Decoy Heroics: Chapter 1

(An unfinished chapter of the new book)

“The king is sick.”

The gathered nobles glanced at any spot on the wall but the speaker. Glanced at each other, uncertainly finding the look in the opposite man’s eyes that echoed, for once, the thoughts creeping into all of their minds.

They felt him move around the table, and when his dark, sure eyes found theirs they looked away, unwilling to commit to the treasonous demand he was about to speak.

“You must have noticed him, in the months following our beloved queen’s death. The rage. The bloodshed.” He didn’t have to mention the incident at Carvelwall. The heads bloodying the block in the bare courtyard, where once flowers had grown. The red, uncontrolled face of their ruler and the signs of slow and inevitable mindloss. The nobles knew all of those things. “The king is unfit to rule. He has quite clearly gone mad.” And after a well-placed pause, the noble whose only voice the chamber had heard this evening spoke again. “I recognize the signs of dark magiks at work.”

The mood shifted. They felt it, and looked to him directly for perhaps the first time. He was smiling. The curve of his thin, cracked lips, the delicately shaded crow’s feet, and the combed dark hair, graying appropriately at the temples: all made him look serious, professional. A man who looked like that always knew what he was talking about.

But dark magiks? Magik of any kind was forbidden on penalty of death, in any case except those of the most desire, solicited under council of law.

And nobody had solicited magikal aid for the king.

Finally, an old, retired knight, given titles by the king himself, broke the icy silence. “How can you be so sure, Rezor?”

Rezor’s fingertips pressed against the table, leaning in to the small gathered group. Begging the challenge. “I have seen it before.”

“Impossible!” the man said gruffly over several surprised and uncomfortable murmurs. He sat forward in his chair. This, too, was a man not to be dealt with lightly. He had seen more battles than the number of years most of these men – and one woman, who had wisely said nothing yet - had been alive. “If you had seen it, you must have irradiated it. Or,” he added, the old battered blue eyes narrowing and making his face a mass of leathery skin and white hair, “taken part in it.”

Rezor straightened at this. The corner of his lip twitched. A smile, or irritation? He more than anyone was aware of the rumors. His comforting brown eyes met the narrowed ones around the table, the raised chins. No one else would have openly accused him, because as much as it seemed improbable – impossible – that (name), a personally appointed member of the Council, was practicing magik under everyone’s noses… All the same. On the slim chance he did… Well. Nobody wanted to take that chance.

“I have seen it before,” he repeated, more firmly, no longer smiling. “Trust me, my lords. My lady.” She in question sniffed, and pretended she wasn’t listening. The pearls on her headpiece glinted dully. “The king is not in his right mind. It is our obligation and our duty to see to the safety of the country.”

“What you are proposing is treason.” A young man with short, fashionably cut hair and a thin, fashionable face and a strong fashionable chin laced with a goatee turned sharp eyes on the man, his back stiff and straight. “What you are proposing is beyond any of us to grant. He is watched too closely. There are laws. There are guards. There is god…”

Yes. Treason and murder. The two laws that must never be broken.

March of the Retreating World

(An unfinished story idea)

Brave men, all. They fought when they should sleep, they fought when they should eat, they fought when they should pray. I was once told that bravery is not the absence of fear, but the facing of it anyway. Whether that’s true or not, didn’t really matter to them. They were brave no matter how you defined it.
It was when the machines replaced them that they were broken.
At first they called themselves Puppets. It was a joke, anything to keep them sane, keep them fighting. It rallied them together, to get the job done they had to get done.
“You’re a goddamn Puppet.”
“We all are.”
And the game became to see whichever Puppet could stretch their strings the furthest without their limbs snapping.
“Hey, Puppet, you’re gonna snap that twine around your wrist.”
“Don’t worry about me. I know what I’m doing.”
They didn’t.
The population took on the names, and some underground rebellion which never amounted to more than a single great battle at the end – which they lost – called themselves Puppets. They were extremists. Terrorists.
They were snapping strings all over the place.

And when the population grew fed up with them the government took advantage of it. The term “Pup” was always a derogatory curse, and the very sound of it could make mothers bring their children in from playing in the streets. Kids were afraid to call their small dogs by their traditional terms. It had become much like the word used for a female dog. Truly a correct term, but not socially acceptable.
Something was changing.

When the Puppet terrorists had been defeated, and the Puppet soldiers came home, a new connotation became associated with the word. The soldiers had said they were being controlled, like puppets. And those who did the government’s bidding – who refused to stand up for themselves, for anything they believed in – was a Puppet.
It was a vague uneasiness in everyone, even if they couldn’t name it. On a Friday someone threw a brick into a window, hitting the side of a girl’s head and killing her instantly. The note on it read “Leave the neighborhood, damn Puppies.” On Halloween a group of teenagers dressed as puppets in uniforms, parading themselves down the street where children dropped bags of candy and ran home, terrified of the sight and the droning chant they sang. The day the President died someone managed to spray paint in big red letters on the White House – PUP.

Things like this had happened before. The Civil Rights Movement. World War II. World War III. The Civil War. Slavery.

Rotten Fruit

Thoughts of you were mixed when I learned you weren’t a globe. You were more like a pear. A rotten one. Did you remember that you ate my soul? Those hungry teeth fell out a-knawin’, into a green tornado. You were like a tornado, I remember. You made my hair crazy the morning after. You made it hard to breathe. “Your mother is intolerable.” I hate you because you’re always right, and not in a self-righteous way. You’re softly right, all the time, and spherical. I bought a porcelain angel, one of those little round babies with a words to live by inscribed. It broke and you spoke, and I was your Judas thereafter. But still you were a globe – swallowed in a tornado then, maybe, but round. I didn’t notice it at first. You fell off the roof and a bone splintered. I made a joke – a joke! – and you cried in public. A small little chip we thought we could cast in plaster. I bruised you in bed. You were malleable. A harsh laugh was all you gave me when my pride snapped in half, and I realized after days of sunshine, moonlight reflection in irritable silence you were more like a pear. A rotten pear. And long ago you’d devoured me whole.

Laughing Woman

(This poem was written in class, on a picture of an old homeless woman in Chicago laughing despite broken teeth and wild hair)

Comedy was
Eyes and,
you know,
that Window
even in freezing weather.
Professor
slapped a ruler on
the back of
hands
when giggling was heard.
At nine
O’clock sharp
the circus opened,
and from that open hand
with painted tears
were no dreams about
anything but
red tiger grins:
A chorus of souls, light and frightened all at once, but,
Ultimately,
Together –
and ridiculously
colored flowers.
Cameras existed then.
It wasn’t something we could not know.
A picture of me, though…
?!
He asked where I got the pretty flower.
I know, he thought me
off my ever-loving rocker.
I indulged,
he crackled lightning,
and we were a chorus again.

Two Poems

Hold my hand
Mommy
Hold my hand
Give me a square meal and
A shackle called love


**


She was like the city; modern,
Skinny and molded ontoa
A 4x4 block.
Hair cropped short,
Three earrings in each
Eyebrow.
She didn’t believe in tattoos.
An MBA in business told him
She wouldn’t be
outsmarted by
anybody.
The city had an iron gate on it.
Somewhere
a killer had not been caught.
Somewhere
a girl was giving up on love.

His Name and Her Name

At first, his name was Mark and he was the star of the baseball team looking for an easy first kiss and maybe more. But her mother raised her right, and surely he wasn’t going anywhere except a broken collarbone anyway? Next his name was Adam, a quiet, susceptible pair of gray eyes behind square glasses. He was always the first one to try to hold hands, like it was hard to walk without his hand sweating and an easy swing of the collective arm. But he was never enough to handle her, and he was holding on to a breakneck morning horse. Then his name was Antony, and Drake, and Adam again and Jess and Tom. Finally, his name was John, and John was a business major, and John was going places by God. He smiles and he phoned her sometimes and bought her diamonds which weren’t her birthstone, but John would hardly be expected to give his hard-earned money and time on a play or a concert or a bowling drunk. John had never been drunk in his life. He would, though, take her to a fancy dinner invited by his boss.

And then his name was Time, and Flowers and Freedom, and Dirt Roads and Flat Tires. Poetry, Homemade Dresses, Smell of Horse and Smell of Rain and Hot Chocolate. Wind in the Hair. Sometimes they didn’t even have names, but that was okay.

And then his name was Debt, dull and lurking around every single corner. His name was Worry – God, yes, sometimes Fear. His name was suddenly crushing Duty, and she thought of John with sudden, heart-rending longing.

The strip club was small, but relatively prestigious – no gaudy flashing neon signs. Underground of the Marquis, the hotel’s secret secret. Quiet businessmen – if drunk, not yelling to prove it – sat alone, surveying the horse flesh as pounding music oppressed most of the soft grunts borne of the true purpose here. The pole was cold and smelled of biting metal like goldfish. She hardly saw them but heard their breathing above the music. Tonight his name was Pleasure, and she was an actress on an unsteady stage.

“Shortcake, you’re up.”

“Thanks.” Irony had long been shampooed out of her dyed hair.

The private room was small, but it was hers. A chair overly comfortable. A pole on a s mall round stage. This was her domain.

The door opened, and then his name was John.

The only indication was the trembling of the stiletto, a soft click that could mean anything, against the smooth metal. John was oler. He could have worn the same damned business suit she’d ironed a hundred times, except that it was bigger to accommodate his frame. The door closed. His balding head came between her and the “Look. Enjoy. Don’t touch” sign smothered between some carefully chosen erotic art.

“What’s your name?” The chair whined and squeaked.

“Shortcake.” A stage name… A name he’d once called her…

His face shifted, flinching memories behind wrinkles and small folds of fat. Would he match the face of the stripper and win a price greater than or equal to a new Chevrolet?

“What’s your name handsome?”

As if she didn’t know. “John.” As if he didn’t know that she knew.

She danced for him. In the middle was a carefully placed move he used to like when he had the time to like anything at all.

“Amelia.” He said her name like a reprimand and like retribution.

Whatever else it did, it made her stop.

“Fuck… I knew it. Fuck.” A hand brushed through thinning, chocolate hair.

Ameila was beyond words at this lovely point. “You bastard.” Fifteen years in the making.

Either she didn’t deserve a response, or she scared his mouth shut. He didn’t even move to get up.

“I’m paying by the minute. Keep dancing.” What was his voice? Tired? Angry? Defensive? John. Knotty and maddening.

She danced. Her eyes met his like they never had.

At the very least, his name was not Regret.

Art and Soul

All art is perfectly useless. That’s what he told me. I waited b ackstage for my entrance onto a stage where you could set something on fire if you went too close. Applause… minimal. My performance should be for ghosts who had died too young to perform. Or Shakespeare. Or Michael Jackson. Or Mother. I was never going to live up to the expectations of the dead. Or his. This was one night in twenty-thousand. Importance – minimal. I knew it rationally. He wished me good luck because he knew I expected something, some words that would speak to my soul as the one-hundred twehnty hours of rehearsal had. I stepped on stage. Lights. No lasting memory at all but this moment. No words came from my watering mouth and the only thing that was set on fire was me. Silence. A nervous cough from the audience, and then a cough that lasted forever. Goddamnit, someone get the man a honey drop. I don’t remember the performance at all. I turned into some two dimensional riot. I did get applause. That I remember breathlessly. And after, from him, I got a rose, and a late fast food dinner, and updates on the evening’s football game.