Mike Handley's Blog – May 2010 Archive (13)

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Norma Jean Challenge: To Kill a (Mockingbird) Baby

“For god’s sake, Nelle, it’s done. Don’t diddle with it.”…



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Added by Mike Handley on May 30, 2010 at 4:23pm — 9 Comments

Hoodoo Men 3: An Editor's Lament

Hearing the staccato footfalls of Reeboks in a hurry, I looked up from my typewriter as Lee, a 5-foot, 2-inch popcorn kernel ready to burst, stepped into my office. Without so much as a hello, she blurted, “Old Man Obadiah came by here while you were at lunch, and he wanted us to take a picture of the bald eagle he’d shot … for the paper.”…

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Added by Mike Handley on May 26, 2010 at 2:00pm — 13 Comments

Abetting?

She writes of pedophilia, and I imagine many of you are quick on the “back” button if you open the poisonous prose, eager to dismiss the dark mind behind the words, as if not seeing or commenting will drive her from this community of writers. I’m among the stern-faced dismissers, filled with dread at…

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Added by Mike Handley on May 25, 2010 at 6:25pm — 21 Comments

Hoodoo Men 2: Crucifixion

Obadiah broke into a four-toothed smile, cackling as if he’d found a $10 bill on the street. “No need for thet paper, Mr. Aubrey, if yer just lookin’ for an eagle,” he squeaked.…

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Added by Mike Handley on May 24, 2010 at 9:29pm — 7 Comments

Hoodoo Men

Obadiah Johnson’s cataract-clouded eyes, oysters swimming in cream, focused on the gilded paper in Aubrey Billingsley’s right hand before snapping back to meet the investigator’s raptorish scowl. The ancient black man, who rode around town on a bike he’d hand painted Sherwin-Williams green, was said to…

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Added by Mike Handley on May 23, 2010 at 7:50pm — 12 Comments

Dead of Night

The FBI agent and police chief shared the sofa across from me, high beams glaring as I squinted with the effort of recalling exactly what I’d heard a couple of nights earlier: the hollow boom of something colliding with a dumpster, loud enough to pull me out of REM quicker than the tickle of a palmetto…

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Added by Mike Handley on May 18, 2010 at 6:28pm — 14 Comments

Front Row Seat

I didn’t attend for a grade or to impress persons behind or in front of easels, and I never viewed life drawing sessions as a cheap alternative to a neon dive skewered by a chrome pole. My reasons were more personal: a relaxing, yet soul-quenching way to spend a couple of hours with a…

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Added by Mike Handley on May 18, 2010 at 3:33pm — 17 Comments

Royally Flushed

I couldn’t say whether it was Old Spice, Brut or something Avon sold in a colored bottle the shape of a car or boot, but whatever cologne Sheriff-for-life Claude Stephens favored had permeated the foam under the cheap vinyl-covered seats of his unmarked cruiser. He pulled up beside me on the courthouse…

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Added by Mike Handley on May 17, 2010 at 9:10pm — 15 Comments

Tale Tale Heart

Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic ... Byram Hawkins thought his revving heart was going to throw a rod. No spring chicken, he’d been running for nearly an hour, painfully aware that he was being dogged by shirt-tucking, shiny-booted “revenooers” apparently tipped off to the moonshine he’d been distilling on the…

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Added by Mike Handley on May 17, 2010 at 8:00pm — 16 Comments

Minnie the Marlboro Gal

Halfway into an hour-long wait at the doctor’s office with my mother today, I grew weary of staring at the bloody catheter bag taped to the thigh of the guy sitting across from us and slipped outside for a smoke. Soon after I began pacing, the car in the slot next to the handicapped spot pulled away,…

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Added by Mike Handley on May 11, 2010 at 12:01am — 7 Comments

Beacon

Twice a week during the summer, several of us newspaper folk would caravan to a nearby state park, stopping at a grocery store along the way to purchase fresh meat, smoked sausage and drink mixers. We’d arrive within an hour of dusk, head for the remotest point, set the table, start the charcoal and…

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Added by Mike Handley on May 9, 2010 at 10:46pm — 12 Comments

Bloodletting

I was in Finland to hunt moose with the locals and to become acquainted with a new model of rifle, on the manufacturer’s dime.…

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Added by Mike Handley on May 8, 2010 at 9:51am — 10 Comments

Nightmare

I sometimes wake to the screaming of chickens.

Long before the cable television networks…

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Added by Mike Handley on May 2, 2010 at 11:32am — 11 Comments

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