hollitz

hollitz @ 2006-08-17T09:17:00

2006-08-17T14:15:36Z

I miss all my FFXI friends.
:(

Again, from Locano's journal

2006-06-03T20:26:38Z

These are supposedly 30 questions that no one would EVER think to ask. Answer them, with what comes to mind first, then REPOST.

1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought?
Am I still high?

2. When is the next time you will have sex?
Can't really plan those things unless you have a girlfriend.

3. What's a word that rhymes with "DOOR"?
More

4. Favorite planet?
Earth

5. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your mobile?
Alex

6. What is your favorite ring on your phone?
Vibrate

7. What kinda shirt you have on?
None

8. What do you "label" yourself?
Writer

9. Name the brand of shoes you're currently wearing?
Chuck T's

10. Bright or Dark Room?
Dark

11. What do you think about the person who took this survey before you?
I don't think he plays FFXI anymore

12. If you're alone in a room with two beds, which one do you sleep on?
I'd push them together, then curl up on the side closest to the wall

13. What were you doing at midnight last night?
Drinking I think

14. What did your last text message say that you received on your mobile?
Do you work at the hotel tonight

15. Where is your letter box?
wha

16. What's a word that you say a lot?
Fuck

17.Who told you he/she loved you last?
Don't remember

18. Last furry thing you touched?
hahaha...

19. How many drugs have you done in the last three days?
That's not fair. Nothing wednesday. Lots of alcohol thursday. Some alcohol and a lot of pot last night.

20. How many rolls of film do you need to get developed?
None.

21. Favorite age you have been so far?
21

22. Your worst enemy?
I don't really consider anyone my enemy because I think it's kind of childish, but I'm sure there are some people who consider me one.

23. What is your current desktop picture?
Metric band pic

24. What was the last thing you said to someone?
See ya

25. If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to fly, which would you take?
Fly

26. Do you like someone?
Not really sure. I like me

27. The last song you listened to?
Black hole sun

28. If the last person you spoke to was getting shot at, would you jump in front of the bullet?
Yes

29. If you could punch one person in the face who would it be?
Dunno. A lot of people that i know need to be punched in the face.

30. What is the closest object to your left foot?
Ipod

hollitz @ 2006-05-30T07:33:00

2006-05-30T12:41:20Z

Got this from Locano's journal and it seemed pretty fun.

IF A MOVIE WAS MADE OF YOUR LIFE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?

- - - - - - - Your Life: The Soundtrack - - - - - - - -
So, here's how it works:
Open your music player (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, etc).
Put it on shuffle.
Press play.
For every question type the song that's on.
When you go to a new question press the next button.
Ready? GO!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Opening Credits: Tomorrow (Bad Religion)
Waking Up: Numb (Linkin Park)
Falling in Love: Letting The Cables Sleep (Bush)
Fight scene: Forest (System of a Down)
Breaking up: God Song (Bad Religion)
Getting back together: Raise your Voice (Bad Religion)
Making Love: Hey Johnny, Park! (Foo Fighters)
Life's okay: Song 2 (Blur)
Mental breakdown: Ending Start (Metric)
Driving: Grow Up And Blow Away (Metric)
Flashback: I am a Revanent (The Distillers)
Partying: No Substance (Bad Religion)
Happy dance: You Will Lose Faith (NoFx)
Regretting: The Lifestyle (Metric)
Long night alone: Comedown (Bush)
Death scene: Faith Alone (Bad Religion)
Ending credits: One People, One Struggle (Anti-Flag)

Some of these are pretty damn neat. The love making one is good but the best is the mental breakdown. Listen to that song and tell me you can't hear it playing in someone's head as they go crazy.

hollitz @ 2006-04-22T23:00:00

2006-04-23T04:00:21Z

the silent hill movie is very good
except for the acting

hollitz @ 2006-04-21T08:47:00

2006-04-21T13:47:45Z

*TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF - The Survey*
Name:	Richard Cochnar
Birthplace:	Grand Island, NE
Current Location:	Lincoln, NE
Eye Color:	Brown
Hair Color:	Brown
Height:	5'9?
Right Handed or Left Handed:	Right
Your Heritage:	Italian
The Shoes You Wore Today:	Chuck T's
Your Weakness:	Distractions
Your Fears:	Leading an uneventful life
Your Perfect Pizza:	Pizza from Chicago or Philly
Goal You Would Like To Achieve This Year:	Finish first and second drafts of my novel
Your Most Overused Phrase On an instant messenger:	ttyl
Thoughts First Waking Up:	;<
Your Best Physical Feature:	you'd have to ask someone who isn't me...
Your Bedtime:	whenever
Your Most Missed Memory:	that's poorly phrased
Pepsi or Coke:	Pepsi
MacDonalds or Burger King:	Burger King
Single or Group Dates:	Single
Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea:	Nestea
Chocolate or Vanilla:	Vanilla
Cappuccino or Coffee:	Coffee
Do you Smoke:	nope
Do you Swear:	yap
Do you Sing:	nope
Do you Shower Daily:	yap
Have you Been in Love:	probably
Do you want to go to College:	already there baby
Do you want to get Married:	when i'm much older
Do you belive in yourself:	yeah
Do you get Motion Sickness:	nope
Do you think you are Attractive:	kinda
Are you a Health Freak:	hah
Do you get along with your Parents:	usually
Do you like Thunderstorms:	love em
Do you play an Instrument:	your face
In the past month have you Drank Alcohol:	yes
In the past month have you Smoked:	yes
In the past month have you been on Drugs:	nope
In the past month have you gone on a Date:	nope
In the past month have you gone to a Mall:	yes
In the past month have you eaten a box of Oreos:	nope
In the past month have you eaten Sushi:	yes
In the past month have you been on Stage:	no
In the past month have you been Dumped:	no
In the past month have you gone Skinny Dipping:	no
In the past month have you Stolen Anything:	yes
Ever been Drunk:	yes
Ever been called a Tease:	uh...not that i know of
Ever been Beaten up:	no
Ever Shoplifted:	yes
How do you want to Die:	in a shootout
What do you want to be when you Grow Up:	a writer
What country would you most like to Visit:	Japan
*In a Boy/Girl..*
Favourite Eye Color:	Doesn't matter
Favourite Hair Color:	Doesn't matter
Short or Long Hair:	Doesn't matter
Height:	Shorter than me
Weight:	less than me
Best Clothing Style:	wtf?
Number of Drugs I have taken:	Um...I think i smoked pot once, did some whippets, took adderall not prescribed to me, countless alcohol binges
Number of CDs I own:	probably 100+
Number of Piercings:	0
Number of Tattoos:	0
Number of things in my Past I Regret:	0
CREATE YOUR OWN! - or - GET PAID TO TAKE SURVEYS!

hollitz @ 2006-03-02T23:53:00

2006-03-03T05:54:39Z

Hi all
I've started a new LJ for posting bits of my novel as i work on it. I'm making it friends only, so if you want to give it a read as i go, add hollitz_novel to your friends list.

hollitz @ 2006-02-24T03:05:00

2006-02-24T09:05:46Z

there's really no point in denying any of this, so don't bother trying. everything every online quiz every says is always right about everything. ever.

hollitz @ 2006-02-03T02:29:00

2006-02-03T08:30:50Z

i'm addicted to facebook :(
so i needed a real picture.
so in case you were wondering

hollitz @ 2006-01-23T23:43:00

2006-01-24T05:43:39Z

I’ve been sleeping at the Bowman place a lot recently. There’s some comfort here. Some reassurance in the ambiguity.

I had a friend in high school named Andy. Andy had been a staunch atheist throughout high school, but during our senior year he converted to Christianity. He used the word converted, because Atheism is a religion too, he said. When I asked him what brought about such a drastic change, he told me a story.

“I’ve been in the woods for a long time,” he said, “surrounded by nature. Surrounded by things that we’ve conquered and understand. Knowledge is just another form of conquest. In that forest, I could tell you the name of every species of animal, the reason that everything in that environment functioned the way that it did. I walked through those woods everyday, never seeing anything that I couldn’t explain. Feeling like a god, albeit a prosthetic one. The forest was a cold place, full of familiarity. Then one day I happened upon a cave. I entered it and found a world of things that I had never seen before. Things that my rationalizations couldn’t rationalize. I found magic. Magic in that forest where nothing out of the ordinary every occurred. I was not a god in that cave. Men aren’t supposed to be gods.”

“That’s why you’re a Christian now?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

“And I got a scholarship to a Christian college.”

I think of this as I lay my head on the pillow of a child-murderer, in my own private cave. Where I am not god.

My path is clear, I think, kicking off my shoes. A pilgrimage is in order. A spiritual journey to find my magic. A way to escape the anxiety of understanding. A way to stop the song. There may be hope yet.

And I’ve been in this forest for far too long.

- - -

“How’s your pie,” he asks.

I shrug. “How’s your ice cream…brownie…thing?”

He shrugs.

Most guys I’ve dated have been secretly cheap. They’ll take you out, let your order whatever you want, and then get a cup of coffee for themselves. So they don’t have to spend a lot of money. Then you feel like a bitch for making him pay, so you’ll offer to go Dutch. But he’ll insist on paying, because he’s the man. It’s just going through the motions, there’s no feeling behind it. Like having sex when you’re married. It’s just something that you do. Or don’t do.

Davey bought us both a big dinner. And desert. So at least he’s got that going for him.

“Something on your mind,” he asks, an unusual amount of concern in his voice.

“Yes.”

He nods solemnly and goes back to stabbing at his brownie with a spoon. I’m glad that I didn’t kill him. Sometimes. He’s been taking me out to dinner fairly regularly. I can’t say that I mind. It’s just that sometimes he gets a little English major-y.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Hmm?”

“What’s on your mind,” he says, tapping the side of his temple with his spoon.

I spear my pie, and then revert back to grade school table etiquette; smashing the pie so that it pushes up through the tines, then swirling the fork through the mess.

“No,” I say. “Maybe.”

I place the fork on the table and scoot my plate forward. I bring my hands to my face where they cover it. I take a few deep breaths and then moan lethargically.

“Does maybe mean yes?”

I remove my hands from my face, placing them flat on the table.

“Maybe means maybe.”

He reaches his hand out, taking and cupping one of mine.

“You can tell me.”

And that’s when I realize that the dumb bastard went and fell in love with me. I can’t respond right away.

I stutter and stumble over my words.

“I don’t know,” I start stupidly. “I mean, it feels like,” I pause for a moment, searching for an analogy while he places his other hand on top of mine. “I’m just headed down this road. I know it’s the right street, because I’ve been given directions. So I keep heading down it, even though I think it’s wrong. I see a dead end sign. But I just keep driving down it. I’m not sure what I’m headed towards, but—”

“Toward.”

“Wha—”

“Headed toward. Sorry,” he says removing his hand briefly to play-punch himself in the head and say something about English major pet peeves.

See what I mean?

“Go on,” he says.

“I forgot what I was going to say.”

“Sorry.”

“Have you ever wanted to do something, just because you know that you’re not supposed to?”

“Well sure,” he says. “When I was a kid I went hunting through my parents’ room for my Christmas presents. I found them all and ruined Christmas for myself. It was like pulling back the curtain and finding that the great and powerful Oz is just some dipshit in a control room. Sometimes there’s a reason you’re not supposed to do certain things.”

“Do you want to run away with me?”

“Yes,” he says, almost before the question is out of my mouth.

“Where,” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I say. “Somewhere. Anywhere. Just away.”

He nods slowly. “Yes,” he says again. “What about rent, bills—”

“Stop,” I say. “I’ve tried not to think about that stuff too much. If I do, then I won’t be able to run. All these things we own, these things that are ours…they’re just…shackles, ya know? Things to tie us down. Anchors to keep us in one place.”

Davey’s hand releases mine. One goes for the pen in his pants pocket, the other for a napkin.

“Do you mind if I use that,” he asks.

“What?”

“That line. The anchors thing. Can I use that?”

I want to slap him, instead I say fine.

“Look,” he says. “Don’t worry about your bills and stuff, I’ll take care of them. But I need some info from you first.”

Davey takes another napkin from the holder and we start planning the logistics of our escape.

- - -

We had no destination in mind when we started out, and we still don’t. There’s no need to plan a trip like this. There are caves in every forest. You can just pick a town, ask around—usually at a new age store (or a head shop)—and spend the night in a haunted house. Sometimes you’ll even happen upon a town big enough to call itself a city. In said city some local kook may have written and published a compilation of the town’s ghost stories. These books are usually published by a university press, and after reading them, it’s easy to see why. Despite the shit-quality of the writing, the inconceivable metaphors, the generic dialogue, within this literary mess, valuable information lies.

“Don’t say anything,” Davey says. Pepper is sleeping in the backseat, Davey is riding shotgun and holding my hand. We’ve been driving all night. The sun is starting to show over the horizon. “If you say anything, you might ruin it.”

He doesn’t mean for “you” to refer to me, he’s just using it generally. I think. Or maybe he thinks that I’m not refined or intelligent enough to produce anything beautiful. Truth is, the sunrise is overwhelmingly perfect. If I did say anything, I would ruin it.

We drive on, toward whichever town we end up in, the sun burning the sky ahead of us, the darkness wrapping its silky arms around everything that used to tie us down.

part 2

2006-01-24T05:43:05Z

In reality, you acquire information through your senses. In dreams you just know things. The dead girls are in the walls. Little dead girls in the walls. Scratching and crying. Doomed to an eternity of being in a dark place. Doomed to scratch and cry and be afraid.

I’m walking through the upstairs hallway and I can hear them scratching and crying, and I can hear their fingernails snapping off. Little divots appear in the wall as they start to scratch through. Although I’ve yet to hear Pepper’s voice, I hear her scream from behind the wall.

The divots are growing into gashes and I start to catch glimpses of rotting blue flesh and hands moving up and down fiercely. A large piece of the wall gives way and Pepper falls on the ground to my right. I help her to her feet and try to stop her crying. The wall starts caving in more places, revealing only scratching blue hands and a midnight void.

“They wanted to keep me forever,” Pepper cries.

The girls start screeching as I hear heavy footsteps moving in the void. Then comes a swish of air and a dull wet thump as whatever being swung finds its home. These sounds repeat. After each swing one less child screeches. The cries diminish until the only sound left is Pepper whimpering at my side.

I try to comfort her as I guide her into the bedroom. A crucifix is waiting for her above the bed.

“Hold out your arms,” I tell her in a tone that I can only describe as motherly. The kind of tone that would spit on its hand to wipe dirt off of its child’s face. It’s a sound my mouth has never made before. She obeys, still sobbing lightly. I place my hands on her waist and lift her to the waiting wooden planks.

A cry goes up from the walls as the chorus of little dead angels start scratching again.

Tears form in my eyes and roll down my cheeks, because I know that this is the closest thing to divinity that I will ever witness. The cries turn into a series of falsetto Ahhs that sound more like song than fear.

“It’s ok,” I say as I press Pepper to the cross. “It’s ok.”

When I wake up, I feel a pressure on my left breast. Slowly the rest of my body wakes and I feel the same pressure on my left leg. The candle has burned out so I let my eyes acclimate themselves to the darkness, being careful not to move.

Pepper is laying beside me, her leg draped over mine, her head resting on my chest. I gently move my arm and wrap it around her.

“It’s ok,” I whisper.

- - -

I get back to my apartment around noon the next day. When I returned Pepper, I told Susie that we had simply fallen asleep at my place watching a movie. I knew that Pepper would vouch for me, not because she said she would, but because she nodded when I ran the story by her.

Susie said that the night crew hadn’t even noticed that she was missing.

“That’s the sad thing,” Susie had said. “They end up here because no one cares about them, and while they’re here no one cares enough about them to even realize that they are gone.”

I stop at the mailboxes before I head up to my apartment. As I stick my key in the lock, I hear, “Whether they be bills or advertisements, the only things you will find in there are requests for your money.”

I know its Davey because he is a pompous English major who pronounces advertisements like this:

Ad-ver-tis-ments. Instead of ad-ver-ties-mints.

Before I dropped out of college, Davey and I had shared a handful of classes. He was the straight-C student, and I was the one that rarely showed up. When I did, Davey hounded me. Always commenting on how easy the assignments that I had never even attempted had been.

“Davey,” I say.

“Yes?”

“No, that was a greeting.”

“Well then it wasn’t a very good one.”

I grit my teeth and open my mailbox. “What do you want Davey?”

“Company,” Davey says leaning against the mailboxes, “on Thursday night. Some of the higher-ups in the department are having a party for one of the grad students. I need some recommendations for grad school myself, so I figured that I should go mingle.”

“And you can’t do that by yourself?”

“I could.”

“Then why don’t you?” I remove the fliers and bills from the mailbox. I don’t need to look up to know that he is staring at me. Just staring. It’s this thing that he does when he can’t figure out what to say.

“Fine,” I say, giving up.

“Good,” he says, “I’ll meet you there at around eight.” He gives me the directions.

“You aren’t even going to pick me up?”

“Should I?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I live two buildings away from you.”

He stares again.

I avert my eyes, focusing on the mail.

“Ah-ha,” I say, holding up an envelope. “Birthday card. Guess you aren’t always right.”

“Sure I am,” he says and walks away waving.

He’ll be my first, I think, as I lock the mailbox and begin ripping open the long overdue birthday card from some distant uncle.

- - -

I’ve followed him for a little over two hours now. I’ve had my breath held for most of it. There’s a knife in my coat pocket. My weapon of choice. It’s nice and romantic and personal. Unlike a gun.

I’ve seen him do things that make me not want to kill him. I’ve seen him give money and conversation to a homeless man. I’ve seen him help a little boy catch his runaway puppy. I’ve seen him go into a church to pray. And he hasn’t seen me.

It’s dark now, and all of his anti-sins have faded with the light. I want to kill him again because I need to break the chain. It’s nothing personal, really. Just business as usual. I need to close my eyes and relax without hearing the incessant babble song playing in my head; telling my past, predicting my future.

I watch his feet, from across the street, and match my steps with his. I hold my breath. I’m always holding my breath.

Downtown is fading back into a run-down residential area as I cross the street. Now I’m behind him and my heart is racing. I reach into my pocket and touch the handle of the knife, to confirm its presence. Yes, this time it is for real. No more finger-fucking around.

I close the distance between us, silently until I can hear him breathing.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

And then my body takes over. It does what I’ve been training it to do. My hand slides out of my pocket and soundlessly shoots to his throat. He’s heard me now and starts to turn his head. But that’s alright. Correction, it would be alright if the knife wasn’t still in my pocket. It’s over. Just like I knew it would be. Because I know myself too well. And I know that I could never kill someone.

I let my hand fall to his shoulder instead, tapping it. He turns and greets me and asks me what I’m doing.

I lie, poorly. Then I say that I’m glad I ran into him. I ask him what I’m supposed to wear tomorrow night.

He says that he doesn’t care.

- - -

“I was right,” he says as I get into his car. There’s discarded burger wrappers and empty cups everywhere.

“About?”

“The thing I said about the mail.”

“How so,” I ask, closing the door and clearing a space for my feet amongst the garbage on the floor.

“Well,” I said it was all just requests for your money. Birthday cards are no different. They send you money and a card assuming that in three or six or eight months you’ll send them the same thing back. Maybe with more money.”

I laugh, not because what he said was clever or even intelligent, but because I can picture him at home straining over how to make himself right. For two days.

The party is ridiculously uncomfortable. The last place any college drop-out would want to be is at a party packed with pretentious English majors. That alliteration is there only because I know that those snooty bastards wouldn’t like it. Too many P-sounds. Fuck you.

Davey had his hand on my waist as we entered. After telling everyone that I was his date, he promptly left me to fend for myself while he mingled with the big-wigs. Before we came in, he told me that sometime during the evening I had to kiss him. It didn’t have to be anything big, a peck on the cheek would do. I asked why but he wouldn’t say anything more than I owed it to him.

“How do you figure?”

“I’m getting you free food.”

“You’re not paying for it.”

“Neither are you. You’re getting food via me. What’s it matter if I pay for it or not?”

“You’re so romantic.”

“That’s why you love me.”

I should have killed him last night.

I get up from the couch loaded with undergrads and walk over to a gathering of professors where I plant a kiss on Davey’s cheek. Contract fulfilled.

“What was that for,” he asks, hinting that he wants me to make some starry-eyed lovesick reply.

Instead, I say, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

Now he and his peers are as uncomfortable as I am.

In the bathroom, I laugh until I cry, then I flush the toilet three times, hoping that it’s loud enough for someone to hear and comment on.

I return to my spot on the couch. A boy with long hair asks that I’m majoring in.

“Dropping out,” I reply. “I got my degree in it last year.”

- - -

A week after taking Pepper out for the first time, I take her out again. Susie shakes her head, disappointed, telling me again that I shouldn’t get attached.

“Unless I plan on adopting her,” I say.

Susie chuckles. “No one would ever give you a kid. You can’t even hold a job.”

There’s no reason for me to be taking Pepper out today. My assassination career is over. But I take her to the old Bowman place anyway.

I park two blocks away so I don’t draw attention to myself. Technically, I’ve been trespassing.

“Why does that house smell so bad,” Pepper asks. I don’t reply right away because I’m somewhat shocked. This is the first time I’ve heard her speak.

“Well,” I start, but don’t know how to finish. “You have a pretty voice, sweetie.”

“Thank you.”

“One of the boys said that the house is haunted. Do you believe in ghosts?” She asks this with a curiosity that only a child could have.

“I don’t know. Do you?”

She shrugs. “He said that there’s dead girls in the basement. And that they stink.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“He said that all girls stink. Even the living ones.”

“Fuck him.”

I almost apologize for forgetting that you’re not supposed to say fuck in front of kids, but Pepper is smiling. I smile back at her.

“What are you grinning about,” I ask playfully.

“You said a bad word.”

“There’s nothing bad about words, Pepper. They mean different things to different people. People make words bad.”

She looks up at me with an expression somewhere between comprehension and confusion.

“Shit,” I say. “Nevermind.”

She smiles again.

We climb in through the broken kitchen window. Pepper’s eyes wander over to the basement door, but her body moves where I lead it. To the living room.

“Cover your nose.” I say as I sit on the couch, forcing the dust into the air. She sits on the floor in front of me. “You wanna play a game,” I ask.

She shrugs.

“Well I do. But not Hide and Seek. You’re too good at that.”

“Better than the boys?”

“Much.”

“What should we play?”

“How about Truth or Dare?”

Pepper asks how to play and I explain.

“What happens if you lie,” she asks.

“Nothing,” I say. “People believe it. Sometimes base their lives around it. But I’ll know if you are lying.”

“How?”

“I’ve been lied to all my life. I know how to spot a lie.”

“How?”

“Well…do you have a tickle spot?” I’m not sure why I phrase it like that. I’ve only used those words in the past when referring to a spot on my mother’s Maltese. If you tickled the little thing there, its leg would go nuts.

She shakes her head no.

“Liar,” I say with a smirk. My assassin skills take over as I expertly lunge at her and tickle her stomach. She breaks into a fit of laughter and swats at my arms. I stop when I see tears on her face.

“How did you know,” she asks, now lying on the dirty floor.

“When you lie, your tickle spot glows,” I say pointing at her stomach.

“It does,” she asks, intrigued.

I nod. “But only I can see it.”

“Are you a witch,” she asks innocently.

“That’s not how you play the game.”

She catches my drift after a few seconds.

“Truth or Dare?”

“Truth.”

“Are you a witch?”

I answer and then ask her. Truth or Dare?

“Dare.”

And I have to stop and think, because I only remember how to play this game at drunken parties.

“I dare you to give me a hug.”

“Why?”

“Because I need a hug.”

“That’s a shitty dare.”

I laugh, surprised as she hops to her feet and wraps her little arms around me.

“Truth or Dare,” she asks, releasing me.

“Truth,” I say.

“Have you ever kissed a boy?”

I nod and she makes a disgusted face, sticking out her tongue.

“Gross,” she says.

“Not always,” I say. “Truth or Dare?”

“Dare.”

“Hmm. I dare—”

“Dare me to go into the basement.”

Pepper seems to notice the look of concern that washes over my face. But why should I be concerned. I’m not her fucking mother.

“Ok,” I say. “I dare you to go into the basement.”

She smiles and is in the kitchen and down the stairs in a flash. I don’t leave the couch. She can’t last long down there. The smell is horrid. So I sit and wait. And think. And worry. Even thought I shouldn’t. Because I’m not her fucking mother.

And that phrase catches in my head, like a kite in the power lines. And I can’t get it out. Pepper is six. It’s been about six years since I played pop the condom at the health center. I think of Davey saying that I owed him a kiss because I got free food. Via his actions. Even if he didn’t pay for it.

What’s the difference?

My lips tremble. I reach my hand up to steady them.

What’s the difference?

Oh fuck, I think. Oh fuck.

My worry gets the best of my after a few minutes. I walk to the kitchen. She’s left the basement door open and the smell is starting to drift up.

“Pepper,” I call. She doesn’t answer. I pinch my nose and take a step down. The rotting wood creaks loudly. The basement is dimly lit by various windows, all of which reveal half dirt and half sky.

Ahead of me is a washing machine and a dryer. To my left is a concrete wall. There’s a large gap of it missing. A makeshift doorway into another room.

I peek my head in. Pepper is sitting on the dirt floor, he eyes closed, humming to herself.

“Pepper,” I say.

She looks up, startled.

“The dare is over,” I say. “Come back upstairs.”

She stands, dusts herself off, and follows me. I reseat myself on the couch. She assumes her former position.

“What were you doing down there?”

“That’s not how you play the game,” she says. “Besides, it’s my turn anyway. Truth or Dare?”

“Truth.”

“Have you ever gotten naked with a boy?”

“Yes,” I say. The worry train leaves the station again. Why does she keep asking sexual questions? Should she be thinking about that kind of stuff at her age?

“Gross,” she says again. “Susie says that’s a bad thing to do.”

“Susie is a liar,” I say. “Truth or Dare?”

“Truth.”

“What were you doing in the basement?”

She breaks eye contact. “One of the boys said that there were dead girls down there. He also said that we should all be dead. All of us at Saint Mary’s. He said we should all be dead because no one wants us.”

“That little shit,” I almost scream. Who the fuck does he think he is telling my daughter things like that? My eyes widen in recognition of this thought. My daughter. The words float up from the tree and snag in the power lines.

“Truth or Dare,” Pepper asks.

“Truth.”

“Do you like me?”

“Of course I do, sweetie,” I say. My eyes water up. “Of course I do.” I stretch my arms out and she moves toward me. I hug her as hard as I can, and she lets me.

“Truth or Dare,” I ask. She says truth. “Do you like me?” She nods. “Truth or Dare,” I ask again. Truth. “Do you like it at Saint Mary’s?” She shakes her head. “Truth or Dare?” She doesn’t bother responding this time. “Do you want to live with me?” She puts her face against my chest, closes her eyes and nods. “Truth or Dare?” She sits in my lap and lets me hold her tightly. She places her hand on my neck and traces the letter “T” across my throat with her finger. “Do you want to run away with me?”

She nods.

“We can’t tonight,” I say. “But soon.”

She nods.

“Tell me a story,” she says drowsily.

I tell her a story about a girl named Anna Banana, who wants nothing more than to do all of the things that she isn’t supposed to want to do.

- - -

That night I have a dream. I’m in the basement of Bowman’s place, and I hear the chorus start up again. I move to the hole in the wall. The eleven little blue dead girls are in a ring around Pepper. Singing at her. As they sing she rises off of the ground and floats toward a crucifix on the wall.

“Mommy,” she says. “Help me.”

I move toward her.

“No,” one of the little dead girls says. “She belongs here with us.”

story

2006-01-24T05:40:41Z

first bit of a story that i'm working on. apparently the post is too large, so it will come in two parts. fuckedy-balls LJ and your size limits

The Banana Song

By: Richard Cochnar

When I was a little girl, the other children used to call me Anna Banana, because my name is Anna, and I have blond hair. And because of that stupid little song. The Banana Song. You know the one, sing it with me now. The one where you take someone’s name and add gibberish prefixes to it in a little see-saw chant. Anna-Anna-Bo-Banna-Banana-Fanna-Fo-Fanna-Me-My-Mo-Manna, Anna. Yeah that’s the one. And that was me. Little Anna Banana.

Here’s me now, cursed with the same child-like face. Boys will never say I’m hot, just cute. She’s got a cute face. Fuck. That’s all guys want to do with cute girls. Fuck.

My hair is still blonde, but with strawberry red streaks. If we were all still children, the others would call me Anna Strawberry Banana. I like my way better. Strawberry Ban-Anna. It’s not much different, just a little more cynical. And a little more refined. A little more reduced. You see how I’ve combined the words Anna and Banana? Clever, no? Oh, a little more clever too.

- - -

Oh Anna, Anna Banana. Where have you gone? Well, she died around the same time that Santa and Jesus did.

- - -

Somewhere along the line, you realize that everything you’ve ever been told was a lie. Santa Claus isn’t real. Hard work rarely pays off. Cheaters win. People die young. Drugs aren’t that bad. Christopher Columbus was an asshole. These are the things that were not told to little Anna Banana.

She had to find out these things for herself. She had to find out that, for reasons beyond her, the people that she trusted had all lied.

Curiosity killed the cat. Lies killed little Anna.

- - -

Anna-Anna-Bo-Banna-Banana-Fanna-Fo-Fanna-Me-My-Mo-Manna, Anna. That song. You start with Anna, then you butcher it. You run it through the ringers. You tack on a bunch of shit that doesn’t belong there. And eventually, you end up at the same place you started. Right back at Anna. Everyone lied to little Anna because everyone lied to them. All those lies, all that shit that didn’t belong. It was tacked on to all of them. So they all tacked it on to little Anna. And in the end, Anna, old Anna Banana, she’ll tack that shit on to her kids.

Unless Anna can break the chain. Maybe she can end that song at Manna.

- - -

Who am I kidding? I’ve already perpetuated that chain, that song. I’ve lied to you already. And you trusted me. I’m sorry. I’ll never have kids. The song has stopped at Manna. But it’s not like I had a choice in the matter.

When a disease only affects one percent of women, you grow up believing that you won’t be part of that one percent. I was.

Forty. That’s the about the time you are supposed to go through menopause. But one percent of women go through it early. It’s called Premature Ovarian Failure, and at least I can blame it for my minimal sex drive. My vagina is like a distant aunt that remembers my birthday once every few years and sends a card and a letter. But no money or gift.

I’m sorry I lied to you.

- - -

Life sucks when you get to know yourself. Somewhere around the Fanna part of the song. You know yourself so well that even when you are day-dreaming, you know that there’s no way you would ever behave like that. If someone got in your face, started a fight, you would just turn away. You wouldn’t fight back. You’re still just a little kid on the playground letting the others tease you by rhyming your name with a fruit. Not even a good fruit. A shitty old banana.

If I had to pick a fruit for myself, it wouldn’t be one that tasted like chalk. You know how when things are artificially banana flavored, the artificial stuff tastes better than a real banana? If I had to pick a fruit for myself, I’d be one that tasted better naturally.

- - -

In her mind, Strawberry Ban-Anna is a little girl again. On the playground, sitting at the base of the monkey bars, watching the boys play touch football with some stuffed pillow-thing that is far too light to be a football. But that doesn’t stop them. Nor does a basic misunderstanding of the game’s rules. And the word “touch” does not deter them from tackling each other.

The girls are sitting around her. She isn’t unpopular, the other girls talk to her. But when they do they always call her that name. And they stretch it out.

“Hey Anna. Aaaaaaaaaaana Banaaaaaaaaaana.”

In her mind little Anna Banana is playing with a doll and the other little girls are sitting in a semi-circle around her. In her mind, Anna stands and throws the doll to the ground. She pulls a knife from her back pocket and stabs the doll with it. Over and over and over. And it bleeds. And the little girls scream. And Anna gets her hands dirty. And Anna runs her bloody hands through her hair, leaving red streaks. And Anna grows up.

And Strawberry Ban-Anna snaps out of her day dream, wondering what it would feel like to kill someone.

- - -

I used to be obsessed with trying to bring life into the world. Right around the time that I lost the ability to. In those days, I worked as a receptionist at the health center of my university. This was before I flunked out. When I was bored, I would take a syringe to the condoms that we sold for ten cents out of a little candy dish at the front desk.

College students are poor. And they love to fuck. But they don’t like to have babies.

I also used to participate in a lot of studies for experimental drugs. That was a pretty plush gig. My first time at one, I made the mistake of actually taking the pills they gave me. You know the side-effects they list at the end of the commercials? I was the reason they found out about some of those. And it felt like shit. I was vomiting for a week straight. At least I dropped a few pounds.

I found out later that the drug had been released as a diet pill.

After that first time, I just started tonguing the pills. That’s when you hide the pull under your tongue. This takes some getting used to, since half the time they just dissolve under there anyway. You have to train your mouth not to salivate, which is what it’s been doing since you were born. I didn’t have the skill for that, so I started palming them instead. That’s when you hide the pill in the palm of your hand instead of under your tongue. You’d be surprised how lax the researchers are about making sure you take the pills.

The good studies have you pent up in a building for a few days. You just kind of laze around there while they watch you. If you seem unchanged by the drug, they don’t really care. Because maybe you got the placebo, or maybe you are the one out of ten that the product doesn’t work for. Maybe your irregular periods, hot flashes, night sweats, irritability, and dry pussy are fucking everything up.

That’s what I became, instead of the Side-Effects-May-Include girl. I was the one out of ten that remained unchanged by modern science. It was a more glamorous position to be in. Like the girl who can’t be hypnotized or something. Who cares if I cheated?

I took all of the pills that I didn’t ingest. I sold some of them to the stupid kids at the fast food job that I kept for two weeks, claiming that they were X. Instead of diarrhea pills.

I saved the little white ones. I kept them with me in my pocket. People that live in dorms are far too trusting. I used to walk the girls’ floors and keep my eyes peeled for hand-made posters advertising the dates and times of floor meetings. At these meetings, some of the girls left their doors unlocked, while they were lectured about the dangers of leaving their doors unlocked. Laptops are stolen every year, ya know?

I wasn’t out to steal laptops. I was out to switch birth control pills with experimental drugs. Sometimes just placebos.

The girls who didn’t lock their doors, maybe they’d wake up having to puke because they now held the glorious position of Side-Effects-May-Include girl. Or maybe they got the sugar pulls and maybe they were getting sick in the morning for other reasons.

Maybe my antics brought some life into this world, or maybe they didn’t. I couldn’t help but feel a swelling of pride when it was announced the next year that birthrate among college-level girls had increased by fifteen percent. Maybe I did that. Or maybe people just fucked more.

- - -

I know there are things that I am not supposed to want, just like there are things that I am supposed to want. And believe.

I’m supposed to want to grow up, meet a man, get married, have kids. I’m supposed to enjoy that. These days, other women want me to go out, work, and have a successful career. I’m not supposed to want to stay at home and raise my children. Even if I spent nine months making the fucking things. If I want that, then I am a weak woman. I don’t want kids anymore, but if I did, I’d want to stay home and raise them.

I’m supposed to go to school and pursue higher education, and care about classes that I have no interest in. I’m supposed to get a degree which will only matter because it’s a degree. I’m not supposed to flunk out of college. Oops.

I’m supposed to be content as a cog in a machine. The girl who serves the fries to the guy who bangs the girl who takes the notes for the guy who writes the speeches for the guy that controls the world. I mean runs the country.

I’m not supposed to break the law. No speeding. No jaywalking. No premeditated murder. I’m not supposed to do these things and I’m certainly not supposed to want to do them. Christopher Columbus is also a hero. And a fat man in a red suit climbs down my chimney that I don’t have once a year and brings me presents on someone else’s birthday. My teachers and parents know what they are talking about.

You are not supposed to want to kill someone. Even though we are overpopulated and the city orphanages are crowded with children that no one wants. And children birthed by college level girls increased fifteen percent a few years back.

Somewhere along the line, you realize that everything you’ve ever been told is a lie.

- - -

Life sucks when you get to know yourself too well. When you know what you are going to do, even if it contradicts what you say you are going to do. If a store pisses you off, you’ll swear to never shop there again, even though you know you are going to shop there again.

You know that when you borrow money from your parents because you can’t hold a job and you swear that you’re going to pay them back, that you are never going to pay them back.

You try to break out of the chain, of the song. But you know before you try that you aren’t going to try too hard. Because the chain is comfortable, and approved of, and right, and warm, and safe. But you’ll try because you know yourself too well, and you know that you need to pacify yourself by trying. Because then it’s not your fault if you die feeling unaccomplished.

Because, hey, you tried.

But maybe I can try harder. Maybe the little girl with the strawberry ban-anna hair can triumph.

Maybe it’s all as simple as killing someone.

- - -

Sometimes I think about joining the Army, usually after watching a war flick. But that seems like too much shit to go through just on the off chance that I may get to shoot someone someday.

I think about getting in car accidents a lot. Like when I’m following someone, I’ll just get this urge, or this itch, to just floor it and ram right the fuck into them. Or I’ll be sitting at a traffic light, and I’ll get the itch to slam on the gas and push whoever is in front of me into the intersection. While traffic is coming. Of course.

On milder days, I content myself with fantasies of smashing into the concrete barrier or fire hydrant or street sign or whatever is in front of me when I park. I just want to run into them. Just hit them. I wouldn’t even have to do it that hard.

- - -

The absolute worst thing you that you can ever do to someone is to tell them the truth. Because the truth isn’t always pretty and we’re supposed to like pretty things. Telling the truth is much worse than killing someone. Dying happy is much better than living with pain. Dying is for quitters, though, and I’m supposed to think that quitters never win.

- - -

I hold my breath as I carefully move across the creaky floorboards. When they make a sound, I freeze for a good three to four minutes, so that he’ll think it’s just the house settling. Then I move again, favoring the shadows cast by the setting sun. I can hear his ragged breathing in the closet between the living room and the first floor bedroom. Maybe I’ll wait until it’s dark. He’ll probably come out by then. He’s more scared than most of them are.

I can wait.

I crouch down in the corner of the living room, caddy-corner from the closet door. I rhythmically tense and relax my calves, so that when I make my move I won’t pull anything. Or trip.

He comes out before darkness falls. He moves to the middle of the room. Sniveling, breathing hard, the snot bubble formed under his nose pulsing with each labored breath. He spins in place, his eyes desperately searching for me.

Little boys are always so brave.

“Anna,” he asks quietly, his voice cracking.

When his back is turned to me, I spring forward. My footfalls are light, and he doesn’t hear me approach. I match my pace with his breathing.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Then my hand is clamped down over his mouth.

“Don’t scream,” I whisper in his ear, my lips so close that they touch and drag along the lobe.

I run my index finger across his throat.

“Don’t cry.”

Then I let him go. And he doesn’t listen. A silent tear falls from his eye. Boys are always so brave. I crouch down.

“We still have time for me to hide before you have to go back,” I say. “If you want.”

He shakes his head.

“I want to go back,” he says.

- - -

I started doing this about two months ago. It’s just practice.

I get the kids from Saint Mary’s Orphanage. I have a friend that works there. Normally they wouldn’t let any person just wander in and take kids out for a day. There’s pedophiles out there, ya know? But I’m trustworthy. I just pretend to kill them. I don’t make them take their clothes off.

Besides, if anyone actually cared about these kids, they wouldn’t be there in the first place.

I take a different one each week. The boys are all the same. They would rather leave their hiding spots and die than be alone.

Not that I killed them or anything, I was just trying to be poetic and poignant. Or something.

Why am I doing this? Like I said its practice. Sneaking up on people can be hard if you aren’t good at it. So I got good at it.

I don’t have a house of my own, and it’s really hard to play hide and seek in an apartment, so I’ve been using the place on 32^nd and Elm.

- - -

“This is Pepper,” Susie says. Susie is my connection at Saint Mary’s. Pepper is today’s practice.

I go down on my knees so I can be eye level with her.

“Hello, Pepper,” I say. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Pepper doesn’t respond. She just stares at me. I can’t tell if she is being rude or just shy.

“My name is Anna,” I say, “but you can call me Anna Banana.”

This is the part where the boys usually smile deviously, as if they have learned a secret that they just can’t wait to blab. They call me Anna Banana until we arrive at our destination. Pepper does none of these things.

“She’s a little shy,” Susie says.

“Why don’t you go wait in the car, sweetie,” I say standing and ruffling her hair. She doesn’t hesitate; she’s out of Saint Mary’s and in the car even before I can wonder if she’ll listen to me.

“At least she’s obedient,” I say.

“So are abused dogs,” Susie says.

I turn to leave when I feel Susie’s hand on my shoulder. The fingers dig down into my skin, letting me know that the words to come are serious and I should not take them as lightly as I probably will.

“Be careful with her,” Susie says. “She’s been through a lot.”

“Like?”

“She came in here right from the hospital. The people who adopted her let her know on a daily basis that she was not theirs. When she was four, the family had to move and they left her on our doorstep.”

“Just like a dog.”

Susie nods again. “She’s been here for the past two years. And just like with the pound, the longer they are here, the less the people want them. Everyone wants the puppies and kitties and no one wants the six year old with emotional problems. She’s never been to school; she spends almost all of her time in front of the TV.”

“She’s been getting dumped since the day she was born,” I say.

Susie nods again. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, don’t get attached to her. And don’t let her get attached to you. Unless you plan on adopting her.”

I chuckle and then head out to the car. Pepper is sitting in the passenger’s seat, buckled up, and staring straight ahead.

- - -

The house on 32^nd and Elm has history. Two years ago, when Pepper was getting dumped by her family for the second time and when I was failing three of my four classes, a guy named Ed Bowman abducted eleven little girls from all over the city and killed them in his house. He did it because in elementary school there was a clique of eleven girls who made fun of him and called him gay.

The new little girl who looked most like the ringleader of the old little girls was found crucified above his bed on damp two-by-fours.

The house is rumored to be haunted, because apparently when anyone dies anywhere that isn’t a hospital, they have to haunt it.

People that go in swear that they can hear little girls crying in the basement where he kept most of them. They even had a group of paranormal experts go into the house with a video crew last year to investigate the claims. They told all of us that they didn’t find anything, but later that year they televised it as part of a ghost show on some cable network.

I don’t know if I believe the myth, because I don’t know if I’m supposed to or not. There’s no right and wrong when it comes to ghosts. There’s no general consensus. You either believe, or you don’t.

The neutrality of the subject, and the house, bring me an indescribable form of comfort.

- - -

I was supposed to have Pepper back at Saint Mary’s two hours ago. But I can’t find her. She hasn’t popped out crying. I haven’t checked the basement yet, because no one ever goes into the basement. But maybe Pepper doesn’t know the rules.

I open the paint-peeled door and I know why no one goes down there. It’s not the fear, it’s the smell. I got my ears gauged a few years ago, because that’s what people like me were supposed to do. I don’t really remember what it felt like. I was illegally drunk almost everyday during that time. I do remember the smell, because it never leaves. It smells like ear wax, but fifty times worse and fifty times more…bodily. It’s really the bacteria that smells and it’s like that with any piercing. Gauged ones are the worst though.

The odor in the basement is like one big gauge earring in one big rotting ear. My hand goes to my mouth and I have to fight back the urge to vomit.

If Pepper is down there, then she can stay down there, I think as I shut the door. I walk through the house, yelling to Pepper, telling her to come out. She has won.

The candles that I have lit around the first floor are starting to burn low and I don’t know how much time I’ll have left with their light. I seat myself in the living room and close my eyes and listen. Wherever Pepper is, she is quiet. I pick the candle off of the coffee table and take it with me, using as in impromptu flashlight.

I ascend the stairs and begin my search anew on the second floor. I’ve only been up here a few times.

“Pepper,” I shout, trying to keep the panic out of my voice, “the game’s over. Come on out, I have to get you back home.” I should have chosen my words better. Saint Mary’s is probably anything but home to Pepper.

My search ends in Ed’s bedroom. The smell here is rank, but it’s much more bearable than the basement. All of Ed’s furniture is still here, caked with dust. I set the candle on a dresser and pull a second out of my purse. I light it and set it on the nightstand, next to the bed, which is, remarkably, still made. The wall above the headboard is stained brown with what could be blood or mold. I set my purse on the nightstand; far enough away from the burning candle, and then let myself fall onto the bed. A cloud of dust puffs up and I start coughing uncontrollably. I’ve been up since dawn, and I’m tired, and my eyes are watering, and my throat hurts. Other than that, I’m comfortable here. More comfortable than I am in my own apartment, where I pay four hundred dollars a month to be comfortable.

“Pepper,” I shout. “I’ll be in the bedroom if you need me.” As if in reply, I hear several floorboards squeak downstairs. I’m sure she’s heard me. This house isn’t that big.

Pepper is my first failure. The one that got away. Regardless, my finger has cut a knife’s path across many a throat, and I think I’m ready to try this for real. The question is who.

Should it be a stranger, or someone that I know? A stranger would be ideal, because then, as far as investigators would be concerned, I’d have no motive. And I wouldn’t be a suspect. But the first time, the first kill, should be special. Like sex is supposed to be. It’s not supposed to be some embarrassing five minute ordeal in the back of a car.

It shouldn’t be someone I know too well, or the police might question me. And I know myself well enough to know that even if they did ask me something simple (“Did the victim have any enemies that you are aware of?”) I would get nervous and cause suspicion.

These are the thoughts floating through my head as I lay on the bed of a convicted serial killer and fall asleep.

stolen from isley and locano

2005-12-31T05:58:30Z

10 LAYERS OF ME

LAYER ONE: ON THE OUTSIDE
Name: Richard Cochnar
Birth date: July 17, 1984
Birth place: Grand Island, Nebraska
Current Location: Lincoln, Nebraska
Eye Color: Brown
Hair Color: Brown
Righty or Lefty: Righty
Zodiac Sign: Cancer! Pinch pinch

LAYER TWO: ON THE INSIDE
Your heritage: Half Italian, some german, some other stuff
Wut Shoes Did You Wear Today: the same ones i've been wearing for two years now
Your weakness: A certain degree of Arrogance, Being Cynical, not being able to speak as well as i write, laziness, being shy sometimes
Your fears: leading an uneventful life
Your perfect pizza: Mushrooms and...this question is stupid
Goal you'd like to achieve: Getting at least one novel published

LAYER THREE: YESTERDAY
Your thoughts first waking up: Should have woken up earlier so i could have gotten my hair cut
Your best physical feature: I've been told by several people that i look like jason schwartzman
Your bedtime: Whenever i get tired
Your most missed memory: Anytime when i had less responsibility

LAYER FOUR: YOUR PICK:
Pepsi or Coke: I don't drink soda, but pepsi was better
McDonald's or Burger King: Burger King

Single or group dates: Group dates seem kinda stupid, its like taking the easy way out of going on a date. Single.
Adidas or Nike: Adidas
Lipton Tea or Nestea: Lipton
Chocolate or vanilla: Vanilla
Cappuccino or coffee: Coffee

LAYER FIVE: DO YOU/ARE YOU?
Smoke: A few times, when i've been drunk. It's horrible
Cuss: A fuck load
Single: Yarp
Take a shower: I bathe regularly!
Have a crush(es): Not right now, and i haven't for a while now. It feels nice. Crushes are a waste of time in this shit state and i will maintain that opinion until i meet someone who makes me feel otherwise.
Think you've been in love: Probably
Like(d) high school: high school is the worst thing that can ever happen to anyone
Want to get married: I'll probably end up marrying for money someday so i can stay home and not have to work.
Do you believe in yourself?: yeah

Get motion sickness: nope
Think you're a health freak: i like some healthy things...but im not a freak about it
Get along with your parents: fairly well

LAYER SIX: IN THE PAST MONTH
Drank alcohol: hehehe...yeah
Gone on a date: Nope
Gone to the mall: Yeah
Been on stage: No
Eaten Sushi: No
Been dumped: No
Gone skating: No
Gone skinny dippin: No
Dyed your hair: No

LAYER SEVEN: HAVE YOU EVER
Played a game that required removal of clothing: No
Changed who you were to fit in: Well, nothing major, but i think everyone changes themselves a little. Or else no one would ever have any friends.

LAYER EIGHT: GETTING OLDER
Age you hope to be married: doesn't matter. late 20's if its ever gonna happen
Numbers of Children: ug...kids, i hope just one, and i hope its a boy, because i dont want to have to deal with having a daughter if it means guys will be trying to bone her. which they will try to do. So, a boy.

Describe your dream wedding: uhhh...well, there should probably be a bride, and i guess i would have to be there. probably something outdoors and away from a city.

LAYER NINE: IN A GAL/GUY
Best eye color?: Doesn't matter
Best hair color?: Doesn't matter, but neon/strange color dyed hair is a fetish
Short or long hair: shoulder length at least, long preferably
Height: shorter than i am
Type of clothing: don't care
LAYER TEN: IN THE NUMBERS
Number of people I can trust: probably 1
Number of CD's I own: jesus...at least a hundred
Number of piercings: 0
Number of tattoos: 0
Number of times been on T.V: none that i am aware of
Number of times my name has appeared in the Newspaper: do highschool newspapers count? i used to edit and write for one of those.

number of scars on my body: several small ones all over my hands

Number of big things in my past that I regret: i don't regret anything that i have done, i only regret the things i didnt do

How i spent my christmas vacation

2005-12-31T00:51:01Z

Worked from 12 to 7 at the theatre. Alex, Julia, and I pretty much had the place to ourselves all day, which was really fun, because those guys are awesome. Our Per cap was really high so we all got free food at P.O Pears whenever we want to go, so we're trying to set a date now. Barb dropped in around lunch time and bought us all food, because she is the best manager ever. Before the last set, some guy came in 40 mins or so after Jarhead had started and started falling to pieces in front of me. SAying that he wanted to see the movie and he wanted to see it now, and that he needed to take his mind off things. We let him in to the theatre and i told him he hadn't missed anything too dramatic yet. After he went in, I walked into the office and told Alex that that guy was probably going to shoot himself in the theatre. As far as i know, he didnt.

Julia and Alex have been pushing for me to date Juila's little sister Lisa, because they like me and hate her current boyfriend John. I like John though, and i would feel like a dick for trying anything.

After work I got changed and went to Julia's to pick up her and Alex. We drove back to GI together and that drive is much much much more bearable with friends to talk to.

I woke up around 3 or something and we opened presents. I got a shit ton of books, all of which i've wanted to read. I finished off Breakfast of Champions and Shopgirl, and started The Rum Diary, which i am still currently reading. My brother got a digital camera, but the retard working at Wal Mart sold us an empty box, so my mom had to go back the next day and get a real camera.

I drove back home with Julia and her cat Dracula who is the best behaved cat i've ever seen in a car.

urh!!!

2005-12-24T07:56:04Z

I am very very very drunk!
Seems like a good time to let my thoughts fly.
I'm feeling very lonely right now, and I know that it's my fault. I've alienated my friends for something ridiculous. I made the mistake, a few times now, of answering my ex's calls. I've learned shocking secrets about one of my high school friends. I can't grow the balls to ask a girl out. I think i failed as many as three classes. In short, i'm kinda depressed. And this, after all my bitching and moaning about how depressed people piss me off. I had a good streak, I haven't been sad for a long time, probably about a year or two. But now that streak is over, and everything is falling down at once.
I'm on my nineth beer right now, I didn't plan to drink this much, but everything is falling down. I don't know when i developed a sense of pride, but i wish i hadn't. I don't like feeling arrogant, but it's how i feel these days. Ryan, Aarron, Tyler, I'm sorry if i've been a dick to you. You are three of my cloesest friends, and i really don't want to lose you over a silly game. I realize that i have invested too much of my hopes into final fantasy. Completeing promathia missions, and doing end-game things have become my all-consuming goal, when my writing should be. I'm sorry for being mad at you guys for the game, you deserve better than that.
In other news, it's offically Christmas eve, and the holiday spirit is gone. I'm so fucking bummed out right now. I miss my friends. I miss a girl who did nothing but hurt me. I miss the certainty that i had about the world and it's people.
At least i have my writing, and perhaps it will grant me a future of fame and fortune. I don't want the fame as much as i want the fortune...mostly becase i am lazy.
There's a phrase called drunk sincerity, where you say what you don't mean when you are drunk. I've never abided by this, when i'm drunk, i say what i mean. I'm sorry to the people that i have wronged, and i miss the poeple that i hate.
I've spent all night cleaning my apartment and drinking. I've sorted the past year into the piles of paper that have surrounded my desk chair. I wrote this:

This has nothing to do with anything. Seventh beer in hand. Surrounded by the last year. Sorted into piles. Bathroom reading. Importatnt papers. Writing prompts. Feedback. Trash. Yet-to-be-labeled. Encircled by paper. Prose is for people who want to be poets. But who suck at it.

I cried a little when i re-read all of this. Why does everything have to go to shit at the same time? Why can't life's bad moments spread themselves out?.
Right now, I'm writing a story that is do dark, that it is black. It's giving me nightmares.
I really hate feeling like this. I thought i was better than this.
Beer number ten, and i'm shaking, almost hoping that i get alcohol posioning. There's a bottle of rum in the cabinet if i run out of beer. I don't like having an ego, although i know that i need one. I don't like being proud, although i'm fairly certain that i need to be. I know that i write well, and i need to be proud of it, because writing has become an industry these days. You need to sell yourself.

I can barely focus anymore. I don't know why i haven't passed out yet. I'll read this tomorrow and feel embarressed. Or i won't read this tomorrow, because i'll remember writing this. And feel embarressed.

I guess the past few years have been an expirement for me. I've let down all of the people that i love. My parents, my friends. I don't know why i have, maybe it's just something that i needed to do, needed to experience. Because i know that they all would forgive me. My parents have no choice. I am thier future, they have to love me no matter how bad i fuck up in school. My friends have a choice. But i know that they will forgive me. Because they know that i am like this, and they still choose to be my friends. And i am sorry.

Right now, it's cold. And i still have two more bottles to finish off, and i hate seeing my name, printed in black on the nametag on the floor.
And i tried to clean my room tonight, but there are pennies everywhre and they look like mouse shit. And I'm sad. And maybe i've croseed the line this time and my friends hate me now. And maybe i deserve it. And maybe the next time that i see my friends there will be an awkward silence, in which we mean to attack each other, but we dont, because we are friends. And maybe i wish i had never made this post because i dont like feeling weak.
But in the end i'm going to click the update journal button. Because i am lonely. And sorry.
And everything is falling apart.

hmmmmm

2005-12-21T06:48:52Z

Just finished typing up a VERY VERY VERY rough draft of a story that i've been working on. I'm not sure how i feel about it. There are things i need to change, i know this. But feel free to have a go at it, constructive criticism is always welcomed and appreciated.

“I think my toes are all fucked up,” she says as I blow into my cupped hands, trying to keep them warm. I wish I would have worn gloves. And socks. But when your brother wakes you out of a dead sleep at four in the morning, your head isn’t necessarily on straight. I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything. Her eyes water up and I turn away and start walking. She follows behind, two or three steps at all times, choking back tears, her teeth chattering from the cold.

“The apartment’s just up this way,” I say. She tries to say something but it’s lost in her sobs. I don’t know what to do. This is my brother’s mess, why should I have to deal with it?

When we reach my building, I unlock the door and hold it open for her. She scurries in and I notice her short skirt and sandals; the latter caked with snow. Date clothes.

This is how I met Tanya McCray.

No. Wait. Back up.

- - -

“Are you Alex’s brother,” she asks as she steps out of one of the buildings in the apartment complex. The orange glow of the stoop’s lamp bathes her face, showing her cried-off mascara, making her look like a Jackson Pollock painting.

I hesitate, and almost say no.

“Yeah,” I say, “are you Susanna, er—April?” I sigh and wave my hand—all five fingers splayed—next to my head. By this I mean that I’m too tired and my head is all fucked up. But I’m too tired and my head is too fucked up to say it.

“Tanya,” she says walking out into the cold, her eyes not meeting mine.

This is how I met Tanya McCray.

“I’m really sorry about all of this,” she says staring down at her feet. “I think my toes are all fucked up.”

No. Wait. Back up.

- - -

My brother went home for the weekend, so I’m sleeping naked with the head cranked up and my bedroom door open. I don’t know why I wake up, because my phone is vibrating, not ringing. The caller ID says Alex, my brother. I answer it, expecting a drunk dial.

“Hello,” I answer, making an effort to sound extra groggy. If you ever want to learn the subtleties of the perfect guilt trip, stay in a relationship for too long. Or become a Catholic.

“Hey Vic, I need you to do me a really big favor,” he says, his voice hurried. My mind, not as groggy as my voice, recalls the things my brother has considered really big favors in the past. Driving him to work, helping him order a computer online, distinguishing judicial activism from judicial restraint. In other words, not very big favors. This is the reason why, at four AM, with an eight hour workday looming over me, I agree. I’m not going to show up for work anyway. My car won’t start, so I’ll just call in sick.

“Ok,” groggily of course, with a yawn for good measure, “what do you need?”

Again, the hurried voice, “My friend Tanya is out in the parking lot and she’s cold and drunk and someone just had sex with her and she’s been calling everyone and I’d help her out if I were there—” and sometime when I wasn’t looking, my brother learned the definition of a really big favor.

All I can ask is: “What?” But it’s supposed to mean no.

“Just get her inside, please,” the words all run together.

“I’m naked,” I say dumbly.

- - -

It’s not till I see her mascara-smeared face that I realize my brother plays the word game too. “Some guy had sex with her” means she was date raped.

This is why when she asks me if I’m Alex’s brother, I hesitate. I’m not a counselor, I’ve never worked at a suicide hotline, I can’t settle down children when they cry. I don’t know how to deal with these things. When my ex-girlfriend left—crying and throwing my own shit at me—all I could do was sit at the kitchen table and hold my hand defensively over my cup of coffee. It was my favorite mug; I didn’t want her to break it.

“You don’t look very drunk,” I say as I unlock my apartment.

- - -

I know that when a girl breaks up with a guy—rather when a girl gets dumped, she throws a temper tantrum and swears off men for a few weeks. Men are pigs, all they want is sex, never again, all that jazz. I can’t imagine what they do after they get raped. So I’m nervous around her. She sits on the couch and buries her head in her hands. I choose my words carefully, trying to leave out any and all innuendo.

“Do you want some socks,” I ask. Trying not to think about innuendos makes me think about how similar socks and sex sound. I almost laugh when I think about asking her if she’d like some sex. I guess I’m going to hell.

Her head—still smothered by her hands—bob up and down.

“Ok,” I say, “they’re in my bedroom.” Quickly I add, “I’ll go get them. You uh—you stay here.”

When I return from my room, thermal socks—the unwanted gifts of a Christmas long since passed—in hand, she tells me that her phone is dead.

“Oh,” I say, because I don’t know what to say.

“I can’t get any of my friends to come pick me up. I don’t know their numbers.”

She says that cell phones are a curse, all you have to do is program a number in, and forget it. And that’s what she does. She plays the word game too. What she says means that she wants me to drive her home, but she doesn’t want to be imposing.

“Does my brother have their numbers,” I ask moving to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee, the hope of getting back to sleep abandoned.

She shakes her head, saying that they don’t hang around with the same crowd anymore. I say that’s unfortunate as I measure out the Folgers. She agrees and starts to cry again.

My ex used to cry a lot, mostly during her periods—I assumed. Sometimes, if I knew it was my fault, I would ask her what was wrong. But most of the time I just left the room, went somewhere, or took a nap.

So I go into my bedroom and try to balance my checkbook, even though I’ve never done it before. When Tanya’s quieted down, I abandon my checkbook in favor of a cup of coffee.

“You like coffee,” I ask her. She’s now lying on the couch, a pillow over her face. I can see up her skirt from my angle, even though I probably shouldn’t be looking.

“Not really,” she says sitting up.

I tell her that it will warm her up as I open the cabinet and pull out a packet of powdered hot chocolate.

“What are you putting into my drink,” she asks, suspicious.

“Relax,” I say, “it’s not roof—” bad joke, going to hell for sure, “err, it’s hot chocolate. My ex used to put this in her coffee instead of sugar. I guess I just kinda got used to making it this way.” That’s a lie. I haven’t put hot chocolate in a cup of coffee since Claire left. The truth is, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a girl in the house, and I guess I’m just falling back into my old routines.

Claire left because she said that I never listened. Claire was a master of the word game. What she meant was that I never asked her what was wrong.

After I give her some coffee, in the mug that Claire liked the most—the one with the poorly sketched portrait of Mount Rushmore on it, the one with the chipped rim and permanent (yet harmless) crack running down the handle—I sat down in the recliner opposite the couch.

“He didn’t use a condom,” she says wearily. “What if I’m pregnant?”

“Uh…are you religious?”

“Christian.”

“I guess you have the baby then,” I say. “Put it up for adoption or something.”

She doesn’t respond right away. “My family has a history of miscarrying.”

“Nature’s little abortions,” I say because my manners are still asleep.

“That’s not funny.”

“I know.”

She sets her cup on the floor and lays back down, burying her face in the pillow that Claire spilled champagne on during a New Year’s party.

“I need to take a shower,” I say dumbly, retreating to my bathroom.

As I strip off my boxers, I decide on a bath instead. The last bath I took was with Clair on our one year anniversary. She went to a lot of work, lining the tub, the counter, even the toilet tank with candles. The bath had been filled with warm water, bath salts, and rose peddles. I tried my best, but when Claire peeled off her clothes, I got a boner. She stared at it, disappointed. I leaned in to kiss her, my hands finding her shoulders and trying to guide her toward the tub.

“No, no, no,” she said. :I’m not going to sit in a tub with your jizz floating around in it.”

So we went back into my bedroom and satisfied the beast. Afterward, I held her in the tub.

There’s a knock on the door.

“Can I stay here tonight,” Tanya asks, voice raised to be heard over the running water.

“You kinda have to,” I shout back, not meaning to be forceful. “My car’s broken.”

She doesn’t respond right away and just when I start to think she’s gone, she asks, “Can I sleep on the couch?”

“You can use my brother’s room,” I say, turning off the water.

“There’s no TV in there,” she says, voice lowered.

“So?”

“I need to have a TV on sometimes when I sleep,” she says bashfully. I can picture her cheeks glowing red in a blush. “I’m afraid of the dark, I guess.”

“Ok,” I reply, my heart breaking.

When I’m sure she’s gone, I slip into the tub, back leaning against the wall, in a sitting position. I imagine Claire now, her body pressed against mine, my arms sliding over her chest.

After they pruned up, my hands had found their way to her breasts, fingers tracing the goose-bumped rims of her areolas. Her nipples hardened and my cock followed suit.

“Is that what I think it is,” she tried to ask with a straight face, but she was laughing like a school girl at a slumber party before the question was finished.

“He likes you.”

Still giggling, she pulled herself out of the water and turned around. Standing there, water running down her nude body in rivulets, tinted orange by the candle’s warm light, she bent at the waist and placed both of her hands on my face. Pulling hers close to mine, she said, “Victor Sbarra, I love you.”

And I cried. Because at that moment, I realized that I loved her too. I really did. After a year of dating, months of sex, and weeks of living together, I had finally realized it.

“I love you too,” I choked out, and she began kissing my tears.

We made love in the tub that night and broke up three months later. Nothing can last forever, Everything good must end. If you really love someone, then let them go. Pretty words existing only to conceal the truth that you end up alone. Whether it be sitting in a bathtub reminiscing, or sleeping on a stranger’s couch, you end up alone.

With these thoughts in my head, I fall asleep.

Even if I never listened, I always loved you Claire.

- - -

I wake up an hour later with a cramped leg. I pull myself out of the tub and move into my bedroom as quickly as my aching legs will allow. After throwing on an old jogging suit, I return to the bathroom to take my contacts out. On a whim, I open the cabinet under the sink, half-expecting to see the box of tampons that Claire kept shyly stored behind the extra rolls of toilet paper. She did this out of respect, knowing that while I acknowledged her periods, thinking about them made me queasy. After she had left, I took the box out, filled up the sink and set to work experimenting with them. One after the next, I submerged them in the water, watching them expand and then float. I did this for hours, as if they were the key to our problems. As if I were reading tea leaves instead of playing with feminine protection. For those heavy flow days.

Sometimes I wonder what Claire ever saw in me.

Tanya is curled up on the couch when I enter the living room to give her a spare blanket. She’s already sleeping, so I cover her with it. On the television someone is rambling on about how I can make millions by sitting at home in my underwear. As I start back to my empty bed, I think that it’s nice to have a woman around the house again.

- - -

I wake up when work calls me and asks why I’m not there. I answer the phone in my best cancer ward voice. When the voice on the other side of the line starts to see (or hear) through my bullshit, I roll out of bed and go to the bathroom to stick my finger down my throat. I hold the phone close to the toilet as last night’s Burger King exits my body the same way it entered it. This may seem a bit severe, but it’s a small price to pay to get out of a morning shift. Sometimes a good puke will buy you two days off. When I get done, I start muttering something about a guy named Sal and aspirin. Then I hang up.

- - -

When I wake up this time, the sun is already asleep. Tanya is sitting cross-legged in front of the sliding glass balcony doors. She’s helped herself to the basket of my recently washed clothes that I left in the hall. She’s sporting my gray long-sleeved shirt with the missing top button and a pair of flannel pants. I have to fight back an erection. Nothing gets me as turned on as when a girl wears my clothes.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she says after noticing my reflection in the glass. “I couldn’t wear those anymore,” she says nodding her head toward the pile of her own clothes.

“You hungry,” I ask.

“It’s been snowing all day,” she replied, not answering my question. “I would have walked home earlier, but it’s all,” she pauses, “snowy.” A true poet.

“It’s ok,” I say as I seat myself on the recliner behind her. She goes back to staring at the falling snow.

“When I was little,” she starts, “I would always ask my dad where the snow came from.” There’s no hint of nostalgia in her voice. It’s just flat, affectless. It’s manifested catharsis. “He said that they were angel tears, and I ask him why angels would cry. He said they cried because they were so happy and heaven was so cold that they just kinda froze. I never understood why or anyone would cry because they are happy. Do you?”

“Yes,” I say simply, recalling the bathtub. It’s funny how whenever you’re missing someone, there’s just that one memory that keeps floating through your head.

“I don’t think I ever will,” she says, voice little more than a whisper.

I sit and watch her watch the snow. The only thing I can think is that it really is nice to have a woman around the house again.

- - -

The smell of food wakes me up even before I realize that I had fallen asleep. I yawn, my perpetual morning breath escaping my mouth.

“I made dinner,” Tanya says, not even thinking to ask if she could have my food. Not that I cared.

The table had been set for the first time since Claire had walked out on me. My brother and I just ate in our rooms. Claire was never much of a cook, but neither am I, so I never complained when she burned something or forgot to add milk.

“Smells good,” I say, seating myself.

“You didn’t have much to work with,” she says scooping some hash browns onto my plate which she then tops with chili and sour cream. I guess she isn’t much of a cook either.

She seats herself opposite me and that’s when I start to feel guilty. Like I’m cheating on Claire. I never broke up with her, after all. I never called the relationship off.

We begin eating, the silence becoming more and more uncomfortable. Someone told me that whenever there’s an awkward pause in a conversation, you think of Abraham Lincoln. So I think of him, then try to think of something to say.

“I’m Victor,” I say after realizing that I had yet to introduce myself.

“I know,” she says. “Your brother told me.”

“Oh.”

“It’s nice to meet you Victor.”

“Thanks.”

I’ve never been good with conversations. Claire said that’s what attracted her to me in the first place. I was the strong silent type. Minus the strong.

“I think you should call the police,” I say. “About last night.”

She sets her fork down, her cheeks blushing deeply.

“Sorry, but if you don’t tell anyone about it, he’ll get away with it.” This is what you are supposed to say to a rape victim, according to a video that I watched in tenth grade. “It’s not your faul—”

“Enough. Ok?”

I nod. I don’t know how to deal with quiet girls. All Claire did was talk, but that was ok, I guess. I never had to labor over starting or finishing a conversation.

“I need to take a shower,” I say as I push my chair away from the table and stand.

“You just took one eight hours ago.”

“Maybe I’m obsessive compulsive,” I say walking toward my room. I peel off my shirt in the hall, no longer caring about making Tanya feel comfortable. When she started paying rent, then I would start caring. I left my bedroom door open as I strip down, hoping that it will make her uncomfortable enough to brave the snow and just leave. Having a woman around the house again is starting to get on my nerves.

- - -

I’m in the tub again. On the verge of sleep, I can almost feel my hands on Claire’s chest. I can almost smell the perfumed candles. I miss her. It’s just now setting in. It’s amazing how many epiphanies you have when you are naked, submerged in scalding hot water.

There’s a knock at the door.

“Come in,” I yell. “It’s not locked.”

Only silence from the other end.

“The curtain is closed,” I say. “Now if you want to talk to me, then come in.” I’m tired of trying to be nice, tired of pretending not to be frustrated with the situation. Yes, it’s too bad that she got raped. Maybe inviting a recently abused girl into the bathroom with you isn’t the most charming thing to do. But no, it’s not my problem. And no, I don’t care anymore.

I hear the door open, and see her shadow move toward the toilet where she puts the seat down and sits. The memories of sex with Claire combined with a kind of exhibitionist thrill give me a hard on. I think of asking her to start talking while I quietly rub one out, but in the end I decide against it. I would probably feel dirty afterward.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I appreciate your concern.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You’re not the easiest person in the world to talk to, ya know?”

“Well pardon me dearest,” I say, starting to get angry, “but this hasn’t exactly been a fucking easy two days for me. You’ve been eating my shit and wearing my clothes and making me uncomfortable since you got in here. And you’ve got the fucking nerve to judge me?”

She starts crying and it really is nice to have a woman around the house again.

“I know I’m supposed to watch my words and be all sensitive around you and shit, but it’s your problem and you don’t want any help and you’re just gonna run away from it, so why should I give a fuck?”

She’s crying harder now, harder than she was on the first night. In between watery sobs, she says that she is sorry, she’s so sorry, and I start to feel guilty. She must be a Catholic.

There’s nowhere for me to go. I have to sit here and listen to her cry. There are a lot of things that lead my hand to my cock. Memories of Claire. The crying that makes me feel at home. The unwanted, unplanned streak of abstinence. The knowledge that I made someone cry, it’s like winning a fight. Exhilarating. The way that masturbation feels so much better when you’re sad. I close my eyes and let my hand go through the accustomed motions. I silently hope that the soft splashing of the water won’t reach Tanya’s ears. My cheeks heat up. Eyes closed, hand pistoning, I focus my ears on Tanya whimpering and my thoughts on Claire. Claire folding her clothes. Claire studying on the bed. Claire brushing her teeth in the morning, wearing only her panties. Claire—

And then it’s over. Fast and disappointing. Tanya’s still crying. I feel like I’ve just used her. And Claire.

And I feel like I’ve cheated again.

“I’m sorry,” I say, trying to disguise the fact that I am out of breath. She gets up and leaves shortly after. After I’ve had my way with her.

- - -

Figuratively, of course. I never so much as laid a comforting hand on her should from the time she came into the apartment, shaking and whimpering, to the time she left the following morning when my brother got back into town. Instead of saying goodbye, we both just apologized.

I have a real way with women.

This feeling. I can’t explain it. It’s so intense that it’s physical, like I’m bleeding from the chest. Well, earlier it was in the throat, but it works its way down. It’s a void. My stomach tightens. It’s emptiness. Loneliness. She’s gone, and I am alone. And I want her back, right now. I need her back. My eyes water up. It really was nice to have a girl around the house again. And I need it. Like a wino needs his drink. Like a fetus needs its womb. Like a subject needs its predicate. I am a definition requiring the opposite to be defined. The absence of light, without the knowledge of light. Tanya. Claire. It could be anyone, and that’s the sad part, but it needs to be someone, because right now, it’s just emptiness.

“Victor Sbarra, I love you,” Claire had said, standing naked in a bathtub. Exposed and beautiful. In that moment I loved her more than I ever had before, or ever will again. In that moment she was perfect, Aphrodite, Venus. And she loved me. And maybe I cried because I knew that that moment was everything. There was no before, no after. That moment was life. And it was perfect. And she kissed away my tears, and that only made me cry more. Maybe I knew that the next day she would be complaining or burning the hamburger, but for that moment, for that brief period in time, she—everything was perfect.

Although her form appeared blurry in my watery eyes, I could still pick out the tiny imperfections. She needed to shave in a few places. She was getting a beer gut, even though she didn’t drink. Her teeth yellowing. It was these things, these little defects, that made her mine. My little slice of heaven, And she loved me. And I sat by and let her leave. I let myself fall from grace. I let the world end.

I pick up my phone with these thoughts sluggishly crawling through my head, I choke back a whine. I blot out the tears with my sleeve.

She answers, sounding disappointed. Like I’m a lost cause.

“What do you want, Victor?”

A thousand responses. You. Us. Everything. I want you in bed. In the bathtub. I want you at the stove forgetting to add the milk. I want you hiding your tampons and keeping your periods a secret. I want you crying at the kitchen table. I want you slipping out of a cardigan. I want you lighting a candle. I want it all. I want the world.

“Claire,” I say, “what’s wrong.”

There’s a moment of silence, when I think she’s hung up the phone, but then she begins to talk. Quietly at first, shyly, then openly, and a little angrily. She talks. And talks. And talks.

And I listen.

hollitz @ 2005-12-20T02:23:00

2005-12-20T08:24:31Z

I know some crazy people...greg...john...wtf

http://shinybitterpeople.com/king.mov

Filmed at UNL!

When the muse hits...

2005-12-19T09:06:40Z

I should be sleeping right now, but part of being a writer is a gained understanding that when the Muse wants to fuck, you've gotta just ride it out and let it have its way with you. I'm really excited to start on this new story when i get done with the one i'm currently working on. Here's a little tease. God i love the muse.

Strawberry Ban-Anna

By: Richard Cochnar

Here’s me now, cursed with the same child-like face. Boys will never say I’m hot, just cute. She’s got a cute face. Fuck.

- - -

Oh Anna, Anna Banana. Where have you gone? Well, she died around the same time that Santa and Jesus did.

- - -

She had to find out these things for herself. She had to find out that, for reasons beyond her, the people that she trusted had all lied.

Curiosity killed the cat. Lies killed little Anna.

- - -

Unless Anna can break the chain. Maybe she can end that song at Manna.

- - -

Two years ago a bladder infection destroyed my ovaries. I let a guy fuck me in the ass, and then in the vagina. That’s a bad idea, in case you are wondering. Kirk. Fucker. Kirk-Kirk-Bo-Berk-Banana-Fanna-Fuck-You-Prick. Your name doesn’t even sound good in the song. Too few syllables. Too many K’s. Shithead.

I’m sorry I lied to you.

- - -

got suspended again

2005-11-18T20:26:23Z

hollitz @ 2005-11-09T01:39:00

2005-11-09T07:40:11Z

story 2

2005-11-08T18:45:37Z

Explicit!

Caged

By: Richard Cochnar

". . .[M]an has been handed that grotesque and scarcely enviable destiny of being reduced to a single idol with clay balls."

–Helene Cixous

"Jelly donut," I hear Gary scream from his bedroom upstairs. No fucking way, I think, shit man, now I’m down by three. If he remembers the Saran Wrap, I’m down by five. If he’s taping it, I’m totally fucked.

Scarlett is sitting on the couch across the room staring at me with her washed out Dakota Fanning face. Ah, Scarlett. She told me that her parents named her that because she was conceived in O’Hare airport. Get it, she asked. Scarlett O’Hare? I said I got it, even though the chick in Gone With the Wind was named Scarlett O’ Hara, I didn’t care enough to correct her.

Emberly is sitting next to me nursing a beer.

From the kitchen I hear Jeff shout, Rear Admiral. This is followed by a thud as someone’s head rams into the refrigerator, or maybe the back door. Jeff you unoriginal shit, I practically pioneered that move. I take a sip of my beer and try to forget how fast Jeff is catching up.

Everyone is either gone from the house or passed out, the mark of a good party. Carson is passed out on the floor. We’ve drawn all over his face with a blue marker. At least he’s off the scoreboard for tonight. Scarlett coughs into her hand, begging for attention. I put my arm around Emberly and she leans into me, moaning. I tell her that when I was in high school I used to take the apple juice from the lunch room and ferment it in my locker. She giggles and you can tell that she hasn’t heard a word that I’ve said. She’s that drunk and she’s just trying to be polite. She’s flirting. The moves start running through my head accompanied by point values. Spiderman 2.5, The Houdini 6, Donkey Punch 8. I can’t do the Pyramid unless Scarlett is down with it. Scarlett with her black fingernail polish and pouty lips. Scarlett who is only worth half the points that Emberly is.

"So," I whisper to Emberly, "are we gonna fuck or what?"

- - -

This Pyramid is only going to score me fifteen points because I’ve fucked Scarlett before. Scarlett with her short black hair and torn shirt sleeves. Scarlett with the little cat scratch that never heals on her lower back. Right now she’s riding me while I lay in the back of my Explorer. I can’t see her face because my eyes are closed. If they were open, I would only be able to see an asscrack, because Colleen, the new girl from work, is sitting on my face. I’m mouth deep in teenager. Colleen and Scarlett are supposed to be making out, hence the Pyramid. Instead it’s the pyramid on the back of a one dollar bill. You know, the unfinished one with the eye on top of it. Well, there’s no eye here. Unless God is watching. In which case, I guess I’m going to hell.

This whole thing, it’s really not as erotic as it sounds. Colleen is hot and all, but I don’t know how much longer I can stand having the tip of my nose in her asshole. Scarlett keeps banging her head on the roof of the car and making surprised little yelping sounds. Sex is never as nice as it looks on tape.

I push Colleen off of my face and tell them to switch spots, I already know what Scarlett feels like. If I wanted to fuck something familiar, I’d have stayed home and jerked off. Before Scarlett positions herself over my face, I tell her that she has to complete the pyramid. This isn’t a one dollar bill. Ahh Scareltt, she doesn’t ask questions. She just does as she’s told. When I cum, my leg spasms violently and Colleen is forced forward, slamming her nose into Scarlett’s chin.

"Ow, fuck," she yells. Scarlett quietly moves away from me and makes her way to the front seat, naked. Colleen starts bitching about her bloody nose. It’s only her first night on the job and already she’s complaining. She won’t last long. Good thing I don’t waste time anymore. I tell her to get dressed, I need to go home.

We’re in the parking lot of the pizza place where all three of us work. It was Colleen’s first shift, the closing shift, which I manage. I didn’t ask, but she’s probably illegal.

Colleen grabs my sock and wipes her nose with it. Goddamnit. She gets dressed and hops out of the back of the car. She asks if she can come in a little late tomorrow. I tell her that I’ll write her up if she does. One write up during the first ninety days of employment is an automatic termination.

"You’re such an asshole, Ben," she says.

"That’s the point," I say.

She still has my sock. She holds it up when she reaches her car. "I’m keeping this," she yells spitefully. I wave my hand dismissively. Whatever, I think, I’ll probably just lose the other one in the washer anyway.

Scarlett’s sitting in the passenger’s side seat, bare-assed, her legs pulled up under her.

"I’ve gotta get home," I tell her. She leans over and tries to kiss me. "No," I say, "I don’t have time for that, come on, get out." I reach across her, my arm brushing against her breasts, and open the door. She stares at me with her blank eyes. Complacent little Scarlett who still goes to church every Sunday, sometimes with my dried cum in her hair.

She looks down, embarrassed.

"Can I stay with you tonight," she asks.

"No, come on, go," I say nudging her on the shoulder.

She begins gathering up her clothes, rolling them in a ball, not bothering to put them on.

"I can’t find my panties," she mutters.

"I’ll bring them to you tomorrow. Stop stalling please."

"Do you hate me?"

"I will if you don’t get the fuck out."

That being said, she gets out and ambles across the parking lot to her car, stark naked and humming to herself.

- - -

I used to be a nice guy. Really, I was. You know how you can tell? I was a virgin for nineteen years. I actually believed that shit about chicks digging nice guys. I believed that shit because I was raised by TV, by movies. The nice guy always triumphs, gets the girl, saves the day, lives happily ever after. The music soars as the two embrace and seal their future with a kiss. That’s what I was raised on. That was my faith, my dogma. That was all just a dream. But like faith, like dreams, no matter how much you change, some of you remains the same, there are some habits you just can’t shake. I was raised believing that my life had a soundtrack; I still believe it does.

There are only two reasons why a girl with either fall for or fuck a nice guy. Reason number one: She’s pregnant and all the bad boys are unemployed. Reason Two: she’s a fetishist. That’s right, liking nice guys is a fetish.

Chivalry is dead, you all whine with a remorseful tone. Of course it is, you’re the ones who fucking killed it. Nice guys just aren’t much fun, right ladies? Well pretty soon there’s not going to be anyone left to fall back on when you’re pregnant and homeless. More nice guys are realizing the truth every day. Being nice just doesn’t get you laid.

You want to know why men hide their emotions? It’s because we don’t want you to think that we have any. If you see us cry then you’ll think we are sweet and sensitive and nice. And then you won’t want to fuck us anymore. But you’ll want to call us and bitch about how every boy you ever meet hurts you.

Back before this revelation, before this conquest, it was just me, and Scarlett, and a question.

- - -

"Do you hate me," Scarlett asks, standing in the rain, shaking like a cold puppy. This is back when I was still nice, back before I knew better. Scarlett was drunk and she had been asking that question all night

"Of course I don’t hate you," I say as I wrap her in my arms. Shaking, pathetic little Scarlett. Her stupid girlfriend says, "Ooo-ooo" the way that third-graders do when someone says a bad word. I tell her to shut her drunk ass up.

We’re outside because she wants to go home, and stupid ass me offered to drive her. Oh well, it was a shitty party anyway. This is back when I still got crushes on girls, instead of just wanting to bone them. Back when I actually wanted to be in a relationship.

When we get to my car, Scar’s friend looks up at the sky and asks why it’s raining. I tell her that God is crying. She asks why, and I say because she is drunk.

The night’s a complete waste. I waste gas and I don’t even get a kiss from a drunk girl with no self-esteem.

- - -

"The first rule of fuck club, is that you don’t talk about fuck club," Dave says jokingly. We all laugh because we are kind of drunk. "But seriously guys, we’ve gotta have a few rules. Number one, don’t tell anyone about this or else none of us will ever get laid in this town again. Number two, each act will be worth a certain amount of points that will be determined later. Video taping it doubles your points, but only if you show the tape to everyone. Number three, honesty is expected."

"No phantom fucks," Carson interjects. The funny thing is, no one ends up fucking more phantoms that Carson.

"Number four, if you have sex with the same girl more than once, she’s only worth half of the points. Rule number five, no Dirty Sanchezs, no Hot Carls. That shit is just gross."

And that’s how it all started. Just a joke made by a room full of drunk guys that went a little too far. We hung a dry erase board in the sixth bedroom that was perpetually empty. We kept the door locked. It was all just a joke, so we were all a little surprised when two days later there was a number three next to Gary’s name. You get three points for regular sex. Gary got laid.

The next day Gary only has two points. You lose a point for getting a hand job. We decided that there was just no point to a hand job, it’s just getting jerked off, only you know you could do it better yourself.

We laughed about it for a day or two, but then a 4.25 showed up next to Jeff’s name. Four points for doggystyle, a fourth of a point for a Tony Danza. A Tony Danza is when you’re boning and you ask the girl "Who’s the boss" and she says you are. Then you say, "No, bitch, Tony Danza is." It’s an easy fourth of a point. We laugh about it, but it’s a nervous laugh, maybe a competitive one. Maybe we’re a little kids again, trying to build the best baseball card collection. Or at least a better one than your friends have.

The next day, Dave is on the board with a two, that’s two points for a blow job.

Suddenly, it’s not a joke anymore. Just Carson and I are scoreless, and Carson is not going to get laid before I am. I think of Scarlett, and I know that the majority of my points are going to come from her. Ahh, Scarlett. Scarlett with her small breasts and long legs. She’s so fucking easy. If she’s only going to get me full points once, then she’s going to get me the most possible. Later that night Scarlett has two bumps on her head and I have thirty points.

- - -

The next day we all watch the tape. The Rear Admiral itself is only worth twelve, but you get one point extra for every piece of furniture that you run her into. Here’s Scarlett’s head slamming into the door. The Rear Admiral starts out as just standing doggystlye sex. Here’s Scarlett being pushed face-first into the dresser. You have to grab her arms and pull them behind her back if you want this to work. Here’s Scarlett’s head colliding with the desk. Next you just fuck as hard as you can. Here’s Scarlett’s face forced into a wall. Her mascara leaves a mark on the white paint. I point it out to everyone. The soundtrack is something you hear over the loudspeakers at a football game. Maybe "We Are the Champions" by Queen.

"That’s twelve points for the Admiral, three bonuses, and double it for the tape," I say smugly. Suddenly, I have a Ty Cob rookie card.

- - -

Getting laid is a lot easier than it sounds, this is the thing that I didn’t realize until I was nineteen. As with anything, there’s a procedure, steps to follow.

The first step is setting up a filter. Think of women as water. The ones you can’t fuck are tiny tiny particles that slip through. They’re the church girls, the prudes, the stuck-up bitches, the lesbians. They slide right on through. The gunk that’s left, dirty and congealed are the gutter sluts, the cum dumpsters, the people who lack so much that they are just walking vaginas. This is what you will be fucking from here till the end of time.

This filter thing is nothing new, women practically invented it. It’s the bridesmaid tactic. A bride picks her bridesmaids in such a way that she will look more attractive by comparison. So if any of you ladies are asked to be a bridesmaid by a friend of yours, it’s not because she likes you. It’s because she thinks she looks better than you. If you want to fuck a lot, you’ve got to target the bridesmaids of the world.

There’s also Scarlett’s breed, the cum dumpsters, the human sperm banks, the jizz junkies. There’s at least one of them in every fast food place in the country. These chicks are the best lays you’ll ever have, because they will do anything. They have no self-esteem, they just want attention, they just want someone to love them. Instead they end up with a kid and a cheap apartment in the ghetto.

Think of women as water, as something inanimate, something without feelings. Something that exists to be consumed and thrown away. Something pure before you drink it, something that’s piss after you’re done with it. If you want to fuck a lot you’ve got to drink your fair share of piss; you’ve got to think of women as water.

- - -

The sucky thing about being a recovering nice guy, is that you have lapses. A girl will do something or say something and then you start smiling, like you’re about to fall in love. This is usually remedied by a quick fuck or two, but not always. Or sometimes she’ll just look a certain way. Like she’ll have that long bleached blond—almost white—hair. Maybe long legs poking out of the bottom of a tight black skirt. Maybe she’s a little taller than you’d like, but after a year or two of going after bridesmaids, you learn to be less picky.

Maybe that girl’s name is Christie.

"Most guy’s buy me dinner first."

"First?"

"Before this."

"Before what?"

"Before they rear-end me."

Maybe it’s a rainy day and I didn’t break early enough.

Then that voice speaks up. That whiny little bed-wetting bitch that lives inside me. That speaking, thinking artifact of days gone by. The snot-nosed little shit. The fragment of cancer that metastasizes. That goddamn nice guy.

"Do you want to go get some dinner," Nice Ben asks. The little shit. The hopeful doe-eyed cry baby, who will do anything if it means being alone with a girl. The little prick who wants to stay up all night and talk. Fucking little shit.

"Ok," she says.

"Is your car all right," Nice Ben asks.

She shrugs and walks around to the passenger’s side of my car. Nice Ben uses my hand to unlock the door for her.

And just like that, I’m on the wagon again.

The soundtrack is the first CD that you ever bought when you were a kid. Maybe something by the Wallflowers.

- - -

If you live in Florida for all of your life you become accustom to hearing a lot about hurricanes. There’s a drink called a category five in every bar. Hurricanes demolished my house. Hurricanes killed my elderly mother. Hurricanes made me impotent.

Everyone is scared shitless of them since Katrina hit New Orleans last year. No one wants to be raped in the Superdome. One is supposed to hit Riverglade sometime late next week. Well actually, it’s going to hit Boca Raton, but if you ask anyone around here, they’d say differently. We want our spotlight, to be the center of attention. We want to be left homeless, to have crocodiles swimming down our streets. We want George Bush to hate our black people. We want to be accurate when we say that Hurricanes ruined our lives.

- - -

Alcohol is God’s greatest gift. Put enough in a chick and even some of the ones that would normally slip through the filter are on your bed without any clothes.

This chick is totally cheerleader material. Fuck the maids, this is the bride. But right now, she’s just four points for doggystyle.

Drunk fucking is incredible, you can go forever, because it feels like your whole body is in a condom, even if your cock isn’t. The thing about being drunk is that you have permanent ADD. Something needs to be happening or else you get bored. Right now, I’m bored, so I turn on the TV. From years of masturbating I know better than to stop working my dick after I start. Blue balls are the worst. So I keep giving it to this prom queen while I start flipping through the channels. I have to try really hard to cum, because I can’t keep up with this episode of CSI over her moaning. I wish she was on her back so I could put a pillow over her head and shut her up. Christie is still on my mind.

- - -

Another part of having a lot of sex is being honest. Be direct. Don’t beat around the bush if you want to get anywhere near it. If you want to sleep with someone, tell them that you want to sleep with them. It’s like asking a girl out, it’s embarrassing the first few times, but after a while, it becomes second nature.

I lost my virginity to this actress chick at one of those college parties. You know, the kind where everyone asks you what your major is before even asking if you’re going to school. I told everyone I was majoring in business, because when you say that people leave you alone about it. I guess it’s just not a very interesting field. It’s better than the look you get when you say you aren’t in school, though.

So anyway, I started flirting with this actress chick, she wasn’t gorgeous, but still pretty. You know the type, perpetual sidekick. My first bridesmaid. The party was winding down and I had a few drinks in me. So I just decided to pop the question. I figured maybe the reason why I hadn’t gotten laid before is because I never asked for it.

"So listen," I said, my voice dropping, "do you wanna go have sex?"

The thing with actors or actresses, is that they are basically whores. You give them money, put them on stage or in front of a camera, and then tell them what you want. And they crave the attention they get from it. Like a prostitute that actually cums every time she fucks. When they act, people watch them, they pay attention to them. It’s costumed prostitution. So when you ask an actress to fuck, especially the second bananas, they’ll almost always say yes.

Yes, it’s embarrassing at first.

- - -

But it becomes second nature. So imagine my surprise when after blowing fifty bucks on Christie, the only thing I can say to her is, "We should do this again, sometime."

Nice Ben, you fucking prick. You sniveling little cocksucker. Why won’t you just die?

- - -

Never, never, ever say "I love you." Especially to girls like Scarlett. Never. When you’re just starting out, it’s hard to know how far you need to go before they’ll fuck you. You need to test the water. My advice is just don’t. Dive right in. I love you. You never need to go that far. Never.

- - -

"Hey," Scott shouts from the kitchen.

"What," I yell back as I start taking the money out of the registers, making sure all the bills are facing the same way, making sure there are no creases. The bank won’t take them if there are creases. Fucking Nazis.

"Some of us are going out for a drink after work tomorrow," he says appearing behind me with a mop in his hand. I don’t know why he’s started mopping the floor before he’s cleaned the pizza oven and toppings counter. He’s going to get shit all over and have to mop again. "Wanna come with us?"

I start laying the bills on the counter, stacking the ones in stacks of twenty-five. Without looking up I ask, "Who is going?"

"Joel, Alex, Kim, probably Betsy."

Betsy is the closest thing our chain has to a regional manager. She owns all of the places in Florida and southern Georgia. She’s late twenties, maybe early thirties, slim legs, nice big ass, and great tits. I know that after she gets a little booze in her I won’t be far behind.

"Ok, I’ll go."

"Cool," he says leaning against the wall, trying to be amiable so I don’t yell at him when I catch him smoking pot by the dumpster out back. "You can bring Scarlett, too. If you want to, I mean."

I look up from the cash, losing count. I spin and give Scott my death stare. "Why would I bring Scarlett," I ask.

He looks as if I’ve just walked in on him masturbating. "Er…well, uh, aren’t you guys…you know?"

"No, I don’t know," I snarl. I can feel my hands start to clench. My face is getting red.

"Aren’t you guys, you know, going out," he asks nervously.

The soundtrack is something in a foreign language. Maybe J-Pop. Hikaru Utada.

"No," I say plainly, turning back to the money. I hear him start back toward the kitchen. "Go home, Scott," I yell. "I’ll finish things here."

"Really," he questions.

"Yeah," I yell back, restarting my count.

When he’s gone I head to the walk in freezer where I’ve stored a bottle of Vodka behind a box of mushrooms. I bring it with me to the kitchen where I lean against the oven and pour a few shots worth into the barely touched 20oz Coke that Scott left here. Unsanitary bastard.

- - -

Christie orders the most expensive salad on the menu, and then doesn’t finish it.

"I can see why he left you," I say.

"Why who left me?"

"Whoever."

She reaches her fork across the table, spearing a piece of my chicken. "Why?"

"Because," I say, stabbing at her lettuce with my own fork, "you don’t finish your food. You eat like a bird."

She smirks and says she’ll finish mine if I eat hers. How fucking cute. I don’t like this. Nice Ben wordlessly switches the plates, smiling. Idiot. She returns the smile and begins singing under her breath. God, she has a beautiful voice. Maybe I could get used to this.

The soundtrack is Kenny G with vocal accompaniment, courtesy of the girl I just ran into on the street. Literally.

"You have a nice voice."

"You don’t." I blush, but I don’t get defensive. That’s not normal.

I tell her that flattery will get her everywhere she wants to go. Like a Visa. Har, har. She laughs.

Maybe I could get used to this.

- - -

Scarlett comes up to the register massaging her arm that she just burned on the pizza oven. One day she will learn that 600 degrees is not the ideal temperature for human flesh. The red welt stands against her pale skin.

I’m counting money again; folding out the creases, making sure all of the dead slave owners are facing the same direction. She stands next to me, leaning close. I just keep counting.

"My dad’s coming down from South Carolina to visit," she says grazing my arm with her breasts.

"…seventeen, eighteen, nineteen…"

"You wanna meet him?"

"No. Shut up, please. Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four…"

"I just thought…"

"If you really did, you wouldn’t have asked in the first place." The soundtrack is a rim shot. "Did you inventory the shit in the walk-in?"

"No."

"Do it."

She disappears from my side and I can count again. But now I can’t concentrate.

She’s standing in the southern end of the freezer, counting boxes of dehydrated sausages. Her nipples are poking through her cotton shirt.

"What have you been telling people about you and me?"

She turns, her mouth hanging open, the dull light shining on the crucifix hanging from her neck.

"Nothing," she says, turning back to the boxes.

"Why do people think we are dating?"

She turns back, sets the box down, and drifts toward me like a ghost. She stretches her arms forward, wrapping them around me, and I pull her in, absorbing her, feeling her hard nipples against my chest.

"Do you hate me?"

"Why do you want me to meet your dad?"

She lifts her head, staring into my eyes.

"Do you hate me," she asks as I hold her in this tender embrace.

"I don’t love you," I say, gently. Not unkindly.

She lowers her head and places it back against my neck. My hands move down her back to her ass, because that is what I want.

- - -

Everybody is having sex except for you. All of your friends, all of your enemies, they’re all fucking. Remember the pious Christian chick from high school? She’s having sex. The kid that smelled like he bathed in cat piss? He’s getting some, probably from his cousin. Or sister. Even your friend that you thought was gay, he’s fucking. Everyone is, except for you. This is something that you realize after around the eighteenth year of purity. You’re the only one not getting laid, and yes, there is something wrong with you. You aren’t a man, you aren’t even a boy. You are just a oiled up hand and a porno video. You are pathetic.

But what can you do about it? You don’t know how to deal with women. The only things you know about relationships are what you’ve learned from sitcoms and movies. You’ve learned about the kind of girls that don’t exist. The phantoms that Carson is so fond of.

- - -

The Eiffel Tower is the buddy flick of fucking. The feel good move of the year. It’s male bonding through a vagina. It’s less gay than it sounds.

Divide and conquer. What you do is find a friend roughly the same height as you, and find a chick that’s about a head shorter. One guys takes the ass, the other the pussy. Oh yeah, and you’re standing up while you do this. While you’re fucking you and your buddy high five over her head, and that’s the Eiffel Tower. It’s worth 15 points.

A picture of Gary and I Eiffel Towering this random chick adorns the dry erase board in the locked bedroom now. It’s become our coat of arms. I’m glad I took that back, because if I had to see her face during it, I might have dropped to half-mast.

Right now, I’m in the lead, but Gary is so close it’s scary. After a month, Carson—the phantom fucker—is at the bottom. His total only rises by increments of five, which means he’s constantly scoring anal, which is fucking impossible. If you ask a chick for anal she looks at you like just asked her for her fucking kidneys.

- - -

"What’s your favorite kind of bird," Christie asks as she dumps ice on the linoleum floor and crunches it under her feet. She begins sliding across the floor as I ask her why she wants to know that. She shrugs as she leans on the counter for balance. The pizza oven hisses in the background. The soundtrack is something slow with cellos and maybe a piano. Maybe something by Yo-Yo Ma. "I think you can tell a lot about a person if you know what kind of bird they like."

I brush dried up cheese off the toppings counter. "A canary, I guess." She slides across the floor and I can’t tell if she’s heard me. "You?"

"A raven."

"So what’s that say about you," I ask as I stretch Saran Wrap across the open ingredient containers. Two extra points.

"Raven’s are respected, not quite feared or hated—like vultures. And they aren’t doomed to live in cages all their lives."

"Just atop busts of Pallas."

"Nevermore," she says pushing off from the counter and gliding into me. I place my hand on her flat stomach and pull her into me. She sighs contently. Her hair is in my face. I wish she wasn’t so tall. "Did you know that in the 40’s when they were mining they’d have a canary in the shaft with them? If it fell down dead, that meant that there was methane in the air, and the miners left."

"Actually, I did," I say as I give her a push—not liking the connotation—sending her sliding across the floor giggling.

"What a grand life, to live in a cage, sit on a perch, and die to save some greedy gold diggers. Is that the kind of life you want," she asks teasing me, "to be some 1940’s messiah dead at the bottom of your cage?"

"If I knew you were going to read that much into it, I would have said Parrot."

"Another caged animal," she says in a sing-song voice.

"Whatever," I mutter under my breath as I grab a mop. "Would you mind getting your dirty-ass raven feet off the floor? I need to clean."

She smirks and drops a wink.

"Call me," she says.

"Why don’t you call me," I ask.

"Because I’m not the one who longs to be caged."

- - -

"Stalker" was a term invented to weed out the nice guys; to make sure they’d never breed. Nowadays, if you aren’t trying to stick your hand down a girl’s pants, you are a stalker. If you are nice to her, if you treat her right, buy her things, you’re creepy. And—like all the TV shows—you’ll be standing outside her room at night while she changes. The next thing you know, you’re chopping her up into little bits and sealing her in Ziploc baggies. And all you did was bring her chicken soup when she was sick.

- - -

I don’t want to be caged. I used to maybe, but I’m not like that anymore. Fucking Nice Ben, pantywaist shit-head. He’s the canary. I’m a raven. Or maybe a vulture. Yeah. That’s me. Preying on the dead, fucking the life right out of them. Fear me. Respect me. Hate me. Just don’t cage me.

- - -

It’s Sunday and all of us are drunk before sunset. We were going to go to a movie or something, but Dave brought home a party ball last night.

It’s been two months since we started the tally. We’ve all seen each other naked on tape, fucking. This is awkward. Oh well, at least my dick was the biggest.

Actually, we never saw Carson, but none of us really ever expected to. We’re pretty sure he hasn’t gotten laid since we started keeping track. What better time to call him on it than after a few beers?

"So Carson," Jeff begins and the rest of us start giggling like we’re fucking school girls, "how exactly do you get chicks to do anal all the time?"

"Well usually a brick to the head works pretty well."

We all laugh, because that’s funny to us. Just like all of the moves are funny. Maybe they’re funny because they aren’t supposed to be. Or maybe they’re funny because we are the kings, and they the peons. It’s funny because it’s reassuring. Yes, we are still the ones with the dicks, we still wear the pants. God is in his heaven and all is right with the world.

"Seriously, though," Carson says, "we never said any of this had to be with girls." And we laugh again, because it’s always funny when someone makes a gay joke. We are all secure in our sexuality. But Carson isn’t laughing, and after realizing this, neither are we.

- - -

The Houdini is doggystyle sex with a twist. Right before you cum, you pull out and spit on her back. She turns her head to look in disbelief that you came on her, because this isn’t a fucking porno. When she turns to find only spit, you blow your load on her face. The name has something to do with all those water tricks Houdini did or some shit like that. I don’t really care right now, because I’m a vulture and I’m concentrating on saving up enough spit in my mouth to make this convincing. You have to be a fucking magician to time all this right. Moans, spits, orgasms; maybe that’s why it’s called the Houdini.

I’m not a magician, so I fuck it up, but I’ll still give myself the full six points. Screw the honor system, this is close enough. When I pull out, I accidentally cum on her back. Feeling ridiculous, I add the wad of spit. The soundtrack is a third grade violin recital, or a garage band from Wisconsin.

"What the fuck is wrong with you," this bridesmaid, this corpse, asks.

"I’m a vulture," I say, because I’m drunk.

She grabs my pillow and wipes off. She goes off on me as she gathers up her clothes and puts them on. She should be glad I fucked her in the first place.

"Why can’t I ever meet a nice normal guy," she yells at me before leaving the room.

"Because you don’t want to," I shout after her.

- - -

Hurricane Cassie is slated to tear through Southern Florida in three days. We’ll get the snuggling, Boca Raton will get the fucking. But still, half the population of Riverglade is packing up and getting out of the state; all of them secretly wishing to come back to a pile of rubble and maybe a dead pet. Me? I’m staying. I’m not afraid. I’m what people are afraid of. I prey on the dead; canary my ass.

We’re having a party tonight to celebrate the beginning of hurricane season, even though it began two hurricanes ago. We just want to fuck more chicks. None of us are talking about Carson. We aren’t disqualifying him, but we are sure as hell not going to get beaten by a queer.

Christie is coming over tonight and I’m going to fuck her, and I’m going to tape it, and I’m going to make duplicates and stick them inside movie rental cases at every Blockbuster in Florida. The soundtrack is something aggressive and fast. Metallica, maybe System of a Down.

I’m a little more drunk than I’d like to be, but I’m trying to forget about what happened in Gary’s car. Christie’s sitting on my bed, fully clothed. She’s even a little tipsy, this shouldn’t be hard. I tell her to stay put, I’m going downstairs for another beer, silently hoping that they key to this damned cage is at the bottom of it.

- - -

The sun’s down and Gary, Jeff, Dave and I are sitting in the broken down Oldsmobile behind our house smoking. This is a ritual. The white interior trim has yellowed from not rolling down the windows after we light up. Before every big party we do this. The soundtrack is something mellow and reggae. Probably some Sublime.

Carson isn’t with us. We don’t talk about him. He’s our living skeleton out of the closet. The porno mag under your bed that your mom finds. Our illegitimate child.

Dave starts talking about Kelly, the girl he dated through all of high school. He misses her. "I hear that," Jeff adds. I want to punch something. Gary talks about the one that got away. Or break something. Jeff and Dave nod methodically, the smoke filling the air, blank expressionless looks on their faces. I want to fuck something. Their minds floating in a void, still chasing the brides. And I want to kill something.

"What is this? The fucking Ya Ya Sisterhood," I ask angrily.

- - -

"Jelly Donut," Christie whispers as she slams her fist into my nose. I pull away, shocked, my hand going to my nose just in time to stop the blood from hitting my lips. We were just about to kiss.

"Ow, what the fuck," I yell, enraged. No one touches a vulture’s beak.

"What the fuck? What the fuck," she screams at me, as if I’ve just slammed her in the nose. Or asked her for anal sex. "What the fuck is this," she screams, throwing a balled up Polaroid at me. The blood runs over my fingers, dotting the photo with red.

It’s our coat of arms. She’s seen the board.

"What is this," she shrieks again, like I didn’t hear her the first time. It’s me with my dick in a chick’s ass. I choose not to say this.

She balls up her fist and brings it down on my cheek. A girl punch, but it still hurts.

"You bastard." Another punch, this one lands above my left eye. I don’t fight back. "You misogynistic shit." A real punch this time, it slams into my lower lip, forcing it to grind over my teeth. I don’t fight back because it feels good, in a messed up way. The way getting trounced in a mosh pit feels good, the way only a guy can appreciate. "I thought you were different," she yells and a tear falls from her eye, like all of this is my fault. Another punch in the lower lip. I snort the blood from my nose and try to swallow it, but it ends up in my mouth and I cough it up when she socks me in the throat. I spray her with blood. She yells at me like it’s my fault. "You…you fucker!" I suck my lip into my mouth, surprised by the amount of blood coming out.

"Got any Saran Wrap," I ask.

Another punch, slamming my teeth down on the lip that’s sucked in my mouth. More blood.

"You…Victimizer!"

"Victimizer?!" That’s it. Fuck that. "I’m a fucking victim!"

"Of what?!"

"Everything," I say, through a mouth full of blood. "Women. Society. Nature."

She stands up, a fleck of my drying blood still clinging to her cheek. "You really are a canary."

"Fuck you."

"Part of being free is owning up to your actions, not blaming your fucking cage." I suck my lip back into my mouth. Poor me and my blood. "Breathe in the methane and drop dead." She turns on her heel and leaves.

Does any animal eat a dead vulture?

- - -

Everyone’s gone now. I’m the only one left in the house. The hurricane scare has reached it’s zenith. Everyone left yesterday. I walk into the sixth bedroom, the temple of testosterone, the man-whore hall of fame, the proof that I have a dick. This room is the reality of the past two years. This scoreboard is how I know that I’m a man. It’s how I know that I am normal. It’s my cage.

The dust floating in the air makes me sneeze, which gets my chapped lips bleeding again. The wind is picking up outside.

I haven’t slept for two days.

My mantras sound dull and uninspiring. A sermon falling on an empty room. I’m a man. I’m a fucking bird. I’m a player. I’m an abuser. I’m the necessary evolution; I’m the open eyes of the sexless, the frustrated. I’m a yellow-bellied sacrifice, surrounded by years of my own shit. I am part of something male, I am the dominator, my friends, my posse, we are conquerors. We are the Joy Luck Club. I am angst, aggression, rage, sex, destruction, savage. I am a prank gone too far. I am a dead baby joke at a pro-life rally. I am ridiculous.

The soundtrack is white noise, half spoken words, static, electric whines, and snow.

I am tired.

I go to Dave’s room and riffle through his desk drawers. Dave works in a department store with a Pharmacy. He’s a self-medicator. He steals their drugs. Not the OTC crap the prescribed stuff, the RX baby, the good shit. Something in here will knock me out. I don’t want to think anymore.

Adderall. Whatever, sounds good. I dry swallow it and walk downstairs. I open the cabinet above the sink, hoping to find some booze to fuck with the pill. None. I check the pantry. I forgot that we started keeping condoms in there. I stopped using them all together a month ago.

I am poison. I am acid. I am decay.

I settle for coffee. I don’t bother with a cup. I bring the whole pot outside with me. Hurricane Cassie is prison raping Boca Raton. I sit on the porch and watch a leaf fall from a tree. And I can’t take my eyes off it, even after it lands. My head has never felt more in control of my body. In fact, it feels like the only part of it. After ten minutes, I can see everything. My eyes are open. No detail escapes them because I can’t ignore anything. Every blowing blade of grass is processed, every tree branch shaking is registered.

I can see everything because Adderall isn’t a knock-your-ass-out drug. It’s a mental steroid. Amphetamine cocktail. It’s Ritalin on crack. Side effects include: changes in sex drive, tremors, hives, insomnia.

I can see everything because I am the way of the world. I am the motion of life. Oppression.

God oppresses man via nature. Have sex. Man oppresses man via society. Have sex. Man oppresses woman via sex. You better like this because it’s all you’re ever going to get. Woman oppresses man via acceptance and expectation. Let’s get this over with.

I drain the pot of coffee and I think I could be a poet.

The soundtrack is every vague metaphor, double meaning, alliteration, and techno song ever written melted on a spoon and injected intravenously.

The soundtrack is an Auld Lang Sine electronic ring tone.

My phone is ringing.

Scarlett.

- - -

It’s dark and Cassie is ready to cuddle. Riverglade will lose power from twenty minutes and nothing more. Still it’s a ghost town. We are the citizens of Riverglade, Florida. Pay attention to us. We want your pity. We crave your tears. Answer our prayers with yours.

I drive to the top of the parking garage at the corner of Broad Street and Edith. Standing against the night, dressed in all black, is Scarlett. Scarlett with her creamy white flesh—tiny freckles dotting the area around her quivering lips. Her chin bouncing up and down rapidly; conducting an orchestra.

The soundtrack is "‘Til I Get Over You" by Michelle Branch blaring from Scar’s car speakers.

She has mascara trails from her eyes to her neck. They look forged, like she put the mascara on just to cry it off. I get out of my car and stare across the roof at her.

The wind blows, tugging at her hair, her skirt, my jacket. Her hand moves from her side to her stomach, then upward; her fingernails tracing an invisible line to her crucifix. She fingers it. Her knees bend and she’s down on her haunches. There’s an oak box at her feet that she opens.

"Sodom and Gomorra," she says, pulling a photograph out of it. She looks at it, touches it tenderly, and then crumbles it up. She tosses it into the air. Cassie catches and carries it over the edge of the roof. "New Orleans last year. Water is the new fire." She pulls a bracelet out of the box and snips it with a pair of wire cutters. Next comes a corsage. She pulls the cloth petals off, letting the wind take them. He hates me. He loves me not. Another photograph crumpled and thrown. This one lands at my feet.

I pick it up and straighten it out. It’s a picture of Scarlett as a little girl. Scarlett, the cum dumpster, she’s holding a giant costumed Mickey Mouse’s hand. Scarlett, the half point wonder, is beaming. Say cheese. Scarlett, the pyramid wall, the human sperm bank, the mascara smear on my wall, the little kid, the vacationing child, she’s smiling.

And I want to cry. Side effects include: emotional instability, loss of appetite, rapid or pounding heart beat.

"I didn’t know you went to Disneyland."

"There’s a lot about me that you don’t know," she says rising.

"Why are you doing this," I ask, slipping the picture into my pocket.

"I’m trying to forget what it’s like to be happy."

Side effects include: depression, dizziness, nausea, impotence.

"Why?"

"So I can be content around you."

The rain starts to fall. Cassie is getting into spooning position, legs curled, arm draped over our abdomen. Scarlett turns her face toward the rain.

"God is crying," she says. She kicks the oak box over the edge of the building. The soundtrack is the car alarm that goes off upon impact twenty stories below.

"Why," I ask.

"Because there are no good people left in the world." She pauses. "And because I love you."

Side effects include: dry mouth, headache, twitches.

Side effects include: insatiable urge to throw myself at her feet and tell her that I’m sorry. Oh God, Scarlett, I am so sorry.

I move toward her, vaguely aware that there’s a lump the size of my heart in my throat.

I stand inches away from her, looking down into her eyes, drowning in anguish.

"Do you hate me?"

I wrap my arms around her and pull her close to me.

"No," I say as I keep my hands on her back. Because this is what I want.

Awesome night in sky, awesome drops, not so awesome calling for help on Genbu

2005-11-03T06:11:18Z

3 genbus, 2 suzakus, no losses, incredible drops all five times. More pics and shiz later

hollitz @ 2005-10-26T23:12:00

2005-10-27T04:13:07Z

hollitz @ 2005-09-20T15:40:00

2005-09-20T20:41:20Z

Aquaducts and Fan fic

2005-09-04T08:32:42Z

Got a bunch of people in the LS PM2-3 done today. We camped and Killed Trues and I got the katana that is double attack+1%!woooooot

Also killed some NM we had never heard of before that dropped a good head piece for Fromm's drk. str+2 int+2

I now have the samurai subligar as well as the rdm/brd brd/bst and nin lvl 50 JSE.

My eyes open and for all I know its another morning. My memory had already started to go by that point. Every morning starts like that. You open your eyes, you don't know where you are. But not every morning starts with an unknown beast howling at the top of its lungs. Unless you live with a Galka.

The first thing I see is Fromm leaning over me chanting. Healing me. I get to my feet and look past my brother. There is a red rock spiraling upward. Like a staircase. Its so inviting, and I can almost hear something in my head beckoning me to climb it. I look around. I don't know where Elko or Koa are. I look past the staircase into a red oblivion. This can't be, I mean, the protocrystals, the avatars, they can't be real. But this sounds like what every childhood story described the inside of a Protocrystal to look like. I know what I will find at the top. Fromm and I climb the staircase in a hurry.

There, at the top, doubled over on the last stair, is Elkowelko, clutching his head and moaning softly. Above him hangs Ifirit, god of the flame. I can't breath. I'm afraid that if i do, he might disappear. He is staring down at Elko curiously.

"You...can't be-"

But then he sees me move. And he roars. And I freeze. I would have died if it weren't for Koa. I have no doubt of this. He would have sent me flying into the inferno of emptiness to float downward until the day when the protocrystal finally just broke.

Koa had managed to get behind him somehow. Don't ask me how, thiefs never get away thier secrets. As soon as Ifrit's roar finished, Koa thust her dagger forward into the beast's calf. He tried to pull it out, to stab again, but it was stuck.

"Shit," is all koa has time to say before she talks off running down the staircase.

I unfreeze. The shock subsides. Yes, this is a creature from childhood fairy tales. Yes, he is real. Yes, we need to kill him.

Fromm goes to work on Elko. Koa runs. My lips start moving slightly. My head running through ever water spell that I can think of. The spells that I can hit him with, they don't distract him from Koa. That dagger must have really hurt. When they reach the bottom of the stair, Koa pivots and dives underneath the floating monster. She begins running up the stairs again, up toward Elko.

The trouble with Anicent Magic is that it's logic is so screwy. See, how spells work is like a logic problem. You put these pieces together in your head until you just KNOW that the desired effect will be a magic spell. It's all like an algorithm. Not ancient magic, its counter-inutitive. Its funky logic. So i always have trouble getting the spell out fast. It's like saying the alphabet backward.

Right before Ifrit reaches a long firey hand at Koa, I get the spell off. Ifrit is knocked off balance and plummets to the ground right in front of Elko (who is now standing, thanks to Fromm.)

Elko's eyes glaze over as he looks down at the temporarily stunned beast. Then he closes them, and his voice booms throughout the crystal. He says words that I can't understand. Its the old language of Vana'diel. A giant bubble of water surrounds Ifrit. He looks at Elkowelko and you can almost see fear in his blazing eyes. Elko raises his hand skyward.

This he says in New Vana'dielan. "Serve me."

Ifrit growls something in the language of the dead, and Elko brings his hand down. The water bubble compresses, squeezing Ifrit. He howls in pain. Then elko raises his hand again, releasing the pressure. Again he commands the avatar. This time Ifrit speaks longer. This time I can understand it. I don't know why. It's definitely in Old Vana'dielan.

"You wish to form a blood pact?"

Elko nods.

"Do you realize the price you must pay? The agony you will endure each time you call me from this plane of existence?"

Elko nods.

"Do you know who you are?"

Elko does nothing.

"Can it really be you?"

Elko simply says, "Serve me."

Ifrit bows his head. A flash of light.

We are back in Yhoater Jungle. Confused, worn out, confused. Did I mention confused? The only thing that I can think to ask Elko is about the pain Ifrit mentioned.

Elko inhales deeply as he says "They don't call it a Blood Pact for nothing."

This is a month before Shiva comes out of hiding. This is a month before Windurst almost falls to an Ancient Might. This is a month before we get kicked out of our home country.

More fanfic

2005-08-29T18:25:50Z

More fanfic

It was my cockiness that got us kicked out of Windurst, now that I think about it. Don't ask me why I remember this, I just do. I'm not doing anything special. I'm just sitting in my rented room in front of the fire, making ice materialize, and then sending it into the flames.

When Fromm first learned how to teleport, the four of us spent a lot of time traveling and exploring. You could say it was fate that lead us to Ifrit's Cauldron, but that's probably not right. It was Koa's lust for gil.

After first arriving in Windurst, Koa struck up a quick friendship with Nanaa Mihgo. By hanging around with such a reknowned thief, Koa became privy to certain valuable information.

"There's Orichalcum Ore in there," Koa said excitedly as she shoved a handful of pickaxes in her backpack. "Do you know how much that stuff is worth?"

The three of us shook our heads; Elko and Fromm not knowing, me not caring.

"Good," Koa said, "then you won't feel too cheated when you see your share of it." She dropped a wink. Fromm tried to weasel out by saying that he had just learned how to teleport to Yhoat and that if he didn't communicate with the crystal properly one or all of us could be lost in the void for eternity. Koa assured us that it would be well worth the risk.

We made it to Yhoater Jungle just fine. We made it to Ifrits Cauldron just fine. But that's when things started to get out of hand.

The moment that the jungle turned into the volcano, Elko started to scream. Fromm went to work instantly. His eyes half-closed, he started muttering under his breath. This is how white magic works. When you see a person in pain you kind of zone out. You leave your body in a way. You get inside your target's head and start searching for the problem. This is where Fromm usually shines, but that day he could do nothing for Elko. Perhaps he could have, had he more time, but not long after Fromm begand scanning him, Elko took off running.

Koa was the only one who could keep up with him, Fromm and I quickly fell behind. Thankfully Koa has a brain in her head, no matter how focused on money it may be. She left a trail for us to follow. Every couple of yards there was a pickaxe embedded in a wall. There were a few spots where I'm relatively sure Koa stopped to dig.

After dodging bombs and bats, we found Elko sitting in front of a gigantic red crystal. Fromm tried to communicate with it, but he claimed that it was dead. It had no voice left. Koa and I tried to get Elko's attention, but his gaze would not leave the crystal. At least he wasn't screaming anymore. There's nothing more pathetic, more gut-wrenching, more annoying, than hearing a tarutaru scream.

"Elko," Fromm started, "this crystal...it's dead."

"No," he finally replied. "Can't you hear it? It's screaming."

"What is," I asked?

"The avatar."

Fromm chuckled. "An Avatar? Elko, this isn't a protocrystal! They aren't even real! Fenrir, Carbuncle, Diabolos, those are just fables that they elders tell you when you are a kid. The tale of Fenrir is designed to teach young black mages responsibility. You don't actually believe that someone summoned him and he almost laid waste to all ofWindurst do you?"

A flash of light. And then I was laying on my back.