The Sands ...

On the third day Cleo slowed and was watching for something as we rumbled along the dusty highway.  When she found it she waved for me to follow her into the desert.  As we traveled I saw other tracks in the desert clay and sand; other bikers had come this way.  I came up beside her and shouted over the thunder of our V-twins.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.” was all she would say.

We traveled for over an hour before I saw our destination; a dark object in the distance, thrust up out of the desert’s flatness.  Growing nearer, I saw it was a building, slightly atilt and looming like a grave marker in the wasteland.  Soon I could pick out details of the building and it began to look familiar, but it was when I saw the tall sign that I knew it for what it was; under a bronze sunburst the swooping letters spelling ‘Sands’ and beneath that in block letters on the marquee; ’44 GREAT YEARS THANK YOU’, the last message that it conveyed to the world on November 26, 1996 when it was brought down in a series of demolition charges.

We rode up the grand entranceway of the hotel and heeled our bikes over on their stands.

“Holy shit.” I said, gazing around.

“This building is significant to you.” Cleo said.

“This building is legend.” I said, “Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, they made this place famous.”

“And they were who?” Cleo asked, looking at me like I’d started babbling.

“Legends from my time.” I answered, a bit deflated as we walked into the hotel lobby.

We found the Copa Room and the kitchen and found enough ‘fresh’ food to cook up a pretty good meal.  Like everything else in Betwixt, food materialized like magic – one of the benefits of being in the land of the dead I suppose.  It was odd, sitting in the Copa Room, just  the two of us, drinking wine and eating off Sands plates with Sands cutlery.  I didn’t say much and Cleo picked up on it.

“I hurt your feelings.” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“You were so excited about this place and I’ve only known it as a place to find food and shelter that was better than usual.” Cleo said, “So tell me about this Frank person.”

“Sinatra.” I said, “He was a singer and actor, part of a group of entertainers known as the Rat Pack.  Frank had hit songs in the nineteen-thirties right through into the two-thousands – seventy years.  Back then, nobody asked ‘Frank who?’.”

“He entertained longer than most people live.”

“Yeah.” I’d never thought of that, but it was true, “This hotel was backed by some big named gangsters; Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, Joseph Stracher.”

“What’s a gangster?”

“A successful criminal.” I told her, “Here’s the thing about Frank; when the Sands opened, races were segregated.  Only white entertainers could play in the big casinos, and black people couldn’t even come to a place like this for dinner.  The Sands was the first to book a famous black singer named Nat King Cole to play this very room, but he wasn’t allowed to eat in the dining room.  It was Frank who broke that bullshit.  He invited Nat to join him for dinner and the segregation rule was gone.  Who knows, they could have eaten at this very table.”

“Was he really a King?”

“What?  No, that was his name.” I said, “How long have you been here?

“I told you; you wouldn’t believe me.” she said and smiled, her eyes at half-mast.  I could see the wine had relaxed her.

“Try me.  I’ve seen a lot of crazy since I got here, I’m starting to get used to it.”

She was quiet for a time as though contemplating whether or not to tell me her tale.  I discovered in those long, silent moments that her face was never truly expressionless.  Her emotions were sculpted there in minute movements; a slow twitch at the corner of her mouth; a slight raising of an eyebrow; a flare of her nostrils that was so glacial in its slowness it was barely noticeable.  When she spoke, she spoke softly, yet in the silence of the Copa Room her voice commanded the space, owning the very air we breathed.  The theatre was designed for great performances and hers was the greatest I’d ever heard.

“I died where I was born, in Alexandria, Egypt, on August twelfth, in the year you call 30 BC.” Cleo said, “I was thirty-nine years old.”

I set my glass down because I was afraid I’d drop it.

“And now I’m over twenty and a half centuries old.”

“Cleopatra.” I whispered, afraid to make even that sound.  She nodded.

“Daughter of Auletes, mother of Caesarion, Alexander, Selene, and Philadelphus.  Last Queen … last ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty.” she said, “And I am bored with existence, Max Brandt.  I infused my flesh with the poison of a cobra to escape being humiliated by the cursed Romans, but here …” she smiled bitterly, “… here I can’t die.  I can only be gomered like Rosie, and more and more that looks like peace to me.”

“Such a long way to fall.” I said, feeling a tenderness for her.  She looked up into my eyes.

“I have already fallen.” Cleo said, “What better place than Fluffy’s to wait out eternity.  Unaware of who I once was.  Believing whoring is love, that every man’s hand on my body is kind.  Being cared for and cherished like a precious artifact.  Gently used and revered in an animalistic way.  Because after-all; who wouldn’t want to fuck a Queen.  I would never feel lonely again.”

After a time I stood and held out my hand and she took it.  Together we walked outside past the half-moon shaped pool to the hacienda-styled two story motel buildings.  The pool was inexplicably filled with crystal clear water and the motel rooms were level, unlike the tilted tower that loomed above.

We chose the third room we came to, it was luxurious with thick blue carpet and a king sized bed.  We stripped down and I led her to the pool and for the first time since landing in Betwixt I swam its length and together we dived deep to push off the bottom and play.  When we were clean we returned to our room and made slow, melancholic love on the crisp sheets, both of us silent and moving with purpose.  Afterward, I lay on my back and she pressed her body against mine.  As I cradled her head under my chin, she wept as quietly as she made love, but for much longer and without the reward of release.  Her sorrow was deep and eternal.

I felt shame rise in me as I compared Cleo to Olive, the two women I had known so far in Betwixt; one whose spirit was alive and vibrant and filled me with joy, and the other who had escaped a ruined life only to be immersed in the torment of endless existence.

Two thousand years.  After that length of time I wondered how I would fare.

"BETWIXT - where the dead things go"

Sarah ...

I drank water as I ate, dipped out of the pail with a glass tumbler I’d found in a cupboard.  I decided to save the moonshine until after, to enjoy with a pipe once I was fed and full.

I was doing that very thing when I heard the floorboard creak behind me, then the soft voice;

“Are you dead?”

I turned slowly, my Rhodesian in full light, the jar of moonshine in my hand.  It was a child, dressed in ragged clothing, thick fabric wound around small feet  instead of shoes, tied in place with boot laces.  A toque that had seen better days barely containing long matted brown hair.  The face was heart shaped and pale, smudged with dirt.  Hands pale and delicate sticking out of a jacket that was made for an adult with sleeves rolled up as cuffs.

“We’re all dead.” I said quietly, wondering if the child was a boy or girl.  It was hard to tell at that age.

“What’s your name?” the child asked.

“Max.” I answered, “My name is Max.  You?”

“Sarah.” she answered – a girl then.

She studied me for a moment with dark eyes far older than her age.

“Are you here to steal or to rape?” she asked, “If it’s stealing please leave the jars, they fill back up and we need the food.  If it’s to be rape, I won’t fight if you promise not to hurt me.”

“I’m not here for either of those things.” I told her, “I stopped to eat and drink whiskey and smoke my pipe.”

Sarah just stared, suspicious I suppose.

“I promise to leave the jars.” I assured her, “And like I said; no rape.”

“Thank you.” she seemed satisfied, but still guarded.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

Sarah nodded.  I set the whiskey jar down and stood, retrieving a second fork from the drawer and another tumbler from the cupboard.  I set the fork down in front of an empty chair and dipped the tumbler full of water and placed it beside the fork, then sat back down, pushing the food near it.

“Come sit.” I said, puffing on my pipe to keep the full light going, “Eat while I smoke.”

Sarah walked to the chair and sat but didn’t pick up the fork.

“I thought you said you were hungry.” I said.

“I am.  But we share here.” she explained, “We always eat together so everyone gets enough but not too much.”

“Everyone?”

“The others and me.”

“Other kids?”

“Yes.”

“No adults?”

“No.”

“Where did the adults go?”

“Crow bait.” she answered like that explained everything.

“Crow bait?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“You will.” she said, then pointed in the direction I was heading; “You going that way?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’ll know.”

“Where are the other kids?”

“Hiding.  They’re afraid of you.  Your machine is loud.”

I looked out the back window and saw the barn.

“Hiding in the barn?”

Sarah said nothing, no twitch, no expression.

“They won’t come out until I leave, right?” I asked.

She continued to say nothing, just watched me with those wise eyes.  I wouldn’t want to play poker with her.

“Do adults come here?  Just appear?”

“Sometimes.”

“And they leave?”

“No.  They’re taken by the caribou man and his people.” she said and shuddered, “They leave us kids alone, but they’re scary.”

“I saw them.” I said, “I was scared too.”

“You were?” Sarah perked up at that, “Were you really scared or are you just saying that to make me feel better?”

“I was scared.” I admitted, “I snuck away while they were praying or something.”

“Making crow bait.” she said, “The crows are their god.”

I took a sip of whiskey and relished the bite in my mouth and the warmth that spread as it went down.  She still made no move to eat.

“I’ll have some whiskey if you’ll share.” she said.

“You drink whiskey?” I asked, she couldn’t be more than ten years old.  Well, her body belonged to a ten year old, she may have been here for decades.  I pushed the jar so she could reach it.

“We all do.” Sarah said, picking up the jar with both hands, “It makes us feel happy for a little while.”

New world, new rules.  I watched her lift the jar and take three large swallows.  She set it down and wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

“Ahh.” she sighed, “That hits the spot.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” I said, “Makes the world a little less scary too, I imagine.”

“Yeah.” she said and actually smiled.

“So, no adults around, you kids takes care of each other?” I asked her.

“Yeah.”

“What do you do when you’re not taking care of each other or drinking whiskey?”

“Play games.” Sarah said, “Kick the can.  Tag.  Hide and seek.  Hide and seek’s my favourite.”

“You like hunting people?”

“No, I like to be ‘it’.”

“How come?”

“Because when you’re all alone and someone who loves you comes and finds you, it’s the best feeling ever.”

Damned if that wasn’t the sweetest thing I’d ever heard.

“What’s your name again?” Sarah asked.

“Max.”

“I like you, Max.”

“I like you, Sarah.”

“You should go before you get taken.” Sarah said.

“I don’t get taken easily.”

“There’s a lot of them and they’re all over.  You’d lose.”

“I suppose I would.” I said, whiffling the Rhodesian.

“I like the smell of your pipe.” she said.

“Thank you.” I said, “It’s cured in whiskey.”

“That’s probably why I like it.” and she laughed like any other young girl.  I thought of Steph, then shut the door on the feelings that tried to sneak out with those memories.

“I wish I could take you with me.” I said, “All of you.”

“But we wouldn’t all fit on your machine.”

“No.”

Sarah shrugged, “It’s not so bad here for us.  We have food, water, and whiskey.” then as an afterthought; “And each other.”

“There’s comfort there, being with friends.”

“Yeah.” Sarah giggled softly as her eyes drooped a little from the whiskey, “We sleep all together, like puppies.”

I smiled at the thought.

“I miss puppies.” she said wistfully, “I wish I had a puppy.”

We sat for a few minutes as my pipe slowly cooled down, her thinking about puppies and me marvelling at the will to survive in this child.

“Well, I should go.” I said.

“Yes, Max.  You should.” Sarah watched me as I stood, washed my tumbler and my fork and put them back where I’d found them.

“If I come back this way one day, I’d like to stop in for a visit.” I said.

“Please do.” Sarah said, “Maybe the others won’t be as afraid of you next time.”

“Maybe.” I said, “Thank you for sharing your food and whiskey.”

Sarah smiled, “Thank you for not raping me.”

“Goodbye Sarah.”

“‘Bye Max.”

As I kicked Bone Shaker to life and rolled down the long rutted drive, I could see Sarah framed in one of the farmhouse’s windows watching me go.  I truly hoped that there were other children hidden there in the barn and not phantoms in the imagination of a long dead child’s fragile mind.

"BETWIXT – where the dead things go"

MAC & BETH

Mac&Beth – fortunes fair and murder foul. The southwest desert is a mystic place where Duncan is king of the meth trade, his fife a trailer park.  Yet the Grim Sisters foretell the rise of Mac and his lady Bethany and with them; chaos, tragedy, and madness.

‘hurly-burly’

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Little Gangsters

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Forward

With a few exceptions, everything in this novel occurred during my early life growing up in East Vancouver.  Most of the stories happened to me, some to other people, but almost all are none-the-less true.  The only truly outrageously fictional piece of the novel is the Goddess of Speed – no such perfection of childhood automotive engineering was ever constructed by me, or anyone I know of.

Like Denny, I used to suffer from two odd ailments; Scintillating Scotoma and Alice in Wonderland syndrome, both of which are a form of migraine.  Also like Denny, those conditions made me think I might be crazy because I did have a cousin who tried to kill himself by jumping off the Lionsgate Bridge and an Aunt who did shoot her husband in a gin-soaked, vengeful rage, and both ended up in Essondale – the ‘Hospital for the Mind’.

I had to play with some dates to make this novel and the three sequels work within a timeline that touches down on the summers of 1959, 1969, 1999, and 2015.

I also had to switch some dogs around.  The Zombie Dog story is true and happened to the brother a friend of mine.   Butch on the other hand was my dog while I was growing up, but to include him in Little Gangsters I had to give him to Errol.  It just wouldn’t have made sense to have Butch spend the summer with me at Grandma’s house.  Nevertheless, every word about Butch is 100% true – he was truly an outlaw among dogs.  Butch did kidnap and execute a neighbour’s Boxer in vengeance for its attack on me, and yes, Butch used to pull meat heists at Buy Rite Market.  He did mug a neighbour kid for a string of wieners – that kid was named Stan and he was complete bully and gangster wanna-be asshole.

My dad made the mistake of slapping me around once in our backyard in front of Butch.  Butch attacked him with such savagery that my dad pulled away and ran for the safety of the house.  I remember the shock, fear, and confusion on his face as he ran with the sleeve of his shirt shredded above the hand he had been hitting me with.  From then on when my dad was on a drunken tear, I’d run outside to be with Butch and refuse to come back inside until dad calmed down.

Grandma’s house once stood exactly where I located it – snuggly pressed between Longo’s garage and the house next door on 7th avenue just off Commercial Drive on a lot so narrow you could spit across it.  You can visit that street still and see its replacement; a tall, modern house shoehorned into that small lot.

Almost all of the names have been changed, mostly because I don’t want people to be angry with me.  Those familiar with Vancouver’s history might recognize some of the larger than life characters despite the name changes.  So be it.  Let that be our little secret.

When I was growing up, I didn’t know that many of my parents’ acquaintances were criminals.  Some of the people I grew up around were dangerous people, but they weren’t dangerous to me or my family.  To me they were full of life, loved their wives and their children, and worked hard to make a good life for them.

All of the 7th Avenue Gang are real people that I grew up with.  Some may recognize themselves, and I hope they find delight in that.  Denny’s nemesis in the novel is an amalgam of assholes I’ve known throughout my life.  I named him Kevin, because every Kevin I’ve ever known has been a pain in my ass.  No offence to the vast majority of Kevins out there or the people who love them, it’s just that the Kevins in my life have never worked out for me.

Carrie Anne Gabler is also an amalgam of a number of girls and young women I’ve known through the years – and yes, one of them fell through a ceiling and broke her arm when she hit the television her brother and I were watching.  They were all gentle and sweet and loveable, yet at the same time vulnerable and tragic.  The world is a hard place for girls like Carrie, who only see the good in people and when evil is done to them, they internalize it as a failing of their own character.  Though Carrie only has a small role in Little Gangsters she plays a larger role in Denny’s life during the sequel, Bigger Gangsters that takes place ten years later.  Denny will carry her memory and his undying love for her through Millennial Gangsters and it haunts the pages of Gangster’s Girl, and will remain with Denny for the rest of his days.

A friend and I did witness the Vancouver Police ambush and kill an escaped convict named Boyd in a hail of gunfire just like it happened in that chapter.  I had to move the location of the massacre so it fit into the right neighbourhood for the story and the friend with me wasn’t Frankie or Donny; his name was Tom and his parents owned the grocery store where Boyd bought the groceries for a last meal that he never got a chance to eat.

So, I give you Little Gangsters – my thin slice of growing up in East Vancouver living on the fringes of the law.  Other East Vancouverites may hold vastly different memories, so your mileage may vary. 

Aaron D McClelland

The Arroyo

I’ve heard it said many times in movies and television shows and even in real life; that when someone is killed by a bullet to the head they didn’t feel a thing.

I call bullshit.

I heard the snick of the trigger and clack of the hammer, then the sledge hammer impact slamming down on the crown of my skull.  I felt the bullet sizzle through my brain and explode the roof of my mouth, that impact sending a shockwave up through my nasal passages blowing my eyeballs out of their sockets.  I felt the heat of the bullet pass through my open mouth, searing my tongue before shattering my front teeth and passing out of me to impact the clay below.  To a witness who hadn't heard the shot it would have looked like I spat blood, shattered teeth, and a lozenge of lead onto the ground below.

My body carried momentum of the impact, pitching me forward into the arroyo, my boots dragging on the steep slope, flipping my body so it fell headfirst into one of the deep narrow cuts in the chaos of the water-carved canyon.  It wedged tight there, head down, legs askew, a wash of clay and sand coming loose and flowing like a mockery of water to dust my clothing.  Nature was camouflaging Razor’s crime.

The next time a raging storm sent rainwater rioting across the upper bench it would tear more of the walls apart and cover my body better than any gravedigger.  I would never be found, a permanent part of the desert I dreamt so often of leaving.

"__&__"

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Starting today, for the next two months, Little Gangsters and Bigger Gangsters are free for download Here

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Heroin

Miles away, M_ woke with a start deep in the night and for one disorienting moment didn’t know where he was.  Pale light from outside backlit curtains unfamiliar to him.  When he squinted into the darkness he was alarmed to find his bedroom door was no longer where it had been for the past sixteen years.  Panicked, M_ fumbled for his lamp on his bedside table, nearly knocking it to the floor in his haste to turn it on, and when he clutched it and thumbed the switch the light flared bright, revealing a room unfamiliar.

They’d moved into the loft apartment above the Laird of McCullough that day.

Relief washed through M_’s body like warm water flowing across parched sand.  M_ exhaled, realizing he’d been holding his breath, then straightened his lamp on the bedside table and turned to see if he’d awakened B_  Her covers were thrown back and she was gone.  At first M_ thought that she had gotten up to use the bathroom, but when he reached out and laid his hand flat on the mattress on her side it was cool and damp.  Since the murders she’d been sweating in her sleep as she tossed and turned, haunted by endless nightmares.  That the mattress was cool meant she’d gotten out of bed some time ago.  Worried, M_ rose and padded out of the bedroom, softly calling her name.

There was no sign of her in the apartment, M_ even checked the kitchen walk-in pantry and the small empty bedroom that would one day be a nursery.  M_ opened the door and walked downstairs into the dim honky-tonk, lit only by the small neon signs over the bar advertising beer brands, the ever changing colours of the Wurlitzer, and the glowing red EXIT signs over each door.

“B_?” M_ stage-whispered into the bar, and received only silence in return.  Since D_ and T_’s murders, B_’s night terrors had grown increasingly worse, and for one soul-chilling moment, M_wondered if she’s added sleepwalking to her nightly disturbances, envisioning her wandering outside, barefooted in her nightgown, lost in her world of terror.  How would that look if one of the crew found her?  Or worse yet; if a State Trooper picked her up wandering the highway babbling incoherently about blood and murders.

M_ considered running back upstairs and getting dressed, but an almost paranoid sense of urgency pushed him to move quickly to the rear exit door to see if she was crunching around in the gravel parking lot.  That’s when he saw her.

B_ was sitting in a large booth near the back doors, looking like a lost child being so small and frail.  Her face was paler than usual, lit blue, then green, then red, as the Wurlitzer flashed its coloured lights from across the large room.  Her eyes were wide and she was staring at the table in front of her.

“B_?” Mac called to her softly as he crept near, afraid of spooking her into one of her fits of screaming, “B_, honey?”

She didn’t appear to hear him, continuing to stare at the table before her as he slid in beside her on the worn vinyl cushions.

“B_.” he whispered her name, gently stroking the hair on the back of her head.

“Can you see it?” B_ asked as softly as a morning breeze cutting through an open window, “It’s everywhere.”

M_ looked at the table and saw B_ had laid out her heroin rig and had gotten so far as to cook a shot in the blackened spoon that rested beside the syringe and lighter.

“I see your rig.” M_answered quietly.

“The walls are bleeding, the table bleeding, the floor bleeding.” B_ spoke as though she were revealing a solemn secret, “The world is bleeding, M_  Bleeding and dying, and soon we all will bleed and die.”

“You need to sleep, my love.” M_ said, “You just need to sleep to make this all go away.”

“I can’t.  I tried, but I can’t touch it now.” B_ whispered, staring at her rig in awe and fear, “Can’t you see?  Can’t you see?”

M_’s heart was breaking to see his love so deep in her hallucinations and her terror of what they had done.  He hated her rapid descent into drug addiction and worried about the damage it was doing to the child within her.  He knew from past experience that for him to argue that what she saw wasn’t real would set her weeping and screaming at him, even fighting him if he tried to embrace her.  He saw that the length of surgical tubing was still wrapped tightly around her left upper arm – she’d been about to inject herself.

“Close your eyes, B_” M_ said to her in the same tone one used with small children, “Just close your eyes, I promise it will be alright.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.” he assured her and she closed her eyes.

M_ picked up her syringe and dropped the tiny cotton wad into the amber liquid in the bowl of the spoon.  He carefully rested the tip of the needle in the saturated cotton wad and drew the liquid heroin mixture into the barrel of the syringe, filtering out the specks of impurities floating in it.  Then gently and slowly, he lifted her arm and laid it in his lap, finding a vein near the crook of her elbow and probing, drawing back in the plunger until he saw her blood mix with the heroin.  He pushed the plunger down, delivering the heroin into her bloodstream, then removed the needle and untied the tubing, allowing her blood to flow freely, to carry the heroin to circulate and find its way to B_’s brain, to attach to opioid receptors there.

The body takes twenty minutes to transform pure heroin into morphine, providing a high which can last hours, but before that happens, heroin delivers a sometimes overwhelming rush of ecstasy and sense of wellbeing.  It is a happy drug.

Beside him, B_ sighed, then leaned into him, her body warm and loose in his arms.

“Oh, M_.” she whispered, “Oh, M_.  Thank you … thank you … thank you …”

M_ slid her limp form out of the booth and carried her through the darkened honky-tonk and up the stairs like a sleeping child.  Her eyes remained closed and her face was relaxed, her lips twitching occasionally with a flickering smile.

“... lover-man ...” she murmured as he laid her down in their bed and pulled her covers over her, tucking them under her chin.

“Sleep now, B_” M_ said softly and kissed her pale cheek, “Everything is going to be alright.”

“… alright …” B_ echoed as she sunk into the dreamless bliss that saturated and swallowed her troubled mind.

But M_ knew it wasn’t going to be alright as he returned downstairs to collect her rig.  Nothing was going to be alright ever again.

"__&__"