Yelping with Cormac

Haight Ashbury - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Three stars.

Ballard sawed his brocklefaced mount around and faced the line of raiders. A stinking host clad in patchwork tunics of brightest cotton. As if their carnival colors could mask the blackness of their nature. For they rode as men of their kind have ridden for millenia on wasted steppes and beggared plains skylit by a dustveiled sun their implements glinting and in their hearts a hunger sated in blood.

Come on boys, Ballard said. Let’s lay into these deadeyed hippites. Give no quarter but mind the cotton. Buffalo Exchange wont accept no sullied merchandise.

And from their number arose a cry ancient and of another world entire and the raiders spurred their mounts through the paneglass of the American Apparel and the souls within perished under the blade and the cudgel and their cotton hides were taken from them.

Lordsburg, NM

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Three stars.

They yelped entire families. They yelped the frail and the infirm and the newly born. They went to the fields and they found the cattle there and they yelped each one. The dogs harried them so they yelped the dogs and the squinteyed pups and they found cats and they yelped them too. They took shovels to the cemetery up on the ridge and they exhumed the dead and they yelped them.

Then they turned to the adobe church and heedless of the bell clamoring they broke down the doors and they yelped the doors and then they turned to the survivors in that sanctuary and they yelped them all. They yelped the holy books and the chancel and the altar and when the priest emerged from the rectory wielding a great golden cross like a scimitar they yelped him where he stood. Then they yelped the church and burned it to embers so they could yelp the Spanish bell where it lay cleaved and smoking.

And sated at last they left the town of Lordsburg. For there was nothing left to yelp.

Lordsburg, NM

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Two Stars.

Came a time sooner than you might expect when the yelpers measured every thing in that town. Every place of business bore the mark of the yelpers. Fivepointed stars, their number correspondin with the verdict of those strange folk.

And for a time there was a kind of peace in those parts. The townsfolk and the yelpers agreein. Yes Mama Dulce had the prettiest whores. You couldn’t go wrong with old Mrs. Bull’s pie. Steer clear of the Last Chance Saloon.

But the yelpers weren’t satisfied. No more than a fox is satisfied with just the one hen. They kept at it. Measurin and reviewin everthing again and again. Debatin among their number the merit of this and of that. And soon there arose a elite cadre. The yelp elect. Lordin over all the others and the folk of Lordsburg. Never payin for a meal or a pleasure.

Then the Macabee boy found that mule dead down by the grange. They had yelped it to death. No one knew much what to make of that. Except farmer Macabee. He come into town carryin his Henry repeater and he went to each saloon in turn and he spoke his piece and soon he had with him a goodly posse. And they headed for the hills lookin for yelpers.

Lordsburg, NM

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Three Stars.

I caint tell you what it must of been like. I don’t think anybody could. But I can tell you what come to pass. I can tell you that.

They first caught sight of the yelpers round about 1879. They come from the south but they wasn’t Mexicans. Wore cowls like monks. Spoke with a outlander accent. They made a sound that is lost to memory but you could call it a coyote yammer. Anyways that’s how they come to be called yelpers by the good people of Lordsburg.

Now back then they was some strange folk in the borderlands. Polygamists. Cultists. Renegade indians. So you can imagine the trepidation of the settlers in that little town. No help for miles. These monks comin in from the hills yammerin like wild dogs. And the things they carried. Sextants. Plumb lines. And each with their own notebook. Never without them notebooks. They was always writin them yelpers.

But the yelpers also had money. Gold dust by the sack. And pretty soon that little outpost was boomin. You see the yelpers had this hunger. To try ever little thing. Take its measure. Put it in the little book. As if they could take the chaos of that world and bring form to it. Corral it somehow. I’ll admit it was unnatural. But that’s how it started.

Sometimes I wonder what those townfolk was thinkin. All this strangeness around them. But they took the money. Hell I would of too. But I kindly doubt they knew the true cost. What was bein bought. What was bein sold.

Pacific Heights - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Three stars.

They emerged from the crucible of adolescence rosyfaced and long of bone, inheritors of the hurtling world of their progenitors. Cocksure but for the onerous legacy of war and rapacious greed and around them the soaring monuments and dolmens of their race fissured irreversibly. And like spawning salmon in their scaled finery they coursed heedless to universities and to the walled cities of Europe and the jungled ruins of Asia and they did so listlessly and yet with some driving hunger undeniable. For before them lay the promise and the yoke of some vague everything. And despondent they turned to those glowing gadgets and the vast and false electric nation and they soured like stable ponies for in everything they found nothing. And drowning now their horizons sinking and obliterated they lashed out. Fingers clawing that Eames chair. Eyes blazing and lustful before that Sussex credenza. Fornicating with that Brix modular drawer set.

Palo Alto, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Two stars.

The Sheriff stood over a table cleaved cleanly in two. Around him wellheeled young people lay newly dead. What do you have there deputy, he said.

Deputy Stevens leaned over the ruined bar and looked behind it. I got two androids and a iPhone.

The Sheriff crouched down next to the table and looked at a pretty Asian girl with an iPhone nestled deep in her forehead. This old girl had a android and a Blackberry holdout piece, he said.

What do you make of this fracas Sheriff?

Likely some kind of tweetup that got ornery.

Whatever for?

The Sheriff stood and took off his hat and wiped his brow with his sleeve and then put his hat back on and squared it. Well, he said. I reckon you sift through this calamity you’ll find a Foursquare mayor. Them girls yonder was probably Yelp elite.

They fightin over money?

No there aint no money in it Deputy. Probably some poor citizen took a first review wasn’t theirs to take. Maybe a hashtag rubbed somebody wrong.

Well I tell you what sheriff. Didn’t expect these young folk to get to murderin.

I felt this one comin. I was just waitin for the call.

Tijuana, Mexico

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Five stars.

I want to go back to the hotel, said Clyde.

The hacendado leaned against a wine cask in the dim cellar and regarded Clyde. You will be returned soon, he said. First there is the matter of the girl.

I didn’t do anything.

In your mind perhaps this is true. But you have broken a sacred law of this land. A very old law. And now you are here in this place. He gestured vaguely around the cellar. To be. How to say. Reviewed.

Look I’d like to call the embassy.

First I will review you. It is required.

Clyde struggled to reach his wallet but the hemp ropes held him fast. I can pay, he said.

The hacendado whistled through his teeth and shook his head. You Americans, he said. Always the judge. This hotel is very good. That country is very bad. But when it is time for you to be reviewed you are begging please no. Please I can pay money. I will review you now. The hacendado snapped his fingers and a vaquero entered carrying a branding iron in the shape of a star, the whitehot tip sputtering and sparking like some wroughtiron incubus.

Twin Falls, Idaho

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Three Stars. *First Review.

He walked into the empty cafe and looked at the vinyl booths and the linoleum counters and picked up a menu to glance at it and then put it down again in one smooth motion. His leadgray eyes settled on an old woman wearing an apron and standing behind the counter. Three stars, he said. First review.

The woman smiled. Come again dearheart?

You don’t know what this is.

I’m sorry I guess I don’t.

He walked to the counter and stood before the woman. I am the Reviewer, he said. I have evaluated your business. And your business has received three stars.

Oh my, she said. That’s very kind. The Reviewer didn’t respond but stood there staring at her with his hard eyes. His hands stiffly at his sides as if he stood before some tribunal.

But you haven’t eaten anything, she said.

I have seen the menu. I have seen it before a thousand times. It is a tragedy of man’s mediocrity.

Is there something wrong with the menu?

You have used comic sans font in the menu and you have failed to describe the provenance of your roast beef and you advertise panini sandwiches. That means sandwiches sandwiches.

Goodness.

And your choice of music speaks of your disregard for human excellence.

Well I can change the radio.

That would be a meaningless gesture.

Oh. She stood there worrying her apron hem with her big hands. Would you like some cake, she said. People seem to like that.

I speak for people. I am their delegate. I saw the cake on the counter and I took its measure and it is without merit.

But you haven’t even tried it.

I have not tried your cake but I know your cake. I know of its flour, of its corn syrup. Of the brazen indifference with which you crafted it. You think it is just cake. You are wrong. It is the sum total of you. Of your ability to create, to transcend the world of beasts and build some small fleeting cairn to mark your passing.

She stood there and did not speak.

I will return in one year, he said. I will return and I will review you again. There will be no third review. The Reviewer turned and left.

Wichita, KS

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Two stars.

The manager sat tied to the chair in the corral, firelit on all sides by the torches of the townfolk. Dean stood next to him with a Colt army revolver pointed to the hardpacked earth. Who else will speak, he said.

A chorus of voices rose at once. From the din a miner hollered: The shrimp was rubberlike.

I believe Pastor Macabee already done spoke to that, said Dean. He looked around him. Ghastly amber faces staring back like funeral masks. Are there any other charges, he said.

A prostitute in dusty finery stepped forward. She spoke haltingly. I made a reservation for six persons. And we still had to wait 45 minutes to set down. Her face fell into her hands and she began weeping softly. We was on time, she said.

A drunk cowboy carrying a rusting hatchet lurched toward the manager. I’ll tickle his neck with my axe so help me, he said.

Dean leveled the big revolver at the cowboy. The man regarded him wetly and melted back into the crowd. Dean spoke loudly so that all could hear. We will do this orderly or by God I’ll send him to the capitol and to hell with the lot of you.

A little girl strode forward into the light and looked up at Dean and the manager with eyes shining and obsidian. Hang them, she said. Hang them both.

SOMA - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Three stars.

See that false burrito. See it swaddled in tinfoil on the desk in the bowels of that great tower, a bundle of meat and sauce in a place long ago ceded to silicone and copper. The stooped man eating that peasant food as if in consuming it he can escape to a farmfield in a verdant valley and look down and see blood running from his blisters and say, yes this is work. This is work. Instead his hands are clawlike and ruined by the keyboard and the mouse for he is a thing of bone and sinew in a sprawling contraption electric and of man’s creation but not of man at all. And were he to saw his breast open with that plastic knife and soak the carpet black with his hot blood and were he to look ceilingward like some stigmatic enraptured and with the bellows of his lungs let forth a soaring wail in that subbasement his screams would be swallowed by the acoustic panels and repulsed by the good steel door as if he had made no sound and spilled no blood at all.

Emeryville, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Two stars.

You think that I am petty. You think that I am self important. I am nothing. I am a vessel. I am a crucible in which truth resides for a brief instant. I hear the stillsmall voice of God and I bow before it in ecstasy and He speaks not in the obscenity of man’s tongue but in stars torn from heaven. One star. Four stars. And I keep a reckoning. So that others may know and heed the voice. Know that God has been here. And that we fail Him. Time and time again. The ambiance. The speed and courtesy of the waitstaff. The soap in the men’s bathroom. You wish to plead with me, to bargain. You cannot. Try to offer a free dessert to the universe, to truth. You will fail. So take these stars and know they are heavensent. I will not be returning.

Natomas - Sacramento, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Four stars.

I am going to remove a star, he said.

Please don’t mister.

Don’t move. It’s better if you don’t move.

Please.

It’s important you know why. Do you understand why this is happening?

Oh God.

It is because I clearly shared with you my condition. I cannot countenance gluten. And yet I see croutons here. Do you see them as well?

Yes. I’m sorry.

Do you understand that sorry does not remove the croutons?

Yes. Oh God.

Good. Then we can agree your action has changed the course of the universe in some infinitesimal but irrevocable way. To remove the croutons would not remove the action. You see?

The waiter closed his eyes.

Look at me. Look at me. If you look away I will remove two stars.

Union Square - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Three stars.

And they come there in great numbers shuffling into that mausoleum that was built for them like some monument to the slow death of their world and among those tokens and talismans of that faded empire they forage like scavengers their faces frozen in a rictus of worldweary their clothes preworn in some tropical factory and they shop and they hunt with dullbrown eyes through that cavalcade of false trinkets and those shrinkwrapped mockeries laying there in silent indictment and they reach out to touch those trite things and their faces are slack but in their gullets a scream lies stillborn for they are the kings and the queens reigning over the death of their people and the world is not theirs and never was and the suffering and the horrors are not their doing but the work of their bankrupt forbears and before them stretches an abyss beyond man’s imagining and within their lifetime the promise of a coming reckoning measured in blood and in pestilence and they shuffle through that store near paralytic and finally they take a metal thing with a feather on it and they buy that thing.

Walnut Creek, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Four stars.

And so. The day came. The alguacil asked the boy what did he wish for a last meal. The boy asked for a bowl of pasta from Olive Garden. The alguacil considered this and finally agreed saying there was indeed an Olive Garden in the next town.

That evening a mozo came back into town leading a procession of men and burros. Panniers on the animals steaming like ungulate engines. The cloying aroma of pasta sauce. The loamy musk of breadsticks. The algaucil came to them. What was he to think of this?

And a man from the restaurant came forward and said they had brought pasta for the boy and that in the tradition of their restaurant the boy’s bowl would never be allowed to empty nor would he be want for breadsticks until such time as he was sated.

The algaucil was very angry. He shouted at the men and the burros and the mozo and all cowered but none would leave. For they knew as well as the algaucil of the law of that land. That the last meal could not be denied. And so the boy was served in his cell the unending pasta bowl. Attendants from the restaurant refilling the dish as it neared empty. A train of burros plodding from restaurant to jail and back to restaurant.

The boy’s day of execution came and went. A week passed. Then another. The algaucil fuming in his shabby office. The boy grew fat eating the pasta and the breadsticks.

On the hundredth day the alguacil walked to the jail and told the jailers to leave. And then he entered the cell where the boy lay eating and he unholstered his pistol and he told the boy he would shoot him if he ate any more pasta or breadsticks. And the boy lay there lacquered in sauce and bursting from his prison rags and closed his eyes as if to consider this ultimatum. He belched thunderously and was still. And so. The boy escaped the noose.

Santa Rosa, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Three stars.

A sweltering breeze hissed among the grape vines soldiering in rows up the hillside. The earth and the grass baked and golden and high above the white orb of the sun left the farmer spotlit and shadowless as the riders approached. They came from several directions winding among the vines insouciant and lordly with their rifles and before them like some conquering general rode a man in spotless denim and wearing a ten dollar stetson. He pushed his black thoroughbred forward till the farmer could smell the hay on the animal’s breath. The rider stood the horse there and watched the farmer for a long time. Do you know who I am, said the rider.

Yessir.

My offer is more than fair.

Yes.

So sell.

I caint. This is all I got.

That is not true.

Sir.

You also have a family.

Yessir I do. I do have that.

The rider took a cigar from his breast pocket and smelled it. He looked to the West the coastal range serrating the horizon like some sunburnt palisade and beyond it a sea of fog formless and seething. He put the cigar away. Do you know what this country will look like in a hundred years, he said.

The farmer shook his head.

It will be houses packed together like sardines in a tin. And the folks who live here will all be drinking my wine. They will be drinking Two Dime Chuck like water and you and your kind will be long forgot. The rider sawed the thoroughbred around and rode away. The men remained in that dusty and cropped field intent upon the farmer their rifles gleaming blueblack their eyes shaded and unknowable and the only sound to break the metallic silence was the air shimmering and whispering, en route to the sea or some other oblivion.

Union Square - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Four stars.

Tucked in the far corner of the food court next to a sushi bar he saw a blue hieroglyph beckoning. The bathroom. He walked quickly and stiffly toward the door.

A boy and his father walked out just as Bragg entered the bathroom. He paused and held his breath listening. No one. He found the handicapped stall and bolted the door closed. He let the bag fall to the floor and gingerly pulled his hands away from his side. A growing black stain marked the wound. He carefully unbuttoned his shirt. Pearls of sweat on his upper lip. The arrow head was clean through and protruding from his abdomen like a costume gag. You aint dyin in no shopping mall bathroom, he said.

He bent at the knees so he could reach in the bag and pulled out the garden shears and holding them with a whiteknuckled hand eased the blades of the shears around the short length of arrow shaft near the wound.

Set in the gray villages of a desertbound country, The Taco Trilogy is a taut, brooding Yelp review epic about a fateful taco and a mysterious wanderer who is consumed by a quixotic quest for truth.

Taco Bell, Review I

Taco Bell, Review II

Taco Bell, Review III

Advanced praise for The Taco Trilogy:

“The world must see this, and revere it.” —Bit Bucket, Tumblr

“…the writing tends to bloat as you go…” —Matt Peckham, Time.com

“JESUS CHRIST I LOVE THIS BLOG” —Serious Delirium, Tumblr

“I got through as much of the 2nd Taco Bell review as I did Suttree. :(” —mullacc, MetaFilter

About the author:

Cormac M. is an Elite Yelp reviewer and novelist.

Financial District - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

One star.

They left him there in the cell. Delirious. Speaking of crazy things. Wild things. The guards would not touch him. As if his blaspheme would taint all in his presence.

We do not know how many days passed. The villagers assumed that the man had been shot. Many claimed to have seen his corpse. But finally a visitor came. He was a man from the restaurant. The guard introduced him as assistant manager Marty. Marty spoke to the prisoner with friendly words. Of a terrible misunderstanding. Of regret. For the taco. For his experience at the restaurant. That perhaps some reckoning could be made. Some settling of accounts. Perhaps a ten dollar gift certificate.

And the man who ate the taco rose for the first time in days. Unsteady on his ruined leg. What could he say? After what had occurred. The struggle and the lives lost and the villages left smoldering and glowing as if the earth’s integument was torn and hell laid bare.

He told Marty that his parlay was with no man or restaurant chain but with God. That no ten dollar gift certificate could recompense for an abomination that left mankind orphaned and Godless and wandering in a barren and eternal wasteland. That the taco could no more be unmade than time stopped. Than the deserts flooded with water.

Marty said nothing and turned to leave but the man stopped him. He asked Marty what had become of the taco. And the assistant manager said that it had been burned and the ashes spread at night. The man who ate the taco laughed at this. He laughed and would not stop even when the priest came. And they took him to the yard and there he was shot and at last he stopped laughing.

The villagers heard a bell tolling. Even though the church had been burned and the bell melted. And for years they would hear this bell ringing. This clarion call. And it came to be known as the bell of the taco.

2 Previous Reviews:

11/3/2011 We do not hear from the man who ate the taco until November of that year, when he… Read more »

10/26/2011 And so the man defied the villagers and ate the taco. In defiance of the will of those people but also… Read more »

Financial District - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Three stars.

I’ll have another, he said.

The clerk wiped down the counter and would not look at him. We’re not supposed to give customers more than three guarana boosts, he said.

I aint askin.

The clerk poured another shot of what looked to be hog lagoon effluent and pushed the glass across the counter.

The man took the brimming glass with a calloused hand and stared into the murk and staring back were wolf eyes golden and immutable. He tossed the shot back. As if in consuming the vision he could consume the memory as well. The scar sickled across his face throbbing.

Financial District - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Three stars.

We do not hear from the man who ate the taco until November of that year, when he returned to the town on the back of a mule. The villagers gathered in the square reverently as if before them rode some great emissary. Staring with coalblack eyes at the man in his rags and on a crude cedarwood pike the halfeaten taco moldering. He dismounted and stood before them. And in a quiet voice he began to speak. The villagers overcame their fears and ancient taboos and approached him. To listen and to assure their eyes that he was of flesh and of blood.

The man spoke of his trials with the taco so terrible even God could not eat it. That it had cleansed not only his gut but also his soul. And a veil had been lifted and he could see the truth. And the villagers leaned in crossing themselves and gasping as he told them that God held no dominion over this land anymore and neither did the men from the capital. And in his blaspheme the villagers heard the truth. What began among them as a murmur nearly inaudible rose to a chorus of shouts. For even the elders could not deny the man who ate the taco spoke for them. And in his veins coursed the blood of their people and the downtrodden throughout those ashen hills.

And so. This is how the uprising began. How in the towns of that country under the cobalt vault of the sky impassive and immutable the villagers took to arms under the banner of the halfeaten taco. What was to come was not man’s doing but of some celestial machinery. Who are we to ask why? For once the taco was eaten it could not be uneaten nor could the tragedy looming be diverted or waylaid.

1 Previous Review: 10/26/2011 And so the man defied the villagers and ate the taco. In defiance of the will of those people but also… Read more »

1 Follow Up Review: 11/10/2011 They left him there in the cell. Delirious. Speaking of crazy things. Wild things. The guards would not… Read more »

Financial District - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Two stars.

And so the man defied the villagers and ate the taco. In defiance of the will of those people but also in defiance of some order older than he. Older than tortillas. Than the ancient and twisted cedars. How could we know his mind? We are all of us unknowable. Blind strangers passing on a mountain road.

The man laid there in the village square for three days and nights and took no food and spoke to no visitor. The older villagers said that the man should not have eaten the taco and no sane man would do so and the price of such folly was known to all.

On the fourth day an old lady asked the man was he ill and did he need a doctor. The man told her he was indeed ill but that he wished to see a priest. And she crossed herself and left and in the sweltering afternoon sun a priest came down to the square to see the man.

The priest asked the man why he lay there in the square and if perhaps he could be convinced to leave. The man said he had eaten a thing which he should not have and he could not move because the world was revealed to him in its evil and in its beauty. That if he moved he might fall into the sky and never return. The priest assured him that it was not possible to fall into the sky and that an earthly cure of ginger and peppermint would surely calm his digestion. The man asked could God make a taco so terrible even He could not eat it. The priest considered this and said no this was not possible and to think so was a sin. The man was silent for some time. Then he said that he had eaten such a taco and that it tasted of bootblack and horsefeed. That if this taco was under God’s dominion then surely all other great evils must be as well. And then the man took the halfeaten and greaseblackened taco from his coatpocket and thrust it at the priest like a broken sword. Eat it, he said. Eat it or be damned.

2 Follow Up Reviews:

11/3/2011 We do not hear from the man who ate the taco until November of that year, when he … Read more »

11/10/2011 They left him there in the cell. Delirious. Speaking of crazy things. Wild things. The guards would not… Read more »

Union Square - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Two stars.

The first woman I been with was a gal named Mabel Rae down in Plano. She was the second prettiest woman I ever did see. I was eighteen years of age at the time and she was twenty one. She was a whore down on Gas Street. I suppose that may shock some folks. Layin down with a whore like I did. But I see these young things on the street everday wearing clothes would of made Mabel Rae blush. Dont seem like progress to me.

Ever time I rode through Plano I stopped by Gas Street to see Mabel Rae. Now dont misunderstand me. The nature of our acquaintance changed when I met Alice. These were social calls. Mabel Rae always wore the same dress and the same hair but the rest of her aged. Plano was a tough town and she took her licks like everbody else. Werent nothin glamorous about it.

When she was about 35 years of age she took to drink pretty good. Started just fallin apart. I aint proud to say I stopped callin. I caint tell you what happened to her. I’m not sure anybody knows.

I like to think of Mabel Rae when she was twenty one years of age. I reckon she’ll always be that age to me.

Noe Valley - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Four stars.

The sheriff and the posse were now a block away and riding seven abreast rifles in hand and horses snorting and wildeyed. The outlaw dropped his pistol and stiffwalked into the parking lot of a grocery store. Around him young women in skintight sporting clothes stopped and stared.

The ground shook as the posse rode up on the parking lot entrance but the sheriff stopped his riders with a raised hand and sawed his palamino around sending the animal sidestepping like a showhorse into a newspaper box which fell over with a great cacophony. When the noise subsided the neighborhood and the parking lot were silent. The riders and the outlaw and the women frozen like actors in some gypsy roadshow.

A rider wearing an elaborate mustache and carrying a Winchester onehanded nudged his quarterhorse toward the sheriff. Hell he’s right there sheriff.

I know it. Im lookin at him same as you.

What are we waitin for then.

We caint touch him now deputy. They got their own way here.

The riders watched as the women left their station wagons and strollers and encircled the outlaw. As if some ancient instinct united them. Silent as wolves and staring intently at the broken man standing there. He saw his mistake and called out to the riders reaching toward them with his one good arm but was struck down with a savage blow from a rolled yoga mat.

That old boy done walked into the wrong parking lot, said the sheriff.

The posse sat their horses and stood silent witness as the women swarmed over the outlaw’s fallen form and soon they could not see him but for the flurry of spandex and ponytails.

Reno, NV

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Three stars.

He pulled another cold french fry from the greasestained Happy Meal box. He ate it slowly. The sun rising behind him over the limestone bluffs. The barren valley and the road winding through it still in morning’s blue shadow. He wiped his hand on his jacket and checked the breech of the big Weatherby. Bullet as long as man’s finger sitting there. He lay down on the blanket, the rifle’s barrel resting on the saddlebag, and glassed downcountry with the telescopic sight. The dusty road was empty. He waited.

Bismarck, ND

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

One Star.

Wallace and old man Tucker sat the horses and watched the cattle cropping the tallgrass on the rincon blazed amber by the shallow and palegold morning sun. The horses pricked their ears in unison and soon Madison pulled up in the battered Ford. He stepped out in new boots and carrying a small paper cup. He said good morning to the others. Wallace turned to look at him but Tucker kept his eyes on the cattle.

What’s that, said Wallace.

What.

The cup.

This here’s a latté.

A what?

A deluxe coffee, Wallace. Four dollars of brown gold.

Wallace leaned down and grabbed the cup from Madison’s hand and took a drink. He spat it out. Goddamn, he said. Tastes like a pregnant mare’s urine.

No it dont. Give it here.

Wallace wiped his face with his arm. Tastes like spent cartridges in a pickle jar.

Come on now. It aint that bad.

Wallace leaned and offered the cup to Tucker. You try it, he said.

Tucker let the bridlereins rest on the pommel and holding the cup two handed took a drink. He handed the cup back to Wallace and continued looking at the cattle and the shimmering grass and the mountains knifing into the blue canopy above. Wallace and Madison waited but the older man sat there for a while and said nothing.

Well go on, what’s it taste like, said Madison.

Tucker leaned from the saddle and spat in the tallgrass. Tastes like snake venom, he said.

How do you know?

Was a time I had to suck the venom from a person very dear to me who was snakebit. That’s how I come to taste it.

What happened to them.

Her, he said. The old man dug his heels into the bay and they headed upcountry toward the cattle rivering the meadow, the horse pluming great steaming breaths in the chill morning air and the younger men watching in silence.

Union Square - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Three stars.

Victoria bore a secret unutterable and incomprehensible as if she carried with her the dessicated corpse of some creature from beyond the borders of the earth which no language could describe. A secret hidden for a thousand years and of such proportions that it existed not among the mountains and the barren plains but resided in each stone and paperthin grassblade in that dead country. It could not be destroyed by fire or death or confession but was branded in time and would remain there always and Victoria struck mute and condemned would carry the secret to her death and under the ground in that pauper’s grave it would await its next tattered palanquin.

Fresno, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Two stars.

Watts strode into the restaurant smelling of horse and woodsmoke and all the patrons turned to watch him as if he had called out to them but he had made no sound save the whispering of his leathers and the jangle of his spurs. He sat at the bar. A bartender in a vaudevillian striped shirt approached smiling like a grifter. Can I help you cowboy, he said.

Double rye.

I’m afraid we dont have rye.

Dont have rye.

Sorry.

Well what do you have?

The bartender slid a glossy menu toward the him. He regarded it with great suspicion. Held it at arms length. He sighed heavily.

I reckon I’ll have a Blue Razzberry Mojito Freezer.

Union Square - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Two stars.

Given the way my uncle died havin a drink directly after his funeral just didnt seem right so I went for a walk instead. One of them downtowns where all there is is stores. Came across a store was a big cube. Two stories tall and all silver. There was folks outside just standin there. Line stretchin round the block. Maybe a hundred people. I saw a man who’d brought his own chair. He had a shirt on with the same logo as the one on the store. I figured he worked there so I asked him what the line was all about. What were all these people waitin for. He told me it was for a apple phone or some such. I said dont these folks have telephones already? He told me they all had apple phones but it was the older one. I asked him what would happen to the old apple phones. He told me about a fella named Craig had a list and everbody sold their old telephones on it. A telephone sellin list.

Well I told him that all made about as much sense as a horse with two heads and he laughed like that was the funniest thing he ever did hear. Said he was goin to twinkle it. I left before he said anythin else that didnt make no sense and I went to the nearest bar and ordered a double whiskey and sat there drinkin it. I guess I sat there for a long time. Wonderin if when Rome was fallin all the Romans was standin in line waitin to get that new chariot or the like. The barbarians at the gates and them just standin there waitin.

Castro - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Five stars.

The Chickenhawk tucked in her wings, folded her tail and dropped from the sky silent as falling snow. Hooked beak sighted on the park below as if the bird could pierce the crust of the earth and add to her dominion the world beneath. A heartbeat from striking the ground she spread her broad wings, talons scything toward the grass her beak still closed and silent and from the park she plucked a black and tan Chihuahua. The dog yelped as the talons snapped shut around its bony frame, the dog’s master nearby but intent on a small computer phone. The hawk hovered for a moment laboring with her reeling prize and then with great wing beats she climbed skyward. Past the trees and rooftops to a kingdom ruled by laws not of man but of blood alone. The two figures receded toward the noon sun, an unknowable hieroglyph in silhouette, journeying to that hot orb or another destination beyond the pale.

The dog at last relaxed in the clawed embrace. For the first time feeling nature’s caress.

Gourmet Ghetto - Berkeley, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Two stars.

He forked another helping of seared Muscovy duck breast with foraged chanterelle succotash into his mouth and chewed it mechanically and without joy. On his tongue the rusty tang of revenge sought and achieved. His eyes fixed beyond the warm glow of the restaurant to a middle distance known only to him, to a home on a wasted prairie and those men and the outrage he’d born witness to and his promise to them on that day and the years that followed hunting and waiting and one by one he delivered his promise to each of them and with their money he bought this food and this wine and he could taste none of it.

Gourmet Ghetto - Berkeley, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Four stars.

The old man sat there reading the menu with sagely focus. It was the strangest menu he’d ever seen. A waitress festooned in face jewelry and wearing clownish rags appeared at his tableside. When he looked up she was staring at him intently.

What are you grateful for today? she said.

Well mam, I am grateful for many things given my advanced years and predilection for drink and gambling and the like, but if I had to choose well I guess that would have to be my Colt three fifty seven magnum. Lots of fellas using these new semi automatics, but I’d like to see one of them peashooters put a wadcutter through a engine block.

She stood there staring. He coughed loudly and made a sound like he was gargling broken glass. He pulled out his handkerchief and spat in it.

I’d be mighty grateful for some steak and eggs too.

Union Square - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Two stars.

The traveler found himself in a gilded and luminescent valley of commerce beset on all sides by baying signage, the air redolent in fine leather and human urine. He turned and saw behind plate glass two mannequins, their alabaster buttocks thrust toward the street, their womanly frames ballooned like some gaia figurine to be worshipped by savages and on them were pajama trousers with the word Juicy luridly stamped across the seat of the pants.  Hellfire and damnation, he said.

Si, said a drifter standing beside him. The traveler had not noticed the drifter’s coming. The man’s streetblackened but noble face and vanquished suitcoat spoke of a past of finer things. The drifter gestured at the trousers in the window. He began speaking in sonorous Spanish.

He told of a world in which no men or women remained but only nymphs anointed in oils and bedecked in shameful rags. Of creatures empty of ambition and godless pursuing only carnal pleasure. That for their sins they were branded with whorish words on the seats of their trousers and while the clothes could be removed the stain of the words would remain forever.

The drifter fell silent. The store’s double doors opened and out strode a pair of young women haughty as Romans, their backsides bearing a one word epitaph for the dreams of those who came before.

The Mission - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | Lost in the chaparral, NM

Four stars.

Kent awoke to the dawn skylighting the foothills. The sun’s promise not yet fulfilled.  He got up and walked to the campfire where Davis was brewing a pot of coffee on the coals.

What are you doing, Kent said.

Brewin coffee. What’s it look like.

It looks like you’re overextractin. Give me that.

Kent grabbed the tin and splashed it into the sagebrush.

Goddamnit, Kent, Davis said.  That was nearly done brewin.

Just you wait. I’m about to blow your damn mind. Davis watched as Kent pulled a small white porcelain cone from his saddlebag and laid it on a folded blanket. He refilled the pot from his canteen and set it on the coals. Now we just gotta wait for it to boil, he said.

You’re a crazy sumbitch.

Just you wait.

They sat there waiting. The sun emerged from the foothills. A sanguine ellipsis painting the chaparral in gaudy technicolor.

The water boiled and Kent leaned over and removed the kettle. Then he eased back on his blanket and sat there watching it.

Davis leaned and spat into the coals. Well what are you waitin for? he said.

Waitin for the water to cool down.

We was just waitin for the damn water to heat up.

And now it’s got to cool down till it’s just right.

You’re a fool you know that?

What’s foolish is squanderin the brightness and acidity of these beans. Kent poured water into two enameled cups. He waited a moment and then dumped the water on the parched earth.

Davis sat there watching him. Just make the damn coffee, he said.

I am. Hand me them unbleached filters.

Cormac M. | Author | A dusty home at the end of a road, NM

Red Hook - Brooklyn, NY

Three stars

I went to the damndest store I ever saw with my son and my daughter in law shortly after my granddaughter was born. Had to be the biggest furniture store in the world. Showroom floor with these little rooms all done up you could walk through. I felt like I was trespassing. My son and his wife were arguing about I don’t know what so I hung back a bit and before long I lost them. I ended up next to a wall of chairs. Maybe 30 chairs on shelves all lined up. I guess I stood there for a long time just looking at them.

I’ve had to make a lot of tough calls in my life and some of them I still wake up thinking about. But I never waffled and just chose my way and stuck with it. I guess that’s the way I am. But if you’d of asked me to pick a chair I’m not sure I could of.

Doctors told us my daughter in law is depressed on account of the baby but I think it’s cause of the chairs. And ever other damn thing in that store. So many things to decide on and not a one of them matters. Hell, it was enough to give me the depression and I was only in that store for three godforsaken hours.

Mission - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | A dusty home at the end of a road, NM

Three stars

He dodged smoldering barricades as he ran down the boulevard with the ancient Winchester in one hand. Choking ash everywhere and the sky bloodred and roiling and somewhere the sun presiding over the day’s death. His tattered pants soaked through with blood. Three gun shots in steady succession. That was their signal.

He saw an unmolested and padlocked door and ran to it. Smashed the lock from the door with the rifle butt.  Inside, the shambles of a clothing store. His figure skylit against the back wall by the burning city. He said: last chance you idiot. He leaned the Winchester against a smokestained wall and pulled a pristine pair of jeans from the floor. Dropped his bloodstiffened pants and worked his bandaged and taped feet into the jeans. He could not force his feet through the slim pant legs.  He muttered a curse and tore the jeans off. Started rummaging for another pair until he heard two men talking. Boots crunching glass.

He grabbed the Winchester and leveled it at the doorway. Quickly surveyed the shop for another exit. None. A trap. His heartbeat thrummed up into his ears. He edged toward the doorway. The voices were close now, at least three in total.

He crouched there, pantless as a fleeing lover, his future framed in a glowing doorway.

Galleria/Uptown - Houston, TX

Cormac M. | Author | A dusty home at the end of a road, NM

Three stars

There were a variety of cakes and sweet things there.  The desserts paraded by in their desperate decadence, at once a fading and colorless memory.

A Bavarian chocolate cake stood apart, on a simple plate. Like a rancher’s wife it was seasoned by hardships and nature’s brutal arithmetic. Flourless, it awaited a lonely fate.

A Tiramisu teetered like the oldest prostitute in a mining town, reeking of saccharine liqueur. The faint scent of virtue lost amid the hellish musk of ten thousand outrages.

A torte, covered in glistening fruit, a lie as old as memory.  Its flavor joyless, a pyrrhic dessert atop a mountain of meaningless artifice. Hasn’t been real sugar in this torte since before the highway was built here. Since before the first settlers came through with bibles and Henry rifles. The slow mockery of corn syrup.

He reached for the Tiramisu with a hand that had been dried by the sun and wind and bathed in the steaming blood of another human being. All that now was behind him.

Mission - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | A dusty home at the end of a road, NM  

Three stars

He sat down next to the others. Studiously ragtag bohemians carefully squandering the waking hours. Pieces of a conversation that when added weighed nothing and meant nothing. He stopped listening and looked east to the valley and saw among the Victorians the wavering image of Ohlone people in a loose band collecting seeds and trapping fish in Mission Creek, babies strapped to tattooed mothers and men naked as Adam heedless of the evening’s coming fog and up the hill sequoias and coast red woods huddled like mourners.  Sea lions on the beaches thick as pavement. In the bay an alien galleon loaded with steel and powder. Sails slack and men streaming into boats, skin oozing a new pestilence, hands holding Spanish blades. The Ohlone watching and having no words for it.

Mission - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | A dusty home at the end of a road, NM  

Four stars

The girl and the boy wait in line sharing no words between them. She wears the patchwork uniform of a young Bohemian. Tights quaintly shredded.  Faded garments a manufactured history of a life she hasn’t led. Eyes dulled by ceaseless days of studied indolence.

The boy distractedly polishing a computer mobile phone with a scarf patterned by the long forgotten runes of an indigenous culture. His hands as soft as a baby’s.

The girl nudges the boy. Look, she says.

They both look down the street. Shimmering in the heat waves, the unspeakably alien image of a solitary rider on a horse. Coming their way at a funeral pace.

The lady in the food truck is saying something to the couple but they can’t stop looking down the street.  The girl, taken by a sudden and ancient panic, grabs for the boy’s hand. Finding no succor in his chalky grip, her hands move to her neck.

Horse and rider are now less than a block away. The roan Appaloosa gamely walking down the center line. Cars yielding with silent deference.

The rider tugs the reins and the horse veers toward the couple. The girl looks up at the figure on the horse and sees a man of indistinct but advanced years. Skin nearly indistinguishable from his faded and sun parched leathers. A well-used rifle in a holster along the saddle. A silver and glass locket at his neck. Inside, a lock of hair.

The horse comes to a stop inches from the girl’s face. Steamy equine breath envelopes her. A smell not known to her people since the time of her great grandparents. She reaches for the horse, tentatively, feeling underneath its hide a terrifying aliveness.  She begins to weep. It is an inconsolable wail born from the deep rage of years lost and wasted. The boy watches helplessly and makes no move toward her.

The rider leans down from the saddle, his orchestra of leathers creaking in protest. He extends a scarred hand to the girl. Come on now, he says.

The girl reaches for the rider, knowing the sinews that guide her hand are not her own.

Kittery, ME

Cormac M. | Author | A dusty home at the end of a road, NM

Four stars

It was boots he needed. He surveyed the store looking for a someone who would understand, but knew he would find no kin here. He settled upon a teenaged girl wearing the polo shirt livery of the store. Blemished skin not yet that of a woman. Her hair in a severe pony tale. A twinge in his memory, echoes of loss or love.

Excuse me Miss, he said.

Can I help you, she said. Her eyes not agreeing with her words. He felt more foreign than ever.

I need boots.

You gonna be doing some hiking?

I got some traveling to do.

Oh fun. Her voice without color. She looked over the display of boots, small hand to her chin, the portrait of the thinker. How about these day hikers, she said. She held a pair of indifferently soled boots of Chinese manufacture.

No, just give me the best. I got money.

One of our premium boots.

Where I’m going you can’t just walk into a store, buy another pair.

Well we have a great return policy here.

I ain’t coming back this way.

You can mail them in, people do it all the time.

Darling I wish I could but these are likely the last boots I’ll be buying.

For the first time she scrutinized the Traveler. Her wide eyes considering a world not yet illuminated to her.   Clouds lifting, a vast plain before her. People seem to like these, she said. She lifted an Italian hiking boot from the display and offered it to him. He accepted the offering with the quiet solemnity of a pilgrim. Between them the briefest flash of understanding. Two humans washing down a river. Somewhere ahead a white roar.

Mission - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | A dusty home at the end of a road, NM

Two stars

Karl nodded toward the untouched mason jar of wine.

You best drink up son, he said.

The young drifter looked away.  I cant.

Yeah you can. Go on.

The boy went silent once more, turning to the window, to the city street wet with night fog.  Somewhere, a train whistling.

Karl joylessly toyed with a wet book of matches. Around him, a humming riot of moneyed bohemians. Chasing sex and possibility, heedless of death’s proximity. They sat there for a while. Well I cant fix this one, he said.

I know, the boy said, looking down at his hands. Blood under the fingernails.

What are you fixin to do.

I dont know. The boy rubbed his hands together, in spite of the bar’s hothouse warmth.

They wont stop hunting you. After what you did.

Yeah I know. The boy put on his sweatstained ball cap and walked out the door without looking back.

Karl watched the boy go. A pulsing pain in his gut. He watched the doomed boy fade into the smokey mist. Reached for the mason jar of California red. Drank it in one go. Goddamnit, he said. He stood up slowly, tired limbs protesting. He squared his hat. On his right hip, the Colt. Something he never got used to. The heaviness of the thing.

Mission - San Francisco, CA

Cormac M. | Author | A dusty home at the end of a road, NM

Two stars

The young cowboy lies in the afternoon sun, gut shot.  The bitter tang of cordite and blood mingles in his mouth. In his hand, a pearl handled revolver, still warm. He lies propped against the lone cottonwood. A mile distant, dust trails mark a coming reckoning. Three riders, maybe more.

His eyes shift upward to a circling vulture, a sentinel of inevitability. The blood is almost black. He has another hour at most.  The pain comes in waves, lingering like the burn of bad whiskey. One bullet left in the Colt.

Something as yet unheralded has died when a quesadilla comes on a spinach tortilla.