Jeffrey Matucha's Blog

Tattooed is the first chapter from my novel-in-progress Needle Pictures, book six in my Skye Wright Rise and Fall series.

In this scene Skye deals with punk prima donnas at a tattoo convention, in a testament to her increasing influence, while she tries to deal with rock and roll life demons.

Tattooed

     The frenetic buzzing was consistent.
     It was coming from all around, from every corner.
     She remembered the old days, when it used to clank like a swarm of metal bees.
     Now, it was electric…
     And she could not stop looking at all of the ink.
     Skye was at the Juno Juliet Tattoo Convention at the Cow Palace, wandering through scores of inked up participants swirling around all of the vendor tables. The background was filled with various kinds of music coming from all corners and the buzz of multiple tattoo machines.
     All of the artists and shops had their booths set up, showing off examples of their work along with tattoo chairs and tables where they could etch their art onto willing and paying tattoo collectors who happened by their stands.
     Nearly everyone there was already sporting tattoos – on their arms, on their hands, on their calves and shins, on their necks, and some with tattoos on their faces. Skye saw all manner of tattoos: old-school flash tattoos, modern graphic designs, band logos, portraits of famous musicians and celebrities, bright and colorful cartoon characters, skulls, bones, portraits of kids or passed on loved ones, roses, tribal designs, pet portraits, and all kinds of animal tattoos.
     Skye noted some interesting pieces of work as she made her way around the crowd. She saw a young man with a large chess piece tattooed on his forearm. She was also impressed by a colorfully dressed woman with an elaborate tattoo of a sewing machine on her shoulder. Skye also noted a very well-done portrait of Nikolai Tesla.
     She also saw a colorful and elaborate tattoo on a baldy’s forearm. It was a dancing skeleton wearing ragged clothes, swinging its arms and legs in front of a tattered and torn Union Jack. She also talked to a shaggy haired second-hand-clothes-store musiciab who had a very small yet highly detailed tattoo of a cross-eyed cartoon rabbit riding a skateboard, which had some of the most exquisite detail she had ever seen on a tattoo.
     Skye tried to rein in her eyeballing as she approached a booth and flipped through one of the portfolios.
     Roach’s mass of light-brown hair was easy to spot as Roach made her way through the crowd to get to Skye.
     “I’m gettin’ a cat,” said Roach.
     “An actual cat or a tat of a cat?”
     Roach pointed towards a booth at the end of the aisle. “This way cool gal Candace is gonna do it for me. She’s makin’ the stencil right now.”
     “Nice. Why a cat though?”
     Roach humbly folded her hands. “Just a little memorial for my ma.”
     Skye scanned the crowd. She began to wonder where Preston and Miranda were. She had expected them to get there before her and Roach showed up.
     That’s when she spotted Preston’s bright blue hair in the crowd.
     “What the fuck dude!” greeted Skye as she barged up to him.
     “Traffic was a bitch and a half.”
     “You drove here?”
     “Yeah.”
     Skye rolled her eyes at Preston. “You be crazy. An’ you have to give me an’ Roach a ride back.” Skye’s eyes bounced around, looking behind Preston. “Where’s Miranda?”
     “She… decided not to come.”
     “Really? She’s the tattoo queen!”
     “Yeah. But she’s already covered, like everywhere. She hardly has any places for new tats.”
     Skye nodded. “Makes sense.”
     Skye encouraged Preston to come with her to drop in on Roach as she got her cat tattoo. As they made their way down a long aisle, they could not help stopping by a few booths. They checked out older tattooists who did more traditional work before moving to the younger artists who did fine line work. They got held up at a table of artists who combined traditional styles with intricate shading and line work. Preston talked to a young woman about getting some of his old needle-and-thread tattoos covered up.
     Someone tapped Skye on the shoulder. It was Roach.
     “I thought you were getting tatted up,” said Skye.
     “I did!”
     Roach kicked her leg up. She had a small, fluffy black cat tattooed on her ankle.
     “Seriously?” asked Skye. “She did it that quickly?”
     “Yep. She just belted it out.”
     The air shifted as people turned to look towards the entrance. Skye could hear convention attendees chattering in hushed and excited tones.
     “What the fuck is going on?” asked Skye.
     Roach stood on her tip-toes and craned her neck. She brought herself back down with a sour look on her face. “Xan is here.”
     “Oh joy,” said Skye with an eye roll.
     Skye had not seen the singer for the infamous pop punk band Hop Skivvy since his mansion party back in Chicago, when he hosted a large rock and roll bash at the Reppers mansion, a party that Tandasil had compelled her to go to for the sake of music business networking.
     “Y’gonna have to talk to him, aren’tcha’?” asked Roach quietly.
     Skye let out a long sigh. “Of course.”
     Skye tapped Preston on the shoulder, as he was still talking to an artist. “Roach already got her cat.”
     “Seriously?”
     Roach kicked up her leg so Preston could see her new ankle cat.
     Then they heard the shout.
     “Fuck you guys!”
     Skye craned her neck to see what was going on.
     “Fucking posers! Goddamn sellouts!”
     Skye recognized the brightly colored locks and dreads of her friend and label scout Trilly. She was right in the face of Xan and his two punked-out companions.
     “What the fuck is your problem?” growled Xan, trying his best to look tough in front of a woman who carried the veneer of a rough and dangerous gutter punk.
     “You fuckin’ heard me!” shouted Trilly as she brought up her hands as if she were getting ready to fight. “What the fuck are you even doing here? Why don’t you go play another corporate show for a buncha rich pricks?”
     Skye made sure not to move too fast. She walked up behind Trilly and put a hand on her shoulder.
     She could feel how tense Trilly was.
     Trilly maintained her scowl as she put her arms down. Skye started to step in front of Trilly just as the short and skinny Xan lunged forward and pushed Trilly.
     Skye managed to catch Trilly as she tried to retaliate, certain that she had just saved Xan from a broken nose.
     “Just back up,” said Skye as she walked right up to Xan.
     “Look who’s fuckin’ talkin’!” yawped Xan as he waved a hand at Skye. “Callin’ us sellouts when we got a label owner here.”
     “Yeah, right. I’m a real bigwig, just like you guys!”
     Skye kept her arms to her sides, but she was ready to strike. She knew Roach and Preston had stepped up behind her.
     Xan scowled at Skye as his two skinny and carefully coiffed green and red haired punk companions tried their best to look intimidating. Skye could tell they were nervous despite their tough guy stares.
     She could also tell Xan was not sure what to do.
     She had no illusions about which side the crowd would fall on if things started to get out of hand.
     Skye walked up to Xan, waving her hand behind her to let her friends know she wanted them to back off.
     “Come on Xan,” said Skye as Xan remained still. “Just ignore the crazy punk an’ let’s us go get a cup of coffee.”
     Xan looked stunned when Skye put an arm around him and started guiding him to the snack stand. She did so even though she was more than a little concerned about what her friends and Xan’s friends would do without their leaders.
     “What the fuck is her problem?” growled Xan as he glanced back at Trilly.
     Skye took her arm back as they kept walking to the snack stand. “She’s just fronting. Don’t worry about her.”
     “You know her?” growled Xan.
     They stopped at the end of the snack stand line. “She’s one of my scouts.”
     Xan looked right at Skye as he furrowed his brow. “She works for you? Did you tell her to mess with me?”
     “Of course not! She’s one of the fuck ups I keep around so I can stay in touch with the trenches.”
     “What the fuck does that mean?
     “You know, get the goods on Gilman, an’ Burnt Ramen, an’ places like that.”
     “Gimme a fuckin’ break. You can’t just go to those places yourself?”
     Skye rolled her eyes. “Every musician in the Bay Area knows who I am. They know I run a record label. They act different around me. If they’re hanging out with sketchy gutter punks who do stupid shit like Trilly then they act like themselves.”
     Xan’s expression softened.
     Skye glanced back at the intersection where the confrontation had taken place. She saw Preston talking to Forty, Xan’s bass player. They looked as if they were having a casual chat.
     Xan insisted on paying for their cups of coffee. They walked over to one of the indoor picnic tables on the far side of the auditorium.
     As they sat down. Skye noticed Xan’s appearance. Somehow his tan skin had become extra clear. His dyed-black hair was spiked, but it looked as if it had been styled by a professional. She also noted that his dark brown eyes looked different somehow, as if he were wearing makeup.
     “Fuckin’ wingnut,” groused Xan as he sat down. “I don’t know why assholes like her have to screech at me. Don’t they know what I’ve done for the scene?”
     Skye bobbed her head around. She wasn’t sure how far she wanted to get into their sellout reputation.
     She took a sip of coffee and slowly set it down as Xan glared across the auditorium.
     “Seriously though, what was up with that?” asked Xan.
     “Come on Xan, are you gonna make me say it?”
     Xan sat back and gave her a confused look. Skye could not tell if he was actually confused or if he was contriving a mood.
     “I mean, a lot of people think you’ve strayed from your roots,” said Skye, “and not for nothin’.”
     “Come on, not even you guys could play Gilman anymore.”
     Skye crossed her eyes. “Not even us guys!”
     “You know what I mean. Where we are…”
     “Sure, I get it. I recently tried to talk The Jolly Sturms outta playin’ Gilman. They’re getting too big for places like that. But, I mean… fucking Salesforce?”
     Xan’s face dropped. He looked at Skye with cold and surprised eyes. “Just so you know, we had them shell out big time for some of the animal rescues around here. That was the price of our playin’ there.”
     “I’m not sayin’ you haven’t done a lot for the scene…”’
     “You know what those small clubs would be like without our support? Or all the bands we helped stay together so they could make it past the broken down van and livin’ with fifty roommates stage? Does that count for nothin’?”
     “I know all that. Whattaya think I’m tellin’ people when they bag on you guys? But fuckin’ mansion parties?”
     “Please. You know how many people want to jam into our parties? We didn’t do it to act like rich pricks. We needed a place that could handle that mob.”
     “Okay, sure. But what you’ve done for the scene, right? Isn’t the word ‘done’, and not ‘doing?’”
     Xan let his eyes wander as he sipped his coffee.
     “I’m not tryin’ to bag on ya’,” continued Skye, “I’m jus’ tryin’ to let you know how some people feel, like Trilly, even though she gets too fucked up about it.”
     Xan pointed at Skye. “Just you wait. When things start blowing up for you, people are gonna start callin’ you posers. Wait until you have gutter punks shouting in your face, telling you you’re a sellout.”
     “That’s already happened. I tossed a singer off of his stage because he was given’ me shit about being a sold out ‘poser.’”
     Skye looked behind her when she sensed another buzz in the crowd. People were stopping and slowing down while staring and gawking towards the entrance, once again.
     “Sounds like somebody else showed up,” said Xan.
     “What? Another rock star?”
     Xan gave Skye a pointed glare before his face suddenly dropped. “Uh oh, I know who it is.”
     “Who?”
     “I can’t see her, but I can see her pretty boys.”
     That was all Skye needed to know.
     Damage had arrived.
     Skye quickly and carefully glanced behind her before turning back to Xan. Xan had scrunched his shoulders, taking a sip of his coffee as if he was trying to hide behind his cup.
     “This should be interesting,” said Skye.
     “No shit.”
     Skye leaned on the table. “So if a brawl breaks out, which side are you gonna be on?”
     “Y’mean when you drop her like a sack of potatoes with one punch? Again? Me an’ my crew are just gonna watch.”
     “Really? Just stand on the sidelines?”
     Xan leaned back. “That fight won’t last long.” He tossed his head in the direction of Damage. “You know you fucked up all her macho cred when you belted her at that wedding.”
     “Honest, I didn’t mean to punch her out. It was just a reflex when she pushed me.”
     “Yeah, you reflexed her into lame-o land.”
     Skye let out a scoff. “Like she wasn’t already there.”
     Skye turned and observed the commotion brought on by the arrival of the former singer for The Drill Bits who had taken off with her own solo career. The memory flash of her fist shooting out and connecting with her glass jaw at Gail and Molly’s wedding was running on repeat.
     Skye had mixed feelings about having knocked her out.
     She felt a hand on her shoulder. Xan had stood up.
     “Honestly, if shit goes down, my crew will be right there,” said Xan as he waved his coffee cup in the direction of his gang of friends. “I mean, Damage is the real sell out here.”
     Skye stood up and patted him on the back. “Thanks Xan, but I don’t think it’ll get that far.”
     “She might have a bigger posse with her than those two pretty boy dorks y’know.”
     “Could be.”
     Xan walked back to his gang as Skye walked up to Trilly and gave her a light punch in the arm.
     “You gonna rein it in?” asked Skye.
     “Yeah, yeah,” said Trilly as if she were an exasperated employee.
     Skye walked past Preston and Forty. She gave Preston a quick pat on the shoulder, grateful that he had stepped in to help diffuse the situation.
     Skye looked around the tables, all while she was careful to keep Damage in the corner of her eye.
     Damage had not changed much since she last saw her at Gail and Molly’s wedding. Her leather jacket was properly old enough, covered with a few carefully and strategically placed patches. Her band shirt was brand new, as was her slick black jeans, but her slightly older Doc Marten boots looked positively preconceived. Her shoulder-length dyed black hair was just out of place, with a few random strands that had been carefully ratted out, just enough to look like she was not trying when she really was. Her entire look was painstakingly designed to make her look like a run-of-the-mill yet slick and down-with-the-street rocker. Skye could tell she had spent quite some time getting a very particular look down, even for something as innocuous as a tattoo convention.
     Damage stopped to talk to one of the artists. Skye looked in her direction while she was also trying her best to blend in, to appear to be just another casual gawker.
     Skye walked through the crowd and set herself at a corner booth, one that was just a few tables away from Damage. She knew Roach, Preston, and Trilly were coming up behind her, but she waved them off, quickly flapping her hand at them until they reluctantly backed off.
     Only a few people recognized Skye, looking between her and Damage with wide eyes, acting as if they were getting ready to make a break for it if a brawl broke out.
     Damage kept talking for a few more minutes before Skye saw her snap her eyes around.
     She had spotted Skye.
     Damage turned around and slowly walked down the aisle, her tall and slim Goth boys obediently trailing behind her. The tattooist she had been talking to stood still with a look of bewilderment, wondering why Damage had suddenly turned away.
     Preston walked up. “You gonna say hi to her?”
     “Fuck no.”
     “No throwdowns?”
     Skye shook her head. “Ain’t no fight gonna happen here. I mean, as long as she doesn’t try anything.”
     Preston waved a hand in Damage’s direction. “She ain’t gonna do nothin’!”
     “You sure?”
     Preston looked around the crowd. “Not unless she’s got a lotta backup here, an’ I don’t think she does.”
     Skye wondered how a showdown would go if Miranda was around.
     And then she remembered, she was there to get a quickie tattoo, if only she could find an artist who wasn’t already busy.
     Skye asked Roach to take her to Candace, to see if she was available to give Skye a quick tattoo. Roach guided her down a row and they found Candace tattooing the shoulder of a tall and skinny Goth girl who blurted “Holy Crap! You’re Skye Wright!”
     Skye talked to Candace as she tattooed the starstruck skinny Goth girl. Candace let her know there were a few people ahead of her.
     Skye and Roach decided to roam the tables they had yet to visit. They stopped at a table of young tattooists who had come down from Sacramento.
     Looking around, Skye spotted Damage a few aisles over.
     She was talking to Xan.

https://needlepictures.com/tbd/book-series/skye-wright-series/

The post Tattooed – An excerpt from my upcoming novel Needle Pictures appeared first on Terminal Berkeley Denizen.

The post Punk T-Shirt Bingo appeared first on Terminal Berkeley Denizen.

The following are quotes from my punk novella Trieste, a tale of strange and sudden family relations in the punk scene.

Power punk couple Miranda and Preston have their worlds turned around by the appearance of a pixie punk. as the past comes around to haunt them.

Think of the following quotes them as mini-excerpts!

    “I am not cute! I’m mean an’ ugly an’ scary!”

    “Well, I remember the phrase ‘Du nervst, du Scheisskopf,’ but I still don’t know what it means.”

     “Don’t sneak up on me like that,” smiled Miranda. “I might think it’s an ex.”
     “Like, one of the exes I should be worried about?”

     “Okay, who here likes Human League?” shouted Molly after their third song. Molly’s question was met with hawks and heckles from the collected audience.

    “You fucking nailed it, you gorgeous bitch!”

    Miranda sat back, glancing around the late-night burger diner with all of its faux retro decorations. It was crowded with punks from the Gilman show. Half of the crowd had dyed-black hair, while many of the other half had bright and colorful locks; dyed green, blue, fire-engine red, and one particularly noticeable punk with a leopard skin print mohawk.
     Most everyone was wearing leather jackets, old army surplus jackets, flight jackets, and denim jackets, usually covered with patches and pins. A number of people in the crowd looked like college students, small groups of people who had been at the show who were just wearing band shirts and didn’t have any of the typical punk affectations that were so common among that tribe.

    “Do you have some sorta problem with me makin’ more money than you?”
     “No! Of course not. Honestly, it’s kinda nice havin’ a sugar momma.”

    “There’s no such thing as paranoia!”

    “You guys need any help?” asked Miranda as she walked up to the stage.
     “Yeah,” said Trilly as she whipped her dreads out of her face. “Molly left a vibrator up my ass. It’s still on. Y’think you could reach in an’ get it?”
     “Hell no. Molly put it in there, so make her get it out!”

    “Is there anything else I should know about you?”
     “Well, we can have a sit down sometime an’ go through the list.”

    I’m wondering how these guys got so damn popular though, bein’ as almost all of their songs are in that funny foreign language.”
     “Hell, you can’t understand half the shit regular English singers are sayin’.”

    Miranda knitted her brow. “Why are you getting so suspicious?”
     “Because The Dynamite Chicks keep getting bigger and bigger, and that means more people coming around, nosing into things an’ trying to hustle. Hell, industry reps are starting to stalk other members of the band besides Skye, trying to sneak in.”

    “Sometimes my junky instincts clue me in on bullshit I’d rather not know about.”

    “Hey, me n’ Miranda caught someone checkin’ you out.”
     “Sure you did,” snarked Preston.
     “No, really! She was lookin’ at you like you were a forty ouncer!”

     Miranda pointed at the scar on her neck. “I didn’t get that because I cut myself shaving. I got it from a fight I started, a fight I started for completely stupid reasons.”

     “Honestly, I don’t think I could live a boring life if I tried.”

    Miranda sat back down as she felt a wave of embarrassment. “Don’t be too impressed. I’m just another fucked-up punk.”
     Trieste looked at her with deep eyes. “How can you say that?”
     “What? It’s true. I’ve been a hot mess all my life.”
     Trieste fixed her eyes on Miranda. “You know how many punks have a mad crush on you? How many people just think you’re a fucking god, tall an’ beautiful and ripping up the stage all the time? Do you have any idea how many people want you to be in their bands?”
     Miranda looked down at the floor as Trieste kept talking.
     “I know half a dozen girls my age learnin’ to play bass, or who want to be a singer, just because a’ you an’ Molly. You ain’t no fucked-up punk. You ain’t like the rest. All those girls would be crushed to hear you say that.”

     She saw another punk grab a chair and slowly sit down. She was short and thin with stringy multi-colored hair that flayed out in all directions. She was wearing an old and cracked leather jacket and hobbling along with a walking cane.
     Miranda had noticed her slight limp when she walked up. She soon noticed her crow’s feet, a few deep lines in her face, and random strands of gray hair poking through her hair dye.
     Miranda looked down at her feet. She wondered about her body, how she had put it through so much abuse from drinking, junk, and fighting. She felt the tight parts of her body, the spots with thick skin where she had been cut, where she had cut herself, along with the scars from all of the club and alleyway fights. She felt the thick scar on her neck throb.
     It was an odd feeling for her, thinking about her age. She was just past thirty, but she thought about how she was less than a decade away from being forty.

Grab a copy of Trieste here!

https://needlepictures.com/tbd/book/blood-skin-and-ink/

Miranda Scholl first appeared in my novel A Long Slow Aftermath.
The story of Preston’s journey after drug rehab.

https://needlepictures.com/tbd/book/a-long-slow-aftermath/

Miranda is also a major supporting character in my two book series The Rise and Fall of Skye Wright. Buy the Rise and Fall series here:

https://needlepictures.com/tbd/book-series/skye-wright-series/

Click the pic of young Miranda to
see another sneak peek of the very beginning of her novel!

The post Quotes from my Novella Trieste appeared first on Terminal Berkeley Denizen.

In my Rise and Fall of Skye Wright book series Skye teams up with her old friend Annie to reform their band The Dynamite Chicks. This happen in book two, The Return of The Dynamite Chicks.

When Skye ran into Annie and was inspired to reform her old band, she started something that began to grow and take off, leading her up to, not only an alt-music hit that went viral, but also a life course that led her to owning a recording studio and record label, events taking her places she never knew she would go.

But what exactly do The Dynamite Chicks sound like? I posted about the bands that influenced The Dynamite Chicks, which just happen to be some of my favorite bands and performers, so that might give you some idea as to what they sound like, but the bands are varied enough that you still might wonder.

Given the diverse range of musicians in the band, from Skye to her bass player Miranda, the tall and intimidating Devil Girl, to Roach, a seasoned drummer from the scene, to the undergound super star Molly, a singer made famous in the punk scene with her old band Bus Stop Hookers… their sound couldn’t be pigeonholed to one particular style. The experience of the band members runs the gamut from new wave to rockabilly to straight punk to music that sounds like barbed wire going through a meat grinder.

Here’s my attempt at nailing down what the band’s sound and style is like.

The first book of my Skye Wright series.
You can find this book here!

Pop Punk? Why not?

Sometimes I believe their sound would sometimes sway more to a straight up rock and roll sound, or even verge on pop punk, which would explain their going viral. I think of songs like this…

I can easily imagine The Dynamite Chicks going with
this style by the A-Lines. This is also just a song
I really like, letting my bias get in the way!.

But let’s be realistic…

When I really think about it, my inclination for their sound is that they trend more towards harder and hectic songs. The Svetlanas is a good example of how I envision their music. I also imagine Molly Mix’s singing style to be much like that off Olga Svetlana. (Without the Russian accent, of course!)

This song comes the close to how I envision The Dynamite chick’s general sound to be like.

Down in the Dirt…

But there are, and would have to be, much more hardcore elements to their sound, especially considering the bands all of them had been in before.. Something like this, one of my fave bands from the day.

Retching Red embodies the kind of sound
and style of Skye’s earlier bands

Going too far?

Let’s get realistic again… Skye and her friends are big fans of the real deal, the hardcore sound that goes off the edge. Would they play music like this? Many of them, especially Annie and Molly, have been in bands that go the extra hardcore mile, but the sounds goes past where they center themselves. Even so, bands like Discharge, Fucked Up, and this band Slutbomb are definitely mine, and their, favorite bands. They wouldn’t go this far with what they do. (At least not all the time.) Even so, it’s a big influence which helps drive some of their more loud and fast songs.

One of my fave bands, as I have a fondness for groups whose music sounds like a violent
nervous breakdown made music! A Dynamite Chicks influence? For sure! Would they go this
far? Occasionally sure, but maybe a bit over the line for their particular sound.

Of course they would combine elements of the bands I already listed in my previous post – The attitude of Bikini Kill, the drive of L7, the screaming voices of Brody Dalle and Kate Bjelland… but their combination of punk and hardcore would be exemplified by the various talents of the band members.

But why would they get so popular so quickly? Is that even realistic?

Everyone in the reformed version of The Dynamite Chicks are veteran musicians. They’ve already played tons of shows at clubs, they’ve all been on broken down van tours, and they’ve already been in so many bands, usually bands that didn’t last very long which was frustrating for them as musicians, but gave them quite a bit of playing experience. All of them managed to garner qunot just playing experience, but also learned how to work within and manage being in a band.

And it’s not just experience. Most of the members of The Dynamite Chicks are clean and sober, and the two that aren’t are, (more or less,) past their extreme party days. Living more sedate and organized lives has helped them keep the act going strong.

Can they become actual rock stars though?

There is something to be said about trying to break into the mainstream. Some undergound acts that dwell in the alt genres do, but most of them do not.

Could The Dynamite Chicks really become pop star successful? Realistically that’s unlikely. Many people think about acts such as The Cadillac Tramps and The Mekons, bands that many people believed should have broken out into the mainstream, but never did. Even though they have tons of adoring fans who believe they should have been much more successful than they were, that they should’ve been breakout successes, they never quite got the recognition and outreach that many people believed they deserved.

As for The Dynamite Chicks, where will they go? At this time I’ve finished the manuscript for book six, am working on book seven, and have the outline for book eight. Will Skye’s band break out and become big time? Or only successful in the punk/alt/heavy music scenes? Will they fall apart before they get anywhere else? Or just cruise along where they are? Even I can’t tell you that. At least not yet.

As for what they sound like, I hope you have a better idea given what I’ve gone over. They don’t sound just like any of the bands I’ve mentioned, as I’ve only referenced those acts as a matter of style and influence. The Dynamite Chicks have their own sound, within the punk genre. And the mix of experience and talent within that group makes them so much more dynamic than other bands.

The post What do the Dynamite Chicks sound like? appeared first on Terminal Berkeley Denizen.

In Place is a chapter from my novel-in-progress Needle Pictures, book six in my Skye Wright Rise and Fall series.

In this scene Skye takes her pugs Juan and Juanita for a walk while she is in the midst of several existential crises involving her business and her relationships.

This piece is a work in progress. Any feedback is welcome!

In Place

     Skye brushed her hair back as she collected the pugs’ leashes. The protest meows of the we’re-still-hungry cats echoed in the background as she peered out onto the landing.
     Harp was sitting in a lawn chair, reading a book. Skye looked around, trying to see if there were any signs of Sussy.
     She hurried the pugs along as she wanted to get away from the cats who were trying to ply her for food, trying to make sure she did not get suckered into feeding them too early.
     She found her old, fraying high tops as she reminded herself, once again, that she needed to get around to buying some new walking shoes.
     The pugs hopped in place as she looked through the window once more. Harp had traded her book for her smartphone, and there was still no sign of Sussy.
     Skye strained on the leashes as the pugs shot out of the door.
     “What’s up boss,” said Harp without looking up from her phone.
     “Wanna come with us?” asked Skye as the pugs skittered in circles.
     Harp looked towards her apartment. “Maybe later. I wanna stick around. For a bit, anyways.”
     “She doin’ okay?” asked Skye quietly.
     “Eh. The usual ennui.” Harp glanced towards her apartment door once more. “Still makes me edgy though.”
     “You gonna bring her to the show?”
     “I think I got to. If she don’t get out more she’s gonna go psycho, an’ probably take me with her.”
     “Got it,” said Skye as she headed for the stairs.
     “Ain’tchoo supposed to be at Butt Fork?”
     “Naw. One a’ my days off.”
     Harp gave a thumbs up and then looked back down at her phone.
The wind kicked up as the pugs skittered up to the sidewalk trees to relieve themselves. She wondered if she should have tied her hair back, or at least brushed it back as matted strands of      her wild, dyed-black hair flew in her face.
     She took the pugs on their usual route, hoping the friendly Jack Russel that they occasionally ran into might be walking by. Or perhaps they would chance to run into some of the familiar neighbors who liked to stop and say hello to Juan and Juanita. She made a point of going by several of the neighborhood little libraries, which made the walk longer, yet more bearable.
     She tried as much as she could to distract herself, but the nagging thoughts kept intruding, as sales figures, distribution reports, and studio scheduling floated like unwelcome guests through her mind. She knew Colleen and Larry were there all day, and she knew them and trusted them well enough to feel that her business was in good hands.
     She tried to keep her mind on the local little libraries. She had no desire to spend another day there, but the thought of taking a quick subway ride out to San Francisco to check in on the place for an hour or two was nagging at her, as the conundrum of not wanting to deal with the technical headaches of running a record label collided with her fretting over her business.
     She wondered if she was turning into Tandasil, but that wonder only lasted for a moment.
     She had hoped that the first little library would provide enough of a distraction, but she could not find anything interesting among the usual books and the discarded textbooks.
     Going up a familiar side street, the cracked sidewalk was strewn with flat and damp leaves from the intermittent rain. Skye ran her eyes around the patterns as the leaves bled their colors into the sidewalk, making the cracked and pock-marked concrete look as if it were a painting.
     Squinting, she looked farther up the street, towards the next main street. She could not see anyone else out and about. The street looked abandoned.
     A woman with a pair of corgis rounded the next corner, and Juan and Juanita bounced around, snorting and jumping as they bumped noses with the two excited corgis for a few minutes.
     Moving on after the corgi romp, Skye wondered if Harp had gone back inside her apartment as a colder wind started blowing, or if she was braving the elements to avoid the countenance of the conflicted Sussy.
     She looked down at the pugs and wondered if they could endure a walk to Rusty Lisa’s, the vegan bakery up on Adeline. She had their chocolate cupcakes on her mind, as well as their colorful doughnuts.
     The pugs skittered along, having been reenergized by their quick playtime with the corgis.
     She quickened her walking pace, taking advantage of the pugs’ adrenaline rush. Another strong gust prompted Skye to make note of the dark clouds moving in overhead. The clouds were menacing enough for her to consider turning around so they would not get caught in a shower.
     She pressed on. Juan and Juanita slowed down after a few minutes of walking, but they were only a few blocks away so Skye marched them on.
     Skye knew the vegan bakers would not mind if she walked in with the pugs. Walking into the small darkwood bakery, there was a short line of people ahead of her. One of the owners, the one with the mane of curly red hair and vintage glasses, came out to say hi to Juan and Juanita as Skye scanned the pastry cases, feeling her heart drop when she couldn’t find any of the cupcakes she had been pining for.
     She kept a tight rein on the leashes and held down her gall as the college student couple in front of her got the last of the maple doughnuts. She tried to console herself with a few almond torts and lemon squares.
     As she walked out of the store, a rotund woman with short hair and tight, wrinkled gray clothes walked up to Juan and Juanita.
     “Can I pet your dogs?” asked the glassy-eyed woman with a grin.
     “Sure. They’re super friendly.”
     The woman kneeled down with some difficulty. Skye could tell from her clothes and her rough skin that she was going through hard times. Her clothes were somewhat ratty and her skin was pockmarked with blemishes.
     “When did you get these dogs Skye?”
     Skye’s skin stood on edge. She was quite surprised to hear the woman call her by name.
     “They were my neighbors. I adopted them when she passed away.”
     The woman looked up at her as she pet the pugs. “You mean that place y’got on San Pablo?”
     At first Skye thought the woman might have been a fan. Now she realized she was someone she knew.
     “They’re such nice doggos,” said the woman as the pugs hopped around, happy to get attention.
     Skye’s mind raced as she tried to remember who she was.
     The woman slowly stood up, hoisting herself with some difficulty. “I ain’t seen you since Grazey’s parking lot show.”
     It suddenly hit Skye.
     It was Joop, the former bass player for The Bee Stings, a college radio art band that somehow managed to get a few dates at Gilman, opening for some noise bands.
     Skye tried her best to contain her surprise. Joop used to have long hair, and she had gained a lot of weight. Skye had not seen her in years, and she surprised herself at being able to recognize her now.
     “Yeah, how’ve you been?” asked Skye.
     “Okay. I’m livin’ with my boyfriend in an old motorhome that his uncle used to own.”
     “An uncle gave you a motorhome?”
     “Well, it’s more like a camper. But at least we can still claim we live indoors.”
     Skye noticed Joop was missing a couple of teeth when she smiled.
     “You playin’ for anybody?”
     “Eh. I had to sell my bass an’ all my equipment. That’s why I hadda drop out of Kitter Kits, some drag that Julie Drop Out was putin’ on.”
     Skye nodded as if she knew what she was talking about. Joop tended to run in different circles in the music world than her.
     “You still in a band?” asked Joop as Juanita pawed at her for more pets.
     “You could say that,” said Skye as casually as she could.
     “What you guys called?” asked Joop as she knelt down to pet the pugs again.
     “You know, my old band, The Dynamite Chicks.”
     Joop looked at Skye with surprise. “No shit? That’s your gig? I thought that was Annie’s thing!”
     “Well, yeah, she’s basically the one who got it back together.”
     Joop stood up. “Well fuckin’ a’, let me know when you’re playin’. Maybe my new band can open for ya’.”
     “I thought you sold your bass?”
     “Frieda asked me to be in her new band. She’s gonna loan me a bass.”
     Skye felt flush as she took out her phone. “I might be able to help you guys out. I… work at a studio in the city. Sometimes we help out new acts.”
     Joop’s eyes brightened. “No shit? That would be fuckin’ awesome!”
     Skye exchanged contact information with her old friend. She also cajoled her into taking the lemon squares, telling her that she bought too many pastries and she didn’t want to end up eating them all.
     Skye made a slow walk back to her place. She could tell the pugs were tired, and she didn’t want to push them.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B3WBDZP2

The post In Place – Excerpt from my upcoming novel Needle Pictures appeared first on Terminal Berkeley Denizen.

Walmart is the largest private employer in The United States and recently, for a short time, I was a member of that large swath of the working class.

Late in 2024, I was looking for some temporary work to make extra money. I looked up some temp holiday jobs and found one, making about fifteen bucks an hour for about twenty hours a week when Walmart chimed in. I had applied for a job as an overnight stocker just as a lark. But the job paid more than the temp job and it was full time as well, so I took them up on their offer since I could use the extra money.

What kind of job did I get? Walmart stores are usually so big and serve so many people that it’s necessary to stock up the place overnight while the store is closed, ergo the overnight stocker position.

I have worked retail before, and I’ve done plenty of warehouse work in the past. I’ve also done a lot of manual labor, so I was not worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle the tasks. I’ve also worked for corporate companies before, places run by big, giant mega corporations, so I knew how impersonal they could be, especially when it came to the way they treated their ground-level employees

That being said, after having worked at Walmart there were a lot of things about the job that didn’t surprise me, but some other things that did.

It was pretty easy to get the job. I stopped by and chatted with one of the supervisors who showed me around the store and quickly described the stocking procedure. He then introduced me to the big boss in charge of the graveyard shift. Between the two of them they did not ask me even one interview question. I volunteered my experience working in a large warehouse, and how I told them I knew how hectic the work could get. They simply signed me up and that was that. The whole “interview”” process only took a few minutes.

It was really telling, that they didn’t bother asking me any questions or vetting me even in the slightest, before hiring me.

I attended one daytime orientation with a few other new hirees. The man who talked to us was one of the upper echelon managers, and the orientation went pretty much as I suspected it would: employee policy, store policy, company policy… They emphasized that the ongoing onboarding and orientation involved watching a lot of videos about company policy, procedures, and store policy, which I did sporadically during the first few weeks of working there.

Despite the wide variety of merchandise in the store, from hardware to toys to clothes to auto and electronics, the main job of graveyard stockers was groceries. The work shift started at 10 PM with a team meeting in the supervisor’s office. They would talk about how much stock there was to put away and they would usually assign people to various sections of the store. Sometimes they were specific, and other times we were instructed to simply “pick an aisle” and work that section.

I learned that groceries is Walmart’s Biggest money maker of all their departments. At least that’s what the bosses told us. I didn’t find that hard to believe. We were constantly restocking the very same shelves we had filled up the night before.

There were three main departments: groceries, dairy, and frozen. Early on they let us know that frozen was the most critical department, as was emphasized on one of the training videos which pointed out that quickly stocking frozen foods was critical. In fact, shortly after I was hired, quite a few of us were sent to the frozen section, which consisted of three aisles of freezers. We were instructed to put away the ice cream products first, as they were the most perishable items. We were then to stock the rest of the frozen products, the frozen bags of fruit, the TV dinners, the frozen pizza, and so forth, and that evening we were not allowed to take our lunch break until all the frozen products had been put away.
More on that frozen foods policy later in this essay.

Sink or Swim

It’s an all-too common policy with all kinds of businesses large and small: toss the new employee right into the job, even if they don’t know some of the finer and not-so-finer details of the position.

Picking up a box and finding where it went involved, at first, looking around the shelves for its spot. This could be fairly daunting. If you’re putting away spaghetti sauce, there’s a dizzying array of brands and flavors and styles of sauces, so much so that you could spend a few minutes trying to find the right spot.

Eventually a new hire showed me how to use the Walmart employee app to scan a product’s barcode and find out exactly where it went. It worked fairly well, but would sometimes get it wrong. Another employee told me I was using the wrong search feature, and showed me how to open the correct scanner for a product search.

The point is no one explicitly showed me how to use the app to find product positions. It would be a few days later before a supervisor instructed me to double check to see if a product was being used in a feature, a mid-aisle display or what they called an end cap, the displays at the end of an aisle, meaning the item in question had more than one location.

What Walmart should do, and just about every other business out there should also do, is give employees comprehensive one-on-one training before being launched into the wilderness. They should get carefully and thoroughly schooled by a veteran or a supervisor of the place so that they aren’t lost, confused, or simply having a difficult time figuring things out. But many employers are not interested in going that extra mile for their employees. They would rather chuck them into the game to try and get as much work out of them as possible.

Gathering information about that particular store was always piecemeal and haphazard. One employee warned me that the managers were watching us while we worked on the security cameras, and that we had to be careful. I was informed by another Walmart veteran, who had been working there for years, that most of the cameras didn’t work, and as for the ones that did, “You can’t see shit on ’em anyways!”

I also got schooled on other details that were never mentioned to me before being put out on the floor, such as to never stand on a wooden pallet or you would get blasted by a supervisor. A minor detail that was not as critical as another piece of advice I got; Never stand in front of a working cardboard baler. The supervisor who gave me a quick two-minute training lesson on how to use the baler never mentioned that critical piece of information. Another employee told me that was the one place you did not want to be if the machine malfunctioned.

What’s the Policy?

I mentioned the frozen food policy on my first week there, how we had to stock it quickly. That policy did not last long. Occasionally several of us were ordered to stock frozen foods and to make it a priority, but on other days they treated frozen foods as if they were any other grocery items.

On some days frozen food items would sit out for hours, sometimes for nearly the entire shift, before anyone got around to putting them away. One night I spent nearly my entire shift putting away ice cream products which, if you remember, was supposed to be a priority stock, since it was the most perishable of the frozen foodstuffs. There was a lot of ice cream that night, and most of it spent hours on the floor, being as I was the lone employee putting the stock away. During this ice cream incident, I informed several team leads that I was the only one stocking ice cream, basically telling them I needed help to get it put away in a timely manner. They never assigned any other personnel for the task.

Other policies changed as well. The very tops of the shelves were reserved for overstock, and we were warned that mere employees were not authorized to shelve any products on the top overstock. A few weeks later, we were told to put overstock on the top shelves, being as the warehouse overstock was piling up.

For each shift we had two paid fifteen minute breaks and one unpaid hour of lunch. At first, the timing of lunch and break was more-or-less variable. Later on, they demanded that everyone take their breaks and lunch at the same time in order to coordinate the shift work.

There were other examples, and they may seem like small details, (Except for the whole frozen food thing,) but it emphasized the shifting changes in procedure. The haphazard policy changes made things rather confusing for myself and all of the other employees.

Ghetto Store

Walmart is a place where a lot of poor people shop. Say what you will about the place, they do have low prices, low enough that people struggling to make ends meet shop there quite often. The cost of their Great Value brands is especially attractive for people living check-to-check who have to scrape by to put food on the table.

(One also thinks about the ‘People of Walmart’ pics, basically a class minstrel show where people can delight in making fun of the poor and destitute.)

The people there are very working class, and the place got pretty “ghetto”, as the saying goes. Young people would be having loud and very inappropriate conversations in the break room, talking loudly about sexual subjects and violence, the kind of workplace banter that would never be tolerated in most other workplace settings. The break room was also a place of some chaos. Trash and litter were always all over the place, all of the time: crumpled paper, bits of uneaten food, empty soda cans… It was oftentimes as bad as a middle school cafeteria after lunchtime.

The store itself was not much better. The emphasis for our work duties was to get the stock on the shelves, as quickly as possible, of course, and to “zone” our aisles. That is, to make things look as neat and orderly as possible.

But it was only the aisles that were supposed to look near and nice. The floor and the general store itself were another matter. It was not unusual to see pallets piled with product blocking aisles, or sitting in the middle of walkways. Torn boxes, piles of dust and dirt, and half-finished boxes of stock would be lying around the sales floor. There was also a lot of neglect when it came to the cleanliness of the freezers and shelves. Random junk was always found on the shelves, behind the products, and just hanging out. It was usually products that were left there by customers who had the habit of carrying things around the store and leaving them in random places: bits of food, toys, clothing, and all kinds of other items that were way out of place. I once found a bright red bra nestled in between packages of toilet paper, for example.

Random junk left around the store by customers was just a fact of life. I’ve seen that at all of the retail stores I’ve worked at. The condition of other parts of the place were another matter. I was once packing an open refrigeration shelf with packets of cheese. The floor of the freezer was a plastic grate, in which you could see the underlying shelf. Underneath the grate was all kinds of trash and crud: bits of plastic, bits of goo from old food, dust, dirt, faded stains from God-knows-what, and occasionally things such as screws, bolts, and one time a lost box cutter. It was quite obvious that it had not been cleaned or maintained for a very long time. As I stocked the cheese, I tried my best to cover up the decidedly unpalatable debris underneath.

There was also the attitude of the employees. I said we worked when the store was closed which was only partially true. We started work one hour before the store closed, and we were still working for at least another hour after the store opened in the morning. It was not unusual for team leads or supervisors to be dressing us down and growling at us right in front of customers. The presence of paying customers did not change their tone or attitude one iota. I also heard plenty of employees engaging in inappropriate conversations on the floor with customers around. I even heard one employee shout “Who stole my fucking cart?” nearly at the top of his lungs, close to seven AM, when there were more than a few early morning customers in the store.

(I also got blasted by a very loud and aggressive colleague during open hours. More on that later in this story!)

Pressure – Toxic Leadership

One morning when I was coming into work, I was walking into the store at the same time as one of my supervisors. I said “Hello. How’s it going?”

He did not say anything, he did not look in my direction, he did not respond to me at all, even though he was right next to me. He just kept staring straight ahead with a stern look on his face.

The point was made. I was just an employee, and underling, and associating with me was not in the playbook.

And that was not an anomalous incident. That was the prevailing attitude among most of the higher ups. Some were a bit more personable than others, but overall the line was made very clear.

The times when team leads or supervisors said anything even remotely positive were so far and few between that I can clearly remember them, and can also count their collected positive comments on one hand after working there for two months. The boss’s main form of communication was nonstop blasting. With only one or two exceptions, the team meetings were the bosses complaining that the collected workers for not being fast enough with stocking, and not making the aisles clean and orderly enough, which created a familiar workers’ conundrum: being ordered to work faster while taking the time to pay attention to detail. The idea that one meant sacrificing the other was completely immaterial to the higher ups, something I’ve had to deal with too many times before in other such work environments.

They really dogged us one night, complaining, as usual, that we weren’t working fast enough. In fact, the terse manager decided to time my putting away a carton. It was one of the situations where I first had to locate the right spot for the product, and then move a lot of other product out of the way, as it was crowded with overflow from its shelf neighbor.

He waved his timer in my face, telling me I should’ve done the carton in a minute. I came in at one minute and fifty eight seconds.

I didn’t say anything or respond to him. I was not his only victim, however. He did the same thing to several other people.

I could’ve pleaded my case, letting him know that no two cartons were the same. Earlier I had stocked three cartons in a minute, because they were all in the same section and I knew exactly where they were supposed to go. But others were more problematic, requiring more organizing, or searching for the right spot. Oftentimes shelf locations were crowded with overflow from the next section, and frequently other employees would stick the wrong product in the wrong location, meaning you had to take the time to move it. It happened often enough to significantly slow down the work, for myself and everyone else. Myself and a colleague tried explaining this to our higher-ups, but we only got blasted for our reports. They just repeated their usual refrain: we needed to be faster.

The pressure to keep moving was really ramped up on that particular night. But by this time, after having worked there for a few weeks, I was convinced there was no way we could ever meet their expectations, that no matter how hard we worked they would still come down on us, complaining that we simply weren’t good or fast enough. Blasting their employees for not being good enough was the default.

It was pretty much summed up by a young man who had been hired shortly before I came onto the night shift, one of my other colleagues who also had a cell phone timer waved in his face. “I used to like this job,” he said, “but now I hate it.”

Some of my colleagues were harder working than others, and some were more conscientious about their work, but every single one of my fellow night stockers worked. Even if some were not quite as good or as fast as other workers, no one on that floor ever stopped moving. Yet they were constantly getting blasted by the higher ups, constantly getting verbally beaten up and scolded by the stern faced team leads and supervisors, the kind who completely ignore their lessers when you try to tell them good morning.

Which leads one to wonder, what was the point of trying to do a good job? The way a few of my colleagues went about their jobs, I basically assumed that they had given up trying to please the bosses. There was simply no point.

Among this toxic work environment I did get one very pointed surprise at one point. A few weeks into the job, a young colleague who was hired around the same time as myself told me something rather bizarre while we were stocking the shelves. He said all of the bosses had been talking about what an awful worker I was and that they would have to fire me soon. He emphasized this by adding “All of the bosses are saying that.” (Meaning not just the supervisors but the team leads as well.)

I was quite taken aback by his report. While I wasn’t as good as the veterans who had been working there for years, I knew I was far from being the worst worker. If they were grading on a curve at all there were plenty of others who were far slower than myself. (The speed of our work being their primary concern.) I also paid more attention to what I was doing than others. I didn’t open cartons of stock unless I checked the location first, making sure that there was enough room for the items. If a product location was already full the new stock would be branded overstock, and you had to place that product aside. I was also careful not to misplace items, which was obviously not a habit practiced by many of my overnight colleagues. I never witnessed the crimes but I always found evidence, routinely finding products stocked in the wrong location.

I could only assume that my young coworker was telling me that by design, rather than it being a happenstance occurrence. I hypothesized that either the bosses made sure he was within earshot when they made such remarks, knowing that it would most likely get back to me, or they had explicitly instructed him to tell me that as a way to motivate me.

Or maybe they had actually said and meant such a thing and he did happen to overhear it. Though that’s the one scenario that’s the least plausible. I was harangued on the job by supervisors and team leads all the time, but not more so than all of the others. I was never formally called to task for my work performance, or given a write up, or threatened with termination, which is what should have happened if they were really that displeased with my performance.

Regardless of what the case may be in regards to all of the bosses thinking I was a crappy worker report, it only highlights the completely toxic atmosphere of that workplace. Even though I knew it was a job I was not going to keep, I still worried about getting in trouble, and possibly being let go, thus losing out on the extra income I was hoping to make. As much as I knew I would not stick with that job for very long, I still needed and wanted the temporary income.

The anxiety over getting dismissed was, by all the evidence, irrational. The main boss kept talking about how they were short-handed, and even told us that If we had any friends looking for work to encourage them to apply. Even though I was only there for a few months, not one person was ever dismissed, transferred to another department, (as they often threatened to do,) or even disciplined for their work.

The toxic atmosphere, the constant verbal beat downs and threats by the managers, and the over-the-shoulder rankles created the kind of poisonous atmosphere that kept their workers on the edge of anxiety. At least in most cases. A few veterans seemed to have gotten used to the strenuous Workplace, having realized that they would have to do something extra heinous to actually get fired from the overnight staff. At least that’s what I assume.

The conundrum of their employee practices is that they beat on their employees to try and get them to work as much and as fast as possible in order to maximize the cost of those employees.The non-stop pressure to work faster was relentless.

At the same time it was emphasized to us that they needed more people to work the night shift, yet because of the toxic workplace they have a pretty decent turnover, and the very nature of the job kept people from applying. When the main boss said I should tell any friends of mine who were looking for work about the job, I knew that was the last thing I would do. I did have local friends who were indeed looking for work, but I would never recommend that job to them.

Quitting

I worked my last shift as a night stocker without informing anyone that I was no longer going to be working there. I had already secured another job and I basically worked a gratuitous last day to get the extra day’s pay. I also felt that, even though it was a pretty awful experience, I needed to have one farewell day at my “temporary” job.

Knowing that it would be the last time I would have to suffer under the glare and spite of my higher ups really took the edge off. I didn’t feel the pressure nearly as much. I still worked, but without the must-get-it-done-by-tomorrow stress. I was scolded by one team lead who asked me why one aisle was taking so long and I just shrugged.

To top it all off, right as I was working my very last hour, a colleague came up to me to blast me about something. He started off with “What is your problem?” He then proceeded to shout at me in a loud and angry voice that he had told me to do something regarding the frozen food aisle. I was completely lost, not having any recollection of him having informed me of anything, and I really didn’t know what exactly he was talking about as he growled about some esoteric stocking details that were lost on me.

In true Walmart fashion he did this when the store had already opened and there were customers walking back and forth, putting the grand and ever-present emphasis on the stark lack of professionalism in that work environment. Not exactly a good look to have employees yelling at each other in front of customers.

Not that I yelled back. I simply looked at him as he ranted away. I said nothing in response, letting him wear himself out before he finally stomped off in a huff.

When I got home, I texted the head of personnel to let him know I was giving notice, that I would not be working any more shifts at Walmart. I decided not to tell any of my supervisors beforehand that I was not coming back. Given the toxic nature of the environment, I wanted to avoid any harsh confrontations with the higher ups. If I told them I was no longer going to be working there, I’m almost certain they would have heaped quite a bit of abuse upon me, or might have kicked me off of the job on the spot. I simply wished to avoid that kind of confrontation. It just wasn’t worth it.

I never heard back from anyone regarding my termination notice or of my absence from the work shifts. Not a text, not a phone call, not even an email. Not a word.

Which Walmart am I talking about? Where exactly did I experience this working class tale of angst and frustration? I’m not going to say. I know I had this job at a specific Walmart, but knowing what I know about how these kinds of corporate businesses operate I have no doubt that the same kind of atmosphere exists at all of them. It’s the corporate structure. It’s the nature of the faceless company that cannot even contemplate the lessers of their company as people. All they see is what they can get out of them, how far they can push them, and how they can maximize their profits, regardless of what it does to their minions. As I said earlier, a factor in my bosses toxic attitudes came from their bosses, the store and regional managers who would give them hell, and lean on them to pressure their workers even more.

It’s a toxic company, and it fosters toxic workplaces, across all of their stores.

As I was working for Walmart during this time, I came across the Busta Rhymes Walmart commercial, the one emphasizing Walmart’s holiday season services. The commercial shows happy Walmart employees, dancing and singing while wearing those blue vests and those flimsy name tags. It just looks ridiculous to me, the idea of jubilant Walmart workers. It’s so far removed from reality as to make the commercial a sinister and crass piece of propaganda.

It was not difficult for me to separate myself from Walmart. I have college degrees and the kind of expertise that makes my job search far easier than many people in the USA. Sadly, many of my colleagues most likely did not have such options. Too many people in this country put up with the abuse, poor pay, and toxic working conditions because they have little to no choice. They must work to keep up their paycheck-to-paycheck existence.

The hard working people of this country deserve better, much better, than what Walmart and so many other corporations like it have to offer its employees.

The post Working at Walmart – Tales of The Working Class appeared first on Terminal Berkeley Denizen.

This is the second and third chapters of my novella Trieste, now available on Kindle! A tale of sudden and drastic family revelations when a pixie punk shows up to turn the world of punk power couple Miranda and Preston upside down!

This story stars Miranda, the main character of my novel Blood, Skin, and Ink, as well as Preston, the main character of my two novels The Falling Circle and A Long Slow Aftermath. They, along with many other punks in this tale, also have stories in my Skye Wright series.

You can find the first chapter here!

     “You’re annoying, you shithead!”
     “That’s what it means?” asked Miranda.
     “Direct translation.”
     “Du nervst, du Scheisskopf.”
     “Exactly!”
     Molly sat back with her milkshake, quite satisfied with her German teaching skills.
     Skye was in the next booth, talking animatedly with one of the German punks who had been invited to the Gilman show by the Jolly Sturms. From what Miranda understood, some of their European friends spoke very little English.
     Molly glanced at the other booth. “Skye’s German has gotten really good.”
     “It’s still all Greek to me.”
     Miranda was impressed with how young Molly still looked. She knew her from her days as the singer for The Bus Stop Hookers, the iconic Bay Area band that took the punk scene by storm with their pornographic songs. Now the singer with the round, youthful face, short spiked black hair, and Buddy Holly glasses was now her bandmate in The Dynamite Chicks. She was also one of the most recognizable members of the band.
     Jutta leaned into Molly and they started chattering in German. Miranda sat back, glancing around the late-night burger diner with all of its faux retro decorations. It was crowded with punks from the Gilman show. Half of the crowd had dyed-black hair, while many of the other half had bright and colorful locks; dyed green, blue, fire-engine red, and one particularly noticeable punk with a leopard skin print mohawk.
     Most everyone was wearing leather jackets, old army surplus jackets, flight jackets, and denim jackets, usually covered with patches and pins. A number of people in the crowd looked like college students, small groups of people who had been at the show who were just wearing band shirts and didn’t have any of the typical punk affectations that were so common among that tribe.
     Most of the crowd looked as if they were in their twenties or thirties, but a gaggle of very young punks who were chattering loudly as they waited in line to order were making Miranda feel her age. They looked as if they were still in high school, as if they were not even old enough to vote yet.
     Miranda considered that they perhaps only looked young because she was getting older, even though she was just in her early thirties.
     She leaned on the table and let out a long sigh. Her skin seemed to press in on her. She clenched her hands.
     “See someone?” asked Skye as she sat down next to Miranda.
     “Naw. Just getting a weird… vibe I guess?”
     “Somethin’ witchy goin’ on?”
     Miranda slumped in her seat and scrunched her shoulders. “Fuck it. I’m just feelin’ sketchy.”
     “Maybe you’re just paranoid.”
     “There’s no such thing as paranoia!”
     Skye leaned in closer to Miranda. “Was it the drunk punks? We’re they plucking your nerves?”
     Miranda sat up straight. She was surprised. At Herself.
     “No, not really,” said Miranda as she knitted her brow in thought. “It’s weird, early on in my sobriety it would’ve been a problem, seeing all of those drunk dingbats in the club. It would’ve gotten to me.”
     Skye sat back. “You’ve got a sobriety birthday coming up, right?”
     “Three years, yeah.”
     “Y’see? You’re gettin’ in a groove. You’re getting along with the clean and sober life.”
     “I guess so. But still, something about this night seemed off, and I don’t know what the hell it could be.”
     Skye sat back and looked around. “Sometimes my junky instincts clue me in on bullshit I’d rather not know about.”
     Miranda reached around and adjusted her waist-length ponytail as she looked around the crowd again. So many people from the club had shown up that people started congregating in the diner’s lobby. Miranda stood up when she saw Gail Burp, the tall and pale singer whose solo act was going viral. She was also Molly’s wife.
     The crowd of leather jackets, patch jackets, and battle vests grew large enough that the restaurant staff opened a small side dining room that had been cordoned off. Miranda’s attempt to talk to Gail was foiled by fawning fans and fellow musicians who had gotten to her first.
     “Trying to get Gail’s autograph?”
     Miranda turned around. It was Preston.
     “I couldn’t find you in this fucked up crowd,” said Miranda.
     “No shit. This is like the show part two. There’s at least a dozen punks smokin’ in the parking lot.”
     Gust walked up and threw an arm around Preston. “Hey, me n’ Miranda caught someone checkin’ you out.”
     “Sure you did,” snarked Preston.
     “No, really! She was lookin’ at you like you were a forty ouncer!”
     “No, she wasn’t. Who would do that?”
     “Don’t be so down on yourself there, stud muffin!” said Gust as she poked Preston in the chest.
     “Miranda, she just poked me on the nipple.”
     “I suppose I need to be worried about you,” said Miranda as she narrowed her eyes. “Gawkers and nipple pokers comin’ after you.”
     Gust threw her arms around Preston. “Don’t worry, studly! I’ll protect you!”
     “But who will protect me from you?” asked Preston who then looked at Miranda.
     “Sorry! I can’t get involved at this time,” smiled Miranda as Gust’s antics helped her tension subside.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

     Miranda brought the iPad closer to her face. She was reading an email from a Miss Von FluffenTetas, an email that, at first, she thought was some sort of pornographic advertisement that had snuck past her spam filter. She realized it was an old work friend getting in touch with her about her new burlesque show.
     She was at Butt Fork Studios, the legendary alt-music recording studio that her guitarist and band leader Skye had managed to buy, an event that had taken her and just about everyone else by complete surprise. They had spent so many years as poor, besotted punks scratching out a living in the concrete jungle that the idea that anyone she personally knew could own an actual business, especially one that was doing so well, was alien to her.
     She was sitting at Skye’s desk, as she did not have her own spot to work at in the Butt Fork offices, despite her going by there frequently enough to feel like she was one of the employees.
     Miranda was not sure why, but she was concerned that someone might be reading over her shoulder. Her band manager and Butt Fork’s studio director Tandasil was always darting in and out, as well as Tandasil’s dynamo assistant Colleen, the only woman Miranda had ever met who seemed as if she could not get enough work.
     “Whatcha doin’?” asked Skye as she walked up.
     Miranda held up her iPad. “Got an email from an old work buddy of mine. She’s putting on a punk burlesque show.”
     “Yeah? She tryin’ to get you into the show?”
     “Yep!”
     “Really? I was just kidding.”
     “She’s trying to get me back into the strippin’ biz. I mean, the burlesque stuff. Not the full-on nudie act.”
     “I wonder how that would play, you waving your cruise missiles around in pasties now that you’re like, a kinda big deal in the music scene.”
     Miranda waved a hand at Skye. “I don’t look as good naked now as I used to.”
     “Like every punk in the scene wouldn’t crash through the doors to see you nakey.”
     “Blah. My days of takin’ off my clothes for money are over.”
     “We can at least go check her show out.”
     “Maybe you should go dance for her.”
     Skye could not hold back a laugh. “Me? Who the hell would want to see me take my clothes off?”
     “Take your clothes off?”
     They both turned around. Neither one of them having seen Molly come into the office.
     “Someone’s trying to lure Miranda back into stripping,” said Skye.
     “Hell yeah!” smiled Molly. “Lemme’ go grab some tip money!”
     “Any chance I could get my workplace back?” asked Skye as she leaned on her desk.
     “Sure,” said Miranda as she stood up.
     Skye sat down and opened her laptop. “With the way things are going we’re gonna need more office space, including non-designated work stations.”
     “Jesus,” said Molly. “Now you’re really starting to talk like a corporate clone.”
     “If Tandasil and Colleen had their way they’d be calling me the CEO.”
     “Uch!” winced Miranda.
     Molly leaned on the desk and looked right at Skye. “You’re coming to Hat Confusion tonight, aren’t you?”
     “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss it for all the onion rings at Nathan’s!” Skye looked at Miranda. “I know you’re gonna be there.”
     “I can’t not support my man,” stated Miranda emphatically.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DXD6VNBX

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BM6GP85B

Miranda Scholl first appeared in my novel A Long Slow Aftermath.
The story of Preston’s journey after drug rehab.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09T1ZFD6N

Miranda is also a major supporting character in my two book series The Rise and Fall of Skye Wright. Buy the Rise and Fall series here:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B3WBDZP2

Click the pic of young Miranda to
see another sneak peek of the very beginning of her novel!

The post Trieste – The Next Chapters appeared first on Terminal Berkeley Denizen.

This is the opening of my upcoming novella Trieste, a tale of sudden and drastic family revelations when a pixie punk shows up to turn the world of punk power couple Miranda and Preston upside down!

This story stars Miranda, the main character of my novel Blood, Skin, and Ink, as well as Preston, the main character of my two novels The Falling Circle and A Long Slow Aftermath. They, along with many other punks in this tale, also have stories in my Skye Wright series.

     She bent over her bass, plucking out frantic notes, and then arched her back, throwing her head back to fan out her long hair.
     She stumbled from the wall of sound hitting the stage, as well as from the roar of the circle pit.
     Hands touched her back as the singer Svenja came up behind her.
     Miranda couldn’t understand the lyrics, having opted out of learning any of the chorus as Svenja and Jutta shouted out their repetitive German screed at the edge of the stage.
     She looked out over the pit, which had grown to twice its size since the band’s set had started.
     The German punks were up front, railing against the stage as they shouted along to the chorus.
     Miranda furiously drove the hectic bass line in the midst of the storm of sounds as strands of her damp hair stuck to her face.
     The song stopped and she felt a warm wave wash over her as she missed the cutoff, having added a few errant bass notes to the end of the song.
     No one had apparently noticed. The undulating crowd were shouting and jumping up and down.
     Miranda looked back and forth as Svenja talked to the jubilant crowd. She could not believe how jammed the modestly-sized Gilman Club had gotten. She wondered how the sprawling collection of packed-in punks had managed to create such a large pit within the crush of the crowd.
     “That’s it for tonight!” shouted Svenja through the mic. “Check us out next week at The Bottom of the Hill!” Svenja threw an arm around Miranda. “Thanks to Miranda of The Dynamite Chicks for filling in for our bass player Hannah, who’s back in Germany visiting ihre kranke mutter!”
     The collected mass of punks started shouting for an encore as Miranda took a step back. Svenja and Jutta were both tall and skinny, with Svenja having short spiked hair and Jutta, wearing all-black clothes, had an explosion of bright green hair that reminded Miranda of lime Jello.
     Svenja and Jutta glanced at each other while Miranda looked back at the short and skinny drummer Gitta who had stood up to look over the energized crowd. Gitta looked at Miranda and shrugged.
     Miranda spotted the club personnel, walking towards the stage to get them to break down their equipment, just as the crowd was getting louder.
     Miranda nudged Svenja with her elbow while gripping her bass.
     “Awright du Schweine!” shouted Svenja into the mic. “This one is Schmeckt Besser!”
     Miranda saw the club manager and a few of her multi-colored haired minions quicken their pace to try and chase the band away, so she launched into the bass line for the song. She saw Gitta out of the corner of her eye frantically picking up her drumsticks as Svenja and Jutta charged into the song, reigniting the pit.
     Miranda had memorized the bassline, plucking out the backbeat as she listened to Svenja belt out the hybrid German-English song.
     After their abrupt encore, they were finally forced to stop playing when the club manager switched off the sound. Punks were pressing themselves up against the stage, beckoning to Svenja.
     “You fucking nailed it, you gorgeous bitch!” shouted Jutta to Miranda.
     Miranda kept making futile efforts to brush back her sweat-drenched hair. “Thanks! though I wish I knew what you were talking about.”
     “Go ask your friends,” said Jutta as she pointed to a corner of the club where her German speaking friends and Dynamite Chicks bandmates Skye and Molly were talking to The Jolly Sturms’ German visitors.
     “Shit, the regular punks were getting into it hardcore.”
     “It’s the vibe!” said Jutta as she waved her hands towards the audience.
     Miranda started helping the band move their equipment as a gaggle of fans descended on Svenja. Miranda was used to it, the singer getting most of the attention after the show which left the rest of the band to do the drudge work.
     “You leavin’ The Dynamite Chicks?” asked a barging flight-jacketed boot girl as Miranda was carrying a snare drum offstage.
     “Hell no. I’m just filling in for their bass player.”
     “No shit?”
     The short and wiry Gust, with her ratty Circle Jerks t-shirt and flaying spiked red hair, barged up to Miranda and pointed at the boot girl. “Hey, is this ho botherin’ you?”
     Miranda laughed. “No, not at all.”
     Gust contrived a look of concern. “She isn’t?” Gust turned to the boot girl. “You feelin’ okay?”
     Miranda left Gust and her friend to talk as she carried the snare out to The Jolly Sturms’ van.
     Gust came up to Miranda outside of the club after they had packed up all of their equipment. “I can’t believe these krauts wanted to play Gilman.”
     Miranda winced at Gust. “Don’t call them krauts, you jack off!”
     “Ain’t they all Germans?”
     “Mmm… Svenja and Gitta are. I think Jutta’s from Austria.”
     “Is there a difference?”
     “Why can’t you believe they wanted to play Gilman?”
     Gust waved a hand at the bustling crowd spilling out into the street. “They’re takin’ off! They’re sellin’ records like hotcakes. Half these people couldn’t even get in because the club was so full. They need to be playin’ the Warfield or The Fillmore, not this fuckin’ little rat dive.”
     Miranda leaned back against the wall and nodded. “You got a point there. Some people just wanna stick close to their roots though, avoid those big ass venues.”
     “How’d you figure out their songs anyways?”
     “I listened to their songs over and over again when Svenja asked me to fill in for Hannah. I still can’t figure out most of what they’re sayin’, but I got all their bass lines down.”
     “You didn’t learn none of it?”
     “Well, I remember the phrase ‘Du nervst, du Scheisskopf,’ but I still don’t know what it means.”
     Miranda glanced at the milling crowd and noted several people who were looking in her direction. Being a six-foot-tall woman who was covered with tattoos and scars meant that she was used to being gawked at. Usually it was not as much of an issue at shows, since she was so well known in the punk scene, but a small group of very young punks were staring in her direction.
     Miranda looked away from the gawkers. She felt her skin getting tight.
     She was not sure what was stressing her out, why their glares were sticking to her.
     Miranda turned to Gust. “So how’d we do?”
     “You guys kicked ass! But I’m wondering how these guys got so damn popular though, bein’ as almost all of their songs are in that funny foreign language.”
     “Hell, you can’t understand half the shit regular English singers are sayin’.”
     Miranda felt an arm go around her waist.
     She knew right away it was Preston.
     “Don’t sneak up on me like that,” smiled Miranda. “I might think it’s an ex.”
     “Like, one of the exes I should be worried about?”
     Gust made a face, “Blag! Stop being cute! Bleh!”
     “Look who’s talkin,” said Preston. “You’re the cutest one here!”
     Gust started jumping up and down. “I am not cute! I’m mean an’ ugly an’ scary!”
     Miranda leaned forward and put a hand on Gust’s shoulder. “You’re adorable!”
     “Nooooo!” bellowed Gust facetiously as she held up her arms and ran off into the Gilman Club crowd.
     Miranda put her arm around Preston and pressed herself against him, even though she was still sweaty from the show.
     Preston had not only been getting in better shape, he had been growing his hair out, making him look just a little more feral. Miranda knew it was the kind of look that could get competitors to check him out, a concern that persistently harangued Miranda even though she knew her suspicions and jealousy were her pointed character defects, defects that she was not entirely dedicated to removing with her Narcotics Anonymous step work.
     She did not want to take anything for granted, so she decided to compel herself to hang on to at least some of her angst.
     A sudden wind made Miranda shiver. “Lemme go duck back into the club.”
     “Sure thing. I’m gonna talk to Greg by the door,” said Preston as Miranda released him.
     Getting back inside, Miranda looked around the scene. Usually Gilman would empty out quickly after a show, but there were still quite a few people in the small club. Many of them were crowded around Svenja and Jutta.
     Skye walked up, just as she was finally tying back her wild black hair. Miranda noticed that Skye had also been sweating profusely.
     “What happened to you?” asked Miranda.
     “I was in the pit for half your show! Didn’t you see me?”
     “Fuck no. I spent too much time trying to remember the songs. How’d I do?”
     “You fuckin’ killed it! I’m afraid they’re gonna try an’ steal you from our band.”
     Miranda waved at the gaggle of fawning punks trying to talk to members of the band. “Gust was asking why they played this place, since they’re blowin’ up.”
     Skye slowly shook her head. “I told them they might get mobbed if they played at a venue this small. Or start a riot. Either way it was going to be a night.”
     Skye wandered off as Miranda shook her arms around. The air inside the club was still warm from all of the compacted bodies.
     She spotted Preston talking to Daphne, the singer for the local band Toxic Diatribe. Daphne was talking excitedly to him, smiling broadly as she pointed her pixie nose and bright eyes at Preston, her multicolored braids twittering as she gesticulated.
     Miranda dropped her head, looked at the floor, and took in a long, slow breath.
     Exhaling, she felt her body relax.
     Just for a moment.
     Looking up again, she spotted another woman, a short, slim, and wiry-haired young woman staring at Preston. She was looking at him with wide and fixed eyes.
     She felt a charge go up her spine.
     Another young woman with stringy bright red hair and a Leftover Crack hat came up to the wiry-haired woman and whispered in her ear.
     They both started looking in Preston’s direction from across the club.
     Gust bounced up to Miranda. “Hey, can I use my adorableness to convince you to come to Nathan’s with me an’ Trilly?”
     “Maybe,” said Miranda as she kept her sight on the young woman staring at her boyfriend. “Lemme ask Preston.”
     “What you lookin’ at?”
     “That girl with the shredded black hair, her and her friends were starin’ at me earlier. Now she’s eyeing Preston.”
     Gust glanced in the direction of the Preston gawkers and turned back to Miranda. “She fixin’ on stealin’ your boyfriend?”
     “Psh! She’s too young to steal him. She looks like she’s fourteen. I don’t know what her deal is.”
     “Maybe she wants to invite you over for a three way!” smiled Gust.
     “Right. We’d eat that one alive.”
     “You want me to step up? Find out what she’s up to?”
     “Naw.” Miranda looked away. “She’s probably just checkin’ him out.”
     “No shit. He’s been gettin’ more buffed lately.” Gust pointed at Miranda. “Watch out for them maneaters!”
     Miranda looked at Gust with a raised eyebrow.
     “Don’t be givin’ me that Tandasil eyebrow!” said Gust.
     “I ain’t no Vulcan,” smiled Miranda.
     “C’mon, scoop up your honeydripper an’ let’s jet!”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BM6GP85B

Miranda Scholl first appeared in my novel A Long Slow Aftermath.
The story of Preston’s journey after drug rehab.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09T1ZFD6N

Miranda is also a major supporting character in my two book series The Rise and Fall of Skye Wright. Buy the Rise and Fall series here:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B3WBDZP2

Click the pic of young Miranda to
see another sneak peek of the very beginning of her novel!

The post Du Nervst! – An excerpt from my upcoming novella Trieste appeared first on Terminal Berkeley Denizen.

Miranda goes to visit her ex-boyfriend Hench, who is also her former martial arts instructor, in Jail, even though she has her qualms about visiting her abusive and violent ex.

This story is featured in my collection of short stories entitled Short Songs, featuring characters from The Rise and Fall of Skye Wright series.

     “Are they gonna search me?”
     “Yeah. But it’s no big as long as you dress down.”
     “Dress down?” Miranda was looking through her clothes as she talked to Skye on the phone.
     “Don’t wear any gnarly band shirts,” said Skye. “An’ nothing too revealing.”
     “Yeah, not gonna wear anything sexy to a men’s prison. But why no skull shirts?”
     “If you wear something that looks too fucked up they could deny you entry.”
     Miranda stood straight. “Really?”
     “F’real. Dress down. Wear something plain.”
     “What about a regular band shirt? One that doesn’t have, like, a rotting skull on it?”
     “Then it depends on what kind of mood they’re in, and which guard you get. Stick with something plain.”
     Miranda knew that Skye had visited friends in prison before. Even though Miranda knew people who had to do time, she had never gone to see any of them while they were in lock up.
     She started digging through her clothes. She knew she had regular civilian wear somewhere in her closet as she tossed aside band shirt after band shirt, but it had been such a long time since she had worn any of them that they had eventually migrated to the deeper recesses of her wardrobe.
     “You sure you wanna visit that guy?” asked Skye. “We practically had to break his arm getting him off of you that time he attacked you outside a’ Gilman.”
     “He’s not gonna attack me during a prison visit.”
     “You sure?”
     “Hey, that wasn’t the first time he jumped me.”
     “Damn girl.”
     “We had plenty a’ fights. And you know, sometimes it was me kickin’ his ass.”
     Miranda managed to move enough clothes out of the way to find a few plain black turtlenecks. “Are they gonna get bent outta shape about black clothes? Because I ain’t got nothin’ that’s not black.”
     “Shouldn’t be a problem.”
     Miranda stood straight as she held up her plain black top. “To be honest, I’m not actually sure I want to go out there.”
     “Okay. But you’re still gonna go?”
     “I think I kinda have to. It’s a have to thing, rather than a want to thing.”
     “You’re not obligated. Especially with a creep like that.”
     Miranda threw the black long sleeved shirt on her bed and took out a pair of black slacks. “It’s hard to explain, but yeah, I owe him enough to visit him at least once. It’s something I should do.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

     Miranda was used to getting stared at…
     But it felt different in the waiting room.
     The room was full of other women, some who were alone, and more than a few with children.
     She saw women with rough faces and scores of tattoos. Some of them had tattoos peeking out from the cuffs of their long sleeve shirts. She could tell that they had all dressed down, as she had. Her vision superimposed their true natures, as she could easily see the frayed jackets, skimpy Walmart clothes, and biker t-shirts that they no doubt normally wore.
     She was surprised when she went through security. She expected a lot more scrutiny, or at least some gawks, stares, or possibly snarky comments from the guards, who remained stoic and business-like during the entire check in routine.
     A thin woman with a swath of red hair and wearing a yellow dress sat down next to her as they waited for the meeting room to open. “I ain’t never seen you here before. Your man jus’ get locked up?”
     Miranda screwed up her face. “Well, he’s not really my man.”
     “Oh. Family?”
     “My ex.”
     The woman’s eyes became wide. “No shit? That’s a new one.”
     “Yeah, for me too!”
     A guard called out to let them know they were opening the room. They checked people in one at a time. As they waited, only the chatter of children and the direction of the guards broke through the silence.
     When it was Miranda’s turn, a guard led her into a wide, cafeteria-like room and led her to a table. Half of the visitors were already talking to prisoners while herself and the others sat at their tables, still waiting.
     Miranda looked to the door where prisoners periodically came through. She sat back and straight in her chair, both feet on the floor, bracing herself.
     Her heart skipped a beat when they brought in a tall man with dark hair. Her skin bristled when she realized it was not Hench.
     After what seemed like long moments, a short, bald-headed guard brought him out. She knew it was him when she saw his short and disheveled black hair.
     His face was thinner, giving him sunken cheeks. He looked as if he had done a poor job shaving.
     Miranda kept sitting, even though other visitors had stood up to hug their men.
     The guard stopped at the table as Hench stood, looking right at Miranda.
     “Hello Hench.”
     “Miranda.”
     Hench sat down and nodded to the guard.
     Hench folded his hands on the table. “Thanks for coming out.”
     “Sure.”
     “You get hassled comin’ in?”
     “Naw. Skye schooled me on proper visitation attire.”
     “Right. Your friend who almost broke my arm.”
     “That’s the one,” stated Miranda matter-of-factly.
     Hench looked down at his hands. “So, how have you been?”
     “Good. Life is good. My band’s really taking off.”
     Hench looked up as if he was surprised. “Really?”
     “Yeah. Don’t you read the papers? Or at least listen to music in this joint?”
     “I wasn’t into that scene. Not like you were. Are, I mean.”
     “I also started up a country music act with my old partner Sweetheart.”
     “No shit? Isn’t that the one you hit on? The one who turned out not to be into girls?”
     Miranda crossed her arms. “Yep. You know my friends.”
     Hench unclenched his hands and leaned back. “Are you still with that Preston dork?”
     “That ‘dork’ is one of the best guitarists I’ve ever met. And I know like, five thousand guitarists.”
     “Sure. Does he know you’re here?”
     “Of course he does,” said Miranda as she did her best to maintain her composure.
     Hench looked slightly embarrassed. “He really doesn’t mind you comin’ out to visit me?”
     “I wasn’t sure if he would or not. I just… I couldn’t not tell him.” Miranda lowered her eyes. “I couldn’t do that to him.”
     “What? Not tell him you’re visiting an ex in jail?”
     Miranda looked up at Hench. “It’s not the kind of relationship where I can just lie to him about what I’m doing.”
     “And he really don’t have a problem with it?”
     “He said he wasn’t crazy about the idea, but he understood.”
     “Understood what?”
     “That exes are part of my life.”
     “Damn. Where did you find him anyways?”
     Miranda leaned on the table. “At a little library.”
     “What?”
     “We ran into each other in the middle of the night. We were going to the same little library.”
     “That sounds hella gay.”
     Miranda narrowed her eyes. “Only a goddamn rockhead like you would say something so stupid,” she hissed.
     “Okay, yeah,” said Hench as he held up a hand.
     “Seriously, do you even have an IQ above a hockey score?”
     “Okay, I’m sorry.”
     Miranda leaned back. “Sounds like you’re just jealous.”
     “Jealous? Why would I be jealous of someone who’s on the outside and dating you?”
     Miranda raised an eyebrow.
     “I mean, c’mon Miranda, is he really all that?”
     “He used to be a drug dealer.”
     Hench’s eyes became wide. “Seriously?”
     Miranda nodded. “Meth. Him and Skye used to supply half of San Francisco with gofast back in their day.”
     “Skye? Your guitar player?”
     Miranda nodded again.
     “Damn,” said Hench. “I thought he was just another goofy punk from the Gilman scene.”
     Miranda winced. “What makes you think I’d go out with someone like that?”
     Hench laid his hands flat on the table and dropped his head. “Yeah. My bad.”
     Miranda held back an angry tremor. She glanced at the guards who were standing around the hall. They were not focused on anything in particular, but they also did not seem to be bored or blase.
     She could tell they were ready to move, if they had to.
     Miranda tried to remember her principles as she did her best to repress her seethe. “So how have you been doing in here?”
     Hench’s eyes darted around. “Tryin’ to get used to this place. I gotta hang out with those Aryan Front guys.”
     “You’re no fascist. I mean, you’re a violent prick, but you’re not a fascist.”
     “You don’t have to be a Nazi to hang out with those guys. Just a paleface.”
     “But do you get along with those guys?”
     “They’re really into my martial arts training. They’ve been asking me to show them some moves.”
     “No doubt.”
     “You know, this place has been… doin’ things to me.”
     “Things?”
     He leaned towards her and lowered his voice. “I could probably snap your neck before you could react. I could do that, right now!”
     Miranda narrowed her eyes at him. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You asked me to come see you in this place, and I showed up. Now you’re gonna talk to me like that? Do you even care that I’m here?”
     Hench sat back, putting his hands flat on the table. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
     “Besides, I’d break your arm before you could touch me.”
     Hench looked for a moment as if he was going to say something, but then his face relaxed.
     “You use your moves on anyone lately?” asked Hench.
     Miranda shook her head. “I’ve broken up a few fights, but that’s about it.”
     “You should stay sharp. Try and find a good dojo and keep up.”
     “You’re probably right.” Miranda narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. “Is that why you asked me to come here? To see if I’ve been keeping up with my martial arts?”
     “Naw. I wondered if you could help me out with my storage.”
     “Storage?”
     “I gotta lotta things in storage and I gotta move it. I can’t afford to keep it up. Some of it’s equipment you could use. Y’know, some heavy bags and gloves, and a few weights.”
     “Where the fuck am I gonna put that stuff? I live in an apartment.”
     Hench bobbed his head around. “Some of it’s stuff you can get rid of, but there’s a lot of things I wanna keep. I need someone to sort it out and find a smaller storage space.”
     “And you’re asking me? Of all people?”
     Hench slowly shook his head. “I couldn’t find anyone else who was willing to come out here.”
     Miranda sat and looked at Hench as he looked down at the tabletop.
     Her mind roiled with mixed feelings.
     “I think you really should try again, and get someone else to do it,” said Miranda. “I really don’t have the time to deal with all of your junk. I mean, I’m in two bands right now, and I’m doing some work for Skye.”
     “Honestly, I didn’t ask too many people.” He fixed his eyes on her. “Only the people I can trust.”
     Miranda let out a long sigh. “Okay, maybe I can store your exercise stuff at my friend Lee’s gym. And I can help you rent out another storage space. A smaller space, for whatever else you want to keep.”
     Hench sat quietly. He looked as if he did not know what to say.
     “Anyone else come out here to visit you?” asked Miranda.
     Hench blinked and shook his head.
     “Really? Not your ex Cindy? Not Housh? Not even Chuckle?”
     “Nope.”
     Miranda leaned on the table and gave Hench a hard stare. “You’ve been using in here, haven’t you?”
     Hench’s face dropped.
     He stayed silent.
     “Is it just booze? Or is it something else? It is, isn’t it?”
     “Just a little booze now and then,” he replied quietly.
     “Bullshit. You’ve been gettin’ high.”
     Hench leaned on the table. “There’s a ton of meth in here. But I avoid that shit.”
     “You found something else though, didn’t you?”
     “This place… I ain’t a jailbird. I know I… I ain’t used to this shit. I gotta do something to take the edge off.” Hench dropped his head. “You’re the only person who’s come out to see me. That storage shit ain’t no big deal. I just needed to see someone on the outside.”
     Miranda sat back, trying to resist the empathy she was feeling.
     “I should probably go,” said Miranda.
     Hench looked surprised for a quick moment before he nodded. “Tell Preston I said hi.”
     Miranda stood up. “Remember what I said? When you asked me if Preston was gonna protect me from you?”
     Hench’s expression became serious. “Yeah. I do. You said… you told me you were gonna protect him. That if I touched him, or if I hurt him in any way, you were gonna kill me.”
     Miranda steeled her eyes. “Yeah.”
     “I ain’t gonna do anything. Trust me.”
     “Trusting you isn’t something I’m interested in.”
     Miranda started to walk away.
     “Wait, jus’ a sec.”
     Miranda stopped and turned around.
     “Can I get in touch with you again? I mean, about stuff other than the storage deal?”
     Miranda glanced at the prison guard who was walking up behind Hench.
     “You can,” said Miranda, “but only on certain conditions.”
     “Okay.”
     Miranda fixed her eyes on him. “You have to clean up your act. No drugs, no alcohol. Start going to the meetings in here. And don’t try tellin’ me there ain’t no meetings in here. I already checked!”
     Miranda could have sworn that Hench looked surprised.
     “I can try,” said Hench.
     “And you can’t contact me directly. You have to talk to Preston first.”
     Hench’s face fell. “What?”
     “He’s gonna talk to you about your sobriety.”
     “Really? Your clean and sober boyfriend is gonna tell me about cleanin’ up?”
     “Yes. That’s the deal.” Miranda paused so Hench could let it all sink in. “Take it or leave it.”
     The guard walked up behind Hench and glanced at him, as if waiting for his response.
     “Okay,” said Hench finally. “I’ll take it.”
     Miranda gave Hench Preston’s number.
     The guard started leading Hench away.
     Miranda could have sworn he looked bewildered.
     As Miranda walked out of the meeting room, she could not help a smile.

https://www.amazon.com/Short-Songs-Tales-Punk-Side-ebook/dp/B0DFTXX53H/

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B3WBDZP2

The post Prison – – A Short Story from my collection Short Songs appeared first on Terminal Berkeley Denizen.

My favorite contemporary books by my favorite modern writers.

I love these authors so much I could not possibly try to rank them. Therefore I am presenting them in alphabetical order just to be fair(ish).

So here’s my list! Check them and all of their other works out!

by Simon Warwick Beresford

Poetry is experiencing a renaissance, with many marvelous modern poets coming to the fore. Simon Warwick Beresford is a singular talent. Beresford writes poems you would want to read to your grandmother, and other poems you would want to hide from your children!

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Black-Distress-Warwick-Beresford-ebook/dp/B07MHJ14TN/

by Jamie sims Coakley

A sophisticated and complex novel that brings a new take to the temporal genre. A dark dystopian future finds a new hope by reaching back into the past. For readers looking for something different and dynamic tale for lovers of science fiction and anyone look for an excellent read. Cern! Einstein! Temporal wormholes!

https://www.amazon.com/FREEHAND-2173-Book-1-Freehand/dp/B0CDR4GWF6/

by Dani Dassler

Punk literature is a thing, and even though the genre might not be as crowded as other book realms, there are many gems to be discovered. PR is the story of a rowdy punk who has to face a high school suspension, or join the track team. A story that looks into the punk subculture and the clash of cultures. It’s a marvelous book that I’ve read over and over again and reaches the reader in a way few stories ever could.

https://www.amazon.com/P-R-Dani-Dassler-ebook/dp/B088JK9K1H/

by Rogue Gray

Possessed by an ancient witch, Emma tries to navigate her life while being possessed by an internal gremlin Lily, who eventually becomes a major character in her own right. A work that takes a roller coaster of twists and turns by a master of simile and metaphor who takes us on a fantastic story about covens and magical trials in a work that is surprisingly good for a premiere novel.

by CE Hoffman

I read a lot. I can see literary tropes coming from a mile away. If you want to veer off to unique and singular stories, check out CE Hoffman. I first found her through her short story collection Sluts and Whores which I also highly recommend! Her stories are an inspiration for my own writing.

by Rachel Rosen

Is it Science fiction? Is it dystopian? Is it fantasy? Rachel Rosen is her own genre in this complex and compelling and sophisticated tale of a future of wizards and political intrigue that takes place in the Great White North. A different type of dystopian… Sci Fi… Fantasy… Rachel Rosen story!

The post Books you should be Reading! appeared first on Terminal Berkeley Denizen.