Have Spacecat, Will Travel: And Other Tails by John Hartness (top ebook reader .TXT) 📕

hit me. I looked over at Ty and said, “You know the rule she’s gonna enforce, right?”

“What’s that?”

“We killed it. We gotta clean it.”

16

Chelsea (for Gina)

I don’t see him dragging a stolen Food Lion grocery cart uphill

loaded down with a hot water heater and cans picked up

off the side of the road

heading for the recycling center hoping for just enough

to get another bottle of get me through the night.

I don’t see her pay for a corn dog and courtesy cup of ice

with pennies and haul the seven mismatched garbage bags

that make up her whole world out into the heat of the August afternoon.

I don’t see him sitting in the rain mumbling at nothing

and carving names into his wiry limbs with a rusty jacknife

while his own blood drips pink

and runs off down the sidewalk,

puddling for a second around my Ecco loafers.

But I see you

kneeling in front of a wild-eyed Walt Whitman madman

to say “hey man, you alright?”

I look at you in your duct-taped Doc Martens

thrift-store Dickie’s work shirt

maybe a dollar and a half in your own pocket

while you kneel on the wet concrete

to touch the face of a stranger

and for a minute

before the world washes my vision away again

I see.

17

Knight of the Green

A New Knights of the Round Table Short Story

The yellow school bus groaned its way up the steep incline and pulled into the gravel parking lot. Gwen Dimont looked out the window at all the green surrounding the vehicle and suppressed a shudder. This was so far out of her element as to not even be on the same periodic table. She was a city girl, through and through. Charlotte wasn’t huge, but it at least gave her the comfort of concrete under her feet and a healthy coating of smog in her lungs. She was sure that this field trip was going to end with her eaten by a bear, or at least with a horrendous case of poison ivy. Could you die from poison ivy? If anyone could manage, she could. That would be the perfect capper on her craptastic morning.

First Lance called up and bailed on this Bataan Death March of field trips, claiming some garbage about an exam in his trig class. Gwen took trig last year, so she couldn’t even tell if he was lying. Then Rex shows up at the bus with no permission slip, and his dad on some BS trip to Chicago for work or something, so she was stuck without her boys on this stupid ride.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if everybody else in her history class didn’t hate her because she was smarter than them. Or for the other thing. Anyway, people are stupid, her boys had abandoned her, so now she was going to die in Deliverance country with a bunch of stupid high school kids. This was not the glamorous death she had envisioned for herself. Unless the bus blew up in the next ten seconds and took them all out at once. That would be sensational enough. She really hoped her mom wouldn’t use the picture from the yearbook for her memorial service.

“Come on, Murden, why are we all the way out here in the middle of nowhere,” Liam Crawford called from the back of the bus. As much of a goon as Crawford was, Gwen actually agreed with him for once.

“We are out here to experience history on the ground, my boys, where it happened,” Mr. Murden said with a broad grin. His long white hair was pulled back in an uncharacteristic ponytail, and he wore a polo shirt and a pair of khaki cargo shorts, the least formal attire the students had ever seen him wear. The bus driver opened the door, and Murden bounded down the stairs, his huge floppy hat bouncing atop his head and his skinny stork legs reflecting enough light to blind them all. The ridiculous-looking teacher clapped his hands and called up to the bus.

“Get your lunches and eat quickly, students. We have thirty minutes for lunch, then we are hiking to the battlefield. Our guide will be here promptly at one!”

Gwen got up and stomped to the front of the bus, joining the throng of students. Of course, Liam’s buddy and partner in crime, Scott Golbert, was right behind her.

“Hey, Gwen,” Scott breathed on her neck. “How’s it hanging?” He chuckled at her, his voice low and dirty.

Gwen reached behind her without looking and grabbed Scott’s crotch. She felt the boy suck in a huge breath at the sudden agony in his testicles.

“I dunno, Scotty,” she said, not turning her head. “Feels like it’s hanging about three inches. Now fuck off.”

She let go of his nuts, and he sagged against the seat in front of him. Gwen hazarded a glance back as she turned to descend the steps at the front of the bus and was happy to see Scott sitting in a seat, a sickly green cast across his features. Good, she thought. Those gorillas have been making my life hell for two years. It’s time I started dishing out a little payback.

She jerked to a halt as she came face-to-chest with Mr. Murden at the bottom of the steps.

“Do you think that is appropriate behavior for a young lady of your stature, Miss Dimont?” Murden’s voice rumbled over her.

She looked up, but the anger she expected to see on his face wasn’t there. Instead, he looked…disappointed. That was worse, of course. Adults always knew how to twist the knife. And Murden had been around a hell of a lot longer than any other adult she knew, so he had plenty of practice.

Gwen hung her head. “No sir, probably not. But I’m not going to apologize,” she added before Murden even made the ludicrous suggestion. “I’m tired of putting up with crap from Scott and Liam and all those close-minded goons. I don’t have to anymore, and I won’t. Period.”

Murden sighed and shook his head. “I do hope that you