the Wakefield Doctrine

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, constrained by a sentence limit (high and low) of six, there are worse ways to spend the remaining time you have on earth.

Previously, in our tale...

Prompt word:

SLIP

Channelling my inner fourth-grade parochial school self, I raised my hand.

It took an easy full minute for my dinner companions to notice; not counting Anya Clarieaux… said no one with a sense of self-preservation ever.

The others: four people, all safely on the right shoulder of the Stanford-Binet bellcurve, let their silence serve as a Jules Winfieldesque retort to the nonverbal assertion of my elevated hand; Rosetta looked annoyed and the Sophomore showed relief; the nun and her leprechaun simply stared. I suspected the former had learned at an early age to slip into the background at the first sign of conflict, while her diminutive companion had an expression most often observed on the faces of mean drunks hoping to get in a fight and sixteen-year-old girls disappointed that their first real boyfriend preferred to hang out with his bros most of the time.

As it stood, Cyrus St. Loreto would play with this group like a mountain lion coming off a catnip-jag in a ball pit full of children on the last day of Summer vacation.

“Ian, how delightful, you truly never disappoint; do you care to bring your little group of Adventurers up to speed on how totally fucked they are if they even think they can out maneuver the man in Miami?”

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, constrained by a sentence limit (high and low) of six, there are worse ways to spend the remaining time you have on earth.

Previously, in our tale…

Prompt word:

SLIP

“If you gentlemen would excuse me, I must have a word with my fellow Proprietors.”

The tall, thin man managed what, as unlikely a gesture in the ‘swipe ‘n scroll’ world of 21st Century social intercourse as holding a door for someone, was a subtle bow, nothing more than a certain incline of the upper body, offset by his steady eye-contact with each man, “Lou, mi casa es su casa, whenever you are in the neighborhood.”

Lou Caesare, shrugging into the coat held by his driver, paused, “Likewise, though I suspect my invitation to ya boy Frank here to stop in at the Bottom of the Sea fell on deaf ears, which is too bad seein’ how Diane just hired a new dancer by the name, Holli Spirit,” the club owner completed the topological miracle of slipping both tree trunk arms into the tailored overcoat while making it look graceful.

Waving away his driver and Frank, Lou leaned closer, “And about that matter with my niece Rosetta out in Chicago, I appreciate your efforts.”

“la Raconteuse! Jy is die een skrywer aan wie al die Muses veg om toegewys te word…” the Manager, turning to his left as Lou walked away, laughed unselfconsciously as Chris and Aurelia approached.

“Please tell me that was a genuine compliment in Afrikaans, the manager continued, “After my attempt to slip a Cajun greeting into the note attached to the balloon bouquet for Mimi several weeks ago and getting the spelling wrong, you’d think I’d swear off online translations.”

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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, constrained by a sentence limit (high and low) of six, there are worse ways to spend the remaining time you have on earth.

Previously, in our tale…

Prompt word:

YARN

“You fuckin’ crack me up, you know that?”

Lou Caesare manifested what could best be called an unbridled appetite for life; what he lacked in polish he more than made up for with simple, and mostly good-natured, exuberance, at least on those occasions he felt in the presence of friends.

“I like you Frank, I really do and anybody tries to mess with you and your Topo Gigio invisible friend, just gimme a sign, won’t be no trouble at all,” Lou leaned towards his new found friend, “Sister Imelda, my third grade teacher used to say, between whacking my knuckles raw for talking in the back of the class, “Remember what Proverbs tell us: “…lean not on your own understanding”; I know now what she meant, but back then I was kid dreaming of running the world, or at least my old neighborhood.”

“Not to get excessively meta…” the tall, thin man smiled a smile one might see on a successful broker’s face as he handed a client his business card, low key persistence.

Were it not for his euro-urban rasp, one might have missed Lou’s phonetic mimicry as he covered his mouth to poorly mute an explosive ‘Bullshit!’

Mimi, now that all had made it safely through the intermittently dark hallways, was where she preferred to be and for reasons impossible to understand, was assailed briefly by thoughts of Norns and skeins of bloody yarn.

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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, constrained by a sentence limit (high and low) of six, there are worse ways to spend the remaining time you have on earth.

Previously, in our tale…

Prompt word:

PINCH

I did a paper once in grad school titled: ‘Overt Emotional Tenor Coincident with Challenging the Individual’s Belief System’. Hey, I was majoring in psychology for two reasons: I’d just met Haley, my future ex-wife and drowning in unconditional sex and love; being younger than I should have been, I woefully lacked the capacity to distinguish between the two.

The people at our table were: young and in love(ish); young and enjoying a sense of companionable stability; young and in a crisis of faith; of indeterminant age and demanding respect; our host, Anya,

“You have something you wish to add, Ian?”

In a pinch, when needing to frame a social context to my advantage, I’ll go with Warner Brother’s cartoons every time: Anya Clarieaux as a terribly attractive combination of love, sex and life-threatening peril, sorta Wiley Coyote and the Tasmanian Devil in drag.

“Well, Anya, while my take-away from both recordings was, were I sitting with friends and making up stories, it would be irresistible to not conclude that the Count St. Loreto in the first story is the same as the guy in Miami that Rosetta’s uncle wanted nothing to do with; and Lou being a underworld crime figure, gotta make you wonder about the nature of St. Loreto’s business.

I know we’ve all agreed to not talk about how unbelievable it is we’re here under the premise that a component of a time travel device… no, pardon me, a time travel mechanism, will be arriving tomorrow, but can I just hold up a hand-lettered sign: ‘Help‘.”

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