They sat around in the low light and the blue smoke of the room and after a while he picked up a guitar and started to strum some rudimentary chords, plucking triads and tripping harmonics and, believing he was, of a sudden, some rough blues man, he began to throw in some hems, some hums, … Continue reading Some hems, some hums, some uh-huhs.
Looking out the no one looks in glass. Inside, warm. The music, the space - the same shape, the same mass. Everything inside, defined. Everything outside, blurred. There is motion. There is stillness. They didn't speak. They travelled west. They stayed the night at a Travel Lodge in Meredith. Dizzy and Lemons playing the machines … Continue reading And When I Sleep, Luella. [xii]
The snorkel parka comes off and Letitia rolls a sleeve. She plunges a hand into the water and sometime later scoops out a fish. She pushes it into her mouth with two hands and scrabbles around for the brew can. Dizzy gags. Lemon giggles. Fish reaches down the sofa, mighty pleased. Draws out the package … Continue reading And When I Sleep, Luella. [xi]
Fish is the weed and whatever man, says Dizzy. Dizzy's your regular subway boy looking up. Whatever, man, says Fish. There's a glass tank busy with goldfish. Hence the name, she supposes. Fish has a stash of nice and nasty treasured down the side of his sofa. Fish looked upon her. Weighed her. So, you've … Continue reading And When I Sleep, Luella. [x]
Slipping between browsers at Borough market, she pretended an interest in literature, in homeware and clothes, in vinyl. Her hand dipped foreign pockets. Some coins, receipts, some lint. Some nothing. She was counting again the coins in the underpass, handing lint alms out with receipts to the breeze, when - Aight, Letitia. You lookin cold, … Continue reading And When I Sleep, Luella. [ix]
Crazy Jeannie and Pleasant Terry finally got married again. Fair play to them. But, somewhere, somehow, along the way, in exchanging names twice, they confused each other’s nicknames, so that he, at last, found her, pleasant, and she, him, eventually, crazy. The actual details of how, or why, this confusion occurred are obscure. That’s … Continue reading Unexpected Butterfly.
