New Songs for Old Radios

By B. B. Garin

B. B. Garin's closely-observed and exuberant tales are inspired by itinerant guitar players and the women and men drawn to them and their songs. The collection opens and closes with encounters between vagabonds and reclusive loners—a tragedy-haunted barfly, the estranged son of a famous musician. Other stories depict a wanderer who only believes in “long roads and songs with swampy bass guitars,” immigrant rock n' roll hipsters, and a slacker who murders a man for his song.

From “The Last Ballad of Saddler Vance”:
There never was any deal with the devil. No crossroad's magic. No cat's guts or silver coins. No dapper man in a seersucker suit with a neat goatee and a faint cologne of brimstone. There was only me and Saddler Vance at the end of a rotting pier with the salt marsh sunset and my daddy's old service pistol. That's where I killed him. Killed him for a song.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wordrunner eChapbooks
• Release date: Dec 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463564998

B. B. Garin

B. B. Garin is a writer living in Buffalo, NY. She holds a B.F.A. in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College. Her work has appeared in the online journal Embark. She is a current member of the Grub Street Writing Center, where she has developed a series of short fiction pieces, as well as a novel.

Book preview

New Songs for Old Radios

Stories by B. B. Garin

Published by Wordrunner eChapbooks

(an imprint of Wordrunner Press)

Smashwords Edition

ISBN: 978-0463564998

Copyright 2019 B. B. Garin

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

Contents

Ashes Hit the Floor

The Last Ballad of Saddler Vance

The Fix

The Brothers Cooly

New Songs for Old Radios

About B. B. Garin

About Wordrunner eChapbooks

Ashes Hit the Floor

2020 Pushcart Nominee

Once a month, Red sobered up for a weekend and tore through her house disposing of empty bottles, pretzel bags, and peanut butter jars. She scrubbed the stains in the carpets and scoured the sinks. She cut herself picking up shards of things she didn’t remember breaking. When she finished, her hair stuck to the back of her neck, clinging with the smell of lemons and vinegar. Then she quietly fell asleep with a deep ache in her muscles.

She didn’t dream on those nights. But the next night she would, and after that she would be back at Pauline Sutton’s bar trying to shuffle her mind into order the only way she knew how. Pauline would have to drive her home. There were no taxis in their small town, and it was that or sleeping it off in a slippery vinyl booth.

The girls behind the bar with their bright lips and glossy nails, knew better than to try their chattering charm on Red. And the old boys, who drank with nearly as much dedication as she, never turned their heads. But sometimes a less regular customer missed the hint and slid down the bar offering to buy her a drink.

Red wasn’t a bad-looking woman. She never bothered to cut her hair, but she did bother to dye it an eye-smarting scarlet, so it hung between her narrow shoulders like an open wound. Her face was neat and didn’t have any of the lines it probably should. Her lipstick always matched her hair, and her green eyes blazed even when heavy with drink. She was careful with her clothes when she went to Sutton’s, knowing Pauline expected certain standards to be kept, nothing too short or too low. And Red’s clothes had a way of clinging in the right places, hiding her fragile ribs and stringy thighs.

She wasn’t thirty, and youth was getting scarce in town. So, men would try, and sometimes she wouldn’t snarl them away, but drink their proposed drink and with as few words as possible take them home. She didn’t dream on those nights either.

_____

A stranger leaned next to her and didn’t offer any usual lines. A new drink appeared in front of her without a word. His shoulders were huge, Red bet he could pick her up with one arm. It wasn’t a bad thought. She’d seen him throwing darts earlier, steady hands. Up close she could see a hundred tiny scars latticed them, like flecks of white paint not quite washed away. He had a long jaw; she expected it to be dusted with stubble but it was smoothly shaved. Red reached without asking and turned his hand over, curious to see if the scars continued on his palm.

Are you going to tell my fortune? he asked.

Red shook her head and let him go.

He smelled like sawdust and worn, oiled suede. A scent she wanted to swallow. She took a drink of gin instead, relying on the clear, cool burn to set her straight.

He turned his hand back over, flexed his fingers.

Too bad, he said. I’d have liked to know.

Red laughed, a choked sound she wasn’t used to making.

The man sipped his beer, didn’t look at her. Still and quiet; she liked that.

I think you already know it, she said.

_____

Red expected him to leave before sun-up. They always did. But dawn wriggled between the blinds and she cracked her eyelids to find him slouched against the headboard, sparking a cigarette.

Take that outside, she snapped.

He raised an eyebrow but rolled out of bed and dragged on his jeans.

I wouldn’t have thought you cared, he said, stepping over a heap of unwashed clothes.

Red turned over and groaned. He had a point, but he also hadn’t left. She scrambled around on the floor, found a shirt to pull on, dragged her heavy hair up off her neck and padded softly out to the back porch.

He sat on the steps, leaning on one elbow, the other resting on his knee, the smoldering cigarette dangling between loose fingers. A gray hulk of a dog lay panting across his bare feet.

Red had found the beast whining around her door the first November she was on her own, when snow was beginning to come down thick and fast. At first, she thought he was a starved wolf and threw steak knives at him to make him run off. He shied away but didn’t leave. When Red realized she was looking at a young husky, she let him in.

She kicked him out after the storm. She wasn’t fit for company. But the dog kept nosing around, the click of his nails on the kitchen floor chasing back the silence. Now Red kept a full plate of kibble down, and the back door unlatched, so he could paw his way in and out as he pleased. He disappeared into the woods for days sometimes, but he always wandered back, muddy and sated. When Red brought strangers home he bristled and growled. Except today.

Useless, Red said, prodding the dog with her toe. You’re supposed to guard the place.

Hunter chuckled. He’d told her his name last night in his truck, while she toyed with his ear and directed him to her house on the outskirts of town.