Hookers or Cake

  Part 4 of 4 - Start at the beginning here

“I heard you killed the monster,” says a voice behind me. I turn and before me is a beautiful dark haired woman. She looks familiar but its like I can’t remember her name. “It was just a rabid wolf,” I say. “Oh? I heard you went to the house on the other side of the lake,” she said. “I did,” I reply. “Will you take me there,” she says, “I want to see it.”  “What, the wolf?” I say. “No,” she smiles, “the house.” 

She has small features and large eyes. She looks like she is about 30 but she could be older or younger. Its hard to tell, every time I look at her she seems different. We drive in silence as she smokes her cigarette. When I pull out onto the highway she rolls down the window and slides herself up onto the doors edge and hangs out the window into the wind. She yells and and howls and screams and laughs. I look over at her bare legs and black skirt. She catches me and I feel an almost overwhelming rush of adrenaline, almost like a kind of panic. I calmly try to catch my breathe as she leans into the wind.

When we park at the end of the road and its still daylight but once again, inside the woods it feels like twilight. She is ahead me laughing and dancing around the trees singing a song about death and the sea. My hair is standing on end. I know she isn’t human. But I can’t stop myself. Inside my head I’m screaming ‘Run! Run for the truck get in and drive as fast as you can!’ But deeper in the woods we go. I feel like a hypnotized animal being led to slaughter.

In the clearing the house appears. “Show me.” she whispers. And I walk up the porch steps as the house silently roars through me. “Gimme your machete,” she says, gesturing me towards the door. I hand her the giant knife like a robot. It feels like I’m falling backwards inside of myself as I turn the door knob. Inside the house I am presented with a long hallway, a single door at the other end. I walk cautiously inside and open the door and there is another long hallway and another door. Once again past that door another hallway and another door. It takes me a few more hallways and doors to realize that each hallway is the reverse of the one before. I hear my new friend snicker. She does this sometimes, she likes to make fun of me and have a good laugh trying to trick me, my instincts open like a switch. Sometimes she hits me and tells me to stop, but she doesn’t fool me, fighting or writhing in my hands. I know she will kill me if I don’t strike quickly. Such tiny delicate bones. I feel her teeth at my neck as she claws desperately for my blood. My anger twitches and her neck is always so surprisingly small, so easily broken. Its then my love plays her cruelest trick on me. She tells me she was just some innocent girl and I’m a mad monster. That I’m delusional. I always believe it and I always weep. Her face always looks so soft and innocent. Its really tears me apart inside. It always seems so real. I would have liked to have had a little more time with her. I wish she’d stop making me kill her, my little devil rag doll. I take her down into heart of herself. Into the basement to the black gaping maw that reflects the nighttime sky. It’s always nighttime.

I once was lost and now I’m found

cries the endless yawning black hole in the ground.

I give her female form a little kiss on the cheek and forehead as I gently let her slip into the void. She’ll be back. She always comes back, she loves me.

Something about being broken before you’re whole

They moved my older sister and me to some shitty small town into a new foster home. My new foster parents were old and didn’t have any toys. So to entertain myself I drew a lot and made up stories.

There was one neighbor kid named Luke who I used to play with. His folks must’ve been rich because they lived in huge old house that had more than twenty rooms. His parents were young and his mom was pretty. Luke’s dad always wore suits and drove a big fancy car. Luke himself had a bunch a fancy cars, but they were of the toy variety. Actually one day while we were playing I showed him how to smash em all up with a big hammer I stole from my Dad’s tools. I got in big trouble. Luke got all new toy cars and I got a whipping and didn’t get to watch TV for a week, not even Sesame Street. I was so bored I remember sitting in the back alley with the same hammer and breaking old rocks in half. It sounds stupid I know, but have you ever broken open a dusty old rock? They are full of all kinds of surprising bright colors. I guess I really lost myself in it because I broke rocks open until I had blisters on both hands, did it several other times too. The exciting life of an eight year old.

I didn’t get to play with Luke much after that, but whenever I did we always got into trouble. Throwing rocks through windows and breaking stuff.

I was away at summer camp when he died. Some nice woman sat me down and told me. She said that he’d died in his sleep, that he didn’t feel pain or anything. I felt dizzy and kinda numb, like I was falling out of my own body.

When I got back home, Luke’s house was empty. I guess his parents must’ve moved. I didn’t really talk to anyone about it, except the woman who had told me about Luke’s death at camp. I’d go visit her every so often. She was nice. She liked my stories and always asked me to draw for her.

I’d forgotten all about this until I had a dream last night and Luke was in it. I was at my Grandma’s house, its where all the dead people from my waking life live. I’d never seen Luke there so it was unusual. He smiled and held out a present for me. It was heavy, I opened it, and inside was the old hammer! I looked at Luke and his face was dark and shifting around, like I couldn’t remember what he looked like. “How did you die?” I asked him. “You killed me,” he said and I awoke with a jolt. Holy Fuck! What?! I grabbed my phone and called my sister.

“Hello?” she mumbled, it was still early.

“Julie! Did I kill Luke?!”

“What?” she said. “Who?”

“The little neighbor kid, Luke who died when we lived in Brookdale, did I kill him?”

“Oh my god,” she said. “You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

“Luke was your imaginary friend,” she said. “You had to be put on meds and visit a shrink.”

I felt a wonderful calm come over me, like something had finally come into focus.

“Are you ok?” asked my sister.

“Yeah I’m fine.” I sighed “Its just, I had a dream about Luke and he told me that I’d killed him.”

“Wow, thats pretty fucked up,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “Hey, did I used to have a hammer or something?”

“Yeah,” my sister laughed. “You had some weird funeral with a bunch of rocks and buried it behind that old burned down school.”

He was playing by himself when the monster burst through the bushes, and came at him, roaring. The little boy ran as fast as he could. He was lucky the monster didn’t catch him. When the boy returned to the sandbox hours later his sand castle had been smashed and his toys broken.

Over the years the monster broke a lot of his toys and even stole his food. The boy lived in constant fear of the monster. He could burst out at any moment, from anywhere. No matter what he did or where he hid the monster always found him and he had to run for his very life.

It took the boy a long time to learn to be careful and how to outsmart the monster. In fact after a long while the boy became so clever that he even followed the monster one day to see were it lived. To his surprise the monster lumbered into the shed behind the boys house. And when the boy peered into the window he saw the monster take off his mask, the monster was the boys father.

The monster never came after that and the boy grew into an adult and forgot all about monsters and toys. He went off to school far away, got a good job in the city, fell in love, and got married.

It wasn’t long after that a baby was on the way. The day the baby was born a large black box wrapped with a white ribbon appeared on the front porch. Inside the box was the mask of the monster. There was also a card from his father. All it said was “ROAR!”

I’ll never forget that day. I’d been deep in the jungles of the Amazon for two weeks on business. When I flew back into the states I cleared customs and was walking to the baggage carousel. I remember whistling a jaunty tune as I was happy to be home, but  people just stopped and stared at me. I finally ducked into the bathroom to make sure I wasn’t wearing a flaming clown wig or covered head to toe in blood. Nope. I was still the same boring, middle-aged white guy. As I washed my hands an elderly black gentleman quietly touched my shoulder, “I’m sooo sorry for your loss,” he said. I looked around, “My loss?” I repeated. He looked a little taken aback “Oh, You… you don’t know?” “Know what?” I said. He looked away, his eyes searching the floor and then he walked out without a word. I looked around, meeting the gaze of a Middle eastern man, who quickly averted his eyes. I dried my hands and walked out of the bathroom. I saw a group of young professionals in suits huddled together in a corner around a TV… they were openly weeping. 

I slowly walked over afraid of what I might see on the TV, had another pretty young blond girl gone missing? Was a white baby in trouble?  No, it was far worse. Wolf Blitzer looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Thats when I heard the news, Lil Squeaker, a stuffed duck/dog toy was missing. Its owner was the cutest 3 year old pug I’d even seen. The pugs name was Mr. Puddles, awwww! Mr. Puddles had reported Lil Squeaker missing two whole days ago but it had in fact been missing at that point for a total of five days! I just stood there in a fog of terror and disbelief. 

The next week passed in a blur. I remember the day they called off the war so that both sides could join in the search and rescue operation. And then the unthinkable happened. The United Coalition forces found… I’m sorry… its still so hard to believe, but they found Lil Squeaker buried under the back porch of Mr. Puddles home.  An autopsy was performed but before the results could be released the finger pointing started in the upper ranks of the Coalition forces and the war resumed, raging on even bloodier and more deadly than before. The death toll rose into the tens of thousands.

To this day no one knows what happened to Lil Squeaker, but perhaps when this terrible war ends we will all find out. Until then there will be an empty spot in our hearts and one lonely little pug searching for answers. Searching for answers and missing a friend.

Duality is fun.

fucking yourself is funner

Winter is not summer

but no season would exist without each other

Like Yo MTV Raps! without Ed Lover

like a god without a mother


You’ve never been more right than when you were so totally wrong

I’m singing to your heart

accompanied by a xylophone made of dongs

I write the songs that make the rights and wrongs

fall in love

so happily ever after.