a twenty eighth new story...'short sad ballad of jon bon jovi'

They found Jon Bon Jovi slumped against a wine palette in one of the back rooms at Majestic. He was sound asleep, passed out, surrounded by the detritus of the previous night: two half finished bottles of red wine, the chewed over remains of a ham and cheese baguette, and a supermarket salad bowl of tabbouleh – JBJ hadn’t made a start on dessert, a now defrosted, and slightly dewy cardboard packet of Viennetta.

Staff in their air-tex shirts tried to wake him: first with gentle cajoling, then with rather less gentle slaps to the face, left, right, then an ice bucket (which one of them filmed for social media), and when this didn’t work, Ivy suggested messianic chant; she had been reading up on black magick and or the Carthusians once again.

Finally JBJ came around, blinking determinedly.

Chris offered him a banana, Ivy stopped chanting and blushed crimson. JBJ rubbed his face, it was stinging for some reason.

And then he remembered his wife, and the dispute over pancakes, First it was lemon, sugar or Nutella (JBJ favoured the latter), then she wouldn’t let him toss the damned things! And then awkwardly he recalled how he had thrown a cake tin at her head. Not strictly rock and roll. There would be making up to do. And probably some extra demands for Lent (JBJ and his wife had already agreed to give up Swiss cheese, and JBJ had promised to stop watching television in the lounge with nothing on. ‘You are trivialising the news!’, exclaimed his wife, as another article on Putin and the Ukraine unfolded before JBJs naked eyes).

‘Where am I?’, slurred JBJ, pulling himself into a sitting position and adjusting his faded blue jean jacket.

Ivy bit her lip, and Chris, in between mouthfuls of banana, told him: Majestic, Richmond Road, Putney. 

‘How did you find me?’, JBJ asked woozily.

Chris pointed to the bowl of tabbouleh and the trail of wheat grains leading to the fire exit.

JBJ looked accusingly at the tabbouleh.

If hadn’t been on special offer, he thought miserably, regretfully.

Then his mobile phone rang: it was Richie Sambora.

‘I wanna rejoin the band’, Sambora spluttered from speaker phone.

And JBJ spewed into his lap.

a twenty seventh new story... 'act of killing'

Corey rolled over on his side, woke and felt the flayed skin on his knuckles.  He lay for a while gazing obliquely, half open eyes, at the flaking, red-brown paint on the bedroom wall. Trudy was mumbling in her sleep, deep, drunken sleep. He hated himself when he got angry, when frustration and aggression came hurtling out of him, and he hated the way he let Trudy’s patronising pleas for him not to get beaten up, not to fight, spark him into action.

He had won alright. But it didn’t feel right, it wasn’t who he was. Corey prided himself on his kindness, and his kindness protected both himself and others from the worst parts of his nature. Whisky, beer, whisky, beer several times over. Now he was left with guilt, and a busted fist. He had heard the man’s jaw crack, and his teeth shatter like brittle ivories, and he had hit the man on the floor and the man’s blood had covered his best, Saturday shirt, speckled his hot, red face. It took three to pull him off, four to kick him out the door, with Trudy, distraught, stumbling behind.

He knew his friends would look at him funny next time. ‘That Corey …’ The boys would forgive him. The girls would question his character, and Trudy for staying with him. And one by one he would apologise to them. ‘I’m a scrapper’, he would say, ‘an’ I never amounted to much besides. I’m sorry’. And he would give them a bear hug as warm as he could. But he would never tell them of his silent fury, always close to blistering up through the freckles on his skin, broiling just under; the everyday struggle to be gentle, the effort it took to be with Trudy, and how down and wounded he got when she was flighty, when she didn’t love him back, when she slept with Chase, how for that reason he knew he could not hurt Chase, and how he was too vulnerable to change anything real for the better, for himself or for Trudy.

It was getting light, and the blue grey dawn was breaking across the low ridge of hills seen from the trailer window. Trudy would not stir for a while, and he left her sleeping, snoring, mumbling, childlike, and laced his boots, pulled on a heavy jumper and stepped out into the yard. From the rusting, corrugated iron outshed he took his rifle, and a box of rounds from the high shelf at the back, put on his cap and headed up the clay track, bordered by young pines, marching down the valley. He was looking for rabbits, or grouse, dim, stupid pheasants, anything as worthless as he felt at that moment; something to shoot, take home to prove he wasn’t just a scrapper; to prove that Chase meant nothing, that Trudy was the world to him, that in the act of killing, she meant life and his undying sacrifice.