Emilio, One Half of the Iconic Duo "Emilio & Marigold"

 

Black Tar Kiss, Chapter 4

 

You ever hear that phrase snitches get stitches? Well, in my case, that’s provided I even make it to a hospital to begin with. That ambulance had to be haulin’ ass and doin’ all sorts of Motocross tricks across the highway to get me there on time now that word probably got out the minute I stepped on the concrete. Somebody would have heard about me ratting on Scar Tissue and White Snake. Whomever had their eardrums pounded with that information first would be the ones shanking me to death or putting bullets in whatever was left of my messed up brain. If it wasn’t going to be Scar Tissue and White Snake themselves, who would it be? The Bad Faith Actors Guild? The Monkey Slayers? The United States of Hitler? Any number of incel gangs rooting around in Bull Rope?

 

Nah, man. I didn’t see anybody in fedoras wanting to stick a knife in my guts. What I saw made me want to die. I’d been wandering around the city for a while not really paying attention to my surroundings until I found myself in a homeless district. A whole sidewalk lined full of ordinary people who lost every ounce of hope in their decaying bodies.

 

I saw a teen momma with a face full of dirt trying to bottle feed her little crotch goblin, if only he’d stop cryin’ his baby blue eyes out. Lord knew he had a lot to cry about not only in the present, but if he survived poverty and somehow made it into the future without dying of starvation.

 

I saw an old lady sittin’ in a scraped-up rocking chair trying to bundle up with every piece of fabric she had. Nothing would be thick enough to cover her skinny-ass body and she shook hard. The shaking might have had less to do with the chilly weather and more to do with drug withdrawal. I trudged a little further trying to hold back that stinging saltwater in my eyes.

 

And then I saw a pair of blistered and cracked feet hanging out of a cardboard box. I could barely see a chest rising and falling in there, but even that wouldn’t last forever in this frosty mess that we call weather. He didn’t have nothing but a torn up T-shirt on his back and a little paper cup with change jingling around in there. I wanted to give him a big wad of cash that I earned from wheeling and dealing with Black Tar Kiss, trading for ingredients to make that magical chewing tobacco. A wad of cash had nothing on a good homecooked meal and my heart sank to the bottom knowing it was already too late for him.

 

Seeing some shopping-cart pushers, some little kids in knockoff coats freezing their butts off, some old grandpa slumping around with a cane and not a single thing on his naked feet, not only did seeing these people put my weary eyeballs through hellfire and torture, but they reminded me of a meme I saw on the Book of Faces one time. It said, “You’re closer to being homeless than you are to being a billionaire.” A broken heart was the least of my worries. That meme was looking more like a reality the more I realized my money wouldn’t last forever. I could stay at a cheap-ass motel for a few nights, but then what? Right back on the streets to meet my new neighbors.

 

This wasn’t a neighborhood. It was a graveyard for people who still had something resembling a pulse. Old people and kids were among them. Old people and kids! My stomach growled and ached at the thought of these homeless folks dying a slow and agonizing death all because nobody would give them a bite to eat. They probably heard the unwanted advice of, “Get a job!” even though they already took it and still couldn’t afford shelter. Bull Rope ain’t no hippie paradise. This place was a death camp with no guards. Smelled like one, too. Made me wonder if the coroner had a steady supply of nose clips to go around, that was if he wasn’t too busy blowing snot out of it from all the tears he shed beforehand. Making a coroner or an undertaker cry took talent, but none of them talents translated into success in the job market. Squandered potential everywhere, though someone probably squandered it for them.

 

Speaking of squandered potential, as I was dragging my frozen carcass across the newspaper and plastic jug-covered sidewalk, who else but Scar Tissue popped up in my swimming head. Swimming was an appropriate way to describe it, because I just about sold my own pal up the river. This wasn’t just some wannabe thug who couldn’t cut it in the Mexican Mafia. Hell, he had no business in Black Tar Kiss anyways. This was a dude who played multiple instruments and had a love for heavy metal and hard rock. This was a dude who should have opened for Slipknot one year and headlined his own show many years down the line. He should have been slapping that bass and beating them drums all over the world from Italy to Japan to Brazil to back here in the US of A.

 

Why would a guy with all the promise in the world want to throw it all away just to hang out with incel thugs? During our time together while we were out of earshot from White Snake, he told me why. Truth was, he didn’t throw any of it away. His momma did. His batshit bipolar ass-beating momma decided her own hijo was a worthless piece of crap and smacked him around with her rubber slipper, damn near every night. Grades too low? Smack on the arm. Didn’t do his chores? Smack on the ass. Couldn’t get a part-time job at the pizzeria? Double smack on his thighs. Couldn’t walk on water like Jesus Christ? Breathed in and out? Dared to make a little bit of a fuss? Thwack, thwack, thwack! Apparently, physical punishment was a big part of Latino culture. It was so normal to his family that he would hear Mexican comedians on TV joke about it and think it was a high bar for parenting. If he complained about it, it would just bring about more beatings with the slipper. Or a leather belt. Or an open hand. Or a copy of the 2,000-year-old fantasy novel that my dad read a lot.

 

Speaking of Christianity, God bless Scar Tissue’s soul, because he tried to find an outlet for his trauma. Lots of them, in fact. He already told me he learned how to play drums from listening to The Warning. What he also told me was that he was a little bit lovesick for them three chicas. Every night he’d go to bed and have these intense fantasies about them girls. Sometimes he would open for their shows. Sometimes he would have dinner and lunch with them. Sometimes he’d hold hands with them and walk down the streets talking about this and that. And then there were those nights where his fantasies were…let’s just say, a little more involved. He was in love with all three of those sisters even though he never had the chance to meet them. Not once did they come to his home town. When Scar Tissue took the last beating he was going to take from that slipper smacking his bare ass and stinging the piss out of him literally, he knew The Warning weren’t coming to save him. He felt betrayed by three girls who never knew he existed. The sting of his ketchup red flesh outweighed the beauty of his lovey-dovey fantasies. When he first started communicating with White Snake over the internet, he jumped at the opportunity to run away from home and into the arms of an “alpha male”.

 

Everyone thinks gang leaders and Black Pillers like White Snake are just brainwashing and torturing random kids just so he can send them into battle to live out his own perverted fantasies. It was brainwashing, but he did it by giving us what we wanted and telling us what we wanted to hear. Before we joined Black Tar Kiss, we were nothing. No different from the gum stuck to someone’s shoe. No different from the diarrhea dumps in a public bathroom stall. No different from the tampons that soaked up more blood than we could dream of spilling in a gang fight. But once we joined up with him and got our names, we became badasses. We controlled the narrative. And if we worked hard enough in his ranks, we’d get better gangbanger names and all the money and chickies as far as our tear-stained eyes could see. All we had to do was reinvent ourselves. Get hard. Get tough. Pump that iron. Max those looks. Flex those muscles and macho man ourselves into the gang world. If anyone disrespected us, we would make them pay. If any woman turned us down, they’d be laying down and we’d be getting down.

 

Remembering Scar Tissue’s origin story must have been like taking a skewer to the eyeballs, because they were hurting like hell at this point. I wasn’t about to let out a whimper in case any of them thugs from The United Staes of Hitler or the Black Dragon Machineguns lurked around the corner. And then…some little lady did my whimpering and crying for me. Snapped me right out of my eyeball-murdering trance and made me realize I had been walking this whole time not paying attention to where I was going. My phone was buzzing like crazy, but I wouldn’t have answered it even if I was alert and alive. I had to give my dad credit, though: he wasn’t about to give up on the last of his bloodline. Maybe he should have, ‘cause I’d already given up on him and prepared myself for life on the street. A cardboard box was small potatoes compared to the spring mattress with the volume turned up to eleven.

 

After I had gotten my bearings, I turned my head and saw a group of chicks in yoga pants crouching on the ground attending to someone who shook and cried like she had just seen holocaust footage…in real time. These Stacies were supposed to be my enemy. This was a perfect opportunity to up my alpha male game and make them all obey. Lay them down and lay them good. Then my tummy got sour as I remembered all the misogynistic and pedophilic rhetoric that spewed from White Snake’s mouth like word vomit. Why the hell was I going to bat for him anyways? I never liked him past the point of getting me out of my hellhole of a home. These girls needed help and I needed a redemption arc in the worst way. I ran right over to see what the hell was going on.

 

Once I asked one of the women, she screamed, “There’s a guy going crazy in there! He just started wailing on us and yelling a bunch of nonsense about Black Pills! I don’t know what the hell is wrong with him!” Her speech got more frantic and she started stuttering at a million miles an hour as she held up her phone. “I can’t get any reception around here to call the cops! He’s still in there!”

 

She was spitting out information while my fried brain worked overtime to process it all. And out of the corner of my eye, I see that whoever was in there ranting and raving like an idiot had dropped his wallet, also like an idiot. I picked that sucker up and rummaged through it, hoping to find something resembling useful information. In between all the dead credit cards and dollar bills, there it was in all its glory: his driver’s license. That was definitely White Snake’s face on it, which looked like a prison mugshot with his wild eyes and serial killer frown. You know what else was on it? His government name. He never used it because he didn’t want me and Scar Tissue using ours. Our gangbanger names were our identities moving forward.

 

And speaking of moving forward, guess what bad decision I was about to make with my immature teenaged cerebral cortex? I tucked the wallet in my pocket and dashed into the yoga studio where all the chaos was happening and no copper could do anything about it because the reception sucked. Them yoga-hosers tried to plead with me not to go in there or do anything stupid, but selective deafness was a bitch and White Snake was about to become mine.

 

The yoga studio had exercise equipment strewn all over the floor like a stampede of horses just rushed through here. Busted windows, benches smashed in half, the reception desk had its cash box spilled all over the floor, and wouldn’t you know it, there was the devil himself. You’ve seen this movie a thousand times, so what did you think White Snake was doing with the chick in pink yoga shorts and blue sports bra when he had her by the brown ponytail? He repeated exactly what he saw at Battleground Park with Me Encanta Femicidio: he bent her over a bench that hadn’t been completely wrecked and spanked her apple bottom something fierce. Even the dialogue was relatively the same. SPANK, SPANK! “Naughty girl!” SPANK, SPANK, SPANK! “Bad, bad girl!” Repeating cycles was normal in his neck of the woods, obviously.

 

I could have ran over there and spear tackled him to the ground, maybe break a few ribs in the process. But I decided to hit him where it would hurt even worse. “ALLEX!” That got his attention in a heartbeat. He even let go of the chick he was spanking and she booked it out the shattered glass door. Getting shards between her toes and stuck in her soles was the lesser of two evils when the alternative was getting one more wallop on her butt.

 

“Allex Broker! That’s the name your momma gave you, right?!” And just like that, he stared at me like he wished he had a sniper scope in front of those coldblooded eyes of his.

Bijou Birdwing

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THE BASICS

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Name: Bijou Birdwing

Nicknames: Little Birdie

Gender: Cisgender Female

Age: 27

Birth Date: 473 AM

Birth Place: Xavier Village

Currently Living In: Drifter

Species: Elf

Ethnicity / Race: Green skin

Citizenship: Honey Valley

Religion / Beliefs: Conspiracy theorist

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FAMILY

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Father: Unknown

Age: Unknown

Relationship: Absent

Mother: Betsy Birdwing

Age: Unknown

Relationship: Abandonment

Sister: Juliet Birdwing

Age: 32

Relationship: Abandonment

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PHYSICAL FEATURES:

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Height: 5’5”

Weight: 100 lbs.

Frame / Build: Frail

Hair length: Scraggly

Hair color: Brunette

Eye shape: Milky

Eye color: Purple

Complexion: Early wrinkles

Face size: Narrow

Voice type: Screeching

Foot size: Women’s 7

Tattoo(s): None

Scar(s): Facial bruises

Any other identifying mark(s): Missing teeth

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SOCIO / ECONOMIC / POLITICAL

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Political Affiliation: Unaffiliated

Economic Class: Drifter

Social Class: Impoverished

Occupation: Drifter

Income: Whatever she begs for

Residence: None

Transportation: Feet

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INTERESTS

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Favorite Food(s): Bananas and apple sauce

Favorite Sport: Doesn’t watch sports

Favorite Book: Can’t read

Favorite Show: TV isn’t a thing yet

Favorite Music: Violin

Favorite Colors: Gray and black

Clothing Style / Preferences: Torn leather vest, dirty pants, and ripped sandals

Hobbies: Playing pool, using recreational drugs, and throwing darts

Role Model(s): The voices in her head

Likes: Sunny days and lying on the beach

Dislikes: Rainy weather and having to sleep in garbage bins

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PERSONALITY

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Good Qualities / Trait(s): Potential for creativity and storytelling skills

Vices / Negative Trait(s): Schizophrenia, universal distrust, quick anger, and addiction

Strengths: Good fighter, intimidating, and strong survival instincts

Weaknesses: Criticism, legitimate authority, submitting to head voices, abandonment trauma

Habits / Idiosyncrasies / Quirks: Shaking and head snapping

Phobia / Fears: Getting too attached only to be let down again

Loves: Independence and disrespecting authority

Hates: Llewellyn Xavier, her sister, her parents, and anybody who tries to help her

Select one personality type below that best describes your character:

Originator (ENFP) – Inventive and idea people. Love to argue to show off their skills and intelligence. Prefers the startup phase of a project where the risks and problems are greater, than turning over the lead to someone else once these are solved. Enthusiastic, idealistic, and creative. Great people skills. Excited by new ideas, but bored with details. Open-minded and flexible, and able to make others enthusiastic over their ideas and projects.

Define your character’s personality based on the following aspects:

a. Physically: Offensive appearance and poor hygiene

b. Psychologically: Psychotic and brash

c. Spiritually: Worships the voices in her head and doesn’t want to lose her “last friends left”

d. Emotionally: Quick to anger and cries easily out of frustration

e. Socially: Llewellyn pities her and wants to help while most Morgan Town citizens despise her

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HISTORY

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1. Describe the character’s childhood. Bijou spent most of her life in poverty due to her mother being locked up in Morgan Town and her sister selling out to the Atwood Queendom. The trauma and self-blame led her to developing schizophrenia and drifting from town to town without a life plan. She has a strong distrust of anybody who would dare take her “friends” away.

2. Name the good incidents that have happened in the character’s life. How has this shaped her personality? Before her sister abandoned her, they would play with dolls together and that shaped Bijou’s creative potential (which eventually went to waste).

3. Name bad experiences that have happened in the character’s life. How has this shaped her personality? Abandonment led to trauma and psychosis, which in turn led to a mass distrust of anybody getting near her. Her distrust was validated in the form of beatings from Morgan Town’s snobby citizens when she asked them for money.

4. What is the character doing when first introduced? What are her goals at this point? Do these goals change at any point in the story? Bijou reluctantly attends a Magetan sermon conducted by Llewellyn and has an episode at the end of it. Her goal is to survive another day on her own without help from her elven brethren. The goal changes to wanting to assassinate Llewellyn for what Bijou describes as “smothering behavior”.

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STORY DEVELOPMENT:

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CHARACTER ARCHETYPE: (Put an X on all applicable boxes)

[X] Addict (Conspicuous Consumer, Glutton, Workaholic–see also Gambler)

[X] Antagonist (Opposing View, not necessarily the Evil Bad — see also Villain)

[X] Beggar (Homeless person/ Indigent)

[X] Saboteur

[X] Seeker (Wanderer, Vagabond, Nomad)

[X] Storyteller (Minstrel, Narrator)

[X] Thief (Swindler, Con Artist, Pickpocket, Burglar, Robin Hood)

[X] Trickster (Puck, Provocateur)

[X] Turncoat

[X] Victim

[X] Villain / Shadow (Big Bad of the story; see also Antagonist)

1. What are the motivations for the character’s actions? The voices in her head and a strong distrust of everyone around her.

2. What are the character’s goals / ambition / dreams? To survive another day and prove that she can make it on her own, that she never needed Juliet or anyone else.

3. What external conflicts would you wish for the character to overcome? What are the obstacles in the character’s path that might make this difficult? Find a way to assassinate Llewellyn Xavier. She can’t, because she knows she’ll be caught and forced to go to therapy.

4. What inner conflicts would you wish for the character to overcome? What are the obstacles in the character’s path that might make this difficult? Pleasing her head voices. They’re so negative that they’re never really satisfied and it’s a continuous cycle of anger and abuse.

Character theme song: “My Own Hell” by Five Finger Death Punch

Run Like a Ninja

The growling in Ashley Garcia’s stomach resembled a demon thirsting for souls. She didn’t care if what she was doing was just as evil as that hell-spawn creature. A bowl of steaming hot ramen took priority over holy-rolling. A loaf of bread swimming in garlic butter was more important than praying on a medieval book for forgiveness. The rumbling in her stomach echoed in her brain like schizophrenia and even a wafer-thin mint would be a perfect antipsychotic. The rattling of her visible ribcage needed to be contained for good and the sacred scroll beneath her would be the key to that lock.

Being a Halfling afforded her the dexterity and balance that she needed to scale down the rope she threw down into the temple’s scroll room. Ashley didn’t want to go too fast for fear of alarming any monks, but slowing down wasn’t an option for her calloused hands and large dirt-covered feet. Just a few more inches, she told herself. A little more. Easy. Easy. Don’t make a sound. Don’t give the monks a reason to wheel kick a thief’s head off.

When she was close enough to drop to the wooden floor, she did so with a feather’s gentleness and breathed a silent sigh of relief. And just like that, the scroll was right there in front of her, resting easily on a piece of ceramic pottery. Ashley’s eyes widened and her hungry stomach settled in anticipation of the lunch money this would bring. When she snatched the scroll from its resting place, she didn’t even bother opening it up. She knew she had what she wanted. She knew any sucker would be lucky to buy such a holy artifact. Ashley would never starve again with this kind of money and that brought a smile to her gaunt face.

And then the sound of a dog growling permeated her fantasies and caused her to swallow a lump in her throat. Slowly she turned around to face the monk she pissed off the most: the captain of the guards himself, Yang Chow. 

He didn’t come armed with any weapons, because his limbs were destructive enough. He didn’t come with any harsh words, because his angry bulldog visage and monstrous growling said everything they needed to say. He didn’t come dressed in thick metal armor, because his red and orange robes were light enough to keep him nimble during times of combat. With his arms folded and his gorgon death eyes locked onto Ashley’s jittery form, it was time to get the fuck out of dodge.

Scroll tucked away in her back pocket, Ashley hopped up the rope and scaled as fast as she could. All the motivation to push her body beyond its limits came in the form of Yang barking up a storm and snapping his teeth like a bear trap. She was almost certain she would lose a foot to this maniacal dog demon. She was almost certain a piece of skin fell from her big toe. But she kept climbing even if it meant aggravating that wound and making it sting like a thousand wasps.

Ashley cursed to herself in a rapid-fire cadence as she made it to the rooftop, Yang still nipping at her heels. With the diagonal curvature of the temple’s roof, she knew this was a perfect time to curl into a ball and roll down the decline like a rogue wheel. And off she went, the shingles scraping against her skin the faster she rolled. Her back burned as though a volcano would erupt from her body, which was a better fate than having her head kicked off by a martial arts puppy-duppy. Still, his barks were no less distant than they were before. They just grew louder and more frustrated.

And then the sudden incline at the bottom of the roof launched her wheel-like body into the air and onto the busy streets below. Ashley landed with such grace that going splat on the concrete wasn’t even a possibility. But the minute she leapt to her feet, dizziness turned her brains into mush and her vision into a splotchy mess. She would have fallen on her ass if not for Yang’s barks becoming even louder than before. 

Even in a sloppy zigzag, she ran down the streets with the agility of a ninja warrior. She flipped over garbage cans. She baseball slid underneath an old man’s legs. She leapfrogged over a food delivery bicyclist and nearly knocked him over. Knowing Yang could chew her like bubblegum gave her the adrenaline boost she needed to run along the walls of a restaurant before flipping over a trolley.

Her heart thudded in her chest like a bomb ready to go off. Her brains rotted into mush on account of not giving herself a chance to recover from dizziness. Her legs and back burned as though someone had branded her with a glowing red iron. Her feet could have fallen off long before she got gangrene from not wearing shoes. And yet, Ashley kept on running and dodging. She leapfrogged over another bicyclist. She flipped over a guardrail. She ran along an awning that almost collapsed under her thunderous force.

Ashley had no destination in mind. She couldn’t even think clearly enough to come up with one, because Yang’s barks and growls were like a screwdriver shoved in her ears. When her eyes watered to the point of blindness and her mind faded to funeral blackness, she crashed face-first into a brick wall and flopped on her back, the sacred scroll rolling out of her grasp. The sound of her nose crunching resembled potato chips she would probably never know the taste of. She breathed heavily despite blood running down her nostrils. If overworking herself didn’t kill her, Yang surely would.

Her vision was obstructed by the heavy pus dumplings under her eyes, but even she knew Yang’s angry face when she saw it. There he was standing over her soon-to-be corpse, arms folded, scroll in hand. He reached down to Ashley, presumably to rip out her heart. Or the least likely scenario of them all, to pull her up to her feet. She could barely stand underneath the weight of body-shredding pain. She couldn’t even look Yang in the eyes, blackened pus pockets aside.

“Aren’t you at all curious as to what this scroll says?” asked Yang in an uncharacteristically soothing voice.

Ashley’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Um…what?”

“You mean to tell me that you stole this scroll from my temple and you don’t even know what it is?” Ashley tucked her head in shame. “Look at me, young lady.” Yang opened the scroll and revealed that they were coupons for restaurant food. Five gold pieces for two octopus burgers. Ten gold pieces for a gallon of broccoli cheese soup. Two packages of beef stew and rice for only one gold piece. Shame hit Ashley in the gut worse than any martial arts punch from Yang would have…even though she no longer expected him to beat her ass.

Yang knelt down to meet her Halfling level and put a hand on Ashley’s shoulder. “Young lady…you didn’t just steal a document hoping for a quick buck. You did it at the expense of other impoverished people like yourself. The temple where I work isn’t just a religious institution. It’s a shelter for those who need it the most. If you wanted the coupons, we would have shared them with you.”

Ashley’s tears stung her pus lumps like a scorpion tail. “I…I’m sorry…I’ll just…I’ll find another way to…” 

“Enough. I don’t need your apologies. I wouldn’t know what to do with them anyways.”

“What?...What do you mean?”

“Young lady…what you did was as rotten as the food you find the dumpster. It was evil. It was low even for a desperate street thief like yourself.” Ashley’s tears developed into little floods to mix with her nose blood, giving her the ultimate mask of guilt, shame, and defeat. But then Yang said…”I understand why you did it.”

“Huh? You do?”

“You think you’re the only one to try and steal from us? Look around you, young lady. The economy doesn’t favor the poor at all. Impoverished folk are unfairly categorized as lazy while the rich who live off of their backs are lionized to god status. To take the focus away from their own horrific deeds, the rich have the poor fight amongst themselves, steal from each other, treat every meal like it’s a competition. Stealing is the only life you’ve ever known, because you have no other way.”

“You don’t know a damn thing about me, dog man. I doubt you would trust me again if you knew what I was capable of. I’ve slit many throats just to stay alive. How do you know I won’t slit yours?”

“My martial arts training aside, you know deep down that slitting my throat wouldn’t bring you closer to another meal. Prison food doesn’t count. You deserve better than a prisoner’s life, young lady. When was the last time you even experienced a loving home?”

Ashley swatted Yang’s hand away. “Love? You think love is going to give me something to eat every day? You think it’s going to keep me from sleeping in a dumpster? What makes you think love is going to do anything for me?”

Staying true to his bulldog nature, Yang licked the tears and blood off of Ashley’s face, which made her produce even more tears. The more Yang licked, the more pieces Ashley’s heart broke into, which was saying a lot considering the near-death exercise she put herself through. In a rare act of gratitude and love, Ashley hugged her stubby arms around Yang’s neck, breaking into a full-on crying spell over his orange and red robe.

“Thank you, dog man. Thank you so much! Please, don’t leave me here!”

“I won’t, young lady. In spite of what the privileged believe, nobody gets left behind on my streets. Come with me. Let’s get some food in your stomach.”

The dog monk and Halfling thief walked hand in hand together, Ashley’s waterworks never once drying up. In a world that didn’t care about her, she found someone who did. Life was very much worth living even though she had to learn how to do so all over again. There would be no more thievery and dishonesty, because they weren’t necessary in a truly loving home.

Angel's Share

The rift between Alex Macintosh and her so-called “lord and savior” grew with every bigoted slur that came out of a preacher’s mouth. It was already a yawning chasm from an early age. Now it was a dark black hole that sucked all of the life out of her. Going to church wasn’t as fun as she remembered it being. The fairytales weren’t as fascinating. The loving spirit wasn’t as warm. Everything in this mega church full of enthusiastic worshippers revolved around money these days.

How much money could Pastor Shawn Hawkins swindle out of his followers? How much of it would actually go to the poor? How much of it would fund his vacation in Neo Hawaii? The deeper Alex dug into his bank account, the more obvious the answers became. There she was in a shadowy corner of the church tapping away on her smart phone and thumb drive. Her dark trench coat and equally dark scarf around her face made hiding in the shadows that much easier. It also helped matters that the thousands of people packing the arena were too busy praying for things they’d never get on their own.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” shouted a young man into the microphone. His voice temporarily jarred Alex out of her hack job, but ultimately she thought nothing of it and went back to work. “Put your hands together for the messenger of God himself! The angel from the heavens above! The warrior of worship! The preacher of perfection! Here he is: Pastor Shawn Hawkins!”

The raucous clapping and lurching from the congregation once again snapped Alex out of her work. They were so obnoxious with their zeal that she failed to concentrate on what was most important: getting Pastor Hawkins’s ill-gotten fortunes back into the hands of those who needed it. Just a few more bars of code…just a few more clicks…”Damn it!” she whispered to herself. She quickly covered her mouth considering where she was saying it, but still nobody paid attention to her.

As the audience clapped and some of them did back flips and cartwheels in the audience, Pastor Shawn Hawkins descended from the ceiling dressed in flowing red robes. He really was an angel from heaven with his feathery wings gently flapping and lowering him to the stage. “I’ve seen better wings on a plate of KFC,” murmured Alex as she struggled to focus on her hack job.

The raven-haired, thick-bearded Pastor yanked the microphone out of his hype man’s hand and motioned for his congregation to sit down and shut up, which they gladly did. Alex couldn’t believe the smiles on their faces, the tears in their eyes…and the dollar bills folded up in their hands. “Here we go…” she muttered.

Taking a karate stance in the center of the stage, Pastor Hawkins belted his sermon into the microphone like a heavy metal singer moonlighting as a fat-shaming fitness guru. “Sinners! All of them! Each and every damned soul outside of this church today will have no such access to the pearly gates! They choose not to come here and choose not to give their welfare money to the heavens above! They are vile! They are rotten! For every penny they pinch, they are keeping the Christian revolution from taking place! That will not happen on my watch! Can I get an amen?!”

“Amen!” said everybody not named Alex Macintosh, who still thumbed away on her smart phone, still chipping away at Shawn’s bank account.

Pointing his hairy finger out into the crowd, he shouted, “You see that?! The sinners and nonbelievers call that fanaticism, but I call it reality! God is your reality! This world we’ve created for ourselves inside this church is the only thing that’s real to us now! Forget the vegetable-munching hippies! Forget the rock and roll niggers! Forget the transgender fags! They hold no power of us!”

That last slur had Alex’s eyes watering with rage as she looked up from her screen to unleash a hellish look upon her tormentor. He couldn’t see her even as he flapped his wings and floated around the church, but she saw him with tunnel vision, so much so that she forgot to keep cracking the code. She wanted so much to rip his tongue out, but also knew that Shawn Hawkins was a martial arts expert and often used his trade to intimidate “sinners” into giving him money.

“I fly around this room today and I see heavenly beauty!” As if right on cue, congregation members grinned up at him and held out their wads of cash. “You’re not just giving me your hard-earned money. You’re buying something with your dollars. You’re buying a revolution! You’re buying paradise! You’re buying a weapon against the darkness of hell!”

Alex shook her head and got right back to work cracking the code. Pastor Hawkins’s words began to blend together in a cacophony of screaming and prejudice, so much so that Alex didn’t even notice him flapping directly above her until she saw his reflection in her screen. “Come on, damn it!” she whispered as she grew closer to cracking his password.

“Who said that?! Who in God’s good name said that in my church?!” roared Shawn. Alex dropped her phone in panic and almost shattered the screen. She crab-walked against the wall in an attempt to hide from her accuser. She even held her knees to her chest to make herself small. But there he was descending upon her, the flaps of his wings creating deafening whooshes, the anger on his reddening face palpable and tense.

“Come to me, harlot,” said Shawn as he held out his hand. Alex couldn’t. She was frozen in fear. “I said come to me, you devil’s whore!” He stomped over to her and her phone crunched beneath his army boots. The congregation stared at her with wide-eyed shock while Shawn picked up the remains of the phone and instantly deciphered what Alex was trying to do.

“It appears we have a thief in our midst, my children. Stealing is a sin! Stealing from the lord is a MORTAL SIN!” Shawn stared hellfire into Alex’s soul and she could do nothing but cower in the corner and shiver. He ripped off her scarf and revealed another “sin” to the congregation. The blond hair extensions, the white makeup, the poorly smudged blue lipstick, they all led him to one conclusion. “Transgender whore!”

Alex could feel the boos and “Whore!” chants radiating off the congregation and piercing her skin like daggers. She tried to stand up, but her legs were too wobbly and her head was swimming laps around this church. She eventually found her equilibrium by holding onto a stair railing. “Please!” she begged in a low, trembling voice. “Just let me go…I’ll never bother you again…it’s just that I…”

“Silence!” barked Shawn as he punched a hole in the wall next to her head, causing her to trip over her own quaking fear. She couldn’t even crawl down the stairs without Shawn placing his boot across her ankle. The harder he pressed, the louder she screamed. “You dare steal from a house of worship?! You dare steal from the lord almighty?! That is inexcusable! I shall send you to hell myself, you filthy whore!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Please, just take my flash drive and take your foot off of me!” She blindly chucked the flash drive at him hoping he would catch it. However, her heart and brain pumped her with so many chemicals that she miscalculated how hard she threw it. It bounced off of one of his feathers and exposed wiring underneath. The hacking properties of the device caused even more sparks to shoot out of what was now revealed as his mechanism. The congregation gasped in shock while Shawn’s hardened facial expression grew soft with worry. He even took his foot off of Alex’s leg.

Trying to regain her breath, Alex pointed at the fake mechanical wings and said, “You see that, everyone? He’s not even a real angel. His money isn’t being used for a Christian revolution! He fooled you all! Thou shalt not bear false witness, anyone? He tricked you all into becoming bigots! He tricked you all into giving away your money to what will eventually be his expensive vacation! If you don’t believe me, look on that flash drive! Look on whatever’s left of my phone! The more you hate people like me and the other so-called ‘fags’, the richer he becomes and the poorer you all become!”

Shawn kneeled down beside his victim and smiled at her. “Don’t you get it by now? These people don’t care about any of that. They don’t care about you. Did they care when our president said he would grab a certain part of the female anatomy? No. Did they care when a certain Supreme Court justice was accused of doing much worse to said anatomy? No. These people know who the real enemy is and who their friends really are. They want entry into heaven. They know they’re not going to get it by listening to a transgender thief whore like you!”

“Is…is this true, everyone?” asked Alex. Her answer came in the form of angry stares from the congregation, not at the one swindling them, but at the one they were told to hate. Their hatred hurt her badly. She could feel her heart racing and her mind numbing to the violence that would become of her very shortly.

Shawn slowly stalked Alex as she crawled down the staircase. As soon as she moved too fast for everyone’s comfort, the congregation and their Pastor charged after her in a screaming rage. She almost tripped over her fear again when she tried to get up, but this time she bolted out of the emergency exit and set off a blaring fire alarm. Fire sprinkles set off even more sparks on Shawn’s mechanical wings and his congregation crawled on top of him to put out the electrical storm. Alex used this distraction to dash down the street, her legs trembling and aching the whole way.

She ran until she couldn’t do so anymore. Her lungs burned, her heart exploded, and her eyes dripped with wetness as she hunched over on the street corner. “How could they not care?!” she mumbled unintelligibly. “How could they not fucking care!” She stomped her high heeled boot on the ground and broke said heel in the process. “Damn it! Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

“Excuse me, Miss!” said a homeless man with sunglasses. “Can you spare me some change?”

How about that? He actually said the right gender prefix. But such a small victory was nothing to celebrate as Alex wiped away burning tears from her reddened face. “I don’t have a dime,” she confessed. After a silence hung between them, she pointed at the mega church and said, “But they do. Why don’t you go ask them yourself?” Alex walked away hoping at least one person got the message she was trying to send.

Pearlescent Beauty

Pearlescent beauty for the cheapest price

A higher cost will allow you to entice

A thousand dollars for a worthless stone

Advertise that shit on the No Spin Zone

Never mind the dirt poor souls who died

To give you a symbol of aristocratic pride

No other function except to look pretty

The Art of the Deal never looked so shitty

A diamond is forever unlike life itself

A diamond is love when it’s forged in hell

Wasted money on toys for your honey

Wasted ceremony, this shit ain’t funny

Those thousands of dollars are better spent

On a poor motherfucker trying to pay the rent

On a homeless dog looking for a new master

On a beaten wife whose husband is a bastard

You’re lucky to learn these lessons in school

If the teachers didn’t already label you a fool

Empathetic emotions are for those who seek it

A starving tummy needs someone to feed it

You can’t eat diamonds, pearls, or golden rings

You can’t do a whole lot with material things

If you love somebody, shout it from the roof

Breaking the bank shouldn’t be your only proof

Street Sleeper

Johnny De Morgan’s pick strummed delicately across his guitar strings and created a heavenly lullaby for those walking the streets at night. He too could feel the heaviness of his eyelids and the quicksand-like pull underneath his body. Yet he continued to strum his beautiful melodies as the snow gently poured into his guitar case, barely a single gold coin occupying this space. Strangers walked by with their chins tucked into their chests, not giving Johnny the slightest glance.

The night sky blanketed the city in midnight shadows. Johnny wished he too had a blanket of some kind, but all that kept him minimally warm was his checkered overcoat, striped scarf, and thin layers underneath. He struggled to keep his fingers steady in this shiver-inducing weather. Sometimes his melodies would echo awkwardly across the street corner because of his shaking. Johnny stopped playing and gripped the neck of his guitar like he was actually strangling someone. He held the instrument above his head like he was going to smash the fucking thing to pieces.

“Johnny, no!” shouted a feminine voice off to the side. The busker’s eyes must have been too frosty to notice her at first, but that beautiful voice could have only belonged to the elven rogue Debra Lynch. Light green skin, thick layers of black wool, wavy blue hair, and a cap over her scalp: she was unmistakable at this point. She had the same weary and sorrowful expression in her damp eyes that Johnny did. That made her even more beautiful (not that Johnny would ever tell her something like that).

“Johnny, you can’t give up yet. You’ll freeze to death out here if you don’t keep playing,” begged Debra.

“I don’t know, Debra,” said Johnny with his head hung low. “Does it really matter anymore how good I am with this stupid thing? Nobody’s paying attention. Everybody just wants to walk on by like I’m some sort of fucking monster. Forget it, Debra, I’m done with this shit.”

“So what would you rather do? Starve to death?” pleaded Debra while cupping her hands over Johnny’s arm. “You don’t have a choice in the matter. It’s either this or death. Wait a minute…you’re not actually considering…” The elf’s voice grew shaky with those last few words.

“Like you said, Debbie-Cakes: I don’t have a choice in the matter,” said Johnny with more coldness than the snowflakes pounding down on him. “I can stand out here and freeze like a motherfucker playing for pennies…or I can just fall asleep in my own shallow grave. Never have to wake up again. Never have to deal with these ignorant people. Never have to worry about where my next meal’s coming from. Sounds like heaven to me.”

Debra smacked Johnny in the back of his head and messed up his black puffy hairdo. “I don’t ever want to hear you talk about that nonsense again! If you just fuck off the face of this earth, what am I supposed to do for the rest of my life? I need you, Johnny. We need each other!”

Tears welled up in Johnny’s frosty eyes as he said, “Sorry, I’m just a little frustrated, that’s all. God, what I wouldn’t do for a hot bowl of soup and a fucking blanket! Is that too much to ask for?!”

The argument came to an abrupt end when Johnny and Debra’s eyes zeroed in on a heavyset orc strutting down the streets. His leather armor, bloody war paint, and gigantic sword sheathed on his back gave him the aura of an undisputed champion. The burdensome sack of gold coins on his belt caused Johnny and Debra to snap awake with secretive excitement. Johnny strummed his guitar much more vigorously than before in hopes that the rock and roll music would entice this brutish warrior.

The orc attempted to skate on by, but Johnny and Debra blocked his path with the biggest of grins. Debra even rubbed her gloved fingers together to signify what she and her friend wanted. “Fuck off and die!” shouted the beastly warrior as he shoved Johnny into a row of rubbish bins.

“Hey!” belted Debra. “Who the hell do you think you are pushing a defenseless man like that?!” When the orc refused to listen, the elf grabbed him by the thick wrist and jerked him over for attention. “I’m talking to you, you gigantic sack of shit!”

“Debra, wait!” pleaded Johnny as he picked himself and his guitar off the ground. “That’s Link Rotunda! He’s a cage fighting champion! You’re not going to get any gold from him by calling him a sack of shit! Show some respect!”

Link’s rotten grin coincided with Debra’s fiery glare as the orc said, “That’s better! That’s what I like to see: people taking initiative!” He pointed his sausage index finger at Debra and said, “You could learn something from a guy like him!” The elf hmphed and folded her arms, never releasing her death stare from the gigantic bully. “Now then, where were we? Ah yes! You want some of this gold, sonny boy? You want to eat tonight? You’re going to have to earn it! Forget that stupid hipster guitar! You’re going to dance for your supper!”

“He will do no such thing!” grunted Debra before being held at bay by Link’s massive arm.

“What do you say, you sweet little boy? Are you going to dance or what?” asked Link with a devilish smirk. Despite Debra’s angry protests, Johnny tossed aside his guitar and danced around like a monkey attempting ballet. Link’s throaty laughter caused Debra to hold her face in her hands in sheer embarrassment. “Good one, good one! Now put the garbage can on your head! Do it, monkey boy!”

Sure enough, Johnny heaved a garbage can over himself and danced around some more, Debra shaking her head the entire time and Link laughing it up with a few knee slaps to boot. “How am I doing, Mr. Rotunda?”

“Oh, you’re doing great, my friend! You’re going to be a rich motherfucker in no time at all! Just one more thing and you’ll have all the gold you want! Take off that silly garbage can…and suck my dick!”

The monkey dancing was replaced with a frozen stillness and silent weeping underneath the garbage can. He slowly pulled off the bin and revealed an expression full of shock and despondency. “Is that what you really want, Mr. Rotunda? I’ll do it if that’s what you want.”

“This is bullshit!” shouted Debra as she picked up the fallen rubbish bin and tossed it at Link.

The orc slashed it in half with one wave of his newly unsheathed sword. Garbage scattered across the ground and blew away in the winter breeze. Johnny silently asked Debra what the fuck she was doing and elf stood her ground with clenched fists and a raw attitude.

Meanwhile, Link just laughed it off and said, “I guess you don’t really want hot soup after all. It’s a shame, because I could have given you more soup in that one BJ than any restaurant. It’s saltier too! And tastier! Or so I’ve been told!” Link sheathed his sword, waved goodbye, and chuckled, “Keep saving up!” He turned heel and strutted away until the nighttime shadows covered him completely.

Johnny’s cheeks quivered and his eyes cascaded as he struggled to say, “Do you have any idea what you’ve just done? He was our meal ticket!”

Debra’s angry breathing intensified to where this winter weather could be confused for a boiling summertime hell. She grabbed Johnny by his overcoat and shoved him against a brick wall. “Are you out of your fucking mind?!” raged the elf. “Do you really think he was going to pay you all that money to humiliate yourself like that? Bullshit, he would have disappeared like a fart in the wind! I know you’re a homeless man looking for change, but you should never have to lower yourself like that just for a half ass chance at getting paid! I don’t care if Link Rotunda is the champion of the fucking universe! He’s a bully first and a humanitarian last! How do you think he wins so many of those fights?!”

Johnny snorted loose snot up his nose and swallowed before sobbing, “I’ll take a small chance of getting paid over no chance any day of the week.”

Debra slammed Johnny back first against the wall and raised her fist in the air as though she was ready to knock a few teeth loose. “I should turn that fucking face of yours inside out for saying shit like that! I should rip your brains out through your eye sockets and eat that for dinner instead of some poor man’s soup!”

Johnny De Morgan could feel his insides turning into jelly and his bladder and bowels loosening while anticipating the stinging fist that would eventually shatter his skull into snowflakes. The tension in his stomach made him ill. His skin turned pasty white. He shook harder than when he was struggling for warmth.

And then Debra said, “I’ve got a better idea than that” before showering her victim with a handful of golden coins. Johnny could finally breathe a heavy sigh of relief like a whirlwind of seething pain coming out of his mouth. His elf compatriot brushed his checkerboard coat off and said, “The only way you’ll ever eat with me tonight is if you never pull that shit again. You’re my best friend. I hate seeing you in pain like that. Link was never going to give you those gold coins, so I snatched them from him while he was busy laughing like a fucking hyena.”

Johnny and Debra embraced one another and gave their bodies enough warmth to last through two more winters. It wasn’t just physical warmth that Johnny felt throughout his body. It was that special warm fuzzy feeling of knowing his best friend had his back through thick and thin (even if she did scare the shit out of him). Johnny could picture the bowl of soup sliding down his throat and soothing his frosty wounds. Broccoli cheddar soup from a garlic bread bowl. Thank you, Mr. Rotunda. Thank you so much!

50/50 Booking

***50/50 BOOKING***

When you see the title of this blog entry, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Man, this guy can’t shut up about wrestling!” What can I say? We all have our obsessions. But it’s true: 50/50 booking is a wrestling buzzword. However, it can apply to any piece of fiction regardless of genre. 50/50 booking is when the hero and the villain have an equal number of victories against each other. In terms of wrestling, it makes the entire roster equal to each other and nobody becomes wildly popular. However, in mainstream fiction, it could mean something entirely different.

Most of the time, we’re resigned to the idea that the hero will win in the end and get his just rewards. So if you’re doing 50/50 booking in your novel, then you’re just telegraphing the hero’s victory. What’s one more victory going to mean? It’s even worse when the hero wins all the time and rarely loses, which is why a lot of readers prefer their heroes to be average joes instead of muscle-bound ass-kickers. How do you relate to someone with a constant string of victories?

To use an example from my own novella Occupy Wrestling, Mitch McLeod could technically be accused of having a Gary-Stu win-loss record. While he wins most of his fights, there are other ways in which he’s losing. His relationship with Debra Winter is falling apart, he can’t trust a neutral referee like Rosie Rogers, his allies are getting mauled left and right, he’s no closer to solving the mystery of where these monsters are coming from, and most importantly, his body is breaking down with every “victory”, if you can call them that. Does winning in one department and losing in several others constitute 50/50 booking? You be the judge. Buy a copy of Occupy Wrestling on Amazon today! Okay, that was pretty shameless, I agree.

But then you have scenarios where the villain racks up most of the victories and makes justice for the hero seem impossible. By doing this, you’re definitely giving your hero an obstacle worthy of conquering. But if the villain wins too often, then nobody’s going to believe it when the hero finally achieves victory. The villain could beat the shit out of the hero for an hour and a half, but are you going to believe it if the hero suddenly wins with a knife to the back?

Truth be told, there is no right or wrong answer to the 50/50 debate when it comes to normal fiction as long as the ultimate decision you make is believable and relatable to your audience. If there is a right or wrong answer, I’d love to hear what it is. Obviously, the answer is going to be different depending on who the hero is. Is the hero an average joe or a beefy warrior? Or maybe he’s somewhere in between those two extremes. Maybe while everyone around him has magical powers, he’s just a barroom brawler who’s only fought a handful of times. I’d love to hear your guys’ philosophies on 50/50 booking and how it relates to your personal stories. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

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

I’m only one story away from this collection being complete and ready to critique. After “Street Sleeper”, I’m moving onto another novel called “Puberty X Piracy” (whether or not I post those chapters online is up to the admins and their views on extreme sexual content). Until then, here’s the synopsis for Poison Tongue Tales 2’s final story:

CHARACTERS:

1. Johnny De Morgan, Human Busker
2. Link Rotunda, Orc Warrior
3. Debra Lynch, Elf Rogue

PROMPT CONFORMITY: To be announced.

SYNOPSIS: On a snowy winter evening, homeless street musician Johnny is freezing and exhausted as he tries to play songs for cash on his acoustic guitar. His guitar case is shallow with money and his enthusiasm for music is dwindling fast. Link Rotunda, a prizefighter, has just won a massive amount of money during a championship match, so Johnny desperately tries to cater to him with his music. Link laughs at and bullies Johnny while telling him to “get a real job”, much to the anger of fellow homeless beggar Debra Lynch. Link is much bigger and stronger than both of them, but Debra won’t allow Johnny to be pushed around. Johnny still tries to beg for money seeing as how he feels it’s his only real chance at getting a hot meal and a bed that evening.

FUN FACT: Link Rotunda will be the next Dark Fantasy Warrior that I draw. He used to be a Dungeons & Dragons non-player character, but now he’s a short story character who will bring the PTT2 series home.

***TELEVISION DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

VIC MACKEY: Ronnie and I are going to have fed badges, you and queen bitch will be serving double life sentences, and I’ll have full custody of Jackson.

SHANE VENDRELL: You leave my family out of this!

VIC MACKEY: I’ll send you a post card from Space Mountain.

-The Shield-

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!

Street Warriors

Kristen Miranda’s legs felt like they had blocks of cement tied to them. Running for that long in knee-high leather boots would do that to a skinny girl like her. The boots were a nice compliment to her black hoodie, black Pantera halter top, and black mini skirt with fishnet stockings. The mascara would have been a nice touch if she hadn’t spent the last hour with tears streaking down her innocent face. Her makeup looked messier than an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Her black lipstick dried out from all of the huffing and puffing she did.

Kristen wondered exactly how long she had been running away from home. She could still feel the sting of her parents grabbing her arms tightly as they argued relentlessly. What the hell were they fighting about? Did it matter? She was finally free in the outskirts of Paulson City, though dark red skies, graffiti-covered walls, and dumpster fires didn’t look a whole lot like freedom. The stern look on her previously crying face gave the impression that these greasy hobos would be better company than her parents any day of the week.

Most of these trench-coat and newspaper wearing folk were already asleep by the time Kristen reached the encampment (out of sheer luck). Their machinegun snores filled the air as did their whiskey burps and green-clouded farts. Kristen held her nose while gently treading across the garbage can fires. She rubbed her sore arms vigorously as if that would stop the chill.

She spotted an unattended dumpster fire next to a chain link fence and rushed over to hold her hands to the flames. Chills of warmth and sadness surged through her body. How would she survive out here on the streets? She only had a pocketful of one dollar bills and some spare quarters. There was a donut shop around the corner from here, but a Bavarian cream-filled pastry would only last her for so long. She sighed as her stomach rumbled like grinding machinery.

The gothic teen snapped out of her trance and gasped deeply when she felt a hand even stronger than her parents grab her by the arm. The strength at which this man squeezed was reminiscent of a blood pressure cuff and left purple impressions on her bicep. Kristen gazed at this man in wide-eyed horror while weakly trying to pull away from his grasp. Like the other hobos, he had a filthy gray trench coat, little underneath, and newspaper shoes. Why he was wearing a demonic clown mask with horns and a rainbow wig was a mystery in and of itself.

“Shouldn’t you be at home playing with Barbies and blowing your boyfriend?” asked the clown in a gravelly voice. “This is not your territory, bitch. This place ain’t no rave party.”

“P…please, sir!” stuttered Kristen. “I don’t have anywhere else to go! I just need a place to sleep tonight and then I’ll leave, I promise!”

“Sleep? You want a place to sleep?!” grimaced the clown, sending tremors throughout his victim’s body. “I wish I had a place to sleep other than this dumpster fire. I used to have a nice warm bed with lots to eat and a woman to snuggle with. And then do you know what happened?” With teary eyes, Kristen shook her head. “The bitch took it all from me!” shouted the clown, prompting even more tears from the teenaged girl. “In fact, you kind of look like her with those pretty brown eyes and black sexy hair.” The clown took a big sniff of Kristen’s hair. “Yeah, she used that same shampoo. Oh, I’m going to have some serious fun with you tonight!”

Kristen slapped the clown with her free hand, but it barely fazed him and only put an evil grin on his face. The clown grabbed the teen by her throat and bull rushed her against the chain link face. She tried to yell, but only gagging sounds and red spit came out. The clown quickly cuffed her hands to the fence and shoved a ball gag in her mouth the shape of a cheeseburger. While the teen moaned through her gag, the clown said, “You want to eat so badly? Choke on that, you slutty bitch!”

The clown’s ghostly laughter was silenced by an Indian-accent shouting, “Hey, Crackers!” The teen and her captor stared saucer-eyed at a hobo with torn sweat pants, newspaper shoes, and a dirty white turban, who could be seen carrying a wooden plank wrapped in razor wire. “That girl doesn’t belong to you!” he said. “You owe me for that box of donuts I gave you! If anybody’s taking that bitch’s cherry, it’s me!”

Kristen screamed through her foul-tasting gag and prompted Crackers to yell, “Shut up!” and slap her across the face. Tears flooded from Kristen’s eyes and burned the now open wound.

Crackers folded his arms and said to his rival, “Samir, I don’t owe you a goddamn thing. If you didn’t give me that box of donuts, I would have smashed your fucking face in and taken them from you. Are you new to this shit or something? You know how this works!”

“You better hand over that hot piece of ass or I’m shoving this plank up yours!” threatened Samir while he held his weapon high in the air.

“Oh, you want to go? You want to do this right now? Let’s go, bitch!” shouted Crackers as he threw his trench coat down and revealed bloody polka dot pants underneath.

Kristen watched the fight unfold with a sore jaw, sore cheeks, a whimpering voice, and hazy eyes. For every fist Crackers threw, for every swing of Samir’s plank, the gothic teen struggled in vain to jerk herself free from the handcuffs. The two combatants’ attacks missed wildly due to their initial drunkenness, but Samir was finally able to bury his plank into Crackers’ thigh, earning a wild scream from both him and Kristen in the process.

Despite the bleeding, Crackers yanked the 2 X 4 out of his leg and broke it over his good knee, earning more cuts in the process (he was too drunk to care). He then threw rapid fire punches Samir’s way and ended up punching the cage and various dumpster fires as he missed. Samir picked up a trash can lid off the ground and smashed it across Crackers’ face. The demonic clown no-sold that blow and head butted the Indian for his efforts, knocking the turban off his greasy scalp and sending him crashing to the ground.

Kristen continued to struggle and scream while Crackers hoisted Samir up by his neck and attempted to throw him into a nearby dumpster fire. The Indian braced himself by shoving against the metal structure with his feet. Just when he was getting forced closer to the flame, he reached down for another wooden plank, lit it on fire, and smashed it across Crackers’ face. Once again, the clown no-sold the offence despite the ashes forming on his cheeks.

With a wicked smile on his face, Crackers grabbed Samir by the armpits and tossed him against the chain link fence. The clown then grinded the Indian’s face against the wire and opened some massive cuts, even managing to pop one of his eyeballs and break some of the fencing.

Seeing how easily the fence broke under Crackers’ violent force gave Kristen the confidence to struggle harder. This time she pressed against the cage using her boots and grinded her metal studs across the wire. She even used the studs on her novelty gag to shred the wires even more.

Every time she saw Samir’s blood fly across the cage, Kristen missed her family more and more. Her parents could be a pain in the ass, but they were nowhere close to being as violent or psychotic as these two street warriors. How she longed for the taste of mother’s cooking. How she loved bullshitting with her father about classic rock bands they both loved. How she missed petting her dog across the back and feeling fluff and love. Each of these images and more fueled her passionate struggle against the fence. She heard a wire snap and struggled harder. She heard another one snap. And another. And another.

Her efforts were halted by Crackers grabbing her hair and yanking her head backwards. As Kristen breathed heavily through her nose, the clown said, “Nobody’s coming to save you, you dumb bitch! Not your parents, not the police, not even nacho nuts over there!”

Despite looking like a cross between a horror movie victim and a slaughterhouse cow with his splattered blood and popped eyeball, Samir managed to pick up a piece of broken razor wire and slam it against Crackers’ wrist (the rapid bleeding took away some of his equilibrium). This time Crackers sold it like a champ since his wound was juicier than a spilled soda truck.

What Samir unwittingly did in the process was slash the chain on Kristen’s handcuffs and allow her to jerk free from the cage. With nothing but adrenaline and a tearful love for her family, Kristen unfastened her cuffs and cheeseburger gag before bolting out of the hobo hideout with demonic swearing behind her. She didn’t care if running away from home made her exhausted. Running back home was sure to put her in a coma, but she ignored her burning pain and sprinted like a motherfucker.

Her legs felt like liquid shit. Her face felt like gonorrhea piss. Her ribs felt more crushed than Samir’s bloody eye. Yet she ran screaming and never looked back. She didn’t care about being covered in darkness. She didn’t care about the red sky polluted with industrial filth. She cared less about the car pulling up to her on the street potentially being filled with bad guys. She threw the back door open and leapt inside while screaming, “Go, go, go!” The car pulled away in a big fucking hurry, leaving skid marks underneath its tires.

Despite having gelatinous green fluid in her nose from crying so much, Kristen detected the familiar scents of a pine tree air freshener and old leather seats. She was in her parents’ car. They actually went out to find her. While Mr. Miranda was busy speeding away from the scene, Mrs. Miranda reached behind her shotgun seat and hugged her daughter tightly while showering her with kisses. “Don’t ever run away from us again, Kristen! We love you! We love you forever!”

“I love you too, Mom!” sobbed Kristen. While she and her mom continued hugging it out, Mr. Miranda turned on the radio and played “Pigs On the Wing” by Pink Floyd, a love song with no hint of shallowness or perversion. Oh, how good it felt to hear “old people music” again. Kristen couldn’t help but smile through her tears at the sound of such a familiar tune. She was finally going home to a warm bed that didn’t feel anything remotely like a dumpster fire. Crackers and Samir could bleed each other dry for all she cared. It was over now. It was all over.