Rob Schamberger Makes Comix

February 03, 2009

Batesville Installment Thirty One

Frank Saffo’s finally got his workspace set up the way he likes it. He has his desk and easel set up facing the floor-length windows in his new condo to let him view downtown Kansas City while working. He’s considering doing a series of paintings based off of the view, maybe down the line after he has finished up his current series of pulp magazine inspired pieces. He has two more to finish up for his next show.

To warm up though, he does a few sketches in his journal of the view. Frank has started using a water brush for these studies and he likes how it works. The stem is a reservoir holding water that comes down to the brush tip with a little pressure. Frank just moistens the tip with a squeeze, dips it into a watercolor, and he’s good to go. To use a different color, he squeezes more water down and soaks it into a paper towel. He likes to lay some blotchy colors down, let it dry, then come back over with ink to define the shapes. He’s started posting these Kansas City sketches on a website collective of people doing the same sort of urban sketches in cities worldwide to great success. He likes to impart a little bit of his wisdom in life with the posts.

Frank focuses on this rather than on the private detective sitting behind him asking about the girl who used to live in his new home.
“Well?” impatiently asks the detective.

“Hm? Oh, no I just got the place through the office downstairs.” He starts with some yellows for the areas where the sunrise is hitting the buildings and their surrounding structures. Light to dark, light to dark. “I needed a place and one of my old neighbors recommended this building for the view.” Now for some light browns.

“So you had no contact with Emily Hollinger?”

“Who? Oh, the young lady who lived here. No, no contact.” Reds, letting them bleed into the browns, getting a fun wet-on-wet effect.

“Were any of her things still here when you moved in?” the detective asks, pressing.

“No. Empty as a blank canvas.” Frank turns around finally to look at the detective, a younger man, and gives him a wink in regards to the lame joke.

“What brought you to town, Mister Saffo?”

“Lost love, Detective, a love lost that I had no intention of rediscovering.” He decides the watercolor painting needs more blues, for the shadows. “Divorce brought me here.”

“I’m, uh, I’m sorry about that,” the young detective apologetically says.

“I’m not. It was never a good marriage and it never was going to be. We were young, we fucked a lot, talked little, and then we had a son. Our son’s grown now, and there wasn’t any reason to keep up the pretense.” He pulls out another water brush, although instead of water, this one contains ink. He begins to use the black India ink to better illustrate the shapes and shadows of the buildings surrounding his home. “I’m not young anymore, Detective, but life is still short. I’m a man finally discovering himself, rather than defining himself by those around him. I’m sorry that in doing that I’ve brought myself into whatever world you’re traveling in. I’m afraid I don’t have any more to offer you, Detective…”

“Ingalls. Henry Ingalls. And I’m sorry to have disturbed you, but this missing woman’s family are old friends of mine, and I really want to help them find her. If you come across anything, or remember anything, please give me a call.” Henry hands his card to Frank, and looks down at the finished sketch on the desk. “That’s really nice.”

“I will call if I have anything to help you find her, of course.” Frank looks down at the journal, then tears the sketch out along the page’s perforated line and hands it to the detective. “Here, you can have it. I just do these to warm up in the mornings. Some people like coffee or tea, I like creating something that wasn’t there.”

Henry takes the painting and looks at it with a smile. “I appreciate both, sir. You have a great day.” The detective is led to the door, then shakes Frank’s hand. “Do you have any shows coming up?”

“Sure, sure, yeah, next week. I’ll go grab one of my postcards for you.” Frank walks back to his work area. While his back is turned to the detective, Henry briefly looks around until his eyes are caught by some paintings stacked up against the wall. They are all made to look like the sort of paintings done for the covers of early twentieth century era fiction magazines and paperback covers.

“Where’d you move from, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Batesville, and no, I don’t mind at all.” Frank comes back with the postcard and hands it to Henry, noticing the young man looking at his work. “Those are, uhm, those are for the show, actually. Sorry, I don’t really like people seeing them before they’re exhibited.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll definitely be there for the real show,” Henry says on his way out the door. “Definitely.”

Frank closes the door and walks back to his window. He looks down at the street and sees his visitor get in a car and leave. He watches the car drive down the street until it disappears over a hill, but still looks on. Frank Saffo knows what the young detective saw. He picks up his phone, dials a number, and says into it, “Oliver, it’s Frank. We’ve got a…yeah, yeah we do.”

Posted by Schamberger at 09:17 PM

January 27, 2009

Batesville Installment Thirty

Peggy Sue is getting herself ready for dinner, picking the right outfit, putting on the fanciest underwear. She has a hopeful feeling in her chest that she made the right decision in contacting Henry. Not just that he’s going to find her sister, but that things might just work out between them. She really didn’t foresee that happening, but she’s not going to stop it, either.

Henry shows up about ten minutes late, carrying a canvas binder under his arm. “Sorry, I got caught in traffic. I-70 sucks.”

“No problem.” She smiles and turns around toward the couch.

“What’ve you got for me?”

“Not a whole lot, unfortunately. Right now I’m pretty much coming up with the same dead ends the cops were. I’ve got a title search going that should be back tomorrow, and I’ll also be getting together with the guy living in her condo. I talked with a few of her friends, but no one saw her after the night she disappeared.” He pauses, looks up from the file at Peggy Sue, and says, “I’ve got one other thing for you, too.”

She nervously asks, “What’s that?” Her heart races. Henry leans in and passionately kisses her, dropping the binder on the floor. She leans back, pulling him to her, their tongues flicking against one another. Between her legs she feels his arousal, intensifying her own, then furthered as he puts his hand up her shirt onto her left breast.

He pulls away from her and briefly looks her in the eyes. “This is, uh, this is kind of uncomfortable.”

Her back stiffens a little, and she confusedly asks, “Yeah?”

“The couch, I mean. Would you like to, you know, go back to your room?” She looks back into his eyes, expressionless. “Uhm, if you’re okay with…”

She pulls his head down to hers and passionately kisses him again, then releases. “Let’s go.” He stands up and she leads him back to the bed room. They kiss again next to the bed, then strip down naked. He walks her to the bed where they lay down and his hands make their way around her body, followed by his kisses slowly making their way down her torso. She grunts as he begins to lick her, then pulls his head up from her. “I want you inside me.”

“Are you on the pill?” he asks her seriously.

“Yeah.”

“Any VD?”

“Nope.”

“Cool.” He enters her and gets right to work. It’s much better than their fumblings in the dark from their time together in high school. Much better. Once he finishes, though, he curls up in a ball at her feet, his face in the bed. Peggy Sue doesn’t know what to make of this.

“Come up here,” she beckons. He comes up and kisses her, but it’s unemotional, purely mechanical.

“I have to get going. Uhm, I need to get ready for the work I’ll be doing tomorrow,” Henry says evasively.

“So you don’t want dinner?” she says, hurt.

“Not tonight.” He gets up and dresses quickly, his back to her. He finally turns around. “Tomorrow, though. Dinner will be great tomorrow night. We’ll have more to talk about then, too.”

“Okay,” she says, laying naked and alone in bed.

Posted by Schamberger at 05:41 AM

January 20, 2009

Batesville Installment Twenty Nine

Oliver Folsom caught his first murder of the month this morning. A hold-up at the gas station across from the Journal building went bad and now the clerk’s blood would be the symbolic ink Oliver uses in triplicate for his paperwork. The perp was caught on tape, but the cassette looks like it’s been regularly reused since the mid nineties. The only features he can make out from the tape leads Folsom to believe that the killer is, indeed, a snowman. How this snowman is able to perpetrate crime in the middle of the summer is beyond Folsom’s extensive detecting skills, but he is fairly certain that finding this out will lead him right to the evil-doer’s lair. Oliver Folsom caught himself a stone cold whodunit.

Back at the station, Oliver sits down to work on his paperwork when his desk phone rings. “Folsom.”

“Eagle Eye, I need you to come up to my office.” The voice on the other end of the line originated from Captain Hollinger, Folsom’s former shift commander from his days on the beat. Oliver is the primary on the case for Folsom’s missing daughter, Emily. Really it’s being worked by Missing Persons, but Hollinger suspected foul play and put someone he could trust on it. Folsom’s been carrying guilt that nothing’s come up yet. He carries even more guilt that he does, in fact, know where the girl is at.

“Be right there, sir.” He gets up from his desk and makes his way to the captain’s office. As he comes through the door he sees Hollinger laughingly talking to someone in civilian clothes whose back is to Folsom.

“Come on in, take a seat.” As Folsom sits he sees who the other member of the impromptu meeting is. “You know Henry Ingalls, right?”

“Yeah, yeah he did a little work with me while he was in the academy. How’s things, Henry?” Folsom asks civilly, but without any actual interest.

“Good, going good. The captain thought you might be able to help me a little with one of my cases, said you’re working it, too.”

The captain leans in, “It seems my other daughter, Peggy Sue, hired Henry to look into Emily's disappearance. I figured instead of you guys stepping all over each other’s feet maybe there could be some cooperation. That sound doable, Eagle Eye?”

The old bastard had him by the balls on this. “Sounds doable, sir.”

The captain smiles and sits back in his chair. “Excellent. Go ahead and take Henry on down with you and go over the file.”

“Yes, sir. Henry?” Folsom stands up from his chair and Henry follows suit. They turn to head out of the office and Henry turns back to the captain.

“Thanks a ton, Cap. I’m sure Peggy Sue appreciates this,” hey says with a genuine smile. Henry was a dumb motherfucker back in the academy and he’s still a dumb motherfucker now, thinks Folsom.

Folsom and Henry settle in Folsom’s cube after they pull in a chair for Henry to sit on. “So, what you got so far?” Folsom asks as he digs out the manila file folder with Hollinger’s daughter’s name on it.

“Not a lot. I’ve been by her job and they told me she hasn’t been in since the day she went missing. I dropped by her building and the landlord told me her condo’s been sold. I don’t know if it was sold before or after yet. I’ve got a title search running on that. And, uh, that’s about where I’m at right now.”

“Shootin’ straight, that’s where we’re at, too. Hate to tell ya,” Folsom lies.

Henry scratches the back of his head while flipping through the file, seeing little more than what he’s already gathered. “Bummer. Hopefully that title search gets me something I can work with.”

“Ours didn’t turn anything up.”

Henry furrows his brow and flips back and forth through the file. Fuck, thinks Oliver, I fucked up. “I don’t see a search in here.”

“Huh. That’s strange.” Henry looks up at Oliver inquisitively. To defuse the screw up, Oliver asks, “Who you got doing yours? Van Deeten?”

“Saul, yeah. Figured I’d throw the bitch a bone, maybe get him to pay off some of those parking tickets,” Henry says with a smile.

“No shit. Got himself locked up over those a few days back.”

“Yeah. Dumb motherfucker. They ever find anything about that stabbed guy he found?”

“We think it was mixed up with the guys shot that pregnant girl at the restaurant the same day, but no, nothing definite.”

“Fucked up. Well, thanks for talking with me, Detective.” He holds his hand out towards Folsom.

Folsom shakes his hand and looks him in the eye. “No problem kid, but listen, this case doesn’t go anywhere good. She didn’t run off, you know what I’m saying?”

“I owe it to her sister, man. I’ve gotta see this through.” Stupid kid, thinks Oliver, he has no idea where this case leads. No idea at all.

Folsom walks Henry out and then gets in his own car and pulls out his cell phone. “Saul, we’ve got a problem.”

Posted by Schamberger at 01:51 PM

January 13, 2009

Batesville Installment Twenty Eight

Saul walks into his home office and checks out the fax machine to see if there’s any new title search orders waiting for him. Just a couple O&E’s, nothing of import. It’s going to be one of those days. On his way into the city his phone lights up and he answers. “Hen-REE!” he yells into the phone.

“Saul, can you do me a solid?” asks Henry Ingalls over the connection.

“What’s old pussy taste like?”

“Huh?”

“Depends.” They both laugh at the sophomoric joke. “What’s up?”

“My old girlfriend called me up, wants me to track down her missing sister.”

“Dude, you are so on a Phil Marlowe case with the Little Sister, aren’t you?”

“No joke,” laughs Henry. “You got a pen and paper handy?”

Saul unhooks the pen attached to the paper pad suction-cupped to his lower windshield. “Yeah, go ahead.” Henry reads off the name and address and the blood drains from Saul’s face. “Sure, sure, I’ll see what I can pull up for you today. I’ll give you a call back.” They exchange pleasantries and Saul terminates the call, then immediately hits the number one on his speed dial. “We’ve got a problem.”

Posted by Schamberger at 04:42 PM

January 06, 2009

Batesville Installment Twenty Seven

She wants to click ‘Send’, but she’s really nervous about it. What if he doesn’t respond back? Even worse, what if he does? What will he say? Ah, hell with it, she clicks the mouse and the email’s been sent. Now to get back to unpacking her apartment.

Of course, Peggy Sue moved in two weeks ago, but unpacking’s such a drag. She’s also still feeling down about what happened with her sister. Whatever happened with her sister, more like it. Her boy cat Bogie nuzzes on her bare leg and mews a little and jumps up on the couch next to her. She looks at the monitor of her computer and sees the little mail icon is flagged. He responded already!

“Hey, it’s great to hear from you! I’ve been wondering for awhile how you’ve been. As I can tell from the email address you got me at, you’ve seen I finally got my Private Eye business up and going. Well, up at least! Anyway, send me your phone number. I’d enjoy talking with you! Henry.” She catches herself instinctively rubbing her shaven self while reading the email, but doesn’t stop until she’s finished. Then she responds back with her phone number and goes to the bathroom to wash her hand off.

Peggy Sue and Henry had seen each other steadily back in high school until immaturity came between them, mostly on Henry’s part. Still, they had lost their virginities to each other and she’s always wondered what became of him. She looks at her naked body in the mirror, turning from side to side to examine her figure. She’s always been overweight, and some days it upsets her more than others. Today it does, but she’s sure that’s due to wondering where this email exchange is leading. Her cell phone rings and she walks down the hall to her living room, maneuvering around the moving boxes.

It’s him. “Hello?” she says in a less-than-assured voice.

“Hey, Peggy Sue. It’s Henry.” They talk for a little bit about this and that. He tells her he’s mostly been busy since high school with getting his business up and going after several missteps but things seem to be going well. She lets him know she didn’t quite finish college but is doing well now working as an editor at the comic strip syndicate. They make a date to meet up that night for dinner. She ends the call, touches herself again, and goes to take a shower. This is moving fast, she thinks, but it’s moving fast to where she wants it to move.

She picks out an outfit, casual, but one that still looks good, and drives over to meet him. She’s seen his picture on his website, but yeah, Henry Ingalls still looks good. He’s wearing a plain black t-shirt and dark khaki pants. He’s in good shape. Not great, but not fat either. She clasps her hands in front of her, suddenly self-conscious, but Henry’s warm smile as she nears him melts that feeling right away. They have an easy-going dinner talking about little things, catching up on the last eight years since they last saw one another. Henry’s just out of a long-term relationship, but glad that it’s ended. She’s recently out of one as well, but doesn’t go into a lot of detail about it. There’s not a lot of detail to go into, really. It was four years of obscurity capped off by a mutual decision that they just weren’t right for each other. Henry keeps meeting her eyes but doesn’t shy away. He’s really looking at her.

“Looks like it’s filling up in here,” he says to her, waving his hand in the direction of the general seating of the restaurant.

“Yeah, that happens at seven on a Saturday night.”

He lets out a brief but genuine laugh. He takes a drink from his second Boulevard Wheat beer of the night and says, “You said you live near here?”

“Just a couple of blocks, yeah.”

“Listen, I’m having a good time catching up with you, Peggy Sue. How about you?”

She can’t help but smile a teenager’s smile at him, “Yeah, yeah I am.”

“I’d like to see your new place, meet your cats, maybe.” He leans forward slightly with a questioning but reassuring look, “If you’re okay with that, of course.”

“That’d be nice.”

He follows her over to her apartment and up the steps to her unit. “Looks nice,” he comments.

“It looks like shit, but that’s because I haven’t unpacked yet.” They take a seat on the couch, with not a lot of space between them, half a cushion or so. “Listen, I uh, had a bit of a motive in emailing you.” She looks down at a box of papers with her sister’s name on it sitting on the ottoman.

“Yeah?” he says, a rye smile coming across his face, but still comforting.

“Yeah. Do you remember my sister?”

“Emily?”

“Mm-hm. She disappeared a couple of weeks ago, and…”

“Of course.”

“Huh?”

“Of course I’ll help you find her. That’s what you were going to ask, right?”

“Oh, Henry! Thank you so much!” She instinctively leans in to hug him, and he reciprocates warmly. He slowly rubs his hand up and down her back, and she leans in closer to him without thinking about it, breathing heavier.

“I’m really glad you emailed me.”

“I am, too.”

“I missed you, Peggy Sue,” he softly says into the top of her head, the warm breath sending pulses down her nervous system.

“I missed you, too,” she whispers back. She looks up at him, meeting his eyes, seeing in them what she’s sure he sees, too, and after a pause, he leans in and deeply kisses her, causing her body to melt against his. She feels his hands beginning to slowly make their way down her back, to her hip, pulling her in closer to him. She feels his hard growth against her, initiating a more passionate kiss from her. She takes hold of his hand and leads it up to her left breast and he readily accepts. “Come back to my room with me,” she beckons.

Peggy Sue leads him back to the darkened room. He takes her shirt off and unbuttons her pants, then matches her in the state of undress. She lays down on the bed and he lays next to her, slowly and deeply kissing her while groping her breast. It’s carnal, but he stays a gentleman, not forcing himself in any way, at times to her excruciating exasperation. They hold one another for a few hours, hardly talking and slowly fall asleep without consummating.

The next morning, she awakens to Henry already in the living room, going through the box of information about Emily. “I’ll find your sister,” he says to her.

Posted by Schamberger at 06:11 AM

November 11, 2008

Batesville Installment Twenty Six

“You want me to fix this sink for you? The drip is driving me nuts,” asks one of the men in Emily’s house.

“Uhm…” Emily doesn’t know what to say.

“Hey, hey, listen to this shit!” Earl walks up to the Samaritan handyman with a big smile on his face.

“What’s that?” asks Evil Villa.

“Listen, dude walks into a bar wearing nothing but a steering wheel ‘round his dick. Bartender’s like, ‘Dude, why you got a fuckin’ wheel around your dick?’, and the crazy motherfucker says…”

Evil Villa closes one eye, swings his right fist and says in a pirate voice, “Yahr, it’s drivin’ me nuts!” Earl stares at the man expressionless until the man punches him in the shoulder laughing. “Seriously, yo, get a new joke.”

“Uhm, yeah, if you can fix it, go ahead,” meekly interjects Emily.

Earl looks down at her with the scowl of a rabid dog, “Fix it yourself, bitch.”

“What kind of way’s that to talk to a lady, Earl. Shee-it.” The man walks into the kitchen, opens the door beneath the sink and begins to work on it, then stands back up. “I’ve got a wrench out in the car. BRB.”

“LOL,” laughs one of the two men with Emily and Earl in the living room.

“GFY,” smirks Evil Villa as he walks by.

“Huh?”

“Go fuck yourself,” he says over his shoulder on his way out the door into the raging storm. The man on the couch reaches over and locks the door behind him.

“Would if I could.” There were a total of six men that stormed into Emily’s life. Two left earlier to get some drinks and still haven’t returned. Bob and Paul, that was their names. Evil Villa’s outside getting a wrench. Two others are sitting on the couch. And then there’s Earl. Emily keeps thinking over the training her father had given her. Keep mind of the exits, where people are, what they’re doing, who they are, why they’re there. Emily’s dad is a cop. They have no idea who they have held hostage. She just has to wait.

“So, Earl, I got a question for you,” asks the other man on the couch.

“Yes. Yes, it is fucked up that you like little boys,” smiles Earl.

“So I already told you about my crush on you,” deadpans the man. “No, listen, homeboy and I, we took care of that squealer for you today, so were you going to hide us away here?”

“Fuck no.”

“Then what were you going to…”

The conversation is interrupted by Evil Villa trying to open the door. “Open the fucking door, mongoloid!”

‘Mongoloid’ walks up to the door and opens the shade. “SMD.”

Evil Villa shrugs his shoulders and responds with a confused look on his face.

‘Mongoloid’ simultaneously does a crotch chop and yells “Suck my dick!”

Evil Villa laughs while ‘Mongoloid’ opens the door for him. As Evil Villa starts to enter the house, he’s grabbed from behind and pulled out of sight, screaming. The kind of scream a child would never want to hear from their father. Then silence amongst the sounds of the torrential storm.

“What the fuck?!” shouts ‘Mongoloid’.

“It’s just Bob and Paul fuckin’ with you, man,” nonchalantly interjects Earl. Emily gets herself into position while ‘Mongoloid’s partner rises from the couch.

“I don’t know…” trails off the partner, joining his friend at the door. Then some sort of primal roar erupts from outside the door, something prehistoric, something humanity has tried so hard to forget, but on a base level will never be able to. The sound of death, and its source is coming right through that door.

Emily takes this as her time to strike. Emily’s dad didn’t want her to learn any pussy stuff like karate or judo. That wasn’t good enough for his baby girl. No, Emily’s a nationally ranked practitioner of sambo, particularly its combat form. She springs from her position straight at Earl. Before he can realize what’s happening she takes out his right knee, making him fall to the ground. She quickly twists her body around and puts all of her energy into a stiff kick to the head, flopping Earl back like a fish out of water. Out of the corner of her eye she sees three men in her living room, but she has to focus on the matter at hand. She hears a scream from the living room, but she also hears one from the lump of miserable flesh beneath her heel as she grinds it into the man’s wrist. The scream may have come from her as well, though, and if it wasn’t before, it is now, coupled with the tears dripping down her face.

No, no that was another one from the living room, a little closer, and no, those aren’t tears, that’s blood. “Step away from him, Emily.” Emily looks up to see the stranger from earlier that day, the one she had seen standing down the street, and then later at the diner. The one she knew she’d seen before.

“What…what’s…” Emily looks up at the man, realizing the blood on her face had sprayed from ‘Mongoloid’s partner, although she didn’t remember hearing a gunshot. Then she looks down at Earl beneath her, writhing in agony, then looks out the open door at the storm, as lightning strobes outside. She’s been here before. No, not like this. It was before. Before moving to Batesville. When she’d been crossing the street back to her downtown Kansas City loft during a storm, dumb of her, but she had the traffic light telling her to go, so she went, and a car ran the light, probably coming from the dumb ass Power and Light district, and all she sees are the headlights coming at her, and then, and then…and then The Man came around. The thunder claps. She’s back in her house in Batesville, covered in the blood of one of her attackers, looking down at another, and recognizes him. The headlights weren’t all she saw that night. She also saw Earl. “He’s all yours.”

The Man walks towards Earl as Emily backs away, wiping her face with her shirt. He…does something to him. Something awful. All Emily can think about is, gee, as if fixing my sink weren’t enough, now I have to get these stains cleaned up, too. The things we think about. The Man walks towards her and takes her hand in both of his. “Welcome to town, Emily,” he says in an accent she can’t place, and then leaves her house.

Emily’s cat, Ellie, walks up and nuzzes her leg, punctuated by a “Murf.”

“Tell me about it, baby,” Emily says as she kneels down to pet the cat, and notices on her hand, the hand The Man had held, a sapphire ring. The same ring everyone in town wears.

The rain stops.

Posted by Schamberger at 09:13 PM

November 04, 2008

Batesville Installment Twenty Five

“Now how in the hell can we not find the liquor store in this tiny ass town?” asks Paul, behind the wheel, looking out the window on Bob’s side of the car. He asks it in a way that resembles a self-imposed question, and not one directed at his associate.

“Fuck the liquor store. Let’s get out of here, Paul,” Bob says while looking down at his wet shoes, feeling the water that seeped in and drenched his socks when he had to walk through the rain-covered yard.

Paul meets Bob’s eyes as they rise up. “We can’t leave that girl there with them. We can’t, man.” Bob nods in agreement. “Anyway, here’s the store.”

They pull into the dark single-row parking lot, briefly illuminated by a strobe of lightning. Campbell Liquors doesn’t at all look open for business other than the light on inside of it. “Let’s get the booze and get this over with.”

The pair walk into the smallish store, greeted only by a brass bell struck by the top corner of the door, where they realize that it is devoid of any product, bare of booze. The shelves are only occupied by dust and memories. The duo are then startled by the sound of the door behind them, announced by another ringing of the bell. The frame of the door is filled by a man’s shape, seemingly swallowed by the shadows held at bay beyond the entryway. “Sorry to keep you gentlemen waiting.”

“That’s, uhm, that’s alright,” stammers Paul. The man walks past them and heads behind the counter. “I, uh, I noticed you’re a little low on product, huh?”

“Yeah, yeah you probably did. We’re down to just a couple of items, matter of fact.” As he steps into the light, Bob can’t quite make out the man’s nationality. He was curious to try to figure it out from the strange shopkeeper’s unique accent.

“We’ll take whatever you’ve got, boss,” coolly answers Bob, leaning on the counter with one arm, the other hand resting in his pants pocket.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to pick, gentlemen,” the man says as he sets down two shot glasses, then opens up a bottle of well-grade whiskey and pours its contents into the waiting glasses. Bob guesses the man to be in his thirties, maybe lower forties. His cloud-white hair puts a fog over his age that Bob is unable to peer beyond.

“I don’t think our buddies need cheap whisky, bud. You got any beer?” Bob asks with a joking smile.

The man reaches below the counter and in a dramatic movement raises a giant revolver, the kind that would make you ask someone if they feel lucky, punk, well do ya, the kind that can blow a man’s head clean off. “We’ve only got shots.” He sets the gun down on the counter, resting his right hand on it, ready to raise again in a moment, and leaving his left touching the bottle of cheap Kentucky bourbon. “So, Bob. Paul. You two can take your chances with drinking these shots and driving out of my town in the rain and hope you’re sober enough to face the rest of your lives, or you can head on back to Emily Hollinger’s house with those monsters and wait for me to arrive. Your pick, gentlemen.”

“Wait, how do you…who the fuck are you?” Bob demands.

“Look at me. Look upon me. You know me. You’ve always known me. You’ve always known one day we would meet.” Lightning strikes successively strobe white light into the barren store, illuminating the visage of the man before them. Horror takes control of their faces as realization of who they are communing with becomes clear. Bob and Paul look at each other, then reach for the shots, knock them back, and they leave. They leave the shop, they leave the tiny parking lot, they leave the street it adjoins, and they leave Batesville, population terror.

Posted by Schamberger at 03:35 PM

October 28, 2008

Batesville Installment Twenty Four

The interior of the car stays quiet until they merge onto the highway, when Andrew turns up the volume on the radio, tuned in to the college station coming out of Warrensburg. It’s currently playing NPR’s new update at the top of the hour, that hour being eleven in the Post Meridian. The newscaster is talking about unrest in another continent and pontificating on the phrasing of the President’s last speech. It seems like a real wash, lather, rinse, repeat moment for Andrew. The same news on the same drive home. Except tonight’s drive is different in two ways. The first difference is the time he’s going home, about six hours later than normal. The second difference is that he’s not alone.

“Cool if I smoke? Jesus Andrew, I’m dying for one.”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

They continue on in silence soundtracked by a song from Josh Rouse’s ‘1972’ album. Andrew taps his thumb on the steering wheel as they make their way down Interstate Highway 70. “Who’s this?”

“Oh, uh, Josh Rouse.”

“That’s a hell of a voice.”

“Yeah. Yeah, this kid can sing. This whole album was great.”

“Really?”

“Here, I’ll put it in.” Andrew reaches into the back seat and grabs hold of his CD wallet and fishes out the disc. He puts it in and queues it to the eighth track, ‘Flight Attendant’, and lets it play. The song starts out slow and stripped down with guitar, piano and drum as Rouse’s lyrics tell of a young boy who never quite fit in due to good looks. Then the song takes a breather and is followed up with a swelling bass saxophone solo as the young man finds himself in an airport terminal all alone, and it’s tragically beautiful, repeating the lyric “I was stranded alone in my sourest dream.”

“Jesus. Can you burn that off for me when we get back to town?”

“You bet.”

“Hey, uh, thanks for picking me up, Anj. I really appreciate it. I hope it didn’t mess your night up too much.”

Andrew’s night was completely blown, as a matter of fact. He ended up sending copy through without final edits and he always hates that. Sure, he could have taken his laptop into the waiting room with him, but it’s never too good to take something easily pawnable into a jail late at night. But when The Man asks you to do something, you do it. “Don’t sweat it, Saul. I’m sure there’s people out there having a worse night.”

“That ain’t no lie,” replies Saul Van Deeten, taking a last drag off of his cigarette and throwing the butt out the window.

Posted by Schamberger at 07:38 PM

October 21, 2008

Batesville Installment Twenty Three

The kitchen sink has a leak. It’s a slow leak, but there’s definitely water dripping out of the faucet. Emily’s only noticing it now since it’s drip drip dripping into the glass she’d left in the basin. She’ll definitely have to get that looked at, hopefully tomorrow. Right, tomorrow that cute guy with the car’s coming by with his tools. What was his name? Something Italian. Vinnie. That’s it. Vinnie the cute guy with the car and the tools. She’ll have him look at the sink when he comes by tomorrow. Well, today. It’s after midnight now.

And Ellie’s messing with the blinds. God damned cat. She always does this when she’s upset about something. Normally when she’s low on food or water. She’s probably not upset about that now, though. The cat’s worked up about all of the guys who have invaded the house.
“Jesus Christ, if that fuckin’ cat does that again I’m skinnin’ it,” says the one called Earl.

“E-Ellie, c’mere kitty,” beckons Emily. The cat mews and pads over to where Emily is crouched up on the floor. Emily gives her some scratches on the neck and the cat lays down next to her.

“Smart pussy,” laughs Earl. “Good cat, too,” he says with a wink at Emily. “So where you keep the beer, honey?”

“I uh, I don’t have any. Just moved in.”

“Well hell, honey, if you don’t have anything to drink…” Earl gets up and walks towards her, stopping right next to her, looking down at her tear-streaked mascara. “If you don’t have anything to drink, we’re going to have to find another way to pass the time, now aren’t we?”

“I-I don’t, I…”

One of the other men walks up and slaps Earl on the back. “Paul and I’ll go get some brews, Earl,” he says with a friendly smile, not looking at Emily.

Earl turns away from Emily to look at the man. “Well that’s mighty fine of you Bob.” Then he turns back to look at Emily. “Can we get you anything, honey.”

“I’m, uh, I’m fine.” Emily hears another drip from the kitchen sink.

Posted by Schamberger at 03:30 PM

October 07, 2008

Batesville Installment Twenty Two

The rest of the table is laughing while the young man continues his story. “So yeah, my woman, she left the damn truck sittin’ right there on the side of the street.”

“For real?”

“No shit. Here’s this big ass moving truck that I stole after paying for it with a fake cashier’s check, filled with tires I’d conned from some motherfucker the day before. But see, I don’t know none of that. Don’t have a damn clue. No, instead, here I am back at the tire store after the store’s manager called me back saying he’s got a new deal for me.” The young black man shrugs his shoulders and lets a big smile form across his face.

“You got greedy, din’ya? Got too damn greedy!”

“What can I say? Dumb ass fell for my act the day before, I was thinking he’d go for it again. Sheeee-it. So, I’m sitting in his office while he goes to answer a call. See, I should have known right then. Should have known. But I’m just so sure of myself. I don’t even think anything when I see a cop pull up in the parking lot. Just figured he was gettin’ his car worked on or some shit. Damn. So in walks the cops, they got me dead to rights.”

“So they got you, what, for the truck, the tires, the fake check…”

“But that ain’t the worst of it.”

“No?”

“Nah. The cop asks me if he’s going to find anything illegal if he were to search my car. I’m like, shit, if you do, I’m going to be kickin’ some motherfucker’s ass when I get out. So, I’m standing there while his partner opens the trunk, and, and…”

“And what?”

“See, I’d stolen this car the night before. I didn’t want to be drivin’ my own car to this meeting, you know, and, damn…” The young man lets out a big laugh, “The trunk was full of fucking AK-47’s!”

“OH SHIT!” Everybody at the table gets a good laugh out, including Saul Van Deeten. Saul’s not big on the color of a man’s skin, so he doesn’t particularly care that he’s the only white man sitting at the cafeteria-style table with the uncomfortable plastic seats. The older man who was prodding on the telling of the trunk full of machine guns turns to Saul, still chuckling. “So, what you in for, man?”

“Unpaid parking tickets,” Saul replies with a small grin.

“Jee-sus!” Everybody erupts again in laughter. Saul smiles and gets up from the table and heads over to the phones. He knows enough that if he’s going to be here longer than just this night, he needs to not be too closely associated with the blacks. It’s not about racism and all about survival. Saul doesn’t need some Aryan Race motherfucker looking him in the eye and telling him to stick to his own race.

Saul dials up The Man’s number, but there’s no answer. Still no answer. This isn’t good. Not a good thing at all. He knows what happens when you fall out of The Man’s graces. So Saul goes back over to the main common area and picks up one of the novels left sitting around, this one happening to be some sci-fi bullshit, and kills time until lights out. They call it ‘lights out’ but those big bulbs stay lit all night long, burning into you while you lie on your cot. Eventually, there’s a kicking at the foot of his cot. Here it comes, thinks Saul, they’re going to teach me why it’s called ‘The Pokey’.
Saul opens his eyes and, sure enough, there’s some giant white man with a swastika tat on his neck staring down at him. “Get up, it’s time.”

“A’ight,” Saul replies, getting up.

The older black man he had been speaking to earlier turns over in his cot and whispers at Saul, “Hey, gimme your toothpaste and shampoo. You ain’t gonna be needin’ that shit now.” Saul hands the plastic bag of toiletries to the man and nods in his direction, then follows the neo-Nazi over to the guard. Great, the guard’s in on it, too. Then the racist turns around and slaps his hand on Saul’s shoulder.

“Be safe out there, brother.” Saul just looks confusedly at him and hears a buzzing to his left.

“Jesus, go, you dumb motherfucker!” shouts the guard. Saul stares at the guard, not knowing what to do. “Walk through the door, for fuck’s sake!”
Saul opens the door and finds himself in a hallway of closed doors, and just stands there. After what may have been a few seconds or a few eternities, and opening forms in the hallway to what looks like an elevator. “Step through the door, Mr. Van Deeten,” says a woman’s voice over an intercom.

“Huh?”

“Step through the door,” repeats the voice. Saul complies and steps into the elevator. The doors close once he’s in and he feels himself descend. The doors open again and he’s back in the booking room where he had first entered the county’s lock-up earlier that day. A familiar female voice, only this time in person, breaks him from his stupor. “Come on over here, Saul. We’ve got a few things for you to sign.” An older black woman wearing a police uniform beckons him in her direction. Saul signs the forms for her and then follows a guard over to a changing area for him to get out of the orange jumper he had to wear up in General Population and back into his suit he’d had on earlier that day. The guard then leads him back into the elevator and escorts him to another desk where he signs to get his personal effects back. Then they stand there while other people are being processed.

“So, uh, who sprung me.”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” replies the guard. Not rudely, but purely as a matter of fact. He really didn’t know, and he really didn’t care. But Saul does care. It could be one man waiting for him or it could be the rest of the people on the face of the Earth. If it’s the remainder of the world’s population, he’s fine. If it was a clerical error and he’s stuck here in the middle of a rough part of time at night, he’s fine. If it’s The Man, Saul would much rather spend the remainder of his time with a bunch of horny Nazis. Finally, he’s ushered through a revolving door (Saul has to restrain himself from cracking wise about the revolving door of the penal system) and there waits a man he knows all too well.

Posted by Schamberger at 12:37 PM

September 30, 2008

Batesville Installment Twenty One

Don’t open the door. Four words which would have saved Emily Hollinger from the worst night she can remember.

After changing into some dry clothes, Emily pops disc three from the Left of the Dial box set into her CD player, jumps to Sonic Youth’s Teen Age Riot and sits down on the floor next to her cat Ellie and proceeds to pet the furry animal’s fat belly. She does that for a few minutes until the cat tires of it and gets up to go investigate the new house, so Emily walks over to one of her boxes of books and starts to sort through them to get them back on the shelf.

Don’t open the door.

She gets the books in order and then flips through her photo book on the cinematic legacy of Humphrey Bogart that her sister gave her for Christmas last year to help inspire with some dresses Emily was going to make. That time period really informs Emily’s taste in fashion, when people put up an effort to look good when they went out in public. At least, that’s how the movies made it look. She puts it back next to her similar book on Greta Garbo and puts a hand on the small of her back, which is tight from all of the day’s lifting. She gets up off the floor and goes back to the kitchen to get some water when she feels the house rattle from the thunder. Damn, she thinks, it’s really storming out there.

Don’t open the door.

She gulps down the whole glass of water and fills it back up to work on as she sorts some more books. She gets her design books in an order which would only make sense to someone who actively uses them and gets them up on the shelf in her office. Then she goes back to start sorting through the novels, most of which are noirish thrillers along with a few books that the bookstores call either ‘General Fiction’ or ‘Literature’. Emily likes to call them ‘good books’. She has the complete works of Raymond Chandler, most of Jim Thompson’s output, all of Greg Rucka’s and Dennis Lehane’s, a few Kurt Vonneguts, and some selected works from Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem. Both of the latter authors are hit or miss for Emily, mostly misses from the last few years for Chabon in particular. Que sera, sera.

Don’t open the door.

Now she gets to sorting through all of her magazines. The art magazines she spends a while flipping through, especially the issues of Juxtapoz she kept, going to the issues spotlighting Tomer Hanuka and James Jean in particular. Emily’s a big fan of Jean’s recent move into the fashion industry, and flips through looking for inspiration that she can translate into her own works. She gets those in order, then gets the rest of her fashion magazines organized next to the binders full of clippings she cut out of magazines which weren’t worth keeping in their entirety. She keeps the Ready Made copies out, as she plans to go through those more tomorrow for inspiration on things she can do around the house. She keeps the Blueprint issues out for the same reason, and laments the magazine’s passing. The CD has looped through once and They Might Be Giants’ Ana Ng is playing now, and Emily mouths out her favorite part of the song, “I don’t want the world. I just want your half.” God, they’re great at lyrics, she thinks, a smile coming over her face like it does every time she hears the song.

There’s a knock at the door.

Emily gets up and heads to the door. Maybe it’s Jaquie bringing over her husband to meet their new neighbor. Or maybe it’s Banker Boy with his tools. Emily smiles a little thinking about the way his cheeks reddened after she caught him peeking at her breasts. Maybe he can play his cards right and not have to steal a glance.

She puts her hand on the doorknob and turns it.

She opens the door and there’s six men standing on her front porch. She doesn’t know any of them, but she can tell from their general appearance that they’re not happy to see her. Two of them at the back share a glance that says they didn’t expect her to be here. “Can I help you?” she asks, trying to defuse the situation. Thunder puts an exclamation point on her question.

“Hi. You’re not my uncle.”

“Uhm…no. No, I don’t think I am. And you are?” Emily’s immediately regretting opening the door. Something’s not right with the man who is not her nephew.

“What the fuck are you doin’ in my uncle’s house?”

Lightning strobes the sky, immediately followed by soul-shaking thunder. The heart of the storm’s rolled into town.

Posted by Schamberger at 10:14 AM

September 23, 2008

Batesville Installment Twenty

He’s drunk again. Still? But he’s definitely shitfaced. Probably hopped up on meth, too, by the crazy look in his eyes. Chester, Debra’s on-again off-again, is sitting at the counter on one of the stools, barely staying balanced, tapping something on his plate. Debra’s in the kitchen with Chuck, getting some silverware ready for more customers, obviously not wanting to acknowledge the reality of her situation with this man.

“Jesus fuck,” Chuck says below his breath. “That’s his teeth.”

“What?” she asks, looking up from the silverware she’s wrapping up in a napkin.

“He’s tapping his god damned teeth on his plate, Deb. Get him the fuck out of here.”

“He’s…he’s alright, Chuck. Probably shouldn’t be driving, anyway.”

“You’re fucking with me, right? I mean, you think it’s good to have a drunk TAPPING HIS TEETH ON A PLATE in the restaurant? You think that sends a good message to our clientele?”

Debra looks up, “Chuck, keep it…” She trails off because Chester is standing in the doorway, not looking overly cherubic.

“You got somethin’ ta say ta me, fat ass?” he slurs out.

“Chester! Let it go!” Debra pleads.

“Nuh, nuh, let fat ass Chuckles here be a man an’ stand up fer ‘imself.”

“You need to leave, Chester.” Chuck says coldly, staring the drunk down, not giving ground, and not seeming like his normal self. This change in him slightly scares Debra more than the situation itself. “And you need to do it. Right. The. Fuck. Now.”

Chester stands there for a moment, then breaks eye contact with the squat mullet-headed cook. He turns his attention to Debra with pure malice in his eyes and voice. “I’ll see you later, bitch.” He stumbles out of the kitchen, across the diner, and out the door into the raging storm outside.

“You’ve got to, I mean you’ve really got to break it off with him, Deb,” Chuck says while shredding cheese. “We can’t have that in here.”

“It’s my restaurant, Chuck. You need to remember I’m your boss.”

“I don’t give a fuck about that, Deb. The Man was in here earlier, you know?” he says with a look at her, eyebrows raised, asking if she gets what he’s implying.

“Yeah.”

“You know what he’ll do to that drunk motherfucker if he pulls that while he’s in here.”

Debra stops in mid-wrap with the napkin, staring at Chuck. “Yeah.”

“Break it off with him. For his own safety.”

Posted by Schamberger at 10:11 AM

September 16, 2008

Batesville Installment Nineteen

Emily and her gal-pals stayed at the diner for the rest of the afternoon, talking about where they’ve been, what they’re into, and all sorts of other things of trivial consequence, essentially just getting to know one another. Around 5:30 the place starts to fill up with the dinner crowd and they decide to make their way back home.

It’s raining pretty good now and they’re walking with a brisk pace. It’s only three blocks back to their houses, but none of them really want to get soaked. Emily notices headlights coming up behind them, which again gives her that chill that she felt when she looked into the white-haired man’s eyes, reminding her of something that seems to be staying on the periphery of her brain. The car pulls up to them and paces their stride. Jaquie looks over and waves emphatically.

“You best give us a ride, Vinnie!” she yells with a laugh. The car pulls over and Jaquie opens the passenger door and motions Emily and Sarah to get in the back of the two-door sedan. Emily gets a look at the man driving and can’t help but give him a welcoming smile. He looks like he’s in his early thirties, about her age, slim, wearing a nice suit, with shortish hair and a well-trimmed beard.

“Thanks…” she says offering her hand.

“Vinnie. You’re very welcome,” he says, making eye contact, then quickly looking down at her chest which is clinging to her wet shirt. He looks back up and sees the ‘caught you’ look on Emily’s face and quickly looks over at Sarah. “Hey girly.”

“Heya. I got to the third level.”

“Awesome. Did you make it through the castle?”

“Almost!” Sarah says with a giggle.

Emily puts her hand on his shoulder, looking at his reflection in the rear-view mirror. “I’m Emily. I just moved in across the street from Jaquie and Sarah.”

“Hey, nice to meet you, Emily,” he says without making eye contact again, obviously embarrassed at having been caught taking a peek.

Jaquie gets in the car, closing the door behind her. Vinnie puts the car back in gear and heads down the road. His radio is turned down but Emily recognizes what’s playing. “Hey, is that The Church you’ve got playing?”

“Uh, yeah. Under the Milky Way. I love this song.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“It’s on this great compilation I picked up with all kinds of Post-Punk and New Wave stuff from the eighties,” Vinnie says, finally looking at Emily again in the mirror.

“Left of the Dial? Yeah, I’ve got this, too. I bought it last year and haven’t been able to put it down. I was listening to X this morning.”

“God, I love that song. Johnny Hit and Run Paulene?”

“Yeah. The energy’s insane in it.” They pull up to Emily’s house. The rain’s coming down really hard now. “You know, they stopped playing the song for a long time, because of douche bags attacking women in the crowd.”

“I weep for humanity sometimes.”

Jaquie looks over at Vinnie and says, “I hate to break up the music criticism, but we need to be getting back home. Ollie needs his dinner ready when he gets home.”

“Last thing I want is an angry cop running around,” smiles Vinnie.

Jaquie laughs. “You and me both, Vin.” She turns back to Emily, “It was great meeting you today, sweetheart. I can give you a hand some more tomorrow if you’d like, getting everything situated.”

Emily warmly smiles. “Jaquie, you’ve been more than enough help. You and Sarah both,” she says while poking the little girl in the belly, making her giggle. “I think I can handle it from here for the most part.”

“Alright girl, but remember I’m right across the street if you need anything.” Jaquie and Sarah get out of the car and run across the street to their house.

“Thanks again for the ride, Vinnie.”

“Ain’t no thing. Did you need any more help moving things around or fixing up anything in there? I’ve got some tools back at my place…” the banker says with a leading look in his eyes.

“Stop by tomorrow. With your tools,” she replies with a wink. “Thanks again for the ride.” She says as she backs out of the car, letting her chest hang down, baiting Vinnie to look down, which it’s obviously paining him to not do so. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She runs to her porch, waving Vinnie off as he drives down the street to his house. She opens her door and walks in to see lots of boxes that still need to be put away, but she also sees her home. Emily’s pretty sure she’s going to like it here.

Posted by Schamberger at 10:08 AM

September 09, 2008

Batesville Installment Eighteen

“Seriously. How the fuck are we getting out of this, Paul?” Bob asks as his friend steers the car towards the city of Batesville. Since the gas station they got back on 50 Highway, then exited onto some bumfuck highway headed north.

“Best plan I’ve got right now?”

“I’ll take any plan, dude.”

“We wait until they pass out drunk and then take off.”

Bob stares at Paul for a half a minute, then says, “That’s the best you’ve got?”

“Yeah. What’d you have in mind?”

“Wait until they pass out drunk and then sneak out.” They both laugh hard. “We’re so fucked, aren’t we?”

“We gotta get away from these guys, Bob. I just don’t know how.”

They drive along quietly as the rain steadily picks up its pace. They follow the country highway along until it eventually deposits them in Odessa, a small town east of Batesville which has seen steady residential growth in recent years. They drive slowly through the town, slowing down past the police station, both wondering if it’s worth the risk, but when they share a glance they know that these Podunk cops aren’t up for dealing with the likes of Earl Campbell. They proceed on to the exit to Interstate 70 West, towards Batesville, Missouri, neither of them cognizant of what the little town holds for them.

Posted by Schamberger at 10:06 AM

September 02, 2008

Batesville Installment Seventeen

“Can I buy you guys some lunch, Jaquie?” asks Emily while pulling some books from a box. All of the boxes and furniture may be in the house now, but there’s still a lot of work ahead of her. A lot of work that Emily Hollinger’s not really in the mood to do right now.

“I like food,” replies Jaquie, petting Ellie with Sarah. “Do you like food, baby?”

“I like food, Mom,” seriously responds the little girl.

“Ha, cool, then let’s go get some food, ladies,” laughs Emily. “Is that chicken place down the road any good?”

“JJ’s!” exclaims Sarah. “Mom, let’s go to JJ’s!”

“They keep some video games there for Sarah to play,” explains Jaquie.

“So I take it you guys go there fairly often, huh? Does it sound good to you?”

“Sure. That sounds fine.” The three of them walk down the road together. It’s starting to sprinkle a little, but after all of the hard work of their morning the warm rain feels pretty nice. They don’t talk during the walk, mostly due to how exhausted they are. When they turn the corner, Emily can’t help but feel a chill walking past the spot where the phantom man had been standing.

They open the glass door to the restaurant and Emily finds herself charmingly amused by the old style bell which announces their entry. There’s a haggard-looking yet strikingly beautiful woman working the counter, a young chubby long-haired kid working the kitchen, and a man sitting in the back with his back to them, who Emily suspects to be older due to his paper-white hair. Otherwise Emily and her two new friends are the only ones in the diner today.

“Hi Jaquie, hey Sarah,” greets the woman.

Sarah runs up to the counter excitedly. “Hi Debra!”

The cook looks through the open window area separating the diner from the kitchen with a big smile on his face. He spends a second too long looking at Emily and then looks towards little Sarah. “What, no love for me?”

“Hiya Chuckles!”

“Hey kiddo.”

Debra hands a little hand-held video game to Sarah and they all head over to a table at the front of the restaurant. Emily looks over her menu while Jaquie turns on the game for her daughter. The waitress comes over to them with their waters. “What can I get you guys today?”

Jaquie hands over her and Sarah’s menus. “The usual, Deb. Thanks!”

Debra looks over at Emily, one eyebrow raised. “The fried chicken, please.”

Totally straight-faced, Debra says, “You don’t want that, sweetheart. The chicken tastes like shit.”

“Debra!” whispers Sarah.

“Hush, baby girl,” chastises Jaquie. “You really don’t want the chicken, Emily.”

“Uhm, isn’t this place called ‘JJ’s Chicken and Waffles’, or did I read that wrong?” says Emily confusedly.

“My dad opened this place up, rest his soul. Our cheese ravioli is great, and so is the vegetable lasagna, but our chicken and our waffles taste like ass. Just saying. If you really want it, go ahead.” Debra stands waiting for the reply, tapping her pen on her notepad.

“I’ll, uhm, I’ll go with the lasagna. That sounds great.”

“Coming right up,” smiles Debra, and then she turns and walks back to the kitchen window where she hands the order slip to the cook.

Emily mouths out “What the fuck” to Jaquie with a big smile on her face. Jaquie just shrugs. Their food comes out shortly, and sure enough, the vegetable lasagna is to die for. Emily devours it in short order, then sits back and takes a drink from her water. Debra comes to take her plate and that’s when Emily notices that she’s wearing the same ring that Jaquie is. Debra fills Emily’s glass with more water from a pitcher and notices Emily staring at her ring. Emily looks up to see the two women sharing a glance. She shrugs it off and takes another drink of water and when she pulls the glass from her mouth she notices that the old man is getting up from his booth at the back of the room. When he stands up Emily realizes that he’s not an old man at all. He’s more likely in his late thirties to early forties, although she can’t be for sure since he has his back to her still.

Wait a second, thinks Emily. Then he turns around and she’s positive. It’s the man who was staring at her down the street earlier that day. She can’t make out what ethnicity he is, it’s like he’s every ethnicity and none of them at the same time. He notices her staring at him and stares back, which immediately makes her look away. She looks away, but the vision of his cold gaze doesn’t leave her. It reminds her of something, something that happened recently, but she can’t quite grasp what it is. He walks up to their table and nods in their direction, and then says, “Be careful tonight. There’s some bad things coming into town.”

Emily awkwardly laughs and looks out the window, then back to the man. “Yeah, it’s supposed to really storm tonight.”

“Yeah, that too,” says the man enigmatically, nods again, then leaves the restaurant. Emily looks at him out the window and he turns to look at her again. Images flash before her memory again, but she can’t place them. What is it that she can’t remember?

Posted by Schamberger at 10:02 AM

August 26, 2008

Batesville Installment Sixteen

“What…what the fuck was that, man. Jesus fuck, Paul. What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?” It’s the first time Bob’s talked since they left the restaurant. Paul just keeps driving, not knowing how to reply. “You ever hear about his dogs, man? I should’ve known. I should’ve fucking known this crazy ass shit would go down if we hung around that crazy motherfucker long enough! Fuck me!”

“What about his dogs?” asks Paul, still paying attention to the road but even more attention to his rearview mirrors, seeing that Earl’s still following them.

“His step-brother Jason was telling me about this shit a while back. See, he had this mutt, I don’t know what kind of mix, and one day it bit him. So he gets up, pulls out a .22 and shoots it.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t die. It just stands there kind of dazed, so Earl starts shooting it, empties the clip on the poor creature. Still not fucking dead. So he pops in another clip and finally kills it. Twenty three bullets he put in the god damned dog, Paul.”

“What the fuck…”

“Yeah, but see he gets another dog, raises it from a pup. Has it for two years, and it bites him. So he pulls out a .45 this time and shoots it in his backyard, with the neighbor’s kids standing there watching.”

“Motherfuck.”

“Thirteen shots this time. Jason was telling me the dog’s tail was wagging the whole time, staring up at Earl with those big dog eyes.”

“We gotta get away from these psychos, Bob. We need to go to the cops.”

“If we pull off the road now they will follow us and they will kill us, Paul. Let’s be cool and once we get a chance, then we tear the fuck out of here.”

“Looks like they’re signaling to exit now.”

“Go with the flow, man. Just be cool.” Bob and Paul pull into the gas station off 50 highway with Earl’s car behind them. They get out of their car and walk over to Earl’s.

Earl gets out of the car, trying to look tough. Paul knows that Earl’s not trying to cover up being scared, he’s just trying to look like someone from a rap video. What the fuck? “Earl, man, where the hell are we going?”

“To my uncle’s old house. Far as I know it’s been sitting vacant since he died. We can hole up there until the cops move on.” You shot a pregnant teenager in the belly, dipshit. Do you really think they’re going to let this drop, thinks Paul. “Right now I need some smokes and some papers, though, so if you gentlemen don’t mind…”

“Go right on ahead, boss.” Paul leans against the car next to Bob. One of Earl’s hanger’s on stays with them, smoking a cigarette.

They stand out there for longer than the purchase should take. No one of the three of them says a word, though, the discomfort in the air palpable. As Earl’s man lights up his second smoke, the silence is broken by a quick succession of gunshots. Earl and his men come strolling out of the station, each carrying a case of beer. “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Earl calmly says as he walks past Paul. Not in an ‘Oh god, let’s hurry’ sort of way, but in a ‘This place is boring me to tears way’.

“Where’s your uncle’s place at again?” Paul asks, trying to keep his composure.

“Batesville.”

Posted by Schamberger at 06:57 PM

August 19, 2008

Batesville Installment Fifteen

Andrew doesn’t do lunch. He’s more a fan of big breakfasts and good dinners. If he does eat anything for a mid-day meal it will be during a lunch meeting, which he can normally avoid by sending someone else in his place. It’s not that he has anything against lunches, it’s just that it’s not his thing. He does normally have a tea in the middle of the day, though. He quit coffee a few years back by doctor’s orders, following his first heart attack. He replaced the coffee with green tea, which he drinks all day long. He’s in the break room filling up his mug where he runs into one of his writers.

“Hey Bryan, I need to see you in my office when you’ve got time,” Andrew says while pouring hot water into his radio pledge-drive mug from the coffeemaker.

“I can come in now, if you’d like. I was just taking a rest before I call up Raytown’s police department,” Bryan replies while washing his fork in the sink. Andrew doesn’t see any plates or food sitting around and figures that Bryan was eating at his desk again. “I wanted to get a few quotes from them about the restaurant shooting.”

“How’s that developing?” Andrew asks as they walk through the cube farm back to his office.

“It’s awful, man. The hospital says the girl lost her baby and may be crippled. Just awful.”

“That’s the world we live in, B.” They step into the office and Andrew walks behind his desk and takes a seat. Bryan sits in one of the uncomfortable chairs opposite, still holding his fork. “Anyway, I need you to do a write-up on the mayor’s office.”

“The gay thing again?” Bryan asks, sounding worn out by the idea. Rightfully so, too. This will be the tenth story he’s had to do on the fact that Kansas City’s mayor Alex Hannigan is gay. “Woodford’s really got a hard-on for this, doesn’t he?”

“Fuck Woodford. I want you to do a cover feature on the credit crunch and what the city’s doing about it. Hannigan’s having a press conference about it tomorrow at ten. I’ve got an interview for you with him afterwards.”

“Any idea on what he’s putting forth?”

“The rumor is that they’re putting a freeze on foreclosures.”

“No shit? How in the hell are they going to afford that?”

Andrew looks through some of the memos on his desk. “Beats me. That’s your job to find out.”

Bryan taps his fork on his knee. “You mean I actually get to, like, do investigative journalism?”

“I’m just fucking with you, B. I need another story on how Hannigan takes it up the ass.”

Bryan just stares at Andrew, then shakes his head while he stands up. He taps his fork on the palm of his left hand. “He’s ruining this paper, Andrew.”

The news editor doesn’t respond. He doesn’t have to.

Posted by Schamberger at 06:54 PM

August 12, 2008

Batesville Installment Fourteen

Vinnie never brings his lunch. He’s gotten fairly notorious for it after all of the years he’s worked at the bank actually, mostly due to the fact that he eats the same thing every day. Every single day. He goes to the Mexican-inspired fast food restaurant down the street and they don’t even need to ask him what he wants. Two bean burritos, no hot sauce, and no drink. He picks it up from the drive-thru, makes the same flirty jokes with the girls working the window that he makes every day, making them giggle every day, and then he takes the spoils of his conquest back to the bank to devour.

Normally Vinnie eats in the break room and reads whatever mystery thriller he’s reading that month, intermittently chatting with his coworkers. Today though he stops at the park to eat instead. He sits in his car eating his burritos while listening to some Paul Oakenfold, then gets out to walk around and enjoy the day. Vinnie loves the smell in the air when it’s about to rain, and has ever since he was a little kid. He walks around until it starts to sprinkle and heads back to the bank.

He’s back a little early and as he walks through the lobby one of the tellers stops him with an urgent look on her face. “Hey Vinnie, that couple there needs a notary.”

“I’m on lunch still,” he responds, knowing there’s no point in debating the point, merely making a brief moment that he can talk with this teller, this girl of his dreams.

“Laura’s out for lunch, too, and Sandy’s with another customer. Just clock back in early, huh?”

“A’ight,” winks Vinnie, conceding the argument. He quickly goes back to punch his timecard and heads back to his desk where the teller has already seated the elderly couple. Vinnie recognizes the couple, although he’s sure he’s never helped them before. They normally come in to deal with his boss Sandy, once every six months or so.

“Can you help us with some notary work?” asks the woman, a very sweet smile on her face. Vinnie’s not sure, but it sounds like a European accent in her voice. German maybe?

“Yeah, I’m your man. How can I help you out?” he asks with a warm and inviting face.

“We’ve just got this form we have to fill out twice a year. Do you have a pen we can use?” Definitely not German, but it’s similar. Vinnie just can’t place it.

“I surely do. It’s a five dollar fee for a pen service, though,” he says with a totally straight face.

“Only five?” chuckles the woman. Polish. She’s got a Polish accent.

“It’s ten for non-customers.”

“What a steal!” she exclaims, throwing her arms up in the air. Does this old woman have a tattoo? wonders Vinnie. He swears he saw one on her arm.

“I know. I was telling the bank’s president just the other day that we need to keep up with inflation.”

“Or drop the fee altogether.”

“One of the two!”

The woman smiles at him, taking the pen. She pulls the document from her purse and sets it down on Vinnie’s desk. She says something in another language, definitely Polish, to her husband, and he signs. She signs as well, turns around the documents and slides it over to Vinnie. “Does anyone ever fall for that?”

“The pen fee? Yeah, actually I had one lady put an extra five dollars on the check she wrote out for her CD. I couldn’t believe it at the time!” Vinnie and the woman laugh while her husband looks on blankly. Vinnie looks down at the document and is frozen. It’s from the nation of Deutscheland, what America calls Germany, and in English at the top it reads ‘Holocaust Survivor Reparations’, and then goes on to mention Auschwitz and has both of the couple’s names listed. The woman hands over their driver’s licenses so that he can verify their identities, and yeah, it’s definitely them. What are the damn chances that in one day he finds out that one long-term customer freed Auschwitz and another couple of regular customers are concentration camp survivors? He signs the document in the notary section, affixes his stamp, and hands it back to the couple.

“What do we owe you, sir?”

“Besides the pen fee, there’s no charge.”

“Bill our account, would you?” the woman says as she and her husband stand up. She offers her hand to shake and Vinnie takes it, unable but to help but look down at her forearm.

“I sure will,” he says with a smile. “Thanks for coming in.”

Posted by Schamberger at 06:50 PM

August 05, 2008

Batesville Installment Thirteen

“I don’t like the way that cock-eyed pregnant bitch keeps looking at me,” grunts Earl in between handfuls of french fries. Bob and Paul had followed Earl and his bunch of losers to a fast food shack in Raytown to get some food before picking up the crystal meth they had been promised. Neither Bob nor Paul were exactly hungry, but they didn’t want tweaker-ass Earl getting paranoid about anything, not when they were this close to getting such a major hook-up.

“Which one is that?” asks Paul, and then takes a drink from the straw of his soda.

“You see more than one googly-eyed prego bitch up in this muthafucka, Paul?” Earl’s starting to get that crazy look in his eyes. Bob mentioned to Paul in the car ride over that the goofy sum’bitch was doing too many lines before they left his house. “I mean seriously, how many lazy-eyed cunts are there in this shit hole?”

“I didn’t take the time to count,” says Paul, and immediately regrets the one-liner. Earl just stares at him with a cold look, like he’s calculating what he’s going to do next. Shit, thinks Paul, there goes my meth hook-up. Fuck a duck.

“Funny. That’s funny. Didn’t take time to count. Shit,” delivers Earl, no emotion in his voice. He stands up, picking up his tray and carries it over to the trash can. “Real cut-up, Paul. Didn’t take the time.” Earl empties the tray into the trash and sets it on the top of the receptacle. Then in a sudden move he pulls a gun from behind his pants and starts waving it around in the air before squeezing off a shot into the ceiling. The restaurant erupts into screams and people jumping from their chairs. Earl puts one foot onto a chair and then steps up onto the adjoining table, waving the gun around at the crowd. “Listen, I need to settle something with my good buddy Paul here! How many cock-eyed pregnant bitches are there up in here?” Everyone stares at him dumbfounded through their tears of fear. “I asked a motherfucking question!” screams Earl, and then he fires another shot into the area of the kitchen, which are met by both screams of terror and pain. “Are there any others besides this bitch behind the counter!?”

Paul moves towards Earl, “Dude, calm the fuck down. We gotta get the hell out of here.”

“Fuck off, Paul. Since you were too got-damned lazy to take the time to do the count proper, I’ma gonna have to do it my own self!” He jumps from the table and moves at a deliberate pace towards the horrified girl working the counter. “You’re the only one, aren’t you?”

“Don’t…don’t kill…,” is all the girl can respond before falling to her knees, sobbing with abandon.

“Ah, Jesus, stand the fuck up, you puppet-lookin’ bitch,” Earl yells at her. When she fails to stand he fires off another shot at the window, shattering it. “I SAID STAND THE MOTHER FUCK UP!”

The girl slowly stands up, tears freely falling down her face. She’s a blubbering mess, unable to control her emotions, which makes her sob even harder. Earl smiles at her, putting his left hand on her shoulder. Then Earl shoots her in the belly, making her let out a scream that will haunt Paul for the rest of his life, which then becomes a chorus around the restaurant.

Earl nonchalantly turns back to the table where Bob and Paul and the rest of the group are sitting slack-jawed. “None of the googly-eyed cunts here are pregnant, Paul. Happy now, bitch?”

Posted by Schamberger at 06:46 PM

July 29, 2008

Batesville Installment Twelve

Marilyn likes to get into the break room a little before eleven to heat up her lunch. That way she doesn’t have to wait on the microwave, and doesn’t have to worry about people looking impatient while they wait on her food to cook. She likes the ravioli that comes pre-made and frozen and all you have to do is cook up the little plastic tray and there’s a meal waiting. She has it with a diet soda pop and an apple which she cuts up while waiting for the timer on the microwave to make its way around to zero. She likes cutting up the apples because then it doesn’t juice all over her making a mess in front of her coworkers.

She pulls her lunch out of the machine, pulls the plastic off the top, careful not to burn herself with the steam, puts a paper towel under the tray since it’s so hot, and makes her way over to the table she sits at every day. Other folks who take the early lunch at eleven start filing in, getting their food ready. She smiles at the first couple of them, and then opens up her magazine to see what’s going on in the world of women’s crafts.

“Hey, Marilyn,” says a voice as Marilyn notices a shape in the periphery of her vision take a seat next to her. She looks up and sees that it’s Kathleen, her lunch and walking buddy.

“Hello there, buddy buddy,” Marilyn greets with a chuckle.

“How’s things going?” asks her buddy buddy with a look more serious than normal.

“Uhm, fine. I’m busy with all of these searches that I need to review, but you know,” Marilyn dodges, hoping that Kathleen didn’t overhear what she fears was overheard.

“I mean with Frank, honey.” Oh god, thinks Marilyn.

“Fine, uhm, fine. Things are fine.”

“I heard you on the phone with him, Marilyn. You look like you need to talk.” Oh god, oh god.

“It’s not good. It’s…I don’t want to talk about it in here. I’ll talk during our walk.”

“Okay, but make sure you do.” They eat in silence, each reading their magazines, which is what they normally do each day, but there’s an underlying tension that each of them feels, almost palpable. They throw away their trash, stow their not-trash, and head outside to the walking track which is located behind their building. During the Spring months they come out for a walk after eating, getting out of the routine of their jobs by walking in a circle. “Talk to me, Marilyn.”

“I think I’m going to need a lawyer.”

“God, that bad?”

“That bad. We can’t even talk anymore without getting into an argument. I just can’t…” she pauses, trying to find the right words to say, “I can’t stand to be a prisoner in my own house anymore. I can’t.”

“What about Chuck?”

“Chuck’s old enough to take care of himself. He’s a good kid, anyway. He knows his dad and I aren’t happy together anymore. He writes about it all the time on his blog.”

“You let him do that?”

“Let him do what?” Marilyn asks, confused.

“Put all of that personal stuff out there for the world to read. You don’t feel like he’s sharing too much with strangers?”

“It’s, I don’t know, it’s what he does. It’s how he keeps from bottling things up. Maybe his dad should start doing the same thing.”

Posted by Schamberger at 10:00 AM

July 22, 2008

Batesville Installment Eleven

“So where are you moving from?”

“Kansas City. I don’t know, it didn’t feel right living there anymore. Didn’t feel like home after a while,” Emily replies to Jaquie as they both carry in some boxes. After moving the furniture they were each trying to carry several boxes at a time, but they’ve since both worn out from that and have started only carrying one box at a time. “I grew up in Lee’s Summit, but it’s changed so much since I moved out it doesn’t feel like home, either.”

“Oh, I hear you. That town’s grown like crazy,” says Jaquie as she stacks her latest load with the rest of the boxes in the living room. “Jesus, thank God there’s only a couple more trips left.”

“No shit.”

“If you ever move again…”

“Use different movers?”

“Don’t ask me to help!” They both laugh hard. They get the last of the boxes into the house as the first raindrops start to fall. Emily looks over at Sarah and the cat Ellie playing in the kitchen and smiles, watching Ellie rolling around stoned from the catnip and Sarah giggling.

Emily calls to Jaquie, “You want some more water?”

“Yeah, please.” Emily refills both of the glasses which have been heartily drank from all day and carries them out to the porch where a couple of folding chairs have been set up. She joins Jaquie, feeling an intense sensation of relaxation from sitting, knowing the heavy work’s all done.

“Thank you so much for helping out, Jaquie. I don’t know what I’d have done without you,” Emily says earnestly.

“No problem, Em. I think you’ll find folks like helping each other out here in the ‘Ville.”

“Definite change of pace for me. I’m loving it so far.” Emily notices a man standing at the end of the street staring in her direction. He’s a tall white man with white hair and a deep tan. Maybe he’s not white. His features are kind of indiscernible, not just due to the distance down the road he’s standing. He’s wearing black pants and matching t-shirt which cover an athletic but not overly-bulky frame. Emily’s sure, he’s staring at her. “Who’s that?”

Jaquie turns to look in the direction Emily indicated and freezes. Emily can’t see Jaquie’s face, but it’s obvious by her posture that she’s uneasy. She looks down at her hand and Emily follows her glance, noticing the beautiful sapphire ring on her finger for the first time. Jaquie looks up at Emily and says in a low and serious voice, “Who’s who?”

“The man standing down the street pervin’ on us.” Emily looks up again and sees that the man is gone. “Huh, shit, must be seeing things.”

“You worked too hard today, sweetheart. So wore out you’re seeing spirits now.”

Posted by Schamberger at 09:55 AM

July 15, 2008

Batesville Installment Ten

Kansas City’s not one of those rough-and-tumble big cities by any means, but those who live here have grown accustomed to screams and gun shots. Sure, they want to help their fellow man and all, but you never know who else is around the corner, or what may fall into your lap. Working downtown, Saul Van Deeten runs into this sort of trouble on occasion, and if he had been smart this time around, he would have kept on walking like he normally does. He would have gotten in his car, driven to his cozy house and checked the news to see if there’d been any mention of it. But for some dumb ass reason, that’s not what he did tonight. No, tonight a shooting victim came stumbling towards him and he stuck around. There Saul was when the silly bastard said the two names that would ruin Saul’s life for the next good long while. He also promised the second name would be worth millions. The cops show up promptly and pull Saul back and check his ID. He already know what the cop’s going to say before the officer turns back towards him.

The officer clicks the button to turn off his microphone and approaches Saul. “Mister Van Deeten?”

“Call me Saul,” casually says Saul, knowing there’s no point in bravado.

“You have a lot of outstanding parking tickets, sir. Now, we appreciate your helping here, but…” But Saul’s going to jail. He knows, he knows. About a year back, he got laid off from the title insurance company he’d been working for and struck out on his own as a private abstractor. Kansas City’s a tough market for that, and if you’re not hooked up with one of the big companies you really have to hustle to make ends meet. Saul has to hit a lot of the more rural counties to make sure the power stays on, as well as working the downtown courthouse. All of the runners pick up parking tickets like a hooker picks up vaginal warts. And as bad as that analogy was, Saul’s situation with the court’s even worse. Thirty days in lock-up or pony up the money. So, G-Pop? Here comes Saul Van Deeten.

Posted by Schamberger at 09:32 AM

July 08, 2008

Batesville Installment Nine

Bob and Paul walk through the door, entering the room filled with pounding bass, gunshots and explosions, smoke, and a smell somewhere between piss and vomit. Paul can’t help but comment, “God damn it fuckin’ stinks in here, Earl. You gotta air this shit out.”

Earl looks up from his video game and just nods in the pair’s direction. “’Sup, guys. Pop a squat while I finish this shit up.”

Bob looks down at the filthy couch covered in animal hairs and…stains, and ponders if he should take the offer to sit. Before he can make up his mind Paul takes point and throws out, “We’re cool standing, yo.”

“Whatev,” replies Earl, busy pushing the buttons on the game controller. The guy playing against Earl, whose name escapes Bob’s memory, cackles while playing the shooter game. “Fuck you, man.”

“So, uh, we’re here to pick up our shit, Earl,” interjects Bob.

Earl doesn’t even bother to respond, busy being focused by the flickering lights coming from his television. The three roaches in the ash tray clues Bob in that Earl’s stoned off his gourd again. Still. Perpetually. Bob doesn’t care, he just wants to get the hell out of here. The guys who hang out in this house make him more nervous than Earl himself, which says a lot.

Two men walk from the back of the house, both holding guns. “Hey, whoa, what the fuck’s going on, man?,” asks Paul, stepping backwards toward the door.

“Calm down, motherfucker. Sheeeit,” says Earl, still not looking away from the game, “These two just off to do some business for me. We had someone narc on us, gotta get that shit cleared up.” He looks away from the game following a beep that indicates he paused it. “You fools know what’s up, right.”

“You know we do, nigga.” It cracks Bob up listening to these white boys talking this way. This is the MTV generation at its finest. The two thugs walk past Bob and Paul, sneering at Paul as they pass. “’Sup.”

“For real, Earl, we gotta get our shit and get going,” says Paul, anxious to get out of this place.

“Shit ain’t here,” replies Earl, playing the game again.

“Do what now?”

“Shit ain’t here. I gotta go pick it up. Y’all might as well come with, you can buy it at my cost.”

Bob and Paul look at each other, trying to read their respective faces. Paul shrugs his shoulders, then Bob does the same. “Alright. When we headin’ out?”

“After a bit. I’m muthafuckin’ hungry up in this bitch. We’ll stop to get some foods on the way,” says Earl, then sits up straight, angrily yelling at his playmate, “Damn, nigga!”

To which his compatriot giggles again, “Blew yo ass up!”

Earl looks up at Bob and Paul, “You guys hungry?”

“We can eat, yeah,” replies Bob. Bob takes in the scene again, looking around. Earl’s either in his early thirties or late twenties, it’s hard to tell with the lifestyle he’s leading. He’s making a shit ton of money, but blows it all on stupid stuff like video games and stereo equipment, or on the fast food and take-out containers that litter the tiny house. “When we heading out to get that?”

“Gotta wait on those two fool muthafuckas to get back, then we’ll go. Shouldn’t take them long to find that squealin’ bitch.”

Posted by Schamberger at 09:43 AM

July 01, 2008

Batesville Installment Eight

Wednesday, May 26, 2008

THIS JOB IS SUCH A DRAG!

Hey, what’s up, my peeps? Same ol’ shit goin’ on here in the ‘Ville. I’m on break from the restaurant and decided to stop back home and see what’s goin on around the internets. Jack and shit! I also wanted to take a look at my new neighbor, gawd, she is FINE. Can’t wait for her to come into the restaurant so’s I can slide her some meat knowumsayin, show her why they calls me the king o’ the jungle! Any ways, I’ll check back in with yalls latur. Hopefully tonight the rents won’t be all up in each others faces fighting again. We’ll see!

Listening To: Ozzy!

Mood: Horny

1:03 PM – 3 Comments – 2 Kudos – Add Comment – Edit – Remove

And why do they call you the king of the jungle, Chuckles?
Posted by Jodie on Wednesday, May 26, 2008 at 1:28 PM

[Reply to this]

Sheeit, girl. A male lion has sex on average over sixty times a day!
Posted by Chuckles on Wednesday, May 26, 2008 at 1:29 PM

[Reply to this]

LOL! So you’re a masturbating lion!
Posted by KCAndrew on Wednesday, May 26, 2008 at 1:45 PM

[Reply to this]

Posted by Schamberger at 05:59 AM

June 24, 2008

Batesville Installment Seven

Jimmy can’t remember how long he’s been living on the streets. The old man has no time to be worried about things like that anyway, what with the dead people following him everywhere he goes. They’re not zombies or anything like that. No, that would be crazy. These are just dead people. They’re everywhere, always asking for help, but Jimmy knows that it’s not his place to step in and assist them. No, someone else has to do that. Jimmy’s camped out just north of downtown Kansas City, right by the River Market area. There seems to be a lot of dead folks wandering around the district, but Jimmy’s not quite sure why. Maybe there’s a Yamagot working the area and they came to get help that way. Jimmy hopes that’s not the case, as he’s hiding out from Yama, has been for a good long while now. He just can’t bring himself to face Yama yet, not after everything that happened.

So Jimmy just stands there at the corner, holding his sign, hoping that the people exiting off of I-35 onto Broadway will help him get enough money to get some food today. He tries to talk with them about what he sees, but they just don’t want to listen. Maybe today someone will know if there’s a Yamagot in the River Market. Maybe today someone will be able to help all of these dead people.

Posted by Schamberger at 08:07 PM

June 17, 2008

Batesville Installment Six

Frank decides that it needs a little more blue. The mixture’s close, but it needs to darken up a little, so he squirts a little primary blue onto his palette and mixes it into the rest of the paint with his knife. Then he adds a little white to it, but not much. A little bit goes a long way with white. Perfect. He daubs the blade into the paint and begins to apply it to the surface of the painting.

“I asked you a question, Frank.”

“You ask a lot of questions, honey. Do I really need to answer all of them?”

“This one you do, yeah,” she replies adamantly and with a little too much emotion.

Frank and Marilyn Saffo have been married for about eighteen years. If you were to get either of them alone they’d tell you that they hadn’t been truly happy together since before they got hitched. Back then Frank did ‘the right thing’ after Marilyn got pregnant and took her hand in marriage, but they’ve both wondered since what their lives would be like if they hadn’t got pregnant, or if they hadn’t married and just went their separate ways.

“I don’t know, Marilyn,” he says into the phone nuzzled between his ear and shoulder.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” her voice implores over the line.

“It’s ten in the morning. I don’t know what I fucking want for fucking dinner, alright?”

“Don’t take that tone with me,” she whispers back. Good ol’ Marilyn, never wanting to make a scene. Never wanting to do anything that might get her noticed.

“Call me on your way home, maybe I’ll have an idea then. You know, when I’m hungry and it’s time for dinner.” The painting’s starting to come out the way he wants it. It’s got that right energy going on that makes Frank feel truly alive.

“You should go help that new lady move in. I saw Jaquie Folsom out there helping. You should too, since you’re home all day.”

“I’m home all day working, Marilyn. I’m not just sitting around with my thumb up my ass. If the lady needed help she should have hired some.”

“Yeah, who was I kidding, thinking you’d be help.”

“Fuck you.” Frank hangs up the phone and gets back to something he actually cares about.

Posted by Schamberger at 06:03 AM

June 08, 2008

Batesville Installment Five

Andrew Nillson’s been working for the Kansas City Journal for nearly his entire professional life in one function or another. As a kid he delivered papers with his grandfather, listening every morning as grandpa would talk about how important the Journal was to Kansas City and its Kansas Citians. “People need to know what’s going on, Andy,” he would tell him. Those early memories were what led Andrew to J School at Missouri’s state university, the leading journalism program in the nation. Andrew excelled in nearly all of his classes and had a job offer right out of school at the Journal as a beat writer. He worked his way up into editorial and slowly rose in the ranks, bringing credibility and high ethics with him as he went, having an indelible effect on everyone who was fortunate enough to call him ‘Chief’, finally now being the news editor for the prestigious paper.

Andrew believes in what the Kansas City Journal represents, but he doesn’t have much faith in his new publisher and the carpetbagging douchebag owners the publisher represents, though. So far Andrew has very little faith in any of the ‘forward-thinking initiatives’ that his new boss Jack Woodford has put in place, but he feels lucky that no such wrong-headed ideas have been put in for the newsroom. Well, felt lucky. Now Andrew is sitting in Woodford’s overly-decorated giant office, which happens to not even be located in the Journal’s complex of buildings, hearing how Jack is going to plain fuck up Andrew’s livelihood.

“Newspapers are a business, Andrew,” points out Woodford. Andrew hates this office, hates the golf memorabilia strewn around, especially the little putting green in the corner, hates the yachting pictures, hates the pictures of Woodford’s expensive cars, powerful friends, and beautiful family, but mostly hates that this office costs more than the monthly budget for his department. Every time that Andrew’s going to have to beg for a new monitor or computer or to get the copier fixed or to bring on more freelancers, he’s going to think of this office and hate it just a little bit more than he does right now.

“Yeah, among other things.”

“Forget the other things. We’re here to make money, and to make lots of it. We’re here to sell subscriptions, and to sell advertising, and to pump up the advertorial sections. What we need is content that’s going to sell those things.” God damn it, here it comes. Andrew knows that the Pulitzer’s going to be brought up, knows it already. We need to pander to committees instead of doing actual journalism. “We need more awards, more Pulitzers. We need…” We need more shocking headlines. We don’t give a rat’s ass about the quality of the story, we just want people to pick it up. I mean, come on, Americans don’t read anyway. “We need headlines that suck the people in. Our paper is boring,” We need to bring in younger readers, even though they’re not the ones with actual money. We could use the website more effectively to do that, but come on, the printed paper is where it’s at. “We need that younger demographic to come in, Andrew. We need to drive them to the paper and away from the news websites. We need to drive more attention to our subscription services online, too.” Because people are notorious for spending money online, don’cha know. Absolutely no one wants stuff for free, and it would be impossible to make the website ad revenue-based. “But mostly, I need you to focus more with your people on style,” not substance, “On getting the kind of stories that people want to read about in the aisles at the grocery store,” Say, did you know our mayor is gay? “Maybe focus in on local government some more, you know, get people interested in Kansas City politics. Are you with me, Andrew?”

Are you with me? Are you ready to sell your soul so that my corporate overlords and I can make a quick buck and then sell your shit paper off as soon as we can and go back to taking our trophy wives to Europe or the beach or anywhere that isn’t this godforsaken town? Are you ready to take all of the blame once this blows up in our faces, get fired, and find yourself overqualified for any job in your profession and unable to find work? Are you ready to be labeled as an antique because we were the ones too dumbassed to let you move the paper into the next generation, especially since we all know that print’s going to be dead in under a decade? Are you with me, Andrew? “Yeah Jack, I totally see where you’re coming from.”

Posted by Schamberger at 03:07 PM

June 03, 2008

Batesville Installment Four

Bob and Paul are enjoying the view. They’re sitting on a bench outside of a department store inside a mall in Overland Park, where all of the trendy upscale bitches shop. You know, the ones who stay in shape. Paul calls them ‘Jo Cunts’, since they’re in Johnson County, and, well, because they’re cunts. Still and all, these are fine physical specimens, properly representing the best that their gender has to offer. Bob and Paul are enjoying the view.

“Got-DAMN it, I love coming here,” exclaims Paul, watching a rather fine piece of ass walk by. He doesn’t care that she heard him, and when she turns to give him a dirty look he blows her a kiss with a wink. The corner of her lip curls up, but she keeps on walking.

“That’s alright, darlin’, ‘cuz ah love watchin’ you leave. Mmm, mmm.”
He turns back to look at his partner in crime, Bob. Bob’s a bit more soft-spoken, but he’s not about to deny that they’re here to perv on some girls walking by. Well, that and because they’re killing time.

“You heard from Earl yet?”

“Motherfucker, you’ve been sitting here with me the whole got-damn time. Have you heard my phone ring?”

Bob watches a particularly striking woman walk by, lost in the moment. “Huh?”

Paul stares at the side of Bob’s head, since his friend is still transfixed on supporting the women’s movement. Of their asses. “No, no I haven’t heard from the cocksucker yet.”

Bob turns back to look at Paul, but gets distracted again by a girl who’s probably too young. “We oughta get out of here before one of these ladies calls security.”

“Yeah, shit, let’s just go over to Earl’s place, see what the fuck’s going on.”

“Why the hell are we dealing with this guy, Paul? Crazy son of a bitch.”

“He’s got a connection on some good meth.”

“We live in mother fucking Kansas City, man. There’s connections for meth everywhere you fucking turn.”

“Yeah, and all of those assholes are batshit crazy, too.”

“Dude makes me nervous. He’s been extra special mental since he hit that chick driving drunk last week, too.”

“What, you think he doesn’t make my ass nervous? Let’s just go over there, get our shit, and go sell it off and…” Paul drifts off as a gaggle of girls come out of the store, carrying bags from the lingerie shop in the mall. Bob joins him in the ogling, ending the debate that could have saved their lives.

Posted by Schamberger at 09:11 PM

May 27, 2008

Batesville Installment Three

“Mornin’ Deb.”

“Mornin’ Chuck.”

That’s the way that JJ’s Chicken and Waffles opens most every morning, as its two employees walk from the parking lot to the Batesville restaurant’s doors. Debra is the manager and waitress for the joint, taking it over since her dad disappeared a couple of years back. The gossip was that it was due to a tax situation, and Debra will be the first to tell you that for once the gossip is true. Her dad JJ made some great manicotti, but he wasn’t very good at successfully cooking the books. Since he vanished she’s been running the business, the only one left in the tiny city.

Most of their clientele are people traveling on I-70, too hungry to wait until they get to either Blue Springs or Odessa, plus most of the town’s residents and a few folks who live in the area. While the name of the place may be referencing poultry and fancy pancakes, it’s really known for its Italian cuisine. In fact, they haven’t sold any chicken or waffles for over a year. Everyone in Batesville tells Debra that she should change the name, but she keeps it out of reverence to her daddy.

Chuck gets right to prepping up everything in the kitchen while Debra gets the register ready and the place swept up clean. While chopping up some cold cuts, Chuck looks up at Debra, laughing, saying, “Hey, you see someone’s moving into the old Campbell place?”

“Yeah, I saw the lady and Jaquie Folsom moving the boxes in.”

“She looks fucking hot.”

“Jaquie?” asks Debra, not really caring, more involved in the cash she’s counting out for the register.

“Well, yeah, I’d nail her too, but the lady moving in. Smokin’!” The young twenty-something Chuck licks his finger, touches it to his arm, and makes a sizzling sound that comes out more like a spittled “Ssssss.”

Debra stares at him, wondering what in the hell she’s doing here, in this shit job, working with this idiotic pervert, working in a restaurant. “So you gonna go over there, tell her you want to slide one in?”

Chuck breaks eye contact, trying to keep the smile on his face but instead having it slowly look uncomfortable. Chuck’s twenty two, overweight, although he hasn’t told his two sizes too small wardrobe that, making him look like a scene of Bill Bixby turning into Lou Ferrigno. His constantly worn ball cap covers the fact that yes, he is indeed wearing a mullet, but it doesn’t cover his barely ever brushed teeth. “Nah, I don’t know where that bitch has been.”

Debra goes back to counting her cash, smiling, “But we do know where you haven’t been.”

There isn’t any more discussion between them that morning. There normally isn’t much ever though, outside of whatever they have to discuss regarding an order. They just get back to their normal routines, getting the joint ready for its first customers of the day.

Posted by Schamberger at 05:39 PM

May 20, 2008

Batesville Installment Two

Vinnie Harris’ day started off just like every other day started off for just about his whole working life. His alarm clock went off, and Vinnie got out of the bed he sleeps alone in to walk across the room to turn it off. He has it across the room so that it forces him to get out of bed, something he picked up on during his hard-drinking late teens. He took his shower, washing his short balding hair and soaping down his beer belly, then shaved around his goatee, deciding not to trim it this morning as he really wasn’t in the damn mood to do that. He picked out one of his pressed dress shirts, a royal blue one today since that goes well with his favorite tie, matched them up with black dress pants and black suit jacket and headed on his way. Down the street he notices that movers are putting some boxes on the lawn of the old Campbell house while the cop’s nosy wife across the street watches, arms crossed. Vinnie just laughs, turns up M.I.A.’a Kala album and heads onto the highway.

It’s a bit of a drive from Batesville to the bank he works at in Kansas City’s Waldo area, and if you were to ask Vinnie why he makes the drive instead of moving or finding somewhere closer to work he couldn’t really tell you. It’s just that he works at that bank and he lives in Batesville and that’s it so mind your own business, buddy. Anyway, going through Blue Springs is fine but then it gets the normal amount of congested as he enters Independence and becomes a full-on mess by the time 70 intersects with 291. He stays on through and exits onto I-435 South and gets off on Bannister, heading west into Waldo. It’s the same route he takes every morning and most days he has absolutely no memory of the drive unless traffic is particularly piss-poor.

Vinnie pulls into the bank’s parking lot, taking one of the back spots and walks on in to start his eight hour shift. The old guard, Harold, holds the door open for him like he does every other day, and they have the same conversation they do every day.

Vinnie nods at the guard, an ironic smile on his face, “Thank ya, sir.”

“Sir, you’re welcome, sir,” the old man says in the best grandpa voice you’ll ever hear, a warm smile brightening up his face. The two men nod their heads again and Vinnie walks back to the time clock to punch in.

The bank’s an older one and is set in its ways, right down to its old style time punch system and the typewriters on everyone’s desks. This suits everyone who works there just fine. Sure, they have computers and all sorts of fancy gadgets, but the history of the place reminds them of what worked first and what worked best, and if someone wants to open an account the old-fashioned way they’re more than welcome to do so. Vinnie might be young in years, clocking in at only twenty-seven, but he’s got an old soul and loves the traditions of this institution.

He stops in the break room to get his coffee, having grabbed his mug off his desk on the way in, always thinking of efficiency, and stops to talk with one of the ladies who works in the proof department.

“Mornin’, Vinnie!” the rosy-cheeked woman says, looking up from her breakfast.

“Mornin’, ma’am. How’s things?” Another conversation Vinnie has every morning.

“Things are good. How’s it going with you?”

“It’s goin’,” Vinnie laughs, now finished pouring his coffee. The proof operator laughs at the joke, even though it’s the same one he’s told her every morning for the last eight years. When Vinnie started with the bank she was the woman who first trained him and he’s always felt a debt of gratitude to her since then. Plus, she’s a sweet old lady and gives him candy.

He heads back to his desk as the guard unlocks the door, allowing customers to enter the building. There’s always four or five senior citizens waiting for the doors to be unlocked at 9:00AM sharp, every now and then some of them rather impatiently, until Harold lets them know that their watches are off. They’re all members of the bank’s “Coffee Club”, which is a corner of the lobby that has cushy chairs and a coffee pot. For a long time Vinnie didn’t get why they come in every day and drink the bank’s cheap-ass coffee, but he sees the rhyme in their reason now. What else are they going to do, sit around the house and waste away?

This particular morning, one of Vinnie’s favorites is in, Mister Fulks, who makes a line to the desk. “Mornin’ sir,” greets Vinnie.

“Good mornin’, young man. Hopin’ you can help me out with one of my CD’s?”

Vinnie shrugs as the old man sits at his desk, “Sorry Mister Fulks, but CD day was yesterday.”

“Oh?” replies Fulks, his eyebrows rising above his thick glasses.

“Yeah, yeah. You gotta come in on Tuesdays now.”

The old man leans forward, looking at Vinnie’s daily “Learn Mandarin Chinese” calendar, then looks at the banker. “Calendar says it’s Tuesday.”

The two smile at each other slyly and then let out a small laugh. The ladies sitting at the desks around Vinnie roll their eyes, tired of the same old jokes. “Ya got me again. Alright, let’s get this here CD taken care of, huh?”

Vinnie gets to work on the certificate of deposit’s renewal process, rolling the interest over into the new term while old man Fulks inspects one of the pitiful plants on the desk. “So what’s new, young man?”

“Oh, last night a buddy brought over some DVD’s and we watched ‘em. Really cool show.”

“Yeah? I like movies. Harriet and I,” Harriet being Misses Fulks, another of Vinnie’s favorite customers, “We like to rent a lot.”

“Actually, this was a TV show on cable that was in a set of DVD’s.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Pretty cool. It was about the Hundred and First in World War Two, from the start of the war through the Eagle’s Nest and liberating Auschwitz. Really fascinating. Worth checking out, if you like stuff like that. War stuff.”

“Not really, no.” Mister Fulks starts to look a little reserved, his eyes looking a little distant. “I don’t really find the enjoyment in that.”

“Oh, uhm, I’m,” Vinnie stutters, afraid he’s inadvertently offended one of his favorite customers.

“Nah, Vinnie, don’t worry. I was there, you know.”

Vinnie slips from speaking in a professional tone and lets out, “No shit?”

“No shit. I was in the Hundred and First.”

The young banker leans forward, Fulks holding his interest. “You know, they were interviewing guys from the Hundred and First, having them tell the stories and then there’d be the part with the actors. Maybe you could contact them.”

The old man leans back in his chair, not comfortable. “They called me when they were making the show. I didn’t want nothin’ to do with it.”

“You didn’t want your story getting out there, so that people know?”

The old man looks at Vinnie, eyes creasing, the wrinkles suddenly aging his normally happy face. He looks around the lobby, then leans toward his favorite banker, opens his mouth, pauses, then says, “I was there, when we were rolling into Auschwitz. We knew the Germans were done for, but there were still pockets of resistance as we went. Anyway, some of the towns, as we came close, they’d start cooking big feasts for us, the officers saying it was to celebrate us liberating them, but I always thought it was so that we wouldn’t shell their towns. Anyway, we’re coming up on this little village and we smell barbeque. Vinnie, I was hungry for some good food. I’d been eating crap rations for months, and my stomach started grumbling, reminding how long it’d been since I’d had some honest-to-God good food. I started salivating, the barbeque smelled so good. We pull into the town, and there’s no feast,” Mister Fulks pauses again, unsure if he wants to continue. Vinnie gives him a sympathetic look, letting him know he can stop if he wants. “The people there, they’re scared of us. More scared than we’d ever seen any villagers look, and then we notice the smoke coming from just past the town. We rush up there and find the camp, the concentration camp, and find that they were trying to burn up all of the evidence. The people. They were burning up as many Jews as they could, and I just started vomiting. The scene itself, it’d make any man throw up, but that’s not why I got sick. I got sick because I was hungry for the smell of cooking human flesh. Do you know what smelling is, Vinnie? It’s inhaling particles into your nose. I inhaled a burning man’s flesh and it made me salivate. I haven’t slept a full night since then. So, no, I didn’t really want to share that story. I’ve only ever told Harriet about it, and now you. You know, the villagers, they were scared, because of what they thought we’d do to them once we found the camp. They knew that we’d know they had people working there. We went back to that damned village and made those bastards cook for the prisoners we’d liberated, give them their clothes, and clean up that awful, that awful…”

The two stare at each other, Vinnie simply unable to function, having never really run into any situation remotely like this, unsure of what to say to this man he considers to be a friend. All that he can do is hand the updated certificate to Mister Fulks and ask, “Is there anything else I can help you out with today, sir?”

Fulks looks at him, a really gentle smile coming across his face, and offers his hand, then firmly shakes the banker’s hand. He keeps his grip and wraps his free left hand around the young man’s, and very sincerely and warmly says, “No, Vin, you’ve helped me out more than I could have imagined. You have a good day now, young man.”

Vinnie, relieved but still a little shaky, says, “You have a better one, Mister Fulks.”

Posted by Schamberger at 08:30 PM

May 13, 2008

Batesville Installment One

It’s tough picking out which CD to play. Emily’s always thinking about her life’s soundtrack, so she wants to find the right song to play as she pulls onto the exit off of I-70 East into her new home town, Batesville. Emily looks into her rear-view mirror at the pet carrier holding her most valuable possession, the Ellie Cat, and asks, “What do you think, El? Maybe some post-punk?” El doesn’t reply, so she ends up going with Johnny Hit and Run Paulene by X. It’s a super high energy track, although the lyrics are a bit morbid. Still, she pulls into town tapping her thumb on the steering wheel, singing along, a smile on her face. The smile only lasts a moment though, dropping quickly from her twenty-seven year old face as she pulls around the corner to her new home.

It’s a small town, Batesville. The sign on the exit reads ‘Population 17’. It looks like a nice little housing edition in the middle of a farm. It looks like that because that’s exactly what it is. Emily can’t remember for sure what it was that made her decide to move here from Kansas City, but as soon as she saw the house she knew she had to move there. The town has nothing to do with her current state of consternation, though.

“Son of a bitch! Those cocksuckers!” Emily screams, the angry guitar licks screaming from her speakers definitely serving as a soundtrack to the moment. Her front yard is full of furniture and littered with boxes, several with ‘This Side Up’ arrows pointing at the ground. Son of a bitch, indeed. The movers she’d paid a ton of money to had obviously had something better to do than their jobs and had just left all of her worldly possessions in her new front lawn. She jumps out of her car and starts kicking her couch. “COCK SUCKERS!”

“Uhm, hi there.”

“FUCK!” Emily then realizes someone behind her has spoken and turns around to see a black woman in her early thirties accompanied by a precious little girl, obviously the woman’s daughter. The little girl looks a little uneasy, Emily reckons due to the harsh language spewing from her mouth. “Oh, geez, I’m sorry. It’s just, you know…”

“Yeah, your cocksucking movers…” the woman begins, until her daughter tugs at her pants.

“Mom!”

The woman looks down at her daughter, very seriously. “Now Sarah, you let us talk adult talk, alright?”

“Okay,” the little girl says bashfully, looking down at her pretty pink shoes. Emily finds herself smiling despite the anger she was just experiencing.

“Your movers. They left all of your stuff out here. I came over and asked them if that’s what you wanted and they told me to fuck right off, so I…”

“Mom!” stage whispers the little girl Sarah looking up at her mother again, not liking the words coming out of the matriarch’s mouth.

“…So I go back over across the street and watch your stuff. I called up Oliver, my husband, and I told him to get home early if he can, since it’s going to rain tonight and I didn’t want your things getting left out in the rain. But Sarah and I, we sat out here and watched and made sure nothing happened. Didn’t we, Sarah?” Sarah looks up at her mom smiling a beautiful little smile. The woman extends her hand, “Hi, I’m Jaquie Folsom.”

Emily takes her hand and shakes it. “Emily Hollinger. Thank you so much Jaquie, I really appreciate it.” Emily looks down at the little girl and offers her hand, “It’s nice meeting you too, Sarah.” Sarah shakes her hand and giggles, suddenly becoming shy.

Jaquie leans on the couch in the yard and says, “You need help bringing all of this inside?” to which Emily just laughs. They both pick up the couch and start to move it towards the house.

Emily looks over at Sarah and sees she’s looking around at the boxes in a way that screams I-don’t-want-to-move-this-stuff. “Hey Sarah, my cat Ellie is in my back seat in her carrier. Can you bring her in and keep her company while your mom and I move this stuff?” Without an answer the little girl runs to the car, smiling. Emily looks up at Jaquie and gives her a wink.

Posted by Schamberger at 06:57 PM

March 18, 2008

Batesville 01

The first chapter of Batesville is now available on Wowio at the link above. It's a serialized novel that will further explore the world of The Unbroken Circle, and is also my first novel. I'm pretty excited about this one.

Posted by Schamberger at 09:08 PM