And love is but a trickle in this RAMSHAMBLED river of love, the armies of men keep marching upon the bones of memories under the grass, shot out of cannons, cloud seed ashes billowing and giving the puff of life when all falls down the stairs and justice can’t see straight, and idiot babies cower behind a crooked as geometry ding-a-ling ding dong and thump him like God in holy water AMMUNITION heaven. The maskless taskers take to yet another task of utter disbelief, these idiot genes, the cyclic generational stupidity tumbling from trucks and bleeding out through muddied star-spangled blue jeans. They meet this apricot alien of the universe on Sunday and then go back to the mob fight on Monday. The holy fuckin’ mob fight where busted teeth and busted guts and busted emotion is all part of the prize that comes at the end of the day when you finally turn your key in the lock of your favorite back door and breathe a sigh of relief that you’ve made it back to your own yellow hole in this world and can maybe shut out the mad libs and broken ribs for one night and always hoping that with the new sun comes a new hope and a better way.
But how could that ever be? We will be trapped in the dying limelight of our own skin from here on out. Until we die and they come pounding down the door for collection of all the debt you have so graciously piled and left behind. And all those broken souls are still lined up on Broken Boulevard reaping the harvest of a world they alone did not sew. They are reaping the bastions of all holy rape and looking to the ivory spires fucking the stratosphere out there on the smoky horizon, the tin shack dotted yellow hills on the horizon, the aches and pains leaking out the top lip of the stovepipe like mangled signs of white peace from the great Natives of yesterday, bent to it, the wind, the rain, the screams, the love gone astray, a 40 cent diamond ring resting in the breast pocket of your favorite leather jacket, waiting for no one, a love undone by selfishness, adultery, poverty, thanks again, she said with a gun tucked between her tits and a sliver of spit hanging from her heart, dangling across to mine, like a clothesline, in some great green backyard of some snowed-in metroplex pad of the East, where she sits and smokes tea as my alabaster soul floats off to brickyard Heaven, that place beyond the cabbage white ridge of hot dirt, that place of the pale lip red sandstone mechanical jaws like Jawas in the desert. I recalled all those days today in driving green, the look back at the looking down upon that lonely desolation, the memories gnawing my guts, the infinite ghost LEDs dangling like lightbulb jewels in a flawless blue sky, a sad Springsteen song breathing of eternity upon the dashboard.
Author’s Note: I’m 57,000 words into this, my “novel” based on my experiences of living and working in a small town in New Mexico many years ago. I thought I would add a few excerpts to the site here and there… A satirical commentary on the evil men and women do to each other. Rude, raunchy, and raw, The Angelfish of Giza explores a ring of mostly empty human relationships set against the backdrop of a small, isolated city in the New Mexico desert at the turn of the 21st century.
The Beginning
At the crossroads of the metal moon and spilled-milk stars and beneath the exit to the Earth and its sun, a thumb rolls across a spark wheel and Wilburn Valentine’s labored face glows orange for just a moment.
In the low-lit and hazy Sundowner Bar on the outskirts of a swallowed and lost Western place called Giza, New Mexico, he looks up at a softly buzzing neon yellow sign nested among the amber and clear bottles and it reads: Live Long and Suffer.
“Don’t I know it,” he breathes aloud to the ghosts, crushing the smoke in a green plastic ashtray, trying to quit.
The door to the bar opened and the dark universe streamed in carrying with it more ghosts — loud, laughing, exhausting. He snapped the last shot back and stood. The feet of the barstool scraped across the floor and mixed with the sounds of achy country music and pool balls smacking into each other off in a corner. He threw money down on the bar and gently smiled at the lonely woman behind it as he slung a backpack over his shoulder. “Thanks for the dull memories,” he said to her.
He stepped outside and the ceiling of the world was the color of a candle-lit bruise pinpricked by broken glass and contrasted by a paler desert floor. The distant hills were sharp and rocky, the colors of chocolate and red grape juice. A highway separated the wavering roadhouse bar from a much bigger plot of land that now glowed under the night sky, competing with the larger glow of Giza itself to the south. He walked across the momentarily quiet road.
Where he was standing, he had not been a minute before. Now he was in a 3-acre glossy blacktop parking lot that had clean, straight white lines indicating the parking spaces. He could smell the freshness of the oil and the paint. It was night, but tall lamps sprayed cones of pinkish-white light down all around him. There were just a handful of cars, five at most. The store was called Pharm Farm, according to the blaring sign, and it emitted a glow like an alien mothership and its tentacles of light reached out and nearly blinded him. A slightly curled grand opening banner fluttered off in the shadows. There was a slight wind. He nervously searched his backpack for his phone. He flipped it open. It was something past midnight. There was one text message: I love you so so much. Where did you go? He flipped it shut and powered it down, tried to catch his breath. The sound of trucks on a nearby bypass dreamily stroked and rolled in the distance. He rubbed at the Christmas watch on his wrist with his thumb to clear the grime. He tapped at it. Saint Nicholas was screaming atop his sleigh as he flew through a blizzard but he was still keeping time. He loved that watch.
There was an artificial, plastic bench in front of the Pharm Farm and he set his pack down. There were two bright soda machines and a nearly empty Giza Revealer newspaper vending box. He dug for change and bought a retro Elf brand grape soda in a can and the most recent edition of the paper. He sat down, opened the soda, and scanned the front page of the newspaper, the self-proclaimed Voice of the Giza Valley. The top headline read: Gas Industry Battles Planet Earth. “What the fuck?” Wilburn Valentine said aloud to no one. He flipped through the paper to see if it was in fact a real newspaper. He guessed it was after all, folded it up and stuck it in his pack. He sat and looked around as he dug in his head for answers to the questions he always had. What is this place? How did he get here? What had he done this time? Why?
He tilted the soda can and drained the last of it and it forced him to look up at the crystalline stars screaming silently across the light-polluted sky and his entire being suddenly steamed with anxiety. He fumbled in his pockets again and found the orange bottle of pills, uncapped it, popped two in his mouth, and swallowed. The bottle was empty now. He sighed with worry.
Anxiety had always gotten the best of him. Anxiety led to fear which led to hiding which ultimately led to failure. He wanted a different past, a different life altogether. He was searching for a place void of anxiety, empty of chaos and free of fear — but did it exist? And even if it did, would it matter anymore? He wondered if he should just give up after all. Most of his life was over, so he thought. There was no more work to be offered to him. No one wanted an ancient architect full of unorthodox dreams and a touch of mental abnormality. Was there even need for new structures anymore? He turned to look at the shimmering new Pharm Farm store. Obviously, there was, but it was hideous and stained with greed. There was no humanity in its design. Let the young ones take care of it now, he thought. They had far more energy and gumption yet sadly were raised in a dumbed-down world and the products of their imaginations will be so less than what the ancient others built. He looked up into the stars again. Amen to that, he thought, even though God was not his friend. Someone rolled past him with a rattling shopping cart.
Zombie in sweatpants jogging in the ghetto arms stuck out lean and mean cold soles slapping the greasy street and my little girl thought she had just escaped from the cylinder, the bilingual, the catastrophic farm of listless stones the graveyard a cold and misty day cold and teary and smelling of sludge who was to judge the importance of the non-potable headache swimming in my tender sockets man, I am a rambling’ like some loose-geared jalopy on the old road, but I found a letter to the dead full of things left untold
I and my two cases of flesh and blood we stormed the dam doodled in the cool, green waters of some lake that is really a pond, but in an area where water is practically non-existent even a pinprick of piss is considered a lake, but we clambered the slick geometrical stone the water skimming off the surface flushed through the portals and we shook on our balances feeling the fluttery wings in our bellies as we did ballet on the precipice of the sun in our eyes clutching hands skipping stones hopping logs and life was a memory of ice cream dripping down sticky baby faces and now they were being brave and curious and interested in the lives of the dead
We climbed a hill shagged it rotten like cotton candy between the legs of an angel and at the top of the hill we found a flat, gravely place I wanted to name the place Ashley because it looked burnt and turned over and all that remained was the ashes of destruction and great piles of tumbled trees and mountains of unraveled gravel and off behind us was a fence a chain-link fence topped with rusting barbed wire and beyond the fence acres of dead — it was a cemetery and the fence encircling it was cluttered with the debris of loved ones’ tokens, tokens of love tokens of regret plastic and paper flowers rolling in the wind candied tumbleweeds smashed against the wire and in this lot called Ashley I found a letter in a plastic bag and the words were intact and all a hush fell about my brood as I began to read to them this letter to the dead
It was a mom speaking to a daughter and from the letter I gathered the daughter’s life had come to an end in a most tragic way suicide it seemed perhaps gunfire or violence extreme and in the letter the mother was very weepy very weepy and full of regrets regrets, weeping and wondering why why? why? why? dear daughter why did you have to die so, I felt kind of bad that this piece of weepy sad writing was like litter in an open field and my youngest slice of flesh and blood my youngest elixir of greed and breed wanted to comb the graveyard to find the stone of the girl in the letter but there was only a first name — SHARON and how could I find one Sharon in a field of thousands of dead and so, I simply put the letter still encased in its plastic over the edge of the fence believing the wind would carry it back, back to the place it belongs and we felt better for that and we carried on with our journey watching the jogging zombie sweat through her velour and the world smelled dirty and the sky was gray and Sharon was free and so were we
This is all a divine anatomical tragedy I thought as I leaned on the cold wet rail of green looking out at the sea, the chilled air billowing forth from my mouth, the oddities of life spilling from an aluminum pail at my side
The black rain poured down I hunkered beneath a canopy of rubber and went to the smoky joint on 7th and Riverside to hear Quinn the Brown play jazz in the bar by the bay
The mannequins gestured lightly smooth wax skin reflected orbital rainbows and motions of sickness, caramel paint with light red oozed down the walls, into the light, into the fear framed within my own eyes
It was getting late, but I didn’t care I was here to bleed and wonder why, I shifted my position stick dangling from my burdened lip and moved to play her as she leaned on a dirty brick colonnade sipping a drink thinking about getting stuck by a stranger on the wrong side of town
Quinn the Brown was picking up the tempo the deadline was near the flies and I were laughing under the smoky plaster sky and some cheetah rubbed her knuckles in anticipation of a naked night savagely calculated from the room where her heart ticks and all is red wine and white roses and blood tracks across the back
It was a muted journey home through rain curtains and bees the sidewalks were wet, the cafes were dripping, children were riding magic carpets over sooty smokestacks and terror-filled voices were belching angst from the rooftops
I turned the key she came on home to the drone of electric lights and cinnamon spells cast by kitchen witches I poured her a drink, she fell on the floor and I walked out onto a sidewalk mirror of parting clouds
I fell down some dirty stairs my vision all nonsense now, like gravity in a spaceship and into a den of brightly lit thieves listening to the howls of the night stalker They invited me in for tea, a smoke, a cabbage white rail there was a damaged angel there all burnt and crisp staring at the ceiling from a point on the wall where she was tacked black and sparkling, eyes gaping wide, a crystal cathedral dead and gone
It was a night of walking gone bad, a wrong turn on the messy runway and someone else paid the price for being born, for living once, breathing once but now no more
Once at the modest brick and vinyl Midwest bungalow, Max Pine took a seat in an uncomfortable chair near an unlit fireplace. The mantel above was littered with framed photos of Christine as Chris, images of another time that Max scanned with wild sick eyes. An old clock quietly ticked away in the middle.
Mr. LaBrush was fixing drinks at a small wet bar on the other side of the room. Max could hear ice being dropped into a glass.
“You drink whiskey, Max? Or does your kind prefer a wine spritzer?”
“My kind, sir?”
“Well, you’re porking my son so technically that makes you queer, right?”
“I don’t think you know me well enough to make such a brash and insensitive statement, Mr. LaBrush. And what makes you so certain that Christine and I have had any sexual relations? I mean, we haven’t known each other that long. I’m not a pig… And I’ll have a whiskey.”
Mr. LaBrush dropped another round of ice and poured whiskey in a glass. He walked across the room and roughly handed it to Max.
“I wasn’t born yesterday, Max. I spent over 30 years in the military, and I know a thing or two about human behavior. I’m not accepting of any of this at all. It’s wrong. It’s ungodly. I’m not going to cave in and be nice about it either.”
Mr. LaBrush took a deep gulp of his drink, picked up one of the photos on the mantel and studied it with disappointment in his aching eyes. “Just look at what my son used to be. When I think of all he could have become, all he could have accomplished. He’s destroyed his life and soul. It hurts my heart. It truly does.”
“But Christine is still your…”
“I demand you refer to my son as Chris in my house!”
Max sighed with frustration. “Chris is still your child regardless of what he or she accomplishes or doesn’t accomplish in life. If I could be so blunt, sir, you talk as if she has absolutely no value anymore. It’s untrue and sad.”
Mr. LaBrush chuckled as he took another gulp of his drink. “Wow. You certainly are bold. Maybe you could lend some of your balls to my son.” He came closer to Max and hovered over him in a threatening manner almost. “But let me just make one thing nice and sparkling clear, Max. Once you leave this house tonight, I don’t ever want to see you again. I don’t want you back in my home and I definitely do not want you screwing my son. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll just walk away. Walk away, Max.”
Max gulped down his drink, held up the empty glass to Mr. LaBrush and smiled. “May I have another?” he asked.
Mr. LaBrush snatched the glass away, set it on a nearby table and disappeared into the dining room.
The dining room hummed with an uncomfortable quiet as they gathered at the table to eat Swedish meatballs.
“Max,” Mr. LaBrush began. “It’s customary in our household for the guest to lead us in prayer before we eat our meal.”
“Actually, I’m not religious,” Max let it be known to those gathered. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about praying.”
Mr. LaBrush shook his head in disbelief and dismay.
“What do you mean you’re not religious? Everyone is religious. Don’t you believe in God or his little friend, Jesus?”
“No sir, I don’t.”
Mr. LaBrush slapped the tabletop with a meaty hand and the dishes jangled. “Well god damn it! I never thought I’d have a real live pagan sitting here at my supper table. I’m really at a loss here, people. Seems everything is going to hell in a hand basket. The problem is, you young people have no standards or religious morals anymore. You young people just think you can go off and do anything you want. If it feels good, you just go and do it no matter the consequences to your body, mind or soul.”
Mr. LaBrush glared at Christine. “Take my son, for example. He didn’t want to be a man anymore because it didn’t feel right to him… So, what does he do? He decides to turn himself into a girl. Well, I call all that bullshit! Now look at him — he’s got manufactured body parts. He’s defiled God’s own work. It makes me sick.”
Christine started to whimper within the cloud of his berating. She dabbed at her tears with a napkin.
“Herbert!” Mrs. LaBrush screamed. “You stop that right now or I swear I will leave you! This is our child! No matter what, this is our child!”
Mr. LaBrush snorted.
“You’re going to leave me? Hah! That’s a laugh. You wouldn’t survive one day out in that crazy world without me you silly bitch! Those pagans and hippie liberal assholes would eat you up like a bowl of dog food.”
Max started to get up from the table. “I think we should leave, Christine. I feel very unwelcome.”
“Sit down!” Mr. LaBrush barked. “My wife went to a lot of trouble to cook you this meal and you’re going to eat it!”
Max grudgingly sat back down and plunged his fork into the plate of the worst Swedish meatballs he ever had. He looked around the table at the startled, dying eyes as the people there ate the food without any hint of real purpose in life.
“By the way, Max,” Herbert LaBrush started up again, slushily talking with his mouth full of food. “What kind of a person are you?”
“What do you mean what kind of person am I?”
“I mean your background, your ethnicity. Your skin seems a little… Off.”
“Daddy, stop it!” Christine cried out. “You’re being awful.”
“Zip it, girly boy! I want to hear what he’s got to say.”
“Well, if you must know, my father was black, and my mother is Chinese.”
“Holy dog shit!” Mr. LaBrush bellowed. “God damn, this just gets better and better! But it explains a lot.”
“What the hell do you mean by that!?” Max asked, his blood boiling to the point of overspill.
“I’m talking about consequences, Max. Consequences.”
“Consequences?”
“Yes. You’re the unfortunate consequence of the sinful mixing of skin types.”
Max slammed his napkin down on the table. “You know, Mr. LaBrush, for a man who constantly spews talk of God and righteousness, you sure are one hell of a hateful bigot!”
“Don’t you dare talk to me that way in my own house you little son of a bitch!”
Mrs. LaBrush suddenly shot up from the table, her arms raised above her head, hands violently shaking in the air. “Just stop it, stop it, stop it right now!” she wildly screamed and stomped. “No more! I’ve had enough of this ugliness! Now, we are going to act like civilized human beings or there will be no dessert for anyone. And I’m serious. I’ll go throw it in the garbage!”
“Don’t you dare touch my schaum torte!” Mr. LaBrush warned. “I’ll stick a fork in your face!”
“Oh, shut it, Herbert!” she said, breathing hard as she looked around the table at them. “Understood?”
Mr. LaBrush grumbled under his breath. Christine hung her head in embarrassment and shame and pain.
“Yes, mam,” Max said. “I agree we should try to be a bit nicer to each other. And I apologize for the role I may have played in the disruption.”
“Thank you, Max,” Mrs. LaBrush said. “I’m glad you are willing to make this evening work… Herbert?”
“What?”
“Don’t you feel you owe us all an apology for your cruel antics?” his wife asked.
Mr. LaBrush sucked on his teeth for a bit as his eyes went from Max to Christine and then up to his trembling wife. He scooted away from the table, got up and walked off into the other room and poured himself another drink.
Max Pine had his face buried in a magazine about the puppetry industry as Christine LaBrush gazed out the smeary dreary window as the world rushed by in BUS No. 13 on its way to the edge of the big, big city among the lakes.
“Mother is making Swedish meatballs for dinner. I told her that you like them,” Christine said as she leaned into him.
Max looked up from his magazine, perturbed. “I hope she knows how to make them. It’s not an easy dish to prepare. I don’t want to be puking all over the place.”
“Mother is a wonderful cook and daddy hates people who vomit,” Christine huffed.
“People can’t help puking. That’s like hating someone who has nervous tics,” Max said in the defense of people who puke.
“It doesn’t matter to daddy. Once he hates something, he hates it for life.”
“Well, then he’ll hate me for sure,” Max pointed out. “I didn’t tell you this before, but I puke a lot.”
“What? Why?”
“I have stomach trouble. I have since I was a kid. My Chinese mother made too much spicy shit.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“I can’t help it. You of all people should understand the uncontrollable.”
Christine gave him a puzzled look and went back to looking out the window at nothing. “Well, just try to control yourself tonight, that’s all I ask.”
“I’ll do my best, but my guts have a mind of their own,” Max told her.
The bus pulled into the station and Christine started waving frantically through the window when she saw her plump ma and pa standing there in the glowing parking lot with big, stupid grins on their faces.
Max and Christine deboarded the bus and went over to where her parents were waiting. Christine’s mother embraced her, but her father gave her only a minimal hug.
“Hello Chris,” he said.
“Daddy, it’s Christine now.”
“Sorry, but you’ll always be Chris to me.”
She was disappointed but avoided an immediate confrontation. She grabbed Max by the shoulders and twisted him a bit to show him off to her parents. “Mom. Daddy. I want you both to meet my serious boyfriend, Max.”
Christine’s mother had a ghoulish, wrinkled face and she wore too much makeup, and the color palette was all wrong for her — too much orange and green and she looked like a sickly Irish flag. She was round like a beach ball and her clothes strained against her billowy flesh and her orangey, brassy hair was thinning and whimsical in the wind.
“Hello Max,” she said, and she got really close to his face; she smelled of cigs and booze and her teeth were nauseatingly misshapen and yellow.
“Hello Mrs. LaBrush,” Max said as politely as he could. “I understand you’re making Swedish meatballs for dinner. That’s my favorite.”
“Oh yes, Christine told me on the phone right off that you enjoyed them. And I do hope you enjoy them. I just love to give people joy.” She got uncomfortably close to Max and fluttered her sticky eyelashes at him. “I want you to feel so good inside, Max.”
Christine’s father was just as round as his wife with a big balding head that displayed an ever present and sour scowl on the face part. His hand felt wet to Max as he grasped it and shook it.
“Hello Max,” he began. “Chris hasn’t told us much about you; we’ll have to talk in the car. I must be honest with you, but this is quite a shock to us… I mean, we never thought someone, anyone would want this.” He motioned toward Christine with two open hands in a gesture of disappointed showing off.
“Daddy,” Christine moaned. “Could you be kind for just one evening.”
He gave her a disgruntled look and then sighed in avoidance. “Gather your things and we’ll get going,” Mr. LaBrush ordered.
Max sat up front in the big, oddly smelling car with Mr. LaBrush as Christine and her mother quietly chattered like annoying jungle birds in the backseat.
“So,” Mr. LaBrush began. “Christine said something about you working in an art gallery?”
“That’s right. I manage it. One of my good friends is the actual owner, but I’m in charge of the day-to-day operations.”
“Huh,” Mr. LaBrush grunted. “Operations. That’s a sore word for me. Makes my stomach hurt.” He glanced into the backseat via the rear-view mirror.
“Sir?” Max wondered aloud.
“Never mind… I never cared too much for foo foo galleries and all that nude stuff they call art. Art? I call it filthy pornography straight from the devil himself.”
“I don’t have much nude art in my gallery,” Max said. “It’s not that kind of gallery. And I find it offensive, as well. Not because it’s evil, it’s just that I have some issues with my own body and…”
“Really?” Mr. LaBrush interrupted. “And you don’t find it offensive that my son now has lady parts?”
“Daddy!” Christine bellowed from behind. “I heard that.”
Max surprisingly began to sing loudly and with a dash of spicy vocal irritant:
“People are people so why should it be, you and I should get along so awfully. So we’re different colors and we’re different creeds and different people have different needs. It’s obvious you hate me though I’ve done nothing wrong. I just now met you at the bus station so what could I have done? I can’t understand what makes a man hate another man, help me understand.”
“What the hell was that all about?” Mr. LaBrush demanded to know.
“It’s part of a song,” Max replied. “Do you like Depeche Mode?”
“Depeche a what?”
“It’s a band Mr. LaBrush. It’s music. Groovy music.”
“Sounds like crap to me! I can’t believe you were singing a devil song in my car. I find that quite disrespectful. And it is quite daring of you to bring my morality into question here. My morality is the right morality, and I won’t stand for someone else to cast doubt over it.”
“But Mr. LaBrush. I was simply making a statement about the love for all people and accepting Christine for who she is via the spirit of a shirtless Dave Gahan.”
“Boy, what in the name of super-duper Jesus are you talking about? And may I remind you his name is Chris and he’s got mental problems and we’re going to see a doctor and get his head and balls all fixed up right and make him a man again!”
“Herbert!” Mrs. LaBrush barked from the back. “This is no time to discuss this. Max is our guest, and we are going to have a pleasant evening whether you like it or not! I’m sorry Max, but my husband can be a bit of an insensitive gorilla at times.”
“And my wife can be a cackling bitch most of the time!” Herbert LaBrush snapped.
“Please, sir,” Max broke in. “I’m very sorry I spoke out. You’re right. I overstepped my boundaries and I apologize to you both. I’ll try to do better, but let’s not resort to horrible name calling.”
Mr. LaBrush sighed with deep annoyance and drove the rest of the way to the house without saying another word.
The pit burns, hurts, the thinking of no reason, no need, no purpose, no peace, no rest, never rest, just a raw nerve constantly exposed to the other infatuation, the memory lust crawled upon far back in the head, the knowing, the pink deception, being merely a mule set to drop in a sweltering field alone, twisting neck heavenward and wondering, enough of this hell already, the seeping saw, the running kroovy, the spotted tile rung rosary red in a constant panic dropout, perimeter crash, dawn’s elastic reprisal snapping back and taking out a blind eye like oblivion and we stare into screams and whimper, heart finally flipping out again in the essence of damage no one sees or knows or wonders or cares, like silently surfing on cold waves toward a fog, forward to fall, forward to vanish, scrubbed away like tarnish, soul snuffed in a quick lullaby snip.
It was the next day and Max Pine nervously watched the clock. He hoped the transgender cartoonist would not return, but a few minutes before he was set to close the gallery, she walked in.
“Hi, hi, hi there,” Christine LaBrush cheerfully sang as she swiftly approached the counter. “I’m back with some new drawings. Would you like to see them?”
“Not really. I’m about to close.”
“But you said you would.”
“All right then, what do you have?”
Christine carefully pulled the new comic strips out of her portfolio case and spread them out on the counter.
Max put on his groovy glasses and intently looked over the new work. He immediately saw something that greatly upset him.
“Hey, is that supposed to be me?”
“Yes, it is. Pretty good, huh? I think it is a fabulous likeness of you.”
“But you’ve drawn me as being in odd sexual positions with, with… You!”
“I know!”
“And why is that squirrel watching us?”
“Isn’t that a nice touch? Look, he’s got nuts in his mouth!”
“There’s no way in hell I’m displaying this in my gallery,” Max snapped.
“Why not? I think it’s totally awesome.”
“It’s inappropriate and highly offensive… And besides, I’m not queer like that!”
“It has nothing to do with being queer, and besides, I don’t believe that for one second. I think you’re very queer.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Do you have a girlfriend?” Christine asked.
“No.”
“And how long has it been since you’ve been with an actual woman?”
“That’s none of your damn business!”
“You are so snippy!”
“I think you should leave.”
“Wait. I have a proposition for you.”
“I doubt that I would be interested.”
“Just hear me out.”
“What is it then, eh?”
Christine looked around the place and then got close to Max’s face.
“I’m not dumb. I know you dig it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I have a whole bunch of cocaine packed up nice and tight right here between my intelligent breasts and you can have it all in exchange for one night of hot love in the sack and a place for my dirty comics on a wall in your gallery.”
Max’s mind started salivating at the prospect of getting some blow. It’s been a while. He had thought he had gotten over it, pushed the addiction to the back of his mind, but now it has opened the door just a crack and peeked out — peeked out from between Christine LaBrush’s giant boobs.
How bad could it be?” he started to rationalize in his own brain. I’ll just close my eyes and pretend he’s a girl. No wait! He is a girl! What am I thinking? This is beyond even me!
“Let me see the goods,” Max suddenly demanded.
Christine began to unbutton her blouse.
“No, no, no. Not those goods! The dope, baby.”
Christine retrieved two eight balls wrapped in plastic from her bosom slot and threw them down on the counter.
“That’s about $400 worth of blow, buddy. It’s good stuff, too. Blow for blow. How ’bout it?”
Max stared at the dope. He wanted it so bad. He reached out to touch it, but Christine snatched it away.
“No, no, no. First things first.”
Christine came around the counter to where Max was standing. She got down on her knees and undid Max’s pants and let them fall around his ankles. She reached in, pulled it out, and went, “Wowza!”
Max relaxed on the bed beside her and smoked a ciggy wiggy.
“Where are you from, anyways?” he asked her.
She snuggled up closer to him.
“Bakersfield, California,” she answered.
“That’s a fine town. Reminds me of a big Roswell.”
“Roswell? Roswell, New Mexico or Roswell, Georgia?”
“New Mexico.”
“That’s where I had my operation. Operations.”
“Really?”
“Yes. There’s a ranch hidden deep within a big, old pecan orchard there. They do really strange stuff with people and robots and animals and aliens.”
“Why didn’t you go to a regular clinic?”
“I was desperate and didn’t have the money for a proper makeover. This was a full-blown underground and dark operation.”
“Are you sure they got everything in the proper place?”
“You tell me, baby. So, what’s your connection to that fascinating, far out place?”
“I used to live there,” Max explained. “I taught creative puppeteering for the school district until I got in trouble for assaulting a minister.”
“Why on earth would you do that?”
“His damn kid was in my class and this boy really, I mean really, sucked at puppeteering. I mean his voice was all wrong, he was always moving his lips like a big goof, and he just didn’t have any damn coordination. Let me tell you, it takes a bit of coordination to work a puppet. Anyways, the preacher father was always giving me grief because I wouldn’t put his shitty kid in any of the shows we had. One night he came backstage and started bitching at me and I had enough of his harassment and punched him right in the face.”
“That’s wild, baby.”
“Well, they fired me after that, and I wandered a bit and then ended up in Mankato, Minnesota running the Fist Gallery. So, do you mind me asking why you did it?”
“Did what?”
“You know. Trade in the yarbles for a taco salad.”
“That’s a bit insensitive.”
“Well, I’m king of the insensitives. But honestly, it’s a bit of a train wreck down there.”
Christine suddenly threw the covers off and stormed into the bathroom and slammed the door. Max grudgingly climbed out of the bed and lightly tapped on the door.
“Hey, I’m sorry. Don’t mind what I say, it was stupid. Why don’t you come out of there and we’ll finish up this blow.”
Christine opened the door and brushed past him. She picked her clothes up off the floor and began to dress.
“Are you leaving?” Max asked.
“Yes, I am you bastard. I can’t believe you said that. Don’t you realize I am already emotionally compromised? A little support and compassion would be nice.”
“Look, I’m a degenerate cokehead with a penchant for Swedish meatballs and sometimes I can be just plain mean. My appypolly loggies, but this is pretty damn weird for me too.”
Christine wiped at the tears running down her face and looked at him.
“Can you do something for me then?”
“What’s that?”
“Go on the bus with me to Minneapolis and have dinner with my parents.”
“Whaaaaatttt?”
“Look, they’re really freaking out about me being a woman now and think that I will never have a normal life ever again. If I show them that I’m in a serious relationship, maybe they will be a bit cooler with the whole situation.”
“But we’re not in a serious relationship,” Max pointed out.
“You can at least pretend to be. I’ll get you more drugs.”
“I’ll do it,” Max promptly pronounced, and he wrapped his arms around faux Christine, hugged her tightly and then kissed her.
It was a morbid Monday at the Fist Gallery in Mankato, Minnesota as Bob Weir’s acid ghost was mumbling the lyrics to Black Throated Wind as he lazily strummed a toy guitar in the corner and the manager polished antique glass doorknobs with a clean, white cloth at the cash counter.
“The world is a laxative and I just crapped my mind pants,” Max Pine whispered to glowing orbs and vases and dangling jewels shaped like broken hearts and then he breathed on one of the doorknobs and then rubbed. He held the object up into the sunlight that was streaming through the shop windows like Bog spreading luscious thighs in Heaven and he studied it. He still wasn’t pleased and so breathed and rubbed some more.
“Cleanliness is more important than Bogliness,” he said aloud to no one. He set the knob down and leaned back in his beat-up chair at the counter. He ignited a ciggy wiggy with a crackhead blowtorch and he threw up the smoke and relaxed. He listened to the neighborhoods dance and breathe and make love all around him in the outside world for a long time and then the door ding-donged and a large woman with an orange-shaped face and clean, blonde hair came strolling in holding a black leather portfolio case.
“I like the way you polish those knobs,” the woman said to him.
“What?”
“I was watching you through the window. Out there… I was standing on the sidewalk for quite a while. Creepy, huh? But I noticed you were so gentle and attentive with them,” the woman said. “That’s very attractive.”
Max Pine was a bit annoyed. People annoyed him, especially people who spoke to him. But there was something very odd about this one, odd indeed.
Is there something I can help you with?” he asked the robust gal, and she smiled wide and Max Pine noticed she had really big, clean teeth, almost too big and clean, and they were encased behind oversized lips, too full for that face, and they were the color of unpeeled garden beets… Not enough blood flow?
“I’d like to speak to the manager if I could,” she said.
“I’m the manager,” Max said.
“Well, that’s deliciously wonderful,” the woman said and then oddly giggled. “This may be the luckiest day I’ve had all week.”
“What is it then I can help you with?”
“My name is Christine LaBrush and I’m a very famous transgender cartoonist. I was wondering if you’d be willing to sell my work in your gallery?”
“Ah hah. I thought there was something not quite right about you.”
“Excuse me?”
“You said you were famous, but I’m afraid I’ve never heard of you.”
“Well, in certain circles I am famous, and in Amsterdam, I’m huge there. So, you will look?”
Christine LaBrush placed the black leather portfolio case on the counter and unzipped it. She carefully extracted some examples of her work and presented them to him.
Max Pine placed groovy glasses upon his face and studied the cartoon strips and then looked up at her; he tried to picture her as a man in his mind without being too obvious.
“Hmm, I’m not really getting it,” he said. I mean, the artwork is decent, but the story line seems a bit queer.”
“It’s supposed to be queer,” Christine said, somewhat offended by Max’s critique.
He looked at the strips again.
“I don’t know, we usually don’t deal with comic strips. Look around, I sell real art.”
“That’s a mean thing to say! This is just as much art as the crap you got hanging on the walls here!” Christine blubbered.
“Hey friend, just settle down. No need to get all ornery up in here,” Max told her. Tell you what, what you got here is kinda blah, blah, blah. Draw me up something new tonight, you know, something that will knock my socks off and I’ll consider it.”
Christine was dejected.
“All right, I’ll see what I can do. Hey, do you like Batman?”
“Batman?”
“Yes, Batman.”
“He’s all right, I guess. Why?”
“There’s a Batman film fest playing at the old theater downtown tonight and I was wondering if you’d like to go with me.”
“To the movies?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think so. I don’t go out much and I really don’t care for the theater. Besides, you need to work on your new comic strip.”
“Is it because I am the way I am? Is that why you don’t want to go with me… Because I used to be a man?”
Max hesitated and shifted uncomfortably.
“Not at all. I have things to do. That’s it. I have things to do, and I told you I don’t like to go out.”
Max’s dead father had been a black cowboy and his mother was a Chinese seamstress who was a hoarder and lived alone in a crapped-out house in Toledo, Ohio. Max studied his odd appearance in the mirror in his bathroom at his apartment. He felt his face and it seemed rhinoceros-like to him. He played with his wiry jet-black hair and squished his bulbous nose with the tip of his finger. His skin was the color of burnt sepia and he played with the curly black hairs on his arms.
He dragged a stool in front of the mirror and then pulled down an old time, creepy looking puppet from a high shelf he had in the bathroom there. He fisted the thing and then sat down with it.
“Am I repulsive, Popo?” he asked the puppet.
Max made the puppet turn its head toward him and open its chipped-up mouth to speak.
“You’re not repulsive,” the puppet said.
“Thanks Popo, that makes me feel better.”
“You’re revolting!” Popo blurted out, and then he let out a high-pitched, crackling guffaw.
“You’re a tricky dick, Popo, a tricky dick!”
Popo laughed out loud again.
“Hey Popo?”
“Yes.”
“Can you look at something for me and tell me if you think it looks okay?”
“I’m intrigued.”
Max stood up, unbuckled his pants, and let them fall to the floor. With his free hand he stretched his underwear out in front of his slightly Samoan belly as far as it could go.
“Look inside there Popo and tell me what you think.”
“Whaaaaattt?! You already got your hand shoved up my ass, what more do you want?”
“Shut up and just look,” Max scolded.
Max maneuvered the puppet downward so that its head was almost completely inside his underwear.
“It’s hard to breathe in here,” Popo said.
“Just take a look and tell me what you think.”
“Well, all I can say is, I’m suddenly hungry for kielbasa and kraut.”
CEREAL AFTER SEX 