Dead Dog Day, Part 1

The leftover evidence of last night’s macabre massacre of debauchery was seemingly crawling furiously out to sea and with the same determination back on up onto the shore. There was no grace this afternoon, it was going to be a new vicious type of sodomy.

I was laying half on and half through the holes in my lounge chair, somewhat conscious but mostly unconscious. I had a field of vision somewhere between the angle of my sunglasses and my bucket hat, I was clutching a mostly finished bottle of rum, and I’d fallen into a worrisome self-induced atrophy, horrified by the thought of that barbecuing sun creeping around my sunglasses and shooting a powerfully concentrated beam of unshaded light into one of my eyes that would then manifest into a horrific chain of events leading to the eventuality which included my brain beginning to savagely slam itself into the sides of my skull like a hyena tripping balls in a small enclosure.

I cautiously began to raise my arm to plug the rum bottle into my mouth, moving almost robotically, careful not to move too abrasively, bringing on the inevitable beginnings of what could have been the worst hangover I’ve ever had. The plan was to get just enough rum into my system so I wouldn’t die when I attempted to move.

After recovering the ability to swing my head sluggishly from side to side, anxiety began to set in as everything I hoped didn’t happen actually did. There were bottles of every size shape and color, bodies strewn out prostrate all over the beach, hopefully still alive (I’d been getting heat about that lately), piñatas busted open coming in on the surf, still spewing out pills syringes and dildos of remarkable size, as such would require hospitalization immediately upon insertion. Party favors, wallets, purses, wigs, clothing, all sorts of luggage, an a small herd of donkeys painted up with foul slogans, butterflies and flowers, swastikas and peace symbols, and some very dangerous incantations from the Necronomicon. They were roaming the beach looking just as stunned as me.

I regained some motor skills and with that, fell straight through the already doomed lounge chair, its aluminum supports crushing and bending around me. I was fucking trapped without any cigarettes or hope for help from the preferably not but probably dead people on the beach. I started to feel some sensitivity in my body with the realization that I had vomited, pissed, and shit all over myself.

“FUCK ME!”

I had managed to squirm around a bit when I noticed my old faithful bag of angry rats to my right. They were pretty fucking angry, given the fact that they were now beginning to drown in the surf. I reached over and, using the bag of angry rats, for leverage I managed to pull myself from the clutches of that abyss of plastic, plaid, and aluminum.

Struggling to stand, I swung the rats over my shoulder. I felt like I wrestled a fucking bear and lost horribly. Looking back at my shack, I could see where this confrontation might have occurred. It had been completely leveled, a sort of wrath of god without prejudice type of leveled.

It was then that the bodies on the beach began to rise all around me, crippled, desultory, and thoroughly lobotomized, holding their heads in an attempt to stop their own brains from killing them. They were all damn lucky they hadn’t been decapitated or cannibalized; the island was full of headhunters and crazed experimental surgeons who had been expelled from their countries due to their bizarre, horrific, dark alley atrocities committed without consent or appreciation. They were always on the prowl for bodies, dead or alive, just so long as they could carry them off without attracting too much attention. We also had a black market where human organs of any value were tossed around, bought, sold, and packaged up to mail off to someone who would be having a very nice Christmas. It was like a butcher shop for exotic meats. For all I knew, it may have been our biggest export.

There were many ways to die on the island, hence the bag of angry rats I carried without falter, everywhere I went. Nobody is going to fuck around with someone fucked-up enough to walk around with a bag of angry rats, the intimidation factor is enough for anyone to steer clear and be on their way. I’ve only ever had to use it a few times, but my bag of angry rats had become the source of dark subterranean legends on the island. In all truth, it’s a disproportionate massacre. I’ve never seen a body being torn apart like that, shreds of skin and bone exploding out beyond any discernible radius, intestines strewn about the bars and streets, hanging from the rafters, tourists being killed off with shrapneled bits of skull and cartilage. Most people get kind of religious after seeing something like that.

I stumbled over to where my hovel had become a heap. It was a dump, I mean a REAL dump, seeing as how I had built the thing from materials FROM the actual dump, which in reality was only about a hundred feet away. I don’t know if that meant I’d been technically living IN the dump, but it didn’t matter anyway; I wasn’t going up to town to check the city plans at this fucking point.

I was still shitting myself as I made my way to the crime scene (the sort of Voodoo type of debauchery I’d been involved in had the unfortunate random side effect of incontinence), the beach pocked with grenade holes all up and down its shore. No doubt this had been Dem’s handiwork. Dem was our local demolitions expert, officially retired, but he sure loved to light up a party. He was infamously known for tossing sticks of homemade dynamite from our local watering hole, The Corpses Cantina, out into the street at passing tourists. I saw one get his fucking leg blown off once, but it was all good fun.

Setting down my bag of angry rats in the sand, I opened it up and and let them out for a little run. I usually feed them a little PCP at parties; it gives them a nice little bump and makes them particularly ferocious. And, based on how they went tearing down the beach, I’d wager I probably gave them a little bit extra the night before.

Gazing around with glassy eyes, it was then I discerned some unusual debris scattered about the catastrophe zone, splintered planks of wood and mangled machine parts strewn all along a deep rut carved into the sand. The distinct odor of burnt oil and gasoline hung in the air. Upon closer inspection, I found all the evidence I needed to convict the murderer of my shack. Someone had driven a bloody boat straight up onto the beach.

I didn’t have time to investigate much further before a furious blue bolt came down from the sky like a sledgehammer of the gods, exploding straight through my skull and into my brain. I had officially without a doubt begun what was most probably to be the worst hangover I’ve ever experienced in my whole fucking life. Death was on the table, self-induced or otherwise, dehydration levels were off the scale, and my brain was attacking me from within. Literally, psychologically and philosophically, I was working with the I.Q. of one the little monkeys that hang around town throwing their feces at tourists. I was legally retarded, I wouldn’t be making any educated decisions for days, and I would never actually fully recover. Other people shoot people like me out of “basic humane sympathy.” People here become government property, ushered off to Area 51 where they’re stuck into closets with decomposing aliens.

It was a “Dead Dog Day” as it goes, here on the island. I’ve never known the origin of that saying, but everybody seemed to have their own version. I’ve always envisioned a dog, too beaten and whipped in the unrelenting boiling hot sun to even crawl across the road, where a huge bucket of cool refreshing water awaits. Hours later, in total anguish and torment, the dog has made it a quarter of the way across the road when a huge truck comes speeding by, flattening the dog’s head and introducing its contents to the world at full velocity. The horrifying punchline to this specific version is that the dog doesn’t die; he just keeps squirming and cooking in the sun and on the searing hot concrete, still trying to make his way across the road, occasionally getting hit, his body a disintegrating atrocity. However strong his determination, he never makes it to the other side, but he never stops either.

I rummaged through all the sealed rubber bags I could find (always store your important shit in rubber bags; everything on the island always sinks at one point or another), looking for a pack of cigarettes and anything that I could summon up the ingenuity to make fire with. Having scored my booty, I plunked myself down on the engine casing of the wrecked boat nearby. As I sat smoking away, I shifted my weight a little and received a horribly acute stabbing sensation in my left testicle. Somehow keeping my balance as I almost lurched face-first into the sand from the pain, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a pair of boat keys.

“FUCK ME!”

On the island it was an unwritten, unspoken, semi-criminal but perfectly acceptable behavior to steal other people’s boats, and I was one of the more infamous abusers of the “let it slide” understanding that most of the islanders possessed, having to frequently steal each other’s boats themselves. Small children learned how to hotwire a boat before they could even kick a ball or throw a grenade. The interior of the island was thick with jungle and virtually untraversable, aside from a few side roads and a number of leftover WW2 mine fields, so you had to travel by water if you were going to get anywhere.

Back in the 1950’s, some rich expatriate hiding from what most people who end up here were hiding from commissioned the construction of a fleet of lifeboats to address the issue of transportation and to protect the islanders during the unpredictable but inevitable bi-annual sinking of the island. It still happened these days; twice a year, the whole fucking island would sink into the ocean on random dates. It would sink in a matter of chaotic horrifying hours, and half an hour later, the water would all drain right back into the ocean along with everything that wasn’t too heavy or tied down. This expatriate must have been in it thick, because shortly after arriving, he gathered up a bunch of his “men” and set them on an impossible titanic mission to go out and erase all evidence of the island’s location. Whether breaking into map stores or infiltrating secret libraries, he called them R.A.M.’s (Reassessing Agents of Maps) and sent them off to the four corners of the globe. I’d never seen the island on any map or heard of anyone who had, so they must have done their job. As for the wealthy expatriate, he died of syphilis four months after he arrived.

If I wasn’t to die today myself, I would have to gather a small but very specific bunch of supplies. First was some really dark spiced rum, a few bottles of which were already secured in an old nonfunctional chest freezer, one of the few possessions I had that was still standing. Secondly, a shit load of clonazepam and Tylenol 3s, the ones with the codeine. I should probably crush them down to a powder and take it in the nose, but I really wanted to avoid any superfluous extremes. I also needed dump trucks full of cigarettes and an adequate amount of fire making equipment. Finally, one or two “Fucking Fucked-up Fuckers”, an extra special cocktail that was only served at The Corpses Cantina. It started off with a 16 oz blood rare steak, the brains of a mostly extinct unmentionable animal that may or may not be on the endangered species list, a clusterfuck of hallucinogenic roots, mushrooms, and insects, and as far as the real truth goes, nobody really knows.

As it goes, I would have to message the cantina for my cocktails to be delivered, as I would never make it into town without a surprising newly evolved gift of super-flight or a splitting up of atoms Star Trek type of transportation device. We have a message service here called “The Monkey Chain”; for years the islanders had trained some of the smaller monkeys (the ones that throw feces at tourists in town) to perform all sorts of abominable tricks and tasks, some homicidal, some slightly crossing the lines of pedophilia, and they all knew how to use guns with expert marksmanship. “The Monkey Chain” was mail delivery system owned, operated, and governed by the monkeys themselves. All I had to do was whistle a particular tune, and a representative would come bouncing on by, picking up the parcel and whatever the going rate was that day, depending on the dangers to be traversed en route to destination and the size, weight, and legality of the object being shipped. But in general, most monkeys would just take whatever wad of crumpled up bills you threw at them.

The monkey came by as I was ineffectively attempting to create a sort of tent-like canopy thing. I had already made up a bed/coffin out of splintered boat planks, but I still needed that fucking sun off me. The monkey took the message and some cash for the cantina; I hustled him into accepting a handful of rusty 38 caliber bullets that had been soaked in salt water for months but still worked most of the time. The monkey sauntered off but not before chucking a little slimy chunk of feces in my face.

The entire empire of monkeys and other simian species on the island beat the human population 4 to 1, so this in itself demanded a great deal of acceptance and fearful respect. “MONKEYS THROW SHIT”; they’ve been throwing shit since before the dawn of man, who I suspect threw their own shit for a while along the evolutionary trail. It was something that you just had to expect; at some points during the day, every day, you’d have shit thrown at you and after a while the islanders just got used to it. It gets so that you hardly notice it, nobody complains, nobody cares; it’s like living next to a railroad and somehow adjusting your senses so that you never notice when the wretched trains scream by.

As it goes, about ten years ago, some of the more charismatic and abstract-thinking monkeys managed to get a book published in Sweden, where it was misguidedly  translated by those believing it to be a New Age Arabesque/Southern Caribbean language crossover of symbols and claw marks scratched into bark by Pigmies explaining the do’s and don’ts about dieting in the rain forest. The monkeys were rightfully pissed and tried to get it pulled from the shelves until they found out that it was a bestseller in some war-torn third-world countries and the money started coming in. The actual book wasn’t bad; it was called “The Deciphering and Literalizing of Different Styles and Forms of Feces Throwing in Accordance to the English Language.” Every piece of shit thrown means something, you see, and the monkeys did a hell of a job in the making of this book. Unfortunately, however, it was scratched into bark and completely illegible. I did catch some of the few nuances and a definite style emerging, but in all honesty, I really didn’t understand a word of it.

In the meantime, I had managed to rig up a minimalistic desultory type of shelter for my temporary hospitalization. The sail from the “borrowed” boat acted as a canopy held up by a mix-match of some precariously fashioned poles, ores, a hockey stick, three rifles, some rusted pipes, rope, and a lot of wiring and tape used in place of actual rope. The bed had evolved a little, in that it was now covered with life-jackets and dirty cloths. I’d even managed to fashion an easy to reach bedside table out of an old up-turned soft drink box. Everything was carefullly placed with the precise purpose of me not having to move anything but my arms; cigarettes, lighters and matches, books, writing materials, all my pills with a facility to crush them for nasal ingestion if it came to that, an extremely exorbitant amount of bottles full of rum, and still quite enough room for my cocktail delivery, which was scheduled to be arriving shortly.

I guzzled the “Fucking Fucked-up Fuckers” cocktail and lay back into my makeshift casket. Cigarette lit, pills taken, rum opened with book in hand and a feeling of slightly reduced velocity to my brain’s bouncing exercises, I managed to drift off after smoking a joint the sheer size and elegant rolling of which could have been presented to royalty. The dreams/nightmares that followed I couldn’t recall, but I woke screaming bloody murder, having no clue of who I was or how I managed to get into this person’s body.

As disorientation and self-loathing closed in on me once again, so too came in the relentless tides. Sitting up, clearing my eyes of sand, salt water and monkey shit, I saw standing before me  a petrified, shaking, gelatinously slatherhed shadow of one of my better friends in the realms of debauchery, Captain Edgar.

Captain Edgar wasn’t a captain at all; he couldn’t paddle, steer, start, swim or barely even get onto a boat out of fear and an acute sense of unbalance. Plain and simple, he liked to pretend he was a pirate. He had one of those black t-shirts with the Jolly Roger printed on it for every day of the weak, he had an eyepatch which he randomly wore over a different eye depending on his mood and the time of day, he carried a lightsaber that was hardly ever lit up due to the salt water getting into the batteries all the time, and he spoke in a dreamed-up version of what he thought pirates might sound like. For this, we really got on his case, so he localized speaking that way to the more touristy sections of town.

There he was, standing before me stark naked, shivering, crying and vomiting a little. The gelatinous goo he had been covered in was unfortunately the digestive fluid of one of the many giant carnivorous plants growing in and around the jungle. It was a surreal and arduous task to succeed in escaping its clutches on your own, and most people carried a grenade or two for this specific purpose or for any other tight situations that inevitably arise on the island.

I set Captain Edgar down gently like a mangy puppy I’d just kicked and felt bad about. He was speaking in tongues and obviously out of his mind, far beyond the everyday madness of his general persona. I wrapped a blanket over his shoulders, which was actually a louse-ridden tarp in the midst of disintegration that I had pulled out of the dump.

After filling him up on rum, pills, grass, and half a pack of cigarettes, his frenzied demeanor began to throttle down a bit, and decipherable words began to emerge from his quavering mouth. Disjointedly at first, but soon enough the words manifested into full sentences and I could see through his fiery bloodshot eyes into his shattered mind that he was beginning to realize where he was, who he was with, and under benevolent duress he slowly came to accept that these particular dimensional coordinates was the place he was supposed to be.

Here I was, half dead and trying to endure the kind of damage to my brain that only a few homicidal deranged Nazi surgeons could ever even conceive of, and I’ve got to workshop through whatever misadventures had come upon my cohort while in all likelihood his brain had already been covertly transplanted with a jellyfish.

Upon reaching semi-composure and constitution, with the pills and rum finally succeeding in carrying out their job, Captain Edgar’s ethereal self popped back inside of his mortal frame, no doubt with its own collection of tales of the macabre, but now with all extraterrestrial components of his personality back in place. He continued to speak, and I listened without any sympathetic or empathetic curiosity. I wanted him well enough to survive this day, but I wanted him the fuck gone.

He started out with the carnivorous plant story and I drifted away, having found myself in that particular situation many times before, as most if not all of the other islanders had at some point in time. I just couldn’t take another perpetually spinning broken record of an experience that everyone on the island had already fucking been through. He went on about some situation in town where some idiotic drunk tourist went off “old west style”, blasting his snubnose revolver and demanding to be compensated for a handful of worthless rusty bullets some monkey had sold him. I began to start nodding off, Edgar’s story turning into a kaleidoscope of bewildering sounds, until hearing that unmistakably worrisome word that indicates the inevitable incursion of law and order and white bread, a puritanical invasion into a surreal land where everyone is hiding from something, where there wasn’t a legal object, event, sexual exploit, book or other writings, paintings, substances of any sort, machines or items that at some point might be called machines anywhere on the island. The curtain was going to be opened and a destructive deviant wizard was going to pop out with vicious ambitions. There were guerrillas positioned all over the jungle, Voodoo cabarets, and whorehouses that allowed unspeakable and impossible incorporeal sex parties, some of which were affiliated with a few monkey unions who were trying to get their shitty little paws into everything as of late. Everybody had stashes of guns, drugs, and other antiquated munitions. We weren’t just talking about grenade launchers and dynamite, we had tanks, howitzers, functional missile silos with malfunctioning and mostly missing launch controls, cannibals and headhunters and anything and everything we didn’t want the Coast Guard to find.

I understood the politics of the island at the level of a retarded child in kindergarten, but I did know that there were very secretive, back alley cutthroat, end up disappeared or decapitated or both, kind of channels in place that kept certain organizations and sovereignties away.

Captain Edgar was looking pretty horrified, pointing his finger in the direction of the bay where a cruise ship had recently run aground. There were Coast Guard rescue boats everywhere, they even had a goddamn helicopter, and how the fuck didn’t I even see them? They’d been in clear site for the entire afternoon. This whole disastrous event, this exhibition on fire, the wolves are at the door with claws, laws, and a pair of keys.

A while ago I surmised that some of the more elite islanders, rich in physical wealth like property and precious metals, those that excel in the dirty playgrounds of commerce, those with an obscene amount of ammunition and massive murder machines that literally ate the ammunition and spat it back out, they were the ones who stood the most to lose. Their homicidal projectiles choose their own course, asses blasting off and velocity manifesting into a momentary consciousness within the metal itself; they know where they are going, homicidal projectiles choose their own course.

Anyway, I’m talking about “payoffs”; even an island such as ours needs an outside source of incoming cash, grass, and ass. The ocean liner company Oceanic Falls was the only cruise line that came to the island aside from the stray ships that get lost and end up in our bay, which was a very risky kind of bad news for them, due to the itchy trigger fingers perched on high ground. That said, we have not as of yet caused any international incidents.

Oceanic Falls was on the verge of bankruptcy. They had a small fleet of cruise ships all fucked up and sinking, hence the irony of its name. It was the cheapest vacation available with deep sub-level amenities such as the absence of seaworthy lifeboats, busted shitters replaced with buckets, food rations from WW2 served up on paper party plates and plastic forks, no plastic spoons or knives mind you, just the forks. The pumps rumbled viciously day and night to keep the boats afloat due to the lack of funds and personnel to actually fix the numerous holes in the hulls. The repair crews had left the company with advice from their union years ago. Duct tape and inept, unschooled, uncertified welders were the only things keeping the boats afloat, shit houses on the water with the stench of impending doom trailing in their wake.

So the deal was that Oceanic Falls was the only ship line that was permitted on the island. Oceanic Falls agreed not to disclose the whereabouts of the island or what unspeakable atrocities occurred there, and we wouldn’t report any possible infractions seen or heard about the condition of their boats. Unfortunately, this “deal” was based on the misguidedly tenuous belief that all would go as planned. The Coast Guard ship running ashore was never part of the plan, their presence wasn’t planned, and the gruesome manifesting consequences of this catastrophic event were most certainly not planned.

As it goes, asses are asses, and I’ve got to worry about my own. I’ve got a painted herd of donkeys that aren’t going anywhere, dangerously huge dildos, copious amounts of pills, other drugs that require syringes, and syringes, all erupting from probably once obscene pedophiliac-themed piñatas. I was concerned that, all pieced together, the evidence would point to a super-perverted mass abomination of animal rights and possible investigations into any solicitous activities concerning children. But who the hell was going to check out the dump? I mean, the stench and fumes this time of day were a biological hazard, and being the dump it was nicely tucked away at the far end of the beach, next to where the jungle began.

My thoughts turned back onto Captain Edgar, who was presently out in the surf, curled up in the fetal position next to one of the donkeys who seemed to have taken a liking to him. The donkey was licking his face and positioning himself to do some unmentionable things to my friend. As I dragged his ass back to my ramshackle abode, Captain Edgar began coughing up sea water as well as some horrifying truths about the previous night.

Pointing out at the mayhem still unfolding out in the bay, he meekly said, “WE crashed that boat.”

At the very same moment of Edgar’s confession, there came a stir behind us where the beach meets the trees. A man emerged in full-on jungle camouflage with all the bells and whistles, his face painted with tiger stripes, a helmet geared up with night vision, a menagerie of grenades representing every nation that had ever sold or smuggled arms pinned all over him, strapped with huge Desert Eagle side arms and carrying an M16 over one shoulder and an AK47 over the other. JESUS FUCK, he was a walking museum piece, a collective aberration sporting a piece of every modern war that had ever been fought anywhere.

It was Dem, of course, the third member of our viciously demented little crew and consensual contributor to most all of our unspeakable debaucherous behaviors, including but not limited to thefts, property damage and destruction, potential homicide (unproven), the blowing up of things arbitrarily, general crimes against humanity, and that unfortunate night with the cow and the parachute which we all felt really REALLY bad about.

“What do you guys remember about last night and this clusterfuck out in the bay?” Dem calmly asked, regarding our living corpses.

We all squatted in a circle like the chiefs of some warrior clan going over the strategical intricacies of some integral insurrection. FUCK, in all reality, we all fell into heaps onto whatever was flat and wouldn’t explode beneath us. Our conversation resembled apes trying to sign words the other apes didn’t know, an extravagant tableau of atrophy and self-abuse, completely unable to decipher the numbers that led to the equals sign.

It took a lot of time, pills, and rum, but we finally pieced together the most probable version of the prior night’s events. We figured that, by morning at least, we’d all be held up in some third-world jail. No passports, no money, no booze, and no chance of ever reaching the civilized world alive. I’d have to find someone to take care of my bag of angry rats.

***

Dead Dog Day, Part 1
Dead Dog Day, Part 2
Dead Dog Day, Part 3
Dead Dog Day, Part 4
Dead Dog Day, Part 5

The Cab

It’s seven a.m. The taxi I called an hour ago hasn’t shown yet. I call the cab company for the third time, and the dispatcher doesn’t have to say fuck off—I hear it in her Marlboro tone. My phone goes dead signaling she hung up.

I’m a college dropout. I work in a department store to pay my loans. Most days it’s either quit my job or commit suicide, and by sunset I’ve done neither. My ex-drunk boss tells me I have no work ethic. He isn’t wrong. If I’m late one more time I’m fired, he says. I hope he keeps his word. It just might save my life.

It’s cold outside. I walk to the Kwik-Mart. The sixty-something woman behind the register asks, “You’re still here?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“That cab ain’t come yet?”

“No.”

“That’s just wrong,” she says but does nothing more because there’s nothing to be done. She stands before a backdrop of cigarette cartons, their colors forming a mountainside at dawn. I’m sure she’s always wanted to live in the Ozarks.

The cab arrives, two stores down the strip.

“Careful out there,” she says.

I shuffle across salt and ice patches and get into a yellow Taurus. The driver’s tobacco-stained fingers curl around the steering wheel. Two pink eyes stare from the rearview.

“Where’re you going.”

I tell him.

“Don’t know where that is.”

I tell him.

We go.

And the cabdriver, who believes nothing should be free, that a man should work dammit, “The problem’s all the Mexicans,” he tells me.

We pass a construction site, white noise of jackhammers, pop of a nail gun, a crash then bang and the barely audible cipher of orders shouted in a foreign tongue.

“Never tip,” he says, “Mexicans never tip.”

He has a grandfather who fought in The War, probably a son or daughter stationed in some Middle Eastern country he can’t pronounce.

“Humans have been the same throughout time,” he tells me.

I sit quiet in the back seat. The driver tells me about the world. He drives slowly. Outside, a sunless overcast turns the sky the color of plowed snow. Monoliths of it rest melting in the grass by the sidewalk. Water forms glistening braids down the gutters. It’s ten minutes after the hour. I’m going to be late for work.

Anointed

I had been working the evening shift for the past month, and I’d just pulled my first double. I was tired, but needed a bite and something to drink. I stopped at Bronk’s Bar on East Allegheny Ave to get an eye opener, or in my case, a sleep aid. The bar also served breakfast. I needed something to eat. Eggs would go fine for dinner.

I was shocked to see Tommy Monaghan sitting at the bar with a shot in front of him. I had known Tommy most of my life. He was never a big drinking man. He was more the religious type. Always had been. Altar boy. Mother’s pride. He could fight, but rarely cursed. Attended mass most mornings before going to his job at Lucky’s Appliances.

So I asked him, “Tommy. What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at Nativity BVM?” Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a Catholic church in the heart of Port Richmond.

Tommy looked up from his drink with eyes red and drooping.

“Oh, Jimmy. It’s all changed.”

“What do you mean?”

I thought he meant the liturgy. I don’t go to church much, but when I do I like being able to go through the routine with my eyes closed. It’s jarring when the familiar words aren’t there, a new version of a prayer or ritual. It’s like when they edit scenes from a movie you watched in the past and show it on cable, the now forbidden lines or gestures removed and replaced with a scrubbed script. It’s just not the same.

“We’ve had a falling out. An argument.”

So it wasn’t the liturgy, I thought. His wife must have left him again.

“She’ll come back, Tommy. She always does.”

“It’s not Abigail. We’re doing fine. Patched up our differences. Renewed our vows. It’s God. We’ve had a falling out.”

“God?”

Maybe it was the liturgy after all. I asked to be sure.

“Did they change something again with the mass?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s much bigger.”

“What, are you an atheist now?”

“No. I could never be an atheist. It’s just that God and I are no longer on speaking terms.”

“How did this happen?” I asked.

Tommy downed his shot.

“It was a week ago. I was on my way to mass, you know, before catching the bus to work. I had this twitch, the kind you can’t resist, and let out a fart. I think nothing of it, then I hear the voice.”

“A voice?”

“Yeah, a voice. Loud and clear. ‘TOMMY. TOMMY MONAGHAN.’ I looked around but didn’t see anyone. Then I heard the voice again. ‘TOMMY MONAGHAN. I’VE BEEN WATCHING YOU.’ I looked around again but still didn’t see anyone.”

“What did you do?”

“I asked, ‘Who are you?’ And the voice said, ‘I AM YOUR LORD, YOUR GOD.’”

“You’re kidding me.”

“I am dead serious. The voice said it was God. It said, ‘YOU ARE A GOOD CATHOLIC. YOU SHOW YOUR LOVE AND DEVOTION FOR ME. THEREFORE I HAVE CHOSEN YOU TO BE MY PROPHET.’”

“Look,” I said, “even I know from parochial school that if a voice says it’s God, it may really be the devil.”

“I know. I know. But St. Thomas Aquinas also taught that if we hear a voice that says it’s God, we have to do what it says if we believe it is God. Or something like that. I can’t remember how Sister Hilda put it. Even so, I asked for proof. The voice showed me visions of my life, secret things, memories I have not shared with anyone.”

“So you believed?”

“I did. I believed and I listened. The voice said, ‘MY CHURCHES ARE EMPTY. MY PEOPLE DO NOT ATTEND MASS. YOU WILL CHANGE THAT.’ So I asked, ‘How can I do that? I am no preacher.’ And God said, ‘WITH THE GIFT I HAVE GIVEN YOU.”

“What gift, Tommy?”

Tommy looked at me with his red eyes, “Just let me finish telling the story. God said ‘THE GIFT YOU SHARED WITH THE WORLD BEFORE I SPOKE.’ So I think, what’s God talking about?”

“Go on,” I said.

“Just be quiet and listen,” Tommy chided me. “The voice said, ‘THE FART. I SHALL GIVE YOU ENDLESS FARTS. FARTS THAT SMELL SO BAD CROWDS WILL FLEE FROM YOU. NO PLACE WILL BE SAFE FROM THE SMELL, EXCEPT IN MY HOUSE. ONLY IN CHURCH SHALL THEY FIND REFUGE. YOU SHALL GO THROUGH THE WORLD RAISING A HOLY STENCH AND DRIVE MY SHEEP BACK TO ME.’”

“Is this like a new plague?” I asked, sniffing the air.

Tommy’s mouth gaped. “That’s just what I asked God. And you know what He said? ‘ONLY IF YOU TAKE IT THAT WAY.’”

“So, I asked God,” Tommy said, “What about me? Does this mean I will never be able to attend mass again? Surely my farts will follow me there and drive the people out?” And you know what God says? ‘THOU SHALT NOT FART IN CHURCH. IT IS ANATHEMA.’”

“Anathema?” I asked.

“It’s like forbidden,” Tommy explained. “Only more formal. You know. God talk. Something really not nice. Can I continue? I need to tell this to someone.”

“Go ahead, just let me order first.”

Tommy waited while the bartender listened to me ask for a shot and beer and a plate of eggs and bacon. When the bartender went back to the kitchen, Tommy resumed his story.

“So I asked God, ‘Do you mean my stench will turn off in church?’ And God says, real clear and emphatic…”

“Hold on,” I said between bites of bacon. “What does emphatic mean?”

Tommy’s brow wrinkled. “I think it means serious. Serious and loud. That’s how I heard it. So anyway, God says, ‘NO. YOU WILL HAVE TO LEARN TO CONTROL IT IN CHURCH.’ Can you believe it? Who can control that sort of thing? I mean, when it has to come out, it just comes out.”

I drank my beer and set the mug down. “Did you tell God?”, I asked.

“Of course I told him. I said, ‘That seems awfully hard.’ I told him farting is natural, uncontrollable at times. And a fart comes out so much easier when you are relaxed in prayer or mediation.”

“Or while exercising,” I added from experience.

Tommy nodded, then continued with his story.

“But God said, ‘THOU SHALT NOT FART IN CHURCH’. So I ask, ‘Why? I can’t understand it. Farting is common in church. After all, you are relaxed and you’re sitting in your own…’ God interrupted, ‘DON’T SAY IT,’ but I had to. You know how I am. Once I starting talking, I can’t stop until I get what I have to say out of my system.”

“P…”

“DON’T SAY IT.”

“..E..”

“DON’T SAY IT.”

“…W…”

“AARGH!”

“Then God went all fire and brimstone on me, burning bush, pillar of fire, the whole thing. He told me I was no longer his disciple and I was going to Hell. I suffered severe burns and was hospitalized for two days. So, now we’re not speaking anymore.”

“Sounds harsh,” I said, slurping down the last of my eggs.

“It is. It is so hard to be separated from someone you love. And I love God. I really do, but He can be such a jerk sometimes.”

“I hear you.”

“And no sense of humor.”

“Very little, it seems,” I agreed.

Tommy sighed, “I always thought there should be more jokes in the Bible.”

I agreed, and let out a big one. The bartender scowled and propped open the door.

Stray Dogs and Deuces Wild,
by Judge Santiago Burdon
130 pages

Horror Sleaze Trash proudly presents, Judge Santiago Burdon.

When I first read Burdon’s work I instinctively realised that here was a man who knew the score. That he was not a fake or dilettante. I could feel a bitter, hard-won experience that lay behind every line. These stories are both beautifully written and capture conclusively the humour, excitement, sadness and disappointment of a life lived on the edge. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

—Ian Copestick

Burdon presents a highly amusing collection of bohemian stories from the fringe. He finds literary pearls at the bottom of a dark ocean of smut and sin, propelling us into wild and unhinged terrain in a fashion similar to such luminaries as Charles Bukowski, William S. Burroughs, and Denis Johnson. Buy this book today!

—Matt Nagin

BUY A COPY HERE
(Review copies available upon request)

North Carolina 24/7 Self-Storage

They were eating subs in front of the TV in the main office. It was four in the morning and ninety-degrees outside. Lightning started to flash on the horizon.

“You gonna finish that?” asked Bob.

“Nah, take it,” said Darren.

“Guess what I got?” grinned Bob as he held up a DVD.

“No fucking way.”

“Two bombshell sisters cross the great USA in hopes of acting careers in Hollywood. Their huge, D-cup sized tits and full lips will set your body ab . . . will set your body ab-laze.

Watch them play together in the back seat, as they travel the country, one hitch-hiker at a time. . . What ya say?”

“I say we’re in for one hell of a ride.”

“Pussy, pussy, pussy.”

They put the DVD in but as Darren unbuckled his pants, he turned to look through the massive panel window.

“The fuck was that?” he said.

“What?”

“A clown just walked by.”

“What?”

“A clown just fucking walked by. One of those messed up ones, holding fucking balloons.”

They both looked out the window and Bob said, “Do we call the cops?”

Darren rolled the idea around in his head and said, “No. No, we should fuck back with him. Who the fuck does this guy think he is? Like those other assholes from the conservation park the other day.”

“My brother told me about that.”

“No, we should fuck this mother-fucker right up. Go get Mike’s lucky bat.”

“You get so much as a slut’s hair on that and Mike will bust you right through this goddamn window. His dead dad gave him that.”

“It don’t make a difference. I’m gonna sit here and watch the window and you’re gonna go and get the bat.”

Bob went into the backroom and took down the bat from its mantle. He hesitated with it in his hands because he knew how Mike felt about it and how Mike got when he was angry.

In the main room, they saw the killer clown again, totally in black and white, even its balloons. He gave out a wild laugh that they heard faintly through the glass. Bob and Darren looked at each other and then back at the killer clown as he disappeared behind another unit.

“You stay here,” said Darren. “I’m gonna go out the back and after five minutes you come out and start yellin’ that you called the cops.”

“Call the cops now. You can fuck with him while they get here.”

“No, we ain’t doing that. I want to bash this mother-fucker’s lights in and I can’t do that with the cops comin’.”

“Mike will fucking destroy you when he finds out you did it with his lucky bat.”

“Fuck Mike. Mike won’t do anything except thank me on TV for beating the shit out of this guy. This is what these fuckers do. This is what they do all the time. They sit in their day jobs like how you and I do at night, only they don’t jack off to chicks. They jack off to little kids and then they go out dressed like freaks and fuck with little kids. I’m gonna teach this freak a lesson and then the other freaks will know what’s comin’ to ‘em.”

“Fuck, man, just be quick. He comes ‘round one more time with those fucking balloons, I’m callin’.”

Darren went out the back and Bob watched Darren’s reflection go around the corner. He waited five minutes and then went out to stand in front of the office.

“We see you and we’ve called cops! The cops are on their way!” yelled Bob but nothing happened. “The cops have been called and they’re on their way!”

Then a new killer clown, one dressed in all colours, with a hideous grinning face, silently walked past Bob on his right before disappearing behind another unit.

Bob whipped around but there was no one else. Then Darren suddenly screamed and Bob heard a chainsaw come to life. Darren kept at it in high-pitched agony for some time and then stopped. Bob ran over to the more shadowed storage units on his left when he heard another wild but different laugh.

Bob’s mind visibly racing to figure out its next move, he decided to hop the barbed-wire fence and run straight through the open field to the highway. While in-progress though, he noticed his massive gut wouldn’t quite let him do it before his sleeve tore and his feet gave way, making him dangle like a fish.

Then he heard soft footsteps on the gravel.

“Who the fuck is that?” he whispered. “Leave me alone you bastard!”

“The fuck you doing up there, Bob?” said Mike.

“Mike! Oh Jesus, thank God! There are fucking killer clowns runnin’ ‘round the place tonight. I think they fucking did Darren in.”

“What?” Mike whispered.

“I think they –- uh God –- used a chainsaw to hack him to pieces!”

“Jesus Christ . . . and you’re here hopping the fence?”

“We gotta get outta here. I say we make a break for the interstate and hitchhike. We can call the cops with a driver’s cell.”

“I dunno. Doesn’t look like you can make it over the fence. Besides, it’s quiet now, can’t you tell?”

Bob, now listening again, became very afraid.

“Here. Let’s get you down first. Then, tell you what, we’ll sneak ‘round to the front and bolt from there.”

“Sure, yeah, that’s a good idea.”

“If we can, we’ll get back into the office and call from there.”

“Yeah, you can let us in.”

“Probably our safest bet.”

“What about Darren?”

“What about Darren? Thought you said he was dead.”

Bob nodded and together they crept back to the front of the property. Mike looked around the corner and then signalled to Bob to push forward. Mike kept looking around slowly and calmly while Bob’s eyes darted in all directions, ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. When they re-entered the main office, Bob remembered the bat.

“I didn’t touch the bat.”

Mike slowly turned around to look at him.

“I didn’t wanna do it. Darren kept telling me to get it and I kept telling him to leave it the fuck alone.”

“It’s fine, Bob. Wait here while I make the call.” Then walking into the backroom, Mike said, “Don’t forget to lock the door,” and tossed to Bob the keys.

Bob violently nodded and hurried to locked the main office door before waiting for Mike in front of the massive panel window. As he surveyed the rows of storage units, he looked over to his right and figured that’s where Darren’s body was now lying in hacked up pieces. Then it thundered directly overheard even though there was still no sign of rain.

“It’s done. Now we wait.”

Bob jumped as Mike walked back over to join him.

After a while, Bob said, “What ya think they wanted tonight?”

Mike didn’t respond right away but eventually said, “They say those guys just like to fuck around. . . I guess they figured you two were easy targets since there’s no one else on this side of town at night.”

“Sure there is. The lubricant factory down the road never stops for nothin’.”

“That they don’t, and they have cameras just like we do — so I guess I don’t know . . . Maybe they fucked with the guys down the street first.”

“We wouldda heard that.”

“Maybe that’s where they went now.”

Frightened again, Bob said “Do you think they’ll come back?”

“Doesn’t matter now. The cops are coming.”

“Right. Fuck what a night. I was just hoping to jack off and eat my supper.”

“Oh yeah, which DVD?”

Bob pointed to the one on the desk.

“Holy shit, I can’t believe you found that. Vintage.”

“Ol’ lucky Davie’s box.”

“The guy on the south end, the one with the —-”

“Cuban cigars, yeah,” and they laughed.

“Why you would ever mouth fuck one of those things, I dunno.”

“It’s true, so true,” and then they were quiet again.

Bob went back to looking out the window and waiting for the ring that would tell them the cops were there. His mood changed and secretly he started hoping that the killer clowns would show up again.

“Where ya think they came up with this shit?”

“The clowns or the DVD?”

“Those freaks.”

“Probably in their dreams, where they wait for little kids.”

“That’s what Darren said,” said Bob surprised.

“Oh yeah? Well I say he probably was right.”

The phone rang and Mike went to answer it. Relief hit Bob and now he felt sorry for Darren. Then he wondered what cops did with leftover bodies like that.

Mike came back and said, “Time to go.”

“Good.”

“You gonna quit now after this?”

“Nah, was like winning the fucking lottery.”

They laughed and Mike said, “Yeah, I fucking guess so.”

Mike stepped out of the main office and held the door for Bob who happily walked down the steps and waited for Mike to lockup at the bottom. As he turned around, he saw killer clowns silently coming at him from the behind the units on all sides. Each one with a different look. Each one with a different weapon.

At first, too stunned to speak, all he eventually managed to say was, “Mike, get back inside.”

Then he ran back up the stairs until halfway when he noticed Mike grinning down at him.

“The cops ain’t comin’, Bobby.”

Bob, now slowly walking backwards, said, “No?”

Mike shrugged, and said, “No. They told me they didn’t think you two pisspots were worth their time. Rightly so. They’re cops, man. They don’t have time running around saving guys too fat to jump fences. They have little kids to worry about.”

As Mike slowly walked down the stairs, he pushed Bob into the centre of a ring. Then with one hand Mike put on his own killer clown mask but kept his other still behind his back. Bob started to whimper and moan.

“Now what did I tell you two fuckers about my touching my lucky bat?” asked Mike and for the briefest of moments Bob had hope.

“Your dead dad gave it you; I remember.”

“That’s right.”

RealSim

What would you do if you could do whatever you wanted without any repercussions? I can tell you what I’d do. Last week I told off my boss.

Called him a bitch-faced cocksucker who can suck the shit straight from my asshole. He never wrote me up. Never called HR. Nobody was going to fire me. The week before that, I brought a twelve gauge into the local bar and just shot the shit out of everybody there. Not because I didn’t like them. Not because I was angry. Just because I wanted to see what would happen if I did. And it thrilled the hell out of me, turning my local drinking establishment into a level of Grand Theft Auto. We’ve all done that before. Hit the save button in a game and then just went full psycho killer. Only now, RealSim let us do it when and where we lived.

The realism of it all… it was off the fucking charts.

This week, I didn’t know. Maybe I’d steal that shiny Camaro with the big red racing stripes from the local dealership and watch the cops try to catch me in the rearview. Or maybe rob a bank. Or maybe just take a dump right in the middle of Main Street while giving the finger to passing traffic. I could do whatever the fuck I wanted.

Ain’t technology amazing?

I sat at my desk, took a long pull of beer, plugged the VR remote into the base of my neck, and leaned back. The menu came up and I perused what pre-generated options they had to offer:

RealSim

Settings: Local / Single Player / Private

Select a curated adventure:

Play quarterback for your High School Football Team

Solve a local murder mystery

Parade for you as a returning War Hero

Hunt velicoraptors is your own backyard

Compete for Homecoming King/Queen

Everyone else is a Zombie!

Walk the runway as a fashion model

Drag race through downtown

Free play

RealSim Entertainment Unlimited. All rights reserved. Copyright 2021. Scheduled maintenance 20211026-20211027.

This week, I thought I’d take off the training wheels. I clicked on Free Play.

A flicker. Hardly noticeable. Nothing around me changed. That was how great RealSim was. You hardly noticed when you went in. You couldn’t tell the difference. When I told my boss to press his wrinkled dried up lips around my pulsing asshole, the look on his face was exactly as I imagined it would be. No pixels. No lag. Nothing that would suggest you weren’t actually doing what you were doing in real life. Only you log out, and everything goes back to normal. You’re at your desk, you’ve worked out your frustrations and fantasies, and no one’s hurt. RealSim was totally anonymous. Your boss or your bank or your church couldn’t see what you did. Couldn’t hold you accountable. You just did your thing, got the demons out, logged off and went to work on Monday morning happy, productive, and sober. That movie, The Purge? This was what that was supposed to be.

Coming down the stairs, I threw my bottle of beer against the fridge and watched it shatter and foam. Then I grabbed the bottle of Canadian Club from our liquor cabinet, spun off the cap, and let it spin like a top on the kitchen floor. What did I care? My wife, Anna, wouldn’t have to pick it up. I loved her. I’d never do anything like this in real life, but this was all a game, and god damn if it fun wasn’t to act out.

I burnt the tires of our Hyundai Sonata as I backed out of the garage. I had to turn off the traction control before I could get the tires to slip. That’s how real RealSim was. Attention to detail. That’s what real sold the experience. I downed a quarter of the bottle of whiskey (it burned just like for real) before I put our shitbox four banger in D and peeled out of our neighborhood. Drinking and driving was child’s play compared to drinking while driving.

Maybe I’d knock off the liquor store for some good whiskey. Or maybe I would steal that Camaro after all. Maybe stop off at Bed Bath and Beyond. I didn’t know if there’d be time. I laughed to myself.

I parked the Sonata sideways on the middle of Sixth Street in front of Bulldog’s Bar and Grill. Cars swerved. Brakes screamed. People honked. I gave them all the finger and strode into the bar like a fucking boss. I wanted some good whiskey and maybe some random social interactions. Sure, I could go off on some weird adventure. But sometimes, I was just a man who enjoyed the simpler things in life.

On my way in, Brett Thompson stopped me. Familiar faces were all a part of the fun. After all, what was the point of taking a piss on your church’s front altar if you couldn’t see the look on your pastor’s face when you did it? Anyway, Brett was a local jerkoff father of a friend of my son’s. He stopped me as I came in the bar, held me by the shoulders, looked me dead in the eyes, and pointed a finger straight at my nose. “Your son can’t box out to save his life. And it will be a cold day in hell before he’ll ever hit a three.”

That was oddly specific. I mean, Brett was a douche and RealSim didn’t pull punches on the dickishness of other people. That way it was as satisfying as you imagine it to be when you told them off, but god damn!

It was just RealSim challenging me. I had to step up. Had to play the game. “Hey, Brett! Your wife is a fucking hippopotamus! Sit and spin, buddy!” I called after him, but he was already out the door. I laughed because I got the last laugh, and then pushed my way deeper into the bar.

Bulldog’s was busy for a Sunday night, but that was cool. The more people the better. The next local jerk that had something to say about my son, I’d have some burns ready to unleash. Mentally, I prepped a good one for every parent on the A Team Boy’s Traveling B-ball team. Who was I kidding? I’d been saving these gems up for months!

Pushing through the local slobs and suckers, my vision tightened and focused on one table in the middle of the crowd. Natalie DuPree was sitting all by herself, sipping on a pinkish drink through a cocktail straw, and throwing the crowd one long sideways glance. Natalie and Mark had been married for, I didn’t know, fifteen or so years. And Mark was one of my closest friends. Never, ever in real life would I dream of creeping on his woman, but had I never envied his life? His wife? His ever so slightly higher salary? Money was one thing. The look in his wife’s eyes… I mean, I was only a man and this was only a game. And she had a killer butt.

I snaked up to the bar, grabbed a bartender by the shirt sleeve as she passed and told her, didn’t ask, “Full bottle of Glenfiddich. No glass.”

If the bartender ever looked at me, I didn’t notice. My eyes stayed on my friend’s wife. The bartender said, “Two hundred dollars, asshole,” and I slapped down my credit card on the bar. It wasn’t like this was going to show up on my bank statement after I logged off. When I heard the bottle thunk against the wood, I abandoned the credit card and carried off the full bottle of top-shelf scotch.

Natalie finally saw me coming her way. I had one chance to get this right. I cracked the cap, spun it with the meat of my palm, and didn’t look to see if it did that cool-ass spin-like-a-top landing on the bar floor. I watched her eyes follow it, and knew I’d pulled it off. I sat down at her table. She stirred her drink with that plastic straw and did this aloof thing with her eyes that told me everything I needed to know. Even though this was just a game, even though I knew I was really just at my computer desk, rocking a semi and a cheap plastic-bottle-whiskey buzz, my heart was still thumping. The realism man… I never could get over it.

We looked eye to eye. She melted me like I was back in middle school, crushing on the cute girl I knew I could never have. No way, no how, never would this happen in real life. She was out of my league and anyway, I’d never actually mess with my best friend’s wife. That shit was purely off limits. Even the idea of it here, in RealSim, where nothing mattered and everything would be forgotten the moment I logged off, still gave me hesitation. But with the hesitation came the thrill.

I smiled. “Hey, Nat. Do you… uh… Do you want to fuck?”

She let out a laugh from deep in her throat. A knowing, inevitable laugh. Then she looked up from her drink and said, “Uh, yeah. Where do you want to do it? Right here on the table?”

Shit, RealSim! These were some off-the-wall scenarios! But god damn if I wasn’t down for it. Or at least the idea of it. But on the table in the middle of the bar? Jesus!

“How about the bathroom?” I said. “I’ll make you scream and we’ll make the whole bar jealous.”

She didn’t say yes. Just said, “I am so fucking wet right now,” and took me by the hand. We left her pink drink with the straw and my bottle of scotch behind.

The bathroom was a wood paneled room with a toilet, a sink, and a paper towel dispenser. We locked ourselves inside and got right to work. When we were done screaming each others names at the ceiling tiles and I was done dribbling out onto her leg, she collapsed back against the wood paneling.

She exhaled, “Whew! That was a good one. Fucking aye, this thing just keeps getting better.”

“What thing?” I said, pulling up my pants, feeling a little ashamed of my behavior, and itching for that log off button on the implant at the base of my spine.

Natalie ignored my question, reached for her own neck and said, “RealSim, log off.”

“What?” I mumbled. This… This wasn’t in the script. Nobody in RealSim was supposed to use the word RealSim. Even in multiplayer mode, it was a major faux pas to use the word RealSim. Took people out of the immersion to say RealSim out loud.

Wait. Holy fuck. I was in single player mode, right?

“RealSim, settings,” I said and touched my own implant. The settings appeared before my vision.

RealSim

Settings: Local / Single Player / Private

RealSim Entertainment Unlimited. All rights reserved. Copyright 2021. Scheduled maintenance 20211026-20211027.

“Oh thank fucking Christ,” I said.

“Why did you say that?” Natalie said. The look on her face was sheer panic.

“Say what?”

“What you just said. You said ‘RealSim, settings.’ Why would you…” she reached for the back of her neck again. “RealSim, log off.”

“You’re not supposed to say…” I touched my implant again. “RealSim, log off.”

Nothing.

Natalie was saying “RealSim, log off. RealSim, menu. RealSim, log off.”

Nothing.

There we were, crammed in a one-stall bar bathroom, both of us repeating the same shit over and over again, as frantic and energetic as we’d screamed each others names just moments before. We weren’t quiet. Hadn’t been quiet before. Why be quiet now?

Eventually, Natalie said, “Fuck this,” and made the decision to leave the bathroom. One peak out the door changed her mind. She slammed us inside and pinned her back against the door.

“Everybody’s looking,” she said. “Oh my god. My kid’s math teacher is out there. Karen from across the street is out there. They all heard us. They saw us go in here together. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck meeeeeeeee.”

That wouldn’t help. That’s how this whole problem started. Only, it wasn’t a real problem. Couldn’t be. This was some… some new scenario. A part of the game. It had to be. Cause if it wasn’t… I drove here drunk. I parked the family sedan in the middle of the street. I cheated on Anna with my best friend’s wife, and Brett really thought my son couldn’t play basketball.

I laughed. “This is just part of the game. This is just some…”

The glare Natalie threw me cut off my words.

“RealSim, menu,” I said and gave it a good look for the first time since I left my desk.

RealSim

Settings: Local / Single Player / Private

Select a curated adventure:

Play quarterback for your High School Football Team

Solve a local murder mystery

Parade for you as a returning War Hero

Hunt velicoraptors is your own backyard

Compete for Homecoming King/Queen

Everyone else is a Zombie!

Walk the runway as a fashion model

Drag race through downtown

Free play

RealSim Entertainment Unlimited. All rights reserved. Copyright 2021. Scheduled maintenance 20211026-20211027.

“Scheduled…” I read the words and let them fumble out of my mouth. “Scheduled maintenance? What is that supposed to mean?”

“This never happened,” Natalie said and left the bathroom. A quick opening and slamming of the door and I was all by myself.

Those numbers that followed those words. 20211026-20211027. What the hell did that mean? 2021 10 26. The year. The month. The date. It was October 26th, 2021. The system was down for scheduled maintenance. Everything I’d seen and said and done… it was all real. I never logged on. Neither had Natalie. Neither had anybody else. None of this was any simulation at all.

“Oh fuck. Natalie!” I called after her, still buckling my belt and zipping my fly as I plowed into the bar crowd.

They were laughing. Some of them cheered and clapped. The familiar faces were pissed off, ashamed, wouldn’t look my way. I was either a joke or a degenerate to the whole bar. Natalie too. She hadn’t left the bar just yet, but was standing near the front door looking back at me. Her face crushed me. When we did what we did, she hadn’t realized we were offline either. Never wanted this to be anything other than a private fantasy no one would ever know about. And now this.

When Brett came back into the bar with an AR15 at the ready and his work tie wrapped around his head like a bandana, it was almost a relief. Then I realized why he looked so eager and happy.

“I got a lot of problems with you people,” Brett called out across the bar. “And now you’re going to hear about ‘em! Say hello to my little friend!”

Oh god, he was going to kill us. We were going to die to the tune of an asshole spouting off movie quotes.

Only it wasn’t the last thing I heard. After all the screams and pleas were silenced, after the gunshots had echoed and reverberated into silence, Brett walked through the bodies until he got to me. I coughed up blood. Gurgled red froth. Called out for Natalie. She didn’t respond. Brett straddled over me with his AR15. He pressed the hot barrell against my forehead and said, “You’re kid is B Team at best. Tell him to follow his shots. Like this.”

RealSim

Settings: Local / Single Player / Private

Select a curated adventure:

Play quarterback for your High School Football Team

Solve a local murder mystery

Parade for you as a returning War Hero

Hunt velicoraptors is your own backyard

Compete for Homecoming King/Queen

Everyone else is a Zombie!

Walk the runway as a fashion model

Drag race through downtown

Free play

RealSim Entertainment Unlimited. All rights reserved. Copyright 2021. System online.

Shudder

Jim put his hand on Delia’s knee just as they drove past the “NEVADA 25 miles” sign.

“Stop it,” she said.

“Why?” he asked. “We are almost there. Besides, what I want isn’t illegal in California.”

“What I want, is. Are. You know what I mean. And slow down. I really, really don’t want us to get pulled over today.”

Jim let up on the gas a bit. “Here. 65, exactly. I can’t wait, hon. I wish I could floor it.”

Delia smiled at him. “Me, too. That’s why I don’t want to start, not yet.” Her smile widened into an evil grin. “’Cause I know you, and I know me…”

“I can hold it if I try…”

“You can hold it any time. Look, it’s the weekend, we are almost there, and I know exactly what I want and how I want it, and – “ she slapped his knee for emphasis “– timing –” slap “–is–” slap “–everything!” She squeezed his knee. “So hold your horses!” She giggled. “Or… whatever.”

The drove in silence for a bit. “I can control myself, you know,” Jim muttered. “Look, 65 on the dot, didn’t budge. “ He caressed her thigh, pushing the dress up. “Look, can you see it? That’s the 20 miles to Nevada sign. Practically there.” He caressed her thigh in circles, ending further up each time. “Aha – just as I thought! No underwear, and – shoot, you are hotter than I am!”

She did not answer for a time. Jim took that as a yes. Certainly felt like a yes, where his right hand was at. His left was on the wheel, his eyes on the road and the speedometer. And, occasionally, on Delia. Hers were on him, mostly. Her hands were, too, shortly.

“So you think you can control yourself, huh?” Her voice was lower, out of breath, her cadence catching and starting as the syllables came like pops from a popcorn popper. “I’ll make it… difficult. I mean hard. I mean hard AND difficult…”

Jim felt the buzz of his zipper going down, then her hands tugging, then her mouth. It took some concentration to curl only the left toe, and not the one pushing the gas pedal, and even more to move only his right hand in the welling wetness and keep his left steady on the steering wheel. He checked his speed again as they passed a speed trap; 65, right on. They could not search a car in California if it obeyed traffic rules, unless they observed illegal activity in it; and, seatbelts being securely fastened, what they were doing was legal in California.

Concentrating on driving was a great way to control himself, Jim thought. Delia had no such trouble and, as they passed the 10 mile marker, shuddered into another orgasm. Third, Jim thought. Third. This gave him an idea. He let go of the wheel for a second and downshifted with his left hand. Delia had to arch her back to let the lever move back an inch, but as the engine revved higher and the drivetrain began to vibrate, her shudder, too, rose in pitch.

“Oh, Jim,” she moaned around a mouthful of Jim, or possibly “God, Jim,” all he was sure of is that it was two syllables with a labial at the end, and with 10 miles to go he hoped to hell she would not say “floccinaucinihilipilification”, or even “Los Alamos”, as he wasn’t sure how many vowels he could handle before exploding.

The sight of another California Highway Patrol car parked on the median brought him back to reality. The cop followed them with his radar gun, probably wondering why a car doing exactly the speed limit was making so much noise. Jim thought that was one boring job. Unless the cop had a partner. A female partner. A pretty brunette female partner who, out of sight for now, was doing for the cop exactly –

Jim abandoned that line of thought in a hurry. There were still five miles to go. Numbers were good distractions, always had been. Speed, 65. RPM, 2900, high because of that downshift to D-3. Temperature, in the green. Gas, ¾ tank, plenty to get there and come back. Radio on 101.1, volume turned down to nothing. Delia. Delia was still there. Jim noticed that he was no longer moving his right hand, but Delia did not seem to mind. The occasional small shudders she gave were most pleasant for Jim but did not threaten the fragile status quo. Soon, he thought. And if he remembered correctly…

In the distance, the hot asphalt made a quivering mirror, the large “WELCOME TO NEVADA” sign visible as a hazy rectangle over a rippled reflection. Jim signaled a lane change and merged into the right lane. He allowed the car to drift closer to the shoulder until…

He timed it perfectly. His right wheels hit the rumble strip just as the sign became clearly visible. The car shook just as his fingers renewed their caress, and Delia responded wildly, shuddering to near-convulsions, moaning and gasping into his penis, and as his orgasm exploded first behind his eyes, the road disappearing into a flash before his semen, too, exploded into her mouth.

His vision cleared. The road was still there, in front of the car, the rumble fading as he corrected to the left, the dashes flowing smoothly past his fender. Delia raised her head, licking her lips, smiling. Her smile widened when she saw WELCOME TO NEVADA loom large in front of them. She pushed the lighter. Jim upshifted; the noise dropped, it felt like silence after the roar of overrevved motor, and in the silence Delia kissed his ear, whispering, “I love you, Jim.” He heard her purse zipper open, then its contents rustle as she searched inside. Then a crackle of cellophane. The lighter popped; Jim smelled cigarette smoke just as the back of the sign appeared in his rear view mirror, and heard Delia’s deep, slow sigh.

“Welcome to Nevada,” he said. Delia giggled, spilling smoke from her nostrils.

Pastor Nelson Grimes’ Surprise Reunion Show

‘Now Mr Kaveat – what would you like to be known as? Can I call you Sohrab?’ said the TV show assistant, moisturising her dry cracked hands, kneading them like dough. Sohrab nodded imperceptibly.

‘Have you seen the show? Are you familiar with the format?’

‘I’ve seen stuff like it,’ Sohrab snapped. ‘I’m not scared if that’s what you’re getting at. The fact is I’ve signed the contract, I’ve got my money and that’s why I’m here, but if you think I’m going to get all riled up and embarrass myself over some nonsense you’ve got another thing coming.’

Before the assistant could retort there was a crackling in her headset and she raced out of the green room that was slowly filling with other guests – the barbie dolls and their oversized breasts discussing carbs and UFOs, the mime artists pretending to be dead by the water fountain and the group of ballerinas stretching their legs on the jukebox that played The Doors.

Sohrab paid them no mind and instead stared at the ticking clock that hung above the litany of daytime TV awards – a giant cross graced the ceiling, a gold-plated confessional in the corner with a couple inside making out. The face of the host, Pastor Nelson Grimes was plastered on every wall. Sohrab’s upper lip curled in disdain as he noticed the Pastor’s neon teeth and the gold earrings, chunky as peanut M&Ms.

‘Sohrab you’re up,’ the assistant called, and then turned to boss a tangle of grips and interns. He manoeuvred his way through electrical equipment – lights, speakers, cables – and arrived at the side of stage where he was confronted by two bouncers.

‘This is Mog and Jit,’ said the assistant. The bouncers looked like out of shape marines, seven-foot-tall, wearing cheap linen suits with swollen ankles bulging out of their socks. Jit had a poppy badge pinned to his lapel.

‘They will make sure you leave the set in one piece.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ said Sohrab waving his hand as if swatting a fly, ‘I won’t be needing them.’

‘That’s what they all say,’ squeaked Mog, ‘but this show never disappoints.’

‘Can we just get on with it?’ Sohrab sighed.

Excitement began to ripple through the audience as the theme music for the show blasted through the hall.

‘You’re on in five,’ said the assistant counting him down, chewing gum in time.

‘Stay safe,’ bleated Jit, as Sohrab tripped on a cable, steadied himself, then eased onto the stage, receiving a warm applause.

He came face to face with the Pastor who stretched a disarming Gatsby-esque smile. The Pastor wore snakeskin loafers and a diamond encrusted cross dangled from his neck.

‘Welcome to the show, Sohrab. Let’s get right into why you’re here,’ the Pastor said, addressing camera two.

‘I believe I’m here for some kind of class reunion,’ Sohrab said, acting bored.

‘Yes indeed! Let’s bring out one of Sohrab’s old classmates!’

The audience went wild as the Pastor left the stage and placed himself amongst the crowd. A woman with swastikas tattooed on her face yet dressed in a conservative trouser suit, shuffled onto the stage and sat on the seat opposite Sohrab. He sat up in his chair and his leg began to fidget.

‘As you can see,’ the Pastor said, ‘this is no ordinary reunion. This is Athena. Sohrab, tell the audience, here and at home, what your connection to her is, please.’

‘We went to school together. Listen I know what you’re doing but…’

‘Let’s go to the VT because clearly Sohrab is dragging his heels and we only have a couple of minutes left for this segment.’

The lights lowered, a hush descended on the crowd and a film was screened at the back of the stage. There was a shot of a curved road, on a gentle gradient – trees lining each side, birds fluttering about on the concrete. There was a voice-over as the screen zoomed in portentously on the centre of the empty street.

‘Eighteen years ago, Sohrab’s little brother, Alessandro, was run over by a Chinese delivery moped sending shock waves through the local community. No one felt the death more keenly than Athena. Alessandro was particularly close to Athena’s mother as he volunteered at the local old people’s home where she lived. Blaming the Chinese in general for the loss, she became a neo-Nazi, messed up her face and became suicidal.’

The lights in the auditorium came on and every camera in the room focused in on Sohrab.

‘This is low,’ he said, feeling the heat of the lights. ‘Pretty damn low.’

‘Would you like to tell everyone what happened next, Sohrab?’ the pastor asked.

‘There’s nothing to tell. Are you really going to exploit the death of a young boy, who did no harm to anyone?’

‘I’m just delivering important stories to the masses. They’re hungry for the truth, for life, it’s as simple as that. Now are you going to tell the tale in your own words or do you want Athena to narrate?’

‘Go ahead, you won’t get a word out of me.’

‘Such a pretty face Athena,’ said the Pastor, ‘tell us, why did you destroy it?’

‘I loved Alessandro like a brother and when the Chinese killed him I wanted everyone to know how I felt about them.’

‘But, Athena, the Chinese didn’t kill him, a Chinese takeaway moped did.’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘Fascinating. Can you tell me more about what happened with Sohrab?’

‘Yes. About three years after Alessandro’s death, roughly fifteen years ago, I was feeling suicidal. It was all too much and I just wanted it all to end. Then I got an invitation to a school reunion. For some reason I felt I had to go. And I was right because I reconnected with Sohrab. He saw my face and sensed my pain. We spent the night together.’

Sohrab jumped out of his chair and shouted, ‘How could you?!’

Mog and Jit readied themselves.

‘Let’s go for a break,’ said the Pastor, ‘back in a minute people.’

‘Why are you doing this Athena?’ said Sohrab.

‘You saved my life, Sohrab. I wanted you to know.’

‘You could just have texted me, hit me up on Facebook, something.’

‘And we’re back,’ said the Pastor. ‘Now this isn’t really about a reunion is it Athena?’

‘No.’

‘Tell us why we’re here.’

‘Well, that night we were together we talked about just how much we missed Alessandro and Sohrab told me he could never bring another child into the world.’

‘Is this true Sohrab?’

Sohrab chewed on his cheek and remained silent.

‘Remember Sohrab, this is a safe place. I am a man of the cloth. Speak your truth.’

Sohrab shook his head, holding in his rage.

‘OK,’ said the Pastor, ‘we don’t have time for you to find it in yourself to be honest so let us move on to the real reason we’re all here. Ling please come and join us on the stage.’

A teenage girl, with numerous nose studs and stretched rings in her ears, stared at her big black boots as she dragged herself centre stage. The audience whooped and cheered.

‘Hello young lady,’ said the Pastor, ‘welcome. How are you?’

‘Fine,’ she mumbled.

‘So,’ the Pastor said, ‘can you tell the viewers who this is Athena?’

‘This is my daughter. She’s fifteen and Sohrab is her father.’

The audience exploded. Sohrab balled his fists.

‘Do you have anything to say Sohrab?’

‘It’s a lie, a damn lie.’

‘What do you say to that Ling?’

Ling shrugged and kept her head low.

‘Athena, Ling is a Chinese name but she doesn’t look Chinese at all and as far as I’m aware you hate those people. Please explain.’

‘Well, Pastor, to be honest, I lied earlier. I don’t blame the Chinese for Alessandro’s death. Not anymore anyway. When Ling was born I wanted to make changes. So, I called her a foreign name to make amends and put my racist ways in the past. It felt like a natural tribute.’

‘If Ling is Sohrab’s daughter why are you only telling him now?’

‘Well he said he never wanted a child. I was scared. But as she’s grown, she’s become troubled, and I believe that now she needs a father’s guidance.’

‘Sohrab?’ the Pastor said, ‘any thoughts?’

Sohrab leaned forward, pointed at Ling and said, ‘That girl has nothing to do with me.’

The Pastor said, ‘Oh come on! Look at the bright blue eyes, the angled chin, the Lenin nose. Lord help me it’s obvious you’re related! Luckily, we don’t have to rely on your word. No, we have science on our side. Remember the blood we took before the show? Well now we can reveal the results of the paternity test.’

‘Paternity test?’ Sohrab cried, then burrowed his head in his hands. ‘You said it was a flu jab.’

‘Why would a chat show give flu jabs!’ the Pastor snorted. ‘You really are in another world aren’t you, my friend?’

The lights dimmed and began to sway across the stage as suspenseful music filled the studio. In the shadows, Sohrab began to pace up and down across the platform, plunging his hands in his pockets, until he stopped in his tracks, centre stage, and stared into the audience, as if hypnotised.

‘He’s gonna do a runner,’ Mog warned.

‘Nah he’s gonna punch the mother,’ Jit countered.

Either way the bouncers sat on the steps leading up to the stage and prepared to pounce.  The Pastor waved a large golden envelope in his free hand. He peeled it open dramatically and smacked his lips.

‘It’s positive! Sohrab is the father!’

Everyone leapt to their feet and lost their minds. As the crowd erupted Sohrab began to fall into a fit of giggles. As the audience settled down the Pastor addressed Sohrab, saying, ‘What’s so funny? I think we’d all like to know.’

‘This, all of this. It’s just one big joke.’

‘I’m afraid not Sohrab, this is as serious as life and death. Now, don’t you want to get to know your daughter? It’s about time don’t you think? We have four minutes. Ling why don’t you tell us about yourself?’

‘Um,’ Ling mumbled.

‘Do have any hobbies? Like tennis?’

‘I’m psychic.’

‘She is not psychic,’ Athena interrupted.

‘I am.’

‘Psychics!’ the Pastor said. ‘We love psychics on this show. Especially goth psychics.’

‘I’m not a goth. I’m just depressed.’

‘OK, fantastic. Tell me Ling are you feeling a presence from the other world at this moment?’

‘No not yet, but I know my fate and it was destiny for me to be here.’

‘Well everybody at the show feels the same way, Ling. Now shall we test your powers? Now let’s think, who can we talk to? I know! How about we contact Alessandro? Is that at all possible?’

‘That’s it,’ yelled Sohrab and feinted like a rugby player to attack Ling, dummying the bouncers, only to dart in the opposite direction and launch himself at the Pastor, toppling him to the ground like a bowling pin. The Pastor struggled – legs flailing, the seat of his trousers tearing, his silk underwear exposed. Before he knew it Sohrab was dragged off the Pastor by the bouncers and they flopped on top of him like two sacks of potatoes. Sohrab struggled for a minute but quickly realised he was trapped. The lights dimmed and the sound of footsteps could be heard pattering out of the auditorium.

‘Thanks boys,’ said the Pastor, his snakeskin loafers in Sohrab’s line of vision. ‘Good work Sohrab, you were perfect. Remember life’s great pageant has no intrinsic meaning. One must give birth to the meaning. Yes?’

‘How can you say that?’ Sohrab said incredulously. ‘You’re a Pastor.’

The Pastor shrugged and gazed at his bulbous gold signet ring.

‘Anyway,’ the Pastor said, ‘death’s a preacher. And sometimes a redeemer, it’s just how you angle it. Goodbye, Sohrab.’

Then the Pastor and his torn five-thousand-dollar suit merged with the crowd and disappeared into the foyer. Sohrab wrestled for freedom again but the bouncers didn’t budge – their layers of undulating flab restraining him. A few minutes passed and Mog sighed, ‘Do we need this, Jit? I don’t need this. I don’t need this at all.’

‘I stay for the chicks, to be honest,’ said Jit.

‘You can let me go now,’ said Sohrab, wheezing from the pressure on his diaphragm. ‘I repent.’

‘So,’ said Mog, ‘you gonna do the right thing by that child? Be a good father, now you know the truth?’

‘I’ve been missing from her life for so long, what difference does it matter now?’

‘That girl is hurting,’ Jit said, ‘she needs you now more than ever.’

‘I told myself I’d never get close to anyone after Alessandro died. When I had that night with Athena fifteen years ago it was what I needed and it really meant something to me. But she disappeared soon after and now I know she’s been lying to me all this time. I don’t owe anyone anything.’

‘No, you don’t,’ said Mog, ‘but you could do something great today. Not many people have that opportunity. Children are like tender flowers; they need to be cherished and cultivated. Here, let me shift the weight of my belly off your neck.’

Mog and Jit rolled off Sohrab and he stretched and groaned. The assistant joined the men and said, ‘Great show Sohrab, would you like a quick drink in the green room before you go?’

‘Sure. Goodbye lads,’ Sohrab said, shaking the bouncers’ hands. ‘Thank you.’

Mog winked. Jit wiped something that could have been a tear from his eye.

Sohrab traced his way back stage into the green room where there was a mob gabbing about this, that and the other. Sohrab seated himself beside a ventriloquist with a stuffed giraffe on one side and a Buddhist nun counting beads on the other. Sohrab wanted out and was just about to split but then noticed Athena seated opposite having a quiet conversation with an old man carrying a canary in a cage and Ling sitting a few places over sipping a glass of lime spritzer as a woman in a poncho read her tarot cards.

Sohrab picked up a salted cashew nut from a bowl and flicked it into her drink. Ling smiled. Sohrab smiled back.  And then the moment passed. Ling returned her gaze to the tarot as the woman laid a death card symbol on the table. The room seemed to suddenly swim into a crescendo of chatter. But next thing Ling knew Sohrab had placed himself right by her side. The roomed drained of people as another show began. Athena looked on with a smile as Sohrab analysed Ling’s tattoo on her wrist.

‘What is it?’ said Sohrab.

‘It’s a funnel web spider. The deadliest in the world,’ replied Ling.

‘Lovely,’ said Sohrab said whimsically, ‘just lovely. What say you and I get each other’s name tattooed on our knuckles and then we can go for a real drink?’

‘I’d like that,’ said Ling, ‘I’d like that very much.’