Four short stories

All works are Copyright by Todd Vogel

Talking with God
He'd been drunk, Ralph knew that much, as he remembered what he could and tried to assemble the puzzle of last night. He'd been well beyond blasted when the strange little man had come into the bar. He vaguely remembered the man's face as having been angular, a sharp nose had made it seem almost wedge like, and that he'd spoken with an accent that sounded like it might be Nordic, but somehow wasn't.
The man hadn't been any too sober either, he remembered, that was why Ralph hadn't been too worried about being conned when the man told him about the machine.
If it had been a con, the man would have been sober and would have made all sorts of claims. Instead he babbled and said, "I got no idea what it is, but it sure is strange looking. Kind of pretty if you like things like that."
It was too, about the size of a large shoe box, filled with what looked like gyroscopes and tops, some of which were wearing party hats, transistors, and packed with something that looked like a large glob of the lint you pull out of a clothes dryer. There was no obvious switch on the outside of the box and no place to put batteries.
"Where'd you get it?"
"I work over at Kingsway Self Store, you know, over on the boulevard."
Ralph knew the place. He'd rented a garage sized locker there when his last marriage had gone bad and his wife had given him two days to get his shit out.
"Anyway some dork got behind in his rent and so we had to cut the lock and go in. He'd rented one of the medium lockers three years ago and paid for thirty months. We gave him another six months, but when someone came in wanting a locker that size we went in."
"And you found that?"
"Yeah, and a busted lawn chair."
"So what you going to do with it?"
"I don't know. You want it? I'll let you have it for a few bucks."

Now, in the ugly light of day, as he saw it sitting on his gray Formica kitchen table, Ralph wondered what exactly it had been about it that he'd paid seven dollars and one shot of Jack Daniels to come to own.
His head hurt too much to worry about it much, and his stomach was having a civil war. If he tried to eat, it might settle the burning empty feeling, or it might bring the acid up and out. Either seemed like it might be a good enough idea, because he didn't want to go on feeling the way he was.
But as he opened the fridge he saw by some miracle he had a couple of beers he'd forgotten about and, even though he knew it wasn't regarded as a smart thing to do, he grabbed one and popped the top. He had enough experience in these things to drink it by the sink so if he got sick it wouldn't be so bad to clean up.
It was a close thing but it stayed down and the slight trembling he'd been trying to ignore got better. Stopping only to pull the other beer out of the fridge he stumbled into the living room to flop on the couch until he felt a little better.

The sun blasted its way through the grimy window and onto the box. As Ralph passed through the kitchen a little later he guessed he ought to take another look inside to see what he'd though was worth the price of a couple of sixpacks the night before.
In the sunlight it looked different. There were things that sparkled in the stuff that looked like lint. The tops and gyroscopes seemed as though they'd been polished. He turned it slightly so the sunlight fell directly onto a square panel set into one of the ends.
At first there was no sound at all. Slowly one, and then another of the gyroscopes began to turn. Something told him it might be better to put the cover back on the box, but ignored the impulse, intrigued by the movement. Anyway, the way he saw it, if Monica gave him hell about it -- it was a little less hell that she'd give him for going out and getting plastered again.
He lost interest after a minute and padded into the bedroom knowing that if he wasn't dressed when she got home from her shift waitressing at the cafe she'd really get pissed off. As he was pulling on his pants he heard the teakettle whistling except that he was pretty sure he hadn't turned the stove on.

The sunlight seemed brighter, the whistling had gotten so high he could barely hear it, and the gyroscopes were spinning so fast the table was vibrating like the washer did during spin cycle.
Again the thought about putting the top on the box crossed his mind, but he ignored it. Ralph wanted to know what that sucker did. It seemed to still be accelerating, but it was hard to tell. The things inside were spinning so fast he couldn't tell that they were moving except for the way the sun seemed to bounce of them a little funny. The sparkling things in the felt were lit up now and the lint its-self seemed to be crackling with static electricity.

Reaching out, he put his hands on either end of the box and felt a surge of power, not a jolt, but rather a rushing wave that made him feel strong, very strong.
That effect was hardly noticed though because his mind felt as though it was being flushed in a powerful toilet. The hangover was gone, the reasons for drinking were gone. It was like having a large un-abridged dictionary lifted from his head, and, before he realized it, the selfish, angry, brooding man he had been was gone.
For half a minute he thought he was dying, but as the realization came that he wasn't, he also knew that death was nothing to fear.
He heard the pitch of the spinning gyros fall slightly as his vision went white and his body seemed to get lighter. Beyond the white he could see vague shapes. Without intending to he seemed to float towards them, or perhaps they were coming towards him, such distinctions were not relevant.
He passed between a pair of tall steep pyramids and under an arch made of what he somehow knew were braided hexagons. The light got brighter; so bright it passed through him and he knew he was with God.
There was no need for words. He let his newly opened mind drink in the essence of God's being when suddenly the light began to dim.

The kitchen had been transformed into a fern filled glade through which a brook babbled in a busy manner. A tall tree blocked out the sun and its shadow provided all the cool he'd tried to chase in the thousands of ice cold brews he'd scoffed down. To his right at the far edge of the glade a woman sat on a fallen branch and watched him.

He didn't know where he was or even, had he thought about it, who he was, nor did he care. The woman hopped off the branch and came closer.

At first Monica had assumed he was drunk, but when she looked into his eyes she didn't see the cloudy shoals she normally saw. Instead, it was like looking at the sky on a cold, clear, winter's night. His face which she had come to believe was trapped in a sneer was as quiet as a pond half an hour before dawn.
"What are you doing," she asked?
It took him a long time to answer, "Don't you know? I'm walking with God."
Monica had been through a lot with Ralph in the too long fourteen months they'd been together. She'd been hit, and had halfway forgiven him. She'd bailed him out of jail after she'd pressed charges for when he slashed the tires on her car. She'd given him her body and taken what she could get of his in return. When asked, as she often was by her girl friends, why she stayed with him -- she said she didn't know. Things, she told herself, were bound to get better when he got over whatever it was that was eating him.
When he said he was walking with God there was something about the texture of his voice that made her believe it. Besides he wasn't the type to do that kind of drugs. It sent chills running down her arms and made her scalp seem to stretch back on her head.
For a second she was in awe, then an anger rose in her. How did this miserable lowlife who seemed to have the ability to get himself fired from any job, rate such a wondrous thing? The stupid slob who'd been so drunk he'd pissed over half the bathroom when he stumbled in last night had no right being where ever it was that he was, no matter how wondrous. "You son of a bitch," she said, and before she had time to think it, she had pulled the cast iron skillet off the stove and delivered a solid forehand to the back of his head.
The skillet rang with a dull gong, but his head rang like a large tuned silver bell singing with a series of tones and undertones as he slowly slid to the floor.
Dropping the skillet beside him, she reached for the box, intending to slam dunk it into the garbage.
For her the light was a pale but glowing golden yellow.
The first thing her God told her was that she should have hit him upside the head a long time ago.

Justice for Breakfast

The day had started badly with the alarm interrupting a dream involving a vacation, a beach and being able to go back to bed after watching the sunrise. Then, as Sandra was walking to the bus, it improved dramatically when she spotted Jim frantically trying to talk a parking violations truck driver out of towing his car away.
Usually her sympathies would be with the car owner, but Jim had been such a creep he deserved this and more. Much more. It wasn't just that he was so self-centered, but also there was a streak of meanness and dishonesty that still made her shudder a little when she thought of him and the manipulations he’d used trying to get her to sleep with him.
"You don't understand, I need the car for work."
"You shouldn't have parked here then, and paid them other tickets." The tow truck driver was being nicer than she would have thought.
"I wouldn't expect you to understand, that some of us have more important things to do than deal with shit like this. What's your name?"
The man's tone hardened. "Jones, badge number 649." He put a chain through the underside of the car with a clunk and a rattle.
"The car better not be damaged."
The man didn't answer. As she watched Jim's face got a little more rigid. A muscle under his left eye twiched a couple of times.
"Listen you little shit. I've got a meeting in twenty minutes where I'm going to make a sale that will earn me more than you make in a month."
"Well you'd better get going then." The driver opened the driver's side door of the car and slipped in, reaching to put the car in neutral.
Jim, his face flushing red, took a step towards the man then changed direction and climbed into the cab of the tow truck.
The driver was starting to get out of the car when it jerked forward.
Jim wasn't all that proficient driving a tow truck and the car scraped against another parked car leaving shards of broken taillights.
Inside the car, the traffic officer put it back into gear and the tires screeched as the engine resisted their turning. He leaned on the horn but it didn't quite cover the mechanical sounds that were coming from under the hood. Sandra forgot about making her bus, and followed - watching as the truck bucked against its balky load. It made it two blocks before a police car happened by and cut off the truck. By now Jim wasn't in a mood to be stopped and he plowed into the car's fender.
Sandra could tell the cops were upset by the way they yanked the door open and threw Jim to the ground. Incredibly he resisted, hitting one of the cops with a flailing arm on his way down and immediately trying to get up. "Let me up you jerks. He's the one..." He actually made it to his knees and pointed to his car, but the gesture was cut off when one of the cops slammed him back down. Quickly he was cuffed and then jerked to his feet.
The cop had dealt with his type before. "Listen up asshole, You have the right to keep silent, in fact, I strongly suggest that you don't say a fucking word. You have the right to an attorney and you're really going to need one. But it isn't going to do you any good because we got you coming and going." With that he turned away and took some information from the tow truck driver. Jim stood there. She could see his eyes darting around frantically. Then they lit on her, and he called, "Sandra, tell them who I am. Tell them they can't arrest me."
Before the cop could tell him to shut up, she shouted back, "Too bad it's not a crime to be an asshole, because you'd be a repeat offender."
This got a laugh from the cops and the assembled crowd. Jim seemed to deflate, and for a tenth of a second she was sorry she'd said it.
The cop gestured to her, waving her towards him, "You know him?"
She took four steps towards him, not wanting to shout out the answer, "Not really. I made the mistake of dating him a couple of times. Like I said..."
He cut her off, "What's his name?"
"Jim Smathers, he'll tell you how important he is."
The cop smiled, "I'll bet he will. Where does he live?"
"Up on Carroll Street."
"Did you see this?"
She nodded, thinking the cop was cute, "Yeah, all of it." She pointed up the street. "It started two blocks back."
"I'll bet you'd be willing to testify."
She felt a little guilt at how much she would like the opportunity, "With pleasure."
He took down her name and numbers. As he did she watched as Jim was put into the back of a second police car. "How much trouble is he in?"
"That depends. Technically we've got felonies all over the place, but yuppies can afford good lawyers." He thought about it for a moment. "Of course stealing a tow truck, ramming our car, and resisting arrest, it won't be a roll-over either. With any luck he'll piss off the DA and the judge."
She looked at her watch, she was going to be late for work. She looked at the tow truck driver, and trying to imitate Jim she said, "There'd better not be a scratch on that car."
He gave her a blank look for a second, then when he realized she was joking he broke into a big smile. "I'll take real good care of it."
Her bus got stuck in traffic, and she didn't have time to get her coffee and roll, but Sandra forgot to be bothered by it knowing that justice had been served.

Morning in the 'burbs.

With a roar the bulldozer lurched up the curb. With its tracks churning the well-tended lawn, it headed for the house.
It was a sight to break the neighbors out of their morning routines and bring them into the street in states of dress ranging from a bathrobe to a suit that was missing only a tie.
They emerged to find Monica, wearing a little nothing of a blue nylon teddy, standing on the front steps heaving cans of Budweiser at the advancing yellow behemoth which was being driven by her drunken ex-husband.
The first three cans hit the raised blade and bounced away, but the fourth sailed close to him. With a practiced hand he reached out and snagged it. Taking his hand off the controls caused the machine to swerve to the left so it missed the front steps and hit the house under the picture window.
Everyone agreed Frank had been a class A fuckup for as long as they could collectively remember. He continued in this tradition when the dozer, having ripped a hole in the side of the house, fell into the basement with a crash the shook the ground clear across the street.
With the wall ripped away, the neighbors watched Monica cross the shattered living room, and disappear into her bedroom without so much as a glance into the hole from which the slightly diminished bellow of the dozer's engine came. She must have had her bags already packed because in only the time it would have taken her to slide into a pair of tight jeans and a tee shirt she emerged, re-crossed the living room and walked out of the house, not bothering to close the door behind her. As she walked away from the house the engine sputtered to a stop and the scene got very quiet.
When she got to the street she set the bags down and surveyed the crowd which had moved closer with some of the bolder ones walking up to the house and peering into the basement. "George," she called to one of those men, "Can you give me a lift down to the station?"
George turned to her, running a hand on his face, "As soon as I can finish shaving." He paused, "Are you all right?"
"It's been a hell of a morning so far."
The crowd laughed. It started off as an uncomfortable titter that got louder and bolder reaching its peak as Frank - sporting a bloody nose, a limp that was exaggerated by his drunkenness, and a stunned look, staggered out of the house and sat heavily on the front steps.
If he was still in his rage, it disappeared as the laughs rolled over him. He was still on the steps when the police car came screaming up the block.
If there was a bigger horse's ass than Frank in the entire township of Weston, people later argued over barbecues, it was Ed Nestor who jumped out of the squad car with a zeal that he'd learned from cop shows on TV. His hand on his holstered pistol, he yelled, "All right, break it up. Move along, there's nothing to see here."
Someone yelled, "Hey Ed, don't you want to know what's going on before you tell all the witnesses to go away?" With that the laughter started up again.
Ed spun around trying to see who had yelled that, but succeeded only in coming close to tripping over his own feet.
He turned back towards the house as Frank was gingerly letting himself down the steps. "Hey you, Stop right there."
Ed hurried up the walk, "who did this to you?"
Frank, who had a profound talent for blaming other people or things for his problems, pointed towards Monica, "she did."
She shrieked, "What?" and started toward him, but George laid a hand on her shoulder and said, "Ed, you'd better take a look in the basement first." He pointed towards the hole.
From Ed's reaction it was evident that he'd missed the fact that there was a hole in the side of the house large enough to drive a full-grown bulldozer through. He ran across the lawn and looked down into the hole.
Frank's rage was back, "Look what you made me do, you stupid cow."
This time George could not restrain her. She started up the walk toward him when Ed spun around, unholstered his pistol and yelled, "Freeze."
One of the reasons Ed had such a reputation was that no one ever paid any attention to him. When he was a rookie assigned to direct traffic at the opening of the mall he had been hit three times by drivers who had sailed right on through his directive to stop. Monica paid him no mind and upon reaching Frank, she grabbed him by the ear and pulled him across the front of the house until they got to the hole. "It wasn't me Frank, it was you who never learned." Ed sheepishly holstered his gun and was standing close to the couple trying to decide who to arrest and for what.
She turned to the cop and said, "I got a restraining order against this asshole yesterday. Does it look like he's staying away from me? Is this 500 feet?"
Ed shook his head.
"Well, it doesn't matter. If he wants the fucking house he can have it, the rent's overdue anyhow. I'm out of here."

Payback

Looking at him made her think of sushi. Ellen didn't like sushi, really hated it. She wondered if she hated him because he was the good-looking, young, fair-haired boy who had been promoted over her because he was the vice-president's tennis partner? Or was it that he was openly ambitious, aggressive to the point of back stabbing, and had the morals of a degenerate hammerhead shark? "You stole my work."
He said, "Incorporated it into my proposal.", with the smoothness of a slightly slimy piece of fish sliding down a refined gullet. He stared at her with a bland patient expression, waiting for her to give him her best shot.
It was late, dark enough outside for the window in his office to present Ellen with a reflection of herself. She saw herself not looking like much of a threat. Though she was dressed well, her suit didn't have the aura of power to it that his seemed to generate. Though still thin, she was no longer lean. The glasses and pulled back hair gave her a look of intelligence. At least no one thought of her as a dumb blonde, just a patsy.
"You erased files off my machine."
He didn't respond. His eyes seemed to say 'so?'
That took her past the point. She reached for some papers on his desk.
He grabbed her wrist with his well tanned hand. "A superior has the right to look at a subordinate's work, not the other way around."
Ellen tried to draw her arm back but ended up pulling herself a step towards him.
His other hand reached out. He cupped her breast briefly. "You're in pretty good shape for a middle aged broad."
She raised her left hand to slap, but he pushed her away.
"Pig!"
"Listen honey, it's your word against mine."
"You can't do that to me."
"You going to do something about it?" He turned back to his computer. "Why don't you go home now? I've got some work to do getting this proposal ready for tomorrow."

"What are you going to do about it?" Slamming the door to his office had been less than satisfying. She didn't want to go home, she wanted to hit something and there was nothing in her apartment that she wouldn't regret breaking. The same apartment she needed a raise to afford.

She parked in the lot at Anthony's, but didn't get out of the car. Inside there would be clones of the creep. Not too many because tomorrow was another day at the corporate races. She came her on the rare occasions that she stepped out. "For this I turned my life around? For this I've taken shit from a bunch of patronizing jerks for the last eight years."
The proposal would be good, good enough to put the asshole in a position where he could send her career straight down the tubes. The minute he didn't need her she would be history. She'd invested too much to let that happen without a fight. She put the car in gear and pulled out of the lot. It was time to take a trip back into her past. To where the rules were different.

Tony's was smaller than Anthony's. Built of cinderblocks rather than Redwood and glass because the view was of electric transmission lines and a totally different stretch of waterfront.
Their idea of valet parking was that occasionally one of the regulars would see a car they liked and hot wire it.
She studied the bikes out front. His wasn't there, but maybe someone knew where he was. She hoped he wasn't in jail - or dead.

Ellen knocked on the door again harder this time -- hard enough to hurt her knuckles. "God-damn it Fred, get up, it's me." She was the only one who called him Fred. The rest of the world called him Frog or sometimes just OG when they were too drunk to form complex sounds with their mouths.
He had to be inside, his Harley was parked in the driveway, and since she'd learned that they'd repo'd his car he had no other wheels. He had to be inside, there was no other place he'd be at eight-thirty in the morning. He hadn't been there at two when she checked last before giving up for the night. He had to be inside, because she needed him to be there, just this once. It would make up for a lot.
She heard him coming before he pulled the door open and stood blinking at the brilliant morning that swooped in from over her shoulder. He was having trouble with his jeans because he wasn't wearing any underwear and his pubic hair kept getting caught in the zipper. Behind him she could see a blonde sprawled across the mattress.
The place looked like a recycling center after an invasion of berserk grisly bears. He was still favoring Budweiser, she noticed. He looked over her shoulder, checking to see if she was alone.
"Jesus Christ. Ellen."
At least he was able to come up with name, that was something. She pushed past him into the crowded room remembering when this crowded room over a garage would have seemed normal. The blonde on the bed wasn't moving. That would have been normal then too. The place smelled of beer and cigarettes mixed with a slice of slightly acrid eau d'unwashed laundry.
She turned back to him and said, "It's payback time Fred."
The line came out well, she'd been working on it for the last half hour.
"Payback? What the fuck?" He scratched his head, his beard and then his belly, which, she noted, had turned middle aged along with the rest of him. It was the thing that kept her from thinking she had stepped back into a time warp.
She went to the refrigerator and pulled out two beers, the last two. She tossed one to him, popped the top on hers and took a slug before answering.
"Got a problem. I need your help." It had been a very long time since she'd had a beer at this hour. A bubble of gas rose from her stomach and she remembered why.
He took a deep swallow, "And so you come in here like a fucking runaway train. What time is it anyway?"
"Eight-thirty."
"Shit, I didn't get to bed til nearly five." He took another slug of the beer, belched, and asked, "What payback?"
"General principals, but if you want to be specific I can remind you about the probation officer who wanted to..."
"I remember. That was a long time ago. Hell I haven't seen you in, Jesus what is it, five maybe six years?"
"More or less." Seven years, two months.
"How did you find me?"
"Took some doing."
He went back to the door and peered down into the driveway below before shutting it. "So, what's so important?"
"It'll take a minute to explain." Ellen moved towards a chair.
"In that case, I got something that needs doing first." He moved off and Ellen sank onto a vinyl covered kitchen chair and tried not to remember what it had been like when she'd been the bimbo on the bed. She remembered not to set her arms on the table which would be greasy with the residue of engine parts past.

"You know I went straight after we split."
He nodded.
"Well, I've got a problem and that's going to take some of your kind of solution to handle it."
"Talk to me."
"Today, eleven o'clock, I want you to put the fear of God into someone."
"Who?"
"A suit. Young, thinks he's hot. Asshole, a lightweight, plays tennis."
"Why?"
"Son of a bitch stole some of my work, tried to wreck some shit on my computer, and when I went to him about it he put his hands all over me and told me it was my word against his. Then he asked me what I was going to do about it."
"So you thought of me?"
"Yeah, you're not an easy man to forget."
"Appreciate that. What about any heat?"
"Not the way I see it. At eleven the receptionist goes out for coffee. You walk in and walk out. Office is near the door."
"And between walking in and walking out?"
"You remember when we were living in the basement of that bar in Oakland, and they sold the place and the new owners came in and wanted us to move?"
"Yeah. Pinned the sucker to the wall and told him, 'I am your worst nightmare, and you can't wake up out of it.'"
"That's it. I'll do the talking."

Even though she got in late, the morning went slowly. Ellen made a couple of calls, then sat back to wait. At five minutes to she went out to the reception area, watched Sally getting ready to leave, and prayed the Fred would be on time for once.

He'd dressed for the part -- wearing his colors, boots, wrap around mirrored sunglasses, and a chain belt. He was carrying a sawed off baseball bat lightly in his left hand. He still cut an impressive figure in a real basic masculine sort of way and she could see why he had attracted the eye of a young free-spirited girl who had wanted to show the world just how wild she was at heart. She led him quickly down the hall to James' office.
James was alone, working intently on his computer, his fingers flickering on the keyboard as he made it do his will. He noticed they were there when Fred reached down and pulled the keyboard out from under his hands.
"What the.."
"James, I'd like you to meet what I'm going to do about it."
Fred grabbed the bewildered bright young man by the neck and hoisted him out of his chair.
Ellen sat down and quickly entered a series of commands which would, she knew, turn his computer disk to a plate of cold grits.
While the red disk light blinked rapidly, she went through his desk, took out anything that looked like it might be important and fed it into his shredder. The backup disks made a nasty sound and, for a second, she thought they were going to choke it. The shredder, like the office with a window, was a status symbol. She did not have one of her own. Someday she would. Maybe this one, maybe soon.
She fed it the pile of materials he was going to present at the meeting -- the work he'd stolen from her. He'd done nice work with it, she saw, must have been up half the night.
James was on tiptoe, back against the wall. Fred growled softly, but the threat was effectively delivered by his hands. One at the neck, the other at the crotch reducing resistance to zero.
When she was pretty sure there was no chance he would be able to repair the damage she'd done to his computer, Ellen stood. She'd been working on the right line for most of the morning.
"Don't fuck with us middle aged broads, some of us got friends." She nodded and Fred let James go.
His legs weren't able to hold his weight. He slid down the wall until his ass settled on the gray carpet. He did well to keep from toppling over on his side.
She checked the hall and, seeing the corridor was clear, motioned for Fred to leave. Retrieving his bat from the desk, he gave her a quick kiss and then vanished.
"I'd love to stay and chat, but we've got a meeting in," she looked at her watch, "about twenty minutes." She took a step out the door and turned back. "And James, two things. First, like you said, 'it'll be your word against mine', and, second, we know where you live." With that she left, gently closing the door behind her.