How it be.

I'd be scared, too. What with your mediocrity, and that sly self awareness. Shit's gonna get hectic with these words we spew. When we see what we can make these letters do. Skitter and splash through the elastic understanding of a few? True. You want to eat the leaves off the bottom of the tree, go ahead. There's lots more of them, but the ones at the top are sweet and I'll eat til I've had my fill, til there's no more blood to spill. Cause you fucking stepped in it now, and you smeared it all over the walls. You cry out from a silent blank expanse and hope that someone hears you, but you hide behind the walls of the fortress. I'm not hiding. I'm right here, and I always will be. And I know people are gonna trip and people are gonna fall, but I got the long view. I don't aim to be around for just a few. I'm in this for the whole shebang, when you're hauling ass afraid you've fallen, second class. That's a real fear...a legitimate gripe. Above and beyond who's wrong or right. The truth will out, and it's wearing thin. I didn't bring us here, but that's the state we're in.

So, take your shoes off. Make yourself comfortable. Everyone fetches their own drinks here. But you'll fit in and if you don't you'll fake it and God sure ain't done making rubes. So, you'll be cool. Grab your cube and hold on tight, it's gonna be a vicious fight. You'll lose. We'll all lose. But you'll lose more. And I'm gonna be the one laughing with one foot in hell, saying bitch leave the cleavers, we have new wares to sell.

The Jersey

The jersey was thin with wash and wear, threadbare in spots...worn. It had been his, but even that could not turn her against it. It was her battle armor. He hated when she wore it.

He was a secret misogynist. He believed himself to be de facto King by sex and birthright. He had small black eyes that darted to the corners, chilling with a kind of bloodstained brilliance when they held.

She let him fuck her, but she hated it. He was hirsute and smelled like a piece of rotting fruit. She could not help but imagine chimpanzees rattling cages, sending pulses of hatred out from behind the iron bars that held them. Throwing their shit around.

She kept a bottle of vodka hidden in the basement. He did not know about it.

He died easily. She had been a good nurse. The needle didn't even wake him up. And the inquiry was short. Terrible the habits that some people can't shake. The things people have to live with. Everyone was so sorry for her. She ate their lasagnas and shook her head.

*****

The jersey is orange with blue lettering.

Feel it, soft like ash against your skin.

7-11

Kyle was friends with the raver dipshit. Actually, he was a pretty nice guy, but he hung out with some real annoying K-hole A-holes. He sold K and acid and he'd give us the thin strips off the acid sheets he cut. Can't sell em, but they still work. We'd get him into shows and put him on our guest lists and shit. We were probably a nice break from the sacks of stupidity he was forced to deal with. We like to talk about books and music and...well, we like to talk.

So, we're at dude's house and all the rave-kids are looking at us funny. We pretty much associate with them because they have the best drugs. Sad, but true. In my rock and roll angst, they stand for pretty much everything I am against. I want to play my guitar loud and talk about important shit. They want to wear plush animal backpacks and use pacifiers. But they get good drugs.

So, Kyle, Jim, Mario and I are chewing strips like there is no tomorrow because, quite frankly, that is a very real possibility on any given day and the shit is FREE. Kyle disappears and we're trying to calculate how many strips equals one hit and we're overly conservative in our estimations which makes the calculations really fucking hard because we're tripping face. We figure Mario and Kyle and I are at about 7 or 8. Jim was hesitant then. Before coke and heroin and speed blew any hesitation he had out of the water.

We're talking about some shit and feeling out of place. We're in the backyard smoking, but the ravers are all inside watching The Shining now. Like that's what I want to see on acid. Weird kids. The ketamine kids are the weirdest. I want to be aware I am fucked up. They want to fall backwards into a velvet nothingness where the world can be safely viewed through a tiny hole of distortion. Whatever.

Finally, Kyle shows back up and we're fucked and we just want to leave. Kyle looks weird, and he is always pulling shady shit, so I take him aside. He just did some GHB. That's all. Smiles at me. Goofy. Fuck. GHB has been killing kids all over the county. See, it works by blocking your body's drug defenses so your 'natural' drugs can fuck you up. But if you take it with speed or a downer...well, you can't fight back and the heart doesn't like that. None of us have ever done it before. We've pretty much crossed everything else off the list, though.

But man. We're fucked up. Everything is bright and cartoony and I can't keep a thought in my head for more than three seconds. I keep lighting cigarettes.

"Alright, fuck, Kyle...we need to get some food in you. When's the last time you ate?"

We were a scrawny lot that lived on chemicals and alcohol, so it had probably been a few days.

Jim, of course, is freaking out. True colors.

"Man, fuck you guys. I'm leaving. Fuck this."

His pupils are like fucking planets and I momentarily consider breaking his face...he's pulled this shit before. Too often. Selfish fucker.

"Bullshit dude...you have the car...you are taking us to get food so Kyle doesn't fucking die, asshole!"

Kyle stops smiling.

"I'm not gonna die..."

"No, you're not gonna die, but you need to eat."

The car ride is a fucking nightmare.


I would have done just about anything rather than walk into that 7-11, but it had to be done. God, it was menacing. Everyone knew. I could feel all the eyes on us. And inside, I knew it would be a dayglo nightmare. But, fuck it. We pound in through the double doors.

We head over to the pre-made shit we can afford. I've known one  person who can even look at food on acid. It's not Kyle. I grab this big slab of week old turkey sandwich.

"I'm not eating that, dude."

"Fuck, Kyle, just eat some of it. Why did you take the GHB anyway?"

Dumb question. Kyle takes whatever is handed to him. Mario is quietly concerned. Jim is stalking around pissed off that he's inconvenienced. No one's surprised. So, it's me and Kyle. He's this charismatic dark-skinned kid and strong looking. He's never scared. That's part of his thing. But I can tell he's a little close to the edge.

"Dude, I'm not going to die."

"No. No way. Think about it, man. GHB kills you if it amplifies the effects of something else on your heart. Acid doesn't do shit to your heart. You might trip extra hard, but you're not dying."

"Cool, then put the fucking sandwich back."

I realize I'm holding the sandwich like it's a dead raccoon covered in shit.

"Kyle, please man. I know you don't want to do it and I don't think you're gonna die, but you haven't eaten in a while. It can't hurt, right?"

I really, really want Kyle to eat the sandwich.

"I'm not gonna die."

He's convincing himself. Trying to.

"I 100% agree with you. You will not die, dude. People don't die from acid and GHB. They just don't."

We look at each other and try to pretend we both believe what we're saying while the snack cakes throb and the walls breathe and the lights are so fucking bright. It's at this point that I pzaaaaaaaap snap back out of our world and back into the real one. Just for a second. Just long enough to realize that there are seven other people in the store, we're talking really loud and really fast, and Jim is stalking around with a cigarette like a crazed tweaker hornet. And it's a small store. Kyle sees me looking and then he sees it, too. You can tell he's calculating how many illegal things he has on him just like I am.

"Shit."

So, it's your standard 7-11 crowd, they're all the same. Paramedics and construction workers and I'm hoping to god no cops and that the guy behind the counter doesn't aspire to hero-dom. They are all literally backed against the walls, staring at us in complete horror. I look in the circular mirror thing and I see us. Punk rock and dirty. Two scrawny white kids, a quiet, soft eyed mexican kid, and this scared looking Samoan kid who looks like he could fucking do anything at any moment. And he could. For some reason I'm always the fucking PR guy. And what I say next makes perfect sense to me in the moment, while the cigarette packs are turning into doves.

"Alright folks. Sorry about that. We're gonna leave. Everything is cool. We were just fucking around. My friend's not gonna die. Sorry. Have a good day."

And we do leave. With a quickness.

I drop the sandwich on the counter and we leave. Jim bails. Mario and I stick with Kyle and give him cigarettes, and we spend the next six hours talking about how he's not going to die. He doesn't die. So we eat some of the strips he pocketed and run into Jim later. He's pissed we didn't share. The stars are tiny daggers of flame.

Sensitive Skin

He played with insects, small things. He collected miniatures and knick-knacks and raided his sister's doll house to hold the tiny chairs...to turn them in his hands...to close his fingers around them until their sharp edges were traced into his soft flesh. His hands were too soft. This was one of the things he hated about himself. Skin too pale. Skin too soft. The doctor said he had sensitive skin and wrote a note that turned into a special soap that morphed into the kind of ruthless self-loathing that makes sense only in hindsight.

He never wanted to hurt anyone. He got confused. Things got jumbled up. She was the catalyst. She made him look at himself differently. She imposed some kind of worthiness that jumbled the wires up...confused the circuitry.

He was content to absorb the sun and light and let it bounce off his pale, soft skin. He expected so little from himself. He was content to not make a mark in the world. He was happy, invisible, pale and blind like those worms at the Natural History Museum.

She built him up and it was against everything he fucking believed. She was so goddamn cheerful. The first time he hit her it felt so fucking good. It hurt his soft hands, and it left her standing with an 'O' for a mouth, confused. She looked so fucking stupid. The dumb bitch. He spit on her and laughed. She cried and he slapped her so hard it spun the world around.

Then, he cried. She cried. She wrestled the knife out of his hand. It was going to open him up and allow the evil to pour out. It was supposed to be his fucking baptism and she stole it. His salvation. He was so sorry. She hid all the knives and matches and she watched him. He was grateful. He found a screwdriver at the bottom of a kitchen drawer and hid it on top of the heater where she would never see it.

She was going to save him, see? He started hitting her more often and she started thinking that maybe she had been put there to save him from himself. She went to work with bruises that were hard to explain. She withdrew. She had found her calling and that was all that mattered.

Sex confused him. He liked to hurt her while he fucked her. She didn't ever tell him to stop. Face shoved up against the wall, tears and blood. They both shook with the power of it. It was fucking undeniable.

She wanted to take him to meet her parents. She kept asking until he couldn't stand it. He punched her in the solar plexus and she dropped to her knees. She grabbed for him, and he smacked her down again. She was standing up when he returned from the hallway. The sun was creeping through the shades they always kept closed.

"I love you."

"I know you do...I know you didn't..."

The screwdriver went in so easily. Soft skin. Her eyes went wide as he pulled against the suction that held it to her neck. He turned his grip on the handle. He laughed at the blood. He stabbed until he could no longer hold the plastic grip. Until he was heaving, laying on the ground beside her. Blood everywhere.

The police car pulled up slowly and two men with guns got out. They saw him, scraping his hands on the sidewalk. He was covered in blood and his palms were shredded. He did not see them. He did not answer their questions. They stood and watched him and slowly, ruefully, he raised his eyes. He smiled at them. He raised his palms. Not a surrender...just so they could see...what he had done. They asked again, but he was not listening anymore. He spoke from somewhere far away.

"She's inside. I killed her."

"Why?"

It was a rookie question and his partner scowled at him over the chirping radio.

"Because I loved her."

The cuffs were like ice water. His vision came in and out. He felt like he couldn't breathe. They handled him roughly. Nothing sensitive about it. He smiled and thought about the scars that would finally bind his hands.

Courting Nancy Drew...

Your novels were adequate. You were soft when you should have been hard and wooden when you should have been real. I don't aim to be a 'Hardy Boys were better...' banner toter. I'll take Chip Hilton, loyal, honorable, and respectful to the end. Tom Swift.

When you can't do something, you got to keep flogging that slow horse. The slow horse will ride...for a few races...then to the glue factories. And the world will remained unchanged, chaste with white gloves to protect you from reality. Check it out...it's an interesting place we visit sometimes.

A dimebag is a dimebag is a dimebag and you keep buying them because you're poor. Inside. I know the score.

The Wait

He sat on the edge of the cigarette-pocked sofa, small pale fingers wrapped around the heavy, black weight of the gun. The gun he wasn't to touch until his father said it was OK. Until he was ten. No one knew that he could open the safe and had held the gun a thousand times.

From the back of the house, he could hear his mother on the phone. She was talking too loud. Too fast. Then too slow.

The house was nothing. It was vacant and generic. No pictures on the wall. Smell of old smoke and sadness.

His skin was peppered with gooseflesh and his mind was racing. A track race. Around and around the same circle. Hammering on one thought. His father would be home from work soon. He would come in and drop his tools and he would yell for his dinner and a drink. And then it would happen. He would never hit his mother again.

2 minutes. Go.

The heat waves penetrate my brain and I can't maintain. Tried to write, but I can't write shit. Like a egotistical half-wit. Look at all them fancy people walking around like they don't know I know their underwear is soaking wet and shoved up their ass cracks. I know. And I will sit in front of the air-conditioner and wish the fucking thing worked. And the world will slowly turn as it is wont to do while I try to figure out something productive to occupy my time. Something that does not involve moving. Sorry gunslingers, too hot to touch metal today.