Honorable Mention 2026 Gooseberry Pie Writing Competition
by Guy Biederman
“Mr. Martin, I owe you money,” he says when he takes my call, “it’s in my pocket, you must find me.”
That’s rent money, food money, blood, sweat, and tears money that I earned while breaking seven laws for Mr. Johnson, not his real name— but who uses real names anymore— so, where is he off to now on that scooter of his?
I start jogging along the waterfront, having run a little cross country in high school 40 years ago, past smelly fishing trawlers, past the alky Bottom’s Up Club sunk in mud, past a heron frozen in place hunting breakfast at low tide, but I don’t have that kind of time— not with Big Rhonda Reluctant Psychic breathing down my neck, not with landlord Skeinvein on the hunt for rent past due, not to mention this morning’s radiator situation, so I jack an unlocked Schwinn with a basket of flowers and farmer’s market eggs from the Waldorf School— a sunhat on the handlebar that I know belongs to art teacher Willa, and don’t get me wrong, I don’t love doing this, but dollars are needed badly, so off I pedal, fortified with a raw egg from the basket, Rocky-style—saving the brown shell to compost later, feeling like a champ, feeling like Popeye after spinach, feeling like a mixed metaphor on a borrowed bike in a cartoon of my own making, this life what a life this place what a place this bay this sea these gulls, I’m me.
I crack and swallow another egg and glide along the shore, breeze blowing in my hair, hearing “Mr. Martin, Mr. Martin” coming from somewhere, oblivious at first because it’s my coffee name which I forgot.
But Holy Toledo, I know that voice.
Mr. Johnson buzzes by on a Vespa, dollars floating in the air, flying from his pockets, soaring from an outstretched hand as he cackles, head thrown back, Lennon glasses catching the light, pursued by a mustachioed cop on a galloping horse closing fast, lariat circling overhead.
Guy Biederman is the author of seven books including Here’s Where We Get Off, micro fiction, Blue Light Press 2026. He divides time between a Sausalito houseboat, an El Paso adobe, a New Mexico cabin, and the road in between.
Photo by Albert Vincent Wu on Unsplash
