Stephan Bailey: A Valise of Doubt
“You’ve got this all wrong,” Tim Derr said to his best friend of thirty years, Stephan Bailey who sat next to him on a stool at a tavern in Miami called, 305 Brass. “First and foremost compadre, as a person who has known you the most, and the best wingman that a guy looking for a girl could ask for—it’s not a blind date.”
“Remember when Tara and I went to an all-inclusive in Key West?” Tim asked.
“Of course,” Stephan said.
“Well,
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A Delivery from Dorothy Jane
Black and White Movies
Big Band Music
Stories about her childhood:
The lonely air in Lowber,
No joy in Charleroi.
Met a man from Monessen,
“Virginia is for Lovers.”
Completed a Family in 1971 :
A corner house at Henry Street
In the borough of N. Belle Vernon.
I recall (those vivid 14 years)
What I want to recall …
An artist, a baker, a craft maker.
I waited for mom to watch
Black and White Movies and
Listen to Big Band Music—
Stories about my
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Rotted Orange among the Apple Orchards
A man from Miami wearing brown sandals, drawstring tan pants and a white guayabera appeared large between dead apple orchards. Two turkey vultures pecked on his body nailed between the long grass blades with a bullet. Their beaks had been breaking his skin since the scent stirred the air of a farm field in the eight hours of his death. The body was later identified by the sister of the deceased man: Charlie Snow.
Twelve hours earlier at the Merry Mountain
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The Late Aquarian
A Seven Part Minute Series
Preface
Set in 1983, this coming of age story is about a group of cafeteria workers who make a lasting impression on a sixth grade student named, Topher.
The Beginning
The lunch line at N. Belle Vernon Elementary School was a slow, long, but moving assembly of 5th and 6th grade students. Not all of the kids were in line, in fact, one young man named Topher was late for lunch... and the line.
Over a three-day period, Topher’s procrastination
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The Lone Wolfe
Winner of the WritersWeekly.com 24-Hour Short Story Contest Selection
“The Mac Dad will make you...Jump! Jump! The Daddy Mac will make...Jump! Jump!" Lisa sang as she held onto the rope that swung over Wolfe Lake.
"Then 'Jump!' already, Lisa!" Terrence yelled while their friends laughed at her from the bank. She let go and plunged into the cool water with her two middle fingers pointed at Terrence.
"Hey Terrence, what does this mean (Ginger and Elaine give him the middle finger
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Gas Station Ganja is Available on Amazon
Prologue
Frank Martini, a soon to be senior at Belle Vernon Area High School, was working at the Brawn service station in the summer of 1979. An energy crisis had gripped the nation by the means of a gasoline shortage. Long lines to purchase gasoline were wrapped around city blocks, large and small.
In the small town Belle Vernon, located in southwestern Pennsylvania, those same long lines went for miles from the only two service stations, Brawn and
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The Unfortunates
A switch cycle of stories spread across my chess table, and like the game of chess, there is a first and last move—the variations are not in order. Twenty-seven short stories, to be more specific, some were one page, and others six, but all the stories were part of a timeline for me to choose my first story of B.S. Johnson’s, The Unfortunates. I parted the First and the Last pages before placing half of the remaining 25 pages clockwise, and then the other half counterclockwise.
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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas—Hunter S. Thompson
Caution: Working lizard bouncing in Las Vegas. Be prepared to let Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo bend, bounce, and bound your fictional reading for a journalistic jolt of an ether experience.
“Did you see the guy running after George Forman with a tennis racket?” said Hunter S. Thompson to George Plimpton, who was in the Hotel Inter-Continental in Zaire, Africa for the Ali vs Foreman fight. Plimpton writes in Shadow Boxer, “When
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Short Stories & Literary Reviews
