METH LAB TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY! The return of the Chemist...

Excerpt from Starchblood: A Novel
NYE, 1999.



Lisa was partying with her co-workers at T.G.I. Friday’s when she first met Colin, and although there’d been some flirtation, they’d never hooked up before that night. Two weeks later they moved in together. His extended family approved well enough, but often made strange observations about Lisa like:

“You’re smart, cute, in college… Why are you with Colin??”

She saw something behind the bloodshot tea shades of his eyes, an unvarnished distance that 6 months later paved way to a rollback while he pissed the bed in his sleep, leaving her mortified and unsure about the future. She did her best to coax him into attending AA meetings, abstained from drinking during short stints, and took her turns at the podium or head of the circle to discuss triggers.



But the parties at work were still too much of a draw for Colin. It was close to the Superbowl and St. Louis was the favorite in the point spread against Tennessee by -14. Friday’s had organized a pre-gamer that Saturday, because the crew would be light & generally knew how to keep secrets. Colin thought this an opportune time to try out a batch of GHB he’d bought from his brother, Eric, a pharmaceutical rep working in Rio Rancho.

“Don’t overdo it man. Seriously. Just a shot will do you.” Eric poured a capful into his Corona. “It’s so strong, I’ve actually been using it to cut back on my drinking. You metabolize booze so fast, you’ll be good to drive home in just a few hours.”

“I’m not an asshole. I can handle my shit.” Colin replied, reaching for another cap.

Eric jerked the bottle out of his hands. “If you’re just planning on killing yourself tonight, it’s not going to be on me.”

Colin promised to keep it light on the drinks that night…

It took 3 ambulances to load up the night-shift as they teetered on the edge of drug induced comas. The general manager was admitted to Presbyterian’s ICU and fired, later settling in life as the food/bev. Manager for a golf course in Santa Fe[1].

When he was finally canned for stealing and distributing $5 coupons and place-mats, Colin tried a stint as a delivery driver for Pudge Bros. Pizza. Lisa knew the anxiety of a new job would be a hindrance on his performance and would make him breakfast before his afternoon shifts began, before leaving for her new job as an educational assistant at Albuquerque Public Schools. The transition period took some adjustments and one night, after an especially hard week, she came home to the faint odor of rum and burrito vomit, seemingly emanating from somewhere on the front porch.



She heard virtually simulated car chases and drunken laughter inside the house and when she opened the door, Colin was sprawled out on the futon with bits of crusted black beans, potatoes, and cheese stuck to his shirt. Ray, his much older brother, had called to inform him that their grandmother had died. Colin was too distraught over the news to go to work, and Trey had been by to reminisce about the old woman’s legacy.

“Bullshit!” Lisa smacked him. “Get the fuck out of my house! Now!”

“Fuck you!” Colin stammered. “You think you’re so perfect? You’re not. Just another fuck up li-“

Lisa shoved him to the ground and continued to kick him in the stomach until a trickle of blood formed at his mouth. After he was forcibly removed from the situation by the police, days later he called from a few blocks away.

“Just listen, okay? I know you don’t want to see me, but I got you a car. Problem is-“

“Here we go.”

“… problem is, I got pulled over on the way to your house.”

The arresting officer grabbed the phone. “Is this, Lisa?”

“… yes.”

“Mrs. Dushane, we’re arresting your husband and impounding the car, unless you can pick it up.”

“He’s not my husband.”

“Pardon me?”

“I’m not Mrs. Dushane. And I don’t own a car.”


[1] Colin didn’t lose his job, or go to prison, and was later promoted from server to bartender. If you had a decent rapport with him and worked the same shifts, he’d serve you liquor in kid’s size cups.

Ocean Beach Bathroom Observations by: Pantifesto's Porntastic Phunhouse/FM

Ocean Beach. San Diego, CA, Amerika: 10:00am
* * * * * * * *

The Subjects are deposited at the corner of Newport and Cable Street, after dropping acid 10,000 feet in the air over the Chihuahua desert a couple of hours earlier... Voltaire St. is somewhere in the close vicinity. All signs point to east of their location, but they're holding onto gravity by the grains of sand on the sidewalk and the shifty eyes of encroaching pelicans, who only want the weed.

The first stop is the bathroom and the epiphany afterwards, proceeds as follows:

"I'm usually apalled by the amount of filth in there. Today, there is ample toilet paper in the stalls because it's early in the morning and all the street people ain't washed with the entirety of the pink soap in the dispenser yet."

When they finally make it to the beach itself, Subject A writes something down about the woman closest to Subject B's proximity:

Lady in a pink
skirt with your
cat at the beach your
cat on a leash
don't want no
bath in the
ladies room at
the lifeguard station

Subject B is amused by the anecdote, hysterically amused in fact, but is distracted somewhat by a full bladder and the violet reflection emitting from the sun, or the waves, or the sand, or Subject B's photoreceptor cells, which Subject B is convinced have betrayed Subject B in every sense of the word.


Subject B talks about the early 90's hit: The Wizard, starring Fred Savage, Christian Slater, and some autistic kid who never made it farther than "California...California." because that's all the little shit ever talked about...

Subject B can hold it no longer, and treks off to the Lifeguard Station, feeling like a saturated Rimbaud with one leg. Subject B releases.

Meanwhile, Subject A has become fascinated with the catwoman, the cat's bathing rituals and the cat frolicking aimlessly in the sand dunes, AS FAR AS ITS LEASH WILL ALLOW. Catwoman, has turned on her i-pod, wears no headphones, and dances with the cat, AS FAR AS ITS LEASH WILL ALLOW.

The monologue goes accordingly:

Lady with your
cat on the leash
with your chunky
ass in a
yellow sunset bikini

I ain't tryin to
hear no Korn
song right now
put your pink
skirt back
on & quit tryin
to sing it to
me silently.


Subject B returns from Lifeguard Station after crying profusely at the urinal and urinating for what seemed like 2 years, but in all actuality was only 20 minutes.

Subject B relates the experience to Subject A, via telepathy, hand gestures and simultaneous verbal communication techniques. The technique is not lost upon Subject A, who has become incredibly attuned to the little revelations one experiences when frequenting the semi-sanitary bathroom stalls. Subject B saw no such thing. Subject B, peed into a hole in the wall with a bowl of water at his feet. Subject B thinks of Henry Miller's recollections on French Urinals in The Black Spring, specifically A Saturday Afternoon:

Subject B thinks of his own life:

"with intense blues and luminous greens, the life of sin and grace and repentance, a life of high yellows and golden browns, of winestained robes and salmon-colored streams"
(H.M.)

"So I finish up, and I turn around and this guy has obviously been standing behind me for the entire 20 minutes, and I got tears staining my cheeks, which I feel like everyone can see even with these sunglasses on. So I go to the sink to wash my hands and there's no soap, or the soap dispenser has evaporated. I don't know, but I'm standing there, my hands are already under the faucet, the place is crowded with tweekers or what I perceive are tweekers, and the only thing I can think to do is sprinkle my eyes with penis water, and split real quick... For a moment, I almost screamed out: You've left me no choice San Diego! You drove me to this!"

Subject A is equally amused by Subject B's bathroom anecdote, which has peaked Subject A's interest once more.

Subject A makes off for the Lifeguard Station, and Subject B wonders if she really has to go that much or is it more or less for the experience and the observations...Subject A admits to nothing, for the moment, but later confides that yes, Subject A did have a full bladder, but Subject A was mesmerized by her previous findings and felt compelled to return to the scene of the crime, so to speak.

The relevance of the evidence was uncanny and well documented:

"Looks like someone shit on the wall in there. The Lifeguards go in and throw cat litter where it had dribbled down...I feel like Dexter, examining the blood splatter pattern of a mutilated corpse...Somebody drew an arrow pointing to the mess and asked: Does it take a real concentrated effort to shit like that on the wall?"

The mystery is never solved. The catwoman has disappeared. The waves have finally broken back, the surfers are leaving and the orange juice is completely gone.

Subject B asks Subject A:

"You down for some fish tacos?"

All signs point to yes...emphatically so.

The acid is still pulsing through their bloodstreams when they get back on the plane, a mere 4 hours later. Albuquerque is colder than usual, as they make their final descent before landing...

Room #3 is Infested and Necra-Mantic

Keith Donnors is one of the maintenance guys at the Hot Camel Inn...located somewhere between the border of Vegas and California. He is a burly man.. Buddy Holly- Framed glasses..full "jeb" beard..short crew cut..obese, and twangs subtlety when he tawks..

It is now his 3rd year on the job and he has well adjusted to the position of Head Maintenance Technician at the hotel. The pay is lousy. The hours are long..but Keith has found that there are many perks to the job as well..The residents of the Inn sometimes leave their stash, or rubber sex toys lying about..in which case he quaintly slips them beneath his blue dingy coveralls..

Once a woman from El Paso left a small red suitcase in the corner of the walking closet in Room #12. When Keith opened it, he found 3 8-Balls of Cocaine and a series of obscure German pornography (depicting beastiality scenes with German Shepherds and young impressionable teenage girls, bound..gagged..bitten. One in particular caught his attention for its depiction of a fallen Persephone, portrayed by a young anonymous hazel haired starlet. In the scene, she is raped by a brooding Hades, leather bound..and a masculine shouldered Dog with spike collar who is aroused only at the sound of a bell hanging from the tower of Hades throne room..just before dawn. Cleverly enough, Keith observed..was the director's choice to name the masked actor playing Hades as Pavlov Dong.)
******************************
K E I T H

BIG LETTERS...big position..big stories about the short-term residents at the Hot Camel Inn..Why, just 4 years ago he was just another misfit redneck from Murfreesboro TN...run wild, on Benzo dreams across the High Plains...smoked Meth from a light bulb and had the bright idea to take off West..to live near the Hollywood sign and live one of those Bob Seger Nights.."with the diamonds and thrills..and those big city lights..and those HIGH rolling hills.."

"Yeah those High Rollers come in, fresh from Vegas with their willy nilly ways and them HIGH skirt, quarter-chasing bitches from the bus stops..from the HIGHways..from the desert towns. Yea, here they come fresh from Doomed cities and states of being. Every last God-forsaken one of ye'!"..
************************************

Tonight, Keith has stayed late again.. He opens the door for Room #3...A/C is full blast.and there on the bed, decomposing..is Lyla..24, blond, blood hair..clumped..knotted, a twisted scene for sure..with those big dead eyes..those faded pupils..that gnarled mouth, gray skin..crumpled hand, smeared lipstick, bruised cheeks, battered Rouge..like a rescued corpse from the swamps of Moulin..from the great great jowls of the night and the 'gatar..her dress tit high..her tits exposed, bluish cold...still, and the A/C running smooth as silk..smooth as her bloody hair..smooth as her thighs..smooth as her lips against his fingertips..and when he bends to kiss her cheeks, the swelling seems to heal..He's a savior, Resurectus Phelia..a vessel of living breath for the damned who trodded the desert..

"Looking for more sin..and so it shall come to pass. Behold, the light of the day fades fast..fades fast! Across these hills are a lost man's dreams...and the nightmare's just begun..So sit and I'll tell you a story! about the Devil and his son..."

*singing
*****************************

Every once in a while, he comes to check for "pest infestations".. without management or the residents being the wiser..He slips inside quietly while they sleep.."just to check on the shape of the room"..while the HIGH rollers sleep heavy..while the Desert Tramps, the Lot Lizards..The Dolls lay in waiting..still breathing..Two weeks ago, he found Lyla and a resident under the name Barry Hanowitz asleep..with the A/C full blast..He could see his breath..Barry’s breath.. faint..but Lyla was a steady force of mist..as if some collection of dead souls rest in that place deep at the back of her pretty little throat..
**************************

Room #3 is so much more than pre-paid, compact living quarters..Tonight, Room #3 is the louse, the white breathless insect that occupies Keith's thoughts..lying atop the covers..lying above the spilled babies of yesterday..weeks before..small infested still births..The louse and the semen fuse, turn to flaky chips of crustacean..infantile husks glisten against Lyla's skin in the moonlight..the black light..making her appear to have been sprinkled with the sand from the beaches of Nod..These specks are scattered across her half-naked body..in the cold folds of her arms..the beads of her eyelashes..crushed ever softly against the press of her lips and he tastes mass genocide deep in her mouth..while his tongue searches for the cove of the fallen souls inside her..
********************************

He pulls a pair of clamps..roach-clips..from his big red tool-box..full of hammers, screw-drivers, wrenches, Vaseline, 'rub that snatch down..greased and tight!' .before the real work begins..Her eyes stare only at the stained white drapes..Hole-ridden..barely hanging on to the pane..of the glass that keeps the outside air from whisking a last whisper to the clouds..Keith applies the clamps to her blue nipples..There is a lack of tension in the pull..as he tugs futility at the sagging remains of a two-week corpse..She is a rough terrain now..a rotten pear, riddled with decay..The A/C is running full blast to keep the smell bearable..He pulls at the clips..and the dead never moan loud enough..
***********************************

He pulls at her hair, while he slips the black and banana yellow panties from her sleek thighs..Barry watches on in the corner with that fixed 2 week stare..his mouth is open..his eyes are closed.."Even now, you can't watch? Fucking pussy!" Keith snickers..and removes the panties from Lyla's ankles. She looks to the curtains..Barry is dead..Barry is watching..Barry sees Keith from behind the glassy stare..from the outside looking in..from the inside looking out..

"K E i T H"

whispers in the room of necra-night..secrets in the Inn..and the door to Room # 3 is closed on Barry..is closing-in on Keith..and Lyla..looks to the curtains..

Keith snarls and throws a Bible at Barry.."Suck an egg you dead fucker! I'm trying to get my fuck on here! Shut the hell up!"
Barry's head slumps over upon impact of the Lord's word..Revelations upside the head. And so it was that the words rung out from Barry's dead lips, quotes from the End Book itself:

"and the Living one; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades"

to which Keith replied in quick fashion:

"Fear not the things which thou art about to suffer: behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life."

And while the Outside Lord watched from Barry's fixed eyes..Keith buries his face in Lyla's dead womb and wrought the seeds of death..searches for those who are being tried beyond the decaying 'uteran world..only to find louse flakes and the stench of dried semen in abundance..Lyla's head slumps from her gaze..curtains, whispers to the window have fallen to the floor..and neither her vapid eyes nor Keith's writhing neck wrapped in dead woman thighs make notice of a strange visitor to Room #3..
**********************************

He crawls from a 1.6 mm space behind the nightstand..which has been jostled from position by the incessant knocking around of the bed during the lover's fray. The silent invader has six legs, antennae, prodders..feelers..hairs..has crawled through fecal matter and urine, fed from scraps in the corners lived in many televisions with thousands of brothers and sisters..Now, he has strayed from his crowded home beneath refrigerators and within bathroom sinks..He has found his way from the bungalows of Haiti to Hollywood..made his way within the folds of crates holding imported fish..Now he has found his way into Room #3..and Lyla's eyes cannot move away from him as he scurries around the edge of the nightstand.
********************************

The cockroach has stopped to observe the events of the 2nd week..within Room #3, Lyla's blank facade almost looks to smile at the creature..as Keith reaches at the other side of the bed for the Vaseline jar. "Gonna grease 'er good to-night. That pussy's 'bout dried up."

Keith dips three fingers into the jar and pulls out a glob of the sex paste..and holds the jelly to his nose for a quick check. " I can't remember if this stuff ever goes bad." Keith looks at Lyla.." Do you? Ha ha ha."

Keith applies the Vaseline to his member, and rubs the con[cock]tion slowly around the base.....applies adamant pressure to the tip as he strokes and leers at Lyla. "You like that don't you bitch?"

The cockroach has moved to the edge of the overlapping quilt on the bed as Keith searches for the insertion point..Lyla doesn't wince as he slides in..her head bounces up and down and almost clean from her shoulders as Keith's pace quickens and slows..his thrusts expand and disperse..the children the louse..the cockroach..They all watch on.

"And now for the goldmine!" Keith says, as he flips Lyla to her side and positions himself behind her. He sticks his greasy 3 fingers back into the jar resting on her pillow, and swipes them along her anal cavity.."Better safe than sorry."

He licks her ear as he inserts the same 3 fingers deeper, removing them to find no remains of a meal or soul inside. "I know there's something in there you quiet bitch!" he screams, and punches her in the back of the head before ramming his member inside her dead orifice. The children of the mattress have finally wept..The louse has leapt for the last time tonight..but the cockroach, watches from the foot of the bed now..The cockroach stares into Lyla's void mouth.
************************************

Keith has seen the doctors about problems with his urinary tract in the past. He attributes an acidic feeling in his urethra to the inhalation of boric acid while laying traps around the office and rooms of the hotel. The doctors have suggested that the prolonged exposure to boron may have caused adverse effects to his kidneys and possibly his reproductive organs including, but not limited to the urethra and sperm count..
**********************************

Keith has fallen asleep inside Lyla's rectal wall. The cockroach is at the entrance of the dead girl's mouth. He pauses while Keith breathes heavy into the night air..each rise and fall of his chest reverberates along Lyla's hips to the mattress..from the bed to nightstand..from the inside to the outside..past the glass..into the land of Nod and never again.
**********************************

The cockroach scurries into Lyla's open mouth. Upon entering, the prodders begin searching the decayed tissue at the roof and scuttles quietly down the top of her throat and into the alimentary tract. It cuts through the esophagi, with a rapid pace..and goes mad at the sudden visions induced by the floating blood at the bottom of the appendix. Blood pool images of screams and Barry lying motionless on the floor.

For a series of moments, the six-legged intruder is stricken with a human's view of bludgeoning fists, tight grips, hard smacks..a great white grin..the letters: K E I T H, on a woven patch.. All at once, there it is..how brutal men can be..seen through the eyes of an insect..seen from the blood and bruises of a quiet woman..seen from the inside looking out..
**********************************

It fights its way through the gambit of 2 week dead memories and finds the exit from the last still sphincter inside the small intestine. It stops and doesn't dare to look back.. Keith lies asleep..Lyla lies dead..The cockroach stands inside..It springs with a vengeful speed from the exit..and runs into the rectum where Keith's urethra lies limp and sated.

The cockroach almost grins at the sleeping worm with his one closed eye..before charging forward and into Keith's urethra.

Keith leaps up and out from Lyla..HIGH-pitched screams resound through the walls as he scratches furiously at his "pee-hole"

"What the fuck?! What the fuck?!"

The cockroach burrows deeper inside the 26mm space..an in to his means..and the blood begins to seep from Keith's urethra..as he screams..SCREAMS!..SCreams..Screams..screams..moan
s..scratches..kicks..goes slowly quiet..while the roach tears and travels deeper into man..
******************************
2 weeks later..Keith, Lyla, Barry..have not left the room. The A/C is on full blast. The smell is down..

The cockroach has finally died..from prolonged exposure to boric acid..inside Keith's urethra..




Frankie Metro claims to have never had a cockroach climb up into his penis.