Playing out


I woke up early and went downstairs. Clint and the Juice were still asleep in the pull-out couch. I crept by into the kitchen, made tea in the microwave. The others would want coffee when they woke so I measured some out, put in cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg like Melanie liked. I had a glass of water while the tea steeped and looked out into the dark.
    Mel and I went back to the factory days. I don’t know who saved who. It was a tough go at first, I was always writing and didn’t know if she would wait me out. Most didn’t. It was a bit much to ask of anyone to put up with a writer. You can’t have them at work and you can’t have them while they work it out in a room later. All you can do is eat and sleep with them. The fact that she was an artist probably helped. She knew that you needed something of your own, besides the job and love.
    I went out through the sliding glass doors and pissed off the deck. You could really see the stars from up here on this plateau. Not like the old city days. Not at all. I looked at the house we had built to our specifications. Upstairs was the master bedroom and master bath. There was a huge room next to this with skylights that she used for her studio. It all looked over the living room with the 2 story ceiling and skylights. There was a bathroom downstairs as well as the living / dining area which was huge. Then there was my study next to the kitchen with the big old wooden desk.
    I went back inside, put honey and milk into my tea, swilled it down and took a shit (in the bathroom). Then I grabbed my rifle and went back outside.
    Early mornings were magic in the mountains. My grandfather had been hung 90 years earlier in the county seat just 8 miles to the east and I could have moved to NYC or LA or someplace fantastic. I could have moved to Paris or Mexico or Ireland and lived the writer’s life but I chose to come back here. Back to the mountains and hills of Schuylkill co. They said my grandfather was with the Molly Maguire’s. That he organized and ran the local branch. That they blew up mines and murdered the Welsh bosses in their sleep. They were right.
    I walked out across the meadow and into the woods.

Two hours later I walked back home. Saw some deer but it was too dark; the rifle was more of a defense weapon than an assault weapon in the dark, in case of bears. I wasn’t much on gutting and cleaning kills anyhow, would rather go to the store for food. Water got poured into Mr Coffee and I started breakfast. Home fries, eggs, sausage, toast.
    I made more tea and had a cigg. Clint and Lucy woke up first. They ran the general store in Minersville. Yeah, the general store, not uni-mart or 7-11. Clint called her the Juice for reasons unknown. I just played along with it, didn’t much care about their pet names or the reasons. Last night was a little fucked up though. Eddie had been over. Eddie was the Juice’s kid brother. Yeah, Eddie the fuck. Me and Mel called him that. Every other word out of his mouth was fuck. You get the idea.
    Eddie had gone a bit crazy last night.


Eddie was born under a bad sign. There was nothing he could do about it. His parent’s knew, everyone knew. Take in mind that this was Schuylkill co where they still had the leach woman who was held in higher esteem that the local doctor. Please take in mind that the Molly Maguire’s still had some pull in the area. That when Eddie came of age and went to a-courtin he fell in love with a catholic girl. And being brought up protestant, that was no good.
    There were places in these hills they called the breaches. Mostly old, open pit mines that were barely covered in vegetation. The Mollie’s made clear to Eddie that people who mess with catholic girls disappear into the breaches. Eddie got the picture but never got over it. She went on to marry a good, catholic boy but he still couldn’t let go.
    Eddie was the guy that sat in a bar minding his own business while two guys argued on either side of him. He’s the guy that caught a beer mug in his teeth when he looked up. He’s the guy that joined the navy and got caught smoking weed, spent a year swabbing the deck in the Indian Ocean and in the Atlantic and got a dishonorable discharge. Eddie was all the hard-luck cases you ever met cooked down into one being.
    Last night he pulled a gun on me, saying I had everything. The Juice screamed. We were all drunk. And I broke his nose.

The Juice came into the kitchen. “Coffee,” she said.
    “Hey Lucy.”
    “Don’t call me Lucy, you bastard.”
    I gave her a cup and she filled it.
    “It’s not my fault, Luce.”
    “Juice,” she insisted.
    “Right.”
    I had a best-seller novel out in the stores that started as a sleeper. When the first checks came in I couldn’t believe it, it was ridiculous. I just wrote because I hated watching TV; it was just something to do. Then I had this house built with the profits thinking it would all end soon. It didn’t. It took off further. I had imagined myself scrounging for food, killing it in the woods, planting a garden, working whatever shit job I could find. I imagined me and Mel shooting each other in some mutual mercy killing. Counting to 3. It didn’t come to that.
    Clint came into the room and let out a yawn.
    “Your woman was hitting on me Clint,” I told him.
    That was our little joke. I waited.
    “My woman wouldn’t hit on you if you were the last man left alive.”
    “She’s the Juice. She don’t care. Just wants manmeat.”
    “I’d crush your skull but need coffee,” he said.
    The Juice was delighted and wrapped her arms around him. I slipped upstairs and woke Mel.
    “This is fantastic,” I told her, “I broke the Fuck’s nose last night and the others are downstairs.”
    She looked up at me.
    “Do I know you?”
    “Get up,” I told her, “There’s something playing out.”
    “You and your things playing out, you and your end games.”
    “There’s breakfast anyways. I made a fine breakfast. Get the fuck up.”
    I went downstairs and she followed soon after.

    She was still a little drunk at the table while we ate breakfast.
    “Jack thinks you all are losers,” she said between bites.
    “What?” Clint asked.
    “Ahaha! Jack thinks he’s running us into some novel because he doesn’t have the balls to imagine something for himself.”
    The Juice shoveled some of the home fries I had made into her mouth after dipping them in ketchup. Clint had his mouth full.
    “Mmmkk?” she asked.
    “Yeah,” Mel said.

    I was hungry and just ate. They would all sober up and get over it. Or they wouldn’t. I didn’t much care and went back outside after eating and hearing some more crap.
    Clint followed me out. “You really think we’re losers, Jack?”
    “Naw man. She just gets like that. Likes starting fights. Drinks too much whiskey. You know me man, I just stick with beer.”
    “But is it true, what she said, that you put us in your stories?”
    I looked at him. “Clint? What do you do?”
    We walked out into my back yard. The birds were awake and flying around. The city was 40 miles away, downhill. Jack Palance still lived a few miles away. He had done one handed push-ups at the academy awards in Hollywood. John O’Hara grew up in Pottsville, where my grandfather was hanged.
    “I run the store in town, Jack. You know that.”
    “Well, I write stories, Clint. I use things I know. Myself, people, places. It’s the only honest way to do it.”
    We walked out further to the tree line, where the mountains spilled off into the breaches. Clint lit a smoke and offered me one. I took it and lit it.
    “You’re gonna put me in a book?” he asked.
    “I might,” I told him.
    He looked off over the hills. Took a drag off his smoke, nodded.
    “You’re gonna have to do something about your woman, Jack,” he told me as I looked up at the sky.
    “The sky is a ribcage,” I said.
    “What?”
    “I read that somewhere.”
    “What does it mean?”
    “Dunno.”
   
    We both looked up.

30 pages / available at Rank Stranger Press

MMike Boyle is from Harrisburg, PA. His latest chapbook, "Laundromat Suite" is available at Rank Stranger Press. Not only is Mike an outstanding poet, he has also penned some well-crafted prose for us here.