ALL OF BEFORE AND A LOT MORE
PRESS RELEASE: COUNTRY SIZE, COUNTRY-CLUB FEEL
Seattle-based Boeing Company reported the sale Friday of three colossal custom jets of the new 777-77 Series.
Spokesperson Lee Whittock says they will surpass the 747 fleet outfitted for the Saudi Royal family and the 769 created for Oracle Executive Chairman, Larry Ellison.
Zorbing in Rotorua by Matt Heap 2005
The buzz centers on the addition of on-board golf and swimming.
Par Three Air-Golf with actual balls and real grass became a reality with the inclusion of two holes with hour-glass shaped greens at either end of a banana-shaped fairway inside the aircraft. Tail-ward, the pins are 100 yards left of the tee. Teeing off toward the nose, the flags are 110 yards to the right. The detachable belly of the plane allows the course to be watered, mowed and occasionally patched. Groundskeeper Julio Marquez thinks their course is the equal of any par-3’s on the ground. “The in-flight turbulence is an equal handicap to all but the veteran space traveler.” Says Marquez: “Those astronauts really know how to use gravity.”
DOWNTURN ECONOMICS
Published 2/18/14 here:
Mowing Alfalfa (SwissLane Farms)
Manuel laughs and sets the pace at the lumberyard, salvaging twisted, stained, split lumber, turning short pieces into stakes or pickets. He and his crew replenish plywood, cut orders, load trucks and help customers in 100 degree heat or driving rain.
I’ve carpooled with him since the economy puked in 2008.
Continue reading
CHET’S IMPACT
Have and Have Not crtsy Lee Chapman
first publ: jan. 20, 2014
Chet shoved the key into the lock of his Brooklyn apartment and twisted.
In arid Mauritania, Hissein fell writhing against the lead goat, holding his belly from the pain of the parasite in his stomach.
As Chet dropped down the stairs two at a time toward the sidewalk, the tailings dam of Cerro Negro, Petorca, in Chile, began to bulge outward from age and the press of water behind it.
When Chet reached the curb, he glanced at his watch.
Dolores, in the mountain town of Sarang Sarang in Indonesia, died of old age at 53.
He chose the ignition key from his ring.
A village school closed its doors in Belen de Andamarca, Bolivia, for lack of funds. Continue reading
SEVERED DREAMS
UltraShorts Anthology: 12-6-2013
The snore that severed me from peaceful dreams
Was his zipper, ragged as the pull stroke of a chain saw.
Though the act was six thousand and many nights ago,
The sound still rips through me as I edge toward sleep.
The cruelest wedge he drove forced comfort from my bed,
Where I might have healed when the pounding stopped.
My duvet of down and sheets of Egyptian weave don’t soothe
The girl of twelve, sobbing, shattered, on her closet floor.
The graft never takes; split forever, my seam is open to the world.
From dark to dawn, till I stand up, fully clothed,
I count the hundred saplings around her grave
And, weary, guard that little forest with my life.
MEMBERS ONLY
publ. every day fiction 12-6-2013
Love Locks
She wanted help, the thin, jowl-eyed lady. Long pink scars scattered like brush strokes up her brown arms and onto bare shoulders. Her hair hung resignedly past her shoulders. Her lipstick was only approximately in position. She teetered on gold open-heeled shoes.
“Just give me a strong lock and chain; 3 feet of chain that can go around the door handle. My husband threw the other one away. And he broke the last lock I had, like, like it was made of candy. He gets so rough when he drinks. I need to lock the bedroom better. When he decides he wants me, he just comes and takes me. I need a better way to keep him out.”
Kevin sold her a Master lock 5D and three feet of ¼” proof-coil chain.
The next week, she wore a yellow tank top so much too large that both shoulder straps were in danger of slipping off simultaneously. Her barely concealed breasts looked like socks full of sand. She was brown so far down her front that Kevin speculated to Mike she must garden in the 3:00 PM sun, wearing just her red lipstick and nail polish.
She sought out Kevin again, this time as he was front-facing the picture hooks. “I need a lock and a solid hasp,” she said. “So I can sleep in peace tonight. He comes in the window and I never know which sounds are him forcing the latch. The window latches are just the cheap junk that came with the window.”
She bought another 5D lock and a good size hasp. Kevin asked her how she was going to fasten the eye of the hasp to the aluminum slider. “There’s a guy in the mobile home park who can do it, unless you want to,” she said. She cocked her head a little.
Kevin told her he didn’t do side jobs.
He couldn’t avoid the public while working retail, he had discovered. He imagined a membership card based on intelligence, good manners and good grooming. And maybe looks. Revocable.
Three days later, part-timer Carla said: “Kevin, your girlfriend is here.” Kevin looked up to see Lock Lady coming past the front counter dressed in a thin long-sleeve blouse and a black micro skirt. Her nails and lipstick were cherry red and her hair was in a bun with black lacquered sticks.
Kevin fled past the shelf bracket and curtain rod display to the back aisle to hide from her. Somebody else could help her.
“Is Kevin here?” she asked at the service desk.
“There he is,” said Mike, pointing and smiling.
Kevin, usually reserved, said: “Oh, my God.”
“Can you show me some locks that work with slide bolts,” she asked him. “I am going to need a long, thick slide bolt, and a big strong lock to keep it in place. It’s because of my husband,” she said. Kevin decided he would just focus on the sale; not let it bother him. If she wanted to waste time being paranoid, the store still got another sale out of it. He showed her the shelves of contractor grade security hardware and locks.
“That looks perfect,” she said.
Kevin bent over to note the model number on a cashier tag.
From behind him, her thin arm silently extended over Kevin’s shoulder as he knelt in front of the bottom shelf. Her hand reached into his open shirt collar. Her fingers dove into the curly brown hair of his chest and splashed and played in his hair for a few seconds like a dolphin in the bow wave of a cruise ship.
Kevin jumped and shook himself like he had a bee in his shirt.
“Just about the sexiest thing I have ever seen,” she said.
“What are you doing?” he asked, regaining his dignity a bit.
“I just had to touch it,” she said. “So silky!”
“Well, it makes me uncomfortable,” said Kevin, certain he did not have to tolerate this in the name of customer service.
“You don’t know how scary it is, feeling threatened by him all the time. When he gets drunk, he just takes me, whenever he wants. I can’t get any sleep, because I have to be ready to defend myself.” A single tear squeezed out of the corner of her eye.
“I don’t know,” said Kevin.
“You are so helpful, I’m going to tell the manager how much you’ve helped me,” she said. She seemed ready to embrace him, so Kevin stepped quickly back.
“Don’t have to do that,” said Kevin. “Good luck with that.” And he hurried to the next customer.
She bought the hardware.
Two weeks later, Debbie, a long-time colleague of Kevin’s, brought in a news clipping. “Isn’t this Lock Lady?” she asked him as she posted an obit picture by the time clock.
Libby Morrow died in a mobile home fire. She was found in bed, after a cigarette blazed up in her mattress during the night. The firemen had difficulty getting to her. Her unit had been securely bolted at the bedroom door, entry door and all windows.
“She lived in a fortress,” said a firefighter.
Kevin said nothing but the minimum for days.
The manager denied his request to switch to a branch of the store in a different region. Gradually the other employees forgot about Lock Lady and stopped teasing him.
Sometimes, when he stocked the padlocks, Kevin felt a gentle hand on the back of his head.
He didn’t pull away.
UNDETERRED
first published: Halfway Down the Stairs, June, 2013
About six years ago, a dark-haired, thirtyish man in a white T-shirt pushed an arresting young woman in a wheel chair up the main aisle of the hardware store. She had intense brown eyes, smooth tan skin like her companion, and exuberant, thick eyebrows.
He approached me. “Do you have a little time you can spend with my sister? Anna has a few questions.”
“Sure. What can I help with?” I said. I was grateful. I am a rover in the store, free to help almost anybody with pretty much anything, but especially a pretty girl.
The girl had the same shiny rich, black hair as her brother, shoulder length. Her upper body was brown and broad; her legs were in jeans, but Velcro-wrapped to the foot rests of the chair.
“Well, I hope you can help me with pulleys, because I have to invent some things. I can picture it, but I need help to get the pieces together.”
Her eyes were mirrors into which I didn’t dare look. “Okay. Anna, I’m Jerry. What are we building?” Continue reading
Married Love, Year Thirty
MARRIED LOVE, YEAR THIRTY by Erik Svehaug
first published: UMM Binnacle Ultrashorts, 12-12-12
Fading memory is now our little family’s art,
And gravity unwraps the careful packaging of youth;
So let’s meet in serenity, embracing grief and joy,
In the mercy of moments that dawn perpetually.
When you quit pressing weekdays into weeks,
And I stop scraping flotsam into heaps,
We’ll come together in the unmapped dark
And shine our flashlights at the moon.
Rafael Garcia Meets the Devil
Published in anthology here: 6-9-2011
The Spanish horse patrol was on route to Bodega on the Pacific. Rumors, then reports, had come to the fort beside St. Rafael near San Francisco Bay that other Europeans had been seen in the headlands around the mountain called Tamalpais.
The five leather-coated soldiers, their priest companion and the native servant stopped awhile to stretch their legs and barter food at a poor village. The missionary, mildly drunk, was still able to talk with the village elder in Bay area pidgin. The man had apparently seen nothing.
Private Rodrigo played with the kids. They got him into line with them in the field and passed a rawhide ball from one to the next, then faster, then two lines formed and raced to see who was fastest. They laughed; he laughed; no one used words, but cheered and yelled and slapped each other’s back.
It turned into tag and racing through the woods. The Miwok kids were quick as deer and knew the paths, but Rodrigo’s heart made up the gap. Continue reading
A Hint of Wind
Published here: Microstory-a Week, 11-30-2011
The young priest cut the outboard engine half a mile from Horseshoe Bay off the Marin Headlands. He had no fishing pole, no crab pots. He spent most Mondays off from his stagnant ministry in this rowboat.
He tipped the engine up and back, put the oars in their locks, let the blades hang in the water. He waited, bow pointed across open water toward old San Francisco. Outside the mouth of the Bay, the barren Farallons called and the immense Pacific offered to take him. The boat drifted dully.
He closed his eyes. His seminary enthusiasm had met polite tolerance. He just couldn’t engage these natives with roots as old as the Bible. Power-Points were useless.
Small waves licked the side of the boat; the hungrier ones slapped it. Continue reading
Work by Erik Svehaug 
