Archive for the ‘FICTION’ Category

My best friend is named Suede. His real name is Rod but that’s gay so we call him Suede.

My name is Myrus. Rod also gets called Def Leppard and Dave Mustaine from time to time. His name is Suede.

I get home and it’s so goddamn quiet. I’m clomping around the place because I’m pumping and it’s too fucking quiet. I hate the quiet. Maybe I should get another dog but it never ends well. I regret beating a man sometimes, but dogs make me cry. I’m really not so good with animals and suffering.

I can’t have them around.

I fire up a little Maiden. Grab me a PBR.

That’s how it started but not where it’s ended up. Human’s make me glad. Animals don’t know. People do. Even the most innocent human wears far more sin than any of God’s other creatures. Animals are innocent.

Human beings are guilty.

The wind should shut up.

I hide my rings and wash my clothes.

I’m Myrus.

I like to look people in the eyes. I will look you in the eye. It’s important to me. On the street, I come up on you, you don’t nod back you don’t respect me so I don’t care about you at all. Fuckhead.

My name is Myrus.

The wind whistles through my house.

All the time.

I won’t paint you for that. We just have no reason to respect each other. Neither of us has earned anything from the other. Understand that if you look at me like that again, I will not stop until you’re on the ground and I’m kicking your head. You lost me at hello.

I can’t believe there’s no grape soda. I like Glenn Miller. I keep my hair pretty long. I find it makes me stand out. I don’t dress to stand out. Clothes are a simple choice, there’s no commitment. They fit so you wear them. I don’t care about clothes. I like cologne.

You look at me like that. Again. I tilt my head roll my eyes, stare you in the face and smile. I walk at you with my left hand behind my head and my right extended for a shaking.

I take your hand smiling, I pump it friendly, pull you to me while I chop with my left fist for as long as I can hold you up. I draw blood right away because I’m wearing my rings. My rings give me confidence. I beat you so bad you fold. The blood is exhilarating.

It happens pretty fast after that and I realize I’m in the Country Store. A bar. Local dickheads like to answer their phones and shout to their wives they’re at ‘the store’.

I look at Cecil behind the counter and his grizzled stupid fucking chin that looks like a pair of tiny balls. I loathe his chin. He tries to smile to reassure me but I see his stupid teeth and swing right at them with a fake marble ashtray. Overhand right.

It ended up in my hand. I don’t know where it came from. I fucking nailed him right in the mouth with a brick.

I use my left hand and the rings.

I’m sure I break everything on the front of his head. Cecil goes down gulping and bleeding. I fucking hate his chin and stupid fucking grey Members Only jacket. He wears it over his sawed off flannel, he rolls up the sleeves of the dumb jacket and puts the pussy collar up.

Douchebag. He has an elastic sweatband around his head sometimes.

His name is Cecil. My name is Myrus.

All I can remember is that I wanted to kill myself. I wasn’t in any kind of pain at all. I was looking forward to it. Clean linens on a warm cloudy bed with my belly full. Bliss. An end to misery.

That’s all I can tell you.

I was tired. I’d never been that tired.

When I get tired I take a nap or go to bed.

Was I at my absolute lowest? Yes and no. I’d given up. Material posessions hadn’t mattered for quite some time. I was about to lose a molar but I was kinda cruisin on the blissful relief of vicodin and surrendering entirely to not giving a mad fuck.

There’s oceans of freedom in giving up hope. The first body of water is huge. The Ocean of Day to Day. Twenty four chapters, each an hour long.

Rough start. I was thinking I’d try again tomorrow. Go to sleep. Get drunk, go to sleep again.

Wake up in my drafty little house next to the quiet highway. My place faces east so my bedroom looks west and there’s a mountain range up close. The afternoon sun bothers me the least we can manage and in the spirit of cooperation, the wind whistles through my house.

Man I was tired.

Black cumulonimbus sentient over the mountains. No rain would come. It never does. I think I can smell it.

Shit day.

Customers pissy over the selection. What you see is what we have. No backstock. I hate having to repeat myself.

My name is Myrus. When I first started they had me as a greeter three days a week. I hate having to repeat myself.

My name is Myrus.

The most elaborate and imposing apparatus ever constructed to paint a room.

Lit like a boxing match.

See it from a mile.

A ridiculously grandiose set of circumstances.

The wall of one room removed for a live cutaway. My house. Where I grew up. Tree in the front yard. Moon in the backyard. Pancackes, pot roasts, dead cats, snow, rain, early mornings and late nights. Genuine random. One constant was the smell of my feet. Another was my drumkit. Comic books. Chewing tobacco and dark beer. My house dissected like science fair project. Absolutely impossible yet it all took place.

An enormous, convoluted steel and hydraulic apparatus for the painting of one small room. It stretches through back yards and occupies most of the block well before it begins to even labor and pump. Thrust, grind and mash. Pulverize and obliterate. It’s huge, smoking and steaming and spewing.

Workers scurry, pound and shovel. They shout and signal among themselves. I’m wearing a hardhat. Eye suffocating goggles that relentlessly shift from yellow to green to blue. Some mask for breathing. Feels like I’m in deep sea gear.

Illuminated like the scaffolding at midnight on a twenty four hour casino job.

Sprawling and archaic. I explain the deed can be done easily with aerosol cans or a rented compressor. Rollers and pans, brushes and cans. So much easier than this. They won’t hear me. So much simpler.

I’m so angry I choke the ends of my sentences.

They don’t listen. Not as though they can’t. Much more like they won’t. It spooks me.

They keep building. Assembling with machines themselves the size of houses. Monstorous vats filled with molten metal and boiling concrete, bubbling like simmering sauce. Cauldrons baking the damp earth in my chilhood back yard.

Splattering sparks and startling discharges of air and steam. The periphery of my senses kept busy with all things making me flinch.

I’m trapped here and there, now and then, by the giant engines and the things they are building. Malicious, mindless. Climbing out while watching for sudden tons of movement or keeping distance from an industrial dragon gone senseless.

Madness and they won’t listen.

I make it to the bathroom in time to witness all water pissing on every book I’ve ever owned. Hundreds, maybe thousands. My bathroom. Familiar. No soap. No shower curtain. No valve for the water. Nothing to do. The water slows pissing and stars gushing. I haven’t stepped foot in that bathroom in almost twenty five years. It haunts me, that bathroom.

Dad is on the roof hammering so hard the noise is from a cartoon.

Construction continues so before I know it I stand in the middle of what appears as a refinery Sunlight from the west glances off it’s gleaming spires. My boots are dry but caked and heavy. Wild iron contrivances looming like Vegas billboards along the 15, the size of office building skeletons without yet any concrete or glass for skin.

Bristling with cranes and open elevators, lifts and chutes.

Equipment dangles and sways. Before I know it, everything commences to swing and twirl like carnival rides and it’s all I can do to keep from getting crushed by the whipping insect head of an oil pump or sliced to ribbons from braided steel blown and slashing by an impossible tempest.

It’s these machines I fear the most as no human sits atop them.

Death is everywhere until a young latin boy in a tailgated old Chevy shows up on a construction elevator with hot dogs, tacos and flan but no onions or clean napkins. I see the front of his facade is a regular food truck and we’re dealing out of the back. I speak spanish to him but he ignores my requests or acts as though he can’t understand me.

I know better than to ask for mayo.

Just then, one of our forklifts is completely obliterated by a heavy metal object orbiting with abandon from a crane broken loose for reasons I can’t grasp or even see. I watch it’s arc and hold my breath at it’s apogee until it comes all the way down. The violence of it is breathtaking. It obliterates the dense little appliance like a wrecking ball vs. an ice sculpture. The forklift explodes and I see a man’s head cave like an egg filled with berries and pale pudding.

It’s chaos and massive amounts of burning steel lands like munition everywhere but where I stand. Destruction so sudden and extreme I can’t run.

The smell is is metal and fuel exhaust, fossil lubricants and the grit that finds it’s way into your lungs and under your nails. And burning. Burning. Tar. Constant fire.

The irony is not lost on me as it’s all for a very small thing. A task for two humans for an afternoon, maybe two.

At this point, I begin to wonder why my mind is playing me this movie. It’s not the first time it’s done this sort of thing. It’s crazy, my mind. It does this sort of thing. It plays me really weird movies.

It’s not who you are but where you are. Waitaminute. Not where you are but who you are. Something like that.

Who wants to go sledding?

Drinks for my friends.

It’s actually the space between.

I’m going home and I can’t wait.

I’ll bring etchings and wine.

I hear I look like Toby Keith, despite his being a douchbag and all. Huge dipshit.

Whatever.

I need to tell you that I just don’t understand the contemporary image or model of the overly skinny, oftentimes emaciated woman proliferating the visual media. They always look a little skanky to me. I just don’t get the little boy look. Give me hips and ass at least. They always have raccoon eyes and fragile ankles. No hips.

Moving right along.

Yes, I am afraid to die. I’m not done yet. What sane human under seventy five isn’t afraid to die? Show me one that isn’t afraid and I’ll show you one that’s out of his tree.

I once knew a bartender named Diane. She had gorgeous tattoos of dolphins on her arms. A yellowing front tooth in the very front of her head. Rosewater perfume, giant blues eyes and the reddest lips I’ve ever seen. Porcelain skin. One of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met.

We were friends for years. Went on a date. To a movie. Naked Lunch. William S. Burroughs. I moved to kiss her that night and she asked me not to embarrass us both. Damn. I don’t believe I’ve ever been so humiliated. She crushed me. Bittersweet. We somehow grew closer. I became a protector. A role I couldn’t stand but it was the only part in the play.

The Whitehorse on Western just north of the boulevard Sunset. It fell to the ground in the ’94 Northridge quake. Thank Zues.

The first bar in the world to put my etchings on the jukebox. I drank whiskey and beer in those days. Jim Beam and Budweiser. Cognac if the overtime was good. Cockroaches and all. It was a flawless shithole.

The Powerhouse. Highland and Hollywood. Lost my wallet there more than once. I actually had sex on that bar. I’ve since stopped carrying a wallet. The second place to put my records on the juke. Everything I did for awhile. Down By Law to Everclear. I played drums there one night for a band that was without a drummer. I think I did ok. By then I’d switched to gin. We played Wild Thing and Iron Man. I kinda did a solo through the breaks. Only way I knew to keep time.

They locked the doors just before two and let their favorite people keep drinking. I was always one of them.

Not long after, I split the atom. People were impressed. There were parades. I was given a space suit eventhough I had no use for one. Candles and food on my doorstep. Women swooning. Short, overly tanned men tried to lease me cars, suits and jewelry. I eliminated most of them in elevators. These dickheads were orange.

What would you have done?

I had to kill almost all of them. Stabbed them in the neck with a pen or a letter opener. Stupid wide lapels and a too quick familiarity. Ridiculous tans in camel colored suits with absurd ties. Idiots. They thought the neutral colors excused the circus ties. I killed every one of them. Thought they could fool Mother Nature. Oh my.

When you scoop from a jar for your toast, careful and mind what your knife brings to light.

Might be fresh berries, could be caviar, maybe mold, turds and wax.

Hey Jody, sorry about that.

Drinks for my friends.

Bear with me. Take your time. I had a lot to say.

Little explosions of pork fat in a heavy iron skillet. The fire is hot and I’m not sure, so I pull it off. Good move. The bacon just overdone but still sweaty and fatty. No aroma like that of fresh thick bacon. Most folks like it cooked this way. I use tongs to put it on a plate.

Motes bob and dance in rays of sun, a subject of birdsong, butterflies and dragonflies.

Man has almost complete authority over his own clock. Animals, from rodents to whales, have the sun.

I drop a fistfull of white raisins. Some diced yellow onions and a little butter into the cast iron.

Next up is to smack some eggs in the fat and put the skillet back on the crackling morning combustion. Beneath a canopy of primeval. This part’s easy. They cook like that, the eggs. Smacking and spattering. Hope ya like yours yellow loose. Quick and hot. Soft in the middle with brown bubbles at the edges. They’re done. Sea salt? Tapatio?

Someone else is doing coffee. I smell it. Raw like tilled earth. Berries.

Potatos cook the longest, garlic and rosemary. Moist in the center, otherwise crispy and taut. Steaming. Glistening with butter and oil. Fresh ground pepper. With potatos, I don’t play games I can’t win. The best way I’ve found.

Everyone stares up and around. Nobody looks at their food while they shovel it at their mouths. The savour does not compete with the vista, it compliments it, the ambiance of a deciduous forest in the chill of a late summer morning.

Have some champagne.

Next up, pine trees and a good classic novel. Some Fitzgerald or maybe Jack London. Twain. Capote. Then a nice clean spot to evacuate oneself and soap and water and towels after and what not.

I bring my own ointments and salves.

Maybe an afternoon walk.

I never would have made it as some pioneer or frontiersman. Maybe if I was some version of royalty. Afforded a certain amount of privilege and staff.

I just want to live in San Francisco.

Gin and chocolate.

I believe in mankind’s right to self medicate.

There is simply no reason in a country as wealthy as ours that people should go hungry, without health care or as much education as anyone can tolerate. I can’t stand it.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and proclaim that a little socialism might not be bad for us. Not just to give the folks who fall through the cracks a leg up, but to headbutt the absurdly wealthy who have enjoyed political, social and economic advantage by virtue of obscene largess for so long, the phenomena has manifested a momentum of it’s own now centuries old.

It may also serve to highlight the perverted version of Capitalism and Democracy we have chosen to embrace. We are in a place where our adherence to and practice of “free market capitalism”, as is the contemporary model, isn’t merely foolish, it is reckless, dangerous and unconscionable.

Fear and spying, rendering and detaining, holding people indefinitely without charging them………what does that look like to you? An economy hit by a wave any fool saw coming, so strong as to temporarily capsize us despite our size, displacement and power? More waves on the way.

Rotting infrastructure and an attitude of every man for himself on twenty million lips at least.

Hated so much a journalist throws shoes at Dumbya’s melon inside the Green Zone? More on that later.

We are stupid and greedy. Not necessarily in that order.

Fuck anything that moves.

Make these prick CEO’s live in a motel for a season. Three months. Twenty bucks a day per diem. Introduce them to the miracle of cheap chunky peanut butter and applesauce on the same spoon.

Ssshhhhhhhhh!!!

I covet and admire the idea of self determination. So far, the concept and my practice thereof has allowed me to reap almost exactly what I’ve sewn. Can’t ask for more than than that. What I’d like to see is that degree of parity afforded to not just every American regardless of race, color or creed, but every human.

We could render organized religion obsolete by achieving just that. Wouldn’t that be nice? I think so.

Replace an archaic institution that withholds (religion), with a concept, maybe a mandate, far more inclusive and progressive that holds as a fundamental ideal, prosperity of the earth and it’s inhabitants simultaneously. I’m a goddamn genius. Give me a can of beer and a Nobel, bitches.

Anyway.

I honestly believe that the defining moment of Dumbya’s reign occured on this very day, December Fourteen, the year of our Lord, 2008. I’m sure you’ve seen the footage by now. To his credit, our President did skillfully dodge two well launched shoes from not very far away. We learn that this is some major insult in that part of the world. To throw your shoes.

An Egyptian reporter with a pretty good arm fired said shoes at Dumbya’s head and screamed:
“This is a farewell … you dog!” “You killed the Iraqis!” -CNN

Ha! That’s goddamn golden. Forgive me, but if he’d taken one right in the fucking face? I would have called paramedics before screeching sobbing laughter could consume me. Go ahead, picture it. Me laughing ’til I puke or him taking one right in the kisser. Sheezus. That would have been gorgeous.

Picture it.

In any case, it was just so perfect. Vicariously cathartic. This really should be the swan song for the dumbest man to ever be President of America. We should remember him forever as the guy ducking shoes thrown hard by a journalist at a press conference in the “Green Zone”, the safest place in Iraq.

Bush Sr. had, “Read my lips…..”, Clinton had “I did not have sexual relations with that woman……”, Nixon had “I am not a crook”. Dumbya, among all the other ridiculous shit he’s said and done will nonetheless be remembered for his physical adroitness in ducking angry shoe leather in contrast to his profound lack of any kind of mental acuity in any shape or form.

He still doesn’t get that he’s an idiot.

Meet your legacy you stupid sonofabitch. Beet the Meatles.

I just want him to know what a complete loser he is. It’s not just angst. Hundreds of thousands died because no one in this man’s life had sense enough to teach him banjo and take him to the river everyday. They took him to school instead. Millions of Americans made the same mistake and now we’ll pay for it.

I went to hand her the remote. She said put it next to me dear, I’m scratching my butt right now. I looked and she was. So I did.

The Holidays. Weird. Didn’t have the Christmas I was used to last year. The old man was sick. Very. Spent my time at the hospital or sleeping because I’m a pussy and that’s what I do when I’m afraid. He’s so good now I want to punch him in the mouth.

To know my old man is to understand that he’s the shit. He’s only afraid of one thing. It has nothing to do with him. If you’re smart you’ll guess it.

My brother in law, Todd, a man I’ve known of since we were boys, lost his Mother just a few months before. Her name was Dixie and I really liked her. She was a writer. I see her face.

Here it is again. The Holidays. I’m expecting something different this year. It will be somewhere between now and then. Holidays are always a little step back in time. We may all have a similiar lense for this one. I hope so. I’m looking for the love and warmth of family unmitigated by illness and sadness. He is well now. I think it will be big and special.

My ass is broke so the only gift I have is my etchings.

Not being able to buy Christmas presents used to scare the crap out of me. It nightmared me. I was a fairly prodigious giver. I’ll bring really good wine.

Life is good.

Here’s the thing. A well worn theme for me, forgive me if I bore you. The difference between humans and animals is not the ability to reason. It’s not love or compassion. If you’ve ever been lucky enough to share your life with an animal you loved, you feel me. The difference isn’t even a sense of humor. Every cat I’ve ever shared a house with has been funny as fuck and tragic all at once.

The difference is art. Animals don’t make art for the sake of art. Humans do.

I sit telling you this, one of my cats is high up in a ficus tree I’ve had for twenty years that has been dead for at least a year. My other cat sits next to me on a dilapidated red velvet sofa staring at her. If only they could talk and I could understand them.

Happy Holidays.

Drinks for my friends.

I’ve got to tell you how strange my life has become.

I don’t work anymore. Car and apartment dirty. Filthy. Full of unnecessary things, copious refuse and random detritus. Grime. Disgusting. Can’t bring myself to care. Keeping an eye out for bugs.

They knock at the door all day. They knock and check the knob. All goddamn day. They rattle it. In the afternoon, they pound. They hammer and that upsets me. It suprises me. I’m startled and so I have to clean up. Clean myself up. I shave and shower. Bag some trash.

Sometimes I dust and vacuum.

I leave my toilet a mess.

When I look through the hole it’s always at the instant they are turning away.

I hate them.

Short blonde women, tall dark men.

Short blond men. Tall dark women.

I get angry.

At night they wear hoodies up.

Many wear a blue apron but I can’t read the logo or the slogan. I think there’s a pig on it.

It’s a fisheye parallax view kinda thing. Can’t make it out.

I either make people like me or I don’t. It’s simple so I just do it. Whoever you are, I can make you like me.

What do you think of that? It’s totally true.

Really mad. I get super pissed.

I have a unique view from my balcony. I leased the place sight unseen. I saw that it had twenty five to thirty feet of uniterrupted tiled deck outside and signed the lease. I can see three stories up. It’s like a canyon. Everything reverberates. The click of my lighter. My foot steps even in slippers. At night sounds multiply.

From the balcony I see common areas, like where the elevator spills my neighbors. One of three jacuzzis. I got a letter on my door today about the jacuzzis telling me they were to be replastered this month. Great. Can’t wait.

Sometimes I see them from my balcony on the floors above me not really talking to each other. Their lips move. They touch a lot. It’s subtle. They never look at each other.

They always see me. Always. They look right fucking at me. They don’t exactly point with their fingers.

It begins. A clatter, some rustling and then some random knocks. After that, pounding, rapping and bell ringing. So loud! I get angry and charge the eyehole. Sometimes I yell at them as they turn away. Sometimes just one. Often groups. I feel better screaming at the groups.

I pound at my door as they scatter.

I never open it. That would be crazy.

Sometimes, I peer out the hole in the middle of the night and they go by in boats, the hallway a rushing river. Torches burning. Backs paddling away from me. Hoods up. The water is violent and green. My feet are wet and river water splashes the skin of my feet and ankles.

I dream of portals and portholes.

Morning, there is no evidence of a river, yet I wake with rashes on my feet.

They leave things at my door. Minature boxes of cereal, deflated balloons and wrinkled party favors. Glitter. Plastic champagne flutes. Soggy candy cigarettes. The hallway smells like leather and the sea.

Weeds and insects.

Everyone I encounter that day looks like they’ve been swimming. Dry skin, red eyes, wild hair.

Fucking grasshoppers careening, leaping abberantly in front of me wherever I walk.

People don’t know what I know. They can’t see what I see.

Every time I go to the 7-11 after sunset, one of the bastards opens the door for me. I recognize them all.

Crazy is everywhere you look. Color outside the lines. Be creative. Kill people.

This last one was old and chapped. His face was ruddy and he moved rheumatic. I usually try to give them something. Who knows what power they have. I hate when I’ve got no cash and say as much on the way in but they still ask again on the way out.

I’ve been avoiding it lately. Always bugs in the condiments at The Hot Dog Buffet. Only buy stuff that is prepackaged. Always bring home mayo packets.

They mingle by the elevators. They whisper. They always drop a few Crackerjack prizes when they gather. On the floor in the common areas. Little red striped envelopes with a semblance of a sailor in blue. Like where the mailboxes are. Sometimes I pick them up off my balcony. That spooks me. What bugs me most is when they’re beside my car. Sometimes all around my car.

Dozens. That spooks me.

There’s always a guy who’s balding wearing corduroy with bad teeth. Sometimes tall, sometimes not. An elegant redhead in black who maintains her youth by eating nothing but grains and raw vegetables. Children in costumes. An over perfumed elderly fat woman dressed immaculately. A guy I can only describe as Karl, The Mortition, and a handful of others. From the girl at the drycleaner to the hairy guy in a stupid shirt at the mall who kept walking in front of me.

I see the goats and hear the monkeys. I never see the monkeys and hear the goats. Never.

There’s a window outside of my apartment, in the hallway, that opens onto my balcony. That’s how they’re getting in. I close my shit up before I sleep no matter how hot it is.

A woman in the elevator the other night had what looked like a hamster cage. It looked heavy but she still held it high. Yellow plexiglass, the smell of woodchips and sour rodent turds. There were tiny frogs inside. They kept leaping against the sides, making me flinch. They slid down, leaving smears. It sounded awful. Smacks and whisper moist scrapes. She had a moustache. Sideburns. Her dress was a smock of burlap somewhere between lime green and pastel robins egg. It was morbid against her skin and the simian coating of black hair on her arms.

Burping amphibians with huge eyes. A woman named Halgromson, moles erupting with thick and ropy whiskers.

Sheezus!

Once in a while I smell crazy. Smells like dust. Smells like rocks and rotting flowers. Penetrates everything. Sweet but cloying and dense.

Smells like cabbage boiling with a fair amount of porkfat. Get used to it. Come to Daddy.

Drinks for my friends.

My girls sit on each arm of my couch, grooming. Benevolence. They could not be more opposite. Physically, temperamentally, even how we interact and the ways they tell me what they need or want. You’re never alone if you have pets.

I’ve let the nail on my left thumb grow. It weighs an outrageous amount. Subject to subtle surges of gravity. I can’t wait to clip it but I understand exactly why I’ve let it go this long. It offends me. I hate it. I can’t help it. My arm tingles with the anticipation of eliminating it. Sometimes at night, the thumb aches from it’s weight.

I must do it now. Right now. I loathe it. The need for relief from the mass I’ve allowed for has reached past solvency. One compulsion usurps another.

Giant, pastel green grasshoppers suddenly suffer mass abdominal explosions, yielding orange flavored Tick Tacks as soft and sticky shrapnel. Barely any sound.

I’ve done it. I’m lighter. Didn’t wait until I got outside. Sheared it off over the kitchen sink with giant steel toe incisors. Not sure the nail is short enough but I’m relieved. It was a wet fish I stuffed into my pants on purpose. Ocular organs of grasshoppers crisping and popping underneath my eye teeth. Ants and mosquitos mingle in my gullet sharing heartburn. They dance in my colon and I shit like a goose.

I need a shower.

Cindy Stepford McCain is creepy. She’s powered by yellowcake uranium. Just look at her eyes. She trips the lights fantastic with Lucifer hisownself.

The roof of my mouth bothers me. I could feel that nail in my mouth and nose. It made the tops of my feet itch; I almost wore a hole in one last night.

I lean back to discover The Gurry right next to me. She is flawless and wise. I rub her head just how she likes. If I’m afforded an afterlife she will be there. I’m hoping she’ll finally talk to me, I want to ask her about her moods and if she really was watching TV all those times. Beddy will tell me really bad jokes about latin homosexuals. The Bean will moderate while wearing those half glasses. Can’t wait to see her.

Men and women are so different it’s often tragic.

I wonder how far I could leave life behind while still being able to stay connected. I ask myself this question and realize I’m halfway there.

I just need cable, high speed internet and groceries conveniently accessible, all from a lower than alpine region. The side of a not too steep mountain. Ideally, a fresh source of water within a walkable distance. A well. A generator. Some solar panels. Plenty of tools. Morphine. Lots of beans and pickled vegetables.

Sometimes, I understand the need to surrender to certain things to be at peace.

I should go to bed but my dreams will have their way with me.

A fix of apathy is needed. It’s usually pretty easy to come by. Not today.

I know why I’m in this mood but I’m not gonna tell you about it. Nothing I can’t solve, get over or get through.

Bitches can’t hold they smoke, that’s what it is.

“I tell them there’s no hurry, I’m just sitting here doing time.
I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round.
I really love to watch them roll.
No longer riding on the marry-go-round.
I just had to let it go.
I just had to let it go.
I just had to let it goooooo.” -John Lennon

A chihuahua has dominated the box office for two weekends and that Russian rocket is way cooler than our Saturn Five. Russian rockets are way cooler and more sinister than American rockets.

Fall is here, it’s my favorite season. Candles, fireplaces and deciduous trees in the San Fernando Valley.

Clarity is a commodity in every grand prize. At least it should be.

I think I need to walk it back a little.

Drinks for my friends.

Have you told anyone you’d marry them?
I have fond memories of the Easy Bake Oven.

Would you rather live in Alaska, or Texas?
Prison.

Did you mean it when you said “i love you” last?
What I meant was that I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.

Your most recent ex REALLY needed you at 3am and you had a way to his/her house would you go?
As long as there was a Taco Bell on the way and I could get like four orders of Pintos N’ Cheese and a grip o’ hot sauce.

When was the last time you wanted to punch someone in the face?
Even if I like you, I fantisize about busting you in the mouth, I can’t help it.

Do you have a friend you can tell stuff to and your sure they wont tell?
Children of the 70’s will remember Bugles. A corn chip shaped like a funnel, well now their available with caramel. Sweet AND salty. A real game changer.

What is wrong with you right now?
I can’t stand anybody or anything. I like coleslaw but I’m picky.

Do you plan on kissing the last person you kissed again?
That would be my cat Beddy. She tells excellent jokes about latin homosexuals, so yes.

Do you crack your knuckles?
What I do is boil bowtie pasta in salty water with olive oil, strain it, sprinkle fresh Parmigiano Reggiano and then add the sauce. Maybe some pinenuts sauteed in butter. I pour some decent cab franc.

Would you go in public looking like you do right now?
I’m always at my best. Right now I’m dead sexy. I don’t need much support, I’m barely a B-cup.

Would you kiss someone to make your bf/gf mad?
Or to make her happy.

Can you handle the truth?
Handle it? I spew it. I covet it. I seek it. Bitch.

Did you like anyone last summer?
I loathed everyone I came across.

Do you believe exes can really ever be “just friends”?
I am the poster child. Seriously.

Ever kissed a blonde haired,blue eyed person?
Yep, she was hotter than Georgia asphalt. There were others but she was so round and ripe. Her name was Charlotte. I called her Charlotte the Harlot.

Do you think you can last in a relationship for 6 months?
Bob Dole.

What did you have for breakfast this morning?
A chicken salad melt on sourdough with cheddar and tomato.

Are you too shy to tell people when you’re developing feelings for them?
I either tell people the truth or what they need to hear, depending on the nature of my relationship with them. Often the truth and what they need to know are the same thing. Hardly ever mutually exclusive. I am however, a salesman.

Do you read horocopes?
What I do is sit on the toilet and blow my nose. Depending on the volume, I then fold it and use it for my first swipe. I’m a conservationist you know. Somewhere in there I may read my horoscope from the latest Hooker Paper. The Hooker Paper is free and right there on the sidewalk in front of the 7-11. America rocks.

Do you tell your mom everything?
Pretty much. She needs to know the truth about me to understand and advise me. She’s in her early seventies and only says “fuck” when she’s talking about Republicans.

Are you enemies with a former friend?
Nope. Former friends do understand they make me sad. The ones that make the saddest I probably won’t speak to again.

Have you ever done something dumb?
Bitches can’t stop staring at me.

Have you ever had the cops called on you?
Yep, by other cops. The Reno cops couldn’t catch us, so they called the Carson cops and they waited for us at the bottom of the hill.

Who was the last person you yelle?d at?
The clerk at the 7-11 until he pointed out the Funyuns.

Who was the last person you cried in front of?
Sarah Palin.

Have you told anybody you loved them today?
Joe Walsh. The chicken melt.

Think of the last person you held hands with, do they mean something to you?
Now I’m annoyed.

What color shirt were you wearing when you last kissed someone?
Dishwater blond. It was made of hair.

Do you remember your kindergarten teachers name?
Mrs. Jenny. First grade Shaw, second grade Springmeyer, third Bobay…….

Would you rather go to a party or go out of town?
A bash in Egypt.

If you could get back in touch with anyone,who would it be?
Jimhead, Daisy, Charlotte?

When was the last time you talked to the last person you kissed?
What possible relevance can this question……….

Whats on your room floor?
My room floor? The floor of my room.

What did you wake up to this morning?
The need to eliminate waste.

Describe your current shirt
Nope. Wait.
It’s more like a blouse. Mariachi kinda. Red. The ruffles look like roses. You should see my pants. My shoes. My hat.

Who were the last people you ate with?
Who eats with people?

When was the last time you felt guilt about something?
Five, maybe ten minutes ago.

When you have kids would you want a boy or a girl first?
Kittens. A basket of them.

What are you doing right now?
Researching Kevin Bacon. Bowling with frozen turkeys. Designing tents.

Are you alone?
We are always alone.

Are you still besties with the same people you were besties with a year ago?
Besties? What am I, twelve?

Have you ever had your heart broken?
I’m going to rub my dick in mustard.

Have you ever broken someone’s heart?
I’m letting my hair grow.

Talk to any of your exes?
Ever count the number of peas pictured on a can of corn?

If you could go back in time and change things,would you?
I would sterilize mouth breathing Republicans in the fifties and sixties.

Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance?
Nope.

Do you want to get married?
Nope.

Drinks for my friends.

The day is quiet.

The day is warm.

Bright sun, though the forest floor is cool. I look at my feet, fascinated by the flotsam I’m crunching through. My boots are rugged. There’s a long knife on my belt. It’s the golden hour.

A few minutes go by and it’s wrong. It pulls at me. Foreboding.

I have no idea. More time passes.

Something is upside down.

Where am I going?

Where am I?

Find a rock to sit to think. Confused.

I don’t know why I’m here or where I am.

I take stock and seem to be allright.

I wear an elaborate pack with food and water and things I don’t immediately recognize or understand. Good news.

I’m left to wonder.

A bag of bricks slowly around my neck as I realize I don’t know my own name.

I don’t know who I am.

Panic floods. It gushes overwhelmingly through every corridor of reason in my head.

I’m as lost as can be.

I do not know my own name.

I don’t know where I am.

Anything I recall happened in the last thirty minutes.

No sign of my identity anywhere. No wallet. Nothing in anything I carry.

I have a gun. It’s heavy in my hand. The weight is reassuring. I have a box of bullets. It too is heavy in a way that comforts.

The knife on my hip has an impressive blade and a hollow handle. Tablets inside.

The sun sets and I have no idea why I’m here or who the fuck I am.

I gather stones and fuel to start a fire. Freeze dried scrambled eggs in a wafer thin skillet.

What is my name?

How can I not know?

I’m doing the best I can not to think about it. I feel familiar in my skin but that’s all. I hope, maybe, to wake up with a better idea of what’s happening. I unroll a sleeping bag filled with down and a thin pad for underneath.

I find some cigarettes. I guess I smoke. I light one. It’s good.

I realize I have no idea about the state of the world. This scares the shit out of me.

My dreams are filled with people I don’t know.

There’s blue kittens in an ancient wooden box, thick with dust and long abandonded cobwebs. Their eyes are gold and their fur is from turquoise to cobalt. I am in awe.

Among the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen or imagined.

Sheer grace of the twilight dance, I’m allowed to witness such beauty firsthand, despite it’s not existing, courtesy of the nocturne aided by a pale, butter fat moon.

Gorgeous Blue Kittens with gems of yellow fire for eyes.

As I sleep.

I’ve no idea if the debt for my weakness has been settled by my death. It no longer matters to me. The universe pays no mind.

In the six or so months since this fucking warlock has entered my life, I’ve been as crazy scared as a man could be without going crazier than a shit house rat, the source of my sanity has been the notion that I would prevail. This idea, mostly predicated on some moral superiority, I took for granted. Some righteousness I possessed that he could not know was my assumption.

Looks like that ain’t shit or it’s not even true.

Arrogance is my demise.

I leave the world with this. Chaos is more prevalent than order. There is far less sense than even logic. I was right not to trust the world because it’s so goddamn random. There will never be a reason. No one will ever find it if there is.

As soon as you turn up the sound the goddamn gunfire starts.

“I am still living with your ghost
Lonely and dreaming of the west coast
I dont want to be your downtime
I dont want to be your stupid game

With my big black boots and an old suitcase
I do believe Ill find myself a new place
I dont want to be the bad guy
I dont want to do your sleepwalk dance anymore
I just want to see some palm trees
Go and try and shake away this disease

We can live beside the ocean
Leave the fire behind
Swim out past the breakers
Watch the world die

I am still dreaming of your face
Hungry and hollow for all the things you took away

I dont want to be your good time
I dont want to be your fall-back crutch anymore

Ill walk right out into a brand new day
Insane and rising in my own weird way
I dont want to be the bad guy

I dont want to do your sleepwalk dance anymore
I just want to feel some sunshine
I just want to find some place to be alone

We can live beside the ocean
Leave the fire behind
Swim out past the breakers
Watch the world die” -Everclear, Santa Monica

Always keep your toilet clean. You may have to drink out of it.

Drinks For My Friends.

Studio City California, July twenty three, two thousand and eight.

Adrenaline and panic get him off me.

She’s a pile in the corner.

Small and bent. Folded.

This is not happening.

I shake my head hard.

Everything comes up the same.

In dreams you can’t ever scream or run or fight back.

Not today. I’m fucking nuclear.

Thermo.

Some ridiculous laugh volcanos from my neck. I have no fear.

None.

I fly off my back. I wail, kick and rage. I beat, muscle, force the fight, with fists, knees and elbows, into the bathroom. Lights on because he’s been playing with the fucking toilet paper.

The wet sound of flesh beating flesh. Sickening. Smacks and gasps.

A cloying steam of violence. Like fresh paint.

I swing and swing and scream and swing.

Against the wall. His neck a bundle of cables in my left hand. My right fist an anvil. I beat his face with it again and again. I swing my sledge, his mouth sprays fresh blood across the wall and the medicine cabinet. Again and again.

A tooth dances and rattles across the faux marble vanity.

His blood is humid. It thickens the air. He stinks like wild mammal.

Jacked up incisors lacerate my knuckles but I can’t stop swinging at them. I fucking loathe this fucking thing. I’m going to kill him with my hands. I’m bashing them in.

I will kill him.

I pound and pound.

He turns his hamburger face back after every blow to mock me.

On his knees by my toilet. More blood than I’ve ever seen from a man not dead.

He takes the beating and keeps smiling. He keeps smiling. He laughs like some mildly amused retard. Picture a Down syndrome kid with a Rubik’s cube.

My shoulder burns. I start to kick him.

The eyes spill too, joining the river beneath his nose and mouth.

He smiles as he pushes blood through his remaining teeth with his tongue. Wringing a sponge. It runs from his chin to his shirt, down over his crotch to splatter on the tile.

He has yet to fight back at all. I go cold.

His eyes find mine. Blue pupils suspended in blood. He’s locked, frozen. Staring straight through me.

He laughs like emphysema. A death rattle with mucus and mirth. I’m caving his head into raw meat while he sings a soliloquy minus any fear at all.

His eyes stay empty.

A demon version of the Rope-a-dope. I could beat his head off his neck and he would infect me with viruses that madden and fibers will squirm from sores on my arms and torso like thin white worms. No doubt the pain will be excruciating.

Biding his time while I cave his head in. Not bothered in the least. A lazy chuckle.

I picture the knife and spin to find it.

He’s not long for this mortal coil either. We’re tied. My end is his. His will be mine. I’m about to end it. He doesn’t know this. Somehow I do.

Cold War Policy. Mutually assured destruction. Quid pro quo.

He’s on me in a heartbeat. Before I feel it, he’s bitten a chunk from the back of my neck. It burns. Sickening pain. My stomach rolls hard. I feel air on the crater he’s made in my back. Maybe the weirdest physical sensation I’ve ever had. My own blood starts to flow down my body front and back.

He sucks at the the wad in his mouth and spits it on the floor. It lands with a slowmotion smack a foot in front of me.

I can’t believe it’s my flesh when I see the size of it.

He pounds the back of my head so hard, I go blind after every blow. He’s going to kill me.

Outmatched. I wanted to beat him and die last.

No chance here. High noon bitches. The difference between high school and the NBA. I’m about to die.

I throw my last elbow and manage to knock him off my back. Blind panic. I’m thinking the green dagger. I swim on my belly to my suitcase. Knees and elbows bang tile behind me.

It’s open.

I can’t believe the amount of blood on my hands.

He chuckles low through mucus and viscera. My hand finds the box. Somehow I have it by the hilt.

My calf in the grip of a reptile. I roll with the twist but my ankle snaps like balsa. On my back with the knife in my left hand.

My leg shoots fire. I can’t get up.

He hovers, bleeding on me. To own what I’ve done to his face…… His jaw dangles, my flesh hangs from it. How he took that chunk……..

Left eye dark, impossibly dislocated cheekbone from a countenance shredded and bloody. I flash on any gore I’ve ever seen. Fish guts on a plank to a deer without skin hanging from a rafter outside my bedroom.

All face angles are wrong. What I see competes with everything I know. What I’ve done to his face supplies me confusion and madness.

This amount of violence I’ve committed gives me pause.

It ends up being just enough.

To distract me.

He’s on me swinging so hard and fast I can’t see. He takes the knife from my hand. He plunges into me over and over.

I can hear it.

The sensation and abrupt pinch, blooming into a chrysanthemum of dizzying pain while still being stabbed and I can no longer breath.

There is no God. Yet I pay for my sins.

A dozen or so wounds and the blade shatters. The green inside burning me so that grey smoke clouds agains the ceiling.

A stink of hot grease and flesh.

I was very young, the backseat of a Mercury Cyclone with my family, headed to Reno. A Camaro with a paint job of red and grey primer, rocked past us on the the four lane blacktop. Faster than I could process, the Camaro crossed the double yellow and cars began to fly as high as the power lines along the left side of the highway.

My mother inhaled in confusion and horror.

My father didn’t hesitate. Tires smoked to a stop in the gravel and he’s running across the blacktop to stuff his shirt in the back of some dead man’s head. Somehow we had blankets and he was back in a hurry for those. My mother began a relay of helping her husband to help the smashed bodies and checking on us, telling us not to look.

Eighteen or nineteen dead or at least that many vehicles involved. It was the most horrifying thing I’d ever seen. People in impossible positions all over the road. Bodies opened with that much violence and velocity, spill awful amounts of red. Every glimpse out the backseat window, the gore made me panic a little.

A man wearing a suit visited our house a few months later on a Sunday. He had a handful of money in an envelope for my father. He was there because he believed my father, a stranger, had saved his life. Dad didn’t hesitate, he thanked him and pointed out that he, the stranger, just might be in the same situation some day.

In his mind, he’d done the right thing and it was long since finished. He was not happy to see this man despite the man’s gratitude. He had done the best he could. He wasn’t interested in revisiting it.

I lose for failing to do the right thing. For choosing the wrong thing, one way or another, over and over and over again.

My sins. My recklessness. My fault. My mistakes. I pay.

I’m a bird hitting a window.

I flop and blood runs from my mouth. I’m helpless. I spasm and convulse.

My organs fail one by one.

Breathing stops. I’m bleeding out.

Panic surges like vomit.

My eyes are fixed. I can no longer blink. They begin to dry, my view clouds.

I am dying.

I often dream of catastrophe. Airliners plunging from the sky and exploding. Giant waves destroying civilization. Mushroom clouds and troops backlit by the sunrise of a detonation running along some ridge.

Seconds from death, I piss and shit myself.

I fucking hate that I’ve shit myself again.

My thoughts cease and I am dead.

I’m home. No place else to go. I’m walking into it because there’s not a goddamn other thing to do. I’m not driving, but I own I’m speeding towards a vicious sucker punch.

Here we come, walkin’
Down the street.
We get the funniest looks from
Ev’ry one we meet.
Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees
And people say we monkey around. -The Monkees (Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart)

I’m in the door and immediately smacked in the middle of the face with the reek of decay. Time to take out the trash. Do the dishes. Check the toilet.

A lingering smell of The Rabbit Watership. A record skips and I am melancholy. He was soft and smart. The coolest, softest and most amazing colors of brown orange and white.

Just like that I’m leaking and sobbing.

I make a drink. A convoluted recipe with only gin and ice as ingredients. Tricky. There’s a ratio.

Check E-mail. Survey dying plants. Dead plants. Feel doomed.

She calls from down the street, coming up on my cross streets she says. Looking to hang.

I can’t wait to turn around and walk out of here.

He’s been here. There’s pyramid of rolls on the toilet tank. The four ice trays represent eight points of the compass accurately on a shelf in my freezer.

I wash up, brush my teeth. Blow my nose. Put on a little lotion. Powder the boys.

Lips like pillows. Vanilla, berries and muskiness. Sweet almond eyes I can’t always see behind. Fresh fruit from orchards under a silver crescent.

She talks and I’m soothed.

She touches and I’m softer.

There’s no helping it.

I’m so raw.

It’s what I need. See.

First I saw her, she was walking in the rain talking on the phone. She smiled a lot. Not like the sun, like the moon, quitting a cloud on a gusty night.

My nose reminds me every time I walk away.

We had drinks and she ended up with a piece of me. I wasn’t giving it. She ended up with it. She took it.

She kept it for a time. Through some holidays.

She tossed it back. Casually. Unapologetic. Not in the same condition she had come to take it. Not at all. Bruised. Swollen.

I’m a nice guy. I do the best I can. I try. Didn’t take long for me to decide against having her legs broken.

A decision based more in the principles of aesthetics than morality. Just couldn’t perpetrate that kind of crippling violence on such a beautiful woman regardless of what she may have coming to her.

I’m kidding. She deserves nothing of the sort. I made a conscious decision not to be angry and to avoid the temptation to be vindicatory. I have endeavored to be her friend.

I really try to do my best. I’m always looking for early Sunday morning in a small town grocery store with a bakery.
The bouquet of sugar and cinnamon. Men with perfectly pomaded hair and perfect piles of fruit.

Fish drown in air.

Now she’s on the phone. Wanting to see me. To confide in me.

Vulnerable. She would be angry if she knew how adept I am on the subject of her.

I understand full well the apocalypse I’m courting. I whisper in my own ear about making sure she gets home. Drive her if necessary. Get her a cab. I will, I tell myself. So help me. I will see her home safely.

We meet in a dive. Across the street. Convenient for me, I’m not trying to drive at all.

As soon as I sit she is willfull and contrary. She likes to spar. Guilty of being smarter than she is.

Behind the eyes, she’s not so bad. A pain in the ass of innocence. Culpable of zealotry. Pride. Maybe from privilege. Maybe. Too much of one thing or another I’m sure.

I want inside her with my arms around her. She is the Moon. Mercury glass. Shadows and silver light.

Enough obstinance to still piss me off. What to say to someone who barely knows shit about how much they don’t know? Whatever really, why bother? All in time, hers, not mine. Smart, capable and the heat of Georgia asphalt.

She thinks she understands. Bare shoulders and there are my thumbs. Loose sweater and a funky hat. Impossible skin. Impossible color, silk beneath my fingers. Hands turn to palms, fall to hips, the most gorgeous mouth I’ve ever seen.

I hope she resists cynical.

She charms and lures me into places where she can make fun. I return fire with as light a hand as I’m able.

The North Pole may melt this summer. The Earth may have decided it’s done with us.

We’re at each others eyes and we know where we’re headed. We think we do. She drops a credit card on the bar and excuses herself to the ladies. Her heels swing her hips away from me. Her skirt dances with flawless rhythm.

I sign the tab and do the tip in cash. She grins coming from the bathroom. No smile. Grin. I hand over her card and she takes my hand. Outside we’re having a smoke. She points her face at her car and asks if it’s ok here. I shrug my shoulders. I really don’t know.

We break the law by running across five lanes.

My place is kind of a shithole. She doesn’t seem to mind. She uses my shower. She’s wearing my robe.

Lacey thong a gorgeous contrast to flawless skin. Matching bra and I’m consumed. She shines. She writhes as she responds. Quiet until she breathes. In gusts. Little tempests.

Any man, between the ages of thirteen and fifty five to ninety something, will view bare breasts with an absolutely identical mindset.

Take the breath away beautiful. Astride me she’s smiling. She brings the moon. I take her in while I’m inside her.

I look up only to gasp. She is a silhouette in three dimensions with color, sound and smell. Her head back, the moon hangs low and plump. The night blooms.

Like flowers. Just like flowers blooming and perfuming once the sun has hidden itself only to shine the moon for an entire hemisphere all night long.

The breeze is lit and lent weight with fragrance.

This is……….. Moot.

She is dead. She is dead.

Dead.

I’m a coward and a fool.

Life is odd and painful. There is no substitute.

There is no way another person could ever love me if they knew the things I’ve done. No way anyone could trust me or believe I deserve another chance. What I have just done is as bad as even I can imagine.

I’ve sacrificed a human. A woman. A human being. Another one.

A very very special human. Beautiful and innocent. Corrupted only by the circumstances of ordinary existence, no kind of evil or malice or fuckery………

He killed her of course.

First thing he does is fold her like a piece of fucking toast as soon as he has my attention. I look up as he collapses her, shattering bones with two hands. She starts to scream out of simple fright and confusion. A few seconds and she wails like a siren with pain and comprehension. Abrupt stop. She can’t expel breath, she gurgles and burps. He bursts her at her sides, makes her pop and spray as he folds her. A cacophony of snapping and rending, moist and excruciating. Her blood is black on three of four walls lighted only by a cold silver moon.

I will travel to hell, with it being the worst thing I’ve ever seen. All of it on me.

My fault. I knew. My end draws near.

I am sorry. So very sorry.

I adored her. I loved her.

It is easily one of the worst things there is.

Waking up, unable to breathe, smeared in your own shit.

Horrible. Blunt force trauma. Shame, fear, confusion in volts and watts of angst, without understanding.

It gets worse when I begin to remember. When I start to understand.

I’m to the point where I can’t stand myself. I’m pitiful. I loathe what I’ve become.

I’m a fucking mess.

I was going to drop the sheets in the drink until I figured out I’m back on land. I ball them up, stuff them in a pillow case and head for the shower.

I stand under it for a good long time. I scrub. It takes a long time to feel clean. I scrub some more.

Watch reads noon but it’s not yet nine thirty according to the red digits on the bedside. A pillow case full of my own shit mocks me.

I’m on the second floor of a two story chain motel. I step onto the balcony wearing a towel and alley oop the pillowcase onto the roof above. I have a smoke. Clip my nails with shaky hands.

My nails are yellow.

I honestly don’t want to think about the rest. What the fuck was that? The last fucking thing I needed. I’m scared. Now. After all of this. I’m gonna lose my shit.

He’s got me rattled.

Can’t remember my last meal.

My fingers stained from cigarettes. Better than liver disease I guess.

Tomato juice and antacids.

I see his face, hear him pant and suck back drool. I’m shaking. I puke nothing over and over and over. It turns yellow to burn on the way up. I spit dayglow bile.

Back here, on his ground, he is going to kill me or scare me insane.

I wait twenty minutes for a cab sweating like a sprinkler. The driver tells me I can’t smoke. I drop a five through the little window and burn a hole in the back of the seat. I can smell him. I smoke in his fucking cab.

Somehow I remember the garage where my car is. I get in, fire it up and crank the air. Time passes and I listen to talk radio. Randi Rhodes. Yes, Republicans, particularly neoconservatives, are assholes. Seventeen after.

I know I nodded but my watch says noon. Fuck.

The beautiful chronograph Carlo insisted I own has ceased all operations. Think that means anything?

The sun hasn’t moved much. The clock in my car is a joke.

I feel like going fast.

My car is fast.

I ask the booth attendant how much to back up and charge through the arm. I ask where they got that cool reflective tape. My fee is eighteen dollars. She hates me. I pay her and the arm goes up. She thinks I’m an ass. I feel for her. I see she’s customized her stool with duct tape and yellow carpet pad for maximum comfort. What a shit job.

Instantly I have wide streets and freeway entrances. I am a demon. A loop off the 110 with little to no traffic. I barely miss pedestrians and parked cars for a while. After a few laps, they figure out I’m coming around again and get off the fucking street. A few more laps and they give up the sidewalks by hugging the buildings.

I can’t believe I don’t get pulled over, even here in the land of the lawless.

I stop in some dark dive for a handfull of whiskies and a cold long neck. Looks good to me from the outside. Round and brick. Inside smells of men and cigarettes. Nobody smoking. Old TV high in a corner and the click of balls on a table. It doesn’t take long for me to know the place got quiet when I hit the door.

I order a shot and draught. I try to make it clear I’ll be keeping to myself. I relax as the noise rises. I have a few more and take care to pay as I go.

There’s a woman at the end of the bar holding a motor to her throat to talk. She smelled my fear when I walked in. Her nostrils flaired.

It looks like a prototype for the first ever electric razor from the sixties. One pitch. One note. Bb, B-flat, I’m thinking. No subtlety. Forget inflection or emotion. I’m spooked immediately before I’m fascinated.

She is otherwise beautiful. Crisp white blouse and a dark green skirt. Milky skin and raven haired. Red lips, black pumps with a small cluster of pearls in the middle above the toes, reminding me of the strand around her neck and the diamonds in her lobes.

I pass her to wash my hands. Smells like a meadow, woody and fresh.

I don’t look so bad in the mirror. Typical dive piss trailer. Dank and disgusting, the odor of urinal cakes as icing on the ambiance. I piss a little. Touch nothing. Wash my hands and use the paper towel to open the door before I drop it wherever.

Transfixed by her but in a quiet panic, I smile, smack a twenty on the bar and try not to break stride before I hit the door again. Unable to compensate for my ordinary shoes.

Mullholland. I hit a stretch and work the gears finding a rythm just dangerous enough. I come to a stop sign and my headlights shine through brake steam. I apologize in advance. I headlong without caution on Wrightwood, ripping down it without giving a mad fuck.

Every stop sign is stupid. My goal is no brakes.

Downshift.

Eyes wide open.

Wrightwood becomes Vineland at Ventura. I stop at the light, smoke seeps into the intersection. No cops. I creep with care.

I loaf down Vineland for a few blocks, downshift to second and put my foot in it. I’m doing sixty when I spin the wheel hard left towards an opening in the island and jerk the hand brake, drifting just right, I end up in the opposing lane.

Just like that.

I grab second and bury my foot again. A hard winding right going from third to fourth and I’m doing a hundred and thirty in fifth gear on the 101 towards Hollywood.

Sixth gear is dumb. Never use it. Once on open road in Arizona, once in Nevada.

I brake and shift down for Vine. Left on Sunset and I’m prowling.

Grease.

I pull into a Dennys. I order some grand slam thing that promises lots of pork and eggs. A side of sliced tomatos. They have good bleu cheese dressing. I like toast. I ask for coffee and lemonade. I read the free hooker paper I got from a beat to shit red box on the sidewalk right out front. Horoscopes. Movie reviews. Trannies. Oh my.

She tells me the plate’s hot as she drops it in front of me. I ask for A1 and green Tabasco. Just like that, two bottles are in front of me.

Far better than a prefrontal labotomy. I ask if she’ll cream in my coffee. She brings me a small bowl filled with those little mini shots of half & half. I’m so goddamn funny. How could you hate a loser like me.

Is the brochure on the counter the dessert menu? She tells me those are specials, all desserts are at the back of the menu.

I begin to understand how bad I don’t want to go home. I can’t get away from him, he’s waiting for me to come home now. I can’t get away from him. Kill or die. I am damaged. Way off balance. Feeling far from lethal.

I can’t kill. I want to hide. Maybe to die.

Can’t ask for shelter from anyone I care about because I can’t put anyone in harm’s way. I’m not willing to ask people I don’t care about.

I’m almost out of money.

I love that there are turtles. The head sticks out like a penis yet they have such grace and dignity. They couldn’t be less concerned with any of us. They appear a little grim but I bet they’re not. What they are is stoic and determined. Not here to fuck around. You guess their sex by the curve of the shell underneath.

It comforts me to think they can retreat inside their armored selves so easily. I think I want to be a sea turtle. I understand they live longer than humans. I really hope they live in peace.

She’s thick and dark and tall. Green eyes wearing business casual, barely too tight. Lips like pillows and eyes like almonds. Hands and nails immaculate, she reaches for her drink with unlikely grace. White blouse against African skin as I stop breathing for a few seconds.

She nods, so I ask if I may. Yes, she says. Her smile is perfect. A gust of femininity. I sit.

I ask to buy her a drink, she demonstrates a full one. Not yet.

Bellini in a flute.

She is beautiful. She smells of butter and violets

Where am I? Jacked up on vicodin, my tooth seems to be on AM while I’m on FM. Good news. I think about my rabbit and remember the gore. Legs ache a little.

She’s the only thing not far away.

I look at her. Hips wide, legs long and lips glisten. Teeth shine.

Smells like god just left the room.

Her name is Claire.

She extends her hand and mocks me a little when she asks, “rough day?”

A walk in the park I tell her.

She tells me her favorite hair band is April Wine. She likes Vonnegut and Bradbury. Taffy, Zots and any sour or squishy candy. She says Primus are white boy funk but admits they can play. She’s despondent over the quality of local news. She’s a legal secretary. A hint of cleavage, bust straining against the fabric of an ivory blouse.

She’s voting for Obama.

She loves Luther, of course.

I ask her about frozen diet meals, she’s non-committal. We agree whatever is on sale.

We cheers and clink a few times. Then some more.

We drink awhile and she throws down one of those cool Amexes. One of the clear ones that looks like a small laser disc.

She picked up the tab.

I decide to show her my penis.

I take her to the handicapped stall in the men’s. She rests her foot on the rail while removing her silk and I go down on her. She likes it.

Flesh consumes me. I’m helpless. Fragrance so ripe I can’t stand it.

Seconds later I wake up with dark testicles on my chin and I’m gagging.

Her teeth are black. She laughs to mock me. Eyes red and bleeding. Pink lingerie contrasts purple skin and leaking sores. She wears a black vinyl duster, thigh high boots with a stiletto heel. Some stupid military hat.

A cock the size of a high caliber handgun and she waves it while cackling.

She stinks like a bog.

We’re in my room , there’s that knife in my luggage.

How did we get here?

Wait. Wait. Wait. She’s wearing.

I wake up alone.

It occurs to me I’ve shit myself.

Morning.

Pale and bright and.

Pristine somehow.

Peace.

Out the window, blue ocean forever overseen by massive cumulonimbi with acreage enough to turn the sea black for half an hour. They roar over the boat heading the opposite way only slower. Enchanting. Impossible.

I’m good. Energized, optimistic.

An incredibly satisfying crap.

A meditative shower and shave.

Fresh fruit, english muffins and champagne on the balcony. I savor food, drink and Rothko blue water all the way to the horizon. The morning paper is a bitch in the wind. I stuff it under my thigh. Impossible white giants dominate the sky. The slowest motion explosion ever, cruising the atmosphere, punching at the roof. Tall enough to ignore gravity. All of pink and purple violence beneath.

It’s a little chilly so the sun takes it’s turn. Nice.

The Boat docks at noon.

I take my time. Gather my things. I’m anxious to put this chapter behind me and I don’t know why. Some violence, good times and more peace than I’ve had in months. How sad.

It comes to a close, I’m reluctant to turn a page. In my mind’s eye there is a finish line. I don’t look at it. I can’t yet. I’d like for it to stop haunting me before I confront him. I get that’s unlikely.

I think of a smoke shop instead. One with comic books, porn, stereo and science magazines. The smell of two dozen pipe tobaccos collect and make a perfume of raisins, apples and burning hardwood. There’s candy and cigars smelling of cedar and vanilla. A small white fridge full of fish bait rattles in the corner. Beef jerky, lighters and tiny ampules of ginseng at the counter. A yellow cardboard display of of tobacco pipes with lime green text. Saran Wrapped cookies in a basket and Flints and pens with floating things inside. Behind the counter, whiskey and cigarettes. Some plastic bongs, some ceramic ones, a little fimo and lots of cheap imported metal. People I’ve known for years behind the register.

Some temporary buoyancy I’m nurturing.

I know what’s coming.

The molar back left begins to ache.

I haven’t checked baggage since they started putting wheels on suitcases. The tome and dagger is secure among my clothes in the carry-on. I thought about opening the box. I didn’t.

A few minutes to finish up and get organized.

My molar begins to visit a pounder on me.

I pop a couple vikes and dry swallow.

Out the sliding glass for a last smoke and it starts to throb with my pulse.

A swallow of champagne left. It’s coming on fast.

It hits me hard. I’m stepping right back into hell. This is going to suck. A lot. I’m returning to take him on. One way or another, it’s on.

I have no choice. Carlo was relieved he didn’t have to convince me of that. Glad I could see it for what it is.

I’m really not built like this. I’m not a tough guy. I barely know how to fight. I can’t picture it. I can’t even picture it.

My jaw kicks the covers off to show me what it brings to the party. Pain as fresh and old as you can imagine, rips up the side of my head. The skin on my left face is baking off. The deepest ache with a frosting of coals hot enough to melt fat. I stagger.

Two more vikes, another dry swallow and I grab my shit and head to the main bar. All the pantsuits are lining up to file out when I get there.

Wierd. I thought it was a little after noon. I ask the bartender for the time and he says a quarter til. The watch Carlo gave me says noon straight up.

I order a double Sapphire mary.

The woman next to me is festooned with impossible amounts of makeup and perfume. Probably a wig. I look at her watch and it says ten til. I look at mine again and see straight up noon. Her smell makes my tooth scream. I want to cave her head in.

She sports the most beehive of bouffants, resplendently ridiculous. What do I do now? I can tell she collects dolls. Her jewelry and costume clink and rattle. I loathe her.

Spit collects in the corners of her mouth. There’s foam between the point of her upper lip and where it meets the lower. It looks like an elastic band as she talks about not a goddamn thing. I can smell her armpits and vagina over the dense mist of her perfume.

She stinks.

She notices me staring and wincing. She gawks at me wide eyed. The vikes begin to kick but I get that she’s mocking me. Rouge on her cheeks and turquoise in abundance around her eyes. I smile and ask her if she’s ever danced naked with her uncle with a pickle in her mouth. She frowns at me confused and asks me what I just said.

I say nothing. I stare. I wink. I dig for a booger. She turns away.

Pissedoffedness rears it’s horned head and I flick at the back of her hive with my middle finger. She wheels around pretty damn fast. As far as I’m concerned, my startled laugh sounds like a hiccup. I tell her it was a wasp. She frowns but bats her lashes.

Whore.

I spit on the floor.

The entire side of my head bulges on fire. I’m sweating. My balls itch. I’m furious about everything. I think I want to grab the back of her head and pound her face into the bar. Over and over.

My drink comes and it tastes like lunch. It’s the beauty of any sort of bloody mary. Like a breakfast bar. Eat the olives and the celery and you’ve got a balanced offering. There’s the bar nuts and tomatos too.

Then, like gossamer, vicodin saves the day. My rage and confusion subside. I decide I’m in no condition to go far. I grab a cab and get a room. Some chain with a cocktail lounge. Room service. I stop for gin on the way. Fill my ice bucket first thing after I turn on the lights.

Pour one. Wash up. Hit the lounge.

Two things:

I’m housed.

I think my watch stopped.

Back to the boat and Carlo has a little left to say.

“It will be soon. Aim high on his chest and stab as hard. It’s fragile, but plunge and pull down.” He wrings his hands a little.

“Do not get any of the green on you, clean yourself if you do. It is toxic.”

He starts talking staring straight ahead. By the end of a few sentences, his eyes search my face.

“Do it right, he will die. One chance. Be willfull and determined. See yourself killing him. Picture it.”

“Let me tell you this.” He touches my arm. Book and box between us.

“It is his nature is to be aggressive and foolish. Same time, he is at least afraid of you as you are him.” He nods at me but I can’t see his eyes, his head backlit by the setting sun through a half open window.

The ocean in my nose.

Brine on my tongue.

“He will come to you unless you prevent it. Despite his fear, it is his nature.”

“Try to make it otherwise. You have an advantage. He does not know what you have. He is aware you possess it, he does not understand it. His imbalance of late, is because you leave this place with something you did not come looking for. He is confounded by that.”

“That, and he is uncomfortable. Out of his element. He does not like it here.”

I think about Gollum.

Deja vu, the car slows to a stop and I listen to tires meeting damp asphalt ever slower. There’s a light rain. I see the weapon I carry and a green plastic sword in a grilled cheese sandwich.

He kisses at both cheeks and pulls back. His eyes glisten. “Be aggressive. Pursue. Take the fight to him. End it soon.” A rough hand on the side of my face. “Luck is bullshit. I believe in fortitude.”

Determination, I say. No worries, I assure him. I thank him as briefly and sincerely as I can and slide towards the door.

Time to get on with it.

It opens, I stand and Driver hands me my things. I realize he’s Asian, maybe Samoan. He’s huge.

Carlo’s window drops silently. He looks smaller in the waning sunlight. “By all means, pay attention, be aware. He will call on you soon.”

I tell him the meanest man usually wins.

“Well, you don’t swing hard enough to do it with one punch.”

I smile. He’s taunting me.

I board the boat, stop at the bell desk check my bag and find the first bathroom. I gotta piss like a racehorse. I’m in a hurry, I straight arm the door.

There he is. Standing with his ass on the first sink. Gore streams from his eyes, nose and ears to collect on his chest. It spatters between his feet. He waves a snub nosed revolver, grinning and sucking back drool.

Giggling and drinking whiskey from a tumbler with a pinky out. He’s fucking drunk.

Wearing an actual a suit. Black, white shirt, skinny black tie. Kinda sixties.

Still, Puma Clydes.

What an idiot.

I had to piss so bad, I put the box and book in my bag and left it at the bell desk for me to call on after a piss and a drink. Say that fast.

I’m thinking about how stupid I am, he hits me in the mouth harder than I’ve ever been hit. I go down. The back of my head bounces off the marble floor.

Not out but I can’t think. I can barely see. He’s kicking for my gut, he’s connecting with my legs. One of my feet gets purchase somewhere so I push away.

Confusion and pain tie the knot and we have rage boys and girls. Searing. Seething. I think of his stupid electric fucking knife. Then comes Shirley from Alaska, then comes a rabbit. It comes on rails at the speed of sound and I am overwhelmed. I throw a fucking rod.

I’m biting my own tongue. I’m tasting my own blood and I like it.

Up on my knees, I make a fist and swing overhand for his crotch. Somehow I score a ballseye. A wad of flesh craters beneath my punch.

That fucking hurt.

Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!

Only the sound of trying, not quite able to suck air, and his head makes a very cool sound against the brass plate at the bottom of the door.

He flops a little. He’s got no wind.

Heh.

I struggle to my feet and start to kick. I’m dizzy and not connecting as well as the choir in my hate filled brain screeches for. I stomp with my heel. Feels better. The choir agrees and begins to crescendo.

He starts to cough and pant.

I’m doing some damage.

The choir rages.

Heh.

Some liver spotted senior pushes the door open enough to get his head and hands in.

My boy on the floor flops forward.

I’m standing, kicking a man and my face is bleeding. So is the man’s face I’m waling on, only he’s on the floor.

I shriek at him to find another bathroom you idiot, and I keep fucking kicking.

I focus on my boy’s head for a minute before common sense pays a visit and a decision is reached for Elvis to leave the building.

He seems to be out. I piss. I wash up.

I literally kick him out of the way and leave the bathroom checking my hands and wiping my nose for blood. I stuff a pocket with paper towels.

That old guy’s hands and forehead looked like desert camouflage. Poor fucker. Hope he was wearing a diaper.

I sweat like an over exerted drunk because that’s what I am.

I head for a bar at the other end of the ship. My legs are elastic. Like I’m on something. It’s happy hour packed when I find it. Still, I find a seat at the end. I’m grateful. I don’t know this fool can make a martini and it’s busy, so I order two double Sapphires on ice with a twist.

He tells me he can only serve me one cocktail at a time. I tell him to watch my glass then.

I see mostly blue and red plastic swords.

I finish the first, order a second, go out for a smoke, and return to notice blood leaking from my face into my gin.

Exploratory diagnostic napkin wielding reveals the flow is from my lower lip.

I smear some on my nose to look like a nosebleed and pull out a credit card to inspire the bartender to get me a check. I gesticulate with a napkin like I’ve got a random bloody nose.

Trickier than you might think, to pretend you didn’t just kick the shit out of some zombie in the bathroom, rather just experiencing a random moist climate induced bloody nose …………

I drink my own blood mixed with gin and ice in an elevator accompanied by a gaggle of geese speaking German or Austrian or some other throaty, ugly tongue. They look odd. Out of place, but happy to be so. One of the men actually has a feather in the brim of his stupid hat. Another wears tweed.

I know they don’t speak english because I ask them about their vaginas and whether Karl Rove smokes a mean pole. I tell them an anti-semitic joke. They smile, ask my name and if I’m enjoying myself. I tell them no. I smile back. I tell them I’m locked in battle with a furious demon.

They all buy the random bloody nose act and clearly understand nothing else.

The doors open and they hold up their cameras and make friendly faces indicating they want me to take pictures. I can’t help it. They’re so damn nice. The men pat me on the shoulder and the women smile close mouthed and wave their flippers at me.

I get back to my room, call for my bag, order a grilled cheese sandwich with fries, buffalo chicken strips with bleu cheese, side of dill pickles, chocolate milk and two diet cokes and a side of mayo.

I pour a drink.

My bag with the book and the box shows first. I open it enough to verify precious cargo and take it with me to the bathroom.

My shoes are bloody so you know there’s some on the pants. Over the side.

Quick shower.

You know what makes the best grilled cheese sandwich? Velveeta. Campbell’s tomato soup to go with it. Lime jello. Grape drink.

The food shows and I’m in awe of the fried, buttery, vinegary bouquet. It’s got that low down pungent off the strip casino room service smell too. I adore that smell. Fuck me I’m hungry.

I check the balcony and throw all the locks.

He won’t be around tonight, I handed him his ass.

Ha!

Stainless cover off a plate still steaming. Excellent. Two green plastic swords pinning two black olives to two wedges of grilled cheese sandwich.

I go to bed happy.

He’s always angry at the oddest of times.

Now, for example. I can’t imagine why.

Is he pissed ’cause I puked?

I didn’t leave a mess.

I see he’s trying to be serious as he begins to talk. Maybe that’s all it is.

I finger my mug and eyeball the pomegranate.

“You are in a bad way. What you have seen and struggled with, most do not have reason or facility to even consider. Why this evil has visited you, I cannot say. I’m not sure how much help I can be, but I have an idea that I can be of some.”

“Help. I mean.”

I take care to deposit pomegranate rubies in my mouth slowly.

I tell him I hope so and not to forget I’ll be tripping the light fantastic on my own in a few hours. Time is fleeting and I’m anxious to see and hear what he’s got. I thank him again for his hospitality and friendship. I’m feeling like I need to get the fuck out of here.

This party needs to be over.

Yet, I need to hear him out.

And I need to get out of here.

He brings the box from the counter and sets it on the table.

“A battle is brewing. Time to prepare. I wish I had more for you. I am giving you all I have that can possibly help you. Time to listen.”

He beams at me. His eyes glisten as he reaches for my hands. His are the rough of a laborer, his grasp confirms it.

“Excercise, if only to clear your head and get your wind up a little. Do not drink so much.”

Bottom left, a molar begins to ache.

I ask if there’s any avacado left.

“You are at the sixth chapter. I mean to say, read the sixth chapter.”

“War is upon you.”

“Take that volume from in front of the couch.” He fixes me with a stare, lifts a finger and says, “Seriously, fetch it now.”

I do, and return to the table. The heft impresses and it’s perfume of leather and library linger.

“Chapter six”, he says.

“Show up in places that make him nervous. Nervous enough, he’s headlong to defend them. It means of course, being the first one there and a guarantee of some confrontation. I’ve got something to help you with that.”

His hand goes to the box.

“Find the weak points and exploit them without putting your own in the wind. Divide and conquer as best you can. Every vulnerability you can discover from your adversary leaves him with more to defend. Spread him thin if you can. Unnerve him if you can.”

The molar throbs. I remember breaking a piece off a month or so ago.

“Keep your mouth shut. I cannot know what he knows or guess at what he can hear. There is no one that can help you with this save for me and thus, no reason talk about it to anyone. You would only be putting that person in jeopardy. I cannot put too fine a point on this. Talk to no one.”

“Not even your Mother.”

He sees behind my eyes as I stumble over how any of this applies or how I can possibly apply any of it.

Smiling, he says, “Do your level best to adapt to whatever circumstances shit all over you.”

I hoover another sausage, gulp on the world’s finest coffee and grab at some bread to slather fruit on.

I can’t help but smile.

Without looking, he reaches to slide the box between us. A dirty rectangle. Maybe half the size of a bathroom scale.

My ears ring, not sounding wooden as he slides it over the table. It sings a little. I look closer and see it’s copper without any edges, all rounded. Oxidized green and brown, rust brown to black.

Old.

“I saw him years back. When I first laid eyes on you, there he was at the same time. It spooked me. I’d almost forgotten, it had been so long. Perhaps a century. Maybe a little longer.”

Looking at the box until his last sentence, he locks eyes with me.

I don’t think I flinch.

What he just said makes me need to crap. My tooth begins a prison riot.

“I fashioned it for him or most anything I saw like him at the time. Back then, they were everywhere. Not so many now, but much more powerful. Smarter, you see.”

Somewhere in my periphery, my tooth rages and I need to piss. He holds my gaze and attention.

“It was the best I could do at the time. I had more influence then.”

He pulls the box to him and and opens it with both hands from either side. The inside lid gleams as though it were polished yesterday. There is no better color than gleaming copper and it smells like a sweaty handfull of pennies.

I understand it hasn’t been opened in a very long time.

Nestled in fine straw or what appears individual strands of pale burlap, is a dagger. The hilt glints like chrome but has the milkiness of silver. The blade is serrated and a bright emerald green.

Carlo pushes it toward me, I see the blade is hollow glass, filled with brilliant green liquid.

“A toxin.” He says.

“Meant for your kind of monster.”

Sheezus motherfuckin.

I’m at the kitchen table drinking the “decent shit” we opened while cooking. A rioja, I think. Can’t focus on the label. I’m housed.

He snuck corn into my stew just after he poured it.

The movie in my mind of Opie Cunningham rushing by in a flaming cape is on loop in my brain. It keeps getting funnier.

Carlo stumbles in the door holding the bundled red white checked table cloth from outside by the top with his right hand while supporting the bottom with his left. His face glows as he manages to release the top and settle the bottom so expertly on the table, the bottle of zinfandel still stands and all stew remains in the pot.

I can’t help but applaud Carlo Tarcisi as he relights the candle still in the stick. He rocks.

“Crazy that bastard running by on fire!”

I laugh. I may be housed but Carlo is shit housed.

He buries is head in his hands and cackles.

He lifts his head, opens his eyes, thrusts the wine at me, “grape!”

I empty it into our glasses and gulp. It is divine. So much better than the decent shit. Turley Zin. Everything from cedar and figs to cigars and plums. “Praise Baccus!” He shakes his hand and at me to assure me there is more.

Zin runs from his chin.

I flip him off and ask when he intends to tell me what I need to know.

“Any minute now”, he laughs crazy.

I remind him I need to be back on the ship tomorrow before sundown and that he told me I wouldn’t be safe here after tonight.

He looks me at my eye with sincerity, “I have much to tell you”. He points a deliberate finger at me right before his lamps go out.

His head hits the table hard enough to startle me.

He’s gone. Unconscious. Next.

Fuck me. Now what?

I pat, slap and shake his
dead weight. My legs cannot possibly carry him. Blowing out the candle and kicking off my shoes, I remind myself to listen for his eventual climb from inebriation to concsiousness. No sooner do I pull the blanket and I’m gone.

It’s dawn. The coffee is pungent, Carlo, smelling of fresh soap and shower, shakes my thumbs in each of his hands. Looks like Carlo passed conscious and now owns lucid.

Look at the big brain on Mr. Tarcisi.

I hate fuckers that can do that.

I plod to the table barefoot and there is buttered toast and jars of marmalade. A small plate of glistening hot sausages.

I hoover one. Fuck, it’s tasty.

I sip and chew for a minute as he looks at me.

I ask if he’s got any cold mineral water or maybe some champagne.

“Not much time and some ground to cover. I need to tell you what I know and see.”

He grips a pomegranate from the bowl on the table and slices it open. The intricate insides, the contrast of ruby candy nodules and mucus white layers startle me into imagining an open human torso with muscle, bone and blood fat internal organs.

I convulse while hot liquid rises to my mouth. Behold a dissected rodent from a fourth grade science fair. Pins in organs with tags naming them. The shrinking moldy rictus of it’s mouth is horrifying. Can’t help but see the stench.

I hold up a finger while my cheeks fill with vomit. I make it to the bathroom sink. Velocity is jet like, I’m grateful the volume is not nearly as spectacular. It goes on for a few minutes. The sausage shows up intact. My bile is day glow on top of the gravy that came before. I stomp my feet and seize. Crystal clear snot streams from each nostril to meet at my chin. Looks like a sling shot made of hand sanitizer.

I look in the mirror and cackle.

I cough some and clean myself up. Drop a deuce. Wash my hands again. As I open the bathroom door I hear him take a loud sip of coffee.

Outside it looks to be a gorgeous day.

There is a wooden box on the table.

It’s so odd. He’s definitely had a presence these last few days. His weight though, is so much lighter. Not so pregnant with consequence. Less evil. He doesn’t like it here.

I picture him dancing and playing a fiddle with it hot underfoot. Wearing a flaming cape. Maybe some fake devil horns.

“You are well enough to talk?” asks Carlo.

On a midsummer night.

I guess I’m allergic to nickel. I’ve decided to forgo my belt with the nickel buckle for the last few weeks.
The second day in these jeans.

They don’t fit without the belt.

Sun long since departed. It’s around ten.

I take the stairs down to the 7-11, holding my pants up. I smell restaurants.

Out front is the strangest car I’ve ever seen.

Station wagon. Ghostbuster chic. The rear wheel wells horizontally dissected as part of a deliberate look.

It is clean and white, adorned with copious chrome accessories. Horns, lights, mudflaps and an
impressive array of antennae. Elaborate roof rack.

The dash is festooned with snow globes and religious idolatry. I look through the windows at animal pelts.

It’s an impossible vehicle, I’ve never seen one like it. Decade indeterminate.

It spooks me a little. Goose bumps and hair on end even though it’s warm, no breeze.

So I’m more than curious now about who must be inside. I need to catch a glimpse.

I walk in, and there he is.

Cheap straw cowboy hat, bright red shirt, so new you can still see fold lines from the package it came
in. Late fifties early sixties.

Tongue protruding and folded over his front bottom lip.  Pot belly. Thick fingers. Rings. Massive belt buckle.

Smells like cologne from a bottle with a wooden top.

Breathes loud through a nose crowded by his tongue and lips.

He’s doing absolutely nothing. Waiting behind garish sunglasses makes him look vacant.

I go about my business, gathering all four food groups. Sweet, sour, salt……………..fat.

Brand new stiff jeans. I know his thighs are blue when he shucks them at the end of the night in
whatever fleabag he’s in this week.

There she is.

She’s ladling toppings onto hot dogs. Gnats swarm above the condiments. She is scabbed over and
otherwise beat to shit.

She scares me. She lifts here huge black glasses onto her forehead of greasy hair the better to see.
Bruised, puffy and lacerated.

I feel insects in my hair, they drop around my ears and she notices. Looks at me and says “I know,
huh?”.

Her teeth are fucking black and green.

Crustaceans race wherever I have hair, even in my nose. I pull my shirt over my face and sneeze. I shiver at the sensation in my crotch.  I fucking itch.

Behind her at the register, I clock the sores on her elbows and breathe her for the first time. Rotten seafood under menthol cigarettes and some horrible
detergent smelling feminine deodorizer.

Red shirt cowboy grunts, peels a twenty off a wad.
The hygienically challenged clerk wrinkles his nose in
her cloud, he’s confused by her stink and who gets the change.

He rings me up.

I see them dancing in the parking lot. They bob like they’re listening to some waltz or maybe a polka.
Even out of the corner of my eye it’s disturbing.

I come out, the car is still there but, they are not. The wind gusts, it smells like rain.

Trash and leaves blow through the lot like it’s fall.

I turn the corner and there they are.

She’s got one stiletto planted on the alley asphalt and a bare foot, well behind her, up on the stucco.

She’s hiked her skirt up and her pinky fingers arc and sway like she’s dancing.  His face is in her crotch.
He’s singing and I realize he’s chewing.

A beard of maggots cover his face and drop on his shirt. They plop like fat rain drops.

“Ring Around The Rosie ………pocket full o’ POSIES!!!”

His corpulent fingers lock at the small of her back as he cackles. The larvae waterfall down his torso
and he burps through a mouthfull of squirming bugmeat.

I get all this in a glance. Barely a turn of my head. I keep moving and realize my pants are sliding down my thighs. I jerk them up simultaneously pulling
out my keys. The drums in my ears are making me mad with panic.

I can’t make the motherfucking cocksucking whore of a fucking key work and there are insects on the back of my head.

They’re all in my hair again.

On the back of my fucking head and down my motherfucking collar and wiggling moist at my fucking spine.

Pooling at the small of my back. Glistening and writhing. Sounds like someone stirring tapioca.

I’m a little fucked up. A couple big ass Sapphire martinis and a few bowls of green.

Through the first door and the bugs turn to sweat.

Then there’s two locked doors behind me and what I’ve just witnessed.

I begin to forget what I just saw. Kinda. Not Really.
I want to.

Fucking creepy. Up the stairs I wonder at some details.

Once inside my apartment, I head to the balcony and suck up an ultralight. I hit play on the Tivo and the final frontier of space saturates the screen.
These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise……

I am motherfucking creeped out.

If I call 911, what the hell do I say?

My brain shows me a vivid picture of beetles erupting from my cell phone. They shine like they’re oily and they click and crackle.

I stare at the deadbolt.

Three fingers of $75 armagnac in a tumbler.  One cube.

I’ve lived here a year and a half and no one has ever knocked on that door.

I never even bothered to have a telephone number assigned to the security system to allow me to buzz in a visitor. In a year and a half, less than handful of
people have been inside my apartment.

In a year and a half, no one has knocked or rung the doorbell.

Twenty four hour security. Banks of monitors fed by cameras.

As the doorbell rings I realize I’ve never heard it before. I mute the television and three quick blows to
the door rattle it hard.

I’m paralyzed looking out the peep hole. Confused, stupefied by the parallax of a fish eye lense.

“Michaeeeeel, got any cereal? Got any Fruuuuuuity Pebblessssss?” Like a carnival barker, expressionless behind garish shades.

His bright red shirt is blotched with perspiration.  His countenance is stone.  Unmoving.  His fat pale tongue folded over his lower lip.

She stomps her feet, points her maw straight up as she howls and cackles. The throat apple in her skinny white neck bobs and dances.

Licking his thumb, he peels a card off an over sized deck and studies it.

A sinister grin spreads, revealing perfect white Chiclets.  Tombstones.

He pushes his index finger straight through my perfect white door like a drill through pastry.

“You’re a reckless man, perhaps stupid”, he says.

I tell him confronting him was liberating and I knew he couldn’t get in.

“How?” he asks. “How did you know that?”

It seemed pretty obvious I tell him.

“It seemed obvious that you were protected? That you were safe?”, he asks.

I begin to understand.

“Did you think I slept while you taunted your nemesis?”

I can only apologize. I am tired and doing my best. I meant no disrespect and regret if I took advantage. I tell him his hospitality has been abundant and kind. I tell him I’m very sorry.

“You are callow and shallow”, he says. “I hope I am here to help you because of your potential and not who you are now.”

He points me to the table and tells me to sit. “You are my guest”, he says.

“Breakfast” he claps twice and he is smiling.

Sliced heirloom tomatos, avacados and mild cheeses with fresh lox, capers and thick fresh cooked polenta. Grapefruit juice just squeezed and champagne in a bucket. Steaming mugs of the world’s best coffee.

He tells me half way through breakfast that he is disappionted that I did not think of him. “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”, he says. “Your actions were costing you nothing. Who did you imagine was paying for them?”

I have learned a valuable lesson I tell him.

He smiles without teeth and says, “You must be new.”

I am, I tell him.

I wonder aloud what to do, and that maybe I should go back to the ship.

“We are not yet finished”, he says.

I tell him I like it here.

“Of course, you feel safe. You are not, however. Not for long”.

It happens slowly. Surreal.

Blood rushes to my face. Anger and frustration and fear and exhaustion and I can’t stand it anymore. I pound the table and stomp. I can’t breathe. I sweep breakfast from the table and trip to the door hitting it hard with my head. I fall outside onto the deck.

It is humid and warm and I realize I’m sobbing and laughing and rocking with my forehead in my hands. My head bleeds. The ship is going down in the open ocean. No place to go. I’m going to drown. I hate helpless and that’s what I am. Who the fuck is this guy who bleeds everywhere and why me?

He is dressed in khakis, brown sturdy boots and a button up collared shirt striped blue vertical. A wide straw hat and hands on his hips, he walks slowly from the garden up the path towards me and the steps. “Tantrum over?” As he comes up the steps he reaches for my hand. “I’ll need for you to clean up your mess this time”, he walks me in the door to witness plates, food and broken glass on a slate floor.

I tell him I’m sorry.

“I’ll get you a mop and broom”, he says.

I’m thoroughly ashamed after my little fugue. I try to be as deliberate and meticulous cleaning up as I possibly can. Mr. Tarcisi vanishes for a time. I am thankful.

It was probably instinct that didn’t allow me to wipe the champagne in it’s bucket off the table with the rest. I’ve long since finished dispatching my mess and settled down with a book Carlo has left open faced down on the table beside the couch.

The Art of War, chapter six, Weaknesses and Strengths. Motes bob in sun flowing through windows. I sip champagne from a flute.

The sun seems to gush and Carlo bursts through the front door bringing more noise and bustle with him than I would have imagined him capable of. He is full on grinning like a jack-o’-lantern.

“Hope you had a fine day. I see you found that book. I went wine tasting. Feeling better? My God you should see my tomatos.”

Mr. Tarcisi is hammered.

I tell him to point me around the kitchen and I’ll make dinner. I assure him I can cook and after he directs me towards certain vegetables, soup stock and a slab of sirloin he points at with drunken conviction, I decide on a stew.

The kitchen windows face north but I’m able to enjoy the sunset to the left while I chop, cube, braise, boil and sear.

Carlo supplies a jammy rose’ for us to drink and soon joins me in the process.

He’s trying to make my stew into soup. It’s Summer he tells me. It’s Spring I tell him. He sighs when I spy cornstarch in his pantry.

I tell him to go fry something and that we’ll need a big ass zinfandel for this meal. He asks if I’m familiar with Turley. Fucking-A I tell him.

We eat on the deck with the wind blowing. Hurricane lanterns all around. My stew is delicious. Carlo has sauteed green beans and slivered almonds in olive oil and garlic and dressed them with lemon and an exotic mustard. The wine is an early two thousand Turley Zinfandel and it’s all plum, cedar and smoke.

Another day and no closer to what to do. I don’t mind.

I ask him how much longer I’ll be safe here. “Not after tomorrow night”, he says.

He touches me on the arm and says, “Understand, he is primitive in a way. He cannot see you if you do not move.” “He is here, sit still.” and his eyes lock with mine.

Richie runs along side the deck screaming and laughing wearing what looks like a goddamn cape that is on fire.

Running so fast I can’t see his face.

I take care to move only my eyes as I watch him run into the darkness, smelling his burning cape and the screeching pigs that gallop behind him.

I can’t believe this shit. Someone, somewhere, must be fucking kidding.

“Now”, says Carlo, “Into the house”.

I point to the wine and run for the front door.

The watch looks still to me, it reads five after nine. Everyone else can see the time as they admire it. People comment on it often. If someone asks me the time, I turn my wrist and hold it up or my answer will be a guess. Sometimes they say the time they see out loud as though I’m waiting to hear it.

I am.

If he’s of me, he must own his cowardice. I believe it. I see it in him. Just like me. He’d rather just fuck with me than confront me. He shows me what he can do but he never comes straight at me. A jackal. A pussy. Just like me.

I submitted to a bully once. I was in the sixth grade. I was confused. He wasn’t any bigger, he was simply more evil. Mean. For awhile, I was afraid. I went to ridiculous ends to avoid him. I stole a small hunting knife from a sporting goods store. I would duct tape the leather sheath to my leg before I went to school.

One day the entire student body sat in the gymnasium bleachers for an assembly. A giant red brick structure built in the thirties with an oval roof. Autumn. Cold inside. I sat with my friends and spit Skoal on the floor. All of us had our coats on. We did our best to smear the tobacco juice with our feet.

My friend Lance was next to me. He didn’t chew tobacco. He’s now some sort of nuerological physical therapist.

His last name was Dalton and I could feel him behind me. Everytime the crowd would jeer at the ridiculous film on nuclear attack we were being shown, he’d hit me hard on the back.

It didn’t take long for Lance to clock it, look me in the eye and say “Who is this fuck?”

Dalton had always been a coward. He’d always confront me with his friends around him or never at least in a crowd where there was a chance of me having an ally. I would back down, because my shame was my own. There was no one else to see it.

This was different. He’d grown bold. I don’t think he was very smart. He certainly hadn’t thought far enough ahead to understand the corner he’d backed me into. Fear is a great force multiplier.

I didn’t snap, but my decision came quick. I was humiliated and terrified. I spun around and swung as hard as I could for his head. He turned away in anticipation of the blow and my fist landed solid with a smack on his left ear.

I heard he spent the rest of the afternoon crying in the nurse’s office.

His meat has been under my fist.

It’s time for my fist again.

I am sure. I begin to understand him. It will be easier to lure to him to a mall or a bar instead of an empty field or a park at night. I will kill him. We are the same he and I. I am smarter. I wonder how well he understands that.

I will kill him.

Does he know to look inside to figure me out?

Does he drink wine with his meat?

I’m going to name him Richie Cunningham.

I will kill Richie Cunningham.

Opie is toast.

The night is pleasant. Barely a moon. I’ve been asleep, the fire is embers. The carafe of water is empty and I figure out that I can’t hold until morning.

Something I hate; finding a bathroom in a strange house in the middle of the night.

In a hotel room, I just bounce around until my feet feel cool tile.

Whatever, I’m like a fire hydrant. I feel good. Energy. I throw off the blanket and bounce up. Legs are good. Barely sore. Past the den and there’s a small bathroom with a light on the left just beyond the kitchen. Thoughtful of Carlo.

There’s an actual urinal with a chrome flush, what looks like a quartz puck and one of those low long toilets with a black seat and an identical chrome flush all municipal style. White tile. It’s clean and smells good with an institutional dispenser that spits brown paper when I turn the crank. A wall mounted soap sprinkler vomits pink powder when I push the lever back. I smell pine.

I piss.

I’m back in grade school.

As I’m draining I see the open door leading to the kitchen.

I decide to make my way back through the kitchen. It’s smaller in the dark.

I come around to the couch and sink back into it’s comfort.

I’m thinking I expect what’s next.

Richie smacks his hand on the windows. Running around the deck. Frustrated and in a frenzy. I’m spooked but I know he can’t get in or he’d be in.

I rush the window to challenge him. I bang on it with my knuckles and demand that he look at me. I want to see him. Close. So I do. Carlo’s yard is filled with dark swine and they have fear in their eyes. He doesn’t look at me. A pane of glass divides us.

I yell and flip him off. I mock and tease. I laugh at him. Scream and curse.

He’s sobbing and sucking back drool. He bleeds from all the openings in his head. He’s a mess. He’s in his underwear again.

I press my index finger and face to the glass and tell him I understand. I tell him I understand it’s him or me and that it will be me. I tell him I’ll kill him. He will die. It will be me.

He bounces off the front door. He screams in the yard. He even throws rocks at the windows. He leaves sobbing and sucking.

I stand and watch his retreat. He lights a fagot at one point and I’m able to see his pigs behind him.

He cannot enter.

I go to sleep.

Carlo is upset. It is morning. He bangs and mutters. Shuffles and stomps his feet. But I can smell the food.

I sit up and put my shoes on. I go to the bathroom I used last night, piss, and wash my face and hands. The water is cold and I wish I had a toothbrush. I enter the kitchen from the bathroom.

He is suprised, yet the look on his face takes but a second to fade to furious. I ask what over and over. Finally, I’m able to sputter that fear is a great force multiplier and I couldn’t help but confront that which I fear most.

“Perhaps you are a coward, if so full of bravery and force why did you not open the door?” He says.

I just can’t stand it. The way life attempts to imitate art. The way art endeavors to imitate life. The circle closes rarely for reasons other than serendipity. It’s never on purpose. We spend our lives looking to make sense of it and it refuses. It walks away without a word. It could not care less what we think.

I’m sure of one thing. It reveals nothing to no one. There is no game and there is no fate. It is random. Despite prophecy, religion or dogma. I think the universe barely affords the concept of time for example. At the very least, it does so in a way we won’t conceive or imagine for much longer than we can conceive or imagine.

That is not to say justice should not be pursued. Philanthropy, yes. Self educate by all means. Aspire to kindness and compassion. Eat right and exercise if you must. People should strive to be as good as they can for a reason that is simultaneously as insignificant as it is fundamental; as far as we know we have but one shot. In that one run at it, we only have ourselves.

The only magic is brains and the only miracle is will.

A train of thought that sounds like a bowling alley in my head.

My legs are killing me. I seem to be gaining strength, but they go from sore to searing in seconds. I’m glad I remembered my cane.

“Coffee on the veranda?” His head bobs while the car absorbs the road.

I look him in the eye and tell him absolutely.

I hold his gaze and thank him as sincerely as I can. I tell him I have so many questions.

“We have time to talk today. My villa is not far.”

This is the furthest south I’ve ever been, everything looks tropical. The grounds are lush and manicured. Gravel and stone paths. Palms and grasses. Plump cactus and moss just a few feet away. Desert flowers. I glimpse a healthy stand of cannabis through some trees. A handful of fountains and sculptures. The air is perfumed with an organic that is damp and sweet.

It’s humid and cool.

I’m happy to be here. I feel much better.

The driver opens my door and it’s the last I see of him. He’s never looked at me.

Carlo walks me to the door. The house itself is fairly modest. Like an early twentieth century LA bungalow. Broad granite steps to a deck of thick hardwood trailing around the side. The entire roof, including the deck, is black to grey and the turquoise of oxidation. Is the whole thing under one copper shell?

The twin front doors are heavy and black. Carlo opens them with practiced effort.

Inside is rustic. A river stone fireplace with a heavy wooden mantle. Silver candlesticks, pictures in elaborate frames and brightly colored glass. A pot boils over a small flame. The floors are black slate and hardwood. Beautiful rugs and sturdy furniture. Plenty of sunlight diffused as the the deck wraps around the house excepting the north side.

The fog has not burned off completely.

On the right is the living area with a high ceiling, the fireplace and beyond that, what looks like a book lined den. On the left is a small dining area and a large kitchen facing north. The appliances look robust but not new. The floor and countertops are terra cotta. There’s a pot rack suspended from chains over and island. Copper and stainles steel vessels glisten. Blenders, juicers, toasters and processors, none modern, festoon the counters and gleam.

It smells of smoke and apples and good tobacco.

Carlo grinds coffee beans with some hand powered device I’ve never seen. While wearing some welding glove, he takes the pot off the fire. We sit on stools at a small but high iron table with a wooden top. There’s an old glass French press, a small pitcher of cream and small glass bowl filled with chunky brown sugar. Two spoons, two mugs.

My guess is someone forgot about the veranda.

From another mug, he pours the ground beans into the press and the boiling water over them. The aroma makes me crave it. He seals the top with the plunger up and says, “Now we wait.” He is smiling.

He retreats to the kitchen and returns with a small plate of fruit and bread. Strawberries, melon, papaya, mango, grapes and what is definitely buttered cornbread.

He raises his eyebrows, rushes to the kitchen and returns with a shiny pile of caviar and creme fraiche on a small bone china dish and an actual silver baby spoon.

He smiles and says, “Killer with the cornbread.”

He takes off his coat and I see he’s wearing suspenders.

“I have much to tell you.” He plunges the coffee patiently. “You already know, you are in mortal danger. You are beset by a hound.” He forces the plunger down a little. “He is mean as a snake. A doppelganger of sorts. He is not your double. He is not your………contrary or inverse, either, as they say. They are often the worst, as are the doubles.” He leans a little harder on the press.

“Those pale and vicious poltergeists will harass a man until his heart explodes in his chest like a fruit pie dropped on a kitchen floor. The good news is, it is not the worst. The bad news is, it is very bad. Perhaps, as bad as I have seen.

He pours the coffee and generous cream into my mug. It’s sweet enough for me to wonder if I missed him adding sugar. It’s the best coffee I’ve ever had in my life. Until I think about what he’s saying and what he may be about to say. He looks at me like he’s gonna tell me I have colon cancer. Like I’ll bleed from the ass for awhile and then die.

He’s getting real good at looking at me like that.

“He is about you. He is of you. You are related to this hound. It cannot last. One of you must go. You cannot both occupy this time and place for very long. I’m confident you understand that? One of you must kill the other. He will kill you. He’s as afraid as you are, believe it or not. But, he intends to kill you.

How do you know? How did you find me? Who are you?

He raises his hand. “You found me. I was not aware of you until you were within a block from me. Really, the rest is decades of me seeing and understanding these things. You already know, we are not all the same.”

“Let me put this as simply as I can,” he says. “Do not doubt that the randomness of life is in some way synchronized with all the things that we do not understand about the universe. It is what we do know that confounds us. All the while, what we do not know blows us along.”

He offers me a hunk of cornbread with caviar and creme. The bread is warm and sweet. The caviar is salty with marvelous texture in a creaminess of creme. It’s so delicious I need to replay what he’s said in my head.

I come up fighting. I can’t help but ask what he does know. I ask him who he is and despite myself I press him hard on just what the fuck is going on. I realize I’m pleading. I try to shut up.

“Do notlook at me like that. I am no wizard” , says Mr. Tarcisi.

“Your only chance is yourself, but I think I can help.”

I tell him I was hoping for a wizard.

I tell him I’m tired and I’m a pussy.

He doesn’t smile. He tells me my humor is inappropriate. He is angry. He seems much older than me.

He walks to the end of the kitchen and back.

He pushes the plate of fruit at me with the rubied finger. I reach and so does he. We chew and look at each other. We begin to talk like yesterday. We laugh and point at each other. At some point there’s not much coffee left, Carlo brings a single malt whiskey to the table.

We use our coffee mugs.

Next thing I know I’m asleep in front of the fire.

It’s twilight.

I’m on the couch under a thick cotton blanket. My shoes are off but my socks are on. Carlo has left a carafe of water and a glass on the low table in front of me.

His last words to me, “Sleep. You are safe here.”

I look past my feet and he’s in the den reading furiously, his fingers drumming on his forehead. He looks old from here.

I look up to a polished copper ceiling some twenty feet above me with the fire dancing across.

I head back to the party.

I wake and I’m blank. I’m alone. I understand that’s wrong, but it’s all I know.

I’m hanging over the opposite side of the bed I sleep on. There’s a tiny smear of blood on the bed skirt. I dab at it. It’s dry. Not sure what I expected.

Have I seen the last of Shirley?

Nope. The bathroom door clicks and she’s in front of me in my robe. Beaming with self satisfaction, she holds aloft a platter of steaming pastries. There is fruit and juice. Her cleavage strains against the robe. Sun bangs through the window and it’s warm. She feeds me pastries from the platter but I can’t taste them and I’m thirsty. I grab for the fruit but it’s dry on my tongue. I gulp juice but it’s air.

Blood begins to leak from her eyes. She screams.

I’m awake, still wearing this beautiful watch.

Here it comes. All of it. She’s gone.

I gotta piss like a racehorse and I’m shaking as it sinks in.

The mirror above the sink confuses me because I mistake it for blood. It’s lipstick and the message is incomplete. My name and a declaration that Shirley had a lovely time, then a smear that trails to the bottom of the mirror and her lipstick is in the sink along with the clear plastic cap.

I must have gone down after the blowjob. There’s no condoms, my junk isn’t sticky and there’s orange lipstick on it.

He killed her right there and then.

Right after a righteous hoovering. She went to freshen up and maybe spit?

There’s blood, viscera and hair in the shower. Blond hair. His knife is there too. Batteries not in the wastebin.

Let housekeeping wash the sheets, I won’t ditch the bed skirt. Absence being more conspicuous than a smear of blood I figure. We’ll see.

Carlo hammers at my door, calling my name.

Man I’m in trouble.

“How bad is it?”, he says when I open the door. He looks like he hasn’t slept, pale.

I wonder how he got on the boat.

Mr. Tarcisi probably boards airplanes at will.

I wonder how he knows.

I tell him what I know, and what I think I know.

He folds his hands and rests his forearms on his knees, looks up at me from the corner of the bed. The watch he wears is identical to the one he gave me.

He bows his head, then comes up with a grimace. He goes to the closet and pulls out a plastic bag for shoes to be shined. He doesn’t look at me as he collects the evidence, the bloody viscera, lipstick, knife and hair into the bag. He hands it to me and tells me to lose it while indicating the balcony with a nod of his head.

I’m outside and it’s chilly, I look both ways before letting it drop. I wait for it to hit the water, it seems too loud.

I slide the door shut behind me and he’s back in the bathroom methodically cleaning the mirror with toilet paper wrapped around his open hand. His hat is off, he sweats.

Holdiing up a finger he disappears out the door. Just as quickly he’s back with paper towels and a spray bottle of blue liquid he’s lifted from a cleaning cart. I soon understand that lipstick is very greasy. The blue liquid is a minor miracle. I’m able to make short work of everything.

I can’t help it. I sob. I choke. It’s overwhelming. I dry heave into the tiny sink. I’m a mess.

When I’m finished he’s behind me in the mirror with a sympathetic chagrin. “Shower, but be quick. We need to get you out of here.”

I’ve no idea where to go from here. This is all way too much. A woman has been murdered. An innocent woman. She was nice and she smelled good.

She suffered a violent dissection with a a dual D-cell powered, serrated knife. Not fair. It’s not fair and I’m in the middle of it. It’s entirely my fault.

I knew what would happen. I knew it absolutely. I fucking saw it.

I’ve just dropped evidence into the ocean.

Mr. Tarcisi hands me a towel. He is anxious for us to leave.

Before we leave the boat, we stop for eggs, coffee and a muffin with butter and jam, I insist.

By the time we’re in his car his impatience is obvious. Fuck me. Fuck him.

“I need to take you to my home for a bit”, says Carlo through a smile and a brown cigarette.

“Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more
questions about it: so she turned to the Mock Turtle,
and said ‘What else had you to learn?’

‘Well, there was Mystery,’ the Mock Turtle replied,
counting off the subjects on his flappers–‘Mystery,
ancient and modern, with Seaography: then Drawling —
the Drawling-master was an old conger-eel, that used
to come once a week: he taught us Drawling,
Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.” -Lewis Carol

I need to ask you. What would you do? I mean just what in fucking hell would you do?

One of the few things I’ve actually learned in life is that the thing to do with an antogonist is to seize any opportunity to ignore them.

This is convenient for me as I sit at the bar. It works. He fades.

When later I look, I can still see my name in the glass like ghost writing on the mirror long after the steam is gone.

It’s still early. The only thing I can think of is to drink. Finish my drunk. I make up my mind to do it like William Holden. I switch to scotch and think about picking a fight. I’m too much of a pussy and know that If I’m successful at getting into a real fight, I’ll lose because I’ll be so fucking hammered and I don’t know how to fight and I’m a pussy.

So that’s out.

I have another and decide the rosy cheeked kinda dumpy chick in her Sunday best is sexy. She’s happy and I’m drawn to it. I’ve never been the type. I don’t know how to do this.

I send her another of whatever she’s having. The bartender winks at me when I ask him to do this. I stare through him. What a dick.

She seems to be game when she gets it. She waves to me and mouths hello. I’m close to shit housed or I’d have no chance here. I wave back and try to look like I have humility. She giggles and picks up her green drink in a silly glass to approach me. I learn from her approach that she has big tits, skinny lips and nice legs. Two out of three ain’t bad.

Guess where from? Alaska. The furthest you can get from America and still be American. She smells great.

Her name is Shirley.

Fuck Hawaii.

Whatever. She’s friendly and I’m as honest as possible. I was recently involved in a car accident and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I was going bug fuck and needed to get outta the damn house. I’m single. Nope, no kids. I guess I’m selfish and understand that about myself. Better than being a shitty parent. I tell this all to Shirley.

I’m happy not be on my candy apple red invalid cart.

Maybe it’s the watch.

I tell her how cool my suite is. She doesn’t have a window. I have a balcony. She wants to see it. Look at me, I think. We could watch a movie she says and tells me her name is Shirley again. In the elevator she takes my hand and hopes out loud that I like to snuggle.

I want to roll my eyes but it makes me glad.

She may have a bit of a moustache but it’s blond.

Trying the door gives me pause. I’m fucking scared. I know he’s in there.

She’s got her hands on my shoulders while she breathes some green drink on the back of my neck.

I know he’s not. I smile and get the door open. If she even had a single clue she’d run panicked, screaming, snot and drool.

No smell of pigs.

She goes to the balcony and I take a piss. His electric knife is in the sink. I take the batteries out, throw them in the trash and cover them with toilet paper.

His knife goes in the toilet tank. I’m hoping to ruin it.

Somehow she’s found Steel Magnolias on the flatscreen above the mini bar.

She asks if I have a robe. I take it off the bathroom door.

She’s in it and her bra is orange. Orange? It matches her lipstick. Her tits look pretty good though. Milky white with a small mole halfway down the expanse of rather voluminous cleavage on the left. I’m thinking Shirley might have double scoops.

She smiles at me and lifts her arms under her breasts so they swell. I resist the urge to roll my eyes but I don’t abandon the idea of giving her the business. I have an eye for subtle and slutty. It requires rosy cheeks and a certain youthfullness and I appreciate the contrast.

Kinda like a bleu Stilton and a nice pink grapefruit marmalade on a cracker.

Whatever blows your skirt up. She does smell nice. Very clean.

She spends time touching me. She does it well. Her nails, fingers and toes are pristine.

I ask what she would be up to tonight in Nebraska? Alaska, she says. I’m too drunk to be embarrassed. I’m not sure what I’m doing but I press on.

Hot and bubbly.

She pretty much blows the lid off by asking me if she can put me in her mouth.

She climbs on top of me.

She’s bigger, but I like the way she feels in my hands.

This is going well.

Her mouth is on mine. It’s blissfully sublime.

She reaches behind with a thumb and yanks her underwear down to her thighs. She then uses her foot to take them off.

Cool trick. I begin to wonder about my blowjob.

Turns out to be a scorching hoovering.

I sleep fitfully. My forehead sweats but my feet are freezing. At first, there’s the standard not being able to run very fast or hit very hard sequences. Next, I dream of a mushroom cloud. Orange and fiery on the water, it parts the clouds. The sun is a sixty watt bulb. The wind picks up and the ground begins to dance.

Death comes. Death on the way.

A knife with a hollow green blade.