Massive Retard Dong

Mrs. Awaited the next thrust, laying on her back in the bed as the massive strange dick rammed deeper into her.

“Choo-choo!” he said as he thrust.

“Aw yeah! FUCK yeah!” Mrs. responded.

“I’mma choo-choo in’a tunnel!” he said.

“You’re goddamn right you are!” Mrs. said as she grunted in ecstasy.

Had she been paying attention to anything but the fourteen inches of idiotic dong slamming into her, she might have heard her husband’s car pull in the garage, the front door slam shut, the footsteps coming up the stairs, the out loud complaint of, “You didn’t sweep today either, huh, you lazy bitch?” and the turning of her bedroom doorknob.

(Note from author, at this point while writing the story I received a phone call from a crying person informing me that my grandfather just died. I immediately continued writing this)

The door opened, and in walked Mr. in his sweat stained suit and tie. He stood, looking at the googly eyed, drooling imbecile that was mounted on top of his wife. They both blinked as they looked at each other.

“I’mma choo-choo!” ‘tardy said.

Mr. stared at him in disbelief, then looked down to his wife.

“Um, yeah….he’s a choo-choo. Hi hon.” she said and gave him a meek, guilty half smile.

Mr. blinked once more, then in a flurry of motion he jumped onto the bed, swinging a wild flailing punch into train boy’s left eye, then a knee to his chest, knocking him off his wife, off the bed, and onto the floor. Mr. jumped on top of him, sinking his knees into choo-choo boy’s shoulders, pinning his arms down, as he unloaded a tornado of punches into his dopey face.

Now bloody, still smiling, Mr. grabbed train boy by the neck, pulling him up as he stood, shaking him so that his oversized retarded head rattled like a bobble head. “What do you got to say now, motherfucker?” Mr. growled as he squeezed tighter.

“Ugh…” train boy grunted in pain. “Choo…choo…” he struggled to say, as his blood dripped out of his mouth.

“Oh yeah? Well can trains fly, huh asswipe?” Mr. growled in fury, as he dragged the boy over to the bedroom window, flung it open and tossed the poor ‘tard out.

“choo…CHOO!” Mr. and Mrs. heard him scream as he flew downwards, followed by a wet and boney splat as his head collided with the concrete driveway, cracking open and scattering what scant brains he had.

Mr. turned and glared at his wife with accusing, furious eyes.

“So…how was work?” Mrs. asked, sheepishly smiling.

“You fucking…” Mr. growled, shaking his head in fury. “…How could you?”

“Aw, come on hon, I mean…I just met him at the park, and he liked talking about petting zoos and coloring books and I thought that was sweet,” she said.

“Oh my god…” Mr. said, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples.

“And it’s like, I saw that thing just bouncing around in his pants the whole time…and I dunno, I just couldn’t help myself!”

“What…what thing?” Mr.’s eyes snapped open.

“You didn’t see it? I mean, that fucking mong was packing at least fourteen inches, probably more!” she said, her eyes becoming wide and she held up her hands as if measuring a fish to give him a general idea of the size.

“Really?” He said and blinked. He turned around and looked out the window, down at the body now laying in his driveway, the pool of blood forming around its crushed retarded head, and the prominent fourteen inch erection still strongly protruding from its crotch.

“Jesus,” he said.

“Yeah, I mean, sorry hon but I can’t just pass on something like that!” Mrs. said. “I mean, and I thought real hard about this too, but I don’t think it’s considered cheating if it’s with a retard!”

He pulled his head out of the window, reluctantly ripping his fascinated gaze from the magnificent retard dick in his driveway, and looked back to her. “Huh,” he grunted, mulling her reasoning over in his head.

“I mean, he was basically just a dick with a tiny little brain attached to it. Like, it’s not cheating if it’s with a dildo, and I bet you most dildos have a smarter brain working them than he had! So come on…don’t be mad!” she pleaded.

“What uh, what was all that about choo-choos?” he asked.

“Oh that, well that’s how I had to explain it to get any sort of a decent hump out of his dumb ass,” she said.

“Hmm,” Mr. grunted, as he looked back out the window at Dumbo’s giant erect dick which was finally starting to deflate as the blood drained out of his crushed head. “You think umm…umm…well….I guess it’s a shame he’s dead now cause like…” he said.

“Well, I mean, we could find another one, I did a little research online, most of them are supposed to have big retarded dorks like that,” she said. “Why, what are you thinking?”

“Umm, well, I was just like thinking….I dunno, I mean…it’s…it’s not gay if it’s with a retard, right?” he asked.

“Oh, no way! Totally not!” she said.

“And uh….we can kill the next one too, right?” he asked.

“Oh no problem, yeah! I mean I don’t think it’s even murder if it’s a retard either!”

“And uh…let’s get Chinese too,” he said.

“You want a Chinese retard?” she cocked her head in confusion and asked.

“No! Chinese food! How the hell do you expect to find a hung Chinese retard? You dumb bitch!” he said.

“See…now this is exactly what the therapist is always talking about. I’m working with you here, I’m negotiating, I’m actualizing your needs, and you are always downgrading my worth!” she started up with the dumb bullshit she learned in therapy.

“Ok whatever, shut up!” he cut her off. We’ll talk about it later, let’s just go fuck and kill another retard then get Chinese food, before it gets dark!”

“Ok hon,” she smiled. “Oh, you want to see if we can find one named Chu?”

He glared at her.

“Aw come on, that was funny! Ok screw it, let’s just get going,” she said and off they went. K, whatever, done, finit, enfin, I got to go to a goddamn nursing home and look at a dead old man now, later.

Squeaky v Clem

(Catskill New York, 1969)

(SQUEAKY)

She sees the masses fluttering around her, sharing one face, and just one brain. Charlie referred to the type as “untapped potential”. He could tap them, he would have tapped every last one of them. All of them here, in one place. This was supposed to be it! “This is where Charlie would have saved the world”, she thinks about the audacity of sending GOD to the penitentiary. Her enterally polygamous matrimonial king. His orders, delivered to her through neuropathic Morse Code.

Before her awakening, before meeting Charlie Squeaky would have been another body-in-the-face here. Just dancing and doing drugs without realizing that she was already a drug. Getting fucked in a Portopotty by two deaf Amish runaways, while Jimmi Hendrix plays the National Anthem on his electric guitar. Using words like “groovy” without the slightest bit of malice. But Squeaky met Charlie. He fed himself to her, and she consumed him. She would be his wife, and his other wives were her sisters. Her sisters brothers, were her brothers. She had a big close-knit family. When her brothers and sisters were murdering Sharon Tate and the ‘Anti-Christ’, Squeaky was giving Charlie a back rub/footjob hybrid, and taking short breaks to feed him grapes. When Charlie was apprehended, Squeaky Manson carved an ‘X’ into her forehead, and shaved every hair off her body. Squeaky could no longer touch Charlie, but she could always hear him; and she talked to him.

Squeaky is not here for the peace, the love, or the music. She is here to be an exterminator. This is not the summer of love; it’s the summer of the dead rat.

(CLEM)

He started taking LSD regularly in high school. After dropping out, Clem made a promise to himself that he would be a rockstar. Clem would sleep only once a week, spooning his guitar. He lived his life in a semi-coherent autopilot. Clem woke up one morning, and he was a part of a cult. He was an accessory to murder; and when he got arrested alongside Charlie, and is brothers and sisters, he knew where Shorty’s body was. Shorty’s body was buried at the Spahn Ranch, near Venice Beach. While coming down off a two-year acid binge in the slammer, Clem had the divine realization that he was not cut-out for prison. He ratted on everybody, for everything he could recall. They let him walk.

Clem immediately ghosted his parole officer, took a mouthful of LSD, and headed for the Catskill Mountains, in a vanful of vagabonds he met at the park. Clem thought that Woodstock would be the perfect reset-button for his soul. He would woo a female or two with his guitar-playing, and finally be recognized as a rockstar. “By day-three of the festie, everybody will be so in awe of my talent. Word will spread, and they’ll probably invite me up onto the main stage to open for The Who”, the spun-out space-case thought to himself”.

Clem approaches a group of five half naked flower girls covered in mud. He attempts to serenade them by strumming three out of tune chords in an off-tempo manor, and singing nonsensical lyrics he wrote about a turtle and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich he ate once. Clem keeps his eyes closed while preforming, visualizing dancing pixies and dolphins spitting rainbows out of their blowholes. When he finishes his song and opens his eyes, the girls were gone.

(Clap! Clap! Clap!)

Clem turns around to see one female that he never wanted to see again. Squeaky is facetiously applauding Clem’s terrible song. Clem’s eyes open wide enough to tare a hole in his face, and he turns pale.

“Clem! Clem! Clem! Long time no see, baby brother. I’m surprised to see you here. Hmmmm, you know… shouldn’t you be in prison, Clem?”, Squeaky asks.

“Oh, Hey sister! Um, no. Nope. No! Prison? No, not me. They (uh) determined through (uh) legislation and shit that I was innocent”, Clem says, shaking in his tye-dye.

“Innocent? You? Ain’t that special.”, Squeaky says with a smile. Squeaky tells Clem that they’ve got some catching up to do, and to follow her to her car. Clem tries backing out, stating that he was just here for the music.

“Don’t even think about running away from me, Clem. Family’s everywhere, we are never alone”, Squeaky says sternly. Clem looks around and sees the one sinister face of Woodstock 69. Did Squeaky come alone? Clem sees assassins everywhere he looks. His paranoid bare feet follow behind Squeaky’s bellbottoms covering her bare feet. Two distinct sets of footprints in the mud. Nobody’s wearing any fucking shoes.

Squeaky coheres Clem into a stolen blue Punch Buggy and forces him to eat another 10-strip of LSD, without much resistance on that end. She drives off the dairy farm that hosted Woodstock, and up a twisty road, into the Catskill Mountains. Dusk is setting, and the pink and black skyline memorizes Clem, who is riding high, as it gets ever darker, and the Punch Buggy ascends. Squeaky lectures her brother about loyalty for the whole ride, until the car reaches an inconspicuous flat. She parks and removes a revolver from under her seat. Squeaky spins the chamber, locks it into place, and as Clem screams in terror, Squeaky puts the barrel against her own temple, and pulls the trigger… click

“God is disappointed in us, baby brother. He said that one of us betrayed him. He said it was one of us. One of us, baby brother. When God is upset with me, it makes me feel like garbage. Even when I did nothing wrong. It makes me want to kill everything! He told me that this is how he will know for sure who the traitor is… Your turn.”, Squeaky rants at Clem, while handing him the revolver.

Clem is now living in a cartoon world of melting darkness penetrated by satellite rainbows. He subconsciously follows orders, spinning the chamber and locking it in. If he pointed the gun at Squeaky, and pulled the trigger, he’d of had a one in six chance of blasting a bullet through her bald head, ditching the body right there and the car at the bottom of the mountain, and then hitch hiking back to Woodstock… But if he played Charlie’s game, he reckoned that he could prove to his sister that God was wrong. Then he reckoned that she’d have to except the possibility that maybe Clem is God. Then he reckoned he’d be jamming with The Beach Boys, have 100 wives, and then Clem would be the Son of Man. Clem sticks the barrel of the gun to his temple, and tells Squeaky that he’s always loved her.

(BANG!)

Squeaky tosses Clem’s carcass off a ledge, and deep into a canyon, where he was eaten by mountain lions, who ended up tripping balls and having a shared identity crisis. She drove back down the mountain, and returned to Woodstock, allowing Charlie to view all that untapped potential through her vicariously.

Six years later, Squeaky Manson pointed a gun at Gerald Ford, and attempted to assassinate him, wounding a secret service agent. She was paroled after serving only 34 years in prison.

WE BOYZ NO MATTA WHUT, MY TINY LITTLE SON!

Yo, like Poe, I was drinkin’ a cask of amontillado.

With on-fleek boyband music rising up the hill from the amphitheater below, I held the cask high to take a deep draught as I watched a beautiful girl dancing on the twilit grass—barefoot and nymph-like; pale, lithe arms waving and weaving like albino serpents; shoulders swaying; white daisies and baby’s breath woven into long, lush, black hair plaited in an arabesque waterfall braid; pomegranate-like breasts sheathed in the wispy chiffon of a boho-chic dress, breasts jiggling a jig all their own.

One of the girl’s friends took her by the hands—they spun each other around, heads tossed back, laughing with Dionysian abandon.

Deep in my cups—or cask, I should say—I struggled to maintain balance as I pedaled my dank unicycle over to these girls, my cask of amontillado balanced precariously on my head as I focused all my energy on avoiding an embarrassing topple onto the ground. But I’d seen and shared enough Dat Boi memes on Facebook over the years to know that I’d be okay so long as I held out my arms like the wings of an aeroplane.

I rolled up to the raven-haired girl just as she and her friend unlocked fingers. Not one to waste time, I commenced pedaling circles around her; just as the male peacock parades its tail feathers to capture the attention of the female, just as the male sea turtle circles the female in a courtship dance, so did I show off my sick uni skills. The girl danced on, though now she turned with my revolutions, following my orbit around her heavenly body with a wary sidelong eye.

Her smile vanished; she was all arched eyebrow and unimpressed duckface now.

Damn, I thought. Best pull off a sick uni trick real quick or your gonna let this one get away, slice. So I attempted a 180-degree hop-spin. Now, had I successfully executed the trick, I would’ve segued into pedaling backwards, and the shit woulda been hella sick. But like I said, I was FRIGGIN’ INEBRIATED. As such, I tumbled mid-spin, landed hard on my ass, the cask of amontillado breaking apart as it struck the ground, spilling its sweet, golden contents out into the grass like a cracked egg.

The girl and her friends laughed and pointed at me as I sat there on the ground looking reeaaaal dumb, my cheeks hot and ruddy with embarrassment. Grimacing, I pounded the ground three times with the butts of my fists so damn hard it hurt. The girl then caught me off guard when she came forward, bent down, offered me her hand. I took it in mine, pushed myself to my feet.

“Um, can I, like, get you a…a dead sewer rat from Afghanistan?” I blurted.

Just as I finished uttering this ridiculous sentence, I executed a loud, smacking facepalm. Christ, I thought. Really, dude? That was the best pick-up line you could come up with? Can I get you a dead sewer rat from Afghanistan?

“Um, I think I’ll pass on the dead sewer rat from Afghanistan,” the girl said, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “But I might settle for a cask of amontillado.”

This made me grin ear to ear. Actually, if you want to get all technical about it, it made me grin even broader than ear to ear; in fact, I grinned so broadly that the corners of my mouth continued moving up past my ears, rising behind and above my temples, traveling up the sides of my head until they met at the top of my forehead, at which point my face fell the fuck off.

But who the hell needs a face when you have a dank uni, sick uni skillz, and a big-boobed hot honey at your side, eh?

After I remounted my wheels—oops, wheel, I mean—I took the girl’s hand in mine, and together we descended the hill to the concessions area, her walking, me pedaling. We got in line at the cask of amontillado stand. After I bought us each a cask, we moved in closer to the stage to check out the band that was playing—a boyband called WE BOYZ 4-LYFE comprising just two members. One member was an armless old man—dude had to be at least ninety—who banged at the bloodied keys of a rickety, old upright piano with his equally bloodied, abraded forehead. The other member of WE BOYZ 4-LYFE was a dead sewer rat from Haiti. It lay perfectly still (and dead) on a drum stool placed at the center of a huge, sprawling, forty-piece drum kit. However, because it was deader than a dog turd sealed in a dog turd-sized coffin, set on fire, and dropped off the Eiffel Tower, the rat couldn’t play drums for shit (or play any musical instrument for that matter [or, for that matter, do anything]), which meant the music of WE BOYZ 4-LYFE consisted entirely of the old man’s discordant, insanity-inducing piano noise—song after song after song of it.

I must say they were quite good. Certainly one of the best bands I’ve ever seen—boyband or otherwise. Nevertheless, after a few songs, we wandered away from the stage toward the surrounding woods where we could better hear ourselves talk.

“You know you left your face back there on the hill,” the girl said after hoisting her cask of amontillado up for a sip.

“Oh, yeah?” I retorted with a scowl, sounding an awful lot like Moe from The Three Stooges.

“Yeah.”

“What’s it to ya?” I said in the same petulant tone.

“It’s nothing to me. But it’s something to you. It’s your face!”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s it to ya? Oh, a wise guy, eh?”

“Listen,” she said, halting and turning to face me. “Why don’t we skip all the niceties, unicycle boy: you wanna get your mitts on these tits or what?” She squeezed her breasts together, expanding her already ample cleavage.

“Um (gulp),” I uttered, wide-eyed. “Yeah, I guess I sorta do.”

“And would you like to peel the frilly pink panties off this heart-shaped ass?” she asked, slapping said heart-shaped ass for effect.

“Er, yes, I suppose I would.”

“Then get me a dead sewer rat from Afghanistan.”

“What? Now hold up a sec, shorty. I already asked you if you wanted a dead sewer rat from Afghanistan. You said no, remember?”

“A girl has a right to change her mind. Get me a dead sewer rat from Afghanistan, or I’ll have nothing more to do with you ever again.”

Shit, I thought. As far as I could tell, the only place I could get a dead sewer rat from Afghanistan was, well, a sewer in Afghanistan.

“Alright. But if I do go all the way to friggin’ Afghanistan to get you a dead rat, where can I find you when I get back to America?”

“My address is 124 Conch Street, Bikini Bottom.”

I scrawled the address on a gum wrapper, pocketed it.

“Well, I should probably get going,” I said. “Looks like I have a long trip ahead of me. I don’t even know how I’m going to get over there. I may have to join the military or something. Hopefully I won’t get killed in combat.”

“Good luck, unicycle boy!” the raven-haired girl said, clasping my hand for a moment before turning away, laughing as she ran back up the hill to her friends.

***

After barely surviving boot camp, I did two back-to-back three-year tours in Afghanistan with the U.S. Army, 76th Infantry Brigade. The sewer rats there were damn near impossible to hunt or trap, and they tended to cannibalize their own dead, so that it was not until the end of my second tour when I finally got my hands on one.

When I arrived back in the States with two Purple Hearts, two missing arms (got too close to a grenade blast during an ambush just outside of Kandahar), a nasty case of PTSD, and one dead Afghan sewer rat, the first thing I did was try to visit the raven-haired girl.

It didn’t take me long to figure out I’d been punked.

Punked hardcore.

See, turns out 124 Conch Street, Bikini Bottom is the address for fucking SpongeBob!

😡

Man, I still can’t believe I fell for that shit! Alack and cursèd be the day I was born!!

***

Six months after I was discharged, the raven-haired girl came to visit me at my home.

“Hi. I heard you were back from Afghanistan,” she said after Higginsworth, my muscle-bound butler, brought her into my parlor. Her face glistened with tears. “I’m sorry I tricked you. I was just having a little fun. I didn’t think you’d actually risk your life to become a soldier and go all the way to Afghanistan to get a sewer rat just to hook up with me. I…I hope you can forgive me. And maybe…maybe we could, like, still go out some time?”

“Sorry, dollface, but you’re a little late. I guess you didn’t hear. See, after I got back from Afghanistan and realized you’d tricked me, I decided to start a boyband. We’re called BOYZ ON FLEEK 4-EVAH. I’m the piano player. I play the piano with my head. The other member of the band is the dead sewer rat I brought back from Afghanistan to give you. He’s the drummer. He plays a motherfucking fifty-piece drum kit. Well, he doesn’t actually play it ’cause he’s dead as dogshit, but who cares? Him being dead didn’t stop us from signing a ten-million-dollar record contract with Sony BMG just last month.”

“You’re in BOYZ ON FLEEK 4-EVAH?” she asked, her mind completely blown. “You guys do that song ‘I Banged Like Ten Supermodels Today. What the Hell Did U Do Today, Nerd? I Bet You Shit Your Lime-Green Nerd-Pants and Then Cried Like a Tiny, Little Bitch!’”

“Yup, that’s us.”

“I love that song! You guys are like the hottest thing right now!”

“Yeah, I know. Hey, you know what? I’m actually sort of on my way out the door right now. See, we’re about to kick off the North American leg of our world tour. Sorry, but I’m gonna have to ask you to scram.”

The girl wept anew. “I’m sorry for how I treated you, unicycle boy. I love you! Please take me with you!”

“You had your chance, dummy. Higginsworth, please show this little trollop to the front door.”

Higginsworth grabbed the raven-haired girl by her arm, dragged her away.

I never saw her again.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.

Humph!

***

As you might well imagine, over the course of the next year, while I toured the world with my boyband, I nabbed more ass than a goddamn Chinese zoo! But after a while, the rockstar life began to wear on me, and I found myself longing to be a soldier again. So I reenlisted, and my superiors granted my request to be put back on active combat duty despite me no longer having arms. Fitted with custom-made boots that contained retractable spring-loaded blades in the soles—thereby allowing me to fight with my feet—I was shipped off to Iraq, where, within four months, I managed to get both my legs blown off.

After recovering from these horrible injuries for three months in a U.S. military hospital, I asked to be sent back to the warzone. Due to my exceptional record of valor and the great physical sacrifices I’d already made for my country, my request was immediately granted. This time they shipped me off to Syria and provided me with a high-tech combat wheelchair controlled using a mouth-operated joystick.

Not one month into my tour of duty in Syria, I rolled over a landmine, blew my torso and wheelchair to smithereens. Luckily, the medics got to my bodiless head in time to connect it to a newly developed, high-tech blood circulation/respiration system specifically designed to keep bodiless heads alive. So, reduced to nothing more than my head, I was sent back to the States to convalesce in a military hospital.

Do you think that getting physically reduced to a head kept barely alive on life support finally took the fight out of me?

Hell no, it didn’t, my tiny little sons!

After a few months, the Army granted my request go back into the fray. Perhaps you’re wondering what possible good could a head kept barely alive on life support do in a combat situation? Again, we must thank the wonders of modern medical science and the latest advances in military technology, as the Army custom-built a motorized, armored, weaponized unicycle for me designed with a sophisticated gyroscope system that kept the thing upright at all times so that I never had to worry about keeping balance myself. In order to ride it, my head was placed into a high-tech, armored, weaponized helmet that locked onto the seat. I controlled the uni with a mouth-operated joystick system integrated into the helmet. Let me tell you, that battle uni was friggin’ awesome, and when I rolled into motherfucking Somalia on the damn thing, I fucked some serious shit up for a while.

Unfortunately, not a month into my tour of Somalia, my sick uni and I were vaporized by a nasty roadside IED. With my head now gone, all that remained of me was, well, nothing. Nevertheless, the Army sent my nothing back home to the States to recover from its injuries.

So, now reduced to nothing, do you think I was finally ready to retire from military service?

Fuck no, I wasn’t, my tiny little daughters and nieces!

Again, and despite me being nothing but nothing, the Army granted my request to continue to serve my country as a soldier. As such, they put my nothing on a plane to friggin’ Liechtenstein of all places (unfortunately, the scenic, little Alpine microstate had been recently invaded by friggin’ Haiti of all countries).

Care to take a guess at what my nothing did to help fight those crazed, machete-wieldin’, Voodoo-hexin’ Haitians after my nothing arrived on the bloody, smoke-billowing battlefields of Liechtenstein?

It did nothing.

Because, unfortunately, when you’re nothing, all you can do is nothing.

As such, my superiors had no choice but to fly my nothing back to the States and give it an honorable medical discharge, which, if I’m going to be completely honest about it, was fine by me, as I was getting kinda bored with the soldier life by that time. What I really wanted to do was get my boyband back together, go on tour again, and get back to nabbin’ more ass than the goddamn Bubonic plague.

So as soon as I arrived back in the U.S., I tracked down my old drummer—i.e., the dead sewer rate from Afghanistan. Unfortunately, while I’d been away fighting baddies in exotic lands, he and the former drummer of WE BOYZ 4-LYFE (the boyband that played the festival where I met the raven-haired girl) started a new boyband called WE BOYZ NO MATTA WHUT, MY TINY LITTLE SON!

What did a boyband consisting of two drummers—one a dead sewer rat from Afghanistan, the other a dead sewer rat from Haiti—sound like? Well, as both members were deader than dried-out white dogshit, neither was capable of making any sort of sound at all, so that every one of their songs was nothing but three or four minutes of silence. Nevertheless, WE BOYZ NO MATTA WHUT, MY TINY LITTLE SON! was friggin’ huge, selling out dozens of stadiums and arenas all over the country during their first U.S. tour.

Anyhow, I begged the dead rats to let me join the band. I tried to tell them that their music was already nothing, so what harm could possibly come from adding my nothing to their nothing, right? But the rats wanted nothing to do with my nothing because, being deader than dirt, they were incapable of wanting or not wanting anything.

Then that smug, ungrateful, self-important, putting-on-airs, crooked, backstabbing dead Afghan sewer rat was all CRAW! SLAW. KRAW? SLAW! CRAW. SLAW? KLEET KLEET KLEEK CLEEK? m32hdsafd34saklfjdsklafjiojdsiofjdo73afjiowrjeq9fgirj390ghr392gnri9032gnr924n3g9r4n290gKdsanr8gn04fg0ri3nq2fi903emfi90jn34i9fnfg943jng904jn23g90ijn4230gj40235fhg93j0423jg5042j3g054tg54jt045jt90j45390t45902jt9045j5t9g04jt905j490tj4390jdnzsvnseyruiodanfnwue9rfn243nrgvn249ith892nghru94nhgu89rndsfjnkedwofgri9thj45hg542h3g9r4h239fg5rh4392gh594hjgi50w4jgio0r4jmf89ntu4m89thnr89wfhc8nrh43tf8mh4gh3g5hj3mt5j3890tj5490tj43yjjdtj92r3ut8943wjf9rhj329rhj39wfhr893hj9r8h3g89rh9grh89ghr89hgr894h3g89rhefmnwogrnweiognri90g90rewgi90rjgr4tg94gj9t4h3g895h48923gh4892ghr84h2g89h84325435432

THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END

In Defense of the Belt

It was the night John Woodman knocked out Kyle Bradbury in Las Vegas, a stunning head kick half way through the 2nd round. In Chicago the rain was lashing the pavement just as hard, pounding relentlessly on the grey, miserable streets of the town, and we ducked into Bobby’s bar to get dry. Taking off our soaked caps and plaid shirts we swiftly ordered a round of Guinness and dropped into a nearby booth recently vacated by a trendy young couple and proceeded to warm our bones.

“A round of shots, too, Bob!” I yelled. I was amped up and eager to talk.

The result of the fight had left me feeling angry and depressed. I had wanted Bradbury to win. Not just because I’d had money on him to do so, but because Bradbury was great. I believed in greatness, and I always wanted it to endure. He had been the champion for over seven years. I hated to see some things come to an end.

“I thought he had him in the 1st” Joe was saying, swivelling in his chair to hang his jacket on the back, rain dropping steadily and forming a small pool on the floor.

“Bullshit, had him in the first! Bradbury was in total control until that kick, had him beat all ends up on the ground.”

“It didn’t look that way to me” Stu said, leaning back as Bob set his drink down in front of him.

“Yeh well” I scowled, quickly downing my shot, “you weren’t watching properly, then.”

“Yeh.”

I sat staring blankly straight ahead for a second. “It was a hell of a knockout, though” I mused thoughtfully to no-one in particular. It really had been.

We got to talking hurriedly and excitably the way guys always do over sports, each one’s voice getting louder than the last. From over our shoulders, the doors swung open, letting in a blast of wind and rain and noise from the traffic on the street, shutting it all out just as swiftly as it let them in when they fell shut again with a tight, heavy clang.

It was really coming down out there. Four young women walked into the bar and looked for a place to sit. They were still perfectly dry under umbrellas, immaculate makeup and expensive macs. Their carefully crafted exteriors had been preserved. Ordering a bottle of expensive red wine, they sat in the only vacant booth left in the place, right next to ours.

“It’s such a shame we didn’t get to ride this morning. I had Bessie all ready to go. She’d looked tired these last few days. She’d even been off her hay.”

“What time is your writing class tomorrow, Jane?”

“Not until four-thirty. I think we’re going to go in a bit squiffy, Trent and I. You know, for the experience.” She began to giggle.

“That is so decadent of you” the one in the tight grey sweater squealed. They all began laughing and giving each other high fives.

We had been watching them the whole time, the title talk put annoyingly on hold. Joe, a guy who would fuck a puddle if he could, leaned into their table and pointed at me.

“You should talk to my friend here,” he winked. “He’s a writer. Just had his debut novel published last month.”

The four women, who had turned their perfect ponytails with a look of contemptuous dismissal at Joe, now turned with sudden intrigue to face me.

“Gosh” one of them exclaimed, the lead one, the one that was pretty only in a bland and generic sort of way. “Really?”

I was annoyed. I didn’t want to talk about writing. I wanted to talk about the god damned fight.

“Yeh” I replied, feigning politeness. I knew Joe was only using it as an excuse to talk to them with a view to joining their table and then seeing where luck would take him. I wasn’t remotely interested in any of them and looked back up at the screen above the bar that was showing interviews with both fighters. The place was too loud and crowded, though, and I couldn’t hear a thing.

“My name is Jane. This is Emma, Grace and Chelsea. Are you at the University, too? Which class did you take?”

“Class? I, no… I didn’t take any class” I replied distractedly, eyes turned to the screen.

“’Didn’t take a class’?” she repeated with a sort of condescending tone. “How on earth did you become a writer, then? Chelsea, have you heard this?” she scoffed disbelievingly, nudging her nearest friend.

Chelsea had heard, and was looking at me for the answer. Joe was still leaning forward expectantly, like some dumb mutt on heat. If ever a dog pissed against the wrong tree, he was it. Joe was the kind of guy that would roll the dice on any girl he met, figuring there was nothing to lose. But there was. There was always something to lose. He had no chance with women like these.

“Yeh come on” he begged desperately, “tell us how you learned to write.”

I squinted viciously at him and he slunk back in his chair. “Well” I huffed in mild irritation, my voice now strained as I turned back to these awful women, “I got beaten down low, lower than you can possibly imagine. Then I got kicked and beaten. Then I got kicked and whipped some more. Then I had a drink and thought about it for a while. Then I began to write.”

Stu laughed and sipped his drink. Joe looked perturbed; what was I doing??

The one called Grace looked at me with anything but. She was the ugliest one, for what it was worth. Quite big, too, with a cruel little slit for a mouth and ears that sat unevenly on her doughy head. Her mother must have named her ironically, I thought.

“Why do you think that qualifies you to be a writer? It makes you sound more like a bum.”

“Why do you pay thousands of dollars to be taught something nobody can teach?”

I hadn’t wanted an argument, but it was clear it was going to go that way. These women were crude morons with all the charm and grace of finding a hair in your food. They had an air of superiority about them I’d never liked in anyone and showed my friends unnecessary rudeness and disdain. I had seen their kind before. A bunch of spoilt, supercilious bitches who thought money was the answer to every question. I was in a bad mood already. I took another drink, warming nicely to the fight.

“Can’t teach?” Jane scoffed. “Why, of course you can! I got 67% last year on my creative writing module. This year I got 80%. So clearly something happened in between.”

I could hardly believe it. Had I heard it right? Did she really just say that?

“Of course something happened” I said, turning to face her properly now for the first time, my eyes boring into hers. The intensity of my gaze caused her to look away. “You wrote more in line with the rules and the guidelines set down by your teacher and the governing body”, I continued evenly. “That’s what happened. Like a seal that picked up a pen. Surely a girl like you is perceptive enough to realise that much at least?”

I grinned and took another sip. “Not to mention you pay them thousands to attend. They’re hardly going to fail you, are they?”

“Well if a sportsman didn’t have a coach he wouldn’t improve. It’s the same thing.” She was turtling up, getting defensive. She looked flustered and annoyed. Some stand and fight until they’re soaked in blood and there is no battle left to fight. Others don’t have the stomach for it and you can usually tell one from the other right away. These were people incubated in whatever passed for polite society. They had never struggled or been challenged in their lives. Nobody had ever told them ‘no’ or deigned to disagree with them. “It’s the same as anything else” she bleated haughtily.

“No, it isn’t” I snapped. “Writing isn’tthe same as anything else. Writing isn’t a sport. It’s a blood sport” I hissed dramatically, grandstanding now, toying with this soft, easy prey.

“You can’t be taught how to do it in a classroom any more than you can be taught how to rip a man to shreds with your teeth. Any more than you can be taught to eat his flesh and wash it down with wine. No great writer ever paid to learn his craft. You read a truckload of books, live fiercely, remain open and receptive to life and new ideas, then write violently with passion and fire in your gut. You read, you write, you mean it. That’s it. That’s all there is. No tricks, no workshops, no courses.”

Stu grinned and rolled his eyes. I was laying it on thick for sure.

“That’s a naïve point of view” she scoffed back, flailing now for a crutch. “The lecturers provide ideas, tips, structure and feedback…”

“Why aren’t they great writers, in that case?” I cut in. On the screen they were replaying the fight from the start. “If they’re teaching it then why have I never heard of them or seen their books on the shelves? Ernest Hemingway never taught a writing class in his life. Nor took one.”

“I disagree! I’m doing English and creative writing and the workshops are incredibly useful and give you tools to help you create much better stories.” She seemed indignant, petulant, pouting, like a child deprived the pony she had been promised for Christmas. She looked as though she might burst into tears at any second.

“It leads to generic stories, writing where everybody is taught to write in a similar way, according to ‘grades’ and ‘rules’. Whose rules? Writing is not mathematics. It is not a science. All anyone has to do is live, read and unleash their own voice. And either a person can do that or they can’t. I may be a good writer or an average one, but whichever it is I got there on my own, I didn’t pay someone to do it for me” I sneered with all the contempt and bile a person can hold. I loathed these people.

It was too easy. She didn’t have the heart for it. She wasn’t used to not getting her own way and had bitten off more than she could chew. My bad mood was lifting now, though I still couldn’t hear what the hell Bradbury was saying up there about the head kick. Had he seen it coming? Did he rate Woodman now? Did he want his belt back?

She sipped her wine, tried to gather herself and play it cool. “Writing takes practice and guidance like anything else. You wouldn’t become a world-famous sportsman without a coach and mentor, no matter how much you watched other people play. Also, the lecturers frequently have books or articles published. I can give you a list.”

“Spare yourself the trouble. The practice you talk of lies in reading incessantly and writing over and over again until you become good at it. Like I say, nobody taught Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald. Aren’t they generally considered to be some of the best writers of all time. Am I right? Similarly, writers who made a huge cultural impact, such as the Beats or Hunter Thompson, were not ‘coached’. It’s an art and you have to work hard at it. But like Henry Miller said, in the end you either have it or you don’t. I’m not trying to denigrate your course, talent or lecturers; I just can’t see how an original, passionate voice comes from being told how to write in a classroom or lecture hall. The key to any great art is passion and hard work, not ‘tools’ and rules and grades. It isn’t in knowing your allusion from your anthropomorphism or knowing when it’s ‘supposed’ to be used. Those are just terms one could get from a dictionary in any case. Knowing them and how to invoke them does not make a great writer, in my opinion. And if it does, it’s nothing one couldn’t pick up from reading a plethora of books and authors for themselves.”

“Then why do any degree at all?”

“Because you can be taught to be most things, almost everything in fact. But I don’t believe being a writer is one of them.” It was getting tedious now, and I wanted to bring it to an end.

“Some would argue you can’t be taught ruthless business savvy, or how to paint exceptionally well or how to get the best from people and manipulate them. Some people are naturally more talented than others but if you think critiquing and learning, and studying and analysing the way other people write and their process is a waste of time then please carry on.”

Her cheeks went red with rage at that point, and I knew I had her. Joe had long since given up and was talking to Stu about who would win in a rematch of the fight if it were to ever happen. I was eager to wrap this shit up and get back down to business with them. I ordered another round of shots in anticipation. Then I turned back to the girls who were finishing off the last of their wine.

“I didn’t say it was a waste of time. Nothing pertaining to literature that you love is ever a waste of time. I said one can’t become a great writer by taking a course. The history and list of great writers seems to bear that out.”

“Well there are students who took the course that have been published. Numerous times.”

Right! Numerous times. I only had one book out. Take that! She was getting better, I had to admit, like a blind kitten gamely pawing at a ball of wool. Maybe there was some fire in there after all. Maybe there was hope for her yet.

“I’m not talking about being published, neither the lecturers nor the students. Anyone in this day and age can be published. Anyone. I’m talking about being great. There are few if any great writers who took a writing course and there are few if any lecturers who are great writers themselves. That’s my point. That’s just a fact.”

She had begun pulling on her coat.

“Come on girls” she said to her motley clan of nouveau rich troglodytes, “I don’t know why we ever stopped in this horrid bar in the first place.”

“You’re welcome” I said, raising my glass as they prepared to head back out into the rain, their world views a little more rattled than before. They wouldn’t take it on board, though. People like that never do. They strode right past us in single file, not even looking as they left.

Fuck them, I thought victoriously. I turned back to face the screen.

That head kick landed flush again.

Bradbury went down in a heap.

There was a new champion in town.

You Think You Have It Bad

Let me just tell you…

Back in the day, leaving our house was a dangerous proposition. There were the snipers. In the bombed out remains of our neighborhood, even collecting the groceries became a life or death toss of the dice.

Running from my front door to the cover of the concrete carcass of the house next door, was an adrenaline rush. The shooters were not well-trained, just regular Joes, and Janes, so their aim was abysmal. The trick was not to run in a straight line, but to zig zag, throwing them off. Pop, pop, pop. Brick dust would spurt up like ghosts as bullets tested my footing on the rocks and debris. For many years my sniper was Mrs. Groom from three houses down. Paranoia and firearms make for poor friends. Her son was a soldier in the war and was killed early in the conflict, while out one night in the red light district. Blind drunk with friends, he realized too late, that the pleasurable sensations from the glory hole in the club were actually performed by a very professional St. Bernard, and stepping back in shock, he lost his balance and slammed his head on a urinal killing him instantly. The military gave him a full burial, with honors, and the boy left behind his mother, and a funny story. You have to laugh, don’t you?

The old bitch, Groom, tagged me in the leg once and it hurt like a bastard. My Mom slapped me across the face as I wailed in pain and told me to “act like Grandma.” That old piece of gristle fought in the war, while carrying a M16 in one hand and Granda’s testicles in the other. She said they brought her luck. Grandma was six foot five, missing two fingers from each hand from a polar bear attack, and she was known for her thunderous voice and what looked like an Adam’s apple

Once reaching cover, the next move was to the big oak tree. Loved that tree, with its truck like hard scaly leather. The oak was sacred. No one shot at the tree. The natural world was unexpectedly respected in all the rubble and it became a shelter in the grayness. As long at the squirrels were in a good mood. If not, you had to move like hot piss from razor sharp claws and gnawing dentures. The war changed them, man. It changed us all.

From the oak, I would sprint down Willow Street. Here the gangs let me know I had crossed into their territory by barking like dogs. The Shepherds were the loudest and the worst of the street gangs. In his late teens, my brother Daniel was caught on Merkin Street and had to fight one particularly flamboyantly dressed member of the gang. The two fought on all fours. If you stepped into the Shepherds’ territory, you fought by their rules. My brother got in a solid bite to a thigh, ripping away some flesh. He never did lose his taste for blood and spandex. We kept him in a cage when he acted up,  throwing prime rib and leotards at him to chill him the fuck down. The only reason he didn’t die that day was because of the bear. Just wandered into the scene, off territory, and tore my brother’s opponent in half like a white chocolate bar with a strawberry center. We legged it home while the big bastard was occupied with his crunchy feast. We played the odds every day.

The more violent gangs in the area slept late most days, so the odds of survival were on our side if we slipped through Willow, Merkin, or Mahone streets a little after dawn. In the quiet you could sometimes hear them snore, belch, and make love. The Shepherds eventually went co-ed when walking and sitting became a major drawback to instilling terror. Their women fought. The men stayed home making yogurt and quilting.

Next was Idiot Street, because only an idiot would attempt to use it. Problem was, my expedition time could be cut by 50%, shaving a roundabout journey by 60 minutes. Most people are idiots, so the street got a lot of foot traffic. All you had to do was leg-it faster than the bears. At any given time, 60 grizzly and polar bears staked out Idiot Street hoping to devour a slow runner, usually some poor bastard with shite cardio.

My father died on Idiot Street. Two mating bears on the second floor of a crumbling building that formally housed a music store which only sold records made by hard core Mormon boy rap band, Brigham Young Thugs (I know. One hit wonders,) upon seeing and hearing my father drunkenly stagger down the street, using every mammal insult known and unknown to man, pulled out from the other male bear he had mistakenly been injecting with his seed, and leapt from the building, landing squarely on my arse-hole father. The bear died instantly and messily, but my father lasted a couple of more days. Throughout (the family came down to have a gander), all he craved was more alcohol and the phone number of an obese 70s porn actress named Ezra Pounder.

I needed to get about 10 yards down Idiot Street where I would crossover into Mohel Terrace, where a cut through allowed me to avoid the crabs on Culchie Road. Although the crabs on Culchie Road were badly organized, and for the most part, never presented a challenge, they did learn to use knives. The core group splintered at some stage, and there emerged territorial factions, where gangs of crustaceans roamed hither and thither taking command of certain areas.  A smaller, liminal group, the Hard Shells dominated Mohel, but posed no real threat, as they were poorly coordinated and running while attempting to make the most of their knife wielding combat style was pathetic and quite embarrassing to watch. Besides, I could leap over their heads in one single bound.

The spiders on Amadan Street were the worst. So I didn’t mind adding an extra 5 minutes taking Geek Street where the only challenge was vaulting a seven foot gorge—created by a freak earthquake—-avoiding the intermittent bursts of flames shooting up from the depths below, and evading the large pink hands grabbing for anyone unlucky enough not to make the far side. No one knew the origin of the hands. Rumors abounded that he (the hand was male, I think) was the hand of God. The argument against of course was that why would the hand of God be coming from the depths of the earth surrounded by fire? Besides, I don’t think the hand of God would bite his fingernails.

Once over the gorge the last two streets loomed. The most dangerous, and most annoying challenge of the journey, was Narrative Street. After the war, clans of geometric shapes appeared across the city. The Scalenes were the most aggressive of the species. All those unequal angles and unequal sides could nick the skin like it was tissue paper. The Isosceles and Equilaterals, while dangerous, were easily distracted by mice or the smell of artisanal cheeses. The obtuse were as dumb as a box of turds. The males, though it was virtually impossible to distinguish the sexes, were the slowest cognitively speaking, and any efforts made on one’s part to contort into any general geometric shape, could easily confuse them.

Other shapes, the weirder ones and some of the most brutal outside of the Scalenes, formed their own societies. I never came in contact with the gons (you know, the pentagon, hexagon, or those vicious psychos, the decagon and nonagon, who made up the gang known as the Irregulars), but many veterans could tell stories scary enough to close your sphincter forever.

I make it sound like all these shapes were atavistic, but I have to say the circles, ellipses, and crescents, when encountered were just curved bundles of peace and love and always carried a smile.

The final hurdle before the grocery shop was the region known as the Deadly Floating Pages of the Damned. After the war destroyed all the best things in life and all around us in the city was rubble, the pages wafted up from the fallen buildings and floated on a hostile wind, randomly settling down by the docks near the grocery store. Hundreds of pages whipped around in unpredictable patterns. If I hit them at the right angle, I could race through the swarm, and throw caution to the wind–the wind direction was a major factor. Photocopying paper caused the deepest cuts. Toilet paper was harmless, as were the filo-pasty thin pages of those large literature anthologies we read before the war.  Regular books, though not as thick as the photocopying paper, could do some serious damage and inflict some severe scarification. I once got slashed by a high school copy of War and Peace. And even saw one poor bastard exiting the grocery store with a handful of cold cuts, decapitated by a page from See Spot Run. Blood spouted in gouts from the wound and his head fell backward like a Pez dispenser. We had free cold cuts that day.

There were always bodies of the fallen scattered around the docks and the grocery store, the newly dead and the nearly dead, abandoned on the streets.

The grocery store had limited supplies; very few merchants came through to restock the store. Once I was there, I filled up a plastic shopping bag with whatever we needed (milk, bread, wafer thin mints, some raw meat for the brother, a salt lick for mom, and a bag of chips for me). The trick was not to fill the bag, cos I still needed to be light on my feet. I had to go back all the way I came. This time up hill.

I remember those days with a vivid clarity, only tainted slightly by paranoid delusions. I can’t believe how lucky you kids are today. You have it so easy, but you still complain: “Life is hard,” “There’s bears and spiders and crabs chasing us,” “The store is too far away,” “I think my paper cut is infected.”

Pussies.