Harpooned harlequins cascade like dominoes in the limelight trick of light down on the piccadilly row of southern Santa Monaco and the bow rips and the cow tips and the fringes of a mad mind unfold like warped bric-a-brac on a magic store shelf in Sicily comatose gold rope lassoed by Cowboy Bill and his mad life in the little trailer on the back lot where he does blow off a red wine clown’s nose down in Soho bungalow with the beat dime trap on the boulevard walk, full of chalk, yellow bordered hearts melting under a midday red hot sun eye …
Why?
Is there another day of fire in the head and a late night walk to cold bed, fissures in the heartbeat, sizzles in the car seat, dreams unfurled like muskrat love, calliope shit storms down in the Hollyblue burial bomb out shelters, the bookworm’s house in the woods, a tree within a tree, stairways and passageways, piano notes fall like rain and mediaeval Japanese ambient ethereal music plays among the boughs that astrophysical babies of earthquake origin break.
Tick-tock midnight train, blue coconut warbles in the brain, unchecked fantasies of the lame, Thanksgiving stuffing stuffed with ordinary grievances. Yellow pencils, plastic lunchboxes, glossy red jackets, blonde, flippant hair flipping in the wind. King Kong plays with himself at the Brooklyn Zoo. Housewives, hosewives, stovepipes, faint at the wonder of it all. Blouses stained, washed in rain…
A sonic boom in meticulous soul.
Go now and greet Greedo. The credo. Greed is good. Wonder and splendor is bad like sticky rice. Ideas ache. Fleas bake. Cookies in a plastic oven. Love of a lifetime sells for a dime out there beneath the glow of another swamp gas local event. Nine chives and a quick goodbye. Words lack meaning now, like a time bomb ripping through space.
There’s an icy house upside down in winter terrain. The ice is so cold it’s green. The windows are frosted over like foam insulation, the people inside like tumbling dice in their died stance. Too late to save anyone now. What is this freezing ache inside? The fire in my brain at the mercy of a bellows, oxygen in, oxygen out, a fingernail scratch on the cortex in Cortez, Colorado, the western sky and a homemade pie, pine nuts in Paris, coffee huts in Belarus, breast plates for Zeus, juice, something’s loose, in my head.
Stormtroopers marching, rebels barking, a bottle of Jawa juice smashed against the hard edge of the third moon, a crescendo tone, a christening boom, the ship in my head pulls away from the shore and simply drifts on the waters of space.
The Gould house smelled like Sunday dinner and the trappings of commercialized religion. The house itself was one of the large old Victorians that rose like a classic architectural sentinel on the north side of town near the overlooking cliff rock and the only considerable clusters of trees in the whole of Berlin, Wyoming. It was often dubbed the “green side” of town because that’s where the main city park and the walking trails and the cemetery were, and where the little green men from space lived in their log cabin commune.
The homestead where Carrie Gould and her mother lived was a tall, gaudy pink and white haunted candy palace with a nice kept yard full of colorful flowers. The interior was tidy, but gaudy as well, flooded with knick-knacks and bric-a-brac and portraits of white Jesus in a doctor’s gown, and soft sheep, and framed cross-stitch Bible verses on the walls. But still, there was a flip chill in the air, an icy bastard lingering in the shadows.
Despite all the clutter, the house was warm and inviting. The furniture was soft and friendly. The windows were clean and clear. The intentions of the after Sunday service meal, however, were not.
Pastor Craig Stikk and Steel Brandenburg III sat in the front parlor part of the house sipping coffee in an uncomfortable silence as they waited for the meal to be served. There was a heart of cruel intent in the room and Steel put his hand to his chest to feel if it was his own. He wasn’t sure it was. Intent. Intentions.
Then the pastor asked. “So, Steel. What are your intentions with our lovely Miss Carrie?” He sipped at his coffee annoyingly, his black jellybean eyes searching above the tipped brim of the cup as he waited for an answer.
“I’m not sure, pastor. Our relationship has just begun. We’re exploring each other,” Streel said, and he smiled to himself deep inside.
But the pastor frowned at his remark, and then shifted. “And speaking of relationships… Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?”
Steel laughed. “No. He never returned my calls, so I dropped him.”
A look of painful concern passed over Pastor Stikk’s perverted face. His pencil-thin moustache wriggled with distaste for the young man. “Steel. That’s not something to take so lightly. A personal relationship with your Lord and Savior is the most important thing in life. Do you not care to tend to your eternal soul?”
“Look, I’m not religious. I never had a taste for it, and I certainly don’t want my face pushed into it.”
“I’m not trying to push your face in it… I’m just saying that, well, Carrie is a very religious person, and don’t you think she should be with someone who shares in her beliefs? Don’t you believe she should be with someone who fosters and encourages her faith?”
Steel drained his coffee cup and set it down. He looked straight across at the pastor and grinned his cocky grin. “You mean someone like you?”
The pastor shifted in his seat and then leaned forward and whispered, “Frankly, yes. Life is too short not to be bold. I do indeed believe I would be a better mate to her, and I’m sorry if this offends you, but I don’t believe you’re good enough for her.”
Steel scoffed. “I don’t understand why everyone in this town thinks I’m such a horrible person.”
The pastor leaned away from him. “Well, maybe you are. Perhaps some deep personal soul searching is in order then, Steel. Other people obviously must see far deeper than you do. Personally, I’d be ashamed of myself.”
“I don’t need everyone shaming me and telling me how to live my life. People need to stop being so damn judgmental. That’s what I can’t stand about religion—the self-righteous attitude. Did your God make you and everyone else God? And this whole pointless conversation boils down to one thing: You want to get with my girl. Gross. Aren’t you like 20 years older than her?”
“I believe Carrie needs a mature man in her life,” the pastor said.
“And that’s where you fit in?”
“Steel, God spoke to me on this matter. The Lord Himself told me I should take Carrie as my own. Me. Not you. And I cannot disobey God. She will be mine, not yours.”
“Well, I’m not going to just turn her over to you. I haven’t even gotten any action from her yet.”
The pastor slapped a palm to his forehead in disbelief. “Good gravy, Steel. Must you speak of her in that way? It’s so disrespectful and Carrie doesn’t deserve it.”
“Gravy?”
“What?”
“You said something about gravy… This is how this whole story started. Gravy.”
“You’re rambling incoherently, Steel. ‘Good gravy’… It’s a term used when someone is expressing befuddlement… And you are befuddling me.”
It was at that point that Mother Melba Gould came bouncing into the room. “Gentleman! I bring good news. Dinner is ready. Please come to the table.”
The great Sunday feast was spread out on the large dining room table atop a precious cloth. They all took a seat and Melba called upon Pastor Stikk to lead the prayer.
He stood, cleared his throat, and bowed his head. “Dear Lord, we ask that you look upon us with your everlasting grace and mercy as we prepare to enjoy this beautiful meal prepared by these two lovely women, your humble servants. We ask that we gain an understanding of and appreciation for your boundless gifts, such as these before us. Thank you, Lord, for this beautiful day and the opportunity for myself, Steel, lovely Carrie and Melba to come together in this beautiful home to commune with each other among these overflowing dishes. May we find sustenance and joy, and may this togetherness not only satisfy the hunger of our bodies, but also the hunger of our faith. Amen.” He sat back down, unfurled a napkin, and tucked it into his shirt collar. “Well, let’s eat.”
Platters and bowls were soon being passed around as everyone filled their plates with tender pot roast and carrots, a green-bean casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, niblets of buttered corn, a chilled spiral macaroni salad, beef noodle soup, spring rolls, sweet potato casserole, cheese chunks and crackers, fun fruit-filled gelatin, pickled beets and black olives, tapioca pudding, cranberry sauce, buttered rolls, wild rice pilaf, and goblets of iced tea, lemonade, and cold milk. Knives and forks and spoons quickly began to work, and they clinked against the Gould’s finest dinnerware as they moved like robots and the eating began.
“Thank you, pastor,” Melba said with a smile. “That was a beautiful blessing over our table.”
“It was my pleasure, Melba,” the pastor replied. “As you and your lovely daughter are a great pleasure to me.” He moved his hand beneath the table and squeezed at her thigh. Melba blushed and went “Ooooh.”
Steel coughed and reached for a glass of moo juice and drank.
“Everything okay there, Steel?” The pastor asked. “You seem choked up by something.”
“I’m fine. Thank you. Something just went down the wrong pipe.”
“Pipe. Right,” the pastor replied with a sneer. “Speaking of pipe… Carrie, I was hoping you and Steel would start up some counseling sessions with me.”
“Counseling?” Steel wondered aloud. “What for?”
“Well, Steel. I often counsel young couples on the ways of Christian-based male-female relationships. It’s spiritual guidance really as you two walk with God along the path of love and eventually marriage.”
“I’m not…” Steel began, but Carrie broke in after a quick, tight-lipped smile aimed at him.
“We would love to, pastor. I think your guidance would be priceless. Thank you for offering.”
“Not a problem. That’s part of what I do in my role as the lead shepherd for the congregation.” He chuckled oddly. “I must look over my flock.” He smiled big and then glanced over at Steel who was sitting across from him and next to Carrie. “I just want to be sure that God is always a part of your togetherness.”
“I thought I made it clear to you in the other room earlier that I’m not religious,” Steel broke in. “I don’t want or need counseling in spiritual matters… Especially when it comes to our relationship. That’s our business, not yours.”
Melba Gould’s mouth dropped open and some of the beef noodle soup dribbled out. “You’re not religious?”
“Not especially, mam.” Steel answered. “The mountains of my life have never been moved much by faith.”
The room was silent for a moment.
“Well then, Steel,” the pastor said as he speared another slice of ham with his fork and put it on his plate. “Then you need it more than anyone.”
Carrie grasped his hand. “It’s important to me, Steel. I don’t think I can carry on in this relationship if you’re not a man of faith. You’ll be amazed by what God can do for you if you just let him in.”
Steel looked around the table. “You know, there’s such a thing as religious freedom. Meaning, I have just as much right not to be religious as you all have to be religious. And Carrie, baby, I just want you to accept me for who I am.”
“And she has…” the pastor began, but Steel put a finger up toward his face. “With all due respect, pastor, this is not for you to decide.”
“I beg to differ, young man,” the pastor snarled in return. “As a leader in the church, it’s my responsibility to watch over and guide her faith.” He slammed his fist down on the table. “It’s my God-given earthly task and I will not allow a non-believer to soil this beautiful young woman’s soul!”
Steel stood and barked, “All you truly care about is getting in her pants! And I’m not going to let that happen!” He looked around at the shocked faces. “My apologies Ms. Gould. I think I’ll step outside for some air.”
Midnight moon plus 33 is the title of his latest thought. A man named Lance Birmingham and nearing the end of the road sits in a chair near an open window and listens to the rain and the emperor sighs of summer cicadas. Someone’s playing Monopoly out on the lighted screened-in porch across the way. He can see how it juts out the end of the neighbor’s house that sits too close by.
Three kids in pajamas. They can’t sit still. He can hear their bare feet slap against the plank flooring when they run around. Who runs around when they play Monopoly? Maybe not kids—preteens, full teens, adults who act like children. What’s the difference, he wonders. Unlike him, they have all the time in the world. Or do they? What about a lightning strike, or what if an alligator gets up in the yard and sucks one into its powerful jaws during a lightning bug hunt.
He can hear their squeals, laughter, taunts upon one another that float out through the thin mosquito netting in the window frames. One of them just landed on Park Place and it’s breaking them to pieces. A girl complains loudly of going bankrupt. Maybe she’ll jump off the ledge of a tall building. But then again, maybe she’ll just go to bed, wake up in the morning and go to school. But then again, maybe she’ll get gunned down in the cafeteria just as she’s about to dig into her fruit cup. Where are the peaches for justice?
The tumbling dice scurry like mice and helicopters now fill the air above our playgrounds.
You bastards don’t want to save anything. You just want to corrupt your own corruption. Those were Lance Birmingham’s last thoughts as he crawled into bed and turned off the lamp on the table beside him. Click. Quiet. Dark. Mostly dark save for the glow coming from his harmonious calliope fortune machine that sat atop a well-polished dresser of deep-veined oak.
The very first thing Lance Birmingham would do every morning is go to the harmonious calliope fortune machine and pull out the white slip of paper from the dispenser and read it. Sometimes it gave medical annotations, like it did yesterday when it spit out: Your heart will not stop today. Good. Other days the little white slip of paper will show something completely random and mostly of little concern. Like the day it coughed up: There will be no newspaper on the front walk today because the industry as a whole is collapsing.But so what? Just get on your computer, Lance. The entire world exists in an electrified vapor.
Yes, the harmonious calliope fortune machine knew his name somehow even though he had never programmed it to do so.
“Well, someone did,” he told his invisible wife. Well, she wasn’t really invisible. He spoke to her picture. He carried it with him all around the house. It was in a silver frame, and she had the prettiest smile. He missed her.
On the most recent of his days, Lance Birmingham shuffles out the front door and looks around the yard. It’s about 6:30 in the morning and the day is just beginning to yawn and the grass is wet with dew. No newspaper once again even though the harmonious calliope fortune machine said nothing about it this time. He forgot what it had said. He tries to remember but it just isn’t getting through the thick walls of his corroding brain.
He goes inside to make himself a cup of coffee. He sits at the table in the mostly quiet kitchen and waits. The sound of the coffee maker dribbling the juice of the gods into a red cup is the exception to the silence. The cup had belonged to his wife. It has her name on it: Monika. He gets up, retrieves the cup, and sits back down. He drops in some artificial sweetener and a couple glops of flavored creamer. An egg yolk-colored glow fills the room as the sunlight outside stands taller, a nuclear soldier. He takes a sip of the coffee. Now it is very quiet.
He notices the slip of paper from the harmonious calliope fortune machine. He must have set it down on the kitchen table in his aimless wandering to get to the morning newspaper that never came. He picks it up with a shaking hand and looks at it. It’s blank. No words at all, just an empty white space. He hears a whisper fall upon his ear. He suddenly turns around and sees his wife standing there. It’s Monika, young and golden. She smiles and holds out her arms. She isn’t inside a picture anymore.
He started his session by talking to the therapist about eggs.
“When I was a child,” he began. “My mother once reprimanded me at a restaurant for not knowing how to properly order an egg.”
The gray gentleman therapist in white leaned forward. “What’s all this talk about eggs?”
“Like I said, when I was a child, we were at a restaurant, just my mother and me. We were having breakfast and I wanted an egg, just a fucking fried egg. When the waitress asked me how I wanted my egg I said: ‘Fried.’ My mother lost her shit, but mostly on the inside. She looked at me with that fake smiley laugh and said something like: ‘But how do you want your egg fried?’ I didn’t understand what the hell she was talking about, so I repeated: ‘Fried. I want my egg fried, Mother!’”
“I remember her scoffing and tugging her white gloves off and slapping them down on the table. She looked up at the waitress, shook her head, and told her with a hand half shielding her face: ‘Over easy.’”
“I was confused. My head moved to my mother and then to the waitress and then back again. After the waitress walked away my mother scowled at me: ‘You’re such an embarrassment, Mildrew. An absolute embarrassment.’ I asked her what I did wrong, and she told me that I had no idea how to properly order an egg. We were in a fancy restaurant. It was one of those restaurants where people drank champagne with their pancakes and smoked cigarettes attached to long filter sticks and laughed out loud but not too loud. I might have been wearing a little suit for boys and possibly a wool cap. It was winter in New York. That’s where we lived then.”
The gray gentleman therapist leaned back in his chair and sighed with amazed wonder. “So, you feel you were traumatized by this event?”
“Of course, I was. To this day I cannot order for myself at a restaurant. I always must tell whoever I’m with what I want to eat, and they order for me.”
“Always?” the gray gentleman therapist repeated in question form. “But what about when you’re by yourself? Who orders for you then?”
“I don’t ever go out alone.”
“So, these other people who order for you. Are they friends?”
“Sure, I guess,” Mildrew answered. “But also, co-workers, dates, my priest once. I got him to say ‘fishsticks.’”
“Wait… Dates? You have dates order your meals for you?”
“Yes. I have to.”
“Do you ever have second dates with these women?”
“No. Not ever.”
“Mildrew,” the gray gentleman therapist began. “This whole act of having other people order for you must end. You’re a grown man. You’ll never be able to maintain a relationship with a woman who has to be your mother.”
“But… I just can’t do it. I have way too much anxiety.”
“Let’s go back to the original event… Did your mother do anything else to you for not knowing how to properly order an egg?”
Mildrew looked down at the floor. “When we got home… She beat the hell out of me.”
“She beat you?”
“Yes. That’s what I said. Aren’t you listening?”
“I’m sorry. Go on.”
“She beat me with her soft white knuckles. They were so damn clean and tender and feminine. Then she tied me to a kitchen chair and threw eggs at me. One after the other they hit me in the face. I was covered in broken shells and tears. I was spitting runny egg slime out of my mouth so I wouldn’t gag and stop breathing.”
“How many eggs?”
Mildrew looked up at the ceiling and thought about it. “Two or three cartons worth.”
“And then what happened?”
“She untied me and made me clean up the whole mess while she sat there and smoked cigarettes and listened to a Johnny Mathis record at high volume. Chances are, ’cause I wear a silly grin the moment you come into view… She would laugh at me, too. She called me an ‘idiot.’”
“That must be a very painful memory for you, Mildrew… But I’m glad you’re talking about it.”
“You know something, doc?”
“What?”
“Did you realize that if you put a break in the letters of the word therapist, you get: The rapist?”
Dr. Micah Schism, the gray gentleman therapist, sipped at a silvery chalice of iced water with a lime wedge attached to the lip of the glass. He reached for the lime wedge and squeezed it over the water. Droplets dripped. He glanced over at a nervous Mildrew sitting across from him. “Are you ready for our exercise today?” he asked him.
“No. I’m thirsty,” Mildrew complained.
“And you’ll get something to drink when you order it for yourself.”
“Can’t you just say ‘Orange Fanta’. Just this once?”
“No,” Dr. Micah Schism said with a stern grin. “I won’t. I don’t even care if you die of thirst.” He took a deep gulp of his lime-squirted water. “Mmmm. That is very refreshing.”
“You’re being mean,” Mildrew said. “I don’t like this at all. I want to go home.”
“I’m not being mean, Mildrew. This is therapy. I’m trying to help you by forcing you to face your fears head on… Now. Here comes the waiter again. Do it.”
He was tall, young, and thin, and wore a pleasant smile. “Have you decided on a beverage yet, sir?”
Mildrew trembled. He looked over at Dr. Schism who was nodding his head in a gesture of go on. “I’ll have an Orange Fanta!” Mildrew loudly sputtered.
The young waiter’s shoulders sank. “Oh, I’m sorry, sir. We’re out of Orange Fanta.”
“Fuck!” Mildrew screamed, and he got up from the table and ran outside to the palm-tree lined street of a boisterous Los Angeles heavily clad in traffic and smog. He leaned against the outside of the building and began to weep. Dr. Schism came scurrying out and reached for Mildrew just as he began to slump to the ground.
It was weeks later and Mildrew sat on the soft lawn of the vast, rolling cemetery and stared at his mother’s tombstone. The sun was shining, and he was wearing dark sunglasses over his aching eyes. His clothes were wrinkled. His hair was mussed. He hadn’t showered in days. He lost his job. He wrecked his car. His cat died. He was on the verge of being evicted from his apartment. Dr. Micah Schism had given up on him completely. He was a hopeless case.
Mildrew stood and reached down for one of the three cartons of eggs he had there. He opened it. A dozen white, shiny Ork orbs poked up at him. He took one out and threw it at his mother’s gravestone. It made him giddy. Then he threw another and another and another until the entire carton was empty. He picked up the second carton, reloading himself like a war gun, and these too he violently threw at his mother’s now egg-caked tombstone. The engraved name of his mother, Arianna Shmoke, was glossed over with yolk and dripped with it.
After he emptied the second carton, he reached for the third and final one. This too he unloaded on his mother’s final resting place with a great fury, and he yelled out, “This is all your fault! All my problems are your fault! I hope you choke on eggs in hell!”
Once he was out of eggs and spent and panting like a dog, Mildrew collapsed back down into the grass and looked at the cranage he so artistically created. “It’s all your fault,” he mumbled one last time.
Mildrew got on a bus bound for Phoenix, Arizona. He took a window seat near the back. Once fully loaded, the bus coughed its black lung goodbye to LA and headed east out of the city.
The day was crisping over in a blue bruise sort of darkness mixed with orange and the opening act of stars in the sky when the bus pulled into a diner near Blythe so the travelers could get out, rest, and eat.
Mildrew stepped off the bus and walked across the graveled parking lot and into the diner. He took a seat in a booth by himself and pulled a menu out of a silver rack. It was sticky. He flipped through it. He didn’t even think about it, really. He was just moving and breathing and living and he suddenly didn’t care anymore if he was scared or embarrassed or even dead.
A waitress with large intelligent breasts came to the table and smiled at him. “What can I get you, honey,” she breathed in the tick-tock of dusk time.
Mildrew smiled at her without looking at her. His eyes went out the window and in the direction of a new life. “I’ll have a cheeseburger, medium-well, no tomato or onion. Crispy French fries. A chocolate malt… And can I get a silvery chalice of iced water with a lime wedge nestled into the lip of the glass?”
Steel Brandenburg III moved through his overpriced apartment in Berlin, Wyoming like an Isosceles tornado. Veronica Eyes was leaving Mango’s Tangle and getting ever closer. It didn’t take long to get anywhere in the realm of Berlin, Wyoming.
His place was a mess because he rarely had guests. He found a chunk of cheese hidden within the trunks of fibers of the living room carpet. He had no idea how it got there. But it was hiding like a little fuzzy Dr. Seuss character. He picked it up, opened the front door, and tossed it out into the park-like courtyard. He thought he heard a tiny scream as it sailed through the crisp, night air.
Steel’s thoughts then turned to Veronica. He wondered if she would be worked up and wet when she arrived. He wondered; would she finally be willing? He went to the doorway of his bedroom and glanced at the messy bed. It’s been six years since he has shared a bed with anyone. He’s gone six years without even a kiss or a hand to hold. He went to tidy up the bed, fluff the pillows. He worried if he was clean enough. What if she wanted to go down on him. Would she suddenly jerk her head away because he was gross? But there was no time to shower. He worried about all that. Steel was always worried about something. Wyoming was a good place to worry about things. Being in the hollow echo of Wyoming made it easier because one was usually cold and alone.
Steel looked out a window just as a set of headlights came bouncing into the night light parking lot. He watched and waited. The door opened. She slid out and looked up. Steel moved away from the window quickly and went toward the front door. He was overly eager and pulled it open just as she was coming up the stairs.
“Hey,” he said. His nervousness was vaguely apparent.
Veronica handed him a paper bag. “I brought more beer.”
“Oh, how sweet of you,” Steel said, and he quickly regretted his choice of words… “How sweet of you?”
She had taken notice and gave him a look. “Okay,” she smirked as she moved past him. He breathed her in, and she had the scent of night rain and spray paint, cue chalk and throbbing womanhood. She was so cool and collected, he thought. She handled life like it was meant to be handled. How did she do it? Did she ever shed a tear? he asked himself. She was so out of his realm of existence. It was like he was Mercury and she was Pluto.
They sat on his couch. There was a good bit of space between them. They drank more beer until they both had reignited their buzz. Steel fell into the look of her face as she talked. Her eyes were like some explosive spinning star in space. Her skin was smooth. Her dark hair flowed from her head haphazardly. She twisted her mouth in endless expressive shapes. Her smile was clean and wet. Steel wanted to reach out and touch her. When would he ever have such a perfect shot at it? Here she was, in his home getting drunk. She seemed happy. She was smiling and laughing as they talked about work and life in a nonsensical way. And of course, she was the one that suggested she come over.
“Why don’t you move a little closer,” he finally said. “I feel as if there is this great chasm between us. I’m not Evel Knievel you know.”
“Huh? You’re weird.” She laughed and scrunched her face. “Are you going to try and kiss me or something?”
His longing for her tumbled like a gymnast on crack. “Would that be a problem?”
“Women don’t want men to ask… Just do it.”
Steel moved closer. He put his hand at the back of her head and pulled her in. The thrust of her tongue came quickly. He was surprised by that but took all of it he could. She moaned. She clamped her hands to his face and pushed him down onto the couch and crawled on top of him. Her hair fell upon him like soft rain as she continued to forcefully mash her face to his. Steel wrapped his arms around her average frame and held her close. The warm weight of her against him felt like all of astrology coming true. She suddenly sat back up and worked her top off. Her bra was purple. He wanted to burn funeral incense and he didn’t know why. He suddenly felt religious as her flesh became spiritual in his hands.
“Where’s your bedroom?” she breathed. Her mouth glistened in the soft light of a dime-store table lamp with a tilted, yellowed shade.
Steel motioned with his head of quaking diamonds and dust. She took him by the hand and led him that way. Halfway there and with heat in the air, there came the sound of someone yelling from outside, down in the parking lot. Yelling through a megaphone. Steel’s first thought was that it was the police. Veronica was trying to frame him for rape, he worried. His heart pounded as he rushed to the living room window and moved aside the curtain. His murmur was puzzlement. “What the hell?”
Carrie Gould from the newspaper was standing in the middle of the parking lot barking butchered poetry and love psalms through the device she held to her mouth. “I forgive you, Steel Brandenburg. I forgive you because I know you are more than the bad words that come out of your mouth. I know you are more than a dirty trick or a prank. I forgive you because I love you!”
“Ah fuck,” Steel moaned. “What the hell is she doing!?”
Veronica came up behind him and her warm breath hit his ear like magical wind. “Looks like you have a stalker.” She laughed and pulled away.
“What should I do?”
Veronica went back over to the couch and slipped her shirt back on. “I don’t know, pal. But I suppose we’ll have to make it another time. That is unless you get married or something.” She popped open a fresh beer and began to drink it. “Want me to go out there and say something to her?”
“No… Maybe if we just ignore her, she’ll go away.”
“Chicks like that don’t ever just go away,” she told him. “You’re going to need to be forceful.”
He turned to look at her. “The only one I want to be forceful with is you. I guess you could say I only have eyes for you, Veronica Eyes.”
She laughed at him, but then turned serious when he came to her and stood before her. He undid his pants and let them fall. Then he guided her with his hand on her head as beyond the walls and windows Carrie Gould trumpeted the glories of her infatuation: “I love you Steel Brandenburg!”
CEREAL AFTER SEX 