Today, I want to make you my 1950’s dream.

I want you in that dress, and in that sweater.

I want the wash of your dark hair falling across your eyes, hazy and unfocused, lost in thought. I come home and catch you sneaking a cigarette out the kitchen window. I watch in silence, the exhaled smoke catching the evening light, as a narrow bar of luminous dust dancing above the table. I clear my throat, and you start.

You look back, throwing the cigarette out the window. You’ve just had a hard day, you explain. You try to palm the pack. You’re scrabbling for excuses when my hand grabs your neck and pulls your face close to mine. Your fear makes me hesitate, just for a moment. You look surprised, in the short moment before my lips are on yours.

Teeth part, tension replaced by anticipation, and I can feel the heat as blood rushes into your cheeks. My tongue snakes between your teeth and meets yours, still smoky, tender. As our lips part, you look into my eyes with understanding. I stare back, the only sound our ragged breath, grinding my desire into you.

I unzip your dress, and then I step back: you look down, breaking eye contact, as the dress pools around your feet. You unfasten your bra, and let it slide down to join the skirt. You look at me asking if that is enough. It’s not enough, dear. It’s never enough. And you push your panties down, one bit at a time, until they hit your knees and slide to the floor. And now in the still, warm air of the kitchen, you are exposed. Vulnerable.

And when I pull you toward me again, there is no hesitation.

Continued from Marblecake

The door to the house is neatly crossed corner to corner with yellow police tape, those five words “Police Line – Do Not Cross” explaining in no uncertain terms “this is where civilization failed”. The door is closed and locked, and the puddle of antifreeze out front is the only clue to what happened. Breaking into a crime scene isn’t a new thing for me, but I don’t like it. Besides the fact that if I get caught Ben may actually shoot me next time he sees me, a crime scene at the home of a guy I’m looking for is rarely good news. It means the guy I’m looking for is in jail, on the run from the cops, or in the morgue. All three of these things make it hard for me to get back to drinking beers in the park.

I decide against going in the front door. It’s too open, somebody is bound to see me, and I’m not particularly good at jimmying locks, so it’s gonna take some time. A sliding door around back, maybe. I listen quietly at the fence for the telltale sounds of a dog. Either Ricky wasn’t a canine lover, or there’s a perfectly trained attack dog waiting to jack me as soon as I get into the yard. I give a glance around, make sure nobody is looking, and vault the short fence into the back yard.

Somebody was a little housekeeper out here. The plants look neat as a pin, all the flowers in neat rows, the trees trimmed, the grass is green and thick as carpet. The fence is narrow pickets painted white, immaculate. The fully-made bed that’s under the tree in the corner is even immaculate looking, except for the few leaves that have fallen down onto the comforter.

Why can’t shit ever be normal?

Nobody with a dog has ever had a yard this nice looking. Nobody who was not batshit insane has ever had a bed on the ground under their tree. Thankfully the police tape PROBABLY means I’m not gonna walk in on a methed out drug mule scraping off his skin and trying to find some fingernail scissors to go trim the yard again, but I pull out my little pistol just in case.

I quietly, carefully step toward the door, the pistol held low. I’m staring through the sliding door, trying to figure out how hard it’s going to be to get inside. No bar in the door. I look over to see if there’s an alarm or anything. I don’t see anything. I don’t see any cameras, there’s no bars on the windows. This isn’t like any distribution hub I’ve ever seen, so apparently Ricky really lives here. I turn an eye back toward that crazy ass bed, in the yard, and imagine the black-and-white man in the pictures coming at me with a soldering iron and a beard of foamed spittle. I steel myself against it, and grab the door handle, to see how hard the lock is going to be to break.

As the door unexpectedly slides, effortlessly back, the hairs rise on the back of my neck. We’re there now, this is disturbing a crime scene. Even with Ben doing everything he can, if I get caught here, I’m going away for a while. No more beers in the park. No more breakfast for dinner. Adrenaline dumps and every nerve is on fire. I step forward onto the carpet, and before I can even get my body into the door, three sharp clacks sound off. I drop to the ground, pointing the gun right, left, right, and trying to figure out what I missed. What have I missed?

No noise. No voices. Nothing. The house is still. A warm, fetid smell roils out of the house, and I start to gag on the smell, backing out quickly to the patio, I kick something with my heel.

I sigh, and reach down to retrieve the tin magazine which fell from my pistol, and shove it hard and fast back up into the gun, smacking it with the butt of my hand angrily. I really should buy a good gun someday.

I breathe the now sweet-seeming air of the back yard, and turn back toward the screen door. I set my jaw, brace myself, and walk into the hot wet smell of something which has suffered long in the misery of decomposition.

A Toast to Two Gay Guys Who Are Getting Married, (Lesbians : we can edit this to work for you too)

(gesture at grooms – how do you pluralize that is it just the s? Or is it like moose where it’s just… groom. A pair of groom. No, that sounds wrong) Would you look at these two faggots? I mean seriously. Wow. Get a room.

Contrary to what the you guys may believe… (pointing around at the family) This (make a circle indicating the groom…ses..) is a common wedding. But because we have angry, bitter people and Fox motherfucking news, this must be a politicized event. And that is a shame. It is a shame that in this day and age, a wedding between two people with such a normal, common, average relationship can be forced to be a big deal. You two met, you had a relationship, you had ups, and downs, and aside from the specific details, your story is exactly like millions and billions of people through history. You are born, you live, you love, you fall, you hurt, and you die. Just like every other marriage going on today, this SHOULD not be a matter of national attention. But it is. You are just like everyone else, everyone in Wichita Kansas and everyone in (insert home state). Everyone in this room, for that matter. And I hope, with the progress we are making as a nation, and as a species, that one day it will NOT be something which newspapers must be written about.

Some smart motherfucker once said (I assume at this point in the wedding I’ll be pretty drunk) ‘We are not so different, you and I’. We’re all made out of mud, as they say, we’re all sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and it should only make sense that we can make that choice, to become husbands, and wives. To say to the world “Together we are better than apart” in ceremony. To share your love with the world. And I hope that we get there, soon. That in every state in the US a men and women can stand together regardless of gender and start making the world brighter with your bliss. That in every country of the world two people in love can touch each other on a street corner without fear or regret. That some day the term faggot can be reclaimed by those children, by all of us, really, for it’s original purpose, to define a small bundle of sticks, suitable for making a fire. And also to be yelled out of the car window on the freeway, at somebody who can’t find the mother fucking gas pedal. Seriously, people. I was behind this woman earlier and when she FINALLY let me pass her she just gave me this look of DISDAIN. I mean, part of it had to do with me screaming at her to eat my cunt but trust me everybody… she was plenty bitchy looking before that. Her dial starts at disdain and it just gets worse from there.

But this isn’t about that aging truckstop whore who couldn’t be bothered to turn off her right turn signal since 1987, this is about (Insert names of the groom..mes.?). May your relationship continue to be so typical. May your love only continue to grow and your lives become richer because of your commitment this day. Now if somebody could just validate my parking I can get back to hitting on the straighter looking chicks and the really girly looking guys (Indicate that one guy, you know the one, with the ‘call me’ sign). Cheers.

Doesn’t have a point of view.
Knows not where he’s going to.
Isn’t he a bit like you…
And me. – Beatles ‘Nowhere Man’

I decided to call up Earl at the pawn shop. He always knows low level players, but the rumor is he moves a little weight himself. The rumor isn’t true, well… it probably isn’t true, but he has held a few items he knew not to sell in the past.

“You carry that cheap little thing in your pants with the clip in and one day you are going to get a bad surprise young man.”

I rearrange my pocket so the butt of the pistol isn’t sticking out again and shrug off my windbreaker. It’s always too hot in here, too close. It smells like fried chicken and old farts. Earl shifts his fat body over the stool he’s been tormenting for the past two decades. I listen to the cheap metal creak and groan, and wait for him to settle. It’s like talking to a four hundred pound cat, if you start anything while he’s still up and around you’re just going to have to repeat it.

Once the creaks stop and there’s a beat where we’re both just waiting to see if the chair collapses, he looks at me appraisingly.

“Well I assume that from your demeanor and the tin courage in your pocket that this is not a social call. If you are planning to rob me you should know that you are on camera and I am not the sort of man who calls the authorities. Plus I know your auntie and she would just be devastated if they had to clean you up out of her basement. We go to church together, you know.”

I arrange the pictures in a fan before dropping them on the counter with a small sigh. When I was twelve, this kind of talk amused me, when i was fifteen, it scared me. Now I just know that he’s a fat blowhard with a gambling problem and a tumbler which is more whiskey than coke sweating it out on a coaster near the register. The sort of melodramatic asshole who won’t even give you a break when you helped him get his niece out of a bad spot.

“Ahhh, it is to be an information gathering meeting. How delightful. How may I be of assistance?”

“Do you know this man?”

“The line goes ‘Do you know this boy?’. That film is certainly no Zhivago but if you are to make cinematic allusions in my shop I would appreciate some effort.”

“Listen, do you know this dude or not?”

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, my dear boy. Of course I know him, he pawns a guitar case or a TV here from time to time.”

Which makes sense. You don’t want to have your stash all in one place, especially when you’re the delivery man. You’ve always got to have a few local places you can go and pick up a little extra if business is booming. Earl isn’t the sort of guy to hold out on that, he knows I’m no police, and I’m not out to steal anything, so he’s probably telling the truth. The whole truth? Probably not.

“You seen him lately?”

“Last Tuesday he was in here picking up a few items he had pawned a month or so ago. I seem to recall he was very much in a hurry, and chose to take all of his belongings back quite suddenly. He loaded it into his caravan and drove off into the sunset without so much as a thank you or a how-do-you-do.”

“So just about a week ago.”

“As it is now Wodin’s Day, yes, that would be accurate.”

I bite back a retort. I can’t give him that satisfaction, otherwise I’ll be in a bad mood all day. I gather up my pictures and stick them back in my pocket. I know that I’m only gonna get one question here, and the favor I’m cashing in is not that big. I have to use it like a chess piece.

“You know how I could get in touch with his boss?”

“That’s funny, Robert. Quite funny.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I’m losing my temper now. The gun won’t work this time, Earl will just pull the trigger on the sawed off under the case and before I can even get this gun out of my pocket, I’ll be trying to plug the buckshot holes in my legs and waiting for the ambulance while he quietly chuckles and drinks his soda.

“Why, his boss was just in here yesterday morning, bright and early, asking how a person could get in touch with you.”

“Wait, wait… What did this guy look like?”

“I am not at liberty to talk about my other business partners, but I will tell you that he told me to give you a message when I saw you next.”

And what was that message?

“‘You have one week.’ He seemed quite insistent. I will not go into details, but if you owe this man something you should pay it. He is not the type to extend credit nor renegotiate terms.”

A drop of sweat drips into my asscrack and I can feel the inverted triangle of sweat slicking my shirt to my shoulders. I start back toward the door, glaring at Earl’s beatific, gigantic baby face as he eyeballs me like a particularly interesting insect. I’m getting nothing out of this one, looks like.

“Is that not the answer you wanted to hear, Robert?” a chuckle and the groan of metal as he gets up to wander over to his drink.

I put my hand on the pushbar and turn around. Distracted.

“Your aunt is a good friend of mine, Robert. She is a good woman and she would be most despondent for some reason if you were to get yourself killed.”

“Thanks, yeah Earl, that’s great, that makes me feel much better.”

I punch the door and I’m halfway out the door when he clears his throat. I pause.

“You should go talk to her.”

“Thanks for the advice, fat man.”

“No, no, I honestly believe you should go talk to her about your situation.”

He must have sensed my anger peaking because I didn’t have to prompt him again.

“Ricky’s wife is in the choir at our church.”

The door is jingling behind me as I turn to head for the house, and I hear Earl say “And now YOU owe ME one, dear boy.”