He didn’t give a damn. It was early morning and there were no pedestrians. So he took two grenades from his son’s toy chest (they looked so real that not even a Special Forces soldier could tell the difference), peeled off all his clothes, and walked out into the white sunlight of his suburban Dallas street, while shouting “I am the one and only God, so come, ladies, worship me.” Thank goodness it was late Tuesday morning, and most of the neighborhood kids were already in school, the toddlers in day care.
Darleen looked out her front picture window, and with a look that married repugnance with oh-no, not-him-again titillating amusement, turned to the plumber whom she’d been sleeping with for three months now, and said, “And be sure you don’t leave any of your damn tools lying around when you leave this time, because my husband’s suspicious and he won’t pay for any more “leaky faucets.”
Exhausted by two hours of noisy lovemaking (Darleen was a “screamer”) Raymond pulled up his blue striped overalls, collected his tools, and thought to himself, It’s time for this honest working stiff to find a brand new neighborhood where a man can get some peace.
Brad Rose was born and raised in southern California, and lives in Boston. Brad’s poetry and fiction have appeared in: The Baltimore Review, Off the Coast, Third Wednesday, The Potomac, San Pedro River Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, Barely South Review, Right Hand Pointing, Sleet, Boston Literary Magazine, Monkeybicycle, Camroc Press Review, Short, Fast, and Deadly, and other publications. Links to his poetry and fiction can be found at: http://bradrosepoetry.blogspot.com. His chapbook of miniature fiction, Coyotes Circle the Party Store, can be read at https://sites.google.com/site/bradroserhpchapbook. Audio recordings of a selection of Brad’s published poetry can be heard here: https://soundcloud.com/bradrose1.
Eunoia Review 