9th Street Blues

By Trevor Zaple

Tommy spends his days riding his bicycle on the dust-drifted streets of Woodward, Oklahoma, delivering the chemical compositions of his adoptive father Sal to the few customers that remain. The fields pull up little but dust and poison, and the majority of the citizens have departed for greener pastures in resurgent post-war California. On his last day as bicycle courier/drug mule, Tommy makes his rounds - but with one vital difference. 9th Street Blues originally won the top prize in Chapterfy's inaugural short story contest.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trevor Zaple
• Release date: Oct 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311708144

Trevor Zaple

Trevor Zaple was born in London, Ontario, in the midst of one of the periodic sessions of brutal recession that characterize life in Ontario. He grew up in the picturesque rural surroundings of Seaforth before fleeing to a series of dying industrial burgs across Southern Ontario. He has a bachelor's degree in Contemporary Studies granted unto him by Wilfrid Laurier University, which has about as much meaning as it sounds. He lived fondly in Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood for several years before retreating to yet another dying industrial burg. He now lives with his wife and daughter in St. Catharines, Ontario.

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9th Street Blues

Trevor James Zaple

Published by Trevor James Zaple

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Trevor James Zaple

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Cover photo originally by Flickr user peggydavis66, used under Creative Commons license

Contents:

9th Street Blues

About The Author

Other Books By The Author

How To Get In Touch With The Author

9TH STREET BLUES

Dawn greeted him like blood boiling out of the eastern horizon, filtered through thick grey clouds and possessed of a dreadful quality. He pushed his bike along the cracked expanse of 9th Street, bathed in that fresh crimson glow and driven into wakefulness by a hot, arid breeze blowing up from the south behind him.

In his mind he was not piloting a filthy, cracked old mountain bike; he was roaring down 9th Street on a chopper, a loud Harley whose scream woke up everyone like the cry of an apocalyptic rooster. He was Tommy Fellino, scourge of the Oklahoma panhandle, last outlaw rider of the Midwest. He hit a bump in the road and skidded out of control. He landed in a heap next to a crumbling section of the curb, saved from breaking a bone by youth and the precise way in which he landed.

He sat up shivering in the street. He was not on a Harley; he could not remember the last time he'd seen a Harley. Probably when Ace Carlson had gone west, not since then. There wasn't anyone left on the street to wake up anymore, either. He looked around at the houses bordering 9th Street and saw squat bungalows with weather-torn siding sitting on flat lawns where green grass had given way to brown desert and grey dirt. Many of the houses were barred by sheets of plywood, abandoned except for knocking echoes and memories etched in fallen dust. Dotted amongst these dreary, sagging bungalows were houses that had windows and doors free of barricades. These houses had vehicles parked beside them - mainly thick pickup trucks on four puddled flats - covered in dents, scratches, and patches of rust. The dawn-light shimmered off of them, and as Tommy climbed back onto his bike and resumed pedalling his eyes were struck at intervals by the hard glint of what little chrome remained on the bodies. There was not one vehicle in good repair; Gus Anderson was the last real mechanic still in Woodward, and Tommy would not have trusted him to change his bike chain. They weren't going anywhere anyway.

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