the Wakefield Doctrine

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Hosted by Denise and defined by a single number: 6 (the exact number of sentences in qualified stories)

Previously on ‘a Café Six‘

Prompt Word:

RANK

“Lou?”

“Tall.”

The two men stood on equal, opposite sides of the round, lacquered-wood table; claiming a hemisphere being the most equitable of ranking, social or otherwise.

One, dressed in an exquisitely-tailored bespoke suit, raised an eyebrow, an ambassador of a smile that stood in the wings, the better to be fashionably late; the other, whose fashion choice was emblematic of a life in which lethality and personal comfort were of equal status, blew a grey-blue cloud of cigar smoke only to disrupt it’s fractal symmetry as he leaned out over the table’s equator.

A fraction of a second before the growing tension would have compelled an ordering of rank, the ice-maker, alone behind the bar reflecting neon votive candles of rows of liquor bottles, released it’s freshest, coldest cubes; it was a sound not unlike that of an antique steam locomotive’s first piston thrust tearing the machine from Newton’s grasp.

Both men acknowledged their amusement and sat down at the table.

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This is the Doctrine’s contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Hosted by Denise, governed by a single rule (that stories be of six sentences in length, no more and no less)

Prompt Word:

CLOSE

“No Fricken Way”

The smell of coffee and the skittering of metal on china was my welcome to my new ‘here and now’; I took a moment, closing my eyes against the reality I found myself in and recalled a line from one of Carlos Castaneda’s books in which don Juan Mateus confides in his half-comic-relief foil, Carlos, that, ‘the world is a feeling’. I treated myself to a smile of pride at not going into catatonic regression in light of  the events of the previous ten minutes (or days), as I honestly had no idea how long ago my encounter in the tunnel under College Hill had been.

“Tell me, how expensive is this little operation, the drugs alone must be a huge part of your budget, Mr….” having resigned myself to being a captive audience to the man sitting opposite me, I opened my eyes, looked around and started to laugh.

In the booth behind us, a young family, the boy couldn’t have been more than six, his eyes like saucers at the prospect of breakfast in the middle of the day and, pancakes at that; over the shoulder of the man without a name a young college-age couple: his hair was a blond waterfall breaking on the shoulders of a Salvation Army trench coat and he talked in a mumble that relied on the gesticulation of his hands to clarify his torrent of words, the girl’s hair was long, freshly ironed and behind gold wire-rimmed glasses, her eyes were calculating as the equation of happiness was arranging itself on an invisible blackboard; had he not been as young as he acted, he might have heard the chalk scrape of the positive and negative integers of reproduction.

“Let’s set aside the mechanics of your little show, I’m willing to stipulate your production values are quite impressive,” looking out the window to the parking lot I could see the car I woke up in seemingly a minute ago, the street sign clearly readable as Thayer Street; looking down at our table, the sight of a chrome-wire rack of six different flavors of maple syrup triggered a chill up my spine, “In fact, let’s not argue minor points, the East Side International House of Pancakes was demolished in the mid-seventies, so fine, you’ve managed to transport me back in time fifty-plus years,” the man nodded silently;

“So what the fuck do you want?”

*

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This is the Doctrine’s contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Hosted by Denise, governed by a single rule (that stories be of six sentences in length, no more and no less)

Prompt Word:

CLOSE

The interior of the Six Sentence Café & Bistro was quiet, in that secret way experienced in an elementary school classroom in mid-July or the darkened car’s backseat on the tail end of a good second date. Halfway along the longest interior wall of the club was a small stage; invisible to the casual eye was a very sophisticated lighting system and a genuinely remarkable sound system, all awaiting the occasional jazz trio, poet-on-the-rise or up-and coming comedian.

Stepping up the three wooden steps, the tall, thin man removed his suit coat and carefully draping the Dege & Skinner label over the top of the solitary mic stand he put a pack of Benson & Hedges and a glass of ginger ale on the stool; facing the dark room, he shaded his eyes as if trying to see beyond the spotlight that drew his shadow on the brick wall behind him and with a laugh aimed at this feet spoke with an air of sharing a confidence with a close friend.

“A blonde walks into a library and says in a loud voice, ‘I want a cheeseburger and fries, please.’ The librarian leans forward and quietly tells the blonde, ‘This is a library, miss.’ The blonde replies, ‘Oh sorry,’ and whispers, ‘I want a cheeseburger and fries, please.'”

Turning at the sound clapping in the dark, audience-right, the Proprietor held up his right hand, “Sorry, we’re closed.”

From a table against the far wall, a Chivas and Corona laugh elbowed it’s way towards the stage, “If I fuckin’ wanted to sit in a crowd of young men trying their nightclub moves on a sorority sister or watch a buncha Knights of the Order of Viagra try to keep their lances up, I woulda stayed at my own joint, ya know what I’m saying?”

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Hosted by Denise, defined by a single number: 6 (the exact number of sentences in qualified stories)

Hey! This Six is a continuation of last week’s Serial Six Sentence Story. As the old TV shows used to say, “Previously on….” Read Me.

Prompt Word:

BLEND

‘That was Miles Davis’ ‘Kinda Blue’ and you’re listening to WBRU, 666 on your radio dial; from high on College Hill, the only station bringing you a smooth blend of jazz from the Roaring 40’s to the present anno domino; next up is a cut from a brand new group called the Mahavishnu Orchestra.‘

I sat up…well, more like trying to get my head in a position to establish where the hell I was, unfortunately this strategy was stymied by my head hitting something smooth, curved and unmovable; throwing caution to the wind, I opened my eyes and saw the crescent moon of the lower half of a car steering wheel.

First victory in hand, I knew I wasn’t blind and I could hear and move… sorta, but something wasn’t right… the steering wheel was of a hard and cool-to-the-touch material and, according to the pressure on my lower back when I pushed out with my feet, I was lying flat on my back; sitting upright, veering to avoid the steering wheel which was all of a circle and a hub, I found myself in the middle of a single front seat, I felt the same kind of stomach twinge that I had when I heard….

“My voice?”

To my credit, I didn’t scream and thought to look in the rearview mirror, which was a small, simple and empty oval suspended from the windshield; naturally that made me look at the mostly metal and glass dashboard as the thought began to form…

“Antique vintage Chevrolet?”

Knowing the car was empty and the sight of what looked like a movie set for all the people dressed funny, mostly short dresses on the girls and long hair on the guys, I figured the better part of valor would be facilitated by closing my eyes and focus on the disembodied voice.

“Unless I’m mistaken, which I rarely am in affairs involving chrono-intercessions such as the one I am currently privileged to conduct, you’re searching for the ideal interrogatory adverb, might I recommend going with ‘When’.“

*

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Hosted by Denise. defined by a single number: 6 (the exact number of sentences in qualified stories)

Hey! This is a continuation of the Serial Six (though not the narrative) from last week. Helps to know why Ian’s admin, Hazel  is asking so many people a single question, ‘When did you last see Ian? So, Ian Devereaux’s faithful admin is on the warpath. Hazel’s boss has been missing for three days and she means to get to the bottom of it. Read Me.

Prompt Word:

BLEND

“I’ll tell ya this, kid, and don’t take this the wrong way, your boss has a way of pissing people off and not in a good way, case-in-point, I gave him some work, nothin’ complicated, a blend of surveillance and skip-tracing on someone important to me and he goes and, wait a minute, why am I tellin’ you, you’re his fuckin’ secretary,” a dismissive wave of his left hand, a mea culpa for his temporary lapse as host, the owner of the Bottom of the Sea Strip Club and Lounge raised his eyebrows at something or someone behind the woman sitting opposite him in the booth, “I ain’t telling you nothin’ you don’t already know, Hazel, after all you’re here in my establishment giving me the fuckin’ third degree, ya got balls, I’ll give you that and when Devereaux shows back up, tell him I said he needs to give you a raise; now if you’ll excuse me I have to talk to a gentleman about his somewhat novel business model involving arbitrage and certain artwork,” his raised eyebrows brought an end to the interview.

“I’d say don’t let Lou upset you,” Diane Tierney’s frown of sympathy submitted it’s resignation, leaving the hostess’s face smoothed in a smile of admiration, “but that’s clearly nothing you need me to tell you, Hazel; the last time Ian was here was New Year’s Eve, I remember because he left in a hurry just after the arrival of Rosetta Storme and her date, didn’t catch his name; anyway, Rosetta shows up and Ian hightails it out through the kitchen.”

“Who’s this, yeah I’m Rosetta, how’d you get this number… listen, I don’t know no Hazel, oh, you’re Hazel, well, I’m happy for you, what do you want, I don’t know any Ian Devo… Devereaux, whatever, where was I on New Year’s Eve… wait, I got this one, I was on the corner of Fuck St and Off Ave that helpful enough, of course I know who the cook at the Bottom of the Sea is, it’s Gus Deljudice and yeah, now that you mention it, he was working New Years Eve… all chef hat and white smock…  do I sound like a 411 service, go ask Diane, that frosty bitch knows everything; you’re welcome and I don’t care.”

“Sure, New Year’s Eve he ran through my kitchen like the devil was chasing him, sorry ma’am I didn’t speak to him, New Year’s Eve is always a madhouse at Lou’s joint, but Rosetta showed up with a date, that’s about when Ian left, I always liked him, lunch almost every weekday… now, nothing out of the ordinary except I remember a man who lingered at the hostess station at the front of the house, after Miz Storme arrived, but he turned right around and left… I’ll be happy to call you if I, it’s Hazel, right?”

Hazel didn’t want to call her friend in the State Police, in no small part because Ian’s book of business was comprised of a small, but not insignificant number of clients engaged in hypo-legal business ventures; letting the neon shawl fall from her shoulders to the sidewalk, she walked away from the Bottom of the Sea; a child’s voice from the sodium vapor-striped parking lot drew her attention.

“That detective guy, always tipped me to keep an eye on his ride, yeah I saw him, he was walking up the street, in a hurry but then a car did a u-turn, one of those goofy lookin electric cars.. the big one, looks like a DeLorean designed by a coked-out high school kid, it never stopped, it just kept on going; jeez thanks lady, I’ll call you if I see either one of them.”