Wham Bam Stories by Simpson

He's made his dough. Occupied the corner office. Traveled the world. Bought the beach house and the fishing boat and the snazzy fleet of cars.

Too bad he hasn't been able to escape the past. The war. The damn war. The dead soldiers under his command.

He sees and hears the explosion a thousand or more times a day. Half a million times a year. For over thirty years. 

He's tried booze, dope, whores, and no end of other reckless behaviors to blind and silence the relentless explosions. All to no avail. 

Is there another way out?

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Reverend Johnson used to be a believer. He had faith. In God. In Jesus.

Reverend Johnson used to run out of gas. And every time he ran out of gas, someone in need of God, in need of Jesus, would come to his assistance.

In this way the Reverend added many new parishioners to his congregation. He believed absolutely it was God Himself who ran his little British sports car out of gas.

He believed this until that day the woman he asked for help was not in need of God, was not in need of Jesus, but was, in fact, in need of something far more temporal, far more... earthly.  

On that day the Reverend lost his faith but found other pleasures.

And now, well, now Reverend Johnson has found a way, as humans so aptly do, to justify his carnal delights while once again pledging his faith to God. And to Jesus.

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Not so long ago Bev was the proverbial footloose and fancy free. A single woman, happy and wild. Then 30 hit, maternal hormones raged, Mom wanted grandchildren, and here we are. With hubby in the suburbs and four kids under three. 

4 under 3! Yikes! 

Molly, the oldest, is 3 today. It's her birthday. Bev's up and at it even earlier than usual, in the grand hope of getting the birthday cupcakes baked and iced. It's touch and go. Those cupcakes may not happen.

The kids are waking up. Tom's showered and shaved and ready to off to the office. Bev will soon be on her own, four on one, for the next twelve hours.

Will she make it? Survive the gauntlet? Hard to say. She's already at wit's end. And the day has just begun.

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Abortion is a hot topic these days. And for good reason what with a cadre of cloistered dudes in black robes and their evangelical little sister telling women from sea to shining sea what they can and can't do with their bodies. 

The Smites have dough. A large portfolio. A duplex on Central Park West. A 'cottage' in the Hamptons. And an almost desperate need to travel. During the height of the Covid scare in the late summer of 2020 they decide to take a little trip to the Bahamas. 

Eleuthera. Exuma. And now the Smites are on their way to Bimini. On an Island Airways puddle jumper suddenly caught in a ferocious thunderstorm. It could be curtains for the Smites and their cocky young Bahamian pilot.

While up at MIT their only child, David, works eighteen hours a day on his messenger RNA research in the hope of finding a vaccine for the dreaded virus. 

As Mark Twain prefaced in Huck Finn: Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot will be shot.

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Eddie didn't feel like going back to college after Christmas break. Just sick of it, you know. The books. The classes. The uppity know-it-all profs lecturing him on every subject under the sun.

Well, a month or so goes by wherein Ed stays out late and sleeps till noon before the old man reads him the riot act: Get a job, go back to school, or hit the road.

Ed finds the cushiest job on planet earth: plant waterer. At Flo's Florist. He can get high, play some tunes, and water away. Easy as pie.

Till the day Benjamin the delivery guy gets sick and Flo tells Eddie he has to drive and deliver.

And that day just happens to be Valentine's Day. The busiest day of the year in the flower biz. Ed doesn't make a dozen deliveries before the proverbial shit hits the fan. 

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He's a lefty. Throws hard. Possessed of a rising 100 mph fastball. Still an unknown kid but just signed a big fat MLB contract. Worth millions.

She's the daughter of a tech billionaire. A wild thing. Really likes to have a good time. The crazier the better.

She meets the Fastballer at a South Beach soiree and that same night recruits him for a trip to Greece to attend a fancy destination wedding. 

What could possibly  go wrong?

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It can be tough in bed. In the middle of the night. A long, dark winter's night. The brain gets rolling. Lying there between the sheets, winds that don't get a thought during the day blow up into tornados.

He's known loneliness. Who hasn't? Knew it as a kid when his older sibs left the nest. Knew it in college freshman year without a bud in sight. Knew it well when he traveled solo to the far corners of the earth.

But he didn't expect to feel the emotion now. Not married with three daughters. A crazy, chaotic life. Busy busy all the time. But here she blows, roiling around in his head at three o'clock in the morning.

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A quarter of a century ago he penned a critically acclaimed bestseller. Hollywood even made a movie out of the novel starring Al Pacino. The success of the book helped him earn tenure at the university where he taught literature and writing.

Tenure put him on easy street.

Or did it?

He's been working on his second novel for twenty-five years! In that time he has bored his wife and his pals half to death. She fled for the hills years ago and they beeline in the other direction when he comes into view.

No matter. He will not be deterred. He is 100% certain God, or some other purveyor of Providence, wants him to carry on. Wants him to keep scribbling. Wants him to finish this magnificent Magnum Opus. 

This work, he believes, is his Destiny. It is all the evidence he needs to know his life has Meaning.

So what a bummer when a wind storm brings it all crashing down. 

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Maybe a little too much partying at his bud's wedding. Too much booze. Too much grass. Too many pills. And now this crazy chick who jumped in his car when the cops whirled in and chased everyone off.

She's blitzed. Practically comatose. Must've consumed too much of something. Entirely incoherent.

Too drunk to drive, he pulls into an old, abandoned motel. Carries the unconscious girl across the threshold of Room 6. Where things do not go well. Where things go very badly.

It's not the illegal drugs; it's the prescription meds. Not an easy story to hear but one all too familiar in these United States of Drug & Alcohol Abuse.

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Stan and Ollie are neighbors. Friendly but not really friends.

Stan has a wife, three kids, a couple businesses. He's a busy guy, high strung, stressed out. And now this broken bone in his left foot has him hobbled.

Ollie's divorced, two grown kids who live out of state. Ollie's a good guy, a lonely guy. Ollie and Stan's wife Patty often walk their dogs together. Long walks. In the hills.

 Now something has developed between Ollie and Patty.

Or has it?

Life's a capricious journey fraught with many wild twists and turns. Stan and Ollie and Stan's fifth metatarsal are right now twisting and turning in the wind. Take a listen and see how it plays out. 

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