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You read English very well, Danik, and you are sensitive to subtleties many people miss. I didn't like that sentence either. It was too clumsy being a pivotal transition in the haibun. I plan to use this as a prose poem I would recite at an open mic, but it still needs some work.
Thanks for the praise, Yes/No. A prose poem is a good idea. I don´t know if LitNet has a device for spoken texts, but I suppose if not, there are other sites specialized in them.
Good work!
Hey people!! I haven't been on this site in some time, but I think I'll start posting my little short, mostly un-edited stories on here. I am open to any criticism, good or nood (not, haha I'm so funny... right?) Hope everyone is having a lovely time! -Robert ;)
Grandma's House
I crept quietly towards the house’s front door with Jess tagging along behind me. He was always clumsier then me, so I wasn’t necessarily surprised to hear him trip over his untied shoelaces. His face was now covered with blood and his all-black outfit was now slowly turning into a dark wine. Clutching his nose, Jess was stretching to recover his phone that had dropped on the brick driveway, as if he couldn’t move his legs to do both tasks at the same time. “Do you think someone heard us” he nasally squeaked. “I’m not surprised that you had forgotten, but no one is home, but your screeching might wake the neighbors” I whispered while taking all air from my diaphragm, and now I seemed to be out of breath. We kept moving forward hoping to find exactly what was stolen from us. For a thief, this man lives in a pretty lovely house: long horseshoe brick driveway, contemporary framing, and a sparkling golden necklace, which didn’t belong to him.
That necklace had been in the family for as long as our parent, grandparents, and great-grandparents, could remember. Jess and I had always heard from Grandma that this necklace was “mystical and magical… a piece of jewelry that was more than ornament.” It held secrets to past and present, as well as a $100,000 value. But, as she told us, the price was never enough. A time when both of us brothers could have used the money, after father had passed, we tried to pawn it off to local pawn-er James “will buy anything, regardless of sex, race, or height” John, but, as we didn’t know, was a grand ole friend of little Dramy Roberts. Grandma then took the necklace from us, and told me “Timothy Rest Roberts, I expected this from your brother, but from you… I am disappointed.” She then continued to assure me she still loved me, but reminded me that this necklace was more than its face-value. Jess and I spent the rest her life taking care of her. When she past we both agreed that we’d never sell it. But Jess, of course, had somehow managed to get the necklace stolen… Monkeys, grapes, and a zoo keeper were all involved.
Reaching for the front door knob I had felt a hard-stiff stop in the handle. Damn… it’s locked. “Let me try” Jess protested. Trying my hardest not to raise my voice I whispered “What good will that do? Will your lucky lock-picking hands decipher the tumble on this lock?” He gave me a confused dog head tilt. I kept trying until I felt hands grabbed my shoulder and shove me aside. Jess took his left hand out and twisted the knob to the left… idiot, but how did it just open? “And that’s why they call me…” he’s cut off by his shoelaces, still untied, and marble flooring meets his face. It must have felt cold and cruel, as he let out a deafening “Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwww”. “Shut up idiot” I interjected. Lights turned on and we were greeted by a familiar voice. “Grandma… we thought….. you died.”
I liked your story very much. You seem to have experience as a writer. Good descriptions and the ability to keep the reader interested.Hoping for sequel.
I wonder if that necklace keeps grandma alive?
Great story, short and well done. Just enough mystery to keep the attention.
The Road of Death
(El Camino de la Muerte)
When the DEA left Center 41 with the prisoners in back of the truck it was mańana en la mańana-still dark.
Their plan was to take them to a lock-up in the capital, La Paz, where unlike in Santa Cruz they figured the officials could not be bribed. It was a mistake. The only way there was by a single road named El Camino de la Muerte that wound its way up into the Eastern Cordillera, or Cordillera Oriental, of the Andes. It was called that simply because it was a treacherous single-lane tract, with many switch-backs, at times steep, and mucho buses of Indians fell over its edge into the canyons every year, as the altitude climbed from sea-level in the yungas, or flat lands, to over fourteen thousand feet near La Paz. The road had a reputation for danger. On this day it would keep its reputation… in spades.
As the agents pulled out of town the forest began to grow closer, surrounding the road with trees standing like tall silent sentinels. It was cool and still early. An hour later the dew still remained on the grass and leaves, and collected on the barrels of the AKs slung over the shoulders of the primos, or cousins, of the two brothers in back of the truck. Bolivia is named after Simon Bolivar, El Liberator, so the cousins called themselves liberators and secreted themselves in the forest on both sides of the road. Hugo in his wisdom had seen to that. Dude knew nothing about this. He was along for the ride, cuffed to the other two for crimes of his own. They jostled and bumped down the road in the bed of the truck along with canteens and extra gas stored in Jerry cans. On the truck rolled, deeper and deeper into the gaping mouth of the hungry forest. There would be no arrival at the capital and no turning back on this trip, but there would be a stop.
A jacaranda tree had fallen across the road. One agent stepped down to inspect.
“We’ll just use the winch and pull it aside,” he said to the other who remained in the cab.
“It’s OK,” the second one answered, “we’ve got all day.”
Then the first one went to the trunk of the tree to take a closer look.
When the agent saw the trunk he didn’t see a break or an uprooting. He saw a clean cut.
He noticed the forest gone quiet.
When he considered both the quiet and cut he knew he was dead.
A shot rang out of the trees proclaiming liberty. The AK barrels grew hot spitting fire and turned the dew to steam. The three prisoners regained their freedom and along with the gunmen gained the safety of the forest. Their laughter was soon muffled by the leaves and the creepers and lianas and the chatter of monkeys but after some time the clearing went silent except for the drip-drip-dripping of scarlet death as it stained the fallen leaves lying still on the forest floor.
A day later Dude packed up his stash and left town for good, his only souvenir of the incident the cuff marks on his wrists, and within a week they’d be history.
“Vaya con Dios,” Hugo said when they shook hands and parted. Before, when Dude heard the phrase it only meant goodbye. From Hugo it meant, “Go with God.”
When Dude stepped onto the aluminum stairs that led to the safety of the plane, he knocked the red mud of the Yapacani from his boot heels as easily as if he was stepping into his mother’s living room for a hot home-cooked meal served with love. Lloyd Aereo Boliviano looked just as comforting.
Dude copped a seat by the window and watched as the jet raced down the tarmac, then trees passed by in a blur, then white puffy clouds, and finally the Yapacani winding like a silver thread between gaps in the green canopy as the plane gained altitude to make it safely over the Andes. Dude grew reflective and thought,
‘The worst part of the trip wasn’t the heat or the insects or the language barrier or hoping you’d score from a Bolivian Goodfella instead of some greedy b*stard that might sell you out to the police. In fact, I can’t think what the worst part was.’
Dude was thinking in the wrong tense. The real danger was in the future, and so typical of Dude’s psyche it had not been considered.
The worst and most dangerous part was going to happen after he cleared customs in LAX and became famous overnight, a bag man with an endless parade of women and their numberless intrigues, unprepared to deal with his own greed and new-found arrogance, the eventual scandal that led to his inevitable bust, and watching helplessly as his life fell apart by default.
©Steven Hunley 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogCav21c2Fo All She Wants To Do Is Dance
Good suspense! Got the feeling though that this is a sequel of another part, because one doesn´t know how Dude became prisoner. The jaguar story probably comes first of all.
I didn't understand the last paragraph, in particular, this: "a bag man with an endless parade of women and their numberless intrigues". Otherwise it was an interesting story of an escape.
I suppose SH will answer this question. For me it seems to be a foreshadowing of how the story continues.
I'll more than likely start writing a second part, due to popular demand haha
You should keep writing, Robert. Popular demand or not.
Before Dude was arrested, and on The Road of Death, we have this:
Ice Cream and Danger to Go
The next morning Dude went back to town and saw Hugo. They went to the plaza around noon to have ice cream at a popular shop. While they were eating, two men who dressed impeccably saw Hugo from across the room and came over. They looked so alike they had to be brothers, same shoes, same tailor. They shook hands with Hugo and Dude. Then they sat together and talked in hushed tones of business matters, then in boisterous voices and loud laughing, of women and gambling in the same breath. Later after they left, Hugo said, “That’s the two bothers I score from.”
“Really, they don’t seem like coke dealers.”
“Neither do you, my snow-blind friend.”
Dude looked down at himself.
“I see what you mean.”
They started to talk of psychedelics again, and Dude mentioned Yage, a substance Alan Ginsberg wrote about in The Yage Letters.
“They have it here, but here they call it ayahuasca.”
“I’ve always wondered about it, what’s it like?”
“Maybe I can arrange something,” Hugo said, “get back to me tomorrow.”
It seemed innocent enough, that ice-cream soda. But Dude’s nose was numb. He’d done a line before heading into town and couldn’t smell the evil in the air. It was there, drifting from the back room where it had been hiding behind a curtain.
Lenny and Phil liked ice-cream too.
They were sitting in the back room when Dude and Hugo walked in, watching the two brothers who they’d been trailing for weeks.
“Who’s that they’re talking with now?” sweated Phil.
“Looks like an American trying to score,” Lenny greased back.
“What an idiot.”
“From the frying pan right into the fire.”
The two nasty DEA agents returned to swilling their cheap beer. It was more than enough. Just by saying it they’d placed Dude on their “to get” list. Why? Guilt by association.
Poor Dude, wrong place, wrong time. I felt sorry for the fool.
They still needed to find out where he was staying. That gave him time to breathe.
then, The Hut On The Yapacani, then:
Return to Santa Cruz
When Dude got back to the hotel and was going up to his room and getting his key, he asked the concierge for an envelope and paper. He sat down in his room at the dresser and wrote a short note to Alex, giving him instructions on how to sprout the seeds. It was the only communication with the boy he’d had in weeks. The note was short, the letter was thin. All in all if you had to judge it from the outside, it wasn’t much. About the most valuable thing about it was the stamp.
Two days later Dude was getting into a cab at night to head into town. Canadian Steve told him there was a rumor going around that some agents from the DEA had busted one of the two brothers and was searching for the other. The cab had two passengers in it already but Dude was willing to share and took a seat in front next to the driver. As they pulled away from the hotel he felt cold steel pressed on the back of his neck between the top of his spine and his head.
A voice said, “You’re under arrest.”
He never even made it to dinner.
Later, as he sat in the damp cell in center 42 watching pairs of cockroaches slow-dancing across the floor, our Excitable Boy remembered the words of the immortal Warren Zevon.
“I’m hiding in Honduras
I’m a desperate man
Send lawyers guns and money
The sh*t has hit the fan.”
Yes, he wasn’t in Honduras and yes, he wasn’t being realistic. But then again, when have you ever known Dude to be realistic? Never. Not in this lifetime anyway.
Then, The Road of Death
This part: "But then again, when have you ever known Dude to be realistic?" might be better shown than told.
When one talks of drug dealers or users we have stereotypes that come to mind. The story has to flesh out those stereotypes or contradict them in interesting ways, not ride them. The best drug story I remember is Breaking Bad. It took a long time to tell it, but it keeps coming to mind. A lot of bad drug stories are seen in movies where drug dealers and users (and terrorists and corrupt government workers) are set up as bad guys. These movies ride the stereotypes to paint the good guys as good, that is, justified in overcoming the bad guys.