Baxter Renfroe

“West Nile via Marietta” by Baxter Renfroe

Submitted to Contest #181

It was summer in Marietta, it hadn’t rained in two weeks.                Her eyes opened with the noise – the agonizing buzz of mosquitos. Primrose waved them away and flopped over on her bed in irritation, groaning quietly to herself. In four nights she hadn’t slept at all; back home, even in August the nights cooled down enough to sleep easily.  Again the buzzing came, and again she waved it away, then with a sigh of frustration she sat up, flinging the thin...

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“Alone in the woods” by Baxter Renfroe

Submitted to Contest #181

“Suppose you hurt yourself…” Flora started with an awkward hesitation in her voice; she was standing against the kitchen table, a slender hand resting on her throat as though to wrestle the words back. “Who’s going to help you?”                There was a silence that followed her question which was only broken when the kettle began to whistle on the stovetop. Flora’s hand fell from her throat and she turned away woefully to the stove; she poured the water into her te...

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“Giving thanks.” by Baxter Renfroe

“Close the damn door, it’s freezing outside,” an angry voice rolled down the hallway.       Gabrieli sighed, stepped aside, and Dakota came into the foyer; immediately her glasses fogged up. The walk from four streets over had been miserably cold with a biting wind.      “Come on,” Gabrieli said in a hushed tone, “I have to get my shoes and my money, anyway.” She turned and bounded up the stairs as her mother appeared at the end of the hallway.       “Oh, h...

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“Nobody is Clean” by Baxter Renfroe

At the top of Winnie’s list of things she disliked about the holiday season – even above the rude and insistent shoppers – was the dirty ice and slush they tracked in from outside. In the early morning hours, before the mall opened, the snow usually had a pristine, glistening appearance from the frigid temperature overnight. As the sun slowly rose, the sky blossomed into a sea of fiery orange and then a peaceful, pale blue.                By opening time, the first s...

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“Okay, then.” by Baxter Renfroe

Submitted to Contest #172

There were probably a lot of reasons why I said “okay” to Nell if I really stopped to think about them. If I was really honest with myself and with everyone else I told this story to, I would have all sorts of reasons for telling her “okay” even though…I should back up and tell you who Nell is. In those early days, I decided I would hitchhike from Spokane down as far as I could get, which happened to be around Sacramento way by how the crow flies or however it is the saying goes. There was a lot of work in Sacramento then – the orchards...

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“The mist of Claremore” by Baxter Renfroe

By some stroke of luck, Penelope found herself with the upstairs bedroom for a change. Upstairs, for the first time in her twelve years alive – no longer in an unfinished basement, or a converted study, or sharing a bedroom with LaVern and arguing over whether the window shade should be up or down. The last house had seen her sleeping in an old guest room which had a Murphy bed that didn’t fold up any longer. It took up most of the room with its size, and Penelope had to do most things on it, like her homework and folding her laundry. The M...

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“Train In Vain” by Baxter Renfroe

It was beyond those bluish hills to the east with their rolling undulating hues of daydreaming haze that Abigail was looking with her pale blue eyes (she had blue eyes even though the hair was a deep brown) as the train swayed drunkenly through the glens of East Anglia. The hills were fine with their spruce and ash trees and there were beautiful sights to see in them but they weren’t what she was looking at, or even thinking about now that the train was careening through the pastel greens and browns and greys of the English countryside. Furt...

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“A good man is hard to find” by Baxter Renfroe

Submitted to Contest #167

There were streaks of rain along Madge’s kitchen window that she did not notice; it had been cloudy all afternoon but the rain was only now beginning, although she was unaware of it as she bustled about her kitchen ramming and slamming cupboards, boiling water on the stove, a cigarette smoldering in a green glass ashtray. Her pace was frantic as if she were expecting forgotten dinner guests at any moment, her forehead glistening with sweat she constantly rubbed away with her wrist – cursing and rereading lines of the cookbook, reaching for t...

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“The October Humanitarian” by Baxter Renfroe

Larry slammed the phone back onto the cradle and the sound made me jump in the quiet of the empty work room. He struggled to loosen his tie with one hand while he lit a cigarette hanging from his pale thin lips with the other; he mumbled something quietly to himself which was followed by a silence he broke several moments later when he said, “bastard always sounds like he’s drunk.”               Larry moved from Boston two years before so when he said “bastard” it sti...

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“Lyle's service” by Baxter Renfroe

“Don’t you remember? The schooner that Lyle had at the Santa Monica harbor?” This glass of wine will be my fourth, I think to myself as Janine’s fat hand stretches in front of me to fill my glass. I already have the spins, the swirling of the living room becoming more and more pronounced the longer I sit there. I want to shoo her away or cover my glass with my hand but it’s taking all my concentration to focus on the high-pitched words of Kathleen sitting across the stuffy room from me. I can feel a bunch of eyes on me and all I can think t...

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“The fort” by Baxter Renfroe

Liz is sitting cross-legged underneath the castle, atop a pile of huge bark chips, the only ones on the playground that are dry. Everything else is wet, water trickles quickly off the end of the slide into a muddy puddle - you can smell the grass, the cigarettes too. I am sitting across from her, my bag between my legs, fidgeting with the shoulder straps. I know from memory that there is a Spanish-English Dictionary inside, as well as half a bag of sour patch kids, my earbuds, my binder, and my first copy of A Room of One's Own, the one my b...

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“Cold sweats” by Baxter Renfroe

Submitted to Contest #145

In the dawn everything was grey. A grey air, gloomy and silent with no sounds other than snores of boys, sleeping somewhere close by. There was cold, too, like a cold from the winters that Gabriel knew in Quebec. Winters of sunny snow in the mornings and wind and cocoa off the stovetop when Martine would come over to watch him and his sister after mama had gone to sleep, stiff from a night of standing in the textile mill.                Now in this cold there was no ...

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“The hobby roll” by Baxter Renfroe

Marfa stood in the rain, gazing up the sloping gravel driveway. Ravens cawed starkly in the distance; the echoes rang out across the hillsides. She started up the drive, slowly at first, but gaining speed as she neared the top. The rain trickled beneath her collar and made her shiver.  ---- "You're so weird," Lucia had said the day before, smoking a cigarette out her bedroom window. "Huh?" replied Marfa. "You and this whole Sisters Valley serial killer thing. I can't imagine going someplace where a bunch of people were killed." ...

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“Not worth the time” by Baxter Renfroe

Submitted to Contest #141

Drunks wandering out of Chilton’s at closing time across the street would notice the flickering blue glow of the television which lit Janine’s living room window on the third floor. They wouldn’t see her sitting in front of the television, though. Instead, she was across the room, hunched over the tiny pressboard desk her computer sat on.                She had started with a glass of wine but now just sipped from the bottle. Her screen scrolled before her bloodshot ...

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