Delmar Bullock wasn’t impressed, not one little bit. The three young farts standing just inside the door to his storage shed didn’t seem good for much, most of all a Klan job.At first, they tried to act cocky like this was no big deal. But none of  ‘em said a word after seeing the cross he put together that afternoon. He wondered why Jack Boudreaux, who always worried about security leaks, picked these three boys to do a...

 “Hey, good lookin’, what ya got cookin’ tonight?” At the sound of Darrell Ray’s cocky, teasing voice, Bebe gave him an unhurried glance. Then she took her time putting away an unread folder, turning off the fluorescent desk light and covering the typewriter. When everything was in order, she leaned back and met his gaze.It was way past the lumberyard’s two o’clock Saturday closing time. He was always the last hourly empl...

 Dancing to Ray Charles: Ch 07, S8ummer Inactivities “I guess it’s about time we had that little talk.” Jake Cahill stood in the doorway to the crowded laundry room, watching his son pull clothes from the dryer.“Oh, I already know all about that stuff,” said Mark. “The stork brings the babies and leaves them under a cabbage leaf.”“So that’s how it’s done. And all this time I thought Doc Miles brought them in his little bl...

  All the ‘grown-ups’ were gone, but no one was interested in re-starting the card game. At Amy’s suggestion, the guys fixed something to drink while she grabbed some snacks. Provisions in hand, they went out into the warm night air on the screened-in back porch. To keep from attracting bugs, they left the lights off. Except for the glow from inside the house, it was dark.To no one’s surprise, Mark got the conversation ro...

 The arrival of Amy’s mother, complete with an old photo album halted both their card game and the Interrogation of Willie. The invitation they had expected and feared, to join her on the couch, soon followed. When the migration ended, Willie and Amy were sitting on either side of her mother while Mark and Bob knelt and peered over them from behind the couch. The first picture Mrs. Marshall pointed out showed two babies,...

   Hearts, as played by Amy, Mark, Willie, and Bob was as much a contact sport as a card game. They’d all been varsity athletes in high school, were still competitive, and hated to lose at anything, including cards. The current debate didn’t center on the game, however, but which album to play during the next hand. “Okay, y’all,” said Amy, addressing Mark and Bob while collecting the cards, “we’ve played ‘The Good, the Ba...

 The drunken, rejected Romeo suddenly sitting alone at the karaoke bar croons to his departing, forever, girlfriend.“Well, I gave you everything I hadBut you left me sitting on my ownDid you have to treat me oh so bad?All I do is hang my head and moan.Tell me why…"The 'just finally had enough’ Juliet pauses on her way out of the bar and his life to give him a last, wistful smile. “Tell you why?”She looks around the run-do...

 xxxHauling trash isn’t that bad a job, thought Mark, as he drove away from the now-deserted American Legion Hall. Unbuttoning his sweat soaked shirt, he let the wind blow across his big, sweaty chest. Of course, loading and unloading all that stuff in this heat comes close to resembling real work. But hauling it away, that’s a snap.While grinning at his own joke, he double-clutched and downshifted before stopping at the...

xxxIn the spring of ’68, it was the worst of times. Student protests raged from the Sorbonne to Berkeley. Civil rights demonstrations and anti-war rallies were turning violent. Martin Luther King was dead; Bobby Kennedy would be soon. Hundreds of other Americans were dying each week in South Vietnam. Soldiers patrolled the streets of Saigon, Paris, and Washington. Soviet troops prepared to invade Prague. And in a nowhere...

Sleep had been hard to come by. Mark’s mind kept going back to his bumping into Bebe at the dance last night and her agreeing to a date, then it would switch back two weeks to his kissing Amy, and how that changed everything, at least for him, then return to the meeting with Bebe.Just before dawn, he woke to the sound of his father leaving to go fishing on Big Bear Lake with S.J. Marshall. Unable to get back to sleep, Mar...

xxxOh, the horror, the horror.Did I really watch this on late-late-night TV or is it just the memory of a  soul-shattering, mind-altering nightmare from the lowest level of hell? If you have the nerve, read on to learn what I remember and decide for yourself . --- Great news! We’ve just come up with our latest can’t-possibly-miss idea for anyone interested in becoming rich and famous, and for a limited time, we want to sh...

===The dream was back. So were those eyes. The ones that hovered in an angry sky, seeing everything but focusing on nothing.Amy knew those eyes—knew a time when they’d been filled with happiness and a love of life. But then her brother had returned from  Vietnam.Young, naked, and skinny, she stood alone and vulnerable on a hill surrounded by flames. Everything kept changing. An older man in a business suit waved at her wh...

Becky  Lee Tyler had thoroughly enjoyed trying on the new lingerie with its sheer baby-doll top and ridiculously skimpy, matching panties. The special birthday present she’d ordered for her husband had just arrived.After an extended period of fiddling with the gossamer outfit, and trying out different poses in front of the bedroom's full-length mirror, she knew, just knew, almost for sure, that both of them were really go...

A few week’s earlier, Gwen Kaplan had been struggling with the physical, moral, and emotional problems involved with having two men in her life at the same time.Since then her four-year romance with Johnny DeAngelo had come to an abrupt, dramatic, and non-negotiable end. As for the other man, the only one she now wanted in her life, he had been out of town for weeks. Not knowing when he’d be coming back made things even w...

The short-haired brunette named, Gwen Kaplan seemed a little taller than most girls and a lot prettier. Her eyes were a soft, almost liquid brown, the classic bedroom eyes, and that smile of hers managed to be both innocent and yet, somehow, inviting.  On Monday, June 8, 1970, at 2:30 P.M., New York City time, Gwen Kaplan lost her concentration. While bent over the upturned face of a patient with glaucoma, preparing to pl...