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 (insisting only on the number of sentences be Six). No more. No less.

Back in May of last year, Tom, (The Mansionic Perspective) he comes up and says, ‘Hey clark,” he says, “I’m thinking my bunch of superheroes might have an interest in some of them characters what frequent the Bottom of the Sea Strip Club and Lounge.” The beginning of the Doctrine’s contribution to the serial mashup can be read: Here

Well, our friend (and chef at the Six Sentence Cafe and Bistro) is at it again. Last week he wrote a Six that took place at Rue DeNite’s house. Totally un-expected. (Thanks! Frank…Mimi!)

Previously on (as yet named)… Serial Six we find Moonbeam feeling surprised

Prompt Word:

HEART

“Shit! Turn the car around.”

Like luminescent dominoes, the halogen street lights illuminated both speaker and driver through the car’s moonroof;  the driver was male, (Exhibit 1: early-stage male pattern baldness), confident, (Exhibit 2: right-hand on the wheel, left-elbow on armrest) and possessed of a certain serenity: (Exhibit 3: an easy smile of affectionate curiosity despite the volume/intensity from his passenger); who, with the additional  light from oncoming traffic, was unabashedly female, (Exhibit 4: eclipse-dark shadows rising and falling across her upper chest), athletic, (Exhibit 5: in an activity not so much focused on defying gravity as it was conspiring with it, i.e. willowy yet providing her provocative clothing with every parry and feint considered important to women’s fashion designers) and possessed of an intellect that searched for traps even as she baited her own, (Exhibit 6: shaded by her short, blue-veined blonde hair were two tattoos, below her right ear: Non serviam and, starting beneath her left ear trailing downwards: Vincit quae se vincit.)

The neighborhood was as quiet as a non-gated community gets, the architecture was tasteful, every house had three car garages and sited a discrete distance from the street, a taste not a meal, in terms of privacy; Rocco pulled the black-on-black DB12 into the driveway nearest the front entrance.

“I’ll be right back,” Rue’s shadow flowed across the front of the garage door, slowing as she approached the half-open front door; a glance back at the car confirmed that her friend had not abandoned his side gig as her bodyguard as he turned up the car’s sound system, letting Jacques Loussier’s jazz-Bach mask any sound of approach and eased out of the drivers side, siccing his own silhouette on hers.

“Well, far be it for me to forget a superhero,” stepping over the threshold into the living room, Rue DeNite smiled, “Oh wait, this isn’t one of those ambush reality shows, where they hide video cameras hoping to catch the homeowner doing the horizontal mambo with the hot neighbor, or in this case, maybe just sending a burglar in tights off to the ER.”

Ignoring the young woman with the rifle, Rue waited until Rocco closed the door and turned to the strange man in her living room, “Good Golly Mr. Moonbeam, who’s your cute little friend with all the weaponry; I gotta tell you, this supervillain action is turning my thermostat way up, poor Rocco’s heart might not be up to the demands I expect to be putting on him once we get back to our vacation, you hear what I’m sayin?”

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 admonition: make the story six sentences (no more, no less) in length.

ok… since we insist on continuing our, ‘what the?!??!!’ serial Six story, (the one that’s all dialogue between two characters at everyone’s favorite metaphorical virtual gathering place, the SSC&B), it behooves us to provide a link to the previous installment. Sure, we all enjoy writing, (and reading), serial Sixes. This one is so (we want to allude to an episode of our favorite show, ‘Community’ but my meta account is way overdrawn). Lets just go with the standard,

…Previously in the Manager’s Office.

This week’s prompt word:

GAME

“This is all just a …contest to you, isn’t it?”

Surely the smile is the original, (and thoroughly irresistible), prompt to indulge in anthropomorphizing every other animal; this for a race characterized more by it’s collective insecurity than it’s putative intellectual advantage over all other living things. The non-verbal emotional bait being set out by the man in a ten-thousand-dollar suit, seated on the far side of a discount office supply desk from the young man in Salvation Army top coat and scuffed Corcoran jump boots; the challenge in correctly identifying which had the upper hand is an example of the core dilemma in quantum psychology: it had nothing to do with them and everything to do with the hypothetical observer.

“I could throw in a third-hand quote from the creator of the modern detective novel, but that would be redundant, wouldn’t it kid?”

The tall, thin man felt a ripple of excitement in his abdomen, surely what the storied hunters of the previous century must have experienced in the moment they had, in their gun sights, the big… wild animal, the trophy of sought by all Big…. animal hunters.

“Let’s quit this shit, we both know any disagreement between you and I won’t amount to anything more than every beginner-writer’s info-dump;” as the Sophomore stood up, the collective scream of piezoelectric pain rose from the cell phones on the desk, renewing their dance for attention, “And agree to call this…. what’s the word I can never remember… something from the sport of tennis  win-set-match…. no, not that… some singular collective word… whatever.”

*

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 admonition to make the story six sentences (no more, no less) in length.

To get in the mood, aka get the backstory to this week’s Six, follow the link: …Previously on the Six Sentence Theatre.

This week’s prompt word:

GAME

“Stand aside, woman, ‘The Game’s afoot!'”

Diane Tierney, now back at her hostess station of the Bottom of the Sea Strip Club and Lounge laughed; it sounded like everything that humor conjoined with sexual tension can be and hardly ever is, joyous abandon with an undertone of the carnal.

I smiled, ‘Into the breach fair maiden…’ and immediately stumbled over my words as I exceeded the safe duration of eye contact with a woman who was, from our first encounter, at once intimidating while simultaneously supercharging my atavistic drive to protect her from danger, real or imagined.

“Dear Sir, your commingling of literary allusions makes my knees weak and fluttery,” Diane, had she been a character in an olden days romance novel, would gather adjectives like willowy, alabaster skin touched by a rose and eyes of a deep blue to be mistaken for violet; I found her intriguing.

“Far be it from me, Mr. Devereaux, to interrupt you in your mission, so, until next Mid-Week Lunchtime Special, I’ll see you your Conan Doyle/Shakespeare mashup and raise you a simple, heartfelt, D. H. Lawrence, ‘Give me the democracy of touch, the resurrection of the body.’

To my credit I not only did not walk into the glass outer door, I transformed my stumble off the sidewalk into a manly jeté as I crossed Weybosset Street headed towards the palisade of hand-drawn picket signs milling around in a clumsy oval.

*

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 each week by Denise, all we’re asked to do is write a story of six (and only six) sentences.

So we continue this oddly interesting meeting of the Sophomore and the tall, thin man. Our last encounter.

Prompt word:

CRAFT

“Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, I accept your claim of being a time-traveler; as far as I can tell, you got the other Proprietors, if not believing you, at least are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt,” the fingers of the young man’s hands on the arms of his chair went from being triangles to lying in a row; spotting this reaction, the tall, thin man leaned forward, “aka humoring the kid’.”

“That’s not very ‘you’ of you to take that particular tact,” the Sophomore, marginally more upright in his chair, his pupils dilating as his nostrils flared, any prize fighter stepping into the ring.

Seeing uncertainty and anger grow in the older man’s face, he hastened to add, “What I mean to say is, courtesy of my putative knowledge of the past…. your past, that kinda sneery, faux-crafty response is for a personality type that you are not.”

The young man with long hair and a head full of fear added, “You, ‘Mr T. Thin Man’ sir, suspect I am who I say I am, but fear of the implications has you as tangled up as an octopus in a bowl of warm spaghetti.”

“Fuck you,” the Proprietor pushed away from the desk like a third grader from his cafeteria tray on Welsh Rarebit Day.

The phones on the desk began to ring, vibrate mode making them move randomly across the surface, digital Mexican jumping-Chiclets; a million miles, (and decades of life) away from the Six Sentence Café and Bistro, the tall, thin man considered which phone to answer first.

*

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 each week by Denise, all we’re asked to do is write a story of six (and only six) sentences.

Prompt word:

ACCESS

“Hey, Devereaux, I know you got a degree from Hah-vud,” Lou Ceasare looked up from his booth as I approached, “But the Bottom of the Sea ain’t no Ivory League satellite campus and, even if it was, a Doctorate of Breasteses and Sequinology ain’t in the catalogue,” un-leashing his crocodile-laugh, the career-drinkers at the bar joined in like a flock of tipsy plover birds.

About to deliver a thoroughly devastating riposte, a liquor-bottle-fractal woman approached us in mirror behind the bar; the reflection stopped, and, all Plato’s cave fire-made-flesh, the Club’s hostess, Diane Tierney, stopped next to Lou’s booth/office/boardroom, “Lou, three of our dancers have called in sick for the second day in a row and a fourth said she was quitting, something about protestors and tires being slashed in the parking lot.”

Lou leaned over his table towards me, his peculiar sense of decorum regarding the woman responsible for the efficient operation of the Bottom of the Sea Strip Club and Lounge exerting itself and said, “Devereaux, you being out of work and all, wanna earn some money?”

Diane stepped away from Lou a few steps past me and, putting an index finger to her lips, in the tone of a professional appraiser, “I don’t know Lou, the butt’s good but kinda flat in the chest and besides, I don’t think our clientele are ready for a Chippendale reboot.”

“Fuckin’ Tierney, you crack me up,” a millisecond of a glance, taking in everyone in earshot, guaranteed there would be nothing but a respectful silence.

“But, you’re absolutely correct, Diane, having our dancers stressed by this is not acceptable; I can make sure nobody loiters in front of the joint blocking access for our dancers or customers, that’s Underworld 101; as far as the group behind the protests, these so-called Magdalenians, I want you, Devereaux, to get me something I can leverage on them, without having to resort to gunpowder and other explosives, capische?”

*