Tag: Stories

She Sells Seahells – Part V – The Contemplation of God

On By Alex V. WeirIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Pat IV

As we proceeded topside Harris chuckled.
“That was a mighty fine speech you gave. You should have taken on the cloth.”

“I do not fancy my fathers profession.”

“A nice parish in the country? That is not favorable to scurvy and the sword?”

“The parish is worms and dust. It is stifling to both mind and spirit. There are such vistas both mortal and metaphysic…that to burrow ones nose in the narrow confines of Saxon renderings of oriental myths is a crime against God.”

“You call the Bible a myth? I’m sure the senior Halstead would make one out of your hide for that.”

“He already has.” I said musing on the steady application of physical discipline by that tall, thin, ascetic thing I called father. I owed him much in the way of education but was very glad on the day that I put distance between myself and that holy terror.

“So that’s why you took so warmly to those diabolists in Boston.”

It was my turn to chuckle.

“Diabolists?”

“They have quite the reputation.”

“Yes, I’m sure that all the superstitious babblers fancy us the new Salem. But to imagine George as a diabolist…well that is some devilry indeed.”

“Is that the portly fellow?”

“Yes, portlier and jollier than you, more patient then a saint….more generous than the Samaritan.”

“So what is it that you do there?”

“That’s the thing I’ve told you and we’ve told the whole town a million times over. We collect books, curiosities, and entertain ideas…that’s all besides a good bit of mutton and beer. Perhaps some take to whoring more often than is proper but how uncommon is that in a port city? Does not the governor himself that pious picture of Protestant virtue…. not entertain more beauties than the king of France?”

“Tis true.”

“So why do you keep asking?”

“It’s just there’s so much seen round that Inn, so many odd folks, and lights, and voices.”

“Well what do you expect from a party if not folks, and lights, and voices.”

“Well…some have said they’ve seen fairies….” Harris said sheepishly.

“You are a fairy you great port barrel fool.” I said gripping his neck and rubbing my knuckles into his bald head. I also had my father’s height to thank for this capacity to molest the crowns of my fellows. I suppose that’s one more thing I could thank him for.

“Alright, alright! hands off you spindly monstrosity, before I sit on you.”

“Ooooff…” I exploded. “That is certain death!” And released him.

“So what do you think old Death will make of this Canaries business?”

“I rather think he will agree.”

“Really!”

“Yes, you noted yourself, the change in him. He is no longer as keen on politics and service as he is on the Contemplation of God.”

“He has gone a bit queer hasn’t he.”

“Shhh….” I said putting my finger to my lips. “We just passed his new lodging.”

“Ah! I always forget he gave up his quarters to that magician. Besides aren’t we about to meet him topside.”

“You can never be certain and…Magician?”

“Yes, that’s how I’ve come to think of him…you know like from the Bible…the magi…”

This statement threw me into a heady flurry of thought that was as brisk as the salt air that kissed my face as we emerged topside onto the deck.

– www.minds.com/Weirmellow

Join me on a freedom loving social media platform!

– www.patreon.com/TheFractalJournal

Become a patron and help improve production quality at TFJ while getting exclusive stories, music, behind-the-scenes, and much much more!

 

Announcing – The Strange Life of Artemus Foe (Again..)

On By Alex V. WeirIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

The Strange of Artemus Foe - Steampunk Concept - one

So, I have decided to pursue this steampunk webcomic idea. Which is explained in a voicememo/youtube video below. I know I already introduced it but here’s some more concept art! If you can call it art. Concept doodles…but I had a blast…look forward to making this…with maybe a storyboard coming out sometime this weekend.

artie

https://www.fractaljournal.com | Stories, Essays, and More!
https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow | Join the Indie Social Media Revloution!
https://www.patreon.com/TheFractalJournal | I will always try to improve production wise independent of revenue generated through this content but every bit of loose change helps. Whether or not you choose to help out I appreciate your visit.

Cannon (Short Essay)

On By Alex V. WeirIn Philosophy, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Image result for cannon

Boom!

It was reverberant. The ground shook. We did not. Eyes locked on the flag, straight thumbs aligned with curled knuckles, we were confident mannequins rooted to the humid soil.

Rooted. Yes the grass, the little green blades damp with Carolina dew, its roots ran right beneath our feet.

Boom!

There it came again and with it the thought of what had nourished the ancestors of those roots. The metallic tasting red rain that had inundated a thousand such fields since time immemorial.

Boom!

I thought of the cannon. I thought of its fantastic brutalilty. A thing built to say ‘you had best comply.’ One of those paradoxical war machines designed to illict peace. A detterent I think they called it.

What’s funny is it never deterred anybody. It was more a catalyst. The old arms race story. You wanted to stop a bunch of men with rifles so you built a giant bowling ball spitting tube. I guess you’d gain advantage for a while till the other folks figured out how to make their own or stole yours. And now you had limbs falling off trunks on both sides like loblolly branches in a thunderstorm.

Boom!

I imagined a hundred pounds of lead making contact with flesh cleanly obliterating whole sections of anatomy through the decisive action of blunt trauma.

Exposed bones, gleaming fat, pools of offal and viscera, these and the feces of a thousand carrion birds mixed with the aroma of human blood and shit. Yes, in pretty green sunlit fields like these. A green whose manure was gore.

Boom!

And yet we stood resolute. Willing perhaps even lusting for combat. A chance to test our limbs and brains against wicked metal and wickeder minds. Mind you we were not wicked.

Ah yes we were being inured to the sound, to the instinct to run for cover, taught to stand our ground. In defense of what? A fluttering bit of feeble fabric for an even wispier thing called ideal.

So were the fools across the ocean and beyond the hill.

Boom!

I am no coward and I will die if I must. As will any man by my side, to my rear, or to my front. Yet every time I hear that sound of thunder…. I cannot help but feel that while the ideals may well be good, the present preparations connection to such is as feeble as that fluttering fabric.

https://www.minds.com/Weirmellow |Join me on minds

https://www.patreon.com/TheFractalJournal | Support Indie Content

TFJ Vlogs – Mr. Vesterby and the Elvish Dreamer – Impromptu Story

On By Alex V. WeirIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

I decided to make up a story on the go during my drive back home from work. I think it came out ‘ok’ with its chief strength being atmospherics. There did seem to be a bit of unconscious plagiarism in the borrowing of elements from Lovecraft’s: Music of Erich Zann, and Poe’s: A Tale of the Ragged Mountains.

The title was a post-production decision since I felt the strange and nebulous description of one of the characters could best be subscribed by ‘elf or troll’. Trollish dreamer doesn’t have quite the same ring though.

Thanks for stopping by and check out http://www.fractaljournal.com for essays, stories, webcomics, and more.

Cheers.

The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 1.6 – ‘Is there anybody out there…’

On By Alex V. WeirIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Image result for cave diving

1.1  Sketch of Sam Monroe

1.2 The Cajun Prayer

1.3 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter One: The Cambridge Gable Scene (‘Gator is Waitin’)

1.4 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 1.4 – The Cambridge Gable Scene – (Horticulture)

1.5 The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 1.5: ‘To Luckadoo Cove’

It always felt like bursting into another world. The only sensation I could effectively liken it to was cave diving. Something I’d done once on the dime of Lucas’ dad.

The thing was like swimming through some narrow submerged corridor, and bursting into one of those vaulted dagger studded chambers that knew no light, save the febrile beam of your headlamp.

Luckadoo’s estate sat in a clearing in the thick woods denuded just enough to afford a modest yard.

I heard the sheriff’s car pull up beside us. We’d dimmed our lights ten whole minutes ago but the squad car illuminated the oak and stone walls with an officious glaring brightness. Lucas hopped out of the driver’s seat and ran over to tell Fabre to cut it out.

He was back momentarily. We heard the sound of a cell phone. Pierce answered: ‘Hello.’

After a second. He put it on speaker.

“What the hell did you just blabber about, why should the lights be off, what the..”

“We need to secure the perimeter,” Lucas replied matter of factly.

“Secure, the perimeter, what are you talking about, listen…”

Lucas popped open his cell phone and tapped on the screen as Fabre’s protestation continued to pour from the doctor’s device.

Suddenly there was a very odd sound. One that bespoke suspense and familiarity at the same time. Fabre’s voice grew still.

Out in the sea of trees, as far from the reach of civilization as one could get in a global village, the sound of a THX soundcheck rang out through the valley.

Suddenly there was another sound, it was some simple spoken words, done in a sing-song chant to a certain pitch and rhythm, it was Roger Waters, “Is there anybody out there?”

“The wall…”

Graham flipped a metal switch on the dash. The house, the yard, the woods, and what we could see of the lake beyond were illuminated by harsh glaring floodlights that may as well have been the noonday sun.

“Holy shit!” Fabre was apparently still on the line.

Lucas reached down beneath the armrest and pulled up a mouthpiece on a black coiled wire.

“This is Colonel Schmidt of LRD, Army Corps of Engineers, you are within a federal jurisdiction, you are advised to immediately beach all watercraft, and give a report of your position. Having done so you are to step into our immediate line of sight. The line of sight being in front of the vehicles. Drop all weapons and proceed with your hands held high. Be advised that we are authorized and capable of using deadly force.”

“What in the fuck…” Doc Pierce muttered under his breath, shaking his head.

I chuckled. It was always funny to see Lucas Schmidt with his surfer boy haircut deliver such stentorian tones. I suppose having an admiral for a father does make a difference.

There was a five-minute wait for a response.

“If you are military, federal, or law enforcement personnel, state your rank, file, serial number and purpose clearly. If you are within fifty yards of our position we will hear you. Do you copy?”

Again we waited five minutes.

“I repeat, military federal, and law enforcement personnel, are advised to give a prompt and clear report of purpose and station. Failure to comply may result in disciplinary measures. We wish to avoid friendly fire but are authorized to engage, should the need arise. Do you copy?”

We waited five more minutes. There was no response.

Each member of our team put on headphones. I handed a pair to the doctor who complied wordlessly. Lucas ran out of the car with another pair. We heard his voice and the sheriff’s voice arguing through the doctor’s cell phone speaker.

Out of the car window, I saw Lucas’ screen shine dimly in the glare of the spotlights. Then the floodlights died.

Suddenly there was a pulse and a harsh shrill sound, that was thankfully muffled by the deadening in our headphones. You could feel it on your skin, it was like an air dryer, the pressure pushing the hairs on my arms in every direction.

The cars shook gently, the window panes rattling, the windows of the house also rattled, leaves and weaker branches fell from the roof and the trees.

I put away my flask and picked up a P320 from under the seat. The doctor shied away from me mid-process. I motioned for him to stay in the car.

Lucas opened the doctor’s door and extracted the Mossberg 500 off of Pierce’s lap.

Graham, Chuck, the Doctor, and the Sherrif had been pantomimed into staying put as Sam with his own Sig joined me and Lucas in a serpentine toward the door.

I punched in the keycode and Lucas dashed in sweeping the area. I tapped him on the shoulder and saw his flashlight mount head off to clear the eastern wing. I heard the door shut behind me and felt a tap on my own shoulder. Sam headed to the western wing as I made my way upstairs.

We then reconvened in the parlor to clear the basement, backyard, and dock.

The whole process took eight minutes. At every point at least one of us had a line of sight to the vehicles.

At the end, the sound died and we took up position one man prone on the front porch and two flanking the sides of the house.

Sam and I held our position with our sidearms at the ready as Lucas escorted the Doctor, the Sherrif, and our two civvie comrades to the door.

Once inside the rustic wood-paneled lodge with its gentleman hunter’s décor we felt the comedy of contrasts and laughed.

“That is one hell of an ADT system,” Fabre remarked.

Image Credit: https://www.thoughtco.com/cave-diving-isnt-crazy-2963325

The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter 1.4 – The Cambridge Gable Scene – (Horticulture)

On By Alex V. WeirIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Related image

Intro/1.1 – Sketch of Sam Monroe

1.2 – The Cajun Prayer

1.3 – The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter One: The Cambridge Gable Scene (‘Gator is Waitin’)

Horticulture 

“Just look at these curls….” Said the nurse running her fingers through Hoyt’s golden ringlets.

“Yeah, they probably smell like patchouli.” Lucas said wryly.

“You might wanna sterilize your hands. Who knows what’s been nesting in there…”

“Ya’ll should leave him alone. He’s the handsomest one…and so tall…”

Graham wasn’t handsome but she did have a point about the height. He looked ridiculous hunched up on that little examining bed. With his long thin arms between his knees he looked like some kind of shagged out alien. He seemed very tired.

“He might be tall. But I’ll have you know that I’m the handsome one.” Sam said dramatically tossing his own brown mane to shoot her an I’m so sexy stare.

We all laughed because of how plain he was. He wasn’t ugly just incredibly typical. There was nothing to suggest itself as pretty or ugly in his WASPY features.

“Well, I suppose you’re all charmin’ in your own ways but…I do mean that you should leave him alone, he needs to rest, make sure he drinks plenty o water too.”

“We will.” I said as I nervously pondered what exactly was going to happen. Pierce had remained outside with Fabre and we were all anticipating some fresh sentence when the officer regained his wits.

I fingered my flask.

The nurse continued chatting pleasantly with Sam whose thirst for female attention knew no bounds. I think she enjoyed humoring him. His poorly disguised attraction must have been flattering to a woman approaching middle age.

“Well now…what do you have there…” she asked snatching my flask away just as I got the barest sip of Jim.

“O mercy.. whisky..this is strong…how do you stomach it…” Her disgust was so genuine that I couldn’t suppres a smile.

“Twice barreled, top shelf, twelve years in the makin’ ain’t something to turn your nose up at ma’am. Besides it helps with the nerves.”

“And what does a young man with enough money for the ‘top shelf’ have to worry about? What are you boys upto out here? What did you do to your friend?”

“Well, I guess it’s the purdy girls that make me nervous,” I said with my most winning smile.

“Flattery ain’t gonna work on me none sugar,” she said laconically, “’fess up, what’s all this gentry doin’ out in Foley?”

“We’re here for the inspiration, we’re artists and….”

“Yeah, yeah, they’re artists uhuh….” said the Doctor upon entering the room with the somewhat recovered looking sherif.

The pretty lady laughed. Her upturned little nose scrunching up a dozen darling little freckles that may as well have been the stars of a Kentucky night. ‘I need a date.’ I laughed to myself as I realized how long I’d been in the hills.

It was this state that made me particularly keen on noticing that unmistakable sort of familiarity between our Frankish chief and the nurse. Jealousy does have its uses I mused as I ruefully gripped my recently reacquired flask firmer.

I was glad we hadn’t told her anything…but more than a bit worried about what she might have extracted out of Graham. There was no reserve in Graham Hoyt. He was nothing like his English father. He talked with his hands like his mother. Italians…

Pierce was laughing. “Well boys, old Philly Fabre here’s just told me the most coonass story I ever heard. Full of magic, and bayous, and Catholic guilt. Definitely displaying some hyper-religiosity…”

“Coonass…?”

“Means Cajun…” Chuck whispered. He was our resident Trebek. His mastery of trivia did have its uses despite being largely insufferable. He was a hipster caricature a bourgeoise Google savant. Memorizing more irrelevancies in day then a Trekkie does in a lifetime.

“Yeah, coonass and shrimp boat reeking as they come.” Pierce laughed. “Hell I think he actually did work a shrimp boat as a boy…” Pierce was really laughing now.

“Ain’t no shame in the trades.” I said.

“Of course, of course, I meant no offense, only that the man is so damnably iconic. I suppose Americana survives in the weirdest of places. Now…” He said with a glance at Graham.

“Your friend seems to be fine enough to go home.”

“So we can go…” Lucas was excited.

“….Yes…of course…but…as I have told the Officer here…the best way to surmount your fears is to face them head on, that’s what got me through Pnomh Penh…”

“You seem a little young for that one.” Chuck said.

“I age well.” Pierce responded. He was the iciest man I’d ever meet.

There was a moment of awkward silence.

“Anyhow,” the doctor continued, “Fabre here has it in his head that you’re all some sort of magicians, he thinks you talk to something in these hills, he says he’s been watching you, and he knows a thing or two about the plants you grow in your garden.”

O shit…

“I’m not much for ghost stories but I am a chemical engineer.”

Double shit…

“…so, the officer and I are going to visit you out at the cove.”

The Sketch of Sam Monroe – Chapter One: The Cambridge Gable Scene (‘Gator is Waitin’)

On By Alex V. WeirIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Chapter 1.1: Sketch of Sam Monroe

‘Chapter 1.2:’ The Cajun Prayer

This is a book that I will upload as I write it. This is still technically part of Chapter One like the rest of the entries.

Chapter One – The Cambridge Gable Scene

‘Gator is Waitin’

The mid-February evening grew chill quickly. I shivered and pondered as to how our retreating ‘boy in blue’ could sit so comfortably, on the faded green metal bench outside Pierce’s practice.

Graham had fallen into a neat little heap of lanky limbs and golden Afro soon after the dramatic episode. Currently, he was being comforted by a nurse (who despite being a tad older) still retained that magnetic auburn haired sort of charm common among the locals. Lucky dog….

Fabre was a picture of calm as he sat there gazing into the middle distance with a particularly offensive clove cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

“What in the hell was all that about?” Pierce queried.

The Gallic sheriff remained impassive. His cold grey eyes held none of their former mischief.

The doctor was a reasonable man but his patience did have a limit. After the span of a quarter hour he remarked sternly.

“Well, come on man! Remember your Norman heritage. The blood of William courses through your veins and you would let a little of the old country spook you like that?”

It took some minutes still before Fabre responded.

“In Louisiana there are very wild places…”

“And many Alsatian fools,” Pierce remarked wryly. He had an odd habit of simultaneously praising and dressing people down.

“Yes, yes, I am a fool, and an Alsatian. But better to have my blood and my folly then to remain composed through that…”

Another long pause.

“I’m sorry, but I still don’t gather what ‘that’ is?”

This pause was even longer. I couldn’t suppress a yawn despite my interest. There was something dreamy, hypnotic in these hills. It was as if at every moment they threatened to drown you in some strange ancient honey.

“’That’ is voodoo…mssr”

Pierce laughed derisively. “Come off it man, you don’t even go to church.” It was now that I noticed that Pierce had an accent too. My Carolina ears were keen for the foreign sound of Yank inflection. And Yank he was. He was less a son of Kentucky than I.

“I tell you the truth. You have the benefit of your education and distance as buffer. But this is…this is old stuff…this is not drugs…I’ve seen it before too…but not like this…”

“You are a superstitious fool.” Pierce scoffed. “The fair haired boy was having a pull at your leg. It’s that Irish mother of yours.”

“That was just a rumor I am as Cajun as they come. Perhaps too Cajun…I have hot blood….a bad temper…you see…that is…”

I thought I spied a moment of panic in that expressive face.

He puffed at his cigarette for a time before he continued:

“That is voodoo mssr. That is very bad stuff…I have nothing on it…”

“Pfft…OK…fine it’s voodoo what did the blasted lad say?”

I was beginning to grow as weary of the pauses as Doc Pierce.

“He say…he say…’the gator is waiting.’”

It was a bizarre expression.

Yet, something about the way that the officer said it that sent a shiver through my spine. I noticed that Pierce was suddenly subdued as well. Though not for long.

“Ok and what does that mean exactly.”

“It means I am lost.”

This statement was followed by another litany of papist prayers. Latin, English, French…what I eventually came to recognize as Creole intermingled in a fluid entreaty to what of God may still reside in a world of drive throughs and porno.

“Look, I think it very touching that you’ve suddenly found the Lord but he helps those who help themselves. So what is this gator business?”

Officer Fabre used what remained of his initial clove to light the second.

“As, I have said it means I am lost. That was the end of Jack Montreux and it will be the end of me.”

“That, is a long story doc…”

Image credit: https://fineartamerica.com/featured/haunted-houseboat-ray-congrove.html

The Regular Irregular – (Poem with Essay) Jeder Rilke ist schrecklich

On By Alex V. WeirIn Philosophy, Psychology, UncategorizedLeave a comment

 

Related image
The Regular – Irregular
‘Jeder Rilke ist schrecklich’
Poem with Essay

 

Hardly are there any hours

Scarcely do they ever stay

Called as if by unseen powers

This strange gift loves to stray

First, it was giddy

Tearing at tinsel

Then it was less greedy

A casual spell

Finally, I learned to see

That unwrapping is entirely unnecessary

Here all my watches blossomed

Every clock was a trade-wind

My steps were more assured

To those who’d say

That’s the mechanical way

Machines with their precision

Are no way to make decision….

Yet, I’ve turned my broken gardens into woods

Our park of long-rusted mistake into understoods

Yes

I am a regular
Irregular

Good-Day

2:16 PM on a Tuesday

Schrecklich

I do recall it. I recall often. Or at least so often as it recalls itself. At times reconstituted from the way that summer rain brings that moisture peculiar to doors left open at twilight.

Rainer Maria Rilke

I’d have never known the name save for a friend. She was a working musician that I’d met at a party half a decade ago.

She had a small room with what I think was a red couch. On one wall there was a picture of Christ with ashen eyes and a crown of thorns. There to watch me sin. On the other a picture of Virginia Woolf to scoff at our lack of gravity. Then some jaunty looking flapper with a black sunhat in hand striking a tom boy’s ‘Jack the Lad.’

It was in that room with the smell of rain that I pulled from her shelf of books a paperback of Rilke’s. At such times that we’d separate ourselves, I’d read. So I read.

It was the introduction rather than the poems that interested me. As far as I recall they tell of a young or perhaps not so young Rilke’s struggles. The point is I at the time imagined Rilke to be about twenty-two years of age like myself.

The struggles seem to have been primarily regarding a lack of productivity. One recounted episode (if my memory serves me well) was about how Rilke would endeavor to sit every day with punctuality to write something. He’d end up doing nothing. Or so was the effect of the tale on my imagination.

The feeling it produced in me was fear. They say that the most fearsome things are unknown. But it was the familiar that struck fear deep within me.

Was my tongue forever to be stilted? Was I merely going to pass my days in such a fashion, caught between worlds, dizzy with the urgency of that which must be said, and fornicating instead? Metaphorically of course.

It did or didn’t help that Whitman was there as contrast.

Yet, I had my gravity. The thing that would pull toward creation, toward a pulse.

Though it has taken some years. I believe that I have begun to manifest the strange momentum of a chance discovery.

Entsagung

This is the meaning in whole, or part, of the regular irregular.

Thank you for reading.

The Cajun Prayer

On By Alex V. WeirIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Related image

This book is dedicated to Terrence McKenna, who possessed a poets heart, and though I disagree on many points of sophistry…all perhaps…. save his sense of Wonder and dedicated service to that sacred art. May he dream strange dreams forever and adventure where he may! …For truth be told there is no such thing as never or decay.

This is chapter one for the book whose introduction you can read here: The Sketch of Sam Monroe

It’s an adventure story that eventually ends up in the jungle, inspired by Doyle, Crichton, Lovecraft, McKenna, and the true story of Percy Fawcett.

Disclaimer: Contains strong language and adult themes. It is not my intention to promote drug use. If you wish to partake in countries and states where it is legal and you are past the age of twenty-five that is your business. I choose twenty-five because that’s about the time your brain stops being all soft and squishy and before that happens you don’t need drugs. 

Cajun Prayer

“What the hell was in that?”

“Dude, it was just weed, plain old Mary Jane, Mary never hurt a fly.”

“He was foaming at the mouth….”

“Who knows what he took beforehand, either way, let’s not…”

At this point, a tall precise-looking man seeming to be about sixty years of age strode into the room.

It was a very odd hospital. One of those cramped country places. The little squarish chairs in the waiting room had that burnt orange look which reeked of the seventies. The metal bars beneath the armrests were cold on this Kentucky evening.

“I really can’t find anything wrong with your friend. Nothing biological anyway. I lack a lot of the instruments I’d need to do a proper battery of tests. Would you boys like it if I sent him off to Louisville? I have a driver on hand just for that purpose…”

‘No…’ a few of us chimed in. We couldn’t risk it.

“Well, right now he’s catatonic and I really can’t do much except run an IV and monitor his vitals.”

“He’ll come around I’m sure,” Lucas said with barely disguised guilt.

“What’s going on? I never really got a good grip on where you boys are from… I’ve never seen you in town. You don’t look like hunters, so are you campers, hikers what…?”

“We’re local,” I said.

“Mmm…I know everybody in this town, even old Ira Basset….”

“Well, we keep to ourselves mostly….we’re…artists….”

“Oh, so you’re private sorts, prematurely retired from the wild world into the rustic Kentucky hills…”

“Yeah…that’s one way of putting it….”

“Or could this be it.” The doctor threw a small plastic baggy into my lap. The contents of which I instantly recognized.

‘Shit…’

I heard footsteps outside.

“Well, Officer Fabre looks like you arrived at the perfect moment. Have you ever seen guiltier men?”

‘Shit…’

“Heh, o they’re guilty all right…mostly of being the most stereotypical heads to ever walk the earth, and what’s that he’s got…” The barrel-chested officer’s eyes narrowed as he took in the contents I was awkwardly grasping between shaky fingers.

“Toss, it here, actually don’t….that’s cocaine…which isn’t very legal….” He had a slight accent that I couldn’t quite place. And his tone of voice suggested perpetual amusement. He began to jauntily swing a set of handcuffs.

“So whose is it..?” he asked, looking from one of us to the other, “who am I taking to meet Bubba?”

“I found it on the patient.” The doctor said.

“So you did, Doc, but I gotta take somebody in, I’ve only got two cells, one of which holds Bubba, and he don’t find no sport in a body that don’t holler….”

The guy was fucking with us.

“I’ve got money, you know,” Lucas burst in.

“Aha, yea…I mean I don’t have to be Sherlock fuckin’ Holmes to know that if you have coke in Foley…you’re a walking trust fund…”

“Are you just gonna accept a bribe like that!” The doctor exploded.

“Well, doc, did you like identifying Mrs. Belmont’s corpse very much, or that endless stream of rotted gums?”

The doctor looked glum.

“Yeah…one thing about Foley…The State of Kentucky…Uncle Sam…and even Jesus Christ himself do not give one solemn shit much less a penny to keep meth heads from shooting little old ladies. I need ammo, I need vests, I need to feed my dam squad, hell Patrick doesn’t even have proper boots anymore…so….does 15k sound reasonable?”

“More than reasonable,” Lucas replied.

“WHERE do you boys have this kind of cash….” The doctor was incredulous. “Shit…you’re runners aren’t you!” There was something odd in the way that the word shit sat in the mouth of such a gentlemanly looking man. He was truly flustered by his suspicion to react that way.

“Nah….doc…they ain’t runners…they’re faggy little college boys…and I guess that there must be a god after all because they’re the fucking solution to my problem….”

It was at this point that Graham burst into the room with a wild look in his eyes. The IV hanging in an awkward grotesque sort of way from his left arm. He gazed directly at the cop with the most unnaturally sardonic expression I’ve ever seen. It made my blood run cold.

Graham stood there swaying from side to side just gazing directly at the officer. Then he spoke some other language. I guess it was French or something.

For a moment Officer Fabre was stock still. Then shrieking wildly he ran from the room screaming something like…

Jay vous saley,
Marie,

they grasss

Le Signor

ist avec vous.

Le signor is avec vous!

“Get back here you cowardly frog!” Doctor Pierce exclaimed at the retreating man.

Then regaining some of his composure he said,

“What the hell am I going to do with you fucking kids!”