The Bay View

Fiction Excerpts

Published stories have links in the Magazines & Blogs menu to your right as well as below. You’ll find excerpts of published and unpublished work. If you’re very interested in an unpublished story, let me know; I’ll send you a password to unprotect it, or just send you the story in mail.

Car Dumb Dogs – Excerpt

Your heart became proud on account of your beauty,
and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor.
So I threw you to the earth;
I made a spectacle of you before kings.

Ezekiel 28:17

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Dogs are too smart to chase cars; something else is at work… something dark, unnatural, wrong… a pride… a possession. It rips the fabric of order, slashes it, really, with a violence.

After a piece published on Fictionaut, “No More Dogs,” by David James

We Walk by Night – Excerpt

And I charged your judges at that time: Hear the disputes between your brothers and judge fairly, whether the case is between brother Israelites or between one of them and an alien.

Deuteronomy 1:16 

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That old lady wanted those dogs to leave her alone, both the ugly one and the retarded one. She wanted me to leave her alone too, and she wanted to hate us all.

But we’d noticed danger; an open garage door, wide open at night. So we’d rung her bell, and she’d lit the porch lamp. Then we’d waited under that billion watt bulb, in that violent light, smelling her house… garlic and ginger, cigarettes, and furniture polish, seeping out at us. But she wouldn’t answer the bell, wouldn’t open her door.

Finally, looking frightened, she peeked out her blinds and shook a fat finger at us to shoo us away as if disgusted, as if we were thugs… home invaders. She pursed her mouth in contempt, despising us, and would have told us so in her own tongue had she not been too afraid to open that door.

Across the Mojave – Excerpt

This is an exceprt from a story that appeared in The Bacon Review in January 2012.

“If the household is worthy, let your peace come upon it.
But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you…
And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words,
when you depart from that house or city,
shake off the dust from your feet.”
- Matthew 10:13-14

At the end of the day, riding west with J. Arthur Volkes, Lena Astride still knew little of Christ and the Holy Trinity, but at least she was 50 miles closer to Los Angeles Hollywood.

Earlier, Will White, her husband, had told her that an ex con acquaintance, the same J. Arthur Volkes, would be delivering marijuana but under no circumstance was she to invite him into the house. That was fine with Lena; the criminal would probably just spur Will on to devilish acts if they met.

So when the doorbell rang but once, Lena was certain it wasn’t the dealer; a criminal would rudely ring and ring and ring. When she answered though, the visitor excused himself; he was on his way to Fontana, had something for William, and might he please come in to speak with him?

Baby – Excerpt

After his folks’ house blew up, Baby settled into a lawn chair across the street to drink beer and watch the place burn.

I’ve known Baby most of my life, and no one is more upset about this situation than I am. OK, I should introduce myself. My name’s Gracie Schulyer, and I live in Van Patten next door to Merle Patterson, a couple doors down from where Baby lives… lived. I’ve been here on Hazel Street off and on since I was nine.

Van Patten Community High School is my alma mater. Had a good job at the Brenton Bank in town for 10 years after graduation, but Wells bought the Brentons out and laid me off. Now, I work nights at Casey’s SuperFill for $7.50 an hour, and no health insurance, which is not enough, but there’s no other jobs around here.

Daddy Walked the Pits – Excerpt

This is an exceprt from a story that appeared in The Fiddleback magazine in December 2011.

Seems like the tar just got hold of Daddy somehow. What is it about asphalt and a man?

A regular man but a big man, six foot four and bald, he’d been leadin’ his regular life with his regular job and his family. But then came the tar.

You know that smell. Got that sulfurine bouquet so rich, and you breathe it deep, and you get the acid and the sting and the bitter of it. Coats your throat, damn near gags you, but don’t, and instead you only hanker it more… that rich bitter sulfur, again and again. The tar got to Daddy that first time we visited Carpenteria and its pit… the odor, the methane gurgling up through it, its still calm surface. That’s how it started, a family outing gone awry.

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WeFly America – Excerpt

He said his name was Moe, but I saw the business card he gave the guy from the city, and Moe spelled his name M O H.

Then I hear this Moe or Moh or whatever his name is talk to his boy, Little Moh, in some language that ain’t tongues or American, and I know he’s a foreigner or Mexican or something.

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Finger Lost Finger Found – Excerpt

Little Roy Farrell’d taken a bite of his fourth grade teacher’s ear as she bent close to help him sound out the word “grace.” Doc Felter had sewn most of teacher’s ear back on, but by seventh grade Roy still couldn’t read and never understood that he’d injured a teacher.

Roy’d broken a collarbone at age 12, suffered a serious dog bite and several second degree burns at age 14. At 16, he’d bitten through his tongue in a car accident. But none of that had ever caused him even a moment of pain. Something about that part of his system, the experiencing of and understanding of injury, had never functioned.

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Real Talk – A Ghost Story – Excerpt

“Real Talk – A Ghost Story” appeared in Emprise Review 21 (September 2011).

Tunnel hobos, all hootched up high, think a sign’s all about super powers, mind reading, clairvoyance, dig?

But it ain’t nothing to do with winning a lottery or finding a sawbuck on the street. No no no. It ain’t witchcraft nor alien power. Man, it ain’t telling the future, nor time travel nor bending forks, nor mending forks, nor mending folks.

Them hippies say it ain’t no sign world, and I’m a fool, gimpy fool with my froze up hip. I suppose that’s about right, but I ain’t with them mean haints and tunnel bastards no more.

Echo Pepper – Excerpt

When the bigs called The Pitcher up in 1936, he hadn’t finished his Senior year of high school.

They’d seen his stuff, and plucked the kid off his Iowa farm and launched him into the baseball stratosphere. He was 17 years old.

When I was little, we used to listen to Dutch Reagan call a game on WHO Radio. The son of a bitch turned out to be a Republican, but was better than nothin’.

But sometimes, if conditions were right, we could catch part of a Cubbies game on Dad’s big Philco.

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