WRiTE CLUB 2019 - Playoff Bout #2

Reminder - Cage Bouts 5-6 are still taking your votes. Please make those your next stop if you've not voted there yet.

We are now (or soon will be) down to just six contestants and it's time to see how they match up with ALL NEW MATERIAL.

There will be three bouts this week (Mon-Wed-Fri) and pay special attention to when voting ends because a staggered timeline will be used again. Speaking of voting, it has a special significance during the playoffs because in addition to three winners advancing to the semi-finals, a fourth Wildcard winner will also be selected. How is the WC chosen? It will be the loser that had garnered the most votes among all three losers. So every vote counts - win or lose.

We do ask that you leave a brief critique for all of our contestants because that is one of the real values of this contest – FEEDBACK. Please be respectful with your remarks!

The voting for today’s bout will close on Monday, June 10th (noon central time).

The piece that garnishes the most votes will move on to the semi-final round where they’ll face a different opponent with another NEW WRITING SAMPLE. 

As always, in case of a tie, I’m the deciding vote.

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Like the man say's

Please welcome back into the ring, with all new material - 

Hijinks Aplenty

He first noticed the fingernails.

Toweling his hair, steam clinging to his shoulders, Drew had walked into his closet and stepped on something sharp.

“Dammit!” he shouted. His good mood from pumping iron at the gym evaporated as he threw the towel down. Wobbling on one leg, he examined his right heel. A thin scratch veined down the center.

He rubbed his foot and scowled. No belt buckle or stray thumbstacks that he could see. No metal object at all. He squatted and stared at the faux wood tile of his floor more closely.

And that’s when Drew saw them: three fingernails.

They were full nails, perfectly manicured, except one, which bore a jagged split in its middle. They were painted. Red? Auburn orange? He didn’t know what you’d call that color. The polish meant they couldn’t be his. And the only nails he should be finding were the slivers he occasionally chewed off and spit out around the house.

Drew reached down to collect them, only to discover they were embedded in the tile. He picked at them. They wouldn’t budge. He held one tightly and tried to jerk it out, wiggling it left and right. But it refused to yield. It was almost as though they were growing out of the fake grain, attached to some root he couldn’t see.

He thought about trying his pliers. But he had that damned 8:00AM meeting, and he didn’t want anyone giving him crap for coming in late. Well, too late. He could count on Griff to roll in at ten after. And Drew intended to be sitting with scoff of disapproval at the ready when that happened.

So he snatched the towel up and dropped it over the nails, hiding them from sight. He finished gathering his clothing. Closing the closet door, he didn’t notice the towel shifting, a twitching of the fabric.

As he was lacing up a shoe, Drew’s phone vibrated from his end table. Unlocking it with his thumb, he glanced at the new text message. 

*You didn’t give me the right number*

Not a number he recognized. The phone buzzed in his hand, a second message coming through.

*The ladies let me know*

“The hell?” he muttered. Drew started to text back “Who r u?” when the phone buzzed a third time.

*We’re trying to reach you*

He didn’t have time for this. Whatever this was. He deleted the messages and blocked the number.

Gathering the last of his stuff for the day, Drew locked up and threw himself into his lime green Charger. He didn’t glance over his shoulder as he peeled out. If he didn’t hit any red lights, he could still make it to the office before Griff. Cutting off a Camry, he forgot all about the fingernails in his closet.

That is, until he found the tongue. 

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Our second contestant is Ms. Sunnydale

I wait in the back of the nave, staring down the long, pillared throat of the St. Cecilia Roman Catholic Church. For all its soaring arches and cerulean sunlight, it feels suffocating. Perhaps it’s the eyes staring back at me—not those of the parishioners, but of the angels and saints and Savior affixed to its walls, appraising the wretches gathered before them.

If only to avoid them, I slip into the first pew and bow my head in equal parts veneration and guilt. It’s been too long since I’ve been through these doors, and too soon since I’ve been tumbling in someone else’s bed. And to top it off, now I’m just minutes from being handed my mortal reckoning by a bleedin’ mob boss.

Sunday funday, indeed.

From the pulpit, the priest reads from the gospel of Luke. I don’t recall it from the days of children’s Mass, when Callum and I would drive Sister Mary Clare mad with our antics, but I get the gist: holy joes and humbled sinners and hard-won mercy.

Mercy. Psh. I doubt I’ll ever earn it… me, and all the other poor sobs standing on the receiving end of judgement. Whether it’s served by the Lord, or the Law, or the devil himself, it doesn’t matter. Retribution flows like a river through this town and I reckon it will drown us all in the end. 

            “You look well for a ghost.” The man sliding onto the bench beside me is the picture of old-money self-assurance. If his peacoat is expensive, his watch is fecking obscene—a classic Day-Date Presidential with a pearlescent dial and price tag you could live a modest life on. His face is clean-shaven, his smile just subtle enough to make you doubt yourself. He smells of nice cologne and cold blood. “It’s been too long, Quinn.”

            I let Donahue pull me into a hug and run a broad palm over my back. I could convince myself that this is just a mentor greeting his apprentice, but I know the gesture is one of protocol—he’s checking me for a wire.

            Feeling nothing under my t-shirt but a thunderous heartbeat, he turns to the service.

            “I’m sorry to hear about your brother. Still missing, is he?” He clicks his tongue. “Such a tragedy.”

            My throat tightens at the word. I know all about this man’s relationship with tragedy. I know because he was the one who taught me all the ways to inflict it. But he never mentioned what to do when it turns on you.

“Tell me…” I swallow and try again. “Tell me you weren’t involved. Tell me you didn’t hurt him.”

 The congregation swells in joyous song, so at odds with the sickness in my gut. Donahue closes his eyes and tilts his head in time with the music. When he opens them again and turns them on me, there is no mercy there. “Do you want me to tell you that,” he asks, “or the truth?”           

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Please leave your votes and critiques in the comments below. Again, be respectful of your remarks and try to point out positives as well as detractions.

We’ll be back on Friday with our final playoff bout. 

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This is WRiTE CLUB—the contest where the audience gets clobbered!