Excerpts
The Copy Cat Didn’t Have Nine Lives
Ang Pompano
When I got the text message saying that Rupert Allan was dead, I hit the breaks on my ’69 Camaro so hard that my grandfather fell off the back seat. Sorry ‘bout that, Gramps, I thought as I reached behind the passenger seat and tapped around on the floor until I found his urn. I placed him back on the seat where he’d been for the past year and a half. One of these days, I’d have to paddle out to the islands and spread those ashes. Today, obviously, wouldn’t be the day.
© 2007 by Angelo J. Pompano Published in STILL WATERS (Level Best Books 2007)
Promises to Keep
A. J. Pompano
Harold was my uncle but he was no Lazzaro. He married my mother’s sister, Marion, when I was a baby and even though they lived right in Sachem Creek, we had little contact with him over the years due to a falling out between him and my father. As far as I knew, neither one of them could remember why they fought, but they both remembered that it was the other one’s fault.
My father earned good money for the long hours he put in at the Sachem Creek Quarry. He spent most of it providing for the family and blew the rest in the camaraderie of the village tavern trying to forget that his muscles ached.
Harold also worked hard, suffering the pains that come with farming the rocky clay of the Connecticut shoreline. He never wasted money in the tavern or anywhere else. He had my Aunt Marion treat his aches with potions she whipped up from herbs, rather than spending money on booze or doctors.
© 2008 by Angelo J. Pompano Published in DEADFALL (Level Best Books 2008)