This is one part of another older Steeple Chase exercise.
A couple months later I saw Jerry, the guy who peed in my mouth, at a bar called The Maple Leaf. Ironically enough, there was an Expos game on the tube, which I kept my eyes locked on as Jerry and his wife pulled up stools right next to me. I saw him out in my peripheral vision, noticed him staring at me with a big smile, took a big swig of my beer, and gulped hard as I remembered how I practically had to use his piss as Listerine that night. The thought of his urine cascading like white-water rapids through my gums was enough to make me want to spill it right there on the bar. I held my vomit in my throat though, having developed a fear of public restrooms recently.
Jerry kept his eyes on me, and smiled big, revealing his huge horse teeth. My eyes started to water from watching the television screen so hard. The game wasn’t even on anymore, it was some commercial for Canadian tampons.
He ordered a beer and said “Tom right? Remember me?”
The jig was up.
“Yeeeaaahhh, hey there Jerry...” I said, still adamantly staring at the T.V., “How’s uh…well…yeah…you know…”
“Great! Just great, Tom! I just opened my own restaurant down the street here. We’re called ‘Stick ‘Em Up!’” He chuckled and slapped his knee, “familiar words, ey Tom?” He slapped me on the shoulder and I edged my stool away from him.
“See, we’re a theme-restaurant…I don’t know if you remember this night in particular, Tom, but when we met, we were, well, we were in a little bit of a-uh, well how should I put it-“
“We were drunk and pissing into a trough, Jerry, and then we got mugged,” I said, letting my teeth show as I made eye contact with Jerry.
“Right, well, lemme tell ya, Tom- when I felt that cold steel pressing against the back of my head I had a moment of revelation,”
“Oh yeah, Jerry- a revelation, like the one I had when your liquid waste turned my face into a Jackson Pollack painting, yeah- that’s when I realized I wanted to become an artist!” I thought.
“See- Oh excuse me, Tom- this is my wife, Laura-Jean,” Jerry said, leaning back his gigantic body to reveal the slightly less gigantic body of his wife.
“Hi, Tom,” she said, as she sipped on a Bloody Mary and summoned a slutty smile that probably hadn’t been used since she was a freshman in community college. I had to wonder if Jerry ever pissed in her mouth. I shuddered.
“Nice to meet ya, Laura-Jean, hope you keep this guy on a short leash- HE’S OUT OF CONTROL!” I said, punching Jerry a little too hard in the arm and almost falling off my stool. How long had I been at this bar? “I’ll have three shots of Jack Daniels and another beer,” I told the bartender.
Jerry chuckled and rubbed his arm, “Uh- well, anyway, Tom- Stick ‘Em Up! serves only the finest in Tex-Mex foods, we’ve got all kinds of pictures on the walls of famous tyrants like Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp, you know- but here’s the best part- all of our staff are dressed up as Bandits! With bandanas over their faces and everything! Boy, I tell ya- business isn’t exactly booming, but we’re still in our first month. I tell ya, Tom, I’m so glad we got held up that night- I’ve found my calling!”
At least I think that’s what he said. Before he had said ‘Wyatt Earp’ I had downed the three shots and gulped down the beer.
“Sounds great, Larry” I slurred.
“It’s Jerry, Tom, and I’m glad you like the idea! You should stop by- it’s just down the street here off Klondike street. The best and only Tex-Mex food in all of Canada, I believe. We can’t get you the entire meal free, just can’t afford it, but I might be able to work out a free basket of chips, for uh…an old friend,” He said and winked at me.
“You got a fat face, Terry,” I said, drooling on myself, “Why’d you pee on me?”
Laura-Jean giggled and peaked up behind Jerry’s Mountain of a shoulder.
“Does he pee on you too?” I said, falling off my stool. I lost control of my legs and landed face-first in Jerry’s lap. My shoulders were trapped between the bar and Jerry’s massive legs. My screams of terror were muffled by his thick Levi’s. My arms flailed as I tasted his piss once again in my mouth. How many times was I gonna have to deal with this guy’s junk? The white-waters were rushing through my mouth once again, and this time I couldn’t hold it in. If you’ve ever thrown up into someone’s lap before, you know that there’s really no room for the vomit to spread. I almost suffocated as I spewed regurgitated alcohol right into Jerry’s crotch. I was finally able to breathe when Jerry’s stool tipped backwards and he fell to the ground.
He jumped up, his face beat-red. Laura-Jean immediately started drying his vomit-soaked crotch with bar napkins. The bar crowd got quite a kick out of this and were beginning to gather around us.
“You puked on my dick, Tom!” He screeched.
“You pissed in my mouth, Jerry!” I retorted.
He stepped around Laura-Jean, who was squatting at his crotch now, and piling up used napkins at his feet, and came towards me. He extended his hand.
“I guess we’re even- How would you like to be the new night manager at Stick ‘Em Up!?” he asked with a smile.
I sighed, spat a "God damn it" at the floor and shook his hand.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Igtolerance
Two aspiring Klansmen stroll down a dimly-lit alley way. Suddenly, one of them stops and begins to violently punch the brick wall beside him. His friend restrains him, saying "Ennis, stop! We're fine. That's just a shadow. Wow...you are really racist!"
Friday, February 4, 2011
Chaos
10/'04 - This is an excerpt from a parody our Fiction II class did of Gogol's short story 'The Nose.' In the story, the main character discovers a disembodied nose that he attempts to return to it's owner. My story is about a goth kid who finds a wrist.
Chaos crept into the kitchen where his mother was cooking dinner. The secret, deathly personae he tried to exude at all times was announced loudly by the clanking of his ridiculously long wallet chain. His mother turned around from her pot of meatloaf and jumped.
“OH! Jeremy…Christ, you look frightening,” she said, grasping her chest.
“Thanks…but I’ve told you a thousand times, Martha, it’s CHAOS!” he yelled.
“Well, Chaos,” she said with a laugh, “my name is ‘Mom,’ and I was perfectly fine with you calling me that for the past seventeen years.”
“Whatever…I gotta go,” Chaos said with forced apathy.
“Wait, Jeremy,” his mother pleaded, stepping in front of the back door. She held his arms, having to avoid the rows of metal spikes that he had sewn down his sleeves. “Why are you doing this? This isn’t you. Is it because of that girl…what’s her name? Fanny?”
“Sally!” Chaos yelped, his voice cracking at the mere thought of her.
“Well, whoever," she said, returning to the stove, "you know, I don’t appreciate this life style, I’ve been against it from the beginning. I was in college when the punks started showing up. Nasty bastards with their home-made piercings and spiked up hair. I don’t want to see you go down that road, Jeremy. One time some kid named Piss just ran into our sorority living room while we were having a party and puked all over me! Then he just ran out laughing!” she said.
Chaos wanted to laugh but he had forgotten how because he was so fucking goth.
“Look, that’s not me,” he said to her, “I don’t even drink anymore.”
“Well you’ve started that terrible band that practices in the garage…what’s the name, Shallow poop?” she asked.
“SHADOW WOLF, Martha!” he screamed. Chaos heard his father shift in his recliner from the living room where he sat watching a football game with increasing volume.
“I was also around when Ozzy Osbourne was biting heads off bats and snorting trails of fire ants up his nose!” she complained, “I know what goes on in the music scene, Jeremy, and it’s despicable.”
Before the word “despicable” had even left her lips, something small and pink jumped out of the boiling pot and landed on the kitchen floor.
“Oh My God!” his mother exclaimed.
Somehow, a piece of flesh had found its way into the pot where Chaos’ mother was preparing the family’s meatloaf for dinner that night.
“Is this your idea of a joke?!” Chaos’ mother screamed at him, “Is this some prop for your fucking band?! You get that out of here right now! Don’t come back with it!”
Chaos quickly picked up the flesh, wrapped it in a paper towel covered with farm houses and flowers and exited through the back door.
As he approached the Fast Stop at the end of the street he took one quick look at the terrible burden that had been given to him. It resembled a pork chop. The skin was delicate and soft. He stopped under a street light and took a closer look. It was a wrist. He could see it now. No hand or arm to accompany it. It had been severed from both by someone with a very steady hand. He swallowed hard and his spine shook.
He approached the trash can in the convenience store parking lot. Just before he got there, he saw the red truck pulling in. The same red truck that he saw so many nights full of the same drunk assholes looking for a fight. How did these guys always show up at the same time he did? It was getting to be routine by now. Before the driver could even park the truck, four or five of them had hopped out and were running towards Chaos.
“What’s up, faggot?” one of the clones called out.
“Whatcha got there? Your mom’s douche? Man, you are a homo,” said another.
Chaos didn’t say anything, just opened the paper towel to reveal its contents.
The one with the popped collar puked at first sight.
“Oh, you are one sick fuck,” he said in between heaves.
The others moaned and turned away in disgust.
One of them spat in Chaos’ face and delivered a hard blow to his cheek. The wrist flew out of his hands and into the alley way. Chaos' elbows hit the cement hard.
“We’re gonna have to beat your goth ass a little bit harder for this one, aren’t we shitbag?” said one of them.
“You are a fucking steamed shitbag, bro,” said the one who was still puking.
Just then the clerk, a young woman, ran out of the store, crying and yelling at them in broken English to 'run off!' Directly after came her father, the owner of the business, carrying a large sawed-off shot gun and screaming in Arabic.
“Oh fuck, let’s fuckin go, dudes!” yelled the popped collar. Within seconds they were all back into the truck, flipping off the scene as they left.
Chaos slithered over to the wrist and picked it up just as the young woman came to help him up. He quickly tried to hide the wrist but was found out. The woman gasped and covered her mouth, praying quietly to herself. Chaos looked up, faced with the barrel of the owner’s shotgun. In his best English, the man said “You have to go now…LEAVE!” Chaos jumped up and continued to run down the street into the cold night.
Chaos crept into the kitchen where his mother was cooking dinner. The secret, deathly personae he tried to exude at all times was announced loudly by the clanking of his ridiculously long wallet chain. His mother turned around from her pot of meatloaf and jumped.
“OH! Jeremy…Christ, you look frightening,” she said, grasping her chest.
“Thanks…but I’ve told you a thousand times, Martha, it’s CHAOS!” he yelled.
“Well, Chaos,” she said with a laugh, “my name is ‘Mom,’ and I was perfectly fine with you calling me that for the past seventeen years.”
“Whatever…I gotta go,” Chaos said with forced apathy.
“Wait, Jeremy,” his mother pleaded, stepping in front of the back door. She held his arms, having to avoid the rows of metal spikes that he had sewn down his sleeves. “Why are you doing this? This isn’t you. Is it because of that girl…what’s her name? Fanny?”
“Sally!” Chaos yelped, his voice cracking at the mere thought of her.
“Well, whoever," she said, returning to the stove, "you know, I don’t appreciate this life style, I’ve been against it from the beginning. I was in college when the punks started showing up. Nasty bastards with their home-made piercings and spiked up hair. I don’t want to see you go down that road, Jeremy. One time some kid named Piss just ran into our sorority living room while we were having a party and puked all over me! Then he just ran out laughing!” she said.
Chaos wanted to laugh but he had forgotten how because he was so fucking goth.
“Look, that’s not me,” he said to her, “I don’t even drink anymore.”
“Well you’ve started that terrible band that practices in the garage…what’s the name, Shallow poop?” she asked.
“SHADOW WOLF, Martha!” he screamed. Chaos heard his father shift in his recliner from the living room where he sat watching a football game with increasing volume.
“I was also around when Ozzy Osbourne was biting heads off bats and snorting trails of fire ants up his nose!” she complained, “I know what goes on in the music scene, Jeremy, and it’s despicable.”
Before the word “despicable” had even left her lips, something small and pink jumped out of the boiling pot and landed on the kitchen floor.
“Oh My God!” his mother exclaimed.
Somehow, a piece of flesh had found its way into the pot where Chaos’ mother was preparing the family’s meatloaf for dinner that night.
“Is this your idea of a joke?!” Chaos’ mother screamed at him, “Is this some prop for your fucking band?! You get that out of here right now! Don’t come back with it!”
Chaos quickly picked up the flesh, wrapped it in a paper towel covered with farm houses and flowers and exited through the back door.
As he approached the Fast Stop at the end of the street he took one quick look at the terrible burden that had been given to him. It resembled a pork chop. The skin was delicate and soft. He stopped under a street light and took a closer look. It was a wrist. He could see it now. No hand or arm to accompany it. It had been severed from both by someone with a very steady hand. He swallowed hard and his spine shook.
He approached the trash can in the convenience store parking lot. Just before he got there, he saw the red truck pulling in. The same red truck that he saw so many nights full of the same drunk assholes looking for a fight. How did these guys always show up at the same time he did? It was getting to be routine by now. Before the driver could even park the truck, four or five of them had hopped out and were running towards Chaos.
“What’s up, faggot?” one of the clones called out.
“Whatcha got there? Your mom’s douche? Man, you are a homo,” said another.
Chaos didn’t say anything, just opened the paper towel to reveal its contents.
The one with the popped collar puked at first sight.
“Oh, you are one sick fuck,” he said in between heaves.
The others moaned and turned away in disgust.
One of them spat in Chaos’ face and delivered a hard blow to his cheek. The wrist flew out of his hands and into the alley way. Chaos' elbows hit the cement hard.
“We’re gonna have to beat your goth ass a little bit harder for this one, aren’t we shitbag?” said one of them.
“You are a fucking steamed shitbag, bro,” said the one who was still puking.
Just then the clerk, a young woman, ran out of the store, crying and yelling at them in broken English to 'run off!' Directly after came her father, the owner of the business, carrying a large sawed-off shot gun and screaming in Arabic.
“Oh fuck, let’s fuckin go, dudes!” yelled the popped collar. Within seconds they were all back into the truck, flipping off the scene as they left.
Chaos slithered over to the wrist and picked it up just as the young woman came to help him up. He quickly tried to hide the wrist but was found out. The woman gasped and covered her mouth, praying quietly to herself. Chaos looked up, faced with the barrel of the owner’s shotgun. In his best English, the man said “You have to go now…LEAVE!” Chaos jumped up and continued to run down the street into the cold night.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Floating in Oil
8/'04
peeled back the label
found in an empty arena
full of plastic catholics
buried in coffins.
saw mother mary falling down drunk
escaping imagination and infatuation
cradled in shotgun confessionals
beheading the kentucky bottle.
married in the month of May,
flowers floating in oil
wrists bending backwards
falling in open spaces
left where my eyes fall out
soldered a new wing on my shoulder
gathering the rapiers and swords,
slicing.
peeled back the label
found in an empty arena
full of plastic catholics
buried in coffins.
saw mother mary falling down drunk
escaping imagination and infatuation
cradled in shotgun confessionals
beheading the kentucky bottle.
married in the month of May,
flowers floating in oil
wrists bending backwards
falling in open spaces
left where my eyes fall out
soldered a new wing on my shoulder
gathering the rapiers and swords,
slicing.
Goose
9/06/05
The three of them sat in Goose’s basement, waiting for him to get back from meeting his dealer. There was Eddie, who stalked the basement tiles like a hyena on the prowl. Digging his fingers into his ears and spitting on the walls. Eddie used to be a professional skateboarder, but blew all his sponsorships when he got injured and hooked on opiates. Then there was Gillian. No one had ever really figured her out. She wore “x’s” on her hands, as if she claimed straight edge, but would convulse constantly. She was probably still in high school judging by the school girl’s uniform. Either that or she was a stripper, no one seemed to know or care. Gillian kept quiet and concentrated on de-pleating her skirt. There was Keith, the b-boy master. Keith was from the streets and he never let you forget it. He danced to old hip hop songs for money to buy smack.
“’Aight,” Keith started, breaking the silence that had been choking all of them for several minutes, “Where’s our boy Goose?”
Gillian shook her head and sighed, keeping her eyes on her skirt and sitting on a beanbag chair in the corner. It was raining outside and she would glance up every now and then to the small window to see if Goose’s feet were trotting by.
Eddie attempted to keep conversation saying, “Man…that guy’s always…just…late man. He’s always…late. I gotta work pretty soon; just wanna…get a little…before I gotta work.”
Keith sighed and stood up from a folding chair. His jacket- gigantic, orange and bubbly- dropped down to his knees. He fiddled with the huge gold ring on his middle finger.
At all times, but never at the same time, one of them would have their eye on the door.
“Wait…” Eddie said, “Let’s get outta here…”
“No, man!” Keith yelled, getting desperate.
“Why, man?” Eddie said.
“We’re waitin’ for Goose, man!”
“Ooooh”
Just then, the door from the second floor opened, and someone started down the steps. Keith rubbed his hands together and licked his lips, saying “Alright, alright…”
The three of them stared with wide eyes at the door. Suddenly, the door burst open to reveal Goose’s mother. She carried a basket of laundry and frowned at them. She shook her head and offered a careless “Ya’ll waitin’ fer Richie?” and turned to the left, walking to the washer and dryer.
Keith sighed again, balling his hands into fists and shadowboxing towards Goose’s Mom’s back as she returned without a word and went back up the stairs.
Suddenly, Gillian let out a brief, high pitched squeak as she pointed up to the window. Keith and Eddie turned quickly enough to catch a glimpse of Goose’s Doc Marten’s, the leather of which was adorned with the Union Jack.
The basement door burst open and the pouring rain was heard briefly as Goose slammed the door and came down the steps. He entered, his Mohawk soaked and bleeding down the side of his bald head like a black eel. The water dripped down in pools off his leather jacket and flooded the cement floor. He glanced around the room quickly, not attempting to make eye contact but rather to see who the hell had let themselves into his house.
Keith spoke first, “Hey, man…need to buy a few hits.”
“Yeah, well…” Goose started, grabbing a towel and drying himself off.
“Yeah man,” Eddie followed, “I gotta go to work pretty soon…gotta buy some hits.”
“Look, the guy didn’t show up,” Goose said with a snarl, “I think maybe the cops got him.”
Gillian hugged her knees and started sobbing quietly.
Keith erupted, “What?! He didn’t show up? Well what the fuck are we supposed to do now, man?”
“Fuck if I know, man…have a cigarette, chill out,” Goose said, offering a smoke from his pack.
Keith grabbed the box, crushed it and threw it in the litter box sitting in the corner. He grabbed Goose’s collar and shoved him against the wall.
“I don’t fuckin’ smoke man. I shoot up. And when I can’t shoot I suddenly get real pissed off at little white boys,” Keith said through his teeth.
Goose sighed, seeming bored to death with the extremely angry man who was threatening him. “Look man,” he said with a slight grin, “I’m sure there’ll be some new shit real soon…besides, who’s the motherfucker whose been hooking you up for months? The Goose, baby.”
Keith stared deeply into Goose’s dilated pupils.
“You piece of shit…” Keith said, backing off Goose and turning to Eddie, “This cracker shot all the shit before he got here…He’s high as fuck.”
“Aw, man…that’s…that aint cool, man,” Eddie said, pacing nervously.
Gillian suddenly jumped up and ran towards Goose, tearing at his face with her nails and sinking her teeth into his neck. Keith and Eddie ripped her away and she fell to her knees, gasping for air between sobs with Goose’s blood dribbling down her chin.
Goose fell to the ground, grasping his neck.
“Shit!” Keith yelled to Eddie, “That bitch pulled some Nosferatu bullshit right there! What, you think you can get the smack out of him by suckin’ his blood? Straight trippin’. I wanna hit, but not that bad, I’m out…” Keith threw his hands up and walked out the door.
“Gotta…get to work…Not cool, man,” Eddie said, following Keith and glancing back at Gillian, “Not cool.”
Gillian and Goose sat staring at each other. Goose was speechless, bleeding, and grinning from ear to ear. Gillian remained emotionless and crawled towards Goose. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him in a tight embrace. She stroked his wet hair and cried into his shoulder. Goose just grinned and bled.
The three of them sat in Goose’s basement, waiting for him to get back from meeting his dealer. There was Eddie, who stalked the basement tiles like a hyena on the prowl. Digging his fingers into his ears and spitting on the walls. Eddie used to be a professional skateboarder, but blew all his sponsorships when he got injured and hooked on opiates. Then there was Gillian. No one had ever really figured her out. She wore “x’s” on her hands, as if she claimed straight edge, but would convulse constantly. She was probably still in high school judging by the school girl’s uniform. Either that or she was a stripper, no one seemed to know or care. Gillian kept quiet and concentrated on de-pleating her skirt. There was Keith, the b-boy master. Keith was from the streets and he never let you forget it. He danced to old hip hop songs for money to buy smack.
“’Aight,” Keith started, breaking the silence that had been choking all of them for several minutes, “Where’s our boy Goose?”
Gillian shook her head and sighed, keeping her eyes on her skirt and sitting on a beanbag chair in the corner. It was raining outside and she would glance up every now and then to the small window to see if Goose’s feet were trotting by.
Eddie attempted to keep conversation saying, “Man…that guy’s always…just…late man. He’s always…late. I gotta work pretty soon; just wanna…get a little…before I gotta work.”
Keith sighed and stood up from a folding chair. His jacket- gigantic, orange and bubbly- dropped down to his knees. He fiddled with the huge gold ring on his middle finger.
At all times, but never at the same time, one of them would have their eye on the door.
“Wait…” Eddie said, “Let’s get outta here…”
“No, man!” Keith yelled, getting desperate.
“Why, man?” Eddie said.
“We’re waitin’ for Goose, man!”
“Ooooh”
Just then, the door from the second floor opened, and someone started down the steps. Keith rubbed his hands together and licked his lips, saying “Alright, alright…”
The three of them stared with wide eyes at the door. Suddenly, the door burst open to reveal Goose’s mother. She carried a basket of laundry and frowned at them. She shook her head and offered a careless “Ya’ll waitin’ fer Richie?” and turned to the left, walking to the washer and dryer.
Keith sighed again, balling his hands into fists and shadowboxing towards Goose’s Mom’s back as she returned without a word and went back up the stairs.
Suddenly, Gillian let out a brief, high pitched squeak as she pointed up to the window. Keith and Eddie turned quickly enough to catch a glimpse of Goose’s Doc Marten’s, the leather of which was adorned with the Union Jack.
The basement door burst open and the pouring rain was heard briefly as Goose slammed the door and came down the steps. He entered, his Mohawk soaked and bleeding down the side of his bald head like a black eel. The water dripped down in pools off his leather jacket and flooded the cement floor. He glanced around the room quickly, not attempting to make eye contact but rather to see who the hell had let themselves into his house.
Keith spoke first, “Hey, man…need to buy a few hits.”
“Yeah, well…” Goose started, grabbing a towel and drying himself off.
“Yeah man,” Eddie followed, “I gotta go to work pretty soon…gotta buy some hits.”
“Look, the guy didn’t show up,” Goose said with a snarl, “I think maybe the cops got him.”
Gillian hugged her knees and started sobbing quietly.
Keith erupted, “What?! He didn’t show up? Well what the fuck are we supposed to do now, man?”
“Fuck if I know, man…have a cigarette, chill out,” Goose said, offering a smoke from his pack.
Keith grabbed the box, crushed it and threw it in the litter box sitting in the corner. He grabbed Goose’s collar and shoved him against the wall.
“I don’t fuckin’ smoke man. I shoot up. And when I can’t shoot I suddenly get real pissed off at little white boys,” Keith said through his teeth.
Goose sighed, seeming bored to death with the extremely angry man who was threatening him. “Look man,” he said with a slight grin, “I’m sure there’ll be some new shit real soon…besides, who’s the motherfucker whose been hooking you up for months? The Goose, baby.”
Keith stared deeply into Goose’s dilated pupils.
“You piece of shit…” Keith said, backing off Goose and turning to Eddie, “This cracker shot all the shit before he got here…He’s high as fuck.”
“Aw, man…that’s…that aint cool, man,” Eddie said, pacing nervously.
Gillian suddenly jumped up and ran towards Goose, tearing at his face with her nails and sinking her teeth into his neck. Keith and Eddie ripped her away and she fell to her knees, gasping for air between sobs with Goose’s blood dribbling down her chin.
Goose fell to the ground, grasping his neck.
“Shit!” Keith yelled to Eddie, “That bitch pulled some Nosferatu bullshit right there! What, you think you can get the smack out of him by suckin’ his blood? Straight trippin’. I wanna hit, but not that bad, I’m out…” Keith threw his hands up and walked out the door.
“Gotta…get to work…Not cool, man,” Eddie said, following Keith and glancing back at Gillian, “Not cool.”
Gillian and Goose sat staring at each other. Goose was speechless, bleeding, and grinning from ear to ear. Gillian remained emotionless and crawled towards Goose. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him in a tight embrace. She stroked his wet hair and cried into his shoulder. Goose just grinned and bled.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
When Good Robots Go Bad - Chapter Two
4/07/05
We had shown up two hours late to El Torreon, where we were playing one night during the summer of 2001. Those two hours and about four before them had been spent constructing our cardboard robot army. Needless to say when Brian, the manager, saw Chris, Flannery, John and me trying to sneak by him while carrying gigantic cardboard boxes and trash bags full of junk he was pissed.
“You guys are two fuckin’ hours late!” he yelled, sweat gleaming on his forehead. We really didn’t want to piss him off, but we were young and incosiderate. What could we do? El Torreon was the only club in the city that still allowed us to play. Several other punk venues were weary of us after hearing that we “incited riots” and “started fires” regularly. Being banned from two clubs in St. Louis had given us a reputation back home in Kansas City.
“We’re really sorry, Brian. We’ll play a short set” we begged, running by him.
We rushed to the back area of the club to get ready. We were pretty excited because there were about 200 kids there. People who I had never seen before. Our cardboard army, consisting of several boxes spray-painted silver to more resemble robots, were worn by about seven of our friends.
“Okay,” I coached one of them, “When we start playing, you just go nuts. No one will fuck with you, you’re a robot!” Bad advice, but we all knew what was going to happen.
Other props we used included a fog machine, which dispensed very large amounts of synthetic fog from a plastic skull with glowing red eyes; several balloons shaped like aliens (or ‘metroids’) with cardboard teeth taped to them to be thrown out over the crowd; and fake blood. Lots of fake blood. Too much fake blood.
We played a form of fast punk rock called power violence. At the time, not a lot of kids coming to shows really knew what it was and we used that to our advantage. We could fuck up entire songs, all playing at different speeds and ending at different times and no one watching would know the difference. We were a live band. A so-called ‘gimmick’ band too, I guess. People came to our shows to go nuts, and tonight was no different.
We had difficulties with El Torreon's sound guy because he always wanted us to play on the stage (imagine that!). We had tried it once, but none of us really understood how to use the monitors correctly so it ended up sounding terrible. No one in the audience minded, but we did. We asked to play on the floor right in front of the stage. We liked being mixed in with all the chaos.
After the first band, who were actually playing in our place, had finished so we started to set up. We didn’t need any kind of sound check; all we had were three vocal microphones. We started our set. After our short introduction, our secret weapon emerged from the back room.
A giant, twenty-foot robot, comprised of two refrigerator boxes stacked on top of each other and taped together, about ten feet of metal tubing for it’s menacing tentacles, and two of our friends inside the thing, running it around, Flintstones-style. The Robots eyes were spray-painted a piercing dark red. All in all, it took us six hours to create our masterpiece, and about two minutes for it to be completely destroyed.
At first, the audience seemed shocked. A lot of them had come from the suburbs to see what a “powerviolence” band was all about. I’m glad that their answer was a giant cardboard juggernaut coming right for them accompanied by four kids who could barely play together.
We started a fast song and the robots all went hurdling into the pit. The giant had a few moments of glory circling around the pit before the kids started to gang up on it and pull it to the ground. As the towering monster started falling, I remember feeling a serious sense of dread. It was so tall that as it was falling it took one of the club’s large, plastic light fixtures with it. Thankfully though, it landed clean on the floor and no one was hurt.
If there hadn’t been any more than five kids at this show, I’m sure we would have attempted to do the exact same stunts. That’s just what we were into at the time. The band progressed musically from this point into something that can only be described accurately with a dumb name like ‘Crust Funk’. The music stayed original until the end of the band though, that's for sure. The robots and most of the stage antics (besides the fog machine) were phased out over time. The only reason for this was that we were spending way too much energy on showmanship and not enough on musicianship. In hindsight, the best thing about this band was that we always did exactly what we wanted to do without fear of criticism.
We were allowed to play El Torreon again only because we got a great response and we cleaned up after ourselves. We are forever in debt to Brian and Allison Saunders for this! Thank you so much and sorry about the light.
We had shown up two hours late to El Torreon, where we were playing one night during the summer of 2001. Those two hours and about four before them had been spent constructing our cardboard robot army. Needless to say when Brian, the manager, saw Chris, Flannery, John and me trying to sneak by him while carrying gigantic cardboard boxes and trash bags full of junk he was pissed.
“You guys are two fuckin’ hours late!” he yelled, sweat gleaming on his forehead. We really didn’t want to piss him off, but we were young and incosiderate. What could we do? El Torreon was the only club in the city that still allowed us to play. Several other punk venues were weary of us after hearing that we “incited riots” and “started fires” regularly. Being banned from two clubs in St. Louis had given us a reputation back home in Kansas City.
“We’re really sorry, Brian. We’ll play a short set” we begged, running by him.
We rushed to the back area of the club to get ready. We were pretty excited because there were about 200 kids there. People who I had never seen before. Our cardboard army, consisting of several boxes spray-painted silver to more resemble robots, were worn by about seven of our friends.
“Okay,” I coached one of them, “When we start playing, you just go nuts. No one will fuck with you, you’re a robot!” Bad advice, but we all knew what was going to happen.
Other props we used included a fog machine, which dispensed very large amounts of synthetic fog from a plastic skull with glowing red eyes; several balloons shaped like aliens (or ‘metroids’) with cardboard teeth taped to them to be thrown out over the crowd; and fake blood. Lots of fake blood. Too much fake blood.
We played a form of fast punk rock called power violence. At the time, not a lot of kids coming to shows really knew what it was and we used that to our advantage. We could fuck up entire songs, all playing at different speeds and ending at different times and no one watching would know the difference. We were a live band. A so-called ‘gimmick’ band too, I guess. People came to our shows to go nuts, and tonight was no different.
We had difficulties with El Torreon's sound guy because he always wanted us to play on the stage (imagine that!). We had tried it once, but none of us really understood how to use the monitors correctly so it ended up sounding terrible. No one in the audience minded, but we did. We asked to play on the floor right in front of the stage. We liked being mixed in with all the chaos.
After the first band, who were actually playing in our place, had finished so we started to set up. We didn’t need any kind of sound check; all we had were three vocal microphones. We started our set. After our short introduction, our secret weapon emerged from the back room.
A giant, twenty-foot robot, comprised of two refrigerator boxes stacked on top of each other and taped together, about ten feet of metal tubing for it’s menacing tentacles, and two of our friends inside the thing, running it around, Flintstones-style. The Robots eyes were spray-painted a piercing dark red. All in all, it took us six hours to create our masterpiece, and about two minutes for it to be completely destroyed.
At first, the audience seemed shocked. A lot of them had come from the suburbs to see what a “powerviolence” band was all about. I’m glad that their answer was a giant cardboard juggernaut coming right for them accompanied by four kids who could barely play together.
We started a fast song and the robots all went hurdling into the pit. The giant had a few moments of glory circling around the pit before the kids started to gang up on it and pull it to the ground. As the towering monster started falling, I remember feeling a serious sense of dread. It was so tall that as it was falling it took one of the club’s large, plastic light fixtures with it. Thankfully though, it landed clean on the floor and no one was hurt.
If there hadn’t been any more than five kids at this show, I’m sure we would have attempted to do the exact same stunts. That’s just what we were into at the time. The band progressed musically from this point into something that can only be described accurately with a dumb name like ‘Crust Funk’. The music stayed original until the end of the band though, that's for sure. The robots and most of the stage antics (besides the fog machine) were phased out over time. The only reason for this was that we were spending way too much energy on showmanship and not enough on musicianship. In hindsight, the best thing about this band was that we always did exactly what we wanted to do without fear of criticism.
We were allowed to play El Torreon again only because we got a great response and we cleaned up after ourselves. We are forever in debt to Brian and Allison Saunders for this! Thank you so much and sorry about the light.
Runner
1/04/05
“You look like you need some water,” she said to me.
I had just run a marathon. Twenty-seven miles in just over two hours, a new record. My chest and lungs were throbbing uncontrollably. My body seemed to be made entirely out of sweat. I was like some kind of jellyfish. My long hair, certainly not runner’s hair, was matted down against my forehead. I had collapsed on the sidewalk after crossing the finish line. I could barely speak.
“Yes…” I gasped out. Even a one-syllable word seemed exhausting to pronounce. My lungs were spent. I could think of nothing better to do than lay there and wait for this beautiful woman to bring me my water. I hoped that she knew she would have to repeat this task several times for up to an hour in order for me to regain my status as a functioning human and charm the pants off of her.
She brought the first cup. I poured it all over my head and face and handed it back to her.
“More…please…” I gasped again.
She laughed like we were playing a game. She looked beautiful and childish at the same time. I felt like I knew her already. I had never met this woman before but I knew that I would marry her. Tomorrow.
My body was beginning to go numb. I’d tried hallucinogenic drugs in college, but nothing compared to this feeling. Once I took so much peyote that I began to believe my entire body was made out of nails. That I, in fact, was nails! I felt out of place so I ran out of the smoky basement that my friends had brought me to and ran all the way across town to the hardware store. It was closed, being four in the morning and all, but I knew I had to be in there. I had to be with my family. I grabbed a trashcan from the parking lot and threw it through the window. The metallic feeling still cascaded through my body. The next morning Mr. Roscoe, the owner of the hardware store, found me curled up in a bucket of nails sucking my thumb and feeling right at home.
“Maybe you should stretch, you don’t want to cramp up,” she said, handing me my eighth cup of water. Those disposable paper-cones are so ridiculous. I can never get enough water out of those things. Who is satisfied with those? Certainly not me. If the paper-cone cup company had come to me looking for money for their product I would have sent them packing. Heh…’Don’t let the door hit your paper-cone asses on the way out! Ya schmucks!’ That’s what I’d say.
“Some race, huh partner?” a large man with an even larger cowboy hat said. He wore an all white suit with rhinestones running up and down his sleeves and bell-bottoms. He had obviously not just finished the marathon.
“Yeah…” I panted, sitting up with my elbows clutching my knees. “Didn’t see you out there”
“Oh!” he burst out in laughter, “You are one funny sonofabitch! Starla…get a picture of this funny sonofabitch…Uh, what’s your name, man?”
The cowboy’s wife, decked out in an equally distasteful red vest and matching skirt with similarly annoying rhinestones on it, ran up to me with just about the biggest camera I had ever seen. At least I think it was a camera. The thing was big enough to be a bazooka. She had to load shells in it just to make it flash. She might have had rounds of ammo strapped across her chest too, but I can’t really remember.
“I’m Tom…”I gasped, “Tom Wolfe.”
The camera flashed. That was too much. I fell back down again, completely blind. Tom Wolfe was not my name. My name was Indiana Jones. I scoured the corners of the world looking for ancient artifacts that belong in museums. I jumped over snake pits, loved beautiful women, and fought Nazis. I was the greatest hero there ever was.
“He don’t look so good,” the cowboy said.
As she returned with another cup of water, Maggie saw the man she would marry passed out on the sidewalk. The eleven o’clock sun beating down on him, his sweat spilling out over the sidewalk like a river of thin paper. People began drowning in it. She tried to revive him by throwing water on his face and slapping him. Not knowing his name, she yelled “Hey! Sir! Stay with me!” over and over. He was smiling the whole time.
“Shoot…” the cowboy said to his wife, “this feller just set a world record for fastest time in a marathon and he might not live to know it.”
There was a crowd now. Lots of people with microphones, more flashing bazookas, and huge tank-like news vans. All sorts of neon-colored people surrounded us. I closed my eyes and sank into myself.
“You look like you need some water,” she said to me.
I had just run a marathon. Twenty-seven miles in just over two hours, a new record. My chest and lungs were throbbing uncontrollably. My body seemed to be made entirely out of sweat. I was like some kind of jellyfish. My long hair, certainly not runner’s hair, was matted down against my forehead. I had collapsed on the sidewalk after crossing the finish line. I could barely speak.
“Yes…” I gasped out. Even a one-syllable word seemed exhausting to pronounce. My lungs were spent. I could think of nothing better to do than lay there and wait for this beautiful woman to bring me my water. I hoped that she knew she would have to repeat this task several times for up to an hour in order for me to regain my status as a functioning human and charm the pants off of her.
She brought the first cup. I poured it all over my head and face and handed it back to her.
“More…please…” I gasped again.
She laughed like we were playing a game. She looked beautiful and childish at the same time. I felt like I knew her already. I had never met this woman before but I knew that I would marry her. Tomorrow.
My body was beginning to go numb. I’d tried hallucinogenic drugs in college, but nothing compared to this feeling. Once I took so much peyote that I began to believe my entire body was made out of nails. That I, in fact, was nails! I felt out of place so I ran out of the smoky basement that my friends had brought me to and ran all the way across town to the hardware store. It was closed, being four in the morning and all, but I knew I had to be in there. I had to be with my family. I grabbed a trashcan from the parking lot and threw it through the window. The metallic feeling still cascaded through my body. The next morning Mr. Roscoe, the owner of the hardware store, found me curled up in a bucket of nails sucking my thumb and feeling right at home.
“Maybe you should stretch, you don’t want to cramp up,” she said, handing me my eighth cup of water. Those disposable paper-cones are so ridiculous. I can never get enough water out of those things. Who is satisfied with those? Certainly not me. If the paper-cone cup company had come to me looking for money for their product I would have sent them packing. Heh…’Don’t let the door hit your paper-cone asses on the way out! Ya schmucks!’ That’s what I’d say.
“Some race, huh partner?” a large man with an even larger cowboy hat said. He wore an all white suit with rhinestones running up and down his sleeves and bell-bottoms. He had obviously not just finished the marathon.
“Yeah…” I panted, sitting up with my elbows clutching my knees. “Didn’t see you out there”
“Oh!” he burst out in laughter, “You are one funny sonofabitch! Starla…get a picture of this funny sonofabitch…Uh, what’s your name, man?”
The cowboy’s wife, decked out in an equally distasteful red vest and matching skirt with similarly annoying rhinestones on it, ran up to me with just about the biggest camera I had ever seen. At least I think it was a camera. The thing was big enough to be a bazooka. She had to load shells in it just to make it flash. She might have had rounds of ammo strapped across her chest too, but I can’t really remember.
“I’m Tom…”I gasped, “Tom Wolfe.”
The camera flashed. That was too much. I fell back down again, completely blind. Tom Wolfe was not my name. My name was Indiana Jones. I scoured the corners of the world looking for ancient artifacts that belong in museums. I jumped over snake pits, loved beautiful women, and fought Nazis. I was the greatest hero there ever was.
“He don’t look so good,” the cowboy said.
As she returned with another cup of water, Maggie saw the man she would marry passed out on the sidewalk. The eleven o’clock sun beating down on him, his sweat spilling out over the sidewalk like a river of thin paper. People began drowning in it. She tried to revive him by throwing water on his face and slapping him. Not knowing his name, she yelled “Hey! Sir! Stay with me!” over and over. He was smiling the whole time.
“Shoot…” the cowboy said to his wife, “this feller just set a world record for fastest time in a marathon and he might not live to know it.”
There was a crowd now. Lots of people with microphones, more flashing bazookas, and huge tank-like news vans. All sorts of neon-colored people surrounded us. I closed my eyes and sank into myself.
Monday, January 17, 2011
When Good Robots Go Bad - Chapter One
4/7/05
Two lead pipes duct taped together to form a body and stuck on wheels. A head fashioned from vacuum cleaner parts. A broken television with an angry face drawn on the screen with magic marker. Dozens of cardboard boxes spray-painted silver for armor. These were some of the first prototypes that Chris came up with for the robot army that accompanied our ridiculous band at every one of our shows.
Chris and John had started the band first as a joke with a few other friends to create something different and crazy. And indeed, they succeeded. At their first cohesive point there were two bass players and a drummer. They played their first show like this, at El Torreon for Stand Against the Hand 2 in March of 2001. The most memorable parts for me besides the obvious onslaught of thrash music were the Leftover Crack cover and the fire-breathing and inevitable flaming mannequin that graced the stage while they played. After this, they decided to ask me to play guitar, seeing as their second bassist had just quit. Chris was one of my best friends and it sounded like a lot of fun, so I said yes. I was fifteen.
My first show with the band would be in St. Louis. Chris’ cousin Rob had set it up for us. We had never been to the club we were playing, and I had only practiced with the band twice. I had never played guitar or sang in front of an audience before and was intensely nervous. Needless to say, our props were going to have to be pretty amazing to distract everyone’s attention from our severe lack of preparation.
The week before the show, we spent far too much time building robots and not enough practicing the actual songs. Things went that way for a while. Somehow, we managed to transport this mass of duct-taped pipes, random pieces of plastic wrapped in tin foil to be used as heads or arms, appliances and cardboard to St. Louis the day of the show.
Shortly before we were due to play, Chris decided it would be a good idea to go dumpstering (how we got most of our materials) at a used book store. We got about thirty used romance novels and wrote our band’s name all over them. These would come into play later on.
I remember sitting “back stage,” at the club in St. Louis, sweating profusely. There were four walls covered in spray paint and two couches that reeked of beer and vomit. I was playing my guitar and trying not to be nervous. I knew that we would play horribly, but I just wanted to do it to have some fun. Finally, we went on. I had never seen such chaos as what occurred in the next fifteen minutes.
We started out hard, sloppy and fast. The songs were blurs of blast beats and black clouds of distortion dominated by an oppressive, thrashing bass tone. Our loyal robot companions were sent out in a fleet and defeated by angry club kids almost immediately. We hadn’t even finished two songs and our first fleet was down! The stationary robots, like the television and the vacuum-bot were also taken from the stage by the audience, thrown on the ground and crushed. We didn’t really care, we were just happy that kids were going nuts.
After we had sent out our fleet of metroid balloons and they were sufficiently popped and destroyed, we looked around for any more tricks we had up our sleeves. The crowd, several 18-25 year old kids with black hair and black clothes cheered us on and urged us to ‘bring it on’. Our friend Mookie broke his wrist somewhere around this time by punching the stage really hard. Things were getting edgy, that's for sure!
About ten minutes into the set, Chris leaned over to me and said, “Hey man, let’s give ‘em the FIRE!” I nodded and he grabbed his helmet.
Chris had designed a bike helmet, covered in foil to make a sort of bowl on the top. Growing from the sides were two large aluminum horns. He then placed the helmet and bowl, filled with lighter fluid, on his head and buckled it. As he lit his helmet we all began making incomprehensible noise on our instruments. It was quite a sight to see. The crowd stopped dead in their tracks as Chris was screaming into the microphone with a flaming head, looking like a fucking demon. After about two minutes, the helmet fell off Chris’ head and onto the pile of used romance novels we had picked up earlier.
“Oh shit!” I yelled, as the books went up in flame. At this point, for no discernible reason, we and everyone in the audience began hurling the burning books in all directions. The flames were all stomped out shortly and we were told over the P.A. that the show was over.
One thing I will say for us as a band is that we are fairly respectful. We’ll make a mess, sure, but we always ask first and we all do our part to clean it up. After we did this, we went outside and met our potential aggressors. Much to my surprise though, almost everyone was telling me things like “awesome show, man!” and “I can’t believe you guys did that! Amazing!” I felt pretty good! Then a club manager or someone with a flash light and a tucked in shirt came up to me and said “You guys are banned from here forever, and we’ll never be able to use fire at a show again. You almost burnt the club down.”
So, in many ways, my first show with the band was a complete success. We almost burnt the club down, got banned from it forever, and we didn’t even play that horribly. All in all, a successful display of powerviolence was made.
Two lead pipes duct taped together to form a body and stuck on wheels. A head fashioned from vacuum cleaner parts. A broken television with an angry face drawn on the screen with magic marker. Dozens of cardboard boxes spray-painted silver for armor. These were some of the first prototypes that Chris came up with for the robot army that accompanied our ridiculous band at every one of our shows.
Chris and John had started the band first as a joke with a few other friends to create something different and crazy. And indeed, they succeeded. At their first cohesive point there were two bass players and a drummer. They played their first show like this, at El Torreon for Stand Against the Hand 2 in March of 2001. The most memorable parts for me besides the obvious onslaught of thrash music were the Leftover Crack cover and the fire-breathing and inevitable flaming mannequin that graced the stage while they played. After this, they decided to ask me to play guitar, seeing as their second bassist had just quit. Chris was one of my best friends and it sounded like a lot of fun, so I said yes. I was fifteen.
My first show with the band would be in St. Louis. Chris’ cousin Rob had set it up for us. We had never been to the club we were playing, and I had only practiced with the band twice. I had never played guitar or sang in front of an audience before and was intensely nervous. Needless to say, our props were going to have to be pretty amazing to distract everyone’s attention from our severe lack of preparation.
The week before the show, we spent far too much time building robots and not enough practicing the actual songs. Things went that way for a while. Somehow, we managed to transport this mass of duct-taped pipes, random pieces of plastic wrapped in tin foil to be used as heads or arms, appliances and cardboard to St. Louis the day of the show.
Shortly before we were due to play, Chris decided it would be a good idea to go dumpstering (how we got most of our materials) at a used book store. We got about thirty used romance novels and wrote our band’s name all over them. These would come into play later on.
I remember sitting “back stage,” at the club in St. Louis, sweating profusely. There were four walls covered in spray paint and two couches that reeked of beer and vomit. I was playing my guitar and trying not to be nervous. I knew that we would play horribly, but I just wanted to do it to have some fun. Finally, we went on. I had never seen such chaos as what occurred in the next fifteen minutes.
We started out hard, sloppy and fast. The songs were blurs of blast beats and black clouds of distortion dominated by an oppressive, thrashing bass tone. Our loyal robot companions were sent out in a fleet and defeated by angry club kids almost immediately. We hadn’t even finished two songs and our first fleet was down! The stationary robots, like the television and the vacuum-bot were also taken from the stage by the audience, thrown on the ground and crushed. We didn’t really care, we were just happy that kids were going nuts.
After we had sent out our fleet of metroid balloons and they were sufficiently popped and destroyed, we looked around for any more tricks we had up our sleeves. The crowd, several 18-25 year old kids with black hair and black clothes cheered us on and urged us to ‘bring it on’. Our friend Mookie broke his wrist somewhere around this time by punching the stage really hard. Things were getting edgy, that's for sure!
About ten minutes into the set, Chris leaned over to me and said, “Hey man, let’s give ‘em the FIRE!” I nodded and he grabbed his helmet.
Chris had designed a bike helmet, covered in foil to make a sort of bowl on the top. Growing from the sides were two large aluminum horns. He then placed the helmet and bowl, filled with lighter fluid, on his head and buckled it. As he lit his helmet we all began making incomprehensible noise on our instruments. It was quite a sight to see. The crowd stopped dead in their tracks as Chris was screaming into the microphone with a flaming head, looking like a fucking demon. After about two minutes, the helmet fell off Chris’ head and onto the pile of used romance novels we had picked up earlier.
“Oh shit!” I yelled, as the books went up in flame. At this point, for no discernible reason, we and everyone in the audience began hurling the burning books in all directions. The flames were all stomped out shortly and we were told over the P.A. that the show was over.
One thing I will say for us as a band is that we are fairly respectful. We’ll make a mess, sure, but we always ask first and we all do our part to clean it up. After we did this, we went outside and met our potential aggressors. Much to my surprise though, almost everyone was telling me things like “awesome show, man!” and “I can’t believe you guys did that! Amazing!” I felt pretty good! Then a club manager or someone with a flash light and a tucked in shirt came up to me and said “You guys are banned from here forever, and we’ll never be able to use fire at a show again. You almost burnt the club down.”
So, in many ways, my first show with the band was a complete success. We almost burnt the club down, got banned from it forever, and we didn’t even play that horribly. All in all, a successful display of powerviolence was made.
Hide and Seek
10/30/06
Whenever I stayed over at Jamie’s house we would play hide and seek. He would always hide in the same place, the bathroom, behind the shower curtain. I was more creative about my hiding places, though. There was this shelf in the pantry where I could fit and line up cans in front of me so Jamie wouldn’t be able to tell. The light never worked so Jamie couldn’t see a thing. There was also behind the t.v. cabinet. I would stoop down behind the large chest and listen to Jamie’s mom’s ‘stories’ that she always left on.
The thing is, no matter how good of a hider I was, I always had to pee when I did it. Except if I hid in the bathroom. But no matter what, even if I had just gone to the bathroom I would still have to pee. I sat behind the t.v. one afternoon, grabbing my crotch and biting my lip, listening to Samantha and Thomas break up.
Samantha: “Thomas, I can’t put up with this any longer. I know what’s been going on between you and Tamara. You know she used to be a man don’t you?”
Thomas (chuckles. There is the sound of a drink being poured) “And just what do you plan on doing about it, Sam? You know…I have some very…revealing video of you and a certain someone who happens to be running for office…You remember Caleb, don’t you? If anyone sees that tape you’ll both be ruined”
”Ready or not, here I come!!!” yelled Jamie from upstairs.
Christ, I thought, If I didn’t have to uphold this title of greatest hider ever I would totally be taking a leak right now. I bit my lip harder and stared up at the ceiling.
Jamie’s Mom stayed at home most of the time, while his Dad was a teacher at our school. Mr. Baker. I had him for Social Studies. He was pretty mean to the kids in our class. He even sent Alex Fenton to the principal’s office after he had thrown a piece of chalk at him for no apparent reason at all. He was nicer to me because he knew Jamie and I were friends. Whenever he came home, Jamie would always grab me and make me stay up in his room. His parents were always yelling.
Samantha: “You bastard! How could you do this to me? Do you think this is some kind of game?!” (Sobs uncontrollably)
Thomas: “Well, if it is a game, Sam, it’s one that two of us can play at…”
I peaked out from behind the cabinet a little and saw Jamie running in the room. I ducked back. He hadn’t seen me. I heard him run out again, saying “I’m gonna find you!”
Oh great, Jamie, I thought. Only a novice would try such a haphazard technique. Amateurs. I’m playing with Amateurs.
Just as Samantha was pulling a gun on Thomas, Mr. Baker arrived home. The front door shut violently. “Jamie! Come here!”
Shit, I thought. I was in a lose-lose situation. If I came out when Mr. Baker was already mad at Jamie, he’d probably pulverize me too. If I conceded to forfeit, Jamie would win. I really had to pee. I bit my lip until I thought I would break the skin.
“JAMIE!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.
From the kitchen, I heard the soft sound of Jamie’s all-stars dragging against the tile, slowly. The laces were undone, and the plastic at the end of the laces was popping up and down as he dragged his feet. These are details a master at hide and seek must learn to observe closely.
“Yeah, Dad?” Jamie said softly, walking into the carpeted living room.
“Got your grades a little early this quarter, James.” He said, sternly.
“Oh…” Jamie said quietly, obviously aiming his comments towards the ground.
“A ‘C’ in Gym? How does anyone get a ‘C’ in gym?” Mr. Baker barked.
Closer, from the t.v., Thomas pleaded for his life.
Thomas: “Sam! Please, put that thing away…we don’t need to do this…Is that thing even real?”
Samantha: “You’re damn right it’s real, and the first bullet has your name written all over it. I’ve put up with you for long enough, Thomas, I’m not going to let you ruin my life anymore…”
“I don’t understand you! Speak up!” yelled Mr. Baker.
“I said…I don’t care about gym! All the kids laugh at me!” cried Jamie.
Samantha: “Recording my phone calls, blackmail, threatening to ruin a man’s career. You are the lowest slime on the face of the planet-“
“You know what happens to kids who don’t pass gym? They end up as FUCKING GAS STATION ATTENDANTS!” yelled Mr. Baker
Thomas: “Sam! Please! NO!” (Three shots fired)
There was the sound of a loud slap, a slight squeak from Jamie, and then a loud “thud!” on the dining room floor.
“Maybe when you wake up you’ll have learned something” said Mr. Baker who stomped out the back door, slamming it behind him.
Samantha: (cackles evilly) “You always were an easy target, Thomas.”
I clutched my crotch and bit my lip until it bled. The piss ran down my leg and dripped onto the carpet.
Whenever I stayed over at Jamie’s house we would play hide and seek. He would always hide in the same place, the bathroom, behind the shower curtain. I was more creative about my hiding places, though. There was this shelf in the pantry where I could fit and line up cans in front of me so Jamie wouldn’t be able to tell. The light never worked so Jamie couldn’t see a thing. There was also behind the t.v. cabinet. I would stoop down behind the large chest and listen to Jamie’s mom’s ‘stories’ that she always left on.
The thing is, no matter how good of a hider I was, I always had to pee when I did it. Except if I hid in the bathroom. But no matter what, even if I had just gone to the bathroom I would still have to pee. I sat behind the t.v. one afternoon, grabbing my crotch and biting my lip, listening to Samantha and Thomas break up.
Samantha: “Thomas, I can’t put up with this any longer. I know what’s been going on between you and Tamara. You know she used to be a man don’t you?”
Thomas (chuckles. There is the sound of a drink being poured) “And just what do you plan on doing about it, Sam? You know…I have some very…revealing video of you and a certain someone who happens to be running for office…You remember Caleb, don’t you? If anyone sees that tape you’ll both be ruined”
”Ready or not, here I come!!!” yelled Jamie from upstairs.
Christ, I thought, If I didn’t have to uphold this title of greatest hider ever I would totally be taking a leak right now. I bit my lip harder and stared up at the ceiling.
Jamie’s Mom stayed at home most of the time, while his Dad was a teacher at our school. Mr. Baker. I had him for Social Studies. He was pretty mean to the kids in our class. He even sent Alex Fenton to the principal’s office after he had thrown a piece of chalk at him for no apparent reason at all. He was nicer to me because he knew Jamie and I were friends. Whenever he came home, Jamie would always grab me and make me stay up in his room. His parents were always yelling.
Samantha: “You bastard! How could you do this to me? Do you think this is some kind of game?!” (Sobs uncontrollably)
Thomas: “Well, if it is a game, Sam, it’s one that two of us can play at…”
I peaked out from behind the cabinet a little and saw Jamie running in the room. I ducked back. He hadn’t seen me. I heard him run out again, saying “I’m gonna find you!”
Oh great, Jamie, I thought. Only a novice would try such a haphazard technique. Amateurs. I’m playing with Amateurs.
Just as Samantha was pulling a gun on Thomas, Mr. Baker arrived home. The front door shut violently. “Jamie! Come here!”
Shit, I thought. I was in a lose-lose situation. If I came out when Mr. Baker was already mad at Jamie, he’d probably pulverize me too. If I conceded to forfeit, Jamie would win. I really had to pee. I bit my lip until I thought I would break the skin.
“JAMIE!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.
From the kitchen, I heard the soft sound of Jamie’s all-stars dragging against the tile, slowly. The laces were undone, and the plastic at the end of the laces was popping up and down as he dragged his feet. These are details a master at hide and seek must learn to observe closely.
“Yeah, Dad?” Jamie said softly, walking into the carpeted living room.
“Got your grades a little early this quarter, James.” He said, sternly.
“Oh…” Jamie said quietly, obviously aiming his comments towards the ground.
“A ‘C’ in Gym? How does anyone get a ‘C’ in gym?” Mr. Baker barked.
Closer, from the t.v., Thomas pleaded for his life.
Thomas: “Sam! Please, put that thing away…we don’t need to do this…Is that thing even real?”
Samantha: “You’re damn right it’s real, and the first bullet has your name written all over it. I’ve put up with you for long enough, Thomas, I’m not going to let you ruin my life anymore…”
“I don’t understand you! Speak up!” yelled Mr. Baker.
“I said…I don’t care about gym! All the kids laugh at me!” cried Jamie.
Samantha: “Recording my phone calls, blackmail, threatening to ruin a man’s career. You are the lowest slime on the face of the planet-“
“You know what happens to kids who don’t pass gym? They end up as FUCKING GAS STATION ATTENDANTS!” yelled Mr. Baker
Thomas: “Sam! Please! NO!” (Three shots fired)
There was the sound of a loud slap, a slight squeak from Jamie, and then a loud “thud!” on the dining room floor.
“Maybe when you wake up you’ll have learned something” said Mr. Baker who stomped out the back door, slamming it behind him.
Samantha: (cackles evilly) “You always were an easy target, Thomas.”
I clutched my crotch and bit my lip until it bled. The piss ran down my leg and dripped onto the carpet.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
First Enemy
1/12/10
I remember my first real enemy. His name was Jeff and he was the last in a long line of bullies I had encountered from the ages of 8-10. Jeff was my first enemy because he was the first even match I ever had. I had spent Kindergarten at one particularly unforgiving public school and received wedgies and beatings daily for having curly hair. I was transferred to another public school for first grade which was a little better. I made a few friends but still received a fair amount of verbal abuse and kids would steal from me. My mother finally had enough and tried the private school route. That's where I met Jeff.
He was part of a larger group of bullies who huddled up against the stone walls at recess, spitting in the same spot and telling dirty jokes. I had missed two crucial years with this class and was viewed as an outsider, so I was trying to make friends. I casually crept down the wall towards their group. As I got closer I heard one of the bigger kids, Adam finishing up his punchline "...and she goes 'what is that? A choad?!' High-pitched, ignorant laughter erupted from the group. I laughed a little too, noticing all of their paranoid stares at one another, trying to see if they all really got it. Suddenly, the blond kid I was standing behind spun around and spat through horsey teeth, "What do you know about it, faggot?" I remember this instance clearly because I had never heard the word 'choad' before and I had definitely never been called a 'faggot.' At my last school I was pretty much strictly called 'pussy,' but I was trying to burn that bridge and if I had to start that fire as a 'faggot' then so be it.
"What? Oh, nothing" I sputtered, eyes darting to the asphalt below- anything besides the six sets of eyeballs that were beginning to drill into me. The blond one spit into the lake of saliva they had created and laughed, "Fuckin' penis wrinkle."
His hyenas cackled accordingly and I remember my blood feeling like fire and gathering in my face, swelling up and morphing me into a different being. I remember feeling horns protruding from just above my eyeballs, and I could feel my flesh hardening while my heart seemed to grow cold and withdrawn, locking itself away somewhere until this madness passed. Somehow, I restrained myself and crept back down the wall towards the school building.
After school, my sister and I would spend three hours at a nearby babysitter's house, waiting for our Mother to get off work. The babysitter lived close and would take care of several other kids from our school. Once we arrived, I was less than enthused to see the blond kid from recess bouncing off the walls of her living room with some of the other kids from school. Maybe his parents were divorced too, I didn't know. I knew then that I hated him though.
"Well lookie here, penis wrinkle showed up! How's it goin', fag?" he hissed, taking notice of me while trying to dribble a basketball on the carpeted floor.
"Jeffrey!" the babysitter shrieked, "You take that dirty mouth of yours outside! Terrible language. Your mother is going to hear about this!"
He sneered at her and zipped out the nearby sliding glass door to the back yard.
"Sorry about him, he's only here a few days a week. He won't bother you. Would you guys like some snacks?" she offered. My sister obliged while I said no and quietly walked over to the sliding door. I saw him out in their back yard throwing rocks at a tree.
I remembered one day back in kindergarten. I was standing in a long lunch line waiting. I had five dollars in my hand. A tall kid came up from behind and cut in front of me. I was terrified of everyone and said nothing. Then he spun around and simply snatched the five dollars out of my hand. I was too young to understand it, but I had just been screwed over in public. Embarrassment was such a common emotion for me at this point that I merely thought of it as a standard way of feeling. I slumped out of line and sat alone and hungry for the rest of the lunch period.
I slid the glass door open. Jeff was trying to kill a squirrel with rocks and was being evaded. I stepped out and walked towards him but he couldn't hear me.
"Jeffrey?" I begged. He turned slowly, not fully recognizing my voice. He had a rock in his right hand.
"What's up, wrinkle?" he said, chuckling. The spittle bubbled in between his two prominently large front teeth.
"Don't call me that. My name is Ben. We don't have to be mean to each other..." I said, trying to remain calm. This was difficult though, because with every word the trepidation I felt grew more and more as I watched Jeff curl his fingers around the rock in his hand.
"Don't talk to me, faggot!" he said, raising the rock to threaten me. The smile had faded from his face and the fear was beginning to flood into him. I kept walking towards him steadily, until I had cornered him against the chain-link fence that surrounded the yard.
"Back up!" he yelled. The spit felt cool against my face.
"I'm not afraid of you," I said, quickly grabbing the hand which held the rock. We struggled there against that fence for about a minute before I kicked his leg and he fell to the ground. The grass against the fence had been neglected and was pretty tall. Jeff fell face first into a patch of it and began screaming.
I knelt to see what was wrong, offering "Jeff- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" Just then he spun his head around and I noticed a deep, triangular gash in the middle of his forehead. Blood poured down either side of his nose and quickly mixed with his tears. He ran inside, screaming the babysitter's name. I looked down into the grass and noticed a large cinder block. The top left corner was blood red. I winced and quietly walked inside. Jeff spent the next few weeks in stitches, never said anything to me again and left school at the end of the year. He never told on me though. Not sure why.
My bully problems mostly ended there. I was ridiculed throughout high school and could even argue that I still see it today, but I haven't faced anything that millions of others haven't experienced already. Assholes exist and they're everywhere. Always will be. I knew I wasn't afraid of Jeff, he had nothing I lacked. As I grew older, I began to realize that I had been intimidated by nothing more than people who were extremely insecure with themselves. I learned to defend myself with my brain and I'm proud to say I am not a fighter. After Jeff left school, the only thing I ever heard about him was that he was hit by a car and broke his left arm and leg. I'm not going to lie, I wish him the best but I enjoyed hearing that.
I remember my first real enemy. His name was Jeff and he was the last in a long line of bullies I had encountered from the ages of 8-10. Jeff was my first enemy because he was the first even match I ever had. I had spent Kindergarten at one particularly unforgiving public school and received wedgies and beatings daily for having curly hair. I was transferred to another public school for first grade which was a little better. I made a few friends but still received a fair amount of verbal abuse and kids would steal from me. My mother finally had enough and tried the private school route. That's where I met Jeff.
He was part of a larger group of bullies who huddled up against the stone walls at recess, spitting in the same spot and telling dirty jokes. I had missed two crucial years with this class and was viewed as an outsider, so I was trying to make friends. I casually crept down the wall towards their group. As I got closer I heard one of the bigger kids, Adam finishing up his punchline "...and she goes 'what is that? A choad?!' High-pitched, ignorant laughter erupted from the group. I laughed a little too, noticing all of their paranoid stares at one another, trying to see if they all really got it. Suddenly, the blond kid I was standing behind spun around and spat through horsey teeth, "What do you know about it, faggot?" I remember this instance clearly because I had never heard the word 'choad' before and I had definitely never been called a 'faggot.' At my last school I was pretty much strictly called 'pussy,' but I was trying to burn that bridge and if I had to start that fire as a 'faggot' then so be it.
"What? Oh, nothing" I sputtered, eyes darting to the asphalt below- anything besides the six sets of eyeballs that were beginning to drill into me. The blond one spit into the lake of saliva they had created and laughed, "Fuckin' penis wrinkle."
His hyenas cackled accordingly and I remember my blood feeling like fire and gathering in my face, swelling up and morphing me into a different being. I remember feeling horns protruding from just above my eyeballs, and I could feel my flesh hardening while my heart seemed to grow cold and withdrawn, locking itself away somewhere until this madness passed. Somehow, I restrained myself and crept back down the wall towards the school building.
After school, my sister and I would spend three hours at a nearby babysitter's house, waiting for our Mother to get off work. The babysitter lived close and would take care of several other kids from our school. Once we arrived, I was less than enthused to see the blond kid from recess bouncing off the walls of her living room with some of the other kids from school. Maybe his parents were divorced too, I didn't know. I knew then that I hated him though.
"Well lookie here, penis wrinkle showed up! How's it goin', fag?" he hissed, taking notice of me while trying to dribble a basketball on the carpeted floor.
"Jeffrey!" the babysitter shrieked, "You take that dirty mouth of yours outside! Terrible language. Your mother is going to hear about this!"
He sneered at her and zipped out the nearby sliding glass door to the back yard.
"Sorry about him, he's only here a few days a week. He won't bother you. Would you guys like some snacks?" she offered. My sister obliged while I said no and quietly walked over to the sliding door. I saw him out in their back yard throwing rocks at a tree.
I remembered one day back in kindergarten. I was standing in a long lunch line waiting. I had five dollars in my hand. A tall kid came up from behind and cut in front of me. I was terrified of everyone and said nothing. Then he spun around and simply snatched the five dollars out of my hand. I was too young to understand it, but I had just been screwed over in public. Embarrassment was such a common emotion for me at this point that I merely thought of it as a standard way of feeling. I slumped out of line and sat alone and hungry for the rest of the lunch period.
I slid the glass door open. Jeff was trying to kill a squirrel with rocks and was being evaded. I stepped out and walked towards him but he couldn't hear me.
"Jeffrey?" I begged. He turned slowly, not fully recognizing my voice. He had a rock in his right hand.
"What's up, wrinkle?" he said, chuckling. The spittle bubbled in between his two prominently large front teeth.
"Don't call me that. My name is Ben. We don't have to be mean to each other..." I said, trying to remain calm. This was difficult though, because with every word the trepidation I felt grew more and more as I watched Jeff curl his fingers around the rock in his hand.
"Don't talk to me, faggot!" he said, raising the rock to threaten me. The smile had faded from his face and the fear was beginning to flood into him. I kept walking towards him steadily, until I had cornered him against the chain-link fence that surrounded the yard.
"Back up!" he yelled. The spit felt cool against my face.
"I'm not afraid of you," I said, quickly grabbing the hand which held the rock. We struggled there against that fence for about a minute before I kicked his leg and he fell to the ground. The grass against the fence had been neglected and was pretty tall. Jeff fell face first into a patch of it and began screaming.
I knelt to see what was wrong, offering "Jeff- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" Just then he spun his head around and I noticed a deep, triangular gash in the middle of his forehead. Blood poured down either side of his nose and quickly mixed with his tears. He ran inside, screaming the babysitter's name. I looked down into the grass and noticed a large cinder block. The top left corner was blood red. I winced and quietly walked inside. Jeff spent the next few weeks in stitches, never said anything to me again and left school at the end of the year. He never told on me though. Not sure why.
My bully problems mostly ended there. I was ridiculed throughout high school and could even argue that I still see it today, but I haven't faced anything that millions of others haven't experienced already. Assholes exist and they're everywhere. Always will be. I knew I wasn't afraid of Jeff, he had nothing I lacked. As I grew older, I began to realize that I had been intimidated by nothing more than people who were extremely insecure with themselves. I learned to defend myself with my brain and I'm proud to say I am not a fighter. After Jeff left school, the only thing I ever heard about him was that he was hit by a car and broke his left arm and leg. I'm not going to lie, I wish him the best but I enjoyed hearing that.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Special Olympics
3/'06
She grappled his tiny frame and hoisted him in the air like the five-pound barbells she played with as a toddler. Not bothering to notice the look of comfortable terror spreading across her lover’s face, she swung him around, circling her dressing room. She tossed his middle-aged body like a sack of onions onto the catering table. His frail body landed nicely between the pitcher of protein shake and the pot of Creatine-stew.
“Marv! We’ve done it! The last day of shooting is over!” she exclaimed, her excited cheerleading routine looked off coming from a woman whose body was so toned it would make Sgt. Slaughter shit his depends. Well, Sgt. Slaughter in 1985.
Marv’s feet, unable to touch the floor, pointed inwards. He sat on his hands and looked at the ground, summoning an eight-year olds’ disposition. “You’re gonna be huge…” he said with a humble smile, “Wait till people see you on the street and start asking “Hey! Weren’t you the
Gigantress from the Dark Amazon!? Honey, let’s…let’s get a picture”
Marv had meant to end his impression of the Great American tourist with “Honey…HIDE THE FUCKING KIDS! BEFORE SHE DEVOURS THEM WITH HER SEVERAL ROWS OF SHARK-TEETH!!” but feared that Eva may take his cunning Hollywood wit too seriously, and shove his head directly up his ass.
Marv hopped off the table and began cleaning his glasses. He stared through fuzzy vision towards her. She was bent over, looking through her make-up bag. Without seeing the somewhat-threatening contours of her body, her bronzed skin made her look like a large male Elk eating some grass. As he put his glasses back on, he was momentarily blinded by a flashing light.
“Oh! Sorry, hon!” Eva said. Marv tried to find her face despite the black square that floated through his vision. “I just had to get a picture. Remember this old one, from the first day we met? Can you believe that was three months ago!?”
Marv stumbled and almost knocked over the Creatine-stew as he began to get his bearings back. “What picture?”
“This one!” She said, tossing the Polaroid over her shoulder. Marv ducked as it shot through the air and became embedded in the dry-wall behind him. This woman really
didn’t know her own strength. As he pulled it free, he saw that the photograph had been taken the day he had met Eva. At that time, Marv was casting for a movie about retarded teenagers finding love and breaking free from the stereotypes the world had made for them. It was to be called “The Special Olympics” and they already had Elijah Wood starring.
When Marv saw her duck through the door, bleached-blond hair pulled back tight, covered by a hat sporting the logo of the Mighty Ducks, and matched with bleached-white teeth that each shown forth like well-established islands in the sea that was her mouth, he began to choke on his egg salad sandwich.
He came to seconds later in her gigantic arms. She had saved his life. Heimlich maneuver. Egg salad still smeared around his mouth he yelled “She’s perfect! She’s got the part!”
Eva was surprised as anyone that she got the part of a paraplegic teenage girl starring opposite Elijah Wood, but it was her first acting job and she decided to take what she could get.
In the dressing room, these three months later, Marv rung his sweaty hands. After all the nights he’d spent falling in love with Eva, going to her house in the
Hollywood hills to make extensive rewrites to the script for “The Special Olympics”. After two weeks, the script had changed completely. It was now about a gigantic woman from the Amazon who falls in love with a man sent to capture her and bring her back to the United States. The man is understandably very attracted to Eva’s character, Olga, but decides that he must think with his brain, not his heart, and fires twenty horse tranquilizers into her. The story proceeds as the man becomes more and more uneasy about his decision. Finally, he releases her from her shackles and the two of them run away together.
The script was crap, and Marv knew it. He had gone to a technical college and his degree was in computer technology. The directing thing was just something he did on the side; along with potato sack racing and debate. He had become attached to Eva, though, and could not imagine surviving without her.
The project’s working title was still “The Special Olympics,” even though it was about a woman from the Amazon. Marv had been forced to fire nearly everyone involved with the project originally. Marv had taken out several loans to pay for the picture’s production. At the end of shooting he was completely broke, and living with Eva.
“Honey-“ Marv said, pouring himself a cup of protein shake.
“Yes?” Eva said after a few seconds, still distracted by her makeup bag.
“I wanted to talk to you about something…”
“Sure, babe, whatever you want,” she said as she began wiping off the makeup from the shoot.
“Well, as you know, it hasn’t been easy making the movie, and…well, I’m afraid since I’ve basically been financing the whole thing…that I’m out of money,” he said into his cup of protein.
Eva spun around quickly, her triceps flexing menacingly- though he was pretty sure she was always flexing- and bounded towards him. Marv reeled back in fear and threw the shake right into Eva’s face. She stopped and smiled through a dripping mask at him. She began to laugh, so much so that she had to bend over.
“I’m sorry, sweetie!” Marv said, grabbing a towel and wiping off her face, “I thought you were going to kill me!”
She took the towel from him and muffled her laughter.
“Honey! No!” she said, finally, “I wanted to hug you…because no matter what, we’re in this together…”
Marv dove down to his hunched over lover and embraced her around the waist.
“‘The Special Olympics’ is going to be a blockbuster, Marv, no matter what! We’re gonna be rich! I’ll do whatever it takes to help you get more money- I’ll work, I’ll call my uncle- he owns a pretty successful chain of party stores, or-“
“Honey, I’m glad you said that, because I need your help. When you were preparing for the Ms. Universe competition, did anyone ever ask you to take pictures?”
“Pictures?”
“Well, yeah…I mean, you have this amazing body, you know!? I would think you’d want to show it off!”
“Marv Sandleback!” Eva said, closing her robe and covering up her hulking pecks, “You know this body is only yours…”
“I know! Believe me, I know that! But, I was just thinking…it’d be the easiest way to make some quick cash, and if we put them on the internet, who knows how much we could make?!”
“Marv!” she exclaimed, standing above him as he bent down. Her shadow engulfed his frame completely.
“Eva! You know I love you! I’m doing this for us!”
“You’re not doing anything! And neither am I. I would never stoop so low-“
“Well, actually, hon- that’s just it. We’re gonna need you to stoop a little bit. You know Gary, the grip? The midget? Well, I was thinking, we could really tap into that sicko-market if we got some racy pictures of you guys-“
There was only darkness followed by extreme heat and a feeling that his flesh was dripping down his face. He screamed quickly and jolted forward, releasing himself from under the pot that the creatine-stew had been in.
“Eva! Why?!” he said, but she was already gone. The only image he could make out was the promotional poster mock-up he had made for the film sitting in the corner. The poster depicted Eva decked out in her brown jungle rags, wearing a friendly smile and standing proudly with her hands on her waist above the words “The Special Olympics - THIS SUMMER!”.
Marv reeled and grunted sadly,“Really should have changed that title.”
She grappled his tiny frame and hoisted him in the air like the five-pound barbells she played with as a toddler. Not bothering to notice the look of comfortable terror spreading across her lover’s face, she swung him around, circling her dressing room. She tossed his middle-aged body like a sack of onions onto the catering table. His frail body landed nicely between the pitcher of protein shake and the pot of Creatine-stew.
“Marv! We’ve done it! The last day of shooting is over!” she exclaimed, her excited cheerleading routine looked off coming from a woman whose body was so toned it would make Sgt. Slaughter shit his depends. Well, Sgt. Slaughter in 1985.
Marv’s feet, unable to touch the floor, pointed inwards. He sat on his hands and looked at the ground, summoning an eight-year olds’ disposition. “You’re gonna be huge…” he said with a humble smile, “Wait till people see you on the street and start asking “Hey! Weren’t you the
Gigantress from the Dark Amazon!? Honey, let’s…let’s get a picture”
Marv had meant to end his impression of the Great American tourist with “Honey…HIDE THE FUCKING KIDS! BEFORE SHE DEVOURS THEM WITH HER SEVERAL ROWS OF SHARK-TEETH!!” but feared that Eva may take his cunning Hollywood wit too seriously, and shove his head directly up his ass.
Marv hopped off the table and began cleaning his glasses. He stared through fuzzy vision towards her. She was bent over, looking through her make-up bag. Without seeing the somewhat-threatening contours of her body, her bronzed skin made her look like a large male Elk eating some grass. As he put his glasses back on, he was momentarily blinded by a flashing light.
“Oh! Sorry, hon!” Eva said. Marv tried to find her face despite the black square that floated through his vision. “I just had to get a picture. Remember this old one, from the first day we met? Can you believe that was three months ago!?”
Marv stumbled and almost knocked over the Creatine-stew as he began to get his bearings back. “What picture?”
“This one!” She said, tossing the Polaroid over her shoulder. Marv ducked as it shot through the air and became embedded in the dry-wall behind him. This woman really
didn’t know her own strength. As he pulled it free, he saw that the photograph had been taken the day he had met Eva. At that time, Marv was casting for a movie about retarded teenagers finding love and breaking free from the stereotypes the world had made for them. It was to be called “The Special Olympics” and they already had Elijah Wood starring.
When Marv saw her duck through the door, bleached-blond hair pulled back tight, covered by a hat sporting the logo of the Mighty Ducks, and matched with bleached-white teeth that each shown forth like well-established islands in the sea that was her mouth, he began to choke on his egg salad sandwich.
He came to seconds later in her gigantic arms. She had saved his life. Heimlich maneuver. Egg salad still smeared around his mouth he yelled “She’s perfect! She’s got the part!”
Eva was surprised as anyone that she got the part of a paraplegic teenage girl starring opposite Elijah Wood, but it was her first acting job and she decided to take what she could get.
In the dressing room, these three months later, Marv rung his sweaty hands. After all the nights he’d spent falling in love with Eva, going to her house in the
Hollywood hills to make extensive rewrites to the script for “The Special Olympics”. After two weeks, the script had changed completely. It was now about a gigantic woman from the Amazon who falls in love with a man sent to capture her and bring her back to the United States. The man is understandably very attracted to Eva’s character, Olga, but decides that he must think with his brain, not his heart, and fires twenty horse tranquilizers into her. The story proceeds as the man becomes more and more uneasy about his decision. Finally, he releases her from her shackles and the two of them run away together.
The script was crap, and Marv knew it. He had gone to a technical college and his degree was in computer technology. The directing thing was just something he did on the side; along with potato sack racing and debate. He had become attached to Eva, though, and could not imagine surviving without her.
The project’s working title was still “The Special Olympics,” even though it was about a woman from the Amazon. Marv had been forced to fire nearly everyone involved with the project originally. Marv had taken out several loans to pay for the picture’s production. At the end of shooting he was completely broke, and living with Eva.
“Honey-“ Marv said, pouring himself a cup of protein shake.
“Yes?” Eva said after a few seconds, still distracted by her makeup bag.
“I wanted to talk to you about something…”
“Sure, babe, whatever you want,” she said as she began wiping off the makeup from the shoot.
“Well, as you know, it hasn’t been easy making the movie, and…well, I’m afraid since I’ve basically been financing the whole thing…that I’m out of money,” he said into his cup of protein.
Eva spun around quickly, her triceps flexing menacingly- though he was pretty sure she was always flexing- and bounded towards him. Marv reeled back in fear and threw the shake right into Eva’s face. She stopped and smiled through a dripping mask at him. She began to laugh, so much so that she had to bend over.
“I’m sorry, sweetie!” Marv said, grabbing a towel and wiping off her face, “I thought you were going to kill me!”
She took the towel from him and muffled her laughter.
“Honey! No!” she said, finally, “I wanted to hug you…because no matter what, we’re in this together…”
Marv dove down to his hunched over lover and embraced her around the waist.
“‘The Special Olympics’ is going to be a blockbuster, Marv, no matter what! We’re gonna be rich! I’ll do whatever it takes to help you get more money- I’ll work, I’ll call my uncle- he owns a pretty successful chain of party stores, or-“
“Honey, I’m glad you said that, because I need your help. When you were preparing for the Ms. Universe competition, did anyone ever ask you to take pictures?”
“Pictures?”
“Well, yeah…I mean, you have this amazing body, you know!? I would think you’d want to show it off!”
“Marv Sandleback!” Eva said, closing her robe and covering up her hulking pecks, “You know this body is only yours…”
“I know! Believe me, I know that! But, I was just thinking…it’d be the easiest way to make some quick cash, and if we put them on the internet, who knows how much we could make?!”
“Marv!” she exclaimed, standing above him as he bent down. Her shadow engulfed his frame completely.
“Eva! You know I love you! I’m doing this for us!”
“You’re not doing anything! And neither am I. I would never stoop so low-“
“Well, actually, hon- that’s just it. We’re gonna need you to stoop a little bit. You know Gary, the grip? The midget? Well, I was thinking, we could really tap into that sicko-market if we got some racy pictures of you guys-“
There was only darkness followed by extreme heat and a feeling that his flesh was dripping down his face. He screamed quickly and jolted forward, releasing himself from under the pot that the creatine-stew had been in.
“Eva! Why?!” he said, but she was already gone. The only image he could make out was the promotional poster mock-up he had made for the film sitting in the corner. The poster depicted Eva decked out in her brown jungle rags, wearing a friendly smile and standing proudly with her hands on her waist above the words “The Special Olympics - THIS SUMMER!”.
Marv reeled and grunted sadly,“Really should have changed that title.”
Zombie Time
2/'06
My mother staggered blindly around the living room, her arms outstretched and drool settling in a small pool on the collar of her nightgown. She had my Father’s leather belt wrapped around her knuckles and dangling from her right hand. My little brother, Thomas, and I were sitting where we knew we weren’t supposed to be at 10:30 on a Wednesday night: right in front of the T.V. watching ‘Married with Children.”
We stared in disbelief as our Mother, who had obviously gotten out of bed to deliver a beating to us, leaned against the mantle and slowly began knocking everything off of it. Pictures of our grandmother, our pictures from school, and finally the urn that our Daddy was in.
I made a quick dash from the couch and caught the urn before it hit the brick floor of the fireplace. Thomas screamed, “Mommy! Mommy! What’re you doing?!”
* * *
The next morning she made us go to the doctor with her. We sat in the dingy waiting room reading “Highlights” and picking our noses because she was too embarrassed to let us go in.
In the car on the way home, Thomas asked”Mommy, why were you a zombie last night?”
My mother wiped some tears that we weren’t supposed to talk about off of her face and said “The doctor says I’m a sleepwalker, Thomas.”
“But Mom,” I said hesitantly, knowing that my question might warrant a slap to the face, “We tried to wake you up…Thomas was screaming and I even tried slapping you in the face…”
She glared at the road ahead and rubbed the yellow cheek where I had slapped her, “Mommy’s also narcoleptic...”
“What’s that mean, Mommy?” Thomas chimed in from the back seat.
“It means I can fall asleep anytime, and you can’t wake me.”
“But…why?” he asked again.
I pretended to change the radio station and thought about the night we found out my Dad was dead. Thomas was still just a kid, three or four, but I was eight and I could still remember it perfectly. The police called at 7:30 in
the morning. Thomas and I were watching “Fragglerock” and I answered the phone. They asked if Mom was home. I said yeah, but she was still asleep. They told me to wake her up.
Mom stayed in her room for weeks. All she ever told us was that we should never, ever drink. Not a drop. If she ever caught us drinking she would take Daddy’s belt and wrap it around our throats. There was no funeral, after a couple weeks some men in black brought us Daddy in a red urn.
My Mother took a left on Elmwood, our street.
“The doctor says I miss your Daddy, Thomas.”
* * *
After that, Mom started having more and more of what Thomas and I started calling “Zombie Time.” In fact, if she wasn’t yelling at us for watching T.V. or threatening us with Daddy’s belt, she was usually slumped over in a corner or roaming around the kitchen knocking over pots and pans. At first we tried to clean up after her, but when she started having Zombie Time four or five times a day, we just couldn’t keep up. Thomas said he was worried about her hurting herself. I went to the garage and got my bike helmet. We’d make Mom wear it whenever she was a zombie.
She got real depressed when she was awake. One morning, at breakfast before school, Thomas and I were
watching “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” in the kitchen. Mom stood at the stove with one hand on her hip, still wearing her Zombie-gown with the yellow stains of drool all over it, waiting for the eggs to be ready.
“O.K., boys, T.V. time’s over…go get ready for school.”
“One more minute, Mom, Bebop and Rocksteady are gonna get whomped!” Thomas said, staring into the T.V. with a wide-open mouth.
That’s all it took. Meltdown.
She threw the frying pan and eggs across the kitchen, and right onto Thomas’ face. He let out a high pitched scream and fell to the tile floor as the steaming hot eggs mixed in with the blood from his nose and mouth. “Thomas!” I shouted, and bent down next to him. He writhed in pain and he was screaming. I grabbed some paper towels and ran back to him. “Put this on your mouth, I’ll call the ambulance…”I said. I stood and started to cross the kitchen to the phone on the wall, forgetting about my Mom.
It was Zombie Time yet again.
She stood there, head slumped to the side, and her arms reaching with tormented fingers towards us. She crept slowly across the kitchen floor. I picked Thomas up in my arms and dodged out of the kitchen. I laid Thomas on the couch in the living room, and using the cordless I called 9-1-1.
“Hello, we need an ambulance at 718 Elmwood Drive,”
There was a loud sound of breaking glass in the kitchen. I ran in and saw Mom, one arm through the window of the back door, slamming her head against the wooden frame. I ran back to Thomas.
“Come on, we’re going outside,” I said. He was already out cold from the shock. I picked him up again and ran out the front door to the front lawn. I kneeled there with my little brother in my arms, watching the normal people in the neighborhood drive by in their minivans and station wagons, going to work or school. They drove slow and stared in disbelief through black sunglasses.
Ten minutes later the paramedics pulled into the driveway. Two of them, dressed in white, got out and rushed over to me.
“Stand back…is this the only one?”
“No,” I said, wringing my wrists, “there’s another one inside.”
My mother staggered blindly around the living room, her arms outstretched and drool settling in a small pool on the collar of her nightgown. She had my Father’s leather belt wrapped around her knuckles and dangling from her right hand. My little brother, Thomas, and I were sitting where we knew we weren’t supposed to be at 10:30 on a Wednesday night: right in front of the T.V. watching ‘Married with Children.”
We stared in disbelief as our Mother, who had obviously gotten out of bed to deliver a beating to us, leaned against the mantle and slowly began knocking everything off of it. Pictures of our grandmother, our pictures from school, and finally the urn that our Daddy was in.
I made a quick dash from the couch and caught the urn before it hit the brick floor of the fireplace. Thomas screamed, “Mommy! Mommy! What’re you doing?!”
* * *
The next morning she made us go to the doctor with her. We sat in the dingy waiting room reading “Highlights” and picking our noses because she was too embarrassed to let us go in.
In the car on the way home, Thomas asked”Mommy, why were you a zombie last night?”
My mother wiped some tears that we weren’t supposed to talk about off of her face and said “The doctor says I’m a sleepwalker, Thomas.”
“But Mom,” I said hesitantly, knowing that my question might warrant a slap to the face, “We tried to wake you up…Thomas was screaming and I even tried slapping you in the face…”
She glared at the road ahead and rubbed the yellow cheek where I had slapped her, “Mommy’s also narcoleptic...”
“What’s that mean, Mommy?” Thomas chimed in from the back seat.
“It means I can fall asleep anytime, and you can’t wake me.”
“But…why?” he asked again.
I pretended to change the radio station and thought about the night we found out my Dad was dead. Thomas was still just a kid, three or four, but I was eight and I could still remember it perfectly. The police called at 7:30 in
the morning. Thomas and I were watching “Fragglerock” and I answered the phone. They asked if Mom was home. I said yeah, but she was still asleep. They told me to wake her up.
Mom stayed in her room for weeks. All she ever told us was that we should never, ever drink. Not a drop. If she ever caught us drinking she would take Daddy’s belt and wrap it around our throats. There was no funeral, after a couple weeks some men in black brought us Daddy in a red urn.
My Mother took a left on Elmwood, our street.
“The doctor says I miss your Daddy, Thomas.”
* * *
After that, Mom started having more and more of what Thomas and I started calling “Zombie Time.” In fact, if she wasn’t yelling at us for watching T.V. or threatening us with Daddy’s belt, she was usually slumped over in a corner or roaming around the kitchen knocking over pots and pans. At first we tried to clean up after her, but when she started having Zombie Time four or five times a day, we just couldn’t keep up. Thomas said he was worried about her hurting herself. I went to the garage and got my bike helmet. We’d make Mom wear it whenever she was a zombie.
She got real depressed when she was awake. One morning, at breakfast before school, Thomas and I were
watching “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” in the kitchen. Mom stood at the stove with one hand on her hip, still wearing her Zombie-gown with the yellow stains of drool all over it, waiting for the eggs to be ready.
“O.K., boys, T.V. time’s over…go get ready for school.”
“One more minute, Mom, Bebop and Rocksteady are gonna get whomped!” Thomas said, staring into the T.V. with a wide-open mouth.
That’s all it took. Meltdown.
She threw the frying pan and eggs across the kitchen, and right onto Thomas’ face. He let out a high pitched scream and fell to the tile floor as the steaming hot eggs mixed in with the blood from his nose and mouth. “Thomas!” I shouted, and bent down next to him. He writhed in pain and he was screaming. I grabbed some paper towels and ran back to him. “Put this on your mouth, I’ll call the ambulance…”I said. I stood and started to cross the kitchen to the phone on the wall, forgetting about my Mom.
It was Zombie Time yet again.
She stood there, head slumped to the side, and her arms reaching with tormented fingers towards us. She crept slowly across the kitchen floor. I picked Thomas up in my arms and dodged out of the kitchen. I laid Thomas on the couch in the living room, and using the cordless I called 9-1-1.
“Hello, we need an ambulance at 718 Elmwood Drive,”
There was a loud sound of breaking glass in the kitchen. I ran in and saw Mom, one arm through the window of the back door, slamming her head against the wooden frame. I ran back to Thomas.
“Come on, we’re going outside,” I said. He was already out cold from the shock. I picked him up again and ran out the front door to the front lawn. I kneeled there with my little brother in my arms, watching the normal people in the neighborhood drive by in their minivans and station wagons, going to work or school. They drove slow and stared in disbelief through black sunglasses.
Ten minutes later the paramedics pulled into the driveway. Two of them, dressed in white, got out and rushed over to me.
“Stand back…is this the only one?”
“No,” I said, wringing my wrists, “there’s another one inside.”
Oxes
12/'05
I was raised to love the guitar. Ever since I heard Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” for the first time, I’ve been absolutely obsessed with the instrument. The variety of sounds it can make (whether acoustic or electric) is absolutely incredible. My obsession has reared its head in several forms. I taught myself to play guitar when I was ten, then started taking lessons for a few years when I was twelve, then started my first band when I was fifteen. I started writing my own music shortly after. Being in bands has definitely opened my eyes to several musical acts, but nothing could have prepared me for Oxes.
Oxes is a three-piece, instrumental, “technical” guitar-rock band. The description sounds lofty, but it is the only way to describe their music. The group relies heavily on their two guitars (no bass player, as seems to be ‘required’ amongst their musical piers), the explosive production of their records, their outstanding live performances, the intense dynamics of their music and their
ever-changing rhythms.
The band is no more than five years old, based out of Baltimore, Maryland. The members of Oxes are: Nettarino Fowler (guitar), Marco Mirror (guitar), and Han Sum (drums). Obviously, these are not their real names, and this type of cheesy shtick is exactly what Oxes as a group endorse- expertly shown through their album artwork and their live performances.
Musically, they are completely original. Though, they are not without their influences. Mainly drawing from early heavy metal from the 70’s like Black Sabbath and Rush; mixing in a bit of the attitude of metal in the 80’s like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden; and then adding a perplexing technical twist from ‘post-punk’ bands in the 90’s like Fugazi and Drive Like Jehu. All of that with no vocal accompaniment.
The meter of most Oxes songs is based off of a 4/4 beat that gets twisted around into becoming anywhere from ¾ to 5/4. The overall timbre of the music could best be described as thick or muddy. The guitar tone is obviously very important to the sound of their records. They mix the higher tones to be extremely sharp, and the lows very crunchy. They dabble with guitar peddles on their second LP, (titled Oxxxes) but mainly stick to straight-forward electric guitar. On their most recent EP they have used
synthesizers and MIDI technology to produce electronic interludes.
Another reason I am so interested in this band is that before I discovered my love of guitar, I was a self-taught drummer. Never before have I heard a drummer so evenly-matched to their electric guitar accompaniment as Han Sum of Oxes. He regularly syncopates the normal beat back and forth between the up and downbeat. I did not fully respect how much weight he pulls in the band until I saw them live last year. While the two guitarists use wireless technology that actually allowed them to run around the club while playing, Han Sum served as the anchor for the group, remaining on stage and pounding away.
The two guitars are rarely ever playing the same thing; hence Oxes is a very polyphonic group. Though they are instrumental, both of the guitars more than make up for the lack of vocal melody. Indeed, the guitars often imitate beautiful vocal melodies with harmonies. The group’s range is wide, often straying to more of a dissonant sound, made by lower notes on the guitar and a chaotic, yet contained strumming technique.
Along with their occasional electronic interlude, Oxes will frequently overdub acoustic guitars into their songs. Often placed in awkwardly, playing a riff quietly, allowing
the drums to follow until it is almost completely silent, then exploding into an electric guitar-fueled cacophony. This change in dynamic is one that we’ve heard before in Classical and Romantic music.
Guitar-technology is also a very important part to Oxes’ sound. When I saw them live I noticed that the guitarist Marco Mirror was playing a type of guitar I had never seen before. I had always noticed that Oxes had a unique guitar sound, but only after a friend of mine talked with Marco after their performance did I discover what it was. Whereas most electric guitars are wooden, Marco plays out of an aluminum guitar. The result is a much more twangy, metallic sound. One can actually feel the pressure of the pick hitting the strings through the guitar’s pick-ups. It is a revolutionary technology that has yet to really break through into the world of electric guitar. It was designed and custom-made for Marco by one of the members of the band New Brutalism (who have a similar sound to Oxes).
I chose this band because I thought they were an excellent example of pure music. They are the complete opposite of ‘pop.’ They aren’t doing what they do to make money or impress anyone. They are making music the way they want to because they love it for what it is.
I was raised to love the guitar. Ever since I heard Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” for the first time, I’ve been absolutely obsessed with the instrument. The variety of sounds it can make (whether acoustic or electric) is absolutely incredible. My obsession has reared its head in several forms. I taught myself to play guitar when I was ten, then started taking lessons for a few years when I was twelve, then started my first band when I was fifteen. I started writing my own music shortly after. Being in bands has definitely opened my eyes to several musical acts, but nothing could have prepared me for Oxes.
Oxes is a three-piece, instrumental, “technical” guitar-rock band. The description sounds lofty, but it is the only way to describe their music. The group relies heavily on their two guitars (no bass player, as seems to be ‘required’ amongst their musical piers), the explosive production of their records, their outstanding live performances, the intense dynamics of their music and their
ever-changing rhythms.
The band is no more than five years old, based out of Baltimore, Maryland. The members of Oxes are: Nettarino Fowler (guitar), Marco Mirror (guitar), and Han Sum (drums). Obviously, these are not their real names, and this type of cheesy shtick is exactly what Oxes as a group endorse- expertly shown through their album artwork and their live performances.
Musically, they are completely original. Though, they are not without their influences. Mainly drawing from early heavy metal from the 70’s like Black Sabbath and Rush; mixing in a bit of the attitude of metal in the 80’s like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden; and then adding a perplexing technical twist from ‘post-punk’ bands in the 90’s like Fugazi and Drive Like Jehu. All of that with no vocal accompaniment.
The meter of most Oxes songs is based off of a 4/4 beat that gets twisted around into becoming anywhere from ¾ to 5/4. The overall timbre of the music could best be described as thick or muddy. The guitar tone is obviously very important to the sound of their records. They mix the higher tones to be extremely sharp, and the lows very crunchy. They dabble with guitar peddles on their second LP, (titled Oxxxes) but mainly stick to straight-forward electric guitar. On their most recent EP they have used
synthesizers and MIDI technology to produce electronic interludes.
Another reason I am so interested in this band is that before I discovered my love of guitar, I was a self-taught drummer. Never before have I heard a drummer so evenly-matched to their electric guitar accompaniment as Han Sum of Oxes. He regularly syncopates the normal beat back and forth between the up and downbeat. I did not fully respect how much weight he pulls in the band until I saw them live last year. While the two guitarists use wireless technology that actually allowed them to run around the club while playing, Han Sum served as the anchor for the group, remaining on stage and pounding away.
The two guitars are rarely ever playing the same thing; hence Oxes is a very polyphonic group. Though they are instrumental, both of the guitars more than make up for the lack of vocal melody. Indeed, the guitars often imitate beautiful vocal melodies with harmonies. The group’s range is wide, often straying to more of a dissonant sound, made by lower notes on the guitar and a chaotic, yet contained strumming technique.
Along with their occasional electronic interlude, Oxes will frequently overdub acoustic guitars into their songs. Often placed in awkwardly, playing a riff quietly, allowing
the drums to follow until it is almost completely silent, then exploding into an electric guitar-fueled cacophony. This change in dynamic is one that we’ve heard before in Classical and Romantic music.
Guitar-technology is also a very important part to Oxes’ sound. When I saw them live I noticed that the guitarist Marco Mirror was playing a type of guitar I had never seen before. I had always noticed that Oxes had a unique guitar sound, but only after a friend of mine talked with Marco after their performance did I discover what it was. Whereas most electric guitars are wooden, Marco plays out of an aluminum guitar. The result is a much more twangy, metallic sound. One can actually feel the pressure of the pick hitting the strings through the guitar’s pick-ups. It is a revolutionary technology that has yet to really break through into the world of electric guitar. It was designed and custom-made for Marco by one of the members of the band New Brutalism (who have a similar sound to Oxes).
I chose this band because I thought they were an excellent example of pure music. They are the complete opposite of ‘pop.’ They aren’t doing what they do to make money or impress anyone. They are making music the way they want to because they love it for what it is.
Sylvia
12/'05
As I walked up to Nancy and Jake’s house from my car I felt a particularly strong chill go up my spine. The cozy ranch house that Jake had bought right after the wedding looked somewhat ominous with the sun setting behind it. I looked into their bay window from the porch and saw a little girl, about five or six, waving to me from inside. I waved back, smiled, and rang the doorbell.
Seconds later Jake swung the door open.
“There she is!” he said with a smile. He had grown a goatee since the wedding and I almost didn’t recognize him with his several gray hairs. Had it really been that long since I’d seen them? “Thanks for coming, it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without you,” he said with a small chuckle.
“Oh, here, let me bring that into Nancy…” he said, taking the foil-covered dish of cornbread.
“Honey, who is it?”
“It’s Allison, sweetie” he called back, “Here, let me get your coat.”
I handed Jake my coat and was about to greet Nancy in the kitchen when I felt a tug on my skirt. I looked down and saw the little girl from the window staring back at me with eyes so wide they looked evil and innocent at the same time. Just then Nancy entered, greeted me and gave me a hug.
We laughed for a while at the awkward sight of each other. I laughed at the growing soccer-mom pouch that protruded beneath her apron and she probably laughed at the wrinkles under my eyes. There were no words about the (had it been seven?) Christmases without any cards or gifts, the calls that were never returned, or the drunken nights we had no doubt both spent with our real loved ones revealing one another’s embarrassing dorm room secrets from college. All of it was gone. Nancy had called me and invited me to Thanksgiving, and here I was.
“Oh, Allison, this is our daughter, Sylvia, I don’t believe you two have ever met.”
“Pleased to meet ya!” Sylvia said, extending her hand up to me.
“Well, aren’t you polite?” I said in the same voice one would use to address a dog. I had no experience with kids and had completely forgotten that Nancy and Jake had one. I shook her hand and pretended to be interested in her little
pig-tails and the mustard stains at the corners of her mouth.
“Do you wanna see my dolls? They’re in the basement,” Sylvia asked.
Before I could make something up about having to go to the bathroom or helping Mommy with dinner, Jake and Nancy had put the words “Suuuuure” and “Let’s go!” right into my mouth and were shoving me towards the basement.
Sylvia bounded ahead, yelling “hurray!” and jumping down the last the steps into the florescent basement.
Still at the top, holding onto the doorframe for dear life, I leaned back to Nancy, whose elbow was digging into my back and whispered, “Nancy! You know kids make me nervous…”
“Oh No! She’s really smart. Besides, she likes you! She’s never been this nice to anyone who comes over…I’ll finish up cooking and we’ll call down to you guys in a few…Have fun now!”
Again, before I could protest, I had been pushed on to the first step and was faced with a closed door.
“Come on, Come on!” Sylvia was yelling from the bottom of the steps. The hideous reflection of the lights brought even more of that evil look into her eyes. She waved a Barbie doll in the air. “Come on, Come on!”
I grasped both sides of the wall, sighed, and cautiously descended. I felt like the clicking of my own high heels on the wooden steps was like my death-march to the chair. I kept thinking I was crazy, “Why am I so petrified of kids?”
When I reached the bottom of the steps and turned left, I saw that Nancy and Jake spared no expense in turning the basement into a kids’ wet dream-wonderland. Evidently, little Sylvia didn’t just like dolls, but every possible toy imaginable. There were train tracks that wrapped around the entire room with a little automatic locomotive that she could actually sit in, a huge assortment of gigantic stuffed pandas in the corner, board games everywhere, G.I. Joes, coloring books, everything. All Sylvia wanted to show me were her dolls.
She had a giant chest open and was wildly throwing little plastic brunettes, redheads, and blondes over her shoulder. I did my best to dodge, but caught a Malibu Skipper right on the chin. “Aw, fuck!” I yelled, and quickly covered my mouth.
Sylvia paused, and with her back still turned said “Mommy says we’re not supposed to swear…”
“I’m sorry, Sylvia…It’s just…you hit me with one of your dolls and…”
She turned around quickly, her pig-tails slowly following, smiled and said, “It’s okay!” Then she spun right back around and continued digging. I gave her back a look of contempt and rubbed my still throbbing chin. I sat down on the bottom step.
“Here she is!” Sylvia exclaimed, holding up a tiny wooden doll. “Her name is Sylvia!”
Real original. This kid was beginning to irk me, but being thankful that she wasn’t launching the wooden one at me, I politely asked “and who gave you Sylvia?”
“My Nana!” she said, stroking the doll’s red hair, “look! She has brown hair just like mine!”
“Actually, sweetie,” I said, pointing to the doll, “I think little Sylvia’s hair is red.”
Sylvia dropped her hands to her side and drilled her beady little evil eyes into the center of my forehead. There was a long pause in which I glanced around the room quickly to see if there was any quick means of escape. Maybe a screen door I could dart out of and get to my car in case Sylvia decided to pull any “Village of the Damned” shit on me. Sadly, my only means of escape were the stairs, and with my heels on I would be easy pickings for the girl. I imagined myself screaming in terror as blood spewed out of Sylvia’s mouth and her head spun around, darting up the
steps, tripping and being devoured by the little girls’ gnashing teeth.
“Do you want to hold her?” she asked, her innocent voice bringing me out of the nightmare.
As she held the doll out, I laughed at myself for being so horrified of such a sweet little girl, and said “Sure…”
The doll looked like it had been in the family for years. For one thing, it was a solid piece of wood that had been wittled into two arms, two legs, a torso and a head. There were two dots and a half circle painted on the head made to resemble a smiley face. Red yarn had been glued to the head and it wore a cotton poke-a-dotted dress.
“Wow…” I said, “She’s…really pretty!”
Sylvia giggled and said “Prettier than you!”
I bit my lower lip and did my best to dig my fingernails into little Sylvia’s painted eyes.
“Give her back!” Sylvia shouted, suddenly abandoning her laughter for fear. She grabbed the doll and clutched it to her chest, once again drilling into my forehead.
“I’m sorry, Sylvia…”
“You don’t get to play with Sylvia anymore!” She said, putting it back in the chest, shutting it quickly and sitting on the lid.
“Damn…” I thought.
“Well, if you don’t want to play with me I guess I’ll go help your Mommy with dinner…” I said, not meaning to pull the reverse-psychology thing at all, but really just wanting to get the hell out of there. I stood up and turned to go up the steps.
“Wait!” She said desperately, getting up quickly and reproducing the doll from the chest.
“Oh no, Sylvia, it’s okay…I think playtime is over for me anyway, I’d better-“
“I want to take a picture of you with her!” She said, extending the doll.
“Um…well, alright,” I said, foolishly expecting her not to have a camera. I was made the fool once again, though, as Sylvia darted over to the panda patch in the corner and pulled a tiny Polaroid camera from around the stuffed animals’ neck.
“Okay, smile!” She said.
I frowned as the bulb flashed. It was brighter than I expected and was quite stunning mixed with the fluorescent lighting. I stumbled backwards, lost my balance in my heels and dropped the doll beneath me, bringing my own ass crashing right down on top of it. I heard a snap and felt the splinters in my right butt cheek.
I screamed, stood up quickly and immediately began trying to pull the splinters out. As my eyes cleared from the flash, I looked down and saw little Sylvia’s broken neck, still hanging onto the body by a splinter or two, smiling up at me. Sylvia saw too, but didn’t scream like I expected.
“Oh my God, Sylvia, I am so sorry…” I said, pulling the last of the splinters out of my ass.
Her drilling-eyes were back again, and she quietly walked over to little Sylvia, picked her up and brought her back to the chest, her head dangling from her body. She then calmly walked back towards me and started going up the steps. On the third step she stopped, turned around, and with her pig-tails slowly following, delivered the harshest bitch-slap I have ever received directly to my left cheek. I doubled back and fell on my ass again. The cold concrete floor of that basement was becoming quite familiar to me by now. My face burned, and was probably scarlet red. I looked up in horror as Sylvia slowly turned and went up the steps and out the door.
I heard her upstairs talking to Nancy, “Mommy! Mommy! When’s dinner going to be ready? I’m huuuuunnngrrry!”
As I walked up to Nancy and Jake’s house from my car I felt a particularly strong chill go up my spine. The cozy ranch house that Jake had bought right after the wedding looked somewhat ominous with the sun setting behind it. I looked into their bay window from the porch and saw a little girl, about five or six, waving to me from inside. I waved back, smiled, and rang the doorbell.
Seconds later Jake swung the door open.
“There she is!” he said with a smile. He had grown a goatee since the wedding and I almost didn’t recognize him with his several gray hairs. Had it really been that long since I’d seen them? “Thanks for coming, it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without you,” he said with a small chuckle.
“Oh, here, let me bring that into Nancy…” he said, taking the foil-covered dish of cornbread.
“Honey, who is it?”
“It’s Allison, sweetie” he called back, “Here, let me get your coat.”
I handed Jake my coat and was about to greet Nancy in the kitchen when I felt a tug on my skirt. I looked down and saw the little girl from the window staring back at me with eyes so wide they looked evil and innocent at the same time. Just then Nancy entered, greeted me and gave me a hug.
We laughed for a while at the awkward sight of each other. I laughed at the growing soccer-mom pouch that protruded beneath her apron and she probably laughed at the wrinkles under my eyes. There were no words about the (had it been seven?) Christmases without any cards or gifts, the calls that were never returned, or the drunken nights we had no doubt both spent with our real loved ones revealing one another’s embarrassing dorm room secrets from college. All of it was gone. Nancy had called me and invited me to Thanksgiving, and here I was.
“Oh, Allison, this is our daughter, Sylvia, I don’t believe you two have ever met.”
“Pleased to meet ya!” Sylvia said, extending her hand up to me.
“Well, aren’t you polite?” I said in the same voice one would use to address a dog. I had no experience with kids and had completely forgotten that Nancy and Jake had one. I shook her hand and pretended to be interested in her little
pig-tails and the mustard stains at the corners of her mouth.
“Do you wanna see my dolls? They’re in the basement,” Sylvia asked.
Before I could make something up about having to go to the bathroom or helping Mommy with dinner, Jake and Nancy had put the words “Suuuuure” and “Let’s go!” right into my mouth and were shoving me towards the basement.
Sylvia bounded ahead, yelling “hurray!” and jumping down the last the steps into the florescent basement.
Still at the top, holding onto the doorframe for dear life, I leaned back to Nancy, whose elbow was digging into my back and whispered, “Nancy! You know kids make me nervous…”
“Oh No! She’s really smart. Besides, she likes you! She’s never been this nice to anyone who comes over…I’ll finish up cooking and we’ll call down to you guys in a few…Have fun now!”
Again, before I could protest, I had been pushed on to the first step and was faced with a closed door.
“Come on, Come on!” Sylvia was yelling from the bottom of the steps. The hideous reflection of the lights brought even more of that evil look into her eyes. She waved a Barbie doll in the air. “Come on, Come on!”
I grasped both sides of the wall, sighed, and cautiously descended. I felt like the clicking of my own high heels on the wooden steps was like my death-march to the chair. I kept thinking I was crazy, “Why am I so petrified of kids?”
When I reached the bottom of the steps and turned left, I saw that Nancy and Jake spared no expense in turning the basement into a kids’ wet dream-wonderland. Evidently, little Sylvia didn’t just like dolls, but every possible toy imaginable. There were train tracks that wrapped around the entire room with a little automatic locomotive that she could actually sit in, a huge assortment of gigantic stuffed pandas in the corner, board games everywhere, G.I. Joes, coloring books, everything. All Sylvia wanted to show me were her dolls.
She had a giant chest open and was wildly throwing little plastic brunettes, redheads, and blondes over her shoulder. I did my best to dodge, but caught a Malibu Skipper right on the chin. “Aw, fuck!” I yelled, and quickly covered my mouth.
Sylvia paused, and with her back still turned said “Mommy says we’re not supposed to swear…”
“I’m sorry, Sylvia…It’s just…you hit me with one of your dolls and…”
She turned around quickly, her pig-tails slowly following, smiled and said, “It’s okay!” Then she spun right back around and continued digging. I gave her back a look of contempt and rubbed my still throbbing chin. I sat down on the bottom step.
“Here she is!” Sylvia exclaimed, holding up a tiny wooden doll. “Her name is Sylvia!”
Real original. This kid was beginning to irk me, but being thankful that she wasn’t launching the wooden one at me, I politely asked “and who gave you Sylvia?”
“My Nana!” she said, stroking the doll’s red hair, “look! She has brown hair just like mine!”
“Actually, sweetie,” I said, pointing to the doll, “I think little Sylvia’s hair is red.”
Sylvia dropped her hands to her side and drilled her beady little evil eyes into the center of my forehead. There was a long pause in which I glanced around the room quickly to see if there was any quick means of escape. Maybe a screen door I could dart out of and get to my car in case Sylvia decided to pull any “Village of the Damned” shit on me. Sadly, my only means of escape were the stairs, and with my heels on I would be easy pickings for the girl. I imagined myself screaming in terror as blood spewed out of Sylvia’s mouth and her head spun around, darting up the
steps, tripping and being devoured by the little girls’ gnashing teeth.
“Do you want to hold her?” she asked, her innocent voice bringing me out of the nightmare.
As she held the doll out, I laughed at myself for being so horrified of such a sweet little girl, and said “Sure…”
The doll looked like it had been in the family for years. For one thing, it was a solid piece of wood that had been wittled into two arms, two legs, a torso and a head. There were two dots and a half circle painted on the head made to resemble a smiley face. Red yarn had been glued to the head and it wore a cotton poke-a-dotted dress.
“Wow…” I said, “She’s…really pretty!”
Sylvia giggled and said “Prettier than you!”
I bit my lower lip and did my best to dig my fingernails into little Sylvia’s painted eyes.
“Give her back!” Sylvia shouted, suddenly abandoning her laughter for fear. She grabbed the doll and clutched it to her chest, once again drilling into my forehead.
“I’m sorry, Sylvia…”
“You don’t get to play with Sylvia anymore!” She said, putting it back in the chest, shutting it quickly and sitting on the lid.
“Damn…” I thought.
“Well, if you don’t want to play with me I guess I’ll go help your Mommy with dinner…” I said, not meaning to pull the reverse-psychology thing at all, but really just wanting to get the hell out of there. I stood up and turned to go up the steps.
“Wait!” She said desperately, getting up quickly and reproducing the doll from the chest.
“Oh no, Sylvia, it’s okay…I think playtime is over for me anyway, I’d better-“
“I want to take a picture of you with her!” She said, extending the doll.
“Um…well, alright,” I said, foolishly expecting her not to have a camera. I was made the fool once again, though, as Sylvia darted over to the panda patch in the corner and pulled a tiny Polaroid camera from around the stuffed animals’ neck.
“Okay, smile!” She said.
I frowned as the bulb flashed. It was brighter than I expected and was quite stunning mixed with the fluorescent lighting. I stumbled backwards, lost my balance in my heels and dropped the doll beneath me, bringing my own ass crashing right down on top of it. I heard a snap and felt the splinters in my right butt cheek.
I screamed, stood up quickly and immediately began trying to pull the splinters out. As my eyes cleared from the flash, I looked down and saw little Sylvia’s broken neck, still hanging onto the body by a splinter or two, smiling up at me. Sylvia saw too, but didn’t scream like I expected.
“Oh my God, Sylvia, I am so sorry…” I said, pulling the last of the splinters out of my ass.
Her drilling-eyes were back again, and she quietly walked over to little Sylvia, picked her up and brought her back to the chest, her head dangling from her body. She then calmly walked back towards me and started going up the steps. On the third step she stopped, turned around, and with her pig-tails slowly following, delivered the harshest bitch-slap I have ever received directly to my left cheek. I doubled back and fell on my ass again. The cold concrete floor of that basement was becoming quite familiar to me by now. My face burned, and was probably scarlet red. I looked up in horror as Sylvia slowly turned and went up the steps and out the door.
I heard her upstairs talking to Nancy, “Mommy! Mommy! When’s dinner going to be ready? I’m huuuuunnngrrry!”
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Three Little Pigs (Redux)
5/'05
“sticks and stones”
the head of henry hogg was cut off
yesterday
and paraded about the town by the children.
“you’re not doing anything”
were you aware, claire, that you brought home a vagrant
today
covered in porno and pig feces?
(he’s right behind you)
“hank, did you finish cooking that god damned bacon?”
“tomorrow,
honey. i’m going to the fair today!”
“gather the troops! the war’s on!”
got covered in pork chops one time
last year.
Some of my buddies decided to pull a slow one on me.
“huff n’ puff”
found him in the back of a piggly wiggly
just now.
touching himself and huffing lighter fluid.
he said he was the wolf.
“sticks and stones”
the head of henry hogg was cut off
yesterday
and paraded about the town by the children.
“you’re not doing anything”
were you aware, claire, that you brought home a vagrant
today
covered in porno and pig feces?
(he’s right behind you)
“hank, did you finish cooking that god damned bacon?”
“tomorrow,
honey. i’m going to the fair today!”
“gather the troops! the war’s on!”
got covered in pork chops one time
last year.
Some of my buddies decided to pull a slow one on me.
“huff n’ puff”
found him in the back of a piggly wiggly
just now.
touching himself and huffing lighter fluid.
he said he was the wolf.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)