Nerd On A Stick

A desk sat in the middle of an otherwise empty room. The room had white walls. It featured no windows, no paintings, no photographs, no bookcases, no adornments to break up the expanse of white paint except for a series of doors. These were painted white so as to blend in as much as possible with the walls. The doors were metal and strong, but this was not something you could tell at a glance. The ceiling was also white with recessed lighting that was well hidden from anyone first entering the room. There was no carpet. The floor was covered with white linoleum, a single sheet, not squares, the shade picked precisely to match the walls and ceiling. This gave the room a sense of vastness, a sense of loneliness, a sense of silence.

A desk, black, metallic, sat in the middle of the room. Behind the desk in a black swivel chair with comfortable cushions and ample lumbar support, sat a man appearing to be in his mid-thirties with a crew cut. The man was wearing a black suit, a white button down shirt, crisply pressed, and a thin black neck tie. A metal sign on the desk read Bartholomew Squint, Human Resources Manager.

Another man, who also appeared to be in his late twenties, was seated in front of the desk in a small black metal chair. The chair was stationary and had no back. This man was also wearing a suit and tie. An interview of sorts was just reaching an end.

“Thank you for applying,” said the man behind the desk. “I am glad we had this chance to chat. But I do not think you are what we are looking for just now.“

The man who was interviewed stood.

“I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to interview. The job market is tight right now. Do you think you could keep my resume on hand in case something else opens up?”

The interviewer looked at the man with a smile that was more a sneer.

“We do get a lot of applicants, but I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks.”

The interviewee extended his hand. The man seated behind the desk ignored the hand even though it was mere inches from his nose. The hand stayed suspended in the air over the blotter for an inordinate amount of time. The interviewer stared at it with a look of increasing distaste.

“Please do not leave the way you came in. Exit through the door on your right.”

There were a series of doors around the room. The interviewee retracted his hand, looking sheepish. He picked up his coat and headed to the door on his right. He opened the door and stepped through. The door opened onto air. The interviewee screamed as he fell spinning the thirty stories to the pavement below.

The interviewer got on the intercom. “Ms. Watson. Send in the next applicant.”

The next applicant came in. The interviewer adjusted the nameplate on his desk.

“Hello, Mr. Squint. I am James Murray. I see you have my resume.”

“Yes,” Squint spat out tersely. “Sit down.”

The man sat.

“Tell me Mr. Murray,” Squint asked, his voice absent of warmth or emotion. “Why is there a blank spot on your resume?”

“What do you mean?” asked Murray leaning forward in his chair.

“There is a nine month unaccounted period in your job history. Care to explain?”

“I was trying to write a novel.”

“Were you employed while you were trying to write this novel?”

“No.”

“So you had no job for nine months?”

“I guess you could say that.”

The interviewer drummed his fingers on his desk.

“I don’t like writers as a rule. Don’t like artists either. I can tolerate dancers. They are fun at parties. Are you a dancer Mr. Murray?”

Murray shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not.”

“Too bad,” Squint said. “I am afraid we cannot use you.”

Murray begged, “Please reconsider. I need this job. I won’t let you down. I am hard working. I’m willing to learn. I’ll even put in extra hours for free.”

“I would hope so.”

“What can I do to land this job? I’ll do anything.”

A glint came to the eyes of the interviewer.

“Can you dance Mr. Murray?”

“I can learn.”

Squint commanded, “Dance for me Mr. Murray.”

“Dance for you? What? Here? Now?”

“Yes. Dance for me. You said you would do anything.”

Murray got up slowly. He straightens his tie, then starts to dance. There was no music. Murray had assessed himself accurately. He was not a very good dancer. He was awful.

“Not good enough Mr. Murray,” Squint said. “Simply not good enough. Please exit through the door to your left.”

Murray looked dejected, he headed to the door on his left and opened it. Murray stepped through and fell into a roaring fire. The door he had stepped through shut.

The interviewer sighed with boredom. It was going to be a long day, but variety helped.

The interviews blended into each other. Several victims later, the interviewer dismissed another applicant.

“I don’t understand why you even bothered to apply. Exit through the door directly behind my desk.

The man went to the door, opened it, and stepped through. There was the sound of a shredding machine and blood curdling screams.

Mr. Squint pushed the button on the intercom.

“Ms. Watson, send in the last applicant.”

A twenty-something with a crew cut in a black suit, with a crisp white shirt and a narrow tie entered, appearing surprisingly similar to Mr. Squint.

“Have a seat mister., er, Desoto, is it?” Squint said.

“DeSade,” replied the applicant. “George DeSade.”

“Mr. DeSade,” the interviewer asked. “Your resume seems…adequate. Just barely. Why should I consider you for a position as a Human Resources Assistant?”

DeSade cleared his throat, and then made his pitch..

“I understand I would be assisting with interviewing job applicants. I think I would be an ideal fit. I enjoy causing pain. Physical and mental anguish. I feel I could make a lot of people suffer if I were to be hired. That is all I could really ask for. The salary is secondary.”

The interviewer paused.

Squint sat in silence, making a pyramid with his finger tips. He watched the candidate to see if he would squirm. DeSade did not squirm, he sat rigid and motionless, while exuding an air of complete calm. After a length of time, Squint relaxed his fingers. He flashed a thin grin.

“I see,” said Squint. “Finally a candidate with who I can relate. Not that you really deserve the job. Think of yourself as a fill-in until we can find someone better. When can you start?”

“Next Monday. I’ll be busy this week killing my neighbor’s dog. It is a poison job. Gravy soaked sponge. Need to make sure it takes the bait.”

“Gravy soaked sponge?”

“Expands in the belly,” DeSade explained. “I understand it is dreadful. First time I tried it. Used to use pellet guns.”

“Interesting,” Squint said, resting his chin on a single extended finger. “You may have potential.” Suddenly he glared at the applicant. “But don’t be too pushy. Remember who is in charge. Don’t go bucking for my job, or it won’t go well for you.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” said DeSade in a voice that dripped sugar. “I’m not overly ambitious. I just want to be part of this organization. It has been one of my lifelong goals. To work in a place like this…and destroy the lives of others.”

Squint grinned. It was friendly evil.

“Good. Keep thinking that way and you could survive with the company…for a while. See you next Monday, after the dog dies.”

“So I have the job?”

“Yes,” said Squint with a slight eye roll. “Go back out the way you came. Ms. Watson will give you some papers to sign.”

Squint reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a strange item. A barbecued kabob of some kind. He offered it to DeSade.

“Nerd on a stick?”

The kabob had a small man with glasses and pocket saver impaled on it. The man appeared to be alive and squirming in agony, despite burns and barbecue sauce.

“Wow, how do you make them so small?”

“Trade secret.”

“Too bad I had a big lunch.”

Squint did not hide his annoyance.

“You don’t know what your missing. The sensitive ones tastes so good. I have more.”

Squint took a bite, ripping off an arm with his teeth. The nerd screamed in a high pitch squeak.

Both men laughed.

“Maybe I will have one after all.”

The Dark Energy That Makes Up Most of the Known Universe

Breathing sounds.  The noises made by machines.  My father, unconscious, lying in a hospital room.  He reminds me of one of those parade balloons tethered by wires and pulled slowly down the street.  He’s bloated and doesn’t look real.  I touch the edge of the bed but not my father before turning away and looking out the window.  All I see is the blackness thick and impenetrable.  No stars shining down and I think maybe we were wrong.  Maybe we’re alone and there’s nothing out there.  I remember the sound of her voice trying to bleed its way through.  The sound distorted and I couldn’t understand what she was saying until I adjusted some of the dials and heard I love you echoing through the capsule before the transmission broke apart and was lost again.

***

My father asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I told him I wanted to be an astronaut.

Oh he said well because he always said that.

Or maybe I said a sharpshooter.  You know, an assassin.

What? Father said.  An assassin?

Yes I said I’d really like to kill people.

Kill them dead?  He asked.

Yes I said.  I want to kill bad people.  I was twelve years old.  I thought I was a man.  My father looked at the ceiling then he looked at me.

He said do you know the difference between a good person and a bad person?

I think so I said.

What’s the difference between a good person and a bad person?  My father asked me.

I said a bad person is someone who doesn’t feel guilty about the things they do.

Oh he said well.

Yes I said and a good person is someone who feels guilty about the things they do but they do them anyway.

***

I’m still looking out the window when the nurse enters and I turn just enough to catch her smiling at me.  She checks the machines before touching my father’s head and I watch as she adjusts his pillow and moves his arms into a different position.  You’re the son she asks before logging into the computer attached to the wall.  Yes I tell her while nodding my head.  She reminds me of someone but I can’t remember her name.  Some movie actress from long ago whom I once had a crush on.  The nurse finishes what she’s doing and folds the computer back against the wall.  We’re doing everything we can she says smiling again.  When she leaves the room I stand there looking at my father with my hands hanging at my sides.  He’s old and he’s sick and I know he’s going to die.  I close my eyes and try to think of nothing.  When I open them again it’s dark but I can see lights blinking on the console.  Through the glass the stars shine in the distance.  I know they’re farther away than they appear.  Some of them long dead by the time their light has reached me.  I try the radio again but no one answers.  It’s been several days since my last communication.  Or maybe it was weeks or even months ago, now, since I last heard another human voice.  I’m not really sure anymore.  Maybe I’ve been trapped inside this capsule my entire life drifting aimlessly through space.

***

I’m wearing my space suit because the life support systems have started to fail.  My space suit has its own reserves of oxygen but the gauges are broken so I have no way of knowing how many days I have left. There are still lights blinking on the control panel and they remind me of stars.  The endless years of light growing between us and the radio continues to emanate strange noises but nothing clear comes through.  Something happened.  I passed through some kind of storm and my mind is fuzzy and I keep slipping in and out of dreams.  I feel like there’s an emptiness where something once existed but I don’t know what it is or where it might have gone.

***

When I open my eyes I see the nurse checking on my father again but it’s not the same nurse from before but a different one this time.  She doesn’t seem as friendly as the other one and before I can ask her about my father she leaves the room without either one of us saying anything.  I’m sitting in the corner near the foot of the bed in the green-cushioned chair and my shoulders ache from having slept in such an awkward position.  I stand up and stretch my arms toward the ceiling.  There’s still no light coming through the window and when I look up at the clock I realize I’ve only been asleep for a couple of hours.  When I look at my father lying in the bed I don’t recognize any changes.  Everything looks the same as it did before.

***

I want to leave for a little while, maybe, go and get something to eat.  I walk along the darkened corridor and the space suit makes me feel awkward and slow.  I don’t know why but I start thinking about black holes.  When I enter the elevator the words run through my mind—the gravitational pull from a black hole is so powerful nothing can escape from it not even light.  The elevator doors open and I step out into the lobby near the emergency room.  I see the lights from an ambulance flashing through the window.  It looks like it’s been raining because there’s drops of water covering the glass.  It’s warm when I step outside. There’s a bar not too far from here and I start walking, still, thinking about black holes—a black hole is the remnants of a collapsed star.  What makes it collapse in the first place?  I knew this at one time but can’t seem to remember it now. There’s a black hole at the center of the galaxy—I think I heard this on the radio or, maybe, I saw it, somewhere, on the internet.

***

The bar isn’t very crowded. I sit down at one of the tables and order a beer.  When I take the first sip something comes over me.  I put down the glass and look at the golden liquid shimmering in the light.  I was in another time living alone in a tiny apartment and getting drunk every night.  At first, I thought the knocking was coming from inside my own head but when it didn’t stop I opened the door and saw my father standing there.  It had been two or three years since I’d seen or heard anything from him so I was surprised.  What the hell do you want I said to him.  It’s your mother he said and he rubbed his hands together.  I didn’t ask him to come in.  She’s dead and I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do.  It was cancer he said.  She had cancer but I blamed him for her death.  I was convinced it had to be his fault.  He ran a hand through his thinning hair and I realized for the first time how old he was.  Her funeral was last week my father continued.  We couldn’t find you.  Didn’t know where you were.  I kept holding on to the door because I was afraid to let go.  Oh he said well.  I just wanted to let you know.  He turned to leave.  You son of a bitch I said but he didn’t turn around.  He just kept walking to the end of the hall.  You son of a bitch and I screamed it this time.  Then, I remembered how I stood in the middle of the hallway with my space suit on staring at the tiny point of light where I had watched my father disappear.  I started toward the light but the space suit made me feel awkward and slow.  By the time I reached the door and stepped outside he was driving away in his car.

***

Hours pass before I leave the bar.  I feel the space suit surrounding me and the dead weight of my body inside.  The sound of my own breathing roaring through my head and it reminds me of the ocean, like the sound of waves, crashing against the shore.  I feel like it takes me forever to reach the hospital.  The lights in the windows glaring out at the night and falling on the street like an angry sun.  When I enter the lobby a little boy being chased by his mother runs into me and almost makes me fall.  The mother stutters out an apology before snatching up the boy and carries him, shrieking, back to his seat.  I find the elevator again and when the doors slide shut it reminds me of standing in the airlock just before taking my first steps into the emptiness of space.  When I get off the elevator I see one of the nurses standing in the doorway of my father’s room.  When the nurse sees me she turns and glances at something in the room before turning back to look at me again.  I feel the sudden pull of gravity.  I know the center will no longer hold.

***

When I reach the doorway of my father’s room the nurse touches my arm.  She tries to explain how they tried to call me but kept getting my voice mail.  I nod my head and tell her yes, I know, my phone was turned off.  The nurse moves aside so I can step into the room.  She touches my arm again and when I look at her she smiles.  Take as much time as you need she tells me before she turns and leaves me alone.  They’ve turned off the machines and removed all the tubes and wires.  My father’s body lies beneath the clean white sheet.  I can no longer see his face and I don’t really want to look at it.  But I go over to the bed and lift up the sheet just to make sure.  You son of a bitch I say under my breath before turning to look out the window.  The silence sounds so strange and I put the palms of my hands against my ears.  I keep looking out the window.  I move closer to the glass trying to find something out there.

***

I’m drifting.  I see only faint traces of light and the ghostly reflection of my face in the glass.  There’s a persistent ticking coming from some unknown place in the darkness.  I try turning my head but it doesn’t make any difference.  Suddenly, the sound of static starts bleeding through the radio.  I reach over and turn the dial trying to make the signal clear.  But nothing comes through and I feel, the thrust, the pull of something invisible.  There’s a tingling that begins in my feet and runs all the way through my body before trying to push its way out the top of my skull.  I feel so tired but can’t go to sleep.  The capsule floats in the emptiness of space.  I’m alone in the universe.  I have no way of knowing how long it has been.

Miracle In A Men’s Room

One advantage of a religious education is a life-long obsession with sex. Eons later, I still remember Debbie Spinello.

A second-year girl, Debbie Spinello was secretly voted “Most Developed” at St J’s Junior College.

The school had separate entrances for males and females. Demerits were handed out, penances assigned, for being out of uniform. So I was surprised when I ran into Debbie in the Young Men’s room. She was smoking a forbidden cigarette, unfiltered.

“Wha-what’re you doing in here?” I gasped.

Debbie Spinello exhaled a Bikini Atoll cloud, puffed a fleck of tobacco off her unfrosted lip (Holy Regulation #31B: Thou shalt not apply lipstick, nor lip gloss!) and said, “Duh. What about you?”

“This is the Young Men’s Room. I need to urinate.

“Well, don’t mind me. I ain’t leavin’ till I finish this butt.”

But I couldn’t leave. I was about to piss my pants. I approached the urinal. My hands shook when I unzipped. My penis was hard as an iron bar.

Debbie heard the silence, came over to see what was wrong.

“C’mon,” she whispered smokily in my ear.

Mortified, I prayed for a quick, painless death.

“You’re pee-shy? That’s cute…Whoa! You got a fucking hard-on.”

She punched my arm. I thought she’d report me to the Sisters. Holy Regulation #3 was: Thou shalt not never have a hard-on.

“We could, uh, not waste it,” she said. “Know what I mean?”

Her cigarette sizzled when she flicked it into the urinal. Her slender fingers came together again, not in prayer. “Well I do, even if you don’t.”

“But…but…I gotta get back to class,” I said. “Father Hurley’s gonna send a patrol out for me in a minute if I don’t…”

“Don’t worry. This won’t take long. First, you get it wet.”

Debbie Spinello bent at the waist, and nearly hit her head on the cup of the urinal. The Fathers said that what she did was the worst thing that could ever happen, but it felt good.

When she stopped I didn’t want her to. But then she said, “Wanna fuck?”

I nodded dumbly. “Too bad,” she said.

My heart sank. The nuns had used Debbie as bait to trap a boy in his sinful lust.

“My folks have me checked once a week. Doc Snyder would report me for sure. He’s my Dad’s oldest buddy. Besides, I don’t want to get pregnant. So you have to do my ass, OK?”

This time I nodded furiously.

“Unbutton me. I got a surprise for you.”

She had to guide my hands. I fought the urge to rip and tear.

“Here silly, lemme show you how.”

A gold medallion hung on a delicate chain in the hollow of her neck. Below was a heavy-duty white cotton bra. I grabbed.

“Be gentle,” she whispered. “And warm your hands first. Ready for the surprise?”

Was Debbie Spinello really a boy? I’d heard stories from guys who’d been to Times Square. Was she an undercover cop? At that point, I didn’t even care.

She unsnapped her bra and showed me the most beautiful things in the world. I wanted to start crying. But all I could say was, “So what’s the surprise?”

That’s when she tweaked her nipples.

“You got milk! You’re lac…lactating! I thought you said you didn’t wanna get pregnant?”

“I’m not pregnant, silly. It just happens. I thought it was a miracle at first, but I was too embarrassed to tell the Sisters. Doc Snyder says it’s rare but normal. He said some Latin word, but I forgot. Mom has to buy me these special absorbent bras.”

She knelt down and took me in her mouth. It was all too much.

“Do you like…”

Way too much. I nearly exploded, fell over backwards. I thought she’d be angry.

“Wow,” she said. “You must really like me.”

“Oh Debbie,” I moaned. “I love you. I always have. Do you know how often I’ve dreamed…”

She stood up and turned around, pulled up her skirt, pulled down her panties and braced herself against the wall over the urinal.

“You gotta spit on it first.”

I went to clear my throat.

“Ew,” she said, “not like that! You’re supposed to, like, just drool on it a bit.”

I did as she instructed and she reached around, guiding me in.

“Ow! Go slow! Go slow!”

So I went slow, even though I wanted to root around in Debbie like a warthog. To help keep my cool, I recited the Lord’s Prayer backwards.

“Quiet,” she said. “This feels really good, but we don’t wanna get caught, do we?”

We did not.

“Milk me so I get off fast. But do it gently.”

I pretended I was back on Uncle Olaf’s farm in Wisconsin.

Debbie wrothe and squirmed. We fell against each other, crashed into the urinal. The thing flushed. We slid to the cold tile floor.

“Omigod,” Debbie whispered. “I can’t go back to class like this. You gotta help me out, OK?”

“Sure,” I said. “What’m I supposed to do?”

“Clean me up,” she hissed. “Come on, hurry.”

She got on all fours.

Debbie tasted evil. When I was done, she whipped around so we could kiss.

The memory of that kiss lingers on and on.

Debbie wiped her mouth on my shirt, walked out of the Men’s room and out of my life forever.

She got kicked out of school for smoking.

On Tour, Backstage

Jane, an eighteen-year-old high school grad, was the runner assigned to look after the bands who were headlining the four different stages of the Wrexham music festival. As the giant party progressed, kids destroyed their minds on neat vodka and impure MDMA, many ending up in bushes, vomiting on their pineapple print button down shirts. As dusk approached, summer seemed to cower. Rain clouds gathered and those on acid felt a sense of impending doom that the more sober revellers were yet to experience.

A manager of one of the headliners drew Jane aside. “If you can deal with these people – and calling them people is generous – then you’ll go far in this business,” he said.

“Actually,” said Jane, “I want to be an artist myself someday.”

“Jane? You seem like a nice girl, so I’ll give you some advice – be a lawyer, be a sales rep because nothing good can come of being a musician. Nothing.” He grabbed Jane’s shoulder and with a haunted look in his eyes and said, “I’ve seen things and they can never be unseen. Heed my words Jane, musicians are not bound by law or conscience. They are truly soulless. Now, where’s the bar? We’re off to get smashed.” He whacked her hard on the back. “Good luck.”

The four managers of the headlining acts headed off to drink away their sorrows, leaving Jane to face her first task – pleasing a hip-hop group, named ‘Spark a Fat One’.  They had trainers bigger than their heads and wore baseball hats so low over their eyes they relied mostly on sound to guide their way.

Jane ushered the rap band into their tent as raindrops began to spatter against their faces. The group lit a joint and sunk happily into a sofa, blasting music from their sound system – the bass shaking the fabric of the tent. They seemed happy enough, so Jane left them to it.

Then the heavens opened, vast puddles formed almost instantly as people’s feet were swallowed into the mush.

“This is no good, this is no good!” cried the members of the jazz band, named ‘Swirling Nightgowns’. They wiped dirt off their spats and sludge from their purple zoot suits. Jane directed them into a tent straining at the seams from water accumulating overhead. She felt a tap on her shoulder.

“Is this incessant noise going to continue?” said a man with a floppy fringe, decked out in bow-tie and tails. He was the conductor of the German classical orchestra named, ‘Herr Ribauls’, “Because I won’t stand for it, oh no.” He was referring to the sound from the rappers’ tent. He chewed on his lower lip and jutted his chin out, waiting for an answer. “Hmm? Hmm? I mean, I feel the need to cleanse myself in a Himalayan mountain stream.”

A man with a blue mohawk, from the band ‘Grindross’, dressed in serious leather and serious chains, barged into the conductor sending him headfirst into the mud, drenching him completely.

“You do know our tent is leaking?” the rocker said, while Jane fretted over the conductor who flapped about in the slush.

“You brute!” cried the conductor.

“Oh god, oh god,” said Jane.

The punk jabbed his finger in Jane’s face, silver bangles rattling on his wrist. “You’re treating us this way cos we’re punks, right? You think we don’t contribute to society, huh!? But let me tell you, we contribute baby, we contribute! I signed a petition just last WEEK!”

“I’m sure you are very socially aware, sir, I’m trying my best, I really am,” said Jane, trying to remain poised.

Just then a gust of wind swept through the area, charging around the campsite sending everything crashing to the ground – the only thing left standing was ‘Spark a Fat One’s’ tent.
Jane tried to think – carefully and quickly. Everyone was coated with mud but to prevent further ignominy she hoarded all the acts into the rappers’ tent and hoped the people would embrace the situation and see the funny side.

The conductor, caked in dirt, looking like a clay sculpture, turned to Jane and said, “I am not going to share a tent with those vagrants if they continue to play that dirge-like discord that is currently wreaking havoc with my eardrums!”

Jane squeezed her way through the melee – past the massed ranks of violinists plucking strings, the drummers pounding on their knees and the noodling jazz trumpeters – and asked the rappers to turn the volume down. They stared straight ahead, sitting on the couch like Buddhist monks meditating, gently nodding their heads in unison. One of them reached over and flicked the sound several notches louder. Jane winced, and felt the vein in her neck begin to throb. She returned to the conductor.

“I’m so sorry, sir, I can’t do much more,” Jane pleaded, “it’s their tent and we are at a music festival after all.”

“This isn’t a festival, it’s Dante’s seventh circle of hell. Save yourselves!” he bawled to no one in particular, flailing his arms above his head. He re-joined the orchestra, while frantically searching his jacket for his lithium tablets.

The saxophonist from the ‘Swirls’ interrupted everyone – who were essentially playing a giant game of Twister now – and said, “Hey, hey! Do we at least get a rider? I demand my melange of sautéed canapés.”

Jane manoeuvred her way through bodies to get to the jazz virtuoso. She wiped the sweat from her brow and began to recite the words she’d rehearsed hundreds of times leading up to the festival. “Mr Duello, may I call you Sam? I have no canapés to offer you, but I’d like to provide my services in another way.”

Suddenly, interrupting her speech was the sound of cracked wood. Jane swivelled and saw the guitarist from ‘Grindross’ breaking a violin over his knee. The violinist’s jaw dropped. She shrieked, leapt on the punk and throttled him. He emitted sharp squeals and his body writhed in agony.

Jane remained rooted to the spot, she thought, “Let it be, Jane, you’ve done all you can. I came here for a reason.”

Unmoved by the scuffle, one of the rappers pulled out a joint the size of a baby’s arm and got down to lighting the behemoth.

The conductor sniffed the marijuana several times, then panicked, “Contact high! Contact high! Where are my pills?!” he said. He ducked under a table and peeked out, struggling to hold in his breath.

“So, Sam,” said Jane, determined to say her piece. “I myself am a musician, a flutist in fact. I’m also Irish. My dream is to unite North and South with my music. Anyway, I love you guys and…”

Before she could finish her sentence the ‘Grindross’ singer had found room to swing a guitar above his head and hurl it out of the tent like a shot-put. Everyone dived for cover, musicians piling up, forming a rugby scrum.

“And I think – I just think – if you could give me one chance to perform for you,” Jane continued.

A mobile rang and everyone checked their pockets, while Jane rummaged around in her rucksack for her instrument.

“Mum?” said the punk singer into his phone. “I told you I’m working. Yes, yes, at the law firm. No, I told you, I quit the band. Of course, I will be a nice boy, I will, I will. Ok, look mum, I have to go, I’m working on the Plinsky case, a very big case, so goodbye now mum. Goodbye.”

The singer hung up. Everyone gawped at him.

“What!?” he said.

He squeezed himself beside the rappers on the couch, crossing his arms, sulking. He reached for the joint. Everyone started to push and shove again, battling to free themselves – fists digging into ribs, feet aimed at noses.

A searing note cut through the fractious atmosphere grabbing everyone’s attention, even Duello’s, who looked up at Jane as she played her sweet melody. The rest of the musicians reacted to the soft and lilting sound of Jane’s flute in their own way – some smiling gently, others clicking their fingers to the rhythm – all transported somehow. Jane played like never before and she soared. The ‘Swirls’ got lumps in their throats, the orchestra’s lips trembled, the rappers wiped some moisture from their eyes, the punks wept and the conductor, still squatting under the table, swatted imaginary flies from his nose.
Voices could be heard from outside the tent.

“What is that sound?” said one of the managers, on unsteady feet, bleary-eyed from an afternoon’s drinking session.

“Not one of my ungrateful rabble, I can tell you that,” quipped another manager.

“It’s – it’s magnificent,” said another.

As the managers stepped into the tent, they saw bodies tangled together like coiled extension leads. Yet everyone seemed entranced by the simple tune, as if it were a siren’s call.
The looks in the musicians’ eyes were similar to when they were first signed – virtuous, innocent and with a genuine desire to change musical history.

It was nearly time for the artists to perform and they went through their preparatory routine, desperate to channel their newfound inspiration and share it with the thousands of fans waiting for them.

One of the managers sidled up to Jane and said, “I manage ‘Swirling Nightgowns’ and I see something in you, well I think we all do. I want to offer you a record contract. I think you can go far. Part of me feels I’m about to ruin your life though – what with the all the drugs, the groupies, the money and the disconnection from reality that comes with success. But my job is to find talent and you have talent, no doubt.”

The bands began to psych themselves up and having reached fever pitch they said, “Let’s do this! Let’s rock!”

Jane was speechless. She had really done it. Her head was spinning.

Suddenly the tent was ripped from its moorings and went flying off into the distance. The artists were too hyped to notice. They streamed out of the site and dashed to their respective stages.

The manager drew her aside, “Seeing as you haven’t actually signed yet and you’re still a runner, I think it’s best you break the news to the bands. The festival has been cancelled. See you at the recording studio kiddo,” he said, slapping her hard on the back, nearly sending Jane headfirst into the mud. “Welcome to the music industry.”

Prepping My Way Back To You Babe

“What do you want?”

Joe stopped short of the porch.

“Just being neighborly. Times like this we need to stick together.”

Caleb looked down at the Bushmaster he was carrying, “I’m fine. Maybe you should worry about yourself.”

They all stopped talking as Donny’s pickup truck cruised by slowly.

Caleb pointed the gun at the young man’s truck. His girlfriend Jenny flipped them the bird before Donny sped away.

“What’s going on Pop?” Zed, Caleb’s twenty-something son who lived in the basement of Caleb’s modest home asked as he joined his dad on the porch. As he eyed Joe his hand moved to the butt of the pistol holstered by his hip.

“That lowlife Donny and his little crackwhore came cruising by all slow like they’re casing the place. Probably should have shot him.”

Zed nodded his approval.

“You still here?” Caleb said to Joe.

“I was just leaving, you stay safe.”

Caleb laughed and tapped the barrel of his rifle, “You do same, city boy.”

Joe nodded and walked away laughing a little at being called ‘city boy’. He’d been Caleb’s neighbor for over a decade.

Rob watched Joe leave. Unlike Caleb and Zed, he hadn’t been collecting weapons for the coming apocalypse. It wasn’t because he had anything against them. He just lost his enthusiasm for them after he had kids. Since home invasions happened around here about as often as anyone won the mega millions he just didn’t see the need. The Taser he had in his pocket and the baseball bat he had under the front seat of his Jeep were much more practical for everyday self-defense anyway.

Once the food riots started, however, arming oneself started making more sense. This didn’t change the fact firearms and bullets cost money Rob didn’t have.

Instead of selling his stuff, Rob started doing some scouting. He figured he’d keep his limited resources and let someone do the weapon collecting for him. It didn’t take long to find Caleb who had so many NRA bumper stickers on his truck they should have been paying him.

While scouting Caleb’s house he noticed the old man television was the same brand as his. Meaning any universal remote would operate it. Rob turned on the television through the back window and cranked up the volume.

“What the fuck did you do to my television?” Caleb asked his son, “Go fix it.”

“You’re the one who doesn’t know how to operate the remote.”

They went back and forth for a while until Caleb got sick of the noise and got up.

“Why won’t the motherfucking thing turn off?” Caleb yelled from the living room.

Zed stood and yelled inside, “You have to use the other remote. It ain’t the cable it’s the one for the television.”

“This is the remote for the television.”

Zed was thinking he was going to have to go show the old man how to fix the television when he heard a creak on the porch. He turned in time to see Rob. He never saw the taser until it was pressed against his neck.

As Rob was gently lowering Zed to the ground Caleb was saying, “Where is the other remote?”

Rob felt bad about this part but he didn’t see another way. He couldn’t afford to stockpile guns but he plenty of knives. He punched Zed in the throat with the blade and stepped back to avoid the arterial spray.

While Zed was rapidly bleeding out he took the Glock out of his holster.

Rob chambered a round and stepped inside.

Caleb heard the footsteps but he was still messing with the T.V.

“What the fuck did you do to the T.V.?” Caleb said without turning around.

Rob double-tapped him in the back. He walked over and put a bullet in the back of the old man’s head to be sure.

He dragged Zed back inside. He wasn’t worried about the law, they didn’t have food either so what people like Rob was doing out in the boondocks didn’t concern them anymore.

He picked up Caleb’s rifle and went scouting.

It didn’t take long to find a small fortune in guns and ammunition. Frankly, there was more than he could carry.

Rob was thinking he should bring his car around when he heard Joe saying, “Put down the guns.”

Rob turned to see Joe aiming a twenty-two pistol at him. He didn’t drop anything but he didn’t raise them up either.

“Why? You making a citizen’s arrest?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“I saw you scouting the house. I had a feeling this is what you were up to.”

“But you didn’t warn them?”

“Nope.”

“Why not.”

“Why do you think I saw you scouting the place?”

“You were scouting it too.”

“Bingo, I figured I’d let you do the heavy lifting.”

“What now?”

“Caleb had enough guns and supplies for ten people. I figure we can split them.”

“I killed two men for this shit.”

“How about you get first pick?”

“How about I get two thirds and first pick?”

“How about I’m the one with a gun pointed at your head?”

“Yeah, but did you cock it?”

Joe put his thumb on the hammer and pulled it back.

While he was doing that Rob raised the Glock.

Rob fired first. Joe pulled the trigger as the first bullet went through his chest.

Joe hit the ground with three big holes in his chest. Rob went over to put the finishing shot in Joe’s face.

Joe couldn’t lift his arm but he moved his wrist enough to fire his gun. He put a bullet in Rob’s neck.

It was nearly morning by the time Donny and Jenny came creeping around. Like Joe and Rob, they hadn’t been stockpiling weapons either. They’d planned to come calling around midnight after the father and son preppers were asleep but keeping track of time was never a strong suit for either of them. They didn’t really have a plan so it was nice to find the front door open and everybody dead inside.

The Anal Tits

Keli was walking down a New York street when she found an anus. She saw the anus in the gutter, the way seasoned bums spot quarters, but she didn’t pounce the way bums do. She stopped, discreetly made sure no one was around, and picked it up. The anus was about the size of a quarter, pinkish-brown, slightly puckered. Keli couldn’t tell if it was male or female.

Keli gave the anus a sniff. She didn’t want to put anything dirty in her pocket or purse. The anus looked clean. If anything, it smelled faintly and pleasantly of almonds. Keli hadn’t noticed any “Asshole-Scoop Killer Strikes Again!” headlines at the newsstands she’d walked by.

A paperboy with a maroon turban on his head whistled at her. “Goodness me! Nice ass, Miss!”

That would’ve been enough to make it a good morning. Then she found an anus.

Things hadn’t been going too well for Keli, lately. She’d broken up with her boyfriend, whom she really liked. Actually, he broke up with her, which made it even worse. Then she got fired from her job at a restaurant because some asshole customer complained he saw Keli scratch her ass before picking up his order, and didn’t stop by the washroom first to wash her hands with soap and water, as mandated by law. The customer said he was offended. He felt nauseated, he said, and not only refused to pay his bill but threatened a lawsuit. Keli was fired on the spot. OK, maybe she had scratched her ass. Everyone does, now and then. She hadn’t scratched her ass on purpose, just to be gross. Besides, she kept her ass scrupulously clean. Keli was sure her ass was cleaner than most of the customers at Marlon’s Fish Shanty.

Keli loved long, hot showers. She’d probe her rosebud with a soapy finger or two and feel it glisten, afterwards.

Keli was on her way to a job interview. There was an opening for a receptionist at a hot shot ad agency on Madison Avenue. She’d put on her most minimal mini-skirt. Her blouse was a white oxford-cloth button-down shirt from the Boys Department of a venerable menswear establishment, also on Madison Avenue. She wore it buttoned up all the way.

Keli had no bosom. She barely had nipples. Pencils laughed at her whenever she took the pencil test. Passing, in Keli’s case, would’ve meant that the pencil found somewhere to stick, for a change. The sound of pencils hitting the floor made Keli cry. Her tiny breasts swam around in padded A-cup bras from the Junior Misses department. Polite salesladies called Keli a “classic late-bloomer”, but she’d given up hope that she’d ever develop. ‘But I’ve got nice legs,’ she thought, to console herself. ‘And a great ass.”

Keli had always led a rewarding sex life. She’d been introduced to anal sex by a caring, sensitive lover, a guy she’d met on a weekend trip to Miami. But Keli knew that bustlines were important, especially for receptionists. ‘They’re the first thing a client sees,’ she thought.

‘The clients won’t be able to see my butt or legs ‘cause I’ll be behind the reception desk. If I get the job, that is.’

The starting salary was above average, and the Help Wanted ad said there were good opportunities for advancement. Advertising was an exciting field, and she wouldn’t have to deal with finicky, neurotic restaurant patrons.

Keli put the anus in her purse for good luck. ‘God,’ she thought, ‘I really hope I get the job. I want this one, bad. I need it.’

Keli got the job. The nice man in charge of human resources at the ad agency said he liked her smile and her sincere, friendly, can-do manner.

The human resources guy was gay. Keli could tell because he was a bit too neatly dressed and groomed. He also wore a rainbow lightning bolt earring and a leather bracelet that said HONCHO in silver letters. But something about the gay human resources guy really turned Keli on. She almost asked him if he’d go on a date with her, despite his being gay.

‘Now there’s a guy who could appreciate my boyish figure,’ she thought. ‘Not like that jerk Derek who dumped me ‘cause he wanted a girlfriend with big tits.’

But in the end, she decided asking the gay human resources guy out on a date wouldn’t have been professionally appropriate.

To celebrate her new job, Keli stopped by the feminist sex shoppe on her way home. The personable butch lesbian salesperson urged her to try out a new vibrator design called the Magic Bunny. When she switched it on, Keli heard a voice.

“Fuck the dumb bunny!” the voice said. “Go for the one with the anal probe. The anal probe, understand? The biggest they’ve got!”

“Excuse me?” Keli asked the salesperson.

“I said the bunny’s ears flicker and flutter the clitoral hood and upper labia, as well as the clitoris itself. The missile-shaped design provides mild, non-aggressive, non-dominant penetration, to produce a satisfying holistic orgasm experience…”

“I thought you said, ‘Fuck the bunny!’”

“Sister, if you’re going to disrespect our merchandise, or if this is your idea of a male-type come-on, I’ll have to ask you to leave our establishment.”

“I must be hearing things. I’m sorry. Please give me the one with the anal probe. No, the bigger one.”

“Uhm, this model requires a three-day waiting period. Just kidding! But seriously, what’re you doing tonight? I mean, aside from…hey, just kidding!”

Keli thought her new black dildo-vibe looked like one of the threatening new nightsticks the cops were using. The instruction manual recommended water-based lube. Lots of water-based lube. Fortunately, Keli had plenty of water-based lube. She opened a bottle, plugged in her new toy, lay back, spread wide, and was just about to blast off when she heard, “Hey! What about me? Lemme outta here! I gotcha that job you wanted, didn’t I?”

Keli thought, ‘I got a job, but I’m losing my mind. Maybe it’s because I masturbate to excess, or worry too much about my small bosom.’

“You want tits? Why’ncha just say so?”

The voice came from her purse. Keli remembered the anus she’d picked up. She went and got it.

“OK, let’s get busy, gorgeous.”

“What? You’re nothing but an anus.”

“That’s right. I am an anus. An anus is your boyfriend now.”

The anus was masterful.

Though a mere muscular ring of flesh, he loved her deep and hard. The anus understood Keli’s animalistic desires. After a long, slow series of gut-wrenching orgasms and anal-gasms, Keli thought she really had lost her mind.

“Please, sweet anus,” she begged. “I can’t cum any more.”

“Oh yeah? I was just getting warmed up. Listen, before you konk out, let’s take care of your wish. There was something you wanted…”

“Tits! Oh, I want tits, anus. I want big, flopping tits!”

“Sure you do, kid. Same as any woman does. But you know the old saying: I do something for you, you do something for me. I guess you know what I’m talking about.”

“Oh yes, lover. I mean…yes, anus. I’ll do anything for you. Anything.”

“You’d do it even if I weren’t about to give you boobs, though, wouldn’t you, Keli?”

“You know I would, anus. I’m all yours. You swim, I rim.”

“Huh?”


“Oh, I dunno. It rhymes.”


Keli said no more. She let her tongue do the talking.


Keli soon felt a tingle in her mosquito bite-size nipples. The fuzzy sensation spread to her armpits and ribcage. She licked harder. The anus moaned and cursed like a death row inmate. The swelling sensation in Keli’s upper body grew. Keli groaned, and spread her legs. She was about to cum yet again. She pinched a nipple to boost her climax, and got a handful of tit.

Slowly, without missing a tongue-lash, she brought her other hand to her chest and felt another tit, just as big and full and warm and wonderful. For the first time in her life, Keli hefted and squeezed her massive boobs. She pinched her outstretched nipples. She felt a trickle, then a squirt.

“Oh my God!” the anus said. “Look the fuck out!” 

No need to describe what happened next.

Keli took a long, hot shower and felt good as new. Since she didn’t own a bra, Keli didn’t wear one on her first day at work. She put on the loosest boy-shirt she had, but still had to leave most of the buttons undone. Newsboys, construction workers and taxi drivers whistled and hooted as Keli sloshed and bounced and sashayed up and down the streets of New York. A cop made the international jack-off gesture with his nightstick.

“Hey, doncha know you could get arrested for showing off tits that big? Huh-huh-huh…just kidding. But not really, though.”

The friendly gay human resources director at the ad agency took one look at Keli and tore off his gay earring and bracelet. He threw them in the nearest wastepaper basket. Then he tore off his shirt and tie and shredded his Stonewall T-shirt. His hairless chest rippled over 6-pack abs. He asked Keli out on a date, begged her not to take his request as sexual harassment or inappropriate, unprofessional behavior.

“Sure,” said Keli. “I’d love to go out with you.”

She didn’t think he’d mind that she already had an asshole boyfriend.

Johnny Cag’s

I could tell you some stories. There was Sad Jean. We called her “Sad” Jean because she always looked so damn sad. Her very molecules moped with misery. She wore such grim tragedy on her rainy countenance that you didn’t know whether to hug her or hit her. She only managed one facial expression, woe. She wore drab brown clothes and had long, stringy oily Manson-girl hair. We often speculated about what accounted for her tragic, weight-weary comportment but our theories all fell flat. They were whack in the final analysis. The only thing that seemed plausible was that she was imprisoned in a miserable marriage.

We called her husband “Weird Beard” because he had a thick bristling beard and acted weird. He’d served in Vietnam and wore sandals with black socks. He would laugh before he said something, like “Hahaha how ya doin’?”. “Hahaha what can I getcha?” We surmised that he’d done a lot of wonderful drugs in his youth. I once ran into him in the woods. “Hahaha,” he said. “How far back do these woods go?”

I told him they went pretty far. He nodded and I walked away, glad that a conversation hadn’t emerged. The scuttlebutt around town was that he suffered from PTSD but nobody called it that yet. Word was if you startled him by yelling “Air raid!” it would induce a terrifying flashback but I never witnessed this behavior and don’t trust the sources.

Weird Beard and Sad Jean worked for Sad Jean’s father at a honkytonk-type bar in our neighborhood called Johnny Cag’s. That’s how we knew them. They all helped tend bar and did kitchen stuff. Local country-western musicians would enliven the joint on the weekends. Cag’s had a pool table and Ms. Pac-Man machine and we, the neighborhood kids, would hang out and order Cokes and French fries and spend a lot of our money, mostly quarters. Usually we got high before we went in. There was no Johnny Cag. We were uncertain as to the origin of the name. The burly, friendly guy who owned it was named Bert. His wife Dot also worked there. She used to write the ever-changing menu on a big whiteboard and we laughed at her crude lettering and many misspellings. Once, around Christmas, my friend Jack and I stole a basket of flowers from a nursery called Bellaire Gardens and presented it to her. She was thrilled. “Bert! Look what the boys brought me!” Johnny Cag’s was a small, family-run business. The kind you’re supposed to like, politically.

The place survived for a couple of years and then closed. Bert went back to work as a driving instructor. I have no idea what happened to the others. They depended on Bert for their livelihoods.

But seeing as how all this took place in the early 80s, they might all be dead.

***

From: Everything Dissolves

Romita

Romita buzzed my doorbell at two in the morning. I was still up so I pushed the button. “Yeah? Who’s this?”

“Romita! Let me in!”

I buzzed her up.

Romita was a woman. I put on my pants.

My apartment (at the time) was a tiny sculpture of a children’s hospital.  I rarely had visitors anymore and that was fine with me. I could hear Romita’s footsteps gaining on me. She entered my apartment, drunk, shedding forensic evidence all over the place. She coughed and pulled a pack of Newports out of her leather jacket, smacked it against her hand. I allow smoking in my apartment, I allow friends to drop in, and I allow Romita to exist.

“Hey Joe,” she said. Her eyes were blurred slits. “Kill anybody lately?”

“I’m working on it,” I told her.

“I bet,” she said and then gave me a snort of laughter. “You’re so fucked up.”

“What do you want, Romita?” Her father had named her after comic book artist John Romita (The Amazing Spiderman). It was homage to one of the greats. I knew this because I knew Romita. Better than almost anyone. She knew things about me too. It was a dangerous two-way street.

“I was just in the neighborhood, saw your light was on. Figured you were working.” She closed her eyes and—still standing—seemed to be asleep for a few seconds. She opened her eyes (sort of) swaying and said, “I want you to kill me.”

“Oh no. Not this again.”

“Come on. Just do me this one little favor…”

“I’m sorry Romita, I can’t.”

“How come?” She plugged a Newport into her lazy smile, clicked it to life with a blue Bic.

“I don’t kill people I know,” I told her. Again.

“Yeah I know. You only kill prostitutes. Hey, I could be a prostitute.”

“Don’t say that. You’re not a prostitute.”

She gave me a lopsided smile. “I know I’m not a prostitute. I’m saying I could BE a prostitute. Like as an ambition.”

“Uh-huh.” This was getting tedious already. I hated dealing with drunks. Romita was a miserable drunk. And her desire to be murdered was getting on my nerves. It wasn’t the first time she’d made the request. Romita and I used to work together at Sledgehammer Industrial. Bathtubs stained grimy with iron dust. Bathtubs full of blood and splintered bone.

“Why don’t you just take things into your own hands?” I asked.

“I can’t commit suicide.”

“Why not?” I asked but I already knew.

“Not allowed. It’s a sin.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Romita. I just can’t help you.”

“What if I blackmailed you?”

“Be careful, bitch.” I hated to get angry but Romita was pushing my buttons. It was a tactic she’d tried before.

“Or what? You’ll kill me?” She snorted out a laugh.

I laughed, relaxed.“Yeah, I guess that is pretty funny,” I admitted.

“Hey, you got any beer?” she said.

I did. We sat down and drank beer and Romita smoked, her mind drifting with the curls and clouds. Eventually, she left. On good, safe terms.

I went back into the bathroom to finish Helen.

***

From: Everything Dissolves

Bumblefuck

Andrew was lost. His GPS was not working right and the paper map, well it was too big to unravel while driving. The road was narrow and winding. The sun had gone down faster than he’d expected, lost behind tree-covered mountains, their leaves burning autumnal orange and red. It was dark now and getting darker. Andrew switched on the car’s high beams. He was far from the big city. There were no street lamps, and the space between lighted buildings was counted in miles. There might be a small cluster of buildings, a dilapidated barn and a few house, with a name such as The Village of Potluck. Lone houses were perched on the side of mountains, looking as if they were about to collapse onto the road or slide into the valley below. The road was supposedly two lanes, but any vehicle approaching in the opposite direction posed a challenge.

“So much for short cuts,” Andrew thought, promising himself that he would stick to major roads in the future.

He looked for a place to pull over, but could find no spot that was not rock or guardrail or a plunge into a creek bed. He could have pulled into one of the dirt and gravel roads that led directly to one the cliff dwelling homes, but the numerous “No Trespassing” signs made him uncomfortable doing so. Andrew did not know what gun toting madman might rush out a house to take a potshot at his Porche.

The car was not as valuable as it looked, being second hand. Still, it had cost him enough and he did not want it to suffer any more damage than this mountain road had already caused. He already felt the gears were not shifting as smoothly as before the car had started to climb and plummet this endless series of hills.

Andrew had gone to Hagerstown, Maryland for the weekend to visit his old college roommate, Chester Kunitz for a barbecue. He had begged off many previous invitations, but had finally accepted, making the long drive to Hagerstown from Fort Washington.. He had not seen Chester since their days together at the University of Pennsylvania. The excursion had proven a lot of fun. It was much better seeing Chester and his wife in person rather than simply exchanging messages on Facebook. Everything would have gone fine if Andrew had not mentioned that he was heading to Albany after the barbecue for a week long trade conference on industrial adhesives. A neighbor of Chester’s, a Silas or Cyrus something, big man with albino white hair and pink lips, had overheard the remark. This Silas had suggested a wonderful shortcut. He had written down directions for Andrew, said it would save him an hour at least. Andrew had thanked him. He had been the foolish to trust that man. Now Andrew believed this Silas had a cruel sense of humor. If he ever saw that man, Silas, again, Andrew would clock him good.

Even with his high beams, Andrew could not see more than ten feet ahead. The road twisted too much, and trees blocked his view of oncoming cars. Branches kept scraping his roof and windshield. All he could do was drive slow and watch for lights coming through the trees, or dancing on the road. His red Porche was built for speed, but the wooded mountain terrain had neutralized his gas pedal.

Andrew was looking for a place to pull over and study his map. When he saw lights from a small town, he felt relieved. If he could find out where he was, maybe he could figure out how to get back on one of the numbered highways that crisscrossed the state. As he approached town, he looked for a sign with a name of the place. He could not find one. He did find a history marker for a cabin that had been burned down during the French and Indian War, a family of settlers was killed. That sort of thing might be interesting to some folks, but Andrew was not in the mood for trivia. No. He wanted to get his bearings, and get back on track for Albany.

It was not much of a town. Just a few houses and small business crowded around a spot where two unnamed road intersected. Andrew saw a gas station with two pumps. A sign reading Rickert’s Service Station was lit, so were the lights in the office. Andrew pulled in. A bell rang as the Porche’s tires rolled over a hose stretched across the driveway. Andrew checked the gas gauge. He could use some gas, but directions were what he really needed.

A rectangular metal sign swinging on a chain said full service. Andrew pulled his car up next to a pump. He shut off the engine and waited. No one came out of the office. Andrew honked the car horn. Still no one came out. He leaned forward over the steering wheel, trying to get a better glimpse through the glass at the office. He did not see anyone in there. He hoped the station was not closed, that the lights had not been left on by accident. Maybe, the attendant was just in the men’s room. He honked again, hoping this would make the attendant speed his business. His eyes were focused on the door and window of the office. He waited. There was no motion.

He gave up and started the engine. Just then, Andrew noticed a thin man in blue jeans, and a checkered cloth jacket standing nearby. The man was staring at his car. The man was thin, and dirty looking, with short hair on his head and sparse whiskers on his chin..

Andrew rolled down his car window.

“Excuse me?” he asked. “Do you work here?”

The man pointed at himself and shook his head. He started to come closer to the car.

“Is this place open?” Andrew asked..

“The pumps are on,” the man said. “But the owner’s not around.”

“Then how can I get some gas?”

The man’s lips formed a thin grin.

“I’ll pump the gas for you. How much do you want?”

“I thought you said you didn’t work here?”

“I don’t work here. I’m just covering for the owner while he’s on a hunting trip.”

“Oh, okay.”

Andrew handed the man two twenty dollar bills.

The man asked, “Do you want the whole forty’s worth?”

“Yeah,” Andrew said. “Super.”

“Okay,” said the man in the checkered jacket. He walked with the twenty in his hand over to the office. He opened the door and went inside. A few seconds later he emerged and started walking back towards the car.

Andrew popped the release for the gas tank. The man unscrewed the cap, and place it on the roof of the car. He took the pump nozzle from its hook and stuck it in the tank. The pump began to ring up gallons and dollars.

“What’s this town called?”

The man looked up from his work, and saw Andrew leaning out the window.

“Bumblefuck,” he said. “That’s what they should call it. They call the part of Pennsylvania between the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh ‘Bumblefuck’. The locals don’t call it that. They just call it home. It’s the city folk who call it Bumblefuck when they find themselves stuck there. They call it Bumblefuck because its backwards and boring and stupid enough to drive you up a wall. The kind of place that make a city person just go bonkers.”

“You just called it Bumblefuck, so I guess you’re not from around this way?”

“No,” said the man eyeing Andrew. “Like you, I’m not from around here. Not originally. I prefer the big cities, a place where it is hard to stand out if you look or act a bit peculiar. A place where you can find people in the streets or in 24 hour diners at any time day or night. I should never have come here. The place just gets under my skin.”

“I hear you,” Andrew nodded. “But can you tell me the name of this town?”

“The locals call it Hetzburg. There used to be a sign, but it was knocked down by fuel truck five or six years ago, and wasn’t fit for use anymore. No one in town wanted to cough up the money for a new sign, so there’s been no sign since the. Hetzburg is one of those places most people blink and pass through in the mountains northwest of Harrisburg. Not many people pass through unless they are on their way to see the Nittany Lions play or visit one of the smaller colleges hidden away up here and have programmed their GPS to find a slow and scenic route.”

The road had not seemed very scenic to Andrew.

“Do you know how to get to Route 220, or 219 or 522 from here?”

The man shook his head.

“I have not been here that long, and I don’t have a car, so I am not familiar with the names of all the roads, but if I were to ride with you I think I could tell you when to turn and when to go straight.”

Andrew did not like the fellows eyes. His whole expression was odd. Andrew did not like the thought of having the man in his car.

“Thanks for the offer, but I can’t put you out like that,” Andrew said. “You would have to get a ride back.”

“Suit yourself.”

Andrew checked his watch. It looked like he was going to have to change his plans. He would not be able to drive on these back roads all night. It could be the death of him. He asked, “Is there a motel around here?”

The man shook his head.

“How about a place to eat?”

“There’s what passes for a restaurant, but just barely. I’ll never go back there to eat. The service is terrible. If you drive by you will see it looks empty. The sign may say open, but if you go in there you”ll wait forever for that waitress to show up. She is mighty slow.

Andrew grinned, “Slow can be good. How old is she?”

“Maybe thirty five, forty, something in that range.”

“Much of a looker?”

The man turned his head cockeyed and twisted from side to side..

“She don’t look too bad. Red head.”

The man’s eyes suddenly widened.

“You must be some kind of player asking all these questions about that waitress, one smooth operator.”

Andrew chuckled, because it was true.

“ Oh? “ said the man, chuckling as well. “You’re like that. You are a player. I could tell from your eyes. I didn’t want to say, but I knew. You are one of those guys who is always on the prowl. Same here.”

The man made his finger into a gun.

“Bang! Chalk up another one.”

The man drew a hash mark in the air with a finger.

Andrew smiled broadly.

The man pointed at Andrew’s face.

“You smile. Is that how it is? Heh-heh. I know the feeling”

He leaned towards Andrew and flashed a row of dirty teeth.

“We’re birds of a feather. Bet you together we could knock them ladies dead.”

Andrew kept smiling, but only to be polite. The comparison of himself with this Bumbefuck oddball sickened him.

“What else is there in this town besides a crummy restaurant and a gas station?” Andrew asked.

“There used to be a bar just outside of town, but it burned down last week. A real tragedy because it is over twenty five miles to the next bar. Other than that, there is an animal feed store that also sells some people food, but they’re closed for repairs. There’s a hunting and fishing supply store stocked full of shotguns and semiautomatics, but that’s not open at this time of night. There’s maybe a dozen houses in the town proper, at most, and there’s the church.”

The man gestured to a shape that could be dimly seen in the lights from the service station. It was a white clapboard church with a worn and weary look.

Andrew said, gesturing to the church, “I guess that’s the main attraction.”

“There are no attractions in Hetzburg,” the man said. There’s nothing for a man in a hurry to see.” He shook his head. “Nope. No one pays attention to anything or anyone here unless they are from Hetzburg or related to someone in Hetzburg. That does not add up to a lot of folks looking this way. That’s one of the nice things about this town. No one from outside gives a damn what goes on here.” The man grinned, “That’s one of the few things I like about this town. No prying eyes.”

The man finished pumping the gas. He pulled the nozzle out of the tank, and screw the cap back in. He closed the tank cover, and carried the nozzle back to its perch on the pump. The man stood there with his back towards Andrew. He continued talking, but now in a lower voice.

“Across the street from the restaurant, a taxidermist has a shop. The window is full of dead things, stuffed yet lively. There a turkey vulture and a raccoon and a rabbit that will never see Easter. I’ve been inside, just once. Didn’t need to go back twice. There were plenty of dead moose and deer heads mounted on the wall, big bucks, five points or more, a small black bear and one snarling cougar that probably came from out of state. Plenty of glass eyes staring at you when you talk to the old man who runs the place. I think his name was Cullen. All those eyes watching might have made someone else feel uncomfortable, but not me. It reminded me of nightclubs back east in Philly or up in New York, dark places filled with glazed eyes.” The man sighed. “All those dead eyes. I miss them.”

The man grew quiet for a time, then started up again, turning towards Andrew.

“You see there’s not much around here. No reason for me to stick around. No reason for you to stick around. Just fill your tank and move on. Bob Rickert used to run the station, offered me a job when I arrived in town. Then hunting season started, and he was gone. Hunting is big out here.” He laughed. “It was really big this year. When hunting season rolled around it emptied out the town. There’s nothing like blood sports to get the ticker going and fill you with a sense of pride and accomplishment.”

The man closed his eyes and shook his head. “Yeah. It’s been a good season so far, but now that everyone is out in the woods, it feels lonesome being around here. I don’t like that feeling. Yeah, this town is dead. I think I’m about ready to move on. No more Bumblefuck for me. I’ve had enough.”

Andrew agreed, “Maybe you should move on.”

The man half raised his eyelids. Andrew could feel the man staring at him.

“You think so?” the man smiled. “Too bad I don’t have a car.”

The man started to laugh.

Andrew did not like that laugh. He reached over to close the window, but he was not fast enough.

It was a week before the county sheriff received enough pestering calls from worried relatives to drive out to Hetzburg. It took another month for the state police to find all the bodies. Newspaper headlines raged about the “Hetzburg Massacre.” There were no suspects, and no trail to follow.

Some of the victims were found in shallow graves in the woods behind the service station. Some were found laying in their homes or businesses. Others were found in the church basement. Most had been shot at close range. There were 28 victims in all, the entire population of Hetzburg, plus one unknown salesman without wallet or I.D., who was passing through Bumblefuck and did not have sense to step on the gas.  

Junk<Shit≠Pussy

Heroin clears the mind, but clogs the colon.

Laxatives are still legal, but the pharmaceutical industry keeps the good stuff under reserve, for addicts who can pay.

The Beverly Hills drugstore looked like the motherlode. Socialites floated in and out of the place on dream-clouds of lost weight and shrink-wrapped designer clothes.

Please dispense the true cleanser this time, Mister Pharmacist. I’m hurting bad. Honest.

But there was no dignified gent in a starched labcoat behind the prescriptions counter. Instead, a young woman.

“May I help you, sir?”

Her tone suggested she knew what I needed. Her thick glasses were X-ray Spex that saw through junkie-vampire mendacity.

Junkies, like dogs who defecate anywhere, have no dignity. “Laxatives, please, Miss. The extra-strength kind. Make that extra-extra-strength.”

She briefly searched the shelves behind her and drew out a little white cardboard coffin. She tapped the package with a fingertip.

“Federal law requires us to sell protective clothing in conjunction with this product, sir. Do you have a prescription?”

“Look, skip it. Give me a gross of the regular crap. And uh, while you’re at it, do you carry Extra-Small condoms?”

She had Extra-Small condoms. They’re the same as regular ones, just like Extra-Large. She exposed this advertising scam aimed at humiliation freaks and megalomaniacs with the ruler she kept by the register.

“You don’t need prophylactics,” she said. “You’re an addict who has a place to live and a well-paid profession. Let me guess: you like jazz.”

“I like to mind my own business.”

She lowered her chin. “All right, has it been two weeks since your last bowel movement, sir? If so, we can dispense with the prescription, for humanitarian reasons. Long periods without release make a person edgy, and rude.”

She slid the packet across the counter. A medicinal name was spelled out in bold block letters and Braille dots. There were no eye-catching colorful swirls, bikini girls or slogans.

“Shit like a bird!”

“Dump like a truck!”

She rested her elbows on the counter. A button on her labcoat popped. She hunched to smash her breasts together. I was so far gone, I lunged for the caca-tablets.

“Look mister, I want to help you. Even though you can still afford your drugs and don’t have health problems that are exacerbated by opiate misuse, you’re headed for trouble. Even worse than constipation.”

“What could be worse?”

“Legal shit, for starters. It’s a slippery slope, and pills are just more dope. Let nature resume its proper course. Give up heroin to achieve release.”

“Sounds romantic. But I’m in love with heroin. I tried to live without Her. It doesn’t work. I couldn’t work. I’d have been an unemployed wreck, if I kept it up.”

She took back the slim package. “Let me show you something different, sir. See those refrigerator cabinets by the far wall? That’s the security cameras’ blind spot. Meet me there. This isn’t for public entertainment.”

In the drugstore’s cold dark zone, she squatted and pretended to show me where the cream sodas were. There was nothing under her labcoat but skin.

She said she knocked off at 7 p.m.

For the rest of the afternoon, I had something to think about besides how long till the next shot.

Heroin’s a jealous wife. My wrist shook when I checked my watch to see whether there was time to drive home, park, make sure my agent or some studio bigwig hadn’t left phone messages, unpack the works stashed in the First Aid kit in the bathroom, hang my jacket on the hook the decorator installed, roll up my sleeve, tie off with the condom-colored surgical tube, insert the sterilized Ever-Sharp syringe into the ulcer-hole in the crook of my elbow which is why I never roll up my long-sleeve Hawaiian shirts in public, not even on Santa Ana days, and feel what keeps me, thousands like me and millions less fortunate than me hooked full-time. The agony of stool retention dematerialized like peace-pipe smoke from a Ghost Dance ceremony in the desert beyond the Hollywood Hills.

Can’t even puke anymore.

Reverse the ritual, disinfect the wound that never heals, put the drug-toys away, ooze out to the car and drive back to the pharmacy.

Eyelids roll down like flesh-colored window-shades in a depressing motel to soften a pornographic sunset. One of the wonderful things about skag is that it leaves you lucid, fully aware and concentrated on what matters most in a drug-induced life where everything makes sense.

OK, you’re stoned out of your mind.

She was already in the parking lot, in her car, reading a book: a hardback, not some drugstore bestseller. The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann, a book I was supposed to have read before I dropped out of college. I skipped through to the chapter that’s supposed to be about coke.

Junk later cleared that peculiar passage’s message.

The zombie approached, rapped on her window. She stuck the novel in the glove compartment, opened up and taught a refresher course in car dates as the drugstore’s parking lot emptied.

 “Let’s move it to my car,” I said, when it was dark. “There’s more room, and tinted windows in back.”

“Women feel more comfortable in their own space, mister. How long has it been since you were with a woman?”

“You saying I’ve lost the touch?”

“Let me show you.”

The demonstration was like being slowly crushed by a python of pussy. “Gonna burn away everything you’ve got,” she whispered. “You won’t want anything but what I give you. Squeeze inside me twice to let me know you understand and agree.”

There was no other way to express thoughts that weren’t even mine.

The bliss that you don’t exist. Then even the bliss disappears and you fade out.

She didn’t tell me where she lived. She made me come back to the drugstore to pick her up after work, and she was always late.

No dope lectures. Instead, the silent treatment, as wet, warm and dark as being born again, only this time it was a conscious crawl down the twelve steps that led from car dates to a night at her place, no matter how far that was from the First Aid kit at home.

Her place was Step Five or Six.

She taught me I hadn’t learned anything from years of drug-assisted service to The Motion Picture Industry.

She lent me her copy of The Magic Mountain when she was done with it. Fifth time around, she said, and the story only gets better.

The guy in the book winds up at a swank TB resort even though he isn’t sick, and falls in love with a woman who’s dying. She shows him her X-ray, and outlines her heart with her finger. Then she points out her shadowy lungs, which are full of some pulpy crud that wants to kill her.

At that point, I hadn’t enjoyed a shot in days. She made me retain body fluids at critical moments, while she gushed from a bottomless reservoir.

The lady in the novel dies real gory.

This literary Liebestod packed visceral whallop. I dropped the book, slammed the bathroom door and sat down without even a sideways glance at the First Aid Kit.

The pile was a magic mountain, and it was real. The creation was a product of love, or at least of going through the physical motions. But the emotion was there. Love flowed through my veins and intestines in the form of light. An astral body that used to be me levitated up, up and away.

Never felt that way about a finished script or the subsequent box office smash, or flop.

An enlightened human being picked her up at the drugstore at sunset. Beams of invisible warm love streamed from my eyes, mouth and ass. She looked into my eyeholes. A junkie no longer, or not that kind of junkie. But I wasn’t free, never was, never wanted to be. She put a hand over my mouth when I started to say I love you.

“You’ve still got a lot to lose,” she said.