..:S...P...I...D...E...R...B...I...T...E...S:..

Sunday, October 31, 2004

"Step into my office...you're fuckin' fired!"
- There's Something About Mary


THE TACO BELL CHRONICLES

Chapter Four:

"When do you work next?"


all i wanted was a taco.

the last three times i've asked my partner in crime (at the time) to pick me up some Taco Bell, something has happened where i ended up not getting any. it was getting to be a running joke and the night of the Presidential Debate was no exception:

the evening started out innocent enough. i was having some people over to laugh and watch the 2002 Bush/Kerry debates. i figured if we had to drink a beer every time Bush fumbled and fucked up English like it was his second language, we'd be drunk enough not to care who actually won.

anyhow, my friend Nate was already at my apartment and we're waiting for KT to come back from campus with her friend Dana. I sent KT out on Taco duty. now, it’s been years since the undergraduate Taco Bell incidents, so i’m almost ready to think of it as just another fast-food restaurant. but they’re running awful late. i decide to call them and ask them to pleeeeeeze hook me up with some tacos on their way over, in case they forgot.

i should have known i'd never get to have one.

sure enough, a half hour later, in walks two girls empty-handed and visibly shaken from their trauma at the Taco Bell drive-thru. their story goes like this:

they pulled up to the speaker to order the food (MY food. sniff.) and the girl inside was having trouble hearing them. so Dana says, "no, not bean burrito, beeeeFFFFF burrito" and apparently by exaggerating the letter "F" she sent the girl at the drive-thu window into a downward spiral of madness. they pull forward to pay, and the girl takes the money and then says, "by the way, don't ever get smart with me again." the girls in the car are like, "what did you just say?" and she just slams shut the window and walks over to another employee to rant about it, waving her arms around like (KT’s words) she's being attacked by bees. then they're taking too long with the food and Dana decides to ask for the money back because now she's thinking someone's going to spit in the beeeeFFFFF burrito (MY burrito. sigh.) or worse. the crazy bitch (now they can see that her nametag says "Kim") throws the money at them and says, "you're lucky i'm in here or i'd come out there and kick your fucking ass." so now Dana and KT are getting loud too, and some other employee comes over to calm down Krazy Kim. she just shoves this girl away (who it turns out later is actually the store manager???) and says, "don't tell me to relax, i'm the shift supervisor." by this time, everyone is swearing, and Kim is making these moves like she's really going to come outside and attack the car, so Dana starts pulling away. she says that she's going to call the 1-800 number on the window and the nut yells, "go ahead, i don't give a shit, they're not going to fucking fire me." KT shouts a final, "what the hell is your problem?" and Kim answers back with "your mother!" which is ridiculous since her mother was at home watching Court TV at the time. Dana ends the debate with a line from “Clerks:” "this is why you're jockeying a register at Taco Bell, you dumb cunt" and off they go to NOT bring me food again.

so they're telling me this story, and i'm getting all worked up. of course it doesn't help that i'm faint from malnutrition and lack of Taco Bell love and everyone and everything looks like a giant taco to me right now. it's like the cartoon with the guy seeing his buddy as a huge steaming chicken on the desert island. but i've got a dilemma here. if it had been a guy that was threatening people at some drive-thru, i would just go over there and pull the little bastard out of the window by his head, his crooked but carefully arranged baseball cap falling slow-motion to the pavement as he yelps. but here we got this girl-on-girl madness. and we've only got about 15 minutes until the debate starts. nevertheless, me and Nate get working on Plan A. or, should i say, Plan "Egg." this scheme involves taking two raw eggs to the drive-thru (i know, two raw eggs is kinda weak but that's all that was in the fridge) and pelting the bitch when she opens the window to take our money. but then i'm trying to think of a way to do this so that i can still get my goddamn taco (mmmmmm), but i stop dwelling on it and i put two eggs in a plastic bag and we're getting ready to roll. then i start to worry that Kim might not be at the drive-thru after all the excitement she just had. and i don't want to bean some innocent waterhead who's just working there one day a week for beer money. so i decide to call the store real quick and see what's up. i ask for whoever is working the drive-thru (claiming someone forgot my food) and she gets on the phone.

i ask her: "did you just have an altercation with two girls about 10 minutes ago?"

she goes: "listen sir, that's not what happened..." and she starts to go into this alternate reality version of events where she is just a victim who wants nothing more that to happily take money and hand out tacos and smiles forever. i'm confused and then it hits me. all her "sirs" and her tone of voice right now? this dunce thinks that i'm calling from that 1-800 number. she thinks i'm some sort of authority figure. i clear my throat and now i'm suddenly working for Taco Bell and shit gets real funny:

me: "well, i heard that you were physically threatening customers and swearing and..."

her: "that's not what happened sir. they were causing trouble and i was just reacting to them and..."

me: "i'm hearing a different version from what you're telling me." (i’m trying to imitate every similar conversation i’ve gotten from a boss)

her: "who is this?"

me: "your District Manager."

(this is where i figure the jig is up and she's going to say "fuck off" and hang up because she's gotta know who her DM is right? right? wrong.)

her: "listen sir, they were making fun of me at the drive-thru and i can't believe that i would get in trouble over this when it's just my word against hers and-"

me: "well, it's not just your word against them (watch this, i'm really proud of how fast i pull this out of my ass) because there was a vehicle behind them and someone from that car also called the 1-800 number to complain about your behavior."

(oh yeah, i should mention at this point that me, her District Manager, is standing there wearing a shirt with the sleeves cut off, holding two eggs in a baggy, while three giggling heads lean in to listen)

her: (scared now and folding faster than Superman on laundry day) "hey, they started it."

me: "so you were threatening and cursing at customers because you thought they were being rude to you? that's unacceptable. why do you think you can threaten someone when..."

her: "they started harassing me first, it's not fair that i should get in trouble for this and-"

me: "okay, when is your next day off?"

her: "tomorrow."

me: "i'm going to need you to come in so that we can sit down and talk about this to figure out what should be done."

her: "oh no, it's not fair that i should have to come in on my day off when i've already rearranged my schedule this week once and it's my only day off and it's not fair that i should be the one to..." and blah blah fuckin 'blah (bitch is big on this "not fair" concept).

(i hold out the phone in disbelief at this point. i don't know what's funnier, the fact that this idiot thinks i'm her District Manager, or the fact that me, as her DM, can't get her to come in on her day off to save her job. after a couple minutes more of "not fair" i finally give up trying to trick her into coming in on her day off and i switch tactics)

me: "when do you work next?"

her: "Sunday. i open."

(time out. this is where some people that i've told this story to start to turn on me and give me a disapproving "you've gone too far" kinda look. after i told the story at work, my boss actually walked away in disgust and i had to call after her, "hey, i've only been a District Manager for 24 hours, i'm going to make some mistakes!")

me: "okay, don't worry about opening the store. we'll take care of that. you come in later. i need you to come in at noon so we can sit down and figure out what we're going to do."

her: "fine."

(apparently it's infinitely easier to convince someone to stay home instead of coming in. it's the lesson we remember from high school where kids would rather get suspended ten days instead of detention for one day)

so i hang up, and we're all laughing our asses off hoping that she actually gets in trouble for coming in late on Sunday. we talk a lot about it, practically ignoring the Presidential debates. On the TV, one of the candidates says something about “judging people by...” something. that’s all i remember because i spend most of my time fantasizing about being behind one of those podiums next to the actual District Manager of Taco Bell, carefully explaining our parities platform with hand gestures and reassuring nods.

i would declare “you must judge people by how fast they yank clothes out from under a sleeping cat! you must judge people by how rude they are in traffic or on the phone!"

you know, when i thought about it later, i think that this drive-thru nut said all that stuff because of the crazy nature of the drive-thru itself. it’s kind of like a phone call where the person you’re talking to pops their head in the window of your house as soon as you hang up. so, if even if you’re the kind of person that's rude to strangers on the phone, you’d be like, “oh shit, how are ya?” all nice if their head popped out of your refrigerator. instantly confronting someone at the drive thru-window is a strange awkward ending to what’s basically a garbled angry phone call. does that make any sense? so, to be fair, Kim probably didn’t know how to handle it. It’s kind of like when you’re in traffic and you’re yelling at the car next to you for whatever infraction, then, three miles later, you’re both idling at a red light together. do you look over? you have to look over. a friend of mine used to be prepared for just that kind of situation. if someone was glaring at a red light, he’d slowly put on his winter gloves, sunglasses, and the motorcycle helmet that he kept on his passenger seat. this is while sitting in a '92 Ford Escort. no one ever raced him.

And, you know, it sucks that the debate party was full of such distractions because there were more people over than usual. although i suspect that all the guests were invited by KT just to make it less likely that i'd drop my pants and press my groin up against the TV whenever the President is talking. i've been known to do this after exactly half a beer. one day she'll understand what i'm talking about when i exclaim:

“hey! if someone would just take a picture right now, it would look like President is suckin my dick! we could make T-shirts! where's everybody going?"

Anyway, no one even remembers what the candidates said because of our careful dissection of the drive-thru incident that lasted like eight hours. and by the time i've told everyone about my taco hijinx all weekend, i'm getting tired of the story and also doubting that Krazy Kim would really NOT figure that shit out in two days and not show up to work. one girl at my job says that the only way she'd be screwed is if she decides to keep the phone call and meeting secret from her store manager, maybe hoping that it'll blow over after the fake "meeting" and the less people that know the better it would be for her. she has a point. i mean, as soon as she would mention anything to her store manager or fellow employees, they would call the real DM and the cat's out of the bag. so i'm shocked as you are by the happy ending to the story:

KT works at Starbucks near the Taco Hell in question, and Sunday afternoon she's telling her co-workers all about the incident. at about 11:00 a couple of them go across the street to get some tacos (damn, i miss tacos) and then they run back to tell her the news:

there's a sign on the door that says:

"Will not open until 1:00. Sorry for any inconvenience."

true story. no bullshit. i got five witnesses who saw the sign.

EPILOGUE::

days later, Dana and KT actually call the 1-800 number to complain about Kim and they are given the phone number of the store manager. this woman then proceeds to tell them that she knows all about the situation and that the District Manager is handling it. of course the question is, are they talking about the real one or are they talking about me? because i'm not handling shit. i'm not rearranging my schedule again to meet with that girl. it's "not fair." i got too many new responsibilities that come with my new job title. the other day Burger King put too much salt on their fries, kid at KFC shorted me on change, 7-11 has a clerk who stares too much. sorry, there's just too many other stores in my district that need my attention so my work here is done.

2nd EPILOGUE:

This is where no moral to this story emerges because it’s true. Those two eggs? I noticed them on the windowsill, next to the phone charger, still in the plastic bag after about a week, fermenting to perfection. I’d like to say I used them to make a Mexican-style omelet, i’d like to say that I forced myself to eat a rotten omelet on the day of the Presidential election. I’d like to say that something meaningful happened to those two eggs, since the story introduced and then forgot about them completely, kind of like having a gun hanging over the fireplace in a movie that’s never used. I’d like to say that they did, indeed, smack somebody in the head that deserved it instead of just getting dropped into the trash without any ceremony.

but they didn’t.

::: david - 2:28 PM [+] :::
...

"Christmas came early this year!"
- wasn't that from a James Bond movie?
guess what the chick's name was.



sorry, the first installment of the Taco Bell Chronicles has been delayed by something that'll be more fun and won't take too long. i know it's Halloween but this shit is like Merry Christmas because i enjoy it so much:

i think "?" in the comments back there was trying to anger me. that's pretty funny. luckily i have several things on this site to track nameless pussies like this. since i'm nuts and i follow all those little numbers that identify you, and since i keep track of when i know some might be on here with that sitemeter to match up those little numbers i've written all over my desk, and since these comments also track your computer's address n' shit, and since there's another tracking thing down there you can't even see (spoooooky ain't it?)...i'll be able to turn that question mark into a real name soon enough. now, if it's someone who i've punched in the face for some reason, i hope you're ready to enjoy more of the same (thank christ i got someone talking shit on here, i was starting to get bored, finally get to use some of these toys i paid for. you see, a blocked IP address or referrer won't save you. ain't technology great?) however, if it's someone i've only hurt emotionally, then all i can offer is some very personal verbal abuse that might make you put a gun in your mouth on Valentine's Day. or maybe i don't know you yet. if that's the case i hope you're only one day's drive from here. doesn't matter, i'll be talkin' to you soon! you gutless annonymous (not for long) new best friend!

i really can't tell you people how much i anjoy making someone my new little project. it's been awhile and i start to lose hope then...POW! someone comes along and says something that changes the course of their life forever. hey you up there, you ever wonder why i have to keep moving to different states? that's what the papers call a "spree."

okay, let's check the easy stuff right now. god i love this shit. hmmm, 11:52 yesterday? IP number 68.253.39.1? and you use Ameritech.net? not a lot of those. oh, look at this, you typed "spiderbites" and "keaton" into google to find me. only seen that a couple times. let's trace this and see if you're in Pittsburgh. interesting, you didn't protect yourself at all. hey, it would be great if i could make another road trip to somewhere around Meridian Hills, Indiana, i can do another James Dead grave rubbing out there! two grave rubbings for the price of one!

okay, gotta go see if and when you stopped by before. that'll make this shit real easy. then i'll get on my creepy, borderline illegal, trace arsenal. damn, i'll have everything but the last time you took a shit by the time it gets dark out.

Happy Halloween! got a full tank of gas! see ya soon!

::: david - 2:21 PM [+] :::
...

“Yo quiero Taco Bell?”
- cute little racist doggie dog

“Is that a secret symbol for the Secret Service?”
- Henry Krinkle
aka Travis Bickle
aka Robert DeNiro


just involved in a hilarious incident with Taco Bell the other day. i’m going to type it up but first i should say that this is the fourth or fifth time i’ve been involved in some sort of confrontation at that place and i’ve decided to hammer out “The Taco Bell Chronicles” in the next week or so, starting with the thing that just happened. hope some people get some laughs out of it, i know i did. and i definitely has a happy ending. at least for me.

went to the John Kerry rally on campus here in Pittsburgh. it was nothing i hadn’t heard before but it still gave me some hope that the ‘loids don’t take over. there were tickets you could get on the internet but it turned out there was some Willy Wonka-style gold and blue tickets that got you up closer. sadly i had a red one and was resigning myself to a view behind the fence when my partner in crime took a blue one out of some unsuspecting girl’s hand (probably by jamming a stick in her wheelchair so she couldn’t give chase) then went into the restricted area (i gallantly told her to go on up there without me, then sulked by the fence like i was in Auschwitz) and then she asked some dude if she could have his blue ticket since he wasn’t going to be leaving any time soon. she came back and found me curled up on the sidewalk where i was writing a goodbye letter to leave to her under a rock (“by the time you find this message i will be dead...) and nudged me back into action. it was cool though, the blue tickets got us like fifty feet away from the dude so we were ringside when (added bonus!) Bon Jovi came out to sing a Springsteen song. what’s up with that? he doesn’t have any songs that could be mistaken for political rallying cries? guess not. fucker's short as hell too. anyway, i guess that “No Surrender” song is Kerry’s song, like that “Don’t Stop” song was Clinton’s. anyone remember when dumb fuck turned dead icon Ronald Reagan used Bruce’s “Born In the USA” without listening to the lyrics first? what a fucking moron. the other day i was listening to right wing talk radio (gotta know what the enemy is saying) and they led in from a commercial with the same song...right before they started babbling about the Iraq invasion being a good thing. goddamn i hate people who are stupid. no one at that station noticed that “Born in the USA” is an anti-war, anti-Vietnam, anti flag-fucking song?

and check out this dude. think he would have gotten in at the Bush rally?

anyway, the most fun i had at the rally was picking out the Secret Service to take pictures of them, which probably insured that they were taking pictures of me. found three total.

there was one right behind the podium, hiding by the edge of a balcony, just a tiny half-a-head (there were also all sort of college types milling around that looked too old for college, reminded me of 21 Jump Street) playing peek-a-boo.

on the roof of the building behind us was another one, peering up with some binoculars.

but the best one was the dude standing behind a Kerry banner hanging down the side of the library. he would pop out, look around, then jump back behind the banner. i kept trying to get a picture of him when he sneaked and eventually i did. sometimes he would only have his head and half his body behind the banner, as if he thought that, if he couldn’t see anyone, no one could see him.

wait, isn’t that what happens when babies play peek-a-boo? when they cover their eyes, they think that you’ve disappeared? poor bastard should learn more about the art of camouflage. since he was up on the library, maybe he should have taped a bunch of books to his shoulders or something. yeah, that could work! see, if the feds are reading my website because of the Patriot Act may be they’ll realize i have all sorts of ideas that could be working for them. here’s another one...no more cardboard cd cases! i refuse to buy them, which is why i am three cds behind with the Beastie Boys.

oh yeah, i got a new Fisher’s Space Pen! and i almost had it taken away from me going through the security at the rally. they were like “what the fuck is this thing” since it looks like a bullet. i was all excited (i look for any window of opportunity to talk about my new Space Pen) and i go, “it like, writes underwater, upside down, in outer space. hell, you could leave messages on ice cubes if you wanted to...” and the guy was like, “just go.” good thing it wasn’t a bullet. nice work, our government’s finest in action. he was just jealous because he didn’t have one.

::: david - 1:25 PM [+] :::
...

"You're a mumbling stuttering prick, you know that Spider?"
- Joe Pesci in Goodfellas

damn did Kerry ever spank Bush last night. Bush looked, sounded and acted like such a goddamn loid (short for mongo) that if he gets re-elected i'm going to have to go on a Grand Theft Auto-type rampage. the ones where they call out the National Guard and i'm riding around on the hood of some car lobbing grenades like Christmas Presents. One for you...BOOM. Here kids...BOOM. did anybody else hear him babble on with vague "freedom, hope, hugs, ballsacks, democracy, evil-doers" talk? he sounded like a fucking knob. do we (you) deserve this waterhead for a leader? that's a good question. this country is being punished for not demanding more and being too stupid. However, can idiots really be punished for their sins if they're too fucking stupid to realize it?


so i discovered thrift stores recently. why didn’t someone tell me about these things? my problem was, i have no shirts with collars and, for some reason, that’s part of the dress-code at work. don’t get me started on my “collars are medieval, like the rivets on our jeans” nonsense again. i just never buy anything with a collar. i don’t like ‘em. sometimes my shirts will have buttons and they look like they started to grow a collar but didn’t. that’s about as close as i get. they just annoy me. the look, the feel, so i never got any unless i had to. but now i got a solution! at a thrift store, i get collared shirts for like two bucks. got an orange one, a green one and 3 gray ones. it was going to be one gray one but i got so excited i decided why not get all the gray collared shirts they have? mine! all mine! corner the market! see, now we’ve just discovered the dangers of the thrift store.

so anyway, i was in there and i wanted to find a tiny hat to put on a stuffed animal at home (it all makes sense i swear) and i found this stuffed duck with the perfect size hat sewn onto it’s head. score! so i figured i’d buy the duck, cut off the hat, and just throw the duck away! it seemed like the perfect crime until i got up to the register to pay for it and started to feel guilty. i started thinking that maybe some little kid could get that stupid stuffed duck for Christmas if i wouldn’t be doing what i was doing. so by the time it was my turn to get rung up, i’d already come up with a perfect solution. i would cut the hat off the duck in my car, then slip it back into the donation box. and they wouldn’t think i was nuts when they see the duck back on the shelves because the cashier fell right into my trap by engaging me in this dialogue:

cashier: “Cute little ducky!”

me (excited she brought up the duck): “Yeah! It’s cool, there’s one back there without a hat, but i wanted this one...”

(see, my master plan goes like this: later, when they find the hatless one on the shelf, she’ll remember what i said and think that there were originally TWO ducks! fucking genius)

cashier (confused): "Really? You sure..."

(time seems to stand still, i’m about five seconds from throwing the duck and my grey shirts over her shoulder and running out the door)

me: "Uhhh, i think so..."

cashier (shrugging): "Must be a little boy duck and a little girl duck."

me (way too happy): "Exactly!!!"

so then i’m out in my car, parked behind a truck, hunched over and ripping the hat off the duck like it’s a sex crime. but when i go to the donation bins, it says “Clothes Only” and i think there’s no way they won’t notice the scalped duck in there. so after all that i end up taking the damn thing home and sticking it in the gazebo outside my apartment building, hoping some kid will eventually find it.

like some kid will really want the thing. strings hanging off it’s head, sitting in the rain, might as well have left the thing with it’s flippers tied in electrical tape.

get this. there was a mouse stuck in the electrical socket at work. i stared at the thing for like fifteen minutes before i realized what i was looking at. he definitely got fried because his body was quite crispy when it was finally removed. better than having his head stuck for days i guess. poor little bastard must have touched the blue wire. he didn’t watch enough movies to know that you’re supposed to cut the red wire instead.

epilogue:

so i’m coming up the sidewalk to my apartment and i see this old lady and a couple little boys on the bench. the little boy says, “do you live in my house?” (meaning do i live in his building) and i say “yes i do.” and suddenly i remember the duck (see above) and get an idea. i said, “hey, you guys want to see a real live duck, go to the gazebo and say hi!” and the boys are all excited and the grandma says “okay, let’s go!” and off they go and i’m feeling like i did a good deed. then, i hear them clomping up the steps so i look out the peep-hole to see if they go the duck and they’re empty handed. so now i feel bad that i let them down, and...where did the duck go?

tonight after a late night snack-run, i walked around the building and got my answer. yellow police-line looking tape blocking off all the entrances to the gazebo and the duck has vanished. even though a ladder leaning up against the building suggests that paint is drying, some paranoids around me have got me convinced that the duck is in plastic bag in some detective’s lab. that means they’ll be coming for the hat real soon. stay tuned...

::: david - 7:50 AM [+] :::
...

“Fool me once when a bird in the hand is worth two if you count them before they hatch.”
- George W. Bush


this is the funniest thing i’ve seen on the Onion in a long time. funny because it’s so true. and funny because calling “shotgun” is no joke.

okay, here’s what’s wrong with those yellow ribbon magnets that are all over the cars these days:

1.) it’s not wrapped around anything. it’s a picture of a ribbon made into a magnet. that’s like wearing a baseball jersey that has a picture of your baseball cap drawn on your chest. the whole point of a ribbon is to wrap it around something.

2.) it’s a magnet, so there’s no commitment like, say, a bumper sticker. no goo to scrape off years later so you don’t really mean it.

3.) and finally, the most important thing of all. . .you are NOT saying that you “support the troops.” you are saying that you support the WAR. big difference you gutless fuck. have the balls to say what you mean instead of hiding behind a statement that’s tailor-made to silence anyone who opposes the actual conflict. why are you people so fucking stupid. who the fuck do you thinking you’re fooling?

and p.s. the God Bless America ribbon-magnet is, of course, idiotic considering the religious mania that comes with the terrorists (and our homegrown dipshits). so if you have that on your car you’re either saying “God likes US, not you.” or, even more hilarious, “MY God is better than YOUR God.”

walking meat, dude. i swear, that’s what i see out my window. a world made up of blissfully ignorant walking slabs of meat. if i close my eyes it’s as if they are bumping into everything, shitting and drooling on anything they touch

question: why do the same people who insisted that the image of the Trade Center be removed from all movies and photos, find nothing wrong with buy a commemorative coin that shows the building that’s made from Ground Zero materials??? that’s like getting some shoes made of skin on your Auschwitz tour.

something i just remembered. a while back my friend Blue (yes “Blue”) was making fun of my music collection and he commented that i “had no filter, and just bought everything.” i just wanted him to know that i have all three Filter cds now, including their latest “Amalgamutt” so i don’t know what you were talking about.

oh yeah, Steve, if you’re out there, i lost my Fisher Space Pen and i’m in mourning. send me another one in case i go into space and then desperately need to doodle on something above my head.

::: david - 6:57 PM [+] :::
...

“And we’ve painted all our kittens white, so that we can see them in the night...”
- Nick Cave - God Is In The House

“Your kid looks like a fag to me. You better bring a man around here fast or he’s gonna have a cock in his mouth faster than you can say Jack Robinson.”
- Paul Newman in Slap Shot

"Babies being born without brains, the mad heat and the relentless rains..."
- Nick Cave - Papa Won't Leave You, Henry



so after that Jesus movie i’ve been thinking about the best way to explain my frustration with religious zealots, Christian scientists and all those other self-righteous nuts. and here it is:

Aesop’s Fables. think about the story of the rabbit and the turtle. the rabbit stops to sleep and the turtle lumbers right on past him and holy shit the turtle wins the race. let’s say that the story i just told was in the bible. keep in mind that this is not so far fetched since there’s all sorts of talking animals and even crazier things in there than that.

and when a rational person reads this Bible verse (call it Aesop 21-12) what do they get out of it? well, i think that they’d say hmmm, sounds like there’s a message in there. something about persistence and don’t take shit for granted and gee, maybe i'll remember this lesson in my daily life.

now here’s what happens when a crazy person reads it:

“Yep! There really WAS a rabbit and turtle race, and if you don’t believe that it really happened, you are going to hell. Here look, if we look at these fossils it’s clear that there was finish line where many of God’s creatures celebrated when the turtle won this race, here’s where a lion high-fived an ostrich and a tiger hugged a unicorn and...wait, there was only one unicorn on the Ark, that explains it!”

see what i mean? the message is forgotten and these fuckheads spend all their time trying to prove that a fable ACTUALLY happened. where the rational person might actually learn something valuable and apply it to his/her life, the nutjobs miss the point and spend all their time trying to prove that animals can talk. just like the people who will go to their grave trying to convince you that there were two mosquitoes on the Ark. troubling, ain’t it?

and those god-fearing rednecks will fall for the "family values" god-talk everytime. never mind that they've been fucked by these Republicans every chance they got, that's okay, they like his "honesty" and his "values." you fucking lumps of shit. so easily manipulated that you wouldn't have survived back in the caveman days. today you affect way to many things by breeding out intelligence and engaging me in too many road-rage incidents. where's Darwin when we need him, eh? i wish there was a way to identify what you were at birth so that the doctor could hold you by the leg and bash your empty head against the corner of the wall.

p.s. this has nothing to do with what i just said but i think it should be said this week. if you are a female, and you are voting for Bush or have a “W” on the back of your car, you are, quite simply, a stupid bitch. you are like the woman who says “i ain’t voting for Kerry because he looks like a raisin." and if you think you have some sort of knowledge of the issues and the campaign, sorry, you don’t. unless you just hate women and therefore yourself. it’s tragic i know, but you are NOT entitled to your opinion in this case because you clearly have no idea how much the people that you’re endorsing have fucked you over the years. you are ignorant and worthless and probably think it’s cool to call yourself “Mrs. John Smith” so fuck ya.

also, you’re probably one of those annoying fucks who scold their child in public only because they want to announce some elaborate name they’ve burdened their child with for life, “c’mon Malachi Austin! put down that diaper!” as if anyone gives a fuck what soap opera name you stuck on that brat. fuck him too. hope the little bastard gets one of his Thomas trains stuck in his ass. like i did. did i just say that out loud? and while i'm feeling all giving and helping out with my free parenting advice, here's another thing:

you pinched sour-faced old women out there wouldn't have to stand there huffing in disgust when a child is making noise and it's not yours to spank if, when you were raising your own kids, you didn't use tactics to fool the brat into putting stuff they wanted down, then quickly distracting them out the door. see, that's why they scream, because they don't trust you. every conflict ends with you trying to fool the child into being quiet. sooo worried about what other people think. it's simple, the kid wants it and he can't have it. but you want a quick fix to fool them so that later they have a complete break-down because you can't be trusted. it's like that movie "Day of the Dolphin" when they tell the dolphin that there are sharks in the pool and it freaks out. not because of the threat of sharks, but because humans lied to it for the first time. sad story huh? sniff. anyway, clearly they don't have the skills to just concentrate on being mothers and housewives so when you're at the bookstore, don't just buy a cookbook and the latest Oprah book and let you kid get worked into a frenzy in the children's section with the Thomas train set (of course he'll want to take that shit home, even i can't resist playing with it), instead read about a weeks worth of the Onion and go vote for Kerry. otherwise you women will get the government you deserve (i ain't afraid to quote Don Henley) if you don't quit acting like second-class citizens and get your heads out of your ass.

::: david - 5:09 PM [+] :::
...

“Fasten your seatbelts!”
- deleted scene from “Passion of the Christ” (used in the early summer-action-movie style preview)



i was just starting to watch “Passion of the Christ” and in the opening credits they got this quote about Jesus’ wounds and forgiveness or something and the date on the quote is 700 B.C. now, i ain’t no biblical scholar but i thought “B.C.” meant “Before Christ.” so how does Isaiah write about Jesus 700 years “Before Christ?” maybe i’m missing something here. also, did they refer to the time period before Christ as “B.C.” while they're are living in, and writing about, "B.C." 'cause that would seem like a very good guess? know what i mean? kind of like calling it World War One before you know there's going to be a World War Two. the worst war movies usually fuck that up.

anyway, it sounds like the first Star Wars movie and all that “Episode IV" nonsense where he claimed to have always intended it that way. so, instead of the usual “Real Time Review” i decided to post a review i wrote for Star Wars The Phantom Menace (the fourth film called “Episode 1” for some reason) back when it came out. this made sense when i was thinking about it. okay, before you say it, the only reason i went to see this crap back then was because i had to distract my dad for a couple hours before his surprise party and it was the only thing playing. so hear we go!

The Phantom Menace: Episode One (aka "Star Wars B.C.")

When I saw the preview, I already knew it was going to suck. I was sitting there waiting for some other piece of shit to start and up popped that three minute trailer, that tiny piece of teaser that millions were downloading off the internet and analyzing like the Zapruder film. And the first thing I noticed were those stupid fucking robots. No the other ones, the new "battle droids". Never mind that they had the usual computer generated plastic cartoon look that idiots mistake for great effects. That was expected, people have seemed to accept the fact that digital-effects technology has leveled-off to become as accepted as those stop-motion monsters from the Harryhausen era. It's not what they look like, it's enough just to use them. The effect sticks out as obvious as the darker doors in cartoons (all the kids knew, if it was a different color, it meant it was going to open) but it’s good to notice the strings. It means money was spent, so what if the robots look like every shit monster off cable, it's new technology. Anyway, that's not the problem. The problem is, why is there an army of fucking robots? What happened to those Stormtrooper dudes in the white suits? Forget the fact that this is in the past and why the hell would there be a more advanced droid army then, when that means the Empire must start using men in suits later. Forget all that, if you can. You know the reason why Lucus used the robots? Because he wrote himself into a hole with the lightsabers. In this prequel, the Jedi are their own army, a lame mystic army sure, but they carry a decent weapon. This thing can cut through anything, and any kind of large scale fight would be bloodier than the first battle in “Braveheart” therefore, because this is a children's film (and when did that happen?) he cheats us by making sure no one gets cut. In a battle where the main weapon is a sword, he neuters it. Amazing.

So when did Lucas decide to make a stupid kids movie? If you believe all the bullshit and lying and backpedaling he did in his pre-release interviews, he may have had nine movies planned all along, or maybe not, at least six anyway, maybe not, but there was this “back story” that needed to be told. Why? Who demanded that? Fuck the fans, they just pump money into the machine because they're losers and they want to be part of something, as if the movie setting a box office record means "they won". What kind of idiot decides that "Star Wars" is his/ her "thing" to back no matter what? Even when the franchise turns into kids films? Don't let them fool you, they know it sucks. But they think buying a ticket means they’re accepted in some kind of club. And you know what? When it was being made, the sound guys and the lighting guys and the computer guys all knew it sucked too. The only one who didn't was George Lucas, because, tragically, he's a talentless fuck. He thinks he's made some mythological good vs. evil statement with crap like "chosen ones" and "prophecies" and lots of common sense philosophy with more "nevers" and "always" than I've heard since...hmmm, all that sci-fi/fantasy shit I read as a kid. When did crap science fiction decide it's characters had to talk like mediaeval knights? Is it because the science fiction and romance section are too close together at the book stores? Because all those pink and purple covers are interchangeable, so are the insides? Lucas's imagination knows no bounds, "Let's see...we'll have a desert planet, an ice planet, a metal planet...a tree city, a cloud city, a water city..." Complete shit. Even children are more creative than that. Then the famous twists, "uh, he's his father, and she's his sister, he built that robot...and everything takes place on or around the ass-backwards desert planet cause that's where the first movie started, you see it's all tied together". That's writing in reverse, trying to force meaning where there wasn't any. Another George used to rewrite history, his name was Orwell (the Nazis had “flair”...) and he did it in "1984" to brainwash people into forgetting how hopeless and fucked things really were. That's all he is doing with this "prequel" and "episode one" nonsense desperately trying to convince everyone (himself?) that this "vision" is worth making, again. He's too stupid to realize that it was the effects that saved the original creatively-bankrupt broken-backed script from being laughed out of the theater. Now he thinks it's all because of his brilliant "story", so he digs in deep to find...nothing. He needs to do six more movies worth of this fantasy shit? Dungeons 'N Dragons dialogue, computer effects, and "Wars" with no violence ("let's only use these swords on doors and robots okay, and remember Greedo shot first"). There is no "story" left to stretch, nothing left to say, because there was never anything there. And, violence aside, why can't we count on any action or excitement or fun? Because now it's so serious it has become a children's new-age bible study. Actually George did lean away from that mystical stuff a little bit. He decided that "the force" wasn't all that mysterious anymore. It's actually a kind of biological infection by a telepathic lifeform. What does that remind you of? Try "Star Trek." Lucas spent all these years on his ranch soaking in another pile of shit; all those pseudo-scientific explanations that "Star Trek" substitutes for story every show. Now that non-writing has infected his nonsense. Not just bad to worse, worse to worst.

Oh yeah, how about the goddamn movie? Just saw it. Even the fans can't bullshit around these questions: Little Darth Vader built C-3PO as a servant for his mom right? well, C-3PO said his first job was "programming binary load-lifters" in the original, whatever the fuck that is. All I know is that he said nothing about Vader's mom. And why would the robots be lost on Tatooine when they crash landed there in the first film? Why would they have never seen a Jawa? According to this new movie, one was built there and that's where they both met. Of course they'll write themselves out of this hole with lost memory crap or something (I guess that's easier than actually writing a story) but why the fuck should they have to? Why not just flush it and start over? Some more questions; why does the bad guy have a two-sided lightsaber? New technology in the past? Like that gutless robot army? But who cares, besides one bloodless dramatic stab, he doesn't use the fucking thing, and this bad guy is barely in the flick. When you do see him, it’s on that stupid fuzzy space TV (again, something that was interesting in the 70s, now it’s as high-tech and handy as a tin-can telephone) every time the plot needs to be explained. Why do they keep squinting into the distance and talking to wavy little blue versions of each other and at least use the force to clean up the image? Another question; Obi-Wan and Darkman only free the boy slave (Anakin Skywalker) and not his mother? Because they're not there to interfere with the planet's slave policy (hints of Star Trek prime-directive)? No, it's because there's nothing else for her to do in the "story.” Lucas even made the kid a Jesus-like immaculate conception to cut down on the writing (he must have realized how stupid that sounded late in the game cause he then went on to try to say that the kid was actually the product of those "force-channeling energy beings" or whatever). And you know what? The fans have to admit this, at least, he imitates all the climaxes in his other movies. There's nothing else he can come up with except the same lines, same apprentice/master horseshit, same space battle? What's he doing? Watching the first three movies over and over, convincing himself they're brilliant (maybe not, considering the pathetic way he's been fucking with those effects in his new editions)? And what about the bad guy? Couldn't bother explaining who the "Sith" was? Too much writing you lazy bastard? It's easier to use those same phrases over and over again. Just because he babbles on and on with "blah blah Federation blah blah taxation blah blah Senate" that's a script? That's nonwriting, verbal masturbation, he's imitating Star Trek, the first Star Wars, a slow night on the evening news, and just about every sci-fi fantasy book that's been published since I was in elementary school. There's a reason those books come out as fast as those romance novels. Medieval fantasy speak (chosen ones, prophecies, moronic children's philosophy) and dull political mumbling (galactic congress, ambassadors, trade blockades, you know, like CNN, but in space!) is so much easier than writing. Combine it all and it's still...nothing. You know what though? Fuck this, I'm not going to go through it and tear it down piece by piece. I don't take the time to do that with any other children's film (how does that fucking spider in Charlotte's web even know how to write and remember that nonsense where Strawberry Shortcake....see what I mean? What’s the point?). But look at all the time I've already wasted. More time than anyone spent writing for any of these films. You're just supposed to shrug and forget it. Sling that hash about "you're not supposed to think about it", it's supposed to be "fun." One of them might have been "fun.” Nine? Not a chance. It's the ass-sucking fans that worship this shit, knowing it's shit, ensuring they'll always get more shit, that bring on these kinds of reactions. Hey you fuckin' knobs, the movie sucks! Grow the fuck up and you might force someone to make some good movies with that gargantuan ejaculation of money.

p.s. The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre sucks too. the spooky little devil children interludes are about as scary as the latest Chucky movie. everybody getting all serious about not criticizing it because it’s “true?” hmm, i don’t remember any computer-morphing demon kids in the Bible. dumb shits. i love zealots. choosing their battles so poorly that, if there was a real God, he would shit on all of them for being so fucking stupid.

::: david - 5:01 PM [+] :::
...

“Four more beers...four more beers...”
- Green Party Convention



ah yes, President Bush is walking out on stage at the Convention and i am pressing my dick against the TV set so he can SUCK IT. i’m completely serious. i have a witness here with a camera who can attest to the fact that yes, my dick is pushed up against the glass so that it appears as if our President is sucking on it. i would shit on my TV so he could suck on that. if only i’d eaten enough meat today. maybe in time for the debates!

look at these clowns. how many times are they going to say “nine-eleven” tonight. they love that shit. they love bringing that shit up as if they are instant heroes for being lucky enough to be in office when something blew up. isn’t that a crime? isn’t that like running up to a dead body on the street and taking a picture with it? then taking the shoes off the corpse?

and look at these signs. you know, it was always bothering me, the fact that all these signs are made BY the Convention to be held up by the crowd. i was thinking, "what ever happened to holding up a sign of what you want to say?" instead of this vague "Freedom" and "Four More Years" crap they're waving. but now i see this "Safer World" sign and i think, wow what a miracle that those words were just in his speech too! what a coincidence! doesn't this seem incredibly contrived and false to anyone else? but the worst has to be the "We Salute Our Troops!" sign because it uses "we" even though it's on the same shiny blue and red plastic factory materials so "we" didn't make shit. you know that idiot right there (another young minority on camera! wow, that's what Republicans look like???) didn't make it in his garage. see what i'm saying? the only hand-made signs, the only ones made by people who had the passion to participate in the election by using their own hands to make large words to hold up, are being dragged out like drunks at closing time.

how about that Democrat last night? that Zell guy? he had the best speech cause he's some angry Sunday morning newspaper rattling old dude and that comes across as more sincere than these limp pussies (wait, think i mixed my metaphors there) but it's too bad that all the things he was calling out Kerry on (voting against military shit, always summed up by Republicans saying "he voted AGAINST metal helmets so that they had to wear nerf!" as if the bills were that specific) were the same things that creepy robot draft-dodger Dick Cheney voted against.

speaking of "dick" i got to get back to this speech.

oh, one more thing. i keep hearing these fucks say “how can you support the troops and not support the war?” then they chant "flip-flop" like mongoloids and smirk like 9 year-olds with a load of shit in their shorts. as if someone who thinks the Iraqi war is ridiculous is saying, “i sure hope the son of that guy down the street gets his arms blown off! it'll serve him right for trying to pay for school with the GI Bill!” see, not only do i have two close relatives serving overseas and OF COURSE i want them to LIVE through this bullshit, i personally know a Sergeant who, along with the majority of his men, HATES the war they’re serving in and can’t get back home quick enough. would the Republican fucks say to them, “it’s impossible for you to not support the war, unless you wish that you’d die there?!?” at first i thought they were just saying stupid shit for the stupid people to swallow but now i really do think it's all just a big swirling stew of slack-jawed morons.

hello! back to the TV quick, now Bush is going to tea-bag my fucking balls 'cause it’s warm in here and they’re hanging nice and low.

::: david - 10:23 PM [+] :::
...

“The only baby killer I knew was John F. Kerry...”
- Swift Boat halfwit

“I once saw John Kerry wearing socks made out of Dalmatian puppies...”
- Unnamed White House source



i guess i got no choice but to choose a side. when you can't find something you like, just go against something you hate. and i have to go with whoever is the least stupid and BAM! we got a winner. go JFK 2, the sequel! because, even though that Don Henley song said “we get the government we deserve” i don’t want it.

anyone else notice the Iran talk creeping up lately? just dropping some crumbs in the paper now, little “human rights violation” here, little “harboring terrorism” talk there. then, if douchbag gets re-elected, him and his boys will go in to “liberate” another oil-rich country and they can say “hey! we’ve been talking about the problems with Iran for years!” this shit is so obvious i can’t stand it. and how can they think that Iran will be the push-over that Iraq was? it’ll be kind of funny actually, the President declares “Mission accomplished!” with a war in Iran and BOOM! a Superbowl blows up. don’t those crazy bastards have nukes over there? here’s what a typical news day will sound like in 3 years:

“We now take you to the beautiful California coast and
(BOOM!)
uhhhh, we now take you to the beautiful Arizona coast and...”

or

“Today the President is at the World Series and will be throwing out the first pitch
(BOOM!)
last pitch of the game...”

or

“We now declare the 2008 Summer Olympics
(BOOM!)
I mean, Winter Olympics open!
(BOOM!)
I mean, closed..."

“And we thought the Greek closing ceremony was bizarre with that crazy watermelon truck, what are they doing out there right now, Bob?”
“I believe those are snow angles they are making on the ground.”
“But that’s not snow, Bob, that’s ash...”

anyway, how about those “Unfit For Command” faggots. claiming on one page that John Kerry was the biggest coward they ever saw, then 5 pages later claiming that he was some crazed Rambo type, killing babies and “kids in loin-cloths.” i love the language they use. first they say that Kerry’s wound was “rice-inflicted" and he was "shot in the ass,” miraculously coming up with a description that both invokes the ass (meaning cowardice) and rice (meaning they’re racists) and now we got this moron saying he saw Kerry shoot a kid in a “loin-cloth?” were they in fucking Vietnam or "The Lion King?" the guy is so fucking stupid that his mind was scrambling to come up with an image of a scared native so he comes up with some Jungle Book character swinging through the trees. and these people just eat that shit up. repeating the same things (rice in the ass....flip-flop...self-inflicted....French ancestors....) i love this “flip-flop” shit they keep repeating like fucking retards. here’s a typical statement that’s supposed to blow the lid off Kerry’s hypocrisy:

“he voted FOR the war, right before he voted AGAINST it!”

cue the laughter at the Republican convention. so, let me get this straight: the best they can do is reveal that he, at one time, BELIEVED WHAT BUSH SAID ABOUT IRAQ?!? so, they are saying that he SHOULD HAVE NEVER BELIEVED BUSH. yeah, you nailed him. what a bunch of fuckwits. and "flip flop" is an easy to remember sing-song kind of quote, tailor made for short-attention span idiots. just like the OJ trial where they repeated "if it don't fit, you must aquit!" so many times that the morons remembered it and sure enough...not guilty!

and how about those code words from the moderate stage this week? i actually heard (from someone else who heard) the words “family values” muttered by a twenty-something Republican. first off, you’re not allowed to be a twenty-something Republican because all you’re doing is parroting your fucking dad but that besides the point. she asked him “what do you believe in?” and he says “family values” what? are you fucking kidding me??? does that mean he doesn’t have the balls to say “i hate fags?” sounds like it. just like "welfare reform" are code-words that roughly translate as “i hate niggers.” gutless, every one of ‘em. and all these young Republicans think by aligning themselves with that side, it appears as if they’re either rich or powerful or on the fast-track to both. too bad i hear them saying the equivalent of “i want to be an astronaut!” when i hear that bullshit.

hey, does anyone know if there’s any truth to this bill i’m hearing about, where they want to require all 18-25 year-olds to put in 2 years of military service? if it is true, this is typical from those draft-dodging, National Guard hawks to force others to do their “duty.” you know, whenever i hear or see that word, i want to follow it with “to please that booty.”

look at this convention. hmmm, judging by this parade of earnest wide-eyed idiots, Republicans must be black, Mexican and female. and this band, trying to rock out and get the kid's vote? dude, who do they think they're fooling. Republicans? they DON'T look like that. but they make sure that prime time is ALL speeches by minorities. i am not joking. not a single soft white boy to be found.

see, all Bush supporters look exactly the same to me. i see a “W” sticker on a car and i get a closer look and i see gray-haired doughy white-faced soft chinless bitchboy. oh how i’d love to talk politics with them, then after i've verbally spanked then, sink my fist into that squishy mug and watch them fill their khakis with piss. this is known as “taking a detour on the high road, then coming back down to the low road” you know what these Republicans look like to me? they look like the British villains in movies like "Rob Roy" and "Braveheart" with the big gray wig and the powdered faces. isn’t that what the first Americans were trying to get away from? Foppish blowhards who talk a good game about kicking ass in wars but can’t physically wrestle their lunch money away from me? oh you fat fucking bastards how i would love to kill you all for being so self-righteous and ignorant.

how come people are so fucking stupid? seriously. how is it possible? how come they are not running around with piles of shit in their hands saying “look what i almost stepped in!”

::: david - 7:23 PM [+] :::
...

"Watching good movies is for pussies, watching bad movies takes endurance..."
- George Washington

"Dude, where's my car? No, seriously, where is my car?"
- me (last night, to myself)



since the readers that i have left would rather lunch on a ass-sandwich than read my fiction, let’s try an oldie but a goodie! a little trick i learned back in Vietnam to pass the time in the jungle. you know what they used to call me in the ‘Nam? they called me "The Stand." you know why? because i used to sleep standing up! thanks for saving my life 8-Ball, never saw that grenade until you caught it! thank god your mom sent you that baseball glove instead of cigarettes. i don’t know what i’m talking about either, all i know is that i got a fever! and the only cure is another.......

REAL TIME REVIEW!!!

remember how these things work? i type it as i watch it. sounds crazy??? it is!!! i can't stop doing it (six patents pending) so here we go! tonight's movie:

The Butterfly Effect

starring Ashton Kutcher and...Eric Stoltz? and...who is that? fuck if i know. let's just get this over with...

-pushing play and turning on my new green TV. a power surge fucked up the colors.
-that chaos theory quote? isn’t there a real quote by someone? i mean, attributing a quote to "Chaos Theory" is like saying, "Shit in one hand, wish in another, see which one fills up first" - Nonsense Overheard At Work
-the only thing disturbing about the serial killer drawing by the child is how ridiculously overstylized it is
-i was in one of those MRI machines once. they wire you so that you don’t freak out and when they asked if i was okay i said, "yeah but the inside of this thing is covered with graffiti" and the woman said "we have the inside washed daily sir..." no sense of humor.
-kid just woke up with the knife like "Sling Blade." all we need is a noble retard and we’re set!
-ha! Eric Stoltz alert! he’ll never top "Killing Zoe." or "Anaconda."
-okay, Eric Stoltz is hammered and running a child porn ring. again!?! isn’t he worried about getting typecast?
-this kid’s narration is only slightly less annoying than "Blade Runner."
-some sort of "Slaughterhouse Five" time jumping thing going on here. freaking me out since i just had a power outage in this apartment a couple hours ago.
-check out that giant firecracker! why didn’t they just have one of those round black cartoon bombs with the fuses on them.
-that’s right, she was in "Magnolia"
-"think of it like a movie, you can pause, slow down or rewind any detail you wish" that’s the On Demand ad i hear every day, ain’t it.
-having the characters watch "Seven" is a bad idea since it just makes me want to watch that movie instead. notice how i didn’t call it "Se7en." notice how i don’t call this movie the "Bu2erfly Effect" either. beware the sequel though, i bet they try to stick a number 2 in the title. is Prince to blame for this shit?
-that is the toughest 4th grader i’ve ever seen.
-is that the same kid that freaked out in the theater? is he fat now? oh, that’s the firecracker kid.
-dude, i have no idea what the fuck is going on in this flick
-this is like "Stand By Me" if every time i wanted something to happen, it did. like the kid from Star Trek and River Phoenix really did take 2 X 4s to each other’s heads instead of weeping about stealing lunch money
-nice beard douchebag. Kutcher looks like "Dude, Where’s The Amish?"
-cool, a Cramps poster.
-fat goth kid gonna take this abuse from the frat boys or what? depends on whether the movie is geared towards fat goth kids or frat boys.
-apparently it’s geared towards fat goth kids who are can do impressive billiard trick shots. good idea guys, that’s exactly 000000.3 percent of the population
-okay, they really should have picked a larger bully. this little fuck couldn’t intimidate the kid from Star Trek
-so it’s a cautionary tale? the dangers of mailbox bombing revealed. next do we see some mailbox baseball turned fatal when some kid’s head comes CLEAN OFF!?!
-now i’m thinking that isn’t the chick from "Magnolia." if i had 12 hours i’d watch it again to find out.
-i see those "Seven" diaries in too many movies now.
-"Evan, is that you? you don’t look anything like the actor that played you when you were 12."
-even if Stoltz was really just making a movie about "Robin Hood" it would still be considered child molesting
-by having the movie jump around, sure you can do shocking things to main characters but the problem is they can be erased minutes later so it don’t mean shit.
-why is he writing sideways in his notebooks? i’ll bet he holds his nine millimeter sideways too
-Stoltz is cracking my ass up. guess he needed the money
-that reminds me. that "Pulp Fiction" quote i used last post? at the beginning of my short story? i used to agree with it. i’m not so sure about that now.
-the opening quote should have read, "a butterfly flaps its wings in Tibet and a million miles away, some dude’s beard (gasp!) changes overnight!"
-i know this song, what song is this?
-since you're probably as bored as i was when i watched this movie, check out this link a friend sent me instead.
-they picked a lame-ass villain for this movie. wise man once said, "a movie is only as good as its villain."
-his accent changed? what? was he middle-eastern before?
-so let me get this straight, if you’re NOT molested as a child you become a fucking frat boy?
-i can’t decide what line is funniest coming out of Kutcher’s mouth: "you just got Punk’d!" or "i sure ain’t joining up with no spics or niggers."
-this movie sure ain’t no "Darkman."
-the plot problems with his time-traveling are so huge that i won’t even bother to go into it. i mean, the way he’s still in college around the same 5 actors, even though other people’s entire lives have changed is incredibly fucking stupid.
-long boring dead spot in the middle of this thing. i’ll pass the time by telling you about some other movies i saw recently, "Dodgeball," "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Spiderman 2." i would rate them decent, excellent and utter shit. first off the decent one, "Dodgeball" it was a comedy and i never go see those in the theater but i laughed out loud about three times. "Spiderman 2?" dull as hell and my sister’s scene was cut out. the last one you’ve all seen or talked to death by now.
-oh yeah, remind me to tell you about how "The Village" sucked balls.
-apparently by changing the future, Kutcher just made his girlfriend’s ass huge.
-okay, waking up without arms and saying "what the fuck is this?" was pretty funny.
-okay, the granola bar thing is funny too.
-okay, him turning on the water with his nub to commit suicide is real funny. chalk that up on my list of "Things I Didn’t Think I’d See This Actor Ever Do" right next to "Shanking A Nazi In Prison."
-this movie is the textbook definition of a "watchable piece of shit."
-they just said that they were surprised that he still had "control of his motor functions." "motor" functions? c’mon, he's in a wheelchair, they would never let him drive a car.
-lots of nosebleeds in this movie.
-could have used more nosebleeds in "Punk’d"
-that’s it? that’s the ending? utter crap.
-okay, i’m a sucker for extra scenes so i’m going to watch the Director’s Cut on the other side.
-so he was born "without a soul" and "should never have been born" oooooh. spoooooky. there’s so many jokes i could do about this flick with those two lines that i’m locking up.
-my head hurts from tapping it gently against a hammer.
-i got a fever...and the only cure is more cowbell!
-this movie could have used some Blue Oyster Cult.
-of course, what movie couldn’t?

::: david - 11:57 PM [+] :::
...

"It would be worth him doing it, just to catch him doing it..."
- Pulp Fiction


"I knew a bunch of girls, who take it on the floor...
now the game is nearly over and the hounds are at the door."
- Fox On The Run



FICTION:



Squirt Guns & Firing Squads



"Did I cut you?"

No matter how hard he tried, Steven couldn't say those four words the way she wanted. He was outside, away from the shipwreck and the sharks, on top of a hill in front of the car, hunched over in the glow of the headlights, looking down at the blood drying on his stomach.

"Did I cut you?"

He tried saying it again, accent on a different word, and it still wasn't working. He'd told her that he couldn't say it like she wanted since he wasn’t sure what she wanted. Seems she wanted a story to go with those words. And even with his eyes closed, he couldn't think of a story any more interesting than what had just happened.

"Did I cut you?"

Nothing.

When Steven first said those words, he was worried that he cut her. Ashley didn't like that. She said that those words always have a more sinister tone. She said that, when someone said those four words, they weren’t really worried about you at all. She said that it was just like when someone says those famous three words. No, not "I love you," she explained. She said that the three words "are you jealous?" would always carry more of a sting. She said that more people remembered where they were when someone said "are you jealous" than "I love you" because of that sting. She said there’s no denying they want you to be jealous when they say that.
"And when they say ‘did I cut you?’ You know what else they want? They're secretly hoping that they drew blood."

Drew blood. . .

Ashely said that Steven was getting it all wrong tonight. That he would never say those words the right way. All ten of them.

Then she smiled like she was flashing back and whispered something like:

"Remind me to tell you about when I was little and I made blood bubbles. . ."

She was small, too small to be thinking the way she was thinking, at least that’s what everyone kept telling her. She was holding a plastic bottle of bubbles and blowing as fast as she could, her goal was to cover the bathroom floor completely before they started to pop. It was the smallest room in the house and still she could never get more than a third of the floor covered before the first batch would begin to disappear, tickling her bare legs with tiny splashes, filling her nose with the smell of clean dishes. Then she tripped over the garbage can and wrinkled her nose as she pushed everything back inside. She stopped and slowly held up something strange by the tips of her fingers. She thought it looked like a firecracker after a 4th of July accident, bent and heavy, soaked in blood. She got an idea to make her bubbles stronger and last longer. She took out the magic wand and dipped the firecracker into her bottle by it’s tail. After a few seconds she’d filled the room with pretty pink bubbles. They were stronger when they were pink and they lasted three times as long. She wondered if she could make bubbles that would last forever. She would need more blood, and a bigger room to try it. She moved her experiment to the kitchen floor and leaned over the bottle with the prongs of a fork pressed deep into the heel of her hand. Hours later, she still couldn’t bring herself to push the fork hard enough to draw blood and she went outside to play instead.

Steven arched his hips up into the headlights again. He was disappointed with the color of the blood. It was black. It looked like he'd slipped in some tar, like maybe he’d gotten out to check his tire pressure and stumbled, his foot stuck in a piece of the road that the sun had heated back up to bubbling.

He wiped the dark blood off the heels of his hands without thinking, then looked down to see it streaked and tangled in the hairs on his stomach. He looked closer.

It was still the wrong color. He thought that it looked liked he’d picked up a rubber stain from changing a flat, or maybe from leaning in too far to rest on a bike tire he was pumping up. Or maybe it was a bug, one that was too big to be smashed without a shoe. Whatever it was, it was too black to scare him. The wrong color for a ghost story. It looked like anything except what it was.

He walked around and leaned into the car. He wanted to see what was on the radio, maybe make himself a memory. Only he’s forgotten something. He backed up and stood there and actually reached around his naked torso for the car keys. He laughed out loud, asking himself if he really thought the keys were in his mouth or up his ass. Then he almost checked the watch he didn't have on to see how long it would be before James would be walking back. He yanked a knob and now the highbeams were on. He looked down. Now things were red.

Steven jumped back out of the light and started laughing loud as a movie villain.

He stopped suddenly as something crashed through the weeds behind him. He thought the brights and laughter must have startled an animal.

He turned back to the car, he’d just had an great idea that was cracking him up. He backed up a few more steps until he was invisible, just out of the reach of the headlights. Then he walked back towards the brights, pretending that he didn’t know he was naked, trying to whistle through a mouth that was too dry. He tried telling himself a story instead.

". . .don't know why she wanted to come out here to screw around. . ." he started muttering, ". . .girl has me drive out here, we do some hard fucking out in the woods, then suddenly she's gone. . .was she even there. . .maybe she's playing some game. . .I don't know. I think we might have rolled into a puddle and that scared her away. She rolled off and disappeared, and now it’s taking forever to find my way back to the car. . .sweet! There it is! Good thing I left the headlights on and. . .AAAH!"

He stood in the headlights, looking down at the blood stain on his body, trying to act scared. Didn't sound right though. He tried again. He backed up into the dark until he was gone, then he walked slowly toward the highbeams trying to think of another story.

". . .what the hell, we sneak off to screw around and it feels like everything’s working. . .it feels like she's coming like a busted fire hydrant, screaming like it's the best thing ever, then she's silent, won't talk to me, even holding her breath like a little kid. So I roll off and leave her there pouting about whatever. Then I walk around, trying to get my brain back to find the car, and when I come back to her to ask what the hell is wrong, she thinks it's funny to stay quiet. She thinks it funny to curl up into a ball somewhere in the woods where I can't find her. So now I have to turn on the brights and point them into the dark so she can find her way back. I keep getting back into the car and turning the wheel to light up the trees. Piece by piece, like slicing a pie with a laser. And she still didn’t come back, so I got out and looked around again and now I’m walking into front of the car so I can see what is itching so bad and. . .AAAH!"

He looked down, eyes wide and exaggerated, smacking and scratching at the blood, trying to get it off. That story seemed to work a little better. He laughed and decided to try one more time, one more story to get it just right.

". . .okay, maybe she's doing something to herself, only it's too dark for me to see what she's doing. I can't see anything ‘cause she had to get out of the car. She said that she was shy and even the dashboard lights were too bright for her. She said she needed some time in the dark to get herself ready and don’t worry, she won’t try to get herself off. I guess that's what she did ‘cause I can't see anything and I can’t hear anything, and when I’m thinking I’m getting close, I hear her crawling away again. Then I get right up on her and we’re both naked in the dark and instead of a push or a punch, it feels like she just bit me in the guts to get me off her. Then she's gone so fast I don’t have time to think. It’s like a helicopter yanked her up into the sky. What the hell? She fly away? She really bite me? Then I sigh when I finally see the lights coming from the car and. . .AAAH!"
Then there was a voice right behind him and this time he really jumped.

"What are you doing?!?"

Busted.

Ashley's voice, from somewhere in the dark behind Steven and the car.

"What are you doing?" she asked again. He flinched as if her voice was a line-drive and he was caught with his fingers in the wrong holes of his baseball glove.

"Steve, seriously, what are you? Some kinda retard or something?"

Steven's heart hammered and skipped as he moved out of the headlights, covering the bloodstains over his groin with his hands. Then he quickly covered his genitals instead. Then, after a moment, he delegated one hand to each spot. He quickly ran to the car and reached in to turn off the headlights. Then he started walking a slow circle around the vehicle to stay away from her. She came out of the dark behind him and he jumped again. He started thinking that she was thinking that she was chasing him around like a bully in a high school locker room. He imagined her following him around the car, slapped at his bare ass, him running away like the smallest boy in the shower room.

They did three laps with him thinking:

How small do I look to her? Do I disappear when I’m naked?

The whole time she followed him, he heard wet towel cracks in his head, punctuation between everything she was saying:

"I don't get you." Crack! "I ask you to tell me one story back there and you freak." Crack! "Now you're out here like some nutjob, telling stories to yourself instead?" Crack! "What a loser." Crack! "That’s like jerking-off with your naked girlfriend sleeping in the next room." Crack!

The third time around the car, she reached in and yanked the headlight knob back on. He stopped so he wouldn’t walk through the light of the highbeams and then she was close enough to grab his arm.
"Your stories weren’t bad, you know that?" she went on, wrestling with his wrist and squinting to get a good look at him. "You could have used one of those stories on me. You just wasted them on yourself." His arm was thin and sweaty and she had to squeeze as hard as she could to keep a grip.

"Like trying to fish with your hands. . ." she mumbled through her teeth.

There was a squeak of wet skin like basketball shoes on a sweat covered gymnasium and one of her finger nail drew a deep scratch down his forearm.

". . .or your feet."

Steven winced. She smiled and her hand relaxed. It was true. She’d suspected it when she first saw his arm hanging out the window of his car and now she knew it was true.

She was stronger than he was.
Her fingers moved down and around his body, finding the blood on his lower stomach, then a couple drying scabs on the insides of his legs, then a warm spot under his balls where it felt like it would never dry. Steven squirmed out of her reach and backpedaled, laughing nervously while she whispered:

"Remind me to tell you about when I was a little girl and I made a blood bomb. . ."

She was a little bigger and still the smallest thing in the neighborhood. She was sitting in the wet grass by the hose, feeling the cold water soak into the back pockets of her blue jeans and she tried to remember if there were any rabbit drawings back there that were getting ruined. She watched the boys fill up their water balloons and stack them carefully in shirts that they stretched out in front of themselves like hammocks. They walked away slowly, leaning back like pregnant women, each choosing their corner of the yard to prepare for the biggest water balloon war in history. She watched them fill balloon after balloon, tying off the ends and elbowing each other in anticipation. She would sigh when they’d fumble the knots and have to start over, or kick at a tree when they’d overfill one until it burst and wasted a bomb on themselves. It felt like the war would never start. She waited until the last boy, the smallest boy, was filling his balloons, and then ran for the hose. She stared at him to make him nervous enough to drop a balloon and finally he asked for her help. She crawled over to eagerly take over the trigger on the hose. When the boy turned to see if everyone had started without him, she quickly removed a special balloon she’d hidden in her shirt and added it to his pile. Then she climbed a tree to wait for him to throw it, apologizing to a face-like knot for kicking it in the trunk earlier. Her balloon was easy to keep track of, it was the only pink one in the battle, since the boys never filled those, and she’d also drawn a smiley face on it with a magic marker. It was stacked in his arsenal, resting on his ripped shirt in the shade, on his corner of the yard. She had time to think back to the night before, when she defrosted five steaks from the freezer to get enough blood to fill her balloon. She frowned as she remembered squeezing the meat, then, in desperation, having to crack open a can of strawberry pie filling to stuff inside. And still the balloon didn’t look round enough. She had made such a mess, cramming bloody ice and strawberry gore into the neck of that balloon, that the sun was coming up while she was still cleaning and finding evidence in the cracks of everything. Now she was up in the tree, yawning and trying to stay awake long enough for the payoff. She imagined the looks on their faces when the balloon would burst. She laughed and wondered if, even for just a moment, the boys in the war would thinking that someone was really hurt, that maybe someone had thrown a real bomb. A perfect shot and a burst of red and they might think someone’s head came off. They might even think someone was dead. She stopped yawning and looked for her balloon. Her boy’s pile was almost down to the smiley face. She felt proud watching him run back and forth, holding his own in spite of his size, grabbing balloons and throwing them with deadly accuracy. Finally he had her pink balloon in his hand and she held her breath as he wound up to throw it. It caught another boy square in the mouth and knocked him down. She started crying. It didn’t explode. . .

"Sorry," he said. "I can't tell you a story or whatever it is you want. Is that what you want? I think that now I just want. . ."

She reached out and flicked him in the lips to shut him up and he didn't even see her do it. He looked around for a bug instead.

"We have to go." she whispered. "There’s someone out here and it’s not James." He finally looked up. "No bullshit, I think there’s someone in the trees."

He was rubbing his mouth as she took his hand and pulled him back to the car. They got inside and crawled into the back seat. Steven relaxed. The back seat of the car felt safe, like it was where a boy and a girl were supposed to be.

She put the key in the ignition and the green and orange dashlights faded in like a movie, lighting up their faces with a sickly end-of-the-world glow. Steven blinked, looked around the car, then closed his eyes for good. The colors of the dashboard lights felt like radiation to him and it was making him dizzy. Ashley frowned and kissed an eyelid to try to coax it back open. Echoing in his ears were the sounds of naked skin catching and popping and squeaking on the vinyl as she got as close as she could and things got tangled up and glued with sweat.

"Once there was a boy and a girl. . ."

She decided the time was perfect for a story and she scratched and rubbed his cold salt and blood-slicked skin, her fingers moving from bump to scab, picked and grinding them loose. Some of the blood flew off in dusty flakes and some mixed with the sweat and heat and friction and started to melt on her fingers.

". . .and they're in the back seat of a car, seems like they’re always in the backseat of a car, don’t it?"

Ashley guided Steven's cold sticky fingers down, moving a thumb in small circles until something down there swelled and became unstuck and her blood was running again moving inside her body and outside on his.

". . .and the boy felt something weird inside her, it reminded him of a summer job when some fiberglass got into the sunburn on the backs of his hands. . ."

Steven pushed two more fingers a knuckle-length deeper and, in spite of his lack of experience, he thought it did feel strange. Like he was pulling on a glove filled with sand and raspberry preserves. He didn't know what fiberglass felt like. But now that he thought about it, he had filled a baseball mitt with peanut-butter and jelly once to get out of playing a T-ball tournament.

". . .she started telling him a story, a story about the last time she was with a boy in that car. She told the boy, yeah, there were two boys and one girl and that’s the worst, and she told the first boy she got alone that there were spiders nesting under the back seat, she told him that she got bit all over, and she wasn't sure but she thought that they may have dropped some eggs inside her too. . ."

Steven quickly pulled his three fingers out.

". . .so the boy gets scared and pushes himself off. . ." She shoved him back so hard he smacked his head on the roof. ". . .and he fights his way out the door as fast as he can. "

She reached behind him and hit the door handle, kicking him out onto his ass with both feet. He hit the stones shaken but laughing in surprise. He thought he knew where her story was going. And, at the same time, he wondered if she was changing the story because he'd just pulled his fingers out.

". . .and she starts the engine and turns the headlights on," she started the engine and turned the headlights on. ". . .and at that moment he was running in front of the car."

She leaned out the window and pointed to where he should go.

"Running in front of the car. . ." Ashley repeated, snapping her fingers impatiently.

Steven sighed and got to his feet, brushing the sharp gravel from his knees. He walked into the lights, his red-streaked erection smacking from leg to leg. She gunned the motor and he froze in the beams.

". . .and that's when he looked down. . ." She paused for effect. ". . .and screamed!" Steven tried to smile and shook his head instead. He looked down, trying to act shocked, opened his mouth to try screaming again and stopped. The world had slowed as he stared down at his small body glowing in the eyes of the car.

His erection was at three o’clock, going down fast. He counted ten seconds with the beat of his pulse and it was at five o'clock now, on it's way to six. He walked over to the window to ask her some questions. It was at six o’clock when he leaned in the window. It was gone by the time he started to speak, head down and dead, limp and swinging like a lynching after everyone has gone home.

"So, why is he screaming? Why am I screaming?" He asked her as he covered himself with one clawed hand.

"Does he see blood? Or is he covered in spiders? I don’t get it." He couldn’t resist a joke right then:

"And can I see your driver’s license and registration please?"

"No. No. No." Ashley banged her skull back against the headrest and pumped the gas pedal in frustration. She reached out and grabbed his mouth. "He screams, "you fucked some other boy in my car?" Get it?"

He nodded and grinned at the punchline and was moving between the beams to hide when she suddenly opened the door and ran to tackle him. They rolled in the dust and stones laughing until the rocks sticking to their naked bodies started to hurt. They sat up and began flicking the shrapnel off palms and elbows and knees at each other’s faces. They were coughing and laughing and catching their breath, winding back down.

"I know you." Steven said when they’d run out of rocks. "You're one of those girls that thinks jealousy is cute. Ain't ya? One of those goddamn girls that asks, "are you jealous?" while you're smiling. Am I right? Why don’t girls realize that saying those three words while they’re smiling through their teeth feels worse than if you heard them say "I love you" over some other dude’s shoulder while he’s fucking her? Is that you? You think that’s something to smile about? Huh? Do you?"

No answer and Ashley held his eyes for too long. He wished for a rearview mirror between them. He was sure that he could win any staring contest as long as the eyes were fighting it out in a mirror.

How do you make a mirror? Steven thought as his eyes watered, the urge to blink overpowering. Someone told me once when I was little that all you do is hold any piece of glass over a fire and it turns into a mirror. Buncha shit and I believed it long enough to burn both my hands and wreck three pairs of my grandpa’s reading glasses.

Outside he could hear something rustling in the weeds again and he imagined the cat-tails whipping in the wind like the ass-end of a stray cat, working itself into the ground, winding up, ready to jump for a bird or a frog or the pulsing yellow heartbeat of a firefly writing something in the dark.
She still wasn’t blinking and now his eyes felt like they were bleeding.

He looked down.

There was a glowing red cross in the distance.

At first they thought that it was high up in one of the trees like a Christmas decoration, then they realized that it was miles away, at the top of a hill on the horizon. Steven said that he remembered seeing it a long time ago, maybe above a falling rock zone on the highway.

"That’s where it is, yeah, I did see it," he decided, "Right above the interstate, a mile before the river. I know because of all the wreathes along those guardrails."

"For a minute I was worried you were going to say that the cross was put there for us," Ashley said. "Since you didn’t, I guess I could believe you."

"Serious. I saw it last winter and I thought it was creepy then. A red cross? Little too close to a flaming cross, you know? Someone said that they light those things to mark the spot over a car crash. Makes sense, considering all the wrecks on that turn."

"How many wrecks?"

"I don’t know. At least three. I’ve seen two wreathes, about five crosses, and, at the bottom of the turn where you should be riding your brakes, there’s a plot of dirt in the shape of a heart, with a big white T-bone planted right in the center of it."

"That’s more disturbing than a red cross on a hill." Ashley said through a pinched face. "I think people are getting carried away with those things, all those flowers and pictures and stuffed animals getting rained on with gum and snuff and cigarette butts and everything else that people spit out their window getting stuck in their fur. That’s way more freaky and sad."

"Why’s that?"

"You know what a little kid will be thinking? When they see an elaborate memorial like that? They are going to think that. . .if you die in a car crash. . .they bury you right there. . .on the side of the fucking road. Tell me that ain’t the first thing you’d think if you were nine, in the back seat of a car, wet nose against the glass."

"Maybe."

Another noise outside the car and Steven was rolling down the window.

"Who the fuck is out there?!?" he yelled.

"She walked through the corn, leading down to the river. . ." Ashley sang.

"What?"

"You never heard that song? "Fox On The Run?" The original, not the new song. That’s the only part I remember, "she walked through the corn. . ." She started to sing again.

"Sounds familiar I guess. You know, you can’t have a song like that anymore."

"Why not?"

"Because you’d have to see a girl walking through some corn to write a song about it, and that’s something you’ll never see."

"What are you babbling about? You can see a girl walking through a cornfield any day of the week."

"Okay, when is the last time you did it?"

"Shut up. Get your head back in here." She breathed hard on the window and traced a heart in the vapor before it was gone. "So who do you think is running around out there?"

"I know who it is."

"James right? So what? Let’s give him something to spy on."

"No, that thing out there, it’s too small to be James. It’s something else."

"Who?"

Steven realized who it was as he said the words:

"The boy who used live in our boat. The pirate, the first captain of the ship. The boy who made the flag that we took down. I should have figured he’d find us eventually."

"You’re crazy, c’mere." She tried to pull him close and he sunk down in the seat and moved away instead.
"Just keep talking, okay?" he said, still looking outside. "That’s what I want right now." His voice had something honest in it and she blinked in surprise and sat back with her knees up over her chest.

"Fine. Let me think. Alright, there is this one thing I was thinking about. You know what story you never hear? The one about the boy who pays for a third of an abortion. You’ve heard the old story about the boy who pays for half, that happens every fifteen minutes in this country, but you never hear about three people forced to try to figure out their share of the bill. I dodged that bullet once and I kept thinking about what I would do. That’s what you guys don’t understand. You feel sorry for us when we’re on the rag and you don’t understand, sometimes blood in the toilet is such a relief. It’s such a strange thing. I’ll bet you’ve never stood over a toilet, bleeding with a smile on your face. Am I right? That’s something only a girl knows about." She breathed deep and seemed to notice him for the first time. Again. He was leaning close and reaching to touch what seemed to be a sticky tangle of gum and hair on her hip-bone.

"What’s that?"

"This?" She looked down and pulled some hairs from the spot. "That’s just my tattoo. Well, it’s the spot where my tattoo would have been anyway. See, I had an extra fifty bucks from working the 4th of July and it was just enough money to get either a tattoo, or another round of birth control patches."

"Why does it have to be one or the other? There’s a million things you can get with fifty bucks."

"I know, it’s just that it can’t be a coincidence that both things cost exactly the same amount of money, and both things would have been stuck in exactly the same spot on my body. That’s got to mean something, right?"

"Maybe." Steven agreed. "Hell, I would even go so far as to say that both things would have the same effect on anyone who saw them. Any dude that would catch a glimpse down there when you reached for something high."

"You might have a point." She picked at the spot in question and inspected the color of a hair she found. "Anyhow, that’s the goo they leave behind when you pull them off too fast."

"How do you pull off a tattoo? You get it out of a cereal box?"

"No stupid, I’m talking about the patch. I yank it and leave it off and pow! I get my period the next day. It’s so bizarre, these things that we do to ourselves just to fuck. Can you imagine the massive amounts of chemicals it takes to fuck with my body like that?"

"You probably took five years off your life and you’ll never know."

"What?" She frowned. "Fuck you, Steve, it ain’t that bad.’ She kicked at him. "So c’mon! What story can you tell?" she demanded. "Your turn, goddammit."

"What, a story with blood in it? I don't know. You want a story to go with your blood on my stomach? How about. . .uhhh. . .I could hang onto the back bumper and pretend that I was all bloody ‘cause I got dragged around behind the car and you could get in it and tap the brake pedal to get the red lights blinking and I could run back behind it screaming for you to stop and making car noises and. . .fuck it never mind."

She started getting out of the car, one bare foot on the ground when he pulled her back inside, harder than he had to.

"Wait, I got something. It’s not really a story, just something that I’ve been thinking about. Just now, while you were telling your story. I call it The Firing Squad."

"Go on."

"Okay, let’s say you got a girl who’s knocked-up and the two of you decide to get an abortion. That’s heavy so you decide to make yourself feel better in the worst possible way. What you do is, you get your girl to admit that she fucked around on you. You tell her that it would be okay for her to admit it, because then, you could think in the back of your head that the baby that gets aborted wasn’t even yours. Sure, there’s a chance that it’s yours, but it’ll be easier to swallow if she was fucking something else. It’s like the one man in the firing squad when they do executions. You ever heard about that? How they always give one man a blank bullet for his gun? That way he can live with it, and he can tell himself that maybe he didn’t kill anything. Then, after she admits she fucked him, and the baby is gone forever, you tell her that it was just your way of getting her to confess, and you don’t give two fucks about dead babies and if you were really in a firing squad and you realized you had an empty bullet in your gun, I’d just fire another shot. And then say "fuck you" and leave that fucking cheating fuck forever."

"I heard that it’s a squirt gun." Ashley mumbled, deep in thought.

"What?"

"For those firing squads. I heard that it isn’t blanks they give one of those guys. It’s a squirt gun. A very realistic one."

"Shut the fuck up." Steven laughed. "That would never work. He’d see the water dribble out the end of it."

"Not if they were close enough. And not if it was filled with blood. Remind me to tell you. . ."

Ashley trailed off and he saw her actually biting her tongue.

Steven shook his head, hesitating to laugh because she was remembering something and she looked like she was going to cry. He didn’t comfort her, because he was remembering something too, and now they were even.

"So when does James get back?" she asked.

"Any second now," he answered.

"We should try to scare him."

"What about what we..." Steven trailed off and his hand covered himself again. "Fine. How do we scare him?"
Ashley shoved her way out and jumped up and climbed onto the hood of the car. Excited, eyes glowing with a new idea, she spread her legs wide and said:

"Think about how this would look. He won't be able to get his brain around it. You down there, the blood on you, the blood on me, the blood everywhere..."

"There isn't that much blood. There never is. There isn’t right now." She almost sounded disappointed. "It’ll still freak him out. Shit, the only thing creepier would be for him to walk up and see a dog going down on me." She seemed to shock herself for a second. "A huge black dog, slobbering and licking away. Ew, nasty. Did I just say that out loud? I can’t tell."

"Why does the dog always got to be black?" he asked.

"What?"

"Nothing. Bad joke."

"Or maybe you and the dog both down there," she went on. "Fighting to get your heads in there. A dog would do that nasty shit too, that’s why they always lick exactly what they’re supposed to in the movies. Because they slap peanut butter and blood on it. That’s kind of scary though, you think a dog can be trusted not to bite? I'd worry that the dog would think that the blood in that peanut butter meant meat. . ."

For the first time, Steven found himself tuning her out.

". . .remind me to tell you about when I was a girl and. . ."

"Aren’t you still a girl?" He said it too quiet to be answered. He heard almost nothing, her voice was the white noise between radio stations. And even though she was clicking her knees together while she rambled, arching her ass for a good view every few seconds, he couldn't hear the words. He couldn’t stop staring at something else. She reached out and flicked his ear to get his attention.
". . .and when we drove this car up this hill, the angle of the headlights were on the tops of the trees. . ."
He thought about when you push a car stereo button halfway in so that it slides between nothing but static and hiss.

". . .and I saw a little boy sitting up there. I was going to say something and I guess I should have because it sound like the little fucker has been stalking us all night. . ."

He couldn’t look away, he heard something about the boy and didn’t even check her eyes to see if she was lying.

". . .hey, remind me to tell you. . ."

He stared down until the static of her voice was almost completely gone, and the only thing left was her feet. She tried flicking him in the nose.

More of her words were getting through and he actually reached out and bent the antenna on the car to keep her voice out of his head.

". . .I said, remind me to. . ."

In frustration, she flicked him in the eye. Now he was looking. However, before she had finished her last story, he was looking down again.

"Remind me to tell you about when I was a girl and I made a blood gun. . ."

Her voice was gone now. All he saw was her feet. Glowing red, skeleton visible through the skin, toes curling in front of the headlights.

She was old enough to be in love and small enough to still think of herself as a little girl. She was in the back seat of his brother’s car again. They were too young to drive it, only too old to be hiding in it. She thought that this boy loved her and she just needed to find a way to prove it. The last time she’d fallen asleep in the back of his brother’s car, she woke up to find that he was writing on her naked back with his finger. She had tried to figure out what he was writing but he was doing it way too fast to keep up with the letters. Later she lifted her shirt for him again and he wrote on her back right on cue. Slower, and he used an ice cube like she’d asked. She wanted ice because she was hoping that the cold water on her skin would make it easier to feel what he was writing. It did. However, the problem was that, when he knew she was awake, he only wrote things on her back that didn’t matter. Like their names or the number of his favorite baseball player or a quick game of Tic-tac-toe that he’d somehow manage to lose against himself. Tonight she had an idea. She showed him the squirt gun that was hidden under the back seat. A toy gun his brother had painted like a real gun to scare anyone in a high school road rage situation. She told him how she’d filled it up and how, instead of using his finger, he should write on her with the gun this time. Then she sighed and seemed to change her mind and said she "just got real tired all the sudden." Eventually, after almost an hour of fake sleeping and deep breathing, which surprised her by being one of the hardest things she’d ever tried to do, she heard him go for the gun. She lied still, counting the seconds between breaths, and she hoped that it was dark enough for her plan to work. The night before she’d filled the squirt gun with blood. Blood from food? Blood from the toilet? Blood from her finger? She couldn’t remember. All she knew was, if he started writing on her again, she’d be able to read it the next day as soon as she stepped out of the car into the sunlight. She heard the trigger creak and felt the warm pulse of the words on her back. She tried hard to keep her breathing steady so he wouldn’t stop shooting. Then, after fifteen shots, enough to fill the clip of a nine-millimeter, she heard him suck in his breath, fire one more splash onto the dragon-ridge of her spine and then quickly get out of the car. She stayed perfectly still, falling asleep for real as she waited for him to come back, waiting for his words to dry tight on her skin. He never came back. And in the morning she stood outside rubbing a sore neck from trying to read her what he’d left on her back in one of the side-view mirrors. She was crying. Maybe because the blood had smeared in the middle and she couldn’t tell whether it read "I love you" or "I loved you." When she found the car locked and empty the next three weekends in a row, the squirt gun crushed under one of the tires, she realized she had her answer.

"I know someone who filled a squirt gun full of blood once." Steven said after her story was finally over.

"Everyone does that. It was worse than a real gun. The kid that got shot really thought he got shot. It was when I was in fifth grade and-"

Ashley was up on her elbows, then on her hands.

"Shhh! C’mere quick! Someone's coming!"

Steven blinked and shook his head to focus.

"You really want me to?"

"Yes."

He shrugged, sucked in a breath and held it in his throat and figured why the hell not?

He worked his head in tight where her legs started. When he needed to breathe, he backed up off her to get a good look.

In his short life, he’d never seen something that needed his mouth on it as urgently. It was like a ripe red apple. Just sliced. Wet and angry and visibly pulsing with her heartbeat.

He went back down and stayed down. He breathed deep and tasted blood and sweat, salt and copper. His jaw twitched, ready to snap like a rat-trap. He was hungry.

Meat. It really was just a piece of meat.

Then he started to think back to what she’d said about the dog and he stifled a gag. For a second he thought about throwing up between her knees.

How would that look? Worse than this?

He wondered if she would be shocked, if she could be shocked. He wondered how long she would remember something like a splash of vomit down there.

Every color of the rainbow. Bright colors on insects mean they’re poisonous. . .

Behind them, stones were crunching under heavy footsteps.

Steven grabbed the back of his own head so no one else would and he pulled his own face up out of her.

James was standing there in the highbeams, eyes pinched and waiting for the shadows to take shape. Steven watched his expression change as things slowly focused for him and his eyes swelled as he took in what was happening. He dropped the bottle of Tequila he’d gone down the road to look for. It hit the ground with a clank and didn't break like it should have.

Steven turned to face him. He spit something red in his direction, watched James jump back, and, for a crazy second, thought that whatever had been in his mouth was going to crawl away when it landed. Then Steven took three quick steps forward until he was nose-to-nose with his best friend. James’ eyes and nostrils flared together, taking in the sights and smells of the scene. He leaned in to sniff the glaze covering Steven's wicked clown grin. Then James looked over Steven’s shoulder and saw Ashley, knees open, bloody handprints and comet-trails exploding from the vanishing point between her legs, drumming her fingers loud on the metal hood of the car. James shook his head and finally seemed to think of something to say.

"Dude, when you go down on a girl, don't use your teeth."



- © 2003 david james keaton

::: david - 10:01 PM [+] :::
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