Indie Trigger: Short Stories

By Simone Press

Twelve writers with an impressive list of writing credits from the American Independent Press scene. Tom Pitts and Joe Clifford, two writers who once lived on the streets, focus on drug addiction. Dan Nielsen writes about a drifter in need of more beer. Adam Moorad and Jim Meirose transport us to surreal worlds where everything is unexpected. Mental health and therapy, in all its complexity, is explored by Bobbi Lurie and Stephanie Becerra. The vulnerability of old age is laid bare by Allen Kopp and Phyllis Humby. There is dark humor from James Valvis plus dysfunctional relationships from Michael C. Keith and Jerry Levy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simone Press
• Release date: Nov 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310477706

Simone Press

Simone Press is a small indie ebook publisher. We have three anthologies currently in circulation, Indie - Trigger, Offbeat Summer Poems and a Paranormal Horror anthology. Our talented authors come from all around the world and they have won numerous awards and been published many times.

Book preview

Indie Trigger

Short Stories

An anthology

from

Simone Press

Indie Trigger

By

Simone Press

Copyright © 2012 by Simone Press

www.simonepress.com

All stories contained in this volume have been published with permission from the authors.

First published in 2012.

This 2nd Edition Published in 2014.

All Rights Reserved

Smashwords Edition

All stories contained in this volume have been published with permission from the authors.

All Rights Reserved

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. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

All of these stories have also appeared in The Sim Review

Contents

Introduction

QUID PRO QUO by Joe Clifford

The Queen Bee by Stephanie Becerra

Mechanicals by Jim Meirose

Paris Here We Come by James Valvis

At the River by Allen Kopp

Little Conversations by Michael C. Keith

Beneath The White Frosting Of His Donut by Bobbi Lurie

The Castro Ghouls by Tom Pitts

The Culling of a Nation by Phyllis Humby

Madame by Adam Moorad

Echoes by Jerry Levy

A Lunar Eclipse by Dan Nielsen

Information about the Authors

Other Books by Simone Press

Introduction

This anthology features twelve writers with an impressive list of writing credits from the American independent press scene. Tom Pitts and Joe Clifford, two writers who once lived on the streets, focus on drug addiction. Dan Nielsen writes about a drifter in need of more beer. Adam Moorad and Jim Meirose transport us to surreal worlds where everything is unexpected. Mental health and therapy, in all its complexity, is explored by Bobbi Lurie and Stephanie Becerra. The vulnerability of old age is laid bare by Allen Kopp and Phyllis Humby. There is dark humor from James Valvis plus dysfunctional relationships from Michael C. Keith and Jerry Levy.

QUID PRO QUO by Joe Clifford

I was living at the 16th St. Hotel, a lingering lowlife anomaly among the increasing hipster gentrification of the Mission. The only people who rented rooms at the 16th St. Hotel were junkies like me and ex-convicts, illegal immigrants, whores, maybe some ex-skaters, who were usually junkies anyway. I’d spent my welfare check on the room for a week and as much dope as I could stash, meaning it lasted less than a day, and a burrito and some peanut butter cups. At week’s end, I’d have to spend the rest of the month sleeping at shelters and in parks until the next check. But a week in an addict’s life is a long way off. I was indoors. I’d eaten. This was as good as it got. Still, I was out of money. And, worse, I was out of drugs.

After midnight, I hadn’t had shit all day and I was starting to get sick. I knew I wouldn’t make it through the night without a hit, and more importantly, come morning, I’d be feeling too goddamn lousy to make any hustle happen.

So I hit the street as the first waves of nausea began to strike.

I didn’t have any money—no real money, at least. I did have two counterfeit $20 bills I’d pocketed at a speed dealer’s place, where he’d been printing them on his computer. They didn’t look anything close to real, about as convincing as Monopoly money with the feel of cardboard, which is why I’d been holding onto them without trying to pass them off. I guess I was waiting for that time when times got truly desperate. Which for a guy like me was only a matter of time.

Trying to cop late at night on the street was asking to be ripped off, and 16th Street was particularly sketchy, squirming with crackheads and other assorted rip-offs, gangbangers, a real shitburg.

There are rules to scoring dope on the street, not the least important of which is this: buy from a Mexican. Racial profiling is a bad thing, I know, but when you are a junkie, you don’t have time for political correctness, and black guys and white guys rip you off every time.

16th Street never really closes, and though it was closing in on two in the morning, there were still plenty of people out, college kids mostly, trendy mutherfuckers walking out of hipster bars with names like Albion and Elixir and Delirium, the same kinds of places I used to hang out at with friends back when I hung out with friends.

The dealers all congregated around the 16th Street BART Station entrance, among the homeless urchins and winos. I took my time.

I got a lot brothers asking if I was looking, but they were twitching too much, lips cracked, burned, blistered, a surefire crackhead giveaway.

I was about to give up when I spotted a cool and collected Mexican kid leaning against the bricks in the shadows.

"What choo want, meng?’ he asked softly.

I said, Four, meaning 4 one-in-ones, coke and heroin, $10 a pop. The serving size down here was shitty, not a lot of bang for your buck. But, hell, I wasn’t paying with real money. What did I care?

Of course, first I needed this Mexican kid to be dumb enough to take my phony cash.

Which he did.

Didn’t even flinch, just pocketed the phony bills,