PRELUDE BY CHUMS ~ HARBINGERING BARRY J. NORTHERN'S "CHASING THE WIND"

An Ode to Chasing the Wind

Barry, Aloethar, and Walfrid

strolling/riding through the

winds/sands of time.

Are now near their oasis.

Only time will tell if it’s

Jewels or rocks, Liquid

or sawdust, or

Heaven or hell.

~ By Jeanette Cheezum

 Harbingering . . . Barry J. Northern's mystical desert finale

 ~  CHASING THE WIND  ~

CHANGE OF VENUE

Based on the big cornfed barkeep galoot

from my BIJOU story ...  AN UNLIKELY PARTNER <

I made a bunch of loot helping out some Clyde in my bar back in Naked City. You see, his chick shot a few holes in him and I, protecting my joint, shot a few holes in her.

As a thanks, he threw me half of the take from their big fix on a crooked boxing match. I naturally accepted and thought it was the perfect opportunity to get out of Dodge and set up shop somewhere warm.

I turned to the want ads from my local daily rag and snatched up some cheap land smack dab in the middle of the desert.

But there's a sucker born every minute.

 I thought I was buying 40 acres and a mule in Vegas. I was ready to settle down with palm trees, drinks with umbrellas and a slinky dame on my arm feeding my olives and fanning me with feathers.

Instead, I wound up in this sand trap and this rundown bar filled with all sorts of Green Street hooligans. Apparently some guy Barry  knows them all and I'm gonna have to figure out a way to get him in here so he can calm them all down. Apparently, he's their leader.

I mean, there's only so many times I can un-tilt my pinball machine...

~ By Anthony Venutolo

 Harbingering . . . Barry J. Northern's mystical desert finale

 ~  CHASING THE WIND  ~

THE BIG "O" IN OASIS

 There may have seemed a desert between them as years went by, but across a crowded room on an unexpected Thursday evening, heat still shimmered the way a hovering glaze does above surfaces deemed too hot to touch. He was the one that got away. She knew that, and it bothered her in a place too hard to comfortably scratch beneath a green silk sheath. It bothered her that he'd been the only one to do the walk-out first, to grab his hat from its hook, whistle his happy tune and let the screen door screech a sound effect in the night they'd used to be fond of ~ well, when they were together, when they were the big One.

And here he was, just another badge in a sea of Desert Inn conference attendees until that quirk above his left eye let on that game was on. Comeback time. Her time. Not a chance of a clean getaway tonight. She led off with feigned indifference. When he glided testosterone towards her, shifted his weight, struck his stance, she let her eyes linger over his "HELLO MY NAME IS". That got to him - she caught the old twitch at the side of his now fizzled grin. Her fingertip threw a curve, rounded first base in a side trip up the corner of his mouth, tracing lips, slower than slow motion shows a desert classic cameo so you know you're not seeing a mirage. She was no mirage. She held her ground with level challenge until she became the most integral part of that grin. He gripped her elbow. She drawled, "Is it really you Alfredo? Why where have you been all these years?"

He always held charismatic on center stage or pitcher's mound and took full count of her grandstanding. Halfway through his snazzy monologue on farm teams to the majors, four seamers with spin, and velocity records broken like a heart with no trajectory, she stifled a yawn. He caught its strike coming just across the corner of his zone and elicited a slider pitch which still had heat, "You wanta blow this joint Sweetness? Put something up on the scoreboard?"

"Not hearing anything here I haven't before. Might as well."

"You're referring to me or the franchise conference?"

"What were you thinking Big Al? That you'd lost your touch to get under my skin?"

His thumb tendered a remembered tempo as it eroticized her wrist. They were in the cool night air now. Resorty deco. All the cabana props in place for tomorrow's desert classic sponsors'  shoot. His gaze burned a hole in the gauze of facade he saw until he sensed her edges raw. When he backed her up against a large plaster camel, she held her mirth tight but shook her strap loose -- one glitzy strap of green silk sliding askance along cleavage's way. He knew that trail. He liked that trail that way. He answered her askance, pulled her towards a maroon striped cabana.

"Wait -- scene change?" Green glitz on the unzip. One liquid move and she became the cool temptation an oasis holds in legendary promise and quench. He met her under water offer and she held him there. And she held him there. Her head lifted twice for air, but she held him there.

~ By Absolutely*Kate

 Harbingering  . . . Barry J. Northern's mystical desert finale

 ~  CHASING THE WIND  ~

ETERNAL LOVE

The infinite sands of time blanketed the desert like an eternal shifting beige sea. Though the sun daily caressed the sand it was the starry night that the desert loved. 

~ By Matthew Magda,

 Harbingering . . . Barry J. Northern's mystical desert finale

 ~  CHASING THE WIND  ~