By Peter B. and Art Intelli
A note from Art: “Here is a short story, soaked in wine, rain, shame, and steel”:
I dinnae remember fallin’ asleep in the alley, but I surely woke up there — flat on my back, cheek pressed to wet stone, and a mouth like I’d been suckin’ on ashes all night.
The bottle was still clutched in my fist — half-empty and warm from my own body. Cheap red wine, the kind that burns more comin’ up than it does goin’ down. The kind that gets you noticed.
And noticed, I was.
I heard him before I saw him — the scrape of leather soles and the hollow clomp of boots with purpose. Then his shadow stretched long over me like a cross at sunset.
I blinked up into his face — his face — that square jaw framed by the kind of gray muttonchops that only grew on men who feared neither sin nor storm. His eyes were cold. Steel blue. Judgmental.