In this issue:

Joan Leotta

Cottonwood Grove

_____________________________

Saturday, July 18, 1868

In the pre-dawn quiet, three Shoshone boys slid from their ponies. They stood together, facing east, a row of cottonwood trees behind them. As the sun glided upward, each boy offered a pinch of tobacco to bless the new day and their hunt. Their untethered ponies pawed the ground, by the trees, waiting impatiently to ride for buffalo.

Still a year away from their initiation as warriors, the boys had slipped out of camp in secret, eager to prove their value to the tribe. It was a dry summer with meager prospects for food and the boys were determined to return to the village that night, each with a buffalo to present… more

Susan Fair

The Ten O’Clock

__________________________

Connie Taylor, licensed family counselor, wanted to tell her 10 o’clock – a pretty young mother named Kath Wilkes who was having an affair with her wealthy boss – to go for it.

Every now and then an overwhelming desire to just get real would creep into Connie’s consciousness while she was listening to a client over the ever present drone of the white noise machine in the waiting room.

Then it was all she could do not to say to Mrs. Atkins, who spent 24/7 caring for her son, comatose for 7 years since a diving accident, that drugs and alcohol were a perfectly reasonable way to cope with the miserable demands of her life, or to tell Condi Alvarez that holding a pillow over the face of her abusive husband Butch when he was passed out drunk was really a pretty freaking good idea… more

Edward Ahern

The Night Watch

_______________________

An SUV and a pickup truck had jousted with each other on a lightless section of Route One. The pickup won. By the time I got there the drivers and passengers had been carted off to two local hospitals. The emergency rooms always seemed to share the wealth on victims.

I filed the story and pictures from my lap top, basking in the smeared Christmas lighting of the fire engine and the cop cars. I had one more stop to make. My Civic, all 127,000 miles of her, groaned as I added 20mph to the speed limit. The local cops would occasionally hit the lights and start to chase me, but would turn off once they recognized my beater. We had an understanding.

Intersecting car lights threw my reflected face up onto the windshield. Worry lines that had splintered into wrinkles. Unsmiling. The resigned expression of someone gambling alone in a casino… more

Garret Ashley

The Graffiti at Gulf Park

Cover art “Landscape Grain” by Elenore Leonne Bennett

In this issue

Curtis James McConnell

CROSS-EYED MARIA, HER SISTER TERESA, and SOPHIA, ALL PREGNANT at ONCE

_____________________________________________________

Cross-eyed Maria,
Her sister Teresa,
And Sophia,
All pregnant at once
Blame it all on Alfredo
That pendejo from Waco
‘Cept nobody’s seen him for months.

In the little cantina
Cerveza mas fria
And pizza
They sell by the slice.
And a warm afternoon
In the back room
Of the saloon
Is God’s definition of nice… Read More

Caitlin McCrory

The Kill Floor

________________________________

The clack of your boots / on my hardwood floor
………is something I imagine

—————-the livestock come to listen for / and whether or not
………there’s a rhythm they instinctively know / before you lock them in… Read More

Caleb J oakes

The World Wants to See

____________________________________

Corona is smoother than I expected. Given my background I feel like I should’ve had a Corona a long time before I turned twenty-one. Growing up as a lifeguard in Florida it’s hard for me to believe this is the first time I’ve ever had one. But I know why that is, just like I know why drinking this beer turned into me writing a story about it.

The reason why I haven’t had a Corona until today was because of the bikini my girlfriend wore three years ago (she’s my ex-girlfriend now). We were at the Pensacola Beach with some friends, right at the beginning of the school year. The bikini she was wearing that day was my favorite one. It had Corona written across the ass in the famous, old English script…. Read More

Danilo John Thomas

William Dixon

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The train isn’t deep in the river, but you have to jump in upstream to grab onto the chimney, the currents too fast otherwise and it’ll drag you right on by. My brother, Cassidy, he doesn’t care about the train like I do, though. He just likes to jump from the bridge. He was throwing gainers off it this morning, and by the afternoon he could run alongside the guardrail and throw a back flip over the side, his head just missing the cement as his legs wrapped over his chest. I told him he was going to crack his skull, but I was just jealous about the trick. I am the older brother. I should be coming up with the tricks. He didn’t say much about my warning, smiled, kept on jumping… Read More

Louis Bourgeois

To Lose a Job is to be Free

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Then one day Cora left and suddenly I was all alone in the terrible 1972 white trailer home with the burgundy trimming that I bought for $600.00 that I received from a life insurance policy my grandmother had taken out on me when I was born in 1970. There was a limb lose clause to the insurance policy and I received exactly $1000.00 for losing my left arm that year; for exactly eight months I had entered the wonderful world of amputees, the exact amount of time Cora and I had been together… Read More

We are proud to announce this year’s Pushcart Prize nomination is Christopher Garland‘s essay, 29 FRAGMENTS FROM AN UNTOLD MEMORY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR, published this past summer in our D-Day Issue. Read it here.

Cover art by Karim Hetherington

Art Bupkis

IN AN AMERICAN GARDEN

A sandstone Jizo Bodhisattva,
Sold by an ancient temple
To repair a fractured bell
To sound again at dawn and dusk
Through some lonely mountains… Continue

Keith Rosson

THE KIND OF PEOPLE THAT DRIVE THESE ROADS

SUMMER, 1986

The boy lay there in the yellowed grass with one pantleg still snagged in a line of barbed wire. Slowly the crickets started up their whirring again, and from some distant farm Dobson heard a dog bark. The boy had landed on his back and Dobson could see his hands drifting slowly over the grass at his sides as if he were absently looking for something. Dobson stood there for a moment and put his pistol away with a shaking hand and then walked to the fenceline and stepped between two lines of wire. His legs thrummed and nearly gave out on him. The boy was looking at the sky but then his eyes moved toward Dobson and he coughed once, a filigree of blood on his lips. Dobson cursed quietly when he saw that the boy could not be more than nineteen or twenty years old.

The heat stilled everything; the sun was red and shimmering as it sank beyond the darkening hills. Sweat ran in lines down his ribs and he felt gnats swarming the wound at his neck, saw them clouding the blood at the boy’s lips as if some terrible incantation had been made visible. Dobson knelt on shaking legs, his gunbelt creaking, and waved a hand at them. The boy’s eyes widened. He grabbed Dobson’s wrist, stronger than he would have thought… Continue

A new novel by the author of PSYCHOSOMATIC, YELLOW MEDICINE, and HOGDOGGIN’. Smith presents his homage to one of his favorite detectives, Nero Wolfe, but written for the “internet porn” generation.

Octavia VanderPlatts is wealthy, powerful, and “comfortable with her weight”–or to hear her say it, a “rich fat b****.” Her IQ is at the genius level, and she uses it to manipulate and frighten anyone who tries to get in her way. She controls an empire built on discrimination lawsuits won against some of the nation’s top companies. On top of that, Octavia doesn’t care one wink what people think of her…Continue

Juleigh Howard-Hobson

OUT OF THE NAM

Khe Sanh, April 1967

They shouldn’t send some people here. This place, this heat, the jungle—it does things to some people. Not all people. Some of us can take it. Some of us are even good at it, being here, in this shit—-killing an enemy we never see. But, there’s some. They just don’t belong here. The Nam gets them before the Vietcong does.

You can see it in their faces, their eyes, their hands—-the way they hold things—-the way they look around—-the way they spook easy.

Most of them die real fast. Spooked men don’t live long here. Jumping at things makes you panic. Once you panic, you die. Losing your head, man, that makes you do stupid shit… Continue

Featured Artwork for November – Karim Hetherington

Arcadia

See More

Christina Murphy

TROPHY

Scott and I work the fishing boats in Bahia-Mar on the east coast of Florida. The tourists come year round for the sun, the beaches, and the sport fishing. That’s a great name, but there isn’t much sport to it. The sport fishermen like to believe they can read the ocean like a book with the large game fish the most important chapters. Scott and I know they don’t understand a thing or they wouldn’t be so proud of the fish they catch as trophies.

So today we are preparing the bait—about four dozen mullets with hooks through their bellies and wire wrapped tightly around their mouths. They were still frozen when we started but began thawing as we worked on them. Their eyes let us know when they’re ready, going from a bright silver to a dull gray and popping out slightly. They look like they’re staring at something, maybe mistaking the sky for the ocean. When we get them all ready we put them in a cooler at the back of the boat and wait for the tourists… Continue

Nick Hanna

ON A TUESDAY EVENING IN AUGUST

In the pasture tonight, Papa’s burnt-out stone
house shone under the whole moon
like a ruined, shrunken Rome.

Past the peach orchard, on the way
to the pond, the grasses moaned long
and low, lilting strains of threnody… Continue

Robin Collins

FIGURE ON LONG WHARF

(New Haven, Connecticut)
The ground is wet tonight on Long Wharf. The figure’s boots sink into soft soil—
Each thrust of the shovel, a satisfying squelch of earth. The fetid smell of the Sound wafts up
from the shoreline Decomposition’s myriad flavors—
the ocean ripe for a night
of digging in moist ground… Continue

Richard Hartwell

Over Easy, Please

_______________________

I’d like my next life over easy and centered, please.
Not sunny-side up, too runny and rheumy with happiness;
Not scrambled, so mixed up even a therapist could not help;
Not soft-boiled, hard-boiled, souffléd, or poached, if you would… read more

Jeff Newberry

The Maker’s Rage to Order

__________________________

Everyone knew Benny lied:
wove tales & spun words
like an poet: less lie, more metaphor.
He never got lost on the Apalachicola,
never shot fifteen dove with a single blast,
never drove into Panther Swamp
on his daddy’s ’72 Indian,
& never caught a Mako off Cape San Blas… Read more

April Bacon

Ecology

__________

“What chemistry!
That the winds are really not infectious,
That this is no cheat, this transparent green-wash of the sea, which is so amorous after me,
That it is safe to allow it to lick my naked body all over with its tongues,
That it will not endanger me with the fevers that have deposited themselves in it,
That all is clean forever and forever.”
—“This Compost,” Walt Whitman

I peek outside for the last time today and the sunshine blinds me from seeing the wirework of weeds. I pull aside three feet of curtains, so I can see what’s out there. The rank growth coats the dirt below, coats the land of the dead. I couldn’t clear it all away, that mess, if I ever cared to.
The dead land is below my feet too, it’s under my home. Under the asphalt, chipping the paint on the road, stuffed thick around our water pipes, lying on the compost pile, forever laughing, forever growing with bits of our own selves. I couldn’t clear it, and if I tried, parts of me would become it. It all makes me want to spit; the bubbles and boils, the cysts and pimples the earth makes. At some point in life you learn that everything is dirty and dangerous. At another, there’s no way to make it clean… Read more

Bruce Rogers

Sherman County Boys

_______________________

Some boys that Sharon had gone riding with were careful drivers. Randy Watt wasn’t one of them. He liked to drive with just one hand on the wheel, and his steering was a little vague. The truck drifted across the center line now and then, which didn’t matter for the first few miles out of Grass Valley since there was no one else on the road. It bothered her more when they got to the curvy part where the road edge dropped off into the canyon. No guard rails. But he still drove with one hand.

Because she didn’t have a car, boys were the best way for Sharon to get out of the house, away from the museum where, if she lingered on a summer day, her mother or father could always find some chore for her to do. Or, worse, her father might try to get her excited. “Sharon, look here! If somebody were to clean up some of these old switch locks and keys, they might make a nice exhibit.” Fortunately, her little sister had the genes or the virus or whatever it was that made people crazy about steam locomotives. That took some of the pressure off. But still, the best thing was just not to be home… Read more

Jim Ogden

Deep Hunting

___________________________

The sun’s rays penetrate through the crystal blue abyss of the South Atlantic Ocean as the motion of the sea gently rocks our group in a rhythm as old as life itself.  Lying here dozing and listening to the sounds of the world that surrounds us, we are resting after a long journey around the Cape of Africa.  We are here in our summer feeding grounds to enjoy the bounty that our world will bestow if it so chooses.  It is a world that is not always as I could wish, but in these last seasons the hunting has been here, and the anticipation of the great harvest to come makes some of us restless.  Once this part of the sea was filled with our cries as we hunted and mated without interference from outsiders.  Our tribe was large and we ranged the oceans of this world unmolested, the true masters of this, the Water Planet.  Now the few survivors try to rebuild our race, once the mightiest toothed mammal on this small and insignificant world.  Our clans were destroyed, and our race brought to the point of extinction to satisfy the greed of the Others.  The Others do not participate in the chain of life here, but simply take from it and return nothing.  Nothing is safe from their mindless greed and the self-satisfaction derived from wanton murder of any living thing that their primitive intellect might find threatening or perhaps useful to them in some way.  Could it be that our ancestors foresaw this happening, and left the land returning to our true home in the sea, forsaking life on the land forever?  Perhaps they foresaw that this evil would grow and one day consume all who live on the land.  We survive for now at the pleasure of these Others and hope for the day that we may once again be a strong force in the life flow of this world… Read more

Download the full issue to your tablet or ebook reader.

We’re chugging along to get you our big fat American Gridiron Issue before the last point is kicked. But, to help ease the days of waiting, here’s one of the fancier essays regarding the great sport that this editor has ever seen:

Football Season is Over; Football Season Has Begun

by Spencer Hall

_____________________________

Hunter S. Thompson wrote “Football Season Is Over” at the top of his suicide note. The end of football season was, for him, a convenient time to check out of life via gunshot. It is not hard to understand why: looking out the window in February, when the whistle has sounded and big men pour into physical rehab or the bars for the winter, is bleak as hell’s backyard no matter where you are. Up north there is snow, more snow, and grey cottony skies blocking the sun for months at a time. Down south the trees spit their leaves, and half of the mid-South looks like the back of a porcupine’s ass. In Florida, the snow birds pace the sidewalks like bedraggled death-herons lurching from one cafeteria to the next. It may be the most macabre of all scenarios, but you wouldn’t believe it until you see it…

Continued at Every Day Should Be Saturday

Featuring Danny Hogan, Matthew C. Funk, David James Keaton & Anne Babson.

Click here to check it out.

I recently sat down (over the internet and across a big ocean and a few time zones, but whatever) with Danny Hogan, a new-ish author flying like a bat of hell (or King’s Cross Station – which might be the same thing) onto today’s pulp-fiction literary scene. His recent novel, Jailbait Justice is out and making the rounds now. He was cool enough to shout out a few answers to my burning questions, as listed below:

BB:
Jailbait Justice is essentially a western that takes place after the fall of “civilization” rather than prior to its rise. What brought you to this artistic decision? How do you find this type of story differs from more “traditional” westerns? What new territory does this allow you to explore?

DH:
Hi Jason, as I writer the post-apocalyptic genre is so inspiring for me. The idea of the here and now coming to ahead, the aftermath of that and having to start up, afresh,  all over again. You can have elements of today’s world and yet have the simpler way of living, built on necessity like in the past.  This has been something that has fascinated me since I was a kid with things like 2000AD comics and Mad Max. With the post-apocalyptic genre you can be truly creative, and just make shit up. It’s brilliant.

BB:
You’re English, am I right? Yet, you composed this novel in very colloquial American South dialect, and speaking as someone born and raised in that tradition, you do it exceedingly well. How did you do this? What were your influences? How did you tune your ear?

DH:
Yeah I am English, London born and bred, though I now live in Brighton. Obviously we are exposed to a lot of American Culture and the Southern Accent is something that the British find very distinctive, and for some as my self, absolutely live it. There is something about the Southern Way of talking that can make even a backwood redneck sound eloquent, especially if you stand’em next to their UK counterpart. We knew that Murder by the Book in Houston, TX were doing a hell of a job supporting us and putting our books in their shop so me and my wife decided to visit. We totally fell in love with Texas particularly, Austin and spent a month there immersing ourselves in the culture and listening to how people talk. I think to be a good writer you have to be a good listener. We are going back to Texas this year, and the year after that until we have raised enough money to move Pulp Press over there.

BB:
You chose a female protagonist, and a young one at that. Tell us a little about her and why you chose this path? Do you feel you “captured” the opposite gender well?

DH:
I find female characters so much more fun to write than male ones. You can do so much more like the whole tough/vulnerable thing that you can’t really do so easy with male characters. Jezebel St. Etienne is a former bandit turned vigilante trying to bring, sense and justice to a post apocalyptic Texas. When I write female characters I want to get them right and make it so women would actually enjoy and get behind these characters. I grew up in a very large extended family where strong willed, tough and plain mad women and girls outnumbered the fellas about to six to one. I think this was a big influence on how I develop characters.  I really hope I have succeed in this and so far the reviews are backing me up on this.

BB:
This novel was very reminiscent to me of Tom Franklin’s novel Smonk. Are you aware of Franklin’s work? Was he in anyway an influence here?

DH:
I have not heard of Tom Franklin or his novel Smonk but I will check it ASAP and he may well be influential on my future works.

BB:
Tell us a little of your thoughts on the future of the novel and we small presses who still like to publish them.

DH:
The novel has a fine future. All we have to do as small presses is  make it our priority to remind people of the enjoyment of reading for entertainment.

You can check out more about Danny and Pulp Press titles here.

Larry Townsend

SPY SCHOOL GRADUATES

__________________________

I joined a peace-time army. Well, O.K., Vietnam was still active, but not for very long. So although I am a Vietnam-era vet, I never saw Vietnam except in pictures.

My wife and I had decided to see the world and because of poverty, we wanted to cash in somebody else’s dime. I talked to the Air Force recruiter who offered me a “dream sheet.” That’s a piece of paper that you list the 3 places you would like to go. I asked him how many people in the 10 years he had been recruiting received their first choice.

“None,” he replied.

Second choice?

“Uh, none.”

Third choice?

“One!” He smiled brightly, and I left, reflecting that “sheet” was a misspelling. The Army was more desperate. They gave you a signed contract about the school you would go to, if you qualified. I signed up for Russian language, because Vietnamese linguists only had two countries to choose from, and one of those involved hiding in haystacks.

I took a 36 week course in Russian. One of my friends took Vietnamese and finished the week Vietnam fell. The next Monday morning his entire class began a 36 week course in Russian.
We were at that time in Army uniforms and got Army pay and benefits, but we took our orders from the National Security Agency. We were expected to complete basic Russian and then go to Germany, Japan, Turkey or some such place to use electronic means to spy on the enemy. In fact, Pravda took great pride in publishing a picture of the graduating class each year from the Defense Language Institute under the banner: Spy School Graduates.

We’re not sure how they got the picture.

My last class in language school was a class on cursing in Russian, because the Soviets have no ban on foul language on military radios. You could not understand a soldier, if you could not curse.

After graduation from language school, we were sent to advance training in signal acquisition and cold weather survival.
My father found that humorous, as the Army had sent him to Ft. Devens for cold weather survival training in WWII. Then they changed his orders from Alaska to “Sahara Desert” and off he went in his wool uniform. So at Ft. Devens they changed my orders to “Ft. Hood, Texas” and off I went. Now fully capable of killing a seal and eating it without dying from the toxic Vitamin K in its liver, I arrived in Texas where (I kid you not) I never saw a seal or a walrus. Had I known how to kill tarrantulas and scorpions I would have been better off.

It turns out that I never saw Germany and still haven’t. Maybe I should have filled out the “dream sheet.”

The Army had decided that we would be in direct support of an Armored or Infantry division. That means that we would learn how to identify the enemy with our language skill, determine his suitability for annihilation, electronically find his location, and alert the necessary tubes to destroy him. That sounded like fun until I got to the part about where we would be deployed. It said: Plus or minus two kilometers from the front edge of the battle area. Plus didn’t sound too good, but minus meant we would be “behind enemy lines.” I refreshed my language skills to make sure I had mastered the necessary phrase of “Ne otkrete! Ya znau sekrete!” That means “Don’t Shoot! I know secrets!”

Fortunately, there were a few other things we did, such as jamming the enemy communication devices. And that was how we were better known. Everyday when we had our last formation, we had a tradition that surprised a new officer one day when he gave us our end of the day briefing. He very solemnly told us what we needed to know for the next day and then dismissed us. As we did everyday, we did a curt right face and then sounded off with, “Jam it, Sir!” and then left. Fortunately another officer explained it to him before the mass courtmartial he was planning occurred.

My company, known as a Combat Electronic Warfare Intelligence company, was in support of the 2nd Armored Division, commanded by General George S. Patton, IV. CEWI excelled at so many things that we were chosen to be the Honor Company for the first visit of President Jimmy Carter to an Army base during his presidency. A few of us were chosen to brief him on our equipment and function.

The planning took weeks. Alexander Haig showed up the day before the President and informed us that we were to treat him exactly as if he were the President so he could filter what the President would be told. Yes, he was dreaming of the Presidency even then. He was less than impressive.

The next day we had the equipment in a very large field and the President came to each group, walking and shaking hands with each briefer. Behind him was a truck with news media from all over the spectrum. Magazines, networks, newspapers, you name it, they were there.

The Secret Service only allowed me and two crew members to be there on our equipment. Although we were normally a six person crew, they had taken two very lovely young ladies from other crews to represent my crew, a blonde and a brunette.

President Carter walked up in front of me and I snapped off my best salute and informed him briefly about CEWI. When I finished, he said, “Sounds like you are from my part of the country, Sgt. Townsend.” I told him, that was correct, I was from Mississippi. He smiled and shook my hand, thanked me and walked away about 10 feet. The truck behind him moved to the next position with all the cameras on it. He stopped and came back. I thought, “Oh, Lord, did I do something wrong?”
He made sure the cameras and microphones were out of range and then stepped up and said, “My, Sgt. Townsend. You certainly have a lovely crew.” My first reaction was to say, “Now, Mr. President, you must not lust in your heart.” But between the idea and the tongue, I saw a vision of myself carrying a base mortar plate in Alaska in four feet of snow. I replied, “I will pass that on to them, Mr. President.” He smiled and went on to the next position.

I spent time after my hitch in the Reserves and enjoyed many experiences. And eventually I forgave the Army for sending me to Texas instead of Germany. Peace is hell.

-

Larry Townsend works for the Forrest General Hospital Cancer Center in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and is a regular contributor to the Hattiesburg American.

Read the full D-Day issue.

In the spirit of D-Day and our newly released Summer “D-Day” Issue, and also because he’s such a damn good writer, we’re publishing Doug Bond’s flash piece “FOLDED FLOWER.” Check it out. Check him out. And Check out the D-Day issue.

__________________________________

Up at my Grandma’s for the holiday break, she asked about my studies, other things, said she wondered what it was I had been busy scrawling away at. “Oh just a letter…to a friend.”

“Is that your girl. You still seeing that girl, the one from high school?”

I was surprised she remembered. I guess it was all pretty transparent.

She got up and told me to go on with what I was doing, went upstairs and returned holding a small dark wood box. She opened the clasp and leafed through some buttons and things and pulled out an old yellowed letter folded up in a square. Attached in the center were the petals of a small flower pressed in wax paper. Uncreased, she read it out loud:

Oh sweet Elipha I think of you dear

I yearn for your face in the light

An end to the darkness spreading the land

Your laughter with mirth and delight.

I fancy that you might fancy me…

A catch came into her voice, and her eyes lowered with her hands. The silence felt strange, so I said I had no idea Grandpa was such a romantic old fool. “A poet no less!”

“Oh, no, goodness no, this was just a boy that loved me once.”

She folded it back into a square taking care with the brittle paper and dried flower. It was a poppy I found out later, a red one, she had picked years ago in a field when she was young.