Anaideia 21

The stranger came in like a desert apparition and approached the bar in his faded brown duster and spurred boots; his face was concealed by a dark gaiter and folded cattleman shielding his eyes. Silence befell the saloon as patrons quietly clutched their drinks. Burl the barman stood statuesque as ever with arms remaining crossed waiting for the stranger to speak. The words never came.

“What can I do you for, friend?” Randy shouted from the other side of the bar.

All eyes were on the stranger. He removed his cattleman revealing a magnificent mane of hair then lowered the gaiter. His chiseled features awed the women and whores. “I’m looking for James,” Vic spoke. His Scottish accent was recognizable from anywhere.

“Well it seems like you found him,” Randy said, resting his hand on my shoulder.

Vic reached into his duster and placed a six inch .357 Colt Python on the bar. “He’s coming with me,” he ordered.

Randy nervously chuckled. “Sir, I should remind you that weapons aren’t allowed on the premises,” he said.

“Aye, I know,” said Vic, “let him go and we’ll walk out of this establishment peacefully.”

Eyes shifted to Randy. Knowing his hand has been called, he leaned his head back and smiled. “Sure thing stranger,” he says. “Far be it from me to hold someone against their will.”

I clutch the Browning pistol tightly. I back away from Randy and inch closer to Vic on the other side of the bar. As I did, I see the Madam exit her room and tightening her robe while watching the unfolding scene from the balcony. Vic notices her too. With eyes distracted, Randy silently signals to Burl. The barman reaches below and pulls out a 12 gauge and aims it at Vic. With milliseconds to spare, the agile Scotsman grabs the Colt Python from the bartop and drops to the ground. Burl unleashes the shotgun which resulted in an explosion of shattered glass and splintered wood. I lift the Browning at Burl and fired. The bullet struck the barman in the left arm and he shrieked as blood splattered on whiskey bottles behind him. Then, like a bolt of lightning, Vic leapt over the bar and grabbed the barrel of the shotgun and deflected a second round. Vic pushed the shotgun back into Burl’s ribs then ripped the weapon away and smacked the butt onto the barman’s nose.

Burl lay pathetically on the ground with hands in front of his face and nose bloodied. Vic stood over him, dropped the 12 gauge, and took out the Colt. While staring down the barrel, Burl began to shake and cry. “Marka odpusť mi,” the barman uttered in a foreign tongue. Vic pulled the trigger and the bullet lodged into the artery of his neck and the Madam screamed an ungodly sound from the balcony as blood pooled around the Scotsman’s boots.

Randy was petrified in awe. Patrons rushed quickly out of the saloon and with the barman dead, Vic and I aim our guns at the beleaguered bar owner. Only Jim remained sitting in the back, blissfully unaware of the commotion surrounding him while the Madam wept uncontrollably above.

“Is this how this is gonna go?” asked Randy with hands in the air.

“It seems like you left us with little option,” I said.

Randy was seeming remorseful and he closed his eyes and shook his head. “You’re right,” he said. “I should have known it would end this way. I should have told you the truth sooner.”

“I suppose it’s a little late for truths now,” I say.

“Is it?” he asks, opening his eyes. “Haven’t you ever wondered why I’ve kept you close all these years?”

I did know. I’ve always known. “Because you’re my father,” I say.

Randy was flabbergasted. “Well shit,” he said. “I guess I have no more tricks up my sleeve. Sorry James. I know I could have been a better father to you. You probably think you’re a better person than me. But it would take a real sicko to shoot ME, your own flesh and blood.”

I could hear Vic cocking his Colt. “I guess that makes me a humanitarian,” the Scotsman said.

But before he could get a shot off, a rifle round whizzed from the balcony and grazed Vic on the shoulder. The three of us drop to the ground and I could hear Karl shouting from above. “Get some of this you cocksuckers!” he yelled and aimlessly fired another round.

“Are you okay Vic?!” I shout from the other side of the bar.

“Aye!” he yelled. “I’m only knicked!”

“Karl, so help me god, I’m gonna feed you to Penelope!” I threatened.

“Come and get me mother fucker!” he retorted. He fired another round and shattered glass fell all around. I crawled to the other end of the bar to catch a glimpse of Karl’s whereabouts and noticed Randy escaped to god knows where.

“Where’s he coming from?!” Vic shouts at me.

“He’s on the balcony but I can’t see him!” I say. The Madam’s constant weeping also stopped.

“I’m gonna smoke him out!” says Vic. I could hear the flick of a lighter and within seconds Molotov Cocktails were thrown from behind the bar.

“Jim, you better get the fuck out of here!” I shout.

Noticing the few scattered flames, Old Jim looks up from his cards and doesn’t bat an eye. “I’m comin’ home pa!” he says.

“Goddamnit,” I say from under my breath. I leap to my feet and rush past the burgeoning flames to grab the old man. But this blew my cover and shots rang out from Karl’s rifle.

“Gotcha asshole!” Karl shouted.

But Vic sprang up from behind the bar to find Karl knelt down sniper-wise on the balcony. He fired one shot into his shin which caused him to drop the weapon and scream out. “Fuck me!” he cried. Then he fell forward through the frail wooden railings and onto Old Jim’s table. While he writhed in pain, I give an order to Vic.

“Grab him!” I say.

The inferno engulfed the once proud Candyland Saloon. It was safe to assume that both whores and Johns, along with Madam Joelle and Randy, safely escaped the fire with the parking area deserted. Vic and I watched from a safe distance, along with Old Jim and an injured Karl in tow, as the hellish flames overran the compound and we marveled. Then an old friend appeared from the shadows; the stem of a lolly pop jutting from his mouth.

“Hey guys!” said Dale. “Did something happen?”

“Dale, you’ve been here the entire time?” I say.

“Of course,” he replied nonchalantly. “How else would Vic have found this place?“

“Did you not hear the gunshots?”

“Oh, is that what that was?”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Anaideia 20

After sex, I’d leap up from the bed with cock swinging to look out the Madam’s second floor window. Though the horizon was clear blue and the dull orange meridian was hovering over the mountains, I knew calvary was coming. But the Madam would lay in bed naked as a mole rat and mock my good cheer.

“Well I’m glad YOU’RE satisfied,” she’d tell me.

I turned around bare assed and grabbed my sun-faded britches. “If I don’t satisfy you,” I said, “there are dozens of paying customers downstairs that would be willing to try.”

She sits up in bed and pulls a cigarette from an old wooden box. “Don’t give me any ideas,” she says as she lights a match.

“Well here’s another idea: I’m sure Karl would like a piece of ass too,” I said.

The Madam exhales a puff of smoke and glares at me. “What’s with you lately?” she asks.

“What do you mean?” I say coyly as I button my shirt.

“You don’t seem so…,” she trails off to find the right word.

“Suicidal?” I suggest.

“Yeah?”

“Well, I decided that the best way to accept my life here is to not let you win by being miserable all the time. Randy was right; I have everything a man needs here at Candyland. So fuck it. I’m gonna be happy!”

The Madam dismissively puffs away. “Maybe I SHOULD start fucking Karl,” she said.

I wave her off and exit the room. Nightfall was approaching and I needed to prep for the evening ahead. Dale left two days earlier. He clogged the saloon toilet before his departure and the bathroom still reeked of his wretched shit. I proceed down the balcony steps to behind the bar. Inside the utility closet, I grab a mop and various smell-goods in my certain futile attempt to make the toilet presentable.

In the saloon, Old Jim was sitting in his usual spot shuffling the same deck of playing cards. I grab a Natty from behind the bar, drop a few coins in the register, and join Jim for a few moments of banter. “How are you doing Jim?” I ask.

His eyes were glazed and his stringy grey hair was unkempt. He struggled to place me as I took a seat. “When I was just a young-un,” he said, “there was a bridge we crossed to look for bullfrogs on the prairie. We’d find em and stick firecrackers up their ass and watch em blow up. Anyway, we’d walk across and piss over the edge into the Pawnee River. It was burned down in nineteen hundred and thirty seven by Pretty Boy Floyd when he was on the run from Hoover for the Valentine’s Day massacre. Those were rough times. No one knew right from wrong in them days. I sure do miss my pa. He was shot dead tryin to cross that bridge ya know? He was caught fuckin the pig farmer’s wife and they blew his brains out right then and there. I was born two years later. My pa would say to me ‘son, if you’re gonna fuck a pig farmer’s wife, fuck the pig instead.’ I never forgot that. Too bad that bridge ain’t there no more. I’d sure like to cross it.”

Karl strolled up in his spurs and shit kickers and joined us. He flipped the chair around and sat down in it backwards like he was about to drop some wisdom 90s-style. “How ya doin Jim?” he asked.

“I’d rather be dead, Karl,” he said without looking up.

Karl looked at me and grinned like he always does when there’s bad news. “You better finish cleaning up that shit,” he said. “Randy’s upstairs fuckin one of them whores. If he comes down and sees a turd floatin around he’ll be fixin to shoot ya.”

“Randy’s here?!” I exclaimed.

“You better believe it.”

Fuck, I thought. I scrambled to my feet with all the cleaning goods. But before I could move an inch, Randy was shouting from the top of the stairs. “James!” he said. He was wearing his usual grey and bluish blazer without a shirt underneath. His gut jutted out over his unbuttoned pants. “I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am to see you,” he continued as he marched down the steps.

“Likewise,” I lied.

“I would have figured you would run off long ago.”

“I had a change of heart.”

“Good,” he said. He reached the bottom of the staircase and placed his hand on my shoulder. “I have a proposal for you.”

“What that?” I ask.

“I want you to join me on a new business venture in Reno.”

“Reno?”

“Absolutely. It’s a wide open world out there. There’s money to be made by any sucker willing to reach his hand out and take it! But I’m gonna need some muscle.”

“Now’s not a good time Randy.”

“Not a good time?” he asks. He stretches his arms out and looks around the saloon. “What do you mean now is not a good time? What the hell else do you have to do?”

“I’m starting to enjoy my time here,” I said, struggling to find a satisfying answer.

“Yeah, okay pal,” Randy said sardonically.

Burl from behind the bar slings him another tequila sunrise. Randy picks up the glass and swishes it around. “I’m gonna need you to be a tough SOB out there,” he tells me. “I need to know your heart is in it.”

“I don’t know what else you want me to do,” I say.

Randy leans in and lowers his voice. “Old Jim there,” he whispers, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but his mind is – well – slipping.”

“So?”

“So…,” Randy reaches into his blazer pocket and pulls out a small 1931 Baby Browning and sets it on the bar. “Do it quietly,” he says.

“Randy, I may be clinically insane but I’m not a monster.”

“A monster?!” he indigently says. “James, I need you to be a cold-hearted savage in Reno. You’re an apex predator. You have what it takes.” He places the pistol in my hand and wraps my fingers around the butt. “Do whats necessary,” he says.

I held the pistol in paralyzing fear. I was unable to declutter my mind and make a clear decision. One way or another, I knew a shot would be fired. I just didn’t know who would take the bullet: Old Tom or Randy or myself.

Then a flutter of breeze filled the saloon. From behind me I could hear the entrance doors swing open and boots clatter on the old wooden floor. I turn around and my heart leapt. The Calvary had arrived.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Anaideia 19

2 Months Later

I was dead in every way except physically. And in these dark days my dreams became the only place of solace. I’d make love to a beautiful woman and she’d tell me everything would be okay and that we’d find that small corner of heaven that was just for us. Then I’d wake up. There was no Vic; no bustling sounds of Los Angeles to greet me. It was only the small dingy quarters of a brothel in a desert that had no name. Out of this cursed saloon, a girl would go missing in the night only to be replaced by another who spoke a tongue no one understood. This was the loneliest of all possible worlds. Only the insipid interactions with Karl, Old Jim, and the Madam kept me company. But they, like me, were spiritually dead. We lived only in the decaying and depraved dream of Randal J Furie.

Each night bled into the next. A John overburdened with whisky and a crumbling life would refuse to pay and only Karl would take joy in altercation. The diminutive bumblefuck had one John beaten and bloodied and chained in a shack out back for days on end. When I found the John, he was severely dehydrated, lacking money, and begging for his release. I confronted Karl about this. “I completely forgot about leaving him out there,” Karl explained.

“He’s in dire need of medical attention,” I said.

“What do you suggest we do?”

I didn’t have the heart to put a bullet in his brain. One night, I escorted the John to the foot of the mountain range in a UTV and sat him right outside of the pass. “Follow the light flutter,” I told him. “And don’t come back.”

He was never seen again.

I’d sit at the bar, emptying my paycheck into the cash register of the Candyland Saloon. Money was meaningless out here. Burl would sling me one beer after another and I’d drink hoping that this night would be my last. Yet each morning I’d wake up still begging for death. Sometimes I’d pray to the 3am god then look out the window to that mountain pass and wonder if I should follow the path of that fateful John. My life was over. And even if I did escape, I’d never escape the clutches of Randy.

“How long have you been out here?” I’d ask the Madam.

“You should never ask a woman her true age,” she’d say.

“But what does he have on you? How can you stay happy living like this?”

She wouldn’t answer.

This was life from now on. No cable TV. No long walks on the beach. No late night beer runs to the gas station. No belligerent driving down Sunset Boulevard. No antagonistic conversations with baristas. This was it.

I was dead.

Then one night like any other night, I was sipping on a Natty at the bar when I heard a familiar voice. He was yapping away ceaselessly at Burl who stood silently with arms crossed. It was all the shit I’ve heard countless times before: a cheating wife, bosses making unreasonable requests, and threatening to bring a loaded firearm into a federal building and ending it all.

It was Dale.

While drunk on cheap beer, I crawled off my stool and stumbled towards him. I reached my arms around him in a loving embrace. “Dale, I’m glad to see you!” I say.

Without acknowledging the wild coincidence of meeting in a place like this, Dale rambles on. “James, I’ll tell you what!” he said. “I finally had enough of that bitch once and for all! After they laid me off at the toilet factory, I told my wife that she better get the fuck out of Los Angeles or else I would light this trailer on fire! Did she want that on her conscience? She cried and cried before getting a restraining order and I told her that I ain’t afraid to die! So she better meet me by the railroad tracks or else I’d be ran over by a train! But that bitch never showed up! Goddamn I miss her.”

“Dale, will you shut the fuck up?!” I said. “I’m trapped out here against my will! Can you do me a favor? Can you find a man named Vic Weathers and send him out here to rescue me? Tell him to arm himself to the teeth!”

“Ya know, I was trapped in a whore house in Vietnam. That’s where I lost two inches off my cock for…”

I slap him across the face. “Goddamnit, will you listen to me?! This is serious! Tell Vic that I’m trapped in the desert in what is probably Nevada…”

“Nevada?!” Dale exclaimed. “I thought we were in Utah!”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I said. “Utah? I should have known that Mormons were somehow involved in this. Anyway, find Vic Weathers in Los Angeles. Give him this location. Tell him to bring guns, machetes, explosives, any and all weapons he can find….”

There was a light tap on my shoulder. I turned around and saw Karl flashing his yellowed and grimy teeth. “You’re not supposed to be conversing with the customers,” he warned.

Emboldened by my drunkenness, I tell him to fuck off. “I’m gonna tell the Madam you said that,” he told me.

“What’s she gonna do?” I ask. “I’ve been fucking her every night since I’ve got here. So do me a favor you ugly rat shit, go take a long walk in the desert!”

Karl cried and walked off the I looked back to Dale. “Quick! Go back to LA,” I said. “Time is of the essence!”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Anaideia 18

I could barely hold a coffee cup to my lips due to trembling hands. There was a blanket draped over my shoulders as I recovered from intense shock from the night’s events. I sat only in my underwear while clothes dried from washing in the intense desert heat after I shat and pissed them. The Madam sat on the other end of the table with a disapproving expression. She held a cigarette between her fingertips.

“You are a stupid, stupid man,” she told me.

“True,” I said as I slowly sipped.

Old Jim finished packing tobacco into his half bent pipe and lit a match. With the tobacco alit, a plume of smoke exited his nostrils and he nodded his head. “You know, old folks used to say you should flush quarters down the toilet for good luck,” he said. “But when I clogged the toilet, the plumber found $276.50 in the drain. That was a good day.”

The rays of morning sun gleamed through the wavy vintage glass and lit up the saloon. It was an hour past sunup and patrons were shuffling out of the whore quarters and to the bar where Burl would serve beers like an oafish and silent brute. I was somewhat despondent. Jim, the Madam, and myself sat around the old square table quietly lost in our own worlds. My world, of course, was shattered by the appearance of a fiendish ghoul who guarded a mountain pass like Cerberus of Hades. I realized then that this was the reality of folks like Old Jim and the Madam; they were trapped in this barren basin as prisoners.

Randy stepped in through the front door of the saloon and approached the bar. He was wearing a bluish grey suit with a yellow tie and a straw boater hat and he looked like a depression era Bible salesman. Burl mixed what appeared to be a tequila sunrise and handed to Randy. We might’ve been friends for a long time. But today I felt like I might swallow a bullet. He sipped on the cocktail and slowly crept towards our table while he jingled change in his pocket. He placed his hand gently on my shoulder.

“Jim, how are ya?” he asked.

“Fair,” said Jim.

“Madam Joelle, I don’t suspect much has changed since last night?”

“That’s a fair assessment,” said the Madam.

“Young chili pepper,” Randy said, referring to me, “can I speak to you outside?”

I swallowed hard and followed him outside. We stood underneath the shotily put together awning that counted as a porch in the front while my blanket swayed in the wind. The skies were clear. Randy pointed to that far off mountain range I failed to traverse the night before. “Do you know how far away that range is?” he asks.

“No sir. I do not.”

“It’s 5.62 miles away,” he explained. “Far enough away to feel safe from life’s uncertainties but close enough to look out the window and wonder. Now what you saw last night might not be of this world. But the terror it brings is no different than what any man faces when he walks the streets. Every two minutes a man is shot dead in Los Angeles County and that’s your home. Just minutes away from where you eat and drink and make love is an unspeakable tragedy.”

“What are you getting at Randy?”

Randy takes a bigger drink from his cocktail and continues. “My point is, why tempt fate? You have all the niceties that a young chili pepper should kill for. You are surrounded by beautiful women from all around the world while unbridled from the laws of government. This is paradise compared to the godless land you used to dwell in. So why escape?”

“But it seems pretty godless out here.”

“Yet that’s where you’re wrong!” he exclaimed. He grew more animated with each breath. “Soon this whole lake bed will be filled with commerce and industry. People from miles around will come and find their wildest fantasies come to life. It will be a hedonistic dream!”

“That’s what Las Vegas is for,” I said.

“I’m trying to tell you that you’re on the frontier of a new world! I was halfway to Riverside County when I heard you tried to leave this place! I want you to be a part of this dream! That’s how important you are to me!”

Randy threw his arms around me with drink in hand and slightly spilling the cocktail onto my blanket. “Don’t leave,” he said. “You’re too important to this operation.”

“Randy, I just want to make sure I can leave whenever I want.”

Randy removed the boater hat and placed it to his chest. “I understand,” he said. “But that thing, out there,” he explained, referring to Penelope, “I just don’t know if she can permit that.”

He placed the hat back on his head and poured the nearly a full glass of tequila sunrises onto the dry ground and waltzed back to his Cadillac. As he opened the driver’s side door he shot me one last glance. “You’re not the first to try to escape,” he said, “and you probably won’t be the last. But those mountains are littered with the bones of curious kittens. I don’t feel the need to warn you again.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Anaideia 17

In retrospect I shouldn’t have been so hasty in leaving the Candyland saloon. When traversing a large desert, even in nightfall, it behooves one to be prepared. Things like water and a flashlight would have been extraordinarily helpful while walking across this plain of death. But it was too late now. All I had was a Smith & Wesson revolver and the clothes on my back.

C’est la vie.

It wasn’t the time to lose my nerve. The canyon I entered appeared as a labyrinth of darkness and tribulation. It was silence. The only sound I heard was the thumping of my own chest. Out of caution I pressed forward with eyes wide open and the revolver in hand.

The dirt road reverted to its innate form and my senses attained an acuity not felt by any man since the days of Adam. This was the most primal of all fears; the fear of darkness and the unknown. I knew the road would return to its manmade form on the other side of the ridge. How far that was I did not know. I crept forward, always present of the unseen reality in front of me.

Occasionally there was a sound; a rock tumbling down a crevasse or the sporadic creeping of a wondering nocturn. Yet I maintained my composure. But a little further into the labyrinth there was an alien clicking. I didn’t want to get excited so I slowed my pace and scanned the gun in all directions. A little deeper and the foreign sound was more intense. I aimed the pistol in its direction and called out. “Who goes there?!” I shout.

For a few moments there was nothing. The clicking ceased. Then, like a silent wave, the mood of the canyon shifted. Any creeping thing that was left there stopped in its tracks. I heard the gnawing of flesh and bone and the growling from a hellish hound. “Show yourself!” I demand. Yet there was no reply from the shadows.

Whatever was out there needed a deterrence so I fire one shot into the darkness. From the brief flash of a Smith & Wesson, the canyon lit up and I saw what I had hoped to never see again; a rakish creature of grey flesh on all fours with blood dripping from the jaws. Though the long black hair concealed the face, small glowing eyes glared back at me.

“Jesus Christ!” I yelped. I fire several more shots in its direction and sprint back in the direction I came. I trampled over rocks both big and small which caused me to lose my footing. In a panic, I fire the remaining bullets in the creature’s direction. With the cylinder empty, I hurl the pistol at the galloping beast.

Before I knew it, I cleared the canyon and was back on the desert basin. I could see the faint glow of the Candyland Saloon several miles ahead but I wasn’t going to make it. Like Tom before me, I would be swallowed up by the desert and never be heard from again. Though adrenaline got me this far, it wasn’t enough. I started to soil my pants in preparation for death.

But right when hope was lost, the roaring of a turbo UTV came to my defense. Rifle shots rang out, striking the creature and it screamed out an ungodly sound. The blinding lights emitted from the UTV provided a brief glimpse of the monster’s true form: it was humanoid with large breasts hanging from its chest and long legs indicating its formidable size. It was Penelope.

The legend was true.

With the creature in retreat, the UTV pulls closer and I could see the driver. “Boy, you’re crazy!” Karl shouted. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

I lean forward with hands on my knees to catch my breath and then I vomited. Karl laughed. “Goddamn your puke smells like shit!” he says.

I stand up straight and wipe my mouth. “Yeah,” I said. But I didn’t want him to know the truth: I had completely shit my britches.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Anaideia 16

It was a frenzied evening of gratuitous sex in the Madam’s garish and glittering quarters. Sure I came. A lot, in fact, and perhaps prematurely. But the whole time I was distracted by my innermost concerns, specifically my monetary situation. When we finished, I laid there naked and sweaty on the soft pink and silk sheets waiting for the shoe to drop.

“So do I pay you?” I ask. “I’m not sure how this works.”

She sits up in bed, also naked, with her large bosoms exposed and she lights a cigarette. “This one’s on the house,” she explains. “Besides, it’s been a while since I’ve had sex for pleasure. I just wish it lasted longer.”

“Sorry about that,” I said. “So anyways, do I sleep here?”

She aggressively shakes her head. “Fuck no. You have a room downstairs.”

“With the rest of the whores? Won’t it get a little loud at night?”

“First off, they’re not whores. They’re paid companions. And secondly, you get used to it.”

“Alright,” I shrugged. “Do I at least get free booze at the bar?”

“No. That comes out of your paycheck.”

“What the hell?!” I exclaimed. “This is bullshit. Randy said…”

“Randy might own the place but this is my show,” the Madam interjected. “He’s barely here anyway. So I’m the ultimate authority at this joint! You got that BUSTER?!”

“Yeah yeah, I got that,” I said. I climbed out of bed, found my pants, and put them on.

“Are you going to your room?” she asks.

“Hell no,” I said as I buttoned up my ragged denim shirt. “This wasn’t the deal I made with Randy. I’m walking out of here, going to the nearest town, and I’m heading home.”

The Madam sat up in bed and grabbed my hand. “Don’t do that!” she said. “Penelope will get you!”

“Shit,” I said dismissively. “A naked woman wondering the desert? I might as well be in Palm Springs.”

“She’ll eat you!” the Madam shouted.

“Yeah okay,”’ I said and finished putting on my boots. I checked myself in the mirror one last time before departing the Madam’s quarters. “Thanks for the fuck,” I said, “thank god I didn’t cry this time,” and I slam the door shut.

I walk out to the creaky wooden balcony and downstairs into the saloon where the night’s revelry was dying down. Old Jim was still shuffling his cards when I approached. “Hey Jim,” I said, “mind if I have your Smith & Wesson?”

“What for?” he asks.

“I’m headed out of here,” I say. “I figured I’d follow the light pollution to find the nearest town but I might need some protection from the coyotes and whatnot. I’ll give the gun to Randy when I see him in LA.”

“Coyotes?” Jim said. “There ain’t no coyotes out there. Penelope is the only creature roaming that desert this time of night.”

“Whatever. I’m still gonna need some protection.”

Old Jim shakes his head and lays the pistol on the table. “You can have my Smith & Wesson,” he says, “but it ain’t gonna do you no good.”

I pick up the pistol and check the cylinder. “Thanks for the advice,” I tell him. I stuff the gun into the back of my pants and tip my hat. “Been nice knowing ya Jim.” I proceed to the front of the saloon and push open the door into the silent darkness.

The dirt road leading to the Candyland compound extended beyond the dry basin and into the mountain range beyond. It was plain to see in daylight but near invisible at night. I had to rely on the glow of city lights from the other side of the range for guidance. The moon was nowhere in sight and the stars glittered like pixie dust on a black canvas. The land, I thought, possessed a serenity of a surreal dream but the uneasiness of a concealed graveyard. I proceed a few miles down the dirt road. What little wildlife remained in these parts cried out like ghosts in the night. Intellectually I knew the legend of Penelope was false, but walking into this dark chasm I understood the fear.

It was maybe five miles into the trek that I reached a valley in this unnamed range. The light flutter on the horizon no longer guided me and the darkness swarmed me like a minacious cloud. Not even the sounds of critters would accompany me into this miscreated canyon. Here nature seemingly stopped; the laws of sense and possibility broke down. Only the rules of an accursed imagination seemed germane to these parts.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Anaideia 15

The man called Karl and I, we incinerated the corpse of Tom by burning his body and grinding the bones and we scattered his ashes across the desert basin. Whoever this Tom might’ve been, where he came from and who his family was would forever be lost to the sands of time. We found no wallet on his person. Believe me, we looked. What they don’t tell you is that it takes a long time to burn a body. If Tom was shot around noon, we didn’t return to the Candyland compound till after sundown.

When we did get back, Karl took out a cigarette and looked towards the blueish hues hovering over the horizon. “Another city boy gets swallowed up by the desert,” he chuckled. “Oh well. I guess it’ll happen to all of us sooner or later.”

I lower the canteen from my lips and shot him a glance. “What do you mean?” I ask.

“Say what now?” he asks after taking a drag.

“What do you mean ‘we all get swallowed by the desert’?” I repeat.

“Oh nothing,” Karl says, waving away smoke. “Just a figure of speech. C’mon, Old Jim probably wants to play cards.”

We enter through the back door of the Candyland bar where all the bits of skull and brain matter were washed away and the place had resumed its usual revelry. Old Jim hadn’t moved from the place where we left him. The Smith and Wesson still laid on the table and he was fumbling around with a stack of cards. Karl sat on one end of the square table and I on the other. “It didn’t take you boys long,” Old Jim says.

“Nah,” Karl said. “This new boy here is a natural.”

Old Jim looks at me with his hard but gentle grey eyes. “So you buried a body before?” he asks me.

“Uh, well…”

Before I could answer, the Madam approached from behind me and rubbed my shoulders. “Can I get you boys a whiskey?” she asks.

“I’ll take a shot of Dickle,” Karl says, grinning his yellowed teeth.

I reach across my body to place my hand on top of hers. “I’ll just take a Miller High Life,” I say.

“Sorry sweetheart,” the Madam says, “all we have is Keystone.”

I sigh. “Very well,” I tell her.

She leaves to gather our drinks and Old Jim shuffles the playing cards. “What do you boys say? Texas Hold em? Five Card Draw?” he asks.

“How bout regular ol poker?” I say.

Old Jim shrugs and deals out the cards. I look at my hand; some 8s, a king, an ace or some bullshit. The Madam returns and lays out our drinks on the table. “Mind if I join you boys?” she asks. No one objects.

I sip on my piss water and begin studying Old Jim. Who the fuck was this old fart? Why would anyone in their golden years want to spend time in this shithole? I figured it didn’t hurt to ask. “So Jim,” I say, “are you retired?”

“One thing you should know, is that a man never retires,” he says, briefly looking up from his hand.

“Do you have family?”

“No.”

“Do you live nearby?”

“No.”

“Do you enjoy the company of whores?”

“My peckers been dead for 20 years.”

“Then what draws you to this place?”

The Madam and Karl sit silently while Jim gathers his thoughts. His hands were trembling while he tried to play his hand. “I just like to play poker,” he says.

“Bullshit,” I say throwing down my cards. “None of us know how to play poker. What aren’t you people telling me?!”

The awkward stillness of the table clued me into the taboo that I broached. The Madam pursed her lips. Karl looks over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening and he leans in. “There are things out there that go against god,” he whispers.

“Yeah I know,” I say, “I’m from North Hollywood. You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

“You don’t understand,” Karl reiterates. “There are things – if we can call them that – that seem to be of Satan himself. The natives have feared this place for generations. People disappear out there. That’s why we don’t go out at night.”

“Her name is Penelope,” Old Jim says. The Madam shuddered at the very name.

“Penelope?” I ask. “Is she one of the prostitutes?”

“No,” Karl says. Then he gives me a deathly stare. “She’s possibly the devil herself. She’s seven feet tall; naked as the day she was born. She waits, out there, under the cover of night waiting to devour the body of an unsuspecting soul. Any man who has dared to escape this place has met her fate.”

He had to of been joking I thought. But judging by the solemn faces looking down at the table it was clear this was no laughing matter. “You people are crazy,” I say. “This is probably a bullshit rumor that Randy created to scare his trafficked victims away from escaping.”

“Oh yeah?” Karl said. “Well if you’re so brave, then maybe you should go venture out into that desert night.”

“You want me to go right now?” I say, calling out his bluff. As I stand up, the Madam reaches out and tugs my shirt. “Sit down,” she ordered, “this is foolish!”

“I agree,” I say. “A grown ass man believing in a naked monster is foolish!”

“No! You’re being foolish!” she says.

“Me?”

“Yes! You’ll be eaten alive!”

I was stunned speechless at the level of stupidity at this table. I sit there and rub my face. Karl gets up to sit at the bar and Old Jim goes back to shuffling his cards. As I resume sipping on my piss water, the Madam takes me by the hand. “I know all of this sounds preposterous,” she said, “but it’s true. All of it. There’s no sense in trying to leave this place. You’re perfectly safe here.”

“Madam Joelle,” I said, “I watched a man sitting in this chair get his head blown off today.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Anaideia 14

The flash of midday sun blinded me as Randy opened the boot of his 98 Cadillac DeVille. I sat up in the trunk and noticed we were surrounded by a sea of desert and golden sands and open skies in every direction. It was a seven hour drive in total blackness. Randy recommended a cocktail of Ambien and Benadryl along with an oxygen mask and a jug of water to accompany me. As my eyes adjusted to this environment, I noticed that we were parked in front of a hastily cobbled together compound that resembled a shanty town. On one building scrolled above the entrance read “Candyland”.

“Welcome to my kingdom,” Randy told me as I climbed out of the back of the Cadillac. This couldn’t be real, I thought . This was hell.

We walked through the front entrance of the forward building and inside it was near total darkness except for the glowing red neon lights illuminating the displayed liquor bottles and a beat-up bar in front. Behind the bar was a large bartender with a cigarette dangling from his mouth as he wiped down a beer glass. “Let me introduce you to Burl,” Randy told me. Burl, the bartender, looked up and glared. “He doesn’t speak good English,” Randy explained, “so you’ll have to excuse his silence.”

“What the fuck is this place?” I ask him.

“Oh it’s nothing to worry about,” Randy assured me. “I have all my licenses in order. Health inspections usually clear.”

“That’s not what I asked…”

The lights suddenly brighten and a large-bossomed woman sauntered down the stairs and into the bar with her flowing silk robe and long legs. She towered over every man in her high heels and though she was easily 30 years my senior, I felt a bizarre attraction to her. “Good afternoon Randy,” she spoke in a slow and exaggerated southern accent. “Who’s this tall glass of water?”

Randy hemmed and hawed at her flattery. “Well I wouldn’t say he’s THAT tall,” he said, “he’s still three inches shorter than me. His name is James.”

“James,” the woman said, extending her hand to mine, “I’m Madam Joelle.”

I look to Randy. “Randy,” I said, “I know a whore house when I see one.”

“Will you shut your mouth?” he snapped. “This is a male fantasy house of ill-repute. Lots of distinguished gentlemen visit these illustrious halls every year. We provide a valuable service here and I will not have my business ventures besmirched by foul words.”

“Okay Randy,” I surrendered.

“Now,” he continued, “let me introduce you to the girls. Madam Joelle, please call the ladies front and center.”

The Madam clapped her hands and women came filing out from all corners. It was like an international buffet at an Oklahoman casino. There were Chinese ladies, Persian ladies, African ladies, Brazilian, Laotian, Norwegian, Russian, Mongolian, Argentinian, Japanese, Siamese, Arabian, and places left untold. “Ladies, allow me to introduce you to our newest employee, James,” the Madam announced.

The women looked confused.

“Let me guess, they don’t speak English either,” I say. Randy appeared shocked that I figured it out.

“Please be kind to James as you show him the ropes,” the Madam continued. She gave a faint mischievous smile. Then she clapped twice as if giving an order. “Now back to work ladies!”

“So what the fuck do you want me to do here Randy?” I ask.

“It’s nothing complicated,” he explained. “When male customers get a little rowdy you simply kick them out.”

“Like a bouncer?”

“There’s a little bit more to it. You see, sometimes the customers like to haggle down the price for our services. Of course, it’s quite reasonable to have questions and concerns. But our prices are set in stone. Most customers are perfectly happy with our terms. But when they continue to haggle, particularly after services are rendered, it is your responsibility to ‘take it out of their ass’, if you will.”

I swallowed hard. I didn’t like this arrangement at all. “Randy, what makes you think I could kick someone’s ass?”

“Oh don’t worry,” he assured me, “most men will find you quite reasonable when you carry a Louisville Slugger.”

I pissed myself a little. “Is that all I’ll be doing?” I ask.

“Just other odds and ends stuff. You may have to extract money from the girls from time to time.”

“Extract? You mean rough them up?”

Randy was offended. “Jesus James! What kind of place do you think this is?! Don’t rough them up! Just use some scare tactics, ya know?”

A Japanese woman interrupts and hands Randy a martini. He throws his arm around her and they go gallivanting up the stairs. I badly needed a drink so I go to Burl. “Miller High Life,” I tell him. He glared at me then grabbed a dirty ass glass, pulled a beer tap, and piss-looking liquid flows out. I was about to cry when the Madam throws her arm around me. “Howdy sailor,” she says, “come around here often?”

“No,” I say. I look in the opposite direction to hide my watery eyes. The Madam puts her finger under my chin and turns my head around. “Hey, don’t cry,” she says. “Things could always be worse. This could be a Turkish whore house. Don’t get me started on that!”

I wrap my arms around her and I loudly cry. “You poor angel,” the Madam whispers. She placed my head on her ample bosom and shushes me. “There there,” she says, “do you cry in arms of prostitutes often?”

“Yes.”

Meanwhile, a gang of roughians were playing high stakes poker at the other end of the bar. One of the players, already six sheets to the wind, slaps his cards on the table in an act of jubilation. “Blackjack fool!” he yelled. The player in front of him was irate and holding a large jackknife. “I ain’t takin this shit!” the angry player was yelling, “you’re a liar and a cheat!”

“I ain’t no cheat!

“You are too! Tell him Jim!”

Jim was the elder statesman of the table. His small grey eyes thoughtfully pondered the situation like a renowned sensei. In one hand he held a pipe. In the other he was stroking his long gangly white beard. “Now now Tom,” Jim said to the irate man, “we all agreed to abide by the rules of this table. Bill won this hand fair and square. If you can’t pay, I’m sure we can work out an arrangement…”

“I ain’t payin!” Tom protested. While wielding the knife, he grabs a whiskey bottle and guzzles it down. When he was finished, he smashed the bottle against the bar, leaving only the neck with jagged edges on the end. He then waved the two edged weapons around. “I’m leaving and if any son of a bitch tries to stop me, I’ll kill em!” he warned.

Jim laid the pipe down and placed a Smith and Wesson on the table. “Tom, you know we won’t stand for this riff raff,” the elder man warned.

Tom grabbed a prostitute, the African one, and placed the jackknife against her throat and began shouting like a rabid dog. “I can’t be stopped! I won’t be stopped!”

It occurred to me that I was getting paid to handle these situations. My eyes might’ve been tear-crusted and my pants soaked, but I felt that special element bestowed to few people which allows them to rise to the occasion. With few options available, I picked up an empty beer bottle and hurled it at Tom. By the grace of god, the bottle avoided the prostitute and nailed Tom square in the eye causing him to drop both knives while blood squirted out of his head. “Jesus Christ!” he yelled.

The prostitute ducked behind a nearby table and before Jim could get a shot off, Burl had a shotgun ready. The bartender fired and Tom’s head exploded into a million pieces, leaving bits of brain and blood scattered across the bar. The corpse collapsed limply and what remained of the skull splattered on the ground.

The seconds afterwards felt like hours before anyone uttered a word. “Get Karl!” the Madam ordered. Burl goes behind the bar and moments later a scrawny leprechaun-like man with rotted teeth and a flat-brimmed cowboy hat pops out. This thing called Karl approached Tom’s headless corpse and kneels down. “Gee golly!” he hollers. Then he looks at me and grins. “Time to earn our paychecks!” he says.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Anaideia 13

Through the eyes of Susan Brucetti I felt like nothing more than a bag of meat. I could imagine her licking her chops like a lioness stalking her prey in the Serengeti. It made no sense. Of all the men strolling mindlessly like cattle through Los Angeles, why my organs? Then a chill ran down my spine; perhaps it wasn’t her who wanted my lungs, kidneys, and testicles. Maybe she was under the thumb of someone else; maybe someone very, very close to me. With that realization, there was only one man to turn to.

Through the middle of a clear day, the blinds were closed. I peered through a small crack overlooking the street below like a drug-addled schizophrenic clutching to a small caliber pistol. I knew she’d be coming through that door and when she did she’d be met with six rounds from my P32.

While I sat in the cold darkness of my second floor apartment, I hear the crunching of busted lightbulbs outside the front door that I placed as an early-warning alarm. The knob turned and I lowered my pistol with finger on the trigger. The door swung open and I prepared to fire.

“Oy mate!” the voice shouted. “Me feet are bleedin worse than Bruce Willis’!”

“Jesus Christ Vic!” I shouted. “I could have killed you!”

“With all the lead and mercury in those bulbs, you might still!”

I lowered the pistol and Vic headed towards the kitchen, leaving bloodied foot prints behind him. Vic was hunting that day, and he didn’t believe in wearing shoes while he stalked various wildlife in the Hollywood Hills. He came out minutes later with raccoon skins wrapped around his feet. “I dunno what’s gotten into ya mate, but you have this place fortified like the Bank of England!” he said.

“My apologies,” I told him. “It’s just that someone wants my organs. And it’s not the first time either!”

“Mate, I told ye a hundred times to not to talk to street salesmen.”

“Why not?” I ask. “Are you afraid of a little competition?”

Vic squints his eyes and leans his head back. “What are you insinuating mate?”

“Susan Brushetti found out where I live. Someone had to of told her.”

“And you think it’s me?”

I instantly regretted my words. In my heart, I knew that Vic would never betray me like that. “No,” I said bashfully. “My apologies Vic. I’ve been a little paranoid lately. I don’t know who to trust anymore.”

“Aye,” Vic said. “You need to tread carefully mate. I’ve killed men for lesser words.”

I threw up my hands in frustration. “I’m gonna have to lay low for awhile,” I said. “I gotta get out of the city until all of this blows over.”

Vic was perplexed. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“No YOU don’t understand,” I retorted. “This town is a dungeon of thieves! Hell has crept up from below the surface and mocks us by masquerading as the city of angels. A man loses his soul a second every hour in this town. The devil has already taken mine and now wants my organs to boot. There’s nothing more I can give. I have little choice but to seek the solace of one Mr. Randall J. Furie.”

“You’re talking crazy mate…”

“That is correct. I am talking crazy because crazy is the only logical path.”

“Have you sought a doctor lately?”

“Vic,” I calmly said. I approached him and rested my hands on his shoulders. “You’ve been a good friend to me,” I told him. “I promise that I won’t be gone long. I promise to send you the money for my half of the rent every month no matter where I am. You gotta trust me.”

“It ain’t about trust mate,” he said. “It’s about your psychological stability.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Anaideia 12

I hopped into work with bells on my toes and my head held high. I greeted each coworker with a joviality that would make John Candy smile. “Good morning Mike!” I said to one.

“Who the fuck are you?”

I danced and twirled all the way to my work station where Dale was hard at it. “My goddamn bitch of wife came back from Florida,” he said to me immediately. “She said she went there to visit her grandma but I called bullshit. I told her to get her shit and get the fuck out of my West Covina trailer. She cried and cried over the children but I told her ‘bitch! My dick’s been dead for 20 years! Fuck the children and FUCK YOU!’ So she grabbed her things and is staying with her friend in Hacienda Heights. I got rip roaring drunk and called her up and begged her to come back but then she threatened me with a restraining order! Can you believe this shit?”

“Good morning Dale!” I said. “Yeah that sounds fucked up but I’m sure things will work out. You gotta stay positive, ya know?”

“Yeah, I’m positive I’ve got a polyp in my ass!”

I nodded and began putting on my heavy duty work gloves and protective glasses. As I picked up a cloth to help wipe down the toilets rolling off the assembly line, Dale gave me a puzzled glance. “It’s 6:45am,” he said. “Work doesn’t start until 7. You’re four hours early!”

“Well goddamn,” I said. I stripped off the gloves and glasses and headed straight for the bathroom to commence my extra long shit. But before I could get there, the boss man announced there was an all hands meeting in the break room. I forwent the shit and followed the gaggle of workers into the cramped break room and waited for the boss man to appear. Finally, 45 minutes later, he shows up all smiles. “Great news everyone,” he announced, “my son who attends USC will escape all sexual assault charges from the Los Angeles Superior Court. Thank god for expensive attorneys.”

He lead the crowd with a round of applause.

“Unfortunately I have some bad news,” he continued. “Toilet sales are down and the only way for this factory and corporate shareholders to turn a profit is if we have mass layoffs. Now look to your left and your right. There’s a good chance that the person next to you won’t be here next week. But that’s all I’ve got for you folks. Let’s go out there and have a productive day!”

Some shuffled out of the break room shedding a river of tears but I wasn’t gonna let this news ruin my day. So Dale and I returned to work where Dale continued to bitch and I halfassed my responsibilities.

“Fuck it,” Dale declared, “if they’re gonna lay me off, I’ll just go home and blow my brains out.”

“Yeah that’s one good solution Dale,” I said. “But I prefer less violent resolution to my problems. I’d probably pick off a liquor store or steal from my senile grandmother. There seems to be too much finality with death, ya know?”

As Dale pondered my comment, the boss man approached and asked me to follow him into his office. Figuring my inevitable termination, I tossed off my gloves and spat on the ground. I followed him past the lobby and into the office area where several corporate officials sat around a conference table. I was instructed to take a seat at the end of the table with the bulldog-looking plant manager on the other end. The boss man sat on one side while HR sat on the other.

“You’ve been an employee here for a long time,” the plant manager began. “How long has it been?”

HR shuffles through some papers before landing on my name. “Four weeks,” replied HR.

“And you’ve been a very productive employee,” the manager continued. “You show up, you wear clothes, you eat and breathe, sometimes you talk…”

“Spare me the bullshit,” I interrupted. “I know I’m getting canned so jump to it. Is there a severance package? If not then let’s stop jerking each other off and let me go home.”

The manager nervously chuckled and scratched his head. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “We’re not laying you off. We’re giving you a goddamn promotion! Congratulations buddy! You’re one of us now!”

I cock my head. “Promotion?” I say. “You mean more money?”

“You’re goddamn right pal!” he beams. “How does a dollar or a dollar and a half sound?”

I raise my head in suspicion. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch. You get promoted to supervisor and we pay you more money.”

The manager flicks a piece of paper across the table and it slides towards me. I pick it up and attempt to decipher the legalese. Then a pen comes sliding towards me from HR. “Just sign it,” the manager urged.

I shake my head in disbelief. “You know I can’t read this shit,” I say.

“Look,” the manager pleaded, “all we need you to do is do the work of seven to eight people with minimal help or support from us and you’ll make $8.36 an hour. It seems like a fair wage.”

My palms were sweating as I contemplated signing the document. It was a lot of money to just come in and take three shits per day. But I felt a higher calling. Something felt different about this day and I had to follow my instincts. “I can’t do it,” I say, “something about it doesn’t feel right.”

The manager takes off his glasses and sets them down in front of him. He clasps his hands. “You understand that if you don’t sign it that you will be laid off,” he explains.

“No shit?” I ask. I take a moment to collect my thoughts. “In that case, I tender my resignation,” I finally said. I stand up and straightened out my piss stained shirt. “Good day gentlemen,” I say.

“But if you resign before you’re laid off then you won’t be able to collect unemployment,” HR informs me.

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” I say. I proceed to the doorway and release a massive ass fart before closing the door.

Outside as I walk back to dingy apartment, I stop to smoke a cigarette. Under the glorious Los Angeles sun, I felt unyoked for the first time in my life. Perhaps now was the time to pursue my dream of owning a head shop in San Bernardino, or at least I kept reassuring myself that. But before I could ignite my lighter, I noticed a familiar face staring back at me from across the street. She was holding up a pair of binoculars while sitting in the driver’s seat of a beige Chrysler 200.

TO BE CONTINUED…