l'amour, part 22

by gabrielle-jeanette perfidy

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

part twenty-two of seventy-eight

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part 23

segment

by nooshin azadi

illustration by rhoda penmarq

. the path to the abode of his clandestine correspondent... the only one who knew about his fears and sorrows... his dreams and wishes... a silent invisible soul residing in a hut hidden in the heart of the dark forest... a bare place void of all living beings...  the only thing in the hut was an ancient notebook seated on the lonely sill of a locked window... perpetually open... craving for words...  all through these years the notebook devoured his agitated words just to return them dressed up in a celestial calm the next time he ventured into the forest... no wonder all his escapes ended up there... no matter how fearful he was each time he wanted to enter the dark... . november 19, 2011

alice atkins

by adele adams

illustrated by roy dismas

alice atkins was born in m-------, kentucky on march 29, 1985. her mother worked in a restaurant chain called smokey bob's . it was a local chain that never succeeded in going national and it went bankrupt in 1992. her mother's blue uniform that she wore to work was the first thing that alice remembered. "mister rogers" was alice's first favorite tv show. she would have many more. alice's mother had left her father (?) on january 7, 1988. or maybe he left her. (citation needed) "cops" debuted on march 11 1989. it would always be one of alice's favorite shows. she always felt a pleasurable rush of anticipation when watching the opening credits. until alice was four and a half years old, alice's mother had always managed to have her looked after by her own mother or by a neighbor when she went to work. but when the grandmother died suddenly on august 23, 1989, for the first time she left alice in day care. the expense incurred was a major annoyance to her. alice was a quiet child, content to watch television while she was awake. she did not like other children much when she first encountered them, nor did they take much interest in her. alice was not a big eater as a small child. this would change. there would be periods in her life when she liked food almost as much as she liked television. alice's mother did not like her very much, regretted having had her, and was not averse to stating as much to alice. on september 7, 1990, alice was enrolled in preschool by her mother. the two teachers, maura williams (caucasian, born 9-5-56) and sosha duval-harris (african-american, born 5-2-66) found her a quiet but unresponsive child content to stare into space for long periods or play with a single toy, like a block or ball. (note: maura williams is now serving a 5 to 8 year term in c-------- state penitentiary for second class child endangerment. sosha duval-harris is serving 25 to 40 in s------ federal penitentiary for drug trafficking. both were highly cooperative with interviewers in the preparation of this report.) on july 8, 1992, "melrose place" debuted. alice quickly adopted it as her favorite show. on august 10, 1992, alice's mother met joe miller. her involvement with joe miller led to a new determination to free herself of alice. with the bankruptcy of smokey joe's in october 1992, jodi atkins lost her job. both joe miller and jodi atkins, before her decease, agree that it was about this time that miller suggested that she take to the streets to augment their funds. their accounts differ as to the alacrity and enthusiasm with which she accepted his suggestion. jodi atkins stated in an interview in d---------- penitentiary in 2007 that she sought work as a dancer in strip clubs, but "they just laughed at me" as her body type was not considered suitable by any of the establishments she applied to. she also stated that she waited until her unemployment payments ran out before commencing her career as a sex worker. joe miller disputes this. he also disputes the extent to which jodi atkins contributed to his upkeep at this time. he states he did work "here and there" and received payments "under the table", but has not cooperated with law enforcement in identifying his alleged employers. what is not disputed by either party is that alice atkins and joe miller watched a lot of television together in 1993 and 1994. two shows they both recall enjoying at this time were "the adventures of brisco county junior" and "homicide: life on the street". despite intense questioning by local, state and federal investigators, alice has declined to implicate joe miller in charges involving child pornography, child prostitution or improper touching. it was at about this time that alice developed a large appetite, though not for healthy foods. joe miller neither confirms nor denies any responsibility for this development. "sure, i ate a lot of pizza. it's what you do when you watch television. i suppose the kid was eating pizza too. maybe even some fries. what else would she be doing?" joe miller is currently on death row in i---------- state prison, with appeals pending and no set execution date. jodi atkins in 2007 stated that she "tried like hell" to make sure alice attended school in the period from 1992 to 1997, when her legal residence was 34 6th street . she expressed particular vehemence about the truancy authorities, stating "i have been dealing with m------------ bureaucrats all my life but those c------------s were the worst", and added "i just wanted to get them out from up from my ass". the school board in the area has often been cited for superior effort in enforcing truancy regulations. in september 1997, now aged 12, alice was enrolled in p s 33 in the fifth grade. she had been several times recommended by teachers for special education but had been passed over for candidates deemed more needful. there is no record of jodi atkins making any application to the school in this connection. joe miller, when asked about it, professed ignorance. "i don't know nothing about it." in 1997, "ally mcbeal" debuted on television, followed by "south park" and "buffy the vampire slayer". all three became favorites of alice and joe miller , although alice had some reservations about the second, and joe miller about the third. both express unreserved enthusiasm, to this day, about "ally mcbeal". joe miller at this time was spending less time at the atkins apartment. alice, joe miller, and jodi atkins all agree on this but differ on details. note: television shows have always been the only subject on which alice has been at all forthcoming to interviewers - and she is now a veteran of interviews, considered a "hardened evader" but unskillful at manipulation. moving right along. on march 18, 1998 the incident in the boys bathroom in p s 33 occurred which first brought alice to the serious attention of the police. (hereafter referred to as incident a - "i-a" for short.) ******** "i need a drink," thought pete jones (name changed). "desperately". he scanned what he had typed. i better delete "moving right along", he thought. he tried to concentrate, but gave up and looked out the window. it was 2:43 in the morning. the copies of interviews with alice, jodi, joe miller and others were stacked on his desk. he reached for the latest one with alice, and knocked it on the floor. when he bent down to pick up the scattered pages he felt a sharp pain in his knee. "i will finish this in the morning. i have plenty of time." to be continued

tales of the hotel st crispian, chapter 59: "the stairwell"

by Horace P. Sternwall

edited by Dan Leo*

illustrated by roy dismas and konrad kraus

artistic supervisor: rhoda penmarq

*Associate Professor of Classical Literature, Assistant Bowling Coach, Olney Community College; editor of Shiftless in Rangoon: 43 Tales of the Far East by Horace P. Sternwall; Olney Community College Press, “The Sternwall Archive”



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“A Town Called Disdain”, Episode 130: cocktails

Our heroes, and our anti-heroes, those who have survived, have finally made it back to the Johnstone ranch, very late on this September night in 1969, just a short ride by Cadillac car from a town called Disdain...

(Go here to read our previous chapter, or here for the very first chapter of this Horace P. Sternwall Prize-winning epic from Larry Wincester, the man Harold Bloom has called “perhaps the only living American writer who could give Arnold Schnabel a run for his money”.)

Jake insisted that everyone stay over, even Paco, but before they turned in he wanted to give them all a nice big Western-style breakfast. So, after telephoning Mr. Parsons and making sure it was okay for Cleb and Attie to stay, he woke up Chang and Esmeralda and put them to work while everybody sat in the parlor and had some liquid refreshment.

No one had yet spoken of the amazing things that had happened that night. Finally, though, after Enid had finished her first Manhattan and while Jake was mixing a new shakerful, she couldn’t take it any more.

“All right,” she said, “I give up. I’ll come out and say it since no one else seems to want to. What the hell happened tonight?”

Big Jake stopped stirring the cocktails.

“Now, Miz Enid, I don’t know as we have to talk about all that. Ain’t that right, Major?”

Mr. MacNamara remained suavely impassive.

“So you’re a major?” asked Enid.

“Used to be,” said Mac, sitting in his blood-stained suit in a comfortable stuffed leather chair. “Jake and I knew each other back in the war.”

“What --” Enid didn’t quite know what she wanted to ask next. She turned to Daphne, who was sitting next to her on the sofa. “Daphne, speak to me. What happened with that little sailor guy?”

Sailor, thought Jake. So the navy was involved too.

“Oh. The Sailor,” said Daphne. “He was killed, sad to say. Shot.”

“Killed? By whom?”

“Well, by that German person who was staying here, him and his trollop girlfriend or wife or whore. You remember, from the barbecue? Mein Herr and Frau Von Hideous?”

Hmmm, thought Jake. He hadn’t trusted them Germans one bit, no sir, even if they were nice and polite. Not one bit.

“Wh--, what --”

Again Enid didn’t know quite what she wanted to ask. Had it all been a peyote dream? But no, it wasn’t a dream that these people were splattered with blood, and that this Major and this Buddy person seemed to have bullet holes in their clothing.

“You see,” said Daphne, “they were in the spaceship.”

“Who? The Germans?”

“Yes.”

“How did the Germans get in the spaceship?”

“The Sailor left the ramp down. He shouldn’t have done that.”

Leave it to the navy to fuck things up, thought Jake.

“Okay,” said Enid; “and what happened to the German people?”

“Well -- can I say this, Papa?”

Mac shrugged, and lit a cigarette. He looked as if he were quite enjoying Daphne’s summation of the evening’s events.

“Well,” she went on, after taking a sip of her Manhattan, “we went into the spaceship, Dick and the Sailor and I, and the Sailor closed the doors behind us by pressing some buttons on a panel on the wall, but then we found the Sailor’s friends shot by Adolph and Eva, and the Sailor went ape so they shot him, and Harvey I think shot the trollop, and they both shot Dick and Harvey, and the guy was going to shoot Dick again, and so I shot the guy. I don’t regret it either. Right through the head.”

“Dick and Harvey were shot,” said Enid.

“Yes. But the Sailor managed to heal them with this mystical life force thing with his fingers, before he died.”

“Oh, come on.”

“No, I’m quite serious, Enid. Then, while Dick and Harvey were recovering, I went to look for a ladies’ room and I found this sort of control room with a lot of TV screens in it, and one of them had a spaceman on it, and I told him what had happened and he said, okay, well, press such and such buttons and this will open the doors to the spaceship so we can leave, but I pressed the wrong buttons because I had to pee so badly and I couldn’t concentrate and I accidentally made the thing take off into outer space, and then into quite another dimension in fact.”

“Oh, please, Daphne.”

“Well, Enid, you asked, and that’s exactly what happened. And then, well, I really did have to pee and I never did find the ladies’ room, so I went in this grate and all sorts of smoke came out and I was absolutely terrified that we would all suffocate, but then we landed in this sort of casino in outer space.”

Big Jake realized she was fooling now. She obviously couldn’t give away all the top secret info about what really went on in that flying saucer, so she was just having fun, God bless her.

He gave the Manhattans another stir.

“And that’s where we met the whole Rat Pack,” said Daphne, “including Brad over there.”

“Hey, look,” said Brad, “I am only a hired hand.” Brad was standing with his drink. He was one of those guys who preferred to do his drinking standing up. “In fact,” he said, “come to think of it, I guess I’m not even a hired hand now. I seem to be out of a job.”

“Not necessarily,” said Mac. “I can always use a good man.”

“Hoo boy,” said Brad. “Somethin’ tells me I might be goin’ from the frying pan into the fire, but what the hell, I doubt they’ll take me back at the casino after all the shit that went down tonight, and since I ain’t eligible for unemployment comp, what the hell, you’re on, Major.”

“Call me Mac.”

Jake figured “the casino” must be code for the air force base they flew out of, maybe the local one, maybe not, maybe it was that Area 51 place he’d heard about. Anyways, he figured that Brad had probably been at least partially responsible for the saucer’s crash landing, maybe he was the pilot, and his ass was in a sling by consequence; but the Major was telling him don’t worry about it, Brad had a job with him if he wanted it. There were probably all sorts of different government and military factions involved, everybody trying to cover their own ass just like everywhere else.

Then Esmeralda came in and said breakfast was ready.

(Continued here, absolutely free, gratis, and for nothing, for a limited time only.)

l'amour, part 21

by gabrielle-jeanette perfidy

illustrated by rhoda penmarq

part twenty-one of seventy-eight

for previous chapter, click here

to begin at the beginning, click here



part 22

the awakening of a silly girl - 1. the marriage license

by victorine de valois

illustrated by rhoda penmarq and roy dismas

dora d----- was a young woman of a very compliant and easy-going nature, and when her aunt grunhilde informed her that she, dora, had been betrothed to a lieutenant h-----, from the province of m-------, a gentleman whose existence she had hitherto been unaware of, she not only assented without a murmur but was not so ill-bred as to inquire as to any qualities he might possess. she went on sewing a motto into a handkerchief without missing a stitch. the handkerchief was very white, and she was inscribing in bright blue thread the motto "the brave rush to meet the future". this and the other handkerchiefs she was inscribing would be distributed to the officers and men of the ------th hussars, which her uncle gustaf was commanding officer of. dora had become quite adept at sewing such mottoes into handkerchiefs, spent part of every day except sunday doing it, and enjoyed it as much as she could be said to enjoy anything. "i wonder," dora said aloud after a while, "if my life will be any different when i am married." "i am sure it will be," answered aunt grunhilde evenly. "in some small ways. you will have to take a larger share in directing the servants, for one thing. and you will have to learn to take a more decisive tone with them. " "of course," dora replied absently. "was there something else you had in mind?"

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