PARAPHILIA X

CONTENTS

Cover art by Sean Madden Edited and Designed By Artwork by F.X. Tobin P3 ‘Interesting Times: Freedom’ by Andrew Maben P4 Díre McCain ‘Spook House’ by Kate MacDonald p9 ‘Prompted By Matthews’ by Chris Madoch p14 D M Mitchell ‘…barely missing on a frozen plain to nowhere’ by A. Razor p29 ‘Last Tango In The City Of Dreadful Night’ images © Contact Paraphilia Thomas Evans p44 ‘Playing Tag With The Devil’ an interview with Robert Earl Reed p50 [email protected] ‘It’s Hard To Argue With Experience’ by Kenneth Rains Shiffrin p61 Website ‘Blood And Honey On The Horizon, Said The Horse’ by Craig Woods p62 ‘A Sympathetic Figure’ by James King, photos © Max www.paraphiliamagazine.com Reeves p79 ‘The Circus’ by Ele-Beth Little, photos © Lisa www.myspace.com/paraphiliamagazine Wormsley p83 ‘The Sunnybrook Retreat’ by Karl Koweski, photos © Max Reeves p87 www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=498 ‘Mizriz O’Payne’s Very Perfect Pekipoo’ by Rick 35950764 Grimes p108 ‘Power And Sacrifice’ Michael Gira interviewed by Craig Woods p110 Submissions ‘The Nature Of Electricity’ by Kyle Hemmings, photos © Richard A Meade p143 ‘Rome’ by Adam Moorad p148 This a free magazine distributed in the ‘Your Newest Superheroes’ Ruby Friedman interests of giving culture back to the Orchestra interviewed by Kirsten Milliken, photos © Alex Elena & Kirsten Milliken p154 people instead of the industry. We cannot ‘Journal Art Theft’ by Stagger Lloyd, photos © pay for contributions to this publication. Malcolm Alcala p161 However, please see our website for ‘Death Wish Chameleon X’ by Cricket Corleone, photos © Richard A. Meade p170 details of our other publishing ventures. ‘Descansos’ by John Paul Jaramillo, photos © Sid Graves p187 Any opinions or beliefs – religious, ‘The Lovers’ artwork by Dolorosa p194 political or moral – expressed anywhere ‘Fiend’ by Michelle Lee Escobedo with Chris Madoch p195 in this publication are not necessarily ‘The Amok Blind Men Of Muharrin’ by Hank Kirton, those of the editors. We take no images © Sean Madden p198 responsibility for anything we have ‘Clown Uncle’ by Sue Fox, photos © Richard A. Meade p201 published in the interest of the freedom of ‘Grasshopper’ by Claudia Bellocq, photos © speech and expression. Guttersaint & Lydia Lunch p206 ‘The Eyes of Victoria Craven’ by Max Dunbar p210 ‘Beautiful People, Ugly Souls’ by dixē flatlin3, photos R.I.P. Peter Christopherson © Sid Graves p223 27 February 1955 – 24 November 2010 ‘Scream’ by Mary Leary p234 ‘Weary Of The Sun’ by David Gionfriddo p236 Artwork by Michael Cano & Patsy Faragher p249 LINKS p250 PARAPHILIA ISSUE TEN 12/01/2010

INTERESTING TIMES: FREEDOM

By Andrew Maben

My first destination was a celebratory farewell to my Royal Air Force fantasy – I had signed up for a glider training course to be held at an RAF base in Essex. The freedom of flight opposed the constraint of my cadet uniform, which I would wear for the week and then never again. It seemed a fitting symbol of my new beginning…

At our orientation lecture the instructor informed us that gliding is safer than being at home. He then went on to say that a student had died the No reprieved prisoner could have previous week, hardly confidence felt greater joy and relief than I as inspiring, but went on to say that I walked out of the front door for the boy suffered from epilepsy the last time and made my way to and hadn’t bothered to tell the station. I took off my tie, that anyone. throttling symbol of all the repression of the last twelve The planes were WWII vintage years, and stuffed it into a pocket. two-seater trainers, heavy and On the train I sat alone and silent, unwieldy, and it was my luck to my heart bursting with freedom be assigned a somewhat and the possibilities that finally overweight instructor. The first were open to me. The whole flight was nonetheless world would be my playground exhilarating. A tow cable was now. It would be a summer of attached at the nose and a high- stretching my wings, exploration speed winch pulled us down the and modest adventure, at last I grass strip. As we gained speed could begin to live. the craft reluctantly left the ground and seconds later my twice the elevation I was instructor pulled back on the supposed to be at. Oops! I pulled stick and we began to climb. My the release. The plane seemed to fear of heights had me gritting jump for joy, as did my heart. An my teeth and clenching my fists utterly sublime feeling of as the ground fell away below us freedom swept over me. The at an alarming speed. And then plane seemed as light as a feather there was a loud click as he under my hand. It was a glorious released the tow, a jerk, and a sunny day, a few small puffy peaceful quiet, the only sound the white clouds cast their dappled gentle soughing of air in the shadows on the earth that lay wires. With the release of that outstretched beneath me. Those attachment to the ground, my moments were perhaps as close fear dissolved, replaced with a to unalloyed joy as I had ever gentle exultation. come to in my life. I flew on, long past the boundary of the airfield After the requisite number of before finally banking to make training flights, I was deemed the turn back. I still had a lot of ready for the first of two solos height to lose before I could make that would earn me my my landing and so I went into a certification. fairly steep dive. The airspeed rose and I pulled up, exulting in “Don’t go too high, and don’t go the power and freedom… too far,” my instructor told me. “Good luck!” I must have been drunk on the euphoria, because I find my I gave my thumbs-up, the ground memories of that summer are crew signaled the winch, and I even more fragmentary than was on my way. The plane usual. I have clear pictures of became airborne it seemed almost some events, hazy recollections of instantly, and when I pulled back others, and frankly almost no the stick bounded upwards like a memory whatever of my state of rocket. In no time I’d reached the mind beyond that initial rush of prescribed height, but had excitement and anticipation, so scarcely covered half the usual all I can offer are a couple of distance. Just a bit higher, I told vignettes surrounded by a rosy myself. And somehow, before I’d haze. even traveled as far as the usual point at which we were used to The last weekend of July brought releasing, I had reached almost the Windsor Jazz and Blues Festival. I must have met some into the stage, into the cymbals. people during the course of two Townsend monomaniacally days, surely? I’ve no idea… I took smashing his guitar repeatedly my little tent and sleeping bag on the stage floor. Moon kicking and found a spot in the pieces of drum kit off his campground, where I surely had platform. At last there was not a neighbors. single piece of equipment on the stage that was not almost utterly The line-up was extraordinary, destroyed. The band walked off, with many bands I had long leaving only a high pitched wanted to see live: the Yardbirds; squeal from a single amplifier. Cream, in what was billed as And a crowd whose earlier their first major show; Geno cacophonic approbation had by Washington; the Move; Spencer now subsided into stunned Davis; the Small Faces; the silence… Who… I know I went to Rock to see that Honestly the only thing I recall summer refuge one last time, and with any clarity is the end of the I must have slept on the beach as Who’s set. They launched into I certainly had nowhere else, but My Generation, after a brief again memory is overwhelmed. I introduction by Roger Daltrey in do recall a party in the dunes which he claimed that after where I earned my beer by tonight there would be no more opening bottles with my teeth… orgies of destruction. They blasted through the song. Daltrey I did all my traveling by hitch- moved to the footlights and hiking, and on my way from glanced down. He casually Rock to visit Uncle Reg in kicked out one of the lights. Weymouth I had a rather Cheers from the crowd. He made remarkable encounter. Dropped his way systematically along the at a lonely hilltop crossroads row of lights, carefully somewhere in Dorset in the early extinguishing each one. evening my prospects were not Townsend drove the neck of his looking good. There was almost guitar through the front of a no traffic, and none of the drivers speaker cabinet. Banshee showed the least inclination to feedback. Howls of approval stop. Time passed. I waited. I from the crowd. Moon’s enjoyed the balmy summer drumming became an assault. evening. I waited. A big black Daltrey smashing his microphone antique Rolls Royce appeared, drew closer. I eagerly extended “Where are you going?” my arm, thumb extended, hopeful. The car slowed a little “Weymouth.” and my heart leapt in anticipation. For nothing, the “Great! We can take you all the Rolls rolled past. In the rear way. How’s it been going.” window, two girls turned around to wave. Yeah, I thought, ha “Well, I left Cornwall this fucking ha… I stepped into the morning, so pretty well.” road and gave them the V sign. The car suddenly braked and “Oh, I used to hitch everywhere stopped, began to reverse with my boyfriend, but I just towards me. Once again my heart can’t anymore. I miss those leapt, but this time in fear, as I days…” Another dazzling smile. took stock of my isolation. I pictured the driver beating me up I turned back to the front. Gosh, and leaving me to spend the she’s so beautiful, and friendly. I night in the ditch. The car decided that when we got to stopped a few feet away, the Weymouth, I’d ask her out for a driver jumped out and I steeled drink. myself for a drubbing. But he picked up my bag and, grinning, Meanwhile the girls were having told me to hop in. After he put a somewhat odd conversation. my bag in the boot, we both got in. “What a day.”

“Hello”, a beautiful girl, “Yes, I wish they didn’t have to somehow looking familiar, and do it.” her tone suggests I should know her. I’m drawing a complete “I know.” blank, and I’m too embarrassed, as usual, to admit my failure to “It seems so cruel, running all recognize her. And why is she so those sheep over the edge like caked in makeup, in contrast to that.” her simple peasant dress? I could make no sense of it “Hello”, I answered, with an whatever… attempt at a confident smile that I may have imagined would signal And so we arrived in Weymouth. my recognition. “We’ll just drop you off in front considered for the Olympics. of the hotel. We’ll be there in a Essentially the sail dispensed moment.” with the bottom of a conventional Bermuda sail, tapering to the I nerved myself to ask her out. mast both up and downwards But then we were there, in front from a point a little below half- of the Grand Hotel. There was a height. His claim was that the crowd on the pavement outside, part he had cut away contributed spilling into the street, mostly drag and so the new sail holidaymakers and would be far more efficient. He photographers. I turned to the proudly showed me his article in back to ask her. And that’s when a yachting magazine that the penny dropped and I lost my explained his invention. The nerve. Finally I recognized Julie main drawback was that the Christie. boom had to be at the broadest part of the sail, meaning it had to Abashed, embarrassed, chastened comprise two curving parts, one I retrieved my bag from the boot, on each side, and the mechanism offered my thanks and slid away for running the rigging was a into the crowd. It was a long walk little cumbersome. Nevertheless to Reg’s, and I berated myself. the little craft was extraordinarily How could I have not recognized fast and manoeuverable. Alas, his one of my icons of beauty? Why Olympic hopes were never could I not have had the courage realized. A few years later to ask her out anyway? She was though, the sail showed up in a so natural and friendly, and from new configuration: as the rigging the sounds of it she may have of windsurfers… welcomed the chance to get away for a while… Much later I And so finally back to Eastbourne realized that she must have been and the eagerly anticipated start on location for Far From The of my first Art School term. But Madding Crowd, and the also to face living at home. At remarks about sheep at last made home with the parents who had sense. abandoned me to the prisons of boarding school for so many Reg had invented a revolutionary years. Now they wanted to keep new sail, and had build a small me under their watchful eyes, boat to try it out. He had some just when I was beginning to hopes that the new rig might be taste the possibility of freedom.

SPOOK HOUSE By Kate MacDonald

It is then that the great house starts to move, rattling forward, a body stricken with delirium tremens, pockets of dust shaken loose as our anchors are raised and we experience the thrill of momentum building, slow a while and then picking up a little speed, picking itself up, floating like a spirit above the road. The old haunted house with its leprechaun of a host, his costume folded around him, leaves of a head of lettuce turning brown.

“Welcome aboard one and all,” he cries. “Take care to stay well back From the edge and keep a lookout For as it flies The house plays games with weary eyes.”

We’ve not been here in years, have we? Have we been here then at all? Us together, as we are now? I would swear we have, watching the same astounded faces on other people asking how the house knows where to go. It does seem I have heard those voices, their uneasy murmur betraying that underlying fear that this is no trick at all, that the place is really bewitched. No festival ride could be so real, could fool all senses to believing that it hovered, that it shuddered along a path that held no real design, nothing could feel like that and not be singed with evil. And so they whisper furtively, their fear ripening above the rows of sagging seats that have seen too many like them.

I know I have been here, because I know how everything will unfold. I know that the woman in the brown jacket will fold herself inside her husband’s arm for the first time in many months and that he will hold her with the perplexed face of one who has not felt compelled to act this role in many months. The ride affects each one differently, but I can guess them all. In the absence of memory, this knowing is a sort of psychic’s trick. I should be back in the tent with Madame Zolta, telling the crowds the small gestures that will form the foundation of their future.

“You have no plans to marry You say And indeed it is a bachelor You will stay And die a young man”

That boy asked his girlfriend to marry him on the way out of the tent, I believe; she turned him down and left him to the wild of life and he died three weeks hence, besotted, falling under the wheels of a train. It matters not to Madame Zolta, who tells a bald businessman in a trenchcoat that his son is not his own and laughs when he thinks she speaks in metaphor. I like to think she got her powers riding on the roof of the haunted house as I do, remarking how things are ever the same and learning that all shall pass here again, without remembering. I like to think that we are alike, her and I. She probably knows and finds it funny, that I would envy her her little power and her place among the scamps and oddities whose peripatetic lives we cross through, looking for entertainment.

Now and again it shakes, this ancient house, as it sails forward into the darkening sky, carbon over steel, limp fingers of gelled rain slapping at our faces, loosening the dirt on our untended vessel; and with each shudder growing in intensity, the voice of the house rising to a miner’s cough, we sense the real magic is about to start.

“For God’s sake hush!” Our ugly guide insists. “You’ll babble without pause and miss the main event.” The main event is subtle, lost on no one here, begins with the unfurling of the sails that catch the wind that bear us up further into the twilight, so that the ground below begins to come into focus, visible underneath our eyes, the circus and its tribes arranged for us to see. There is the strong man, who whispered words I never heard but that I knew to be a threat; His thin voice, a eunuch’s voice, is with me in my ears and in my stomach, the part that freezes every time I think of him. Nearby the bearded lady eats messily and cries that no man, not even the dwarves who hustle customers from one attraction to the next, will look at her with glossy-eyed lust, the way they do each night at the dough-headed acrobats. Madame Zolta’s tent has a tail, a curled queue of people waiting to speak to her, people who must know what they are hurtling towards, without knowing it is already done. At the fringe of the grounds, ostracised by even his peers, the man who swallows pain crucified for the aghast few, he smells of lead and chrysanthemums and speaks in croaks and clucks unintelligible to all, save the lion tamer, who placates him with the occasional glass of whiskey.

“Less mwa moorie Juh tonn pree Juh vuh la moorie A-layt, a-layt, a-layt”

The phantom who brought us here is among the guests by now, stirring unrest talking blackly about our motives and our neighbours, he makes the plump woman in the windbreaker sob and ask why, just why, without any further clarification. Her befuddled husband shrugs and laughs; her children turn their backs to her in abject horror. She is heavy on them, her graceless blubbering lashes them in and holds them as the world peels back its skin for them to see from the shore of safety. They do not sense the phantom yet. Against children he is useless, being rumour. They’ll be back, of course unable to resist the house and its mysteries and unable to think them away. I know that I came back drawn by that anti-figure, always trying to pin his drifting shadow to my shores. I know that I came back but know not how, or why I keep finding myself here.

And then he unleashes the power of the house, the fragments of those still trapped inside, still clinging to the walls and wondering why they find neither sleep nor adventure, hung on the moldering furniture, shaken loose like so much plaster dust. We feel them move among us, both groups picking goose flesh from each other's skin. Who are they and why do they stay here? Who are they and why do they come here? And neither of us moves on. The apparition raises his hands and the others scramble, tiny monkey spirits and form a spinning wheel. In turn, each leaves the round and jumps through the centre, then rejoins his brethren as if nothing has happened. The clever tricks continue, the breathtaking leaps, strange passages, the wordless commands, always so clearly understood. And we clap, we clap until our ears ache with it, we clap again and we ask more.

I still want to hold him down, force out his secrets, get him to tell me how he makes them dance and why it is that others cannot. I want to wrap myself in that misty embrace and hear that I can learn that they will follow me and he will teach me all that is hidden in him. I have been here before and yet I still hope that off all the arranged bodies, some soft and aging, some like summer fruit: perfect, firm and ripe, I still dream that it will be me he chooses to lift into that afterlife, that he will see the shards of himself in me and take interest or pity, it is all the same in the end. But tonight he chooses no one, for he never does; only ushers the little ghosts back to their lair and nods good night to us all, his way of giving perfunctory thanks.

And wordlessly we drift back, hardly speaking or hearing until the metal sound and weight of the anchor is on us, dragging us back to ground as if nothing had happened, as if it were as ordinary as cotton, the fabric that links the elements of this house. And wordlessly we descend the creaking back staircase, always in want of repair, never growing worse or better, room for one by one by one to pass, no more.

“Good night, ladies Good night, gentlemen We’ll see you back here in Hell or in Heaven Good night.”

The host salutes by taking off his cap, by slapping the ticket-taker and the anchor-man until they do the same, until they bow their hulking granite heads toward us, not in deference but in fear. And thus do I pass, full of this place again, I have been here before, I don’t know when. My eyes are closed for that last step and I imagine him approaching, coming down on me like a raptor, ending what I know.

When my eyes open, I realise I have forgotten. I always think you will be with me.

PROMPTED BY MATHEWS

By Chris Madoch

James Mann smiles his I’m ok James is successful. Jim has a smile. right-on life. He has a job, a He’s quite cute for a man’s house, a car. He has a warm man and is cutest by far when he overcoat and an automatic, hands smiles ambivalently. free, mirror chrome electric kettle. When James Mann smiles his James has a means of shutting large eyes twinkle. He is mouse the dark night out, a facility for haired, blue eyed, of average putting the cloying reach of the height and overweight. outside firmly behind him. It doesn’t matter a jot that he's Jim is so clever. He is so adept fat. at survival in this age of capitalist Big can be alluring. Large, with acme that the kitchen table is the distinctive elegance of the laden with overflowing carrier large, he is attractive in the way bags. Rewards. that all aliens are. Strangely Spilling their entrails these guts imposing. applaud him. He definitely has something That was good, that last about him. Nothing quite focuses, hunting trip, stimulating. there is no certainty to put one's finger on, nothing definite. The He’d parked the car hurriedly, ‘g’ word having been posted on stealthily he thought, his mind on him endlessly has somehow the thrill of the chase. About to never stuck. exit the car, his head filled with the unravelling routine of coin, James is finished with the trolley and revolving door, he'd outside for the night. heard an The outside can do what it ‘Oi!’ wants, be what the hell it wants shouted, followed by an to be, he's out of it. ‘Oi! You!’ The car is garaged. shouted even louder. James Mann’s overcoat is off. He’d looked up then, furtive at The German electric kettle is first, and then with increasing on. fear, like an unarmed native parting tall grasses and being criminal records other than ones surprised by a Panther. for petty thieving and parking Advancing towards him at that violations and pissing in public time, shouting, snarling, waving places. Everybody knows that black polished boots and a smart true Security Guards are proper clip board was a neo Security psychotic cunts. Guard wearing a black uniform and a black peaked cap that This particular fucking pants inanely announced his Panther with designs on ripping provenance with both the name into James Mann’s face was of the supermarket and its logo. someone he’d vaguely You know precisely the type. remembered from his teaching I say neo because nobody in days. Or somewhere else. Or their right minds believes that both. these are true Security Guards. This was not a proper kippered These fucking neos are not what cunt. it says on the fucking packet, they This was a young man whose are Mickey Mousers. baby features used to shine on Everybody knows that true Friday afternoons in a remove Security Guards, have been class double-plus designed as a anally raped, carry real guns and dustbin for bored fifteen year old emotional scars from extremely illiterates, wasted kids too thick violent mercenary service in West to see the sense in bunking off. Africa. These were giggling kids still You know the sort of service, excited by the underwear pages service where Landrovers are of Home Shopping Catalogues, decorated with victims’ limbs, wankers not yet graduated to real where heads are decapitated and fucking or crime or shooting up. stuck on poles at village Mathews always was a clean boundaries, service where white boy. mercenaries appear on camera Meticulous Mathews. blacked out, their voices You could always rely on sounding like they are on triple x Mathews to have a clean Prozac. handkerchief [spunk-rag] in his They are, all of them, sick as trousers’ pocket. Mathews was dicks-on-sticks fuckers! the kind of boy that really did Everybody knows that true wash his hands after using the Security Guards have real urinal. ‘Sir.’ Mathews had said to his ‘No.’ He’d said, enjoying the ex-teacher, the dim light of authoritative brevity of his reply. recognition barely registering, There was one of those ‘Sir.’ He’d repeated. He was silences. pointing to the yellow lettering Anything could have that filled the adjoining parking happened. bay. It was then he remembered the ‘Disabled Parking only!’ awkward occasion he had Mathews had spouted, his voice a stumbled upon him, left school mite too high on account of his and on dangerous ground, and excitement. He’d cleared his had exacted a little more than lip throat. Checked his fly. ‘Are you service. disabled now?’ Now this was a glorious Mathews could have been an question because Jim very often evolving serial killer, at the very felt disabled. He would regularly least a severely disturbed person. look at his monthly bank This minor contretemps with statements and feel uncommonly an ex teacher might well have fucking disabled. He would try been the secret subconscious weaving his way up the high trigger to have unleashed a knife street through a minefield of attack of startling ferocity. pushchairs and shopping trolleys James could have been and lovers arm in arm or down eviscerated, spread all over the each other's throats and he would car park and the following days’ feel overwhelmingly enfeebled. tabloids. And there had been vast tracts of It was not to be. his life to date through which he James saw that it was not to be had not walked or run but very and James Mann saw that the definitely limped quite definitely game was up. He wanted to impaired. But, at that moment, scream fuck off at the little upstart faced with Mathews in a fancy but he opted to be charismatically dress uniform and heavens pleasant. knows how many old ‘Don’t I know you?’ he'd schooldays’ axes waiting to asked, locking the car and grind, he knew he'd appeared turning on his accuser, ‘Yes. I rather too well, rosy almost, know now. You’re Mathews. indeed a touch over perky. Well. Well. Haven't we done well. A uniform. Delicious. You always biologically prepared for extreme said you wanted one of those.’ penetration? Mathews had at once backed off, confusion finally giving way The police never knew though, to recognition. The two men then did they? They never knew what walked towards a tangle of had gone on in the April of his silvery trolleys lost in mutual fifteenth year. Few people knew reminiscence, a long jump injury the truth of that. on Sports Day, a ‘B’ for First Aid. An unpleasant cheap zip-fly Jim then catches the tail of a entrapment. broadcast, a public information There was a snug Security insert between the national and Guards’ Station- a hut providing the local news. It is a new more than sufficient privacy. concept, the two minute feature, something developed from the Jim smiles to himself, content runaway success of music videos that he got so fluidly out of it and and advertising, something for the rest. He sets about moving the promotion of community the kills from his plastic hunting awareness. pouches to his stashing places; It is blatant propaganda. dead chocolate covered digestive There is a doorway in the film biscuits, comatose pre-prepared and animated in the doorway are vegetables, tins of dead things, three persons determined to cans of dead things, cartons of prevent the entry of a fourth. dead things. They are screaming, these three, Jim switches on the portable washed but dowdy, one of them TV. a man who keeps touching his More dead things. crotch with one hand and waving That Mathews, he’s thinking to a wooden crucifix with the other. himself, that too clean, too kind, ‘Don’t wake him! Don’t bloody far too neat and ironed Mathews, wake him!’ they scream. he was cleared of aggravated ‘Pray for him to come. Yes. rape of a fellow scout at sixteen. Pray for him to come again. He was up for rape and his But don’t wake him! No. nickname was Spam on account Never, never wake him. of the sparsity of his pubic hair. This is good here, as it is. Hadn’t it been evident for all to Saved! see that the boy was not Whatever gave you the idea The question stumped him. that we want to be saved? Bugger off! Go on. Get the fuck She wore a plaid skirt, pleated, out of it!’ and a bland cardigan beneath a fawn plastic mac. She appeared Mann watches as the one who childless. She was fiftyish and her was turned away goes, she has hair was mousy and her tights not lost her smiling face. She is were thick and she had held aloft not sloping away. She has not lost her good book against the rain of her dignity. abuse. There is a caption. It reads- She deserved her spurning. One person’s Jesus is another She’d bloody earned it. person’s Satan. She had gone, unarmed, He switches the telly off. protected with nothing more than Another dead thing fit only for her beliefs and her plainness, out transmitting shit. there amongst the perils of the heathen outside world to win a James finds it much more fucking good spurning. difficult to switch off his memory It did her proud. of the spurned but dignified It did her proud and home woman with the constantly knitted back a deal of good to be smiling face. But that's the whole lashed raw by mass insult. point of it. Then, in a sudden rush Abused repeatedly as a child I of what he perceives to be shouldn't wonder, he told insight, he announces to himself- himself. perpetual benevolence! Constant benevolence, he Marvellous, isn’t it, that you decides- that’s it! almost never hear of anyone who She has usurped her natural was abused just the once. fear of fucking death with the Yes. Abused and abused again entirely unnatural monster of she was, because of her bully of a constant fucking benevolence. faith? We’ve all met the type, a He confirms it, yes, she was a mouse in the supermarket, a lion woman of constant benevolence, on the doorstep. retaining her dignity but And, repeatedly abused she nevertheless electing to be becomes the abuser flogging the spurned. dead horse of unquestionably Why? dead remedies. Well, there was her personal James made Assam tea for war Lord hidden in her fucked himself. up head versus their opposing He is very domestic. war Lord hiding behind the He likes his creature comforts. closed door. His surroundings say as much. It was always going to be an impasse, the one faith cancelling The small house is spacious, out the other and the resulting airy. Afraid to lose this feeling of void inviting faithlessness, space James has let it remain lawlessness, mayhem. sparsely furnished. Minimalist. A How fucking stupid the whole sofa. A lamp. Some art. thing was. You get the picture. The sick god botherer fucks. This style has many benefits to Didn’t they know it was little recommend it. more than an ancient drug culture What you would spend on designed to ease the pain of more, you spend on less, so you knowing that we’re going to die? can afford quality. James liked She’s on sleepers and Sherry. that. Spiritual ecstasies, that’s what Guests seldom stay long. You it is. pays your money and you Medieval ‘Es’ to guard against generally get what you pay for. nature’s old heave ho! No more complicated than that. Hadn’t they noticed how Rent a body. forever had died? There is much less to dust. Didn’t they know that time is Decorative objects have to be always running out? chosen with great care. The But it was only on film. western world is already overstuffed with carelessly The film was only part of the chosen decorative objects. It is a celluloid dream that James sickness. A wasting disease. A refused to dream. The dream disease of wasting valuable goes- if it moves, shoot it to fuck resources. on video. If it sells, celebrate by It’s invasive. throwing a party. If it doesn't, Invading sick as fuck products stay at home and call it fucking appealing to sick as fuck minds art. or sheep or white trash with money to incinerate, floods the shopping malls like so much Caroline Pikenard. Both of them effluent. carrying a juggernaut's worth of Turds disguised as pottery secrets and lies. figures. Things to sit on the telly. There was always a certain in Dead things. the pants frisson to meeting Carrie Pike, even fleetingly. This James has a lacquered brass was because Carrie Pikenard was Buddha. openly false, which was refreshingly erotic in itself, but With such comfortable also because she was generally starkness colour becomes credited with putting synthetic increasingly significant. A finger nails into the pornographic Parchment as distinct from A film industry. Cream. A Magenta. A Carrie went through life Delphinium. A Violet. It can wearing a noticeable signature become quite a worry. taint, the scent, almost, of having Eau de nil is extraordinarily been there during the shooting, good for stress. when the big guns swung over Monotone is as good a solution well oiled abdomens and shot as any. their implausible load creating James likes black leather. gobsmacking strings of pearls. Waistcoats. Chaps. God! How we envied her balls! He took the black tea and the She really was the bollocks. chocolate covered digestives into She'd done everything there was the lounging space. Putting the to do in the sex industry. We tray on the polished floorboards, reckoned she’d even shagged he sat on the black leather sofa. Alsatians. Donkeys. Leaned back. Thought about How we gossiped about her some music. Californian Silicone. How we Thought. surfed the late night cable channels for her old movies. Yes. We all saw her tits. The hunt was good today. We saw her pleasured raw wet Delicious. bits. It had turned up anysexual We were there! Mathews, Mathews and rabid James saw her fearlessness. Was he liable to become Of all of the people he had met unbalanced? on his journey she was the one Without a catch net, would he most able to live in the moment ultimately break his neck? and bugger all the consequences. The act of holding her in awe, She was not a child, though she he had decided, was the most was capable of wilful likely culprit. For men at least, childishness. She was an adult there is nothing less like an who could forget, for most of the aphrodisiac than the time, her own mortality. Her phenomenon of holding a inevitable death rarely if ever got woman in awe. a look in. Carrie suspected he was gay Not even in the rush hour. anyway. Not even in a crack house. As yet undecided, although it Consequently, for almost all of was all a matter of linguistic the time, she had no use for juggling, James Mann, was religion or belief systems or rules almost there. Almost ready to and regulations of any kind. agree as much about himself, at James thought her impossible, least in part. That is to say in easily the gentlest of all possible respect of the only part that sociopaths. In debt to a degree matters to a man. that you just would not believe His head was arguably hetero and a fine cook, she took to but his dick was decidedly homo. throwing lavish dinner parties on It happens. Mathews knew. supplementary benefit. She was This situation was a magnet for the first full blown spiritual farcical relationships and made anarchist he had ever met. reciprocal oral sex a very hit and miss affair. He had, of course, and quite No matter. ridiculously, fallen in love with She was unreal, a wraith, after the idea of the circus of her at all. Disembodied flesh displayed once. The Big Top. The tumbling splayed, widescreen, open crotch intercourse. Trapeze sex. in macro close-up, the very Tightrope cunnilingus. But, for epitome of a cat with its throat some unfathomable reason he cut. had never quite managed to be Caroline Pikenard was nothing the ringmaster and fuck the arse much more than prettily off her. arranged ectoplasm. And suddenly there she had its reek of urine soaked been, the huntress in mid-hunt, winceyette and cigarette singed hovering like an angel between moustache. gondolas of cat food and On warm, Spring days with dogwood, visibly debating the just a light breeze it was different. diet of her furry familiars. She On days like that James could sit had swamped him in smiles and there, on his school lunch break, heady perfume and she'd printed marking pitiful essays and Revlon lips in lipstick on his breathing the dead in, poetically hunter’s cheek and he had asked ingesting an air soup composed her something, probing in that of the various remains from the incorrigibly gossipy way of his. local hospices and the bagged up It was- offal from the ER morgue. He ‘Are you still with your once wrote a poem about it. cameraman?’ When this poem was written She’d looked a little sulky he ripped it into tiny pieces and when she told him. floated them on the beck that was ‘Yes.’ the boundary between two Counties. Crumbs from the crumbling biscuits littered the pale grey And on Sundays these fun-for- floor boarding. He was the-community acres, adjacent to undecided about the music. He the Crem’ rails, would come alive was unhappy about the thought with boot and ball, with of a book. He was out of sorts screaming profanities and with the home cinema. steaming wind. Thought. Still caught. There was always a battle of the colours. On still days, he was The blue army with the yellow remembering, you could follow feathers would attack the goal to the pale smoke sky-writing as it the right. The red army with rose silent from the crematorium, beads and shells would oppose its chimney stacks hidden from them. the playing fields by a long line In the middle, on the centre of tall Poplars. This wall of trees spot there would sit a head, its would usually funnel up and hair matted and its eye sockets away all of that unwelcome empty. Some mercenary’s breath of the burning dead with memento from Angola I Oh fuck! Mighty fuck. He had shouldn’t wonder. been here before. It was The Security Guards He had been here before and First Eleven versus The Surrey the memory of it was mounting Clerks Of Court Eleven. an attack on him. He felt an old They will cancel each other out, shame make a sudden attempt to James had said to himself once, swamp him, it was like a moist and into the void will thunder cloth pressing against his face, at cunting madness. once blinding then, at the same time, stifling. One such Sunday, at what He knew this sensation. would have been half-time, It was weakness. though the pitches were empty of Weakness, with its sudden anything but crows, James was sneering presence always had on a recreational across the war him fumbling for his Asthma zone to the farmland beyond. inhaler, always had him feeling There was a small coppice that he shouldn't be discovered beside the beck, a deep with the pump in his mouth, his shelterbelt of Hawthorn, Bramble breath held and his eyes as wide and Silver Birch through which a as a creature who's just smelled Celtic knot of pathways had been the slaughter house. driven by both Deer and determined boys on bicycles. What he wanted was to be away from that place. It’s a cinch You stepped out of the in virtual reality. jaundiced, urban light and into What he wanted was to be at the mossy illumination of home, alone, safe in his bed, his leafworld, a place of mystery and hand at his groin, his length magic where dwelt the greater stiffening and his eyes closing, the and the lesser hidden forces such daylight beautifully dulled by the as elfin folk and higher selves. pale curtaining. Two strides in, James stopped You get what you want in in the dank doorway, his dark virtual reality. jacket mottled by the dust of How good it always was to be catkins, his nose assailed with the in isolation, with God, and doing scents of moist soil and rotting something with your genitals that leaf. feels that good. This was not a new place. Carrie...now what was the TV He had stifled the scream and channel that your legs were once broken out into a sweat so great wide open on? that people in his vicinity began showing signs of urgent self- They could have been great interest. friends, the alien messiah and the Shortly before arriving at celluloid whore. Indeed there Winchester, the tips of his was no one else more capable of brogues had reappeared. hearing his confession. He walked home. Sober. Legless. She never heard this You see, it is true, some of us confession. have it in us to be very brave, How, one day, when the chalk even artists. And not so very long and talk had finally dried up, after this bravery, he had the nothing came. That was the day courage to quit his job in the city. when nothing had come out to No more prostitution. Just play in a very big way. exquisitely attractive art for art’s How, one day, when a great sake- spiritual riches improbable chasm opened where homelessness and bankruptcy. a class of thirty two disinterested James had remembered that. faces had just been, he- to all Materialist suicide. intents and purposes, calmly That day, in that moment he downed his pencil and walked had remembered the in-therapy away never to return. look on the man’s face when he’d told him the story. He’d remembered a distant It was one of those looks that friend, a city desk journalist, said- what happened was tragic but who'd been on his way home on also very funny but please don't the five fifteen out of Waterloo laugh because that’s what everybody when, shortly before Woking, he wants to do and I want you to be had looked down to discover exceptional. I want you to be the one what was itching his feet, only to person that I know who is not afraid. find that everything below his Well, James was not afraid. knees, trousers, socks, shoes, the James knew how playful the lot, had disappeared, vanished mind could be, whimsical even. from view. There seemed to be no limit to its It was a stress induced illusion. creative potential. But it was fucking convincing! The fledgling Mathews was He looked at the class. They flying. were unmoved or unmoving, Mother Carrie was fearless. though he couldn’t decide which, James, the son of God, was not and they were very definitely afraid of the fucking school silent. No talk. No action. It anymore. didn’t compute. As you might imagine, the He watched the school pencil pervasive silence of a roomful of roll- HB, blank, HB, blank, HB, adolescents was very strange. It bloody blank. It rolled extremely disturbed his equilibrium. slowly as if there was all the time I am unsteady, he told himself, in the world for it to travel across I am unsteady and unsure of the grey Formica. There was whether or not I am ready. There nothing to impede its painful was nothing for him to hold on progress. No apple. No gum. No to. string. James was not an obsessive confiscator. This was not life. This was not Eventually it reached the sharp death. edge of the grey Formica then This was a prelude to real stopped. It stopped as if change. commanded by some cosmic This was the last and the first intelligence that had suddenly breath. shown mercy. That grey Formica extremity is, He left the room in the way one more often than not, as far as any leaves a cinema halfway through of us are prepared to go. That is an unsatisfactory offering from to say- we will do it, we’ll Hollywood, the brain-dead embrace the drama of it up to the tutting, the swing doors clapping. precipice, right up to the very lip James imagined it was applause, and then lie still, going absolutely the kind of welcome that a star no farther. receives even before they’ve done We generally cop out. anything. We mostly opt in to seven days He passed the Deputy Head's of psychiatric care- sleepers, office with its door wide open so drugs, waitress service. as to suggest an invitation or that Most of us, in any case, are nothing untoward could ever pretty much summed up by the happen there. legend- All talk and no action. That was crap. He’d told him collected his faeces and kept as much. them in his desk- it always raised Teaching is not a skill. He’d a laugh amongst the staff. said so. I mean you’ve got to be Teaching is not a science. He’d congenitally daft haven’t you to gone on, once. be buggered by your blind It is an art. father? We’d run away, they said, The best teachers are gifted anyone with half a brain would. artists. We’d hear the tapping of that They have the artistry to fucking stick and leg it! nourish the natural gifts of children. Like one boy whose genitals At best this school was a had waved goodbye to disgraceful farm, a bloody childhood. disgraceful production line of This coal black fifth former was sheep that all looked suspiciously an eye opener. the same. ‘God!’ they’d exclaim, the men At worst it was a fucking with Toy Town degrees in abattoir. Physical Education, ‘Some poor girl’s going to be injured by that. How fucking neat it was to That. engineer a liberal open door One look at that and wham, it’s policy as a smokescreen for a enough to make lesbians of the whole shopping basket of child lot of them. It’s wicked man. A abuse. That was how it was. real life- Welcome to Barbados I Tidy cruelty. hope you enjoy your stay. I mean, Fabulous masks of benevolence truly massive. Majorly masking faces of persisting memorable.’ fascism. A bookies book was opened Are we really surprised? It and bets were duly laid. James always was in our nature to be remembered. Eleven inches was something other than what we odds on. How could you possibly seem. forget.

Like one boy whose smell was Sir- that is Mr Mann, English like a cry for help. and Art, he always believed that There was this one boy whose he was firmly in the front line. He odour fell on deaf ears. He was. He believed he was the last went by the name of Christian true teacher to be given a full moral responsibility. contract in the whole of the And they were hit by hands United Kingdom. engorged by rage and loathing This was, very likely, true. and middle-aged frustration. Almost immediately he’d been They were routinely beaten, heavily under fire from right bended and upended into a wing revisionists. They were led shape that somehow resembled by balding cunts in tweed jackets conscripts. with leather patched elbows. These were boys who’d never They were pipe smoking volunteer. vegetable growers of bloody These were boys who’d never straight rows of spring greens pass exams no matter how many and bloody straight canes of times you moved the goal posts. string beans. These were boys expecting to What was there fucking be unemployed for years. problem? These were candidates needing Fear of prostrate cancer, that’s to be raped. what their fucking problem was. These were children trapped That and jealousy. Fucking by a system eager to unzip its prostrate cancer, jealousy and flies and do the fucking lewd loneliness. business. It’s the truth. Once upon a time, Mathews, Like all of the boys spared by who now knows all there is to peace, Mann was at war, allied know about disabled parking, and marked. had it in for Kipper Clarkson. And the unarmed boys were Kipper, two years his junior, had hit by anything to hand. the kind of urchin face that did It was like a drug. well in advertisements for They were pure white. charities. He had freckles and They were like cartridge paper wiry unkempt hair and River before the point of the pencil Phoenix eyes. It meant that he did kissed it. less well in the school Then the pencil kissed them, playground than he did in the covering the blank canvas of their classroom. faces in a scribble of lies that Kipper Clarkson had put it about that Mathews was a girl, a freak of nature. This was not They never knew what had gone altogether surprising since at the on in the April of his fifteenth end of the Christmas term of year. Few people knew the truth Mathews' fourth year he played a of that. dame in the school pantomime- cast largely because of his That poor fat sap. paleness and the fact that his It’s not difficult to get very voice had not yet broken. pissed off. Meanwhile, his various winter What do we expect to find at excursions into the school every turn? showers had earned him the Apologetics? Saints? Fair- nickname Spam on account of the minded folk? Women in scarves hairlessness of the puppy fat that with gloves and a glut of covered his pubic bone and the homespun goodness? These days distinctive, luncheon meat it's relatively easy to get very very pinkness of the diminutive pissed off. It’s a breeze. But features that hung there for all to Mathews in a half-baked see. uniform- there’s a queer thing. These bare facts, five whispers Prompting. distant and downloaded into the cavity of Kipper’s second year's Jim suddenly started one of his skull, resulted in the ball-game little spasms- in fact a full blown that was to lead to both boys’ attack. demise. The teasing little rhyme He could smell death lurking went- Mathews is a girlie, no in the room- an uncommonly girlfriend of mine, he sticks ‘is curly enticing cocktail of skat, spunk wurly where the sun don’t shine. and fermented urine. He This ditty was, as you can confidently smirked. James was imagine, accompanied by blessed with miracle tablets for obscene gestures. Then there was these life-threatening occasions that later occurrence- the police and they usually worked. never knew though, did they?

...barely missing on a frozen plain to nowhere... (or how I exploded my own ticket) By A. Razor

...the drive was all night, in some So, not really understanding or places so cold it felt like piss caring why Grant had to show up might freeze in the wind. We left to see his “old friend” with a Minneapolis and descended band, I agreed to leave with toward Lawrence after some them, under cover of darkness, in rounds of houses and bars, not a ‘72 Buick Electra on a freezing for anything important, just November night in the late 80s. I because there seemed to be some guess we were going to play a mystery to the trip I was now a song or two for William S. part of. Burroughs, at his hacienda in Lawrence, KS, which seemed Grant was going to take us to see reasonable for some reason I a great genius that he needed to could never really put my finger see, but for some reason he didn’t on. Mainly I wanted to just move want to go alone, so he had down the road for a minute and conscripted a guitar player, get away from myself. Grant Kevin, myself to play bass, and a seemed to be acting as if he was kid named Zack, that idolized doing me a favor, which is Grant, to play drums. Grant had always annoying when a junkie played drums in a band before, does that for some reason. It’s but didn’t like to do it anymore. like they are trying to build some Bob, his old guitar player in the weird credit for a later date for previous band, had “ruined it something that would have (playing the drums?) for him,” he happened anyway. said. I was in a fog, so to speak, drinking constantly, sadly I think Grant is an alright guy, missing LA, SF and NY but he is also kinda creepy when simultaneously, trying not to do he’s loaded, which I don’t have too many drugs (yet these were any room to judge anybody on, the worst dope fiends in town, so but he was being extra strange I was obviously frustrating my and kept offering me pills and efforts). coke, which I refused graciously. Pills would just irritate me into craving something stronger and from what I had seen there was away, but the last few days were not enough coke in that bag to well below freezing across the even begin to scratch my itch that midwest and there were traces of starts with a taste of that shit. ice and snow every so often, as Plus, I had to do some of the well as barren tree branches driving and coke is not my which gave the world a sinister favorite driving indulgence. I had and cataclysmic tone. a little less than a gram of speed, a few tabs of mescaline, a bag of The sun was coming up over the Alaskan Thunderfuck and a fifth rise as we pulled down the long of Old Log Cabin Straight drive way that seemed to turn to Bourbon Whiskey to keep me a dirt road and crack like ice warm, as the Buick had a under the balding tires. I was malfunctioned heater. I knew it sure we would be waking the old was a myth that booze would doper up at this time, but he was keep me warm, but it at least wide awake and ready to receive would keep me numb to the cold. us. Hot tea, a Moroccan blend of I had to admit I was interested in course, with honey and biscuits. seeing what Burroughs would be After we shared a joint outside like, his book Naked Lunch was between Kevin, Zack and myself, proving to be as prophetic in we came back inside and had at clearer terms than anything some tea and chewed a little on Nostradamus had ever written the biscuits in the massive farm and I was certain that the end of style kitchen. The guys had done the world was near, so I was blow, I was on the crank, so the hoping to see if he would make biscuits were more of an some special sense of the Mayan accessory to dab honey on than Campbellistic spiritual cut-up an actual breakfast treat. Finally rhetoric and shed some light on Grant and “Uncle Bill”, as he what he knew about this coming introduced himself to us, taking a apocalyptic end game. keener interest in young Zack, emerged from the hall with a pair We drove through the night and of breech loading shotguns. played music and when I wasn’t driving I was in the back “I am currently creating my art watching the desolation of the for a show in New York City, I cold pains go by. There had been invite you all to participate out in some slight snow that had melted the back forty, where my amigo, Soliz, will be preparing my point in the last 10 minutes while materials for this undertaking. I I thought he was bringing in his hope the refreshments were gear from the car, he had suitable, if even necessary.” procured a good shot of dope. It Uncle Bill announced, with couldn’t have been the crap they perfunctory annunciation. scored in Minneapolis, because after they obtained that I begin to remember the story I overpriced bindle we all took a heard of this guy being on the hit of it off the foil and it had the run in Mexico and shooting his after taste of burnt sugar with old lady in the head while they aspirin instead of Persian brown were playing a game of William heroin that Walter, the guy Tell. I tried to quell my internal whose basement we were in, angst. I liked to be the only one proclaimed it to be. I was with the gun. This kook might disgusted and revolted from the shoot somebody accidentally on taste. It was probably a good purpose again. Worse, I might thing I didn’t know where to get have to shoot him. I will drop this good dope in Minneapolis. geezer, literary merit or not, before I let him shoot me with a While I was lost in all that 12 gauge and have his Mexican dizzying thought, Zack had houseboy bury me in the frozen begun regaling the old man with wasteland of Kansas. tales of varmint hunting up on the Iron Range since he was a real “So I wonder which one of you is little kid and professed to be the the most proficient with a best shot in the world, which I shotgun. I need you to be a damn was always told is bad form, good shot because, upon missing, because now everyone knows the work I have previously done who to shoot first. That’s just will be obliterated.” He looked at how I was raised about shooting. each one of us in the eyes as if he The old man was really taking an was sizing us up for something. I interest in the kid and Grant was began to feel like I was in the beaming as if he had brought a wrong part of the prison. Kevin Rhodes Scholar to a retard had brought his acoustic guitar convention. out and was beginning to range over some classical scales in a “Young man, I might be calling way that let on to me that at some upon you for more than your musical skill on this day. I hope in Minneapolis on the previous you are up to the task at hand.” night. I was in there with Grant Uncle Bill’s pausing and phrasing and he was telling me I could were not foreign to me, it was have a fifth of whatever I wanted. classic junky sleight of word I was about to have a look at the drama diversion, only with a Elvis decanter collection, that was Harvard backwash and a St. gathering dust (a good sign for a Louis upper crust wrapper that whiskey freak like me) on a shelf was his trademark. It was so high above the cash register, exact to how his words jumped when I noticed a strangely off the page I was remembering shaped bottle sticking up from little phrases and storylines from behind one of the Elvis’. I was an his work. Bukowski had once expert at casing the areas of old told me, “The best writers will liquor stores to find that speak exactly how they write, but neglected bottle that had aged beware us, our heads are full of long enough to have the true snakes that are biting us on the spirit of consummate distillery inside, you see, and whenever we inside its glass walls. open our minds near you, they will bite the shit out of you, too.” Whiskey ages very gracefully, it I reached into my army field usually will be 4 years old, at jacket pocket and pulled out the least, when it hits the shelf, if it is 5th of whiskey, uncapped it, took Bourbon. If you can find a bottle a pull, capped it and returned it that, for some reason or another, to my pocket. I did it in one has been neglected then you have smooth, slow gesture and no one the equivalent of a score as noticed enough to ask for a hit. I infinite in its blessing as a pot of was very fucking pleased with gold at the end of a rainbow. myself. Elvis decanters are notorious for shelf life in some stores and are Old Log Cabin was a Bourbon my usual target, but today this whiskey that was not made in old bottle’s edge catches my eye Bourbon County and was the and I ask the man behind the only one I knew of that was not. counter if I can see it. “See it or It was made by a guy named buy it?” the liquor clerk answers Booz since 1840 in Pennsylvania. in his best “you betcha” tone. I had found this fifth in an old Grant intervenes, “Fuck it, man, liquor store on Lyndale and 22nd how much for it?” he says as he furtively searches for his cash, the was, but I did want the whiskey last thing a dope fiend ever wants and I did want the secrets that the to do in a liquor store or old man might spill and I figured anywhere else for that matter. some impromptu jam session in a “Why, I imagine 20 dollars’ll do Kansas barn while some old for it.” as he cracks an knowing beatnik geezer painted something smile and his eyes narrow a little was worth the price of admission. behind his horn rimmed glasses. Hell, it was the golden ticket in Grant looks at me and says, “You the candy bar at this point, but I can’t just have a Jack or Jim or was determined to be outwardly something easy, you gotta make put upon in appearance, because shit hard on everyone.” that was the best way to deal with these kind of prima donna “I know what I want, you asked junkies. me what I want. Simple as that.” I keep my emotions level before “Beware of whores who say they the old codger thinks I really don’t want any money. What it want the potential golden means is that they want more money. goodness in that bottle that will Lots more. Beware of religious sons quench my egotistical sensation of bitches. Make sure you get an that I am being put upon by agreement from them in writing.” Grant and I deserve a reward for the intrusion on my alleged -William S. Burroughs serenity. “You want some Cola to mix that Now I am not Grant’s first choice in with. I have some from Mexico for bass player, but I am a good that is still made with cane sugar. choice in that I am non- Soliz, bring some of those bottles judgmental about what other's of Cola for everyone, as the are doing and I don’t mind teapot has been exhausted!” he weirdness, so he was plying me shouts down the hall. I clear my with a 5th of whiskey because he throat before I reply, “I don’t didn’t want to bring anyone that want to mix this with any Cola, might be a problem on this trip. but I will take a Cola to drink out There was some inner sanctum of the bottle.” For some reason I that he and Burroughs seemed to felt like being offered a drink in share and I was pretty sure I this house at this time it was didn’t want to even know what it imperative that I state my disdain for shenanigans. I never let like everybody else.” I replied anyone mix me anything, quickly as I half-laughed. The anywhere, anytime. And I speed still pumping me outward, definitely don’t mix 50 year old ready to anticipate anything. bourbon in Cola. Soliz enters “Alright then, Razor it is.” He from down the hall with a case of walked back over to “Uncle Coca-Cola bottles and fixes the Bill’s” side of the room and kept a host a glass of Stolichnaya, Cola side glance at the kid, who was and something from a small still regaling Burroughs with brown vial. I am confident I some half-assed story about spoke at the right moment on my killing something small with a behalf. None of those shotgun. Personally, I would shenanigans for me. He says have rather heard a good “human something in Burroughs ear and getting killed with the perfect then disappears back down the caliber” story than the “furry hallway. critter getting blasted with too much firepower by a dumb kid Suddenly, a man appears who with no regret or sense” story. I greets Grant with a knowing had always liked it best when handshake. He is wary of me Bugs Bunny jacked up Elmer from across the room, and he is Fudd when I was a kid. On the even more wary of Zack’s other hand, I kinda always presence. Kevin has been wished that the coyote would eat “tuning” his guitar all this time that little fucking annoying and is oblivious to everything. I roadrunner for a change. It was am now positive there is some then I realized that there were high grade dope in my midst. only two people here that The man makes his way over to definitely had good murder me and introduces himself, “Jim stories like that to tell. And Holtz” he says as he extends a neither of us were showing any firm handshake that I return with signs of talking about it right my best sneersmile. “Razor,” I now. Since mine had never say calmly. He is almost giggles. inspired books or poems, I “Did your mom name you that?” figured there was only one story he asks. in the room that I wanted to hear. My fast paced speed drone was “She named me what she named slowing enough to the point me, but you can call me Razor where I would now realize that some marijuana would be the gonna hot knife some of that?” ticket to some random Grant asked our host, who conversation. moved slow and meticulous to unwrap and reveal to all of us the Evidently, I was not the only one brick of hash in all its glory. who was thinking cannabis. “Well, I usually have it rolled into “Uncle Bill” went to a roll top a cigarette with some tobacco and desk and unlocked it. He rolled low grade pot that Soliz gets from up the top and the loud sound some of his amigos, but, I stole the thunder to the kid’s suppose...” I had to interrupt at uninteresting story. He pulled this point, my weed was burning out a red rectangle about the size a hole in my pocket, so to speak, of two sticks of butter. It was a “I have some high grade weed, satin material that wrapped what some Alaskan Thunderfuck, I appeared to be a brick of hash. could roll some of it up with the “This is something that an old hash. It would only take me a friend bestowed upon me second.” The old man’s mouth recently and I am prepared to was agape and everyone looked share some of its intoxicating at me as though I had spoken out effects with you...” the old man of turn, but I didn’t care. I was began, “...it is Hashish that comes determined to call this shot. with a golden seal of crossed scimitars and an Arabic poem “Alaskan Thunderfuck...” that is recited, quite thoughtfully, Burroughs pronounced every before making art, love or war.” syllable with his sing song gravel Everyone’s attention was on the tone perfunction, “...that sounds old man, and I had to admit it like an amazing manifestation of aroused a hint of jealousy inside agricultural pursuits.” It was all I me. To have “friends” that would needed for a green light. I paced smuggle me top notch hashish over to the table, pulled out my while I ambled around my house baggie with the sticky buds and drew in visitors to regale inside it, and sat down ready to with stories, this was the life. I begin rolling the grass and the doubted very much I would ever hash together. Grant was a little know it from his perspective, but put off, but I knew what his I felt it must be the pinnacle to hustle was. He wanted to steer it reach for, regardless of its toward smoking some H. I was impossibilities. “Oooh, are we pretty sure that there was some top drawer heroin in the midst who was holding some of the that Grant and Kevin had already best Persian brown I had ever had a taste of. Standing around done as well. He was trying to doing knife hits of hash is easily unload a bunch of Czech transformed into to a dragon “Scorpion” machine pistols. I chasing expedition. But, I didn’t walked away from the whole want to go that route just yet. I deal, but I never forgot the stories like the open kitchen space and of the hash fields he told me the conversational promise it about. Or the way that shit got held. The rest of the house me so damn wasted. I wondered seemed darker and strewn with why the old man would pass this books, art and memorabilia. I for Gold Seal. It didn’t make liked the sparseness of the sense. I figured I would hold my kitchen. I was also still tweaked mud on it for now. The opiate and didn’t want to get any more content would at least settle closed in than this. Burroughs Grant down. I also figured it moved over and placed the would do me some good as well. whole brick to my left as I was Stories were already being told tearing the sticky bud down to its without words being uttered. I calyx. When I had a decent pile of like this kind of magic. The hash it, I turned to the brick and joint I rolled looked like a mini picked it up. It was everything he Louisville slugger. It was time for said it was, except Golden Seal everyone to step up to the plate. Hash. This was Bekaa Valley hashish from Lebanon. I knew I notice my new friend, Jim, only the markings and the consistency took one turn on the J. Normally, and the odor immediately as I ran that would not mean anything, a lighter along its edge. It but for the fact that he kept crumbled nicely, but had an oily taking it as if he would hit it, texture. It was opiated with pausing, playing it off while essence of raw opium, most likely appearing to be distracted by harvested from poppies that whoever was talking, then grew near the hash plants. This passing it without ever taking his was arms dealer grade turn. This was potent stuff, but contraband. I had obtained some why the act? I was grateful that I of this in a bar in the East Village had the foresight to bring my .45 of NYC called Downtown Beirut. and my back-up piece. I mean, I got it from a Druze mercenary this was going to be weird, I knew, but I actually felt like there I got to shake the craziness. was many levels of charade and Maybe I could use a nap before illusive behavior at work here, we go blast guns in the back 40. more so than the usual junkies At least some cold water in the jockeying for position on a race to face. the big spoon in the sky. There was an equation I had not put “James, I will require that you go together completely. I wanted to to the store and procure more 12 call back up to Minneapolis and gauge shells. The double ought invite some friends down to the buck shot will be sufficient. Also, party here in Lawrence that we some 9mm for the broom handle, would be playing music at which Soliz is cleaning and tomorrow night. I just needed reassembling as we speak. Are some familiar faces. That had me there any other requests from the feeling a little more self-assured store?” Uncle Bill asks the room. as the effects of the joint began to “I would like some beer and wash through the tweak. some dark chocolate.” says Grant. Everything was going to be all I rustle from my stupor to right. Nobody was really interject, without thinking, “I conspiring to do anything. I was would like five 20 round boxes of just a little edgy from driving .45 ACP Black Talons, or Hydro- through the cold night on tweak. Shock if the Black Talons are not I felt better already. Fuck Jim for available.” Everyone is noticeably not partaking, he seemed like a taken aback. I try to recover, “I real stick up the ass, anyway. He did not bring any extra ammo, was affectionate towards and it seems we will be shooting, Burroughs in a way that meant to so since you will be buying some send a message to all of us. He bullets, if you get some for me, I was the protectorate, he was would appreciate it.” My tongue watching us when we weren’t is thick and I am a little angry looking at him. I had developed a about the difficulty I have with sense for this over the years. Still, speech, which helps my Burroughs was the one with a pronunciation somewhat, but shotgun near his person. I could gives the air that I am angry or in flip the table and shoot them both pain, I suppose. “You brought a dead in a heartbeat, if I had to. I gun with you?” Grant asks in a might have to hunt the Mexican way that almost cracks his voice down. Nah, it won’t come to that. like an adolescent, “Fuck, what were you thinking? What if we piece on him. You knew that got pulled over?” “I was not when you asked him to come.” thinking I would get pulled over, Kevin interjects after he breaks and I didn’t. Don’t bust my balls, out of his nodding guitar play Grant, we are here now, if you long enough. “Fuck, man, why don’t want me driving back up do you always carry a gun?” asks with you, I got no problem with Zack. “Fucking people from L.A., that, but don’t fucking bust my that’s why, Zack.” Grant says to balls right now. It’s not the kid, as if to shut him down, necessary.” Grant was probably then continues at me, “Yes, I thinking he could find another want you to find another way bass player somewhere in this back. I don’t want you coming college town, but then, not one back with us armed.” Grant was who would be willing to go along doing his best to be all put out, with this scenario without a lot of but, it was like Kevin said, he prodding. Grant liked to boss his knew when he asked me. I didn’t band mates around if he could, give a fuck. I was going to play but I was not one of them. I was the gig, collect what was due, just a utility player. And I didn’t hang with the old beat daddy and need any prodding. And I didn’t get my head twisted. Nobody have any opinion regarding his was going to stop it. Not now penchant for strange behavior. If anyway. “So, can I get the bullets it was about to get as strange as it then?” seemed to me through my mental haze, I needed ammo, and when I had not noticed it until now, but in doubt a hundred rounds Jim was red in the face angry, like always seemed reasonable. he wanted to come at me and “What type of hand gun have have a slapping fight or you brought with you, as something. Burroughs looked at uninvited as it might be, my him and spoke real calm, “Should son?” Burroughs asked with his he write down the specifications head raised, looking down his for the cartridges, James, or can nose at me. “It’s a Colt Gold Cup you remember them?” The old .45, I have had it worked on a man’s voice breaks Jim out of his little.” I reply, figuring at least the angry clench. “Well, maybe it quality of my firearm will earn would be best if he wrote them me some respect. “Come on, down, if just any ones won’t do, Grant, you know he always has a maybe you should just go with me.” A chance at fresh air on a focus. Frost on everything. midwest winter’s morning. That Patches of ice and snow like a was just the ticket to shake off the pattern on a jersey cow that rolls chilling night drive. “Fine by me, off into the distance to the point does your car have a heater?” I of the horizon where the sunlight come back. “It is a truck, and it is compressed into a sharp glint most certainly does.” says Jim. that swallows contrasting flocks “Lead the way, then.” I say as I of birds with its glaring burst. get up from the table and a bit of There is still so much that can warm dizziness hits me. A little happen on this trip, but for the movement will be good for my moment there is a peace and a soul. chance to catch my breath as the truck rumbles down the winter The pick-up truck is a classic, an roads of Kansas. old Apache. I climb in and he starts it. I sit there in a blissful The gun store in the distance silence for a moment. The engine pulls me nearer like a moth to a is really cold, but I can hear every lamp and a certain fate. I am chug of the intake, ignition, woozy by the time we get there exhaust cycle. I can listen to and the morning sunlight is not engines make music as they blocked by enough cloud cover at warm up. The oil lubricating this point. Even with sunglasses I more and more from the top look conspicuous and tweaked, down as it viscosity rapidly so I try to imagine that this is the changes with each profound gun store back in San Berdoo and increase in temperature. The it makes it seem like it’s all right. mixture of the air and the fuel as My buddy, Jim, has gone looking the carburetor adjusts its jets. The around for some things and I valves in the heads getting less figure I should just go straight to sticky and more fluid with every the back where the ammo is counter-balanced turn of the obviously maintained behind a crankshaft. This engine has an counter that is womanned by a exhaust leak that is the song it dirty blonde mid-twenties girl sings this morning. with a serious expression and a far away stare, like she was lost It is now morning in full effect. in a lament about something that The cold air is like a glass lens missed her or passed her by. bringing everything into a sharp “Excuse me, I am looking for redneck customers have stopped some 45 ACP ammo. Specifically, moving and are closely paying Black Talon or Hydro-Shock.” I attention. I am actually bolstered figure get to the point and then by this somewhat. I figure they maybe ask what’s missing from must see some freaks out this her life. What the hell, I have way from time to time due to the been talking to dudes all night likes of Burroughs and his and all morning and a feminine cohorts that populate the area. perspective might go with some good ballistics real well about “I think I have heard of the art now. “Well, you must have a real project you are taking part in. pesky boar infestation to sort out Old Man Burroughs is shooting a or you are on your way to Kansas bunch of shit up out at his place City to shoot some long pig.” She quite a bit these days. You some says as she cracks a grin. It is a hired gun from some strange nice snappy comeback that is place?” She asks while sizing me eerily on the same wavelength as up as she brings some boxes to myself. I immediately feel relaxed the counter for my inspection. and a very interested in hearing “Yes, you have heard of the work some more. “I am out to target out there then?” I ask as I look at practice with some liquid filled the three types of boxes she sets containers and I need ordnance in front of me. I am in a habit of that cavitates well for the never touching bullets with bare optimum outcome.” fingers, so I look, but don’t move my hands near the boxes. “Can “Sounds like an over-dramatic you open the Gold Saber and outcome, if you ask me. I’ll check show it to me, please?” on the Black Talon, I know I have the Hydro-Shock. Gold Saber is She looks a little awkward at first, good, as well, for that.” She turns then she realizes what my and moves to the shelves behind hesitation must mean and she her and searches for my request. begins to open and display each “I will admit that dramatic is one box of ammo, taking one round of the goals that I aiming for. I am out of each and laying on its side going to shoot some cans of paint on the rubber mat that is in front and I want it to make a big of her on the counter. I notice that splatter. It is for an art project.” I the Gold Saber comes in 50 per am noticing some of the more box, while the Black Talon and the Hydro-Shock is 20 rounds per might be the case was the most box. I don’t want to waste her interesting thing I had time. I know the abilities of each contemplated in awhile. round and it seems that the “variety is the spice of life” rule “If you are willing to give me comes into play here. Especially your number I will call you after since Uncle Bill’s guy is footing checking with my host. I am the bill. “Give me three boxes of playing in a band for a party Black Talon and the three boxes tomorrow night, so I do have of Hydro-Shock and a box of the some free time. If he is reticent Gold Saber.” I say with about you coming out to his confidence and here a few property, would you still want to muffled responses from the store hang out?” I spun it all together behind me. I make out two in a smooth, but tweaked, different “Jesus’s” and at least delivery that hit her quick and one “Mother Fucker.” straight. She immediately grabbed a pen and a slip of paper She bagged the boxes and said, and scrawled so quickly I “I’ll take these up to the other thought she might put the pen counter where they will check through the rubber mat. “Here, I you out and you can pay there, get off her at 3, call me around they don’t trust me with a 3:30.” register of my own.” She giggled a demonic little smile at me that She handed me the slip of paper made my heart a bit lighter than and smiled. She had a it had been before. snaggletooth that was cute as an alligator in heat and a tomboy “You up for a shooting contest? I attitude that had my complete am more than handy with a .45 attention. Self-sufficient women myself. I’ll bring my own ammo.” that have struck a vein of I see a bit of fire in her eyes that I independent happiness always had missed before. She was either seem to raise my spirits higher on some substance similar to than anything else possibly can. mine or she was batshit crazy and Now I really had something to entrusted to a wall of gunpowder look forward to and I could care and lead. Either one was a less about any of the politics back fascinating enough possibility at the pad. It seemed like the and the offhand chance that both stakes had been raised and an even more exceptional experience heart always. I am not trying to was to be had. However, every make a problem. I just didn’t silver lining has a cloud that expect you to offer that crazy covers it. When I got to the dagger an invite to our place.” register counter Jim was there Jim came back with a softer voice and he seemed a little and approach so fast, I was very disgruntled. taken aback. I was also stumbling a little on his estimation of the “You can’t just invite anyone you girl as a “dagger.” Then I realized meet over to the compound. And that he came here all the time and that is a bit more ammo than was I got the picture. Catfight Royale. asked for. It’s not like Burroughs These two had words in the past is made of money.” Jim was on a and Jim was covering up a bit of bit of a tear. I had to chuckle at a latent hostility toward her. I him though. “What’s so funny?” looked down at the scrap of he snapped. “Look, man, I did paper. “Tilly” was the name not tell her she could come. I said above the number. I am quickly I would ask and I would call her. falling in love with my new I don’t fuck with people like that. friend Tilly. An unconditional I also appreciate that Mr. and platonic love, of course. A Burroughs is not made of money, man who never touches bullets but I feel that is a more adequate with bare fingers has to be careful selection of ammunition and I everywhere. hope that I am not impeding on anything that might rock the “I understand, Jim, and rest boat. I just want to have a good assured I would not want to wear time and I was told it was not my welcome out or mistake a going to be a problem.” I didn’t kindness for a weakness. I have really expect the reaction I got the same expectation of others in back from Ol’ Jim Boy, but my own home.” I said as plain as nobody seemed to be behaving could be, continuing, “I did, how I expected around this however, forget the nine milli camp. rounds, so if you get those brought up, I need to use the little “I hope I didn’t come off as rude boys room.” I asked the clerk at right now. You are a guest and an the register the bathroom artist in your own right. I just try whereabouts and he pointed over my best to have Bill’s interest at to the camping gear section of the store. I walked away from Jim thumb and forefinger met. I did and his weird flip-flop vibe. I was the blast and turned on the sink drained from all the strange so my sniffling would be covered energy. I needed a pick me up. by the sound of the running When I got into the closet sized water. The burn got my attention bathroom that doubled as a mop and, as the drainage gagged me a sink area, I pulled out my coin bit, the meth stiffened my spine bag of crystal and poured some right up. on the bit of skin where my

“...barely missing on a frozen plain to nowhere... (or how I exploded my own ticket)” is an excerpt from the as yet unpublished novel Low Plains Drifter – an autobiographical account of A. Razor’s homeless wanderings across the Midwestern states, as he drifted from coast to coast between his birthplace of Brooklyn, NY and the California surroundings where he spent most of his childhood.

PLAYING TAG WITH THE DEVIL An Interview With Robert Earl Reed

It would be considerably easier to other genres. Reed’s music not describe the music of Robert Earl only defies facile categorisation, Reed in terms of what it is not, but makes one question the need rather than what it is. For to attempt the same. instance, it is not overproduced or ostentatious in a ‘music Watching the music video for industry’ way. Nor does it aspire ‘Boone County Thunder’ 1, a face to appear sophisticated or hip. peers out of the screen, guileless Despite its candour, it does not and uncurious, like a character feign ‘authenticity’ in the way from a Beckett novel. The eyes that much self-pronounced folk gaze out with an apparent lack of culture does. That kind of

‘authenticity’ has become another 1 marketable commodity that can (http://www.paraphiliamagazine.com/du be bought and sold alongside ngeon.html) interest, and no trace of The song winds its unassuming introspection. The eyes look out way through your consciousness, plainly and simply, seeing what and by the time it’s finished, you is in front of them without find yourself wondering what agenda or any attempt to you just heard. appropriate the visible world to any predetermined cultural It was not flashy or overbearing. scheme. The man’s body is If anything, you may feel stringy and lean with a nonplussed at its naivety, and suggestion of sinewy strength, bewildered by the way the singer neither poised nor in repose. It made no effort to convince you of simply is. More like a gnarled his beliefs or opinions, or to make tree or a rock formation that has claims for his significance. The grown in place a vast amount of song just is. You find yourself time. listening to it again, trying to recapture what you just Accompanying these opening experienced, and pin down what images is the sound of a it was about the song that was so thunderstorm, providing the haunting. After the second ‘backing’ for the song itself – a listening you are none the natural orchestra that blends into wiser… but you’re hooked. the music without drama or bombast. Like the face of Mr. Brock, it simply is. A guitar starts up, playing simple, understated chords, E minor, A – a standard blues progression, strummed lightly, almost hesitantly. And then Robert Earl Reed starts singing. The voice is natural, rugged and square, not that of a trained singer. It creaks like a tree in the wind, and the words drop into the framework of the song itself, like pebbles into a pond, chosen more for their weight than for their superficial polish.

Robert Earl Reed is an emerging about the lives of the subjects – artist of the Americana music lives that simultaneously genre. Hailing from Little Rock, intersect, yet tragically remain Arkansas, he currently resides fixed on their own personal paths and creates his unique brand of with their joys and tragedies. music in the North Mississippi Hill Country. His debut album The songs’ characters and their entitled Carlene will be released backgrounds blend into each in January 2011. other inseparably and inevitably. The ravaging passage of time is shown modestly and compassionately, but without angst. There is nothing of Faulkner here. No pacts with, or duels with the devil, no Old Testament style prophecies, and yet one feels nonetheless a great sense of spirituality at work. A spirituality (God, if you like) that isn’t set apart from our world, but that moves through everything natural, shapes it and Listening through the songs on changes it and imbues it with its this album, the most striking quiet power and dignity. impression you get is one of familiarity – the kind of Paraphilia Magazine conducted familiarity you feel when striking the following interview with Mr. up a conversation with a Reed, who we have found to be a stranger, and finding you very gracious and forthcoming somehow ‘know’ the person. It’s person... an experience reminiscent of discovering an old family album Paraphilia Magazine: You haven’t in a junk shop or an abandoned been playing long, is that right? Tell house. Photos of people who us how it came about. may have given up the ghost ages ago, telling vignettes, whose Robert Earl Reed: In the Summer small and incidental details of 2005 I lost a dear friend, Sgt. reveal layers of intimate facts Daron Audrey Lunsford, to the been in my mind, but now I had War in Iraq. Daron and I had a an outlet so that I could share mutual friend here at home, what I was thinking and living Jason “Taters” Evans who is a with others. As luck would have fine Guitarist. While hanging it, I was introduced to the around one another, Taters Grammy Winning Artist, Jimbo taught me some chords on the Mathus (Squirrel Nut Zippers guitar. For some odd reason and much more). Jimbo has a those simple chords awoke studio (Delta Recording Services) something in my mind. I began to here not far from my home. write. Poems came at a brisk Initially I hired Jimbo to produce pace. Thoughts long sequestered and sing three songs that I had in my mind began to bleed out of written. I loved being in the me. The addition of music just studio. After the first session, seemed natural. Jimbo said, “You know you should really sing your own songs.” I scoffed at the notion. I had never sang a note in front of anyone, but Jimbo was insistent. Jimbo and my co-producer Justin Showah (Afrissippi) patiently helped me “find” my voice over these last few years. There was no master plan to produce and release an album, but the songs kept coming.

PM: In the themes of your songs, you don’t go for the big overblown dramas so popular of Nashville, and yet they are incredibly gripping and moving. I was forty, and was living in a manner that, as I look back on RER: The songs on Carlene are a now, was ridiculous. The music mixture of personal experiences suddenly became a tangible and observations I have of the endeavor that filled a void in my human condition. They are my life. Abstract thought had always simple reflections on times and people that I think we all know at PM: Listening to the album, a point in our lives. I write what everything is recorded very comes to me. I don’t set about to professionally but the production job write a song about a particular is quite simple. You’ve not used subject. I either see something masses of studio effects, only that moves me, or I contemplate a minimal reverb. Tell us a bit about time or episode in my life and the that. words come forth. Each line writing the next until I’ve said RER: The Brilliance that is Delta what I want to say. Recording lies in Jimbo and Justin. I am the writer who comes PM: How much of a time span do with the lyrics and the chord those songs cover in terms of progression. They are ones who drawing on characters and craft my raw materials into the experiences from your life? songs. Together we create the textures. The studio has a soul of its own that is ever present in the RER: I suspect that they are from songs. Jimbo uses vintage the very beginning of my life to equipment like 1947 ribbon now. There are many metaphors microphones, and vintage guitars wrapped in to the songs that and amps to turn out a very represent many different times, different sound. Each song on the people, or emotions that I have. album was recorded one night at My thoughts about these subjects a time. Most of them have few if began taking shape I suspect any overdubs and were laid when I was a child, and the down in just a two or three takes. environment in which I was The emphasis being on capturing raised. the feel and personality of the

piece and not on the perfect I’ve seen some of these characters placement of notes. Additionally many times in my life, both in I am blessed to have access to fine myself my family, or in others local musicians who would lend ...random strangers who exhibit their talent to the work. Much the same wants desires needs. like my writing, we would begin I’ve lived, unfortunately, some of a session with no preconceived these experiences over and over notion of what form the song as well and they’ve taken their would take. It was creation on the toll. fly. We are influenced greatly by the late Jim Dickinson the RER: I suspect a great deal of my legendary Producer a dear friend leanings are there. I do not shun and mentor to Jimbo, who others of faith, unless I find them believed in that magical way of to be hypocritical or dangerous. creating. We didn’t want to We all look into the void that will sound like anyone. We wanted to come for us all and each have to craft our own sound and I do deal with it in our own way. I believe we succeeded. wish sometimes that I hadn't peeked in Pandora’s Box. PM: Are you really a reverend? PM: The people you sing about, are RER: (Laughing) Yes, in a sense. they all real people you know or have An Internet reverend I am. The known? Like Mr. Brock? journey to become “ordained” came as an act of protest. For RER: Yes those are all real people roughly $39.00 U.S. ANYONE that I know or have known. may become a Reverend or Sometimes that person is myself. Doctor or whatever religious title I am drawn to people who are they want. My point being that different. I am drawn to pointing man is fallible, and just because out the realities of life. Some say, someone has a title in front of “Wow, you are dark!” to which I his/her name doesn’t make them answer, no, I’m a realist. I am any different than you or me. I pointing out the cold hard look at history and see the underbelly of life. I’m not being destruction wrought in the name dark. I am merely trying to say, of religious ideology and it “Hey it’s good to deal in reality makes me sick. I have no problem and it’s fine to be different.” They with people believing what they are... I am... a person and there is want, just don’t be violent, meaning in our existence. Mr. judgmental, or prejudicial in said Brock is a prime example. He practice. Peace and Harmony, didn’t read or write very well. He that’s what I wish for all. was what people around here Unfortunately that will never would call “touched”. His come to pass I fear. speech was like that of some turn of the century back woodsman... PM: How much of your spiritual he bathed very infrequently... in leanings come across into the music? his home he had only electricity... no running water, no television. soul. He was a very interesting He lived a very austere existence. fellow. His eyes were so clear. He However, sitting and speaking couldn’t write very well, and with him you would find that at when he did, it was all Caps with his core he only wanted what dots in between and in a type of everyone wants... acceptance, old English like “YE. love, a family, etc. But because he SONS.OF.GAWD. SHOULD. was so outwardly different and NOT. BE. RESPECTER. OF. had such odd behavioral PERSONS.” and he would write tendencies he was ostracized messages on cardboard and affix within his community. The it to trees in the woods where I cruelty of life weeded him out of walked and hunted. You would the gene pool and he never be walking along and come upon married nor bore children. four trees with Bible Versus and words written about his desire for love. He had a special way speaking that was much like his written word. He had a piano that he used two fingers to play for anyone who would listen. He wore “Walkin’ Shorts” as he called them... this, I found out in my older years was actually his underwear. He would not find it odd to walk the property in those Walkin’ Shorts.

PM: How connected is your music with the place you live?

RER: The music is reflective of PM: You’ve written about Mr. the many places I have lived. I Brock on your blog spot have lived in Chicago, Charlotte, http://reverendrobertearlreed.bl ogspot.com and Los Angeles and small towns of Arkansas and Mississippi. In a RER: Well, I have many other nut shell, you experience much of stories in my head about that the same wherever you go. There are people all trying to survive. divorced when I was three. My There are the “upper crust” and Mother worked and provided for the “lower class”...there are just me as best she could. I really people, breeding, consuming, didn’t know my father until I was fighting, loving, dying, living out sixteen. However by this time addictions, just being people. I they each had remarried and know that having lived in many actually were close friends until places and having seen many he died. They both were different ways of life that this has empathetic people. Neither of contributed to my desire to them was tolerant of individuals communicate about the human who were not real at heart, and condition. I personally am a each of them encouraged me to chameleon with respect to where do whatever it was in life that I or whom I am with. My music is wanted to do. They taught me influenced by my channeling (if that if I put mind to it I could that’s the right word) the very accomplish whatever I wanted. personal feelings that I get when I They were each free-spirited and encounter a human being in a volatile. They were creative in certain way. I am a very many ways and encouraged the empathetic person... I hurt when same in me. Musically it would others around me hurt... that trait start with the belief that Jimbo was directly from my mother... I and Justin had in me that I could do not like to see anyone in pain create something special. The and it haunts me. Most people sound and the philosophy behind do not understand why I would the sound comes from living here even care... they think it’s a waste in North Mississippi. There is a of time. Perhaps it is, but it is certain vibe that one gets by there and I can’t look away. being around the Hill Country Blues music of R.L. Burnside, PM: We won’t ask who your Junior Kimbrough, Otha Turner, ‘influences’ are because that’s always Sid Hemphill and their sons and odious. Who would you say taught daughters, and grandsons and you the most – in life and with granddaughters. People like regards to your music? Jessie Mae Hemphill, and R.L. Boyce who are as real as you can RER: In life that would be my get. An artist can't help but be Mother and Father. They touched by the area and local talent that it offers. I have been on... so really it’s just music in fortunate to be privy to sessions general. When I write, I write the at Delta Recording that featured words first and the music comes Luther Dickinson, Alvin from the words and some place Youngblood Hart, Davis Coen, in my mind. They all have left Eric Deaton, Shannon McNally indelible marks in my mind (who lends her fantastic voice to whether they hear it or not. “Castaway Star”) and many others. PM: How did the album come about?

RER: The album itself came out of the cosmic ether. One song led to another and so on. It was a labor of love for me and my two dear friends. It is my totem. One day I hope that my children will listen back to it and say, “Hey Pops was a unique guy, with some unique thoughts and he made a piece of Art that we are proud of.” Earlier this year, some of my music was chosen to be in the score for Where I Begin, an independent film by Thomas Phillips and Melanie Addington. John Prin, the songs from the This exposure brought about the Book North American Folk right time to release Carlene. Songs, John Lomax, and Darrell Scott, Johnny Cash, many PM: Can you tell us about the artists... it’s hard to name them collaboration with Kim Dallesandro? really. I try very hard not to pattern or copy. I realize that RER: I found Kim through much of what I have heard MySpace, and really enjoyed her influences me. I love all music writings and lyrics that she from Beethoven to Suicidal posted. I would share some of Tendencies to Sinatra, on and my music with her and she was one of the people that gave me outside of my own writings. It is confidence to keep creating. Her that special to me.’ song “Splash Me” struck a chord with me. Here is an excerpt from PM: Do you play live very often? my Blog about this: RER: I don’t play my own music ‘The Featured song on my page is live all that much. This type of “Splash Me” by Ms. Kim Banks music needs a certain kind of Dallesandro. This song came I audience. I’m looking for them. would say by way of the fates (laughs) In February I’ll be and the supernatural oceans of performing at Music in the Hall thought and ideas that traverse in Oxford, MS in support of the the ether in the dark of the night. release of the Where I Begin Through my admiration of Kim’s movie. I hope that by building visual work on her MySpace and awareness of my music that I can Kim finding interest in my music find audiences that would like to we began to trade poems and hear it live, and I can plan quips back and forth. economically feasible trips to perform it. I found that Kim is also quite an accomplished lyricist. When she Currently I play in Jimbo Mathus’ posted “Splash Me” as a Mosquitoville, Mississippi Songs comment to other’s sites, I knew and Stories, which is a theatrical in an instant that I FELT! that production that chronicles the song. Kim was kind enough to 1880s and the Birth of the Timber invite me to interpret the song. Industry here in Mississippi to This song was written by Kim in the Westward Expansion. I play the 70s and recorded by Kimmie tenor banjo and the part of “Mr. Rhodes in Austin back then. Chorley”. It is a 10 to 12 piece Unfortunately, Kim had lost the Folk Orchestra that Jimbo has track and no one seemed to have assembled to rave reviews. I am a copy of it. So here were these cutting my live teeth there, and profound words who had become what better teacher than Jimbo separated from their music. I Mathus? appreciate Kim letting us interpret the song. It is actually PM: There’s a weird irony in the the first song that I have recorded way your music and words have found their way into the world via the internet. A strange marriage of these songs live and tell the the simple and minimal with high- stories that are so important to tech. What do you think about that? me.

RER: I know that without the internet we’d have all never met. I have met so many fine artists of all disciplines. Lana Gentry, the surrealist, who is illustrating the artwork for Carlene is a fantastic find. Her style and vision fit perfectly with the rough hewn edges of my art. Also a long list of people who over the past five years gave me healthy criticism or pats on the back that emboldened me to continue honing my art. There is a bigger sea of voices than ever now, and to be heard by people like yourselves is such a great honor. It is allowing me to achieve that Photos © Kaolin Bass, Carlene goal of leaving this totem and Cover Art © Lana Gentry knowing that I did do something that was considered “good”, and Carlene is available on pre-order that feels GREAT! special at: www.hillcountryrecords.com PM: And what next? What would you like to happen? All pre-orders will be shipped by January 1st. For more information on RER: I would like to continue to the album, please visit: write and record. I write a song www.carlenethecd.com every few days. I feel like I got started so late that I have so For booking, please contact Justin much more to say but in a limited Showah at 662.816.4000. time. I feel a real sense of urgency about that. I want to find my audience and then perhaps play

IT’S HARD TO ARGUE WITH EXPERIENCE By Kenneth Rains Shiffrin

Rapid Eye Movement sleep eludes me

I’m denied the dreams derived from daily desperation

And escape is no longer an option.

I am here again, always.

Painted into a corner that blocks all view but the one ahead.

The colors and texture are not my choice

My mind changes before the paint dries

The thoughts of trapped animals can’t help – but their instinct to move, may.

© 2010 Kenneth Rains Shiffrin BLOOD AND HONEY AT THE HORIZON, THE HORSE SAID

By Craig Woods

Rain fell hard on Lake identify another human being as Pontchartrain. The disgruntled an enemy required some sky swirled and bellowed, a heat recognition of their influence haze shimmering odiously above upon him. Until that rainswept the brackish water like the morning of 1911, no living soul afterbirth of a strangled dream. had proved a worthy enough Matthias stood statuesque and adversary to warrant the title. watched as Jensen’s ruined body Now though his vexation had a - entrails spread out in a visceral name: Soledad Cuervo de collage - began to sink into the Perdido. softening clay. For the previous six carny years, this bold black He had acquired the child as part horse had been his closest of a disreputable deal during a compatriot and the only living season tour in Mexico City four creature he considered his equal. years previously. A big time Now the noble beast lay slain, his industrialist by the name of magnificent form defiled by the Velasquez had a stiff one for vicious geek child who, clearly freaks, the more grotesque the having harboured her plan of better. Seemed the big shot’s sabotage for some time, had now illicit dalliance with a local dog- robbed Matthias of everything he woman had produced this valued. In an aberrant moment of illegitimate child whom - though uncontrolled anger, he raised his boasting no obvious deformities pistol to the sky and fired as of her own - was nonetheless a though attempting to blast a hole massive inconvenience to such a in the firmament itself. His eyes respectable pillar of the wept red with frustration. Over community as Sr Velasquez. the course of his wayward life, Much of the man’s public appeal Matthias had made himself an rested on his carefully cultivated enemy of many. But caring image as a steadfast husband and nothing for the underlings he father, embodying the offended or harmed, he neglected traditionalist ethics of loyalty and to return this sentiment. To honesty. An affair with a peasant maid or prostitute would have that Matthias also accept the inflicted damage enough, but bastard child as part of the were it to become common arrangement. Matthias was knowledge that the man had a deeply reluctant. The child, a penchant for slipping his bedraggled urchin with matted mannerly meat into the cracks black hair hanging perpetually and cavities of seamy circus over her sharp features, not only oddities then he would be surely displayed no obvious symptoms ruined - the fact of his mutant of freakish, but she seemed of a offspring the bitter icing on a wretchedly reticent disposition. gravely unpalatable cake. The carny-master could conceive of no way he might possibly “Please, Senor Matthias. I pay make productive use of the girl. you good money to make these Nonetheless, Velasquez was … problems disappear.’ insistent and Dolores appeared quite attached to her daughter. Sceptical at first, Matthias was Thus Matthias found himself swayed irrevocably when leaving Mexico with both in tow. Velasquez had introduced his If nothing else, he decided, canine mistress, Dolores Cuervo Soledad would provide another de Perdido. The dog-woman had pair of hands in shifting and been quite sublime; an elegant dropping the awnings from one figure layered in coarse hair with place to another. Besides, once a proud aquiline muzzle she was a little older, he could protruding unapologetically from always rent her at a fair price to the malformed face. Dolores the local clems if things got tight. could understand the Spanish Whatever hand fate might deal, language perfectly but her he was going to make sure the deformed vocal chords ensured girl earned her keep. that she could communicate exclusively via guttural croaks How he now regretted that and barks. Matthias was quite decision, the first true regret of a smitten. His sideshow had life spent on the world’s darkest already boasted its fair share of margins. If he had only followed distinguished freaks but Dolores his initial gut instinct and turned was truly exceptional. Velasquez his back on the wonderful dog- offered to sell the specimen to woman and her vicious daughter. him but only on the condition If he had only refused to permit Soledad a claim of influence caught scent of the law closing in. upon his existence, for this was Additionally, Soledad was a born the greatest affront of all. prowler. Crouched low to the ground, every muscle hard and For the first two years Dolores tight, sniffing nose turned proved the jewel of the sideshow, downwards, she could move wowing crowds throughout the swiftly and silently through southern states as the Matthias shadows and crowds almost entourage developed a robust invisibly. It was on account of reputation as one of the greatest this particular ability that she was travelling shows in the Americas. eventually assigned the prime From Texas to Missouri, the dog- duty of marking, for none other woman was greeted with the of Matthias’ employees possessed same awestruck mixture of the dual gifts of deft perception fascination and disgust. During and inconspicuousness that so this period her daughter allowed Soledad to identify remained silent and sullen. potential vics and mark them Matthias put Soledad to work as undetected. a rousty. Though barely an adolescent, the girl worked her As an added bonus, Soledad diminutive body thoroughly in more than proved her expediency any given task. She learned the in the event of trouble. During a ways of the awnings quickly, spontaneous ‘Hey, Rube!’ in becoming something of a tent Mississippi, she was revealed to expert in a very short space of be a ferocious and remorseless time, her nimble hands seemingly fighter. Matthias could still carved for the express pursuit of conjure vividly the broken grim and arduous tasks. bloody face of the dumb yokel Moreover, while her mutant who’d wound up taking on a lot origins had neglected to endow more than he’d bargained for her with any obvious deformities, when he picked a fight with Fiery she nonetheless revealed certain Jack the Blade Glommer. In Jack’s talents which were undeniably defence, Soledad had launched canine in nature. She could sniff herself teeth-first at the townie’s out a cheat like a bloodhound crotch, clamping herself there like and - hairs rising on her thin a vice. Screaming, the hick arms - she would grow stiff and attempted to push her away only emit a low growl whenever she to lose three fingers to the girl’s snapping snarling jaws. She had drawing blood. Enraged and then grabbed her victim’s head despite himself, Matthias had with both hands and slammed it proceeded to whip the dog- repeatedly against the hard woman into obedience. This ground, blood pumping from the drew a hugely hostile reaction torn scalp, the skull cracking from the audience who roared audibly. The incident had and spat at the carny-master as necessarily precipitated an he beat the cowering, yelping immediate circus-jump, but the figure who was now coughing up fool had been lucky to escape copious amounts of bright red with his life. While her manner blood. He could recall glimpsing remained perpetually aloof and Soledad’s face, her eerie dark her animalistic tics proved eyes peering from the edge of the occasionally unnerving, Matthias awnings as he violated her could certainly not complain of mother, an unreadable the girl being lazy or without use. expression claiming the young He would never be fond of features half-hidden by that Soledad but he soon accepted her impermeable curtain of black as an asset. hair. The episode was a disaster and the entourage was forced to Things took a turn for the worse circus-jump the very next day for during a term in East Texas fear of reprisals by rowdy locals. through the winter of ‘09. Later in the night, an audible Dolores’ health had begun to ail commotion from Dolores and and her mood spiralled Soledad’s carriage disrupted the downwards. She would spend caravan’s collective sleep. The her nights coughing sleeplessly, a dog-woman - her pent-up rage at terrible bronchial sound that having been so publicly turned the stomach to hear it. humiliated now seemingly Before long it was affecting her erupting - beat her daughter performance as she refused to mercilessly. Soledad’s cries stand for the onlookers, instead continued for over an hour, but sitting sulkily with her back not one in the caravan dared nor turned and her canine features invested enough interest to concealed. When Matthias had intervene. Eventually the blows attempted to cajole her into a subsided and Dolores’ bronchial standing position she had snore sputtered upon the night snapped viciously at his hand, air while her brutalised daughter lay snivelling. “She ain’t lastin’ much longer, that’s for sure. But we can’t The caravan came to rest four afford to keep her, and there ain’t counties later whereupon a local no-one in these states gonna take croaker was recruited to examine in a dyin’ contagious freak. We the dog-woman. Turned out poor got no choice, Boss.” Dolores was in fact suffering from consumption and was not “Let’s sleep on this thing, Harlan. long for this world. Worse still, First thing tomorrow we do what there was no way of knowing needs doin’.” how many others she might already have infected with the Harlan was right, of course, and disease. The croaker gave the Matthias knew it. But the Master entire entourage the once over. was a proud man and felt hugely There was no way to be wronged by God on this matter. conclusive but the Doc identified If his prize specimen was going five other employees with to be taken from him, he suspect symptoms. Curiously, intended to make sure it Soledad, who had slept beside happened on his own terms and her mother since day one, at his own leisure. The ominous appeared completely unaffected drumbeat of the East Texas rain and remained vigorous. throbbed against the canvas as he However, this was little comfort drifted off to a haunted sleep, his to Matthias who was forced into heart a livid inferno … an undesirable confrontation with a cataclysmic truth: his prize He walked through red awnings freak had become an into a strange tent. He was on unaffordable hazard. another Master’s midway it seemed. The drums of rain “We gotta get rid of her, Boss,” reverberated in that scarlet Harlan the pitchman, his oldest amnion, announcing the associate, said with wide-eyed destructive heartbeat of some regret, “She’s a good freak but unknown monster yet to be she’s gonna drag the whole show birthed. The tent was empty of with her to Hell.” townies, no audience for this

“Give it a name. What’s your anonymous sideshow. At the end suggestion?” farthest from the opening stood seven upright mirrors, each the movement in the central mirror. height of a man. Approaching There his image appeared aged; cautiously, he noticed a banner elderly, frail and broken. This in hung above them, red letters on a itself wasn’t so remarkable. In his gold background: ‘THE SEVEN time he had known many a WINDOWS OF ENTROPY’. As sideshow trickster capable of though slipping in through some illusions more elaborate than this. crack in the fabric of space itself, However, the clarity of the image the dog-girl materialised before perturbed him. Gazing intently at him. She stood to the left of the this warped mockery of himself, scene, one arm extended and he could make out the fine detail beckoning him towards the of each crease in the sagging skin, shimmering glass panels. the alarmingly exact rendition of liver spots and discoloured “Mire y vea usted,” she hissed patches. Then there was the smell cryptically from behind a … a pungent ammonia stench tenebrous shade of raven hair, her like stale horse-piss assaulting his young face obscured and nostrils and coaxing tears from inscrutable. his eyes. In spite of his seasoned resolve, terror seized his heart The panes were those of funhouse with a keen frosted claw. The mirrors, each reflecting an image haggard reflection seemed to press of his face and body disfigured by against the glass until finally it tricks of warped glass, a cheap pushed past the boundary of the gimmick he knew too well. frame. Inexplicably, this travesty Surveying these tawdry of his own image emerged slowly depictions of himself in varying but deliberately from an alien states of corpulence, emaciation, realm of inverted dimensions - elongation and compression, a yellowed eyes filled with malign smugness asserted itself in his intent staring deep into the lining mind. Clearly the girl had sought of his soul. Terrified, he thought to unnerve him with this of spinning on his heels and substandard parlour device. He bolting, but some unnameable made to cast a disparaging gaze force fixed him to the spot, in her direction when his rendering him utterly immobile. attention was seized by a flicker of Behind him, he could sense the girl’s approach, could feel her hot Enfield rifle gripped gracefully in animal breath blazing a hateful her muscular young arms. The hex against his back. His frail, bodies of Dolores and two of the twisted doppelganger collapsed infected rousties lay facedown in towards him like the dead trunk of the mud. The remaining three a diseased tree. It was only as the unfortunates stood by the Jinny, girl lay a hard heavy hand upon hands tied behind their backs and wailing for mercy. The girl fired a his quaking shoulder that he was fourth time and the rousty on the finally able to scream … far right collapsed like a sack of

potatoes. Matthias knelt by A rifle shot split the night air like Dolores’ body and looked into brittle glass, propelling Matthias the dog-woman’s one visible eye from his nightmare and into a which now stared lifelessly into swamp of sweat-soaked sheets, a the tenebrous depths of the silent yell trembling upon his dry sludge which claimed her. lips. Denying him any Spinning around on his heels, he opportunity to review the saw that Soledad - aware but dream’s content, the real world of evidently uncaring of his wakefulness swept it brutally presence - was commanding the aside in a flurry of commotion. rifle expertly, putting its owner to The carnies, alerted by the report shame. As the girl hoisted the of the anonymous weapon, barrel a fifth time, Harlan jumped out of their beds and appeared from behind her and carriages in instant defensive attempted to wrench the gun formation. A second shot from her grip. Soledad wriggled sounded, followed by a muted lithely, raising the rifle butt and cry. Matthias shouldered his slamming it forcefully into the holster and strode out into the pitchman’s face. Bringing a hand midway where the rain was to his wounded mouth, Harlan turning the soft ground to a collapsed on his rump in the brown mush. A third shot drew mud. In less than a second, his attention with its Soledad reasserted her aim and accompanying cordite flash. sent the penultimate rousty to the Standing there in the mud was stars; blood and brain tissue Soledad; her diminutive form splashing into filthy puddles. silhouetted iconically between Quite a gathering had formed in the sideshow tent and the the midway by now and several Spinning Jinny, Harlan’s Lee- eager carny faces burned like With his prize freak dead and lanterns in the night as they crept staff depleted, Matthias began to nervously towards the young re-evaluate his lot. Though he assassin. had little affection for her, Soledad had more than proved “Leave her!” Matthias bellowed her worth in the most dire of finally, “Let her finish it.” situations. He had acquired enough respect for the girl to Soledad regarded the Master assign her a new set of duties; she silently, a fierce wind casting a was now put in charge of torrent of wild raven hair across managing the freaks. An unruly her impenetrable features, dark rabble, the sideshow performers eyes glowing with an eerie were at best reluctant to accept animal wrath. Again the girl instruction from the Master handled the weapon with whom they knew had just as illogical precision. The shot much to gain from them as they shattered the night with infernal from him. Soledad however thunder and sheared off the top remained something of an of the rousty’s head, fragments of unknown quantity and, despite scalp and skull spattering the her brief tenure, it was evident seats of the Jinny in red clumps. that the freaks held her in an Business concluded, Soledad exclusive esteem. It was no secret lowered the rifle with a casual that both Fiery Jack and Aquinas sigh and bowed her head as the the Fish Boy had developed rain seemed to strike her for the something of a muted fondness first time. Matricide and murder for this strange Mexican urchin evidently came to her as with her veiled bestial fury. naturally as breathing. It was this untamed quality to the “Where in the Devil’s Hell did girl’s character which also you learn to shoot, kid?” encouraged Matthias to assign her as personal caretaker to his Soledad spoke softly but self- loyal steed. Jensen was a strong assuredly, the first complete beast with an unpredictable sentence he had ever heard her temperament and, as such, it had utter: “No tengo maestro … long been left to Matthias to cater Acabo de saber.” [‘I had no teacher for his horse’s every need; a … I just know.’] desperately time-consuming responsibility for a carny-master they understood or not, the who must ideally be free to keep customers invariably laughed his eyes on every corner of the aloud at the girl’s spontaneous midway. However, the horse routines which added an seemed unperturbed by Soledad, energetic backdrop to the even going so far as to allow her meticulously rehearsed and to pet his dark muzzle - a luxury otherwise static performances of once afforded exclusively by the freaks. All in all, Matthias Matthias himself. With the girl to was pleased with the result. engage in the menial duties of Though the loss of his prize freak feeding Jensen and maintaining remained an unhealing wound, the sheen of his proud black coat, he nonetheless congratulated the Master was permitted a far himself on having carved more open management of his something positive from a time. disastrous predicament.

With the ensuing months, How foolish and short-sighted he Soledad appeared to slip more had been to assume he could so comfortably into the carny easily contain that vile creature. lifestyle and could be found to engage with the patrons in an I should have grabbed that rifle from increasingly direct manner. her when I had the chance and sent Indeed, she now adopted the self- the bitch to Hell with her dog-faced assigned role of freakshow geek, mother. utilising her agile form to perform a series of screwball It was during a tour of Florida in physical comedy routines, all of October of 1910 that the seeds of which were entirely improvised. the girl’s treachery were well and The twist was, of course, that truly sown, though Matthias had Soledad only ever spoke in not recognised it at the time. Spanish. While she understood While Soledad was engaged in English unquestionably, she one of her absurdist routines, the refused to speak it. This rendered Master had been humouring her constant in-performance some nearby patrons with idle commentary entirely small talk as they prevaricated incomprehensible to many of the around their exit from the patrons and only contributed to freakshow. her appeal as an oddity. Whether “That girl you have there, the request.” geek. She’s Mexican?” The girl fixed her gaze upon “Oh she’s from all over. As are Matthias and glared for a we all, eh?” Matthias was already moment before turning her back bored of this banal discourse. reluctantly on the clem and resuming her showpiece “Ah well,” the clem had lethargically. continued, “Something of a storm brewing down in the Latin Matthias had experienced a country. I hear Madero escaped bizarre sensation as the girl had from prison and is hiding out stared at him, a subliminal chill somewhere in these states. Word shaking him to his bones. But has it he’s issued a call for after a few moments it seemed revolution against Diaz to start normality had reasserted itself next month. Looks like big and he thought no more of it. changes are afoot.” What a mistake that had been.

Soledad fell suddenly mute. She He knew now that, from that day gazed at the clem and hushed a forward, Soledad had been small gathering of patrons at her planning her escape and devising side with a raised palm. The dead a means to cause him as much weight of silence filled the tent. grief as possible in the process. For the next few months, the girl “I’m sorry,” the clem muttered had maintained a façade, awkwardly, “Did I say something attacking her work with a new untoward?” fervour. Her routines grew more raucous and Jensen’s coat “Think nothing of it,” Matthias boasted a gleam never before addressed the crowd, “It’s alright attained. As the caravan travelled folks, carry on.” He turned across the state line into sternly towards the girl, “Sol, you Alabama, she proved a relentless may continue with your routine.” worker, enthusiastic to an almost fanatical degree. Her impending Soledad remained still, her dark treason should have been as eyes squinting at the clem. predictable as the sunrise, her motivations as transparent as the “Immediately, Sol. That’s not a water in Aquinas’ tank. But alas Matthias found his judgement before the heat closed in. This clouded by the overpowering was all to change … force of his own self- righteousness. It was to prove his Some Alabama townie had went downfall. into a gloom after playing a whole day and failing to win a By now it was no secret that single game anywhere on the Matthias was illicitly employing midway. This toothless chump- the use of flat joints. Many of the sucking clem had run off, jerking carnival games were routinely his head indignantly towards gaffed, something which was Matthias as he went; “You’re illegal in most states. It was not fuckin’ finished here. You’re unusual for some sour-faced rumbled, y’hear? I’m goin’ to the townie to scream “Gaff!” if they law right now and they’re gonna failed to win a single game, blow the lid right off your whole regardless of this being the case crooked shithouse here, you get or not. Thereafter the law would me?” come snooping around and grill the Master with a selection of Matthias had heard a billion ineffectual questions. When they threats of this ilk throughout his were unable to prove anything life and knew that the vast amiss, they would then search majority of them transpired to the tents and booths for cranks nothing. Besides, he had under and stroms as well as any his employ the best nose on the evidence of illegal substances. continent who could smell the Over the course of the previous liquor on a lawman’s breath from three years, with Soledad’s a hundred miles out. He warmed sensitive nose to warn him of the himself with a self-satisfied smirk approaching law, Matthias had as the disgruntled townie branched confidently out in this disappeared past the front. direction and there were now several booths which performed And then, only an hour or so a covert under-counter service as later, two lawmen appeared, providers of hashish and opiates. censorious eyes scanning the With the girl’s warning, the games and sideshows as they carnival was afforded plenty of patrolled the midway, six- time to conceal the goods where shooters hanging odiously from they would never be found belt holsters. Matthias had to double take. He simply couldn’t maintained his façade, “But I believe his eyes. How could assure you, you’ll uncover no Soledad’s nose have failed her? evidence of anything illegal here, How could she fail the carnival? gentlemen. This is a respectable The answer struck his heart with business where you’ll find only a sobering black bullet. the finest in legitimate entertainment.” She knew they were coming. She wanted them to come here. Sweet The two men began to inspect the fuckin’ Jesus, she wants to ruin me! games more thoroughly. Matthias’ heart thundered in his The carnies went into cover-up chest, threatening to tear through overdrive, attempting to pass his ribcage. For the first time in packages and illicit objects into his life he came close to one another’s pockets while each something resembling fear. He performing a pantomime of peered across the midway to the innocuous daily carny routine. sideshow marquee and met Matthias approached the two Soledad’s dark eyes glinting in officers with a gesture of wide the dim afternoon light. She open arms and an ingratiating stood by the entrance, arms grin. folded across her chest, staring into her Master’s soul. “Gentlemen, how good of you to stop by. We’re always happy to You little bitch. You’re finished. I’m welcome the guardians of the going to hang you with your own local community into our little guts. world here. I do hope you enjoy.” Miraculously, the carnies did an The man on the left - the older of immaculate job in concealing the the two - was clearly impervious goods. The officers found to the Master’s charm. “We have nothing. A wave of relief washed reports of rigged games here. over the Master’s body and he And the use and sale of allowed himself a victorious glare prohibited substances. We’ll be in Soledad’s direction as he taking a good look around.” reconvened with the two lawmen. The girl stood rigid, her “Well of course you may look eyes narrowed to slits. around as you please,” Matthias You can’t beat me, you little whore. “You little bitch!”

“Well, sorry to have bothered The man lunged at Soledad and you here, Mister …?” she raised her face to the sky, emitting the first English words “Matthias.” that Matthias had ever known to fall from her savage mouth: “Yes. Well. Sorry for the “Hey, Rube!” inconvenience but, as officers of the law, we do require to be The call went out and a gang of thorough …” carnies dropped what they were doing and ran to the girl’s aid. “I quite understand, gentlemen. The townie was pulled to the And we appreciate your ground, punched and kicked. diligence in this matter. Please, let me offer you gents the “What the Hell?!” The older of opportunity to play on the the two officers dropped a hand house.” to his holster. He was taken aback as Soledad came rushing “Ah sorry,” the older man, more out of the rabble towards him, a relaxed now, smirked jovially, feigned expression of distress “I’m afraid in the line of duty upon her young features. there’s no …” “Chester! Chester!” she cried, From the corner of his eye, pointing to the man being Matthias perceived a lightning thrashed upon the ground. blur of movement as Soledad “Violador. Molestero!” retrieved a steaming coffee pot from the counter of the direct “That filthy …” The lawman sales booth. With a vicious speed, strode towards Soledad, the girl threw the contents over extending a benevolent arm, the head of a nearby townie who “Come here, darlin’.” squealed in agony and shock. The scalded man turned to see the girl Before Matthias could intervene, drop the pot on to the ground the girl reached out with unreal and yelled at her in equal parts speed, grabbing the six-shooter rage and pain. from the officer’s holster. “What the-?” Thunder cut the question into and climbed lithely on to the dead air as Soledad blew the beast’s back. Harlan the pitchman lawman’s guts out through his emerged, Lee-Enfield primed and back with his own gun. In a flash, shouldered, followed by several she spun and fired a second other carnies now conscious of round through the forehead of the situation and armed with his partner. Both officers pistols. crumpled to the ground as gracelessly as abandoned “Kill the little bitch! I want her marionettes. Twirling the dead!” smoking gun expertly in her lissom hand, Soledad glared into With a sharp jab of her bony Matthias’ stunned face. In a voice ankles, Soledad spurred Jensen thick and black as crude oil, she over the fence of the pen. As the spat out words which would horse raced towards the front of remain with him for the rest of the midway, Harlan and the his days: pistol-packing carnies sent a volley of bullets through the air “No voy a ser enterrados en la which whizzed past the girl. Each tumba de mi madre.” gunman fired several times, missing Soledad with every shot With that, she turned and sped as she clung low to Jensen’s out of Matthias’ reach and on mane. A single bullet struck the towards the pen where the horses horse in the side causing the rested. The crowd screamed and beast to whinny in pain and rage, yelled, men and women grabbing but it sped on. their children and ducking for cover. “Not the fucking horse!” Matthias wrenched the pistol “Stop her!” Matthias shook with from the grip of the offending rage, his voice reduced against gunman and slammed the heavy his will to an animal snarl. handle against the dumbstruck face - a yell of pain stifled behind Soledad pulled a knife from her burst lips and broken teeth. belt and cut a rope, causing the gate of the pen to swing open. Within moments, the horse had Wasting no time, she grabbed disappeared from view, taking hold of Jensen’s noble black mane the mutinous girl with him and leaving Matthias and his carnival I’m going to drag the little cur all in a town full of panic and hatred the way to Florida and put her in with the heat closing in fast. the stocks and let all of Gibtown throw their shit at her, you hear The entourage had packed away me? And then I’m going to slit in double time and Matthias her little spic throat and let them ordered the whole caravan to all piss on the bleeding wound head back east and lay low in before we burn her alive! Got it?” Gibtown, Florida. Meanwhile, he and Harlan would track down “Hear you, boss.” While Harlan Soledad and make an example of had known Matthias to be vicious her. in the past, his viciousness usually proved a rather cool and “Where you think she’s goin’, rational variety. He had never Boss?” before witnessed his employer descend into such an Hazily remembered words came uncontrollable state of vitriol and floating towards Matthias as if this unnerved him. sailing in from another time track; Latin country … call for “We’re going to split. You’re revolution … next month … changes going to follow the route of the afoot … Mississippi, I’ll stick close to the coast and we’ll reconvene in New “She’s gone west, Harlan. She’ll Orleans. Understood? If neither be making her way back to of us finds the little whore on the Mexico any way she can.” way, she’s bound to show up there. Even a runaway circus “Well if you’re right, the law freak can find a place to hide in could likely catch up with her New Orleans and she fuckin’ first, Boss. Maybe we should just knows that, she ain’t stupid.” let …” Over the course of the following “She’s not getting away from week, Matthias rode relentlessly me!” Matthias could not recall across the mud flats and the last time another human swamplands, nightly setting up being had caused him so much camp in the undergrowth. On the rage and pain. “If she’s going to way, he stopped to ask each and die, then it will be at my hand. every innkeeper and smalltown drunk if they’d seen a little acted as his midway and his Mexican bitch on a big black blood ran cold as he glimpsed the horse. dark shapes lying by the shore. He dismounted and ran towards “Kinda thing I’d remember, don’t the horse’s heavy corpse and the ya think?” whined a particularly stricken figure of Harlan who lay disrespectful civilian in Asshole, soaking and shivering in the Mississippi, careworn by the merciless rain. The sopping red Master’s belligerent questioning. maw of a knife-wound yawned Matthias had smashed the dumb wide in the pitchman’s stomach hick in the face with a rifle-butt and blood trickled from between for his trouble. his lips as he struggled to speak.

By the time he reached Louisiana, “Boss … the girl … she g-got m- Matthias was fatigued and m-me … she got me good.” saddle-sore, eager for rest but still burning with the desire to exact The man was doomed, there was revenge upon the defiant girl no doubt of that. Matthias wasted who had wronged him. He made no time with compassion. his way through central New “Harlan, what happened exactly? Orleans, stopping in at favourite Tell me.” haunts in attempts to locate both Harlan and Soledad, but his “I found Jen …Jen …” he pointed search bore no fruit. Finally he feebly at the dead horse, “There headed northwards to the south was n-no sign of th-the girl. I sat shore of Lake Pontchartrain down next to him, cou-couldn’t where his company had believe he was gone. And then traditionally set up business on …” A lucid expression of horror many previous visits. There was broke through the pain on a chance that Harlan may be Harlan’s face as he recalled the found there. terrible moment: “His body just … just opened u-up an-and this And indeed he did find the … shape came flying ou-out of his pitchman on the muddy banks of stomach to-towards me. I had no the lake, and Jensen too. But idea what I was s-s-seeing … this Soledad was long gone. Matthias thing just c-came out at me and I rode over the vast patch of felt a pain … a pain …” His pasture which had previously shivering hands fumbled at the mortal wound. “She was inside, doom in the southern wilderness, boss. In … in the fuckin’ horse! Soledad had recognised the Hidin’ there! L-like … like a f-f- horse’s potential to keep her alive fuckin’ dog!” Harlan spat the last after its death. With her humble word like a curse and, with a few hunter’s knife she had slit open more unintelligible grunts, the the beast’s belly, removed the pitchman passed away, empty innards and climbed inside the eyes locked in a perennial stare still warm cadaver to shield towards the angry Louisiana sky. herself from the elements. Concealed within that wreckage Jensen’s ruined body lay of flesh and bone, she had waited gracelessly oozing red mush patiently for the storm to subside upon the soaking ground like a or for another mode of transport scene from an abattoir. Clearly to present itself. How eerily the wound he had sustained in appropriate that Harlan should Alabama had guaranteed the have stumbled across the ruined animal’s downfall. All things horse and thus provide Soledad considered, it was remarkable the with the perfect opportunity to beast had made it this far west. continue on her journey while Matthias could only assume that also inflicting another bitter Jensen had developed a far closer wound upon her former Master. and more loyal bond with With cold-blooded instinct, she Soledad than it had ever felt had plugged Harlan, relieved possible to share with him, and it him of his pistol and rifle, was this loyalty which had seen it claimed his horse and vanished carry the wretched girl all these into the storm like a dark wraith. weary miles. Affronted by this All things considered, the girl betrayal, Matthias kicked at had declared herself a formidable Jensen’s dead skull and spit into adversary. the white unseeing eye. Matthias roared and shot at the In spite of everything, the carny- sky a second time. master remained in awe of the girl’s survival instinct and incredible resilience. Where most her age would have panicked at their steed’s demise and ran off blindly into the rain to meet their

A SYMPATHETIC FIGURE

By James King

Images © Max Reeves

June 14th, 1940 ‘Why so tortured, baby? You’re winning, no?’ Through the sweat-drenched windowpane he observes two It’s hot.’ bleary-eyed officers swinging blindly at each other. One makes Max does away with the last a connect. The other splashes into buttons of his shirt. In the the gutter. window reflection he stands a Hindu with an armband, Tobacco crackles between Max’s redeemed through inversion. lips. He wipes his brow and takes Smoke rolls out of his mouth, another drink. From the bedpost snaking its way up towards the Inez laughs at his silhouette, all ceiling. framed dramatic against the window.

Inez ripples in the sheets, caught ‘I know.’ in his eye. Max takes another drink, regards the nude. ‘You drink like it is so... it won’t work no more.’ You are not sad?’ He buttons his fly. ‘I was. I am. But for me, things could be worse.’ ‘No more tonight. Just this.’

A slither of wallpaper peels away, An air bubble works its way glue stretching like saliva between around the glass cylinder as he parting lips. Max takes another glugs. She watches bourbon drink. disappear.

‘It is not bier in that bottle, you ‘You want me to go?’ know?’ In the gutter he is stirring now. ‘No. You stay. It is a bad night ‘I am no innovator. I have friends. tonight.’ Some family. Some education. I have views. Some opinions. But I ‘The streets, they tremble with the have no extraordinary-‘ He music and the singing. You very swallows, ‘No heroic-’ much wanted Paris?’ ‘You are unhappy with the ‘I would have liked to visit mould, but will not break it.’ She another time.’ laughs some more, ‘It is rather beautiful, no? He remains stoic as Inez finds the vial in her bag, the heat rises and the flames glow tastes a drop. Her eyes droop. A brighter on the horizon and things smile slurs across her lips, she become worse and worse-’ twists the sheets around herself. ‘But not for me.’ ‘I don’t think you are very good at being what it is you are, garcon.’ ‘No. Not for you.’

‘Neither do I.’ Max takes a long ‘Not yet.’ drag. ‘I had very little choice in the matter.’ ‘Definitely not yet.’

Inez stretches out, her joints crack, He lights a cigarette with the ‘He does not like what he is! He molten butt of the last one, takes had no choice!’ Then giggling another drink. She continues: something hysterical, ‘What a terrible shame it is so!’ ‘So he stands, tortured little soul, framed in the window-’ ‘I did not say I had no choice. I never said that. I know English. I ‘Of a rented room–’ said I had little choice.’ ‘In a rented city. With a rented Celebrations rise up through the girl. Your very own little place in floorboards from the bar below, the Sun.’ an old Germanic song. Rats scuttle beneath his feet. ‘Even deserts grow cold in an eclipse.’ She really laughs at that one. small and very bad character. One ‘Very good. But baby, deserts are without a proper name. And they cold every night. We must not will cut my hair short.’ make poetry out of things.’ ‘They do that.’ He takes another drink, ‘If I were born somewhere else, in a ‘I know, baby.’ different time, I would have been remembered a good man.’ Max takes another drink.

‘And now they will shoot you in the pictures. Dead. You will be a

THE CIRCUS

By Ele-Beth Little

Photos © Lisa Wormsley

PART 1. You may have noticed our Welcome! Welcome! We hold wretched guide here, grimacing in within our thin-skinned his furs, with only his groin bubblegum walls, thrills and exposed to the bitter cold (it is a horrors, spectacular spectacles, shameful punishment for a honest delights. Take time to misdemeanour committed in his consider now, if you should allow youth and he has born it for so us darlings to lead you there. And long that his soul has turned to prepare yourself. Beware! Beware! vapour and he hardly feels at all). Well it is this very impediment - his absolute vacancy - that created in him the special talent he holds today. That is, the skill to create other realms based on the customer’s imagination. See how his eyes pierce you as he gapes blankly in to your most sacred inner life – watching your mind like a theatre, seeing all there is to see. He is the gateway, my dear. So don’t keep him waiting.

Come along, come along. We are children; simple and sweet. Our hands are sticky with candyfloss. We promise to take good care of you. Oh it’s a gamble we admit We aren’t identical in every way, that, like any dose of life in its us girly-girly sister pals. As you purest form. But you couldn’t can tell, I do the talking. Also, possibly be in better company... most importantly, she likes to play with dolls for fun whereas I My name is Dot and my mute like to tickle people until they twin here is Janice. She is swollen squeal. We’re quite unique as far with child - at the tender age of as twins go. seven I’m afraid, but she will never give birth. That’s her Oh you are being very cautious perpetual condition. She spends Sir and perhaps you need more eternity suffering for our youth. convincing. This is a circus that What a sacrifice she makes – will stain you on the inside, and brewing all that magic in her embed there a coil of fantasy that cauldron belly. And yet look at you might slide down again if you her; she beams broadly like a fool. dare. It’s like madness only better, She knows she has a purpose you its birth and death all rolled in to see. Everyone needs a purpose. one. Sound appealing? How can you resist. for you. The nausea will pass, it is your heart having its triumph.

PART 2.

And what did he face when he entered? A colourful banquet of fruits on a circular table. And behind – a row of women of different forms and beauties, lay naked and paralysed in eternal sleep.

His mind raced with strange and curious impulses that he could now satisfy. But he mustn’t rush, he should prolong it. He has That’s it mister. Step in to the red forever to indulge. And they glow and be close to the guide at shan’t wake. all times. So for the first hour he focused on Now beyond the curtain lies one woman alone, choosing her as another land – a land born from a canvas to create a fruity your unconscious yearnings - and masterpiece. A grape in the belly I’m as curious as you are to button, halved peaches in her discover what may unfold as we arm-pits, sliced pineapple circled venture inside, so make haste. See the nipples and the finale; our guide staring at our path – his bananas inserted into each orifice. eyes create the way and the She lay as if dead, a decorated destination. He is the pore object. He trembled with the through which your dreams will empathy he wished he had for the seep out before you, a cleansing if feelings she wasn't having! you will. Time sped quickly on and he Those chimes you here are the picked next a woman with a sly voices of time, calling it to a halt and boastful seeming face. He rocking back and forth, until the should not and could not judge a fruity mush smeared round her sleeping stranger, but this was a head and leaked into her hair. dream and it seemed only right that he could create truths in such His impulses growing more a realm. He designated her the sexual in nature his next focus least favoured of the maidens on was a plump girl’s vagina where offer and decided that he disliked he decided upon a delicate and her, she was a spiteful creature clinical procedure of placing an deserving of humiliation. He ate apple pip between her clitoris and strawberries then, over her wide, its hood. staring eyeballs until the white turned pink and strawberry tears Oh all the possibilities from one were dribbling down her face. small set up – he looked to the guide and the guide looked on… Ideas quickly flooded him and tickled at his genitals like teasing demons. He now rushed to perform each before the allure of a new idea had taken him over, enjoying the torment of his urges pressing at his soul like a tide.

Next he chose a frail looking brunette though her face remained a blur. His task, he decided, was to stuff as much in her mouth and down her throat as she could possibly contain until it overflowed like some fruity overdose vomit. This accomplished he sat on her face,

THE SUNNYBROOK RETREAT

By Karl Koweski

Photos © Max Reeves

1 “Now how long have you been interfering with yourself?” The doctor looked like Stephen Doctor Cameron inquired. King. His jet black hair was so thick and bushy, you’d need a “I’ve been boxing the clown for – machete to part it. He wore eye .” glasses like twin fish bowls, his dark eyes submerged within. “Please,” the doctor said. “Here Big, sulphur colored teeth and a at Sunnybrook, we refrain from nostrum twice the length of his using cutesy euphemisms for the forehead. I figured he’d fit the act of masturbation.” chronic masturbator profile. But no. That mantle fell on my He steepled his fingers beneath shoulders. his chin and regarded me with those watery eyes. forefinger.

“You wanna know when was the The doctor rephrased his first time?” question. “How often throughout any twenty four hour period do “However you feel is the you manually bring yourself to appropriate way to answer.” orgasm? And be truthful. Dishonesty on your part will only “Well, the eighth grade, I guess. prolong your stay here and Thirteen, fourteen years old. Like negatively impact our ability to anybody else.” rehabilitate you.”

“Anybody as in whom?” “Rehabilitate? You make it sound like I’m a crack addict.” “Anybody as in everybody. Everybody does it.” “Interesting you should make that comparison. What would “And you’ve researched this? you say about a crack addict Interviewed subjects? Compiled smoking dope in the presence of statistics?” The doctor furrowed his six year old daughter?” his brow. “Let’s keep the answers centered on your aberrations and The doctor allowed the silence to not project your onanastic hang between us a full minute tendencies on the populace. How before continuing. “That’s many times a day do you touch enough for our one on one time yourself in an inappropriate today, Mr. Melrose. I’ll have Mr. manner?” Fogel escort you to the dormitory and give you a more thorough “You mean like jerk off? Or just explanation of what will be touch?” expected of you during your stay at Sunnybrook. And please do “Touch yourself for the purpose keep in mind we are here to help of arousal. And please stop ensure a healthy and productive fondling my ink pen.” lifestyle that will benefit you and your family.” I didn’t realize I still held the pen I used to fill out the paper work. I thanked him and immediately I looked at the cheap ball point hated myself for it. Waiting pen perched between thumb and outside the doctor’s office for Mr. Fogel, I sat on the hard plastic hand. chair for how long? Ten, twenty minutes? There were no clocks He glanced at it distastefully. on the walls. My watch had been “We don’t shake hands here. confiscated during indoctrination Sunnybrook policy. My name is along with my belt, my shoes, my Mr. Fogel and that will be the wedding ring, even my wallet only way you will address me. with the folded beaver shot Understand?” stuffed behind the credit cards I declared bankruptcy on two “Sure.” years ago. “Yes, Mr. Fogel.” I heard computer keys tapping in an adjoining office and thought “Yes, Mr. Fogel?” about my own computer, an assembly line Dell now in the “Ok. Follow me. I’ll get you possession of the eggheads here situated.” at Sunnybrook. Even now, specialists poured through my He led me from the managerial files, my internet history, sites area toward the dorm. Along the ranging from zombie porn to hall, posters hung at five foot naked midget mimes. And all staggered intervals. All the those porn clips downloaded images featured soft focused from peer-to-peer sites. Erica congregations of men. The Campbell. Raven Riley. Brandi catchphrases went along the lines Belle. I knew their bodies better of NO MORE FLYING SOLO or than my own wife’s. WINNING BACK YOUR LIFE FIVE MINUTES AT A TIME. “Mr. Melrose?” Mr. Fogel stood to my right. He held a clipboard I suppose when the doctor said angled away. He wore khaki dormitory, I expected a pants and a gray polo shirt with university style dormitory with Sunnybrook insignia small, semi-private rooms and embroidered on the chest. There perhaps the inconvenience of a was something perverse about roommate. the size of his gigantic moustache. Mr. Fogel led me into a military style barracks. Fifty cots were “Yes?” I stood and extended my lined up at three foot intervals. A standing footlocker separated moustache. each bunk. Track lighting illuminated the entire room. No “No I don’t want two demerits, dark corners existed here. At a Mr. Fogel.” rough estimate, maybe twenty men, pale and sullen, milled The orderly withdrew a penlight about in small groups numbering from is belt and clicked it on. He no less than three, no more than played the ultraviolet light across five. the crotch of Mr. Rearick’s chinos. “Looking clean, Mr. Rearick. “Mr. Rearick. Front and center. Looks like you’re learning to And what did I tell you about keep your bodily fluids where hands in your pocket?” they belong. Inside your body.”

“They’re not my hands,” Mr. He made a suck lemon face. Rearick, a pasty faced, freckled “Yes, Mr. Fogel.” redheaded man answered. “Mr. Rearick, this is Mr. Melrose. Several men standing in his He’s going to be your new vicinity giggled behind their flaccidity partner for the time empty palms. The intense being. Get him up to speed on lighting and the plum rings of what will be expected of him exhaustion circling their eyes during his stay. Keep each other created grinning skulls of their out of trouble. No touching faces. below the waist, of course. Mr. Melrose, you will find your “That’s one demerit, Mr. Rearick. Sunnybrook apparel in the You don’t want two.” footlocker next to your assigned cot. Also in the footlocker you The demented smile disappeared. will find the Sunnybrook Mr. Rearick approached hands handbook listing all rules and flat at his sides. He stopped two regulations. I suggest you feet in front of Mr. Fogel as become intimately familiar with though there were an invisible the codes of conduct if you wish barrier between the two men. for your stay here to be pleasant “No, I don’t.” and beneficial.”

“No, I don’t, what?” A ghost of a “Yes, Mr. Fogel,” I said. smile flicked the corners of his “Mr. Swann will be along shortly to collect your civilian attire. the anti-Viagra. Keeps from Dinner is at 5 pm followed by the having a dorm full of hard dicks share circle. You’ll be expected running around.” to know the Sunnybrook bylaws and conduct yourself “Oh.” accordingly.” “Don’t look so morose, Melrose. “Thank you, Mr. Fogel.” The This ain’t the end of the world.” words roiled around my mouth like a shot of Castor oil. I didn’t “I’ve been institutionalized for call my bosses at work ‘mister’. chronic masturbation. I’ll be lucky if I don’t get divorced.” 2 “Self-pity is the masturbator’s Dinner consisted of a crumbling prime enabler,” Streggie, a little slab of meatloaf, watery mashed elf of a man, leaned over and potatoes and a dollop of mushy recited emotionlessly. peas. Code 43 of the Sunnybrook Handbook stated: No phallic “Well, if your wife does leave foods will be served the duration you,” Rearick said, “you all ready of your stay. And the food was got all the tools you need for a uniform in its utter blandness so sex life alone. Besides, it’s not as to be simply eaten, without like you’re an intravenous drug pleasure or appetite in user. You ain’t got any track accordance with Code 5; marks lining your arms. Maybe a Sunnybrook will ensure the client few bruises on the tool, but overcomes his addiction without nothing noticeable in public.” the aid of cross addictions. “Great. At least I’m not a Rearick sat across the table junkie.” glowering at his own tray of mush. “Go easy on the flaccidity “Hell, man, be thankful you’re punch,” he warned. “It’s spiked not Kerry Hedges over there.” with soft petre.” Rearick pointed out a stocky guy, boyish-looking despite his gray “Soft petre?” hair.

“I’m guessing you never served “Looks like he’s in the same boat time in the military. Soft petre’s as us.” “Shit. He’s not a masturbator. moral in this society?” Can’t even remember the last time he whacked it.” I stared stupidly at him for a moment. “What the fuck?” “Then why the hell’s he here?” “I’m just giving you shit,” “He can’t keep his hands off Rearick finally laughed. other guy’s junk.” “How long you been here?” I “Oh, damn.” asked.

“But don’t start getting any ideas. “Let’s just say you’re my fifth He’s under constant surveillance. flaccidity partner.” Even the bracelet he wears; the alarm goes off if his pulse “Fifth?” quickens. He even moves his wrist too quick, the orderlies are “Yeah, I’m like One Spewed Over on him. Plus, he’s the most The Cuckoo’s Nest in here. I may unpleasant sonofabitch you’ll not ever get out of here. It’ll be ever come across. You can’t so the final cure.” much as hustle your balls without him telling Fogel on “Bullshit. We can walk out of you.” here any time we want. It’s not like we’re committed.” “Christ. This place is a madhouse.” “Ha! You might wanna take another look at that contract you “Meaning you think our acts are signed, Melrose.” natural outside these walls?” Rearick asked. “What? What’s that suppose to mean.” “Maybe not Kerry’s.” Rearick glanced at Fogel entering “So you’ve decided to have final the cafeteria. “Put your tray up, judgement on what’s right and partner. It’s share circle time.”

3 looked at like it was the worst thing you could possibly do. I The man who introduced himself figured if I didn’t do it, I’d be as Sonny Dobson perched on the believable, you know, if I ever edge of a gray folding chair. had to deny any accusations. Dressed in his Sunnybrook attire, he didn’t look any different than “There’s this kid a grade ahead of any other clients circling the me, Kevin Forster. I always share area, as though they were hated the smarmy sonofabitch, all created from the same mold, always acting like he was better old G I Joe style replicas where than everybody. Someone only the hairstyles change color. spread the rumor he got caught masturbating in the gym locker He said “I was still in junior high, room. It was one of those stories I guess. Thirteen years old, you hear from a friend who maybe. I’d heard about jerking heard from a friend of a friend off, but I was always kinda who caught Kevin red-handed. scared to try it out. Mostly None of us even questioned why because we all accused each other the hell someone would even jerk of doing it and it was always off in a gym locker room where any dude could walk in and catch Mr. Swann templed his fingers you.” under his nose. “Did you ever apologize to Kevin? Perhaps “I got caught flogging it in the some closure?” back of a greyhound bus,” Kerry Hedges interrupted. “Nah, he killed himself when he was eighteen. Hung himself with “Got caught by the guy you were an extension cord in his closet. I flogging,” someone else added, figured maybe, I don’t know, laughing. autoerotic asphyxiation? That’s what I told everybody, anyway.” Mr. Swann, the moderator, made a sour face. “Enough of that Mr. Chuck Streggie said “I always Carrington. Mr. Hedges, you had a hard time finding stuff to know better than to cut in.” beat off to. This is before the internet, mind you. Kids today “Yeah, well,” Dobson continued, got it too easy. A couple clicks “we gave that poor sumbitch so and in two seconds they got all much shit. Made jerk off gestures the porn in the world. I came out every time we saw him. Told of a close knit family, kinda everyone the story, the girls religious, you know? I couldn’t especially. Turned him into a get away with sneaking any porn pariah over night for nothing, mags into my room. My mom you know? So after a while I got would find them in a heartbeat. I curious what the big deal was. I swear to god mom didn’t have came home from school one day, nothing better to do than scour said hello to my mom, walked my room while I was school. For into the closet of my bedroom what I have no idea; I didn’t and masturbated right there. Still smoke, drink, drug, I was the best two minutes of my life, terrified to come home with a B that first time. I nutted into a on my report card. But I needed moon boot. Next day, I called something to beat off to. I even Kevin Forster out in the lunch searched my parent’s room when line. Asked him if he washed his they weren’t home and didn’t hands before getting them French find nothing.” fries. Everyone laughed at him. But not a day went by I didn’t “You didn’t look hard enough, jerk off like a bandit.” dude,” Carrington said.

“Mr. Carrington…” Mr. Swann “Well, the worst part,” Streggie pointed his templed fingers at the said, “I’d just rented Lifeforce. A lanky fella, leaning back in his Tobe Hooper movie about, like chair with his hands clasped space vampires, and I was really behind his head and his legs excited about it cause I heard it stretched out, trying to look cool was loaded with full frontal at a masturbation clinic. nudity. I got the camcorder out of the closet and found a blank “Anyway, I had a TV in my tape already inside. I thought, room, but no VCR. This is back hey, you know, I don’t know when VCRs were still real what I thought, really. I turned it expensive and we just had one in on and it was my mom and dad the house. But I found that I getting it on, man. They’d could hook up my parent’s recorded themselves and they camcorder to my tv and watch were doing everything. You movies. I knew good horror know…” movies always had a few scenes of T n’ A. So every week I’d rent “No, dude, you didn’t…” a couple horror movies to beat off to. It’d take me hours to get off. Streggie put his face in his hands Playing and rewinding, playing and didn’t say anything for a and rewinding the Linnea long time. Quigley strip scene in Return of the Living Dead. Getting “Dude,” Rearick said, “I’ve aroused, ready to pop, catching jerked off to some crazy shit in sight of a nasty-looking zombie, my time. Midgets, mimes, having to start all over. midgets with mimes, midgets Sometimes having to watch the dressed up like mimes, pregnant sex scenes through the German women with Down camcorder’s view finder if my Syndrome. But parents? Fuckin parents were home. All that time pervert, man.” wasted, I could have been a horror movie director instead of “That’ll be enough, Mr. Rearick,” stuck here.” Mr. Swann said. “We are here to share. We are not here to judge.” “You’re getting help, Mr. Streggie. That is what is “Parents, dude.” important.” “You are hovering dangerously close to a demerit, Mr. Rearick.” “What? No. You just asked that five minutes ago.” “Ok. Ok. Sorry, Chuckles. It’s perfectly natural to masturbate “Well, that’s five minutes you to, what would you call it, Mr. could’ve started on it.” Swann? Visually documented parental fornication?” “I don’t want to get started on anything. I just want to sleep.” “That’s one demerit, Mr. Rearick.” “It’s just gonna be more of the same old shit for you tomorrow.” “Fuck, man. What do you want me to hear, sitting here listening “For me? Why not you?” to this twisted shit? You want me to congratulate Chuckles for “You heard the man. I gotta go choking out a load for his mom see the doctor in the morning. and dad?” For another attitude adjustment. Probably take me outta regular Streggie didn’t look up from his circulation for a while. Last time palms. they told me it was my last chance. Fucking bullshit. I “That sort of behavior is haven’t touched myself in weeks. counterproductive to the Haven’t had a decent hard for… Sunnybrook ideology. You can ever it seems.” tell Dr. Cameron all about your problems in the morning.” “Rearick. What’d you mean, earlier, when you asked about “Like I give a shit.” reading the entire contract? About leaving here?” “I jerked my brother off imagining my mom and dad,” “Read the contract. All the way Kerry Hedges said. through. Sunnybrook is an experimental live-in 4 rehabilitation facility. You’re their guinea pig, Melrose, no “Hey, Melrose,” Rearick hissed different than I am, or Hedges or from the cot next to mine. “You Carrington, or poor fucked-up jerking it?” Streggie. If you opt to leave before the mandated length of your stay--.” runny oatmeal and raisin toast, Mr. Fogel retrieved Rearick for “What’s the mandated length of his meeting with Dr. Cameron. stay? They didn’t tell me any Rearick bowed his head and mandated length of stay.” offered no goodbyes.

“As determined by Dr. The rest of us were led by Mr. Cameron.” Dwyer, a slight man in blue sweatpants and a Sunnybrook “Shit.” staff t-shirt, to a football field- sized yard behind the barracks. “You’ll be in violation of the Here, surrounded by a twelve- contract and you’ll be required to foot high chain link fence topped pay for treatment received.” with razor wire, Mr. Dwyer led us through half an hour of light “Fuck. I didn’t even want to calisthenics followed by a two come here. My wife made me. mile run. The entire time he How much do they charge?” repeated Code 7 of the Sunnybrook handbook. A “You’re looking at thirty rigorous exercise routine thousand dollars a day.” dampens masturbatory urges.

“What? What the fuck!” I wanted to argue the logic of Code 7. After all, I was at the “Shhhhh. Quiet, man. You’ll get peak of my athleticism when I us both locked in the light room. embarked on the one-handed Didn’t you read the fine print? journey without end. However, Or has masturbation made you at the moment, I had to admit blind?” there’s nothing less appealing than almost two dozen huffing, “Thirty grand a day for what?” sweating guys shuffling along the track punctuated every ten “To wrest control of your life seconds by Carrington muttering away from your penis, to hear “this is some bullshit”. them tell it.” It looked like a run but we 5 moved slower than a walk. Even then, there were men who Once we finished a breakfast of couldn’t keep up; Dobson, Streggie, Kerry Hedges. rather than the Sunnybrook group therapy spotlight. His I hit my twenty four hour mark, acne sparkled like cherry stars in the first thirty thousand dollars I a cottage cheese sky. didn’t have, three quarter miles into the run. “I’m curious about your masturbatory habits, Mr. Brock,” The communal showers were Mr. Swann began scanning his awkward. A single room, three clipboard. “With this device dozen shower heads and no called a fleshlight. For the sake of partitions. Twenty guys trying anyone present who are unaware not to look at their own cocks, exactly what a fleshlight is, can trying not to glance at their you enlighten us?” neighbor’s cocks, making sure no one’s taking an inordinate Judging by the catcalls, most amount of time to lather their everyone had all ready been cocks, praying the soft petre enlightened. doesn’t wear off any time soon and keeping an eye on Kerry “It’s this thing,” Wes mumbled. Hedges whereabouts. “Speak up, please, Mr. Brock,” Mr. Swann said. From there, Mr. Fogel herded us into the group session. Before “It’s this thing.” The volume rose Mr. Swann took over, Fogel but the words remained jumbled. introduced me to my new flaccidity partner, Carrington. “Please enunciate clearly, Mr. Brock. Remember, you’re “If you’ll take your seats.” Mr. speaking not only to me, but to Swann was all ready seated on a an audience of your peers who folding chair surveying his need help every bit as much as clipboard. “I believe today we’ll you do. We’re not here to judge start with you, Mr. Brock.” or demean you. Only to cure you of your affliction and present you Wes Brock didn’t look old a better quality of life. A life no enough to have even graduated longer centered on the next high school. He slouched in his opportunity to touch your penis. chair, weak chin resting on his Now please. Describe this chubby chest as though he were masturbatory aid.” sitting in the back of algebra class “It’s this thing. You stick your hung open, lips moving as dick in it and it feels just like a though he were measuring his real pussy.” answer options. Finally he settled on the truth. “No.” For “What’s this fleshlight him, admitting to his virginity constructed of, Mr. Brock?” was like Hester Prynn owning up to adultery. In case you missed Brock’s mouth hung open. the blazing, gigantic fucking A. “What?” “What about when you were “What material is the business born?” I asked. end of this fleshlight constructed of that it should feel like a “I was a C section baby,” Wes woman’s moist, swollen vagina?” muttered, sweat beginning to bead his forehead. At the words “moist, swollen vagina” I felt a brief flutter at my “Oh you poor bastard.” groin. The sensation expired quickly like a moth in a kill jar. “Enough.” Swann drew his eyes away from his clipboard long “Latex, I guess,” Wes mumbled. enough to give me a stern stare. “I dunno, some space age “Mr. Melrose, are you looking to polymer…” take up where your flaccidity partner left off?” “And the latex feels like a woman’s vagina?” “No, Mr. Swann.”

“That’s what the box says.” “Respect, Mr. Melrose.”

“Mr. Brock, have you ever “I wasn’t disrespecting.” touched a woman’s vagina?” “Respect, Mr. Melrose.” “Well, it’s also got a mouth and booty hole attachment.” “Yes, Mr. Swann.”

“Answer the question, please, “Now how many other men in Mr. Brock.” this room have experimented with masturbatory aids in a Brock’s eyes glazed. His mouth solitary setting?” Only Kerry Hedges raised his keep in mind that nothing you hand. say here will ever leave the room except in articles written for a “Well I appreciate your honesty handful of psychology journals.” and willingness to share, Mr. Hedges. But I asked how many “Ok.” men have used masturbatory aids. I did not ask how many “The breasts, Mr. Brock, what men acted as masturbatory aids.” purpose?”

Hedges lowered his hand. “I played with them while I fucked the Missy Dahl ass and “According to your paperwork, pussy.” here, this hasn’t been the first masturbatory aid in your arsenal “Somewhat of a Dr. Frankenstein of real feel vaginas. What was creation is it not? Considering your first?” women don’t have breasts growing out of their backs.” “Uh… I had uh… a mold of Missy Dahl’s ass and pussy. That Brock’s mouth hung open. was pretty sweet.” “All right, Mr. Brock. How much “And it says here, you also would you say you’ve spent on possessed a set of Sally Suckem’s these masturbatory aids over the breasts.” years? Not including lube.”

“Yeah.” Wes shrugged.

“And what purpose did these “According to my notes, the disembodied latex breasts Missy Dahl buttocks and vagina serve?” coupled with the Sally Suckem’s breasts retail for $302.68. Now Wes looked down at his hands in you’ve been unemployed your his lap, hanging there like two entire life, correct?” strangled puppies. His lip quivered. “I delivered papers for The Times.” “You’ll feel better when you share, Mr. Brock. And please “Your entire adult life.” “Oh.” Brock’s shame was “Wouldn’t a college campus palpable. A tear welled over and make an excellent place to meet spilled from his eye. women and perhaps eventually mount a meaningful sexual “What the hell does that have to relationship?” do with anything?” I asked. Wes shrugged. “Guess so.” “That’s a demerit, Mr. Melrose.” In the exasperated silence I said “What the fuck for?” “he’s scared of the pussy”. That was the problem. He didn’t have “Two demerits, Mr. Melrose. any game. For him it was less Now, Mr. Brock, without an shameful to plant his dick in a income of any kind, how did you piece of plastic than to get afford so many masturbatory rebuffed and rejected over and aids?” over by real life women.

“My mom.” “Mr. Melrose, I don’t believe your medical transcription “Your mom? The woman who degree qualifies you to make a brought you here, sobbing. The psychiatric analysis of Mr. woman who signed you in to Brock’s mental state.” Sunnybrook for rehabilitation? Who claimed you were possessed “Well, it’s pretty fucking obvious, by a demon, a ‘jack-off demon’? is it not? He don’t need She bought the Sally Suckem’s rehabilitation like he’s some kind breasts for you?” of deviant. He just needs to learn how to talk to women.” “Yeah. No. She gave me the money. For college textbooks, “You’re coming dangerously she thought.” close to a third demerit, Mr. Melrose.” Swann narrowed his “I see. And how were you able to eyes at me. “Maybe Dr. Cameron attend classes without books?” might be interested in your “What? I didn’t go. I pretended opinions, and maybe how these and just went to my buddies’ views reflect on your own apartment and played Guitar masturbatory habits.” Hero.” “I’m not a virgin, dude.” “Mr. Swann.” “And we’ll deal with your chronic masturbation in a later “I’ve had plenty of women, Mr. session. Today we are dealing Swann. More than you have, I with Mr. Brock’s addiction. And promise you that.” I’m sure we’ll be able to make more progress without your “Yet here you are. A patient at unwarranted, uninformed Sunnybrook. My patient.” interruptions.”

“Yeah, but I know what my I threw my hands up in the air. problem is.” “Now, Mr. Brock. Would you “And we’ll deal with your care to tell us how your parents problem…” discovered your masturbatory “I’m married, that’s my materials?” problem.”

6 “Fuck me? Yes. The last verbal resort of a beaten man. Fuck me, “I understand you had an indeed, Mr. Melrose. You outburst today during group actually have more in common therapy.” with that boy, Wesley Brock, than you realize.” I didn’t say anything. The doctor sat behind his desk. The entire “I want out.” office smelled of buffalo wings which reminded me I’d missed “Mr. Brock simply can not keep lunch waiting outside this prick’s his hands off himself to the point office door. By the way Fogel where he can no longer function and Dwyer hovered to my left as a productive member of and right, respectively, I knew society.” this wasn’t going to be a civil meeting. “Bullshit. I want out of Sunnybrook. You can shove the So I spoke accordingly. “You contract up your ass and bill me, consider offering my opinion to a motherfucker. There’s nothing kid who’s getting treated like a wrong with me.” fucking monster cause he likes to jerk off an outburst, then, yeah, I “Like yourself, Mr. Brock doesn’t outbursted.” care who he hurts with his inability to control his “Well, that certainly is a masturbatory urges. In this case, counterproductive attitude.” rather than a six year-old daughter, he was continually “What are you gonna do about? caught in the act by his mother Give me another demerit? Pile and father.” them on, I don’t give a shit.” “Fuck you. You can’t keep me “No, Mr. Melrose, we’re far here. You hear me?” beyond that point with you. It’s time for us to take a more hands- “Your belligerence, Mr. Melrose, on approach. But not the hands- does not offset the fact that you on approach you’re accustomed engaged in the act of self- to.” interference in front of your six year-old daughter.” “Fuck you.” “Oh, you’re so full of fucking didn’t see what I was doing. She shit. That never happened.” didn’t see any cock.”

“According to the report filed by “But she knew enough to call your wife--.” your wife to the window.”

“My wife’s borderline insane. “She might’ve all ready been She’s the one who should be there. She might have goaded committed.” my daughter into looking. Who the fuck knows? Things haven’t “Nonetheless.” been right with my marriage for a long time.” “Look, my daughter likes to sneak around, ok? Ever since she “Because of your preference for was a baby she’s been sneaky. I masturbating with women on a swear to god, she’s got a spy gene computer screen rather than or something. We take her to looking to repair the sexual Wal-Mart, all she wants are the relationship with the woman you spy gadgets. Binoculars, little chose to marry?” fake camera, walkie talkie, all that sort of shit.” “You don’t know my wife, dude.” “So it’s her fault.” “Dr. Cameron. You are to “Listen, dammit. I thought her address me as Dr. Cameron at all and the wife were still at the times. The first code in your grocery store. And it wasn’t even Sunnybrook handbook.” like I was jerking off to porn. There’s a woman in Texas I met “Fuck your handbook, fuck your online. Every once in awhile if codes. I told you I’m done.” we catch each other on when we’re both home alone, we’ll turn “But Sunnybrook is not done our webcams on and play for with you, Mr. Melrose. each other. Mutually. I lost track Sunnybrook is not done with you of time or they got home early. by a long shot.” Either way, rather than come inside, my daughter spied on me “You can’t keep me here against through the window. All she my will.” could see was my back. She “We can keep you here as long as I wasn’t the first and I wasn’t the I deem necessary, Mr. Melrose. last. I was just the next. They You must realize I do have your handled me with the same calm best interests in mind. Just efficiency they handled because you can’t realize you everything at Sunnybrook. I need help; that doesn’t alleviate didn’t see who slid the needle our responsibility to help you. At into my ass cheek. I felt the the very least, think of your radiating warmth and expanding daughter and the emotional scars void. Then for a long time after you’ve all ready gifted her.” that, it seemed, I felt nothing at all. “She didn’t see anything.” 7 “Children are very intuitive, Mr. Melrose. What you believe she The session rooms were in the hasn’t seen today will haunt her basement. I think they were in subconscious tomorrow. I can the basement. There were no assure you of that, Mr. Melrose.” windows. Without any clocks, I had no way to tell night from day “You’re trying to fuck with me. or the passing of days. I slept. I There’s nothing wrong with me, ate. I spent hours in the cramped with any of us. I want out.” session room with Dr. Otwell.

“You want out, or your addiction The session room measured eight wants out? And after only a day foot by eight foot. There was a and a half. But then, with you, sandbox, slightly larger than a we realized quickly we were kitty litter box, in one corner dealing with a near terminal case which afforded me a place to of chronic masturbation.” play out my fantasies with the toy figures showcased on the I lunged at him then. I think I shelves lining the room. The realized I was going to attack him figures ranged from hard carved the moment I stepped into his wooden totems to green army office. I was fooling anyone. I men, from G.I. Joe action figures tried to lunge. Dwyer and Fogel to Star Wars collectibles. There wrestled me face first into the were various toys from several carpet before I had the chance to nearly forgotten cartoons. gain my feet and spring. Thundercats, Silverhawks, Mask, I recognized. There were comic book heroes and villains. “You can and will, Mr. Melrose. I Batman, Superman, Wolverine. have complete faith in your There was a Ken Doll wearing capacity for healing.” Malibu shorts (anatomically incorrect, I checked). The toys “I don’t think so, doctor. I really ranged in sizes from an inch to don’t.” twelve inches. 8 After a decent string of good days I asked Dr. Otwell when I’d I was finally granted unescorted be going home. bathroom privileges. The hallways were narrow and lined “We can’t think about home at with a dozen doors per side. All this stage, Mr. Melrose.” closed and revealing no secrets. There was no telling how many “Why not? I’m doing better, of my brothers of the furtive aren’t I?” stroke were locked down here.

“You’re acting better, Mr. The bathrooms were as cramped Melrose. There’s a difference. as the session rooms. There were Let’s focus on the positives.” only two stalls, both lacking doors per Sunnybrook protocol. “I’m trying.” I’m sure there was probably a code in the handbook concerning “I know you are, Mr. Melrose. stall doors, but I’d found the Now,” he motioned to the action guidebook much like the demerit figures, “let’s say you’ve just system, no longer applied to me. come home from a busy day. You’re tense, tired, and Entering the bathroom, I noticed beginning to feel those urges that the first stall occupied by a have shackled you for so long. fiercely Irish-looking man with a Show me what you do to get time shock of red hair haloing his alone from your family. What do head. He was scrawny, with you say? What excuses do you sunken eyes, hollowed make?” cheekbones and a hawk nose as though he’d been waging his “I can’t keep doing this, Dr. own private potato famine. It Otwell.” took a minute of blatant staring to recognize him. “Rearick?” sweatpants around his ankles, the flap of pale, hairless skin between He stood up to wipe and I his legs shining in the fluorescent couldn’t help but notice there light.” was nothing dangling between his legs. Nothing at all. He was “They’re gonna cure you, too, as anatomically incorrect as the Melrose. Except it won’t be any Malibu Ken doll in the session kind of cure you want.” room. I turned my back and ran to the “Rearick… what the hell session room where Dr. Otwell happened to you?” awaited with his sandbox and action figures and gentle smiles. “Melrose, is that you?” A tear spilled down his cheek. “Don’t “That was quick, Mr. Melrose. tell me you’re down here too.” Very good. The less you dawdle, the less chance temptation can “What the fuck happened?” sink its hooks into you.”

Rearick grinned. It was the grin His eyes sparkled with good of a man with terminal lung humor and glimmered with cancer who’s just been diagnosed something you had to look with stomach cancer. harder to see. Cruelty. He knew who was set to ambush me in the “I’ve been nullified. I’ve been bathroom. There were no freed from the tool of my accidents at Sunnybrook. addiction, Melrose. But it don’t matter. Ha ha. Because you’re “Are you ready to continue the never truly cured. I still feel the healing, Mr. Melrose?” urges. I still feel the need.” “Yes, please. I want to get I backed out of the bathroom as better.” he stumbled toward me, his

POWER & SACRIFICE

The Resolve of M. Gira & the Resurrection of Swans

By Craig Woods

Photos © Owen Swenson & Beowulf Sheehan

Art possesses the power to words, images and sounds flying drastically alter and reshape the free from the minds of their lives of those it touches, its creators to echo in endless influence searing the mind’s permutations within the harmonic veneer, moulding it into forms lattices of our nervous systems. that would not have otherwise Arguably, music is one of the existed. A significant portion of more immediate art forms as its the perceptions through which we power resides in its function to view the world is largely infiltrate the nervous system governed by the art we consume; directly via the ear, infecting the those transmissions of shapes, body with a sensory code which

the mind has yet to fully decipher; So it was that, at the a latent and benign virus tender age of fifteen, I determining the recipient’s experienced my first and responses to each subsequently unforgettable brush with the enriched exposure. The music that work of a band named Swans. harmonises with us becomes The year was 1992 and the song, inseparable from our idea of called ‘Love of Life’, opened side ourselves, just as it assumes an B of a mix-tape put together for existence beyond the will of its me by a girl with whom I’d only creator. recently become friends. Disrupting the otherwise To put it more bluntly: relatively standard punk and metal fans have it right when they alternative rock fare which say that music “ROCKS!” At its comprised the rest of the most potent, the force of music compilation, the song’s intro may shake us from the cosy perch exploded from my trusty old Alba of our preconceptions, slap us in ghetto blaster’s stuttering the face, stamp on our helplessly speakers in a swirling tempest of aroused genitalia, pound our fluid guitars and ice-cold piano cardia into pâté, rub our faces into chords. Its off-kilter melody and our own vomit and, if we’re the startled-heartbeat urgency of lucky, leave us thankful for the its rhythm informed me that privilege. A little like indulging in change was afoot, both a drug-fuelled S&M party with transcendent and cataclysmic. Colin Farrell and Russell Brand, There was a rage at work in the but without the ensuing sense of music, but one of a far more shame or advisable appointments refined and elegant sort than that at the VD clinic. Even for exemplified by the hardcore obsessive music aficionados like punk, new wave and metal bands myself, the most extreme cases of I largely favoured at that time. this phenomenon are rare, and This was the fury of a each is a treasured encounter comparatively nobler creature. It from which we grow to acquire an seemed I was staring into the autonomous reverence for the gaping maw of a roaring tiger, artist(s) responsible. helpless to pull myself away from

the awesome spectacle of its jaws chords and bellicose synth drones as they prepared to close were matched only by the themselves around my head. And impossibly extensive range of her then there were the vocals: an voice, veering as it did between impossibly sonorous baritone angelic soprano and guttural, backed by an unyielding female scornful demoness. Filling out the backdrop of banshee ululations. band’s core trinity was guitarist This, I thought, is what the end of Norman Westberg; a lean, the world will sound like. The muscular figure whose minimalist music was as precise as a finely chords and dense sheets of honed razor, yet delivered itself harmonic feedback were so with an unapologetic candour. In skilfully crafted as to boast a short, it resembled nothing I had skewed but firmly defined heard before. In the space of a signature that no other band minute, I was hooked. My could hope to emulate. mission was clear: to discover as Completing the line-up around much about this band as I could this time was the formidable and to seek out every Swans rhythm section of drummer Ted recording I could lay my eager Parsons and bassist Algis Kizys, hands upon. plus a string of guest players that included Anton Fier, Vincent With a little preliminary Signorelli, Jenny Wade and Mr digging, I soon discovered that Foetus himself J.G. Thirlwell. Swans had formed in New York Having previously acquired an in 1982, the brainchild of appreciation for the likes of DNA vocalist/guitarist/bassist Michael and the Contortions, it was no Gira-- possessor of those surprise to me to learn that Swans inimitably arresting vocal chords had their roots in the and evidently also an experimental No Wave scene. accomplished wordsmith with a However, in terms of exploring flair for primal narratives and fresh sonic and aesthetic avenues, dense metaphors. At Gira’s side Gira and co seemed to leave their stood his partner, the sublime predecessors and contemporaries Jarboe: an ethereally striking behind in the dust of an atomic woman whose plaintive piano blast. Try as one might to assign

them to a musical lineage, Swans helmed ballad ‘In My Garden’ is were almost disturbingly original. testament not only to Swans’ They played Swans music, pure commitment to the art of contrast, and simple. This was a band but also their courage in pursuing whose whole was far greater than their artistic impulses to all logical the sum of its parts-- a first in my extremes. The album is rife with experience. There have been very such juxtapositions; the few since. languorous sludgy riffs of ‘Sex, God, Sex’ giving way to the Returning to my mix-tape- spectral tension of ‘Blood and compiling friend for advice on Honey’, which subsequently where best to begin my yields to the deviant belligerence immersion in the Swans of ‘Like a Drug’ before fading into catalogue, she pointed me in the the melancholy acoustic strains of direction of their 1987 album ‘You’re Not Real, Girl’, and so on. Children of God. It was an inspired Although never quite subscribing suggestion as, though I did not firmly to any single specific genre, immediately appreciate it, this the songs glimmer at the edges record presents Swans at a pivotal with alternating shades of stage in their career, showcasing industrial rock, post-punk, dark their talents at each station of blues, neo-folk and country. their diverse sonic palette. The Throughout, themes of love and warlike opener, ‘New Mind’, with fear, hope and despair, sex and its apocalyptic lyrics and coarse death continually rub shoulders. metallic guitar grind, instantly Standout track ‘Beautiful Child’ -- elevated itself to anthem status in a torrid industrial behemoth of my mind. Gira’s imperative cries thunderous drums and grandiose of “People get ready!” resounded synth passages over which Gira with the exigency of a rallying call bellows a candid intention of to an unknown battle beyond infanticide-- presents the band at time and space, an effect which their tumultuous apex. has shed none of its vigour in the Meanwhile the closing title track intervening years. That this finds Jarboe chanting a mantra of powerhouse is followed by the divine superiority, a contention haunting subtlety of the Jarboe- whose meaning is as disturbing as

its delivery is ostensibly the Swans narrative would supply heartening. a profusion of surprises.

This is the Swans I approached the band’s experience in a nutshell: a post- discography in a non-linear generic arena where ‘light’ and fashion and, as such, failed ‘dark’ are thrust so violently initially to appreciate the steady together as to become progression from their noisy indistinguishable in their fury. (A industrial roots to the multi- notion which, incidentally, is textured fare of their later career. further augmented by ‘I’ll Moving from Children of God to Swallow You’-- the bonus track at 1986’s Greed, I experienced an the end of the 1997 re-release of almost supernatural chill at the the album-- which combines starkness of the earlier work; the samples of several songs into one instrumentation stripped down to beautifully rendered collage.) its essence, Gira’s voice chanting and wailing in the style of a lost Before long I had reached pilgrim trapped in a desolate that particularly fanatical phase of post-apocalyptic landscape with enthusiasm that one often does as only the sporadic ghost of Jarboe’s a young person; those seemingly gospel chorus and the remote epiphanic junctures where one metallic clatter of Westberg’s experiences something so rich and guitar for company. From there I rewarding that there arises a need stumbled into the cool melodic to express it through every facet elegance of 1991’s White Light of one’s life-- scrawl its name From the Mouth of Infinity; a truly across walls, desks, schoolbooks beautiful record comprising and even your own skin; wear its twelve finely crafted gems of imagery upon your chest; regale sumptuous instrumentation and anyone who’ll listen (and even philosophically charged lyrics. many who won’t) with the details Though the violent clamour of the of its life-affirming qualities. And previous recordings had I had only as yet heard one full apparently been usurped by album and a handful of other complex harmonic arrangements, tracks. My deeper interrogation of the intensity of Swans remained

intact. Even in their most subtle toothless poseurs. And nothing and introspective moments, this could have prepared me for the was a band whose dedication to a earth-shattering devastation of particular aesthetic continued to live album Public Castration is a yield devastating results. Their Good Idea (1986), wherein Jarboe’s indolence was that of the bird throbbing synth is as instrumental from which they took their name: in the brutality as Gira’s graceful, pleasingly composed, condemned howling and but charged with innate and Westberg’s flesh-scouring potentially savage hostility. harmonics. That this same band could, in the space of a decade, When finally I had also be responsible for some of the rounded out my Swans most lyrical music I would ever experience from the earliest hear confirmed the audacity of albums to the most recent, I was their artistic principles. able to begin piecing the chronological puzzle together and Equally impressive was glean a thorough comprehension that all of this seemed perfectly of the band’s development from cohesive; the transitions from abrasive post-No Wave noise- each sonic and artistic station of makers to purveyors of cerebrally the Swans journey as flawless and charged experimental rock. It was unaffected as that of ice to water. a shock to me to discover a band Predictably, there were detractors; of such unapologetic breadth, committed noise enthusiasts who who could straddle lush semi- claimed that the band had sold acoustic ballads and minimalist out upon their forays into melody industrial assaults with equal and more complex orchestrations. confidence. I was bowled over to Such criticisms seemed flimsy to learn that there had been an me then and strike me as pathetic incarnation of Swans without now as they so utterly miss the Jarboe-- a version specialising in point. Arguably I was at an ugly, distortion-heavy, menacing advantage in having approached guitar dirges and hopeless tales of the band’s output non- urban alienation that exposed the chronologically, but it struck me heaviest of metal bands as as immediately obvious that there

was something far deeper at the across the next few albums. In heart of Swans than a simple some ways the comparatively allegiance to genre or any specific conventional and polished work sonic style. Everything this band on The Burning World could did, from the most outwardly appear to some listeners like a brutal to the most soothingly litmus test to the band’s plaintive, was guided by a established audience; an open palpable desire to pursue the challenge for them to follow vital, the primal, the raw meat Swans on their odyssey or else and bones of human experience in jump ship. However, though the all its extremes from the terrible to band would doubtless have shed the tender. As such, Swans were no tears at losing some of the uncommonly honest in their more prejudiced members of their attitude towards their audience, fan base, this chapter of the Swans with Gira making no secret of his story makes a more elegant sense disdain for the insular when viewed in the context of industrial/noise/rock fans who their unpretentious commitment berated the band’s sonic to utilising their art as a means to expansion circa Children of God. explore urgent human truths in a When that album’s follow-up, The diversity of ways. Burning World, was released in 1989, the message was clear. This All of these various record saw Swans at their most strands --which in the hands of a accessible; a glossy production of lesser artist could all too easily intricately arranged subtle rock collapse under their accumulative numbers and folk-style ballads. weight-- were bound together Their subsequent output, tightly by Michael Gira’s single- beginning with White Light From minded vision. Regardless of the The Mouth Of Infinity, would musical and technical retain this attention to melody experiments the band pursued at and texture, but also reclaim some any given time, the established of the rawness of Children of God aesthetic of Swans remained whilst assuming a more intact, its identity firm and experimental approach towards unequivocal. This was production which would expand consistently secured by Gira’s

lyrics which stand as some of the Despite my youthfully most accomplished and literary in enthusiastic allegiance to the contemporary music (certainly far Swans banner, it would be several more so than those of Nick Cave, years before I experienced the the frequent praise of whom band live, the timing of their makes the lack of widespread Scottish shows falling foul of me recognition of Gira’s for various reasons. In late 1996, achievements in this field very two earth-shattering pieces of mysterious indeed). Bringing information knocked the wind together personal experiences conclusively from my lungs: i) with philosophical insights, Swans were poised to release an literary riffs, fragments of folk epic double album entitled tales and true stories of violent Soundtracks for the Blind. ii) This crime, Gira’s lyrical milieu is would be their final studio album complex and substantial, offering and was to be followed by a an endless array of interpretations ‘Farewell’ tour. That apocalypse and claiming a tangible life for promised by the opening salvo of itself independent of its author. ‘Love of Life’ four years Listening to a song like ‘Failure’, previously now seemed terribly for example, one might believe imminent. I snapped up a copy of themselves momentarily privy to Soundtracks for the Blind upon its ruminations on the songwriter’s release, as desperately as one past life experience, but the song’s living with the threat of biological metaphor-heavy country warfare would procure a inflection grant it the properties of gasmask. The dense collage of an ancient folk ditty with no various genres, field recordings, particular attachment to Gira at experimental passages and drones all. Both lyrically and musically, which comprised the album not Swans were seeking out only effectively summarised the something all-encompassing and totality of Swans in all its rage altogether more truthful than and repose, brutality and beauty, anything their critics and spurned but also painted a picture of a former fans could comprehend. fractured world where all meaning had been deconstructed into disparate fragments. It was

an appropriate and awe-inspiring members of Swans splintered off Swansong. When the band’s on divergent creative paths. ‘Farewell’ tour roared its way to Jarboe has since produced an our corner of the world, I impressive body of work as a attended in the company of the confrontationally experimental female friend who had introduced chanteuse, equally as convincing me to the Swans universe. The as both a solo entity and as a blistering, searing and heart- collaborator with an extensive list breaking beauty of the show of artists (--her 2003 LP with the proved a bittersweet experience. avant-garde metal band Neurosis Though euphoric as one can only is a particular high point and an be after such a spectacle, there enviable treat for those yet to was more than a smidgen of experience it). In addition to sadness in our hearts as we appearances on some of Jarboe’s returned home. While the music solo work, Norman Westberg has still lived and would continue to also since lent his signature sound live, Swans themselves, as an to an assortment of bands, most entity, were now dead, leaving notably the New York-based behind them a void of uniqueness noise rock outfit Heroin Sheiks. which no other band could fill. It seemed the apocalypse had Concurrently, Michael robbed us in its occurrence; the Gira continued to carve his own pleasures of its imminence far particular furrow with his new richer than its consummation. project Angels of Light, a semi- acoustic ensemble specialising in In the years following densely orchestrated freak-folk their disbandment, the legacy of and country-inflected material Swans was borne out by their foregrounding his distinctive identifiable influence in the work voice and narrative-oriented of an astonishing range of lyrics. Between this and the subsequent bands from noise-rock running of his record label, Young troublemakers to alt.-country God Records, Gira has also made balladeers. Meantime, with numerous appearances as a solo Michael Gira and Jarboe having acoustic performer, sharing bills gone their separate ways, the with bands as diverse as the

Boredoms and Akron/Family. the claim. I didn’t have to look far: Throughout, his dedication to his “SWANS ARE NOT DEAD” the art has seen Gira produce a official Myspace page proclaimed. wealth of quality material while An announcement on the Young continuing to eschew adherence God Records website soon to a specific genre. As such, any followed; Gira had assembled a possibility of a resurrection of new Swans line-up which Swans long seemed remote, a included Norman Westberg and notion consolidated by its various collaborators from Angels creator’s frequent vocal assertions of Light and other projects. A that he had no desire to ever record was in the works and a return to that world. For Swans full-scale tour forthcoming. At fans, it seemed access to that that moment, I’d be a liar if I said domain would remain restricted the adolescent impulse to scrawl to repeated indulgences of the the word ‘SWANS’ on my desk discography, the thrill of Swans didn’t curl back through the fandom maintained through tangle of years to grip me introductions of the band’s work excitedly. to new uninitiated generations. In what seemed an And then, in 2010, there uncommonly (and mercifully) was change. Seemingly brief space of time, the first Swans transmitted from the same record in thirteen years --bearing unpredictable alien wellspring the deliciously portentous title of that had accosted my My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope consciousness with the intro to to the Sky-- was alive and ‘Love of Life’ eighteen years unleashed into the world. Less previously, a rumour came than two weeks later I held my floating my way: Michael Gira CD copy in my hands and was reactivating Swans. inserted it into my player with the Convinced that this was nothing caution of one handling an more than hearsay, I nonetheless explosive device. The sounds to prepared to scour the internet for emerge from my speakers were a the most meagre morsel of typically untypical treat. information which might support Presenting neither a continuation

of the abstract Soundtracks for the space in the early 1990s around Blind, nor quite an extension of the time my first encounter with the concise Angels of Light Swans had occurred. Though a discipline, this is a record with its chasm of eighteen years now own progressive and fully-formed separates us, my fifteen year old identity. From the tempestuous self is tangibly elated as the tour clamour of opener ‘No Words/No manager leads me down a series Thoughts’ to the lascivious groove of stairs into the venue’s of ‘Jim’ to the asymmetrical subterranean innards. Through its jaggedness of ’You Fucking walls and ceilings the hum and People Make Me Sick’ to the throb of overhead passing trains forthright blues stomp of ‘Eden reverberate menacingly. I’ve Prison’ through to the a capella bypassed the roaring tiger’s jaws finale of ‘Little Mouth’, this album and walked straight into its presents a creative force at the cavernous belly. peak of its abilities, and stands as a fitting statement of a band Michael Gira greets me poised to plunge themselves into with a firm handshake. His the human heart’s most primal manner is cordial and sincere and, recesses and swim there. Swans within minutes, my elation has are indeed not dead. The been tempered and replaced with apocalypse has been reversed and the relaxed pleasure of agreeable, is once more imminent. The circle familiar company. Remembering is complete. momentarily the many friends and associates in the Glasgow Entering Glasgow’s music scene (where abrasive Arches venue on this cold October experimentalism has enjoyed a evening to meet with Michael resurgence in recent years) who Gira prior to tonight’s Swans have asked me to pass on their performance, it’s difficult not to hellos and well-wishes to Gira, believe that there is a cyclical logic the notion of doing so quickly at work. The Arches, previously a appears ridiculous to me, and not derelict area beneath Glasgow’s just because the extensive list Central Station, had been would feasibly consume our renovated as an art and exhibition allotted time. Against all my

expectations, what follows is compared to my heroes like more of a relaxed and affable Francis Bacon. dialogue than a rigidly defined interview. Gira is good-humoured I had assumed Bacon was an but also frank in his responses, his inspiration for you. His influence certainly seems palpable in the lyrical every word fortified with a matter of early Swans records. Songs manifest pragmatism. The like ‘Job’, ‘Clay Man’, ‘Sealed in vibrations of passing trains Skin’ and ‘Stay Here’ are oozing with punctuate our conversation like references to flesh and bone and the pulse of a sleeping beast... muscles, displaying a distinctly

Bacon-esque obsession with the raw As I understand it, you came to gristle of humanity. Are there other music with absolutely no formal artists who inspired you to the same tuition whatsoever. extent? No, none at all. The performance artist Chris And I know that before pursuing Burden. And Viennese Actionists; music you studied art. Did that Hermann Nitsch, Otto Mühl and background have any influence on the Günter Brus. People who really aesthetic formulation of Swans? challenged our perceptions of reality. Going to art school in L.A. In a way, in that I was in art in the late seventies, school in Los Angeles in 1976 to conceptualism was happening 1978 when punk rock happened. I and everything was very was already having reservations academic. The lingo to me was about going into the art world really repulsive and elitist and because it was seeming to me to boring. Then punk rock happened be so elitist and academic and and it just seemed so much more really not vital, not powerful, not compelling and relevant to the expressive in any truly primal or culture we were living in. I started spiritual way. It just seemed to be a magazine called No magazine, like a career choice; people chose which was like a broadsheet, big to be an artist like they’d choose NME kind of size. We did to be a lawyer or something. It interviews with all the L.A. bands. seemed kind of banal and flaccid It also had pornography and some

art pieces in there, and interviews Yeah, it wasn’t using the standard with different artists and chord structures or the standard musicians. progressions. I don’t think it was particularly intellectual music, it What precipitated the move from the was just expressive. I didn’t want magazine towards your first forays to sound like that, but that was into music? inspirational to me. And also New York at the time was in a state of I was involved in that for a while perilous decay. It just seemed like and it just seemed natural to make an apocalypse there and I kind of my own music. I had a guitarist I wanted to be in the midst of that. was working with in L.A. at the So I moved there from L.A.. And time. We wrote songs together then I started this band that I had and they were pretty bad. there for a while, then it broke up [laughs] But eventually I decided and I started Swans. to move to New York because I was really enthralled with So your previous musical experience Suicide, Lydia Lunch, Teenage prior to Swans was really pretty Jesus and the Jerks, Glenn Branca, limited. the Contortions… It just seemed a more vital and primary kind of I had played bass with Rhys thing, less fetishized than the L.A. Chatham [--avant-garde composer punk, or even the stylised renowned for his ‘guitar orchestra’ standard punk that we were pieces--CW]. He taught me how to hearing at the time, the standard tune, I didn’t know how to tune. three chord progressions. He sort of showed me how to finger and what to play, and after The artists of New York’s No Wave playing with him for a couple of scene seemed quite possessed by the months or something he gave me idea of disregarding what had gone the bass and I just started writing before and really tearing up the and figuring stuff out on the bass. established rule books, including Then got a band together. That’s those of punk rock. Presumably that’s how it started. something that appealed to your sensibility. Though Swans has always boasted a peculiarly unique sound, those first

recordings in 1982 - the songs on the No Wave scene. It came from eponymous debut EP - do betray a Kraftwerk. And ways of thinking certain debt to the No Wave scene. about sound as opposed to There are minor traces of the Teenage needing to be a technically adroit Jesus shrillness, a bit of DNA’s musician in order to make eccentricity and the Contortions’ something happen. And I guess I groove in there. just took that to the logical extreme. Or I should say we did, Really? I don’t know about that, because Norman [Westberg] was but … an integral part of that. It wasn’t

really worrying about ‘songs’ per Well, in comparison to the recordings se, we were just making chunks of you made for the first full-length the sound and rhythm that had an following year, which stand out emotional capacity to kind of radically from anything else that was destroy your body for a minute. going on at the time. The songs on Filth are markedly different from the The volume and the chunks of EP in both construction and sound… It was kind of an ecstatic execution. The sound seems more experience, like undergoing a trial fully formed and idiosyncratic, by fire. It was really nice. presenting a fundamental shift from That point about wanting to destroy the established modes of the No Wave your body, I want to come back to scene. In the context of the time, Filth that, but… seems like it materialised from an alien planet. Oh and the Stooges would have been a big influence as well of Well I don’t think Swans has ever course. really sounded like anybody else. The early Swans sound is often Where do you think this specific, described as post-industrial… perfectly formed sound came from? Well, that’s ridiculous. The need to go ‘Ugh!’ [laughs] It came from a lot of places. It came Yeah, I’m not a fan of attaching these from Howlin’ Wolf, blues. It came kinds of arbitrary labels to anything from Throbbing Gristle. It came myself, I consider it a dilettante from Brian Eno. It came from the exercise. However, I can understand

the suggested meaning of that phrase I think work is great if it’s what in a particular context. Not only does fulfils you and is where your the sparse, machine-like palette of imagination is and is your calling early Swans conjure images of the in life. But work that takes up one modern urban landscape, but much of third of your life --which is eight the lyrical subject matter seems to hours a day at least-- where you deal ostensibly with the alienation work for a boss who just treats incurred there; lack of privacy, sexual you like a commodity… That to insecurity, economic oppression, loss me is tantamount to slavery. of identity, etc. Did New York in any There’s a lot of stuff about that, way prove inspirational to these yeah. And about advertisements particular themes? and Mass Media, which has only gotten worse since then, you No, I was already thinking about know. stuff like that. I ask the question about New York But presumably you were still doing simply because I wonder how menial jobs to support yourself in influential your environment is upon New York at that time. The drudgery the work you create. Something to be of day-to-day employment and the asked of any artist I suppose. indignity of wage slavery are recurring themes on those early That’s a logical question. But I records. don’t really know because I live in Yeah, I was intensely concerned the country now and I’m making about work and what it meant. some of the most challenging music I’ve ever made, as you’ll It ties in with the Francis Bacon- see live. The record is one thing, esque strain we mentioned earlier, it’s sort of a transitional phase but the corporeal concerns of those between Angels of Light and early lyrics; all the flesh, bone and Swans. Now we’ve found our muscles generate a picture of someone pace here live it’s really pushing who feels trapped in their own body. things forward. But I live in a sort It seems a fitting metaphor for a of bucolic setting. [laughs] person demeaned by the sale of their physical labour. I’m curious about the idea of catharsis in your work. Having spent

more hours than I can count listening is taking the material and to your music since I was a teenager, performing it live, arranging it in there are a lot of rewards I’ve gleaned various ways. from it, not all of them cathartic by any means. But the intensity of the You have quite consistently reworked music and lyrics does undeniably your older material throughout your possess a cathartic quality-- many a career, and on this current tour bad day has been pummelled out of you’re employing completely my system by a healthy dosage of revamped versions of songs from as Swans. Does the creation of your far back as 1984. Is this constant music and records serve any cathartic revision something that is utterly purpose to you personally, and does necessary for you in order for your that make it necessary? material to remain relevant to you?

It’s really like how a boxer trains Sure. Otherwise I’d just feel like a for years and then he is at the parody, like a clown. As you’ll see ultimate of his capacities when tonight, even the songs from the he’s in the ring. At that point I record we just did have been think he feels his place in the transformed radically from what universe, feels totally connected we just recorded six months ago. to everything around him in that And certainly songs that we’re moment. So that’s sort of what it going to play from the early days is for me. That’s what I need to be are, for the most part, just a doing. Making records and starting place for something else writing songs at home and to happen. It’s a process. I don’t figuring things out that way. Then think it ever ends really. A song is getting people together, going just a template; a way to move into the studio, rehearsing the and make something happen in thing, recording it, doing the moment, which is the most overdubs. That’s all a long important thing. I could never go process. It’s energising and I tax out and just try to play our ‘hits’, myself to my ultimate abilities to you know? It just seems do it. But then you have this sort ridiculous. of dead piece of matter which is the record, you know? It’s just a point in time. To me the next step

I assume this is the same impulse that very successfully all the time. But led you to turn your back on loud, it was just to make something noisy music in the late eighties. happen that would work with the voice. Then I’d gather people and Exactly, yeah. one thing would indicate another thing. It’s just what I thought the Even in the earliest Swans material, there are quite strong elements of material required, it wasn’t like various genres stitched together trying to be a genre or a style. among the rage and violence for That’s the way a critic thinks, you attentive listeners to identify. Much know? To me, art is just doing the of the songs on Filth boast awkward thing. That’s everything. Making time signatures betraying a jazz something physically happen and influence, while the minimalist not worrying about the chords are more evocative of blues. consequences or the meaning, but Indeed the repetitive plodding of the just being compelled to do songs on Cop could be seen as blues something. That’s what’s really stripped down to its obsessively important. minimalist extreme. By 1986 you are almost flirting with dance beats on Given what you’ve said here songs like ‘A Screw’ and ‘Time is combined with your lack of a Money (Bastard)’. The pivotal period professional background in music around the Children of God album before you started Swans, do you see and tour saw you exploring a wider your role as more of an intuitive range of avenues. Although the orchestrator… music remains difficult to classify in I don’t see my role at all… terms of genre, it is woven together with identifiable threads of blues, folk Sure, that’s probably the wrong way music, gospel and country. Were to phrase it, but it’s almost like… these conscious choices on your part? It’s just what I do, it’s who I am. I never think like that. In the early days I was on bass and I’d work Of course. But your dedication to with people and we’d build experimenting with form and content something up around the bass. seems suggestive of an intuitive And then later I started writing on process at work over and above an an acoustic guitar, fitfully and not intellectual one.

Oh, well, there’s both. That’s one Fascism, and that inspired several of the reasons I guess I rebelled songs. And then I believe that from art school, because they Joseph Conrad has inspired a few were teaching artists to begin songs. One was The Secret Sharer, from a theory rather than from which is a really great book. It’s a intuition. And I’ve never worked story about this captain who that way. But it doesn’t mean that rescues someone at sea and it’s when you work intuitively you’re really his kind of alter ego. A not using your intellect, because confrontation with his true self. you’re defining the form as it goes It’s a beautiful story. along-- you’re codifying it and editing it and making it into I can definitely see the Conrad something that seems vital and influence in the way the narrators or protagonists of your lyrics are necessary. It’s not like just confronted with extreme spewing a bunch of barf on a predicaments in often seemingly canvas and calling it art, you isolated conditions. know? Yeah. And Jerzy Kosinski Asides from your art world influenced me. I used to read influences, there’s also a strong Robbe-Grillet who influenced me, literary quality to your lyrics. Are there any particular writers or forms I think, in the kind of terse, very of literature which have most precise way of describing things. I specifically inspired you and which used to enjoy very much the you recognise as having infiltrated almost scientific or analytical way your work? of describing extreme acts of brutality and violence. [laughs] Sure. Not that I necessarily do it intentionally as I write a song. But Have you ever approached the I’ve written songs about books structure of an album as a kind of before. I wrote a song called ‘Love literary exercise? of Life’ which is a Jack London No. story. I go through jags when I’m reading someone. Even in the I ask that thinking principally of early days I was reading Wilhelm Soundtracks For The Blind which Reich, The Mass Psychology of seems to flow and segue through a

series of different aural palettes, as 1997. I started to find out what though each track is a scene in a worked with what and slowly larger narrative. It seems there has pieced the puzzle together. We been a lasting commitment in Swans had handheld recordings of my to combining the old with the new, father and Jarboe’s mother, and the sacred with the profane, the her childhood recordings and tender with the terrible, right up to other recordings. I took those and the new album with its hybrid of put those to music like a little bestial spirituality. Cultural and soundtrack vignette. But I had to aesthetic ideas are thrust together so think about where that began and violently so as to entirely question where that ended and what each other’s meanings. This approach happened after that. It was an seemed to hit its apex on Soundtracks incredible amount of labour. For The Blind. [laughs] But it wasn’t from some That’s the result of hundreds of theory or from some road map, it hours of trial and error just to find was really just tangibly and what works. That album, and also tactilely going in and finding out the project which followed called what fit. The Body Lovers, were the result of Different styles and genres are stirred fifteen, twenty years of work. All into a cauldron of competing the recordings that I’d made since ingredients on that record; expansive I started making music --all the ballads, sparse instrumentals, tape loops, the little cassette ideas, feedback-laden rock numbers and little experiments with euro-dance anthems all rub synthesizers that I kept on shoulders, interspersed with drones cassette, rehearsal tapes that I and the field recordings which seem had, unmixed material that I had, to fade in and out like dislocated and new recordings that I voices from an annihilated planet, developed for that record, almost entirely stripped of their including the multi-tracks and the original context. Given that you had finished mixes-- all that was put intended the album to be the final into a computer and I started to Swans LP, was that sense of sort it out without respect for everything being broken down to its whether something was recorded last granule a fitting statement for in 1982 or if it was recorded in you and the band at that time?

Yes. I used all that material on Yeah. [laughs] that and subsequently The Body Lovers, and then I threw it in the You also stated that you felt the band dump. Took it to the dump and had attracted a “dumbass heavy metal crowd” which you didn’t care threw it all away; the multi-tracks, to cater for. It’s rare to hear an artist the recordings I had on floppy remarking on their audience with as disks for samples… I don’t know much candour. Few seem to value the if you remember them… idea of mutual respect between the I’m old enough to get a little nostalgic artist and the audience as vocally as about floppy disks, yes. you do. How vital to you is it that this mutual respect exists? Is there an Right, well I threw all of those imaginable extreme case where away. I had trunks of them. I just attracting the “wrong” kind of threw them all in the dump. I audience - one with which you feel said: “I don’t want any more of zero connection - would cause you to this shit,” and threw it all away. stop touring entirely? So it was really just a way of Sure. There’s been a couple of taking the whole experience of cases on this recent tour where, if Swans and my musical impulses that was the only audience, I’d up to that point and making definitely quit the next day. something out of it. Just wrestling Meaning like guys in their mid- with demons, figuring it out. thirties with stringy hair and Swans in the early days were quite beards just wanting to bang their renowned for their intense live shows. heads or something. Fortunately I understand this reputation became the audiences have been very something of a burden to you. I recall mixed. Lots of attractive young reading an interview with you from ladies and young people that look some time ago wherein you related curious and are really into the the experience of touring Children of music. So that makes it God throughout Europe and looking worthwhile. It’s normally mixed. out at the audience and being Sometimes it isn’t, but I just play sickened by what you saw there. If I to the air then. [laughs] remember correctly, you described the audience’s collective expression as Would you say this current tour has “bovine”. been one of the more positive

experiences of your career in that for myself, to keep myself respect? interested. And then those people were alienated. Then we’d do Oh, very positive, this has been something else and they’d be great. I never would have alienated. It was just a constant expected it. I don’t know how struggle because we didn’t just tonight’s attendance is going to play in one style. be, but in a lot of instances shows have been sold out, which is Though the new material is really a first for us. And then a lot significantly more layered than early of press attention and audiences Swans, you have nonetheless who truly want what we’re going returned to a loudness and aggression to do, even if they don’t know in your music not heard since the what that is. Whereas in the entire eighties. first period of Swans --call it that Yeah. if you want-- it was really kind of challenging to people. They rarely Is it still as physical an experience as came along for the ride, except on it was back then? the final tour when they realised the error of their ways or Oh yeah. I don’t torture myself something. [laughs] physically as much onstage as I once did. I don’t do that at all It was almost like a battle between now, I’d be kind of a clown act if I you and the audience. did. But it takes every ounce of energy just to make the sounds It was always a battle, yeah. We happen. I think the result is that it started with this really heavy, creates this kind of total physical, brutal material and people left in sensory experience for us and the droves. I guess then they read audience, and that’s what I want. about it and these people --who wanted to “rock hard” or You’ve mentioned before that the whatever-- came along. When I violence and volume of the earlier started seeing what that was Swans material became overbearing becoming, our reputation for to you physically. I believe I read an loudness and everything, I interview where you said that you felt switched gears, you know. Just the force of the music would throw

you around like a rag doll onstage process and you’re just drenched and that you were essentially being in sweat. And you’re completely battered silly. Recently I was immersed in each other and you watching some performance clips of feel the boundaries of your body the band… dissolving into the other person, and you feel yourself dissolving See, isn’t that weird that it’s into the universe because of the already on Youtube, it’s like… heightened state of awareness that …from about 1986, you do often you’ve achieved though that. appear… That’s sort of what it’s like. [laughs] It’s brutal. But you also Oh, from ‘86, yes. need to go through that to reach something. I have seen recent ones of the current tour also, however. Right. So, in its brutality, it’s a kind of transcendental process. When I get back home I’m gonna have to contact people to tell them I think it’s transformational, to take them down… maybe transcendental, but that’s a little lofty a term to use. But you There are a lot of them. But I was are reaching for something bigger watching clips recently from about than yourself, you know? At least ‘86 and, as well as the obvious I am. physical labour you’re visibly putting yourself through, you also do appear One of the things that has always as a quite haunted and brutalised struck me about you as a lyricist is figure. Your gestures and expressions the way in which you combine onstage are every bit as unnerving as various strands; personal, the volume and ferocity of the music. observational and extrapolative, and Was there a similar detrimental effect weave them into a dense tapestry that to you psychologically? is impossible to unravel. While the listener might pick up on the Well look at it this way: if you reference to Dennis Nilsen in ‘Killing have someone that you truly love For Company’ for example, or and you’re having very slow appreciate the basic police brutality tantric sex that lasts for four context of ‘Cop’, these threads are hours, six hours… And it’s a long laced with other less obvious personal

references and extensions, many of whining about his shit. That’s which can seem initially obscure. As what distinguishes a good writer a result the personal in your work has from a bad one really. a way of becoming impersonal and vice versa. Okay, let’s talk a little more about the present. I understand the genesis of That’s important to me. this new incarnation of Swans started during a kind of epiphanic This is a very conscious endeavour on moment you experienced during an your part. Angels of Light gig a few years ago.

Certainly. I think it’s narcissistic Well it wasn’t like my head shot to think that your life in itself flames out my ears or something. should be interesting. Like what [laughs] But we were doing this Smashing Pumpkins do, where sort of slow song, it was fairly he’s whining about his problems, loud, and the chords were you know? Fuck you! You should swaying and the harmonics were be making something bigger than dissipating in the air. It just yourself, that people can reach reminded me of Swans. And I into. I mean, look at Dylan --not thought: “Oh, it wasn’t so bad. that I’m comparing myself to him Maybe that’s something I could by any means-- but his songs are pursue again.” Because before not personal. There’s personal in that I had disavowed it them. Even an album like Blood on completely and said I’d never do the Tracks, if you know the back- it again. And it just sort of set the story, it’s based on what he was germ or the seed in place. As time going through then with the went on I started thinking about it break-up of his marriage and more. The last Angels of Light other things. But the song itself is album I did was called We Are much bigger than that. That’s Him, and it had some louder what makes a great writer is moments in it, but it was still kind someone that transcends that. of singer-songwriter-oriented. Take Céline-- his stuff was When it came time to make this autobiographical in a way, but he new album, I had a series of songs made it transcend itself. It’s a gathered and I started thinking work of art. It wasn’t just him about making them as an Angels

of Light record. And I was just that kind of feel. He grew up in underwhelmed, I didn’t want to Detroit, so there’s the MC5, do it. So I just thought I wanna Stooges… He has that kind of make something that’s as intense sense of the really big, soaring, as I remember moments from sustainy guitars, you know. Swans being. So I’ll start Swans. And I wanna do it now before I’m I think, for most Swans fans, it’s so broken down physically that I almost impossible to think of the band without Norman’s characteristic can’t. And I want to experience it sound. Was it vital to you to include again. And hopefully people will him in the new line-up? Would you want to step into that world as have done it without him? well. Fortunately they’ve demonstrated that, so it’s good. Uh, I would have done it without him. But it was immensely When you approached Norman important. Yeah, it was great Westberg and the other collaborators, when he agreed to do it. I’m really how did they react when you pitched the recording of a new album under happy he’s along. the Swans banner? The new record combines some of the refined songwriting techniques from They said: “Get outta here! Go Angels of Light with the intensity of fuck yourself!” [laughs] No, they early Swans. Additionally there also had to consider it for a while, but seems to be a dedication to the control everybody was very interested. of texture and sprawling There was no cajoling necessary. arrangements you employed on It worked out. Soundtracks For The Blind which, One of the great pleasures for me and judging by the recent clips I’ve seen, others with this record and tour is in is something you’re developing hearing Westberg’s distinctively epic further in live performances. Does guitar sound clash once more with that perhaps mark the future your voice. direction of Swans?

Mm, his guitar is amazing. I look Yes. I’m sort of discovering what at him as the logical descendant of that’s going to be in the moment Ron Asheton, the Stooges as we go. So I think the next guitarist. More minimal, but with record --which there will be, I’m

gonna do Swans for probably Well that depends on what you another five years. But I think the expect. If you have expectations next record will use these long and you think: Swans, Jarboe… instrumental sections as the Then yeah, I guess you would be starting point. And then I’ll think disappointed. But if you can about inserting a song or doing adjust yourself and think… some vocals on that, and not start from sitting with my acoustic I certainly wouldn’t use the word guitar in front of a page working “disappointment”. It’s a positively surprising development of the kind out words. But think more in Swans fans have previously terms of sonics and rhythm, experienced, like the development of things like that, and start from new sounds you were continually there. exploring in the late eighties and That kind of echoes with what you nineties. But in some of the new said earlier about your starting point songs - and I’m thinking particularly for Swans, and exploring “chunks of of ‘Jim’ and ‘Reeling the Liars In’ - sound”. In some ways your approach there’s a distinctly masculine quality; to composing and recording has come a kind of leather-booted, dusty- full-circle, albeit refining itself on the jacketed pioneer spirit which is way. It’s definitely evident on the almost boyishly playful. new album. Though it has way more [laughs] Yeah. Yeah, there is. texture than your earliest records, My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope Was this something you were to the Sky does remind me of pre- deliberately pursuing, or did it arise Jarboe Swans in some respects. out of the sessions?

Sure. It arose out of the sessions. But we did consciously say “No women”. This is the first Swans record without [laughs] Although my wife does Jarboe’s input since 1985. Due to her considerable presence in the band’s sing a little bit at the end. My history, it’s almost jarring to be faced daughter sings too, but… I don’t with a Swans line-up that is entirely know. I guess we just wanted to male… be more male.

I assume there was never any Well I did a hundred sit-ups and question in your mind of reconvening push-ups a day. While drinking with Jarboe. six beers a day of course. [laughs] No, I prepped myself a little bit Jarboe is wonderful, I wouldn’t for it, but psychologically it was disparage her at all. But it just really, really kind of tumultuous would have seemed ridiculous, there for a while, wondering how like a self-parody to involve her. It it would be. But it’s worked out would have been, I think, well. I feel like I’m back in my embarrassing for her and for us to milieu. I love doing this. do so. ‘Cause then it would truly Providing I hold up physically, I’ll be like some nostalgia act, getting continue for at least five years I back together to do our old hits or think. something. I have no contact with her. Or very little anyway for the From what you’ve said combined last thirteen years. So it wouldn’t with looking at your output for the make any sense. So that didn’t last few years, it seems you’ve entered intimidate me. I look at this one of the most explicitly material as encompassing experimental phases in your career, at everything from the beginning up a level not touched upon since the until now. Particularly live you’ll previous Swans album in 1997. see it, though there’s maybe just Oh, sure. Angels of Light was not that many quiet moments live intentionally… Well, when I in this incarnation. But certainly started it after Swans, it was with the record, it kind of because I wanted to start from the incorporates all the ideas from the root of a well-written --or at least I beginning hoped well-written-- song that I Your first shows under the Swans could perform in front of an banner for thirteen years must audience by myself with an have arrived with more than a acoustic guitar and sing. And then little trepidation. I’d orchestrate it, and sometimes it got very orchestrated, Oh, the first shows, yeah. God. sometimes it had electric guitars and got kind of loud. But it was How did you go about preparing always based on that-- on yourself for the tour?

performance and on a coherent In your recent performances, much of concise song. Most of the time the the material has expanded to epic performances in the studio were proportions with songs lasting about with just a drummer or twenty minutes apiece in some cases. something. That was it, that’s Would it be fair to say that you’ve what I orchestrated upon. Now supplanted or maybe supplemented it’s a different matter; I’ll start some of the violent loudness of early from the point of view that the Swans with this approach… song’s there and you can expand This [current tour] is very loud! it and change it, and you wanna make it more cinematic and all- Oh no, I’m not suggesting that it encompassing, overwhelming. isn’t. But would you say that the added dynamic of expansion has You touched upon this earlier, but I allowed you to take a step further in recall reading early interviews with achieving that atomising effect in a you where you stated your desire to modified way? be utterly atomised by the music you create. I hope so. I mean, every night we discover something new and then Yeah. we pursue that a little more. We Is that still a goal with your current started doing this song ‘Beautiful material? Child’ from Children of God, fairly close to the original. We did it for Yeah. Again, it’s the tantric sex four or five shows that way, and analogy. It’s like you really wanna then I started to feel preposterous lose it. I want that for myself and I doing that. There was something hope that the audience will come in it I heard and we tried doing it along for the ride to where you quiet. Very quiet. Now it’s very just lose yourself in something. quiet and it builds, but it has more It’s like going to church in a way. open-tuned guitars in it and it But you maybe have ten church rings and it crescendos, rather choirs singing all at once, different than just being this thudding hymns, very loud. [laughs] And thing that I’m screaming over. it’s just swirling around, if you Now it’s changed into something can imagine such a sound. completely different. In fact I’ve gotten rid of most of the lyrics, so

I don’t even know what it is disrespectful of people’s anymore, but it was based on that. expectations, it’s just that one We’re calling it ‘Beautiful Child’. can’t base their need to make But it just came about through something authentic on thinking doing it. That’s the way, like I about other people’s needs. said, the music happens-- it Presumably, people want to come happens through doing it. and have a real and true Because that would have never experience that’s powerful. If come about from me sitting in a we’re just up there playing our room thinking about how to do hits to them, well then it might as that. I had to experience it first, to well be Sam the Sham and the be inside it. Pharaohs doing the oldies circuit, you know? There’s clearly never any concern for you then that you could alienate There’s a general view of you and members of the audience who are keen your music, particularly among the to hear you play versions of the less imaginative of the music material they recognise. journalism community, that you and it are both deliberately abrasive and No! [laughs] No, I’ve never done willfully dark, and that that’s your that. whole raison d’être. It seems obvious to me that you don’t see it that way. It’s important to you to cater only to Indeed I’ve always been struck by the those who are willing to take that way in which your work encompasses journey of discovery with you. all the extremities of the human We used to intentionally… Well, condition from the most volatile to the benevolent. Do the it wasn’t like a marketing move, misconceptions of you and your work but we used to play the songs bother you? from an album live several times or whatever. And through a tour It bothers me a lot, but not as we’d record the album and then much as it used to. People have an not do those songs anymore, but impression and that’s what sticks, do new songs. [laughs] So we’d you know. You can’t really worry go out and we’d never do any about that. I find the music to be songs from the album. [laughs] elating and a truly positive It’s not that I’m cavalier or

experience. I write about primal record. She’s certainly the extreme things I guess, or things that seem opposite of dark, so…[laughs] to me to be urgent, and sometimes those aren’t so pretty. But it This brings me to the idea of the would be sophomoric to assume divine in your work. As Swans began to explore new musical avenues in the that you have to write happy late eighties, your lyrical concerns songs all the time or something. I also seemed to shift from the corporeal mean, Christ! What if Leonard to a more spiritual arena where the Cohen made that decision? earlier flesh and muscles are replaced [laughs] by quasi-religious allusions and overt The thing that I personally find spiritual references. Clearly you’re bothersome about that view is that it attracted to the rhetoric of organised completely ignores all of the work religion for the rich metaphors and you’ve done that isn’t quite as dark or effects it offers. But you’ve also made troubling. And there’s a lot of that. quite a few references to the divine in You’ve written songs that are relation to your performances, and actually very tender. indeed the new record is lyrically charged with those concerns. Do you Yes. Lots of them! feel that what you do in writing and performing music is --for you and Some of those tender songs may have your audience-- a divine or spiritual dark sides to them, but that’s exercise? reflective of a basic truth of life… Of course not [for the audience], Yeah. though I would want to share that possibility with them, but… …which I think is something you’ve [pause] I’ve never realised or always been very adept at talked about it before, but yes, I illuminating. think it is a spiritual undertaking, And there’s a love song on this definitely. It’s like if you practice record. It’s called ‘Little Mouth’ Zen, for instance; your day is and it’s not a dark song at all. And maybe cleaning for that day, there’s a song that’s sort of a cleaning the monastery. And that tribute to my daughter on the leads you to a sense of selflessness. So maybe the way I

do the work I do is kind of an else. I’m an artist. That’s what I analogous enterprise-- wanting to do. lose myself in something and be ego-less. Also the aspiration for Do you feel that that desirable state is the music to atomise the body, it’s more within your grasp as you continue to work? Particularly since that sense of losing yourself. It’s you are constantly refining and like meditating too. When you redefining your work, I wonder if you meditate you’re both in yourself feel you are achieving something completely and out of yourself closer to that with each new completely. That’s a sort of endeavour? desirable state as far as I’m concerned. But it’s not in any Oh, I’ve no idea. It’s hard to sense of being a regular kind of compare what I do now to what I religious impulse. Not like used to do or to think of it that organised religion. But I definitely way. All I know is it’s never easy have that impulse, I don’t know to try and revitalise what you’re where it comes from. I think doing all the time. [pause] Yeah. I everybody does really. If you sit mean, I don’t want to get too down and think about what serious with it, but it’s never easy. you’re doing on Earth, you start It’s really difficult to make these to think about larger things. But forms and shapes and have it still it’s not that I’m trying to write be compelling to you as the about heavy subjects or that the person making it. And it’s really music is heavy, it’s just that I want depressing once it’s done because to reach that state while I’m on I get very elated for months at a Earth. Otherwise why am I here? time when I’m making a record. Then it falls apart and I manage to Is it the pursuit of that state that is wrangle it back into shape and the primary imperative for you to reach something higher than I continue making music? would have thought. Then it’s all Yeah, definitely. Well if I wasn’t done and it’s recorded and it just making music I think, if I had the sounds like a dead dog in the ability, I would write books, road. It’s just this finished thing which is a similar enterprise with no more possibility in it. So ultimately. But I can’t do anything

it’s kind of depressing, and so you Our casual business leave that behind and move on. concluded, Gira leads me to the band’s dressing room where But the process remains ultimately percussionists Thor Harris and rewarding? Phil Puleo are preparing themselves for their impending Yeah, the whole process is what performance. Gira offers me a it’s about as far as I’m concerned. beer, reaching into a bucket of ice And like I said, I can’t do and plastic bottles. Both the anything else, so… [pause] Well, I plastic and the bottle’s modest can mow the lawn well. [laughs] size visibly appall him: “Is this I suppose that might have a half-size or what?” transcendent Zen aspect too. “They don’t refer to this as a [laughs] I guess it does, yeah. nanny state for nothing,” I volunteer, only semi-jokingly. Gira is almost apologetic as he hands me the bottle which looks like a doll’s house accessory in his fist. To an artist who has spent his life and career exploring and celebrating the extremes of human experience, this example of institutionalised British prudence clearly strikes him as absurd. We part with laughter at the irony.

Shortly afterwards, Swans take the stage in an unmitigated storm of feedback and churning bells before launching into a dynamic expanded rendition of ‘No Words/No Thoughts’. Gira is true to his word: the volume of the

show is almost painfully intense, making. Judging by the consensus each guitar chord and cymbal of elated expressions radiating in crash blasting their way directly The Arches’ shadowy interior, the into the crowd’s collective wait has paid off with dividends. nervous system, every surge and lift propelling us closer to that Throughout the performance, coveted atomisation of our Gira remains as composed in his physical selves. Gira conducts the conversational persona as he is in band meticulously, his concise his musical one, offering the gestures and sharp gesticulations crowd occasional and typically forming a visual shorthand which disembodied slivers of the other members translate information devoid of the context impressively into crucial shifts in of a larger story. “I once shared a tone and rhythm. At the far right jail cell with a Scottish man in of the stage stands the familiar about 1969,” he declares imposing silhouette of Norman unaffectedly. The crowd falls Westberg; his figure still silent, waiting for a follow-up impressively lean, eyes still nugget. Without another word the glimmering with a youthful band launch into ‘I Crawled’. primal energy beneath a greying During gaps in the performance, brow. Between songs he is Gira is repeatedly apologetic composed and dignified as a about the presence of a manned marble effigy, cradling his security barrier between the Telecaster like an unsheathed crowd and the stage. “I tried to weapon. As soon as his fingers get them to change their minds strike and bend the strings the air about it. I think it’s a horrible in the venue is cut into shards, the thing,” he says with genuine universe seeming to splinter into regret, adding: “You should fire cryptic fragments. Filtered your government”. The amused through this epic wall of sound, applause this generates is almost Gira’s earnest vocals resonate immediately hushed by the with the magnitude of a vexed languorous opening chords of the god rallying his followers to holy newly reinterpreted ‘Eden Prison’, war. It’s a baptism of fire and a slow-burning battle hymn blood thirteen years in the which explodes midway in a

celebration of minimalist guitar eighteen years ago. It reads: “Saw noise. Among the new material, you at the Arches. Couldn’t make several more gems from the back it through the crowd to say hi. catalogue also make their SWANS ARE NOT DEAD!” appearance; the promised revised version of ’Beautiful Child’, a In its second manifestation sublime squall of chiming chords the apocalypse has never seemed almost unrecognisable from its a more exhilarating or all- original incarnation; an admirably encompassing phenomenon. groove-laden translation of ‘Your Hallelujah! Property; and perhaps most jaw- dropping of all, a stripped-down ‘…you lost your way on that ‘Sex, God, Sex’ which finds Gira river […] till you thought yourself in full-blown quasi-preacher bewitched and cut off forever mode, bellowing his lungs dry in from everything you had once wild praise of the Lord. When the known--somewhere--far away--in band eventually take their final another existence perhaps. There bow with the heart-breaking were moments when one’s past ‘Little Mouth’ which showcases came back to one, as it will Gira’s baritone in seductive sometimes when you have not a bloom, there is not a heart moment to spare to yourself; but unmoved by the experience. it came in the shape of an unrestful and noisy dream

remembered with wonder On my way home --dazed amongst the overwhelming and jubilant, eardrums pounding realities of this strange world […] with a gorgeous white noise-- my And this stillness of life did not in mind and body feel pleasantly the least resemble a peace. It was violated. A throbbing in my jacket the stillness of an implacable pocket alerts me to a received text force brooding over an inscrutable message (I am presently deaf to intention. It looked at you with a the phone’s message alert tone). vengeful aspect.’ It’s from an old friend-- the very same female friend who first - Joseph Conrad introduced me to Michael Gira’s Heart of Darkness inimitable artistic universe some

THE NATURE OF ELECTRICITY

By Kyle Hemmings

Images © Richard A. Meade

Father was struck down the night the youngest, my sisters and I of the storm. In the kitchen never believed him. She was too reeking of old yeast, spoiled beautiful to vanish, too light to buttermilk, right before our eyes, sink. And it hadn’t been the first a shock of lightening turned him time he lied. He promised he into stone. The same father who could feed us the way mother did, almost loved us after mother’s provide us with the sustenance to death. He told us she died of a tolerate both day and night. Truth heart attack. With the exception of was he couldn’t braid our dreams

or disassemble our night terrors. blood. The snake, we believed, He only took from us, leaving us dropped from the ceiling. The to taste the salt off our palms, to cord made us prisoners and none hold nothing in our bodies but the of us could move without the plasma type of the universal others. There was now the victim. physical semblance of a bond and slowly we grew into each other. I was the oldest of four sisters, ages ranging 20 to 10. Father The house was mostly dark and loved even numbers. Mother eventually our eyes adjusted to it. loved odd and the smiles of We groped and wended past the antique rocking horses. furniture to peek out the window. The streets were empty, littered The night it happened, our with broken wires, their ends youngest sister, Penelope, fell to frayed and curling upwards. Car the floor, writhing from a series of horns blatted for hours. In the convulsions. She was Father's distance there were sparks and favorite and sometimes she snuck small fires. It seemed everyone into his bed on rainy nights. His was hiding in their houses, which sinewy arms and loud snores leaned to one side like an old would protect her from the rain. woman. Or perhaps no one was So she thought. We warned her alive. The phones were dead. not to touch his body on the floor. Even though we didn’t Earth was always a strange understand the nature of planet. electricity, as we do now, we warned her. We said Don’t touch It was becoming harder to move. him—You’ll burn. She didn’t Helen, the second eldest, grew listen and slid into a semi-coma. more depressed, despondent, recalcitrant to our wishes to The night of the storm, an insane search for food. Growing one the likes of which we had frustrated, we had to drag her never seen, parts of the walls, the weight. At times, she rambled on ceilings, crumbled around us, how Mother would hold or gently dust settling in our lungs. Then rock her after her first period, something incomprehensible which was heavier than the ones happened. We found ourselves that followed, or after claiming wrapped by a thick strand of what Father did or did not do electrical cord, tightening around enough of. We felt the pain of the our waists as if a snake wishing to silent other. At times, we cried devour, forcing us to savor its with invisible discharge. cool inner sanctums, to taste cold

Over the next few days, Penelope wondered if this time she was sometimes approached truly dead. Helen herself began to consciousness, mumbling some shake, saying It’s no use. We mantra or half-formed utterance won’t survive. Our cord began to as saliva streamed from one side stretch. of her lips. It took us the good part of an hour to digest what she At my suggestion, we traced the had said. “I saw her face in the source of the cord that entangled sky. So white. So perfect. The us. One sister after the other, we clouds smiled. She was made up stumbled upstairs and into the from them. Can’t you see? Why attic rooms. We twisted and can’t you see!” Then, slowly, her squirmed on our bellies to get eyes rolled, the back of her head past crawlspaces. We reached hitting the floor, and her body dusty rooms that hadn’t been stretched and convulsed. We used for years. With the help of a

candle, we could see what we disappeared. But we still felt its otherwise could not. Helen weight and tautness. We could screamed. The others turned to hear what each sister thought. We stone. would laugh inappropriately at another’s stale joke, especially the There in the far corner of the attic ones about breastfeeding or was Mother’s body, stiff, whiter unplanned pregnancies. Just to than bone, entangled by a cord make the other feel good and that reached through the walls human. We never thought or and probably up through the spoke out of sequence. And we ceiling. Perhaps it’s junction was discovered food in various rooms with a cloud. Staring at her, we of the house, in places we’d never felt terribly decomposed. Closing expect. Mother worked at our eyes, we offered her our love mysterious frequencies. but hated ourselves for harboring Father’s dominant genes. We set Over the years, we performed our her on fire and inhaled the fumes own home repairs. During the of this burnt offering to the source day, we assumed our banal of all flesh and Nothing. We identities and attended school. giggled nervously the way some We pretended we were shy and people do when they’re angry or stupid. At night, a voice in our scared. We held hands. From each ears instructed us in a great many other, we knew we were no subjects. We learned longer insulated. extraordinary geographies or the names and locations of strange After the discovery, a number of trees and exotic plants. We knew inexplicable events occurred. It that voice. We stayed in Mother's was if everything we witnessed house until we grew too long for was through the bubble of our our thoughts. sisterhood. Even if it wasn’t out there, the world was now here One by one, we moved out. We within us. It was safe. We made married men who resembled each this world. other. They were all kind and respectful of our neon secrets, our Penelope slowly awakened and inner halogen lives. rose from the floor. She still uttered things we could not I now understand somewhat the totally comprehend. But believing nature of electricity. I appreciate that the same current that had the difference between good killed Father had left her, we electricity and bad. I know the embraced her. Then the thick direction in which electrons flow electrical cord that bound us and why atoms collide. What I

know about the nature of impossible flowers growing under electricity is this: It’s a form of our beds, of amazing goddesses magic, a mysterious conductor who echo our mother’s mute among humans who once lived in agony and glassy eyes. And after a house of random acts and they recover, our husbands will darkness. ask Why these names? What do they mean? And long after the sun goes down, when we straddle our And in this way, we keep them husbands for a fix, in the heat and longing. We keep them airy and crest of climax, we recite the light. names of strange trees or

Photos: Mascaras, Untitled, and SOS © 2010 Richard A. Meade

ROME

By Adam Moorad

They were pretty ambitious for when their mother felt her sex conjoined twin embryos. In a parts for the first time through coliseum of amoeba shapes, cotton panties. From month to Romulus and Remus were month, their mother would healthy too. This was around the complain about certain spots on time their lives as sea monkeys her body. “It doesn’t feel good began. here,” she’d say, “or here either.” Remus would squirm as she ■ tried to probe him. Then he was Romulus switched spokes inside left alone, afloat somewhere a chromosome one afternoon and between her kidneys and clitoris. tangled knots into Remus. It was salient a spot where Remus tried to untie himself, but impatient flowers sprout only tightened the bond between harmonious colors; a spot where them. For what seemed like everything becomes. years, they remained, unblinking ■ inside a world with no clothes. There it was dark and rarely Sometimes inside their mother, light. This seemed to never the weather was miserable. change. Some things happened “Aprils are the cruelest months,” outside the body of Romulus and Romulus once claimed, Remus, inside their teenage “breeding lilacs out of the dead mother’s bedroom. land.” Remus nodded because he could not disagree. ■ ■ Every day before school, their mother would tie her hair with a One day, Romulus mocked-up a pink elastic band. Romulus and blueprint layout of the dream Remus became close brothers, house he planned to build. “It making piano key spirals within will have multiple rooms and their mother’s genes. They floors,” he proclaimed. Since shared a duplex cell that formed becoming, Romulus and Remus

had always shared the same concrete. The skaters weren’t room and slept linked together any older than 7th grade. Most of like zippered butterfly wings. them must already have had Remus ate melting ice cream pubic hair. Some were even when he sat with Romulus in enormous, like the Venetian bed. They would trade brotherly cords hanging from their father’s licks for space on their mother’s blinds. Their mother liked shag carpeting. skaters who were.

■ ■

In the vacant lot, there was an Some dream home designs made abandoned gas station. Grass no sense at all. “Do you really came up through cracks in the think we can have an in-ground pavement. There, the brothers pool if we live underground?” listened to middle school skaters Remus once asked. His forehead beat-box bass lines somewhere wrinkled, “Or am I just reading outside their mother. To this this one upside-down?” soundtrack, they worked-out Romulus shrugged and put his new dream house ideas. Their arm around his brother’s brains stormed from empty shoulder. His hand brushed womb skies. “This one will have against his brother hand. “Not a planetarium,” Romulus once underground, or even said. “No,” Remus recanted. He aboveground,” he assured gave his brother a sharp lick in Remus. “It will be above-the- the ribs. It made Romulus jiggle ground.” Romulus smiled and like a chocolate snack pack hoped Remus might understand. pudding with vanilla swirl. He felt his hand on his brother’s “What do you mean, ‘No’,” hand. It felt like it wasn’t Romulus said. He poked back at supposed to be there. Their a ticklish pace. “It’s too late to plans were becoming delusions start all over.” of delusions.

■ ■

Their mother would laugh when The skater their mother liked the skaters’ skateboards made a didn’t have enough money for crunching wheel sounds on bad condoms after he bought her

pizza. He proposed to their thrown across the gravel of the mother daredevil stunts. “If I earth. The skater laughed a crash my board trying ollie in the heckled high-pitched giggle. He air, I’m going to wipeout doing a called their mother, “a hyacinth flip,” the skater announced, girl.” It echoed into their “then I’ll spill into your arms.” mother’s ear. The commotion When their mother was alone jostled Romulus and Remus with the skater, he indiscreetly inside their cell. It felt like they moved an erection into her hand, were on a boat, rocking pushing it through her fingers. awkwardly on an ugly sea. Romulus and Remus thought ■ they could feel their mother beam. She stared at the skater When their mother stuck her without seeing him. “Do we have tongue into the skater’s mouth, to live in the same house, or can Romulus discovered the skater we build different houses?” had been where they lived inside Romulus murmured, unsure of their mother. The brothers felt what he was saying. Remus like they were being sneezed. The skater squeezed reincarnated, falling asleep and their mother’s nipple through waking up a thousand times in her shirt, “It has to be the same one second. All the different house,” Remus replied. His voice ideas for their dream house filled became Romulus’ thoughts. their heads in a kaleidoscope Remus turned and sneezed swirl. Romulus asked Remus again, then said, “And the house what was in their mother’s should be earthquake-proof.” It mouth. Remus said she was got cold and their mother being kissed in one of the pimpled. Inside she was upstairs cells. They felt a shaking. calmness fill their mother’s body. The skater’s erection got ■ smaller and, with a muscle, the The skater did the stunt and brothers felt his particulars landed, but somehow still twitch as he withdrew through managed to crash. Some of him their mother’s hand and into his spilled when their mother said jeans. his name. Some more was ■

“That was good,” the skater said. with his arm. Romulus felt the He challenged their mother to skater’s elbow poke his head disagree, nudging her in the ribs where he kept all his dream gigantic shark that lived in water house thoughts. Remus sighed. and fed on unsuspecting people The mother’s tongue lashed bathing in their tubs. Romulus wildly inside her mouth. Right abandoned all cottage ideas. now, she was enduring Remus’ dream home was a two- something. Romulus and Remus bedroom apartment in the West could feel her resistance bend. Village on a quite cobblestone Muscles tugged disapproving on lane off Jane Street. He wouldn’t one another, but danced together have to paint, he would think, with enthusiasm. It continued because each room would have for several seconds, then exposed brick. stopped. ■ ■ Sometimes, their mother would The skater said he had read in a run out breath, talking on the book of World Records that a phone to girlfriends about person in Brazil skated for four weddings in New York City. days straight. Another skated the Their mother had never been to entire Great Wall of China in one New York City though, because attempt. Their mother’s molars she had never traveled. She touched in the back of her wouldn’t be traveling for a long mouth. Remus hoped she would time. She wouldn’t even be go get something to eat. He getting married. touched the stomach he shared ■ with Romulus with his hand. Their stomach growled. “Let’s renovate an old farmhouse,” Remus said, tapping ■ his brother with their shared Romulus had always wanted a arm. Romulus closed both eyes, cottage on a lake, but Remus then he opened one, and began hated the idea. He had been blinking each eye separately in unwilling to learn how to swim, quick succession. Their mother’s having once seen a movie about a finger was inserted to herself

and the brothers temporarily gaining speed, then tried to jump forgot about dream homes. The to a spray paint can, but over- skater skated down a ramp shot it, hit his head with a loud crack, skid his knees and hand grew warm and she got rolled his ankle on the pavement. used it. Blood formed from under the ■ white shoelaces of his Airwalk sneakers. Their mother crowded Romulus and Remus began to around the skater in distress. smooth; smooth like babies. Romulus and Remus felt tension They both thought they were clench their mother’s face. becoming babies. They were Remus thought about their confused when they fused into mother’s mouth. He wondered if the same baby. They had only it was empty. He thought about known two other bodies up the skater’s tongue and where it close: their mother’s and the had been. Their mother turned skater’s. Those bodies could to the skater. Romulus yawned. connect and disconnect with Remus saw Romulus yawn and natural ease and no yawned and stared at Romulus complication. For the brothers, with the glazed look on his face. things were complicated. They “I do like farmhouses, but what did not have a body like their about old chapels,” Romulus mother’s or the skater’s. said rubbing his neck, “with loads of stained-glass.” “I love ■ stained-glass,” Remus said. On Their mother was crying. Remus stained-glass, they always paused to hear her weep. The agreed. Their mother wriggled sound she made was horrible. her hand in the skater’s boxers Especially in the season of cruel and felt through an opening April weather. It felt like cold where he concealed his flaccid water, stirring dull roots with penis. It was the first time she spring rain. The skater had a had touched a flaccid penis with broken foot with the bone any part of her body. It sticking-out. Parts of both arms reminded her of the rubbery were wet with blood too. Most of bodies of salamanders. Then her his head was sliced or missing. “Ewww,” the brothers cringed.

They could see everything with nose, she felt the burp again. the one eye through a hole inside Romulus played with his lips. their mother. The harder their Remus drooled from his mouth. mother cried the more the hole A faraway siren moaned in the opened. Remus turned to night. The brothers thought it Romulus and said, “What about sounded pretty from inside their a log cabin?” “It all depends on mother, like dolphin sonar, or the wood,” Romulus said. like when an eagle caws from a Somehow, little feathers of hair tall cliff above the ocean. begun to sprout on their arms. It ■ was soft like white mold on old bread. Remus giggled and when When Romulus wiggled his toes he touched his fuzzy wrist to his and kicked, their mother lips. Romulus watched Remus instinctively cupped her nipples. and did the same. Then, she remembered the skater. Maybe she was imagining ■ things. Maybe the brothers were only air trapped inside of her. It was already dark when their She began to feel like an ice- mother closed her eyes. This was after she had eaten an entire sculpture in each of her sleeve of saltines. There was a extremities. Remus was now a bright orange cheese slice full-sized sunflower seed. layered across each cracker she Romulus was half the size of chewed and swallowed. Remus that. In one of the new cells, he was hungry and helped their carved his name into the wall. mother absorb it with his Remus stenciled his fingers microscopic tongue. Romulus beside it. Soon, the wall would segued, claiming to be lactose expand and their markings intolerant. Later, their mother would stretch and get droopy. got drunk on beer by accident. Their mother slept all day and Normally, she would only drink never moved around. The one, but somehow, she felt, sex brothers grew tired of living comes with a price. Yeast had inside her. Each day, they would filled her tummy with hopping assure each other that they bubbles. A pressure she hadn’t would live in house with felt before burped inside of her. stained-glass windows. They When she used a tissue on her hoped their mother would like it.

YOUR NEWEST SUPERHEROES: MEET THE L.A. BASED RUBY FRIEDMAN ORCHESTRA By Kirsten Milliken Photos ©Alex Elena & Kirsten Milliken

It all started while I was driving “Look…look for the shooting stars in down Beverly Blvd., listening to your own back yard / That’s where KCRW with Chris Douridas and the blue birds are / Stay up…stay up guest DJ Rosanna Arquette. They to watch the show / Don’t shut your played a song that held me eyes…you’ll want to see them captive to the point that I couldn’t glow……” concentrate on the road while I didn’t want to shut my eyes. I looking for a pen to write down wanted to keep them wide open, the name of the band when it was as the Ruby Friedman Orchestra, announced. I was too impatient also known as RFO, began its flirt and called the station instead. into my music-loving veins with

that song “Shooting Stars.” I talent of a woman whose voice became a convert on the spot. can wrap around you like a snake, but let go with a whimper if she And I wasn’t alone. In fact, at so chooses? Or is it the seasoned every show, you will see eyes musicians who share the stage, widen as the band kicks off with seamlessly maneuvering the its opening number. To see Ruby landscape with Ruby to bring you Friedman – the titian-haired front- something visceral and raw, but woman, with her 6-inch platform also polished in that way which Mary-Janes and fox stole inherited only true professionals can? from her great-aunt Faye (who Whatever it is, this band is blazing used to be a big band singer) – a trail with rocket propulsion. perform is to be reminded of a tent revival or jazz singer from Together for a little over two another era. You leave feeling years, the RFO has been to SXSW, kind of sweaty, kind of sexy, and been featured on KROQ (both on absolutely wanting more. Rodney on the Roq as well as being #1 on Kat Corbett’s show A cult was being born. For Locals Only with their latest song “Burning Skies”), the late A friend of mine remarked that great Indie 103.1, it’s fascinating watching the Hunnypotradio.com, KCRW and audience as it gets seduced by the KPRI FM San Diego. The band whole experience. Perhaps it’s the members in addition to Friedman lyrics that grab you, such as, “I – Alex Elena (drummer, and crossed the Rubicon into the Helicon producer), Dorian Heartsong and I got the point,” or... (bassist), Adam Zimmon (guitarist) and Ulf Bjorlin “I’ve seen the ledge (trombonist) – have played where the angels weep collectively with various acts, for what they can’t keep...” including Powerman 5000,

Everlast, Glen Campbell, Imani ...from “Drowned” – a song that Coppola, Bruce Dickinson and was featured on Episode 10 of the The Vaud and the Villains, among TV show Sons of Anarchy. Or is it others. the sheer stage presence and

In this incarnation, they are I recently had a chance to making the rounds in the Los interview Ruby Friedman at a Angeles venues, including Hollywood diner. Spaceland, Hotel Café, Silverlake Lounge, the Echo, 3Clubs, the When I arrive, Friedman is Mint, the Bootleg Theater, the already there, waiting in a Bordello, the Troubadour, the booth. She mentions that she is in Roxy and the Viper Room. a transition state, and hasn’t really eaten that day, but had a lot of Already the stages feel too small peanuts. for their intoxicating energy, but when you include their talented “No, you don’t understand,” she friends – master musicians on says, noticing my reaction to her harmonica, violin, trumpet, etc – statement, “it was A LOT of who sometimes join them onstage, peanuts.” you experience one enormous musical orgasm that truly feels The woman can make you think like an orchestra. and laugh.

Moments later, Heartsong and Zimmon, join us.

Friedman begins by announcing to the table that she likes to plug the parking meters in her neighborhood. She is the anti- metermaid-esque Superheroine; bringing free parking to her community, in addition to her music.

The talk glides from which superhero the guys would be, to home improvement issues, to juice fasts, and quickly lands on

the plastic surgery craze in Los be discriminated against or try to Angeles. look younger and hope that people don’t notice. I think at a Dorian Heartsong (DH): I know certain point in this town, that to this has been going on, but I look fake, is actually a status didn’t realize until the other day symbol and/or more viable than when I saw that guys get lip looking old. plumping done. AZ: There’s that movie… Blade Ruby Friedman (RF): Tons of Runner – I think. Where the guys get it. It is out of control! technology is so good that you Guys want to look like James can only tell how old they are Dean or Brad Pitt. They want based on their eyes and hands. puffy lips. RF: Well, it eventually makes you Adam Zimmon (AZ): It seems to examine, well, several issues. One me that slicing, into your face is, why are we so afraid? Why particularly, well the technology can’t we get older? Why can’t we is not that good. be imperfect?

DH: But you had a good job done DH: Native Americans – they on your face. had total respect for the elderly, and worshipping the aesthetic of AZ: I mean, yeah I did, but every aging as well. time I look in the mirror… RF: I think it’s about valuing it… [chuckles from the table] not worshipping. We don’t value it. We are afraid of it. AZ: Up close, in person, there is something in your basic human Such introspective ideas lead me programming that thinks it looks to inquire about what inspires weird. them in terms of songwriting, in addition to the collaborative RF: Some people get it done and process of the band. you don’t know it. Here are the choices for females: get older and

RF: I am inspired by things that KM: You guys are pretty aren’t necessarily musical… or seamless onstage. There seems to real. be an amazing give and take without even looking at each Kirsten Milliken (KM): Is it the other. music or the lyrics which grab you first? RF: A couple of times I have actually stopped singing since I RF: It changes, I can be inspired liked what I was hearing so much. by something someone’s playing, or I will hear something in my KM: That’s the power of a good head driving down in Orange song. County… I have several songs in my head. They have been there RF: I want to make sure that the for years and years [laughs]. I’ll other pieces [of the song] are need to excavate them sooner or heard. later. KM: Can you guys hear what we, KM: Do you guys write some of the audience, hear? the songs too? [question directed to Zimmon and Heartsong] DH (bassist): All I hear is guitar [laughter at the table again]. AZ: We collaborate but the ultimate… well the final thing is… AZ: Sometimes being onstage is is Ruby, if we have an idea, it’s the only place that I am the most about her. She does the lyrics and comfortable, the place where I am melody. the most focused in my everyday life. RF: I can edit things. I can take something and chisel it. RF: I am like that too.

AZ [to Friedman]: You can sing AZ: You can get addicted to that. what sounds like clunky words I am basically pretty shy. and they don’t have to rhyme but RF: I am shy too. We are all kind you just… sing them. That’s a of shy. talent.

It sounds like an oxymoron for RF: No. No cupcakes. I don’t like performers to say such things, but them. They are silly. And I like for some reason, I believe them. silly things, but they remind me of clowns. KM: How many shows has the RFO performed? She foregoes the sweet craving.

RF: We don’t really perform Heartsong, who has just recently shows. finished a juice fast is drinking what’s left of his coffee. KM: What do you mean? KM: How are you doing with the RF: Well, I guess they are shows, caffeine? but they feel more like exorcisms. DH: I am good. I am a lightweight Having been to many of the RFO with absolutely everything except shows, it rings true. Something caffeine… although King’s Road otherworldly happens on that has a latte that can kick my ass. stage, but I would think even demons would want to hear this AZ: Don’t get me started on music rather than be cast out. places with good coffee. There are a few I like in Santa Monica. KM: When can we expect another EP or the new CD? DH: We should do an espresso tour… get a double-decker bus RF: Well, we’d hoped the last one and wear headsets… would follow this one. This being the RFO debut, but there’s no I can totally picture it too, but accounting for chronology. think the RFO fans would like to see them do a tour of the musical The waitress stops by our table to ilk. Their loyal band of followers ask if we want anything else. on Myspace and Facebook are spread across the country, as well RF: I might want something as internationally. The band could sweet. still wear headsets, although I doubt they would since it doesn’t Waitress: Cupcakes?

seem to be their style. The appeal proof is in the meters Friedman of the RFO is that they are keeps plugging. Only someone professional, talented, and sharp, with the heart of a superhero and while also being accessible to their pipes of a diva could get away fans. with that.

“Everybody wants to fill their soul / To hear more of this “Rubicon- Everybody wants to be a rock and roll crossing” band: star... and a cover of magazines but they gotta wait up / Wait up / Wait www.rubyfriedman.com up” [from “Shooting Stars”] www.reverbnation.com/rubyfriedm

I don’t think this band is going to anorchestra have to “wait up” much longer – All lyrics courtesy of ASCAP/Ruby Red they have already arrived. The Lawn © 2010

JOURNAL ART THEFT

By Stagger Lloyd

Photos © Malcolm Alcala

“I was born in a crossfire For the first hour or so when I hurricane and I howled in my realized it had gone I was mad tights in the driving rain...” with rage. Since that time I’ve been fine though. It’s strange. The light is mad all around me. normally I’m pretty hot tempered Pity I’m not hallucinating. Dunno and can fester over even an if it matters or not. imagined sleight for many many years. Three days ago someone stole a portfolio containing a hundred or I’m an utter scoundrel but I’m so of my better paintings and not a thief. drawings from me.

resembled a sort of demented jesters hat. It was totally appropriate and in keeping with the fine spirit of the weekend.

The nice lady who modelled the tights on the packet cover probably imagined this day would ever come...

Some while later I woke up sprawled on a sofa. It was dark. I could hear breathing. I looked at my watch in the very faint light. It was 4.30! Had I really slept Last weekend on a drink and right through to the following drug fuelled binge with some afternoon? friends we all piled into a shop to buy essential fluids so we could I gathered my things from continue our mission. around the house, slugged down the remaining brandy, shoved the On the way out of the shop I stole tights into my jacket pocket and a single pair of ladies tan tights. It left to catch a bus. was a spur of the moment thing. The tights were hanging there It was freezing and all was quiet shining like Elvis suspended at the bus stop on this major above a Las Vegas highway and artery road into Manchester. The it was in total keeping with the timetable suggested a bus would mission we were on. be along in ten minutes. Good, time for a cigarette. Minutes later we were sat around a table babbling and gesticulating I waited and watched the again. occasional taxi pass. Everyone else was probably at home Not wishing to embarrass the fine having their Sunday Roast. Good array of gentleman and the lady I for them, I thought benevolently. was with I put the tights on... on my head, where so perched they

Half an hour later I checked my phone. The time read something like 05.19.

Fuck.

It was am and not pm.

What should I do? go back to Tony’s and in my now bright and alert state wake the whole house up to continue the frolicking or walk back home?

I had a heavy pack and it was bitterly cold and a long walk...

I set off walking and tried I raised an eyebrow but most flagging down the occasional taxi murderers would be unlikely to but none would stop. Miserable stop to pick up a 6ft dood like bastards. myself... unless they were well armed and totally fucking Then out of nowhere this car psychotic that is... pulled over. The driver motioned to get in. I did. There was no As it was he dropped me meter. It wasn’t a taxi. fuck virtually at my front door. walking, I’ll take my chances. I shook his hand and got out. The driver told me he had just Now that’s serendipity, I thought dropped his employees’ home. as I crossed the road.

‘Ah, another benevolent fellow,’ I Now one week later I’m sat thought and began jabbering typing. away. A few days ago I had my He told me he was Turkish and portfolio stolen from under my owned a pizza shop. “I often give nose. I’d had a good night and people rides this way,” he’d said been drawing people, doing my in his thick accent. Entertainer on Gin routine and

generally having fun in a pub hexes to the person who'd done with a bunch of people. such a vile and callous deed.

I’ve done this for the last 12 years My friends who had turned up and my patter is well honed, if a helped me search for it along little rusty in recent times. It felt with the remainder of the people good to be buffing it up again. I id been chatting to earlier but to gave drawings away, digging the no avail. surprised and delighted looks on the faces of those I drew. The pub barman told me the CCTV had been broken for two weeks.

Fuck.

I’d been doing this for 12 years and not once had anyone stolen it. two paintings had gone AWOL in all that time but never had anyone lifted the lot, which was remarkable considering the sheer amount of time id been doing it and the amount of times id fallen asleep doing so.

On Friday, the day after my work was thieved I went to check at the Later a friend woke me up in the pub but no one had handed it in. corner of the pub. I don’t not long after I met up with remember this but apparently I friends, spent a small fortune and was surprised to be there. had a great night with them. Determined not to be outdone by I came to my senses and scanned the fates I drew people. Gave the around. All my shit was there drawings away. It was slashing it except for my portfolio. Fuck. down with rain outside for most of the evening but this only I searched all around the pub served to heighten the getting increasingly frantic and excitement. It all went well. angry and started promising

People were happy and my like old pals. I looked at the menu drawing was in good form. on the wall and ordered a half pound cheeseburger. Yummy! Fuck you bastards, I thought. You’re not gonna beat my Then I ordered a big big pizza. fucking spirit down. “I’ll have everything on it with double garlic please!” Later on I walked back to the flat. I was starving like a stray dog. it I was suddenly in Total Greed felt like I hadn’t eaten in days. I Mode. hadn’t. “Never eat on an empty stomach!” When the food arrived I shoved the pizza into my bag, bid the Looking at the proliferation of Turk farewell and ate the burger take-aways along the road I as I walked home. It tasted like staggered into one at random. shit but I forgave the guy after his Behind the counter was the dood generosity in giving me a lift the who’d given me a lift home days weekend before and for not before. We greeted each other instead taking me out onto the

moors at gunpoint then I don’t remember much of what murdering me with an axe. was said but it turned out she’d gone back to some guys flat who As I reached the junction near to she said tried to rape her. I do the flat and where the Turk had remember her asking me why she dropped me off I saw a lass got into situations like that. coming from the other direction. She was very young, maybe 18 She was in floods of tears. and evidently naive.

Rape might have been too strong I did my best to console her, “At a term. He’d probably thought least yer okay.” I flagged down a she'd wanted to be with him by taxi for her. She was in a much going back to his place and got better state as she was getting in heavy with her when she backed and then I remembered off but still, not cool either way. something.

I handed her the pizza that was Rifling through the pockets I still hot and untouched in my found a lighter and then I found bag. Maybe she’d learn more that pair of tan tights. than one lesson from the night and hopefully the pizza would Hmmmm... taste better than the burger I’d had. I’d forgotten about the Moments later I stood in my double garlic, not to everyone’s room with my cigarette lit taste but I thought of it as a kind wearing the jacket. I stripped off gesture nonetheless. my jeans then pulled on the tights. Last night, Saturday, I was sat in my flat when my phone rang. It They felt good. The cigarette was my flatmate telling me the tasted good. I took another drag landlord had contacted him to then grabbed a marker pen from say he was evicting us and was a tub and wrote the letters “I.. N.. gonna come around on Monday S.. T.. A.. N.. T” down one leg. to do the nasty deed. “Cya Monday dood, take it easy.” After another deep drag on the smoke I wrote “K.. A.. R.. M.. A” I went to light a cigarette. click... along the other leg and smiled. click... clack! damn, the flint had gone. I looked around my room. It’s now Sunday and I’m now I have about 400 lighters floating typing this thinking about about at any one time. Just making another attempt to track they’re all well hidden. down my work.

I spotted my jacket. There’s over a hundred pieces there including many of those It’s possibly the coolest thing I’ve I’ve put up on MySpace. ever owned. A super svelte white and blue BMW biker’s jacket a I have four beers left, maybe best friend recently gave to me. I three. I have 50 pence to my feel like a fucking superstar name so after those beers its wearing it. Like David Bowie or delirium tremens again. someone. Like a young god.

I’ve been getting ‘em after every Later in the evening the landlord binge lately and they’ve been is coming to turf us out. lasting longer and longer. Like 3 days and shit. If all goes well I’ll have a new house to move to by the time he Tomorrow I’ll try and get on a arrives, if not I’ll be well and computer to bulletin this, after truly fucked. which I’ll sit and await news from a friend about moving to a Ok, time to head out and know different city, which has been on that I love each and every one of the cards for ages but been held you... up by solicitors. Tomorrow a verdict is supposed to be Wish me luck, Stagger. delivered.

(Here is the truth behind what - Stagger is not his real name. ‘Stagger’ says courtesy of a concerned hacker ‘friend’... - His silk smoking jacket was made not with silkworms but This man is a demonic despot with common garden worms that who has not left his bedroom in toil and wrestle in a pot by his the last crumbling tower of his bedside. palace in centuries. - On the tip of his nose he He smokes opiates through a wears the hat of the last long rusted pipe which he remaining Tiny Andalusian clutches between his two Metro Monkey, extinct ever since remaining fingernails, each well he stole its hat and sent that last over 15 inches long. We call it his poor creature floating off down ‘talon’. Whilst doing this he river. dreams up his illiterate fantasies and barks at his servants through - A similar fate befell the real his foamy, stained beard which Stagger Lloyd whilst the chap reaches down to the tips of his was on an expedition to find curled Turkish slippers, some “fucking decent booze” instructing them to post his wild having exhausted supplies in fantasies on the ‘internet.’ much of Europe and the rest of the world. According to local If someone in the real world does tribesman his last words were manage to reach up and catch “This river has water in it for one of these follies and somehow fucks sake!” take it for truth or inspiration, know that this man is very very - He considers these things to bad. be ‘fine achievements’ and finds them comical. For example... Be warned! - His toes have curled to the end of his slippers. A concerned but anonymous friend.)

DEATH WISH CHAMELEON X By Cricket Corleone

Photos ©Richard A. Meade

Dustin is riding the city bus back to the fact that her long hair is to her hotel room after a long day now in a bob cut, which is too at the shooting gallery. Buzzing short to make it stay behind her high off the feeling she got from ears. She sees her reflection in the shooting a gun for the first time, window of the bus and almost she cracks a smile while off in her cannot recognize herself. In a own little world away from the way, this is pleasing. Taking on a other passengers. A slight itch on new person or personality would her scalp from freshly dyed black be an interesting project and hair of the cheapest kind of color would keep her real troubles at you can find at the drug store. bay, for awhile. She scratches her head a little and tries to brush her hair behind her Realizing that she needs to do the ears. She is still trying to get used annual odd job to put some

money back into her traveling The next afternoon, around lunch funds, she has set up a meeting time, Dustin is walking to a diner time with the man who had down the street from the hotel placed the ad looking for a she is staying at. The rich man mistress. He is a well off man has asked to meet her there with a great paying job and a because no one he knows goes wife of thirty years. Getting some there, it’s obscure enough that he money off of him would be so would never be seen with this easy it seems unfair in a way. All “mystery woman” he is about to she would have to do is play the have an affair with. As she walks part of the perfect mistress so she realizes she needs a new well that he would consider her name. She stops in her tracks and advancements for a steady decides to close her eyes and then paycheck to be something as randomly look at something small as a tax write off would be. around her. Whatever she sees And he most certainly could first, she will use as her new afford a few hundred per session name. with her.

that she is making up a name for this new “character” she is playing, is the word “Lie.” Rearranging the letters to the name, “Eli.” She thinks to herself a moment, “Eli... short for Elijah... which can be both feminine and masculine. Yeah... Eli. That works.” She smiles to herself and moves on.

Once she has the name down she starts to create the character of Eli in her head. Realizing it is best to remain a creature of mystery to this man, as his mistress, but that if it came down to it, she could lie Leaving it up to randomness, she through her teeth about her past opens her eyes and sees a so convincingly that he wouldn’t billboard advertisement. The even question the validity of the model in the ad is a woman so stories she would feed him. plastic and airbrushed it is almost insulting to the people below. Searching the billboard of a Wrigley’s gum ad she does not see a name that would be convincing as such. So she takes the word Wrigley and tries to rearrange the letters in the name until it forms a name she can use. “W... R... E...” she struggles to find another name in the letters. “G... I... L...” Finding it difficult, she suddenly realizes one word in the name Wrigley stands out. Ironically attached to such a fake advertisement of how a woman should look, and due to the fact

A block before she reaches the sidewalk feeling like an diner, Dustin, or Eli, takes out a untouchable ice queen. A bitch. pair of sunglasses and slides And it feels good. them on. She smoothes out her new long black coat and her new Dustin enters the diner. Looking black tresses. Pressing her lips around, there are few patrons together and looking at her there. The men in the room seem reflection in a glass window she to be instantly drawn to Eli, realizes she needs something. staring at her. The waitress in the Inside the window is a woman’s diner sees this and rolls her eyes. clothing store. She sees a makeup Dustin finally sees the rich man. counter inside as well. He is sitting with his back to the entrance but wearing a red string When Dustin comes out of the around one of his wrists. This shop she has on a deep red glossy was how she would be able to lipstick. Now she was ready. spot him as he told her in their Even her walk seemed to be previous phone conversation. A slightly different. More femme cigarette burning half way down fatale. She glides down the between his fingers.

Dustin walks right up to the table dominance in their situation. and sits on the opposite side “So... you never told me your facing the rich man. “Got a name? Mr...” smoke?” she says. There is not a hint of insecurity in her body The man sits up a little as he language. struggles to put his pack of cigarettes away. “Dane, you can The rich man pulls out a pack of call me Dane. I never got your menthols and offers her one. name either.”

Dustin sighs a little, “I don’t Dustin sits back in her chair smoke menthols.” comfortably, “Elijah... you can call me Eli.” As soon as the lie All is silent. came out Dustin struggled not to crack a smile at her perfect She figures that making the man delivery of it. “So, tell me about nervous would gain her some yourself, Mister Dane.”

back behind him and leans over to whisper into his ear, “I think we may be able to work together,” she says seductively. Then she turns and exits the diner, leaving Dane with a building erection. As she walks out she says to herself, “I got him.”

Back at her hotel room, Dustin is sitting on the bed smoking a cigarette. The phone by the bedside rings. She knows it is Dane because for one, nobody knew her hotel number and room. Two, she knew that she An hour passes and Dustin has had left him wanting something learned a little more about this more. She decides not to answer cheating man. What he does for a and turns on the television living. The places he has traveled. instead. Easing into the sexual deviance he is into. Once the conversation had crossed over to sexual insinuation, Dustin figured she had two options. One, play along, which would probably end up in some kind of romp at a seedy hotel or the back seat of a car. Or...

Dustin stands up. “Well, I have another appointment. I’ll call you,” she says, heading for the door. Dane looks a little confused, which is precisely where Dustin wants him to be. But before exiting, she comes

Later in the evening, Dustin takes if Dane comes out. Sure enough, a little walk to the building that he does. Dane works at. She had figured out where he worked because Dane gets into the back of a black when he told her what he did for town car. Dustin watches as the a living, Dustin had later looked car drives off down the street. in the phone book to narrow But, to her surprise, she notices down the businesses that she is not the only spy watching specialized in his work. There the building. A woman in a taxi were three. She went to each of motions to the driver. Dustin the buildings pretending to be watches the woman’s mouth and interested in bringing them makes out, “Follow that car.” business, and then searched their directories to find the name It is obvious that the woman in Dane. To her luck, only one the taxi has not noticed Dustin, so building had a man with the Dustin takes advantage of this. In name Dane working there. an attempt to figure out the Waiting outside until closing woman’s game, Dustin pretends time, Dustin secretly spies to see to trip in front of the taxi. The taxi comes to a screeching Dustin turns to her. Suddenly halt. The woman jumps out and the woman stands back a little comes to Dustin’s aid. and examines Dustin’s face. “Don’t I know you from “Oh my god! Are you alright?” somewhere?” the woman says in the woman says frantically. confusion.

Dustin stands up and dusts off “I don’t know? Do you? I mean... her knees and hands. “Yeah, I’m I doubt it because I just moved alright. I am so sorry, I totally did here. I haven’t met too many not see you coming.” Dustin people.” Dustin laughs a little. starts to walk a little and fakes a limp, “Ouch,” she says as if “Well... can I...” The woman seriously hurt. looks to the cab and looks ahead to see if she can still spot Dane’s The woman helps her to the town-car, “Sorry, can I at least... sidewalk. “Oh... are you sure you drop you somewhere?” are alright?” the woman says as

Dustin plays overtly nice, “Oh no woman glance down at her no no, you are too kind. I really thighs. Dustin turns her head a appreciate it. I was just...” Dustin little and wonders, “Was she just thinks for a moment, “I was just checking me out?” Dustin on my way to meet my responds, “Well, we used to date girlfriend.” but that was a long time ago. We’ve been friends for about, The woman smiles politely, “I three years now.” thought you said you didn’t know anyone here?” The woman glances over at Dustin, “Oh, well... it’s great that Dustin realizes the slip and you two can be such good quickly comes up with another friends.” cover up. “Oh, yeah... I haven’t really. It’s my girlfriend from out There is an awkward silence. of town. She came up to visit me because I was feeling, not to “How about you?” Dustin pries. sound pathetic, a little lonely.” “Do you have a special someone?” The woman buys Dustin’s story. “Well, let me at least drop you off The woman looks down and where you need to be. It’s the laughs a little, “I suppose you least I can do.” could say that. I wouldn’t call it special though.” Dustin listens Dustin smiles, “Thanks.” She intently. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be follows the woman to the back of dumping my stuff on you. I the cab. mean, I don’t even know you.” The woman clears her throat. “I Inside the cab, Dustin is trying to have been married for about come up with smooth ways to thirty years,” she says, forcing a find out who this woman is and smile. why she was following Dane’s car. But before she can speak, the Dustin looks out the window as woman starts to break the ice. she finally figures out who this “So, how long have you and your woman is. “Oh, she’s the wife,” girlfriend known each other?” she thinks. “Of COURSE. She was probably following him Dustin is about to make up the because she knows he is whole story when she notices the cheating.”

Dustin turns back to the woman, Dustin sits up and tries to cover “Are you happy? I mean, I know up her remark, “I mean, you say it’s none of my business. I am just you have no friends... I just think making conversation.” that if you are married, he should be... a friend? Anyway, you can The woman looks at her drop me off on the next block.” reflection in the rear view mirror at the wrinkles under her eyes. The cab pulls over. Dustin is “Happy? I don’t know... no one sitting inside next to the woman. has ever really asked me that.” The woman extends her hand, “My name is Eveline.” In that moment, Dustin feels sympathy for the woman. “Don’t The two shake hands. you have any friends? I mean... I just find it hard to believe that no “I’m D... Eli. Call me Eli,” Dustin one has ever asked you that.” says as the two share a moment. Then before Dustin gets out of The woman smiles a little, “You the cab she snaps back to the seem like a nice girl. But I would reality of her situation. This was have to say that I have been so an opportunity that could busy with my work life and completely work in her favor. what’s left of my home life, I am Although she felt bad about the afraid I may not have any friends possibility of using this broken anymore. If I ever really had any woman to her advantage, she to begin with. It all just sort of, wondered how far she would go caught up with me when I wasn’t and if she stopped here, what all paying attention.” She pulls the efforts up till now would herself out of it. “Listen to me mean. They would mean nothing, going on and on about myself. she thinks. With every fiber in You must think I am a pathetic her being telling her not to old lady.” pursue the situation any longer, Dustin swallows it down like a Dustin smiles, “Not at all. I’m bad pill. starting to think it’s your husband that is the pathetic one.” Dustin turns to Eveline, “So, you say you have no friends. Well, The woman looks at Dustin, you just made one. Why don’t “Excuse me?” you give me a call sometime and we can hang out. I mean, I don’t

really know anyone here, you at her, “Where to now? Still need a break, so it all works out.” wanna follow that car?” Dustin writes down her hotel number and room number onto a Eveline has forgotten she was piece of paper and hands it to following the car at all, “No... Eveline. ummm... that won’t be necessary,” she says as she gives Eveline seems charmed by directions for the cabbie to take Dustin. “Maybe I’ll do that.” her home.

Dustin smiles, but before she Dustin ducks into a corner as she closes the door she does one watches the cab drive off with more thing to sway the situation Eveline inside. She realizes that if in the direction she thinks would she could play both the cheating work best to her advantage. “You husband and the unhappy wife, should, I look forward to it,” she she could up her chances of says as her eyes glance over reaching her final destination. Eveline’s body in obvious Now the tables have turned a bit. insinuation. First thing she needs to do is get the husband involved with some As Dustin is walking down the devious sexual behavior, the kind street she turns once to wave a man in his position would goodbye to Eveline. rather kill to cover up than be exposed publicly with. While she In the cab, Eveline hesitantly is doing that, she has to work her waves back but smiles with way into Eveline’s affections and grace. She looks over the number somehow place herself into their and then puts it into her pocket. everyday life as a close friend. The look on her face is saying Then she could move in for the that she has no interest in calling kill and work off the husband’s and the thought makes her fear of getting caught. uneasy. But the fact that when she thought about the advance As she makes her way back to the from this strange woman named hotel, the plan begins to Eli, it kind of felt good. Her formulate in the darkest parts of fingers brush over the pocket in her mind. In a way, that sick which the number now rests. voice in her head begins to enjoy this fucked up idea. In a way she The cab driver turns to look back thinks, “This is going to be fun.”

But in a moment she stops in her comes face to face with Greta. tracks. There is a young woman Everything seems to go in slow down the way peeking out from motion as Dustin gasps for behind a building at Dustin. It breath. Dustin cannot believe looks a lot like Greta. Dustin what she is seeing. squints her eyes, but suddenly the young woman disappears. “Oh my god,” she says under her Dustin is disturbed by this breath, “I am losing my mind.” sighting of her dead friend. It was She goes around Greta and just like in the bathroom at her continues to walk trying to ignore old apartment. Dustin takes a full that she can hear Greta’s breath and calms down a little. footsteps following behind her. She says to herself, “This is no time to completely go mental. Greta suddenly speaks, “I know Not when I am this close to you can see me.” finally getting the fuck out of here.” Dustin continues on her Dustin is utterly terrified and on way until she turns a corner and the verge of a total panic attack.

“OK... I know what this is. I Dustin, still in shock, takes didn’t sleep too much last night. another step back. “So, are you... So now I am hallucinating. I am like... a ghost?” seeing things. That’s all. It’s not real.” Greta shrugs, “Could be? I could be a ghost, I could be a figment of Dustin reaches her hotel and your imagination? Who knows? quickly rushes in. The thing is, you asked for me. Something in you wanted me to When she has reached the room, be here, so... here I am.” Greta she quickly goes inside and locks sits back on the bed. the door. Sitting down on the bed she lets out a deep breath and Dustin starts to laugh a little. listens for footsteps. When she “I’m sorry... I am SORRY. But this hears nothing she starts to calm is too much. I didn’t ask for this? down and laughs to herself. “My You know what, something in me GOD that scared the crap out of is asking for a nice STRONG me. I am so fucked up. I am DRINK right now.” seeing my DEAD FRIEND now? Can you rain anymore shit down Greta lies back on the bed, “Look, upon me?” she says to the ceiling. there’s no reason to be afraid. I mean, no matter what it is that I Dustin rolls over on the bed and am, what I was was your friend. suddenly comes face to face again So, make the best out of a crazy with Greta who is now lying next situation. It’s not like I am going to her. to hurt you or anything. I’m still the Greta you knew.” Greta smiles, “Hello.” Dustin slowly sits on the end of Dustin jumps in horror. “WHAT the bed and tries to touch Greta. THE FUCK?” She backs away She seems to be real. For some slowly. “Are you... you’re... no odd reason Dustin’s fear starts to way. You DIED. You aren’t disappear. “I guess you have a supposed to be here!” point? I could be crazy... but who cares, right? It isn’t like I was the Greta stands up and walks to the poster girl for sanity to begin look at a bad painting hanging on with? O.K.. I can deal with this. I the wall of the hotel room. “Yes, I will just pretend you aren’t am dead,” she says nonchalantly.

there.” Dustin lies on the bed and relief. “As if you weren’t closes her eyes. annoying enough in life, she says. Mocking Greta, “I’m not going Greta starts to sigh, “Oh come anywhere. That’s fine. That’s just ON. It isn’t THAT bad. It’s not fine. I’ll just ignore you then. like you have any real friends Don’t want anyone around anyway? Just, you know, enjoy anyway.” it!” Greta hits Dustin with a pillow. Dustin looks around the room. She starts to think that maybe it Dustin covers her ears and starts wouldn’t be such a bad thing if to sing loudly. Greta were there. “I mean, what could it hurt?” she says to herself. “LALALALALALALALALALA! “O.K. FINE. I don’t mind. You I CAN’T HEAR YOU! can come back. Just, don’t make LALALALALALALALALALA!” me go all psycho or something because I really don’t need that... Dustin uncovers her eyes but I am crazy enough as it is,” Greta’s still there. “Oh, GO Dustin says out loud. AWAY,” Dustin says now rather irritated. “I have things to do!” Suddenly Greta is back and jumps to a sitting position on the Greta looks at herself in a nearby bed. “Great! What’s on t.v?” mirror, “Yeah I know, killing yourself... blah blah blah... But Dustin rolls her eyes. “This is the thing is, I’m not going some crazy ass shit,” she says out anywhere.” loud. “Are you going to be here all the time though? Cause I don’t Dustin turns on the TV and tries need that kind of... thing,” Dustin to drown out Greta’s “ghost.” finishes.

Finally Greta gives in, “Fine fine Greta sits back, “Just when you fine... I’ll leave. But, I will be need me. I won’t be any trouble. I back, you know. I won’t be too promise.” far away. See ya.” Greta smiles. The two of them sit back on the Dustin turns her eyes to where bed. Greta was standing. Greta is now gone. Dustin lets out a sigh of

Dustin lets out a sigh and laughs The light from the television a little, “I can’t believe this. It’s flickers a little from fuzzy to like some sick version of Harvey picture as the nighttime outside or something. But... whatever. seems to drag on into the strange Figures.” metamorphosis that has become Dustin’s death wish.

DESCANSOS

By John Paul Jaramillo

Photos © Sid Graves

The first man I’d met while After we drank as much as we working maintenance became my could, we drove out to the crash friend and gave me a place to site and just pulled over, turned sleep in his basement out on La off the engine. Luis’ eyes flooded Vega Road. He shared posole and and he doubled over with mashed beans with me at his yearning. He was bulky and dinner table and he drove me shaped like an ox and it was around town looking for strange to see him cry. fluorescent liquor signs out on Headlights streamed by and I Central, Northern and East stared at the sad wooden cross Ninth. and roses to the side of the highway, the wallet sized photos This one evening, one time, while and an old locket placed beneath. we were drinking beer, I asked him, “How much longer you He ended it by making the sign gonna fuck around with that of the cross and saying, car?” “Descansos por los muertos, Relles.” “A man works to keep busy,” he instructed. That Monte Carlo was a piece of shit afterwards, mangled and The half-primer, half-purple smashed. But his work had an Chevy was a ’76 and the first amazing effect. He dropped a beautiful thing I’d seen after the new Windsor V8 and banged out Army. At first I didn’t want it, at all the dents to smooth the body. first I didn’t want the He lowered the suspension and responsibility. His wife and kid fixed her up with a new set of landed up dead-meat in the thing basket rims, all chrome and clean. out on Interstate 25 near Aguilar, Colorado about two years back. “Jesus, man,” I said. “You finally fix up that piece of shit?”

woman had angel wings, and her eyes seemed gray and cold, her flawless arms crossed low at her waist.

I took Luis’ car and went looking for Romes and found him sitting in a squatter’s house with his hair combed back and his collar up, suffering through the cold of a New Mexico night. He looked strung out and thin. I really thought he was in jail or dead.

I put my hand on Romes’ thin shoulder and took the cigarette out of his mouth. “How’d you ever imagine finding me, Relles?” he asked.

“It’s drivable,” Luis answered. He was the only one laughing. “You can drive it—” Out of everyone at the party, he was the only one laughing. “Well, that’s the point, right?” “I’m headin out to California,” I His shoulders slumped. “It’s not told him. about selling a damn car.” He wiped his long forehead with his “A lifetime ago, Manito. I was in ancient fingers, shifted his Colorado a lifetime ago.” He cigarette from underneath his smiled widely with big, yellow moustache. teeth.

While I packed up my stuff, Luis People were always fixing him airbrushed the figure of a woman drinks, rolling the fattest blunts and the man introduced the hood to get him to slow down, making of that Chevy as a vision. I didn’t him talk while they quickly know Luis as an artist. Never guzzled. The people at this been around one. I saw the particular party, this particular

night, I didn’t know very well how things were going to be all and I was confident they didn’t right for him for the next couple know Romes all that well either. of days, until the money ran out. He told me he had just lost his “Shit happened a long time ago, house and his common law wife. Manito. Two years ago, “I know the kid’s out there whatever. So don’t ask me no somewhere, you know.” more, Relles. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus! Don’t ask me,” he repeated and He shook his head furiously as if then he laughed at himself. he had been there with me the whole way, every mile. “What kid is that, Manito?”

“My kid,” I said.

We started telling stories about Army days. We talked about Camp Bondsteel and the 7th Infantry. At one time my brother had tried to explain it all to me, but this night I was out of luck. I came all that way and the bastard kept it hidden.

“The Army is over for me and you,” he finally told me. “I know that much.”

Only the drinking and the weed came out that night. He was in high spirits after receiving his Romes kept talking and sounded latest VA check and he showed glorious: he told a lowrider, me his wallet and the ten twenty junky-looking girl that he was dollar bills he had left. At this working in Taos as a vendor at a moment while on that disgusting baseball field, and then he told little couch, as he rested the another woman who I never saw money out on his lap, I noticed the face of that he was living how his curly hair was clean, closer to the mountains and

restoring old cars. He asked entrance ramp. I was high on another girl if he could sleep at amphetamines my brother Romes her apartment, and then he told gave me in New Mexico and I another girl who was fighting wasn’t used to driving. with her boyfriend to meet him in the narrow street out front and to I stopped in an AM/PM for gas, forget about the little chivato she gave my troubles a case of Bud had come with, that he had a Light. The woman’s face behind custom Monte Carlo outside. the counter was veiled in bulletproof glass. The tattoo of an “Just let me borrow the car, eastern sun on her neck lit the cabrón.” wall. Her nametag read “Lynn”.

“If we were in love,” I asked, “would you ever leave me?”

The Chevy fell into park, the brakes cried in front of Loretta’s house that morning, our house on Cardinal Avenue. All the houses on the block were flat roofed and earth-toned and built by the same company, but this house stood out because it sat inside an immense garden. She loved the beauty and the neighbors would always admire her roses and marigolds. Once I took a shortcut through the garden in a straight line for the door, and Loretta said, “Can’t you see that’s disrespectful?”

After a day and a half, California I managed the steps to our came like speed trials. I drove home’s front door. It was missing Luis’ death-filled Chevy all night a screen, so I reached my hand and stopped only to eat, then through to feel the knob. The once to piss at the head of an metal felt cold and reminded me

of loneliness, so I rang the bell took me a while to notice the three or four times. I looked in man’s work shirts hanging on the through the living room window; door to the closet, but the gray there were no curtains and I saw material looked pressed with the toys on the floor: a little plastic top button done up with care. kitchen and a spotted horse on The logo over the pocket read springs. Allied Electric.

I smashed a window.

Inside, the green carpeting to the bedrooms was stained, and I could feel the blood pumping through me. Loretta’s bedroom was cluttered and sad. The door frame had been fixed from when she locked herself in, and a queen-sized waterbed now filled the room. Two antique-looking dressers stood side by side near the closet. Work clothes were stacked neatly on her bed. A necklace rested on one of the dressers. I held the metal in my hands smelling for perfume.

I sniffed around like a dog, continuing through her jewelry. I found some photos, strange faces My daughter Belle posed in front until the Polaroids taken just of a large tree. Her clothes were before I had left for Macedonia, too big for her frame, and her one of the same pictures of my face was mischievously young daughter Belle that I had kept in and rosy, her perfect nose like her my wallet. mother’s. In another, newer photo of a young man standing I pocketed some money folded in front of the house. A into a small square, about fifty handsome man with a white face dollars, from a jewelry box. It and a red beard smiling wide,

patiently waiting for the picture rolling hills, the sky meeting to be taken. them at the level of the bookshelf and the dresser that held my Around the corner from our daughter’s clothes. bedroom, I edged to where our daughter slept. Toys lined the The blue horizon blended into dirty carpet of the small room, majestic purples and turquoises, and I had to clear a little path to fields rolling backwards into hills get into the center. Her books and then finally mountains, and littered the long shelf over the then on to amazing distances, picture window, looking out into billowing, cloud-filled horizons the back yard. over the twin bed. The clouds felt God-like, weightless, and I lost myself in view of those faultless clouds, along the tops of trees that extended on the walls and some white picket fences added for detail over the brown hills. The rested on my daughter’s bed and the light fixture poured warm sunshine over me.

The mailman placed the mail. The phone rang a couple of times. I felt sick and weak and had to vomit in their bathroom. And in that lowliness I became the worst thoughts.

I held the .32 Romes had given me in case of trouble. I had the gun in my front pocket, and every once in a while I would The walls up to about four feet pull it out. There were no bullets were an institutional brown. The so I kept pulling back the color reminded me of the room at hammer and letting myself have the halfway house, but here it. My eyes squeezed shut and brown meant a prairie and warm tears cut down my face.

Her tears were rolling, but if I She jerked from me into the regret anything from that day it’s hallway. I lost the material and that Loretta’s hair wasn’t down. the threads tore down her shirt. I “Jesus, Relles. I can smell the grabbed at her shoulder and then fuckin beer on you.” She shook at her hair. her head with terror. “Ah, please Retta,” I repeated, She eyed the gun and before I still holding the gun. “Shit. Fuck. could say a word she had the God.” phone. “Can you even imagine in your stupid fuckin’ head what I In that last look of my wife, have to do to explain to your pulling away from me and daughter or where you have been running out the door in a full, and what the hell you have been short-legged sprint, still bawling, doin’?” I knew our goodbyes would never be real, that they would “Fuck, Relles.” Her round face have to stay inside. had no makeup whatsoever, pure as a saint. Her skin remained After two or three days of me close to porcelain. haunting around Retta’s neighborhood, they hauled me “Loretta, I’ve moved on.” She out in front of a Denny’s. And as stutter stepped into the wall the officers had the cuffs on me, behind her. between parked cars and as they draped my body over the “You hear me Goddamm it? trooper’s hood, for several less- Goddamm it! You see?” she said. than-conscious moments, I “You fuck of a man.” pleaded with the woman on Luis’ Monte Carlo and her naked, I dragged her to me and my airbrushed frame. muscles began to spasm. That’s when I could feel what was alive on her, that pregnant belly. I squeezed her arm down to bone. With those blue skies around me, I swear I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to break both her goddamned arms.

FIEND

By Michelle Lee Escobedo with Chris Madoch

In the smallest of small minded towns, On the darkest of dark unkind nights, He entered the holy city. He sought sanctuary Between my thighs. Sanctum sanctorum, Transformation, conversion, Perversion.

The fucking fiend sits right across from me. licks his lips, his prick hard, Forming mental pictures. ‘O’ The possibilities grow. Filthy thoughts- eyes undressing his dirty little girl in her flannel gown stained with a late night snack of peanut butter and jelly full belly pearl. I begin to squirm uneasy on the big blue couch. I think I know what he wants. The look is familiar. He’s looked at mommy this way- after too much to drink. I cross my legs butterflies in my vacant lot tummy for rent hell-bent on being loved. Wannabe loved. Wannabe held. Wanna me daddy to weld me to his denim knee. Does this make me naughty?

This fiend, patting his lap, lets his robe lay open. Good girl, come sit here. I need to show you with how much veneer I love you. It’s what makes my mother scream In the middle of the night- this sick version of love; the sanctum sanctorum soon to become the second death; No affection but the common grave affection that ALL screwed-up bad girls burn in hell. Take a breath. He smiles at me opens his arms- furry monster at attention. I slowly stand too, begin my walk towards him knees trembling. body shivering the night air has become as one with his soul. Cold on cold. I AM going to give him what he wants. He tugs at my girls gown- take this off for me. I pull at it, nervously, it falls to The bare floor, he stares at my slight body as if he’s eying the world’s largest chocolate cake hungry to devour me. ...Pink nipples, erect, cold. ...Underwear, damp, warm. What am I not feeling? RIGHT. Wish I were in MY Room colouring pictures in my Peter Pan Book. I wanna go to where children Never grasp the stinging nettle of growing up. FUCK. IT slides my underwear down My hips. Scents of urine and some Sweet odour I have never smelled before. Quick as light, his lips, his hands explore my body. IT is moaning and grunting like a hungry Pig. That’s what men are- in large part porcine. He lays me down on the decorative tiles. I wish there Were carpet here. Wish my mommy were HERE. DOES JESUS LOVE ME. God! Why does this feel so good? Want to vomit. Want him to stop. Tears, hot, salty, slicing my face. ITs bit wants to rip me in Half. Pressing, pressure, prying the fixed flesh lid From my moist treasure box. Me screaming I WON’T LET IT IN IT stops. He’s sweaty and the look Of fake love has turned to one of disgrace, disgust. You dirty untrustworthy little bitch! Go to your precious space! I scurry- Like a three limbed rat. I am just that. To my room I crawl, clutter of gown And underwear clutched, one in each Hand, spoils like contraband. Don’t know why the fuck I was created. AND my mother’s voice three days later- Torn, worn, arbitrating traitor to her spawn You, what did YOU do? What did you do to make him want to Do those things to you?

THE AMOK BLIND MEN OF MUHARRIN

By Hank Kirton

Images ©Sean Madden

This whole thing may have been long walks with my grandfather. a dream. And watching home movies.

My maternal grandfather died of They had TONS of home movies. emphysema when I was ten years Lots of boring parades. Lots of old. He and my grandmother family vacations (seeing my used to baby-sit me whenever my mother as a little kid around my parents wanted to get away for age was a revelation I still the weekend. I have many happy remember fondly). A lot of nature memories of my grandparent’s stuff (Grand Canyon, Niagara house – climbing the apple trees Falls, etc), and a lot of grainy, in the backyard, playing cards 8mm footage of their travels with my grandmother, going for around the world.

When my grandparents were a limbs. There are people moving young couple (early 1930s) they between the buildings but they set out on several global are too far away to see clearly. adventures. They didn’t have Cut. A shot of two men dressed much money, so their long in coarse robes. Their faces are journeys must have been difficult rough and craggy, baked and and taxing. I always think of the sculpted by hard sun and desert characters in The Sheltering Sky winds. They do not speak. They who insist they aren’t tourists, climb out of their robes and stand but TRAVELERS. naked. They bend down and each comes up with two flat stones. My grandparents were like that. The camera zooms in on one of the men as he slides the stones One night they set up the under his eyelids (I remember the projector and screen (they had a camera jiggled at this point. I real movie screen) and ran some imagine my grandfather was short home movies for me; quite unnerved at this sight). He parades, picnics, the beach, the has just blinded himself, his mountains, etc... eyeballs covered by the stones. The camera lurches to the other And then my grandfather clicked man. He too has secured flat a reel onto the projector and said, stones under his eyelids. Tears of “I took these shots in (I think, blood trickle down his cheeks. please forgive my poor worn-out The camera jumps back and a memory) Muharrin (go ahead small boy enters the frame. He and look for it--I can’t find hands each of the men a machete. anything...) in 1929.” The boy’s mouth moves as he I will now describe everything I starts walking toward the village. remember about the film: I think he’s singing, guiding the now-blind men with the sound of It’s black and white and the film his voice. My grandfather follows is worn. The leader moves the strange procession from a through the projector and nervous distance. When they thousands of angry scratches reach the village, the boy runs pour across the screen. The first out of the frame and the two men shot reveals an empty desert at move between the buildings, sunrise. It blurs, and then comes swinging wildly. into focus. Soft dunes stretch away forever. Cut. A shot of a The villagers do not run. They village. Thatched, conical roofs, turn, tuck their arms into their fences weaved from gnarled tree sides, eyes closed, and wait to see who will get hit. Who will live reel flap flap flap. and who will die. My grandfather’s camera is in a Then my grandfather shut off the panic, turning and swooping and projector. shaking and blurring. One of the men hacks an old man’s arm, That’s all I remember. Years later, nearly severing it. He collapses. after my grandfather died, I In the distance, the other blind searched through their box of machete-man hits a woman in the home movies. The film I just neck. She too falls. The camera described was not there. whirls around, takes a blurry shot of the bright sky and then cuts. Was it ever there?

I remember staring at the blank Or was it all just a dream? screen, listening to the tail of the

CLOWN UNCLE

By Sue Fox

Photos © Richard A. Meade

I was at a party. It was my had photos taken in black and brother’s birthday. He was six, a white film of all the kids year younger than me. He was crouching or leant against the excited. I wore my red and window sill; there was my gran, orange swirly patterned taffeta my mother, siblings and friends dress. We sucked on brightly from school. It was a sunny day. coloured rock lollipops my I was always shielding my eyes grandmother bought for us. We from the sun in photos. I was always caught with a scrunched around in the yard like dogs do. up face. In the yard we played He reminded me of someone. I games like darts and hula didn’t remember who. hooping. Mum had brought my brother a special surprise. It was When things got quieter I went the Clown Uncle, a ‘close friend’ back into the house and Clown she said and winked. He had Uncle was there smoking a come round with a sack filled cigarette. He asked me to sit on with toys and strange tricks and a his knee. I liked the clown so I large water squirting gun. He sat on him and bounced around. had a military hat and uniform He slid me off and on his lap. We on and his face was doused in were both laughing. He had white paint with upturned evil- something hard attached to one red lipstick and a silly oval nose. of his legs. He grunted a lot. He chased us

He told me to show him where only this time it was wet with the the toilet was. I took him up the white stuff. He told me how steep stairs. He held my hand. beautiful I was and that he only He asked me to go in with him wanted me, not the other saying he was scared of the dark. children. He held my legs apart I stared as he urinated. I saw his and began to rub where I wee piss shooter. He asked me to pet from. It felt nice but I was afraid. it. I took it in both hands and I wanted my mum. They were all rubbed it like he showed me how outside making a noise. I to. It got hard and red. It oozed thought I should be quiet as no- white sticky stuff. He told me to one would hear me anyway. He lick off the ice-cream he had started to feel around with other made me. It tasted of salt. I felt fingers searching for things. He sick. He sat me on his knee again opened me out wider.

He grunted a pig noise. He stood out on stalks. She was pushed his fingers into my body entwined in sheets gasping to be and I cried. Then I let him go on. set free of the cotton shroud. Her He kept moving in and out, up eyes leapt everywhere but upon and down. Then he moved his yours. Lips tried to speak but thing and tried to press it into mumbled rubbish. She was fed me. It hurt. It was big and hairy by Uncle from a small tub of and all the ice-cream was coming vanilla ice-cream. He licked his out again, oozing. He held my lips impersonating her actions. body like a little doll and moved He kept stroking her hair and me around fast and told me he face with his fingers. I watched had to do this because this is him keenly. He was attending what clowns do to the biggest her like she was now a child, his most clever girls. He called me a favourite! I imagine being special little niece. He told me pressed against him on his knee that this was our grown up secret whilst he inserts his stiff cock into that no-one must ever know or me and rubs me. I think of him something bad would happen to making me eat her out whilst she my mummy. I nodded. He is in a state of undress and dying. patted my head and pulled my I think of him showing her his knickers up. Then he went off little fuckers cunt so she can see down the stairs leaving me stood the up and down of us. I watch there. her dying as I have sex. I cum when I know I am watching the The next time I saw Uncle he was dead. surrounded by near-corpses with dementia. One of them was his He likes phone sex. He says wife who lay dying and senile in when I visit him he will tie me up the hospital. I saw his large eyes and fuck me hard and pretend I protruding from behind big am a little girl. He wants to spectacles in shock. His eyes shave my pubic hair and put it in shone. He had the force of an a locket so he can wank over it army in him. He had a fine head and think about my little cunt. of hair and big strong hands and He talks about making babies thick bursting fingers. He didn’t and of me being his other wife, realise who I was at first but said his child-fuck. He tells me he I was a big smart lass. We will take me to the bathroom and watched the frail body of Auntie abuse me. He will stick his cock taking gasps of air with her long in my little knickers. He will discoloured fungal toenails that suck my little tits. He will fuck made you want to wretch. Her me on the cold sink. He wants to face was gaunt and her eyes rub me for hours and not let me eat. He wants to fuck my mouth end chose me. He keeps telling and ass as much as he pleases. me I am special to him. He wants He wants me to pretend I am a to make me laugh. He does. docile girl and that he has come Clowns do. He wants to make to make me laugh again and feast me cum again and again. He his eyes upon my wet clit. I tell wishes he had raped me more him he is a pervert. He laughs. I and made me his little sex toy tell him he is a paedophile. He forever. I see embellished in the laughs. He tells me he played pit of his skin the white worn face with his brother for years in their paint and see the cherry-red late teenage years. He laughs. piggy nose as he continues to He talks of wanting to fuck most grunt and wank off down the people in the family but in the phone.

GRASSHOPPER

By Claudia Bellocq

Photos © Guttersaint & Lydia Lunch

The woman sat gazing blankly like head and the beginnings of a upon the creature she had just rudimentary personality. It had birthed. It confused her. Women rapidly transformed into a were supposed to give birth to grasshopper with a baby’s head; forms that at least resembled some small relief that there was their own basic genetic construct at least one part of it that but this wriggling thing in front resembled either her, or her of her defied all logic or reason. human form at least? The creature had emerged looking like some strange straw She was mad as hell and looking coloured amoeba with multiple for someone to pay. There was no ‘limbs’, a clear gelatinous sperm way she was taking this one on alone. Someone had impregnated recognised as the tiniest hint of her knowing that their own gene fear. He was aware of Claudia, pool was contaminated, there though not because he could see could be no other explanation her or knew she was there, but and she knew exactly who it simply because he feared her, full was….. stop. Good…it would make her job so much easier… Claudia strutted across the path to the University canteen. She Claudia stepped back a little, she was gunning for some pay back didn’t want to be seen; this was here; her sensory stimulators too good to miss. He postured in were on full tilt as she sniffed ways she knew so intimately; him out. She spotted him in the looked the woman direct in the queue for dinner standing next to eye when speaking, responded a good looking Japanese woman well and with full engagement to in a short white dress and high her professional assessments of heeled tan sandals. Typical! He their work, smiled broadly was working his charm on her intermittently (though not too and she recognised it so well; she often lest she think he was not could smell the pheromones from taking her seriously) and his here. She knew from her innate body language matched his sensory programming that two desire to get to know her more. things were going on here: The bastard! Claudia knew where her own strengths lay and she 1). His cock was dribbling a clear was letting this one play out in pre-ejaculate fluid that meant he order that she could punish him was eager and fully aroused by appropriately later. She hung the woman beside him, and back and continued observing him. 2). The woman’s panties were damp and she was equally Closer now, he sat beside her at aroused, though feigning only the table, eating heartily whilst moderate interest on a purely the woman, conversely, picked at professional basis right now. Her her food, shoving it restlessly smell told Claudia that her around her plate; distracted. The interest went beyond the man gathered momentum now, professional. sensing he was in control. He was nodding vigorously in response Strangely, and somewhat to something she was saying and reassuringly, there was a third the woman flushed. Over her smell she was picking up, a kind shoulder the man was watching of burnt metallic odour that she another woman in the queue; tight red sweater, knee length Unable to refuse her, he stood on black skirt, red heels, the kind of the burning butt of his cigarette look he found irresistible. The and ran to catch her up. Claudia, Japanese woman turned to follow already clear about where she his gaze and in that moment, he was taking him and in no doubt lost her. She had seen the other whatsoever that he would follow woman and had she retracted her her, was striding across the car interest almost instinctively, park to a small dark outbuilding wounded by the generic desire in a woody copse in the she clearly represented. She made University grounds. her excuses and left. The man silently cursed his own She opened the door and carelessness and stood up to go beckoned him inside. Taking a and find a place outside where it moment to adjust his eyes to the was still possible to smoke. dark, damp room, he looked at her quizzically…. Claudia made her move…. “What is it baby? What do you “Hi baby….fancy running into want to show me?” he asked, you here,” as she looked him trying to add just the right square in the eye. amount of charm in with his naturally submissive tendency He flinched; coloured as red as whenever he was in her presence. the woman he’d been sitting with ten minutes earlier and casually She turned on him, a cold vicious focussed his attention on lighting glare in her eyes. Glinting, cruel? his cigarette. He inhaled deeply. Definitely enraged….

Claudia detected a new “You bastard!” she spat, “what smell…the stink of sweet the fuck is this?” as she pushed a submission. small box toward him with her spike heel. “Busy?” He gazed into the dirty card box “No, not really princess….you?” to see it lined with an equally grubby frayed old blanket, on top “Well you know, here and there, of which lay some weird chirping this and that” she responded creature with a grasshopper’s vaguely. “I have something I body and the head of a human need you to see” she said, “come child. with me!”

“Jesus Claudia…sorry….I never “uh….” realised….” “Listen, don’t bother right. Not “No, well get this fuckwit...it’s all interested. Why don’t you just yours. I’m not cut out to be a step over here to me and assume mother and certainly not to some the position baby;” a demand hybrid freak of nature rather than a question. orchestrated by your perverted desire to fuck anything with a G. fell to his knees at her feet and pulse. Tell me…exactly when did bowed his head in natural you start fucking (insects)?” deference to her superiority…

THE EYES OF VICTORIA CRAVEN

By Max Dunbar

The sun’s almost up but there’s ‘Shee-it, nee-grow,’ I tell him in another three hours of this shift my best Baltimore. ‘You got the to go. From my rooftop vantage I gear or haven’t you?’ can trace the scattered lights from Briggate almost up to Elsix. It’s ‘Sho’, brother.’ I can never tell if June and looking like we’re he’s putting on the accent for gonna get a proper summer this ironic effect or if he really wants year. My short-sleeved Boss shirt to sound like this. The little guy is limp with sweat, and it’s so seems smarter than your average humid you can practically chew resident so probably the former. the air. A local authority in South Yorkshire paid our company a You’re in theory able to crash out good deal of money to take Ty off on the nightshift, but no one ever their hands. does: there’s so much going on, fighting and fucking and all sorts, He hands me a thick, bound and even on a relatively wrap. I look it over in a sceptical reasonable night the noise from way but it’s probably all there. Ty DVDs and Playstations and is a decent lad considering that clandestine conversation renders he’s a) a service user and b) non- sleep a distant dream. So I’m in white. ‘Let’s see d’green.’ that pleasant zone on the other side of insomnia and don’t I hand over two hundred quid in recognise the voice when it raps twenties. ‘How was your night, out: ‘E’ya! Winterbourne!’ pal?’

I spin around, one hand on the ‘Alright. Down the Glasshouse, air rifle I keep in the knee pocket did some MDMA powder, still of my Carnage combats, only to fu’ en buzzin off it la. You?’ see a grinning Ty Taylor, hands on hips and visibly amused by ‘Quiet. Bear was self-harming my discomfort. ‘Eh J, calm it, again, about one. Drove her to mate! We’re best buds, the A + E, persuaded them to remember?’ keep her in for observation so

that’s her off our hands for the ‘I’m not sure I can do that,’ I tell rest of the night. Maybe they’ll him. ‘I’m with Tyrone Taylor and section the silly bitch.’ we’re talking out some hard emotional issues that he’s going ‘I could never get that lucky.’ through.’ Ty, who is smoking a blunt and swaying to Kid British, Ty doesn’t like Bear. She occupies giggles insanely. ‘I can’t leave a the room next to his and is vulnerable resident on his own.’ always causing a ruckus. Bear is a nineteen-year-old who’s ended ‘Look, John, stop fucking me up here after going through three about. My car’s in for service and schools, four foster homes and a we’ve got a resident stuck three PRU. She’s always starting big miles away with no money. Go commitments with the abusive out now.’ scumbag males in this residential care home and the surrounding I’m about to tell him to go bone satellite towns, then pitching himself – I mean, if I wanted to hissy fits when they end in tears. take orders from an Asian, I’d work in a fucking corner shop. I make some coffee for the two of But curiosity makes me ask the us and Ty invites me into his girl’s name. room to play computer games. I was never into that kind of thing ‘Victoria Craven? We don’t have as a kid, but Ty has got me a Victoria Craven here.’ addicted to GTA Chinatown Wars. It’s a pleasant way to kill the end ‘We do as of today. Twenty oh- of the shift and I’m therefore not four eighty-nine, LCC referral, best pleased when my work substance and behavioural issues. mobile goes off halfway through She’s at the bus stop by the Corn a crucial mission. Exchange.’ He hangs up.

It’s Azad, the only other support Victoria Craven. It’s a familiar worker on duty, letting me know name. I feel a pulse in the head of that one of our residents has my cock and I’m handing Ty my become stranded in the city after controller, complaining loudly a night out and needs a lift home. about the number of residents who use the support staff as a free taxi service. I usually mean it

as well: if it was up to me, I’d when she’s awoken by the sheer leave the fuckers to get raped or visceral pleasure of having me knifed. bone her inside out.

But – and I know it’s just a name ‘John, John, where, what, what – Miss Craven sounds a little are you doing!’ she squeals in different. ironic submission, which turns into real loss of control as I Having enjoyed a full English in pound in for the kill. She screams the residential canteen I am as she comes and then I come too bombing out of the residential car and I’m zoning out here while park in my red Nissan, tearing she’s asking me about the shift through the hamlets and estates and stroking my hair and kissing with the Chemicals’ ‘We Are The my face. Night’ blasting the nine-to-fivers off the road. At a traffic light I I’m crashed until late afternoon, start drumming the wheel. I lose then Hellen’s patience runs out the beat and start laughing. A and she wakes me up, letting me guy waiting in a Vauxhall gives know that we’re meeting Dave me a concerned look from the and Selina in Dr Wu’s at eight. adjacent lane. I give him a wink Naturally it will take her several and a thumbs-up. Suddenly the hours to get ready. Women. Not man’s dashboard fascinates him. that I’m complaining. This cow is a team leader in debt consultation I always get like this after a and not only does she have that nightshift: I love the expressions whole powerdressed thing going of the day staff on the forecourt, on, she’s fucking rich and doesn’t anticipation of the next twelve mind subsidising a public servant hours stamped into their faces, of my calibre. while I am racing towards the city, the city, and decent people, It’s eight thirty by the time we get and expensive beer, and quality down Call Lane. Dave seems drugs, and Hellen’s waterside interested in my job and is asking apartment, where I use my key me loads of questions about the and tiptoe up the stairs and climb recession and how it affects into her bed, silent as a lynx even supported housing. as I slide inside her, and the first she knows of what’s going on is

‘Well, the last ten years, we’ve only deferential to me because of been throwing money at these what I’ve got on him. I have no people under the anticipation interest in work while I’m there, I that somehow they’ll change.’ I never did, so why the fuck would take an authoritative swig of my I want to talk about it on nights pint. ‘That approach clearly out? hasn’t worked, youth crime, teenage pregnancy, all these It gets so tedious that I’m forced things have gone up. The welfare to duck into the toilets for lines. state’s not only wrong, it’s now Hellen sees the signs and unsustainable.’ Dave nods with demands some chang. I insist that vigour over his pint of Unicorn. she sneak me into a female cubicle where we fire back a ‘What we’re seeing now is the couple more lines and do a handing over of the welfare state couple pills, Hellen’s thick to various religious charities and tongue dropping the tab into my private companies. This is throat and curling around my presented as something new but own, and by the time we hit it’s actually a return to the good Rehab I am absolutely flying. old Victorian days where social welfare was carried out by the Loads a fit birds in this club churches and the workhouses. checking me out whenever I go to It’s time to face up to the fact that the bar for drinks – I’m six two, the underclass deserves nothing and still tanned from the Far East. more. Hellen has to squeeze out a couple of club whores on the ‘Either that or we go with my dancefloor, as well as fending off plan. Voluntary sterilisation. We the standard unwanted advances give these chav scum a one-off from average frustrated twats. To payment, say a grand, to get their be honest I’m tempted to get a tubes tied. I guarantee most a couple of numbers or maybe a them would go for it. Sort every blowjob in some cubicle but it’s social problem within a just not worth the risk, I need generation.’ Hellen’s apartment and her cash else it’s back to Elsix with me. Dave asks more questions – he’s a boring man, works for the We leave kind of early and spend housing allocation team, and he’s the rest of the night doing coke in

Hellen’s apartment. I remember for it on first meeting, she had me and Dave doing impressions that whole flirty-confrontational of Richard Quest from News 24: thing going on, but flirting back Oh my GOD we’re seeing some is a schoolboy error: you have to HOT MARKET ACTION HERE! keep it cool and professional, And walking along the riverside with the underclass beauties with glasses of wine in our more than anyone. hands, wanting to touch the water, and at the same time ‘So I’ve not seen you before.’ feeling excluded, insignificant, almost irritated by the beauty of She had her hand on one stocking the night, and then raw and and a teasing look on that pointy, humid coked-up sex in the panelled face, but I wasn’t biting bedroom, my tongue sobbing – not yet. ‘Look, Victoria, I’m with the thirst, taking a pint of going to say this once, and only milk and downing it in one, and once. We’re not here to pick you this tune in my head: Can you di- up from nights out. We’re not cab ig it, oh yeah… can you di-ig it, oh- drivers. We’re professionals and yeah… when I have to do this I’m taking time out from residents who need I’ve fucked residents before, in our help. Got that?’ Fixing her other places I’ve worked at, but with a hard stare. She stared back none of them affected me like for a while and then dropped her Victoria Craven. What happened, eyes. that time when I had to go pick her up, was that I pulled into the ‘Because if this happens again, Corn Exchange car park and you’re grounded.’ Any other walked over to find a group of resident would have laughed at working-class teenage sluts, this: we don’t have the power to being circled by scum pillheads physically keep people in the at the D corridor. Even with my home. gym-toned frame and air rifle, I felt afraid – and not just because I So now when I’m back for the was outnumbered. Sunday night shift she’s hanging around; my indifference has The bitch came as soon as I called provoked her interest. Sunday her name and we walked back to shift is generally a quiet one – the car. You could tell she was up there’s no activities or courses

going on, and so us support ‘Come on.’ workers sit in the rec room doing paperwork and playing XBox. ‘Look, do you have a reason for wanting to speak to me? Cause I work with the usual public I’m snowed under here,’ I gesture sector drones, except that the to the paperwork, ‘and I don’t guys here tend to be more have time for idle gossip. Got druggy and laid-back than most that?’ frontline staff. There’s a couple of pillhead women in their thirties, ‘Well, then,’ she says with an Jules and Lauren, who I exaggerated flounce, ‘I know sometimes run into at Rehab or when I’m not wanted!’ Call Lane. There’s this black cunt, Yoshi, who seems to be living out After she’s gone, Azad pulls me some kind of popular-kid up. ‘John, I appreciate you’re fantasy, there’s Azad who’s team busy, but you need to be more leader and a couple of queers approachable to the residents. whose names always escape me. They need to think of you as Not worth my time really, someone they can talk to.’ although Jules and Lauren have been good for the odd shag. ‘Yeah, but she’s asking me a personal question that crosses ‘Hi, John.’ our boundaries,’ I rap out.

I look up from the desk and she’s This starts the predictable debate there, rotating with great, lazy about what’s appropriate and strokes on a swivel chair, all what’s not. It’s so dull that I get made up and one hand on a back to the incident forms: you stockinged kneecap. ‘Hi, Victoria. have to fill one of these out every What’s up?’ time you pick up a resident, believe that, and as for claiming ‘Do you have a girlfriend, John?’ the petrol, it’s a fucking She’s taken the trouble to find out nightmare. Being an unsung my name. frontline hero ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. ‘That’s not really any of your business, Vicki.’ The week’s loaded with dayshifts. I’m teaching smack

addicts how to make casserole. housing. This is an excellent idea: Jules and I are leading the out- get her out the care home as soon and-about group to the Imperial as possible, so I can go round and War Museum. I’m helping a fuck her as needed without pregnant fourteen-year-old fill compromising myself at work. I out child benefit forms. Bear sit her down in the IT room and comes back from the Northern we do the application over two General and immediately gets excruciating hours, during which into this shag scene with a she brushes her fingernails twentyish guy who’s here after against my thigh and asks basic he got thrown out at his last clerical questions in that girly-girl foster home for getting a little too voice. It’s worth it though. This is friendly with his younger the approach I should have taken stepsister. We have to call the from the start. Set up a satellite police out for the third time this system of council houses, each week, after one of the residents one containing a dripping, tries to rape Lauren. Not worth it, painted poblana. King of the I could a told him. underclass.

Hellen works long hours during I’m discussing this with Ty in the the week and so I’m confined to Comfort Inn. I’ve just done an the Otley Road houseshare, eight-eight and he was heading barely there except to sleep, into town to spend his dealer’s masturbating again – it’s always income so I gave the kid a lift. been a point of pride with me Well against protocols, especially that I don’t need to, I can get sex as he’s not old enough to drink, like that, except that my girlfriend but it’s good to have an ally is too tired during the week to be among the residents. of use and Miss Craven has started to close in. That ‘Yea, she seem well into you, languorous hiya in the corridors. man.’ His expression outweighs The scattershot personal the experience of every other questions: Where do you live, John? man in this bar. ‘Gonna go for it?’ How old are you, John? Do you have a girlfriend, John? ‘Of course not. It’s an abuse of authority. I’ll report her if she Tuesday she asks me to help her says anything like that again.’ fill out an application for social

‘What’ll Azad do, put her on a For, make no mistake, I did end verbal warning?’ He sniggers. up doing her, on the double weekend nightshift. Naturally, ‘Fuck knows. Where’d the hell Friday and Saturday being our that idea come from, that Asians worst nights, there was only are good at business. Someone myself and Azad on staff, and should tell him that we ain’t Azad spent all his time playing running a fucking corner shop World of Warcraft in his on-call here.’ Ty is sniggering like a room up floor twelve, terrified as bastard. ‘Besides, she ain’t really ever of having to interact with an into me. She’s just bored. Like the actual service user. cool girls at school… they’d flirt with you in the lessons, but not So it was fairly quiet when the cause they were into you, just to slut rolled in at three, off her kill time…’ head on aftershocks and Christ knows what else, and as ever I ‘Eh?’ Ty says. He doesn’t have acted the weary disciplinarian, that reference point (not having forcing her to drink black coffee been at school since he was in the communal kitchen. ‘Hey, twelve) and I move the I’m sorry, John… I mean, what discussion on to something else, the hell, it’s Saturday… thanks feeling the room come into sharp for taking care of me…’ focus around me and clearing my head with a shake. I shook my head. ‘You’re not entitled to drink, Victoria, and This was all to give myself an you’re gonna be rough as houses alibi in case the bitch told one of tomorrow, I’ll tell you that much. the support staff when I finally Plus, you’re doing yourself did fuck her – she was less likely serious long-term damage.’ to be believed if I had it on record that she’d made advances before ‘For fuck’s sake, John, no one and been rejected. The little tart calls me Victoria.’ Flicking her had probably been around the hair back, earrings bobbing, tits block a few times. My first line of quivering against the thorax: if defence: I was not even her first you think lust is less powerful lover. than love, that biological desire can’t give you that feeling of

choked ice in the throat, then going, leave the situation with a you’re wrong. patina of normalcy.

I forced more coffee down her – I had done seven straight shifts because I prefer them sober, I like and sailed on to a week of TOIL. them to understand exactly The first couple of days were what’s happening. We smoked a spent catching up on my sleep in couple of cigarettes on the roof Hellen’s flat. In the evening we’d balcony and she babbled on watch Britain’s Next Top Model about girl stuff: music, clubs, her and The Apprentice over bottles of crazy ex who was in Wakefield Shiraz. Exactly what you need, for GBH, her crazy dysfunctional but I kept thinking Craven. It’s family, complex vendettas with strange for me because I don’t other residents and birds from usually take my work home. her last school. Then she was like: ‘Thanks for taking care of me, My main accomplishment is to John,’ and brushing up against phone Dave’s mobile and get him me, kissing me full on the mouth. to expedite Miss Craven’s housing application. He points About half a second later we’re in out that she’s adequately housed her room and my hands around and doesn’t merit additional her waist and there’s this look in points for pregnancy, her eyes, half wild with lust, but vulnerability etc. I point out that I also afraid, the realisation that still have copies of his bank this is where cockteasing can lead statements from a couple of years you, that it’s too late now, this is back. He says that he will sort a my true form and she looks her tenancy within the next week. age for the first time and I’m cranking up the Girls Aloud CD, Friday night’s nothing special: then the Beyonce one, as I fuck another coupla bottles and a her to bits and then bend her over DVD of In Bruges. Saturday I’m for a spanking. I admit I got a bit itching to get out, but Hellen’s carried away. Once I’d come for not up for it as she’s spent the the fifth time there was the urge day working on a report. I’m to run but I fought it and stuck talking myself into another night around, making more coffee, in, work looming tomorrow, getting a joint and a conversation when my council mobile goes off.

It’s Vikki Craven, asking if I want I turn and there’s a black guy. He to meet her for a drink. The sight has three inches on me and a of her text-talk, all those 2s and good few stone. I take the punch 4s, brings that jolt in the shaft before I see it. I’m guessing that again, and I immediately text I’ve been set up and that this is back. We arrange a time and I tell an older brother or ex of Victoria Hellen that I’m going out with Craven, come to avenge what some of the lads. It’s a blatant lie passes for the slut’s honour. He – shift workers have few friends has a couple others with him and outside the organisation. But she they haul me out into the layby, waves me off with an indulgent shouting names in my face – smile. paedo, faggot, cunt.

I flag a cab up to Millennium I take a couple more blows to the Square. It’s where all the Ben face, a couple of kicks to the ribs, Sherman scum and the working but then I get a free hand and class binge drinkers hang out and thank fuck, the air gun is still in normally you wouldn’t catch me my jacket and I’ve got it out and dead here. But I’m not passing up firing, I don’t think I’m hitting another shot at Miss Craven: I’m anyone but it has the effect of thinking a couple of drinks, then creating enough space to run, book her into the Novotel, back which is all I’m interested in. I by two after having boned her to don’t stop until I’m on Call Lane. pieces. Come on. I stagger in at seven am and don’t She wants me to meet at a chain make it upstairs before I fall bar opposite Creation. Soon as asleep. It’s just as well as Hellen I’m in there I get a text: she’s in is none too pleased when she the smoking area outside. I’m tumbles me off the sofa at ten. across the floor, slavering, and out in the night air, taking gulps ‘Where were you last night?’ of my pint, feeling that crescendo of lust in my heart, and the voice ‘I told you, I was out with the comes out: ‘Are you John lads.’ Winterbourne?’ ‘Which lads, exactly?’ And I’m thinking: did I give her my number?

The truth is that I met a few of my on-call room and lock the my old housemates down Call door behind me. Lane and we ended up pilling it at the West Indian Centre, of all For the next few hours I’m places. ‘People I lived with. slaloming through various states Harry Moulton. Spinny Tom. of consciousness, thinking about Dave, Dave was there –‘ the assault – because if my attacker knew about Vikki and ‘Really? Because Selina was me, probably everyone knows. texting me that night and she That’s the thing: women talk, made it very clear that Dave was particularly working-class with her.’ women, and the hard part is to get the little whores to keep their ‘Well, not that Dave, obviously.’ fucking mouths shut. It’s possible the management of this place ‘Give it a rest. You’ve been miles have already heard, and that away this past two weeks. You’ve could mean I could lose the job. been seeing someone else and I want this sorted out.’ But:

She’s there in her dressing gown, Last year Jules hid a convicted hands on hips. I deny, shout and robber in her house for three finally plead but it’s no good. The days. upshot: I am to leave the flat until Hellen’s ‘had a chance to think In 2007 Azad parlayed a broken about things’. We are on a trial wrist into eight months’ paid sick separation. leave.

So I’m packing my laptop, stereo, Three years ago Dave transferred clothes, the works into the back four grand ringfenced for youth of the Nissan. There is nowhere activities into his personal bank to go except the residential centre account. and my shift doesn’t start until eight. I tear up the hill and leave In 2006 Lauren ran up several my car in the car park. I go in thousand pounds for nights out through the fire escape, sneak in work taxis and text messages along the corridors until I find on work phones.

Last Christmas Gerry was found Azad solves that problem for me. smoking crack with four naked ‘Oh, John, we transferred a residents on the east wing. resident out a here when you were off. She’s on the Federation Against all that, fucking a Estate in Burley now.’ sixteen-year-old don’t look that bad, especially considering that Not bad. Dave came through I’m only twenty-three. So it’s in okay. ‘Christ, that’s a quick high spirits that I leave my room allocation.’ at nine that evening. I take a shower, thankful that the recent ‘Too right. Anyway, she left a assault hasn’t left a mark on my card to say goodbye.’ face – though it can hurt to shift position, and there’s a scar on my ‘Cheers pal.’ cheekbone that kills when it’s traced. Believe it or not, our ex-residents do occasionally present tokens of First I need to question that gratitude. We get letters from ex- Craven slut about who she’s told. gangsters and NA veterans doing My shaft tingles as I take the sports sessions in Fallowfield and stairs two at a time, figuring that motivational stand-up in a little discipline never hurt, but Haringey schools. There’s when I get to her room it’s empty nothing suspicious about my – and I mean stripped bare, no getting a card in and of itself, and Leeds Utd pennant or Creation I begin to think I’ve got away flyers or cuddly monsters. with this. Come on. I get onto the roof balcony and tear up the I wander down to the rec room, envelope; now all I need is the thinking: how do I find her? And: bitch’s address. what has she said? Azad and Jules are in there, and there isn’t The smell of the envelope and the that prickly silence as I enter – lush girlish calligraphy give me which means I’m probably in the in the horn. There is nothing clear. But how do I ask about good about the message, though: Craven without drawing suspicion? Dear John, thx so much for not givn up on me and for sorting out my house. Yr gona love it babe. I got

some big news for u – I am ‘You think you can get involved PREGNANT!!! U r gonna b a without getting involved. You daddy and that means I need some think you can pick and choose cash soon as. Dont even mention without getting involved.’ His abortion or try to run away – my voice is a different species from bros are big lads they are part of I the ironic patois we normally use. don’t know if u heard of them the His eyes are older and wiser than Fitzwilliam Cravens and they r good any I’ve ever seen. at findin peeps so its best for both of us if u stick around. THAX FOR ‘It was me set you up in town last EVERYTHIN SEXXY!!! night, not Vikki. Just to give you a taster of what could happen if XXXXXXXXX you don’t do things my way.’

PS I need £500 in this bank acc no Discreetly I’m feeling in my by July or u are dead! jacket for my work mobile. No, it

must be back in the on-call room. PPS XXXXXX!!! We’re way out of range of the

window. Craven. The Cravens. The

Selfridges armed job last year. I ‘You think you can just do our knew I’d heard the name. drugs and shag our birds without

having to pay the price.’ I sit down. It feels heavy.

Thinking how I’m gonna get I’m looking at his gun. It’s like away from that conniving, my air rifle, illegally modified to whorish, fucking bitch… God, I fire bullets. I say: ‘Anything, Ty. knew she was bright, but I never Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.’ realised –

He wants me to deal for him. He ‘Ey, Winterbourne.’ wants me to hold things for him.

He wants me to get things for Ty Taylor stands over me. He him. He says: ‘There are gonner appears to be pointing a gun at be some changes around here.’ my head.

I feel very small and very young. ‘What’s up, Ty.’ I keep my voice free of inflection.

BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE; UGLY SOULS By dixē flatlin3

Photos © Sid Graves Eve loved gay men. Always had ways of the “Order of the and always would. However, this Cocksuckers of Perpetual Hell.” scene at the church was The man in the nightgown was completely freaking her out. named Simon. He had indeed Having only spent a few minutes been a Catholic priest in the not so in the sacred walls of the place distant past. He was she had been schooled on the excommunicated when he was

caught smoking meth and fucking priestly he still was. Even in this a teenage parishioner. “I had my ridiculous get-up. Which she had cock up his ass and a glass cock in to admit was not quite as my mouth!” Simon had exclaimed pompous as typical clergy attire. from his throne as he told Eve the Though not Catholic, her paternal story. Eve was simply transfixed extended family was Roman by the entire thing. Never in her Catholic. Irish Catholic. Kicking it life had she met a real-life old school. She’d always been pederast priest. Let alone a cross- fascinated by the “smells and dressing, excommunicated, drug- bells” as her friend called it. addicted and dealing one! It was Simon was looking at her as he like hitting the absurdity jackpot exhaled a huge amount of toxic and she fucking loved it. It was smoke, politely away from her she simply too awesome to believe. noted. “You need to play with us Eve sat near mute just taking in Eve! Follow me” and with that the horrific assembly of characters they were off, walking between in the astonishing display of true the pews. Eve noticed there were evil. She felt much like poor Alice what looked like rubber ducks when she was forced to have tea floating in the font toward the with the Mad Hatter and his crew. entrance. She swirled the red Yet Eve refused to drink the kool- liquid around in the goblet aid with them. She knew Ken was wishing it were indeed laced with off in a confessional smoking something a bit stronger. dope and likely getting blown by a pseudo altar boy. Simon was Tami was out of her mind and in equally as fascinated with Eve. a complete blind rage. She could Mostly because her name was Eve think of no worse a fate than what and she was “so very far from the she was currently being subjected Garden of Eden.” When she had to. Stuck in this tiny, middle of declined the glass pipe handed to nowhere wasteland yet privy to her she was quickly given a watch all the machinations of her massive communal goblet filled former life online. Social with what she hoped was merlot. networking was more a curse “You’re not like the other hood than a blessing at moments like rats Ken has dragged in here from this. Sure, she was completely the gutters” Simon stated. Eve lurking about and monitoring could not get over how very activities from afar. No crime in

that. Only the ignorant believed ears. Or Ken would weasel his their actions online to be private. way out of it. Like he always had If there was one thing Tami knew with her. Tami had presented him it was computers. Her ex husband with over 100 pages of hard had been a total black hat cowboy. copies of emails and IM She had learned all she could transcripts of incriminating from him prior to the Feds kicking evidence. And somehow he had down their door and seizing all diffused that bomb and got her to their equipment. Tami had simply suck his cock by the end of the played dumb. The authorities did night. Tami suddenly felt her not expect her to know much. He cheeks flush hot with anger. was the brains of the operation and they knew it. She was She picked up the ashtray actually surprised Ken was still immediately in front of her and using the laptop she had given hurled it against the wall. The him right before she left. Too crashing of the glass woke up the stupid or lazy to realize there baby. “Fuck!” she screamed. She were trace programs installed. threw herself onto the second- The key logger had provided her hand couch and began to sob. She with valuable information. had trusted him. She knew better, but she had. She had let him However, it was all biting her in inside of her when she should not the ass at the moment. While she have. When her womb was still preferred to have the upper hand raw from giving birth he had in matters such as this, sometimes come inside of her. During the act knowing as much as she did was she could actually feel him infuriating. In real-time she was defiling her. Exposing her to his watching him lure in this woman disease and his sickness. Taking it and he was using the exact same all in, wallowing in the misery script he had used on her! The and agony of this fucked up audacity of this fucking loser quandary. What man in his right astounded Tami. She wanted to mind would treat the woman who reach out to this poor woman but had just borne his child this way? knew it would be counter- And yet, there she lay, his putrid productive. The female bitch cock pounding away at her raw competitive gene would kick in soul and body. Wishing quite and her words would fall on deaf vividly she were dead and

profoundly realizing that she as finger-cuffs. To be especially quite likely was inside. nasty Kaitlyn had run back in and snapped a few pictures with her On the drive back from their phone. Angel had not minded. He lovely evening out, Kaitlyn could was always amused by Kaitlyn’s tell that Angel’s mood was random displays of cruelty. She souring. She wasn’t exactly sure had immediately sent one to Ken. why but it likely had to do with Since he was one of the many his missing shit. He was quiet, too people she had a score to settle quiet. She had tried to make small with. This forage down memory talk but quickly realized it was lane made her smile, which did futile. When Angel was like this it not go unnoticed by Angel. was best to just shut the fuck up “What’s so fucking funny?” he and leave him alone. Staring out spat at her. Kaitlyn simply smiled the window thoughts of her at him, batted her eyes, and family came to mind. It had been purred “Nothing papi, just several weeks since she had thought of a funny cartoon from stopped by. Rumor had it she had earlier that’s all.” Silently they been reported as missing. Which continued down the barren made Kaitlyn smirk. Fucking cops terrain that separated Palm would never find her. No hood Springs from D-Town. The rat would dare tell what he or she Badlands is what it was known as. knew. Not even that poor fuck A place where an abandoned roll Angel had beat within an inch of of carpet in the desert was best his life would tell and he was a left unmoved. firefighter! She thought about Paula and what a disgusting pig Ken opened his eyes just in time of a woman she truly was. She to see his come shoot all over the had walked in on Angel fucking altar boy’s face. Nothing gave him Paula up the ass one evening as more satisfaction than adding another guy stuck his cock in her blasphemy to sexual release. He mouth. Kaitlyn had simply had never known confessionals grabbed the dope and retreated could be so much fun but truly back to the computer room. A understood how they had come to quick update to her profile had represent absolution. Shaking off alerted all D-Town losers that his orgasm his mind suddenly Paula would henceforth be known focused on Eve. He had

completely forgotten about her Eve had always reminded him of and honestly had no idea how Alice falling down the damn long it had been. He shoved the rabbit hole. So completely out of body in front of him out of the place and yet oddly aware of the way and made his way down the absurdity of her surroundings. hallway. She was funny that way. Always had been. Always would be. This Randomly he encountered people he knew. He was hoping to and merely growled, “Where the simply keep her confused long fuck is she?” He could tell they enough to set his plan into were pointing but fucked if he motion. So far it was working. could tell where their hands were However, he could sense time pointing. The fear began to rise up was running out. She had become in his chest and he fucking hated too complacent and turned his that. Never lose your cool was weakness for dope against him. rule one of the streets. He had a The awareness that she could in reputation for being a badass and fact be manipulating him sent Ken a heart breaker. into a panic. Overturning candles on his way down the hallways he He’d be goddamned if he would suddenly began to scream out lose his shit in a fucking church of “Where the fuck is she?” as he all places. A mockery of the moved along his destructive path. natural order in his opinion. How unfair it was that the angel who Eve looked up at Simon, who had had fought back and refused changed into his full priestly subservience had been cast down. regalia and she smiled. He had Good thing they had though. taken it upon himself to perform Without this event Ken might the rite to christen her into the never have had encountered the order of the Cocksuckers of being that changed his life Perpetual Hell. Prior she had been forever. The shadow in the corner stripped naked by several gay of room that had helped a shy, boys, bathed in holy water, and slightly slow child realize his full anointed with oils. From there potential. Funny how we see they had draped her in the most things as a kid and have no idea it sumptuous robes that were will affect our entire lives, Ken indeed a bona fide nun’s habit. thought as he continued his hunt. All the while she had a goblet full

of red liquid, still not quite sure rosary and spoke a few more what it was exactly but thinking sentences in Latin. When his voice that somewhere Ecstasy had been faded, Eve looked up and saw added to it. Eve didn’t really that he was smiling. “Arise now mind the overpowering smell of my love” he instructed taking her roses either. Seemed appropriate hand. As she stood up and turned for the desert. Fitting for the around she was quite shocked to purpose and event in fact. Nor see the pews were now filled with did the fading memory of the various dope demons she had not somewhat lingering hands that before noticed. “Go out amongst had prepared her. Cheap thrills the heathens and spread the had to be hard to find in this word!” Simon commanded. “Go world, she thought? There was an out and spread the word Sister actual ceremony taking place, that Ardat Lili!” Eve was quite sure Eve was now a central figure in, she heard the sounds of applause, even though she lacked the or perhaps an organ? At the capacities to interact fully. Staring climax of which the rear doors up at Simon, who looked rather burst open and Ken pushed his authentic, she saw the huge way into the sanctum. “What the crucifix bearing a defeated fuck are you doing?” he shouted looking Christ upon it, and noted as he made his way up the aisle. the halo of candle-light “Why Monster, you missed it all! surrounding Simon’s head as he Wherever were you hiding?” spoke the words to canonize her. Simon asked. That familiar lilt She couldn’t really make out what back now that Eve loved so much. he said but quickly realized it was Eve was not quite sure what had in Latin. Motherfucker knows just taken place but she could tell Latin! She thought to herself but from the aura of anger rising off managed to not giggle. Somehow of Ken that it wasn’t to his liking. Eve knew that she was meant to Which pleased her. Greatly. She bow her head at this point of the suddenly burst into laughter, script and did so. She realized she began jumping up and down was curtseying in a manner that shouting “Fuck yeah, I’m a was known as the “Texas Dip.” fucking nun!” No idea how she knew this, but she did. Simon bestowed around After Ken had thrown Eve over her neck a rather ornate looking his shoulder and hauled her off to

the car the remainder of the night sure she wasn’t hallucinating was a blur. She recalled the colors Paula noticed Ken rushing and shapes as they moved by her towards the passenger side of the but not necessarily what direction car. She had asked someone at her they were moving. The fact that house to make a buy for a ride. Ken was driving her car did not All it took was a tiny bit more even bother her much. Though dope in a sack and voila, insta- her husband would be none too ride. Only bad thing was Ken pleased by it. Ken had been didn’t recognize the car and was ranting and raving about likely to start punching things something but his words were quickly. She realized this too late drowned out by the cacophony of and was quickly pulled from the their voyage through the car by her hair. “What the fuck Badlands. Eve knew the demons are you doing here?” he screamed she saw out in the distance were as he slammed her onto the real, very real, which she choose ground. He swung an iron bar to ignore, as usual. The ride came across the windshield shattering it to an all-too-soon of an abrupt as he climbed across the hood to end in the driveway she had come reach the driver. Paula had seen to dread. Even in her drug addled Ken be violent before, in fact his state she would know this dead- first use to her had been for hired end. No sooner had she muscle. But not like this. He was recognized it than Ken was unhinged. She knew she had to yanking her from the backseat. do something and quickly to Still muttering something as he prevent him from seriously fumbled for the keys, Eve was hurting the poor fool that drove relieved to see headlights her there. Thankfully the guy was illuminate them from behind. She too high to respond appropriately turned around and began to wave and kept his door locked. Paula at whatever idiot was making the ran up behind Ken and grabbed drug circuit this evening. his arm just as he swung to break the driver’s window. “You Paula could not believe what she fucking cunt!” he screamed as he was seeing before her eyes. Ken elbowed her full-force in the face. was standing in front of his house Paula saw stars and tasted blood with what looked to be a nun. Just immediately. She fell onto the as she had tilted her head to make sand, her hands instinctively

cupping her shattered nose. Out her arms and looked her dead in of the corner of her eye she the eyes. Her heart was breaking spotted the dancing nun again and pounding simultaneously. and heard laughter over of the The audacity of Ken to treat her so sound of the coarse motor mixed with the overwhelming grinding from the car’s engine. heartache caused by the sincerity Backlight by the headlights the of his words was simply too much sweat on Ken’s body glistened in for her. She knew she had to save a way that made her wet. This face but just could not muster the happy thought was short lived as strength to do so. Without Ken was immediately raging back warning she burst into tears, in her direction. “Who the fuck do which only furthered her abject you think you are?” he screamed, humiliation. kicking up sand into her face. “How dare you just show up at “Tears? Really? From you?” he my house after I have told you a mockingly laughed. “Get your million times to get fucked!” he tired ass into the car, go home, spat. Paula knew full well she fuck some idiot, and wait until deserved this, but it cut deep. you hear from me.” Ken ordered. Every word rang true and sliced She quickly got into the car, open her delicate psyche to the avoided catching a limb in the point she was afraid it would spill door as he slammed it shut, out into the rays of the headlights screaming “Get the fuck out of upon the sand in front of her. He here!” to the driver. As the sight grabbed her by the back of her of Ken quickly faded as the car hair and dragged her in front of moved away and then east of the the car “You are nothing more driveway Paula felt the familiar than a fucking sack whore Paula. I mixture of sorrow and rage well fuck you when I need something. up. She did not know who the girl You mean nothing to me!” he in the nun’s outfit was but she slammed her head first into the would find out. And when she door before opening it. “If you so did there would be hell to pay. much as show that mutt face of yours around my house Eve was loaded, for sure, but even unannounced again I will bury in this state she was astonished by you! Do you hear me?” he the spectacle that had just played screamed as he pulled her up by out before her eyes. She almost

wished she were sober, just to wore was more than a perverse relish the moment of Ken putting thrill for him and she could tell by that bulldog in her place a bit how quickly he came. Not to more. However, she wasn’t. In disappoint, he was almost fact, she was dressed like a nun, immediately hard again and now smelled like a cheap whore, and ready for damage. wanted nothing more than to wrap her legs around Ken. There “You’ve been very bad and I am was just something primal about going to punish you” he informed what he had just done. It could her. also be the Ecstasy, but she didn’t really care. When he came back to “Oh yeah, think you got what it the porch the first thing she did takes to make me cry?” she was wrap her arms around him inquired as she reached down and and kiss him. He tasted of sweat squeezed his balls. Ken laughed, and every muscle in his body pulled out, and immediately pulsed with tension. She felt the flipped Eve around. Pushing her firmness of his abdominal up against a wall he reached for a muscles against hers and felt his roll of duct tape on the floor. cock rise to the occasion. He “Yeah, I think I do.” He replied as reached down and deftly lifted he forced a ball into her mouth her allowing her legs to wrap and secured it with the first strip around his waist. Never missing a of tape. step he opened the door and carried her into the house. “Lock Upon returning from their dinner the door and fuck me,” she adventure Kaitlyn was surprised whispered as she softly bit the by the amount of activity taking lobe of his left ear. The guttural place at the house. Several of growl he emitted sent shivers Angel’s flunkies were running down her spine. The taste of his around with baseball bats, a few salty sweat mixed with the grit of had guns. Angel immediately sand didn’t even bother her. went into Alpha dog mode and Without her feet ever touching the ran down to his ‘office’ to get an ground he had soon dropped his update from his homies. Kaitlyn jeans and was slamming her into knew that if Angel found out the the railing of the stairs to the truth he would kill her. She entryway. Eve knew the habit she quietly made her way back to the

room he kept her in and changed that paid Angel to fuck her. One out of the dinner clothes. She was an older couple, oblivious quickly put on her favorite lounge that Kaitlyn knew their kids from clothes and focused on the school. The old man wanted to computer. She wasn’t allowed to see a “sweet, young thing” eat his communicate with anyone but he wife’s pussy while he fucked her did allow her to use the Internet. doggy-style. Kaitlyn had obliged. Which helped alleviate the What choice did she have? There overwhelming sense of isolation was enough dope in the room to she often felt. And these make her do anything. Hell, she moments were few and far had even put her entire fist inside between. Angel was prone to the bitch when she was down snapping and taking it out on her. there and let the lady come all She knew at any moment he could over her face. Eating pussy walk in and do whatever he wasn’t a big deal. Kaitlyn had wanted to her. The thought made done it lots of times before. her wet. The first night Kaitlyn Getting her face pounded into it had spent here was bound and in whilst the old man balls banged service of several of his friends. It against her ass had really gotten was Angel’s way of letting her Kaitlyn off. It ended with her and know her life was in his hands the wife 69’ing. She did an and that no one fucks him over amazing job licking Kaitlyn’s clit and gets away with it. He made a while the husband slid his cock in point to let her know he had and out. Katilyn came several charged every man that fucked times and didn’t even mind that her $300.00 because, as he put it, the guy came inside of her; since “How often do guys their age get the wife did her best to get it all a chance to fuck some underage out. Only Katilyn was aware that pussy?” There had been a few the entire event had been covertly other nights that included people filmed. Angel was kinky like that.

SCREAM

By Mary Leary

Tonight as I was pushing another packet of crackers into the bright red tin it bent in response, a surprise, perhaps like that felt by the men who kept using that woman’s body --which woman? you say – well, let’s just leave it at “her body,” which opened and flowed wetter, the men felt, as a young couple with a blue BMW Cooper enjoyed night-blooming jasmine, subtle scent of sleeping Sweet Peas behind their charming mission-style home near the canyon where the woman managed to scream, at least at first, when they forgot to cover her mouth with their hands, before they belted her and she just lay quiet. The couple find it easier to like their Akita than people; had just made gourmet pizza and were downing some micro-brews around their backyard fire bowl. After they put out the fire and went to bed the woman sat bolt upright as if she had been struck or suddenly remembered something, realized maybe she had heard someone scream. One night when a nearby apartment building was still empty and people could get into the underground parking cells I heard the echo of an ugly, anguished moan. Wished I could do something. Thought of calling the police, then remembered how they ignore

this area. And there are nights when a cross-dresser and her lover or pimp run down block after block, the man crying for the woman to stop, come back, and I feel the hurt of warm body moving away, maybe leaving forever, remember the humiliation and fury of needing to reel them back in, don’t want to remember, am glad it’s not me, make a cup of tea. Living organisms do whatever they think they must to survive, sometimes living off others or in their wake. If bats really go extinct I will scream so hard someone may listen for a moment, wonder if they should do something or be glad it isn’t them. Now someone in that underground garage is playing racketball against the wall; Ethiopians are laughing in the unit above and I am glad of the life taking up all the parking spaces, igniting the air with grills on their little patios, at least not pressing flesh into flesh until the flesh breaks, you know, I’m really tired of that sort of river and if the bats go, well, there will be too many insects and some sort of pollination won’t happen and we will lose an important mystery; right sounds piercing darkness like melon and burnt orange, night-bloomers.

SCENES FROM IMAGINARY FILMS V - WEARY OF THE SUN By David Gionfriddo

Film has been the dominant medium in American culture since at least the mid- 1960s. In the U.S., there are even isolated tribes of middle-aged men who communicate only in movie quotes (“But it looks good on you!” “Show me the money!”) Much of our lives are spent in thrall to the filmmakers and their actors. But I find there are very few movies memorable from beginning to end. What stays with me are the indelible scenes, the important images: that last, long tracking shot in Citizen Kane; Michael Madsen’s Reservoir Dogs torture dance; Catherine Deneuve inching down the corridor of hands in Repulsion; Cybill Shepherd’s Last Picture Show diving-board striptease. These pictures are the building blocks of post-modern consciousness. Like family snapshots found in a junk drawer, these moments let us reconstruct entire stories, eras, lives. Some of us are all thumbs with the camera, however, so we are left to play with their literary equivalents. My scenes aren’t meant to be beginnings, middles or ends. Consider my humble offerings a parlor game, simple party favors inviting you to dream your own stories, to invent new rewards, conflicts and tribulations for these very malleable characters. Have fun… ______

INT. AUTOMOBILE – NIGHT

RAYMOND and MAEVE RANSOME, a married couple in their early 30’s, drive down a dark and lonely country road somewhere in southern Virginia. Raymond is wearing torn jeans and a wife-beater t-shirt. His hair is greasy and unkempt, and he speaks with the jittery, vacant air of someone who has yet to clear out the cobwebs of sleep. His arm that guides the steering wheel is tattooed in an ornate sleeve of gears and wires. Maeve’s hair hangs limply around her face and shoulders. Her striking green eyes are heavy-lidded and wear dark circles that stand out against her eggshell skin. Under her leather jacket, she nervously fingers a nickel Smith & Wesson snubnose .38, the kind of gun a family might keep for show. They act as though they are running from a crime already committed.

MAEVE

This is crazy. Just nuts. It’s not too late...

RAYMOND

What did you think was going to happen? I’m already starting to get the feeling. You are, too. (Pause.) It’s a little late for buyer’s remorse.

MAEVE

Everything seems different now.

RAYMOND

Funny how that works, when you’re not totally wrecked.

EXT. COUNTRY ROAD – NIGHT

The car moves, alone, through the undiscovered night. On one side of the road is a long-abandoned rust-over-Warwick-Blue Chevy Impala, whose windows are duct-taped plastic. On the other is a large, beaten-up sign for the Canyon Drive-In. The marquee, full of missing letters, advertises a long- ago, family-night double feature of Christine and Pieces. A dirt driveway leads into a field, overgrown with dandelions and littered with empty speaker poles.

INT. AUTOMOBILE – NIGHT

MAEVE

How do you feel?

RAYMOND

Like parboiled shit. Sorry, babe. My head feels like somebody soaked a wasp’s nest in turpentine and lit it on fire. The rest of me just feels…empty…nothing beating, nothing moving, no juices sloshing around. Like I’m full of sawdust or something. What about you?

MAEVE

So light, but not in the good way. I feel weak, like I’m just going to float away. And my arms and legs are burning, like they’re full of acid. Is that normal?

RAYMOND

Normal?

They ride on in silence.

MAEVE

What did the Monteros say last night? Did they say anything?

RAYMOND

Some crazy riddles. Something about leaving the world. Hearing things.

MAEVE Yeah. “The music of tides.” All I hear now is tinnitus. And the knocking of that engine. (Softly, apologetically.) Needs a tune up.

RAYMOND (Sarcastically)

I’ll put it on my “Honey Do” list. As soon as we get back home.

She leans her head on his shoulder.

RAYMOND

I know, Lamb. We’re both a little tweaked. Let’s just do this and see how it feels after. It’s got to get easier after this. Got to.

His eyes fix on an old set of wooden rosary beads wrapped around the rearview mirror. The tin crucifix swings like the hand of a metronome.

RAYMOND

Can you throw that in the glove compartment? It’s starting to bug the everloving shit out of me.

EXT. COUNTRY ROAD – NIGHT

Raymond and Maeve’s Acura moves slowly down the road, which opens into something resembling a neighborhood. A scuffed-up brick rambler is on one side of the road, and about a hundred yards farther down, on the other, sits an old shotgun house with a weathered porch glider on a browned-out patch of lawn. Raymond slows and parks along the grass verge, midway between the homes. He kills the lights. Nothing stirs.

INT. AUTOMOBILE – NIGHT

MAEVE

This is way fucking surreal. Tell me, what do you remember about last night? Can you remember at all?

RAYMOND

Patchwork. I remember you were complaining about Callum’s late alimony check and the credit cards and your “chronic fatigue,” so we went over to Blue and Olivia’s to cheer ourselves up. We were getting tight on Cutty and water and, out of nowhere, that guy and his wife plopped down on the sofa and just hijacked things.

MAEVE

What was his name?

RAYMOND

Pablo or Pedro or something. I don’t know. First, I thought he wanted to fuck you and I was ready to let him. Just for grins. But he starts homing in and talking about our life, like he’s been listening in the whole time. We go out on the fire escape where this crazy wind is blowing, and he says how would you like to get away from all of it and that they were…

MAEVE

…I remember that part. It was, like, a big goof. Big joke.

RAYMOND

Then we were partying at their place. Some pills, some classical music, and then they’re pulling out travel books and African statuettes and some panfluteish thing and messing around with a little flick knife, cutting each other. Weird shit. Then, I crashed.

MAEVE

How did we get home?

RAYMOND

They must have given us a lift.

MAEVE

How did Blue even know those guys?

RAYMOND

Nobody seemed to know them, really. I just figured he was their connection. They had that kind of vibe.

MAEVE

What did his girlfriend say to you?

RAYMOND

When?

MAEVE

When you went outside for a smoke and she followed you. You were out there for a while. Quite a while.

RAYMOND

I couldn’t tell you. She was crazy. Whispered a lot. She was a close talker.

MAEVE

That where you got this?

She leans over and reaches for his neck and we see, emerging from the shadows, a purple bruise. Raymond is silent. Maeve pulls her hand back and rubs her own shoulder, peeling back her own shirt to display an angry red wound there.

RAYMOND

Yeah, it was a fucked-up night. Let’s get this over with.

Raymond gets out of the car. Maeve hands him the gun, which he tucks in the back of his jeans and covers with his shirt. He crosses the road and starts toward the door of the shotgun house. Maeve shakily lights a cigarette and fumbles for a mixtape in a box of junk (maps, campaign buttons, change, empty cigarette lighters). She puts it in the tape player and hits “play.” She worriedly massages her shoulder while Nico sings “Janitor of Lunacy,” and waves of mournful harmonium punctuate the minutes.

SINGING VOICE

Tolerate my jealousy/Recognize the desperate need…

MAEVE

Wow. (Sniffs.) Great. That’s really great.

She picks up a ripped copy of The Handmaid’s Tale from the floormat and aimlessly riffles the pages. She is elsewhere.

EXT. FRONT DOOR OF COUNTRY HOUSE – NIGHT

Raymond pounds on the door with a primitive, arts-and-crafts door knocker in the shape of a horse’s head. The doormat reads: Bless This House.

RAYMOND

Hello? Hello? Anybody there? I know it’s late, but my car broke down. Can we get a jump or use a phone? Anybody?

INT. AUTOMOBILE – NIGHT

Maeve sits with eyes closed, listening to the music and suffering through some portentious, waking dream. She is startled by Raymond, punching the driver’s side window. She opens the door and he slides in, shaking with nervous energy.

RAYMOND

This is bullshit. Nobody’s gonna open their door to strangers at this time of night. We must look like a couple of fucking thrill killers. Goddamnit. What was I thinking?

MAEVE

Maybe we can just go home, Ray. Think things over. See how it all looks in the morning.

RAYMOND

There’s not going to be any morning. Shit, my throat is on fire. So is yours, isn’t it?

MAEVE

Yeah. (Pause.) Why did we go through with it, Ray? We didn’t have to.

RAYMOND

Because people like us are not strong enough to fight this life. We never get an edge. It would have to take something wild,

something fucked and insane and impossible. And she made me believe it. She had these eyes like animal eyes. Like wishing wells, man. There were no “ifs” in them. She put her mouth next to my ear and nibbled a little and breathed live live live. And she made me believe I could. We all could. (Defeated.) At that point, I might have done anything.

They sit silently for a moment in an almost palpable despair.

MAEVE

Maybe there’s an emergency room. Maybe they can look at us or give us something. Honey? Can we?

The two are surprised by three loud raps on the car’s roof. They look out to see BAILEY, owner of the house up the street, armed with an aluminum baseball bat. He motions for Raymond to lower the window.

BAILEY

Hey, whatever the hell you’re doing out here at three in the morning, I would suggest that you move along. Awright?

RAYMOND

Whoa, take it easy, sir, just a little car trouble.

Raymond lifts his shirt to show Maeve the gun in his waistband, visible to her, but hidden from Bailey.

BAILEY

Car trouble?

RAYMOND

Yeah, just looking for a phone.

Maeve inches toward the gun.

BAILEY

Well, I gotta tell ya, pal, you guys look like trouble to me. We get a lot of druggies from over Culver messin’ around out here and we know how to handle ‘em. Read me? Don’t need the cops. What the hell you doing out riding around this time of night, anyway? Nothing out here.

MAEVE

Watch out, RayRay!

Maeve grabs the revolver, shakily points and unloads two slugs, hitting Bailey in the jaw and the chest. Bailey falls back in surprise. Ray wrenches the gun from Maeve’s hand and, flinging open the door, puts two more in his chest, for insurance. Bailey heaves, then expires.

MAEVE

Jesus! Oh shit! Oh my God!

Raymond roughly grabs her shoulders.

RAYMOND

Easy. You done good, babe. Now help me get him in the back. We gotta move fast. Stay with me.

They jump out of the car and gingerly grab Bailey. The two virgin killers laboriously bundle him into the back seat, struggling until their arms, necks and torsos are streaked with blood. Maeve, eyes glazed with shock, dips a finger into one of the chest wounds and timidly licks her finger until her face transforms into an expression of fearful satisfaction. She glances at Ray, wide-eyed, asking permission: can I?

RAYMOND

Not here. Come on, let’s get gone.

EXT. DIRT PATH INTO WOODED AREA – NIGHT

A car’s headlights pierce a profound darkness, as it inches its way farther and farther into some heavy roadside woods. The lights are extinguished, letting the still blackness flow into and over the thicket. For a moment, the passengers slump, lifeless, shell-shocked.

INT. AUTOMOBILE – NIGHT

MAEVE

I can’t believe it. We did it. Is it always gonna be like this, Ray? Is it? Is it always gonna be like this?

RAYMOND

No, baby. We’ll get a system. Better and better. Come on. (Motions toward the back seat.) Everything’s gonna look different once we get right.

EXT. WOODS – NIGHT

Against the vast, immeasurable night, two small figures wrestle a blood- soaked body from the back seat. All thought of evasion or concealment has evaporated. They are focused only on driving away an encroaching, holistic hunger, and this desperation makes them stronger than they have a right to be.

They lay Bailey across Maeve’s lap, like some sort of depraved pietá. The feel and smell of blood spreading through Bailey’s clothes and speckling his wounds fill Raymond and Maeve with a kind of nervous excitement. Ray, betraying his inexperience, clumsily saws away with a pocket knife, carving wounds at the throat for him, at the wrist for Maeve. You can see on their

faces that they realize they now have nothing in the world but each other and this need. They silently drink, animals. After a time, Maeve speaks.

MAEVE

Ray…

RAYMOND

I know.

MAEVE

I don’t know where we are. I mean it.

RAYMOND

It’ll get easier. We’ll learn.

MAEVE

Promise?

RAYMOND

I can’t promise.

Maeve tenderly offers Raymond the dripping wrist and he sucks away some of the blood in a motion that mimics a kiss. Maeve wraps her arms around him, hiding his face in a veil of dirty red hair and kisses the crown of his head. The only sounds are human breath, the chatter of crickets and the faint rustling of soon-dead leaves. They are a circle of peace in a suddenly unfamiliar and collapsing world.

MAEVE

We messed up, baby. We messed up, big time. We went for the wrong thing.

RAYMOND (Looking sated and drowsy)

You’re just upset. We’ll figure it all out. You bet we will.

MAEVE

No, we won’t, Raymond. Never, never. Because it’s all about endings.

Raymond sits up a little.

MAEVE

Endings. Everything moves toward an ending. Everything wants to close the circle. It’s the way. Nature’s. God’s. Maybe it’s the way to pass on to the next thing. Maybe it’s just an end that lets something else be born. But it’s meant to happen. We don’t get to be part of that. We’re out of sync. We’re outliers. We’re the two-headed baby in the glass jar on the museum shelf nobody visits. (Pause.) Forever, we’re going to be like that.

In the distance, we hear what sounds like a rifle shot.

MAEVE

Forever is a really bad idea, Love. The very, very worst…

Back on the main road, there is a growl of idling engines. The woods are rent by blades of light from flashlights and lanterns. Maeve and Raymond, in a place beyond caring, huddle in their pocket of dark.

CONTRIBUTORS’ LINKS

SEAN MADDEN MAX REEVES http://www.clownvomit.org http://www.s-kollective.com http://www.myspace.com/maxreeves F.X. TOBIN http://fxtobinartwork.com ELE-BETH LITTLE http://www.myspace.com/wintermuse ANDREW MABEN http://art.andrewmaben.net/blacknight LISA WORMSLEY http://art.andrewmaben.net http://lisawormsley.viewbook.com [email protected]

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THE SEVENTH SONG OF ABSTRACTS OF AN MALDOROR AMERICAN PAGEANT D M Mitchell Jim Lopez

A deranged serial-killer goes on a Poetic, profound, obscene, rampage of sexual atrocity across sublime... Imagine On The Road a Europe falling apart in the wake rewritten by Captain Beefheart as of an unspecified global crisis. But a Three Stooges script and you is he what he seems? A cast of might be getting somewhere near implausible characters in a (to say to the effect this freewheeling the least) unreliable narrative beautiful mess of a book captures. push the boundaries of credibility If you could transplant Dante to and expression. Dreams and 21st century California, feed him a nightmares, desire and delirium, massive batch of hallucinogenic all melt together into a mushrooms and kick him naked metatextual puzzle. A psycho- and freezing onto Sunsick sexual anti-novel that owes much Boulevard, this is what he might to its transgressive ancestors – write. Sade, Lautreamont, Bataille, Artaud with more than a dash of Profound philosophical discourse Burroughs and Lovecraft thrown sits hand in hand with ribald into the cauldron. obscenity, hilarious observation and simply crazed lysergic mania ISBN-10: 1449518125 as Lopez recounts, in a series of ISBN-13: 978-1449518127 loosely connected parables, his

search for his Beatrice through a terrifyingly unknown. It is a maze of unreliable scenarios and chimerical realm inhabited by the unbelievable yet wonderfully hopeless, dispossessed, and those human characters. who have simply turned away.

ISBN 9781450568463 Imagine if Ray Bradbury and Jerri Cain Rossi had a child that they locked away from the world, with only the Marquis De Sade for reading matter, and a dietary intake of bad LSD and atrocious B Movies. The Membranous Lounge would be the spawn of that child’s imagination.

ISBN-10: 1452816301 IABN-13: 9781452816302

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