Recently in FICTION (Short Stories) Category

I was working as a school photographer up until last night.

The dance was a high school formal in Burien, Washington. My backdrop made it look like each couple was standing on the deck of a ship with their backs up against the rail. An orange life preserver rested on the left side while the moon glowed in the upper right of my shot. Students were asked to become pretty statues on the small stick of duct tape placed in the center of the floor. The school mascot was a Hippo.

"Hey Joust, get over here."
It was the jew boss.
"Happy Passover Ken," I said.
"I want you to keep your eyes peeled because this place is a screaming gender-bender baby."
"What do you mean?"
"See that. That right there is a young girl."

Sheila ate some pills. She used her spit to swallow a handful of goods. Moments earlier she exited from the Pike Place Medical Clinic where Lorne worked as a secretary.

"Pike Place Medical Clinic, this is Lorne," he said, answering the toll free line.

Sheila sat next to the sickies awaiting their medicine in the clinic lobby.

"Oh really," Lorne mouthed with a yawn. "Yes, one moment."

Lorne magnificently rolled his green eyes into the back of his skull. His mouth opened just enough for his right finger to go in, signally a barfing gesture. He used the push cap on his ink pen to transfer the call.

Lorne looked at the silent phone with disgust as he spun around in his fancy chair.

Sheila enjoyed Lorne's performace as she exited the clinic. Down the sunless street in Post Alley strutted a tickled Sheila who came upon a "public payphone". She dialed the toll free number.

"Pike Place Medical Clinic, this is Lorne."

"Kike-face hepatitis prickle?"

"Um," Lorne said. "One moment?"

Lorne put Sheila's random call on hold. He released a quick peck of a smile. "Hepatitis prickle?" he said to himself. "Did she not understand me or has my mush-mouth gotten worse?", he thought.

Lorne picked up the line.

"He's, uh, in a meeting. Who may I ask is calling?"

Sheila silently flashed a mouthful of glee. Her white teeth sparkled and her cheeks ripped like crackling wax. "Oh dear," she said in a rather high voice, different from her previous monotone. Sheila cleared her throat and spit on the curb. Her new voice was very sexy, very tantalizing.

"Tell Dr. Pumper-niggle-towski that I need him. I love him. He must return my call, stat."

Sheila fell over with laughter. Her stomach clinched tighter than a baby hole. Her soccer legs kicked up and down.

Lorne looked across an empty clinic with a dizzy stare. In his mind he attempted to quantify the exact number, within a lenient margin, of crazy women he would encounter before snapping like a supermodel ankle on a shotty Asian runway.

"First of all, saying stat doesn't really make me want to do anything faster. Second, unless I know your name, I won't be able to deliver your message to Dr., uh, blimpy-duckle-titts-son."

"Is that so?" Sheila said with a smidgeon of status.

"So," Lorne said. He stressed the o for a few annoying seconds. "Sooo."

There was static on the line. Haunted signals of echoing nothing. Mute.

"I think you're cute Lorne. I'd love to come and fuck you."

Lorne's eyes bugged out like a pooping turtle. He dropped the phone. Somehow one of his shoes became tangled in the dangling cord. Sheila giggled through four seconds of classical music before the line went dead.

Sheila walked back into the clinic and took a seat in the back of the wacko jail where she conspicuously locked in her new toy Lorne. A call jumped like a salmon in a stream, caught quickly by the grizzly paw of old Lorne.

"One moment," Lorne sighed.

Sheila pranced up to the counter just as Lorne put the call through. He brandished a face of insanity when his eyes caught hers. He fell back into droll receptionist mode. "Pike Place Medical Clinic" he said as if he were on the phone.

"Hi. I'm here for Dr. Crackle-daggle-googoo."

Lorne's eyes bugged out like a combusting pimple on the back of a freshman.

"One moment," he said before freezing into a vessel of concrete.

Sheila pulled out a stick of fruity smear and smudged it across her thick wet lips. Lorne remained stone as the phone light up with aggressive red lights.

"Well, when you see the good doctor, tell him that I'll be in my office."

"Your office."

"Yeah, the phone booth in Post Alley. Tell him I'm trippin balls on some new sample pills and desperately request the thick cock of Dr. Hump-me-pink-arse-ole."

Sheila busted out of the clinic and shot towards the phone booth she called an office.

Lorne looked around the office for someone to tell, anyone to enjoy this strange moment with, but could not find another breathing thing. The phone rang.

"Pike Place Medical Clinic."

"Dr. RIMJOB-CANCER-FOUNDER-SON PLEASE!"

Sheila was screaming and crying and slobbering something awful.

"One moment."

Lorne put Sheila on hold for a few seconds before cutting the line. He looked at the big black machine. He noticed a red flash before hearing the ring of the bell on account of his enormous eyes. They were so big when he was born that the doctor called him retarded.

"Pike Place Medical…"

"Don't hang up on me Lorney baby."

"Who is this?"

"I can't talk to you right now sugar-tiger. I need the doctor."

"Dr.?"

"Dr. Bowser-loofy-poot-toot!"

"Look, I'm afraid that I can't."

"Sorry?"

"I'm not lonely enough to leave my desk and lose my job, just for some strange bang," Lorne said.

"You bastard."

Sheila began to hit the phone against the back of the booth. Lorne, sipping on his cold coffee, pretending to conquer the daily word jumble, shrieked like a boiled lobster when Sheila ran into the clinic with the severed phone in her hand.

"Where is he? Where is Dr. Smiggles-biggles-dickles-breath?"

Sheila hit Lorne on the head many times with the decapitated phone.

"I have problems that require immediate attention. I need help! I don't like you," Sheila cried. "You lied to me on the phone. I watched you make faces at all of the callers too. You're mean, mean!"

"I thought it was funny, when you said the doctor's name like that."

"Dr. McSkittle-dobbie-dip-dip-daboo?"

"Yes, that!"

"Bang me Lorne. Knock my socks off like a son-of-a-bitch."

Lorne lay barely recognizable in a swamp of his own blood. His big boulder eyes were swollen shut with dried red. The wires from the phone rested in his throat like spaghetti. Sheila unraveled his belt and slid his beige trousers down. Lorne was wearing a tight pair of undies. Despite his recent beating, he was extremely aroused. She grabbed it and put him in her mouth.

"Say it," she commanded.

"Say who?"

Sheila came up for air.

"Say the doctor's name!"

Sheila went back down.

"Dr. Himmer-porky-tutu-tan?"

Sheila sucked harder and harder with every silly name. Lorne came in her mouth. She got up and spit his stuff all over the phone. It stuck there like some magnet goo. A red light flashed and a buzz came on.

"Aren't you going to get that?" Sheila asked, wiping her mouth as she stepped towards the exit door.

"It's probably some insane person looking to use you for her for sick pleasure."

A wasted Lorne twitched his limp body back into his pants. The phone buzzed again. Sheila stood in the threshold of the open door.

"See you soon."

Lorne lifted his battered head to watch her leave the clinic. His grotesque bug eyes captured her sinister grin as the door slammed shut. He got up to answer the phone.

"Pike Place Medical Clinic," he said, longingly wondering if she would call again.


PRANK CALLER.


JASON ANFINSEN
APRIL 17, 20008
SEATTLE AMERICA

It was the Washington Mutual bank on Broadway. I picked a Tuesday because they are typically slow. The rain came and then the sun shooed it away. 3:42 in the afternoon. I walked inside.

The teller on the left was named Monika, with a ‘K’, whom I always remembered on account of the ‘K’. The teller on the right was named Cosby. I couldn’t believe it either.

At the deposit station I pulled out my wallet. That used to be the cue for Violet to start the car. But it had been far too long since I had worked with her on any job. She took off long ago and still remains at large.

Three civilians stood in line. One was a fat sandwich maker who worked next door at the Subway. Another was a girl wearing a bright yellow dress who talked on a cell phone. The last person was a man in black. I pulled out my wallet which was my new cue to rob this bank.

“Alright you motherfuckers get down on the ground or I’ll fill your heads full of lead,” someone who wasn’t me said. “Try me. Try me goddamnit. I’ll fuck all of your shit up,” warned the man in black. Everybody got down. So did I.

“You there, miss lady girl.” The man in black was now at the counter. “What’s your name sweets?” The man in black now had Monika by the throat. “Kitty kitty got your witty bitty tongue?” The man in black was now smooshing a pistol against her right nostril. “Fill up these bags up you silent bitch,” he sneered. “Gimme all the money you got.”

The fat man was crying on the floor. He tried to wipe the running snot from his nose and saliva from his mouth onto his green Subway uniform. “You there, the one with the fat face. Shut those tears off already.” The fat man rolled onto his side and hid in a fetal position of fear, slobbering still but more quiet than before. The deafening female voice on the other end of the cell phone was holding the college girl hostage of her own.

“Hey loudmouth,” the man in black yelled. “Flip off that fucking phone!”

“Ugh,” said the girl as she protested then surrendered to the man in black’s command.

I saw Cosby get angry. He wanted to be the hero. There was courage on his face.

“Please,” said Cosby. “I am the acting manager of this branch. Take me and let the rest go.” The man in black hit Cosby back to the year sweaters were first invented. Everyone gasped and cowered a little more.

Inside my mind I was trying to stoke the old flame name of Violet Kendricks that burned out in my past nearly two-years ago. She was the getaway driver with a foot made of granite which blindly raced me past insane. That girl awoke in the morning just to break every law that this bloody land has to offer. She never called or wrote like I knew she never would.

“Hey shit breath,” I heard someone say. “I’m talking to you.” From behind my sunglasses these baby blue eyes of mine locked in the man in black. “Take off those sunglasses.” The barrel of his pistol, which I didn’t inspect closely enough to spy its make and model, was cold and metal and he tapped it against the polarized tint of my shades. Tap tap tap. My right hand jetted up the air stream of cool that was me, towards my extremely expensive sun blocking shades and like a golden saint, my perfectly manicured fingers eased the platinum rims from around my ears and away from my stoned face.

The man in black, like everyone in the Washington Mutual bank on Broadway that day, recognized me immediately.

“AUGGIE JOUST,” they collectively gasped in thankful excitement.

“The one and only,” I smiled.

The man in black now found himself staring into a bent fork of two futures, neither of which would detour his body from the great maelstrom of shit that was about to crash down.

Monika was pushed away as the man in black stepped towards me now. He walked slow but fine. “You there, fatty and flirty,” he said. “Hit the skids.”

The girl got up easier than the big boy and was first to leave. Monika looked at Cosby with a glare of disapproval as the assistant manager slid his left hand underneath the counter in search of the panic button. The man in black, hidden behind dark glasses and a mustache of his own, was now close enough to check for cavities.

“Here’s the what’s what,” he said, “with what’s about to go down.” Slowly, with every sliver of status that the scene could allow, he lowered his sinister shades to the brim of his tiny nose. I looked into those eyes and goddamn did something spark. It was kinetic. That’s when I socked him good. Right fist to the midsection and what went down was the man in black. He lost his grip on the sack of cash and the indistinguishable pistol. All three things now lay helpless like flopping fish on the salty deck of a deep sea barge.

With my right cocked high like a like a freshly sharpened blade on a guillotine lusting for a spine to split, I rolled out the new what’s what.

“Cosby. I want you and Monika to keep filling these empty bags with cash. The only way to fully prosecute a hardened criminal is to have the police catch them with astounding evidence of guilt.”

“Why should anyone listen to you Joust?” Monika said with a hidden message that my balls decoded nicely.

“Because baby-pie. Leave the thinking to me.”

Monika swooned just a touch at the tail end of my spectacular sentence. Both my delivery and candor made her swoon, just a touch. I don’t blame her. I’m Auggie Joust, sometimes it hurts.

Monika looked at me as I grabbed the stuffed bags of cash. I was laying on a real thick smile, real slimy and contrived. I was just about to wink and blow her a keeper kiss when she said to me. “Auggie.” With a close up zoom on my gorgeous face I said “whatever on  earth is it my darling?” Monika, whom I always remembered on account of that ‘K’, says to me, “the man in black is pointing his pistol at you.”

Monika and Cosby were scarred shitless as the only shot fired from the man in black’s gun breezed into my healthy white shoulder. I fell back and hit the ground. The man in black walked towards the counter with great confidence and with a powerful swipe he slapped Monika against her brown cheek. She fell and he fell with her, almost escorting her to the floor as she felt his sting.

“Those shoes are wow,” he said. He was mesmerized by her neon green heels. “They are dynamite.”

“Thank you,” Monika said as she held her red swelling orb of a face.

“What, um, size do you wear?”

“8,” she said.

“No, um, in men’s, I mean.”

“In men’s? 10, I think. Maybe 11.”

“Cool, cool,” the man in black said, nodding his head, adding up the score.

“Yeah I’m going to have to take those shoes. For my, uh, special lady acquaintance.”

He flexed the smoking barrel of his hot pistol and Monika quickly took off her heels.

“Thanks toots,” the man in black said. Monika was confused with terror. Cosby was a winter lake frozen over. Me and my finger desperately attempted to plug the nickel-sized hole in my shoulder. The man in black made for the door. “Its been real,” he said. “Thanks, and fuck you all.”

Once the robber left the crime scene we victims immediately began suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, as we knew it was the right, and trendy thing to suffer from. Monika asked if I was alright. Cosby said he was going call the cops. This is about when the first Molotov cocktail exploded. It blasted through the front lobby doors, shattering glass massacre and me I was a bloody waste of a boy. Soon we three were coughing like mad because of the smoke from the wild fire and I asked Monika, as I held her arm for support, if I could go into the back door. Underneath the horror I found my cheeky inquisition quite humorous. We rummaged through a morgue of cardboard boxes and file cabinets. Cosby turned the assistant manager key and unlocked the porthole to our smoke free safety, which we blindly staggered into.

“We’ve got to get you to a hospital,” Monika said.

I never laughed so hard.

“No,” I said. “Go without me.” I put my good arm on Monika’s head. “I’ll be better than fine.”

“Thank you for saving us Auggie Joust. That sicko was going to kill everyone,” Cosby said.

“All in a day’s work.”

That was the last Monika and Cosby saw of me as I wobbled weakly down the back alley, left hand holding my right shoulder tight, feet dragging me to an open door of an orange montecarlo. I got in and shut the door.

“How’s your shoulder?”

“I’ve got another one.”

I leaned over and began kissing the driver’s neck. Slid my left hand between those jean thighs and then up towards the neck I was kissing. With my right hand, attached to the shoulder that was determined to bleed my famous body dry, I peeled off the phony handle bar mustache on the face of the man in black.

“You look ridiculous,” I said. “You had me cracking ass up.”

“Did I do good daddy?”

I looked into the soft eyes of my longtime partner in crime Violet Kendricks.

“Baby, you did just right.”

Midnight.

Padilla Bay Washington 2006.

Bay View State Park.

The stars were thick.

There were so many.

Two of them, Sara and Skip, looked way down onto the damp field of grass cluttered with the warm bodies of Luther and Nora.

“I bet that one’s named Booboo and that one Jake,” Luther said as he gazed into the miraculous galaxy.

“Pour me some more hot cocoa,” Nora said. She unzipped her sleeping bag just enough to slide out an empty mug.

Luther and Nora were on a camp date. Camp dates are almost always guaranteed fucks. Two people drive deep into the Washington State woods and spend the night under the watching eyes of the stars above.

“He looks like a Burt and she a Claudia,” Skip said.

“I wonder if they can hear us,” Sara pondered.

Sara and Skip were three hundred million light years away. Their conversation can be detected through flashing signals, a communication like Morse code. They understand the human language as it is released from the barking mouth of man. The ideas inside the brain of ours, the stars could neither hear nor know. The two people watched the two stars, four of them so close and distant.

“There’s just the tiniest kicker of Rumpelminze in the cocoa.” Luther was trying to sauce Nora up.

“In that case pour me a double.” Nora wanted to get sauced up. She needed to, rather.

Nora recently broke up with her boyfriend Chad. The two of them went out for two years.

They lived together in a one-bedroom apartment and each paid $400 rent. Nora did the laundry while Chad went grocery shopping. On nights when their schedules didn’t conflict they watched hit television dramas while scarfing down take out food. They both did the dishes.

“He seems years better than she,” Skip said.

“Maybe that’s why she already needs a refill,” Sara replied.

Chad broke up with Nora one evening while the two were watching Deadwood and sucking down Pad Thai. He said it was because he didn’t love her the way she loved him. She cried into her noodles.

Chad moved his things out with each passing week. He began to date an actor in the same theater production that also starred Nora and Luther. It was a show called Retail, a two act about a group of kids who all work at the same clothing store.

“I’m really having the best time Nora,” Luther said. He glowed like the stars above. That face of his was ecstatic with possibilities. Those eyes breathed lollipops. He was sweet.

“I’ll take another pull of Minze,” Nora said. There was a slur in her request. She was tipsy.

Luther and Nora lay down and goggled about the stars. There were so many. They were so thick. The humans pointed silently to this one and that. The two stars they liked to goggle about the most were Sara and Skip.

“I think that one is the brightest. That one is Booboo.” Luther pointed at Skip.

“I still think Jake is king shit.” Nora was tipsy.

“King shit?” Skip said. “That woman is a crazed drunkard. I should scream down to her orbit and implode myself directly on her intoxicated mouth.”

Skip was protecting Sara.

“King shit, according to the Callaprio galaxy is considered the highest form of flattery.”

Sara was a smart star. Every star in the cosmos has a staggering volume of knowledge. This is the real reason for their pulsating flashes. They are old and wise. They glow the know.

Nora survived a rough spell after Chad moved all of his things out. She shot off a fistful of email and phone calls to the available bachelors in Retail, trying to set up anything from coffee talks to motel fuckfests. No interest.

One afternoon Luther walked up to Nora, who was drinking whiskey from a flask. “I sure would like to show you the wonders of nature,” Luther said. His head was down and hand was extended. It was a regal salute towards romance. Luther had done his homework. He knew that Nora longed for those gooey heart artist types - the creators smart enough to make the language of love appear in their work: painters, writers, and apparently even actors.

“Ok,” Nora belched. “But I ain't paying for shit.”

Luther continued to hold his hand in front of the tipsy Nora, looking for a shake, a kiss, or a quick slap. Nora finally spat on Luther’s hand. “See ya in the trees.”

That was three weeks ago, on the two-month anniversary of Nora’s gut twisting break up with Chad. Chad stopped remembering his anniversary date with Nora. He’s with someone else now.

“Wait right there,” Luther smiled like the stars.

“I’ve got something special for you.” He started digging around in his satchel. Inside was his book on Burroughs (a bio titled The Priest They Called Him), colored markers, scratch paper, a Polaroid camera, a puzzle bracelet, taffy snacks, three marijuana cigarettes, fourteen caps of psilocybin mushrooms, one bottle of Rumpelminze, and a harmonica. Luther pulled the harmonica from his satchel.

“I wrote you this song. I hope you don’t mind.” Luther trembled with iron confidence.

With a huge inhale, Luther began to blow. The notes danced from the metal strip, humming with the melodious aroma of a Mexican diarrhea fart. It smelled like a wonderful hymn.

Nora started to cry in her mug of Rumpelminze, just as she did into her noodles of Pad Thai the night Chad broke up with her.

Chad used to make silly noises with his hands. He would place them on the backs of his knees, bend the legs, and make a squeaky flub sound. This tickled all hell out of Nora. She thought about Chad in the moment Luther blew his harmonica.

“That one is crying,” Sara said. “Isn’t that romantic?”

“He made her cry. That devil.” Skip was now protecting Nora. Maybe because he was the type of personality who wanted to make sure that everything with a heart was safe and loved, especially because he himself never could be. Or maybe he liked Nora because her name sounded like Sara. Or maybe it was just some crazy ass shit a star goes through that we humans will never know.

“I’m sorry,” Luther said. “I didn’t mean to make you sad.” Luther was an all right guy.

One time at the supermarket some old lady dropped a box of cereal and Luther walked all the way down the aisle to pick it up. Chad doesn’t eat cereal.

“Lets just blaze one of those joints and speak quietly,” Nora said. She didn’t want to talk. She really wanted to enjoy herself on this freebie weekend outside of Seattle. Sometimes the bright lights of the city can kill a person.

Luther sparked one of the spliffs and passed it over to Nora. She turned away from him and puffed her own toke in solace. Luther exhaled into his harmonica, which looked like new life being pumped into a dusty old organ.

“Hey I ran into Chad the other day,” Luther said. “He said to say poop.”

“You told Chad that we were going on this camp date together?” Nora was getting angry.

“I hope she belts some sense into him,” Skip cheered on. His blinks were becoming faster with excitement.

Sara wanted to see love. “I hope she realizes that he is the absolute best she will ever get.”

This startled Skip and made him redirect his concentration back towards Sara, three hundred million light years away.

“What makes you think Luther is the best for Nora?” Skip was protecting someone, but no one is sure whom.

“Just because the poor thing gets dumped and settles for a confidence boosting date with some Romeo rip-off doesn’t mean-“

“He loves her Skip. Can’t you see?”

Sara was a smart star. She knew what was happening.

“I didn’t know that our camp date was a secret,” Luther apologized.  “What does poop mean?”

Nora handed Luther the marijuana and exhaled a sigh of smoke wrapped in annoyance.

“It was an inside joke that we had. Couples sometimes come up with the absolute gayest things to say to one another. Ours was poop. We said poop on messages and birthday cards. Heavens knows what kind of retard slang he and his new gash are spitting.”

Nora pulled from the mug of Minze.

“But our fucking broken heart lingo was poop.” Nora was quite upset now.

“We should make up something to say tonight. Our own jargon.” Luther thought this was a good idea and immediately began brainstorming phrases before Nora could say no.

“How about harmonica? Or Rumpelminze? Booboo and Jake?” Luther was just calling back the information from earlier. There wasn’t anything cement enough to harden a “couple joke” yet that eve.

“What is it about me that he sees enough to call me Booboo?” Skip was bothered by Luther.

Skip, in general, was bothered. He was in love with Sara, a star like him, who lived three hundred million light years away. They could never be close enough to play harmonica or drink Rumpelminze cocoa together. This bothered Skip.

“What retard jargon do you and I have Skip?” Sara was calling Skip’s bluff inside a smart flirt. If Skip said ‘I don’t know’, then he obviously didn’t have any want for such verbal nonsense. But if he answered perfectly he would shower Sara the smart star with his shimmering feelings, which could blind the entire human race with purity.

“You are my sunshine.”

Sara blushed at Skip’s suggestion.

“You are MY sunshine,” Sara whispered back.

It had a double meaning. The other stars always piss on the Sun for it is the one Earthlings love and value above all the rest. The Sun is the most despised star in our galaxy.

“Look Luther,” Nora said. “I think you’re an alright guy.”

That’s what I said.

“But I just can’t stop thinking about Chad.”

Luther tugged on the joint. He looked up at Skip and Sara, possibly calling them Booboo and Jake.

“When you really think about it, Chad’s really an asshole.” Luther inhaled more of the joint. He was breathing the life smoke. Things were beginning to rumble inside his being.

“There you go boy,” Sara said. She encouraged Luther with a quick burst of white-hot flashes.

“Chad never treated you kind. There were too many fights at rehearsals, and from what I heard, he only wanted to hit it and split it. Those were his exact words.” Luther exhaled.

Nora grabbed for the joint and kept quiet for a stint. Luther was making perfect sense to everyone, but sometimes the truth ain't what a pair of ears wish to hear.

“And who are you? Casanova of the sloppy pussy circuit? Have you flown in on your golden shower steed in hopes of wiping me off them making a mess of my scraggly vagina with your cosmic cock?”

Nora was drunk. She was beginning to roar. Lights inside motor home campers illuminated with worry. A curious rumble stirred the campground.

“Is that your motivation, Luther? To pound me senseless in the middle of the woods just to let everyone know how great this grand slam ham sandwich of my roast beef lips taste in your fuck mouth?”

We couldn’t see it, but Skip and Sara were thrilled. What life from a human, what truth!

“She feels something for him,” Sara said.

“I feel like a cigarette,” sighed Skip.

“Who the fuck do you think you are you sad, sad,” Nora started to sob, “sad sonofabitch.”

Random campers cast a shadow over the drunken pair with the help of the moon’s light. The stars brought faces of unknown strangers to life as they quietly gathered in the damp grassy field to rescue an apparent rape victim.

“Ladies and gentlemen of this fucking park. I am the recent organ donor who voluntarily gave my boom boom beating heart to some chickenshit tub of piss who dumped me like a sack of rejected potatoes. That is why you find me on this ghoulishly silver evening under the spell of many spirits and severe Tetrahydrocannabinol smoke. Arrest me. Send me to hell. But know this, I am a card carrying member of the Broken Hearts Club.”

The crowd waited for another outburst. All they were given was the crashing sound of Nora’s body as she slammed onto her sleeping bag, rapping her head on Luther's overstuffed satchel.

“Isn’t life wonderful?” marveled Sara. In her starsuit she came, twice.

Skip growled towards the mass of citizens whose next move was crucial. Would they ask her to leave the grounds? Had they come to a decision that Luther brought her to the site under ill intent? Or would they turn around and shuffle back to their designated sites, silent and uninvolved? They chose the last.

The nosy gawkers drifted away from the lunacy of Nora and her speechless date Luther.

“Bravo Nora. That was some monologue. Why don’t you gush like that in Retail?"

Luther’s question made sense to Nora. Was it the overbearing crunch of her scene partner and former love Chad, who force-fed her stage fright? Was this eruption of anger the first spark of something new? Had she managed to weasel her way into an organic Meisner exercise of natural, vain emotion?

“I, I don’t know,” Nora said. "That felt really motherfucking good though.”

She grabbed for the joint. In the chaos and moment of impending seizure by john law, Luther butted the breathing nose of the joint out. There were still two more in the overstuffed satchel. Luther pulled out another.

“Those people who walked over,” Sara said, “wanted to see what life was all about.”

“They could have just kept their bloody noses where they belonged…in their tents!” Skip was protecting someone.

“They were drawn to the naked stench of existence.”

Skip was turned on.

“Get over here,” he said to her.

Skip was radiating luminescence toward Sara, beams of love shine that wouldn’t reach her flame ball atmosphere for another three hundred human years. Or more.

Skip and Sara were stars.

Skip and Sara lived three hundred million light years away from earth. They had emotions the size of cancerous tumors on the balls of giants.

But like Luther and Nora and the humans who wandered in and out, they were forced to play the cards they were dealt. On rare occasions, like the obnoxious display tonight, there was real life to be found.

 “I really think you should unload that energy from now on,” Luther said. “On and off stage. It truly turned me on.”

“Let’s hop in that cruiser of yours Luther baby and roll out on Highway 99.”

Luther turned the key in the ignition of his orange 1986 Corvette. With Nora sitting barefoot at shotgun, he pulled out of Bay View State Park and onto Highway 99. The two finished off the pair of joints and slammed them down with 7 caps of mushrooms. Their night was just beginning its second act.

They drove this way and then drove that, eventually parking underneath Deception Pass. With a head full of mushroom caps and marijuana smoke bubbling like a hellbong in their gurgle bucket stomach tanks, Luther and Nora braved the sharp rocks alongside the mountain and walked down towards the bottom. It was a still descent. There weren’t words heard for miles. The water below followed the current it was told. Cars drove cautiously over the well-made bridge. Down below, out of the sight of any motorist or badge wearer, Luther and Nora parked it.

Luther leaned in to kiss Nora. She vomited warm Rumpelminze in his open mouth. She quickly covered her upchuck hole while attempting to plug the next wave of barf. She failed.

Luther dogpaddled in the throat crap of an obliterated Nora and respectfully held back her black hair.

Luther looked up at all of the stars. There were so many. They were so thick.

The twinkling bounced off the twinkling of billions of additional twinklers, making it a tremendous task of brilliance to find his favorite pair. Behind a set of spectacular eyes, and a patient juicebox of care, Luther squinted towards Booboo and Jake.

“I found you.”

I couldn't have looked sexier as my delicate hands glided over the scarves dangling from hooks in the Women's section of Value Village.

There were burettes and hats and belts galore. I was looking for some erotic cloth to drape around my divine neck, something that would enhance the allure of my dashing velvet jacket with those zippers and buttons. The one that makes me look exactly like your dream.

This outfit was necessary because tonight is my night. Armageddon dance with the grim devil death and I want to look my goddamn best.

An old queen spotted a scarf that I quite liked and we both grabbed for it, slowly. At the very last minute I pulled back my hand, making it veer to the left, as it clawed any amount of colorful silks. He didn't speak a peep, thereby saving himself a substantial beat down. I'll fight anyone.

I wandered upstairs to the Men's section where all of the boys were. Staring at all of those shirts I zoned out along the endless stretch of pressed collars. When I came to, my right hand was holding one of mine. It sure looked like something I would wear. I smelled it and it smelled like me. I yanked it off the rack and the plastic hanger broke apart.

PROPERTY OF AUGGIE JOUST YOU ASSHOLE THIEF.

What kind of sick weasel snaked my duds and sold them to the Village? And then I saw her face, as if she had never killed me, there she was again. Violet Kendricks.

I left that shirt, the white number with thin red and blue lines all scattered in that lovely pattern, at her house on the night of Dia De Los Muertos, mi amigos.

I had found myself in Cal Anderson Park Seattle America where a gang of midnight bikers sat seconds from trek-peddling into an evil evening journey. About thirty, perhaps thirty-three, kiddos in masks and their faces painted white with skeleton features like zombies of the night, all on gear shifting bikes. There wasn't a basket among them serious bicycle enthusiasts who shared a collective hard on for the ride.

They were gathered there, ready to rumble, just as I was walking the park trail on my own twisted trip to the temporary shack of Violet Kendricks.

I cut right through the blurred maze of faces that was them, those kiddo bikers. It was near dusk that day when they broke off and headed out, one wing went this way while the other went that. I was in the middle and they rode right around me like I was Cha Cha DiGregorio waving a silk hanky to start a Greasy race for pink slips.

YES, I remembered while holding my own shirt at Value Village, that I must get that cherry scarf, the one from before, I must return and grab my essential accessory.

The stairs were a smear of sight as I whizzed down them towards the Women's section. There it was. Some foul purple thing that would knock the cobwebs off even the sleepiest cock.

As I struggled to reach the counter, I clipped through a herd of foul hags that spoke in languages my pretty ears could never dare understand. Certainly they were in complete awe of me though, that's no lie. Laughing like cluster bombs while their tree branch fingers pointed at yours true. I paid them no attention, no no, mine was being spent on the valuable piece of evidence that bore my famous name and how it died in the arms of that Kendricks kid.

"What the hell took you so long?" Violet asked as she opened the door to her shack.

"There were vampire bikers from hell in the park, buzzing all over like skeletons on the attack. I hid and they sped off and I ran behind the monsters for a minute and then I came here."

"Ugh," she said as she grabbed my shirt and pulled me in.

"Did you bring the hash?" she asked.

"Does a doctor wash his hands?" I smiled.

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"The hash? Yes, I brought the hash. Yes, yes, baby, baby I have the hash."

"Stop saying hash you Narc," Violet chirped. Her face became screwy. Are you recording this whole conversation?"

"No way honey. I would never."

I'm Auggie Joust, provider of the famous quote, which I quote, as the following:

"Never fuck a writer. Never turn your back on a man with a typewriter."

"Just the pink scarf for you today sir?" the check out clerk asked at the Village.

Old ladies giggled next to me.

"Yes," I said. "Its for a dinner party tonight," I beamed. "In my honor."

"That'll be $2.99," the clerk said. "Should I gift wrap it for you or would your highness be wearing it out?"

Old ladies fell down laughing.

"Jealousy, bitches, is the new breast cancer," I said. "Papsmear you later."

I threw a five on the counter and left the change and that scene.

Walking down 10th on Capitol Hill Seattle America 2007 towards Cal Anderson Park. When I got close to the water fountain I sat my ass down. From under my hoodie I pulled out my recently shoplifted shirt, the one that rightfully still belonged to me, I stole it back, I'm a criminal, lock me up. Well, if you consider how much change was left from that fiver I dropped on the counter, it probably would have evened out. Maybe I'm not the hooligan I claim to be.

Enhanced with the nostalgic atmosphere of the fountain at the park, the brittle wisp of the Washington afternoon air, I smelled my old shirt and thought only of old her.

"I told you I have that photo shoot," Violet said when she left early the next morning. "They want a butchy look. Besides, I look way cuter in this than you."

She kissed me on the top of my stink-eyed head.

"I'll even wash it and everything," she said. "Trust me Wauggles."

Poor Violet. Her rotten tricks and tired face were the unlawful symptoms that prevented her from contaminating all of Seattle's most worthy humanitarians attending my gala this evening. In my honor.

Mayor of Seattle Greg Nickels' assistant was to christen me with the prestigious honor of wearing the Capitol Hill "COOLEST OF COOL" crown for the year 2007.

Calcium Finke held the crown in both 2004 and 2006 while that hunk of junk Chizzle Rhodes was given the honor in 2005, the same year his shitty band Beast Fister sold their shitty souls to a shitty label.

But this is, and always will be, about me. My night , where I was to die for.

I continued to let the crowd soak me in. It was only fair. I bedazzled them all.

"Good evening master Auggie," someone expensive yelled. "Impeccible scarf."

I gave a thumbs up.

"Pleasantries my dear Auggie," another tycoon exclaimed. "That jacket is exquisite."

I pointed my finger at him like a gun and pulled.

"Thanks," I said into the microphone on stage that evening in history, to a sold out audience of wealthy fleshbots full of posh importance. "And fuck you all."

They cheered and rejoiced like any commoner cluster. Highly respected mouths fixed by crooked dentists salivated for more. I thought it a typical snore, yet with class, I gracefully gave them a middle finger which I decided to then bend nicely into an OK sign, leaving my fingers to form a terrific hoop for my alchemic lips to obnoxiously spit through.

Outside, when the fanfare subsided, I soon slipped back into my old seat near the gushing fountain in Cal Anderson Park at close to midnight's best hour.

Wearing my spectacular COC crown on my head, accessorized with a scarf around my neck, high and dry near the waterfall, I sat curious and mute, nonchalantly puzzling over what impossible trouble Violet Kendricks was unquestionably causing in the night's honest cosmos.


Woman Accessories Make The Man
4. 17. 07
Jason Anfinsen

Tonight we take you inside a bar. I know I know. How much time do I spend in a bar? The answer is this: never enough.

The Seattle Seahawks had their beaks broken and served to them on silver trays by those giants of the midway, the Chicago Bears. It was very unpleasant.

The temperature dropped down towards the mid-50s, or thereabouts. It was that kind of evening. Anything could have happened. George W. Bush could have nuked Iran could have nuked North Korea could have nuked us all.

A tasty drink gesticulating inside rocks made of ice felt like the cool thing to do.

First thing I did was infilftrate the Cha Cha Lounge for some Jack on the rocks. There were many loudies inside, babbling about this and that. I failed to tune in. I did however manage to think up a character for this story.

His name is Calcium Finke, a neighborhood skateboarder who earns his keep slanging green down on the low. Old Calcium also supplies everyone up Pike and Pine with e, sid, up/downs, colors, capsules, snorts and stabs that can make the smartest kiddo we know as bright as a bottomless tomb.

I was drinking my Jack on the rocks. The place felt very empty. It hurt to think about these dreams that I have been having in my sleep.

To what do I owe the pleasure of yet another chase sequence with these legs of mine run, run, reverend running for my blessed life, while being chased by an endless supply of amateur assassins?

I behead them with a sword one night. Shoot their skulls full of lead the next. The vigor these animals thrive on, the spunk they launch through all available pores, and the tenacity for tasting quick blood frightens even my own two balls.

Frequent visits to the sleepy deep cinema of my late night brain theater. The undead killer and his grudge against my beating heart lifestyle. Boom boom, my heart goes, boom. “I will put a stop to that,” the murdering bloodclot proclaims to the backdrop of a silent sky.

Ha ha has from the table next to me back at the Cha. I heard but ignored their quips. I didn’t wish to participate in any idiotic discussion about Bukowski being a better asshole than writer, or the irony of Wes Anderson doing an American Express commercial, or the length of Pete Doherty’s latest jail sentence.

Kiddos were as boring as Calcium Finke without any gear. Humans only want the flash feelings that Calcium Finke’s things can bring them. The things to make them forget how terrible they keep telling themselves that this planet is.

Calcium Finke in another life would have been born a panda bear without a tongue. Kid can’t hold a conversation with a corpse!

He is only wanted for his things.

Providers of illegal substances and women are much alike. The addict must endure the pain of bibble-dee blarl conversation from the mouth of a drug dealer or chick, before either one allows you to grab their things.

Inside this bar is woman, a chick, some blond hippie named Spangle, short for Starspangle, which she thinks sounds too hokey. Her hair drapes her neck and back with delicious locks of dirty strands.

She wore sandals that covered rusty brown stockings which climbed up and under her hemp skirt. There was a tiny scrap of black cloth covering her chest. When I stared deep into her hair I noticed one french braid.

There was some moment when it happened. I can’t remember exactly when you asshole, but it happened. It happened just after Calcium Finke walked by the front window of the Choo Chew Louse. I watched him enter. My sights locked her. Downloaded the mugshot of Spangle.

Magnets with muscles could not pry our retinas from mating. Eyes witnessed major cornea cumming. How amazing it was to climb through one another’s body cavities, excavating deeper towards the core, shredding convenient intestines in search of a vital organ to swallow.

Jack had gone. I welcomed Rainier Beer. 

There were fingers I had which quickly twisted together. Soft prints grinding each other in some counter clockwise rub off attempt. Thoughts banked off the play court walls of this mind of mine, which now seems to be mildy drifting away from this OK story. You see…

Calcium had been dealing drugs in the Capitol Hill sector of the space needle for almost five years.

Joe Bones, the land’s previous slanger of things, could scratch his claws into any stack of green his black heart desired. Old Joe Bones settled down in New Orleans before Hurrican Katrina hit then shot up here to  the seatown surprise.

“After a twin-nickel in the game,” Bones told Finke, “I’m tripping down to New Mexico. It’s time I got me a new town to strangle.” Joe Bones drove his avocado Firebird straight into the sun.

Since that stunning evacuation, Calcium Finke has delivered good things to the crying mouths of Capitol Hill for the past five, foggy years. I met with him two times. Once was in the back seat of his terrifying pink Trans-am.

“I didn’t know they made Trans-Ams this color,” I remarked while sliding around in the eggshell goose interior.

“My cousin Kiki hooked this here razzle dazzle up swell, swell, sweller than leave it to fucking beaver.”

The second time that I met Calcium Finke was when he rolled into Kincora Pub on Pine and Summit. He spat on my Dogtown Z-boys shoe as he tumbled into that heavy metal scene.

“New smoke on the screet,” Finke would whisper. He said screet like every posing hoodlum on Yo MTV Raps!

Tonight in the Cha Cha, however, I see Calcium Finke spitting a fresh language for the smokeless friends.

“White light, white light,” Calcium Finke beckoned. “Key it up in the washroom daddy-o. Keys for your knees, playboy. Key fucking Arena.”

Key Arena is a giant auditorium in downtown Seattle near the space needle, which I rode a glass elevator to the top of once. It cost me thirteen bucks. Oh well.

Huffing a key full of cocaine in the washroom of the Cha Cha Lounge sounded oh so typical enough 2006 that I simply had to just try to fit in, once, for the sake of the scene. Finke pranced towards the men’s lavatory with my finger rubbing fingers following two kicks behind.

Inside the washroom now we zoom in on Calcium Finke’s expression when he see’s up close how thick my beard is.

“That bramble patch is atrocious, yosef!”

It had been four months since I trimmed, snipped, or maintained this festering city of facial hair.

“Sock me twin bumpers,” I ordered Finke. “Slap me those big keys. The fucking grande’s, y’heard?”

He heard loud and clear. Within seconds two white powder lines were served on giant metal trays and placed under my nostrils like the first swig of wine at some fancy restaurant.

“Hot damn Finke,” I smiled. “You sure are one freaky bitch.” This was a moment of happiness.

Placing my right index finger over my right nostril, I snorted the mound of white up into my left nasal passage. The left index finger helped the right nostril have its taste by blocking the hole on the left of my now clown faced nose.

At the end of the day, I have never seen two nostrils happier.

We should all feel like nostrils more often.

So Calcium Finke and I are flying Blue Angels speed above the designated atmosphere like some Top Gun movie sped up 2,000 frames per second. Faster than the drip down a throat.

“Twin packs are $35,” Finke winks at me while sucking his teeth dry. “That’s only cause I read your shit.”

It is very hard in this day, Seattle America 2006, to not find an adoring reader of my words. Word. Calcium Finke is no acception.

He tells me how he wished he could write about when he was a young boy in Helena Montana.

There were empty nights of open skies, blinky dink stars, and kegs of beer to drink down while howling on the ground in a paralyzing stupor.

He described moments of beauty whenever his mother, Charlotte Finke would tell him, “do the best you can at whatever you do.”

Calcium Finke was in the men’s urinal of the Cha Cha Lounge pushing some slick cut cocaine on me for $35 a bag.

It was a Sunday night and the club was as dead as Dillinger walking out, empty handed, of that Biograph Theater.

Quick like a boomering she comes back, Spangle. A small silver ball rested above her upper lip. In her mouth rested a toothpick. Her smile gave this old crotch of mine a quick wap! She was OK.

At one point she engaged in a conversation with an unknown hippie couple, right in front of me, just to flaunt her vagina scent under my sniffy nose.

Whiff, whiff, whiff, I huffed when she stood directly in front of me. I dreamt of stuffing my nose up there. She didn’t make me smile as I downloaded her talk with the unknowns. Her hoodie reminded me of every girl I ever loved.

“You Auggie Joust?” she asked me.

“The one who writes them fucking barf tales?”

Sparks with Spangle.

“Who do I make the autograph out to? ” I smiled.

It was a good flirt. At times in that situation I am libel to simply lunge, tongue out and ready to lick. I started to feel it. 

Heavy pumping around on a cool island shore to the sounds of a mariachi band playing authentic Mexican songs while charging their friends 100 pesos a head to watch.

"I’m Spangle” she said while clinking my drink with hers.

“I'm Auggie Joust sweetie pie. I’ll make all your goddamn dreams come true.”

She wasn’t having any of my foolishness and called me out quick. Her hand was on my knee, which was flipping up and down like a rabbit raped by a chainsaw.

“My dreams consist of masked men with swords hacking at me. Stabbing, slicing, attempting to sever my appendages one by one,” Spangle says to me.

As I write this now, rockship sailing through an explosion of powder speed, I can’t help but think about Starspangle and how much she reminds me of the girl who creeped me out tonight.