Slice Of Life

by John Joseph Ryan

About the Author: John Joseph Ryan writes unusual tales, verse noir, and crime fiction. His work has appeared in River Styx, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Akashic Books' Mondays Are Murder and Fri-SciFi series, Flash Fiction Offensive, Shotgun Honey, Suspense Magazine, and in anthologies such as Noir Riot and Grievous Bodily Harm. John’s collaborative noir short is “Hothouse by the River” and his debut novel is A Bullet Apiece.

Excerpt

Lucy One-Way said left turns were bad juju. Only she didn’t say “juju.” She used Eastern European-sounding words that conveyed the evil eye, a finger hex, and a drop in temperature all by the way the vowels got sliced up by the jagged consonants. If I could type it, it would be all x’s, and even that wouldn’t get close to how dangerously the words cut the air. But that’s not important. The point is she never made left turns.

If you ever rode around with her—mind, she was a decent driver—you’d always forget that when you said “Turn here,” and gestured left, she would pass up the turn, make a right, make another right, and then make one more to complete the turn left. And all with just her right hand. If there was no convenient street on the right, well, sit tight.

Her resistance to leftward movements didn’t just apply to driving. Even walking, she wouldn’t turn left to enter a store. She’d make three quick rights to avoid the matter. This led to not a few offended pedestrians cussing her out. But they shut up quick when countered by those cutting consonants winging out like throwing stars between Lucy’s lips.

And her lips. Have you ever tasted strawberry pie right when it has cooled enough to eat and not burn the roof of your mouth? How the heat masks the sugar at first and you just get this warm gelatinousness sensually filling your mouth as it crosses your own lips?

Forget that. Lucy has lips nothing like that. They are one line set atop another. I asked her to smile once just to see what would happen. I haven’t asked again.

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