Stories by: C.D. Carter
Sunday Funday
Weeks of asking, of pleading and negotiating, had finally paid off -- Cecil was coming over to watch the four o'clock games. Randy buzzed with anticipation because he knew that by five minutes after four, he'd be watching the Skins' game next to the still-warm corpse of one Cecil D. Hargrove, who had so rudely denied his fantasy trade three days earlier.
Pigskin Spinning
The football's laces spun, tight and true, a dozen revolutions per second, toward its target moving step for step with his defender, who grabbed and scratched clawed while the contest's final seconds ticked away. Hands went up, the ball came down, fans stood up, the quarterback fell down, and a hundred thousand fantasy fiends left their bodies as they lost or won or tied when the ball finally stopped its spinning.
Coffee and the Morning Pick-Me-Up
The office had no coffee maker, and when someone brought one in, the office had no coffee, and when someone purchased a giant tub of coffee grounds, the new coffee maker broke, and since instant coffee tasted something like stale piss, I decided I'd do cocaine instead.
Murdering for McFadden
The steel was much colder than he thought it would be -- almost bitingly frigid against the flesh of his neck. "Override the league settings and drop McFadden to waivers," said Tina, the fantasy owner who had missed out on the Oakland runner by precisely one pick during the previous week's draft. "Give me DMC, or give me..." he trailed off because he felt the pinch of the blade as it slid into his neck, severing veins that puked blood onto the laptop below, and he had not one regret.
Fantasy Football Imbroglio
"Imbroglio?" he asked Dirk as he iced the beers for the coming party of fantasy football drafters. "Indeed," Dirk said, pocketing the razor sharp bottle opener, "an extremely confused and complicated situation -- you know, a total and complete cluster eff." Dirk walked to the silverware drawer, removed a steak knife and carefully placed it in his other pocket.
One space, Two space, Dead space
"Two spaces after a period is a myth," Edwards said to Fitzgerald, that dolt. "It isn't -- God intended two spaces after a period. It's just that Twitter has forced me to preserve space, otherwise, I'd still use two spaces because it's right and it's good and it's wholesome." Edwards jammed a Bic into Fitzgerald's jugular.
Time Sucks
The Suburban had stopped short, costing her the green light. She sank into the cushy couch, tapped her leg at a furious pace, and worried about the time she hadn't saved.
Suburban Minutia Closing In
"But you're OK with shrubs?" Maggie asked Carol, her brow furrowed in unsubtle contempt. "Indeed I am -- shrubs are nice and not at all obtrusive, and if our homeowners association money must go to one form of plant life, I sincerely believe it should be shrubs," Carol said to a cascade of head nods. Maggie filled her lungs with a new supply of stale air in the makeshift meeting room and argued, once more, for the trees.
Softball Suffering
Be it pop-ups, be it grounders or line outs or hits six inches on the wrong side of the foul line, he could not break from the funk of his softball hitting malaise. His hands high, his weight back, his shoulders square, his feet spread shoulder width and his knees flexed but not too flexed, he watched the spinning yellow ball float from its pinnacle. He swung, because he had to.
Fantasy football's day of rage
The basement on draft day was a powder keg of long-held resentments and well-placed barbs made painful and stale over time; hatred was everywhere, so thick you could slice it up and eat it straight out of the air. The battle royale started like the most vengeful game of dominoes you’ve ever played: Pat sprayed his bear mace into Evan’s eyes, screaming almost unintelligibly about last year’s Fred Jackson trade, and Evan — even blind — wrapped his chain around Pat’s neck, yanked him to the ground, and pounced atop his rival with all the rage of all the years.
Pink's Advice
"And after a while," I said to my son on the way to his first day of kindergarten, "you can work on points for style. Like the club tie, the firm handshake, a certain look in the eye and an easy smile. You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to, so that when they turn their backs on you, you'll get the chance to put the knife in."
And my boy said to me, "Deaf, dumb, and blind, you just keep on pretending that everyone's expendable and no one has a real friend; and it seems to you the thing to do would be to isolate the winner -- everything's done under the sun, and you believe at heart, everyone's a killer." And yes, he was right.
Basement Decor
"What have you done?" she asked, her lip trembling, her eyes watery with tears yet to drop down her pretty face. "You wouldn't let me buy the Halloween movie posters, and we have all this empty wall space near the staircase," he said, trying his damndest to sound cheery, and knowing it wouldn't work. "And I think Pat's face in a poster frame is classy -- a nice touch, nice decor." ............. She vomited.
#HateMock2012
The mock fantasy football draft -- a practice draft -- was finally, mercifully over, the insulting back-and-forth finally finished, plumes of smoke billowing from the guns of their mutual hatred. But Gary had said something late in that fake draft that Pete could not forget: he had insulted Pete's hair, the very pride of his life, the reason for waking. As if his feet had decided for him, Pete was out of bed, dressed, and walking the seven miles to Gary's house, where Gary's wife would soon be snuggling a bloody corpse with a frozen look of absolute horror.
Tweeting to Death
The never-ceasing stream of news bits and useless blabber were like heroine coursing through his veins. Jacob needed more, more than ever now, more than ever before, and he read, and clicked on newborn tweets and followed more people, and Jacob did not eat, he did not sleep, he did not bathe himself. He ignored the scene in his mind: a neighbor finding his rotted corpse slumped over the keyboard, having tweeted to death.
Fantasy Zombie Football Draft
"I don't draft grave dwellers," Bennie said, with a fist pound on the wooden table to drive home the point. "They're old, they're disoriented, and even when you find one worth a damn, he loses a limb every third hit." Bennie selected Jacobs instead -- as a protest to his grave-born teammates -- because Jacobs, like Bennie, had been made undead through a bite, the way God had intended.
*Birthday, Deathday*
Up on the rooftop bar, nine stories above the bustling drunkards in the street below, I laughed and drank and cavorted with the rest of them. I maintained my focus through the fog of fun though, because I came here for a reason. Until the birthday boy was falling from the ledge of this sky-high party pad, the night could not end.
*In Russellville...*
Halloween, in Russellville, was every day, all day, a celebration that never ceased, never ebbed, because it was on Halloween two hundred and eighty-eight years ago that the patriots on the horseshoe-shaped island floating off Maryland's coast had vanquished the unholy monsters of Samhain, the traitors to their people. The last day of October consumed every day, from schoolchildren's curriculum to the day's restaurant specials to the governing decisions of the town's mayor and council; Halloween slithered into everything, becoming not just a way of life, but life itself, an all-encompassing institution that hovered above and below, side to side, everywhere always. And like any place where one idea reigns over all others, there were rebels in the midst of Russellville’s October 31 fixation, and they were ready – finally ready – to bring chaos to the town’s tidy lives of Halloween worship.
*It's Friday!*
"I'm so happy it's Friday," Carla said every Friday morning until a thousand Fridays passed by, followed by the weekends, followed by Mondays, followed by Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, until Carla was lying face up in a wooden box buried underground.
Percent, not %
A lunatic's laugh was the only thing that soared above the roar of the chainsaw. Write out the word, percent, Jonah Hetsberger had told his reporters again and again, until his cheeks were flush with anger. They should have learned these basics in journalism school, but they had not, apparently, and they ignored Jonah's patient on-the-job training, so up the chainsaw went, razor teeth whirring, ready to slice through the last remaining limb of the Bay Courier's sports reporter who had inexplicably used the percentage symbol in his preseason high school baseball story.
Mainlining Fantasy
"Frank, look, everything's fine, I'm OK. I appreciate your concern, and before you fret, let me run down what I did yesterday: I pored over the average draft positions for the top 200 players, focused on sleeper running backs playing behind starters who have missed five or more games every season since 2009, shifted over to wide receiver targets from 2010 and 2011, dissected drop rate among the top-ten receivers, examined a list of tight ends who blocked at the line of scrimmage in less than 20 percent of plays last season, and finished the day with five mock drafts in which I employed a personalized tiered ranking system based on ADP, VBD, and, of course, personal preference. So just relax, Frank, I'm perfectly, wonderfully fine."
Two Homeruns, One Leg
Two homers. Yes, two that left the yard in a single game. It was a waking fantasy for Riley, whose bleary eyes ran with tears of joy and anguish after the game, as he sat in his car and amputated the leg that had crumbled like an unstable Jenga pile as he rounded third base on the final round-tripper.
Internet-less Life
Rain and wind lashed through their comfortable lives and drove the masses into the wilderness, the scalding outdoors, where they raised their iPhones and Droids and Blackberrys to the sky in vein, begging God to cast down digital manna and save them all from the unholy horror of human connection. Dear Sweet God Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth, the masses cried in unison, send us WiFi.
*****Google Ads Make $Major $Cash $Money $$$****
$#$&%$#$Google ads will make you rich just keep clicking you want money it wants you send more money send your dirty dollar send it now now now $%^%$##thedevillivesontheinternetthedevillivesontheinternetthedevillivesontheinternet&^$#@@#$#
Summertime Softball Torture
It got so bad, with the score 14-0 after two innings, that I asked our left fielder to hit me in the knee with an aluminum baseball bat; anything to escape this summertime softball torture. The guy obliged, and while I don't regret it for a second, his manic laughing and yelps of joy afterward scared the shit out of me.
#NeverForget
The virtual money was all gone. It was time for another hand, followed by another, and another, and a hundred thousand more. He had lost his poker life to Pat once again, and like the Holocaust and 9/11, he'd never forget.
Hack, Cough, Hack
The editorial team heard the saleswoman like a siren, coughing through the phlegm perpetually stuck in her throat. The scribes were horrified by the warning hacks ringing down the hallway; single tears moved in rivulets down their haggard faces. Sales was here, and it was angry.
The Making of Softball Guy
Hugh was late to develop and early to deteriorate: He had been the last of his classmates to grow, the last to have his voice drop an octave and a half, and now he was the first to watch crows feet form along the edges of his dull grey eyes and his hair became thinner by the hour. It wasn't fair; none of it was fair. It should've been clear to his teammates why he was such an irrepressible asshole on the softball field, but they all seemed dumbfounded as to why Hugh would treat recreational co-ed softball like it was war.
Eyes From A Sonogram
Empty, grainy black-and-white sockets glared from the sonogram, never blinking, telling its mother and father that it would need tuition money, truckloads of it, in Mitt Romney's America.
The Consequence of Local Governance
The finger lie there like a superbly realistic Halloween prop, surrounded by a tiny pool of deep-red blood. The pain consumed him, yes -- it pulsed through every nerve ending all at once -- but he had to show how deadly serious he was when he listed the atrocities he'd commit against himself if it meant not having to compose June's Homeowners Association minutes.
Housing Sump
Thick chains and tall cages cluttered the backyard bordered by a rusty fence with a barbwire top. "So they ran some sort of kennel out of this house?" the buyer asked the realtor. "No," the realtor replied, stroking one of the cages, "they did not."
The Remembered Figment of a Half-dream
Nebraska, headache, you're fired, well, one of you is fired, get out of here -- it all happened on TV, just as the embers of a hallucinatory memory from the recesses of his sleep said it would. And he thought of how time went round and round and round and round, and he wondered if he'd remember all this the next time around and around.
The Why In Writing
Looking into his puffy, sleep-filled eyes, she said "You wrote all day yesterday, so why the hell would you stay up till 2 a.m. writing more?" He rubbed his eyes and flopped down into his pillow's welcoming softness, "Because," his voice a raspy whisper, "I had more to say."
I got your Starbucks right here
The girl wearing scandalous exercise clothes gave me no choice, really: I had tapped her shoulder as a friendly reminder that the Starbucks barista was ready to take her order, ready to pander to her every mocha desire. Exercise Freak bristled, turned toward me, called me all manner of socially unacceptable nicknames, and soon found herself on the floor, having her pretty little face melted off by scalding coffee — Pike’s Peak, to be exact.
How I stopped worrying and learned to trust the (softball) bomb
“It needs to be used like a nuclear bomb,” Dirk said of the opposite field home run.“Yes, because it will melt people’s skin right off their bones when I hit it right,” Kennard replied.
Zombie Hangover
My face within inches of the broken mirror, I stroked my dead, gray skin and was grateful that, for however long I’d wander the earth in this post-life state, I wouldn’t have to shave. And my hair — my hair was intact.
Blood and Its Meaning
"Everyone channels social anxiety through zombie stories," she said, waving a dismissive hand at the writer. "I think a lot of people just like the blood," the writer replied, imagining his critic swarmed by zombies, blood spurting from her orifices like ornate fountains on the Las Vegas strip.
Fantasy Football Draft Day Murder Part 1
The basement was full of killers: Andy with his customized spiked brass knuckles; Victor gripping his trusty machete; Evan cradling his whipping chain; Sam gripping a duo of rusty butcher knives; Pat with his bear mace in hand. My God, Denny thought as he descended into the basement, this is the day our fantasy football threats come nightmarishly true.
Fantasy Football Draft Day Murder Part 2
The basement on draft day was a powder keg of long-held resentments and well-placed barbs made painful and stale over time; hatred was everywhere, so thick you could slice it up and eat it straight out of the air. The battle royale started like the most vengeful game of dominoes you’ve ever played: Pat sprayed his bear mace into Evan’s eyes, screaming almost unintelligibly about last year’s Fred Jackson trade, and Evan — even blind — wrapped his chain around Pat’s neck, yanked him to the ground, and pounced atop his rival with all the rage of all the years.
Fantasy Football Draft Day Murder Part 3
It was like a scene from a gladiator flick, with blood and teeth flying every which way in slow motion because, well, Denny's body was flooded with adrenaline, as it always had been at the thought of seeking revenge against the fantasy football league members who had caused him such unknowable angst over all these years. There were people with rusty butcher knives sunken deep in their gut, screaming to the heavens for death, people with chains squeezed around their breaking necks, people with ribs pulverized by the massive blows of brass knuckles, and all Denny could think was, God, I hope Malcolm Floyd is available late -- dude could be a stud.
Question Until You're Blue in the Face
The reporter's editor demand that he land an interview with the president, during election season, no less. At the next day's editorial meeting, the reporter tied his editor to a chair, pulled an Obama mask over his fat, pink face and asked him many questions, including which body parts he treasured most.