I’ve been delinquent in writing here of late, but I have been writing. Plan on getting a new story every Monday. This one’s not from a photograph as some of my past stories have been, but it is a timed story. Thirty minutes longhand on a topic, unedited.

THE SAFETY OF OBJECTSHis basket was stuffed full, so full that he was having a difficult time pedaling down the street and keeping his bicycle upright. Wrappers from bread he’d long since eaten, bottle caps that jangled when he pedaled, an old lock he’d found just that morning in a car whose windows had been smashed. More things than he had remembered picking up. He pedaled, swerving to avoid people on the busy street on Flatbush. An old woman stepped out of the beauty shop he was at that moment passing, and he turned, smashing into the mailbox near the curb.

His things came tumbling out of his basket. he smiled weakly at her, but she merely scrunched down her hat and scowled at him so that her face looked as if she had just tasted rancid lemons.

Slowly, then, he got his bearings, being disoriented from the fall. His heart had started beating too fast, he thought, and he almost scurried for his things. His things! His things!

“Don’t touch it!” he shouted at a young black boy who had no intention of touching the Mickey Mouse lunchbox from which old baseball cards and GI Joe action figures had spilled.

The old man must have looked funny to the boy, sprawled out on the sidewalk like a thrift shop whose roof had been torn off in a tornado. The boy pumped his skateboard twice, passing the old man kneeling on the sidewalk clutching some of the things he had already began to gather back to himself and he noticed already that his breathing had become more even, his heartbeat more steady. He growled at the boy on the skateboard and picked up a die from a discarded Parcheesi set, two blue jacks and a marble that had come to rest near the mailbox. He began stuffing these objects into the already full pockets of the Army jacket his brother had given him upon his return from Vietnam. The jacks fell out of his pocket, pushed out by the iPod box (sans iPod) and the broken cellphone and the coffee cup he’d gotten in Hell’s Kitchen. He mumbled to himself and looked like Gus, the mouse in Cinderella, as he tried to pick up one more thing before dropping them all again.

Realizing his pockets were full — all four of them — he righted his bike and stacked the national Geographics in the baskets. He was smiling now as he re-fastened the rubberband which had become dangerously close to the edge of the transistor radio on the back of his bike, so that he would have been afraid he might lose the radio had he seen it before now.

The baskets were ready then to accept more of his things. And slowly he had begun to meticulously take stock of what lay on the sidewalk in the bright afternoon sun.

The people on Flatbush walked past and around him without offering to help him pick up his things, but he did not see them and did not want their help.

The jukebox suddenly went quiet. A man I had never seen before stood loosely next to the jukebox holding the plug in his hand. Theresa jumped and grabbed my hand across the table, bumping my coffee, spilling a little onto the table. We sat in the corner of the bar in the dark, talking softly. I sipped from my coffee and looked at the man.

Snow clung to his boots and had begun to form puddles on the floor as it melted. Carl had both hands on the bar and was watching the man. Patsy Cline had been singing Crazy only minutes ago and now the place was quiet as the woods after a heavy snow. The man’s blue jeans were too big and hung off of his skinny frame like those of a teenager. He shifted from one foot to the other. Ice was visible in his beard. His face had an uneasy look about it, like a dog taking food from a stranger. The man stood there, jukebox plug in one hand, shotgun in the other. His coat buttoned tightly against the cold outside.

He was quiet. Some of the other folks in the place rustled in their places, murmuring to each other. They looked to me. Jake, whose truck was parked outside covered with snow, stood up. Jake’s truck hadn’t moved from its place at Red’s since October when I had given him a DUI for sleeping off his drunk in the truck. The keys had been in the ignition. Now his truck was buried under the first big snow of the season and wouldn’t move for even longer, at least until June.

“Jimmy, you old rattlesnake you,” Jake called nervously to the man. “Can I get you a drink? Carl….”

“Don’t move, Carl,” the man said. Jimmy. The shotgun swayed in his grip. The jukebox plug drooped oddly from his hand, like a fishing line pulled tight by a steelhead you knew would be a fight to land, except there was no fish at the end of Jimmy’s line. “Jake and me have some business to discuss.”

Carl had slowly bent below the bar and grabbed his shotgun. The gun had been Red’s when he was alive and Red never had to use it.

I stood up, my gun clanking on the table as I did. I put both of my hands where Jimmy could see them and called over my shoulder to Carl, “My coffee’s cold. Bring one for Jimmy, too. Black.”

“Sure thing, Sheriff Wheatly,” Carl said. I could hear him pulling two coffee cups from above the coffee pot.

Crissy and I were hunting sand dollars. We had only just arrived in Ocean City and already we were out on the beach, still in our tenners. with our sack. It’s empty now, but it won’t be. Last year we went on vacation with Uncle Toby and he taught us how to find sand dollars in the surf, but to do that we’d have to take off our shoes.

Then when we got back to the cottage Mom would yell at us for having sand in our socks, but we won’t care. They sell sand dollars in the shops for two dollars apiece so Crissy and I will sell them on the boardwalk for seventy-five cents. It’ll be enough, if we do well, to buy O.C. T-shirts. And I love walking up and down the aisles picking out one that’s just right. A seagull and a sunset over the ocean. the colors always fade by the next year, though.

The sun was hot when the wind didn’t blow, and Mom made us wear longsleeves to protect us from the sun. Said we were better than the migrants and shouldn’t be so brown.

“Oh, leave ‘em alone,” Dad said from the bathroom. He’d gone in there for more rum. Kept it in the tank to keep it cold. “Better’n a refrigerator,” he’d say.

Once Mom was satisfied we wouldn’t wander too far we raced out of the cottage and chased each other in the dunes, hiding in the dry grass. I tripped on some driftwood and Crissy jumped the fence and was out on the beach, running, scattering gulls and sandpipers.

I didn’t run into the wet sand like she did. I plunked down in the sand and cigarette butts and beer cans and pulled off my shoes and socks, leaving them in a balled-up mess near the path. Crissy came running back out of breath, her feet wet with her shoes still on them.

The sand was hot on my knees as I knelt to untie her shoes, and it was hard, she wouldn’t stop squirming. Her hat blew off and she chased it into the water before I could take off her other shoe. She sat down in the waves, hat in her mouth and tore off her other shoe.

“I can feel them!” she shouted. The water was up to her waist. I ran out with her, I had the sack. I let my feet be covered by sand when the waves crashed into me. The water was up to my knees and I watched Crissy so she wouldn’t fall down.

I felt them too. They’re faster than you might think, all squirmy when they’re alive. My toes followed one until I had him. I pressed down hard and closed my eyes against the surf. My shirt was soaked and heavy by now and I bent to grab him with my hand.

It was a big one. His hairs sparkled a little in the sunlight and I laughed, throwing the brown prize into our sack.

“First one!” I said jubilantly.

Crissy laughed and showed both hands. She held two small ones, and I knew it would be a good summer.

Some of you may know that I have been poaching wireless @ home + that my Internet connection is a touch spotty. That’s one of the reasons I post with such great infrequency here of late. Whomever I’m poaching from, I think, has figured it out, and usually shuts off the router. Whoever it is isn’t smart enough to password protect the connection, but shutting off the router. Damn. That puts a cramp in my surfing. I was pleased to find Airport recognized a new network recently, but it’s the same story.

Been slammed @ werk, and, though I did write a new story last night, I forgot to bring it to werk to post, so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

Meantime, though, fellow Montana blogger hosted the newest Rascal Fair, featuring fiction-writing bloggers from all over, but mainly from Montana from what I have seen. Head over and check it out.

Big shout out to Julia who recently arrived in all of her glory in Brooklyn, NY. Watch out NYC, a Knitting Revolution is about to begin.

The trains were coupling in the trainyard. Metal on metal and loud clanging banging that would wake anyone who hadn’t heard it before. It was almost six A.M. I was walking home from work.

I’d gone in early last night, at nine. The new guy had called in sick and I made the mistake of answering the phone when it rang. I wasn’t looking forward to slopping a mop all night on my night off, but I needed the money. and the overtime was good.

Now the sunlight washed over the empty tracks ahead of me. Behind me, the huge metal cars loaded with lumber and military machines crashed into one another as the day began. I liked this time of day before the rest of the world was awake. The birds sang their good mornings to one another and the air was sweet with rain and cottonwoods.

Walking across the trainyard, though, my nose took in freshly cut trees, oil and grease, and the smell of old. Only two more blocks until I hit the front step. And I knew Mary Ann would have coffee on, and I could imagine the sound of the bacon sizzling in the cast iron skillet.

As I picked my way carefully along the railroad ties, I spied a man sitting in the shadows of the buildings along the tracks. As I approached him, he stirred, and, hearing my boots crunch over the gravel, he spoke.

“Spare any change?” he asked.

“No thanks,” I replied, shoving my hands into my pockets.

“You ingrateful little fuck,” he rasped. “You ain’t got no respect.”

I had walked just slightly past him by this time, and I slowed my pace.

“You’re a punk!” he yelled.

I turned and walked towards him.

Only last year, I too had found myself evicted and jobless. I was lucky to have Mary Ann to go home to. To now have a roof over my head, and to have a job that pays the bills, even if I was slinging a dirty mop over dirtier floors night after night. My stomach tightened at the memory of having to find my dinner in a Dumpster, having to hope that the police were feeling tolerant that day.

I stopped in front of him.

“Do you have something to say to me?” I asked.

He spat on the ground. His clothes were dirty and ragged, but looked fairly new. His shoes had no holiest in them. “You got no respect. You’re a punk. You’re ungrateful and you fuckin’….”

I cut him off. “Where do you get off,” I asked him, “begging for money, and then insulting someone who doesn’t give it to you?” My hands clasped at the change in my pocket, then let it loose. I knelt near him, to be on the same level as him. “Where do you get off?”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck me? Fuck me. Really.” I was tired, but I wasn’t going to listen to a common panhandler mouth off to me. Not after I just worked eight hours. I wanted to punch him. No one would know. And no one would care.

The yard man stepped out from the shadows about fifteen yards away to have a look at us. I raised my cap to him and smiled. He waved and disappeared again, into the darkness.

My hand tightened around the change in my pocket, clenched in a fist.

“No respect, you mongrel,” he said. “I’m an angel of the Lord.”

“An angel of the Lord?” I repeated.

“I do God’s work,” he said.

“I can tell you, God does not love you,” I said. “God loves those who love Him, and who love themselves, and you, my friend, do not love yourself.”

“Fuck you.”

“Angel of the Lord,” I said, and spat.

“I’ll kill you,” he said. He didn’t stir. He smelled of stale beer.

“Come on, then,” I said. “Kill me.”

“I’m an angel of the Lord,” he said again. “I do God’s work,” he roared, and stood.

I started, and stood abruptly, thinking he might come for me.

He unzipped his pants. His penis was small and pink. He stood there holding it.

“I’m ‘o piss right here,” he said.

“Angel of the Lord has performance anxiety,” I said.

He laughed, then caught himself. “Takes me a while sometimes,” he said.

Yeah,” I said, then turned to go.

I never did hear his piss hitting the concrete.

Note: As I do not currently have access to a scanner, I am not including the photograph that inspired this piece. I will post it when I again have access to the scanner.

Seth might have been born with a tennis racquet in his hand. The little toehead with the huge nose. That nose sucked in oxygen so hard sometimes I thought his head would pop.

That’s me on the left, all awkward and fat, even then. Mummy built the dirt court when Dad died in the War, and that afternoon one of the men who came calling was trying to impress her by pretending to teach Seth and me the proper rules of tennis.

I think that may have been the last time I ever held a tennis request. I found some baby bunnies off under the shrubbery and mashed them something awful with the racquet. That’s when Mum locked me in the closet. I came home with blood on my woolies and she cried, spilling her gin. Seth told me I should be ashamed, treating the racquet that way.

But Toby gave us the racquets before I found the bunnies in the shrubbery, I mean, and was determined to teach us how to hit those furry gray balls on that first day. He wasn’t so concerned with us trying to get them over the net, just that we could hold the racquets properly, Like shaking someone’s hand, he said, in his American drawl.

It was all so silly, expecting babies like us to be able to hold such monstrosities, but Seth tried, and that was enough for Toby. He scooped Seth up into his arms and swung him ‘round. Seth was so serious. Even then. He smiled, but didn’t laugh or giggle.

I strayed away, then to the garden which is when I found the rabbits. But I always get ahead of myself. I always do.

Though it hadn’t rained, the garden was wet with dew. I walked along, shaking the sparklies off the bushes with my tennis racquet. I put the racquet down and sat down in the lavender, which smelled like Mummy. And then I saw the bunnies. They were eating the lavender, and I got mad at them. Got mad that they would eat Mummy’s smell. They were so tiny, they could not run away. So I found my tennis racquet. And mashed them. Mashed them mashed them mashed them. Real good.

Or, Give me Spaghetti O’s

Sorry, no photo for this one.