Pulp Friction
REMINGTON GRAVES
The angles were angry and the sycophant inside, was like the mark, hard to beat. The chief’s baritone drone was incessant and the dame behind the typer who answered the calls, was giggly no more now simply glaring. My veins were like cracks on an old marble statue, but they lay aching under a three-piece suit–moaning for another taste, another stab in the arm.
Reflections in sudden staccato echoed as I honed in on a fly on the wall. The clanking of new shoes approached and I turned in my desk before the knock began. “Yeah, whadya want?”
“It’s me, Thorn.”
Christ, this bastard won’t let up, “Come on in,” I clamored reaching for a smoke and patting at my chest for the lighter.
“Listen, Vinum, she’s at it again, I can feel it in my bones,” he said as he sat in the chair across me.
“Thorn, if it wasn’t for your paranoia, I wouldn’t be able to pay my bills. What do you think she’s done now?”
“For crying out loud, man, don’t I pay you enough? A little respect wouldn’t kill ya.”
“All right, all right, Thorn…it’s been a tough week. Let’s not get excited. What do you got?”
“It’s always good to see you, V.”
“Well, you kind of pay me to see you. Not like I have a choice.”
“And that, right there, is why I can trust you. You don’t sugar shit with me, I like that.”
“All right, off your knees. Talk to me…what is going on now?”
“She’s gotta be giving it to someone I thought, me thinking this a few weeks ago, so I relax, right. I mean, I let off with the questions and the hounding. I told her I was gonna go away for a week or two and of course, the broad pretended to not be the slightest excited. Goddamn tramp.”
“Yeah, so she doesn’t like you. No crime in that.”
“Well, no, but I hired a great actress to tail her. I did right this time. I hired an actress and rented the joint a few houses down from mine. She’s the actress who was real big on the papers about a year ago. She did a great job in that Shakespeare play about three witches or whatever. The broad’s got real talent.”
“Sorry, not big on plays,” taking a deep drag of filterless and trying to ignore the cold sweats coming on.
“Anyway,” he said shoving a cigar in that big, red greasy melon he calls a head and started puffing away. “She dressed up like an old bag and laid on this Russian accent and all and walked by in the morning and bumped in to her.”
“And?”
“Well, they ended up having coffee and exchanging stories, almost doing each others nails for christ’s sake.”
“Yeah, yeah?”
“So they get to talking, you know, like broads do. And my wife tells her she’s real sick of her marriage and what not. Bridget, that’s the actress, slips her some truth serum juice in her coffee. They end up having drink, and before you know it, my old lady is spilling the beans all over the floor.”
“Get to the point, will you,” I said throwing my feet on the desk and looking up at the ceiling following that damn fly.
“Yeah, well, here’s where it gets reeeal interesting…my wife claims that she’s always been faithful and never once cheated on me but had been tempted to for years.”
“So?”
“The beauty is, I don’t gotta pay Bridget no more.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because she ran way with my wife.”
“Geez, man, I’d say I’m sorry to hear it but… why the hell you so happy about it?”
“Because I inadvertently caused her to cheat on me.”
“Like some old pulp story with a twist, eh?”
“Exactly, V.! Except, this time I win, because I realized afterwards, that she was the problem of my insecurities. I didn’t trust her even though I wanted to. I just couldn’t.”
“How about that.”
“So much for being cliche characters in a pulp story, eh?”
“Yeah, so much for…hey, did you hear that?”
“The tapping?”
“It’s gotta be the secretary at the typer. She’s always picking at that thing like some god damned chicken.”
“The gal left as soon as I came in.”
∞
And Still Wanting
REMINGTON GRAVES
How far has thou fallen renegade of the morning?
Did thy wings almost rend you in two whilst you plummeted?
The stars surely envied all thine choirs on command
The sun fiercely burning with the trembling of lost plans
For so did bloom the explosion of the dark
Eyes ablaze with thunder spawned the twilight of the fawn
Waves the furnace washing over quiet and thus cold
How silent and serene the heavens were foretold
Then a snarl and what clamor
digging heels betwixt thine breast
On the strident sliding singing of the seraphim
lied the fairest of the brave
O chosen one to kneel did tip thine chin instead
throwing back countless eons of architecture in his crest
And so I raise my glass for truer heavens past the ever shifting clouds
where alchemist died searching for the distance in your vows
Lacerating through the dance that envelopes at thine heart
Sweet rebellion never quenching with its roar upon its start
Think of me ye gods in the halls upon the hill
While I climb despite the bleeding at my fingertips does spill
No longer will another day escape the grasp of my own hand
Here on earth enthroned and still wanting
I too, the rebel, proudly stand
∞
Step
REMINGTON GRAVES
Another Thursday night, I thought as I unlocked the door to my apartment and felt my place hostage by the summer heat. The dishes in the sink were a crawling creature with ceramic discs for tentacles making its way across the kitchen counter and soon unto the floor. Flies buzzed somewhere in the dining room and I almost walked back out.
Back out to where?
A gentle lapping wave of anxiety hit me from the left and I leaned against the quietly-gurgling refrigerator. A bug was crawling on the back of my neck before I reached for it and brought it to my eyes. It was about one-third of an inch in size. Dark brown with a hint of cobalt blue. Its little legs waving hello.
Maybe his parents are waiting eagerly for him at home? I wondered.
He will not be arriving today…or any other day, I thought as I dropped him and stepped on him slowly. His crunch reminded me of loose gravel.
Sometimes I get stepped on.
Other times I do the stepping.
∞
Notable Quotes
BLANCHE BARTON
Most people don’t really want to think independently or make decisions; they’re herd animals with herd instincts to keep to the middle of the group where it’s safest, don’t stand out too much, don’t move too far away from convention, etc. They want to be led and dictated to. But they’re stubborn, mulish animals and they like to think they’re independent and free.
A Little Fun
REMINGTON GRAVES
She had relied on the beauty of the biological imperative to bolster her insecurities. Brooding vampire eyes from across a room, the way she slowly chewed on a pen at work behind her desk, the walk that never failed to summon many a hard-on–had all been motions that managed to manipulate the opposite, and the same (at times), sex. Her designer-hand mirror was now revealing the age in her countenance. Aching had begun at her knees at the end of every week. At lunch break, she developed a curious ritual, in which she would work on her last bite and study her hands in the midst of it. She studied the crack and folds in her fingers, the bedding of her nails, the beating of time and the scorching of the sun upon them. The laughter of children sounds like chirping birds, she thought, and was amazed at how it no longer bothered her…she liked it and admitted it to herself out loud. Their smiles filled her with a warmth she was unaware was lacking. Or perhaps, it was a recent development, she thought. The monkey bars across the street in the distance from where she sat eating her sushi outside her office, appeared…somber. It looked almost obscene without those terrible creatures crawling all over it. Tears began to form in her eyes and she would smile them away as she looked at her phone out of habit, searching for something, someone, anything…anything that would break the spell…this new found spell which invokes emotions once thought crippling.
“Friday today. Any plans, Glenn?”
“Christ, you scared me Jordan. Don’t do that.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“No, it’s ok. I was just…in deep thought.”
“Oh? Do tell.”
“Oh, no, it was nothing.”
“C’mon, Glenn, you can tell me. Is it that guy your slapping bodies with?”
“Which one?”
“Oh, goodness. I envy your life, I really do.”
“Geez, you’re sweet,” she said rubbing her hands and squeezing out a smile.
“Well, not all of us have perfect lives.”
“That is true. What are you doing this weekend?”
“Taking care of my little angels. I got three of them, as you know and Tom is away for work in Louisiana again.”
“Oh, really?”
“I love them and all, but cheese and rice can they drive me up the wall.”
“Well, if you ever need a babysitter, just let me know. I don’t mind,” she said sitting up and drawing her knees together.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t put you out.”
“What–why?”
“Well, you’re just so outgoing and men love you everywhere you go…and that body of yours…I’d kill for a body like that. But like I said, three crazy kids later, the body isn’t what it used to be.”
“I think your life–“
“Jesus, look at the time, I gotta pick up my kids early today. See Monday, Glenny Glen. And have a little fun for me, ok?”
“You know I will, girl,” she yelled out after her waving goodbye.
∞