A Violent Scenery

Blue Primitives Wild

2012-01-20T00:58:00.000-08:00

tyler d. findlay

The water was cold and no one was home so it felt like he could die in it. Kenneth stood there naked, forcing himself to embrace the onslaught of ice water rushing over him. The gas bill had gone unpaid for months.

He stepped out of the shower into the warm late summer air carried in through open windows. Toweling off, he saw no reason to clothe himself and roamed nude through the house smoking a cigarette.

He watched it hang in the air. Drift toward a window.

He had begun staying there a few weeks prior, sleeping on the floor in an empty room. It was a beautiful house, towering columns adorning the front walkway leading up to the door. He lived there with Alex and some floozy named Karen they had all screwed one time or another. Word was she’d gone dike, but he heard Alex fuck her every night, their howls bouncing along the empty walls.

Alex’s mother had bought the house and had lived there for sometime before marrying a wealthy man in East Cobb. She moved out with him, taking with her every last antique armchair and oriental rug that had once graced its expansive rooms, leaving the skeleton of a home to rot.

Alex needed only pay the utilities and the place was his, rent free. But soon after moving in, he was fired from his job at the W. Afterward, his apathy grew with the pile of bills. Kenneth had seen him throw them away unopened.

One by one the utilities were cut off.

And day by day they needed them less.

Cavemen eat beer and dance around fires.

Kenneth lounged naked in the writhing air, book in hand, until Karen got home from work.

“Put some fucking clothes on,” she sneered, setting down her purse.

Mocking her, he slapped his dick on his stomach until she was gone.

That evening, a few people came over and someone brought some Evan Williams. Kenneth thought dark liquor brought out the worst in most folks. He stuck to beer.

A childish buzz filled the house, 80s new wave bopping through neon expanse. Alex was doing the robot with his motorcycle helmet on. Karen wrestled with some blonde girl.

Amid the bedlam, Kenneth stood anxiously, hovering from one excitement to another, a hummingbird. Laughter and spirits spilt across the house, running down the walls, splashing on his dancing shoes.

The blonde was now staring at him from across the kitchen. She lowered her head and smiled.

“Do you live here?” she asked after a static pause.

“Yeah.”

“What’s your name?”

“Kenneth. Yours?”

“Kali.”

A humming silence fell between them, the surrounding nonsense falling out of frame. He wondered what she was thinking, what mechanisms were at work behind her big, dumb eyes.

The room emptied in his mind, a planar schematic branching from her feet to his, pulsing with light wheels and information.

Probe her.

Touch her.

Learn her.

Make her.

The dark of her eyes flashed with innocence.

She picked up a beer and walked out of the kitchen.

“You should go for that,” said the motorcycle helmet, sloshing in.

“She wouldn’t let me,” he replied, lost somewhere.

Out for a smoke, Kenneth noticed something scurry across the backyard. It turned toward him, demon eyes reflecting in the moonlight.

Rushing to the garage, he grabbed a long metal pole and headed back out. Alex followed him.

“What is it?”

“A fucking possum.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Fuck with it.”

“That bastards gonna give you rabies, man.”

They stalked along the yard until Alex spotted its ugly shadow. Chasing it into a bush, Kenneth poked it, provoked strange hisses and gnashing teeth. Whacking at the bush again, it flew from cover, darting out into the night.

Reacting with precision, Kenneth lifted the pole far above his head and swung, coming down with a crack on the creature’s back.

How it shrieked.

It lay there, bent, its legs clawing at the grass. Kenneth studied its moonlit eyes as if peering into his own. Its back was broken.

Panic filled him.

Its stupidity enraged him.

He swore his brain was swelling.

“Fuck. Now what, you sick fuck?” Alex asked, “It’s mangled.”

“I don’t know. It scared me. It still scares me.”

“Well put it out of its misery. The son of a bitch is done for.”

Its dumb eyes begged for an end.

Alex looked on, mouth open, and Kenneth raised the pole again.

“Go home, little monster,” he whispered.

Then he beat the possum’s head in, brutal swings landing again and again until its tail flailed no more. Its jaw hung sideways, its head a mess of blood, hair, and grass. Kenneth sat down, panting, distressed.

He looked into its eyes for a longtime, only the moon staring back.

That night he dreamt of barbaric men dancing around a fire, all blue in the light of it. They sang and drank, their blue bodies entangled in the mist. He awoke with their haunting song in his head. It was early morning, the air was hot and pink. He walked out back to inspect the carcass to find that it had been dragged some distance across the yard, leaving a streak of fur. Its lower half was missing.

Bobcat.

Or fox maybe.

The dew glistened around its hopeless form. Flies buzzed in the green and he lit a cigarette, humming a caveman song.

Scum

2011-11-09T11:06:00.001-08:00

joal hohensee

she reached for me.

she reached for me because.

she reached for me because she thought.

she reached for me because the thought she knew.

she reached for me because she thought she knew pain.

she reached for me because she thought she knew pain unbiased.

she reached for me because she thought she knew pain unbiased to her outer.

she reached for me because she thought she knew pain unbiased to her outer-skin.

she reached for me because she thought she knew pain unbiased to her outer-skin dyslexic.

she reached for me because she thought she knew pain unbiased to her outer-skin dyslexic organic.

she reached for me in thought.

she reached for me in prayer.

she reached for me as a man.

she killed herself with herself.

Now You Know

2011-11-09T11:02:00.000-08:00

joal hohensee

whither and thither,

together we are

the wishful thinking of a bastard's heart.

a stale mood;

the tempest truth.

will that bastard ever know?

will a collective truth ever show?

scour through recollection

in spite of invention.

to realize plight is a lesser truth;

the more it grows,

the more we seek retention.

the further it passes,

the more we weep for redemption.

for the fallout of life lies in the hands of the meek.

a bed of thorns;

loving, fucking into scorn.

so here we accept,

the lives of children into the inept.

god exists as your alibi.

Southpaw

2011-09-23T14:31:00.000-07:00

tyler d. findlay

Terry ducked and weaved through the thick crowd, cradling a six-pack, eyes scanning the party for a familiar face. Only a few blue lights lit the room, creating deep purples on the dark skin around him. A punishing bass was pounding from somewhere in the abyss, but no one was dancing.

Making his way to the side of the room, he slid along the wall down a packed hallway. He seldom ventured to the south side of town, and had heard of this particular neighborhood only on the eleven o’clock news.

A black kid blew a plume of weed smoke in his face as he squeezed past.

The hallway opened up into a larger room on the left, where he stood on a couch and surveyed the scene before him. The party was more diverse than he initially expected, an eclectic blend of art students, heavily tattooed hood kids, and skate crews were mingling and drinking under the blasting bass and smoke that swamped the air.

And then he spotted her.

Her choppy blonde hair swung chaotically as she tossed back a shot of vodka. She wore only a bright blue bra and a mini skirt that could make a priest sweat. Her petite frame and knee-high socks made her a walking schoolgirl fantasy, an illusion of innocence begging to be deflowered.

Slamming down the shot glass, she lifted her head and their eyes met. Her face lit up, vibrant green eyes exploding.

“Terry! You made it!”

He could barely hear her over the electronic racquet, so he hopped down from the couch and made his way over to her. Squealing, she jumped into his arms, wrapping her legs around him, her smooth ass falling into his sweaty paws. She kissed him on the neck and bit him softly.

“I didn’t think you’d come,” she whispered in his ear.

Failing to reply, he set her on her feet and opened a beer.

He had known Katie for years, and she had dated several of his friends. A sexual electricity had always hummed between them, but he had never tasted its fruit. She was always seeing someone when he wasn’t, months passing between calls.

In fact, until that morning, he hadn’t heard from her for the better part of a year. During this sea of silence, his ears always perked when he heard inklings of her promiscuous romps and cocaine bonanzas in the city, but always maintained a charade of indifference. As if everyone didn’t know he’d had the hots for her since grade school.

In those years, he had lacked the balls to go for the kill, his tender longing failing to translate. He sat beside himself as he watched her walk away with countless punks and scoundrels, his laser eyes bursting their heads like melons.

No longer.

The chickens have come home to fuck. She will be conquered.

“I haven’t seen you in so long! What have you been doing?” she asked, her eyes searching up into his.

“That’s a damn good question.”

After a few minutes of catching up, Katie wandered off to find someone, leaving Terry alone with his beers, which in his nervousness he downed quickly. A strong buzz on, he decided to abandon his post and scour the party for more booze.

In the backyard he found a keg tapped and ready. Pay dirt. He filled a red plastic cup and lit up a cigarette. Nearby, several black kids huddled around a joint on the patio. He watched them pass it around, their faces glowing with the embers on each drag.

“Yo man, I got that purp!” one called out.

“I’m alright,” Terry answered, holding up his beer.

Turning back to the circle, they continued smoking, their minds floating away on thick plumes of smoke above. Terry observed their cosmic ritual a moment longer, listening to their coughs and cackles, before heading back inside.

Stepping into the crowded living room, he caught a glimpse of Katie emerging from a bathroom with a tall black guy, both rubbing their noses furiously. He looked on as she zig zagged through the crowd, dragging the black giant behind her, until finally they approached.

The giant had gold teeth and a black bandana tied around his head.

Goddamnit.

"Terry, this is Julian," she announced, again rubbing her nose.

Awkwardly exchanging some sort of ethnic handshake, Terry suddenly felt very white and out of place. Hiding his reluctance, he stood there, grinning like an idiot, bullshitting about the party. All the while his mind raced.

Who was this thug? How did she know him? Why the fuck is she letting him grab her ass?

Katie's eyes were wild, staring blankly into his, the green heavens of her iris absorbing her pin sized pupils. The giant continued to grope her every tiny curve, her gaze lost somewhere.

"Katie, let's go get a beer," Terry offered his hand.

"I'm good," she slurred, "I'll be back in a few minutes."

With that, the big ape spun her around and made their way through the crowd, his enormous hands wrapped around her petite body. Terry watched until the black bandana disappeared down a hallway.

What.

The.

Fuck.

Only one thing was left to do. Grabbing a nearby bottle of high end tequila, he tipped the bottle up and let the oblivion set in. The fire in his chest raged with each swallow, burning with his sexual frustrations, his charred dreams of nailing Katie glowing and crackling.

A few more chugs of mexican gasoline and the room melted into a booming blur. His cheeks cooked and his steps became sloppy. Out for an end to forget his prior delusions of a sex soaked evening. At least no one could steal this buzz.

Out back again, he found himself loosely engaging in a conversation about music with some art students from SCAD. A band down in Savannah had apparently just released a new album after a seven year hiatus. Far too intoxicated to contribute more than the occasional murmur of agreement, he lounged and listened with his eyes half closed, cigarette hanging from his lips.

A half hour of educated banter later, the urge to take a leak hit suddenly. Shaking a few hands, he stumbled off to piss on the side of the house.

Watering the bushes and not falling in his own urine proved to be quite the task, but one he thoroughly enjoyed. He shook out the last drops and began to put himself away when a faint cry pierced through the muffled thumping of the party.

Terry froze and listened, his head tilted.

Again, a sharp cry rang out, shrill at first, descending into a frail, mousy moan.

A few feet down the side of the house, light poured onto the side yard from a window, beckoning. He crept towards it and peered inside.

Jesus.

Blindness.

Juices.

Words fail here.

Systems failing....

His drunken eyes locked on her tender figure writhing in the harsh light. Katie rising and falling, her plump breasts bouncing with each stiff landing.

She was riding the giant, head towards the sky, mouth wide in convulsion. Eyes closed, embracing every inch of him. The black anaconda impaling her tiny sweet body.

Terry felt his cock rise and tighten. Should he not be pulling his eyes from their sockets? Should this not be a nightmare?

Without thinking, he jammed his hand down his pants and began stroking furiously, foaming at the mouth.

The giant clasped her hips and humped wildly, her screams escalating into axe murder, her invasion too deep to hold back. Arching her back, round tits pushed out, she let out a long, savage cry as she slid down him.

Entranced, he jerked violently, eyes locked on her glistening destruction.

Her Damnation.

Her Divinity.

All realized together.

Stu-pid.... SLUT!!!

Terry's passions and comprehension poured out, shooting wads onto the side of the house. Colors exploding in his mind, dumbing his brain into a dizzying few seconds of hysteria.

The lights faded back in.

He blinked.

Oh.... Oh God....

The scene has changed.

All pornographic tones silenced, just a girl he longed for flailing atop an oversized drug dealer. The outrage set in. He wondered why she had even called him. What was he doing here? And more than that, why was his dick out?

Ashamed, Terry put himself away, zipped up, and hopped in his car. He drove the long ride home, swerving, drunk and pounding his steering wheel.

Novae

2011-07-11T18:40:00.000-07:00

tyler d. findlay

The collective glare was blinding, each car blazing with light from the afternoon sun. Every vehicle a solar flare, melting together to super nova.

White wash.

Pure nothing.

Cooper squinted ahead at the gleaming sea of traffic smoldering on I-285, cursing and lighting a cigarette. The smoke snaked through the car, streams of gray swirling and then hanging suspended in the stale air.

Talk radio blared, but he wasn’t listening.

Does anyone?

Just a voice to fill the void. Drummer boy to the lonely fight home. People watch late night talk shows for the same reason. To feel less alone.

Peering out across the gridlock, he began to make out the flashing reds ands blues of emergency vehicles. Another wreck.

Nearly everyday someone manages to throw a wrench in the gears, smashing into the natural flow, sending molecules flying.

This kind of traffic calls for bloodshed.

Someone better have damn died.

A few minutes later, Cooper found himself adjacent to the scene. Cops and paramedics stood around, thumbs up their asses. Everyone involved appeared to be okay, and he realized he was disappointed.

Once off the highway, he quickly navigated the tunnels, side streets, and other mouse trappings of the city towards home, and more importantly, a stop at the liquor store. Strong drink was in order to put the day to an end. While it had been no more excruciating than any other, a rhythmic mundanity buzzed above everything, washing over, like when the house is far too quiet.

He held his hand out of the window to feel the wind around it. His hand rose and fell, and for a moment he stared at it, detached, transfixed by its motion. If cut free from him would it fly away?

No. It would bleed, rot, and fossilize.

We are such empty machinery.

The liquor store was bustling as usual, black men with long dreadlocks standing outside, carrying on animated conversations. Inside, the florescent lights spotlighted the dirty floor and disorganized shelves. A chaos of bottles spilled over onto every surface, their shapes and colors fracturing into a kaleidoscope of spirits.

Moving with purpose, Cooper scanned briefly before landing on some cheap whiskey. Then beer and club soda. The young cashier moved sluggishly, and he pictured himself slapping her. And undressing her.

The shining modern elevator clashed with the rustic interior of the apartment building lobby, its chrome finish a beacon of progress surrounded by old brick and mortar. The building used to be a cotton mill, and was almost torn down before being refurbished into overpriced loft apartments for urban yuppies and artists. Stepping on to the empty elevator, he pressed the button for the fourth floor and ascended alone, staring at his blurred reflection in the metal doors. Its eyes were dark.

Throwing open the apartment door, he threw his keys on the counter, set down his bags, and ripped a note off the fridge.

I owe you vodka and cheetos, signed with a pink lipstick kiss.

The notes started appearing last week, just after his spare key went missing.

Lights Still Burning

2011-05-26T13:37:00.000-07:00

tyler d. findlay

Cars beeped and sputtered down Ponce de Leon Avenue as Candice sat on the curb in utter bewilderment of her current situation, her big doe eyes lost in the headlights speeding by. The crowd had thinned, the last drunken stragglers tripping toward their cars. Planted pathetically on the curb, like a beautiful flower sprouting from a crack in the concrete, she cradled her knees and tried his phone one more time.

Straight to voicemail.

“Shit..”

She was far too young, pretty, and white to be wandering the streets at this hour. It was getting late, and she was running out of options. He wasn’t in the club. He wasn’t at his car. He was nowhere, a vague memory caught in the labyrinth of the nights events. Like some partying apparition, he seemed to have slid through time and space to absolute nothingness.

Or most likely to some slut’s apartment.

She stood up, a gust whipping her little black dress, pulling it tight against her body, a whirlwind of summer night air dancing with her. An invisible partner twisting around her shape, caressing her bubble butt through the thin black cloth stretched across it.

Holding her high heels, she stood barefoot on the curb, waiting for an opening to cross the street. A garden statue, beautifully sculpted, left to weather storms alone in the dead of night, the glare of streetlamps and headlights revealing her sadness in shadowy flashes of revelation and abandonment.

Rising through the static of traffic and wind, she heard a voice calling across the parking lot. She turned. It was a security guard from the club, slowly approaching, his gaze locked.

Prowling wolf.

“Hey! You alright?”

“I’m fine,” she replied sternly.

“Need a cab?”

“No money.”

“Well, can I give you a lift home?” the wolf asked, flashing a quick smile.

He was picturing her bent over his bed.

“My ride is on the way,” she lied.

“If you say so…”

Turning back towards the road, she could still feel his lustful eyes rolling down her back, pouring over her ass, and dripping slowly down her legs. A sharp chill ran up her spine and wrapped itself around her. Inhaling deeply, she listened as the wolf walked off into the night, his footsteps eventually losing themselves in the pounding buzz of the city.

After thoughtfully looking both ways she dashed across Ponce, quickly slowing to a hurried walk upon reaching the relative safety of the sidewalk. She briskly found her way back to Terry’s car, which was still parked and undisturbed where they had left it.

It was parked at a run down grocery store dubbed the “Murder Kroger” after a body was found in the parking lot. She had laughed when she had learned its nickname, chugging beers in the car with Terry before they walked to the club. Now standing alone in that empty parking lot, she no longer found it the least bit amusing.

News stories filled her mind.

Another body found at the Kroger on Ponce de Leon.

Teen missing after disappearing from nightclub.

But first, your local weather report.

Terry had assured her that this was a decent neighborhood, but to her young suburban eyes the shadows danced before her, each promising its own grim headlines of a young girl missing.

Her face on a milk carton.

She tried his phone one last time.

Nothing.

Sitting on the hood of his car, she frantically scrolled through her phone, searching for a way out, a chariot waiting. Who would answer at four in the morning?

She called Amanda.

It rang twice.

“HEY GIRL! GET OVER HERE!” Amanda answered, screaming over a buzz of bedlam in the background, electronic bass distorting through the line.

“I’m stuck downtown. Can you come get me?”

“WHAT?!”

“I need you to come get me. Terry left me stranded.”

“GET OVER HERE!”

“I can’t! I’m stuck!”

“I CANT HEAR YOU! I’M FUCKING WASTED! GET THE FUCK OVER HERE AND DO SHOTS!”

Click.

Fuck.

Thumbing through her phone again, she ran across the name Karen. A name she barely knew. Terry’s ex-girlfriend.

They had met at a party, and Karen had mentioned something about her apartment downtown. After hovering over the call button, she shut her phone, lifting her innocent face again towards the abject void of the parking lot.

A black sedan approached, slowing as it cruised by her, brakes squeaking. No music. The windows were tented, but she could make out the drivers sinister silhouette, a head and neck turning to take in her vulnerable frame.

She watched, the hair on her arms rising, as it turned to circle the parking lot again.

Flipping open her phone, she called Karen.

Ring.

The headlights swept across the other side of the lot, a spotlight hunting.

Ring.

The car turned again, slowly crawling back around.

Ring.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Karen?”

“Yeah. Who the fuck is this?”

“Its Candice. We met at Lewis’s a few weeks ago.”

“Oh yeah! Terry’s new fuck!” Karen chuckled, “How’s that working out?”

“He ditched me at MJQ with no way home.”

“No shit? I’m sorry. Do you need a ride? You can crash here.”

“Oh my god, thank you soooo much.”

“I’ll be there in five.”

Click.

Sighing dramatically, Candice put her phone in her purse and surveyed the lot. The black sedan had vanished.

Under the yellow haze of the city, she waited.

After a few minutes, Karen pulled up in a small green Honda and whipped into the adjacent parking spot. She popped the trunk and hopped out, hardly dressed and sporting a long black ponytail.

“What are you doing?” Candice asked as Karen bent into the trunk, her tight ass peeking out from the bottom of her cheerleader shorts.

She didn’t reply, but emerged with a metal bat and a wide grin.

“What is that for?” Candice gawked.

Without a word, Karen marched to the front of Terry’s car. Screaming, she swung the bat, hitting the side mirror, sending it skidding across the parking lot.

She screamed again.

“Fuck you, you piss of shit!”

She lifted the bat over her head and brought it crashing down onto the windshield, a web of cracks splintering outward. The impact triggered the car alarm, sending a barrage of sound and flashing lights cascading around them.

Breathing heavily, she turned to Candice and held out the bat.

“Wanna try?” she yelled over the alarm.

“I shouldn’t…”

“C’mon”

Wink.

Candice took the bat and swung it lightly into the side of Terry’s car, leaving a tiny dent.

“Harder.”

She swung again.

“Pussy!” Karen taunted.

He left her. He deserves this.

Fuck it.

Squaring her feet, she rolled the bat in her grip, closed her eyes, and swung hard.

The sound of shattering glass blasted past her. Tiny granules of glass bounced off her face and arms. The crash echoed through the lot and down the street, a parade of violence.

Together, they broke every window and stole his radio.

Karen’s apartment was smoldering. And a dump.

Taking a seat, Candice could feel the hot leather couch adhere to her dress, her legs sticking to the moist surface. She looked down at the floor, a sea of empty beer cans littered the grungy shag carpet.

“Hope you don’t mind,” Karen said as she peeled off her top, “The air conditioner is broken and I’m burning up.”

Topless, Karen walked to the fringe, her breasts bouncing and glistening with sweat, pulled out a few beers, and tossed one to Candice.

“So did he say where he was going?” Karen asked.

“No. Just disappeared.”

“Fucking prick. He always had his own agenda. Never gave a shit about anyone else. I can’t believe he’d leave a cute thing like you hanging out to dry.”

Karen popped open her beer and nestled down on the couch, her tan body shining in the dim light, and began chugging. Candice stole a glance at her amazing rack, two perfect spheres hanging from her chest, rising and falling with each swallow. As she looked up, Karen’s eyes met hers.

Leaning in, they kissed lightly, their lips sticking together in the thick heat. Gently taking Candice’s hand, Karen rose and led her back to the bedroom.

Somewhere in the mess of sheets and clothes her phone was ringing. White morning light beat into the room from the open window, a heavenly radiance bathing over the bed. Candice peered up at the ceiling, her naked body still entwined with Karen’s. Sitting up, she rummaged through the mess, found her phone, and flipped it open.

“Where the fuck did you go?” she demanded.

“I got locked up,” Terry explained.

“Oh my god! For what?”

“Fighting.”

“Goddamnit, Terry!”

“I know, I know. And to make matters worse, someone smashed up my car and stole my radio.”

“That’s terrible.”

She glanced at Karen, who was giggling madly under the sheets.

“Did you get home okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Just exhausted.”

She winked and blew Karen a kiss.

Lungs Full Of Gasoline

2011-03-08T18:01:00.000-08:00

tyler d. findlay

It was Wednesday night. The streets were still wet from the afternoon storm. Streetlights mirrored in dark pools of water, creating a string of luminescence along each block. Alex and Daniel pulled into a vacant lot adjacent the warehouse. Splashing through puddles, they parked and finished their beers.

“Where are these guys from again?” Alex asked.

“Out west somewhere.”

“Have they played here before?”

“Don’t think so,” Daniel paused to gulp down some beer, “Lets hurry up, I think it started already.”

“Doubt it.”

Tossing their empty cans, they stepped out and headed around the side of the warehouse. A small crowd was gathered there, smoking and laughing loudly under an external stairway. Brushing past them, they made their way to the side door.

The door man was covered in tattoos. A steady rumble of muffled calamity boomed behind him. They each handed him two dollars, which he pocketed while opening the door.

As they entered the warehouse, the air exploded, a wall of sound pounding into their chests at breakneck speed. Each menacing drum kick sent shockwaves past them, which reverberated through the bare skeleton of the building. Above them, the rafters shook in a strange chaotic rhythm.

A mad bird in a steel cage.

Making their way through the crowd, they approached the epicenter of the savagery, a punk band furiously blasting through their set. The cross-eyed front man was writhing wildly, trying to eat the microphone.

“I told you we were late!” Daniel yelled in Alex’s ear.

“These shows never start on time! How was I supposed to know?”

“We shouldn’t have stopped for beer!”

“What?”

“Never mind!”

A single light bulb hung over the band. Shadows of primal madness danced across the concrete walls, a flooding gallery of turmoil. Fists flew at random, occasionally finding a jaw. One could breathe the aggression permeating through the warehouse like a pathogen pouring from the speakers.

Pupils dilating.

Nostrils flaring.

Mind erasing.

The drummer pounded his drums mercilessly as the singer screamed unintelligible obscenities, what appeared to be blood dripping down his face.

Veins popping from his neck, the singer shrieked and pounced into the sea of violence, disappearing among the waves of flailing limbs.

Taking this as a cue, Daniel jumped into the fray. Alex watched from the back, taking no part in the surrounding mayhem. He felt he could appreciate the music without being punched in the face. Pulling a beer from his jacket pocket, he cracked it open, eyes fixed on the band.

Two or three songs passed before he felt a commotion stirring next to him. A tall punk with a mullet and some teenager with no shirt were shoving each other.

The mullet yelled something.

The kid spit in his face.

Launching into each other, they grappled and fell to the floor. The mullet put the kid in a headlock and squeezed.

Alex looked on as the kid’s face tightened and his eyes bulged out. Intrigued by the sudden brutality unfolding at his feet, he watched as the kid’s legs kicked out in vain, his sneakers scuffing the floor. He stood over them, transfixed.

The mullet looked up at him through glassy eyes, grinning.

Drunk as shit.

The music roared over them, a battery of indifference. About then, some fat girl noticed what was happening on the floor and started screaming. A group of bystanders swarmed in, trying to break up the fight, but the mullet wouldn’t let go, his grip sunk in around the kid’s neck.

The mullet laughed at them, his demented eyes wide with defiance, refusing to release his prey. After a considerable struggle, they managed to pull the two apart. The kid fell limp on the ground.

Still beaming, the mullet stood up and swiveled his head, taking the time to meet eyes with any potential challengers. No one stepped forward to the towering menace. Laughing hysterically, he lit a cigarette and strolled to the door.

The kid came to, and was helped to the side of the room. He sat with his head in his hands, shaking like a wet dog.

Alex turned back to the show, pulled more beers from his pockets, and got down to the business of getting very drunk. The band was barreling through a brutal crescendo, hot sound spasms ripping and punishing through the room.

Ear melt fuck noise.

The singer began strangling himself with the microphone chord, and Alex downed his last beer. With no sign of Daniel, he headed out to the parking lot where a fresh six pack waited in the truck.

Outside, a heavy mist hung in the air, glimmering and falling through the streetlights. The quiet fell upon him abruptly, only the ringing of his ears piercing through.

But as he stumbled through the lot, a soft sound rose over the ubiquitous tone and flowed over into his awareness. A new call through the stagnant silence of the night.

He turned and found the fat girl sitting on the curb. She was crying heavily, her jelly rolls shaking.

Somewhere a bird sang, and she cried out.

Basement Tapes

2011-02-17T17:05:00.000-08:00

tyler d. findlay

Amanda finished her Bloody Mary and ordered a second. Her head was still pounding. The sun beat down on the patio, an unrelenting spotlight to her miserable condition. Leaning back, she closed her eyes behind her dark sunglasses, allowing the calm black to consume her.

Sick little sex kitten.

“Why did we have to sit outside?” she groaned, “This heat is going to make me puke.”

“Puke over the rail,” Jordan replied from across the table, a cigarette hanging from his mouth as he read the paper.

“Fuck you, Jordan. I feel like shit.”

“Take some aspirin.”

“I did. It didn’t do a goddamn thing.”

“Then I don’t know. Get drunk,” he quipped, returning to the paper.

“I’m trying. Shouldn’t you be reading the want ads?”

“Things will pick up after the exhibition.”

“Our rent is due next week,” she snarled, “And you haven’t sold a painting in months.”

Jordan was an amazing artist, that’s why she dated him. Unfortunately, his internal rebellion always poured onto the canvas, creating vibrant scenes of death and absurdity, scaring away the rich housewives who frequented the galleries.

Rape and monsters don’t hang well in posh Buckhead high-rises.

Ignoring her remark, he stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. Her drink came, and they sat in silence until they left.

Stopping by the apartment, they changed into their bathing suits and began to load a cooler with beer. Cracking one open, Amanda leaned on the counter, her enormous tits overflowing from her bikini top.

“I’ll fucking kill myself if we get evicted.”

“We won’t. I’ll figure something out.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Amanda chugged the rest of her beer and they headed to the swimming pool. Jordan smacked her ass as they walked.

Children squealed and splashed, a picture frame of bliss and naivety bubbling in the summer air. Crayon scribblings etched across blinding expanse. They laid out their towels and Jordan hopped in the pool, leaving Amanda to sunbathe.

Feeling much better after catching a strong buzz, she stretched out her beautiful curves beside the pool, her tan body a glowing beacon of sensuality amidst the innocent backdrop. Nearly busting out of her skimpy bikini, her luscious flesh hung in the eyes of those around the pool. A simple arch of her back enough to blow in your pants.

Sweat dripping.

She pretended not to notice, mildly drunk and pleased with herself.

Three or four beers later, an old man waddled up, hairy gut shaking violently.

“Hello, young lady.”

“Hi.”

“Have you ever done any modeling?”

“No.”

“Not even, you know, in the bedroom?”

“Excuse me?” she blurted, squinting up at him.

“You know… fucking.”

“That’s none of your business, old man.”

“But it is!” he exclaimed, then quieted back down, “I make movies. Dirty movies. And you, young lady, would be perfect.”

His eyes roamed her figure, melting along shimmering skin.

“No thanks, old man,” she said, laying back down.

“That’s too bad. You could make a lot of money.”

Jolting back up, she cast a glance at Jordan, swimming obliviously. She cocked an eyebrow, smiling devilishly up at the old man.

“How much?”

Teriyaki

2011-02-01T10:42:00.000-08:00

tyler d. findlay

“Fuck this rotten place,” Kenneth muttered to himself.

Staring across the mall food court, he locked his death gaze on hapless fashion victims as they pranced along, bags in hand. How he would love to march them straight to hell.

Although he tried to focus on his tray of chinese food, he couldn’t escape the feeling he was waiting for something. Waiting for a geyser to the deep, untapped well of rage nestled behind his eyes. Waiting for the earth to rip open and devour this fowl place, leaving behind only a smoldering foundation still wet with slush puppies and brain cells.

Then, the rush of consumer carnage laying waste in his head suddenly gave way, a wall of sound crashing into the innocent buzz of human traffic and squeals of small children. The ground was not red with the entrails of shoppers, but glistening tile. An endless commercial expanse, teeming with colors and shrieks.

The reckless dance of sounds and images stole through his nervous system, shaking into a singular chaos perceived as a whole, like an orchestra of insects on a hot jungle night. The highest wails and lowest rumblings rose and fell like waves, but behind them sat the constant dial tone of commerce and electricity. The faces all blurring together into the blank visage and very idea itself of the consumer.

Livestock.

He spied a group of college students lounging around the coffee shop. These hip bastards. He could hear them now, sipping their lattes, vomiting uninspiration in each others faces. One of them did all the talking, it seemed. The rambling student strategically picked his nose when the girls weren’t looking. The others pretended not to notice.

A charade of educated noise.

His eyes wandering again, he found some trendy shithead teenagers converging on the surf shop in a feeding frenzy, riding the current of some mass appeal.

Eyes shut.

Mouths open.

Eat shit.

Their tan faces shining, they flocked, skipping obliviously towards the brick wall of disappointment we all nail doing eighty miles per hour. But they continue on, kissing in the photo booths, holding swinging hands, fucking on tables to death metal. Young flesh pulsing in backseats.

The lump of chicken and rice he was chewing twisted into gristles of maggots between his teeth with each disgusting display of teenage stupor. Don’t they realize the ugliness with which they are all destined to fulfill? The lonely hearts that vultures will one day pick from their chests? The real curse of youth being that it is so failing, that it leaves us so swiftly and lays down again with those blind to its end.

Returning again to his lump of chinese crap, Kenneth lowered his gaze, unable to watch the tragedy unfolding around him. Breathing deeply between bites. Regaining control.

But when he raised his head, the room lit up with hundreds of exquisite fireballs bursting atop the shoulders of the crowd. Each shoppers head blazing with fire, they stood like human candles, flesh dripping like wax onto the floor. A thousand candles burning, faces melting, skulls still laughing, catching the walls on fire, flames spewing forth from their mouths.

Children ran like burning ants, darting between tables, trails of fire following each turn, licking at the floor. But not a single scream was uttered, just the normal day to day hum of business coupled with the crackling and charring of hair and bone. They burned silently, even gracefully, as they strolled along the food court, alive with the dance of the flames, buried in enveloping orbs of light.

He blinked.

And the fires were gone.

His martyrs pulled back from Hades.

The food court dimmed as his eyes adjusted. Scanning the room for any residual sign of the fluorescence he had just witnessed, he found nothing approaching the vibrancies of his illusion, just the awful glare of neon and billboards.

The crude collage of shoppers and advertising spun like a bicycle wheel in front of him, flashing pictures of laughing brides and lonely people wandering aimlessly, lost in the abject dance of want. He absorbed their presence, these savages roaming the maze, hoping to feel something closer than the awkward self awareness one feels when eating alone. The lump in the throat that grows with each chew and swallow.

While surveying the crowd, his eyes met an old man in a Hawaiian shirt, alone, sleeping with his face planted squarely in his food. Kenneth studied the old man for several minutes. He couldn’t detect the slightest movement. The flowers on the man’s shirt remained perfectly still, lacking the gentle rise and fall of breathe.

Of life.

Was this another of his diversions from reality? Did anyone else see this? Would the old bastard jerk back to life if he touched his cold hand? Dare he touch it?

Mesmerized by what lay before him, he couldn’t look away. The son of a bitch was slumped over, noodles in his hair.

Amoebas

2011-01-27T00:18:00.000-08:00

tyler d. findlay

The room was pitch black. The sheets damp with sex. Cooper sat up in the void of dark, his head spinning as if trapped on some demented carousel. A whiff of stale vodka stung his nose, sending him stumbling to the bathroom to vomit.

After hurling violently, he rinsed out his mouth and was about to turn the light out when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Reaching towards his face, he inspected what appeared to be a black eye. The mysterious wound was fresh and tender to the touch. Another battle scar for the gallery of lost nights. Another cartoon anvil dropped from above.

Naked, he crept back down the moonlit hall. He flicked on the bedroom lights.

“Off!” cried a muffled but familiar voice.

He had forgotten she was there.

“I’m just getting my cigarettes.”

“OFF GODDAMNIT!”

He quickly pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt.

“Thank yoooou,” Karen cooed as he flicked the lights back off.

Outside, the night air hung eerily around him. The sound of traffic buzzed from blocks away. A street lamp flickered. In the distance, the skyscrapers loomed silently over downtown, their bright beacons of light mostly off. Ancient totems of dead gods.

Somewhere car tires squealed. A dog barked.

After lighting his cigarette, Cooper surveyed the street with one eyebrow cocked. How he had missed the dead of night. It was at these strange hours he felt he did his best thinking. Under the guise of darkness he felt his ideas to be profound, his mind among the great philosophers and thinkers of history. He had concluded his deep thought must be the result of the night’s ability to remind him of his own mortality. The city’s steady humming being a constant reminder of the humanity surrounding him, and their collective mortality realized.

Blowing out a plume of smoke, he tossed his head to the sky and laughed. Less than twenty-four hours earlier he had emerged from yet another stint in rehab. A shining vessel of enlightenment poised to evolve and conquer. Now, still half-drunk, the comedy of his rapid demise sent shockwaves of laughter through his ribs. All the fruitless hours he had spent in reinvention lay wasted at the bottom of a bottle.

Despite his best attempts, nihilism always won out. Why strive to obtain greatness when one can suffer so beautifully? What was he but a crude cocktail of DNA, floating aimlessly from one inevitable disaster to the next? Any other belief stunk highly of illusions of grandeur.

Just an amoeba killing himself slowly.

Scrambled eggs.

Taking a final drag, he flicked away his cigarette and headed towards the door. That’s when he saw Sydney.

Shuffling, tennis shoes scraping the sidewalk, the petite menace made her way towards him. She was irresistibly beautiful, but her make-up was running down her face and her hair hung wildly over her eyes.

“I called you,” she shouted roughly.

“I think I lost my phone,” he called back.

Drudging drunkenly towards him, she pulled at her shirt, which hung off one shoulder.

“I heard you were out. Why didn’t you call?” her gruff voice bounced down the street.

Ignoring the question, he lit another cigarette.

Finally she approached and without warning lunged into his arms and stole a peck on his cheek.

“Nice black eye,” she cackled.

“Thanks, I think I caught an elbow at Lenny’s.”

“Who was playing?”

“Fuck if I know,” he muttered.

“You smell like booze, babe. How long did you make it this time?”

“About as long as it took me to get to the bar.”

“That’s okay, babe. You were never cut out for the wagon. There’s too much despair in you.”

She continued to hang on him, pushing her plump breasts together with her elbows. He stole a glance down her shirt and then took another deep drag.

A long silence passed and somewhere a siren wailed.

“Who’s up there?” Sydney blurted out.

“What?”

“Normally you would have invited me upstairs by now. And with all your old fucks crawling around Lenny’s, I’d bet my sweet ass you didn’t leave there alone. So who is it? I’m not jealous.”

“Karen,” he admitted, “I’m as thrilled as you are.”

“Oh my god, Coop! She’s a bitch. You can do better.”

Taking his hand, she slid it down to her butt and squeezed, her breath on his ear.

“I need to get back inside,” he pulled away. As he did, he noticed an old black homeless man was slowly approaching, watching intently with bloodshot eyes like a wolf that had smelt blood.

“Young love,” the old man crooned, “is a beautiful thang. Y’all thank you can spare a dolla?”

“Cant help you, old man,” Cooper replied sternly.

“Okay. Okay. Ya’ll be careful now.”

The old vagrant cracked a smile and continued past them, rambling on to himself and whoever he thought might listen. With each lanky step, the ears of his bomber hat bounced up and down adding a certain innocence to the otherwise predatory nature of the man. Cooper wondered what evil the old man was strolling to.

Why had that amoeba not killed himself? He imagined every night under some bridge, or in some park, a constant longing for an end. Each bleak morning another painful reflection of the night he had just survived. Would a quick shot to the head or an intentional overdose not be a blissful launch into nothingness?

He felt a chill run up Sydney’s back.

“I fucking hate the homeless,” she hissed, “Animals…”

“Do you ever wonder why they don’t kill themselves?” he asked.

“I’m sure a lot of them do.”

“It just seems like there would need to be special trucks to pick up all the suicides every morning. All the sorrow they must feel, alone in the squalor.”

“Why haven’t you killed yourself yet?” she asked jokingly.

“I don’t know. I really don’t.”

Turning back to one another, they locked eyes and stared futilely into each other’s souls. Searching for some meaning to this reluctant existence. How was she different from any other amoeba in this godforsaken town?

She just was.

A pipe bomb to the crotch.

A sexual radiation pulsated from her, bending time itself with each arch of her back. Pulling him into her, they kissed and she bit his lip hard.

“Fuck, Sid!”

“You love it, babe. I gotta go.”

And with one more peck she left him holding his bleeding lip, and strutted into the night, liquor and hormones raging together in one perfect missile.

Ready.

Aim.

Fire.

He was hooked again already.

Back in his apartment, he quietly disrobed and climbed into bed. Karen still lay naked, lost in her own pharmaceutical oblivion. He could never understand the allure of a pill. It had no ritual, no graduating response. No activity to loosen the jarring gears of the social machine. It offered only the coma he now witnessed sprawled beside him, her tan legs and ass shining blue in the moonlight.

Cracking open a beer he had left himself on the nightstand, he stared at the ceiling, wishing it would collapse down on his head.