Ten Stories Tall and Bulletproof (ePub)

Ten Stories Tall and Bulletproof presents, in one volume, ten ambitious tales of mildly intelligent people working through extraordinary situations. Why? Who knows? Maybe Blechle grew up watching too much TV. Anyway, his characters have uncanny knacks for landing on their necks, when they bother to try, and some don't make it out alive. Based on a fake story, "Compensate” tells of an itinerate handyman who locks him and his female customer, who’s nothing to sneeze at, in her ornate house and proceeds to hound her for his pay. Can you imagine? "Doubleheader” visits a promiscuous, yet conscientious, maid (her expression) torn between giving into sex with her clients and bashing them over their heads with anything handy; a tough choice for anyone in service work. An expansion of absurdity and an extended simile in one, "Via Dolorosa” explains why the generation gap so often fills with nitroglycerin just before an earthquake, and why the explosion is so darn funny. "Country Boys Can Survive” is a story that will remind or instruct, depending on one’s place in life, just how much fun it is to get drunk, drive, boat, and shoot fireworks at one another after marital strife. Don’t try this at home. Try it somewhere else. When we think of displaced Polish immigrants and satanic goats, we think of deconstruction. We don’t? "Deconstruction”, which dabbles in the black arts, shows us just what joy scheming spouses can bring to a humble marriage when they really put their minds to it, and the powerful memories it creates. "Here Comes Death” expands on the theme of adulterous betrayals. What does a cemetery owner do when he has no more plots to sell because he has run out of space? That depends. Does he have a whoring shrew of a wife? Just when we thought we couldn’t get enough cheatin’ and lyin’, along comes, "When Fake Tits Collide”, a study in grand theft auto, lesbian lust, off-stage thuggery, and a mother walking in on something shameful. What a blast! And now for something completely different—well, sort of. Yes, within "Yes Today and No Tomorrow”, there is still the nasty little tryst, but why not add a spaceman who just happens to live next door and, amazingly, serves as a suitable strait man, even as his horrific mission is revealed? "The Witch of Endor” takes us into the quasi-Jewish consciousness for a romp through, you guessed it, infidelity! It holds just enough backbiting wisecracks to make it most readable while gossiping or driving to synagogue. And finally, the best of the bunch, and with only hints of adultery, "How to Kill a Monster” guides us through the lives of a remodeling contractor and other restless misfits to teach us a lesson in respect, acceptance, and forgiveness. But in fiction, as in life, lessons are best glossed over, so humor and mythological allusions abound. Blechle’s whoppers lay worlds bare with baleful wit and general, oversimplified judgment, and forecast a new direction in American writing: forward.