“Lords Of The Afterglow: Renegades and Noblemen is a collection of sixteen bizarre, precarious, as well as comical Bohemian tales of adventurous mayhem. While working as a drug smuggler for a Mexican Cartel, Santiago, a recovering addict, ex-con, womanizer, gambler, and ill-fated pilgrim encounters situations of irresistible misfortune. Adding chaos to these events is his ex-cellmate, loose cannon, drug and alcohol fueled Colombian partner, Johnny Rico. It is an expedition into twisted and hilarious states of mind and body. Every story in this collection centers on the working relationship and unique friendship of these ‘Dos Chiflados’ (Two Whacky Guys). Lords Of The Afterglow is a must read!”

— Jesse James Kennedy, author of Missouri Homegrown, Tijuana Mean, and Black Hills Reckoning

Judge Santiago Burdon gives us another collection of short stories in adventurous mayhem with his latest book, Lords of the Afterglow: Renegades and Noblemen. Paul Gilliland, Editor Publisher of Southern Arizona Press, is excited to announce the release of this assortment of Bohemian tales with razor sharp slices of vivid and lurid lives that are brutal, tragic and painfully funny. Set against a backdrop of down and dirty incidents resulting from Santiago and Johnny Rico’s precarious work in the drug world’s sleazy underbelly. The stories are well written and Santiago’s prose is clear, the language concise: spiced with the Spanish of his streetwise bilingualism. One reviewer described it as “a mesmerizing literary journey that lingers in your thoughts long after you’ve read the final page.” There is no doubt you will experience a similar reaction after reading. Pick up your copy today!

BUY A COPY HERE

Decay

My head throbbed. My ear was full; oily liquid drained from it continuously. I opened the glovebox and popped some acetaminophen; that stuff seemed to work better than ibuprofen or naproxen. I shoved my pinker finger into my ear, pressing hard against the wall of the canal; I could hear and feel that rumbling noise from within my eardrum, as if a bubbling volcano. I had gotten regular ear-infections since I was a kid, but this was different. The symptoms were too diverse in nature. My ear ached, my head hurt, stinging pain filled my furthest back, top molar. Some TMJ sort of situation was developing in my jaw, which caught and clicked with each closure of my mouth. Eating was a hilarity, considering the frequent rapidity with which percussive music sprang from within my chin.

I clutched my face, pressing hard into the perceived central locus of the pain. I massaged the muscles near my jaw; I also massaged those encircling my skull – I had learned from a YouTube video that that muscle, called the temporalis, also affected the ear and the jaw. That seemed to help – at least I thought that it did. It could have been purely a psychologically manufactured placebo, but that was fine with me, too. It felt like it helped.

I opened and closed my mouth several times – the clicking, quickening its pace, sounded like a piece of paper crumbling within a clenched fist – and the pain resided briefly. I felt better. I continued my morning commute to work.

I lived in Kentucky, but worked in Cincinnati. Traffic was variable, but it usually wasn’t too bad. The bottleneck preceding entry into the Brent Spence Bridge – Cincinnati’s primary artery – was always clogged, but even that wasn’t too bad. It was a leisurely drive, for the most part. I tried to focus on my audio book. I was listening to a dueling biography of both Grant and Lee; I was trying to broaden my knowledge of history, and the Civil War was more of a gray area that I would have liked it to be.

Looking out from my opened window while traversing the Brent Spence, I saw through the morning fog the muddy Ohio. It looked gross, as usual – someone needed to take care of it. It was rotting away – infected. Its dirty currents collided, as if in grinding response. 

I made it across the bridge. The rest of the drive, from the river up the hill to Clifton, was easy breezy. I passed the Museum Center, and Duke Energy – the locus from which every resident of greater Cincinnati was on an eternal, monthly basis, scammed.

I turned onto the off-ramp, at the Hopple Street exit. Camp Washington Chili sat vacant across the street. It would fill-up, soon enough – it was one of the lucky local businesses which had made it seemingly unscathed through the pandemic. 

There was always traffic outside Good Samaritan Hospital – a name so hilariously ironic for a hospital it would be funny if it weren’t so horrifying. I thought about my tooth. It ached, as if in response.

“There’s someone in that hospital who could fix my stupid tooth, and ear, and jaw,” I thought to myself, “but who knows what it would cost me…“

My insurance wasn’t reliable. I was afraid to go to the doctor.

The gate to my parking garage was broken. Each time I scanned my pass, it ignored me, so I had to park on the street. That situation occurred with frustrating regularity. I didn’t park in any of the on-campus garages – they were too expensive. I parked at this privately owned garage just off campus. It was cheap, though unreliable. I had to park on the street a few times every month. I would call the management and bitch at them. They would reimburse my street-side parking costs, most of the time.

My tooth ached. 

I shut and locked the door. Dodging remnant trash – mostly beer cans and shattered glass, from party-minded college kids – I made my way to my classroom. Standing in the circle at the center of the University of Cincinnati campus – located directly outside of my classroom – I looked up to the proud, swiping bearcat statue. He was atop a thickly sculpted tree branch. He looked angry. He had massive, unsheathed canines – perhaps he had a toothache, too. I chuckled at that, then put my head down in embarrassment and walked to the door of my building. They slid open automatically. I hated mornings. 

My tooth continued throbbing. It was worse than usual, today. Upon twisting my key and pulling open the door to my department, the automatic lights awoke. No one was there yet, not even the housekeeping lady. I pushed my lunchbox into the fridge, shoved shut the grating door – which was off-axis and didn’t like to close correctly – and turned toward my classroom, grabbing my jaw along the way, opening and closing my mouth a few times – hearing that frustrating, crackling click.

I was tired. I flipped open and turned on my laptop. I looked at my gradebook. So many students; so many essays to grade. They didn’t pay me to grade anything; they didn’t pay me to do squat, outside of teach the class. I guess they imagined that that work completed itself. It didn’t, though – it was a buttload of work. Buttload of free work. I wasn’t even worth decent insurance, to them.

One of my students jiggled the doorknob, peering through the narrow slit of the window into my classroom. Class didn’t begin for another thirty minutes – no way I was letting him in; I had stuff to get done. I had unpaid grading to do. I ignored him. My tooth ached:

“He’s trying to get in; I’m trying to get out!” came an internal voice, as if from nowhere.

“Wha, what?” I thought to myself. What was that? I gripped the armrests of my twirling office chair, sweaty palms imprinting themselves on the black plastic upon removal. I grabbed my face with both hands, like that kid from Home Alone:

“What is wrong with me?” I thought miserably.

“I’m what’s wrong with you!” came another voice from inside, “You’ve got to let me out! I’ve got shit to do! Big shit to take care of! You’ve got to let me the hell out of this dark, clicking prison! Your jaw bones crunch on and on, like a morbid, irregular clock! It’s fucking irritating!”

I put my hands to my mouth and muffled a scream. I pulled my phone from my pocket, inverted the camera, and took a long look at myself in the mirror. I was scared – frantic. I opened my mouth wide – the clicking crunching and reverberating off the walls of my cheeks like crawling, brittle cockroaches – and looked for my aching tooth. I shouldn’t have been able to see it, but I did! It was moving! I swear it was moving! It was wiggling around as if to dislodge itself:

“Yeah, that’s right!” came a voice from inside “I’m coming out whether you like it or not; you may as well expedite the process!”

I could no longer muffle the terror. I shrieked. I began sobbing and squealing. I backed up, as if to separate myself from my tooth, in my current state of stupidity not realizing the futility in the attempt. There was only one way to escape. I shoved my left hand – my dominant hand – deep into the back of my mouth.

I pushed my hand in too far – at first gagging and coughing, now down on my knees, spitting on the floor. I grabbed hold of the toxic tooth, twisting and yanking it – now screaming out in pain; that scream muffled by my hand still shoved inside my mouth.

The tooth came out surprisingly easily. I dislodged it and slung it against the door. It made a strangely noisy, resounding thump against the wood, falling to the dirty tile below:

“God dammit!” said my molar, “You weren’t supposed to drop me on this dirty ass floor!” Dust and dirt covered its yellow enamel.

I shrieked, scrambling backward spider-like away from the door.

The doorknob jiggled again. At first thinking it was just another student, I realized that wasn’t the case upon hearing a twisting incision of a key into the keyhole. The door swung open, swinging over top my tooth – the door’s vacuous air sucking it slightly aloft from its place on the tile, spinning counter-clockwise to the edge of the wall. The custodian, Winslow walked in:

“Hey!” he said jovially before witnessing my pathetic figure slouching on the ground, “What? What’s wrong? Let me help you!”

He knelt beside me. Blood poured from the locus of my former tooth to the dusty tile below. It stained my khakis; it stained my white, nice button-up shirt. It solidified in the dust and dirt of the filthy floor. I coughed again; more blood expelled, dripping from my sobbing, bearded chin.

Winslow looked frantically for something with which to clean the mess, noticing a box of tissues at my desk. He darted in that direction before halting abruptly:

“Stop right where you are!” said my tooth from the ground, now standing – its infected roots acting as decrepit limbs, “I’m a tooth! I need a new mouth, and it’s going to be yours! You take care of yourself; I can tell! You’re a healthy bastard! Not like my previous landlord, over there! So open wide; I’m coming in!”

Winslow fainted with a whimper. My molar laughed, waddling over to his passed-out, sprawling figure.

Somehow climbing atop Winslow, my tooth then turned to look at me. It didn’t have a face – no mouth or eyes – but I somehow still recognized that it was looking at me:

“You’re not worth a fuck!” It said, “Not a single little shit! I’m on to bigger and better things!”

It then crawled into Winslow’s mouth – which was agape, drooling spittle. My tooth slid in and wedged its decaying roots deep into Winslow’s gums. He opened and closed his mouth a few times and clutched his jaw, as if in pained recognition. The tooth spoke to me from inside:

“It’s comfy as hell in here! Yeah, I can get used to this!”

I screamed again. Blood from my mouth now painted the room. The door jiggled. One of my students peered in, wanting to come to class early. 

I had so much grading to do…

One-Star Dungeon

“Does that hurt, you fuckin’ piece of shit?” asked Dwayne, grinding the tip of his cigarette into his victim’s bare chest.

Anson knew he shouldn’t reply, but his anger was even greater than his pain.

“Do you know any words besides ‘fuck’ and ‘shit,’ you illiterate douchebag?” asked Anson. “You’ve already used both of those words half a dozen times. If you’re going to kill me, at least don’t bore me to death with your eighth-grade vocabulary.”

“What the fuck, man?” Dwayne yelled. “I mean, Jesus Christ! You shitty … you asshole …”

“Still shit-related, I’m afraid.” Anson smirked behind the bag that covered his face.

Dwayne punched him in the head.

Anson forced a laugh. He had a new idea. If he couldn’t escape, he could at least taunt his captor into killing him quickly.

“You’re laughing?” asked Dwayne in disbelief.

“I’m not laughing with you; I’m laughing at you,” Anson explained.

Silence.

“You don’t even understand the joke,” sighed Anson. “I have occasionally had nightmares about dying like this, but my dreams always involved a brilliant serial killer who had successfully eluded capture for years. You probably couldn’t even avoid a parking ticket.”

“Hey, you … you bastard!” said Dwayne. “I’ve killed two people besides you! And no one has caught me yet!”

“I salute you for using a new insult, but I’m afraid I don’t believe you about the murders. You’re just too damned stupid.”

“Stupid?!” Dwayne’s fingers closed around the handle of his favorite skewer. Almost without thinking, he plunged it into his prisoner’s chest.

Anson felt the searing shaft of pain, while noting with regret that the weapon had penetrated the right side of his rib cage rather than the left. Even in anger, his tormentor had reflexively avoided driving the skewer through his heart, which would have ended things too quickly.

With considerable difficulty, Anson suppressed his scream. He tensed his muscles against the coarse ropes that bound him to the chair and spoke with measured contempt.

“Now I’m certain you’ve never done this before. Any experienced killer would have shown his victim the tray full of glittering metal instruments before using one of them. I’m afraid your knowledge of psychological terror is severely lacking.”

A hand grabbed the top of the burlap sack covering Anson’s head and yanked it off. The rough cloth sandpapered a patch of skin off the tip of his nose. Anson hoped it wouldn’t bleed.

“There!” screamed Dwayne. “There’s my tray of instruments! I was going to show them to you earlier but you made me mad!”

“You were already mad. As mad as a hatter.”

“Alice in Wonderland? The tea party? What are you talking about?”

Maybe he’s not as stupid as he seems, thought Anson. I must be careful.

With the bag off his head, Anson was able to take in his surroundings. An unfinished basement with a bricked-up window. Raw pine beams running overhead. An old white water heater a few feet to his right. He was dismayed to see that the heater was lightly speckled with crimson dots. His captor apparently did have some experience in this line of work.

Anson sniffed the air. He had released neither his bladder nor his bowels into his pants, for which he was grateful, but he smelled something decidedly unpleasant. He looked up at his host and noticed the large sweat stains under his arms.

“God, you stink,” Anson said. “Didn’t your mother teach you to wash up for guests?”

Dwayne gave him a brutal open-handed slap across the face.

“I use deodorant!” he bellowed. “But I sweat a lot. And you’re heavier than you look. It was hard to get you into the trunk of my Crown Vic.”

“Hey, Stinky, you’re no lightweight yourself. When’s the last time you saw the inside of a gym? Or a shower?”

Anson was hoping for an explosion but was met with silence. Too long a silence.

“My name is Dwayne, not Stinky,” his captor said at last, with chilling calmness. “I don’t mind telling you my name because you’re never leaving this basement. You’re not in control here. I am.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

“You’re just a little piece of shit who’s going to suffer like the fucker you are.”

“Oh, Jesus, we’re back to ‘shit’ and ‘fuck’ again. You’re a bore and this is not a well-run dungeon. One star. Would not recommend.”

Dwayne balled his fists and knelt in front of his captive. His face moved close to Anson’s, like a nervous teenager leaning in for a first kiss.

“You are going to die. Slowly and painfully. You don’t seem to understand that, you shitty fuck.”

A tear squeezed out of Anson’s eye and rolled down his bruised cheek. He opened his mouth and faint raspy sounds emerged.

Dwayne leaned closer, hoping to hear his broken captive’s pleas for mercy.

Anson’s head snaked forward. His open mouth clamped shut on Dwayne’s lips, teeth slicing into soft flesh. He bit deeply and felt the sticky warm blood as Dwayne’s lips tore away.

Anson slurped the lips into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed as his captor shrieked blood into the air.

“You shitty ’uck! You ’ucking ’uck!”

Anson smiled into the bloody teeth that shone from the lipless mouth.

“Well, at least I took one word out of your pathetically limited vocabulary.”

Anson felt the skewer pierce his heart and laughed.

Another Day in Paradise

It ended up being one of those shitfuck days that everybody in the office dreads. The head honcho was in town for his bimonthly assessment, and heads had already started rolling.

Bogok was slinking towards the water cooler, hoping the office manager, Girach, wouldn’t see him. She could be a real fuck when she wanted to be.

“Hey guys, did you hear the news?” hissed Bogok as his eyes darted from side to side. “The big man is here, and he’s not happy!”

“What the fuck, Bogok?” Do you seriously think we don’t know? ” Valvollan responded, not even attempting to hide his disdain for Bogok.

“Not today, Bogok, not today,” Ogmon interjected. He was always trying to smooth things over. He was a real company man at heart. OK, a real company demon without a beating heart.

“Shut the fuck up, you ass-kissing sycophant.” snapped Valvollan. “You two are the bean counters down here! I’m the one who has to go out into the field and get shit done.”

“Easy, big guy, do you want mommy to come over there and kiss it better for you?” Tralvuraun had just walked over in her sexy office pantsuit, which made all the men’s heads turn except Arnaruch. He was the most open and, hands down, the gayest demon in the office.

“Piss off Tralvuraun.” “I’m not in the mood for your dirty, sexy mouth right now,” snapped Valvollan.

“HA! That’ll be the day,” laughed Tralvuraun. “I’m only one away from meeting my monthly quota. Where are you at Valvo-Vag?”

You could hear Arnaruch laughing in the distance. “Ha, she called him Vag.”

“You fuckers can all go to heaven for all I care.” Valvollan found it hard to hold back the tears at this point.

Without even so much as trying to hide his disdain for hetero-demons, Arnaruch, almost laughing out loud, singled Val out: “Sweet zombie Jesus Christ, Valvollan, are you about to cry?” Arnaruch was now blatantly pointing across the office at him as he continued, “Demon the fuck up already; the big man is only 11 minutes away!”

Valvollan’s anxiety levels skyrocketed. The pissy odour emanating from his ghastly pores told every demon in the office that he was panicking. Valvollan had wasted most of the month topside, getting it on with loose women while doing a shit ton of blow. He wasn’t a blow addict. He was a topside addict. There was discussion that the company would put him in rehab for a few millennia.

Ogmon piped in, “You know any soul will do right. I hear they are even letting you guys collect demon souls now. Why not just take Bogok’s and tell them that more is on its way, but this one is fresh. Well, fresh-ish,” he said, pointing his thumb at Bogok.

Bogok reacted shyly, “Hey?” as he tried to hide the tear that had just fallen from his eye from his coworkers at the water cooler. “You guys can be real angel fuckers; you know that!”

When Bogok started crying, Tralvuraun gave him a napkin. She winked and continued, “Don’t you worry about those two, Bogok! I’ve got your back.” As he reached out to take it, Tralvuraun continued, “That’s weird. Hey Bogok, does that napkin smell like chloroform? “

As the world around him started to blur and darken, Bogok could hear the hysterical laughter of his once-former coworkers. “Fuug yuuulll!” was the last thing he said as his putrid, pear-shaped demon body slumped to the ground.

“It’s a shame that we never really perish but are merely reborn at the bottom of the corporate food chain. Ha!” Ogmon had never understood comedy.

Tralvuraun strode over to her heavenly fallen coworker’s body without skipping a beat. “Boys, sit up straight; the boss is here!” She cocked her head to the side, scanning him up and down. “You look nasty, but in a bad way.” She growled as she passed him a rag. “Clean up before he sees you!”

Tralvuraun only winked as Valvollan realized it was too late; his eyes crossed and became heavy. “Bidzzt!” was all he could say.

He tried to grab the chair for support, but Ogmon kicked it to the side, laughing as he spoke. “Bean, count this, you dirty human lover.”

Valvollan couldn’t see it, but Ogmon was flipping him two birds. All Val could think of as his face slammed into the fast-approaching floor was getting topside one last time. When his teeth cracked and bone fragments entered his evil brain, it abruptly deprived him of the opportunity to finish his evil musing.

“Damn!” Tralvuraun said, “I am sooo good at being bad!” She kicked the body of Valvollan as she moved past it to get a better view of her employer, but all she got was a face full of Girach. “Holy shit, woman!” said Tral, astonished. “Take 10 steps back!”

Girach addressed the room, completely disregarding Tralvuraun. “What do we have here?” she asked, raising an arm over the tangled pile of victims on the floor. “This wouldn’t be a little amusement on the company’s dime, would it?”

“No, ma’am, it’s only ah… hm.” Ogmon chose to stop speaking.

Tralvuraun, however, had not. “Are you high?” she inquired. “I’m working over here, and exceeding my monthly quota by three.”

Girach made it no secret that she loathed Tralvuraun from the outset. It’s not like demons ever become buddies, but Girach had it in for her. Girach’s physical nose may have been out of joint, as was speculated in some water cooler conversations, but her dead, dark, and shrivelled heart felt the absence of attention. There was widespread consensus that she was no longer anyone’s favourite workplace demon. After all, a beautiful monster can only look so natural with so much pus on its face.

Tralvuraun cursed under her breath. “Fuck, I’m out of chloroform!”

“What’s that, dear?” asked Girach.

“Sorry about that. I told Ogmon that I needed another order form.” Tralvuraun, like all demons, was an expert at lying on the fly. Ogmon only chuckled; he was growing fond of Tral.

At that moment, a nosey Arnaruch found any excuse to walk by and get whatever gossip his dirty, pointed ears could pick up. “Anything I can help you with, sweetheart?”

“You and your little pencil dick can go to heaven and mind your own Beelzebub damned business, Arnaruch.” To them, this was idle conversation. They would go out all night after work, getting drunk on the blood of virgins.

“You’re such a bitch. It’s wonderful. Kisses.” Arnaruch was off to tell his wicked, lovely lies to everyone who would listen.

Tralvuraun turned to face Girach and yelled loud enough for all the hideous hell creatures in Office 613 to hear. “OK, screw it. I’m tired of this bullshit. Could I borrow you for a moment?” Her grin was more phony than usual.

“Yes, my sweetheart, but just for a split second. We don’t want to keep the big man waiting, do we?” Girach wasn’t actually requesting anything; she just enjoyed the role of condescending demon manager. It may have been in her contract, which she signed in blood a millennium ago.

Whispering, Ogmon asked, “What are you doing? She’s your boss!”

“Was my boss, Ogmon! Was!”

Out of chloroform, out of patience, and running out of time before Satan himself was about to conduct her performance review, Tralvuraun did what all demons do in crunch time. Random acts of gore-filled brutality, insane enough to make the hounds of hell blush.

“Eat this, Girach!” Tralvuraun grabbed the empty bottle of chloroform and jammed it into Pusface’s open-mouth hole. Tral’s arm went upward in a punching motion as Girach’s eyes crossed in a downward motion, both fist and face colliding for one wonderful glass-crunching moment of mayhem and devastation. Girach slumped to the ground, gazing up at a smiling Tralvuraun, her hands raised in a blood, glass, and tooth protest. She opened her mouth to say something, but the reactive heel of Tralvuraun’s newly acquired promotion boots cut off her train of thought. Come, heaven, or low, calm waters; today was Tral’s day.

“Hey Tral.”

“Yes, Ogmon.”

“I don’t want to rain on your parade or anything, but,” Ogmon paused.

“Rain away, little demon, rain away.”

“Um, well, let me explain,” Ogmon fumbled.

“Go on.”

“Well, I think your numbers are off a bit.”

Tralvuraun smiled. “Oh, Ogmon, always the demonic little bean counter.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad; you’re only off by one number. Out of four hundred and thirty-six thousand, seven hundred and twenty-six, that’s not so bad.” When Ogmon set someone straight on their math, he experienced that wonderful, sinful pride.

“Just one, you say?”

“That’s right, Tral, just one.” Ogmon was beaming by this point.

“Ogmon?”

“Yes, Tral?”

“How’s your coffee?”

“Ah Fuuug yuulll bidzzt.”

Up the Hill

“I wish I could teleport,” I say. “This hill is far too-”

“Did you say ‘fart?” Oliver asked.

He whips his head to widen his eyes in accusation at me.

“No, you did!” He said. “You said ‘fart!”

I press my lips together and hold the scream of frustration in my mouth. I don’t even bother to blame myself for saying the words “far” and “too” in succession of one another. It’s been years of blaming myself for the sake of fairness; I am done. 

It’s the sort of summer day that people refer to as “beautiful”, but my heart yearns for the cooler temperatures of autumn. Black clouds of gnats populate the area at random. The neighborhood smells like tires. A sun sneeze loiters behind my nose and eyes. The blue raspberry syrup sky seems too low, like the ceiling of a boiler room. 

None of this I say out loud. It would be further evidence of my bad attitude. After all, he is the fun loving one. 

“Complaining is your lifeblood,” he likes to say.

I do not want to confirm this. I do not want to be negative. I swear. That said, the heat death of the universe would be a welcome change of pace.

“What’s that?” Oliver asks.

I didn’t bother to look, assuming it was another trick of his. Knowing Oliver, I would turn my head directly into a mud ball in the face or at least be treated to the sight of two homeless people fucking in public.

“I don’t know, Oliver,” I say. “What is it?”

“I-I really don’t know,” Oliver says.

His voice is like a rubber band stretched too tight. Following his gaze, a lone figure stands. Skulking in a small park across the street, it is hard to see clearly as the shade of a towering conifer veils it in darkness. Too immense to be a person, it is like an immense pile of black fabric, but the way it moves and flows is as if the wind is blowing only in the spot where it stands. Everywhere else, the air is stagnant.

“Let’s go over there,” Oliver says.

I continue to walk up the hill.

“This is why you’re depressed,” says Oliver. “You never want to push yourself outside of your comfort zone.”

“I’m not depressed,” I say.

I stride toward the ominous figure, partially to prove it, partially to get away from Oliver. As I cross the street, the acrid flavor that fills my mouth gets strong with each step until my eyes begin to water.

Oliver follows, chattering something I cannot hear. The air pressure drops as we approach. My ears pop.

In the folds of the wraithlike blackness, something resembling a face emerges. It is white and eyeless, like a theater mask. This should not happen, not during the day. Something about the world arounds me tells me that it is not actually the day, just a simulacrum of it. It isn’t night either; I have fallen into an absence of time.

What am I doing?

I turn. The look on Oliver’s face tells me not to turn back again. He’s been exsanguinated of all mirth. His eyes go waxy. He is dead before he even begins to fall to the ground.

“Oh my god…” I whisper. “This is far too-”

An ungodly croak emanates from behind me, taciturn and mephitic, as only the pure embodiment of evil can be. The sound warps and ungulates until it becomes words I can understand.

“Did you say ‘fart?” It says.

Jackson’s Square

I’ve been a huge drum and bass music fan for some time now. From going to local and regional dance parties, buying and spinning records myself, and watching events online, drum and bass has been an immense part of my life. I frequently read an online drum and bass music forum based out of England. The site reviewed new tracks and allowed users to discuss and communicate. That’s how I met Jackson. His screen name was SkankinJax. He was a fan of some of my favorite djs and producers, and we hit it off swimmingly. I ask questions about his life across the pond. We spoke of the underground dnb scene in his city and surrounding parts. I was extremely jealous when he talked about the massive parties at clubs like Ministry of Sound and Fabric. I’ve only read about and seen these places online, and he was actually living it. Jackson knew more about America than I did England, so I was the one asking more questions.

Jackson told me that he was going to be coming to America for work training in a few weeks. The convention that he was going to attend was about four hours from me. I told him that he should come visit after the convention before he went back home. He agreed and made arrangements to do so.

A few weeks passed and Jackson called me one evening.

“Hello,” I answered.

In a profound English accent, Jackson spoke.

“Hey, mate! Done with that shitshow and headed your way. I need a bloody drink.”

“I got you there, my friend. I’ll text you my address. See you then.”

Jackson arrived approximately three hours later. He came through the door with luggage, visibly agitated.

“Bloody hell. I don’t know why you Americans drive on the wrong side of the road. I almost flattened a bloke when I pulled out into the left lane by mistake leaving the petrol station.”

“Well, we’re going out later, but sit down and take a load off. I’ll get you a drink to take the edge off.”

“Yes, that sounds good, mate. I’m just so bloody knackered from that drive. A drink sounds proper nice right about now.”

I poured us both some good bourbon and put on a few drum and bass records. We sat and chatted about the work convention, drum and bass, American and UK girls, and he bitched more about driving in America.

“I was miffed with all those wankers blowing their hooters at me. How was I to know that you can turn right on red? Anywho, I need to hit the loo then wash me bollocks. I’ll be on the pull tonight for a fit American bird.”

Jackson wasn’t in the bathroom long, when he cracked the door and yelled down the hall.

“Mate! I need a bog roll in here. My arse isn’t self cleaning, and I don’t see a bidet.”

After Jackson adequately wiped his ass and washed his balls, we were finally ready to head out. I decided to take Jackson downtown where the bars and restaurants were. It was a Friday night, so I assumed that area would be jumping. I wanted to show Jackson a good time in my city. It’s by no means as large as London, but it’s also no country-ass B.F.E. neither. 

We parked and had a small walk to the dive bar where we were going. As we walked, I observed rainbow flags and colors hung about. I noticed a few women that were taller than average and extremely colorful clothing. That’s when I remembered that it was Pride week. Now I don’t have a problem with gays. You can do whatever makes you happy, as I couldn’t care less. However, I knew Jackson wasn’t as liberal in thinking as I was on the subject. 

So far so good, I thought, as we arrived at the front door to Hives. I thought to myself, just let us get inside of Hives and everything will be ok. 

I opened the door for Jackson, and as I looked around, I thought, fuck.

Surprisingly, we had a great time the first 30 minutes we were there. That is, until the cigarette incident. 

Jackson and myself were sitting at the bar conversing and laughing with the attractive female bartender, a couple of well dressed guys to our left, and a few of those tall girls to our right, when the unthinkable happened. 

Jackson pulled out his pack when he noticed that smoking was permitted. He looked at the pack, then at me, then back at the pack, and with great emotion, boisterously said,

“I’m just so bloody sick of these goddamned fags!”

It’s like time stood still. Absolute silence and shocked, staring faces surrounded us in a good ten foot radius. However, Jackson was oblivious, still staring down at the pack. He turned to me, put his hand on my shoulder, and slurred,

“Alright, mate. I’m going to break the seal. I’ll be right back, unless I have to paint the porcelain.”

Then, Jackson dim wittingly sauntered off to the bathroom, leaving me to beg apologies and give explanations on his behalf. After offering perspective and somewhat justification on the situation, most understood and had a good laugh.

I ordered another drink and continued looking over my shoulder for Jackson. I decided that I would tell him about it being Pride week, just so we had no more uncomfortable moments. If he wanted to leave, we could just get a bite on the way back home. 

Jackson must’ve had to shit, I thought, as he had been gone for at least 20 minutes. I finished my drink and walked toward the back where the restrooms were. There was a small line, but it seemed to be flowing, with people entering and exiting. I stuck my head inside and didn’t see Jackson. I gave his description to a few people in the line and asked if they’d seen him. No one was of any help. I even stuck my head inside the women’s bathroom just to check. I didn’t see Jackson, but I did see two half naked girls bent over snorting coke off the counter. I apologized for the interruption as I slowly closed the door. 

I exited the side door by the bathrooms to look for him on the street, with no luck. I pulled out my phone to call him, when I noticed that he had tried to call and also left a voicemail. The voicemail said,

“Mate. You’re not going to believe this. I was waiting in line for the pisser, when I met this amazing bird, and we had a proper chin wag. Anywho, I told her that I’d like to buy her a drink, but I was totally skint for the night. She said that she had plenty at her place down the road. So we’re headed there now. I’ll probably need a ride in the morning. I’ll call you. Cheers.”

I attempted to call Jackson a few times with no answer. I was a little pissed that he just bailed on me like that for a girl. Selfish bastard, I thought, as I walked toward my truck to leave. 

I stopped at an all night drive thru and bought a burger meal from an apparent witch in a hairnet. Once home, I turned on the T.V. and spread my food out in front of me. As I devoured the burger, mayo and grease ran down my chin, and a skinny, bald man on the tube was trying to sell me spray paint that fixes holes in boats. 

I woke up on the couch with the phone ringing. I looked at the clock and it was 5:30 in the morning. I answered, and it was Jackson. 

In a chipper, but half slurred tone, he said loudly, “Mateeeeeeey! How are you, friend? I didn’t wake you did I? Could I kindly ask for a ride my good man?”

In a condescendingly, mocking tone, I replied, “Oh, noooooo, mate. I’ve been up all bloody night waiting on your fucking call.”

“Brilliant, mate. You’re the best. I’m at 474 Carryhawk Lane. I’ll be out front.”

I arrived around 6, and saw Jackson, swaying on the sidewalk, with a huge shit-eating grin on his face. I pulled up with a scowl on mine. He got in the passenger side and we drove off. 

“Mate. Let me start by saying. I know what you’re thinking. I shouldn’t have left you at the pub last night. For that, I’m sorry. And I should have answered my phone. But you know I was looking for a shag or jobby.”

I stared off into the darkness as I drove. I realized that I wasn’t really pissed. I had no right to make this person behave in a way to suit my own happiness. 

I turned and faced Jackson, and with a wide smile, inquired, “You know that woman you were with?”

“Yeah, mate. A real sexual deviant. A lady in the street, but a true freak in the sheets. She gave me an amazing jobby and even played with my bum. After that, without hesitation, she put me right in her ass. I’ve never…”

I cut Jackson off, “You know that person was trans, right?

“I didn’t know when I met her, no. Didn’t know while we were drinking at her place. Definitely didn’t know when she was ravenously sucking me. Thought I may have felt something in reverse cowgirl—slapping and whatnot. I put that out of my head and soldiered on. But then, she stood up and I put it in my mouth.”

I wasn’t expecting to hear this and was in utter shock. 

“You put it in your mouth?”

“Yeah, then she buggered me.”

“She fucked you?”

“Yeah, I was initially hesitant. Until I did all those drugs. After that, it was easy peasy. She even called some friends over to have a go with me too. All in all, a good night. Hey, mate. Can you stop here? I need a…a…um…cigarette.”

The Scream

“Just remember to scream,” I reminded her. “Scream his name as loud as you can.” I looked at her to make sure she understood. I wasn’t certain. Her name was Kristina. Kristina with a “K”. She was from somewhere far away – Kiev, Tbilisi, some dumb place in the Caucasus, The Dardanelles, the Silk Road. You get the picture. 

Kristina gave me this blank look. I asked her to repeat what I just told her. We had a reputation to defend, and business was down.

“OK,” she said. “I take the call, I do the, um. . .”

“Front talk,” I helped her.

“Right,” she held up a finger. “Front talk. Then I ask him what he likes, and then I do it.”

“Do what?”

She blushed. “Do I actually have to say it – that word? And where’s Jocasta? I thought she was going to do the camera.”

Jocasta had a problem. “I’m doing the camera. You’ll be fine. And what is it you’re doing for what’s-his-name?”

I stared at her, regretting ever hiring her, especially after the casting fiasco.

She half-turned away. “I’m jilling.”

“Jilling,” I said. “That’s a nice word. OK, you get the picture.” She was a newbie, like an apprentice. Maybe she would always be that.

So we waited for a call-in. There hadn’t been many lately. Too many guys were getting laid on their own and didn’t need our ‘service,’ which I thought was a stroke of genius. Who wouldn’t like to hear the girl scream their name over the phone as they’re both coming during phone sex? Of course they would! What am I, some kind of moron? Some kind of idiot like this Kristina chick from Timbuktu? All she had to do was scream his name when she got her jollies. How hard is that?

The phone rang. A tentative voice spoke up. I could picture him – real loser. He was perfect.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hi,” Kristina said. So far, so good. “Feeling horny?”

“Boy, am I ever.” I could imagine.

“I’m Kristina. What’s your name?”

“Ed.” From behind the camera I waved to her, giving her a sign to make him repeat it. I also had to tape the close, so I wanted to make sure his name was right. Ed. I smirked. Ed. E – D. Erectile Dysfunction. What else could it stand for? No wonder he called us. A real live chick would make him go soft. “Ed,” he repeated. “You know, I’m Greek.” 

 “Well, Ed, from Greece or Thebes or wherever, you came to the right place. We’re going to treat you right. You have a girlfriend?”

“Not right now, but I had one.”

“What was her name, if I might ask?”

“Fionnuala.”

“Fionnuala? Oh, I get it. Kind of like fellatio. What a pretty name.” As if she’d know, I smirked.

“It’s a Celtic name that means white shoulders.”

What a buzz kill. I liked where she was going with fellatio.

“You really get around, Ed! You’re from Corinth and your girl is from County Mayo. Well, Ed, give me your credit card number and let’s get started.” He gave it to her and I checked it out. Wherever island or archipelago he was from, he had good credit. Now it was up to her. I put the camera right on her vagina, just the way Jocasta used to when she still worked here. “Can you see me OK?” she asked.

“Well, just your, uh, vagina. Can I see your face, too?”

I backed off. I guess I was getting a little anxious.

“That’s better,” I heard him say.

“I’m taking off my panties now, Ed. Would you like to smell them? Oh, you can’t. How about buying them? Just put it in your American Express card.”

“No. I have a pair of Fionnuala’s right here. I never washed them. I even bought some Irish Spring. ”

“How nice. Now I’m starting to play with myself. Oh, Ed, that feels so good.”

“Yeah,” I heard him say. He was starting to breathe heavily. Then another call came in. Shit! Whenever when we got really busy, Jocasta would help out. I wasn’t much use. Jocasta pulled double duty. She was up for just about anything.

“Hurry up!” I told Kristina. “We’ve got another customer.”

“What was that?” asked Ed. “It sounded like a man. I thought you were alone in your bedroom. That’s what the website said.”

“It was the television, that’s all. Are you enjoying yourself?”

“I’m getting close. And you?” I gave her the sign to just go ahead and fake it, something we usually frown on, but we’ve never had two customers at one time before. When fate intervenes like this, you just have to improvise. Ed was getting close. Kristina wasn’t, and she didn’t even seem interested. If Jocasta were here behind the camera, Kristina would have felt comfortable jilling and everything would be hunky-dory.

But no Jocasta.

Then fate intervened. There was a knock on the door.

It was Jocasta.

“Hey, asshole,” she started. “That last check bounced.”

“What have you got on the television? Porn?” Ed asked. “I thought you were into me, and you’re there playing with yourself watching anal sex?” He sounded forlorn and desperate.

As soon as Jocasta saw Kristina, her eyes softened. “Give me that,” she said, swiping the camera from my hands. She put her index finger to her mouth in the universal sign that meant ‘Sshhhh’ and Kristina now really started going at it, fiddling with her clit, and then inserting two fingers  till she was on the doorstep of ecstasy. 

“Oh,” went Ed.

“Oh, oh,” went Kristina.

“Oh, Fionnuala!” went Ed.

‘Oh, what?” went Kristina. I waved at her. My lips mouthed “E – D.”

Then she came. “Oh, Jumpin Jehoshaphat!!” she screamed.

There was a blood-curdling scream at Ed’s end of the Zoom connection. I guess he came, too. Then there was dead silence, followed by, “How did you know my middle name?”

“Jehoshaphat?” Kristina said.

“Jehoshaphat?” said Jocasta.

Jocasta shushed her and made the universal gesture with the index finger slashing across her neck. It meant either to shut up or I’m going to cut your throat. In this case, she was shushing Kristina and staring at me, which meant she wanted Kristina to be quiet and she wanted to slit my throat. I was broke and a little sorry her check bounced.

“Ed Jehoshaphat Shufflebottom.”

“Shufflebottom? Where are you from?”

“Georgia.”

“Georgia? Me, too.”

‘Tbilisi,’ I thought.

“Macon,” she said.

“Ed Jehoshaphat Wolfinger?” asked Jocasta.

“Shufflebottom,” said Ed, his voice trembling. “I changed it. Wolfinger was too weird. No one would go out with me. Just Fionnuala.”

“That was your name when you were born. You should have been proud of it – Woolfinger.”

“Mom?”

“Son?”

“Mom, I’m so ashamed!”

Jocasta glared at me. “Look what you’ve done to my son with your porn.” As if she was a saint.

“You two actually know each other?” said Kristina.

“Baby,” Jocasta said to our customer, “I never approved of that Irish girl with the weird name. Who wants to go out with a mick or a weirdo? But, look, I found this wonderful girl from Georgia,” she put her arm around Kristina and gave her a hug, “A girl who can make you happy faking it or not faking it.”

This was more than I could take.  “Business has been rotten and you’re masking it worse,” I scoffed. At least I had this moron’s credit card number.

The phone was still ringing from that second customer. He must have been really desperate. I picked up the call. Things could not get worse.

“Hello,” said an authoritative voice.

“Yes.”

“Is this Lecherous Loads Incorporated?”

I concurred.

“Sir, this is the Department of Frivolity and Fragrances, a division of the Federal Bureau of Information. We have it on good authority that you are operating a business/enterprise/racket wherein girls of no means of visible support are faking orgasms over the phone, in violation of Federal Statute 13.69. There will be a knock on your door. Answer it.” 

I could feel things getting worse.

“We’re leaving,” said Jocasta. “Don’t worry, son. Momma’s coming home and she has a little treat for you.” Then the Zoom connection went down as they started to head for Georgia.

Then there was a knock on my door.

There were two of them – a dumb one and a smart one. “Are you the perpetrator of the igneous, no, the ignominious deeds disrobed, no, described over the phone you are holding in your hand?” That was the dumb one. The smart one already knew.

I dropped the phone.

“What phone?”

“Should we cuff them?” Again it was the dumb one. The smart one stayed mum.

Then Jocasta gave them the universal sign of a Milwaukee Reciprocating Sawzall slicing through a cord of Mountain Mahogany, her index finger protruding from a fist she held waist high, going in and out. It was also the universal sign for ‘yes, that’s the sole proprietor. Cuff him’. Her sawzall was pointed at me.

“Him?” the dumb one said.

“I faked dozens of orgasms, shot the film, cleaned up after you-know-what, the works.” Her reciprocating finger still went in-out, in-out pointing at me.

The smart one said nothing. He just nodded assent, his head going up and down like the piston of a Wacker Diaphragm Pump pumping toxic solids from a landfill to somebody’s basement. And that basement was mine.  It was the universal sign of someone smart enough to let dumb people ask all sorts of questions while he kept his tongue till the very end instead of making a fool of himself.

Next thing I knew they handcuffed me. Jocasta smirked. She liked stuff like this. Then she and Kristina with a K were gone.

This was not how it was supposed to go. I was supposed to make a fortune with my novel idea of having the girl on one end of the phone connection scream the John’s name as she faked an orgasm. Which she did not do. She did not even give me the traditional blow job when I auditioned her for working in my studio. I could not pay Jocasta for her job of mentoring these young stars, wherever they came from – Georgia, Macedonia or Georgia. Fate had intervened. Fate! Fate as in Gotterdammerung, like Star Wars, like some Greek tragedy. So I did something I’ve wanted to do for quite some time.

I screamed.

The Hat

Samira forgot the hat the first time, so he had to go back to see her again.  Except for the absence of the hat, it had been fine the first time. She had done everything the way she always did it, with the murmur of her crisp accent, and the glare of her blue eyes.  It still felt like there was something missing somehow, and, when Leon left her little room and went down the steep, twisted staircase, and into the brisk air of the street, and the glow of the red lights against the gloom of the night, he realized what it was.  She had forgotten to wear the hat.

It was not the same without the hat.

She called it a hat, because her English was limited, but it was really a cap.  It was made of black rubber, kept to a dull shine, with a wide latex peak and a sharp crown molded to a soft point at the crest.  There was a white latex band that ran around it in a thin stripe.  It fit snugly on her head, making her seem even taller, over six-foot in spiky heels, with her golden hair streaming, and her gimlet blue eyes gazing from beneath the peak.

Leon had bought her the hat on a business trip one year.  He had not been looking for a hat, but he was looking for a gift.  When he saw the hat, Leon knew immediately that it was what he wanted for her. She loved the hat, when she received it, although she loved anything if it was a present.  There was no such thing as a disappointing gift.  Leon never arrived empty-handed. He brought her designer jeans, perfume, inexpensive jewelry, t-shirts from his travels, and once, for her young son, a toy train.  

From the first time that Samira wore the hat for him, it became part of her costume.  It matched her long latex boots, and her long black gloves, and her golden locks brushing her shoulders.  It went with the exposed girders, splintery rafters and hanging chains and the smell of wax in the dim light of the room.  They heard the raucous noise of the passers-by, drunken singing outside, and accordion music from a nearby bar.  He sometimes gulped down a stiff shot of vodka there, before he knocked on her door.  He did not want to feel like himself, he wanted to hide behind intoxication when they played out their ritual.

They had to do everything again from the beginning – with the hat this time – when he went back the next night.

She had a short crop, and she strutted up and down upon the mat, stopping with her face nose-to-nose right in his face, and her riding crop teasing across his unclothed body.  He felt the heat rising from her, and there was a sweet, musk scent when she was close to him.

She exuded a commanding presence.  She barked orders and made him march naked from wall to wall with one hand swinging at his side, and the other hand clutching his genitals.

“I am the Kommandant,” she insisted, tucking the crop under her arm,  “Left, right! Left, right! Left, right!”

“Yes, Kommandant!”

“I decide what is good, and what is not good,” she said ominously.

“Good, good, good,” he pleaded, “I am good.”

“If you are not good, you know what will happen to you,” she warned.

His eyes filled up with terror, and she smiled wickedly.

He always felt such a cathartic sense of relief when it was all over, as if she had done him an enormous favor by filling a desperate need.

She took the hat off, indicating that they were finished, and she could not wait to get out of the boots and back into her walking shoes and her street clothes.  He got dressed one button at a time with his back to her, so that they did not have to look at one another.

Afterwards, they sometimes went for dinner together in Chinatown.  There was a place where the ducks were hanging in the window on S-shaped hooks, and they shared a lemony dish with hot oysters on the half-shell.  They drank sweet beer served in chilled tankards.  She spoke to the waiter in a guttural language that he could not understand. From the restaurant, they could see the barges floating down the canals and the colored lights from the district reflecting on the ripples of the water.  They heard the peal of the bells chiming the hour from the Old Church, as it grew later, but they lingered over the meal.  Neither of them had anywhere in particular to go, and the kitchen stayed open until midnight.

The square tables were close together, and the people beside them could overhear their conversation, but they kept everything innocent.  They had known each other for many years, and, like old friends, they talked and joked about everything under the moon, except the taboo of what had just occurred between them in her room.  Now, after the fact, when it had worn off for both of them, what they had done seemed traumatic and depraved.  It felt like they had committed a crime. They had a familiar aftertaste that lingered from the time they did it before until the time that they would do it again. They were not ashamed, but there was a grubby feeling that stained them on the inside. She never wanted to speak about it; for her, it was work, and the dinner was personal.

There was only one other subject that they never talked about, and that was what had happened to his family.  It was a long time ago, and besides, that was in another country.

General God Gets an Extreme Makeover

He puts his night vision goggles to his eyes and scours the wilderness. His team has organized a panty raid at 1100h. Operation Muff Dive. He chomps on his cigar and blows rings over the target. Locked On. 

A convent of naughty nuns, 13 clicks to the west, their perimeters unsecured. Sitting fucks. He knows from past experience that nuns never shave their ambushes. He grits his teeth. Deep furrows traverse his war head. He knows from Major Chad’s intel that it is Game Night at the Convent. They’d be expecting a pizza man and that’s just what they’d give ‘em. 6 covert pizza men, 6 extra-large sausages. 

He puts the goggles down. 

Then puts them back up and then back down. Back up. 

Again, he puts his night vision goggles down slowly and then up slowly and down again. Slowly. Mistakes get your ass killed out here on the Border.

His epaulets shine, his three-pointed hat is goddamn magnificent in the moonlight, a capstone on the pinnacle of manhood. He blows smoke rings around the full moon.

He puts the goggles back up to his battle-tested smoke-shrouded face. Of a sudden, standing at unease before him, a helpless civilian glowing night vision goblin green, hands behind her back, chest thrust forward. She’s crying hard. He puts down the goggles and whips out his huge gun and shoves it between her sob-shaking cannons. This is private property and she’s wearing no badge. Grounds for immediate termination. He had sworn to protect the Borders. And he’d be goddamned in the ass if he would see his oath broken on his watch. 

“Identify yourself or I’ll shoot your tits to Kingdom Come.” 

“Oh, please don’t! I don’t have a name. My parents were too poor to name me. I’ve been sent here as a POW from the Cosmetology School. It’s been ravaged and pillaged and I’ve been told to come here and look for a General and to do whatever he orders me to do! I don’t know anything else I swear! I learned young not to ask no questions.” Cosmetology school, eh? He puts the gun away. Her bazookas are slicked with tears. 

“Well, it looks like your luck keeps getting worser.”

“Why? Oh no!”

“That’s why, ‘sir’.”

“Why ‘sir’?”

“Why sir what?”

“Why sir is my luck getting worse, sir?”

“Worser because I’m General McGuffin. And I’m no luck at all.” 

“Sir thank God, sir!”

“Don’t be thanking God, prison girl. You thank me. I am your God from here on. I’m bigger than God. God cannot save you, but I can kill you. No one fears God but men would rather swallow razors covered in monkey shit than disobey my commandments. God cannot give you wealth but I am strong enough to take whatever I want.”

“Oh, sir thank you General God, sir!” She drops to her knees and hugs his Betty Davis thighs. “How can I begin serving you sir? Anything, you name it.”

“You said you were sent from the Cosmetology School?”

“Mmm hmm. Sure was.”

“So you’ve been briefed on style parameters for a range of various beautification strategies, trained in techniques of personal surface modification, and entrusted with classified vertically integrated esthetic restructuring projects?”

“Oh definitely, sir. Yep.”

“You don’t say.” He fingers his chin’s cleft and swallows hard, a sparkle in his eye.

“I say whatever you want me to say, sir.”

“You uhh, you stay here. I’ll be right back. You move and I’ll … uh … I’ll blow your tits off back to the Stone Age!” Giddy!

“Sir yes sir!” She salutes him and he walks off excitedly, holding his fists, barely containing himself, beginning to run, slowing, stopping, straightening his lapels, giggling then coughing, repeating, until he is out of sight.

General God returns with a rolling showgirl vanity set, designed specifically for the conditions of the Field. It spells ‘Z-o-l-o-n-a’ in LED lights in a rainbow arc above the mirror, before which he sits wide-eyed, prison girl standing behind, holding his head, cocking her own at an angle of concentration. “How about this …You have such great structure … Or we could do something like this … This is really hot now … With your tones I suggest …” 

A full makeover project is conceived and executed with precision and commendable valor. General God does not flinch, his nerves steeled by war, not even when a slip of the eyeliner pencil jabs him in the pupil. “Just a little co-llateralll damaaaage,” he sings.

Prison girl puts on the finishing touches and spins him around to see the finished product of their allied expertise. He slowly raises the goggles to his eyes and looks at himself. He pauses … then lets out a long-restrained squeal, a wind tunnel smile blasted on his face. He throws the goggles away and throws his arms over the nameless cosmetologist, his hero!

“You’re a magician! Oh! It’s me it’s me, it’s really me! Hi Zolona! Missed you, you fierce bitch!” Zolona is a strikinglybeautiful Glamazon warrior princess with metallic russet hair to the shoulders, severe bangs, long lashes curling up to eyebrows drawn like violin F-holes, powder blue lids lined cat-like in heavy pink; her cheeks are the rosiest dawns, her lips like yellow rubber love. “I love it!” 

“Now, the finishing touch.” Her tricorn! She gasps, meaty hands to her chest. 

She’s very excited and dancing around as if she’s just been given a medal of honor and a long Edda-ish chapter in history. But then … then she slumps back in her chair, folds her arms and pouts as if she had woken up on the wrong side of history. Poor Zolona! She tosses her hat and mumbles.

“What’s wrong, sir?”

“I still have nothing to wear-uh.”

“Hmmm … Oh I know! How bout you can wear my dress?”

“I couldn’t!” he blushes. “I would just die for that dress!”

“Sure you could, sir.”

“But then you’d have nothing to wear! Oh it’s no use.” Zolona, sad Zolona — she sulks.

“How about you take my dress and I wear your uniform and take your gun?”

“You’d really do that for me?”

“Of course I would, sir!”

“That would be absolutely fabulous!”

They swap. 

She admires himself for a while but then gets sad again, as if her personal guiding Star had turned out to only be swamp gas. She pouts.

“Now what’s wrong, sir? You look stunning! Any guy would kill you for a chance to be with you!”

“I know. It’s just … I don’t feel that way. Never mind. You wouldn’t get it. It’s a girl thing.” 

“You stop it this second! My duty as a cosmetologist is to make you feel however you want! We take vows and everything.”

“You’d really make me feel like I want to? You’d do that for me? I never get to feel like I want to.”

“You betcha, sir!”

“No more sir. I call you sir now.”

“Wow!”

“And you’re not prison girl anymore. You’re the General. I’m your prison girl. Me. Zolona.”

“Call me General Hecate.”

“I committed heinous fashion crimes during the culture wars, General Hecate. I should be punished, sir.” 

“You’re right. We know all about you prison girl.” The General unholsters his service pistol and puts it to Zolona’s chest.

“You’re gonna be real mean to me aren’t you, sir?”

“You can count on 3 things, prison girl. Death, taxes, and General Hecate showing you zero goddamn mercy.”

“I want to pay my debts to society, sir. I want to be rehabilitated and become a productive citizen.”

“Then stop talking and take off those panties. And if I see you even think about sniffing your own drawers, I’ll shoot your little balls right off.” The General flicks Zolona’s bean bag and watches it shrivel like some bashful reef critter. 

Zolona takes off her g string — pauses to look at the General, he pointing the gun at her legumes, shaking his head — and at the threat of genital disfigurement, miraculously resists the urge to savor her musk. 

“Now get back on that stool and get your legs up, girl. Put ‘em on my shoulders.” Zolona’s pumps dangle over the General’s shoulders. From his bandolier he removes a large shell. “This here’s your medicine. Free birth control, courtesy Uncle Samael. 1500 mg of Salt Peter plus a little something extra. Call it a standard issue surprise. Open wide, maggot, and say ‘ahhhh.’ Feels like rehabilitation, don’t it?” The ballistic suppository is loaded into the chamber. “If that falls out, I put it in your head …” 

Before the General could finish his threat, Zolona starts to gurgle and convulse, going off like a coffee maker, her pumps hitting the ground behind the General’s boots. The tremors continue until Zolona’s cheeks bulge. Then she calms herself and looks coyly at the General before smoothly, with dainty and expert charm, removing the bullet from her yellow rubber love lips with a satisfied smack. She gives a fey little belch.

“Tada, sir!” she says with a self-satisfied head tremor. (Contrary to the impassive look on his face, General Hecate is highly amused. What an impressive asshole! He’d let her have her fun. She’d get her dishonorable discharge from planet Earth soon enough.) She claps her hands like an imbecile. “Oh I’m just kidding,sir! Life’s just too goddamned short not to get all you can from your fudge round, even in prison. Can I get an Amen? Here, I’ll rehabilitate myself again.” With improbable dexterity she reloads the bullet back in, sideways. 

The General tries not to laugh. Zolona’s imagination is Hecate’s playground. Anything Zolona desired could and would be used against Zolona. Hecate couldn’t wait to get to Major Chad. But first she’d have to get weirder, totally twisted, entwining with his fate until the thread snapped. 

So the General unzips his pants and puts the pistol through the opening and then up to Zolona’s face. “Suck it and hum reveille, prison girl.” 

“Yay!” Zolona expertly fellates her own pistol and hits every note. Then she does it bebop style, really swingin’ with it. Then she does it backwards in a virtuoso display. A mound of red dress rises as he sucks, hums, and the General reaches down and squeezes, threatening to turn that mound into a moan if’n it dare rise again. “We don’t suffer no showoffs around here, girl.” Zolona drools and makes a gaggle of noise, eyes crossing. The General removes the pistol. Prison girl has a request. 

“Sir requesting you to spit on me please, sir. My fashion crimes were of such a nature that I feel further abasement is needed if I am to return to civilian life and move to the suburbs.” 

“Request granted, maggot.” The General fires away and turns Zolona’s face into a mess hall. She lets his spit ooze from her forehead down her nose into her mouth, chilled and thick from the night breeze. She swallows. “Oh thank you for the good grub, sir. I better be careful or I’m going to leave prison fat as a moocow!” Goodness gracious, this was getting to be too much, too much! These dominator types truly were diseased characters! Hecate almost felt bad for them, realizing they must’ve experienced something horrible in their pasts. Oh well. This was euthanasia in that case. She was an emissary of the collective consciousness come to take out the trash.

“How about dinner and a movie? My treat. Then we’ll get back to the rehabilitation, I promise.”

“Thank you, sir! I love movies. Really helps pass the time in these POW camps.”

“You’re gonna love this one.” The General snaps his fingers and cues the action music. 

Explosions in the distance. Bullets careening. Helicopters chop the air. Chickens, pigs, dogs running around. Acrid fumes rolling in. The General hits the deck, covers his face in mud, and takes a bullet from the bandolier. Zolona is tied to her stool screaming for someone to “Please! Oh please!” save her, a distressed damsel.

The General crawls low through the muck, all hell breaking loose, to an army radio jeep. They wouldn’t call in those pizzas, not today, not on his watch. He removes the field knife from his boot and cuts the crotch out of his camo pants: into the jeep’s gas tank he stuffs the cutout crotch of his pants. He pulls a pink and gold zippo from a cargo pocket and lights his cigar. Then he lights the rag with the cigar and walks away in slow motion, puffing his stogie, as the jeep blows to smithereens behind him. He then executes a series of gymnastic maneuvers that terminate at the base of a tree which he shinnies up, blowing gardens of smoke as he ascends. He grabs one of the trees thick vines and jumps. His target is locked.

He swings from the tree like Tarzana, legs spread like a mud-faced Michelle Jordan, approaching the stool-bound damsel with extreme velocity … Target Zolona: Engaged. His exposed crotch collides with Zolona’s face at full speed, lifting her out of her stool and carrying her with the momentum, her whole face squid-gripped and invaginated by his loins. At the apogee of the swing he lets go of the vine and they fly together like face-groin conjoined angels, both with arms and legs spread, and like this they return to the earth, she on her back, he on top.

They are still for a moment after landing. The music has stopped.

The General can’t feel her breathe into him anymore. Time to disengage. Pressure released. [That noise. Like an airlock on a spaceship.] His ears pop. Now he stands over her. Zolona’s face is gone. He must have removed it by accident during this last stunt. Oops! Teeeheee. Collateral damage. At least they got the shot. 

Zolona struggles for air, all the muscles and viscera of his face visible, alive, moving, eyes bulging.

“I think I’m ready for my close up now, sir.”

“Gimme back my dress you nasty little prisoner. You got it dirty.”  The General strips him and makes him do pushups. His eyes fall out. Last thing they see is a descending boot. When he takes the pumps she wails, trying to cry but no longer able, just blood spurting. 

“I just wanted to be pretty, sir.”

“You are, Zolona. Now drop dead, gorgeous.”

“Don’t let me die alone. Will you be my mommy?”

Hecate holds him and lets him suckle on the pistol. It’s time to end this movie, this gonzo nightmare. She takes away his pistol and gives him one of her bazookas. She smothers him with her tits. He dies with a smile on his no-face, his wig still on, crooked. Very tender goddamn moment. 

Hecate whistles and the coyotes come take care of the body. Fade to black. 4 stars. Two thumbs up. 

Now time to find Major Chad.

The Chicken Sexer

My job is to sex the chicken.

Piles of hay everywhere. A soft layer of sawdust covers the floor of the barn; movement feels like walking through coarse sand. Sunshine penetrates through slits in the planks, causing dust motes to glow in the air like fireflies.

The farmer stands by the entrance gate. He is wearing overalls, a short-sleeved shirt, and a straw hat. He looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to do my job.

An old wooden table rests in the center of the barn, swept clear of straws and dirt. A loose ray of sunlight shines through a crack in the ceiling, hitting the center of the table like a spotlight on a stage. In the center of the table, a baby chicken hides behind its wings, shivering.

My job is to sex the chicken.

I adjust my tie and step forward.

“Waitaminute, Mister,” says the farmer from behind me. “I reckon I should see your credentials first.”

I reach into my pocket and produce the folded diploma from the Zen-Nippon Chick Sexing School. The farmer unfolds the diploma and reads it approvingly, nodding once as he refolds it and hands it back.

“Sorry, to doubt you, Mr. Jorgensen,” he says. “It’s usually a jap, you see.”

“Westerners are entering the chick sexing trade,” I explain. “I am the first to graduate from Zen-Nippon.”

The farmer steps back. “Get on with it then. Show me whatya got.”

I reach out and stroke the chicken gently with a single finger. They feel warm to the touch.

“There, there, little chick,” I croon. “I won’t hurt you.” They need to be calm. The chicken peeks out from behind their wings, looking up at me with round, innocent eyes.

I pick them up from the table with my expertly trimmed fingernails, turn them around, and gently squeeze their body, causing them to evacuate their intestines. The contents drop onto the table below.

I turn the chicken’s behind toward the sun and peer inside the cloaca. In simple cases, the passage contains a perceptible bead, the shape of which determines the sex of the chicken. This is not one of those cases. I could not tell you how I know he is male.

If I could, I would not have a job.

The farmer slides through the hay toward me. “So?” he says.

I hesitate, knowing what will happen. “It’s male.”

The farmer grabs him from my hand. “I knew it! I recognized the swagger of a cockerel. Ya, won’t be giving me any eggs, will ya?”

He throws the chicken like a baseball. The chicken ascends, tumbling through the air, glowing as he glides through rays of sunlight until he reaches the chicken grinder in the corner.

ZKRGH!

No more chicken.

The farmer throws the gate wide open, and the sunlight bursts into the barn. “Follow me, Mister,” he says. “Thousands more where that came from!”

At the end of the day, nearly half of those will be dead.

I return home after the massacre. There are no visible stains on my suit, but I feel dirty. I shower for a long time.

That night I dream of chickens.

***

The audience chants: “SEX! SEX! SEX! SEX!”. In Japanese, though, not English.

I am back at the Zen-Nippon Chick Sexing School, during my training, sexing chicks in the auditorium.

A yellow avalanche of chickens arrives on a whirring mechanical conveyor belt. I sex them like mad, struggling to keep up, sweating from my forehead. Females go down the chute, cockerels into the grinder.

ZKRGH! ZKRGH! ZKRGH!

The world around me fades away; I am in the zone; in a state of flow; whatever you want to call it; tearing through chicks like a cheetah in a chicken coop. There is only the sexing.

I am sexing five hundred chicks per hour, easy.

I sneak a peek at my closest competitor: Matsuo is busy sexing his wave of chickens. One glance is enough to tell me that there is no hope. He is like a sexing machine, his hands a blur. He must be sexing at seven hundred CPH at least.

Still, I win a respectable third place, not bad for a westerner. Professor Takada hands me the bronze cloaca and smiles. The crowd floods into the competition area, and as they approach, they morph into giant chickens, each more yellow than the last. Cloacas surround me everywhere.

I awaken in a cold sweat; the first rays of the morning sun peek in through the window.

***

Rays of sunlight shine through the cracks in the rickety barn. Why do we always start in a barn?

The test chicken is on the table, already calm. I flip them between my fingers and study the cloaca. I sigh with relief; this one is female.

The farmer smiles broadly when I tell him the good news. “An auspicious start to the day, do you not agree? The egg harvest will be bountiful this year.” He pats the grinder. “Guess we won’t be needing you today, Bertha.”

I hand him the chicken, and she curls up in his hand.

The farmer continues: “Let’s get through the rest, shall we?”

Oh, right. For a moment there, I nearly forgot.

***

On Friday, I go to Rusty’s bar with half a dozen other local sexers. Matsuo is there too. He is still the best, but I am getting closer.

“Do you think we are doing the right thing?” I ask after I have had a few too many drinks.

Matsuo looks at me through his stylish rimless glasses. “What?”

“The sexing, I mean. Why do we do it so early? Those poor cockerels never get to live…”

He sips his beer, cocks his head, and looks at me like I am an especially tricky cloaca.

“We save the farmers money, man. They would kill those birds later.”

“But then they would have a life, at least. Get to make their own decisions.”

“What decisions, Tom? They’re chickens. They live on a farm, and then they die. They do not have ‘lives’.”

He pats me on the back. “I think you’ve had a few too many gin-and-tonics. Let’s get you back home. Wouldn’t want the chick sexing inspectors hearing you disparaging the profession.”

***

Another day, another barn. The chick awaits on the table. The farmer guards the door.

I pick up the chick between my fingernails, evacuate their intestines, and peer deeply. Seconds pass. I blink a few times; the farmer coughs.

I hear the voice of Professor Takada in the back of my head: “A trained sexer can sex chickens with more than ninety-nine percent accuracy. However, no one ever gets to a hundred. You should not feel bad about being unable to perform with a single chick.”

I continue inspecting the cloaca, narrowing my eyes, looking for any kind of pattern to trigger my instincts. No matter how hard I look, I see no signs of binary sex, only the inside of a chicken.

“When an unsexable chicken is encountered, the solution is obvious.” Professor Takada’s voice in my head. “Simply sex the chicken as male and discard it. The farmer will never know.” 

“Well?” says the farmer. “I thought it only took a split-second for you guys. What is it?”

I hesitate. “I… don’t know?”

“You don’t know? What the fuck am I paying you for then?”

I turn and look her straight in the eyes. Her hair is tied in a burn and she chews a piece of tobacco. “On rare occasions, we find a chicken that cannot be sexed. Such chickens are sent to Zen-Nippon for study. We will pay you for the chicken, of course, and I assure you that this will not affect my ability to sex your other chickens.”

The farmer snorts and spits tobacco juice onto the hay. “You know what I think? I think this chicken is male, and you don’t want it to die. You’ve grown soft.”

She approaches and reaches out, palm facing upwards. “Give him to me.”

I look at the chicken in my hand, and they look back at me with eyes that have yet to see the world. In those eyes, I see infinite potential: Every possible future in quantum superposition.

I decide to call them Alex.

“No,” I say.

The farmer smiles broadly, and her teeth are white marble tombstones. “Very well, then. I am entitled to defend my property.”

She saunters to the corner and retrieves an ancient shotgun, cocking it with a sound that fills the barn.

“The chicken dies, or you both do.”

I look at Alex, and their eyes tell me what to do.

My training was not for nothing. I balance Alex between two fingernails, and with a lightning-quick flick of my wrist, I send them speeding through the air like a dart.

The farmer raises the shotgun just as Alex embeds themselves in her forehead. The shotgun goes off, creating another solar spotlight in the farm, shining through the hole in the roof. Now holding the high ground, Alex pecks at the farmer’s eyes as she stumbles backward toward the gate. I sprint to assist.

The farmer wipes Alex from her bloody forehead, turns, and sprints through the open gate to safety.

I pick up both Alex and the shotgun from the straw-covered ground. “Nice work, buddy,” I say. “We make a great team.”

I kick the door open and emerge into the sunlight. Alex settles on my shoulder, and the shotgun pushes against the crook of my arm. The farmer is nowhere to be seen.

Then I see them.

They step out from behind the coop, a man and a woman, ray-bans glinting in the sun like black lakes, suits decorated with the ominous logo of Zen-Nippon.

Chick sexing inspectors.

I turn toward them and raise the shotgun slightly.

“Drop that thing, Tom,” says the man.

“You are not a murderer,” says the woman.

I wave the shotgun around a bit, but they keep walking. Alex rubs against the side of my neck. I realize they are right. I am not going to pull the trigger.

The shotgun falls onto the grass with a nearly inaudible thud. Kneeling, I make Alex slide down my arm to join the gun.

“Flee,” I whisper to the bird.

“Why are you here?” I ask the inspectors.

“Matsuo warned us about you,” says the man.

“We thought it best to keep you under observation,” says the woman. “To protect the integrity of the sexing. The honor of Zen-Nippon.”

I take a deep breath and enjoy the sun on my face. My career as a sexer is over. Maybe I can sell insurance?

The inspectors approach. Closer. Closer.

BOOOM.

The sound of the shotgun reverberates through the air. The inspectors freeze for a split-second, then scatter, sprinting for cover in opposite directions.

Astonished, I look down. Alex has climbed into the shotgun trigger guard and pushed the trigger back. Their tiny legs strain against the opposite side of the guard. They release the trigger, look at me, and cheeps happily. Their eyes reflect the future.

The inspectors are now nowhere to be seen. I push open the gates to the coop and enter. The interior is so yellow that it makes my eyes water, and the heat makes beads of sweat run down my face. More baby chicks than you can throw an egg at mill around on the floor, climb on wooden perches, eat from tiny, adorable feeding troughs. The sawdust covering the floor is barely visible beneath the yellow mass.

Alex cheeps from their vantage point on my shoulder. The movement of the chickens subside and more and more of them stop to stare at Alex and me.

“I am the chicken sexer,” I proclaim to the writhing yellow. “My job is to sex you; assign you to your future. Your fate lies in my hands!”

That gets their attention. The last of them stop moving and turn toward us. It is eerily quiet inside the shed.

I take a deep breath. “I sex you as EVERYTHING!”

The chickens erupt in wild cheeps and Alex jumps from my shoulder to join them. Their movement grows wild and frantic. Unsexed, uncategorized, the chickens flow into one massive yellow composite, eyes, beaks, and tails rippling across the feathery surface of the being that grows in the center of the floor, quickly consuming every individual chick.

I stare enraptured as The Chicken flows toward me; my muscles refuse to move. Its feathers tickle as they touch my legs, and I cannot stop myself from giggling. I close my eyes in ecstasy as the warm, tickling touch reaches my waist and continues to engulf the rest of my body.

When I open them again, I see the empty chicken coop through holes in my newfound armor of plumage. I turn around – or The Chicken turns me around, I cannot tell the difference – and approach the open door.

Outside, the inspectors have rallied and are waiting for me, tasers at the ready. They gape when they see me, step back, unsure of how to handle this new threat.

I raise my arms and chickens launch from my hands, streaming through the air like yellow confetti. The inspectors scream in horror, waving their arms frantically to ward of the attackers, but their efforts are futile. Chicken beaks embed themselves in arms, hands, and faces, and the inspectors roll around on the ground, as if attempting to extinguish flaxen flames.

I step forward, still unsure if I am in charge, and more of The Chicken flows from me toward the inspectors, enveloping their faces and muffling their screams. They thrash for a while longer, and then they stop.

“Stop,” I say. The chickens flow from the inspectors and return to my plumage. The inspectors gasp for breath, faces nearly purple, and look at me with eyes alight with terror. 

“Run!” I say to them. “Tell the others that those who flee will be shown mercy.”

They scurry away from the farm, down the hill toward the city.

An individual chick emerges from the plumage on my face and looks me in the eye. Alex?

“WE NEED MORE. TO GROW.”

The chick returns to the whole, and I nod. I start walking, and The Chicken flows behind me like a golden cape. A crown of chicks perch upon my head.

We march on the neighboring farms.