Leprechaun Pu$$y N’ $hit

 

Flat on my back, I awoke to bass booming in the background, as if I were outside of a nightclub…

I yawned. Sat up in bed, and my nostrils widened at the strong scent of marijuana smoke. Then I stretched my arms and lost my breath, for a second, when I sighted a vista of floor-to-ceiling windows.

Outside, it was a golden morning, and I was awed by the postcard-perfect sea views. The azure ocean appearing like an exquisite pattern of ripples, sparkles, and small waves. Its waters moving like a massive blue sheet of shimmering satin.

Taking stock of the bed, too… It was nothing if not lavish, and I felt as if I were practically floating as I rolled from side to side and stretched my limbs out on the super-soft memory foam mattress… smooth, cream-colored silk sheets caressing my skin…

Then I wiped the sleep from my eyes and further panned my gaze around… This bedroom was palatial. Featured a vaulted ceiling that must have been 40 feet high. It was clean too. Not a speck of dust or dirt anywhere. And everything was white- white walls, white marble floors, white furniture. Everything sparkly, electric white.

All appeared shiny too. Almost to an exaggerated extent. Like an Instagram filter. The entire room brightening, practically blinding, making me squint my eyes as I continued scanning around the room, wondering where I was, where I’d woken up.

And who I was… Given the shock, I knew I wasn’t at home. But I didn’t know what or where home was.

I couldn’t even recall my name…

Though I couldn’t recall how I got here, a slideshow of images, flickering like an old PC, flitted through my mind: a long glass table, an electric scale… Me wearing blue latex gloves that made my fingers look like popsicles…

Then I had visions of driving, inching forward in heavy traffic while tapping at a phone affixed to a Hyundai’s dashboard.   

Then a hazy recollection of a house party. At an apartment with vintage movie posters papered over the walls. A din of chatter and someone with a jackhammer of a laugh. A Young Thug video, muted, playing on a wall-mounted flatscreen TV…

Following all that, somehow, I had woken up in this luxurious, high-rise residence.

I slid out of the bed’s silk sheets, ambled over the windows, which encased the entire room. I touched my forehead to the cool glass and saw only an infinite sheet of sea. I couldn’t spot a nightclub anywhere, or even a sliver of land. What if I was abducted by aliens, left on a water planet? But nowhere in the bedroom did I spot any space aliens, and the bass was sounding from all different directions, booming like distant fireworks.

Padding over to the bathroom, I found that it too was white. White as fresh milk. The bathroom equipped, decked out in white everything. White towels, white jacuzzi bathtub, toilet, sink. It was when I found myself facing the mirror atop the sink that I experienced the most unexpected.

Everything in the bathroom was white… Except for me.

Standing in the mirror was a young Black man, in white silk pajamas. A young Black man with face tattoos. An inverted crucifix between my eyebrows and a couplet of incomprehensible scribble across my left cheek.

Hold up, I thought… I knew that face. It was the famous rapper Shootah Sho. I was Shootah Sho! But how did I get from driving a Hyundai to being a world-renown rapper?

At this point, the previous night’s events slowly crept back into focus, clearing up like clouds after a storm.

I’d been smoking weed at a house party. One of my friends had brought a friend, and none of us had ever seen this guy. But there was something mysterious, intriguing about him.

He was like a celebrity. He had that “it” factor. Not only due to his swarthy, handsome looks; but charisma just oozed from him. He exuded a certain magnetism, and everyone in the apartment’s living room was drawn to him. Everyone at the party wanted to know him. Everyone asking him questions as he held court. And he had brilliant answers to any question. He cracked joke after joke, leaving everyone in stitches. He ripped unbelievably big bong hits and blew perfect smoke rings, smoke rings the size of donuts, as he regaled us with charming anecdotes, film trivia, and random quips. He appeared to know everything about anything. It was as if he were the human embodiment of Google, or powered by ChatGPT.  

Even his name caused a stir. “Satan.” Who the hell names their kid Satan? But no one could gather whether or not it was his real name because, just like ChatGPT, he was evasive in all his answers to personal questions. Not in a way that implied malfeasance, or condescension, but rather his was jocular. This Satan was a merry prankster.

But when I caught him in the kitchen later, annihilating a box of marijuana cookies (chewing loudly, too, with his mouth wide open) he appeared far heavier and older, the etched lines on his forehead far more visible; twin grooves on each cheek framing his mouth like parentheses. His wavy black hair, which had been neatly combed and shiny, now looked greasy, had been sculpted into two twin wet spikes. His long face had dimmed, too, shifted from jovial to subdued. Though his split-open eyes still appeared glittering, curiously restive….

As he wiped weed cookie crumbs away from his mouth with his forearm, I noticed how darkly hairy he was and that his legs appeared too slim and stubby for his chunky torso, making him look sort of like a goat.

I could have sworn I’d seen Satan before wearing a tuxedo, with a cape, like almost a Dracula Halloween-type costume. But in the kitchen he wore tattered blue jeans and a black T-shirt with AC/DC, with the lightning slash, embossed in red lettering across the chest. I noticed he wore no shoes and had feet so small and gnarled they appeared as hooves.

Satan, his expression plaintive, neglected any niceties or salutations. Instead, upon my entrance into the kitchen, he asked me, directly, in a robotic voice, what I’d be if I could be anything.

I told Satan I’d be a world-famous MC. A gangsta rapper. That that was my childhood dream. Satan’s countenance brightened as I told him about my early memories, as a Boy Scout, watching DMX videos… Memorizing DMX’s lyrics, mirroring DMX’s movements in front of the television… Doing D’s signature pit bull barks and shit…

A smiling Satan, his eyes shining like sunshine over snow, then handed me a minty-smelling marijuana cookie.

I guess he’d granted my wish. Maybe all those fire and brimstone preachers were wrong. Maybe Satan isn’t such a bad guy…

Now I was living my dream. The bathroom I stood in was probably bigger than any apartment or room I’d ever rented. I was living the life. I was in an episode of MTV’s Cribs. Sauntering out of the bathroom, I started walking like a pimp. I was on my way to kick it in the condo’s living room, where I estimated there would be fresh bottles of lean, candy bowls full of Xans and Percs, towering pyramids of cash and marijuana, and like 20 naked bitches, all of them spread eagle or bent over, all of them just waiting to have wild sex with me.

My bedroom’s door looked made of steel. Submarine-silver, it was heavy as a firewall and pulling it open felt like playing tug-of-war. Catching my breath, I saw the rest of the condo was just as spectacular. An infinite space adorned in Rothko-style paintings, sleek furniture, identical white décor.

Panoramic, floor-to-ceiling windows featuring fabulous sea views further encased the entire abode, and the distant bump of bass continued to reverberate from various directions… The stink of cannabis steady growing stronger… Oddly, though, the condo’s other rooms were all uncomfortably hot, and I couldn’t locate a thermostat anywhere…

Oddly as well, prowling about the massive space, I happened upon no other people. No naked bitches. No posse. No one drinking lean or forty-ounces. No one smoking blunts. No stacks of cash. In Shootah’s videos, there were always stacks of cash, fancy cars, hordes of gun-toting homies and naked or near-naked ratchet bitches bouncing, aiming and bobbling their butts everywhere. So I was perplexed, wondering where all my money, homies, and butt-shaking bitches in thongs were at.

A loud knock then erupted from the front doorway, and I was expecting to open the door to discover a whole cheerleading squad, a whole gaggle of smiling, twerking bitches. Maybe the twerking bitches would be petite beauties holding moneybags. Be like one of my favorite Shootah songs, “Leprechaun Pussy n’ $hit.” 

I also hoped the twerking bitches might know how to operate the a/c, as I was dripping with sweat…

But when I pulled open the massive, submarine-silver, 10-foot-tall front door, which, too, was heavy as a firewall, the loud bass in the background suddenly ceased, the odor of cannabis completely vanished, and a blast of cold air pushed me a step backward. Filling the doorway stood a scowling pair of late middle-aged, mustached policemen in uniform. Both smelled of coffee. Both had dark rings under their glowing eyes.

“Sir, are you … ?” one of the mustaches asked, in a gravelly, cigarette-smoker’s voice. But I didn’t know the name and shook my head, shrugged.

“Sir, are you Shootah Sho?” the other raspy-voiced mustache asked, his wet breath stinking of stomach acid.

But I was mute, unable to speak. Words just wouldn’t form. My tongue stuck to my teeth. The policemen then handed me a warrant. At first, the tiny black words on the document’s white pages looked like lines of crawling ants. But then the document came into focus. It detailed numerous charges under the RICO Act, a number of felonious crimes, and the possibility of life imprisonment.

As the policemen patted me down, clicked a pair of cold metal cuffs on my wrists, read me my rights, I began to tell them about my meeting with Satan.

It was then my stomach sank, and I wondered just who Satan really was…

"New Money"

 

New Money:

 

Susan slumps in the passenger seat, her face glued to her phone. But she can’t focus on her Facebook feed. Instead, her mind drifts and shifts, like a remote control clicking through television channels. Then she fixates, ruminating on the couple’s recent life, their dire change in circumstances…

They’d been rich. They’d been “new money.”

They’d bought an ostentatious, 10,000 square-foot mansion. The sprawling property had previously belonged to a movie star and had vaulted ceilings, teak double doors, bulbous white fixtures, crystal chandeliers, bay windows, multiple fireplaces, and infinite rows of rooms, rooms fitted in oak paneling, oak bookshelves, and an arcade with pool tables and video games, and a luxurious fitness center with a jacuzzi, sauna, free weights, fitness machines, spin bikes, treadmills, plus an indoor pool and an outdoor pool- both of which Susan had decorated with exotic plants and Hawaiian, tropical décor...

Of course, they’d bought the place back when Jim was playing football, when those 6, 7, 8 figure NFL checks were rolling in and their bank balance was constantly elongating… Now, though, that the NFL cash had dried up, everything was different…

Susan’s mind is racing; she is outwardly detached and taciturn. But inside, she is burning. She’s spinning, psychically, riddled in time scabs. She’s writing lists of lamentations.

She’s considering the anomaly, the career of a pro athlete... The gift and the tragedy... How in most professions, one’s 40s, 50s are prime-earning years. But for pro athletes, very few continue to even play, let alone enjoy big paydays, far into their 30s... For most athletes, their late teens, 20s to early 30s are the windows of opportunity, their chance to amass a fortune, possibly accumulate generational wealth…   

For professional athletes, there’s only now or never, a window in time that opens ever so briefly... And Jim had seized upon it. Everything had come together, for a time, everything was ideal.

Jim and Susan’s situation, initially, was perfect. He was an all-pro and collected hefty checks. But, because of the anonymity of his position, because he wore a helmet, because he wasn’t the one scoring touchdowns, hardly anyone in the general public knew him. and the couple could go wherever they pleased… Unlike the team’s star quarterback, or even their coach, who weren’t able to appear in public without causing a mob scene or being hounded by journalists.  

Every so often Jim would be recognized due to the handful of print ads, endorsements he’d done for a local “Big and Tall” clothing chain. Sometimes a person in a car next to him in traffic might gape and point, perhaps yell, “Hey, you’re that guy!”

And there’d been a handful of times when he’d be stopped, asked for autographs or photo ops, often by young, aspiring offensive lineman from high school or college. But that wasn’t too often. Generally, there weren’t many folks among the public who could even pick his face out of a police lineup.

And that suited Jim and Susan just fine.

Jim had told her, that as an offensive lineman, people usually only talked about him if he’d let up a sack or blew a coverage. The best offensive linemen are anonymous, they’re those you don’t hear of, he’d said… And given his outstanding performances, his prowess on the field, how he’d batter away defensive lineman and linebackers, very few outside the game’s analysts, coaches and players, die-hard fans, knew his name.

Jim and Susan could go most anywhere, in anonymity, and only receive occasional stares that were more due to Susan’s fetching, cheerleader looks or the sheer immensity of Jim’s hulking, monstrous physique, the eyes of passersby shifting upwards as he’d tower imposingly over crowds, almost like Godzilla...

Jim really is an enormous creature, a giant of a man, standing at 6’7. And he was nearly 330 pounds of muscle and fat, back in his playing days. Post-retirement, though, he’s slimmed down to a leaner 270, comprised largely of muscle and thick heavy bones...

Following retirement, he stopped eating like a machine, cut back heavily from the 8,000 calories per day he’d consumed while playing.

Back when he was playing, Susan jokingly called him a “human garbage disposal,” due to his proclivity to consume, pretty much eviscerate food. The man was practically always eating. Though it wasn’t due to gluttony. To be an NFL offensive lineman means one has to maintain, and at times even increase his weight.  

Jim’s usual daily diet would include: a breakfast of six scrambled eggs, 6 strips of bacon, 8 ounces of red meat, a bowl of chopped apples, a bowl of oatmeal, and three waffles, pancakes or bagels slathered in butter; lunches were 8-10 ounces of meat, two or three servings of rice or slices of toasted bread, and some fruits and vegetables; dinners were 16-20 ounces of meat, two more servings of rice or maybe pasta and two servings of vegetables.

Then there’d be snacks throughout the day, like granola bars, and a protein shake that Jim would combine with another shake of chopped bananas and ice cream.

Once accustomed to such dietary regimens, it shouldn’t be a surprise that retired offensive linemen often experience weight issues. But Jim had gladly cut back on his caloric intake, saying he’d considered it a chore to eat so prolifically.

He’d also happily stopped lifting weights, saying he hated the smell of the gym and the sound of the clanking iron bars and dumbbells.

Just as well, perhaps. His light exercise, swimming in the pool, was probably better, since Jim had been plagued by injuries, physical ailments, three knee surgeries, chronic back problems, and perpetually sore joints that had only gotten worse following his retirement, at age 38.

Mornings were the worst, physically, for Jim. He’d limp and groan, struggle to unroot himself from bed. There’d been a time when he’d wake up and vivaciously swing his legs off the bed, but nowadays he slowly maneuvers his limbs like heavy objects elevated by a forklift.

Some days were worse than others. But, every day, getting out of bed was a definite challenge. Every morning. Every morning, he’d wake up with a look of exasperation, a pained gaze, his humungous full-moon face looking like sleep had been punching at his unconscious rather than rejuvenating him.

He’d let out low grunts, hot sighs, and fight his way to his feet, then walk, hunched over, like an old man, to the bathroom to gather himself.

Then, throughout the day, Jim would be afflicted by throbbing headaches, when even the slightest sound appeared to be blaring into his ear with the volume of an air horn. He’d clench his teeth, press his eyes shut and stroke his head in an attempt to soothe the tenderness in his scalp, the tightening sensation in his skull.

Sometimes he’d wear bulky, softball-sized noise-cancelling headphones, and listen to meditation music or white noise. He’d sit in his recliner, trembling, with his feet kicked up, those big earphones clamped on. He’d grimace as he’d hang his head low, close his eyes, purse his lips, and wait for the pain to pass, like he was on a turbulent plane, flying through a violent thunderstorm.   

The headaches gave him photophobia, too, and Susan often saw him draw the curtains closed in daytime, dim lights at night.

He’d take various pills, pills he’d begun, been prescribed during his playing days. Pain pills, mostly Oxycodone. Susan never asked about it, like how many he was taking, partially because, at least to her, it seemed like he had it under control- but also because she didn’t know how to broach the subject.

However, neither the injuries, the headaches, nor the pills were his biggest issue following retirement. His biggest issue was the deep-rooted depression fogging in, gripping him, post-retirement… His overwhelming loss of identity. He missed his teammates, the camaraderie, the banter in the locker room. For the first time since he was 6 years old, he was without a football team. He was without his second family. He was without his regimen, routines, game tapes and game prep, and his calendar was blank, with no dates circled...

It was obvious to her that he felt listless and empty and was experiencing a profound lack of purpose.

Susan’s mind clicks, recalls years ago, as he lay in a hospital bed, stitched up, following a knee surgery. She’d gently floated the idea of retirement, and he’d responded to her by glaring, his eyes dripping with venom. Then he’d proclaimed emphatically that he never wanted to quit, that he’d play forever if he could.

She’d never forgotten that, seeing this colossus of a man in insufferable pain, a man who’d already earned millions, yet he wanted to keep bashing away, buffeting his body. And for what? The adrenaline? The adulation of the crowds? His teammates? She couldn’t understand it. She knew he’d only retire, quit playing when he was ready. She didn’t feel like there was anything she could say to convince him otherwise...    

Finally, of course, Jim succumbed to time’s teeth and his accumulated injuries. He was aware that Father Time is undefeated and after deciding to hang up his cleats, he was initially content. But when he really did walk away from the game, it hit him hard as a ton of bricks. Susan had never seen him so blue. She did her best to be the good wife, the soothing sounding board. She encouraged him to do like others in his situation, guys who’d wanted to stay around the game, and go into coaching, or do broadcasting.

But neither was for him. And he knew it. He didn’t have the patience to coach. He didn’t have the eloquence to be a broadcaster.

So, for a few dark months, he wasn’t sure what to do. He was catatonic much of the time, perched in his recliner, watching ESPN, guzzling beers.

That’s part of why he ultimately decided to go into business, she figured. To be part of something. To feel the rush. The adrenaline. To join the chase, the hunt. To get the juices flowing.

Sadly, though, his entrepreneurial ambitions didn’t pan out. His company, which was started to consult, guide aspiring athletes, failed, and a few real estate, land development deals tanked. His investments in high-growth stocks and corporate bonds flopped too...

There was still a barely seven figure bank account and a couple six figure checks owed to him by his last team. There was the NFL pension, too. But none of this would be enough to finance the lavish lifestyle they’d grown accustomed to. So he went all in on an incipient project, though he wouldn’t elaborate on its details…

Susan watches herself, at the kitchen table, the trophy wife, in the trophy house. But her shine, her sparkle is darkening. Her head hung low, her gaze is glued to the purplish-red cabernet in her wine glass and she’s nervously rocking the glass back and forth in choked mini-movements.

“It’ll be a big thing,” he assures her, as he confesses to selling the house, in part to raise capital for the venture. Seeing her face crinkled in sadness and angst, the giant rises to his battle-worn legs, lumbers over to her and kisses her forehead, attempting to assuage her worries, before he limps off to bed…

Susan knows the score. She knows he is pushing all his chips to the table. All THEIR chips to the table. He is investing the last of his football earnings as well as their equity in the house.

She hates it. In her opinion, it is a reckless move. He is basically ripping out the kitchen sink and throwing it wildly. But as she gulps down a sharp swig of red wine, she quiets those horrible voices, those demons of doubt. She hopes her hunch is wrong. She can only have faith. Hope. At this point, all she can do is hope and wish for the best. 

Susan feels like a voyeur. She can only watch her ghost of recency, watch the hot tears streaming down her flushed cheeks, as she is sitting alone, at the kitchen table. Staring at herself staring at the white marble floor, the gravity of her situation once again sinks in, the weight of it like an anchor dropping in the sea...  

Then she is back in her body. She is fused. She is one. She is blinking away the tears, wiping her face with her forearm. She is distraught. But she again realizes there is nothing she can do, aside from just hope for the best. For him, her, but most of all, for their kids. She worries, for the first time, ever, about the kids’ futures. For years, she had been able to give her kids anything they wanted. Her credit cards were her favorite parenting tool. Money, she felt, could solve any problem. Satisfy any need. 

She’d always felt like a genie in a bottle, able to grant any wish, able to provide whatever the kids needed or wanted. The money made her feel like she was a superhero...

But now, for the first time in years, she feels… human. Pathetically so. For the first time in years, she is actually concerned about money. And it is such a horrible feeling. Such a punch in the gut…

Snapping back to the present, Susan pans her gaze toward Jim, who is shaking his head, leaning to the left side of the driver’s seat, mumbling curse words at traffic. Susan then thinks of other athletes, famous people who’d blown multi-million-dollar fortunes: MC Hammer, Vin Baker, Antoine Walker, Vince Young.

Jim clicks the stereo to near full blast, pumping up the DMX jam, “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem,” bopping his head to the beat, copying DMX’s dog growls…

Susan tilts her head, scoffs, purses her lips. Then she swings her gaze, watches herself in the rearview mirror. Morose, her spirits sink, and she wonders… How could anyone ever respect a person who lost THAT much money? Why should their kids ever listen to them again? Why wouldn’t their children hate them? God knows how much she was starting to hate herself…

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"Johnny Buckets in Bergen" by Newamba Flamingo

Johnny Buckets wore a Spider-Man sweat suit.

He hung upside down from the ceiling of the first class carriage, in the fast train from Oslo to Bergen.

Cracking open an Aass beer, he gazed out the window into the green, brown, and white Norwegian countryside.

Someone in the row behind him said how you ain't seen nothing until you’ve seen a middle aged Polish woman speaking Chinese and that those glaciers would soon be gone because of global warming.

Johnny downloaded an “InfoWars” podcast. He gritted his teeth as he sucked down the Scandinavian suds.

“Can’t I get a fucking Budweiser in this country?!” he erupted. “Fucking faggots!”

A sharply dressed man in the seat facing him grimaced, crossed his legs, checked his watch and looked away…

Johnny Buckets hiked up his pants and hit Bergen “like a fucking asteroid.”

The weather was damp and rainy. The mountains hugging the city were molars.

In the driverless Uber Johnny Buckets laughed and did impressions of the language in onomatopoeia…

“Hey, where the fuck can a nigga get some bacon cheeseburgers and shit?” he inquired at the front desk.

None of the staff seemed impressed by his “Make America Great Again” hat or his Joe Pesci t-shirt...

Tourists snapped selfies with architecture, but Johnny Buckets pushed past them on his way to the “Roll & Rock Bar and Diner” on Skostredet 14.

He spit out his first bite.

“This is real beef?!” “Bacon soggy like used toilet paper!” “FUCKING SOCCER BALL KICKING, MANBUN EUROFAGS!”

Johnny Buckets dug out his phone from his fanny pack, got online, gave the diner a shitty review on TripAdvisor and trolled a "libtard" on a fantasy football site.

Then he stuck in his ear buds and listened to the soothing musical stylings of DMX, and Black Rob’s “Whoa.”

Whilst eating the tolerable freedom fries, he drank a coke. It was then decided. That night he was going full retard.

He left no tips, went back to the hotel and shaved his head in the bathroom mirror….

Johnny Buckets got to the club dressed as Freddy Krueger.

A robotic DJ fistpumped and thumped dubstep remixes of Deadmau5. All in automation.

Johnny Buckets slammed a series of shots of Finnish vodka. The spinning room smelled of cinnamon.

“Damn Norwegian bitches look like transvestites!” he lamented. “And not the hot Thai type of transvestites neither!”

Though after a few more shots, the tall, broad shouldered “Nordic pussy” began to look slightly more enticing.

“Gonna go rape and plunder some of this Viking boo-tay!!” he exclaimed and proceeded to be shot down by every single girl in the club.

“Now I understand Anders Breivik!” yelled Johnny Buckets as he was ejected cold into the night by security.

Back at the hotel, he felt like jerking off, but was bored of PornTube, Kardashians, and artificial vaginas, so he hit up an international escort site to find himself a slapper.

On it, he found one in his area; tall, Russian, high cheekbones, looked like Melania.

“Fucking right… Russian va-jay-jay… Bet she takes it in the fartbox...” he clicked “like” and paid in Bitcoin.

An hour later, he was nearly passed out on his bed, streaming a prison documentary on YouTube, when his door spoke in musical claps.

He stumbled up, let in the light, and saw Melania, looking just like her picture from the website, though even taller than expected, at least six inches higher than him.

He smiled. She smiled back.

Then, from behind her, a couple tattoo faced, big, burly Russian lizard dudes stormed into the room.

Johnny Buckets' smile was eaten back by a blizzard of fists.

He fell to the floor and curled into a fetal ball as they punched, kicked, and cursed at him in Russian and broken English.

Melania rummaged through his room, filling Johnny Buckets’ Versace backpack with his laptop, phone, wallet, passport, prescription pills, and folder full of tickets to Hobart, Auschwitz, Orlando, Newtown, Babi Yar, Beijing, Blacksburg, Killeen and Las Vegas.

“Bitch even took my sunscreen.”

Melania then peered into his room’s safe, but it was open and empty. She nodded to the Russians who relented their assault. The three began to exit the room.

One of the Russians snatched Johnny Buckets' red cap from the coat rack, put it on, and whispered “Donald Trump” as he chuckled and pulled the door closed.