Telling

“Silence, dirtbags!” An impudent, tartan-clad queen shouted from the stage. Her Doc Marten’s were jerry-rigged with blue duct tape & spite. She howled on the microphone like a cat in heat, and her bass lines were so dirty you felt Dionysian after listening to them.

Veronica Telly stood five feet flat and towered over the world. I’d seen her sink her teeth into a bouncer’s shoulder after being denied entry into her own show. What I’m saying is— she was not a force to be fucked with.

Which is precisely why I fell in love with her.

Night of the Living Dead, haunted houses, Veronica Telly— What do they all have in common? My collected terror and infatuation.

I’d skip mass to pray at the skate park. Quicker to knock my ankle than bend the knee. I overheard Veronica mention a love of beads— but I didn’t think she meant rosary.

I picked up stick & poke to have to excuse to offer her something. She asked for examples, and all I had to offer was the amateur sketch pad that was my left thigh. I had to pull down my jeans to show her the full spread— my face was red. Hers was not.

She laughed at how pale I was and told me to ask her again after I got the hang of it. She left after tracing the outline of the starfish with her index finger.

“That’s your best one. You might just figure it out.”

I wanted to burn that moment into my brain and live in it. Instead— I ran to the library and checked out as many animal and sea life books as possible. I stole tracing paper from my university’s art department. I retreated to my attic room atop a four-story hovel hoping to compress hundreds of years of artistic excellence into a single weekend.

I rode a fevered current as I studied the feathers, bones, & fur of predators and prey alike. I had the sense that I was not the predator between Veronica & myself.

I found a poison dart frog— admiring the ink and blatant audacity of a small but mighty force in the jungle. It seemed like the honey badger of amphibians. Mutual assured destruction for anything that attacked it— although I aimed for mutual assured affection. I had no desire to be poisoned— but as I worked under a creaking roof, I knew I had already failed.

The birds started chirping before I knew morning had caught up to me. I had progressively messy drawings— but the meaning was clear. This was an obsession that I wasn’t going to give up lightly.

The next three weeks saw me beg, cajole, poke & prod anyone I knew to let me practice my fledgling art after filling my own thighs with ink—a rocket ship for Logan, music notes for Julian, and a Greek sun for Aisley.

I slowly found my lines, filling in my imagination that blossomed behind them. I even forgot the original fever— Until Veronica Telly’s next gig was announced.

Veronica and the Nine-Tails only played once a month. I had a single chance of impressing her with my progress. She was covered head to toe in black denim, but I prayed she had a spot for my art underneath it.

The crowd was whipped into a frenzy as Veronica commanded them to jump. The middle of the audience was a pit of sweat and adolescent release. Her bass wailed along with her voice— begging them to let loose. I pushed my way to the front— knowing there was little chance of her knowing I came.

But as the song trickled out and the crowd began to breathe deeply— she peered down at me and smiled. I lifted my arm to display my latest work, a goshawk in flight. She gave a playful laugh before nodding towards the left of the stage.

The man at the door looked me over like bargain sausages and gave a rueful chuckle “she said you’d be here,” before opening the door.

I found myself in a dark closet of a room. It smelled like Mountain Dew and old Chinese food. Veronica’s faded army jacket hung off the chair— I looked at the patch of Iggy on the back before settling on the couch. I heard the guitar squeal as the final song hit its crescendo. I closed my eyes and tried to picture the animal I thought she’d like.

“Good, you found the room. I didn’t want to have to hunt you down after the show,” Veronica said, lugging her bass. She set it next to the desk and turned to me. “I saw some of your friends— you’re getting better.”

“Thanks. I’ve been trying to find the right animal, but-“

“I want one before you’re famous. Otherwise I’ll have to make an appointment, and those are never exciting,” she said, dropping onto the couch beside me. I looked away and rifled through my backpack for supplies.

“Do you know where you want to get it done?”

“Same spot as the first one you showed me,” she said, unbuttoning her jeans. I didn’t make a sound. She slid them off, revealing lean, olive-toned legs. No tattoos. I tried not to stare at the black lace thong. Sweat broke across my neck.

“What do you want?” She grabbed my hand and put it on her thigh.

“I want something inspired,” she pulled my hand higher. “I want you to remember this forever,” my fingertips grazed the bottom of her thong. I could feel the heat of her. She leveled her hazel eyes at me like sunlamps— I pushed my hand higher— resting it across the length of her before curling my fingers under the elastic band and pulling down.

She shimmied out of the thong— leaving my face between her legs. I kissed gently on her inner thighs as I worked my way up. I pushed one hand up her chest, and the other gripped her ass as I breathed in her sex.

My tongue filled with her taste as she caught my hair in her fist. She made a small moan as I worked slowly over the outer edges. Her breathing became heavier as I began to lick at her clit. I moved my hands down to grab her thighs as she squeezed against my face.

Time turned fluid before she brought me back to reality with a heaving moan and jittering legs.

“Oh my fucking god,” she laughed. “Where the hell did that come from? You looked like you were going to pass out when we started.”

“I was nervous, not incompetent,” I said, laughing with her. She let out a sigh and sunk into the couch.

“I really did want one of your tattoos, but I don’t think I can sit through that now.”

“You could always stay lying down if you want?” She raised her head to roll her eyes at me before returning horizontal.

“Why don’t we get some beers first? My voice is fucked from the show,” she pulled herself up from the couch. “Wait. I don’t even know your name. Did I never ask?”

“I don’t think so. Figured we’d sort that out later?”

“Wow, I’m an asshole…-?” She rolled her hand at me.

“Aanders,” I said with a sheepish grin.

“What? Are you a secret Viking?”

“My family is Scandinavian— kinda comes with the territory.”

“Did you just eat me out anonymously and then drop a geography pun on me?”

“You asked,” I said with a shrug. She sat half-naked with an animated light in her eyes. She leaned forward and gave me a hungry kiss.

“Let’s go find that beer— I don’t want to fuck you while I’m thirsty.”

***

I ended up sprawled across a sweaty mattress as Veronica laid on top of me. She kissed my chest and looked up.

“Sooner or later you’re going to have to stop with the on and off confused look. I don’t know how you’re still confused after…” she checked her phone for the time, “three hours? Jesus tap dancing christ. Well, apparently the Viking’s lineage runs true.”

I smiled but felt the knot in my chest tighten, “I thought you wanted the tattoo, I didn’t expect to be- I don’t know.”

“A booty call?”

“Yeah, I mean. I gotta admit that I really like you. I didn’t want this to be one off.”

“I think you’re jumping the gun here, maestro,” she cackled. “You do know we have basically the same friend group right?”

“Not really?”

“Roxanne is my best friend. She’s dating Julian. Julian is one of your best friends— ergo we’re in the same bubble.”

“And?”

“I didn’t pull you back just to jump your bones or for the tattoo alone.”

“Why then?” My brain couldn’t piece this together.

“I know about the last couple weeks. Your friends love you, but they spill the beans pretty quick under pressure.”

“Shit.”

“And yes, while it’s a little bit intense that you went all rampant artist to try and make me a cool tattoo. That’s actually one of the sweetest things ever.”

“So?” I said, tracing patterns across her back

“It’s also hot that you kinda just do whatever the fuck you set your mind to. I figured I wouldn’t see you again at any parties so I booked an early gig in hopes that you’d attend.” There was a distant sound of glass cracking— and later, I realized it was all the little assumptions I’d gotten wrong.

“Does that mean you still want that tattoo?”

She pulled herself up to my face and kissed me, “I do. But I need some sleep first.” I started to move to get out of bed when she put a hand on my chest. “Aanders— I’m going to tell you this once. And I’m sure you’re trying to be polite. But if I just admitted that I put on a gig to have you attend— and you spent three weeks trying to design a tattoo for me— you’re out of your mind if you think you aren’t going to cuddle me to sleep after fucking me.”

“Oh, yeah. I want to— I just didn’t want to impose-“ the words died in my throat. “Sorry, still learning how to not be an idiot. I’d love to,” I said, turning to my side and wrapping my arm around her. She pressed herself into my frame like a forgotten mold.

The street below played host to occasional honks and flashing lights. I fell asleep with my nose nestled in her hair. She smelled of citrus and sweat.

Stubborn Fate

"Either fate will be kind, or you'll have to be stubborn," Marty said. Smoke rolled off his cigar as he sat overlooking the pier. He was a thin man, bound together with vices like dried glue. You never hope to rely on a man like that, but when they're your only family in a big city, you make do.

"Hey," he snapped his fingers. "I'm still talking to you. Get your head out of your ass. These are things you need to know."

"What? I'm just starting a couple of classes at the community college. It's not a big deal,”Daniel said.

"Not a big deal? No one in our family has ever made it past the tenth grade. Now you're starting college, and it's 'not a big deal'? Don't hand me that bullshit."

"Can't you leave it alone?" The young man fidgeted on the cold bench. To the passers-by, he looked like the premium price version of Marty.

"Leave it alone? Kid, I'm proud of you. The brains our family's blessed with ain't so great for the pencils and textbooks. So for you to be standing in front of me now as a premier college student? It warms my fucking heart."

"You could have gone to college. Dad always said you were the smartest person in our family."

"Your dad doesn't know how the world works. That's why you're here with me, and why I never sat in a classroom past fifteen years old. He doesn't understand that when you sacrifice something, you ain't getting it back." Marty flicked the cigar. "Don't let this go. Community college or university, it's an opportunity. You've earned your shot, and now you gotta take it."

"Thanks, Marty." The morning fog rolled in off the lake. It swallowed the pair on the bench before greedily stretching towards the city.

Ima Jean

Ima Jean
Hamjackal

She had a plastic skeleton sit in her motorcycle sidecar. She draped it with hula flowers and kept an empty bottle of Sailor Jerry’s taped to it’s right hand. She rarely drove it— but managed to disappear from view the moment she left the apartment building. She could have rivaled Houdini in another era.

She had hand tattoos that spelled out “Nox Lupus” across her knuckles. I wanted to call her Ima Jean, but the last person that did that is still swimming from her slap. 

Her Olympic weight lifting exploits meant she had a firm “Don’t fuck with” vibe— even when she smiled like a saint giving benediction. I’d pray at her feet— but I’m not sure she wouldn’t break my knees for it to happen. 

I hate being scared. And being around her makes me feel like a Wall Street banker during an IRS audit. But mama didn’t raise quitters— though she should have after I saw Ima Jean shoot a rattlesnake out of a tree. 

I had to understand the forces that go into creating a living legend— even if I died trying. 

The first time she talked to me— I was moving into the walk up above her. She looked at my boots and frowned. “You’re going to wear sneakers or socks from now on. No heels over my head.” I put my boots in storage thirty minutes later. 

She cooked almost every meal on the charcoal grill in the backyard. She’d stack pallets of ribs in the basement freezer. I gave up trying to store my summertime berries down there. Some battles aren’t worth beginning. I’d say hi, but only managed to squeak since I was too scared to use her name. I’d heard someone else call her “J.” I thought they had the courage of a titan.

Every Friday a different girl would trail her into the building like she was a leather-clad siren. I’d lay against the wood floor and hear the grunts and moans of sweaty work being done. I’d run my hands through the thick wool carpet next to the bare wood and imagine it was her short, black, spiked hair.

Later, I’d sit with my cracked, teal Avian review mug and squirm at the thought of her finding out I ease-dropped on her intimate encounters. I wanted to write a poem for her— but I was scared she would have something to say if she did. I could bear the ignorant silence— I couldn’t survive a knowledgeable one.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Up

Up
Hamjackal

It took three weeks for anyone to notice the decapitated head in the attic window of the Kowalski house. Even then, people thought it was a decoration. Halloween come early or some other eccentric reasoning.
It wasn’t until the postman noticed the smell that the town of Auburn realized something was wrong.

People don’t have a tendency to look up. If they did, they would have noticed the strange happenings in the Kowalski house long before the sour stench of decomposition started flowing past the porch.

Originally the Kowalski family had five members when they moved into the house in 1972. Husband and wife, Harry and Lisa, and their three kids, Stephen, Simon, and Tiffany. Slap a sitcom title across their family portrait and they wouldn’t have looked out of place next to the Brady Bunch. But behind their carefully manicured hair and bright eyes— something was missing.

With Simon, the kids at school could have sworn there were whispers that trailed his voice as he spoke. For Tiffany, it was the hollowed stare of her ex-boyfriends after she finished dating them. But Stephen? No one could remember anything about him. Even the idea of him seemed to slip their mind. As for Harry and Lisa, they were somehow always together. They were like a stubborn elastic band that refused to stretch.

The head appeared one year after Stephen graduated from college and returned home. Not that anyone remembered him even going off to college in the first place. The police were summoned to the house to question the Kowalski’s, but by the time they arrived there was nothing to discover. No head. No smell. In fact, there was nothing inside the house at all.

Now, the Kowalski’s, while odd, had certainly lived in the neighborhood since 1972. Even the most stubborn neighbor would attest to that. But the strangest thing was that no one could find a picture of them. Not within the school yearbooks or local papers. Not in old Polaroids or projector slides. Even journal entries seemed oddly smudged where a name might have been.

Even the day before the police arrived, neighbors had seen the Kowalski’s departing the house and returning later. No moving vans or packed cars. No urgency in the air. Nothing at all.

The family had been there. And then they were not there.
Not once did anyone think to look up.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Crumbs

Crumbs
Hamjackal

Two bits to his name and a laconic drawl that stretched words like hot taffy. There wasn’t a gunslinger in the west that hadn’t heard of Russell Jeffries (RJ).  People asked him how he did it. He couldn’t answer any more than a hummingbird could explain how they flapped their wings. They just did.

He’d draw, aim, & fire in the space it took you to realize he should start. Over before it began and another challenger spilling their crimson conscious onto the dirt. 

West Texas is flat as an ironing board and twice as hot as the devil’s oven. None of that stopped RJ from taking in the landscape like a fish to water. Hanging off the side of his saddle was a small easel. That’s how he garnered the name “The Painted Kid,” not that he liked it. 

The painting, certainly, the name, not so much. 

But when the public gets ahold of something that’s put mud in your eye— they keep squelching till there’s nothing left but soggy feet and sore feelings. 

Each town heralded his arrival like a fallen angel— open distrust and an inability to look anywhere else. 

RJ figured once he hung up his guns, he’d make his way over to Barnum and Bailey’s. Seeing as he’s already a show. 

Some challengers would call him out on main street. Crying out that they’d find him at high noon or see the back of him running off. 

Most days, he had no problem raising to the task of pest removal. But once in a blue moon and deep in his cups, he wasn’t ashamed to admit that he scampered away in the night like a spooked jackrabbit. 

His mama told him that bravery was well and good, but making it home for dinner would always be better. 

Ain’t much of a choice between being a coward or death. 

RJ had no intention of dying in Mesa Verde. But then again, not many of us see the soft steps of Death tread upon the ground before us. 

A boisterous young thing from Colorado had set about claiming the state as his stomping grounds by the time RJ crossed into the county. 

Unfortunately for RJ, there weren’t many left in the west that didn’t know The Painted Kid on sight. 

One look at the saloon and the whole street filled. You’d swear the town had planned it, the way they spread out, ready to see a quick man take the long nap. 

That’s the problem with destiny— you can’t offer your legend without knowing you might be building another. 

They called the young man “Billy.” He was all of five foot five and mean as a stamped snake. He had a sneer wiped across his face that made you think he took a personal offense to anyone who breathed the same air he did. 

Some of us aren’t meant for a tender soul. Lord knows Billy did not tend the gardens and pet stray cats. This was a man meant for killing. One way or another— he’d ride the coattails of the reaper all the way to the land of fire. Blank eyes— without even a thought he couldn’t win. 

That’s why you don’t trust fate. She’s a tricky catch at the best of times. But when you’re knocking on the door to the afterlife, it’s polite to wipe your boots on the mat first. 

“I hear you want to die, old man,” Billy said. Sun tanned and sweat through, he took a slow drag from a badly rolled cigarette. 

“Or we could leave the day as friends. I don’t need to warm my guns if there aren’t any fools in front of me,” RJ replied. 

The crowd took a sharp breath in. A pack of land sharks instead of humans, the way they smelled the blood in the water. Despite the pretty words, no one would be leaving early. 

“You calling me a fool?” 

“Are you standing in front of me just to gibber?” RJ said with a wry smile. One day he’d learn not to egg melonheads on. But it wouldn’t be today. 

“You know the time— high noon. Wash your face, I’ll let you die real pretty.”

Billy ashed the cigarette and blew RJ a kiss before stomping off to the saloon. 

“Oh, and how about you paint me a picture or something. That’d be a real nice memento to remember you by.” 

RJ looked at the crowd and sighed. He’d been crossing his fingers for whisky and cornbread. Didn’t seem like the day would settle for anything less than sour attitudes and spilled blood. Shame. 

RJ guided his horse, Glenda, to the stable. The muck-filled stalls and rotten straw gave him pause. Best to finish this quick and find that cornbread elsewhere he thought.

The clink of spurs echoed through the street as the church bell rang out twelve peals between the crowds bated breath.  Forget the sermons and songs, this was legend in the making. Two men set to battle and only one to walk away. 

“Ten paces, easy as you like. You get six slugs, but I’ll only need the one. Tip your hat to the boss when you catch him down south. Tell him Billy sent you.”

“You gonna jaw all day or do you want to die?”

“On the count then, old man.”

“One,”

“Two,”

“Three!”

Two quicksilver hands whipped up their guns and fired. The street silent before the slump of a body. A drip and an “I’ll be damned,” followed. A second slump and the crowd was left in wonder. 

Two slugs found the mark. Heart and head, RJ & Billy, respectively. 

Don’t wrap up your desires in the hands of fate. You’ll go hungry more oft than not. A young boy watched the fall of two titans and wiped away yellow crumbs from his mouth. His fingers itching for his own chance at destiny. 

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com