Friday, September 6, 2013

Bowzoe's Gang

On my last blog I explained how these short stories worked. My girlfriend helped me with this one by providing a random photo she found online and selecting the random genre/location/subject below:
Mystery/Supermarket/Love Letter 


The challenge is to write a short story with the information provided in one sitting less than 1000 words. Forgive the poor editing. Without further ado...



These three were always the last to leave The Alamo Supermarket. Running down the aisles, throwing items from bags they tore open, always causing mayhem. Of the three was Bowzoe, the most feared gang member of Hillside Park. He had BOWZOE tatted on his upper back next to sleeves of tattoos that depicted clowns, women, and mementos of the deaths of members of the Zoe Street gang. 
            “Go home,” said Julio to Miguel at the next register. “But go out the back.” 
            “Are you sure you want to be alone with these guys?” he asked.
            “I’ll be ok, just go.” 
            Miguel nodded and left unseen by the hooligans. Julio surreptitiously closed the market early. He locked the doors, turned off the registers, and put on a pair of leather gloves. He walked down aisle two of nine towards the back room that lead to the back exit. 
            The gang members had made their way to the produce section on aisle nine to juggle fruit, use cantaloupes as bowling balls, and even take a bite of some of the produce. 
            Julio looked at the monitors in the backroom, glad that everything was going according to plan. He turned off all the lights and let the moonlight that shined into the supermarket through the tall glass walls and the sounds the gang members made guide him. 
            “Hey, what the fuck?” yelled the smallest one.
            A car pulled up outside and its headlights lit up aisles three and four. A woman turned off the engine, turned off the lights and ran to the entrance of The Alamo. She had a piece of paper stuck to the palm of her hand. She hadn’t realized that Julio’s love letter was in her hand for so long, that it was practically one with her. She tugged on the locked doors of the supermarket. She continued to struggle with it as though she would soon break it off its hinges. 
            “Julio!” she yelled. “Don’t do it!” 
            Damn it thought Julio. Antonia figured out what I was telling her sooner than I hoped
            The smallest gang member ran towards the door. Julio tackled him from aisle four, before he could get in eyeshot of Antonia. He held him down, grabbed a knife from his back pocket and sliced his throat. He left the body to soak in the pool of its own blood expanding on the floor. 
            Bowzoe and the other man heard the commotion. 
            “’Ey, go check it out,” he delegated. “I’ll check this side of the aisles.”
            The other one crept through the aisles. He was no taller than the first one Julio killed, but much heavier. 
            “It’s not him!” yelled Antonia tugging on the doors. “It’s not him!”
            She’s just trying to talk me out of it thought Julio. 
            He saw the fat one walk towards the entrance. He strategically placed himself in an aisle that had stacks of cans he could hide between. 
            “Who the fuck is out there?” asked the gang member in Julio’s crosshairs.
            “Julio?” asked Antonia, unsure if that was his voice or not. “Is that you?” 
            Before he could answer, he saw his comrade’s body on the floor. The initial shock distracted him from Julio’s steps. Julio came from behind and sliced his throat too. The heavy body thudded on the ground and Bowzoe stopped in his tracks. 
            “Hey!” he yelled. “What the fuck, man? Who’s there?”
            He walked into aisle five where Julio stood at the opposite end.
            “Wassup man,” he said aggressively to Julio’s silhouette. “Watchu wanna do?” 
            Julio wiped the knife on his pants and launched it at Bowzoe’s chest. It made precise contact and threw Bowzoe onto his back. He walked over and bent down next to him. He dug in his pocket and took out the photo seen all over the news. It was a white clown mask with green hair, a five o’clock shadow, red eyes, and teeth as sharp and as cold as icicles.
            “I found you,” said Julio showing Bowzoe the picture. “You son of a bitch.”
            “What the fuck are you talking about?” asked Bowzoe spitting blood from his mouth. 
            Julio removed the knife from his chest and drove it three times around the same spot. After the third, he left it in his chest and dug through his front jean pocket for another photo. 
            “You remember her?!” spat Julio at Bowzoe’s face. “Her name was Lupita!”
            “Damn you Julio!” yelled Antonia. “Don’t do this. Don’t you dare do this especially after this letter you wrote me! You said you couldn’t live without me! Open up! It’s not him!”
            “Do you hear that?” Julio asked Bowzoe drowning out Antonia’s yells. “That’s Lupita’s mother. Because of you, our marriage fell apart. Because of you, I have nightmares of Lupita begging for mercy.”
            Somewhere in the background Julio heard Antonia’s yells, but couldn’t make them out completely. At one point it sounded like she said He has a bar. 
            Julio grabbed the knife one last time. He pulled it out of his chest and began looking for a weapon, some sort of crowbar Bowzoe may carry. Suddenly, he heard footsteps from behind. 
            He turned to look up and saw the clown he scourged the earth to find. He didn’t have time to react. The clown kicked Julio in the face, knocking him out instantly. The clown grabbed Julio’s knife, and slit his throat with it. 
            Antonia kept tugging at the door. She got her phone out and began dialing 911 when a figure appeared at the door. He unlocked it and held Antonia from going in. 
            “You don’t want to go in there,” said Miguel, keeping Antonia back. Antonia stopped trying to go in and pressed send on her phone to call 911. When the operator answered Antonia couldn’t put two words together to say she was in trouble. Instead, she looked at Miguel’s face, clutched Julio’s letter close to her heart and dropped the phone. 
            He has a scar… 

It's been too long...

Sadly, my last post was in February of this year. I had big plans for this blog, but it hasn't been going accordingly. Not that I haven't been writing. No, far from that. I've been too busy writing for different projects that I haven't been able to write any short stories to post up. A few things I'm working on at the moment: A story that was supposed to be a novel, but has quickly turned into a saga (400+ pages and counting), freelance writing for magazines and websites, a series of short stories that all revolve around the terrors of having a Facebook page that's not so private, and recently revisiting a sitcom with a few friends that I began writing in 2008 but soon gave up when I realized I can't write comedy! Well, I think I can, but not without some help.

But here I am again, in the constant grind to perfect the craft, and write some kick ass material that will get published. What better way to do that, than to show my work to fellow writers and friends on my blog?


Alas, I'm back to where I was in February. Dozens of ideas floating in my mind that I MUST share with you. I changed the name of this blog because I'm using this central location to post up my short stories as opposed to creating new blogs for each one (Extra Innings for example has an entirely different URL). I've written a lot of material that I'll be posting up, but a recent flash fiction contest is what sparked motivation in me to publish some short stories on this blog again.
The way the contest works is this: write a short story based on a random genre/location/subject working with a random photo provided by the judges. You have 2 days to do it and it has to be less than 1000 words. Pretty cool. I asked my girlfriend to help me with this and she chose all the categoires above and a weird killer clown photo she found online. So I wrote it and was a bit proud of the final product.

Now, I'm thinking of using this blog to do just that. Have random people select genre/location/subject along with a picture and write something about it. It should be fun and it will help me practice for the contest that starts later this month.

Thanks for reading, I'll be posting up short stories soon. Here we go...

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Extra Innings Notes

             Everyone has nearly crashed because their co-pilot is distracting them. For most of us, at some point in time, it has been our significant other. I actually did hit a car once because my girlfriend at the time was a distraction. It wasn't a terrible crash, it was a love tap. I didn't have insurance, but luckily, neither did the other driver. So we just got back in our cars and left as if it never happened. Phew!
             After I drove off, I thought, "These guys I just hit seemed very eager to leave." They were anxious to just say, "It's ok, don't worry about it, no harm no foul." Did I mention they didn't speak a word of English? My guess was that they weren't citizens and just wanted to avoid any trouble with the law.
             But what if it was something else? What if they were hiding something in their vehicle? So I wrote this story to answer my own questions. What if we were on a lonely road? Would they have tried to add me to their collection of terrors in the trunk? Would I have to put on my hero cap and save my co-pilot?
             I wrote this two years ago and tapped into "that someone else" (I wrote about him in my last blog). I asked what would he do if this happened to him? I could've been a jerk to those men I hit and say, "No, you stopped suddenly, your brake lights don't work, you gotta pay me some cash or I'm calling the cops." Luckily for them, I wasn't. But if "that someone else" was there, who knows what would've gone down. So I used him in answering the questions floating in my mind.
             After writing this story, I always keep my Dodgers souvenir bat in my car...because you never know. I hope I may have sparked some interest in you, you who have become my reader. Will you keep something in your car...because you never know?