“That’s a rape, man.”

“No it isn’t, how would a rapist be able to get so many different camera angles? Plus she just smiled.”

I was in my mother’s basement with my brother and a friend of mine, watching an internet clip titled: “cute French girl gets raped.” My mother had left town for a month and she asked my brother and I to feed the dogs and watch the house while she was away. I was happy to oblige since her modest suburban home was a good deal more comfortable than the couches and bare floors that, as a young street urchin, I was accustomed to. She’d asked us to keep the place clean and have no guests, but once the grocery money had been appropriated into a beer fund her house was quickly transformed into a comfortable squat for all the drunks, cretins, and disaffected youth I spent my time with.

It was early evening in a typically hot and balmy Michigan summer. The heat out doors made the basement feel especially dank and musty which seemed appropriate for the company I kept. I had spent the day washing dishes for rich people at a restaurant that I couldn’t afford to eat at, gazing into the filthy swirling water of the dish tank and trying in vain to find a metaphor for life. I thought that perhaps the people could be seen as the scalding hot frying pans, burning with life and love until the cold cruel spray of life cooled us to room temperature for sanitation and storage purposes. Or maybe we were the uneaten bits of food, clinging desperately to the filthy plate of life even though we had been discarded as unwanted or unneeded. Or maybe I was a minimum wage laborer gone half mad from too much acid and too much Bukowski. No, I doubt it’s the acid. So much uncertainty. At any rate I had come up short in my pathetic search for hope in a sink full of garbage, but that was okay because coming up short is something I felt a man should get used to if he wants to retain his sanity, if even there were such a thing as sanity.

Anyway the day’s work was done and now I sat, flecked head to toe with food scraps, the front of my shirt soaked through with dirty and stinking dishwater, starting to drink and watching porn with my brother and a friend in the basement. The video was somewhat convincing as a rape but ultimately the artistry of the camera work gave away the fact that is was a professionally produced video. Or at least as professional as pornographers who specialize in rape fetishes could be.

When I looked back over my shoulder I saw that my friend, Steve, had his pants around his knees with his hand groping around in the darker recesses of his crotch at an angle that suggested he was touching his asshole.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“What’s it look like?”

“Looks like you’re touching you’re asshole.”

“Yep. I’m scratching my asshole with Joe’s pen.”

His eyes grew wide and he gasped.

At this point it’s necessary to tell you something about Steve. He was insane, or at least irregular. About six foot and a little heavy set with dark hair and darker eyes. His arms were tattooed completely with symbols of counter culture, whatever that was. He loved GG Allen but could sing word for word every Spice Girls song ever written and he was frequently jailed or institutionalized. He was an anomaly and I admired him very much because despite his bizarre habits and bouts of suicidal tendencies he was honest and loyal, although erratic. I once saw him beat a guy with a baseball bat as a favor to a mutual friend of ours while he shouted a random line from his favorite movie: Boys in the Hood. The guy deserved a beating but I pitied him only for the endless amount of confusion it must have caused him to be beaten so savagely in front of his own home by a stranger who’s only words were: “Ya need ta keep dem got dam babies out the street nigga.” He was disdainful in the eyes of society but I think if Christ were ever to walk the earth again to enlighten humanity it would be in the form of Steve.

“Holy shit it’s in. Joe you’re pen is in my fucking asshole right now,” he laughed.

Joe said, “Aw what the fuck, Steve? You owe me a new pen.”

He only smiled as he withdrew the shit-covered end of my brother’s pen from his ass and tossed it onto my lap. The end of it had been chewed so much that it was jagged and bell-shaped and it looked very uncomfortable. But sure enough it had been in his asshole. That was plain to see on account of the streaks of feces that had been left on it.

Steve was now giggling to himself as he tried to walk upstairs and fix his pants at the same time. We found a video clip of a Russian man having his throat cut that we decided must have been real footage and went upstairs for more beer. The house was cloudy with cigarette and dope smoke. I tried to clear the air in front of my face and I tripped over a half naked punk rocker that was sleeping in my mother’s kitchen. He was cussing up a storm as I grabbed a couple more beers and headed out to the screened-in back porch, leaving him to mumble some seriously vulgar threats to no one from beneath the covers. I could hear all the other fuckups drinking, talking shit and taking comfort in each other’s misery. When I opened the door it was a terrible sight.

Thick blue gray smoke hung over the heads of a dozen or so of the most wretched people you can imagine. Punks mostly with a few skinheads. Nearly none of them had jobs or a home and most were covered with scars and jailhouse tattoos, evidence of their short and often brutal existences. Their clothes were, more or less, tattered rags adorned with patches, chains, spikes and messages of hate. I don’t know how I accumulated so many undesirable people as my friends but I felt comfortable with them and they considered me one of their own. It’s a nice thing to feel like you belonged. Exchanging insults and greetings I waded through the crowd, passed my brother a beer and found a seat in the corner next to a bottle of whiskey and an ugly young woman who no one would claim as their own woman but nearly all of them had had sex with at one point.

Women like her were a curious breed. If she cleaned up a bit she’d be at least decent looking, if not pretty. Her personality wasn’t altogether too unpleasant, she could certainly make friends with less defunct people if she had the inclination, but something within her drove her to submit herself to be used and abused by a group of men that weren’t worth shit. We had fucked her, stolen from her, cussed at her and destroyed her mother’s house but always she would come around, buy the booze and taxi a number of us around looking for somewhere to go or something to steal. The oddest thing about it is we never seemed to have a shortage of women just like her, that we could abuse to the breaking point and toss aside like so much trash.

When I sat she offered the whiskey and I took it. It was bad whiskey but more importantly it was free so I downed a glass and poured another. It burned its way to my belly and started to work its magic. I’m still amazed by the awful comfort that people like us could draw from alcohol. The dual nature of addiction insured that comfort was only as far away as the liquor store and that most of us would inevitably die as we lived: drunk and suffering from some injury or illness that was easily avoidable for a sober person. Our vice was the cause of, and answer to, all of our problems. The bottle would draw the life out of us but when we have that terrible poison coursing through our veins we felt at ease and immune to the ordinary woes of life. Of course in the morning nothing was changed, you’re still broke and homeless and desperate, and the only solution in sight was to go back to work so you could hand over your hard earned cash to an evil, faceless corporation that was all too willing to pour more of that rotten stuff down your throat. The cycle was just as we were: wretched and pathetic but beautiful in its simplicity. I knew some people who were into something called straight edge, which basically means you stay sober and have a shitty attitude. I could relate to the latter but sobriety never seemed to cut it for me, but at least they had something to believe in, which I’m told is a good feeling. Pretty soon I found that I could laugh easier and the ugly girls were getting prettier. After failing to convince one of them to blow me I drank another glass, tossed it into the yard through an open window and went to the bathroom.

When I returned to the porch I found that a circle had formed and the crowd was cheering and cursing and laughing and groaning in disgust all at once. I pushed my way to the front and there I saw the cause of this excitement. It was Steve, pants down again, with about three inches of an eight-inch paint brush sticking out of his ass. He was alternating between nervous laughter and grunts of discomfort and he had a very surprised look on his face owing, I think, to the fact that quite understandably he’d never had anything that far into his ass.

I scanned the faces of the crowd, lit from the numerous flashes of cell phone cameras. Most were laughing, some were cheering and throwing beer bottles. I saw a girl dry heave at the sight of him sodomizing himself in front of an inappropriately supportive crowd. One of the skins was angry as hell that we were all so “fucked up” and that we thought this was funny. I asked him to define “fucked up” for me but he only shot me an evil glare without answering the question. He left and took the only good looking girls with him. But that was okay with me because I doubted that this sort of thing would put a woman in the mood to fuck.

Pretty soon he’d pulled the brush from his ass, he was laughing like a maniac and threatening the various onlookers with his shit covered stick, pants to his ankles and his remarkably unimpressive and uncircumcised penis barely hidden behind his free hand. I was stricken by his willingness to defile himself for the sake of a laugh without shame. Shamelessness was another of his good character qualities. The first night I met him he’d come over to an apartment a few of us were squatting. After the booze loosened him up a bit he practically insisted that me and few others give him a beating, and we didn’t need too much encouragement. We beat him, bad, spit in his face and one guy took a piss on him. In the end he was laying on the floor bleeding and soaked with urine. I tapped his ribs with my boot and asked if he’d be okay. Apparently he’d lost interest in being beaten and let his mind wander because he said simply, “I want to fuck a black chick.” I considered him a friend from then on.

Now one of the more encouraging spectators threw him an empty half-gallon bottle.

“What the fuck am I supposed to do with this? Its empty.” He tossed it down.

Then the guy handed him a small bottle of gel that contained a numbing agent, intended to ease the pain of a tattoo needle, and Steve got the idea. He picked the bottle back up, squirted a generous amount of the gel onto the neck of the bottle and dropped his pants again. Now even I doubted that Steve’s considerable tolerance for pain would allow him to force something that big into his ass. But determined as he was to cause himself pain he bent down and set about working this difficult item into his rear. The crowd was hushed with anticipation and at first not much happened. I recommended that since the end of the bottle was threaded he try screwing it in rather that just force it. Sure enough it worked and after only a few turns his ass gave an inch or two. The drunken crowd erupted with sounds of amusement and discomfort. Steve’s face contorted in agony while beads of sweat formed on his face, reddening from the effort.

“Oh god, oh god it fucking hurts!” he was screaming in pain but he never stopped rotating the bottle, forcing it ever upward. The excited cheers of the decadent crowd mingled with Steve’s cries of anguish. I found that I was now laughing hysterically and I realized then that I didn’t need that dickhead to define “fucked up.” This was it. Not just Steve’s act of sodomy but also the fact that so many people could be found to laugh and encourage this behavior. From my vantage point (sitting on the floor cradling a beer in my legs and smoking a roach) I could see the side of Steve’s bottle. The numbing gel was oozing slowly towards the bottom, stained brown at first from contact with the inside of Steve’s ass, it slowly started to run red. He’d actually torn his asshole. Now he was done. He started to pull the bottle out but this seemed even more painful for him. He was now nearly shrieking from the pain of the endeavor. His cries of pain and the frenzied laughter of the crowd were cacophonous. I didn’t realize until later on but the suction of the empty bottle pulling at his insides must have been excruciating. Finally, inch by painful inch, the bottle came free. Steve tossed it down, hiked his pants up and, pale and shaking, asked for a beer with a triumphant smile on his face.

We all spent the rest of the night drinking and laughing. I never had to ask Steve why he’d done that to himself because I think I knew. We were shitty people. Maybe not all of us, maybe just the lucky ones. We would do most anything for a cheap laugh, a cheap thrill, a cheap woman or a cheap bottle. Our lives were ones of suffering and poverty. You might think we’re disgusting but I would say beautiful. We might be poor and trashy but we were also, in a way, the kings of the world. We had nothing to lose so we were always winning. Life had offered us the worst it had and from the bottom the only way to go was up. We’d suffered rejection from everything that could reject you: schools, jobs, women, even the military for some. We had endured so much that all that was left to do was smile. Smile and laugh from atop a mountainous pile of disappointments and shattered dreams. When you can smile through split bleeding lips because you’re bruised, homeless, jobless, wanted by the police and hopelessly indebted to jails and hospitals you laugh because a man in your position has no right to laugh, the idea of it was ridiculous. So all you do is laugh. Laugh at your own ridiculous self. Laugh at every punch to the mouth, at every click of the handcuffs. When life gives you shit you make a shit sandwich, on wry, and demand seconds because it’s the first warm meal you’ve had in days. Woe to the rich, long live the depraved. It was an almost Taoist approach to life. All you’ve ever known was struggle so you might as well enjoy it. Our hard work will never make anything better so we’re comfortable on the bottom rung of society where everything was cheap and nothing came easy but pain and shame. I’d chosen to live a sad life and I now enjoy every painful experience and underpaying job, all the mistakes and failures only add to the humor of the whole sick joke. Maybe I could do better, maybe not but the point is to remain defiant till the end and try not to look too far ahead.

At the time of this writing Steve is in the county jail after enjoying only a few short months of freedom from the psych ward. Steve’s in jail with the cockroaches while a man who stole fifty billion dollars from charities is confined to a seven-million-dollar penthouse. He might be sick but society is a hell of a lot sicker. At least Steve hasn’t stolen from a charity, fucking pigs.

This story was originally published on Supraterranean in March 2009.

View Steve at Supraterranean

I walked outside with my duffel bag, my eyes squinting though the sky was a pale overcast. The steady din of the highway crept between the buildings of the dense apartment complex. It was around noon on a Thursday in early December, and for the past hour or two I had been pacing through my ground level, two-bedroom apartment, gathering necessities for a long weekend trip.

As I set down the bag, I heard a faint noise coming from nearby. At first it was only discernible as a human utterance; I thought it might have been a baby squealing. I moved back towards my entry door and heard it again, in the first floor apartment just north of my own. And now the source was more clear: a woman moaning, loud enough to recognize on the sidewalk outside.

I rushed back through my apartment door and turned into the bedroom, not quite confident in my own auditory acuity. I shut off the oscillating fan and slowly, cautiously, put my ear against the north-facing wall. Already my heart was pounding, as if the vague possibility of hearing a woman in that state had triggered an automatic biological response within me.

And there it was again, a soft, drawn out “ohhhhhhhh,” undeniably the result of sexual arousal. I could see how that might be mistaken for a baby’s cooing. There are obvious parallels between the two – both are powerful, alarming, consuming, but also vulnerable, angelic, transitory. Wars break out over this noise.* It grips men by the throat, explodes their sensibilities – so men try to dampen it, cover it up, or lock it away.

I remembered my animal behavior classes in college, when we studied certain species of monkeys and apes that gather information about sex by watching other individuals in the act.

After all, I was completely controlled by the hormones flushing through my system as a result of these sound waves crossing the drywall barrier. But I liked it, so I kept listening. I’ve been so disconnected from the social realm. Suddenly I felt close to people, admitted into their most private moments. I was startled by the excitement! I heard more from the woman, a repetitive call of “yeah, yeah, yeah, ohhhh.” The man, he was quieter, so I could only hear a low moan behind the more invigorated female calls.

I imagined how they might have been situated. From the frequency of the cyclical clapping sounds, I thought she must be propped on hands and knees, with the man kneeling behind her, thrusting. I remembered my animal behavior classes in college, when we studied certain species of monkeys and apes that gather information about sex by watching other individuals in the act.

Our evolutionary ancestors must have used auditory information as well, I thought to myself. Why else would I be listening to my neighbors have sex?

While thinking about that I began to feel ashamed, partly because of my prudish upbringing – especially the various times I was disciplined over sexual matters: pornographic photos in seventh grade, an explicit story in eighth grade, the single condom in my wallet in tenth grade. I also wondered what my girlfriend would think if she came home from work and saw me this way. Maybe she’d be thrilled, too. If she had come home I would have used telekinesis to dissolve her clothes. I wanted to hear those same noises within inches of my ears, to feel, at the same time, her warm breath on my neck.

So I felt ashamed, but not guilty. It did, however, make me wonder if people have listened to us through the walls – the walls we shared with three other apartments. More than that, I wondered what we sounded like. This sex seemed better than any I’ve had, but I do have what experts might call an “overactive imagination.”

Maybe I should close my eyes more often, and just listen to the sounds, I thought. I wonder if that alone could intensify the tactile perception.

In neuroscience class, I recalled, we learned the vast biochemical differences in sensory processing. That must be why each produces such a distinct kind of stimulation. But this isn’t why most people close their eyes or turn off the lights. Too often it’s an attempt to imagine being with somebody else…

I began to wonder why I wasn’t masturbating. It seemed like other people would have done that. Perhaps I was too frozen, trying not to move in the dim grey light of the room, as our two dogs watched me in confusion from their kennels. Suddenly the woman next door became louder, and her calls shifted in tone to something sharper, a more agitated scream.

It brought to mind my short time living in Chicago three years earlier. Sitting down to eat lunch in the living room on a Sunday afternoon, I overheard my roommate and his girlfriend producing the same clamor in their bedroom. That was the first time I heard other people having sex. It was strange, like the barrier between me and pornographic videos had suddenly been broken. My trauma was worsened because I hadn’t felt the intimate touch of a woman in almost a year.

The sounds from the other apartment quieted down, and in a way I felt disappointed. Listening to the two of them was utterly invigorating. I felt absolutely alive, pulsing with an energy I hadn’t known in some time. Leading up to this, the forces of the world had started to become really overbearing. I’d recently finished grad school, yet had no job nor any real friends. But this was a fresh shot of life!

I heard the shower turn on, and I figured one or both of them must have engaged in this act right after waking up. Then I heard someone open their apartment door, followed by a car door. I lifted a single strip of the venetian blinds and was surprised at what I saw. The woman, who looked to be about 5’3” and in her early twenties, wore jeans and a red pea coat. This brunette looked rather normal, not at all the sexual predator I had conjured in my mind. She lifted a small suitcase out of the trunk of her sedan and walked back towards the door. Winter break had just begun for colleges, so I figured she must be visiting her long-distance boyfriend; hence, the explosive vocalizations that come with delayed gratification.

I tried to compose myself, to finish packing for my own trip. I breathed deeply and reveled in the awareness that such a strange experience had injected me with a new sense of optimism, something I’d been lacking for half a year. More than anything, it made me look forward to the future.

* This sentence was unconsciously adapted from a line in the book Desolation Angels by Jack Kerouac. I realized the similarity only after publishing this short story. Still, I felt that an acknowledgment was in line.

View Noises Through the Wall at Supraterranean

(photo by Miles Tsang*)

Some promoters wouldn’t book you because you weren’t popular enough, others because you were popular with the wrong crowds. I met this one set of Rastafarian cats running a venue out of Harlem who told me my bands couldn’t play because they were white. I asked if the word “unity” rang any bells with them, and he asked if the word “apartheid” rang any with me. The point was moot and I had no choice but to tell “Blunted Me with Science,” the Rasta New Wave band I was managing, that they couldn’t play with their idols Bad Brains because of the color of their skin. It was a shame too, the fellas in the band had been telling me about this “Devo style cover of ‘banned in D.C.’” that I was dying to hear.

More often than not you could find ample booking if you were willing to settle for the emo scene. This being the heyday of New Jersey’s emo fallout, every church, VFW, and basement was a retrofitted showcase for self-indulgent, misguided, tight-jeaned Maiden fans convinced that they too were the next big thing. Hard to blame them, record companies really WERE snatching up bands from the area like hotcakes. Having dibs on a venue during this period was like staking a claim on an undiscovered oilfield, promoters could just kick back and watch the money pile in.

Local emo bands became bitter rivals, fighting to death for opening slots on gigs they themselves wouldn’t have paid to see. Record contracts were popping up in the strangest of places. Suddenly even the smallest showcase presented the potential for life-changing emo success. But people only wanted to hear what they knew, shitty high school poetry sung over recycled Taking Back Sunday riffs. Ska and punk bands were confined to two venues on either side of the state that were perpetually overbooked and impossible to play. I only got on one of these venues once, and it was a nightmare. I’d misread the show’s roster and accidentally booked my Latin/Jazz fusion group on a September 11^th punk show.

The first sign of trouble came when the opening band, who arrived at the show in a leopard print hearse, started their set shouting “FUCK FIRE FIGHTERS!” Hernando, the leader of the Latin group, went into a frenzy. He came from a long line of firemen, and had lost an uncle to the Trade Center rescue teams. Nando, as he never let me call him, was a pretty level guy, but to hear someone say something like that . . . well . . .

Two sets later he and his boys climbed on stage with their horns and congas. “In response to the viscous declarations of the first band (if you could really call them that) we’d like to take a moment to commemorate a group of valiant heroes from across the mighty Hudson River.” I could feel the tension in the room, the punks gathering together in one corner making obscene gestures at the stage and the rest of the crowd waiting silently for what would happen next.

“These heroes,” Nando continued, “risked life and limb to save New York, if not the world, from a terrible threat the likes of which we’d never seen before. We hope you will join us in honoring these tragically underrated New Yorker heroes, saints even, with this song.” And with that he counted the band off. Much to the surprise of everyone in the cramped auditorium, the tune which followed was a straight cover of Ray Parker Jr.’s “Ghostbusters.” Although most of the crowd enjoyed it, Nando and co. still got beat up after the show by the opening punk band. That was a given, those guys’ll smash anything. What’s really bad is when the promoter’s the one trying to wring your neck.

I’d been living in the van with “Karl Marx and The Kommies,” a 5 piece rocksteady group on their first tour, and tensions were running high. There’s only so long you can live off Hostess’ Fruit Pies and Mountain Dew before you snap, and Fast Eddie, the band’s chicken-picking lead guitarist, had actually proposed this as his senior thesis back at Bergen Community College. It got rejected of course, which made him twice as angry as before. He wasn’t a violent person, but he could pass aggression like a motherfucker. “Donny,” he’d say to their drummer, “maybe if you stopped smoking all those cancer sticks you’d be able to keep up with the rest of us on ‘Ranking Full Stop.’ You’re going to die if you don’t, just saying.” Donny, on the other hand, was an extremely violent person and would usually respond to this by forcefully holding Eddie’s head out the window of the moving bandwagon and telling him that he’d die first.

All of this disappeared when they got on stage. It evaporated into the music. Even at gigs like this, where there wasn’t a single dude in the crowd wearing men’s jeans, they managed to draw some skanking. Not the easy kind either, but the hectic “Pick it up, Pick it up, Pick it up!” type that haunts rude boys’ wet dreams.

Overall the show was a success, the boys had more of a draw than even the headlining act, “Cross The Street Not Down The Road” (an up-and-coming emo band with a sound indistinguishable from anyone else’s), and were looking forward to a night in the lap of luxury; which, by their standards consisted of a moderately priced Chinese dinner and a round of Olde English. But it wasn’t meant to be.

The promoter played it cool, claiming we hadn’t earned the money, but after retrieving the evening’s ticket quotas from the doorman and presenting him incontrovertible proof, he came clean. He said bands like “Cross The Street Not Down The Road” didn’t play without a signed minimum of eight hundred dollars. Even if they didn’t draw a crowd (which they didn’t), contractually they were still entitled to that amount. Such agreements hold up in court, the promoter explained, and paying the band now would save him a lot in legal fees.

I didn’t care and told him so with a series of superlative attestations to his mother’s promiscuity. My boys had earned their money fair and square and wouldn’t have enough to keep up the tour without it. The promoter laughed, saying that if the band wanted to stay afloat they should “get with the times” and “play music the kids actually listen to.” I tried telling him he was a closed minded cog in a corporate machine threatening the very fabric of music itself, but he’d stopped listening.

So off I went to round up be band, leaving in my wake a slew of thinly veiled allusions as to how sorry the promoter would be when I returned. Before I could reach the door I saw him whistle to a large Russian fellow working security and give him a few violent hand signals directed towards me.

The Ruskie came running and jumped into a half kick, half lunge at my chest. Making a split second decision, I hopped back a step and pressed myself against the side of the entrance hall. It worked too, the bouncer had been aiming for me at the hall’s center and was unable to reroute his course midair. He flew right past me, ramming headlong into the church’s heavy steel door and taking an emo kid with him.

I looked down at the two, the hulking former-soviet giant sprawled out unconscious atop the flimsy, moaning skeleton hipster. His shirt read “fragile,” and for the first time I actually laughed out loud at a pre-fab, Hot Topic one-liner.

“Keep your dirty money!” I shouted and stormed out of the venue, making sure I further smashed the bouncer’s head upon opening the door. It felt so good I did it again. Then a third time for luck.

Outside the Kommies were waiting in their van. “Boys, I’m a failure as a manager and do hereby resolve to never book a show again” I announced.

“Oh come on,” Donny said, “You’re not that bad!”

“Yeah!” Eddie and Tim chimed in.

“I couldn’t get your money” I said.

“I take that back” Donny said, “He is that bad.”

“But I’ve got an idea how to get this son of a bitch back real good and leave our mark on this whole god forsaken music scene! You with me?”

“Will it cost us anything?” Tim asked.

“A little” I replied.

“Well . . .” the boys said in unison. This was a technique they’d often used to squeeze a free pizza out of me.

“Alright, fine, I’ll flip the bill,” I said, “Just get in the car; we’ve got work to do.”

“Alright!” the boys cheered.

We drove to the closest Wal-Mart and picked up 4 bottles of the most potent deer musk we could find. Then, driving back to the venue, we dumped it all over the promoter’s car. This being deer country, the smell attracted dozens of horny deer within minutes. The deer, being fully aroused and disappointed to find this strange metal contraption at the odor’s source, became enraged and tore the fuck out of the car. We could see them running from the woods in hordes as we drove away through the dreary Jersey evening. This was our mark on the music scene, and thought it was forgotten within a week and brought about no long term or radical changes to the tyranny of commercial music as a whole, you should have seen all those deer trying to run with raging hard-ons bouncing between their legs. It was priceless.

*Click here to view original photo.

View Scene It All Before at Supraterranean

(photo by Jim Thompson*)

1

“Mornin’ Roy! Have a cappucino.” I hand Roy a beer. He looks at me like I’m missing out on something.

“Water first…” he mumbles back. Roy gets off the ratty old couch that he slept on. That damn couch has to have a million little mice swimming in it, giving it a nice massage vibration. Maybe that’s why Roy always sleeps on it when we’re here. “Dude, I was feeling up all the chicks in this place! They all let me have a feel of their tits!”

Trying to change the subject, I say to him, “I think we over did it a little last night,” as I notice the vomit on the downstairs window. My view of the first floor isn’t the best. All I can see is the door, the window, and the stairs leading up to where I am. But the view out the big bay window directly in front of me is quite nice. Someone either can vomit seven feet out or someone threw it up there. Maybe as a joke since it will never be cleaned and either way, the ridiculousness of the act is impressive.

“You’re probably right. Where did everyone go even?” Roy asks me.

“Home I guess. Shit went down hill once the radio broke.” I say back, not quite remembering everything.

“Did something happen with you and Tiff last night?”

“Umm… yeah. But it wasn’t what us protagonists hope we end up with. Now, let’s go get some fucking breakfast.”

2

“Everything’s set,” Dan says. “The ice is salted, the beers are submerged, and people are coming.” It’s going to be a good night. Friday. Summer. Dusk.

I sit down with these four douche bags I call friends. There’s Dan, Jeff, Ted, and Roy. Roy’s the only one I would really consider an actual friend. The rest are just people that I drink with.

We’re talking about some bullshit that happened last time we did this. A window broke. Ted was punched in a case of mistaken identity. I accidentally pissed my pants by taking them off and then urinating on them while they lay on the floor. The usual party stuff.

A car pulls up. We’re on the back balcony, but can hear it from around The Beaver Den. That’s where we are, The Beaver Den. Roy’s brother’s deer camp. A nice little two-story shack of a hovel. It’s clad with two couches and a bitchin’ flat-screen TV on the top floor. The bottom floor contains a bar and the exits. Those exits are a God-send.

A car door opens and shuts. Then another one. Another. We don’t move. It’s Dan’s girlfriend and her friends. Brigette, Dan’s girl, is basically the leader. Her friends, Tabby, Donna, and Amanda are sycophants to Brigette’s way. She’s an evil dictator with great legs and a smile so shiny that you need a camera obscura just to look at it. These girls are your modern, every-day, Abercrombie & Fitch wearing, “The Hills” watching, all-American stuck-up bitch types. They feel superior because they’re attractive. Together, they have an IQ of about 300. We watch them slowly appear over the horizon that is the stairs. One after another. Brigette in the lead of course.

“Hey guys!” I hear Brigette say. She opens the door in between the statement, making the ‘Hey’ quiet and ‘guys!’ loud. If she was a man, I’d slap her. The rest of her friends wave and say hi. We all reply in a similar manner.

“Hey babe,” Day yells in an attempt to be funny but ends up being more asshole-like.

“Dan… You are a jackass,” Jeff tells him in an obvious statement, shaking his head. Jeff and Dan are cousins and have known each other for their entire lives. Jeff’s one of these guys that will always tell you what he thinks of you. This usually offends no one and if it does offend a person, that person is a tool and needs to get over themselves. Jeff would be the kind of guy to tattoo ‘Love’ and ‘Hate’ on his knuckles if he wasn’t afraid of needles.

“Shut the fuck up, Jeff. You’re gay!” Dan retorted back. Dan wasn’t very clever.

Looking around, everyone seemed to match up. Dan was with Brigette, Jeff was dating Donna, Tabby had a guy in a different group of friends, Roy has the same situation as Tabby. Amanda was freshly single and being persued by these douche bags from an adjacent town. Ted is dating in the same group as Roy. I am the odd man out. The one searching desperately for someone to sleep with while no women wanted to touch me outside of an occasional hug.

I was surrounded by people but I was alone. These people are the most shallow folks on the planet. I felt like an Angler Fish amongst Salmon, even though I was a about three feet deeper than these fools.

3

…And the night advances. Dusk has passed into the early stages of night. A warm dark canvas easing us into our self-propelled idiocy. The conversations have turned at this point, getting more serious. Politics comes into the forum.

“I’m glad we’re fighting this war!” says Dan, “It gets it so we can do this.” He’s referring to sitting on a balcony, drinking beer. Dan’s ignorance toward the current occupation is only matched in size by his ego.

“What does that have to do with anything?” I ask him.

“Those sand niggers want to take our rights! I’m glad we’re killing them all.”

“Most of the people we kill are innocent.”

“Well so be it. Why do they hide with the terrorists if they don’t deserve to be killed?”

“They are just living in the places they grew up. Just like you and I, Dan.”

“Let me ask you a question, Leo. You have a gun to your face. It’s between you and three innocent people and it’s your call on who gets killed. What would you do?”

“If they’re definitely innocent, I’d die. No question about it.”

“Yeah, well if you had a gun in your face you’d think differently…”

At that point, Tabby changed subjects which was most likely a good idea.

“Did anyone see the new episode of The Hills? Can you believe it?!” These idiots nodded except for Ted, Roy, and myself.

And thankfully, we heard another car pull up. It was some guys from the adjacent town mentioned earlier.

4

Things start to get blurry at this point. Far more people have shown up. It’s officially night. Everyone’s dancing and drinking and passive-aggressively flirting. Ted and Roy’s female companions show up with their friends. Ted leaves with his woman off into the darkness of the outdoors, but Roy is too drunk to care about his woman. The radio’s playing some mid-90′s country song and everyone is dancing like the white people that they are.

“Dude, lets go have a smoke,” Jeff tells me while sneaking up on me out of the crowd, from behind.

“Sure,” I answer back.

Walking out the front door of The Beaver Den and onto the porch, you get a sight of the woods and the couples in cars making out and fucking. I was envious. Sex at this time in my life was something that eluded me. I was too fat and weird to be appealing to the women in these cliques despite my fevered attempts to get their pants off.

Jeff hands me a cigarette and lighter, but I never inhale the first drag of a smoke. That’s where all the demons are hiding.

“So Leo, did you see that Tiffany’s here? Man, she is fine as hell…” Jeff blows out smoke and fans it away with his hand.

“Yeah she is. Gotta love them red heads.” I look back through the window on the door and glance over at her. A stunner of a woman if I’ve ever seen one. She looks like a young Rita Hayworth. Long flowing auburn hair cascading down a moon-round face with vivid blue eyes to shoulders exposed by spaghetti straps. Your eyes can’t help but follow her frame which would remind one of a thinner Marilyn Monroe with tits like ripe grape fruits and an ass that would set your hand on fire if you tried to touch it.

“She’s single now.” Jeff hinted in hopes I would make a move. I’m positive of rejection, though. Tiffany is the chick that everyone puts on a pedestal. Even other women stare in awe.

We both look in the window at her and it’s clear to the simplest idiot that those parts of Venus she calls her legs are taking her outside to us.

5

“Hey guys,” Tiffany shouts with a big silly grin wrapping her face. “What the fuck’s goin’ on?” Her speech slurred, it’s very obvious that Tiffany is (to put it bluntly) shitfaced.

“Hey, Tiff,” Jeff replies, “Whats up with you?”

“Fuckin’ partying, man! Hey Leo, can I have a smoke?” She’s 17, so she can’t buy her own yet. I give her a cigarette and light it for her. “Thanks, hun,” she says with it dangling from her soft, delicate lips.

Tiffany looks up at the sky and blows out the first puff of smoke. “Can you believe what Roy is doing in there?” she says.

“What’s he doing?” I ask her.

“He’s running around poking girls in the boobs.”

Jeff’s eyes grow big. “Ah, the Witch Stick!”

“What the fuck is the ‘Witch Stick’?” she asks.

“It’s where he runs around poking girls. In the morning he’ll talk about how he was touching tits.” I tell her.

“…okay…”

“Well, that Roy. He doesn’t mean any harm.” Jeff says. And the truth is that he doesn’t. He just wants to touch women but tries to do it appropriately. He fails.

“I need a beer,” Jeff states after throwing his just-emptied can toward a random couple making out against the wall of The Den. He left me out there with Her… the goddess of the tri-county area.

Nerved up by our recent abandonment, I try to start a conversation. “So what’s been up with you?” I light another smoke as she puts hers out. Talking with Tiffany is like being on stage by yourself. It’s far too easy to get anxiety and pass out.

“Oh, nothing. Just waiting to graduate and working.” She’s looking for an escape. This is my chance to make any moves that I need to make to get her naked.

“So…” I pause, trying to come up with something, “Have you ever been on a tour of the Den?” Such a stupid thing to say in an attempt to get her alone in some shaded corner where no one will know and we can be in peace. The Beaver Den is about the most one-demensional place you can get in these parts.

“Umm… well yeah. It’s just two floors and no rooms.” She eyes hard for a way out.

“Well what about the secret areas?” I ask. My responses keep getting lamer and lamer.

“What secret area?” She answers. Tiffany sounds intrigued and thoughts pop up in my head about how I haven’t entirely lost my chance yet.

“Come on. I’ll show you.” She followed me off the deck and into shadows.

Thank God (or more likely carbon and hydrogen) for booze.

6

We walk around the outskirts of The Den. I have no idea what I’m looking for or how to keep up this charade. I point to the area behind the 80 gallon propane tank.

“Shh… It’s a secret!” I tell Tiffany, trying to persuade her of my spontaneous and incredibly stupid remark.

“Umm… okay…” she says, looking around for any of her friends that have since either found someone to fornicate with or are looking for such a match. “So what is the big thing that needs to be kept secret at The Den?”

I sense my chance and move into her slightly. She doesn’t back away. “This…” I say and make the move. I plant my lips on hers. She tastes like Vodka and Marlboro.

And Tiffany doesn’t move away. I start to feel her body. Her back, her legs, her ass, her tits. She’s smooth and warm. A small gasp leaps from between her lips, enticing me in further.

Suddenly I’m launched into Heaven. I’m on a sunny beach. There’s a slight breeze. Tiffany is laying on a towel next to me, topless and on her back. We’re in Hawaii and I’m flying a kite and drinking a Corona. Some kids are making sand castles off in the distance. You can hear them laughing. I’m in a lounge chair, under a big umbrella. Everything is at peace and I am happy. Once again, thank God for booze.

Then she pushes me away. “I need a beer,” she tells me.

“Uh, yeah. So do I,” is my reply. Unfortunately, it was true. I follow her around the corner to the deck, walk up the steps, open the door, and hear a crash.

7

The radio flies down from the second floor towards Roy’s head while he dances like a jackass to the same music that everyone else is dancing to. The radio misses him by a few feet. Looking up, Dan is standing there, shaking with anger and panic.

“Fuck you, Roy!” Dan yells, “Stay away from Brigette!” Apparently, his Witch Sticking got him in some trouble, and even worse, with one of his best friends. I’m not surprised. No one is off limits when it comes to the Stick.

“Dude… What?” Roy asks Dan. I wouldn’t be surprised if Roy doesn’t remember doing what he’s accused of.

“Dan, you broke the radio!” Five or six people yell out just barely out of sync and pissed about the lack of music. Looking straight forward, Dan projectile vomits so far that some splashes against the bay window showing him a barely lit view. With Dan still shaking, two guys from the adjacent town mentioned earlier grab Dan by both of his shirt’s shoulders and throw him down the staircase. He hits the wall that’s right before the stairs turn the corner, tossing a little more spent booze onto the window there. He stops his roll. Before Dan can get up, these two big fuckers grab him and drag him out the front door.

“Fuck you…” Dan tries utter as he’s being tossed onto the ground just off the deck. Kicks fly towards his stomach while he’s down on all fours. I feel bad for just standing there, watching. I mean, here’s a person that’s supposed to be one of my best friends getting the shit beaten out of him, and I do nothing. But oh well. He really doesn’t deserve to be physically hurt. Maybe by Roy, but not from these two losers. One holds Dan in a Full Nelson while the other gut punches him.

About five seconds later, Jeff (Dan’s cousin, if you’ll remember) runs out and clocks the Full Nelson-er in the jaw, causing him to release Dan and fall to the ground. The other douche takes a swing at Jeff, but misses while Jeff catches him with an upper cut.

Everyone is whooping and hollering for one side or the other, but no one else makes a violent move. Jeff bows to everyone watching; a condescending action, but a deserved one also. The assholes that jumped Dan get up, holler a bunch of threats, and drive off. No one cares.

8

About an hour passes since the fight. Dan had a bruised stomach with a matching ego. He left with Brigette to go to her house. The lucky fucker… despite getting his ass handed to him, he’s still going to get some actual good ass handed to him.

And here I sit at the bar of The Beaver Den, beer in hand, smoking a clove cigarette (where the Hell did that come from?!), talking to total strangers. The guy I started talking to looks like a Gregory Peck with Downs Syndrome. The girl is a cross between Judy Garland and Julia Roberts, if that makes any sense…

“Well, Leo,” the guy says, “just keep your chin up. Tiffany should realize what a fucking great dude you are.” Booze has a wonderful effect that makes strangers love you and vice-versa.

“Yeah,” says the chick, “You’re cute. I mean, you’re no Spencer (Hills… kill me), but you’re okay.”

“You guys,” I can’t stop smoking the clove, which is about burning my lips at this point, “Tiffany is… more than okay. She’s more than ever!” I realize that ‘more than ever’ doesn’t make sense in this context, but don’t care. I spit out the clove and light a regular smoke as soon as the clove leaves my mouth.

“Dude… Leo!” the guy yells like he’s out of breath, “Everything. Will. Be. Alright.”

“I know. She’s just so fine and what-not.” I say back. I eye the bottom floor of The Den, looking for Tiffany. She disappeared after we were together. Maybe she left. Maybe she left with someone else. Sometimes I hate my thoughts.

“Who the fuck!” a voice is heard from upstairs along with footsteps towards the staircase.

“Oh, fuck… here she comes,” the guy says in a whisper towards his womanly counterpart. And from atop the staircase appear those amazing legs, followed by hips sharp like razors, followed by a torso curved so beautifully that it made you believe in God, followed by a beautiful round face containing sharp blue eyes, followed by hair red like leaves in fall.

“Is somebody talking about Tiffany?” Watching her mouth move is like looking at Aphrodities’ tits.

“Hey, what’s up?” I ask, squinting at the lights that seem to back-light her curves.

“Leo… Why are you guys talking about me? Leave me alone.” Ouch. My heart.

“Tiffany, would you like to go out with me sometime. Sober, even?” Asking this question after 15-some-odd beers still makes my heart beat fast.

“Ugh… come outside with me, Leo.” This reply lets me know to prepare for the worst.

9

Tiffany amazes in the moon light. Her eye color responds well to the lack of abundant light by glowing themselves. Her hair reflects ideas of the Heaven I felt earlier.

“Leo, I’m sorry. I don’t feel like we would make a good couple.”

“Didn’t you feel anything earlier?” I ask. “I felt electricity. Why didn’t you feel the same?”

“Because you don’t give off the same voltage.” I hate when people think of clever comparisons to things I’ve said.

“Well, so you don’t like me… Fuck you.” I tell Tiffany. This makes her soft, delicate lips pout and tremble a little.

“It’s not that I don’t like you… It’s that I don’t want to date you,” she confides, trying to throw water on the bridges I’m covering with lighter fluid.

“Why not? Am I too fat? Am I too ugly?” My insecurity is starting to show. The match is lit.

“No! You’re just not the kind of guy I would date.” She’s right. Her boyfriends up to this point have been asshole jocks. The type of douche you’re surprised hasn’t hit her. The same guys along the line of those that beat up Dan.

“I’m sorry I’m not an asshole!” I shout, thinking that would shut her up. ‘Boom!’ goes the bridge

“Oh, but you so fucking are!” Tiffany shot back. And she was right. The second those words left her mouth, I knew that she was right. Leave it to The Beaver to show how wrong I am.

“I’m sorry…” I tried to amend.

“Shut up and give me a cigarette,” she said with eyes that shined like tears were too afraid to dive from the ducts.

I took two out of my pack and handed one to her. The last two, signifying the night’s end. I lit one for me, then the one I gave to her.

10

The world is filled with sadists. The assholes stuck in early morning traffic that complain so heavily want to be there. The assholes that beat the hell out of irrationally upset drunks prove that they want to be hated. The self-loathing cynical losers that do nothing but tear people when they get rejected, even though all of us want to be sad. What stops us from leaving? What stops us from giving in and shooting up our respective circles? What stops us from adventuring outward?

Humanity is full of fright. Especially when it comes to leaving what you know. Even when what you know is the opposite of what you want.

This story was originally published on Supraterranean in August 2009. *View Jim Thompson’s photo on Flickr.

View Fighting For Love On Mars at Supraterranean

View Meeting Devin at Supraterranean

Here was the conversation as it actually happened:

“Oh, so you play drums.”

“Yeah . . . you too?”

“Uh-huh, this is my big paycheck, I lead the band.”

“Cool, man. Dig it.”

And here’s the conversation that wasn’t happening:

“So you’re here to steal MY blankets to sleep with MY girl?”

“Sounds about right.”

“And this doesn’t bother you?”

“Nah man, a girl like this you can’t control, she’s like the wind.”

Well, I sure got a taste of my own medicine when I tried to let Annabella’s crazy antics fly in the secular world of Washington Heights. My band was playing a show, and just as our singer spit the words “I don’t need another lover to complicate the situation,” Annabella was outside rounding up people for an orgy.

This wasn’t her first attempt, either. Previously she’d tried to swing a three-way between me and her other boyfriend while her pops watched. Needless to say I did my best to bow out of that one, but this time she caught me all sorts of fucked up and ready for anything. Problem was, by the time we got to leaving the bar, there were only 2 girls in the group and about 7 or 8 guys. Annabella wasn’t setting us up for an orgy; she was shooting for a gang bang.

As the second half of the crew drove off to meet us at the apartment, it was Anabella, our friend Stacy, Conrad, Harold and myself who walked down through the Bronx that evening to Washington Heights; the girls stripping down to their panties and screaming the whole way. Crowds were forming around them as they urinated down city steps and fingered each other. It wasn’t long before they were totally naked and walking past the 50th precinct. Harold and I were in a total panic, but the cops just smiled and waved.

When we got to Stacy’s place we were stopped by an off-duty Bx7 line. “HEY YOU GUYS, COME HERE, I WANNA TAKE A PICTURE” the driver shouted. He looked as though he’d had a few to drink himself. He invited us on the bus and quickly explained that he had a camera somewhere and that we’d have to wait for it. In the meantime he offered to drive us around.

This was good enough for the rest of the crew, who hopped into the back, got naked, and began to fuck, but Harold was skeptical – for one thing, we didn’t need to go anywhere, we were already at our apartment, and for another, where was this guy’s camera?

Finally, after the fifth or sixth loop around the block, Harold noticed the driver starting to slip out of his pants. He grabbed us by the hair shouting “THIS IS OUR STOP” and flipped the door switch out of the driver’s hand. As we bolted out into the street, the driver came to a halt and stood at the side of the road glaring at us. For the rest of the evening, each time I’d walk to the bodega to get more beer, he’d be right there in his bus demanding I come over to take care of some “unfinished business.”

Back in the apartment, everyone who’d been admiring Annabella all evening hopped on her like a 25-cent grocery store ride with me in the corner getting drunk. I got into the fray for a little while and even tried shit with Stacy, but it just wasn’t the same. Seven guys to two girls just isn’t right.

Other guys in the room sensed this too and asked if I was really down with them balling my girl. The response every time would be one which, just a week before, I’d been pretty fond of: “a girl like this you can’t control, she’s like the wind.”

As the evening wound down I found myself sitting with a couple of the benchwarmers downing the rest of the 40s. The conversation between them went as follows:

“I think everyone in here thinks you’re gay.”

“Nuh-uh, everyone in here thinks YOU’RE gay.”

My sole contribution:

“You’re both gay, now shut up so I can get some sleep!”

The next morning insecurities were still riding high. The first thing I saw was Annabella in the middle of a mass of naked bodies vaguely resembling the pantheon. I had a Clash sort of “should-I-stay-or-should-I-go” moment and eventually decided that she was happy and that was good enough for me. She was shipping out to another festival that night though and I couldn’t figure out if I wanted to say goodbye. I grabbed every coin in the room and flipped them for an answer. Each concluded that I should go, but I didn’t like that answer. I sat on the corner of the bed with my pants and shoes on for a minute when out of nowhere, Annabella throws everyone to the floor and tackles me. “What are you doing,” she says, “jealousy isn’t a good look for you.”

We spent the rest of the day together in the apartment fucking – she’d apparently only been with really lazy hippie lovers and needed a good old fashioned Jersey railing to spice up her life – when she started spouting stuff about love. Not the hippie sort of “I love everybody” routine either, but things like “I know saying you’re the love of my life is clichéd, but you make me LOVE my life and I love you more than anything.” Shit was starting to smell of monogamy, and since we really didn’t have anything else in common, that was all she’d talk about. Every other sentence was about how she could see us together for ever and she would die for me. Every sentence besides that was about the moon being in Aquarius and the spirits mingling with the goddess for some kind of celestial kegger. Needless to say, I was getting a headache.

I took her to a Harlem pickup game and she couldn’t grasp it. She’d honestly never seen basketball before. She told me that these “natives” with their “ritualistic chakra cleansings” were just what she needed to “ease her spirit” before it was forcibly “removed from her body” by the “evil force.” I looked down at my hand and caught that it was tightly wound in a fist. I’d never been this frustrated with anyone before.

“Do you ever listen to yourself speak, or do you just black whenever your lips start flapping?!” I demanded.

She just looked at me and smiled. “I know, I know, I’d be thinking the same thing if someone started spouting this bullshit at me. I’m surprised you’ve even put up with it for so long.”

So needless to say, I’m through with hippie chicks. Somebody get me a nice businesswoman in pants suits.

View The Disproportionate Orgy at Supraterranean

After making this affirmation, Bob’s gaze shifted back down to his unfamiliar bed. In it, curled next to him, was a figure of particular heft and altitude. From under the comforter protruded the most heinous set of bunions he had ever seen, and somewhere amidst them was a pair of feet too. He knew he had to get out of there before this sleeping giant awoke, but his pants were nowhere to be seen.

Throwing himself upon a set of scattered dresser drawers, Bob rifled through for dear life. The only thing not covered in blood or semen was a bleach-stained floral print muumuu. He was about to throw it back when he heard a coarse, screeching yawn from the bed and knew it was too late.

Walking out onto the streets, Bob was hollered at by everyone he passed. It annoyed him at first, but then he realized how easily free shit started coming his way. He never had to pay for a train ride or cigarette again. He could even get some lovesick businessman to buy him the 40s he needed.

“Thank God I 86’d that mustache the other day,” Bob thought as a stockbroker bought him a half dozen St. Ides, “or else this scam woulda never worked!”

Clutching the bottles in hand and waiting for another train, Bob thought to himself about women’s rights and equality. He couldn’t help but wonder why anyone would want to relinquish free gifts like these just to be on a level playing field with the opposite sex. As a man, he had to busk his ass off in the streets to make money; learning how to play guitar since no one would support a bum with no talents. But within his first 12 hours dressed as a woman, he’d raked in more freebies than he could ever imagine.

Just then, a group of scantily clad Jezebels approached twirling purses filled with bricks. “Look at the new girl,” one laughed amidst dainty chomps of a White Owl stogy. “Cuttin’ in on our territory and not givin’ us a cut!”

“Poor form,” said the hooker at the head of the pack, and before Bob could get a word in he was on the receiving end of an imitation Prada pummeling. Somewhere in the fray his bottles fell and smashed with a vibration that ricocheted off the linoleum walls.

The fight was called when there were no more press-on nails to reapply. The head hooker rallied her troops, gave Bob one last kick in the ribs, and said “You ain’t getting no more freebies in this town looking like that. Now you godda work for it like the rest of us!”

As they left the terminal, Bob sat on his bench and wept. Even dressed as a woman, he couldn’t find it in him to hit a woman back. What’s more, without the alcohol he knew we wouldn’t allow him in the apartment, and he didn’t even have money for a train ticket. He was at an all time low when a pudgy business type waddled in and took the empty seat next to his.

“What’s wrong dollface?” said the suit as he produced a tissue and wiped Bob’s tears. “So you got a little banged up, it’s a rough neighborhood, that sort of thing’s bound to happen.”

“But,” he said as he whipped out a wad of bills, “at least your lips still look good.”

View What’s Wrong, Dollface? at Supraterranean

“They’re the tastiest!”says Scorager, who is camped in a symbolic lack of luxury – one 1974 Dodge Caravan with nothing more than the last remaining case of Peach flavored UNITHONG panties.

“You could say this is the only thing I have left to live for,” says Scorager.”NO, really, you couldsay that. I don’t even like when women wear them anymore. It’s fucked up. I can’t help it. I just want to eat the panties.”

Scorager then went on to describe his diet consisting of different flavored panties to correlate with the days meals. “Each one has to be a three courser,” says Scorager. “Seriously, I need some help. This is a cry for help.”

Scorager, having recently only come out of his household shower (in which he subsisted on only Unithong panties and tears), has developed what scientists like to call “Panty-gut;” a self-inflicted disease not dissimilar to scurvy, in which one’s tear ducts become relocated to the salivary glands. “Why are you laughing when I talk, I seriously need help. You’re the first person I’ve ever felt comfortable enough to reach out to. Why don’t you acknowledge what I say? Turn the tape recorder off!”

When asked when Scorager was planning to come out it was suggested that the interview be ended and that I never come back

View Martin Scorager at Supraterranean

A form of pure excitement infused and consumed with happiness.

Then a mission a massive improbability defeated by skill knowledge and planning.

Eggs over-easy. Recruitment plans detailed. A punk show. Some crazies.

Pancakes. Soundwave weapons, and community planning. Things started to happen faster.

We built the school. We recruited parents with prospective kids, prospective parents, and teachers building the community.

Adding to it ourselves popping out a boy then a girl. We taught, we fought and sometimes even parented.

* * *

Pitt, he got his name at four or five when he decided to make a pool and dug a giant hole

while we were out reclaiming some plutonium the Army “lost” to one of the remnant factions of the neocons.

He spent all summer digging that hole, more I think because he was trying to live up to his new name, than wanting a pool that bad.

Of course after I got the pool plumbed and self heated using a reflective bottom and a greenhouse canopy.

But Courtney had to spoil things showing him another Pitt to use a s a namesake.

Sethra got her name at about the same age when she beat me for the first time in SC2. She was already familiar with the character

and took it as a great compliment. It took three days for her conscience to win out and confess to hacking.

“Cheating’s ok as long as you accept the repercussions,. noogie time!”

Everything and everyone seemed to accelerate changing to rapidly for me to catch.

The kids covering the biology I learned in college in elementary.

Craig and Jen running the school deciding what info needed to be disseminated to the elite of the next direction.

Ryan and Marc making weapons then creating defenses against them.

I was falling behind. The only times I caught up or pulled ahead were concerts, opps, and doin it.

Time was moving faster than I could handle.

* * *

“The West Wing, Scrubs, Homicide,,, My So Called Life” Courtney “Are you only letting them watch the stuff you grew up with?”

“Yyyeeessssssss”

“Don’t you think you’re depriving them of being a part of modern culture.”

“Modern culture is for rejects and retards. So yes I will “deprive them of that.”

“And the only regular tv you’ll let them watch will be Browns games right?”

* * *

“And the UFC, for educational purposes.”

“Hey Jen! Vers finally lost it!” Craig yelled across the office.

“How’s that?” Jen

“You should have a religion class.” I

“Says the penultimate atheist.” Craig

“Think of it like a vaccination, a dose of the virus without the ability to reproduce.

Tell them all the stories showing them the incompatibilities, impossibilities and internal contradictions, those will be the antibodies.

You already have a mythology class what’s the big deal?”

“The big deal?, the big deal is mythology at least has some good writing.” Craig

“Zing!” Jen

* * *

As I sat in bed kneeled staring at myself chugging a milkjug of coolaid I wondered how I got so sweet.

I went down to get some food and found Trudy and Shade making meatnormises while Courtney was giving

the youngins a run down of what material was being covered according to their teachers’ planners.

“Isn’t that cheating?” I asked.

“It’s called reconnaissance Courtney

“We could intimidate and threaten them instead.” Sethra

“Blackmail?”

“Hold em hostage.” Shade

“Is torture going to far?” Trudy

Nos came from everywhere.

“Are your classes that hard?” I

“No, they’re great, this is just for entertainment purposes.” Sethra

Pitt “I think we should be spending more time discussing issues that are contested rather than

wrote memorization.”

‘Hhmmpf…he wants a class on “What the Browns need to do to win the AFC North.” Sethra

“I like it, maybe we could make it into a practical by terrorizing the Learner family into giving us personnel control.” I

I received stares from all directions.

“What you can do it, but I can’t.”

* * *

We painted a happytree rasturbation in one of the upstairs rooms, planned to take

out a known East African arms dealer and me and Courtney hooked up with the German teacher Mrs. Alexander.

It was a good day.

* * *

For breakfast we had german pancakes with fresh berries, whole and or mashed up into an almost jam.

Later I went to the shop to see if Ryan could whip something up for this ‘party’ I was planning.

“So, Ryan, you know those soundwave weapon dohickeys, do you think we could use them as speakers?”

“So you can kill people with music?”

“I want to put them in the pool, and like there aren’t any pool speakers remotely close to powerful

enough to make you feel the music the same way as you do standing in front of a regular speaker.

And I figure that if the 50 cal only penetrates three feet into water those soundwaves would create something

where the bass would toss you around and the treble blasts through your body vibrating all your small bones the same way regular bass vibrates the long bones.”

“Sounds plausible, when do you need them by?”

“Not for quite sometime. This is like step one of like lots in having a party at the house.”

“I’ll have em ready in two weeks.”

“You just said it was plausible a minute ago.”

“I didn’t care at that point.”

* * *

We put “the monster jumper” rasturbation in another room, planned a raid on a white pride group in Virginia, and I put it to Courtney real good.

It was a good day.

* * *

I reach out and hold her tight, it’s all I need.

And there’s my pet three headed dragon,

we’re out on the beach playing, fucking around and shit and one of the heads steals my hat and acts all retarded.

Then another takes it, does the same, and then the third, but on him it’s fuckin perfect he’s totally a fuckin tard.

And from then on I take them everywhere, and we go to Walmart, and Scott is there and he’s like

“What do you feed them?” and I’m like “Customers, nobody’s ever gonna miss these people.”

“Don’t you worry about their cholesterol

“They burn it off!!!” Hahahahahahhah.,. they’re fucking dragons they don’t have cholesterol.”

“But I might have to start towing away their cars.” I wondered as the dragons tossed back a few fatties

And then we went and played at the park. It was awesome. I loved those dragons,,. I woke up.

Still, they were great pets.

Potato pancakes for breakfast. Talk to the kids about the relationships between lines of fire and zone defense.

Ask Ryan for random ways to store a breath of oxygen. Go to sleep with Courtney.

Just knowing she existed would keep me going forever, but actually touching her, holding her, she felt like home. I sunk into the feeling.

* * *

I woke up with Courtney lying next to me her embrace sa,, Coffee I smell coffee. I scrambled downstairs and found we had unexpected visitors, the very best kind.

I smiled an earth shattering smile hugged them all ran over grabbed some food, the coffee pot, and herded them all into the living room.

Why, because these were people that made not being comfortable impossible.

Von and Vanessa were already engaged with the kids, Allie and Brandon interrogating Trudy on the effects of THC on lammas, on which she surprisingly know enough to

speak authoritatively. By that time I had enough sugar and caffeine to allow me to function.

“You want to put candy all over a lamma and to do this you want to get him stoned?”

“”If everybody shotgunned him he’s have to get high.” Brandon

“I like it.” Shade said a little too seriously.

“Can we try to get him to dance with us?” I

“Of course he’ll dance.” Brandon and Courtney said at the same time but in totally different ways.

At the shop Marc showed us some electron emmisomething something, lightning gun, it was sweet.

I asked Ryan if there was a good way to have an Abyss type entrance from the pool to the house, but he didn’t get what

I was saying so I told him I’d download it and show him. “Meanwhile how bout you work up some super evaporation fabrics.”

“Are you trying to create the next level of exercise apparel

“Fuck no, I love the feel of sweat, I just dislike wet swimsuits sometimes.”

“And you want me, me to work on it?”

“Umhm.”

Courtney and I spent the night snuggling. It was a straight up snuggle fest. I felt the carebears approve, understanding them far better.

* * *

“So we’ve got all these nukes that we don’t need right? I say we shoot em into space and blow em up in like prime numbers to

show anyone out there that might be watching there is intelligence out here.”

“But what if there’s martians and they think we’re trying to attack them.”

“We wouldn’t set them off in the solar system, if it’s possible I’d like em to go off outside the galaxy so there’s

more chance someone could see it. It would probably take like thousands of years, or fuck millions, I don’t know, and millions more for someone to see it,

but wouldn’t it be cool to say to the universe “There was someone out there.”",. “Besides Bugs could kick his ass.”

“I wasn’t talking about Marvin just martians in general.”

“Oh.” “Hey Pitt do you think Bugs could whup any martian or just Marvin?”

“Any martian.”

“Couldn’t aliens pick up our radio signals?” Trudy

“On the scale of things and with all sorts of criss crossing radiation no way any alien is picking up shit.” I

“I mean send a huge radio signal emitter out into nowhere instead of nukes, we could send a lot more information.” Trudy

“Trudy, in your plan nothing, nothing blows up. What’s the point?” I

“He has you there.” Shade

* * *

I woke to a sense of warmth in my stomach. A feeling of deep contentment and growth, possibly bowel cancer.

“Babe if I had bowel cancer do you think, would you be ok with, if I called it Quato.”

We walked downstairs to find mulberry yummyness and coffee that I swore had a hint of cinnamon.

After scarfing some of each I began to listen to what everyone else was sayin, instead of just faking it, while nibbling and sipping seconds.

“I’ve got a debate today with Brittney Burrow in philosophy Sethra

“On what?” Trudy

“Abortion, she’s prochoice.” Sethra

“You’re prolife???” Courtney

“Prorequired. Population control.” Pitt

“And for Lit I wrote a poem about rainbows!” Sethra

“Elitist rainbows that kill people?” Trudy

Later Ryan told us all about something or other.

I was staring at Courtney’s butt the whole time so I didn’t catch any of it, I hope she did.

Then Courtney told us all about capturing some people for some reason but the tank top was too much.

* * *

“How’d the debate go?” Trudy

“I won.” “She accepted my position

“What won the tight ass over?” I

“She was ok with any population control as long as there wouldn’t be any more of me.” Sethra

“No need to worry on that front.” Pitt said causing Trudy to tilt her head and Shade to smile.

“How was practice?” I asked Pitt

“The coach is a tard farmer.” Sethra

* * *

“It was good, we’re installing a spread option offense and running a tampa two.” Pitt

“He’s a tard farmer.” Sethra

* * *

Courtney’s hair. Courtney’s hair in my face. It feels good.

It feels nice. And I’m climbing again. It’s a cliff a thousand feet high.

and I’m there in the middle. And I’m in bed arched back looking out the window and I can’t understand. I’m climbing, climbing with purpose.

I woke up slowly but for realzies with my head mirroring Courtney’s which makes whatever happened insignificant, but still..

“Have I ever gone mountain climbing in South America?”

“You don’t even know how.”

Downstairs eating breakfast. “I want to go to USC next year.” Pitt

“For what?” Courtney

“Chicks.” Pitt

“Hell yeah.” I

“I going to go too.” Sethra

“And you want to go for?” Trudy

“The chicks.” Sethra

* * *

Sethra was failing number theory cause she wrote about how 7′s were happier than 3′s “Did you mention 3′s Look like E’s, and E’s suck?” I asked

“He said it didn’t prove anything, and

I told him ‘That’s why it’s still a theory.’ Then he just got pissed and told me to leave.” Sethra

“I was planning on flunking Latin.” Pitt

“And…” Sethra

“I ended up flunking Microbiology.”

“Because..” Sethra

“I stopped screwing Ms. O. and started screwing Dr. Reuss.”

“And..” Sethra

“They’re sisters.” Pitt

Shade gave him a hi-five while Trudy gave an evil look to both.

Me, Court, Truddloo, and Shade spent the afternoon tripping on shrooms and playing in haystacks.

Losing track of who was what and what was who.

Tunneling and tunneling over under around and through an endless ten foot circle.

* * *

Strength flows through me spreading and multiplying, completing and renewing.

Coffee was being poured in my mouth.

I looked up.

“How do you feel about us raising you to be super intelligent weapons.” Courtney

“It’s pretty fucked up.” Pitt

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.” Sethra

“Well we may need those skills.” Court

We all gave a wtf look except Sethra smiling and eager with Pitt exclaiming “Yessss”

Courtney nodded towards the opening door where Ryan was entering.

“We need to take out Kim Yong-chun, we need to do it now. He’s given command and control to field officers.” Ryan

“Why?” I

“He can’t win.” Courtney

“The Chinese will crush him.” Trudy

“Cause he’s crazy.” Pitt

“He has the power he’ll use it whatever the results.” Sethra

“Possible casualties?” Shade

“This could start WWIII.” Ryan

“Direct casualties, how many.” I

“100, 150 million.” Sethra

“What happens if we kill him?” said Courtney earning her some looks. “I mean how bad could the repercussions be?” Courtney

“It’s 100 million people it doesn’t matter what the repercussions are.” Pitt

“It would be a group of Americans killing the leader of powerful country that itself could trigger III” Trudy

“III centered and directed at the US.” Shade

They all looked to me. “We just won’t get caught then.”

“So what do we do?” Pitt

“You guys go to school, Ryan back to work, and the rest of us are gonna finish planning the party.” I said which was returned with a blank stares.

“I’m really starting to get paranoid about our movements being watched I don’t want anyone to think we’re about to make a move.”

“How can we plan without any time. This is a major operation it needs major recon and major logistics.”

“We have few days we’ll do it when we should be sleeping. A few modafinil each and we won’t even mind. That and some addys.”

“Drugs during a world crisis? Naughty naughty.” said Pitt smiling

“We’re already on every steroid, hormone, and SCGT just stay in shape. You don’t think that has more of an effect on our mental states than any psychotropic ever could?” Trudy

“Wait till we start jacking shit during the operation. You’ll change your mind.” Shade

Me and Courtney could add nothing more than to smile and nod.

“What about Ryan coming over couldn’t someone have noticed that?” Trudy

“If they know us that well then we were fucked before this even happened.” Sethra “Vlad logic.” she said explaining her statement

“Ok then, so, to summerize we’re going to throw a huge party while planning a globe changing assassination,

trying to pull it all off unnoticed in under three days cause that’s how long it will take to put mass destruction into the hands off crazies. This is gonna be fun.”

“You know we might have been better prepared for this if you’d let us come on operations Sethra

“We haven’t had any opps in three years.” Courtney said. Sethra just stared.

“I’m sorry if I was an overprotective mother not letting my fourteen year old fight against trained killers.”

“So I was thinking on part of the pool bottom we could put that OLED film across the all of it, and I

know the whole point of having the glass is so the people in the basement and the swimmers can see each other, but what if we leave

the film mostly transparent and have wonderful images floating around every once in a while.” I

“Like fish and shit swimming around?” Courtney

“If we add rainbows and stuff I’m in.” Trudy “In” “In”

* * *

That evening instead of me and Courtney scoring the new bagger girl at the grocery store the six of us

gathered, the other four presumably feeling the same minus the bagger girl guilt. So entirely different.

“So we’ll get some Russian gear and pretend to be, ya know, Russian.” I

“We might need a few more details to ‘ya know’ survive.” Courtney

“Pitts has arms connections in Russia.” Courtney gave him an astonished look.

I continued “Sethra is the best strategist, loathes disagreement, let alone compromise.”

Courtney acknowledged the first begrudgingly the second enthusiastically.

“That and the grocery doesn’t close for another ten minutes.”

“The little brunette bagger girl?” Pitt

“Hell yeah!”

“Five bucks says she goes nuts on top.” Pitt “It’s an eight or ninth sense.”

* * *

We woke up, I think simultaneously, Brook tucked into my right arm Courtney’s head

resting on my left pec staring up at me smiling.

“Breakfast.” A like twelve syllable word for me.

We stumbled downstairs to find french toast and coffee. And the others.

“So how’s the planning committee?” Courtney

“The absolute best weapons Russia has to offer are stolen American weapons, and the second tier aren’t so great.

And Russian protection suits don’t exist as the only thing they have enough of to waste is people. But that’s ok cause we’ll just

install a burn mechanism in our suits.” Pitt

“You know Mrs. Butterworths had a breast reduction.” I interposed

“Really?” Sethra

“She used to have some real nice cans.” I “And you could tell she was black.”

“You guys planning to kill somebody in Russia?” Brook

“Korea, made to look like a Russian hit.” Sethra

“It’s kewl, we’re also throwing a party so our karma’s balanced.” Courtney

“He’s evil karma’s on our side there too.” I

“I don’t think karma approves of killing in general.” Trudy

“As long as what you’re doing is good overall you’re fine.” Brook

Courtney replied “For the forseeable future.”

“Ah but who holds vigil on the unforseeable future.” I

“Blind people.” Pitt, lollers.

“How the hell are you two gonna focus during class?” Shade

“It’s neurobiology you don’t need to focus.” Sethra

Shade gave her a look.

“It’s the only discipline where you stress the things you don’t know and why you can’t know them.” Sethra

“It’s galileo prevention.” I “In the past the gods were among the stars, when he showed

the stars were not as they thought he destroyed/altered their vision of god.

Now god is in their minds. They must protect him and keep him from change. The better question is how am I gonna focus?”

* * *

“Vers” “Vers. Are you ready?” Shade

“I’m always fucking ready motherfucker.”

“What were you thinking about.”

“I was trying to permanently burn last night into my mind by reexperiencing it with all my senses.

Of course I’ve already lost nearly all of it besides a few hi-lights and general thoughts and feelings.”

“It’s not lost it just isn’t right in front of you. When you start to have similar sensations it’ll come back.” Courtney “Just take some serotonin

I gave a confused look.

“We attached it to bradykinin molecules to smuggle it across the blood brain barrier, it’s the yellow button.” Shade

I smiled and hit it. A few seconds later I really smiled wideyed.

“What are the other buttons?”

Pointing “Meth, MDMA, serotonin, adrenalin, heroine, morphine, psilocybin, LSD.”

“People do work better when they’re happy.” I

“Makes up for the crap weaponry.” Courtney said with a shit eating grin.

As the compound came into sight three planes few by traveling many times faster leaving something like a sonic explosion.

Our only outside help was gone from view even before the antiaircraft guns erupted into flames.

Ryan and Marc our piolets slowed allowing us to exit, those stationary laying down cover fire for those descending.

My group of Sethra, Jen and Craig alighted the south wing as I lowered a little further to the cut power and communications lines.

The hellis turned and fired as defenses emerged.

I placed mines on obvious feeds along with the hidden ones leaving one extra that I gave to a gnome hoping he’d know where to put it.

The other group Courtney, Trudy, Shade and Pitt were hopefully doing the same on their side. Hopefully as our lives depended on it.

The unmistakable feel of EMPs came from the tower, but the copters were protected from that as well as most everything else.

They were no Russian mass produced crap. The top floors of the central tower ceased to exist as Marc fired a rocket

while presumably Ryan engaged the signal jammer causing static to erupt from our short range communication system.

“With this much distortion we’ll need signal enhancers every thirty.” I

“What!?”

Maybe less I thought to myself.

Flash, and a moment passed as new lenses were replaced to my nightvision.

We raced into the building knowing all was lost if Yong-chun reached the escape tunnels.

The power went completely as the mines sounded.

Craig forced open the elevator doors and Jen shot down through them enough to ensure death to any possible occupants.

We jumped on top, Sethra swinging down for a second to click 5B and set a mine.

Counting the floors we stopped our selves at nine opened the doors descending the stairs as the we felt the boom.

I heard a staticy Pitt give coordinates for a bunkerbuster airstrike.

Then Courtney “How do you know?”

“It’s where I’d dig.”

Apparently it was enough. Both groups entered the sublevel to a blast of concrete and dust, the northerly tunnel collapsing.

“Three minute ETA on air support two minute scram time.” I barely heard Marc say.

Without even a word we separate again each group to one tunnel leaving the fourth open hoping the odds wouldn’t fail us.

A moment later my music cut out interrupted by Courtney “Something feels wrong.”

“This is no measured retreat, they’re on a suicide mission.” Trudy

“Take the fourth tunnel.” Sethra

* * *

My group met weak resistance one that meant they thought we were too late or on the wrong trail.

I drove myself faster sure I was on the right path.

“To me!” I yelled

“We’re coming.” Courtney

“1:30.” Marc

I prepared myself to round a bend and saw Courtney’s group sprinting towards us and smiled.

At opposite angles Craig and I led the way firing short range while Sethra sniped the long as Jen called out high explosion and long range weapons to her.

The sound of engines and a 90 degree turn lie ahead. “Wait there’s five…” Jen

I stridered off the far corner my high friction soles allowing me to jump off the wall shooting down on three guards as they tried to adjust their aim.

Craig swept down pivoting around the corner blindly backhanding a knife up and into the chest of one as he slid the length down the throat of another with a left reverse grip.

Ahead were five vehicles pulling away as the final passengers scrambled in.

All of them wearing nanodefense suits many of them of the same design.

We were essentially out of weapons.

Courtney had them five seconds behind.

I came flying down directly into a sprint drawing my firey katana taking a few well aimed shots from their rear guard.

Sethra let her dagger fly deflecting a grenade from my path.

“Fire forty yards in front of me n..!” The exit collapsed crushing the lead car.

A rocket flew by impacting near Jen.

I struck through their suits the fabric not contracting to the type of attack, they fall but I still take damage.

My sword flies out of my hands leaving me weaponless.

Sethra exchanged weapons with a perimeter guard shooting, reaiming, shooting the rear guard’s launcher to the ground.

Then she turned back throwing the gun back at him apparently not happy with it’s performance.

And we see Courtney’s team round the corner fully loaded.

Courtney shooting out the lights assuming our night lenses would work.

Mine did not.

I watched for muzzle flashes attacking at angles I knew not what.

Brightness and more brightness, the vehicles turned towards us accelerating.

“Me and Trude got the rear.” said Shade

I ran towards the vehicles trying to get past their firing angle bouncing off the impacts till I was through.

Courtney and Pitt take out several of their mounted artilleries.

Shade calls out “I got the lead car.” and two seconds later it explodes.

Sethra picked up my sword glowing brightly from the heat it emitted and stabbed it through the window of the second car killing the driver, losing the sword.

A shot fires from inside the car and someone was gently reminded that bullet proofing works both ways.

Pitt jumped on top of the second car bending down as the door opened snapping a neck.

But Pitt falls as the car lurches forward again.

Courtney takes out the armored car’s sensors blinding it.

The third car far ahead the second behind then the armored following blind scraping along the right wall.

The third is bolting Shade and Trudy the only ones in the way

Shade crouched his minimech suit leaning and thrusting forward up under and into the front transaxel flipping the vehicle.

Two exited from the far side trying to set a perimeter as the other cars came to their defense.

Yong must be a passenger of the flipped car.

Sethra had regained her dagger, I had regained my focus adding the necessary chemicals and blasting NFG.

“And if I stop ever thinking of you”

We all converged.

* * *

A larger more mechanized personnel armament device exited, it must be him.

The second car looks like it’s going to overshoot then applies the rear breaks and spins firing upon us but yielding no results.

I reached down to regain my sword and there was a pause

this tiny fraction of a second, almost a moment, but comparatively forever.

* * *

guards exiting the armored car.

Courtney looking to Shade’s rear checking for reinforcements and seeing none.

Shade on Trudy taking in her positioning.

Trudy on Sethra, Sethra to Pitt. Pitt to Chun.

Racing forward a few steps, several sharp impacts, and we are upon them.

Sethra goes down in front of the main car but gets up savagely stabbing her opponent’s chest driving through lifting and throwing him back.

Those from the armored car occupy Shade.

Trudy and Pitt rush the main Pitt is blown back by a rocket fired by Chun.

I too headed for the main pack specifically at Chun but was waylaid by two elite guards and two of his personal honor guards.

I reluctantly drop my sword drawing my knives.

One honor guard took on Courtney, one went to finish off Pitt.

Two elites engaged with Trudy while Sethra takes three.

Shade crushes his four elites one at a time but takes a rocket to the back as he finishes.

Pitt cranks the honor guard moving on towards Chun.

I struggle with my twos making their differing styles conflict with each other.

The Hg’s looking to make a single finalizing blow, the Elites looking to gain any slight advantage.

Courtney scored an ippon throwing her Hg to the side towards Trudy.

Trudy receives him her Elites still falling her knives spraying blood.

Sethra kills one, two allowing the third to strike. Into her chest he drives it home, she reaches back around finishing him, stumbles.

Pitt slips with Chun’s strikes taking punishment looking for an angle.

I block an Hg to strongly letting an Elite to take my side.

It sinks in deep but he’s given up the Hg’s back and Courtney takes it.

I step forward taking one in each arm pushing forward letting my arms slide.

As my knives slash across each chest I pull back slightly and sharply then plunge them home.

Courtney eviscerates the other my sword pulsing in her hands.

And Pitt goes down.

* * *

Bullrushing Shade attacks but Chun’s mech is stronger and tosses Shade to the side.

I tackle him at the knees knocking him to his back.

And Courtney plunges the sword into his chest nailing him to the ground.

He struggles to move. In anger I tear his helmet off.

And it’s Tran and he smiles, everything explodes.

* * *

Aaaaaaaahahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

* * *

Rrrrrraaaaagggggggh

* * *

“We pulled him out too quickly he couldn’t readjust.”

* * *

“His brain activity went off the charts .07 degrees above the temp we used for routine nutrient infusions.”

“And when we tried to ease it back down his mind crashed. All activity stopped.”

“We went back to the planned process hoping to regain him with traditional DBS once he was fully animated again.”

“But he came back where he left off, mind racing. We thought we might get his functions back and deliver neurologic depressants directly into the carotid, but he went blank again just before we got his heart started.”

* * *

“He blew a fuse in his mind. There was too much, too rapid change.”

“Now there’s just random spiking in a few brain centers. The bad ones.”

* * *

“I’m going to be taking over. I’m going to bring him back.”

View Spell-Checked Padding, pt. 4 at Supraterranean

He wasn’t sure the call was from Janine, but he knew it probably was. He reasoned as clearly as he could, his mind clouded by the five milligrams of Vicodin he’d swallowed an hour ago. Five milligrams wasn’t much, not by any addict’s standards, but then, he wasn’t an addict. Just a man who was done feeling for the day and whose friend had undergone dental surgery and didn’t like painkillers. At most he took one pill a week on Friday nights when he was alone, or wanted to be.

Last Friday night Janine had come over unexpectedly. Not exactly uninvited, but the idea hadn’t been his either. So he hadn’t felt too bad about surreptitiously ingesting a pill while she’d been in the bathroom. She’d stayed over that night too, which had been okay. He liked a warm body next to him in bed; it could even be soothing if it was the right person keeping him company. Janine probably wasn’t right, but she wasn’t necessarily wrong, and so it had been okay for her to sleep over.

It was just the morning after that he dreaded. As Janine would practice and preach, Saturday mornings are for sleeping in. He knew that’s what he was supposed to believe, and sometimes, he even wished that he agreed. But in his world, Saturday mornings were for working, not for cuddling and bagels and newspapers and slowly sipped cups of coffee.

And Friday nights, they were for sleeping. Or at least lying prone, motionless, letting thoughts blur into unimportance.

Janine thought Fridays were for fun, to take advantage of all New York had to offer, and she’d told him last week that their Blockbuster night was an exception. She’d stay in with him this once, she’d said, but in general, he needed to get out more. With her.

He hadn’t argued—the Vicodin had kicked in by then—but if he’d had the energy to speak he might have disagreed, would have considered explaining how little her opinions mattered to him. Instead, he’d shifted his position on the couch, making a gesture that could have been interpreted as a shrug.

He didn’t care much about Janine, but he cared that she was calling him at eleven thirty on a Friday night. He envisioned her standing in a bathroom stall at whatever swanky bar, probably in the meatpacking district, she and her friends were spending their paychecks at that evening. He mentally debated her intentions, whether she’d implore him to come out or insist on coming over. He decided quickly that the best way to avoid either was to do nothing.

The buzzing stopped. Seconds later, maybe a minute, another vibration resonated at the small table next to his bed. Voicemail.

The next morning at seven fifteen he was halfway to the diner when he decided to check his messages. He’d remembered the unwanted phone call as soon as he awoke, and before a short shower, he had verified that it was Janine who had disturbed him. After getting dressed and leaving his apartment to get a quick breakfast, he’d summoned the will to hear her voice.

“Kyyyyle, don’t be an old fart. Call me back and come meet us! Pllllease, you are only twenty-eight.”

The way she said please, it sounded like a question and a demand at the same time. Janine’s ability to convincingly whine was impressive if not attractive. He was sure there were men who would have felt tempted to accept her plea for companionship. But those men would have answered the phone. Or really, he figured, those men would have called her first. He didn’t understand why women bothered to pursue him. It was against the natural order of things. It wasn’t that he opposed feminine independence; it was just that it didn’t work. Once a woman pursued him, he lost interest. Every time. Especially if she was sexually appealing.

The Westway Café was not crowded yet, but even so he didn’t notice the girl until he had almost finished his omelet. She was in a booth at the back, near the kitchen, typing on a laptop. A coffee mug sat to her left on the edge of the table. It was accompanied by an empty juice glass and half a glass of chocolate milk. He toyed with the idea of approaching her, asking if she was thirsty. He hated pickup lines, but it was hard to meet a stranger without one. He shifted his gaze to the window and focused his eyes on the people walking down Broadway while he considered the pros and cons of a possible conversation.

Pro: She was using a laptop in a diner early on a Saturday morning. It was unlikely she had been up all night partying. But did that mean she was a fellow workaholic? Con: He didn’t need an enabler. He turned his head to look at her again. She appeared young enough to be a Columbia student, but old enough to have graduated, which put her in an acceptable age range. She had blonde hair and he preferred brunettes, but she wasn’t overweight.

He refocused his gaze and watched her as her fingers danced across her keyboard. Without glancing away from her screen, she reached for—maybe the coffee mug, but her forearm clipped the glass of milk and chocolaty brown liquid cascaded onto the floor. She looked over quickly, a hand flying up to cover her open mouth, and he jumped to his feet, as if to offer his assistance. She saw him move toward her, and a flicker of confusion passed across her face as he took three steps, turned around and walked out the door.

He had work to do.

© 2009 Christina Bryza. This story was previously published on Chronicles of New York on 11/9/09.

View Table for One at Supraterranean