Six Sentence Story | the Wakefield Doctrine

Six Sentence Story -the Wakefield Doctrine- [an Ian Devereaux Six (cont’d)]

January 23, 2025 By clarkscottroger

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.”

Six Sentence Story -the Wakefield Doctrine- [ an Ian Devereaux Six]

January 15, 2025 By clarkscottroger

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)

Prompt Word:

POOL

“Anyone here?”

A languid slapping of liquid against an unyielding object combined with shimmering reflections on the half-round ceiling did nothing to improve my mood; my admin’s insistence I treat the text requesting a meeting in an out-of-service rail tunnel as spam and a waste of time somehow sparked an argument, maybe the third in the five years Hazel has worked for me.

“I’m here per your text and, I might add, not in the mood to fuck around;”

hearing my vulgarity hang in the darkness triggered a flashback to the fourth grade at Our Lady of Mercy parochial school, my humorless laugh, an atavistic response to the nearing of the uncanny did nothing to offset the chill raising the hair on the back of my neck.

My cell phone pinged ‘Text Messages’, even as my resolve began to pool around my feet; it’s been my experience that genuine fear doesn’t walk up and shout ‘Boo’, rather, it seeps into the body and a weakness of the leg muscles are it’s only tell.

Looking down into the display, I scrolled through the messages: “Are you coming in today, H’ …” “OK you’re a great boss, but two days without a word…” and, “Now you’re scaring me, no one has seen you for three days, the cops are useless, I’m going down to the sleazy bar of yours, maybe they know what’s going on”.

I decided that my admin deserved a raise and I would turn and walk back the way I came, halfway there I heard a voice coming from farther to my left than the diameter of the tunnel should permit, “We need to talk.”

Filed Under: Fashion Center, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: personality types, Six Sentence Story, the Wakefield Doctrine

Six Sentence Story -the Wakefield Doctrine- [a Café Six]

January 9, 2025 By clarkscottroger

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 it is governed by a single rule: all stories must be exactly six sentence in length.

Prompt word:

MACHINE

“You know what this joint needs?”

It was late morning on the first Tuesday of the New Year and the Six Sentence Cafe & Bistro was as empty as an upside-down pail.

Seeing the woman sitting at the end of the long bar, the tall, thin man shielded his eyes from an imaginary light-source and called-out in an exaggerated aside, hand in front of his mouth, palm outwards, “Mimi, you’re not gonna leave a brother hangin’ metaphorically-….”

“Cher, surely you don’t mean, ‘dialogue-istically speaking’, were you to, you’d end up as tangled in the alliterative underbrush as an ole gator what chased un cocodrie in his leaky pirogue,” the diminutive woman laughed with a natural kindness that defied mockery.

“Sorry, I thought the Café fiction machine was on the fritz again, please do not let me disturb your reflection, I just…” the well-dressed Proprietor had a look of chagrin even as he lit another of his favorite brands of cigarette, Player’s Navy Cut; seeing the look in the woman’s eyes, he hastily added, “No, I gave up years ago, but I have a Reader who, though no longer a smoker herself, enjoys their fictional representation,” his smile served as convivial punctuation.

The laughter from the bar reminded the tall, thin man of how, in a fictional reality, things really do work out for the best, even as the peaceful impromptu moment was interrupted by the Bartender bursting through the kitchen’s double swinging door.

Filed Under: Fashion Center, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: Six Sentence Story, the Wakefield Doctrine

Six Sentence Story -the Wakefield Doctrine-

January 8, 2025 By clarkscottroger

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 it is governed by a single rule: all stories must be exactly six sentence in length.

Prompt word:

MACHINE

Leaving his third floor apartment, the Sophomore resolved anew to accept that he had been transported fifty-five years into the future from his eponymous second year of college and, upon further reflection, added to his New Year resolutions the goal of nurturing gratitude for finding himself in the company of the people, who, for reasons no one thought to explain, called themselves Proprietors of the Six Sentence Café and Bistro. While lacking the laid-back vibe and remarkable music scene of the end of the ’60s, he knew if he was ever going to find how or even why he’d been temporally dislocated, he needed to embrace the present.

The sidewalk, as he approached the Café, ceased being a brick ‘n soot maze, the work of the first modern industrial engineers serving the monied-patriarchs sitting in homes in the city’s finest neighborhoods, known, without the slightest sense of irony, as College Hill; the young man smiled at the memory the girl he met at a college mixer in the Ivy League school on the Hill, his mood souring with the realization that she would now be seventy-three years old.

The five-story building that housed the Café and served as the involuntary time-traveler’s sanctuary, came into view as he turned the final corner but his attention was hijacked by a billboard sign in the middle of a freshly cleaned lot.

Brand new and totally incongruous, it offered the image of a family walking, in the background were open fields and distant mountains; the adults were smiling grimly and the two children gazed upwards; the artwork was in a pointillist style with an earthy palette, the result was thoroughly wholesome and homespun.

Dominating the top half of the 10.5 by 36 foot sign were two lines of text;

in comic sans:

‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’

below which, in Times New Roman:

‘Serve the Machine and your needs will be met’.

Filed Under: Fashion Center, Featured, Psychology, the Wakefield Doctrine Tagged With: Six Sentence Story, the Wakefield Doctrine

Six Sentence Story -the Wakefield Doctrine- Part 1 (… earlier that same, final evening of the Year)

January 2, 2025 By clarkscottroger

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, it requires but one thing from participating writers: the story must consist of exactly six sentences.

Yeah, this is the first part of a two part Six (not to mention something of a prequel to our host’s own set of stories set in the eponymous locale of the Six Sentence Café & Bistro.)

Prompt word:

STYLE

“And don’t forget, ladies, post your dance schedules to your social media and link to the Club’s site, we’ll take care of the video feed,” Diane Tierney stood, half-in half-out of the swinging doors just behind Lou’s booth where she could watch the front door and the kitchen and the dressing room full of strippers, “Salome, count your veils, last week you got to 13, I assure you, Rue will not be happy if you cut into her time, she is our headliner.”

She turned and almost collided with me, so naturally I smiled and managed a ‘Early Happy New Year, Diane, which earned me a distracted smile and a hand on my arm; I’ll take it.

Without the slight hint of glissando, the volume of the house-music dipped suddenly, causing the packed house to mutter un-spellable interrogatives; Diane’s eyes change from a hush of purple to a flare of violet; say what you will about her personal life, the woman had style.

The shoals of revelers, including those who hoped to wish the owner, Lou Caesare, a happy New Year, which, not for nothin’ did not count against a body, went full-on Red Sea between the currently vacant hostess station and where I’d stepped back a step, putting me at Lou’s left shoulder; note to self: the glance of approval from the man at my possibly unintended stance of protectiveness made the previous 364 days way better.

For the first time in the three-and-a-half-years I’ve know Lou, this was the first time I’ve seen him get up from his side of the booth to greet a visitor.

Extending his hand to one of the Proprietors of the Six Sentence Café & Bistro, Lou’s eyes never left those of the young woman; the smile on his face would make the Mona Lisa consider shaving her head and getting a nose ring; my sole New Year’s resolution became to develop a tenth of the man’s style.