Of course; sometimes; Gumshoe overdid it;
Filed under 2016, cartoon by author, CarToonsday
Even the sunrise looked like a comma to the folks of Run-On.
Filed under 2016, cartoon by author, CarToonsday
[Writer’s note: What began as a writing prompt — photo and first paragraph — has become at least the start of a story. I will endeavor to add short sections to it, at lest as long as there is some interest. It might be a little rough in parts, but that’s because it is coming “hot off the press,” which could be part of the fun of it. In the meantime, you are free to jump off from any part of this story thus far and write your own version. Click Holly’s Corner below to get Parts 1 – 10.]
by David E. Booker
“And you carry around a rolling pin because it is the latest in fashion accessories?”
She lowered the pin. “I don’t believe in guns.”
“The same can’t be said for threats.”
“Do you always speak your mind?”
It was a cool, rainy day down at Holly’s Corner.
“I try to. Saves me having to remember things.”
She smirked again. She was a plump-but-not-fat redhead who stood probably five-seven or so. I did my best to guess with her sitting in my one overstuffed client’s chair. She wasn’t wearing any heels, little or no makeup, and the end of her nose and her nostrils flared like the loops of a three-leaf clover. She was a strawberry blond with freckles that almost worked to make her look younger than she was.
She caught me staring. “Get an eye full.”
“Enough to describe you to the police should you point your pin at me again.”
She smiled, then laughed. The small crows’ feet at the corners of her eyes. They made her face more pleasant.
“Ooohh, my head….” Rachel leaned forward and brought her hands up to the sides of her head. The rolling pin clattered to the scuffed and marred hardwood floor. Another mark wasn’t going to be noticed.
Father Brown stepped in carrying a glass of water and what looked like a couple of aspirin. When Rachel looked up, he urged her to take them. She hesitated, and then accepted. He turned and left the room.
She looked at me. “Do you always provide your clients such service?”
“Father Brown has a knack and since you are not my client, he does it for non-clients, too.”
“’Father’?”
“Retired priest.”
She had started swallowing the aspirin, then stopped.
“He … naht … chilf … masqaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauhhh.”
I nodded. “Yeah, that one.”
She started choking.
“I suggest-—”
Too late. She jerked forward and threw up on my rug. It was a yard sale special, so it wasn’t my favorite color or pattern, but I couldn’t afford a new one.
Father Brown rushed back into the room, bucket in hand, but Rachel had wretched her last bit of food out and onto the rug. She had a few bits of spit for the blue plastic container.
She looked up, saw him, and recoiled back in the chair, her feet swiping through the vomit.
(To be continued.)
Filed under 2016, photo by David E. Booker, Story by author
Understanding legalese was not easy.
Filed under 2016, cartoon by author, CarToonsday
There was a plaque near the elephant statue that read, “In honor of Ron-on’s founder Bull Derum.”
“Why not a bull statue?” Gumshoe asked.
“It’s a mystery,” the lawyer said.
Filed under 2016, cartoon by author, CarToonsday
Penny claimed they wanted to draw and quarter her, and she said she would half none of it. He told her to hang on, he would get there as soon as he could.
Filed under 2016, cartoon by author, CarToonsday
[Writer’s note: What began as a writing prompt — photo and first paragraph — has become at least the start of a story. I will endeavor to add short sections to it, at lest as long as there is some interest. It might be a little rough in parts, but that’s because it is coming “hot off the press,” which could be part of the fun of it. In the meantime, you are free to jump off from any part of this story thus far and write your own version. Click Holly’s Corner below to get Parts 1 – 9.]
by David E. Booker
“Tea anyone?” Father Brown wriggled himself around me and walked into the room carrying a wicker service tray that was sagging slightly toward the center from the weight of the teapot.
I pointed toward the low coffee table and said, “Now.”
He gave me a look like I was demanding tea immediately.
“In a minute,” he said.
It was a cool, rainy day down at Holly’s Corner.
I helped him put it on the coffee table. Maybe Father believed he could beat gravity, but I had other faith. Once the tray was on the coffee table, he shooed me away.
“Take care of your client.”
I could not want to tell him she was not my client. She would have heard and he seemed almost too please that there was one.
I walked over to my desk and took a seat behind it, letting Father Brown serve the tea and make a few pleasant bits of small talk as he did so. When he was done, I asked him to leave.
He frowned.
“Investigator / client privilege,” I said.
“But I found her first,” he said.
“Hey,” she said. “Nobody found me. I found you.”
“And so you did,” I said. “I don’t believe I caught your name.”
“Probably ’cause I ain’t thrown it at you.”
I had a feeling that she was teetering on the edge of sobriety and that whatever repercussions from her dip into alcohol would be manifesting themselves soon. I preferred they didn’t manifest themselves in my office.
“My name’s Rachel. Rachel Ray. Friends call me Ray Ray. I hate Ray Ray. They think they’re being sweet or cute or something or other, but mostly they’re being fuckin’ annoying.”
She took another breath and was about to go on, when I said, “Mrs. Ray.”
“Miss Ray or Ms Ray. I am not now nor have I ever been married.”
“You say it like you’re swearing an oath.”
She smirked at me and then reached for her rolling pin. I decided not to duck.
“I want to hire you.”
“I don’t do recipes.”
“That’s what you think this is about.”
“And you carry around a rolling pin because it is the latest in fashion accessories?”
She lowered the pin. “I don’t believe in guns.”
“The same can’t be said for threats.”
“Do you always speak your mind?”
(To be continued.)
Filed under 2016, photo by David E. Booker, Story by author
[Writer’s note: What began as a writing prompt — photo and first paragraph — has become at least the start of a story. I will endeavor to add short sections to it, at lest as long as there is some interest. It might be a little rough in parts, but that’s because it is coming “hot off the press,” which could be part of the fun of it. In the meantime, you are free to jump off from any part of this story thus far and write your own version. Click Holly’s Corner below to get Parts 1 – 8.]
by David E. Booker
I tossed the wet wipe in the trash and stepped through the curtain and behind door number one was the woman who had threatened me with her rolling pin. She was still gripping the deadly device.
#
“You heard her side of the story. You’re going to hear mine,” she said.
“I’m not the Dear Abby of the recipe world.”
She was sitting in my one good client chair. I decided not to sit down. Maybe she’d get the hint and stand up and step out.
It was a cool, rainy day down at Holly’s Corner.
“Be careful what you say,” I said. “There’s a priest in the office.”
She sloshed her disheveled hairdo toward the other room. “Him? He’s harmless. We had a nice conversation waiting for you, we did.”
She was looking up at me. There seemed the hint of a foreign accent in her speech. English maybe. Either that or that’s the way she talked when she was inebriated. I once knew a Jewish guy who took on a Russian accent when he was drunk. He would also start referring to himself in the third person and how “that worthless Jew” needed a trip to a pogrom. In the past few years I had lost contact with him and hoped he wasn’t off somewhere punishing himself. I think he wanted to be comedy writer.
“Your half-sister is not my client, so you don’t have to stay,” I said, still standing near the doorway.
“Then I want to hire you.” She curled away from me and toward her purse, which was beside her on the chair. She popped it open, jammed her right hand inside, then pulled out a wad of bills and shook them at me like a rustling bouquet of flowers. Green flowers. Andrew Jackson and Benjamin Franklin flowers.
“Tea anyone?” Father Brown wriggled himself around me and walked into the room carrying a wicker service tray that was sagging slightly toward the center from the weight of the teapot.
(To be continued.)
Filed under 2015, photo by David E. Booker, Story by author
[Writer’s note: What began as a writing prompt — photo and first paragraph — has become at least the start of a story. I will endeavor to add short sections to it, at lest as long as there is some interest. It might be a little rough in parts, but that’s because it is coming “hot off the press,” which could be part of the fun of it. In the meantime, you are free to jump off from any part of this story thus far and write your own version. Click Holly’s Corner below to get Parts 1 – 7.]
by David E. Booker
I hadn’t refilled my drink and there wasn’t anything on a nearby table, so Marc dropped the rest of the Ricky Ricardo on the floor, turned and raced out of the restaurant.
Everybody’s a food critic.
#
Father Brown was waiting for me at what passed for an office. Treehouse with slightly insulated walls was a better way of describing the former storage area, second story walk up. The steps needed repair and were steeper than some parts of the trail at House Mountain. Not exactly inviting for business. And there was an odd smell, like cooked cabbage and roasted Brussel Sprouts that came and went without seeming regularity or reason.
I thought about asking him if he had a hot plate hidden somewhere in my ramshackle pseudo-office, but wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.
It was a cool, rainy day down at Holly’s Corner.
He came to me to help him clear his name. The church wasn’t going to help, nor the parents of any of the kids. But a couple of the kids who were now adults came forward and said he had nothing to do with what happened to them. Armed with that, I had tried to move forward, but then Father Brown started losing his mind, so to say. Memories became jumbled, details incoherent or empty in places. Then, out of the blue, details return. Sometimes only for a while.
Doctors, at least the ones I can afford, have not answer. Medicare has not been much help, either, in paying for some specialty tests. Thus far, speculation … excuse me, diagnosis … has run the gamut from chemically based to an emotional one, a form of post-traumatic stress. A few ten thousand dollars more and they might just be able to nail it down … or not.
When lucid, he could be a wonder to have around and for a man of his age. He has taken to the computer as if he’d entered a second childhood. He says he has his own place, but he is always “locking up the office” at the end of the day and is the first one in.
I have found food wrappers and apple cores in the trash sometimes in the morning, but Father Brown says he brings things in and heats them in the microwave he bought at a yard sale, then donated to the office. Once in a while it makes an arcing sounding when heating something and some day may catch fire and burn the place down.
Brown’s first name is John and I can see the headlines now: “John of Arc Sets Self on Fire.”
I should not be so flippant.
“Did you make mud pies at your lunch meeting at Holly’s?” Brown asked when he saw me.
“Probably would have been better off if I had,” I said. “Ran into Marc.”
“I bet that hurt.”
Sometimes Brown took things too literally or maybe he was having fun with me. Sometimes I couldn’t tell. He handed me a damp cloth to wipe myself off.
“The client and I couldn’t agree on terms, so she left and I’m on the search for another replacement.”
“That’s the second one in the past week that you couldn’t reach terms with.”
We were standing in what served as the receptionist area. We had erected a flimsy wall with drapery on a rod across the opening where a door would be. Brown sometimes called it my Les Nessman door.
We were six hours and many years away from a fictional radio station. I would have to make sure Brown had no plans for turkeys this Thanksgiving.
“This one was about finding a family heirloom,” I said.
“Heirlooms can be priceless.”
“Not a recipe.”
“Recipes and spices have played important parts of history.”
“How would you know?”
“Because I told him so.” It was a woman’s voice. It started a little whiny, then turned a little guttural.
I tossed the wet wipe in the trash and stepped through the curtain and behind door number one was the woman who had threatened me with her rolling pin. She was still gripping the deadly device.
#
(To be continued.)
Filed under 2015, photo by David E. Booker, Story by author
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