Bigtop - part 4

Angel walked out of the crumbling toilet at Buckbone's Gas & Feed Station with her hair rough-hewn, close to her ears. The little stuff left was left dyed bubblegum pink. Below a vengeful, sloping brow Angel's steady eyes measured the landscape that surrounded her. Fury curled the corners of her razor-thin smile.
            Buckbone himself got a split-second view of the inside of that poor wreck of a room between the time the door flew open and when it slammed shut again.
            "Seems like," Buckbone sneered, "that lady owes me some money for setting off some kind of girlie-bomb in our public toilet."
             Four dusty men sitting on a plank of lumber beside him nodded quietly, squinting at the shock of pink bird strutting toward the broken down vehicle rattling restlessly in the unpaved lot.
            Slim leaned over and, with one finger, pushed the passenger door open for Angel. "I think you'll want to hop in quickly before these fellas get a look at what I just saw in that rest room."
            "By the looks of it," she sneered, eying the short parade heading for them, "they seen it."
            And that's how Slim and Angel set off, southward, from Haysville, Kansas: Falling angrily, broke, pink, pregnant and in flames, with the failures of their own pasts weighing on them and little more than the truth ready to cushion the plunge on the bottom side.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Souls of Beautiful Monsters - Lucy

“Turquoise? I can't even say the word without falling down. You want me to spell it?” “No, no. Just describe it.” “Describe turquoise? The color or the stone?” Lucy laughs and scratches her head. “Hmmm… I suppose it doesn't matter,” she says. Stephen twirls a finger around Lucy's bare foot then traces her toes gently before glancing up. “Hang on,“ he says, “it’s the same problem!” Stephen was fascinated by Lucy's ability to confound the simplest notions with an ease that surpassed the remarkable agility of her practical mind. It was what first sent shivers up his spine that first week in thesis for biomedical engineering.   Dr. Shirkfield, the startling young star professor, had asked for the students to share their topic concepts for the attendant research course. When no one took the bait, and an uncomfortable silence grew in the room, the young woman in the front of the class raised her hand and flopped it about. “Ah! One fearless target… I mean, stu...
Read more

Sweet Little Things - Part 2 (Horrible Marriages Collection)

Part 2         I braced myself for the attack. It was a ritual.        “King of the mountain! King of the mountain!”   I am the mountain. No one ever won that contest. The mountain tumbled every time.         They'd gotten as far as they could before I scooped them up and rolled them, elbows over giggles onto the soft, Persian  rug.         “Your getting slow, Lurch!” Squealed Simone.         “You're getting heavy!” I replied, honestly.         I was Lurch; from the Adams family. They found that unlikely association hilarious. Especially when I tried the voice.         After nuggies, a belch contest, and silly how-do-you-do, the girls composed themselves. I received a years worth of catch-up in a six-minute, stereophonic, high speed summary, which ended with four handed vote that my hairline had receded, and it was a sad state of...
Read more

The Hit (Horrible Marriages Collection)

        “It's not that I never liked him – I liked  him enough -  if it mattered anyhow, which it doesn't,” she hissed.         “I want him dead. I want it to hurt. I want him dead and then bring him back so you can kill him again, right away, right now…” The hit-man squinted. “That's twice the cash, even if I could… I'm no expert, but even if I could, it ain't right...” She smiled and the words sliced through clenched teeth, “You have no problem killing him once but..,” she said and shook her head.         Stupidity. Killers. Assholes. Dropouts – they make it look like something in the movies.  A hit man is a losers loser: Bad breath, bad manners, dirty, filthy, stupid third-grade dropouts. “Listen to me! Every week goes by I have to pay that schmuck to live, to breath, to exist in this world just to bust my ass and remind me of what a god damned fool I was in the very first god-...
Read more