Psychoneuroses, Part 2

After old Mrs Fagan died, her singleton son grew increasingly obsessed by the notion of a wholly exposed, crudely infibulated woman as head of state; it agitated and aroused him in equal measure. What otiose limp-wristed protection was afforded Her Majesty, by the tightly-wrapped Prince Regent? Fagan ceremoniously placed QE2 on the same questionable pedestal as his own mother; a trophy for vile men, offering little or no emotional support to their booty. Mickey envisaged Elizabeth Regina mounted posteriorly, and forcefully fist-fingered, before being brutally sausaged Greek style; crass libidinous fantasies deranged remaining particles of sense, rendering him unsure whether to fuck or fight his Glücksburgian adversary. Forever a romantic, when push came to shove, inspired by Ken Russell’s audacious Women in Love, Fagan settled on stripping-off for a tipsy bout of Japanese-style wrestling amid the firelight of the Duke of Dunedin’s bedchamber. National press reports stated that Fagan was gallantly tackled by dapper footman Phil McCavity (since retired), a queer chap who was oddly reticent concerning his personal involvement in the drama. London Lighthouse carers insist that McCavity wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Fagan would though: hissing loudly, a noble savage; lightly polished by interchanging moody goods on behalf of antiquarian operations down Camden Passage market, whose traders were enamoured by the cut of his jib. It was a ragtag and bobtail cash-in-hand confederation, but he’d been earning a few quid at the time, so it was right mauve him rocking the sloop, what with three million unemployed. Directly preceding his iconic faux pas Fagan had inadvertently violated an Islington Council byelaw. Tipped-off, Housing Association policy and procedure staff complained about his grunting pet (it transgressed his tenancy agreement); Fagan swore blind he didn’t harbour one, although a particularly cynical girl-next-door insisted she investigate. Behold! No fish or fowl, while Mickey, without a trace of embarrassment, boasted that the theriomorphic-like din resulted from his beasting a string of high-maintenance erotopathic lovers. Not one to be duped, the nosey neighbour insisted she put his explanation to task; so doggy-style, Mickey howled like mad, banging her so hard he got a ruddy nosebleed (earning himself the sobriquet Rudolph). Still unsatisfied, the dopey tart opted to sue him for noise pollution via the Borough Council’s pro-feminist local authorities. 

“Bloody Hell, ma’am, what’s he doing ‘ere?” A shrill alarm was sent ringing around the City of Westminster by HRM’s flummoxed chambermaids, given the screaming abdabs, having stumbled over Mickey, supposedly supping from a carafe of half-inched Californian riesling. How exciting! Let’s face it; Fagan was in no fit state to endure the resulting ordeal. That very morning he’d been involved in a heart-rending family squabble over the ownership of a second-hand cut-and-shut motor, aspirated a leaded lungful of mouth-siphoned four-star petrol, and for reasons best known to his-self, was masquerading as Rudolf Hess. No sober assessment of his condition would have adjudged him capable of scaling spiky railings, climbing burglar-proof drainpipes, or least of all, leaping from roof-to-roof like an orang-utan. Tell me, just how conveniently did Fagan elude Buck House’s 24/7 security? And what precisely defined his shady, sadomasochistic relationship with wrinkly Prince Philip? Whose bruised sphincter, rumour had it, was treated by that venal, royally benighted arse specialist Dr. David Croft: famed as an entrepreneurial quack pioneering the high-specification production of platinum ring-holes, for celebrity coke addicts. In a futuristic John DeLorean world of powdered cocaine-cum-cosmetics, malleable monogrammed DDC rectal accessories were the last word in reassurance, for syringe users, aiming to keep bugles clean, and septa intact. Word-on-the-street was, that the grand old iron Duke had been corn-holed and felched, until his puce tuchus resembled the sort of swollen Jack and Danny seen hanging agape behind a West African baboon during Guinea-Bissau’s rainy season. Of course, it was a cover up; although Fagan confessed to several prison psychiatrists, that he’d toasted better genitals. So, whisper from that whatever tenuous conclusions you fancy. The Old Bailey certainly did. 

“You are not ‘ere to see ze peeping show I ‘ope?” Brigitte smiled ear to ear as her sultry French accent wafted back into his mind; triggering an amatory frisson that stirred his loins. Momentarily intimidated, he rose to leave without tipping; laughing off her dolorous suspicions that he was tuned into videos featuring adult content, and the rest (obscene publications, showcasing teenage call girls absconded from foster care- running away from Oldham social services). On the hoof, Aleister nonchalantly cased the joint -eye eye- wandering past replica nude statues (including Auguste Rodin’s Le Baiser), and a grandiose art nouveau mirror. He cast a bitchy moue at his faltering baroque reflection- begging the question: did he resemble an unbalanced pervert? If so, he’d best buy a pick-me-up. Aleister daren’t appear unhinged or worse (creepy) in Heaven- his preferred destination. There geezers dress to impress, by camping themselves up a class; competition is bristly stiff inside that grand celestial residence, where a kiss without a moustache is like an egg without salt. Yuk! 

Opportunely Piggy, now his dealer, was due live on stage at the Divine Comedy Store’s Friday matinee; he was odds-on to hold a few banging party tricks up his ropey sleeve to loosen Brigitte’s resolve. K-I-D, mum’s the word. Aleister decided to procure something special to slip into mademoiselle’s café latte, in the course of a future assignation. Shame he needed to date rape her, as he didn’t consider himself a misogynist. Aleister liked ladies well enough; not the wicked ones who found him wanting, but he balked at his latent notions of punishing, hurting, or damaging them. However, he failed to see women as equals, soul sisters, or trustworthy friends. Through his grimy doors of perception, the second sex represented objects of desire; dolly birds, some of whom he’d been able to train up & domineer for while. Brigitte possessed several serviceable aspects sweet enough to buoy his horribly warped tri-sexual mind. If only she could button her quivering lip, and turn an amenably blind eye to his eccentric affairs of the flesh; he may even propose to her: anything to leave a lump in her throat. Strolling along Gerrard Street he chewed a chunk of Peking duck, formally deciding that he could never endure monogamy on account of his innate needs, to wit: bimbo’s, priapic saunas, peppercorn rent boys, Qabalistic weekends, ritualistic blood drinking sessions etcetera; hobbies of a type so essential for a relaxed middle age. But young Brigitte, despite her femme fatale façade, was, in Aleister’s estimation, well-nigh prim and proper. Add assertive female to practicing Roman Catholic, teetotal or, (God forbid) virginal, and who needs it? He wanted desperately to love and be worshipfully adored in return; the problem was, where to start? Aleister reckoned the glorious day was fast approaching when he would subscribe to a competitively priced Filipina marriage agency; a flourishing Oriental avenue of commercial intimacy: open to post-prime Occidental bachelors, widowers, and/or divorcées. Perhaps it was one instance of a missed opportunity, where those innumerable, inscrutable Chinese have erred? Granted, tiddlywinks constitute rising stars within our rough tough adaptable species: fitted to survive amongst strangers as segregated immigrants, or, thanks to Beijing’s mushrooming economic leverage, to lead a global mercantile system; but in eugenic terms, they’re junk people. Spawned from a passé imperial culture, informed by screeds of dynastic court archives; traditionally square looking, and businesslike. Not at all to Aleister’s flighty, eclectic taste; the source of which remained a mystery. 

Aleister supposed that his sartorial bent toward dépêche mode was rooted in the days of Pearly Spencer, and tragic second-order observations founded while orbiting creation on his very own lonely planet. During Aleister’s junior year three, Pearly earmarked his old lady on one of her excursions to Brent Cross shopping centre. A haunted, milky-white escapee from Northern Ireland’s sectarian troubles, Pearly was employed as a liveried bouncer in Mothercare; incendiary eye-candy with access to the retail facility’s inner sanctum. Giggling, they’d eagerly disappear together through a doorway signposted ‘staff only’, to fornicate behind a clutch of industrial wheelie bins (positioned in a designated waste storage area, along a poorly lit service corridor). Abandoned, snivelling wee Aleister was left traipsing around the well-stocked mall. Unsupervised, pressing against laminated glass exteriors fronting interchangeable shops; mixed-brand department stores, fashionable clothing boutiques, electrical retailers, on-trend accessory vendors, or luxury goods emporiums hosting award-winning Provençal face cream concessions: whichever. Aleister stared inside like a piqued Martian. Exhilarated by the non-stop abundant varieties of FMCG, but deflated by consumerisms inconsequentiality, Aleister grew up to conceptualise existence as a shaggy-dog story. Defiantly, he recollected window-shopping as a fond childhood memory, his mother’s carnality not so much; or her wuthering post-coital gawp from hooded eyes that neither knew, nor cared, about the developmental damage being done. In time, trips to Hendon’s materialistic funfair petered out; perpetually liquored up, Pearly lost his clip-on neck tie, his job, and his studio flat on Childs Hill. Ultimately, Aleister’s mother’s girlish infatuation withered as Pearly metamorphosed, into an impotent homeless mendicant, lumbered with untreatable cirrhosis; sleeping with rats in shop entrances down Kilburn High Road.

Looking up, Aleister was struck by dyspepsia, and another blast from the past. Across the pedestrianisation stood Immanuel Klein, a player who purported to abhor all things ci-devant. He hadn’t changed: a buzz fed through the grapevine asserted that he was still a cunt. Aleister and Manny first met as high school boys selling imported designer schmutter across two local trading Lanes (Leather and Petticoat), working for Lillian Skry & Ronnie ‘The Knocker’ Zucker, whose Uncle Joe Arzi’s influence reigned supreme over Camden’s, and Tower Hamlets’ licensing systems; controlling market inspectors, and subletting stalls. Manny fell in love with couture stock, and in due course became a right fashion victim; philosophising on the topic with all the brio of an art-house radical (a radical wanker naturally). During his late teens he’d formed Futurist Punx, a heavy rocking four-piece musical combo that extolled beauty in strife. They jumped into bed with louring Brigadier Robert d’Alby, a scary ex-forces cove turned small-time impresario for fledgling voices panegyrising insubordination. A genuine brute, the cigar-smoking brigadier was pretty mixed up. Possessed of archetypal officer baggage, viz., horse-haired duelling scars, pent-up aggression, institutionalised homophobia; mindless desires to assault anyone, or anything deemed officially dishonourable, on behalf of manly ideals. Manny insisted the end justified macho means, opining that d’Alby’s intriguing personality compelled exertion. A complex egg: BRd seemed to seek a noble form into which he could pour his volcanic energy. An accomplished cubist; he and his easels simply disappeared one day, never to return. Without the insensate brigadier at the tiller, Manny’s ensemble petered out. Aleister recollected a few trite lines from their one and only 7” single entitled Post-minimalist Self-Portrait: “We shall sing of the thrill of danger/Flying fist-fuck up the arse/Courage, movement, hard rebellion/Sniffing glue, in Regent’s Park.” It was pompous tosh really. Thank you! 

The Brig booked Futurist Punx on a tragic tour of shite gigs, at workman’s clubs spanning the London Boroughs of Camden, Westminster, and Brent; awkwardly on the bill alongside traditional Irish ballads: Dubliner’s tribute bands for the most part. Manny boasted that he and his conjoint collaborateurs were waking punters from feverish hypersomnia; he glorified cruelty, thuggery, seven drunken nights, and wild injustice, but shat himself and ran for his life after being glassed while exiting the ladies lavatories in Cricklewood’s Production Village. After that moment of self-discovery Manny gave up on being a front man, and segued back into the supporting cast of his family’s extensive business interests. As part of a tribal initiation ceremony, Manny solemnly swore not to fraternise with former associates hailing from families or enterprises unrelated and/or unaffiliated to the Klein’s expanding empire for a complete lunar year. Manny kept his promise for the most part, only lapsing in a couple of lunations; first up, tripping on brown blotters during a summer’s twilight, over a Hampstead Heath night-swimming weekend. Under the influence, Manny confessed to Aleister that perceiving himself as an expendable, landless, fungible itinerant, in a suicidal stratified society feverishly cannibalising greed, fear, and malignant narcissism, had brought him to his senses. He accepted he couldn’t survive alone in Cuntish Town: that listless dive, peopled by dawdling vagabonds. Aspirational London’s galaxy of burnt-out wannabees, where genuine pretending passes as an adequate mode of existence, and lowbrow participants are deceptively orchestrated on behalf of ruling élites (for the sorry sake of fading public-minded perceptions) by arch-facilitators, activating media-managed biases to foment prejudicial egodystonic sensitivities. Recounting that he’d pursued a safety-in-numbers logic, and joined a mercenary gang; strategically allying himself through his bloodline to Albion’s Premier Grand Masonic Lodge: an institution that aggregated supernumerary groups of abominable opinion formers. As a party to which, his tribe pretended under warrant, to present pragmatic balanced solutions to travails faced by ordinary folk tholing their humdrum lives. Adding in peroration, that he’d lost all his honest, salt-of-the-earth mates; but out of necessity, he’d changed. Manny petitioned for righteous understanding, and forgiveness; appeals that were rejected by Aleister, who couldn’t, and wouldn’t confer his imprimatur. Nowadays, made-man Manny weltered amidst an orgy of sensual gratification, surrounded by heavies togged up in black leather, rubber, and shiny PVC. They were his disciples; hook, line, and sinker. Body harnesses, panic snaps, and meat tenderisers eradicated any notion of revolt. Their overseer, whom Manny jocularly dubbed Jack the Rimmer, a hefty mouth-breathing automaton, was responsive to his masters needs alone. Kept firmly in check by a remote-controlled erection trainer, and subdued by double-bar nipple clips, Jack’s enjoinders were slurred due to a fetish for adjustable velvet tongue gags, but he dealt severely with backchat or obstinacy within the ranks: lashing out with his customised sauna whip, that, along with a latex executioner’s mask, constituted his vestments of office, and tools of domination.

***

Psychoneuroses, Part 3

Psychoneuroses, Part 1

Think of an occasion when you personally had to deal with either a challenging situation or a difficult person. What was the main concern, how did you tackle it and what were the consequences?

“While supervising twin rescue badger cubs playing outside our cosy Vale of Health home, I noticed a silly argument boiling over between nine or ten adolescent lads nearby. Two pretty refugees, Berber boys well known to us, were being bullied. My initial concern was that an unruly brawl might endanger my wards. Shuttling back and forth in cerebration between social totality and the irreducible complexity of individual needs, I prayed for a peaceful resolution, but a sudden escalation in aggression resulted in a nasty free for all. I gamely intervened, in an effort to assist the nicer foreign tykes- shouting aloud that they were our friends, and that acts of violence did no one any credit. At this point a craft blade was produced, and forcefully stabbed into my thyroid; I lost consciousness. It transpired that the big ugly cockney chaps had then carried me shoulder high at a canter, before gleefully throwing me through my own kitchen window. Consequently, I underwent five full emergency blood transfusions in order to live with disabilities, for the next three years in therapy; having suffered traumatic brain injury, I gradually relearned to think, speak, move, toilet unassisted- eventually conquering stressors that darkened my life with mental disorder: causing a deep sense of distress, and an abject deficit in functioning. I’ve since been blessed with a tidy legacy and almighty faith, learned to forgive, and am a happy burgher of Hampstead once more. Peace out.”

Slouched beneath yon immense, lonely Ash tree, grooving to Yiddish related acidic house, he greedily interfered with a lap-dancing Norn. Pungent little sort it was: halitosis, thick Irish accent, decked out in crotch-less knick-knocks, peephole bra, and dishing out plenty of extreme close-up. Bending over backwards it was, chomping his knob raw, yet falling asleep prior to eruption. She couldn’t even be arsed to spit out a prophecy. What a tease. In revenge, wearing a raincoat on his pecker, he shunted her up her dirty fibrous butt like a jackhammer. Oh, it was gripping all right; just a pity an amalgam of dour fate and high anxiety decreed Aleister never would get to blow his Old English. Up jumped a troll from under a humongous fungus, soliloquising ten-to-the-dozen; she clocked Aleister and threw a wobbler. “It’s all over son, you’ve blown it, and now it’s rustication time.” 

Instanter, he realised he was alit, retrograde; having been tossed onto the serrated horns of a dilemma, before plummeting from the upper levels of a multi-storeyed identity crisis. Gasping for air in front of London Underground’s bleak LIFT OUT OF SERVICE sign, Aleister feared losing his will to live within an admonitory pit of despair at Goodge Street tube-station. He was all in a quandary when some stroppy mulatto bitch, wearing a navy-blue TfL staff uniform, exhaling rank foetid breath and reeking of BO, goose-stepped towards him along this stop’s lacklustre southbound platform. “Can I see your ticket?” At this juncture her abrupt question made as much sense as psychedelic yodelling, non-alcoholic whiskey, decaffeinated coffee, woolly Liberals, or Britain’s unelected yet constitutional monarchy; as fathomable as chicks with dicks, love under will, fealty to a tyrannical demesne, Roberto Calvi’s venerdì nero, Molly Sugden’s grotesque shaven pussy- whatever. So Aleister, as fey as you like, answered in colloquial Akkadian, and with a self-measured dignity, produced the necessary if sullied travel credentials. Her hostility flamed undiminished as she callously warned him to ‘mind the gap’. Still, now wasn’t the time to go for the jugular; this piece of washed-out white trash could wait. Flashing harsh promiscuous stares, out of rheumy jaundiced eyes, the misshapen famulua crawled back silently to her dark station master. 

Stone me, another bloody trou-de-loup! Mortal peril was too close for comfort; somewhere along life’s impermanent way he’d taken a wrong turn. Festooned by beads of oily sweat, Aleister ascended a one hundred and thirty-nine step staircase to egress; stood outside the building’s oxblood red faïence blocks, palpitating, and timorously suffering all manner of oesophageal reflux, he rolled a fat fag -liquorice paper- trying to gauge the extent of this most up-to-the-minute mental lapse. Still tripping, he clocked a CCTV system overhead and so, in a public display of proleptic irony, pretended to be in complete control of internal impulses and external traumas. Meandering awhile, muttering scurrilously, before heading off down Berners Street; targeting those mawkishly bathetic Ancienne Forge tearooms on Berwick Street. Paul Raymond’s mock Vichy venue’s architectural splendour provided a makeshift video recording studio; its art deco interior offered scant pain relief from an excruciatingly naff fare of trademarked light entertainment spotlighting burlesque French missionaries clumsily shriving, whilst pursuing comic strip crusades against adult themed revues that the Grand Order of Water Rats officially pooh-poohed as misogynistic pornography. A clientèle chic of playboy property developers were treated to a caricaturish cast, bursting at their nylon seams with apotropaic mumbo jumbo, as they brokered a mesmerising repertoire of life insurance options (bon marché as far as Aleister could tell), plus slapstick servings of featherweight double entendres across disposable platters. A troupe of superficially wanton, but distinctly naïve mini-skirted waitresses, homogeneously sported black patent stilettos, tantalizing Hi-Vis stocking tops, and squeezed sun-ripened honeydew melons into sheer, plunge-cut white silk blouses; all in their early 20s, these heartbreakers passionately vied for Equity cards by advertising a synthetic, ‘take-me-from-behind’ coquetry. Bien sûr, for the sake of flickering proprieties, they also served luxurious leaf teas in fine bone china mugs. “Un tasse de bohea s’il vous plait Mam’zelle.”

Furtively checking his bins, Aleister felt relieved to grope a plenitude of coins of the realm, a travel-card for zones 1-2, three well-worn gummy ribbed condoms, a small cuneiform clay tablet, plus friable complimentary early-door midweek tickets into Madame JoJo’s; from whence hallucinogenic drugs and maladaptive daydreaming had instigated an impromptu mission to Yggdrasil (a right schlep on the Northern line). Occult Hindi messages garbled from the driver’s cab terminated his zero-hour tube journey in Mornington Crescent; bewitched, he’s popped out for an eyelash, but spent an unheralded Thursday night frottaging with a swarthy trog from County Kilburn. Sweet Jesus! He’d monster snogged mad Paddy’s emphysemic missus, two-bob Aoife, numerous times. Hot ruddied tongues inside rasping mouths, smooching and slavering; culminating in ultra-smelly staccato sex with both their zippers closed. He hadn’t climaxed mind, so he’d probably be okay. Psych! He lit a joint; even as a resting actor he figured it was outrageous, juxtaposing sensuously alluring gusset with Christianity. Bearing his order, a leggy, pussy-pelmetted factotum enquired after the state of his soul: inferno, purgatory, or paradise? You’re having a laugh! Ogling the ample cleavage on display caught his attention; her waitresses’ nametag read Brigitte. Oh là là. Was she a Bertie? Doubt it. Dear Brigitte, give us a wank. He blushed, picked up the linen draper and hid. It was all kicking-off that summer of 1983: in the wake of massive public spending cuts, British Airways helicopters plunged into the Celtic Sea, temperatures’ soared, and the Old Queen’s Guard wilted under bearskins. And still, it wasn’t nearly as perfervid as the previous one when The Battle of Goose Green, and racially aggravated consumer riots, set the scene for a hair-raising intrusion into monarchical mystique. Enter Mickey Fagan, Aleister’s old school mate; since transmogrified, a tad unexpectedly, from sardonic gamin into a star struck palace prowler. Aleister was loath to jump to conclusions, yet recursively suspect to his circumspect reasoning was that, national notoriety notwithstanding, Fagan’s alleged torch crimes and ostensible double trespass carried no legitimate conviction. Despite fractals of quasi-journalistic investigation no one appeared able, or willing, to corroborate any intelligible brass tacks. Each pejorative exposition differed in crucial details from its manufactured predecessor; resulting in fabulation, miscarriage of justice, and a palpable economy with the truth. Natheless, Fagan, the stock-in-trade madman, had exited stage left; to be housed sarcastically at Her Majesty’s Pleasure.

Aleister himself acquired insights into shenanigans behind the story, months before its cognate scandal belched, having sampled the fellowship of Fagan and a gang of the saga’s key players on a night out celebrating absolving conclusions reached in Lord Cyprian’s report (formulated to close the book on a Security Commission inquiry). It was a jolly on expenses, courtesy of some big knob from Royal Protection codenamed Trestle-table; a group commander who could afford to support sordid and degraded company. Amusingly the copper’s favourite bed-hopper tagged along, a hustler called Roach, who tittered nervously and kept holding hands with his philanthropic squeeze; alluding to the senior officer as ‘my Vicky Order nut gone commando.’ This subversive posse, all lovely boys together, cruised (with some random wandervögel from the Canaries for good measure) from that well-appointed political nexus of Highbury Fields to rip it up, binge drinking around London N1. Aleister’s remembrance was frayed (same world, different planet). What was certain was he’d gotten shickered, and grown inexorably attracted to the witty Spaniard. By the time they alighted at The Famous Cock Tavern, Aleister had lost it completely; quizzing the young caballero in an ill-defined monologue that over-indexed Norwich City Football Club. Amid a dense cloud of King size cigarette smoke and acute embarrassment, with the help of pictures mapped onto scraps of paper, it was comprehensively pointed out that he’d sorely misunderstood the Guanche guy’s allegiances; Pedro wasn’t the least bit interested in association football. Neither was Aleister. He went for a leak, recovering his composure before returning to the fray, which was heady fare by anyone’s standards: commentaries on political stasis, corruption, and dire warnings that Britain’s population would soon be consigned unto a neo-dark age; an upcoming epoch heralded by societal crises (a series of vicious events, which Trestle-table delighted in referring to as Doctor Marten’s apocalypse). By this juncture Aleister had heard enough seditious gossip to develop an unhealthy appetite for complots, chiefly state-endorsed crimes against the proletariat. Despite that, on account of his unrequited love affair with loss and sorrow, he felt vulnerably ineffectual. Daring to fight the powers that be was unimaginable. Even in dreams he couldn’t escape an aching disappointment of coexisting with negative expectations; self-critically, he’d grown aware that he was the sort of frenetic, psychometrically-tested, unfit-for-purpose loser, who’d nause up a civil protest big style. 

By way of contrast, Fagan, throughout his wasted youth (best sympathetically understood in the context of psychological praxis), harboured a passion for zestful revolutionaries come urban guerrilla types; especially those prepared to go the full nine anarchic yards. He was fascinated by social inequity, royal prerogative, and class war, positing (after sedulous consideration): who the flipping hell wouldn’t rebel? Unmistakably, Aleister had experienced little enough welfare from trickle-down economics, his neighbourhood, or his estranged parents; two galling wage slaves, base, little-or-no hopers, scunnered by a lifetime’s penury. During reception year two, on the eve of his primary school sports day, his depraved bearded father (damnatio memoriae) buggered off, and whilst mother dearest kept social workers at bay, there was precious little time left in between her two cleaning jobs and recurrent affaires de coeur, for mother-son levity. Unsurprisingly, he’d never felt loved or wanted; more like some dusty ornament- a token curio from an ephemeral union. Aleister could only aspire to the warm devotion extant between Fagan, and his diminutive twinset mater. Their close-knit, cradle-to-grave relationship wasn’t flagrantly unconventional, yet Aleister sensed an intense, abnormal, selcouth aura: a kind of primitive joy. Aleister and Fagan’s mutual, ginger Piggy O’Brien (panel beater by profession, farceur by vocation), the grinning, stertorous, no-nonsense pragmatist of their thirty-something, Anglo-Hibernian Clan of Three, curtly trashed such unguarded speculation as ‘utter bollox’; counselling Aleister to keep shtum, or face extreme consequences. Quick with his fists, violent and territorial, Fagan smack-battered each of his pink step-dads purple. Eschewing happy family idealism, Piggy viewed Fagan’s domestic straighteners as expressions of a natural will to power. As far as Piggy was concerned, a humble council estate heritage wasn’t wealthy enough for disposable airy-fairy fancies; although O’Brien’s bog-hopper parents did stick with the sanctity of marriage, if only to celebrate a silver jubilee. Theirs was an elegantly understated party, gay beyond belief: Joe Loss and His Orchestra played over the gramophone, with cocktails and vol-au-vents served upon crepuscular rays of midsummer sunlight to underwhelmed public bar acquaintances, and a few pasty faces from their 1930s terrace. Pigsty’s nonchalance was typical of someone whom had always enjoyed the love and commitment of an adhesive family; he simply took it for granted. Aleister cried a river, Fagan danced a well rehearsed tango with his old lady, and gin slings washed the shores of dawn.

***

Psychoneuroses, Part 2

I, the Hammer

“What kind of sick bastard would run over a retired police dog?” I stared at the trail of blood the golden retriever had left on the pavement as he’d tried to crawl to sidewalk.

“I know you and Duke were close,” Captain Rex Barkless said.

“He saved my life in Nam. Lost his leg jumping out of the Huey I was flying to deflect a surface-to-air missile. I can understand killing a cat because cats suck. But a dog?”

“You know, most cat owners don’t even like guns.” Barkless touched the Glock on his hip.

“Not even, Betsy?” I removed the .45 from my shoulder holster. “I’m going to find who killed Duke and put a few dozen slugs in his testicles.”

“Not if I get him first, Mallet.”

“I don’t have to follow the rules that coppers do. Besides, I’ll save the taxpayer the cost of a jury trial.”

“How much you want to bet I’ll get him first?”

“Steak dinner?”

“You’re on.” Barkless walked to the squad car.

***

“Sorry for your loss, ma’am,” Barkless said to Duke’s bereaved dog mom.

“He was a good boy. Would you like a cup of herbal tea?” Hortense Hamentaschen struggled to rise from the floral-upholstered chair with doilies on the arm rests. She was in her late seventies with bones thin as number-two pencils. Hortense limped to the kitchen. After banging pots, she returned with a teapot and cups. “Would you like milk?”

“I take mine straight, just like my women.” I drained the cup of boiling chamomile in one gulp. 

“Did anyone want to hurt Duke?” Barkless tried to hide his frown as he sipped the herbal tea.   

“Oh.” Hortense held in index finger to her chin. “I can’t think of anyone.”

“Cut the crap, granny!” I backhanded her, sending Hortense’s dentures flying into the potted plant. I drew my .45 and held it under her chin. “Duke was a friend of mine. When I find his killer, I’m going to put a half-dozen slugs in his genitals, pour molten lead in his eyeballs, and make him listen to Miss Edna Chilblains, author of the epic poem Robinson Crusoe and that Damn Hangnail. The same goes for anybody who gets in my way. Now, spill it!”

“Sometimes he’d board the number forty-seven bus and ride it down to Hickenlooper’s Tavern on Delirium Street. Everybody loved him and the bus driver let him ride for free.” Without her dentures, Hortense slurred her words. “He also worked as a therapy dog at the pediatric cancer center.”

“Looks like I’m one step closer to that steak dinner.” I holstered my .45 and spoke to Barkless. “I’ll hit the hospital. You check out the bar.”

***

When a police officer makes detective, the taxpayers pick up the tab for his theme song. A private investigator with a movie deal might get the studio to buy him something like Harlem Nocturne. With my budget, I had to raid the public domain. I chose a kazoo playing the 1812 Overture and added a recording of a few rounds from my .45 for the cannon blasts. When driving in Texas, I’d even shoot a few holes through the roof of my rented pickup. Anyway, the theme played in the background as I drove to the hospital. I parked my Camaro in the emergency room zone and walked through the sliding doors. Juvenile malingerers, who’d shaved in a pathetic attempt to avoid working in the coal mines, roamed the pediatric cancer ward on the second floor.

“Names Mike Mallet.” I showed my PI license to the receptionist. “Give me the medical records of every patient you’ve treated in the past decade.”

“Sir, you’re not a policeman and have no authorization of subpoena medical records.”

“This is my authorization!” I drew my .45 and held it to her face.

“Security!”

Two sumo wrestlers wearing traditional mawashi ran up the hall. Even though both outweighed me two-to-one, I didn’t need my .45. I hit the first with a roundhouse punch that spun his head like an ultra-high-capacity, refrigerated centrifuge and dropped the second like a watermelon off a sixty-story building with a punch to the gut. A nurse who was watching fanned her neck with a prescription pad.

“Ooh, it’s getting moist down there.” She rolled her panties over her ankles and handed them to me. “Hold on to these until I finish my shift. The name’s Buttercup, Honey Buttercup.”

“Mike Mallet.” 

She was blonde as a bottle of Riesling, the dry kind because I don’t like mine too sweet, and her breasts were buoyant enough to keep a shipwrecked sailor afloat. 

“See you at eight, Mike Mallet.” Honey wrote her address on back of a Viagra prescription as if unaware that I never needed it.

Even though I missed out on bracing the kids, I judged my one-on-one with Honey would be more productive. When I left, I found a meter maid was placing a ticket under my Camaro’s wipers. I slugged her in the chin and left her unconscious body in a wheelchair by the emergency room’s entrance.

***

 “Do you know what a nymphomaniac is, Mike?” Honey let her nightgown slip off her shoulders.

“Yeah, a woman who can almost keep up with me.” I tossed my fedora on the bedside table.

“Oh Mike, I’ve made love to astronauts, Navy SEALs, Olympic athletes, and the entire Dallas Cowboys football team but I’ve never had a real man.”

“Then get ready, baby.” I slipped out of my shoulder holster and pleasured her thirty-seven times until she begged for more. I did her nineteen more times. Then I rocked her world with three hundred eight orgasms until she begged me to stop. I gave her a few dozen more for good measure.  

“Oh Mike, I brought you those medical records.” Honey got out of bed and returned with a pile of folders tall as Godzilla.

“Thanks, sweetheart.” I slapped her on the ass. “Now how about getting me a snack?”

***

Aside from sick kids using a lot of painkillers, the medical records were a bust. Sure, the pastor’s wife had chlamydia and the pictures of the DA’s genital warts might come in handy but there was no way to move my investigation forward so I took a drive to Delirium Street. 

“My name’s Mike Mallet.” I flashed my PI license at the bartender. “Show me your business records for the past twelve years.”

Hickenlooper’s Tavern seemed like a wholesome place with drunks passed out in their vomit and two bikers going after each other with pool cues. 

“Sir, you’re not a policeman,” the bartender said. “You have no authorization to subpoena financial records.”

“This is my authorization!” I drew my .45 and held it to his face.

I heard growling from a back room and kicked open the door to encounter the seedy underbelly of canine corruption. I’d always thought that painting of dogs playing poker was the artist’s fantasy but here I encountered it in real life.

“Show me your dog licenses and rabies certificates.” I fired my .45 into the ceiling to get their attention. Then I heard a familiar voice.

“Mikey, Mikey! You wouldn’t want to begrudge a few hardworking canines the chance to blow off a little steam.”

It was George Kolaczki, a retired English teacher who supplemented his pension from the Penobscot School District by loan sharking.

“You know this dog?” I showed Kolaczki Duke’s picture.

“Yeah, he played Texas Hold’em sometimes.”

“Was he into you for any money?”

“Hey, the game’s for entertainment. We only play for dog biscuits here.”

“Let me tell you something.” I shoved my pistol in Kolaczki’s nose. “Duke was a friend of mine. When I find out who killed him, I’m going to give him a sulfuric-acid enema, fit him into a poison ivy jockstrap, and make him listen to Edna Chilblains.”

“I taught Great Expectations in high school for twenty-seven years. You don’t scare me.” Kolaczki yelled, “Luka!”

A snarling Doberman in a luchador mask burst into the room. I kicked him in the nuts and he collapsed into a whimpering pile of emasculation.

“See you around, Kolaczki.” I adjusted my fedora to a proper thirty-degree angle and left.

***

  Honey took me to a strip club called the Habanero Narwhal. The name was slang for a kink that anyone with a capsaicin sensitivity shouldn’t attempt. I sat at a booth with my date and placed my fedora in my lap. A barmaid with breasts shaped like killer whales approached.

“Care for a drink?” 

“Vodka and baby seal blood, garnished with a Carolina Reaper. I want that baby seal clubbed fresh. None of that bottled stuff.” 

“Irish Cream.” Honey fingered my hatband.

The naked girls chewing mukluks backed by a chorus of howling malamutes wasn’t my thing so we left to ransack bodegas in a search for million-Scoville hot sauce. As we stepped out the front door, I heard squealing tires and turned to see a Lincoln Town Car speeding toward us.

“Get down!” 

I shielded Honey with my body as a man in the passenger seat leaned out the window and tossed a thesaurus at us. His throw went wide and the heavy volume embedded into the strip club’s brick facade. I drew my .45 and fired six rounds at the receding taillights. 

“Are you okay?” Honey asked.

“Yeah.” I holstered my pistol. “A certain loan shark with a name like a pastry is going to get it.”

***

“Do you have a reservation?”

“I’m Mike Mallet here to fix your rodent problem and that rat’s name is George Kolaczki.”

I muscled my way through the crowd and found Kolaszki at a table by a window with a view of Jupiter City’s skyline. A cornucopia of mayhem lay on the tablecloth. A Japanese hotpot simmered atop a blue flame, cheese fondue bubbled like the La Brea Tar Pits, Korean barbecue sizzled atop a portable grill, and a waiter ignited brandy atop a serving of Steak Diane. The cowboy, ninja, Viking, and pirate who served as Kolaczki’s bodyguards sat at a separate table, eating shish kebab on foot-long, metal skewers.

“I came to return this.” I dropped the thesaurus in the hotpot and splashed hot dashi on Kolaczki’s lap.

The loan shark recoiled from the table as the cowboy stood and reached for his six-gun. I threw a fondue fork overhand and it sunk three-inches deep into his eye socket. Before the Viking could draw his longsword, I flung the burning brandy into his eyes, used the pan to block three throwing stars, and brained the ninja into dreamland. Using one of the skewers as an epee, I scored first blood against the pirate before knocking him out with an uppercut.

“This is for Duke.” I held Kolaczki’s face in the boiling fondue until he drowned.

“Excuse me, sir.” A waiter approached with a lighter and chafing dish. “Does Mr. Kolaczki still want the Cherries Jubilee?”

***

 “What kind of sick bastard would run over a grieving dog mom?” I stared at the trail of blood Hortense had left on the pavement as she’d tried to crawl to sidewalk and began to wonder if I’d been wrong about Kolaczki.

“Two killings in one week.” Barkless fanned sweat off his face with his fedora. “You think they’re connected?”

“All I know is that when I find the killer, I’m going to use his intestines as dental floss.”

“Detective, you might want to see this.” A uniformed officer pointed to some broken glass.

I touched my finger to the liquid and gave it a sniff. 

“Rectum Rooter Hot Sauce. I’ve got to go.”

***

 “Mike, I wasn’t expecting you so early.” Honey peeled off her halter.

“It was you all along. Wasn’t it?” I stepped toward her. “I didn’t put it together until just now. You skimmed painkillers from all those kids. Duke was a drug-sniffing dog and he found you out so you killed him.”

“Mike, you’re scaring me.” Honey took off her bra and stepped backward.

“You paid the dog mom to keep quiet but she got greedy so you bumped her off, too.”

“I had to, Mike. I needed that money to pay for male escorts but I don’t need them anymore now that I have you. We can move away together to someplace in the country with a hot tub and waterbed.”

She stepped backward but I was relentless as a steamroller chasing Gumby and Pokey.

She reached behind her for a dildo on the coffee table and swung it so hot sauce from our last fetish flew into my eyes. I bent over in agony as she battered me about the head with the heavy latex but she couldn’t resist my manliness and our struggle turned into a BDSM session.

“Give it to me, Mike. Give it to me.”

I gave it to her all right, a .45 slug right in the guts.

“How could you do this to me, Mike?”

“Killings too good for you.” I strapped her to the easy chair with duct tape, put a tape of Edna Chilblains’s epic poem on repeat, and turned up the volume to cover Honey’s screams.

Fly the Friendly Skies 

I was heading back to Tucson after I had made a drug run of eighty kilos of cocaine to Sacramento. It was originally meant to be delivered to San Francisco but an earthquake of devastating proportion caused the destination to be changed. 

I finally boarded my flight to Phoenix after my stopover in Los Angeles.

Whenever traveling alone it seems I always get seated next to someone with some kind of  annoying trait or disgusting habit. The incessant talkers that go on even after you express  disinterest. There’s the drunks with unpleasant attitudes. Or those with body odor or with an excessive amount of cologne or perfume which is  just as displeasing. Close talkers with  bad breath. Others who pick their nose or clean out ear wax. Then they offer to shake hands with you after. You get the idea. I do wonder if the people that get seated next to me may find me annoying.  I’m occasionally drunk, seldom stinky, borderline attractive, depending on the border and my demeanor couldn’t be classified  as unpleasant. I am an absolute  pleasure, how could anyone not enjoy an encounter with me?

This time fate does me a solid and my traveling companion in seat 12B, the window seat on this flight to Phoenix, is not a beautiful woman but instead a scholarly looking fellow. His face is wrinkled, weathered and pocked, a testament to his many bouts with the challenges that life has thrown at him. As I sit down he uncaringly stuffs his jacket under the seat. He strokes his scraggly beard then pushes the call assistance button to summon the flight attendant. Then stares at me with a blank expression not showing any emotion. It seems as though he’s sizing me up.

I notice the flight attendant coming toward us. She’s  working her way up the aisle through the passengers still boarding, stashing their items in the overhead storage and searching for their seats.

“Good morning sir. How can I be of assistance?” she greets us in a melodic voice while reaching to turn off the call light.

“Well let me tell you that as soon as possible, I need three of those baby bottle sized whiskeys you sell. No need for a glass, water or ice. Just the whiskey and I don’t care what brand. And how about you there Pancho you want something? I’m buying.” The scholarly fellow asks.

“Sure , thanks. I’ll have a whiskey as well in the baby bottle. It doesn’t matter which brand.”

“I’m unable to serve you gentlemen before we depart but I will get your order as soon as we reach our cruising altitude and the pilot turns off the fasten seat belt sign.”

“You need to know I am an alcoholic and must have my medication otherwise I can’t be held responsible for my actions. And Pancho here appears as though he may possibly suffer from the same affliction. How is it that I noticed when I first entered there were people enjoying cocktails up front there. What gives?” The self proclaimed  dipsomaniac asks.

“Sir, that’s the First Class you’re in Coach. Those passengers pay extra for that privilege and service.” The waitress in the sky explained.

“So let me understand. I’m just second class and it all comes down to money?  Another example of the inequality of Capitalism and it smells of bullshit!  Do I appeal to the head of the airline to protest this bourgeoisie oppression or would this be something you could possibly remedy?”

I am unable to hide my reaction to the humorous exchange and I begin to laugh. The attendant leaves hastily shaking her head in disgust although still with her smile. She  returns moments later with six baby bottles of scotch. 

“A gift from the airline. My pleasure. And I know who you are, mister. So mind your manners.”

“Thank you ever so much. You shall be generously rewarded by the Gods my dear. Ya see Pancho  sometimes ya just have to kick the rules in the balls.”

I wasn’t offended or insulted by what some might consider a racist comment with the Pancho reference. There was no malicious intent in his expression describing my heritage. Although I’ve always been under the impression that my appearance was more Italian than Mexican.

The ball-kicker hands me two bottles of scotch and keeps four for himself. One extra for him as commission for his effort he explains.

“So what’s your story Pancho? Everybody’s got a story, some just not as interesting as others. So what do you do? You a drug dealer or a crop picker on vacation? Are you in this country legally or are you one of those border jumpers?” he inquires.

“I don’t want to disappoint you but I am a priest from Nogales ,Arizona. I just delivered donations of food and clothing to the earthquake victims in San Francisco. I’m headed back now, gotta work Bingo at the church tonight,” I told him.

“Son of a bitch! Are you fucking feeding me a line of bullshit? I would have never guessed that even if I was clairvoyant. You should be wearing your collar so you don’t catch people off guard. It’s not fair going undercover. So how’s that God fellow doin? Ya think he ever feels guilty about destroying people’s lives by his ruthless ungodly actions? I think of his assholiness as quite a prick. It doesn’t matter he doesn’t exist anyway. Don’t want to offend you or your beliefs so I won’t give you my take on him or religion. Gonna have to wait until I’m drunk. Then ya can give me a peso for my thoughts. Here’s to your Jesus and the rest of the fictitious characters in that Bible. And to all the religious fanatics as well. What a fairytale, a book of fables written by religious fanatics, numerous authors, interpreted by an unknown number of editors. Written hundreds of years ago without any factual data. And with events stolen directly from other religions. I’d rather worship the spirit in these tiny bottles. At least I know it exists and it tells the truth.”

He raises his bottle in a toast that excludes me. So that was an example of him sparing my feelings by not expressing his opinion? I found it curious that he was concerned with possibly insulting my religious ideals but had no problem referring to me as Pancho. I truly liked this character. There was realism in his demeanor and a fire of wisdom burning in his eyes. His views no matter how socially  or politically incorrect were sung and voiced without derogatory intent.

“So what do you have to say for yourself Mr. Dipsomaniac? You do anything else other than drink and give people a hard time? Are you a mean drunk? And what experience was so traumatic in your life that it resulted in you becoming an alcoholic as you refer to yourself?  Another question, the flight attendant said she knew who you were. What did she mean? And…”

“Hold on there Padre! I’m not one of your misguided flock that you can flog with your rosary and threaten omnipotent retribution for indiscretions. Just thought we would share philosophies on the complexity of women or maybe discuss a favorite or worst book you’ve read.  I’m not much for sports or political issues. But you want to pick at my psyche, get personal, have me bare my naked soul and we haven’t even gotten off the ground. Not gonna happen Padre.”

The airplane begins to make its way down the runway. We are thrusted into the cloudless sky as the ground below shrinks into minute images.

“It’s only the take offs and landings that rattle my nerves,” he says.

The fourth miniature bottle of Scotch meets with his lips and is emptied in one loud gulp. The aircraft levels off at the pilot’s designated altitude and the ding sounds indicating the fasten seat belt light has been turned off. Immediately after, he reaches once again for the assistance button and pushes at it with force.

“Gotta find our Angel of Mercy to stoke the fire. Ya ready for another there Padre?” my new best friend asks.

“No, I am just fine at the moment. I’ll wait it out till Phoenix, have a connecting flight to Tucson. They say if ya die in Tucson your soul will have to catch a connecting flight to heaven.”

“Cute, not funny, just cute. And you can spare me your Reader’s Digest witticisms. Save them for the Bingo crowd. Have you always been a servant to your imaginary deity or was there a time when you cut loose? Understand what I’m getting at?”

“Yes I understand and absolutely, I had an abundant supply of paint when I was younger with which I generously painted many a town red. However the time came around when I wrestled with the ‘better to serve in Hell than reign in Heaven’ quote. I concluded that I could become more useful as a priest than as a party animal.”

“Familiar with Milton I see.”

“Yes and with Voltaire, Candide, Moliere, Rousseau, and the entire pack of howling philosophers.”

“Quite impressed there Padre Pancho. But I am starting to develop a severe case of doubt concerning you being a man of the cloth. In fact I don’t believe you are a priest at all or for that matter a Catholic or even Christian. Where the hell is the attendant? I am drying out,” he says while looking down the aisle front and back. 

“Would you like me to fetch her for you?” I offer.

“I see her in back there readying the drink wagon now. Guess I’ll have to ride out the drought.”

“Here take my other bottle, you need it more than I do.”

He accepts my gift with a huge grin.

“I don’t care who the hell you are Padre, you’re okay in my book.”

I’m trying to figure out who this guy could be. He didn’t seem familiar to me at all. I was sure he wasn’t an actor or a famous musician. He couldn’t be a politician like a Senator or Representative. I was leaning toward the arts, maybe a famous painter or film director. Then it all became obvious to me who this character was and what he did. He was a writer, a famous author. I was an avid reader of his work since being a fan of transgressive fiction. This guy had written a great number of books and was an acclaimed poet as well. 

“Let me introduce myself. I’m Father Santiago. I’m enjoying our time together on this flight. You’re quite the character.”

“Still going with the Father act huh? Well I’m not buying what you’re selling. So is it alright if I just call you Santiago?”

“Sure, Santiago will be just fine.”

As we shook hands he introduced himself. 

“Pleased Santiago. Henry, Henry Chinaski.”

Anti-cemitas

Not the greatest vacation ever, Harlan Scropes thought. Pretty bad, in fact. A nightmare of  the kind that makes you wonder why you wanted to take a vacation in the first place. 

The flight from Newark had been seriously delayed, with no explanation or palliative cocktails. At the Mexican airport, border officials pulled a shakedown due to his near-expired passport. During the taxi ride to the resort, the driver pulled over at several grimy cantinas to offer pimp service. 

When he was finally in the sub-standard hotel room, he changed into his swimsuit and went out for a restorative swim. The resort’s swimming pool was closed for maintenance, although no workers or pool-cleaners were present. The nearby beach resembled postcard scenery, but the travel agency brochures hadn’t mentioned fierce mosquitoes, undertow and sharks. 

Black fins sliced the murky water not twenty yards from the shoreline. Harlan didn’t believe the receptionist who asserted they belonged to friendly dolphins, “Like Fleeeeper.”

The resort’s bar scene was dismal. There were no lonely female tourists around, and the only available prostitute was an unconvincing transexual, who proved unskilled with head or hand. Her switchblade prowess, however, made it clear that a big tip was nonetheless expected. 

Back in his room, badly shaken, Harlan finished himself off with a nudie-horror movie on the hazy TV, and wiped up with a gray, frayed bidet towel. The bidet itself, a potentially amusing novelty, was out of order.

Food at the resort’s restaurant made him long for Taco Bell.

So Harlan felt gourmet ecstasy when he bit into a cemita at a locals-only sandwich stand in Puebla. 

He’d ridden a bus to the historic city a few days ahead of schedule, to escape bogus tropical paradise resort purgatory. Puebla was surprisingly pleasant. Harlan took in a bullfight, and was further impressed by colorful baroque churches and a distant volcano’s eruption. He bought a spaghetti western poncho and pointy-toe, slope-heel vaquero boots, though he knew he’d feel ridiculous if he tried to wear them back home. In the old town, he bought a Tijuana Bible, rabbit-shit cigarettes and a bottle of mezcal with a worm inside. He felt he’d seen the real Mexico.

Then, at a local’s-only lunch stand, he bit into a cemita and was suddenly, truly in Mexico.

Harlan wandered from loncheria to loncheria. He couldn’t get enough cemitas. Best sandwich ever, he thought. A lifelong sandwich enthusiast, he wasn’t yet obese, but his waistline was on the healthy side. Or rather, beyond the healthy side. His enlarged liver was similar to the fly-blown cow offal slopped on mesquite-wood chopping blocks he’d seen at a picturesque food market. No chance for a hot date there, either. Bored Mexican housewives did their meat shopping early, before the flies took over.

Much as he liked Puebla, Harlan didn’t want to miss his flight home. 

Cops pulled over his taxi on the way to the airport. The driver must’ve phoned in an easy target. The cops made Harlan get out of the car and lean against the hood. They slapped his potbelly, brandished pistols, brass knuckles, beavertail blackjacks. “Jew peeess blood for the rest of jew life, mang.” Harlan forked over all the shredded Mexican currency he had left. 

Mexican beer was expensive at the airport, especially if you had to pay with a credit card. “Sewer-charge,” the barmaid said. She’d squeezed her tan pear-shaped tits into a gauzy peasant blouse, but she scoffed at his pick-up gambit.

On board, the Captain announced that the flight to Newark would be delayed, due to a handicapped passenger who needed to be specially boarded.

Harlan looked out the hazy porthole. A severely overweight white woman was being rolled across the tarmac in a wheelchair. 

Thought they stowed fat feebs like her first, he thought. Isn’t that the whole point of pre-boarding?

He watched the king-size paraplegic swat at the ground crew coolies with her leather satchel. A big black rubber dildo spilled from the bag and rolled briefly down the runway. The crippled woman soundlessly screeched, Get it! Get it! 

Her screaming face turned as red as the local beet-and-orange cocktail Harlan had drunk with all those cemitas. 

She snatched back her penis substitute from the jumpsuited man who’d gone to fetch the dildo. the man bowed humbly, cap in hand. She tried to smack his head with it. He politely evaded her vicious swipes.

The ground crew couldn’t get the disabled behemoth up the mobile boarding ladder. They signaled the men in the cockpit to open up the cargo bay, and went to fetch a forklift. 

When he’d boarded, Harlan thought he’d lucked out when a pockmarked skinny señorita stewardess ushered him to a bulkhead seat with leg- and elbow-room galore. Oh shit, he thought, as the cargo bay door thunked closed and the stewardesses shoved the enraged crippled fat lady towards the only vacant seat left on the plane, the one next to his.

His intestines grumbled, and delivered a flashback taste of the scrumptious, slightly soapy herb that lent cemitas their mouthwatering flavor and consistency. Pápalo, the friendly sandwich-griddler had said. Pápalo!

Make the next one heavy on the pápalo, please. And more, please, many more of them delicious, delightfully smoky poblano peppers. Harlan couldn’t get enough, seriously. But it was suddenly obvious that he’d overdone it. 

“What the fuck are you staring at, fatso?”

Harlan mouthed air like a caught bottom-lurker fish, the kind that lazes around tropical coral reefs hoping for easy meals and quick mating action. Since he was momentarily struck dumb because a fat woman in a wheelchair had just called him fatso, his colon spoke for him. A wretched moan escaped, at a frequency pitched for elephants to hear, and fat wheelchair-bound women to smell. 

“Oh Jesus don’t stick me next to this creep. He stinks.”

The ground crew man said, “Would jew pleeeease stand up for a moment, sor? We need to secure the special chair to the bolts under jewer seat. Thank jew, sor.”

Harlan didn’t get a chance to say, no way get this fat crippled dildo-freak the hell away from me. A pápalo fug of gas escaped him as he rose.

The Mexican ground-crew men either didn’t notice, or else they’d been trained in sensitivity towards turistas pasajeros. 

“This old fart hasn’t washed in decades” the wheelchair lady said. “There’s god damn bums on my block who smell better’n him. I refuse to sit next to this stink-ass motherfucker.”

Harlan thought, who’s she calling an old fart? 

A steward-stevedore who resembled Ramón Novarro said, “Señora, pleeeease. Eees only differently abled handicapped seat avail-erble. But…if jew would prefer to wait for tomorrow’s flight, we can accompany jew back to the terminal.” He nervously fumbled a switchblade or rosary in his jumpsuit pocket. 

Harlan thought he was saved. “Can I sit back down?” 

Get her off, he prayed to God. Get her off this fucking plane and let’s get the fuck out of here so I can use the fucking restroom.

Unfortunately for him, the crippled lady was none too thrilled about having to spend an extra 24 hours in Mexico either. “Oh all right,” she said. “But could you, like, tell El Capitán to hurry it up? I mean, like, fly extra fast? ‘Cause I really need to be with my cats again.”

Harlan pictured a cluttered apartment clouded with cat-hair and ammonia-laden cat-piss fumes. His guts meowed.

They got her wheelchair strapped in, and tested its rock-steadiness with their pointy-toe boots. “Pleeeease, Señor, to resume jew sit and fasten jew sit-belt in preparation for takeoff.”

Harlan was worried the paraplegic cat-nut would bite his ass as he shinnied past her. Instead, sizzling chile poblano gas-vapors escaped through the pressure-valve of his anus. She caught his fart right in the teeth. 

“Oh my God, no,” she said. “I hate Mexican food. I hate it.”

The other passengers shook their heads. They’d have to listen to that grating, screeching voice throughout the flight. Their vibrations of hate seemed to drape Harlan in a cloak of unsmellability. His feelings for the overweight cripple shifted, slightly. Oh thank you, God. Thank you.

The cushion touted as an emergency flotation device inflated slightly when Harlan sat down and further relieved the pressure from his large intestine. 

The airplane taxied, took off and blew jet-fuel fumes into the Earth’s non-renewable atmosphere. Poblano peppers and pápalo pulp poisoned the cabin’s pressurized atmosphere.

The stewardesses put on truncated serapes and prepared to serve the in-flight meal. They slid chile rellenos and cheese enchilada dinner trays into on-board microwave ovens as a flavorful farewell to Old Mexico for the gringos. 

Harlan caught a whiff of beans, minus exotic peppers and mystical pápalo. He tried to imagine what a pápalo plant might look like, and passed another toxic cloud.

One of the stewardess’ heads popped up, like the first wildebeest in the herd to catch lion tang in the air. She quickly quadrant-scanned the cabin for flames, smoke. 

She knew that humans strapped into their seats in a metal ship much heavier than the surrounding air are highly sensitive to signs of alarm in trained professionals who’ve gained airborne-emergency instinct through flight-miles logged. 

Panic was to be avoided.

The stewardess edged aft, sniffed around nervously. 

Harlan was sure she’d stop by his seat and say, “Are jew feeling all right, señor? Do jew require ass-eeee-stance in going to the toyyyy-let?” 

No matter what the mirror said, Harlan didn’t consider himself an old fart who’d shit his pants. Not like the lady next to him, who needed help with all of life’s humiliating details and wasn’t even polite when she got the help she needed. The wheelchair lady was inspecting her fingernails, for some reason. 

Harlan saw his chance, caught the stewardess’ eye and hooked his thumb at the she-cripple. Hand-jive for, it was her.

The stewardess gave him a conspiratorial O sign with her pretty little mouth.  Glossy lipstick flashed erotic between the olive skin of her chin and slight, sexy fe-moustache. Oh man, he thought, what a kisser. Maybe that’s why he’d wanted to go to Mexico in the first place. Only he’d failed to realize the dreams he’d never realized having dreamt. 

The stewardess spun on her heels and sashayed back towards the cramped galley. Harlan scoped her swaying hips. Maybe there was hope he could score with a swinging stewardess. The Mexico trip wouldn’t have been a total washout. Aside from cemitas.

What did an overweight handicapped woman in a wheelchair want in Mexico, especially if she hated Mexican food? Oiled low-rent gigolos? It would’ve been easy enough to find out, but Harlan didn’t want to talk to her. He didn’t want her to know that he spoke English and was not, in fact, mute. He was sure she’d talk his ear off on some inane, annoying subject, given half a chance. 

Didn’t seem likely she spoke Spanish. The only words Harlan had learned on his vacation had to do with sandwiches and beer. Oh yeah, and chinga. But he could do a passable Speedy Gonzales impersonation. 

The captain still hadn’t turned off the ‘Keep Seatbelts Fastened’ sign. Industrial-strength nylon webbing cut painfully into Harlan’s distended beergut, though he’d loosened the strap to the last possible degree. Intestinal gas has an anti-Newtonian tendency to expand under pressure. 

Her goddamn wheelchair’s going to make it awful hard to get up and go to the toilet when the pilot finally deigns to let us rise and wander about the cabin, he thought.

He’d seen crippled beggars aplenty in Puebla, including a blind guy with a sandwich-board sign—not a hand-lettered lunch-counter ad, but a highly effective slogan for handouts. A steady stream of heavy silver Mexican coins went into his cup. Grácias, grácias, the blind man said, in a plaintive voice that might’ve been put on for effect. 

The other thing the beggar said was, por favor. 

Harlan hadn’t given the blind man anything, but he’d imitated his voice, repeated his words, every time he went into a cantina to ask for more beer and sandwiches.  

The pain in his abdomen felt like punishment for his lack of charity. 

The crucified Jesuses in the baroque churches had human hair, looked and smelled as though the Savior had been smeared with real blood, maybe from the bullfights. 

“Por favor,” Harlan said. The captain had finally extinguished the Fasten Seatbelts sign, and he wanted to be in pole position for the airplane toilet. Man oh man, whoever comes in after me’s gonna die, he thought, as he unbuckled and half-rose from his seat.

“What do you want me to do, you moron? I can’t get up.”

“Por favor,” he pleaded meekly. “Por favor.” His gas-bladder was about to explode, in a repetition of the Hindenburg disaster. He swung his leg up and over the fat lady’s lap and lurched towards the aisle. 

“Oh my God! Get your stinking greaser ass out of my face.”

Get your ugly face out of my ass, he thought, and let a really juicy one. 

She’d just opened up to emit another anti-Mexican epithet. She choked, screamed, “Oh my God! Oh my freakin’ God!”

Another stewardess shuffled down the aisle to quell the ruckus. She was short, on the chubby side, and exuded homey friendliness. “Qué pasó?”

Harlan waved air in front of his face. The crippled obese woman, who was desperately trying to suck oxygen into her lungs, missed the gesture. 

The stewardess understood, reached into her serape, quick-drew a can of air-freshener and sweetened the cabin’s airspace. Harlan made a break for the toilets at the back.

Luckily for him, no line had formed. 

The skinny pockmarked stewardess was in the galley next door to the toilet, arming the coffee-brewing apparatus. Harlan’s mind drifted back to high school, when he invited Jolene Odom, the crosseyed polio girl, to the Senior Prom. She turned him down. The stewardess was Jolene Odom’s Mexican twin sister, only walleyed instead of crosseyed, and no stainless steel braces on her spindly legs. 

She noticed him staring at her.

“Ay-yi-yieee,” she whispered. “Es terrible, la vieja. Siempre nos molesta mucho.”

  That was too much Spanish, for Harlan. “Por favor,” he said. “English, por favor,”

“She eees ‘orrible.” The stewardess pulled a face. “Always bother us. Always make troble.”

“What, you mean she’s a frequent flyer with you guys? She said she hates Mexico. And she…she’s in a wheelchair, for cryin’ out loud.” Harlan’s gut was primed to explode. He strained to contain his bowels. 

“Ay sí, señor,” the stewardess said. “She hate México. She hate us Méxicanos. But she love…how you say? burros.”

“Donkeys?”

“Sí. She looooove donkeys.”

Though intrigued, Harlan had more pressing concerns. The buzzer on the coffee unit frazzed. The machine spritzed high-octane brew into the stainless steel receptacle. Coffee aroma triggered his colon. “Por favor,” he said. “Grácias.”

The friendly stewardess helped him get the toilet’s accordion-door fully closed, then discreetly vamoosed to pour coffee. 

“Thank you,” Harlan whispered to the ‘No Smoking’ sign. “Thank you, Lord. Thank you.” Then he filled the toilet with tangible proof that there is no God. 

Harlan felt sure the smoke alarm would blow. The stewardess would be waiting for him outside, her wacky eyeballs hidden by a green rubber gas-mask. She’d foam him down with air-freshener while the other passengers laughed, pointed fingers and held their noses. 

Jet-engine turbo-flush took care of the evidence. Harlan kept the built-in air-freshener button pressed for a count of 20 before he dared emerge. 

The coast was clear. The cute stewardess was serving coffee in First Class. Toilet miracles happened, if you prayed hard enough. 

The white-haired whale in a wheelchair gulped coffee like it was the cure for polio, or whatever blight had taken her legs. Maybe she was simply too heavy to walk on her own.

Harlan hadn’t gotten any coffee, but maybe it wouldn’t have been such a good idea, just then. 

“Por favor,” he said. The fat crippled lady had positioned herself to take up as much aisle-space and leg-room as possible while she noisily slurped. Harlan sign-languaged that he wanted to resume his seat. 

“Oh Jesus,” she said, and slumped back minimally. 

Harlan tried to fart in her face again, but was unable. All systems clear? Didn’t seem possible. 

The disabled behemoth sucked coffee dregs as forcefully as the airplane toilet sucked human waste. “Hey!” she yelled. “More coffee, here. I want more coffee!”

The stewardess signaled that she’d be back as soon as the other passengers had been served.

“Oh Jesus,” the fat woman muttered. “Slow as motherfucking snails, the whole greasy bunch of ‘em.”

The fat lady hated Mexicans but loved donkeys, the other stewardess had said. Some guys Harlan knew in college took a trip South of the Border and had sworn they’d seen a donkey show. Maybe such spectacles were the only sexual thrill available to a fat rude racist creep who lived in a handicapped-access apartment packed with cats. Or else she was some sort of holier-than-thou animal rights activist. 

“Por favor, señora,” he said. “Ees true jew loooooove burros?”

She looked at him as if he’d just puked. “I don’t speak to Mexicans,” she said. Her thick eyeglasses were smeared with human grease, speckled with eyebrow-dandruff. Maybe she couldn’t see that the cartoon Mexican accent issued from a caricature of an average American gringo turista. 

Harlan hadn’t spoken much to Mexicans either, but when he’d asked them for cerveza and cemitas, they’d been polite and forthcoming. He was about to let the fat crippled lady know he thought she’d just said something incredibly ignorant when a painful abdominal spasm lifted him slightly from his padded seat. 

The wheelchair woman had witnessed the blast. The smell hit a second later. “Oh my God,” she said. “That’s horrible. You awful, awful man.” She punched the stewardess alarm button.  A bell bonged. A tiny orange lightbulb lit up.

The stewardesses approached cautiously. The wheelchair woman was struggling for breath, with drowning pachyderm sound-effects. Harlan fanned the air in front of his face. In calm, unaccented USA English, he said, “I think she needs the toilet.”

The woman in the wheelchair slapped at the stewardesses’ hands as she struggled to undo the safety straps that held her near the toxic cloud’s source. “Get your bean-grubbing, taco-bending hands offa me!” A man in a dingy short-sleeve shirt appeared; the co-pilot, or maybe the navigator, but certainly an expert at undoing wheelchair safety straps. Together, the crew-members trundled the disabled passenger to the restroom under heavy protest. 

Didn’t seem equipped for handicapped persons, Harlan thought. But that was their problem. He let fly freely, to relieve the pressure. Didn’t smell too bad, or not to him.

“Oh sweet Jesus.” The man in 29A covered his nose and gagged. 

The airplane hit a shock-wave of turbulence. Dinner trays and stowage compartmets clanked and rattled ominously. The plane rolled violently to a near 40-degree angle. They’d entered the Southern USA’s infamous hurricane zone. Anvil-shaped clouds farted lightning. The captain saw monster jellyfish gliding in a dark, roiling toxic sea. Their electric tentacles sparkled with the promise of pain. 

The passengers couldn’t see what lay ahead, could only smell the enemy within. They heard their captain’s not terribly reassuring voice. “Señoras y…Lay-deeees an’ gen’lemen, we will be experience a leetle tor-bulence. Kindly resume jew sits and fasten sit-belts tightly.”

Invisible demons buffeted the aircraft. Passengers shrieked and moaned. A dinner cart slammed into a bulkhead. The stewardesses and the co-pilot, or whoever he was, hustled the distressed handicapped passenger back to her spot. “We will assist jew weeth the toilet as soon as it is again safe,” the man said. “Now, we must ask that jew kindly remain calm, please.”

They high-tailed it fore, to strap themselves in. The plane flew sideways, then was brutally smacked back to horizontal. Yellow plastic oxygen masks dropped like the fruit of the damned. The captain yelled the emergency checklist while he struggled to regain control of the helm. “Kindly do not panic. Place jew own oxygen mask over your face before as-see-sting those next to jew, especially small cheeeldren.”

Harlan put on his mask and felt instantly calm. He watched, amused, as the crippled woman tried to snatch her mask. The plane’s lurches and jolts made the banana-colored piñata dance before her eyes and playfully evade her grasp. 

“Help me, you greaser!” she shrieked. “You’re supposed to help me, God damn you!”

Harlan pulled his oxygen mask slightly away from his snout. “First, señora, jew must sing Viva México!”

“What? Fuck you, you fucking wetback!”

Harlan grabbed the dangling cup of life-support and farted as hard as he could. “Sing with feeling and sincerity, por favor. Or no air.” 

“Viva Mexico,” she gasped. “Viva fucking Mexico.”

Harlan handed her the mask, but left it to her to strap it on her own face. She sucked oxygen greedily.

The Mexican pilot kept his nerve and came in for a textbook emergency landing in Tulsa, OK.

Pentagram

His eyes lock onto hers. She glares back up at him, defiant, unblinking. Holds his gaze as she strains against her bondage. She flexes her shoulders. The loops of rope that bind her wrists behind her back hold firm. Too tight. She exhales a long breath.

One of his arms snakes out behind him to snatch up a cushion from the couch. He drops it in front of her on the worn hardwood floor.

“Kneel on that.”

His voice rumbles deeper than any human voice. Like river rocks shifting under a spring flood, a summer thunderstorm just over a ridge. That voice – not human at all. Neither are his long ebony horns, his multi-jointed claws, nor that shifting cloud of black heat-shimmer that trails along as he walks by on obsidian hooves. Not human. Inhuman. If she could just distract him long enough to…

SLAP!

The sting makes her wince, clench her jaw. She falls to her knees on the cushion.

“I don’t like to ask twice,” he whispers low as he tosses aside the horsewhip. The red welt across her breast burns like fire. He runs his thumb over her cheek to brush away a tear. Dips his finger into her mouth.

“Such defiance requires…consequences,” he growls as he circles his finger over her lips, “first, I’m going to fuck that pretty little mouth.” He stands to his full height, shifts his hips so that his cock bobs over her upturned face. The shaft is glistening, smoothly veined, with a slight upward curve.

“Then I’m going to make you wish…”

DING!

He grumbles, whirls at the sound from the kitchen. Wisps of black mist trace pentagrams in the air behind him as he strides out of the room. She can see him hunched over the counter, one finger outstretched towards a device of metal and glass. He’s distracted. This is her chance. She strains against the ropes that bind her ankles and wrists. If she can just slip her thumb under the knot.

He whirls to face her, one obsidian talon clutching…a French press.

“Babe, do you want oat milk in yours?” he rumbles through the archway.

“Oh,” she sighs, “we’re all out. I can take it black.”

His jagged jack-o-lantern mouth curves into a smile as his forked tail snakes up over his shoulder. He wiggles a carton of organic oat milk back and forth with his prehensile tail. Tiny beads of condensation fly from the carton to the kitchen tiles.

“Guess who picked up a fresh quart on the way home?”

She smiles, settles comfortably into her cushion. 

“Now that’s a good boy.”

After the Bell

I squeezed and pulled as my body tensed. I could feel it, I was about to cum. It was even more thrilling to be doing it in the bathroom of the locker room at school. I braced myself as I pressed my hand against the wall and leaned back as I thrust my hand faster and faster.

I could see Sarah’s thong sticking out of her shorts in the weight room and I just couldn’t help myself. The way that she looked at me when she looked back and caught me looking at it. I just lost it.

I tried to keep myself quiet but couldn’t help but to let out some gentle moans as I felt the cum bursting out of me. I barely pulled my gray athletics shirt back in time as the warm white liquid pooled up on my belly and began to slide down.

I just sat there for a second before I started to come to my senses. What the fuck was I doing? I missed shower time and now I was going to be late to class. So stupid! I guess sometimes you just can’t fight the urge, though. I had to admit, it was quite the thrill. If anyone asked, I would just say that I had the runs and couldn’t get off the toilet. The classic Taco Bell excuse. Nothing to worry about.

I cleaned up my mess and made my way out of the bathroom and back into the lockers. My towel was in my locker number 327. “A. Perkins,” it said. More like Jerkins, I thought to myself and smirked.

I grabbed my towel and body wash and made my way to the lonely shower. Suddenly, I heard the main door to the hallway slam shut. The bell ring for next period when I was barely 3 strokes in. Why would anyone be in here right now?

I shrugged it off and placed my soap on the little shelf under the shower head. Our school had the showers with four nozzles on each side of a pole and a few poles like that throughout the room. Which of course means that we get to be about an arm’s length away from each other while scrubbing our junk and our buttholes. Pretty degrading, but after working up a sweat it beats going to class smelling like shit.

I turned the water on and let the water start to warm up. A locker slammed shut somewhere nearby causing me to jump. I looked around near the lockers but saw nothing.

I called out, “Hey. Anybody there?”

No answer. Probably somebody messing with me because they knew I was lagging behind. I was just hoping that nobody ran up with a towel rolled up and ready to snap my bare ass. I always hated that shit, and I really didn’t want to deal with it while I was already late to class.

There were no other sounds, so I began to get myself wet and scrub myself down with body wash. Just as I was covered in suds and about to go back into the water to rinse myself off, I saw something that I almost couldn’t believe.

It was Sarah. She had her hair pulled back in a ponytail and was still wearing her clothes from athletics. She smirked at me as she noticed the disbelief on my face. She walked up closer, almost into the shower room and looked at me up and down.

“I saw you looking at me in the weight room, Aaron. Was there something you wanted to do to me?”

She turned around and slowly revealed the thong that was sticking up out of her shorts. She looked back and teased me as she pulled the shorts lower and lower until I could finally see her entire beautifully rounded ass in all of its glory. Holy shit! I can’t believe this is happening to me.

My little buddy wasn’t able to keep his cool and stood at full attention right away. She pulled her shorts back up and walked over to me slowly. She stalked me like a lion chasing a gazelle that was preparing to pounce. She made her way behind me and stopped just out of view. This time as she spoke her voice was no longer the silky sweet voice that she was tantalizing me with just a moment ago. It was deep and twisted. Almost demonic.

It said, “What do you think you’re going to do with that tiny little fucking dick?”

I spun around in terror and humiliation. It wasn’t Sarah that stood behind me. It was Mark Theisman, the quarterback of the football team who loved to give me shit every chance that he could. His face was tense, and he appeared to be fuming.

“Huh? Answer me you little fucken prick! I said what are you gonna do with that tiny little fucking dick?”

I looked down at my member, now fully flaccid and even a little bit shrunken from the cold as I stood outside of the water.

“I uhhh… But you… It wasn’t you, I… I don’t understand.”

His fury turned into a sadistic grin. The rest of the football team began to file out from around the locker. I was surrounded.

“You don’t have to understand Aaron. The only thing that you need to understand is this.”

He reached into his backpack and dropped it revealing what was left in his hand. A large pair of scissors. In horror I looked around the room and realized every football player was carrying a pair as well and they were getting closer and closer.

“We’re gonna cut your fucking dick off Aaron.”

He opened the scissors slowly and closed them at once. The noise of the blades slicing against each other made my balls tingle and my body cringe. He repeated the motion, and the football players did as well. They continued their slow approach and opened and closed the scissors rhythmically like the beat of a drum.

Mark was just feet away as I decided I couldn’t take anymore. I began pleading and crying. I fell to the floor and curled into a ball. I covered my eyes and blocked my junk with my legs and my arms. Just when I felt like they were about to be right on top of me a new voice came from the spot where Mark had been standing.

“Aaron? Aaron, is that you? What are you doing on the ground like that, darling?”

I uncovered my eyes and looked up. It was Miss Ferris the athletic director. She helped me up and looked very concerned as she looked around to see what had shocked me. Seeing nothing she walked out of the shower and looked the other way.

In the same sweet and concerned voice she said, “Go ahead and finish rinsing off. I’ll take you to the nurse after you get yourself dressed.”

I did as she said and got the remainder of the soap off with the shower head that was still running from before all this craziness began. I closed my eyes to wash the soap out of my hair and let the water run on my face for a second.

I said, “Thank you so much Miss Ferris, I don’t even know what’s going on with me. I was just running a little behind because I was in the restroom and…”

I took my face out of the water and wiped the water from my eyes. Her face was staring directly at me, the eyes were entirely white, and her body was still facing the complete opposite direction.

She spoke in a high-pitched whiny voice that sounded like a combination of breaking glass and nails on a chalkboard. “Oh, you don’t have to thank me, Aaron. The fun has only just begun.”

As she shrieked with delight and her face contorted, she let out a howling maniacal cackle. I bolted for the door, slipping, and nearly falling the whole way there, but never turning back.

Walls. Singing Bushes.

If walls could talk maybe they could have alerted someone as Alex lay sprawled out convulsing on the carpet spewing saliva across his face as his eyes rolled back into the black depths of his poisoned skull. If walls could talk perhaps he would’ve been saved from flopping around percussively—his arms striking the carpet like heavy drum sticks to a pair of tom-toms—and gasping for air like a blankly staring, shored crappie. 

The mop-haired carpet could have been saved from soaking up the sudsy vomit overflowing from his gurgling mouth. 

A court ordered stay at the sober-living-house couldn’t save Alex. Nothing could truly save Alex because there were two opposing things from which he needed saving. Drugs and alcohol saved him from having to deal with the horror of life; drugs and alcohol killed him. 

Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. 

A plastic baggie of leftover smack was smushed in the back pocket of Alex’s jeans under the weight of his bouncing ass. He kept flailing around like that until he finally stopped for good. 

The sober-living-house didn’t seem to help many of its residents, the walls probably thought. The bushes lining the house hid within their bulbous canopies an ever-growing pile of booze bottles; the most popular choices 40oz. Budweisers and pints of Wild Turkey. Those bottles lay in there clinking together like chimes on windy nights whenever the weather shook the foliage until one of the residents, desperate for a little cash, would collect them—anxiety and mental anguish building as they gathered into a large trash bag each of those chiming bottles—and haul them off to be recycled, hoping not to be seen by the landlord, a cop, or their sponsor. 

If walls could talk they could have communicated to the subsequent homeowner upon finding hidden in the back of that deep closet in Alex’s former room cold as the grave a child’s water-color painting that said ‘To Dad, Happy Father’s Day.’ The walls could have maybe explained that the artwork wasn’t left there by an apathetic father moving out of the house. Alex wasn’t apathetic in a paternal sense; he cared—he experienced anguish at the reality of his shitty parenthood. No, he wasn’t apathetic. He was merely an uncontrollable junkie who had managed to get himself killed before making it out of the sober-living-house. The walls could have explained that Alex didn’t want to leave his kids painting at the house, he had just fucked up. Again. This time for the last time.

If the walls in that small rectangular bedroom could talk they could have explained that it wasn’t a piss stain dripping down the side of the wall, it was a dark yellow candle that had overflowed—much like Alex’s vomiting mouth—after he had passed out and then perished. 

That candle had burned for hours, the smoky aroma of Birchwood Beach fusing with the growing scent of bodily fluids and death. The Kentucky spring breeze blowing in through the open window couldn’t mask it; that stench would eventually fill the rest of the house, after which Alex’s roommates would come and find him lying lifeless, staring upward at them as they entered the room with the vacant eyes and opened mouth of an expired toad. 

They would cry, not entirely unselfishly. They would know that Alex could have been them; they would know they too could soon be dead. 

In the back of their minds they may have even felt angry at Alex. They might have been planning to get buzzed off later that evening, loading up a pipe or sniffing a pill or throwing an emptied bottle of Turkey into the bush. They wouldn’t be able to do that now, not without further regret and self-loathing, at least. 

The hangover would now be worse.

If walls could talk the subsequent owner would have known as he painted coat after coat of fumy satin white over the candle wax stains and ripped up the carpet that this was a room that had seen pain. The walls could have explained as he assembled the crib that decisions are important and loneliness can be deadly. 

If walls could talk they could have alerted that subsequent homeowner, called Oscar, of the reason for the baby’s continued crying. Those walls could have told Oscar, a first-time parent, that the baby wasn’t being unreasonably noisy. The baby wasn’t simply reacting to new experience. The window—that one in the bedroom above the singing bushes—was blowing in with its breeze the specter of a lost father. A spirit with a clear job to do though no way of doing it. 

The baby wailed and shook the brittle old crib, one likely too old to again reuse, but one Oscar had gotten recycled and was all he could afford. Oscar would enter Alex’s former bedroom and comfort his newborn, his head throbbing as he remembered the bottle he had thrown in the bush earlier that afternoon. He had heard a soft clink as the bottle landed, but he didn’t look inside. He hadn’t noticed the entirety of the collection.

If walls could talk they could have told Oscar. If the baby could yet talk, maybe they also could have explained. It wasn’t the wind; it wasn’t the child being unreasonable—it was Alex darting around the room, bouncing off the newly painted walls and screaming through the restlessness of an unquiet grave. 

If walls could talk, they could have told Oscar that Alex was aware of the painting in the closet; he knew it was still there. 

He simply couldn’t tell Oscar about it. He couldn’t explain his situation. The baby noticed him, but he couldn’t explain to the baby, and the baby couldn’t yet talk.

Alex had no way of lifting the painting. He had no method of delivering it to his son. His son, who gazed out his own window every evening, inhaling the crisp breeze, fragrant of both earth and fuel—both nature and construction—wondering where his dead father might now be, if anywhere. 

If walls could talk they could have told Oscar what to do with that painting when he finally found it deep in that cold closet. Walls can’t talk, though, so Oscar, shaking his head at the neglect of some parents, threw the painting in the trash. 

The painting featured a family holding hands, a house, and a sun. Several bushes surrounded the house.

The Building Blocks Of Life

“The funny thing about DNA is that it belongs to you, something unique that makes you who you are. A series of complex organic building blocks that only the smartest of people can tear apart and put back together to tell us how we’re built. Even though it is so uniquely you, it is also your mom, dad, grandparents, and siblings. It is the culmination of the short-term evolution that your family has gone through just to create you. That’s how I always thought of it, anyway. But sometimes other people don’t see it the same way. Some people don’t see DNA and the miracle of evolution at all. They see a small child writhing around, covered in the blood of their mom, who didn’t make it. These people see a baby screaming and crying as if unaware of the destruction they have just caused, how impossible they have just made life.” 

“Please, why are you doing this? I have a family now. I love my children with all my heart. Please let me go. Just untie me and walk out the front door. No one will ever have to know you broke in. It will be like this never happened. Please, please, I beg you.” 

“Uh uh uh. The story wasn’t finished yet. We need to listen to the whole story. As I was saying, sometimes people just don’t appreciate the miracle of children and all of the science that actually goes into creating a child inside the human body. Half of the mother’s DNA, she has half of her father’s DNA, and it just goes and goes in quarters and eighths and sixteenths of all of the people who came before. It’s fascinating, really, how you are yourself but also everyone else. Technically, you should be half your father and half your mother, personality and all. 

That’s when all of these “scientists” come in and tell you about nature versus nurture and all this other horse shit that is really just guesswork. No one can really truly prove that your surroundings determine your personality. I thought that the day I met my parents was the day I would finally figure out for sure that these psychologists were just taking stabs in the dark. I, who grew up in nine different houses and hopped from dinner table to dinner table with all sorts of families, and all kinds of lives, I would be just like my parents. I would be the proof that DNA is everything, you and Mom were two halves of me, and I was the sum of you.”

“What are you even talking about? Please just untie me, and we can talk through this like adults. You want to know if you’re half of me, right? We can go to get dinner, and we can talk, and we can be a family again. We can talk about your mother. I’m sure you’re just like her. You look just like her.”

“Stop talking. Didn’t anyone ever tell you it isn’t nice to interrupt people? No one ever told me that. You never told me that, Dad. You never told me anything, actually. Do you talk to your precious little kids now, Gary? What was so different about these ones? Did you like them better because they didn’t take Sarah away from you? Did you think about me when she was giving birth? How you could lose a second wife? Go through giving away a child all over again? Well, I lost her too, Dad. I lost Mom too. But I also lost you. I lost both people who made me who I am. I need to take a deep breath…”

“I just couldn’t do it without her, please. I loved your mom so much. I was just too young to do it alone. I am so, so sorry. You’re older now; I’m older now. We can still be family.”

“No. What are you not understanding? Now, open your mouth. If you can’t shut up on your own, I’ll help you. Yup, mhm, open for the airplane. Do you like the taste of that? Haha, yea, I bet you do. I just grabbed it out of the dirty rag pile in my kitchen. Either way, not knowing you or Mom really did help me in the end. I needed to find you; I needed to figure out why I’m like this. It turns out that if you’re an orphan, colleges really love you. They love you even more when they realize that your research has some deep-rooted connection to your past. They think it’ll make you work harder. They even gave me $2,500 to try and get a deeper understanding of our DNA. They helped me pay for a DNA test and even found you for me just so I could really get down to the roots of my building blocks, the things that made me. Now don’t worry; all of my scalpels are fresh out of the packaging. You’ll feel a tiny pinch, but then you don’t feel anything. Isn’t that so nice? Now stay still; let’s find out what DNA looks like in real life.”

Small Treasures

Dalton pulled out on another long run into the early darkness.  Just weeks earlier, he was making runs for a mid-sized roofing distributor, before the begging call of the open road howled and cried much too loud for him to ignore.  Also, the expectation of at least $175,000 made the decision fairly easy.  So there he was, on the road again after 15 years.  Dalton had gotten married and had a kid in those years that he took off from the road.  He grew accustomed to being at home, almost in a chain-like manner.  His necessities were his bed, his video games, his couch, his food, and his family.  None of which were in his new, temporary home.  As Dalton pondered his new path in life, he looked around his small apartment on wheels, and sighed.

There was a huge reason why Dalton didn’t want to leave on this run.  It was indeed his first run back, and he was anxious, but that wasn’t the underlying issue. The problem was, it was close to Valentine’s Day, and Dalton always got some special attention downstairs on that day.  It also seemed to Dalton, the better the gift, the better the blowjob.

Days earlier, he scoured the internet looking for the perfect gift.  He found a few small items that were nice, but he still needed that ultimate treasure.  Dalton had to be on the lookout for the special gift that would insure him the most mind-blowing head of his life.

The next day, while getting gas, Dalton spotted a busy flea market across the street. He thought, with all those vendors, I’m sure to find something.  Once parked in his designated area for the night, he was free to check out his surroundings.  His first stop was the flea market.  Dalton walked aisle after aisle searching for the perfect gift.  Just then, trouvaille!, he thought, as he eyed the most intricate piece of jewelry he had ever seen.  It was a gold pendant with the birthstone of his wife.

The aged lady looked blind, like she shouldn’t be running the booth.  Not sure if he could even get her attention, Dalton waved his hand and spoke loud.

“How much for this piece, ma’am?”

“All jewelry, ten dollars!”

Dalton quickly threw down $20 and began to walk off.  He could hear the lady yelling from behind, “Stop!  You get one more piece of jewelry.”

Dalton got back to his truck and examined the pendant.  It was spectacular.  It was faceted and cut with tremendous detail.  How he was able to buy it for $20 baffled him immensely, but he wasn’t looking in any animal’s mouths.

Since Dalton had the perfect pendant, all he needed now was a necklace.  He knew that his next stop was a decent-sized regional city, so he assumed that he would have numerous options to complete his gift.

Everything fell into place perfectly the following day.  Dalton was able to make his drop, get his new load, and pull into a mall parking lot one hour before it closed.  He walked inside and located the directory, and made his way to the closest jewelry store.  A store associate greeted Dalton as he entered. 

“Good evening, sir. What are we looking for today?”

Dalton pulled out a small cloth from his pocket, carefully unfolded it, and allowed the associate to view the pendant. 

“I need a necklace to go with this amazing piece. It’s for my wife. It’s kind of an important gift. It needs to match perfectly.”

The associate’s eyes widened in appreciation of the stunning pendant. 

“That’s quite the piece you have there. It is absolutely gorgeous. If I’m not mistaken, it appears to be from the Edwardian era. If so, it has some age on it. Regardless, I’m sure you paid quite a hefty price for it.”

Dalton let the largest shit-eating grin grow on his face, as his eyes lit up with joy. 

“Actually, I only paid $20 for it, from an insane lady, on the side of a country road, just yesterday.”

The associate could only shake his head in disbelief, his mouth literally agape. 

“I am utterly speechless. Nonetheless, let’s find you a necklace for this masterpiece.”

After only about 5 minutes, they both agreed on an immaculate, white gold necklace that accentuated the pendant impeccably.  After a final inspection, payment and gift wrapping, the associate handed the bag across the counter. Dalton smiled, as he visualized the end result his perfect gift would get him. 

As he left the jewelry store, he heard music, shouting, and clapping coming from another wing of the mall, and went to check it out.  When he turned the corner, he saw a dance team performing for a small crowd.  The girls seemed to range in ages from high school to college, with a few a little older.

Dalton watched, as the girls chanted, leapt, and tossed each other high in the air.  He thought, Shit, this is some free entertainment.  These little bitches are talented!  And a few of them are fuckin hot.  

Dalton got a lemonade from a nearby kiosk while he continued to ogle at the dance squad.  For the finale of the routine, a small-statured, fit female ran through the center of the group, as if she had an invisible forcefield around her.  She proceeded to perform flip after flip, before landing gracefully on her feet, at the final note of the song.  

The girls were all given towels, and began to break off and conversate about their performance in the routine and what they were doing afterwards.  Dalton was left basically dragging his jaw from the ground, putting his eyes back in their sockets, and wiping copious amounts of drool from his mouth, all while hiding a massive erection with possible precum drying his pisshole to his boxers.  Needless to say, this little, sexy woman left quite the impression on Dalton, and he had to talk to her.  This was who he dreamt of at night.  He thought, she is absolutely perfect, as he  approached his pint-sized fantasy in real life.

“Hi, I’m Dalton.  I really enjoyed the show. I didn’t see it all, but I saw the end, and you were amazing! Flippin your little ass all around.”

“Thanks. I’m Tricia. Yeah, I’m their coach. I make an appearance at the end of the routine.  I only do this for fun actually, and to stay in shape. My real gig is at night, at the Fireplace.”

Dalton was oblivious, but quickly realized that the Fireplace was a strip club, and Tricia was the regular feature at this club.  They talked and cut up for about thirty minutes, before mall security started making their rounds to clear and close the mall.  They bid each other goodbyes, all while Dalton searched the internet for places to park his rig around Fireplace.  He told Tricia that he would be there later tonight.  She motioned for Dalton to lean down.  He did, and she kissed him on the cheek and whispered, “I can’t wait”, into his ear.

Back in his sleeper, Dalton couldn’t get Tricia out of his mind.  He loved his wife and loved his life, but the beckoning call of curiosity was loud and prevailing.  Plus, Dalton thought, I’m only going to see her dance.  That was enough to persuade him to shower in the truck stop, brush his teeth and floss, buy some cologne and condoms, and get $1000 out in cash.

Dalton arrived at Fireplace a little before Midnight, when Tricia was scheduled to take the stage.  When he paid the cover and sat down, she wasn’t dancing.  In fact, there weren’t any dancers dancing.  Ten to fifteen guys sat at the bar and random tables sucking their beers and looking half defeated and half murderous, awaiting the next offering of flesh.  

Then, from over the music, originating from the back of the building, but getting constantly louder, Dalton heard Tricia’s voice.

“Fuck that! No, ya’ll gonna pay me! I’ll tear this motherfucker up!”

At this point, Tricia was in the main area, near the front, and all eyes were on her.  The man that followed close behind, repeatedly offering excuses, from low attendance, to a raise in rent.

“Fuck that. I’m supposed to get paid tonight and I’m getting paid.”

Something inside Dalton came alive at that moment.  The love of a thousand years amiss overtook his being, and lust fueled his confidence.  He stood and made his way toward the apparent manager.

“Listen here. You are going to pay this woman the money you owe her, or we will tear this motherfucker up. You got that? You can’t treat her differently just because she’s a midget.”

Tricia smiled at Dalton, and said, “Don’t call me the ‘M’ word. That’s your only warning.”

Dalton nodded, then turned back toward the man, unphased.

The man nodded, pulled out a wad of cash and paid Tricia more than he owed her, with a russian scowl on his face.

“But you not come back.”

Tricia took the cash, counted it, held up a middle finger, and walked out, loudly addressing Dalton.

“Let’s go, boo. Rooms on me. You better put it on me.”

Once in the room, they had drinks that were purchased before arrival, and everything was going perfectly and flowing naturally.  They talked about each other’s lives, and flirted while doing so.  By the third bourbon, Tricia was already half naked on Dalton’s lap, thanking him for his support earlier in the night.

“Thank you daddy.  That means the world to me. I think you need a reward,” she said, as she stroked his chest and started slowly sliding down between his legs.

Tricia positioned herself between Dalton’s legs, maneuvered his pants down, and accepted him into her mouth.  Dalton was overtaken by extreme pleasure.  His filter was off, and he blurted out something that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

“Goddamn, your little midget ass can suck some di..”

Before Dalton could get the word ‘dick’ out, Tricia’s eyes glowed red and she chomped down with the force of ten great whites, severing his member.  Dalton was left bleeding, cockless, and in shock, as she comedically scurried off with his dick in hand.

Dalton had officially lost it all.  His wife, his family, his entire life left with his penis.  But even more tragic was that some shark-toothed, evil little stripper ensured that Dalton would never get another blowjob again.