The Missingest Man in AmericaThe man—erect with a mane
of white hair and yachtsman’s deep tan—must be a professor. This man
was a gift and gifts were doubtful. “You are the Devil, then.” Sister
Joyful stood her ground. “Satan?”
“I am Joseph Force Crater; I am a judge of the New York State Supreme
Court. I am not the Adversary. Your chastity is safe with me; I am a
Democrat.”
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Saint Velcro™ and the SwanIt had been, by the saint’s
count, a thousand years or more since the last tour passed through—Attila
and his Hunnic Horde, their hardy ponies pulling an endless cavalcade
of Airstream trailers that stretched to the sunrise.
“I’m a martyr,” said the saint. “Martyrs don’t shoot back.”
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The Song of the Rice Barge Coolie “My sister, is she dead?
Go and give her a poke, would you?”
The great white presence that was the Lady Mother of the Long Walkers
indicated the row of captive queens on their dais beneath her, deferentially
lower.
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The Runaway Bungalow
“Arrgh! See me neck, lad?” Theophrastus Bigelow’s head hung
at a grotesque angle from where the long executioner’s knot had settled
at the base of his skull. Randy held his mother’s mop, set to dry in
the sun, between himself and the pirate. Bigelow succumbed to gales
of laughter. “I didn’t die from the drop; I swung and strangled. Whadda
ye think o’ that?”
“I think it’s rather nice that you didn’t die all at once,” Randy said.
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Cherokee Purple
Thelma blew herself away as she sat on her high red upholstered
stool supervising the cash box at the White Street Billiards and Snooker.
A symphony of flaccid flesh, she hit the floor like she had fallen out
of an airplane, no parachute, and her pistol went bouncing toward Ed
Seitz and me
We did not look up; there was a fiver riding on Ed’s shot.
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Lucy and the Mouse
Death happens for a reason, he had heard of that in one of
Pastor leVoid’s homilies. He, Lucy Hobart, was the reason today. That
he was a murderer did not mean that he and his victim could not at least
exercise some civility after the fact
Lucy raised the corpse slowly at arm’s length until they were eye-to-eye.
The mouse swung, a tiny dead pendulum.
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I Want to Share Your Wheat“My duties generally fall in
the category of three wishes and frog kissing—kinky stuff like that.
But I’m about sharing wheat. You know, ritual hospitality and all that.
When I grant a boon to such as you, it’s usually for a Volvo station
wagon. Volvo wagons are my specialty. After wheat.”
He held his hands behind his back. “Left or right? Choose please. I
have other calls to make.”
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E Pluribus Human“YO, BABE!” A man’s voice blared at Grenadine
McKenzie, “SURPRISE, YOU’RE PREGNANT.” A craggy male face bloomed before
her.
The face was a hero’s face, Lance Davenport from Rights of Spring. There
was an odor of patchouli.
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The Radio Hour of the Little Flower
Fr. Coughlin’s face swam in the pier glass. He gasped, struggled
for breath and sank to his knees on the burgundy carpeting—twelve-fifty
the square foot and imported at great expense by the Radio Vestrymen’s
Guild.
The voice of the Little Flower followed, skimming upstairs like a flat
stone over placid waters—“Coughlin, Charlie Coughlin. We are coming
again. Spread the Word.”
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