South Fork & Other Stories

By Paul Piper

Set in Montana and the Pacific Northwest, this collection these stories are rooted in landscape, natural and emotional. They vary in tone from humorous to tragic, gentle to erotic. They investigate the role of fate, free will and accident in our lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Piper
• Release date: Aug 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476198798

Paul Piper

I was born in Chicago, lived for extensive periods in Montana, where I received my MFA in Creative Writing, and Hawaii. I am currently a librarian at Western Washington University in Bellingham who spends more time writing than I should. I take my lead from Luis Borges. My work has appeared in various literary journals. I have four published books of poetry, the most recent being Dogs and Other Poems, published by Bird Dog Press. I have also had the privilege of being included in the books The New Montana Story, Tribute to Orpheus, America Zen, and Seattle Noir. I have also co-edited the books Father Nature and X-Stories: The Personal Side of Fragile X Syndrome. I await the world’s next move.

Book preview

South Fork and Other Stories

Paul S. Piper

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012, Paul S. Piper

Some of these stories have appeared in literary journals and anthologies, and for that I thank the editors.

Cover photograph, Paul S. Piper; artistic enhancements, Maggie Wettergreen

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Losers

Gifts

The Gun

The Dolly Varden

South Fork

Boats and Wagons

Wings

Sky

Luudaa

Slippers

Monarchs

Losers

Tal Stevens was thinking about losers as he pulled his 1999 cobalt-blue Mustang off Interstate 5, down the ramp and into the parking lot of the A-1 Convenience Store. Convenience store clerks in particular what were on Tal’s mind. Pimply-faced kids, ragged divorcees, ex-cons. Losers. A class of their own. The 1 in A-1 was burned out so the sign simply read A Convenience Store. How perfectly perfect thought Tal, because that’s what it was – a store, a convenience, both of them wrapped into one. He’d just crushed out a joint of some righteous BC bud into his rather crowded ashtray and was feeling philosophical.

Tal was working his way down the I-5 corridor robbing convenience stores. He had over eleven thousand dollars in a blue backpack on the floor of the Mustang, a nine millimeter pistol he’d bought in Seattle, and the looks of a young Warren Beatty, whose Clyde Barrow portrayal was never far from his mind. He had it down.

Tal was heading down to the Bay area to get an apartment, some furniture, CDs, and set up shop. Whatever he fell into. Maybe go to school and learn to be a lawyer. There had to be legal ways to rob people.

The mercury vapor lamps gave the asphalt of the parking lot an icy look, and the lone beater Toyota in the corner had a desperate air to it. Tal studied the store, but saw only a single white female behind the counter bent to her mundane tasks. Counting gum cartons or something, thought Tal. Absolute fucking losers. He gave the engine a rev and snapped off the ignition, leaving the keys dangling for a quick departure.

Tal walked through the door setting off the buzzer. If there was one thing he hated about convenience stores more than anything else, it was the door buzzers. Maybe that’s why he robbed them. It was like the CIA in cahoots with psychologists had discovered the most obnoxious sound imaginable and sold it to convenience store owners. Once inside, people spent more time than they had to just to avoid setting off the buzzer again.

Tal had the nine millimeter out and walked deliberately toward the counter. He coughed to get the woman’s attention. She straightened up and turned around. Tal stopped dead in his tracks. She was the single most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, bar none. He couldn’t even begin to describe the way the angles of her face intersected, the way her eyes stared into his soul, the way she stood loosely with poise, grace and sexuality, and what it all did to him whirling around in an internal crazy chemistry.

Am I under arrest? she asked, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

Good joke, Tal said recovering his voice. I’ll take all the cash in a plastic bag. And open the safe. I know that sign on the window about you not having the key is BS.

You’ve done this before. It wasn’t a question.

Lady, you don’t know the half of it. Now move. He couldn’t help admiring the way she scooped the cash out of the till and dumped it in the bag. Her hands were like birds. And when she bent to open the floor safe Tal thought he was going to faint, with her tight ass staring up at him like that. Maybe he should invite her along. Sometimes he got lonely.

She stood up and handed him the bag of money. He took it and hefted it. It felt solid. A good haul.

Now move. To the walk-in cooler. Tal dropped the bag on the floor behind the counter and pushed the gun into her back.

You’re not going to hurt me are you? There was a play of fear and mockery in her voice that turned him on.

Not my style, Tal said. I’m only into the money. He pulled a roll of duct tape out of his coat pocket and marched her toward the cooler.

You’re not putting me in there are you? she asked.

Yep. It’s my MO.

Can I get a sweater?

Tal almost said yes, feeling sorry for her, then thought hell, someone will be by soon enough. And being locked in the walk-in cooler was good enough for the others. Still, she was gorgeous.

Sorry, but no. You won’t be in there long. He immediately felt bad. He wasn’t used to feeling anything about these people. He figured they’d be back on their feet doing the same lame thing tomorrow, and he’d be hundreds of miles away.

He pushed her with the gun down an aisle of soft drinks and ice tea, then made her stand with her arms up over her head. He looped the tape around her wrists and around the end of the metal rack. It was cold in here.

I won’t tie you tight, he said.

She said nothing. She was being remarkably compliant.

He tore a piece of tape about five inches long to cover her mouth.

Before I tape your mouth there’s one thing I’ve got to ask you, he said.

What? The fear and mockery was gone. Now she sounded pissed.

How shall I put this? I mean you are absolutely beautiful. Absolutely. Truly. I mean, what are you doing in a place like this? Most of the people who work at places like this are such losers.

She began to laugh.

What’s the matter? he asked.

Do you know what you just said? You just said ‘What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this’ which has to be the lamest pick-up line in the world. You’re such a moron.

Now he was glad he wasn’t taking her to California with him. He was even glad he’d put her in the cooler and was going to tape her mouth shut.

Well what are you doing here?

Well I don’t work here if that’s what you mean.

What do you mean you don’t work here?

I was just about to rob the place when you came in and screwed it up.

You were just about to rob the place? Now it was his turn to laugh. Looks like I beat you to it. Or beat you after it. Or something. Tal held the tape, not wanting to put a stop to this quite yet. So what’s your story?

It’s an old story.

Well make it a short one. I’ve got to get out of here.

I grew up here in Klamath, graduated from high school, went to work for a dentist and one day, that was yesterday, I thought to hell with this. I’m going to rob that little convenience store out by the freeway and head south. Maybe shake out around San Francisco and start over. I figured the money from here would give me a boost.

The story was Tal’s, except he’d worked in a warehouse in a town farther north.

You don’t look like a convenience clerk but you don’t look like a crook either.

Well neither do you. You’re kind of cute.

Tal smiled. Where is the clerk by the way?

Tied up in the janitor’s closet. I’m not as mean as you. I wouldn’t put him in a freezer.

It’s a cooler, Tal said. He taped her mouth and left her, letting the cooler door slam shut.

He came out just in time to see his 1999 cobalt Mustang head out of the parking lot at about a hundred miles an hour.

Hey! he shouted. Hey! That’s my car! He ran out the door and futilely chased the car as far as the freeway ramp. It was a dot heading south and then it was gone. So much for the clerk in the broom closet and her knots.

Tal used every oath he knew walking back to the store, some several times. He was kicking the ground hard when another car flew by him. The beater Toyota. Tal saw the goddess at the wheel. She blew him a kiss, and turned south on I-5. He remembered saying I’ll leave the tape loose so it doesn’t hurt.

The pimply-faced clerk, now ex-clerk at the wheel of the Mustang was cruising at one hundred and three miles per hour thinking about how luck had just hit him smack in the face. He was thinking he’d head down to San Francisco, get himself a place and start over. He’d worked the blue pack open far enough to see a wad of money. Maybe he’d get his acne taken care of. He knew one thing for sure. He wasn’t walking two-and-a-half miles to work at a convenience store again.

Tal walked back to the store, across the empty parking lot. The money the woman had dumped into the plastic bag with her bird-like hands was gone. Tal heard sirens. He picked up a pack of gum off the rack, peeled one, popped it in his mouth and sat on the counter. He was already thinking of his story. I was robbed by this pimply-faced kid in a blue Mustang, he’d tell them. Or maybe it was a blond in a Toyota.

He looked around. Hell, maybe he could get a job as a clerk here until something better came along. It looked like they had an opening.

Gifts

Did you ever think that stars are like zits on the face of the sky? Big shiny zits? Pimples was talking through a salami sandwich. Joe sat next to him, feet kicking back against the loading dock, staring past the elm trees into the inky bowl of sky.

You’re fucked up Pimp. That’s a gross distortion of metaphor. Stars are light, infinity, possibility.

So are zits, Joecock. They are infinite. Ask any teenager. They represent the possibility of abandoning social bullshit early in life and dedicating oneself tirelessly to things that really matter. i.e. mathematics. And they definitely light up, especially in those white fluorescent bathrooms. Besides metaphor is for pussies. Stars are burning rock, man. How fun is that?

Joe sucked the joint back to life and handed it to Pimples. Behind Pimples loomed the shells of seven container trucks.

Don’t get mayonnaise on it, man. I fucking hate mayonnaise.

This particular night Joe felt bad for no apparent reason -- nothing physical, but a general ennui, a vague malaise, angst lite. A purposelessness in the overall scheme of things. Not that he’d figured out what that was – the overall scheme.

He ate his peanut and apple jelly sandwich placidly while Pimples passed back the joint and switched to his obsession with statistics. Getting loaded on the loading dock, a nightly ritual.

Do people really believe that there are exactly 67,000 people in Grand Rapids like the sign says?

Joe exhaled and took a swig of bottled water. His throat felt raw. Maybe he was coming down with something.

Who gives a shit?

I mean people come, they go, they’re born, they die. Where do they come up with these numbers? They’re just some bogus averages. People need containers to harbor their meager little lives. They want to be averages.

Hey, said Joe, "not to interrupt your highly poignant and fascinating string of logic, but speaking of meager little lives, when was the last time you ever did