Author: Ken Beck

Ken Beck is a musician, writer, and media specialist. He has had an extended career as a musician in dance, a composer, and a teacher. He has a passionate interest in historical audio devices, especially late 19th century recording techniques. He is an amateur radio operator, KD9NDJ. He is a record collector, owns a home with a fireplace, and is married to DeLann Williams. He is a keeper of two cats.

1. Julian Finds a Blog.

Julian stared at his keyboard, numb. From his fingertips had just flown the last word and final period of his third unsold novel. He felt utterly drained, unable to stir himself to get up and see if the world at large still existed. He thought to himself,“Writing a novel is like being in love or, perhaps, like having diarrhea. What, really, is the difference between the two? The same urgency, if not desperation, the same cramping pain, the same messy results, the same desire to keep it hidden from one’s colleagues and friends.”He could not make up his mind which metaphor to choose. And, now, after all the decisions he’d made about another innocent character’s life and existence, did he even have the energy to make a decision about the dregs of his own internal dialogue.? He did not. In the weeks that followed this mini-event, Julian was obligated to go back to his day job as Dr. Julian Gray, Professor of English Literature at Blue Ridge Community College. His feeling of depletion lingered. He stumbled through his lectures without his usual flair.“Are you even listening to me, Julian?”The young woman sitting before him, on a simple wooden chair in…

2. Amy Tells All – Almost

Lana put down her 4B pencil and regarded the drawing paper she was working on. Her little demon was taking shape. The sharp report of Scott’s voice in the kitchen made her gut flip. “Lana! Where’s my ratchet set?” “I don’t know!” She yelled back, turning her head in the direction of the hall. “It was in here yesterday!” He’s heading her way. Out of habit, she closes her book of demons. He doesn’t approve of her drawings. She gets up off the sofa to head him off, tossing the book aside. “You went on some massive clutter flutter, and now it’s like, where is anything around here.” “Scott, baby, I don’t want to fight about it just now. Do we have to?” “No, we don’t. It’s just that it makes me crazy when I can’t find shit.” “I know. Perhaps if you describe the item, I can recall seeing it.” “You know, the ratchet set.” “I don’t know what a ratchet set is. Remember me? The ignoramus?” He smiled. His wife is so pretty he thinks, and so impressed with him. He doesn’t know the word, but he feels that it is correct when she is submissive. He relies…

3. Lost Her to Facebook

Julian sat on the battered old couch in their fucking old house (which they adored, but seemed to be coping always with the leak of the week) and looked with fond regard at the voluptuous form of his wife, Dana. She was sitting on the cattycornered couch, not quite as decrepit. She had her laptop open and her blouse undone and that magnificent bosom was going to waste as she ranted away on Facebook. Let’s ponder her fullness. She is a professor at the same little community college. Unlike Julian, Dana is beloved by her peers. She’s the go-to person in a crisis. Her competence is beyond question, her ethics beyond reproach. Even her name is heroic and womanly: Dana Josephina La Famina. She uses the whole name, rather than his surname, with pride in her heritage. It is a name that he can whisper into her ear and it turns the both of them on. She’s a goddess. She marches right on. She’s a bit forceful and manic in the mornings. She’s easy to get along with and to get to know. She has a lot of friends. She has a lot of Facebook Friends. She’s very focused on…

4. Flight

Scott was out at the airstrip at dawn. He was working his way through preflight on the Skylane. He sold vintage aircraft parts, and traveled all over the county doing it. His love was his Piper Cub, which was hangared here on this little patch of level grass in the midst of the Blue Ridge. He only flew that bird in the summers, when the air was thinner and he could pull back on throttle and stick and feel her wallow and shudder on the cusp of a spin. It was an airplane; it should be able to spin. He never allowed it to get that far. Who knew if her weary old airframe could take it? Other flyboys he knew had aerobatic machines. He’d been up in the Extra and felt the thrill of the Lycomming’s horses and the snap in the seat of the pants, the float on the upside of the hammerhead. He loved it, but he didn’t own that kind of a bird. His seat of the pants was much more sedate. His ride at the moment was the Honda Civic of aviation: the Cessna Skylane. It was a sedate and solid aircraft with full avionics…

5. Law

At eight o’clock in the morning, Lana Andrews arrived at the law offices of Fetterman and Weinstein in downtown Parkersburg. She had graduated from West Virginia University School of Law, the only law school in the state, suma cum laude, a mere year and a half ago. Law school was an odd choice for a free spirit like Lana. She made it at the urging of her husband, who wanted a bit of help with details of his business. She took to it with all her heart. She found the law not dry, as we might suppose, but teeming with the realities and vagaries of human existence. She meant to take the Bar straight away, but Scott objected. He wanted info, not a lawyer. She was confused by her husband’s volte face. She assumed that he didn’t understand what it took to become a lawyer. Lana felt that this was only temporary, and that she had every expectation of bending her husband’s will to her own. She had yet to find the way in to this argument with Scott. Scott, for his part had mixed feelings. He liked the idea of a significant second income, not that he felt himself…

6. Spats

Lana’s portrait of her friends on “Amy Tells All” was almost completely fiction. She did indeed have two close friends that had the hair color and physiques she described, but they did not act out in public. They gathered one evening when Scott was off on his sales trip, not a bar and grill, but at a fairly nice Parkersburg restaurant. Spat’s at the Blennerhasset is situated in a historic hotel that has all the amenities: a gym, a pool, a library, meeting rooms, a business center, a gift shop, and a Starbuck’s. Hell, the place will even entertain and accommodate your canine friends. The “evil sisters” were nothing of the kind. To all the world, they were cosmopolitan women, very well dressed, affluent and refined, out for a night on the town sans spouses. This take was the truth. Lana Marietta sat at table between Lisa Roiter, (Red), and Christine Miller (Blonde). They enjoyed several cocktails ahead of ordering an exquisite dinner. The Blennerhasset also sports a cooking school. Christine was a graduate. She knew her food and had the slight extra girth to show for it. None of these women were anything but lovely. They were not models,…

7. I’m OK, you’re not OK.

Professor Feminita faced her Psychology 1 lecture class each Tuesday morning at 9 AM. She was always punctual, appropriately attired in a business suit, and well prepared. She was proud of her syllabi, and very good at public speaking. Sometimes she lectured, though more often she’d lecture briefly and then engage with the class in dialogue. She was one of those professors that tolerated note taking on laptops, but expected the students’ attention. If she discovered a student on Facebook or whatever else the students liked to do on laptops (or phones), she’d ask the person to leave. If she kicked you out more than twice, you started to get in trouble with her rubric. She would, on the other hand, send the students off on a web search. They were free to Google away; not infrequently they were expected or asked to do just that. So Dana Feminita strolled the room, beaming engagement and awareness. The student population was diverse in the rural community college where she and her husband Julian taught. The faces that looked back at hers were varied, but the demographic was predominately Caucasian. The language they spoke was often inflected with the accent of the…

8. Couples Therapy 1

Dana sat on her couch and Julian sat on his. They had their laptops at the ready, but Dana had just gotten home from work and changed out of her work clothes. She usually peed while wiggling out of her nylons. She multitasked. Sometimes Julian would stand in the doorway and chat while she did all of this, but tonight, with his laptop parked at Amy, he sat there and kept reading. His discovery of “Tells All” was very fresh. He was reading about her wish to find an off duty writer for a coffee date. She was going on in her amusante way about needing some sprucing up around her head. It was clear that she wasn’t talking about her hair. She was thirsty for “intellectual conversation” that didn’t involve either airplanes or fingernails. He could think of at least ten things in that category without even having to think very hard. “Julian!” “Dana!” “How was class?” “Oh, it was actually very good. We’re still discussing TA.” “TA. I assume you mean Transactional Analysis and not tits and ass.” He passed her on the way out the door. The routine at chez Gray was to wait for Ms. Feminita…

9. Couples Therapy 2

Lana sat on their couch and typed on her laptop, letting Amy tell some things. She sat with Mea on one side and Tory on the other. Her twin sphinxes were the chatoyant jewels of her life. The sun set and the shadows deepened. She got up and switched on a lamp. She was expecting Scott to be arriving at any moment, and sure enough she now heard his car pulling into the driveway and the garage door opening. She snapped her computer shut and shelved it. She sat on the couch and straightened the fabric of her skirt so as to prim and proper for her man’s return. Scott entered the room still carrying his luggage. “Hey, doll. You’re a sight for sore eyes!” “So are you, sweetheart.” She remained seated. His body language suggested something still in motion, something still needing to be done. Flyboys always seemed to be working a checklist. “I gotta put these bags upstairs. Then I’ll come back down and we’ll chat.” “’K. I’m going to be sitting right here.” She had the place polished up to a bright shine. Her housekeeping was legendary. Scott was a stickler. She listened as he trotted up…

10. The Car God, Renounced, 2

Scott was out in the shed at the airstrip when his cellular vibrated in his pocket. He picked it up and saw as he brought it up to his ear past his face that it was Lana. “Hey, Babe, what’s up.” “Scottie, my car’s dumped all of its antifreeze. I was out shopping, then I thought I’d take a drive. I got as far as Salem. I hit a dive, had a drink, and when I got to my car on the other end, I found this big puddle under it. I thought I’d check with my favorite gear head to see if he thought it was ok to drive it back to Parkersburg.” “Nope. You’ll warp the head, if you haven’t already. Has it been overheating?” “Yes. I meant to tell you about that.” “Fuck! Now you tell me!” “Scottie, don’t yell. I’m stuck. I guess I need to be rescued.” “Right. Well, I’ll wrap up out here and get to it then. You’ll have to keep yourself entertained. Beat it back to that bar and have another slug or two. But don’t get so shitfaced that you can’t deal with some very batshit driving.” “OK. Thanks. I’ll owe…