To Begin
Seasonal Beasts
The boys coasted on rented bicycles.
"That's the house the whole family got killed in."
"No way."
"Really?"
"Really."
"That's fucked up."
"Yeah, some guy in the '70s. He like, ritually did it. Killed them all one-by-one in front of each other."
"Is that how you'd do it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Like, if you did it?"
"I wouldn't do it at all."
"Right, but like — if you did."
"I wouldn't."
"You don't think you got murder in you?"
"No way, man."
"Me neither."
"I'm no killer."
"Well, I could do it."
"Yeah? It's harder to kill someone than you might think. It can get very personal . . ."
"Depends on how you do it."
"Well you're the one that keeps bringing it up, how would you do it?"
"Like, to get away with it?"
"I mean, that's not what I asked. Do you want to get away with it?"
"I mean, I didn't say I WANT to do it, I just said I could. Like, I have the capacity, if you hurt my mom, or my dog, or—"
"I guess I'd kill someone if they hurt Coyote."
"Killing won't set anything right."
"Nothing's ever right."
"Two wrongs don't make a right."
"Am I wrong?"
"Damn."
"Damn."
"Damn."
Beach Reads
Homeless Man Pedaling Bicycle in Parka in Late-Spring Heat
"I know he has a normal name. Like Michael or Stephen or something."
"I mean he'll talk back to you if you talk to him."
"Like normal talk."
"I heard he's a rich kid."
"I don't think he's a drunk or anything."
"Then why's he rifling through the garbage?"
"Gotta wonder . . ."
"Heard he got the highest score ever recorded on some kind of Stanford test?"
"Stanford bidet."
"Yeah."
"Well I heard he was, like, in the CIA or something, like I think he used to do black ops, you know, and they dosed him with LSD, experimented on him . . ."
"Really fucked up his mind."
"Yeah . . ."
"Now he's just goofy."
A Lightbulb in the Head
He writes notes to himself.
Napkin on the cafe table.
Some bargained fable, borrowed, like:
"Guy busts his face open checking out girls' asses laying out on beach towels."
Ding ding ding.
He'd just seen it.
A can't-miss scenario.
Witness observant.
His story to tell now.
An electric scooter wipeout.
History to sell now.
An emergency room visit.
True spectacle.
He was eager to cash in.
Come up.
The latte was seven dollars.
Come on.
After tip, seven dollars.
Goddamn, goddamn.
Unfuckingbelievable, he thought.
Fuck.
That's the cost of community.
Poem Found in a Discarded Notebook in the Trashcan at Viento Park
When It Came (Rain Away the Poor)
In Brief
Calm sea.
A pelican's head tilted back, throat swelling to accommodate the swallowing of a fat anchovy.
The fish didn't squirm, resigned to fate.
Have You Seen This?
Juan had been losing business due to the offensive nature of the artwork on his truck.
It was Meg from Family Guy getting stuffed.
On a lifted Tacoma.
She was airbrushed.
Ambushed from behind.
Taken by the family dog, Brian.
Disgusting and glazed.
Fucked faded and fazed.
Eyes rolled back.
Lolling.
Get a look at you.
Appalling.
Halting,
Gaze galloping.
Scalp waxed.
You look slick.
You're at your maximum.
Could you be anything other than?
The difficulty of typing.
Wack-dead.
Dead.
Dead-dead.
Dead dead dead.
(Dead.)
HEY —
If I disappear,
It's all fake anyway,
All kayfabe anyway,
Open wide and look away,
A-A-A-A-
Oh,
Today and Tomorrow's Sway,
Yesterday's in a Borrowed State,
Beleagured Fatigued Fraught and Depleted.
You've got some thoughts that are best left deleted.
For Lease
They'd returned for the season.
"Oh wow, the slice place went out of business."
"Shit."
Blondes in linen.
"That sucks."
Natural.
"Yeah."
Supernatural.
"There's a sign up — looks like it's going to turn into one of those app salad restaurants."
"Who's that for?"
"Tourists."
"But if you're a tourist wouldn't you want to mingle?"
"I mean, I would. But I'm not a tourist."
Luger
He remembered the night he got turned onto star anise.
Candies from Sweden.
Now he slangs anisette.
Licorice licks.
Next to chocolate.
A similar kick.
Candies from Sweden had turned him on.
Now he works at the restaurant.
They pretend to care what he knows about flavor while they admire his pecs filling his shirt.
That's just how the world works.
It's not some quirk of the universe.
Boom and Bust
The Torn Gaming Chair's Puked Upholstery
He took pains not to mention his age.
41 it was.
Forty-one.
The kids were under.
Lesser than.
Probably.
Or so he supposed.
He didn't ask.
And they didn't offer.
He had the drugs.
And they had the money.
A Dispute
"It's looser-o. Not loose-arrow."
"No it's definitely loose-arrow."
"Only a transplant would say that."
"You don't even speak Spanish."
"Culero."
The Strand, the Blade, the Strut, Belain
Sometimes It Just Happens for You
He'd gotten rich from starting a podcast for gay NASCAR enthusiasts called 'YASCAR,' they did big money in shirts and Patreon.
Every month, the numbers just went up.
God works in mysterious ways.
14 or 40
"Hard to tell who's the mother and who's the daughter with some of them."
"They're Russian, right? Gotta be Russian."
"Estonian? Is that a thing? Where the asses are flatter."
"You know I gotta buddy with a porno business."
"Yeah?"
"Girls outta the Ukraine. And Moldova."
"Huh."
"Gotta wonder if they're blown to bits."
"Maybe they got enlisted."
Display Models
Scheherezade
Treasure Trove
Drunk on the sun he staggered in Speedo.
Old leather.
It didn't matter.
Dick and balls out.
No one cared.
He'd moved to the desert for a reason.
The hot tub and all its promises.
So when he visited Ed and Ted (no really) in San Lucero he always wore his skimpiest briefs.
Scant and showing,
Pubes creeping.
Mailbox Full of Catalogs (Pt. 1)
Cuco's Taqueria
Taco shop mop water.
Early close.
Not much business today, seems down for the season.
Boss is out so
FUCK IT, SHUT IT DOWN.
"Y'know one of the weirdest parts of getting out of prison's getting used to the new type of people they made."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, while you were in."
"I never been in."
"The girls got big fat asses now."
"You like it?"
"It's something to see."
The Charioteer
Seven drinks deep.
And five buttons.
Chesthair scruff creeping out of patterned rayon.
Floral bursts and a reddened nose's blossom.
Drunken golf-cart fun shirt guy.
Zipping electric.
Erratic.
Swerving weightless.
His son a 2/3 scale clone in the passenger seat.
Dead-eyed all around.
He's in rayon too.
Three deep.
Drinks and buttons alike.
Shirt's printed with alligators in hot rods.
Vroom vroom vroom.
"YoumetJerrybeforeright? . . . His wife is stacked! Absolutely stacked!"
"Dad, nobody says 'stacked' anymore!"
"Wellwhaddatheysay?"
"You could say she's got 'milkers.'"
"Glug a lug — You're not into that lactation porn now are you son? Good goddamn."
"What? No."
"I'ssalright if you watch th'regular stuff but you're movingoutonyourown ifyer watching somethat weird shit in myhouse."
"I don't watch lactation porn."
"What's your category?"
"Dad!"
"What?"
"That's fucked up."
"What?"
"To ask me what type of porn I watch."
"Well you do watch, don't you? We all do. Right?"
"I mean, yeah."
"Everyone, everyone . . ."
"Yes, everyone."
"Yes,"
"Yes,"
"Yes."
"So why's it okay to admit that but you don't want to discuss?"
"Because you're my dad."
"Well what if i was your friend?"
"You are my friend, dad."
"Shit, son, alright."
Mirrored Sunglasses and Shiny Tin
Beach Goth
Lousy at being at the beach. Pale, burns easily. Can't swim.
Hated the sand.
Perpetually burnt nose.
Walks with arms slack.
Golf cart drunk, every time he sees him, raises a carafe calls him a "landlubber."
Little kids on rollerblades call after him:
"Rodolfo, el reno de la nariz roja, jajaja!"
He just walks on.
Aerobia
Legal Herb
He's 75 and rocked on edibles at all times.
Quinuiple nickels on the diems.
What's his name?
Jim?
James?
Jesus.
Listening to extended jam versions of all the old songs.
Hospital case.
Outed
Scanning Eyes
Deep Teens
"You know, this used to be Mexico."
"Well what did Mexico used to be?"
"I dunno — Aztlan?"
"Sounds fake."
Dog Real
Committed Criminals
"I'm gonna level with you—"
Big breath.
"The way I got all this, all this shit? The house, the cars, everything?"
You nod.
"I been passin' fake 20s for fifteen years."
Dead air gasping.
"Drive to Lost Eros, wherever. Spend 'em at food trucks. Coke and some fries, whatever. Taco, whatever. Get $14 back, $16 back, whatever. Tip 'em. Whatever. Give the food to a homeless person or whatever. Maybe eat it sometimes. Whatever. Do it fifty, sixty times a day. Whatever. Then start hitting AA meetings, trading in my twenties for change. It's work but it's a living. Whatever."
Volume Up
The Dogs and Pt. I
The dogs and their twice-daily Food Riot.
She shuffled cross the kitchen.
Flats slapping.
They whined.
Insisted.
Imitated human babies.
Horrific.
Eyes imploring.
You must.
You will.
Do it or I'll scream.
They ate well, and often.
But they acted like the kitchen'd never open.
Kept
They all wondered how she owned a condo.
She was just a college girl.
I mean the answer's obvious.
They'd still like to know.
She kept to herself.
About finance.
About most things, really.
Tied up her hair neat and went to school.
Best not to risk a kidnapping.
She slid into a laundry-warmed sweater.
In-unit.
And counted her blessings quietly.
Your Career in the Arts
Tiki Tuesday at the Conejo Inn
The fish lantern hung low.
"Power grows out of a barrel of rum."
"Did you just come up with that?"
"I— yeah, sure."
Humour
Soon as he could he'd gotten out of New England and its old news.
But you could still clock him by the crease of his loafers.
Wading in cold autumn water along the California seashore.
Glenn Greenaway'd written a series of alien-oriented fiction books called Greens vs. Greys.
(Of all the people who could've!)
Started in '78, '79?
Hard to remember.
Passeggiata time.
Marching, sauntering.
("Glenn Gonegrey," he thought to himself, bearded in the mirror. Astonished at age. Appalled and bald. "I still feel like a fucking teenager . . .")
The books had taken off with young kids in the '80s.
("Back before it was all faggot books," he'd drunkenly implored to a colleague some nights ago, deep into gin, the colleague seeing-and-raising him: "Faggots and women.")
The series sold well through the '90s and into the early 2000s, then experienced a cultural resurgence following a film adaptation.
("You know you used to be able to write boys' adventure fiction in this country, maybe keep a tidy little house over in Toluca Lake, tidy little house with a tidy little wife, couple of tots—")
("You'd wanna raise kids out in LA?" "Well, I don't know . . ." "They'd be fucking maniacs." "They'd have to be." "I mean how do you explain that shit to a kid?" "How do you explain anything?")
He'd been 68 and she'd been 24.
Subtract the math's two-score and four.
Internet uproar.
("It's not like I ever did anything illegal . . . Not with my dick anyway.")
Tweed-and-leather sigh.
Low.
Lifted gin again.
Cracked lips.
Hefty thunk of the cube in dense glass.
Thank god for residuals.
Oak desk and brass.
Thank god for the 1980s.
Big tits and machine guns.
Heil Hollywood.
Once upon a time and then some.
"So let me ask you something—"
"Yeah," yawned.
"Why do you spell it like that? Greensversusgreys? Are you Canadian or something?"
"No, that's just the way I prefer to spell the colour."
"I can hear the 'u.'"
"But can you hear me?"
And he was off.
Late Life Love (Boardwalk Magic)
Long Bread
The submarine sandwiches at Vito's weren't any good, but they were, famously, fourteen inches long.
Vito didn't own the place, in fact there'd never been a Vito.
Rafik owned the place.
"Dressed for success, boss?"
He'd ask, rhetorically.
Before applying the oils.
Drizzled.
Old Polaroids lined the walls.
Happy customers, stuffing their faces.
Big sandwiches.
Names indicated in smudged Sharpie.
Miniature American flags jutted from the register.
She Says Her Name Is Aurelia, but I Think She Is Lying
She was braless in linen, floating.
Selling shit to ladies who couldn't.
They saw her and wanted to be.
A broad hat.
She was the perfect coastal being.
Blonde in all the right ways.
Tresses draped.
Dresses, scarves, hats, etc.
Global, tasteful.
Batik embossed.
Shop clearly operating at a loss.
Some husband somewhere.
You've got to figure.
Eating up the cost.
The Traveling Gourmand
"Is there, like, a real coffee shop here?"
"Like real like how?"
"Like, — oh, nevermind."
I Know a Guy Who Collects World War Two Stuff
Classic car meet-up/cruise.
Boom, boom, boom, boom.
"You know the young kids don't want any of this shit."
"Not like they could afford it anyway."
Boomer guffaw.
Big and fat in their polo shirts.
Pastel paunch.
Tucked-in.
Khaki nutsacks.
Golf logos.
Golden Cadillacs.
Imported White
"Fuck."
"What?"
"I think I left my phone at the beach."
"Seriously?"
"Fuck off. I know."
"That's the third phone this year."
"I know. I fucking know. Jesus."
They combed the sand.
Finding.
Trying.
"Hopefully nobody fucking stole it."
"We were only at the restaurant for an hour, it'll still be there."
"You never know. People are desperate these days. And I see weird people at the beach now, they come out at night."
23 Skidoo
Here goes, here goes.
Off to the races.
"Shit, I haven't smoked in years."
Paranoid pattern-recognition.
Everything so meaningful.
Signs pointing to signs pointing to signs.
"Dude are you fucking okay?"
She's worried.
Tap-a-type-a-tap-a-type-a-jack-off-up-and-down-one-two-one-two.
Left left left.
Right.
Four.
Four.
Blemished skin.
Malfunction.
"Yeah, no, I'm good."
Perfect.
A Set-Up (Watch This)
San Lucero had a little comedy club that some of the big guys from Lost Eros would come out and work every so often when they wanted to try out new material without being too worried about rubes and tourists.
An Observer Walks, Photographing
So, Like
"So, you sell courses on how to get rich."
"Yeah."
"But how did you get rich in the first place?"
"I sold courses."
"So, like —"
Why If I Had My Way, I'd—
"I Work in Tech"
He'd founded FeetBeauties in 1994.
Taken it online in '97.
Internet forum in '99.
Big mailing list.
Sold it in '06.
After the bust.
Before the crash.
Got out alright.
Taco Thursdays at El Conejo Inn
"You know the gals that work down there, they used to wear hot little uniforms. Sexy, sexy outfits. They don't anymore, because of woke."
Hex Ventures
He had an idea.
He did alright for a while.
A breakfast burrito, a latte, and a joint.
Twenty dollars to your doorstep.
'Cheap Vacation' he called it.
His margins were kind.
Sunny eggs and heady pot.
Fried potatoes, crisp.
Outdated Guidebooks (It's Not a Nude Beach Anymore)
Crack Their Skulls Is What I Say
"You know, say what you will about Morales — he keeps the damn bums off the street."
"Christ, I had to drive up to Lost Eros the other day for a meeting. You shoulda seen it. Un-fuckin'-believable."
"Chaos in the streets I hear."
"Absolute chaos."
Lucero
David and Steve Have a Discussion
"She was so beautiful before she fucked up her face."
"So beautiful."
"Now it looks like she's got a baboon's pussy swelling out every time you talk to her. Just right in the middle of the face."
"She got the eyebrows, too, right?"
"She got the eyebrows."
"Fuck."
"Now I'm married to a woman with a face tattoo. I'm sleeping with Mike Tyson."
"You're going rounds with Iron Mike."
"We don't do a lotta rounds these days."
"That's rough."
"And I tell her — you look Latina, you look like an Arab."
"Oh god!"
"She says 'you'd like that, wouldn't you?'"
The wikipedia link's already purple
The wikipedia link's already purple, you've been here before and forgotten it —
So you google and get "heteroglossia."
That's a nice way of putting it.
All this talking.
Talking over talking over talking over talking over.
Voices.
The Brush Is Dangerous
"I've heard it's absolutely disgusting down in Bronceado Bay."
"Heroin needles."
"Poking up, sharp."
"And crime."
"Yes."
"Crime."
"Always crime."
"Yes."
"Junkies and freaks."
"They pop tents and start fires by the beach."
"It's all true, I've heard."
"They let their dogs shit on the beach, there."
"It's truly magical."
The Last Thing He Wrote (Notes App, 2:32 A.M.)
Thrice-Divorced and Thriving
Swain
"Embark, embark."
He said, with meaning.
Living on a boat, as he did.
He meant it.
He was a good coach.
It was a corny job.
Hard to tell the pretenders from helpful.
He was legit.
For real.
For real.
Nailed It
She'd gotten rich selling shirts that said "MANIC DEPRESSIVE," with two moons' faces, happy and sad.
🌕
She'd been knocked off a million times, had a good lawyer, always on the attack.
🌚
Never 17 and Meim and all the other Discount Shit Merchants wanted a piece of the action.
🔴
Fuck them.
🟢
Those fuckers.
⚫️
If she didn't wave a gun around like a wildwoman she wouldn't be in this bungalow, buying a new sofa online, with perfect nails.
Interior
"Oh fuck I'm gonna—"
He withdrew his penis, criss-crossed jizz daubs scatterplot splattering the grey cloth seat of the Altima.
"So you're, like, a writer, right?"
She smiled a wordless yes.
"You're not going to blog about my cock are you?"
"Is that what you call it? Your 'cock'?"
That was about the time he noticed the infant car seat in the back.
"I could smell that you were ovulating."
"And I could smell that you jacked off before you left your house."
Perfumed animals.
Two of a kind.
They'd ordered each other off some app.
Maybe they're happy.
Here's hoping.
AA Meeting Cigarette Circle (Ext.)
"I mean everybody got molested to some degree, right?"
"Someone had to teach you what wasn't OK."
"Right?"
"Right."
"Right?"
"I just . . . I can't remember. Anything. Childhood. You know."
Smoke wafted.
4.1 Star Rating
Moriyama-san's face was carved in stone.
Beak nose.
Razor cheeks.
Eyes narrowed on his craft.
Steady hands.
Customers would speak to him in English.
He'd talk back in brusque Japanese.
All involved had a great time.
Sweat of the Brow
Everybody Knows (The Planner)
It took a while for him to realize he no longer had legs.
He'd been halved by teeth in the water.
There weren't supposed to be sharks here.
There never were.
This simply doesn't happen.
Not here.
Well,
The Use of Tools
You know one day I got bored with it all at the office decided I wanted to read Pedro Paramo in the original, no particular reason, and so I needed to learn Spanish, right, to read it, you gotta want the thing on the other end of the stick if you want the instrument to work, you know, you feel me, and so I figured immersion was the way, right, and so I took a sabbatical, right, on down to Baja, figuring I'd spend a couple months and pick it up, come back to the office, read the book with my feet up, you know, I'm effectively retired anyway, they just pay me to show up, I'm really more of a mascot these days, anyways I'm down in Baja and I just say fuck it, you know, I get lost in it all, I meet these dudes, you know, and they teach me to make the most bitching fish tacos imaginable, right, and so I get neck-deep in it, just whole hog, you know, I overcommit on everything I do, and so anyway I still can't speak Spanish but I've got this food truck now.
The Unbeliever Leaves (Let It Be So)
It'd been about a month to the day since she'd left that he stopped flushing his pisses.
Just let it all accumulate, yellow fizz in the bowl.
A darkening pale.
Comedy Night
Goopy's was hopping tonight.
"There's only two type-a people wear sunglasses, they say, you've heard this, right?"
The crowd responds:
"Blind people and assholes!"
Rowdy laughter.
A lifted jest.
It's all patter.
"Well I'm pullin' double-duty tonight!"
Laughs and laughs.
Drunken surrounds.
Waitresses skitter.
Bottles clank.
Someone's talking who shouldn't.
Zeiss
He knew all the best trick angles for cock photography.
He was pretty ordinary down there but he knew how to make himself look Huge.
He'd gotten rich from smooth jazz.
Tooting and parping.
Tacky brass for the masses.
He cheated on his wife.
Now he cheats on his taxes.
He cheats at golf too.