Bangers & Mash: 28 Whole Stories & Half-Truths

By Slim Michaels

28 very short stories reflecting current events and contemporary American life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483544571

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Slim Michaels

Bangers & Mash

c2014

All rights reserved

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express permission of the publisher except for use of brief quotes in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Tecopa Entertainments

PO Box 726

New Lebanon, NY

12125

Cover Illustration by Martin Wiscombe

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Visit www.wiscombeart.com to view more

"People are just like monkeys. You never know what they’ll do next. That’s a fact." Or so I heard one day from an ice fisherman as we watched another guy, to prove that he could, on a ten dollar bet, take a savage bite out of a still living fish.

On occasions of what people might bet on, bite into and believe, actuality is peculiar and twice unreal as fiction. Bangers & Mash is 28 short fictions banged and mashed from factual human monkey business, peculiarities and everyday appetites seen with my own eyes or as blips in the media stream over the span of a lunar month. Funny, horrific, bemusing and ironic, if any of these stories bear a grain of truth, it’s not coincidence.

Slim Michaels

Contents

1. Quality of Wellness

2. The Magic Midget

3. The Chupetón

4. Dominion Long Haul

5. Bangers and Mash

6. One in Two Million

7. The Big Dip

8. Eat My Apple

9. Elvis Presely’s Last Autograph

10. What’s Cookin’, Good Lookin’?

11. Tuna Tetrazzini With The Fab Four

12. Keeping Corina

13. The Questionable Tattoo

14. The Broken Window

15. The Wood Sylph

16. TigerEyes

17. Hydrenoline Rush

18. Geronimo

19. Squirrels in the Attic

20. Green Genie

21. The Little Red Ant

22. Monday Sinkhole

23. Of Hobos and Hop Toads

24. Monody for Robin Williams

25. At The Dollar Store

26. PhUFO

27. Half-Moon in the Day Sky

28. Snug in the Divine Light

Quality of Wellness

Okay, first time the drone flew past the window I thought I was seeing things out the corner of my eye, maybe a pigeon scared by its own reflection. I was building my Linkedin connections ---so far 1676, not bad for a porta potty cleaner--- and listening to a public radio call-in about morbidly obese pets and how to manage their diets and exercise. I didn’t really hear the drone till it made its second approach. It hummed like a giant, mutant bumblebee, whirring window-to-window. Sandy and me live on the third floor, not many windows and I listened to it fly one to the other till I was twisting in my recliner. Next thing, it was in my face, hovering just outside the living room window nearest me. I could see its logo: Centurion2. It was white, about the size of my bedpan, with four props and a swiveling lens good for peeping, and me still in my Foxwoods bathrobe, holding a gin fizz in a hurricane glass. It was just past eleven in the a.m.

I quick stuck the cocktail in the space between me and the arm of my hospital-grade recliner. Like I said, I was in my bathrobe, no underwear, and it was swaying at the window, getting full view of my junk.

My phone rang.

Mr. Barstow. This is Amber at Providential Insurance. Just giving you a free quality-of-wellness checkup, to see how things are progressing. How much of my junk did Amber see? The goddamn thing was purring not twelve feet away.

I wasn’t expecting you. I would have dressed. Sandy always leaves my sweats hung neatly on a rack within reach of the recliner, but some days I don’t put them on unless I gotta leave the house, etcetera. We both like to sit around naked or partially so. We’re private like that.

No problem for us. How’s your PT progressing?

Orion, he’s my therapist, he says I’m doing fine. But we can’t expect miracles. We're focusing on upper body strength. I tossed my ATV months ago, first time out after the brutal winter, hit a frozen puddle and flipped into a tree. Smashed my legs like a Ritz cracker, was pieced together around the clock by teams of surgeons, tubes, electrics, the whole shebang. Ka-ching. Ka-ching.

I’m on total disability now and thinking maybe it’s time to rethink my hobbies, if I ever get out of the house. I’m pretty much fastened to the bed and recliner for who knows how long and collecting get-well checks from Providential, more money than I was making pressure washing and delivering potties. Go figure.

Yes..I see..yeahsss... Amber sounded like she was reading a report. The drone hung in, goggling me, every once in a while ticking against the window. Your last blood tests? We made suggestions for dietary improvements? Amber up swung closing words. Are you eating properly? The gin fizz tipped over, quickly sopping my robe and bare butt. You’re not eating cheese, salty snacks and sweets, are you?

No ma’am. No way.

I’m sorry. I didn’t get that. It was a little slurred. Are you maintaining your diet as prescribed?

Yes, I am. Providential can count on me.

Alcohol intake?

What?

How many drinks a day, Mr. Barstow?

Are you watching me now, Mandy?

I’m Amber and no one is watching you. This is a random update of health and wellbeing.

I gave the drone the finger.

Does that mean one drink a day?

I broke both my legs, you know. My whole ‘f’ing body, really. The gin fizz was already sticky on my right cheek. I’m in an awful world of pain 24/7, Sister, and not exactly partying in here. You oughta try it.

We just want to get you back on your feet, enjoying the best quality of life, wellness and workdays that we can. It’s the Providential philosophy. Have you been to Foxwoods recently, Mr. Barstow?

That’s when with all the upper body pop and aim I had in me I hurled my bedpan. It seemed to move in slow motion, tumbling in the air across the room, through the window and screen, and it made a tremendously satisfying crunch when colliding with the drone. You could hear its tiny propellers tinking against the bedpan as it fell.

Mr. Barstow? Mr. Barstow?

Earthquake, or some act of god! Everything’s falling down around me. I have to go now. Are you on Linkedin? We’ll connect.

Sandy will be pissed for sure, but I mean, what are they gonna’ do, lock me up in my recliner? With all my paraphernalia? I don’t think so.

###

The Magic Midget

It was a sloppy morning, coming down buckets. Amanda had to take a rattling taxi way downtown, the rain flogging every surface, carrying litter into the catch basins, pouring off entrance canopies, soaking delivery guys in trash bag ponchos. Traffic was stop-and-go, gummed up by the rain. Amanda killed time by looking over her monthly report another time and watching an episode of Web Therapy, until the cabbie cocked his head and spoke through the bullet proof partition.

So what do you wish for, my friend?

What? Excuse me? It was then she realized how short he was. His head showed just above the back of the seat, mostly his canary yellow fedora. If not an actual midget, he definitely was short to the extreme. He had carrot red hair and pulpy, fleshy ears. His hands and knobby knuckles on the wheel looked big for his size.

We all have our wishes. What’s yours? His voice was pinched and nasally.

Amanda laughed. Oh, you know. Regular stuff. Fast car, yacht, secret Swiss bank account, a private island and one night with George Clooney

You’re a funny lady, he