Tag Archives: Cowboy

Dark Humor, Fiction, Short Fiction, Western

Fiona Blood Orange (End)

24 Jun 2022 Aaron Echoes August Leave a comment

I brought back two nice, fat fish and threw them into the earthen ice box. Fiona Blood Orange was still in the bed, and I kicked at it.

“Hey, wake up. I want some flapjacks. Did you not get my note?”

She stirred in the blankets and moaned.

“Yes, I got your note. I’m sorry, I must have fallen back to sleep. What time is it?” she asked, yawning, stretching her big mouth wide and showing off some chipped teeth.

“Time has no meaning here. Now get up and make me some flapjacks.”

I kicked at the bed again.

“You’re just plain rude, you know that? And where are my drugs?”

“Make me flapjacks and I’ll go get your drugs.”

“You don’t have them?”

“I’ll ride into town and get them… AFTER flapjacks.”

“All right, all right. I’ll make your damn flapjacks.”

She got up out of bed. She was completely naked as she walked over to the cooking area I had there in my cabin. I watched her as she bent over, reached up, exposing her fleshy cracks and crevices as she searched for cooking implements and ingredients.

“Is my little bunny cold?”

“Yes. Can you get the fire going again?”

I stoked the fire and added a few logs. Soon it was toasty, and the scent of flapjacks filled the air. She laid the plate out in front of me and set down some butter and the maple syrup.

“These are pretty damn good, Bunny. You should have some.”

She fixed herself a plate and sat across from me, still completely nude. I stopped eating and set my fork down.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“You’re naked and I am trying to eat.”

“So.”

“It’s gross.”

She slammed her fork down and got up and put on her clothes. She returned to the table all huffy puffy.

“Don’t be like that,” I said.

“You said I was gross. That was very hurtful.”

“Well, I’m sorry. There’s good naked and bad naked. Sex naked is good. Breakfast naked is bad. That’s just how it is.”

After some quiet eating time, I asked her a question.

“So, did you enjoy our lovemaking last night?”

“It was fine.”

“Just fine?”

“Well, if you must know the truth, I’ve had better.”

“Same here.”

“Then why did you even bother asking?”

“I told you, I am a very curious person who needs to know where I stand in the world and with the people in it.”

“You’re weird.”

“You can leave any time.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Because you love me or because I can give you drugs?”

“How could you possibly think I love you?”

“You told me in bed last night… When I was inside you.”

“It was the heat of the moment.”

“So, you lied?”

“No, I didn’t lie.”

“Then you love me right now?”

“God no! Get over this love shit and get me my drugs. I’m getting nervous.”

I finished my flapjacks and then went out to saddle up my fine horse, Chuck. I rode to Rock Ridge and tethered Chuck at the apothecary. I went inside and rang the little metal bell at the counter. A scrawny, wee man in a white lab coat came out of nowhere and looked up at me.

“Hello there Wild Rick… Wha, wha, what can I get for you?” he said, pushing his thick glasses back against his face.

I started to talk, but then some little old hobbly wobbly lady snuck in front of me.

“Excuse me sir, but is this a daytime face cream or a night time face cream?” She held out a little jar.

“Hey!” I said to the little old lady. “I don’t take too kindly to little old ladies cutting in front of me. I was here first. Now go bug off!”

“Now, now Wild Rick, just settle down, she ain’t hurting nobody,” the trembling, bug-eyed apothecary said to me.

“Hey! Mr. Apothecary,” I said. “I don’t take too kindly to you telling me what to do. I was here first, and I demand some service. My woman needs drugs!”

“Oh my, you’re just a big ol’ bully,” the old lady said to me, and then she kicked me hard in the shin.

I shoved her. She came back at me and kicked me straight in the junk. I grabbed my sack of marbles and nearly fell over.

The apothecary rang for the sheriff. Chuck was impounded and I ended up spending the night in the Rock Ridge Jail for disruptive behavior.

When I returned to the cabin the next morning, Fiona Blood Orange was climbing the walls like a wild monkey.

“Where in the hell have you been!” she screamed at me.

“I had a little bit of trouble in town,” I said. “Sorry.”

“Where’s my stuff?”

“I couldn’t get it.”

She flew into a rage and started knocking all my personal stuff around. I grabbed her by the wrists and pushed her down onto the bed. She broke my grasp and slapped and kicked at me.

“Get off me! Get off me!” she bellowed like a wild woman.

“Shut up! Shut up!” I yelled back. Then I tried to force a kiss. She bit my mouth. There was blood. I got off her, holding my face. I was spitting red, red juice from my head hole. She ran out of the cabin.

“Fiona! Fiona! Come back Fiona. I’m sorry.”

I stayed there in the cabin for several hours waiting for Fiona to return. Daylight was quickly fading. I stoked the fire and decided to fry up the fish I had caught the day before. There was crackling and sizzling and the smell of good food. Then there was a soft knock at the door. Fiona had returned.

“Fiona. I was worried about you.”

She came into the cabin looking like a prostituted zombie.

“Are you okay? Where were you?”

She shuffled over to the bed and sat down on the edge of it. She lifted her legs, rolled in, and covered herself up.

“Fiona? Would you like some fish?”

She didn’t say anything. I left her alone and ate everything myself. After eating, I sat by the fire and smoked cowboy cigarettes real slow and just thought about stuff. Fiona fell asleep. I crawled into the bed later. She didn’t move. I had rough and wild dreams about some faraway place called Las Vegas.

When I woke up, the door was open, and Fiona was sweeping the floor.

“What are you doing? Are you okay? Why is there so much sun? I hate the sun.”

“It’s spring. You’ve been asleep for a very long time,” she answered.

“What?”

And as I held my left hand before my face to shield my eyes from the bright light of day, I noticed there was a ring on my finger. I studied it for a moment. I twisted it with the fingers of my right hand.

“What is this?”

“What is what?”

“This ring upon my finger.”

She set the broom aside and came over and sat down on the bed. She held my hand.

“It’s your wedding ring, dear.”

“Wedding ring? What… Who… I’m married? To whom?”

“You’re married to me jackass, who else. I’m Fiona Blood Orange hyphen Wild Rick.”

“What? How is that possible. How long have we been married?”

“Thirteen years. What’s wrong with you?”

Then two little kids – a boy, a girl – came scampering into the cabin going “Daddy, Daddy,” and they jumped into the bed with me. They started crawling all over me and they smelled like piss and dirt.

I pushed them away and jumped out of the bed. I slapped at myself as if there were bugs crawling all over me. The kids started crying.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Fiona snipped.

I started jumping up and down like a madman, holding my head in agony.

“This isn’t real! This isn’t real!”

“Now just stop it Wild Rick, you’re scaring the children.”

Then I heard familiar singing coming from another room that I never knew was there.

“What’s that door for? What is that?” I demanded to know.

“It’s the bathroom. What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked again.

“A bathroom? I don’t have a bathroom. Not inside.”

I went to the door and tightly pressed my ear against it – my solid black eyes were darting around all wild. I could hear splashing and then the singing came again… “I’m screaming in the rain,” – splash, splash – “just screaming in the rain…”

I backed away from the door and started spinning around like crazy.

“Ahhh! Ahhh! Ahhh!” I yelled, slapping at my own head as everything was tilt-a-whirl madness. “What the bloody hell is going on here!?”

“Stop it Wild Rick! Just stop it!” Fiona Blood Orange hyphen Wild Rick shouted.

She roughly pushed the children out the door.

“Run children, run! Your father has gone well nutty!”

I stumbled and fell to the floor. The door to the bathroom that was never there opened. The Sunday peacock came strolling out wrapped in a white bath towel.

“Top of the morning to ya Wild Rick,” he said, and then he hopped up on a chair set at my roughly hewn table and began reading a newspaper, going “Ah, Hmmm, Oh,” as he scanned the headlines.

“Care for flapjacks Sunday peacock?” Fiona asked the wild bird and then she kissed him.

“Why yes, that would be wonderful.”

“Are you sleeping with that god damn peacock?” I bluntly asked Fiona.

Fiona bowed her head in shame.

“Yes, Wild Rick, it’s true. I’m so sorry.”

“The kids then?”

She said nothing, but merely glanced at the door. I went to it and looked out. The kids were romping around in the yard way out and when their backs were turned to me, I noticed the wonderful plumage sprouting out from them, much more pronounced and colorful on the boy mind you, but both had plumage indeed.

“This is a nightmare,” I mumbled, and then everything was black.

It was a few days later and I was sitting in the Rock Ridge Saloon drinking whiskey and playing cards with my cowboy friend Ralph Red Mustard.

That’s when Fiona Blood Orange came in and plopped down her wedding ring on the bar.

“Were done,” she said. “I love the peacock.”

“I bet you do,” Ralph snickered.

“Fuck off Ralph,” she snapped. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“Now, now Fiona, just simmer down. He ain’t bothering nobody.”

“Of course, I’ll want support from you. Money that is. Lots of it.”

“You’re fucking a peacock and you want money from me? You’re crazy. Those aren’t even my kids. Hell, they’re not even real kids, they’re part bird. Oh, and one more thing, I want my Fiona Apple CD back.”

“You’re the meanest son of a bitch I’ve ever known Mr. Wild Rick… And by golly, I hope you rot in hell.”

She spat in my face and walked out of the saloon.

I wiped her slime off my face, and I ordered up another drink. Ralph and I just laughed and went back to playing cards. Someone started playing the piano and more cowboys came in and then the showgirls came out and we all had a real good time, and it didn’t take me long at all to forget about Fiona Blood Orange. Not long at all.

THE END

Aaron Echoes August

Dark Humor, Fiction, Short Stories, Western

Fiona Blood Orange (1)

24 Jun 2022 Aaron Echoes August Leave a comment

I saw some Wild West cowgirl chick smoking crushed Opana off a piece of foil through a swirly, glass sarsaparilla straw as I turned the dusty corner from the Main Street drag to the side road leading out of the town of Rock Ridge and into the wilds beyond. I nearly tripped over her, and she looked up at me with the look of being way out dazed and far out confused.

“Hey mister, do you have any of that fine, fine cowboy money?”

I fiddled around in my big pockets like a fool.

“Nope,” and I tipped my 37.9-liter hat her way and politely said “Mam.” Then I strode off all cool like with my rock-hard silver pistols dangling from my waist and ready to spit.

She came scrambling after me, nearly knocking loose from my grasp my packages of sundries I had just purchased at the local general store.

“But mister, I just need a little money, that’s all. Surely you got a little bit to spare?”

“I’m sorry drug girl. I do not have any money to spare. Now please, leave me be so I can get home and build a fire before it rains ice.”

I shoved her to the dusty ground and walked off.

I stood at the banks of the stream that ran across the land not too far from my homestead. I studied the cool water as it rolled over the rocks. I bit into an apple. I hoped it was not a poison trick from the town witch. I thought about an old gun-slinging pal from back east who was in love with a chick named Fiona Apple. The air was full of autumn chill. I looked around for some good firewood. I spit out my cowboy-rolled smoke and gathered the wood. A colorful peacock wearing a fur coat slyly followed me back to my log cabin — when I turned quickly to catch him following me, he ducked behind a tree or some brush, but hell man, I knew he was there.

“You’re not fooling me Mr. Peacock!” I said aloud to the ice-cold and wounded sky of the Wild, Wild West. “I don’t know what you want, but I know you’re following me… I hear peacock tastes like chicken, so you better watch your step, or I’ll cook you.”

There was a colorful flurry in the brush and the peacock came out of hiding and then just started pecking at the ground as if he didn’t even see me there holding wood and breathing out frosty fog from my face.

I turned and walked away. The wood was getting heavy, and I needed to dump it.

And I dumped it right where I stored my wood right outside the cabin. It was a late afternoon of a Sunday somewhere around the year 1879 or perhaps 2079 — I had no calendar or sense of time and therefore did not know. Sorry about that, but let’s just say the world was completely different then you probably know it right now.

I piled some wood in the fireplace and fondled it with flame and tinder. There was warmth and orange light. I lit some oil lamps and unbundled my bundles of sundries and laid them out nice and neat atop my roughly hewn wooden table. There was tobacco. There was rolling papers. There were matches, soap, biscuits in a tin, coarse twine, honey, paperback novel, small slab of meat, sugar, flour, fishing line, hooks, jerky, a Fiona Apple CD called Tidal, corn husk oil, bullets, new red pajamas with footies, wool socks, sharp knife, chilled butter, three eggs from a chicken, three bottles of root beer, candles, lamp oil, pencil and paper, map, big whiskey, maple syrup and black licorice.

The Sunday peacock pecked at the window as I rolled a fresh ciggy wiggy.

“What the hell do you want? Why don’t you just piss off and leave me be to my peace and being alone.”

The damn thing started to talk to me.

“But sir, it’s getting awfully cold out here and I was hoping you’d let me sit by the fire for a while. I won’t be any bother, I promise.”

I rubbed at my wicked, scruffy face and pondered the words of the Sunday peacock.

“You’ve got a fur coat on, that should be bloody well enough to keep you warm,” I barked back at him.

There were a few moments of silence.

“All right then sir, I’ll be on my way. Sorry to have bothered you. Good night then.”

I went to the window to watch him to be sure he was indeed leaving. And he was indeed leaving, but he was singing a common tune from the new old world as he walked away … “I’m screaming in the rain, just screaming in the rain …” is how it went.

It wasn’t even raining though. It was darkening clouds of ice cubes and a biting wind that began to kick up when I went out to fetch some more wood. It was then I realized something was out there — something, someone, some living, breathing being ducked behind the thick trunk of my favorite poplar tree.

“Come out from there now!” I yelled. “Come out or I’ll find you and gun you down.”

“No!” some weepy devotchka shrieked and she jumped out of the shadows.

I reached for my horny, rigid pistol.

“Don’t come any closer or I’ll blast you!”

“No sir, please, no sir.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m the girl you met in the street today, in town. You pushed me to the ground you mean bastard.”

“What’s your name, and what do you want here?”

“My name is Fiona sir, and I’m cold and hungry. I’m sorry, I followed you.”

I strained to look. “Fiona Apple? Is that you?”

“No sir, my name is Fiona Blood Orange.”

“You some kind of Native American chick?”

“My father was, but my momma was from New York City.”

“New York City! Did she eat Pace picante sauce like a bitch?”

“Sir?”

“Nevermind.”

“Nirvana?”

“Huh?”

“I’m cold. May I please come inside?”

“Yes. Just don’t try to smoke everything in my cabin.”

She sat near the fire wrapped in a thick blanket I gave her. She rubbed at her nose with the back of her hand and just stared at the flames. I sat at my table mindlessly gnawing on jerky and thinking about what it would be like to snuggle up with this little bunny.

“Are you a bunny rabbit?” I asked aloud, not thinking.

She turned and looked at me strangely.

“What did you say?”

“I was just wondering if you liked bunny rabbits.”

“They’re fine, I suppose. Do you?”

“They sure do taste good… You just got to cook them right. You have to know how to retain the juices and keep the meat tender. I like juicy, tender meat. I don’t enjoy dried out bunny rabbit.”

She licked at her lips and tried to smile.

“I don’t eat meat.”

“You don’t eat meat? Then what do you eat?”

“Nuts, twigs, grains, plants… Apples.”

“Blood oranges?”

“When I can get my hands on one.”

“Bananas?”

“Love them, but only when they are nice and brown.”

“Are you a woman lover?”

“Sir?”

“Do you lie down with women? Sexually speaking.”

“No, I do not sir, and even if I did, I don’t see how it is any business of yours.”

“My apologies. I was just curious. I need to know things.”

She said nothing to me and went back to staring at the fire, clutching the blanket closer to her body as if it were some sort of shield.

After several minutes passed, I broke the sexually tense silence.

“I only have one bed.”

She turned to look at me.

“Sir?”

“I only have one bed. It’s my bed and I plan on sleeping in it tonight.”

“That’s fine sir. I won’t deny you your own bed. I can sleep on the floor.”

“That will be awfully cold.”

“Not near the fire.”

“The fire will go out at the coldest hour of the night. Your blood will lock up and cease to flow.”

“I’ll keep the fire going, sir.”

“You can stop calling me sir. My name is Wild Rick.”

“If you are trying to get me to share your bed, you can just put that thought out of your mind… Wild Rick.”

“What if I gave you some drugs?”

Fiona Blood Orange’s eyes suddenly widened.

“You have drugs?”

“Maybe.”

“You’re a liar Wild Rick. You don’t have any drugs.”

“What would you do if I did?”

I could tell her inner thoughts were fist-fighting within her own head.

“I don’t know!” she yelled. “That’s a terrible thing you are trying to do though, just terrible — seducing me by means of my own demons. You should be ashamed of yourself!”

“You’re the drug addict, not me. I have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Bastard!”

“Bitch!”

“Pervert!”

“Kiss me.”

“Never!”

I rolled over in the bed and my hand fell upon her bare breast. She stirred in her dream beneath the covers. I looked at her face as the first mellow yellow glow of dawn worked its way into the cabin. She was beautiful, yet strained and sickly. Pale yet flushed. Young yet old. Crippled yet full of boundless energy. I crawled out of bed and got dressed. I scribbled her a note and left it on the pillow beside her. It read: Dear Fiona Blood Orange, I’ve gone down to the river to catch some fish. I want you to make me some flapjacks when I return, that is, if you want more drugs. Best wishes, Wild Rick.

TO BE CONTINUED. THIS IS THE FIRST OF TWO PARTS.

Aaron Echoes August

Creative Writing, Fiction, Flash, Short Fiction, Short Stories

My Vimana

9 Jun 2022 Aaron Echoes August Leave a comment

I bought a green and red striped lampshade in a small shop on the corner of 5^th and Main in some battered and bruised American town. It made my lonely place look like Christmas, but more importantly, I needed something to shelter me, from the rain, coming in my windows, running down the walls, it’s even chasing me, down and through the halls. Can’t remember what to see, I was looking for something to just say, something beautiful, something truthful, wondering what parts matched your eyes, your crystal-blue cornflower eyes, that made your face a place of peace, like high-country grass beneath the better parts of space, like a white farmhouse, a red barn, a green lawn, all ringed by a wooded place of trees and quiet and the amber hands of some Summer God, reaching down, parting the canopy and letting in the light.

Clothes void of bodies, flutter in the winds of my crowded and unkempt closet, the one over there, on the wall full of bullet holes and big, red hearts all shattered and astray. I got venom in my pocket, I got a bottle rocket — “don’t shoot your eyes out,” the maniac under the bed, said, and Charlie Chan stares in through the window, biting down hard on a skeleton key. I was getting way beyond damaged… Much too soon and much too hard by the tollbooth dictator via Kansas way, that hot sway on the highway and the hunt for a Motel 6, somewhere near Lawrence, where Burroughs used to live and where he died, but it got too late and hazy, the lust wore off like bad medicine and I went on driving—to Kansas City, Amorika, via the fatal stroke of midnight.

Sleeping pills and mind medicine sat on the bedside table like jewels. I could not sleep. I rattled my feet. I stared at the white ceiling, where there cast was the shadow of a one-eyed alien lamp, and then I thought it would be a good time to take a ride in my vimana, and I put on my flying pajamas, wrapped the dog tags around my neck, and then carefully crawled inside. I closed the hatch and ignited the mercury, and we went up, up, up and out through the retractable skylight of night like Mr. Wonka and his magical elevator. I looked around as I rode over the world, the rooftops all shimmering and wet from the rain running down your face, and the Earth an electric grid, with some places very dark, these, the dens of the poor and hungry and forgotten—and some places very bright, these, the dens of those that do all the forgetting.

So, my vimana and I flew around undetected, no one knew us like I know them, if she only knew, what I know, what I know, what I know, of everything back then—and the sun began to creep over the edge of my destiny, and I felt it was time to bring her down. The vimana landed in some other world, looked like the realm of De Smet, South Dakota in the late 1700s. There was a great meadow of tall, yellow grass and it swayed back and forth a bit in the light breeze that they had there. I shut the vimana down and crawled out. There was a chill in the air, and I put on my long, black coat I kept stowed behind the seat. There was a howl of emptiness in the air—as if I had been the only man that had ever been there. The sun was not orange or yellow, but a bluish white. It was a steely sun, a cold sun, a sun undone by time and space itself, but it lit the world around me, no less than the sun of my own.

I buttoned my black coat and put on my Moroccan cowboy hat and lit up a Marlboro red. I looked around at the landscape, seemingly vacant of any man or animal. To my left, a great, long wall of gray yet bedazzled rock for as far as I could see. To my right, that sea of tall, yellow grass crashing against some invisible shore like the feathers of tender Eve. Then straight ahead. There was something there, on a small rise of land. I wondered, if it was the grandmother vimana, waiting for me on the landing pad porch, ringing the dinner bell with the tail of a comet, hanging out the clothes for proper dying, ready to depart to my new world of love and peace and long sleeps in bone-bleached sheets in some white house on a clean street in small town bizarro-world Amorika. I crushed my smoke out with the sole of my cool boots, the boots I bought in Albuquerque right before all that madness began in the Nob Hill pub, and I walked on, toward grandmother vimana.

As I got closer to it, I realized it was no mother ship at all, but instead, a grounded structure hewn from sturdy, gray wood, now bleached by the blue sun. There were four sides, a roof, a porch, rectangular windows with crisp white curtains, and a door. I walked the perimeter of the place and looked around, over my shoulder, no one to be found. I peeked in the windows. There was something there, but I could not tell. It was somewhat dark and hazy in there, so I went for the door. The white knob was cold to the touch. It turned. The door was not locked; it opened with a nearly inaudible squeak. I stepped inside, the wind outside blew in. I walked around slowly, quietly, like an uninvited guest. The floors creaked. It was just the one room, that is all. The walls and the air in there were void of any signs of life. There was but one thing in the whole of the entire place, and that was a wooden chair; it was set near the window that faced the direction I came from. I sat down in the chair; I adjusted my Moroccan cowboy hat and lit up another Marlboro red. I stared out the window for a very long time; it never got dark ever again. My vimana was gone. The wind shook the tall, yellow grass for as long as I stayed there, which was forever, like her crystal-blue cornflower eyes, melting winter’s dawn at the very moment you leave dreams and enter life.