Anaideia 11

A demon-like wraith crawled up my leg in the middle of the night and I struggled to breathe. I tried to fight the creature away yet it taunted me. Silent screams rung out from my body as the beastly thing threatened to devour me whole. I twist and I turn. I futilely and desperately try to escape my fate, and then like a pardon from god, the nightmare was over. The sweet reprieve of wakefulness blessed me with the familiarity of my own bedroom and the sounds of Los Angeles outside. I couldn’t believe my luck.

So I climb out of bed and rush to the window. From my second floor apartment I could see an adolescent man tagging a phallic image on a loaded dumpster with a can of spray paint. I open the window and cried out.

“You, boy!” I shouted. “What day may it be?”

The man looked up. “It’s Thursday you fuckin moron,” he said.

Christ, I thought. That meant I had to be at work in a few hours. I dig through the hamper to find a wrinkled pair of pants and a grease-stained shirt. I throw them on and forgo brushing my teeth and rush out the door. But as I was walking out, I noticed a small business card at the foot of the door. I lean down to pick it up and flip the card over. Susan Brusheti, Fixer it read. This wasn’t good; a known trafficker of human organs knew where I lived.

I stuffed the card into my pocket, went down the stairs, and made a beeline to the nearest convenience store. I walked in and grabbed a six pack of Miller High Life and sat it on the counter. The white Rastafarian clerk looked up from his Car and Driver magazine and glared. “Sir, it’s four thirty in the morning,” he told me, “we can’t sell alcohol until seven.”

“Since when” I ask.

“It’s been California law for at least 50 years.”

“Shit,” I said under my breath. “Well I gotta be at work this morning. Can you sell me anything that will fuck me up?”

Annoyed, the clerk drops his magazine and looks at the locked plastic displays on the counter. “We got some kratom here I guess,” he said.

“Is it any good?”

“Shit if I know. I don’t touch that crap.”

I shell out the $150 for seven tablets of kratom and buy a 24 oz Monster Energy drink on top of that. I walk outside and crack open the kratom and swallow a couple of tablets. Feeling parched, I then start drinking the Monster. After walking a few blocks towards Sunset, I felt better than I had in a long time. “Maybe life isn’t a waking nightmare after all,” I say to myself.

Trying my luck, I throw out my thumb to hitch a ride. Almost instantly, a bloated boomer pulls up curbside in a red 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse. “Hey buddy, you need a ride?” he asks in a gruff voice. Skid Row’s “Slave to the Grind” was blasting on the radio.

“Fuck yeah dude!” I say then jump into the passengers seat.

The boomer tear-asses down the street and pops open a fifth of Jack. “Care for a swig?” he asks. I take a swig. Then he asks me where I was headed. “To the toilet factory off Sunset,” I say.

“You’re going to work?” he asks.

“Yes sir.”

“Fuck that shit,” he says then lays on the gas.

It was seconds, or maybe minutes, or maybe hours before we were in the hills. By that time the lights appeared as bright streaks racing through the sky like distorted stars. I felt like a child journeying through the birth canal. The world and time itself seemed distilled into a single wormhole, the other side of which awaited a new universe. Perhaps it was the sun rising in the east, or maybe my pupils were overly dilated, but the earth was changing. As we rammed through the streets of the Hollywood Hills, I looked down onto the city and for the first time I entered the places only dreamed by monks and ancient philosophers: the supreme sublime beauty. My mind was awakened and my body felt the blissful lassitude of a long journey. But like all good things, this too must end. We trekked down the hills and back towards Sunset. The city was now awake and bustling with vehicles going to and fro. Everything that I had once cursed now seemed to be in its proper place; the world was whole.

The Eclipse pulled into the toilet factory parking lot. The lethargic and groggy-eyed workers shuffled into the building under the morning sun yet I was reinvigorated. When the car came to a complete stop, I looked to the boomer. “Thanks for taking me into the hills,” I tell him. “It was a journey of a thousand miles and I’m thankful for every step.”

The boomer looked at me side-eyed. “The fuck you talking about kid?” he asked. “You were in my car for five minutes.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

A weird week to die

Through the fire and flames and the rotten stench of a decaying world, I felt myself unnerved by the string of celebrity deaths this past week. Gene Hackman and Michelle Trachtenberg’s passing dominated the headlines, but there were two others that I feel went under the radar: Roberto Orci and Jocelyn Ridgley.

Jocelyn Ridgley might not be well known outside of Red Letter Media fandom but she made quite an impact for her role as Nadine in a Mr. Plinkett review and for Zorba in Space Cop. Reports indicate that she was killed in a murder-suicide in Arizona. To my knowledge, her death hasn’t been addressed by the Red Letter Media crew but it appears that she is the same Jocelyn Ridgley named in the Arizona media.

Roberto ‘Bob’ Orci might be better known as he rose to fame along side Alex Kurtzman when they became showrunners of Hercules. They’d later team up for Xena, Alias, and Fringe and wrote screenplays for Mission Impossible III and Transformers. However their internet notoriety came when they produced and wrote Star Trek (2009) with JJ Abrams, followed by Star Trek Into Darkness four years later. This was a turning point in Hollywood history; an omen for what was to come for all established IPs (but that’s a story for another day). What’s forgotten in the Orci story is that when Abrams stepped away from Star Trek to helm Star Wars, Orci was initially named as director for what eventually became Star Trek Beyond. By that time, Kurtzman had already established himself as a director so it only seemed natural that his partner would follow suit. But that deal fell through and Orci seemingly disappeared from not only Star Trek, but the spotlight altogether. To make this saga even more strange, it was later announced that Kurtzman, not Orci (who was a genuine fan of Star Trek), would essentially be the gatekeeper of Star Trek for both film and television, a role that Rick Berman similarly held in the 1990s, and the rest is history. Orci died of kidney failure on February 25, 2025.

Orci came to my attention in the run up to the release of Star Trek 09 as he regularly interacted with fans on Trekmovie.com. These interactions weren’t always cordial, particularly in 2013 when Into Darkness polarized critics and fans alike. To be honest, Bob Orci always struck me as a weird guy. It’s Hollywood so that shouldn’t come as a surprise but he never struck me as a weird eccentric guy, which is far more socially acceptable. Instead he came across as a weird tech-billionaire type, minus the billions of dollars. I never followed his social media but allegedly after his exit from Star Trek he became a 9/11 truther and entertained a number of other conspiracy theories. Later it was revealed he was in an abusive relationship with his wife, both alleging the other of abuse, and that he was in and out of rehab for alcoholism. I assume this partially explains his exit from Star Trek. It’s a sad ending for a guy who became a showrunner at age 24.

Michelle Trachtenberg presumably died of liver failure on February 26th, but because her family has refused an autopsy, her death remains undetermined. I grew up watching her on the Adventures of Pete & Pete and EuroTrip was an often quoted film in high school. Her passing is a reminder that the cold touch of death could reach us at any moment and that fame and age cannot protect us.

Thankfully Gene Hackman lived a long and fruitful life when he died sometime in February of this year. His body, along with the body of his wife, was found on February 26th. Initial thoughts were that the couple died from carbon monoxide poisoning but that is now seemingly not the case. What should be a celebration of his life and achievements is instead a tragic event shrouded in mystery.

Not since the great die-off of 2016 have I been so rattled by celebrity deaths. These folks passed away either too young or under mysterious circumstances. As cursed as this world can be, we should wake up each morning and look in the mirror and be amazed that the universe has made itself aware through your eyes. Because one day it will all be over.

Anaideia part 10

I waited for a cab outside the tawdry gates of Big Dick Cedars. The burly guard approached me with a stack of old and faded nudie cards he found stashed away in the guard shack. “Can you believe my luck?” he asked as he held a picture of a fully bushed woman spread eagle on an eight of spades.

“Pretty neat,” I said.

“I know! I can’t play solitaire without getting a boner!”

But as he thumbed through each card with increasing intensity, the taxi pulled curbside and rolled down the window. My heart sank when I saw the driver. “You son of a bitch!” the cabbie shouted. It was the same racist cabbie I stiffed earlier in the day.

Panicked, I grabbed the guard’s pistol believing it to be a 9mm then I aimed and fired it at the driver. Instead of a bullet, a prong shot out and attached itself to the cabbie. While he convulsed from numerous volts of electricity, I dropped the taser and headed for the bushes. I realized then that there was only one way back to Los Angeles and that was on my own two feet.

21 hours later I was back on the outskirts LA. With my feet rubbed raw and the soles of my shoes hanging by a thread, I crawled into my flat on all fours. I headed straight towards the kitchen and grabbed the last beer in the fridge. It was a Pabst BlueRibbon. “Goddamn piss water,” I said to myself. Vic must have drank the last of my Miller High Life. But I cracked open the PBR and crawled to the couch and tried to enjoy the lukewarm beer.

Right as I was about to doze off, Vic came through the front door carrying machete, a 12 gauge shotgun, and a dead boar. “Evening mate,” he greeted in his Scottish draw.

“I didn’t think there were wild boar in California,” I say.

“There’s not,” he explains as he throws off his gear. “Ay went huntin in the San Gabriel Mountains and was stalked by two prowlin cougars. I killed em both with me machete and used their skins to make me loincloth. Aye, I had a good dee killin’.”

“But how did you get the boar?”

“Tha boar? Oh that’s just roadkill mate.”

Vic strips out of his bloodied shirt and mud-caked pants to expose his cougar-skinned loincloth. Unbridled by clothes and restrictions of modern man, he stood like a Roman god in my living room. The half naked Scot then picked up an acoustic guitar and gently plucked away as he sang hymns from the mother land. I finished my can of piss water and threw the crushed piece of aluminum across the room. Vic stopped his serenading. “Oy mate, where have you been all day?” he asks.

“Norco,” I say.

“Norco? Why would you go to tha shitehole?”

“Someone owed me money. It’s like the goddamn wild west out there.”

“Aye. It’s the wild west everywhere mate.”

I rub my hands across my face as I choked back tears. “How did the world get so crazy?” I ask.

Vic lays down the guitar and leans forward. “The world has always been crazy,” he says. “We’re just feeble beings floating on an insignificant rock through time and space. Some days you’re up but most days you’re down yet the world spins madly round. They say that man is born into sin but his soul can be redeemed. But I say man is rotted to the bone. There is not one pure creature that walks this earth. Nay not one. God was right to look upon his creation and curse it. And if god has cursed us to live this madness then what hope have we? The pursuit of sanity will forever remain an empty one. In fact it’s something worse. It’s vanity.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

All good things…

Word has permeated the internet. The Alamo has fallen. The last legacy of long established IP is now under control of the Raiders of Silicon Valley. Jeff Bezos now owns James Bond. May his reign be short lived.

When word reached me, a wave of depression hovered over me like a darkened cloud. The internet knew what this meant; it was an end of an era. It was 25 films spread across 60 years. The Royal Family that was the Broccolis ruled over their fiefdom as benevolent rulers and providing their subjects with an undiluted product that influenced a multitude of generations in Hollywood.

Now it is over. It can only be assumed that the legions at Amazon are preparing for a new era in the 007 universe, complete with spin-offs, television shows, and cheap and unfettered reality entertainment. The mystique of James Bond will be tainted for a millennium and the joy of its spectacle will be cheapened and diminished. What is dead cannot return.

It has taken me awhile to assess my feelings on the matter. I’m not angry with Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson for selling out. As with any valuable property, it must be defended unrelentingly from cash-grab predators and opportunists. The ceaseless battle can and will take its toll. I can’t blame Broccoli and Wilson for taking the money and running. Any of us would have done the same under similar circumstances. Instead I see this as a changing of the guard from independent artistry to tech dominance of content creation.

Perhaps in a few generations the people will see this as “progress”. Amazon naturally does. But can we genuinely say that the quality of established IPs improved under this paradigm shift? Did it for Star Trek? Did it for Star Wars? There is little reason to believe that James Bond won’t face a similar fate as those two. But maybe we need to reckon with an uncomfortable truth: if we love something, we must let it go.

As Bond fans, we were blessed with 25 films. Though their quality varied, we love each of them on their own terms. I wouldn’t omit a single one from the canon. And these films are going nowhere. They will be embraced by cinephiles for generations to come. Additionally Broccoli and Wilson had the foresight to “kill off” James Bond in the final film under their tutelage. It was a controversial decision but one I always defended. Although I think this move was done as a way to give Daniel Craig a proper sendoff, in hindsight it gives us fans a sense of closure.

But in these times of mourning, perhaps we should seek a silver lining. The exact terms of the deal between the Broccolis and Amazon are unclear to me currently. With any luck, the Broccolis have been relegated to an advisory position. That might not mean much but it might give us hope for a shred of continuity. Yet this is admittedly wishful thinking. Though Amazon will posses the rights to the “gun barrel” sequence, Albert R. Broccoli’s Eon Productions, and the history of the character, the Jeff Bezos takeover is in effect a death to the old order.

However, the old must give way to the new. As much as we piss and moan over Hollywood retreads, there has been a landslide of new intellectual property over the last two decades from Harry Potter, Breaking Bad, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Game of Thrones, etc. Perhaps things never really die; they’re born into something new.

Anaideia part 9

Randy placed his hand on the small of my back and guided me into his study. Inside the walls were adorned with books of both ancient and contemporary origin. The clear scent of brown leather upholstery filled my nostrils. This would have made a fine library if it weren’t for the three Asian men sitting silently around a single pedestal table. Behind each of them was a large blazer-wearing man of Eastern Europe descent. “The men standing are Chechen. And the ones sitting are Chinese,” explained Randy. “I don’t expect any of the Chinese to walk out of here alive.”

“Do you think you want to be saying that out loud?” I ask Randy.

“Oh don’t worry,” he says. “None of them speak English. This is just a business negotiation. I met the Chinese in Hong Kong while I was acquiring exotic meats. You know, panda and the like. Well wouldn’t you know it, Chinese intelligence caught wind of my operation and my business license was revoked. In fact, the second largest country in the world wants me dead! The only logical conclusion is that one of these fellows talked. Hell, they might even be Chinese intelligence themselves! So I invited them out here to Norco under the guise of a trade deal. But what they don’t know is that under each chair is a deadly contraption: A trap door that leads to a fiery pit under chair number one; Chair number two is just a deceptive-looking electric chair; and chair number three, well, that guy will just get strangled by the Chechen behind him.”

“But what if none of them are informants or Chinese intelligence?”

“Oh don’t you see? That’s the genius of my plan. This is what’s called a Croatian negotiation. When you’re in the business I’m in, all your competitors and peers are monsters. You never show weakness. All these freaks understand is force. Don’t you get it? I’m the good guy here. I’m simply speaking the language that they can easily understand, which is that no matter what, I come out on top.”

Petrified into deathly silence, I stand motionless as Randy undergoes his negotiations. The three Chinese men sit blissfully unaware of the terror that awaited them.

Randy approached chair number one. “邊個講嘢?” he said.

Chair number one immediately panicked and lifted his finger to chair number three. Randy signaled to the Chechen behind him and the Chechen stomped his foot onto a pedal below the chair. A trap door opened and swallowed the Chinese fellow into a fiery inferno below. There were no screams. There was no time for that. The flame briefly erupted into the floor above causing intense heat and slightly singeing the table. The remaining two captives, still silent, were sweating.

It took every ounce of self-control to stop from pissing myself. “Uh, Randy,” I say, “what if he was telling the truth?”

Randy chuckled. “Possible but unlikely,” he said. “By immediately throwing his compatriot under the bus, he was unwittingly telling on himself.” Then he taps on his temple. “A little trick I learned from Star Trek VI.”

Randy approached chair number three and they exchanged a few words in Cantonese. The Chinese man nodded and Randy looked contented. “It looks like we struck a deal,” he says to me. But the Chechen behind the chair mistook the signal (because the Chechens didn’t understand English either) and grabbed the Chinese man’s head and snapped his neck. The Chechen released the body and the corpse’s head slammed onto the table below.

“Oh fuck! That guy was Chinese Intelligence!” Randy exclaimed. He screamed a few words at the Chechen in his native tongue then began pacing back and forth. “The Chinese will trace me back here,” he says to me in a panic. “I can’t leave any witnesses.”

Randy steps behind chair number two and slams on the pedal underneath. An untold amount of electricity rushes through the Chinese fellow’s body causing an unrelenting amount of blood to flow from his ears and mouth. As steam poured from his head, his eyes popped out of their sockets before his body lumped forward. It was a sight I hoped to never see again.

With the Chinese dead, Randy pulls out a small revolver and shoots the Chechens behind chairs one and two. Sensing his fate, the Chechen behind chair three charges after him. Randy sidesteps around the table behind chair one. Before the Chechen could reach him, the trap door opens and the Chechen falls to his demise.

In a matter of minutes, six men were killed before my eyes.

Randy wipes the sweat from his brow. “Phew! That was close!” he said. I watched him drag the other four bodies to the trap door to be incinerated. I continued to stand motionless. When he was finished, he slapped his hands together for a job well done. “The things I do to make a buck, eh?” he jests.

He takes a swig of vodka before coming back to his senses. “Oh, forgive me!” he laughs. “What brings by today?”

I begin to stammer a bit. “Uh, well, you know. It’s just been a minute since I’ve seen you.”

“You came all the way from Los Angeles just to say hi?”

“Of course,” I say nervously.

“No it’s not,” Randy states. Then he squares off in front of me and looks me dead in the eye. “I owe you $72 for the strip club the other night.”

“Oh that? I’ve forgotten all about that,” I lie.

He steps closer until his nose is mere inches from mine. “You know you shouldn’t lie,” he says. “The Bible says you shouldn’t lie.”

I nod and lower my head in defeated concession.

“Well goddamn, why didn’t you say so?!” Randy beams. “I feel like such an asshole.” He reaches into his jacket pocket to pull out a checkbook. “Forgive me for not repaying you sooner. My mind sometimes wonders.”

He finishes writing the check and places it into my hand. “I’ll be in Los Angeles on Tuesday,” he says. “Strip club next week?”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Anaideia part 8

I descended into the valley of opulence and avarice where blissful ignorance is felt in these enclaves. Protected by the herringbone floors and Italian marble, these people are shielded from the heat raging from the plebeians at the gate. I was an unwelcomed intruder in these parts, for as a weightless gadfly I shattered their pristine slant. Now they walk with their self-assured innocence, but later they possess a fate worse than hell.

Such was the gated community of ‘Big Dick Cedars’. I waltzed up to the guard gate where a large burly man with a stretched out polo and a 9mm was fingering his nose. He gazed upon me through rounded glasses and droopy eyes. “Hello sir. Welcome to Big Dick Cedars. Are you visiting someone today?” he asks.

“Yes. I’m here to see Randall J Furie,” I say.

“Is he expecting you?”

“He better be.”

The guard radios to another. “I’ll have someone meet you at the gate,” he says to me.

I step a few feet away to the main entrance. While I waited, I expected to be greeted by another dopey looking guard. But when the gate swung open it was the same man. “Welcome to Big Dick Cedars,” he says to me again, “please take a seat in the golf cart and I’ll escort you to Mr. Furie’s.”

I sit in the dilapidated cart. The leather seats were torn and one could barely see through the plexiglass windshield. When the guard turned the key, the cart pushed forward at a snail’s pace. I could have got out and walked faster. There were also speed bumps every 15 feet and the guard made it a point to hit every one. “You can never be too safe,” he told me as the cart struggled to hurdle the meager obstacle. 45 minutes later, in a walk that I could have made in 10, we arrive at Randall J. Furie’s Greek revival mansion.

The guard steps out of the cart and pulls up his sagging khaki pants then escorts me past the fountains and Maseratis to the front door. He knocks loudly then belches. “So you know Randall well?” he asks me.

“You’re goddamn right I do. And his name is Randy.”

The guard nods and pounds on the door again. When someone bothered to answer it, it was a tall and proper looking butler wearing all the proper butler garb. He opens the door and looks me up and down. “So you hea ta see Mista Furie?” he asks in an unexpected Cajun accent.

“Yup. The son of a bitch owes me money.”

“Come on in suh. Kick off your shoes n stay awhile.”

I step inside to the marble floors and kick off my shoes. I follow the gangly butler through the foyer, past the kitchen, down some corridors, past another kitchen, a billiards room, a home theater, a Subway stand, another kitchen, two replicas of the USS Defiant bridge from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a toilet complete with a bidet, the servant’s quarters, some starving Vietnamese children, a Pol Pot memorabilia room, and finally to the reception room to Randy’s office. The secretary was none too pleased to see me.

“Mr. Furie is a very busy man,” that bitch of a secretary said. “Why didn’t you set an appointment?”

“Why don’t you mind your own business lady?” I responded.

“It’s quite alright Blanch,” a cheerful voice was heard from the other room. Randy stepped out from behind the leather padded door. He was shoeless and donning his signature wayfarers. “Welcome to my humble abode,” he said to me with all smiles, “I’ve been expecting you.”

TO BE CONTINUED…

Back to basics part 7

Through the stench of cow manure and putrified sewage, Norco was a piece of heaven rested near the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains. This was God’s country; the resting place of the Luiseños. When Mark Twain came through here in 1901, he said that if anyone heard that his knee caps were shot out and he was buried alive that it happened in Norco. So my heart leapt with joy when I saw the glorious Beacon Hill and the convenient AM PM gas station at its base.

I neglected to gather my cigarettes from the backseat in my hasty escape from a vengeful cab driver. I was desperately tired and in dire need of a nicotine bump. So I waltzed into the AM/PM and rested my hands on the front counter and asked for a pack of American Spirits.

“We don’t have those sir,” the cashier told me.

“What about the Camel Crushes?” I ask.

“We are all out of those.”

“Well goddamnit give me some Marlboros then!”

“Which flavor?”

“The brown ones.”

“You mean the gold ones?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t have those either.”

“Well fuck it then. Give me some Black and Milds”

The cashier turns around and reaches for a pack of Black and Milds. He rings them up and gives me the total. “That’ll be $27.80 sir,” he says.

“$27.80 for some Black and Milds?”

“Yes sir.”

“Let me run out to my car and get my wallet.”

Of course I didn’t have a car or the money to afford Black and Milds. Feeling dejected, I walk through the automatic doors while cursing my fate. Then I look to my right to find an elderly Mexican man sitting on the front bench seemingly enjoying the sunrise peeking through the foothills. I felt envious of the peace he was feeling so I approached him.

“Cigarillo?” I ask the man.

“Sí si,” he responds. “Come. Sit.”

I take a seat next to him and he warmly passes a Marlboro and a light. I put the cigarette to my lips and fire it up. I savored every moment off the first drag. “You’re a godsend you know that?” I tell the man as I hand back the lighter.

“Oh gracias. Thank you,” he smiles.

“No. Thank you!”

I figured the least I could offer was a bit of conversation. So as I slowly puffed away, the two of us sat quietly, though not awkwardly, as we admired the everlasting beauty of the sunrise. I took another drag. “It’s another day ain’t it?” I say.

“Sí,” he plainly states in a contemplative manner.

“So you live around here?”

“Sí. Yes. I’ve lived here for awhile.”

“What do you do for work?”

The smile slowly faded as he looked straight at me. He leans in a bit as if to tell me a secret. “This store here,” he explains. “I used to work at this store.”

“You use to? What happened?”

“That boy you talked to in there? The cashier? That’s the assistant manager. He’s 19 years old. He fired me.”

“Christ,” I say. “He did look like a dumbass.”

“Yes. He’s a dumbass indeed,” the old man said and gazed back at the sunrise.

I stamp out the cigarette and lean forward. “So what are you gonna do now?”

The old man took in a deep breath of the shit stanked Norco air and thought. His eyes narrowed as he oscillated between anger and resignation. “My mother would always tell me that to be a good man, one must always tell the truth,” he began. “That a good man is always fair and when he becomes an old man that his hands will bare proof of hard work. These are hands of a man who has worked hard all of his life. And for what? What have I got to show for it? Now that I am an old man, I realize that my mother’s words were words of a slave. She never came to the land of the gringo. In this land, a man does not work hard. He takes.”

The old man reaches behind him to pull out a crisp new Glock 43 and rests it on his lap. “Now as an old man,” he concluded, “I realize that when a slave breaks the chains of one’s mind he becomes the master.”

The old man stands up and lifts the Glock and slaps in the clip. “Dios te salve, Maria,” he utters to himself. “Llena eres de gracia, el Senor es contigo.”

He marches into the store and into his destiny.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Back to basics part 6

The specter of perdition hovered over these shit and vomit crusted streets along skid row. Vagabonds and tramps from all corners crawled along the crumbling concrete aimlessly seeking a safe solace that had long forbade them. Itinerant preachers were shouting futilely into the night for repentance and salvation among these forsaken children. Though they preached with the fire of a wrathful god their shouts fell like whispers into the maelstrom. Here the divine held no sway. No Christ would dare wave the hand of mercy. This was the underworld. Here judgement had long passed. The street walking whores and drug-fueled cretins had accepted their fate as paradigms of a new virtue: the virtue of sin and impiety. To lift the finger of sanctitude was an act of defiance against this unholy order. If there was a moral law that pervaded the universe then that law had failed.

So I was whistling and jingling the change in my pocket as I strolled through these defiled streets when I thought “fuck this shit.” So I threw out my thumb to hitch a ride. But because I lacked the provocative attire of the common street hooker the passing vehicles looked past me like a shadow in the night. My only option was to hail a cab. When the cabbie pulled up curbside he rolled down the window to yell out racial epithets to passersby. I spoke up when he was finished.

“Excuse me sir,” said I, “I’d like a ride to Norco.”

“Norco?!” shouted the cabbie. “The only things in Norco are Mexicans and fa-..”

“Yes sir I know. I’m half Latino I’ll have you know.”

“But it’s nearly 50 miles away!”

“So?”

“It’s the asshole of Riverside County!”

“And where do you suppose we’re in the asshole of in now?”

The cabbie shrugged and nodded. He unlocked the door and I climbed into the backseat. When I shut the door and buckled my seatbelt the cabbie turned around to look me dead in the eye. “I fuckin hate these goddamn Polacks polluting our streets,” he says. Then he pulled out onto the open road.

A few miles outside of the city I had to stop and shit. The driver rambled on. “And you know who else Trump should deport from this country?” he asks me, “Those shifty eyed Serbs!”. Then I saw a Starbucks on the side of the road.

“Do you mind stopping here?” I ask the cabbie. “I’m afraid I’m about to shit my pants.”

The cabbie pulled into the parking lot and I quickly scrambled out and into the bathroom. It was a noisy shit. I’m sure the patrons outside could hear the sturm und drang emitting from my ass. When I was finished I sat there for more than 30 minutes. Then I stood up to flush the toilet. The water climbed higher and higher as I stood there sweating the worst. Then the bowl overflowed and bits of toilet paper and shit gushed out onto the floor.

I rushed out of there without saying a word to anyone. Back in the cab I urged the driver to go. “We need to leave this parking lot now,” I said. “Hurry!”

About an hour later we were in Norco. I pretended to shuffle through my wallet to find the right amount of cash because the toll was over $792. “I need to stop at the bank,” I told the driver. So we stopped at the first ATM we saw. “Wait here,” I told him.

I climbed back out of the taxi and approached the ATM. But instead of inserting my card and withdrawing money I made a beeline to the bushes several yards away.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Back to basics part 5

As usual I strolled into work five hours late and headed straight for the bathroom. I went into the one empty stall and dropped my pants to unload an ungodly duce which was the result of drinking two six packs and eating multiple cans of Vienna sausages the night before. But as I was desperately trying to squeeze the turd from my ass I could hear pathetic whimpering from the stall next to me.

I pounded on the wall. “Hey buddy! Can you keep it down over there?!” I shout.

The crying intensified.

Through the boo-hooing and unbearable cramping of my intestines I focus on unleashing the brown beast desperately trying to escape my body. But the man next to me only howled. And as he howled so too did the wretched stench blasting out of my butthole. Finally I had enough. I unfurl half a role of toilet paper to wipe my ass and there was nothing on it. Not a speckle of shit. My stomach was a raging and boiling mess. Though the attempt to free the monstrous brown bear creeping through my body had failed I knew that someway and somehow it would find a way out. But that moment wasn’t now. So I pull up my pants and flush the toilet filled with tissue as clean as unadulterated snow and depart the toilet knowing full well that this piece of porcelain will eventually face the wrath of my ass.

I forgo washing my hands and pound on the neighboring stall door. “I hope you’re happy,” I say to the pathetic whimpering man inside, “I can’t shit because of you. This is an unforgivable transgression!”

“I’m sorry James. I can’t control myself,” the voice said.

“Dale?”

“Yes James. It is I.”

“Step out,” I order. “Face me like a man you weakling!”

Dale unlocks the door and steps out with his head bowed like a yellow-bellied coward. His eyes were bloodshot and his face crusted by streams of tears. I was disgusted. “You sad little man,” I tell him.

He cries again.

“Don’t yell at me,” he begs. “My wife ran off with a knife salesman down to Kokomo. My son’s in jail for vehicular manslaughter and my doctor will no longer prescribe me dick pills.”

I slap him across the face. “Good!” I tell him, “a little adversity serves a man well from time to time. And you my dear Dale could use some shaping up! Look at you for Christ sake! Your tits are flopping out from behind your overalls!”

A fresh batch of tears flow from his eyes. “I can’t handle life no more!” he cries.

“There there,” I tell him. “There’s always hope. God is dead and when you die your memories fade away forever. A few will mourn your death but within weeks and months no one will think of you again. The universe is an empty and meaningless vortex that expands into infinity until it mercifully fades away into a quiet heat death. Then all that was will be no more. And when that day comes your concerns will seem like a speck floating on in an immense void shrouded in darkness. Some say there is no hope in this world but dare I say where gods cease to roam is where I find freedom! Seize this life! No one can do it but you!”

Dale nods his head. “I think I see what you’re saying,” he says. He wipes snot from his nose. “You’re saying I should take a loaded Colt .45 down to South Florida and settle matters with my wife’s lover.”

I throw my arm around his shoulder. I give him a warm embrace. “Now you’re getting it,” I say. “And don’t forget: you ARE god.”

I patted him on the back and he left the bathroom with his head held high like a man born anew. But my stomach still cramped. I exited through the front lobby where I was intercepted by the boss man. I tried to ignore him as I walked out the front door. “Is this an excused absence?” he shouted at me before the door closed.

I stood with one foot outside as I turned towards him. “Of course,” I lied, “I have an emergency.”

“What kind of emergency?”

“A turd doesn’t seem to want to leave my ass.”

TO BE CONTINUED….

Back to basics part 4

“I am the foretold coming of Satan,” I said calmly to the Starbucks barista. “By my unholy powers, I command thee to make my spiced latte with those delicious Oreo crumbs.”

“But that’s a seasonal drink!” the barista cried.

“I will SACRIFICE thee to the alter of Baal!” I said. Then I was rudely interrupted by a blond bombshell standing in line. I vaguely recognized her.

“James!” she said. “Long time no see!”

“Susan? How have you been?” I ask. I lower the switchblade from the barista’s throat and straighten his hair. “Starbucks. You always have to go the extra mile to get what you want, am I right?”

“Totally!” Susan said. “What have you been up to these days?”

“Oh you know, this and that. A little bit of this and a little bit of that. Just a bunch of what not and what have you.”

“That’s great! It’s so sad we lost touch after high school.”

“Oh yeah. High school. I didn’t graduate if I remember correctly.”

The hillsides weren’t a blazing inferno that day and the air quality was good so we sat outside under the fair California sun. When the barista delivered our coffee, his pants were wet and he wouldn’t make eye contact. “Enjoy your coffee,” he said and quickly rushed away. Susan picked her cup up and began blowing away the steam. “Are you seeing anyone at the moment?” she casually asks.

“Seeing anyone?” I look around. “I see a lot of people.”

“I mean, are you in a relationship?”

“Oh.” I thought for a moment. “Yeah, I’m in a few. I’ve got my roommate Vic. He’s Scottish and I can’t understand what he’s saying most times. Then I got my coworker Dale. But he’ll probably be dead soon from cirrhosis. My mom of course is still alive and living with emphysema. She’s got a stoma in her throat. Those are the only relationships I’ve got if you want to call them that. Mostly I’m a loner. I drive down interstates most days and pick up hitchhikers. Then I’ll take them down backroads through the hills with an open gas can and a match and tell them that god has abandoned us and all his children so maybe we should end it all right here in a massive fireball because life holds no meaning. But that’s about it.”

“So you don’t have a girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend? No. I’ve definitely have had sex before but usually I meander around skid row with a bottle of whiskey and start crying in the arms of a homeless street prostitute. That’s about as intimate as I get with a girl.”

“I see,” says Susan as she lights a cigarette. She digs through her purse before pulling out a business card. “Give me a call sometime. I’m not hard to find.”

I look at the card. Susan Buchetti: “Fixer”.

“See you around,” she says. Then she fades off into the crowd.

But I knew what this was about. She wasn’t fooling anyone. I’ve fallen for this scam a million times: I call her up, meet her in North Hollywood, and next thing I know I’m in a bathtub filled with ice and my vital organs are missing. I tore up her business card and throw the shreds on the ground.