Saturday, February 19, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
THE LOCAL HEROES: CON!
Con!
by
Al Bruno III
Dedicated to Chris ‘Fifthrate’ Scheetz
It was a major coup to have ThrillCon 2011 at the River City Arena. Some saw it as a sign that at long last the city’s fortunes were changing, others said it was the natural result of the Megalopolis City Convention Center being crushed by a giant robot. In the end the reasons didn’t matter, what mattered was the influx of tourists, what mattered was the prestige of having celebrities and film studios promoting their summer blockbusters in a town that had been written off by so many.
By late Saturday afternoon the River City Arena was swollen to capacity. Dealers’ tables crowded together at one side of the lower level; comics, movies, magazines and collectables traded hands. Towards the middle of the arena the comic book companies and movie studios were giving away swag and trying to generate positive Internet word of mouth. Every half hour there was another promotional trailer or press conference.
The upper level of the arena was reserved for the famous, the semi-famous and the nearly forgotten. Almost all of them had a number of admirers lined up for autographs, pictures and the occasional unnerving question.
No one had more admirers lined up to meet her than Tanya Watson. She was the perky blonde starlet of the moment thanks to her lead role in the action/adventure TV series Jailbait. The producers of the series had decided to combat the softening second season’s ratings by sending her out to meet her fan base and press the flesh. Tanya was more than happy to do this, so long as there was plenty of security and hand sanitizer nearby.
The only table without a single visitor was Amazing Ed’s and he was mortified by this turn of events. He was an actual super hero, he didn’t just play one on TV, but no one was interested, no one even knew who he was. Sighing with boredom Amazing Ed drummed his fingers on the 8x10 glossies he’d had printed up and thought mournfully of the hours he’d wasted practicing his signature.
Suddenly there was a commotion near the front entrance, then a flash of light and a sound like a crash of thunder. Movie props and convention staff went flying in all directions. More attendees rushed to save the former than the latter. “BEHOLD!” a voice cried out, “THIS IS THE AWESOME POWER OF FANBOY X!”
Amazing Ed got to his feet, he didn't know who the Hell Fanboy X was or what he wanted but whenever someone started talking in all caps it was a sure sign trouble was brewing.
A tall heavyset man waded purposely through the panicking crowd. The gleaming metallic gauntlets and boots he wore clashed with his Star Trek uniform, just as his thinning hairline and beady eyes clashed with his overlarge ears.
“YOU!” Fanboy X pointed towards the autograph tables.
A terrified voice said, “Me?”
“NO! NOT YOU BURT WARD! I MEAN YOU TANYA WATSON!”
The yellow haired starlet leaned over to her publicist and asked, “Is he that Kevin Smith guy?”
“I AM FANBOY X AND I HAVE DECREED THAT ONLY YOU TANYA WATSON ARE WORTHY TO RECEIVE MY SEED AND BIRTH ME AN HEIR!”
“What is he talking about?” Tanya asked. She turned pale as her publicist discreetly whispered an explanation to her, “Ewwwwwww!”
The strange intruder raised his right arm and fired a bolt of energy from the silver gauntlet. Tanya Watson’s publicist, personal assistant, two bodyguards and small yappy dog were all thrown backwards. Fanboy X activated his rocket boots and took flight, sweeping up the bewildered starlet in his arms.
“Help!” Tanya cried, “This nerd is touching me!”
Amazing Ed chose that moment to make his move. He fired his grapple gun catching Fanboy X around the waist. “Put the girl down!” he ordered.
“WHO DARES?”
“I dare!” Amazing Ed pulled on the cable, tightening it, trying to drag the would-be kidnapper back down to the floor.
“FOOL!” Fanboy X flicked his wrist and a trio of Wolverine-esque claws that glowed like light sabers popped out of the back of his left gauntlet. He slashed the restraining cable easily, “YOU THINK YOU CAN STOP ME? I AM A MASTER OF SCIENCE AND MAGIC! I AM THE RULER OF THE NATION OF VULNAVIA! I HAVE OVER 2,000 FACE BOOK FRIENDS!”
Fanboy X paused to laugh maniacally at that last part, Tanya struggled in his grip and convention goers watched helplessly. Amazing Ed stared wistfully at the ruins of his grapple gun. This one hadn’t even been paid for yet.
“COME MY BRIDE” he said as he began to rise up towards the River City Arena’s skylight, “SOON YOU WILL KNOW ALL THE GOREAN SLAVE POSITIONS!”
Amazing Ed ran cross the autograph tables and leapt. He caught hold of a banner promoting a new Fox Sci-Fi series that had already been canceled and swung upwards. Amazing Ed tackled the villain and tackling him in mid air. The impact robbed Fanboy X of his equilibrium and control of his rocket boots. The right boot went left and the left boot went right twisting and breaking his legs. In his agony he dropped the starlet. Then Fanboy X and Amazing Ed crashed into the wall and slid down to the floor. Fanboy X was whimpering, his legs bent like soft pretzels. Amazing Ed was too dazed to do anything but watch helplessly as Tanya Watson plummeted towards the floor...
Only to land right in the arms of the quick thinking man dressed as Egon from Ghostbusters. “Are you OK?” he asked.
At first she was too terrified to speak, then she said, “Get me the Hell out of here and I’ll get you your own production company.”
He did as she asked, and the results were SyFi Channel history.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Foxbat Lives!
Hey looks like I'm getting some visitors from the HEROGAMES forums!
Nice to meet you all. Be sure to check out THE LOCAL HEROES stories for a taste of my kind of super heroes!
Nice to meet you all. Be sure to check out THE LOCAL HEROES stories for a taste of my kind of super heroes!
(Insane News) Inmate smuggles 30 items into rectum
Neil Lansing, 33, was charged with drug possession and smuggling contraband in jail for having 30 items tucked up his anus, the Sarasota Herald Tribune reported.
Using a rectum as a smuggling compartment is nothing new in Florida, but this has to set some kind of world record or at least a state jail system mark.
On top of 17 blue pills and a cigarette, Lansing was able to fit six matches, a flint, a syringe, some lip balm, an unused condom and a receipt from CVS....
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
CHAD'S ORACLES chapter two
IN THIS TWILIGHT
Chad’s Oracles
Chapter Two
By AL BRUNO III
“And then what?”
Lake Wales High School was shaped like an E; the top and bottom ends of the E were the auditorium and the gymnasium, the middle was the cafeteria.
“And then I ran.” Thelma explained. An entire weekend had passed since her bizarre encounter with Chad Lunt and those 48 hours had helped diminish the worst of the memories. Those faces she had seen, they must have been a trick of the light and as for those girls…
“You ran?” Samantha Reid said. She was a heavy girl, with frosted blonde hair and an easy smile, “Just when it was getting good.”
A short boy with dark eyes and a too-long hair nodded, “I bike by that house every day while I’m doing my paper route.”
“Maybe you should see if they want a subscription Peanut.” Samantha said.
“Maybe I’m afraid to,” Peanut’s real name was Steve Cross but he had always been shorter than the other kids, and since the seventh grade everyone from teachers to students had taken to calling him Peanut “although the tips might be memorable.”
The three of them had been sitting together at lunch since last spring, after catty remarks and conspiratorial whispers of the more popular girls had driven Thelma away from the more upwardly mobile tables.
“Look,” Thelma said, “I don’t know who those guys were, or what was going on there but you can count me out.”
“They were probably all college kids getting high.” Samantha mused, “College boys always have the best weed.”
“Oh really?” Thelma said. When Samantha said something like that Thelma could never be sure if she was bragging or being truthful. All Thelma really did know that since September Samantha had runaway from home twice and had one pregnancy scare.
“Really,” Samantha said, “and if you ask me you just read too much into the whole thing. If this Chad dude is sitting on a nice fat lawsuit check, he sure as hell is going to have a bunch of girls at his beck and call. The two biggest aphrodisiacs in the world are washboard abs and a personal fortune.”
Peanut sighed sadly, “I am so screwed when I get to college.”
“Poor Peanut.” Thelma said, “I should have taken you to the dance.”
“Oh sure, and I’ll just pencil in regular beatings from Winston from now until the end of time.”
Samantha waved her hand, “Oh he’s too busy with his new girl. Any regrets there Thelma? I mean that was a pretty good set of abs you left behind there.”
“She can keep those abs,” Thelma said, “I’ve got better things to do with my time.”
*
There were three businesses and an abandoned gas station bordering the road that led to Eagle Ridge Mall. An oil change place, a game store and a fast food restaurant called Burger Clown. Clad in her polyester uniform, Thelma walked the circumference of the Burger Clown parking lot, a dustpan in one hand, a ratty broom in the other. Cars sped by, filling the air with exhaust.
The routine of school and home was broken up on Wednesday nights and Saturday afternoons by flipping burgers. It wasn’t the best job in the world but it got her out of the house and earned her a little spending cash. On the days when the manager was there the job was pretty bearable, mostly because he spent the majority of the shift locked in his office drinking. Unfortunately this Wednesday night wasn’t one of those shifts; the assistant manager, Blanche Costello, was in charge and she was a bear.
If someone had told her about Blanche, Thelma would have rolled her eyes at the obvious exaggerations but truth was unfortunately more irritating than fiction. Blanche was skinny, with over permed hair, over tanned skin and a prodigious nose. She reminded Thelma of nothing more than a cartoon buzzard. Thelma also learned quickly that the only thing Blanche hated more than her life was the teenagers she had been put in charge of. When Blanche held court the employees were not allowed to talk to each other while on the clock, breaks were skipped whenever possible and lunches were grudgingly granted late in the shift.
Sixth months of working at Burger Clown had taught Thelma not to cross the woman, but there was a history quiz on Thursday morning and she really wanted that fifteen minute break for studying. Fifteen minutes in a four hour shift, was that so much to ask?
Apparently it had been. The request had sent Blanche screeching and the next thing Thelma knew she was outside searching the parking lot for trash and dog poop.
Well it could be worse. Thelma tried to tell herself as she walked around the parking lot. On Saturday she made two of the college guys climb up onto the dumpster to jump up and down on the garbage so it wouldn’t have to be emptied for a few more days.
Thelma gagged a little at the memory of the smell those boys brought back with them. At least this punishment duty got her out of the building and away from Blanche for a while.
I’ll just get to school early and study in homeroom. Thelma decided as she walked along the rear of the parking lot, picking up wadded paper cups and napkins. The oil change place had just closed up and the game store seemed to be open for business on a purely random basis. Their darkened edifices left her laboring in the sunset. Thelma bent to work at a particularly hardened piece of gum and then just gave up and sat down on the curb. She stared sullenly across the parking lot to the abandoned gas station.
I should just quit. I bet Samantha could get me a job working with her at the Fashion Bug, or heck maybe Peanut could get me a paper route. Anything but this, anything…
A black pickup truck pulled into the parking lot of the empty service station. Thelma sat up, she had heard from one of her co-workers that hookers took their johns to the back of the building to turn tricks.
Turn tricks. Thelma mused at the turn of phrase. There were so many metaphors for that one thing, and it seemed that between high school and work she had heard just about all of them. Meanwhile my Mom and Dad still haven’t had ‘The Talk’ with me yet.
The truck’s engine idled, the headlights shifted from low to high beams. Thelma waited wondering what she would see, wondering what she wanted to see.
She certainly didn’t expect the see Chad get out of the truck. The very sight of him sent competing shudders of fear and excitement along her spine. Chad walked around to the passenger side and pulled out a bulky shape wrapped in a dark dropcloth. He hefted it and brought it over to the gas station’s front entrance, the front door of the building swung open with a nudge of his hip.
He half-dragged half carried the shape into the building, the door swung to a close behind him. Thelma held her breath, expecting him to come right back out again but he stayed in there.
What’s he doing? She wondered, What’s he getting rid of?
A body? Naturally that was her first thought but why hide a body in such a public place? There were a dozen safer places to do something like that, forests were few and far between in Lake Wales but the ones they had were lush. Thelma thought again of the girl on the mattress and the men kneeling over her. The more she thought of their faces the more she was certain it all had to have been a trick of the light. You didn’t see faces like that anymore- there were surgeries and cures.
Lights flashed in the abandoned gas station, brief eruptions of emerald-tinged illumination that filled the buildings dark windows and faded away. It was as though Chad were striking a flint, or playing with firecrackers. Thelma wondered if she could get closer without being discovered. She stood, leaving the dustpan behind but keeping the broom in case she needed a weapon.
Thelma made it halfway across the parking lot before Blanche Costello caught sight of her and started yelling for her to get back inside and start manning the fry station.
Monday, February 14, 2011
5 Second Fiction One Thousand Nine Hundred and Fourteen
Newlyweds spend the weekend in bed making babies. Older couples spend the weekend in bed because their kids gave them the flu.
5 Second Fiction One Thousand Nine Hundred and Thirteen
Upon becoming corporate trainer her first goal was to make sure no one ever got trained well enough to replace her.
18 Valentines and counting...
18 Valentine's Days and in a row no less.
I spend a lot of time on this blog waxing poetical about all the girls that might have been or complaining about the indignities of being settled down and married but here's the thing I don't nearly say enough.
I love you Vanessa Bruno.
You stayed with me when others would have kicked me to the curb.
You believed in me even when I didn't.
For God's sakes you didn't even complain when I took time out from our Honeymoon night to watch the newest episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000!
I love to take the setbacks and sadnesses of our almost twenty years together and fashion them into parables and punchlines but the thing I want all of you readers out there to know is that this woman-this sexy, smart and amazingly patient woman is the reason my life has been sweeter than I could ever have imagined.
Happy Valentine's day Mrs. Bruno!
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