'Lenore and Other Stolen Titles' now on Kindle

320 pages of short stories, one novella, and a few poems.
The beginning of the novella, Quicksand!, finds Harry O'Brien collecting cans on the streets of Los Angeles. His experiences so far have taught him two things: firstly, that he is insane, a fact that he has learned to deal with, and secondly, the rest of the world is probably also insane but there’s nothing he can do about that except adapt.
Harry establishes some stability in his life when he meets and falls in love with Carmen Rice, a street savvy prostitute. Carmen, possibly bipolar, sometimes sweet and sometimes cold hearted, has mood swings between positive hope and suicidal depression. When she becomes pregnant Carmen gives Harry a choice: come up with a way to lift them out of poverty or she will abort his child.
Harry uses his weird imagination to plan a crime that is foolproof. One that eleminates the possibility of prison or harm to anyone. The score is $500,000. The plan works but there are unexpected consequences.

Following is one of the short stories, 'Old Yeller':
I was given two weeks Leave after Boot Camp, and having no home, I decided to visit my Uncle Sean and Aunt May. It had been almost four years since I’d last seen them but I’ll have to admit that tears didn’t well up in my eyes when I caught a glimpse of their old farm house. With a sigh I pointed out the rock strewn, overgrown dirt drive but the cab driver stopped and said, “Sorry mister, ah ain’t driving off the concrete. Tires costs too much money.”
I paid him, threw my duffel across my shoulder, and set off up the slight incline. The field to my right was belly high with blackberry and such trash as grows when fields stay sallow too many years. I hated to see it but wasn’t surprised. Uncle Sean gave up big crop farming shortly after he bought the place. Sorry-ass red clay was good for nothing but pig farming anyway and my Uncle hated the smell of pigs.
As I approached the house I yelled, “Hey Aunt May! Hey Uncle Sean! Guess who’s coming to supper?” There was no reply.
I climbed three rickety steps, tossed the duffel down and settled myself onto Aunt May’s porch rocker.
“Aunt May!” I shouted. No reply.
I figured they must be down by the crick. It wasn’t that far, but neither of them was hearing too well.
I used the chair arm to lever myself back on to my feet and went into the house. I could see as I walked through the living room that nothing much had changed, just drier, darker, and a lot dustier. The pattern and color of such linoleum as there was left on the pine floor had mostly worn off long ago and such as was left of the linoleum curled and bubbled like a dead man’s skin.
I stopped in the dark kitchen for a drink of well water. It still stunk of sulphur and had a coppery taste that nauseated me a little. The kitchen opened onto an enclosed back porch. The shelves that lined the walls were empty. That was another bad sign. They should have been filled with canned goods and jars of stuff that Aunt May had put up from the kitchen garden last fall. I was beginning to worry. She must be pretty bad off, I thought, if she’s given up canning.
The orchard behind the house was in bad shape just like the planting fields. There was a lot of mustang grape and holly in the fruit trees, and clearly the branches hadn’t been trimmed in years. Up ahead I could see Uncle Sean sitting on a stump.
‘Hey!’ I called.
He raised his head and looked in my direction but I saw no indication that he recognized me.
“It’s me, Harry, come to visit, Uncle Sean!”
His eyes widened.
“Harry, that you, Harry?”
“Yes Sir,” I answered. “It’s me.”
“Well, you can just go to hell you son of a bitch!” He yelled.
I was close enough now to see that cataracts clouded his irises. He must be nearly total blind, I thought.
“Why you cussing me, Uncle Sean?” I asked, slipping back into the familiar East Texas vernacular.
“I needed you boy. Tractor has a flat and you know that’s a two-man job. Get my belt, I’m gonna whup your butt.”
“Uncle Sean, I’ve been in the Marines, you know that.”
He face clouded and he blinked several times. “Ah sure, I ‘member now,” He said, “Them damned Nazis. You kill any uh them sorry bastids, son?”
“Yes sir,” I replied, smiling, “Ever stinking one.”
“Okay then,” he said, “Well okay then! Welcome home, Harry!”
“Where’s Aunt May?” I asked.
He rubbed his eyes and started coughing, deep rattling hacks that seemed to come from the bottom of his shoes. He turned his head, spit, and then said, “Had to put her down, Son.”
“What?”
He lifted a cheek and passed gas.
“Hope you learned to cook in that there army, Son, all’s I get to eat these days is pinto beans. Gotta’ a bad kidney the vet says.”
“What?”
Tears began to seep from his red-rimmed eyes like puss from open wounds. “Nothin’ to be done about it. Poor ol’ Betsy.”
He was rambling. Betsy was his dog.
“I’m sorry to hear it, Uncle Sean,” I said, “But she was pretty old.”
“Fourteen last October,” he replied, “I raised her from a pup, fed her milk from a bottle right out of the cow’s teat. Yes sir, right out of the cow’s teat.”
‘Uncle Sean, where’s…”
“Your Aunt May wouldn’t have it no other way. Said I had to put her down. Said it was the only decent thing to do. Always yellin’at me, ‘She can’t hardly walk no more, you old fool, can’t eat nothin’ less it’s ground up, whines when she pisses it hurts so much. You got to put her down, Old Man!’”
“Uncle Sean, where is Aunt May?” I asked again.
“I told her, look here, you old yeller, you ain’t got no teeth either, you just gum your food after cuttin’ it into itsy-bitsy pieces. Both us got the rheumatism so bad we hardly can walk a’tall. I’m so blind I can’t tell where the pot is. Pee on the floor I do, like a baby! God damn it, Woman, you want her put down, you do it! Don’t be telling me I got to! I raised Betsy from a pup, hunted with her, fed her…”
“Uncle Sean!” I took his arm. “It’s okay. These things happen.”
“Hell, I know things happen,” he muttered, “think I’m daft.”
“But where’s Aunt May?” I asked again.
He raised his shaggy old head and faced the sky. How old is he, I wondered; must be about eighty-six.
“She’s yonder,” he finally whispered, nodding toward the orchard.
“Where, Uncle Sean?’”
“In the ground, you idjit! I put her down last February.”
“No, Uncle Sean,” I said, “Not Betsy, Aunt May. Where’s…”
At that moment a lanky old tan and brown hound moped out of the trees.
“Isn’t that Betsy there, Uncle Sean?” I asked.
He didn’t reply.
The dog walked stiffly over to me, sniffed at my trouser legs, wagged its tail in recognition and then flopped down beside Uncle Sean.
“Uncle Sean!” I yelled, suddenly panicked, “Where the heck’s Aunt May?”
He reached over, grabbed Betsy by the scruff and pulled the animal close. “Old Betsy,” he whined, “my sweet old Betsy, raised her from a pup…”

This book and others by Willard C Phillips can be purchased in Kindle form by going to Amazon.com Kindle books at
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