Excerpt from Finding Romulus' Rome

"After Randal makes a remark about typical bureaucratic comedy, the captain prods him on his political views to which Randal freely affirms his belief in a stateless society. The captain tells him anarchism has never struck him as a very foresighted option and he asks what Randal is going to do when all these government services disappear and the schools fall to pieces and the economy is flipped upside down. That’s not the question, Randal says, the question is, what are you going to do, sir? The captain laughs and says, I suppose I’ll still be fighting for democracy. You don’t need democracy to do coke and sell cheap smokes, captain. Democracy pays the bills, man; democracy lets me shoot wetbacks from the deck of a fucking warship, bro; speaking of weapons, I have a huge sword collection down below I have gotta show you. I’m sure you do, sailor, but I don’t swing that way. The trio enjoys a hearty laugh until Van Horne’s cough returns. When the captain insists again on showing them his swords, Van Horne tells him he’s not a fan of weapons, doesn’t own one, a remark that will later escalate to near argument during the flight back to the Keys. Randal will remind Van Horne of the captain’s instability and the stupidity of telling volatile people with weapons that you don’t have any. You can’t control a lie, Van Horne will tell him, you can use a lie to control people for a little while but eventually every lie takes on a life of its own and then it’ll turn on you. But you didn’t even have to lie, Chris; you just had to keep yer trap shut. And then there will be a brief debate on who should be giving whom advice on when to keep one’s mouth shut but before all of this, the captain’s special forces contingent reports a small vessel suspected of contraband moving north between the patrol ship and the coast. When asked for orders, the captain calls for the surface guns to open fire and he gleefully shows Randal and Van Horne grainy green images of villagers scampering from the trees to gather the 'white lobster' bobbing in the surf among the smoldering remains of the eliminated speed boat."

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NOTE: For most of the day today, Finding Romulus Rome and The Blood will be unavailable for download.
My newest short story The Weapon is currently downloadable at Amazon.com