Short Stories by Lola Nation - Make it Short

It was hot. A typical August heatwave and Los Angeles would part her legs for no pleasure tonight and the humidity she bore was unbearable for anyone else to sleep with. Grifter got up and opened the sliding glass door to the balcony. He was finally able to open the windows and balcony doors again now that he’d solved the problem of the old bat across the way. About six months ago, he’d asked her to kindly turn down her television. It wasn’t that he minded she was most likely deaf and had to have it on loudly to hear, it was the fact that she never turned it off. It was almost as if the three a.m. infomercials needed to be turned up even louder so that she could order that Nordovac system and God forbid you couldn’t hear the evangelists at the crack of a Sunday dawn. Upon asking her to turn down the television after ten p.m. like any other law biding citizen, she told him to fuck off. He didn’t react except with a nod of the head and pivoted slowly toward the step off he...

I am sitting in the waiting room area of Cal Worthington Ford. Football is on the 20” screen that is here for the comfort of their guests while their friends or loved ones purchase their dream new or used Vehicle. Across from me is a bored salesman who came with the specific goal to hit on me. He’s wearing a yellow shirt and black pants, on a busy day it must look like a hive of bees around these cars. I am staring at my computer screen ignoring him, while he taps his fingers annoyingly against the steal armrests of his polyester blue chair. Well, maybe he didn’t come in to hit on me and is anxious for the score, is today Superbowl Sunday? Anyone who grew up in Los Angeles remembers Cal Worthington. Cal was on between Warner Brothers and Hanabarbara cartoons, talk shows and newscasts on local channels. Cal Worthington was old when I was in grade school. Somehow, he’s not dead. In fact, the LA Times wrote an article on the old bastard. He still demands to do his own commerc...

The Start of a Great Evening  We’re in the car, streetlights are flashing into the windows with velocity, blinking blurs my vision as I continue to watch the dashes in the lines. Must focus. As soon as the car stops, I am running. I contemplate this again. I haven’t the legs to run with, they will inevitably give out on me and he will fuck me up. Okay, I’ll wait until he gets into the house, then I’ll drive off. This is, after all, a pit stop. If I’m still being logical I tell myself, then I’m not that drunk. If I can get out of this, even to just around the corner, I’ll be okay. I’ll be okay. And it would have been okay had I not been too drunk to drive his stick shift piece of shit car. He catches me in the driver’s seat and asks me, “What do you think you’re doing?” I don’t have much of answer, but I am sure I have a dead drunk stare. This is the part where the memory forces itself to sharpen up – can’t have any dull blades here, must keep wits about me. I se...

I wake up in Kansas City. It’s 2:18. I feel like I’ve just risen from a coma but my eyes are still closed and I can hear the ambulance pass through, it sounds like an organ grinders melody. I dream that people I have known in my life are visiting me, asking me why I am here, and I answer them the same way I answer the zombies in real life, “I don’t know. I thought I was in love.” They laugh at me the same way they would if it was real life and give me that here’s looking at you kid smile. Except, in my dream I’m in my backyard on Washington Place. I’m talking to Scott Ahlsmith and I ask him for a lighter and he gives it to me with a shamed face. I thank him and he tries to sell my mother carpet. She tells him she likes the kind she had in 1985 that use to leave footprints in her room when the kids would come say good night. She liked the footprints. She doesn’t get that he has a good deal and he smiles at her with sadness, she’ll never get it. He liked that kind of carpet to...

  Captain’s Log February 24, 2007  Aunt Betty died last Friday, funeral services are today at Saint Andrew Presbyterian Church of Santa Barbara .  I woke up at 9:20 after staying up till 5:30 AM online.  This does not make me a loser. (note to self)             My parents expected me to be at their house at 10:00 AM.  This was not going to happen.  I called and asked them if they planned on picking me up.  My mother said no, but they could.  She then called back and suggested my brother, Scott, pick me up.  I agreed.  This bought me a little more time to stuff my suitcase with random items and funeral attire.             10:33 AM Scott gets me evicted once and for all             Scott arrives in his black Camry and parks on the side of my apartment building, slightly bl...

Cannot Find Page The story of my life “cannot find page”.   It reminds me of elementary school. At Richland Avenue Elementary school , in any given grade, there was usually a reading hour a couple of times a week.   Dependent upon how smart or well read you the more challenging of a text book you were given at the start of every year.   Reading required students to make logical assumptions about the stories you were given, challenged you to give summaries of the story and enhanced your ability to read aloud for that public speaking job you were going to apply for when you graduated high school with Toastmasters.   You know when it was your turn to read, but you weren't paying attention … and when the teacher said "Lola Nation" (three times the first two she gave me time to find my place, but the last was always said with that scowling finger-pointing that required no tentacles). Finally I’d cop up "I lost my place, my bookmark fell, where were we?" and I was...

Saturday Afternoon on 39 th Street The homeless person walked into Minksy’s, a navy blue collar pizza joint with an attached bar.  Rather than opting for food, the person led their dust cloud to the adjacent room and sat in the dimlit bar.         “What’ll it be?”  Said the manager, Bob an overweight, jolly sort of looking fellow with glasses.          “Bud.”  The raspy voice sequestered.  Bob wiped a glass that didn’t really require his attention and then sauntered over to the other sid e of the bar, opened the cooler and popped the top off the beer rather than twisting.         The homeless person, finished the beer in one swallow, not even a gulp to be heard.          “That’ll be $2.75.”  Bob said as he resumed polishing the glass.  Without hesitation the homeless person knocked the beer int...

Tony says, “don’t sit on the grass, you  might get chiggers.”  Chiggers cause giggles, why that sounds ridiculous.  “What are chiggers?”  I ask.  “They are kind of like ticks, they crawl under your skin and make you itch really bad until they die.”   This fascinates me.  We walk through the church garden, past the roses, into a ivy lined gazebo.  “How long does it take for them to die?”  I ask like a curious child.  “A couple of days.”  He tells me.  I continue on the subject matter.  The thought of bugs crawling under skin itching and scratching for a couple of days just because I sat in grass consumes me.  My arm starts to itch.  “Tony!  I think I have a jigger.”  I tell him.  “No, Lola, you aren’t fishing, they’re called chiggers.”  He says in his calm tone that declares he’s clearly annoyed with the chigger questions, but I’m not done yet.  I have recently discovered my...

Jerry, my cousin, was a truck driver.   At some point my Aunt Margie and my Grandma, whom they called Money because as a child Aunt Margie was too stupid to say Mommy, I always thought it was because she was like a bank for everyone, talked Jerry into driving them up to Oregon to see Oral Roberts.   They were avid television watchers of his show and they were convinced that if he slapped them in the forehead, they would be HEALED!                 So, they went.   I stayed home and watched her dog named Snuskin Rouskin.   Which in some former Russian country means “precious one.”   I always debated who my Grandmother loved most, the dog, myself or my cousin who was constantly gaining my inheritance by needing bail money.   She told me it was okay, his ship would come in soon and we waited and waited for that ship.    No matter how many times I went to Marina Del Rey for ...

            I’d just parked my truck at the Toledo Pilot Truck Depot.  I had a piece of pie at the diner, scored some speed in the men’s restroom and headed across the street to the bar.  I told myself I’d wait before I got on the road to smoke, but I couldn’t wait.  I went into the bathroom, took the light bulb out, and used my torch lighter to get high.  Once I was spinning again, I went back out the bar.              I was now on super prowl for anything a fight, a grift, a chick, anything.  That’s when I saw her across the room, she took off her ring and I knew it was easy prey.  I pulled up my Levis, tucked in my flannel shirt, sauntered over, and sat down beside her on the empty wobbly stool, unsure if it was the seat, or the legs, so I leaned over closer to her.             “What’s y...

Rehab’s Protégé Carol had been out of rehab one month; she’d been in for one year. Carol was addicted to speed and loved to swallow capfuls of GHB. She’d hit another car, her second DUI and we'd paid for her lawyer. She would’ve been locked up for five years had we not gotten her off with a rehab term. We paid over thirty thousand to get her out and we were pretty much broke after that but Carol was like a little sister to us and we felt the necessity to take care of our own. After she was released, she immediately hit the streets and met up with this guy Luis Zapata. Luis was a manufacturer with three meth factories buried in the valley. Within the month, she’d managed to rack up a bill of $3,000. Given that she probably did the full amount of drugs instead of selling them as she’d hustled him for initially to get back on her feet, it was no surprise that on the fourth week, she’d gotten into a car wreck again, this time killing someone. We paid for another lawyer. We could...