Brian McGinnis vs. Tim Sheehy: "NOBODY WANTS TO FIGHT FOR ISRAEL!"

 

Enjoy Prison

Uncle Sam taught you the way of the fist

And that murder is the answer when you’re mildly pissed

And that you can blame your crimes on war trauma

Give your own friends trauma, lead to courtroom drama

They describe all the pranks you pulled upon them

And how you told them to take it like they’re manly men

And how you called them every bigoted slur in the book

Lifelong sentence, now you’re on the fucking hook

 

Enjoy prison! It’s the closest thing to war

Being a civilian was just too much of a bore

You went stir crazy without your automatic

Now you can throw fists for free without causing any panic

The prison guards turn the other cheek

While your rape victims can’t shit right for a week

While their purple bruises show the cell block who loses

Their broken bones couldn’t hold partition phones

 

Enjoy prison! Your dinner tastes like diarrhea

It’s like every ration meal since the war in Korea

Maggots here, flies there, maybe some long hair

Taxes could provide better, but the state doesn’t care

But that’s okay, because it reminds you of war

You’re the baddest motherfucker in the whole damn Corps

All those pushups and burpees prepared you for combat

If a riot broke out, you’d get your ass right on that

 

Enjoy prison! What’re they going to do?

Bump it up to never-ever? You’re already screwed

You forgot about solitary, oops, you fucked up

Ask the warden for forgiveness, he’ll say, “Shut up!”

It’s just the darkness and what’s left of your mind

As it eats itself alive just like it did in wartime

Are those pills used to treat the worst parts of you?

No, they’re pebbles, but you can swallow those too

 

Enjoy prison! Because you’re never getting out

You’re a POW with not one escape route

SEAL Team Six ain’t coming to save you

Just be thankful for the medal Uncle Sam gave you

It could have been currency in the prison economy

But you killed all your trust with the bloody sodomy

All you’ve ever wanted was a license to kill

But all you’re killing is time, it stands perfectly still

Dean McLean the Macho Marine

VERSE 1

I call it ethnic cleansing, you call it spring cleaning

Took the word democracy, completely changed its meaning

Then you come back to the world to yell at your wife

And make a living hell out of my own goddamn life

Dropping your pants, showing me your dirty ass

Teabagging on Halo like you’re teaching pimp class

Ding-dong-ditch while you call me your little bitch

But these are just jokes designed to rip the last stitch

CHORUS

Dean McLean the Macho Marine!

The manliest man you’ve ever seen!

Ends justify the meanest of means!

Yell “Hoorah!” like a fighting machine!

Dean McLean the Macho Marine!

VERSE 2

You blame your worst mistakes on PTSD

It’ll take more than that to fool little old me

I set my boundaries and you knock them down

Play the biggest victim in the whole damn town

Everyone around you thanks you for your service

“Freedom isn’t free!”, now where have I heard this?

They’re buzzwords to justify machinegun fire

If only more people would see you as a liar

CHORUS

Dean McLean the Macho Marine!

The manliest man you’ve ever seen!

Ends justify the meanest of means!

Yell “Hoorah!” like a fighting machine!

Dean McLean the Macho Marine!

VERSE 3

I don’t give a damn about your Star Spangled Banner

It doesn’t mean shit when you lack basic manners

I don’t give a damn about your big fucking truck

You can drive it through sewage, get yourself stuck

I don’t give a damn about your precious Purple Heart

You probably dug it out from a box of Pop Tarts

Your insults and pranks were disguised as friendship

“Marine humor” to get you through a war so endless

PRE-CHORUS

The only twenty-one gun salute you’ll get

Is when they aim the rifles right at your head

Sociopathic brains run down the sewer drain

Thank you for your service, you little shit stain!

CHORUS

Dean McLean the Macho Marine!

The manliest man you’ve ever seen!

Ends justify the meanest of means!

Yell “Hoorah!” like a fighting machine!

Dean McLean the Macho Marine!

Where Is the Edge?

“When will these idiots ever learn?” asked Victoria Flare as she leapt from neon-lit building to neon-lit building. Her dark cybernetic body blended perfectly with the night sky. Even the neon signs did a piss-poor job of illuminating her most important features. Victoria took note of some of these signs: porn theaters, bars, strip clubs, and pawn shops. Just how far into the underworld did this briefcase thief go and would a bottle of Axe body wash be enough to get the grunge off of Victoria’s body? Why homeless people would ever want to look for handouts in a place like this, she would never know.

“The sooner I’m done with this, the better,” she said to herself while monitoring the radar screen over her eyes. Just a few more buildings to leap from. The blip was as obvious as a nun at a porn convention. Or in this case, a homeless thief in the back alley of a porn theater. Victoria shivered for more reasons than just being out in the frigid snowy night. But when she touched down in that slim alleyway (next to the dumpster no less), her business attitude was more radiant than any neon sign in this disgusting town.

She ejected two handguns from her wrists and pointed both of them at the heavily dressed drifter huddled against a pile of trash. She took note of the way he rocked back and forth in the fetal position while singing lyrics to the Within Temptation song “Where Is the Edge?” That voice was so raspy and damaged, yet angelically familiar. But even such marvelous singing couldn’t snap Victoria out of business mode. “Hands where I can see them, scumbag! Drop the briefcase and turn around slowly!”

With his body convulsing in the snowy weather, the drifter did as he was told down to the letter. He was hard to make out with the fuzzy hood over his head, but that damaged face was clearer than the starlit skies. The five o’clock shadow, the wide nose, the scars that would never heal, and the yellow teeth with one missing: this had been the very portrait of a once beautiful human being. “Waldo? Is that you?” Victoria asked.

“Oh dear god, Victoria…what the hell are you doing here?” asked the newly identified Waldo Spiegel, still adhering to his captor’s orders.

The cyborg mercenary lowered her weapons and said matter-of-factly, “I guess I could ask you the same thing. You’ve got something that doesn’t belong to you. Kick it over here and I’ll be out of your hair…or at least what’s left of it.”

“You think this is a joke, don’t you?” rasped Waldo as he lowered his hands. “There’s enough money in this briefcase to start my life over again, to stay out of the puzzle factory, to stay away from drugs. And now you, my oh-so-loving ex-girlfriend, have come to take that away from me. Anything else you want to take away from me? You want my soul? You want my balls on a platter? How about I just rip my heart out of my fucking chest and let you have that.”

“Don’t act like such a victim, Waldo,” grunted Victoria as she slowly advanced toward her former lover. “I didn’t take a damn thing away from you. You took it away from me. You want to talk about stealing hearts? That’s it, man! Remember that night at Tony’s Restaurant? The night you went fucking ape-shit? The only way I could ever be at fault for this is not seeing the warning signs sooner. You’re a loony, Waldo. You’re a fucking fruitcake.”

“Fruitcake? Fruitcake?!” shouted Waldo while kicking over a nearby garbage can. “You think I chose to go insane? Does anybody really want that for themselves? I tried my damnedest to keep my shit together. I never wanted to be locked up in a padded cell. But you…you turned me over to those white coats and now look where I am! You insensitive piece of shit!” Waldo’s fury was punctuated by him throwing trash from the spilled receptacle at his ex-girlfriend.

“Enough!” belted Victoria as she swatted away a tin can and ended Waldo’s barrage of filth. “You’re really going to blame all of this on me? What was I supposed to do, just let you go nuts again? You really think I could ever keep a stable relationship with a weirdo like you? Looks like the both of us would have worn white at our wedding, but at least my arms would have been free!”

“Fuck you and your lame ass jokes!” roared Waldo as he heaved the knocked over garbage can over his head and launched it at Victoria, who shot it down with a few bullets from her wrist weapons. He then blitzed up to her and shoved her around a few times while Victoria blankly no-sold his offence. He then ran around in circles screaming, cussing, and throwing punches at thin air before crashing in a heap and crying his eyes out.

Victoria’s stone-faced expression softened, but only with horizontal eyebrows instead of diagonal. She never forgot what she was hired to do, but also couldn’t help but take a modicum of pity on her train wreck of an ex-boyfriend, who rolled around on the snow and trash-covered ground bawling like a baby. She slowly approached him and tried to comfort him by peeling back his hood and petting his bald head.

The drifter swatted her hand away and sobbed, “Don’t touch me, Vickie. Don’t fucking touch me. It’s too late to save me now. You already made yourself clear when you dumped my ass all those years ago. If you want the briefcase, just take the fucking thing and get out of here. Leave me in peace.”

“If I leave you out here, Waldo, you’ll freeze to death,” whispered Victoria.

“What do you care if I die out here?” said Waldo while pie-facing her. “I’ve got no fucking future. That money’s going to run out eventually anyways. Who’s going to hire me? Who needs an ex-marine with a head full of sick and twisted shit when there’s a perfectly good cyborg who’ll gladly take my spot?”

“You want the truth, Waldo?” asked Victoria while holding his shivering hand in hers, to which he didn’t resist this time. “That puzzle factory as you call it was the best thing for you. You had access to the medicine you needed and you didn’t have to hang out with scumbag criminals who were beneath you. More importantly, you weren’t able to hurt anybody. You came very close to killing that taxi driver that night at Tony’s. Killing isn’t new to you since you were a marine, but I know you wouldn’t want to live with taking an innocent life like that. Do you remember now?”

Waldo breathed heavily as he tried to recall the memory. “I can’t remember a damn thing anymore. All I see are nightmares. Lots and lots of nightmares. Breaking up with you was one of them. You were my only real shot staying in control…and then you drop me off at the loony bin and never even bother to say hi every once and a while.”

“What if I promised to help you get back on your feet again?” asked Victoria.

“Nobody can save me!” shouted Waldo. “There aren’t enough drugs in this world to keep those nightmares out of my head! There aren’t enough social workers to keep me off the streets! Everything is about money these days! Why do you think this place is run by mega corporations?! It costs money to get help and it costs even more money to stay sane! That briefcase might sustain me for a little while, but I need something permanent, damn it! Who’s going to give me a chance now, Vickie? Who?!”

Victoria’s eyes dampened at the thought of her boyfriend making complete sense amongst all of the madness. She wiped away a single tear with her wrist and asked her boyfriend, “Do you want me to take the nightmares away? Do you want something permanent? There’s only one way I can do that, Waldo. You know what it is.”

Waldo wiped away his own cascading eyes when he peeked down at Victoria’s wrist guns. He shivered hard as he contemplated this decision and Victoria could feel his fear and sadness radiating off of him like an angel’s halo, which he would need when he nodded in approval. “Let’s do this. Please, let me go!”

Victoria hugged Waldo’s head tightly as the two of them sobbed together and sang “Where Is the Edge?” in perfect harmony. She said, “Even after all of the drugs, you still have the most beautiful voice, Waldo Spiegel.”

“I love you, Vickie!”

“I love you too, honey-bunny. Close your eyes. This won’t take long.” The homeless marine did as he was told yet again, though his eyelids served as a piss-poor levy for his flowing eyeballs. Victoria’s own eyes were burning with sadness and rage as she held the wrist gun to her ex-boyfriend’s chin and took her sweet time in pulling the trigger. “You’re free, my darling. You’re finally free.”

BANG!

Waldo’s head exploded and his body went limp instantly. Victoria stood up and wiped away her burning eyes, not knowing what to do with Waldo’s corpse. He needed a proper burial, but this was hardly the place to do it with all of the trash and pornography on the ground. She retrieved the briefcase full of money and tapped her radar visor, ejecting a Bluetooth microphone towards her lips.

“The mission is complete, Executor. I have the briefcase. The target has been neutralized. I did everything you asked me to do. But you’re not getting this money back, my friend. Since you and your corporation won’t do it, I’ll donate these greenbacks to a schizophrenic charity. There should be enough here so that what happened to the thief won’t happen to anybody else. And by the way, that thief has a name: Waldo Jeffrey Spiegel. Remember that name until the day you die. I know I will. If you want to come for me and the briefcase, you’d better bring the National Guard, motherfucker, ‘cause I’m not letting this shit happen again!”

“….Good luck, Miss Flare! You’re going to need it!”

CLICK!

Average Joes vs. Beefy Warriors

***AVERAGE JOES VS. BEEFY WARRIORS***

When I first started out in the amateur writing business in 2001 (back when I told people my favorite author was Jack McKinney and they’d scratch their fucking heads in confusion), I always made sure that my main characters were super buff war machines capable of slashing and pounding everything into shit. My first attempt at a novel was a Starcraft-esque sci-fi adventure where the main character, Deljack, had muscles the size of cannonballs and an assault rifle bigger than his body. And then I moved onto a videogame idea called Final Fantasy Hardcore, where my protagonist was the ever popular Deus Shadowheart, a dual-wielding barbarian with a suit of power armor and even thicker muscles underneath in case he had to stop a nuclear missile from penetrating his skin.

Back in my teenage years, I didn’t see the problem with having such overpowered warriors as main characters. Videogames at the time had plenty of them with all the Akumas and Mike Haggars of the world. And then it wasn’t until the 2010’s when I started learning about Mary-Sues and Gary-Stus. They are literary slurs for characters who are devoid of flaws and therefore don’t garner a lot of sympathy from the reader. After all, when you know in your heart of hearts that the Gary-Stu barbarian is going to win all the fucking time, it’s no fun to read about him. As a writer, you want your battles to be back and forth affairs where the protagonist loses every once and a while. For all of you rasslin’ buddies out there, more Daniel Bryans, less Hulk Hogans.

I didn’t start using average joe characters until I wrote my 2015 rough draft novel Watch You Burn. The lead character in that novel is Mario Bryan, a schizophrenic college student who spends more time watching cartoons than he does exercising. He’s socially awkward and sometimes dickish, but he’s well-meaning and has a good heart. Do you think a dork like Mario Bryan can overcome a nasty ogre who carries war hammers with the ease of pencils? Of course you don’t, which is why Mario has to work his ass off if he wants to achieve his end game.

Another first draft novel I’ve written, Demon Axe, also has a protagonist with an underdog story. Yes, Daniel Mercer a.k.a. the Lord of the Pit is a world famous rock star, but what does he really have as far as advantages go when he has to fight the ultra-powerful terrorist Roger Zee? Daniel’s only been in a handful of bar fights in his life, he’s easily traumatized, he’s also kind of dickish at times (like Mario Bryan before him), but Daniel has a heart of gold that will lead him through the dark times of politically-motivated violence.

Occupy Wrestling, I must confess, has a Gary-Stu as one of its main characters and his name is Mitch McLeod. He’s beefy, he’s badass, and he’s got a mean streak a mile wide. Rehabbing this character into something a little more sympathetic wasn’t easy, but hopefully the end result as you see it has paid off. Occupy Wrestling is currently on Amazon and other online retailers (not a shameless plug at all).

At first I thought writing about average joes instead of badass warriors was going to suck badly because I couldn’t think of any solutions to the average joes’ problems. But that’s what writing is all about: you’ve got to constantly think about how your story is going to play out. Sure, there are advice columns out there that will tell you to pour word vomit all over your page and let your beta readers and editors do the hard work. But even then, after all the word vomit is spilled, the job is far from over. It won’t be over until everything is polished and sparkling, part of which is owed to coming up with believable solutions to your characters’ problems. If you’ve read Occupy Wrestling and think I’m a hypocrite when I make these arguments, that’s a debate victory you can have all to yourself.

I’d like to think that beefy warrior stories are capable of being written without making the characters into Gary-Stus and Mary-Sues. I haven’t figured it out myself yet, but I know it can be done. The Wonder Woman movie that recently came out is a huge example of that. Yes, she’s a superheroine with badass powers, but she’s also a feminist icon with a female following worldwide, so she’s not much of a Mary-Sue. This is why we study characters at depth: because we want our audience to sympathize with our protagonists and therefore stay emotionally invested in our works. If your readers aren’t invested, why are they reading? We’ve got ears, say cheers!

***POISON TONGUE TALES 2: THE RIGHT TO REMAIN PSYCHOTIC***

My story for the WSS has been submitted, so now it’s time to work independently (or when the next contest starts up, whichever happens first). This next PTT2 story is called “Witch Hunt” and it goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1.      Sonya Jade, Devon’s Best Friend

2.      Devon Cross, Accused Witch

3.      Random Group of Witch Hunters

PROMPT CONFORMITY: To be announced.

SYNOPSIS: In the middle ages, Sonya is at home cooking a delicious meal when her best friend Devon rushes in her house looking for a place to hide from witch hunters. Sonya believes Devon when the latter says her witch accusations are false and agrees to hide her underneath the master bed. Witch hunters show up at Sonya’s door with pitch forks and torches wondering where Devon is. Before the hunters have the chance to set fire to the house, Devon uses magic powers to fight them off, thus revealing she really is a witch and that she lied to Sonya about it.

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

With this new crop of American Darkness 2 characters parading around in my drawing collection, I’ve been contemplating changing the name of this series from Dark Fantasy Warriors to something else. Not everybody who gets a drawing is part of the dark fantasy genre, much like Fatima Ruiz, who’s next on the chopping block. Fatima comes from the AD2 short story “How Could You?” and plays the role of a cartel boss’s daughter. She has no magical powers, just a bad attitude and a sexy mystique. I’ve certainly got my work cut out for me on this one. Wish me luck!

***CROSSOVER MOVIE DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

CHILDLIKE EMPRESS: Why won’t you do what you dream?

CRAZY K: ‘Cause I don’t give a fuck! I said I don’t give a fuck! I don’t give a fuck!

CHILDLIKE EMPRESS: Please! Save us!

CRAZY K: I don’t give a fuck! I don’t give a fuck! I don’t give a fuck! I don’t give a FUCK!

-Tales from the Hood X The Never Ending Story-

Beefcake

Sergeant Corey Jakes had seen a lot of shit overseas and still saw it during the cab ride to her apartment. Still dressed in camouflage fatigues with her raven hair in a bun, she stared blankly out of the shotgun window with visions of war cycling through her head. Every bullet she fired, every mine her squad mates stepped on, every drone bombing marked as “friendly fire”, she couldn’t wait to have this horrible shit erased from her memory.

A long process it may be, she knew she had the support of her green-haired boyfriend “Froggy” McKee. From all the times they Skyped together, his eyelids were baggy and his face was longer than the Nile River, probably just as wet too. Corey hated leaving him for such long periods of time, but the life of a soldier didn’t discriminate when it came to who fought on the frontlines.

She stared into space for so long that the taxi driver had to snap his fingers several times to wake her up. “We’re here, Miss Jakes. That’ll be twenty dollars and sixty cents,” he said as he stopped the meter.

Corey pulled a twenty and ten out of her wallet and languidly said, “Keep the change.” The cab driver thanked her with a shit-eating grin on his face before popping the trunk and allowing his passenger to get her duffle bag.  The marine absentmindedly waved goodbye and the taxi drove away.

She stared at the apartment complex for a while and took several deep breaths before ascending the stairs to room B22. Would Froggy even recognize her after everything she went through? Would she open the door and find him with another woman? Would he even be alive? On one hand, the excitement of seeing her supportive boyfriend again sent chills through her scalp. On the other, her heart raced for reasons other than traumatic visions.

Sergeant Jakes wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and entered the unlocked apartment declaring, “Honey, I’m home!” The next words out of her mouth were anything but loving: “What the fuck?!”

Froggy recognized Corey just fine, but Corey didn’t recognize him in return. One tour of duty later and Froggy’s newly round stomach bulged out of his sweatpants and T-shirt. His chubby cheeks sagged and his spiky green hair was all over the place. In one hand was a big ass brick of cheddar cheese and in the other was a Diet Mountain Dew (as if the so-called zero calories was going to save him now).

His breathing was labored and intense, like he was trying to suck down a whirlwind full of air. BO radiated off of his armpits like a plutonium rod. The state of the apartment wasn’t any better with pizza boxes and chip wrappers scattered about. There was even an ash try on the coffee table when Froggy didn’t even consider smoking before.

Corey scrunched her face into a warrior’s mug when she angrily whispered, “What the hell happened to you, Froggy? I go away for a few months and this is what you do to yourself?! Weren’t you the one who encouraged me to lose weight before I signed up for the marines? Huh?! Does that shit mean nothing to you now?!”

Froggy struggled to get up from the couch and grunted in pain when he made it to his feet, stretching his back in the process. “It’s nice to see you too, Corey. It would have been nice to see you more often, but you know…Murica and all that.”

“So that’s it, huh?” said Corey as she dropped her duffle bag on the ground. “You ate all this disgusting food and gained all this weight because you were lonely? How do you think I felt?! After a while of losing my friends in combat, I got a little lonely too! That’s kind of what happens when terrorists are firing bullets at you!”

“Nobody forced you to go over there, Corey!” shouted Froggy before coughing and wheezing. A few more labored breaths later, he said, “You’re damn right I got depressed without you. You think I’m in bad shape now, imagine what the fuck would have happened if you came home in a casket.”

“So you want to be in a casket too?” snapped Corey. “You want to take away the one person I have to come home to because you’re too lazy to go to a gym? That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard in my life! I hope that brick of cheese was tasty! I hope it was damn good! I hope chewing on that lump of fat made you happy! You don’t look so happy now, do you?! You look like a giant sack of protoplasm! You look like three hundred pounds of chewed bubblegum!”

“Cut the drill sergeant shit, that’s not going to work!” shouted Froggy, again coughing after his outburst. “You want to body shame me? You want to make me feel guilty? Fine! Then go back overseas and shoot some more brown people! Apparently, those squad mates of yours are better friends to you than I ever was! Never mind the fact that I paid your bills and bought you groceries when you were down on your luck without ever once raising my voice! Now you’re going to pull rank on me with that macho marine crops BS?! After everything I’ve done for you?! You’re a hypocrite! You’re a fucking hypocrite, Corey!”

The marine marched up to her boyfriend, flipped the coffee table over, and knocked the cheese and soda out of his hand with brute force. “Do I have your attention now?! Huh?!” No answer, only jitters. “You think this is body shaming?! I could have said a lot worse to you right now! Hell, I’ve said worse shit to the guys I trained in boot camp! If they can take it, you can too! Don’t like it?! Tough shit! I’m not going to stand here and watch you waste away just because you went without me for a little bit of time! I fight like a motherfucker for that reason, Froggy! Every bullet I fire on that battlefield is so I can come home to you in one piece and hopefully spend the rest of my life with you! But now…I don’t even recognize you anymore!”

Froggy pulled Corey closer with her shirt firmly death-gripped in his sausage fingers. He gazed angrily into her soul, as if his chubby belly was full of fire and venom instead of cheddar cheese and soda. Corey’s own stoic gaze refused to change at the threat of this newfound aggression. The marine had left one war and came home to another, neither time would she relent or cower. In fact, she coldly said to her boyfriend, “Take your fucking hands off of me right now or you’re a dead son of a bitch.”

Froggy would release his grip, but only because his hands found a new place: his chest. He coughed and wheezed some more, but this time he plopped backwards onto the couch and had glassy eyes. “Froggy, are you okay?!” asked Corey with genuine concern instead of macho marine BS as her boyfriend called it earlier. He wouldn’t answer her question, only cough violently again. And again. And again, until he had slipped into unconsciousness and fell off the couch with a thud. Corey went back into war mode and scrambled to find her cell phone to call 9-1-1.

Corey Jakes’s recollection of the ambulance ride to the hospital was as blurry as the taxi ride home. The visions of war tormented her even further, now with visions of her aggression towards Froggy piled on top. She kept imagining pulling the trigger at the enemy, but Froggy’s ghost always got in the line of fire and his blood smeared the desert ground. A tear rolled down her stony face as she contemplated why she ever thought it was a good idea to push Froggy over the edge. Why did she push all of her students over the edge as well? Why did she survive when others didn’t? Another tear rolled down, but she wouldn’t acknowledge it, not even to the paramedics pointing it out to her.

The marine sat in the hospital lobby with her head tucked in her hands wondering where the hell it all went wrong. Was she selfish for going overseas? Would it matter where she went in the first place? Could she save everybody with her marine training alone? So many questions swirled through her mind along with images of blood and gore from her tour of duty. Every time she thought she had the answers, a leg would blow apart, a head would burst open, a marine would scream in agony, and Froggy would be left behind all the same.

Corey once again had to be snapped out of her trance to receive the news from the blood-covered surgeon. “I’m sorry, Miss Jakes. Your boyfriend didn’t make it.” Tears flooded her eyes like a river of sorrow no matter how hard she tried to remain stoic and strong. The tears poured even harder when the surgeon gave her a small velvet box and said, “I found this in his pants pocket. I thought you might want to have it.”

The marine’s heart beat like a war drum as she slowly opened the velvet box to find the greatest treasure of them all inside: a diamond ring with a golden band. It sparkled as brightly as stars in the night. Corey clutched the wedding ring in her hand and completely lost any last ounce of stoicism she had left. She plopped back on the bench and allowed her tears to rain down with heavy force.

Froggy had shown her kindness and love in the past and she believed she had repaid him with harshness and evil. Being at war overseas was very different from being at war with a lover. Corey couldn’t separate the two and it killed her deep inside like she had taken the bullets herself. How liberating would a bullet be for her at this point? Maybe the next tour of duty she had would be her last. She had nothing else to fight for and nobody else to fight with. But if she was going down in a suicide mission, she would go down swinging. Once a marine, always a marine. Once a lover, now an empty shell.

A Weasel and a Thief

The early morning darkness did wonders in comforting Private Laurel Tate’s battle scarred mind. Maybe it was the way her platoon snored like little kittens as they laid in their sleeping bags on the desert ground. Maybe it was the vanilla ice cream-like texture of the full moon that night. Maybe it was the way the stars twinkled brightly across her field of vision. Whatever this comfort was, Laurel envied her platoon mates as she marched back and forth with her AK-47 drawn ready to shower any insurgent with bullets at a moment’s notice.

There seemed to be no need for such a brutal weapon that moment. It was surprisingly quiet for a war-torn desert. No bombs going off, no machinegun fire, just peace and quiet. Because of the strangeness of it all, Laurel had to be extra vigilant and the caffeine pills she took before her shift would help her do that. Every once and a while she would drift off while she was on her feet, but only for a few seconds at best. A lifetime of drinking coffee made her somewhat immune to these military-grade caffeine pills. Nevertheless, she remained steadfast in her night watch.

She reached for the radio on her hip and said into it, “Coast is clear, over.” But when she hit the button, the entire device popped like a balloon and gave Laurel a quick jump scare. “What the hell?” she asked herself as she saw that her radio was indeed a clown’s balloon. With wide eyes and a tight trigger finger, she looked around at her platoon and saw that their weapons had been replaced by balloon animals and their radios were replaced with bicycle helmets.

“Hey! Wake up! We’ve been made!” shouted Laurel, but the mechanical snoring continued. “I said wake up, goddamn it! We’re under attack!” Still no answer from the drowsy crew. “Fucking morons! Wake your asses up, now!” she barked with even more sauce in her voice. She even squeezed off a few rounds of her assault rifle in the air, but that too turned out to be an exploding balloon animal. “What the fuck is going on here?!” she asked while tightly squeezing the remains of her inflatable giraffe.

“You can yell all you want, sweetheart, but they ain’t waking up!” said a cartoon voice with two honks of a bicycle horn to follow. Private Tate’s what-the-fuck face was cranked up to eleven when she saw a tiny gnome in a clown suit waving at her and peddling a child’s bike with a wagon full of AK-47’s and other military equipment. “Turn that frown upside down! Without these bad boys, you won’t have to go to war anymore! Smile, you silly goose!” From the gnome clown’s gigantic sleeves shot a volley of crepe paper in Laurel’s now red hot face.

The marine private slowly wiped the paper off her face while maintaining a contorted look of disgust and vitriol. “You little shit weasel! You better give that shit back or else…”

“Or else what? You’ll get a spanking from your daddy?” mocked the gnome with a sarcastic hand of concern over his mouth. “You really need to loosen up, baby cakes! Here, have some music to brighten your day!” The clown flipped the switch on a radio mounted to his handle bars and played church organ circus music. He laughed like a hyena and started peddling away in his little bicycle while waving goodbye.

While she wouldn’t get “a spanking from her daddy”, Laurel would get an earful from her commanding officer if she allowed this little freak of nature to get away so easily with expensive military equipment. Physical training until her body resembled a skeleton. A firing squad that put more holes in her than a mesh fence. God knows how many years in a military prison that would rival most shit houses. Any one of these possibilities shook Laurel to her core and her nerves fired off like the assault rifles stolen from her platoon.

“Get over here, you little creep!” grunted Private Tate through gritted teeth while she darted after her thief at a deadlier speed than when she ran obstacles in boot camp. With every ounce of strength she pumped into her thick legs, she crept inches closer to her elusive assailant. Her heart pumped at a million beats per minute and sweat poured from her brow like a water park. She reached out her hand only inches away from her slick thief’s rainbow-colored hair. Two fingertips turned into three and three turned into an entire handful of clown hair.

With one clean jerk, Private Tate yanked the little fucker off of his bike and started raining punches down on his face. She could feel the molten lead pumping through her veins as well as the blood and juices splashing against her already red eyes and face. She finally relented her attack when she saw that she had been punching a watermelon this entire time. The burgundy in her face flashed a mixture of boiling anger and douche chills of embarrassment.

Standing right beside her and laughing like a lunatic, the gnome clown said, “Gotcha! I gotcha good, didn’t I!” before cooling off Laurel’s face with a spray of lapel water. The clown rolled on the floor laughing and kicking the air while slamming his fists into the desert sand.

With her anger hot enough to make her head explode like a car bomb, Laurel finally got her hands wrapped around the little bastard’s throat and squeezed so hard that the gnome’s facial redness was easily visible through his white makeup. “Alright, you little shit head! Tell me who you are and what the fuck you’re doing here! I’ll make your death quick and painless if you listen to reason!”

The clown’s head popped in balloon fashion once again and his real head slid through the neck of his jacket. “Gotcha again!” said the diminutive booger as he rolled around laughing yet again. Laurel could do nothing but remain on her knees and watch this nut job with burning red eyes.

Upon witnessing the marine’s frustration, the clown stopped laughing and changed his expression to mock sadness. “Aww, what’s wrong? Don’t be sad, little girl. I’m just having some fun with you tonight. I suppose introductions are in order. My name is Ozzy May. Nice to meet you!” The two of them shook hands only for Laurel to get a jolt in her fingers and for Ozzy to have another reason to chuckle and hee-haw.

“I give up. I fucking give up,” said Laurel with a low and solemn voice. “I didn’t sign up for this goofy shit. I’m supposed to be shooting terrorists, not little shit stains like you!”

Ozzy nipped up and sat on the seat of his bicycle with his legs crossed and big red feet swinging. “So what of it? You want to go home? You want to see your husband and daughter again? Have you finally had enough of this god awful war that nobody needs to be fighting?”

“I need to fight it!” barked Laurel. “I joined the marines so that I could protect my country and if I have to protect it from little punks like you, then I’ll gladly do it!”

Ozzy May rested his jaw on his fingertips and said, “Really? Who told you that? A politician? A recruiter? A TV pundit? Come on, little girl, you can’t really be serious about all of that rhetoric. The only reason why there aren’t any bullets flying tonight is because nobody’s alive to shoot them. I’m not just talking about whackos with bombs. I’m talking about women and children too. You’ve seen their bodies up close and you can’t get those images out of your mind. Those aren’t caffeine pills you’re taking. That’s trauma medication!”

Laurel’s facial expression melted into softness upon realizing that this little guy had a point. The tears were building in her eyes, but she didn’t want them flooding and Ozzy noticed that. She couldn’t let this clown see her cry. Instead her sorrow turned to rage when she bolted to her feet and spear tackled Ozzy to the ground with her fist raised high. “What do you know about the shit going on in my head?! Huh?! What makes you a fucking authority?!”

“I know this because that’s how my gnomish race was wiped out,” said Ozzy with rare seriousness in his voice. “Too many of them were blown to bits while others lynched themselves into a peaceful death. That’s the reality of war, but no politician will ever tell you that. But of course, what does a gnome like me know about war? I’m too small to fight other people’s battles for them. Even if I wanted to be a soldier, nobody would recruit me because I’m small enough to get my ass kicked by normal sized men. If you need proof, just look at you and that raised fist!”

Slowly lowering her hand, Laurel’s tears burst from her eyes, but she refused to sob in front of this tiny man. “Why are you telling me these things? You’re just a clown. You’re here to torment me!”

“Exactly!” said Ozzy. “If I don’t set you straight, these desert warriors will. I’d much rather you’d be pranked by a clown instead of blown up by a rocket launcher. Is that really what it’s going to take to get you home? A blown off leg? A mindful of shitty memories? A hole in your chest the size of a sewer lid? Or maybe you prefer to travel home in a wooden box with an American flag draped over it!”

Even more tears poured from Laurel’s eyes as she rolled onto her back and gazed at the night sky. It still looked beautiful despite her tormented mind. She could have more nights like this if she came home alive and well to a family that depended on her for income and love. She didn’t want to admit it, but Ozzy May was right. But the more she pushed away his talking points, the stronger they hit her.

“How the fuck am I supposed to go home now?” asked Laurel wearily. “It’s not like my commanding officer is just going to let me go. He’ll probably punish the shit out of me before that happens.”

Wrapping his tiny arm around her shoulders, Ozzy said, “Did I mention that those weren’t caffeine pills you were taking? At least those are allowed. Illegally obtained prescription drugs? Not so much. The marines don’t want drug addicted trauma victims on their team. They want young healthy soldiers who can run into battle and beat some ass with the best of them. Your CO will find out sooner or later. But in your case, it’s as soon as you decide to wake up!”

That final sentence was punctuated with a cream pie to Laurel’s face. She coughed and spit up the pieces of whipped cream before angrily wiping it from her field of vision. By the time her eyes were clear enough to see, it was the break of dawn and her once snoring marine friends were gathered all around her with scornful looks in their eyes. Was this whole thing just a dream? A fucked up god awful dream about midget clowns?

One of them had a prescription bottle of pills with the name Dr. Ozzy May on the top of the label. That same marine knelt down to Laurel’s side and said with stern conviction, “We need to talk.”

“Am…am I busted?” asked Laurel.

“You’re goddamn right you are,” said the head marine.

Everything Is Stolen

***EVERYTHING IS STOLEN***

Just to be clear, this journal entry isn’t about art theft, though it is a horrible thing to do to somebody and those who commit this crime should be punished to the fullest extent. I’m talking more about the interpretation of creative fuel. Inspiration always comes from somewhere whether it’s a book we read, a movie we watch, a videogame we play, or even personal experience. Because we draw inspiration from these and other sources while processing them into our own version of art, there really are no original ideas. In other words, everything is stolen whether we want to admit it or not. The only original thing about our art is our interpretation of the creative fuel.

A few days ago, I drew a picture of my latest dark fantasy warrior, Night Terror. He’s a demonic mask who makes an appearance as the main villain of my short story “Burning Dragon”. The ultimate design looks original enough, but if you take a careful look at the curved eyes and wicked grin, you’ll see exactly where I drew inspiration from. In case you didn’t play that game as a youngster, I’m talking about Phanto from Mario Brothers 2. Adding the doodads from the demon horns to the facial hair to the golden jewelry was my own interpretation of the creative fuel I was given. If I drew Phanto as is, then it would be character theft and that’s a serious offense. I took something from my childhood and made it into something I could call my own. That’s what art really is: an artifact of our thoughts. Hell, the word art is in the word artifact, and artifact is the root word of artificial. It’s not the real thing. It’s a representation of the real thing and has the same aesthetic pleasure as the real thing.

Deus Shadowheart is a character I’ve had since the beginning of my writing career in 2002. He’s a Gary-Stu barbarian with big bulging muscles, long black hair, thick metal armor, and a big fucking weapon of some kind in either hand. I’ve always said that Diablo II was my creative fuel for wanting a barbarian character. But what about the name Deus? That actually comes from the Ronin Warriors anime, which I watched religiously during my freshman year of high school. One of the main villains on that show was a toximancer named Dais (pronounced “DAY-us”). I liked him so much that I thought I should borrow his name for my beastly barbarian. The rest is history.

One last example and I’ll get out of your hair. My most recent short story was a psychological horror called “Madhouse”, where an artillerist mercenary named Joe Fields enters a dusty Japanese temple to track down his target. The metal armor and big ass guns were ripped directly from Starcraft, another computer game I played as a child alongside Diablo II. One of the character classes in Starcraft is a Terran marine, a basic long-range warrior with heavy metal armor and a gigantic gauss rifle. I’ve been accused of stealing from Starcraft before, but then again, as I’ve said at the beginning of this journal, everything is stolen from somewhere.

I even had a multi-genre writing teacher in college named Carlos Martinez who said that great writers steal from other sources. He wasn’t condoning outright plagiarism, but he was encouraging the class to draw inspiration from as many sources as possible. Come to think of it, Carlos was one of my favorite teachers in college. He was always encouraging to me even when I doubted myself. I could have written the worst possible story or poem in the history of mankind and Carlos still would have believed in me. Naturally, I take him seriously when he encourages me to draw inspiration from everywhere.

I’m willing to bet that one of you, my loyal readers, have stolen something before as well, maybe a clever line or a character archetype. As long as you give credit where it’s due and didn’t steal the whole thing, your ass should be covered like a blanket on a pig. See? I stole that blanket on a pig line from a Cricket Wireless commercial. Adios, amigos! Thanks for reading!

***WEEKLY SHORT STORY CONTESTS AND COMPANY***

It’s a new week and it’s time for a new story, though as we’ve learned from this journal entry, there’s no such thing as a new story. The prompt is adrenaline and this story just happens to be called “Fire and Fury” (a title I stole from a Skillet song). It goes like this:

 CHARACTERS:

1. Ronis Wakizashi, Strict Sheriff
2. Julie Clay, Traumatized Sailor

PROMPT CONFORMITY: As someone with PTSD, Julie is constantly running on pure adrenaline.

SYNOPSIS: Sheriff Wakizashi is celebrating the closing of his latest criminal case by having breakfast at his favorite restaurant, the Buffalo Brunch. While he’s there, he notices Julie sitting alone at a table acting strange. A waitress accidentally spills coffee on Seaman Clay’s fingers and sets off a traumatic rage in which the sailor holds the entire restaurant hostage. Ronis’s first instinct is to blast her with his double barrel shotgun, but then he decides trying to calm her down and get her to safety is a much better idea. Ronis’s social skills were never top notch, so playing the role of negotiator brings up a bad taste in his mouth.

***DEMON AXE, CHAPTER 10***

Now that Daniel Mercer has finally figured out what his “toy” is for, he plans on holding a concert with Johnny Vega and Sonia Marquez as bouncers. Everybody seems to be onboard with this plan except for Raven, who wants to hunt down Roger Zee before holding anymore events. Raven’s reasoning is that attracting that many people at one time will just give Roger more targets to slash to pieces. Daniel’s twisted logic dictates that Roger isn’t going to make himself easy to find, so why not draw him out? Who has the monopoly on common sense: Raven or Daniel? You be the judge.

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

Now that Night Terror (a.k.a. Phanto V 2.0) is in the books, the next warrior to be immortalized in a drawing will be Olivia Snow, the elven cryomancer from a story aptly called “The Cryomancer”. For this drawing, I was thinking something along the lines of Frost or Sub-Zero from the Mortal Kombat series. Well, there I go stealing again! I hope the picture looks good with my own interpretations.

***BOOK QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“It’s like thinking you’re having phone sex with Jessica Alba only to find out you’ve been beating it to Bea Arthur.”

-Chris Jericho, author of “A Lion’s Tale: Around the World in Spandex”-

The Audiomancer

Fully automatic pistol? Check. Blue trench coat? Check. Badass shades? Check. Nasty attitude? Double check. With his hands stuffed in his pockets, Edge Spider whistled a playful tune as he ascended the busted-up wooden stairs of the Neon Neighborhood Apartments. Through the mirrored shades resting underneath his afro do, he glared at the janitor at the top of the stairs, an old man in gray overalls mopping the floors. Edge reached the second floor and the elderly custodian never took his scowling eyes off of the cybernetic thug.

“Dude, what the fuck you lookin’ at, old man? I’ll kick your ass if you don’t take them eyes off of me! Keep mopping that dirt and don’t pay me no mind, bitch! Jesus!” threatened Edge as he scurried down the hallway to the apartment of his choice. He never turned around to see if the janitor was still glaring at him. All of his attention was on the number on the scratched up wooden door in front of him: 4B. “That’s the one.”

Edge knocked on the door several times and said, “Hey, Lisa! Come on, baby girl, open the goddamn door!” No reply. He knocked even harder this time and said, “Open the door, bitch! I ain’t got all day!” Still no answer. He then pulled a small wire from his trench coat pocket and fiddled with the lock until he heard a click. He chuckled to himself and said, “Bitch, you’re making this too easy.”

With one harsh swing of the door, Edge burst inside the shabby apartment and yelled, “Here’s Johnny!” in a prolonged voice. Not even the gangster’s obnoxious tone was enough to awaken Sgt. Lisa Baker, who sat hunched over at her computer lightly snoring with thick headphones on her ears. “Damn, that must have been some powerful shit.”

Shutting the door behind him with a loud thud wasn’t enough to startle Lisa, but slapping her in the back of the head and knocking her headphones over was. The blond ex-marine in a ratty pink bathrobe held the back of her head while stretching her sleepiness out with her other arm.

“Wakey, wakey! Eggs and bacey! Rise and shine! It’s breakfast time!” said Edge in a quasi-playful tone.

“Hey, Edge. How’s it going?” said Lisa in a languid, zonked out voice.

“Well, babe, I wish I could say things were going great, but they ain’t. I’ve been lookin’ at my bank account today and it’s getting pretty damn low. That might have something to do with you being late on those payments. So where’s my money, bitch? You obviously love them audio files I gave to you. Now you gotta pay for them sum-bitches,” said Edge while hovering over her.

“Listen, man,” said Lisa as he rubbed the exhaustion from her eyes. “Those files have done wonders for my PTSD. I’m grateful to have them, I really am. But I’m having a hard time coming up with money, okay? Ever since I came back from the war, I had a hard time finding work. Just give me a few more weeks and you’ll get your money.”

Placing a hand on Sgt. Baker’s shoulder, Edge said in a sarcastically comforting tone, “Okay, baby girl. I’ll give you a few more weeks. And then I’ll give you a few more weeks after that, a few more weeks after that, and a few more weeks after that. I could give you enough time for me to be in a fucking nursing home and I still wouldn’t get my money. Them audio files are making you lazy, bitch. You know how I feel about lazy people.”

His feelings were confirmed when Lisa’s head drooped over and she fell asleep again. “Oh, no, you didn’t. I know you didn’t just fall asleep on me.” The marine’s response was even heavier snoring than before. Edge gritted his teeth, grabbed Lisa by her shoulders, and tossed her across the room, all while yelling, “Wake up, asshole!”

The soldier slowly stirred from her slumber and gazed up at Edge with foggy eyes and a crooked smile. “Hey there, big boy. What can I do for you today?”

“Oh, you know damn well what you’re going to do for me! You’re going to break out that checkbook and give me what I came here for! If I have to throw your ass out the window, I’ll fucking do it! I’m telling you, you’re hooked on them audio drugs! I’m cutting your ass off until I get my money!” shouted Edge while pointing an accusatory finger at his victim.

Lisa made a flat tire noise and torpidly said, “Audio drugs? Babe, that wasn’t an audio drug I was listening to.”

“Oh, don’t gimme that bullshit! You was snoozing like a lazy little dog! I saw you myself!” snapped Edge. For full proof, he put the headphones on for a quick listen. His pissed off expression softened as he announced, “This ain’t no audio drug. This is just some new age piano shit.” He threw the headphones across the room and yelled, “Where the hell are my audio drugs, bitch?!”

Lisa’s laughter suggested that she was never tired to begin with as it was full of energy and gusto. When asked what she was laughing about, she said, “Word of advice, Edge Spider, if that is your real name: when you give painful audio drugs to complete strangers, do a better job of wiping your personal data off of them. Then again, it’s not really your fault, is it? You did everything you could. It’s just that my team was better!”

“Team? What’s all this about a team?” asked Edge before his confused expression turned into a full-on quivering lip. “You ain’t no marine with Pussy-Traumatic Stress Disorder! You’re a cop! You set my ass up!”

“I sure did,” revealed Lisa. “Somebody had to do something about those audio files crushing people’s brains. You’re no healer. You’re just a common scumbag drug dealer, Edge. Every file you gave me has been uploaded to the police database. If I were you, I’d run like the wind.”

Instead of taking that wise advice, Edge chuckled evilly, pulled his automatic pistol from his pocket, and aimed the Freudian weapon at Lisa with a cocked barrel. “They ain’t gonna take me if I have a hostage. You look important enough to them folks at the po-po station. So come on, baby girl: on your feet. Put them silky smooth hands of yours behind your pretty little head.”

Lisa did as she was told, but did so with a wicked grin of her own. “Okay, sweet cheeks. You win!” She pulled a knife from her thick hair and threw it with a blinding quickness at Edge’s gun, shattering the weapon into pieces.

At first the gangster looked down at the metal parts with fright, but then threw his arms in the air and smiled as he said, “Nah, nah, nah, cutie pie. You’re the one who wins this time.” In one swift motion, Edge threw a roundhouse kick at Lisa’s face, spinning her around in the air before she tumbled onto her shag carpet floor. Edge yelled, “I ain’t gonna spend my life in no federal prison! Fuck this shit, I’m outta here!”

Just when Lisa was stirring, Edge booted down the apartment door and sped down the hallway with every ounce of athleticism he possessed. The janitor was still glaring at him with viper-like eyes. “Damn, dude! The hell’s wrong with yo ass?!” shouted Edge as he shoved the janitor out of the way. It seemed like he would have a clear path to freedom with an empty lobby and an empty stairwell.

And then the drug dealer felt something hook his ankle, causing him to roll down the stairs and bang his body on every sharp corner of the stairs. By the time he reached the lobby, he was holding his ribs and head while whining in pain. Some of his blood painted the stairs and the railing on the way down.

Once his vision cleared up, Edge looked at the top of the stairs to see that the old man had a hook at the end of his mop before he concealed it again like a switchblade. Lisa held her bruised face as she joined the janitor, who then hugged her and asked, “Are you alright, Baker?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for the assist, Private. I’ll put in a good word for you at the station and we’ll see about getting you that promotion you’ve always wanted,” said Lisa. She looked down at the battered and broken gangster and said, “Here’s another piece of free advice, shit-head: treat the janitor with the same respect you give to the CEO.”

Edge spit out a wad of blood in a poor attempt to hit either Lisa or the undercover cop. “He ain’t no motherfucking janitor! Goddamn you two!”

The two cops trudged downstairs while the “janitor” ripped his wrinkly skin off to prove that he was actually a lot younger than his character suggested. Lisa rolled Edge on his stomach before cuffing his hands behind his back. “Edge Spider, I still don’t know if that’s your real name, but you’re under arrest for distributing illegal audio files. You have the right to legal counsel, which you’ll probably need since you can’t put together a decent sentence yourself.”

Born to Die

“Clear your mind. Let your thoughts flow from you like water. Be as still as the mountains.” India Malakar heard every peaceful mantra ever told by his martial arts masters. Even so, none of these calming chants could keep his blood from boiling or his mind from exploding. His fists were clenched with anger, his teeth bit down hard, and his eyes were full of emotional fire. He didn’t look like a serious monk at that point, but his teenaged years were evident in the lack of wisdom his pose showed.

Then again, since he was standing right outside the entrance of the Jackrabbit Marine Bar with drunken mercenaries laughing their asses off, it was hard to remain cool. These same mercenaries implanted thoughts in India’s brain of them burning his village to the ground while asking where the hell their protection money was. The Born To Die Mercenary Guild may have been protectors at one point, but money was their only creed and humanity was in short supply.

India tried to push the angry thoughts of violent retribution from his mind. He tried to forget the traumatic ghost that filled his thoughts with fiery huts, bloody corpses, and laughing soldiers. The harder he pushed them down, the stronger they came back up. A wiser monk would have made peace with even the closest memories of the past. India was barely out of high school and wisdom wasn’t his best feature. His fists, feet, elbows, and knees, on the other hand, looked like they were ready to do some ass kicking. The pissed off monk took a deep breath in and out (as if it would actually calm him down) and entered the bar without a second thought.

The Born To Die squadron was in full force at the Jackrabbit Marine Bar. With spike armored, camouflage clothed, and rifle-wielding mercenaries cheering her on, the leader of this pact, a giantess of a woman named Jill Henderson, was chugging a glass of beer that was so tall it came up to her waistline. Despite the ample volume of alcoholic liquid, Jill chugged it all like a dam busting open down her throat. The mercenaries cheered as she slammed the tall glass on the bar and ordered the bartender to pour her another one.

Except the bartender wasn’t focused on Jill Henderson’s drinking habits. He was focused on India Malakar’s rage and age. Everyone went silent and stared at the young monk when the horseshoe-pattern haired barkeep said, “Hey there, little guy. Are you sure you’re supposed to be in here? This place is for grownups, not for little kids. So take your skinny ass outside. We don’t want you here.”

Instead of doing as he was told, India shouted at the mercenaries in swear words that were from a foreign language. Nobody could make out what he was saying, so out of sheer ignorance, they laughed at his attempt at hurling insults.

Jill shoved her beer glass off the counter and let it crash to the floor (the bartender couldn’t give two shits about it). She slowly approached the tight-muscled, sash-wearing monk and leaned her massive frame down to his level. She then proceeded to insult India in her own made up racist language when she said, “Aso, aso, aso! Ching-chong teriyaki! Yuki-yuki sooki! Cawpet munchah!” Her “comedy” got a good laugh from her compatriots.

The one person who wasn’t amused was India, who threw a hard slap across Jill’s face with the mercenaries “oooing” in the background. Despite the loud impact, the slap didn’t even cause the seven-foot tall mercenary to flinch. She instead smiled her nearly toothless smile at the little kid and said, “Bitch, you’ve got nothing. Absolutely nothing. Here, let me show you how it’s really done.”

In one brutal motion, Jill smacked India across his face so hard that the adolescent warrior was knocked over a table where a mercenary was sitting, who then proceeded to shove him onto the floor. The laughter was even louder and more obnoxious than before.

“Let your actions flow like the river,” said the sagely voice inside India’s head. “Let your enemies come to you. Seek justice, not vengeance. Choose peace over war.” With the kid lying face down on the floor while everyone is laughing at him, it was even harder to allow peaceful justice to take over his mind. This was a stupid idea. India was vastly outnumbered and much weaker than most of the people here.

He tried to crawl on his hands and knees out of the bar, but he felt a stiff boot come down hard on his spine, holding him still and causing him extreme pain at the same time. That boot no doubt belonged to Jill, who stared at the back of India’s head and said, “You ain’t got the balls, son!” The monk then felt beer washing over his pony tailed hair and suffocating him at the same time. And then more annoying laughter boomed over the bar.

Jill grabbed India by the scruff of his neck and threw him out onto the street with such force that he rolled several feet. “And stay out!” yelled the giantess warrior before getting back to her night of partying.

With India lying in a pile of garbage bags and newspapers, this would have been the perfect time to tap out and cry the night away. Wallowing in self pity and mourning the loss of his villagers and family seemed reasonable considering it was one versus all from the very beginning.

But then a strange feeling came over Mr. Malakar. The trash bags he was lying in happened to be stuffed full of shredded paper from an office building, which felt remotely like his own comfortable bed. This feeling of softness took him back to his childhood years when peace, love, and understanding were easier to achieve. Drinking his mother’s milk, playing around with his father, getting pushed in a wheelbarrow by his older brother…and then the feeling of harmony washed over him once more.

“Are you still here?” said a mocking female voice. India slowly opened his eyes to see Jill Henderson towering over him with her fists clenched and brows furrowed. The monk must have been passed out for hours, because the sun was now underneath the horizon and the moon and stars were out.

Despite the rude awakening, India still had that feeling of calm wash over him from sleeping in softness. His calmness would be tested once more when Jill pulled out the rifle that was slung over her shoulders and cocked it with the intention of finishing off the stalwart monk.

“You know something, my little Kung Pao chicken shit?” said Jill. “I haven’t had this much fun toying with someone in a long time. Usually when me and my men are out on a mission, we have to kill a whole bunch of moronic civilians before we have any fun burning shit to the ground. But now playtime has taken on a whole new meaning for me. Now that your pathetic villagers are rotting in the ground, I just have one question for you, little man. Where do you want me to shoot you: in the head or in the chest? Maybe I’ll blast your tiny dick off first.”

Jill expected that string of insults to rile up the little teenager. Instead he smiled the most beautiful smile his overly whitened teeth allowed. India said in a calm and cool voice, “You don’t understand, Miss Henderson. I don’t need vengeance. I need justice.” With one well-placed kick, he snapped Jill’s leg in half and caused her to accidentally fire her rifle in the air. The surprised mercenary dropped to the ground clutching her torn knee and screaming in agony.

India slowly picked himself up and dusted himself off. He looked around and saw that the other mercenaries in the Jackrabbit Marine Bar had gone home for the day. This couldn’t be more perfect. He picked up the rifle off the ground and said, “Only a coward would ever use one of these!” He broke the weapon over his own knee and discarded the remains in the pile of shredded paper where he was sleeping.

Jill’s broken leg was causing her to roar like a wounded bear. She tried to calm herself with quick raspy breaths, but they did nothing to ease the pain. They did allow her enough room to speak, though: “Go ahead! Kill me, you little prick! You got what you wanted! Now do it! Kill my ass!”

India leaned his face into his opponent’s and said, “You’re wrong, Jill. I don’t have what I want. Like I said, I want justice, not vengeance. Killing you would free you from your punishment of having to think about all of those innocent people you’ve murdered, many of them members of my family. I don’t want your life. I want your career and your thoughts!”

India made a peace sign with his first two fingers and then in one fluid motion ripped out both of Jill’s eyes. Her screams and howls were raised a few octaves as her sockets were bleeding profusely and her broken leg was still killing her. India took a look at the eyeballs in his hand with scorn and then squished them in the palm of his hand.

As soon as Jill was able to listen, India had only one thing to say to her: “Your career as a murderer for hire…is over!”

NCIS: New Orleans

TV SHOW TITLE: NCIS: New Orleans
CREATOR: Gary Glasberg
YEARS ACTIVE: 2014-present
GENRE: Crime Drama
RATING: TV-PG or TV-14, depending on the intensity of the violence
GRADE: Pass


Whenever a marine or navy sailor is murdered in post-Katrina New Orleans, it is the job of Special Agent Dwayne Pride and the rest of the crew of his NCIS branch to solve those crimes. It takes a lot of trickery, intelligence, and martial arts skills for the crew to find what they’re looking for. But once the job is done, it’s party time in the Big Easy. Lots of beads, lots of booze, lots of tasty food, and an endless supply of fun is what each Special Agent can look forward to at least once in every episode.

Just like with NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles before it, the New Orleans spin-off has its fair share of colorful characters. The NCIS office is led by Dwayne Pride, a southern gentleman who can be tough when it matters and a maker of sweet potato pie when a friend or family member needs comfort. The two junior agents are Chris LaSalle (another southern gentleman who loves a good time) and Meredith Brody (a Michigan transplant who’s slowly learning the ways of New Orleans culture).

For behind the scenes detail, we have Dr. Loretta Wade (a medical examiner with infinite wisdom), Sebastian Lund (a geeky lab technician with a hunger for conspiracy theories), and Patton Plame (a wheelchair-bound computer hacker who tries to be cooler than Sebastian). With this many eccentric personalities coming together in one office building, witty dialogue, strong chemistry, and deep character development are bound to happen, which is why NCIS: New Orleans is so enjoyable.

And with that many three-dimensional characters running around, it’s only fitting that this series take place in New Orleans, an exciting town full of party animals, jazz, yummy food, black magic, and of course the serious side of it all, brutal murders of American soldiers. No matter how much stress is put on the NCIS team by these hard cases, they always seem to have a good time before and after the case is solved. And why wouldn’t they? New Orleans is a fun city to be in whether you’re vacationing for the first time or you live there full time. “Never a dull moment” is the phrase that usually comes to mind.

And of course, we have my mother’s favorite part of NCIS: New Orleans: the opening theme music. It’s a late 90’s rock song called “Boom Boom” by Big Head Todd and the Monsters. If you’re not familiar with it, go to You Tube and check it out. If you’d like a preview before you go, it’s the same song with the jazzy guitar and snare drum burst in between the lead singer going, “Boom, boom, boom, boom! Bang, bang, bang, bang! Ho, ho, ho, ho! Hey, yeah!” If there was one song in our collective music library that fits New Orleans culture, it’s that one. Every time I hear it, I expect some wild party animals to throw me some plastic beads. I don’t think they want to see my tits, though. Hehe!

Whether you’re a fan of the NCIS franchise or you just like good cop dramas, this show is for you. If you can find one thing in this show to complain about, you’re obviously not in the New Orleans spirit. Whenever there’s hardship or anger, they don’t whine and cry. They boogie! What’s that phrase LaSalle likes to say all the time? “It’s on like Donkey Kong!”

Christina McLeod

The more I think about it, the more I believe there’s a reason Christina McLeod is currently an unemployed character. As you can guess from the last name, she’s related to Mitch McLeod from Brawl Mart (soon to be separated into Occupy Wrestling). What you don’t know is that she’s his older sister. This isn’t exactly a good reason to remain unemployed (unless you ask Keegan Day about it). Christina’s Mary-Sue-like perfection on the other hand is.

When I first came up with Christina McLeod, it was during my teenaged years and a time in the WWE when sexualizing women was the norm. Teenaged boys plus sexy women equals 30 minutes of masturbation. It’s not the new math, it’s the old science. So I kept asking myself how I could make Christina McLeod as sexy as possible. Bisexuality with a preference for women always works. Long black hair? Check. Snow white skin? Got it. Skimpy wrestling clothes that look more like beachwear than sports gear? Hell yes.

And last but not least, an infamous incident in the fantasy world where she competed in a bikini contest with other WWE divas and instead came out wearing nothing but a diaper. No shirt, no bra, not even pasties, just a diaper. You think she won that contest? By a landslide, and I’m not talking about the one going on in her male fans’ pants.

But of course, sexualizing women doesn’t work in today’s wrestling world, or even in a normal society for that matter. WWE programming is rated TV-PG and TNA programming is too sucky to get the girls any real attention. On top of all that (that’s not a sexual innuendo, I swear), I’m also mature and liberal enough to recognize that women don’t owe men anything when it comes to their bodies. If women want to show them off, that’s fine. If they’d rather be remembered for something else, even more power to them. I could take the easy road and say Christina made the choice to show off her body, but coming from a male writer who invented a fictional character, that’s not going to fly, so I just let it go.

And as it turned out, if Christina McLeod would have been published, she might have been remembered for something else as well: being so good at fighting and wrestling that she could not only defeat male opponents, she could do so convincingly. According to her back story, Christina had a stint in the marines and learned martial arts and mental toughness from that institution. The only reason why she’s no longer a marine is because she beat up multiple male soldiers who tried to rape her. That’s okay, because she didn’t want to die for a country that normalized rape anyways. Suck it, Paul Ryan and Todd Aiken.

Okay, so we’ve got this super hot chick who not only looks good naked, but also could kick anybody’s ass on any given Sunday. Hell, she could win the KDW World Title tomorrow if she wanted to. But there’s a problem with these credentials. In all this time I’ve been flapping my gums, I never once gave Christina one character flaw of any kind. That’s not good. Not good at all. Flawed characters are easy to relate to. Connecting with the audience in some way is important for any character. If you’re a villain, you want to be cruel and unusual. If you’re a hero, you want to be an overachieving underdog. What do you do if you’re Christina McLeod? Pardon me, but I haven’t figured that out just yet.

　

***TELEVISION DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

KRAMER: Things are going pretty well for me here in Hollywood. I met a girl.

JERRY: Kramer, she was murdered.

KRAMER: Yeah well, I wasn’t looking for a long-term relationship.

-Seinfeld-

Kaz Berretta

Do any of you have the player’s handbook to Cyberpunk Version 2.0? If you do, you’ll see a quote from a solo named Morgan Blackhand (I always call him Morgan Handjob for kicks). He basically says warriors who walk around with heavy machineguns and big metal armor are stupid because they’re putting huge bull’s eyes on themselves. Apparently, cybernetic mercenaries are supposed to keep their work a secret from everyone else.

I bet Morgan Handout, or Morgan Handjob, isn’t feeling gutsy enough to shill his anti-heaviness philosophy to Kaz Berretta, one of the two main characters in my sci-fi movie script Say Goodbye. He’s a bounty hunter with thick metal armor and a mile long rocket shotgun. In the end, it didn’t matter to him what was in fashion that season, because he always brought the bad guys to justice and collected his pay. Kaz proves wearing heavy armor is only a hindrance if you actually care what people think of you. He couldn’t give two shits what people think of him. If they were scared, it was good for business. If they didn’t trust him, it didn’t matter, because he doesn’t need their help with that big ass shotgun.

But Kaz Berretta wasn’t just a blow-’em-up hitman for hire. He had a family to take care of. The main villain of Say Goodbye, a hog sorcerer named Zod, was supposed to be his highest-priced bounty yet. With that kind of money, poverty wouldn’t even be in the Berretta clan’s vocabulary. In fact, if they wanted to go to a Disneyland-style theme park called Fantasmic Land, goddamn it, they’ll do it and have lots of money remaining for other excursions.

Kaz would have been the father of the year if it hadn’t been for one small detail near the end of Say Goodbye. You see, he had a partner in crime named Ethan Stryker, who was a trench coat-wielding machete fighter. Ethan also had a family to provide for, a pregnant wife and an autistic child. Ethan didn’t always get along with his wife, so his wife turned to Kaz for comfort…and kisses…and hugs…and sweet monkey sex while Ethan’s son was secretly filming the whole thing on his smart phone.

And then when the Strykers and the Berrettas finally went on a vacation trip to Fantasmic Land and had a good time, Ethan saw the video of his wife having sex with Kaz. If you watch the show Cheaters every Saturday night like I do, you can imagine what kind of violence came about after the footage was seen. Unlike Cheaters, there was no shoving and faux UFC action. Ethan still had a machete and he went on a slashing rampage that took Kaz to hell with him…and other members of the Berretta and Stryker families that didn’t live long enough to be traumatized by the end of Say Goodbye. The bad guys lose, but then again, so do the good guys. It’s a bittersweet ending to say the least.

As a warrior, Kaz Berretta is a badass tank who loves to blow shit up. As a human being, he’s deeply flawed. These are apparently the two ingredients needed to make a likeable character. That means Kaz is more than qualified to be part of a future novel or short story with equal parts violence and drama. If I do use Kaz again someday, I might have to consider putting Ethan right next to him since they go together like burgers and fries. Their fighting styles and choice of combat clothing is different, but their tough mindsets are the same.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“I haven’t cried since the day she left me, ‘cause that would mean that I admit it’s over.”

-My Darkest Days singing “Perfect”-