"The Welshman"

 

So my mom’s been spazzing… Man, she’s petrified about moving into the new house. Claims it’s haunted. It’s certainly haunted by bad vibes. There’s no doubt about that.

Everyone heard of what happened there. That kid going nuts and blasting his family, then attacking his school. Oh, and his trial, what a spectacle. They’d actually tried “demonic possession” as a defense. His lawyers even hired some quack to testify on his behalf. This quack was a famous ghost hunter, and he testified about his “examination” of the house and played, in the courtroom, these hissing and popping noises he’d recorded, claiming they were “voices of the dead.” The whole fucking shitshow was on TLC.

If you ask me, the “ghost hunter,” the quack, was just a clout chaser. He was trying to cash in on the tragedy. Look, he sold a book about it, went on TV shows afterward. He was an asshole, as far as I’m concerned, a bullshit artist, same as those psychics and mediums, those parasites who exploit misfortune, target the naïve, rake in blood money… Fuck him and fuck every one of his ilk…

I’m not sure if I believe ghosts are sentient beings. I imagine them more as forces and energy, but indifferent, not malevolent or benevolent. They’re basically the same as a gust of wind or the pull of gravity. They’re a part of nature.  

Ghosts make for fun flicks, though. I’ve watched a lot of horror movies. When I was younger, I’d be scared by that stuff, too. Carrie freaked me out. The frothing, fucking demonic bitch. I could have seen some lame chick I pumped and dumped going batshit like that. I could see her covered, head to toe, in blood, chasing me down a school hallway, shooting fireballs from her ass…

Nowadays, there are tons of Carries, right? Aren’t a lot of these kids, shooting up schools, a Carrie? It’s the revenge of the nerds out there. Nerds going homicidal. You know, like the middle school kid with dental headgear who got his face splashed in the toilet a couple years ago and then opened fire in the school cafeteria. Or that kid at a high school a few towns over, who got a banana shoved up his ass, at a houseparty, by jocks, and later went out and shot up a football game.

Carries, nerds. Man, don’t fuck with the nerds anymore…

But people still do. I bet they always will. It’s human nature, to fuck with people. And like nowadays, with the cyberbullying, it’s even worse. Like, remember the retarded kid with a lightsaber? That video went viral. Millions of people saw that. Millions of people saw and laughed at an 11-year-old retarded kid’s worst moment. It’s terrible. Really, it is. That kid will grow up to be a mass shooter or a serial killer or some shit.

Not that I’m innocent. We pranked lots of kids. We gave kids atomic wedgies. We did that shit. And the older kids did it to us. It’s a cycle. An ecosystem of abuse. But I never thought of anyone shooting up my school. We were fortunate that no one in our class was the type. But shit, if I’d been living in Colby Oswald’s neighborhood, right?

Yeah, dude, I was scared more of ghosts, as a kid, than school shooters. I believed in ghost stories, I believed in Slenderman and urban legends. I believed, at one point, for real, that if I said “Candyman” three times, into a mirror, Candyman would show up and kill me. And while I don’t believe in Slenderman or Candyman, anymore, I still sort of do believe in ghosts. But in a different way.

Look… my views changed. My outlook changed. I changed after I traveled the world…

That’s one thing I’m most proud of doing. Traveling the world. It’s one thing no one can ever take from you, your travels.

I remember hearing an interview with the rapper Lloyd Banks. He was once famous, on top of the charts. These days, he’s not, and an interviewer asked him about it, asking him euphemistically how he felt now that his time in the spotlight was over.

Banks, being cool as fuck, like he is, replied by saying something about how the money, fame, that comes and goes, but the experiences he had, especially traveling the world, that’s something no one can ever take from him.

And I feel that, man. I feel the same way.

Lloyd Banks, in that interview, was reminiscing, talking about visiting beaches made of volcanic sands, these black sand beaches, in the Canary Islands. Yo, I saw that too. I went there too, man. I actually saw that. I walked, barefoot, on volcanic sands. It was absurd...

Man, I floated in the Dead Sea. I strolled through areas of the Middle East that have been inhabited for over 10,000 years. I trekked through Aztec, Incan, and Mayan ruins in Central and South America. I chased after an alpaca that ran up and stole my phone with its mouth. I rode a donkey in the Andes Mountains. I hiked in the Amazon, went scuba diving in the Philippines, spearfishing in Tahiti. I visited the Roman Coliseum and the Eiffel Tower.   

As cool as all that is, the most spectacular place I’ve ever visited, and the most unforgettable, most transformative experience I ever had, without a doubt, has to be… Tibet.  

 

My perception of the world, of life, of virtually everything, changed, drastically, after I visited Tibet.

I’m lucky to have ever gotten in. Mere entry is strictly controlled. If you want to enter the country, and you’re not a Chinese citizen, you have to be part of a Chinese government-approved tour group, be part of a Chinese government-approved tour.  

I was fortunate enough to have joined such a tour group, along with a handful of travel buddies I’d made while staying in a hostel in Hong Kong. The idea was instigated by my bunkmate at the hostel, an older British “bloke,” this former S.A.S., heavy-drinking Welshman. Dude was fucking nuts. And cool as shit.

I mean like here we were, in this pub in Kowloon, and out of nowhere, his eyes bulge and he blurts out, “I want to climb Mount Everest naked…”

I thought it was a joke, that it was the beers talking. We really were shooting the shit, slamming pint after pint in that pub...

That pub. It was an authentically British place. The Brits seem to have a system, a network of British pubs, in every city in the world. I’m sure you’ve seen one. A place with pictures of soccer players and cricketers on the walls and Union Jack flags hanging from the rafters. This was one of those places… A place that served bangers and mash and pork pies and eggs and baked beans and black pudding and haggis and all the other weird shit the Brits eat.

Yo, I tell you, man, like I’d always heard British food was disgusting, but when I tried it, it was delectable. Traditional British food is far better than advertised… Just don’t ask what haggis or black pudding is made with…

Anyway, this crazy Welsh motherfucker was slugging down pints of Guinness. Using the side of his forearm to wipe away the froth from his thin lips, he starts getting serious, his face tightening, and he’s going on, writing an itinerary, plotting a voyage to the Himalayas. He proclaimed to have been to 82 countries, but said he never saw the Himalayas, never went to Tibet.

He was 43, he said, but looked 35 or so, and had a head full of scraggly blond hair. As with most Brits, he was shockingly pale, looking like he’d taken a bath in bleach.

Although he didn’t have any scars or wrinkles, aside from a couple light forehead creases, he did appear as the sort who’d been in his share of fights, had his share of drama, but, given his disposition, it was easy to picture his opponents faring far worse than him in any dispute. Dude was pretty jacked, I gotta say, looked like he pumped iron or did hundreds of push-ups every day. He had that natural, tensile type, corded musculature…

Yo, for real, how is it that so many of these army dudes stay ripped, even after they’re discharged? My Grandpa was like that. There’s something about what being in the army does to those guys…

But yeah, dude was bemoaning his traveling days coming to an end, confessing that he missed Wales. During his lamentations, with his face crinkling, and the way the neon light trickling in from the pub’s front window flashed off his face, I remember starting to think that he looked older and that I could see him being in his 40s.

At least I was able to understand him. His accent was clean. Unlike some of the other Brits I’d met, most notably the Scots.

Some guys from Glasgow, I could barely understand. Coolest people, funnest people in the world, the Scots, but I couldn’t comprehend what they were saying, half the time. I’m not even convinced what those Scots were saying was even really English. Maybe it was a kilt and bagpipes, fucking Gaelic language or something. Part of it was English, I’m sure. It sounded like English, anyway. I’d seen the film Trainspotting, so that helped. Too bad the real live Scottish people didn’t come with subtitles, though…

Oh, and I remember asking a couple Scots if they’d seen the Loch Ness Monster, and most of them just looked at me funny, shook their heads, though one responded that “I don’t think anyone’s ever seen it...”

Oh, man, fucking British people, they’re great. They say funny shit! Like, even if they’re mad and yelling, it still sounds funny, just because of how they talk. I’d always thought of the Brits as only being these tea-drinking, “posh,” jolly fucking Prince Harry, Lady Diana Jane Austen type of assholes. But nah, they get rowdy!

Especially around soccer, which I can understand, since it’s so boring. Those soccer hooligans, they gotta beat the shit out of somebody to make a game that stupid and boring into something more exciting. I can understand it.

Part of that must be related to the drinking. Those Brits get wild when they drink. You feed the Brits a few pints and all that stiff upper lip shit vanishes. And man, seriously, they drink hard. Like, having been in a frat, I saw heavy drinking, but the Brits, they were fucking animals. They took it to another level.

Oh man, they’re great. I loved those British guys. They were the best…

Tough bastards too. Lotsa shaven heads. Missing teeth. Ready to brawl in a minute. A real warrior culture over there. Like, that island, how fucking cold and rainy it is, you gotta be tough to live there.

I visited Britain, too, and loved it. It was so green, like even greener than the Irish Spring commercials, all the rolling hills, fucking Leprechauns hiding out there with pots of gold and shit. Oh, man, it was bucolic, truly beautiful, but those people are wild. They’re fucking animals.

Why don’t we get those sorts, the wild Brits in America? The “yobs” as they call them there... We don’t get those in America. We only get the goofy fucking Monty Python, Benny Hill, and John Oliver types or the classy types, like the Royals, and rich businesspeople, the “Excuse me, sir, might you have some Grey Poopah” riding in a Jaguar Brits, or the rock stars, or the Harry Potter magic wand waving Brits, or handsome Harry Styles or David Beckham soccer ball kicking motherfucker Brit.

The rest, they don’t get passports, probably. They do a good job keeping their animals hidden, caged up in that cold crazy island.

The UK doesn’t let its maniacs out. But America does. Any American abroad is likely either in the army or a criminal or evil businessman or all three. Or an escaped child molester. Or worse- a missionary. If you ever see an American abroad, run away! Nah, I’m only kidding. Sort of.

Some of the maniacs do escape Britain, though. I met a few maniacs, like the Welshman, traveling in Asia. And I have to say, they were pretty fucking cool.

 

Back to the Welshman, first time I met him, in my hostel. He was lying on the bunk above me, reading a book about the Korean War, and was wearing a t-shirt, a fucking t-shirt, and blue jeans, in the middle of winter. Dude had some big biceps, too, a pair of guns on him…

It was so cold then, too, in Hong Kong. This shit cold. This thickly humid cold. This damp cold. The cold was almost like a living force, a sinister, malignant being. It was everywhere and touching everything. I never experienced such nasty cold. It was miserable. And it was made much worse with the rainy, misty weather.

And then here was this Welsh dude, with this tattoo of a green dragon on his muscular arm, and he invites me out for pints and starts talking jokingly, then seriously about hitting Tibet. His sweet beer breath fogging over us, he was getting hyped up, his blue eyes bulging as he started talking about really going there, not to hike Mount Everest naked, but going on a legit tour.

Damn skippy, I’m with it. Tibet? The rooftop of the world? To me, it was the most exotic place imaginable. It was the farthest end of the Earth. I’d come to Asia without much of a plan, was just gonna bum around, check out different countries, and I was stoked to check out the wildest one possible…

We booked the ticket, tour from a travel agent nearby our hostel in Kowloon and left a few days later. It wasn’t the most opportune time to go, being winter, and colder than a witch’s cunt, but Tibet was open and way cheaper, at that time of year, so we seized the chance.

(Welshman said China would frequently close Tibet off around “sensitive” times of the year, like an anniversary of an uprising or holiday…)

 

Man, just flying into the place was a thrill. We flew first from Hong Kong to Chongqing.

Chongqing, somewhere in southwest China, was so foggy that, as we descended and approached the city, I could barely see anything from our plane’s windows until the black tongue of the airport runway appeared, almost magically, and mere seconds later we touched down with a hard bump.  

At the airport in Chongqing, we had a short layover, part of which I spent hitting on a cute young Chinese chick working at a souvenir stand. She was petite, with sky high cheekbones, big brown eyes, and straight shiny black hair reaching to her flat belly. She was wearing a tight red sweater and hugging blue jeans that complimented the curves of her flawlessly trim figure, and looking her over, I was starting to grasp the concept of “yellow fever.”

She spoke about 20 words of English, and I couldn’t speak a word of Chinese, but anything I said was making her laugh like I was a standup comedian. I asked for her number too, but she just kept laughing and giggling. I did the phone hand signals and everything. I don’t know if she didn’t understand or just didn’t want me calling her. Eventually I gave up and rejoined my travel crew, sat by them on a metal bench facing the gate.  

The Welshman swung his gaze at me as I sat down, and he snarled. With his snarling, his thin upper lip curling, his face reminded me a little of Sid Vicious. But like a blonder, older Sid Vicious. A wiser Sid Vicious. An in an airport in China middle-aged Sid Vicious. A Sid Vicious who hadn’t murdered his girlfriend and overdosed on smack. A Sid Vicious if he’d joined the S.A.S. instead of the Sex Pistols.  

I couldn’t really imagine Welshman doing smack, but I could see him murdering people. I could see him murdering lots of people. Shit, he was in the army, the S.A.S., so who knows how many bodies he had… I could see him in gully suits, running loose in jungles, jumping down from trees, his face slathered in green camo paint, all that Rambo sorta shit. Yeah, man, I probably didn’t even want to know the crazy military shit he’d done… Accordingly, I made a mental note to stay on his good side…

Welshman was sipping on a can of Coke, and he declared that Chinese chicks were hot; “fit” was the term he used. (“Fit” means “sexy” in spoken British.)

Though he warned me about Tibetan girls, proclaiming that Tibetan girls have hairy armpits and bad teeth, stinky breath. He was one to talk, really, considering his teeth were a train wreck, but his breath never stank, except of alcohol. His generalizations would have triggered people on Twitter, I bet. I sure hope he never took to tweeting.

He was tendentious, a skosh borderline racist to everyone, though; an equal offender of sorts, so I didn’t care, and again, he did frighten me a bit, so I kept quiet about his occasional inflammatory remarks…

"Mr. Wilson"

 

Mr. Wilson:

 

I tell you what, I’ve been in this neighborhood my whole life, and that house has always been an eyesore. It’s completely out of place. Who wants a big kooky gothic building like that in a residential area?

Its history is something else too…

The house was built by a tobacco baron, about 220 years back. But the very day he was to have moved in, him, his wife, and their two kids perished in a ghastly accident.

The family was en route to the house, riding in a horse-drawn carriage, when the carriage suddenly caught fire, and the four burned to death inside. A lantern had spilled, lit the carriage ablaze, apparently. But this was a while back, before forensics, CSI, and science like that, so it’s impossible to say what exactly happened. Whatever it was, it must have been a terrifying experience.

Worse yet, the driver of the carriage and the family’s butler had tried to pry the stagecoach doors open, but the horse got spooked and galloped away and that dang runaway horse then dragged the flaming carriage all through the town. The townsfolk, their pants scared off, were hollering and pointing and running every which way…

A policeman on horseback finally rode in, chased after the flaming wreck, and shot the runaway horse dead. Tragically, however, none of the family survived. 

I tell you, it must have been a nightmarish scene.

Allegedly the house was built on the spot of a battle, or a massacre, depending on who you ask, involving Pilgrims and Indians. Exactly who massacred who is hotly debated among historians. But it is for sure that many died and were buried on those grounds. The Pilgrims’ bodies were dug up and moved later, given proper burials. Rumor has it that the Indians, though, are still buried there…

For years it was considered cursed, hallowed ground. No one wanted to build anything there. One merchant tried to build a general store, but accidents kept happening during the construction, and he gave up. A couple workers died too during the construction of the house. Both fell from tall ladders, in the same spot, weirdly enough, I read.

After the tobacco guy and his family died in that freak fire, the house and the land sat empty for years. Until it was bought by the funeral folks.

Yessir, I remember back when it was a funeral home. When we were kids, we’d ride our bikes by the house, rubberneck and gawk at it. The funeral home only took in bodies, embalmed or cremated them, at that time, from what I can recall.

It’d creep the heck out of us, watching columns of gray smoke billow up from the chimney, knowing where the smoke was from… There’d be a noticeable metallic odor around the house too, kind of like a roast lamb or the smell of a cooking grill after cleaning it…

No one wanted anything to do with the place, other than gawk at it out of morbid curiosity. No one I knew had ever gone in there, no one I knew had stepped foot inside that creepy gothic monstrosity…

It was a family business for years, the funeral home. Then the family moved on, passed on. I never read about or heard of any accidents or gruesome stories involving the funeral home family, though, the Barkers. The patriarch was said to be a fine man. He was well-respected in the community and donated generously to the local church.  

One of the sons eventually became the undertaker and ran the place. But he didn’t live there and wasn’t active in the community. I remember seeing him. He was a freakishly tall, thin, and pale fellow. The man was pale as a vampire. He and his assistant, another pale, tall fellow, lived on the other side of town.

The two seemed to always be together and no one knew much about them. Given their work and unsettling appearances, no one wanted to have much to do with them. They were an embodiment of death. They looked like ghosts themselves, and there were rumors that they might actually be ghosts.

The two scared the bejeebus out of everyone. I got the heebie-jeebies just at the mere sight of them.

The pair worked there for years until they closed the business after the last Barker died.

You know, it’s off-topic, but I wonder what happens when an undertaker dies? Who buries the undertaker? Must be strange for an undertaker to bury another undertaker. I don’t know. I wonder about stuff like that. My wife says I talk too dang much. Anyway…

Anyway, they sold the property. We thought it’d be torn down and rebuilt, but a young family bought it and moved in not long after the funeral business shut down. It surprised everyone in the neighborhood. We couldn’t quite wrap our heads around why they’d want to live there, of all… You know, the stories of that place…

Everyone had a ghost story about it, about the house. Everyone in the neighborhood would talk about how they’d see strange phenomena, ‘round there. The most popular was the story of a ghost lady in an old-style white dress, and her stomach was ripped open and bloody, as if she’d been attacked, stabbed and murdered in a gory way.

The lady allegedly looked like someone from colonial times; she had a bonnet of some sort, and she’d walk around in circles, on the front lawn of the house, looking confused, like she was searching for something. At least that’s what everyone said. I never caught a glimpse of her.  

Maybe because I don’t believe in it. I don’t believe in that ghost hooey. I never cared for scary movies or any of that jazz. I never even believed in God, to tell you the truth. But I never told anyone about that because there’s nothing worse than an atheist. An atheist is one step up from a communist. Or are atheists worse than communists? I don’t know.

I used to hate going to church. I hated pretending to pray. I’d daydream during the sermons. The priests up there in their robes. They were only grown men in pajamas to me. You know, one of them touched the altar boys, and I’d heard about it. Maybe that’s why I didn’t believe in God, because I heard the rumors about the priests. I heard it long before it became a national news story…

I hated the church. I hated it for most of my life.

But after the shootings, I’ll admit that I came to appreciate the community aspect of our church. I must admit the prayer services, candlelit vigils helped me through those dark days, just being with others, at that time, you know?

Still, the ghosts and that jazz, it’s hooey! I think it’s people’s imaginations. I can’t stand those silly horror movies. I really can’t! My wife watches them, but I think it’s nonsense.

And I can’t stand those “ghosthunter” shows on TV, either. I tell you, it’s a bunch of shysters, if you ask me. Hoaxes and hoaxers. All that. All those mediums and exorcists. Those “demonic possessions.” For shame! Those possessions back in medieval times were probably just some poor, mentally retarded kids, kids with speech impediments or folks with mental illnesses. Demons and ghosts, hah! It’s hogwash. It’s sad. It’s gosh-darn sad. Plain sad.

Everyone in the neighborhood figured they’d tear the place down. Not that I believe in ghosts, but still, who wants to live in a former funeral parlor? It’s yucky. It makes me want to throw up, thinking of those bodies in there, rotting and being embalmed and burned. The blood and guts running up and down the pipes in there. Who wants to shower in that? I gotta wonder if they flushed the blood and guts down the same pipes as our sewage. And then… does the treated water go to the same place as our drinking water comes from? The same pipes our house water comes from? I could google it, but it’s probably one thing you don’t want to know… Ick!

But, anyway, they remodeled the house and converted it into a residential property. I’m thinking they removed the funeral equipment before the family moved in, although I can’t say for sure.

Rumor has it the place still has its original furniture, the antique furniture, from the tobacco family, from 1800. Now that must be a sight, I tell you what…

Heck, they seemed alright, that family, the Oswalds. I remember them. They weren’t kin to the, you know, the infamous Oswald, but it must have been strange to share his name. It must have toughened them up, I’d think.

They came to a few neighborhood cookouts. But, tell you the truth, it was always uncomfortable being in their presence. Because they lived in that house. It was like the death clung to them. The spirit, idea of death had wrapped itself around them. Anytime you’d see them, you’d think of the bodies, the corpses being drained of blood or burned or whatever.

Again, I don’t believe in that junk about ghosts. But how could they live in that house? Why would they? Just look at it. Its gothic spires, its Victorian architecture. It looks like something from Edward Scissorhands.

They’d only lived there a couple months before… that happened… and all of them had been looking haggardly and sickly, more so than ever in the days prior...

A couple of the neighbors had caught a whiff of a burning smell coming from the house, similar to when the crematorium was running. Another neighbor said she’d been smelling a puke-like stink wafting out of there, another said it was like burning garbage. But me, no sir, I never noticed anything of the sort. Aside from the folks looking sickly, I never noticed anything strange ahead of that.. that day. That nightmare.  

It was such a nightmare too, when it happened. When the kid snapped. The kid had seemed normal enough, originally. Before he became a recluse. He’d been running around the neighborhood, same as any other kid. I heard other kids teased him, and his siblings, over their house, called them the “Adams Family” and stuff like that. You know how cruel kids can be.

But I don’t know if that was enough to make him snap. I don’t know if there’s ever really one reason. If there’s ever really one sign or there’s many signs. I don’t know.

I blame the parents, to be honest. How do you let your kid not leave his room? How do you let your kid sit around 24/7, playing violent video games and posting gory pics of plane crashes and gruesome murders online? The kid taped black garbage bags over his bedroom windows. He washed himself compulsively. He had no friends. He was pale as a ghost and only wore black. The kid looked like a monster, like a vampire. It was scary. Like sometimes you hear that a neighbor or coworker snapped, and you think, “How could he?” But him? It was like, “Of course he did…” The kid was a freak. He had serious issues.

So why did the parents buy that little freak a gun? A machine gun? It’s not like he’s going deer hunting with an M-16. I can’t wrap my head around it. Really, I just can’t.

I didn’t hear the gunshots. But I was home. I was getting ready for work. I saw the little freak, too, driving his mom’s minivan, on the way to shoot up his school. It was the first time I’d seen him in months. He looked a lot older than I remembered and was wearing a dang wedding dress. His face was blanched, looked made of marble. I couldn’t spot a trace of emotion.

Of course, I didn’t know he’d just shot his whole family and was on the way to shoot up his school. When the police interviewed me, I told them this. I wish, I so wish I would have known. I wish I had a clue. I would have called the cops. Then maybe I could have stopped the little freak from killing those poor kids at the school.

That’s the regret I live with. That’s what I think about. I flashback to that muggy morning. How hot and sticky it already was. How high the sun hung in the clear blue sky, the sun this huge shimmering orange ball. That might have been the hottest morning I can ever remember.

My dang car was like an oven; it was plain scorching inside. The steering wheel in my car felt like it was on fire. I was standing in the driveway waiting for the car to cool down when I saw that little psycho, driving along in his death van.

I think about that, about seeing that kid, that freak. He didn’t look at me. But I looked at him. I almost waved at him, like I do every neighbor, but I didn’t. Because he scared me. I think of that too. What if I’d waved at him and he’d rolled down the window, of that brown death van, and shot me dead in the street, like an animal?

What if that stopped it, though? What if he’d shot me, then the cops came and stopped him from going into that school? I’d rather he took me out than those kids. Maybe I’d have survived, and it’d be me in that wheelchair instead of that kid a few doors down, who’ll never walk again. I’ve lived for 52 years. That kid is only a kid. That kid is only 15, and he’s got to be in a stinking chair for the rest of his days!

I live with that. I live with those thoughts.

In the days following the shootings, I wanted the house torn down. Everyone in the neighborhood did. There’d be gawkers, idiots driving by, snapping photos of it. As if that’s what we needed, after the press, media was hounding us, with all their press vehicles, photographers, slick-talking journalists poking mics in our faces, their news tents pitched everywhere up and down the block.

We wanted to have that ugly house bulldozed once the cops were done with the crime scene. Heck, I’d have driven the bulldozer myself, taken it down. Everyone around here wanted that house gone. 

But not the relatives of the family, some cousin who inherited the house. No sir. He insisted on keeping it and renting it for now. He’s holding out to sell it later, apparently. Maybe he’s thinking the infamy will wear down and he can command a better price.

We, and I mean me and the other folks on the neighborhood council, lobbied the bank to buy the property so it could be torn down. We wanted to build a playground on the site, or start a small farm, a garden, do something to put life there, bring life to that place of unspeakable death.

But we didn’t get our wish. That ugly old horrible house is still standing, high and creepy as ever. And weirdos still are driving by to take photos of the dang thing. It’s a travesty. It absolutely is.   

Now a former NFL player is moving in, renting the place. I remember him playing. The guy was a terrific lineman.

But when I saw him driving up, walking into the house, he didn’t look good. He was limping and his face was sullen. I think he’s fallen on hard times. That must be why he’s living in an old murder house. Poor fella…

I wonder, would a guy like that be afraid of “ghosts?” I mean, he played against the fastest, strongest, most ferocious athletes in the world. What’s scarier than an NFL linebacker? No one is tougher, nothing is scarier than an NFL linebacker flying at you. A dang pumped up, 6’2, 240-pound hot mess of muscle. A meathead with a neck as thick as a tree trunk. A mohawked-maniac stabbed full of steroids, all screaming and flying at you like a bat out of hell. I tell you what, nothing is scarier than that...

Speaking of linebackers, Junior Seau was that fella’s teammate for a couple seasons. Junior Seau! I want to ask him about Junior, the “Tasmanian Devil.” I loved that guy! He was a favorite player of mine, probably my second favorite linebacker ever, after Derrick Thomas.

I’m not sure I could work up the nerve to ask about Junior, though. Not after what happened... I guess it’s one of those things you shouldn’t mention…

"Super Bowl Loser"

 

“Super Bowl Loser”

 

I was so frigging scared I thought I might die. Anyone who tells you they weren’t scared or nervous, anxious before playing the Super Bowl, they’re full of crap. Everyone on the team was amped up. Our mouths were dry. Our hearts were pumping. I must have pissed 5 times before we hit the field. It was the biggest game of my damn life, everything I’d dreamed of since I was a little kid.

I didn’t sleep a wink the night before. I was running on fumes. It was pure adrenaline and passion. I was just so amped up…

But once I hit the field, it became another game. However, the hits were harder. A lot harder. The intensity was certainly higher, super-charged, really, but the game was no longer an idea, no longer a fear; it was a game. It was the game I knew well, every movement, every formation, everything was inside me, in a physical, damn near spiritual language. I was a cog in the team machine. And we were in motion. We were grinding, and I was pushing and moving as my body had for years.

Until the final drive. That was something else. I’d never been so excited in my life. The rush returned. My mouth was filled with salt. My mouth was like a damn desert, it was so dry.

And I felt alive, so goddamn alive! There was a divine power running through me, a feeling like some sort of superhuman strength, like when a mother can lift a 10,000-pound car to save her baby. This is how I felt. I think I could have picked up a semitruck and thrown it across an ocean. That was the energy I had. That was the voltage thumping and surging through me. A force of God was pumping through my veins.

I remember trotting onto the field after that long Super Bowl commercial timeout. I remember my eyes were squeezed to slits. In the huddle, I was shaking, I was so fricking amped! The crowd noise was deafening. I can still hear its hiss, like an airplane engine, I can hear it; it’s blurry, but I hear it. Goddammit, when I have the flashbacks, when I have the dreams, I hear… I hear the hiss...

We were playing in the Georgia Dome, and usually, for Falcons games, that place was quiet as a library, aside from when they pump in fake crowd noise, but for this game, this noise was real, and running like a power saw in my ears. This was the damn Super Bowl, and on that final drive, my ears were in pain. Dammit, I’m not lying, I think my eardrums were ready to bleed.

We were fighting, pushing and scrapping, charging our way down the field. I wasn’t letting their sack specialist DE have any piece of my QB. I was pancaking his bitch ass like nobody’s business. They talk about the NFL being a “family game,” but, let me tell you, the stuff that’s said on that field would make a nun faint.

And, dammit, you should have heard the trash talk in that game. Their superstar DE, goddamn, he was cussing, talking the worst trash talk I think I’d ever heard. He was talking about my mother. He was talking about my ugly horse face. He was calling me a fag and a bitch and a honky chickenshit motherfucker and everything under the sun.

He was one to talk. He was one ugly sumbitch. A teen wolf looking motherfucker, looking exactly like Michael J. Fox in that shitty 80s movie. The dude looked like a fucking werewolf, with his big buckteeth. I think he really was a goddamn werewolf. He was one mean man, a tenacious competitor. Hell, I hated the shit-talker but respected his game. He was fierce.

But I kept him in check. I pushed him off on every play. I was a wall, I was a man of steel, I was a barbed wire fence, I was standing taller than a wall surrounding a prison or an army base, dammit. I was Fort Knox.

Dammit, fucking dammit, I felt invincible that whole game. I didn’t allow a single sack. We scored 28 points. 28 points. It should have been enough. It should have been...

My senses were so heightened that game, that day. I’d played football my whole life, but I never really noticed the stink of the game. I’d never noticed the smell of piss, shit, vomit, sweat, farts, blood, any of those, probably because I’d be so super-focused on the game. But in that game, especially that final drive, my nostrils were flaring, burning with smells…

We were neck and neck the whole contest. Then they kicked a 52-yard field goal, right after the two-minute warning, and seized the lead.

Then… that last drive. It was magical, like it was in slow motion. We clawed down the field. Our QB was throwing bullets. He was throwing daggers. Precision passes. It was surgical. He was Tom Brady. He was Joe Montana. He was cold-blooded, sweating buckets of ice water. He was stoic. Methodical. Moving us like soldiers. Inching us forward, inching us forward, yard after hard-earned yard.

I was feeling it. I was tasting the champagne. It was that storybook ending. We were going to Disneyland. We were fucking going to Disneyland, I kept ensuring myself. It was my mantra… 

Then the last play, from the 15-yard line. Shotgun formation. Then the snap. Then the throw. The catch and the dive. The receiver wrestled down, the receiver reaching out his long wiry arm, touching the ball toward the goal line. From my vantage point, I thought he made it, I jumped up and roared. I thought we were going to goddamn Disneyland. I was there. I was on a float in a parade. I was in fucking Disneyland!

But when the refs waved it off... But when the refs shook their heads, when they shook their heads and slashed their arms, when the confetti fell and THEIR side ran hooting and jumping and dancing onto the field. I stood in disbelief for a couple minutes. I was thinking there had to be more time, one more play, just one play, just one more play, dammit, that’s all we needed.

I was frozen in shock for a couple minutes. My body seized up. Then the humiliation hit me, crashing over me like a wave of shit, like somebody had scooped out shit-water from a toilet and dumped it over my head.

Goddammit, we lost the Super Bowl. We lost the fucking Super Bowl. We’re the biggest losers in America. We’re the biggest losers in the world. Everyone, even people who don’t watch football, saw us lose. Everyone was at their Super Bowl parties, sitting on their couches, eating potato chips, drinking beers and pointing at us. Everyone was laughing at us.

We lost. We were fucking losers. We disappointed everyone. We’d have to go back to our city as losers. There would be no parade for us, only an empty, cold airport. There would be no afterparty, just a depressing hotel room. There’d be no champagne, no chummy interviews with the press. No fucking trip to Disneyland...

Dammit, the way the media guys in the locker room were speaking to us, sad faced and solemn, really, it was… as if we were at a funeral...  

The locker room after the game, it was dismal. You could hear a pin drop. Barely anyone said a word. A couple guys cried. The whole world saw us lose the Super Bowl. We were losers and we all knew it. Every dream I’d had as a kid, growing up, playing football, it was to win the Super Bowl, to hoist that shiny silver Lombardi Trophy, to kiss that trophy. And here we were, in the game, fighting and scraping until the last minute, but we just couldn’t get it done.

We were losers.

I can’t imagine how horrible and soul-crushing it must have been to be on those Buffalo Bills teams that lost 4 straight Super Bowls. I don’t know how those guys were able to show their faces in public again after that. Honestly, just losing one had me thinking of checking into the witness protection program or disappearing to a deserted island in the Pacific. I was so ashamed.  

My old man told me there is no second place. Only a first to lose. He’d never played in the NFL, but he played D1 college ball at Army. When I made the NFL, I thought, “at least I’ve done something HE never did.” I felt so proud. When we made it to the Super Bowl, I thought I’d wear my sparkly Super Bowl ring to every Christmas party, and then… maybe then… then... he’d be proud of me.

Just once, I’d like to have seen him smile. The man never smiled. Never. Not even on holidays. Weddings. Nothing. He’d never once congratulated me. Not when I played D1 ball, not when I got drafted, nothing. It pushed me to be better, and I won’t whine or anything and I love him all the same… But it’s just… that I looked up to him, playing ball. I looked up to him, when I was a kid. I mean, dammit, he was a colonel in the US Army. My dad was a bona fide hero. He was my hero.  

And I’d thought of him patting me on the back, hugging me during our victory party. It’d have made him proud… It’d have made him smile… He could’ve bragged about it to his buddies at the VFW, shown them my Super Bowl ring…

But no. I lost the game. I was a loser.

I couldn’t look my old man in the eyes afterward. And I never got a second chance at a Super Bowl. I never got back to the big game.

Not that I could really face my Pops, even before that game. But after that, dammit, I never could really talk to him, not even when he was on his deathbed.

Dammit, I made millions. I was an all-pro. I played 16 years in the NFL. But the only time I got to the big game, I lost. Losing that Super Bowl, being the biggest loser, having to face my old man, my family, after that game, having to explain to my children that we lost, that was the worst moment of my life. That was far worse than losing my money.

Goddammit, we let everyone down. And I have to live with that. I lost my pride with that Super Bowl. I will never have a second chance. That game, that drive will haunt me forever.

That game… The noise, the crowd hiss… That sea of camera lights flashing… Me, shoving forward, beads of hot sweat burning my eyes as I was looking up over the rows of helmets and knots of padded bodies… Me, seeing our guy twisting on the turf, stretching his arm to the white chalk of the goal line, and then… the whistles, the fireworks, the reckoning, knowing our guy came up just inches, dammit, just inches short, that… that wakes me up in the middle of the night... It fucking haunts me.

I only watched that game tape once, during the offseason following the Super Bowl. Otherwise, I don’t ever want to see video of it. Not like I need to, anyway, since it often creeps back, runs on a loop, in my mind.

When I flashback to that Super Bowl, that’s pretty much the only time, really, these days, I think much about football. I don’t even watch the Super Bowl anymore, unless I go to a party…  

My wife’s been talking about this haunting crap. I don’t believe in it. I believe in real ghosts. The past. Traumatic memories and lost opportunities… The ghost of Super Bowl past. The ghost of lingering disappointment and lost pride. Those, dammit. Those are my ghosts.

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"The Funeral Home" (from "NFL Concussion Protocol: The Tragedy")

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The Funeral Home:

 

“It used to be a funeral home…”

“Whoa, it is… gothic… and that burgundy color… looks a bit like an old church. It’s definitely big enough for all three of the kids,” says Susan, who’s stirring nervously in her seat and repeatedly sweeping back a wayward strand of wavy golden hair behind her right ear.

Jim, her husband, seemingly pays little attention, and mumbles “kids” sarcastically. Sitting behind the wheel of his black Porsche SUV, his eyes are empty as open graves. He snarls and turns the steering wheel, nosing the vehicle smoothly into the property’s long, straight, almost endless driveway that reminds Susan of a tarmac.

“How long will the project last?” she inquires. Her voice slightly raises. Anger and annoyance are coursing through her.   

Jim relapses into silence, then shrugs his shoulders, parks the car. Susan sighs and shakes her head.

“Typical Jim,” she thinks, “malignant in his reserve and stoic in his void.”

 

The two exit the vehicle. Susan’s high heels clicking rhythmically on the black pavement of the driveway as they walk towards the verandah, step up the curiously steep stairs and approach the high, pitched, thick black metal gothic double doors. The entranceway is cut from granite stone and has ornate carvings of Biblical themes and 3-foot statues of Peter, Paul, Jesus and Mary built into the lower left and right sides of the archway.  

 

The door opens inwardly, as if by itself. The pair are met by a real estate agent, a frumpy woman who materializes, like an apparition. The schmoozy woman smiles with her whole face and ushers the couple inside.

Susan thinks the agent just looks like an agent, just looks like someone from a real estate sign. Like she’s more of a photograph than a person.

The agent moves fast for a woman of her size, and makes cloying conversation, attempting to ingratiate herself, and as she speaks, she laughs mechanically in a way that reminds Susan of the sounds of sitcoms she’d watched as a kid, like Married With Children and Friends. Those 90s sitcoms with laugh tracks that’d go off in bursts at snappy one-liners.

Susan wonders if the real estate agent is a human at all, or if she’s a bot, a cyborg, or AI hologram.

Then Susan starts to notice the agent’s perfume, how musky it is, how it lingers in the air as the agent whisks them through the furnished house. No robot would be programmed to smell like that, Susan thinks.

They move fast through the first floor, their heads on a swivel. The agent’s hands glide, gracefully, as if in tai chi movements, and she speaks of amenities, distances, and dimensions.

Inspecting the antique furniture, the drapes of crushed velvet, the house strikes Susan as a time warp. Or perhaps a bizarre, grotesque museum. Everything seems dusty, like a museum, and although every room has large windows, little light enters the house. There’s such a grimness to the place. A stuffy feeling. An ugliness to everything. 

Even the hardwood floors. They look freshly polished; however, their shine is almost unnaturally sparkly, Susan posits. She scratches her nose and notices a strong antiseptic smell wafting in the air.  

When they step onto the wide staircase, they find themselves instantly on the second floor, unnervingly so, as if they didn’t climb the stairs at all, or as if Susan experienced a splice in time, or a spell of amnesia.  

Then they are checking each bedroom. They move with precision, at an almost military speed. The hallways slant and bend curiously, disturbing Susan’s equilibrium.

The bedrooms are horrendous, each room painted a different unsightly color- lime green, 70s neon orange, banana yellow. Yikes. Whoever designed the place must have been color blind. Or insane. Susan ponders redecoration schemes…

Susan is suddenly spooked by the rooms’ dim, unnatural light that repeats in various wall mirrors and gilded picture-frames. It’s a sepia tone that’s harsh, hideous.

Gazing at one of the picture-frames, she’s creeped out to notice that all the picture-frames hanging about the house are empty. Every single one of them. They are devoid of photos, paintings, anything, and Susan feels it renders the house indescribably creepy and bleak…  

Besides barren, the house just seems… chaotic, uneven and off-balance. It’s as if the house was an experiment, a strange arrangement of angles, geometric spaces and patterns only a mathematician could understand. Every room seems like a wrong turn, a dead end in a maze. Every room she sees is confusing and ultimately unsettling.

In addition to her aesthetic repulsion and discombobulation, viewing the house just feels joyless. It’s a mechanical, cold task. It’s automatic. It’s forced. There’s no happiness here. The place feels suffocating. Susan loses her breath and wheezes once or twice, like she’s at a high altitude.

After inspecting the fully furnished bedrooms, which, to Susan, are all morbid, they’re at once in the basement; and again, Susan only recalls beginning down the stairs from the second floor, right as she was thinking of how the stairs remind her of an Escher print...  

 

The basement is a tall, windowless space. It is bright white. White everything. Shiny white linoleum floor, white paneling, white walls with Grecian cornices, but in the background, the basement’s space is vast and dark, and Susan sees stars, moons, and planets, cosmic debris and what looks to be an asteroid, the space rock barreling forth, in their direction, like a wrecking ball.

Susan presses her eyes shut, grinds her teeth, braces herself for impact, feeling as if she’s aboard a passenger plane, about to crash.

But she opens her eyes to find herself in a forward motion, from the living room toward the kitchen, and Susan has a sensation that their feet aren’t moving, that the floor is moving, instead of them, like the floor is an electronic machine, a people mover, like in the airport. She feels a hard stop and gets slightly dizzy crossing into the kitchen.  

She shudders, gulps instinctively, then pans her gaze around the spacious, fully equipped kitchen, with its silver refrigerator, and modern appliances. It’s a stark contrast to the rest of the house. It’s so… modern… It’s light and there’s not a single antique… It could be in one of those “Modern Homes” magazines she sees at the supermarket.

Surprised by the commodious kitchen’s immense size, she also thinks the house appears far larger, almost infinite inside; the house far bigger than it seemed from the outside.

Jim, as usual, doesn’t speak much to the agent or Susan, just grunts and snorts, here and there, but he stops to take a business call, rages at his phone, drowning out the tinny voice in his headset. Hoarsely, he bellows out something unpleasant regarding a projected target date.

 

Susan does most of the talking with the agent, asking the usual, perfunctory house-related questions, inquiring about the neighborhood too.

However, in truth, she’s confused and scared. She already hates the house, its design. Its effect on her. The psychic visions and unnatural movements. How she’s losing her grip. It’s as if the place was meant to be intimidating, disorienting, and ugly.

It could have been nice, warm, a real home, perhaps, Susan thinks to herself, pensively. It has huge panoramic windows in the living room, a wide staircase in the anteroom, and its chestnut brown hardwood flooring is an inviting color. There’s plush antique furniture everywhere, 19^th century moldings, and recently added marble flooring and brass fixtures in the bathrooms.

And the kitchen, even by Susan’s standards, is immaculate. It’s sparkling, and state of the art, having just been remodeled, and has a fancy, see-through fridge, and smart controls for the appliances.

It could have been a nice home, Susan thinks. It really could have, if not for…

 

Behind the house sits a sizable spit of land, a behemoth of a backyard. Tragically, though, it is an eyesore. The square patch of land is filled with only shabby wildflowers and bushes and is bisected by a small unkempt lawn.

The backyard is curiously empty, giving it a strange, eerily vacant and lonely feeling. She’d never seen a backyard that big be so empty. Not a patio set or a wooden table or grill or playground or pebble path or bird bath or anything. Susan thinks it probably should have a pool, given its tremendous size, but considering the house’s history, she understands why no pool was installed.

The house’s history, yes, it flits through her mind, once again. The history is probably what makes it appear uglier than it is.

Almost telepathically, the agent’s smug robotic face shifts, darkens, and becomes downcast, as she lowers her double chin toward the floor, the basement.

“So, you know, this property was a business, providing services for those who’d passed on,” the agent’s cheery voice deadens and sounds apologetic.

“Services for those who’d passed?” scoffs Jim. The sarcastic tone of his voice clearly mocks the agent’s euphemism, and he cocks his big head to the side, his hazel eyes narrowing. He stares dead on at the agent and sneers at her, menacingly, his pearly white teeth peeking out from underneath his curled, thin upper lip, his bleached choppers gleaming in the bright sunlight slanting in from the kitchen’s floor to ceiling windows.

“It was a funeral home, yes. But this was disclosed in the literature. And it’s why the place is renting for a fraction of the price of the others in this neighborhood,” the agent goes on, matter-of-factly. Her tone returning to saccharine, her eyes brightening, she continues, “This place is a steal. A property this size…”

“The price is hardly a steal if it’s really haunted! Your literature didn’t mention anything about that,” Susan shoots back, her venomous candor taking the agent off guard.

“There was… was an unfortunate…” the agent bumbles, turning her cheek to avert the couple’s scrutinizing gaze.

Susan’s sigh interrupts the agent’s feeble attempt at an explanation. “Unfortunate?” Susan blurts out, her face twisting into a harsh scowl.

Susan sniggers, clucks at the agent’s callousness, and goes on, “The kid killed his siblings, his parents, then went to his school and shot 25 people. He claimed he’d been possessed by demonic spirits and had a paranormal expert testify on his behalf in court. Please, we heard about it on the news, and we read about the case online just this morning,” Susan’s arms are akimbo as she speaks; her eyes are bulging, electric in anger.

The agent rolls her eyes, flutters her long fake lashes and draws in a deep breath. She shakes her head and brushes back the curly black bangs hanging astray from her chignon.

Then the agent stiffens up. Perhaps expecting another fusillade of questions or complaints to spring from the couple’s lips, the agent decides to play hardball, and her tone suddenly shifts to one of robotic rage and forced politeness.

“Okay, okay, you folks know the history of the place. It was all over the news. But remember, the kid eventually pled guilty, and no such evidence of ‘paranormal’ anything was found.” The agent flicks her fingers in air quotes around the word “paranormal,” and continues, “The show on TLC came up with only white noise. Because, frankly, that sort of ghost stuff doesn’t exist.”

The agent pauses and her cyborg smile shifts back on, as if her software has set her veneer back to sugary.

Her voice sweetens too, but she speaks, condescendingly, like a mother who just lashed out at a petulant child, “You see, this is what we refer to as a ‘distressed property,’ yes, but this is the only property for rent in this neighborhood. You said you wanted a house here for 6 months. You said you wanted to be near downtown. Well, this is it. If you aren’t interested, I understand, and I can show you a similar property. Buuuuut,” Susan winces at how the agent draws out that syllable, “it’s an hour farther from the city and twice as expensive. And I already have three other clients interested in this property, soooo, please, take a few minutes, talk amongst yourselves, look around a bit more if you’d like. I’ll be waiting outside.”

The agent’s smile grows so big and forced Susan worries it might explode the lady’s cheekbones. The agent turns and clicks off, her heels talking to the floor at an incongruous clip as she plucks out her phone from her black Fendi handbag and saunters away staring and swiping at the device.

Susan believes the device might be controlling the agent somehow, a digital overlord…

Jim nods his head, “Susan,” he says, speaking her name for the first time in what seems like years, not just calling her “you…”

“Susan, I can’t live in an apartment again. Even a big condo. I hate having people living on the other side of the wall. I hate smelling people’s food in the hallway. I can’t do it again. I can’t.”

Jim pans his gaze, toward the spacious dining room, the place still furnished with the previous owner’s belongings. The couple’s relative who’d inherited the property, while attempting, unsuccessfully to sell it, had decided to rent it, and had kept it furnished with the belongings of the slain family.

“But, Jim, it is… so… so… creepy. I mean, what happened here. It was a funeral home, and then… Ick, it’s… I mean, what if it really is haunted?”

Goosebumps run up Susan’s arms and she feels a chill splash over her, like she’s had a glass of ice water thrown at her.

“Do you believe in that crap? I don’t. I want a house. I want my space. I don’t want to drive four hours every day. It’s only 20 minutes from here to the office. We’re renting the place and moving in.”

And with that, the matter is settled. Jim’s big round eyes remind her of portholes on a sailing ship as he lumbers his massive frame out of the kitchen, through the house, to the verandah, on his way to speak with the agent and sign the lease.

 

Susan, her arms crossed over her chest, taps her foot impatiently, shakes her head and grimaces. She thinks back to when she was younger, working part-time as a cheerleader. That was when she met Jim, when he was a rookie in the NFL.

Like she often does, she thinks back to those days, but not nostalgically. Because sometimes, just sometimes, though increasingly often these days, she wishes she didn’t get pregnant then…

She wishes she’d stayed in college. She liked reading and studying, campus life… And she wishes she had started the clothing business she’d dreamed about. She’d had an idea for something like Lululemon, athleisure wear. But she’d never pursued it. And that haunts her… The missed window of opportunity. It hurts her, watching the Lululemon company raking in billions. Seeing every housewife, every lady in her neighborhood in yoga pants. And now, here she is, having lost all her money. Money she didn’t even earn. Money she’d married… Pathetic…  

Worse yet, though it makes her ashamed, her mind sinks further into regret, and sometimes… sometimes she wishes she’d not gotten pregnant. At all.  

She hates thinking she shouldn’t have had that kid, that first one. But she can’t help it. And there are times she regrets the others, too. She really can’t help thinking about what she could have been. Her son, her daughter, even her youngest son, just their faces, remind her of that missed time, missed opportunities, her unrealized dreams. Just their faces can be such cruel, cruel reminders.  

She loves her children and hates thinking like this. It makes her ugly, a hideous, terrible person, she knows, but the thoughts remain, appear in transit, like awful graffiti scrawled on a highway overpass…

All these thoughts flit through her mind as she stands there, defeated. Her youth gone. And now their fortune was nearly gone too. They had debts piling up after Jim’s business ventures went sour. They had to sell their mansion, most of their possessions, most of their cars, their cute speedboat. Like so many other NFL players, Jim had found his earnings squandered and vanished.

She should have stepped in. She should have done more. But she was busy, with the kids, with the charities.

She was just as guilty, too, she figures, having taken those retail therapy shopping trips, those European vacations, booking those first-class plane tickets, even for short flights, and those ridiculously fancy lunches and dinners, those afternoons of facials, Dead Sea mud wraps, manicures and pedicures, foot massages at the spa.

She knows her harsh reality. That this is what it is. That Jim must take on this project. She knows they could, theoretically, get by without it, get by on his healthy NFL pension, but if this project takes off, if it is a hit, they’ll be rich again. Really rich again, Jim says.  

She wants to believe it. She wants more than anything to be rich again. To not have to worry about money. To not have to deal with jerks like that leasing agent, the patronizing robotic bitch. That’s the best part of having fuck you money, she remembers, being able to say “fuck you.” Not having to take shit from anyone.

“Dammit, ugh, I guess we’ve got no choice,” she mutters to herself. She hangs her head low, draws in a deep breath. Then she exhales, suddenly finding herself sitting in the passenger seat of their car, the Porsche inching in reverse, rolling out of their new home’s tarmac-like driveway.  

 

"NFL Concussion Protocol: The Tragedy" by Kim Cancer

 

 

NFL Concussion Protocol: The Tragedy

The fucking novel by Kim Cancer... OUT NOW! 

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SYNOPSIS:

Like many former professional athletes, Jim Everett has been struggling since his retirement from the NFL. But when Jim and his family move into a house with a gruesome past, the Everett family will face challenges like they never encountered before... The demons and ghosts that are real!

 

Featuring appearances by Lisa "The Cheerleader," James "The Prison Guard," Mr. Wilson "The Neighbor," Junior Seau, The "Tibetan," The "East Coast Prowler," Saint Euphemia, and Jesus Christ. 

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"

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"ESL Wuhan" by Newamba Flamingo

The bullet train arrived to Wuhan on a cold winter’s day.

Smog and construction cranes were all one could see.

Chabudi, the Monkey Queen, had a large drone implanted in her backside and collected me from the platform with a toilet plunger and flew me from the train station to my new apartment.

The unit was on the 44th floor of an 88-storey building shaped like a squat toilet…

We swooped down, landed on a balcony. A red trapdoor had facial recognition technology and opened automatically, vacuuming us inside.

There were large star shaped windows everywhere. The place was practically a glass box, with sweeping city views of smog, square concrete structures and what seemed to be a river, its dark water like molasses. Cars and motorbikes crisscrossed a bridge running over it.

Chabudi wore a curvy qipao. Quite the cougar, she glided, air walking me through a tour of the unit. I stole quick peeks of all her floral patterns. She had a small jumpman tattoo near her right ankle.

It was freezing cold in the apartment and grayish breath swirled out of Chabudi’s tiny mouth as she spoke. Her lipstick was black, as were her fingernails, and she wore her hair in a tidy little bun with chopsticks. I caught a whiff of halitosis.

Chabudi had Migos' “Slippery” as her cell phone ringtone, and there was another tattoo on her right hand that looked like a dragon or maybe a cobra…

In the living room was a wooden couch. On it sat a stout, middle aged Chinese man. He was in tighty whities and a stained wife beater that was rolled up to his chest, revealing an exposed beer belly. He was chain smoking.

I asked Chabudi who the man on the couch was. She ignored the question, threw the keys at me and strapped on a surgical mask with a cute bear on it.

She hovered to the balcony and clapped her hands. It sounded like a burst of firecrackers as the door slid open and she flew away, fading into the smog.

I asked the man what he was doing in my apartment. He didn’t answer. So I asked him again, this time in Mandarin. He again didn’t answer.

He took a swig of baijiu, belched and made a guttural “en” sound. I decided to go out for noodles and a hand massage. When I came back, he was gone.

When I awoke the next morning, he was back. This time he wasn’t wearing a shirt. There were dark circles under his eyes. He looked like a panda.

He was smoking a cigarette backwards, filter first.

Again, I spoke Mandarin to him. Again he only replied with the same guttural sound. I sat next to him and turned on XXTV News…

Shu Shu Xin Xiang was visiting a village in Nongzhou, Henan. A beaming pig farmer walked with him arm in arm. Shu Shu’s upper lip never moved...

I turned to what I figured was my roommate. He was drinking from a canister of gasoline and his two parallel tufts of hair were on fire. I ran into the kitchen to grab the extinguisher, but, when I returned, my roommate had dissolved into ash. The odor of cigarettes remained.

That afternoon I met a neighbor downstairs named Rainey. She had a two year old boy on a silk leash. There was an open slit in the back of the child’s Minion pajamas and his buttocks hung out.

The boy pointed at me, yelled out “waiguoren”, and ran into the corner of the hall, squatted and defecated, smiling gleefully as he did so.

Rainey asked me into which apartment I’d moved. I told her. She nervously laughed, scooped up the boy and took off running.

I texted Chabudi, asking if there was anything I should know about the apartment. She replied with “no why”.

So I Baidued the apartment and found a news article on 1344 dot com dot cn and copied it into my Pleco app’s clip reader…

It was about a man named Sha who’d discovered his wife was having an affair. When he confronted her, she admitted it and said she’d be divorcing him and taking their son.

He then choked her to death with a plastic bag and poured gasoline all over the apartment, set it alight, and chained the front door shut. His mother in law and his wife’s aunt were napping in an adjacent room. Both burned. His son was away at boarding school.

An archive picture showed dancing ayis that night pausing to watch their comrades join the haze.

The police found Sha later at a massage parlor. He confessed and shortly after was executed via a bullet to the back of the head. His kidneys were donated to a boy with cancer…

That was four years ago.

That evening, in the elevator, I met a neighbor named Rocket. He had suction cups for feet and prosthetic legs.

He said no locals had lived there in ages and that the place had been rented out to a series of foreigners, mostly English teachers.

They all tended to move out quickly. One died from gas inhalation.