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    Loyal and True
    Loyal and True
    Loyal and True
    Ebook205 pages2 hours

    Loyal and True

    By Terry R Barca

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    About this ebook

    From lifelong friendships to the goings-on at a small town diner, from an old man's relationship with a small bird to a conversation between a couple of working angels; this is a journey through the imagination of a writer who crosses many genres, and dives down many laneways. People fascinate this author and his stories reflect his fascination. 29 stand alone stories tell various tales. Read how Dr. Doug battles a magpie, discover why it always rains on Sunday. Why does the devil go down to Brunswick Street, find out why Chester became a hero or discover the story behind Sam's scar. These stories are a 'slice of life', and this author will grab your attention and deliver you into a moment and leave you wondering what these characters will do with the rest of their life. If you have read 'PASSERBY' you will already be caught in Terry's web. His stories sweep you away and make you wish you knew these people, and could share in their lives. The reader will discover why finding a shoe can be as dangerous as finding a gun. Secret signals between lovers mix with insanity and determination. In the time it will take you to fry an egg you could be whisked into a world of a silent film star or immersed in an invention designed to hold a loved one's memory. So, pull up a comfortable chair, pour yourself a glass of something nice and enter the imaginary worlds that Terry creates, and you might find yourself asking if these worlds really do exist.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTerry R Barca
    Release dateMay 18, 2015
    ISBN9781310983375
    Loyal and True
    Author

    Terry R Barca

    I’m an author who lives and works in the Dandenong Ranges, on the eastern edge of Melbourne Australia.I take one day at a time but occasionally I’m attacked by several days at once.My amazing wife and I have lived in The Hills for forty-three years.My favourite colour is green and so is my favourite car.I started my working life as a Primary School Teacher in the early 1970s.Since then I have been a stained glass craftsman, furniture restorer, restorer of Player Pianos and music rolls, author (twenty one books so far, seventeen audiobooks, another on the way), photographer, basketball trading card manufacturer, basketball coach, basketball player, basketball referee, part-time shop assistant, newspaper columnist, homeschool dad, husband, father, grandfather, and a few other bits and pieces, and not in this order.I’m fascinated by people, but I prefer the company of dogs.I’m not frightened of dying, but sometimes life scares the hell out of me.I think that birds are cool but I don’t believe that they spend any time thinking about me, even though I give them lots of stale bread, and the occasional pizza crust........ ungrateful bastards!

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      Book preview

      Loyal and True - Terry R Barca

      Also by Terry R Barca.

      FICTION.

      The Long Weekend.

      Passerby [book 2 in the anthology series]

      NON FICTION.

      SCHOOME: An Adventure in Homeschooling.

      Contents

      Also by Terry R Barca.

      Rosie’s Diner.

      Loyal and True.

      The Robin and the Red Thread.

      The Scarlett Stiletto.

      Knuckles.

      Almost.

      Life Under The Sun.

      Win The Prize; Lose Your Life.

      Cornelius Turvaville

      Gratitude Knows Not.

      Numbers.

      Corretta Dobles

      Smiler McNulty Parked On The Lawn.

      Blackwing.

      Feed My Cat.

      Anesthetist.

      Dr Doug.

      Step Into The Light.

      Bluestocking.

      Chauncey Giannone: The Best Defence.

      Death Of A Scoundrel.

      Friday: Sam and Scarlett.

      The Farm.

      The Granddaughter and the Wall.

      No Trespassers Violators…………… something.

      Carol and William: No Vacancy Tonight.

      Scarlett’s Scones and Sam’s Scar.

      Cafe.

      Billy Gest: Hope and a Drive Shaft.

      On Probation.

      Together.

      Slow Children.

      Pumpkin Soup.

      The Museum Guard.

      Chilly.

      Standing On Top Of The World.

      Sid Leffew: Long Forgotten.

      Everette Guardado: The Coming of Sound.

      It Always Rains on Sunday.

      The Woman Who Invented Deja Vu.

      Derrick in the 1930s

      Watching, Waiting, Wondering.

      When A Seagull Needs Coffee.

      The Devil Went Down To Brunswick Street.

      The Devil Went Down To George(a).

      17 mm

      Georgette, Harriette and the Dragon Stones.

      Alice Marble and the Locked Box.

      Shag Pile Carpet.

      Everyone Loves Pasta.

      Chadwick and Veronica: Remembering

      Gratitude Knows Not The Passage Of Time.

      ‘for toys and small offenses’

      Second Opinion.

      Henri Le Clerk

      Simon Colantro

      Indirect

      Let’s Eat Granddad.

      The Day I Met Chester.

      Epilogue

      About the Author

      Rosie’s Diner.

      There has not been a Rosie at ‘Rosie’s’, for a very long time.

      Legend has it that the original Rosie started the place during the Civil War but that has been hard to verify.

      I’ve spoken to a few old timers and they reckon that there has been a Rosie's on this site since at least the 1920s. Council records were destroyed in the fires back in ’68 so all we have to go on is local knowledge and say so.

      No one is more local and more knowledgeable than Jake.

      There used to be two Jakes and it got kind of confusing when one of them would pop up in a conversation, but these days there is only one since the other Jake stepped in front of that sixteen wheeler that was on it’s way up the Hume Highway.

      The driver said that Jake looked right at him and said something in the split second before the tyre screaming truck bore down on him.

      We’ve all speculated as to what it was that the other Jake said in that mortal moment. The truck driver thought it looked like Forgive me, but Josie, who owns Rosie’s, said she thought it was probably, Get that fucking truck out of my way. We pointed out that that was way too many words to utter in such a tense moment but she just said that it sounded like the other Jake, so that’s probably what he said.

      I thought he most likely said, Fuck me, which seemed like a reasonable thing to say under the circumstances.

      Jake said he thought that he was just trying to clear his throat in preparation for a long conversation with St Peter.

      At this enlightenment a silence descended on the diner.

      Jake really was wise and local.

      For some reason people drove from all over the place and parked really old really cool cars out the front of Rosie’s place just in case a famous photographer drove by, which seemed to happen quite a lot.

      The food at Rosie’s is the kind you can’t get anymore. Basic food; hamburgers, chips, sausages, eggs, good coffee and the very best of all; pie.

      Rosie’s sells eleven different types of pie, but the cherry pie will kill ya.

      Not really kill you, I just mean that it tastes great.

      No one knows where Rosie’s gets their pies. They never run out even if a bus load of hungry Hungarians turns up. They definitely don’t stockpile the pies because they are always fresh, so they must be made locally and the maker must be very obliging.

      Jake surmised that the pies must be delivered in the middle of the night as none of us has ever seen a delivery during the day.

      Rosie’s is closed between 2am and 6am. That means Josie gets about four hours sleep, which explains why she often falls asleep behind the counter.

      Until we did the maths, we just thought she was narcoleptic.

      Rosie’s is a second home to most of us. I’ve written all my novels while sitting at the booth on the end. Many of the regulars are characters in my books.

      My dad bought me a little red Porsche back in the day. Josie lets me park it out front, she says it gives the place a bit of class, but frankly I think a lot of people come just to see her fall asleep behind the counter.

      I eat way too much pie and I drink way too much coffee but I don’t care.

      You have to die of something.

      And too much pie has got to be better than staring at the driver of a roaring sixteen wheeler.

      Loyal and True.

      What I value most in my friends is loyalty.

      David Mamet

      There were four of us; as far back as I can remember.

      Keevil and the O’Briens were older, but for some reason they let me tag along.

      I guess I made ‘em laugh.

      A sense of humour opens many doors.

      We weren’t exactly model citizens, then or now, and we got into a few scrapes, but nothing heavy. I could run fast and this came in handy as I always seemed to be the last one to work out that things had gone pear-shaped.

      I lost count of the number of times I heard run!.

      This word was usually uttered by all three of the blokes who were supposed to be looking out for me.

      They probably thought that it was obvious that the time to run had arrived and felt that it was unnecessary to say so, then one or all of them would notice that I was still standing there with my mouth open.

      I still have dreams about being a kid and a voice from many yards away yelling ‘run’.

      Considering they had several yards head start you would think that I would be the one who got nabbed.

      Not so.

      I could run, and usually not in a straight line. I worked out that adults were faster than I was, except for the fat ones, so it was only a matter of time before they caught up to me. Not running in a straight line was the key. If I suddenly changed direction often enough they gave up and went after someone else, someone less slippery.

      I was usually carrying something we had nicked. Here, you hang on to it they will never suspect a little kid; and they didn’t until they did, which was usually not my fault.

      Most of our ‘hasty retreats’ were caused by Keevil’s inability to hold his nerve. You would never know it to look at him now but back then he lacked a bit of ‘bottle’.

      This sudden need to ‘head for the hills’ only increased my anxiety.

      These days I wouldn’t associate myself with such unreliable accomplices, but I was a kid and the rules were different.

      If a bunch of big kids wanted to have you around then you didn’t say no.

      My other friends were way too frightened to get into any serious adventures.

      They were afraid of getting hurt, afraid of what their parents would say and afraid of the police.

      None of these fears were unreasonable, but it made for very boring friends and long school holidays.

      As the years went by Keevil and the two O’Brien’s dropped out of school and went looking for work.

      Keevil joined the railways as a clerk, W.T got a job in a shop on the High Street and Jimmy O’Brien got a job as a builder’s labourer. You’ve seen the photo of Jimmy, he’s huge, so lugging stuff around all day was easy for him.

      I stayed at school and eventually went on to University.

      I was the brains of the outfit.

      Well, that sounds better than it actually is, what I mean to say is, ‘brains’ is what I bring to the gang, I’m not actually the ‘brains of the outfit’, William T. O’Brian is.

      It was Billy who came up with the capers right from the start.

      He knew that if we stood out the front of old man McKenzie’s house and threw stones on his roof it would give Jimmy time to scale his back fence and steal a bag of apples.

      Billy even remembered to supply Jimmy with the bag.

      Old man McKenzie had a big dog that guarded his orchard but Billy knew that the commotion would keep the big dog and his owner busy just long enough to pull off the caper.

      We sold some of the apples and we ate the rest.

      Best tasting apples you could possibly imagine.

      As we got older the capers got bigger, usually to do with the Railways, courtesy of C.J., or building sites that Jimmy had been working on.

      My job was to keep us all out of gaol.

      I finished my law degree at Melbourne University. Finished second overall for the State of Victoria. The bloke who beat me into first place became a high court judge.

      I always hated that bloke.

      I got a position with Cohen, Cohen and Cohen, Melbourne’s top criminal law firm.

      I became so successful that the firm offered me a partnership but my name didn’t make it onto the letterhead. I guess Cohen, Cohen, Cohen and Hipshein was just too long to fit on the door, but I didn’t care.

      My day job, as successful as it was, was just a diversion. My real firm was O’Brien, Hipshein, Keevil and O’Brien.

      We were making a lot of money; only money was not the point, it was just a way of keeping score.

      The photo shows the only time we were all brought in for questioning at the same time.

      It was a ‘usual suspects’ round

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