Trace and the Christmas Shoppers

                 [Originally published at 8763 Wonderland, December 12, 2005, and Flaker HQ, 2005] It was a dry and crisp Saturday afternoon with fifteen days remaining on the calendar before Christmas. Trace never paid much attention to calendars except for their usefulness in plotting a magazine deadline. There was a time when he always had a [...]

John Wesley Hardin and Billy the Kid Drink Coffee in Hell, Part One

  As he tumbled to the hard pavement, praying to Whomever that he didn’t strike his skull on the concrete, Trace’s line of vision fixated on two green apples as they were liberated from the canvas shopping bag and sent rolling down the walkway before coming to rest at the base of a red fire [...]

The Short Happy Life of a Packet of Heinz Ketchup

Despite his many afflictions and disabilities, Trace insisted upon walking to the Albertson’s market at the corner of Verdugo and Hollywood Way almost every afternoon, weather notwithstanding, to fetch a bottle of affordable wine or a six-pack of cheap beer and a box of the finest coffin nails from the tobacco fields and factories of [...]

The Afrika Korps at The Lamplighter

During the cab ride from Dr. Adjavanti’s office in Burbank to The Lamplighter restaurant in Chatsworth, Trace reclined in the wide back seat and pondered the sorry state of his and Lisa’s finances. After returning to Los Angeles from a disastrous 13-month exile in North Beach, San Francisco, Trace had hooked up with a documentary [...]

Little Obsessions

 Dr. Adjavanti was a large and imposing barrel-chested man with a complexion as dark as a cup of three-day old coffee and his rich Nigerian accent was delivered in a deep baritone that reminded Trace of Paul Robeson. The doctor frowned as he studied the thick, scaly plaque psoriasis lesions that tenaciously clung to Trace’s legs like [...]