Bland Books | Blinking at the Idiot Sky by Stephen Donnelly

287 Pages | Sample Chapter

Chapter 4: Fire

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        The wind blew their hair around making them feel omnipotent...
        He could hear the ocean. It was strange because he could feel a breeze. There are no sea breezes that blow thru this apartment, no windows that I can see. He looked into the wrong end of a telescope when he got to the balcony, there was a city not far below. He put his entire head into the lens for a better view but it was no use, everything was teeny-tiny, in focus, but interesting just the same. He turned his attention, still with the optical allusion that the world was small, to the apartment where he lived. This wasn’t his place but it looked familiar just the same. He swung back gracefully to view the street once more. He was leaning dangerously over the balcony rail. He saw only the street with its traffic and might, surrounded on all sides by jealous, snobby buildings; the centrifugal force of his body and the telescope brought him right back to the apartment and then right back to the street, in the opposite direction this time. If all this sounds nauseating and complicated it’s because it was.   He saw a variety of things that night and none of them he’d remember. But mostly he could see trees.
         Auggie woke up on what, for sure, wasn’t his bed. He was positive because there was just too much light; Auggie always kept the drapes closed so as not to be disturbed in the morning by the sun. Not only was the sun a clue but there was also the added question of the canopy bed made from palmetto trees and the metallic bronze mattress.
         He tried to open his eyes but they wouldn’t go. Not from any gravity induced problem as you might expect, but it was more of a Johnson’s Baby Shampoo type of problem: no more tears. His lashes were like a Venus flytrap that had found its meal. He struggled like a logger with a long division problem, that is to say bravely, and got his wish. They opened with what he was sure an audible ‘pop’ and realized that although he had them open he still couldn’t quite see. At least, he couldn’t see anything he recognized. Underneath his lids it was like a plate of yogurt left on a windy beach. Auggie cleared most of it away and discovered that he was on the roof of a car.
         He was on a dead end, side road that led to the beach. It was off a dying highway, well really to be truthful it had been dead for years but they spiffed the corpse up nice enough you could hardly see the stitches; the rouge sure and the smell but, christ, things had been over for pretty near to 20 years. Oh, sure the mourners poured in from Dallas to Syracuse but a stiff’s a stiff, and sooner or later you gotta get on with your life. But the dead are a lonely bunch and it’s nice to see flowers in the graveyard even if the lost can’t come in out of the rain. Well, like say, it was, a post mortem but ostentatiously selected, sometimes rejected and somehow neglected, piece of an American Highway put down for the average commuter or serious American or Foreign Tourist to make ease and speed of the drudgery and inefficiency of travel. We all know how disgusting and invading it can be with mass transportation. The open highway is as American as T.V. Dinners because admit it, who among us really tastes our food anyway? Get it over with that’s my motto. Anyway, that is where we are, on the highway; well, off the highway on a dead end side road that leads to the beach.
         Auggie sat on the roof of the car not thinking of this but also not understanding how he got here. He stared at the trees as if trying to figure out what they were. Christ, he thought, I drove to the ocean? Leaves were strung about the car like a pillow during a nightmare; it appeared that he had tried to climb the limbs earlier, whenever that might have been. He heard the rumbling of 18 wheelers in the near distance and it made him think of cops. Cops smell futility and nothing is more futile than a truck driver; they really have no choice but to pay, it’s what they do. Auggie hopped, or rather slid, down the side of the car to get out of there before they came. The cops, not the truck drivers.
         He walked around the back of the car and noticed there were some dents and scratches on the driver’s side rear panel. He hoped they were not fresh but was neah in the mood to investigate further. Out of a paranoid, or maybe not so paranoid, vision he checked the front of his car to make sure there was not a spattered child there, holding on to a beach ball. It was a long couple of steps considering he was somewhere he had no recollection of driving to. Nothing was there. O.K., he thought glancing at the grill, t’ank Christ, and got into his car.
         Trying to clear his vision once more and not succeeding he said to himself, fuck it, I couldn’t see when I came here so how hard could it be to get out. He turned the key that was still in the ignition and nothing happened.
         There are a few feelings in this world that can be described as real dread in this modern world that people fear above all others but this is one of the few, at least that’s how Auggie felt at this particular moment. Dead car. Even if it’s just the battery that’s dead, the car still dies. Auggie felt as if all the energy was sucked out of him. He couldn’t even find the strength to swear. He looked down at the instrument panel and saw that the light switch was pulled out. He pushed it in defeatedly and turned off the radio, which was on in name only.
         Auggie had a glimmer of hope. The car was one that had a standard transmission and it would be possible for him to ‘pop start’ it, god help us, and then drive it home. He looked down as if noticing for the first time that he was parked in a very sandy lot that was inclined uphill slightly from the road. Even if his car had started Auggie thought he would have had a hard time getting it out of here.   A tractor-trailer wailed out its friendly, lonely sound and to Auggie it sounded like a dry bell ringing on a rainy night. He knew that pushing this car out of the sand by himself was probably asking for too much but he guessed that he should try anyway.
         He struggled with the auto for a full 5 minutes, only succeeding to making himself more upset then he already was, before he gave up. It was no use. He was sweating now and just realizing that it was hot out here, even in the shade, and was promising to get hotter. It was beginning to dawn on Auggie that he was going to have to walk down the goddamned highway. He felt for a moment impotent and thought he was going to start crying sitting behind the wheel of this dead automobile. He wanted to hit something but knew that he would only succeed in hurting himself. So, he didn’t. He, like every fine explorer, resigned himself to the facts and pulled up his bootstraps and started walking.
         The first thing that happened on his fantastic journey was that he ran out of shade fast. He guessed it was as least 1 o’clock now by how soft the road was under his feet. It was that hot. The road was baking and the trees, once friendly, now seemed to recoil in disgust at anyone stupid enough to ignore what was so surely obvious, and they gave him almost no shade. Auggie couldn’t blame them a bit. 50ft. later when he reached the highway he realized the trees had completely abandoned him; they had had quite enough of his shit. This time though Auggie decided to hold a grudge. How could you be expected to go through this all alone, he sulked.
         There was a carnival atmosphere on the highway though all garish mustard yellows and candy cane reds and whites, what they lacked in trees they supplied in air-conditioning, of course, at a price: you’re not just havin’ coffee are you? Most everyone thinks that they can resist the hard sell, course they ain’t sellin’. But other than the eye candy there was not much going on besides trucks. Trucks going on the highway and trucks coming off the highway. 24 hours a day.
         Auggie walked thru the back parking lot of a famous fast food restaurant joint and discovered for the thousandth time that the smell of hamburger meat and French-fried potatoes really does go hand in hand with the smell of diesel fuel and urine.   Like a head in a garbage can.
         In front of the place, only just weaker from urine smell, in this day and age people still feel the need to pee in the backs of establishments and not in front, sat a father and his two children.   Under a clean white and yellow sunbeam of an umbrella, only slightly worse for wear and sun poisoning, rest the family, enjoying their lunch. The father saw Auggie and struck him with a gaze.   He had a great big silver bar of a head that was tanned the color of gold where his face was and big clunky teeth. Small, set together eyes pointed the direction to a long and straight nose that gave way to the thin-lipped cavern that was his mouth. He waved to Auggie with a big sweeping arc waving with his arm more than his hand. Auggie managed to stretch his face politely in recognition of the man’s existence and his arm moved with a spastic reflex.   The man’s appearance so startled Auggie that he barely registered the presents of the kids. He did notice though, from a practiced sort of reflex he had developed over the years, that there was no hamburger where the mother should be. Auggie crossed to the other side of the highway.
         He walked well off the roadside so as not to be pelted with the sight and sound of the large trucks carrying everything someone who was walking would want. They roared passed bringing a tempest of sand swirling behind them. Auggie kept his distance as if they were rabid, noisy dogs. He was only 10 ft. away from the road but he felt as if he were in the middle of a desert. There the sand wasn’t too deep but it was getting inside his canvas tennis shoes anyway; his olive drab tee shirt was developing sweat stains around his neck. He wished that he had worn shorts.
         Auggie had been watching his feet, as he walked, kicking sand, so intently that he didn’t notice the red concession stand he was approaching or the girl that stood leaning in the doorway of the thing. He was admiring the round of the toe of his shoe and the way it scooped the sand and flung it out of the way; he was in a cool quiet place, no sound entered him. But her voice was like stepping into a post hole: it jarred him into consciousness.
         “If you don’t get your head out of the dirt you’re gonna bump straight into Paradise.” She said. Paradise was the name of the hot dog stand.
         It was the sound of her voice as much as the shadow thrown on the ground of the place that made him look up. He didn’t really hear what she had said.
         The first thing he noticed was the big red shape in front of him. It reminded him of an old train caboose from a western picture. Auggie noticed that it had one of those side doors where you could open either the top half or the bottom half; the top half was open. He saw the flame of a blue silk shirt in the shadow of the doorway, it had no sleeves and was open four buttons from the collar. He regarded the tanned arms that came from the shirt and the long pointy hands that rested on her ribcage pushing her chest forward.
         “Sipper?” She asked him friendly with a big open smile.
         Auggie brought his gawk to her face and seeing her produce a large plastic cup over -flowing with foam realized she meant did he want a giant cup of cheap beer that he could take short cool sips of until it became warm and undrinkable long before he could finish it. His stomach rolled slightly.
         “No, thanks.” He replied politely.
         “Hot Cokey?” She offered him slightly hoisting her chin in the air.
         Figuring out the meaning of ‘sipper’ had been almost the peak of Auggie’s mental ability at this point but he really had to wonder why she offered him a hot Coke. Looking steadily at her face he saw the playful mocking of a born hell raiser and bad girl and understood immediately.
         “No thanks, Cokey.” He said to her chest and then flushed. She laughed, not at his flush but at his authentic speed. He obviously had had a rough night.   She preferred men that wouldn’t remember much and were not in the middle of a mid-life crisis and would want to get involved. She liked them to take what they wanted and get out. This boy fit the bill perfectly, she thought, bulls-eye.
         She had been here since 10 o’clock and no one had stopped yet; even the regulars, who stopped to get a hot dog and a beer that flirted with her and watched her ass as she prepared their food and looked down her top as she leaned over to give it to them, were absent today and she was bored. The tips were good and all she had too do was not wear a bra; big deal she told herself, it’s not like I’m a stripper or something. Plus she liked the attention.
         “I love these hot days.” She commented looking up at the sky longingly so that he could admire her long neck.   She took a tie-back out of her shirt pocket brushing her fingers across her breast and pulled her brown streaked black hair back into a ponytail.
         “That makes one of us.” Auggie replied, happy to use the line but hoping that it wasn’t too rude. She looked down quickly to catch him staring and she did but he didn’t look away like she thought he would. Oh, so we’re a bold boy now, she thought crossly. As if to answer her he approached the stand, the side was almost as wide as the front. He wanted to get closer to her.
         “Are you going to throw that out?” He asked pointing to the beer. He stood on the first step that led to the door bringing his eyes to the level of her chin. She felt a swell of desire and she was glad she hadn’t eaten lunch yet; nothing’s worse then desire on a full stomach. Auggie breathed her in and thought that she smelled like day old roses and carbonation. She had little, dark blue eyes, bold and strong like all her features; they were all, on there own, fine but together they seemed slightly put out and not quite sure what the hell they were all doing there.
         “Only if you don’t want it.” She stated truthfully.
         “No, I do.” He took the drink from her hand and the moment it touched his lips he realized how thirsty he was and drank a good bit from the substantial container.
         “What’s your name?” She questioned.
         “David.” He lied.
         “Well David, it looks like Goliath kicked your ass this time.”   She thought he did kind of look like the David who battled the giant because he was so small and all, she was as tall as he was. Auggie assumed that she was talking about his problem with taking substances until he blacked out.
         “Well, he is pretty big.” he commented.
         “I’m sure he is.” She said, about to laugh, then added as Auggie finished his beer, “You want to come in?” She said this in a way that made Auggie’s stomach drop quickly to his groin.
         “O.K.”, he agreed trying not to burp.
         You can think about thin black panties sitting on a wooden butchers block all you want; and a skirt pulled up around her thighs, or even of that flaming blue shirt opened all the way and pulled down over her thin shoulders and around her muscular arms or of her head thrown back half-mocking, half-passion, and you can think of Auggie drinking from her fountains of lust like a horny Greek pan flute playing… whatever those things are, half goat half man; you can think of all those impure, nasty things because my chaste pen will not indulge in your little dirty fantasy. As much fun as it might be. So there.


287 Pages \| Sample Chapter Chapter 4: Fire Click Here to Download the Word Document (.doc) The wind blew their hair around making them feel omnipotent... He could hear the ocean. It was strange because he could feel a breeze. There are no sea breezes that blow thru this apartment, no windows that I can see. He looked into the wrong end of a telescope when he got to the balcony, there was a city not far below. He put his entire head into the lens for a better view but it was no use, everything was teeny-tiny, in focus, but interesting just the same. He turned his attention, still with the optical allusion that the world was small, to the apartment where he lived. This wasn’t his place but it looked familiar just the same. He swung back gracefully to view the street once more. He was leaning dangerously over the balcony rail. He saw only the street with its traffic and might, surrounded on all sides by jealous, snobby buildings; the centrifugal force of his body and the telescope brought him right back to the apartment and then right back to the street, in the opposite direction this time. If all this sounds nauseating and complicated it’s because it was. He saw a variety of things that night and none of them he’d remember. But mostly he could see trees. Auggie woke up on what, for sure, wasn’t his bed. He was positive because there was just too much light; Auggie always kept the drapes closed so as not to be disturbed in the morning by the sun. Not only was the sun a clue but there was also the added question of the canopy bed made from palmetto trees and the metallic bronze mattress. He tried to open his eyes but they wouldn’t go. Not from any gravity induced problem as you might expect, but it was more of a Johnson’s Baby Shampoo type of problem: no more tears. His lashes were like a Venus flytrap that had found its meal. He struggled like a logger with a long division problem, that is to say bravely, and got his wish. They opened with what he was sure an audible ‘pop’ and realized that although he had them open he still couldn’t quite see. At least, he couldn’t see anything he recognized. Underneath his lids it was like a plate of yogurt left on a windy beach. Auggie cleared most of it away and discovered that he was on the roof of a car. He was on a dead end, side road that led to the beach. It was off a dying highway, well really to be truthful it had been dead for years but they spiffed the corpse up nice enough you could hardly see the stitches; the rouge sure and the smell but, christ, things had been over for pretty near to 20 years. Oh, sure the mourners poured in from Dallas to Syracuse but a stiff’s a stiff, and sooner or later you gotta get on with your life. But the dead are a lonely bunch and it’s nice to see flowers in the graveyard even if the lost can’t come in out of the rain. Well, like say, it was, a post mortem but ostentatiously selected, sometimes rejected and somehow neglected, piece of an American Highway put down for the average commuter or serious American or Foreign Tourist to make ease and speed of the drudgery and inefficiency of travel. We all know how disgusting and invading it can be with mass transportation. The open highway is as American as T.V. Dinners because admit it, who among us really tastes our food anyway? Get it over with that’s my motto. Anyway, that is where we are, on the highway; well, off the highway on a dead end side road that leads to the beach. Auggie sat on the roof of the car not thinking of this but also not understanding how he got here. He stared at the trees as if trying to figure out what they were. Christ, he thought, I drove to the ocean? Leaves were strung about the car like a pillow during a nightmare; it appeared that he had tried to climb the limbs earlier, whenever that might have been. He heard the rumbling of 18 wheelers in the near distance and it made him think of cops. Cops smell futility and nothing is more futile than a truck driver; they really have no choice but to pay, it’s what they do. Auggie hopped, or rather slid, down the side of the car to get out of there before they came. The cops, not the truck drivers. He walked around the back of the car and noticed there were some dents and scratches on the driver’s side rear panel. He hoped they were not fresh but was neah in the mood to investigate further. Out of a paranoid, or maybe not so paranoid, vision he checked the front of his car to make sure there was not a spattered child there, holding on to a beach ball. It was a long couple of steps considering he was somewhere he had no recollection of driving to. Nothing was there. O.K., he thought glancing at the grill, t’ank Christ, and got into his car. Trying to clear his vision once more and not succeeding he said to himself, fuck it, I couldn’t see when I came here so how hard could it be to get out. He turned the key that was still in the ignition and nothing happened. There are a few feelings in this world that can be described as real dread in this modern world that people fear above all others but this is one of the few, at least that’s how Auggie felt at this particular moment. Dead car. Even if it’s just the battery that’s dead, the car still dies. Auggie felt as if all the energy was sucked out of him. He couldn’t even find the strength to swear. He looked down at the instrument panel and saw that the light switch was pulled out. He pushed it in defeatedly and turned off the radio, which was on in name only. Auggie had a glimmer of hope. The car was one that had a standard transmission and it would be possible for him to ‘pop start’ it, god help us, and then drive it home. He looked down as if noticing for the first time that he was parked in a very sandy lot that was inclined uphill slightly from the road. Even if his car had started Auggie thought he would have had a hard time getting it out of here. A tractor-trailer wailed out its friendly, lonely sound and to Auggie it sounded like a dry bell ringing on a rainy night. He knew that pushing this car out of the sand by himself was probably asking for too much but he guessed that he should try anyway. He struggled with the auto for a full 5 minutes, only succeeding to making himself more upset then he already was, before he gave up. It was no use. He was sweating now and just realizing that it was hot out here, even in the shade, and was promising to get hotter. It was beginning to dawn on Auggie that he was going to have to walk down the goddamned highway. He felt for a moment impotent and thought he was going to start crying sitting behind the wheel of this dead automobile. He wanted to hit something but knew that he would only succeed in hurting himself. So, he didn’t. He, like every fine explorer, resigned himself to the facts and pulled up his bootstraps and started walking. The first thing that happened on his fantastic journey was that he ran out of shade fast. He guessed it was as least 1 o’clock now by how soft the road was under his feet. It was that hot. The road was baking and the trees, once friendly, now seemed to recoil in disgust at anyone stupid enough to ignore what was so surely obvious, and they gave him almost no shade. Auggie couldn’t blame them a bit. 50ft. later when he reached the highway he realized the trees had completely abandoned him; they had had quite enough of his shit. This time though Auggie decided to hold a grudge. How could you be expected to go through this all alone, he sulked. There was a carnival atmosphere on the highway though all garish mustard yellows and candy cane reds and whites, what they lacked in trees they supplied in air-conditioning, of course, at a price: you’re not just havin’ coffee are you? Most everyone thinks that they can resist the hard sell, course they ain’t sellin’. But other than the eye candy there was not much going on besides trucks. Trucks going on the highway and trucks coming off the highway. 24 hours a day. Auggie walked thru the back parking lot of a famous fast food restaurant joint and discovered for the thousandth time that the smell of hamburger meat and French-fried potatoes really does go hand in hand with the smell of diesel fuel and urine. Like a head in a garbage can. In front of the place, only just weaker from urine smell, in this day and age people still feel the need to pee in the backs of establishments and not in front, sat a father and his two children. Under a clean white and yellow sunbeam of an umbrella, only slightly worse for wear and sun poisoning, rest the family, enjoying their lunch. The father saw Auggie and struck him with a gaze. He had a great big silver bar of a head that was tanned the color of gold where his face was and big clunky teeth. Small, set together eyes pointed the direction to a long and straight nose that gave way to the thin-lipped cavern that was his mouth. He waved to Auggie with a big sweeping arc waving with his arm more than his hand. Auggie managed to stretch his face politely in recognition of the man’s existence and his arm moved with a spastic reflex. The man’s appearance so startled Auggie that he barely registered the presents of the kids. He did notice though, from a practiced sort of reflex he had developed over the years, that there was no hamburger where the mother should be. Auggie crossed to the other side of the highway. He walked well off the roadside so as not to be pelted with the sight and sound of the large trucks carrying everything someone who was walking would want. They roared passed bringing a tempest of sand swirling behind them. Auggie kept his distance as if they were rabid, noisy dogs. He was only 10 ft. away from the road but he felt as if he were in the middle of a desert. There the sand wasn’t too deep but it was getting inside his canvas tennis shoes anyway; his olive drab tee shirt was developing sweat stains around his neck. He wished that he had worn shorts. Auggie had been watching his feet, as he walked, kicking sand, so intently that he didn’t notice the red concession stand he was approaching or the girl that stood leaning in the doorway of the thing. He was admiring the round of the toe of his shoe and the way it scooped the sand and flung it out of the way; he was in a cool quiet place, no sound entered him. But her voice was like stepping into a post hole: it jarred him into consciousness. “If you don’t get your head out of the dirt you’re gonna bump straight into Paradise.” She said. Paradise was the name of the hot dog stand. It was the sound of her voice as much as the shadow thrown on the ground of the place that made him look up. He didn’t really hear what she had said. The first thing he noticed was the big red shape in front of him. It reminded him of an old train caboose from a western picture. Auggie noticed that it had one of those side doors where you could open either the top half or the bottom half; the top half was open. He saw the flame of a blue silk shirt in the shadow of the doorway, it had no sleeves and was open four buttons from the collar. He regarded the tanned arms that came from the shirt and the long pointy hands that rested on her ribcage pushing her chest forward. “Sipper?” She asked him friendly with a big open smile. Auggie brought his gawk to her face and seeing her produce a large plastic cup over -flowing with foam realized she meant did he want a giant cup of cheap beer that he could take short cool sips of until it became warm and undrinkable long before he could finish it. His stomach rolled slightly. “No, thanks.” He replied politely. “Hot Cokey?” She offered him slightly hoisting her chin in the air. Figuring out the meaning of ‘sipper’ had been almost the peak of Auggie’s mental ability at this point but he really had to wonder why she offered him a hot Coke. Looking steadily at her face he saw the playful mocking of a born hell raiser and bad girl and understood immediately. “No thanks, Cokey.” He said to her chest and then flushed. She laughed, not at his flush but at his authentic speed. He obviously had had a rough night. She preferred men that wouldn’t remember much and were not in the middle of a mid-life crisis and would want to get involved. She liked them to take what they wanted and get out. This boy fit the bill perfectly, she thought, bulls-eye. She had been here since 10 o’clock and no one had stopped yet; even the regulars, who stopped to get a hot dog and a beer that flirted with her and watched her ass as she prepared their food and looked down her top as she leaned over to give it to them, were absent today and she was bored. The tips were good and all she had too do was not wear a bra; big deal she told herself, it’s not like I’m a stripper or something. Plus she liked the attention. “I love these hot days.” She commented looking up at the sky longingly so that he could admire her long neck. She took a tie-back out of her shirt pocket brushing her fingers across her breast and pulled her brown streaked black hair back into a ponytail. “That makes one of us.” Auggie replied, happy to use the line but hoping that it wasn’t too rude. She looked down quickly to catch him staring and she did but he didn’t look away like she thought he would. Oh, so we’re a bold boy now, she thought crossly. As if to answer her he approached the stand, the side was almost as wide as the front. He wanted to get closer to her. “Are you going to throw that out?” He asked pointing to the beer. He stood on the first step that led to the door bringing his eyes to the level of her chin. She felt a swell of desire and she was glad she hadn’t eaten lunch yet; nothing’s worse then desire on a full stomach. Auggie breathed her in and thought that she smelled like day old roses and carbonation. She had little, dark blue eyes, bold and strong like all her features; they were all, on there own, fine but together they seemed slightly put out and not quite sure what the hell they were all doing there. “Only if you don’t want it.” She stated truthfully. “No, I do.” He took the drink from her hand and the moment it touched his lips he realized how thirsty he was and drank a good bit from the substantial container. “What’s your name?” She questioned. “David.” He lied. “Well David, it looks like Goliath kicked your ass this time.” She thought he did kind of look like the David who battled the giant because he was so small and all, she was as tall as he was. Auggie assumed that she was talking about his problem with taking substances until he blacked out. “Well, he is pretty big.” he commented. “I’m sure he is.” She said, about to laugh, then added as Auggie finished his beer, “You want to come in?” She said this in a way that made Auggie’s stomach drop quickly to his groin. “O.K.”, he agreed trying not to burp. You can think about thin black panties sitting on a wooden butchers block all you want; and a skirt pulled up around her thighs, or even of that flaming blue shirt opened all the way and pulled down over her thin shoulders and around her muscular arms or of her head thrown back half-mocking, half-passion, and you can think of Auggie drinking from her fountains of lust like a horny Greek pan flute playing… whatever those things are, half goat half man; you can think of all those impure, nasty things because my chaste pen will not indulge in your little dirty fantasy. As much fun as it might be. So there.