WRiTE CLUB 2019 - Semi-Final #1

We're not messing around anymore! This journey began with 189 submissions and by the end of this week we will determine which two contestants will be submitting their 1,000-word writing sample to the panel of celebrity judges. In order to do that we must first hold a pair of semi-final bouts, and today is #1.

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

The voting for both of this week's bouts will close on Sunday, June 16th (noon central time).

Here once again are the voting guidelines –

1) One vote per visitor per bout.

2) Anyone can vote (even the contestants themselves), but although our contestants are anonymous, voters cannot be. Anonymous votes will not count, so if you do not have a Google account and are voting as a guest, be sure to include your name and email address.

3) Using any method (email, social media, text, etc) to solicit votes for a specific contestant will cause that contestant's immediate disqualification. It’s perfectly okay, in fact, it is encouraged to spread the word about the contest to get more people to vote, just not for a specific writer!

4) Although more of a suggestion than a rule - cast your vote before you read other comments. Do not let yourself be swayed by the opinions of others.

Like the man say's

Welcome back to the ring our first contestant...IshYouNotIshMe

The car shuddered as the cop pushed Daddy against the hood. Mom screamed and hid her face behind her hands. Daddy caught my eye.

Take care of your mama and sister, his wink said.

I nodded and pulled Amy into my side. Her wide, scared eyes asked the question none of us could voice: Why?

We sat there, frozen from fear and cold, until long after the red and blue lights faded into the night. Snow, hard as sand, clicked softly against the windows and the car rocked every time a semi rumbled past.

“Mom,” I said through chattering teeth. “Amy’s cold. Can we go?”

Mom sighed heavily and scooted into Daddy’s spot. Her hands shook as she turned the key. Pat Benatar cautioned that love is a battlefield, but Mom cut her off.

“There’s nowhere to go; we were evicted.” Her voice slurred around sobs. She pulled onto the dark highway and headed down the mountain.

We slid into a booth at a Village Inn. Mom lit a cigarette and counted coins. “How am I supposed to bail him out?” she whispered through tears.

The waitress brought us a pancake face with scrambled egg hair and a bacon smile. Chocolate chip eyes tried to reassure me, but I didn’t need reassurance, I needed Daddy. And sleep.

My next memory is waking up on a couch in a strange apartment. Amy breathed heavily on the other end, and I pulled a scratchy army blanket over her. My bladder threatened to explode, but snooping would be rude, so I chased sleep again. Eventually, the waitress from Village Inn came out of a bedroom and showed me the bathroom. She asked if I was hungry. My stomach growled but I said no; she poured me a bowl of Lucky Charms anyway.

I don’t know how long we stayed, but it felt like weeks. Mom and the lady left every morning, cautioning us to say inside with the door locked. I occupied Amy with stories about what really happened to Daddy. He hadn’t been arrested, that was a cover. No, he was a spy on a mission to save the Queen of England. We just had to be brave until he came back.

When I saw Daddy again, he wasn’t a spy. He was in an orange jumpsuit, and the smeared glass between us didn’t hide his black eye. His swollen lip. Mom cried as she held the grimy phone to her ear. I longed to hear his voice, but she hogged all the time.

When he finally got out, Daddy wouldn’t talk about what happened. I’ve spent decades trying to untangle why they kept him so long. Tomorrow marks two years since he died, and I’ve been saving up for something to honor his memory. When the idea hit me, it felt as right as my favorite sweater. Tomorrow, I’ll bail out a stranger. And, maybe, I can save another kid a lifetime of unanswered questions.

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And their most worthy opponent...give a hearty welcome to Ms. Sunnydale

Sadie took a long drag of New York City winter and blew it out in a wet, white cloud. She felt like one of the older girls, with their lit burners pressed between pink lips so the men noticed their mouths.

But Sadie would be noticed regardless. She had hair the color of a Kerry Bog Palomino, and the men in this town loved their ponies. Her brother took their bets down at the Fourth Ward pub, and she saw the hunger in their eyes whenever they got a good tip about a thoroughbred and chased it with gold coins.

A gentleman in a longtail coat stepped off the curb and stumbled. Sadie watched him correct himself and tug at his hem for balance. He didn’t need to come closer for her to smell the whiskey on his breath, but he came closer anyway. 

“Are you an angel?” he slurred.

“I can be, if that’s what you fancy.” Sadie clasped her hands in front of her skirts and looked up at him through blackened lashes. 

His lips curled in a lazy smile. “You’re a pretty one. I should like to take y’dancing.”

She laughed and it was an enchanted thing, like a hundred silver bells snagged on a harbor breeze. “I’ve not been taught proper dancing. I might step on your toes.”

“You won’t hurt me, darling.”

He offered her an unsteady arm, and the two walked together up Mulberry and into the guts of the Five Points. The man didn’t belong in that neighborhood but, like most highbrow merchants from upper Manhattan, he seemed to know it was where to get your fix of sin. The alcohol was copious, the brothels bursting, and there was always someone willing to do anything for your money.    

Music poured through open windows as they passed. Women sang siren songs with otherworldly lilts. The smell of pig entrails and horse dung didn’t faze Sadie anymore, but the man retched as the stench stirred the stagnant liquor in his belly.  

“Perhaps we should rest,” Sadie suggested. And so as not to make him feel weak, she added, “These boots hurt my poor feet.”

Approving the excuse and keen on playing savior, he tugged her into an alleyway where clothes dripped idly overhead and rotting stairs traversed the shadows between brick tenements. She pulled up her petticoat to perch on a low rung and noticed a familiar hunger flash across the man’s face. One that would feed her own.

She stiffened as he approached, flinched when he cupped her cheek. It would take more than fifteen years to train away those childish impulses.  

“Shh, that’s a good lass,” he said softly to her, as though gentling a wild colt.

But there was the trouble. Sadie was no one’s pony. And not even gambling man would have predicted it when she cracked the man’s nose with her skull and walked out of that alleyway a richer woman than she’d entered.

A good lass, indeed. 

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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 Thursday with our second semi-final bout. 

Please help all our writers out by telling everyone you know what is happening here and encourage them to come vote.

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