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Below is an excerpt from a long piece I began writing last year. I am excited to see where this story takes us. (warning: this excerpt is from a rough draft and is subject to change)

1

Danny’s flight didn’t come in. A big blow up over the Great Lakes shut down Chicago, leaving a ten year old boy stranded in an airport the size of a small town. At least, that’s what Linda, the customer service representative for United Airlines, told Sam.

            “You understand my son is ten?” she asked the customer service agent.

            “Yes ma’am. I understand the situation. There is very little I can do here, except to call the agents in Chicago and make sure they picked up Daniel.” Linda answered in her monotone calm.

            “Then call the agents!” Sam threw her hands out above her head.

            “Ma’am, I am doing it. I need you to calm down.” Linda tried to reassure.

            “Listen, LINDA. My ten year old could be wandering around a huge fucking airport. I’d appreciate if you could find him!” Sam screamed, making the man behind her shift uncomfortably in the growing queue.

            “Ma’am. I understand the situation. But if you don’t calm down I’m going to have to ask the police to escort you outside.” she glanced at an officer standing near the entranceway who had already taken a keen interest in the hubbub.

            Stepping away from the counter, Sam shut her eyes and took a deep breath. She tried to slow her heartbeat and gain some control over the rising tide of anger sitting in her chest. Linda picked up the phone and promptly called asked the operator to be connected to a Chicago representative.

            Sam knew that Linda was an innocent bystander in this situation. Zach. Zach always changed the game. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed his number. It rang. Once. Twice. Third time’s the charm. One more for good measure before his egomaniacal greeting broke her anger egg open to reveal its molten core.

            Hi. You’ve reached Zachary Aschloch. I’m currently unavailable, but if you leave…

            She hung up before the prerecording could finish. Even though Zach rarely turned his phone off, Sam surmised he enjoyed taking every measure he could to torture her. He knew she’d be stewing, especially after keeping Daniel two days over the limit of their custody agreement. That’s Zach for you, she thought always pushing boundaries.

            “Hi this is Linda Burdon in Burlington. I have a woman here looking…” she spoke with an ease like calling Chicago was a daily routine.

            Sam expected Linda to forget Daniel’s name and opened her mouth to remind. Linda continued with the information without missing a beat. She relayed every concern, nodded her head, and looked up at Sam as she waited.

            “Just a minute,” Linda raised her finger before Sam could open her mouth again.

            “Thank you so much. I actually do appreciate your help,” Her effort to sound sincere didn’t take and Linda rolled her eyes.

            Linda nodded, raised her eyebrows, and tapped her finger on the computer screen at her desk as she waited.

            “He’s there. Oh good. Yes, his mother is here and I think she’d like to talk to him…” Linda handed the phone to Sam who snatched it out of the woman’s hand.

            “Danny! Baby! You okay?”

            “Hi mom!” Daniel yelled into the phone with the happiness only a child stranded in an airport could understand.

            “Danny, you need to be careful sweatheart. Is somebody there with you?”

            “Yeah. Hey mom, guess what. He’s got a tattoo just like daddy! Isn’t that cool? A little bunny his arm,” she could imagine his beaming smile and felt a little better.

            “I want you to stay with the nice man, okay? Do not leave his sight,” she commanded.

            “Fine,” he answered. Sam pictured his eyes rolling at her request. It reminded her of Zach.

            “Did you have a good time?” her voice shook as the color red slowly clouded her judgment.

            “It was soooo much fun mom! Daddy took me to the wild animal park. I got to see a giraffe, like, right up close. He also got me an iPhone. Now I can talk to him whenever I want,” Danny gloated. Sam couldn’t help but see Zach’s guiding hand behind every word. She refused Danny’s earlier pleas for a phone, mostly because she didn’t see the need in a ten year old having a cell phone. All Zach needed was for Danny to say mommy didn’t want it, and he would oblige.

            “Baby. Just stay with the guy in the airport. Give mommy a call when they put you on another plane. Okay?”

            “Yeah mom. Love you, bye!” Danny yelled as an announcement in Chicago nearly deafened his voice.

            “No! Wait!” Sam tried, but Danny already hung up the phone. She looked at the receiver for a moment before she handed it back to Linda.

            “Thanks,” she said, feeling the weight of waiting already sinking in.

            “No problem. Let me guess, ex-husband?” Linda raised an eyebrow.

            “Yep,” Sam nodded, managing a meager and ugly smile.

            “Bastards. Don’t you worry, honey. He’ll get what’s coming,” Linda spoke as much to herself as she did to Sam.

            “Not soon enough,” Sam resigned. She gave Linda a polite and thankful smile before grabbing her handbag and leaving. A bitter Vermont storm greeted her outside the terminal of Burlington’s airport. The wind whipped at her jacket and pulled loose strands of hair across her face. Sam noticed the south blowing wind did not mix well with the pelting rain pushing off Lake Champlain, and the two fought a fierce battle for control of the skies.

            Sam raised the hood on her winter jacket, moved loose hair behind hits shield, and sighed. The covered crosswalk to the parking garage across the street did nothing to abate the sideways weather. She darted in front of a taxi speeding up to the loading and unloading zone. The taxi driver honked, smiled and waved.

            Fucking polite Vermonters, she nearly grumbled out loud. Two years she had been living in Vermont, and she still couldn’t handle their accommodating attitudes. Much different from the Californians she left. If she’d tried the same maneuver in downtown San Francisco she might have lost her legs or her life. While she didn’t think of herself anywhere near being a local, people were already calling her a Closet Vermonter.

            The courtship out here goes sooner than you might think, Doug’s voice echoed in her head. Doug considered himself a Vermonter after fifteen years. Sam prayed her own acceptance would not take as long.

            “He’s gonna love this one,” Sam referenced her friend out loud as the rain continued to pelt the side of her jacket. It poured even harder when she drove out of the garage, turned onto Route 2, and headed into the heart of Burlington.

2

Doug Jeffries sat at his square kitchen table and set a hot cup of tea next to his lottery ticket. He stared at the glossy piece of paper and shook his head. After years envisioning a nice home in the Oregon backcountry, he found it hard to accept his current retirement. Sitting in his small kitchen in an old Victorian house in rural Vermont, Doug looked at his lottery ticket with nothing more than a bitter cringe.

            The last restoration of the house took place in 1988, seven years before he moved in. He’d painted the interior once. Doug covered the walls in a brick house red with a honey mustard trim. For his floors, he chose a darker stain and hadn’t the ambition to change it again. His kitchen, though, looked exactly as it did the day they finished the restoration. Everything covered in white with two windows; one facing west and the other looking south gave him perfect light year round and practically making the kitchen glow. On rainy days in the winter, however, the room gave a pale glow that made Doug sick.

He continued to stare at the ticket and wondered why he spent the ten dollars in the first place. Luck did not factor in for he had very little. I’m bored, he answered himself. Boredom crept into his life everyday from the moment he opened his eyes. Hobbies were few and far between at this time in his life. A long time ago, going on 40 years, he drew pictures like a mad artist. From the age of five to twenty, Doug drew pictures that tantalized the eye and the imagination. Sometimes, they were lifelike and heartbreaking. Other times they were abstract and hilarious. But college closed that door in his life. College taught him a different art: the art of sacrifice.

            Maybe that’s why Carol and I didn’t make it.

            He hated remembering his ex-wife. They only lasted five years, but managed two children in that time. The lottery ticket stared back at him with five sets of numbers, each set ending with the letters EP. His ambition notwithstanding, Doug liked the computer’s odds better than his own. He leaned forward and peeked into the darkening living room where his accolades hung like martyrs. A Bachelor of Science in Anthropology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a Masters and Doctorate in the same field from the University of Oregon, and a number of public and private awards for work contributing to the archaeology and anthropology of the Southern Oregon and Northern California Native American Nations and other unrecognized tribes. He’d put them up when he first moved back East, but now they gave him little, if any comfort.

            Another framed document caught his eye. He took a sip from his tea and walked to it. With so little light, he couldn’t read the paper underneath the dusty glass. However, the headline of the news print stood out black against the grey shadows creeping into the room. One Injured, Two Dead in Drunk Driving Massacre. Doug pulled the frame off the wall and sat back at the kitchen table. His eyes scanned the article, even though he knew the words by heart.

            He glanced back at the spot where he took it down and laughed. Every other framed piece he hung in that room protected the red wall’s original shade creating a dark patchwork of rectangles. The spot where this particular frame hung matched the rest of the wall. Doug read the article one more time, focusing on the words that meant the most to him. Charles Waters…ejected from the vehicle…not wearing a seat belt…Doug Jeffries...seriously injured…sober…Devon Maker…blood alcohol of .19…Merlin, Oregon...4:30AM on July 23^rd…services to be held.

            The clock chimed as the sixth hour of the evening slowly slipped into the seventh. Light continued to fade from the dark gray sky, but Doug could still read the numbers on his ticket without turning on a light. He looked to the eastern wall of his kitchen but heard little noise from the apartment on the other side.

            Sam should have been back with Danny by now

            He got up and shoved his chair hard under the table. Putting his ear against the wall, he again heard only the sound of his own heartbeat and the ticking grandfather clock in his living room. Doug knocked his hand against the wall. No reply came. Sam would be upset when she returned. She would be upset not only because that dick of an ex-husband had kept Danny two days later, but because Danny’s flight had either been delayed or cancelled. Undoubtedly, he could expect a knock on his door and find her a mess. His tea would be ready for her and they would talk, even if Danny was with her.

            The thought of Sam returning made him smile. His attraction to her struck him oddly at times. He did not see her in the way most men his age would probably see a younger single mother. She perked his interest, kept him awake, and intrigued his sense of compassion. With her, Doug remembered the person he desperately wanted to be, not the depressed retiree wasting his money and his luck on lottery tickets that never won.

            Snatching up the lottery ticket, he jammed the piece of paper into his pocket and shuffled into the living room. His hip locked for a moment and he stood still. Pain rocketed up his back and he held his breath to try and steady his mind. As the nerves slowly relaxed, Doug shook his head and shuffled through the living room into his small hallway. He turned left into his bathroom and grabbed four Aleve from the medicine cabinet.

            Doug swallowed the blue pills dry. He tried to think of the first time he bought a Powerball ticket but couldn’t recollect. The softly falling rain echoed in the bathroom, nearly lulling him to sleep. His hip finally relaxed and he moved back into the living room. While he sat, his hand fished in his pocket for the ticket. Just rubbing the numbers felt better than sitting and thinking. A gust of wind rose up and shimmied the side of the house. The wind fell, and the world grew quieter as the storm continued east through the Champlain Valley.

The Devil Laughs (2010)

The Devil Laughs

S. G. Scott

I stand and move to the window. My knees crack and I cringe. In this silent place, the sound hits hard and ends abruptly. Opening the window, I fill the room with noise. Seagulls caw unceasingly at distant waves while an ambulance slowly approaches with sirens blaring. It may be a raucously discordant tune but it is the sound of living, and that is what I need. I turn my head back to Mom and smile. She clears her throat and whispers.

“Can’t ‘member” she says it like a five year old.

“What?”

“Something used…used to say,” she huffs. Sweat builds on her brow. I already know what she’s talking about. The particular saying she was looking for I could guess, but I need to keep pushing her like the doctor asked me to.

“Come on Mom. Give me a memory.”

“Danny milkshake. Ranch milkshake,” she says, pointing a crooked finger at me. I laugh and wait for Mom to say it.

*

            Mother always had these wise old sayings she liked to throw out. She said it kept her in touch with the farm back in Ohio where she grew up. We went to visit the old place when I was ten. Far from my beachside community, I could see why Mom knew the Devil in that particular State. She once said the Devil had a hand in making Ohio, especially the flat parts.

            “Why the flat parts?” I asked her.

            “Well, the Devil just thought his flat ass was the prettiest thing to look at. And I’ll be damned if Ohio ain’t a spitting image of that greedy bastard’s ass.”

            One saying, though, she used more than all the rest.

“Richie, you may think that’s funny, but the Devil sure ain’t laughing.”

I heard it when I was six and I filled Dad’s swim trunks with sand while he napped on the beach. When I was nine and I filled my brother Danny’s milkshake with Ranch dressing making him throw up. When I was eleven and I’d written curse words in the margins of my school notebook. That time, I’d had the balls to ask her.

“What the hell does make the Devil laugh Mom?”

A quick back hand across my cheek was her answer. It wasn’t until I was fourteen that I came to understand what she meant. I arrived home on a cold, rainy October day to find my mother pacing back and forth down the hallway between the front door and our kitchen. In one hand, she held the phone against her ear so hard her skin was turning red. Her other hand rubbed her neck and when I approached her to ask what was going on, she put it out and shook her head no. I went to the living room where I could nervously perch myself on the edge of the couch and still listen to her conversation. My first thought turned to dad. Mom shot me a look that was serious, but her eyes were dry and if dad had died at the mill, she’d a been plucking Danny and I out of school and rushing us down to the hospital where she’d have every tissue at the place used up.

            “Richie. There was a big accident out at the mill and I need to run out there to help dad. Get upstairs and grab the bucket out of the pantry. Bring it down and fill it. Also, grab all the towels and blankets you can,” she instructed.

            I did as she asked. I brought everything down, filled the bucket in the kitchen sink, and sat on the bottom step facing the front door while mom continued to run through the house, making sure everything was turned off.

            “Mom? What’s going on?”

            “The Devil’s laughing his ass off today, sweetie. He thinks this whole thing is just hilarious.”

            “What thing?”

            She didn’t answer me. She opened her mouth, but had no response.

            “Can I come?”

            “I don’t think so Ritchie. Danny’s at your Aunt Mary’s, but if she decides to drop by, I think you should be here.”

            “Mom, I want to come. I think I could help.”

            “Fine. But it ain’t gonna be pretty,” she resigned, grabbing the bucket and the few linens I couldn’t carry.

            We piled into my mother’s old brown Toyota. I hated the ratty death trap, but my parents were far from wealthy enough to afford a new car. Mom revved the tired old engine, making it whine like a mule. She pulled out of our driveway onto B Street. Before we’d gone two blocks, we were in the middle of downtown. Mom made a right onto the highway and stopped at one of two streetlights. She swerved to the curb to let a speeding ambulance and two state troopers go blazing past. My knees itched and I tried to scratch them. Mom grabbed my hand and wouldn’t let go till we got to the mill.

*

Dad was a manager down at the lumber mill on the north end of town. He’d been working there since he was sixteen, when he met mom. My old man was great with people, and as a result did not spend much time working down on the floor. They moved him into a public relations role and then as one of the middle managers for the floor. He loved the guys that worked under him and they respected him, especially during the strike the year before the accident. Even though he wasn’t supposed to, Dad went to see those guys picketing every day before he went to his office. He’d listen and listen, and tell them he’d see what he could do. I mean, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do, but they liked him all the same just for listening.

            They’d gone back to work after what Dad called some tough negotiations on work safety and payable hours. From what Dad complained about, though, nothing had really changed much and they were on the verge of another strike.

            “Goddamn bastards…” Mom kept muttering.

            “How bad is it mom?” I asked as we drove down the dark road.

            “Bad.”

            I stared out the windshield at the large column of black smoke pouring into the sky above huge stands of Spruce and Douglas fir.

            “Is Danny gonna be okay at Aunt Mary’s?”

            Mom nodded. She didn’t say anything else the rest of the drive.

            “Goddamn,” I said as we pulled into the parking lot. Mom didn’t even flinch. She pulled up next to Dad’s truck and I could see him running quickly toward us from the blazing structure. The whipping cool breeze caught my breath as I stepped out. It made me shiver something fierce.

            “Dianna. I think Sharon needed some help from somebody with counseling experience,” Dad immediately barked orders. Mom nodded, handing him the bucket. He shook his head no and looked at me.

            “Where is she?” Mom looked around.

            “Over by trucks I think,” Dad grabbed a flashlight and shut the door before turning to me, “Ritchie, why don’t you grab the towels and help the paramedics lay them out over there?”

            “Okay,” I muttered. Dad pointed to the far side of the parking lot where two ambulances and three fire trucks all had their rotating beacons splashing red on the evergreen wall surrounding the lot. Mom was already headed in that direction, so I grabbed the towels and shut the door.

            The mill was on fire. Damn near all of it. Flames crept over every wall, through every crack, and reached into the sky through a choking white haze. Men and women were still coming out when a loud crack echoed through the lot. Someone screamed to look out, and a large loading bay collapsed into rubble. In front of me, emergency vehicles and nearly everyone in town was rushing here and there. They grabbed equipment, helped people to a row of blankets where paramedics were trying to treat the wounded, and rushed into the flames to find more.

            A huge crash made me duck behind a truck. Looking over at the mill, I could see a large section of the structure sinking in as a fireball crawled into the sky. Finally, I reached the line of ambulances and the bodies lined up on the pavement behind them. Through the open back of the nearest ambulance, I watched as one paramedic frantically pushed with both hands on a bare-chested man strapped to a stretcher. The other paramedic held a syringe and checked a bank of monitors.

            One…two…three…four…five.

            Breath. Listen. Breath. Listen.

            “Hit him with the defib.”

            Choonk!

            “Stick him.”

            The other paramedic stabbed a syringe into the man’s chest and quickly pushed its contents down, but he still would not move.

            “Hit him again.”

            I tried to close my eyes and my ears against the sound, but I heard everything. I heard the loud Choonk! and though I couldn’t see his body, I imagined the man’s lifeless form briefly stiffening awkwardly above the stretcher. I heard the screams coming behind me, the screech of tearing metal, and the constant crackle of living flames.

             Finally, I faced the bodies. Thirty or forty men and a couple of women laid out on blankets in a neat row. The towels draped over my left arm slowly slid to the asphalt. I hardly noticed as I looked out on those still figures and the flashing orange light playing over their quiet faces. A hand came around my shoulders and I jumped.

            “It’s alright Ritchie,” Mom said as she gently hugged me and tried to turn me away. I resisted, bending down to grab the towels.

            “I can do this Mom,” I said as I turned back to hear, burying my fear deep beneath an icy stare.

            “The Devil’s sure…” she began.

            “Laughing his ass off. Yeah, mom, but nobody here is laughing with him,” I finished.

            I joined a cadre of others slowly moving between the bodies and covering each one. By the time we had finished, their were so many colors covering so many people that they looked like a terrible rainbow burning in the flickering light of the mill. When I finished I found Mom, and I cried against her breast like I had so many times before. She held me like she always would.

*

I stand before my mother. Her face is calm like those bodies stretched out on that cold, wet night, but her body is in constant turmoil. Her stroke has nearly killed her, and I stand here like I did so many years ago watching. She rustles in pain, scrunching her face aged far beyond her actual years.

            Her pale sweaty skin is cold when I gently touch her hand. Her heart monitor quietly beeps, sometimes erratic. She flutters her eyes and moans. I rub her forehead and look to the hall to see dad nervously walking back and forth as he stares at a spot just beyond his footsteps.

            “Ritchie…” Mom mutters.

            “Yeah mom,”

            “The devil…” she starts and has to swallow. I hadn’t heard those words since that night.

            “I remember mom. The Devil’s laughing cause he thinks this whole thing’s a big joke.”

            She shakes her head at me and I shut up.

            “He…is…crying. I’m coming. Gonna give him…ass whooping.  An ass…whooping,” she weakly emphasizes. I try to keep in a sniffle and sneeze instead. Mom reaches over to her bed stand and grabs a tissue and hands it to me with her shaking withering hand. I take it and laugh. She smiles and closes her eyes. Going back to the window, I hear dad cough behind me, the traffic below the window, and another seagull cackles as it passes. I hear mom snicker and I smile. We all laugh together.