Blend

FLASH FICTION
 
Dim the lights, put on some slow-burning jazz, and loosen your tie as you take the craft of flash fiction writing and apply it to the seedy, crime-riddled world of noir fiction. Your job is to present an engaging story in 500 words or less in that grand tradition of Raymond Chandler, Patricia Highsmith, or Jim Thompson. This contest is a fundraiser for p:ear, a program for homeless and transitional youth,  and will be judged by Kevin Sampsell, editor of the bestselling anthology, Portland Noir (Akashic Books). The top three stories will be read at p:ear noir the fundraising event on October 7th from 7-9p, benefiting p:ear, and located at 338 NW 6th Ave. Author of the winning story will receive a $50 gift certificate to Powell's Bookstore (available on line), a signed copy of Portland Noir, and a chapbook from IPRC containing the top 10 flash fiction entries.

Entry fee: $15, a mighty portion of the proceeds benefit p:ear.
 
Deadline: please submit Flash Fiction entries by September 11th online at www.pearmentor.org or wordstockfestival.com or mail them with check to Flash Fiction, p:ear, 338 NW 6th, Portland OR 97209

I feel badly that I’ve neglected my Vox friends and I owe an explanation.
At this time a lot of folks are struggling financially.  This is especially true for small (and large) non-profits that depend on the generosity of their communities for survival.  No, this isn’t a pitch.  But most of my time the last few months has been absorbed by the needs of  p:ear, the program for homeless youth I work for.  As things are, I foresee being immersed in all things non-profit for the next several months.  It’s not that I’m not thinking about you or that I don’t want to play, I’m just committed to the time this program is going to take to survive. And I'll be back.

January– Oranges and Avocados

    Orange and avocado salad is in the top ten of my favorite salads, although no one else seems to like it.   Actually, it’s not so much a salad as a litmus test.  This is the idea:  if I find another person who likes it as much as I do that person is  certain to be my soul mate.
 
     It’s a simple salad: separate the peel from the oranges and the dust of white pith bursts into the air followed by the sharp scent of citrus.  Slice the oranges into rounds, cut the avocados in half, gently remove the dark, mysterious seed with a soup spoon and cut the creamy, pale green flesh into slices with a sharp knife and the avocado still in its skin.  Scoop out the slices with the soupspoon. Then set the plate with orange and avocado slices placed on a bed of mixed greens and drizzled with a creamy French or Catalina dressing.

    I made it for Ryan.  His eyes lit up.  Forkful after forkful made it’s way into his mouth and finally he sighed, “That’s the best salad I’ve ever had.”

February – Brussels Sprouts

    It’s an ongoing battle.  I’m convinced that if I find just the right recipe, the proper combination, my Brussels sprout hating date will like them.  Ryan is dutiful.  He tastes every attempt and rejects it.  He says, “How can you eat those things?”  I say, “The question is how can you eat those things?” 

    I’ve tried Brussels sprouts sweetened and glistening with maple syrup, Brussels sprouts made savory with blue cheese and bacon, potatoes and Brussels sprouts mashed and formed into pancakes then lightly browned in butter (a personal favorite), and I’ve roasted carrots, turnips and Brussels sprouts until they were caramelized and tender – no use.
 
    I’m not sure why it’s so important to me.  Maybe Brussels sprouts represent what I love about myself, earthy, small without being delicate, and a little nutty.  I want him to accept this, ingest it, celebrate it.

April  – Water and Alcohol

    I don’t drink enough water – who does? Except maybe those plastic bottle toting wateraholics, who always seem to be taking a swig? 

    We’ve been camping on the coast – the wettest camping tip in the history of the Oregon Coast.  Not really.  But it’s been raining, rain poured down the sides of the camper, pummeled the roof, soaked the pine trees until they rained themselves, water slipping from their needles to the spongy ground.  I was drinking wine, lots of wine and Ryan was drinking orange juice and vodka.  It rained and rained and we just kept drinking and drinking.  There was an argument.  I can’t even remember what it was about.   It turned mean.  The park service came.   We almost got kicked out of the park.

    I’m dehydrated, demoralized and hung over but no longer drunk. This much I’m sure of:   we can’t drink anything stronger than water together and one of us needs to quit drinking.  I think it’s us.

    June  – Chicken Dinner

    Cooking for one is not so much an art form as a discipline.  I can do it.  Ryan can’t.  Well, the fact of the matter is he can’t cook for two either, but he won’t eat by himself, he’d rather not eat.  Inconceivable.  I roasted half a bone-in chicken breast with onions and rosemary, tossed a salad of field greens, dried cranberries and toasted pecans in a sherry vinaigrette.  I set the table using the good linen and silverware, poured myself a glass of sparkling water, lit a candle and have never been more lonely in my life.

September – Salmon on the River

    September  - time for fresh starts.  As a kid I remember how excited I was just before school started.  New clothes, new books, new pencil case.  I’m ready to give it the old school try again.

    Ryan and I drove down the Columbia River Gorge, one of the most scenic gorges, to the biased anywhere, intent on purchasing fresh salmon. We saw a sign that advertised “fresh caught salmon - will not accept drugs or alcohol as payment”.  Intrigued,  we took that exit down a dirt road that paralleled the river and came to a trailer with the same sign outside. When we got out of the car we were greeted by two friendly dogs of undeterminable breed and a Native man in his mid to late 30’s.
 
    He had three gleaming salmon on ice he’d caught that morning.  Even dead their scales shone in the sunlight like silver filigree or black pearls.   We took the smallest one home in an ice chest and spent about an hour laughing our heads off at our exploratory efforts at determining fish anatomy and somehow making acceptable salmon steaks for the freezer. I can almost taste salmon roasted on a cedar plank, gravlax with tarragon and juniper berries, baked salmon in Hoisin sauce, salmon smoked with tea…  Anything that goes into a freezer is a statement about the future.
    

     Melanie was furious.  It was the old fury – boyfriend screwing someone else.  But he’d make a mistake, a big one, well, he’d made two.  He’d left a set of keys at her house. She didn’t care about his apartment but the keys to his 1983 Mustang GT 5.0, were a godsend.  He loved that Mustang more than he loved her and honestly, she probably loved it more than him, too.  It was classic shiny-red with a large, black stripe running down the hood - light, quick and strong.  She had run her hand down the sweep of that long hood dozens of times and never tired of the smooth, cool surface containing the promise of power in 175 horses at 4200 rpm.

     It was simple to go over to his apartment that night and slip the key into the ignition (he slept like the dog he was).  She felt the nearly sexual thrill of a V-8 engine, all horses alive and straining, 3,000 pounds of power and the deep, hoarse breath of a four-barrel carb sucking air like a racehorse.  

     She headed out onto the open road feeling exhilarated, negotiating turns, agile as a fox.  This was no random joy ride, though.  She knew exactly where she was going and headed for Ryer’s Cove with each banked turn supported by a sporting suspension and a 3.08:1 rear axle, adrenaline flowing as freely as gasoline through a fuel line.  

     She drove past the parking lot, on to the beach and stopped at water’s edge taking in the view for a few minutes.  She watched a crane, pale gray, silhouetted against the first light, fishing in the shallow water.   When she got out she caressed the hood, hiked to the top of Look Out Point, and waited for the tide to come in.

Related events: In 1983 US Steel closed all or part of 29 mills; the largest manufacturing shut-down in American history.  In that same year Ford and GM failed to meet the mandated CAFE standards.

Dumpster diving hadn’t yielded much today – a half burrito with beans, rice and corn and something that might have been an eggplant.  It was discouraging; what with the recession, even the dregs were getting worse.

Roland stroked his red bulbous nose, pulled another swig from the bottle in his pocket and tried not to think about it.  If he hurried he might hit the end of the food line at Sister of Mercy but hurry had left him a long time ago, just after hope.

He sat down in the alley, most of his attention captivated by a once blue shirtfront.  The alley was between commercial buildings, a taqueria, convenience store and warehouse.  Light sneaked in like a first time intruder nervously looking over it’s shoulder.   Out of the corner of his eye Roland caught a glint of something coming up in a crack of pavement, something green and alive.  He let gravity carry him to get a closer look.  He was pretty sure it was a tomato plant, green and fierce.  A damn tomato plant!  He’d heard that tomato seeds could go through the digestive tracts of birds and still be viable.  Those tomato seeds, they could survive anything.

Elaine and Josh were sitting in separate but equal rockers on the porch letting the years seep by, letting the summer sun die of old age and the old moon rock the new moon gently into the half-lit sky.  They never nodded off – life was too precious.

In the soft twilight Josh asked, “Do me a favor, will ya, Elaine?  Remind me what we had for Easter dinner in ’05 and who was there.

Elaine sipped her orange Crush laced with a little whiskey and watched the “sweat” erase on the inside of the glass where she had drank.  It was a game they played.  He would ask a question about something they had done, somewhere they had been, someone they had known and she would try to remember.  They would piece work it back to whole, they would string the pearls of their memories back together.

“We had lamb.”  It was a statement but she really wasn’t sure if she was remembering or if it was simply that they often had lamb on Easter.  She bit her lip.

Josh saw and smiled, “No, I think we had ham that year.”

Uncertain, then it flowed back, “No, no it was lamb.  Remember?  We had Easter here that year, the last one with all the kids, and we wanted it to be both special and traditional.  I cooked for days preparing that one and it was worth every minute of it.”  Time was sometimes a sneak thief and sometimes a brazen robber but with a little effort moments could be reclaimed, savored and re-celebrated.

“Yeah, yeah, I remember now, Elaine.”

The Cheese Sandwich is a rough draft experimenting in linking the evocative properties of food experience with psychology.  This is the final part, part three.   Let me know what you think.

On her hands and knees, she crawled down the sinewing body of the hall, thankful for the clean cement floor, as it dog-legged its way past canines calling her name in voices that were a familiar failure, a fond non-forgiveness, a memoir without memory of men who she had met and left or had left her empty, alone and caged by her own fears and requirements. 

She went past a chihuahua mix, high strung, sensitive, possibly loving like Renaldo who needed her strength and was not disappointed when he found out it was only discipline.   But she couldn’t tolerate the nip and snap of being reminded her strength was a faux, a fox, too clever to admit to weakness, too weak to find real strength.  Crawl, crawl past the next few cages and into the bay that would let her out.  Past the Rottweiler, the roiling wailer, the Rastafarian, the last of Roger, who might have actually balanced her tightness with an honest affection and fierce passion.

 A few more feet and she could grasp the doorknob, and pull herself up. 

The knob bobbed like an apple in a barrel of monkeys, like a fake dog in the back of a car nodding yes, yes, to the no, no of the road, like a non-homogeneous inconsistency in the cream of life. 

It was all intolerable.

Her hand went up for the doorknob, missed and made a large slapping sound on the table, spilling her tea and making the unacceptable cheese sandwich jump, startling herself, the waitress and a few people closest to her.

“Is everything all right, miss?”

She’d been going to this deli for two years and the waitress didn’t even recognize her.

“No…, yes, yes, everything is fine.”  She picked up her grilled American cheese sandwich with both hands, smiled and purposefully took a bite.
   

The Cheese Sandwich is a rough draft experimenting in linking the evocative properties of food experience with psychology.  This is part two.   Let me know what you think.

Unsteady, as one possessed but purposeful, she got into her car, wiped the steering wheel with an antiseptic toilette, set her GPS and drove to The Humane Society  mostly on automatic and when her GPS flew a little black and white flag she knew she had arrived.  

The Humane Society was in a new building: window and steel, large parking lot, it looked more likely to house high tech workers than animals.  Already she liked it.  She opened the visibly clean glass door and saw a linoleum floor reflecting the light of overhead fluorescents.  The walls were staged with posters of endearing animals with printed instructions on how to treat them well.

A receptionist behind a neutral gray laminate counter was young, well dressed and looked like she should have been in marketing or at the least a minor executive at R.E.I. – she didn’t appear to have enough cynicism for law or separateness for medicine.  No matter.  Her job was to explain how the facility worked.  She stated, “Here at the Humane Society we’re divided into three main compartments: cats, small animals, dogs.  Are you interested in any one in particular?   Dogs?  Okay,  the dog section is divided into four pods, each named after a color, green, red, yellow or blue and the dogs are roughly divided into size and breed.  Look at them all you want.  If you see one you want to meet bring the card above its kennel back to the front desk and a volunteer will get the dog for you.”

Good, here was a system. 

She entered the yellow pod and the metal door closed quietly, and definitively behind her.  Once  past she became aware she was the alone in the pod. She was Alice and she’d passed through the rabbit hole.  She was Dorothy through the eye of the hurricane.   She was a Persephone at the heart of the dog pound.  Memory merges with fear, is molded, strained and reset by the matrix of our previous impressions.  She started through the maize like Thesies at Crete without a string. 

She took eight or nine steps and realized the cement floor was oddly uneven, slanting first left, then right but with no rhythm and unrelated to the left, right of her footsteps. Startled, she squinted at the undulating hallway, narrowing and widening.  Her first thought was that she was ill – some sort of inner ear infection.  She took her pulse, checking it against the digital read-out of her watch.   No, fine.  She put her wrist against her forehead.  Not hot. She was fine.

Somewhere there was the bark and growl of dogs but it was thin and distant.  There were no bars or rails to steady herself, to grasp and re-group.  Deep breath.  This was the Humane Society for Christmas-morning-as-ordinary as-underwear’s-sake.  Deep breath, let it out easy and long.  The smell of animal, anima, carnival, carnivore.  She was slipping.  She sat on the floor – hard.  Terra firma.  Firmly, here. 

She was eyeball to eyeball with a small grayish something between a carin terrier and something else with a severe overbite.  Dentist.  Dennis.  Toto-through-the-looking-glass had a reproachful look but Dennis had liked her.  She had been critical of his appearance, lifestyle, the way he flossed his teeth,  and the wrong color white of his socks.  She held out her hand against the cage but not through it.  Equally tentatively the dog came closer, it’s tongue escaping where a tooth or two were missing, it put it’s nose against her hand but didn’t lick it.  She felt the cool moistness.  Deep breath, deep, deep breath. She was going to die in the Humane Society from dog germs, for antiseptic-blessed-cleaner’s sake.  Well, okay, she probably wouldn’t. There were toilettes in the car.

The Cheese Sandwich is a rough draft experimenting in linking the evocative properties of food experience with psychology.  For ease of reading,  I've split it into three short parts.  This is part one with parts two and three coming over the next week or so.  Let me know what you think.

She sat tight-mouthed and tight-assed on her chair, purse in her lap, watching the door, looking out the window.  But nothing pleased her.  Not even the grilled cheddar cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread, cheese ¼ inch thick, no mustard, cut on the diagonal, she had every Tuesday for lunch at Elaine’s Deli.  She picked it up in her right hand and was appalled to see it was American Cheese. 

She felt anxiety creep through her body like a kudzu vine, entering every joint, muscle, and tendon, inundating her nervous system, entwining her brain tissue. And it was at that very moment, when she was waiting for something to fill her empty stomach and empty heart, that a startling idea entered her mind like a cat burglar.  An idea so uncharacteristic that it would not let her go.  It worried her attention like a terrier with a rag.  She would get a dog, no, she would have a baby, no a dog.  She was a realist.  A child would require the intimate participation of another person (almost certainly male) or invasive medical procedures.  She’d rather have a root canal. 

She could get a dog on her own.  It would love her.  She would feed it, care for it, and like everyone else, she would give it a name that would expose too much about her but she thought she might be willing to risk  that much.

Inspired, she opened her purse, inwardly smiled at its efficiency, took out a small pad and pen and wrote:

1. Animal shelters
2. Pet store
3. Kennel
4. Animal rescue
5. Newspaper

There were more options, no doubt, but these are what came to mind.  And what about breed?  That would certainly affect things.  A Chinese pug?  Too breathy and obstinate.  A lab?  Requires too much exercise.  A dachshund? Underfoot.  A Jack Russell?  Too much energy.  A poodle?  Don’t be silly.  Okay, this is how she ended up single.  She would go to the pound and see what attracted her.  Tomorrow.  Or the next day.  Or never.  Okay, today.

There was nothing to gather up; she was perpetually ready.