harry hogg
Bio
My life began beneath a shrub on a roundabout in Gants Hill, Essex, U.K. (No, I’m not Moses!) I was found by a young couple leaving the Odeon cinema having spent their evening watching a Spencer Tracy movie.
The rest, as they say, is history
Stories (30/0)
The Blue Bottle
Frank stands alone wearing a cumbersome black overcoat, looking out from the clifftop toward the distant but gathering storm. Feverishly he digs inside the coat pocket for a cigarette, pulling out a half-crumpled pack of Marlboro Lights. Then, tapping the corner of the packet on one palm, he slips out a damaged smoke and shoots it to the side of his mouth, where it shakes between his lips while he flutters the lighter’s flame all around it. Frank inhales deeply, taking a moment to study the encroaching violence, its electricity sparking, splitting clouds.
By harry hogg2 years ago in Fiction
The Blue Bottle, Part Two
Lying restlessly awake, Rosie looks at the clock, 2:15 am. No matter how she tries to rest, her mind is reliving the events of last evening, the bizarre conversation with Frank. She lay on the bed, covers kicked off, going over every minute of their meeting, asking herself, had they ever met? What was familiar about him? She had felt comfortable talking to him, even felt a pull toward him, his craggy, handsome face, hair wild, and yet perfect. Yet, she had to admit that she felt stung by his smile, appearing brightly on one side of his mouth until it widened to his cheekbones, causing his eyes to crease and sparkle in their depths. He was a stranger, walking into an unfamiliar place, displaying an unusual air of confidence and likability. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, in control, and controlling in its tone. Nothing the stranger said made sense; it was all in the telling, entertaining, and genuine. Rosie felt he spoke like a man who had never told a lie in his life.
By harry hogg2 years ago in Fiction
The Blue Bottle, Part Five
Frank steps foot on the dusty red dirt, his boot leaving its imprint as he starts toward the old farmhouse. Rosie, following along behind, is suddenly aware that the clothes she’s wearing are those of the ’60s, not the clothes she left the house in. She wants to tell Frank but follows, hanging onto Frank’s jacket, her breasts heaving with anxiety as the sun, low in the sky, extinguishes its fiery body. Franks pauses and is still. Rosie wants to tell Frank about her clothes, Frank forefinger presses to his lips. A breeze becomes a gust, picking up the hem of her polka dot dress, revealing the tops of her nylons.
By harry hogg2 years ago in Fiction
The Blue Bottle, Part Four
Rosie spent most of the afternoon in Dublin shopping with a couple of girlfriends, buying things she never imagined wearing. She’d been coerced by her girlfriends to get out of the dull outfits since her divorce. She tried not to think about the dream, being with Frank in Timbuktu. But ignoring the dream hadn’t worked as she was chastised at times for daydreaming. She’d been tempted, but saying it aloud sounds corny and unlikely, and she would suffer her friends’ humorous responses with a good deal of embarrassment.
By harry hogg2 years ago in Fiction
The Blue Bottle: Part Three
Mark heard the soldiers yelling, screaming out, and then another smatter of fierce machine gunfire. He froze to the ground; please God, don’t let this be happening. The other soldiers lay at the roadside, not moving, so whatever motivated Mark to move from under the truck is something only God has any control over. He scrambles and crawls, taking cover in shell-shattered sand-built homes; their occupants were long gone. Mark hollers…
By harry hogg2 years ago in Fiction
San Francisco Extremes
The night is heavy and brutal but the beer is cold. I pull a twenty-dollar bill from my wallet and leave it on the bar, and nod to the barman. Market street is heaving with people. In the sky, lightning zips up clouds, but no rain is falling. I think of the firefighters north of here. What they would give for a rest and a cold beer. I cross the street and enter a narrow back alley, trash-filled, a rat-infested eyesore in which a homeless woman is crouched, leaving her stench. The half-nude old girl leaves her steaming pile in the gutter and, aware of me, moves to a shuttered doorway to piss. She looks at me with the eyes of a wild cat. Her piss runs from between her legs into the street. It’s hard to contemplate writing a poem looking at the CVS shopping cart that holds everything torn and tattered except bread.
By harry hogg3 years ago in Humans
Americans Going To London
London…London…London…look, visit the place by all means, but why bother going to pigeon-shit Trafalgar or walking through Marble Arch to nowhere. And please, forget the Queen’s over-rated glitter, mined by slaves, and held under lock and key in the raven-shit Tower, guarded by bellied men wearing gay costumes.
By harry hogg3 years ago in Wander
Fish Heads
That summer in Tobermory, I fished and crabbed behind the harbor wall or from the pier, and sometimes I took a rowboat out into the harbor. But mostly, I headed to the lighthouse. That summer was a typical affair if I don’t count the arrival of Lim-Tom, moving to the island from Sterling. Lim-Tom was Korean. It was my introduction to people who didn’t act, think, and look like me, white, dumb, and Scottish. There were, that I can recall, no intellectuals living on the island. Well, there was a young Jack Rafferty who always did well in exams. He grew up to become a police officer. Farming and fishing were the main work making up our community, and later, hoteliers. But at the time, there were no hoteliers.
By harry hogg3 years ago in Confessions
The Cross Dresser
Crossing on the ferry from Oban to Craignure I can see it, a swirling sea mist lifting from the lower fells, licking its way up the rugged, rose-pink granite face of Ben More mountain where it hangs like a shroud till noon. I grew up on the Isle of Mull, restricted in my youth, punished to live on one side of the island while the rest of human life lived on the other. Ours was the only farm on the western shoreline. On the east side, white cottages with chocolate box thatched roofs littered the fells inside a checker board of dry stone walls.
By harry hogg3 years ago in Families
Nowhere Man 2
Returning from my service with the RAF, I returned home to the island. I was fit, clean-cut, and looking. Life felt slow moving. I bought a secondhand Norton 750 motorcycle for the sake of my sanity. Dad was doing well; the cod wars were ending and in the nine years away, Dad took out a loan and purchased a second trawler, Nights Shadow, equipping her with new, superior equipment.
By harry hogg3 years ago in Families