Freezer Burn

by April Kelly

About the Author: April Kelly is a former TV comedy writer and producer of shows ranging from Mork & Mindy and Webster, to Boy Meets World and Girl Meets World. She now writes short fiction which has appeared in Tough Crime, Shotgun Honey, Mysterical-E, Down & Out Magazine, Floyd County Moonshine, Mystery Magazine, The Vanishing Point, Sci-Fi Lampoon, Punk Noir and numerous regional and university literary magazines.

Excerpt

Beer-drinking, tobacco-spitting good ol’ boys Lyle and Pooter Floyd were not the first guys you’d think of if you were profiling PBS’s audience, but there’s where you’d be wrong. Those unemployed hillbillies not only watched Antiques Roadshow, they took notes! Hand to God, Lyle (the one who could read) gripped a stubby Ticonderoga pencil in his meaty paw night after night, diligently copying the information from the screen onto a Dollar Store spiral notepad when Pooter froze the image on his command.

“Snap a pitcher, Poot,” he reminded his younger brother each time, wanting a visual reference for quick decisions.

Not that either of the Floyd boys gave a flying flip about Duncan Phyfe chairs, early Kandinskys or Victorian silver tea sets, but ever since Pee-paw Floyd shuffled off his mortal coil and the Social Security checks stopped rolling in, they were running low on Slim Jims, Funyuns and all the other food groups. They needed a source of income.

Because the cable was only pre-paid till the end of the month, they didn’t have time to waste, so they watched and catalogued five Roadshow episodes a day.

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