
want to have babies, which we will, then she’ll
be gone before they ever grow up. I
don’t know where babies come from yet, only

that you shut the bedroom door and turn out
the light and maybe lock it, too, the door
I mean, and put something over the key
-hole so nobody can peek in, then lie
down on the bed and I guess go to sleep
after you shake hands like you mean it and
kiss each other on all your lips and more
than once and all this gets God’s attention
and a few months later after the wife
gets fat and the husband more nervous,bam,

you get a boy or a girl and the wife’s
thin again, and there’s a mystery there
that I’m not old enough to know about.
When I ask my parents they just tell me
to wait a couple of more years. I’d ask
Miss Hooker but she might be afraid that
I’m about to propose and anyway
I don’t want her to turn me down, not yet,
at least not until I’m man enough to
take it. I’ll be shaving and my voice will
sound more like Father’s, or Mother’s when she’s
really angry, and I’ll be driving, and
working if I have to. That’s how you get
money and how you get married, Father
says, but not too happily. But he should
know, he’s a geography teacher. I
can’t marry God anyway–why should I
throw Miss Hooker over for Him? Maybe
I can have both, just love them in different
ways. You have to be pretty wise to do
that. Reverend Horluck’s married and has three
kids to boot. Maybe I’ll ask him why our

God is a jealous God, which was what his
sermon for today was about, only
he jumped and shouted so much I forgot
the words he said in between. And cried, too,
there at the end. I don’t know much about
life but I know guilt when I feel it. Me,
I can wait until I’m dead for God to
make it clear just what He’s been on about.
Until then, I’ll worship Miss Hooker, which
may be a sin but it’s His own damn fault.

 

_____________________________________________________________________

Gale Acuff has had poetry published in several literary magazines including Ascent, Ohio Journal, Descant, Adirondack Review, Ottawa Arts Review, Worcester Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, Arkansas Review, Carolina Quarterly, Poem, South Dakota Review, Santa Barbara Review, Sequential Art Narrative in Education, and many other journals. He has authored three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel (BrickHouse Press, 2004), The Weight of the World (BrickHouse, 2006), and The Story of My Lives (BrickHouse, 2008). He has taught university English in the US, China, and the Palestinian West Bank.

This piece of poetry has been picked from a series of poems where Gale Acuff has portrayed a young boy writing about being in love with Miss Hooker, his Sunday School teacher.
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Singer
By Gale Acuff
 

I love Miss Hooker more than I love God,
I guess, which, I guess again, is a sin,
but she’s my Sunday School teacher and she
tempts me so I can’t help myself even
though temptation’s not her fault and I’m not
sure it’s even mine so I’ll blame God, He’s
the One Who made us but if I’d made her
I couldn’t improve on His work, red hair
and green eyes and freckles, more than enough
for three more people, maybe even more.
Miss Hooker’s 25 and I’m just 10
so the chances of us ever getting
hitched are pretty slim but that’s what God’s for,
making a miracle if I pray hard
enough, and I could use Miss Hooker’s help
but I doubt that she’s got it bad for me

–she probably likes grown men, guys who shave
and have hairy chests and legs and maybe
backs, and hair in their nostrils and who speak
like Father speaks, or God in the movies,
in a real deep voice and even have jobs,
money helps when you try to get a gal
so you can pay for the hamburgers and
banana splits and movie tickets and
bring her flowers, which aren’t cheap unless you
pick them yourself and then she’ll think you’re poor
or maybe a little crazy although
some gals like a-little-crazy but not
Mother, she’s all business. I brought home my

report card yesterday and made straight-As
–I’m not bragging, I just know the system
–and only one B, in Conduct, and she
yelled at me, I don’t care how smart you are,
young man, but if you can’t shut up in class
good grades don’t mean a pecking thing. Father
had to sign it because she wouldn’t and
he didn’t even see it, the B, just
said, Not too shabby, boy, not bad at all,
and smiled and winked and I told him about
Mother and before he could say something
I told him that I’m sweet on a woman
but I didn’t say who, or is it whom,
just that she was older and he replied,
Well, it might be a good experience,
whatever that means. I think it means that

I’ll never snag her but I didn’t ask
why because he was reading the Sports page
and I respect that. Yes sir, I said. So
I went back to Mother and asked her if
she was still sore. Thread this needle
for me, she ordered, rubbing her eyes as she
rolled her chair away from the Singer. It’s
on wheels, the chair I mean. Ezekiel
is what I thought of and I’m not sure why
but I threaded the needle and before
she could say Thank you, so I don’t know if
she was going to, I said it aloud,
Ezekiel I mean, and she said, Damn,
I pricked my finger, which was the first time
I ever heard her swear but that’s alright,
she was in pain and when I grow up I

want to be a doctor and married to
Miss Hooker and buy her a Cadillac.
We’ve got an old Ford but it’s got four wheels,
too. Father says, It gets us where we want
to go. He has a way with words because
he’s an Assistant File Clerk and sometimes
when he drives off to work in the morning
his hubcaps look like they’re spinning backwards,
the car’s I mean. Ezekiel went up
and saw everything and came back down
but I forget what happens next. I’m sure
Miss Hooker knows. I’ll ask her next week in
Sunday School but if I forget I can
always bring it up on our honeymoon
if I get my miracle. If not, damn.

 

_____________________________________________________________________

Gale Acuff has had poetry published in several literary magazines including Ascent, Ohio Journal, Descant, Adirondack Review, Ottawa Arts Review, Worcester Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, Arkansas Review, Carolina Quarterly, Poem, South Dakota Review, Santa Barbara Review, Sequential Art Narrative in Education, and many other journals. He has authored three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel (BrickHouse Press, 2004), The Weight of the World (BrickHouse, 2006), and The Story of My Lives (BrickHouse, 2008). He has taught university English in the US, China, and the Palestinian West Bank.

This piece of poetry has been picked from a series of poems where Gale Acuff has portrayed a young boy writing about being in love with Miss Hooker, his Sunday School teacher.
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