Time Off From the Old Car Lot
The dealership where I currently work sells premium American motor cars that get about zero miles per gallon. Times are rough at the old store. It’s a ghost town. The factory reps are breathing down their necks. I’m taking a few days off to evaluate my options and […]

Spontaneous Combustion.
This story happened at the Dodge dealership where I worked many years ago. We had a manager there, call him Dino. Dino was one of the strangest characters I’ve ever met. He wore a toupee, stick-on nails, lifts in his shoes, butt pads and a spray on tan. No one knew what he […]

The Burke Manifesto
There’s a note pad and pencil by my bed. I woke up in the small hours last night and scratched out a note. This happens a lot. Sometimes, the next morning I find nonsense scribbles. In dream haze they seem like golden drops of wisdom. In the harsh reality of day I find […]

Call Me Fish Smell
There once was a man named Fish Smell. He bounced around from car lot to car lot creating havoc and leaving a trail of pissed-off people. The reason for this was simple: Fish Smell was the most evil son of a bitch any of us had ever met. He stole, lied, committed […]

Spanking the Monkey
The Nissan lot was like every other car lot in town. Some very good people worked there, some not. The management team was decent for the most part. One part-time finance manager was a goof ball of the first order. We’ll call him Ned. He went to church with the general manager […]

Mister Boone finds a girlfriend.
I came back from lunch and saw a pleasant looking lady standing in the used car building. She was short, blonde and animated. She carried on a lively conversation with someone in a cubicle. She chatted away, not giving the other person a chance to talk.
I listened. “I have one hundred […]

Felonies and Malpractice.
The highway that the dealership is located on is also home to a dozen other car lots. Mitsubishi, Buick, GMC, Lincoln, BMW and a rash of high line used car dealers line the street. Tempting targets for petty crime. For the last few weeks we’ve been in the middle of a minor […]

Midnight
I’ve been combating insomnia for weeks now. My doctor prescribed Ambien. I took one fifteen minutes ago. Let’s see if I can write this before I fall out of my chair.
I’ve finally gotten around to watching season six of the Sopranos on DVD. Years ago I added HBO to my basic cable just to […]

I’ve been working on a novel for a few years. It’s called Proud Mary and now it’s complete. Next comes the scary part, sending it out to agents. I believe in this story. It’s about a young woman who has to overcome her own fears to save a horse that everyone believes is past its […]

Me and My Shadow.
I once had a shadow. He was an abrasive little ectomorph. His real name doesn’t matter. We called him Sparky. He earned his nick-name after he tried to speed up a brush fire by pouring a gallon of gasoline on it. He missed a few days work and when he came back […]