"The Week After" #Fridayflash

"Someone shot nostalgia in the back Someone shot our innocence."

Who Killed Mr. Moonlight - Bauhaus



### 
Shiny leaves bounced in the mediocre shower as I watched two men work in tandem to ease the deceased to his final resting place. Their hair slick and hanging, slapping against cheeks pulled in from exertion and eyes puffy from tears.

The hole was without a headstone, only a mound to indicate a prior individual lay there in the dirt. People needed markers inscribed with comforting verses and clever poems. Humor in the morbid. Couldn't think too hard about the Time, because the rest of the Days would fly by.

I blinked, closing my eyes to hear nature's liquid percussion patter along vinyl tenting and drip off the curved shelter of my umbrella. I was a house. This was my eave. He was buried in my backyard. I pulled my feet out of the gathering muck. It was time to move.

I took a cab back to his apartment. It would always be his in my mind, because I was still a guest. I'd come to help keep him warm, but hadn't earned the right to live in his closet, our clothes mingling, merging and getting lost. Socks of red and black.

A framed photo of us mocked me from the mantel and I lay it face-down. He was gone a week and already I wanted to erase my mind of the happiness. A false start. I'd been left idling in a parking lot where the building was torn down.

I had no meter, only a heart. I wanted to reach inside and turn back the hands, just push back the spring to remember how it felt before I stopped hurting for the right one.

"Crooked Fang" #Fridayflash

This week I wasn't sure if I'd even have a piece to share. I lost my guitar hero, Peter Steele. If you have anything to do with me, you're already aware of the status level of my absolute distress. Still, I was browsing Type O Negative's website and inspiration struck. Xan Marcelles, aka Crooked Fang bassist doesn't have a bio. As it is entirely fictional, I figured I'd make you chuckle if I could. Smile for me. I'll catch up later. 


Type O Negative's official site
Crooked Fang's menial blog

Xanox Marcelles,  (born Gabriel Nez on October 8, 1958) is the backing vox, bassist, and full-time asshole for his band, aptly named Crooked Fang. Preferring to stay out of the spotlight as much as possible,  Xan can usually be seen lurking in the intentional shadows onstage during the small shows randomly held at PALE RIDER in the backwoods of Pinecliffe, Colorado.

When not plucking four strings, cursing, drinking, or sleeping in, Xan often takes assignments off ‘those kind of people’ but no worries—he only offs other vamps.

That’s right, Xan is also a vampire. Shit—I thought he told you. 

In his spare time Xan enjoys tinkering under the hood, drinking, social networking, drinking, smoking, drinking, women, and occasionally kicking himself in the teeth. After a drink.

Xan’s main musical influences include Roger Waters, Peter Steele, Glenn Danzig, (The original one) and any other badass musician with a good set of pipes, inhuman percussion techniques, or bass sweet enough to feel in the cockles.

Crooked Fang is comprised of Jason, Josh, and a certain missing vocalist named Serv. Xan swears he’s not taking that spot.

Crooked Fang is hiring lead vox. Preferably immortal and not a douche bag.

"Two Scoops" #Fridayflash

Jackson sat there in handcuffs, slick as an oil-spill in his sateen getup, feathered black hair, and thin moustache. He'd been around the block a couple of times. Hillcroft was no more than an unbroken bronco: wheat-colored hair and glaring green eyes as he tugged at his restraints. A new dealer to the thug enterprise, an ex-boxer and thief that wasn't all right upstairs, Hillcroft clearly disturbed Jackson.

"And so I opened the trunk, and oh sweet baby Jesus, if Hillcroft hadn't made ten bodies fit in the back of that T-Bird."

"You say ten bodies?" Marilyn (just Marilyn) was a tough broad, one of the few on the force. Her daddy was a cop, so she just walked into the job, but soon proved herself to have bigger balls than the rest of them.

"Ten, yeah."

"You told me to get rid of them," Hillcroft shot back and glared across the metal table at Jackson.

"I want him outta here," Jackson said to Marilyn, "He's crazy. I got my rights you know."

"Pipe down both of you," she said and leaned over the table at the younger thug. "This true Bill-Hill? You fit ten bodies in the back of a 1974 Thunderbird?"

Hillcroft grinned. "Ain't nobody called me Bill-Hill in ages. I did."

"You cheated, you little shit," Jackson growled."Bill-Hill. He's proud of that you know."

"I did your record up by a couple."

Marilyn pushed off of the table and smirked.

"And this is why you were found off State 90, scooping parts out of the trunk with shovels like kids with sundae spoons."

"I told him not to cut off the goddamn legs. Not the fucking legs."

"It was more than legs from looking at the photos." Marilyn spread out the 9X11 glossies on the worn surface. "Distinctly Picasso. And to think, if you'd just taken two trips, you wouldn't be here."

Jackson kicked Hillcroft under the table.

"Understatement" #Fridayflash

Photo credit: kesh from morguefile.com 
I guess I'm dreaming in stereo because I'm both awake and asleep. Lead arms over mine, draped just like a coat on the upstairs guest room bed at my aunt's fabulous banquet parties. Dead old oak giving off the mustiness that only attics can infuse in high doses.

The government is guilty of making me hate this. The people and the peace of sky disappearing overhead as I close my eyes and listen to the sound of wind over the fenders. This grazing eagle feather: tip and spine dusted over flat surrealism. This boiling ink overflowing the pot that came before the kettle. This temptation to make it all better by burying myself in concrete.

I like fish. They slip silver and ogle the bottom of the tank with permanent bewilderment. Laid up on the shore for the desperately hungry to string on a line and transport to yearning mouths.

I take the obvious and drag it behind the mirror of recollection until the glass shears away, leaving a supine trail of sanguine and sublime. A delicate balance of trauma and bliss, only to ignore any sort of flagged decision that would sway the boat to port or starboard. This anchor drops here, disturbing the silt to cloud the center of the universe.

There is no hole.

"Wire-in-the-Mire" #Fridayflash

Photo credit: mconnors from morguefile.com
The room languished in deep shadows cast from the cheap brass lamp with the paper shade as Peter wrote his letter. Note. It was on a pretty piece of stationery; he'd found it in the drawer, right next to Mindy's wedding ring.

The wedding cake was expensive; he knew that it wouldn't be so big of a deal, but she'd insisted, and so it was ordered: a heaving, tiered, chaliced and laced monstrosity of a thing, with a gag bride-and-groom statuette set on top, and the groom was sinking into the icing.

Wire-in-the-mire, his mind flashed at him, like a temporary neon vacancy sign, just before dawn arrives and the illumination is no longer needed or appreciated. He swallowed his gumption to call the whole thing off, and so they were wed.

Anthony came first: a robust, rosy-cheeked baby that grew to a boy that grew into a teen who learned to hate his own father. Renee was next: the total opposite of her big brother, a slender, sickly little thing that adapted to the shadier side of things and learned the biggest virtues in a good coat of SPF 75 in the summertime. And then there was Linda: a sweet infant that walked three months early, neither cried or threw any tantrums, but died mysteriously just before she turned a year old.

Her little death threw Peter and Mindy into chaotic torment, and nights of insomnia and drinking, until one day, Anthony stole the family car, Renee picked up her bags and followed her mom out to the taxi and Peter found himself alone in that big house.

The fridge tided him over for a solid three weeks before he was forced to go out into the cruel sunshine, pretending that his life wasn't utterly disgusting and worthless, and find sustenance to feed his withering frame. He wasn't good at cooking, and twice he set the burner afire, but soon he grasped the elementary mechanics of heating food to eat and was able to get by just a little easier.

Which of course, added to his guilt, and there was one gloomy afternoon that he ducked into a Goldrush Pawn Shoppe with two p's, one e on the end, like olde England.

Towards the back of the store was a glass case that ran the length of the wall, containing weapons of all shapes and sizes and among them, guns.

"Trade" #Fridayflash

Photo credit: cohdra from morguefile.com

I count the till we'd turned over. Jimmy sits and watches tv. Sweat rolls thick and uninvited from my temple down my cheek like tears. Jimmy laughs at something said on tv. He has a funny laugh. I start over. I could take my ten-grand and make a clean break from him. My eyes cut to the back of his head. The blued steel tempts my fingers. Jimmy takes a drink. I count another bill.

“Louder,” he says and lights a cigarette.

“Ten thousand, like we agreed,” I say.

“Good boy.”

Ever since Mom died, Jimmy's been taking care of me. Teaching me a trade, but it's obvious I don't have the guts to stick it out in a life of crime. Maybe I'd get caught, maybe not. I could get taken in somewhere, anywhere but with him, because after dark, those scary ladies come. They growl and moan like weird cats. They have red nails and mouths and pretend to like Jimmy.

He's snoring. Finally. I don't think he ever put his cigarette out.

I slip the neat stack of bills he'd promised me into my backpack. Then I take his too.

For once, I don't let the screen door slam as I leave.

"All of Me" #Fridayflash

“Jesus, would you just listen to me?” I felt my voice rise, which was exactly what I didn’t want to do. He triggered the defensive response. Sometimes I felt like I was shouting into the void, and other times, like I was the void.

He took in a breath and I braced myself for his belligerent scathing retort. He had two volumes: loud and ear-splitting. I stared at a random spot in the wall while he yelled so loud my face was sprayed with his spittle.

We were fighting about something. Three hours ago, I might’ve remembered. Now it was a battle of wills. Of domination and I would lose because I would give in. I always gave in because it was easier than this. This incessant spew of bullshit he thought was important. It was all important, wasn’t it?

He rarely touched me. There was a time before he’d hit a red spot in me and I’d gone black on him. He tried to convince me that he’d fallen. Why did we have to be this way?

This wasn’t love. This was prison.

I tuned back into his voice. Still screaming and stomping around. One of my ceramics hit the floor and then I was pulled off the sofa.

“LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!”

Oops, so careless wasn’t he. The shards cut my hands but I didn’t care. As long as I lived in this endless cycle of destruction, I’d rather be extinct.

###

Courage and valor was my conquest. I stood tall in my boots and stared straight ahead. Gone were the soft curves, replaced by steely form. Circuits snaked in and around my spine. My armor was not heavy.

“You acquiesce then soldier?”

“Yes sir,” I said smartly.

I was prepped and moved to the operating room. There, they took the last part of me and transferred the throbbing mass to a sterile tray. Inserted in its place, a titanium electric heart.

Memory fled at last of the soft, pathetic thing I used to be.