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Big Joe sat at the table on the patio, eating his submarine sandwich. It was a cool night for summer in southern Alabama: it took only ten minutes for the sweat to soak through his shirt and stain the areas where he creased.
The pretty blonde woman walked up and toward the corner, and as she rounded it, she cast him a furtive glance over her shoulder. He could see in that brief flash of her eyes her whole life on one plane. A look is all it ever took for Joe. Black Men Are Dangerous. That's what her eyes said, what a lifetime of looking furtively over her shoulder told her and what she believed with the ferocity of truth.
She disappeared around the corner as Joe looked down at the sandwich and took another bite. And then he heard it. He almost expected it, as though he felt it coming. A short, shrill shriek, almost a gasp. It rarely happened this close to home.
Big Joe heaved a big sigh as he chewed, wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and looked at the entry door to his business enterprise. He thought about calling out to his number one man, Rodney Ricks, the one everybody called "Steel." The papers used to call him "Steel Rod," but the kids heard innuendo in it, and the teasing was ceaseless until he appealed to the media to stop using nicknames for him. They met him half way and satisfied themselves with "Steel," and Rodney was placated.
No. Big Joe Sadlack decided to take this one himself. Besides, he could use a little practice.
The big man rose effortlessly and seemed to float to the corner of the building. There, just beyond the alley he saw them, the pretty blonde lying on the concrete and pinned beneath the scrawny blonde white kid who held his knife in one hand and his weapon in the other. He had just forced her knees apart when a huge brown hand grabbed the collar of his shirt and hoisted him high into the air.
Big Joe felt a smile break across his face as the kid scrambled to pull his pants up, offering no resistance to Joe's assault. Joe released at the top of the arc, and the kid flew through the air, crashing with a sick thud high against the brick wall of his building, and with a sicker thud when he landed on the sidewalk, a puddle of urine spreading out beneath his unconscious body.
Joe helped the woman to her feet and turned his back while she composed herself.
"Thank you," she stammered, but Joe simply held up his hand. That look he had seen in her eyes was gone now, replaced with confusion.
Joe walked in the front door of his business and saw the other folks on his payroll. Sadlack's Heroes. Like Joe, trouble always seemed to find them, and they always knew how to make it go away.
15 comments:
Ok I'm going to say this from the bottom of my heart, you make me wonder why you ever visit my blog.
The fact that you coud look at that picture and come up with that really fantastic story is amazing to me. You rock.
I on the other hand culd never do that. Very cool
Well done! I wouldn't call your ending trite (though I would agree that mine is).
I like the "Steel Rod" innuendo bit, but it seems to interrupt the flow of the story. What do you think?
You made a comment on my story that has me wondering... My understanding of the rules was that our stories were to be "500 words or less", not "exactly 500 words." Have I got it wrong?
-smarmoofus
nucmed-- Yes you could. Just let your thoughts flow and write what comes. On your blog you relate stories about what happened to you or to friends/family. So, look at one of those stories, change an event, and then write about what could have happened, or what would have happened if you or someone you know faced that situation. It didn't happen. That's fiction. Then expand the exercise to include people you don't know, or people you've made up.
And, thanks! I mean, GAWRSH!
smarmoofus-- (LOVE that name!) While, yes, I tend to put tangents or side-stories into my stories, I think it also lends a sense of nonchalance to Big Joe's character. He heaves a sigh and wipes his mouth, thinks about calling one of his employees, the thought runs through his head about the dude's name, etcetera. Could the story do without it? Sure. But isn't it fun to know how Rodney came to be called "Steel?"
And, no, you are correct. It is "500 words or less." I just always seem to run right up to the limit (see the "tangents" comment in the previous paragraph). I had a whole reveal jumbled in my head of Joe's employees, but by the time I got to where the story is now, I was up to 497 words. I just didn't want to cut "Steel Rod!"
And how could you know that the area where that place sits is prime for that sort of thing happening?? It is across the street from NCSU....LOL
Good reading, Farrago!
Feels like an intro to a gritty graphic novel akin to a sequel to Unbreakable, I love it!
I want to draw Big Joe and Steel Rod, and I think I will.
Great story. All that from one picture? Actually I can totally see it unfold as you describe it.
Well I'm not going to enter now. That story blew anything I could ever write out of the water. Great job!
I admit, I have not read your post because I have to try this too. This place is a stone's throw from where I work! I have to try it on principle alone!
kenju— Not knowing anything of where that place is probably helped me detach from what the sign actually (probably) means and run with my imagination. Too bad my plot runs too closely to the environs, and too bad there's no storefront business like the one I made up.
legion— And you'd better post/e-mail those drawings so I can see them!!
heavyjunk— I've only done one of these Wordsmiths Challenges before, though I have stared at the pictures from other Challenges, slackjawed and uninspired. Sometimes the picture touches me or speaks to something inside me. There was just something telling about the way the woman in the photo is looking at the man seated there.
girl— Don't criticize a story you haven't even written, yet! If you keep telling yourself you can do it better than someone else, then someday, with practice and honest effort, you might succeed. But if you keep telling yourself you can't, then you never will.
I expect to see a story up there by the end of the week, sister!
Thanks to everyone for the kind comments. The warm fuzzies tickle!
MPCG - there are no winners in wordsmiths. We write because have to. Please consider doing what your hear t tells you to. :)
Farrago? This is almost exactly perfect. I would second the "steel Rod" thing and ask you to put more words into the story, if you can. Otherwise, the subtext or storyline or whatever you want ot call it is so well done it's hard ot argue with a dingle word. I'll leave that to better smiths then I.
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Wait. The rape scene could use some refining too. How does he know that the thug has just forced her knees apart? It's a matter of convenience for the author to say so, but unless the reader KNOWS it the scene isn't is powerful as leaving the storytelling to the description of what's going on.
Does that make sense?
That totally did not suck. I had to look back at the picture for Sadlack's Heroes to get the ending. Lucky for these guys rape just happens by!
Thanks for your visit and thanks for your words on my write.
You'll find I'm not much of a critic. Everybody loves a story where Superman saves the day.
I just now 'got' the tie in between teh sign and the business name.
Man I'm dense.
Sadly, I live just outside Raleigh and still have never seen the place.
I liked your story, very much. The Steel Rod sidestep didn't slow me down any - I agree that it reads like minds work.
nicely done.
jc
I like the story. I'm wonder of the choice to make the heros "Big" Joe or "Steel" as the heroics might be more effective if they weren't so intimadating.
Also all rape scenes I've yet to see (an enactment) of a rape scene where the perp holds his "weapon" in addition to his knife (or gun). Generally, one hand is needed to hold the victim.
All in all, interesting use of comparisons and contrasts.
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