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Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Teaser Tuesday


I missed six-sentence Sunday, so just for fun, how about a random excerpt from the WIP for Teaser Tuesday? This is just a page or so from the first chapter of my latest project:

 
I watched and waited. It was hard to imagine such a joyful group of people becoming violent enough to kill each other, or try to. A small dark man covered in tattoos entered the bar from around a corner and he looked as happy as the others, but he stood out like a beetle in a beehive. His longish hair was wavy and black, and he wore a crown of woven fern leaves called a palapalai that dancers wore in Polynesian shows at the hotels in Waikiki. He even wore the ankle and wrist bracelets made from the same leaves, and a simple loin cloth wrapped around his hips covered just enough to be legal. Very strange.
I squinted at the odd little guy who smiled and strode around the room, joining in the laughter and patting backs in a familiar way that had me thinking he knew these people, but they didn't seem to notice him. The second he touched them, their smiles were replaced with scowls of rage. One by one, each bar patron turned on the other with ugly snarls and strained neck cords as they appeared to scream and yell. They were pissed. At what? Only the guy in the Polynesian dance outfit knew. He was the one who got the fight ball rolling.
Women yanked hair and wrestled one another to the floor, their manicured nails like claws that raked skin and drew blood. Men threw punches and beer bottles. The two dead guys came to blows, resulting in one slamming a chair over the head of the other. When the chair-thrower landed on top of his opponent to finish him off with his fists, he ended up with a knife in his chest.
The tattooed man surveyed his handy work, his grin wide with crooked teeth and his black eyes flickering with joy. He was having a great old time, totally oblivious to the horror of pain and rage around him. He seemed to feed on his own entertainment.


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