The Outlaw Steve Corbett ink splotch

Swan Dive! Ch. 8: What Would Jesus Do?

July 6, 2022

In RayRay’s bugged out brain the Duvall twins’ obituary breathed, pulsed and floundered like a dying carp with a continuing life of its own as if these good old boys might jump right off the page and start threatening people and ordering pitchers of beer followed by triple shots of Rebel Yell bourbon which they […]

Swan Dive! Ch. 7: We All Come From the Water

June 29, 2022

Brushing her teeth before bed, Ruby Arenas stared at the smooth, soft contours of her face in the bathroom mirror. She also reflected on the cool Black man at the bar who looked like a 70s Blaxploitation movie star and called her “sister.” She never thought of herself as Black because she wasn’t Black, her […]

Swan Dive! Ch. 6: Fight Like a Gull

June 22, 2022

To set the mood for the upcoming protest rally on the beach, RayRay pounded the drum skins and slammed a high-hat cymbal with the primitive power of a caveman banging brontosaurus bones on a boulder, belting out a tribal solo as the leader of the bar’s Saturday night house rock band. Outside on the cracked […]

Swan Dive! Ch. 5: Boom!

June 15, 2022

One by one, about a hundred gulls appeared in the sky from the east, circling the paint-chipped dinghy that bobbed like a homemade fishing lure about 100 yards off the Clearwater Beach coast. Making worse noise than an English new wave band, the man duct-taped to the mast couldn’t get away from the mad cacophony […]

Swan Dive! Ch. 4: For the Birds

June 8, 2022

First Sam brushed the driftwood gently to remove sand and dirt. Then he softly blew on the wood from all angles to alert whatever unseen organisms might live on or in the wood, giving the tiniest specks of life a chance to move out or fly away. Then he soaked the driftwood in a pail […]

The Outlaw Steve Corbett ink splotch