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BLURB:
A detective known for bold courage on the job deals
with mental and physical abuse by his trophy wife. A woman strives to overcome
the PTSD she brought from battlefields in Iraq so she can become a loving
partner. In the title story, a socially dysfunctional man “girlfriends” women
he “meets” in obituaries. From liaisons that are real, to those that are
imaginary or somewhere between, Christopher T. Werkman skillfully creates
characters beginning, ending, or finding a way through some type of romantic
relationship. Girlfriending, Werkman’s
collection of short stories, will fascinate, amuse, and astonish. Many of the
stories are published in literary magazines and anthologies, but most appear
only in this collection. His novel, Difficult Lies, was published in 2015.
EXCERPT
“What’s up?” Andre called down from the flying bridge.
“Not sure,” Otis shouted back. He could snag anything
inside ten or twelve feet, but the bottle was out of range. It submerged, then
popped to the surface again. Whatever the line held was too small, or weakened,
to take it under for long. “C’mere,” Otis hissed, in his raspy whisper.
Instead, the bottle moved closer to the algae-coated jetty, green as ripe
spinach. Just as Otis decided to get off the boat and try to recover the bottle
from the pier’s walkway, it made a break for open water, giving Bubble Watcher
wide berth.
Diving in to swim after it was Otis’ only option. He
noticed a tampon applicator floating in the coffee-with-cream colored
shore-water. A mile or so out to sea, he could count the planks in Bubble
Watcher’s hull from a depth of a hundred feet, but in the marina, all manner of
waste found its way into the water. Not only that, he had no idea what was
hooked on the line. Getting bitten or being speared on the dorsal of a panicky
fish was even less appetizing than a leap into the murky water. So, the bottle
skittered away, leaving Otis as angry at his own inaction as he was with
whoever set the trap.
He jumped down onto the main deck, stowed the gaff and
picked up his gear. He dove the summer-warmed ocean in his swim trunks and a
tee-shirt. Since Andre, the owner, supplied him with a tank and regulator, he
had only to off-load his buoyancy vest, weight belt, mask, fins and snorkel.
Andre climbed down from the bridge and tilted his head
toward the jetty. “No treasure?”
Otis hoisted his equipment onto the pier, then glanced
in the direction the bottle took. He wanted to tell Andre about the bottle, but
the words hung in his throat. “Nah, turned out to be nothing.”
“How was the dive?”
“Spec-tacular. One of those little gals and I found a
sea turtle with a wad of fishing line tangled around her flippers. We cut it
loose, and she followed us around for most of our dive.” His smiled. “Neat.”
“That ‘little gal,’ the tall drink of water you
surfaced with?” When Otis nodded, Andre did a once-around to make sure she
wasn’t nearby. “Man, Otie. I was you, I’d be on her like spar varnish.”
Otis winked. “She probably already has a grandpa.” He
stepped up onto the stern, then to the pier. “Same time tomorrow morning?”
“Sure. Eleven spots reserved. Probably some walk-ins.
Castin’ off at ten sharp.”
“I’ll fill the tanks and have everything good to go.”
Otis picked up his gear, walked into the dusty gravel parking lot and
discovered the girl they were talking about was parked next to his car. Her
shiny red SUV wore New York plates. She was toweling off her robin’s-egg blue
aluminum tank. A large woman with olive skin and long raven hair, she was
fleshy, but athletic. He judged her to be in her thirties, and imagined she
might look at home on a soccer field or a basketball court.
“Hey, Otis.” Her smile came on like high beams. “I
really enjoyed the dive. That poor turtle seemed so happy when we cut off the
fish line.”
“Yeah, glad we ran across her. Damned monofilament
line is ruining the ocean.” The jittering bottle did an encore in his memory as
he opened his car’s trunk and laid his gear inside. He almost mentioned it, but
as he turned to face her, she stooped to remove the regulator from her tank.
Instead, Otis watched the top of her Day-Glo pink swimsuit strain to contain
her breasts.
She stood and gave him a knowing look. “I bet you’d
like one of these.” She stowed the regulator in the back of her car, and pulled
two cans of beer from a cooler.
“There’s the way to my heart, girl. Thanks.”
“What makes you think I’d want your heart?”
“You wouldn’t.” He opened the can and took a sip.
“It’s old and worn out, just like the rest of me.”
She laughed hard. “I work with guys half your age who
will never be in the shape you’re in.”
“Then they have my sympathy. And what is it you do up
there in…?”
“Schenectady. Marketing.”
Otis grinned. “Convincing people to buy what they
don’t know they need?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Sometimes. Or what they bought
from me a year ago isn’t as good as what I have to sell them today. Companies
though, not people.” She closed the SUV’s back hatch and leaned against it, her
reflection on the window doubling her beauty. She explained she was a refugee
from the dot com collapse of the late nineties and she’d sold software for six
years. “The company is moving into a new building in late August, so I bumped
my vacation up a few weeks. I get a corner office with a great view of a park,
and I need to be there to make sure it’s arranged the way I want.”
“Well, if you have to work, it sounds like you’ve got
a great situation.”
“Have to work.” Her laugh rolled. “That’s right, you
said you retired. What did you do before you became a dive bum?”
“Michigan State Patrol. Was a trooper for thirty-two
years. My wife, Jayne, died a few years back after ten rounds with breast
cancer. Right after that, I had a bout with the big C myself.”
For the first time, a serious expression cleared away
the woman’s smile. Her dark eyes brimmed with concern, making her even
lovelier. “Oh, Otis.” She touched his arm lightly. “You’re okay now?”
“Seem to be. Had surgery and some radiation.”
Radiation scared him, especially because he believed radiation exposure from
traffic radar caused the cancer in the first place. When the course of
treatment ended, he was declared clear of disease, but lacked confidence in his
body. To his way of thinking, nurturing cells bent on his destruction amounted
to treason. As a trooper, he relied on his body to safeguard his life. Its
dalliance with cancer shook him to his core. On the way home from his final
radiation treatment, he saw a mid-sixties Pontiac GTO gleaming beneath the
wind-tickled plastic flags on a used car lot. Half an hour later, he was
writing the chain-smoking salesman a check. The car took Otis back to the time when
he was young, strong and healthy. At another level, the control he exerted over
such a powerful machine transposed into a feeling of mastery over his body.
Otis liked to think of the GTO as an outgrowth of his psyche, although the
reverse was probably closer to the truth. “But, yeah,” he told her. “I’ve been
clear since.”
“And you had it…where? Do you mind my asking?”
Otis shrugged. “Not if you don’t mind me telling you.
My testicles. They took the right one. Managed to save the left.” He raised his
eyebrows, amplifying his grin. “Easier to cross my legs, now.”
Dark as she was with a tan compounding her complexion,
her blush ripened. “I’m sorry” She laughed. “I deserved that.”
Otis shook his head. “No. You really didn’t. I should
watch my manners. I’m the one who’s sorry.”
Author Bio:
Christopher T. Werkman completed a thirty year career as a
high school art teacher in 2000. He still paints, but his primary passion is
writing fiction. He lives on a few acres outside Haskins, Ohio, with is
partner, Karen and too many cats. He plays golf in the summer, indoor tennis
all winter, and rides his motorcycle whenever there is sufficient traction.
Mr. Werkman has had over twenty short stories published in
various literary magazines and anthologies. His first novel, Difficult Lies, was published by Rogue
Phoenix Press in September of 2015.
Keywords: short stories, romance, humour, bizarre, sad
Blog URL:
Twitter : @Chwerks
