Stench | Micro Fiction by Rod Tipton

The Adams Hotel is on Atlantic in the waterfront district of San Pedro. A two story frame building slapped together sometime in the mid-1930s. It has no romantic past, only a lay-over for transients, merchant marines, prostitutes and the generally down and out. I was a broke student tired of couch surfing.

It was late and I was riding my Yamaha back to the hotel. The muffles were blown and its scream echoed up the deserted streets. This greasy motorcycle had all but ended my dating life. However, living in LA and getting to all the places I need to go for a few bucks a week made a sense I couldn’t avoid.

Kitty-cornered from the hotel a seven-story “residence home for the aged” was going-up. The cranes that lifted the building materials seemed twice that tall. Everyday but Sunday work began at 6 in the morning. After that, a high mounted loudspeaker blasted announcements every few minutes. The speaker could be heard all the way to the water and made it impossible to sleep.

The only night you could party without a concern for the loudspeaker was Saturday. This was the end of Saturday night. My trip home was tinge with a psychedelic cartoon quality. The bike’s handling seemed rubbery and I was holding back a beer-pee.

I was close to ‘home’. When I got there I pushed the kickstand down, switched-off and swung my leg onto the street. Just in front of me a girl about my age led a man much older than either of us up the stairs of the Adams. He blended with the shadows and old walls – invisible with some success.

Out of respect for their legally delicate relationship I didn’t follow them up. I instead used the bathroom downstairs. There were three working girls on the second floor. Her door was next to mine but she would never make eye contact or acknowledge me in anyway. To her I did not exist. I flushed the urinal and felt the world go woozy under my feet. My night was over.

I got my boots off before I passed out in bed. The sun wasn’t up yet and I was dreaming. The dream was dim and unimportant until a smell worked itself into my mindscape with painful clarity. My eyes came open. It was confusing to have part of a dream persist into consciousness. A heavy stench filled my room. My head swam and I felt like gagging.

I turned the light on. It was August so the windows were up. I opened my door and looked into the hallway. Half the second floor was awake out. Across the hall Anthony’s door came open. Anthony was a good guy. He drank Mickey’s Big Mouths and could talk sense about most anything.

He shook his head and pointed south. “They steam-clean the tuna packing plant across the way once a month.” I imagined four-week-old fish guts blowing out into the harbor. God.

It was then that I heard my neighbor’s door open behind me. Her eyes were as dark as I had thought. Her skin was pale olive. There was a question in face and for the first time she looked directly at me. Eye to eye. I watched as I appeared before her, suddenly stepping out from the background noise of her life. I had my chance. I nodded toward the window. “The tuna factory”, I said. I tried to make my smile sympathetic. I felt her adding me up, calculating and making her judgment. As fast as I had come into being, I was annulled. She pulled her head back, closed her door.

“Shit” I said. Anthony shrugged. “Hell, man she already lives where it stinks. She wants somebody to take her away, not be company in the middle of it.” I wanted to argue but couldn’t . “Don’t worry man, this shit only lasts a while. We’ll be okay.” I lay back on my bed as the smell faded. Absurd to think of myself as anyone’s salvation, but I still rolled around with the idea while I waited for sleep.

-

Rod Tipton is a poet and filmmaker from Seattle, Washington.

THE MAN WHO SPOKE COMIC BOOK Micro-Fiction by Rod Tipton

Thurston Reeves was admitted to Dauphin County Senior Care Center at the age of 58. He was taken to a room in the South East corner of the Memory Annex Building that sits some hundred yards behind the main facility. By luck it had view of the Susquehanna River.

The victim of a genetic mutation, his diagnosis was early onset of Alzheimer’s. At 59 Thurston’s great-grandfather, John Reeves, walked out of the family farm house 3 AM and into an Indiana January blizzard wearing only his long-johns and carrying a broom. John’s last recorded words were “Got to find Tuffy.” Tuffy was his childhood dog that had died some thirty-five years prior.

Thurston sat in a chair at his window for the better part of that day silently watching the river flow past. It wasn’t until just before dinner he made his first pronouncement; “The antimatter converter is failing. We must find another power source or we’re going in.”

Growing up he read comic books religiously. The Dale twins, who lived three doors down, and he spent hours, days, months and years acting out super hero scenarios. They memorized and used the phrases and terminology of comic book fantasy. “Your puny attack is futile against my weaponry” and so on.

Almost a year to the day before becoming a resident of DCSCC, Reeves began peppering his conversations with “comic-book-speak” as his son called it. Six months later he spoke nothing else.

Dean Wilkinson was 62 and worked three jobs to make ends meet. Caring for the slowly dying at the Annex was his least favorite job, but he needed the money. It was 4:30 AM when he signed the forms at the nurses station and picked the tray full of small brown envelops containing the drugs for his 5 o’clock rounds.

He was loopy tired but ahead of schedule which meant an early end to his shift and extra sleep. It was exhausted dyslexia that caused him to be standing in the doorway of room 417. Reeves was sitting at the window watching the summer mist melt away and Susquehanna slowly becoming visible in the light of dawn.
Wilkinson flipped on the over head light and the mist and river were gone. Reeves looked at his own reflection which was confusing. Wilkinson sat the tray down, “Time for your meds Mr. Clark.”

While Thurston tried to make sense of the word “ Clark”, Wilkinson put two pills in Reeves hand. “Swallow these down.” Thurston felt the situation needed to be clarified. “Astronavigation has yet to plot a course for this mission.”

Wilkinson’s years of experience had gave him a deep reservoir of problem solving techniques. “Hurry, take them.” Dean said in his most authoritarian voice, “They will give you more power then you can imagine.”

Reeves gaped in awe at the green and orange capsules glowing in his hand. His destiny had finally arrived. The might and glory of his murky past was being given back to him. Soon he would explode up into the still gray sky and fly away leaving a trail like a comet.

He looked into the eyes of man with the spongy face who stood before him, it was time for a farewell then; “Even though I have replenished my supplies and my sun-packs are full, I am loathed to leave this green planet.” He threw the pills back and swallowed.

Wilkinson’s best smile was thin and tired. He flicked the light out and left. Reeves turned back to the window and found the river. These drugs were not meant for his body and in less then two hours would stop his heart from beating. Thurston liked how the river was long and silver. To him these attributes seemed to give it a purpose, a purpose he wished he could share.



-

Rod Tipton is a poet and filmmaker from Seattle, Washington.

'CONDO LIFE' by Rod Tipton

the great, great, 

grand progeny 

of wolves

living the 

condo life; 

a nervous little

black and white, 

bob-tailed dog

snapped to a leash 

dragged down 

the sidewalk 

by clacking ultra-high heels

her thin lips pulled back in 

an eternal frown,

"come on baby 

do a nice poopy 

for mommy. 

I've got a date" 

-
Rod Tipton is a poet and filmmaker from Seattle, Washington.

2 Poems by Rod Tipton |

Those Who Ruled Us

the small monsters
that sat at our elbow
who we invited to disclose
encouraged them to share

their gibberish contempt
and senseless calculations
have skulked back sneering
into the half lit shadows

scientists can know beasts
past by their leavings
but the stench of cannibals
is all we have left to sift



The Last Hoax

gambling on the power of a hoax
we talk like nothing is wrong

she repeats the same old tale
but the moral of her story escapes me

my thoughts are not germane
my gut is rebelling

there were nights we looked for each other
with flashlights and bull-horns

hounds bayed for our bodies
to be lock together with grand truths

but that search ended long-ago
and she has blanked on my name

emptiness is already growing
between us like moss

trite conversation is our only lifeline
or gravity will have its way

and drop us into another pointless
fireball of contempt

leaving this room is complex
an informality of grace and disregard

the wood door is near
I can almost touch its carved images

it is with great relief I realize
I will never see them again


_
Rod Tipton is a writer and filmmaker as well as the Editor of Commonline. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

2 Poems by Rod Tipton | (2009 Pushcart Nominee)

MY FATHER
IN A MOTEL

I had never seen
him without his teeth
but he is sitting
on the corner
of a bed in a motel
lips caved into his mouth
until they are almost gone

his skin looser
and more transparent
than last time
he came through

In the 1950s and 60s
he smoked Luckies
wore his cap tilted back
and just off center

Taught me about fishing,
car maintenance,
airplanes, his temper
and that life is always work

He loved to move then
always traveling
but age has caught
him in mid stride

and when he should have
a wife, home and comfort
they have left conjured away
by disease and the banks

So he still travels
sleep walking through cities
his body becoming inert
falling in on its self

Right now he is slouched
next to a pink lamp
on a white spread, laid over
a commercial grade mattress
and will not budge

Will only make indifferent
noises to every suggestion
with small lifts of his shoulders
as if his words have lost
their power and been pulled
into a final nothing
gone with everything else
that had been his



---



BAR MUSIC

something charming
on the piano

a rolling tune
to make you think
of a small circus

a slender woman
on the rope

agile, balanced

wraps her leg
like a snake

and hangs
in arched glory
at a dangerous height

then snaps and twists
and lowers herself

uncurling her body
onto the stool
next to yours

“bravo” you shout
and quickly check
your wallet

hoping you have enough
to buy her a drink




--
Rod Tipton is a poet and filmmaker from Seattle, Washington.