…

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.

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.”

Her tone of voice lets me down, but not easy. In case you’re wondering, the woman with the best ass on Earth does ride the bus. #sexist She should have an insurance plan for those pistons.

Then I overhear Brock, the author of this bullshit, speaking on the other side of the karaoke room. He doesn’t know how to modulate the volume of his voice, so I have to listen carefully. He says, “You can’t mock the overeager audiences of Inside The Actors Studio. You’ve never been starstruck? I remember how I felt when I saw Connie Britton that time in Whole Foods downtown Austin. She wasn’t even answering James Lipton’s questions, she was buying god knows what in her sweats, with no make-up, and that shit still made my day.”

Which is the eightieth time he’s mentioned seeing Connie Britton in Whole Foods. She must give him a huge boner.

I am up for it and Janelle isn’t, so I turn my eye to raven-haired beauty single mother Linda, put my arm around her shoulder and give her an affectionate squeeze. I knew she’d always wanted to fuck me, so I figure I might as well give her what she wants once in her life. Guess tonight’s the night. She’ll get over it when we don’t get together afterward. She’ll have to, or she’ll have to leave the group, and none of us are ready to go.

I was wrong, it isn’t over. When did Tina get back? She starts singing.

Oh, are you fucking serious? They have “Banana Phone,” but they don’t have “Novocaine For The Soul?!” Fuck this karaoke joint. If we’d gone to a better karaoke bar, Janelle prob’ly woulda gone for it, and fell a mighty boner.

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.

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!

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.

This fish tastes terrible.

“This fish tastes terrible. Because it’s fish, I guess. The only time I ate fish that tasted any good and wudn’t a fish stick, was in Vagina Beach, Vagina. Bourbon braise’ salmon with like dese little shave’ almons up top. ‘Cept for the texchure, you couldn’ tell it was fish. Not like this. This, is shit,” is what some woman was saying so everyone who wasn’t deaf in the restaurant and on the surrounding pier could hear.

“Have we been seated near an audition for the Real Housewives of Some Other Shitty City?” some dude with skinny jeans and gauged ears was saying so only his table could hear.

Nothing, is what his partner in sarcasm was saying, because though he wanted to let his friend know that his remark was humorous, he could not allow so much as one genuine, positive expression to seep from inside him into the atmosphere. For instance, a laugh. Just farts, carbon dioxide, and cynicism. He hadn’t the wit to compound the joke, so silence. Nothing to hear.

“Please, god, even if you never do anything good for me again, please let this bitch order dessert,” is what the vengeful chef was saying under his breath, so only the popcorn shrimp could hear. This matter was out of god’s hands, so the prayer went unanswered.

“I have never, ever heard a fake porn movie title that was actually funny, and you haven’t either…until now. Lars Von Trier’s Dongville, starring Nicole’s Kids, man. I mean, if kids can work as slang for tits. Doesn’t work for ya? Try some of this. Porn On The Fourth of July. Okay, The Pound and the Furry,” is what some smartass aspiring stand-up was saying so his digital audio recorder could hear. He was so excited about his own ideas that he missed out on the joke that god was making nearby.

“When are you going to get married, Crockett?” is what somebody’s grandma was saying so her grandson and granddaughter, husband and son could hear. Crockett had recently seen Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, so he was thinking it might be never. Actually, he was right.

“The Street Fighter 3 Chun-Li is my ideal woman. Those thighs!” is what some horny video game nerd was saying so some other horny video game nerd could hear.

“I just wish I could have those big thighs wrapped around me once before I die,” is what that other horny video game nerd was saying so the first horny video game nerd could hear.

“If Brokeback Mountain didn’t do as well as it did at the box office, I wouldn’t expect America to ever be ready for a gay president,” is what somebody who thought they knew what they were talking about was saying so another straight person could hear. America, as we know it, wouldn’t last long enough to be so accepting.

“Honey, I love you,” is what a perfect gentleman who actually wasn’t kidding himself was saying so his bride-to-be could hear.

“Sweetheart, I love you, too,” is what that bride-to-be was saying so her gratefully betrothed could hear.

“Of course Christianity is more powerful than Scientology. Christianity doesn’t need lawyers and cash to control its flock,” is what a thinker was pondering so his transgender and black friends could hear, when Jesus Christ finally came back.

Even the Christians were surprised, because though they thought they had faith it would happen with all their hearts, few of ‘em really believed it. They had faith in their hearts, but not their heart of hearts. Christ himself wasn’t even sure it would happen. So many were confused by the gesture, and not just because he wasn’t white, but because he hadn’t come to bring about the end times. He just came back to tell people to stop being such cocks to each other. He was like, “Give it a rest,” so all the cocks could hear. Especially people who were being cocks in his name. Then he gently reminded us that nobody has a fucking clue what goes on after they’re corpsed and that they should stop acting like they’re so damned sure they know what happens all the time. I’m paraphrasing. After that, he left again, and people started to wait patiently for his third coming.

It was about a year and a half before people started acting like cocks again. And, oh, what a year and a half that was.

…

“I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” -Mahatma Gandhi

744 words

My horse has cancer.

My horse has cancer. They say, “Cure cancer? We can, sir, if you turn on the funding faucet.” The spelling of faucet was different around the time of Farrah’s death. This is totally unrelated, but, do you think it’s disrespectful to jerk off with photos of deceased celebrities?

The fact is, we probably won’t cure it, and most certainly not in time to free my horse. We can cut it out, irradiate it, and fill her blood with bone marrow and hair follicle cell disintegrating chemicals to chase it away, but we’re really just helping it build a tolerance to come back stronger whenever it decides it wants to relapse. I’d say, “Cancer can go fuck itself,” but I’m afraid it might hear me.

This horse has been by my side ever since I rescued her from some Comet-Brand-toilet-bowl-cleaner-huffing junkie who lived under the hobo troll bridge at I-8564578298 and Scrimshaw Pkwy in Grundle, Texas. Even the homeless have horses in Texas. We were simpatico from the get-go. When I sneaked her into my building to feed her oats and barley and carrots and bales of hay, she saw my efforts to be quiet and followed suit, suppressing her clips and clops, and holding back her snorts and whinnies. When I stacked mattresses like I was the princess and the pea, she knew it was so she could sleep by me without my having to fear her trampling me during a distressing dream. When I was kicked out of my building for keeping a horse in a one bedroom 800 square foot apartment, she just looked at me as if to say, “Where we goin’ next, Johnny?” She knows my name isn’t Johnny, but for some reason she thinks it’s funny to call me that. She recites it like she read it in some horse book, or saw it in some horse movie. Truth be told, and please don’t tell her, but I find if funny, too. Simpatico.

When I told her we were moving a thousand miles north of Grundle, Texas, she bought a heavy horse coat for the harsh winter.

She has to sense my fear of her imminent death, but there’s no way for me to explain the source of that emotion. Being a horse, she barely understands illness as a broad concept, so the specific details about how cancer kills will be lost on her. She’ll never understand why I tear my own clothes, spray liquid from my eyes, and puke frustrated cries, cursing the possibility of a god who may be responsible for her uncontrolled cell growth. God isn’t even kind to the faithful. Sheena the She-Horse read her horse bible and treated all the other horses as if Jesus H. Christ might have (the H. stands for “Horse”) and if there is a god, it rewarded her goodness with carcinoma. She’ll never understand my confusion about that. She’ll never know why she doesn’t feel like eating anymore. She’ll never run a hand over the lump on her haunches that makes it hurt too much to stand up. She’ll never know where the organ-grinding pain inside her body comes from.

That’s just one of the benefits of being a horse. Never seeing it coming. God, I wish I couldn’t see it coming.

556 words

…

“I got a couple emails to my artwork website’s inbox from Japan. I can’t read any of it, so I don’t know if it’s just junk. I never get junk at that address.” I confessed curiously to DJ Huxtable while I drove over the I-8564578298 overpass on Scrimshaw pkwy.

“What an awful name for a street.” Hux belted, gazing past his reflection at the street lamp lit army-green street sign.

CROCKETT: What? Interstate 8 billion, five hundred sixty four million, five-

DJ HUXTABLE: Scrimshaw, you dick. I should harpoon every whaler I can.

CROCKETT: Listen to this vegan extremist. You think that’s not worse than killing whales?

HUX: I’ll make artwork out of their teeth, then. Or maybe I can just take one arm and use that bone. I’ll make scrimshaw dildos and sell them back to their lonely landlocked wives. Or maybe a femur would be better for- The femur’s the thigh bone, right?

“If it’s human, it isn’t scrimshaw, it’s gotta be a marine mammal.” I thanked archbishop internet for the knowledge it once provided.

HUX: I think it’s appropriate to use that word in reference to adorning any material with that method. Human bones, dildos, chipmunk bones…Anyway, if you like Japanese girls, then I hear that new torture fest of a film from the director of 0.7407532009411887 Ounces is the one to check out. Some deaf mute Japanese schoolgirl bares it again and again.

CROCKETT: I never said anything about Japanese girls.

HUX: So, you’re not secretly hoping those emails are from cute, cartoon-craving, japanese fangirls?

He paused. Then continued, “Of course you are. Because you’re horny, like every other man on the planet. How’s your love life? Do you have one? Are you trying to have one?” He didn’t wait for the answers, because he knew them. It was an indictment, not an inquiry.

I rolled my automobile around a bend on a hillside road overlooking Lake Estella Havisham, heating it to a steam with my glare before sliding my eyeballs back onto the road. We were traveling too fast to convert the asphalt into molten bitumen. “Where’s this coming from?”

HUX: I’ve just been wondering why you haven’t been writing. And I didn’t have to wonder long.

CROCKETT: I hadn’t really noticed.

HUX: That’s depressing. Crockett, you hardly go so long-

I turned the car quickly onto Katharine Clifton Way. “What an awful name for a street…”

HUX: I think you’ve run out of ways to write the same thing over and over and over again, Crockett. You’ve got to get past that script, just find somebody to love. And conquer what makes it tough. If she’s got a boyfriend, then steal her from him. If there’s a language barrier, then learn to speak in tongues, if she likes shitty movies then show her some good ones. If she’s a republican-well, no. You shouldn’t date a republican. Just stop being so goddamned picky, shake off the psychos and offer yourself to somebody worthwhile.

CROCKETT: Goddamn it.

I laid my foot on the gas pedal and pushed it through the floorboard. The automobile accelerated at a surprising speed.

CROCKETT: You’d better get ready to jump. Roll when you hit the ground.

HUX: I’m ready when you are. I know just as well as you do.

I throttled it and shouted; we threw open the car doors and leaped out each side, rolling in the dust. My old-ass automobile with the massive oil leak launched over Lady Brett Ashley Lookout and into the gaping gorge below, crashing glass and twisting metal into an unrecognizeable pile. We stood and wiped off the dirt, collecting the wind that had just been knocked out of us.

HUX: Crockett, you’ve got a mighty mind and a powerful imagination. I’d hate to see you use it all for bitching and moaning about how hard you’ve had it.”

“I haven’t hard it had. Had it hard.” which was the required retort.

HUX: That some people have it much, much worse shouldn’t diminish your own difficulty in the day to day…but if you get stuck writing about the loves you lost or never reached for…you-

I struck a tone that suggested he not tread on me, at the same time insisting he do so. “If I get stuck, then what?”

He didn’t hesitate, “You won’t be able to help anybody change. You. Won’t change. If you’re not changing for the better, you’re staying for the worse. Crockett…You’ve got to create a new kind of artwork.”

Bullshit, I wanted to think. I formed a defensive posture, “What, new? Nothing’s original anymore. Everything’s been done to death.” Which, I didn’t believe, but-

“I meant new to you.”

And that’s how the first child was born on the moon.

Regina had hoped to meet a moon cheese baby and expected to die shortly after, so imagine her relief when her terminal illness was revealed as a full flesh human child.  A baby boy.  Imagine the tears in her half-moon eyes and the soft glow-worm shine of her unburdened soul.  Life multiplied instead of terminated.  Sure, the world is dangerously overpopulated, but the moon isn’t.

Though pregnant women were strictly prohibited to travel in space, it was considered an invasion of privacy to make any woman piss in a cup or even suggest having a sonogram, no matter how much she showed.  All women who were aware of their pregnancy complied.

This video saw more play than Jessica McClure, the Octomom, and the international space station rape put together.  I knew and loved Regina in the sixth and seventh grade, then again at the end of senior year and so on to some minor degree, so seeing her on the news day in and day out stirred old feelings from so deep inside of me, that I couldn’t go near a TV for three days straight.  It was the withdrawal that brought me back, and intermittent animated programs that kept me there.  When I finally worked up the courage to watch the moon baby coverage again, it was revealed that she and the baby would have to stay on the moon until the child grew to a month old.  It was also revealed that she had given it a name.

My name.  My first name.  The middle name was her dead dad’s.

And if my name wasn’t so unusual (taken, embarrassingly, from a Star Trek character), I might have dismissed the possibility of it having any meaning.  That afternoon, I cried for the tremendous distance between me and the moon and little Ryker 2.  I could have sold my car and bought a ticket to Bilharz, but I didn’t.  For reasons that are beyond my ability to admit, I didn’t.

…

It’s been months since Rosie left.  She was the best pussy in these parts.  By that, I mean she was the best cat.  A pussy cat.  Nobody gets double entendres in this town, which I apparently had to name during the taxi drive over.  Right now the only one I’m banging is Victoria the horse.  Rhonda the Rhino totally has a crush on me, but she apparently isn’t into sex.  I taught her to say “Me so horny” but she doesn’t seem to get that though it may sound like she’s talking about the bony protrusion on her snout, she should actually be stating that she wants to get nailed hard between the haunches.  Rhonda gave me her framed photo, so at least I can look at that while I ride Victoria like it’s the Kentucky Derby.

The hardest part of my day is deciding what to wear.  Do I don the explorer hat and the matching explorer shirt, the fireman’s hat and flame shirt, or the bunny hood with the gas mask and nurse’s uniform?  I think I’ll go with the latter, and make my two human lady roommates dress the same as me, so I can strip them of their individuality, the way other polygamists do.  Technically, we’re not polygamists, since we’re not married and we’re not ever awake at the same time, but it’s close enough with all of us sleeping in the same room.

I feel like all I do is sleep and go fishing these days.  Sometimes I exchange shitty gifts with some of the stinky animals in this town.  I should really buy them all bathtubs, because none of them have the means to clean anything in their tiny, efficiency houses.  They usually move away before they’ve had the time to build anything up.  Boone the baboon keeps an open flame in the center of his home and it doesn’t even burn down.  I wish it would, so I don’t have to envy that desert wallpaper and flooring he has.  I had Sahara’s desert flooring in my west wing, but my wallpaper doesn’t make it look like there are mesas, plateaus and cactus all around.  Fuck my life.  What’s even stranger than Boone’s open flame is that I can’t tell if he sleeps on his weight bench, or in the dog house in his living room.  He doesn’t live with a dog.

I got another letter from somebody’s mom again.  I never reply, but she keeps on sending ‘em.  She wouldn’t send them if she knew my mom was dead.

That motherfucker, Redd, sold me another counterfeit painting.  I should have known when he called the “Girl With a Pearl Earring” the “Lovely Painting,” but I thought he maybe he never studied art history, or saw the trailer for that Scarlett Johansen movie.  What would a traveling scammer be doing with the Dutch Mona Lisa, anyway?  I gotta learn the value of a bell and stop tossing ‘em away on risky purchases.  If he ever comes out of that tent, I’m going to dig up a stump with my golden shovel, and bury him in the hole.  His corpse will probably grow into some kind of tree that cheats you when you shake the trunk.

There’s no public transportation in this town, either.  I’ve gotta move to a place where I can take the bus to the city.  I could buy some balloons, have my fortune told to me, and maybe interact with more than just the same five animals, who can’t come up with their own catchphrases and greetings.

There’s nothing left for me to do here.  My house is as big as it can get.  I could make the last payment so Tom Nook can open his department store, and then I can get a different hairstyle, but you’d hardly see it under my firemen’s helmet or my big bro’s hat.  There are still plenty of fish to catch, but I can do that from any town.  If I can travel to the city, I can change more than just my hair, I can alter my entire appearance, like I’m Nicholas Cage in that movie about taking his face off and putting another one back on.  Sure, I’ll miss Victoria and Rhonda and especially that bitch, Bones, but I can make new friends and I can send these old ones letters and there will be plenty of other horses to ride.  And the deep dish pizza!  Yeah.  Time to go.