Month: May 2023

The Cowmen (Two)

Arno and Hosea came to a desolate town of squat adobe structures the colors of the earth and the sun and those structures mingled with freshly hewn wooden buildings that rose above them like intimidators and boasted of great possibilities. The rise of a new civilization on top of an old one was at work again in the world. The natives were being slowly crushed out by another generation from another place, and they believed they had the better of ideas and ways of living.

The town’s name was Sudan and there was a smell of animal dung and sawdust and perfumed whores in the hot afternoon air. A wide dirt track went through the center of the town, and it and its immediate environs were lined on both sides and in the corners by the various modes of commerce and service: A bank, a jail, a general store, a hotel or two, saloons, a gunsmith, a livery stable, a butcher, a doctor, and a small train station with various people leaning or sitting as they waited upon their destinies to arrive on the rails.

Horses and wagons moved like a meandering stream up and down the main thoroughfare which was mashed by hoofs and wagon wheels. As Arno and Hosea made their way along, some of the people nodded, smiled, said “hello mister.” Ladies in blooming dresses called out to them from balconies. Other folks with roughshod faces and rubber necks watched them closely and scowled with sour intent. Some even yelled out from the wooden boardwalks where they sat on barrels to warn them that they should “watch yourselves,” merely because they were drifting strangers.

“I don’t understand why some folks need to be so hateful,” Hosea said as they worked the horses to a hitching post outside the Camaro Saloon. “I’m the nicest cowman in the world.”

“Would you stop saying that!” Arno snapped as he climbed off his horse. “It’s so damn embarrassing.”

“You’re always so worried about what other people think… I don’t care what other people think,” Hosea said. “I’m going to be who I am.”

Arno rolled his eyes. “That’s probably your problem. Let’s get a drink, or 72… And try not to say too much.”

Hosea waved his hand at the air. “Nah, you go ahead. I don’t feel much like drinkin’ and hollerin’ and carrying on right now. I think I just may go walk and stretch out these long legs of mine. I think that’s what I need.”

Arno scoffed at him. “All right then. Just don’t get yourself in trouble.”

“Look who’s talking.”

Where Hosea ended up on his wandering walkabout was into a fog thick as gauze outside of the main part of the town, and there the birds were winged phantoms of dark light and the trees were backlit spindly bodies that leaned and coughed or sat away from all the others. The air all around was a mist and there was a small flow of water that went through the middle of it all on its way to a greater fall and rush further down into the valley. Somehow, Hosea had opened a curtain and stepped inside to this lost place. He felt a warmness, but he also felt uncertainty. He also felt he wasn’t alone.

He stood on the bank of the stream and gazed into the veil of the whole western world. “I’ve been doing that a lot lately… Pulling aside curtains and stepping into lost places. There’s been a lot of thought in me about the other side. The other side of this, whatever this is,” and he looked up, raised his hands in the air. “The other side of Earth, the other side of the Milky Way and beyond. I may be a cowman, but I have a very deep river of thoughts.”

“Who are you talking to?” came a voice from somewhere behind him. “Are you praying?”

Hosea whipped around and there saw a woman… A cow woman. “No one, mam. Just myself. Not God neither.” His heart picked up speed. “What are you doing here?” he asked her as if he had a right to know.

“I gather the same reason as you. To get away from folks.” She moved closer to him. Hosea noted right away that she was pretty and that made him nervous. “Are you new to Sudan?” she asked.

“No, mam. Just passing through.” Hosea lifted the hat from his head and extended his hand. “Name’s Hosea, mam. I hope I wasn’t trespassing or something.”

She smiled at his lanky awkwardness. “I’m not a mam. I’m a Sadie.”

“Sadie?”

“That’s right. Don’t you like it?”

“It’s a fine name. Just never heard of it before.”

“Now you have.” She finally took his hand and squeezed it for a moment. “It’s nice to meet you. How long are you in town for?”

“Most likely just the night.”

“Well,” she began, and she turned and pointed. “I run that little place over there. The sea-foam green house with the little corral out on the side. It’s my peacock ranch.”

“You keep peacocks?”

“I raise ‘em and I sell ‘em. The farmers and the ranchers use them to keep down the snakes and the mice… And I just think they’re so pretty.”

“They are colorful birds,” Hose said. “Very colorful.”

“Would you like to come see them? I could fix you a lemonade or a sweet tea.”

Hosea scratched at his head as he thought about it. “I suppose that wouldn’t hurt nothin’.”

TO BE CONTINUED

By
Aaron Echoes August
The Celestial Salad Bar (One)

There was a table in the corner of the room near three windows. Daylight filled the room with a glow. Two of the windows were open and the breeze was as fresh as an Albuquerque night beat. The windows looked out upon a landscape of rolling hills the color of straw. There were no trees or greenery. It looked like the Sahara out there but there was no sand. It was all lost and unknown like how Earth is in the universe.

There was a book on the table and the cover had strange symbols on it. They were not the letters known to man, but shapes of various design. The man in the red jacket sat down in the chair and looked down at the book for a moment. He opened it and inside was a glittering violet keypad of strange numeric symbols. He held his hand over it and thought about what he should press and what might the consequences be. He was suddenly hungry for a salted cucumber wedge. He turned his head and looked out the window at the faux Sahara.

Someone was in the air, and they whispered to him: “You can be whoever you want to be. You can go wherever you want to go.”

“Is this the chamber gate to Heaven?” the man asked the air.

“Press a button and find out,” the voice replied. “Find out. Find out.”

The man in the red jacket pressed the button. The next thing he knew, he was standing at a salad bar built into an old western wagon. The restaurant was quiet, dimly lit. There were only a handful of other people, now tucked away in various corners and crevices talking softly among themselves. They were all older people—older people who liked quiet restaurants with a salad bar built into an old western wagon. There was country music playing at low volume, cowboy ghost songs leaking through the ceiling.

The man in the red jacket looked down at the white plate he was holding. It shined and smelled of bleach. He looked over the selections on the salad bar and he was pleased to see it all appeared fresh and clean. Fresh and clean and even hip like an Albuquerque soap shop on Central Avenue.

A short waitress with a perky smile came near him. “Everything okay, sir?” Her ponytail whipped around like a pony’s tail.

“Yes. Why?”

“You’ve been standing there for a long time.” She laughed. “I guess the selection is a bit overwhelming, huh?”

“Sure. Overwhelming.”

“But then isn’t that life… Always so gosh darn overwhelming.”

“Where am I?” the man asked, his voice putting out an odd tone.

She looked at him as if he were overly strange. “Where are you?”

“Yes. Easy question.”

She took offense, and before walking away, said, “You’re at J-Bob’s in Raton, New Mexico.”

The man in the red jacket was Albom Riff and he sat alone at a square table eating a pile of salad in the center of a mostly empty and dimly lit J-Bob’s restaurant in Raton, New Mexico.

The short waitress with the ponytail came to the table with a refill of lemon-lime soda and the check. “You can just pay that up front when you’re done,” she said coldly. “I hope you have a nice rest of your day.”

“Wait,” Albom said. “Where exactly is Raton, New Mexico?”

The waitress held out her left palm and made a straight motion with her right pointer finger across it. “This line here is the southern border of Colorado… We’re right here, just below it on the other side and at the bottom of the pass. How’s that for GPS with a personal touch.”

“Thanks… What’s your name?”

“I never said. And get this… My nametag fell off in the bathroom earlier and went straight into the turlet. I wasn’t about to fish it out.So, I guess you could say I could tell you any name I wanted to, and you’d have to believe me.”

“Maybe. But you could be anybody you want to be,” Albom egged her on. “Don’t care what I think.”

“Well, in that case. Just call me Hollywood Helen on Wheels.” She laughed at her own cleverness.

“Okay, Hollywood Helen on Wheels… Maybe we can go grab a drink later?”

“Oh my… Someone hittin’ on their waitress. How very original.”

“I’m just saying. I never heard of Raton, New Mexico so there can’t be too much to do. I’m sure you get bored and lonely.”

“How do you know I’m not married?”

“I don’t see a ring.”

“Maybe it fell off.”

“Maybe you ain’t married.”

She let the volley end by allowing the ball of playful flirting to go out of bounds. She scribbled something on her order pad, tore off the sheet and handed it to him. “Just in case I change my mind later.”

“You might get thirsty, right?”

“Thirsty… Right.”

Albom walked down a bleak road heading south. A few cars stretched by like motorized taffy on his left on their way to where the interstate connects back up. There was a sad looking strip mall on the other side of the road. They had a Walmart, of course. There was some trash dancing in the wind. He felt stoned and wondered if J-Bob’s had slipped some high-grade legal Colorado weed in on the salad bar. The taste of pickled beets and macaroni salad lingered in his mouth. He fed himself a cigarette.

The land around Albom Riff was somewhat flat, like a floor at the bottom of a cliff. There were a few yellow humps of pinon-dotted hills, green clusters of pine, streaks of red rock, dark and dormant volcanic cones rising in the distance. Behind him the infamous Raton Pass lurched upward into Colorado and that’s where the land grew teeth, and the teeth were called mountains, and some of the teeth were capped with snow.

The city itself seemed old and bent and dusty. He came upon an antique roadside motel called the Robin Hood. It looked like a white metal complex of loneliness against the landscape. There were a few playful arrows and stripes of yellow, green, and red in the motif. There was a gravely lot. There were closed doors with numbers, curtains drawn. A handful of road-weary cars were spaced out in the parking lot.

He went into the lobby and there was an older woman standing behind the counter and she was staring into an aquarium and every three or four seconds she let out a loud chuckle. She paid him not attention until he tapped the little silver bell. She jumped. “Oh, Jesus!” she hollered. “My apologies, sir. I was in a silly little ol’ meditative state. What can I do fer ya?”

“I’d like a single room if you have one.”

“All right then,” she said. She had a whacked-out face, skin stretched, pocked, a few missing teeth, a tangle of gray hair atop her head. She tried to make small talk as she hunted and pecked on a computer keyboard. “Where ya from?”

“I just came from the salad bar at J-Bob’s.”

She stopped what she was doing and turned to look at him. “The salad bar at J-Bob’s?”

“That’s right. It was pretty good.”

“Oh… Do you have a driver’s license, hon?”

Albom retrieved it from his wallet and put it down on the counter.

She snatched it up and looked it over. “I didn’t realize you were a local.”

He snatched it back and looked it over: Albom Riff, 114 Red Cliff Drive, Raton, NM 87740. “Neither did I,” he said.

“Sir?… You still want a room?”

TO BE CONTINUED

By
Aaron Echoes August
Independent writer and photographer.
The Morbid Mind Correctional Facility (2)

Photo by Harrison Haines on Pexels.com

What’s going on in the brainwaves this nochy, eh? The world seems sticky in the stars, the vibrations radiating like stove coils of lava red, back there in a white house in Morlockowoc, Wisconsin. It’s that scary warm place, that buttery icicle place, that turmeric pinecone place way up north there. The place where the creeps howl from the blue depths of the gas clothes dryer, and black witch puppets disappear when thrown up in the sky by cousins named Greg or Sally Sue or Mark the Mallrat…

And the tussled man drives and there is no sound except ambient space music. He dials it up and lets it spin as he motors. The roadway is two lanes, double yellow line down the middle like a golden cock ribbon. Wizard of Oz people peek out from worn apple tree limbs. They throw spiders and hiss. The man is wearing a green sweater, underwear for pants, black socks pulled up to just below his knees, and brown leather sandals that smell like the birth of the Beach Men in Wyoming… Where sand has no meaning. Where rough girls throw orange roses into the fire. Where mountains with snow are lonely in their rocky yet stolid silence.

The man pulls into a scenic overlook lot at the side of the road. It’s a place of sandy, grassy dunes; wind rape; cold water chalice clinks over the grand lake; a sky above full of clouds, like war guts wrapped in gauze. He stares through the windshield for a long while before looking over at the white envelope that sits in the passenger seat. He reaches for it, sniffs it, breaks the seal. He pulls out the note and reads it: I think for Christmas I would like a new office chair. This one is really starting to kill my ass. Love, Fable.

“Fuck you, Fable,” he groans aloud. He’s gasping for a breath. “You’ll get nothing and like it.” He laughs, yawns, and then begins to cry.

Ten minutes later he gets out of the car and snatches a gas can and a yellowed rag from the trunk. He starts walking toward the shore. The wind is cold against his bare legs. He is all alone, there is no one else. Cars rip by on the hidden roadway behind from whence he came.

For some reason he has an erection. He stops and looks down at the little stick straining against his plain old white underwear. “Hello there,” the man says to it in a playful way. “It’s a little late for that now, don’t you think?” His mood quickly changes from lightheartedness to anger. “Where the hell were you when I needed you!? Now fucking Fable is fucking other fucking men!”

He wheezes and coughs. “But don’t you worry,” he says to the little prick. He holds the gas can out and shakes it slightly. “We’re about to take care of you. I’m going to put you to sleep. Forever!”

The man plopped down into a soft sofa of sand. The waves out there before him were at medium. They churned and rolled and fell, the water a dark gray with whipped cream foam on the edges. He uncapped the gas can and tipped some of the flammable liquid into the yellowed rag. He clamped the rag to his mouth and nose and inhaled deeply. This he did a few times until that feeling came on again. That feeling of rock-hard drunkenness on fuel. That heavy, disoriented feeling in his head. His nasal passages and his throat burned. He felt as if he just consumed an oil refinery in nasty ass Texas. He thought about everything and nothing at the same time.

He reclined into the comfort of the sand sofa and looked up at the sky, a slate of blue, chalk clouds in the hands of some god and he was trying to draw hearts, but they all melted and collapsed. The man huffed some more of the gas. He just didn’t care anymore. He was dead end doomed in this life, he concluded.

He was in a deep daze of drudgery when his eyes flickered, and they showed him a vision of a woman the colors of a peacock and a young girl the colors of a raven eating a banana and they were standing above him and looking down.

“Are you okay?” the girl asked. “You look nearly dead.”

The peacock-colored woman who looked like a wild chick cop bent down and touched the man’s shoulder. “Is everything all right. Do you need help?”

He was dosed well and zombified and it was hard for him to speak. He was halfway drooling.

“He’s a mess,” the girl said. She pointed to the gas can and the rag. “He’s been huffing.”

The peacock-colored woman named Magda Balls went erect and looked around. “He sure has,” she said. “We can’t just leave him here. He needs help.”

The banana girl with the raven-colored hair smiled up at her. “You’re such a good person.”

Magda Balls smiled back. “Not all the time, but this situation calls for it I suppose.”

Rosalina turned her head and whispered up to her, “He’s not wearing any pants.”

“I noticed that… He probably just doesn’t care about anything.” She bent down again and touched him once more. “We should probably get you some help.”

The man turned his head slowly and tried to focus on her. “I don’t need any help,” he slurred. “I just need to be…” And then he noticed the semi-automatic rifle slung about her. “Will you just put me out of my misery?”

Magda Balls rose once more, readied her rifle and aimed it at him.

“No!” Rosalina cried out.

The man held his face up and closed his eyes. “Do it,” he said. “Please do it.”

Magda held the rifle on him for a few moments, and in that time, she fully considered shooting him. It would be straight up cold-blooded murder, but at the same time, if he truly was a completely lost and miserable soul, it would be a kind and merciful act. She listened to her pulse as she waited out her own indecision. She turned to look at the girl and her face was struck with fear and sadness. If anything, Magda thought, she could never do it in front of the child. She lowered the rifle and swung it back into place. “Help me get him up,” she said. “He needs to come with us.”

TO BE CONTINUED

By
Aaron Echoes August
The Liquid Lust of an Ordinary Day (1)

Liquid Pablo Pablum stood in the aisle of a warm CVS store in Lucifer, Colorado and stared at a shapely bottle of Scope mouthwash. The liquid was such a mystical green color, a leprechaun on acid green. Liquid Pablo Pablum liked colorful liquids and so took the name he had without any sort of official court decree. He wasn’t one to be ruled by the rules of ordinary men he had never met. He was an independent nation. He was a rebel.

Liquid Pablo Pablum had been standing there mostly motionless, dreams and desires spinning in his head, for nearly 37 minutes when a middle-aged woman with a red vest approached him to see if he was shoplifting or just crazy. “May I help you, sir?” She looked as if life had been brutally tough on her.

Liquid Pablo Pablum turned his head slowly and looked at the human roughage. Her nametag read Rose. She didn’t look like a Rose, he thought. She looked more like a tattered chrysanthemum. “I’m just trying to decide on some mouthwash. What would you recommend?”

Rose scrunched her soft-as-a-Colorado-cloud face. She had mauve goose lips, the top one nearly touching the tip of her nose. Liquid Pablo Pablum wanted to pick her up and throw her into the sky to see if she could fly. Her hair was the color of a lazy orangutan drinking hot cocoa from a Christmas mug, and the hair jingled soundlessly as natural ringlets bounced against the tops of her shoulders.

She fitted reading glasses over her dragon-green eyes and looked over the massive selection of mouthwash that was neatly arranged on the shelves, plastic soldiers of oral sanitizer, cake hole cleaner. “I suppose it depends on your personal needs,” Rose said. “Are you looking for something that simply freshens the breath… Or are you interested in dental hygiene? You know, the never-ending battle against tartar and plaque and gingivitis.”

Liquid Pablo Pablum put his pointer finger to his chin and went “Hmmm… What I really want is something for kissing. I want to cram my tongue into a woman’s mouth without the fear of being gross.”

Rose took a step back, cleared her throat, touched her hair. “Oh,” she stammered. “Then perhaps what you need is Close-Up.” She reached down and grabbed a plastic bottle of liquid lava mouthwash and showed it to him. “Look right there on the label. There’s a picture of a couple about to kiss.”

Liquid Pablo Pablum quickly snatched it out of her hand. He greedily looked it over. “Damn. That looks hot. Perfect to me.” He suddenly tore off the protective plastic around the cap, opened the bottle and took a big swig.

“But, sir,” Rose began. “You can’t do that in the store. You must pay for it first.”

Liquid Pablo Pablum paid her no attention as he swished. He then spit the liquid out onto the floor and leaned into Rose the CVS clerk’s face and kissed her right on the mouth. Once their lips parted, Liquid Pablo Pablum gleamed and said, “Well, what do you think? Does it work as well as they portray it does?”

Rose nearly lost her balance. She had to straighten the glasses on her face. She looked at him intently for a moment, and then she rushed off toward the back of the store. There may have been crying.

Liquid Pablo Pablum sat in his car listening to alternative rock music from the late 90s. It was currently something by the band LIVE. Something about dolphins crying. He watched the doorway of the CVS store for signs of Rose. He had already been there for two hours. “Shit,” he said aloud. “Does this lady ever get a break?”

Then it dawned on him that being an employee, she might park her car at the back of the store and therefore could exit the building from its rear. He started his engine and crawled the car around to the back of the CVS. Lo and behold, there was Rose standing outside near the loading dock smoking a cigarette and slurping on a can of soda pop. Her eyes widened when she saw him. Liquid Pablo Pablum rolled down the driver-side window. “Hey there,” he called out to her. “What time do you get off?”

Rose exhaled. She was afraid to approach the car, but she did it anyway. “Is there something else I can help you with, sir?”

Liquid Pablo Pablum smiled his best smile. “I wanted to know what time you get off work.”

“Why?” She turned her head to the side, exhaled her last puff and tossed the cigarette.

“I thought you might want to do some more kissing. I really enjoyed it. Did you enjoy it?”

“I think maybe you should just go home,” Rose suggested. “I don’t want to have to call the police.”

“Police? Jesus, Rose. I just want to make out with you.”

“I don’t even know you. And what we did inside… That was just wrong. I could get fired.”

Liquid Pablo Pablum reached over into the passenger seat and lifted the bottle of Close-Up mouthwash and showed it to her. “I’ve got plenty. We can share it.”

“Oh please, sir. This is becoming absurd.” Rose started to walk away.

“Wait. Don’t you want to swish some of this delicious cinnamon-flavored mouthwash after your cigarette?”

Rose stopped and turned to look back at him. He wasn’t bad, she thought. He was maybe about 20 years younger, dark hair, a warm Latino sheen, soft eyes the color of newly born mud after a warm rain in the desert. Her heart skipped a beat and her insides felt like golden-yellow butter melted by a microwave. She approached the car and held out her arm. Liquid Pablo Pablum placed the bottle in her hand. She uncapped it, took a shot, and swished furiously. She spit the red liquid onto the ground. She looked at him, waiting for a prompt.

“Come here,” he said softly. She moved closer. He reached out his hand to touch the side of her face. “Give me some sugar,” he said. She pressed her face to his and their lips tangled for several seconds. There was an audible smack when they pulled away from each other.

He grinned.

She smiled. She blushed. She fidgeted. “I should really get back to work,” Rose said.

“Okay,” Liquid Pablo Pablum said. “Do you want to get together later? Maybe share some more mouthwash?”

Rose smiled. She couldn’t help it. “How? Where?”

“I’ll pick you up when you’re done with your shift. We’ll go have some fun.”

“I’m off at 6,” she said.

“I’ll be here at 5:59 then,” Liquid Pablo Pablum said with a charming smile. He backed the car away from her and drove off.

TO BE CONTINUED

By
Aaron Echoes August