Can't Stop the Signal

Matilda Barto woke sprawled across the carpet of a Georgia hotel room with the worst headache of her life and no memory why she was there.

Then it came to her. Golf. What the hell did she know, or care, about golf? But a certain swanky east coast magazine was paying her very well to toddle around the Masters Tournament and create another of her odd little semi-poetic, semi-journalistic graphic shorts about her experiences there.

And the hotel room was pretty nice.

She had stayed up way too late last night, fiddling around with her little Grundig 300 mini-worldband, trying to find the same frequencies a distant friend was “howling at the moon” over. “You’ve got to hear this preacher,” he’d texted her. “I can’t tell if it’s Obama or Hugo Chavez who is the antichrist who is bringing down the solar flares in 2012. Your Spanish is better. 13970 or so.”

And so the hours had flown by. She had never found the preacher he was on about, but something much stranger had turned up.

World band radio is funny stuff. Matilda mostly seemed to hit feeds of the BBC or Radio Marti but sometimes she’d strike a rich vein of weird.

Oh, good god – like the signal in the low 10000s that had…

She opened up her omnipresent Field Notes. Yes, she really had drawn that. Herself, convulsed in laughter over a Baptist call-in show, then a bunch of scrawled ascemic-looking something that trailed right off the page.

Voices. They were low and incomprehensible sometimes, high and demented as those in Ween’s “Push the Little Daisies” at others, but always chanting, orgiastically, “Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods.” Then the burst of the most godawful squelch and static she’d ever heard; it seemed to burn right into her brain.

And then she woke up here, like this, on the floor with – bog help her, 20 minutes to get to the Augusta National and meet her native companion, a famous golf broadcaster, his hushed voice a standby in that world, who had graciously agreed to take the time to explain what the hell she was seeing.

She was never going to make it. Matilda grabbed her phone to pass on her regrets. Something was wrong with the display.

Matilda frowned and grabbed her Field Notes. Her phone’s display window and the weird characters she’d written were virtually indistinguishable.

******************************************

Meanwhile, across town, her contact, famed golf writer and broadcaster Cab Coulson checked the time on his own phone, and shook it.

“You. Lackey. Yes, you,” he flagged down a network intern, who was bustling around the network’s field headquarters with no discernible purpose. “Go get Arnie. Something’s up with my phone.” Cab held it out to her to show her.

“All of ‘em are doing that, sir. They work, though. I was able to call my mom a minute ago. Speed dial.” She held up her own phone as proof. Its display looked like something out of a bad sci-fi movie, a slow crawl of incomprehensible symbols.

“And if I don’t have someone on speed dial, what do I do then?” Cab groused.

“Um. I. Have to be over there now,” the intern said, already moving that way before her excuse was fully formed.

Cab jammed his phone into the pocket of his trousers. He stood, arms folded, impatiently at the edge of the network enclosure and scanned the course’s environs for this Barto girl. Someone had claimed she was hot, after all.

Matilda hurriedly showered and jumped, long black hair still wet and piled on her head in a clip, into her car. As she started it up, the satellite radio blared that same horrid squelch that had so fried her brain the night before. Then started up the chant again, in those weird, weird voices. “Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods…”

She had never turned on the satellite radio. She hated that shit.

At the course, every cell phone in the vicinity had turned into a receptor for the same signal that was dogging Matilda. Except now it had added a strange, discordant trumpet riff straight out of – had any of this golfing crowd been hip enough to recognize it – the Residents or Gyrating Bhtch.

“What the fuck?” Cab demanded, clapping his hands over his ears as many others were doing, oblivious to the rather obvious tumescence the constant vibration of the cell phone in his pocket was producing. Had he looked around, he would have seen he was not alone.

“Tiger Woods isn’t even playing this tournament this year” someone started screaming to anyone who would listen. “He isn’t even playing!”

“Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods” all the phones and much of the other sound equipment kept chanting in distorted, inhuman voices.

Matilda finally succeeded in shutting off the satellite radio the old fashioned way – by yanking it right out of the dashboard. The magazine would, she felt sure, compensate the rental car company; if not it would still be worth the hassle. She eased into traffic, suspiciously light on such a big day.

Back in her hotel room, her little red Grundig turned itself on. It cycled through the now-ubiquitous chant for a while, then switched to a new one: “Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Tiger Woods R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.”

The Augusta National Golf Club had devolved into utter chaos. Headsets ripped from agonized heads had been trampled into their component parts, yet still emitted that hellish signal. The smartly dressed, the dignified, the Greek-letter sporting, the Arnold Palmer sipping, all fled hither and thither in wild, sweaty panic, faces contorted in rage and incomprehension and agony. The course’s famous landscaping, its gorgeous flowering trees and shrubs, were under an onslaught like no other, trampled, clutched at, torn.

No one seemed immune to the deranging effects of the signal, except for one man.

Tiger Woods, supposed to be absenting himself entirely from the scene this year for personal reasons, walked serenely through the crowd, the cool guy walking away from the explosion in every action movie. With each repetition of the maddening chant his smile grew more beatific, his stride more majestic. He lifted his arms in a strange benediction and those in closest proximity calmed immediately and fell into step behind him.

By the time he reached Hole 12, the Golden Bell, his following was considerable.

His destination reached at last, Tiger Woods turned to face his throng. He raised his arms once again. The crowd gave forth a hushed “ooooh” and broke into a prolonged golf clap.

Matilda came upon a scene like that after an earthquake or flood: utter desolation and desertion. Overturned lawn chairs and tents, tables and chairs, lost shoes and hats, trampled and overturned earth: a golf course completely ruined for its purpose, desecrated, returned to a primordial chaos of mud and tattered azaleas.

Cab, writhing feebly on the ground, spotted her and cried out. Eyes wide with concern, Matilda rushed to his side and knelt.

“Good thing… you were late…” Cab said. “Too…. Bad. You really are hot… Nice…. Tits.” And Matilda was alone with a battered corpse of fame. Quickly, aghast, she sketched the still form of Cab Coulson in her Field Notes and cast her gaze about the desolation.

She followed the massed footprints; a herd of golf fans, tournament officials, who knew who all, had all shuffled off in the same direction.

Tiger Woods had yet to speak. His followers were speaking for him. “Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Tiger R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn,” they chanted. “Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Tiger R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.”

Matilda stumbled onto the scene, catching herself whispering the same syllables. She fell to her knees and began to sketch. Honey flowed through her veins. Nothing had ever felt so good as being here to witness this glorious moment.

Amidst such a scene, no one was surprised to see a smoothly silver ovoid appear on the horizon and smoothly, soundlessly glide across the grass to where the object of everyone’s strange worship stood beaming.

A door opened seamlessly in its side and out stepped a beautiful, hairless Latino man and a cartoonishly voluptuous woman who seemed clad all in silver until the viewer realized she, in fact, was silver, or at least metallic.

“Ready to go,” the woman asked of Tiger. At the sound of her voice, the crowd broke into another round of ooohs and claps. Tiger Woods turned around.

“I am.”

“Bid your beloved good-bye,” Yectara told the crowd. “He loves you, now why don’t you all love each other? Go on. Show your love. Show how much you love each other.”

The effect was electrifying. Matilda was caught up in the arms of a married couple and undressed before she could protest – then realized she didn’t want to. Tossing her Field Notes into the air, she returned their embraces and fell to the muddy green.

As the sudden orgy swelled to frenzy, Tiger Woods made his way to his waiting spaceship and boarded the onramp that suddenly emerged, a slow, swelling pseudopod from the ovoid.

The frenzied crowd of preoccupied former golf fans never knew what hit them as the fiery plume of exhaust from its rockets incinerated them to a man, woman and excited teenager.

“Your empire awaits, my master,” the cyborg queen said to the former golf star.

“You’re late again,” he said.

Only to Travel in the Blink of an Eye…

It is the Ninth day of the Eleventh month of the year Two-Thousand Forty-Four of the Common Era, Twenty-Fifteen Zulu

The last time they loaded us on I believe there was a serious malfunction with the autocath, a device I have always called one of medieval design and workmanship. I swear, I have always thought of it as having a barbed end, and upon its perilous extraction it tears out a little more of the urinary tract than it did the time previous. Although, this discomfiture I feel could only be a result of my recent diagnosis of psychosomatic-mania; something I am reminded of by the old lady on more than one occasion for all these forty-three long years. Damn! Being seventy-three years old now and the general state of the times, one would think with all these advances in medicine they could figure out how to improve the inside as well as the outside. –But as it is with everything, (and generally just so you know, I usually hate to use clichés) it always seems so “skin deep”.

So yeah, when they called me to board this last time, everything was so damned efficient, to the point of ultimate exasperation and blessed synchronicity; although I now cannot recall a bit of it! How I long for the good old days of the ‘10’s, at least then the inefficiency at the time seemed downright charming. They would call you by seat row, or sometimes by boarding groups where you would actually bump into people in a long line only to sit down in cushion chairs and remain conscious the entire ride instead of these “padded sarcophagi” (as I call them) with their poking, prodding, and probing protuberances that latch and hook to almost every orifice upon your stripped-down nakedness, like some picture aliens on board their torus shaped spaceships. That Godforsaken nutrionaplant (the NP) keeps coming loose too; but there is no way in hell they will let you fly without it. Can anyone remember at all when they let you actually eat on an aircraft, via the mouth? Now that is only for those affluent enough for hyper-orbit travel (or HOT) where the travel time is so diminutive that all this hassle is incredibly unnecessary, and perhaps even eating itself could be described as such on this upper class of flight. It becomes a luxury, and just to allow the actual exploit to take place, they secure flight plans for a few hundred low-energy orbits. I mean, why not? It costs no more energy to replicate those days of old airline travel through a few more descending looped pathways of decay, at high enough altitude to remain safe and secure for at least 1.260 x 10³ revolutions if deemed necessary. I even hear that they (those lucky fucks, like that ancient retired golfer, what’s his name? Tiger Woods, yeah) are actually able to consume real honest-to-God meat as well; from what livestock farms no one knows, for they keep that kind of sensitive information under extremely tight wraps.

The world is entirely a different place now that I think about it, right down to the yeast strains and their associated yield. I still cannot believe that I actually used to brew my own beer for fun! Ha ha. Makes me laugh.

So anyway, yeah. The “padded sarcophagi”; they have been quite the sore spot (in every sense of the phrase) ever since they came out all those years back. Oh, it was a novelty at first introduction, so revolutionary just as the magnetic propulsion drive these stratosphere airliners patron so enthusiastically. They might be super-slow but they get you there using less than a ground car used to on one whole tank of gasoline. Gasoline, now that is a word I have not heard in a great long while…

So sorry. I tend to ramble nowadays. Tangents are not just used to calculate Coriolis Accelerations you know. Anyway, so I think they all call them “Verticalized Life-Sustaining Capsules, or VLC’s; something like that. A most hated invention. Being enshrouded in them and then hung on auto-portioning inverted conveyor (like those found at old dry cleaning establishments), sedated through the nutritionaplant, transported into nicely and neatly arranged rows inside a giant tube stored under each one of the wings (remember, the whole fuselage is required by the magnetic drive), fed nutrients intravenously down to the micro-joule, all waste excretions evacuated expeditiously through that horribly invasive autocath, and any deliberately hedonistic or delightfully wholesome interactive fantasy piped in through the neural sub-dermal (NSD). Of course, you have to choose this at the time of booking, and the impression of “privacy” possesses only a perfunctory meaning so all are aware of your choices. Not that anyone cares of course. It is all a matter of fact, is what it is, reality, etcetera, whatever. This is all designed so that human transport is made just uncomfortably an aggravation enough to discourage the feint of heart, but not those who deem it irrevocably compulsory. The linked costs for such an event are kept at an absolute minimum per passenger through many logged hours of tedious industrial engineering, whittling away each and every discovered incompetence like a squirrel stowing away its reserves (no one knows what those animals are anymore-and explaining what they are about is beyond the scope of what I am relating here). For instance, not one flight departs at anything less than one-hundred percent at capacity, all reservations and arrangements made via approved network channels unless authorized by Executive Order. You see, the race to get off this rat-trap rock of a planet has superseded any of the expected niceties of individual representation (except if you are savvy enough or more likely suitably wealthy to circumvent the current system). This always makes me wonder about the Orbiters, but then I could even be detained indefinitely for allowing that synapses to transmit; that you know: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

So, what exactly happened to make it like this?

Where have you been anyway, stuck in cryogenic freeze, or even on a faulty mag-air vehicle (MAV)?

Seriously, let me just tell you what happened. It all started when…

Eggmania

[The following is something I wrote back in 1991 that was actually incorporated into one of many handwritten letters that I would to compose to various relatives, which would actually find their way into the United States Postal System (email was at the birthing stage at the time, and I simply hadn't gotten on board yet). For the life of me I cannot recall the reason for relaying this particular story, but it was probably my way of making some point as I usually do with nearly all things, in the most extreme way possible. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this short.]

Everyone in one way or another hates certain things. The manifestation of one's hate can be directed most severely and intensely. So I hope anyone wouldn't mind if I share this sort of funny experience that illustrates my deepest and most dark hatred; the hatred of chickens.

Well I don't hate chickens directly, just one of their productions one might say. It's not really their fault however; it's just the way they were made. Believe me, anyone reading this will understand completely what I'm trying to say here in a couple minutes. I want to make myself perfectly clear to those who might take this as the beginning of an anti-chicken movement. Don't worry, there is no anti-chicken movement here. I'm perfectly agreeable with chickens. Why, you couldn't get over bad colds, couldn't bake cakes, couldn't eat something better than red meat, and this list goes on. So now that I have the pro-chicken people under control, here's what I'm talking about...

It all began when I was about eight years old. This is when my youngest sister was still an infant, and frowning every minute. The next sister was in the terrible threes and at the time the known as the "Master Snitch", and I have a brother as well, but he did not come into this story. I was a complete adversary to my siblings, having been the oldest and most unwillingly the household built-in baby-sitter. [My mother will tell you I did all these things I'm going to tell you for attention.]

As one might know that exists in my vicinity probably, is that I hate and despise eggs cooked in any way, shape, or form. Quiche, poached, scrambled, fried, omelets, huevos rancharos, you name the egg...I hate it (even brown eggs)! I can't believe I can still remember that one spring morning back in 1979 that I wasn't going to eat eggs anymore. A truly conscious decision I might add, as anyone will be able to see. I was late for school that daybreak, and my mother's irritating scream found its way through my ears, into my brain, down the spinal cord and riveting all my nerve endings.

She yelled at me to, "GET THE HELL OUT HERE AND EAT YOUR 'breath' EEGGGSSS!!!!.”

So I came running out only to see a yellowed scrambled mess that looked like something out of a science fiction book. Without thinking (a behavior I frequently engaged in), I grabbed my fork, shoveled the glop into my mouth, and experienced the most terrifying and horrid occurrence ever known to me (besides my 3rd grade teacher-Mrs. Heinrich-another story though). The yellow died slime, and I mean D-I-E-D, not D-Y-E-D was frigidly cold, an undead cold, an arctic cold, a cold that sucks life forces, a cold that causes clogged brachial passages, a cold so bad, it makes the esophagus do that unspeakable maneuver when it recognizes something is definitely wrong in eating "whatever it was". To sum up, I exploded; luckily in only one trajectory, and yes, I was still in one piece. The vectored scrambled mess landed on the tablecloth on back of my plate.

My mother was thoroughly disgusted at my rebellious behavior and just yelled three words at the top of her lungs "EAT THAAATTT EEEGGGG!!!!"

The sonic waves hit my head with tremendous force inflicting major damage to my nervous system. So I then looked up at my mother defiantly and stifled myself of the growing over resistance. I guess she didn't quite enjoy my snake-like expression and apparent silence, because suddenly with lightening speed she pounced me like a mongoose. Thoughts and master plans raced through my head in order to rid myself of the nuclear waste on my plate along with the female alleged homo sapiens that I believed at the time had acquired lycanthropcy. One of the creature’s talons gripped my lower jaw enabling her to unlock and manually operate my chewing functions. The other talon gripped the ice-cold fork as it was sitting in the “roach food” for a while, and she scooped the phlegm-like substance while unhindering my mandible set. Now at this point, time seemed to slow down to a point of complete and utter insanity: my teeth coming apart slowly, my cruel-creature siblings grinning lavishly like Cheshire cats, and the demon lord's pitchfork with steaming cold sporangium headed on a one way ticket to my digestive system. After hours it seemed the mass finally reached my oral cavity and took greater will known to man to swallow. The evil witch was now forcing my mouth up and down along with those sibling Cheshire cats snickering. My shot esophagus was fighting against my will telling me to wish this was all a horrible nightmare. I managed to win over all these obstacles and became radioactive by finally swallowing "it".

Then the empress roared three words again "NOW EAT IT!!!!"

SONIC BOOM.

At that moment, the King (Empress's benevolent servant) needed a shirt ironed, so my moment of triumph had come. The female demon lord split into the next dimension (laundry room) and left me alone with endless opportunities. I grappled the toxic waste plate, sped to the gracious sink, and chucked the yellow mass directly into the bottomless pit, which had the convenient ability to grind the unwanted thing as well.

From this incident I learned quite a bit about the ninth level of hell: my siblings are actually Cheshire cats in disguise, my dad is secondary in the apparent marriage, and my mother is some sort of vicious demon lord empress queen from planet Glop.

So anyway that's the reason I don't like eggs, and never will until my dying day. However, all the emotional scars from this traumatizing experience are gone, otherwise I wouldn't be writing about it, would I?

"Your Daddy Loves You"

Trudy stood over the man who had tortured her damn near every day since she was twelve years old. For four years now she had harbored evil hatred towards this man, who had raped her and treated her like a piece of raw flesh that he could do with whatever he liked. She hated this man with every inch of her young body ever since the first night he invited himself
into her room, not three weeks after her mother died.

Her stepfather Earl had never suspected that Trudy had finally decided that his day had come. He had no idea that she had planned this for days and days now. He had no idea what had finally caused her to snap from the inside out. And he had no idea how lucky he was that he was still breathing at this very moment; that he still had a cock and balls. His eyes. A face.

“You’re about to get fucked up daddy”, she practically whispered under her breath.

Earl could not hear her; his ears were still ringing from the blow to the head he had received just moments before. He could not hear her, but he could tell what she had said to him. He saw the anger in the way her face twitched. It was her cheek. It flickered up and down just a little
bit. He only noticed at all because her mother’s face did the same thing when she was furious.

Trudy had been named after her mother. It was a family name and it never really meant much to her until she realized that her great grandmother, grandmother, and her mother all had been named Trudy. She had finally realized that her name was not just a name, but something bigger. It had become a small part of her family history and she was the only one of them
still alive.

Since that time, she had started having fantasies of having a daughter of her own and passing the precious name even further down the line. But, she knew she never would, she never could get there if she could not get past Earl. And that is how the two of them had arrived at this moment.

“You can go to hell you little bitch.” It was the best response he could come up with under the circumstances. But, truthfully, he never had anything smart to say. Not ever, really.

Trudy struck him, even harder this time than before.

“Is that all you have to say for yourself? Is that the best you have to offer me? Go to hell? What the fuck daddy? I gave you my –"

She struck him again. This time between the legs.

Just twenty minutes ago Trudy had been in bed, watching Nick at Nite, when Earl had stumbled home drunk. Anticipating his mood, she quickly turned the TV off and pulled the covers tightly over her body, slowed her breathing and pretended, quite convincingly, that she was asleep. Just before Earl tripped in to the room, with his pants around his ankles, his soggy cock
dangling between his legs, Trudy slid her hand down beneath her bed, to make sure her weapon was still in its place. It was. She smiled on the inside and prepared herself for what she was going to have to do…again…for the last time.

“You in here, Trudy? Come here and suck on my dick, you little bitch.”

With that Earl fell in to her bed and got on top of her. Trudy held true and remained motionless, as if she had fallen in to a deep sleep some hours ago.

Earl reached out with his right hand and shook Trudy’s face back and forth violently. “Wake up”, he said urgently.

Still, she did not move. Trudy laid quietly and felt the persistent chills cover her skin as Earl’s hands began their familiar trip around her body. First, down the length of her inner thigh, towards her foot. Then they pushed back up again, towards the place her innocence had once lived, but no longer.

Earl pulled her clothing off, so that she was naked and exposed from the waist down. She felt his dirty, sweaty hands push themselves into her. Earl had never been a delicate lover. In fact, lover wasn’t even the word for what he was. Trudy had been with other men since Earl had deflowered her all those years ago and he was the only one that ever hurt her when he did it to her. It was way too rough and violent.

Once Earl had crammed four of his fingers inside of her, Trudy decided to wake herself up and get the hard part over with; the part where she allowed him to have his way with her one last time. She stirred slowly.

“Earl? Is that you daddy?”

Earl lost his breath and gasped just a touch, as if the sound of Trudy’s voice saying the word “Daddy” had an enormously erotic effect on him.

“Yeah, baby girl. It’s me.”

Trudy turned her performance up a notch. “Hmmm. I was just thinking of you earlier today.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah. I was just thinking to myself, I hope Earl comes home and fucks me sideways tonight.”

Trudy cringed on the inside as she slowly reached out with her left hand and towards his swelling dick. She hated the thing. It was ugly and wrinkled and she felt nauseous as she begun stroking the sweaty thing.

Earl moaned. “Oh, yeah?”

“Oh, yeah. Do you know how good you are at it?”

“Yeah. But, why don’t you tell me anyway.”

The darkened room allowed Trudy the ability to use her free hand to reach under her bed for the blunt, heavy tool of bludgeon that she had decided to use on him. While her fingers fumbled below the bed, she continued seducing Earl with her lies.

“Oh, Earl, I dream of it at night. I can’t concentrate in school. I want it all the time.”

She was in no way surprised, but Trudy could tell her seduction was working, because the thing in her left hand was now as hard as the thing in her right hand, below her bed. The one was warm and crooked. The other was cold and smooth and perfect.

“You don’t know how happy I am to hear you say that, Trudy. I had hoped we could learn to love each other. I know I haven’t always…asked for permission. I am glad that you have found it in your sweet little heart to forgive me.”

This stopped Trudy cold. Did he actually think they were going to be together? Did he think this was an apology? Up until this moment Trudy had been on her back with her eyes closed because she hadn’t been sure she could look Earl in the eye and lie to him in this way. Earl had
always had some kind of power over her. Whether if was fear, or control he had trained her with, it had taken hold of her several years ago.

She sat up and looked Earl in his dark brown eyes. In this light, they looked particularly soulless. They scared her. Not so much from fear of the man, or his eyes themselves. But, what scared her now, was that she actually believed him. It felt like he was being honest with her,
for the first time, about his true feelings, no matter how fucked up those feelings were. She almost felt sorry for him.

Then she looked at the erect protrusion violating her personal space and her entire plan flashed in her mind’s eye. After a brief moment, her rage came back to her and she felt like biting it off, which was something she had considered many times. She had thought about it especially when Earl had been too rough and forced it too deep into her throat, gagging her to the point of no return.

Then she remembered just two nights ago, he made her vomit because she could not catch her breath and he would not let up. This was not a man who had feelings for her. He only had feelings for himself and the doubt that was currently welling up inside of her was just weakness.

“Trudy”, Earl whimpered. “Put it in your mouth.”

Trudy slowly leaned forward, trying to give in to the moment. Trying desperately to convince herself that this would, in fact, be the last time she ever had to taste him inside of her. She also tightened her grip on the cold, hard thing in her right hand.

She slowly opened her mouth and leaned further in towards Earl’s weapon, gripping hers tighter and cautiously sliding it up on to the bed with the two of them. She slid her open mouth around his erection and heard Earl let out a pleasured moan.

“Ohhh, Trudy. That’s what I’m talking about. Nobody does that like you do. Not even your mother knew how to suck my dick like that.”

It was the comment about her mother that finally brought the volume of rage out of Trudy required to kill the son of a bitch. She quickly swung it towards his temple and struck him hard. It worked better than she had hoped. Earl fell to the side and off of her bed. He hit the
ground hard and blood gushed from the place where she had hit him.

He tried desperately to stand up and defend himself. But, his pants were still down around his ankles and when he tried to stand up, he just slipped and fell again.

Trudy, however, was able to move like lightning off her bed and stood over him in an instant. She struck him several times as hard as she could. The anger grew inside of her to such a point that she couldn’t even make a sound. She tried to scream as she struck him repeatedly. She
tried to let it all out as audibly as she was physically. But, she could not make a sound.

She finally stopped striking down on Earl’s body, giving herself a moment to catch her breath.

Then she said it. “You’re about to get fucked up daddy.”

She thought about her mother, and the family name. She wondered if her mother knew what Trudy knew about Earl. Should she be angry at her mother for leaving her with this fat, drunk monster?

So, “You can go to hell you little bitch” was the last thing Trudy’s stepfather Earl ever said. She went to work on him and beat him to within an inch of recognition. She remembered every time he had ever forced himself on her. She remembered everything, all the way down to the first
night he had come home drunk, crying and had mistaken Trudy for her dead mother. She remembered the first time she had sex with her first boyfriend he had asked her where she’d learned to fuck like that.

Thirty minutes later, when she couldn’t even hold her arms over her head any longer, she stopped. She looked around and saw the blood, guts and gore spread through out her bedroom. It was on the sheets, the mirror and ceiling fan.

She fell to the ground and crouched down in the corner furthest away from Earl’s body. Her body was shaking uncontrollably as she finally started crying. As Trudy begun crying uncontrollably, she hadn’t even noticed she was still naked from the waist down, wearing only her favorite tube top and still holding the bloody tire iron in her tired right hand.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

When she had squeezed her large breasts into the hot pink tube top and slid into the skin-tight leather skirt, she never imagined she had selected the outfit in which she would die.

The party was supposed to be the blowout of the year – a celebration of the end of forced education, a last chance for her to be the hottest of the big fish before she ventured out into the ocean of college sharks.

She had planned to flaunt her wares one last time in front of her boyfriend, gaining the attention of more than one part of his body. He was leaving for Northwestern in a little over a week, and she had spent the prior month fretting and worrying over what would happen once he was gone. Who was she, if not his girl?

Not that she wouldn't be able to replace him. Boys adored her – for her sporty but feminine frame, her silky blond hair, her bright blue eyes. They also adored her full, pouty lips, well-formed tits and tight ass. Even a few of her teachers had made advances. Not that she'd given any of them a chance. Not when she had the captain of the football team worshiping at her feet.

And yet despite her looks, she was remarkably insecure, a product of always worrying about the clique of girls that mimicked her every move, continually wondering when one of them would usurp her as the queen of their group. With them, she was ruthless, critiquing every thing about them in an effort to keep them in their place.

She knew her entrance to the party had caused a stir. As soon as the door opened, every eye in the place was on her. Hell, even the bassy music had seemed too quiet once she'd walked through the door. Not to mention the looks on the faces of every male in the room. Even Tommy had paused, beer wielding hand halfway to his lips as she offered a flirtatious smile to the room at large.

“I'm here!” she'd exclaimed brightly, secure in the knowledge that she had everything under control, the world under her thumb. Her daddy had always told her she was the belle of the ball and tonight, she felt it. Tonight she would seal her legacy, give everyone present a reason to remember her.

She had waltzed over to Tommy, the sway of her hips loaded with bold intent, and once she'd arrived, she had turned her head and offered him her cheek, as if she were some sort of goddess and he a mere mortal in her midst.

Tommy had dutifully handed over the requisite kiss, but had snaked his arm around her waist and pulled her close, whispering “come with me” in a gravelly voice. She had answered with the smile of a who knew her fate. Who knew that fate would bend to her will if she demanded it.

He had tugged her upstairs to the hoots and hollers of his minions, tossing them a winning grin. And then they were in his room. Bethany could not believe her luck. She'd spent the last two years holding out – taunting and teasing him with her body and yet never fully giving in – and she had been happy that she had done so. It had provided her with irrefutable leverage, because to her mind, it had become the thing he wanted the most. Tonight she would pull out her winning card and lay it on the table. So he would know exactly what he would be missing should he consider letting her go.

When Tommy went to Northwestern, he wouldn't be interested in those college girls. Because he had her and her smokin' hot body waiting for him at home.

Bethany leaned sensually against his headboard, preening when she bent over to slip off her shoes and caught him gazing at her. She straightened and leaned towards him, asking in as sultry a voice as she could muster “what can I do for you?”

Then he spoke and the conversation she had played in her head a hundred times over the last week – sexually charged banter that brought them both to a state of unrelenting need – escaped her. He had met someone a few months ago, he had said. Some girl who had given him his tour of Northwestern. He wanted to be with her.

He had refused to tell Bethany the girl's name, refused to listen to Bethany's tears or pleading or yelling. She had called him any and every vile word she could think of, had tried every tactic available to her – crying, screaming, even offering him the sex she had withheld all this time – but he had continued to push her away.

In the end, he had left the room. She had remained long enough to tear the room to bits before taking stock of her face in the mirror. She had done her best to remove the streaks of mascara and the redness in her nose and then decided it didn't matter. She was Bethany, Prom Queen, Head Cheerleader, the hottest girl in school.

She had planned on going back downstairs and flirting with one of his friends. Anything to give the impression that she wasn't stunned and distraught at his betrayal.

Instead, she had left, gotten in her BMW and driven like a bat out of hell out the neighborhood. She had cranked the music up loud – she couldn't even remember the song anymore – and had been flying over the pavement at speeds that would have made a race car driver jealous, pouring her hurt and anger out in the agility of her shiny silver beemer.

And then her tire had blown. In a matter of seconds, the car had rolled at least twice before landing on its side in a ditch. She had had her seatbelt on and at the time had thanked God that she had had the foresight to do so.

But if she had it to do differently...

She squirmed a little in the too-tight space, the smell of rubber and fumes seeping through her skin, drifting through her nose and settling in her lungs. Her eyes burned and her body ached, everywhere.

The accident had broken her foot and the airbag's deployment had bruised and battered her face. Her nose and lip were bleeding and her wrist, if not broken, was definitely sprained. She couldn't draw more than a shallow breath, not merely because of the confined space, but because the damned top she'd chosen was tight.

Even tighter now that the flesh beneath was swollen and bleeding.

She had not had time to grab her cell phone before he had come. Before he had dragged her out of her crashed vehicle and into the woods beyond.

She hadn't had time to even scream before she had realized that whatever horrors she had thought she'd endured at the party were nothing compared to what awaited her at his hands.

The man who had rescued her from her car had only been gentle when he was pulling her through the smashed window. She had been grateful to him at that moment, thankful merely that someone had arrived to help. She had wanted nothing more than to find a solid piece of ground to sit on She would have even settled for the seat of an unmoving vehicle until emergency personnel arrived.

But there hadn't been another vehicle. And her feet had never touched the ground. The man had slung her over his shoulder like a cave man and carried her off. Moments later, when panic had gripped her and sent a dose of adrenaline coursing through her veins, she'd screamed and pounded against his back.

And the man hadn't said a word. He'd merely reached back with his hand and hit her hard in the head. She had switched from screaming to crying and for the second time of the evening, to pleading. Except this time she hadn't been pleading for some ridiculous boy not to leave her.

She had been begging for her life.

The man had walked to a ramshackle cabin and taken her inside. He had tossed her down on an old, musty couch before pulling a greasy rag from his back pocket and stuffing it ruthlessly into her mouth.

She had tried turning her head, tried fighting, but he was much stronger than she was. He had grabbed the top of her head, his fingers digging painfully into her temples and forehead as he put a strip of heavy tape over the rag.

She had gagged, as much from terror as from the taste of whatever was on the thing stuffed in her mouth. Memories of being six and eating a mud pie rang through skull.

And then he'd spoke, his gruff voice pitiless. “When the time for death comes, you'll welcome it as much as you fear it.”

She'd thrashed at that point, but it hadn't stopped him from taking everything he wanted from her. All the things she'd withheld from Tommy. This man took things she would never have offered anyone, with brutality and disregard, over and over again until there wasn't a part of her body that didn't clamor for the death he promised.

At some point, she'd passed out. She must have, because she had no memory of being carried to the car, no recollection of being stuffed into the tight space of the trunk. It was small and so packed full of junk that she could barely move.

He had bound her hands and she could do little more than wiggle her fingers around. That didn't stop her from trying. Fight or flight, they called it. And she would do either or both the first chance she had. Her nails scraped against something metal– perhaps a tire iron – and hope surged. If she could escape her bonds, she would have a chance to use it as a weapon. And she would. Though she had never really considered herself capable of killing another human being, she would do whatever she had to to get away safely.

The car went over a large bump, jostling her body and sending a jolt of pain sparking throughout her nerves. She sucked another shallow breath in through her nose and willed her mind to function. She wiggled her wrists, could feel the rope as it dug in, felt the warmth of blood as it made its way out and mingled with the rough material.

The muffled sound of a radio reached her and she could hear her captor's muted tones as he belted out a refrain from Sympathy for the Devil. She had always hated that song.

The car slowed, then stopped.

Bethany's heart started pounding out of chest. She had hardly made any progress in freeing herself. She struggled even harder, fighting a wave of dizziness as her breathing became even more erratic.

The car started moving again, drawing stinging tears of relief to her eyes. She fought even harder against the bonds, crying out as they ripped her flesh. Finally, she was able to free a couple of her fingers, then an entire hand. Of course, it was the one attached to her sprained wrist. She ignored the pain shooting through the swollen muscle and rolled over to tug at her other hand.

Desperate, she scratched at her bonds, fingernails digging between the rope and her skin until her other hand popped free, then rolled her head to the side and ripped the tape off of her mouth. She could feel a layer of skin come off with it, but didn't care. She pulled the rag out, sputtering as bile teased the back of her dry throat.

The car slowed again and the smoothness of pavement was replaced by the rocky roughness of a dirt road. She could hear the sound of the sand as it kicked up against the bottom of the car.

She felt around for the tire iron again, grabbing it with both hands and holding it close, as if it were her only hope. She turned this way and that, trying to find a position that would maximize her ability to swing once the trunk door opened. Trying like hell to imagine where the man's face would be, where she could aim that would cause the most damage.

The car stopped.

Bethany waited, heart thundering in her chest, breathing choppy and ineffective. No one came. Other than the initial feel of his weight leaving the vehicle, she couldn't even hear a sound outside the car. Not footsteps, not movement...not anything.

She gripped the tire iron harder, digging deep for the strength she needed for the upcoming battle.

The smell of smoke hit her, disorienting her for a moment. And when panic made its appearance this time, it shoved aside any sense of vengeance. She pounded against the roof of the trunk, slammed the iron against it, kicked it.

Did everything and anything she could think of to open it, all to no avail. Along with smoke there was now heat and the acrid smell of burning leather mingled with smell of her own sweat. Her wounds stung as salt mixed with her cuts, her flesh screamed as loud as she did.

She coughed and sputtered and grabbed at the filthy rag that had been stuffed into her mouth. She covered her nose and mouth and for the barest moment, she was able to draw a semi-deep breath.

It was the last one she would draw before her body succumbed to the flames. They hit her feet first, scorching and blistering her toes and the delicate arch of her foot. She tried pulling them away, even reached down to try and stop the burning, but all she managed to do was catch the rag on fire.

The flesh of her hands sizzled, the smell ripping through the smoke and filling her nose, turning her stomach. She tried huddling into a ball, but there was no room and the flames were suddenly everywhere, dancing around her tauntingly. They nipped at her skin, offering a searing pain that matched the choking screams emanating from her throat.

Her body was becoming weaker, though it had begun to twitch uncontrollably. Darkness filled her vision and she welcomed it. Abandoned all thoughts of being saved and gave her soul over to the blackness that beckoned her.

Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and her life flashed through her brain. Not the smiles and happy times, but images of herself being cruel and vicious, prideful and arrogant. The horrible things she had done in the name of ego shot through her brain at speeds that should have exploded her brain, yet each and every moment ambled through in slow motion.

And Tommy, her precious Tommy, looking at her with disdainful eyes. Until even images of the man she loved joined her body in hell.

Who Needs Hemingway When You Have Holy Cannoli

If I stare at the blank screen long enough, a story should write itself. It doesn’t. Little girl on my lap; she kicks the computer. Scrunching her little toes on top of the laptop and pushing with all her might. She wants to be the center of attention and when she is not, all hell breaks loose. Very similar to an overly endowed woman wearing a too tight tube top. One wrong move and the whole enchilada pops out for all the world to see. So, it is difficult to write a narrative. As soon as an idea for a character or plot-line forms in my head, I want to jot down the skeleton of the story. Unfortunately, sometimes access to a computer is not readily available. Other times, I start typing the backbones of the tale and have to stop to attend to little girl’s needs. By the time I return to the laptop, it’s not what I want to say and I hit the delete button to remove all traces of the concocted narrative.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my life usually. Well, not so much when I have to explain to my monster-in-laws that we were late to Christmas dinner because we had a tire blow on the highway and had to use a tire iron to change the deflated rubber compound wheel while rubber-neckers drive by with their blank faces staring out the window. We arrived late to the holiday repast while being greeted with much ruffling of feathers and exclamations of how, “Dinner was absolutely ruined because we had to wait for you!” I escape to the kitchen for an alcoholic beverage only to see the main course still cooking in the oven. My monster-in-laws have a flair for the dramatic. Especially since the extravagant meal consisted of dry roast beef, boring peas, watery mashed potatoes, and an apple pie that did not rival an “Easy Bake Oven” creation.

There are moments in life when it’s difficult to proceed any further, but you have to continue. My last trip to Europe was filled with tantrums from the moment we arrived at the airport until…Well, until we had our final decent back home. That trip was plagued with bad jujus from the beginning. Driving on the left, hitting parked cars, driving for hours lost trying to find the hotel and that was just the first three hours after the tantrum filled flight. We encountered week long jet lag, bad Irish television, really bad powdered coffee, a bout of food poisoning that infested our “European Vacation” and, of course, there were traffic rotaries. Now, almost a year later, I think back fondly about our trip last fall. I wait in anticipation for our next trans-continental excursion; I even postulated recently, “When are we going back to Europe?”

My life isn’t all that bad. In fact, I live a good life with a wonderful family not including my monster-in-laws and one of my cousins, who seems to blame me for everything. We have enough money to afford to live in a beautiful area surrounded by crystal clear blue water and snow capped mountains. I could complain about the rain, but because of the constant precipitation we have clean air, green foliage, delectable food and fantastic local music. So, I just accept the rain for all those wondrous things, and on the days I can’t there’s always an outlet like http://twitter.com/Holycannoli.

The Attack of the Amaranthus Albus

The boy suddenly awoke with a start and an inrush of breath, sucking the much needed air through blood drenched lips. The ferrous metallic tang on his tongue stunned him to deeper consciousness and alerted him to the intense pain that seemed to be spread throughout his body like an intravenous drug the police had on display at his elementary school a few weeks back. He chuckled at the memory, remembering his friends’ wide-eyed stares at the white poster board with taped-on paraphernalia, the stuff confiscated from “perps” and the like on those very streets he rode his bike back and forth from his home to school. That little laugh had cost him though, and brought forth an anguish he hadn’t realized, jilting his memory forth of what had happened.

What had happened? he asked himself.

The boy then realized he was laying face down on roughened and overly weathered asphalt, his left arm elevated on a curb while he spat out blood and spit into the gutter. His feet were intertwined with what was left of his stupid bicycle: a sky blue rounded frame bike with a banana seat and god-awful streaming tassels spewing forth like two vomiting worms that were the long swooping chopper handlebars. Oh yes, he put on a good and appreciative face when the bike was given to him on his birthday, but inside he almost had rather have done without. By now the boy realized his mother was more interested in relinquishing her driving duties and purchasing a cheap set of wheels for himself so he could ride the two or so miles one-way in order to cart himself to school. Somehow his younger brother ended up with a cool-ass dirt bike, straight black frame with a “normal” seat and no goddamn (…I am heartily sorry for having offended thee…) banana seat. It just wasn’t fair. His parents definitely treated his younger siblings in an enhanced way, but he’d equal things out for them, being the oldest that’s what he always did.

The boy tried to move, but it hurt too much. His calf on his right leg was being pinched by something that felt like a thorn through his multiple knee-patched Catholic uniform slacks. The boy managed to shift to the side with great effort so he could glance back over his twisted body and assess the situation. Sure enough, he saw the culprit, a great big bramble of dried-out prickly tumbleweed that was arranged there intertwined up into his bike spokes jammed one-quarter of the way through. This was enough to jar his slow recovering memory. He had just been riding back from his school via “The Green Jug” (a convenience store/liquor store/lounge) that he was explicitly forbidden from “visiting” by his mother.

“You come straight home with your brother!” his mother would tell him almost on a daily occurrence..

Yeah right, he would think. Where are you mom? Not here, that’s for damn sure.

So the boy and his younger brother would do what they pleased on the way home despite the “on-high” mandate, and would time their stay at “The Green Jug” just enough where it would just seem like they rode super slow from school. They would take turns playing Joust there mostly, killing off the vulture riding knights, escaping the lava hand, and fighting off that giant bird as if life depended on the outcome. They would usually do this until their quarters ran out (that they would find from in-between davenport cushions and car seats) from either filling the machine or purchasing sour apple Jolly Rogers; or of course if his younger brother managed to beat his score sending his fragile pride into a tailspin (but this was only out of sheer luck of course). When the latter would happen, he’d storm out of “The Green Jug” and take off, leaving his gloating little brother to fend for himself.

“The Green Jug,” yeah, that’s where he was riding from; he had just come from there, pedaled up the hill on “Highlander” by weaving endlessly back and forth leaving him exhausted out of his mind since his fucking bike was a stupid one-speed when that blasted broken off husk of a mobile shrub skipped over the dead-end barricade from the local gust of Santa Ana and launched itself like a missile into his rear wheel, effectively knocking out his whole balancing act upon two wheels he had been doing now for five years.

Clang, clang, clang, Clang, CLANG, CLANG!

The boy just managed to drag himself up onto the curb, his legs splayed out into the street as a gold VW Beetle shuddered to a stop in front of his view. The air-cooled engine finally quit its clunking racket and for a second nothing happened. All the boy could see was a thin and graceful arm tapping long painted fingernails against the outside of the passenger-side door through the open window to music what they called “New Wave,” or in other words what the corporate blowhards were making punk safe for the masses to listen to. The door creaked open and a mass of red hair plumed out followed by a face bent with concern, fresh in a youthful sort of way, but much older than the boy was, by at least ten years.

“Hey! Are you okay?” the redhead asked the boy stepping towards him slowly with her hand out.

“Um, it’s sorta hurts right here,” the boy indicated to his abdomen, trying not to stretch to the side or breathe too deep. The redhead bent at the knees to squat by him and studied the boy. Dried blood now flecked his “rosebud” lips, as she thought of the shape of them, and there existed a claw-like abrasion across his left eye extending up to his temple. She looked over at his bike, now a wrenched light-blue frame of metal bent out of shape. She saw the russet tumbleweed there caught in his spokes and came to the conclusion that it must have crashed into his rear wheel taking him at unawares which skid his bike to a halt and sent him flying with the bike not far behind. She also noticed the issuing streamers emanating from the handlebars’ ends blowing nonchalantly in the wind quite regardless of the tragic circumstance, and she thought to herself, Awww, what a cute little boy!

She reached out with her right hand and took a hold of his chin and lifted his eyes to hers. Blue, blue as the swells in the midst of a violent rolling ocean; oh, they made her catch her breath how fathomless they portrayed themselves. He was a keeper, wasn’t he? -And you know what they say. Finders, keepers… she mulled to herself as she has so many times before.

“Hey! What happened to him?” the driver inquired, a short lissome blond dressed in a red miniskirt and a black and white horizontally striped tube top.

“Oh, looks like he had a little accident involving a tumbleweed. Isn’t that right kid?” the redhead said.

“Yeah, guess so,” the boy responded, laying rearward on both of his arms behind his back, propping himself up so he could scrutinize the pair of females.

Actually, they were both dressed in tube tops and miniskirts, a set of attire that his mother abhorred and would always stop to point out how displeased she was, especially women like these. Both women were also thin with longish hair down to their middle backs; the redhead’s was wavy while the blonde’s was straight as a slow moving waterfall; another set of features his mom would rail against, but the boy suspected rather quickly that his mother was basically jealous of any fellow female considered attractive and often would compare herself to them in exasperating fashion. The tube tops seemed to act as a girdle, pushing up on the women’s breasts and exposing a low cut cleavage meant to show off their wares. Their legs also looked lithe and tanned, like they were at Zuma everyday sunning themselves with glistening oil, although the redhead’s skin was a sea of freckles on a cream colored background mostly on her arms and face, with a little smattering of them on her legs and on top of her…

“What are you staring at, angel face?” the redhead purred.

The boy groaned trying to sit up, averting his eyes from the two, not too keen on the easiness of the endearment’s delivery. The boy wanted to like them, for just by watching the both of them and the nearness of the redhead made him feel a bit dizzy, and regardless of his age of eleven years he felt a curiously odd stir at this exchange, although he couldn’t identify what it was.

“Oh nothing!” he blurted.

“Yeah, sure you weren’t,” the redhead countered.

“C’mon, let’s get him in the car,” said the blonde, winking over at the pair seated on the curb, the redhead now with her arm around the boy’s shoulders.

The boy couldn’t tell if the blonde was winking at him or the redhead, but he protested, “No, it’s ok, I’m ok.”

“Oh no, we won’t take no for an answer. You are too bunged up, and plus the way you’re carrying on with your side I’d say you broke a rib sweetie. Now, let me help you and we’ll give you a ride.”

The boy felt like he was in a conundrum of sorts. He had been drilled by his parents never to get into a stranger’s car, but he was injured, and bad enough that he seriously didn’t think he could make it to the payphone at the park about a quarter mile away. Besides, he didn’t even have a dime to allow a public telephone call since he pissed away all his change on candy and arcade games. Anyway, the redhead was already practically conveying him to the gold Bug while the blonde had opened the passenger side door and flipped back the seat. He really could do nothing at all but allow the redhead to lay him in the back, which was of the kind of vinyl that would leave an imprint on your skin like dragon scales if left on it in one position for too long.

“Ha ha ha ha!” the blonde laughed merrily, “Give him a ride,” she repeated with a touch of sarcasm in her voice.

The redhead glimpsed up at the blonde as she rested the boy’s head on the arm rest against the driver’s side wall, her siren form hovering over the boy in a dichotomy of fascination and incommodiousness at her proximity, her hair brushing lightly against his face.

“Oh hush up, Diana,” the redhead told the blonde, who in return only smirked.

“You’re in for it now kid,” the one called Diana said with another laugh, which only increased the boy’s disquiet into a sort of mild alarm, muted by the pain from his recent fall.

“Um, can you take me home now?” the boy requested hopefully.

“Home?” the blonde posed, almost rhetorically as if she were about to proceed into a poetically stated monologue.

The boy started to become a little frantic, and spun his head down to under the driver’s seat and spotted a tire iron there, but before he could even think about grabbing it he flinched from the driver and passenger doors shutting concurrently. While the boy was momentarily distracted by the doors the redhead held his right arm with a firm gentleness, which he was making the grab the iron.

“Now you don’t want to do that, to sweet ol’ me, do you?”

The boy could only shake his head in the negative, but he couldn’t help but wonder what the hell was going to happen next. His heart was really starting to beat like a rabbit trapped and cornered. What the boy thought was really weird is how the one called Diana fired up the engine and screeched out of his accident site leaving his wounded bicycle like a road kill’s carcass while the redhead essentially remained over him failing to return to her previous shotgun position, her countenance shifting into an intense awareness of him.

Soon after the engine roared to life the sounds of synthesizer infused music raved, the bass buffeting the air like little explosions. Then the redhead said something, but he couldn’t hear it.

“What?” the boy asked, tears now forming little beads at the corner of his eyes.

The redhead only smiled, and subsequently crossed both arms in front of her then gripping the bottom rim of her tube top to only stop in what looked like a pause in a movement as if she was going to peel her entire tube top off in an upward direction.

“I said, what’s your name?!”

“J-J-J-Jake,” the boy stammered out.

“Well Jake, you’re officially ‘going for a ride’!”

“Hey Lil’, better save some for me!” the one called Diana shouted back…