A new Short Story

I guess I'm avoiding working on my novel, my fifth revision of a past screenplay, or the new script I'm writing, but I wrote another short story. Here you go.

Oh! I almost forgot. Go to my Facebook page. I posted two interviews with Joe Meno.



Recycling and Lying

I left the bookstore picking up two books off the shelves but only leaving with one. I passed on an autographed copy of the latest hard covered book from my favorite author. Not only am I a liar, I’m also cheap.

The cable car ride to my destination took longer than I expected. It was a busy day downtown, the sun was out. The car filled up with people, pushing me and the present crowd of riders to the back of the car. To my immediate right are three kids sitting in a row. Behind me, also to my right is an adult woman who keeps looking at me as if I had some sinister stuff going on in my head, the bad things I was going to do to them. I try not to look in that direction, so I look straight ahead. Seated up a seat from me, also on my right, is a black woman with broad shoulders and huge breasts.

The odor came to me in a subtle, but lethal way. New riders from the last stop made a man who stood a few feet from me, just prior, come into my personal space. He was a large man dressed in cargo pants and black boots that had ripped open along the pinky toe of his right foot. It must have been a long, hot day for him or something because the smell coming from his arm pits, as he held the railings above him on either side, wasn’t pleasant. Not sweet or musty, just wrong.

My stop was coming up soon. I wondered how I was ever going to get out with all the people in front of me and the door being so far away. I start to feel a sweat building under my skin. Lucky for me, the large black woman with large breasts was getting off at the same stop as me. I could see her squirming in her seat, taking quick looks outside, judging when the next stop will be. Like a running back following his lineman’s block, I follow behind her. People either open up a lane because they saw her getting up or because her broad shoulders or her breasts bump up against everyone in front, or besides her.

Getting off the cable car, I notice a couple, a man and a woman, walking a dog. Without any reason I can think of, my eyes end up going to the dog’s anus. Normally I would avert my eyes, look somewhere else. For some reason I couldn’t take my eyes off the dog’s ass. It was puffy like a cream puff. I don’t know if it’s owners are aware of this or not. Maybe they're on their way to the vet.


Three of four blocks later, after eventually getting the memory of the dogs anus out of my mind, I reach my destination - work. The place is called COMPACT disc. I think the original owner came up with the name, not only because it was a store that sold used and some new CD’s, but because it was a small, compact, place. It was two stories filled with bins of used CD’s and posters. A short but steep stairwell, stuffed in the corner, led up to an attic sized room that always seemed warmer than the main room. The front door was always open. The manager of the store was Mary. She was once a stripper at one of the local strip clubs. Mary wasn’t particularly good looking, nor did she have big breasts like the black woman I saw earlier. From what Mary told me, I found out that she was able to make a pretty good living off tips because she could shake her behind in a certain way that she had a pretty good following of men, usually construction types, and occasionally professional types, visit the nude dance hall to see her dance every day that she was there. She was able to make enough money to buy out the past owner who just got bored with music. I asked her one day, a couple years ago, why she didn’t change the name of the store. We both thought the name was pretty lame but she would just tell me that it was easier to keep things the same. I understood what that meant.

“You were at the book store again, weren’t you?” Mary asks. I told her that I hadn’t visited my favorite used book store for several weeks, but that I had just came from my usual burger joint for lunch. It was ten fifty in the morning, fifteen minutes before my scheduled shift. I don’t think she bought it. That was my second lie of the day.

“Why don’t you alphabetize the jazz section again,” Mary says.
I said that would be fine with me, hiding the fact that I didn’t like Jazz. I had told Mary a few months ago that I had an acute eye for seeing what CD’s were out of place in the jazz section since I knew all of the artist‘s names, therefore using the time of my eight hour shift in the most productive way possible. Once again, a lie.

Knee deep in the N’s, I notice that Mary was swamped up front with a couple twenty something dudes, buying the whole Nine Inch Nails selection. They were probably caught up in nostalgia after hearing one of the band’s songs on the radio since Nine Inch Nails hadn’t come out with a new album in over two years.

“Do you know where I can find Cris Barbur’s CD, Nobody Else But Me, do you?”
I had passed the B section about ten minutes ago, not remembering seeing any of Cris Barbur’s music. I told the plump man in a yellow tie and khaki Dockers that stretched across his waste, that I would look for him. This would keep my attention long enough that Mary could eventually take care of the line in front of the cash register. I could ring up anybody in a quick manner, but I didn’t like to do that. People buying CD’s always like to talk to me about music, or anything for that matter. My dad always told me to keep eye contact with anybody that talks to you. This always led to a longer exchange of goods for money. I didn’t like people that much so I keep my head down, looking for the plump man’s CD of his choice.

The man with the yellow tie and khaki pants, I discovered, out of my periferral vision looking for his CD, that both his pockets had frayed fabric, probably from keeping his hands in his pockets longer than most people do. I told him we didn’t have what he was looking for and that he should check out Tower Records, Barnes and Noble, or some other store that sold only new CD’s. He ended up leaving the store unhappy. Apparently he didn’t like what I was telling him. I guess he was as cheap as me.


Summer must be getting late. The sun drops under the mountains earlier than it did just a few weeks ago. Mary let me close COMPACT disc, on my own, about six months ago. I guess she let go of the notion that I would steal all the money out of the little cash register or that I found the combination to the safe in the back office, commonly referred to as the “safe room”. The truth is that I found the combination to the safe written on a small piece of yellow masking tape that was stuck on the left backside desk leg. It was the leg most inaccessible of all the legs so I assumed she thought no one would find it. I had dropped something down there, saw the numbers and gave it a twirl on the safe some Tuesday. The safe opened on the first try.

It was, shortly, after that when I found a stray CD on a shelf, that I heard a knock on the front door. I had locked it before starting my closing procedures. Upon looking up in horror, thus raising my temperature and sweat level, I was glad to see that it was just Todd. He always made three taps on the door before entering, even when the store was open. It was his trademark, or store entering knock. Todd was the stores Poster distributor. Today he wore his Nirvana Nevermind concert T-shirt. I guess his Pearl Jam shirt was in the wash.

After unlocking the front door, I gradually make my descent behind the counter, closer to the cash register. Todd had been working with Pam for a couple years before I started working here but I still felt uneasy with him in the store - just him and me, alone.

“Mary said I could stop by a little later than usual. I hope you don’t mind?” I minded, but I didn’t say anything. “I can put these in the back. I think that’s where Mary keeps ‘em. Before putting them on the walls anyways.”

Before I knew it, Todd, carrying a large cardboard box with several posters wrapped up with two rubbers bands, one on top and one on the bottom, had made it from the front door to the middle of the C section of the Pop/Rock bin. “Man, this store trips me out every time. The memories. You know…” Todd waiting for a response from me but it was late and I just wanted him to leave. “… I was the second customer to ever walk into this store. Can you believe that?”

I could see he was getting somewhat nostalgic. It must have been the beers or the whiskey that made him so. I could smell it on his breath from the moment I opened the door for him. He went on to tell me about the first time he saw Kurt Cobain, the singer of Nirvana, come out on stage in the town’s only high school’s auditorium, “before they got famous.” I could tell that what he was telling me was a very fond memory of his. I too had memories of seeing my favorite bands live in concerts but I let him go on, describe, in detail, his memory.

“Maybe you could help me out with this one - settle an argument?” Todd says, hoping I would agree to listen to his question. “My boy, Billy Two-tops, says it was Mother Love Bone, Green River, and even Sonic Youth that started grunge rock. I said, shit no. It was Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Nirvana that started it all.”

I said it couldn’t be Pearl Jam because some of the guys in that band played for both Mother Love Bone and Green River, and that Sonic Youth wasn’t really considered grunge because they were actually more glam or album rock. I must have shattered his whole argument, or made him a bit confused, because he just stood there, gently rubbing his belly covered by his concert T-shirt, just below the picture of the floating baby, the same picture on the Nirvana’s Nevermind album cover.

“Just tell Mary she owes me one fifty. Seventy five past due, seventy five this load.” Todd says as he swiftly moves past the cash register, me standing just to the right of it, and out the door. I locked the door behind him noticing that all the sun had disappeared behind the mountains.



I parked my car, a 1985 Honda Accord LX Hatchback, on a lot several blocks from my place of business. It was the cheapest in the downtown area and I needed to save as much money as possible, whenever possible. The cable car didn’t go that direction so I had to make the trek everyday after work. Six and Park, the eight hundred block, where COMPACT disc sat was on the last block where the locals would say was safe. Six hundred block and south, it got worse and worse. All of the tall buildings where the business men and woman worked were a couple to three blocks north of the COMPACT disc store, the area where locals with no jobs or loser jobs like me, spent most of their time. Coffee shops, an old Rite Aid, small restaurants with weird painted windows with outdoor seating, and even a off track racing place were within a block from where I work. In a way, it was the perfect location for a used CD store.

There are two separated occasions, every day that I work, when I am presented with an option. One is at Truman and fourth, and the other is at Stansbury and second. Two large parking lots stand between me and a block or so less walking time to get to my car. Burglaries, car jackings, and even drug deals often took place there. Even with the warning signs, the parking lots were almost always full. The last thing I needed was for some poor fella to hide behind a large van, jump out and grab me, expecting me to have money in my pocket. If I don’t get my two or more breaks during work, when it's especially busy, I usually make these time saving journeys through these parking lots. I’m not dead yet, I keep saying to myself.

Leaving the downtown city limits, I am soon reminded by an errand I continue to ignore. It’s been about a week now. The cans of pop tightly sealed in a white garbage bag with red handles tied tightly, not letting the air of old pop cans seep out of the top of the bag, rattle against each other on every corner, or turn, I make. I know I shouldn’t drink so much pop, but I do anyways. I don’t smoke, drink alcohol, or take drugs. I don’t care if drinking too much soda can cause kidney failure, osteoporosis, diabetes, high blood pressure, depleted calcium, heartburn, skin problems, or even Alzheimer’s. I like it and it keeps me alert at times when I need to be alert.

Tonight, I will finally stop and recycle these noise makers; I’m almost out of soda, anyways. I only hope I don’t have to stand in line at the recycling machines. The poor man with the large belly and the dirty T-shirt is probably there directing recyclers, telling each person when and where an open slot is available. This is the problem living in a town that is over aggressive with recycling. There used to be a time when you could take a shopping cart, throw all of you cans and bottles in it and trek in a grocery store where some acne prone kid with a bad temper was called to separate the ten cent and five cent bottles and cans, counting as he went along. It is still possible to do this, but the grimace you see from the grocery store employees’ when you enter with your cart full of recyclables, isn’t worth it anymore. I’d rather just stand in line. This is probably why I switched from bottles to cans. These stupid machines make you deposit each bottle, one by one now. This takes forever. I have the time but lack the patience. With the twelve pack of regular pop, costing me ten ninety five, plus deposit minus the ticket with the amount of recyclables I deposited in the machines, I proceed on to my destination - home.

There are pros and cons, living in an apartment complex. The good is that it doesn’t cost that much when you take into account the things you have to deal with when you own your own house. Lawn care, dealing with plumbing issues, and the over exuberant property taxes doesn’t excite me to go down to all of the banks to get a loan so I can overpay for a house. I only need one bedroom and I’d be making mortgage payments anyways. Mortgage or rent, it’s just the same. Who would give me the loan, anyways? I make just under ten bucks an hour at COMPACT disc.

I enter my apartment building hoping I don’t run into Justine, the Robinsons, or my next door neighbor, Alex. I don’t know how many times I need to tell Alex that I don’t play fantasy board games, but he just won’t stop asking. I tried playing one time, but I was quick to find a lie that got me out of his smelly apartment filled with bobble heads and Star Wars action figures. Throwing away a plastic bag filled with garbage, I’m too lazy to take out of my car on a daily basis, I run into a box, next to a dumpster, filled with cassette tapes. This reminds me that my newest DVD from Netflix could have arrived today. I’m not a big superhero or comic book geek like Alex, but the thoughts of throwing the latest Batman movie into my DVD player before I go to bed, sounded good tonight. To me, Christian Bale is the best Batman. I would get into the argument with Alex by just mentioning the word Batman as I passed by him on our way into one of our apartments, but I keep my Christian Bale, the best Batman, opinion to myself.


I was awoken, from a pretty good dream, at about two thirty in the morning. The phone I kept in the other room, was ringing. On the other line was Mary. As I listen, she seems frantic in her speech. It even sounded like she was crying or had been crying recently. She went on to tell me that COMPACT disc was broken into earlier this morning. It was probably during the dream when I saved some woman from a burning building. I flew in, my wings extended too….

“They took everything. They stole most of the CD’s, and the money from the safe.” Mary says, stopping me in my tracks.

I went on to tell her that I would be happy to come over in the morning, even before my scheduled shift, to help out. I even offered to take inventory - whatever she needed. She told me that it wasn’t necessary since the police and investigators were taken care of it. Before hanging up, Mary asked me one final question, “Did you lock the front door? And the safe?” Without any thought, I said, “of course I did”. Before she hung up, she went on to tell me that I "was a good boy" and that she was better for having me in her life. I think she is just over emotional.

Not only was I awoken from a good dream by Mary, but she also awoken my bladder. I made my way to the bathroom, where I took a piss, washed my hands, and exited, walking past my newly bought computer. Since I was up, I thought I would check to see when my favorite book store opened up in the morning. I had to pick up the autographed book of my favorite author. I had thought about it all day.