Poem published by Verity La.

Hi Everyone,


A poem I wrote, 'Roaches Dancing' has been published on Verity La., a great online lit mag. You can find the post here. Check out other posts on the site while you are at it. There is some choice poetry, great interviews and reviews, and of course fiction there.


It has already been making some whirls, with brad from Maekitso's cafe dedicating a poem to mine. 


It is a real poetry love-fest!


Now we're ready for Christmas!


Love,
Joran


P.S. Please allow me to plug my other blog: Syphilis of the Brain - it is my latest brain child (get it? Brain?) and on it I post whatever I come across on a day to day basis and whatever catches my fancy. Links to music. To films. Odd photos. Art I really like. It pretty low-brow. But low-brow is good, isnt'it? 

REVIEW: Map of the Invisible World - Tash Aw (2009)

http://www.harpercollins.com.au

Tash Aw's second novel 'Map of the Invisible world' is a great story set in Indonesia turbulent 1960s.

Two Indonesian brothers are separated when young. The older brother, Johan, is taken, from their orphanage on a remote island, to Malaysia by a rich couple, the younger, Adam, is adopted by a Dutch painter who lives in a coastal town in Indonesia. 

Adam tries to remember his brother, but he always stays out of focus, like a faceless figure in the corner of his eye, no matter how hard he tries. His upbringing by Karl, the painter, is full of love, but paradoxical. Karl wants nothing else than to be Indonesian, but his white skin in the post-colonial Indonesia of the early 1960s forbids these aspirations. It is a time of clashes between the PKI (Indonesian Communist Party) and the government and its armed forces. President Sukarno is trying to juggle these powers and keep Indonesia safe and under control. 

Johan remembers all too well and has become nihilistic, with more money than he can spend and the indifference from his adoptive father, he runs across the newly developing capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, looking for peace.

Around Adam's 13th birthday things spin out of control, when Karl is taken prisoner by the Indonesian government, accused of being a communist spy. This, of course, is a false accusation. He is taken to Jakarta and thrown in jail. Left alone Adam goes through old pictures Karl kept. He finds photos of a woman, an important friend of Karl, he figures. He decides to travel after his father to Jakarta and ask this woman for help. 

-----

'Map of the invisible world' is beautiful novel that weaves historically important events in the young Indonesian Republic and a personal story of two lost brothers together.  Tash Aw manages to include in the book: A meeting with Sukarno; keen insights into the political interests of the US in Indonesia; the feeling of the Indonesians during these times. You come so close to the streets of Jakarta that you can almost smell it.

This is a beautiful book and, like Light Boxes and American Rust, it is one of the best books I have read in 2010.  The only criticism I have is that, while the story-line about Johan is written well, it is never properly followed through and the novel would have stood just as well without Johan's story on the other side of the Malacca Strait. 

Let me know what you think of it.

Joran C.A. Monteiro © 2010

REVIEW: American Rust - Philipp Meyer (2009)

(www.randomhouse.com and
 philippmeyer.net)

Set in the impoverished coal country of contemporary Pennsylvania, ‘American Rust’, Philipp Meyer's debut novel, is the story of Isaac English and Billy Poe whose lives spiral out of control when they get caught up in a murder. Friendship and self-preservation become juxtaposed as both young men need to come to terms with the end of their adolescence. 

As with Steinbeck’s ‘The Grapes of Wrath’. ‘American Rust’ is set in a period of economic depression. Like the Oklahoma ‘refugees’ in ‘The Grapes of Wrath’, the inhabitants of this Pennsylvania valley, the heart of the American steel industry, were never rich, but also they were never poor. But now steel has moved overseas and the new Great Depression has pulled the rug out from under the American Dream and the landscape is left with rusting and rotting factories and people, normal hard-working folks, are left without the power to make ends meet. Poverty, boredom, idleness - and crime set in, transforming Bud Harris’, the town's sheriff, once quiet easy-to-police community into one with big-city-problems. 

It is against this background that Meyer with a beautiful lyrical voice paints his story that pulls you in from the beginning and doesn’t let you go till the final page. The story centres on unconditional love between friends, between family. Love against odds. Unrequited love. The deep friendship between Isaac and Billy; The complicated relationship of Billy’s mother, Grace, with the town’s sheriff Bud Harris; The loss of Isaac’s mother, the illness of his father, the absence of his sister. All these relationships form the backbone of this story. And while, hopefully, most of us will never be as near to a murder tragedy as Isaac and Billy are, we can all relate to their humanity and its dilemmas. 

This is the best recent novel I have read in 2010. If you like Cormac McCarthy, John Steinbeck, Jack Kerouac, William Faulkner; if you like films like the Deer Hunter (set in the same area) and Deliverance - You need to read this novel.

Let me know what you think of it.

Joran C.A. Monteiro © 2010

Review: 'Light Boxes' by Shane Jones (2009)

(www.penguin.com)

Light Boxes is a mesmerizing parable about a village fighting the continuing onslaught of an everlasting winter instigated by February.  The story centers on the family of Thaddeus, whose young daughter Bianca is taken, early in the book, by February. Thaddeus leads the resistance against February, helped by a cast of original yet recognizable characters.  Bianca, in the mean time, witnesses the innocent ignorance and confused anger of February.                                                                                                                                    

Jones weaves you into a paralel universe that perhaps is not so different from ours. The book is written in a sparse style bordering on the poetic. Jones also plays with the visual presentation of the page, emphasizing emotion with font size and isolation of words.

This book will help you Northern Hemispherians through winter and us Southern Hemispherians should read it so we appreciate summer even more.  The book was originally self-published with a print of only 500 copies but has now been picked up by Penguin, selling thousands. In the top 5 of the best books I've read in 2010.

Let me know what you think of it.

Joran C.A. Monteiro © 2010

Short Story published in Blue Crow Magazine #2

Hi All,


A short story I wrote, 'On the Seventh Day He Woke', the first short story I ever wrote featuring Sam H. Bound, has been published in Blue Crow Magazine #2. 


The magazine is 'print on demand' and can be ordered from the website here. A printed copy of the magazine is US$15 + postage, or US$5 in E-book format. With the way the US$ is going that really isn't that much for a 300 page book chockfull of short stories, drawings, pictures, reviews, and more short stories.


You can find Blue Crow Magazine on Facebook here and don't forget you can find Blues Fiction there too!


Thank you all for your support.
Onward Ever!


Joran

REVIEW: 'Growth of the Soil' by Knut Hamsun, 1917

Hamsun won the Nobel Prize for Literature for this book in 1920 and one can see why. With an astounding sparseness of language Hamsun manages to tell the story of the birth of a district in northern Norway, starting with the arrival of the first settler. If you thought you would never be able to relate to early 20th century farmers in remote Norway, think again. You will know these characters, and love them for all their humanity. Hamsun influenced Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Fante, Bukowski and countless others with this book. You should read it too.

Joran C.A. Monteiro

Short story published on Queen Vic Knives

Hi All,

A short story I wrote, 'No-one ever heard the shot', has been published on Queen Vic Knives.

Check it here. Make sure to also check the other posts on this Melbourne online lit. mag! Some choice poetry and fiction to be enjoyed!

And remember to share this with others!

Onward ever,

Joran

Blues Fiction archived online by National Library of Australia

Hi All,

This blog has now been archived by the National Library of Australia's PANDORA program. See the email and links below.

The blog will now regularly be digitally archived by the NLA. You can find the archived blog here

My first poetry collection 'The Monkey Shits in Its Hand' has now been added to the Monash University Library collection here

"Dear Joran

 

...

 

I am delighted to inform you that your publication is now publicly available in the PANDORA Archive at http://nla.gov.au/nla.arc-119730

 

Access to your publication in the Archive is facilitated in two ways: via the Library’s online catalogue; and via subject and title lists maintained on the PANDORA home page http://pandora.nla.gov.au/index.html.

...

Web Archiving Section

National Library of Australia"

Very Cool stuff. Needless to say, I am quite proud. It is nice to be able to search on your name in a library catalogue and have the search actually come up with stuff.

Onward ever.

Cheers,

Joran

New poetry - June 2010

As promised - more poetry for this blog - 3 new poems I wrote this June

Peaking for Books

Tart-stifled, drum-faced, and hog-breathed

girl asking for book eyes unable to center

tongue double in her mouth

sheer struggle to stand

and in the distance I hear a mammoth trumpet

as she opens her teeth in brilliance and wobbles her head bird-like

'I am going clubbing but on the way I want to buy a book'

the strength of her breath like brain-thinner

as her eyes roll back and she shivers 

a titter 

then she disappears

There is a weird moon out tonight

some red light slivering in through the window

the open door

the mouths of browsers

the eyes of city harlots

corners of mouths up-turned in cruel happy thoughts

songs sung in too early drunkenness

late-night binges at their very onset

hats worn askew

skirts drawn short

spirits short-circuiting and nostrils flaring

deep into

that weird moon shining tonight

A sagging recollection of last night

A crust-riddled mental case asked

for the swamp-thing

an anthology of

the scene dragging on

and I can see every detail of the man

as if I’ve taken acid

blood on his hands

real, not figurative

tiny wounds self-scratched

coating him in himself

his eyeballs sit on his cheeks

doming at me, white and moonlike

     pin-prick pupils caused by meds not taken

an arrow of a tongue licking

black-encrusted pencil-lips

I have no solution

no salvation

a field-day of weirdness

    poured into this.

---------------------------------------------------------

Sharks are bald

perhaps a feeling sliding toward the shore

into the water

cold on the soul the girl cuts my hair

bald now I float on my back

my clothes are light

my body heavy

I release my breath and it turns into a cloud

green and purple

a lightning bolt smelling of orange juice hits the water

and a shark 

fried by a million volts

jumps into the air

and lands sizzling

next to me

he takes of his hat in greeting

and tells me

'never let her cut your hair'

and I look at the shark and say

'sharks can't talk'

he growls and grumbles and responds

'remember Samson'

I do remember Samson

an asses' jaw 

thousands of Philistines

lions and 

the rest

a real old testament Hercules

But what does that matter

as I am floating here

on my back and bald

from now on I will ignore fried sharks

and open up my belly to her

and not worry about lightning striking me

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The mind is fogged

The mind is fogged after hours deprivation of sleep  

I render reality through a teacup

a feeling that it might revamp me

The birds outside sing as normal

and the world did not change so much

The mind is fogged with hours of thoughts

The mind is fogged

I have not had cotton candy for years

a missing element

in the sanity/insanity cycle

The mind is fogged through reading others 

who don’t know what it is that it is

that moves 

me and

you

The shame of immovability

the shame of inproductivity

the shame of shame

the fogged mind cares so much

I run straight for the wall

blank numb hit white stars

the nugget bounces

and finally a clear thought

sets sail

Copyright 2010 Joran C.A. Monteiro

The Complete Shit-Poo Epos

The first case of Sam H. Bound in 
an easy to read online format.

Open publication - Free publishing - More short story

A new episode of the cases of Sam H. Bound 

is published every friday on this blog.

Subscribe to this blog via facebook, a reader, or email. 

Find it all in the left column of this blog.

Remember to share this story with your friends.

Copyright Joran C.A. Monteiro 2010

Sam H. Bound-The Shit-Poo Epos, episode 5

The Shit-Poo Epos

Episode 5

If this is your first time here, please start with the beginning of this story by clicking here. A new episode of ‘The Cases of Sam H. Bound’ is published here every Friday.

Bart was a fast talker. Sam likes fast talkers. Before people really knew what was going on the switch-blade had been folded away and Sam was helping Bart to his feet. The big man is a little unsteady on his feet still when Sam walks away from him, off the pier and into a bar. The old man with the yellow and black bandana follows him inside and takes the stool next to Sam. Sam looks at him, his face grim. He holds up two fingers to the bartender, ‘two double rums right here bartender. And two beers.’ The drinks arrive and the old-timer takes two of the drinks without asking for them, without waiting for Sam to offer them. A shrewd man. 

Sam sips the rum. His faces contorts. The alcohol content on this stuff is up. The old-timer upon seeing Sam’s face laughs, ‘yes,’ he croaks, ‘this is the real shit.’ He holds out his hand and says, ‘I’m Rudy.’ Sam smiles half-heartedly, shakes the hand and takes a slug from his beer. That settles him a bit and leaning on the bar he says to Rudy, ‘you got a boat?’ ‘Sure do. Where’re you headed?’ ‘Across the bay to Ponds .’ ‘Got business there?’ the old-timer asks, his eyes peering over the edge of his rum glass. Sam leans back and looks at the fellow. ‘Not your business,’ he sighs and holds out five twenties. Smiling the crooked old bastard takes the money and says not a word.

The fresh air out on the boat brings out a better mood in Sam. He enjoys the being on the water. The rum burns in his stomach as the morning sun climbs slowly toward noon. ‘How long to the other side?’ ‘Just over three quarters of an hour,’ Rudy responds. Behind them the city shrinks, while on the other side the hills and the town grow larger. William is there. He can smell him on the wind.

Rudy stays behind as Sam enters the town. It is a small town, maybe a thousand souls. The main street is lined by a post-office, a bar, a barber-shop, a church, and a town-hall. A little bell tinkles when Sam opens the barber-shop door. A man with rosy apple-cheeks comes out of a doorway in the back of the shop. ‘Hello sir, what can I do for you?’ Sam takes a seat in the chair, ‘I could use a cut and a shave.’ He leans back in the chair and looks at himself in the mirror as the barber puts a cape around him. ‘What brings you to Ponds, sir?’ ‘I’m looking for a college buddy of mine. We played football together. Have not seen him in years. I got a picture of him right here.’ Sam fumbles under the cape and finally comes out with the picture of William. The barber looks at it a moment. ‘Why, that is little Billy Gaines. He has not lived here for years. But his mom is out on top of the hill. She might know where he is. I’ll write down the address for you as soon as I am finished with you.’ Whistling the barber gets back to his job as Sam dozes off.

With the slip of paper clenched in his hand and after asking directions three times from surly locals he is laboring up a windy road on a hill. To the left and to the right of him weather-beaten pines lean into the hill, struck crooked by the hard winds rolling in off the bay. Dirty roads and novelty  mail-boxes mark homes, the houses themselves invisible behind trees and shrubs. 

Number 24. He turns into the road. He turns another corner and he can see the house. A quaint little thing, half log-cabin, half brick house. The shutters, painted green and red, are closed, but there is smoke coming from the chimney. The front-door opens and Sam dives into the shrubs to the left of him. Thick brambles scrape his skin as he tries to lie still and minimize the pain. He stifles a last curse. The green Ford parked in front of the house starts and pulls away from the house. Sam cannot see the driver as the car drives past. Carefully he untangles himself and walks to the house. 

The front-door is unlocked. He pushes it open carefully, but it creaks and he nearly dies then and there. He stays perfectly still and listens out for any movement, but he hears nothing. It is safe. He enters the house. To the left are stairs to the second floor. To the right the living room. He looks briefly into the living room. A hotch-potch of mismatched country furniture, an open fireplace. Pictures of William as a young boy. A photo of him with his mother, it is dark and he can’t see the picture very well, but he has a feeling he recognizes the woman on the picture. He enters the living room to have a closer look at the picture. His face close to the image the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight up and he whispers: ‘Sweet mother of Jesus.’ Then he hears the cocking of a gun and he turns immediately. He is staring straight into a double-barrel shotgun. ‘Are you the one trying to get my little Billy into trouble?’

William’s mother looks exactly the same as Dame Gnaufert. Exactly. The same color hair, hair tied the same way, the same body-shape. But no make-up. No grooming in general. And an extra fifteen pounds. But unmistakably Dame Gnaufert. Sam can’t believe his eyes. ‘Dame Gnaufert?’ 

With the shotgun she motions to a kitchen chair set in front of the fireplace, rope next to it. They had been expecting him. ‘Sit down,’ she bites. ‘Take it easy lady. You don’t want to hurt someone, do you?’ A deafening blast is let loose into the ceiling and the smell of powder fills the room. Sam staggers backwards and sits his ass down on the chair. William’s mom loads the shotgun through and pushes the warm barrel against his neck. ‘If you move, you can scrape your face of that wall there.’ ‘What is going on here,’ Sam asks. He is trying to feign ignorance. He is a bad actor. ‘You will shut up or I will plug you good. We will wait for Billy.’ She has a roll of gaffer tape and clumsily proceeds to tape his hands to the back of the chair while holding the shotgun against his neck. She blindfolds him by drawing a bloomed tea-cosy over his head, gaffer taping it nice and snug over his head. She nearly cuts off his oxygen when taping and he makes a sound in protest that sounds something like ‘sngrt’ and she pulls the tape a bit higher. ‘Don’t want to choke you just yet, do we?’ There is no sense of humor in her voice. 

She walks away. He tries the tape. There is no give whatsoever. He digs deep. What does one do in a situation like this? Throw yourself back. That’ll break the chair and loosen the rope off him. He throws himself back. The chair rocks back, teeters on the two back legs then back on the floor with a loud bang. Now or never. He throws himself back once more and the chair teeters an instant, then falls back. Sam hits his head hard on the wooden floor. And the chair stays in one piece. ‘What is happening there?’ he hears Mrs Gaines yell from outside the living room. Then he hears tiny nails click on the floor boards and his neck is being licked all over while he struggles to stay awake.

He is sitting up again. How that happened he does not know. The cosy is yanked off his head and he looks William straight in the eye. A white ball of fluff is sitting on his lap. William is petting it with a tender hand. ‘An easy hostage isn’t she?’ The dog realizes she is being talked about and she starts to lick William’s hands. His mother walks from behind Sam and joins her son. ‘You see, my mother is Dame Gnaufert’s sister. She was brought here as a child aged eight. You see, the executors of the Gnaufert estate, when my grandparents bit the dust, did not want the estate to be split up, so they pretended that my mother was killed along with my grandmother, and raised the Dame as the heir of the fortune.’ Sam stares at him. He can’t believe his ears. ‘And now,’ Minnie chirps, ‘we are taking what is ours. Should have been ours all along.’ She is standing next to her son, the shotgun still aimed at Sam, as if he might hulk out of the chair any second. ‘She did not even want to know about me. Not when I wrote to her after the last of the executors died. But she would not believe me. Not even when I went and saw her. Tricks she said. Tricks.’ She waggles her hand in front of her face. ‘How can this be a trick?’ ‘So,’ William continues, ‘I found work with my aunt, who of course did not know who I really was, and tried to find a way to get money off her so my mother could have an easy old age.’ They look at each other lovingly. 

It is now or never. He gets on his feet and toad-like launches himself, chair and all, at Minnie. She is hit good and the gun goes off. Minnie lets go of it. The blood disappearing from her face that very instant. Sam looks behind him. William is laying in a puddle of his own blood, black and liver-like it pours from him, his guts shot out from him slithered next to him in a grey-red mess. The smell of shit fills the room. William stirs a moment, as if he is going to say something, then the light in his eyes dies. 

When the cops come Minnie has to be dragged off her dead son. Sam looks at the scene from a distance. He is holding the dog in his arms. There is little victory in his success. 

The cops questioned him for a while, but when everything checked out he was cut loose. Now in the Dame’s mansion he is watching her reunification with her pooch. ‘Thank you very much Mr Bound.’ ‘Just doing my job ma’am. I’m sorry they could not find all the ransom money. Those two must’ve hid it well.’ ‘Oh, don’t worry about the money Mr Bound, I have enough of it. What is important that my little Quincy is safe with me again.’ She looks up from her dog-play. There is nothing but ice in her eyes for him. ‘Albert will show you out Mr Bound. Thank you again.’ Sam bows minimally, ‘my pleasure ma’am.’ 

At the door Albert pushes a thick roll of hundreds in Sam’s hand. Then a bunch of keys. Sam looks at them a moment, then at Albert. ‘The Waratah is yours,’ the new butler says. ‘The Dame insisted.’ ‘Thank her for me.’ ‘I will,’ Albert responds and shuts the door. 

Sam gets on the motor and aims it toward the city. He stops in front of ‘Walker&Walker’ the best law-firm in the city. He pushes for the top-floor in the elevator. There he walks straight past the secretary and into the top-office. Mr Walker is eating a hamburger when Sam walks in. Sam draws twenty-five thousand dollars from his pocket and slaps it on the desk. ‘This is for the defense of Mrs Minnie Gaines.’ He looks at the fat lawyer. ‘You hear me?’ The lawyer nods. ‘Good,’ Sam says and walks out the door.

At home Sam packs his bag in exactly four minutes. He counts the money he has got left over. Twenty grand left over from the ransom money he found plus two-and-a-half thousand for the case. He stashes the money in his bag and steps out of his office and locks the door and is down the stairs. Before he leaves the building he pays the landlord his rent three months in advance, then he is out the door. He gets on the Waratah and points it south. Time for a holiday.

The End

A New Story Will Start Next Friday! 

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© Joran C.A. Monteiro 2010

sam H. Bound-The Shit-Poo Epos, episode 4

The Shit-Poo Epos

Episode 4

If this is your first time here, please start with the beginning of this story by clicking here. A new episode of ‘The Cases of Sam H. Bound’ is published here every Friday.

Sam wakes thinking that huge bats are swarming on him, black hooded things with faces like rabid Doberman's. He hits the air with balled fists, punching off the demons until he realises the demons are just in his head, a faulty wire buzzing some deep dormant part of his brain. He sits up. He is in his walk-in closet laying on the bare reeking mattress he’d dumped there on the floor. He lays back again and tries to piece together events of last night.

             He remembers William disappearing. He remembers calling the Dame. He remembers these things but what concerns him is what happened after that. He has no idea. Slowly he peels himself off the mattress again until he sits up. His temples throb. He tries to massage some blood into his brain, but to no avail. Groaning he gets up and staggers to his hand-basin. He looks at himself a moment in the mirror. The mirror gives him vertigo and he vomits brown chunks into the basin with enough force to have some of it cascade over the edge of the basin onto the ground. A deep coat of non-descript ex-food covering the stained porcelain. He looks at this a moment then belches loudly. He fills a glass with water and drinks it. Then another. And another. With the tap running he tries to push the chunks of puke down the drain with his fingers, but no luck. He gives up and staggers backward until he hits the desk. He sits on it and then lays back until he can feel his body calming down and his breathing returning to normal.

             

He wakes a few hours later. The sun is shining into the window. It must be afternoon. The phone rings and he looks at it a moment, watching it vibrate with every ring. The vibrations reverberate in his skull skin-plastered against the desk’s surface. That’ll be the Dame.

              He lets the phone ring out and just lies there, stares at the ceiling. Yellow rings caused by leaks in each of the four corners. He rubs his face with his hands, upsetting a layer of boozehound-grime. After the rub he rubs his fingers together until a small black ball of dead skin-cells, barroom smoke and whore-spittle is formed. Looking at it he works himself into a sitting position. Balancing the little ball on his thumb he flicks it across the room with his middle-finger.

              The room smells of vomit. He gets up, standing unsteadily he opens the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet to the left of his desk. That is where he keeps his clothes. There are no clean clothes there. Damn. He reaches into his pocket. The roll of twenties William gave him is no longer a roll. A fold of two twenties and a handful of change.

              Bending over to grab the blanket off his bed he groans. He spreads the blanket on his desk and piles his dirty clothes in it. Then he bundles it up by pulling all four corners together and holds it under his right-arm. He puts on his hat and pushes his feet into his shoes without tying the laces, then he is out the door.

             

He is sitting in the laundromat wrapped in his blanket watching his clothes roll and tumble in the washing machine. He is drinking orange juice from a liter carton he bought at the corner store. He looks at his sorry belongings roll over and over in the soapy water. Where did William go?

              'Yes,' he thinks and sits up, his mind at attention, 'where did William go? The gardener had been my hunch at first. Then the postman. But not William. The Dame trusted him too much.’ A loud beeping breaks him from his thoughts. He opens the washing machine and heaps the damp clothes in a dryer, inserts the coins and turns it on. Another twenty minutes. He steps outside the laundromat and lights up a cigarette.

              He stumbles back to his apartment in just an undershirt and some warm pants. Back inside he takes his clothes back off and washes himself with water from a bucket, ignoring the drying vomit in the basin for now. He dries himself, gets dressed and brushes his teeth. He puts the plug in the sink and fills it so hopefully the crust of puke will come off more easily when he returns.

             

He turns the key in the ignition and she roars. The car is alive. Thank God. He pulls out onto the road and points the Hupmobile into the direction of the Dame. Time to face the music. A car coming his way flashes his lights and Sam turns his on. The light of the day is already fading. His first case and he has already failed. Not only did he lose the money, but he also managed to drink himself stupid instead of getting onto damage control. William’s trail by now would have gone cold.

              A flash of his dear late mother glimmers into his head as he pulls into the drive of the house. ‘You will always fail at everything.’ A curse she laid on him. Exactly what the Dame will now tell him. He clears his throat, a deep rattle of phlegm as it collects in his mouth. He parks the car behind the house and opening the door spits the oyster into the dust, where it rolls further, a tiny green-brown ball of himself. The view is obliquely satisfying. 

              The back door is opened by Albert whose face is set to thunder and amusement at the same time. Sam looks at him a moment then sighs and steps past his tormentor into the house.

              He finds the Dame in the kitchen, red-eyed, her hand held by the chambermaid he stuck it to two nights ago. He has forgotten her name. Both women would’ve shot him on sight if they’d been packing heat. He can feel the death radiating from their eyes.

              ‘You have a lot of guts showing your face here again.’ Sam looks at his shoes. He swallows. ‘I thought I owed you at least that much ma’am.’ He feels like he is about five years old. ‘I’d never thought it’d be him ma’am. Not after what he meant to you.’ The Dame looks at him, then the mask of her face breaks and she starts crying again. The maid puts her hand on the Dame’s shoulder, trying to comfort her. ‘I am really sorry Dame Gnaufert,’ Sam tries again, but she holds up her hand to shut him up. ‘Leave,’ she sobs, ‘and don’t come back here again.’

The outside air has got a chill to it, even though it is the beginning of autumn. He shivers and hugs his arms close to him. The sun is under now. Darkness behind the house. He looks toward the servant’s quarters. He hears the Doberman’s bark. Then a light starts to shine in the deep crevices of his brain.

The dogs in the kennel are going crazy. There are two of them, their paws against the mesh of their cage. But they ignore Sam. They are barking for their boss. He opens the door of the cage and steps inside, closing the cage behind him. The dogs still ignore him, scrambling for the momentarily open door, but he manages to close it in time. With a deft movement he hooks a leash onto one, then the other. He takes a deep breath, then opens the cage-door.

He has not ran this hard for a long time. Actually, he has never ran this hard. Or far. But he is not letting go of these dogs. They first led him back to the ‘Pig and Whistle’, now they are leading him further into his neighborhood. Would William be stupid enough to be hiding under his nose?

              He runs past the post-office, past ‘Heave-Ho’s’, past the little park with its hypodermic needles and its ladies of the night. He tears through his stomping grounds and out until the dogs stop, panting at the water of the bay around which the city has been built. They howl with frustration at the tiny lights hovering like fireflies in the darkness of the water beyond. William has taken to the waters. Would he still be out there on one of those ships? Or is he gone already? And does he have the shit-poo with him?

The next morning he is on the pier showing William’s picture to fishermen there. He went back to the Dame last night. Albert was about to sic the dogs on him, as the Dame had ordered, but when Sam said they were in his car they fell silent. He explained what he had done. That the trail was not yet cold and that William was yet within their grasp. What he needed now was a picture of William and a few more dollars to cover his expenses. He would find the dog, if it was the last thing he did.

              He shows the picture to fisherman after fisherman. None has seen William. He stares over the water. He is still out there. As if he can smell William on the wind. He has left from here to wherever, Sam knows so. Sam knows too that these boats can be hired at night. For whatever purpose. William would’ve come here, even if it was to have someone take him to a bigger ship. 

            A whisper from behind, ‘hey mister.’ He turns. An old man with a striped yellow and black bandana, three whole teeth in his mouth and big bushy eyebrows stuck on his face like leeching caterpillars, breathes in Sam’s general direction. Rum. Cheap Rum. ‘Hey mister, I hear you are looking for someone?’ Sam sizes him up. The man is tiny, reaches to Sam’s chest, no higher. ‘Yes,’ Sam says, ‘sure am. Do you have any information for me?’ The old-timer coughs and turns his pocket inside out. Sam smiles and draws a twenty from his pocket. The man smiles back and points down the pier. ‘You’ll want to talk to Bart there.’ ‘Which one is he,’ Sam asks. ‘The big one.’

             

Bart is big. Very big. Not fat. Just big. Tall. Huge. He pretends not to hear Sam when he clears his throat and says : ‘Excuse me?’ Sam clears his throat again. ‘Excuse me, Bart, is it?’ The behemoth glances at Sam sideways, then goes back to staring at the sea. ‘Beat it,’ Bart responds. Sam’s face sags. How very rude. He turns and walks back up the pier a few steps. Then he turns again, he takes a breath as if he is about to say something, but he thinks the better of it. Instead he kicks Bart in the back of the knee as hard as he can. The giant nearly falls face-first into the water, but he manages to stay on the pier by throwing himself back, landing on his ass. Sam immediately kicks Bart in the kidney, once, twice, then punches him in his ear. The fisherman doesn’t even know what has happened to him. Dazed he sees Sam hover into view. ‘Now,’ says Sam, holding an open switchblade delicately against Bart’s throat, ‘can we talk?’

             

The Final Episode Next Friday...

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'Blues Fiction - Joran C.A. Monteiro's Writing'

© Joran C.A. Monteiro 2010