A little classic Brock. Fiction.

…

She opened the door to our little apartment (too small for two), stepped over the threshhold and halted amidst a jangle of housekeys. She looked at me, slouching on the couch. My feet were on the ottoman and the cat was on my shins and the vodka was in my right hand, hanging by my hip. Her lips parted to let loose a sigh of concern and I tried to straighten up, but too late. She’d already seen me like this, so I held my left hand up, holding a glass (complete with tinkling ice) and two fingers raised to offer a non-verbal hello. In an uncharacteristic drunken Texas drawl (the drawl abnormal, not the drunken), I added, “Darling.”

“Baby,” she said.

“I love it when you call me that.”

She wasn’t as amused as I was by that one, because I didn’t usually pull it out until she was approaching me with disdain. Which was almost every day, these days. I was sliding off the Earth’s crust, like I was slouching deeper into this couch, and she was too small and weak to keep pulling me back onto it. So, she started stepping on my white-knuckled fingers clinging.

“Are you drinking that nasty shit straight?” The vodka.

“No.” I lifted my left foot off the ottoman, which roused the cat, and tapped the lemon-lime soft drink at rest on the coffee table. It wobbled and we both started toward it to stop a spill, but it did not fall. I pet the cat with the arch of my foot before moving my leg back where it came from.

“You’re drinking without me?” She said, with a sadness she couldn’t keep down. Through the hammered and sickled salute, I heard it and looked up in time to catch the subtext. Jesus, she’s going to leave me. I stood up in a hurry, set the vodka down, made the cat say “nya” and crossed to her. I gathered her into my arms and pulled her head tight against my chest.

“Don’t be like that, darling.”

“It’s always ‘darling’ with you.” and though she tried to make herself push away, she couldn’t.
I apologized, “I’m sorry, baby, I’ll wait for you next time. I just wasn’t sure when to expect you.” Which was bullshit. She didn’t mind my drinking until I was blocked, because she knew it got out of hand, or rather, never left my hand. I kissed her cheek and said ‘darling’ one more time. “How was your day?”

She stayed in my arms, but she remained silent.

I asked her, “What’s the matter? Why don’t you answer?” *

Then I could feel her little hands on my back and her adorable arms squeezing my ribs. It was hard for her to let go, but I knew she was going to.

*with apologies to Yo La Tengo.

Brock says: After a couple of weeks without, we picked back up on the weekly writing exercise.

Karaoke is over. Nobody is singing because they’re too drunk to work the machine. It is sincerely amazing that they had “Somebody Farted” by Bobby Jimmy and the Critters. People bitch because I don’t sing, but they never have songs that I know. Me and my two best dame friends woulda tore the club a new earhole if they had “Keep It Goin’ Louder” by Major Lazer featuring Nina Skye, because I do an uncanny impression of autotune. Our private room is strewn with emptied Soju bottles and shattered affections. We have one of those in-bred circles of friends that you couldn’t bring a member of the opposite sex to without causing at least a little disappointment, if not full-fledged heartbrokenness. Don’t fuckin’ fret. Those shards would be swept into the bin on the way to the next friend in the circle by next month, if not next week. Jimmy brought Giselle (Jizzelle), so Tina is outdoors smoking a cigarette to stave off panic and keep them out of her eye line for, like, five minutes. She’s thinking desperate thoughts like, “If I don’t mean everything to you, then I might as well mean nothing.” Poor Tina.

I am drunk and wearing my cock on my sleeve, so I address Janelle, the tall blonde with the most beautiful backside I’ve ever ogled. What I like most about her is that when presented with a complimentary rhetorical question, she answers it honestly. “Janelle, you’re smart, you’re funny, you get hotter with age, and not in a desperate housewives kind of way. Why don’t you have a husband?”

“Because I’m smart.” Continue reading Karaoke Is Over

Brock says: Megan began our exercise with this sentence.

The crickets were loud that summer.

The crickets were loud that summer. So was my talking dog when he was telling me to do things, and the sounds of the sins of the young people porking in parked cars got pretty loud, too. Their iniquities rang like a tuning fork struck against a lucite encased countertop. It was a pitch that only my dog could hear. I’d like to tune and fork some young dame, but I’d never hear the end of it from that mutt. “Why do you feel the need to bring her back here?” It’s got to constantly nag me to scrub the toilet so it can drink clean water, and to buy the kibble that comes with the bits, instead of kibble just. It’s got to remind me that I’m only one more late rent payment away from living under the hobo troll bridge at Belmont and 94. It’s got two collars, one for taking walks and another for lazing. I’d take him to the shelter but I don’t want him telling his next owner my PIN. I hate it when people say “PIN number,” because the number is already contained in the acronym. Just say PIN. And don’t call it PI number, because we’ll think you mean 3.141593, etcetera, and so on. PIN. Pi is not my PIN.

I’d feel more like a master if this dog was mute. He’s at least as smart as that brain gremlin in Gremlins 2: The New Batch, but he can’t turn a door knob. That unfortunate combination of high intelligence and low dexterity makes for an unhappy pooch, which means I never hear the end of anything. My dog was loud that summer, but the crickets were louder. They kept telling me that it was my turn to invade Iraq.

So, you’ve probably noticed that the comic strips have dried up. BEEow dot com is hard at work producing animated propaganda short films, succeeding the grand tradition of wartime racism established by Warner Brothers with cartoons like the absolutely NSFW “Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips.”

Keep an eye out for “Swamp Chicken and the Nadir of the North Koreans,” “Pyrotechnic Porno Babies Put Afghanistan On Its Ass,” and “Emily Edison Racists the Ethnic Stereotypes.” Coming soon!

I know. You say, “But BEEow dot com,” using the full name so formally, “America isn’t at war with North Korea!” To you I say, stop shouting. After we figure out we can’t win in Afghanistan and withdraw, we’re going to need somebody to shoot at. Voters will be so sick of hearing about war in the Middle East, that we’ll leave Iran on the back-burner and deploy to the Pacific. Enjoy this preview of rough storyboards from the Swamp Chicken short. One continuous shot:

While on his way to arm himself, Swamp Chicken encounters animals who don’t look like him and offers derogatory remarks related directly to their species. Though it may appear to be a friendly, interspecific wave in the third row, it is actually a rude gesture. Swamp Chicken can be such a sass-hole, but it’s totally justified during wartime. This lone animator’s process is still experimental, so god only knows when we’ll see the first short. More to come!

Brock says: I started us off this week with the sentence in bold.

The cheerleaders were too spirited, the band girls were too brassy, the theatre girls hogged the spotlight, the 4H girls hogged the hogs, and the anime club girls were too withdrawn. Them soccer broads could kick my ass, the student council dames could kiss it. The color guard girls were, well, they just weren’t hot enough to make the cheerleader squad. The science chicks were too controlled, and the math ladies wouldn’t let me divide their legs. The English skirts were too pro-noun and anti-verb, and I was looking to make sweet verbs. Maybe I was being too picky. On the swim team, Valerie looked good to me, in spite of her slight frog eyes. Heather was an amazon, with the body of a goddess, but taller than me, so I don’t know if I can reach around her to unfasten her bodice. When he who has eyes to see, sees sweet, Southern Baptist Alexis it will transfigure his day, but those religious girls are too marriage-minded.

It’s my own fault if I die alone.