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Self absorbed dopefiend, asshole author of a lost box of fading inchoate drivel. Here's a steaming sample of my forthcoming novel b l k . excerpted from chpt's 0 and 1:--Caught under the patchwork paper blanket I dropped simultaneous to wrenching the valve and plunging in to the elbow attacking like a ravenous chomping-John poop-jaws, Eye tore with frantic jabbing lashes, poked out through a wet tear, gaping but stuck under, too cumbersome to surface at last. Descending shroud, seized spinning and twist wrapped by plummeting g-force that did not spare me whirling witness to the ancestorless birth of Petri abominates, naives so artificially fresh I detected the fine dusting whisper of angels hair along indefinable genital-less ridges. The gigantic turd I snapped off to free the drain tumbled dislodged, blindsided and capsized the nightmare chimera-scope, but spared me none of the rest of the Now Playing atrocity Evolution concluding. Eye don’t see the surrounding Space for the distraction of the internet dashboard, solitary but connected to everywhere Eye am cruise-control, coming behind One headlight. Eye am shape cut out of black, adrift without comparable dimension. Eye am tiny and Eye alone fill the gulf of empty nethers. Eye am luminous mote inside ever-rolling Abyss. Eye Am, amidst formlessness, the vehicle come for you, moving ever away from this garden left behind into Night. All aboard, dearly beloved, every One. Slipping down the spillway into rusty channel, that miserable Eye did thatch Its tentacles to resist the current and did find me for one last slitted bore before swept tunneling pried loose and whisked away. Gone without so much as a farewell wink, just a sort of no hard feelings wide-open/shut peek into another descent: Wormwood dashing over daylight to blot out the sun, oh Lord of spite, shade racing down my heavenward turned leather snout dulling the glisten around tea cup nostrils whet riffling the tender aroma of gashed Allosaurus, tracked along bleeding trail and pinned, tossing weakly against the promise of death by consumption splitting back scale gum inlays. Grinning to demonstrate talons for teeth. My plated jaw dropped not to divert panic gushing heart blood into my two ton gullet but instead that I might join in the Jurassic cry insufficient to stay the falling sky-- --lizard choir united in terriblest song, disaster wail raised to unanimous earth shaking crescendo; driven to kneel in that black collision of instant and things past. Screaming Tyrannosaur goodbyes as One of the chorus in that forgotten roar call to now: deafened, primordial Shriek drowned by His timber shivering incoming atomic whine. So did we bow. One as All pulverized into dreck sludge; quiet spatters caught raining by meteor fire to scorch the sky. AAAAHHH!!! AUM and Amen. Closing thoughts from Buck Sunshine:Well, that’s everything, straight from the, a-hem, goodsome Lord. Hence my incapacity to sell off the "holy" wagon to any you flesh fanatic capitalist vassals a drippity drop even more of pseudo-salvation and otherwise mumbo jumbo comfort concoctions distilled into drizzle flick potions and snake oil after-life elixir. I offer no ludicrous mantra to go with whatever bogus blessing I would be sugaring with were I still promoting the Way, the Truth and the Life. I concede the gospel without slick prayer anecdote or assurances of penitent reprieve for a dollar more. Furthermore, I’m fresh and forever out of Good News and empty promises to negotiate for anyone an ego passport into King’s court if the price is right. I just can’t anymore. He’s too obscene. Praising's been knocked out of me. Flush that shit. Word to the wise guy. Away from me ever hence damned God!Transmission complete.1 “Kaleb…Kaaay-leb…Hey fucker!” Alerted, hazel-gold eyes blinked wide and clear over bruised bags he smudged into flesh tone with fingers that cracked from hours spent curled over a malfunctioning electric typewriter keyboard, Kaleb rolled the last page of the penultimate installment to Last Testament, the Book of Sunshine, out of the Brothers carriage and clipped it to the rest of the piece. He would liked to have a few minutes to luxuriate in the afterglow of having just come within a chapter of finishing his magnum opus, a quiet celebration of dragging the crushed Chivas box out of the closet, spreading all the strange shorts credited to his iconoclast alter ego persona, Buck Sunshine, just-retired Ecclesiastes, out on the bed and envisioning, to fill the empty center of the years piled into handwritten and typed prose, at last, filling the only space left with the crowning b.s. axiom—the crucifixion deconstructed. He had the rest now, and that one missing piece, he knew, would mean redemption--to her, to everyone, even his closest friends, who believed his life’s work to be part of a never concluding dope induced pipe dream. The megalomaniacal Reverend Sunshine had been part of him since shortly after the alcoholic trauma of turning 11. The camcorder live action "Happy Hour" host advancing the progression into evangelical digression he exhibited symptoms of at age four, clad in cartoon briefs, preaching the 23rd psalm he didn’t have to consult the flapping prop bible he waved overhead Swaggart style to quote from memory for the audience of his grandparents. 22 years of privative pretensions poised now at the razors edge of launching him into a silver future. Payday or lynching, whatever was coming, he was glad for it. Waking up to peace of mind, rubbing Massa’s nose in shit and running off with a few slaves who might not break for it without him was worth all. It was Heaven. Never closer. Childhood flashed behind his eyes, memories of weird hallucinations or nightmares, disturbing faces floating above his bed in the dark, warded off with whispered scripture recitations remembered, if not apprehensible, from much repetition. Perception advancing in an instant through adolescence and grief, embracing darkness, solicitous of whatever bleak miasma entities that lurked therein. Blinking up along the checkered concourse of personal history to now, this very moment; dreams so close to embodiment he could almost feel Last Testament’s wraparound leather bound texture between rubbing fingertips, almost see the 1st uncashed royalty check tacked over the bed. He could have used some decompression time, to kindle vision; this close to desire and concept becoming manifest reality, visualization was as important as finishing. Which would be a fuck of a lot easier if he didn’t have to piece together confetti, the eminent consequence of not acknowledging her another second, he knew by her regrettable sigh. “Kaleb. Look at me, not the goddamn wall. Are you deaf? Finally lost your stupid fucking mind there, ya fuckin genius?” Respect. Irregardless of it here she was, with him again…live and in Technicolor between the door and the bed. Shut up ya cum burping slut, twisted into a wry smile. Turning up his tired face to gauge her expression Kaleb absently reached beside the typewriter and flipped uncharted facedown to conceal the Christmas card cutout taped to the coversheet: hallmark be-haloed Jesus resurrecting lumber-limber Lazarus to demonstrate for dubious Tom captioned sagacity. All things are possible with God… She was a tad critical of his "work" in her best humor; three days awake, for the first night in over a month left to cater to herself--officially unannounced past the pampering stage of reconciliation--wasn’t precursory good timing to take a new stab at plying her over to head his fan club. The insult of his capacity to concentrate on anything not her alone was enough to put the just lately absent aura of menace back into their tenuously reformed star crossing. Actual scrutiny of the project he’d rather be ogling than loin flogging would garner pronouncements far crustier than genius. Words had a way of fast escalation into deed around here. Around them. A thousand pictures, worth a thousand blows, covered the tight lipped walls throughout the violently aerated cabin. They’d seen their share of often traumatic action, these wood panel ruins, and weren’t apprehensive, just groaning, tracking the flickery shadow blur of emphatic slight-of-backhand she dealt across the retreat of Kaleb’s hairline he heard, then felt. Smack! “Ow, b--” The waterbed rippled, the shockwave sunk in by his too-slow instinctive cringe rolling out and reverberating splashily back against him. Not so long ago, the rubber bladder would be smoothing out the depth-charge butt impression of recoil already, relieved of the oppression transferred onto her. The walls of course. The dresser. The floor. Twice (in the same calamitous week) gone straight out the east window into the yard on top of each other before the good idea of using cardboard for permanent panes. Kaleb reflected on the jagged slash of dotted self-sewn scar tissue above the string and cat claw choker taut around her neck while her own morose gaze drifted from the three knuckle stamp atop his oil shiny pate over bunched sheets; eyeliner traced lips pouty soft and slack, shaping a little "o" that wasn’t about anything so much as an expression of awkwardness. What next? As their first post reconciliation dispute, the encounter lacked mutually understood protocol for initiating these contentious engagements; each in silence took a moment to review their long history of embattled wills, staring, looking away, almost uncomfortable with the intensity of their familiarity. Tiny crow’s feet scrunched the corners of her remarkably serene eyes while she “hmmm”-ed aloud, considering the possibility of a bloodless lovers spat with Kaleb. It was unprecedented, meant adjusting. The first time she slapped him, in the heat of throwing each others things onto the front lawn, he’d struck her a fat lip. Done reminiscing, her recourse was decided as soon as she saw him blow up like a toad drawing breath to, no doubt, dispense some wordily disguised slight. Putting her weight into it, she tossed a knot of cinnamon bangs, calm scrutiny rolling into turbulent squint and stepped into him, on him, bare foot cold-stamped atop bare foot, thighs sliding inside his knees, brusquely patty kicking his ankle and furthering his legs apart to accomodadate the spread of her low gravity stance. Strategic posturing; she could bob-and-spring launch herself through his chest and knee sock his jaw into the rippling mattress, knock on pine underneath, if it came to that. Her terse nod and bouncy practice flex confirmed for him she was ready for as much. She smiled slightly to compensate for the wise ass sneer wiped off by his speed discolored tongue rasping across the dehydrated white cracks matting his lips. Raw and stinging after the tastebuds sanding, he looked like a chapped and flaking parody of an adrift ship wreck survivor exaggerating the symptoms of a beer commercial. Her smile became more genuine knowing the melted to over-full glass of tea he’d forgotten all night while he sat here behind closed door mumbling to himself and clacking keys in intermittent discordant flurries was out of reach behind her now. She shifted with him; let him drink it with his eyes for a second before bunny pointing at his, her own face. She synched Thirsty, too bad, depriving him so much less than he was in for. She wasn’t a particularly big woman, at five-four buck thirty-nine, give or take a cheesecake, her pudge was adorably worn. The voluptuous contours of her heart shaped face would, in fact, suffer were she to trim up—no one was ever better punimed to merit the affinity "Punkin". Not that she would allow the lavish; not after hearing it from every guy she ever met up to and including this unexplainably addictive dud. She was a full head shorter and a jockey or two lighter than Kaleb. She was also six years younger and in premium dirty dancer shape, felt to herself like a cat, reflexes sumptuous and provacative; even when she moved erratically, screaming and brandishing some weapon of convenience, she projected coordinated eroticism. Neither the prettiest or plainest femme on two feet, she was just one of those people who can’t help emitting raw sexuality. She was someone who couldn’t go unnoticed, anywhere. People instilled of her unspecific allure went early whenever calls to cleanse the community of witchery by fiery purification became official inquisition. Really, there was no other solution to her kind, no breaking away for your own good from succubus. A night ago he watched her leg sweep in two one of the avocado saplings down by the dock that had grown all spring and summer into fall bolstered by generous feedings from the oceanic kelp mulch and exotic dung-sap five gallon bucket concoctions he mixed to feed the bushily pruned shrubs hid growing under the shade of enormous elephant ears--green flaps nodding atop totem stalks that towered above sunflower and milk weed. Brazen flora markers of the "secret" garden spots scattered around the eleven acres Kaleb inherited a week to the day before turning eighteen. Likewise transplanted out of clime, seven feet tall, girth of an aspiring street lamp, the pit started "guacamole spruce" (she still thought that's what she had killed) had looked as preternaturally vibrant as it surely was. She'd cracked it like a brittle twig between thigh and calf using it for a fire pole, dancing for him to Name--spellbinding and just less weird and warped decadent a selection for finger scissoring labia apart like rumpled curtains over spigeting clit while her tits waxed on, waxed off, than her unnervingly erotic live set closing number of Lou Reed's quivery version of Magic Moment. The Goo’s strummed and lamented loud as live conducted along the assortment of honeysuckle overgrown multi-colored wires and extension cords leading into the cabin through cut apart patio screen, plugged into multi-taps in four living room locations to juice three decades accumulation of home and car stereo speakers, a 100 watt guitar amp, a bunch of randomly lit, ununiformly adjusted equalizers and power boosters, bathing Kaleb in red/green blips, sprawled lewdly across a deck lounge, spittle greasing the top of his flagpole--the whole scene redolent of "A Very Sanford XXXMAS". Acoustic melodramatics and begrudgingly admitted lyrical epiphany (no one so clever as to decide on "goo goo" as a band name should be able to compose a list of groceries, much less gospel music) waved through the hairs raised on his arms by the bone-green snap, her predatory "whoopsy" grin ‘n shrug recovery after a lithe second teetering for balance, staring over shoulder and sprinkling sand off curled toes to illustrate she was fine. Limp inspiring display that blazing tikki torch grind; his neck would sound green too, he’d thought, shrinking out of hand. Back in the moment, Kaleb reconfigured his expression, trying on recalcitrant and dimly aware, dazed, confused. Twice-slapped, as it were. He affected the baby talking tone he used during snuggle ups and nighty night sweet nothing promise exchanges. For asking and saying "sorry". “Ow, babies.” He wasn’t up for a fight, knew he didn’t have the heart for woman beating anymore. When she left him, as a birthday present, she'd kicked his ass all over north-east Oklahoma, put him down once and for all, sent him into nine months of broken confidence and unlocked previously unsuspected potential to weather emotional damage. He remembered still being able to taste the steak she’d burnt him when he found her: blouse overhead, bra inside-out, nipples stiff--the detail that devestated him most, those hard-swelled copper booby tips--swallowing that kid’s tongue. Passion plus. No one else had gotten to him, in the 29 years previous to her unforewarned manifestation only unrequited crush ache and vampiristic fiendships winding down to their inevitable resents tested his parameters to love. He didn’t believe in it, certainly not as some twit-some spiritual pursuit to "completion" and by no stretch of the altered imagination did seeking out a lifetime of compromises seem worth the loot of legal binding to the obeyence of some half-balanced fuzzy donought kid shitter, nagging after more ‘til the, if he got lucky, reprieve of an early grave. Perhaps he was unchivalrous, lacking in troubadour zeal. Maybe Broken Oak was just full of whores, or petty sluts an affinity he pitched onto himself. Could be, he should have gone to college, found himself one of those convivial Bang Bus bimbettes with a two hundred word vocabulary and an endowment of some sort: trust fund, student loans, parents, fuck anything. It would be nice to have nice things, Kaleb speculated, glancing at the typewriter, personalized by magic marker heavy metal graffiti circa 1986. He couldn’t even remember listening to King Diamond except for the man’s horrid screeching, much less who Melissa was for Lou Satan’s sake, nor why it had been imperative to emblazon the titles on a southbound crucifix stenciled through the prominent W.A.S.P. logo aside the later Monster Magnet and Marilyn Manson witticisms It's a satanic drug thing...you wouldn't understand and You cannot sedate all the things you hate on the tan carriage shell. A frigging computer to go with a new millennium might have been just the appliance for a writer to make available, indeed. And what about a goddamn desk… Plggh. She brushed his hand off her wrist, distastefully shaking her head "no", presuming she’d denied him the clasp of hands. Just taking her pulse, though, acorn heart drumming away, blood boiling…that she looked so relaxed was disconcerting and fresh, another unexpected maturity evolving along their timeline. No more heat of the moment for either of them, it seemed. Sweet love, these precious moments to savor. Love, as he'd once so innocently interpreted, was just the condition of being, the sensation of life itself. It also came wrapped in cellophane: drugs, music, art. To her credit, she was able to dispel that persistent naivety right up for him in a few short years. Tore his guts like an internal claw and fang parasite colony planted in his heart set to burst into feeding frenzy in her wake: soul eating virus—that was love as he understood it now. Bad dope, like Mexican tar and kerosene crack, gangsta babble, mass media; disease, dementia, a galvanizing licentiousness so sordidly delicious dignity and a sense of purpose were inconsequential victims for gory and public slaughter on Aphrodite’s altar to stay achieved of the sickness. He told her so in many of the hundreds of letters he drafted and left on motel doors, on stage at the ‘Cusp, money wrapped, laid at her feet, mailed, just handed over in person, by the bundle, whenever she happened to show up to really ratchet up the pain in particularly cruel moods, the frequency of which had kept him in a perpetual state of ache. And it wasn’t that she didn’t love him, love just wasn’t so vaunted it wasn’t readily curable by generic substitution to her, not since she was too young to articulately remember even—plenty of women understood love same as she. There was plenty to go around and so-buttons if spreading it thin degraded "essence"—compassion, empathy, sanctity…the impurities filtered out over time. Her love was, like most things corrupted by exploitation, mostly a control mechanism, ungentle, psychotic and predatory after a couple layers deep; uneffectable by the impossible tenderness of fondest moments shared with the one comfortable fit she found after trying on so many. She was distressingly honest and lucid on the subject, enlightened even, if ignorant and dumb as a stump on just about anything else he cared a snit about. Throughout those long months of breakup "Tabitha the Mean" (far too cutesy a connotation, but the aphorism that came to him early on and stuck) conducted class, schooling him coldly, teaching deprivation. He learned of his bottomless propensity for humility. And through it all he never doubted that she was the embodiment of underlying truth, the flesh and blood merger into desire greater than any he could conceive of his own experience, than he could ever hope to fill without her. She was need inside him; she was every pang he never would have known he’d never felt devoid her. And she knew it, told him so even before he knew it was true, before he could even hear her. Her sole eloquence presided in constantly reminding him she never lied about the ubiquitous exception of her love for him, that she lavished thanklessly on him and him alone, for the only time ever finding who she wanted, gave herself over too with absolute loyalty. Rewarded by discovering he was the only man she’d ever met who would beat her up sans alcohol, over nothing, fucking nothing. Decrepit notebooks meant more than her. Dope meant more. Sticking his goddamn nose in some nut ball’s latest ‘n greatest worst-seller—even that was more important. Toilet reading ranked a grade above the dirty ass slut he used for penile tonsil daubing and as an oral crotch vacuum whenever he wanted, every goddamn day. What he didn’t appreciate then now was, she had him…sickest, he even tended to agree with her, he was a misogynistic bastard. Got what he deserved. Was reaping still. Sitting here looking stupid as accused, afraid she might hurt him…really, hurt him. Help him explore the nuances and subtleties of commingled, finally indistinguishable love/suffering, expanding her curriculum of woe to emotional and physical culmination: rip out his soul and welt him with the tired ass thing. Fighting her was simply no longer a viable factor in the algebra of commitment, without misconceptions of self-esteem and inner sufficiency there was nothing too critical to defend anyway. To maintain any sense of direction he needed her, just like that. Just like the rest of his love interests: drugs, songs, truth. She was the sloppy, most interactive of the lot, was all. Too real not to be. The paradox being, on a strictly intellectual and therefore personal, intensely intimate, and even conversational level he, despite himself, and all he’d "learned" once left and broken, considered her less than himself, found her adherence to all things popular loathsome. She was like most people in that regard…most people didn’t, however, enslave his psyche, or formally exist, for that matter, so far as he was concerned. Odd inferiority complex then, his dependency on her made little more than Stockholm syndrome sense, except he couldn’t consciously tolerate, much less cleave to, bondage of any stripe…the scar chafe of two year old ligature encircling his wrists caught his attention, faded bracelet reminders of his dabbling in external masochism. She hadn’t even abused him and he’d splintered the headboard, cut himself with cloth insaning free-- Honestly, he mused, trading glares, she was just another ever posing ho-bag with 10% of a brain, a big tittied constituent of the daytime talk cabal—an insatiable little princess wannabe hyper libido cock dumpster dripping her poison enthusiasm out a rancid-cream filled center. She espoused everything that was wrong with the mindless, instant orgasm or bust anti-cerebral Evilocrisy wasteland he had to endure and duck radar to avoid grimmest processing by. Because the times, they ain’t ever a changing. She was a corn fed idiot like the entire corn fed idiot population that kept him cornered, champion of every hare witted opinion given to her and Of Course she accepted Jesus Christ as her personal savior, and fuck no she couldn’t share the story of Jesus as endeared to her or otherwise interpreted. That was holy mystery, unknowable; what was he trying say? She didn’t know Jesus who she said she loved in plainest English and who loved the world so He gave His gotten sum to belief in Life? Would he say she wasn’t included in His parish in everlasting Light? Don’t ever talk about my Lord, ya dumb motherfucker— Kaleb swallowed to open the pinprick of his gummed shut windpipe. Fuck he was thirsty, drained, dry. He licked the hand he swiped across his mouth, got a hair stuck on the roof of his mouth; even a bead of sweat would suffice. The sun had risen again, he noted routinely, glimpsing dust fairies tumbling along the thin vertical morning beam seeped around the taped border of the DVD player boxes (fragile machines, those Apex’s) tastefully folded flat, sprayed black, and fitted into the window frame. She stepped forward, split in half by the scrim of the new day, backlit by candles burning on the dresser, pattering wax onto the ever-accumulating mounds raised up like motley pyramids from the dull wood floor. Her shins made ominous contact with the bed frame, sent him wriggling back on sunken elbows, plowing into their wreaking smells in the bedding under him, furthering his disadvantage by elevating his hips under wadded comforter. God no, it felt like she was about to step in and fuck him into the smelly pile. Plaintively tucking in his chin, Kaleb barely enunciated. “Don’t wanna fight you, Tab. I didn’t do anything. You said it was okay.” “Look at me.” “Tab, my babies--” “Don’t talk like that. You’re not a fucking baby. Fuck, you’re an old man. Grow up. I said look at me. Last chance, dude.” Instead of pointing out that 33 and 27 amounted to the same demographic dude, Kaleb squinted and cinched his lips into a bloodless little mustache and goatee hedged petal, meeting her intensity and sending back a telepathic stream of "fuck you’s" heedless of best intents and know betters. He couldn’t help it, confrontation was his nature. He tried to black her eyes staring. Bitch. Tabitha puffed up her face, blew a steamed breath like Popeye, like she heard him thinking, the overdone gust teasing finger tangled dreds she must have spent hours crazy knitting into floppy patch-work spikes heavy over the chocolate eyes that bore into him, obscured, peeking out full of secrets. It was a discomfiting effect, she looked wild. A high cheek-boned, 4 tribe 4/5th's blood warpath injun, smeared with glitter and purple-red magenta glosses, blinking silver left lid, rose right, kohl stripe between running to the tip of her nose, ending in an exclamatory dot. She must have been hell on "spackle my mug" Barbi’s, he estimated, choking on a growled up guffaw that made his eyes water. Looking sad and benign, he leaned into the short space between them, unconsciously whiffing a couple inches away from the undone top fly buttons of the cut-ups she was wearing, staring into the bronze whorl of her inie. He considered jingling the hoop and smiley ball navel ring dangling from the hole she literally hammer and ice picked denting the kitchen butcher block bar top to shock him once upon a time; decided by her dismissive throat clearing grunt and the flat-palm stiff-arm she put to his forehead to stay hands off for just another second still. Standing there stroking her chin like some humanitarian tolerant of a quasi-moron wretch, she projected, what was that word…warning, yeah that, volatility too, like a heat shimmer coming off her, just the opposite of good vibrations, 180 degrees bad mambajamba. She couldn’t have set him back any further from ease if she announced she’d killed someone and thought it was about time she told him more about it, unzipping herself along the thin blade of morning shine, stepping out of her skin, blossoming into teeth. Mostly teeth. Behold this love of mine all mine, a peeled away ray of sunshine from unveiling Hell’a lacerating embrace. Tact. That was his word of wisdom to himself, tact. T-a-c-t. Tact. And listen. Listen was good too. Real good. What would be death right ‘bout now. “How come you ate all the adderall? Two of those were mine.” Tact. “Tab, I’m dreadfully sorry, but I needed them to write. You were outside, nekked-stomping down the trees, gone mad on that spunky Anvil Laverne. Boi! You seemed preoccupied. Deranged and in an unapproachable frenzy even. Otherwise I would have asked. You just didn’t really look like you needed a boost out there titty sparring my little tropical forest. I love you mucho. I'm solly.” She didn’t laugh until he quit smiling. Still didn’t. Tabitha prided herself on rarely ever letting him beguile her with his absurd jabber, was dedicated as ever to assuring him nothing he might say was funny…not ha-ha so anyway. Dumb fucker. Boi, she mimed, arms and fingers crossed back at him, muttering, he’d have sworn, “punk ass” under her breath. The ragged nail sketching her jaw line froze, grin averted, and floated blackly into a dim sphere of candlelight, finger-pistol aimed at the blank-side up latest b.s. "prophecy". Playing air piano, layered polishes blended darkly blurred, she flitted toward the dresser, leaned slightly to follow her keying fingers and beat him pouncing upright to snatch the only piece of him she hadn’t crumpled and ripped apart just yet. Everything else he’d ever written wore the tears, tape and staples, of her disdain. Everything. She moved swiftly out of reach, retreated away from the bed with the bane sum of his existence splayed loosely overhead, paperclip spinning off to ping off the 4x4 wall mirror. The twisted, morally pained grimace that replaced smug the instant she got a look at the title page and scanned his introductory quotes would have been bad-doll yuck face hilarious if not so authentic. She was sickened. The semi hard-on peeking out the slit of Kaleb's boxers withered retreating; somehow he was even able to manage feeling surprised, reflected wide in his eyes. Their profiles, visible in the unframed square mounted diagonally over the east/west end of the bed as if it were falling off the walls and ceiling showed them in their natural state, not tied into the transcendental screwing knots the glass was poised to reflect, but as estranged, overstuffed children trying on disenchanted, fluidly shifting expressions like snapshot masks. Kaleb fluctuating from chastised to furious to impotent so impressively fast it was impossible to guess which demoralization began the loop. Tabitha, recovered from the nasty shock of blasphemy, rolling her shoulders, chest swelled by the surety of intimidation well dealt. She was about to burst her bleach-blotted bikini cups, sinister glistening triumph sparkling evenly across the (if you had to call it something) smile she put on to celebrate. Prize flapping and fanning she stopped just far enough out of his reach to spill him off balance when he sprained forward pinching into thin air. She "c’mered" with a crooked finger, the first joint rendered bent toward thumb by the infamous "door slam" incident—it was her guilt wagging trump, Like when you broke my fucking finger in the door, Kaleb? guaranteed his culpability no matter the melay, no matter that the door saved him from the hedge cutters she'd chased him from outside with snipping at his heels and that the blades only caught the knob and jammed because of her stabbing momentum. She'd batted herself into play…ah, fuck it, too many details amid too many good times to count. Tabitha taunted shaking the sheaf dog-eared, met his sublimely anticipated lunge with her other hand; neat jujitsu to sweep him overboard by the back of the neck. Overextended and distraught, he was easy to flip and went pin-wheeling over the high naughahyde padded rails, rapping down head first pretty as she'd pictured. The whole cabin seemed to resonate the unexpectedly loud report, and as his hips slithered down to join the rest Kaleb thought he heard a wet sloughing tear from somewhere deep inside his abdomen, saw exploding blue and white stars across his eyelids. Tabitha’s sniggering at so casually handling him was brief, stunned short by the reverberating crack of skull meets hardwood. She loitered over her uncharacteristically unworthy adversary holding her heart and nudged him gently underfoot, fray fringed legs spread around a view that went through the doorway down the hall into the living room. Coming around to a big toe bobbling his lips, Kaleb could hear Hitz100, civil war veteran Cyndi Lauper, yorbaling on the pop station she listened to on her little Aiwa almost as constantly as he rotated through the endless cds and cassettes that used most of "his" space on the shelves throughout "his" house. “You okay, Kaleb? I was just playing. Here.” Squatting, the smell of lake water vital on her skin, tinged by the more enticing odor of her sex radiating out the half-open shorts that hovered barely over his nose; she passed the last Last Testament into his weakly lifted hand without further review, springed up with thumbs holstered in belt loops. “I didn’t want anymore anyway. I was just pissed, dude, you know I need attention. I need food too, I’m starved. Hear it, my belly’s grumbling…if I don’t eat, you don’t fuck buck-o, not for a looong time. Got it, knot-head? Aww.” She bent and gave him a light peck on the bald spot, a quick scritch behind the ear. Ignoring the spreading ache under her lips, squelching the retort I can go at least 17 years without pussy, if that's the contest buck-ette Kaleb pointedly tucked his loose penis and pushed himself up to the edge of the bed. The pages across his lap rustled quietly, whispering relief slipping back into the retrieved paperclip; he waited until her semi-sincere smile straightened out before coughing into his hand and lighting a cigarette. “I get paid tonight. I’ll pay that kid for the adderall and when I get off go to Mall Market and buy a bunch of groceries and a couple other things…” He tapered off, not liking the way she was looking at him even though he’d left out making copies of uncharted to distribute; not liking it so much, in fact, all the pleasant heat returning to his groin cooled into goose flesh that sprinted up his spine and shriveled scrotum. She racked him at a chilly glance, the old big dice in a wee nubby cinch-sack glare, replete with imposing chin tapping tilt into slow nod of dramatic disbelief. Do go on, please, tell me more...I insit. That nod. The wind-up scowl for spit in the face. Hmmm. “And, uh-hum, ka-ka, and after I do all that, I’ll call Rage or Soul to pick me up. They got back last night. I’ll hook up a bunch of shit for us and see if I can change your mind, ka-ka, need a cough drop, is the air conditioner on, about that long time. We’ll cook out, bake quarter-pounder brownies, do up a fat fifty--” The slap was fast but open palm and intentionless compared to five minutes ago, he didn't really even feel the already fading print across his cheek, and was sure the ringing in his ears had been going on since she helped him pull off the high dive from three and a half feet. “Ignorant motherfucker. You’re fucking retarded, man. You're evil, dude. Sit in here all night with your head in your ass writing your little bullshit sick crap, like you’re Jesus or something and tell me I can wait. Don’t open that mouth. Shut it. That’s right bitch, you interrupt me and I’ll punch you down your throat. You sit there. And you look at me and you listen.” Finally, Kaleb nodded, “Awright, I’m looking, I’m listening.” The next slap was again uninspired, and it occurred to him that this entire intercourse was their version of cozy, like morning coffee and the paper. Tabitha flinched just noticeably, but it was noticeable, at the sudden contentment and clarity jabbing out at her, into her, through his level stare. With his back arched straight he was almost as tall as her standing; the blue cord of smoke he exhaled would have hosed her eyes if she had failed to dip her head, unaware it looked like bowing. Peeping out from under the distressed swirls and clumps of mane that swished down passed her shoulders, dusting the light freckles above her breasts, Tabitha paused ominously, soliciting nothing. Kaleb hissed smoke, obviously about to bite off his tongue. She remembered now what she’d originally seen in him, he was so confident about living his life with no regard for consequences, and so adept at wishing himself into constant leisure (it was crazy, but that is how she knew he operated—that life wasn’t all in his head wasn’t a point to contend with him either, unless you wanted to hear about all that all damn day), that it had taken a good spin and tift to reorient to how he thought, what offended him. Things like interrupting plans as they unfolded in his mind. It drove her crazy, being with an asshole who never questioned himself and treated anyone who did as if they had a disability. Who, of sound mind, would spend three years out here in the sticks with this chubby speed freak of a "fiancé" who barely earned money and would, unimpeded, spend every waking moment listening to ear ringing music, scribbling gibberish into notebooks so he could spend all night beating the dinging shit out of a 20 year old typewriter tattooed with 20 years of the crazy eyeballs and crucifixion and moon symbols he marked everything with? As he drew permanent marker glyph-mosaics on her ass yesterday, she relaxed around him for the first time in a long time, knew she was truly back for more laid across his lap talking uninterrupted about growing up with her dozen-odd siblings while he tickled sketching, his thoughts taking him to wherever the fuck he hid in that concrete noggin. She felt like a goddamn wrangler half the time, burdened with parenting him as much as being lovers, her task to keep him tethered to reality and aware of everyday concerns and needs. How to live period. And for her troubles at civilizing him the idiot fought her tooth and nail every step of the way. She’d never met anyone like him, who couldn’t be swayed first by kisses then by fists into just doing the right things. Into apparentcy. She’d always known and been with druggies and booze hounds, losers, not one prior so toxin addled they didn’t not understand they were fuck ups because of chasing the wrong kind of high. Not Kaleb. He decried values everyone else observed in order to build comfortable lives immoral, gutless, and false. He was especially offended by people knowing God in the right way and treating themselves to the rewards of having actually earned the things they have. "Dollar harvesters" wasted their lives serving "Massa", sold their souls like greedy whores...then had the audacity to swear adherence to the spiritual teachings of the Christ, who had been explicit and irrefutable in His declarations. Among which, and ignored rigorously as all the rest of His instruction, was the perogative to serve either God or mammon. No gray area. No room for compromise. A choice to be made, period. Anything else was hypocrisy...furthermore, there was no such thing as justification in acts of charity and giving to the "poor". If God was served in the first place the phenomena of poverty wouldn't occur. The poor were made, and not out of complicity with God. Christianity was therefore a hoax, and all it's purported "virtues"' instead perpetuated deviltry. Tabitha spent 31 months tolerating that kind of shit, never got a word in otherwise. It had taken leaving him for a teenager 17 years old and having an affair with him to shut him up and get his attention. And still it took months of being her sidekick to get through to Kaleb the point of pander. For someone so "authoritative" on the subject of the will of God he was an exceptionally slow learner when it was his face getting stuck in shit. She would have come back sooner if he weren't so inept, if it hadn’t taken so long to prove to him that torment fucks didn’t mean she couldn’t get over him; that they were just reminders of what could have been were he a man. Still then, it took most of this year, every tactic she knew or invented employed repeatedly, and she was finally driven to calling her "kid" right in front of El Stupido, saying things Kaleb thought no one but him would ever hear, to open his goddamn eyes and shock him sorry. And for all that, after all those fucking letters and sobbing promises to do better, here she was, strung out and along all over again. Left waiting in the wings for the great "writer" to find time for her. Had it even been a month yet? There was no real changing him; he was terminally stable, forever stuck in his own tiny orbit--and he'd rather die than compromise even the minutia of planet Kaleb, she knew. The potential--there was an air about him, a regal decadence that bordered on intimidating; it was in his eyes, a scary, thrilling depth that had to be, she currently suspected, the drugs he was never not on irradiating his spirit, not wild brilliance, shining through--that she'd intuited in him so very long ago was proven false. His uncommon capacity for objectivity and decisive insight she'd once percieved and craved to cultivate to fruition and mutual fulfillment was nothing but the glib by-product of his externalizing delusions. He'd come on seeming alot, alot smarter than he was. At this point, right here, right now, she couldn't help but wonder if maybe he wasn't actually the dumbest person she'd ever met. Quite an ammendment to first impressions. By any means, he was not the way to a better life. He was rotten to the core and expected ingratiation for it. Trying to justify coming back to herself by grasping at straws that kept getting shorter in his favor, Tabitha grabbed her hips and snarled. “Rrrr,” bona fide snarling. “Listen to me you stupid asshole. I am hungry, I want to eat. You are supposed to care about that, if you don’t then tell me now so I can get out of here before I fall too hard for this bullshit you call a life again. You hear me big boy? I hope you’ve had your fun with me, because it’s about to be a memory again. And you better be ready to get your goddamn ass kicked too, because I will fuck you up before I go this time, ya inconveniencing motherfucker. So, babies, we going to have breakfast or am I gonna roll? Huh?” Punching her palm, tongue thrusting cheek, Tabitha nodded affirmativly making a face, the expressive equivilent of "duh". After all, that’s why she was here wasn’t it, to antagonize, in it for the abuse, all the opportunity he provided to that end. Because at the core of her she lived stuck with an affliction no better than his fantasy-land literatti. She liked constant testing, thrived on taming. Did that make her a bitch? Oh, well. The reason she wasn’t, couldn’t be, bored of and done away with Kaleb (he was the first guy she ever came back to, she’d fucked around with a few, done some ego demolition building up hope in the past, but had never actually returned to reexamine a discard ‘til now) was, she realized in a glimmer of dawning wisdom, that his will couldn’t be broken. It was absolutely fascinating. Quite a challenge to denigrate someone who never left home unless they were court ordered or practically horse whipped into doing so into pathetic pathos to meet her satisfaction for how much splatter should result from falling from her graces. She knew he needed her, fuck, they all needed her, just hadn’t figured out why she needed him since all he ever did was go out of his way to make her feel 2nd. What was wrong with his fucking heart? What difference did it make? Tabitha threw up her arms at those questions wondered in this place where consequences didn’t exist…realizing those little enigmas were key to Kaleb’s allure was enough for now. Raised, her fist unfurled so she could clap, an excited, single shot. At least this lunacy was starting to make sense. There was only the "moment" and "me" for either of them when you got down to it, she suspected. Thinking she was about to seizure into a punching, flapping, clapping fit, Kaleb butted his Winston and stretched getting up. “I feed you, okay babies, I going.” In the garage, seated on a disused foam bleeding weight bench, Kaleb weaved a small treble hook and red latex worm onto line unspooled from the fly reel grabbed between his knees. He was just now getting mad about her calling him "bitch", about being her bitch, hopping to as if he hadn’t been in the middle of the most relevant unwinding of his life when she came barging in ready with her, he’d bet, make-up mirror rehearsed hustle. They ate monday, there was no way she could be all that fucking hungry— So deep in angry contemplation and breathless muttering he didn’t notice her shadow moving over him or hear her padding down the steps connecting the kitchen, started with a jerk that poked his thumb when her hand brushed his cheek, placing a Philly-wrapped stick of musky, imported seed homegrown in the middle of his sneer. “You mad?” “Yeah.” Massaging the prick he inhaled sharply, taking in her wet stare (that she had been crying he couldn’t figure, only that it cured his mood). He blew a pair of clouds out his nose and softened his speech. “You’re fucking mean, Tab. I love you, ya know, it’s not supposed to go like this again.” “Sorry for hitting you. I won’t anymore. I’m just frustrated. I need to get some decent clothes, get a job. Stage or the mall, something. I miss people Kaleb. I really am hungry too. Dude, it’s friday. We haven’t eaten in a week. I promise, I’ll go to bed after breakfast. You too. We need rest before we start again if you’re getting dope tonight. If those creepos even have any.” “You know they do. They’re not creepos. Any of those stand up citizens you know ever volunteer to cover your habit? They’re the only real friends either of us has--" “Okay, o-kay, shut up ya testy fucker before you wish you had. I'm letting you win. One for Kaleb. Free drugs, yea for Kaleb. But they’re your friends. Don’t bring those scary freaks out here around me. I mean it. They’re bad, Kaleb. That’s it. No more said, 'kay?” “I know, yeah-yeah, no friends--” Tabitha stopped him by grabbing under-chin, smooshing his cheeks, shaping his lips for a kiss. She exhaled smoke into his lungs and shut him up with her tongue while he was still ahead. Standing back, wiping drool off her mouth, she ruffled his sprig of hair and smiled tiredly, resigned to her fate. “Ssshh. Please? Just go get food. And clean that shit away from the house, I’ll get sick if I see it. Wash it out there too. And rush it babies, skillet’ll be waiting.” “I’ll need this,” Kaleb plucked away the blunt and chomped down, grinning at her with green flecks stuck between his teeth. He arched an eyebrow, surveying around the garage at lady-bug spotted fronds piled drying into avalanches in every dirt floor corner. “I suspect that slope is made of marijuana, and that one and over there, behind you...smells like the national pot depository out here, don't it? I think maybe even we're standing on some. You seem taller. You can probably getcha enough in a handful of 'ittle piggies there to roll you a new one. Fresh is better.” Tabitha laughed, he had his moments, and leaned into him, gripped him, spent a few seconds making firm her case for his expedient return. Almost too firm. She took a fast step back and slapped her hand go of it. Bad hand. He didn't deserve garage sex. What he deserved he'd get over the course of the long day ahead. Sleep? Not fucking likely. Not once he was full, tired, and facing six hours of her nap time over a hot grill tonight. Not with her wisdom teeth coming in again and the alternating requirements of an ice pack and hot towel and asprin and cups of water that would have to be adjusted to tepid from too hot, too cold every two minutes. By noon, he'd be on to rotating through an assortment of pillows to keep her ass comfy during the tooth ache curative "miracle-head" he'd be giving until he was late for work. Thinking ahead, Tabitha slanted her smile and bit it, hard, to divert a giggling fit. Roundly licking her lips she reached into his fly and administered a final hurry up incentive ball-cuffing/cock-shake. She let her mouth sag open. That's right bitch, she thought, tasting him on her fingers while her eyes glazed over. She didn't realize that she'd drifted out of body until it breathed and she was back in. She continued to experience the sensations accompanying the split second disorientation for a surreal minute that shuttered her eyes and made her oblivious to Kaleb snapping fingers around her head and asking Hellllo, anybody home. She forgot herself completly, was something more akin to light and air. To THC. Swaying, she remembered the euphoric tickle of spring breezes combing through punky blue cannibas whiskers. Enchantment only became Tabitha's awareness, infused throughout her bloodstream and settled into the eroding cells of her brain. It was a vivid sequence of psychidellia that cleasned the palate of her perceptions and restored her to that most elusive awareness of a universally embodied peace that she was both part of and exalted by. It was not a revelation or enlightenment, as the condition was not new to her experience--but it was rare and it's effects temporary, and because it was impossible to summon or maintain she knew that later she'd remember the moment but none of the emotional qualities that made it real. Savoring the narcotic certainty that she was part of the perfection encompassing Everything while it lasted, Tabitha hugged herself and "mmm"-ed. The residual foreboding she’d come out here with was dashed away like the dissolving grains of a bad dream as yet another episode of bodiless conciousness swept her up and away. Free falling, she came down shining at the tip of a sunbeam. Passing softly through clouds, she led a stemless bolt of sustaining kisses that descended from Light to incite indigo blossoms into plump sticky buds. All of it, inside her now. And she saw that it was good. Smiling as if it had been Botoxed to her face, Tabitha opened her eyes nappily and tugged Kaleb's hands. “Duuude, I am high.” He slipped go and shook his head morosly, tapped the dot on the tip of her nose pointing. "Honesty isn't an excuse. Toking felony grass is no happy matter and must be dealt with accordingly. You know that plants forbidden. You done gone and fucked up my garden. Hope it was worth your freedom. I'm calling the police. I can't trust you and I don't feel safe. You're scaring me. I'm sorry you couldn't love me enough to let me love you too. You made your bed, now fry in it. Enjoy prison villan. Goodbye babies." "Kaleb, noooo--" "Shit. Babies, I sorry. It's okay, I forgot you were high. Hell, and you just told me too. I'll be a silly son-of-a-bitch. I was kidding. Only playing doncha know. I love my babies, horticulture scars and all." "Man, don't...fuck up...just go. Shut up...God, I hate you." "Hate you too, babies. Kisses?" "One. Only a little one. On the cheek. Because you're a butthole and buttholes only get one little kiss. Ow, ow, not there babies, my wisdom teeth..."Still clad in boxers and the washed too-small Charles Manson Is it hot in here...or am I crazy t-shirt Tabitha kept lobbying to throw away, whistling the Andy Griffith theme, Kaleb trekked into the long-shaded tree line going west along a tire-rut leading away from Sun Down Lake. Pole-swishing to clear waist high weeds crowding the trail, he watched the dock out of sight. Dipping downhill into grasshopper country, looking back for Tabitha, he lost the cabin to nettle caps and rattling walnut branches, dodged squirrel bombs the circumference of que-balls; the nut dropping rodents leaping ahead tree to tree 30 feet up, malevelontly keeping him under crosshairs. Malific tree rats. Stoned, he skidded onto the clay alley that bisected Rd 2600, his road, that once upon a past served as the service access and delivery backway into Perkins Farms. Surely he must be exhausted to already be here, he thought, sitting down for a breath he realized he didn't need, was just sitting in the middle of the packed drive frying his brain, harrassed under a barrage of mauve and amber leaves shaked down hissing. "Goddamnit, leave me alone!" ...for more, get in touch.