Good guys; bad guys, all the same

    Scene:  (Bill is in bed)   -- a hand shakes him awake, then camera pans out to see the back of Martin.   MARTIN:             Wake up, Bill             Quick   BILL (GROGGY)             Huh?             What do you want, Martin?   MARTIN:             I need you to wake up             IT’S IMPORTANT   BILL:             What time is it?   MARTIN:             About 4 o’clock   BILL             IN THE MORNING!!!   MARTIN:     ...

  Most of my clients don’t care who they stick it into as long as she is young and fairly pretty. For them any twenty-something girl will do. But for some guys, twenty-something is just too much for them – too much attitude. These guys need girls who won’t give them any guff. So I got younger girls for these guys. But young girls are hard to come by – and the younger they are, the harder they are to find. So this means my customers got to pay more. One guy with a lot of money always comes in looking for a young as I can get. Maybe he’s got troubles at home. Maybe he’s got a bitch of a wife and kids who won’t listen to him. So he wants a kid he can get with the least guff possible. He’s also a particular sort. He hates getting kids every Tom, Dick and Harry’s had before him, and hates having the same kid twice. And though he paid a pretty penny to go through my stable of younger kids, he wanted an even younger kid. And he wanted her exclusive and was willing to pay for the privilege...

  I pull into the gas station my radiator steaming from too many miles under too much sun. I glance back up the highway half expecting to see police cars there. I expect them everywhere I go because I know they are always looking for me. Five murders in LA alone More elsewhere. The newspapers ask why I have killed whole families and if I am a member of a cult. A young man with a faded blue uniform stained brown in spots asks if I want gas as well as water. I nod. He looks too weary to be suspicious. I ask for the toilet. He points to the side of the stucco station where a rusted metal sign once said “restrooms.” The inside smells of urine and hand soap, the undissolved powder of Borax spilling over the sink side and onto the tiles near the toilet. It smells of Georgia again, lacking only the sweet scent of bubble gum I chewed non-stop to keep off the road sickness, my old man shouting at me for being a sissy each time I came close to vomiting, momma telling him to stop so I wouldn’...

  To tell you the truth, Darcy, I’m not surprised. Jason was over the edge when I still hung out with you guys. I knew sooner or later he would murder somebody and how he has. I didn’t mind the robbery. I still steal sometimes when things get tough. But the beatings scared me. You could see how much Jason enjoyed it just from the look on his face. And with you and Hollis cheering him on, it was more than I could take. That’s the real reason I stopped coming around. Sooner or later it had to lead to this. The last thing I need is to get my self hanged for something I didn’t do. You want me to help him? How? Breaking him out of jail is another way to get myself in his boat. You want to spring him, you spring him, leave me out of it. And for god’s sake, shoot him in the head once you do. Or I will.   Main Menu email to Al Sullivan

    “Call Martin,” the note says. I have to read it three times to make sure it really says what it says. Martin who? The only Martin I know died two weeks ago in an auto accident up the coast. Okay, so the circumstances are suspicions enough to have the police investigate foul play. But this note borders on the occult. And I turn the note over and over searching all sides for clues as to who send it. But it only an old office memo. It takes me another minute to realize it came from Martin’s office And I get scared. What next? A phone call from the great beyond? Maybe the police lied to me and never did close the investigation like they said. Maybe they know the truth and are using this note to trap me. I glance out the front door expecting to see a Swat team there. It is time to pack my bags and get out of town. Someone knows the truth. It can’t me Martin. He’s dead. I know that for a fact because I’m the one who killed him.     Main Menu email to Al Sullivan

  I breathe deep, but it is not enough. Butler’s out-of-breath voice yelling at me to launch before the purple plants grip our ship so hard we can’t. Why we landed here, I still don’t know. One of Butler’s schemes to find which planet Captain Rake left his treasure on, but if he ever came here, he would have hated the place as much as we do. Purple vines streaming around us like water, attaching to the metal with purple claws, digging in with every intention of getting at us inside. Take off! Take off! Butler screams. But the air is so thick I can’t think. An overdose of carbon dioxide even the best adapters could not overcome, and our adapters are not good nor new. Take off! It takes me a moment to figure out the sequence, which series of protocols I need to put into place so that we simply lift off the planet’s surface and not blasted into hyper space. Ever since I came to space at 16, I’ve been fearful of getting lost – finding myself some place where the stars are so unfamiliar...

The wind blows across the Texas Panhandle like sandpaper across my face, a harsh sun making this dip south feel like a trip through hell. I think of LA and how much I miss its dismal streets and how I ache to get back to a place where rain takes a whole season to wash the world away, rather than this place which dumps it all on you at once after months of slow scalding torture. I keep thinking I’m already dead, despite the doctors’ claims – they asking me again and again if I’ve ever used a dirty needle or made love to another man. They make assumptions about me because my driver’s license says I live in LA. They ask me for a list of lovers, then shake their heads when I give them one, trying hard to make out the boy’s names from the girl’s, and wondering how on earth they will manage to contact them all, eyeing me as if they suspected me of deliberately spreading a plague. The car radio naturally stopped working in St. Louis. So I feel again in the glove compartment for the box of bat...