Why

“Why is he in your house if your not together,” Rallow inquired watching her face as she itched her nose on the back of her hand

“ He’s my friend”

“Your friend sleeps in your bed almost every night? We’ve been watching you for a solid month. He’s here every night. ” Rallow rubbed his thumb against the stubble on his chin. Three double shifts of watching the little shit buttoned the case down, with the exception no guns there were suppose to be guns.

Bailey tilted her face to the side brushing a stray piece of auburn hair back from her eyes. She watched Rallow a moment, considered him. Something about him made a churning sensation in the pit of her stomach yet in the same breath she was terrified of him. He was like a flame, she like a delicate little moth and if she flew too close, became too mesmerized would find her pretty white wings singed off.

“He’s my friend. ” She ran her tongue over her lower lip pulling her hands into the sleeves of her sweatshirt holding his eyes the entire time.

“Your fuck friend? ” Rallow lifted a brow carefully watching the expressions on her face.

“We don’t fuck should I translate that into Spanish? Wait no how about Pig Latin?” The acidic words danced off her tongue before she could swallow them back.

Rallow lifted a brow and let his lips turn up in a fractional smirk. He reached brushing the piece of hair back away from her eyes. Bailey felt blood rush to her cheeks and he smiled in response.

“I’m going to get you out of this mess. You are going to help me put this little fuck away,” There was no option, no consideration. Bailey was going to do exactly what Rallow told her to do.  

“It was you, wasn’t it? In the park? In the shadows?”
Rallow smiled and ruffled her hair lightly before turning on his heel and heading out the door.
“Yep go with your gut kid, it’s always right.” with that he was gone.

“Sometimes the line between the good guys and the bad guys is thin and translucent in spots. Feel me Rallow?” -Bailey Kitrick

They All Fall Down

This is another excerpt from a different story a different set of characters bouncing around inside my head. The right here, the right now my heart my passion for writing is about “Rallow” but I came across this cleaning up my pc and thought I would throw it out to you guys and get your ever so humble opinions. 

 “They All Fall Down”

It was hot. The kind of hot that no matter how hard an air conditioner clanked it was pointless. The relief of cool air was merely felt for a moment before your skin would crawl with droplets of sweat. Catherine Devaney absently blew a piece of hair back away from her face as she continued on with the arduous task of filling the sugar. It was her responsibility at the end of every shift at Cook’s Diner. Fill the sugars, marry the ketchup and wrap the silverware. She most especially hated doing wraps. What the hell was the purpose of taking silverware and wrapping it in a napkin like it was an infant bundled in swaddling? She hadn’t even wrapped her daughter in swaddling when she was an infant fearful that she would suffocate. It seemed more sensible to set the silverware on the table. Each piece in its correct spot like Gran had taught her as a little girl, knife then fork then spoon. She wouldn’t ask why they had to wrap the silverware in this fashion every day.

Catherine’s head snapped up as the door to the diner swung open and slammed shut sending a gust of hot, damp air through the dining room.

Catherine lifted her face pushing a stray piece of bang gently off her forehead and froze. Joss Glass straddled a stool at the counter and pulled his pack of cigarettes from the back pocket of his jeans. His long nimble fingers shook one lose and he placed one against his lips.

Catherine dropped the wraps into their basket at the back station and slowly maneuvered her way through the red and white Formica tables to the front of the diner. Her tongue dried and stuck to the top of her mouth in fear, the perspiration glistened fresh across her skin this time in anxiousness rather than a result of the oppressive heat.

Joss lifted the lighter to his cigarette setting the tip afire. He inhaled the smoke but blew it away from her direction as she slid behind the counter to address him.

“Hi Baby,” His smile lifted his cheeks into cherubic like apples and his eyes lit up with some sort of deep seated pleasure.

He made a point to stretch the pet name out long and venomous over his tongue seething with mixed resentment and possible hatred.

Catherine lifted a drinking glass and focused on pouring the water into the glass without spilling on the counter. Lifting the glass to her mouth she drank deeply willing the dryness away from her mouth. She could show no fear, she was now in the middle of the forest with a pissed off grizzly bear. Pouring a second glass of water, she placed the glass gently on the counter in front of him with a great amount of consternation. She was fighting the rush of blood to her head the knots in her stomach. Her hand reached to wipe the perspiration from her forehead that was largely the result of every nerve in her body coming alive.

“I have a name,” She let slowly roll off her tongue then instantly felt a pang of regret. She sounded bitchy. He would perceive it as a challenge. She didn’t want to challenge him she wanted to stay completely off his radar.

Joss chuckled as he drank down the water in three even gulps. Catherine fixated on his Adam’s apple lifting and falling three times in his neck as he swallowed the water. Gran always said she couldn’t love a man who didn’t have a strong Adam’s apple.

Catherine had been trying to stop loving this man with a strong Adam’s apple since she was fifteen years old.

“I need a job,” He announced it matter of fact as though she might have some sort of influence over any such thing. He leaned over tracing his finger along the outside of the V-neck up the side of her breast to her collar bone.

Catherine abruptly pulled back, as though she had touched a plug that hadn’t completely been pushed into the wall. She picked up a cloth and began nervously wiping the ring of condensation that his water glass left on the counter.

“You have a daughter.” Her eyes slowly scanned the entirety of his face trying to determine his intention. Was he changed? Did he really want to work hard? Was he going to stay out of trouble or pull her slowly back down the path that nearly destroyed both of them? Did he even care that there was a little girl that was his absolute spitting image?

“I would appreciate if you helped me, I have to have a job or parole will send me back to jail.” His face tilted slightly watching as she untied the little black apron from about her waist. He simply was not going to address the issue. Catherine felt her heart sink. Somewhere in the back of her mind she hoped and prayed that he would come home, love her they would be a family. He would let go of the bad they had done. She should have known better that simply was not going to be the case.

Catherine stuffed the apron under the counter and pulled out her book bag. She slid around the counter having every intention of completely evading any contact with the boy at all. If he touched her, that would be it. He would spin a tight web around her like the daddy long legs that lived in the bathroom at Gran’s. He would bind her, trap her and suck the life out of her. History clearly dictated she was virtually powerless to stop him. He would bend her and she would snap.

“I will talk to Chef tomorrow after his coffee before the breakfast rush hour; it’s when he is in the best mood.” She offered putting some distance between them.

Joss stood off the stool twisting the cigarette pack in his fingers as he stepped toward her.

“Where are you going?” He smiled. One of his top front teeth had been knocked out in jail. It made his sneer all the more menacing.

“Gran is coming to pick me up and I’m going home to care for my daughter,” she shifted on her weight, flicked her hair over her should placing the emphasis on my as the reality set it. Nothing had changed and the return of Joss would be nothing but trouble.

He stepped forward reaching and clasped his hand around her arm pulling her abruptly to him.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispered pulling her against him. “Not yet anyway.”

Catherine caught her breath as he grabbed a handful of her hair and crushed his lips abruptly against hers. Rather than kiss he whispered against her lips.

“I want my money Catherine.”

“I don’t know where that money is Joss,” She whispered back tears springing to her eyes.

He buried his fingers in her long auburn hair as he slipped his tongue between her lips. She folded, her mouth responding to his as terrified as he made her somewhere deep in the back of her mind she had waited for the moment he would come walking back into her life.

“You know exactly where that money. You are going to get me that money or I’m going to snuff that baby in her sleep.”

Catherine tore back in repulsion; her hand reached out and connected with his cheek violently. The sound of her hand connecting with his face echoed through the empty diner, a choked cry came from her as her hand covered her lips in shock of what she had done. He would surely beat her now.

He simply smiled, revealing the same sneer the same broken tooth. He was amused. His intention was to crawl under her skin, to plant a seed and that was exactly what he had done.

“Hold her tight to you and think hard on things Catherine,” with that he darted out the door and was gone.

Gran pulled up in the old Buick just in time to miss the Glass boy. She would have patted him on the arm. Gran would have told him she missed seeing him singing in the choir at Mass. She would have complimented the way he delivered her newspaper to the front door because it hurt her knee to walk to the mailbox when he was the paperboy. Gran remembered the good in people and felt a certain obligation to remind them. She would have felt it proper to let him into the car. To see the blonde haired cherubic two year old daughter that was his spitting image. She would have invited him back to the house for a biscuit with a bit of apricot jam and a cup of tea. Instead he darted past the car, toward the center of town like the devil himself had set his ass on fire.

Catherine slipped out the door and slid into the Buick pulling the heavy door close with a thud. Her hands were shaking violently and she fought to hide the fact from her Grandmother. She then burst into a torrid of tears. It could not be contained or controlled the world was coming to an abrupt end. He would kill them all for the sake of his greed.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph child what has gotten into you? Was that this child’s father that just ran by this car likes the devil put a pitch fork in his posterior?”

“I need to take the baby and leave bad things are going to happen Gran!” She cried out which prompted the sleeping two year old to wake and let out a wail of protest.

Gran considered a moment as she stomped on the accelerator to move the car forward.

“You are certainly not going anywhere much less alone with that child lets go find that Glass boy and set things straight right off the bat!” Gran declared as she sped off in the direction Joss had gone.

“He needs to meet his daughter Catherine, a child gives a man a good reason to be a good man,” Gran declared with intent.

Catherine merely closed her eyes resting her head against the seat. Nothing good, not a single good thing would come of any of this.

 

 

Rallow: The Novel

30 year old Bailey Kitrick had her whole entire world turned upside down when she met Danny Flan. Never thinking for a second that the two would be a formula for absolute disaster. Bailey was quickly drawn into the world that spun around Daniel at a rapid speed. Sex, drugs, and more money than she had ever seen in her life. Loyalty unheard of, a world where anyone and everyone is dispensed at the drop of a hat. 

From the day she landed on the radar of Daniel Flan, Bailey Kitrick also landed on the radar of Detective Sal Rallow. Rallow and his partner Detective Patrick Hanagan investigation had Daniel Flan  under scrutiny for over a year before the twenty five year old walked into the life of the single mother of one. 

When all their worlds finally collide the lines between the good guys and the bad guys becomes a hazy shade of grey. As Rallow runs from the demons of his past, while covering up the indiscretions of his partner, Bailey makes deals with the devil to save Daniel. An unlikely alliance forms in each attempting to save the other they ultimately save themselves. 

Bailey and Danny

 

 

Theoretically they should not have crossed paths there was simply no reason for it. Fate is often a funny thing.

Bailey sat on the staircase that led to the tiny two bedroom apartment that contained her life with her daughter.  Laila was safely tucked away at kindergarten in the brick faced school at the end of the street. She was  at that point of the day enjoying her  lunch or the cool fall air as they ran around at recess.  She slipped a ten milligram Vicodin between her lips after a lunch of lettuce soaked in lemon juice and swallowed it down with the warm remnants of a Diet Coke. The high didn’t come the way it once did. It danced on the edge behaving as though it were there then it would slip away. She took another yellow pill from the pill bottle and swallowed it down with the final sip of soda from the can. Bailey slipped out the door and parked her ass on the staircase. She sat in the warm fall sunshine as the analgesic feeling crept over her. No more failed marriage, no more struggle to make ends meet just the pure numbing sensation. It spread from her chest along her arms and back down to her abdomen. She leaned her head again the wall as it crept up her neck to her face causing even her lips to feel as though she had just gone to the dentist. It was about then that he appeared. It was almost cartoonish in nature as he quietly walked past the house unaware of her there on the steps. He was looking along the ground for something. Bailey thought perhaps he was looking for cigarette butts. That he had run out of cigarettes and was resorting to the ends of ones he had foolishly tossed out the window.

“I’ll buy you cigarettes,” It slipped from her dry lips.

Her kidneys and liver were working in overdrive to push the excessive amount of Vicodin out of her body.

Danny paused what he was doing and looked over in her general direction. His face tilted slightly as a smile spread across his mouth. His shadow danced a little longer on the sidewalk as the day crept into the start of midafternoon.

“I lost a blunt,” he retorted matter of fact.

Bailey formed the word “Oh” with her lips and let her eyes flutter shut.

“Okay,” she whispered thankful that she wouldn’t have to stand up. Her limbs had gone completely numb.

He was suddenly there in front of her, his hand reached grabbing her chin turning her face to look at her more closely.

“You are high as a fucking kite, what the hell are you on? Coke?”

Bailey’s eyes fluttered open and she looked to his face. His hair was the color of a dark strong cup of coffee, his eyes close to the same. She had never really paid much attention to the boy man that lived in the apartment next door. Now here he was her face in hand as she was quite sure she was about to slip off into infamy.

“No, I took too much Vicodin,” she whispered. “I don’t feel well.”

“I think I should call an ambulance,” He replied as he lifted her hand into his own.

“You are ice cold chick, you look like shit.”

“No!” Bailey tried to stand but her legs simply were not there.

“I feel sick I need to throw up.”

Danny helped her up into the house. He held her shiny auburn hair back away from her face as she violently emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet. He covered his own mouth and nose with his free hand as the vomiting subsided to dry heaving and then she simply let her cheek fall to the seat of the toilet. Danny hated throw up. It was the worse smell on earth. He was teetering on losing the cheese burger he had for lunch all over her back and hair as she got sick. He was able to refrain.

“I’m so embarrassed,” Bailey whispered.

Danny helped her to her feet and into her room. He moved the pile of clean laundry that had amassed on the unmade bed to the floor against her feeble attempts at protest.

“I’ll rewash it,” He offered without being overly convincing. He really had no idea how to run a washing machine.

Danny eased Bailey down onto her bed and pulled the covers up over her.

“It is now 2:30 I’m going to go get your daughter from school if you don’t look better when I get back I’m calling 911”.

Danny was a man of his word. He walked down the block and retrieved Laila from school. He shrugged as the teacher looked at him questioningly.

 

“They live next door her Mom is throwing up really bad,” He offered.

The teacher looked to Laila who nodded.

“He smokes cigarettes out the window and his shitty music is too loud,” The percocious child offered.

The teacher ushered them both away before she had to go through the undaunting task of flushing those bad words down the toilet.

 

 

Danny  stood over Bailey’s sleeping form in the bed and observed her with the Laila as she slept.

“Is she dead?” The little asked poking at the soft part of her stomach that had stretch to accommodate a nine pound baby.

“No, you made her tired asking for toys all the time,” Danny placed his hands upon his hips. Bailey was pale, a light glisten of perspiration had spread across her face and neck. Her pulse was no longer skipped along erratically as he pressed his finger against the pale flesh of her wrist. Danny was pretty sure she was going to be okay.

He went about taking care of the Laila while Bailey slept. A frozen pizza was popped in the oven and served on paper plates that were in the shape of animals. The girl looked at the offering in horror then thought it better to not be difficult. He pushed the little girl into the bathroom throwing towels behind them demanding she shower for bed. The children allowed the shower nozzle to spray through the open curtain all over the floor and wall.

Danny  dropped to the floor beside Bailey’s bed and waited. He entertained himself texting and playing games on his IPhone as the sun crept slowly down and night fell into place. He was absently listening to the rise and fall of her breath as he tapped away at his phone. She was okay, he was sure of it. She just needed to sleep until the pain medication left her body. He didn’t want to leave her, not until they had a coherent conversation in the least.

Bailey sat up startled as the clock on the cable box changed over to 11:11.

“She lives,” Danny smiled handing over a can of ginger ale with a straw.

“Oh my God, my daughter,” She panicked.

“They are sound asleep, in bed. I made them a pizza and they showered but all your towels are wet. I don’t clean anything involving a bathroom,” Danny offered with a smile standing to his feet.

Tears sprung to Bailey’s eyes and she brushed them to the back of her hand.

“Thank you Danny,” she whispered trying to avoid contact with his eyes.

“Hey,” He demanded as he stepped backward toward the door.

Bailey turned her gaze to meet his, her eyes glistened with tears and her own humiliation.

“I got you kid,” He smiled as he disappeared out the door to his apartment next door.

In the Beginning

The magic began as an exercise for a creative writing class that is a requirement for my Creative Writing/Fiction Concentration with a Forensic Psychology double major. This was my first assignment in that class. They say art imitates life. I can certainly say that I have had individuals placed in my path that have inspired me, excited me, pushed me to put pen to paper and paint the pictures that I am able to create with my words. I invite you to join me on this journey as I pen a tale of loyalty, friendship, love, jealousy, hatred and greed. I am intensely proud of “Rallow” (the working title) and hope you grow to love my characters and their story as much as I love hearing them in my head and drawing them on paper. (with words of course!)

           I’m not one to be on the radar of the world. I like my life quiet, simplistic and free of the dramas that accompany the relationships with other human beings. He was the exact opposition of anything that I was. His voice had a melodic type boom to it, his truck damaged in the exhaust so that no matter where he might be going   he was preannounced. The whole world made commentary to who he was, crazy, insane, violent. Bad things happened to him in Kuwait, Iraq where ever it was that the marines had sent him and now he was a nuclear bomb with a fuse so short that you would burn your fingers with a lighter if you even tried to light it.

            I never really gave consideration to the fact I had not landed on his radar until the event came to pass. He stepped from the truck as I dragged a borrowed lawn mower down the side walk in the scorching July heat. My landlord was less than lax in the care of the yard where I lived. If I wanted my children to not be swallowed by three foot mosquito infested grass as they tried to catch fire flies in jars, I would have to handle the grass myself. Such was the way of my life. Anything that needed to be handled I would have to find a way to make it happen.

“Damn girl, you are making my dick hard,” he had to raise his voice an octave to catch my attention.

I stopped short raising my wrist to my forehead, wiping away the droplets of perspiration as I turned my face slowly in his direction. The vulgarity of his statement was not the least bit shocking. I had worked with men for years in the automotive business. This one fancied himself a cat who has discovered a plump mouse. He was bouncing the mouse back and forth between his paws before inserting his teeth deep into the rodents flesh.

I turned my gaze to meet his and grabbed his eyes with mine.

“Excuse me?” there was no smile. My body language offered nothing to set him at ease. I hadn’t been looking for this verbal exchange. I wasn’t going to be a willing participant in his game and at the same time wasn’t going to let him think that there was an ounce of fear or intimidation. I never really developed the good sense to be afraid of anyone.

Initially he met the gaze head on. He was surprised maybe even delighted. He had grown accustomed to immediately gaining the aggressive stance in any exchange he initiated. This was different. It was a challenge but by far not the one he was expecting. I could see him rapidly readjusting this game plan as he stepped forward in my direction.

“I’m Rallow, Sal Rallow, I’m sorry that was obnoxious it’s just so rare to see a woman motivate to do yard work.” he didn’t offer his hand unsure if I would allow a physical exchange.

“Well maybe you have the wrong kind of women in your life,” I let the corners of my mouth turn up in an offering of sarcastic indignation.

That began the first of several exchanges that finally amounted to a cup of coffee on my back porch in the early hours of the morning. He drank too much. He was in the throes of a violent breakup with a much younger girl. He mixed anti-depressants with alcohol consumption. He was violent. The police had long stripped his sniper rifles and various other firearms along the way. He was everything that should never have been sitting on my back porch and yet I could see past the exterior of what the world saw to so much more. He was kind, passionate, talented he loved deeply. He offered so many good attributes to the world. He was however haunted. He was haunted by the war, by sights and smells. He was haunted by the sound of gunfire, the smell of diesel, the hot desert air blowing sand violently against his skin. He was haunted by dead children and the sound of bullets piercing the flesh of women who had bombs strapped to their torsos.

“I don’t feel well,” Rallow whispered one morning as we passed on the street headed out to work.

“What’s wrong?”

“It just doesn’t go away; I can’t get away from it.”

For three days they contained him in the emergency psychiatric ward of the hospital. For three days, I arrived and curled up beside him in the tiny bed. I pressed my cheek against the warm flesh of his bare chest and listened to the strong lub dub beat of his heart as he dozed in and out of drug induced sleepiness. I told him my secrets, what terrified me as he twisted a piece of my hair gently about his finger. I told him things long buried inside me that brought the tightness of fear to my chest and tears to the corners of my eyes. I told him I knew the feeling how it keeps coming back and threatens to swallow you alive. He had the hospital bracelets about his wrist and yet, it was those bracelets that were setting me free.

I saw him on the street yesterday.

“Can I stick my penis in your mouth?” Rallow yelled from up the street where he had parked the rumbling annoying pickup truck.

I smiled and flipped him my middle finger as I pulled my hood up and trotted to a jog in the opposite direction.

The fall had arrived and concluded the summer of my American soldier.

The Conception of the Character Rallow.

Sal lifted the paper cup to his lips and slowly sipped the dark liquid through the plastic space broken open in the lid. The lid jabbed his lower lip drawing the slightest bead of blood to the skin. He without thought crossed his tongue over the injury brushing away the evidence that the injury had ever transpired. The old white van was cold, ice cold as he sat staring at the yellow house. He let his eyelids close slowly over his emerald green eyes as he rested his head against the cold pleather surface of the headrest.

            “Like this pull it like this,” Daddy instructed pulling the string to the kite taunt is his five year old hand. The sun bounced off the cherubic blonde curls that circled his head. The skin on Daddy’s hand was rough and calloused from work but felt warm and safe wrapped around his small child sized hand.

            “Look at him go Daddy! Look at him fly!” He cheered with delight as the colorful dragon kite danced across the sky.

Sal startled and sat up running his hands absently over his head. The curls were gone. He shaved them. Every other day he took the razor to his skull. It was a rite of passage of sorts. Who he was before his father keeled over his heart seized within his chest, before the Marines, before working his way up the Madison County police department to Narcotics was gone. The little boy with the colorful dragon kite dancing across the sky was gone. He didn’t need those pretty shiny curls bursting all over his head reminding him about a life that was best long forgotten.

You would never guess his age. He remained ever youthful even as he hit his fortieth birthday. He worked out once maybe twice a week his muscles well retained the arduous eight years that he had spent in the Marines. He reached six feet, although appeared much taller at times again the result of his military training, he stood erect, proud. His smile lit up his face that made him appear all the younger although it wasn’t with great frequency that anyone was graced with a smile. Most got the simple turn up of the sides of his mouth before a diatribe of sarcasm spilled from it.  Women found him attractive. A few whispered nothings and they were in his web. He’d toy with them a little more before wrapping them up, draining the life from them and tossing their carcasses away. There has been one, one and there would never be again. Each and every single one that came along after her wake would pay for her transgressions. He followed Deniro’s policy from the movie “Heat” he didn’t keep anything in his life that he couldn’t leave in thirty seconds flat. It was simply easier that way.

She came bouncing from the steps and flounced a thick black hood up over her auburn hair that had been twisted up in a sloppy knot.  She headed in the general direction of the park at the end of the street. He leaned back glancing at the clock on the console of the van. It was 2:52 A.M. He almost felt a pang of sadness as he grabbed the surveillance camera from the seat and tossed up his own hood. He didn’t want it to be her again. He wanted it to he him. They had enough to take him down already. Over twelve sales of various narcotics to confidential informants, hours of recorded footage sale after sale.  He would let her get about thirty paces ahead before attempting to follow. She definitely had a sixth sense about her and often times would spin around and stare directly at where he was hiding watching recording what she was doing. He didn’t want to arrest this one. In the brief exchange that they had shared over the lawn mower, she had that look. She had seen things along the way things that she pushed to the darkest recesses of her mind and pretended that they were not there. She was haunted.  He knew her ex from the peppered file of domestics. Their relationship had come to a screaming halt when he choked her half to death and left her for dead on the front lawn. He thought for sure she was dead because she had pissed all down her legs as she went limp his nails tearing into the flesh of her neck.  He did eighteen months for assault three and unlawful restraint. She had never been arrested. She had association with plenty of scum bags yet nothing had every really stuck to her. She reached the park and dropped to the ground and stretched her muscles out before standing and breaking into a sprint. He watched in fascination as she ran pushing herself full speed to the point of having to stop and throw up behind a bench. Her telephone chimed inside her hood.

“Asshole calling, theres an asshole calling! There is an asshole on the line!” She tossed the phone to the grass and broke back out into a sprint.

He smiled in the darkness. She would be a kindred spirit if only she were on the right team.

He would just have to get her on the right team.