Art Lit Cafe`

Three Louisiana authors read:

Join New Orleans writers Phyllis Parun, Sara Jacobelli, and George Koschel for an eclectic reading of poetry, fiction, and memoir.

When: Saturday, April 22nd, 2 to 4 pm

Where: Milton Latter Library, 5120 St. Charles Ave. New Orleans (in the dining room) 504.596.2625

The reading will be followed by a short open-mike and a book signing. (If you would like to read, prepare five minutes of poetry or prose and sign up when you get there!)

Sponsored by the New Orleans Avant-Garde.

I hope to see you there! It’s National Poetry Month, but you know I’ll be reading some flash fiction and some flash memoir/nonfiction.

The Zen of Stealing Office Supplies

Fiction: copyright © 2021 by Sara Jacobelli

Beatrice took little things.  Paper clips and staples. Pens and sharpies and tiny bottles of Wite’ Out. Bright pink and green and blue and yellow highlighters. Crisp new manila envelopes and file folders. Took little things for months. No one noticed. Busy Bee Beatrice never stopped working, never took a day off, unless the office was closed.

Threw it all into several large plastic totes by the doorway in her cluttered studio apartment. There was something liberating about leaving the office with her ill-gotten goodies in her frumpy bag. It gave her a little thrill. Busy-Bee Beatrice who never stopped working, felt like doing the bunny-hop whenever she made a score, like her toy choodle Frederick when given a tasty treat.

She planned to take bigger stuff for her birthday week.

Monday, she took the tin of Petty Cash, ($49.53).

Tuesday, she took several small trash cans. Stole the mirror in the Lady’s Room, which involved bringing a screwdriver and then stuffing the unwieldy heavy thing into a huge backpack. She took her boss’s comfy wheelie chair, making an excuse to stay late to pull that one off. It barely fit in the back of her dented Honda CRV. Her boss, the stout Mrs. Appleby, was supposed to be vacationing at a health spa for the next two weeks.

Wednesday, Busy Beatrice came in early and emptied the break-room. She efficiently packed the mini-fridge, microwave, toaster, and coffee-pot into U-Haul boxes, dragged them out to her car.

‘Where you taking the coffee-pot?’ Glum Tom looked disoriented.

‘Headquarters is sending brand-new stuff. Tomorrow. Yup. All shiny and brand spanking new.’

‘YOLO! Guess I’m going to Starbucks!’ Mandy bounced out the door. Tom followed, frowning, pulling out crinkly dollar bills.

Beatrice stayed late again. She took the break-room radio. She took the laptop computers. She wheeled out the cart with the TV and the DVD player, pushed it down the handicapped ramp.

The last thing she did was punch in the code to unlock the closet door in her boss’s office, swipe the dead and silent Mrs. Appleby’s wedding ring and watch. She didn’t take her new iPhone or Fitbit. Too traceable.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Photo: “Desk Writing Utensils.” Pixabay Copyright-free images.

Saturday Night at the Tropicana

We’d ride up hill past the tavern in Poppy’s ancient Cadillac. I pictured a tuxedo-clad Ricky Ricardo crooning love songs to Lucy while twirling her on the dance floor, backed up by a big band. I’d wave to the hollow-eyed scratching junkies slouched against the wall. They’d wave back, baffled by the attention.

******

This was my response to the Writing Prompt: Take the High Road

This was my entry in the 53-Word Story Contest by Press 53. I didn’t win, but it was fun to write! Every month, the winners are announced on the 1st, along with the writing prompt for that month. I entered the February Contest, and the prompt was “Take the High Road.” Here’s the prompt for March: Write a 53-word story about a warning.  Submit by March 21st. Submit your story in the body of the email, not as an attachment.  

 Email your 53-word story to 53wordstory@gmail.com

 Here’s their website:    https://www.press53.com/53word-story-contest

                     Here’s a quote from their website:   “Our judge for March is the editorial staff of Press 53 and Prime Number Magazine. Our winner for March will receive a copy of Fissures: One Hundred 100-Word Stories by Grant Faulkner, and the winning story will be published, along with the author’s photo and 53-word bio, in Issue 157 of Prime Number Magazine on July 1, 2019.”

Remember, words with dashes count as one word, and titles are not included in the word count.

I’m going to recommend this to my writing workshop folks. Good luck!

Why Church Poor Boxes Are Now Locked

Three Stories featuring The Evil Mary Fran

1. Why Church Poor Boxes Are Now Locked

 We stood looking at the ancient heavy wooden box. “Cool,” said the Evil Mary Fran. “It ain’t even locked.”

“But I don’t think we should steal from the church.” I wasn’t sure who I was more afraid of, my religious aunt, who would have tears in her eyes but would still whip me with the belt, or a terrible curse from the sky roaring down on us like thunder.

“Look, it says Poor Box, right? And we’re poor, ain’t we?”

“I guess so.”

“So the money’s ours.” She opened the box, and we each greedily grabbed a fistful of wrinkled dollar bills. We stuffed them in our pockets, scooped up the change.

“Someone’s coming,” I whispered, terrified that a priest or, worse yet, a nun, would grab hold of us and whip our skinny bodies with sticks and belts. Mary Fran didn’t look the least bit concerned.

She put a finger to her lips. “We’ll sneak out the side door and go down the alley.”

We ran to her rickety wooden front porch, then counted the loot. I scored $7.43. Mary Fran did better, $9.75.

“I know where I’m going,” she said, greed glinting in her eyes. “Dairy Queen.”

“Look.” I found a tiny piece of folded paper among the bills. “It says, Dear God, I am sorry I have no money to feed the poor. I will give some when I get paid from working in the laundry.”

The Evil Mary Fran laughed. “Man, the bastards around here are so cheap.”

I looked at the note again. It looked just like my aunty’s neat Catholic school girl handwriting.

&&&&

Photo Credit: “Antique Church Poor Box.” Worthpoint. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/antique-church-donation-poor-box-wall-box

This story and many others can be found in my flash fiction/short story collection, “Nine Dead Dope Dealers and Other Stories.”

These stories are about people on the edge, struggling to survive: a hit man confessing to his son, a hijacker confronting a salmon fisherman and his teen-aged daughter in the Pacific Northwest, San Francisco weed dealers in the midst of the 1980s AIDS epidemic, pot growers on an Indian reservation confronting a patch pirate, small time crooks and con artists, ex-cons, juvenile hall denizens, two little girls breaking into the church Poor Box, kickball-playing bullies, a desperate young woman attempting to steal her kids back from their adoptive parents, a young man escaping an abusive past, teenage welfare-moms being hassled by the cops, a young girl protecting her brothers from a violent father, a broke widow befriending a young bartender in a laundromat, a single mom with a jailed boyfriend who steals from rich club-hopping party girls, a mysterious older woman picking up a young drifter at the New Orleans Greyhound Bus Station and a young boy searching for mythical large-headed creatures on Halloween night.

 

 

The Replacement

Note: Here’s a piece of flash fiction that’s perfect for Father’s Day. SJ

 

You can find me on the Deep Web. I’m there, if you need me.  I get paid in Bitcoin.  Half the agreed amount before the job, the other half when it’s completed.  I’m a hit man. And yes, I love my job. It’s good money and I got kids to feed. Funny thing is, I learned the trade from the old man.

The old man was old fashioned. Only used a 38. Worked a steady day job at the gas station. Went out at night by himself and Mom never said a word.  If I asked where he was, Mom said, “Oh honey, he works nights at the 7-11 sometimes, we have bills to pay.” She’d ruffle our hair. “You kids are lucky, your father loves you so much.”

All that extra work paid off. Mom quit her job at the dry cleaners. Poppy bought us a tidy house in a better neighborhood, with a yard. We got a dog, a pool, started taking a family vacation every summer.  My twin sisters Joanie and Janie got braces for their buck teeth. We got a new station wagon.  Poppy bought us shiny new bikes, a big TV and a week-end cabin upstate.

The old man sat me down for a man-to-man when I was eighteen. Thought he was going to spout some nonsense like “Always use a rubber” like my friends’ dads. Fools, all of them. But Pop sat me down, in that way old guys have, you know. When they sit in a chair backwards, and hold onto the chair seat.  Looked at me with those dark eyes. Told me what he did for a living.  Five or six hits a year. For twenty years.  Dark unblinking eyes.  I shivered. He looked like a movie mobster, someone you wouldn’t want to piss off. I was scared of him for a few seconds. I blinked, and he looked just like Pop again.  A regular guy. Says hi to his neighbors, mows the lawn, reads the Sunday paper. Barbecues on the weekends.  Sleeps in and misses church.

“Why’d you do it, Poppy? Kill all those people?”

“Son. It was business. Just business. I was always a Professional. Never killed women, children. Never killed anyone but bad men who deserved it. Very bad men.  Never got arrested. Never got my name in the papers. And I made good money for your mom and you kids. That’s what a man does. He takes care of his family. Not like these bums that don’t pay child support, let their women and kids live on food stamps. No food stamps in this house.”

“Why’re you telling me this, Pop? I could’ve gone my whole life without knowing.”

“Because, son. My nerves are shot. It’s time for me to retire.  And they need someone. Someone they can trust. Nowadays, they use computers and all that nonsense. I figure—since I took you to the range since you were a boy, you know how to handle a gun. And you got all these here computer skills, you’ve been playing violent video games your whole life.  You’ve killed more people than I have, when you think about it. You’d be perfect for the job. Besides, you said you wanna marry your girlfriend Tina and you don’t wanna go to college. You don’t wanna join the military.  Before you know it, you’ll have a bunch of kids running around. What do you wanna do, work at McDonalds or Taco Bell?”

So I took Poppy’s advice and I followed in his footsteps. It’s not a bad life. I work when I want to, have a lot of free time.  Pop says I should be able to keep going for twenty years, then pass the gig on to my son Dino. I make a lot of money. And I take good care of my family.  Pop told me he’s proud of me.  You can’t ask for more than that.

You can find me on the Deep Web. I’m there, if you need me.

 

Fiction 

Copyright © 2018 by Sara Jacobelli

*****

 

Photo Credit : “Silhouette-Chess Player.” ScrappinStuff.com

http://www.scrappinstuff.com/store/games-c-463/chess-checkers-c-463_82/rbs-silhouette-chess-player-p-18043.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Do You Want To Work Here?

 

My flash fiction-flash nonfiction/memoir piece, “Why Do You Want to work Here?” has been published in Postcard Shorts:

http://www.postcardshorts.com/read-2637.html

Go ahead and submit one: the stories must be small enough to “fit on a postcard.”

Around 250 words or less. Fiction or nonfiction, even poetry, as long as it tells a story.

In the Garden Writers’ Workshop Saturday March 10th!

We are having the next In the Garden Writers’ Workshop this Saturday, March 10th, from 2:00-3:45 pm.

The topic will be prose: flash fiction and flash nonfiction/memoir. Bring your notebooks and pens and come prepared to write!

Where?

Alvar Library

913 Alvar St.

New Orleans. LA 70117

504.596.2667

Each workshop is different and you may attend as many sessions as you would like. This event is free and open to the public.

Light refreshments will be served.

The Paradise Tropical Spa Deli Gift Shop and Candy Store!

 

Bridgeport, CT East Side, 1970

“Signs on the Wall and on the Door of the Paradise Tropical Spa, Deli, Gift Shop and Candy Store Owned by Marvin and Madge”

Only 3 children allowed in the store at a time

All children must place both hands on their heads while walking around the store, to prevent shoplifting and breakage

Children are not allowed in store during school hours

No talking or laughing

No eating candy or drinking soda in the store

Throw all trash in the trash can or I will throw you out!

The Deli and Gift shop half of the store is for adults only. No children allowed. This means you.

No talking back. If I had kids I would not allow such fresh talk.

All shoplifters will be arrested, convicted and sent to prison.

If you steal I will never FORGIVE and I will never FORGET

CASH ONLY!  No credit.  No favors.  Don’t ask.

If you BREAK something in the Gift Shop you just BOUGHT it.

If you want to READ a newspaper or a magazine you must BUY it first. This is NOT a public library.

Do NOT tie your dog up in front of the store. If you do I will call Animal Control.

 

If you are doing laundry at the Lots-o-Suds Laundromat next door, you are welcome to come into the Spa as long as you BUY something. You can’t come in and sit at the counter without SPENDING ANY MONEY. The same goes for those waiting for the bus. ALL YOU HAVE TO BUY IS A COKE OR A COFFEE OR A PACK OF GUM.  I AM NOT ASKING MUCH. JUST SOME COMMON COURTESY.

Do not put your gum under the counter or stools in the deli. Throw it in the trash.

No change given for Laundromat.

No change given for bus.

No change given for pay phone.

You can’t use the pay phone anyway, it is a BUSINESS phone.

MEN: You are hereby warned not to try to pick up women at the Paradise Tropical Spa.

No baby strollers allowed in the store.

 

MOTHERS: It is your job to watch your children, not mine. REMEMBER: SPANKING IS GOOD FOR CHILDREN, IT BUILDS CHARACTER.

 

No swearing allowed in the Spa. Kids who swear will get their mouths washed out with SOAP.  Adults who swear will be told to SHUT UP OR LEAVE.

Kids and Teens: no fighting in front of the store. Your parents will be called!

No drinking alcohol. That includes Beer. This means you. There’s a bar across the street. Go drink there.

If you smoke cigarettes, put your BUTT in the ashtray or I will kick your BUTT out the door!

Do not panhandle in front of the store or the police will be called!

No gambling, card playing, shooting dice in front of the store.

 

No shopping at Tony’s Deli down the street. He is my MORTAL ENEMY. If I catch you shopping there you are BANNED FOR LIFE from the Paradise Tropical Spa.

 

Do NOT bring outside food or drinks into the  Deli and EXPECT TO SIT AT THE LUNCH COUNTER AND NOT BUY ANYTHING.

NO REFUNDS on anything, including Money Orders.

Do NOT hand out religious tracts or pamphlets in front of the Tropical Spa. There are several churches down the street.  Go there and hand them out.

 

We’re Closed all week due to illness.

The Paradise Tropical Spa is Open again.

 

Back to School Special! Free pencils to first 20 law-abiding children. Must be quiet, respectful, and well-behaved.

Remember! The Paradise Tropical Spa, Deli, Gift Shop and Candy Store is Truly a Paradise for PAYING customers to Enjoy. Air-Conditioned in the Summer and Heated in the Winter. No Thieves, Freeloaders or Unsavory Characters will be Tolerated.

 

Wipe your feet on the Welcome Matt. Do Not track mud into Paradise.

KIDS: IF I catch you stealing candy bars, I will call the Police first, your Mother second. Then I will call your GRANDMA.

KIDS: No spilling Coca-Cola. ADULTS: No spilling Coffee.

 

Closed for next two weeks due to illness.

The Paradise Tropical Spa is Open again!

 

If you have a birthday party, it wouldn’t hurt you to bring me a piece of Chocolate Cake.

No sitting in your car out front listening to the radio. This is not allowed!

LADIES: Do NOT hang around the Tropical Spa flirting with men. This is a FAMILY establishment and loose women will not be tolerated.

I DO NOT take messages for Gino’s Hardware Store down the block. If he’s not there, it’s not my problem.

No whining or complaining allowed, except by the owners.

 

For the first time ever, the Paradise Tropical Spa will give out candy this Halloween to trick-or-treaters. First Come, First Served. DO NOT LEAVE CANDY WRAPPERS ON THE GROUND. THERE IS A TRASH CAN IN FRONT OF THE SPA.

 

If you STEAL, you are causing me to LOSE profits, If I LOSE profits the prices will go UP and UP and UP.

 

All thieves, losers, drunks, whiners, loud talkers, loud laughers are BANNED for LIFE from the Spa. This is a LOSS for YOU not ME.

 

We will be closed Thursday and Friday due to funeral services.

 The Paradise Tropical Spa, Deli, Gift Shop and Candy Store will Re-Open tomorrow. My dear husband Marvin is gone, but I am still here to run the Spa and enforce the rules. I missed all of my devoted and well-behaved customers. I didn’t miss those who were BANNED for not following the RULES. It’s their fault they  were kicked out of Paradise! Your proprietor,  Madge

PS: Stop by and have a hot cup of java with me!

 

 ***

Fiction

Copyright © 2018 by Sara Jacobelli

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Case #3509745 has been published in Postcard Shorts!

My flash fiction piece Case #3509745 has been published on Postcard Shorts! You can read it here: http://www.postcardshrts.com/read-2613.html

Postcard Shorts features flash fiction and flash nonfiction/memoir short enough to fit on a postcard. (Approximately 250 words or less).  I have quite a few stories published on this site. You can search the index by author and by title. You’ll find a wide variety of stories here: from general literature to science fiction, mystery, memoir and humor. You might want to write and submit a story of your own.

 

Why Do You Want to Work Here? Writing Micro-Memoir

The Writer online magazine had a Micro-Memoir contest a while back. The idea was to write a 200 word memoir inspired by an object that holds meaning for you. I was too late to enter the contest, but I wrote one anyway. You might want to try this writing exercise. The article was written by Beth Ann Fennelly, who was inspired by a workshop on writing short fiction taught by Leslie Jamison. You can read about it here:

https://www.writermag.com/2017/07/06/micro-memoir-contest/

The object I chose to write about? A job application. The old fashioned paper kind, not the ones you fill out online. And I made mine a combo of fiction/nonfiction, so it’s not exactly a memoir.

Why Do You Want to Work Here?

Copyright ©  2018 by Sara Jacobelli

I filled out my first job application when I was nine. Mom brought home two, in case I messed up the first one.

“Mr. Cappizotto grabbed me in the elevator today.” She lit a Lucky Strike.

“Ole Onion Breath.  You gonna tell Poppy?”

“Jake’ll kill him and go to prison.” She opened the refrigerator and stared at the scant contents. “Grab a can of tuna and the opener. Fill this out. For the dry cleaners.”

The application reminded me of a giant blinking eye. Who are you? Are you good enough to work here? Name, phone number, address. “What job did you have before Levitt’s Store?”

“Waitress. White’s Diner.” She opened the can, slopped tuna in a bowl.

I completed the application, using that Big Imagination everyone said I had. She got the job. A few weeks later Poppy got fired from the restaurant for punching a customer. He brought me a stack of applications and I filled them out, ignoring my homework, listening to the radio. My brother Nicky handed me his application for a cashier’s job at Food Fair. I made them all sound like glowing job prospects.  I learned the power of the written word.

*****