Tag: fiction

Between the Lines: ‘Karma Police’

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The announcement came over the crackling precinct speaker. The double tone. The emotionless voice: “Karma police. Battalion L to quadrant 3. Arrest this man.”

“Ah hell,” you said from the cot beside me. “Again?”

I sat up. Started strapping up my boots, groping for my club.

You looked over with hollow eyes, asked me what it all was for.

I ignored you. Holstered my taser.

“Think I can sit this one out?” you asked.

“Keep your voice down. They hear everything.”

The target’s description flashed on the monitors: He talks in maths. He buzzes like a fridge. He's like a detuned radio.

I knew the type. Intellectual. Humanitarian. Not sanctioned by the regime. I put my helmet on. Another double tone.

“Karma police. Battalion L to quadrant 2. Arrest this girl.”

The monitors lit up again. Something about her Hitler hairdo, the way she walks. Probably an artist. I was only half looking. Mostly worried about you. I knew what happened when you started questioning. I’d been there. Years ago.

Finally you got up. Helmet in hand. Hair disheveled. Holster empty. “This is all making me feel ill.”

“Just wait ‘til we have crashed her party,” I said. “You’ll feel better then.”

You absently buttoned your vest. “I’ve given all I can,” you breathed. “It’s never enough. Whose side are we on?”

“You know how many would kill to be on the force?”

You weren’t listening.

“But we’re still on the payroll.”

“Like I give a shit.”

“What about the kids?”

You looked up then. “What kind of role model am I?”

“You know what happens to deserters,” I tried.

So we went out. Fell in line. Locked step. Broke doors. Kept our eyes down. We did this every night. There were no stars above, even if we’d looked up. They’d been gone for years.

We found our target. He lived alone on the 50th floor of a 70-floor cinder block unit.

“This is what you’ll get,” I hollered, busting down the door with my club, “when you mess with us.”

I nodded for you to cuff him. You didn’t move. Just shook your head. You were still in the hall. You removed your helmet. I thought it was over then. I thought I might have to report you.

So I wrenched the target’s arm myself. Pathetic guy didn’t even resist.

I shouted at you.

You worked over your options. Would you run? Was there time? You knew your decision would kick off a lifetime of consequences.

“Don’t do this. Think of your girls.”

A minute passed. I thought you were a goner. But then your jaw loosened. Your shoulders dropped. You put your helmet back on, stepped up and cuffed the target hard, yanked him up, slammed him against the wall.

“Phew, for a minute there I lost myself,” you said and kicked him. I almost told you to cool it, but held my tongue. I was just glad you were back. Glad you’d done the right thing.

Story by David Berkeley based on "Karma Police" by Radiohead. Photo credit: Tony Webster / Foter / CC BY.

Between the Lines: ‘A Horse with No Name’

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On the first part of the journey, the part before my wreck and the horse and getting lost and things, I actually got a lot of work done. I'd been out in the Mojave Desert for three days collecting samples of lizard droppings for my doctoral thesis at the University of Paducah. Late in the late morning of the fourth day, I was looking at all the life there around my camp. There were plants and birds and rocks and things, and things that looked like rocks but turned out to be some really pristine samples of male Sauromalus ater droppings. Feeling like it's best to go out on top, I decided to head back to Paducah that day. I figured I could get to Tucumcari by midnight, and home late the next day.

I collected the last specimen, broke camp, and drove back down the one-lane desert road toward the state road and I-40. I was so excited about finding that Sauromalus scat that I mistakenly took a left at the fork instead of a right. I didn't realize this for a while, when there was sand and hills, and I felt like I'd been driving in rings around the desert. The road had narrowed to a track, with a hillside on my left and a dry riverbed to the right. This is the beginning of the second part of the journey. In attempting to back the truck up the track, I hit a soft spot and went off the road and rolled down the embankment 20 feet into the dry riverbed.

When I came to, the first thing I met was a fly with a buzz, and he was right in my face. The truck was on its side and there was the sky with no clouds through the broken passenger window. The heat was hot and I couldn't see out of my left eye. The ground was dry against my shoulder. The truck wasn't running, but the air was full of sound. The sound of thunder. I unbuckled myself and climbed out of the wrecked truck, and saw my precious lizard dung samples scattered around in the sand. I looked up when I felt the first heavy raindrops, and saw that the sky was dark and moving fast. Lightning flashed, thunder broke, the wind came up, and it began to rain in hard sheets. Water was flowing around my feet. I tried to carry an armful of specimens up the slippery bank to the road, but fell and dropped them all into the muddy torrent. Very soon after, the truck and all my work and belongings was swept away by the flood.

That's when I saw the horse. He was down the road 50 yards or so, standing and looking at me. He was black, with a white blaze on his forehead. I looked around, didn't see anyone else, and when I looked back he was walking toward me. The rain had let up and there was a little blue sky in the west, and a bit of sun coming through. The horse walked up, looked down at the water, looked up at me, and kept walking down the road in the direction I'd been heading.

"Hey Mr. Ed!" I called. He just kept walking. "Trigger! Velvet! Scout!" Still no response. "Hi ho, Silver! Pharaoh! Clover! Festus!" I followed along as he walked up the track, trying every name I knew. "Applejack! Pony! Ulysses! Major! Daisy! Babe! Gypsy! Patches! Dakota…" Eventually, I was running out of names, and I realized that we'd walked quite a distance and I was completely lost. "Virgil! Moonbeam! Bocephus! Feydra! Jake!" He stopped and looked up at "Jake." I'd done it! Then I realized he'd only stopped because a jackrabbit had run by. I started to think he might not have a name.

What would I tell my colleagues? That I've been through the desert on a horse with no name? They would certainly laugh at that. "Every horse has a name," they'd say. Well, regardless, it felt good to be out of the rain and I eventually gave up trying names on him. In the desert, they say because of the dry heat you can remember your name easily, but I think it's 'cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain in the ass about what your name is.

I kept following the horse, figuring he knew the way out of the desert.

We came out of the hills and down onto the plain, where there was a little grove of trees with a spring of cold water. I filled my canteen and the horse had some grass, as horses do. He then continued on across the desert, and I followed. After two days in the desert sun, my skin began to turn red because, of course, I hadn't grabbed my sunscreen from the truck before it washed away. After three days in the desert "fun," 
I was looking at a riverbed that had run dry. We had stopped in the shade of a mesquite tree to rest. I noted how wide the riverbed was, and the story it told of a river that flowed here made me sad to think it was dead, or dry at this time.


After nine days of this, I finally figured out he didn't know where he was going, as well as having no name. So, I let the horse run free, because the desert had turned to sea anyway, and I was sure I was near Encinitas or somewhere. There were plants and birds and rocks and things here, too, but different species and geology, of course. 
There was also sand and hills here, and the surf is so loud it rings in your ears. In a way, the ocean is a desert with it's life underground, or actually, I meant to say, underwater, and with a perfect disguise above. Back in civilization, under the cities lies a heart made of ground and concrete and wires and pipes, But the — we — humans will give no love to this heart/ground continuum.

I eventually made it back to Paducah safely. I sit here in my lab and look out over the leafy campus and wonder about that horse, and if anybody ever figured out what his name is.

Story by Freedy Johnston based on "A Horse with No Name" by America. Photo credit: Neil Kremer / Foter / CC BY-ND.

Between the Lines: ‘Porch Songs’

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This time of year always gets me thinking about my one true love. We were young and wild — untethered to anything but each other. We thought maybe we'd move out to the West Coast. To San Francisco. Or Portland. We didn't have much … just a bunch of dreams and a lot of energy.

We were a couple of folk singers back then. That's how we met. To head west, we booked a bunch of coffeehouse and dive bar gigs, hoping to cover our gas money. Man, every night, we'd be in the corner of some little joint with no one paying us any mind. We sang porch songs like we were rock stars trying to get somebody to listen. We wanted to look cool, but we didn't want to waste our cash, so we drank cheap beer and tried to make it last all night.

Then, next morning, it was back in the car, from the coast to the cornfields. Not sure what we were looking for. Maybe we were just looking for something else to call ourselves.

Every day, it was the same thing — drinking rest stop coffee and sending postcards back home. We took turns driving, and I remember staring out the window watching back seat scenes of strange towns flicker by. I imagined what their lives were like. I thought, “What if we just stayed in one of those towns?” But we'd just keep driving on.

One time, in the middle of the night, we took a wrong turn and ended up on a mountain in the pine trees. So we just pitched our tent and spent the night right there on the moonlit patch of earth. The next morning was just about the most beautiful morning I've ever seen. The scattered light breaking through the trees … that's a photograph in mind. All these years later, that one memory of a summer day, squinting at the sun on top of a mountain next to the girl I loved. I picked up a warm, flat stone to remind me of it all, and that I carry along for luck. Still.

Every night, we closed the bars like we were cowboys and then we wrote our names in the dirt by the side of the road so they knew we'd been there … if only until the next wind blew.

We got where we were going just as October came and the winter drew near with the cold fingers digging in under the ribs. But, even then, we made the most of it. We acted like we were campfire girls, kicking up the leaves, rolling around together like the kids we were. By then, we'd settled a little bit and we returned to our jobs with our clothes smelling of wood-smoke. And we still sang all those old porch songs. Every chance we got.

It's been a long time since our love has been like that. You know? I've been saving quarters for the toll roads. I have a jar full of 'em, just waiting for the chance. I think a change of scenery would do us some good. An adventure. We can pack the car tonight. We can leave town tomorrow and go anywhere we want. Put me on a porch swing out in Portland or put me on an F train and roll me back into Brooklyn. It doesn't matter where we go. As long as it's not here.

Story based on "Porch Songs" by Chris Pureka. Photo credit: / Foter / CC BY-SA.

Between the Lines: ‘On a Plain’

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I’ll start this off without any words. Well, I would. If I could paint, or sing, or run like a deer. I’m pretty clonky. So, words. A few anyway …

Yesterday, after work, I went out back of the old school. I had a tin of chewing tobacco that Uncle Mike left in the front seat of dad’s truck the last time he was here. I packed a little wad of it and put it in my mouth, way over on the side, in a ball, like I seen Uncle Mike do. After a minute, I got so high, I scratched til I bled. Just my arms. Ringold, the janitor, came around and looked at me funny. Then he saw my arms and looked at me funnier.

I started crying. The finest day I ever had was when I learned to cry on command. Remember that? We were both doing it, after awhile. Anyway, I started crying and old Ringold got all nervous and went inside.

I spat the tobacco out and went uptown and got some ice cream at the Pixie. For awhile I was all about the chocolate. Then I was on a strawberry kick. Now I’m on a plain. I can’t complain. Cools your mouth down after the tobacco.

I was gonna send you a birthday card. Oops! The black sheep got blackmailed again — forgot to put on the zip code. Oh well. Next time. Thought that counts and all.

My mother died every night. Remember? Even you heard the screams, next door. You were always like, “Your mom died again last night.” But maybe it was pleasure. At least, I hope it was. It might have been, sometimes. And if not, well, at least she felt something. (Safe to say, don’t quote me on that!)

They have a new fire engine over here. It’s not like the old siren. This one’s like, “ga-goo-ga!” Somewhere, I have heard this before. Los Alamos? In my dreams — that’s where my memories are stored. As a defense, they say your dreams are more vivid if you’re not getting any. Ha! That explains me! Heck, I’m neutered and spayed!

What the hell am I trying to say? Just this: You seem so bothered, so pressured, into spelling everything out for everyone. Not everything has to make sense. Even to you!

How about this: It is time now to make it unclear. To write off lines that don’t make sense.

Let them figure it out! Baudelaire, Rimbaud, those guys … they’d just write whatever came into their heads. You can do that, too. So can I, for that matter.

One more special message to go. Then I’m done and I can go home. Ready?

I love myself better than you.

Whew. There it is. Okay, Okay, I know it’s wrong. But what should I do? Start over? Become a monk? Take a vow of silence? Again, words! I’d give up the words, if I could make furniture, be a lion tamer.

But whatever. I’ve still got my ice cream.

Story by Dan Bern based on "On a Plain" by Nirvana. Photo credit: stevendepolo / Foter / CC BY.

Between the Lines: ‘She’s Already Made Up Her Mind’

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She had these green eyes that looked at me like no one had ever looked at me before. It's intoxicating to be looked at like that. Everything else in the world disappeared when I was with her. I knew I was in trouble right from the start. All my friends told me she was too young. I knew that myself and I tried to run. I did. I ran across seven states. But the faster I ran, the more I fell behind because she was always there with me. Like a memory of what might have been. Like a hope for what used to be. She's the dream I can't wake up from.

Still, I knew better than to fight her on it. That's a lesson I learned the hard way. Because, while there is nothing so deep as the ocean and there is nothing so high as the sky, there is also nothing unwavering as a woman when she's already made up her mind. Once she's dug in … best to just leave her be.

I did that.

Then I didn't.

That was my first mistake. Or, maybe, my third.

So now she's sitting at one end of the kitchen table and she is staring without an expression. Those green eyes of hers … absolutely blank. Like I could reach right through her and not touch a thing. I can hear the TV on in the other room and the dog barking outside as the big yellow school bus bucks and rumbles its way down the road. I can feel everything else in the world except her.

Here, in the kitchen, she's not looking at me. She is looking at the space between us and she is talking to me without moving her eyes. She's just talking. She said something about going home. She said something about needing to spend some time alone. “It's not you, it's me.” “I just need to figure some things out.” Like it was only a temporary break we were taking. And she wondered out loud what it was she had to find, but she'd already made up her mind. She'd already left without leaving.

I feel dead inside. In my heart and soul. But my body still has some life left in it. When that finally goes, my friend, carry me down to the water's edge and then sail with me out to that ocean deep. Let me go easy down over the side and let the water wash me clean, wash me away.

And remember me to her.

Story based on “She's Already Made Up Her Mind” by Lyle Lovett. Photo credit: squilla.dave / Foter / CC BY-SA.

Between the Lines: ‘In the Hearts of Men’

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As a kid, Bob worked with horses. He was convinced this would always be his trade. It wasn’t just a part he played, but gave him a sense of himself. Bob knew what he was doing, so he thought. There had been the family farm outside of a small town, but that was decades ago. It’s a regret of his that they — his siblings — lost the plot. Poverty and eminent domain. Now there are meth labs everywhere, and when he drives by the old land, there is no use. Past closing time at the sole bar, toothless men cough and scream. Bob doesn’t go back often. It’s as if he simply no longer agrees with the fields, the skies, the blurred moon’s half-hearted smile.

He remembers one night in particular. A spooked black stallion ran off and went off into the fields. Someone had left the gate wide open. He tells himself it wasn’t his fault. He thought he knew what he was doing. He thought he was doing things right. Bob spent weeks and months asking and looking around for the dear creature. It died of heartache near a pond, high up in the hills during a vicious winter. If a horse can expire from loneliness, what then, lies in the hearts of men?

He spoke of this one night to his lover. Muriel yawned as Bob looked up at the fan. She was not surprised. Another story of incompetence and mistakes from her fuck-by-propinquity. Muriel lived in the building. Bob often had whiskey. Finally, she found herself there most nights. She was playing a part. She couldn’t convince herself of it, though. There were numerous books she’d read next to the bed. She thought it over. The lights were nearly out, save the one lamp that bloomed yellow on the nightstand. She nearly picked up a novel while he spoke. Finally, Bob’s reminiscences were at an end. His voice no longer made a sound. A sudden, goddamned smile crept onto her lurid face.

“That’s nice, Bob. I’m sure the creature is better off than we are.”

The fan whined. In the interstices between waking and sleep, between reason and madness, dream and nightmare, Bob was certain he was going to kill Muriel that night. He did not figure the word kill as a euphemism or matter of speaking. His revolver was in the car, tucked in the glove box. He would retrieve the gun and then finish off the bookworm who never listened, who could crush him with her harangues and exaggerated rolling of eyes.

Bob missed the arms of his mother. She’d passed just after the incident with the horse. Cancer. Her fierce cough as he stared out at water that dreamed of sky. Memories of the skeletonized horse, miasmas rising like banshees off the scummy pond.

He was not there the night his mother died. He tried to speak up over the phone. He thinks of this too often. He gives it up now. He walks with a limp. Bob’s thoughtless, drunken friends laughing in the background. Time claimed her. It had its way, a new and malignant life being born inside her. His sister gave the eulogy inside the white church. When they buried her, Bob wailed out and no longer knew what he was doing. There were no manuals or books to figure this sort of grief. He had rented his suit at a shopping mall far away in the big city. He never returned it. His hands shook like leaves in neurotic gusts. Too many times. Death came, as it always would, as a surprise.

As Muriel drifted off to sleep, Bob rose and lit a cigarette. He thought of all the wasted time. He smiled, blowing smoke near her vacant face. Outside, the night had settled down and he got the Glock from the glove box. Stars shaken out from an infinite, black sheet, eleven o’clock. Wrapped in an oil cloth, it was sure to never misfire or jam. He went back into his apartment. He pointed it at Muriel’s face and waited. There was a sound and as he suddenly thought of the dead stallion, Bob’s life began again. Muriel was too pathetic to murder. She was dead to him already. You can’t kill death itself. You just can’t. Bob sat on the couch and, come morning, Muriel found him sleeping, the pistol on the coffee table. She picked up the phone and dialed 911. Her tone was bored and stiff as a corpse.

“He’s at it again. Yeah. Come and get him.”

Story based on the song "In the Hearts of Men" by First Aid Kit. Photo credit: Alyssa L. Miller / Foter / CC BY.

LISTEN: David Berkeley, ‘Last Round’

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For his new album, Cardboard Boat, singer/songwriter David Berkeley aimed to do something a little bit different, so he put his degree in literature from Harvard to work and added “author” to his job title by writing 10 short stories to accompany the tracks. Collected as The Free Brontosaurus, Berkeley's novella will be released on the same day as his album.

Through both collections, each piece has a main character, and that's the perspective from which the songs are sung. Berkeley first tested the combo album/book concept in 2010 with Some Kind of Cure and 140 Goats and a Guitar. But the new project fine tunes the idea, weaving them together in a more proper way.

“'Last Round' is the fourth song on my new album, Cardboard Boat," Berkeley says. "Like all the songs that pair with female characters on the album, Sara Watkins of Nickel Creek sings back up. The character 'Last Round' is based on is a pacifist-outsider-artist who catches her husband in bed with another lady. She kicks him out and gets a divorce and tries to be very Zen about it all, but never really gets over him. Despite her hippie nature, she finds herself getting angrier and angrier and lashing out at everyone around her. This song is her empowerment song, in a sense. It's a song of rage and revenge and liberation. Fitting, it's in the cleanup spot in the track lineup.”

Cardboard Boat floats on September 25 via Straw Man Records, simultaneously withThe Free Brontosaurus via Rare Bird Books.

Photo by Kerry Sherck