Relaxing in a park is one way to Survive the madness.
“Central Park” by CD-W
Relax!
1
Category Archives: Daily Prompt
Madam Fannie defends her bordello
The real Madam Fannie Porter made famous by harboring Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch
John opened the paper and tapped a small ad on page three. A glance down at the headlines, my smile faded.
The mayor already hated me. Now, he had new artillery.
Mayor Marshall Hicks, the blue-skin Presbyterian, and member of the Knights of Pythias who had taken an oath to abstain from vices. My bordello sat a mere block outside the district; a fact Dick-Hicks pointed out on a regular basis in his crock of shit. The mandate had been established only a year ago, six years after I opened the bordello.
“What is it, Sheriff?” Reba fiddled with the ties of her apron and remained a vigilant guard by the sink.
“San Antonio Women’s Club have asked the Women’s Christian Temperance Union to speak at a public forum,” he said.
“I believe in Lawd Jesus too, but them Thumpers from their Christ Union are full’a horse pucky and needs to mind their own business.”
The WCTU pledged to protect women by banning alcohol, as well as prostitution. Obviously, they’d never known a woman who could have Survived without my profession, me included.
At Madam Fannie’s Boarding House, my girls earned a good living and treated fairly. A client who forgot that rule or broke any others got a hard stare down the barrel of Reba’s Ratchet. Over the years, that shotgun proved well worth every cent we coughed up to buy it. When trouble knocked at our door, Ratchet made its point with one threatening crack.
Excerpt from The Last Bordello
Daily word prompt: Survive
Drinking to Dead Relatives
Great Gatsby Franken-Farter stares at the creek. “I saw my aunt die.”
“I saw my grandpa die, too.” I remember Mama crying when she pulled the bed sheet over him and Daddy hugging her for a long time after. When they buried him, Scooter kept going back to the cemetery to see if Grandpa was sprouting from the dirt.
“Your grandpa. Was he run over by a get-away gangster, too? Like Aunt Sissy was? She didn’t Survive like your dog,” he says.
It sounds too horrible for truth. “Phonus balonus.”
“Suit yourself. You’re next?”
“Okay,” I say. But I won’t mention Miss Helen. I think for a while then decide to tell him another truth. “I’ve been Cooter Browned before,” I say, and almost taste the vomit-varnish from that night.
“Who?”
He’s not so smart after all.
“You know, I’ve been blotto before.”
His eyes crinkle when he laughs. “Let’s drink to that. Plenty of mornings I’ve had to chew my water. Tomorrow might be one of them.” He hands me the Mason jar.
I take it thinking it’s his way of making peace. I pretend to drink then hand it back.
“Where were you when you got drunk?” he says.
“At the carnival. Last weekend. The night Mama left.” I didn’t mean to say the last part. “I gotta go.”
Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket
Cono’s impression of Uncle No-Account
There’d been a bull on top of Aunt Nolie last night and now he was sitting on a bar stool kissing the woman next to him smack-dab on her red lips.
“Cono, this here’s Sunshine.”
I know that song, “You are my Sunshine, My Only Sunshine.” I figured that song was named after her. She has short blond hair and looks like she hadn’t missed a meal in a while. Not that she’s fat, but she has more meat on her bones than most gals I see.
“Well, hello there, Cono,” she says giving me a little wink.
“Hello,” I say, turning back to look at No-Account and giving him my best “you’re a no-account” stare.
“Cono,” he says, “Ye go on over there and sit at an empty table, and I’ll get ye a sody pop. Sunshine and me are gonna talk some business fer a minute.”
No-Account gives Sunshine a pinch on her round butt and she lets out a stupid sounding noise that’s something between a squeal and a giggle.
Sitting there by myself doesn’t stop me from staring, disgusted-like at their carryings-on. She whispers in his ear, he gives her a little smooch, he whispers in her ear, she lets out another harebrained giggle. I get so fed up my belly starts to twist around and I think I might just puke. Standing up I say, “I’m gonna wait in the truck.” And that’s what I do ’cause neither of those fools leave a good Impression on me. They leave a bad taste in my mouth.
I look around the truck, but I don’t see any rope. That sorry son of a bitch never intended to buy me a donkey.
I watch people go in and come out and think about the loser I’m with, the jackass full of bullcorn. My hard-earned-honest-days-work-seed-selling money had gone straight toward something to do with that blonde-hair giggly-eye winker named “Sunshine.”
No-Account finally gets back into the truck and starts jawing again about more things that don’t make no sense. The difference is, this time he’s swerving around the road like a drunk man, which he is.
“Damn” he says when we almost go off the road, “What was that in the street?”
I don’t answer. Even Dad could drive better than this. I just keep sitting and feeling like a stool pigeon, a stool pigeon that has to hold on to the door handle just in case it needs to jump out.
Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper
Daily Word Prompt: Impression
Nothing to post
A few days ago, the daily prompt was Unmoored. Really? Who uses that word in a novel unless they are writing about ships. I don’t write about ships.
My thoughts were Adrift.
So I decided to Catapult a thinking cap on my head.
And guess what? Nothing happened. Nada. Zip. Niente.
So I have nothing to post.
Miss Proper meets Crude
At some point during the evening, Sadie had removed every stitch of her nightclothes. I turned away while she threw on a blue peignoir.
As we Descended the stairs together, I secretly wondered what it would be like to sway my hips down a staircase, to have men ogle at me with carnal designs. To have a body like Sadie’s. Only curiosity, of course. I often pictured myself in alternative scenarios—a famous writer, a composer, a student of nature and all living things. And, of recent, I pondered working as an advocate for women’s rights.
The kitchen abuzz with chatter, I took a seat next to Sadie.
“So you worked up an appetite did you, Sassy Sarah?” Miss Fannie grinned.
“Yep, sure did.”
Miss Reba refilled Sassy Sarah’s coffee cup. “Sounds like Lawrence P. came last night.”
Sassy flipped her red hair to the side. “He came alright. And came and came.”
While everyone laughed, I felt the heat of my cheeks and turned my head.
Excerpt from The Last Bordello
Daily Prompt: Descend
“No Jail!”
Madam Fannie Porter
Sadie threw her hands over her ears and rocked back and forth. “Just no jail, no jail, no jail …”
When tears tumbled down Sadie’s cheeks, I caught Louis’s look of compassion—the same as Meta’s, the same as Reba’s. The same as mine.
“I won’t let you go to jail, Sadie. That’s what this is all about,” John said, his voice softer. “But you need to do what we suggest. I have a plan. But we have to find you a hide-away, some place safe other than here.”
Silence slithered around the frank, yet well-meaning posse while the irony struck me as funny. Over the years, the surrounding walls had safely protected politicians, successful businessmen, and Notorious train robbers. Now, they weren’t strong enough to protect my hard working and best girl who felt more like kin.
Reba thumped the settee’s armrest gathering our attention. “Fannie, what we ain’t gonna do is snap a fine branch off this family tree and throw it to the fire. If she gotta leave, it better be a damn good place so’s she can come home when time’s right.”
A moment passed and I felt the soft squeeze of Meta’s hand.
“I might know a place,” she said.
Excerpt from The Last Bordello
Daily Word Prompt: Notorious
Irony
A Farce of nature.
A Poet’s Hands
Hands.
Mine only hold this journal. Only the extremities of an invisible will turn the pages, a wind blowing each folio to the next, unaware of the marks of my pen.
Knowing this, frees me.
The apparition will lurk in the abyss, or stand on the Precipice, hovering close by yet not close enough to dissuade me from this writing. My right hand writes as my left holds the open book.
Hands. Hands of a father’s so calloused from farm work, yet so gentle, reassuring and kind. Hands that held me when I cried, hugged me in pride, sheltered me when anything bad happened.
Papa’s hands, so stiff and cold I could feel my guilt when I touched them.
I could not go with him beneath our Texas soil. Instead, I had to swallow the bitter taste of a life void of his teachings and wisdom.
Hands of a clock that have ticked forward four years.
Hands. My own forming into fists. A change of course is overdue.
You know how they say …
Well, I say:
Keep
Qualm
and
write
poetry
because for me, many of the best poems stem from self-doubt, worry, and unease.
Here’s one I memorized in the 70’s because I loved Rod McKuen’s poetry.
Clouds are not
the cheeks of angels
you know
they’re only clouds.
Friendly sometimes,
but you can never be sure.
If I had longer arms
I’d push the clouds away
or make them hang
above the water
somewhere else,
but I’m just a man
who needs and wants,
mostly things he’ll never have.
Looking for that thing
that’s hardest to find…
himself.
I’ve been going
a long time now
along the way
I’ve learned some things.
You have to make the good times yourself
take the little times
and make them into big times
and save the times
that are alright
for the ones
that aren’t so good.
I’ve never been able
to push the clouds away
by myself.
Help me.
Please.
Rod McKuen 1967
Carolyn Dennis-Willingham 