Terrence Underhill Before the Tsunami

“It’s there,” Jessica said, not quite looking at it. She rifled through my purse, pulled out a half-empty roll of breath mints, and toyed with the ragged edge of wax paper. The acid in my stomach churned. She dropped the mints back in the bag without taking one and stared out the passenger window. 

The Eureka Inn waited for us at the end of the street, hulking and squat, a beast with its scabrous back pressed up against the low, grey clouds. Beyond that was the sea, leaden as the sky. The tide was far out and the traffic-like drone of the surf was muffled by distance. I’d never seen it that low.

The Eureka Inn had 103 rooms, but every window was dark. All but one. 

Dan was standing outside the front doors, his fists pushed down hard in the front pocket of his hoodie. His feet were uneasy as he watched us come up the drive.

“You ready?” He asked when we were close enough. When Jessica laughed she sounded like she was choking.

“No,” I told him. He nodded once, like I’d said yes, and wiped his mouth with the back of hand, not quite looking at us. After a long minute, Jessica pushed past him.

“Fine, let’s go,” she said. She moved with purpose, head down, shoulders forward. Inside, the faded carpet smelled musty and the walls were nicotine stained. Ronald Reagan grinned down from above the grand fireplace, but there was no one else in the lobby to greet us. Jessica made it all the way to the lift doors before she stalled.

“Let’s have a drink first,” she said, spinning back around. 

“Okay,” I said before Dan could object.

Kate was behind the bar, her hair parted neatly down the middle and coiled up into two tiny buns like cat ears. She frowned.

“Double Clan McGregor,” Jessica said. Kate poured it with a look of disgust. 

“Can I just have a glass of water?” Dan asked, sounding sorry enough for all of us. Jessica swallowed noisily. 

“Vodka.” I told Kate. She poured a meager draught into a smudged glass, no ice, no lemon, no nothing. I drank it anyway, not quite looking at her.

Jessica called for another round. Kate poured her a single this time.

“That’s enough,” she said, putting the bottle away and glaring around at us.

“Let’s go,” Dan urged. Jessica ignored him and sipped her scotch. 

“We have to,” he whispered.

“We will,” I said, wanting him to shut up. 

“They’ll be pissed,” he said.

“You really know how to ruin a drink,” Jessica muttered, swallowing the last of her scotch. “All right, let’s go.”

I thought about letting them go on ahead. I’ll be right up, I could say. I could sip the last of my warm well vodka, then saunter out of the Palm Lounge like I couldn’t feel Kate’s disapproval burning through my back. I could slip right out the front door. I could run. I had an almost full tank of gas and a hundred bucks hidden under the front seat. I could get pretty far on that. Far enough anyway. 

Jessica was staring at me. I could tell from how she was looking she knew what I was thinking. “I’ll be right up,” I said.

“Finish your drink.” When her voice got low like that it meant she was getting ready to throw a punch. They had her kid in a room up at Joe’s place. There was no running for her.

Kate was staring at me. So was Dan. He got this coiled up look when he was getting ready for a fight, like a snake in a tight corner. 

“All right,” I said, the resistance draining out of me. It’s like when someone too big takes a swing at you, or when you crash a car. You can see the impact coming and you know it’s going to be bad, but there’s nothing you can do. You get really calm on the inside and you tell yourself this is going to hurt, but you’ll probably live. You try to get ready for it, even though you know when it hits, you won’t be ready at all. 

Jessica put her arm around my shoulders. It might have been to keep me from bolting, but I don’t think so. We’d fucked everything up together. Now we had to clean up the mess together. More than anything I wished I had a little crank. I could get through anything when I was geared up.

Our footsteps were muffled by the threadbare carpet, then the soft woosh of the lift doors. We all stared down at the floor. Dan was the first one out and set a quick pace down the hall. But once we were there, we huddled outside room 44, trying not to hear the sounds on the other side of the door. This isn’t real, I thought. 

Jake opened the door. It wasn’t just the smell; the air in the room was warm and moist. It had a terrible intimacy about it. Most of Terry was sprawled on a blue tarp between two twin beds. He was still wearing the Elvis costume he’d had on when we killed him, except the white jumpsuit was soiled with troubling stains. 

Jake went back to the frying pan he had over a camp stove set up on the bureau. He pointed to the awful red meat sizzling in the pan. 

“You’re welcome,” he said. Ginny held out three forks.

“You better get started,” she said. “It’s going to be a long night.” 

When I looked down at the fork in my hand it looked far away, as if my neck had grown taller. This isn’t real, I told myself. You’ll probably survive. 

Outside a siren began to sound, a loud, long wail that didn’t quit. 

“What the hell is that?” Jake said, looking out the window.

Hidden Tabs

“They’re ‘un abomination, Andy. A god damn abomination,” his brother Joe said. They were sitting outside drinking their cans of Lone Star by the fire pit. Joe’s wife Jill helped Andy’s wife Tricia put the kids to bed and clean up after their crawdad boil. 

“Yeah, if any one of them she males tries to come near me with a hidden dick. I swear I’ll kill ‘em,” Andy says and takes another swig of his beer as if to bring home the point. His brother, satisfied with the answer, sits back in the lawn chair, his salmon-pink short-sleeved angler’s splaying open on each side of a notable beer belly.

Ding!

Andy’s phone lights up with a social media notification. @hotgrrrll694eva has sent you a message. Intrigued, he flicks his finger across the screen and unlocks with face id. 

“Just had to say…you’re so sexy. I love a guy who hunts. Wouldn’t mind being your prey in my bed tonight.”

Andy’s face flushes and he looks over at Joe who is just mindlessly staring up at the stars, an uneven Winnie the Pooh grin settled on his face. He should just delete it. He hovers his thumb over the message to do just that, then instead decides to click on the profile.

A bleach blonde with gigantic fake boobs and the most gorgeous slender face he’d ever seen. Just his type, a little sleazy but coquettish, heavy on the makeup. The complete opposite of his wife Tricia, plain, mousy brunette, small boobs and a shapeless rail, aside from the kangaroo pooch leftover after kids. They’d dated since high school, and he kept her around since. Although, he always had the strongest inclination that he could do better. This latest message was just additional reinforcement.

He continues to scan her photos and thinks it’s a shame he isn’t alone right now. He scrolls back up to her bio, the first time he even thinks to look. A secondary concern. There he sees:

Lola Jane 

🏳️‍🌈 | trans | she/her

His stomach drops for half a second. Not in disgust. Just in that sharp, electric way you feel when you realize you’ve stepped somewhere you swore you never would. Maybe a little fear. 

He glances over at Joe again. Joe’s still staring at the stars, scratching his belly and looking like he might fall asleep in the chair, his arm dangling off the side of the chair, the beer can precariously dangling from between his thumb and index finger. 

Andy scrolls back through the photos again. The pictures don’t change, the trans woman’s body doesn’t but the electricity in his does.

He swallows.

Ding!

Another message.

“Don’t get shy on me now, hunter.”

His thumb hovers again. You should block her. He types instead.

“How’d you find me?”

Three dots appear almost instantly. He feels a cold stone in his stomach that contrasts with the hot spark in his frontal cortex. 

“You pop up in my feed a lot. You like what I post,” Lola responds.

His throat tightens. Confusion takes over the excitement. He doesn’t remember liking anything.

But maybe he did. Maybe late at night. Maybe drunk. Maybe half asleep.

He switches apps. Opens his browser. Incognito mode. Types in words he knows by muscle memory now. Words he never says out loud. Words he clears from history before he closes the tab. 

The images flood the screen. His pulse kicks up. Back to the message. He sees the three dots appear again. Then her message flashes again on his phone.

“You into girls like me?” she types.

He stares at the fire pit, at the coals collapsing inward.

Before his brain even knows what his fingers are doing, “Maybe,” he types.

Joe laughs at something in his own head. Andy angles the phone away from him and waits. He sees Joe looking at his phone now, “Oh, look at this. This dude’s launching bottle rockets out of his mouth. HOLY SHIT! Shit’s hilarious!”

Andy holds back a sigh of relief and chuckles, “Oh, yeah, reminds me of Fourth of July this year when Dallas launched them out of his butthole.”

“Ha! Yeah, that was funny as hell. We should start our own Ticky-Tock if it weren’t for the Chinese watching us,” his brother responded. Andy didn’t want to point out that his brother was watching the very app that was potentially spying on him. He wants to get back to his conversation. He’s itching to get back to it.

“What’s maybe? Are you scared?” she had replied.

He feels that little rush. That stupid boyish one he hasn’t felt since high school, before Tricia, before the mortgage, before crawdad boils and matching Christmas pajamas, even before whiskey girls (what he is supposed to like) and smoky bars and men being men (the way he was supposed to be). When there was Shawn. 

“I ain’t scared,” he types.

“Prove it.”

His breath comes shallow now.

“What you want?”

“A picture.”

He hesitates.

He hasn’t done that before. Not really. Not with someone real.

“You first,” he writes.

A pause.

Then an image loads.

She’s on a bed. He? Red lace. Hair spilling over one eye. Perfect lighting like a damn magazine shoot. Too perfect maybe. But he doesn’t linger there. He zooms in. His mouth goes dry.

“Your turn,” she writes.

He looks at Joe again.

Joe’s humming some country song under his breath.

Andy stands up.

“Gonna take a leak,” he mutters.

He walks around the side of the house. The yard dark, cicadas whining in the trees. He leans against the siding and unbuttons his jeans. Snaps a quick photo. Not artistic. Not posed. Just enough.

He stares at it.

You’re not that kind of man.

He sends it anyway.

The three dots appear immediately.

“Soooo much better than I imagined.”

His chest expands at that.

“You trust me?” she writes.

He doesn’t answer. Instead, she does.

“Tuesday. 11:42 PM. You searched ‘motel trans fantasy rural.’”

The blood drains from his face.

He didn’t tell her that. He never told anyone that.

He types slow now.

“What the fuck? How the hell you know that?”

“Don’t get nervous,” she replies. “I pay attention.”

A breeze lifts the edge of his shirt. He suddenly feels watched. Like the dark itself has eyes. The cicadas feel louder in his ears. His breath hitches painfully in his lungs.

He goes back to the browser. Checks his history.

It’s empty. Of course it is. Incognito.

Ding!

“You look good,” she writes. “But I want more.”

He’s breath is hot, his head feels ready to explode. “No, I want to know how you know what the fuck I’m looking at. Who are you?” he types.

“I want to see you how you really are.”

His stomach flips.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know.”

He stares at that for a long time.

The house behind him is quiet now. Kids asleep. Tricia probably done rinsing dishes at the sink, sitting on the couch now drinking Moscato with Jill bitching about their husbands and talking about the next gymnastics meet for the girls.

“You ever wonder?” she writes.

He does.

He always has.

Late nights when the house is still. When he scrolls through profiles he’d spit on in daylight. When the shame burns but the curiosity burns hotter. 

“I ain’t like that,” he types.

Three dots.

“Then prove it.”

Another image comes through.

This one closer. More intimate. But something’s off. The background repeats faintly at the edges. Like the wallpaper loops wrong. Like it was stitched together. 

He ignores it.

“What you want me to do?” he writes.

“Put something on,” she replies. “Let me see.”

He almost laughs.

“You’re crazy. I’m done with this shit. BYE!”

“Are you scared?”

That word again.

He isn’t scared. 

“Hey man, Jill and I better get on outta here. Gotta go meet a guy who wants to buy my trailer tomorrow. You good?”

“Yeah man, cool, sounds good.” He walks back inside and he and Tricia say their goodbyes. The living room dark. Joe and Jill gone. Tricia looks at him, “You coming to bed?”

“Yeah, babe. In a sec. Be right there,” she gives him a skeptical look. “Promise,” he says and lifts up his pinky finger giving her the sly good-ol’-boy look that always charms her.

“Alright, see ya up there,” she says and walks up the stairs. 

He moves quietly to the laundry room. He knows where her things are.

He shouldn’t do this.

But he does.

He grabs a blouse. Soft blue. Smells like detergent and something faintly floral.

His hands shake as he pulls it over his head. It hangs wrong on him. Tight at the shoulders. Loose at the waist. He stares at himself in the mirror hanging on the back of the laundry room door.

There’s something in his eyes he doesn’t recognize.

He takes the picture.

Deletes it.

Takes another.

Sends it.

The dots appear instantly.

“Beautiful,” she writes.

He exhales, long and slow. Then:

“Go out like that,” she types.

His heart stutters.

“What?”

“To the bar. Tomorrow. I’ll be there.”

His first instinct is to laugh it off. But the idea lodges itself in him like a splinter. All night he dreams in flashes. Red lace. Neon signs. Then nightmares: Joe’s face twisted in confusion.

The next evening he drinks before he leaves. Two beers. Then a third. The blouse again. This time a pair of Tricia’s jeans. Too tight. He shoves his boots on anyway.

In the mirror he looks ridiculous. He feels exposed. He doesn’t recognize his face. Not only that he used Tricia’s makeup doing his best to emulate what she does and settling on a YouTube tutorial. Tricia was going to a Colleen Hoover book club, his kids were at the grandparents, he told her he’d just take it easy at home and watch the game. 

His phone buzzes as he steps outside the car in the bar parking lot. “The Klamshell” glowing neon above the door of the dive.

Andy no longer feels like he’s controlling his own body any more. He’s not commanding this ship any more. He thinks about getting back into the car and driving himself to the nearest state mental hospital. But, his logical Andy brain is completely dissociated from this new persona.

“I see you,” Lola writes.

He freezes.

The street is empty.

“You’re brave,” she writes.

The bar’s neon sign hums like it’s telling him, “Yes, over here sweetie.

Inside it smells like beer and grease and sweat.

Conversation dies the second he walks in. His brother Joe is at the pool table.

Joe turns.

The silence is a living thing now.

“Andy?” Joe says.

His name sounds wrong in his mouth.

Someone coughs. Then laughs. Not kindly.

Joe comes over, his startled expression gives way to a furrowed-brow and pursed lips. He sounds out of breath when he says again, “Ah-Andy. Wh-what’s going on? Does Tricia know you-you’re here?” He then smiles hesitantly, “Wait, is this a fucked up joke?” He looks at his buddies giving them an it’s-okay-guys nod.

“I’m not Andy, I’m Angela,”

Joe’s face shifts from confusion to something harder.

“You sick son of a—” another man behind Joe’s shoulder comes forward.

The first punch knocks him sideways.

The second splits his lip.

Boots. Fists. Shouting.

He curls in on himself but they keep coming. He hears Joe at first, but then the tornado of denim and cowboys boots crunching in his face and crushing his ribs takes over.

He tastes blood. Metal. Dirt.

Somewhere in the chaos his phone skitters across the floor.

The last thing he hears before everything goes dark is someone saying, “Abomination.”

***

When he wakes up, everything hurts. Fluorescent hospital lights buzz overhead. His jaw is wired. One eye swollen shut. Tricia isn’t there. Joe isn’t either.

There’s a phone on the tray table. It’s not his.

He reaches for it slowly. One notification displays. The phone opens to his face id.

From: Lola Jane
Subject: Welcome Home.

His vision swims but he opens it. Inside is a list.

Username.
Password.
Backup codes.
Recovery email changed.

“All yours,” the message says.

He scrolls down. There’s one more line.

“You wanted to know who I am.”

He sucks in a breath. His ribs scream.

Another message appears.

“It’s you.”

He opens the social media app.

The profile loads.

Lola Jane.

🏳️‍🌈 | trans | she/her

No new posts.

No new messages.

Just waiting.

His reflection in the dark screen looks unfamiliar. Bruised. Split. Lips swollen and red.

He types with clumsy fingers.

He changes the profile picture.

Uploads the one from the laundry room.

He edits the bio.

Deletes everything except:

she/her

He sets the account to public.

Then he closes his eyes.

And doesn’t switch back.

Bestiality

The first time I saw myself on video I got a hard on.  I don’t remember the girl’s name, but I remember what her blood smelled like as she died.

It started out innocently enough.  I took her to a rundown motel and paid her fifty bucks to let my partner videotape her.  I told her to strip and bent her over the dresser, entering her. She moaned softly and I couldn’t tell if she was enjoying it.  I pushed my fingers into her hair, stroking the pale mane gently. “Do you like it when I fuck you?” I murmured against her ear.  She only bit her lip and closed her eyes.

I lowered my head and kissed her shoulder, and the sensuous taste of her skin caused my animal instinct to take over.  The girl’s eyes fluttered open and she let out a startled gasp as I curled my fingers tightly around her hair and pulled her head sharply back.  “Oh god,” she whispered, her voice trembling once she realized I had her small frame pinned completely against the dresser.  I smiled at the thought of what I was about to do to her, and a low laugh escaped my lips.  

“God?” I replied, “No darling.  God has forsaken you.”  She struggled in vain, whimpering, and tears stained her cheeks.  Her pitiful cries soon turned into screams as I sank my fingers into her back, clawing at the flesh savagely.  The camera zoomed in on her mouth, opened wide in terror, and her head slammed into the streaked mirror over and over again as I hammered myself violently inside her.  I growled in lust and hunger, and my mouthful of sharp teeth sliced into her delicate skin.  I lapped up the blood that poured from her wounds and brought my hand up to her breast, my eyes glinting in the poor light as I smiled slyly into the camera.  

When I came, the intensity of release brought forth a guttural raging howl and I closed my eyes until the feeling passed and I became myself again.  I climbed off the corpse and staggered to the bathroom, turning the shower on.  As I left, I made sure to reach into her purse and retrieve the fifty before closing the door, leaving the carnage behind.

There are others like me, men that possess an agonizing thirst for the blood of women.  They look like everybody else, but their daydreams are haunted with pornographic images of women, naked and exposed, covered in blood.  And when they make love to their wives, they often silently wish for piercing screams of anguish, only climaxing at the thought of that certain intoxicating look all women get when tortured.  The look is more beautiful when you finally tear them to shreds. 

To our kind, mutilation and sex are forever intertwined.  It has been so since the dawn of creation.  We don’t struggle with the question of it.  We don’t fight to suppress it.  And we no longer reel against the idea of it.  We simply kill.  You read about us in the paper sometimes, but often you’re not allowed the privilege of the details.  How, after the victim was raped, the entrails were torn out and feasted upon.  And always, a video camera and tripod remained, but never a tape.  

Knowing that there was a relic for each of our vicious acts comforted us.  We did this, so we could live on.  Even the men with badges were fearful to let the brutality of the crimes be known.  It’s likely that every night they tucked their children into bed and prayed desperately that tomorrow would be different.  So far, their prayers have fallen on deaf ears.

They don’t always walk into my traps willingly.  No, some of them have to be forced into it.  The last girl was difficult.  She put up a fight, by god, determined not to go down easily.  I had deep fingernail scratches on my face and torn clothing by the time I got her chained to the bed.  

Working alone this time, I set up the video camera myself before approaching her.  I rubbed my hand down her smooth white belly, and her mouth quivered when I reached her underwear.  I ripped them off, cruelly slapping her across the jaw as I revealed the fiery red pelt that matched her bright curls.  When I entered her, she cried, making desperate, futile attempts at negotiation.  

She pleaded incessantly with me, a river of tears streaming down her face.  I didn’t know whether she cried from the pain of me hurting her, or the torment of humiliation as she was made to submit, and I never really cared.  I violated her mercilessly and took pleasure in knowing what I was about to take from her.  

“Look at the camera baby,” I purred, laying my hand across her face and pressing to the right, so that she had no choice but to do what I asked.  The elusive primal urge that I had been waiting for finally took hold of me, and I yearned for blood.  

“Take a good hard look,” I leaned down and whispered through her screams.  “Because it’s the last thing you’re ever gonna see.”

I replay the tapes every now and again, watching myself with one unlucky wretch after another.  Its always the same; only the girls change.  The film is grainy and the colors are monochromatic.  The sound, you can barely make out.  They never say anything of interest, only begging when it is required of them.  The scene always ends the same way.  At a certain point you start to see the metamorphosis:  the bristled hair lengthening, the nails sharpening.  Then the camera will invariably go dark, and when it returns everything is red from the blood.  And the last thing you see are the yellow eyes of a wolf.

The Day Harold Finally Flew

Nearly every morning when Harold awoke he stood near the edge of the bed and started flapping his arms.

–You’re never going to fly, Helen said.

Harold glared at his wife.  She always said the same thing to him each and every morning.

–How do you know?  Harold shot back.  –One of these days you’ll see.-

Helen didn’t say anymore.  She just rolled her eyes and headed into the bathroom.  After she was gone Harold continued flapping his arms for a few more seconds.

It had always been Harold’s dream since he was a boy. He would spend hours watching the birds fly around wishing he could be like them.  Just because it hadn’t happened yet didn’t mean it wouldn’t.

–You’re not a child anymore, Helen would say to him.  –You’re not even a young man.-

Harold remembered a time, not so many years ago, when Helen believed in him.  He would even mind her about it, sometimes.

–Yes, she would say.  –But that was about real things.  Like getting a promotion at work.  Not about something as ridiculous like thinking you can fly.-

Maybe it was ridiculous, Harold thought, but he kept believing, kept the dream alive even when Helen pooh-poohed it.

It was a Saturday morning and Harold and Helen had slept in the way they often did on the weekends.  Harold got up and Helen turned over, mumbling in her sleep.  Harold left the bedroom and went out into the kitchen to get the coffee started.  When he had it going Harold opened the back door and stepped out onto the deck.  The sun was bright and shining and the air felt warm.  It was going to be a beautiful day.

Harold closed his eyes and started flapping his arms.  Out here on the deck he had plenty of room so he flapped his arms faster and harder than how he normally would when he was standing in the bedroom.  Harold felt something strange begin to happen.  He felt himself rising up into the air.  Harold was afraid to open his eyes.  Afraid, if he did, the whole thing would turn out to be just an illusion, a figment of his imagination.

Harold kept flapping his arms and he was sure of it, now.  It wasn’t an illusion.  Harold really was rising into the air.  After climbing several feet he opened his eyes and looked down.  He saw the deck and the house growing smaller and smaller.  Harold continued flapping his arms and not only did he keep rising but he, also, started flying around.

Harold flew away from the house and out over the neighborhood.  He flew past the Garvey’s house and the Shoemachers and out away from the town.  Harold found, now, that he was in the air, he didn’t have to flap his arms nearly as much to stay suspended.  Harold laughed and thought, if only Helen could see him now.

Harold wasn’t paying attention to where he was going and the large blade of a wind turbine crashed into him and he spiraled down to the ground.  The impact knocked Harold unconscious.

Harold had no idea how long he had been lying there when he, finally, opened his eyes and stared up at the sun.  He wasn’t sure if he was capable of moving but after a few minutes he managed to sit up.

Harold rubbed the back of his head, gently, checking his hand to see if there was any blood.  Luckily there wasn’t any.  There was just a throbbing pain running through his skull.  Harold wasn’t sure what he was going to tell Helen if he made it back home.  Maybe he could make it back home before she woke up.

After all of his years of wanting to fly and wanting Helen to believe in him Harold had no desire to tell her he had, finally, done it.  And now that he had done it, had actually flown up into the air, Harold had no desire to ever do it again.  Harold stood up.  His legs felt shaky but he remained on his feet.  He waited another moment or two and then, slowly, started walking and making his way back home.  

Can We be Friends?

Blood in the ocean, I have shark like eyes. My teeth are big, do you want to see them? I’ll be kind, I promise, I won’t bite. Under the blue water I track the long legs that move, quickly trying to keep lungs clean. There are different sizes. Some are skinny, pure bone with a thin layer of skin. Others are thick, muscles bulging, beckoning. I watch them with mild interest, waiting for the right one, mouth watering. It’s always great to fill my stomach, red meat, juicy flesh, coating the emptiness inside. There’s joy in the hunt, from the wait to the attack. 

An expectation that tastes bittersweet climbs up my throat, a low sound of hunger, a narrowing of my eyes. I know when the time comes, I feel it from beginning to end. I’m not cruel about it, even though I enjoy it. I make it quick. I’ll drown you nice and sweet. There is no point in torture, it’s a useless delay. I get straight to the point, holding you under, hugging you to my chest, like a mother cradles her child. I have strong arms, they don’t waver. I keep you there with me for as long as it takes, until your body stops moving, finding stillness underwater. 

I only start biting once I know you’re dead, I don’t let you see the blood, chunks of you finding their way into my mouth. I honor your sacrifice, I savor you, take my time. I don’t like to rush the process, losing my head in the enjoyment. Each moment is mine, I take care of it, make sure I’ll remember all the details so I can play it back once we are done. The memory feeds me over and over again. 

Isn’t this nice? You and me under seafoam. It’s so clear I can see all the details of your face, your beauty brings me happiness. I like to hoard beautiful things, so I’ll take every piece of you for myself, from the flesh of your arms to your organs, gorgeous bloody things. Your hair tickles my neck as you thrash around, it makes me giggle, you’re so playful. I wish we could play hide and seek together, with all these dark rocks around, we would have a blast. But it’s wrong to play with your food, I know that. Still, it would be so fun to spend more time with you. 

They all leave me so fast it makes me want to cry, tears mingling with the salt water. It would be so nice to capture a friend. I would hunt for the both of us, find us nice shelter, tell all my secrets. You would make a good friend, resilient like this, how you struggle, with such strength! I honestly feel like you are doing this just for me! It’s so nice when it takes a while, we just dance around in the water. Are you sure you don’t want to be my friend? I promise if we become friends I’ll never bite you, I’ll be so sweet to you, we’ll be close like siblings, I know so many fun games, you’ll never get bored!

Oh. You stopped moving. That’s fine. I really thought you would say yes. Well, we must go on with the show. 

What strange clothes you people wear, I use them as little flags for all my favorite rocks. I’ll keep yours too, I know just where to put it. Now, where should I begin? I like to change things up a bit every time, it makes it more exciting. Your left leg looks so delicious, that’s where I’ll start. You taste just right, I knew you were the one. Now I don’t feel so bad for not keeping you as a friend, you were made to be eaten. I can take my time, everyone knows to leave me alone, I like to have my meals in solitude. Although to be fair, your blood smells fantastic, I would understand if they got curious. 

Oh, how quick I gobbled up your legs! I couldn’t help myself, this is truly fine dining! My teeth bite down with efficiency, that’s how I learned to go about this.Your arms are next. I’m… What’s the word? I always forget it, I get so caught up in this, everything else is misplaced. I’m organized… I’m… I’m…

Methodical! That’s right. I’m methodical, once I decide where to start I like to follow a system. First your legs, next your arms, then I’ll take chunks of your torso. 

You look so crazy like this! My bloody little treasure. I know what I’m going to do. I’ll leave your heart for dessert. I just know you had a good one. 

China

She materializes before my shift is over. At the bar, my proving ground, my killing fields, my Elysia. Wiping a counter, I watch Tom Rong talking her up or trying to. The language barrier is beyond his intellectual capacity. Her accent sounds Mandarin – a lot of shushing and whooshing. Since I’m such a linguistic expert. She notices me scoping her; there’s no language for that, no need for translation. I finish cleaning up lightning-fast change shoes and shirt. Quick underarm sniff. Huh. Okay. In pheromones I trust. I amble up to the bar like I own the place and sit on the stool next to her. No bullshit hair dye or fancy styling, just long, straight, purplish-black strands in an exuberant cascade. Her face, a classic oval moon, smoothly tapered jaw, full indigo lips, eyes like arabesques. Hot. I don’t know how exactly we manage to communicate, but she likes her rum and cokes. Tom Rong keeps watering her like a horse. Soon we’re flirting and lightly touching. Experimentally. She’s on the sturdier side but more like an ex-gymnast than, say, an ox. Her hands convince me; very proportionate, well-defined, nails neatly trimmed without any garish polish or ostentatious manicuring. Human connection? Animal attraction? A couple of horny lushes? Tom Rong intuits my motivations, and despite his side-eyed and slobbery insinuations, hands me a nice bottle of Merlot; not spendy but not cheap either. I get the hint. Tom, call me a cab – China, let’s get the hell out of here. At the Outrigger I’m the pint-sized playboy with my spartan bar: fresh bottle of Stolichnaya in the freezer stash of skunk bud in the kitchen cabinet. But first things first: I flip open the laptop and press a few tabs. R&B standards: Smokey, Gladys, Etta, Tina, Sam Cooke, Isaac Hayes, JB, Aretha – but the main gyration is Otis. Otis Redding who on a starless wintry night in 1967 dropped out of the sky into the frigid waters of Lake Monona. I load a bong find a corkscrew pop the wine grab a couple glasses saunter over to the futon couch – China’s already barefoot. A beautiful woman who barely speaks English. Otis, crooning The Happy Song:

It makes you want to shout – in fact it knocks you out!

The song delights China who begs me to play it again. Moments later we’re ripping each other’s clothes off. It’s strangely fulfilling to fuck somebody without the usual vocalized preamble of penchants and hatreds. Not unlike an escort but with the bonus of not having to pay. China smells good and has few inhibitions. But when I try rimming her purple ringlet, she wriggles and somehow finds the word tickles in her vocabulary. Kawaii! When it’s time I reach under the futon for condoms, my hand searching with a little frantic dance. My supply is low. In fact, I’m down to the generics, snagged from the free clinic after a rare STD check-up. China’s panting and pulling me towards her, urging me forward, chanting, incanting, Happy hong, happy hong, da-de-dum-dum! Okay okay! I rip open the packet work it on look down to see my old boy standing stiff, straight – and black. Like dipped in crude oil. Fuck it, so I’m a Negro from the balls up. I slam it in. China’s a good sport meets me thrust for thrust. I consider subscribing to The Rosetta Stone. Maybe I’ll never have to talk shit with a white woman ever again. One can always dream. Then it’s over and I withdraw. Goddamn! Cheap-ass, stale-ass fucking defective black latex condoms! Ripped! Trust me, it’s not like my dick is a chisel or anything. I ball that mess up quick fling it into a corner of the room. But China’s uncannily alert for a drunken foreigner. Wah happen? Wah happen? She dives for the evidence. With squinty dismay she displays the dripping victim of my priapic maul between thumb and forefinger. It break? Shit shit! It break! I upturn my hands in exasperation. What can I do? The damage is done. I console China, we drink more wine, we drink all the wine, and as I advance to the Stoli, China falls fast asleep. Off like a light switch. In the morning the indictment begins. She’s sober now and worried about our baby. After an awkward interlude of broken translation and copious tears, it comes to light that China is in all actuality a mail-order wife on the stray. I call out sick and whisk her to breakfast at the Continental where after several mimosas, she’s singing Dum-dum dilly de-dum-dum again, and, after a stop at the corner bodega for some mighty Trojans, we’re back at the Outrigger. 

Fucky sucky!

A week later she shows up at the bar, effusive, upbeat, with the breaking news update. Unfortunately, we are not going to be raising a baby. But China wants to hear Otis again, except this time, no black dick! Shit shit!

Chocolate Soup for the Soul

I was shopping at a boutique called Chocolate Soup, where the clerks were so tight-assed that when they farted it sounded like a piccolo and smelled like lavender lattes. Their faces were pinched and smug. It was obvious they hadn’t taken a dump in weeks and felt entitled to a monument carved in their constipated honor.

Ashka, Nina, and Carlyle, smelling of old money, frat jizz, and useless Elizabethan Poetry BAs, were moored behind the desk, their microbladed eyebrows peaked high, judging everyone against the silk wall of their Hampton summers and Daddy’s trust fund.

I dropped two thousand duckets here last month, but to Ashka and the Piccolo-Farters, I was just a blur in a Faded Glory tee. Maybe it was Brad Pitt’s facial blindness, or maybe my Botox had finally surrendered. I didn’t care. I had a pea-green Trans Am idling in the lot and a case of Mad Dog 20/20 chilling in the trunk. White trash wins the Lotto: I’m so rich that people want to suck my butthole, and so trashy that I don’t give a fuck.

My sister, Sam, was an Army Ranger navigating the strollers with military precision. Lieutenant Mom barked orders: “40% off to the left, BOGO to the right, final clearance in the back.”

My little nugget slept like an angel, her rabbit-fur kitty clutched in her chubby little hands. But my demon-slayer nephew Devon, a 26-month-old serial killer in the making, launched Cheerio rockets and screeched like an M80. He was in a pissy mood because there weren’t any knives or explosives lying around for him to play with.

 Carlyle wandered over, her judgy Whole Foods eyes scrutinizing me like I was a can of expired Vienna sausages. Her voice was a fried electric wire and a jostled orange juice can filled with gravel.  “Can I help you?”

“Unless your tits are leaking milk and you can feed my kid, then no.”

Vocal-fry Girl froze like a dirty diaper in a snowbank. I looked at her pants to make sure she didn’t piss herself. She mumbled something about needing to do some inventory and scurried off. Yeah, you do that, Sweetheart. Take inventory of your crappy attitude and, while you’re at it, have your rich daddy buy you some voice lessons so you don’t sound like such a creaking, croaking, whiny little bitch. Maybe put that Elizabethan poetry degree to good use by scrawling some rhymes in the city park restroom.

I popped a piece of Nicorette gum into my mouth and chomped down. It tasted like a forest fire, a gallon of Lysol, and used tampons—my tastebuds screaming for mercy. God, I missed my smokes, but I knew my kid would miss her mom a lot more if she keeled over dead from lung cancer. I needed to stay around for as long as I could.

Mom waved her hands, her nose wrinkled in a way that suggested she’d just discovered that this snooty store housed weapons of mass destruction. She hollered, “There’s a pile of crap on the floor! And my God, it smells just like roast beef!”

I looked down. Eden was asleep. I pulled her back as Mom continued ranting about the consistency, color, and shape of the poop. She was a car alarm with teeth—incessant, piercing, and making you want to smash a window or shoot out some taillights the second she opened her mouth.

“Keep the wheels out of the sludge!” she barked in her Emergency Broadcast voice. “That’s a steaming pile of hepatitis! Someone call hazmat or OSHA!”

The clerks, who looked like they’d just downed rubbing alcohol shooters and rusty nail chasers, shot daggers at my sister and me. They saw two nasty women with toddlers who had clearly desecrated their gleaming hardwood floors. The pizza swirled in my gut like a stubborn turd that wouldn’t flush. It was the smell—that god-awful aroma of a bovine-and-gravy lunch’s butthole evacuation. I found myself wishing it had been a vegetarian who dropped the deuce; those little rabbit turds of theirs would be a piece of cake to pick up.

The bougie batik dressing room curtain, which likely cost more than my monthly salary, was partially open. Sam was hunkered down in the foxhole with her two-year-old, Ted Bundy Jr. My heart sank. Devon was a mystery pooper, a little shit who once took a mega-dump in the dog’s bowl while my sister praised him for his effort.

I stepped toward the curtain, expecting the stench to knock me flat, prepared for the “my kid did it” confession. But instead, my sister leaned in and whispered, “It wasn’t him. Look at the old man.”

I looked toward the cash register. There stood an elderly couple, perfectly calm, as if they were buying a cashmere sweater and not standing in the middle of a biohazard. He was wearing tan shorts, and there it was: a dark, wet trail of diarrhea mapped down his leg, smeared across the fabric like a signature of his own collapsing dignity.

I looked again and I saw it. His face was a white sheet of paper filled with scribbles, chicken scratch, and random numbers going every which way. My Gramma carried that same confused expression when she was locked up in that hellhole of a nursing home. Poor guy, he looked like a man who had survived two wars only to be defeated by a roast beef sandwich in a place that sold lavender lattes and hated the sight of his filthy shorts and shaking hands.

The Piccolo-Farters were circling him like vultures in stilettos, ready to peck out whatever pride he had left. “Sir, you could have asked to use the bathroom, you know! What were you thinking? You’re disgusting.”

The man shivered, haunted eyes like a rescue dog cringing in a cage. His wife’s face sprung a leak and her shoulders shook. “I’m so sorry. He has Alzheimer’s, but he was having a good day. I thought if I brought him along… he’d be happy. I’ll, I’ll pay for the mess. Please try to understand.”

The trio crossed their arms and scowled. They flashed a row of white marble teeth,  palace columns guarding throats full of lies. They were sharks that had just bitten their own tongue—dead eyes, cold blood, and a mouth full of expensive, serrated bone.

Nina hissed, “Sounds like it’s a ‘you’ problem to me. Keep him locked up and in diapers and never come back here again. And by the way, there’s a mop in the bathroom—clean it up or I’ll report you for elder abuse.”

The other Yas Queens nodded, lips puckered tight, feasting on a meal of arrogance and the flesh of a beating heart ripped from a weaker person’s chest. Ashka squeezed back a giggle.

Oh, hold my beer, darlin’! You ain’t getting away with dissing this poor man. I cleared the rust out of my throat, coughed up some wet cement, and hocked a green, bubbling loogie right on Ashka’s three-thousand-dollar suede boots.

She looked down, her face twisting like she’d just seen a ghost made of bile. The ‘Yas Queens’ were frozen, their pastry puff smiles finally cracking. I didn’t give them time to scream. I leaned in, the taste of Nicorette and victory sharp on my tongue.

“Clean that up? No, Ashka, she’s not gonna do that because I’m buying the floor! See this gold card? That’s ten million dollars of ‘fuck you’ money from a Scratch-Off I bought at a gas station while you were  getting your landing strip waxed smoother than a bowling ball for your sixty-year-old sugar daddy who can’t get it up until your Hooha lawn has been scalped and the clippings are stashed away in a garbage bag so the wifey of forty years doesn’t find out.

All you Yas Queens know how to do is suck dick, bleed your dad’s checking account dry, and treat people like dogshit clinging to the bottom of your shoes. On the outside, I get it, you’re a million bucks. But on the inside, you ain’t nothing but a clearance Dollar General chocolate Easter Bunny, half-melted before you leave the store.

So, here’s the news: You’re fired. All three of you. Consider this your final notice. And don’t you dare look at that man like he’s a ‘problem.’ You think you’re better than him because you smell like overpriced French cologne? Life is nothing but a series of blowouts. It’s a messy, stinking conveyor belt where people clean up your shit and, if you’re lucky, you get to return the favor. Sometimes you’re the one scrubbing the carpet, and sometimes you’re the one needing the towel.

But none of you—with your sparkly teeth and your ‘Yas Queen’ bullshit—have ever lived a real day in your lives. You’ve never stood in a shower and watched the poop flakes swirl down the drain while you washed the dignity back into someone you love. You’ve never hosed a friend’s driveway after an explosive cow-patty episode or scrubbed a friend’s dignity back into a pair of filthy trousers.

You’re terrified of a little roast beef sludge? You aren’t even human yet. Until you’ve crapped yourself and realized the world didn’t end because someone loved you enough to wipe you, you don’t know a damn thing about ‘style.’

So get out in the real world. Get down and dirty. Go lose control of your bowels and roll in it until you find your soul. And once someone cleans you up and you realize you aren’t the center of the universe—then you give me a call. Maybe then I’ll give you your jobs back. But until then? Stay out of the splash zone.”

I looked at them, their faces were red like beets boiled alive. They clutched their designer handbags and their 200-gallon-sized Stanley Cups infused with cucumbers and lime, like I was going to steal them. They performed a collective haughty hair flip and simultaneously shouted, “Fuck you, trailer trash, and the cheap broomstick you rode in on!”

I flipped them the bird and smiled wide. “For a fancy degree, you don’t know shit about grammar—never end a sentence on a preposition. Take that and shove it up your iambic pentameter!”

Meanwhile, my military reinforcements—Mom and Sam—grabbed the bleach, paper towels, trash bags, and wipes from the trunk of my Trans Am, a Costco on wheels. I tossed a bottle of MD 20/20 to the sweet older lady. “You stay right here. We’re going to get your husband cleaned up. Take some big gulps of this stuff; it goes down hard, but comes up easy. It’ll dull the pain of your day.”

We got him cleaned up in a jiffy and wrapped him in Devon’s Winnie the Pooh comforter and sent them on their way, with five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills as a thank you for his service to our country and a show of support that not everybody in the world sucks.

We turned out the lights in Chocolate Soup and piled into the Trans Am. Mom was having a bitch fit. “Why the hell am I always in the back seat? I’m the oldest. I deserve to ride shotgun.”

Instead of saying, “Because you’re safer back there, Mom, and I’m not ready to see you go,” I shouted, “Woman, it’s because you’re a huge pain in my ass!”

Then I spun cookies in the parking lot, kicking up a cloud of dust and mud, Mom and the kids screaming and laughing like maniacs in the back. I shifted the gear and tore out of there like a bat out of Hell.

When we reached cruising altitude, Sam turned off my Mötley Crüe CD and said, “So you bought the store. Good for you.”

I laughed, “Actually, I didn’t. I just wanted to see the look on all their faces when they realized a ‘trailer trash’ loogie costs more than their commission. Besides… I never liked the smell of the place.”

I rolled down the windows, shut off the CD, hands gripping the wheel, and floored it all the way to Walmart. There was no way some skanky hotbox would beat me to a Faded Glory yoga pants sale.

Johnny Boogles and the Gap-Toothed Bitch

Cath lay there frustrated, exasperated, her diddling fingers doing jack shit as her deformed clit played hardball more than ever. Next to her, rolled onto his side with his tiny, flaccid dick resting on his inner thigh, was her husband—or Noodle Dick, as she’d caught some of her co-workers referring to him—fast asleep, farting, snoring and drooling.  

“Okay for some,” she muttered, slamming her fists into the duvet on either side of her. “Noodle Dick.” Cath giggled, but then recalled the cock someone had drawn into her mouth on the photo at the front of her store. Bastards. If I do ever find out who did that . . .

She unclenched her fists and balled them again, scrunching up handfuls of bedclothes. 

“Kinda looks like a rocket ship with sparks, not a squirting prick,” one of her customers had commented, passing her by in the shop foyer, where the offending article stood on a plinth.

The large, crudely sketched appendage had the words HUBBY’S COCK etched up its veiny centre, along with the words—which someone else had clearly added, as the handwriting was different—NOODLE DICK. 

“Take it down!” Cath scolded the morning cleaner. “Now!” she added, stamping her heeled foot. Fucking twit, she thought, giving the staff member a death glare. Her face burned scarlet as she gazed at the added words again. Fuck’s sake. “Get rid. Immediately,” she snapped, clicking her fingers. 

Breathe, Cath thought, relaxing her hands, looking again at her husband of over ten years. Pathetic. A three-pump wonder. 

However, she knew she was being harsh on him, as no man could make her come thanks to her warped clit, which had looked much like a miniature cauliflower ear since birth. Hell, she could only get herself off every now and then, and that was only because she had found that being a total bitch and cunt to her staff, friends and family got her hot. 

Some days, when Cath was a mega-twat, she could orgasm without touching herself; memory alone was enough. On the days and nights she had the urge to stroke her clitty cat, or was struggling to orgasm with hubby, she would think of times she’d embarrassed people. Stepped on them. Talked to them like they were utter shit, knowing they couldn’t do anything. She held the power. She was their God. She could fire them at any time, for anything, and nobody could stop her.

So what’s wrong tonight? she wondered, unable to climax even after slating her husband’s naff performance, thinking his humiliation would serve her purpose. But nope, nothing. Not even a twinge. 

Cath had even conjured some of her favourite berating recollections while hubby had plugged away, such as the dozy baker who worked for her. “The weirdo with a beardo,” she whispered, smiling. One day the big bastard had thought he could cow her down with his size and aggression, but she had soon put that puppy in its place, breaking him in two by wielding her power axe and threatening his job. Since that tussle, the baker bowed to her. Kept his nose clean. 

It’s beautiful, having such a beastly specimen under my power, she thought, thinking that would spark a bolt of pleasure through her pussy. But no, nothing. 

Cath lifted her head off her pillow to stare past her flabby pouch of a belly. “You little bald bastard. Why won’t you work for Mammy?”

Her FUPA flopped back into view and her face twisted into something ugly. She could feel it’s grotesqueness, knowing then that most of her colleagues had seen how obnoxious and horrid she was.

“Watch out, the gap-toothed bitch is coming,” she’d heard someone say once. 

“Seen her teeth? Could park a bike between them!” another had said. 

“A regular werebeaver,” a third mocked. 

“Tits like limes,” a fourth teased. “Itty-bitty, with a zingy-zangy taste.”

The past laughter of her staff echoed in her ears. 

Fuckwits. They’ll all pay soon enough, one at a time. They’re just fucking numbers. 

Well, not all of them. There was Motormouth Miguel, who shit-stirred, caused trouble, spread lies and triggered fear and panic among the ranks. A rat. A danger. MM would spy and go running to Cath with any scrap of news or gossip he could find. My pet, she thought.

Then there was her other general, that faggotty, long streak of piss and rent boy, Tomasino. He was a special case, and once she’d gone through his phone and found photos of him wearing women’s underwear and sticking various objects, like knitting needles, down his urethra, he quicklyforgot about his ambition to replace her as store manager. Watching him quiver and hearing him stutter in her presence set her little cauli-clit to tingling on many an occasion.   

All these thoughts and images had rekindled her sex life over the past few years. But for the past fortnight or so, nothing, no matter how much she tried.

I’ll have to start being extra cunty on Monday, she thought, grinning. But it didn’t look like she was getting any satisfaction tonight.

She turned off the bedside lamp and settled down in the darkness, thinking about the odd, annoying occurrences from the past week. It had started with her coffee tasting slightly bitter and off from Monday, then the weird phone calls at all hours began, and she had got the shits after eating gone-off doughnuts from work, and finally her car had refused to start. Maybe that was why she was having problems coming? Stress?

Karma, a voice at the back of her mind suggested. 

Nah, that bitch knows better than to fuck with me! 

Cath’s mobile vibrated on the nightstand beside the bed and she jumped. A groan stuck in her throat. Not again, she thought, snatching up her phone and answering the call. “Yes?!”

“How about another dad joke?” the caller asked, laughing idiotically. “Or, why don’t I tell you why you were really sick after eating those doughnuts?”

Cath froze. The hair on her arms and at the back of her neck stood on end. Is this freak watching me? Cameras? Phone tap? “Who the fuck are you?”

“I squirted extra special cream into those doughnuts for you. Pew-pew-pew!,” he said, giggling. “You got my ickle, pearly white swimmers slithering around inside your guts, child. Hee-hee-hee!” 

Cath’s stomach flipped. “Is this Greg?” she blurted, thinking maybe it was a role-playing thing, and maybe this would be the catalyst to her finally achieving an orgasm.

“No, it’s not your hairy baker, who thinks he’s the dog’s bollocks.”

Cath sat bolt upright. “Then who are you, you little twat?!”

“Been struggling to come this week? Ha-ha-ha! That’ll teach you, being such a venomous cunt,” he said. “And to think, it was working out so well for you. Had you not pushed your cuntish ways so much the last couple of weeks, I, Johnny Boogles, would not be . . . haunting you.”

“Haunting?”

“Yes. You see, I’m the Cunt Demon, and, when someone has been too much of a cunt to innocent people, then I’m brought in.”

“For what? I’ll call the police!”

Johnny scoffed. “Best of luck with that one. And in answer to your question, well, that’s a simple one. I was brought in to annoy the living shit out of you, for all eternity. To out-cunt the cunt.”

He’s a fucking nutter!“I’ll have you arrested, and I also know people who will—” 

“Who will what, Catherine? Do me over? Scare me off? Again, good luck with that, as I’m a demon. I’m not of flesh and blood, you dumb cu—” 

Cath ended the call. She worked to control her breathing, then muttered, “Fucking fre—”

“You can cancel my calls,” the caller’s voice boomed, “or hang up on me, or not answer at all, but I will always be with you. Forever. Until the sun burns out.”

Cath screamed, her knickers dampening, a dribble of piss trickling down her leg. 

From the darkness came the thing of nightmares, stepping into a shaft of moonbeam that speared through the window and slightly parted curtains. 

A breath hitched in her throat. She pulled back, sinking into her pillows, pulling the duvet up to her chin. “W-what are you?”

“I’m Johnny Boogles, the thing that pissed in your morning coffee every day last week, who squirted hot jizz into your doughnuts, and who’s been constantly ringing you with prank calls and crap dad jokes.”

“You did something to my car too?”

Johnny smiled. “Yes. Sugar does awful things to an engine.” 

Cath looked at the black, floating thing hovering above the foot of her bed. Its body, cloaked in raggedy black clothes that flapped wild as though a tremendous wind howled through the room, looked squashed. Crushed. Ribs jutted out here and there, along with squished organs and flat hands and feet. Johnny’s face and head resembled a mangled pumpkin, his brains oozing out of a smashed skull. 

“Pretty, aren’t I? My beauty is the result of being an absolute tool. It got me killed, in the end, and the gods thought this image befitting of me in the afterlife as I come to do Karma’s work. She’s the real bitch, you know. You’ve got nothin’ on her.”

Cath’s stomach cramped, her eyes lowering to Johnny’s horse-sized cock, which hung from out of a hole in his shredded trousers. It was warty and oozing pus. 

“Oh my fucking God,” she said, turning her head and throwing up on her husband. He didn’t stir. When she was done heaving, she wiped warm bile and chunks from her lips, scowling at him. “How can you sleep though this, you dickhead?”

“Because he’s dead,” Johnny said. 

“Dead?” She turned to look at Johnny, his pendulous dick setting her off again.

“Yep. Karma sent me for him too.” Johnny licked his lips and grinned. “I know you like to dish it out, but I hope you can take it too. Because you’re in for a world of hurt, you gap-toothed bitch,” he said, cackling.

To Reference That Joy Division Song Again

I keep my curtains drawn, lights low, paranoia level high. Those fucking nosy neighbors called the cops on me while I was washing the dishes with the kitchen window open, not yet owning drapes or blinds. They told the cops they saw me break out a “butcher knife” and actually carve my arms into bloody ribbons while giving them “death grins” and other weirdo shit that the cops agreed, after arriving to check things out, seemed ludicrous. I mean, I was wearing a perfectly clean white button-down, home from work. If I’d been using “a butcher knife to carve my arms into bloody ribbons,” like my drugged-out neighbors asserted, my perfect white shirt would look kind of different, you know? Maybe with some reddish stains, maybe actively dripping (or worse) blood staining it or literally soaking through the cloth, confirming their indictment of me rather than showing the cops they were weirdo troublemakers. Obviously.

Except.

Except the cops never asked to look at my actual arms, torso or anywhere else, nor to roll up my sleeves or disrobe so they could ascertain for themselves the truth of what seemed obvious – clean white shirt, no blood, no harm, no foul, right?

Except things were momentarily interesting when the younger cop saw a raised white scar on my left hand and asked about it. We all laughed when I admitted that I’d done some stupid things in college and this had been one of them, that when going through Hell Week near the end of pledging my fraternity, I’d drunkenly lost a stupid dare/bet and was forced to endure two seniors carving the fraternity’s Greek letter symbols into my hand with a knife. Hurt like hell and no one had thought I’d basically be branded for life, but there you are – crazy, officers, right? 

Right.

Though if you actually looked hard at that scar, it’d be tough to make out which Greek letters, which fraternity. Some might look and conclude it was more likely the work of Freddy Kreuger, not drunk frat boys eager to score points. Honestly, I sure couldn’t guess what could be seen in that scar. It was an angry mish mash of cuts, slices and etchings amounting to chaos theory, not really what the power of suggestion would lead others to believe they saw. What and which realities are ever right anyway? I doubt anyone really knows.

I wanted to be left alone and finally was. First, one clueless cop admitted he’d always wondered what kind of weird shit those frat kids did. Laughed when I replied, “Obviously not just those drunken orgies you always see in the movies.

I was glad to see them go when they did because I was kind of surprised and relieved they hadn’t asked me to remove my shirt. If I had, I’d have a whole lot of explaining to do about all of the scars decorating my body – my arms, chest, inner thighs. The tic tac toe game carved into my chest over time with many beautiful tools, most especially my Cold Steel 15” serrated tanto I loved so much, nor the bloody serrated loving courtesy my Benchmade, SOG, Gerber, K-BAR, Kershaw and other beloved blades in my collection.

Yes, hard to explain but harder still, I imagine, the arms wrapped into rapidly dampening rust-colored Ace bandages, and I noticed, with some leakage that would be hard to explain. I mean, WTH, right?

As I ripped the bandages from my arms, you could see scars, scabs, open red and soaking wet cuts oozing blood, leaking blood, in a new development, even gushing blood, but it was the scars, those precious scars that were key to my identity, my very existence, that weren’t tats, weren’t Greek letters, weren’t pentagrams, but just like me, WEREN’T SHIT AND NEVER WERE SUPPOSED TO BE, because chaos theory can rule the mind and body just as legitimately as it seeks to explain other concepts more theoretical than the very real and tangible, if in a micro way, my personal needs, fears, beliefs, coping skills.

I mean no one would believe this shit, right? Who ever heard of a middle-aged man who cuts because foreplay sucks in comparison and he’s addicted to creating and maintaining scars of beauty and significance on his most loved and hated canvas?

Would never happen, right? I mean they’d lock anyone like that up, call him Hannibal or something like that because we’re not dealing with geniuses here, or creatives or artists. Pencil pushing, braindead cogs in the machine who pack heat, who will kill in a heartbeat but would call ME the sick one. My scars bear out my philosophy and my loves and fears. The other peoples’ lack of visible scars doesn’t hide their internal cancerous decay nor their fear of anyone not like them.

I call bullshit on them!

I like it better alone.

I always preferred Dessau’s cover of Joy Division’s “Isolation” to the original. Its industrial aggression that comes screaming out at you more accurately reflects my sense of personal isolation and my feelings than Ian Curtis’s distinctive voice sharing those same lyrics, but for me, the band’s near-synth pop sound that tries to drearily bounce along with the listener in an existential despair really undercuts the rage and bitterness I feel that few are more qualified to express on my behalf than Ministry’s Al Jourgensen, who apparently and fittingly produced the Dessau version. 

Maybe it’s really this simple. Joy Division’s version stood for a very real suicidal ideation as we would all find out. But Dessau’s “Isolation” could be just scar tissue layered on more scar tissue yet though the flesh decays and body weakens, the only suicide to be found is more likely invented by some pervy author seeking a harmony between control and chaos they’ll never attain – but it won’t kill them, their characters or the readers either. Just more scarring in a world of art for art’s sake. And maybe that’s good enough.

Something Wet This Way Cums

The peddler always sold lightning rods on Mondays. He waited till Tuesdays to sell books. Yet, here he was with a big trunk full of them. The curator didn’t appreciate the break in the routine. 

“You know the rules of The New Ways. No hats indoors,” the curator reminded him as she sat behind her desk.

“My apologies.” He grinned and doffed his porkpie hat. He was sweating. Ill-at-ease. A little too eager to get to business. 

“So, what do you have for the Museum of The Old Ways today?” the curator asked.

“Books,” the peddler said. 

“But today is Monday,” the curator said. “Why the deviation from our standard schedule?”

“Well… They’re… um… They’re different than my usual inventory, and I knew you’d want to see them right away,” the peddler said.

“Well. No need to stand on formality then. Show me,” the curator said.

Still unnerved, the peddler opened his large case and set a paperback book on the desk before her. 

All Horny on the Western Front, the cover read. 

Now, the curator didn’t read the books of The Old Ways, but she was familiar with their titles, and there was something off about this one. 

“I have more. Lots more,” the peddler said and spread three additional books across the desk.

The curator read the titles carefully, critically. From left to right, they were Frankenshaft, The Catcher and The Pitcher in the Rye, and Dr. Jackoff and Missus Thighs. 

“What… um… What exactly are you trying to peddle here, book peddler?” the curator asked.

“Well, you see, the publisher had a vandal in their employ. And, this vandal, he was able to… um… alter some of the covers before they went to print,” the peddler said. “But, as the curator of the Museum of The Old Ways, you are obligated to accept many things that no longer reflect the values of our New Ways. After all, book banning is poor form and altogether a social faux pas.” 

“We ban nothing from the Museum of The Old Ways,” the curator said. “But we do curate what is in our collection. And these…”

“I have others,” the peddler said. 

On top of the growing pile, he added Brave New Whore, One Spunked Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Naked Lunch. 

“This one,” he tapped on the cover of the last book, “is actually unaltered. I guess the vandal couldn’t figure out how to make this one any more lurid than it already is.” 

“Or, rest assured, peddler. We are quite aware of that book,” the curator said. “And inside the covers?”

“Unaltered. The words are just as they were originally published. This one here?” He pointed at a copy of Moby Thicc. “It’s Moby Dick. Word for word, just as Melville wrote it.” 

“And, dare I ask, Little Philipino Ladyboys?”

“Little Women,” the peddler answered. “Some of these are pretty obvious. Wurthing Dikes is actually Wurthing Heights. The Lion The Bitch and The Dominatrix is, of course, The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe…”

 “And you want me to purchase these for the museum?” the curator said.

“Well, see, the publisher is struggling financially, reading not really en vogue at the moment, and well, if I can’t move these books…”

“The financial well-being of a publisher incapable of controlling their employees is no business of mine, peddler,” the curator said.

“Don’t say no. Not yet. I haven’t even shown you Missionary on the Orient Express. The cover art, I have to say, is done very tastefully,” the peddler said. “And here’s A Tale of Two Titties. You can hardly notice the difference.”

“And I suppose you’d have me pass Weiner-in-the-Pooh as the classic children’s storybook?”

“Never mind that one. It’s a picture book, and well, this vandal was a bit of an artist,” the peddler said. “And Charlie in the Scat Factory. And Incest Family Robinson.”

“Sir. The Museum of The Old Ways will not be purchasing any of these books,” the curator said firmly.

“My good lady. I didn’t want to bring you these titles,” the peddler said. “I know the high standards by which we hold ourselves in The New Ways. I know this is unbecoming of both me as a book dealer–”

“Peddler,” the curator corrected.

“–and you as a curator. But some of these books, the unaltered content is just as vile as these titles. You already have The Left Hand of Darkness on display. Is it such a breach of decorum to shelve The Left Handjob of Darkness next to it?”

“Peddler. Just because we have books on our shelves does not mean individuals should pick them up and read them,” the curator said. 

“Atlas Subbed then? The original work is–”

“Sir. This entire conversation is wholly absurd. Do you have any excuse for this behavior? Has someone put you up to this?”

“Actually, if I may be truthful…” The peddler leaned over the array of vulgar titles spread across the desk and whispered, “There are entities watching this very interaction. They’ve always been watching. Since the dawn of human existence, they’ve been watching. And yes, they sent me here, with these books, in hopes of getting them into circulation.”

“So the vandal–”

“I lied. There is no vandal. These books didn’t come from my usual publisher,” the peddler said.

“And these Watchers…?”

“They’ve grown bored with us as of late,” the peddler said. “The New Ways don’t satisfy their rather decadent tastes, and this is their way of injecting some of The Old Ways back into our modern, more civil society.”

“Well, you can understand my objections. I will have no part in soiling our New Ways with this… with this smut,” the curator said.

“Just one? If I walk out of this museum having not moved a single copy–”

“Your dealings with these Watchers is not my business,” the curator said. “How you got involved with such people–”

“They are not people. And believe me when I tell you that I leave here with all of these books, they will liquify me into a puddle the moment I step back into the daylight,” the peddler said.

The curator searched his eyes for signs of deceit, of tomfoolery, of a misplaced sense of humor. She found none. Nevertheless, “I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do. There is simply no place for Lord of the Cock Rings or To Cuck a Mockingbird or The Money Shot of Dorian Gray in our collection. And now, sir, I will have to ask you to leave.”

“Please. Just one. I’m telling you, if I leave here with all these books, a laser beam will come down from the sky and melt me into goo before I can cross the parking lot. Just… Just…” 

He shuffled through the mound of books, searching for perhaps the least objectionable of them all. His hands came up clasping a copy of Fahrenheit 469.

“Please,” he begged.

“If I take that book from you, will you leave? And take the rest of this filth with you?” 

“I doubt one book will be enough to appease them,” the peddler said.

“One book is already far too many by my count,” the curator said. “But if it will make you go away.”

***

For the rest of the day, the curator did her best to forget all about the exchange. And she was fairly successful. It wasn’t until the end of the workday that she returned to her office and saw the copy of Fahrenheit 469 resting on her desk. As she gathered her things, she picked up the book, determined to bring it home and throw it in the incinerator. 

On her way out, she cracked the cover. The first line intrigued her, so she read the next. By the time she pushed through the front doors of The Museum of The Old Ways and stepped into the sunlight, she was so engrossed, she almost slipped and fell on a wet spot. Luckily, she caught her balance. 

Unbecoming, being so distracted, she decided. The curator tucked the book away for further examination and study after she got home.