ADJUNCT CRASH COURSE PODCAST! STARCHBLOOD!

Season One has drawn to a close. Thanks to everyone who has listened! 

Click below to listen to ALL episodes from Season One, as well as Chapter 1 from Frankie Metro's novel, "STARCHBLOOD"

RESPECT! 

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE PODCAST!

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.

ADJUNCT CRASH COURSE! PODCAST 2!

This podcast might be better than sex with a dolphin. Maybe. CLICK HERE to listen!

The Chemist: Frankie Metro: Live in Oakland (July 8th, 2012 ZyFez 2- Club Paradisio)

*Surprisingly, no farm animals were harmed or mistreated during The Chemist's performance. However, the cameras did not stick around for the headlining band of the evening: Stabbing Westward.

Parasytic Handguide for Successful Employment

Don’t get complacent while working around power equipment. Practice and abide by all safety procedures. Ensure all proper guards are in place. Are you wearing your proper PPE? Have you verified that all of your buttons are buttoned, zippers zipped, that your hair is pulled back in a ponytail or tucked adequately up into your cap? Are you wearing your safety glasses, steel toe work shoes?

(see examples of job related disaster below)


I. A cold slab tickle drains the fat deposits of a motormouthed twin with no feet, no tongue, no hands to speak of; but lying safe in the humerus, below the clavicle of a forced habit. No one could really explain why a torso didn't accompany the arm, why an unborn twin wasn't described in the course outline for Basic Cadaver Anatomy @ Bastyr University, why the head had only half a smile- twisted and faded behind the cameo pink shield of the brachialis. But one student in the back of the class heard electric organs playing in his 3rd eye- when they sliced that fucker open.

II. Industrial ave maria bubbles pump from the vintage alpines in his chest. rapture, uncomplicated by context, circumcised of its gag reflex. pure as the calcified skin casket being spread to reveal its soft by sharp metal fingers. its developing vascular system, a mound of neon spider webs, old man frail but baby sweet. bulging like a bloated conscience - exposed for its gelatin - congealed electricity. a ball of unfinished organs frozen in a sudden death that redefines life. recognition creeps over the cyclops and he pats his right forearm as the camera pierces brown, pink, red then finally bone to a hand, no larger than his pinky nail, returning the hi five.

III. A story he’d heard at a party over the weekend. An Afghani goat herder, once a year would come down the mountain pass and sell his goats in a populated market square. The villagers called him, “The Pregnant Man” because he was so fat. When the Pregnant Man came down this time, American doctors were in the village helping the sick. They saw the bulge at his midsection and thought it was a cancerous tumor. Cutting it open, they found the remains of his stillborn twin brother inside of a pouch in the abdomen. Hair and nails and underdeveloped teeth.

***

Have you checked to make sure that you don’t have any remnants of your own twin sibling living inside of that arm that is being removed at this moment by these bumbling surgeons?

Now comes out the saw. Watch gently as they cut off your own arm. Look how easy it comes off. Like trimming the hedges out by the curb. It's gotta be done.

Pretend that it’s just Step One in a two part procedure.

Step Two, happens after the limb is lopped off and cauterized.

They pass the mangled arm like a hot potato to the nearest nurse who carries it out of the operating room and down the hall, chunks of viscera plopping on the floor like spaghetti with meat sauce. The surgeons keep an alligator as a pet in a room deep in the bowels of the hospital. They feed it severed limbs and sometimes people who have gotten too rowdy in the ER waiting area during an overcrowded holiday weekend.

Whistling, another nurse opens a tall grey cabinet, retrieves a robotic arm.

The surgeons wire the new arm into the central nervous system as if it’s as simple as hooking up a car stereo. A few simple connections.

Then, the wounded flesh between the new mechanical limb and the old torn flesh is wrapped in gauze and the patient is woken up and told very sternly, “Your new bionic arm must be looked after very closely. There is a chance for infection. No swimming in the pool and no trips to the beach for at least two weeks. Apply ample Neosporin. Change the bandages daily. No arm wrestling... That's now considered a federal offense for you.”

*written during SHARKWEEK by: Aurora Killpoet, Bud Smith & Frankie Metro.

The Anarchist's Blac Book of Poetry - by Frankie Metro

Crisis Chronicles Press is pleased to announce the publication of Frankie Metro's The Anarchist's Blac Book of Poetry, a 42-page chapbook including several illustrations by the author. Published 6 June 2012, The Anarchist's Blac Book of Poetry is now available for $7 (includes postage) from Crisis Chronicles Press, 420 Cleveland Street, Elyria, Ohio 44035.

Frankie Metro might fuck goats and transsexual Korean karaoke singers, but he also writes some cool shit. Support this motherfucker and buy (or steal) his book.

Meth Lab Radio Show, ft. Newamba, Frankie Metro, and Yossarian Hunter

Listen to internet radio with Newamba on Blog Talk Radio

Meth Lab Radio Show (featuring Willie Nelson from Glasgow)

Listen to internet radio with frankie metro on Blog Talk Radio

an excerpt from The Professional Donor (a working novel)

It's been three days since we last saw Finch, and everyone's got their theories. When he told me he thought he was having a heart-attack, I'll admit, I was somewhat skeptical. He hunched over the table balancing his head between his arms; complained of dizzyness and chest pains. All the while, his cigar teetered between his fingers when he wasn't puffing furiously at the filter.

"Do you want me to call the ambulance, man?"

"Nah. Not really. I'd like to just die to be honest with you. But I want this pain to stop first."

Last night, I dreamed he had come back to the house and in my REM-induced imagination, I conjured up a fictitious conversation in the living room between Finch and Ian.

"Where's my orange lighter?! It was on the dining room table when I left."

"I don't know man. I haven't touched it."

Ian was obviously nervous-pacing back and forth through the intersecting hallway in avoidance of confrontation. The lighter was safe in my pocket.

"Bullshit you fucking thief! I know you got sticky fingers! Empty your pockets right now!"

Although I awoke to no such conversation having transpired, I knew it could easily veer in that direction had Finch come home during my nap. But that was Finch; desperately clinging to every facet of his menial existence. The smaller things have so much precedence. A lighter. A JW Little King Cigar. A bowl of spice. A bottle of Sierra Mist. Everything that meant something was trivial and clamped between his swollen mits; while "the bigger picture", as some call it, eluded him and his otherwise apathetic disposition.

I started thinking about his laissez faire attitude towards his impending demise, and how he clung to the pain and I wondered if maybe he hadn't mentioned his death wish to one of the nurses on duty upon admission and she hadn't in turn, referred his "case" to an inhouse social worker who asked Finch:

"Are you being serious when you say you want to die?"

And he had answered yes, immediately granting her the authority to place him under a seventy-two hour suicide watch in the psych ward upstairs.

Yes. Finch has a tendency to focus on the less important aspects of his life and thus negates the presence of more pressing matters at hand. Then again, this is all merely speculation-bordering on a classic case of self-projection and we, the tenants of the house, have other theories as well.

We are learning to pay close attention to detail; finding pleasure in making it up as we go along simultaneously. Ian is busy flushing anything worth saying down the toilet or barking at the empty walls of his tiny room once the lights are out. We still haven't spoken, save for our coordinating the phone call to 911 a few nights earlier. Benny seems to think it may have had something to do with Finch's spice intake.

"He buys that shit off of some guy he works with and there's no telling what they spray on there. I tell ya, acetone may be the least of his worries."

Benny had heard some of Finch's conversation with the paramedics. As it turns out, Finch had a history of cardiac distress and a stint placed in his heart around six years ago.

"You smoke that shit and it makes your heart beat real fast and there ya' go. Not to mention all those cigars he smokes, the nonstop walking with his job, the heat! Just asking for problems with all that if you ask me."

Finally, Mrs. Just disspells the rumors on collection day; informing us all that Finch did indeed have a heart-attack, and that he was recuperating accordingly in the county hospital.

"He fine. Finch is fine. I speak to him a couple of days ago." she explained, as she taped the eviction notice on his door. "He is two weeks behind now. And now he is eh...not whowking. So I don't know what to do. All the time, he is here and nevwah says hewhoah when he sees me. You know? He is here slamming the doors and spraying bug spway everywhaire. We are not kids and there are no bugs. Maybe Finch have lice or something. I don't know. But there are no bugs. So...eh, Finch must go. I have nice married couple, like you and Lisa, who need the womb."

Mrs. Just was still justifying her decision as I trailed off for the bathroom. To my unamazement, sitting on the back of the toilet, was another dirty spoon.

A few more days passed and then Sunday, there he was in his old seat at the ceremonial round-table. Sulking. Alone. There were multiple puncture holes in his left arm; where the i.v.'s had once been attached...where his blood had been checked. The exact points of insertion glistened, fresh scabs beneath the ray of an L.E.D. flashlight dangling from the wire over his head. The fly paper swung in the breeze and so far, had mostly been successful at capturing debris from the trees in the yard. Very few insects were attracted to the scent. Finch had bought the roll some time ago.

"They (paramedics) didn't believe I was having a heart-attack. They thought I was having some kind of drug reaction or some shit. 'Kept asking me if I was sure I wanted to go to the hospital." An empty vial of X-Pressions "potpourri", a glass pipe and a rusty nail (THE RUSTY NAIL!) sat in front of him. I got the impression he had been sitting there for a few hours before I happened along. His head wobbled back and forth on his shoulders. He spoke uncharacteristically slow...

"Say do any of you guys happen to have an orange lighter?"

'You guys?' I thought, just before turning to my right and finding Ian's silhouette lonesome. Sullen...in a chair next to the neighboring fence.

"No. I haven't..." A train rumbled along the tracks of the boxed-in night; making his reply indiscernable.

"What about you Anton?"

"No. I ain't touched it man. I got this one, that I bought in Albuquerque last night. Still has the sticker on it."

"I had one sitting on the table with my smokes when they took me. The cigars were in my room when I got back, But no lighter."

"Hmmm. That's weird. How'd your cigars get in the room? Who put them there? Were some of them missing?"

"No. I had everything but the orange lighter."

"Who would just take a lighter man? That's just weird."

"Ah, who cares? Just forget it."

"Shit man. I was curious. Lisa and I have had some things come up missing lately."

An awkward black silence seized us, as I looked up between the branches and past the gutter of the house. The moon looked like the tip of a bright yellow finger, pushing...no pointing its way through a black ironed sheet; which had collected dust mites or stars. Finch lit one of the three JW's he had left in the pack.

"It's sposed to get up to around 108 degrees by the end of the week."

"Oh yeah?" I replied.

"Yeah. 'Gonna be a hot one for a while I suppose. Fucking sucks. I 'gotta get some things together, talk to some people. I guess I 'gotta find a new place to live by the end of the week...talk to the title people 'bout my car and go back to the hospital at some point."

"Did they set you up with another appointment?" I asked.

"Well, I have to go back and see the damned doctor so I guess that's an appointment. It's whatever. I'll either have to go back for that or another heart-attack one. Whichever comes first, I guess."

I felt as if he were searching for some source of empathy; digging amongst darkness and relative strangers.

"Doc said I have 80% blockage in one of the valves. Don't remember which one. But, it's just a matter of time before round two."

"They 'gonna do surgery?"

Finch shrugged, which made his head rock slightly. "I doubt it. I got no insurance. I tell you, I think they gave me some kind of radical drug treatment," he squeezed his arm in the light, "that turns fat cells into piss or something. I lost ten pounds while I was in there. I was pissing like thirty liters a day and I wasn't drinking nothing you know? So, I wonder..."

The ember began to falter on his cigar-due to his inconsistent drags throughout the conversation. Finch picked up a red lighter and re-lit the little king. "Yeah. You need to eat healthy, workout, and quit smoking." He pointed to the roll-up in my hand. "I mean, you can look at me as an example if you want." he chuckled. "Quit now, while you still got the chance." He stubbed the cigar on the edge of the table. His head dropped. He closed his eyes and didn't speak again.

Ian's shadow was looking in his direction. He had been listening intently the entire time. Even though it was hypocritical, today, it seems like some of the most sincere and mindful advice I ever received. I still smoke however...

2 poems and a collab from Norrin Radd

Pour me a Bowl

back into form i storm
alarmed and clutching a forward
rewards are for the moralless drones
clones of a thief quilted
warm as a mid summers lightning bolt
i felt like 5000
smoking hash in the hallways of hostels in and along the border
storm waters brought on feelings of gathered conscience
smash hammer dagger mouthed class clowns wandering
we scaled the skyscrapers with great repoire
speaking of stocks intermittently
laughing as brashly as if colorado hadn't changed my world
dark storm clouds rolling on the lush green fields
fuel simply described as human motor oil
spoiled feelings on the lightning bugs underneath the moon
the stars
cars came rushing by as conversations pursued
consumed thoughts of blank delocation
as more is perceived
less is controlled by dablooms.
swooned by the swaying of starscapes my scalp was tingled by the news
the blues seemed the only thing appropriate in the smokey dimly lit pool room,the water glistened blue
this brings me back to her eyes,the beautiful ohio mornings that smelt like nag champa and cold rain
those mornings that let me compose this for you
when the world was in fractiles
and my muse in the next room.
the reason I still do this
so it will bring me closer to whom I believe I am
manifesting a way to see clearer
and recreate those days anew

visegoth

she moves like a manta ray
swaying
crossing
making the days parade like
centuries.
her eyes are a time stretch
clutching mornings in honest retrospect
clutch word introspect
the gages are built from a cleptomaniac
stark
staggered
buildings melting realms
her scalp
smelt
of
felt
I breathe lush yellow fields for health classes
Classless.
I sat in a Denver rat trap
guarded by evil spirts and bad ju-juu,as if drugs were scarce.
Rare was it for I to smile.
Dull eyes
witch.
glisten.
The visegoth resides in valhalla

Caught up in a long nap... (an FM NR COLLAB)

in a pair of green shades,
sat a rip van winkler
wondering if happy years
were something one
would find in its sleep...
or a muscle tension, hyperactive disorder
out of bounds, rust stained and carpet munched

it felt like three junes and two suns
when he woke up to the sound of
5 guns blasting holes
in the accused.

tied to a post,
forced to make with it
and mate with the conceptualized
foreskin
of a dickless ape...

I think it was burgundy shades
the presentation was full of thoughts of escape.
lay lady lay,
lay across these big brass bergades.
stray alley cat lengths of strength
her mildness
atrocious
spell bound ways of persuading
were less then hazing
more than a cascading wall of denial.
IN his life he struggled
in my life we mugged them
switch those around and have an answer.
cancer
we coughed that up.
trackers
they followed us up.
abrupt standard address tags that hold information vital
as sonar paths rumble
her eyes keep me star spangled and
bannon.


meanwhile,
imbibed with the ressurection
of a slaven dream,
the salutations commence
and burned are the tatters of a dress
burned are the ropes that tied wrists
burned are the hours we or he can sleep

"we'll look for more shooting glances
in the night sky."

i'll hear her whisper...

"Adieu."

alors qu'elle se mourait

Nous portons cette couronne de droit

you can catch the Raddest here: https://www.facebook.com/dr.galaxy

Fine Minds Fucked Here for a Quarter

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Streets of the Pan-Americano Nightmare I. II. & III. OF VIII.

for: Marko X

I. THE PAN-AMERICAN HIGHWAY TO SUCCESS AND PERSONAL GROWTH

There are one million
salmon-colored skulls
that live in the folds
of silver hands-

golden brain matter
where gold matters in the darkest reaches...

New age tragedies
are playing out in my nightmares
& my insecurity
is making a mule ofambition-
smuggling the "goods"
through a traffic tunnel from
immediate family
to ancestral pre-conception.

"HICE CHINGAL!"
such breeding is a question mark that has bent itself
into an obtuse angle
standing next to a sign
that says:
REST STOP

The theories on virtue & free death
are being smuggled in
from a cartel of Nihilistic
endeavors.

The words:
"Beware wronging the hermit
&
if you wrong him, kill him."
are being melted
in a silver spoon.

A sense of overpowering lust
is being loaded into
a hypodermic
& slowly
inserted into the varicose
veins of a distant future.

I wake up w/
the overwhelming sensation
of the frosty shade of a sky blue.
I am aware
& have never had to shit
so bad in my life.

A costume once belonging to an action figure
packaged in plastic
& calling itself the OVERMAN
-is found in the back of the toilet floating
just above the plug,
before losing itself in the current between brown water
& brain matter
between truth
& wishes
between dreams
& livelihood.

An innate obsession w/cannabanoids & caged
street violence is reviewing the itinerary for me-
that spans the next 20 years or so.

A dark baby boy has been born
too early in the farthest depths
of information-
where long forgotten salmon-colored skulls
are slowly shaped into marzipan &
sold in the costumed streetsof
DIA DE LOS MUERTOS,
while I attempt to pull apart
silver clenched hands.


II.FROM BORDERTOWN TO THE LOWER EAST SIDE

Brute force & lethargic posture
are patrolling
'la burros de la bordertown'.
The real borde
rthat's receding too fas
tin order to construct a proper wall
to keep them in-
el freaks
y' la
tools
(spit).

Something of a mystery
has latched onto a vile of wisdom.
An iota of home
has purchased a small room somewhere
very...very...
close
& while it stares into the darkest reaches,
it dreams of cat turds in rose beds & green diarrhea hanging from
an open window sill
on the freak's side of town.

Shrewd silence is tickling
my funny bone
when someone on the fence speaks up
about corporate downsizing
&
Proposition 19.

III. EAST TO WASTE-AND ON TO 102ND

A meeting somewhere
in the bowels of the Lower East Side-
there's a room of self-absorbed tools,
playing circa jerk
1980 HIGH
& reminiscing when it was just
good wholesome fun
& not
a burden.

They're calling each other addicts
& when THEY disperse-
some gather small armies outside
some become soldiers themselves
in a gang of unmitigated circumstance..

some are falling by the waste side
some are circumvent
some are cum receptacles
some don't even know THEY'RE alive anymore..

An electric snow bunny
has just boosted for the last time
& never bothered to roll over
even during the pivotal moment of survival.

She is no longer plugged-in,
and the batteries die slowly
as the Freaks continue to count the votes:
"And the totals are in!"
54% to 46% majority
have passed the new law
banning further introspection
based on loosely based-faith
and schematics of an influenced brain wave
that is sweeping the fair nation.

This means that 1 out of every 3
cabrons will contract the new-age
illness & attempt to seize control over themselves
through means of sating an intense sadistic fetish
&
immaculate cognitive design.

an excerpt from the prose novella [sic] Lectura

As a young boy, around the age of six, I had a profound curiosity with the infliction of pain onto others. I was quite fond of torturing and killing insects and other small creatures outside my parent's home-at the height of several mundane afternoons.

Nothing was safe if it happened to catch my fancy. Small, gray lizards. Brown-spotted toads. Field mice. Blue-racer snakes. Black ants. One day my father built a slide in the backyard; perhaps to curb this crude fascination.

"Just be careful on it son. Don't hurt yourself" he would often remind me; as I scurried out the back door with my younger brother in tow. He, of course, wanted only to be involved with whatever sense of play I happened to enjoy-and found himself holding the magnifying glass, survival knife or box of matches alongside me when the URGE had struck.

One Summer, there was a fresh batch of kittens belonging to one of the nine stray cats who had settled into their roles of furry vagrants around our six acre lawn. The mother had recently found her way into the busy strip of road in front of the house, and had been flattened by an oncoming car some weeks prior. She was a gray, long-haired, mangy loafer and my contempt for her during her stay knew no bounds. In passing (her long tail hanging from the edge of one of the marble flower pots around the house-swaying back and forth beneath the hot sun) I would hiss wildly as I yanked that antagonizing appendage-only to receive a reciprocal response and multiple, deeply embedded scratches along my hands and arms.

This hatred I felt for Daisy or Leela or whatever her name may have been..did not rot with her maggot-ridden corpse along the waste side. But was merely transferred to the litter of black, orange, gray and white dregs that sprang from her pink and bruised snatch. I recall..feeling utterly sick at the sight of them leaping through the Summer grass..wrestling..chasing large grasshoppers along the way. Whereas other small children (including my own six year old daughter) found merriment in the observance of their feline exploits; I saw only small, hairy targets for a deep-seeded angst that I could not (and for that matter cared not) to understand. But under the watchful eye of my mother, I kept this murderous intent at bay..until the right opportunity would present itself.

One such afternoon,
my brother Stewart and I had spent several hours running back and forth from the house to the gargantuan, yellow slide; kicking dust and laughing as young boys do on occasion. My mother had just began hanging clothes on the wire a few feet from it and all the while keeping us, her own litter, in constant peripheral view. When she had strung up the last pair of my father's coveralls, she turned to find the kittens licking at her varicose ankles.

"Ohhh. They're so sweet. Look at 'em boys. Aren't they just adorable?"

The sight of her interest infuriated my little heart.

"Yes momma."

"Poor little things. They're so dirty. Their momma isn't around to clean 'em off the little angels. It's a shame."

She reached down and rustled the spine of one of the runts with stripes on his belly. This distracted me to such a degree that I unwittingly, tripped over a large tobacco stick lying at the foot of the slide while Stewart chased me in a game of tag. I rolled to the ground-scraping my knee in the process..and seemingly my patience along with it, as it careened against a brick that had found its way into the lawn.

"OWWW." I moaned, as I stood with a fresh hole in my Levis-small trickles of blood staining the white frays of the rip.

"Are you okay son?"

"Yes momma. When can we eat lunch? I'm hungry."

"Well, I got some white beans and cornbread in the house I can make. Is that alright with you boys?"

"YES" we said in unison. But my particular taste exceeded the hunger for slow Southern cooking. Deep inside that 3"6 frail piece of matter and bone, blood and muscle..I wanted vengeance; for what deed I still cannot say or really fathom. But the world owed me something wet and pure. It owed me many small lives..all at once, and I was to be satisfied. No quarter given. No mercy shown.

"Well, lemme go put the rest of the clothes in the washer and I'll start the beans. I still got half a plate of that cornbread yawl didn't finish from the other day. So it shouldn't take too long to fix everything. You boys stay out here and play; and stay away from that road where I can see ya' back here. You don't wanna end up like that old momma cat do ya'?"

"No momma. We don't."

The screen shut and I could hear momma starting the dryer..hear the pots and pans banging in the bottom-right cupboard of a four burner stove.

"Hey Stewart. You wanna play a new game?"

"Sure. What is it?"

"Let's call it Conan or He-Man or Hercules. I'll go first and show ya' how to play."

I picked the tobacco stick up from the ground and handed it to him, his smaller shaky hands unsteady as ever could be.

"Hold this and don't move. You stand right there."

I sauntered over to the litter, who were still in an innocently-blind stage of development; letting any old/young pair of mits (tiny, callused, soft, evil) hold them for a few precious seconds..preoccupied only with the high grass that year and the ritualistic nibble on a stale slice of bread crust left for the cardinals and blue-jays that frequented the bathes. The silver bowl of community water was more or less a well where they would gather and lift their tiny tails to the sun and speak amongst one another, oblivious to the dangerous and approaching world around them.

"Here kitty kitty kitty. Dtttkk. Dtttkkk. Dtttkk. Here kitty kitty."

I squeezed their little backs as they wiggled to and fro in my palms; softly at first..and then a spontaneous, momentary iron grip-just to feel their insides roll around behind fur in my hands. I managed to round up five within the confines of my puny arms, while Stewart stood in position with a blank look and chubby splintered fingers. You could see the blood rise to the top of his Casper-white knuckles-both hands clutched around the end of the stick..as if he knew what I was going to do before I had any clue.

"What are you doing?" I said as I lay the kittens at his feet. "Give me that. Now take them" one tries to slip away, but the escape is thwarted by the inside of my foot "Gotcha! Now take them to the top of the slide and hold them there for a second. I'll tell you when to go."

"Go? What's this have to do with He-Man?"

"Just do it!"

Stewart reluctantly walked to the seven-step, iron ladder and began climbing to the top as I took my stance below. My brother and I were baseball fanatics. My father had instilled that much in our upbringing. Stewart and he liked the Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers..and men like Nolan Ryan and Greg Maddox. I was a Mariners, Reds, and Oakland Athletics fan; idolizing the greats like Ken Griffey Jr. and Jose Canseco. Home-run hitters all the way; knocking that bandaged, 'white piece of shit outta the park..outta the sky, speed and trajectory aligned..outta sight, outta mind..gone..into infinity..blackness..space..never-was.

"You ready up there?" I asked, as Stewart (loyal and stern) waited with the first runt of the group. Puny. White. Ocean-blue eyes. Ears fuschia pink shade like a pussy should look; staring down the yellow railway at an ugly stick and none the wiser.

"Ready." he murmured.

"1....2....3, push her down!"

It slid at a slower pace than anticipated, its tail skidding along the hot yellow plastic. But still, with enough force that I was able to aptly gauge the distance in correlation with the width of the head and the length of the stick..

It rolled violently through the air..approximately four feet to my right and as its head turned my way, one Pacific-blue eye dangled from its socket while tears of blood gathered in the corner of the other.

"Next!" I screamed. "That was awesome!" Another came. This time a meaty, orange-fast pitch..
'right
down
the
middle.
The lion has escaped the confines of the slaughter below, and lunges for Caligula's testicles!'

The crack of its fragile skull sounded like the smack of a bat against a stone in a carefree game of stick ball..the backyard with the neighbor kids. Even then, there is the temptation to knock it back in the pitcher's face and even at such a young age, I knew this..looking up at my younger brother (adopted) holding another gray victim scratching its way up the slide and away from the pit of brains and tears that awaited at the end of the slope.

to be continued...

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.