Snap

By Paul Ceretto

Snap is a powerful collection of both short stories and flash fiction pieces. If you have little time but crave powerful writing, then look no further. Ceretto covers a host of subjects across many genres with his powerful voice. With literary style that is both fresh and unique, Ceretto hammers this small collection that will Snap you into attention.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Ceretto
• Release date: Jun 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310856037

Paul Ceretto

On September 8th of 2008, after a lifetime of drug and alcohol abuse, Paul fell from a building to the concrete below. He laid dying for over eight hours. After he was resuscitated, he spent over a week in a coma. He resurfaced from unconsciousness with a traumatic brain injury. “I have had two lifetimes in one over all existence,” Paul says. For the next six months, Paul would spend time in 3 different hospitals gaining back the basic functions of life. It was at this time Paul made a conscious decision to change his life. “When this kind of tragedy happens to most people, they fight to get back the life they had. I had no life to get back too. So I created one,” Paul says. Paul found that writing was his way of coping with what happened to him. He took a year after he left the hospital to write his story. It was at this time he discovered his destiny. “My goal is to sculpt well written entertaining stories. I strive to build bridges of emotion from writer to reader. I work for the reader so they can gain as much happiness reading them as I have writing them.”

Book preview

Snap

Paul Robert Ceretto

Copyright 2014 by Paul Robert Ceretto

Smashwords Edition

This is for my editor Beth Hoffmann. The first pieces that Beth and I worked on together make up most of this collection. After Beth had fixed my grammar nightmare, I soon realized that I could not become who I wanted to be without her discernment. She has guided my grammar ever since.

These are some of my strongest stories. Thank you so much, Beth, for taking my calls and putting up with my obsessive desire to perfect the integrity of the written word.

Kid

Tom Cooper had never saw anything like him. The kid was a natural. He was already a fighter, a street fighter with scars on his face and knuckles to prove it. He was an Irish kid from the south side of Chicago, Taylor Homes. He grew up there the hard way. The kid was the wrong pigmentation for that side of the city.

Kid Conway was what they called him. Cooper brought him to Milwaukee. After a month in Cooper’s gym, Kid had worn the heavy bag soft in the center. His fists pulverized it, pulverized it with the fury of the gods that created him.

Push yourself, Kid! Cooper yelled. No one gonna give it to ya!

Cooper was holding the heavy bag; his shoulder ached from absorbing the blows from this mythical beast. Jimmy punished the bag with his anger, anger he stored like cargo.

The heavy bag’s chain yanked on the rafter. With each rattle of the links, the beam was being gnawed on. Cooper’s eyes monitored the splinters as they tumbled down.

All right, Jimmy, Cooper said. Get your ass home and a good night’s rest. He let go of the heavy bag. See ya in the morning.

I am almost too tired to sleep, Coop. Jimmy sat down. He was breathing heavy. He loosened his knuckle wraps.

Leave the wraps on the floor, Cooper said. I’ll clean up.

You sure you don’t want any—

Get on now! Cooper yelled. He turned his back to Jimmy. You need rest.

Cooper turned to Jimmy, as he strolled out the door. Tom Cooper took his baseball cap off; he scratched his head with the same hand. He didn’t like being hard on the kid, but Jimmy’s heart needed toughening, because if he couldn’t hit so damn hard, the streets Kid grew up on would’ve eaten him.

Kid was special. Cooper had been in the fight game for a long time. His eyes turned upward to the rafter. All the promoters, the loose women, the mob, they were all going to want a piece of him, a pride of lions on a fresh kill, each fighting for a slab of meat.

Good thing the rafter’s thick, Cooper said. His gaze dropped to the red covering of the heavy bag. He smiled. Gonna have to get a new bag, though.

***

Jimmy had a little room on Forty Third Street; Cooper got it for him. It wasn’t too far from the gym. Jimmy had to breathe, eat, and sleep boxing. He had to get in shape, the shape of a professional. Get rid of the bad habits he acquired from street fighting.

On his way home, Jimmy always stopped by Tony’s newsstand on 43rd. He liked the boxing magazines. Coop gave Jimmy a little money to spend on whatever; he usually spent it on paper and colored pencils. Once in awhile Jimmy bought a boxing magazine.

As he stood looking at a boxing magazine, Jimmy could feel a woman peeping at his magazine through his peripheral.

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