Wham Bam Stories by Simpson

Dan wants an eye for an eye. They violated his daughter and he wants revenge. 

Sure, he'd been a frat boy, done his share of drinking and carousing. But it was different then. Better, he feels sure. More innocent. They didn't slip mickeys into the girls' drinks. 

Dan's memory of his college days might be a tad murky and a touch selective, but he knows what he knows, and he knows the names of the boys who violated his daughter. 

And for these violations they are about to pay. 

simpson-books.com

John Adams is a hard luck guy. No parents. No siblings. No diplomas. No girlfriend. No prospects. Everywhere he turns it's just more pain and suffering. 

Until one day, out of the blue, in the emergency room of all places, when things just can't possibly get any worse, a stroke of good luck.

And then a string of good luck. And a bundle of Bounty. 

simpson-books.com

He's got a cushy job with the old man's construction company. Record keeper for a big Port Authority job at the passenger ship terminals on the Hudson. Plenty of time to do his two favorite things: Read & Write. He has some heavy ambitions itching at his craw. Wants to be a novelist. Of import. A Twain. A Melville. A Marquez. But can he withstand the pressures? Family pressures. Peer pressures. Financial pressures. The Twins Pressures of Desire & Consumption. It's a tall order. A tough task. He claims he'd rather be dead than give in to these pressures. 

Let's see how he makes out.

Listen to it now: DEAD GUYS DON'T WRITE

simpson-books.com

Baby Kane has escaped from the back yard. He is crawling up the railroad embankment at the same moment the Union Pacific rolls west across the New Mexico desert. 

Will Baby Kane get splattered by the lead locomotive? If he manages to stay off the tracks, what about the venomous rattlesnake that's just had its rattle severed by the fleeing caboose? Will that sidewinder nail Baby Kane if not the train? 

Mom and Dad, Erin and Adam, are busy with their new biz, Land of Enchantment Adult Gifts and Novelties. They don't know their boy's in jeopardy. They don't know what evils lurk. 

simpson-books.com

We once again interrupt our short short stories to bring you thoughts from the war in Ukraine.

SPRING

BREAK

or

This is the Way Artists See the World

An Absurd and Utterly Divine Tragedy in Three Brief Acts 

1.

PURGATORY

Driving south down the
Delmarva Peninsula on
Spring
Break
News on the
Radio out of
Mariupol 
Ghastly
Barbaric
Women and
Children
Beaten
Bloodied
Raped
Tortured and
Murdered by
Putin’s
Butchers not a
War not 
Armies 
Battling for position and
Property and
Prestige just
Butchery
Savagery a deviant
Leader’s 
Insanity and a once great
Nation’s
Inhumanity

2.

PARADISO

Lying in the soft
Carolina
Grass 
Ocean
Waves breaking beyond the
Kitty Hawk
Dunes overhead the branches of an
Atlantic white
Cedar heavy with pine
Cones the
Sun filtering through the thin 
Needles a bright
Yellow
Butterfly flutters past carrying on its fragile
Wings peace and
Quiet while the
Kids grow older and hopefully more
Grateful more
Aware of the small
Harmonies and displays of
Affection so vital to
Familial good
Health aware I am that it was
Love after all that delivered us into this
World not
Hate not
Savagery not
Treachery but
Love all this I
Meditate on just before I first
Hear and then
See
Blasting across the
Clear
Blue
Sky a formation of
F-15
Screaming
Eagles out of
Langley ready to
Kill

3.

INFERNO
Driving north now heading
Home
Lunch at a 
Norfolk
Diner all of us a tad
Droopy after so much
Sun and
Fun and good
Food I first see and then
Hear two
Flyboys in their
Air
Force
Blues one says to the
Other 
Old Joey
B gives the
Green
Light
Pal lets me
Loose I’ll
Bomb those f***ing
Russian
Commies and their little
Fat
Boy
Putin back to the f***ing
Stone
Age

simpson-books.com

Boys and Girls
Men and Women
Like:
Oil and Water
Salt and Pepper
Dark and Light
Atlantic and Pacific
Allan and Lexi have a couple of small problems that demand their attention. They've come to the City Diner at dusk on the shortest day of the year to discuss their two little problems and see if they can work things out.
If you're interested and you would care to eavesdrop, just hit play, close your eyes, sit back, and relax.

simpson-books.com

Tommy and his dad Lou always get their haircuts together on Saturday mornings. But this Saturday Dad tells Tommy to go on in and get his haircut all by himself. Lou tells his boy it's  a rite of passage. To Manhood.
          But Tommy senses something's up. Something's not quite right. Something's wrong.
          Dad insists it's no big thing.
          Tommy feels the earth quake. But he does what his father tells him. He climbs out of the Bel Air and, body trembling, walks through the door of Lenny's Barbershop all by his ten-year-old lonesome.

simpson-books.com

Stud Macintyre loves the ladies. So when an exceptionally beautiful young lady shows up on a Harley for the Sunday morning canyon ride, Stud is all a-lather. He right away hits on the  gorgeous girl on the Harley Sportster 883. She succumbs immediately to his masculine charms. They go to dinner. Then back to her place. She is Stud's fantasy come true. 

Only one minor hiccup...

simpson-books.com

We interrupt our regularly scheduled short story podcast with this poem to the people of Ukraine. The congregation of the Peapack Reformed Church in Gladstone, NJ wants to help the people of this war-ravaged country. The website below has been set up to send badly needed medical supplies to Ukraine. In many parts of the country the situation deteriorates daily. Please help if able.

  https://amzn.to/3i8RUnp

Ukraine
Oh Ukraine
America weeps for you
While russian
Bombs
Rain
Down upon your
Mothers and
Children
Ukraine
Oh Ukraine your
Lives will never be the
Same
Victimized by another
Lost and
Lonely 
Despot gone entirely
Insane
Your
Bloodied mothers
Plead and your
Wounded
Children scream while
Totalitarian tanks without
Dignity or
Humanity
Crush your
Democratic dream
Ukraine
Oh Ukraine
We pray to a
Merciful
God your
Struggles will not be in
Vain and your
Suffering at the hands of
Tyrants will
Soon be on the
Wane 

simpson-books.com

Life is good for the plantation owner, his wife, and their five lovely daughters. Life is a lark. A frolic. An Independence Day picnic at the swanky plantation down the road. A blissful carriage ride home beneath the towering Chinese elms billowing with Spanish Moss.
          But wait. What is that?
          Up ahead. Hanging from the thick limb of that yonder Chinese elm.
          Is it?
          Oh my God! It is.
          A man!
          Lynched!
          Independence Day: Gone with the Wind, with a twist. Not for the squeamish or the faint of heart.

simpson-books.com