Family and Other Ailments
Crime Stories Close to Home
The twenty-six stories in Family and Other Ailments teeter on the brink, hover at the periphery or even the possibility of crime. Under a soft light and at an angle, they're all love stories.
The collection opens with “Spy Head,” a tale of friendship after a crushing trauma. In “Texas Two-Step,” brotherhood leads to a wicked double-cross. “Razorbills” shows a young woman seeking freedom from the prison-like caring of her sibling. “Black and Tan” slips into domestic horror, as does “Mutti,” with a hint of the fantastic. “Hour of the Bat” and “Bag Limit” are deep woods Texas noir, while “A Head for Numbers” and “No Recoil” go west, to the stark unforgiving beauty of the desert.
Spy Head
(an excerpt)
When we started meeting in the pavilion on top of the dune, Billy was nine years old.
Billy’s mom had called the office to tell me he wanted to talk to me. In private, in that place. It struck me as morbid, an unnecessary revisiting of a nightmare. But I’m a cop, not a psychologist. Maybe some expert recommended it, to take stock of the horror, what do I know.
Billy said that he wanted to visit with me once a year, in the exact place where I found him, on the anniversary date of the rescue. “What for?” I said. “Just to talk,” he said.
And that’s what we’ve been doing for the past thirteen years.
Regular as clockwork, and I’m always first to arrive at the rendezvous.
I’m retired now and Billy graduated from college. You would think that he could be waiting for me, for a change, but no, the ritual is set. He still calls me Mr. Ericson and I call him Billy. A few years back, I told him to call me Dennis. He acquiesced and went straight to calling me Mr. Ericson. I tried again, on the next visit, to no avail. My wife says there’s reassurance in keeping things the same, and I guess she’s right.
© 2023 M.E. Proctor