Jayme McLellan and James Hetfield, Metallica. Richmond, VA, 1989.

I was nine years old in 1979. I lived in the country, not an urban center. I was very into metal and I loved Metallica. Punk didn’t find me until 1989 when I moved away from home. I was in the Record and Tape Exchange in College Park, MD, when I saw Fugazi’s Margin Walker album, and I bought it and their first record, on vinyl. And then I saw a Bad Brains Rock for Light CD, got that too. Just walked right over to it–it pulled me over. And yes, life changed.

A few years later, the wandering river of my life led me to New Orleans, and a fellow food runner at the restaurant had a tattoo that read “Straight Edge.” What was that?, I thought. Whatever it was, it wasn’t me. But it held me like the first time I heard “Master of Puppets” at a guy’s house, having a party while his parents were away. Like the first time I heard “Waiting Room,” sitting by myself in the basement.  It had power. It was present. All of a sudden, I was no longer alone.

And now, so many years later, this ethos endures. And I’m so glad it’s here, a strong voice, a philosophy of common sense and freedom–you can do it yourself. If it doesn’t exist, make it. This is how young bands still do it. They get together and try it out. They learn songs, how to play, how to create something for themselves.

Rebellious by nature, this is how I’ve lived my life. I’ve wrestled out of most routines, said no to people I didn’t believe in, I let music and art be my guide and constant companion. But I didn’t know I was doing it as a part of a continuum until many years later when I would find myself a part of this team.

The unusual family of Lucian, Alec, Lely, myself, and the many others who poured forth effort and enthusiasm, made sure Hard Art, DC 1979 was realized. Publishing this book (thanks to Akashic) so that the story, the collective story of this time, and the coming together of a community to realize the project, is a powerful story that connects so many people.  And it has sealed this unusual family as conduits to a wider whole.

It’s a subtle story with many layers and even more personal memories. These are photos of the legendary Bad Brains and Teen Idles in their early days, but they are also family photos, as Lely said. And the strength of the documentation–the engagement of the photographer with the audience in an unprecious way–is the reason they endure.

There’s something lasting here: a documentation of purely real moments that have been preserved over time and now shared widely. And from what I’ve heard, people did think Lucian was an alien at these shows but the people let him in as they were doing their own thing: playing music, dancing, fucking with people, living.

In addition to being great photos about important bands at a very authentic time in American music, Hard Art documents an invisible web that connects and lets the freaks and aliens in. The outcasts, the weirdos, the margin walkers. Each person who responds to this work does so from a unique place, perhaps through memories of their own rebellion or the first time a song changed their life.

Whether they know the music, or they know good photography, or they know the friends in the scene, Hard Art is about the family and community that happens everywhere. It’s about that invisible web that holds us together. It is malleable enough to let us stretch out and apart, so we can find ourselves, and come back again and again into the group.

Jayme McLellan is an artist, educator, curator, and gallery director. She graduated from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and is the founding director of Civilian Art Projects, a DC gallery representing emerging and established artists. Since 1996, she has organized and curated countless exhibitions and events to promote art, artists, and ideas of social importance.  In addition to running Civilian, Jayme is adjunct faculty at the Maryland Institute College of Art and American University, where she leads classes on professional development for artists.  She is also project manager for Hard Art, DC 1979 (Akashic Books), a book and traveling exhibition about the birth of the DC punk movement.

This week, Adam Rosen takes us on a hunt for bleached grass in Asheville, North Carolina. Next week, John Manuel Arias brings us to Costa Rica to witness the end of a marriage.

Death at a Farmer’s Market
by Adam Rosen
North Asheville, Asheville, North Carolina, USA

“How much is this?” the middle-aged man asked, irritated. He pointed a finger at a bunch of lacinato kale—fresh in, a chalk-marked sign indicated, from a farm outside Hickory. He had been waiting at the stand for five minutes, and was not about to wait a minute longer.

“Four-fifty,” said the man behind the table. He looked too old to still be farming, and he spoke softly. It was hard to hear him over the banjo playing nearby. The upright bass didn’t make it any easier. “That’s fresh in from Hick’ry.”

“That’s what the sign says!” replied the man as he stuffed two bunches into his tote. The WNCW logo covered the canvas bag in big blue letters that nobody could miss. “I usually do rainbow chard, but it’s disgusting this week. It looks like it’s from the SuperSaver.”

“Well, we’re the freshest,” said the farmer, smiling sweetly.

“Wonderful. I’m hosting a supper club tonight, so we’ll find out.”

The farmer smiled again. “That’ll be all?”

The man scanned the rest of the offerings. There were carrots, and onions, and tomatoes . . . all the fixin’s to make a house salad from Wendy’s, he thought. “Yeah.”

He hoisted his bounty high on his shoulder and turned around. He marched forcefully around the bazaar, dodging strollers, rescued pitbulls, dreadlocked women, suspendered men, and drone protestors taking a break. His mission took him from aisle to aisle. As each new stand came into view, he sniffed.

At last, he spotted his target: Orgasmic Organics. The blogs had been raving about their bleached grass. He knew he only had a few weeks before the local restaurants started cooking it for tourists from fucking Atlanta. He homed in on his prize.

Out of nowhere, a laughing, overweight woman backed into him, nearly knocking his glasses out of place. “Jesus Christ!” he muttered under his breath.

The queue at the Orgasmic stand was twice as long as the line for the kale. In this line, though, nobody schmoozed or even talked at all. Everyone stared blankly at their phones, as if narcotized. The banjo picked up speed.

Thirty minutes went by, but the line barely moved. It was getting late, and many of the other vendors were starting to break their stands down.  The man grew increasingly agitated. He’d be damned if he’d be the guy with the boring club night. Steve Joseph’s truffle crostinis were still a punch line, and he botched that one three years ago.

Finally, a movement. One of the young Orgasmic workers stood up on a chair and shouted: “Sorry folks, but we are officially OUT of bleached grass.”

The man’s mouth opened, then shut, and he grew hotter with rage. Freaking ‘Orgasmic,’ he thought. Overrated piece of shit. He resolved to tell everyone he knew how much it sucked.

Fine, he thought. I’ll get some more lacinato. He set out toward the stand where he got his kale, but grew increasingly worried that it was gone. Nearly no one was left in the market.

Amazingly, he spotted the farmer. He was just starting to break down his stand, but there were still some veggies on his table.

“Hello there,” the old man said. “How are you doin’ today?”

“Yeah yeah yeah. Do you have any more of that kale?” the man demanded.

The farmer peered around the two tables that were still up, and even ducked down to check underneath them. He shook his head. “There’s nothin’ here, but I’ve got some more in the truck.” He gestured behind him to an unmarked cargo van. It was white and had no windows except for those in the cab.

“Sure. Whatever.”

The two men walked to the back of the truck. As the farmer pulled the door open, the man spotted several crates of beautiful-looking lacinato resting against the separator. For the first time all day, he breathed a small sigh of relief. Fucking finally.

The farmer caught the man’s fleeting smile, and responded in kind. “That’s fresh in,” he declared proudly.

“Yep,” said the man absently, lifting his tote as he climbed into the bed of the truck.

He made his way to the kale. Aha. That’s a good one. Mission accomplished, he turned around to leave.

As he scrambled toward the doors, they both slammed shut. The last thing he heard was the sound of the lock.

***

ADAM ROSEN is a Brooklyn refugee resettled in Asheville, NC, where he’s an editor at Soomo Publishing, an online academic press. An essay of his on the pulp (and lack thereof) in Pulp Fiction will be published in the upcoming book Pulp Fiction: The Complete Story of Quentin Tarantino’s Masterpiece.

***

Would you like to submit a story to the Mondays Are Murder series? Here are the guidelines:

—Your story should be set in a distinct location of any neighborhood in any city, anywhere in the world, but it should be a story that could only be set in the neighborhood you chose.
—Include the neighborhood, city, state, and country next to your byline.
—Your story should be Noir. What is Noir? We’ll know it when we see it.
—Your story should not exceed 750 words.
—E-mail your submission to info@akashicbooks.com. Please paste the story into the body of the email, and also attach it as a PDF file.

Every Friday, the Akashic team highlights industry news, reviews, and features from around the web. This week’s roundup comes to you from Akashic interns Melissa Bean and Gabriella Balza.

Love Reading, Hate Books has been collecting the hilariously negative reviews of all the books your high school English teachers kept nagging you to read. No one said anything about the classics being sacred.

In honor of Man of Steel’s release, a fun infographic about characters who survived the horror of their planets being destroyed.

What would you read with an undisclosed amount of downtime? See what the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay have to read.

Authors are riding the struggle bus with their low royalty rate.

Apparently, “Choose Your Own Adventure” is being made into a movie. Yeah, we don’t know how that’s going to work either.

Are independent presses no longer the ‘minor leagues’?

International Crime Month is a month-long celebration of crime fiction, the authors who write it, and the publishers who bring it to the attention of readers in the US. Four American independent publishers are behind the initiative: Akashic Books, the company hosting this post; Europa Editions; Brooklyn based indie, Melville House; and Grove Atlantic with their Mysterious Press imprint. Four fiercely independent publishers in whom the spirit of collaboration and the sense of shared purpose are nonetheless strong.

International Crime Month kicked off at the beginning of June during the annual book industry fair, Book Expo America, with author events featuring Jessica Hagedorn (Manila Noir, Akashic), Maurizio De Giovanni (The Crocodile, Europa), and Marek Krajewski (Death in Breslau, Melville); a panel discussion with publishers; and an unforgettable Friday-night soiree in midtown Manhattan. This week the road-show phase of the celebration got underway when editors and publishers from the participating presses traveled to Mystic, Madison (CT), Boston, and back to New York, where on Thursday night we were in conversation at McNally Jackson Booksellers.

We publishers and editors set off for Boston in a rental on Tuesday and no more than fifteen minutes into the trip took a wrong turn that landed us on Randall’s Island, smack in the middle of what seemed like a staging area for a massive police blitz about to descend on the city. There were a thousand cops milling about, ten thousand flashing lights, a couple of hundred hands on gun grips and many, many pairs of eyes watching our far-too-sporty black rental cruise past carrying its cargo of publishers, who, meanwhile, were trying their hardest to appear as if a stopover on Randall’s Island was very much a part of the plan. None of us who saw that sea of law enforcement—like some paranoid hallucination—was able to puzzle out the presence of so many cops on the Island; and, given recent news concerning privacy breeches, we were perhaps feeling a little too skittish to Google an explanation. It remains a mystery. Life, at times, throws you up an island inhabited entirely by uniformed policemen and policewomen. That happens, too. Somehow it seemed a fitting way to begin a trip during which we would be talking about crime, policemen, criminals, and justice.

We found our way off the Island thanks to a friendly fellow who ended his helpful reply with the word, “sir”—i.e., an off-duty cop!

That turned out to be the first in an astonishing streak of wrong turns, a comedy of navigational errors, miscalculations, and blunders.

Dennis Johnson from Melville House and I transited in Boston, where we have both spent considerable chunks of our lives, for at least an hour trying to get out of the city and onto the road for Mystic. It ended up being a walk down, back up, and down again Memory Lane—there’s where Ratskeller used to be, home of Boston punk; there’s Wally’s; that used to be a Cadillac dealership; when I was here it was artists’ studios; look, the Citgo sign’s still there. And then fifteen minutes later: Oh, there’s old Ratskeller again…Wally’s…the Citgo sign! I threw more U-turns in two days than I have over the past four years.

A wrong turn in Mystic left us on the fallow side of an excruciatingly slow-to-close drawbridge at a distance of no more than 400 yards from our destination. We arrived at said destination late and apologetic, shamelessly blaming Boston and its circles of traffic hell and the damned drawbridge rather than our ineptitude with maps and street signs.

We made an unplanned walking tour of Bridgeport, Connecticut, in search of bar food and beer. And we learned that there is a lonely hour in Bridgeport during which the diners and after-work drinkers have all gone home and the clubbers and night people are yet to arrive. At that time, nothing stirs. We were bounced from one bar to another where kitchens were closed and stages or back rooms were being set for hip-hop open mikes or local band nights or midnight pool and dart tournaments.

Aside: I noted that Akashic’s Johnny Temple, who balances identities as indie publishing icon during the day and rock star at night, was strangely drawn to the backrooms of these dive bars, where musicians and DJs were setting up their gear. His eyes grew wide and he craned his neck to catch details that were lost on the rest of us and we had trouble dragging him away from these places to more commodious dining options. Of which there were very few.

Between one wrong turn and another we spoke about International Crime Month and our respective noir fiction authors to a couple of dozen people at Brookline Booksmith and afterwards went for drinks at a place called the Brookline Clubhouse that was once the Rusty Nail with a group of James Joyce enthusiasts, one of whom was immaculately dressed in a suit and tie and was also living in his car; a former dancer turned literary critic; and a young novelist who has written a notable book in which the protagonist sires a Volkswagen bug.

That night, Dennis Johnson suggested a nightcap nel mezzo del cammin from the Brookline Clubhouse née Rusty Nail and our B&B. In retrospect, this last round may be partly responsible for the difficulty we experienced getting out of town the morning after.

In Mystic, we waxed lyrical about independent publishing and our crime fiction series to staff at Bank Square Books, a bookstore that recently recovered from damage wrought by Hurricane Sandy in record time thanks to support from members of the community it serves. Independent bookstores tend to inspire that kind of feeling in their communities. Love, I think it’s called.

At the venerable RJ Julia’s in Madison, we spoke to an enthusiastic audience that included all six members of book group who had traveled an hour to hear us.

I learned much about Melville House’s very necessary mission-driven publishing project and the ways that their new crime fiction line fits squarely into it. They are publishing some remarkable authors, Derek Raymond and Manuel Vázquez Montalbán among them. I listened mesmerized as Johnny Temple described the pleasure he takes in traveling to fairs and festivals in far-off places and making personal connections with authors and, especially, as he touched upon plans for a electrifying new installment in his noir series: Prison Noir. Most of all I was energized by the evident purposefulness, passion, and personality we all invest in our publishing endeavors.

We have taken a lot of wrong turns this week. But wrong turns and all, we got where we needed to be, more or less on time. We are indie publishers after all. And I had the persistent feeling over these past few days that we took one giant right turn when we started International Crime Month. The initiative began as a) an excuse to meet once a month and drink beer and eat pretzels together, and b) an idea for collectively promoting our respective crime series in such a way as to draw attention to the phenomenal international authors that we are publishing. To my mind, it has developed into something more. It has become a chance for us to explore, publicly, with our readers, with critics and booksellers, exactly what we as independent publishers bring to the publication of international crime fiction. I am convinced that independence has its own rewards, that there is an inherent and abiding strength that comes from being independent, that certain qualities are evident in the publishing projects of independent presses which are harder to find in the über-projects of large corporate houses. Exactly what these rewards, strengths, and qualities are has been the stuff of our conversations over the past few days. And the conversation continues. Next week we’ll be at WORD Brooklyn, and later in the month we’ll have some of our most exciting and talented authors doing events around the country with editors and critics.

Come out and join us at one or more of our forthcoming events and get in on the conversation.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Praise for Simon’s Cat in Kitten Chaos

“What elevates Tofield’s simple but expressive line drawings above the large litter of competing kitties is his keen grasp of cartoon physics and comedy cat antics. With a pitch-perfect pen, he captures the simple, realistic acrobatics of cats tumbling with toys or gracefully stretching out in the sun, and chronicles their adventures in pantomime stripes that pit them against household objects, their owner, and each other. Cat owners and aficionados will have several delighted “Yes, cats really do that!” reactions reading this.”
–Publishers Weekly

★★★★★–San Francisco Book Review

“The gentle humor of Simon’s Cat in Kitten Chaos makes it a choice gift for cat lovers everywhere.” –Midwest Book Review

“Simon’s Cat in Kitten Chaos helps recall the simple pleasures in life, like wearing your favorite sweater for the first cool fall day, or being able to leave your jacket home for the first time in spring.  Paging through the black and white illustrations and observing the playful antics of the pair feels almost therapeutic in this way.  Sure, there are themes of companionship to be observed, as well as those of friendship, and even the value of animals in our lives.  But the real joy in Simon’s Cat in Kitten Chaos comes from its innate ability to take the reader out of the monotonous expectations of daily life, and into, even if just for a moment, the much more simple, playful world of Simon’s Cat and his new Kitten friend.” –Philadelphia Review of Books

Praise for Johnny’s Sons’ Drawings (via Facebook)

“Go Arthur Go! (Smart kid, all the real money is in animation!)”

“Obviously they have great talent”

From Spectacle’s website:

“Ian Svenonius, legendary figurehead of the D.C. Punk/DIY scene as well as noted author, will be appearing IN PERSON at Spectacle to present his newly completed short film entitled WHAT IS A GROUP?. According to Svenonius himself, the film ‘will dismantle previously held ideas about all society’s dearly held conceits. Not for the faint hearted!’ Don’t say we didn’t warn you!

Afterwards, the floor will be open for discussion, pressing questions, or fanboy/girl musings!”

This event will be held at 8pm on Friday, June 21st. For more information, please visit Spectacle Theater’s event page.

Alec MacKaye (l.), Henry Rollins at Politics & Prose, Washington, DC. Photo: Politics & Prose

From that point on, I was immersed in the rushing jet stream of the evening, toggling back and forth between explaining why certain places and people from long ago–DC meant more to me than many of the others did back then, and why that matters now. It’s a relative thing; everybody has their story and their set of songs, myths, and ultra-personal heroes. We all like to compare What, but I think the longer conversation revolves around Why, and further than that: how historical photographs can offer much more than just the direct facts depicted.

When I arrived, Lely and our daughters, Ava and Bella, were already at a restaurant down the block, sitting with Henry and Lucian, waiting in vain during a frenzied, early-dinner rush. The whole dinner part of the plan had to be abandoned and pizzas went into boxes to be eaten, cold, at 10 pm, standing out in the alley, next to a Dumpster—or, in Henry’s case, alone in a hotel room, a few hours before jetting off to his next destination somewhere in the world.

By the time the talk got under way, there were people sitting in all the chairs that P&P could find—and twice as many more people standing in the book rows, all the way to the far end of the store. Lucian started off with some remarks, including a bombshell revelation: he had been told that the Washington Post had gotten rid of all its photographs from the Vietnam and Watergate era.

This touches on an element of the Hard Art story, and further examples in photographic history abound. Artifacts that disappear either by accident or negligence can help transform the missing objects and the things they represent into myth. In Hard Art‘s case, the pictures weren’t totally lost: they were uncovered from among a loosely-organized collection of tens of thousands of images. Luckily, Lucian did not leave the negatives in the Washington Post archives. Lucian’s career with them went in a very different direction for a quarter century or so, during which the negatives sat relatively safe, but vulnerable (among other potential threats, Lucian has cats; my own house growing up was like a Booth cartoon at times, so I can state with authority: cats can be diabolically destructive urinators).

Myths are open source stories that can take whatever form the teller wants and enter the imagination however the listener or reader desires to hear them. This characteristic makes myths stronger, not weaker, as opposed to the way a single snag in a factual story can pull the whole thing down. In the case of these pictures, there is a delicate balance.

Because the future value of the pictures in Hard Art was unknowable, and because they were apparently flat-out rejected by some people when Lucian first shot them, the slow-burn adventure of their existence is as compelling as any aspect of the book. It made for an exciting opening to the conversation before Henry and I spoke to the parts we know best: personal accounts of the music and people and places in the pictures.

Suddenly (though I suppose it may have seemed like an eternity for some of the folks in the room), the moderator said it was time to wrap up. We had covered a lot of ground, including a couple of shout-outs from the proverbial left field, but I hadn’t had a chance to sufficiently lionize Lely and Jayme for making the book and the traveling exhibition happen. It can’t be said enough: it was Lely’s keen eye, faith in the work, and unflagging interest in pursuing the book, and Jayme’s energetic involvement and creative problem-solving that kept the project together and pushed it all across the goal line. I suppose I can only speak for myself, but their work, and the continued energy in carrying the spark that was required to conceive, edit, and pitch the book and its attendant exhibition, are an endurance trial that Lucian, Henry, and I did not have to suffer. For that matter, the layout work that Nick Pimentel—and, later, Lisa Hill—provided was amazing, calmly and generously administered, even through a maddening welter of revisions.

Henry Rollins (far left), Alec MacKaye (at podium) at the Hard Art, DC 1979 launch event at Politics & Prose in Washington, DC. Photo: Politics & Prose

Something that made the DC opening for Hard Art powerful in a way that no other book event will come close to is the concentration of people in the room with direct or very close connections to DC and the scene at the time. However, anyone who looks at the book will find themselves relating, either to a history past or a current eruption that is right now generating tomorrow’s stories.

I personally think Lucian’s pictures have the depth and strength to stand alone, even without the “real” stories that were happening when he clicked the shutter. They have an immemorial otherness that some photographers do not allow, in the pursuit of professionalism or polish.

That all being said, there is no denying the allure of looking at the past, which leads to a longer conversation: the conversation about why we care so much about things past. It isn’t always just because the time is gone.

Memories are things that have marked us to our core and stay inside us forever, whether bitter or sweet. We use them for touchstones and guides when we feel unmoored. Sometimes they hound us to death.

That’s what makes some people look back. And that’s something we can talk about at another book event, right?

* * *

ALEC MACKAYE is a singer and musician best known for his bands the Untouchables, Faith, Ignition and the Warmers. In more recent years, MacKaye has focused on other artistic pursuits such as painting and writing. He is a contributor to Hard Art, DC 1979.

This week, Trinidad Noir coeditor Lisa Allen-Agostini sets her murderous scene in Store Bay, Tobago. Next week, Adam Rosen takes us on a hunt for bleached grass in Asheville, North Carolina.

Crab and Dumpling
by Lisa Allen-Agostini
Store Bay, Tobago

Miss Jo ladled an extra spoonful of golden brown stew over the fat, long dumplings in the bowl before sliding it across the counter to George. His mouth watered at the sight of the red crab legs glistening in the curry. “You fix me well nice,” he said, beaming at the food.

Miss Jo beamed back at him. Her gold tooth with its tiny diamond winked at him from between her full, brown lips. “You know you does get it special,” she said. She leaned her heavy, middle-aged bust over the counter. “I go get my special later?” she whispered.

George didn’t answer because he was already cracking a crab leg and sucking down its sweet, flaky flesh. A pair of tourists, their skin as red as the crab legs, strode up to the counter and Miss Jo dished them up two servings of her specialty. They swept their covered bowls into plastic bags and walked away holding hands. George sucked on another crab leg.

The next girl who sidled up to the counter next had deep black skin, just like George’s, just like Miss Jo’s. This girl’s bottom was a heavy, buxom curve inside skintight jeans. George, still sucking on a crab leg, let his eyes roam from the tips of her pink-polished toes to the slender column of her neck. Her face was a flawless sculpture in dark mahogany. George sighed a little, cracking another crab leg.

“Miss Jo, me hungry like dog,” the girl said. She was talking to Miss Jo but she was looking at George. A little smile played on the corners of her lips. George swallowed, and choked.

“Look, get your ass back inside here,” Miss Jo growled. “Is who you feel you is, take two hours for lunch and still come back hungry?” The girl insolently swung her long, red weave over one shoulder before sashaying around the side of the shack to put on a yellow-stained apron. George didn’t look at her again. He could feel Jo’s eyes burning holes in the back of his head. He ate the rest of his meal in silence and wished Jo a hasty goodbye, scuttling off through the drizzle to the beach for his mid-afternoon rounds.

Weak sunlight strained through sullen clouds. The light rain had turned the white sand dark and the clear water cerulean blue. The beach was nearly deserted, and George stepped around empty beach chairs as he made his way from one end of the bay to the next. He rousted a couple of weed-smoking teenage boys from the mouth of the caves at the southern end before he made his way back to where the glass-bottomed boats set off for the reef. He saw the tourist couple on the sand, wolfing down Miss Jo’s crab and dumpling.

“Boy, this is really good,” the woman called to George in a German accent as he passed them. “Miss Jo is a national treasure,” the man added in a similarly guttural inflection. George gave a friendly overhead wave of his baton as he passed, grinning and nodding. The smell of curry clung to his hands.

George dozed off on a beach chair under an abandoned umbrella after he made his rounds. When he woke up, the drizzle had stopped and the sun was an orange ball hanging low over Store Bay. George stood and stretched before tramping across the damp sand back to the side of the beach where the boats had come in. They rocked at anchor in the shallow waves. The tourists were gone. The men who rented beach chairs and umbrellas were packing up. Strolling to the caves again, George spotted the same teenagers he’d shooed away before.

“You nah listen or what? You can’t smoke that here, man.” He felt like a joke when they dashed away, giggling at the baton he brandished at them. Sucking his teeth, he glanced into the mouth of the nearest cave just to make sure there were no other boys hiding there.

His baton stopped in mid-swing. George lowered his arm. He didn’t feel the leather thong of the baton slip from his fingers. In the fading rays of sunset slanting through the mouth of the cave, he could see two things: a pair of motionless feet with pink-polished toenails, and the glint of a tiny diamond in a gold tooth cap.

He turned and ran like hell.

***

LISA ALLEN-AGOSTINI is a writer and editor from Trinidad & Tobago. In 2013 she was short listed for the Hollick Arvon Prize for emerging Caribbean writers. She is the author of the young adult novel The Chalice Project and is the founder of The Allen Prize for Young Writers, a Trinidad & Tobago non-profit that trains and gives prizes to writers aged 12-19. She is the coeditor of Trinidad Noir.

***

Would you like to submit a story to the Mondays Are Murder series? Here are the guidelines:

—Your story should be set in a distinct location of any neighborhood in any city, anywhere in the world, but it should be a story that could only be set in the neighborhood you chose.
—Include the neighborhood, city, state, and country next to your byline.
—Your story should be Noir. What is Noir? We’ll know it when we see it.
—Your story should not exceed 750 words.
—E-mail your submission to info@akashicbooks.com. Please paste the story into the body of the email, and also attach it as a PDF file.