Obsidian Jade Black At The Needful Things Curiosity Shoppe

 

Caveat emptor! If you fall in, you won't be back. Photo by Joe

Olivia Jane "OJ" Black stared at her prospective customer for as long as she possibly could without pushing him across the invisible and razor-thin line that divides "puzzled" from "irritated." This was a line with which she was quite familiar, as she basically lived on it. It was September 2023, four months after her graduation from college with her "Bachelor's of Taking Up Space and Time," also known in bourgeois circles as Business Administration - and four months since she'd become a full-time employee at Needful Things, a thrift and weird stuff shop. 

"Hey, Darqueness?" she called across the store. 

"OJ..." her boss, the owner, said. She hated that he could scold her with just her name, like her parents used to. She had met him four years ago at her family's YARD SALE, right before she left for school, promising as she departed that she would return to marry him and rescue him from this life. She hadn't done that - yet - not because he was ten years older than she, but because she had "accidentally obtained a boyfriend," during her senior year, and she was still waiting for him to disappoint her.

"Sorry - Mr. O'Hauntington?" she called again.

"Brian, OJ," he corrected, approaching her "Curiosity Shoppe" section of the store, "Just Brian, please. What's up?"

"Sorry, Just Brian Please, do we have any more of these Halloween wreath thingies in the back? This one has, what was it?" she turned to her customer, a short and plump balding man with glasses and a t-shirt emblazoned with a reproduction of the first "Superman" comic.

"Too many bats," the man said.

"Yes. That." OJ pointed at the man and gave her boss an eyes-half-lidded look that said, look - he said it, not me!

"I'm sorry, we don't," Brian said to the man in his best customer service voice. "They all have the same number of bats, but they're just tied to the twigs of the wreath with little nylon strings. You could easily take any number of them off..."

"That's what I said!" OJ insisted.

"I was hoping not to have to do that," the man said, disappointed. "I'll give it some thought. I may be back." He turned and headed for the exit.

"Great," Brian customer serviced after him. "We're open 'til nine."

"Have a curious day!" OJ said cheerfully. Too cheerfully. Kind of sarcastically, as a matter of fact.

"Don't do that," Brian said. "I've been cool with your signature blacker than black wardrobe and your gothy-even-though-you-refuse-to-call-it-that makeup. But sarcasm doesn't sell."

"It's the 'Vat Of Acid' episode in a cup!" Photo by Joe

"Don't be mad, O light of my dark, dark heart," she cooed, still fairly snarkily. "I've sold three of those skull & crossbones ice cube trays today using nothing but sarcasm. Well, to be honest, one of those sales was thanks to my describing it to this high school guy as the 'Vat Of Acid' episode in a cup. Oh - and one might have had something to do with my brushing the customer's arm with my boob - totally by accident..."

"Dude!"

"I said it was an accident," she lied, "but I do love it so, when you call me dude."

"Stop. I told you, as long as I'm your boss - and you have a boyfriend - there should be none of that flirty stuff."

"What flirty stuff, sweetie?" she asked, disappointed that he wasn't looking when she fluttered her black, black lashes at him.

"Stop. I'm going in the back for a minute. Can you keep an eye on the main register for me?"

She saluted goofily. "Oh hey - while you're back there, can you see if we have any more of these 3-D pin art board thingies? Some kids were playing with them, and now they're all stuck like this." She held up one of the little stress toys for his inspection...

"It's stuck." Photo by Joe

"Dude!" Brian shook his head, working hard not to smile. "A - I know you did that, B - they're not stuck, C - Smooth them all out, please. I'll be right back."

"Dude," she whispered as she reset all the pin art boards, "I'm totally going to marry that guy. I don't care what my boyfriend says..."

Amorous Luminous Dirk, And How He Thinks He Does It

I'm often asked by no one ever about romance on the American hobo road. Well, in a word, it's.

In two words, it's complicated. 

With the penniless wandering and camping and being chased and beaten and arrested and beaten some more and re-arrested and the losing of toes and fingertips in winter, and the summertime bouts of poison ivy and malaria - and also the bad stuff - hoboes had enough on their plates. Initiating, developing, and sustaining relationships just didn't factor into the average hobo's plans.

Amorous Luminous Dirk was not the average hobo. He was spectacularly successful with the ladies, both hobo and non-hobo. He was the maestro of the hobo pickup line. The reality show bachelors of 2018 could take a lesson from this filthy drifter. 

[Editor's note: It was the 1930s. Times were different. Men were different. Women were different. Everything was different.]

In no particular order, here are Amorous Luminous Dirk's ten favorite pickup lines:

1. Hi. Yes, that is a lint ball in my pocket, but I am definitely happy to see you, nonetheless...
2. Did it hurt? When you fell from heaven - or from the running board of the refrigerated box car that carried you here from heaven - or the stock yards? Or Baltimore? I think you know what I'm trying to say, wink-wink...
3. Top of the evening to you, m'lady. I can just tell that you didn't vote for Hoover... 
4. My parents died of gangrene, after having their lower legs shredded by an angry mother black bear of whom they ran afoul along the Appalachian trail in 1928 - what horrible fate met your folks...
5. I'm sure you hear this a hundred times a day, but I would trade all the creosote and plywood in the world for five seconds of holding your hand...
6. I fought in the Great War, and I came home in one piece. My pension will afford us a lovely little home in Utica, with a yard and a white picket fence and a dog, and I promise you here and now that my drunken night terrors have all but cleared up, so whaddaya say, doll...
7. Do you like beans? 'Cuz I... Wait - where are you going...
8. Hey, baby - have I got a New Deal for you...
9. How d'you do, ma'am - Do you know what bio-luminescence is?
10. Hi. I'm sorry I am a hobo. I promise that I am a good and honorable, righteous and respectful man. May I please have this dance? I promise to disappear at your slightest frown of disapproval...

He had other lines, some more effective than others, but almost none of them landed. Until, that is, the night in mid-1942 when he snuck into the war bonds fundraiser under the stars in Allentown, where he tried #9 on Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick, and his whole world changed...

 

Train.

Spectral Love Finds David No-Ears

Stop, Look, and Listen.  Death owns this right of way.  Photo by [Maris].

Tennessee Ernie Dietz sat by his small campfire, scraping the dregs of his hobo lasagna from the bottom of his favorite bean can/sauce pan/sauté pan/storage tin/urinal.  He stared at the flames as they danced and hissed.  An exceptionally disheveled hobo emerged from the woods, shuffled up to the fireside, and grinned madly at Ernie.

"Jeepers, mister - you scared me half to death!  Say... David?  David No-Ears?  Is that you?"

"Well, sure it's me, pal."  The man's face was encrusted in dirt so thick and chunky, it might as well have been a western omelet.  He doffed his raggedy, poorly-knitted lint cap, revealing his bald head and noticeable lack of ears.  The open holes looked rather like scars, and as such were best hidden away under a hat.  To be fair, he had ears.  He could hear as well as anybody; he simply didn't have the external cartilage that makes up what most people envision when they think of ears.  But "David No-External-Cartilage-Only-Ear-Canal-Holes" was way too long for a hobo moniker.

   

"I'll be damned - it is you!  What you been up to, David?"

"No good.  I can promise you that.  Just got back from pickin' cranberries, up north.  Been hoofin' and ridin' southbound for weeks, chasin' what's left of the sun.  And get this - I'm in love!"

"No foolin'?  In love?  You?" Tennessee Ernie had a reputation on the rails as being gullible, and he was making a concerted effort to be more skeptical.  "I don't believe it," he added.

"Hand to God," David No-Ears affirmed.  "Mind if I share your fire?"

"Have a seat, friend.  My fire is your fire.  Got a few beans here, somewhere..."  Hoboes never asked, "are you hungry?"  Hunger was always assumed.  They just offered. 

 

"I'm much obliged, Ernie.  No beans for me, thanks.  Just want to warm up for a bit and get back on the road.  Got to get to Little Rock to see my girl."

"What girl?  Who?  And no offense, but... how?"

"I'm tellin' you, Ernie.  It's the genuine article.  I love this woman, and I'm gonna marry her.  I met her in New England, a month ago.  I hopped a New Haven freight outside of Providence, and there she was, curled up sound-asleep in an empty cattle car."

Tennessee Ernie wrinkled his nose and chortled.  "Cattle car, huh?  Romantic.  Must have been love at first sight."

"Laugh all you want, bub.  You know me.  I barely believed in love, let alone love at first sight - until I saw this gal.  I dropped everything I was carrying, and of course the clatter woke her right up.  She jumped up and hissed at me and waved a stick and gave me a profound death stare, but I just stood there smiling at her.  She had skin that looked like it might never have seen the sun, or a hard day, or a speck of grime.  Her eyes were like a child's - twinkling like diamonds in the snow - yet it seemed she might have been looking right through me."  No-Ears sighed happily and rubbed his hands in the warmth of the fire.

"Yeah, yeah.  Get to the good part, you old tramp.  I'm tired."

"If you mean for me to talk about her figure, I won't.  She may be a hobo, but she's a lady, and I ain't here to talk about her poetic caboose, or her pinup-girl legs, or her perfect bosom, which might have been sculpted out of marshmallow by Alexandros of Antioch himself.  I could tell you that she sings like an angel, kisses like the devil's daughter, and seems to scarcely touch the ground as she glides from place to place.  She emits her own light.  She's cool to the touch, and no one gives her any guff.  She's gonna be my wife, I'm tellin' you.  Since I met her, the sun rises and sets on her.  I can't think of beans or cops or dogs or lint or anything - only her.  She is the reason for every beat of my heart, these days.  I get younger, just thinking about her.  I have to meet her old man and all that, and then she'll be mine."

"Gee, David," Ernie said, "that's swell.  I'm happy for you.  Congratulations."

"Thank you very much.  And thanks for the fire.  You're a good man."  David No-Ears rose to his feet and extended a grateful hand.  "I should be on my way."

"Not at all.  Help each other - whenever and wherever - right?  Say, if you don't mind my asking, what's your dream girl's name?"

"It's Jane.  Itinerant Jane."

Tennessee Ernie Dietz swallowed hard, and what little color his face had possessed to this point utterly vanished.  "Itinerant Jane?"

"Yep."

"Blonde?  Western Pennsylvania accent?  Loves pierogi, and sandals?"

"That's her."

"And you met her when?"

"About four weeks ago, in Rhode Island," David said.  "Why?"

Ernie put his hand on David's shoulder - a rare gesture, for a hobo.  "I don't know how to say this, brother, so I'll just say it.  Itinerant Jane died over a year ago.  She got shot by a hunter, walking the tracks between Syracuse and Buffalo.  It was an accident."

"What the hell are you talkin' about?  You bent or something?  I spent a week with her, before she went on home - ahead of me - to break the news to her folks.  I'm on my way there, now.  You must be thinkin' of someone else."

Ernie shook his head sadly.  "Maybe you're thinkin' of someone else, friend, but I was there, not thirty minutes after the accident.  I watched Itinerant Jane die.  I don't know what to tell you.  I'm sorry.  Your fiance is a . . ."

David No-Ears waved a dismissive hand at his hobo friend, and laughed as nonchalantly as he could, but as his time with Jane replayed quickly in his mind, a sickening, sinking feeling took hold of his stomach, and refused to relinquish its warm black grip.

"Super," he said eventually.  He left the campsite, not spooked, not haunted, but utterly and completely defeated.  

Okay, here we go.  Instead of the insanity of this year's National Novel Writing Month, I'm going to attempt to complete National Blog Post Month, cranking out a little bit of drivel every day for all of November.  Yes, I am a glutton for punishment.  Anyway, the little bit of drivel through which you have just finished slogging was inspired by the STUDIO 30-PLUS prompts "best hidden away" and "scar," from NOT JUST ANOTHER MOTHER BLOGGER, whose material lives up to her blog's title.  29 more posts to go.  Come with me, won't you?

Never Assume That The Thing Clawing At Your Ceiling Is A Squirrel

Presenting an excerpt from my 2011 Camp NaNoWriMo novel "Sand In The Worcestershire In The Embalming Fluid."  Still there?  Okay.  Let's take a peek at chapter five...


Scratching.  At three fifteen, Dun was gradually drawn from sleep by the sound of scratching.  He lifted his head in an attempt to locate the source.  It wasn't either of the windows in this guest room, where they had bedded down in a deliberate attempt to minimize their exposure to the outside world.  It was coming from the ceiling.

"Oh shit."  Dun said, matter-of-factly.

Lucy stirred, and Dun held her closer.  After a few seconds, she could hear it, too.  "Oh shit!" she gasped.  "Is that in the ceiling?"

"There's an attic.  I forgot all about the attic.  I am just not equipped for this horror movie stuff." he muttered.

"Do you think it can get in?  Is there like, one of those drop-down doors with the folding ladders, or an access panel, or what?" she turned on a light and pulled on a t-shirt.

"I don't know.  How strong are squirrels?  They're so small - how strong could they be?" he reasoned. "As far as I know, the only way up there from inside the house is the big door in the ceiling, out in the hallway."

The distinctive sound of tiny claws digging and scratching at hundred-year old wood - or maybe it was on the ceiling's sheetrock - stopped.  Before either of them could say anything, it resumed, only now it was at the other end of the room.  Then it ceased again.  Dunstan, having quickly climbed into his jeans and Hog's Breath Saloon t-shirt, took the broom they had brought upstairs with them and gave the area where the sound had been a gentle poke.  Then, a firmer poke.  There were a couple of odd banging sounds from above him, then some more scratching, now apparently out over the hallway.

They stepped just outside the bedroom, near the top of the stairs and directly beneath the trapdoor to the attic, and they listened.  The noises seemed more frantic and haphazard than they did evil.

"Well, it doesn't seem to be interested in the door," Dun whispered. "We could probably just leave it until morning."

Lucy wrinkled her nose.  Dun thought for a moment that that may well have been the cutest thing he'd seen her do, so far.  

"I don't know," she said.  "Even if it doesn't want in, those little assholes love to chew stuff.  We had a family of them in our attic once, and they cut the phone line - and a few minutes later, one of them got into an electric main line and ZAP!  Blackout for us, fried squirrel mama in the attic, and two little stupid orphan squirrel babies running around.  It was a mess."

"Oh.  Right.  Forgot about the chewing.  Should we just call 911 again and let them deal with it?"  After three days with Lucy, he was already fairly certain of what her answer to that question would be.

She stared thoughtfully at the ceiling.  "It's a squirrel.  I'm pretty sure we can take him."

"You think so?"

"I do.  I mean, look at our size advantage, and these giant brains we have.  Are there any donuts left?" she asked, eyeing the broom Dun was still holding.

"At least one.  Glazed, I think.  We'll need something to trap it in, though - like a trashcan or a box."  he thought aloud.

"I got it!"  Lucy scampered into the bathroom at the end of the hall and emerged a moment later with a large towel.  "Do you have a hammer?"

"A hammer?  What for?"

"You know, like in 'Christmas Vacation?'  I'll throw the towel over it, and you hit it with a hammer."

"Ew!  Wait.  They only said they were going to do that, and somebody's mother fainted and the thing ended up just running out the front door."

"So?"

"So, it's an untested strategy.  What if we--"

"'An untested strategy?'  If they had actually done it in the movie, it still wouldn't really be a test of the strategy, would it?  I mean, it's a movie."  Lucy was having fun with this, which was helping immensely Dun's fight against succumbing to panic.

Eventually, they agreed on the rough outline of a plan.  Lucy would pull down on the cord connected to the attic door and hold up a donut-topped mop handle, while Dun would stand ready with the broom and a can of wasp and hornet spray (Dun had thought he might be able to at least stun or temporarily blind the rodent with some extra-strength Raid).  While he whacked, de-wasped and um, swept the critter into submission, Lucy would throw a laundry basket over it.  They would then scoot the upside-down basket over to the top of the stairs and drop their prisoner into a metal roasting pan, slam the lid on it and throw the whole thing out the front door, possibly after giving it a good shake, to ensure a stunned and disoriented little Bullwinkle sidekick would emerge.

They were well-pleased with their plan.  It was a brilliant plan.  It made them want to high-five and kiss and crack open some champagne.  They even had a contingency plan for failure to get the basket over the squirrel, or for losing him down the steps.  Dun would keep after it, using the broom as a kind of hockey stick, and she would assist with the mop handle and the garden shovel they had retrieved from behind the kitchen.  They would usher the thing out the front door and onto the porch - then out the porch door, if things were going well.  Then, they would have awesome celebratory sex and go back to sleep, assuming that the on-again, off-again sirens could stay off-again long enough to allow the latter.

"Ready" she said.

"Wait," he pointed at her bare feet. "We should have shoes on.  Don't want to get bitten during battle."

"Dun, I have nothing on but this t-shirt and some deodorant... and a little foundation... and maybe a hint of blush... and... You're right - jeans and shoes required!"  She located her jeans while Dun fetched their sneakers from downstairs.

"Okay.  Now are we ready?"  She stepped up to him and looked into his eyes.  "Listen, if I get bitten and rabid and dead, I want you to know..."

"Yes?" he smiled expectantly.

"I want you to know that I really, really like you."  She kissed him.  "Now, let's get that varmint."

I wrote this two years ago, and hadn't revisited it until tonight.  I was writing-prompted to do so by the second of this week's two STUDIO 30 PLUS prompts, "SCRATCH."  I figure that posting it here is probably the only way I'll ever get it to see the light of day, so... why not?



 

Heads, We're Dancing

It must have been the lasers.  Edward hadn't seen lasers in a night club in fifteen years.  This was primarily due to the fact that he had not seen the inside of a night club in fifteen years.  The dancing beams of light, bone-buzzing music, liquor and a sea of youth around him combined to give him the sense that anything was possible.

He was fully aware of the enormity of what he was about to do, and it both terrified and thrilled him.

He stepped outside of his comfort zone and, second-guessing himself all the way, left his safe perch at the back bar, circumnavigated the throbbing mass of humanity on the dance floor and climbed halfway up the six steps that led to the front bar, stopping in front of the girl he was pretty sure had twice smiled at him.  He took a quarter from his pocket and held it up.  It was a brand-new coin, and at that moment caught a bit of laser light, sending it for an instant directly into the girl's eyes.

"Ow!" she yelped, her squint quickly becoming a glare.

Edward was oddly undeterred.  "Sorry," he shrugged, then leaned forward with the hope that she, and only she, would hear him.  "Hey, listen.  Heads, we're dancing."

She stared at him as if he had just stepped off a passing garbage truck and proposed marriage.  Really? She thought.  Before she could come up with an appropriately stinging brush-off line, he was even closer, yelling over the music.

"Come on.  Head's, we're dancing."  He flipped the quarter high into the air, and it spun and flickered and played with the flashing colors as it ascended.  Too high.  It arced gracefully out of Edward's reach and bounced down the steps, stopping on the bottom one.  He scrambled after it and bent over to check the result of his gamble, though he figured at this point the coin would have no say in the matter.  He picked it up, disappointed, and turned to smile some sort of apology at the poor girl and leave her alone forever.  Dumbest pickup line ever, and I am way too old for this shit, he scolded himself.

"Well?"  She had followed him to his wayward quarter, and was smiling brightly when he turned around.

"Huh?"

"Heads or tails?"  She blinked expectantly.

Edward's honesty betrayed him, and he frowned down at his hand dejectedly, and shook his head as if to say, "Tails, because this stupid quarter is broken."

"Best two out of three?" she suggested.

Edward's world turned away from the abyss and came back to life.  "Okay!"  He flipped the coin again, and again he sent it spinning out of control.  They followed it to the edge of the dance floor, where it eventually twirled itself to a stop.  The two of them bent over it.  Tails again.

"Oh well," she laughed.  "Better luck next time."

"That's okay.  Thanks for playing along." He could swear he felt himself bow slightly - what was THAT? - and he started to make his turn toward the nearest exit, then he stopped.  "Wait.  We didn't say what tails would be."

She laughed.  Again, his world put down the bottle of sleeping pills and perked up.  

"Oh, I know what tails was," she smiled. "You picked the prize for heads, so tails was up to me."

For the first time in at least two years, Edward allowed hope to open the door - just a crack - and peek inside.  "Oh?"

"Tails was 'We're not dancing.'" she said flatly, and she held her face expressionless for as long as should could stand, which was not long, before laughing and giving this affable stranger a playful shove.  "I'm just messing with you!  Tails was 'Let's go outside where we can hear each other.'  Come on."  She motioned toward the main entrance, and felt a little flush of warmth run through her when he gave her the happiest, sweetest and most sincere smile she could remember ever seeing on a man.  

As they picked their way through the crowd, she took the lead, and took his hand.  He died a little happy death inside.  "I'm Edward," he shouted over the thundering beats.

"Nice to meet you," she answered over her shoulder. "I'm Callista."


Another fine writing prompt (ENORMITY) from my friends at STUDIO 30 PLUS !



 

Obligatory Valentine's Message From Gallant: Sometimes, They Do

My Dearest [Soul Mate],

     I pray this letter finds you well, I hope that you have opened it, this time, and further allow myself to dream that you are reading it.  Yes, I still walk beside the silver ribbons of commerce and transportation.  No, I won't be home for this year's St. Valentine's Day.  Yes, I wish I could be.  I mean to be there, but not until I can tell you that I am once more gainfully-employed.  I promise you that I am trying.

If you are still reading this, I can hear you as you make that little "tut-tut" sound and say - aloud, to the cat - "Hoboes never keep their promises."  Angel of my heart, know this:  Sometimes, they do.  I have faltered, these past four years, and allowed destitution, sickness and despair to rule my world.  But Sweetness, it cannot be said that I'm not trying to mend my broken life.

Lest you forget, there have been other times you've bandied that word about - never.  "I'll never find a soul mate, for there is no such thing as one perfect mate for any soul," you said.  "No one finds a perfect match."  With my help, you later admitted that yes, sometimes, they do.

I remember your friends (and mine), back in '26, telling you not to wait for me.  Do you recall what they said, O Light of My Heart?  "A man will never ever marry his mistress," they said.  Well, while I must admit that that is generally true, sometimes, they do.

Then they said that a love such as ours wouldn't last a week.  It did.  Some gave us a year.  My mother, bless her soul, gave us two.  "Such marriages don't last," we were told.  Well, sometimes, they do.

My friends along the tracks have told me that a woman like you has surely declared her husband dead, or had the marriage annulled, and long-since remarried by now.  I should accept that my "walk around the block for a breath of fresh air," now nearly four years long, was the end of us.  Beautiful, smart, strong women such as yourself never take back their wayward men.  As I type this letter (don't ask what I had to do in order to borrow a typewriter), I can only pray that sometimes, they do.

You see, my angel, my dawn, my light, while I won't be home in time for St. Valentine's, I estimate that I will be there by the sixteenth.  I'll understand if you have gone, or refuse to see me, but I promised you I would find my way back to you.  I know they say that "Hoboes never keep their promises," and I have no doubt that it's true.

But sometimes, they do.

With all of my heart,
Your Gallant

P.S. - It's Reginald, if you had failed to surmise.  Gallant is my hobo name.  

Not exactly Depression-era wardrobe, but she's always been fashion-forward.

       
-- for [Maris]