Monday, November 30, 2009
I want to know where you go when the damned come dancing in. Do you shield your eyes, scared of reprise, or does your ego let you stare through? I think I know as your answer is slow and your teeth chatter like dice. Nothing can save you now, no way, know how. You are one of them my cryptic friend doomed to follow that white line…
Thursday, November 26, 2009
-The world pulls its panties down exposing its equator. I am aghast, for the world at last, has shown me its junk. I pull clouds from the sky to cover the nakedness, but the nastiness shows through. My innocence gone, I am a deranged pawn unable to live a lie like you. There are consequences for building up fences and so this I cannot do. I am cursed to be adverse to this depravity. Eyes like headlights my deer…
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Roided Out
Well, it seems there has been another steroid bust here in the midstate. One of those arrested was a guy I went to high school with. He has been arrested numerous times for rape and drugs and god knows what else. If you went to Boiling Springs or Carlisle you will know whom he is. I won’t mention his name only because I don’t want people searching for him to end up on my blog. He is a sociopath and I do hope he remains in jail for a long time. He is the sort of person who will end up killing someone if he is on the streets. Evidently he and his ex-wife were injecting clients with steroids in their gym. I personally couldn’t give a shit if people take steroids. Although I’ve never taken them I think it is a personal decision that the government has no right to intervene in. They are however illegal and to see this cocksucker go down is a good thing. He could be in for 30 years.
Another one of those arrested was a guy I’ve known casually for over ten years. I knew him well enough to say hi to him in the gym and he referred clients to me. I suspected in the past he took steroids because he got pretty big for a while. He is a college basketball coach. Hmm, do you think he might have been giving some of the steroids to his players? The funny thing is with all these steroids going around you would expect to see a bunch of huge guys walking around the gym. I am usually very surprised to find that a certain person is on or has taken steroids. The results you would expect just aren’t there. These people expect to get huge taking steroids and putting minimal effort in at the gym. It doesn’t work that way. I’m much stronger and more muscular than most of these guys in my gym that take drugs. I’m not bragging. What I’m saying is that steroids aren’t a miracle drug. You have to eat right, sleep right, take the right supplements, do your cardio, know how to workout and on and on and on. Sure, there are some people that can take steroids and get huge without doing everything properly but they are the exception. For most people steroids are a short cut to mediocrity. People want a quick fix and they don’t want to put in the effort and no matter what you take this is never a recipe for success…
Another one of those arrested was a guy I’ve known casually for over ten years. I knew him well enough to say hi to him in the gym and he referred clients to me. I suspected in the past he took steroids because he got pretty big for a while. He is a college basketball coach. Hmm, do you think he might have been giving some of the steroids to his players? The funny thing is with all these steroids going around you would expect to see a bunch of huge guys walking around the gym. I am usually very surprised to find that a certain person is on or has taken steroids. The results you would expect just aren’t there. These people expect to get huge taking steroids and putting minimal effort in at the gym. It doesn’t work that way. I’m much stronger and more muscular than most of these guys in my gym that take drugs. I’m not bragging. What I’m saying is that steroids aren’t a miracle drug. You have to eat right, sleep right, take the right supplements, do your cardio, know how to workout and on and on and on. Sure, there are some people that can take steroids and get huge without doing everything properly but they are the exception. For most people steroids are a short cut to mediocrity. People want a quick fix and they don’t want to put in the effort and no matter what you take this is never a recipe for success…
Connecting would mean reckoning with the troubles in my head. You see I was built wrong—square pegged into this rounded world. The lights being on and someone home--vying for the closeout sale on my brain. I suppose my mind is worth something and it could be rebuilt; stripped down to the cerebellum, fissures ground smooth, fresh coat of thought sprayed on. The owner of this rebuilt brain must of course drive it with caution because it will only go 100 miles per hour or faster. Please buckle yourself in new owner for no one has ever seen the things you are about to see…
-My heart has been uprooted from my chest by your anger, like a truffle tilled from the soil by a pig’s snout. I thought I knew you—that tilted smile with those bubblegum lips—but you turned on me. You went inside out on me and morphed into a creature I would have rather not known--demon eyes and giant red nose holes (all the better to do blow with my dear). Now, I lie awake in the dark afraid, knowing you very well could be in my closet waiting to suck the last bit of love from my veins. You are a love sucker, a dream killer and so I sleep with a necklace of garlic around my cock…
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
I’m sick of hearing about these people claiming to see Jesus’ image burned into a potato chip or in the bark of some tree. Now some guy is claiming Jesus’ image showed up on his driver’s side truck window. First of all, how in the hell does t his guy know what Jesus looked like? The image I see on the truck window looks like John Lennon. There are plenty of photographs of John Lennon but no authentic paintings of Jesus that I am aware of--maybe because they didn’t have cameras back then? It is also possible that Jesus was black. I know strike me down with a lightening bolt but I’ve seen John Lennon in movies, photographs, and on TV so I know what he looked like. So, I think people should start saying that they are seeing John Lennon’s image when a bearded dude shows up in their noodle soup. I would believe that more since Jesus could have been a black man with an afro or a fat guy with a huge nose…
Okay, did you read about this guy that got mauled in a bear enclosure in Switzerland recently? They say he was mentally disabled…uh, do you think so? What the hell is it with people crawling into bear enclosures? You’ll recall a similar incident in which a woman was attacked by a polar bear in a Berlin zoo last April. They didn’t say this woman was mentally disabled but my guess would be either she was or she was on some sort of hallucinogenic that made her think the polar bear was an ice-cream cone. Humans continue to baffle me. Any other animal would know not to go into that enclosure and I’m sure some of them are mentally disabled. So why does the human animal continue to do such stupid things? Oh, I forgot we're not animals we are the center of the universe...
Monday, November 23, 2009
So I was thinking. Yes, I know it is cause for concern but let’s not concentrate on me, let’s concentrate on you. On your curves and your words—the sexy way you hold your cigarette. You are beautiful even with a mustache of Guinness and the wind blowing your hair into a tumbleweed. And then of course I fucked it up. I drunkenly asked to squeeze your ass when clearly I should have just done it. Now, I am alone and sit here and stare at pictures of you and wonder what could have been if I would have just kept my mouth shut.
The rain comes down and the sky is filled with sorrow. I want to wipe the dirty clouds from the sky and make it shine like blue again. For you, yes, I would do this. You are beautiful beyond recognition...I know I’m not thinking straight—crooked thoughts are jagged and cut up my mind. All those pieces and you are the glue. Smile again so I can put them back together…
Fat Harvest
You may not consider Peru to be an innovator in much of anything. Hell, maybe they are and I just don’t know about it but some entrepreneurs in that country have changed my mind. There is a group there that call themselves the Pishtacos, which oddly sounds like fish tacos to me. At any rate, some members of this gang were caught for killing fat people and selling their fat. That’s right, they would lead unsuspecting fat people out into the countryside by falsely advertising jobs. Once they had them in the countryside they would kill them and extract their fat. Police believed the fat was being sold to European companies for cosmetic reasons.
This made me think. What if we harvested our fat people? Would this get us out of the economic slump we are now in? Evidently the Pishtacos were making $15,000 per liter of fat. With the obesity epidemic here in the US that equates to one hell of a big payday. We could stuff them like cattle with cheap carbohydrates and watch them balloon up and then harvest them. I think Haliburton and Dick Cheney might want a piece of this action. I will call him and see if he is in. If this plan goes through then the US will once again be number one in something other than just being fat. We will be the fat suppliers to the world.
This made me think. What if we harvested our fat people? Would this get us out of the economic slump we are now in? Evidently the Pishtacos were making $15,000 per liter of fat. With the obesity epidemic here in the US that equates to one hell of a big payday. We could stuff them like cattle with cheap carbohydrates and watch them balloon up and then harvest them. I think Haliburton and Dick Cheney might want a piece of this action. I will call him and see if he is in. If this plan goes through then the US will once again be number one in something other than just being fat. We will be the fat suppliers to the world.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
The Littlest Hitman
The rain outside keeps coming down, like it thinks it owns the place. And for the last week it has--nothing but water. If I were religious I would have built a goddamn ark by now but being a heathen of sorts I just get drunk.
I slide my empty glass down the bar. “Frank, another bourbon.”
He nods and before I can say cirrhosis of the liver he’s sliding a fresh bourbon my way. “Thanks.”
He nods and the cleft in his freshly shaven chin reflects light like the bottom of a polished beer can. He must use enough aftershave lotion to lubricate the chassis of a formula-one racecar. I have to turn my head so the glint of the thing doesn’t blind me. It’s a goddamn fortuitous turn as I see a cab coming straight for the plate glass window of Connroy’s Pub. I dive out of the way just as the cab smashes through the window. It plows through tables and chairs creating a windstorm of splintering tables and chairs. The cab is stopped cold by the brick bar and is enveloped in a cloud of dust.
I don’t know how but I managed to save my drink but I did and there’s no sense in wasting it. I pour it down my throat and set the empty glass on one of the few remaining tables. Frank pokes his head up from the far end of the bar. It’s damn lucky it’s only 8 PM--me and some bum at the end of the bar were the only ones in the place. Lucky for that bastard he’s in the bathroom yakking up the fish and chips he just ate. In the long run drinking was killing him but today it just might have saved his pathetic life.
As the dust settles I see the driver climb out from behind the airbag. It’s a goddamn kid.
I go over and grab him by the scruff of his shirt and hoist him up in the air. “Why you no good punk. Give me one good reason I shouldn’t send you out the same window you just came in.”
He swings his scrawny arm at me. “Screw you old man.”
It takes every last inch of self control I can muster not to flatten the kid’s face with the back of my mitt but I do and I’m damn glad I do. I could lose my PI license for something like that.
I grab the front of his shirt and twist it hard so the circulation is cut off to his head. His eyes bug out and his head turns as red as a baboon’s ass. “All right, I’ll talk, just get your hands off of me.”
I loosen my grip but not all the way. This one was young but slippery, squirms like a goddamn greased eel. If I turn my head for one second he’d be gone.
“So, why’d you do it?”
The kid pulls his Yankees cap further down on his head. “I took a wrong turn.”
My anger gets the better of me and I smack him hard across the face. “I know that much kid. I just want to know how a kid gets wrapped up in trying to kill someone. I know there’s a hit out on me. It’s all over town.”
He puffs his chest out which is nothing short of pathetic. He looks like a plucked chicken. Twenty seconds ago I wanted to break the little bastard in half now I just want to buy him a cup of soup.
I can hear sirens closing in. “Come on we’re going to get something to eat.”
He kicks and his legs hit nothing but air. “I ain’t hungry.”
I tighten my grip on the scruff of his neck and drag him out the back door. “We’ll go to this Chinese joint down the street. “
I drag him kicking and screaming down the alleyway and to the kitchen door of Happy Time Chinese restaurant. I know the owner, Mr. Hoo—he’s an associate. We go through the back door. The cooks and kitchen help look up at me and then back down on to their work. They know me for having down work for Mr. Hoo.
I push open the double doors that lead to the dining room, the kid in tow. The place is deserted.
Mr. Hoo rushes across the floor and meets me with a smile. “Oh, Mr. Ludlow, how nice of you to drop in. Usually, guests use the front door but in your case an exception can be made.”
I set the kid down on the ground but keep my mitt on his neck. “I appreciate it. Kid this is Mr. Hoo.”
The kid scowls. “You said you knew him.”
“Yeah, I do this is Hoo.”
“I don’t know I’ve never been in this restaurant before.”
“No, I’m telling you this is Hoo.”
The kid is getting pissed. “Don’t ask me.”
“I didn’t I was telling you this Hoo.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Hoo.”
“That’s what I’m asking you. Who?”
Mr. Hoo strokes his pencil thin mustache. “You two sound like Elvis and Costello.”
“I think you mean Abott and Costello and yeah, you’re right Mr. Hoo, this isn’t getting us anywhere. Let’s just get something to eat.” I take out a cigarillo and light it.” My friend and I ran into a little trouble and had to scram down the alleyway.”
Mr. Hoo straightens his bow tie and smiles. “There is an ancient Chinese proverb Mr. Ludlow that says: Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you.”
“I never start the damn trouble…well, most of the time I don’t. I just try to do the right thing and sometimes that means doing things the wrong way.”
“I understand. You are a man that will protect his morals no matter what he has to do. There is great honor in that.”
“Uh, huh, listen this kid needs something to eat. How about we start out with some egg drop soup and a half dozen egg rolls.”
“Very good, Mr. Ludlow. Very good.”
I blink and Hoo is gone. I turn to the sound of the kitchen door swinging back and forth. We sit at a table. It’s time to get down to brass tacks with this damn kid. “So, some guy offers you money to off me.”
The kid defiantly folds his scrawny arms across his chest. “Nobody offered me nothing. I made a wrong turn.”
“Right, you stole a cab and thought you’d park it in the middle of a pub. I’m not stupid, kid and I’m not that damn important. This was personal.”
Chin puts the soup and egg rolls on the table. “Go ahead eat.”
The kid doesn’t want to give in but looks like he hasn’t eaten since the Clinton administration was in office and only lasts about three seconds before he’s wolfing down an egg roll.
“Bring us an order of beef and broccoli and one of General Tsao’s chicken and make it as spicy as possible. Oh, and bring me two Cokes too.”
Hoo nods and is gone and comes back ten seconds later with two Cokes. “Your Cokes.”
I nod. “Thanks, Hoo.”
The kid grabs a glass and starts guzzling. He’s making all sorts of slurping sounds and it just about makes me want to puke.
I stand and hike up my pants. “I have to use the pisser. I’ll be right back.”
The bathroom is a cramped dank place with phone numbers and street philosophy scribbled all over the walls. I lock the door and light up a cigarillo. A kid like that has to be watched. Mr. Hoo knows the score. He won’t let that kid out of his sight. I smoke my cigarillo to the nub and let myself out of the bathroom.
I look at the empty plates on the table. “You could have left me an egg roll.”
The kid is all smiles. “Oh, I thought they were for me.”
One of the waiters I gave a twenty spot to bumps into my little friend. The kid jumps up from his seat and I switch our drinks. “Watch where you’re going mother fucker.”
“I’d be a little nicer to someone that’s going to serve my meal. No telling what type of foreign objects you might ingest.”
The kid sits and I can tell what I said to him gets to him. It’s true, waitresses and waiters can be vengeful and I am always on my best goddamn behavior until after my meal is served and if I do raise a stink because the service was bad or they were rude I make sure never to eat in the place again.
Mr. Hoo sits the food in front of us and I can tell the kid wants to eat it up but what I just said to him has got him thinking.
“Go ahead, eat up. Mr. Hoo wouldn’t let them do anything to our food.”
The kid can’t control himself. He goes for the General Tsao’s chicken and heaps three fourths of the platter on his plate. He doesn’t even stop to breathe and start shoveling the stuff in his mouth. I see the recognition of the spices just registering on his taste buds. He goes for his Coke and downs the whole thing.
“That’s quite a display you’re putting on their champ. You ought to challenge that Japanese hot dog eating guy. You might have a chance against him.”
Mr. Hoo comes up to our table. “Detective Ludlow, there is a phone call for you at the bar.”
I stand. “Thanks. And kid, leave me some food.”
He doesn’t even look up but keeps shoveling. I make my way to the bar. There’s a glass of bourbon waiting there for me. I take my time drinking it.
Mr. Hoo walks up to the bar and I slip a hundred dollar bill into his mitt. “Send the kid up here and then replace the meals and drinks on the table and put this in the kids food. I hand him a pill.
Mr. Hoo takes the pill and is gone before I can say thank-you. I finish off my drink just as the kid comes up to the bar.
“What is it?”
“Oh, Mr. Hoo must have misunderstood me. I just asked him if you needed anything. His English isn’t so great.”
The kid heads back to the table and I follow. I sit and he is watching me intently.
“Aren’t you going to eat?”
I pick up my fork, scoop some broccoli and chicken on my plate and start eating. Damn, this shit is hot. I take a long cold drink and when I open my eyes the kid is sitting there with a smile spread across his full mouth.
I wipe my mouth with my sleeve. “What are you so damn happy about?”
“Because mother fucker. I’m no damn kid. I’m just blessed with good genes.”
I take a bite of chicken. “I knew you weren’t a kid. Despite being so damn short and scrawny.”
He stops chewing and his face tightens.
“So, how old are you? Twenty-seven?”
“Who fucking told you?”
“No one, it’s my job to know these things.”
“Yeah, well if you’re so damn bright then why are you eating a deadly poison right now.”
“I’m not, you are.”
He spits the rest of his food across the table. “Well, then smart guy I guess you know a hitman always carries a gun.”
“Is that a gun in your pocket? Hmm, I just thought you were happy to see that transvestite waitress...you know you’re not looking so hot.”
He pulls at his collar. His eyes bug out. He knows now I wasn’t fucking around.
He pulls his gun out under the table. “You’re going out with me.”
Mr. Chin squeezes the trigger and the taser darts hits the kid in the neck. He convulses and falls to the ground.
I take out a cigarillo and light it. “Let’s get this bastard an ambulance. I want him to live so he can spend the rest of his life in jail.”
“Let’s put him in the alley. I don’t want to people to think he was poisoned in my restaurant.”
“Good point.”
I slide my empty glass down the bar. “Frank, another bourbon.”
He nods and before I can say cirrhosis of the liver he’s sliding a fresh bourbon my way. “Thanks.”
He nods and the cleft in his freshly shaven chin reflects light like the bottom of a polished beer can. He must use enough aftershave lotion to lubricate the chassis of a formula-one racecar. I have to turn my head so the glint of the thing doesn’t blind me. It’s a goddamn fortuitous turn as I see a cab coming straight for the plate glass window of Connroy’s Pub. I dive out of the way just as the cab smashes through the window. It plows through tables and chairs creating a windstorm of splintering tables and chairs. The cab is stopped cold by the brick bar and is enveloped in a cloud of dust.
I don’t know how but I managed to save my drink but I did and there’s no sense in wasting it. I pour it down my throat and set the empty glass on one of the few remaining tables. Frank pokes his head up from the far end of the bar. It’s damn lucky it’s only 8 PM--me and some bum at the end of the bar were the only ones in the place. Lucky for that bastard he’s in the bathroom yakking up the fish and chips he just ate. In the long run drinking was killing him but today it just might have saved his pathetic life.
As the dust settles I see the driver climb out from behind the airbag. It’s a goddamn kid.
I go over and grab him by the scruff of his shirt and hoist him up in the air. “Why you no good punk. Give me one good reason I shouldn’t send you out the same window you just came in.”
He swings his scrawny arm at me. “Screw you old man.”
It takes every last inch of self control I can muster not to flatten the kid’s face with the back of my mitt but I do and I’m damn glad I do. I could lose my PI license for something like that.
I grab the front of his shirt and twist it hard so the circulation is cut off to his head. His eyes bug out and his head turns as red as a baboon’s ass. “All right, I’ll talk, just get your hands off of me.”
I loosen my grip but not all the way. This one was young but slippery, squirms like a goddamn greased eel. If I turn my head for one second he’d be gone.
“So, why’d you do it?”
The kid pulls his Yankees cap further down on his head. “I took a wrong turn.”
My anger gets the better of me and I smack him hard across the face. “I know that much kid. I just want to know how a kid gets wrapped up in trying to kill someone. I know there’s a hit out on me. It’s all over town.”
He puffs his chest out which is nothing short of pathetic. He looks like a plucked chicken. Twenty seconds ago I wanted to break the little bastard in half now I just want to buy him a cup of soup.
I can hear sirens closing in. “Come on we’re going to get something to eat.”
He kicks and his legs hit nothing but air. “I ain’t hungry.”
I tighten my grip on the scruff of his neck and drag him out the back door. “We’ll go to this Chinese joint down the street. “
I drag him kicking and screaming down the alleyway and to the kitchen door of Happy Time Chinese restaurant. I know the owner, Mr. Hoo—he’s an associate. We go through the back door. The cooks and kitchen help look up at me and then back down on to their work. They know me for having down work for Mr. Hoo.
I push open the double doors that lead to the dining room, the kid in tow. The place is deserted.
Mr. Hoo rushes across the floor and meets me with a smile. “Oh, Mr. Ludlow, how nice of you to drop in. Usually, guests use the front door but in your case an exception can be made.”
I set the kid down on the ground but keep my mitt on his neck. “I appreciate it. Kid this is Mr. Hoo.”
The kid scowls. “You said you knew him.”
“Yeah, I do this is Hoo.”
“I don’t know I’ve never been in this restaurant before.”
“No, I’m telling you this is Hoo.”
The kid is getting pissed. “Don’t ask me.”
“I didn’t I was telling you this Hoo.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Hoo.”
“That’s what I’m asking you. Who?”
Mr. Hoo strokes his pencil thin mustache. “You two sound like Elvis and Costello.”
“I think you mean Abott and Costello and yeah, you’re right Mr. Hoo, this isn’t getting us anywhere. Let’s just get something to eat.” I take out a cigarillo and light it.” My friend and I ran into a little trouble and had to scram down the alleyway.”
Mr. Hoo straightens his bow tie and smiles. “There is an ancient Chinese proverb Mr. Ludlow that says: Never trouble trouble till trouble troubles you.”
“I never start the damn trouble…well, most of the time I don’t. I just try to do the right thing and sometimes that means doing things the wrong way.”
“I understand. You are a man that will protect his morals no matter what he has to do. There is great honor in that.”
“Uh, huh, listen this kid needs something to eat. How about we start out with some egg drop soup and a half dozen egg rolls.”
“Very good, Mr. Ludlow. Very good.”
I blink and Hoo is gone. I turn to the sound of the kitchen door swinging back and forth. We sit at a table. It’s time to get down to brass tacks with this damn kid. “So, some guy offers you money to off me.”
The kid defiantly folds his scrawny arms across his chest. “Nobody offered me nothing. I made a wrong turn.”
“Right, you stole a cab and thought you’d park it in the middle of a pub. I’m not stupid, kid and I’m not that damn important. This was personal.”
Chin puts the soup and egg rolls on the table. “Go ahead eat.”
The kid doesn’t want to give in but looks like he hasn’t eaten since the Clinton administration was in office and only lasts about three seconds before he’s wolfing down an egg roll.
“Bring us an order of beef and broccoli and one of General Tsao’s chicken and make it as spicy as possible. Oh, and bring me two Cokes too.”
Hoo nods and is gone and comes back ten seconds later with two Cokes. “Your Cokes.”
I nod. “Thanks, Hoo.”
The kid grabs a glass and starts guzzling. He’s making all sorts of slurping sounds and it just about makes me want to puke.
I stand and hike up my pants. “I have to use the pisser. I’ll be right back.”
The bathroom is a cramped dank place with phone numbers and street philosophy scribbled all over the walls. I lock the door and light up a cigarillo. A kid like that has to be watched. Mr. Hoo knows the score. He won’t let that kid out of his sight. I smoke my cigarillo to the nub and let myself out of the bathroom.
I look at the empty plates on the table. “You could have left me an egg roll.”
The kid is all smiles. “Oh, I thought they were for me.”
One of the waiters I gave a twenty spot to bumps into my little friend. The kid jumps up from his seat and I switch our drinks. “Watch where you’re going mother fucker.”
“I’d be a little nicer to someone that’s going to serve my meal. No telling what type of foreign objects you might ingest.”
The kid sits and I can tell what I said to him gets to him. It’s true, waitresses and waiters can be vengeful and I am always on my best goddamn behavior until after my meal is served and if I do raise a stink because the service was bad or they were rude I make sure never to eat in the place again.
Mr. Hoo sits the food in front of us and I can tell the kid wants to eat it up but what I just said to him has got him thinking.
“Go ahead, eat up. Mr. Hoo wouldn’t let them do anything to our food.”
The kid can’t control himself. He goes for the General Tsao’s chicken and heaps three fourths of the platter on his plate. He doesn’t even stop to breathe and start shoveling the stuff in his mouth. I see the recognition of the spices just registering on his taste buds. He goes for his Coke and downs the whole thing.
“That’s quite a display you’re putting on their champ. You ought to challenge that Japanese hot dog eating guy. You might have a chance against him.”
Mr. Hoo comes up to our table. “Detective Ludlow, there is a phone call for you at the bar.”
I stand. “Thanks. And kid, leave me some food.”
He doesn’t even look up but keeps shoveling. I make my way to the bar. There’s a glass of bourbon waiting there for me. I take my time drinking it.
Mr. Hoo walks up to the bar and I slip a hundred dollar bill into his mitt. “Send the kid up here and then replace the meals and drinks on the table and put this in the kids food. I hand him a pill.
Mr. Hoo takes the pill and is gone before I can say thank-you. I finish off my drink just as the kid comes up to the bar.
“What is it?”
“Oh, Mr. Hoo must have misunderstood me. I just asked him if you needed anything. His English isn’t so great.”
The kid heads back to the table and I follow. I sit and he is watching me intently.
“Aren’t you going to eat?”
I pick up my fork, scoop some broccoli and chicken on my plate and start eating. Damn, this shit is hot. I take a long cold drink and when I open my eyes the kid is sitting there with a smile spread across his full mouth.
I wipe my mouth with my sleeve. “What are you so damn happy about?”
“Because mother fucker. I’m no damn kid. I’m just blessed with good genes.”
I take a bite of chicken. “I knew you weren’t a kid. Despite being so damn short and scrawny.”
He stops chewing and his face tightens.
“So, how old are you? Twenty-seven?”
“Who fucking told you?”
“No one, it’s my job to know these things.”
“Yeah, well if you’re so damn bright then why are you eating a deadly poison right now.”
“I’m not, you are.”
He spits the rest of his food across the table. “Well, then smart guy I guess you know a hitman always carries a gun.”
“Is that a gun in your pocket? Hmm, I just thought you were happy to see that transvestite waitress...you know you’re not looking so hot.”
He pulls at his collar. His eyes bug out. He knows now I wasn’t fucking around.
He pulls his gun out under the table. “You’re going out with me.”
Mr. Chin squeezes the trigger and the taser darts hits the kid in the neck. He convulses and falls to the ground.
I take out a cigarillo and light it. “Let’s get this bastard an ambulance. I want him to live so he can spend the rest of his life in jail.”
“Let’s put him in the alley. I don’t want to people to think he was poisoned in my restaurant.”
“Good point.”
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
I was reading about magazines that were accused of airbrushing pictures of babies. Apparently there was a strong backlash when the public found this out. This portion of the population feels no baby should ever be airbrushed for any reason. Uh, really? Whether people want to admit it or not their are some really heinous babies out there. I see nothing wrong with making an ugly baby a cute baby. If airbrushing makes me forget the kid once looked like a gremlin then I am all for it. They airbrush adults so why is it wrong to airbrush babies? These people need to find a real cause and fight for it. Like supporting Sara Palin so she can further destroy the Republican party. Then again she seems to be doing just fine on her own but you get my point...
Get your mammograms
Ladies please do not listen to the advice of this government panel that says women don’t need to get mammograms until they are fifty. Bullshit. The American Cancer Society is saying that you should get the mammograms when you are forty or earlier if you have a family history of breast cancer. From the article Cause for concern in the Patriot News Today: “Some of the local experts wondered if the new guidelines might have been influenced by the drive to lower health care costs and insurance premiums.” Uh, do you think so? I sure as hell do. We wouldn’t want to have the insurance companies take a hit on their profits would we? So they would deny coverage of mammograms to keep costs down and kill women in the process. All these cocksuckers care about is profit. Human life to them is a commodity to be bought and sold.
This is a government panel and we all know that government is often swayed by special interests. From what I’ve read I believe this to be the case. It’s the same with the damn food pyramid. Do you think the recommendations they give are for your health? Hell no. If I ate according to the food pyramid I’d have ¼ less muscle and twice the bodyfat at least. They are trying to get rid of surplus food not make you healthier. And so I wouldn’t trust some half-ass panel of “experts” when they say you ladies don’t need mammograms in your forties. The government is not to be trusted in matters pertaining to your health. If you don’t believe me go ahead and skip your mammograms and eat as the food pyramid dictates. You may not be around long…
This is a government panel and we all know that government is often swayed by special interests. From what I’ve read I believe this to be the case. It’s the same with the damn food pyramid. Do you think the recommendations they give are for your health? Hell no. If I ate according to the food pyramid I’d have ¼ less muscle and twice the bodyfat at least. They are trying to get rid of surplus food not make you healthier. And so I wouldn’t trust some half-ass panel of “experts” when they say you ladies don’t need mammograms in your forties. The government is not to be trusted in matters pertaining to your health. If you don’t believe me go ahead and skip your mammograms and eat as the food pyramid dictates. You may not be around long…
I wonder where you are and with who. Not that it matters but yeah, maybe it does. I guess it shouldn’t but I think it does. Scratch that, I know it does. So, how are you? And what have you done? Is that smile still in place? Are your eyes still wide and shining? Is the earth still spinning and if so can you prove it to me? Because I’m not sure anymore about any of it; not the stars or the moon or the cold wind on my face. I sit on my deck and everything feels fabricated and unreal. I chase away the loneliness with beer and my mind begins to slip away. I don’t know where I’m going and I don’t know who I am. I just ask that you forgive me for being me because I couldn’t be anything else.
One Way
I’m in a bad part of town, a place where the blackness eats up all the light; a place where the abandoned shells of warehouses with broken windows sit waiting for the end of time. Nothing grows here, not plants, not animals, not people. Things end here. The cops find bodies here. I’ve come to the right place.
I press the gun muzzle up to my temple and center it over the spot where all the pain is, right where all that blackness has collected. If I’m going to end it, then I don’t see any goddamn reason to half-ass it and put the revolver in my mouth. Amateurs stick guns in their mouths, blow their jaws off and end up someone’s private freak show locked away in some sterilized bedroom with no damn good way to get a beer. No thanks, I’m not going out like that.
There’s no wondering where it all went wrong. It was never right to start with. The affections of one fine looking police detective—Ms. Uma Pocket--were never mine to lose. She was always too beautiful, too sophisticated, too damn smart to fall for a guy like me. I knew I could never have her, not with my looks and I’d been playing it cool but when I saw her mugging down with that suit in the bar tonight the feelings I’ve been hiding from myself came out. I shouldn’t have busted that guy’s mug up like that but I did and I messed things up good.
Far down the alley I can hear cinders grinding under someone’s feet on the wet macadam. I shove the revolver inside my trench coat. If this person would have come ten seconds later he would have found my skull spread out on the macadam like some sort of bloody jigsaw puzzle.
A dark figure passes under the streetlight some thirty yards away. I feel the cold steel prickle of hairs rising up on my spine. Something isn’t right.
I can see him now. Yeah, there he is, hands stuffed in the pockets of his pea coat, black knit hat, black combat boots. His footsteps seem so damn loud, so damn exaggerated I can barely stand it. There’s no way he can see me in the darkness but he stops in front of me.
He flicks cigarette ashes on the ground. “What in the hell are you doing out here?”
I step out of the shadows into the light. “Thinking.”
“Damn odd place to collect your thoughts ain’t it?”
“It’s as good as any other place and up until now it was a damn private place.”
“So, you want to be alone? Sure, I can understand that but first I’m going to need a little cash.”
“Isn’t there some nice old lady you can go mug? Me, I’m too much damn trouble.”
He takes a step towards me. He’s close, too goddamn close. Someone that close is asking to have his face smashed in. “Little old ladies aren’t a challenge.”
“I’m not going to give you a dime. So, scram, you maggot before I rearrange your face.”
I see a chain in his hands. How I didn’t hear it is a goddamn mystery to me. I lift my arms to grab the rusty thing but before I can get a hold of it he throws it around my neck and pulls it tight. He moves behind me and starts choking me.
“You’re gonna die. You could have been nice and given me the money and I would have let you live…nah, not really. You were screwed either way. I’m a homicidal psycho.”
I rear back and slam my elbow into the guy’s gut. The air rushes out of him and the chain loosens but he doesn’t let go. I grab the chain and spin slamming him up against the wall. He lets go of the chain and grabs for the gun in his waistband. I punch him in the stomach and this slows him enough so that I am able to grab his gun and throw it up on the roof of the warehouse.
“Para Warthog, now that’s a damn fine super-compact .45. It’s a shame you’ll never see it again.”
I can see in his eyes for the first time that he thinks he’s made a mistake coming after me. I tried to tell him but he didn’t listen, they never listen.
He manages to stand upright and pulls a double edged tantō from his waistband. “Pretty good but not good enough.”
“You’re loaded down with all kinds of weaponry. You’re not going to pull a hand grenade out of your ass are you?”
I slide my hands into the pockets of my trench coat and into my Mom’s brass knuckles, the ones she left me when she passed. He lunges at me and I drive my fist into the bridge of his nose.
I laugh. “That’s one goddamn fucked up face you have. You’re almost as ugly as me now.”
He growls and comes at me again, this time slicing my trench coat. I hit him with a left jab and then an overhand right. He staggers back slicing at me. I hit him again and again. His face is unrecognizable, swollen and bleeding. Blood shoots up into the bright street light and seems to hang there like some beautiful velvet curtain. He slumps to the ground.
“Not so tough now are you?”
I light a cigarette and look away, up to the brightness of the moon. The light it casts on my face is damn nice. I turn back and he’s gone.
That chump doesn’t know that by trying to kill me he saved my life. How goddamn ironic is that? What the hell was I thinking? I may not have looks or money but I can kick ass. At least that’s something and that something is a lot more than most people will ever have.
I press the gun muzzle up to my temple and center it over the spot where all the pain is, right where all that blackness has collected. If I’m going to end it, then I don’t see any goddamn reason to half-ass it and put the revolver in my mouth. Amateurs stick guns in their mouths, blow their jaws off and end up someone’s private freak show locked away in some sterilized bedroom with no damn good way to get a beer. No thanks, I’m not going out like that.
There’s no wondering where it all went wrong. It was never right to start with. The affections of one fine looking police detective—Ms. Uma Pocket--were never mine to lose. She was always too beautiful, too sophisticated, too damn smart to fall for a guy like me. I knew I could never have her, not with my looks and I’d been playing it cool but when I saw her mugging down with that suit in the bar tonight the feelings I’ve been hiding from myself came out. I shouldn’t have busted that guy’s mug up like that but I did and I messed things up good.
Far down the alley I can hear cinders grinding under someone’s feet on the wet macadam. I shove the revolver inside my trench coat. If this person would have come ten seconds later he would have found my skull spread out on the macadam like some sort of bloody jigsaw puzzle.
A dark figure passes under the streetlight some thirty yards away. I feel the cold steel prickle of hairs rising up on my spine. Something isn’t right.
I can see him now. Yeah, there he is, hands stuffed in the pockets of his pea coat, black knit hat, black combat boots. His footsteps seem so damn loud, so damn exaggerated I can barely stand it. There’s no way he can see me in the darkness but he stops in front of me.
He flicks cigarette ashes on the ground. “What in the hell are you doing out here?”
I step out of the shadows into the light. “Thinking.”
“Damn odd place to collect your thoughts ain’t it?”
“It’s as good as any other place and up until now it was a damn private place.”
“So, you want to be alone? Sure, I can understand that but first I’m going to need a little cash.”
“Isn’t there some nice old lady you can go mug? Me, I’m too much damn trouble.”
He takes a step towards me. He’s close, too goddamn close. Someone that close is asking to have his face smashed in. “Little old ladies aren’t a challenge.”
“I’m not going to give you a dime. So, scram, you maggot before I rearrange your face.”
I see a chain in his hands. How I didn’t hear it is a goddamn mystery to me. I lift my arms to grab the rusty thing but before I can get a hold of it he throws it around my neck and pulls it tight. He moves behind me and starts choking me.
“You’re gonna die. You could have been nice and given me the money and I would have let you live…nah, not really. You were screwed either way. I’m a homicidal psycho.”
I rear back and slam my elbow into the guy’s gut. The air rushes out of him and the chain loosens but he doesn’t let go. I grab the chain and spin slamming him up against the wall. He lets go of the chain and grabs for the gun in his waistband. I punch him in the stomach and this slows him enough so that I am able to grab his gun and throw it up on the roof of the warehouse.
“Para Warthog, now that’s a damn fine super-compact .45. It’s a shame you’ll never see it again.”
I can see in his eyes for the first time that he thinks he’s made a mistake coming after me. I tried to tell him but he didn’t listen, they never listen.
He manages to stand upright and pulls a double edged tantō from his waistband. “Pretty good but not good enough.”
“You’re loaded down with all kinds of weaponry. You’re not going to pull a hand grenade out of your ass are you?”
I slide my hands into the pockets of my trench coat and into my Mom’s brass knuckles, the ones she left me when she passed. He lunges at me and I drive my fist into the bridge of his nose.
I laugh. “That’s one goddamn fucked up face you have. You’re almost as ugly as me now.”
He growls and comes at me again, this time slicing my trench coat. I hit him with a left jab and then an overhand right. He staggers back slicing at me. I hit him again and again. His face is unrecognizable, swollen and bleeding. Blood shoots up into the bright street light and seems to hang there like some beautiful velvet curtain. He slumps to the ground.
“Not so tough now are you?”
I light a cigarette and look away, up to the brightness of the moon. The light it casts on my face is damn nice. I turn back and he’s gone.
That chump doesn’t know that by trying to kill me he saved my life. How goddamn ironic is that? What the hell was I thinking? I may not have looks or money but I can kick ass. At least that’s something and that something is a lot more than most people will ever have.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The Drop
It’s a goddamn shame, all this death and dying but I don’t have the time to make any kind of penance now, there’s a pack of murdering madmen hot on my trail and they won’t let up until they’re wading ankle deep in my blood. Sure, I screwed up, I screwed up big time, but I screwed up for all the right reasons, in particular a five foot eight inch reason with silky blond hair and legs a mile long.
I peer out around the side of the building--nothing but blackness and the drip drip of the rain in the alleyway. The bastards shot out the street lights and are hiding in the shadows, sharpening their knives and reloading their guns. There’s no way I’m getting out of this one alive. I should have walked away when I had the chance but that would give people a reason to call me yellow, I couldn’t live with that on my conscience.
I hear the pin of a hand grenade hitting the macadam and only a fool wouldn’t know what’s coming next. I dive behind a dumpster and the grenade explodes right where I was just crouching. The shrapnel tears into the dumpster like it was made of Styrofoam.
“It’s all over, Ludlow,” Bimby yells. “Throw your gun down and come out with your hands up…actually come out with them down if you like, it doesn’t matter which you’re going to die anyway.”
I put a fresh clip in my roscoe and chamber a bullet. “How about I keep my roscoe and you and your goons come out with your hands down. I don’t like killing people who look like they’re surrendering.”
“You really are a whack job. There’s half a dozen of us and only one of you. The odds are in our favor. ”
“I was never one to put much stock in odds. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. Worse things happen to scum. I make sure of that.”
“You’re a regular goddamn hero, Ludlow. Why don’t you stick to helping little old ladies down from trees?”
“I’m no damn Boy Scout. I’ve done the wrong things before but only for the right reasons. You, you don’t give a good goddamn about anything but lining your pockets with sawbucks. You’re going to have yourself one hard time trying to use them in hell before they all burn up because that’s right where I’m sending you.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Ludlow. You’re the one that’s going to hell and all for a two-bit dame. I thought you had more sense than that but I was wrong.”
“It’s the price I might have to pay for doing the right thing. A bastard like you wouldn’t know anything about that. Sure, I just met her but she needed me. She trusted me. That means everything.”
“She trusted you would take the bait and you did. She’s working with us, Ludlow. Youv’e been set up.”
For once Bimby shuts that big trap of his long enough to give me time to think. Was she really trying to set me up or is he full of it? She seemed to be legit when I met her but then again a lot of things aren’t the way they seem.
* * *
My contact told me to meet her at the Hoof and Gristle--a steak and beer hut down on North Front Street overlooking the Susquehanna River. It’s the kind of place hard types on loud motorcycles frequent in-between stays in the joint. Drinks are served in plastic cups because one too many heads had been split open with bottles and glasses. I don’t much go for places that cater to scum but in my line of business you go where your contact commands and you don’t ask questions.
I sat at the bar stirring the ice cubs in my plastic cup of bourbon when the cowbell over the front door rang. I turned, as did every other stiff in the joint, and through the sunlight cast through the open door, there appeared the dame my contact had so inadequately described. She was to give me the details of her situation but what she gave me was a tent stake in my boxer shorts.
She took a step forward and her long white leg appeared out from the slit of her skirt and there wasn’t an eye in the place that wasn’t glued to that gorgeous gam. The door shut behind her and as my eyes adjusted to the dark the only thing I could see was the glow of her white dress which made it look like she was gliding across the floor like an angel. If it was wrong to want to screw an angel then I was going straight to hell.
When she got close enough I motioned to her with my hand to sit in the chair across from me. “Have a seat, Ms. Sprat.”
She smiled with the greased ease of a used car salesman. “This place is sort of scary.”
I lit a cigarillo. “Sort of? Ha, there’s no sort of about it. On a good night this place would give Stephen King nightmares.”
She took a fat envelope out of her purse and handed it to me. “In this envelope are all the details you’ll need.”
I took the envelop and tossed it onto the table knocking over a candle. I quickly extinguished it. “I’m not interested in the watered down version. Some goddamn document sealed in an envelope. I want the facts straight from your gorgeous lips. ”
Her hands were trembling and right away I suspected she had the DT’s, that perhaps she’d been too friendly with the giggle juice for too long and she had a bum liver and maybe days to live. In fact I’d never been surer of anything in my life.
“You’re right, some things can’t be explained adequately with words. Open it, you’ll see what I mean.”
I picked up the envelop, tore the end off, and dumped the contents on the table. It was a human hand. Okay, maybe I was wrong about the dame being a lush but what I wasn’t wrong about was that there was a hand on the table with very hairy knuckles. “That’s kind of gross.”
“It’s my husband’s. They cut it off and said they were going to kill him if I didn’t pay them 5 million dollars.”
I blew a cloud of smoke across the table. “I hate to break the news to you but if you’re looking for a loan I blew my last fifty bucks on a case of Troegs Mad Elf. Damn, fine beer and potent too.”
She turned on the faucets and whipped out an embroidered hanky faster than I could say emotionally volatile. If there’s one thing I can’t take is seeing dames ball.
“I’m not asking you for money Mr. Ludlow.”
“Good, because that would have been kind of awkward since we just met and all.”
“What I want you to do is deliver the ransom money for my husband.”
“Why me? If I deliver this mazula who is to say they won’t kidnap me and ask my parent’s for ransom?”
“You’re parents are dead.”
“That’s what I’m worried about. No one would pay to get me back. And I have to say I’m impressed with your research. You must have really checked my credentials out. Most people think a guy like me never had parents. That I fell from the sky and was raised by vultures in the desert.”
“Vultures? I don’t think I understand.”
“Don’t worry about it. Most people don’t.”
“Well then will you do it? Will you make the drop?”
“I’ll do it if the compensation package is appropriate.”
“Oh, I assure you it will be appropriate. How does $50,000 dollars sound to you?”
“It sounds like a hell of a lot of Troegs Mad Elf.”
She turned the faucets off and tucked her fancy hanky away in her purse. “Good, then we’ll have to get going. They want the money at midnight.”
I looked at my watch, it was eleven fifteen. “We’re cutting it a little close aren’t we?”
She stood and pushed her chair under the table. “I didn’t want you to have time to reconsider.”
“I never reconsider; it shows a lack of character.”
“Huh?”
“Right, aren’t you forgetting something?”
The hand was still lying in the middle of the table and people were starting to stare. I picked it up. “It’s a movie prop.”
They started to look away. I stuffed the hand in one of the inside pockets of my trench coat.
“What are you going to do with my husband’s hand?”
“I’ll take care of it. Now, let’s get out of here until someone figures out it was real.”
* * *
I got into her car, a snazzy little number without a roof. It didn’t seem like the kind of car a woman whose husband had been kidnapped would drive. It was too light and airy, too pretentious. I would have preferred something more sullen like a black limousine. Yeah, that would have been just about right. Surely, a rich dame like that had several cars at her disposal. I wondered why she chose the one that was the same shade as a clown’s lipstick. We sure as hell weren’t going to any damn circus. Or so I thought.
She drove fast, way too damn fast and I was wondering the whole time if I would feel the impact when she hit a tree or if there would just be blackness like a candle being snuffed out. We didn’t die though and we came up to the city limits and the old industrial center of Harrisburg.
She lit a cigarette with the car lighter but it blew out of her mouth and out onto the road. I acted like I didn’t notice.
She pulled up next to an old warehouse. “The briefcase with the cash in it is in the back seat,” she said.
“When do I get my money?”
“When the job is done. I’ll be waiting here in the car for you.”
Something told me to jump out of the car and run like hell. These things always have a way of turning out bad, or worse but she was so goddamn beautiful and I was powerless to tell her no. It’s my only weakness, broads, well that and booze and a few other insignificant vices that aren’t worth mentioning.
I put my mitt on her knee and squeezed. “Okay, and maybe afterwards we can go out for a fine steak dinner on me.”
She laid her fingers on mine and looked into my eyes. “I’d like that.”
I think I fell in love with her that moment or maybe it was in the next moment when she unzipped my fly. The sequence of events is unimportant. What matters now is how to get myself out of this goddamn mess.
* * *
The smell of rotting food and god knows what else in the dumpster is starting to make my stomach turn. I need a stiff drink and a girl with soft hands to rub my shoulders with that nice scented massage oil. Yeah, that would be just about right.
“You really are a rube aren’t you, Ludlow?” Bimby yells. “Mrs. Sprat hired us. She told the police you kidnapped her husband. When you tried to give us the money we were going to take it, kill you and split it with her. You were supposed to die along with her husband in a big fire and when we’re done killing you here we’ll take your carcass, put it in that building with Mr. Sprat and burn it to the ground.”
Lovely, angelic Mrs. Sprat, that couldn’t be, she hired me. They’re trying to fool me, to turn me against her. What she did to me in the front seat of that snazzy red sports car had to be love. I won’t believe it. I can’t believe it.
“Don’t forget I still have the briefcase with the five million in it.”
“Don’t worry I haven’t forgotten and either has Mrs. Sprat. Just how she hasn’t forgotten how I bent her over the little red sports car last night and made her howl like a coyote.”
“You’re a goddamn liar.”
“Really? Did she call you big daddy when she was getting passionate? And does she have a heart tattoo just above her--”
“You’re a goddamn liar I said!”
That goddamn bitch. I’ve been set up.
They chamber bullets. I’d know that sound anywhere. They’ll be on top of me in a second, like a pack of weasels on bucket of chicken bones.
I look out from behind the dumpster. I see movement. This is it; time to make my move, time to kill or be killed, time to send the bad men straight to hell.
I thrust my body into the dumpster and it starts to roll. “Goddamn!” My bad shoulder pops out of joint and it hurts like holy hell but there’s no stopping now.
Guns explode everyone around me. Bullets richocette off the sides of the dumpster—sparks rain down around me like fireworks. I love fireworks. They remind me of when I was a kid.
I push harder and start building up a little speed. My bum knee feels like a circus monkey is prying at it with a steak knife but stopping now would mean sure death. “Here I come, you worthless cocksuckers!”
I’m almost running with the dumpster now, breathing heavy from all the cigarillo smoking. My doc told me to quit. I told him I would in time.
I give the dumpster one final thrust and stop. The dumpster rolls down the alleyway going a hundred miles an hour.
I take out my roscoes just as the dumpster smashes into the crates they are hiding behind. They come running out and I start blowing them away like some cowboy, one dirty bastard at a time. I’m a goddamn killing machine. Blood paints the alleyway red and a heat like the burn of a good liquor burns up in my guts. They’ll all have dinner with the devil tonight.
A bullet tears through my shoulder and knocks me to the ground. I stick my finger in the wound. It’s bleeding like hell. What can I plug hit with? I take out my Chapstick and jam it in the hole. That’ll hold it until I can go see my doctor friend.
“I’m coming to get you. Every last one of you,” I scream.
I fire and blow a hole in some fat bastards forehead. The doc ain’t going to be able do a damn thing about that wind tunnel. The mortician will plug it with putty and paint it up real nice like a china doll so the family doesn’t puke at the viewing but this guy has eaten his last canolie.
Silence.
They’re all dead except for Bimby. We’ve been enemies for a long time. I’m sure it was him who recommended to Mrs. Gladen that I be set up.
“Come on out Bimby. Face me like a man.”
“Don’t shoot I’ve got Mrs. Sprat.”
I lower my roscoes—blue smoke is still pouring out their hot barrels, looks like the nose holes of a dragon that just butchered a village. Bimby steps out from behind a brick wall and he’s got beautiful Mrs. Sprat in front of him. She’s tied up and there’s duct tape around her mouth and head.
“Drop your weapons or Mrs. Gladen gets an extra ear hole blown in her head.”
I start walking towards them. “I thought you said she set this whole thing up.”
Bimby is shaking now. “I’m not kidding. Stop or I’ll blow a hole in her head.”
“Let me save you the trouble.” I pull the trigger and blow a hole in Mrs. Sprat’s head. I hate to kill such a beauty but if I didn’t she would have blamed this whole mess on me and I ain’t going to the chair for nobody.
I fire again and hit Bimby in the arm. He drops his roscoe and falls to his knees. Blood shoots out of his mouth and he coughs and spits and then smiles.
“You knew from the start we were setting you up, didn’t you?” Bimby asks.
“I had a hunch.”
I take out my handkerchief and wipe down my roscoes.
“What are you going to do with all that money?”
“I’m going to give it to a church.”
“You’re a religious man?”
“No, but I figure after I kill you I just might have to buy my way into heaven.”
I take Mr. Gladen’s hand out of my trench coat and wrap it around my roscoe. I pull the trigger with the finger and Bimby’s head is spread out on the pavement like a busted melon. I throw the roscoes on the ground, turn, and start the long walk home.
I peer out around the side of the building--nothing but blackness and the drip drip of the rain in the alleyway. The bastards shot out the street lights and are hiding in the shadows, sharpening their knives and reloading their guns. There’s no way I’m getting out of this one alive. I should have walked away when I had the chance but that would give people a reason to call me yellow, I couldn’t live with that on my conscience.
I hear the pin of a hand grenade hitting the macadam and only a fool wouldn’t know what’s coming next. I dive behind a dumpster and the grenade explodes right where I was just crouching. The shrapnel tears into the dumpster like it was made of Styrofoam.
“It’s all over, Ludlow,” Bimby yells. “Throw your gun down and come out with your hands up…actually come out with them down if you like, it doesn’t matter which you’re going to die anyway.”
I put a fresh clip in my roscoe and chamber a bullet. “How about I keep my roscoe and you and your goons come out with your hands down. I don’t like killing people who look like they’re surrendering.”
“You really are a whack job. There’s half a dozen of us and only one of you. The odds are in our favor. ”
“I was never one to put much stock in odds. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. Worse things happen to scum. I make sure of that.”
“You’re a regular goddamn hero, Ludlow. Why don’t you stick to helping little old ladies down from trees?”
“I’m no damn Boy Scout. I’ve done the wrong things before but only for the right reasons. You, you don’t give a good goddamn about anything but lining your pockets with sawbucks. You’re going to have yourself one hard time trying to use them in hell before they all burn up because that’s right where I’m sending you.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Ludlow. You’re the one that’s going to hell and all for a two-bit dame. I thought you had more sense than that but I was wrong.”
“It’s the price I might have to pay for doing the right thing. A bastard like you wouldn’t know anything about that. Sure, I just met her but she needed me. She trusted me. That means everything.”
“She trusted you would take the bait and you did. She’s working with us, Ludlow. Youv’e been set up.”
For once Bimby shuts that big trap of his long enough to give me time to think. Was she really trying to set me up or is he full of it? She seemed to be legit when I met her but then again a lot of things aren’t the way they seem.
* * *
My contact told me to meet her at the Hoof and Gristle--a steak and beer hut down on North Front Street overlooking the Susquehanna River. It’s the kind of place hard types on loud motorcycles frequent in-between stays in the joint. Drinks are served in plastic cups because one too many heads had been split open with bottles and glasses. I don’t much go for places that cater to scum but in my line of business you go where your contact commands and you don’t ask questions.
I sat at the bar stirring the ice cubs in my plastic cup of bourbon when the cowbell over the front door rang. I turned, as did every other stiff in the joint, and through the sunlight cast through the open door, there appeared the dame my contact had so inadequately described. She was to give me the details of her situation but what she gave me was a tent stake in my boxer shorts.
She took a step forward and her long white leg appeared out from the slit of her skirt and there wasn’t an eye in the place that wasn’t glued to that gorgeous gam. The door shut behind her and as my eyes adjusted to the dark the only thing I could see was the glow of her white dress which made it look like she was gliding across the floor like an angel. If it was wrong to want to screw an angel then I was going straight to hell.
When she got close enough I motioned to her with my hand to sit in the chair across from me. “Have a seat, Ms. Sprat.”
She smiled with the greased ease of a used car salesman. “This place is sort of scary.”
I lit a cigarillo. “Sort of? Ha, there’s no sort of about it. On a good night this place would give Stephen King nightmares.”
She took a fat envelope out of her purse and handed it to me. “In this envelope are all the details you’ll need.”
I took the envelop and tossed it onto the table knocking over a candle. I quickly extinguished it. “I’m not interested in the watered down version. Some goddamn document sealed in an envelope. I want the facts straight from your gorgeous lips. ”
Her hands were trembling and right away I suspected she had the DT’s, that perhaps she’d been too friendly with the giggle juice for too long and she had a bum liver and maybe days to live. In fact I’d never been surer of anything in my life.
“You’re right, some things can’t be explained adequately with words. Open it, you’ll see what I mean.”
I picked up the envelop, tore the end off, and dumped the contents on the table. It was a human hand. Okay, maybe I was wrong about the dame being a lush but what I wasn’t wrong about was that there was a hand on the table with very hairy knuckles. “That’s kind of gross.”
“It’s my husband’s. They cut it off and said they were going to kill him if I didn’t pay them 5 million dollars.”
I blew a cloud of smoke across the table. “I hate to break the news to you but if you’re looking for a loan I blew my last fifty bucks on a case of Troegs Mad Elf. Damn, fine beer and potent too.”
She turned on the faucets and whipped out an embroidered hanky faster than I could say emotionally volatile. If there’s one thing I can’t take is seeing dames ball.
“I’m not asking you for money Mr. Ludlow.”
“Good, because that would have been kind of awkward since we just met and all.”
“What I want you to do is deliver the ransom money for my husband.”
“Why me? If I deliver this mazula who is to say they won’t kidnap me and ask my parent’s for ransom?”
“You’re parents are dead.”
“That’s what I’m worried about. No one would pay to get me back. And I have to say I’m impressed with your research. You must have really checked my credentials out. Most people think a guy like me never had parents. That I fell from the sky and was raised by vultures in the desert.”
“Vultures? I don’t think I understand.”
“Don’t worry about it. Most people don’t.”
“Well then will you do it? Will you make the drop?”
“I’ll do it if the compensation package is appropriate.”
“Oh, I assure you it will be appropriate. How does $50,000 dollars sound to you?”
“It sounds like a hell of a lot of Troegs Mad Elf.”
She turned the faucets off and tucked her fancy hanky away in her purse. “Good, then we’ll have to get going. They want the money at midnight.”
I looked at my watch, it was eleven fifteen. “We’re cutting it a little close aren’t we?”
She stood and pushed her chair under the table. “I didn’t want you to have time to reconsider.”
“I never reconsider; it shows a lack of character.”
“Huh?”
“Right, aren’t you forgetting something?”
The hand was still lying in the middle of the table and people were starting to stare. I picked it up. “It’s a movie prop.”
They started to look away. I stuffed the hand in one of the inside pockets of my trench coat.
“What are you going to do with my husband’s hand?”
“I’ll take care of it. Now, let’s get out of here until someone figures out it was real.”
* * *
I got into her car, a snazzy little number without a roof. It didn’t seem like the kind of car a woman whose husband had been kidnapped would drive. It was too light and airy, too pretentious. I would have preferred something more sullen like a black limousine. Yeah, that would have been just about right. Surely, a rich dame like that had several cars at her disposal. I wondered why she chose the one that was the same shade as a clown’s lipstick. We sure as hell weren’t going to any damn circus. Or so I thought.
She drove fast, way too damn fast and I was wondering the whole time if I would feel the impact when she hit a tree or if there would just be blackness like a candle being snuffed out. We didn’t die though and we came up to the city limits and the old industrial center of Harrisburg.
She lit a cigarette with the car lighter but it blew out of her mouth and out onto the road. I acted like I didn’t notice.
She pulled up next to an old warehouse. “The briefcase with the cash in it is in the back seat,” she said.
“When do I get my money?”
“When the job is done. I’ll be waiting here in the car for you.”
Something told me to jump out of the car and run like hell. These things always have a way of turning out bad, or worse but she was so goddamn beautiful and I was powerless to tell her no. It’s my only weakness, broads, well that and booze and a few other insignificant vices that aren’t worth mentioning.
I put my mitt on her knee and squeezed. “Okay, and maybe afterwards we can go out for a fine steak dinner on me.”
She laid her fingers on mine and looked into my eyes. “I’d like that.”
I think I fell in love with her that moment or maybe it was in the next moment when she unzipped my fly. The sequence of events is unimportant. What matters now is how to get myself out of this goddamn mess.
* * *
The smell of rotting food and god knows what else in the dumpster is starting to make my stomach turn. I need a stiff drink and a girl with soft hands to rub my shoulders with that nice scented massage oil. Yeah, that would be just about right.
“You really are a rube aren’t you, Ludlow?” Bimby yells. “Mrs. Sprat hired us. She told the police you kidnapped her husband. When you tried to give us the money we were going to take it, kill you and split it with her. You were supposed to die along with her husband in a big fire and when we’re done killing you here we’ll take your carcass, put it in that building with Mr. Sprat and burn it to the ground.”
Lovely, angelic Mrs. Sprat, that couldn’t be, she hired me. They’re trying to fool me, to turn me against her. What she did to me in the front seat of that snazzy red sports car had to be love. I won’t believe it. I can’t believe it.
“Don’t forget I still have the briefcase with the five million in it.”
“Don’t worry I haven’t forgotten and either has Mrs. Sprat. Just how she hasn’t forgotten how I bent her over the little red sports car last night and made her howl like a coyote.”
“You’re a goddamn liar.”
“Really? Did she call you big daddy when she was getting passionate? And does she have a heart tattoo just above her--”
“You’re a goddamn liar I said!”
That goddamn bitch. I’ve been set up.
They chamber bullets. I’d know that sound anywhere. They’ll be on top of me in a second, like a pack of weasels on bucket of chicken bones.
I look out from behind the dumpster. I see movement. This is it; time to make my move, time to kill or be killed, time to send the bad men straight to hell.
I thrust my body into the dumpster and it starts to roll. “Goddamn!” My bad shoulder pops out of joint and it hurts like holy hell but there’s no stopping now.
Guns explode everyone around me. Bullets richocette off the sides of the dumpster—sparks rain down around me like fireworks. I love fireworks. They remind me of when I was a kid.
I push harder and start building up a little speed. My bum knee feels like a circus monkey is prying at it with a steak knife but stopping now would mean sure death. “Here I come, you worthless cocksuckers!”
I’m almost running with the dumpster now, breathing heavy from all the cigarillo smoking. My doc told me to quit. I told him I would in time.
I give the dumpster one final thrust and stop. The dumpster rolls down the alleyway going a hundred miles an hour.
I take out my roscoes just as the dumpster smashes into the crates they are hiding behind. They come running out and I start blowing them away like some cowboy, one dirty bastard at a time. I’m a goddamn killing machine. Blood paints the alleyway red and a heat like the burn of a good liquor burns up in my guts. They’ll all have dinner with the devil tonight.
A bullet tears through my shoulder and knocks me to the ground. I stick my finger in the wound. It’s bleeding like hell. What can I plug hit with? I take out my Chapstick and jam it in the hole. That’ll hold it until I can go see my doctor friend.
“I’m coming to get you. Every last one of you,” I scream.
I fire and blow a hole in some fat bastards forehead. The doc ain’t going to be able do a damn thing about that wind tunnel. The mortician will plug it with putty and paint it up real nice like a china doll so the family doesn’t puke at the viewing but this guy has eaten his last canolie.
Silence.
They’re all dead except for Bimby. We’ve been enemies for a long time. I’m sure it was him who recommended to Mrs. Gladen that I be set up.
“Come on out Bimby. Face me like a man.”
“Don’t shoot I’ve got Mrs. Sprat.”
I lower my roscoes—blue smoke is still pouring out their hot barrels, looks like the nose holes of a dragon that just butchered a village. Bimby steps out from behind a brick wall and he’s got beautiful Mrs. Sprat in front of him. She’s tied up and there’s duct tape around her mouth and head.
“Drop your weapons or Mrs. Gladen gets an extra ear hole blown in her head.”
I start walking towards them. “I thought you said she set this whole thing up.”
Bimby is shaking now. “I’m not kidding. Stop or I’ll blow a hole in her head.”
“Let me save you the trouble.” I pull the trigger and blow a hole in Mrs. Sprat’s head. I hate to kill such a beauty but if I didn’t she would have blamed this whole mess on me and I ain’t going to the chair for nobody.
I fire again and hit Bimby in the arm. He drops his roscoe and falls to his knees. Blood shoots out of his mouth and he coughs and spits and then smiles.
“You knew from the start we were setting you up, didn’t you?” Bimby asks.
“I had a hunch.”
I take out my handkerchief and wipe down my roscoes.
“What are you going to do with all that money?”
“I’m going to give it to a church.”
“You’re a religious man?”
“No, but I figure after I kill you I just might have to buy my way into heaven.”
I take Mr. Gladen’s hand out of my trench coat and wrap it around my roscoe. I pull the trigger with the finger and Bimby’s head is spread out on the pavement like a busted melon. I throw the roscoes on the ground, turn, and start the long walk home.
Monday, November 16, 2009
My sister lives in the town I went to high school in and Saturday I went over to her house to help her husband put together bunk beds for the two youngest kids. It was great fun…uh, well, maybe not great fun but I was happy to help. As I drove home I passed the house of a bully that used to pick on me when I was younger and whom I consequently beat up years after the bullying started. To my surprise I saw him standing in his parent’s driveway as I passed by. He was leaning against the garage door talking on a cell phone. It was a pathetic sight. His face was bloated and his stomach stuck out way over his belt. He was bald except for thick graying hair around the sides of his head and his skin was blotchy and red. In his free hand he was holding a can of Budweiser and a cigarette dangled from his lip. He had become as ugly on the outside as he had been on the inside.
Baby I miss you today and I don’t know why because I don’t even like you. It’s a trick of the brain, a sympathetic misfire perhaps or the pressure of an aneurysm ready to burst. Whatever it is it can’t be good and I’m thinking I should seek the attention of specialist. Yes, I do think this is the answer. I will hire a hit man to erase your memory it is too hard on my health…
Whoever started the talking baby commercials needs to be put in a stockade and whipped for a week. These commercials are not funny. They are annoying as fuck. Babies are cute because they CAN’T talk. They coo and laugh and move their legs and arms spastically. They don’t type on computer keyboards and discuss stocks. What the fuck is funny about that? Can someone enlighten me?
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Spun
My head is spun and I’m coming undone, strand by tiny strand. My brain is mad cow, there is sweat on by brow and I’m drifting. Fuck, I want to grab hold, reel myself back into being but how and where and who? I’m in danger of never coming back, of staying off track of never being anything to anyone. I need clarity, to focus on the calamity that my life has become. Can you help me back? Can you forget the past and tow me into the future? I’ll pay you in riddles or dig ditches in your dreams. Just, please, please don’t forget me.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Mr. Peanut I
I was recently on Facebook and I saw these pictures on one of my friend's profiles. The dog in the Mr. Peanut suit is Trapper. His owner is Jenn Bender. I had to show everyone this creative getup. How cute is that?
So, after much thought I’ve started another rewrite of my Burma Ludlow novel. I had originally used different voices throughout the book but in this version I will stick with just Burma’s voice. It will work better this way. Trust me. My goal is still to have this done sometime in the spring and send it to my editor. I just hope he can get to it soon. I don’t want to have to wait but of course this might be the case.
Here are two of my Burma Ludlow stories that are on Thuglit.com.
One Night
Private Craps Shooter at Dawn
One Night
Private Craps Shooter at Dawn
Monday, November 09, 2009
The rain was cold and had soaked through my clothes but I was too scared to move from inside the thick bushes. I started to shiver and all I could think about was warmth. There was only one place I could go and be safe and before I knew completely what had happened I realized I was running. Down the side of the busy road I ran, the cars splashing me as they whizzed by. The cold rain stung as it hit my face and my wet clothes rubbed my skin raw but I continued to run. People driving by looked at me. I’m sure they wondered what a kid was doing out this late in such a bad storm.
I took my pocket knife out of my pocket and held it in my palm in case a weirdo tried to stop and attack me. Up ahead I saw the lights of the convenience store and I ran even harder. I looked over my shoulder to make sure no one was following me. There was six inches of water sitting in the parking lot but it didn’t slow me down. I didn’t stop running until I hit the brick wall next to the pay phone.
I pulled the change from my pocket and put a quarter in the pay phone and dialed. “Please be home, grandma,” I said, trying to catch my breath. The phone rang and rang but she didn’t answer. She wasn’t home. I sat on the curb for what seemed like hours and then decided to walk to her house. It would take the whole night and I would have to go through bad neighborhoods but I couldn’t stay there.
The rain had stopped by the time I started walking. There were hardly any cars on the road now. I walked and walked until the sky turned red. I turned and a cop told me to stand still.
I took my pocket knife out of my pocket and held it in my palm in case a weirdo tried to stop and attack me. Up ahead I saw the lights of the convenience store and I ran even harder. I looked over my shoulder to make sure no one was following me. There was six inches of water sitting in the parking lot but it didn’t slow me down. I didn’t stop running until I hit the brick wall next to the pay phone.
I pulled the change from my pocket and put a quarter in the pay phone and dialed. “Please be home, grandma,” I said, trying to catch my breath. The phone rang and rang but she didn’t answer. She wasn’t home. I sat on the curb for what seemed like hours and then decided to walk to her house. It would take the whole night and I would have to go through bad neighborhoods but I couldn’t stay there.
The rain had stopped by the time I started walking. There were hardly any cars on the road now. I walked and walked until the sky turned red. I turned and a cop told me to stand still.
Dear Governor Rendell,
I received the correspondence from your secretary dated November 5, 2009. I assume it met your approval since I found a hamburger grease finger print stain on the stationary which I had a friend at the FBI run and it turned out to be yours. The signature was stamped so I would have had to otherwise question the authenticity of said document.
Pertaining to your comments on our beloved Phillies: Yes, it’s a damn shame the Phillies lost the World Series to the most despicable organization in professional sports, the New York Yankees. To even the playing field I suggest you go ahead and sell the Turnpike to the Swiss or whoever the hell wanted the damn thing and use the proceeds to buy up every baseball player in MLB with a batting average over .290 or has an ERA below 3.00. Then we can have 27 World Series Championship banners hanging in Citizens Bank Park. I also think it would be prudent for you to know that Derek Jeter gave Jessica Alba herpes as reported by many sleazy magazines. Google it, you’ll find it to be true. Yes, he is the smug little jackass we all think he is. At any rate, think on this subject and let me know if I can help the Phillies in any way for the 2010 season. Oh, and if you need anyone to interview ball girls my partner Muggsy and I are up for the job.
Now, to the business at hand, my partner and I question the free service clause you suggested for the current and future governors at brothels if they were to become legal. Now, I would have no problem allowing this opportunity for you. Hell, I would let you screw the women on a mattress made of cheese steaks and I would provide the cheese steaks. No, what I am concerned with is who might replace you as governor. What if it were a Republican? As we all know the higher echelons of the party are largely comprised of sexual deviates in denial. It is not uncommon to find one of these bastard homophobes being caught trying to suck the pecker of an undercover cop in a McDonald’s bathroom and afterward claiming they slipped in a puddle of urine and merely fell towards the cop’s night stick. Inevitably this bastard will be the leader of some anti-gay organization. They hate women! If you force one of them to come to our brothel we could have a real mess on our hands. I assume you’ve heard of Jack the Ripper? You don’t think he was a self-hating homosexual? Who knows what they would do to a beautiful woman when deep down in their closeted souls they really want to be with a man? The possibilities are too frightening for me to get a grip on completely.
I know you once compared prostitution to contract killing but we both know you said that because it was the politically correct thing to do. I have no problem with that as I know you have to appear squeaky clean to get into office. In the tabloids they have linked you to the prostitute Elliot Spitzer had been using. Again, none of my business but this shows me we can work together.
What would you suggest? I think we include the clause for you but have it run out at the end of your term. How does that sound? There’s nothing wrong with being gay but hiding it can cause all sorts of problems. I think we need to put together a think tank for this issue to come up with the best possible solution. Please get back to me as soon as possible on this matter. Muggsy and I will be at the Bunny Ranch this weekend but you can shoot me an E-mail. Thank-you for your time my old friend.
Yours truly,
Kerouacked
P.S. We should also work to eliminate the DH. It gives the American League an unfair advantage in inter-league play. Also, let’s work to do away with the winner of that stupid Allstar game getting home field advantage in the World Series. Use your influence Big Ed. I know you can do it. Again anything I can do to help even the playing field I will do.
I received the correspondence from your secretary dated November 5, 2009. I assume it met your approval since I found a hamburger grease finger print stain on the stationary which I had a friend at the FBI run and it turned out to be yours. The signature was stamped so I would have had to otherwise question the authenticity of said document.
Pertaining to your comments on our beloved Phillies: Yes, it’s a damn shame the Phillies lost the World Series to the most despicable organization in professional sports, the New York Yankees. To even the playing field I suggest you go ahead and sell the Turnpike to the Swiss or whoever the hell wanted the damn thing and use the proceeds to buy up every baseball player in MLB with a batting average over .290 or has an ERA below 3.00. Then we can have 27 World Series Championship banners hanging in Citizens Bank Park. I also think it would be prudent for you to know that Derek Jeter gave Jessica Alba herpes as reported by many sleazy magazines. Google it, you’ll find it to be true. Yes, he is the smug little jackass we all think he is. At any rate, think on this subject and let me know if I can help the Phillies in any way for the 2010 season. Oh, and if you need anyone to interview ball girls my partner Muggsy and I are up for the job.
Now, to the business at hand, my partner and I question the free service clause you suggested for the current and future governors at brothels if they were to become legal. Now, I would have no problem allowing this opportunity for you. Hell, I would let you screw the women on a mattress made of cheese steaks and I would provide the cheese steaks. No, what I am concerned with is who might replace you as governor. What if it were a Republican? As we all know the higher echelons of the party are largely comprised of sexual deviates in denial. It is not uncommon to find one of these bastard homophobes being caught trying to suck the pecker of an undercover cop in a McDonald’s bathroom and afterward claiming they slipped in a puddle of urine and merely fell towards the cop’s night stick. Inevitably this bastard will be the leader of some anti-gay organization. They hate women! If you force one of them to come to our brothel we could have a real mess on our hands. I assume you’ve heard of Jack the Ripper? You don’t think he was a self-hating homosexual? Who knows what they would do to a beautiful woman when deep down in their closeted souls they really want to be with a man? The possibilities are too frightening for me to get a grip on completely.
I know you once compared prostitution to contract killing but we both know you said that because it was the politically correct thing to do. I have no problem with that as I know you have to appear squeaky clean to get into office. In the tabloids they have linked you to the prostitute Elliot Spitzer had been using. Again, none of my business but this shows me we can work together.
What would you suggest? I think we include the clause for you but have it run out at the end of your term. How does that sound? There’s nothing wrong with being gay but hiding it can cause all sorts of problems. I think we need to put together a think tank for this issue to come up with the best possible solution. Please get back to me as soon as possible on this matter. Muggsy and I will be at the Bunny Ranch this weekend but you can shoot me an E-mail. Thank-you for your time my old friend.
Yours truly,
Kerouacked
P.S. We should also work to eliminate the DH. It gives the American League an unfair advantage in inter-league play. Also, let’s work to do away with the winner of that stupid Allstar game getting home field advantage in the World Series. Use your influence Big Ed. I know you can do it. Again anything I can do to help even the playing field I will do.
Friday, November 06, 2009
Pig Flu
Two nights ago upon leaving the gym I felt somewhat woozy, as if someone had sucked the oxygen out of my head with some super powered industrial vacuum cleaner. My stomach churned and as I made my way towards the car I smelled burned hair. My first reaction was to consider I was having a stroke. For I’ve heard people strangely report smelling burned hair when having a stroke. My fears were eased when I saw a guy with long hair lighting a cigarette and he had accidentally caught his mane on fire. Naturally I would have tried to help him put out his head but I was in no condition to do so. I figured he had enough hair between him and his head that he would be able to put it out before his scalp started to sizzle like a piece of scrapple on skillet.
When I reached my car I began to shiver and my hand shook as I pulled the door open. It was then that I realized I might have contracted the blasted swine virus that had been galloping across the landscape. How I might have contracted this dreaded bug was a baffling goddamn mystery. I had thoroughly sanitized myself and my surroundings wherever I went. Yes, of course people got pissed off at me when I sprayed them with bleach when I came into contact with them but so is the cost of self-preservation. Sometimes you have to make a few enemies to stay healthy. I wore a surgical mask, rubber gloves and rubbed my body down with hand sanitizer, all to no avail. This damn pig flu had been tricky. Obviously there had been some sort of hole in my defenses but what? And then it hit me. While I was on the treadmill a very attractive women and I had been chatting. I said something witty, which of course comes naturally to me, and she playfully hit me in the arm. Aha! Yes, this was when I must have contracted the bug. I slammed my car door shut and headed back towards the gym. I would find this germ spreading seductress and suggest we ride this pig sickness out together in front of my fireplace on my giraffe fur rug, naked of course but first I needed to puke…
When I reached my car I began to shiver and my hand shook as I pulled the door open. It was then that I realized I might have contracted the blasted swine virus that had been galloping across the landscape. How I might have contracted this dreaded bug was a baffling goddamn mystery. I had thoroughly sanitized myself and my surroundings wherever I went. Yes, of course people got pissed off at me when I sprayed them with bleach when I came into contact with them but so is the cost of self-preservation. Sometimes you have to make a few enemies to stay healthy. I wore a surgical mask, rubber gloves and rubbed my body down with hand sanitizer, all to no avail. This damn pig flu had been tricky. Obviously there had been some sort of hole in my defenses but what? And then it hit me. While I was on the treadmill a very attractive women and I had been chatting. I said something witty, which of course comes naturally to me, and she playfully hit me in the arm. Aha! Yes, this was when I must have contracted the bug. I slammed my car door shut and headed back towards the gym. I would find this germ spreading seductress and suggest we ride this pig sickness out together in front of my fireplace on my giraffe fur rug, naked of course but first I needed to puke…
The bomb squad had to visit my house last night because some derange psychopath left a curiously wrapped package on my stoop. I turned out to be a detonating device screwed into 20 pounds of C4, enough high end explosive to make yours truly and any neighbor within 1000 yards of him instant confetti. Luckily I had trained my ever faithful Chihuahuas to sniff out bombs in case anything like this were to ever occur and when I released them they ran straight for the box and urinated on it, indicating to me that they were marking their territory or there was something malicious inside. I suspected the latter of the two since I am naturally paranoid and prone to illusions of grandeur and lucky I am because it did indeed turn out to be a bomb. You see when one fights for justice and truth and the will of the people they will cause fear in those who suppress and stomp on these freedoms.
With the movement Muggsy and I have begun to get a legal brothel in Harrisburg I figured the whackos would start coming out of the plastic woodwork but I never thought they would find their way out this quickly. Evidently one of Rendell’s staffers is a mole working for the crazy Christian right. I can’t figure who else would have leaked the information about our plans. Unless it was one of you bastards that reads this blog. If it was I will have to remind you that by entering this blog you give up all rights. This is not a democracy you have entered but a dictatorship, a dictatorship that preserves democracy but a dictatorship just the same. I was merely testing you my dear readers. I know none of you would expose my plans but you understand I had to show my full hand for this mission Muggsy and I are on must not be derailed for ANY REASON! So, if you know of anyone trying to stop this very important political mission turn the bastard over to me and he or she will be dealt with accordingly. Thank-you, your full cooperation is greatly appreciated.
P.S. Oh, and yes I have considered that the bomb was left by a certain crazy delusional woman. This avenue is also being thoroughly investigated. The Chihuahuas have picked up a scent and are trailing the maker of this bomb as we speak. If it is this woman they are to go for the jugular and ask questions later.
With the movement Muggsy and I have begun to get a legal brothel in Harrisburg I figured the whackos would start coming out of the plastic woodwork but I never thought they would find their way out this quickly. Evidently one of Rendell’s staffers is a mole working for the crazy Christian right. I can’t figure who else would have leaked the information about our plans. Unless it was one of you bastards that reads this blog. If it was I will have to remind you that by entering this blog you give up all rights. This is not a democracy you have entered but a dictatorship, a dictatorship that preserves democracy but a dictatorship just the same. I was merely testing you my dear readers. I know none of you would expose my plans but you understand I had to show my full hand for this mission Muggsy and I are on must not be derailed for ANY REASON! So, if you know of anyone trying to stop this very important political mission turn the bastard over to me and he or she will be dealt with accordingly. Thank-you, your full cooperation is greatly appreciated.
P.S. Oh, and yes I have considered that the bomb was left by a certain crazy delusional woman. This avenue is also being thoroughly investigated. The Chihuahuas have picked up a scent and are trailing the maker of this bomb as we speak. If it is this woman they are to go for the jugular and ask questions later.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Dear God say it isn’t so. It appears that the apocalypse is upon us here in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I’ve packed my Prius with all the belongings I could stuff in it and am leaving in the morning. This included the antique gun collection my grandfather bequeathed to me when he was locked in a nursing home. Yes, I oiled and cleaned them and got myself a forty-gallon drum of black powder at Walmart. The hope is that I won’t have to fight my way out but you never know these situations often turn hostile. The people of Harrisburg have elected a complete fool as their mayor. The city ship won’t sale long with her at the helm. I’m sure it will sink deeper into the Susquehanna and rest on the bottom with the mercury and other pollutants.
I’ve also stocked up on girlie magazines…I’m sure you are asking why I didn’t just buy porn DVD’s or just plan to get on the Internet and look at free porn sites. The reason is this situation will most likely worsen quickly and we will be left without electricity or your precious Internet. Yes, that’s why I’ve stockpiled the girlie magazines and about 1200 long lasting batteries for various flashlights and lamps I plan to use when I drive up north to my secret bunker. I hope you all make it through this if you decide to stay. Oh, and I have room for three or four hot women in my bunker if anyone else wants to split. If I were religious I’d pray for your souls but since I’m not I’ve left several cyanide tablets in a pill bottle and dropped them in my downstairs toilet tank. Use them if you need them and remember that dying is only cowardly if you have a choice.
I’ve also stocked up on girlie magazines…I’m sure you are asking why I didn’t just buy porn DVD’s or just plan to get on the Internet and look at free porn sites. The reason is this situation will most likely worsen quickly and we will be left without electricity or your precious Internet. Yes, that’s why I’ve stockpiled the girlie magazines and about 1200 long lasting batteries for various flashlights and lamps I plan to use when I drive up north to my secret bunker. I hope you all make it through this if you decide to stay. Oh, and I have room for three or four hot women in my bunker if anyone else wants to split. If I were religious I’d pray for your souls but since I’m not I’ve left several cyanide tablets in a pill bottle and dropped them in my downstairs toilet tank. Use them if you need them and remember that dying is only cowardly if you have a choice.
-I drive a Prius and its not because I think its cool or because I can’t afford something else. Sure, I could drive a giant SUV with 40 inch tires that gets three miles per gallon but I don’t because I’m not concerned with what anyone thinks about what I drive. I drive what I drive to get from point A to point B. I drive what I drive for your kids’ future and the future of the planet. Do I want a woman to like me because I drive a Lexus? Fuck no, that’s not my kind of woman. So, you can make your jokes and I’ll laugh along because inside I’m all right with myself. I don’t need to compensate for inadequacies like a small mind and smaller viewpoints. I’m cool with who I am.
She asked me if I could get any fatter and I didn’t reply. Sure it hurt but I used it as motivation to transform body. Two years later at a party she wanted the new me—kept running her hand over my abs. I slept with her and never talked to her again. I want to thank her because she changed my life. No, really. Thank-you bitch you changed my life…
Living in a slow Hell
You will find yourself with a mouthful of tongue, her hips grinding against your crotch and the de ja vu will hit you like a steel plated backhand. Same theme club a few months earlier, ditto on the tall and blond, minus the tattoos and you--much more passionately--mugging down this time. You will notice two of the same tube top bartenders and they will gaze at you with tabloid eyes. Snap. In the moment you will be THAT GUY. You will always be THAT GUY.
No one will want to get to know you. One drunken fuck up and you’re out.
I thought you were funnier she will say and you will reply that you can’t always be ON all the time, that you’re not Robin Williams except on paper and then only sometimes. So you drink more to be ON more and soon you are ON less and less.
You will call and the phone will grow cold; icicles on the antenna. Reality will mesh with fantasy. They will confuse you for who they want you to be, the guy in the words, your words, the persons you create. The God you always wanted to be. You really will start wearing Burmese Jungle boots and you will brawl and you will drink so that you can live up to a someone that was never even born, their someone, the one with words for eyes.
You will come to find yourself wandering amongst these words; lost. You will reach out and they will stomp your fingers and watch you slide off the edge of a paragraph down into the open pages of a dictionary. More and more you will identify with the words-- flesh melding with ink. Soon you will be nothing but words and a sneer.
You will most definitely come to know that you will die but it’s something you’ve been putting off because you’re not sure if you’re alive anymore. You pinch yourself to make sure you’re still there and what you grab will feel like the pages of a book and you will get your first tattoo and it will be your name, just like you would sign on a dust jacket at a book signing…
No one will want to get to know you. One drunken fuck up and you’re out.
I thought you were funnier she will say and you will reply that you can’t always be ON all the time, that you’re not Robin Williams except on paper and then only sometimes. So you drink more to be ON more and soon you are ON less and less.
You will call and the phone will grow cold; icicles on the antenna. Reality will mesh with fantasy. They will confuse you for who they want you to be, the guy in the words, your words, the persons you create. The God you always wanted to be. You really will start wearing Burmese Jungle boots and you will brawl and you will drink so that you can live up to a someone that was never even born, their someone, the one with words for eyes.
You will come to find yourself wandering amongst these words; lost. You will reach out and they will stomp your fingers and watch you slide off the edge of a paragraph down into the open pages of a dictionary. More and more you will identify with the words-- flesh melding with ink. Soon you will be nothing but words and a sneer.
You will most definitely come to know that you will die but it’s something you’ve been putting off because you’re not sure if you’re alive anymore. You pinch yourself to make sure you’re still there and what you grab will feel like the pages of a book and you will get your first tattoo and it will be your name, just like you would sign on a dust jacket at a book signing…
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
-You may find yourself driving continuously, your eyes open but not seeing anything until you notice a sign that says French Quarter 5 miles. You will have drunk yourself silly with coffee and be damn near insane with talk radio but still you drive on. You say out loud, “Twenty-two hours straight,” and then you remember your mom telling you she was in labor with you for 48 hours and suddenly another mile stone loses its significance.
As soon as your feet hit the ground you start with the booze and you soon forget what it was you wanted to forget. Your sister’s boyfriend will know all the bartenders and in every bar in the Quarter and they will force free alcohol down your throat. You are a willing victim and wait for last call to save you but it never comes.
Dawn now and you will realize that nothing ever closes down here especially your brain and then you remember what is was you were trying not to remember. Her. You will stumble upon a pay phone and there will be a piss stain on the wall underneath it. You will ignore the pungent aroma and dial anyway. The phone will ring and ring and ring and finally she will answer in a sleepy voice. You will tell her how drunk you are and she will be unimpressed. So you will try not to slur your words but shit faced still sounds like thit thaced. Still you press on because you don’t know what else to do. You will say you’re sorry and that you will never do IT again but before you can say I love you she will slam down the phone. Now you can’t ignore the smell of the piss and the sinking feeling in your gut and you puke up everything just as a cop walks by.
You will wake up on the floor of your sister’s apartment to the sound of giant cockroaches clicking their nasty feet against the wood floor. You get up and go out back to the slave quarters that are abandoned and rotting. Inside one of the tiny rooms you will find an ancient steel bed frame and lie down on it. You hear things scurry across the rotting floor and you smile because you’re not alone…
As soon as your feet hit the ground you start with the booze and you soon forget what it was you wanted to forget. Your sister’s boyfriend will know all the bartenders and in every bar in the Quarter and they will force free alcohol down your throat. You are a willing victim and wait for last call to save you but it never comes.
Dawn now and you will realize that nothing ever closes down here especially your brain and then you remember what is was you were trying not to remember. Her. You will stumble upon a pay phone and there will be a piss stain on the wall underneath it. You will ignore the pungent aroma and dial anyway. The phone will ring and ring and ring and finally she will answer in a sleepy voice. You will tell her how drunk you are and she will be unimpressed. So you will try not to slur your words but shit faced still sounds like thit thaced. Still you press on because you don’t know what else to do. You will say you’re sorry and that you will never do IT again but before you can say I love you she will slam down the phone. Now you can’t ignore the smell of the piss and the sinking feeling in your gut and you puke up everything just as a cop walks by.
You will wake up on the floor of your sister’s apartment to the sound of giant cockroaches clicking their nasty feet against the wood floor. You get up and go out back to the slave quarters that are abandoned and rotting. Inside one of the tiny rooms you will find an ancient steel bed frame and lie down on it. You hear things scurry across the rotting floor and you smile because you’re not alone…
-Muggsy and I had a meeting with Ed Rendell yesterday and he assured us that he will try to tack on an amendment to the bill to legalize table games in Pennsylvania that will allow us to open a Bunny Ranch type establishment in Harrisburg. Of course we had to make a substantial political contribution, promised not to show up drunk to any more fundraisers and offered him use of the Leer jet when we aren’t flying around the world. He drives a hard bargain. Oh, and we must have the Leer Jet stocked with cheese steaks and Pabst Blue Ribbon when he takes it out. I think he would have agreed to our terms if we had just promised not to show up drunk to fundraisers but we were good sports and sweetened the deal so he couldn’t say no.
So, it seems that if the goddamn puritanical bastards in this state don’t vote down that bill we will have a Bunny Ranch type establishment in less than two years. It concerns me that there might be an uprising by religious zealots who could cause an uproar and possibly override our considerable political clout. Yes, they may try to sway those legislatures that would vote on the bill so I am asking you my friends to back our cause and send us cash contributions for the backlash that could come our way. Thank-you for your time. Have a wonderful day. Oh, and if anyone has any ideas for a name for our establishment please submit ideas to this blog…
So, it seems that if the goddamn puritanical bastards in this state don’t vote down that bill we will have a Bunny Ranch type establishment in less than two years. It concerns me that there might be an uprising by religious zealots who could cause an uproar and possibly override our considerable political clout. Yes, they may try to sway those legislatures that would vote on the bill so I am asking you my friends to back our cause and send us cash contributions for the backlash that could come our way. Thank-you for your time. Have a wonderful day. Oh, and if anyone has any ideas for a name for our establishment please submit ideas to this blog…
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Monday, November 02, 2009
-You have forgotten in a month’s time? What a small mind you dwell in. What a small heart echoes in your chest. It is of course for the best. My world continues to grow--I spread myself out over the map thinner and further. The limits you impose are to me artificial means of corralling the spirit. So, sit and be blob like. For you it is right. For me it is death…
After some smooth talking Muggsy and I were allowed back at the Bunny Ranch. Not having been there for several weeks we left Friday and got back late Sunday night. We flew in Muggsy’s new Leer Jet. He sold off his coffee company to Starbucks and bought himself that little gift so we don’t have to fly commercial anymore. Very nice.
On our way back last night Muggsy suggested we open our own Bunny Ranch in Pennsylvania. He is personal friends with Ed Rendell and is trying to get him to talk to the right people about legalizing such an establishment in Pennsylvania. I hope this comes to fruition as jet fuel prices have been rising and I don’t want Muggsy to burn through his millions too quickly. We have a lot of adventures to fund…
On our way back last night Muggsy suggested we open our own Bunny Ranch in Pennsylvania. He is personal friends with Ed Rendell and is trying to get him to talk to the right people about legalizing such an establishment in Pennsylvania. I hope this comes to fruition as jet fuel prices have been rising and I don’t want Muggsy to burn through his millions too quickly. We have a lot of adventures to fund…
-Another early memory is of my Dad making pizza on the countertop in our apartment in Union Deposit. The counter top seemed to me a mile long but when I went back many years later it was barely big enough to lay two plates on side by side.
I remember looking up and watched him as he laid out the dough in the pan and then put sauce and cheese on it. I wanted to get closer to get a better view. Everything seemed so far away from down there. I moved towards the oven. Dad put his hand down in front of me. “No, don’t go over there its HOT.” He wasn’t being mean just warning me that I might get burned. The white oven would heat up almost as hot on that outside as it did on the inside. HOT was my first word.
I remember being in awe of my Dad making pizza. Why I remember this I don’t know. Maybe the pizza was really good?
I remember looking up and watched him as he laid out the dough in the pan and then put sauce and cheese on it. I wanted to get closer to get a better view. Everything seemed so far away from down there. I moved towards the oven. Dad put his hand down in front of me. “No, don’t go over there its HOT.” He wasn’t being mean just warning me that I might get burned. The white oven would heat up almost as hot on that outside as it did on the inside. HOT was my first word.
I remember being in awe of my Dad making pizza. Why I remember this I don’t know. Maybe the pizza was really good?
-My Dad is a whistler; at least he was when we were kids. You know how some people sing along to songs? My Dad would whistle tunes on the radio. Was he good? Well, I don’t know. Is any whistling good? Do you still whistle to the radio Dad? Sometimes when my brother and I get together and we’re in the car we start whistling. We can never make it even part way through a song because we start laughing. It reminds of us when we were young and Dad would be whistling as we drove to wherever it was we were going.
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