Carmelita

by Zvi A. Sesling

          The Mexican chick, Carmelita, I’ve been visiting in Tijuana for months wants to know why I am divorced, so I tell her. The first wife fucked half the Seventh Fleet in San Diego. They literally came and went. In and out, so to speak. The second wife chose the Marines at Camp Pendleton while I was at work so she could buy the clothes she took off for those leatherheads.

          My guess is this Mexican gal, Carmelita, probably used to earn her pesos on the streets of Tijuana. I really don’t care because like the past times I’ve been in Tijuana, she is going to let me get laid tonight, bless her brown thighs. But then, unlike the past times, she shows a picture of her late husband, a fat, smiling Mexi wearing a sombrero and a smile that reveals two missing teeth up front and a belly that’s downed too many Cervesas. She says his name was Poncho, but it sounds like Pauncho to match the picture.

          Then she says the drug cartel filled him with a hundred pieces of lead because two and a half million dollars in some drug deal is missing, and now they are looking for her because Poncho gave her half a million to get away to San Diego and set up a place for them with different names. He never made it, so she had to scoot out of Tijuana to San Diego late at night in the trunk of my car.

          So here we are at Papa Pedro’s Bar & Grille in La Jolla pretending we just met when I see a couple of goons at the end of the bar.

          “Lady,” I say pretty loud, “just remembered I gotta be at work early.”  And before she can say Oh senor, I’m gone, out the door of the bar on a side street off Girard in La Jolla and in my Chevy. I make for home.

          I had a rented room on Poole Street, and as I drive up the hill to my pad, I notice a car following me, so I pass my street and drive up to the main drag and over to Torrey Pines Drive and down the winding road back to Girard, the car tailing me all the way. I then take rights and lefts, but the sedan behind me hangs in there.  

Finally, I stop at the police station and the sedan takes off. I notice it’s black and has California plates. As soon as it’s out of sight, I make a U-turn and head home. No car follows.      

The next morning, as Carmelita and I had planned, I hoof it down to the airport, and get a flight to New York.

          Carmelita, who’s been my lover for the past year since Poncho’s demise hangs in San Diego, a few days while avoiding the goons. Then she catches a flight to Dallas, spends a couple days there and then off to Chicago. From there she’ll fly to Atlanta before finally coming to New York where, with new names and low visibility, we’ll live happily ever after with the money she converted to a bank check and slipped to me while showing me her late husband’s picture.

No Need to Cry

by Zvi A. Sesling

          “Drunk? I’m not drunk,” I tell the cop who pulled me over.

          “Please exit the car and walk a straight line to me and back,” he says.

          He makes me walk on a cobblestone street and of course I wobble, trip and fall, so he calls a tow truck and arrests me for DUI.

          I get my one phone call to my lawyer, Rick Shaw, who tells me to meet him in court the next morning. When I see him, I quickly tell him what happened, he laughs and says, “Well this won’t take much time.”

          The judge calls my name and Rick says, “Rick Shaw representing the defendant, your honor.”

          The judge, looking bored, peers over the top of his reading half- glasses. “Very well, counselor, let’s get on with it. Is the state prepared to present its case?”

          “Yes, your honor.”

          The state puts the cop on the stand, who says I was driving erratically so he pulls me over on Humbolt Avenue. He says, “I asked the defendant to walk a straight line, but he was wobbly and fell over, so I arrested him and had his car towed to the city lot. Then I proceeded to drive him to the jail on Woodward Street where he was placed in a holding cell.”

          After the prosecution rested, Rick Shaw addresses the judge, “Your honor, this police officer detained my client for driving erratically, yet how else can one drive on cobblestones that are more than a century old, let alone walk on them? In fact, where my client tried to walk near the intersection of Claymore, it is particularly hazardous. In fact, your honor, the city is scheduled to pave over Humbolt Avenue for all those reasons.

“The city has determined this particular road presents difficult driving and is very dangerous to pedestrians trying to cross. And, your honor, there are at least fifteen cases the city has settled this year with people who fell on the cobblestones. Some were bruised, a couple broke their ankles and others had broken bones or twisted knees. Your honor, I ask this case be dismissed.”

          The judge peers over his half-glasses again. “Yes, this case is dismissed. I would warn this officer and others to heed caution on Humbolt Avenue until it is repaved.”

          Well, we all leave the courtroom. I really dislike that cop for trying to pin a DUI on me, so a couple weeks later, when I read he has been shot and killed by a druggie during an armed robbery at the local convenience store, I do not shed any tears.

He Knows What He Wants

by Zvi A. Sesling

          “So, Sam, when did all this start?”

          “I guess third or fourth grade, Dr. Heffer.”

          “And what got you started?”

          “Well, Mother once said a cat scratched my face and that’s why I have all these scars. One day this stray cat wandered into our yard, I tried to grab it, but it scratched my arm and ran off. I tried getting a quail and then a dog with my bow and arrow, but I was ten years old and, of course, missed both times.”

          “It seems you are not successful at most things like school and work, either.”

          “Well, Doc, when I was seventeen, I took Janey Lawson out and before going home strangled her and dumped her in Image Lake with some rocks tied to her. They never found her. I claimed I was in bed all of the night. Never could pin it on me.”

          “No remorse, Sam?”

          “Maybe a few minutes. But then Charlie Cheever bullied me at work, so I followed him a few blocks and then came up behind him and stabbed him with the knife I’d stolen from the hardware store. Got him enough times to finish him.”

          “And that was your first?”

“Oh, no, Janey Lawson, remember?”

          “Of course, but how many bodies did you do in?”

          “Probably fifteen, Doc. Usually hitchhikers or streetwalkers, men and women. All whores. But I’ve enough of them. My next thing is shrinks, at least one before they inject me.”

Zvi A. Sesling, Brookline, MA Poet Laureate (2017-2020), has published numerous poems and flash/micro fiction and won international prizes. A five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he has published four volumes and three chapbooks of poetry. His flash fiction book is Secret Behind the Gate. He lives in Brookline, MA. with his wife Susan J. Dechter.