Category: My stories

Forty Acres

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My name be Rufus Washington Cleveland and I be 173 years old today.
What’s this here place called? Time Square?
Well, I calls it mine.
I been waitin over a century for my forty acres and a mule, and I’m takin these here forty acres.
Lincoln himself promised em to me. Said “You get forty acres and a mule, Rufus.”
When I axed him which forty I get, he just said “Just go take ’em.”
Gonna be a shame to tear these here buildins down, but this here is mah land, and I wanna get to plantin in the spring.

Butterflies

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What am I eating?
Butterflies.
Ever eaten butterflies? No?
Oh, they’re delicious.
I can’t decide if they taste better dipped in chocolate or hot sauce.
How do I cook them?
I don’t. I eat them raw.
Their wings melt with any kind of heat.
That’s okay – lots of things taste better raw, like peapods and carrots.
Okay, so they taste like crunchy fluff, but they hold the chocolate pretty well.
And hot sauce, too.
Hold it by the legs and stick the wings in the dip, then pop it in your mouth.
How did it taste? Delicious?
Told ya so.

The Wacky Adventures of Abraham Lincoln #96

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All but one of the doctors packed up and left.
“He can still be saved,” said the last doctor.
“He’s dead,” said Robert. “There’s no way to cure death.”
“Is there?” asked the doctor.
He opened his case and pulled out an array of odd crystals, setting them around the dead president.
Who remained dead.
“Sorry,” said the doctor. He gathered up his crystals and left.
Robert shrugged. “Dad always said: ‘The only person who is a worse liar than a faith healer is his patient.'”
“Fine by me,” said Mary Todd. “As long as we don’t pay his bill.”

Quote

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They say the devil can quote scripture.
Of course he can. He wrote it. Every word of it.
Branded on the backs of the sinners with red hot pokers.
Skin torn from flesh, pressed into sheets, bound between brimstone covers, still dripping with their blood.
He was there at the Council of Nicea, making changes to his rough draft, whispering in old priests ears and making deals.
I’ll make you a saint.
I’ll make you a hero.
I’ll make you a prophet.
I’ll make you a god among men.
Every hotel room is his church, his word in the drawer.

Free Trial

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The letter said I qualified for a 7 day free trial. But it didn’t say what it was for.
I figured what the hell, right, and I called the 800 number.
I heard it ring twice and then a click.
No answer. No voice.
The line went dead.
The next thing I knew, I was in Paris.
It was a week later, and there was a receipt in my hand.
“REFUNDED IN FULL”
I had no idea what had happened to me or how I got there.
There were no other receipts, no clues.
I found a cafe and drank.

McKinney

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McKinney. Leader of the pack.
I grew up watching him on late night specials, learning his voice, his gestures, his jokes.
The unknotted bowtie hangs around my neck just like his.
Martini glass in hand, one olive on a glass spear.
I do his routine at retirement homes, people old enough to remember, too old to put up with the new stuff out there.
Keep it familiar.
McKinney’s fame was wider than I’d thought.
Broadcasts, deep in space.
That audience came for him.
They found me.
Now I’m touring the galaxy. Rich as hell.
But no olives to be found.

You Breathed

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Why did you do it? What put you over the edge?
You were so happy when I saw you yesterday. So full of the joy of life.
What made you pull the trigger. Twice.
What horror filled your mind with despair and hopelessness What could possibly drag you down so deep?
Twice. Did you pull the trigger?
Or did someone else do it?
They shot you twice and put the gun in your hand.
Then, as they waited to call for help, you breathed.
“I heard the shot. I found him there. I found him dead.”
But you still breathed.

My Spot

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There are five booths in Bill’s Diner.
This is my spot.
Second to last booth, seat facing the door.
Nobody takes my spot. If someone does, Bill tells them to sit somewhere else.
If they don’t move, he puts their coffee down at the counter.
Even the mailman knows this is my spot. He doesn’t even bother to deliver my mail to my apartment or my office.
He puts it down at my spot.
Same with the paperboy.
Bill asked if I wanted like a metal plaque or something to mark my spot
There’s no point, really.
Everybody already knows.

The Wacky Adventures of Abraham Lincoln #95

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The doctors hauled Abe’s gangly frame out of the theater and across the street.
The bed was too short, so they laid him upon it at an angle.
Mary Todd was a wreck. Not only was her husband mortally wounded, but the theater owner refused to give a refund.
Abe’s son Robert pondered the situation: “Surely, God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, man was made for immortality!”
Abe wheezed, sighed, and breathed no more.
The President was dead.
“Never mind,” said Robert.

The Tongue

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Robert Pastorelli’s been dead for years, but that didn’t stop me from dreaming about him.
His corpse had been torn to pieces and I had stumbled across his tongue, a throbbing slab of redness inchworming its way along the pavement.
I placed a resonating gadget to its tip and it spoke of his death and subsequent desecration.
When I found the rest of his head, I placed the tongue back inside and it babbled nonsense.
Why I dreamed of Robert Pastorelli, let alone his severed head, tongue torn out, I have no idea. I haven’t watched Murphy Brown in years.