The Collected Didn't Work(s) Short Stories By Steve Howard

By Steve Howard

This is the entire collection of short stories I have written from 1997-2021. Most of these have been published in literary journals and in my self-published short story collections. I arranged all of the short stories roughly by these themes: Autobiographical, Hard Living, Japan, Fly Fishing, Haibun/Micro-Fiction, War, Odds and Ends, and Sci Fi.

The title of this collection, The Collected Didn't Work(s) is sort of a sad joke and commentary on my writing "career" so far. I think many of these short stories are great, but you'd never guess so from my book sales. Anyway, Enjoy!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Howard
• Release date: Apr 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201114954

Steve Howard

Steve Howard has a BA in creative writing from Western Washington University and has published flash fiction, short stories, haibun, and creative non-fiction in numerous literary journals. His novella The Adamantine River Passage was released in 2017. He currently teaches English in Japan and is a semi-professional stand up comedian. He can be reached at [e-mail]  

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Bukowski’s Bastard

I don’t know if he was really as mean as he made himself out to be. Certainly his scared up face and knuckles and the scared up stanzas he dropped onto his notebook pages like spurting blood indicated that he’d been through it more than once. One time not long after I’d met him and paid the ten bucks for an hour’s worth of abusive critiquing he’d looked me in the eyes and said,

I don’t really write poetry. I just lance the blisters on my heart and shape the puss into words. You on the other hand clearly spend your time masturbating with a pen in the library and then bring this shit to me and call it poetry.

The ever present glow of his cigarette in the dark bar we met in never went out. He’d hunch over my work chin resting in his smoking hand as he flicked away the ashes along with my words. His blockish head would shake like the helmet of some Norse warrior god in battle as he muttered, bunch of flowery limpid shit, before digging his pencil into my pages to blacken out huge sections of my poems. When he’d finished he’d shove what was left across the rough table top and glower at me. These were the only times I ever saw him smile. Dirty teeth would appear through his slightly parted lips and beard and he’d raise his bushy white eyebrows. Then he’d lay his heavy forearm with all the broken up knuckles attached at the hand in the middle of the table and leaning slowly towards me never taken his eyes off of mine. There was a spark, but it was colder than the winter rains that fell on Seattle outside. I’d always lean away and say, Thank you, quietly.This disappointed him. He wanted a reaction, crying, punches thrown, me to storm out of the bar, but I never did. Enduring his contempt for my writing was my personal Gallipoli.

And though my writing was shredded what little bit survived his pencil was truly alive, something I could nurse into a pulsating breathing work I hoped. Immediately after my non-reaction he’d order our first pitcher of beer. He never drank while critiquing. I hated beer, but I was too scared to tell him.Lackey, he’d roar, Bring us a flagon of mead.

Manny, the knifed up Haitian bartender would bring a pitcher of skunky smelling beer called Gutted Goat’s Piss. Manny would try and talk to us sometimes. Without looking at him he’d say something like, I fucked his wife in the ass this morning. Manny would laugh uncomfortably and slink away back to the bar. He thinks I’m kidding, he’d say after Manny left.

Then he’d start into the beer. He’d pour the first round and I knew that was all I’d get even though by the time I left he would down three more pitchers, which I always paid for at the end of the night. When he was in the mood, always after the first round he’d talk.You’re words aren’t lace dollies. Stop reading the pretty boys and the bitchy feminists that don’t have a point to make. And cut out the abstract word farts. If you’re in pain, emotional, physical, existential, whatever, use your words to ram the knife home right between my ribs. You get it?

One time he told me about his brother Darren.

My kid brother, the typical knucklehead and psychopath you’d expect to ooze out of my parent’s rotten gene pool, but good looking and charming when he needed to be. He was sixteen when he finally ate it. Stole a car one night, or I should say, he tried to steal it. Hell, he only got as far as busting out a window, a candy blue ’66 Impala. Anyway, neither of us noticed the owner of said car had perfect line of sight from his third floor apartment. It was the mushrooms you see and the beer, so much that I’d already pissed myself earlier in the evening. I think it was a 30–06 that took his head off. The top of it at least. Boy I ran that time. Never caught me neither. I hopped a freighter all the way up to Juneau. Point is that was my knife, at least one of them. That got me writing, got me to sit down and start writing. That’s what you need.

I just sat there nodding not knowing what to say. The long sad bitchy poems I wrote mostly about my mother and ex-boyfriends seemed pathetic and cheesy as a muse compared with this one little story he’d told me. And somehow I knew there were probably a lot more just like that one that drove his tight brutal words out on to the page. I knew that he’d only published four chapbooks in a dozen years, but they seemed to sell well enough to keep him in the Spartan drunkard lifestyle that he favored. One time a few months after we’d started the critiquing sessions and he was in an almost friendly drunk I got up the nerve to ask him about his writing process. He looked at me hard for a moment before answering. You see all this shit. he said stabbing the long blacked out lines of my latest poem. Four and half years of that on my own stuff before I published my first shitty poem.Then he turned over his right hand and showed me his palm. Deep thick calluses ran across all of his fingers where I imagined he’d gripped a pencil while scratching out his own words. And I knew my writing had no heart. He was right. I was spinning pretty intellectualisms meant to sound clever but had no bite or teeth even.

And this went on and on for months. Nothing of importance came out. Dismissively he said of my latest work, The other night I pissed on my keyboard. My computer shorted out and when I finally got the fucker to boot up again it shat out the exact same poem as the one you wrote. I don’t know why but this insult broke me. He’d said similar things about my work in the past and I’d always sat there stoically taking it thinking that it would ultimately force me to improve but this one stung badly. I sobbed a little before hoarsely telling him I had to use the restroom. He didn’t mock me further surprisingly. You felt something, That one hit. That’s good, that’s good, he said softly as I headed for the ladies room.I didn’t come around for a few weeks and didn’t write much either. But he wasn’t far from my thoughts. I’d found a moldy little coffee shop just a few blocks from the bar he drank at. Each day late in the afternoon I’d sit there with two or three pages of my densely blacked out poetry and hope maybe something would come through.

Then one afternoon his face appeared in my mind and oddly it was superimposed over my mother’s face. A memory from when I was five burst in. I was at a crosswalk in front of a busy intersection near James Street. I was excited because we were going shopping on the pier. I started to bolt into traffic and was wrenched back onto the sidewalk by the hair. My mother bent down and slapped me hard screaming, Wait till the fucking light changes before you cross you dumb little bitch!

Then my pen started moving across the page. It wasn’t a shotgun blast, but it was still a knife. I’d bleed out this time.

Aspiration, Obsession, Disintegration

Meditation Journal: Questions always arise. Is my breathing to fast? Is it to slow? Am I hyperventilating? Why are my thoughts wheeling around my serious intentions? I’m a pseudo Buddhist. I can talk the talk, but ask me to sit quietly counting my breaths and suddenly my dedication crumbles faster than a dried up lotus caught in a hurricane.

Argue your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours. –Richard Bach

Fly Fishing Journal: There are many ways to kill fish. Dynamite in a pond or a small lake is a very sudden and dramatic way to kill fish. Hydroelectric dams, commercial fishing, and pollution work also. The conventional way involves yanking the fish from the water with a net, gaff, line, or by hand, smashing it on top of the head with a hard object hopefully sending it quick and painlessly to whatever afterlife your respected belief system allows for the departing life force of  fish. Some people can do this without a second thought. I always have to try and detach myself from the act, but questions interfere. Am I taking this life to sustain my own or is this just a blood sport? Do fish feel pain?

I’ve caught a million trout, salmon and steel head in my life, maybe more than a million, I don’t know. I have a ridiculous sickness and I apologize for it, but I haven’t killed that many. -David James Duncan

anger journal: One time at the bus stop you attacked a kid. He was bigger, stronger, but you had the edge in rage. You just focused and went after him. Afterwards, you didn’t remember much, only your right fist striking his cheek bones. Your friends said you’d hit him five times and that he’d hit you twice. They decided you’d won, but it didn’t feel that way. The only things you gained were a headache and bleeding knuckles. You weren’t even sure why it had happened. 

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hatred, hatred leads to the dark side. -Yoda

Meditation Journal:  today was quiet

Thenmymindstartedracing,mythoughts,emotions,physicalsensationsbegantorunonoandon!

stopped meditating after two minutes. Couldn’t control thoughts.

Fly Fishing Journal: In the 1920’s, before most of the dams were built,  a million wild salmon and steelhead returned to the Columbia River and its tributaries to spawn. In 1996 less than a thousand wild salmon and steelhead spawned in the Columbia River.

I know this, but what I can do about it? I cannot change the past, or the future. There are organizations I could join, Trout Unlimited, The Sierra Club, Greenpeace, but I can’t find the energy or the time. Despair comes in two flavors: despair from helplessness and despair created by my own laziness.

Despite of my rage I’m still just a rat in a cage.

Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins

anger journal: You grab the car door and pull. It won’t open. You grab again and pull harder. It still won’t open. You grab it with both hands and pull with all your strength and still IT WON’T OPEN. You surrender to your frustration and punch your hand through the driver’s side window. You remove your bloody hand from the busted windowpane, wrap it in a towel, and drive yourself to the hospital. Your door is open, as is your hand.

The horror, the horror -Joseph Conrad

Meditation Journal: There are stories of Buddhist monks in Tibet that walled themselves into caves and meditated so deeply that their bodies went into a sort of hibernation. Tibetan and Chinese doctors have found these monks hundreds of years later, still alive, but trapped in this comatose state from which they cannot be revived. The Tibetan’s wall them back up out of respect and leave them to their meditation. The Chinese sometimes grind them up to make medicinal powders. Though these monks reach a deep meditative state they never gain enlightenment, so the Buddhists tell us.

I never thought meditation was dangerous. I thought not meditating was dangerous (for myself and others). Maybe that’s the point of not attaching even to meditation. Sometimes I can see my anger very clearly; sometimes I can see the pointlessness of it.

May I see the realms of the five Buddha. –anonymous

Fly Fishing Journal: I’m not always so practical, or conscientious. I’m a consumer and therefore my moral convictions often fail; I drag that salmon out of the surf, lay it in the sand, club it to death, snap a picture, and then take it home to be consumed with friends and family. The barbecue and blaspheme go hand in hand. Later, after the fish has been consumed I consider the life I have taken.

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish – Dr. Seuss

Angry Fly Fishing Meditation Journal: You walk down to the beach, feel the cold breeze coming down from the North, and see the rain clouds. You hear the tide breaking against the rocks. You step into the surf, and slip, landing on your arm. You feel the anger rise. You grab a rock and raise it above your head, preparing to smash whatever is closest and weakest, your $500 graphite fly rod, your flesh and muscle mixing and entwining itself with the flesh and rage of your father. History, your history, your family history, is about to repeat itself. Then you stop. You pick yourself up. You collect your gear and walk to a large rock facing the ocean. You cross your legs, straighten your spine, place you hands on your knees, and breath.

When I suffer, the Karma of unconscious tendencies -Tibetan Book of the Dead

Meditation Journal: Sometimes when the wind and waves stop, and there’s nothing but flat sparkling water before me I think about being part of that stillness, to sit  with no goals, no desires, no time. Sometimes sitting on a rock warmed by the sun and breathing cool salty air in through your nose and out through your mouth is all there is and all you need.

Walk on – U2

Trout Streams, Motion, and Memory

The desert of Eastern Washington is a place of dryness and death. Without water nothing can live here. The thin little stream that cuts through the harsh rock and sand provides nourishment for the willow trees and the grassy meadow.  It is the single life-giving artery in this arid place.

I walk along the west bank of the stream just as the sun rises in the east casting off reds and violets across the black, sharp stone ridges. A small white tail deer stands atop a crumbling ridge, staring down curiously, afraid of the upright predator, parting the thick weeds by the stream.

I have to be careful that my shadow falls behind me and not across the stream. The trout here are wild. Everything in their world is either a threat or a meal. Unnatural movement or reflections on the water scatters them. They are selective in their eating habits. Even my steps along the bank are measured. It’s a trade off; the rule is, walk heavy for the snakes, and softly for the trout. Rattlers, like trout don’t have ears, but are very sensitive to vibrations, striking suddenly when surprised.

I’m looking for dimples or swirls in the stream’s current, any sign that gives away the trout’s position. They always face upstream in feeding lanes where the current drifts insects down to them. Caloric energy is a premium in their world, and they never expend it lightly.

And then I see it, a break in the gentle flow of the current, the sloppy splash from a big tail, slashing back and forth in the trout’s enthusiasm for its breakfast.

I pull a few feet of slick fly-line off the titanium reel, making sure there are no kinks or tangles. I hear the methodic click of the metal drag deep within the reel as the fly-line peels smoothly off the arbor. I hold the tiny fly between my thumb and index finger, blowing on the delicate spun deer hair, and dark brown turkey feathers, fluffing them up, so they will be more buoyant. Then I gently press the point of the steel hook into the tip of my thumbnail to test its sharpness. Looking over my right shoulder, I check to make sure no hanging branches from the willow tree behind me will obstruct the path of the nine and a half foot graphite fly rod, as it is pulled vertical on the back cast, in a steady sharp snap of my arm.

But it’s not about the technical aspects of fly-fishing; the stalking, casting, and landing of the fish are unimportant. When the moment is upon me all these things drop away. There’s this feeling of clear intuition guiding me. Time is a tentative force in the background, and the stream and surrounding desert disappear. Only perfect momentum remains. I feel nothing but the flowing motion. It is the purity of form obtained in the action of doing. The motion of my body, the flow of the stream, cause and effect suspended in the structure of synchronized rhythm.

With the soft landing of the tiny fly on the gentle water, and moments later a large silver trout cruising from the depths, breaking the barrier between air and water to take it, shaking the energy of its life into my rod and through my arm; it’s existence resonating with mine; I know I have transcended.

It is always fleeting though, never captured, never grasped, or described. I have the moments spent stalking the trout, the long sweeping cast, and the trout’s short fierce battle for freedom. Then the brief period after, gently holding the slippery trout for a quick picture and then releasing it back into its cold home, but this is all. Only a shadow of the grace maybe reflected in the depths of my eyes, or a faded copy of excitement imprinted slightly in the tone of my voice. Maybe the memory of wanting to be an angler, and learning to fish, and later in life, wanting to be an artist and learning to fly-fish. These thoughts and memories remain, the rest drift down stream.

Purpose?

The Artist

In the morning, near my son's daycare, an old man uses a pair of barbecue tongs to pick up bright yellow Ginkgo Tree leaves from the sidewalk. He places each leaf into a small brown paper bag. I watch his face crease with concentration as he bends at the waist to gingerly pluck each chosen leaf from the white concrete. He seems to be very determined, but why he does it, I can't tell.

The Surfer

This is the second time I've visited Shimoda. The first time was during Golden Week several years ago. I visited my friend Keith at his house here, and he took me surfing. This time it is almost New Year's. I have a bad cold. We are driving north following the rocky coastline to a small beach Keith tells me is a secret local surf spot. We are only going to watch the waves today, not ride them. We pull into an empty park ing lot near a small white beach. Sitting on an old weather-beaten log, Keith points out the surf break to me. He says, when the winter storms blow in, the waves are sometimes four meters high. Then he asks me a question. Hypothetically speaking, if you wanted to kill yourself how would you do it? I don't know where it comes from, but an answer rushed into my brain and out of my mouth:

Hemlock Society, I say.

Hemlock Society? he asks.

"Uh, yeah, when the Greeks killed Socrates, they gave him a poison to drink made from Hemlock. That's where the name comes from, but they help people who have terminal illnesses die with dignity: legally whenever possible. Normally a friend asking me about suicide would worry me, but Keith has terminal lung cancer, and I assume he is just considering his options.

The Dedicated Monk

I've been watching a Werner Herzog documentary called The Wheel of Time. It is about a Tibetan Buddhist ceremony that is held every two years, and is presided over by the Dalai Lama. In the documentary, the ceremony is being held in Bodh Gayain Nepal. Hundreds of thousands of Buddhist from all over the world are attending. Werner Herzog interviews a monk who has traveled from the Ando region in Tibet. The monk says he did traditional prostration the entire distance, placing his hands over his head, in front of his brow, his heart, and then laying on the ground