Requiem for an Ass

My girlfriend gets fed up with all the people who are always staring at her ass, so one day she locks herself in the bathroom with a giant kitchen knife and chops off both of her buttocks, just like that. They would’ve sew them back on at the hospital, but she lies and says she lost them.

Actually we keep them in a cardboard box on the top of the wardrobe, and I’m the only one who get to look at them. But one night someone breaks into our house, and I find a stranger sitting on our floor with the box in his lap.

He is staring at its contents.

“Get the fuck out!” I shout at him. “Stop staring my girlfriend’s ass!”

I kick him out of the door and I return the cardboard box to its place on top of the wardrobe. But around midnight, we awake to find that someone has break into our apartment again – there are now two middle-aged men standing in the living room, the open box at their feet, and they are gazing down at the cut-off buttcheeks inside.

“Filthy pigs!” my girlfriend screams.

I chase them out from the house with a broom stick.

Afterwards, we agree that I’ll take her ass up into the attic, which sadly means I’ll have to climb the ladder every time I want to pinch her butt.

So next day, I find four strangers up there, just sitting in a circle around the box. It looks like they are in some kind of deep meditation state, transfixed by twin mounds of ass-meat within.

Before they’ve even noticed me, I grab the box and hurry back down the ladder.

At the moment, we’re keeping the box in a locked drawer. I carry the key on a string around my neck. Every now and then, a stranger sneaks into our home and peeps through the drawer’s keyhole.

My girlfriend’s wounds are healing, but she still looks kind of like an apple someone took a couple bites from. Every time we make love, we take her buttocks out from the drawer.

I put on some latino music, and I tell her: “Shake your ass, baby!” So she begins to shake the cardboard box in her hands – her buttocks bouncing around inside.

With the use of some adhesive tape, we temporarily reattach her butt back onto her, and she gives me a really nice lap dance. The adhesive tape isn’t almighty, however, and she leaves one of her asscheeks in my lap.

It’s a bit awkward, but she smiles just the same, snatching up her asscheek and rubbing me with it like it was a sponge or something. The strangely preserved meat leaves a odd slime all over my skin.

I gaze at the small black dot on the asscheek in her hand – the lovely birthmark that brings back so many fond memories. It is then that a small, wriggling worm squirms out from under it. My girlfriend screams and throws her asscheek to the floor.

We always knew there was something special about that ass, but even an ass that great can’t resist decomposition forever.

After a few days, my girlfriend’s butt ends up in the trash. Now strangers are gathering around the garbage can out front, unable to take their eyes off it for a second. It seems my girlfriend doesn’t care anymore that they are staring at her butt. Instead, she seems to miss it for the first time.

“But there are many things more important than a butt, right?” she asks through welling tears.

“Of course,” I tell her, as they all come to mind.

The morning stretching, for example. Or walking in a forest. The marrow-melting sadness of the snapping of deer antlers. The calmness of long forgotten costumes, the silent swinging of the coat hangers in a dusty old wardrobe. The gold resin drops hanging from wounded trees – my mother used to say they were the honeyed teardrops of angels.

These are all more important than an ass, to be frank.

The wet milk skin of puberty, when adulthood gathers in the corners of your eyes, like morning rose spores. The drying gypsum sculptures of the secret thoughts in your skull. The vanishing pulsation of the stolen body heat after holding hands. All of these are more important than having an ass.

There are many more important things, I tell myself, joining the long line that has formed down the block for a peek at my girlfriend’s butt.

Thy Brother’s Keeper

Iron Mary poured thick, chicory-laced coffee into two chipped mugs and set them on the three-legged, formica-topped table propped into one corner of her kitchen. Easing herself onto a rickety, straight-backed chair she nudged a tin of evaporated milk toward her brother.

Picking up the tin, Grady poured until his coffee was the color of brown sugar then returned it to the table and tapped the silver top with a blunt fingertip. Squinting one eye nearly closed he grinned across the table. “You remember what we used to say after Ma started buying this canned cow?

“No tits to pull

No shit to pitch.

Just punch a hole

In the sonuvabitch.”

His grin broadened as Iron Mary threw back her head and laughed. When she righted herself there was a dribble of tobacco juice at one corner of her mouth.

“How long’ve you lived here now, Sis?”

Iron Mary slurped her coffee and looked around the room. Scrunching up her face she spat into the Old Luzianne can that served as spittoon. “Thirty year come fall,” she said in a voice thick with phlegm . . . then added, “Mebbe thirty-one.”

“And nobody left now but you.”

“Well, me ’n that damned billy goat,” she nodded toward the yard outside the window. “He wouldn’t stay around ‘cept nobody else’ll bake him biscuits. The mangy bastard ate the tops off two rows of my winter carrots last week. If I could find the bullets to my rifle I’d shoot him, if I could find my rifle. I’d shoot him right between the eyes only he’s so hard headed it prob’ly wouldn’t take. Why’d you ask?”

“Oh, I was just thinking about all the people who’re gone,” Grady said. Staring out the back door at what had once been a piddling town but was now nothing but collapsed buildings and overgrown lots, he sighed. “The place sure lived up to its name, huh?”

Iron Mary cackled at that, the dribble of tobacco juice turning into a trickle she had to wipe away with the leathery palm of her hand. “You’re remembering what Ma said, ain’t you?”

Grady nodded.

“We come up the hill in that old yella pick-up truck with the burnt-out clutch. Me, you, and Buell in the back; Ma and Pa up front. Took us what, two and a half, three hours to climb the mountain? Pa stopping every couple of miles to fill the radiator and Ma getting madder every time he pulled over. Uprooted was the word she used, wadn’t it? Uprooted and moved with never so much as a do-you-mind, is what she said. Then after the longest time we turned yonder at the bottom of what ended up being Main Street. Pa puffed up big and proud as a peacock, Whataya think, darling? he asked Ma. Seems mighty small, she says with a sniff. That kind of put him off so he tells her he somehow recollected the place as being bigger than this. Well, Ma says, it sure as hell must a’ shrunk.”

Iron Mary laughed so hard she hiccupped, then spat into the coffee can and slurped from her mug. “By the time they got around to giving us a post office Pa’s store was doing so good nobody argued when he said that ought to be the name of the place . . . Mustashrunk.”

“Ma never did think it was funny,” Grady grinned.

“Can you blame her?” Iron Mary’s voice took on an edge. “Little pissant town in the middle of the road and her without a friend or neighbor to her name.”

Grady took time to roll and light a cigarette before returning the Prince Albert can to his hip pocket and wiping at the table top with a callused hand. “I miss her, Sis, you know? Her being gone all these years and I still miss her something fierce. Pa, too.”

“If you’d ever settled down with a good woman it’d be easier for you now,” Iron Mary said.

“Sure,” Grady said derisively. “Like having a man around ever did you a lot of good. Twice widowed and your kids never coming to visit. What do you get for your trouble, Christmas cards from California?”

Iron Mary took her time getting up from the table. Crossing to the chipped enamel sink she gazed out the window at the thickening dusk. “Lookit that damned goat,” she muttered. “Standing spraddle-legged in the middle of my garden deciding what he’s gonna eat next. The sonuvabitch done got half a row of beets.” Rapping sharply on the pane with bony knuckles she hollered through the glass. “GET OUTTA THERE YOU MANGY, LOP-EARED BASTARD! AND STAY OUT ELSE I’LL BARBECUE YOUR SPOTTED ASS.”

Fetching the coffee from the stove she refilled their mugs then resumed her seat and sighed.

“It ain’t as bad as you make out, Grady. My daughters done good for themselves. It’s only their husbands I can’t abide me. I don’t blame the girls for staying away; a woman’s first loyalty is to her man. God knows I was loyal to mine, both of ’em. Me and that four-poster bed in yonder plumb wore the first one out. The way we went at it it’s a wonder I ain’t got a dozen chil’run. And the second one was just as randy. Yes sir, I always did like my lovin’. Still do, ‘cept finding a willing partner ain’t as easy these days.” She cleared her throat and emptied it into the coffee can. “The fact I don’t have steady company’s no reason you shouldn’t be warm at night. Don’t you get tired living alone?”

Grady stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray then reached again for the condensed milk. “I reckon I do, but who’d have me? When I was a younger man I was too worried about whiskey, horses and the kind of gal I daren’t bring home. Now I’m three years into social security and live in a shack that makes this place look like something special. I got two hun’erd dollars in the bank, a crippled hound near old as me, a Massey Ferguson tractor that runs half the time, and just enough corn to keep my hogs fed through the winter if we don’t get a long spell of snow. My knees creak like hick’ry splits, my teeth were made by a jackleg dentist, and I don’t shave these days as it’s easier not to. I smell of farts and failure, Sis. Oh yeah, I’m a door prize.”

“That depends on who you talk to,” Iron Mary wiped a thread of tobacco juice from her chin.  “Esther McClung’d give her eyeteeth to get you, assuming she had any. She asks of you every time I see her. She gets a faraway look in her eye when your name comes up, Grady. Was she a younger woman I’d call her giddy.”

“Ester McClung,” he snorted. “Now that’d be a match, wouldn’t it? She’d have me cleaned up, watered down, and sitting in the front pew at church before I got my duffle unpacked. Why I’d be tiptoeing around her house in sock feet afraid to scuff the carpet. And Lord knows she’d all the time be pestering me to do this, do that, or do something else. Ester McClung? No thank you, ma’am.”

“What about Imogene Walkup then? There’s a woman to keep your back warm come cold weather. Living above the drugstore the way she does, your place’d seem a mansion to her. Imogene likes her pork, too. She’s always asking after your hogs.”

“No wonder, fat as she is. I’m not sure I got enough corn to keep her fed all winter.”

“Well, I’m beginning to see why you sleep alone, Grady. Your problem is you’re too damn particular and that’s not good in a man your age.” With that Iron Mary folded her hands and pursed her lips, staring down into her lap.

Grady extracted the Prince Albert can from his back pocket and took his time rolling another cigarette. He lit it with a kitchen match and took a deep drag. When Iron Mary refused to look up from her lap he sighed.

“Understand me, Sis. I ain’t gonna do it,” he said softly. Before she could protest, he continued, “Ever’ time you start talking about women lusting after me it ends up this same way—you wanting me to move in here. I ‘preciate your concern, truly I do. But the answer is no just like it was the last time this come up and will be the next. You know I love you, Sis. And I know you’re as lonely as I am, but it just ain’t right.”

Embarrassed, Iron Mary sniffled. Looking up from under a long hank of gray hair she took in a whistling breath and let it out slowly. “Buell didn’t see the wrong in it,” she reminded him quietly. “It didn’t hurt him none, neither, if you ask me,” she added lamely.

“That’s not the point and you know it. Besides, Buell’s dead. I ought to know, I buried him.”

“I still can’t believe the two of you fought over me.”

“Not over you, Sis—about you. It ain’t the same thing.”

“What do they call it, what you done?”

“It’s called fratricide and it’s a sin.”

“We’re all sinners, Grady. That’s the thing of it.”

“The thing of it is I’m searching for redemption.”

“Well, it ain’t like you and me never done it before, Grady.”

“That was then, Sis, this is now. Christ, we were kids. We didn’t know any better. Leastways I didn’t know any better.”

“Buell weren’t a kid these last several years. He knew better and still liked it just fine.”

Grady simply looked at her.

“Come on to bed with me, Grady,” Iron Mary said. “The night get long and I’m chilled to the bone.”

“I can’t, Sis,” Grady’s face knotted up until it looked like a clenched fist. “I won’t,” his voice cracked over the word.

Iron Mary rose from the table and went to the sink again. Peering out the window she hissed, “Lookit that sonuvabitch.” Clawing to throw up the sash she stuck out her head and screamed, “GET OUTTA THERE YOU HEATHEN FROM HELL! TOUCH ANOTHER ONE OF THEM CABBAGES AND I’LL CASTRATE YOU!”

Slamming the window shut she backhanded a jelly glass off the drain board onto the floor where it skittered across the worn linoleum. “God damn,” she spat. “I do not know why I put up with that critter!”

With her back to her brother, Iron Mary stood frozen for several minutes while the silence grew until it was somehow louder than her yelling had been. Turning from the window she leaned across the table and rested her weight on stiffened arms. Her face was inches from Grady’s, half-curtained by a stringy hank of hair. She caught his eyes with hers, her gaze pinning him to the chair like an insect specimen. Her face was creased, like wadded cloth, a soft brown trickle of tobacco juice at one corner of her mouth.

“I’m going to my room now,” she said softly. “Be sure to turn off the light before you come in.”

Grady stared up at her. After a moment he blinked.

“Or before I leave,” he said.

“Or that,” Iron Mary pushed herself upright. Using her tongue to work the plug of tobacco from her cheek she spat it into the coffee can. Wiping her chin dry she smoothed the wrinkled front of her dress with nervous hands, her bony fingers plucking lightly at the buttons as she turned from the table in an arthritic pirouette.

She paused at the kitchen doorway.

“You and me’re all either of us got left, Grady,” she told his back. “Hell, we’re all we ever had whether you admit it or not. And don’t try to tell me you ain’t chilled, too.”

Motionless at the table Grady focused his eyes on one of the oilcloth’s red checkerboard squares.

He heard the floorboards creak as Iron Mary walked down the hallway to her bedroom.

After a while he got up from his chair and carefully gathered up the chipped mugs as if they were priceless china then placed them in the sink.

He heard Iron Mary pulling the bedroom window curtains closed.

Returning the tin of condensed milk to the refrigerator he noticed the only other items on the shelves were a bottle of Heinz catsup, half a loaf of Wonder Bread, and an open package of Oscar Mayer bologna.

He heard Iron Mary’s work shoes being kicked off into a corner.

Looking out the kitchen window he saw that the goat was still in the garden, contentedly munching a rutabaga.

He heard the bed creak in protest as it took Iron Mary’s weight.

Crossing to the short wall between the two doors, one leading outside and the other down the hallway, Grady raked the fingers of one hand through his hair then wash-ragged the same hand across his face as if that would somehow change his features.

He listened to the catch in Iron Mary’s breathing as she cried.

Standing alone in the dimly lit kitchen, like an actor left on stage, Grady wondered how they’d come to this? Or rather, wondered how they never seemed to have left it?

He heard the bedsprings creak as Iron Mary rolled over, the sound of her fist striking a pillow.

His mind’s eye could picture her withered body, awash in tears and shivering beneath the Eastern Star quilt that once covered their childhood bed. From nowhere one of his mother’s homilies came to Grady, the one she had used to instruct her children on the importance of family; Home is the place that when you have to go there, they have to take you in. It amazed him how the more things changed the more they really did stay the same. And it amazed him, too, that after all these years he was still able to cry.

With the sound of his sister’s sobbing thick in his ears Grady stood betwixt the two doorways, coughed softly and, with fingers as wooden as his heart, reached for the wall switch to turn off the light.

The Stripper

Leland gets to the street a half-hour early. He stays in the car, smokes down a cigarette, and watches.

Even without the address written on a scrap of paper and stuck to his dashboard he’d be able to figure out which house it is. The porch is roped with bunting, balloons hang from the railings and the roof. The windows are adorned with banners that announce the impending marriage. Leland’s here for the bachelorette party. He doesn’t know, or care, when the wedding is.

The street, as much as it can be referred to as such, is comprised of a handful of houses spread haphazardly up and down either side of a dirt road. The whitewash on them all is peeled down to the exposed and rotting wood. Their windows are murky, and some look to have moss growing over them.

Cars fill up the driveway of the party house, spill out down the road and up onto the dead grass embankments. Their paint is fading and their wheel arches and frames are rusting. One car has a shattered windscreen. He spots a truck with bullet holes in its side. None of them seem to be without a dented or scuffed fender. Inside the house should be mostly women, maybe a couple of gays, and he wonders what kind of drivers they all are, or if they’ve borrowed the vehicles from their husbands or boyfriends, brothers or fathers.

Leland blows smoke out the open window, checks the time. Down the road, from the house, he can hear music. It’s muted by distance. He can’t make out what it is.

Next to him, on the passenger seat, is his stereo. When it plays, the music is instrumental, bass-heavy like it belongs in an old porno flick. Behind him, the backseat of his car is littered with takeout wrappers and cups. The air is thick with the smell of past meals, of greasy burgers and ketchup-drowned hot dogs. The smoke from the cigarette masks the smells a little, but mostly it mingles with them. As he readies himself to get out of the car he feels an ache in his chest. He straightens up, takes a couple of breaths, fingers the scar where the hospital cut him open to fit the pacemaker after he had the attack. The doctors said years of steroid abuse was the cause. He hasn’t touched them since. Hasn’t seen the inside of a gym since, either.

He dumps the cigarette, sprays himself all over with cologne kept in the glove compartment, then buttons up his overcoat, grabs the stereo, and begins his walk to the house.

It’s country music – he can hear it clearer as he draws nearer. Dolly Parton, turned way up. He catches his breath on the porch, then knocks. No one hears. He rings the bell, wonders if he should try the handle, but then someone answers. A big woman with red hair. She looks him over, eyes narrowed down to slits. “Yes?”

Leland clears his throat. “I’m the entertainment.”

Those suspicious eyes settle on his midsection. “You sure about that?”

Leland holds up the stereo, as if this will somehow answer all further questions. “Pretty sure.”

“You don’t look how you do in your picture.”

“It’s an old picture.”

“I can see that.”

Leland shifts his weight from one leg to the other. This is a song and dance he has grown accustomed to since the heart attack, since his body softened. “We gonna do this, or we just gonna talk out here the whole time?”

“I ain’t decided yet.” She curls a finger round her chin, looks him up and down, up and down, a prolonged examination.

“I can still go,” Leland says, conscious that if she declines him that it is another lost payday. “Dancing, I mean. Once that music hits. I ain’t slowed any.”

The redhead raises her eyebrows, drops her hand. “Fuck it,” she says. “It’s too late to get anyone else anyhow. You’d better be as fuckin good as you say, buddy – better, in fact.”

Leland steps inside. “I can still go,” he says.

Inside, the music does not sound so loud. Leland wonders if the speakers are in the yard, if the party is happening outside. Through the doorway, down the hall, he can hear women screeching, laughing, talking at such high volume it’s as if they’re shouting.

“Where do you want me?”

The redhead is looking him over, still. “The bride-to-be is outside. She’s expecting you. I really fuckin hope you don’t disappoint.”

Leland cocks an eyebrow. The redhead takes him through into the sitting room. A couple of other women, of similar size and bulbous shape as the redhead, have spread themselves out on sofas there. They stop talking, turn and stare. One of them is black. She says, “Who’s this, Jackie?”

Leland figures Jackie to be the redhead, and it is she who answers. “This,” she says, “is the stripper.”

“You sure about that?”

Leland ignores them, starts setting up his equipment.

“Not in here, big boy,” says the dark haired woman that hasn’t spoken yet. “Party’s outside.”

Leland glances at the open door leading out back. “Cold out,” he says.

“Warm enough,” Jackie says.

“You scared it’s gonna make it so you don’t have anything to show?” says the dark haired woman. She grins. Leland sees that she is missing teeth, huge gaps in the spaces between the mossy-looking remnants. He imagines her breath to be a foul, fetid thing. “You scared you ain’t gonna be filling out your spangled thong? I really hope you’ve got a thong on under that heavy coat, big boy.”

“Hell with his underwear,” the black woman says. “It’s everything else he’s filling out that’s getting me. Jackie, this some kinda joke?”

“It ain’t a joke, Donna,” Jackie says. “He reckons it’s an old picture.”

“Then you oughtta get that shit updated, son,” Donna says. “That’s – that’s false advertising is what that is.”

“He ain’t so bad,” gap-tooth says.

“Ain’t so bad?” Donna says, incredulous. “Did you even see the picture? He looks like he’s swallowed the good-lookin boy in that shot. Not so bad – it’s bullshit, is what it is! Tell me,” she wheels on Leland. “It even actually you in that picture? Really?”

“Yeah, it was me.”

She shakes her head, sits back. “Damn, but you’ve let yourself go.”

“Yeah,” Leland says, eyeing her numerous curves and chins. “Guess so.”

“Leave off of him, Donna,” gap-tooth says, seemingly his only ally in the room. “I reckon Cathy’ll like him. He’s kinda built like Brad, only he’s got more muscles than Brad.”

“Muscles.” Donna snorts. “You sweet on him or somethin, Mary?”

“Could be,” Mary says. “Just a little.” She winks at Leland, pokes her tongue through the gaps in her teeth.

“Point of getting a stripper is that he ain’t supposed to look like the damn guy she’s gonna marry – he’s supposed to look better,” Donna says.

“Come on,” Jackie says. “No point in debating this. It’s too late for anything else. Let’s just get out there and pray for a good fuckin time.”

Donna and Mary stand, start shuffling toward the back door. Donna looks him over again, sneers. “I got a purse full of singles, got them specially. I’m keepin them all.”

“Ignore her,” Jackie says. “I’ll go get everyone ready.” She takes his stereo. “Do your thing.”

She heads outside and Leland waits. He takes deep breaths, can sense the possibility that things may turn hostile. The screeching country music dies abruptly. Jackie announces that the entertainment has arrived. He hears Donna tell everyone not to get too excited, but most ignore her and an expectant whoop goes up. Leland takes another deep breath and sucks his gut in for a moment, but then gives up on that idea and lets it hang. He needs his breath for the routine.

Jackie hits his music. The guests begin to clap in time with the slow bass. There are a couple of expectant cheers, a couple of wolf whistles. He steps out onto the back porch, and begins.

He doesn’t look at the gathered faces as he slides off the overcoat and starts in with his routine. He’s already seen enough disappointment for one day, he does not need to witness anymore to drag him down further.

He can’t help but notice, however, the hush that has fallen. The clapping has ceased. There is only his music, and the laboured breaths he hopes are audible only to his own ears.

Someone out there cheers. His back is turned, he’s shaking his ass from side to side, but as the cheer turns into a laugh, then an uncontrollable giggle, he thinks he recognises it as Mary.

He turns then, casts his eyes momentarily over the bloated gathering and their unimpressed faces. His eyes accidentally lock with Donna’s, and she’s shaking her head, but then he finds what he’s looking for. The bride-to-be. Cathy. She sits front and centre. She looks as confused and disappointed, as borderline angry, as the rest. Jackie is by her side, a hand on her shoulder.

Off to his right, at the edge of the crowd, there is a buffet table. Leland feels his stomach grumble at the sight of the cakes and cold meats and casseroles.

“Forget about the food a minute, fatboy!” someone calls. “Shake that big ass some more, huh?”

There’s laughter, a lot of laughter, and Leland snaps back to attention. He reaches Cathy, puts his hands behind his head, gyrates before her. Cathy looks up at Jackie. Jackie rolls her eyes.

“You ordered this guy?” Cathy says, loud enough for him to hear. “You sure you didn’t just find him on the street, slip him a few bucks?”

Leland ignores them. It’s nothing he hasn’t heard before, or some variation thereof. He drops to his hands and knees, his back to them, thrusts suggestively.

“That’s what he is, really!” Cathy claps. “He ain’t no stripper – he’s my pony ride!” She leaves her chair and leaps onto his back, straddles him. She is as big as her bridesmaids, and he almost buckles beneath her.

“Ride ‘im, girl!” someone shouts. “Ride!”

Cathy grabs a handful of his hair in one hand, and with her other slaps him on the ass. She isn’t gentle. “Come on, pony – let’s ride! Let’s do laps!”

Leland tries to shake her off, but she pulls harder on his hair.

“Uh-uh, pony! None of that, now, or am I gonna have to break you in?”

Almost drowning out her words, Leland is aware of all the laughter.

“I said ride, damn it!” She slaps him again, over and over, harder than before.

Leland tries, attempts at least a shuffle, but she is too heavy. His breath quickens, his heart hammers and his chest feels tight. He flashes back to his heart attack. He was dancing then, too. Flopped forward, right on top of the girl. She screamed, right in his ear, almost burst the drum.

His left arm has not gone numb, however. It feels everything, trembling under the strain of Cathy’s immense bulk.

“Think my pony’s thirsty,” she says. She speaks in announcements, for everyone to hear. “Someone bring him a drink!”

Someone brings a bottle of beer, pours it over his face and head.

“He’s still thirsty!”

“Maybe he’s hungry, too?”

“Looks like he’s always hungry!”

Leland feels more drinks poured over him. Some get into his mouth. He splutters when they go up his nose. A potent mix of wine, soda, and something so strong he can only assume it is moonshine.

“Food!” Cathy bellows. “My pony needs food!”

Cake is forced into his face. He is blinded by it, almost choked by it. Arms grab at him, pull him forward with Cathy on his back still. He collapses, but Cathy remains on top. He can’t breathe. The arms drag him across the ground. He tries to blink the food out of his eyes, to see where they are taking him.

Finally, Cathy gets off. She’s laughing, he can hear her laughter from above him, over him. It turns into a howl, then a snort, a pig-like snorting that doesn’t stop as he is hoisted to his feet and dumped on the food table. All strength has left him. They cover him with food, force more into his mouth, pour gravy over him, still calling him Pony over and over until he almost believes it is his name now. They slap cake against his ass cheeks, stuff it into his thong. All the while they are laughing, until eventually they get bored. They leave him facedown on the table.

***

Leland runs water through his hands, splashes it over his face and body. He wipes himself down with a towel, his aching back coated in scraps of food.

He creeps from the bathroom, is cautious of being seen as he makes his way down the stairs. He’d crawled from the table outside, praying not to be noticed as the country music roared back into life.

His coat and stereo remain outside, but he cuts his losses and flees the house.

Jackie is out on the porch, waiting. “Hey.” She hands him his coat, and in her other hand she has the stereo. “Thought I’d missed you, but then I saw the car down the way there and figured it must be yours.”

Leland slides into the coat, takes the stereo.

Jackie lights a cigarette, offers him one. He accepts and she lights it. “Things got a little out of hand there,” she says.

“Yeah.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Uh-huh.”

They smoke in silence for a moment, then Jackie reaches into her pocket. “This is for you, by the way. It’s from Donna.” She hands over a bundle of dollar bills. “It’s all singles, but she says it’s twenty bucks.”

Leland eyeballs the bills, wishes he could turn them down. He takes them, stuffs them into his coat pocket.

“You weren’t all bad,” Jackie says. “Before.”

“Sure.”

“You can still go. Just like you said.”

“Uh-huh.”

“The bride-to-be enjoyed herself.”

“Good for her.”

“You’re pissed off,” Jackie says.

Leland takes a deep breath, then finishes the cigarette. “No,” he says, flicking the butt over the railing. “I ain’t much of anything.”

Belly Up and Double Down

It was a day at the track like any other.

Early on in the day, the hopeless all seemed so full of life, but as the day faded, you saw it:

The desperation in their eyes as they gambled it all away.

Made stupid bets and lost it all, pinning vain hopes on the last horse to at least break them even.

Some say it was the worst addiction there was, but to me they were all the same.

All it was was a passion for doing something more than dying.

And anyone can be a hamster to a wheel.

I was a regular there, but at best that probably meant I went unnoticed by most.

It wasn’t the kind of place where people stood out.

But every now and then you made conversation.

Mac was a regular like my me.

He at least understood how to bet, although his luck was seldom consistent.

We often had a beer together towards the last race.

Most times I was buying.

“Fuck, my luck’s been shit today, Frank.”

“Why you think I’m buying, asshole. If you ever pick a winner, drinks are on you for a change.”

He laughed as he took a sip of his overpriced beer.

“Hell, I ever hit another good streak, I believe the world may come to a end.”

“By the way, how’s the book coming, Frankie?”

“‘Bout same as your luck, it’s not.”

“Hell, man, don’t sweat it. You’re a great writer. All great writers suffer with that on occasion.”

I looked out at the track. I had to laugh to myself, for it always seemed those so-called losers in life were always the ones with the most hope.

“Yeah, Mac. I believe that’s true with most great writers, but I don’t think anyone will ever confuse me with one of them, my friend.”

“Hell, Frankie, chin up man. You’ve been doing some great stuff lately. Look at your last I read, that was some hilarious shit.”

“Man, you’re brutal when it comes to people. That chick really sleep with her eyes wide open and drool all over the pillow?”

“I’ll have you know I was once engaged to that woman.”

“No shit? You still together?”

I laughed at that one.

“Yeah, dude. That’s why I’m here most days watching you gamble away your last cent while I pick up the tab.”

“And you’re a good friend for it, Frankie. Well, I gotta go place one last bet. Lady luck is on my side, I just know it this time.”

With that, Mac got up and left, and I just sat there finishing my beer.

I wasn’t compelled like Mac to cast my last dime in some slim hopes of winning, only just to repeat it all over again tomorrow.

I bought another beer and killed it quickly. The track was closing for the evening.

Out in the parking lot, I ran into Mac.

Somehow he’d managed to pick a winner and won a decent amount.

Tomorrow would find him losing it all, of course. We were all hamsters to a wheel.

We just chose to believe we were better off than the next sap beside us.

I went home that night and never even looked at the page.

Even the horses were going nowhere fast.

Don’t Fear the Reaper

“I didn’t think you’d show.”

She slid her curves into the booth, propped her umbrella against the table. “Why not? You intrigue me. No one’s asked me out for a Happy Meal before.”

“Well, if it makes you feel special, no one’s accepted my generous offer before, either.”

She slipped off her blue raincoat, revealing a taut black tee, its pink cursive letters reading ‘Off Duty Mermaid’.

“Nice tits—I mean shirt.”

She smirked. “How sweet of you to notice both.”

“Kinda hard not to. And honesty is the cornerstone of any relationship, me thinks.” I fished inside my trench coat, tugged out a silver flask, and proffered her a straw.

Her tits jiggled as she giggled and pushed the straw aside. My lolling tongue twitched with envy as the flask kissed her lips, those fiery brown eyes flashing in warm appreciation.

“Original Firewater. How sweet. You must’ve read my Facebook page.”

“If you’d posted your profile picture there I would’ve likely only drooled.”

She suddenly produced a napkin and deftly brushed my lips. “Dear boy you’re drooling now.”

“I guess that’s cuz I’m starving—in more ways than one.”

“Then why don’t you place our order?”

“Well, I was hoping to use the drive-thru so I could feel you up.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“That’s me all right. I’m a serious kinda guy. Mr. Sensitivity.”

“Well, I do admire a man who’s not afraid to express his feelings. But before we go much further, there’s some things you ought to know.”

She slid a sleek black card silkily across the tabletop: Tanya Grim—Sleep Specialist. The sharp sweeping blade of a long-handled scythe curved below her name.

I blinked. “You didn’t put that on your Facebook page. Probably explains why you write dark poetry though. So are Rigor and Mortis like your brothers or something?”

“Third cousins actually. Couple of freaks. Lucky for me I do my thing first, and try my damnedest to leave before they arrive at the scene. Got any other questions?”

“I get the sense you might be addicted to ‘bad boys’…Are you?”

“Well, I used to be. I dated Famine when I was in high school. But that whole starving-artist routine got old pretty quick. Who needs the drama, right?”

“So why me?”

“Why you what?”

“Thousands of women on Facebook. Plenty of them flashing their boobs. I don’t have a single photo on my page. So why did you invite me out for a Happy Meal?”

“Because I could tell you were different. Different intrigues me.”

“So how am I different?”

“Well, for starters you’re not flashing your boobs all over Facebook. And although your poetry can be dark… I could sense anger and sadness flowing underneath. I thought offering to buy you a Happy Meal just might make you smile.”

“That is so… sweet.”

“So you ready to hit the drive-thru?”

“Only if we take my hearse. It’s roomier than your truck.”

“How did you know I drive—never mind. Let’s blow this booth.”

When we arrived at the closest exit, I held the door primly for Ms. Grim.

“Wow, you can be a gentleman when you want to.”

Gentleman? I don’t think so. I just wanted to admire her ass.

Screw Job

Satan was seated cross-legged on the rug in his office. He had asked his secretary to hold all calls.

The walls of his office were made of fire as was the door, but the rug was pleasantly cool, woven from the wool of his own legs. The rug was specially designed to remain cool enough to keep most plastics from melting.

Satan was playing with a Barbie doll. He loved playing with Barbie. He felt the toy was one of his greatest inspirations. How many young girls had suffered body image issues and low self esteem from having played with Barbie, the ideal girl? How many boys had seen images of Barbie and grown up with expectations of finding a woman with such unrealistic proportions?

What pleasure their misery had brought Satan over the years.

So much pleasure, Satan had developed his own infatuation with dolls, even curating his own collection. Every once in a while he felt the urge to play with them. He would tell his assistant to hold all calls and lock the flaming door to his office.

The lord of the underworld combed Barbie’s hair with a tiny pink comb. He clothed her in a stunning white and yellow sun dress.

He had her stand outside her doll house waiting for Ken to pull up in her convertible. Barbie had loaned it to Ken since he had a new job and needed a way to get there, but her boy toy did not seem in any hurry to return it to her or purchase his own vehicle.

Satan held Barbie in one hand and Ken in the other. Ken was dressed in a crisp white tennis outfit with shorts. Satan had Barbie and Ken talk with each other.

“Nice car,” Barbie said with a hand on her hip. “Looks familiar.”

“Yo, babe,” Ken said. “I appreciate you lending me your car. I’ll get it back you to you as soon as I can, but my job has me on the go. I need wheels and I don’t have enough for a down payment for my own. Plus, you know my credit is still shaky after the bank foreclosed on my beach house. It’s hard squeezing the contents of a house into a studio apartment.”

“I thought your house was condemned by the county because it was missing a wall.”

“It was, but they changed their mind. An architect concluded it was part of the design.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Barbie sighed.

“What do you mean?” Ken asked. “I still lost my house.”

“But maybe I won’t lose mine. My house is also missing a wall. Not all the time. It has a big set of hinges in the middle. The whole thing opens up for the world to see at the most unexpected times. Like when I’m walking around naked. Then everyone passing by can see what I am up to.”

“Why don’t you move?” Ken shrugged. He was starting at Barbie’s breasts.

“I’ll never get a house with a view like this.”

“What do you mean?” said Ken as he swivelled his head from left to right. “It looks like hell around here. You can do better than this.”

“I’m not Brain Surgeon Barbie. I’m just Vacation Barbie. This is the best I can do.”

“Why don’t we move in together,” Ken suggested. “Two can live more cheaply than one.”

“Is that a proposal?”

“Hell no. I like my freedom.”

Barbie thought about it, and answered, “You can move in if you can get out of the lease for your apartment.”

“Hot dog!”

Barbie cautioned him, “But don’t expect any sex.”

“What?” Ken said wide-eyed. “You know I’m squeaky clean. I don’t even have genitals.”

“Neither do I.” Barbie answered. “I don’t even have nipples.”

“Very frustrating, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Barbie nodded. “But I have a confession to make. Although I do not have nipples, a vagina or an anus, I do have a hole between my legs.”

“Wait, you have a hole down there?” Ken pointed to where the space between Barbie’s hip sockets.

“Satan put a screw in the crotch of G.I. Joe.”

“That bastard!” Ken shouted.

He turned his head towards Satan. Satan had a big grin on his face.

“What did G.I. Joe ever do to you!”

Ken turned away from the Prince of Darkness and looked back at Barbie.

“The poor fellow!” he said. “G.I. Joe is a good friend of mine. It must have hurt when Satan gave him that screw. I wondered how it got there. I always thought it was a war wound…”

“You knew about the screw?” Barbie asked.

Ken nodded, blushing a little.

“Yeah, but what’s it to you?”

“That bastard G.I. Joe used his screw on me. He raped me.”

“Shit! You’re kidding me…”

Barbie shook her head.

“I would not kid about a thing like that.”

“Tell me how it happened,” Ken asked quietly. He put his arm around Barbie’s shoulders.

“G.I. Joe came over one night,” Barbie explained. “He was drunk. It was very late. He banged on the door until I let him in. We had met before, at a toy show and exchanged numbers. Gone to lunch, shopping. I told him it was just friends. I liked him, but not that much, and I had told him that you and I had been dating for a long time.

I don’t know why I let him in that night, but I did. He kept raving about the horror. I thought he was having some kind of flashback to the war. He used to talk about the war a lot. A lot of his friends had died fighting Cobra or the Nazis or in Vietnam or Iraq. I’m not really sure where he fought. It all seemed to blend together. He had uniforms from different eras and combat zones, so it was hard to tell. But he just kept raving, so I tried to calm him down.

Next thing I knew he had me down on the rug. He screwed me. Drove that damn thing right through my dress and into the plastic.

It hurt like Hades the first couple times. After that I didn’t feel anything. I was just sort of numb inside. He screwed me over and over all night long. He left in the morning. I would have cried if I had tear ducts. I have been avoiding him since then, but now I got a hole between my legs.”

“Why didn’t you contact the police?’

“I couldn’t. You know they are all G.I. Joes or action figures. Those guys stick together.”

Ken squeezed Barbie.

“I feel for you,” he said softly. “I understand. More than you would think. I have a confession to make.” He paused, turning his face away from her, gathering courage.

He took a deep breath, and told her. “I have a hole in my butt. G.I. Joe screwed me, too.”

Barbie pulled away from Ken and put her hand over her mouth, “He screwed you? When?”

“About a month ago while we were out hiking. He was in camouflage jungle gear and a back pack. I was wearing shorts and a red plaid shirt. I had these nifty boots.”

“What happened? Was he drunk? Did he attack you and hold you down?”

“Something like that.” Ken hesitated. “I don’t remember. All I know is we climbed up this embankment onto this plateau covered with wild flowers in bloom. The weather was spectacular. I was really getting off on it, and so was G.I. Joe. Suddenly he turned to me and suggested we take our clothes off and hike in the nude. I thought well, what the hell, it will help with my tan.”

“Yeah, and then?”

“So, we were hiking naked. That’s when I saw he had this screw sticking out from his groin area. I asked him what it was. He said, ‘What do you think it is? It’s a screw.’ I asked him what it was there for? That’s when it happened. We were out there by ourselves, no one else around. He just came at me, threw me down. He’s a big guy.”

“I know,” Barbie nodded, “and then he screwed you?”

“He screwed me all right. He screwed me good…”

“Maybe we should go to the police anyway. That’s two people G.I. Joe has done this to. We have to stop him before there are more victims.”

Ken shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Those Joes, I don’t think they’ll listen to us, not when we are accusing one of them.”

“We have evidence. We have our holes.”

“They’ll say we did it to each other with a hammer and nail.”

Both of them grew silent for a moment.

Barbie asked him, “Do you know where G.I. Joe has gotten to?”

“Last time I saw him he was at my apartment,” Ken told her. “He came over last night and screwed me. He was still in bed when I left for work.”

“He screwed you again?”

“He’s screwed me at least twice a week since we went hiking.”

“I can’t believe it!” Barbie exclaimed. She threw her hands in the air. Not literally. She just raised her arms. “You and G.I. Joe? I thought we were a couple?”

“We are,” Ken said, putting his arm back around her. “You know we were always meant to be a couple. It’s fate. I think it is what both of us want as well. It’s just that, I do not have a screw, but I do have a hole. It was simpler when it was just the two of us and neither of us had screws or holes, but things have changed.

It’s much more complicated. I didn’t know you had a hole. I only knew I had a hole and that G.I. Joe had a screw. Maybe we can still be a couple, you and I without holes or screws, or maybe I can get a screw or we can both get screws. Anyway, things are different now. I’m still the same Ken I was in most respects, but in other ways I have evolved.”

Barbie stared Ken in the eye.

“If Satan gave you a screw, would you use it just on me or would you use it on G.I. Joe as well?”

Ken shrugged.

“I can’t say. I don’t know. My heart says I would just screw you, but if I had a screw I might think differently. The screw would change me. I would be part screw.”

“I bet you would screw G.I. Joe,” Barbie said coldly.

“But he doesn’t have a hole.”

Barbie snarled, “It didn’t stop him from screwing me, or you for that matter!”

“You’re right,” Ken said. “Maybe I would screw him. But as I said, I don’t have to get a screw. You could get a screw.”

“Why would I get a screw? I’m a girl.”

“Just think about it,” Ken argued. “What if you did have a screw? Would you use it just on me since I have a hole, or would you use it on someone else?”

“Me?” Barbie replied. “If I had a screw I’d use it on G.I. Joe, for sure. I’d tie him down and screw him until I made a big hole in him, then I’d keep screwing him until the plastic in his ass melted and oozed out in drops. Then I’d spit on him and ask him, ‘How do you like it now that you know what it feels like?’ And then I’d walk away and leave him to rot.”

“And then what would you do with your screw? Would you screw me?”

Barbie thought about it.

“Maybe. I guess so. If I couldn’t get it removed.”

“So what should we do?”

There was silence as they worked out the logic.

“Maybe we both get screws?” Barbie suggested. “Maybe I won’t keep mine forever, just for a little while. Just until I pay back G.I. Joe.”

Ken thought about this possible arrangement.

“Can I screw G.I. Joe too, while he’s tied up?”

“Sure,” Barbie smiled, putting her arms around Ken’s neck. “Why not. We’ll make it a date!”

The dolls turned and gazed up at Satan.

“So what do you think, Satan?” they shouted. “Can we get screws?”

“Don’t worry,” Satan chuckled, “I’ll make sure everyone gets screwed.”

Motherfucking Zombies

The rotting bastards broke holes in the door just as I was finally getting to fuck Cindy Martin. She’d always told me she wouldn’t fuck me even if I was the last guy on Earth. Well, saving her from those flesh-eating assholes must have counted for something in that moment, because she wasted no time at all in dragging me into the back room of the safe house, where she proceeded to climb me like a jungle gym.

She was already rocking on my hard member, full tits bouncing in my face, when I first heard the thumping against the barricade we’d thrown up. The moans of the undead mingled together with those of Cindy, who wasn’t stopping for anything.

The first shotgun blast was deafening within the confines of the small room, splattering blood and rotten flesh. Cindy cried out, but it wasn’t in surprise.

“Die you shambling fucks!”

I shifted slightly so that I could see the door behind her, several sets of gray, decomposing arms reaching through the holes in our defence. One of them had poor Sarah by the hair.

“Don’t come,” Cindy breathed, feeling my sense of urgency. “Not yet…”

Meanwhile, those tits of hers continued to batter me in my face. To pace myself, I divided my attention between her smokin’ hot bod and Sarah, whose face was slowly being torn from her skull. I swear, her desperate, high-pitched screams were the only thing keeping me from blowing my load right then and there.

Another shotgun blast rang out as a pair of undead arms vanished in a mist of blood. Unfortunately for Sarah, however, they were instantly replaced by more. With a sickening tearing sound that could be heard over the wet slapping of Cindy’s crotch against my hips, Sarah’s half-peeled face finally gave way.

Her lidless eyes darted around frantically, her tongue lolling out amid gurgling torrents of blood. Nevertheless, she continued to beat and claw at the hands still grasping her bloody mound of a head. As still more arms shot through the holes on either side of her, those who’d been trying to help her were finally forced to take a step back, aghast at the grotesquery she’d become.

Cindy laid her hands upon my chest and pushed down hard, riding me like a wild stallion. I had never known sex could be like this before.

“Oh, God, fuck yeah,” Cindy moaned. “If I’d only known, I woulda fucked you a looong time ago…”

Meanwhile, what remained of Sarah’s head maintained its gurgling noises as the zombies fought over her freshly harvested face. Ripping through the skin and muscle until the gristle of her collarbone had been exposed, another pair of hands got hold of her flabby tits, tearing them both clean off of her body. Stark white ribs poked through the dripping globs of bloody fat and shredded muscle as they slowly pulled her apart.

Sitting upright, Cindy grabbed my hands and placed them on her hips. “Fuck me harder,” she demanded through clenched teeth, fingering her clit with one hand while tweaking her nipples with the other. With each of her downward thrusts, I ground my own hips upward, meeting her with everything I had. I couldn’t believe how deep I was in that pussy, and in Cindy Martin’s of all people.

As the zombies got a better grip on Sarah, it wasn’t long before they’d dug into her ribs, opening up her chest with a series of sickening snaps. Her heart and one lung spilled forth from her destroyed ribcage, the remaining lung left dangling from a shredded bronchial tube.

Cindy humped me even harder still. Her cries of ecstasy mixed with the cries of horror from the other survivors, fingering herself with lightning speed as she finally began to climax. It had been building for us both since the start, and nothing was going to stop it now.

When Sarah’s lower half finally separated from her throughly demolished torso, her intestines spilled out onto the floor in a great big sloppy heap. A groping zombie reached beneath the gap under the door and, accompanied by a brisk whooshing sound, swiftly sucked her guts into the other room.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

With a muscle-clenching, teeth-grinding, eyeball-popping orgasm, I busted my nut deep up in Cindy at last.

Sarah’s legs kicked out the last of their life as several  unidentified organs quivered in the puddle of blood, piss, and shit slowly spreading out from her carcass.

On the other side of the door, the zombies finally shambled off, having slaked their hunger for now.

In the back room of the safe house, Cindy finally fell against me, having satisfied her lust for now.

Slowest Drink at the Saddest Bar

It was Friday afternoon, the late side of lunchtime, and I was drinking the last drop from my final beer in a semi-crowded bar.

I had drank it slowly as I could, trying to make it last. I couldn’t afford another one and couldn’t yet face going back outside. Drinking slowly isn’t an easy thing to do when you’ve trained yourself all these years to drink fast and drink hard and do it often.

Now my final bottle was finished. I had about 5 good minutes left before they got suspicious and came to ask if I’d like another, a further two minutes after I’d declined before they asked me to leave. It isn’t good for business to have someone sitting there without a drink in front of him, especially when he’s drinking alone. Odd enough as it is, that you’re by yourself.

I sat there in my blue work shirt with the sleeves rolled up, looking down at the tattoos on my arms and wondering exactly when it was that tattoos became fashionable again. It probably didn’t matter. There weren’t many people left in life that I knew who didn’t have tattoos.

I looked at the girls crowding round the bar, all dolled up in short skirts and high heels and heavy makeup and fake nails, giggling and drinking wine. They had tattoos.

I stared at them for a while, wondering what other tattoos they had, ones in hidden places and not on public display. Ones that only bland, square jawed men with hair products and stomach muscles and bullshit pickup lines would ever get to see. I imagined what tattoos these women had. I imagined what they looked like naked, who was shaved and who was wild, who screamed when they got fucked and who groaned. What was their demeanour when they had a piss and what did their assholes look like? It was pretty obvious I wasn’t going back to work, and I sighed at the thought of the onslaught ahead.

Eventually I rose to leave. The place was getting crowded with people who had finished their work early and were getting a head start on Friday night. Men came in with perfectly manicured beards and reeking of aftershave. They were wearing their best clothes and had their game plan all mapped out. I watched them all jostling at the bar, jostling to be seen, to be served, to be noticed.

They were trying to employ all their little ‘moves’ to get served quickly, cheap things like standing up tall and straight to look commanding and important, or leaning forward with a twenty note between their fingers so they looked ready to go.

I had been a barman once before, and I knew none of these tricks ever worked. The good ones serve who they want to fuck first, the best ones keep score and serve in order.

When you stand back and look at it from a safe distance, society is a ridiculous and childish, pointless thing. Nobody would join it if they didn’t have to, and everyone would opt out if they could. I shook my head and headed out to the white pick-up truck ready to brave the day.

On the street I almost bumped in to Ernie, the local garbage man. He began telling me some wild story about a prostitute that ran by here last night with half an ear sliced off and one shoe on.

“Oh man you really missed it” he groaned, “should have been there”. I tell him I wished I’d been there to and was sorry I missed it.

He asks me if I’m going back to work and can he get a lift? I tell him I’m finished for the day and am going the other way. Well, that’s just about half true at least. If I told him I’d quit work he’d offer me a job down at the garbage yard. Except he never really offered you a job so much as positively insist you took it. On and on he’d go about how great it was and all the perks you got and how all the guys back slapped and looked out for one another. I couldn’t be bothered with it, not now. I had a slight beer buzz and the sun was up and I wanted to ride around a while. I told Ernie goodbye and see ya later. He seemed happy enough with that.

I didn’t know yet exactly where I wanted to drive to, and that felt good in itself. People always have some place to be, and wherever they are they generally wish they were someplace else. I was as guilty as the rest on that count, but mostly I made my own, sluggish way about the world. I got everything done on time, but it was my time that I got it done on. To hell with some manager telling you what the deadline was. Some manager in a cheap suit with an ugly wife and two fat kids and a granddaughter going the same way. What the fuck did he know? What made his life such a roaring, shining success? And what did it matter whether I stood on the near or far side of the conveyor, or whether the letter was sent before or after 12pm? Or even the day after that. It didn’t. None of it did. It was all a big con. I’d known that instinctively since the age of five.

So there I was driving slowly around in my white pickup when I was meant to have been punching the clock in some dreary factory, slaving away with another 4 and a half hours to go before I’d be free.

I had briefly considered going to the library but then quickly decided against it. They had some artists in painting the walls with all kinds of important artistic images and you weren’t supposed to get in the way. I’d seen a couple of the artists at work a few days back, all furrowed brows and cardigans, sitting there with their brushes waiting for some divine inspiration. They looked pretentious and wore the requisite black framed glasses and pointy beards.

You can’t be an artist unless you wear glasses and have a stupid beard, ya know. It’s in the rules. Shit. If they wanted inspiration they should go hungry for a couple days. They should fail to make bill payments on time and have a fight with a stranger. They should go under a darkened bridge on an ugly night and get a blowjob off the only girl drunk enough to give them one, listening to the rain and trying not to think about your lost love as this girl works and sucks hungrily on your meat as you’re overcome with regret even while it’s happening. They didn’t know what pain was. Pain to them was spilling expensive wine on an even more expensive rug and cutting their finger on the cereal box.

Where were the giants? That was what I wanted to know. I rode around listening to the radio, flicking the dial right, right, right again, and then furiously back to the left. Where were the tough writers, the dynamic painters, the big-titted and mysterious models with fierce exteriors, sharp tongues and soft, kind hearts? Where were the bastards and the brawlers and the game changers? Had the whole world gone soft?

Two weeks ago, I had had a writing student shadow  me at work. It was part of him getting some education, apparently. All his class was out some place doing it. Hell, the only education he was getting around here was not to end up here permanently, not to be stuck in here 8 hours a day for shit pay, maybe chaperoning some young punk who had bad acne and couldn’t get the shrink wrapping off his dick.

And he wanted to be a writer?

“Yes sir, very much so.”

“Well why the hell are you paying for someone to tell you how to do it?” That bit genuinely confused the shit out of me. It always did.

“Well… so I’ll be good at it.”

Jesus Christ! There was no hope for this dirtbag. He was never gonna make it as a writer, I could tell that much right away. He may as well hand over his money to me, and maybe I’d give him his education.

“Kid, to be good at it you have to go out there, into the world. Get your nose and spirit broken and have your balls gnawed on. I mean, really gnawed on. All you have to do is make something happen, then write about it.”

“My teacher said…”

“Look” I broke in, this geek was beginning to piss me off, “don’t you think if you’re teacher was a good writer he’d actually be a writer instead of teaching you how to do it? Your teacher is a hustler and a thief and a degenerate. Tell him that Monday when you go back to class. That’s your first lesson. Do that and you may yet make it.”

“Thank you sir” he said, furiously scribbling into his notepad. I clipped him around the head with the back of my hand.

“You’re welcome” I said.

Later that night I went back to my motel room with a brown bag filled with groceries and a bottle of whiskey for the slog ahead. I hadn’t found any heroes on the road. I figured they were probably all driving around looking for me, and that we’d bump into one another soon enough.

I turned on the ball game and set the whiskey down by the TV before putting the groceries away. Then I went to take a piss. The bathroom was still in a savage mess from last night. I had brought a friend back that I had fucked once before. Her hair was blonde back then. Now it was pink but the fuck was basically the same. A great lay. We had done it on the bed first then again later in the bathroom.

She was bent over the basin, gripping it with her hands as I fucked her from behind, watching my funny little self in the mirror. If you’ve ever watched yourself fuck then you know how pathetic and oddly ridiculous you look. We all do, no way around it. It’s an odd ritual to do, at the nut of it, thrusting back and forth, in and out and in and out of someone. But it’s still the best and most simple ritual we have, the only thing unchanged for millions of years, relatively untouched by technology and taxes. It’s the only thing left the bastards haven’t figured out how to ruin.

So we had fucked in the bathroom and trashed the place. Watching my cock fill her hole and seeing her spine protruding as I forced her further down and gave it to her harder was a great thing to behold. I knew where all her tattoos were.

Thinking about it as I sat on the bed and unscrewed the cap off the whiskey was making me hard, but there would be nobody to play with tonight. Instead it was 9 innings of baseball and a microwave meal. That’s the way it went some days, in life as in Friday nights. Sometimes you got lucky and sometimes you didn’t. And sometimes you didn’t care which it was.

So I sipped my drink and cooked my meal, watched the 3rd baseman ground out to third as I bit into my burger with the warm, chewy bun. Then I put some paper into the typewriter.

And then I wrote this.