Lakeshore

Shard

by Jay Lake

A fragment catches your eye: a shard of sea-green glass embedded in the sidewalk. The old concrete is spotted with age, moss, oil stains; all the myriad ills to which the bones of any city are subject. Neither birthmarks nor cancers, such things are simply part of a place built by men, used by men.

Glass, though. This is different. Some jest on the part of the skimmer whose wide, narrow board smoothed this portion of sidewalk before your grandfather was born? They must have worked rain or shine, those laborers of old, back when horse rings were still set in the curbs and the city fathers argued over whether a streetlight was an expensive nuisance or a necessary luxury. They poured the walkways of half this city, set those old street names in concrete though so many of those changed back when a man named Truman was president.

Here in Stumptown history truly is written in stone.

You bend to examine the glass more closely. If it were loose on the street, or this were a much newer sidewalk, you might imagine the shard to be a windshield fragment from one of those 1970s land barges, the family station wagon before the first energy crisis and the rise of the SUV. There was a vogue then for dark green windshield glass with the radio antenna cast cat-whisker thin through the middle.

Perhaps it is a fragment of a Coke bottle, some workingman's lunch brought on a horse-drawn wagon in a bucket with a bit of the previous night's bar ice sloshing at the bottom. Did they take their break at the base of a Douglas fir and laugh about someone's dog, until one dropped his drink?

The glass winks at you, a sly hint from the mysteries of time. It is glass, after all, cast from sand and so inextricably linked to the sea by both its own personal genealogy and the greenish color which infuses it. Symbolism writ twice in a fragment beneath your feet. You like that idea, imagining this to be a chip off some ocean wave. It would have been imported from some distant, pale-sanded shore, though. The ocean here in the Northwest is almost always slate gray or sullen blue, colors that give lie to the name Pacific and make fishermen think about staying home with a hot cup of tea. The northern Pacific is the sort of ocean you can imagine the first land-walker fleeing, primer for the endless, spewing pump of evolution.

Or perhaps this is just a shard of glass beneath your feet. Twisted and broken, obsidian from the volcanic flows of culture, a meaningless signal from a century before when this city was birthing its own bones.

In any case you bend down, brush your fingers on the damp sidewalk, and feel the sharp, sad spark of time pass beneath your touch. Then you walk on, past glass windows and windshields and headlights and stoplights into a silicon future far from the sullen sea which first gave you birth.

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© 2008, Joseph E. Lake Jr.





This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

The Inertia of Corpses

by Jay Lake

"I shouldn't think he'd be dead." Rosskamp looked over the edge of the cliff, idly fingering his pistol.

Martini snorted, not even trying to hide her contempt. "After a fall like that? Spiderman would be dead."

"Hmm." The older cop leaned a little further out. A thousand feet below, water glinted, a silver thread drawn crazywalk through a landscape of sand and stone. He wondered why nothing seemed to grow along the river's banks. Certainly nothing moved. Or significantly failed to move. "No body I can see."

"He ran over the edge of a cliff, Samir."

"Whatever you say, officer Martini." Rosskamp stepped away in a sort of crabwalk, careful not to turn his back. He'd stopped trusting in the inertia of corpses a long time ago. A quarter mile back to the car, and they could leave.

There would be no paperwork. Not on this job. Accountability, yes. Just not in writing.

Martini shook her head, laughing. "You old guys are so--"

The dead guy ran through her. There was no other way to describe it. Martini's chest burst, arms flying wide from her body. Samir Rosskamp brought up the pistol he hadn't realized he'd already drawn and without even thinking to sight emptied the magazine. Bullets dipped in silver, blessed by three different priests, then rubbed with myrrh and holy water.

His target dropped and rolled, briefly became caught up in a patch of small barrel cactus, then was on its feet and running at least sixty miles per hour away.

There wasn't enough left of Martini for last words. She was leaving here in baggies. Rosskamp threw up, almost perfunctorily, then shuffled back to the car. This he would have to call in.

If there was one small blessing, it was that his ex-partner wouldn't become a runner as well. Maybe the dead guy had done her a favor, killing her that way. The only thing that had kept him from swallowing a bullet the past few years was the same fear, that he'd become one of them. Marathon Men, as some wit in the press had christened the dead back when this was still a curiosity and not a plague.

Personally, Rosskamp thought it was the Rapture, in slow motion and without purpose. He wondered if the dead felt, remembered, knew who they were? They didn't have much to say. He wondered what the bullets felt as they entered a body. They didn't have much to say, either.

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© 2008, Joseph E. Lake Jr.

Edited slightly for clarity from the original post





This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Smoke

by Jay Lake

Facing off in the raw, blustery January wind, I grabbed Crater's jacket, one hand on each side of the zipper. He wore the jacket open, like he always did, pushing his jiggling gut out toward the world through some cheap t-shirt. "Fat fucking slob!" I shouted, shaking him, though he was so heavy he barely moved.

As naturally as the running tide smooths a sand castle to a simple hummock, then flat nothingness, he faded into smoke. Crater's eyes widened in surprise even as they became translucent, then fled along with his face in wisps of blue on the wet wind. The jacket collapsed in my hand with the nose-watering odor of burning sage, and there was nothing more.

"Nice move," said the wind. "Good work," whispered the sudden rain. The jacket just stared at me, the empty arms shrugging away a man's passing, as if I were below reproach.

"I didn't mean it," I whispered, cradling the grubby nylon of his jacket to my cheek. "I didn't mean to call you that. Please, you're my friend."

Alone, I stood on the sidewalk and sneezed until I cried, but he never came back to me.

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© 2008, Joseph E. Lake Jr.

This story was used by Weird Tales to promote their 85th Anniversary party at Norwescon 31 in March of 2008, and as such had its first appearance in a Con flyer.





This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

This Is a Story

by Jay Lake

This is the beginning. The author begins here with a character in a setting with a problem. Due to an unfortunate failure of imagination, the author is the character, the manuscript is the setting and the lack of story is the problem.

He tries for some rising action, but fails. This cycle could go on a while, the author realizes, so he considers pushing some symbolism into the piece. "Would monkeys wearing my mother's underwear be too transparent to my readers?" He racks his brain for college-era memories of Eurythmics videos. A cow could walk through the scene.

A cow walks through the scene.

Oops, no setting. White rooms are bad. Even real white rooms. The author briefly wonders if he could set a story in a chip fab, where everything is white except for people's eyes. Kind of like Willie Wonka, but different. Literary oompa loompas! There's the answer.

Oompa loompa, says the cow.

Apmool apmoo.

This is the middle. It feels very muddled. Aren't stories supposed to have a muddle in the middle, the author wonders? Or is that novels? Perhaps if he spent more time reading other writers' LiveJournals he'd know more about process.

Stuff happens here. The cow is killed by bright orange midgets wearing curiously shaped white hats.

Now the end. The end should be implicit in the beginning. The author read that somewhere. On a fortune cookie?

"The end should be implicit in the beginning. In bed."

Definitely fortune cookie wisdom. He's pretty sure the workshop will hate this story. He's pretty sure his boyfriend will hate this story. He can't show it to his mom, because of the monkeys in her underwear thing.

This is the end: And then the sun went nova.

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Oops, have to go back and foreshadow that.



© 2008, Joseph E. Lake Jr.





This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

In the Green Jungles of Envy

by Jay Lake

In the green jungles of envy the tiger stalks his prey. Stripes flicker through shadows, the casual eye seeing nothing more than the flicker of sunlight on the trees. Monkeys scream from their high perches, throwing mud and sticks and worse down like a solid rain, as if the earth had mistakenly risen to beat against the uncaring tropical sky. There is always too much water or not enough. The word "sufficiency" is not in nature's vocabulary, not here.
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"I don't give a flying God damn what the FAA says." The CEO, whose name was on the building, screamed into the telephone, pounding his teakwood desk with the butt of his letter opener -- an antique Turkish dagger worth more than most of his employees' homes. "You're the broker, straighten it out. I've been waiting too God damned long for this jet. I'll get it somewhere else if I have to. Do you hear me?" He shook the phone in his fist. "Well?"

After a while the CEO started picking teak splinters out of the palm of his hand.
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In the green jungles of envy the ferns grow larger than a poor man's house. Tall hardwoods creak in the wind as pythons slither down their polished bark. Small animals crash through the brush, chasing smaller ones to their furry, squealing death. The beetles, ever patient, await their turn to polish the bones.
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The marketing director, whose name was on his door, wandered into the copy writing team's bullpen, coffee mug in hand. He'd read that if you held a coffee mug, that made you more approachable. That was part of the "screaming monkey" theory of management, something about primate dominance. He felt like he should be picking lice off someone's head, but the coffee mug and a good style with memos had seen him through three promotions in four years.

"Schmidt, could you step into my office, please?" he said. Layoffs were never easy, but if he managed headcount tightly enough, he'd qualify for that year-end bonus. Then he could pay for the Lexus he'd been promising his wife for months. Malenkov and Popper would probably have to go too, but they'd find jobs somewhere else. Sooner or later.

They'd be okay, he told himself, sipping at his coffee.
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In the green jungles of envy ants march from time to time, clearing a path from which even tigers and elephants will flee. Dragonflies with wings the width of dinner plates haunt the tree-lined swamps, while scaled monsters out of prehistory slide through the mud, leaving only bubbles and tail tracks impossibly broad.
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"We're outsourcing all the custodial and grounds work. Friday is you guys's last day, and I don't want any slacking off before then, you hear? The contract service will bill us for shit you were too lazy to fix." Christ, thought Keller, there wasn't enough money in the world to do his job. Today he had to fire forty-two spics, every one of them with some stupid name like Angel or Jesus on his overalls.

"What about severance?" called a moon-faced man in the back of the crowd.

Keller shrugged. "Two weeks, same as anybody else."

"COO got two years' pay when he was fired."

"Then why don't you go fucking apply for his job," Keller snarled.
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Many paths lead into the green jungles of envy, but none lead out. Some ways can even be opened from afar, by a bruja with his chicken blood or an isangoma with his sacred fires.

A man whose name is on his building might find his jet crashed there, stumbling out of the wreckage only to be eaten by tigers. A man whose name is on his office door might be swept off the rail of his cruise ship one storm-tossed night, washed up there to be eaten by a crocodile. A man with a bad attitude and hard heart, he might have to settle for being beaten in the parking lot by six brown-skinned men in identical coveralls, the names on their patches covered with duct tape.

But the patient, egalitarian beetles polish all bones, and the tiger always finds more prey.
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© 2008, Joseph E. Lake Jr.





This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Imago

by Jay Lake

My dearest Imago —

It has not failed to come to our attention even here in these benighted South Coast precincts at the shore of the reeking sea that you have been making something of a name for yourself at home in the City Imperishable. Mater has begged me to write you as sib to sib, and entreat you to speak to us of your motives, methods, and — to use her unfortunate turn of phrase — "particular and present madness" in this course of action upon which you have embarked.

Belisare the dwarf, who has secret ways and means of gathering information (and if he is reading these lines now will live to regret his actions, I assure him) has advised both Mater and me that the odds against you in the Cork Street betting parlors have risen to over forty to one. Contrary to his counsel, I have wagered a small sum on your success, for after all, you are my brother, and blood will tell. However, Belisare also advises me that you were read out in the Assizes Court this past Reckoning Wednesday and there are even now writs against you traveling via the post coaches to such distant outposts as this squalid nesting ground to which circumstances have forced us. Were you to consider seeking shelter or succor here, I would regretfully suggest that you consider another plan entirely, for Mater has waxed excessively wrothful in light of the allegations of the writs against you, which therefore also sully our family name.

We are an ancient and honorable line, serving the City and its people since long before the Blading of the Throne. Should you succeed in your ambitions, it might be the case that we will all be bathed in glory. In that happy event I will personally journey into one of our delightfully foetid coastal swamps and cut your palm frond and bring it home for the procession triumphal. However, should your current trajectory of failure continue to its logical, and perhaps inevitable, conclusion, I am afraid you must consider yourself disowned, read out of the family, and removed from the Peerage. I say this not on my own admittedly non-existent authority, but at Mater's ravings urgings and with the endorsement of Belisare in his capacity as Claviger Familias.

Nonetheless I wish you well. Not since the legendary time of Margolin the Cooper has anyone acceded to the Lord Mayor's office through the trial of flowers. If you are able to bring this coup to blossom, you will indeed shine in the pantheon of heroes both Civic and familial. Meantimes, I have set bravos to guard the posthouse and the bridge over the River Eeljaw with strictest orders to turn you back with all due prejudice.

I pray this letter finds you well. Or perhaps I pray this letter finds you at all. For the time being I remain your humble brother,

Humphrey

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© 2008, Joseph E. Lake Jr.

Imago of Lockwood is the hero of Trial of Flowers [ Powell's | Amazon ]





This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

To Repair Man

by Jay Lake

Ever wonder why barbecue joints always show a pig on the sign? Me neither. I mean, if those Twilight Zone aliens showed up to serve man, would there be a happy picture of Emeril Lagasse on their restaurant signs? Homie don't think so. Like the t-shirt says, if God didn't mean for us to eat animals, why did He make them out of meat?

So I got me a little workshop down by the county line which I got the bright idea one day ought to be the shape of a car. They got those big Cat dump trucks out at the quarry, about the size of a building each. Pops McGinty backed one into a trench a while back. They had to get the dragline to haul it out, and it's been up on blocks ever since. This gave me an idea.

When I ran into LeFarge drinking down at the Coon Dog, I made my move.

"Brandy," I said. His real name was Brandeis, but nobody called him that except the IRS and his probation officer. He also was the site manager for the quarry. "You going to do anything with that busted out Cat dumper Pops wrecked?"

LeFarge stared at me with his squinty eyes. "You got any idea what the parts value on that thing is?"

"Not a clue. I mostly work on Fords. I don't want none of that shit anyway. Just the body shell."

"Could sell it to the scrap cutters for good money," LeFarge mused.

I toyed with my Lone Star, the cold beading out on it like flop sweat on a twenty dollar hooker. "Could fix your pickup for free the next two years."

"You got a tow truck that big?"

"No," I said with a laugh, "but you do."

Two weeks later it showed up in three pieces on some heaver hauler flat beds down from Luling with new buckets for the drag line. I paid the drivers off with beer and reds, and got me a fine new building. Took some doing to get it in place, but my service bay is under the dump bed, and my business office is in the cab.

Big Yeller, they're calling me down at the Coon Dog now. Weird part is I'm getting some real goddam strange repair jobs in. Just this week feller came by with a Dymaxion car. Least that's what he said it was. I got my doubts — old Bucky Fuller never did put laser turrets on his, I don't think.

Feller asked where he could get some good haunch around here. I sent him down to the Long Pig.

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© 2008, Joseph E. Lake Jr.





This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.