Book Title Mash-Up

Do Some Damage is the best collaborative blog I know of. Couple of weeks ago, Brian Lindemuth put out a flash fiction challenge: Write a story using as many book titles as possible (or makes sense). Check out the movie mash-up on display there while you’re at it. Great fun.

My piece is below. Follow the link back to DSD to read the other submissions. Given the clientele there, they should be good.

The rumrunners holed up in a collection of strategically-situated trailers across the Whiplash River from town that everyone called Black Rock. Geezer didn’t care much for Whit’s plan.

“Why not just let it ride, man? Place is hard enough to get into, but the bitch is getting out, after you’ve messed with them. That place is trigger city, man. Those are difficult men to handle, and they all live by night. Hell, they’s the ones put the lady in the lake last summer. When did you decide you had to be the last of the independents, anyway? And how’s it gonna look, people know you talked to me before?”

Whit still staring out the window. “What do you care what other people think? Those cheapskates have been screwing me—both of us—for years. I don’t want to be boss, just a little more free. They got to sleep sometimes. I’ll sneak in so I get the drop, sucker punch them, and in the morning I’ll be gone. I don’t need you to go in, just drive the getaway car.”

“Alls I know is, you don’t get in and out of there pronto, you might as well dig two graves for us. That’s some big mojo you’re going up against. You’re wading into war there, man. From here it look like a one-way ticket to the big nowhere.”

“What the fuck, Geezer? You got those Miami blues again? I thought we got past that. You used to be one tough hombre.”

Geezer spit in the sink. “I used to say crime always pays, too. Look where that got me. What you’re planning here will bring nothing but trouble, forever. Sucker punch them, my ass. This set-up calls for the walkaway.”

“Fuck trouble. Trouble is my business.” Whit let the smile fade. Geezer had a point. “Listen, buddy. Remember that girl I met last year? Lives down to Mercer’s Hollow?”

“The hollow girl? Yeah, I remember. You talked about her for a month.”

“She was the last good kiss I had, and it’s been a year. I need a fresh start to get her back, and this is my chance. You in?”

Geezer was in. Clear all day, late rain moved in as they crossed the river, drove past the big O that marked the abandoned Oberg mine. They made it past the first three sentries, but the fourth watcher spotted them. The guards gathered quick once word got out, and by dawn, Whit’s perfect hatred for some toothless, Prohibition-era gangsters left him and Geezer as road kill.