Sex and Murder Magazine

By Tyler Knight

"Did you model for him?" asks a woman's voice.

"I'm sorry?" I ask

"Oh, I mean your shirt. It's Gianni Versace, is it not?"

"Ha ha, uh…yeah…I mean no," I say. "I'm not a model, but yeah, it's Versace. His last season I think."

"Well, it's beautiful."

She reaches out and runs the fabric of my sleeve between her fingers, tracing her well lived hand on my arm. I am aware of what an odd pair we must look like to passersby who slow to gawk at us, no doubt trying to figure out the context of our interracial and cross-generational relationship. Enough to permit such open pawing in public. I wonder the same myself and I know the answer. I shift from foot to foot until enough time passes that the touch would be uncomfortable to most, yet, within the bounds of not seeming to revile the touch of a total stranger, lest I offend her. I set my carryon bag down between us, reestablishing the unseen boundary most strangers instinctively know and respect.

"Thank you," I say. "It looked a lot better in the store I think."

"It's very sad what has happened to him. What on Earth would posses someone to do something like that? To be so obsessed with someone that you want to destroy them? I must say, I cannot understand this at all."

"Yeah."

A waist high burst of primary colors zips between us, followed straight away by a chest level squeal, "Mom said you haf-ta shaaare!" I follow the path of where 'Mom' should be. Nothing.

"Do you live in San Francisco?" she asks.

"No, but I used to. My girlfriend does, I'm flying there to surprise her. Haven't seen her in a month."

"Oh, it's very difficult living in separate cities. My husband and I tried that to no avail-him in DC, I in Manhattan. We had our troubles without the distance, mind you, but it added a tremendous strain. One day, we had to face the facts, live our lives apart, and a divorce was simply a formality of our reality."

"Yeah."

"Well, I'll bet she will be delighted to see you."

"I don't know," I say. "We have our share of problems too. I don't like how our conversation ended last night. She doesn't know I'm coming. Kind of an impulse trip."

"How is your communication?"

"Could be better I guess."

A female voice over the PA announces that first class is now boarding and to have boarding passes ready.

The lady gathers her carry on. "I owe my sanity to my girlfriends. I don't know what I would do without them."

Who do I confide in? Certainly not my business partner or the guys at the office. I take inventory of my friends. No-one.

"I'm not big on sharing my feelings. I can usually work things out for myself," I say.

"Oh don't be silly. You sound like my husband Larry, I could spank you. We all need somebody sometimes, even if it is just to listen. 'No man is an island.'"

She reaches out across the void inhabited by my invisible bulwark and takes my hand. People do their best to pretend not to stare at us. This time, I don't care. I have alienated all of my friends. I've not seen a blood relative in over five years. This is the most love I have received in equally as long, coming from a total stranger who I had not even given the respect of caring what her name was. My throat tightens.

She says, "They are boarding my section. I must bid you farewell young man."

I wrangle control of my voice, but not enough to risk more than a word just yet. "Okay."

"May I suggest flowers? They are nature's great ambassador."

I chuckle. "You're assuming the argument was my fault."

"Isn't it always the man's fault?"

*****

I wish I had the foresight to bring a jacket. It's not like I have never been to this city before, so I know better.

It's fucking July. Where is the Goddamn Sun?

No doubt I look like a fool in a bright silk shirt among the demure business suit clad denizens shoving past me along the Embarcadero center, but I am too focused to care. My mission is to find some flowers, surprise my girlfriend at work, and after that… well, I haven't thought that out. It's almost 5pm, so I don't have a lot of time. I settle on the first bouquet, with the least amount of dead flowers, I see, and make my way to BART. I'm trotting along Sacramento Street when… Motherfucker…

I see a familiar looking car parked on the side of the street.

Is that Ann's car?

I jog up to the rear of the car to see the plates. My heart thrums in my chest.

It is her car.

The hood is warm to the touch. She was just here. Ann does not work anywhere near here so I focus to think of where she could possibly be.

I recall the time when we lived together on the border of the Tenderloin District.

*****

Like every morning on my way to work in the financial district's gilded Montgomery Street, I walk through the cesspit of the Tenderloin district. Past emaciated young women battling with dealers and men dressed as women locked in carnal embraces with men dressed as men. Street peacock tyrannies strutting their wares, while business men slink about incognito buying souls and selling sorrow wholesale.

The birds don't nest here. They know what's up. Only a sucker waits for the sun to come scrub the dregs away. It never does. Instead the ubiquitous rain turns everything into shit-soup so deep I have to keep my mouth closed as I wade through.

What is waiting for me at the office is worse. Gabriel singlehandedly shatters the myth that all fat people are jolly. Whatever humanity I have left, after each predawn expedition through the Second Circle of Lust, by the time I make it to the trading pit, Gabriel is is there to snuff it out. Gabriel presides as lord of the Fourth and Eighth Circles; Avarice and Fraud. I want to be rich and I do not give a fuck about the toll for entry the trip exacts from me.

Truth be told, I hate Gabe and he hates me; I always threaten to quit and he promises to fire me, but our unholy alliance is mutually beneficial. Today, Gabe is in a black suit with a light purple dress shirt, looking like a fat, corporate Grimace.

I don't schlep stock; I tell stories and sell dreams. Nobody cares about some laser teeth-whitening company in New Brunswick, NJ. You gotta make it sexy. Paint the picture of a company sitting at stage 3 FDA trials, poised to explode onto the market. Make the client the protagonist in his own story. Not a love story. A lust story.

You gotta thread the narrative so that our hero sees himself sitting on a yacht with a drink in his hand and an umbrella in it, while two girls swap spit on his cock. I turn the company whose stock I'm slinging into a beautiful red head at the end of the bar that you never have the stones to buy a drink. Except, this time, I'm there to tell you to get off the fucking stool. Push that fucking greed button because if you don't, the kid at the firm across the street will. And you know this guy has other kids whispering all kinds of sexy shit into this his ear, so your story better be porno-fucking-graphic.

"A series seven is a license to steal," the ex-frat boy told me after I passed my exam with a 94%. "So, congrats Negro, you're now street legal." Sales managers, no matter what school they went to, they're all the same. The only difference between "frat boy" and Gabriel was that Gabe made a million fucking dollars-just this year.

Today's story is a five dollar stock with a stick in the middle. That is, for every share of stock I sell, I make a buck-before the commission markup. I move 20,000 shares, I make $20,000 in gross commissions on a mere $100,000 raised. Half goes to the firm and I toss some crumbs to my slave (read: sales assistant)-$8 ,000 net-net to me motherfuckers.

I jerk off to stocks with sexy stories with a dollar between the bid (what the firm gets the stock wholesale for) and the asking (what the consumer pays retail for) price. This, my friend, is called "chop", and it is all perfectly legal. There was a time when I could have gone to any firm I wanted to.

The big boys offered me front money to move my assets under control (clients and cash) to their firms. Some took me to fancy Beverly Hills lunches while they told me weak-ass stories-all tell, no show, and no satisfactory resolution. They preached the virtues of "character development" and "restraint." Run on sentences about the "style" that Merrill Lynch, Pierce, or Fenner & Smith would flow on my business card.

I tried their prose for a spell until I got bored and went back to that hardboiled, noir page turner. I, like the kid sitting next to me from Bear Stearns, and the kid across from me from Solomon Bros. chose the Chop Shop. I never went outside of the NASD rules or the law, but I destroyed futures and life savings all the same.

"Hey, these are legit companies I'm selling," I tell myself. "They are real businesses making real products. Anybody can look at their 10Q or 10K reports, and my clients are all accredited. Not my problem if management of these companies tends to be a B-school's D-students. I'm not an analyst, I'm a closer." Some of the stories do come true. Some end up fables.

One thing I know for sure, I am fly trapped in amber, sinking into my own allegory. I sit at their dinner tables, meet their grandkids, tour the companies they've had in their families for generations. I fly across the country to charm them, and I don't schlep just one stock. With a briefcase full of account transfer forms, I take entire accounts away from other brokers. And when shit goes bad they'll call me-all of them, relentlessly.

I still hear their voices. They won't leave me alone, no matter how many Ambien I chug.

I am sitting across the dining room table from children of the Depression. The couple slaved away to the System, beating their upbringings to become very wealthy. They have beaten the Depression but they won't beat me. I see my hand slide the ACAT form across the table.

Kill yourself.

I know that voice nagging at me and it is no friend of mine. It is the voice of my worst enemy-me.

Do it.

I attribute my volatility to not seeing the Sun for days on end. I am in denial of the albatross chained to my neck.

I have to get out of here!

If I stay, there is a special circle reserved just for me.

Coming home from a joyous day at the firm, I see Ann wearing a classic, black slip dress, and putting on her finishing touches on in the bathroom mirror. I hate when she covers her freckles. That's what I used to find most beautiful about her. I still haven't gotten used to her shearing off her hair, and damn it, I shouldn't have to. She's always done whatever the hell she pleases.

Fucking gingers.

"I just got home and you're going out again?" I ask.

"Yep. I'm not even going to bother to ask you if you want to come because I know you won't."

"I don't drink and you know I hate your whore friends. All they do is smoke, scam drinks, and swallow cock."

She finishes her lips and inspects herself in the mirror.

Christ, even the light fixtures glow dimmer in this cesspit of a city. I hate this town.

"You like Jennifer," she says.

"Yeah, because she is stable and has a boyfriend. Mario is a good guy."

Ann hikes up her dress, and sits on the toilet.

When did she stop caring about me watching her pee?

I say, "Why don't we go eat something at Pasta Pomodoro or something? I feel like gnocci."

"Nah, I feel like drinking."

Something's not right. She never turns down that place.

"Well Jen and Mario are coming out tonight. Want us to come get you when we go to the End Up?" she asks.

"I won't be up," I tell her, "Have fun."

"We're gonna be at a bar near Embarcadero Center."

Ann snatches her keys off the table and heads for the door.

I ask, "What's the bar called?"

I see Ann's mouth, her lips shape the words, "Royal Exchange."

*****

Getting through the door isn't easy. I have to turn around and walk a few yards back. For me, opening that door requires considerable motivation and tests my mettle, but, eventually, I manage.

Inside, the sadness hangs in the air so thick my lungs have to work twice as hard to filter out the desperation and woe. Royal Exchange serves up happy hour whores and cheap pussy on tap to the lethargic losers chasing them. I don't see women, I see lease options. In place of the men I see their ghosts in hock, scraping their marrow together like spare change for the down payment.

In here, everybody pays.

I ask some patrons if anyone matching Ann's description has been in today. Eyes flashing derision then disinterest exude from corporate undead who cannot be bothered to answer. Flowers in my hand grow heavy. I escape.

How can her car be outside and she's nowhere in sight?

I repeat the scene several times over in yuppie bars. Although the name of the establishment varies the morose futility inside never does. Each bar I leave with no success. My original plan of wanting to find her has changed to: I have to find her.

After yet another den of ill repute, with no resolution of the mystery, I suppress a welling in my eyes. Coming out of the last bar, I back track to Royal Exchange. Her car's gone.

Goddamn it! Where the fuck is she?

Suddenly, I'm the madman you avoid in the street, the one who jogs in one direction only to come to a dead stop, curse loudly, and backtrack the way I came. I'm the man whose story you invent in your mind as you gawk at my antics. Is my reality as fabulously twisted as the one you're imagining? What motivates madmen like me to shun social norms and behave so erratically? What is going through my crazed mind?

Who does she think she is, making me chase after her all over this city? I know, I'll camp on her fucking doorstep. She has to come home eventually, and when she does I'll be there, waiting for her. Yes, then she'll have to see me!

I hail a cab.


The cab ride in rush hour traffic is both slow. And. Painful. Coming to complete stops. For no. Apparent. Reason. We are stopping more than we're moving. I wrestle the impulse to get out and just run to Ann's place.

This whole city is insane!

Lurching forward, face through the hole in the Plexiglas divider, I peer out the windshield. I am zapping slow cars ahead of me, willing the sea of traffic to part with my mind. Ann is slipping away.

Calm down. What's the matter with me.

I force myself to lean back and use the entire seat, take deep breaths and close my eyes. I drift.

*****

Ann is giving me that look. She wants to talk to me. Alone.

I say, "Dennis, give us a minute."

"Sure thing, Slick. Holler when you're ready," Dennis says.

We watch him leave the office before we speak. He leaves the door open and there are other people milling about on the other side.

"Yeah?" I ask.

"He's an asshole," Ann says. "We should leave."

"I know, but this is really a good deal."

"I still think we should look around at other places. At least let's come back tomorrow."

I slide my hand in my pants pocket.

"Tomorrow is a new month and he's motivated to get this done so it counts for this month," I say.

"Why are you so impulsive? I hate when you get like this because you always make bad decisions. Will it kill you to slow down for once? Don't have such a hard-on to do this right now."

In my pocket, I finger the bankroll. I picture how beautiful it looks, folded over, rubber banded and dirty-green in my mind. "I've always wanted one of these. It's not impulsive at all."

"You know exactly what I mean." She takes a breath. "Look at me. You make choices that affect both of us and so far none of them have been good. This guy doesn't give a damn about you. He just wants your money."

The wad of paper in my pocket is growing heavier by the moment. "It's my fucking money. Mine. I can do whatever the fuck I want with it, so get off my back damn it."

Ann is crying. "You are by far the smartest person I have ever met and the biggest fucking idiot. How is this possible?"

Christ, I hate when she cries. I feel like an asshole when she makes a scene. I'll bet people think "Poor little white girl with the evil black boy making her cry. He must have hit her. Those people are so prone to violence." I gotta calm her the fuck down. Need to buy some time…

"Ann?"

"What?" she yells.

"Will you marry me?"

Eyes widen. She gasps, "Yes."

Now she is crying even more, only this time, it's beautiful.

Look at how happy she is right now. This is the most beautiful I've ever seen her. Like a red-headed angel. God, any man would be the luckiest bastard on Earth to spend the rest of his life with her. She's so caring and kind. So damn smart.

As usual, she is right. Why do I always have to be a big shot? What the fuck is wrong with me? Why do I keep fucking up? What the hell am I buying here anyway, a false measure of respect? Cock size? Y eah, right. I should call Dennis back in here and tell that jackass to go fuck himself, then run to the nearest engagement ring store.

Yes. I should leave with Ann right now. Take that commission money in my pocket and put it to good use, make the best choice I could ever make in my entire pathetic example of a life. For once, I will stop breaking her heart and do one thing right. Buy a ring worthy of her love. Put it on her finger. Right now.

"I love you," I say.

"I love you."

"Dennis, come in here."

Dennis enters the office with the look of resignation and defeat.

"Look, I can throw in-"

"Shut up Dennis," I say. "Don't interrupt me."

I see Ann in my peripheral vision, she is about to burst. The money wants to come out. Ann places her hand on my leg, beaming.

I say, "I'll take the Porsche."

*****

The cab has pulled away two minutes ago and I'm still standing at the base of Ann's stairs. An ambulance is wailing down Divisadero, coming toward my direction.

Am I a fuck-up? Why am I really pursuing this? Self-interest? Ego? Maybe she really is better off without me.

As the ambulance passes me by, its howls get longer.

Heh, Doppler shift. Focus. Why am I standing at her doorstep? Christ, I've hurt her. I'm such a scumbag.

The ambulance is gone. The street falls silent. I'm still standing in the same spot I was when the cab dropped me off. Carry-on at my feet. Flowers in hand.

What's the right move here?

I climb the steps. I hear the doorbell resonate from inside the house.


The kitchen is lit only by the gloom through the windows, filtering through the Marlboro Light she's sucking on.

She never smoked until she moved here.

"I saw your car at the Embarcadero," I say.

"Yeah, I was in the center. When Babs and I went into the Royal Exchange they told me you were just there looking for me, so I drove home to wait for you."

She sits across from me and puts her purse down on the table between us. Peeking out of the top of the purse, I see a Kodak 1 Hour Photo envelope.

"So, you don't seem surprised to see me," I say.

"I told you I knew you would come over."

"I mean, you don't seem surprised I flew to San Francisco."

"Nothing surprises me about you anymore." She gets up from the table go to the cupboard for a vase, then to the sink where she fills it with water. She places the vase of yellow flowers on the table. The Kodak envelope in her purse is yellow.

"Look, I'm sorry Ann. I've had a lot of time to think this past month we've been apart."

"What's going to be different the next time if we do stay together?"

"There won't be a next time," I say.

Yellow.

"You keep saying that and yet you keep hurting me," she says. "I'm tired of it. I mean, even when I'm with you, you're not really here with me. Mentally anyway. I'm very lonely…I don't know anymore."

Sunlight breaks free of the clouds and cuts a path through the grey. The kitchen comes alive and everything is awash in yellow.

"I'm here right now. I know what I want and it's you. Us."

"So what, you came all the way here just to tell me you had a vision of Jesus and you're a changed man?"

"Yes," I say.

She takes a slow pull from her cigarette, looks at my shirt and back to my eyes. Her words float on the smoke seeping from the corner of her mouth as she snickers, "Sure you are."

"I love you," I say.

Purse.

"I don't feel like doing this right now. I'm meeting the gang at One Market. You can come along if you like."

I fly all the way here to talk to her and she is blowing me off. She knows how I feel about her friends and bars. She's fucking with me but if this is a test…

Ann scoffs, "I didn't think so."

Go with her. Here is a chance to show her I can change. Don't blow it.

"Sure, let's go."

Purse.

"Suit yourself. I'm going to take a shower and change," she says.

She leaves and a few moments later I hear the shower.

What the fuck was that all about?

I get up and go to the stove to boil water for tea.

Purse.

The water comes to a boil and I pour a cup. I sit at the table looking the yellow flowers while sipping my tea.

Perhaps I should propose to her again, after we have more time to work things out of course.

My tea cup is warming my hands as I lace my fingers around it. The sun has changed to a lower position in the sky, letting the funk reclaim the kitchen table.

Purse!

I can still hear the shower running, I snatch Ann's purse off the table and dig out the yellow envelope.

I open it to snapshots of immaculately dressed, lusty young women and men in an outdoor bar, served up in duplicate. They peer out at me from behind their drinks and their cigarettes, the camera flash turning their eyes demon-red, groping at one another in an Exstacy and Stoli glazed stupor. Flipping through the pics, I see the erosion of American superiority played out by dim-witted, beautiful actors too self-absorbed to realize that we are in the third act of Western Civilization, and the show must not always go on. Every person I see has the same "chic this week" look of shameless entitlement tailored with "fuck tomorrow" that only the young and the stupid can wear. I hear the laughter, the glasses clanging, and the white noise from a few dozen of one sided monoversations.

And I am there.


Among the red-eyed demon-people whose pupils cut through the night but still can't see past the six inches in front of their stellar faces. They are speaking to me, or rather at me as I go about bumping and jostling my way through the crowd of gorgeous flesh.

A sultry voice croons, "Look at us."

The voice belongs to an angular faced black girl with short cropped hair.

Black Beauty says, "Bad shit only happens to the old, uneducated, and the poor. Never to the young and the beautiful like us." Lips slick with lust part to reveal impossibly white teeth.

"Staaaay with meeee."

She drapes a sinewy arm across my neck as I breathe deep lungfulls of her pheromones, lulling me into a semi-lucid bliss and arousal. Inebriated by her sex, I want to surrender to her. I loathe myself for this and manage to will my legs to move.

I don't get far before I feel tugging at my pants pockets from a blonde girl.

"It's our duty to be seen at all the right places, smoking and drinking and fucking each other into a frenzy," says Platinum Succubus.

Her blouse falls open; she is bursting out of it. "Look at my tits for Christ sake. I can't hide these from the world. Touch them. Come on…That's a good boy…"

I feel my fight slipping away, and then I remember Ann. I use this burst of purpose to power through the crowd. One coupling in a corner booth roots me where I stand. In this leather booth is an effeminate, light skinned black man who is slightly older than the rest of the crowd. His eyes are shut and his head is tilted back to the open sky. In the booth with him is a redheaded girl, her head bobbing up and down in his lap in hypnotic rhythm. They are doused in moon glow. He finishes. She sits back and washes down the demon cum shot with a Jim Beam chaser.

Ann!

The black man opens his laser red eyes, gets up, and walks through the crowd. I follow, but something up ahead grabs my attention. It's a cry for help.

I know that voice.

An elderly couple is encircled by a group of demon-models. The man is being held and forced to watch as the incubi slap his wife back and forth like cats would play with a grounded blue jay chick that has fallen from the nest. They are the Carters, my clients.

Mr. Carter spots me and is pleading for my help. I watch this elegant man surrender his dignity as he pleads for me to rescue his wife's soul. The demons rip Mrs. Carter's blouse exposing her saggy breasts. She's a proud woman and attempts to cover herself but there are too many of them. A demon that looks like Gabriel, drops to his knees and rests his sweaty gut on Mrs. Carter's torso as he takes his place between her legs. Sebaceous gut smegma seeps from the folds of his rolls onto the poor old lady. Mr. Carter sobs as they begin to take turns on his life partner. He's forced to watch. He howls in agony from the deepest depths of his soul, and I feel it in mine. Mr. Carter manages a hand on my arm as I walk close by. It is sickening. I move his hand away and I walk right on by, pretending not to see them.

Jesus Christ, I'm so sorry. I can't save you.

When I am out of Carter's line of sight, I sink to my knees and weep aloud. I should be the one getting sodomized yet I am another case of the evil going unpunished while the good suffer.

I do not deserve this self indulgent burst of emotion; I have not earned the right to feel sorry for myself, yet my gut twists with guilt just the same. I wish I could trade that fucking Porsche and my soul for the Carters, but to the demons, the souls of the innocent are always more savory. They'll get me in due time anyway so they are in no rush. The loathing is replaced with rage as I remember the demon and Ann. There I go, thinking about my own interests again.

I have learned nothing. I pull myself up to my feet and resume my pursuit. I enter the bathroom and find him taking a piss in a urinal. We're alone and I take the urinal next to his. I can barely force out a drizzle but he is marathon peeing and peeing and peeing. I look dead ahead, but I feel his eyes on me; except, he is not looking at my profile, he is looking down at my dick.

You've got to be fucking kidding me. A gay demon is fucking my girlfriend.

"The fuck are you looking at?" I demand.

Demon man says, "Hey, don't get testy with me, you followed me in here. I figured you want to play."

"You figured wrong."

"Then why did you follow me?"

"The red head at the table," I say. "Ann. She's mine and I'm taking her."

"Oh, that little ginger number belongs to you?"

"She likes real men, and by the looks of you-"

"Yes, it's true, I partake in the sucking of a cock from time to time if the mood strikes me so," he says. "However, I still get more prime, young girl ass than you ever will. You wish you were me, you fucking loser."

The demon is still peeing. I can't resist, I look down. That's a mistake. It's barbed, glowing, and coiled down to the floor, snaking its way back into the urinal basin. Shooting out a stream of molten lava.

Fuck…

The demon's laughter bellows and reverberates off the bathroom tile. He no longer seems metro-sexual.

"Yeah, that's right bitch," he says. "Who's the alpha male now motherfucker? I be beatin' that fine pussy up every God damned night!"

"I'm going to kill you."

"Niggah please. You can't kill this."

The demon-cock slithers up and flushes the urinal. "Ain't my fault you can't keep your bitch in check. Can you smell the sulfur when you kiss her? That's my ball sweat."

"I'm really going to enjoy hurting you," I say.

I swing at him but he's too fast. In an instant he's behind me. I have to spin around to face him.

"Hey, guess what? I fucked her ass last night," he says. "Does she let you do that? I put my cock in her booty and she be cryyyyin'. Mmmmmm-mmmm. She loves her some demon dick."

My stomach sears. I watch him strut to the sink to wash his hands.

"If you was taking care of business she wouldn't be coming to me." He cuts off the water in the sink-with his cock.


I no longer hear the shower running. Before she enters the room, I take a duplicate photo of the the older black man and Ann sitting in the booth, and fold it into my pants pocket. Ann comes into the kitchen dressed and ready to go.

"Ready?" she asks.

"Ann? How'd you feel if I moved back to San Francisco so we can work things out?"

"I'm not sure that'd be a good idea right now. Let's talk about it tonight, we're late."

With that, we head to One Market to meet up with her friends.

*****

At the door I realize I'm the fat girl who's been told all my life I'm pretty enough to model, only to find myself backstage at the Valentino show getting greased up to fit into a sample. Surprise bitch, you've been lied to. The dress is splitting under my girth and I'm next to go on. A peek around the curtain shows that the buyers and the media are impatient. Gwyneth, Angelina, and Sarah Jessica Parker are in the front row, black sunglasses on. Right as I step out on the stage, the heels of my Jimmy Chu's shatter like pretzel sticks. Spotlights snap on.

Music bursts my tympanum, photo-flashes shrink pupils to specks, the headset clad, coffee-and-meth fueled coordinator mouths words I cannot understand, and girl…You-Better-Work-It!

I open the door for Ann, and we step inside One Market. Straight away, I feel a gentle tug toward the table. The table is only a few feet from the front door where the jackals Ann calls her friends are waiting for us, but the deeper inside I venture, the more each moment seems to stretch longer than the one preceding it. I feel their eyes on me with each step.

I'm overcome with the urge to look busy and I'm already doing something by walking. If it's possible to fidget while you walk then I am the grand-fucking-master.

Glancing down at my wrist-watch, I see the second hand revolving slower and...slower until...its move...ments…are...bare...ly...per...cep...ti...ble.

I have to really concentrate just to see that it's in fact still sweeping. It's as if space/time itself is stretched with each step. I'm self aware that I'm staring at my wrist, I follow Ann who is already at the table blowing air kisses to her friends.

My body's dipped in Novocain; even though I'm making forward progress, I look down to see if my legs are still moving. An irresistible pull guides me to the table by some unseeable force. The closer I get, the more persuasive the lasso. My tongue is a towel, I see the table through a cardboard paper roll, and I could really use a glass of water. I lose a week of my life walking to the table when it's only been 15 seconds.

The first to greet me is Babs. The fact that she greets me first is very telling about her since it's no secret how we feel about each other, yet she gives me an air kiss and a rib-crushing hug.

"Hi, how are you?" Babs says, stretching out her words.

I don't return the air kiss.

"I'm well, Barbara." I also don't ask how she is doing; she's blonde, on the right side of thirty, and a swell looking bitch, so what the fuck could possibly be wrong. Besides, the only answer my ears yearn to hear would be: "Dying, with a touch of dysentery."

The others give me half-assed greetings and by the time I sit down I feel like a month of my life has slipped away. Ann and Gang resume their conversation…and…I'm fucking invisible. The waiter stops by and writes down drink orders. I'm not a drinker, but I need a crutch so I order a screwdriver. When the waiter brings it to me I death-clutch that motherfucker with both hands so tight, stress fractures go crackle-n'-pop up the sides of the glass.

Apparently I'm supposed to drink this thing but I am passing time swishing the jingling ice and watching soundless lips move around the table. Ross, Barbara's boyfriend is talking to me. Each time a phrase reaches my ear two more sentences leave his mouth.

"I hear you bought a Porsche," he says. "Darren, used to have a boat ya know, what a fucking loser. I'm thinking of getting a BMW… or maybe a Benz, ya know? This way we can both have German cars. Whaddaya think I should get? Oh I know, an Audi! VW's are ghetto…"

I nod.

"Hey cool shirt, International Male right? I'll bet that cost like fifty-bucks."

"Sure, Ross." I continue the smile-nod thing which apparently is the right thing to do because he keeps the verbal assault going. I down the piss-colored concoction in my tumbler and chase it with three more.

Nobody listens, and nobody's got anything to say.

"I'm surprised to see you here, you never come out to hang with us," Ross says.

"Uh-huh."

I glance down at my watch. The second hand is not moving. At all. When I look back up, Ross has rejoined the group conversation. I turn my attention from the floor to a ceiling window by the table. My eyes follow a dignified couple our age, walking down the sidewalk. They stop to fawn over a freshly planted sapling surrounded by a metal barrier erected to give it a fighting chance. Although their poor clothing betrays their social status, they have a look of peace across their faces that comes with knowing you've found your life partner. The dignity with which they carry themselves is comforting and familiar. A thirty-ish looking, balding, black guy skips past them. He sees the gang at the table, pumps his fist in the air in victory, and sprints to the door like he's fresh out of a Tony Robbins seminar.

Fuck me…

I'm staring at islands of ice in my glass that should be shrinking but they aren't, when he reaches the table. Greetings and the smacks of more air kisses all around. I force myself to look up.

Metro Black guy goes straight to Ann and slathers a kiss on her, and their hug is more… intimate; they're touching at the pelvis.

It's him. The guy from the pictures in the yellow envelope.

Good ol' Babs speaks to me like I'm a giggling special needs kid crossing piss streams with my equally challenged twin. I notice a gleam in her voice, like she's in on a secret and it's all she can do to let it burst free from her well-practiced, dick-sucking lips.

"This is James, Ann's… friend," she says. "Say hello to James."

The table falls silent. Barbara is so wet with glee in this moment; it's almost possible for her pussy juice to douse the lake of hate-fire flaring up in my gut. The vodka simmers in my hands creating mini-currents in my glass. Ice swirls and I am aware of the butter knife next to me.

I start to stand and I still haven't decided what I am going to do until I am face to face with him. He's in a crisp suit, hand outstretched, and shares the same "I know something you don't" smirk with Barbara. I'm now at my feet, and what I do surprises even me. I shake the hand of the man who is sticking his cock in my girlfriend.

James asks, "So you're Eric, Ann's boyfriend?"

I don't answer. I long for the crunching of your metacarpals in my grip. Instead I release his dainty hand and sit. Conversations resume and nobody, except Ross, not even Ann is speaking to me.

"Why did ya move back to LA? I used to live In LA but even the west side is so ghetto compared to…"

A thought hits me: These cocksuckers think I don't know. Everyone at the table thinks I'm clueless about Ann and James fucking.

Looking around the table, none of the other six people seem the least bit phased by this situation. Not once since James has joined us has Ann looked at me. I decide their kill order. I look at Barbara conversing with James and Ann, preening her hair and flashing her stalactite needle-teeth. She looks… victorious. Like she set this delicious moment up.

Don't worry, I'll kill you last.

Outside the window, the young couple James skipped past is not so young anymore. In fact, the only reason I know it's the same couple is because they're dressed in the same clothes, just more worn and ill-fitting. The woman is walking with a pronounced stoop and the thin haired man has a pot-belly that seems to grow, straining the buttons on his shirt as I watch him. The cute sapling they were doting over is now a tree. They continue to cross the window.

Moments on the outside of the window are speeding up. Inside where I sit watching the couple, the moment is just stuck. Ann's hands are on the table. James, next to her, is stroking her palm with his pinkie. I slam back my drink and order my fifth. Finally Ross, God bless his little heart, gets the picture that I have a scarlet "A" for asshole on my chest and avoids eye contact with me.

Don't worry, Ross. Killing you would be like a punting a gimp-legged bunny. It just ain't right.

More conversations. Words spoken. Me not hearing. I want to run out that door but if I do, I know I'll have surrendered Ann forever. Looking at James I notice I can't see his Ann-side hand which is under the table. I see torsion in Ann's face.

Enough!

The knife leaps into my hand, in a deft economy of motion I spring on the table and plunge the butter-knife into James' eye-ball with a 'squish'. I crave his death. People scream and in the moment of truth the others at the table flee out the door as One Market empties. Barbara is first outside plowing down the middle-aged couple, slamming the woman's head against the window-glass with a 'thwump'.

James and I are on the floor. I straddle him, with one knee on his chest. With the knife in his eye-socket, I begin to churn the eye-goo like I'm scrambling eggs. There is a grinding sensation of metal on bone vibrating in my hand.

James wails, "Please. Stop!"

"Shhhhhh….," I say. "Everybody talks too much in this city. Why is that?"

"I…I Don't know!"

SLAP

"Please be quiet."

I try to retract the knife from his eye socket but it's dug a purchase into his skull, I place a foot on his face for leverage and give it a yank. Jets of face-plasma arc up onto my Versace. James does his best one-eyed cry.

"I'm sorry…," he says.

SLAP

He's not even defending himself. What a pathetic fag.

I reach into his pants pockets, find a pack of his cigarettes on one side, retrieve a torch-lighter from the other, and ignite a menthol cigarette. I take a relaxing "Eric moment" while I look around the empty bar. Over the speakers Eddie Vedder is telling me about Jeremy in barely conversational tones. I ponder the pussification of the American male as the Kools soothe my throat icy-fresh.

Outside the window, the tree is shedding its orange and red leaves in the final autumn of its life; the barrier that once protected it has served its purpose and has crumbled into a pile of rust. The couple is now quite old.

The woman, pummeled to the sidewalk from the stampede is surrendering to the relentless inevitability of her final season. Her companion reaches down to lift her. It's useless. He also succumbs to the pull of the pavement next to her, sobbing.

I see the hoary man's face. It is Mr. Carter. He knows there will be no spring bloom for any of them. Him, his woman, or the tree. They do not make it. I see my watch being torn to shreds right off of my God damned wrist from the same force that guided me to my seat.

"Uuuuuuunnnnnghhh….Ouuuwwwnnngggggg."

SLAP

"I said be quiet."

Straddling James and taking deep pulls of nicotine, I'm pissed that I can't remember what I was thinking about before he cut my concentration. The menthol dangling from my lips, I unbuckle his pants…

"Hey," he says.

…unzip his zipper…

"What are you doing?" James asks.

I take a lung-full of smoke, the cigarette tip glowing orange, and lean over face to face; cupping my lips over his eye-socket, I exhale.

"Hoooowwwmmm." SNIFF "Chunnnnn-hummmm…"

As I lean back, ghostly blue smoke seeps from his face-hole. He whimpers. I reach into his pants and fish out his dick. It seems like as good a place as any to put out the Kool but I've something else in mind. I flick an ash in his eye-socket and pick up the butter knife.

I say, "I wanna see how you're packin' sport."

"Wait! Hold the fuck up!"

James' cock clutched in one hand, I set the knife down on his chest to give him another slap. I pick the knife back up, wipe the gore off on my shirt, and admire my reflection in its side. My eyes glow red.

"Hey Dog!" he yells, "It's all good, right? Let's work this shit out! Why you gonna do a brothuh like this?"

I place the shallowly serrated edge to his taint just below his scrotum. I pause here. I do not guzzle his fear, I sip it, swish it in my mouth. Its tartness bites away at the inner lining of my cheek like Listerine. It's not every day you have the opportunity to mutilate someone, so you have to savor the occasion. I am inebriated with his anguish.

Visions of Ann suckling on his cock swim in my head. The tongue I share ice cream with gliding on his balls. The same lips that tell me "I love you" wrapped around his shaft.

Vedder is fucking killing it:

Try to forget this…

TRY

try to forget this…

TRY

Try to erase this…

TRY

try to erase this…

James yells, "You're just a stupid nigger! Fuck you!"

"Says the jackass with menthols in his pocket."

I spit on the blade for lubrication.

James releases his bowels. The scent of his terror smacks me in the face, swaying me giddy. I fumble a grasp on the table leg to steady myself.

"Please!"

I begin to saw. This takes me another cigarette to complete; urethras are a bitch to cut through with a butter knife. It's exhausting work, and I have to switch hands several times. When I'm finally finished, I turn the cock over in my hand and examine the dick that Ann once sucked. I'm not impressed.

I run the serrated teeth of the knife over my tongue, nicking myself, mixing our blood. His adrenaline-laced blood gives an unexpected jolt to my nervous system. A bit of pre-cum drips from my cock, and space-time speeds up back to normal. My world tilts on axis and spins as a single tear of ecstasy materializes.

How I wish I could main-line this shit.

Just as I am about to shove the cock into his eye-hole…

"Stop!" screams a voice from behind me.

The waiter says, "That is an egregious waste of dick-steak!"

"Well, what do you recommend?" I ask.

He takes the morsel in between his thumb and fingers, pinkie extended. "Well, this is not prime cut and I see you've left the testicles in place…"

James yells, "You sick motherfucker!"

"May I sir?" asks the waiter.

"Please," I say.

SLAP

"Balls Benedict with cock-scrapple?" I ask.

The waiter frowns. "I can appreciate the poetic nature such a dish could evoke, but may I suggest you avoid the ball, sir? And it's not a generous enough portion for scrapple, I fear the meat may simply cook away."

"We can't have that now can we?"

"Most certainly not, sir."

"Fine, lop off the balls; flip it over once and…"

"May I suggest Cock Tartar?"

I consider this for a moment. "Excellent. I'll take a glass of Grenache Blanc too."

"Very good sir. I shall return," he says.

James is bleeding out. I don't want to kill him just yet, there's so much fun to still be had. I remember his torch-lighter. I give it a flick and it hisses to life. I adjust the flame to a blue beam and focus it where his genitals used to be with back and forth flicks of the wrist. James shrieks and passes out.

Thank God something shut him up. Skin bubbles away to nothingness, and I'm now into flesh. The aroma is a disturbingly sweet signature of burning pipe tobacco with crisp-yet-subtle undertones of fresh turned top-soil. There is the familiar sizzle-and-pop of morning bacon and I'm suddenly very hungry.

"And here we are sir," says the waiter. He sets the wine glass and plate down beside me.

"Your timing is exquisite. Thank you."

"Ahem…," he says.

"Oh! I'm sorry, please forgive me."

I look in James' pant pockets, no wallet.

SLAP

"Wake up, James," I say. "Where is your wallet?"

His glazed over eye regards me for a moment in such a way that it's clear he does not know where he is. I find it funny watching him realize he's not looking up at me in stereo-vision, I watch the horror of recall reclaim his face.

Fascinating.

Kurt Cobain takes the mic from Vedder crooning, "Rape me."

The waiter says, "Ahem…sir, I know we find this amusing but have we checked his coat pocket?"

I didn't realize it but I'm smiling. "Good call you snooty bastard." I pay the man and he departs. Pushing the food aside, I return my focus on James. I remove his pants entirely and roll him over to his belly. His buttocks and hips are womanly, like he never worked out a day in his life. He cries again. I unzip my pants.

"Oh God please, no!" James cries.

I take out my cock.

"If you don't quiet down, I'll feed you your own dick."

He whimpers. Outside the window, two piles of dust inter-mingled with rags are swept up into the Pacific breeze. I watch the wind take with it any hopes for my redemption. I'm now truly lost. Forever.

I close my eyes to force my mind to better days. Futile. Movies of James ass-fucking Ann flash on the screen behind my eyelids. For me, there is no escape from the imagery. I spread my arms, surrendering to the pain.

"Kill me. Please Lord, take me," James says.

Couldn't have said it better. I spit in my hand and stroke myself into an erection.

"I'm a human being!"

I let the hate run its course through my soul as Cobain eggs me on. I hear Demon-James' balls slapping against Ann's creamy butt cheeks, he's taunting me while digging in my woman's ass.

I spread his shitty cheeks…

"Why?" James wails.

…and I make James my comfort woman.

…Hate me.

Do it and do it again.

Waste me.

Rape me, my friend…

This isn't as fun as I would've thought; frankly, revenge-as-dessert is really disappointing, but it must really suck for James so I keep pumping.

Doin' it again and again.

I donkey punch him…


Our table of six has now grown to nine. Ann, like everybody else is still ignoring me. Drinks flow freely. I'm surrounded, but alone.

Barbara says, "Eric, this is Ethan, Clay and…"

Ethan and Clay's eyes glow red. Ross is in his own private rave in his mind, twirling spoons like glow-sticks above his head to music only he can hear.

"Excuse me," I say.

I make my way to the men's room, turn the sink on and let it run cold. Alone. In the mirror, my demon-face. Cupping a handful of water, I splash my face and watch the vortex of liquid spin in the basin, taking the red eye-glow with it.

I recall the saying: Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat.

Time to let go.



































































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