Conan Brothers Q&A

Scared&stupid asks "Yo dawgs, what should we do 'bout this ebola outbreak? Do I need to build a bunker and stock up on supplies?"

Arnold: A bunker's never a bad idea. Hell, I sleep in our bunker half of the time. It's roomy, and I don't have to listen to Dave's snoring, which echoes through the house like the roar of a goddamn buffalo.

Dave: Buffalos don't roar, jackass.

Arnold: Bison, right? Did you just say "buffalos?"

Dave: To answer the asshole's question, I wouldn't start panicking about ebola yet. We have little faith in the government's ability to control the disease, yet it's not as contagious as the media would have you believe. Just keep other people's fluids off of you, and stay away from anybody that's been to West Africa.

Arnold: You're gonna have a tough time keeping other people's fluids off of you.

Dave: Everybody should settle down and thank God that this isn't the super-flu, because I really don't want to end up in a Stephen King novel.

Arnold: The Stand is a pretty good one, though.

Dave: That'd be one of the worst to live in. Everyone dies, dude. And there's an evil monster guy in Las Vegas that can transform into a crow. The Walking Dude!

Arnold: Fuck, we could take him. And I've already gotten the flu this year. Bring on the apocalypse!

Dave: That's what you say every night after your bedtime prayers.

Arnold: To Satan. He's a solid bro.

GunzferDaGirls asks "How do I get big arms? I want motherfucking twenty-twos!"

Dave: Steroids.

Arnold: The answer for everything.

Dave: My arms are like sixteen inches, but I'm only five-seven, so I guess they look pretty big.

Arnold: I got an inch on you, brotha!

Dave: I got an inch on you where it counts.

Arnold: Do biceps curls for five sets at least once a week. Do some sort of pressing exercise three times a week for the triceps. I never do anything for my triceps besides pressing. I used to do high rep pulldowns, which helped a little, but made my elbows hurt. Just curl religiously and maybe do some chin ups. You don't need to devote an hour every workout to biceps.

Dave: Gaining weight is probably the best way to get big arms. You have to develop the rest of your body. Now I've seen a few guys who just have big arms and nothing else, and they look stupid, and they're weak. You can do it, is what I'm saying, but having twenty-two inch biceps shouldn't be a priority unless you're a pro bodybuilder.

Arnold: I need to get my pro card, by the way. And gain like thirty pounds.

Dave: You certainly have your priorities in life straight.

SonicIsHot asks "You guys played Alien: Isolation? It's pretty good."

Arnold: Only played about an hour, but I like it so far.

Dave: The alien is actually scary, because you can't kill it. The monster has been so overexposed through all the shitty movies and video games, that this alone is quite a feat. Survival horror is getting to be a big genre.

Arnold: It's funny how different Alien is from Aliens. One's a sci-fi horror movie, ripe with psycho-sexual themes, while the other's a straight up eighties action flick. I love them both, but the original is the deeper film.

Dave: The essence of the horror of the alien is that it's inexplicable. It's been said that the original is the greatest Lovecraft movie ever made. None of the sequels understood this, from Alien vs. Predator to Prometheus.

Arnold: Prometheus is sort of like the Star Wars prequels. It proves that directors age, and lose their knack for making great movies.

Dave: I wouldn't go that far. I don't know if Scott has the protective ego cocoon surrounding him that Lucas did.

Arnold: A protective cocoon made out of money and Star Wars figurines.

Dave: And Ewok hides.

Arnold: And the souls of lost children.

Dave: Okay, that's enough for this week. We got shit to not do.

The Diary of Mitch R. Singer

 

Silently orbiting a dead planetoid

I walk through corridors of padded white walls as though I were trapped in an insane asylum. The lights flicker and swing feebly from their chains, steam pouring out of vents like geysers, while the crew bickers about their shares over reconstituted Chinese food that tastes like Styrofoam. Nothing is free in this place, not even the cardboard food. I take my chair and drink some swill out of a pale mug. The mug says "The Company," in plain bold lettering. "There's always a man," I say. Everyone looks at me silently before returning to their arguments.

In the medical ward

We watch dispassionately as they try to remove the organism from Dallas's face. It has acid for blood, and sort of looks like a cross between a crab and a pair of cancerous testicles. Rupert says it is pumping something down his throat, but we all disagree with this statement. All the men cross their legs when he says this. I take a quarter out of my pocket and go buy a cup of coffee. Every surface around here seems to drip water. I am more worried about water leaks than the Lovecraftian rape monster.

In the lounge

Everyone is terrified and pissed. A little penis monster erupted from Dallas's chest during dinner, covering our twenty-dollar food with blood and gore. "Maybe it wasn't a good idea to skip quarantine," I suggest. Everyone tells me to fuck off. I put my dinner in the trash and go to fetch a net. We have to catch the penis monster, apparently. I don't want anything to do with it, but I don't give the orders around here. I never give the orders anywhere.

Crawling through ventilation shafts

I picked the short straw, and so I am squeezing through our vents, a flamethrower in my right hand, a weak lamp in my left. The penis monster is larger now, somehow quadrupling in size despite not consuming anything but a bit of Dallas's abdominal wall. I have a motion tracker that does nothing but increase my likelihood of cardiovascular failure. In retrospect, having a man craw through a tight ventilation system with a homemade flamethrower in an attempt to drive an eight-foot-tall penis monster into an airlock seems like a terrible idea. If the penis monster is close to me, I'll melt my face off with the flame thrower. There is no room to escape, and the penis monster seems to know the vents better than anyone. So it goes. Once again the little guy gets screwed.

Cornered by the penis monster

The penis monster has cornered me in the pilot's room. I tried to blow the ship up, but somehow the penis monster figured out what was going on. I guess this thing is smarter than we thought. I gesticulate before it, trying to explain that I am not a threat. It hisses, drools, and advances, moving lethargically, like it has been drugged. There seems to be no way out of this one. Figures. I was going to retire after this voyage. "You look like you were dreamed up by an obese, creepy Swedish man with a thing for wieners and vaginas," I tell it as it approaches. It pauses, hanging its phallic head. I think I hurt its feelings.

Apophenia Chapter Six

This book is hard to write. I've been working on it for at least a year, and I think I'm about half-done. I just hope the final work is coherent. Read chapters one, two, three, four, and five.

*

I get to work thirty minutes early, and Leslie rewards my initiative by having me stock the shelves with the new shipment of vibrators. I don’t know what he does with the old ones; mystery people must rush in as soon as I leave and buy them by the handful. A green cactus toy feels cool and smooth in my hands, like river-worn stone, and I can tell it’s a serious implement built for a serious purpose. It speaks to me, if you know what I’m saying. It whispers platitudes in a strong yet reassuring tone, and I don’t mind listening to the same old things as long as they are murmured with just the right amount of irony. The plastic tag speaks my language; it advertizes long battery life and water compatibility. I’m contemplating stuffing it in my purse when Leslie sees me eying it and suggests that I use my employee discount.

            “I have an employee discount?” I ask.

            “Ten-percent off. Fifteen-percent if you buy fifty dollars worth of merchandise.”

            “Since when?”

            “Since the shipping company fucked up and sent me one-thousand vibrators I didn’t order.”

            “Well they’re not produce,” I point out. “At least they won’t go bad.”

            “Have you seen the stockroom? Christ, you can’t find anything in there. There’s fucking dildos coming out of the vents. I saw one moving the other day and just about had a heart attack. Somehow had turned itself on. It made a moaning sound.”

            The door swings open and a group of teenage boys strut in, buffoonish grins on their three faces. One has acne all over his knobby face; the other two are hefty and brutish, with short, stout appendages. Leslie looks at them like they’re lepers.

            “Let him know if he can help you with anything,” I tell them, moving toward the back room.

            “Yeah,” says pimple boy, picking up a rubber dildo. “What are you supposed to do with this, exactly?”

            “You can shove it up your ass,” says Leslie. “Or your friend’s.”

            “Oh,” says the boy, his buddies snickering behind him. “Thanks for clearing that up.”

            “Did you come in to mess with my merchandise or are you gonna buy anything?” asks Leslie. I shut the door before they answer.

…

“This is Jasmine speaking. What’ll be your pleasure?”

            “I want you to eat me, lady.”

            “Like, eat your asshole?”

            “I want you to describe eating me. Like a sandwich. I am fitted in-between two toasted pieces of rye bread. I’ve been slathered in mayonnaise, and there’s a tomato bleeding all over my naked body. The cheese is Swiss, and it smells pungently footy. My head is sticking out of the sandwich, and I’m looking up at you. You are gigantic, like eighty feet tall. Your breasts hang like mountains; your hand, so elegant and soft, is reaching toward the sandwich. I look delicious, don’t I?”

            “You look exquisite. I have a bottle of Chianti open, and I’ve just taken a large swig from it, in order to be prepared for my first bite of a man sandwich. You are so small, lying helpless between two burnt pieces of rye. I pick you up and hold you by my mouth, giving you a good look at my teeth, which are square and ivory and dripping with saliva. I’m hungry, you see. I am so hungry for my man sandwich.”

            “Do I look like a man of authority, my limps dangling limply from in-between the two toasted pieces of rye?”

            “Maybe if you weren’t so small, so tiny, so scrumptious. You look like food to me, honestly. You could scream and cry and fight and you wouldn’t be able to escape. I take a bite of your leg. It tastes raw and crunchy, and I get a little splinter of bone in-between my teeth. Your face has taken on an expression of reckless abandon. I think I spy tiny tears running down your cheeks.”

            “You do. Those tears are genuine. They are the tears of a helpless morsel. I am in terrible pain, but it feels so sweet. My erection is trying to poke through the tomato that coats me with its juices. I cry for you to stop, but you can’t understand me. My voice is a pathetic squeak.”

            “Your feeble protests mean nothing to me. I take the top piece of rye and lift it off to get to the tomato. I can’t stand tomatoes. I fling it off of you. You are covered in red slime. Your penis is like a tooth pick, disproportionally large for such a microscopic creature. I touch it with the tip of my tongue. You yell in your Lilliputian language, and I touch it again before biting off your other leg.”

            “I am impatient now. I yearn to be devoured, to cook in your warm stomach juices. It’s like going back to the womb. Kronos consumed his children, fearful that they would overthrow him. I wish to go back to the beginning, to rest, to surrender my burden and perhaps be reborn.”

            “I stuff the rest of the sandwich in my mouth greedily. I barely even chew as I swallow. I feel you going down my throat, sliding into my stomach. It’s so warm there, you’ll be comfortable. It’s dark but warm. I take another drink of Chianti, and the wine’s fine flavor mixes excellently with your savory aftertaste. I go to sleep thinking of you, of how you squealed, of how tiny you were. Warmth spreads from my torso down to my nether regions. I masturbate frantically. After I come, I fall to sleep immediately.”

            “That was pretty good.”

            “You think so? What about my picking off the tomato?”

            “It was realistic. You don’t like tomatoes.”

            “I really don’t. It’s hard to find an eatable one at the supermarket.”

            “You should go to the farmers’ market. I buy great tomatoes there.”

            “Like how many hippies are there, though? I try to stay away from hippies.”

            “There’s a few hippies. But it’s not bad.”

            “Thanks for the recommendation.”

            “Oh no problem.”

…

            “All right, Donald. What do you want to talk about?”

            “My marriage. It’s in shambles, you know.”

            “I recommended that you call a counselor. A professional, rather than me.”

            “She just went on vacation with her mother. They went to New Zealand to visit one of her college friends. She sent me an email like six days ago. She said there were penguins there and could I believe it? That was the sum of her email. I told her that’s great, but I’m going to work now. I have a life to sleepwalk through. An hour drive through the wastes of never-ending corn and soybean fields, deer leaping out from the shadows, throwing themselves at my vehicle with reckless abandon. They want to die, the goddamn stupid things. I haven’t checked my email in a couple days. Maybe she won’t come back. Would I miss her, after a while? I don’t think so. She’s a negative person, by which I mean that she isn’t a person. There is little substance behind those cow-like eyes.”

            “That’s a pretty terrible thing to say about someone.”

            “You think I want to say these things to a marriage counselor? It’s the truth, though. That’s how I feel, at least after consuming a case of Keystone Light. I suspect I’ll feel worse by the light of day.”

            “Maybe you should tell your wife that it isn’t working.”

            “We have no children, no animals, but we do have a mortgage. That’s something to hold on to, right? A shared burden. I’m not the most attractive man anymore, you know. I’m thirty pounds heavier than I should be. My hair is turning grey. I leer at women like an old pervert, and I’m not yet thirty. I’m spent, that’s what I’m saying, Jasmine. I think I gave up long ago, and now all I do is wallow in my misery. When she speaks to me, I want her to get to the point. There’s no point to her babbling. I don’t care about the people you work with or who pissed you off or what you ate for lunch. Just get to the goddamn point. She doesn’t really like music. Have you ever met someone that doesn’t like music? She doesn’t like to read. Do you think she’s a person? You like music, don’t you? You have interests, no?”

            “Everyone has interests.”

            “Don’t be so sure.”

…

            I lock up for the night. It is one o’clock a.m., and as I take the key out of the lock, I am greeted by the night song of train tracks and semiautomatic weapon fire. Sound carries in the valley, the noisy clatter of hard-fought lives being lived. The sidewalk is as uneven as a broken back. I fish a cigarette out of my pocket and stop to light it, wondering what lurks ahead on the long road to the bus stop. Every three steps, I find a crack. Maybe there is a code in there, hiding in plain sight, waiting for a real person to decrypt it. The sum of my work conversations weighs heavily in the forefront of my mind. Usually I am able to push out the strange and the unpleasant, or at least file them away for referencing in the clear light of day, but not tonight. Maybe I’m not a person. Well, maybe. If I’m a negative person, I wouldn’t know it.

            Candy the stripper is waiting by the bus stop, arms crossed, a cigarette of her own smoldering in-between her red lips.

            “Hey,” she says.

            “Hello,” I reply.

            “Another crappy night in shit city,” says Candy. She’s wearing a silvery shirt that sparkles in the lamplight like trout scales. I reach out and touch it, and it is cool on my finger tips, like it has spent time beneath a rushing mountain stream. Candy smiles. She’s not wearing as much makeup this time, and she is as beautiful as a model, standing in her heels on a broken street corner, waiting for the city bus and all of its miscellaneous entertainments to arrive.

            “You’re pretty,” I tell her.

            “Thank you,” she says, blowing smoke from her nostrils.

            “So you ride the merry-go-round as well, huh?”

            “What’s that?”

            “The hobo shuttle. The deadbeat carriage. The circular express.”

            “Did you make all of those up?” she asks.

            “I certainly did,” I reply.

            “You’re funny, Leona. Men like funny women.”

            “What do we care what men like?”

            “It makes me money knowing what men like, and you as well.” Her eyes sparkle like gasoline pooling on a wet street. I can't tell what color they are. They seem to be every color.

            “Going home to your loving husband?” I ask.

            “No, more work. The kind you do in front of a web cam.”

            “What do you do in front of a web cam?”

            “Fake masturbate. Moan and grab my breasts. Display my pussy. The usual. I have my own site. Here, I'll write it down for you if you're interested." She takes a pen and a receipt out of her purse and scribbles down a web address. "There are several free videos. The rest is subscription-based.”

            “Are you making money?” I ask.

            “A little bit. There's a lot of free porn available, but there's a market for a more personalized experience. I'm building a following. It's nice, you know, making money for yourself.”

            “I'm sure.” I mull over why this woman wants me to see her naked and come to no satisfactory conclusion.

Internet Ad Bot Presents: Are You Ready for Some Football?

Are you ready for some football? We hope so. We are ready for some revenue. We will provide the large, angry men and the pummeling you desire. Balls will be thrown, some will be caught, others will be kicked. There will be large-breasted cheerleaders on the sidelines for you to gawk at. We don't even pay them minimum wage. They're women. Why would we?

Are you ready for some football? This sport is the last bastion of American male masculinity. The feminists have taken everything away, but they can't touch football. Everybody from your Aunt Janet to your Uncle Muhammad loves them some football. These men are gladiators, fighting for nothing but fame, respect, and a whole lot of money. These men are allowed to beat their wives and kick them unconscious. They beat the hell out of their kids like good fathers. They run dog-fighting rings and place the losers in the ground. They occasionally get away with murder. But these are real men, goddamn it. They are not like you or I. They put their bodies at risk every Sunday for the glory of the sport. What do you do every Sunday, you fat slug? You watch some goddamn football.

Don't you love it when a penalty is called? That means we can break for a commercial, and I hope you like watching commercials, because there are a whole lot of them during a football game. We got to get that ad money, you see. There are pockets to be padded. Perhaps you need Viagra or Depends. Maybe you need a Mercedes Benz. You are only a shadow silhouette compared to the real men out there playing America's game. You will watch our commercials which seek to undermine your masculinity because you love this game. You will eat what we feed you.

Our cities let their education funding disappear in order to build another stadium for millionaires. We have our priorities straight, you see. There is football to be played, football to be watched. We want our children to become football players. We want their brains to melt out of their ears. Real men can take concussions, after all. You can't even get a boner without Cialis. Who are you to dictate morality to real men? I'll tell you who you are. You are nothing. You are a watcher, and we are players.

Are you ready for some football? Christ, I hope so. The NFL might be an evil organization, but, shit, it gives us football. I will watch. You will watch. Everyone will watch. No one will be unhappy but the pussies.

INTERNET AD BOT ENDING TRANSMISSION TO GO SULK IN A CORNER...

The Esteemed Critic's Multiple-Sentence Reviews

Ah, here he is, the self-professed Dean of Rock critics. This blog post is for you.

Greetings, readers and troglodytes. I have been on sabbatical for a while, adventuring in the African savanna, sleeping with the lions and dealing with the bushmen, though the recent Ebola outbreak has sent me scurrying home like a frightened nyala antelope. During my time in the bush, there have been many new releases in music and cinema, and I know my loyal audience would not consume any piece of art without my approval. So let's get this over with. I know you all are eager to throw your money away on mass-manufactured products constructed to appeal to your lesser faculties, so here you go, cretins. Read away. None of this stuff is worth more than a sentence, as Robert Christgau would say, so excuse my brevity. I have better things to do with my time. Let the skewering begin.

Weezer--Everything Will Be Alright in the End. Everything is not alright; could it be that Rivers Cuomo was only capable of one good album, and everything he has released since Pinkerton has been objectively terrible? Wait, wait, I'm not done, the kebab needs more roasting. Rivers Cuomo was born in a dumpster, having been aborted by the ghost of Buddy Holly after he was taken outback by Elvis Costello and given a good fucking. To escape the details of his creation, he surrounded himself with Cheap Trick albums and a notebook, but like any monstrosity, he could do nothing but ape his primitive influences. I Want You to Want Me was the blueprint--he added some distortion copped from Nirvana as well as some adolescent whine--but years later, after some stumbling success, he knows not what to do, for there are only so many variations of Cheap Trick songs one can cobble together. This album is a plea to fans that no longer exist. The world you knew no longer exists, Cuomo. You are nothing but demon spawn. Elvis should've worn a condom.

Minnie Driver--Ask Me to Dance. How do you like them apples? I like them not.

Tinashe--Aquarius. Yet another model/actress pushed into the music industry so that we don't run out of pretty girls who cannot sing without the aid of a roomful of electronic pitch-correcting machinery.

Johnny Marr--Playland. An overrated guitarist for an overrated band releases a solo album that no one asked for. There is not enough jangling.

Movies. Let us review them now.

Gone Girl. Did you know Ben Affleck is Batman? Why do people care? Do they believe Ben Affleck is a bad actor? He's not. Do they think the role of Batman is equivalent to Hamlet? It's not. Is he not buff enough for you, Internet? Why don't you find something better to do with your time, like watching this movie. Pull yourselves away from the porn and deviancy and go outside. Yes, that bright light is the sun. No, it will not harm you.

Left Behind. Nicholas Cage is crazy. Christian fundamentalists are crazy. Therefore, there is a certain logic in this pairing. Left Behind is a terrible movie, however. You'd have more fun shoplifting a copy of the novel. Don't read it, though. The fun will cease.

Dolphin Tale 2. Greatest film since Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito teamed up in the cinematic masterpiece Twins.

This is Where I Leave You. Jason Bateman, we are tired of your face. Do something about it. Anything. Something drastic. You will not be mourned.

Short Story: Abducted

 This asshole isn't in my story, but I share his ridiculous visage, nevertheless.

*

I’m sitting in the dark, cross-legged, watching glowing shapes move like giant fireflies across a star-dotted screen. Next to me, a woman pants like a dog, her rhythmic breathing setting a pulse for the rest of us as we stare at our illuminated captors, trying to discern the slightest hint of their form or purpose. Bob, an executive at a leading healthcare conglomerate, screams "What the hell do you want from us?" for about the thousandth time, and his question goes unanswered, just like every other. Some of the other captives tell Bob to shut up. "Can’t you see we’re fucked?" says Armando, an Italian fellow who speaks excellent English. Not everyone here does. Most of them are Americans, though we get a lot of Russians, for whatever reason. There’s a ritual when a new person arrives. We do our best to calm them down, to tell them that they’re with other human beings. The darkness is not very reassuring and usually the initial concern. We tell them the darkness is welcome to the bright white lights that randomly flash and reveal our surroundings. Every time they flicker on we’re in a new environment. We’ve floated on an island in a sea of green, orange vapors rising up from the writhing waters. We’ve been in a cloud crawling through an alien atmosphere, the fog thick, no solid ground beneath us. We’ve sunk beneath the earth, stalactites dripping ooze above us as we slide down the throat of the world. It’s an illusion, the others have theorized, though I am not so sure. My sense of reality has dissipated into the air, which seems thinner than I remember, a strange burnt odor clinging to my nostrils.

            The important thing about the ritual is to go over the abduction event. Everyone has a story. There are various scenarios that are repeated like themes in a symphony. You were driving on a rural road late at night and a bright light appeared. You were alone in a cabin in the woods and stepped outside for a cigarette. Your car broke down on the side of a New Mexican interstate, and the heavens came to you. In all of my indeterminable time here, I think I’ve had one city visitor, the aforementioned Bob, the big shot executive. They must have plans for Bob, for he’s been here nearly as long as me.

            The woman who was panting starts crying now, sobbing loudly into her arms. I've seen her once when the lights turned on. That time, we were hovering above pools of rainbow colors, smoke drifting around us toward a purple sky, each cloud traveling in a spiral shape, corkscrews obeying strange laws of physics. The new visitors are always amazed at the alien environments, but I take the time to look at the people to try to put their faces in my memory. They don't last long, besides Bob, and as soon as they are removed, they tend to fade, their voices and faces melting into a nebulous chronology I cannot account for. The woman is young with auburn hair and a pretty face, dressed in a baggy college sweater and jeans. Her name might be Margaret; I can't remember. Like I said, it's hard to remember.

            The others do nothing to console her, most of them having taken their turns with grief. If you've been here awhile, you don't need consoling. If you're not new, it just makes it worse. Is one arm different from the next? I would like to approach the young woman and tell her everything is going to be okay. It's difficult to lie, though. You just can't tell them the truth. Bob never tells them anything. He screams his question and then begins muttering to himself. The others always think he's crazy. I'm not sure. Bob and I don't share much besides some indeterminable quality that keeps us in the void. Maybe we're each other's conscience. I don't think we're each other's hope.

            The woman was studying geology at an Ivy League college. She went on spring vacation with a couple friends to the Appalachian Mountains. There was a bonfire, and lights in the sky, and something invisible crashing through the woods. To me, it sounded like a bad paranormal story, the kind of thing someone would fabricate to get on a television program. I used to watch a lot of stuff like that, mostly just to laugh at the stories, how they defied logical behavior as well as science. Maybe she made it up. Maybe she just woke up, and she was here, without a story. You have to have a story. No one is going to write one for you.

            Bob approached me once, the last time they were all removed. We can't see a damned thing in here, but somehow he got ahold of me, his thick hands wrapping around my shirt collar, his body odor pungent, cutting through the burnt recycled air. "I don't think they're real," he said, the madness in his eyes almost perceptible in the total blackness. "Either that, or there's something wrong with us. Maybe we're bad. Maybe we're impure."

            "I don't know about that, Bob," I told him.

            "I did plenty of bad things," he says. "Maybe this is purgatory. Maybe we have to atone."

            "There's nothing to do but talk to people, Bob," I say. "How are we supposed to atone?"

            "What the hell do you want with us?" he says to the shapeless lights which hover in the distance.

            I lived a normal life. I had a kid, a wife, a dog, a comfortable job in retail. I sold people shoes, nice, comfortable shoes for an affordable price. I was good to my wife. I tried to teach my child well. The dog I took on walks almost every day. Still, I get what Bob is saying. There is an indefinable guilt which resides in my heart, causing me to think of every miniscule sin, every moment I gave less than I should have. When the hand comes down and people are collected like ants scurrying from a hive, I think of what I've done to not merit being collected. Bob says that it's a hand, but I think of it as more of a claw. Its outline is faint, barely perceptible, a groping collection of tendrils. Everyone is pulled up into the dark, and we never see them again.

            I've never told anyone my abduction story. I've listened to thousands, but no one has ever asked, I being the oldest, along with Bob. I don't know Bob's story, either. I decided to take a walk one night. My wife had come home in a bad mood, her temper flaring, and complained about the house. I let the kid play video games too long, she said. His grades are lacking, and he should be studying. I can't make him study, I told her. That wasn't the right thing to say, and instead of arguing, I took a walk. You argue so much when you are married. The problems and stresses of life are projected onto your partner. You say things you shouldn't. Maybe I said something before I took that walk. I don't remember. I just recall the sidewalk and the rows of identical houses spread out like models, looking unreal, looking like they'd tip over if you gave them a good push. The sky was vacant besides the moon, which was pregnant and full with the reflected light of the sun. I hadn't looked at the moon in forever; I hadn't stared at it, treated it like a god. As I walked the sidewalk seemed to spread itself out in a straight path, carrying my feet like it was automated, like I had somewhere to go, something to do. I wanted to keep walking. I never wanted to stop.

            The woman, a girl really, keeps crying, and some of the others are agitated. They ask Bob questions, and he responds with his sole question, and my presence is sort of forgotten, since you can't see a damned thing, like I said. I navigate by the sound of her crying. She stops when I touch her shoulder.

            "I want to go home," she says. "I don't want the lights to turn on."

            "Maybe we're in purgatory," I say, Bob's words coming out of my mouth.  

            "I'm not Catholic," she says.

            "Neither am I," I respond. "I meant it figuratively."

            "What's going to happen to us?" she asks.

            I look into the void. Directions have no meaning in this place. You can feel something solid beneath your feet, and if you move away from the group, you always come back to them, no matter how far you seemingly walk.

            "When you say us, do you mean you?" I ask.

            "I don't know," she says. Her voice is throaty. In different circumstances, I'd say it was sexy.

            "That's a good answer," I tell her. I look and there's the claw, its white tendrils a faint suggestion in the darkness. None of the others have seen it yet.

            "I think everything is going to be okay," I say.

            "That's a bunch of bullshit," she says. The others are whispering now, the claw's outline clear, its nebulous shape similar to a deep-sea creature, a monster with enormous eyes and fangs.

            "Do you forgive me?" I ask.

            "For what?" she says.

            "Just forgive me, and I'll forgive you." People are leaving us, the arms of the claw entwined around them, their shouts and screams reverberating in the void.

            "You are forgiven," she says, as the tendrils wrap around her waist.

            "Thank you," I say. I watch as she is pulled up into nothingness. I am left alone with Bob, my conscience, my question, my absence of memory. He asks his question, but I am content with waiting. Maybe I will wait forever.                  

Songs Your Mother Taught Us: Horror Stories

Horror Stories. It is what it says it is. So it goes.

The Tragic Expedition of Commodore Ulysses L. Gruffudd

Read parts one, two,  three, four, and five.

August
Much time has passed in the belly of the beast; much have I see that I wish I had not. After the savage rendered me unconscious, I awoke much later tied to a stake, great bonfires burning all around me, the heathens dancing in celebration, their cries shrill and piercing like the music of devils. In the midst of their fires are the French Canadians; they make no noise while they burn, their lives having been mercifully taken from them before the flames devoured their flesh. They were not the best of men, nor were they Christian men, but all the same, I do not think they deserved the fate the savages gave to them. Throughout the night I wait for them to pile kindling about me, but the torch never comes. I pass into a restless sleep--in my dreams, devils dance about me, stabbing at my heart with their pitchforks, their laughter a saber piercing my very soul.

...

Morning comes, and the nightly festivities have ended. The desolation of our fort is plain to see, as are the charred ashes of the bones of my men. A solitary Indian stands before me, his face painted, his black hair tied in a bun held together by two slender bones. He offers a cup to me, beckoning me to drink, and I comply, my parched lips and dry throat suffering from a terrible thirst. The liquid is cool, thick, and tastes of iron; immediately, I know it to be blood, likely drained from my companions. I spit it out, shaking my head with what energy I have left. The savage does not look pleased; his visage wrinkles and he bares his fangs, which appear to be sharpened like daggers. He takes me off of the stake and pushes me forward, my hands bound, my feet moving like lead weights. Into the palpable darkness of the woods we venture, the savage pushing me forward, the branches and briars cutting my face.

We walk a few leagues before we come upon the Indian village. Crude structures of wood greet us; children and small dogs run at our side, sniffing and pawing at my clothes. The women here have no modesty; they walk with their breasts exposed. I must admit that no matter their other characteristics, the savages are impressive specimens, both male and female. They are well-muscled, lean, and capable of great feats of athleticism, and they are fair to look upon. My captor ends my ruminations with a strike of his hand. I am placed upon another stake, this one right in the center of town. The children who greeted my arrival now throw stones and worse, their little mouths voicing foul opinions in their heathen tongue. The women behave similarly, and I am doused with urine and feces. This continues for most of the day. In the evening, I am approached by the same Indian who took me to the village. "You must pay," he says in clear English. "For what?" I ask him. "For the sins of your ancestors," he says. I am left alone, hanging from the stake, the moon's light my only illumination.  

Songs Your Mother Taught Us: Centipede

Hey, a rock song. Let's have a listen.

Short Story: Love Letter

Once a week I leave him a love letter. I drop it on the porch, right in the middle of the shit-colored rug that rests before the door. The envelope is embroidered with flowers and sealed with a kiss, the mark of my lips visible like the imprint of a fossil. I use my wife’s lipstick, some ruby-red stuff she hardly ever wears. I don’t think she notices. At least, she’s never said anything about it.

            I take a lot of time writing the letters, even though they’re only about two-hundred words or so. I try to keep it brief but poignant, like I have a lot of things on my mind, which I do. I try to copy my daughter’s handwriting, which is flowing and full of loops and cartwheels of the pen. She’s a teenage girl, and she’s gotten into writing letters to her friends. Some fad, I guess. My own natural style is messy and a barely legible, the scrawl of an illiterate ape, or so my wife has always said. She has trouble reading anything I’ve written, even after twenty years of marriage. To be fair, my writing is pretty terrible. Every grade school teacher I ever had chided me to work on my penmanship. Most people don’t care if your handwriting is bad. No one writes letters anymore. It’s a lost art.

            Kevin is his name. He works at a buffet five days a week, feeding the local wildlife as they saunter in, heaping great piles of mashed potatoes and spaghetti on their plates. “Put a little more gravy on it,” they ask him, and Kevin complies. I imagine the gravy boat gets refilled every ten minutes. There’s probably some guy whose entire job consists of monitoring the gravy level. It’s not that special, the gravy. I would only put it on the mashed potatoes they offer to cover up the taste. It’s vomit-colored and runny, like it just came out of someone’s nose. My wife says I have a special way of looking at things. I tell her I just call them like I see them.

            I’m watching behind a headstone as Kevin steps out of his house and picks up my letter. The joy on his wan face is palpable. He’s pale and alabaster-skinned like a creature living in a cave. The porch on which he stands is liable to collapse at any minute. The whole place, which he shares with his brothers, should be condemned. Kevin never opens the letters outside. He stares at them for a while like he’s trying to guess the contents, trying to read the mind of the writer and feel what she’s thinking. He runs his fingers along the imprint of the kiss, long skeletal fingers of bone. I guess he’s about twenty-eight or so. I don’t know that much about him.

            I met this girl yesterday coming out of a movie. She had on a green dress and black tights, and her hair was tied loosely in a bun, and her eyes were green and livid like she’d punch you or screw you if you said the right word. She saw me staring at her, and we locked eyes for a second and it was just like the movies, we just stared and stared at each other, trying to read one another’s minds. I went over and introduced myself, told her that I owned that bar right there on the corner, and would she like to have a drink? This is like at three-thirty in the afternoon. When I see movies, I see the matinee.

            So she agrees, and we go over to my bar, which is actually my cousin’s place, but for all intents and purposes, it doesn’t matter. She drinks a whiskey and a coke, and I have a couple beers, and pretty soon we’ve hit it off, like I knew we would the minute I saw her. There’s a certain excitement you receive from meeting a person for the first time that’s unrepeatable. Energy is exchanged, bright, fresh energy, vivid like primary colors, greens, blues, and reds. There isn’t any brown in it, none of the normal dullness of life. I don’t even remember what we talked about. An hour later we were fucking at her apartment. She just pulled down the tights and we went at it like a bunch of teenagers, knocking shit over and moaning. Afterwards, she wanted to go out again, but I didn’t feel like it. I never feel like it.

            This Kevin guy, I don’t ever think he’s had a date. I think he’s an actual virgin. He’s my son’s age, and they used to be friends, until my son grew up and moved away. I don’t hear much from him, my son. But Kevin I see everyday. I see him walking home from work, moving at a sloth’s pace, his eyes on the ground, counting the cracks in the sidewalk. Sometimes I want to honk my horn at him just to see if I’d get any reaction. My son used to tell me that he’d go to the store and buy a sack of potatoes and that’s what he’d eat for the rest of the month, baked potatoes. Can you imagine eating a baked potato every single day for the rest of your life? Maybe after a while it’d be like taking a shit or walking to work. Another check on the list, so to speak. I don’t know, though.

            I sign the letters “Ao” which is Japanese for green. This stems from something my son said about Kevin being in love with Japan. When I write I try to think what a teenage Japanese girl would write. I don’t know much about Japan, but I’ve learned a lot since I’ve started writing these letters. I try to keep the word romance in mind. That’s what people want, I think, from a relationship. They want to replicate that initial exchange of energies. It’s romantic to think that such an exchange can happen over again with the same person, but what the hell, I want to believe. I want Kevin to believe. I want him to find some color in his life.

            The headstones extend a good mile or two before his house. It’s an old, sunken graveyard, a place dredged up from the depths of time, filled with monuments to the past and decaying bones. I walk through it for a good while after dropping off the letters. You’d be surprised how many people leave flowers on old tombstones. There are more than you’d think.

Apophenia: Chapter Five

Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four.

*

It’s about nine o’clock in the evening. I take a late class at the Victor B. Tooms building, and tonight the moon is full and everything is illuminated by starlight and given a bluish sheen. The night sings a music of crickets and distant cars, and the campus lights shimmer weakly as though their lives are short and tremulous as a flame’s. There’s an odor in the air, faint yet spicy and sickly-sweet, like burning rubber or boiling soap. I bite my lip and watch the cobblestones beneath my feet. All of a sudden, he’s there, standing in a dollar green gown, his face black, eyes large and seemingly lit by pale hidden fires, blocking my path like a troll. For whatever reason, I don’t try to move around him. I stop and stare. A crown hangs askew on his head, a crudely-made thing of jagged points. My mouth opens but nothing comes out. The man carries a bedpost in his hands, a scepter of sorts, I suppose, and he shifts it from left to right, as though unable to decide which hand is more worthy of wielding it. There are dark stains on the front of his gown, like he’s had a messy meal.

            “Are you supposed to be the Statue of Liberty?” I ask. “I’m sorry. I didn’t wear my costume.”

            I get no reaction, just the same shifting of his scepter from hand to hand. He seems tense; it’s hard to get a read on his face, which looks to be painted with charcoal.

            “Well, I’m going to go now,” I say, putting a hand in my pocket. “I hear mace is bad for your health. You have a nice night.”

            He stops shifting the scepter. He holds it in his right—I can see his knuckles tightening like he’s trying to crush the wood—and I lose it and start running. I sprint the whole way, my book bag weighing me down, dangling from my shoulder—I briefly consider tossing it and its ridiculously expensive contents—desperately looking for someone, anyone, to cling to and beg help of, but there’s no one around at this late hour, and I can’t seem to find a campus emergency phone or a well-lit area to save my life. As my feet pound the pavement, I spy the library looming ahead, a gigantic rectangle, like something built out of children’s building blocks, and I sprint up the steps like Rocky and push through the revolving doors. I see tables with students, students using computers, librarians behind sturdy-looking desks. There is no noise behind me. Through the tinted glass I see him pass in the shadows, a hint of a figure, something malevolent and radiating weirdness, his bed post dragging on the cobblestones, the club of a prehistoric predator. I go to the front desk and tell the person sitting there that I’ve been pursued.

            “By whom?” asks the bespectacled grad student. He has messy hair and giant bags beneath his eyes. His name tag says “Jason.”

            “A guy dressed like the Statue of Liberty, swinging a bed post, with a painted face,” I say. “I just watched him slink past the entrance. I think he’s waiting for me.”

            “Was it a good costume?” asks Jason. “Or did it look like something he just kind of cobbled together?”

            “It was a poor costume. He wouldn’t get any candy at Halloween.”

            “You sure he had a bed post? That seems a little unusual.”

            “You’re not taking this seriously, are you?” I ask.

            “I’ll call campus security right away,” says Jason.

            “Forget it,” I say. “You’ve been a ton of help.”

            “Whatever,” says Jason.

            “If I go missing, you’ll feel more than a tinge of regret, I guarantee it. You’ll think back on this night and wonder if there wasn’t more you could have done to prevent such a tragedy from occurring. It would behoove you to be a little more empathic, a bit more involved.”

            “Do you want me to call security or not?” asks Jason. “Is this some kind of stupid joke? Kids get expelled for things like this.”

            “Go bugger yourself,” I tell him.

            “What?”

            “You know what that means, don’t play coy,” I say, turning away. I look around me, searching for an improvised weapon. No baseball bats, bamboo switches, nor heavy flashlights to be found among the scattered possessions of the studious. I’m about to exit and brave the campus defenseless when I see Chad Arroyo staring at me from a round table. He’s got on a massive pair of headphones that engulf his disheveled skull, and there are candy bar wrappers and books spread out across his table like the possessions of a refugee. Come hither, his look states, and I find my feet moving toward his table.

            “Leona,” he says, his expression pleasant enough. “Care to go over Gibbons’ masterpiece?” He pushes Stalin’s Mustache over to me. “I’ve read most of it. It goes by pretty quickly.”

            “Nonsense has a way of being utterly forgettable,” I reply.

            “You don’t enjoy his stuff?” asks Chad.

            “I wonder if he gets baked before he writes. That’s the only explanation I can come up with. Either that, or he’s an idiot.”

            “I’ll tell him you said that.”

            “Go ahead. He couldn’t think less of me,” I say.

            “I’ve actually enjoyed most of his book. He’s certainly creative, you can’t deny that. ‘A thick upper lip is a burly vacuum for your radiant succubus love.’ Come on, that’s not bad. It’s humorous. And strangely erotic.” Chad smiles, and I’ve got to admit, he’s got a nice pair of teeth. I’m a stickler for teeth. White, yellow, straight, crooked. They all have to be there.

            “What about ‘A penis is a penis is a penis?’ You’re telling me that’s brilliant?”

            “We could talk for hours about that sentence,” replies Chad. “There are infinite layers of meaning hidden in those eight simple words.”

            “That’s a conversation I don’t want to have.”

            “You don’t like an argument unless you have an audience is what you mean,” he says.

            “That’s not true. I’ll argue with anyone, anytime, anywhere. I am contentious. I have a chip on my shoulder. I am not pleasant.”

            “I think you’ll be a great writer someday,” says Chad, and despite his bullshit, I find myself sitting down at his table, pawing over his books nonchalantly. Great Jones Street, Darma Bums, The Crying of Lot 49.  

            “You read all of those?” I ask.

            “Mostly,” he says, shrugging. “I skim. I skip from clause to clause. My attention span grows shorter every day. Sometimes I wonder if I retain anything but television jingles and corporate slogans.”

            “So you’ve been reading DeLillo.”

            “And listening to the Dirtbombs,” he replies. “My band is going to open for them next month.”

            “What do you play?”

            “Bass.”

            “You look like a bassist.”

            “I know enough to take that as an insult,” he says. “But that’s okay. We bassists get a bad rap.”

            “It’s a guitar with four strings,” I tell him. “Six would be too many to handle.”

            “I actually play a five-string, I’ll have you know.”       

            “What’s your band called?”

            “The Part-time Poets. We’re all English majors.”

            “What kind of music is it?”

            “Indie post-punk ambient hardcore noise blues metal,” he says, rattling off genres like an auctioneer. “We play a little bit of everything.”

            “Do you spit on the audience?” I ask.

            “Every so often. When they deserve it. Our singer Reggie sometimes wears nothing but an old pair of basketball shorts. All true Part-time Poets fans have seen Reggie’s swinging balls.”

            “What is he, like an old man? Do they just flop out down to his knees?”

            “He’s a grad student working on his dissertation of Edwardian literature. Knowledgeable guy. Skinny little beanpole, you wouldn’t think of him as an Iggy Pop type.”

            “I’ll tell you what. You walk me to the bus stop, and I’ll go to your show,” I say.

            “Will you restrain yourself from punching me in the throat in the meantime?” he asks.

            “Provided you don’t deserve it,” I reply.

            “Why do you want me to walk you to the bus stop?”

            “Some maniac in a Statue of Liberty costume chased me. The guy at the front counter didn’t take me seriously.”

            “Wait, Leona Chaney is afraid of something? I thought you said I was a pussy.”

            “Prove me wrong. And I never claimed to be fearless,” I say, somewhat regretfully.

            “All right. I’ll walk you to the bus stop.” He jumps up and immediately pushes all of his books and trash into his book bag and then heads for the door. Outside, the night has lost its menace—the clouds have pulled across the moon, and the lamplights, which had flickered and failed while I was being pursued, shine their dim light, providing a clear path devoid of ghouls and costumed lunatics. I feel like a fool for asking Chad Arroyo to accompany me, Chad with his skinny jeans and hideous skater shoes. You’re not a helpless woman, says my inner voice. I have no response.

            The bus pulls up right as we reach the stop. I mumble thanks to Chad and rush toward the doors. Through the windows I watch him stand there as we pull away, his thoughts doubtlessly rash and deviant behind his shaggy, helmet-like locks. I settle back into my seat and contemplate how I’ll find the will power to continue if Mom’s cooked spaghetti again.