James Barrett

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jul, 2024

Stories (21)

21 Stories

324 karma pts

?

“Crossing Revisited” by James Barrett

Submitted to Contest #283

Why is Church Street filled with police cars and flashing lights?My name is Kathleen Kelly. My age is eighty-seven. I was born in Belfast but am currently in Dublin, Ireland. I am standing on the corner of Church and North King, holding a reusable bag of groceries from Morton's. The bag is mostly empty. Octogenarians like me only have a smidgen of disposable income to spend on sustenance. I’m next to the old Jameson distillery. Jameson. One of the things God gave to mankind to help deal with this endless suffering called life. Sex is a close...

0 comments 0
Read story

“She's Real Fine” by James Barrett

Submitted to Contest #282

It was a hot summer night several years ago in Fort Lee, New Jersey. If you’ve never been there, it’s a town straight out of The Sopranos. I remember it like it was yesterday. I had too many beers. I shouldn’t have been driving. That’s not an excuse, just an explanation. Ralphie shouldn’t have challenged me in the first place, but he did. I was running my mouth about my new Mustang, and I guess it rubbed Ralphie the wrong way. Ralphie said his three-year-old Chevy 409 Super Sport Impala would blow the doors off my new Mustang. As usual, Call...

0 comments 0
Read story

“No One Here Gets Out Alive” by James Barrett

Submitted to Contest #281

On planet Xenon, where I’m from, everybody lives forever. Unless somebody kills them. I never killed anyone that didn’t need it.Here on Earth, everybody knows me as Zach. Zach Wheaton. Unbeknownst to the indigenous population, I was sent to Earth from the planet Xenon. I was convicted of several serial killings on Xenon and sentenced to death. The death penalty was abolished on Xenon a few thousand years after Earth was discovered. Here was a planet where all living things, including Xenonians, eventually died naturally. What better place fo...

2 comments 2
Read story

“Crossing” by James Barrett

Submitted to Contest #280

Why is Church Street filled with police cars and flashing lights?My name is Kathleen Kelly. My age is eighty-seven. I was born in Belfast, but I’m presently in Dublin, Ireland. I am standing on the corner of Church and North King, holding a reusable bag of groceries from Morton's. The bag is mostly empty. Octogenarians like me only have a smidgen of disposable income to spend on sustenance. I’m next to the old Jameson distillery. Jameson. One of the things God gave to mankind to help deal with this endless suffering called life. Sex is a clo...

0 comments 0
Read story

“You Can’t Fight City Hall” by James Barrett

Submitted to Contest #278

His name was Les Morgan. He was a prominent tax attorney in Jacksonville, Florida. Les specialized in cases where people had gotten into hot water with the IRS, the FBI, or worse still, the gang in Tallahassee representing the great state of Florida. If any of those organizations got a bee in their bonnet to look your way, you needed Les’ help. Pronto. The alphabet soup guys have unlimited time and unlimited resources. Les’ clients didn’t. Les became famous for figuring out the most efficient way to fight the revenuers in tax court and get h...

0 comments 0
Read story

“She's His Best Friend's Girl” by James Barrett

Submitted to Contest #277

My name is Margie Rabinowitz. Years ago, when I turned twenty-one, I decided to go out with my friends to finally drink legally and get seriously hammered. My boyfriend’s name was Marvin. He was okay, I guess. We’d been an item since high school. We had sex once and a while. “Having sex’ is an accurate description. ‘Making love’ doesn’t apply. At least not for me. Marvin was much more into it than I was. Marvin had no idea that I was bi-sexual. Neither did anybody else. I made sure of it. I never did anything, even in jest, to suggest that I...

0 comments 0
Read story

“Javon and Kimberly” by James Barrett

Submitted to Contest #276

My name is Javon Jackson. I’m a twenty-nine-year-old black cop in a black high-crime precinct in Newark, New Jersey. Besides my service revolver, I carry a blackjack. Often, the blackjack comes in handy when I need to show some perp that I mean business without threatening or, God forbid, using deadly force. Like most cops, I keep a backup piece at home: a Glock 22 semi-auto. It's under lock and key in a gun safe. The combination is my daughter's birthday.New Jersey is heavily blue and controlled by Democrats. As is their wont, they spend ot...

0 comments 0
Read story

“It's Only a Nightmare” by James Barrett

Submitted to Contest #275

This has happened before. This is just like the other times. I have no idea how or why I wind up here, but here I am again. Scared shitless. “It’s only a nightmare.” I keep telling myself. I’ve only been to Zion National Park in Utah once. It was twenty years ago when I was a twelve-year-old boy. I thought I knew everything and could do anything. I was arrogant and intolerant. In short, I was the classic definition of a snot-nosed kid.My Dad was an avid hiker. He talked Mom into the Zion vacation. She wanted to go to the Caribbean and relax ...

2 comments 2
Read story

“It's Only a Nightmare” by James Barrett

Submitted to Contest #274

This has happened before. This is just like the other times. I have no idea how or why I wind up here, but here I am again. Scared shitless. “It’s only a nightmare.” I keep telling myself. I’ve only been to Zion National Park in Utah once. It was twenty years ago when I was a twelve-year-old boy. I thought I knew everything and could do anything. I was arrogant and intolerant. In short, I was the classic definition of a snot-nosed kid.My Dad was an avid hiker. He talked Mom into the Zion vacation. She wanted to go to the Caribbean and relax ...

0 comments 0
Read story

“Skeletons in Both Closets” by James Barrett

Submitted to Contest #273

It was a hot summer night several years ago in Fort Lee, New Jersey. If you’ve never been there, it’s a town straight out of The Sopranos. I remember it like it was yesterday. I had too many beers. I shouldn’t have been driving. That’s not an excuse, just an explanation. Ralphie shouldn’t have challenged me in the first place, but he did. I was running my mouth about my new Mustang, and I guess it rubbed Ralphie the wrong way. Ralphie said his three-year-old Corvette StingRay would blow the doors off my new Mustang. As usual, Callahan’s park...

0 comments 0
Read story

“Janeen the Dream” by James Barrett

Submitted to Contest #272

1985Greenwich Village had become a food desert. Oh, sure, there was plenty of sustenance to be had IF you were a risk taker. A gambler. I wasn’t. You only get one strike in that league, and I was terrified every time I had an at-bat.I had gotten used to being alive. I liked it—no, I loved it—and it was light years better than the alternative. I know some know-nothings referred to us as the "living dead," but they had no idea what they were missing. So, with my back against the proverbial wall, I began to do some serious research.You can imag...

1 comment 1
Read story

“One Night at the Twisted Elm” by James Barrett

Submitted to Contest #271

Built in 1890, the Twisted Elm is one of those old Irish pubs in Northeastern New Jersey that drips carved mahogany, fine leather, beveled mirrors, tuxedoed bartenders, and top-shelf, expensive booze. “The Elm” was originally intended to be a posh alcohol-laden retreat for the captains of industry on Wall Street. Guggenheims, Rockefellers, Woolworths, Morgans, Vanderbilts, et al would often pop in for a martini or three before heading home in their limousines to mansions and family dinners on the Gold Coast.During prohibition, The Elm became...

0 comments 0
Read story

“My Dinner With Kathy” by James Barrett

Submitted to Contest #270

It was a hot summer night several years ago. I remember it like it was yesterday. I had too many beers. I shouldn’t have been driving. That’s not an excuse, just an explanation. Ralphie shouldn’t have challenged me in the first place, but he did. I was running my mouth about my new Mustang, and I guess it rubbed Ralphie the wrong way. Ralphie said his three-year-old Corvette StingRay would blow the doors off my new Mustang. Callahan’s parking lot was crowded with our peers. All beer drinkers and gearheads. I had to accept. The alcohol made i...

0 comments 0
Read story

“Moonlight Drive” by James Barrett

Submitted to Contest #269

Jason was in his eighties, but he was still the most sought-after mechanic and restorer of elegant and desirable cars at "S & J’s Classic Motorcars” in downtown L.A. Rock stars, politicians, a-list actors, talk-show hosts, etc. all came to S & J’s to get their aging Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Jags, etc. restored to mint condition. Almost all the clients asked for Jason to oversee their restoration projects. If the result was perfect, some of these cars would be worth several hundred thousand or even millions of dollars. Jason was always...

0 comments 0
Read story

“You Shoulda Heard the Whine from My Screamin Machine” by James Barrett

Submitted to Contest #268

It was a hot summer night several years ago. I remember it like it was yesterday. I had too many beers. I shouldn’t have been driving. That’s not an excuse, just an explanation. Ralphie shouldn’t have challenged me in the first place, but he did. I was running my mouth about my new Mustang, and I guess it rubbed Ralphie the wrong way. Ralphie said his three-year-old Corvette StingRay would blow the doors off my new Mustang. Callahan’s parking lot was crowded with our peers. All beer drinkers and gearheads. I had to accept. The alcohol made i...

0 comments 0
Read story

Author bio

James Barrett has not written a bio yet!