Fifth Monday Fiction

Elmer (short story)

By Bob Boldt

North and Clyborn subway stop, Chicago, 10 p.m., December third.
    With a blur of light, the northbound “A” train flashed past with a deafening roar, leaving only the torn wings of fluttering newspapers and an echoing silence in its wake. Far above, the ring of the signal heralding the arrival of the southbound “B” train echoed like a distant winning slot machine paying off.

Third Saturday Fiction

Chapter 6. “Keeping Up Appearances,” from The Unmaking of the President (a novel)

By W.M. Dean

[The novel is set in the 1970s of Watergate. Chapter 5. “Home Movies (Blue),” appeared last month.]

Fifth Saturday Fiction

The farm table (short short story)

By Bob Boldt

“The secrets in the world are infinite. The secrets in families are even vaster.” –Daniel Reeves

The mashed potatoes circled the table as slowly as a silent storm cloud. The only sound heard was the occasional click of the serving spoon on bowl or plate.

Third Saturday Fiction

Chapter 5. “Home Movies (Blue),” from The Unmaking of the President (a novel)

By W.M. Dean

[The novel is set in the 1970s of Watergate. Chapter 4. “The Game Plan,” appeared last month.]

Third Saturday Fiction

Chapter 4. “The Game Plan,” from The Unmaking of the President: A Bicentennial Entertainment (a novel)

By W.M. Dean

[The novel is set in the 1970s of Watergate. Chapter 3. “The Muse’s Fee,” appeared last month.]

Fifth Monday Fiction

Chapter 6, What’s a PI, from the novel Frank O’Hara – The Last PI

By D. Michael Pain

[In Chapter 5, published here on May 30, Frank O’Hara met with Kim Dawson in a restaurant and agreed to help investigate the death of her friend Brenda. They’ve just parted in the parking lot.
    Editor’s Note: As private investigator Mike Pain, the author is mentioned in various chapters of Jim Rix’s true-crime book Jingle Jangle.]

Frank had been a private investigator for 30 years – often wondering what the hell he was doing in such a business. And he was wondering this more now than when he was new at this profession...if it could even be labeled such. It was true, they really couldn’t teach a class in private investigation...though sometimes on TV, a commercial would say they did.

Fifth Saturday Fiction

The first of many
(short story)

By Bob Boldt

Overhead, bullets whistled past me in the cold darkness and the falling drizzle. Some shells made a complaining, metallic clank as they struck the side of the overturned dumpster I had scrambled into. I was trying to dodge the first barrage that had made the street a sudden killing zone. In the process, I smashed my head on a large hook that protruded out of the side of the damned thing. Doing my best to ignore the stinging pain, I cautiously ran my hand up the side of my face, hoping for the best and dreading the worst. Moisture. Not the wet water of the falling rain, but a thicker substance. Blood? I licked my probing fingers and the warm, salty, iron taste on my tongue confirmed my fears. “Damn!” I quietly cursed to the darkness and the flying shells. My temporary home smelled like shit and sour urine. The holes in my crummy shoes began soaking up the dank water, causing my feet to become freezing cold. As my calves and thighs started shivering, I thought, This is a fine mess, if the bullets don’t kill me, the cold soon will.

Third Saturday Fiction

Chapter 3. “The Muse’s Fee,” from The Unmaking of the President: A Bicentennial Entertainment (a novel)

By W.M. Dean

[The novel is set in the 1970s of Watergate. Chapter 2. “Making It Happen,” appeared last month.]

Third Saturday Fiction

Chapter 2. “Making It Happen,” from The Unmaking of the President: A Bicentennial Entertainment (a novel)

By W.M. Dean

[The novel is set in the 1970s of Watergate. Chapter 1. “Downstairs at the White House,” appeared last month.]

Fifth Monday Fiction: My misadventures with Ron Rudnick

A true story

By Bob Boldt

[The names have not been changed to protect the living or the dead.]

Some had started to believe that the fifth floor of our building was jinxed. Being an urban pioneer of sorts, I was one of the first to settle the unoccupied warehouse at 110 W. Kinzie in Chicago. This was in the late seventies, a decade before gentrification, in which the visionaries, artists, and assorted freaks who inhabited such seemingly unlikely urban spaces were inevitably turned out by landlords eager to “develop” the properties and raise the rent on the very occupants who had made the neighborhood hip and trendy by their presence.

Third Saturday Fiction

Chapter 1. “Downstairs at the White House,” from The Unmaking of the President: A Bicentennial Entertainment (a novel)

By W.M. Dean

[The novel is set in the 1970s of Watergate. Part I is titled, "The Unmaking of the Chief Aide," which begins with the quotation, “Fake it till you make it.”]

Fifth Saturday Fiction

Chapter 5, Brenda and the File, 
from the novel 
Frank O’Hara – The Last PI

By D. Michael Pain

[In Chapter 3, published here on April 18, Frank O’Hara received a telephone call from a woman named Kim Dawson. The woman murdered in Chapter 1 was her friend Brenda, and Kim “knew some things” and was afraid on account of some files she had that Brenda had taken from work. Frank agreed to meet with Kim to look at the files.]

He straightened his red-and-blue striped tie and walked into the coffee shop. He saw her in her red sweater immediately and walked confidently to her booth. Making sure his shoulders were erect, he smiled and said, “Kim?”

Third Saturday Fiction

Excerpt from
The Suicide Diary,
a novel

By Michael Hanson

[Editor’s Note: The narrator is a 27-year-old novelist whose girlfriend, Karla, has recently left him. He has decided he is going to commit suicide but will keep a diary of all that transpires prior to the precipitous act, identifying it as his new novel and leaving it for his editor to find.]

Third Saturday Fiction

Chapters 2 & 3 from the novel Frank O’Hara – The Last PI

By D. Michael Pain

[Editor's Note: Chapter 1, published here on December 29, described the contract killing of an unidentified woman. In today’s excerpt we learn a bit about her and meet the novel’s eponymous hero.]

Chapter 2. Where’s Brenda? When Brenda failed to show for work the following morning her co-workers were a bit alarmed – it was not like her. She was never late and never missed work. After three hours, her close friend Kim tried calling her. First her home, and then her cell. No answer. She left messages. “Hey best friend, where are you?”

Fifth Monday Fiction

Chapter 4. Set the Hook, from the novel Far Stone

By Steve Glossin

[Editor’s Note: Chapter 2 of this unfinished novel appeared on March 21.]

The prisoner opened his eyes when he heard the key inserted into the lock at the end of the hallway. The light switch made a clicking sound when it was flipped and a glow filtered through the door seems. He sat up and waited patiently as the booted footsteps approached his cell. The steel latch opened with a clang and reverberated through the cell block like a dropped guillotine. The prisoner stood and with both arms behind his back, limped toward the door and the beam of light that penetrated the room.

Third Saturday Fiction

Chapter 2. Miguel Castro Maximum Security Prison, from the novel Far Stone

By Steve Glossin

[Editor’s Note: The opening chapter of this unfinished novel was published here on January 16.]

The 2x3 meter cell was the prisoner’s private black abyss when he lay down and let his mind wander to other places and times...A smothering coffin when his rage over betrayal and failure made him want to scream and beat his fists against the walls – but never did.

Third Saturday Fiction

New cover, updated on Amazon this month
(Kindle price $0.99)

Chapter 24. 
Air-Am, from the novel Boystown: The Cocaine Highway

By edRogers

[In the previous chapter, published here on October 18, James Hamilton had enlisted in the US Army to get away from a Colombian drug cartel. But things became confused, and Chapter 23 ended with Hamilton sitting alone on his bunk attempting to sort out what had happened. “Two days ago, all I wanted was a place to hide. What was I doing in this outfit? Why promote me to a warrant officer?...I was sure there was a puppeteer pulling strings, and I was the puppet.”]

The next six weeks were hell. The fun times the crews had before my arrival stopped. We ate, slept, shit, and pissed in our planes. Moreover, when we weren’t flying, we were in one class after another. They pushed two years of training programs down our throats and made us chew each bite.

Thirst Satyrday for Eros (in fiction)

"Angel," photo by Bob Boldt

The Baby Sitter (a short story)

By W.M. Dean

At last the Beamers’ three kids were in bed! Jan Hilbert let herself fall face-first and full-length on the Beamers’ ratty old hide-a-bed couch.
    “Ugh.” She shouldn’t have gone face-first – the heavy smell of ancient dirt, stale popcorn, and a hundred other crumbly family television snacks permeated the man-made fabric.

Fifth Saturday Fiction

Forget about it
(a short story)

By Bob Boldt

Midway through a late Sunday morning shower, my singularly resonant baritone rendition of “Toreador” from Bizet’s Carmen was interrupted by a loud trumpet blast from somewhere inside the house. Stunned, I instinctively punched off the hot stream and reached for a towel. My brain frantically raced through a half dozen or more desperate explanations to frame the outrageous stimulus within some rational or not so rational context. Car horn? Smoke alarm? TV? Radio? Sweepstakes winner fanfare? Musical burglar? Satchmo’s ghost?

Third Saturday Fiction

Prologue & Chapter 1, Rainforest Day One, from the novel Far Stone

By Steve Glossin

[Editor’s Note: Begun over ten years ago, Far Stone remains so far unfinished. It features the character Big Bob Tilden, who has appeared on Moristotle & Co. before – most recently on August 26 last year, when Bob took a wild camel ride across a Saudi Arabian desert.]

By AD 900 the Classic period of the Maya was ending. Their major cities were being abandoned and the monumental architecture was slowly being claimed and hidden by the Jungle of the dense rainforest. The inhabitants of Masuul, located in the heart of Maya region between Calakmul to the south and Tikal to the north would stand vacant until it was rediscovered by the archaeologist Sylvanus Morley, on 3 May 1922.