Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many mounds of snow. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Cajun Mutt Press, Dumpster Fire Press, Red Fez, and The Oklahoma Review.
Every city has one, a block God forgot, some unofficial war zone, demilitarized, but, alive and active with all the usual suspects cops roust on periodic missions to clean up after some particularly rowdy disturbance, something so embarrassing, around election day, even the mayor is moved to act. After the votes have been counted, results confirmed, the war goes on as before. 911 calls come in and cars are dispatched, later rather than sooner, except, in cases of extreme cruelty, events that make front page news or, on occasion, CNN; ‘Fraternity hazing involved terrorist techniques, pledges for unchartered frat subjected to punishments, not unlike water boarding, until they were forced to beg for mercy.’ The cries from basement/ dungeon so loud, so horrific, even cowed neighbors could no longer endure the noise, could only imagine what must be happening inside. University officials assert they had ‘suspicions banned fraternity was still accepting new members,’ as they had been, banding and disbanding time and time again, for fifty years, only the names and faces changed. Over time, the block is modified, buildings burned out, abandoned, strafed in territorial feuds, boarded up or razed, salt sprinkled on the mounds left behind, for sale signs riddled with bullet holes, gang graffiti ornamented, relics no one cares to recall or revisit. All the former denizens, drug dealers, and their whores moved on, occupying new digs that soon resemble the old: from Odell to Kelton, from Elberon to Quail to Washington; forsaken places, reclamation projects so far past due only those with no future go there.
The 13th Step
“I was out for a typical quiet Sunday in the bar: a couple of cold ones, a few giggles with a couple of the boys and a game on the tube. That was until she walked in. Not your typical Sunday regular beginning with the nose ring and ending with the spiky hair. We’re just shooting casual breeze when she says:’ It’s been awhile, Let’s have shots and beers to celebrate.’ Drops this pile of bills on the bar all wadded up like she’s been keeping them in her spare combat boots. ‘What the hell?’ is always my byword Next thing you know, we’re doing these amazing to the brim shots of chilled Jack Daniels at 3 on a Sunday afternoon. A couple of those later and we’re ready to blow for a more happening scene. We’re in The Lark, I think, and she’s trying to grab the mike from the Blues guitarist, remember the guy who did the MTV spot at Pauly’s? He’s cool but it’s definitely not his scene to yield the stage to a spiky head bimbo with a nose ring who wants to sing Kansas City way off key. He had the bouncers on his side so even though I know I’ll never do the Lark thing again, I decide to split with or without her. Now she’s really getting hysterical. Something about her medicine wearing off. All of a sudden, these details she’s been laying out all afternoon are starting to come together. Probation had been mentioned off-hand, now became felonious assault with a vehicle while under the influence and this Rehab thing in the distant past, was about an hour before she sat down at the bar with the wad. Now, it’s All MY Fault her life is turning to shit. I guess that’s what I get trying to get lucky instead of going to church. She even said, as a kind of parting shot, that I was the next step they warned her about when the 12 Steps failed. Oh, well, compared to what could have happened, it’s not really that big of a deal to delist your phone number, change your name and move, is it?”
Old Man
at the bus stop, cadging cigarettes,
right side useless, supported by a cane,
stroke afflicted, mostly bald head
hidden beneath old Yankees cap,
nearly transparent skin
He looks oddly familiar, more familiar than he should,
until I remember why, remember how he used to brag
Alan Catlin has been publishing since the 70’s which makes him older than dirt as far as online publishing goes. He has adapted and has published in dozens if not hundreds of online publications and even got nominated for a Best of the Net Award. That and dozens of Pushcart nominations, Stoker Award nominations, Rhysling Nominations and etc, and two bucks will get you on the local express bus.
The author has been published in The Talking Stick, Open Arts Forum, New Verse News, Waymark, Tuck Magazine, Dark Sire, the anthology Moving Images: Poetry Inspired by Film,upcoming in Anti-Heroin Chic, and frequently in his favorite daily breakfast treat, The Drabble.
