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Opium, Anyone?

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Ten minutes later, Sadie pulled me in front of a shabby, metal warehouse. The sign painted above the door read “Ben’s Den.”

“What is this place?”

“I’ll only be a moment, Meta. Will you wait for me out here? I’ll be right back.”

Before I had time to respond, Sadie entered through the shoddy door, allowing me a quick peek before she closed it behind her. The musky smoke Filtering out didn’t come from cigars or cigarettes.

An opium den? I had read about them, but never knew any existed in San Antonio.

Two minutes had passed. Sadie exited the building, her pace had slowed, her glazed eyes and serene.

“Are you okay, Sadie?”

“Perfect. You should go in with me sometime. The owner is a nice young man. Although,” she said, giggling, “Ben has crooked teeth. Makes me cross-eyed if I stare at them too long. Oh, and his face pocks. Big enough for fairies to bed in.” She threw her hands toward the sky. “A beautiful day. Oh, and please don’t tell Miss Fannie. Some things I must keep to myself.”

I wondered what else Sadie kept to herself. Intuition told me she stored secrets the way Mama and I stored canned vegetables.

Excerpt from The Last Bordello

 

Why must I?

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always write outside? Even when I travel, I search for a place out in the elements where I can plant my tush, open my laptop and write.

Perhaps walls close in my thoughts.

Or the heater or AC turning on sounds too artificial.

Or I don’t like the fake lighting.

Maybe it’s because I got used to writing (or painting) outside when I was a smoker. But that was long ago.

Maybe it’s because, outside,  I can sit at a table and throw the ball for my mini-Aussie using a right-handed muscle memory with no thought but for the words I write.  So he and I, kill two stones with one bird (yes I meant it that way) – and it makes us both happy as he returns for another 50 throws.

I have one of those propane heaters, kinda like restaurants do. So if it’s above 40 degrees, I’m still good to go.

Because I live in Texas, the temp works with me. Right now, I think it’s around 68.

I like the soft wind, the openness, the expanse and, at least the hope of, the unbound creativity where no walls surround me and world shows up and says,

“Howdy do! Break Into – your creative zone”

Any maybe, it’s also because I get to see this:

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Character Descriptions

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For me, writing Specific descriptions of characters, can be a challenge. I kinda like this one, though. The visual makes me giggle.

(Voice of eleven-year-old Emma June)

If anyone is two crackers shy of a box, it’s Miss Helen. She takes trips to the big city so she can get her hair colored orange that she thinks is red. It’s cut stylishly short but pokes out on the ends like soggy cactus needles. Each time she drives Moonbeam, the name she gave her brand new 1928 Ford Roadster, she wears the same red tam pulled down tight over her head, and the same flowered-y silk scarf draped around her neck. Her big bosoms poke the steering wheel that she clutches so tight, her elbows stick way out on both sides. Then she peers through the windshield wearing aviator goggles like she’s about to take Amelia Earhart for a plane ride.

 

 

Renewal or Regret?

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Cono, age eighteen, travels back home to confront his father.

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Getting on the train, I’m thankful it’s not crowded. Too many people too close to me is something I’ll never get used to. I find a seat toward the back like I always do. A back up against the wall is a back protected. I need to see what’s going on around me at all times. And like always, when I hop on a train, I hope that my head is still attached when I get to where I’m going; not like our friend, Wort Reynolds who hopped on that train to Clyde Texas, the train that grabbed his head and kept right on going.

         “Ticket please.”

            I turn my eyes from the curved tracks outside my window to the ticket taker. Handing it over, I watch him punch the hole without even looking into my eyes. How many years has he done this, I wonder, and does he like the shoes he’s wearing?

         Home, a place that’s sometimes as hard as cement that you can’t pull your shoes out of. Nevertheless, that’s where I’m heading.

            My ears focus on the sound of the train’s idling, but eager-to-go engines. Where the hell would I be today if I didn’t have those railroad memories chugging along with me, some good and some anything but?

         Just as I’m feeling comfortable that I won’t be crowded, I feel something settling into that worn seat next to me, making itself comfortable but making me anything but. It nudges me. I ignore it and then tell it to go away. It doesn’t listen. The memories want me to pay them a little attention. I know this train is about to pull out. I know this train is taking me to Temple. But my mind and my uninvited seat companion start to take me somewhere else, somewhere I’ve already been before, somewhere I don’t care to go back to. It starts speeding me down the track a lot faster than this train is accustomed and a whole lot faster than I can put a stop to.

         The first memory is safe. It makes me wish, “If only it could have all been this easy.”    

         But past wishes were reserved for the other folks with good seats.    

         Not for me.

 

Renewal – Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper