She came from Florida to make a fresh start. Palm trees, cockroaches, ocean air and black bean soup had burned her out. When her parents caught her fucking on the front porch swing and kicked her out, Florida no longer offered her a single thing worth keeping. Melissa left for Chicago a month before her 21st birthday.

She almost made it. Melissa fell short, landing in Elk Grove Village, a sleepy middle class suburb ten miles outside the city. Here in Elk Grove, the restaurants and liquor stores all close by nine. Here, the police pull you over for driving three miles over the limit. Every neighborhood has several places of worship to choose from, all of them one denomination of Christianity or another. Here in Elk Grove, nothing ever happens apart from the occasional fistfight outside the strip club at the edge of the industrial park.

Melissa came for the chance to build a life: friends, education, career. Identity. Independence. Adulthood.

She failed.

Melissa was my roommate for six months. When we first met, she was excited by fresh surroundings, new faces, and her upcoming birthday. She'd always say "When I'm 21, watch out. It's on. I'm gonna fuck this town up!"

Her birthday came and went with no celebration. Strangely, she refused to go out drinking the night of her birthday, offering weak excuses, electing instead to barricade herself in her bedroom with an XBOX and some week old leftover mushroom pizza. A horde of revelers and the thrill of celebration awaited her, and she wanted to stay home? What the hell was wrong with this girl?

From that day forward Melissa was changed. She quietly withdrew to her room any time she came home, refusing social interaction, even the banal thoughtless television watching variety. Despite my frequent and gentle inquiries regarding her frame of mind, she wouldn't explain her sudden moroseness. Melissa had cocooned herself away.

As the weeks passed, the impact of Melissa's self-imposed isolation began to show. The symptoms of her seclusion evidenced themselves as miracles of unsanitary filth.

In a small trash bucket in the bathroom, she began throwing her used maxipads. No longer did she wrap each heavily in toilet paper and tie it off in a grocery bag. No longer did she empty the bucket. A maroon puddle grew beneath the stack of soaked pads and the bucket gave off the stench of copper and rot.

She began shopping exclusively at 7-11. Apart from her job, at Staples, 7-11 became one of the few places she went besides her filthy little bedroom. Trash accumulated. Wrappers from Cheetos and Twinkies and Mountain Dew. Empty pizza boxes with stray chunks of cheese and mushroom clinging to them. Ashtrays were emptied into empty McDonalds bags. When she wasn't greedily gnawing at junk food, she was swearing at her video games, or at other people through XBOX Live. War games, all of them. Games like Gears Of War and Call Of Duty.

Melissa quit showering. The army of beauty products crammed above and below the bathroom sink grew neglected. The horrible smells of body odor, rotting food, and old ashes engulfed her, following her around like Pigpen's cloud.

But worst of all, by far, was her hair. She shed like a sweating Yeti. She wouldn't brush her massive mess of hair, choosing instead to let it get all sweaty and knotty. When frustrated by failure while playing video games, she'd reach up and yank a slimy wad from her head, screaming in pain while follicles were ripped from her scalp. Then she'd toss the wad aside weakly, letting it drift down to mingle with all the trash surrounding her. Every time she trudged out of her room to pee, poop, or throw a maxi at the wall to see if it would stick like good spaghetti, she tracked hair out into the rest of the apartment. It got everywhere. I found it in my freshly laundered boxer shorts, under the couch, on ceiling fan blades, in my car, and even inside the refrigerator.

Naturally, she grew obese. Grossly obese. Over such a short time, too, maybe three months. In the rare instances that I stole a glance at the elusive wildebeast, I was struck by the notion that I witnessing an ever-expanding sack of potatoes impersonating the movement of a human woman.

I began to clean up after her. It was that or suffer a bout of involuntary surprise vomit every time I walked through my front door.

I began to hate her. I tried to confront her. Mute silence. Slammed door. Frustration. Disgust.

Then she disappeared.

One day last week I came home from work and her bedroom door was open. The garbage was all gone. Almost everything. All that remained was a bare mattress covered in stains.

What the hell?

I miss the days when my skin was whole and my blood stayed inside, warm, circulating, living. Now I have holes all over, steady leaks moistening my garments, sucking cloth to little wet circles that itch like bug bites.

Which they are. I'll get to that.

People have begun to notice. The crimson gaps reached my face last Sunday. One little one under my left sideburn, about the side of a tackhead, and a large ugly one, big as a quarter, folded over my right jawline. They dried, roughly scabbed over, but they're not healing. No fresh pink babyskin for me. None of them heal anymore, my entire body over. Wearing a belt is especially uncomfortable.

It was two months ago that I woke up naked and discovered skin missing from my right hip, two inches wide, vaguely shaped like Tennessee. I touched it, massaging it gently, concerned and annoyed. It was slick and spongy, like spoiled meat, and my untrimmed fingernail sunk right in with no resistance. Nerve endings woke up in a great goddamn hurry and sent my brain an urgent message: STOP THAT NOW.

Days would pass without fresh night bites. (That's what I called them, mentally, for they only appeared while I slept.) I didn't know yet that I'd accidentally identified them correctly, for bites they were. Not little love nips, though. No. They were great gory gouges from gluttonous cockroaches that would mow away entire patches of me. I had become a grazing pasture.

When, after days without incident, I woke with fresh scraps sheared away, I would spend all day prodding my wounds, pondering, searching my bed and blankets for clues.

Nothing revealed itself. No cause, no answers. At least they were healing, sealing, leaving. Sure, purple discolorations marked me for memory, but skin was skin, and I was happy to have it back. Every time. When the healing process eventually quit, I became harried, frantic, and terrified of slumber. Exhaustion always won, but I never could sleep peacefully, or for long.

The gaps in my skin kept blossoming, relentlessly. Black circles framed my eyes to match the red circles proliferating across my flesh. I grew raw.

I finally identified the pattern yesterday while plucking at my fresh face holes. I finally figured out the difference between the safe clean nights and those I awoke from molested and bleeding.

Masturbation won't grow hair on your palms. Grandma was dead wrong. However, if you live in a poorly maintained apartment infested with roaches and frequently work your jockage with olive oil, pausing only to snort cocaine and slug Pabst Blue Ribbon, eventually you'll crash out, naked and slicked with oil and semen.

And those little bastards love that stuff.

And they'll love you. Deeply.

I drank, I drove, I got busted. You already know this. Among the numerous brainwashing sessions incumbent upon me, the victim impact panel has been the worst.

Deep in the churning bowels of the Cook County Courthouse at Rolling Meadows (across the street from the horse racing track) lies a horrible subterranean room with an impossibly low ceiling and tiny little bucket chairs arranged in tightly compacted rows. Buzzing florescent lights flicker, poorly amplified microphones buzz and pop, clogged outdated ventilation wheezes and clanks but fails to circulate oxygen in any meaningful way. Guilty folk such as myself are squeezed into the dirty rows of old cracked chairs, elbow to elbow, to breathe upon one another, to jostle, to squirm, and to wallow in collective guilt.

The municipality, in conjunction with the local Alliance Against Drunk Driving, conducts two hour seminars twice monthly. Damaged people stand before us, offering tearful heartfelt testimonials, recounting the deaths of loved ones, the permanent paralyzing of children, the infinite tragedy brought about by the thoughtlessness and negligence of alcohol addled motorists. Like me.

I arrived with my heart cast in stone, my mind sheathed in cynicism, utterly and totally cold to the plight of these pious fucks who wished to baptize me in fear and regret.

They drew their arrows of tragedy and let fly.

I was spared the guy whose mother, aunt, and stepfather were killed by a drunk. He would've been wheeled in, neck leaning, drooling, pathetically quadriplegic in his wheelchair, for the lot of us to ogle in horror and disgust. He was absent due to the fact that he was away at law school, simultaneously studying for the bar exam while having a nurse insert a catheter into his numb dick to allow for clean urination.

Instead, they played a slideshow of his family photo album, before and after the crash, set to a multiple copyright violation soundtrack of the Beatles' "Help" and several current horrible pop punk songs by bands like Good Charlotte. I got the point, but it was belabored and tastelessly done, inducing exasperation and even hatred on my part.

I didn't give a blue fuck that his life was destroyed. Sue me. I'm a suburbanite, and I don't give a shit about anybody but myself. I'm an American.

The next guy I liked a bit better. His daughter and three of her friends were killed one morning in Naperville in October 1997. His speech was eloquent and heartfelt, but most importantly to me, skillfully told, with foreshadowing and suspense, despite the inevitable outcome, given the topic at hand.

That is, for the first half. The story portion. After that, he spent another half hour recounting the girl's social activity, academic activity, and utter specialness. I wondered: why is everyone whose story is shared here middle to upper class, white, and shining examples of suburban bliss?

How come I haven't seen such outpourings of sympathy and grief for victims of gang violence, poverty? Blacks, Hispanics? Where's the outrage over the War in Iraq, the injustices and violence perpetrated upon both American soldiers and the little brown people we're vaporizing daily? Because it didn't hit us at home. It doesn't matter until it happens to us, personally. We're selfish people. All humans are. As I realized this, the little tentacles of compassion worming their way up my gut evaporated.

Hear no evil, see no evil, everything is fine until the blood spills on OUR porches. The American Way. I'm not so cruel, I'm only typical.

The outrage and tragedy I'm presented with here is myopic. This man's daughter died ten years ago. He's manipulating me, yanking at my heartstrings like a low budget soap opera. He may be trying to do a good thing, and maybe he is, but he's wallowing in a horror from a decade past, refusing to move on, and enjoying his sadness in public atop his weeping soapbox. He loves jerking at tear ducts.

This is perverse, I realize. This is sickening, and not for the reasons he presents.

Maybe I'm a shit. A bastard. However, I learned a long time ago that life ain't fair. I'm not going to have a guilt orgy to satiate these speakers' appetites.

I'm sorry, but tough shit. Shit happens, too bad. People die all the time. Fact. One day something ugly and evil will happen to me, and I won't expect the world to drop to its' knees and weep for me. I'm a stoic.

Stow that utopian "it didn't have to happen" bullshit away. Keep it private. Have some dignity.

Call me an asshole. Fine. The reason I won't drink and drive anymore is because I don't want to die. And because it's financially expensive. I'm pragmatic. I don't care about your well being or your misfortunes. That's mutual, even if your little baby girl is gone now. You still don't care about me at all. Not a bit.

Buy some body armor for troops. Buy some books for poor schools. Your tunnel vision focusing on this statistically minor problem is perverted and self indulgent. Keep your slimy hands off my emotions.

I know you wouldn't give a shit if I got hit by a bus tomorrow. Your sincerity is so insincere, you fucking filthy victims.

"I'm only gonna say this once. Look at the catalog, order some shoes, and we'll deduct the cost from your paycheck."

That was the venerable GM of the wing joint, imploring us employees to purchase non-skid shoes. Fuck non-skid shoes, that's what I said. (mentally, to myself) I only buy shoes when my current pair look like fucked out gerbils.

On Monday night my silent bluster was revealed as ignorance.

I slipped and fell right next to a wet floor sign as I led customers to a table. I fell backwards, of course. I'm a fast walker, so my hungry parade was not near enough behind to rescue me mid-fall. Likely they would have, had the opportunity existed. Doubtless. I hit the tiles ass first, head second. Only my head bounced. The world wobbled.

Simultaneously horrified and concerned, the oldest of the three women bleated, "OH MY GOD ARE YOU OKAY?"

"Oh Jesus Mary and Joseph I think I broke my ass!" Then I made some horrible pained noisegroan.

I hauled myself up spring quick, swayed slightly, and plastered my high wattage half sane customer service face back on.

"I don't know about you folks, but I feel like chicken tonight!"

Confused, their heads tilted, like undomesticated animals sensing danger.

"Yes, I'm fine, thank you. Quite fine. Nothing like a rap on the old noggin to sharpen the senses. Yeah? Keen. I'm fantastic. I'll be fine. Let's get you three tabled."

I blinked rapidly, smiled, bulged out my eyes like they were trying to escape their sockets, spun around, and strode off to our mutual destination.

They followed, whispering and clucking.

Tuesday I was fine. Wednesday, however, the massive bruising bloomed. I felt like the Jolly Green Giant had used my entire self as a butt plug. And he clenched a lot.

This is only the most recent humiliation I've suffered while waiting tables.

I enjoy each and every one.

I got fired.

I'm an honest kid, mostly. So here it is: I was doing a bad job. They weren't asking much from me, simply that I order some crap and package it up for technicians. The ugly truth is that I'm lazier than elderly bowels, and frequently waited for the last minute to pull the shit together. This resulted in wasted money in various ways too boring to elaborate upon. Let's just say I deserved it and move on.

I reacted just as any worthless, self-indulgent, addictive fuckpuddle would: I went on a bender. I slugged beer like a divorced man, stuffed my nose with powder like it was a musket rifle, and burned enough weed to give the entire DEA a Twinkie addiction.

After two weeks of this, I remembered food. I resuscitated myself with four trays of napolean flan, two loaves of dark rye, one pound of muenster, and three pounds of pastrami. Over two days. On the third, I shat a freight train. On the fourth, I rested. In diapers.

Then I started another bender that hasn't truly ended yet, although by now it's flitting away like a sluggish butterfly. (bad analogy, but I'm keeping it, fuck you)

I have prospects for gainful employment looming, but I intend to procrastinate. I'm receiving unemployment benefits. (I convinced my former employer not to contest my claim, and they still love me on a personal level, so that was an easy finagle.)

I kept a tight grip on my night job as a waiter at the buffalo joint, though I usually arrived appearing raped and pillaged. One Saturday morning I showed up, my hair askew, raccoon luggage beneath my eyes, stinking of Anchor Steam.

The GM was holding a pre-shift meeting when I staggered in, bewildered, disheveled, and damn ugly.

"Steve, you okay?"

"Mm? Oh yeah, o'course I am. Bright eyed and bushy-tailed."

"You look like hell. Sleep much?"

(keep in mind I have an assembled audience of the entire working staff)

"Well, no. See, last night I was feeling kind of lonely, so I figured, you know, I'd find some company, shoot the shit, pour my heart out and get a few things off my chest. Catharsis was my order of the night. But nobody answered my calls."

"Okay..."

"Well, nobody answered, so I went to Best Buy to look for a movie, or a game, or some such distracting nonsense. I was browsing when I saw something called The Baby Simulator. It's an awful product prospective parents put on their PCs to prepare them for parenthood."

"I'm not getting you, Steve. Is this going somewhere?"

"You install it and let it run all night, right? And see, this thing will randomly start crying and wake your silly ass up. There's buttons like burp, feed milk, feed Gerber's, rock baby, sing lullaby, and a couple more I can't think of right now. You pick one and click it repeatedly for ten minutes and hope like hell you picked the right button. If you're lucky, you get to go back to sleep for another half hour. What it needed was an 'I don't fucking know' button."

(people are sniggering and giving each other raised eyebrows)

I continued: "It's supposed to be just like have having an infant in a crib. It was a vile and horrible experience. I don't recommend children for anyone. Fuck propagation of the species, quite frankly. If my baby wasn't fake I would've strangled the little virtual fucker."

(Now they're all outright laughing at me. Even the GM. I'm his longstanding unique comedy snowflake, or he'd have cut me off by this time.)

"So yeah, I'm exhausted and exasperated and downright miserable. I need a new hobby. So far, I've got two ideas on my list. The first is drinking heavily. That works. Trust me, I know. The other is microwaving things that aren't supposed to microwaved, and I'm starting with my goddamn computer hard drive. Then I'm going to drink until I render myself imbecilic. How are you?"

"Are you fucking with me, Steve?"

"Yeah. That was all complete bullshit. I was drinking heavily last night. Got a mint?"

My first flat out fiction, circa May 2005. As I'm inert currently, this is appropriate for reposting.


My new chair in my new home. They poke me with needles to make it okay.

What happened to me, you ask? Sit down, relax. I'll tell you. I've needed to tell somebody for a long, long time. I'm going to do it today. Now. Before it's too late. Before they get me.

Last October I decided to get involved in politics. It was already late in the election season, but I decided it was my patriotic duty to inform myself. I wanted to know what values each candidate represented. I live in Illinois, and as a dedicated blue state, no presidential candidates would waste any time here. Indiana is red, so no luck there either.

Wisconsin was tipping back and forth. They garnered plenty of attention nationally. I hadn't been to a political rally in Wisconsin since 2000, when I went to see Ralph Nader call Governor Tommy Thompson "A blight on the landscape, a destroyer of families, a corporate demon destroying the livelihood of the family farmer." Or something similar. Actually I just made that up, but it's correct in spirit. I love Ralph Nader.

I discovered that "Swingin" Dick Cheney was coming to Waukesha on October 28th, mere days before the final tally. I didn't want to get beat up for being a skeptical liberal, so I wore a Cornhuskers sweater I got for Christmas from my Nebraska relatives a few years ago. Red would wear well in this crowd. I left my granola in the cupboard and bought a pound of black pepper beef jerky on the way there. Nibbling meats would chew well in this crowd. Finally, I left my cigarettes on the nightstand. As one last extreme measure to fit in, I bought some minty Kodiak chewin chaw so I could spit and drool like a real rural type.

I got there and signed my loyalty oath and listened to Dick's muttering monotone. He was introduced by Republican Representative Jim Sensenbrenner. They used hearty words and satisfied chuckles to give each other verbal reacharounds.


Sensenbrenner with groupies.

I was bored and the cool weather was making me sleepy, so I scratched and tugged at my testicles. I grunted. Better. I looked around. Other fellas were reseating their hats on their dirty unkempt hairy heads and cracking their necks with enthusiam. I tried the same and gave myself a slight case of whiplash.

I decided to leave. Dick didn't tell me much about himself or George. He was talking about John Kerry, and all I really wanted to know was how many foreign nationals could be liquefied by the latest radioactive diarrhea missiles, or whatever the hell they use to kill little brown people these days.

I've been against the war since before it began, but I'm not above a good sick joke. If Cheney would've smiled like a serial rapist and made a joke about using a turban as a cum rag, I would've laughed. In this crowd I'd probably slap my knee to show everybody else how funny Dick is.

But he didn't, so I ambled away. The hoots and hollers and stomps and squirts faded into the background as the throng of yokels receded behind me.

At that moment my life changed. I heard something strange. A woman screaming. It was almost dark, but I saw a violent movement behind a few trees next to the idle motorcade. I walked up the lane, passing several black stretch limosines along the way.



I was tiptoeing towards the sound when silence abruptly interrupted. I stopped. In silhouette I saw a secret serviceman with his hand clamped over some poor woman's mouth. The curly cord that ran from his earpiece jiggled as he violently wrenched her head, snapping her neck.



What had I just witnessed? I wanted to slink away. Nobody can take on the government and win. Nobody. I'm no hero. I made the smart decision and crept away, quiet as can be.

When I heard a baby begin to cry, I paused. I couldn't help myself, and I turned to look back. I spied a dual stroller with two infants nestled inside. The woman's children. Twins? It stood alone. Where had the agent with the dead mother gone?

I was frozen. I knew I was in mortal danger, but I wanted to save those poor little ruddycheeked bundles of joy. I thought hard. What could I do? Maybe he would head for the forest to dispose of the former mother, and meanwhile I could steal the infants and bring them to a church or an orphanage or somewhere.

Footsteps. Two agents now. I could barely see them in the darkness. I crept closer. Stupid.

I saw the agents casually heave the victim into the lead limo's trunk. One grabbed the children, one in each arm. He was rough with them. The other folded the stroller and jammed it into the trunk, struggling to squeeze it into the same space as the fresh corpse. He slammed the trunk and went to the rear limo door. He opened it. I was crawling on my knees at this point, peeking from behind a large treetrunk. I was sweating, shaky, and desperate for a cigarette. A woman swung her legs out and leaned forward to reach for the babies.

"My sweet little darlings, aren't you just adorable! I can't wait to get you to my kitchen."



The interior lights backlit the woman. I recognized her easily. Lynne Cheney. She stroked their soft skin with her sharp fingernails, eyeing them greedily. She even licked her lips. She swung herself back into the car. An agent closed it, muttered into his tiny microphone, and got into the front passenger side. The other looked around briefly, and, satisfied that they had not been witnessed, slid into the driver seat. The vehicle rumbled away, leaving the rest of the motorcade to wait for the end of Dick Cheney's droning stump lullaby.

I followed them away. Curiosity got the better of me again. I'll never be the same.

When they turned onto an unmarked gravel path I kept to the main road. I stopped at a local pub a few miles down. I needed a drink. Badly. Neon Lienenkugel's signs flickered. Waves of vomit and urine wafted out the doorway in thick aggressive gusts. Slouched figures donning ragged flannels sat on stools, slumped with bad posture and lazy defeat. They gnawed on soggy cigarette filters and fingernails. The television played muted sitcoms while an old Garth Brooks CD skipped through songs on the jukebox. Dim light and dim sadness hung throughout like humid suicide.

I sat on a rickety stool and grabbed the bar's edge. Without a grip, my shaking hands would attract attention. I made a conscious effort to breathe slowly. When I ordered three shots of Jim Beam, the tired old waitress stopped her gum smacking mid-chew. Mouth half-open, she eyed me, sizing me up. Chewing again, she went for the bottle and sighed. She expected trouble from me. I don't blame her. My eyes were peeled open, my muscles were tensed all over and I looked like an electrocution victim with a tooth-grinding problem.

I downed the amber poison to calm my nerves. One, clack, two clack, three clack. I surprised her by leaving. She was already reaching for the Beam again, but I was ready to go learn some ugly truths about the leadership of my beautiful country.

I left my car behind.

Three miles of strewn gravel and fleeing squirrels later, I came to a large clearing in the trees. The grass lay chewed and dead, and up from the forlorn ground stood an old chemical refinery, long abandoned. Rust and foraging mammals fought for conrol of the weathered edifice. Parked and poking out from behind the aging structure I saw the tail of a black stretch limo. It was turned off and all was quiet but for grasshoppers.



I went inside the imposing monument of decay. Moonlight snuck in between pipes and wheels. Deep within the spooky old factory an ancient retired device shuddered into action, gears turning for the first time in decades. Following the racket, I came before a door. I put my hand on it and felt the slightest tremor, physical evidence of the ominous sound. The vibration of angry machinery lured me on. I opened it.


Enter a new hell.

Before me lay an awesome sight. Both above and below me, tier after tier of catwalks lined a great courtyard sunken deep into the ground. The moon shone upon the arena below, an iron floor the size of a football field. The tiers gave the immense expanse the feel of a stadium or a prison. The iron courtyard was fraught with hazardous protrusions: chains, hooks, tools, and punctured barrels. All dormant. These former metal behemoths now rust and rot without purpose, forlorn heaps of gizmos, gears, and scattered gaskets, anchors left to sink the factory in the ground inch by foot, decade by century.

As the scene stretched out before me, I saw false light flickering below, peeking out from the farthest corner. Electric torches and kerosene lamps swung about, carried by the busy activity of the small party camped down there. I heard hoarse cackling laughter join the rumbling beastly machinery that creaked away for some unknown sinister purpose.

I drew my gaze back to close range. Moonlight glistened on the wet slick rungs of a mossy ladder before me. Down it led, descending all five levels to the bottom floor. I went down three levels and gingerly tested the catwalk. It seemed sturdy and quiet enough. I chose to remain two stories above the murderous agents and the witch woman.

I allowed myself to feel slightly safer by looming above them. I began creeping closer to their light, ever so silently. I was nearly above them when Lynne Cheney threw a match onto a mound of stale crumbling rubber, igniting it into a fierce blaze that scalded the air. Insects fled. The light showed me the violent pair of secret service agents, now wearing red togas, standing back from the fire. They stood twirling empty gasoline cans, looking bored. Lynne stood before the fire, arms upraised, jaw clenched, eyes closed. Her lips moved but no sound emitted. She prayed silently to a foul beast beyond my reckoning.

I heard noise from above and behind. I froze. Lynne's eyes snapped open and trained on the ladder I'd used mere moments before. I concealed myself behind a sort of metal trellis and waited. More suited secret service agents came down the ladder a hundred yards behind me. They were not so stealthy as I, and I saw them pass my elevation and continue down to the floor level. Seven of them crossed the ugly ground to Lynne.

One pulled a lever. The rumble got louder. The secret machine revealed its purpose. A rope let out slowly into the sky, where it slung over a series of pulleys, and down came a corpulent man. It was him: the Vice President Of The Unites States. He made a careful descent to the eager group. He was slung in a hammock and appeared to be relaxed. When he landed, he strode up to Lynn, kissed her passionately, and she led him by the hand to a makeshift pavillion a few yards from the fire.

After this things began to get hazy for me. Some of my memory is raw and patchy from the shock of what I witnessed. Some of the damage may be a chemical side effect from the thick black smoke that drifted off the rubber fire up to my lookout perch. I must also admit that I may have blacked out some of the details as a means of self-defense, a frightened denial to help me sustain my sanity and lucidity. Some things cannot be erased no matter how badly I want to forget them, and it is these fragments that I sadly and dutifully remit to you for judgement.

The seven late arriving agents stipped bare and their suits went into the fire. They walked like robots single file into the pavillion, and they emerged wearing the same blood red togas Lynne's murdering crew already wore. They brought from the pavillion several sturdy wooden tables and a few wire mesh bags filled with sharp metal implements. The shiny bundles scraped together with menacing shrill whispers as they swayed under the heavy hands of the expressionless men.

Last from under the pavillion came the motherless stolen twins, now doomed to a gruesome fate I could not turn away from. Then the hammock was lowered again, and this time it contained nine more squirming, mewling children, all bound in pink twine. The party now totalled twenty two, eleven adults and eleven infants.



Dick and Lynne hugged and watched as the toga men carried the bound children to the wood. They tied them down with thicker ropes, each child separate from the rest. The men stood back. The mesh bags were opened and heaps of polished kitchen tools were carelessly strewn upon a plastic tarp.

Chanting ensued. The feast began. The children screamed with high-pitched clear tones that rang into the night sky. It was the worst sound I'd ever heard until the blood began to bubble in their little throats. That then became was the worst sound I'd ever heard, their pure siren screams slowly diluted by bubbling, gurgling blood.



I began to fade at this point, unable to move and help them. Intervening would just end my life, and it was already too late to help. I had to tell the world. I had to share the secret. I had to survive. Unable to gaze upon the profane slaughter any longer, I crawled away from sight and cried silenty.

Snatches of dialogue clawed into my ears as I lay on the catwalk in fetal position, rocking back and forth, pulling at my hair. I was at a cocktail party in hell.

Eventually I slept, and when I woke, nothing remained but a stray charred little ribcage that had been kicked to the base of a corroded pile of sheet metal.

These are the ghastly words that haunt me:



"Too bad George isn't here tonight. He's great with the meat tenderizer."



"Lynne, honey, let's get the grill going. You know I love to grill the feet, just like Anton showed me last month at the pheasant farm. Those little toes are juicy with zebra crosshatch grillmarks."

"Now Dick, where are my little plastic martini swords? I've got fresh eyes here. I can't enjoy my drink and pop the 'olives' without my swords."

"The lard of an infant is divine, translucent as a pearl, unsullied by the pollution of life that stains it yellow. Adult fat is chewy clumpy corn kernels."

"Peel that skull open like a sardine can. Give me that potato skinner. Here, like this. Yyyyeeesssssss. Put your finger in there. Feel that."



"Kidneys are great thin and fried. Get the meat slicer, some olive oil, and the frypan. Oh, and some Triscuits for serving."

"This one is green, no longer fresh. I think it died before we began. Be a good fellow, Langley, and throw it on the bonfire. Do take care to keep our sport fresh, or I'll reassign you to mine-crawling duty in Fallujah."

"No, save that! We can make back scratchers, candle holders, and hemmoroid cream from that."

"Lynne saves the gums. She puts them on her eyes at night to keep her laugh lines subtle."

"Don't worry, we'll ban abortion soon enough. I figure the more orphans and desperate mothers we have, the easier this will get. The children are our future! How do you think Jesse Helms lived for so long? Marrow shakes. I made them myself sometimes. It takes more than oil connections to seize this kind of power."

"There's no such thing as an unwanted child."

5/25/2007

"Not good. Real fuckin bad, actually."

"You sayin you wanna go home?"

"Badly."

"Okay Steve. Get gone. You look like someone brushed you down with mayonnaise."

It was Friday at noon and somebody'd cranked up the sterno stove under my skull. It was hot upstairs, the simmer was on, and when I moved my head, my brain slammed against the hot plates bracketing my bubble gum thinkmeat. I hurt.

Over the course of the weekend I sweat soaked my pillows, blankets, skivvies, and in one unfortunate incident, my living room carpet. The fever was on. My appetite left for Albuquerque. I began my prolonged involuntary weight loss program.

I stumbled, weak and wan, though a week of ineffective labor. When the next weekend arrived, the fevers had not yet subsided. I gave in. I acquiesced. I went to the fucking doctor. I wanted a shit ton of antibiotics.

6/1/2007

"Nothing in the blood count, kiddo. No bacterial infection. You've got a virus or something. You'll just have to stick it out. Take ibuprofen and acetaminophen. Drink plenty of fluids. Good luck."

"A virus or something? That's it? That's all?"

"Uh... yeah."

"Shit."

I was in no condition to party like a frat fuck, but decided it might cheer me up anyways. With jittery hands I stacked my bottom shelf with beer. I gobbled some ephedrine, swigged Budweiser, and sang crap pop music until sleep enshrouded me.

6/5/2007

I was weak but functional for four days. After receiving a guilty verdict and a stern lecture from the judge on Tuesday the 5th, I went home and ate three sandwiches, my first meal of greater stature than morsel in over a week. Midnight struck and all that corned beef and seeded rye turned to stone. Oof.

I pulled my usual routine in this circumstance: recreational self-induced vomiting. It had been four hours since the third sandwich, and it was already too late. After seven or eight attempts, all I could splash out was a less than compelling slime of brown cottage cheese looking stuff. The meat, the weight, the bulk? Well, it had already migrated south to my intestinal tract, where it would rest and rot for many days, implacable. My regularity was cancelled.

6/6/07

On Wednesday I woke hitching for air. Oxygen was elusive and... I could not swallow. Well, I could, but it took great effort and hurt like throat rape. (speaking from conjecture, not experience) Oh hell. I called in sick, sounding like a chortling halfwit with throat muscles of jello.



6/7/2007

In this second stage of disease, I had less willpower to resist medicking and quickly agreed to a hospital visit. I got a real doctor this time around the track. That ace fucker shined a light in my mouth, poked me in the spleen, strangled me gently, swiped some blood, and promptly diagnosed me with vicious accuracy. He announced my affliction with a big old smile and a cheerful voice:

"Steve! Guess what? You have infectuous mononucleosis!"

He beamed at me, extremely satisfied.

"Well fuck."

"Now now. That's not necessary."

"Sorry doc. So now what?"

"Drugs!"

He sent me off with a weak pain prescription of hydrocodone and bade me to eat popsicles. Modern medicine in action, assholes.

6/9/2007

Two days later, on Saturday morning, I had consumed all my narcotics, and nothing had improved. So I went back. I could not swallow at all by then. I demanded something hardcore. I almost cried. But I didn't. His brutish nurse slammed an IV of steroids, saline, and painkillers into my elbow crook and told me to stop my whining. I floated in and out of consciousness.

My mommy sat beside me, looking aggrieved. She's the awesomest. (yes, I'm 28. I still need Mommy sometimes.)

The doc warned me: No sports or heavy lifting. My spleen would be delicate for a long time to come, and undue pressure would cause its rupture.

"You mean it'll explode like a mouse's heart when it gets too scared?"

"No Steve. Not like that. Just take it easy. Can you do that?"

"Oh yeah. You bet. Sure. No physical stress. I'll be at home watching silly British mysteries on PBS. Listening to classical music. No risk to my spleen. All good in the hood, Doc."

This time my lab coat hero sent me off with two scrips, one for more hydrocodone, one for a short course of steroids to reduce my throat swelling. Prednisone? Yeah, something like that.

Now it's Wednesday the 13th. Today was my second day back at work. They're treating me like a leper, but a leper they're really proud of. I feel very Special Olympics. I am writing this delirious entry from home, bathed in sweat and diseased idiocy, once again jacked on ephedrine, beer, and hope for tomorrow.

“I was up above it.
Now I’m down in it.”
-Nine Inch Nails, “Down In It”

3/29/07 1:37 A.M.

“Take off your shoes.”

“Why?”

“Suicide. The laces. Belt has to come off, too. C’mon.”

“Alright.”

I step into the holding room. A small table is bolted to the wall; two chairs are bolted to the floor. The plastic bucket chairs remind me of high school. The obnoxiously bright flourescent lights remind me of office jobs, the buzzing white light washing out my sweaty, drunken complexion.

I was pulled over for speeding. 63 in a 45 at 1:00 in the morning, late last March. I was honest (sort of) in admitting to imbibing, but I claimed two drinks, not the dozen or so I’d actually downed. I wasn’t drunk, (no double vision) but heavily buzzed, and I failed the field sobriety and breathalyzer tests. Point One Four.

I am a big, wet, hairy, wheezing asshole. I am the sort of shithead who selfishly does as he pleases, putting the general driving populace at risk of random death by drunk driver attack. I am deeply ashamed.

I am the lowest of the low. I’ve heard people say they’re in favor of the death penalty for drunk drivers, but not rapists and murderers. Because drunk drivers are worse. That’s extreme, but some people truly believe me to be worse than a pedophile. I disagree. I’m not excusing my behavior by questioning this wild comparison- I know my action was wrong, but I certainly didn’t leave that pub with a premeditated intention to destroy somebody. My crime was one of casual blitheness, not of bloodthirsty hatred or sexual psychosis. If I’m not a good person, I am at least decent.

I’ve been in here for an hour. I have to pee so badly. Will I be fired from my jobs for this? Will I be judged, found unworthy of friendship by my peers, and scorned? Will those who previously loved and respected me now sneer and brush me away, a leper with a contagious rotting disease?

Don’t cry. You’ll get through this, Just keep tapping the table, keep fisting your toes, keep cracking your neck. Stay busy, pass the time, do anything but think about this.

Not gonna work. I’m sweating. My feet itch. My feet… Yes. My feet can help here. I may not have access to my pocket knife, by my fingernails are long. Attack the callouses. Yes. A worthy distraction.

Off come my socks. I smell them. Not bad. (I showered, dressed, and departed home, already beer buzzed, a mere three hours ago.) My feet are clean apart from a few patches of dead skin and some old flattened blisters.

This impromptu pedicure is certainly good, mindless busy work. I’ve been clawing at my soles and toes for over an hour now, and I’m running out of dead flesh. Feeling drunker. Swaying in my chair. Still gotta pee. Bladder screaming. Must peel more.

Hey, I felt that. I’m not supposed to feel the dead parts. Not pain, anyways. And now, red. Strong red blood, welling at a breach on my right pinky toe. Pull off the flap. Whoops. I ripped off a layer too many. Sorry dermis. A shocking little squirt. Fuck it, back to the other foot.

Twenty minutes more have passed, and both my feet are bleeding now, from six different toes. I stop picking and peeling, opting instead to pace across this little white room. Back and forth over and over again, clapping, sighing, farting, humming.

My footprints are all over the holding room, some fresh, some drying, darkening to maroon.

Now I’m scabbing up. Back on go my socks. I lick my fingers clean, taking care to nibble out anything stuck under my fingernails.

“What the fuck happened in here?”

“I’m, uh… I was…”

“Nevermind, just siddown, okay? I gotta read these waivers out loud to you.”

The brash rookie cop who arrested me is eyeing the gore on the floor. He goosesteps around my messier spots, takes the second chair, and threatens me. In summary? If you don’t sign this and take another breathalyzer, you face a mandatory six month driver’s license suspension and at least $2500 in fines.

“Please sign here to indicate you understand what I’ve read you, and sign here to indicate your consent to administer the second breathalyzer.”

I sign, and after one more disgusted glance at the tile floor, the officer leads me to the basement. I exhale, I press my inky fingers, I turn my head for the camera. Booked.



“Everyone's got to face down the demons
Maybe today
We can put the past away
I wish you would step back from that ledge, my friend
You could cut ties with all the lies
That you've been living in”
-Third Eye Blind, “Jumper”

5/14/07 5:43 P.M.

Okay, Stevie-boy, recess is over, the party’s cancelled, your grace period is ended. Your case is still unresolved, your expensive lawyer is haggling with the state, seeking loopholes, doing his best. In the meantime, you can’t drive anywhere for a while. Call in all your favors, stretch those patience ropes tight, and prepare for penance.

Yeah, not only do I talk to myself, I write to myself sometimes, too.

By the time my automatic suspension began last Monday, I was depressed. I was broke, I hadn’t hung out with friends for a while, I felt unlovable and useless to everyone, and I was miserable. I doubted my virtues and wallowed in my faults. I stared at the ceiling. I drank alone. Loneliness and loathing and despair. I spent all weekend staring in the mirror. I hated myself.

I walk off my problems. Miles in the heat, clad in thin stringy socks, dirty old sneakers, and a blanket of masochism. This might work again, just like the old days.

On Monday evening, I got dropped off at the intersection of Barrington and Palatine Roads. I walked east, five miles against traffic, sweating and chewing on pine needles. (they taste like floor cleanser, which is wonderful, but like the chemicals, they irritate the throat, necessitating frequent water gulps) There are no sidewalks around there, just dense foliage, so I walked on the street, cars screaming by me at a foot’s distance going 50mph. Let me take you back there.

As I tire out and burn in the sun, I usually slough off any mental baggage and emerge scoured of all my troubles. Today I’ve been going for two miles and I’m still as depressed as I was at the outset. I’m also out of shape, doughy and lethargic from a winter of indulgence. This isn't working right. Fuck! It's all I have left!

I give in to temptation, snake my hand into a cargo pocket low on my pants, and fish out a card full of ephedrine pills. 1, 2,3. Hmm… not enough. 4, 5, 6. That’s more like it. Down the hatch. An hour passes, heel to toe to heel to toe.

Almost home. The trucker speed is jolting me. (six times the recommended dosage, my darlings) Ears ringing. Heavy sweating. Hyperventilating. Heart like a hummingbird. Every breeze feels like a silk loofah. My nerve endings are jumping and buzzing as waves of serotonin euphoria wash up and down them. I can feel every hair shift in its follicle when each lovely breeze strokes me. I’m pounded with orgasmic tide after tide until I reach the corner liquor store. I giggle and pant my way to the beer cooler.

Finally, home. Nice and cool, which actually feels cold to my hyper-sensitive skin. Off come the shoes and socks. My pocket knife is right there on the kitchen table. I haven’t damaged my feet since the arrest. I could slice them up beautifully right now, make a magnificent mess on the carpet, Rorschact fractals leaking from knife carved foot fissures.

I do it. The skin is soft and pliable by way of sweat and toil. The dull dirty blade meets no fight, and reaches right into my foot, opening any holes I desire. Soon I have streams, then puddles, later to be stains. I neglect patching and bandaging, electing instead to let the crimson trickles tickle my tender soles. I get horny. I sigh through the delicious mixture of pleasure and pain.

It dries. Mostly. I rise and trudge to the fridge, careful not to slip.

I crack an Old Style, crank up some acoustic guitar songs, and lay half on the bed, half on the floor, discombobulated, eyes studying the ceiling, like Dad would.

I’m smiling and I feel great, but it’s hard to drink beer while lying on my back. I don’t mind the sudsy splashes that miss my mouth and land at the nape of my neck, mingling with my salty sweat, staining my shirt.

I am flying so high right now. I’m in the clouds. I’m okay now. Everything will be fine. I’m okay.

“I'm a wheel
I will
Turn on you
I'm gonna turn on you, turn on you
Turn on turn on you, turn on you”
-Wilco, “I’m A Wheel”

“Are you coming or not, Steve? I’m not gonna fuck this girl for you! I already got Sky.”

”Billy, listen. I appreciate this and all, I just don’t think-"

“Shut up. Just zip it. Hurry the fuck up. She’s getting green.”

I’ve been hanging out with Billy for a couple weeks. He’s my new local drinking buddy. He complains about his girlfriend, I complain about my lack of one, and we both direct snide comments at drunk rich kids, trying to get a rise out of ‘em. Sharing mutual hatred is always a good basis for friendship.

On this early April night, the clock has struck three. I’ve just escaped my night job at the bar and grill. I smell like buffalo sauce, my forehead is shiny with grease, and my asscrack feels moist with sweat. What better time to make a first impression?

I arrive and try to beeline for the bathroom, desperate to scrub my face and wipe dry my nethers. Before I can reach the commode, Billy sees me, launches from his table, violently snags my collar, and drags me to his table.

“Sit. Steve, this is Kareen. Kareen, Steve. Go ahead and make out.”

I stare across the table. “Hi. Um. Nice to meet you?”

Billy and his girlfriend, Skylar, are giggling and making gestures suggestive of sucking and fucking. I try to block these out. My dignity is hanging by a frayed thread.

Kareen is eyeing me from across the table. I try to determine if she’s attracted to me. After a few moments, I realize she’s so drunk she can’t focus. Her eyes are clouded over, her mouth is hanging open, and drool is welling at the corners of her mouth. She’s swaying left and right. Yikes. So that’s what Billy meant by green.

“So… Kareen? Was there a mistake on your birth certificate, or were your parents creative free spirit types aiming for originality?”

One minute into our meeting and I’ve already insulted her and her parents. Very suave. Billy slaps me.

“Outside. Cigarette. Now.”

I comply.

“Dude, I know it’s been a while since you’ve seen any action. I’m trying to do something nice for you. I’m trying to help a brotha out. Play nice, kay?”

“Billy. She’s very cute. Hot in fact. But she left her brain in the bottom of a martini glass. She’s fuckin wasted, she’s not home, out to lunch, completely shitfaced. Do you think she can stand up? I don’t. Gravity is her enemy right now. Even if I wanted a piece of her, and was predatory enough to try, which I’m not, she’s likely to puke in my mouth. Or on my dick. No way, man. I appreciate the gesture and all…”

“You’re weak. Fine. You can’t say I didn’t try. Fuck it, let’s drink.”

One hour, three whiskeys, two carbombs, and one pitcher of cheap beer later, last call is announced. Time to go home. It’s four in the morning and I must rise at eight. Time to pack it in.

Billy, Skylar, and I walk out the front door.

“Where’s Kareen?”

Uh-oh.

Skylar goes to find her, and three minutes later, leads her out front. Kareen falls over, taking Sky down to the concrete with her. Kareen starts crying.

Two guys rush over and try to help the girls up, knocking Billy and I out of the way. One of them, a pale blond asshole, tells us he knew Kareen in high school. Now he’s trying to pick up Kareen in more ways than one.

When he coos “Kareen, baby, it’s okay, I got you, come with me, I’ll take care of you” Billy looks over at me, his eyes hardening. I guess it’s okay if one of his friends takes advantage of this girl, but not okay if a stranger tries it. Billy is drunk and becoming angry with the scene before him. Meanwhile, Kareen is clutching the ground, refusing to get up for anyone.

“Sky, get her out of here.”

Sky manages to peel Kareen up and drags her off down the sidewalk towards her nearby condo.

Blondie boy is pissed.

“What’s your fucking problem? Cockblocking assfuck.”

Blondie shoves Billy. His squat, hairy friend stands beside him, scowling, clenching and reclenching his fists, obviously spoiling for violence. Billy, unprepared for the push, falls backwards to the cold hard ground.

The pussy vultures pounce upon Billy. Upon tearing them off and standing Billy up, I engage my voice of sensible reason, complete with gentle velvet soothing action. The seething fury wilts before the calming hypnotic power of my diplomacy.

(This was a month ago, but I recall using a two-pronged attack- 1. Hey, we’re in this together, let’s not fight! Total nonsense, but fine for using on drunkards. 2. She’s not worth this man, trust me, one word: teeth. You don’t wants scrapes and divots, do you? Hell, in her state tonight she might bite you clean off.)

Billy and I saunter away, leaving the two shitheads confused and unsure where to direct their simmering testosterone. I would later learn they found a new target.

We're halfway to Sky’s condo before we decide acquiring more beer is paramount.

My house keys are in my car, back at the bar. There's more beer at my house. So we run back to the bar. I grab my keys from the car and we begin our sprint back whence we came, desperate to scoop the beer from my home then zip back and slam Sky's doorbell before she conks out and leaves us abandoned outdoors.

A bright light blinds me and a voice rings out:

“Halt! Stop! Hands in the air!”

Aw fuck.

“I was just getting my keys, I’m not driving anywhere!”

(I got a DUI the week before, my first and last. Until then, I’d suffered no police action in ten years. Now I was about to be arrested for the second time in a week.)

I reach for my keys. I wish to dangle them before the officer. He pulls his gun, trains it upon me, and screams.

“I SAID HANDS IN THE AIR ASSHOLE DON’T MOVE!”

Holy shit. What is this? My hands give the gospel truth and reach for the heavens.

“WHY WERE YOU RUNNING? WHERE’S THE KNIFE?”

“Knife?”

At this point, I brace myself for a nasty tackle. That cop is coming up fast, and he’s not slowing down, nor is that raging pitbull expression distorting his features softening up.

From the periphery, a voice:

“Officer! Over here! I’m the one who called! That’s not him, that’s not the guy who attacked us. That guy actually got attacked by the same guys who attacked me, just a minute before!”

Finally, the cop slows down, holsters his cannon, and sternly commands me.

“You stay fucking put. I got questions for you.”

I watch a scene straight from the COPS TV show. The frantic cop caller is pointing at a black car pulling out of the bar lot. The cursing cop mutters into his walkie and three nearby squad cars block the bar lot exit, surround the black muscle car, and haul guys out through the open windows, ignoring the civilized option of the opening the doors first. The mob of cops grabass the suspects, trying to find their grail, the evidence, that knife.

A knife that stayed pocketed during my brief encounter with the fuckheads. Lucky Billy, lucky me. Blondie stabbed someone else instead. After we left. Hah hah.

The cops are busy. None are paying me any mind. I’m thirsty. Billy says “let’s go.” We turn around and walk. We get our beer from my joint, head for Sky’s condo, and finally, relax on a luxurious couch sipping Bud Select while Sky and Kareen take turns puking into the toilet.