Loosen the Tie, Keep the Job

Today, I was laid off for the first time in my life. It was a simple barback job where I mostly just had to clean glasses, wipe tables, and check ID's. Pretty easy right? So, how did I lose a job with such simple tasks? It's because I was not relaxed enough. It's confusing, but I have a point here.

I personally felt like I was on my game with this position that made me, at least, $1,000/month. I made sure all the youngsters were at least 21+. I checked the patio often. I picked up the little pieces of napkin and tissue paper off the floors, even though I had no idea what was wiped on them. I even made sure all glasses were cleaned as soon as I got them.

If you read through these statistics, you'll find that something is missing: I wasn't fitting in. And, unfortunately, that is what got me fired after my first month. This was a pretty chill bar. I'm not going to lie, if I lived close by that place, I'd be stubbling home from there almost every night.

I was taking this job too seriously. And, not realizing that being a friend to the customers there and making their visit seem worth the extra money they're spending while my concern was at other places was like only eating the bone out of a chicken leg(a very good chicken leg).

So, the lesson I learned was that it takes personality to keep a job. Companies/private businesses aren't looking for machines, they're looking for people. People who can talk to people and attract other people.

So, if you happen to have trouble with keeping a job, "loosen the tie" a little bit and show some human being in you that will save you the job you want and make your working experience with it a pleasant one.

The Hell of Retail-Kohl's

Being the holiday season, I want to rant about the utter shittiness of retail. There are different categories of retail, which I've worked in: grocery stores, novelty stores, and department stores. Just to name a few: Kohl's, Fry's Marketplace, and Spencer's Gifts. It's been at least 16 months since I've woked at Kohl's, and those have been the best 16 months of my life. I refuse to step foot into a Kohl's, in fact, I boycott Kohl's.

Starting out at Kohl's, I worked in the shoe department where I was given at least three days out of the week-about 5 hours a day. I had no experience at the cash registers and already I was getting this "Have you gotten any credits today???" by the managers. This is getting the customers to sign up for a Kohl's credit card. With this, the customer gets rewarded with 20% of their purchase cut.

Now why does Kohl's stress this? This persuasion of customers signing up for credit cards who are most likely financially fucked? This is how corporate gets most of their money, not from the product they sell, but by the interest of their credit cards. Uhhh, that's called FRAUD. That pair of pants you just bought with your Kohl's credit card isn't really $19.99, more like $23 once you've paid back your debt.

Every day, I got harrassed to get more credits, and while that was happening, my hours were cut to only one day out of the week. The more credits I obtained, the more hours I was "rewarded." No wonder the particular store I worked at looked like a shitty pig pen. Only three people were running the several departments at once because all the others had their hours cut over corporate greed.

With that said, I recommend NOT shopping or working at big box department stores like Kohl's because of their credit cards.

The Kitchenette Writers' Collective

For you local writers out there! As part of the Kitchenette Writers' Collective, I will be facilitating a fiction workshop group starting January 17th at the Denny's on Rural and the 60. We will be meeting every other Tuesday.
How it's going to work depends on how many people will be participating in it. The first workshop will be on January 31st. One or two people will bring copies of their stories for everyone on January 17th after meet and greet so that every story has two weeks worth of thorough critiquing.

Other groups involved in the Kitchenette Writers' Collective are listed on the Meetup page: poetry workshop, readings, and brainstorming.

http://www.facebook.com/kitchenettewriter

http://www.meetup.com/kitchenette-writers-collective/collective


"We are looking for writers of all ages, genders, and genres who want to form and participate in writing events that help nourish Arizona's literary community."- Melanie McCuin.

"From the Darkness Right Under Our Feet"-Patrick Michael Finn

Recently released "From the Darkness Right Under Our Feet" by Patrick Michael Finn, is a smooth read of his eight well polished short stories: Smokestack Polka, From the Darkness Right Under Our Feet, Shitty Sheila, The Retard of Lard Hill, For the Sake of His Sorrowful Passion, In What She Has Done, and in What she Has Failed to Do, Between Pissworth and Papich, and Where Beautiful Ladies Dance for You. His work explores the world of the middle class and the enironment that becomes a personal element of the story as well. His sharpest and strongest tool is his language that impales and lifts the reader. This book that is definitely worth the read.

"Place is a character in Patrick Michael Finn's fiction. It's almost as if the setting, like the working-class characters who people his stories, has an ethnicity."- Stuart Dybek, author of I Sailed with Magellan.

I must say, Finn really knows his style. I thoroughly enjoyed ALL of these stories and I recommend ALL to check out this book.

                                         Patrick Finn

The Top Ten Saddest Cities in America

This is from an issue posted on a yahoo.com on December 2nd, 2011.

Ranking at number one, in the top ten saddest cities in America, is the not so surprising Las Vegas, Nevada. From all the sad gamblers, drinkers, and non-stop party goers, this 24/7 party city caters the needs of the most depressed people in America.

Ranking at number two is Reno, Nevada. Now, I've never been to Reno. In fact, the most I know about Reno is from watching that ridiculous television show on Comedy Central "Reno 911". This being a neighboring city to Las Vegas, it's understandable how this rated as the second saddest city.

The rest are: Miami Florida at #3, Birmingham, Alabama at #4, St. Louis, Missouri at #5, Louisville, Kentucky at #6, Tampa, Florida at #7, Memphis, Tennessee at #8,  Detroit, Michigan at #9, and St. Petersburg, Florida at #10.

http://health.yahoo.net/articles/depression/photos/saddest-cities-in-america#0

To my astonishment, my hometown Phoenix, Arizona was not on this list. Most people, I'm talking 98%, who come here from other states say how depressing the valley is. Everything is dead and beige colored. The trees don't really blend together because they're all planted. It gets almost 120 degrees ferhenheit over the summer, sometime a hundred and holy shit. And, to top this off, Arizona has one of the highest rates of elderly deaths because when people get old, they come to Arizona to "enjoy" the rest of their retired lives. So, in a nut shell, Arizona is where people come to die.

A piece of short fiction by me: "The Nihilist"

Note: This can be found on the page of Horrorsleazetrash.com.
,Nils Dahlgren

The Nihilist

            Moonlight infiltrated the blinds of Nick’s window. The white walls in the bedroom dimmed and brightened from moving clouds in the night sky. Rebecca lay naked in his bed facing him. He turned away staring at the discolored blinds. His penis surrendered over his left thigh. No condoms littered the night stand or the carpet. She had sex with him whenever he wanted it. He had sex with her even though her garish make up had been smeared off from fucking someone else. Her confession of Doug flew at his chest like a glass pipe. It had no tenacity, left no mark, just promptly rolled off and shattered into forgettable dust as it hit the ground.

            The finger tips of a soft hand danced over his right arm followed by a palm that rubbed at his bicep. “You’re always just as strong in bed as you look,” said Rebecca. He said nothing and looked at the half empty bottle of Sailor Jerry on the dresser and two glasses containing the melted remnants of ice.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“You’re lying here naked with me. You must be thinking of something.”

“Does it really matter?” He rolled over to face her. “Does it matter what I’m thinking about since we’re not actually together?”

            She shook her head with narrow eyes rolling and snickered “I know we’re not together anymore, we’ve talked about this. But, I still care about you.”

“I’m sure you care about Doug, too. And Charlie. And Richard. And the rest of the numbers on your list.”

            Her brown eyes pooled on her frozen face, that same kind of reaction she gets when she snorts a line, but this time, they aren’t blood shot. “You’re an asshole.”

“I just stuck my penis in you considering it’s been about three hours since Doug fucked you. You should thank me for not giving a shit.”

She shook her head with eyes squinted “Fuck you, Nick!”

“Always a pleasure.”

            She moved her purple hair from the side of her face to wipe a tear away.

            “You’re kind of a whore, but I still love you. I always will,”. He hadn’t said her name since they broke up.

            She grabbed her black pants and pulled them over the curve of her buttocks, then proceeded to gather the rest of her wardrobe.

“Do you want some water?” he offered.

            She had just put her socks on and looked at him with disbelieved red eyes. How could he not feel shame? She thought. Throughout the three years together, she felt no authenticity in his love, just the cold touch of his words. “No,” she croaked.

            She slammed the front door on her way out. The apartment still smelled of the chronic she brought over, but their laughing had stopped echoing in its atmosphere.

            Nick strutted to the kitchen in his holed boxer briefs. He filled a glass with water from the sink and drank it with audible swallows. Lumps rolled down the throat of his thin bird neck. Sailor Jerry burned through his nostrils as he exhaled and let the glass slip through a weakened grip and shatter on the floor. He would clean it up in the morning.

            He pulled an oven pepperoni and mushroom pizza out of the freezer. Fast food was far out of his way for drunk munchies. His clumsy movements bumped into the gas oven hard, pushing it an inch closer to the wall. He stumbled back and recovered. After firing up the blue flames, he slid the frozen pizza on the center grill without waiting for it to heat up to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. On the back of the oven, the gas hose had corroded from the years of no replacement and tenants flooding the kitchen. After lunging into the oven with such force, a slit had faltered on the rusted hose no wider than the girth of a pencil.

            He sloshed into the bedroom to get a cigarette from the softened pack of Pall Malls from his plaid pants.

            The 120 square foot kitchen of his apartment filled with gas in less than a minute, breaching the living room, and then sneaking closer to his bedroom.

            His face protruded the open doorway as he sucked at the butt of the lit cigarette. The explosion levitated him off his feet like a powerful kick to the chest. His eyes hard boiled and he became blind instantaneously.

            When the flames entered his air ways, singeing nose hairs to charcoal and liquefying the inner flesh of his Sailor Jerry coated throat, he floated backwards in complete numbness.

            A vision came over him. It was a memory of him and his older brother playing by a creek when they were kids. His brother bounced a dried branch toward him like it was a pretty woman saying in a melodic “Do you rememba me? D’ou rememba me? D’ou rememba me?” He laughed so hard that he choked and then grabbed the branch from him.

            This was after they found the collection of playboy magazines in their dad’s footlocker. Nick stood behind his brother Salvador who flipped through the pages. He stopped at a red headed woman with a silk tan. She wore a cowboy straw hat. Her back prominently arched, lifting her breasts. Over her left shoulder was a rope. Nick took a step to get a closer look. His hands sweated under his Budweiser t-shirt.

            The flames burned into his soft pallet. His hair was gone. He was still elevated, only a foot from the ground.

            A reminiscence of Rebecca came to mind. Their first date was at his apartment. They watched American Werewolf in London on his couch. When they caught themselves both laughing hysterically at the scene of a British policeman getting decapitated by a wolf that erupted from the double doors of an adult theater, they leaned into each other and kissed for the first time.

            She could have been heroine on a silver platter. She catered to his desires with beautiful sacrifice. And here, the echo and images of Rebecca unfolded brightly and wilted into complete nothingness “Do you rememba me? D’ou rememba me? D’ou rememba me?”

One of my recent pieces of short fiction: "Road to Somewhere, Everywhere, and Nowhere"

Note: An excerpt of this story will be featured in Antique Children's latest issue: Kingdom Freaks & Other Divine Wonders, coming out in January 2012.

Nils Dahlgren                                                                                                 

Road to Somewhere, Everywhere, and Nowhere

“Imaginary evils soon become real ones by indulging our reflections on them.”- John Ruskin.

“I met this pot belly chub in a low scale bar out in Brooklyn.” Leroy’s tongue scaled his front upper teeth. “We went to his apartment. After I gave him some acid on a sticker, he sat on the carpet in his underwear rocking back and forth holding his ankles. I made him believe that his stomach was hurting. ‘No’ he said. I told him there was a baby in his belly and that it was suffocating. ‘No’ he said and held his himself. And then I handed him a scalpel.” Leroy turned his attention from Russell and stared into the freeway intimately with his yellow eyes.

Russell Rogers shook his head at Leroy’s start of the road trip story. “Hope you brought a towel to that one.” He then inhaled the tube sock full of superglue through his nose.

The Los Angeles trip on route 66 sounded like a good escape from Amarillo, Texas. Russell had only a few plans for it really: to get fucked up and screw. It was fall, the season of yard waste, and September arrived a little too fast for Russell. His holed jacket was the childhood he refused to throw away, even when his wife Lila threatened to deprive him of sex. He sort of loved her. Their superficial wedding was held in Austin where none of his family or friends could make it. They lived in a middle class neighborhood enough into the city where the traffic could be heard, but far away enough that the smell of the cold field grass enlightened the evenings. The next door neighbor was an auto mechanic named Charles who ran his own business in his driveway fixing whatever cars people brought to him. When his marriage with Lila was beginning to dull, he saw Charles’ face more often than he wanted to.

He worked at a privately owned grocery store called Travis’s as a grocer and would come home from work late in the evenings to see Lila laughing with Charles in his front yard. Usually, they held beers. When he and Lila went to bed, he would ask her about her day hanging with her friends from the salon, but never built up the courage to ask about her conversations with Charles. He knew Charles was a player, and that was the problem. Though Russell was a handsome man himself, working at a grocery store at age thirty two. Charles was tall, strongly built, and had an effective sense of humor.

From the women he knew Charles had slept with, he imagined what damage it could have done to his penis: genital warts, herpes, and the clip. He saw him with the girl they called Lucy Goosey, another time with Eva Forever, and a variety of women who came by running their businesses at the local swap meets. He imagined Lila sucking his dick, her lips sliding off the blisters on Charles’ shaft that had popped and dried to scabs, leaving a taste in her mouth much like corroded pennies.

            Russell invented Leroy as an imaginary friend when he was six and thought the Riddler sucked as a super villain. He made a better replacement and sported a yellow tuxedo over a powdery pale body. As a hairdo, he maintained golden quills that were harpooning the fabric ceiling of Russell’s Nissan pickup truck.

Having a nasty tongue, Leroy carried himself like a lance carries a severed head. Russell used to tell his mom about Leroy and she would tell him that Leroy was like jello: “He’s just as harmless and you could eat him if you wanted to.” But, Leroy would leave scratches on his arm, which was the reason he started to wear the large Cardinals jacket that once belonged to his grandpa. And, if Leroy were really made of jello, not even Billy Cosby would eat him.

Last year, Russell made his fifth visit with his psychiatrist Dr. Fisher. Dr. Fisher wore glasses too small for his plump head and seldom shaved. He also wore an orange tie adorned with wagon wheels and his office reminded Russell of the Albert Hitchcock movies: dull with no color. He tested Russell for Dissociative Identity Disorder by having him sit on the big leather chair and called out for Leroy while slightly bent over with his tie hanging. Nothing significant changed in Russell’s behavior, he just sat looking at Dr. Fisher as if he were a clock with an obnoxious looking pendulum.

Leroy slithered from under Dr. Fisher’s cherry oak desk and walked around it brushing his white fingers over the pictures of Dr. Fisher’s cat Gizmo. He picked up the framed oval one of Gizmo in a red sweater and showed it to Russell. Dr. Fisher asked what was so funny and Russell said “Nothing, I’m still here.”

Leroy started to take his clothes off behind Dr. Fisher and thrusted his white naked body just inches from Dr. Fisher’s posterior. “Stop!” Russell ordered Leroy and Dr. Fisher searched the space behind him. Russell was confirmed to not have Dissociative Identity Disorder, but was prescribed another month’s prescription of Prozac for his severe depression. The session was over.

            Russell’s outdated phone vibrated on his dashboard with Lila’s name on its green front. He pressed the end button. Clouds had slowly condensed as one grey sky. It began to sprinkle and Russell turned the knob on the washers to the first click (on low). Dirt mixed with rain and the rubber blades smeared a thin layer of mud over the windshield. A few small grains of sand wedged between them and scraped against the glass with every mechanical stroke.

            It was another forty miles until they drove into Cadillac Ranch, a desolate piece of high way with a row of ten Cadillacs buried half way into the dirt on the side of the road. Their rears pointed heavenward and were each graffitied from tourists. They passed a sign that read STATE OF TEXAS PROPERTY, painting on this side of fence IS ILLEGAL.

Russell put his foot on the break to stop the cruise control. There were cattle grazing the little vegetation all around. A cow stood in the right ditch of the road occupied with grass growing from filth while lighter cow and calf did just the same several meters behind it.

“Run them over.” Leroy said.

“No.” He let his speed slow down to forty five.

“Then pull over.” So, he did.

            Russell had parked the car on the side of the road and they were walking on a narrow path to the line of 1950’s Cadillacs with sharp fins, much like the ones on the Bat Mobile. Seeing, but never stopping by, it had been twenty years since Russell had paid a visit to this place. His grandpa wanted to show him what car he drove when he had just married his grandma.

Droplets landed on the tops of Russell’s ears and absorbed into his dry scalp. When they got there, Leroy pulled a can of black spray paint out of his bright coat and shook it. Something was unfamiliar to Russell about the tires; they had rotted in the most peculiar way. Oblong holes penetrated both layers of rubber, exhibiting natural sky light.

            He chose a car in the middle and looked over the markings of passer bys. Over thick maroon paint was written with a black sharpie: “Every experience God gives us, every person he puts in our lives-” He stopped reading it aloud. He walked around to the roof and went to work on something, tossing his sharp elbow as he formed letters. When he finished, he had written ROGERS HAS A THIRD NIPPLE(HIS PENIS).

            Russell grabbed the spray can from Leroy and threw it onto the dirt. He turned around to head back. Leroy followed behind him laughing in fast clicks.

            They came back to the truck and the rain had stopped. Russell didn’t look at Leroy and slammed the door when he got in.

“You know you’re impressed.” Said Leroy. “I scaled city walls with that when in Brooklyn.”

“Shut up,” said Russell.

“You know I’m the perfect villain, I have no limits.”

“I used to think you were only amazing, but now you’re just an idiot.”

“Way to tell him.” Debbie took Leroy’s place. She was a gay rights activist from San Francisco with a salt and pepper buzz cut and took crap from no one. Russell created her when his uncle molested him. She could listen to him, hug him when he needed it, and most of all, she believed that it really happened. He never told his parents.

            Russell switched on his headlights when they drove out of Amarillo. They approached a white sign that read Suzie’s Diner. Underneath, was written Taxidermy.

“Let’s get a bite there.” Debbie insisted. “I’m so hungry, I could eat the ass off a bear.”

“No.” He said, knowing he could only afford gas station food and bags of trail mix. There was just enough for, at most, five motels. He was planning on sleeping in his truck at the beaches of Los Angeles.

“I’ll pay you back. You know I’m good for it.”

“You never do.”

“Well, screw you.” She crossed her thick arms.

            Russell gripped the steering wheel and tightened his jaw. He looked out at the darkening patches in the grey sky as the sun was descending in front of them. After some minutes passed, the Suzie’s Diner was in a view. Built from an old white house on a prairie, it had a chrome trailer nestled behind it.“We’ll stop at a bar if we see one.”

___

            Twenty miles had passed and Russell was near the New Mexico border. He pulled into the dirt parking lot of a bar with neon beer signs at its windows as the only light. He locked the two doors of his truck and brought his back pack with him over his shoulder.

Pushing the heavy door, he walked in to see Leroy sitting at a table and glowing in the dark atmosphere. A tattooed girl in a polka doted dress with short cut Betty Page bangs welcomed him. “Howdy.” She said.

            “Heya.” He nodded to her and put his hands on the bar, noticing the BlueMoon tin sign by the dart board. “Can I get a BlueMoon?” His brow pinched nervously.

“We’re actually fresh out, darlin. Sorry.” Her half exposed chest lifted. “We have Pabst!” It seemed rather odd that this place would be fresh out of anything considering it was a Friday and there were just a few patrons there from what the corners of his eyes could detect. His words then retarded into choppy vowels when he got closer, she had captivating green eyes and immaculate pale skin. This was probably her life, being a late night bartender and rarely spending time outside in the day. She was untouched by the dirty hands of sun rays. “Sure, I’ll have one.”

            Carrying his drink, he sat down by the black round table with Leroy who shot his platinum eye brows at the sight of the girl working the bar. “She’s a sweet little thing.” Leroy said. “I’d lay her.”

            Russell took a sip. Debbie waddled through the front door and stopped when she saw the BlueMoon sign, she then walked over to the table.“Order me a BlueMoon, will you Russ?”

“They’re fresh out.”

“That’s bullshit if I heard it.” She slapped her heavy hand on the table.

            He slid his can to her and let her have a taste. “God, that’s shitty beer.” She grimaced. “They had better selections when I was in Brooklyn.” Leroy said. Russell banished him when he got married. After a year had passed and things disintegrated within the marriage, Leroy slid back from a loose window in Russell’s subconsciousness. When Russell asked him where he’d been, he said he was in Brooklyn.

“On our way back.” Russell said. “You’re painting over that shit you put on that Cadillac.”

Leroy stretched a shameless smile. “No.”

“Then, you’re not coming with.”

“Try me.” He reached to the floor and picked up a chilled bottle of BlueMoon. He tilted his head back as he chugged it down to a dripping thin layer of foam on the inside. He then set it on the table while looking at Debbie. Her wrinkled moon face ripened like a pomegranate.

            It was eleven o clock when people showed up for square dancing on the linoleum checkered floor. The old age of the stomping crowd and upbeat country music put Russell in a further state of depression. His lips touched the warmth of his sixth beer. It tasted more like a mixture of sweat and club soda. Leroy and Debbie sat around having nothing to say to each other. Debbie kept up her criticism of the bar’s drink selection while Leroy occasionally laughed at the dancing on the other side.

            Russell found himself gawking at the sweaty bartender who shined under the beige Christmas lights. He imagined what it would be like to spend one moment with her, to lock legs with her and swap juices. Since he arrived, that raw thought never ceased.

Debbie shook her head. “They’re holding a BlueMoon sign and they don’t have any, the fuckers.”

Russell’s eyes rolled off the bartender’s bosom and met Debbie’s. “What did you expect?” He forced a swallow. “It’s all false advertisement.”

A thrashing of instruments in ‘Curse of Millhaven’ punched on the bubbling juke box on their side of the bar. Russell’s sore red eyes lifted off the table to realize he was sitting by himself as if he were alone the whole time. He suddenly became utterly sick to his stomach, sick of the southwest, and sick of hating everyone that wasn’t him. He was a bumbling drunk in the middle of nowhere, and he couldn’t help by laugh to himself under his shaking lips.

            He stood up and swung his backpack over his shoulder. He laid a twenty dollar bill on the gleaming bar. That should cover the beers and leave the bartender with some extra tip money. She slid her pale hand and placed it onto the payment. “Thanks”, she gave with her red smile.

“Say, are you a poet?” She asked.

“What?” He adjusted his left shoulder strap and straightened his posture.

“You’ve been talking to yourself all night. It was rather beautiful to watch.” She wiped her ringless hand with a cloth. “Hope you don’t mind me eavesdropping.”

“No-I-Yes. I am a poet.” He was surprised he didn’t stutter.

He meandered to the front door when he ran out of clever words to say. He didn’t know why he did so, but he just wanted to get a closer look at the illegible etchings on its wood surface. He put his hand to it and pushed with the weight of his body. The door cracked revealing the scent of the cold desert. He felt as if he could escape into it.

“Hey, where are you going?” Asked the bartender.

He pushed it a bit more. “Nowhere.” He said, and then turned to face her. “Care to join me?”

___

The thought of what Delilah saw in Russell didn’t cross his mind, but he liked the idea that he was going to fuck her. He didn’t get her name until she convinced him to stay until closing time, she needed a ride back home. He trusted his car in her dirt driveway, but kept the doors locked. This was it. Her 600 square foot house was a twenty minute drive away from the Tumble Weed and entailed a catholic ambiance with the Virgin Marry shrine at her front window with her hands praying. The only bedroom was made into an office where she painted on tall canvases, drew tattoo designs, and sometimes gave tattoos with the tattoo gun she bought from a friend who was well experienced in the business and owned his own parlor where there weren’t any others for ten miles.

A queen sized bed lay covering the fire place where pillows leaned against. There was a twenty inch television on a stocky entertainment system at the foot with tall stacks of DVDs. Russell could smell what he was planning to take advantage of if encountered-marijuana. Delilah had it reeking somewhere, it was good shit.

“Want to smoke?” She asked.

“Oh, fuck yeah.” No hesitation in his inebriated state.

Before Russell exhaled his third hit of the spiced herb, he leaned into Delilah who was seating next to him and shot gunned into her soft mouth. After holding, she exhaled the smoke through her nose and their mouths didn’t separate.

Russell couldn’t believe how soft and how appealing Delilah’s skin was under the red Christmas lights that hung from the chimney mantel above head. Her legs were wrapped tightly around his waist he thrusted vigorously.

A hand had placed itself on the left side of the bed and Russell felt the weight of it pulling the sheet into its indent. He looked over to see Leroy nodding his head in approval. “My turn.” Leroy said. Russell shook his head and looked into Delilah’s tightening face. She was coming and needed his full, undivided, and focused attention.

“Oh hell no.” Debbie came around on the right side, taking her coat off. Her brown wide eyes and small wet mouth seemed to show more approval. “She’s mine.”

“Oh my fucking god, Russ, oh my fu-” Delilah grabbed the pillow and arched her back.

Russell turned and kept his attention into the lolling breasts with cat paws tattooed at two o clock to the light pink nipple on her right breast, and at ten o clock on her left. He felt the sphincter relax and his cock harden, he was slowly becoming more sensitive. Then, there was a hand on his shoulder. “Turn her around and pork her doggy style. I want to see that ass of hers.” Said Debbie.

“God fucking damn it!” He exclaimed.

Delilah’s green eyes opened and she blinked the sweat from them. “What?”

He pulled out, which was the last thing he should have done. He went limp too soon for him to slide back into her. On his knees, he tried stroking himself while sheathed in the latex Trojan, but was only applying friction. He slid it off and spit in his hand.

“Condoms!” He went for the pocket of his black Dickey’s with his left hand, the right stroking himself. The smell of latex was overpowering the aroma of pot. He fished one out and bit the hem of the foil packaging to pull it open. He turned around with the fresh condom ready to apply when he was staring into the naked white ass of Leroy who was working Delilah violently.

Debbie was in on it, too. She had stripped off all her clothes and was sitting on Delilah’s face. “Eat me, you dirty bitch!” Her face had clenched with yellow teeth baring.

Delilah’s arm was between her and Leroy. She had been rubbing herself, as well. Though she was enjoying herself, the scene disgusted Russell with great anguish and he could smell it. He had to hold back from vomiting.

He wrapped his arms around Leroy’s waist and tossed him off the bed. He then grabbed Debbie’s wrist and yanked her to the side where she fell between the bed and the bookshelf where she was pinned with the wrinkled tan matter of her overweight body.

He then stuck his middle finger into Delilah while he worked himself to a point again. The smoothness of her walls got him going now. He rolled the condom on and penetrated her. They soon rolled over and she was in charge.

She overwhelmed him with the intensifying back and forth motion of her wide hips and he came like he couldn’t stop.

___

            Russell awoke to the puckering of Delilah’s mouth on the smoother side of his hairy chest as she was experiencing REM sleep at ten in the morning. The sheets had fallen onto the carpet and they lay there naked with the sun rays seeping through the cloth of black floral blinds.

            Leroy and Debbie sat at the round glass table in the small dining room next to the kitchen eating cereal from blue china bowls. Debbie met eyes with Russell after spooning raisin bran into her mouth and grimaced at him as she chewed. Leroy, too, looked at him and gave the same disapproval.

            This was the first time they had interfered with his sex life.

            Leroy gandered long and hard at Delilah’s amble buttocks when she got up to take a shower. She didn’t say “Good Morning” with a warm natural colored smile and squinted eyes like Lila would in the fresh months of their marriage. Russell could feel a stillness in the room as if she didn’t want him there.

            Russell got dressed and closed the front door of the house when he walked out. The sound of water running through its old pipes continued as he got into his truck, started it, and headed west.

            He crossed the New Mexico border and decided he was only going to stop for gas and food until he crossed into Arizona. It would take him nine hours if he drove steady. He had his oil changed for the trip the day before he left, and on the day he left, he bought the tubes of super glue for the socks. They were a decent high, not the kind of stimulation he could get from cocaine, but he snorted the last remnants of his eight ball on his dresser while Lisa was out hanging with her friends. He was sure she was with Charles.

            New Mexico had what he expected-nothing. By Route 66, every state looked the same, all diners, bars, and cheap motels surrounded by desert landscape. Very rarely did he feel the tameness of any city came across, and he liked it that way.

            Five miles past the sign that said “Welcome to Albuquerque”, he stopped at a Circle K when in the passenger seat were Debbie and Leroy mashed into each other as one two headed mass of imaginary human.

            He ignored their requests for food when he walked away from the truck. He learned that lesson a long time ago with Leroy when his mom wondered why he had so many stale bowls of cereal sitting around his room.

            There were the bare essentials: a hot dog, a Slim-Jim, a pack of Hohos, and a twelve ounce bottle of Pepsi. He travelled with cash only and opened his wallet to the stack of twenties, fifties, and a couple hundreds. He handed the bald headed clerk a twenty and a ten and said “The rest on pump three.”

            He picked up the bills with his large hand and pressed two dimensional buttons on the register monitor. Leroy slid from under the counter and placed his talon like left hand around Russell’s nearly purchased Pepsi. He opened it with one swift twist and made an audible gulp with his head back.

            Russell bellied over the counter to grab it from him. “What in the blue fuck!” Exclaimed the clerk.

            Russell then felt something roll from under his chest and onto the floor where the clerk stood on a padded matt and spat his chewing tobacco into a plastic trash can with no bag. It was the Pepsi he tried to fight for. Leroy was gone.

            “Sorry.” He said to the clerk who was growing redder by the second and had his fists tightened to rocks. “I haven’t slept in a week. I’m, uh, seeing things.” He nodded sweepingly.

            The clerk stood bewildered for a second before he picked up the soda, entered the $25.36 on pump three with a shaky hand, and told Russell to get a motel room somewhere and sleep off the craziness. He still kept his distance behind the register when Russell left and watched him fill up and talk to himself defensively as he drove off.

___

            Russell wasn’t surprised when Arizona looked no different that New Mexico, but had scarlet mountains that erected from the beige desert. The people made him feel more than welcome when seeing his Cardinals jacket and Texas license plate. He was just outside of Prescott Valley when Leroy and Debbie teleported from the cab to the truck bed and just entered Hackberry when they returned to their crammed spot where Debbie sat on Leroy’s lap reluctantly, making that pomegranate pouty face of hers.

            They had slept in Russell’s truck in the parking space just outside the Sleazy Saddle on Whiskey Row. Something happened that was nearly casted out of Russell’s inebriated memory. There was an older woman in her fifties sporting a floral dress shirt and wore a cowboy hat. She pumped her small fists in the air at the songs she selected on the jute box and didn’t seem to be with any crowd. Her skin had been abused with tanning and she appeared rather disgusting until after he took advantage of their ten dollar all you can drink cocktail Tuesday special. He stood up and put his arm around her and sang with her to The Gambler and after that, it wasn’t hard for him to lead her to the back alley way door just past the stench of the bathrooms where she sucked his dick outside.

            The sun didn’t give two shits about his hangover. He pulled his truck into a Walgreens and bought a bottle of Listerine to dilute the sourness of his tongue. He swallowed the mouthful instead of spitting it outside his window while driving past the city line with a name he didn’t give a shit about. He put the bottle to his lips again and made two more swallows of the alcoholic green fluid. He put the clutch into fifth gear when he began to pick up speed on the interstate again and used his free hand to fetch another sock and twisted the cap off a tube of glue with his teeth.

___

            Leroy laughed into Russell’s face when they approached the California border. Russell had only slightly dark skin from his Polish background, so he wasn’t worried about them stopping him for being a potential illegal Mexican immigrant. The empty bottle of Listerine lolled on the floor by Leroy’s black shiny shoes. In all of Leroy’s obscurity, this was what Russell couldn’t stand about him-his need to harass for Russell’s mistakes, those pearls of spit flying from his perfect teeth as he laughed.

            Debbie was sitting in the truck bed because of the desert smell that she loved so much, that essence created where Arizona and California meet and fornicate.

            The line of cars was decreasing by the meters and Russell tucked the empty plastic bottle under the seat where he usually kept the windshield sun shade. It would only be a matter of time until the border patrol officers would smell the fumes coming from the two seater camper and ask him to step outside and publicly rape him with their jurisdiction.

            He pulled forward to the uniformed man who stood looking at him on a concrete base. He didn’t roll the window down and the officer seemed to be fine with that after taking one look at him and into his empty truck bed. He waved for Russell to move along. He accelerated onto the interstate. Debbie flipped the man off with her stubby middle finger.

___

            If every building, every wall, and every street were extracted from Los Angeles, it would appear as a jungle of trees that would look unfashionably out of place with each other. Russell had left his truck by a parking lot of a Jack in the Box. Leroy and Debbie followed behind him. They walked with noticeable gaiety on the strip by the beach. Debbie couldn’t take her eyes off it, and not to mention the girls running alongside the water with their symmetrical buttocks under tight jogging pants. The bars were coming up ahead and they readied themselves for the destruction they were to rape over it. 

            It was three o clock in the afternoon when Russell had finished his thirteenth beer and demanded another one. The bartender slid the chilled Budweiser to him and he snatched it and put it to his numb lips.

            Debbie had walked outside to scope out the tattooed broads smoking outside the Baja Bar next door and hadn’t come back. Leroy danced the skank next to the latest two dimensional jute box, magically pulling beers out of his yellow coat, and when finished with them, he would slam the bottles against the wall with surfboards nailed to it.

            “Silence!” Russell would say to Leroy’s whims and then continue shaking his limped head to the music.

            This was paradise. Bodies of unconcerned people brushed past the back of him. Some of them had appealing females in their midst. A gaggle of California girls arrived in Ed Hardy shirts, petticoat-less skirts, and wore Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses. They hurried past him to meet with the other crowd.

“Hey, you fuck dolls.” Russell said to them with half lidded eyes.

            A guy in a Golden Bears shirt that his muscly body filled to his freckled skin heard him and came over with eyes like a semi truck’s break lights. “Get out.” He said.

            “What?” Russell tucked his tongue under his bottom lip.

            “I said get the Fuck out!” The man had never been in a fight before, but did UFC training while he had the time. Russell was his first opportunity to test his skills and he was ready.

            Russell looked at himself in the mirror behind the bottles and saw the middle aged, sad drunk he became in the torn Cardinals jacket. He was an anomaly of his brothers who had successful marriages, degrees, and kids that fancied them as superheroes.

            He reached into his tight pocket and pulled out his wallet, which was now down to only forty two dollars. He put the forty down on the bar and popped up. He spun around and was face to face with the anticipated jock who he could tell was afraid of whatever unexpected move he may make.

            Russell lightly blew the stench of ill hygiene and beer in his face. The guy cocked his fist back and punched Russell in the nose.

            He stammered back with both hands on his wet face and when he looked up at the jock who had taken another step, he sprayed gobbles of blood on his face and chest and laughed with red pouring down his mouth at the kid who stood in horror and disgust.

            Russell ran down to the pier with a shit eating grin, arms flying back. His jacket absorbed the fresh red and nobody seemed to notice the blood running down his chin and neck. Finally, it had stopped bleeding. The sight of the lit carousel in the pacific twilight drew him like a hungry mosquito.

            He cut past the line of parents and their children and slapped his last two dollars on the podium where the vendor tried to stop him from getting on. He grabbed a bronze pole, caught his footing, and was now circulating on the ride, altering it to a lit paradise of terrified children.

            Leroy appeared on a white horse adorned with Mardi Gras accoutrements pulling his crotch to its pole with one hand, letting his torso hang back carelessly. His yellow coat flapped open as he bobbed in the mechanical current.

            Russell was having the inebriated time of his life, spent to the very last cent. He tried to get on a bobbing horse, but his very intoxicated state made that mission more than difficult. He let himself hang off the pole, waving at the angry crowd shaking their fists at him.

            Leroy slid off the horse. He undid his white buckle and unzipped his yellow pants. He then started to urinate on the people. On their faces. In their shocked mouths.

            It was a matter of time before Russell realized his penis was exposed, and he too was urinating. Leroy turned and laughed at him as he slightly smiled, yet their bodies were a perfect reflection of each other.

            A great hand grabbed Russell at the wrist, yanking his only hold on the carousel from the bronze pole. The father of the girl riding the sea horse kicked Russell in the back. He flew off the ride and into an empty spot in the outraged crowd with arms flailing.

            He smacked onto his stomach and the wind was knocked from him. He turned over to catch his breath and held his belly that was now wet from an unknown puddle. Before he could get his lungs to obtain any air, a foot kicked him in the side. “Fucking idiot.” A stocky Hispanic man in a white shirt stained yellow from Russell’s piss stood there ready for him to make a move, but he couldn’t.

            Russell’s vision blurred from the lack of oxygen to his brain. He started to roll as if attempting to move down the pier and back to the beach. He rolled onto his back softly and managed to inhale.

            He got up and sped walked with tears streaming down his red cheeks. He tucked his mouth into a narrow frown and kept his breathing through the sides. He stumbled into the ocean side city like a sad drunken old clown with his red nose and torn jacket.

___

            Russell’s trucked got towed away from leaving it in the Jack in the Box parking lot and failing to notice the CUSTOMER PARKING ONLY sign. It was two in the morning when he called the impounds’ partly corroded number. Lila tried calling him seven times since he arrived in LA. He hoped she was having a good time letting Charles fuck her in the ass. She had her own money from watching over an elderly woman named Betty four days of the week from six in the morning until six in the afternoon. She wouldn’t really need him for anything financial. A Mexican lady answered and told him he would have to pick up his truck the next morning, otherwise his $157 fee would increase. He had no money. He just hung up.

            He couldn’t just stop there. His poor calculation skills weren’t going to deprive him from enjoying his plan. He was going to spend another day in Los Angeles, enjoying the beach and the exciting variety of bars and gorgeous women. The trouble was worth it and most definitely better than sitting in his lounge chair of his too quiet house, in a too quiet neighborhood surrounded by dead landscape inhabited with farmers, truckers, outlanders, and rich non-party goers.

            The next day, Russell woke up on the beach with a tremendous hangover. The back of his scalp itched from the sand. A seagull had landed just several yards from him and was pecking at a dead washed up crab. The sight of it made Russell hungry. He hadn’t eaten since getting a burrito once he crossed the City of Los Angeles sign on the freeway with the “Buckle up, L.A.” sign underneath it.

            He stumbled up and went for the water to wash his face off. Maroon cover his hands and his white shirt like sweat. He scrubbed his nose and mouth until no more red fell into the water. He turned around and looked straight ahead at the smell of the mingled restaurants in the stretch of buildings. He became depressed at the thought that he had no money on him. But, this was Los Angeles. He could find a way to scrape up a few ones for a meal. He could even sell his smart phone and have enough money to get home.

            His “stranded” story worked when he visited the Circle Ks and managed to gather about then dollars. He bought a breakfast burrito and a 200 ml size bottle of Skol Vodka. The clerk brought to his attention the “buy one, get one free” sale on grape flavored Swishersweets. Russell didn’t smoke, so he said “No thanks.” Debbie slapped her hand on the counter and said “Hell, I’ll get some.”

            “Let’s go, Debbie.” Russell opened the door with his back as he stepped out. The clerk watched him leave with a confused brow.

            Russell was drunk already at noon. He took the bus to the beach side again where he was on the prowl. He stumbled down Boardwalk laughing in the faces of people who rubbed shoulders with him.

A street performer who mimicked the behavior of the people walking by was entertaining the busy restaurant who laughed with burger in their mouths before swallowing with their drinks held in red Coca-Cola cups.

He was following a gangster, walking slowly just like him with his hand on his crotch and shoulder slightly bunched. Russell came in from behind and bumped into the street performer, almost knocking him down. The crowd gasped.

He kept his cool and followed Russell from behind, mimicking his drunken stammer. When away from the view of the chewing audience, he secretly took his smart phone from his loose Dickey’s pocket without anyone noticing. He came back to his spot and the show continued.

___

On Russell’s third day of leaving on the streets of Venice Beach, he found rejoice in a trashcan- a half 200ml bottle of Popov Vodka with a cigarette butt floating in its clear contents. He had looked everywhere for his cell phone: the beach, the gas stations, and even tried to find the same bus he rode. He thought he could have lost it on the bus. He remembered it being in his pocket when he got off onto Boardwalk. He scraped up fifty cents and the courage to call Lila on a pay phone. She never answered to strange numbers, so he left a message saying where he was and how he was planning on getting home. He didn’t say “I love you” before hanging up.

He fished the cigarette butt out of the bottle and then took a swig from it. He limped away on his leg that had been cut from the barbed wire fence that surrounded the local impound. He tried to break in and get his truck, but only made it to the top of the fence where it tore a hole in his pants and cut deep into his thigh. At this time, the flesh around his wound had swollen and his muscle ached. It left a god awful smell on his wrist every time he had to pee in an ally way or a public restroom, except urinating at this point didn’t happen with his alcohol diarrhea ridding the fluids of his body. 

He finished the bottle and threw it into a pile of rubble near a dumpster was he walked by. Something was lifting and slowly shaking the plastic soda bottles and at a closer glance, it was the movement of maggots. There, was the rotted carcass of a small animal Russell couldn’t identify. He scratched his arm at the sight of it and walked from around the alley way corner of the Fu Chao Chinese restaurant.

Leroy skipped backwards in front of him as if on a jump rope. “So, what are you gonna do?” He smiled.

“Shut up.” Russell couldn’t stand the stench of his own breath as he exhaled through his nose.

“Why are you rubbing your thighs like that? Is your pussy swollen?”

“Shut up.”

A woman turned her child’s face away from Russell when they walked by.

“Go to the bathroom and wipe the cheese from it. It will make you feel better.”

“I said shut the Fuck up!” Russell appeared as a dirty homeless man with a bad sun burn, screaming to himself. The lady and her son walked away from him faster now until they got in their car that was parked on the street and drove off. She let her son watch him through the window when they stopped in the left turning lane at the red light.

On Boardwalk, once again, Russell meandered as another homeless drunk. Even in the crowds of miscellaneous people, he still stuck out with his blood stained white shirt and greasy hair. And his limp.

He looked up at the tents where people sold jewelry, t-shirts, and stolen CDs on tables. He turned to the other side where other merchants were sitting down with cardboard signs. Some of them were selling hemp jewelry, most of them pan handled.

Debbie stood amongst them and waved for Russell to come over. She was standing behind a girl who was selling hemp necklaces like the one she wore with a garnet in the middle. Her sign read “Hemp Jewelry $5. Kisses $1.” She had a lot of ones in the Rastafarian beanie in her lap. 

Russell walked over and nodded at Debbie who returned it with pity in her eyes. The girl with dread locks looked up behind her and then back at Russell. She laughed with narrow eyes and shook her head. He smiled and looked at her sign. “What’s up dude.” She greeted. “Want a kiss?” He had forgotten how attractive he really is, even with a filthy shirt.

“Sure, but I don’t have a buck on me to save my life.”

She laughed and put the loaded beanie on the ground. She stood up and wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him on the mouth. Her breath tasted of marijuana, and his of alcohol. “Best things in life are free.” She pulled away and winked.

Russell sat down next to her and tried helping her business by calling over people, but they never listened to him. Garnet was her name, like the stone she wore. Together, they yelled and waved at people like two fucked up gypsies trying to make dough for their next meals and stimulants.

She made enough money each day to get a motel room for the night. She came from Tempe, Arizona where she used to have friends and spent six years at the university without getting an art degree. Because of her extreme college dept, she could never get a place to live. She ended up in Venice Beach to follow her dream and feel rewarded for her passion in making hemp necklaces. She was never a fan of football, but she liked that Russell wore a Cardinals jacket and kept touching his arm.

___

The day was swallowed by night quicker than Russell wanted to happen, but he didn’t mind. He knew he and Garnet were going to screw somewhere and they had enough money for a Motel 6 room including a bottle of Popov Vodka where they both took turns at it while taking their clothes off.

Russell still had his pants on when Garnet was already nude. He pulled them down and she shrieked. His infected gash leaked red down his leg from the alcohol thinning his blood. “Awe, don’t worry.” He said. “I’ll disinfect it.” He grabbed hand towel from the bathroom counter and drenched it with their booze. He stuck it to his thigh and let out a face clenching yelp at the stinging.

“Russ, that looks bad. Really bad.” Garnet had the bed sheet wrapped around her waist as she was laying on her elbow.

“It’ll clean up.”

“No. It looks. It looks really bad.”

“So let’s fuck.” Leroy’s white naked body came from under the bed. He went for Garnet and yanked the sheet from her was he forced her to straddle him.

“No!” Garnet was grappling with his hands.

Russell dropped the towel and ran to Leroy. He wished he could kill him. He wrapped his arms around Leroy’s skinny waist to be surprised at something. Breasts. He felt breasts at his chest. He looked up to see into the pooling blue eyes of Garnet. In all mysteries of anatomy, he had no idea how he ended up in this position.

He was inside of her and couldn’t help himself but to continue. “Russ, no. NO.” She pulled her head up and bit his pectoral. He screamed and pulled himself toward her to release the pull of her teeth, but that only made her bite harder.

He pulled back this time and she let go. She kicked him off. He landed on his side with a bleeding circle on his chest.

She grabbed her clothes and went for the bathroom. She slammed the door and locked it.

Russell balanced his forehead on the carpet and slammed his fist in absolute shame of himself. He felt as if he didn’t deserve Garnet’s respect and the wetness of her that lingered on his penis made it worse.

He sat up on his knees and looked at his pathetic sobbing reflection in the blackness of the television. Garnet stormed out of the bathroom with her bag and looked at Russell’s face when she unlocked the front door. “Fucking freak.” She spat on him and slammed the door as she walked out.

Sitting on the counter was the cheap bottle of vodka. He stood up and grabbed it by the neck. He put it to his mouth, but couldn’t place his lips around the plastic edge.

Debbie came out of the bathroom with her hands in her pockets. She kicked the bed and said “Get out.” Leroy slid out fully dressed with a shameless smile on his face.

Russell nodded at Debbie and she couldn’t find anything say about this. His streaming red eyes looked at Leroy who licked his lips and sucked in his cheeks. Russell attempted a hard swing into his face, but his arm went through his head and he fell through. Nothing.

The vodka spilled onto the carpet. As he picked it up, it still streamed, so he let it. He flung the alcohol onto night stand, the walls, the dresser, and let it all drain onto the bed. He empty bottle made a light thud as it hit the floor.

This was it. The end of the road for him. It was the end, but he experienced it all. He felt love at its best, and hate at its worst, and he could die saying that “life is a trip.”

“You guys.” He said. “It was nice knowing you guys.” Still standing next to Debbie, Leroy’s face relaxed for the very first time.

Russell grabbed the complimentary book of matches from the night stand, pulled out one match, and used it to ignite the entire thing in his hand.

He put it to the hem of the bed sheet. After a couple seconds, it caught onto the 80 proof alcohol and soon the entire bed was a flame.

He put his arms around Debbie and Leroy and they all held each other in a circle. They all braced the arriving pain of their fate. Flames licked over the walls and devoured the night stand. “Life’s a trip.” He said. They let the fire consume them.

The people staying at the Motel 6 evacuated it immediately. They stood in the parking lot and watched the floors by room twelve burn. Two fire trucks arrived at the scene and sprayed the motel down as white smoke billowed above Venice Beach and evaporated over its black ocean that keeps no promises.