Cooking the Hook - NEW

     Ace sat with his back to the room and appeared to be reading a small prayer book. Actually, he was tearing out the pages one by one and eating them, chewing slowly and looking up at the ceiling of his cage as if he was memorizing the text. Billy, the bar's owner and bartender, said he only ate one or two pages a day – it was not as if he was hungry. Billy fed Ace every time he fed himself. In fact, he fed Ace first like he was worried about being poisoned; a fair concern because he treated the cook like dirt.      It bothered Bea to see Ace locked up like that. It was obvious that he was constantly pissed-off, unlike most captive monkeys who sank into apathy after a while. If anyone but Billy approached the cage Ace screamed and flung himself around inside. If you put your hands anywhere near his reach or grasp there would be blood. He once ate a drunk's left little finger.      The day he escaped she helped him by not saying a...

Do we really remember or do we conjure up the magical past?    Well after dark Bea leaned back in the wet clover and considered the stars which were largely obscured by the yellow wash of the street light. She also considered shooting out that street light. One well placed shooting aggie should do the trick, but she wasn't that good a shot and a miss would probably take out the Republics plate glass window. Mr. Mckinley had enough to worry about. Brucie would come talk to her if he felt like it, stars or no. She was patient.   Since Brucie died, his mother, Audra, had taken to passing out drunk in any number of public places; the grocery store, the lobby of the post office and, just last week, Nell found her laying flat on the sidewalk halfway up Maple avenue, her butt on the high curb and her legs sticking out in the street like a dead goat. Lord only knows how many passersby clucked their tongues and made note that she had gone out with no drawers on.  Nell dr...