"There's Nothing Can't Be Killed"

I must’ve been 23 or four,
Or better yet
As I’ve said before
Old enough to know better
Young enough not to care,
Playing chief setter
Stacking beer bottles
In a bar
Daring table wobbles
To bring down the pyramid
Almost three feet high.
Old drunks cheer the kid,
Toss fresh empties freely,
And buy me rounds
So I can keep on steadily
Building a palace
Any god would come
Raise a chalice
Say, "This’ll be my home
Away from heaven."
Such thinking a prodrome
Joyful fantasies of mythical grandiosity
Practically begging
Like a magnet for the calamity
Of reality to arrive.
The door opened
And in came five foot five
Terrible truth
A slender fellow
The epitome of youth.
His white t-shirt
Silencing all laughter
Like a mouthful of grave dirt
Covered in blood dropping jaws,
And his zombie shuffle;
Whatever the cause
The stain was on him
Not from.
So grim.
He went to the bar.
His eyes locked on somewhere
Never mind near or far
It was nowhere in there.
Starring thru the bartender
He spoke in a voice that couldn’t scare
It was so soft and pleasant.
He politely inquired,
“At present
Would you be so kind
As to get me a beer,
And if you wouldn’t mind
Calling the police?
See I just stabbed my brother
For fucking my niece.”
The bartender obliged the request
Gave the suds on the house,
And called the cops at his behest,
While I dismantled the temple
Learning then
There’s nothing men can’t kill
Brothers, innocence, happiness, and time
Murdered dead
Putrefied into slime...

#

​"Modern Romantics Chatting"

It’s not the first time.
It won’t be the last.
The best is in the future
Not the past.
Though that snaking tongue
Coiling my mast…

Pardon, if a gentleman may ask,
Must it be so crass?
Is the aim to bask
In tales of tits and ass?

Well, the way the rain falls
Inspiring lust
Dripping wet slick
We do what we must
To satisfy the urge
To briefly purge
A need to stuff.
Caressing to explosion
The gradual erosion
Into the buff.
A bit more pawing
The hunger gnawing
Quiets long enough
To welcome in seasons
Defying all reasons
Boiling snow
Still crystalline;
The summer you know
Easily redefine,
A sun baking frost
Across the lost.
And the cause of this
World amiss,
Logic gone topsy-turvy?
A beauty mind melting curvy
Grinding for oil,
And enjoying the toil.

Perhaps it’s easier,
Dare say sleazier,
For self dubbed pimps
To so casually glimpse
Romance in skin,
But I can’t win
Sight of the virtue
You claim is due.

The chat is fucking
Not lucking
Into love
(releases a dove)

Where did that come from… though I suppose
A kind of thorny rose.
None will think a hypocrite
Hid behind a gambit
Disguising the carnal
Mentioning a marvel
Like a hills’ slopes
Blinding such dopes
Who dare to attest
There’s shame in a naked breast;
Treat a prude like a genius
For not mentioning a penis. 
Trade vulgar for plain,
Refusing to feign
Not having a want
Others may taunt
While secretly hungry
For cock and cunny.

Why not revel while loathed
As a scapegoat clothed
So others may disapprove
To prove
Their exalted
Sexless status?
Grin when faulted
For use of the apparatus.

Standing exempt
From any contempt
For as Byron said
The hearts which loath also dread
What the bolder did
Leaving nothing hid.

After the dynamite went off Vince came running out of the parking garage as if chasing the fireball.  He shouted, “That didn’t get them all.  Run!”

At that moment I was tempted to say I quit; however, it seemed prudent to wait until we’d dashed back to the boat.  Bullets buzzed by like angry bees.  I remember thinking something much more poetic and profound at the time, but I lost it.  It’s hard to keep track of such things when being chased by the Pirates of Lake Michigan.

We jumped aboard a waiting cigarette boat, and Ruiz punched the throttle to the limit.  We cut across the glassy surface of the great lake, jetting our way back to the Queen Anne.

 Vince said, “I’ll be the first to admit this documentary has gone sideways… as soon as I find someone to blame who isn’t me.”

“Yeah,” I said, “While that’s all going on I just wanted to say I quit.”

#

Not long after I wandered the streets of Chicago looking for someplace peaceful.  So I stepped into a bar.  I might as well have stepped into a dream. 

The crowded room sat or stood in silence.  The lights turned down to midnight, only a few small stage lamps illuminated a small corner.  All eyes watched a tiny stage large enough for any band willing to play shoulder to shoulder.  There stood a young woman.  Porcelain skin wrapped in wisps of black and red lingerie, auburn hair tumbling passed her shoulders, she held a pose as a nearby quartet – drummer, bass, guitar, and trumpet – played a rendition of Slim Gaillard's Atomic Cocktail.  The young woman held up a black rod.  She ignited the rod with a bit of sexy sleight of hand, and as the music rose, she danced. 

Whirling the torch around her she used the flame to burn off a flash paper top.  Nipples hid behind teasing lids of sequined pasties struck me as more provocative than anything nude.  Like being left with only the aroma of a fine meal, never to taste it; and of course, the Catholic in me felt like I didn’t deserve to see the rest of her, and somehow she knew it, especially the longer I watched her. 

Using the torch she playfully pushed the audience back, and serpentine slid off the stage.  Fire caressing her skin as she twirled to the music, her body moving like mercury, she whipped the crowd into a frenzy.  Cheers erupted from all around.

“Woo!”

“Yeah, yeah!”

“Ow ow owooooo!”

The music quieted.  Snap of her fingers, the other end of the torch burst into flame.  The drummer struck up a jazzy polyrhythm.  The dancer juggled the torch for a moment before spinning it like a helicopter blade, and I’d swear lifting herself off the ground a few inches.  The crash of a cymbal brought her back to Earth, where she bowed, and departed the room, but never my memory. 

Later that evening I spied her, fully clothed, at the end of the bar.  I approached slowly.

“Hello.  I don’t mean to bother you, but I just wanted to say that was fantastic.”

She smiled, “Thank you.”  Reaching into a pocket she produced a card.  Handing it to me she said, “Follow me online, so you know where to see me again.”

The card displayed her name in purple calligraphy:  Lola Lampe.

It is always an error to buy anyone who performs any kind of sexual show a drink.  They’ve heard every line conceived since the dawn of time, and after shows are typically set to a mild degree of defensive, knowing all too well there is often always one drunk Don Juan fired up on Don Julio thinking tonight he’ll bag the burlesque babe.  I know this.

That’s why I asked, “Can I buy you a drink?”

Because I had been drinking whiskey not tequila, that’s how liquor logic works. 

Yet, to my surprise, she said, “Sure.” 

I signaled the bartender, and in the process caught the attention of the grand dame hosting the show.  A stunning matriarch of the burlesque scene, instead of a crown she wore her silvery hair in a stylish updo.  She glided over.

Standing between me and Lola the Grand Dame said, “How you doin’ Lola?”

Lola said, “I’m fine.  This fellow was just buying me a drink.”

Turning to me, appraising all at a glance, “Good lord, you look like central casting sent over an ax murderer.”

I joked, “Well, I do have an ax, though I’ve never killed anyone.  One of those statements is a lie by the way.”

Grand Dame said, “So you don’t own an ax.”

“May I buy you a drink as well Madame…”

“Dee Dee D’lish.”  She offered a gloved hand adorned by a ring large enough to be a doorknocker.  I kissed the ring, mainly because it covered most of her hand, but she seemed satisfied by the gesture.  Enough at least to congenially chaperone my conversation with Lola, provided I kept buying rounds for both ladies. 

When Lola departed to powder her nose Madame D’lish told me, “Lola’s the new girl.  Kind of my protégée you might say.  She got a hell of a routine, and one hell of a body, but the girl is greener than a green snake.  She’s going to be one of the greats someday…”

“I don’t doubt it,” I said.

“… provided she doesn’t make any mistakes.”  Over her wine D’lish cocked at eyebrow at me.

Looking her square in the eye I said, “I’m not going to lie to you because I don’t think I’d get away with it.  I would love to be that mistake… though it would bother me if it derailed her.”

Dee Dee patted me on the shoulder, “Only an honest man stabs himself on purpose.”

#

Whatever else happened that night Dee Dee D’lish set me up with a job.  She owned a few holes in walls around Chicago.  Dee Dee set me up as the front doorman at one of her Burlesque Burrows over on Milwaukee and North Ave.  I sold tickets, booze, and did some light hosting duties.  Working there I got to see a side of the show many never witness so rarely appreciate. 

In these makeshift theatres she funneled new performers to see who possessed any talent, wanted it bad enough – panning for gold among those drawn to burlesque.  Everyone came for their own reasons, but most, I found, wanted to feel special in a way missing from their own lives.  Sure, some grew up dazzled by the likes of Sally Rand, Tempest Storm, Gypsy Rose Lee, or contemporaries like Dita Von Teese, or Michelle L’amour, but many appeared drawn to a sensation only burlesque seemed able to provide.  A chance to be daring, sexy, dangerous, entertaining, creative, any adjectives only hinted at the depth of their reason. 

There’s something about witnessing a young housewife shiver out of her skirt, body not exactly centerfold material after her first kid, stretch marks like scars after a bear mauling and still holding enough pregnancy weight to keep jiggling after she stops shimmying; that is inspiring.  It’s easy for the ladies who look like lifelong gymnasts to parade around near naked.  It’s something else entirely for someone clearly self conscious to take the risk because it isn’t on the same level.  People will cheer for the beautiful no matter what they do.  The way that housewife’s eyes lit up by the thrill of performing, she could see through any dark thoughts to some place better. 

Now as for those aforementioned ladies who fit society’s unfortunately standardized beauty requirements, their work is easier and yet somehow harder.  Beauty is a part of the business, there’s no denying that, but beauty fades, so there is a definite window of opportunity.  Those tits won’t always be so perky, that ass is destined to inflate, sag, wrinkle – you get the picture.  And the beautiful ones know it.  There’s a certain desperate terror to their performances.  Ambition to be a star fueled by the fear of time slipping away, they turn into acrobats dancing on air in sheer bits of cloth inspiring lusting eyes to hold them aloft.  In that moment the fear melts away because in that instant they’re the stars they want to be, whether they shine in the sky or a hole in the wall.  Watch one sashay to center stage, and notice the satisfaction spread across her face, beaming bright enough to light up the night.

And that’s what I realized I liked most about burlesque.  The tease is sexy as hell, don’t get me wrong, but the performers always look like they’re enjoying themselves.  I’ve been to too many strip clubs.  Sure, they get totally naked, but their dead hollow eyes and bored expressions are haunting, as if they couldn’t enjoy anything ever again.  But burlesque performers seem so joyous. 

Never mind the sound of cheap wood crackling like the stage is about to give way under a feather’s touch, or the grim illumination of a galaxy of bare bulbs bouncing off exposed brick walls, and perhaps the audience is composed of a hobo or two, and definitely a cavalcade of gutterpunks, this is a chance to shine.  So few get to have that – the ladies come alive. 

#

For weeks I started noticing a trend.  Some performers went less into routines, and more into aggressive displays of disrobing.  They stomped back and forth across the stage, ripping their costumes off, and flinging them aside.  Anjelica Foxxx would slap her breasts, and shout at the audience, “Eggs on a nail!  Eggs on a nail!”  Then she would flash a disgusted sneer on her way backstage.  Other ladies like Vicky Velveteen and Lola Lampe came out in pasties and a thong, their act primarily putting clothes back on.  Granted, the latter did it to a kind of dance number, but I couldn’t quite get the point.

The burlesque used to be about some kind of theme.  The ladies would craft a series of routines making fun of a bit of pop culture.  Anjelica and Vicky wrote a hilarious show called How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse… with Boobs!  You have not lived until you’ve seen a zombie ecdysiast chased off stage by a shaking pair of titties.  On other occasions they went with holiday themes.  However, once hate fucking became the norm the themes confined themselves to simple costumes and bait titles.  Instead of telling jokes the performers just came out.  The theatricality disappeared. 

When I mentioned it to Dee Dee D’lish the grand dame informed me, “That’s the way the girls want to go.  They say it’s sort of a punk rock fuck you.  Don’t want to see my fat ass naked?  Well, it’s all you gonna see.  So-called pretty girls keep they clothes on, and the others all anybody gets.”

It made sense.  More than once after a show I heard audience members chatting with each other:

“Oh that ass is going to haunt me.”

“All cottage cheese and shit.”

“Motherfucker, I didn’t pay $35 bucks to see that.”

“That chocolate elephant scared me.”

“One hot girlie in that whole group.  One.”

“I’m hotter than most of these bitches.”

And I’m sure those insults made it backstage one way or another.  So naturally hate fucking the audience evolved into the new performance style.  What bothered me the most, though, is that the show steered away from performances, especially the parodies.  Without humor, the show bled happiness like a hemophiliac. 

One evening I found myself going through my duties mechanically.  I helped the ladies get prepared backstage, primarily by staying out of their way.  At the start of the show I got on stage:

“Good evening ladies and gentlemen.  Thank you for coming.  Please, no photography.  If you feel like hootin’ and hollerin’, anything kind is, of course, permissible.  Let the ladies know you love ‘em.  That said, Dee Dee D’lish proudly presents Law and Order:  Booty Unit.” 

Then I retreated to the rear.  Betty BaBoom took the stage.  Blonde Betty worked her way from one side to the other, pacing, shedding layers until she stood bare ass in front of her audience, bent over, and pulled her butt cheeks apart.  She stayed like that for what felt a minute as if demanding the crowd stare into her anus. 

At the onset it produced an immediate collective gasp from the audience, “Oh!” that quickly shifted into a hesitant, “Woo?”

Then Betty skipped off stage giggling. 

I sighed.  I went to the theatre front, grabbed a tallboy, and cracked it open.  Eyes hypnotically fastened to Betty’s balloon knot it dawned on me that for the last three weeks the only time I saw any joy on the ladies’ faces it came from a solid fuck you to the audience.  Someone watching Betty might’ve been thinking, “You go fat lady.  You’re bold, and that makes you beautiful.”  But whatever good feelings she elicited got swallowed by that brown hole.  Worse still, I realized the shows weren’t about having a good time anymore. 

Some came out expecting to be disliked, so they shaped their act in order to can-can the hate back before it could touch them.  Unfortunately this often resulted in a preemptive strike nuking the crowd – killing all to get two or three possible trolls.  Others like Lola and that young housewife, Rebecca Double D-Decker, needed to work twice as hard to win the blasted crowd over.  They felt a need to be perfect, so every misstep, real or imagined, flooded their minds with doubt.  Their acts turned into torture sessions.  They didn’t believe the cheers or applause because they couldn’t see how they shined anymore. 

So I wrote a note to Dee Dee thanking her for the job, and though I hated to do it I still needed to say, “I quit.”  Then, tallboy in hand, I hit the street.

“Resting Murder-Face”

The mechanics of the poor man’s face
Are what led to the current disgrace.
A fixed expression of distaste
As if he longed to lay to waste
Whatever passed before his eyes.
It would come as no sliver of surprise
To hear his name connected boldly
With some gruesome massacre coldly
Enacted as if proof evil walks the land,
Devils and men strutting hand in hand;
Or demonic from birth
Based on the lack of mirth
Apparent at a glance,
A gaze like a lance
Goring any who may inspire
The young fellow’s ire,
But that murderous look
Which has so many shook
Belied a humorous side.
Not something he tried to hide,
But only chose to share
With those willing to dare
A kind word in his direction
Promoting a smiling infection;
And the jokes would flow
Which jesters pay to know.
His dangerous countenance
And its seeming permanence
Stemmed from a natural inclination
Not towards devastation,
But the brooding inherent in all cynics.
Ask alienists at the finest clinics.
The soul shapes a face like clay
Though what it may convey
Is tragically open to interpretation
By the global congregation
More sure of their feelings
Than any true revealings.
So
On the story must go,
But to make it short
Like a shot of Malort,
He sat idly
By himself quietly,
The murder-face in place,
Eyes off into infinite space,
Thoughts orbiting bitterly,
All the while unwittingly
Building the dread
Across the room in a hero’s head,
As usual
A daydreamer delusional
Easily reducible
To a drunk longing for a crucible,
White knight syndrome assuming
To let this one live would be dooming
Humanity to calamity
(and to escape banality)
The knight drew a dagger to slay the dragon,
But murder-face broke a flagon,
A bone; punched a tooth out;
Battered into doubt
The future of the wannabe white knight
Seemingly destined then for eternal night.

And he hates himself for the blood he spilled
Even though it came from one who would’ve killed

Because all that changed is the belief
His smile is any relief.
There may be a beast beneath.

#

​"Beer Budget Chasing"
​
Concrete ocean waves
Drifting ships passed graves.
Gold wings spread
Like butter over bread,
And the angels fly
To somewhere without why.
Glass feet clink
Tap dancing tink
Hoping the sound may inspire
Coins to rain, end the drought so dire.
So what if bills are due?
Burning bushes on Jackson Avenue,
While exhaling stars
Which turn into bars,
Dividing lines,
Unhappy confines.
Imprisoned by belonging
To others’ longing:
Braces, insurance, utilities;
Penniless fuels hostilities
Over domestic responsibilities.
Bailed out head Southside
Where the sunrise can hide.
Any brain scan
Unable to do more than
Prove the drug is working
Synapses twerking
Jerking
Puppet strings
Tied to neon things
Dancing before eyes
Adding spice and dyes,
But not a word to share
Sights beyond compare
Until unicorns from Elven lore
Enrich a Korean store.
Nod to familiars dressed as cats,
Some in pork pie hats,
And others steel walkers
Like gargoyle stalkers
Tiptoeing across high rise rooftops
Unafraid of any possible drops
Champagne taste out pacing
Beer budget chasing
The other end of the rainbow
Where gold is supposedly aglow.

He gets into a taxi outside the Sunny Two-way Diner.  The driver asks, “Where to?”  He shrugs, checks his ID, today he’s Frank Jebson, lives in the suburbs.  Same as yesterday, but somehow it feels worse at the moment.  He tells the address, and feels his stomach churn.  Tommy promised a smooth trip.  Doesn’t feel like it so far, but Tommy’s always been a good guy.  Sure, he’s been known to sell rat poison to cokeheads for a laugh; however, Frank and Tommy go too far back for fatal pranks. 

The driver says, “That’s not a real place.”

“Sure it is.  Just drive.”

“I’m not driving you somewhere isn’t real.”  The cab pulls over to the curb.  The driver glares from the rearview, “Get out.”

Frank considers the gun in his pocket.  Fingers tickling the handle make Frank think the pistol is turning into a snake, a sense of scales on his fingertips.  Maybe Tommy told the truth after all.  His faith restored Frank whips out a handful of twenties.

“I’ll pay double the fair whatever it comes out, wherever you drop me.”

The cabbie shakes his head, “Fine.  It’s yo dime.”

“Yes it is.”

Into the inner city wormhole flashing the street lights blur into lines turning thirty miles an hour into lightspeed.  Pedestrians smear into a Pollack painting decorating the outside of the wormhole.  Frank glances at his watch.  Time is slowing down just like Einstein predicted.  Maybe he won’t be late after all. 

Alice said the party starts at nine.  It’s ten to.  Trips home from the city usually take 35 minutes sizzling down Lake Shore Drive.  The cab swerves to hit an Uber in the quarter panel, thumping the competitor into a spin.  Six car pileup in the rearview sends the cabbie into a sinister chuckle.

“Mind if I smoke?” he asks.

Frank replies, “Only if I can too.”

“Knock yourself out.  No weed though.  The smell wards off some, ya feel me?” 

“Yeah.”  Frank sparks a stick to life.  Tracers spill off the glowing end as Frank writes in the air.  Meaningless squiggles evolve into scribbles then words.  He pens a new version of W, but can’t see it catching on, so he waves the image away. 

Glancing out the window turns into staring.  Chop on the lake is making the black glass seem covered in shifting cracks.  Alice told him to bring home some party favors.  So Frank stopped off at the Chinese restaurant Tommy practically lives in.  The two sucked down wanton soup, while chatting around the topic.

Tommy with his usual juvenile bluntness, “Y’all need some booger sugar?  What’s up?”

Frank eye rolling sly, “Alice likes to see the sunrise.”

They exchange cash a bit more deftly.  Frank slips the pay into the black folder holding the check, so when Tommy feigns calculating his share of the bill he can surreptitiously remove the money.  Then Tommy nods to the waiter who fills a to-go container with the stash.  Enough coke to kill a rockstar, but Alice is always generous.  She doesn’t like to leave her friends out. 

On the way to the door Frank pocketed the snow, and tossed the container.  That’s when Tommy caught him out front:

“Hey man, I know how you like to get slippery eyes, so here’s for the party.”  He hands over a foil wrapped sugar lump the size of a kid’s thumb.  The claim is it’s dipped in a new high octane acid burning the lids off eyes – motherfuckers staring into ten dimensions.  Frank never could resist liquid sensory delusions. 

Back in the cab Frank realizes he’s been watching the flashback replay as if in real time.  The cabbie left LSD a long time back, and now the trip is smack in the middle of suburbia.  Frank shakes his head, chuckling delight.  The view is full of neon cowboys stop motion flickering waving hello.  Frank shifts to solidify his skin before the meat melts into a puddle on the floor.  The cabbie turns up the radio.  Notes spill out of the speakers, some shivering to the bass beat. 

“A friendly touch and I erupt.
The desire abrupt
To eat out every night
At that delicious sight.
Drown me in musty meat
Smothered en route to complete.
Tongue in the barrel.
Lust gone feral.
Lick an alphabet;
You can bet
I plunge in
For the win
When the river runs wild.
Shit, this heat isn’t mild.
Face melting
I’m fucking smelting
A golden memory…”

An Asian girl from Hawaii echoing the last line.  Her voice is some kind of mercury honey hybrid, flowing sweet into the ear and sure to incite lusty madness.  Frank checks his phone.  Three text messages from Alice.  She wants an eta.  He texts her back:

“I’ll be there when I show up.”

Up in the sky he glimpses winged beings darting behind the clouds.  Some carry spears.  Others wield bolts of lightning.  Rain drops start pattering on the windshield.  Seeing some blood mixed in, Frank wonders what’s going on in the sky. 

The driver remarks, “Bad weather tonight.”

“That’s what I heard,” Frank lies.  He heard nothing about the forecast.  Yet, he doesn’t want to seem ignorant of trivialities. 

Finishing another cigarette, unsure when he finished the first, Frank flicks it out the window.  He sees the smoldering butt freeze in the air.  He wonders who will pluck and toss it in the gutter. 

The taxi hits a hard bump in the road.  Glancing back Frank spies a cupid dead in the road.  He frowns.  It’ll take more than that to lose all hope, but his confidence fractured Frank feels tonight isn’t the night to find fresh feelings; tie new heartstrings.  Maybe next time. 

“Holy shit,” the cabbie says, “The street’s real.”

“Course it is,” Frank smiles.  The cab parks.  Frank pays.  He exits.  The rain is just starting to come down yet he walks casually towards the front door.  The sounds of the party cause the air to tremor like heat waves.  Chinese lanterns on the porch shake wildly in the rising wind.  There’s a dragon nearby, Frank is sure, but doesn’t feel a need to worry.  He slips between the raindrops, now like static in the air, and knocks on the door.

Alice flings it open, “It’s about time.”

“It’s been five minutes.”

“You’re an hour late.”

Frank smacks himself in the forehead, “Time only slowed for me.”

“Are you high?”  She cocks a grin, “Started without me?”

The glimmer of her eyes causes a rockhard erection.  Thank Nyx for the cover of night.  Alice waves for him to hurry inside.  Frank makes his way through a gauntlet of familiar ghouls.  Every friendly greeting belied by eyes scanning for powdered treats, he grins back unaware he’s flashing a Joker grin. 

In the dining room a table is laid out with an assortment of booze.  Frank plops the large bag of cocaine in the middle.  Smacking lips can be heard.  He steps aside to avoid the stampede, and heads for the kitchen.  He’s seen the show before, so has no desire to watch a rerun:  the dope fiends’ strained politeness as they tensely await the chance to powder their noses. 

In the kitchen he pauses to light a cigarette on the stovetop.  He snaps off the light to watch the small blue burning halo.  It reminds him of someone; burns up five minutes inspiring poetry:

“Now that the sunset of hope for my life
Has sand and colourless come,
Towards my dim dwelling, dismantled and chill,
Let us turn step by step:
For the white light of the day
With its gladness does not embitter me more.”

“You know Rosalia de Castro?”

Frank turns, “Hm?”

The lights return.  Frank turns to find an angel in the doorway.  She brushes a strand of blue hair out of her eyes, “You were reciting one of her poems.  I think.”

“I didn’t even know I was talking.”

“Then I want whatever you’re on.”  She goes to the fridge, and pulls out a bottle of beer.  She pops it open using a lighter, “I’m Wendy.”

“Frank.  I brought the cocaine,” pronouncing it co-key-ain. 

“You don’t sound proud of that.”

“Bringing good pizza is harder.  Coke is coke.  No matter how shitty if it gets you high – job well done.”

Wendy slides in, “Yeah, yeah, I follow.  But like with pizza you gotta figure on toppings, and thickness, and quality – everyone has their own idea of what’s good.  Bringing pizza that pleases the whole room, that’s a rare accomplishment.”

“Have we met before?”  Frank asks, seems like he should remember a woman radiating cobalt.

Wendy says, “Nope.  I just moved here.”

“From?”

And so it goes.  Predictable back and forth exchange of back stories.  The beauty of strangers is that the old stories play like new.  Hours vanish.  The party winds down.  The other partiers steadily turn from bright eyed revelers into greasy gargoyles, blood red cracks in their gazers.  Unable to drift far from the tiny island of cocaine, however, they leave those in the kitchen alone.  And whenever the celebration does spill over Wendy and Frank simply exit to the patio, huddled under the small awning out back to smoke and enjoy the rain.  It’s the start of a romance Frank will remember the rest of his life – the one night that changed everything for... 

A nudge. 

Frank shudders.

Alice smirking, “Welcome back buddy.”

She turns out the burning halo.  He glances around.  She rummages in the fridge for a chocolate cheesecake. 

Frank bewildered, “Where’s Wendy?”

Alice sighs, “Oh no sugar, not again.  That was like two years ago.  Remember?”

Frowning, “Yeah.”

“Whatever Tommy gave you must be amazing.”

Frank tucks his hands in his pockets.  He feels the snake coil around his hand, twisting into the shape of a gun.  His thumb rubs the warm scaly grip.  It could sink fangs in his brain.

He says, “Yeah.  I think he called it… something.  I dunno.” 

Alice dons her most motherly expression.  She pats him on the shoulder.  He sees himself smile.  A silhouette out on the porch out the corner of his eye Frank ignores.  He doesn’t want to be lured by another Siren hallucination.  The past is calling him back, but he can’t live there anymore.

A chubby cupid covered in bruises, skin red from road rash, saunters by the kitchen door.  He nods at Frank, implying no hard feelings.

“It was the cabbie’s fault,” Frank tells him.

“How so?” Alice asks.

Frank shakes his head, “No, I was talking to that guy.” Before Alice can ask who he means Frank says, “Let’s get back to the party.  I feel like being around people.”

“That’s a change,” Alice says.

“For the better, I hope.”