March 2002 | back-issues, fiction
a short story by Tom Sheehan
([email]to********@***bi.com[/email])
For nearly a month, from a cliff shoulder on Pressburn Hill, August rain and sun taking turns at him, birds accepting him, Brisque Validarn watched the house on Bretton Heights, watched every movement, change of light, visit and departure. From his post the house, on the very summit of Bretton Heights, was about half a mile distant, sitting there the crown jewel of targets, its parapets breaching the skyline. One precious stone, slipped with dark ease from that crown, would last him for a year; Nice, Bordeaux in the old country, any beach without reservation in the New World. He watched, he clocked, he measured, he posted entries in a burgeoning logbook. When a light went on or off, he bent over his logbook and marked the time, the quadrant of the big house, calculated routines. When a FedEx truck crawled up the long driveway, Brisque swore he could hear the gears at work, both coming and going, as the drive back down the hill could prove challenging.
There was no easy way in. Or out. And heavy rain would make it adventurous. But all these details, one by one, would be noted, calculated, put in place. Nothing took the place of care, and care took care of confidence.
Marie had come to him, contrite, diffident, her hat twisting in her hands, as if she were trying to make up for being a woman the last time around. [i]You don’t play games with Brisque Validarn[/i], he had pointed out to her, initially laughing at a bit of thigh, her hand lingering at the Mound of Venus pushing against a blue silk, finally a breast cupped in that hand.
“I swear, Brisque, she had rocks on her hand would knock your eyes out, the wifey. Eight, ten carats, I’m telling you. This thing on her neck could choke a horse, too. Dazzling, and it not yet noon. She must wear stuff like that in a shower probably big as city hall. Not bad either, come to think of it. I’d give her a go myself. She’s got a butt she should be proud of.” She rolled her you-know-me eyes.
“What about him? All this sudden revelation is as subtle as a broken leg, Marie Lavoren. You’d do anything to get what you want. Prostrate, vertical, you name an angle, and you’d find it and fit it. What’s his age? Condition? Athletic looking? What do his eyes look like? How deep inside you did they go?” He gauged her again. “When Marie the clerk becomes Marie the opportunist you can be devastatingly clear and concise in your observations, in your intuition, but you have great trouble leaving sex out of your judgment.”
Her gray-green eyes lit up, and then narrowed, blonde tresses falling over one eye as she nodded, and another button of her blouse was slyly opened. “Sitting on top of the world, he is, Brisque. In shape, lean at the waist, wide-eyed, jaw like a movie star with that intriguing cleft in the chin. Can undress you in a second, he can, explore you a bit, he can, but lets you know he’s putting your clothes back on. A little class with his act, I’ll tell you. He’s looked at me a few times in the store.” Leaning forward, using her body as punctuation, loading it up with exclamation, she added, “He’s about fifty, though he looks younger. It’s his physical training adds something special. Has great color, oh my, yes. Must lift, but not too much I’d bet. Moves like Gene Kelly or Freddie what’s-his-name doing a waltz in one of those old movies. Blue eyes like a lagoon must look, like they’re a second away from inviting you in for a shower or a swim or even a tussle.” She punctuated her description with another, ” Oh my, yes.”
“How would I immediately recognize him?” There was something in Marie’s eyes that said she had a piece of information put away, held in reserve. He’d counted on that from the beginning. It was her [i]modus operandi[/i]. She wouldn’t let him down.
Marie the opportunist smiled. “Two fingers missing off his right hand. And he is right-handed. The index finger and the sex finger, both gone almost to the knuckles, but not messy. Not like they were smashed off but a surgeon took them off. Clean. Neat. Not ugly or bulgy or toady looking.” The smile continued. She had come loaded for bear. “Harry’s sold him stones out of the store he says for eight or nine years now, since he cut the big crust. Says it came overnight. Figures it’s clean crooked, if you know what he means.” She could not have twisted the offer of her body any more than it was at that moment. “He’d be a great hit.” Her eyes rolled again, trespassing on the ultimate potential.
“Anything else Harry offer?”
She leaned forward again, never letting a chance slip away, her mouth slightly open, her eyes slightly closed. Brisque thought there should be odors in the offing too. [i]She’s a piece of work[/i], he said to himself, [i]a magnificent piece of work[/i].
“Lots of stuff kicking around, the kind Harry picks up in the trade. Stuff that follows big spenders, high rollers, the quick rich. He’s got a sweetheart stashed away in a condo down in Revere, right on the beach. His fingers came off via a machete, they also say, in the hands of a Cuban brought up from Miami to fix a wrong. If he soured somebody bigger, welshed, got in the sack with the wrong broad, he paid for it. But he come out of it clean. Well, kind of clean.” She smiled and broadcast her desire again, the blouse almost open the way barn doors swing wide, her blonde tresses falling over part of her face like cover playing games, her eyes finding at last a glimpse of libido down in the well of the master thief. “‘Cept the index finger and his sex finger, of course.”
“You got something special in the bag, haven’t you?” Brisque Validarn slid a hand against the texture of her blouse, grazed the risen nail head, watched her eyes close.
She held his hand against her breast. “I don’t do this just for money, Brisque. I have dreams too.” The risen nail head struck back. “In his cellar, someplace in the house, in against that whole cliff, he’s got treasure your dreams couldn’t find. They say he brought something up out of the Caribbean would stand Fort Knox on its ear. I mean treasure treasure, Captain Kidd or Bluebeard himself, bigtime baddies’ treasure, like he found it or stole it from someone who found it and was hiding it from the whole world. [i]Treasure[/i] treasure!”
She cupped the back of his head, his lips at her breast. “We could be famous, Brisque. No more talk about Jimmy Valentine or Second-story Jack Finnegan. It’d be us, Validarn and his chick. Wouldn’t that make ’em sit up and take notice?” Her mouth was open as wide as his.
*
Two more weeks, Marie at the listening post in the jewelry store, pumping her boss for information, bringing tid-bits to Brisque Validarn, him still collecting data, charting, and the heist of the century was at hand. Invaluable Marie came with the final tid-bit. “He’s going to Switzerland next week, Brisque. That hunk is going skiing. Imagine him maybe breaking a leg, or worse!” She rolled her eyes, played with a button. “His wife’s already in Paris with her sister. Been there two days. Two nights now he’s been down to Revere to the condo and the girlfriend. Would I like to be a fly on that condo wall.” She rolled her eyes, hung her tongue out, let a gurgle of a laugh rise and fall in her throat. Took his hand in her hand, brought it to the nail head.
“Marie, you are something else!” He cupped her, the inanimate nail head now alive. “I suppose you know when his flight leaves the airport?”
Back she leaned against the couch, shifted a bit for comfort, moved her buttocks into prime time, pursed her lips. “Flight Six-oh-two, Magellan Air, 9:30 P.M. next Wednesday evening. Harry Donnelley’s Limo is picking him up at 6:00 O’clock.” Her simple touch of him was not an idle touch. Results were quickly evident.
“What did you have to give up to get all this info?”
“There’s plenty left for you, Brisque. Here, have a look.”
*
By eleven O’clock on Wednesday night, under brittle darkness, heavy overcast but no rain promised until late morning, Brisque Validarn, master thief, was deep in the cellar of the house on Bretton Heights. He had by-passed the alarm system that tied into the Masco Security Company in nearby Wakefield, and studied the walls. It was a piece of cake to spot the false wall, find the keyway that moved it out of the way. In frozen awe he studied the contents of a small room, ten feet deep into the cliff, five feet wide, the sides all natural rock. Michelangelo himself must have done the sculpting, the chipping, set shelves of marble in place holding astounding treasures. As his flashlight beam found each piece the sparkle of immense stones leaped back at him, then a ray of near golden shine like a sunbeam loose of the sky, and footings so elaborate on pieces of large and ornate emblazonry that he was frozen in place. It was the mother lode of mother lodes. The thieves of the world, from London, Paris, Budapest, Raffles himself, would stand in awe.
[i]All I planned on was one good stone[/i], he said to himself. [i]My god, look at all this treasure. Marie was right. I’ll need a truck to carry it. I can’t carry it all and I can’t leave it. Not by a long shot can I leave it. I’ll take one piece now and come back tomorrow night[/i]. His mind leaped at ways of carting the stuff off the hill, and then he thought of a FedEx truck or a UPS truck. [i]Another piece of cake[/i], he muttered as he reached for small chalice set with dozens of stones. It was like the sun being refracted through a special lens, prisms scattering against his eyeballs. A deep breath was hauled down into his lungs.
A short while later Brisque Validarn came out of the darkness at the foot of Bretton Heights into the sudden glare of lights and beams and screaming and authoritative voices for him to stand in place or be shot to death. Deftly he placed the stolen chalice on the ground and raised his hands. A dozen policeman surrounded him. Headlights on a dozen cars also chipped in with their own pieces of daylight.
The very first thing Brisque noticed was a hand, with two fingers missing, resting comfortably on one hip of Marie Lavoren standing off to the side. Brisque suddenly realized Marie probably had her own condo down in Revere, right there on the beach.
March 2002 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
you are stoned
beneath
cold fluorescents
you are two hundred miles
away from lake erie in
the first summer of your
son’s tiny life and
the news isn’t
good
a tumor possibly
or a body dug up or
maybe as many as
a hundred
maybe the neighbor disappeared
and his wife found
hacked to pieces in the
basement
all of this talk of
a simpler america that
never was
and do you still dream of
the cages
your grandfather helped build?
of the women
herded into them at
gunpoint?
even here
three hundred years later
in this air-conditioned room
there is till the smell
of burning witches
is still the stench of
self-righteousness
and what the two of us hide
is the fact
that we know each other
that we number
the bleeding horse among
our friends
and at the end of the day
you lock up your desk while
i kiss your wife good-bye
we pass on the street
without a word
and two hours later
the first candle is lit on the
hill of fifteen crosses
like everything before it
it will fail to
drive the dark away
March 2002 | back-issues, poetry
[b]RUNNING RED[/b]
Blood doesn’t drip,
It runs
Like a river of fugitives.
A blanket is music notes,
Warmed and feathered
Until an eight-year old cheek
Can sing its softness
My cheek
As my mother’s lips poured a story
The story of my great-grandmother
In the Cultural Revolution
The officials had raided the house
But it wasn’t enough
So they took needles of sleek bamboo
And pricked her fingers
One by one
It was a common use of torture in those days
Effective
They found the secret stash of opium and jewels
My mother’s lips had become soundless
But I could see the words roll on the blanket
I squeezed my eyes closed
Lashes embedded in skin
And tried to imagine what it
Would feel like, having my fingers pricked
One by one
All I can see are the splinters on the needles
Then flesh sagging under grief
A fear that crawls and scratches
From the heart
Peeking through the ribs
It spreads like a virus
Higher, colder
I want to swallow it before it shows its face
Skin rips.
Blood doesn’t drip
It runs
Like a river of fugitives
In a slow trickle down my arms
It makes roads, streets, and avenues
Each running to a different place
The patterns look so bright
Red lantern of marriage
Binding of a book
Wide mouth of a clown
They all laugh at me
Sleek bamboo eyes
Laugh at me
Laugh at my red fingers
Laugh at my soundless lips
Laugh at the people who will never
Touch my hands again
Except, maybe
My great-granddaughter
[b]THE PLAYGROUND AFTER RAIN[/b]
Slash across the skin. Black.
As an accidental murder of ink;
Dropped pen stabbing into sand
The playground after rain,
Where the only thing that could move
Stiff, wet air is the sound of a swing,
Its chains dipped in rust
Screams drip down and through metallic prison circles
Screams of Peace being raped
Slash, slash, slash the skin.
I swing higher to dizziness,
past rushing pictures of spray-painted green
Because I do not want to see.
This moment.
A room filled with the thick breathing of anger I can
Feel crawling up my leg 5000 miles away
I smell the impatient smoke
Circling above these men’s heads
The oil they sweat, the blood they use for sautéed fish in
Holiness
“Terrorist bombing at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon today.”
I lose my glasses into the gray mass above
Because I do not want to see.
This second.
Small brown eyes so easily punctured with a knife
Cotton-candy flesh so perfectly carved into pieces
To drench a navy-and-white uniform
Waterfall, black pigtails devoured by the thick
Eyebrows of a brain swimming in storms.
“In Japan, eight elementary students slain by mentally unbalanced man.”
I hang my head back to let my hair suffocate in the sand
Because I do not want to see.
This breath.
Last of many last ones shakes, singing in front of a fan
A paper cut infected into scabs of hate sawed at songs of
Mother and son, father and son, sister and brother?
Mouths gaped open spit, glaze the streets of disbelief,
Paint fists with red frustration, protest the death of gods.
“Nepal’s royal family was massacred by Crown Prince Dipendra, who then
committed suicide.”
I watch tears blur inky words down the newspaper.
Frozen faces turned gray at the point
where two walls and a ceiling meet.
Because I do not want to see.
Tears washed over the punctured corpse of Peace.
It lies in the corner.
Insect remains on windowsills.
Hemorrhage. Truth. Beauty. Love. Freedom. Bleed.
Human eyes see, human throats swallow silence by the spoonful.
Swinging, I swallow wind and try to think in the middle of spray-painted
Death.
Green.
[b]TO SOMEONE SITTING ON THE BLUE-GLASS ROOF[/b]
Your fingers plucked hairy screams out of the window
Running along the wooden frame of a picture
Where sun melted skin with a smile
Black was air and air was black.
Glass dripping, crying to the places that blood could not reach
Every particle of contradiction, strength,
Courage under your hair follicles are
Pillars that hold the roof up over
My well-waxed baldness.
You jumped over lines of black
Barely touching the ink with your toes
Hurdled across the pages until
A fiber snapped and ripped.
Melted dreams that made a puddle at my feet were
Gathered into a bowl and painted on the roof
The blue of a sky that birds would give their wings for
The glass of a million ethereal words
Waiting
Like the final notes of Moonlight Sonata…
[b]MOTION BY THE CLOCK[/b]
Time is planted in
Centuries of dreamy storm
Arrested by deadly wisdom
Traversing among God’s birches
Delicious.
by Yun Wei (c) 2002
([email]bl**********@*****il.com[/email])
[b]Author’s Notes:[/b] Yun Wei is currently a high school senior in Illinois. Having lived in China and Canada, she is fluent in both Chinese and French. Her love for languages has also led her to pursue Spanish in school. Writing has been her passion since words were known to her. Yun is an editor on the school newspaper as well as a member of the Speech Team, experiences that have helped her greatly in the art of writing. Her awards include the 1999 Ray Bradbury Short Story Contest and the Harper College Poetry Contest. She has also won two local Poetry Slams.
March 2002 | back-issues, fiction
a fiction short by Claire Dandridge Selleck
[email]cl*****@*********rd.com[/email]
There was nothing extraordinary about the way the day began. The alarm clock rang at the usual hour and, however reluctantly, I rolled at once from my bed vaguely aware that a dream had been interrupted. Scraping the hair back from my forehead, I stumbled to the kitchen and eyed the sink full of dishes still submerged in soapy water from last night’s false start. As I paused to watch the mist rising from the river that flowed some one hundred feet from my kitchen window, I was reminded why waking to dirty dishes no longer bothered me. At night I had only the four window panes to reflect on as I washed up; unless the moon is full, the darkness here is impenetrable. In the morning I had this dancing river to entertain me, the swirls of steam flowing upward like a lavishly choreographed ballet. I could linger as long as I pleased, the dishes a guilt-effacing alibi.
This morning, even the river could not pull me from the dream that tugged at my consciousness. It consisted mostly of faces and I recalled them one by one. I had names for them all, those ghosts from my past that I had loved and left behind. Simmy the Sweet, the most successfully helpless woman I knew. Simmy achieved her lifelong dream simply by being kind and loving and completely dependent on her circle of friends and family. As much as I enjoyed Simmy’s company, it was just too draining and the friendship faded as slowly and sweetly as it had begun.
Paul the Mauler was Simmy’s accomplishment. She had not only managed to reel him in from a freewheeling bachelorhood that had earned him his dubious moniker, but they had actually been happy all these twenty-odd years. Their kids, the first being the bait, had grown into pleasant, competent adults. There was nothing not to like about the family and I felt a brief sadness that I had not stayed around to be a part of their lives.
And then there was Linda. Lucky Linda, who fell into success effortlessly. I felt uncharacteristic jealousy despite my genuine affection for her. It took me a few years to realize that there is no such thing as luck. By the time I had learned to give Linda credit where credit was due, our friendship had been reduced to hugs and promises at chance encounters in Walmart.
Linda was Paul’s sister. She dated my brother Mikey for awhile, but it was no great love affair. Linda’s eventual marriage was one of the first indications that I had certain…well…powers is what most people call them, but they leave me feeling more helpless than powerful, no matter how innocuous the revelation.
I remembered standing in my hallway on a clear Spring day. I was late for an appointment and looking for my keys when the sudden thought of Linda was pleasant, but mildly annoying. I remembered exactly what I thought, too. Word for word. ‘Gosh, it’s been ages since I’ve heard from Linda. I won’t be a bit surprised to hear she’s found herself a man and is planning to marry.’ I remembered dragging my thoughts back to my keys and the attorney I had to see. I eyed the stack of mail on the hall table. As I lifted the letters from atop my missing keys, a card fell from the center of the stack. It was a wedding invitation from Linda. I tried to tell myself it was a coincidence, but it wasn’t the first time something like that had happened. And it wouldn’t be the last. Sometimes it would be a fleeting thought of an old friend who would call within hours. Once I agonized over forgetting to tell my daughter not to speed through Georgia, later to realize it was the precise time a State Trooper was writing her ticket. Cool, but spooky.
Jeff was Paul’s best friend. Jeffy-cakes. Such an unlikely nickname for me to conceive, let alone speak aloud. Our romance had lasted a year, but the friendship remained intact as various events pulled us back together. The death of Linda’s mother. The christening of each of Simmy and Paul’s children. My own brother’s wedding. Jeff and Mikey remained golfing buddies, much to my second husband’s chagrin.
Jeff was the bright spot in the center of some miserable years
and I used to wonder if I had made a mistake in letting him slip
away. He was wildly adventurous in bed and equally comfortable
in the kitchen. But, I think my intensity frightened him and we
never spoke of love. The memory made me shiver.
He eventually married a sullen and neurotic woman whose chronic illness was enough to make him stay. He?s a nice guy, my
Jeffy-cakes. What else would a nice guy do?
So, that was the circle of friends who crept into my dream. Friends well loved, but recalled fleetingly, casually, individually. Now here they all were, together again, their faces hanging in my head like contrived B-movie apparitions.
I wiped my hands on the towel, barely aware that I had finished the dishes during my reverie. I wondered why a dream where nothing bad had happened would bother me so much; why it would cause this dull ache to rise in my chest and urge me to take action of some kind. It was only another moment before I knew what was missing. Jeff was not among the faces in my dream. The chill moved slowly from my shoulders downward.
I dialed Mikey’s number and felt a surge of love when my brother’s warm southern drawl filled the earpiece.
“Mikey, it’s Fran. I need you to do something for me.” The words tumbled out and I didn’t wait for his reply. “I had a dream and I need you to check on Jeff for me.”
“I was just about to call you.” Mikey’s voice cracked slightly, his emotions only barely in check. “Jeffy’s dead, hon. I’m sorry.”
The receiver clattered to the floor as I stared out at the ceaseless river, its dance now mocking and unkind.
“I knew that.” I said, as if my brother could still hear me. “I knew.”
