Warning: While supposedly humorous, this is a story about racists and includes two racial slurs. However, the “N” word does not appear in print, but it is unavoidably, in my opinion, there in spirit. -RdW- To Lamar Hardaway’s way of thinking, the three young men standing just inside the door to his cluttered work shed didn’t look good for much, most of all a Klan job. At first, they’d tried to act cocky, like this wasn’t...

A few months after their wedding, two friends of mine went fishing. They anchored in a shady spot for lunch and, being young and in love, one thing led to another. I've no idea about the fishing that day, but nine months later there was indisputable proof something had been caught. The location for this amorous activity was Fool's Bayou, honest. After hearing that story, I wondered how the bayou's various native life form...

Youth was not being served, at least not on the chessboard. It took a call from the hospital to halt the onslaught by the forces of Dr. Robert Miles against those of his grandson. There’d been a bar fight. The loser was waiting in the emergency room. Having just finished his first year of medical school, Eli Stuart went along to watch, learn, and maybe help, the man who’d gotten him interested in medicine. After the crise...

Christy Sparks struggled against the urge to laugh, but knew she was losing. As Brother Silas, the venerable choir director, led the assembled multitude gathered inside the Faith of Our Fathers sanctuary into another verse of what was, at best, joyful noise, she gave up trying to keep a straight face and sought to hide her big grin behind an open hymnal. It proved a futile effort at avoiding the puzzled glances of her hus...

It was a real hair-pulling, clothes tearing, head knocking, rolling in the dirt, screaming and hollering catfight between two high school girls. At issue was which one would get to be the, let’s just say, the latest flame of a guy by the name of Sonny Barnhill.It’s what they thought, anyway. That’s why I sat in a front row seat, enjoying the show but worrying about what might happen afterward.Now some of you may be wonder...

'Tis the season to be jolly, and, here in the U.S., watch football games, especially college bowl games. Every year more of them appear on our screens. With the media talent pool stretched thin, two seldom used TV sportscasters are given the assignment of covering the newest, most obscure, least important bowl game.--“Hello sports fans. This is Greg Gumball coming to you from fabled Waterproof Stadium in the heart of beau...

“In other national news, a Defense Department spokesman said 18,000 of the 31,000 US troops ordered into Cambodia by President Nixon have been withdrawn.”Gwen Kaplan gave her bangs one last touch. Before this summer, news about the war in Vietnam had been background noise to her life. She cared, but had been hearing about the war since junior high. Now things were different. Now she knew someone who had fought over there,...

(with apologies to 'Papa' Hemingway)In a clean, well-lighted place out of the rain, the man and woman drank wine. The wine was good. They ate the testicles of a young bull that had bravely faced death in the afternoon. Both were good.Back in their room, he went to her breasts. Her breasts were there, and good."You were good," she said."De nada," he said, and left. It had been good.They met no more.Each died alone--in the...

A Time and Place by Rumple deWriter It had all ended. The last hymn faded into silence. The last prayer spoken. The last condolence given. Mike still couldn’t cry—not yet. Back home he fell into an uneasy sleep filled with the same dream. Flames and smoke boiled from the windows in the back half of the old, wooden church. Framed against the stormy, night sky, the fire so dominated their minds no one noticed the parking lo...

The smiling, long legged brunette in the photo leaned against the door of a familiar car. One hand held a set of keys against her freckled cheek while the other seemed to toy with the unfastened snapof impossibly skimpy white shorts. In between, an unbuttoned olive-drab, US Army fatigue shirt was spread just wide enough to give a teasing peek at the swell of her firm young breasts.The soldier holding the photo smiled. He’...