A very short story. I like my stories like I like my women: dark and bitter.

I got a review today that put me in a bad mood. Everybody gets an opinion. That’s fine and I don’t ever reply to bad reviews. However, borderline libellous statements sap my creative energy and make me sad. I’ve reported the abuse to the platform in question, though I doubt they’ll do anything about it. That’s how these things tend to go.

I took an hour off. I lost some writing time. I watched an episode of Band of Brothers. Was there ever a better film depiction of soldiers in war that didn’t glamorize it? It was a good thing to lose an hour to. 
Anyway, I posted the story below on Facebook earlier. Then I decided to share it with all of you. If you like my crime novels, Bigger Than Jesus and Higher Than Jesus, you might go for this. It’s  from a dark work in progress in my head. Let’s have a demonstration of psycho-macho psyche and what that BS can get you. Let’s call it…

Fair play

The big man’s first slap stunned the smaller man. 

The victim’s head rocked back and blood ran freely from his split lip. Shocked, he touched his mouth. “The speaker phone was on when you called me at home before. My family heard. You frightened my wife and child. You shouldn’ta done that.”

A smile. “Scared of me?”

“Yes.”

“Should be.”

“You’re making a mistake. Leave. Leave now! Please!”

The big man stepped closer, looked him up and down, and chuckled.

The smaller man took the cell from his shirt pocket and hit “End”.

The big man’s second slap didn’t connect. Instead, the intended victim cupped his attacker’s chin in one hand and grabbed him by the hair at the back of his head. The big man laughed, even as the smaller man twisted his neck and, almost gently, guided him to the ground.

Then the big man’s intended victim brought all his weight down, hard, slamming the point of his knee into the side of the attacker’s face, just in front of the ear.

The big man’s laughter broke cold over stunning realization. The jaw didn’t break. Instead, it wrenched to the side in a loose, snapping slide.

A second’s silence passed. Nerves lit fire. Brain gears whirled panic. The screeching and flailing began.

The smaller man yelled to be heard above the big man’s pain. “You came to humiliate me! You came here to beat me up. But I’m not here for a fight!”

He took the big man’s eyes first. After that, it was easy. 

When the man stood, he wasn’t the victim anymore. His cell lay on the floor, ringing and ringing. That would be 911 calling back to make sure he was okay. He was fine. He felt taller.

Another first on Vine! A contest and a reading from Self-help for Stoners

Self Help for Stoners JPEGHere’s the 411: I’m reading a funny short story from one of my books on Vine.

I’m skipping an All That Chazz podcast this week for something new and different. One of my favorite things is the Vine app. One of my favorite short stories from Self-help for Stoners is “Another Day at the Office.” Over the next few days, I’m going to post the excerpt on Vine, six seconds at a time. A little crazy, but fun. 

No one has ever read on Vine before, so I get to make my own rules. I’ll do a little at a time so I won’t flood anyone’s feed. Each post will have the entry number in sequence and the tag #SHFS. 

The Vine Contest

To enter to win this crime novel in paperback, put your guess in the comments of this post. Closest wins.
To enter to win this crime novel in paperback, put your guess in the comments of this post. Closest wins.

The person who guesses closest to the number of vines I have to post to get to the end of the story will get a paperback copy of my crime novel Bigger Than Jesus. (Hint: “Another Day at the Office” is around four pages long in trade paperback size.) Good luck!

Comedian Steven Wright (among a metric ton of Japanese schoolgirls) have written whole novels on Twitter, so an author reading a short story six seconds at a time isn’t that outlandish. I don’t have any stop motion skills, but I still wanted to try something different with Vine. This is it! Enjoy!

You can buy Self-help for Stoners and all my other books here.

Six Seconds 0301If you aren’t on Vine yet and you have an iPod, iPhone or iPad, click here to join the party. It’s free. Sign up. Then look me up (Robert Chazz Chute) and subscribe. Cheers!

Also, in case you didn’t know, I also wrote the first book about the Vine app. Grab it for just 99 cents by clicking the cover image. Please and thank you!

(If you’re really jonesing for a new podcast, you can always slip over to my Cool People Podcast and listen to the interviews there.) Have fun, everybody!

Georgie is a Mean, Fat Girl! Vengeance is released!

Today I published another ebook: a short story called Vengeance is #1. 

In this story, we meet Georgie, an angry girl with a funny, mean streak. This seventeen-year-old wants to be normal, if only she could figure out what Normal is and how to get there. After enduring a string of therapists, she encounters Dr. Circe Papua. Things are looking up for Georgie until Dr. Papua fires her as a patient. Now Georgie is looking for redemption and an apology. Failing that, she’ll settle for vengeance.

Click now to get it from Smashwords.com