Love without gun control, p.1
Love Without Gun Control, page 1
LOVE WITHOUT GUN CONTROL
By
M. CHRISTIAN
ISBN 9781615080861
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2009 M. Christian
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.
For information contact:
http://PageTurnerEditions.com
PageTurner Editions/Futures-Past Science Fiction
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
LOVE WITHOUT GUN CONTROL
NEEDLE TASTE
HUSH, HUSH
1,000
SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED
THE RICH MAN’S GHOST
MEDICINE MAN
WANDERLUST
ORPHAN
BURIED & DEAD
FRIDAY
NOTHING SO DANGEROUS
SHALLOW FATHOMS
CONSTANTINE IN LOVE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Copyright Information
“Love Without Gun Control” © 2009, is original to this book
“Needle Taste” © 2001, first appeared on errata.com
“Hush, Hush” © 2001, first appeared on gothic.net
“1,000” © 2009, is original to this book
“Some Assembly Required” © 2000, first appeared in Talebones Magazine , Fall 2000 issue
“The Rich Man’s Ghost” © 2004, first appeared in Space & Time Magazine , Issue #98
“Medicine Man” © 2000, first appeared in Skull Full Of Spurs , edited by Jason Bovberg and Kirk Whitham (Dark Highway Press)
“Wanderlust” © 2000, first appeared in Graven Images , edited by Nancy Kilpatrick & Thomas S. Roche (Ace Books)
“Orphan” © 1999, first appeared in Talebones Magazine , Fall 1999 issue
“Buried & Dead” © 2009, is original to this book
“Friday” © 2002, first appeared in Space & Time Magazine , Issue #94
“Nothing So Dangerous” © 2000, first appeared in Horror Garage Magazine , issue 1
“Shallow Fathoms” © 2001, first appeared in Song of Cthulhu , edited by Stephen Mark Rainey (Chaosium Books)
“Constantine In Love” © 2001, first appeared on gothic.net
INTRODUCTION
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After attaching your Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine to an available Driving Force, open the Inspiration Input panel located on the lower right section of the machine. Using a small, sharp instrument (such as your penis), activate/deactivate the appropriate DIPshit to assign the desired introduction inspiration input. Warning: Failure to activate the correct combination can result in various undesirable results, leading to arrest and criminal prosecution and/or Literary Awards.
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While we at Write Way understand that even after utilizing the excellent technology embodied in our Automatic Introduction Writing Machine there are other, unknown factors that can affect Creative Output (CO) and Monetary Input (MI), we must still insist that payment for the Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine be received within one month of delivery (depending on location and volatility of local delivery personnel). Failure to expedite payment will result in financial and physical penalties, possibly including fines, levies, liens, testicular removal, spinal rearrangement, dental extraction, and colonic impaction.
You are now almost ready to use your Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine to produce admirable and possibly noticable introductions. Before continuing, however, it is important to observe the three-stage Safety Feature Checklist (SFC):
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3. Before final activation of the Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine, the operator must completely fill out the attached Waiver of Responsibility (WoR), absolving Write Way of any damages – real, emotional, or imaginary – that the operator may experience during the operation of the machine. Failure to do so will result in the gibber line to vaporize, resulting at a ten x thousand foot-pound force explosion.
If you have followed these instructions carefully, you are now ready to use the Write Way Automatic Introduction Writing Machine and produce profitable and possibly entertaining columns for years to come. If however the machine fails to operate, place it back in its ecologically protective shipping container and return it to an authorized service center or convenient landfill.
If you are in need of an introduction in the meantime, we suggest that you simply retype this manual – god knows, manuals are just like introductions: no one reads them anyway.
M. Christian, 2009
LOVE WITHOUT GUN CONTROL
“You’re a real psycho... a real burning, flaming, unhinged, bonkers, nutso, crazy kinda guy. You’d kill your mother for a buck, your father for the change in his pocket, kittens for a song, and strangle babies for candy. You’re a down-’n-dirty, scum-sucking, foaming-at-the-mouth, mucho, macho kinda guy,” Billy said, sneering at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.
“You’re a dangerous, hair-trigger, blood-soaked, son-of-a-bitch that smiles when he maims, sings when he cripples, and laughs when he kills. You’re dangerous, crazy, mean, nasty, and oh, so cool –”
Doc Sneezer’s hair cream tamed the jungle of his wheat locks.
“Mommas cover their babies’ ears when they hear your name, blind men avoid your stare, cripples run away when you come a’ walkin’ – you’re one scum-sucking, fast-drawing, vicious, crazy killer,” Billy said to himself, bare chest out, gun belt low on bony hips, baby-whiskered chin out in exaggerated machismo.
“Billy, you come down here this minute,” Mama Smithew yelled from below. “Supper’s on the table.”
“What did you call me?” to the mirror, “I’m coming, Missus Smithew,” over his shoulder, to the tiled bath, echoing down.
* * * *
The Smithew house rang with domestic harmony. The pine-shod walls of typical, traditional, cinderblock and steel cladding – s
“Did you wash your hands?” Mountain of Mom, Ma Smithew, inspected the neighbor boy’s mitts. Billy Hitch complied with visible restraint: the cool demeanor of the macho vicious killer buried. Ma and Pa Hitch were in Dodge for an Aunt’s marriage – and their regular family backup was with them. Still, the giantess grated on his bravado, and he positively ached to draw and plug. But while youth granted much – fast healing, good reflexes, keen eyes – Ma Smithew could still cripple a flea off a limping dog at twenty paces: Had to have lived as long as she had and raised and buried so many of her own fast-fingered young ‘uns. “There’s something dark and farm here, Billy-Boy, but that’s probably the best as you can do, I guess.” She swatted him towards his seat at the table, putting the safety back on her pearl-gripped Widow-maker, and set to straightening the tablecloth.
Grandpa, an old wrinkled tablecloth himself, gray and white around his frayed edges, sat in his carved wooden throne depicting great moments in the winning of the West from the Unarmed Indians. “Goddamned sissies, goddamned pussies, goddamned freeloaders...” he drooled with tracking eyes and the sights on his ancient Colt revolver, as tired, rusted and tarnished as he was, trying to follow, and target, the scurrying actions of his descendants.
No panic, no ducks, no return fire: Papa was a figurehead and Unloaded – though no one was mean enough to mention it. Taken for granted was that the colt was froze and empty (gift from dead-and-buried Grandma, shot down in an honorable fashion: two for one sale at the Pixie Mart), and that Mama Smithew would always, always check that Grandpa’s hammer hit empty air.
“Mama! Rob’s almost here and the table’s not done!”
“Hush it, child. The boy’s got minutes yet.”
“Oh, Mama, am I pretty enough? Is he gonna fall for me?”
Cluck-cluck. “You’re painted up more than a banker’s house, child. I can’t smell your Pa’s cordite for the flowers of you.”
“Oh, Mama, you just don’t like me looking pretty.”
“Nothing wrong with looking womanly, girl, but you’d just better have the good ol’ firepower to tell all your admirers, ‘no.’”
“Oh, Mama, he’s not that kind of boy. He keeps himself in his holster like a good man should.”
“He ain’t nothing but a sissy, then, is he? He ain’t nothing but a damned preacher – watch him water the roses when he faces a man’s piece.”
“Goddamned sissies, goddamned pussies...”
“Grandpa, you shouldn’t say that ‘bout someone you’ve never ever met! And Billy Hitch, you keep a civil tongue in your head or so help the Lord, I’m gonna shoot it right outa you –”
“Christina, you leave the boy alone. Sure, he’s a trigger happy little bastard, but we have to be civil to the neighbors. Now you just remember what happened to the Vernons and the Hastings –”
– now just the click, click, click on Geiger counters. A concrete memorial to neighborhood civility and local arms reduction ordinances
“Oh, Mama, he’s just a worm.”
“He’s a guest of this here family, is what he is.” A cannon-fire voice, deep rumbling gravel tones, an avalanche of words – Pa, coming in from out of the cooling night, slapping dusty hands on dustier pants: “You treat him right, you hear, Christina? That means civil and respectful – or sure as he and your beau will be eating yer Mama’s fine fixin’s while you break and clean your pistol in your room tonight. Do we have an understanding?”
“Yes, Papa,” head down low, hands clearly away from her pearl-handles.
“That’s good,” Papa said, hands slowly floating away from his own chrome automatics, eyes never leaving hers, or her hands. “Now you help yer Mama with supper while I go up and wash the fields off me.”
“Goddamned sissies, goddamned pussies...”
“Yes, Papa.” Eyes half-way down, locked on Billy’s smirking face and his hand fluttering towards a child’s cheap leather holster, towards cobalt-blue revolver (a 12th birthday toy: .22). With the practiced grace of winter schooling at Miz Hanover’s School of Defensive Charm , Christina drew and clicked her own hammer at his pimples. Billy kept his tongue out and reached down.
The doorbell. Of all of them, only Late Uncle Larry’s portrait got tagged: the bubble-glassed, black-creped photo with stiff and curling black roses exploded off the wall. A hollow-point from Christina’s lady-like pearl-handled left a splinter-ragged tear in the living room wall. Plaster was incense in the air, and she crunched and crackled as she sprinted to the door.
“Damnit! No Gunplay In The House!” A cannon’s roar from upstairs and the thunder of Papa’s footsteps from bathroom to the landing.
“Goddamned sissies, goddamned pussies...”
Eula, their Unarmed Woman, scurried out from her sandbagged bunker under the stairs, dustpan in one hand, broom in the other, weaving and ducking, ducking and weaving – even though the only thing that followed was verbal.
“Christina! I’ve told you before –” started Mama as she swung out of the kitchen, drawn, cocked and ready.
“Damnit, how many times have I –” Papa said, rounding the stairs with earthquakes of his good rattlesnake boots, shotgun pumped and itching at his hip.
“Crazy, no good, screaming chicken bitch –” young Billy said as she reached for the brass skull of the front door, too inexperienced to think of drawing.
“Rob..,” she said through the chaos and perfume of cordite, eyes too wide for her face as she opened onto a now-dark prairie night, and a striking figure in white hat, white breaches, white vest (because of blood stains, white was considered fancy and peaceful dress).
“Good evening Christina Smithew, and how are you on this temperate evening?”
“Rob, you shouldn’t say such things...” Eyelashes batting, eyelashes batting.
“Are you going to make him stand out there all night, girl? Supper’s ready and it’ll only get cold.”
“I was just going to escort the handsome young Mr. Pommer inside, Mama.” A beaming smile of perfect porcelain (dentists are always perfect and painless where biting the bullet has a special meaning), to her beau. “Will you please accompany me inside, Mr. Pommer?”
“I would be delighted. This temperate climate seems to be getting a mite chilly.”
“We’ll see about warming you right up, Mr. Pommer.”
“Now, Christina, you keep your hormone talk civil, you here?”
