Winchester’s, Six-Shooters, and Destiny

(This was the story that got Mona Houghton to exclaim "I've never read such unabashedly male texts as yours Richard")

ACT I: The Thrill of the Hunt

The roar of the snowstorm is deafening. It’s the middle of the great blizzard, and Jericho is in the worst of it. He’s bundled up tightly, his duster flailing behind him violently with each gust. Snow falls all over him, tiny banks of it on his shoulders, his moustache frozen stiff. The Winchester rifle is more of a burden now, but it’s all for the girl. At his sides, the familiar weight of his six shooters hangs as a reminder of deeds to come.

His horse had died long ago, and he took some of its meat to survive. The meat was tough, and it came out awfully dry. There were few caves around, so he had a hard time cooking it, and often ate it raw. His stomach churned uneasily, and his hands shivered in the wind. Ahead was a mountain, not too tall, but just enough to be one final burden. Behind were trails of blood, and a tale of revenge.

There will be shooting by nightfall, then he will rest. The girl will be safe, and he will finally sleep. He had slept only a few hours the days leading up to finding the mountain. The Slone brothers will be here, deep in the abandoned mine, waiting for him. There will be bodies, and blood, Jericho set his mind to it.

*

My hand drapes over the woman lying next to me. She’s beautiful and sweet to taste. Our bodies were warm against one another. Outside the snow is merciless, but with her, I feel no cold. She leans into me, nuzzling her head into my chest, and I hold her tight. Susanna Slone, the untouchable sister of the family gang.

I run fingers through her hair, and kiss her forehead. She wraps her arms around me and I find myself wondering whether this is it, can I rest here? Finally I’ll have peace. It doesn’t matter to her who I killed, or for what reasons. She only cares about how I treat her, and as far as I’m concerned, she’s a goddess.

*

Outside Jericho’s room, a trap was being set. When the door to Jericho’s room opened, and he stepped through the doorway, he saw that the bar below had been evacuated, and not a soul remained except for the four Slone brothers, each one holding a shiny colt. They had waited for hours, being as quiet as can be, sipping from whiskey bottles that had been tossed absentmindedly around the saloon. Sirus, the oldest, was scraping the thin blade of his Bowie against his bottom front teeth. Whip sat at a table, while Kenny, the youngest son (a boy of sixteen) spun his colt on his index finger. James spat a wad of tobacco on Kenny’s foot and flipped him off. The brothers grinned.

Jericho’s eyes went wide. He grabbed sweet Susanna and pushed her away; then he dipped at his sides for his six shooters. The Slone brothers whooped and hollered as they fired at him. Jericho leapt to the side, braced one revolver against his forearm for better accuracy and fired. The bullet blasted a whiskey bottle on the table right next to Kenny, who yelped and ducked. Jericho fired a shot at the center of the table; the bullet struck the wood and buried itself. Kenny growled.

Sirus stood up and fired at Jericho’s stomach. The blast tore through Jericho. He fell to his knees, face planted onto the floorboards, and told his mind to focus on breathing.

The Slones made their way up the staircase and kept their guns trained on Jericho’s limp body. His skin was getting pale. He could hear the Slone’s breathing heavy, and smell the thick stench of alcohol on their breath, and grotesquely meshed with the stale smell of old tobacco, and the steely scent of blood. Jericho inhaled it, forced the nausea down his throat. He gulped it even, trying so hard to relish in its taste rather than remain repulsed.

Susanna stared at his cold blue eyes and whimpered.

The eyes laid open, just as dead as the rest of him. It was over; he had nothing left. They’d take her away and kill her. They’d call her useless, tie her down, slit her belly open and leave her for the tundra wolves.

ACT II: The Undead Gunslinger

I cough, and then there is silence. I hear nothing, and see only Susanna. My sweet Susanna. I can’t get back up.

I’m not useless. The pain is deep in my guts, and I feel the bullet rattle around a bit inside me. This is nothing. This is the physical world’s attempt at stopping me. I won’t give up, I won’t abide. I have to wait though, be patient. I watch them grab her through cold dead eyes. Sound drifts farther away, like my consciousness. I’ve lost a lot of blood, my lips feel cold, and for the first time today, I’m tired.

*

“So what do you want to do with her Sirus?” James asked.

“We’ll take her to the mine, Pa will want to hear about this.” Sirus said.

“Hey Sirus, should we put another bullet in him just to be sure?” Whip questioned.
Sirus took a glance at Whip and smiled. Whip returned the smile and showed everyone in the room how he got his nickname. A leather cattle driver lay furled up at his side, and he removed it with an audible crack. He grinned maliciously at Jericho’s limp body. The brothers watched Whip do his work, knives for grins.

Susanna cried.

Jericho passed out.

*

I dust a small bank of snow off of my right shoulder, and blow into my closed hands. I'll have to find her, but they are waiting for me. They must know I’m still alive, and they’ll play this just like a game. They’re the Slone brothers, and you don’t mess with them. That’s what the sheriff told me as I left town. They walk in, flash their guns, and take over. The Sheriff is a goddamn coward.

Still, without him I wouldn’t be here. Give thanks; you’ve got a slaughter to take care of soon. Without the Sheriff, you’d be lying dead on those floorboards, but in a lot of ways you are dead Jericho. There’s no living through this. There’s only seeing it to the end.

The bullet in my guts rattles around again, and the wound throbs in the cold. I bandaged it miles ago, packing snow against it to keep the swelling down. The bandages are soaking wet, and stained a deep crimson.

The mountain is a merciless climb. Often I stop to rest, only to find myself continuing my climb to fend off the frostbite. My body is now a machine, each fundamental action fed on juice from my electric veins. I’m tired and hungry, but none of it matters because I’m dead. There’s only one thing left to do, find the girl.

I find a cave and stop to rest. I roll a smoke and sit on a rock. It’s been awhile since I thought about her. I’ve been so busy pursuing the brothers Slone, I almost forgot why.

She was running away from her brothers when I found her in the rocks above town. She had been up there for a while, she looked exhausted, and she was hungry. I was on the run, and thought she’d slow me down. When I tried to pass her by, she fired a single shot into the air, and stood across from me, clenching a rock in her fist, ready to tussle.

I remember the look on her face when I laughed at her. She must have felt like such a fool. I grabbed her and set her up on my horse. She was the reason I came to that town. The town run by the brothers Slone.

We were set to leave in the morning, just one final nights stay. The Slone’s were quicker than us. Now here I am in the God forsaken wastelands. If Hell is where I’m going after this, then I reckon I should be well acquainted with it.


ACT III: Iron and Lead

Jericho’s eyes opened, and he regained consciousness. The floorboards were hard, and his face and neck strained as he tried to lift himself up. By the time he’d pulled himself off of the ground, he realized he’d been shot and flogged. The pain took a second to catch up, but smacked him in the face like a hammer. He fell backward against a wall, and lay there breathing heavily and groaning in pain.

*

The bullet meanders around my stomach. Remember, remember, where did they take her… Do they know I’m alive still? What did they do to her? Don’t panic. Someone knows, the sheriff would know. And even if he didn’t he’d at least have a bandage to stop this bleeding. Rest for a minute. Gather your thoughts.

I crawl to my room to get myself a smoke, and pour some whiskey on that wound. Consciousness is still mine, I have the upper hand. The whiskey stings, and the wound foams white. I try to stand, but it’s pointless, my legs are jelly. At least my fingers work. I roll myself the greatest cigarette I’ve ever had. I feel the head rush, the pain of the whiskey goes away, and I’m not breathing as heavy anymore. Now I can focus, now I’m ready.

They said something, now I remember… They said the mine. Which mine? How far did they travel? The sheriff would know, his job is to know the area. And if they got to him before I did, I’ll just beat it out of him. I won’t let her die.

The sheriff talked, like everyone else. It took a few minutes, and a bit of “hard” questioning, but he talked. The Sheriff told him a doctor lived in town, but was ridden out when the Slone brothers arrived. He owned a pharmacy down the street.

The pharmacy was freezing because the Slone brothers had shot the window out. They were clever, putting him through hell, trying desperately to discourage him from finding them.

Jericho was sure they knew he wasn’t dead. The mine was ten miles out of town to the east, in the mountains about halfway up the summit. He took off the ragged garment that passed for a shirt, stained red with blood. His skin was pale, white as the snow covering the town. There wouldn’t be anyone here for a while. He grabbed a suture kit, and some bandages and set to work.

The surgery would be painful, and stitching himself up would end up being a lot harder than he thought. He was used to closing up wounds, but this was a hole about the size of three fingers, and it was leaking blood like a faucet.

He dragged his weak body back to the saloon, and patched himself up in the warmth of the room he and Susanna had shared. When it was done, he drank himself to sleep.

The next day was colder than the last. He had set himself to work on finding some clothes to wear, and tried not to wonder why God had let him live. He was on borrowed time now; he had already punched his last ticket. The only thing waiting for him in that mountain was a girl he swore to find, and a death long overdue.

Outside, the blizzard raged mercilessly, snow whipped around so hard it hurt Jericho’s cheeks as the flakes pasted against him. The center of the town was empty, except for a horse tied to a post. It was left for him, but why? Then it hit him, the town wasn’t as empty as he had thought.
A head rose up from a roof to his left. The man was trained on him, and fired a shot with his Winchester.

The bullet landed at Jericho’s feet, and he dashed off to the side, ducking out in an alleyway next to a general store. Another bullet flew at him; it crashed hard into the wooden siding of the general store he used as cover

*

I thumb the hammers back.

Who are these guys? Not the Slones, I’m sure of that. They’re hired help. Cheap cronies sent to kill what they thought was an injured old man.

*

Jericho leapt from behind the corner of the store, and rushed inside the vacant property. He gulped a breath of air as a bullet crashed through the window and shattered the glass. Cold air poured in, and snow began to pile at the base of the window.

*

There’s another bullet against the wood, closer to me this time. There has got to be at least two, but I have a feeling there are three. One up on the roof across from me, the other is at the saloon, perched in one of the rooms taking shots at me. It’s the only smart angle to play here. These guys know how to ambush. The other one, where is the other one? Two above… One below.

*

One of the bandits steps carefully, and quietly toward the general store, his revolver poised, and his eyes tense. He was searching for his pray; one hand clenched the six-shooter, the other held a knife.

Jericho heard the crunch of snow as the sly bandit crept closer. The creak of the floorboards however, was what had really given away his position. Jericho dove through the doorway and fired two well-placed shots into the marauder’s chest and head. He had fallen dead, with open eyes staring bleakly into space. Jericho landed on his side, and felt searing pain from his stomach. He hunkered down behind a barrel and grit his teeth. He grunted, and tossed a shot at the man in the saloon deliberately missing. The bullet crashed through the room just close enough to force his opponent down

Jericho dashed through the square desperately trying to get to the horse. He had shot at the tie that held it to the post, and freed it.

The man that had first fired at him appeared again from the roof. He spat tobacco, and took another turn at him. Jericho rolled out of the way of the blast, balanced himself on one knee, and fired at his opponent. The gunshot had hit the man square in the chest, and he dropped his Winchester, falling like dead weight off the two-story post office that had been his perch.
Jericho ran for the Winchester, collecting it and moving again toward the horse. The other, tried a shot from the saloon, but his angle wasn’t wide enough to get a good one. Jericho had stolen the horse and left town.

ACT IV: Gunpowder and Redemption

He passes through the mine entrance, and walks toward the center. There are cars here, rusted and useless. Jericho raises his guns and comes to a small cliff overlooking the base of the mine. He hears the Slones laughing and screaming. He hears the girl crying. Somewhere in himself a fire is burning. He smiles in the pure lust of the slaughter that is to come.

He finds cover behind a mine car and steadies his borrowed Winchester against the rim of the cart. He finds the shot to take against James. The rap of the gun shattered the Slone’s fun, and they all turned to face James, who grabs at his neck and falls dead to the floor.

“Up on the rim boys, get em!!” Sirus shouts

Shells come from all directions. Jericho grits his teeth in a black smile, and cocks the rifle again. He lifts the gun over the side of the cart once more, and fires a single blast at Whip’s knee. He drops his guns and cries out in pain. Sirus starts to climb a ladder out of the base, and onto the rim shouting at Kenny to keep fire on Jericho.

Jericho ejects another shell casing as he cocks the rifle ready. He puts his cheek against the mine cart trying to feel where the explosions come from. Kenny stops firing, and for the moment there is silence. Faintly the girl cries out for Jericho, but he shuts his hearing off to it. No emotion here, only blood, and lots of it. Whip yelps out and curses Jericho, who fires at his left shoulder, and spits.

Sirus reaches the rim and finds a stick of dynamite. He lights it and tosses it at Jericho’s mine cart. The cart rocks uneasily with the explosion, and he braces himself against it to keep the hunk of metal on its track. Jericho barrel rolls away from the cart and flings a slug at Kenny after steadying himself. The bullet buries itself deep into Kenny’s stomach, and he slumps over onto the ground. When he turns around, he is face to face with Sirus, who has the bead on him. Jericho lunges at him, tackling him to the ground, and the two scuffle. Jericho pastes Sirus across the face, and elbows him in the ribs. Sirus replies with a punch to Jericho’s jaw, and a backhand that breaks his nose. Jericho is thrown from his opponent, but instantly gets back up. Sirus lunges at him, and Jericho lowers himself and throws his foe over his shoulders, off the rim, and onto a pile of lumber twenty feet below. Sirus doesn’t get up.

“Jericho!!” the girl screams. He eases himself down the ladder and into the depth of the center of the mine. He’s close to her, so close he can smell her. He can almost taste Susanna’s lips-
There are two final gunshots, like a climax. Whip shoots the gunslinger in the right breast, and Jericho replies with a blast to Whips back. The gunfighter falls. Susanna goes to him.

*

I smile for her, and cough up a bit of blood. She kisses me and tells me there are horses outside, and a town two miles to the east. She tells me to hang on. She leans over, and I’m looking into her eyes. “Sorry I’m late.” I say.

She forgives me.

She holds onto me, rocking back and forth. She nuzzles my head against her chest and I breathe her scent into my nostrils. A life lived knee deep in lead. I was always so sure I’d end up in hell. Sometimes, it just takes one thing done right for God to take you back.

(So if you never thought I could write a fantasy or Western, chew on this!)

The Unabashed Male

(This is what "Story Time was originally hatched from. You'll notice the female character is a little bit different, their is a gun in play, and I would call the male less than heroic. I was trying to put a spin on the Thelma and Louise. Don't rightly know why I scrapped the project, it wasn't entirely terrible.)

He'd decided to go East staring Los Angeles sunset of purple and orange waves across the horizon. He'd leaned his head back against the upholstery, blowing out his tension from tired smokey lungs. The radio was on, but the dial was between stations. He'd been listening to white noise for, had to have been hours... The .357 laid on the seat next to him in quiet reassurance,

“We'll get there,” it said, “you just wait and see.”

He'd never killed a man before. What would the dead man's eyes look like, staring down the barrel of a .357. The farther from his city he traveled the more weird people seemed, truckers bellowing at each other on their CB's, country types sitting in truck stop diners eating dribbly eggs at 6 AM. He'd started as far south as San Diego, traveling by way of his own divine guidance more than anything else.

He'd been a man of few principles, or routes.

He pulled off the freeway to a small gas station just inside of Cabazon. The gun felt like freedom, and the early evening gave him just the right kind of endorsement. He delicately shut the car door and walked foot in front of foot across the pavement leading up to the tiny convenience shop. While he passed the black and white and red the word “Sheriff,” he reminded himself that the magnum was hooked on his right side belt loop; it'd be easier to blow people away if it came to that.

It was the kind of elevator music that made him wish he had blown his ear drums playing with fire crackers or something. A calming thing that didn't seem to fit his mood at all. Was he really going to do this? There was a surge of adrenaline as he passed the hostess products, and turned the corner toward the register. The sheriff officer paid him little mind, and why would he? In walked this guy dressed prim and proper like, black slacks, a bowler cap atop his head, gritty hands, but otherwise fair complexion, struts right on up to the register and asks for a pack of smokes. What's to doubt?

The tap tap of his rubber soled converse across the tile walkway seemed to stand out above the music, and he was starting to think that all eyes were expectantly on him. The attendant was busy leafing through his newspaper. A disheveled man with a mat of hair behind a prominent forehead. Old wrinkles of stress and alcohol muddled his age. The sheriff was standing over by the cooler, his eye firmly affixed to the chocolate milk behind the glass. The old man never saw the .357 coming. She'd been at the opposite end of the store, behind an aisle, visible, but unnoticed. She'd heard the blast, a deafening kaboom that rattled the attendant's shelves. It left this smoking hole in the newspaper, the clerk doubled over like he was just meant to crack his head on that counter.

He'd turned to face the officer who was standing there jaw agape, fumbling for his own gun stuck in that holster. He'd blasted the officer in the chest, a brutal impact that had sent the man into the cooler of beer behind him. A loud crasg accompanied the fountain of beer that shot up into the air, soaking the pock marked ceiling tiles.

A silence.

“Isn't it a little early to start drinking?” He spat at the officer.

When the job was done, he'd asked the dead clerk, “Can I get a pack of smokes?”

After a while, the 10 freeway just starts to go on straight. It just sort of stretches out for a while, as far as he could see at least. He'd raced down the three, but usually two, lane freeway encased in his rumbling beast, a 1971 black el Camino with wheels anodized red.

She'd watched the whole thing, from start to finish, even told him “I'd love to blow a man that's killed somebody,” like it was some god damned celebrity thing to do. He'd agreed to take her only because he'd gotten tired of the radio stations. Seemed like the farther from a major city you got, the worse off the radio becomes. The country music genre starts taking it's liberties, and ranchero music isn't far behind. He'd grown tired of those fucking horns.

“You got a name?” He was calm.

“Elsie.” She stammered.

He grunted.

“Yours?”

“Don't worry you're pretty little head about it Elsie. We're going on a trip.”

“I aint worried. I just want to know your name.”

“Call me Ben.” That would do.

“Well Ben, you just let me know what you want me to do. We'll see if we can't work something out.”

He didn't want to stop. It was this tiny place called Cactus City and they were so close to Blythe, he'd really just as soon kept going. She'd insisted, promising him a world of pleasure if he'd only just pull over. He was not one to turn down a girl in short shorts that wanted to suck him off.
It was no surprise that, with his cock in her hands, she was able to sweet talk him. She'd had him by the balls after all, and he wasn't about to let her get away with that shit, but a woman has a way of talking. She'd started sucking him before she asked, “So, is this what you do?”

“Get blow jobs?”

“I liked watching you work. Made me get to thinking about my situation.”

“Shut the fuck up and finish. I didn't bring you along so you could flap your gums all about the road. And put a move on it too, I want to be in Blythe before the morning.”

He'd had his head back and was enjoying the sensation of her smooth wet lips all over him. He had let out a moan that was really more air than voice, and lit a cigarette. She pulled away and coughed.

He'd slipped his boots off and propped his feet on the dash just wide enough for her tiny form to sit, on her knees, with her legs by the pedals, and perform. From this vantage point he had this great view, the kind you see in pornos, voyeur nonsense. She was all hair and these tiny tits that poked out between her bangs. He was watching her work him, waiting to fire off. He was lost in bliss, inhaling, exhaling smoke that left its linger on the cloth ceiling cover.

And then, she'd somehow worked a blade in there, he'd felt it poke his sack, his skin just draped over this blade. She was smiling, licking his shaft up and down. She'd said, “Baby, we're going on a trip. Now, don't you try nothin stupid like fuckin me over, there'll be plenty of time for that when I'm through with you. Up on your feet. Come on, pull your pants on up and let's get out of here.”

He'd never wanted to kill a bitch more than when she said those words while she licked him.

Fuck her and her demands, he'd been waiting to shoot his load off, and she was too skinny anyhow, but he figured some cracked out bitch might let him do some crazy shit. So he'd taken her with him, thinking he'd get one hell of a blow job. She slid herself from below him to on top, straddling him with her legs and sitting herself on his lap. She ground her hips against him, those panties wet and damp against his now dry shaft. He thrust against her; grit his teeth and stared up at her, but she did not flinch. She pulled the knife from his sack and buried it into his shoulder. She sunk her teeth into his neck while he grit his teeth and grunted.

“You're fixin to have me choke you, aint you?” He didn't even moan, but there was an alteration in his voice, she'd picked it up, but it's hard to figure out whether it was pure sex, or the violent eroticism of it all.

“You want it don't you, you fucking faggot!” She ground her hips into him while she pushed her thumb into his wound. His hard on got stronger.

He backhanded her off of him, a swift but thorough motion, that left a bruise her mirror couldn't hide. She lay there for a minute, watching it develop, darken. “My face,” did she think it? There was blood everywhere.
No.

There was blood on her.

On her.

On her hands, and her sheets, and her walls, and her celing, and her pussy, and her lips, and she was drooling it, and the bath tub was full of it, and he was oozing it, and she was tasting it, the gun was smoking it, the tv radiated it, the room was filled with it, the darkness became it. “We have to get up and go! If you don't pick up them fuckin pants and leave this place with me, god damned if I don't blast your fucking eyes out the back of your big head you stubborn piece of filth. I said I was going to take you on a journey, now let's get moving!”

And then they'd gotten into his car.

And then they'd hit the freeway.

And then, she'd needed to pee, so he had to stop on the side of the road. She'd popped a squat. He'd smoked a cigarette and laughed at her. She looked up at him all awkward like, pointing that last Derringer at his nuts like she was gonna blast those fuckers off. He'd thought of flicking his smoke at her, nailing her right between the eyes.

And then they'd stopped for the night. She'd handcuffed him, but sucked him off like she'd promised to do. Afterward, he'd laid there with his pants by his ankles panting like it was come down time, watching her take a towel to the baby batter. That night, she'd snuggled up close to his body. They had stopped the car on the shoulder and were camped out in the back. He lay there with his hands cuffed behind his back, his shoulders rigid with the tension of sleeping on them, but she buried her face into his chest. “We'll get there,” she'd said, “you just wait and see.”

“Wake up god damnit.”

And then they were on the road. “I used fifty on gas. Got it from your wallet, but you got it from that gas station. We've got places to be, and we're on a timetable.” He was thinking that she had at least revealed some sense of planning, some sense of thought. She had his gun, and hardly felt it necessary to explain herself, in fact, even thought it comical when he asked her where they were going. She'd remarked, “You're just like a fucking child. You men, you're nothing without a woman to tell you what to do, where to go, and how to get there.”

“I aint never relied on a woman to do nothing for me, and I aint about to start. I'm just trying to figure out where we're going so I know when I should beat the shit out of you and make a run for it. Trying to gauge the reach of the law, and the only way to do that is to know where you're going. You know, routes and shit, a plan b of some sort. Don't you have a plan b?” She'd sat back with her hands folded on his seat between her crotch. He could have killed her.

They had been driving down the ten for a while now, near into New Mexico if Arizona hadn't dragged it's ass across the freeway for so long. They'd both looked out the window for cows, or grass, or people, or houses, but all they saw was that two lane freeway dissapearing into the canyons beyond.


They hit up a head shop in Alamagordo. A small joint on the corner of some street whose sign had been torn away. They'd pulled into the parking lot, gave the store attendant the once over.

“Where can we get some grass.”

The store clerk blinked, once, for amazement, twice in amusment, three times at the gun these two strangers produced. “toss in some powder if you can.”

“What's that city boy?”

“I said some coke. You god damned country bumpkins wouldn't know technical jargon if it bit you in your ass. I reckon that's right?”

“Fuck you.” He'd made some calls and within an hour, the pair was satisfied. They smoked a bowl with the clerk cus they'd put him through a lot to get the hook. The weed was terrible, sour and old. It had those brown hairs that made him immediately reconsider going east over north. She looked like the type that popped acid like candy, so he'd been ok with his eastern voyage after all. He didn't want some crazy bitch with a gun frying right next to him. Who knows what she was capable of doing. So he just sat there baking all stressed out, grabbing at his hair like a mad man. There was this bong, it was like a middle finger, he wanted it.

“Give that to me. I want it.”

“Pay me forty fuckin' dollars.”

“Is that all? It's not worth more?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well the glass work alone. Honey, come here a minute and you just admire that glass work. “

“Well, would you look at that, Carlo, that sure is something.” She smiled at the bong. The clerk stood over their shoulders hunched over using his back not his legs, glaring into the case. They were on their haunches looking at its swirls, different colors shooting up from the bottom of it, the neck ending in this defiant middle finger, fierce and daunting. They just watched it, the three of them, just basked in its glory. “Pretty,” had she thought that?

“That's right baby. Pretty as you Peggy Sue.”

“Carlo, you are as close to trouble as I've ever come.”

“Oh, I somehow doubt that.” She pointed the Derringer at the clerk. “Please honey, would you please just unlock that case there and give us that piece? Please? I'll pay you with your life baby boy. Won't you please just open up that case there and take it out for me?” She was so sweet. He'd smiled while he watched her. Was she going to kill him? He wasn't sure, not entirely, she'd baked, not fried. Who knows what the coke was like. Jesus.

He'd looked at the bag, more gray than white, what the fuck, “Is this?”

“What's that?” The clerk leaned against the wall looking at the bong he had removed from the case and placed on the glass counter tops.

“What is this shit? Here, you snort it.”

“Me? I don't do that shit man. I just know how to get it for you. You made an order man.” It was the truth. So she shot him, and planted the coke. The gun, she left on his chest, right next to his shoulder wound. The whiny fucking bastard-

“...Didn't even try to get up did he? He just laid there screaming at me, 'you bitch! You God damned bitch! I'll fucking kill you with my shotgun!' Could you believe that shit? A god damned small bullet like that. Jesus tap dancing Christ that weed was fucking terrible. Like the Folgers strand or something.”

She'd been blathering on. They were getting set to hit the halfway of New Mexico.

(and then... it just kinda ends... I dunno, looking back on it, maybe it was too violent, pushing the extreme too hard. It's interesting to experiment with sadistic people though. I found those characters were willing to do damn near anything...)

Hard Boiled

The cross, it’s 2 arms in defiance of the late afternoon sun.
It’s shadow separating Hero from Foe,
Hero on one knee, Foe on his back.

The cross their only witness.

Revolver raised. Hero like a conductor poised,
Holding his stomach with one hand, revolver in the other.
Both stood at their ends of the shadow, Hero narrowed his eyes.

The cross their only witness.

Foe raised his Glock.
The music stopped the dance was ending.
Hero pulled the trigger.

The cross their only witness.

The empty revolver was a crescendo to the symphony only moment before.
To the tune of the echo, Hero lowered his eyes. Foe pulled the trigger.
Startled birds flew from the roof of the church.

The cross their only witness.

(This was written during my freshman year of college. I posted it just to be able to have something to look back on. I never did say I was a poet!)

Fake Content

So, I was really trying to avoid any conversational or informative type posts in this blog (seeing as how I have a myspace, AIM, LJ, and several email accounts with which to notify people). The problem is that I recently started writing for my company and I really want you all to be able to see what I'm capable of when it comes to marketing/technical writing. The blog is wordpress and it's for the Jeff Paul program.

I write informative articles and press releases advertising our program, and I also give advice to aspiring internet marketers. It's not what you'd normally associate with me when you think of my writing, but I urge you all to give it a gander and tell me what you think.

Anywho... That link will now be permanently visible under the "places that don't exist" section on the left. Thanks for reading, and I promise I'll have real content soon!

Things I've seen #1

Crusing into Vegas? Cruise in style on Frank Sinatra Dr.

This image was taken in Utah. What was so amazing was the sense of size there. I cannot speak for my companion, but that place was much larger than I ever could be.

I took this image in a little town called Joseph. We met a red headed boy there who was very nice and took our picture.

This Nagging At the Back of My Eyes

Writer's note: This Story was published in the spring 2008 edition of the Northridge Review. It was written after my Father died. Last year, July 10th 2007. This is the one year anniversary, and I present this to you in honor of my Dad, Richard N. Bashara Esq...


Somewhere in time I am driving. I am holding three CD's in my right hand instead of my steering wheel, and I'm eyeing them for the last time. The heat is sweltering, complete with wet tracks of sweat, hot and sticky, and here I am sitting in my undershirt, jeans rolled up to my knees, in an old Honda with no a/c and hardly enough engine power to make it up this hill anyhow. With the windows rolled down, a breeze sifts its way through my faded upholstery carriage, but it's the backhand of some crazy desert devil whipping me across my cheek and wisping through my hair that is far too long for this wretched heat wave.

I decide on one of the discs, mostly because the sun reflecting off those spinners sears my eyes. I am listening to: soothing guitar, background fireworks, children, and laughing saxophone memories. It's a cold thing to hear but I can bear it, I think. The Honda chugs up the hill, leaving a lingering reminder of the cost of transportation with the thirsty sideways smirk of the fuel level gauge.

The hills cap off with a view of a valley paved in semis and the glistening rooftops of miscellaneously dated Camrys.


Somewhere in time I am at a bar. A local joint in the valley, and there is treble blasting out of speakers I cannot see. I am thinking of home in this overcrowded blast of noise, and I must shout directly into my own brain to think. I'm too drunk to drive; condemned to this dank pit of metal headed malarkey.

Maybe it was the ultraviolet red to purple warping through the walls, or perhaps it was the three whiskeys I had between all of those bud lights. Either way, I find myself outside with the world bleeding in on itself and dribbling it's entrails all over me. Someone offers me a smoke, and in a state of self regression I accept it, sucking sweetly at that ashy tit. I become smoke, my eyes betraying their own stare. Somewhere in my pockets there are keys to a car, got to find them. Got to get out of here.


By the grace of God go I.

Arrived at home, drunk as a skunk and about as appreciated, the stumble to my room is a blur of sidle steps I hardly remember as I slip myself in to bed.

During the night, I puke on myself repeatedly.


Somewhere in time I am crying. I am leaning over the casket of my grandfather crying, not because I feel very much, because I feel I ought to. I knew the man, sure, I have sparse memories. I'm eyeing my grandmother, she does not see me, and perhaps never will. My father sits with his head bowed; this is the first time I see him cry. A single tear, then he picks up and walks out.


Somewhere in time I am screaming at my mother because she has taken things too fucking far, and I've about had enough of her insolence. How she enrages me with her blind accusations, and slanderous babbling! She chips away at my beliefs, and my family. I have broken a coffee mug and forcibly removed her from my apartment by way of tossing her bags out into the hallway and telling her to get the fuck out.

She tells me that everything I knew is gone. She tells me that the things I believed about my life are over.


Somewhere in time I am not holding three CD's. I am holding my father, my brother, and my grandfather. Somewhere in those mirrored music makers I am looking back at myself.

The sheen is so bright, it blinds. I look up from the discs in time to see this beautiful collie with patches of black and white hair, so well highlighted by the morning sun, look directly into my eyes as if to ask me why I'd already chosen to keep on going. I say that I am sorry, and I start to cry, even before my car shakes with the force of the impact.

It's ok.

I smoke a cigarette. I haven't done that in a while, but I figure I ought to.


Somewhere in time, I am letting go of those CD's. Some one is listening to them, maybe even now I wonder. Sometimes, what is most beautiful is learning to let go of the tangible in favor of the story.

I sit on my patio and smoke cigarettes.

Sign Your Name Here

I

Go ahead, breathe it in.

No really, smell the new paint. Look at all of that cupboard space! The closets are pretty big to. You can almost see it now. The window faces first light so the bed went in that corner, opposite the window. The kitchen interrupts the living room, but it’s a studio apartment.

You really did well for yourself. Sure, it’s sort of small, but this is your first apartment all by your lonesome. Don’t you feel proud? Fresh out of college, you barely remember those days. Maybe you didn’t do so well then, maybe you did. None of that matters anymore, because you’re off to a brisk start.

You had to have the apartment on the top floor. There is this window just above the kitchen counter that overlooks a beautiful bright green garden, complete with a solemn bench under a terrace. It’s like being on a turret, high above your castle.

The landlord had shown you into the room, unlatched the door, and named his price as you walked in. He sounded less than enthusiastic, but you were excited as hell. It was heaven. You began piecing it together in your head. Posters on the ceiling of your favorite bands, artwork on the walls, and your own photography too. You still have some of those shots from class packed away. You’d been saving them for an occasion just like this. You’ll post those up. Bind them to the wall with putty because you don’t want to have to pay for them to Spackle when you move.

The couch is here, you ought to have a seat, you’ve been moving all day, and you’ve got to rest up for the gathering tonight. You’ve already got three friends confirmed, and two of them are bringing beer and liquor. You tried to keep things balanced between male and female. You like a good mix.

The sun is setting the sky on fire with a thin strip of paper, and everything glows a half-assed orange. The dust particles floating around the room shine an eerie white, like diminutive snowflakes, and you recline on the couch smoking a cigarette, or not. Maybe your head swims, maybe it doesn’t. You breathe it in, take it in actually, you still can’t believe it.

You’re doing it.

After a few minutes, you pry yourself off of the couch and start messing about. You have a lot to do before people get here. You start unpacking your clothes and folding them up. Some will go into the drawers, some on hangers. You take your tops and face them all in the same direction on hangers like grandmother taught you. You slide that aside, and fold your pants and underwear.

Maybe it’s a tad on the small side. Maybe, you could see things possibly becoming problematic. For instance, the way the cabinets jut out two feet from the wall and decrease the size of the kitchen. For some reason a piece of wall protrudes from the west side of your room in the most inopportune of places. Your sink is a dull stainless steel, and the water spigots are rusted at their bases.

You are getting this place for dirt cheap, and it’s only going to be a year. How hard could that possibly be? This is an in-between so you can bring potentials somewhere without fear of them seeing your parents. This is your place to drink. You can smoke inside here, or not, and most importantly no one is around to bitch at you for lighting up in the first place. No roommates, no family.

This is it.

The drawers are built into the closet like a pharaoh’s tomb burrowed into a cliff face. You open the drawers and start placing clothes inside them. The top drawer holds your underwear and socks, and the middle drawer holds your pants. The middle drawer is a canyon, a veritable black hole of space. This place is pretty great.

You get sidetracked folding clothes and look over at your stereo. Look at it, the poor thing, all useless and bound up in the corner. Put it together, you ought to listen to some music; it will help spice things up a bit. Go ahead, put on that really hopeful album you like. The birth and death of the day cycle through, and looking out your window at the garden below, you can think of nothing to fear.

Minutes go by like glorious hours and you float along side a stream of notes and chords thrown together and tossed around like an ocean of color.

You go back to folding clothes again, humming along with sanguinity. When the pants fill up the second drawer you open the third. The third is shallow, much shorter in depth, and apparently already full. Would you look at that?

A composition notebook.

You haven’t seen one of those in a long time. Gosh, since freshman comp, when they made you take notes in one of these and hand them in at the end of the semester. You take it out apprehensively gazing at the nonsensical speckled black and white spots all over the cover. You place it under the coffee table and go back to putting your clothes away.

Just then, your stomach reminds you that you require sustenance. Mom gave you a bunch of stuff suited for moments such as these. Top ramen to the rescue! The sink spews rust-colored water into the washbasin, and you are tempted to gag but it clears quickly. Whatever, you’re hungry. You pop the ramen into the microwave and you can almost smell the MSG you’re about to gulp down. Somewhere around, you have chopsticks for that authentic feel, but in a time of deprivation you go for the closest thing to you, a plastic Spork mom and dad gave you. Part of the plates, cups, and various party supplies designed to have you wash fewer dishes.

The impromptu dinner is over, and your stomach still rumbles. There will be consumption of alcohol this evening. You are out to get hammered. The best course of action is to cease eating, and start consuming water. The fridge isn’t full and nothing is cold, not even lightly chilled. Water is water? Certainly not from that spigot.

There is a forgotten half-full water bottle on the windowsill, looming large and casting muddled rays over the white face next to the stove. They slosh around as you lift the bottle and uncap it. Your stomach slakes that familiar cold casting itself down to quell your creeping craving.

You light another cigarette, or don’t, a victory cigarette, or not. Either way the day fades to a playful grey thinning off into purple mixed to blue, a deep azure.

People start arriving.

Hello Max. How have you been? It’s been a while. Are you still playing guitar? I always liked that one song you used to play.

Frank! It’s been a dog’s age. Gosh, I thought the real world had long consumed you. Funny seeing you here, give me a hug.

Why hello there Karen. Is this your husband? Boyfriend. I’m quite honored to meet you… You live together? How long? Oh how nice.

Susan walks in. She’s wearing jeans, and a sash that have seen the inside of too many shaded jazz clubs, cloth dabbed with the smell of cigarettes and liquor just enough, so that when you get close to her she holds the aromatic essence of jazz. She never says anything to anyone unless they say something to her first. That’s typical Susan. You’ve always liked Susan because it took you time to get to know her. She’s one of those people that you really had to work for. You remember nights with her: drinking beer while suddenly finding everything much more profound, journeying to her house for the first time, and sitting on the hood of your old car with her during the summer months talking about the future, about life, about the sky.

Sure as sunshine, she plays Lady Day and hides herself off in the corner. You two exchange glances, she smiles.

Jenny, Bob, and Gerri trickle in fashionably late, and the party officially kicks. It’s a Holliday affair, music playing second to lingo, and everyone seems to be getting along. You have a few beers, nothing too big, but you’re starting to feel it. Look at the way Max plays air guitar in front of Frank and Jenny, who seem to be awfully close; Susan chats with Karen, the perfect conversation connoisseur, and Karen’s befuddled boyfriend. Do you even remember his name?

Bob and Gerri have been together for years; Bob is as plain as his name, and Gerri is a big shot in real estate. You’ve known Bob for years, you went to grade school with him, and it so happened that the two of you met again in college.

What a party this is. Like a farewell maybe, simultaneous salutations of both hail and adieu. As the host, you walk around providing for the crowd, making jokes, being happy, witty, drunk, and occasionally flirty. You have been waiting for this moment, a chance to really show yourself off. It’s not striking it rich, but perhaps they’ve not much more than you. Well, Bob and Gerri are pretty successful, but they’re boring. You’d never tell them that of course, but it’s true. Always asking about your plans for the future, we’re so happy, we’re so happy! We got a new car last week, a fucking Ford, or Chevy, or Toyota. Looking for a down payment on a condo are they? No, not that, Gerri says condos are such a waste of money. Everybody knows there’s no equity in a condo, a house is where the money is at, not that this isn’t a lovely abode you have. It’s so… Cozy, yes that’s the proper word¾ you contemplate tearing her throat out¾ oh what’s that? Someone needs a drink?

Why yes, you are available. Would you excuse me Bob and Gerri? I have something I need to attend to, I’ll make my way back though, it’s always such a pleasure. Now that you’re rid of those two, it’s time to fix drinks and mingle some more.

Karen’s boyfriend strikes up a conversation with Max as the two share a musical interest. They put on Led Zeppelin. You don’t mind, Led Zeppelin is ok. They set a good mood, everyone is a little more open, better than the blues Susan had on before.

You had managed to bribe mom into releasing some of her threshold of liquor. She supplied the rum, one bottle of clear tequila no one has shot a glance at, and a twelve pack of generic cola; Max brought beer, and ice ¾ resourceful Max had even bought a Styrofoam cooler. Bob and Gerri brought champagne. Bob nurses the bottle buoying next to Gerri atop your midnight blue ocean. You fix a few rum and cokes, and pass them around. Gerri wants a cosmopolitan, but you don’t have the mixers necessary. Instead you offer her coconut rum and pineapple juice, courtesy of Frank. She begrudgingly accepts, but when the alcohol hits her, the levee breaks.

Dim lights cast shadows of furniture, and the moonlight fills them in with speckled white light, you sit on the countertop surrounded by bottles staring at your floor and its “your name here” visage. A few people take to the couch, and with their drinks safely on the face of the simple black coffee table, their dialogue grows. You are floating, everything a blur. No, maybe not. Don’t bother me¾ get your own drink¾ float with me. Look how pretty the garden is. Imagine that table, the moonlight speckling pale white through black shadows cast from trees, on to Susan’s naked flesh. Her body flaunting its “your name here” visage.

You stammer a moan, barely audible. Someone hears you, someone ignores you; who are these people? The party continues, feel it draw a vague impression like a watermark on your soul.

You are getting sleepy, or maybe that is the alcohol. How many have you had? Who knows? You float on the counter, look at how full it is; look at your friends, how they enjoy themselves. You want them to go, so you can be left alone to your thoughts.

Get out of here. Just go.

That’s what you want to tell them, these friends. You love these people. Love them like kindergartners love cupcakes, no, like security blankets. Night sky stars cast luminous tacks on a tack board, a cosmic tack board. Hands move like waves and you flay them, stretch them out, make them faster, don’t hit Karen. Look at Max and his guitar. Do you care? Do you really care?

It drags like cigarette embers tracing down paper, consuming this party. Give me a cigarette.

No one? Give me a goddamned cigarette!

Someone hands you a cigarette. Calm down, they say.

Steal a glance at Susan, snap back; what? Calm yourself douche bag!

Does the counter shake?

Footsteps outside of the door, someone is coming to shut you down, this party is over. It’s only eleven thirty; it’s quiet. The footsteps grow faint as they pass your door. Someone abound at this late hour? How remarkably strange, but surely they would like to meet you. You run, stumbling over the coffee table, toward the door.

Watch yourself now don’t bump into my boyfriend!

Sorry. (No, not really, what’s-his-face was in the way.)

Open the door, out in the hallway there is someone unlocking his door. You flash him a grin, he sees. He glares at your smiling face, nice and bright¾ you’re friendly, he is not¾ he locks his door. You catch a whiff of your own breath. That pickled essence. Taste it, really taste it. You feel it in the pit of your bowels, nascent in your esophagus. As you stammer a belch, you feel fire all over your chest. Clearly, it’s time to sit down.

Take a drag of that cigarette, or let it burn in your fingers, the smell so enchanting, so strong, you breathe heavily, or don’t.

Are you excited? Horny? Yes, that’s it, alcohol always does have that affect, like an enchantment straight to your head. How it feels: hands like palettes thin and wide, scrape shapes sharp shifting hands like paper, thin and wide. Hands open to expression, fire, and passion. Your foot falls asleep but that is far away now. The counter is so hard. Do you feel the way your bony ankle presses against the pressboard surface? It stings at you. Continue to get lost as minutes give way to hours¾ we are here, you think, together for just a bit of time and ours is a wonderful bond¾ melt away time, over the stove the way you light cigarettes when there is no lighter to be found.

Small flecks flake away as everything blurs this feeling, this light-heartedness. In the morning you will feel it creep up your guts with that ugly warble and bubble. Place yourself mentally in front of your porcelain shrine. How beautiful this all looks.

These friends, these marauders; invading, sacking, taking, raking up what they can before shaking off to kick rocks as they stumble and tumble to their cars, home, loved ones, equity, sleep, peace, night outside seeping into the room, its darkness overcoming your own. This party with its dim lights, and dim wits putting you to sleep. Do you force them out?

Leave me be, you want to scream, let me go, give me peace.

They leave. People vanish like water down drains. Rust colored, like disgusting vomit on the bathroom floor.

The shower with its glass doors seems so inviting. Highly aroused, you contemplate climbing into the shower, letting the water wash over your body, and down your waist. You masturbate, or don’t.

You masturbate in that shower. Do you moan, doesn’t matter, but do the neighbors hear?

II

In the morning you feel it. You feel it creeping back up, rumbled from guts churning like soup, some sick witches’ brew burns, tracing itself in lines up and down, up and down.

You masturbate in the shower.

The water feels good, as the water trickles down. The toilet runs, the water turns hot to cold and back again¾ do you moan? Doesn’t matter. Morning’s flow of sunshine rays through shutters flayed over the foggy glass window, frozen with cold, shivering your space.

There are cans everywhere, the ashtray is full, and the trashcan has overflowed onto the linoleum floor. Morning spills onto the carpet, a soft baby blue in its radiance. Your bed, that pitiful thing, like a Siamese twin separated from kings and queens¾ are you too big for it? Maybe not quite so big as to be problematic, but, you could see problems: people scrunching up, swamping corners like posters plastered against walls, trying to chat with bent necks and knees squatting to fit. They had fun. You did a good job. You entertained them, you’re quite proud of yourself. Your mouth tastes of vomit, and your hands are soaked in oil. Water runs through hair. Your thighs quiver, your legs buckle, and waves of morning pleasure through you.

The shrill squeaky creak of metal on metal rings out in a claustrophobic echo as the water drip drips to cessation. The loose bathroom doorknob doesn’t budge at first, and there is a terrible sense of panic, as you fumble the rickety brass piece. Steam surrounds you, and you flush crimson. The knob finally gives.

Outside birds chirp, you hear them through the screen over the window. You never did care for them as alarm clocks, too high, too low, not like the appeasing predictable drone drone drone of your alarm. Wake up! It’s time for work, no time to fuck around! Don’t your hear it screaming at you?

Work…

The simple black coffee table is the centerpiece of this centered place, your room growing from it like a vertex, the couch your own point of origin, the length between you and that table the radius of it all with your arm as the compass needle. Stare at the coffee table for a moment, think of ways to cover up the scratches adorning its face, and ponder pasting pictures from a calendar of 365 sexual positions onto it. You will call it the Kama sutra table, and it will give you many ideas.

You arc out at the air, at the dusty old air. Feel the flakes, how they twist and writhe and wriggle. Look behind you at the closet doors. Those thin paper doors, pressboard like your cupboards and table. This place is cheap.

Damn right it is! How else were you going to get your start? Living here has its white bare walls. You should put posters up, and place photos. You remember things in moments, Max and his guitar, what’s his face and his girlfriend, Gerri’s prattle, moving things up stairs, up creaky forgotten neglected impartial stairs.

After you toss on a set of comfortable gray and black speckled jogging pants, and a white undershirt, begin tacking photos to the walls. Move things around, stand there for a minute, and really review the situation. Stand with one arm folded under your breastbone, and the other hand pointing directly at the wall. Pivot your head like a tank turret, and survey the next bare piece of wall. Blast it with your own personal touch of creativity.

Morning hours fade as coffee bean scent trails with lingering reminiscences of cancer stick smoke, or not. There is much to be done and not nearly enough time before Monday to do it. Begin rearranging things, set up your television¾ never watch your television. Set up your toaster, your tabletop grill, and your microwave oven. Stand wine glasses up on their heads, and wash dishes.

Pace back and forth, and stop every few steps order to document where you are in the room. Follow your footpath, retrace it, now you are in the kitchen, now the living space, now your bed(room). The closets are huge, inviting even, but those pressboard coffins hold clothes dead till the work-week comes again. Sit on the couch and wriggle around while you adjust your back. Prop your feet up on the coffee table, masturbate on the couch. Sweat drips from you. Get up and put on the air conditioner, that little tab on the panel behind you. Flick it, and feel the cool air sweep dust particles like smoke clouds in a cartoon film. Smoke drips from you. Take off your clothes and feel naked on that couch. Recline and get comfy. It’s your room.


You have a nice desk. Sit at it for a second, go on the computer and look things up on the Internet. Read the news, check times for movies you’ll never see. Stare into space, illegally download music, or don’t. Turn the TV on¾ never watch it¾ turn the TV off. Vacuum your room.

The top floor, as it turns out, is pretty quiet. It’s a piercing kind of silence, a loud white noise that you hear in the back of your head. Nervously fidget your foot, feel how you shake the coffee table. Run your feet across the plush blue carpet, and dig your toes in. Smoke a cigarette, or don’t. Walk back and forth, back and forth. Exhale long trails from your nostrils, of cold dusty air, of thick cancer smoke. Reach one end of the room, and then count how many steps it takes to get to the other end. Lose count when you notice the couch is off center. Slide the couch slightly left, no slightly right, now back a little, that’s good. Perfect, dead center with that wall, next to the drywall erection out of nowhere, for no damned reason.

Lie down in bed, close your eyes, and try to dream of dreaming. Fidget some more¾ your leg shakes the bed. Your eyes open, and you can’t hold them closed. Stare at the ceiling, and let your eyes fall naturally from one blank space to another on walls you haven’t decorated yet.

Get used to prowling. Crawl on your hands and knees while you run your face over the plush carpet. Ignore the crap clinging to you. Vacuum your room again, and mop the kitchen floor¾ this is the cleanest you’ll ever be. Clean the bathroom.

Rolling stones, like rolling stones rumble through brick white walls. Paint them black, you want to scream. This will be a trend, Rolling Stones for fucking hours. The sun goes down, and the Stones play on, the concert lasts for hours upon endless hours. Slam your hands against the walls, pound like it’s a prison cell, and someone is bound to hear you. Call the police, you scream, I’m locked in my room! The walls close in. Breathe heavy, smoky lungs. Feel them quiver, struggling to inhale through their dusty lining.

Sit upside down on the couch and let the blood rest in your brain. No homework. That feels strange, doesn’t it? Did you really do it? Is this place really ready to be lived? The room shakes with footsteps and Stones. Windows rattle, and the air-conditioning lacks endurance as it struggles, like your lungs¾ or not to blow air everywhere, clean air, moldy air, air that tastes of something. Smoke, no, the smell your car makes when the AC kicks in before the long drives up North you take to see your grandmother.

The sink is still spotless, maybe you should cook, like Emeril, like Clint Eastwood in the sun while Eli Wallach leads him on, like fried eggs on a grimy car motor. Greasy food slides down your maladjusted throat. Absorb the grease on your taste buds. Smell your shirt, that still stale thing clinging to your sweaty body. Turn the TV on¾ do not watch it, in fact, unplug it. TV rots your brains anyhow. Turn the TV off. Hang photos there, above the bed, over on the broad side of it. Hang a few from the ceiling to, plaster them with museum tack¾ now don’t forget that. Remember your little deposit, they rake in your money¾ where does this go? Hmm, put that one near the window in the kitchen. The room has color now, black and white on white on blue on shit-stained brown, couch next to the erectile dysfunction wall. Horny again? Not really, bored, maybe…

Maybe masturbate on the couch? Already this is problematic, yes, this room is too small.

No, it’s small but it’s yours goddamnit. You paid (are paying) for this shit hole- this room, this oh so peaceful room, no sound but Stones warbled through that erectile dysfunction wall.

Sigh.

Smoke a cigarette, or don’t. Lie down on the shit-stained couch, run your fingers through the plush blue carpet, like hairy water it swishes with your touch. The sunshine is fading again, a Zippo flame stifled out by the steel shield. The night barges in unannounced, but nevertheless welcome. Turn on the lights that shine orange to white to¾ neon green. Catch the green with your eyes, stare directly at the light until you notice a flicker so fast you almost never caught it.

Stare at the cottage cheese ceiling, notice the rusted, water-stained outlines of sewage pipes, and imagine what the room would be like minus your roof. Turn on music, anything to stem off the boredom and the fucking Stones blasting through fucking stones. God this place is ugly, dreary even.

You try to sleep.

When trying fails, you take some sleep aid, to feel drowsy. Smoke some pot, increase this sleepy high. Do you have any? You selfish little prick, why didn’t you share with people last night? What is this… who do they think you are? Hey, nobody asked¾ you inhale sweet smoky sanctification¾ tastes of pine, smells of pine that thin green blow like hookah from the lips of a sultan. Lie back, relax, and get comfy. Don’t watch TV.

Instead, look at that notebook you found yesterday. Funnel through its pages. Thumb them like a book waiting to be read. This is your story, the notebook says. Come, it beckons, write in me.

I’m too tired to write, you give it shallow validation. It sneers back at you through speckled eyes flaunting its “your name here” cover. Personalize me, it begs, come on, it’s your new room, first time on your own, write in me. Remember this with me.

Argue with it some more, and set it down on your bed stand (floor).

III

Alarm drone drone drone’s onward and you are off. Down the home stretch it’s coffee in the lead followed by breakfast and shower. Masturbation coming in at dead last, and then suddenly, a surge, frustration hears you cum. Hop out of the shower and get dressed¾ quickly now, there is not much time. Fry eggs, oops… egg, make toast. Pour coffee, spill coffee, clean up coffee, smell coffee, and breathe.

Breakfast smells so good as your eyes drag themselves awake.

Place the egg on the toast, slice into the toast, and watch the egg bleed its plasmic yellow cholesterol all over your plate. You’re so hungry, you’re practically foaming at the mouth. You dig in, and from first to last bite, it is a five-minute masterpiece. Chug coffee as you race for the door.

Don’t forget your keys.

Drive safe, come home…


Work passes, another boring day at the office. Now you are in the sanctity of your room. Stop lying to yourself and get real. This place is great. (Great… mighty, massive, awesome?) Hardly, this place is a dump. Look around at those whitewashed wasted walls standing there.

It’s evening already, and the Stones roll on. Have they stopped since they started? Never mind that now, turn on something you like. Turn on: blues to rock to dance to classical to new age to atmospheric to death metal to any fucking thing that will blot out the brown sugar ever presently flowing through the mouth of your ear.

The night drags, like eyelids, like cigarettes. Everything’s that sickly orange-to-white-to-green-flicking color from those wretched lights mounted to the rust-stained ceiling. You wait. The music stops, and you wait.

Waiting turns to minutes turns to hours, and the notebook calls.

Or not?

Perhaps you were just hearing things, after all, it couldn’t possibly know your name. You have not even put your mark on its speckled face. You want to though. In point of fact, it’s been the only thing you’ve thought about all day from the moment you walked in until the moment you punched out, your every thought consumed like a cigarette burning. That speckled notebook flaunting its blank cover, blatant with its barefaced pages, that fucking¾ no, that sweet¾ no, that open notebook, so very open, in point of fact, like a hooker’s legs. Just humping full of possibility.

Do you descend into its depths? Open it, go ahead and thumb through its pages. Pick it up, that’s right… It’s like the pages never end. They just keep going and going as you flip through them, thumbing them like that animation book you made in middle school, never-ending rendering of images into thought, you can see them now, these pages filled with your thoughts. Yes, you will do it. You will put pen to paper; this room deserves to be remembered. This is the first time out on your own, you should be so proud. You go for a pen¾ thoughts already flowing through synaptic gaps, toying through your forebrain, employing every method, rhyme, and reason on their perpetual pursuit to paper.


Write in the notebook seated on the floor next to the coffee table. Write this in the notebook¾ write every word of it, because it’s the only way for you to remember your own greatness. Write in the notebook; write well into the night, until the moonlight fills in the shadows cast by your furniture with its speckles through leaves. The whole room seems different now, a little more personal. So easy to get lost, centered in a room. The thing about a room is that it holds everything.

Seriously, look at all that cupboard space. The middle drawer is a veritable black hole. Pressboard closet tombs hold clothes hanging like the condemned, the ragged, bleached with sun and buzzard bites. The coffee table really draws it together, don’t you think? It is the perfect spot, the best possible place to trap you.

It’s always easy to get lost in the center of the room when you really think about it. So many places to go, like being pulled everywhere all at once¾ feel carpet against your face, and ignore the crap clinging to you. It’s quite peaceful in its own way wouldn’t you say? Think about it, your own music, that hopeful album you like¾ anything to block out the fucking Stones. You would go to work, but this room sort of grew on you. Things are not so problematic as to be loathsome, but definitely cramped. Someday, bounce off walls, tear out notebook pages, and scream until your vocal chords taste of blood. The notebook will just keep calling.

Yes. This room holds everything.

Harold: Apology

The day was a mild kind of warm, the kind of beautiful people film in movies. The kind that takes expensive digital filters to create. Harold had timed the walk at roughly five minutes, and soon he would be on his way just ten minutes after that. He could be at the courthouse in less than a half an hour if the bus was exactly on schedule, which it rarely was. Harold didn't care whether he was five minutes late or not, though there was an element of wanting everything to be perfect, all he really cared about was showing up.

The bus pulled up in the same kind of awful way it always did, and Harold got on, shuffling carefully up the metal steps. He bent his knees to make sure as not to strain himself, carefully balancing his weight on one foot and then the next. He would've taken his usual spot at the head of things (he liked to look over the bus driver's shoulder while in motion, it put him at ease). Instead, he chose a seat in the middle, not far enough back to be associated with the child sized vandals, but not at the front with the rest of the holligans. If they recognized him, it didn't show. Everyone's head just kept on bobbing while the bus rose and fell over bumps in the road.

He was exactly five minutes late which really only ate into his prep time for the first case. It meant that he'd have to get straight answers from whoever he happened to be defending very quickly.

Trial was as trial always is. The day goes by. Some lose, some win, but for Harold it was a question of how much of himself he was willing to pour into these cases. How thin could he spread himself before enough was enough?

He passed through the metal detectors and nodded at the sheriffs officers. Quittin' time. He walked out into the plaza in front of the courthouse watching all the other men, they were in all actuality mostly men, in suits. It was one thick cologne cloud of promises to wives that they would be home soon over cellphones. Oh, hold on honey got another call coming through. Sideways meetings with sly secretaries. The kind of shit the movies publicize, the ugly truth of it, and what bothered Harold the most was this overwhelming sense of powerlessness against the face of immunity to it all. Harold took a deep breath.

That's when Harold was almost killed. Turns out, one of the guys he had defended wasn't exonerated in the eyes of his fellow man. His fellow man showed up and fired seven rounds into the crowd of cologne, hitting a pigeon, a hot dog vendor (but only in the arm), and the glass windows of the front of the courthouse. Apparently guns are much harder to handle in real life.

The sheriffs from inside stepped out into the courtyard, drew their weapons, fired, and then said, “get down!” It actually made Harold laugh while he watched his attackers fall lifelessly to the ground. Then the police questioned him and he was released.


He'd settled in nicely with the crowd there, a haggard old man, rotund, and pink; drinking his own shortcomings from spigots. After a day like this, what else could you really do?

It was near closing time, and Harold would be forced into moving. The bar was a sad spot, a sorry hole in the wall from back when free enterprise was a novel idea. In the fluorescence of the Corona Extra bar light, “Last Call!” bellowed from the bartenders belly. Harold took his whiskey in one gulp, and tossed the glass on the counter. He was thinking about trial. Always trial. Another day of sitting in the court room cafeteria, five minutes to review his next case. They are always innocent, they've never done anything to anybody.

The parking lot was empty, as were all the streets, and the shops. The sidewalk was caked in black gum stains, and the crimped footprints of people on their day to day routine. Where would Harold go now? No where but the streets, and some semblance of a home. No one would be there to greet him, nothing warm for dinner. Harold shoved his hands in the side pockets of his bright purple jacket and walked, foot in front of foot in to the San Fernando valley darkness.

A sense of solemnity, of peace, if not for the dull throb of boredom, followed Harold into the night. He knew what he shouldn't do, he simply lacked the inhibition to stop himself. Nothing like six whiskeys to talk yourself in to anything really. The weight of the .38 special at his hip, hung like a nagging reminder of his own guilt, like he'd never pack enough punch to really bring life to its knees.

The lights of the corner store spotted him, a tall wide sign professing alcohol and cancer at the lowest possible selling rates. “Cheapest in town.” Harold muttered while he fumbled for the gun, or his wallet. For a long time, Harold just loitered outside of the store glaring at the sign that told him not to, leaning against the wall as though it were a full time job. No one passed by, but that sign just stood there.

When he felt he had gained his composure, he stumbled into the liquor store to meet the tile on the floor. “You mother fucker,” he said to the counter attendant while he struggled to get up, “Gimme some beer.”

The attendant blinked, once for amazement, twice in mild frustration, “You son of a bitch. You lackluster nobody. I aint servin you shit! It's after two anyhow.” The attendant came from behind the counter, a healthy stride, sober as the day he was born, to help Harold to his feet.

Harold locked his knees, and swayed a bit. He focused the three attendants he saw into the one that was actually there, some poor punk nobody. A guy just like him. “I know the law you sorry sack of shit. Don't you tell me about rules. I deal with little bastards like you all day. You ought to be glad people like me are out here, fighting for your rights!”

“For Chrissakes! Go get a job old man. You washed up dog. What's this jacket? Who are you man?” There was a battle. Inside of Harold's mind, the clouds of alcoholism and rage fought for control. They clashed and ripped through him, he reached for his gun, and his eyes struck the attendant's.

“The fuck you know about jobs, boy? Who am I?” It was what he had always needed, a reason. The .38 special felt like it belonged in his palms, no sweatiness, not even a tinge of guilt when he took it from his belt and flung it into the attendants gut. Not even when the boy's eyes widened while he felt the bullet tear through him. Harold, the public defender, watched that boy fall, felt him clutch loosely at his belt and start to drag the right side of his pants down his leg. He shot the boy again, through the jaw.

A warping silence, long and confused.

Harold dropped the gun, and staggered over to the cooler to grab a 24 pack. The sign said, “$5.99 per 24 pack!” He looked down at the attendant. “Can't get any goddamn service around here.”

Harold had spent the early part of his legal career ambulance chasing. He'd seen some shit. For instance: Harold had pulled onto the side of the road near the 405, after he spotted an accident near a gas station. He got out of his car to slip his business card onto the body of a biker who had been wedged under two cars that had crashed together when some asshole made a left turn into oncoming traffic. He was a full fledged disability attorney from then on.

So it did not surprise Harold when the attendant (Gary, as it turns out) brought himself back to standing. “I'd get behind the counter if you'd quit your bitching.” Blood leaked from the hole in his jaw. And like that, Gary and his hole turned in to any other legal dispute. “Just the beer then?” Harold reached into his pockets and fished out some money.

Taking pity on Gary's predicament, Harold asked: “You want one?” It came as an afterthought, Harold figured it only customary. After all, Gary must have one hell of a headache.

The two walked out of the store, standing in the glow of the sign, drinking the lowest priced alcohol in town. Harold tried to see if he could spot stars through the hole in Gary's head. He and Gary split that case, twelve and twelve, and never once did Gary bring up the whole shooting. “Hell,” he'd said, “I'm just glad to be rid of the whole fucking affair.”

“I'll cheers to that.” He raised his beer.

The two drank. Gary lit a cigarette, “Out of habit more than anything else. You want one?”

“That's a tired thing. How old am I? Say 60, still drinking. Sure, I'll drag on this here butt. I've about fucking had it, truth be told. Sure as shit ain't nowhere for me to go.”

Harold couldn't resist poking his finger through Gary's jaw. “I'm studying, going to be an economics genius. I want to help the budget, correct the problems in this country so assholes like you can retire rich, instead of bitter, and useless.” Gary said.

Harold nodded.

“Every day is a god damned mid term, or a project, some new deadline. Something else you've got to reach just a little bit higher for.”

“I bet you think you're a real somebody, going to school there.” Harold thought about law school. About the BAR, about standing in the courthouse downtown where they posted the results four times before he passed, and earned his license to practice. He thought about the pride of his first office, some dump downtown where he'd tried to assemble a living at helping poor souls get through their insurance claims.

Gary, hunched over with smoke drifting from the hole in his jaw, nodded. “Sure as shit will be if I aint already. What are you getting at?”

“If you were somebody, you'd have been him by now. Instead you're just a useless shit stain on your own tile. Hell, I'd vomit on you if I had anything in my stomach to begin with. Been pretty much drinking for about two days now.” After the short stint with disability, Harold had looked for something more stable. A nine to five.

They both took a drag of their cigarettes. The city street was empty, a crossroads inhabited by these two, and the blinking green-yellow-red stop lights. Harold thought about metal detectors, and sheriff's officers at the county courthouse.

Harold began to think about that bullet hole. “Say that I wanted to make up for that.”

Gary took Harold by the collar, and firmly brought him straight. He pulled back and let a hook mash Harold's face. Harold didn't feel much, just the warm blood pouring from his upper lip, and the hard impact of the floor. “Are we even?” Harold laid there, dusting himself off, finally standing up once more, his knees cracking as he did so.

“I suppose that's about what it felt like.” Gary grinned, his jaw dangling out of its socket on the left side, blood dripping down his ear and neck. Harold watched that blood thinking about his first case, the boy who had tried to rob a liquor store, but had gotten shot in the process. The kid showed up to court with gauze over his face, he'd been shot in the eye. The boy's mother had asked Harold whether or not he knew someone that could assemble an emotional distress case to bring in some money to help cover the surgeries.

“Would you have sold me beer?” Three years prior to that and he'd have taken that case too.

“It's after two. I'd have charged you three times the amount. You just didn't ask” Gary flicked the butt of the cigarette and let ash drift away from it.

“I had every right to shoot you. Furthermore I'm glad I hit you in the face, you were too fucking pretty anyhow.” Truth be told he'd been cursed with a conscience, and believed in saving people.

Harold leaned the length of his spine against the wall looking the world, for once, at eye level. Gary asked Harold for the .38 special, and stood there spinning it around his index finger like some cowboy, while he flicked his tongue at his jaw. Harold looked at number six, the foam creeping up the rim, imagined that same foam sliding down his prickly unshaven chin and neck. Down his shirt, where he'd tie the tie he wore in court.

Gary stood up tall and studied Harold.

“It's freezing out here god dammit. We ought to go do something, get the blood moving, you know?” Harold wrapped his arms around his chest while he spoke, puffs of smoke accompanying each word.

Gary flicked his cigarette, “The fuck you know about blood moving. Old man.”


They'd been outside for some time, and Harold was wrapping up his last beer, looking for the other cans on the ground, but there were none. Gary was busy picking them up, one by one, and tossing them into the trash. “You don't recycle?” Harold pointed at the sign on Gary's window, a big emblem for reuse.

“Recycling only profits the recycling industry. Sure it creates jobs, but under a bullshit ideal.” Gary spun the special again making childish gunshot noises with his mouth. Laughing with that flapping jaw, he looked like a self madman.

Harold bummed another smoke off of Gary. “Let me see that gun.” Gary handed the piece back to Harold, who palmed it. He grit his teeth while he opened the chamber, cigarette smoke obscuring the black cylinder. Harold inspected the discharged shells, took a look at Gary's face. Measured the weight of his own work. “Gary, I think shooting you is the most amazing thing I've ever done.”

Gary looked at Harold, and popped his hanging jaw back into place. “Is that so?”

Harold paused, and took a step from the wall, distancing himself from Gary and standing all on his own now. “If I didn't do it, some other asshole would have, and I'd be defending him tomorrow.” It was a vicious cycle.

“These kids. They go to jail, the guards harass them, the other kids fight them, they take classes that teach them remedial skills. They're like dogs. And they just stay there. They keep going back, like it's a drug, like it's the ultimate drug.” He lined his stare up to Gary, “I hear those fuckers telling me every time they see me, 'I'm going to college, I swear. Gonna make something of myself, I promise.' They're just looking for another way out. Another loophole. Probation, relocation, foster homes. The ones the courts don't get, the military picks up. None of that shit is set up to help anyone, just shuffle these kids around, maybe get them away from negative stimulus. The outcome is usually the same though.” He knelt down, and coughed a deep throaty one. “Yea, go to fucking college. Better yourself. Nothing's getting better boy.” Gary never broke Harold's stare. “You fix the budget. I'll keep making sure there's enough kids on the street to buy shit.”


It was approaching sunrise. The streets were starting to emanate a soft purple, the horizon already beginning to seep red and orange through the smoggy horizon. In this light, Harold could see how pale Gary really was. He could also see the spot of light at the back of Gary's throat that came from the sun shining through the hole in his jaw.

Gary laid there. He laid in his own blood, and Harold sat there smoking Gary's cigarettes. Gary's eyes had already gone gray, frozen forever. The store lit up with the first rays of sunshine, the fluorescent lights just making things artificially brighter. Would people start coming in? Harold had thought about that, which is why he left.

He took the money from the register because he figured he had come that far. He left the .38 special with Gary, because honestly, what are you going to do?

Harold walked out into the parking lot and puked foam and bile onto the black bubblegum caked sidewalk. He retched a few times, struggling to breathe while his stomach contracted.

People drove past.

The morning commute was beginning already, starting with exec types barely making it to the airport on time, and Harold was due in to work in a few hours, seven AM.


He got to the courthouse late: his shirt untucked, his tie in a half winsor, his shoes scuffed, his hair furled, and his eyes bloodshot. The bailiffs had already had their orders. They arrested him on sight, citing that security footage showed undeniably that he had shot one Gary Matheson repeatedly.

They showed him the tape.

Gary came out from behind the counter and helped Harold to his feet. Harold shot Gary in the stomach, and then when Gary hit the floor, Harold shot him again in the jaw. Harold then picked Gary up, propped him on the counter against the register, reached into his breast pocket to grab his pack of cigarettes, lit two and set one on Gary's lips. Fast forward through Harold standing in the store drinking and smoking until Harold set Gary's body back on to the ground almost exactly the way he had originally landed, and left the store.


At his arraignment, Harold briefly lamented that he did not have enough money to hire a decent attorney, and that his case had been remanded to a public defender.

Story time #3

Sunset in Utah was hidden by the cliffside walls that curved off into the never ending 80. We sat outside in the laxed breeze, smoking cigarettes on the hood of my car. I kicked the bumper, “this thing eats gas like no other.”

She laughed and smoke wheezed out of her nostrils in short frothy spurts. I was tired. “Why did we take your truck when we could've taken my sedan? We could've had AC, good gas mileage, and a radio. I'll be surprised if the engine doesn't rattle itself to bits before we get through the Rockies. I'm waiting for you to break down, because when you do I'm just gonna start laughing.”

“Cheers to you, Mrs. Robinson," and I took a long drag off my cigarette. “You slay me, I mean it, you're a regular laugh riot.”

“Oh you, honestly.” I heard her lungs quiver and wheeze. She coughed into her hand and as I sucked my filter I suddenly wanted to scream. To get all of the smoke out of me and throw my pack over the two story motel we were staying at, but instead I slid in close and kissed her neck, my lips creating soft suction. “You wet me, dickhead.”

“Not yet, not really.” I slid my hand across her back and down to the waistband of her jeans. I wanted her and I was going to get her. Her head cocked to the side; I found her irresistible. “Mary, beautiful Mary.”

“Shut up,” but she kissed me. I wrapped my thumbs in her belt loops, my hands all over her hips. I pulled her from the hood and started toward our room. She followed me with her stare, her hips completely mine. We backed into a load bearing stud and she forced her lips on mine.

Was it Utah? Was it her?

I was hard and she was bucking her hips into me, and a trucker got out of his cab and whistled at her. She smiled at him and bit her lip. She grabbed my hand and put it on her side, sliding her palms over my own and across her breasts. She rested her behind on the erection clumsily poking out of my jeans, “Look at that, he wants it,” she said.

“I want it,” I said and she turned to face me.

The metal clink of the truckers Zippo slid Mary's eyes from mine and I growled at her. She came back, her nails clawed my cheek. “You want me?” And my hands found her behind, she let her head fall back, exposing her throat to me and I sucked her neck.

There was this feeling of being completely alone, like the trucker had gone and packed everything and everyone from that parking lot into his trailer and carted them off and left just the two of us behind.

In our room I imagined a line starting at her religiously lotioned ankle all the way up her body running alongside her inner thigh, over her stomach, between her breasts, until I found her lips.

Was it my first time?

It's hard to say. I was too busy outside myself to really know. Watching us, one arm around her waist, hands all over backs and chests, nipples, spooning, the cotton hotel sheets, her hair in my mouth while I gasped for breath. I wanted like nothing else to come inside her.

I kept squeezing her breasts, wondering while I felt myself going, whether this was my adventure. This was it, I was free.

“Don't.”

“What?” Back inside me, my heart was pounding, and I felt myself pulse inside her. Her hips froze, her teeth clenched tight, her nails dug firmly into my thighs.

“Don't,” and she threw her head back and hit me in the face, but I didn't care. I wrapped my arms around her, thrust into her while she pulled me from her and my wet length set there throbbing, waiting. My eyes were shut, but I could feel her thighs clamp down over my ears.

In the morning she took the sheet from my body and draped it around herself. She flipped the vanity lights on and I could see her silhouette through the cotton. I wanted to kiss her legs all the way up, but I was frozen in bed watching her.

I listened to the water dribble from her body and land in the small pool that had collected at her feet in loud intermittent claps. “We catching breakfast?”

I barely heard her, “Sure babe, anything you want.” I wanted to watch her shower, to watch the water trickle from her dark brown nipples. I wanted to sit on the toilet and masturbate and cum on the wall and shower and fuck and shower and fuck and shower and fuck.

I poured a bowl of frosted flakes and some 2% milk. I basted a cinamon toast with butter and ate hungrily. I watched Mary spoon at her fruit loops and sip her coffee. We had this view of the mountains with the road spinning off into them. Everything glowed morning white.

“You're beautiful. I'm glad you're here.” I meant it, but when I reached my hand out to touch her face, she slapped me away.

“You just don't know what you're talking about. Wait till tommorow when we've spent thirty two hours in the car together. We'll see how you feel then,” and she kept spooning like she'd been waiting for the bottom to fall out since before we left.

So I started thinking about things like laundry and our suitcases and food and water.

“We need a cooler.”

“Keeping your eyes on the road boy? You intend on having us a picnic?”

“Don't be ridiculous, I wouldn't bother wasting that kind of time on you.” Her eyes flared and she sat back. Her disposition suggested she hadn't entirely expected that.

“Did your balls just drop?” And she threw her had back and laughed long and hearty.

“We should get a cooler, that's all.” I'd already fucked her, it was time to let her know it.

We weren't on the road for too long before coming across this cute little town called Joseph. There was this redhead kid she kept on eyeing, and I couldn't tell whether they knew eachother, but she asked the boy to take our picture. I never did see it, but I remember feeling her ribcage through her loose cotton tank.

“Welcome to Joseph Ma'am.” I felt her smile, but I couldn't pull myself loose of the boy's blue eyes. I wanted the cooler, to drink a coke, refuel, and be gone. The boy looked like America: eyes wide with adolescent destiny that kept scraped knees and cut up palms climbing trees kicking balls and, in this place, vision that saw for miles and miles.

In backwoods nowhere, it's not unheard of to smoke very near gas pumps and so the store owner and I sat looking at the long road leading back to 80. “This is beautiful,” I said to the store owner. He nodded.

“Shut up over there. Everything is beautiful,” she said. The store owner, an old gray man with a potbelly and a sweat stained undershirt, thumped his belly. This seemed to start his wheezy laugh rather than compliment it. I asked him about a cooler and bought myself a six pack of coke. He started laughing.

“You aint gonna buy no beer? What about your pretty lady friend? Hey missy, you want any-”

I cut him off sternly, “Hey, why don't you just let me worry about her buster brown,” and I proceeded to try and pay for my cooler. That was when Mary got involved.

“What's going on here boys? Id've figured we'd be back on the road, since you have no interest in 'wasting time',” she said.

“When the old man heard her, he gave a hoot, like a withered old bullhorn. Hoot! I couldn't shake the feeling that I was transparent. “I'll take the cooler, the cokes, and the gas.”

“Seventy Five Dollars.”

“Un-fucking believable pops,” she blurted this out like the old man would pay it mind, but he just took my money. I watched him count my change, raise his tired cobalts, and wink one saggy puffy eye while he dropped change into my open palm.

“I know you aint gonna, but for what it's worth, feel free to come again. And see that she comes along with you. I like you little lady.” He winked at her too.

“Thank you sir, my my, such a gentleman,” I watched her wink back at him. It was making me sick.

“You'll flirt with anything won't you?”

“Nothing wrong with a little bit of human kindness.” I started to walk out and she broke into a laugh behind me. “You are just about too much.” She shouted this after me, but I just kept on walking. The little boy with the red hair and the blue eyes watched me walk to the car and get inside and start the engine in a hurry. I wasn't even really angry to be honest.

Mary took her sweet time coming out, and when she did it was all hips and legs and breasts and hair. The morning was like her spotlight and whatever I was feeling, any sense of frustration or transparence, disappeared when she was climbing into the car. I wanted to tell her she was beautiful, but honestly what would that have done?