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Things You Need Scavenging
SCAVENGINGI started sidewalkscavenging for the extra cash. I lost my teaching job about a year ago, one year short of tenure and in a way guaranteeing I’d never teach ever again. While Clifton Heights is large enough for several churches, a small hospital, two high schools and a zoo, it’s also small enough that news travels fast. The only place willing to hire me was the twenty-four hour Mobilmart outside town, and then only part-time, third shift. I wasn’t crazy about it, but paying rent and utilities provided plenty of motivation.I knew working part time for minimum wage at a gas station wasn’t going to cut it, so I had to take additional measures. For example, once a month a food bank visits Clifton Heights Methodist Church. Though it killed me to accept handouts, it lowered the grocery costs, which helped me pay bills and still eat.I also began collecting cans and bottles along the interstate and side roads, because The Can Man was offering six and a half cents for each
Things You Need 7.
7.I laid thelast page down on the pile strewn at my feet. I slumped where I sat next to the word processor—a Texas Instruments 8010—and covered my face with my hands. The instant darkness made me sleepy.So tired.Of everything. My job. My life. Driving from school to school. Doing my shuck and jive to get kids selling magazines, kids who half the time didn’t give a rat’s ass. Tired of them, tired of the same motels, the same cars so alike I couldn’t remember anything about them, the same old bar whores. I was tired of the whole damn game.That’s why I’d bought the .38, of course. I’m sure yousaw that coming a mile away. How could I have missed it? It was right in front of my face. Had been for over a year. How many times can you sit in your motel room—or cabin—and cradle the gun you bought for “personal protection” before you get the message, loud and clear?Anyway, sitting before a pile of paper spit out by a Texas Instruments word processor, on which was written a
Things You Need A Place for Broken and Discarded Things
A PLACE FOR BROKEN AND DISCARDED THINGSThe sheer size of Save-A-Bunch Furniture impressed Shane Carroll the most, initially. He hadn’t expected it to be so large and sprawling. Also surprising, it was a re-tasked high school, which was unexpected in itself. Such a modestly-sized town as Clifton Heights not only having two in-use schools but also an unused high school on its outskirts. Converting it into Save-A-Bunch also impressed Shane in its utilitarian efficiency.It hadn’t taken long, however, for another feeling to impress itself upon him as he and Amanda strolled through its labyrinthine hallways, past recliners, sofas and armoires. He couldn’t name the sensation, exactly. A nagging sense of unease? Discomfiture? An odd displacement which made everything feel slightly out of place?He didn’t know what it was. Something about the old school’s halls—now lined with refurbished and used furniture of all kinds—set him slightly off kilter. He didn’t know why. Everything looked clea
Things You Need 8.
8.“Please! I don’t know where my husband Shane is! That’s all I know! That’s the last time I saw him! You have to help me!”At that point my circuits were nearly fried for good. Forget the fact I was locked in a weird-ass thrift shop whose clerk had vanished. Forget my rental car being stolen or towed or whatever. Forget the .38 I couldn’t remember putting away back at The Motor Lodge, and forget the crazy hallucinations I kept having. Here was the impossibility of an iPhone coming to life (when mine wouldn’t work at all) connecting me with some hysterical lady who in the space of ten minutes or so (though it felt much longer) told me some crazy story about being lost in a high school-turned furniture store wherethere were things in the lockers... she’d somehow gotten separated from her husband. It was a crazy story, but the thing is, I remembered—sorta—passing a sign reading SAVE-A-BUNCH furniture on the way into Clifton Heights, with the impression of a large build
Things You Need The Black Pyramid
THE BLACK PYRAMIDReverend Norman Akleyperused a table of odds and ends in front of Handy’s Pawn and Thrift, which offered its eclectic collection as part of Clifton Heights’ Monthly Sidewalk Rummage Sale. Norman’s right hand flitted from object to object, never quite touching but considering each as if his fingertips could judge value by intuition alone.Norman loved rummage sales, but only occasionally did he find anything worth consideration. When he did, he picked it up and examined it, wondering if it would plead to be taken home. Most often, however, he shook his head, noting a slight imperfection here, a stain there. He’d replace the item, offer the table’s curator a polite smile, and move on to other tables, their contents varied, sublime, ridiculous, amusing, or simply odd.The items on Handy’s table were varied indeed. A pewter beer stein, its embossed Viking bust glaring. Neat rows of used but polished tobacco pipes. Not-so-fine, yellowed china. A felt-lined box of
Things You Need 9.
9.I wasn’t dyingafter all. I heaved a big cough and blew little speckles of stuff—not insects, more like sand—all over me. Then I had a sneezing fit lasting about ten minutes or so before I finally cleared my throat with several hacking gasps.I blinked dust and grit from my eyes. My mouth and tongue tasted gritty, but I was all right. Nearly passed out after that dark sandy stuff puffed in my face, but I was all right. I dropped the black pyramid to the floor damn quickly, though. No more rubbing it and reading those weird-ass words, for sure.What was that stuff? I never found out. At the time I thought maybe it might’ve been some sort of hallucinogenic drug. Something that screws with people’s minds, makes them hallucinate. The things I saw when I accidentally snorted it was worse than any nightmare I’d ever had.I’m not sure how long I sat there, blinking and spitting. Felt like a long time. Weird images spun in my brain, the worst of them a snarling, hissing Jesus on a
Things You Need When We All Meet at the Ofrenda
WHEN WE ALL MEET AT THE OFRENDAThe horizon above Hillside Cemetery was slowly bruising a crimson-purple, shading to the velvet darkness of an autumn Adirondack evening. Night birds sang. The crisp air nipped Whitey Smith’s hands and face. Dry leaves rustled underfoot as he shuffled along the path leading toward the cemetery caretaker shed. His assistants, Judd and Dean, had raked leaves all week, but it hadn’t mattered. Never usually did. When autumn came, leaves covered the ground. This was the way of things.Flowers bloomed in spring. Crops grew during summer. Leaves fell in autumn, and things died during winter. Except Maria, who died a month ago of pancreatic cancer, which was the way of things.People died.He shuffled to a stop, grasped the knob on the shed’s door, swallowing a grimace as arthritic pain arrowed glass slivers into his knuckles.“Sonofabitch.”He turned the knob and tried to open the door but couldn’t. It had rained yesterday, and the door had swelled as it
Things You Need 10.
10.I cowered againstthe stairway, shaking. The hand clutching my lighter with a white-knuckled grip jittered, throwing its faint orange light over their withered faces. Lips peeled back from white, jutting teeth. Blind eye sockets stared, stopped up by crusty dead matter. Wispy cobweb hair—what remained—clung to skulls sheathed in tight, leathery flesh. Mouths gaped wide in silent screams.I can’t tell you how many there were, exactly—three or four—nor can I say how they were positioned, because I couldn’t hold my hand still. It kept jerking up and down, the light flitting across their faces, filling up their blind eyes. Maybe two of them were embracing, one’s head buried in the other’s neck. Lovers? Husband and wife?I’ve told myself maybe those weren’t real corpses at all. Could be they were old, cast-off Halloween decorations. Very genuineHalloween decorations. Made of foam, or something, and dressed in old rags. I’ve told myself this, and on some days, I actually be
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