Exchange Rate

I can't buy jack, but I have what I want
I'll never make it if I spend it all up
I can have it all, but not what I want
I can't make it, I just spend it all up
I just get old
and old
and older
I want to get free, but it still catches up

I can't do jack whenever I want
I sleep and I sleep but it's never enough
I can do anything but not when I want
I try to sleep but it's never enough
I just get old
and old
and older
It always runs free and I can't catch up

I've nothing to do, but my time is up
I've made it made not what I want
I've got so much whatever I want
I sleep and I sleep and never get up
I just get old
and old
and older
I've always been free until I caught up

Foolish

It's not fair to lie in a song.
You've been teaching us all so wrong.
What moral values will we share
When desperate love is everywhere?
Why did you sell us this lifestyle?
Always something more to prove.
When is enough enough?
What will be enough for you?

There is something wrong
with the way
you are

There is something wrong
with the way
you are

I thought your words were true
But romance is still brand new
I want it all to work out
but what I thought it is it is not.
Where do I go to find the answers?
The ones I love most seem to know the least truth.
Do you think it will be ok?
I need just to hear it from you.


There is something wrong
with the way
you are

...and I can't find the answer.


There is something wrong
with the way
you are

...and you won't answer prayer

About your teacher

You have come to me and said, "I will pay you after two weeks,"
And I say to you, "If a doctor says he will treat you for two weeks, do you pay him every time or only after two weeks."
You need to pay your teacher. If you do not pay me, I will not teach you.
If you asked at a restaurant, "Can I pay later?"
No, the restaurant would not serve you.

You are talking in my class. If you talk on a phone, can you hear the other person speaking?
You cannot. If you are talking, you cannot listen.
If you do not listen, you will fall behind.
You will disrupt others when you ask them questions because you did not understand the first time.
Because you did not listen.

You have told me that your son is special and I should be more forgiving of him.
Does your son walk on water? Does your son have two brains?
Your son is the same as every other child in the classroom, but you love him more.
Thus we must treat him the same as every other child in the classroom.
If you would like to give him special treatment, please homeschool him.

At 25

Divorce splits
one heart into four shards
Put 'em back together
and they look odd
something not whole
something not quite right
uncomfortable
scrambling for a partner
to deafen the doubting night

Blah blah blah blah blase
You heard life was easy.
They meant the other way.
Blah blah blah blah blase
a little bit of misery
gives you no right to complain.
You were sitting in the bar
getting drunk to forget
But after so many hangovers
you have to accept

Yeah, I fucked around
and I fucking paid for it
Heard of a varicocele?
Get it and wish you hadn't.
Testes torsion in a foreign land
My legs were stone columns
and ladyboy nurses diddle my privates

Blah blah blah blah blase.
A little bit of misery
gives no right to complain
Blah blah blah blah blase
You went from grief to anger
and found only more pain
Why waste all the time
climbing the steps and
just accept?

You have to accept.
This is what is left.
You have to accept.
This is what is left.

I don't think I knew what real love was
or at least I didn't
It was sweet and weird
and hard to believe in.
You know me
then you should know what has past
So I know you will be my first love and my last.

Democracy

...is the best form of government?
In a civic-minded society. Not obsessed with short-term pleasures and the next Apple product.
In a society that respects free press and freedom of speech.
In a society where people see and care about the consequences of their actions.

Super Terrestrial

You can dam the waters,
plug the volcano.
The hurricane will dissipate,
the tsunami just won't go.
I am stronger the nature,
Super Terrestrial.
You can slow me down,
but you can't stop me now.
You cannot stop me now.

Liuetenant Part 5

<I'm trying to do at least one of these a day>

Liuetenant Part 5

Sometimes there’s a warm afterglow. Sometimes there isn’t. I have a bad habit of counting the times a guest’s entrances and exits, moaning at varying tones every eighth or ninth penetration. I began counting with this one, but due to…circumstances, I lost count at about fifty.

 I feel pretty warm now, and it’s nice that we both seem to feel it.

The room is warm too, nice darker reds and darker oranges, like a womb or something, silk curtains around the bed like you’ve seen in the movie. My boss doesn’t fuck around with interior decorating unless he’s too bombed to deal with it as previously mentioned.

“Mm…how much is left?” his name is actually Peter something, but he still looks a helluva lot like Hugh Laurie.

“Oh…like a bowl or two. Then we can get you an Espresso for your…did you drive here?”

“No way. Too many jackers.”

“I saw that. The boss picks me up every morning in this bulletproof Hummer, even the tires are bulletproof.”

“Makes you feel like a V.I.P.”

“The job has its perks.”

“Like me.”

He’s a funny guy or he makes me laugh or I’m doing my job really well these days. On the second floor is our private rooms for napping in between customers or providing services varying from doing laundry to playing video games. We’re supposed to call them guests, my bad. We’re mostly girls, some are ex-faces like me stuck in otherr people’s bodies, but we don’t really hang out. Faces disappear quicker than others. The boss is shocked I’ve made it this long which may be why he gives me the V.I.P. treatment, but he’s also always begging me to sign a consent form saying he can rape me once in return for a large sum and any hospital fees incurred.

As long as the guest has pot we’re his, but he can only but a set amount per day, about two hours’ worth. Any extra services are charged at the door according to the judgment of the employee. 20% of each check is cash-in-hand to the employee at the end of the day. I don’t make millions, but I stay afloat. If I wanted to get out –of-pocket, I guess I’d sign up to get raped, but I’m still good for now.  

“I’ve got an idea,” Hugh Laurie who’s real name is Peter something says. I’m still stuck on the idea that everybody’s made up to be some dead celebrity living celebrities having had their faces copyrighted and thus not popular among faces unless you’re really ridiculously rich and want to pay for the rights which this one super rich guy did to fuck with us at this one party, but then the real celebrity’s sister was at the party and it didn’t go well.

Peter something/Hugh Laurie pauses for dramatic buildup.

“We should all be slugpeople and communicate by means of androgynous sex.”

I packed this bowl and he says this while I was taking greens so I nearly blow the bowl all over I snort so hard. Thankfully, this is my job and because of extensive on-the-job experience with this such catastrophe and angry guests I yank the bowl away from my face. There was also the day of bowl safety training which was a lot more fun than it sounds. “A happy bowl is a safe bowl.” “The guest wants his grass, not just ash.”

“Damn, that was slick.” And thus begins what it our thirteenth or so giggle fest. Me lying face down laughing into a pillow and him chortling and hacking in the fetal position.

“No,” he says after the fit passes, “but really we should do that slugpeople thing.”

I turn to face him and wrap one leg over his chest. Another important part of this job is watching obscure youtube videos like those of slugs having sex. “So we’re slugpeople, wrapping ourselves around everybody we see and inserting our respective penises into everyone’s else respective vaginas while vice versa simultaneously, and how would we ever get any work done?”

Peter shrugs with this faraway stare, “Why do people need to work anyway?”

I count them off on my finger, “Food, shelter, and water.”

“Just that? C’mon we don’t have to work eight hours a day for that.”

I’m pretty good at this job, right? We’ve been establishing that, and I think being good at any profession comes from knowing what’s coming next. Like being a good dress-up doll requires watching the trends to anticipate what sort of celebrity is gonna be the next hit. Ugh. This guy is stoned, not stoned enough to pass out and he’s not stuttering too bad, so it’s time for the part of my job where the guest babbles and I ask the right questions to keep him going which was going to be a training class, but really ended up being a 8 hour lecture whereas the boss decided we must be good at asking the right question already. Again, more fun than it sounds.

Peter’s body language is relaxed but tense. He’s been staring at the old bubble butt for a while, and now he’s drumming his long fingers on it, tracing the curves and maybe thinking of how I craned my neck back to watch him, my mouth hanging open and eyes wide open not too long before he collapsed on top of ye big old butt and I wiggled the rest of his cum out.

He’s skinny as fuck so I’m glad he didn’t try anything with the latex. The last thing I need on top of the fall of civilization is to grovel back to my mother with child or God forbid he’s one of those kids the HIV retrovirals didn’t work on. Like I said, people disappear.

Overall I’m expecting a pretty good haul from this customer and a pretty good tip as well. So I’ll be able to expand that organic garden and maybe think about buying some pigs or starting a fish farm.

I stare him right in the eye  while I take another toke from the bowl and then deign to pass it to him. The smoke still in my lungs, I say, “So we should be using those eight hours to fuck each other’s brains out instead? My voice gets a little too loud on the word “fuck” and I feel a little embarrassed, not too cool.

“No, I said we’d communicate by slug sex. Experiences, everything we ever learned shared while we have a fun time at the same time.”

“I heard Facebook or somebody’s trying to develop that like online, full-interface sex. Your whole body feels it. More intense than sex.”

“Expensive as shit too, right?”

I shrug and make babydoll eyes. His hip is against my wet box and I wanna grind on it like I used to when Robert finished first and I wanted to annoy him. I’m too lazy to do it now. Maybe I do need another job. Some mornings I’m so bombed from the night before it takes me an hour to even get in the shower. Some of my days off, I can’t leave the house! When I was Mom’s American Girl, I was active as fuck. I ran triatholons…well once. I could do an infinite amount of squats.

Mom wanted me to change face again, but I really like the bubble butt and all the exercise you gotta do to keep it up. Sometimes I get high and do crunches ‘till I feel like I’ve been sawed in half or some days I get fucked up, find my old Ipod and run until I have to call my boss to pick me up ‘cause I’m in some other state. Sometimes I lie on my floor staring at the ceiling, hoping my roommate doesn’t come in.

I used to party like you wouldn’t believe. Robert and I would often leave the party with different people then ditch ‘em and come back to share stories at the apartment.

And we used to do a lot harder  drugs than this, thanks to the mom’s medicine cabinet and friends with really really super clean houses.

“That’s fucking ridiculous. That’s obscene actually.”

“Oh? Says the man who believes marriage is outdated?”

“I mean the money. You buy some ridiculous rig when what you have already is ten times better.”

He’s on the bowl and it’s looking ready to cash. And I’m digging the idea of a good nap after I escort him down to the cashier.

“Minus the sweat and disease and as many times as you want it and what if what you’ve got isn’t better? What if you don’t like what you look like or you want to be someone else?”

“Then you become a face like you, right?”

“Or you use Facebook’s less-permanent solution.”

“You’re a victim, you know? Of an incredibly diabolical marketing scheme to get you to be someone you’re not.”

“No no no no. This isn’t me time. It’s you. We’ll save me when I’m buying the weed.”

“You’ve been used and you’ve forgotten what’s important in life.”

Peter Something/Hugh Laurie is a dick like real Hugh Laurie on that uh…the classic one. I can’t remember, but they had that second series where the doctor’s son was this troubled genius…and the name escapes me.

In the meantime, my body language is closing off as in I’ve rolled off him and my head is now perched on my right hand with my left hand pulling a sheet over. One time a guest had the nerve to suggest my surgeon had never seen a J-Lo movie because my breasts were too proportional. So people love to see faces as one of society’s greatest evils, but no one ever thinks maybe we had no choice.

“Self-acutalization, the raising of the self to higher spiritual levels.”

“Hmm…” so the act is I’m just pretending to be focused in on the conversation and hiding that he’s hurt me when in actuality I’m really just trying to find the fastest way to a nap.

“I know that’s why I came here.”

“To smoke pot?”

“No, here in the pocket, the state of nature where life is brutish and short.”

“I’ve heard that somewhere.”

“People supposedly enter into a social contract with the government, who provides them certain benefits as long as the citizen pays taxes and follows the law, but who made the contract?”

I shrug.

“and when did we sign it? Did we have other offers?”

“Hmm…” again and packing the bowl again, again trying to mask that hurt look with a look of interest and really just counting sheep already.

“The Middle ages. Some rich prick comes to your town, says ‘you’re a peasant on my land.’ ‘What the fuck, sir? I work this land to death, but because you’ve got an army the land is yours? My word thou speakest some shit, good ser.

“We’ve only had the contract of our parents. We had no means to negotiate the terms from the beginning and nothing but the shit in our drawers to bargain with, screwed into a parasitic agreement and then brainwashed all throughout our free education into believing we did consent or we were lucky to get to consent at all. Look at the history of our great nation-state. Here you stand in  a country of great men.”

“…and women.”

“Right, my bad, but do you know any of these great people? Are you related by blood? Do you share a resemblance? Well, your case is special.”

“Why thank you.”

“What makes an American so good just by living in the same general area as some other great dude who died before our time and we never even said a word to.”

“I guess it depends on your patriotism.”

“That’s what I’m trying to say. Patriotism is a bullshit concept. Why cheer the very thing that is using you more than you gain from it? Why be proud of being fucked over by the self-proclaimed prettiest belle of the ball?”

“Hmm…it’s looking like Espresso time for you.”

“And that’s another thing…people just don’t care enough. I’ve talked with so many people about the same thing. They’re all ‘Yeah, yeah, man. You’re right, but let’s go eat pizza.’”

“Well maybe you need a more sober audience.”

“We need to fix things. We need to rebalance the equation. The government should be afraid of its people not the other way around.”

“Well…the government’s not too fond of the pocket.”

“But this is just the start.”

“I’m find enough just being out of the social contract thingy.”

“It’s not enough though. We need to evolve as a society.”

“You’ve killed my buzz, man. And you’re out of pot. Let’s take a short jaunt downstairs, shall we?”

My ridiculous green daisy dukes are on already and I’ve been brushing my hair since the hotbox rant got started. I look good in the mirror. Healthier. And my smile feels real.

“Why did I expect a whore to listen?”

“Aww…I did listen, honey, but look I’m a person too. A very sleepy person. It’s been fun, baby. Come back soon. We can get fucked up, you can swivel your kips inside me like you did before and I can coo and scream. Then you can hug me close and tell me all that’s wrong with the world. I hadn’t heard about self-actualization before. I gotta get on that, spiritually surfing the clouds and all that. Don’t go home angry, baby, but you do have to go home.”

“Right…for what it’s worth I’m sorry. I got heated up. I didn’t mean to…”

“Of course you didn’t. I get that all the time. Supermarkets get shoplifters. I get the odd wisecrack and harsh word. Life goes on. Check please.”

“Right. I’ll take care of it.”

I kiss him on the cheek and finish my makeup. He dresses and steals glances where I smile at him from the mirror. He  grabs my arm as we head down the stairs.

Lieutenant Part 4

 “What we have here is a sensitive issue.”

I like to think of myself as the Sheriff of the Middleton pocket. My daddy was a nobody nothing, but he was a good, just man and he raised a boy who would never back down from a fight and he raised no fool.

“If the government were not encroaching so on our beloved pocket then we would not feel the need to defend ourselves in such a way.”

“No, sir,” and there’s the deputy that I thought would never make more of himself than a lump in the basement couch. It sure is a nice day out today for such nasty business. I’m happy to be here with him for it.

“Now, this one here on the left from the entrance…”

“The shot-up car’s computer identifies him as Parker.”

“Parker. Parker’s dead.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Would you say he died peacefully?”

“I believe he took buckshot pretty deep into his right lobe and the pain rendered him unconscious where after he peacefully found his way to his respective maker by bleeding out.”

“There’s all sorts of shit coming out of that head.”

“And more to come judging by the circling flies.”

“I was trying to not be reminded of that.”

“The circle of life, Daddy. Like the Lion King taught us.”

“I’ll be damned if I knew old Disney movies would be relevant to a mess such as this.”

“Hakuna Matata.”

This is a good time to glare at the boy, which he don’t take personally and I find quite satisfying.

“This other fella…”

“Smith, sir.”

“This bloody trail seems to suggest that he crawled all the way to the back of the store.”

“Looks like he pushed himself backwards using his good hand and I’d imagine he was pretty upset about his buddy.”

“The markings do not seem to indicate a Hollywood like mourning of the corpse.”

“He appears to have been preoccupied with more personal matters.”

“Too right. Something weighing down his chest.”

“Several fist blows most likely the cause of all that…uh…internal injury.”

“Yes…that quite unpleasant sight the man is making of himself these days.”

“So…”

“So…our canvas of the area…”

“5 out of 5 eyewitnesses reported the shooter leaving after the second shotgun round, then attempting to ignite the cruiser’s gas tank. One eyewitness noting that the shooter was not standing adequate distance away from said cruiser.”

“However, the ignition not going according to plan caused the shooter to tred down this road back towards…uh…”

“No reports of following said shooter given his state and his piece.”

“Right. No place of residence for our shooter. Good Samaritans all having been waved off by said piece and angry gesturing.”

“Pocketeers in the area not having the wherewithal to subdue said shooter.”

“I wish you would just call them citizens of the pocket or something.”

“Pocketeer is this week’s nickname.”

“I find it a sight better than Pockees.”

“Pockadillos?”

“Pockarin…we must return to the task-at-hand.”

“Pockadillos is tabled until next week”

“The second victim…”

“Smith.”

“Right. Smith. Crawls to the back of the store.”

“And manages to suffer massive internal injury.”

“Which brings me to another point of interest.”

“The old man with the massive internal injuries and smashed-to-fuck head.”

“Suggestive of a possible accomplice even though eyewitnesses claim to have only seen the one boy. Or some kind of multiple personality.”

“Why is that?”

“Well, that lies in the modus operandi.”

“This something from a video game?”

“A really old one.“

“Sure enough.”

“We’ve got our old man as our stiffest corpse. Eyewitnesses have the shooter following the officers into the store for this here ambush.”

“The cameras we set up catch any of this?”

“The owner of the store did not have our surveillance package and the neighbors are still in negotiations.”

“Well, I’ll be.”

“One thinks back wistfully to the time when protection and law enforcement was a public good.”

“I wouldn’t trust the government to wet itself properly.”

“And so here we are.”

“It’s their blasted propaganda machines that called us the pockets, but what we really are is the market. Pure and unalduterated.”

“We are brave and bold marketers.”

“Now, I said stop with that shit, boy. You’re as bad as them. Always trying to sell something but not tell the truth about what it is.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now where the fuck were we?”

“Possible two suspects. Possible one suspect with a multiple personality disorder.”

“Boy, there is a switch somewhere a mile long with your name on it.”

“My infamy precedes me.”

“It would be most prudent at this juncture to question fellow officers at the checkpoint why two of their most hated officers responded to a call in-pocket if we were so fortunate to have a reason to ask for such information other than that they’ve just been murdered by one or two pocketeers.”

“I knew pocketeers would catch on.”

“Goddamnit, boy.”

“Or we’ll wait a day for next week to start with Pockadillos.”

“Let’s pray you live to see it. This is not a particularly happy situation for us to be in. We have our competitors to think about not to mention the government of the Divided States of America.”

“Could be a pocket war in the mix.”

“The ownership of our package falls to the next-of-kin who we’ll need to contact regarding his or her preferred course of action.”

“There may be investigation fees incurred.”

“The contract states that investigation fees will be incurred if we are unable to find the perpetrator of the crime within seven days. Moreover this is a pocket matter and concerns our reputation as providers of protection services.”

“So we might take the hit on this one.”

“We’ve taken a hit already. Now is the time for damage control.”

The Lieutenant Part 3

“Wows!” and from his accent he probably worships Brooklyn or worships Brooklyn and is actually from there, “Here I am with a genuine Jennifer Lopez.”

I twirl around a bit to show off the famous caboose in these silly bright green Daisy Duke shorts I’ve got on. If there’s anything I’ve learned while working here, its wear things as ridiculous as you can if only to get your mind off what you’re doing. I’ve got a nice ponytail today. I always liked the pictures of J-Lo in a ponytail. Her face had a really nice shape. The chin came out perfect. I didn’t always like her movies or her music, but J-Lo’s face was always on-point.

“You never regret…” he shakes his head and points at my whole ensemble, “this?” he’s got a big coat on and this NY hat with skulls and weird tribal stuff criss-crossing this way and that through it. I have to look away from the hat after a while because I feel like I could be sucked down in it and the lines go on and on, so that’s how I know I’ve mixed too much of the good stuff in the pipe.

He takes it from me after my first hit, which is deep, a dragon toke, am I nervous with this guy? I don’t get it, but now I’m trying not to cough. When he takes his hit, he widens his eyes dramatically and raises his ears and moves his hairline which is all too weird for me. He looks like Hugh fucking Laurie. All he would need is a cane and he’d be it. Skin and bones and all. Lupus! He’s got Lupus.

And all that sends me chuckling and coughing in nasty fits and the gentleman smiles at me and tells me to take it easier next time. The next hit’s on him he says. Whooooeee.

“No, I better be taking it easy. I don’t get off until five anyway.”

It’s like 11:30 and I’m this fucked up. I’m in shit shape today. Whoooooeee. Is that his hand on my thigh?

“Where you headed after work?”

I look him in the face and then burst out laughing. It takes a while to get my composure back and I remove his hand from my thigh thank you much. I breath a deep sigh and then start giggling again.
He takes another hit.

“I gotta catch up with you, I think.”

Being J-Lo has definitely gotten me the most guys out of all the 90s era celebs. I really wanted a chance to get done as Marilyn Monroe, but practically my whole year at school did that so I went with Audrey Hepburn instead, and I think it worked out better actually.

I wonder if my mom still has those pictures. I was gorgeous and she actually bought me diamonds from Tiffany’s then, but those have gone missing these days and that’s when I wonder why I’m still here, but I know I probably couldn’t make it anywhere else. I’m fast turning into a scratch. I’ve got my own organic garden. I contribute part of my salary to the Pocketocracy. I’ve got a steady job with a boss that wants to keep me around. Maybe I was born a scratch, but back then I had no pocket to get shot into. Life’s pretty fucking good. When I look into the mirror, I’m not in the middle of getting used to a new face. I’m J-Lo and J-Lo’s pretty hot you know? This guy likes me anyway.

“I’m going to a wedding actually after work.”

Now he’s sputtering and smoke bursts out his lungs followed by hacking for air and that satisfaction that comes from schadenfraud revenge and then I’m laughing ‘cause Schadenfraud is such a silly fucking word.

So, as happens often in this place, two people are giggling loudly and distracting the not-yet high customers, freaking out the para-high customers, disturbing the sleeping customers, and making everybody else smile.

This place is laid out like an opium bar I’ve seen in movies about the far East way back when. There’s an entrance and then you come to the back area here where there’s nice silk drapes and soft couches and people fall asleep a lot which is great on those days where you’re not feeling up to it. Sometimes the customer asks to cuddle, so if he’s nice (No, not always just if he’s cute, you know) I’ll be a big softy and read him Hop on Pop before he goes to sleep. The ambience is actually pretty nice, but graffiti is everywhere. Sometimes angry shit like “When did America just become a monarchy?” and sometimes weirder shit like “I paint between my toes because that’s where the needles go.” There are black lights sometimes. My boss is a weirdo and sometimes he wants to have a theme every day and sometimes he’s just too fucking stoned and so he just leaves the shit up from the day before or he’ll be like halfway done with the new theme so there’s two or three themes going at once and every one still fucking loves it. You hear, “I feel like I’m like on the edge between two worlds or like between two different times” at least ten times a day those days.

The guy starts to recover, “You’re joking me, right? A wedding?”

I nod, “Yup…is that weird?”

You know I think I’m a better J-Lo than she ever was. She’s got this dark, tough personality, but then I think if she got just cute sometimes she would be even better than she was. Also, she needed to pick wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy better movies and no one liked her relationship with that…guy…my ex was him for a while. I can’t remember. Bradgelina was more appealing for some reason. They were like a power couple. Like American royalty even before the Smith dynasty came. Back when the current president would have a different last name from the guys that came before them, but I wasn’t even alive back then and now I’m a scratch. Life’s easy when bullshit that is so far removed from you doesn’t matter, right?

Except that any day now they could come crashing in and take it all away. Where would I be then? Back to being mommy’s dress-up doll? Shudder to fucking think here. And it’s so weird that I didn’t get how weird that was until I wound up here.

“Yep. That’s pretty weird.”

“But, why, you know? I mean so it’s the end of fucking civilization as we know it. Doesn’t mean we’re animals, you know? Little girls used to dream about marriage.”

“At the start of the millennium maybe, but c’mon. We’re talking modern times here.”

“Oh, really? You never thought once that you’d be old-fashioned, rent a tux and drive the love of your life out to Vegas or Cali?”

His eyes wince a bit before he talks so I call him on it. “Eh! Eh! Every guy wants to pretend he’s never thought about it, but toke any guy up and he’s got a story!”

I do pretty well at this job. I make a bit more in tips than the other girls/boys, and I think it’s because I’m just more genuine or I just know people better. I read a shitload of history to do a good Natalie Portman and then I had to learn a bunch too ‘cause she was so smart. Harvard and everything. Or that’s it. I just know how to play the part.

A few of my friends from back then got kind of fucked up. Dissasociative something or another. They felt like they never knew themselves because they never used their own faces. I can’t even remember what I looked like. My first was Shirley Temple Black. Then I was that girl from Annie for a while. I guess it bothers me if I think about it. I always wondered why it didn’t happen to me. Some people would like hear voices of the others they’d been and they never stopped talking. I have bad dreams sometimes in a long hallway with photos in frames and the same girl in each picture from  kindergarten to high school graduation, at the Grand Canyon, at the Mall of America, always the same girl, but her face is off in every picture. A cheek too big here. An eye bloodshot here. Lips like microscopic small. And the hallway never ends but no one is there. After a while I try to go down the hallway but I’m stuck and it’s because I’m stuck in a picture frame and then people start walking down the hallway watching me and it’s the worst ‘cause I can feel my nose is huge and I want to cover it up but I can’t move because I’m a picture and the people in the hallway compliment each picture and smile but their eyes don’t smile with their mouth and this dream goes on forever like this. New people come by. Smile, say nice things and then walk on. I have this dream for hours. I try to wake myself up but I’m a picture. I can’t wake up because I’m a picture, but sometimes I scream out and whoever’s next to me will like look really concerned and then I never want to sleep again.

Robert was my Ex’s name and I used to visit him in the hospital, but then I stopped going. I didn’t really have a reason. I just couldn’t muster the effort anymore. His father told me that Robert was actually born a girl.

“I…did…have thoughts, yes” and this guy’s name is Joel, so that’s better. Not Robert.

“And…” see here you have to cock your head and bat your eyes expectantly but not too much or it’ll look too sarcastic or like you’re trying too hard.

“And then I met you.”

“Ohhhhhhhh shit,” I say and burst out laughing, “That kind of talk isn’t actually allowed in here. Actually you have to pay me money now.”

He laughs along with the joke and I take the joint back. I don’t know if this shit’s really all that good. I don’t go to those dark places on other blends. I need to tell the boss.

The Lieutenant Part 2

When I was a kid, I actually wanted to be on television.

“And here, we have with us today a representative from the newly-created Pocket Division of the Homeland Security Department…”

I dreamed about sitting in a green room waiting for my cue to go on air, and I was addicted to really really old TV talk shows like Johnny Carson when the dialogue wasn’t scripted, when the stars really shared themselves.

“Mr. Jerry Walsh.”

Today, I sat in the green room for an hour while they slathered my face in makeup and practiced the lines that I’m supposed to say.

“Thank you. Thank you for having me, Dave. Monica too. It’s great to be here.”

I didn’t want this opportunity and yet that kid in me screamed for it. The chance to be under the bright lights, to talk with the stars, to be somebody that someone wanted to see.

“So…tell us about the new department.”

I’m a researcher, not a public speaker, but that skill must have just come to me.

“Well…we’re a task force really and our job is…as I like to put it…is to tell a story.”

I’ve come to think that to love something you have to also love to hate it at the same time.

“A story? Haha!”

“I won’t be telling this story to my daughter. That’s for sure.”

“My kids are having nightmares about this thing. Brother against brother. No street is safe anymore. I tell you.”

“That’s actually what I’m supposed to prevent…”

“Great! I’d love to see it. More police in the streets! More-“

“I mean…my task force is designed to clear up the panic and the misinformation. There have been no reports of people in pockets attacking, planning to attack, or attempting to attack those still outside the pocket. This isn’t a civil war.”

This man’s teeth are entirely too straight and for a moment they go rigid which seems to suggest he’s thinking of how to get me back. They’ve been filed down so that each tooth is the exact same length as the other, like a pair of dentures, like that prank toy that hops around laughing. His face is caked in powder that looks amazing on XHD televisions, but awkward and alien-like in person. The woman is as caked as the man, but her eyes are different. It looks like she’s actually watching me, but even that might be a trick that a Mass Communication degree can teach you. She has locked eyes with me since I interrupted her male counterpart. If it isn’t clear, I should outright tell you, I despise journalists, especially talking heads.

“Uh…”

“Tell us more about the story you’re writing.”

So now my job seems childish and cute to your sneering audience, but said audience isn’t the one who would get my message anyway.

“Well…when we talk about social sciences like mine, like public policy, we don’t have the same luxury of precision that the physical sciences do.”

The little kid in me imagined telling Johnny Carson about my next feature film, and I guess in a way I’m still trying to live out the fantasy.

“We in the social sciences tell stories. We have heroes that face problems and we have to find what might be the causes…”

“Yes, yes. I see.”

In the scans of the old black-and-white televisions shows I never saw Carson’s eyes as vacant as this. I wonder how I look, reciting a speech I’ve told in front of the mirror a hundred times.

“So…you’re saying you make it all up?”

 “No, we tell stories. We…uh…we collect evidence to tell a good story of The Pockets and how they came to be. The same way you in the news media have news stories. Our task force is trying to make the story less fictional.”

Which produces mirth in the woman’s eyes, but a stern expression in the man’s which tells me that if I were still a bachelor I might have a chance with this one.

 “So, what’s the story looking like so far?”

Like the ones who are profiting the most from the government’s powerlessness are the ones who’ve bought and controlled it the past fifty years and that same group is the main source of information for the population. Like the pockets actually have it better than we do. Like everyone needs to sit down and rethink the words “state,” “citizen,” and “nationality.”

“Well, it’s complicated and it’s not a short story, Dave. The more we study, the more we can see that Pockets like this in the United States are not a new phenomenon, but what’s changed is these pockets are not threatening to the government.”

“You’re referring to Waco, Texas. Militants hoarding themselves up.”

“Crazies”

If I were still a bachelor and did not have a child watching, I might forcibly shove this man’s necktie down his throat.

“Right…this is what we normally think of when we think of pockets…rebellion. Lawlessness. Anarchy.”

“And that’s what this is, right?”

“Well…yes and no.”

“It can’t really be both, can it?”

“Well, yes it can. Our sources say that rather than anarchy, some pockets have a local government with town hall styles of democracy or a king in a few cases.”

“A king on American soil…if the forefathers could only be here now.”

“Mostly older pockets have this government. Other “younger” pockets can still be rioting and setting fire to things, but once the police have declared the area a No-Go zone, once the non-compliance  of the people in said area reaches a certain arbitrary number, once the police declare the zone a pocket, then people start changing.”

“Did you say arbitrary number?”

My son is seven. I want to tell him things. I want to warn him. I want him to know things in advance and he likes trucks.

“Did I say that? I did, huh? Well, I mean what makes a zone non-compliant? Or what classifies as a non-compliant person? A policeman tells me to stop. I stop, but I ask him what right he has to make me stop. Is that non-compliant? Or is it more non-compliant to not stop in the first place? This was the Pocket Fever of a few months ago. The paranoia that hit Middleton when what turned out to be a group of high school students overloaded the circuit breakers for the traffic lights. The local government declared its citizens non-compliant and there was a mass exodus with only the local police to direct traffic which by the end of the exodus, Middleton did become a pocket ‘cause the local police were too busy getting people out. Mass looting and rioting.”

“I don’t think our viewers can follow you there.”

“Once again, you’re watching our live 24 hour coverage, ‘The Eye on the Pocket,’ and our featured guest is head of a new federal department to analyze data on the pockets.”

“So…what you’re saying is the government caused the Middleton pocket?”

“…”

“Mr. Walsh?”
My son is so bright. He is so wide-eyed and he is obsessed as much as I am with what’s happened. He’s learning American history in school, but he keeps asking me, “But what is America now?”People have started throwing around the term, “The DSA – Divided States of America.” 60% of Americans are related to or have a friend in a pocket. The president has vehemently declined multiple times to declare martial law. My job is to tell the government what it seems to know already. Last night, I got drunk and played chess with my son, and I still can’t figure it all out.

“Yes?”

“You were saying?”

I was saying I’ve yet to meet a group of teenagers who has the skills, creativity, or gumption to crash the circuit breakers of an entire city. I was saying it’s suspiciously convenient that the regional government’s office was one of the first offices to call 9-11 when the rioting began, but your average Joe Shmoe rational actor would be interested in a million other places and a million other things.

“My job is to tell a story, a likely story. A way that the events are likely to have happened. Through telling that story, our task force hopes to start finding the causes, and this will help in our government’s negotiations with the pockets. So we can get Americans back home.”

“The head of the new Pocket Division-”

“Task force.”

“The new Pocket task force, bringing Americans back home.”

“Thank you, Dave and Monica.”

“Thank you, Jerry. We hope to see you back again.”

Now we’ll see if I can keep my job, my cushy suburban home, my lovely wife, my stupidly-expensive car.

The Lieutenant Part 1

Right now, the cops have just pulled up next door, and are stepping out of their vehicles, heading towards this old video store we just raided. I'm huddling in the living room of this apartment I broke into. I tried talking to the lady that owns the place, but huffed it and her children into another room. Every once and a while she yells through the door about how big a gun she has. Yeah, I waiting for it, honey. Whatever. I'm not here for them.
The store owner next door is dead. I regret that. I really wish Hungry Nine hadn't started this shit today.
It was the owner's fault, and now I'm here waiting for the fucking cops 'cause Nines lost his shit. I mean, it's what we wanted, but still shit did not have to be this messy. The owner, he kept yelling and screaming, "When law and order comes back, you'll pay. You'll pay, you little buggers. I knew who you were." He stared directly at Nines at that point. "I knew you."
And that's when Hungry Nine took him down. He's getting better at it since we started this whole fool bullshit. It's kinda gross the sounds people make when they get hit. It's not like TV. It's louder than anything.
He launched himself over the counter, and landed right on that grumpy old man, and I kept thinking, "Why the fuck are we doing this?" And then maybe thinking on some of the movies I wanted from the store. I didn't really need them. No one really needed them, but I had always heard good things about "And They Died Tomorrow" the series. I guess I was curious.
I thought about yesterday, how I had sex with Jennifer Lopez. I was really surprised at how old she looks now. She also gained a little weight, which seems odd, but I guess she doesn't live like we do. I was at my mother's house, and things got heavy, and I went down on her for a long while. She grabbed her clit, and started moving it around, so it seemed like I wasn't really doing her much good with my tongue there, so I decided, fuck it, why not just stick it in?
And she was down, and she was good. It felt really good. It was getting better, I had got into a groove, and I could handle my sperm, but then she asked about a condom, and I guess I was too nice about it because she was perfectly safe, I aint got no diseases, but she seemed really worried.
"Hey, buster, get over here," Hungry Nine said. "Don't you want any of these Gundam?" pointing to the shelf.
I didn't. I guess I was still kinda hung up on J-Lo. After she asked, I put the condom on, but I had had to pee since before we started having sex, and that was gonna fuck with my stamina and the hardness, so I went to pee real quick, telling her I'd be right back, so I started peeing, and I knew I was gonna lose some of the stiffy so we would have to start over from making out, and then I had to poo a little bit, so it all took a little while, and she came out dressed just after I finished pooing. I had been trying to think of the movies she was in and some line to go with that, but I kept thinking of other movies with other actresses, and then that became part of the line I was using, and then I kept thinking about how I was having sex with Jennifer Lopez, the Jennifer Lopez, and then I had the stupidest smile on my face and my face was hot and I walked almost right into her, but she was walking too fast to really deliver a good line. She said she had somewhere to go. She said hello to my mom, and my mom mentioned some wedding or something, I dunno. I was too focused on getting J-Lo back in the bed to really pay attention, and then I switched strategies, trying to get to see her again, and she got really serious.
"I'm going to that wedding tomorrow."
"Ohh...ok, what wedding?" I asked, I smiled a wide sly grin. I hoped that would work on her, I mean, she's J-Lo, so only so much works, but maybe that would.
"The wedding your mom was talking about. I know the place." She smiled and ruffled my hair. "You should listen to your mother more."
"You really like weddings, huh?"
"Yes...I..." She really wanted to go, so she would like start to go and then kind of pull back. It was upsetting, so I had to ask her about it.
"Hey, why are you leaving? I got the condom and everything."
"Well, it's like..." She checked her watch, "It's almost seven and I'm not sure I want to be here when your father gets home."
"Whoa? My father? Please. We...live in like separate places." I gulped. This might be an angle.  "He's not coming home." I wonder if it was the age thing, she looked so much older, but she felt so good, like you could hardly tell the age.
"That's ok. I hit my two hour date limit."
"Oh, that's how long you usually..."
"Yeah, when it gets over that, I feel like I should wait 'till the next one." She sealed it with a seductive smile, grabbed my shirt a little bit, pulling me in and she was so warm. Damn.
I laughed. I grinned. I wanted to go back to feeling those curves back and forth, skin against skin, all over again, but I held it in. I was good. I held it in. I had to let her go. Play the game.
Over her shoulder, she said, "See ya."
So now, looking over the store that's ours until the cops show up, I really don't want anything. Maybe I'm getting too old for this kid shit. Hungry Nine took a lot of stuff. Did J-Lo have a good time? I guess she seemed distracted, even while I was in her and everything, but she's J-Lo, I mean she used to have a hundred better boyfriends than me I bet, but I'm pretty damn good. I mean...I dunno, it usually seems like I'm pretty good.
Hungry Nine got angry at me for not getting anything. "Yo, man, this is choice shit. You need to get it."
"I dunno. I don't feel like it. Can we just get outta here?," I said. I wanted to tell him about J-Lo, but he's an asshole about that shit. Maybe James or something.
"Fuck, man, fuck, man, get your shit straight, man. I can't be having no day-dreaming lieutenant. You know you're my lieutenant, right?"
"Yeah...yeah. Whatever, Chief," I looked down at all the stuff, it was all free now, and I half-heartedly grabbed the anime I was looking at from behind the counter, stepping over the mess Hungry Nine had made of that old man, he grabbed at my leg. I shook it off and walked back out to Hungry Nine.
"Get that chocolate too."
So I did, and then Hungry Nine left. When I started to leave with him, he smiled at me and told me to "hang back for a sec" like an asshole. I just stood there for a little bit, still feeling down.
I met J-Lo at the burger joint I go to, Fuddy's that used to be Fuddruckers. I was with my mom then too, but I don't know if that's why J-Lo eventually sat down. Me and Mom were having trouble deciding what we wanted to eat, so the manager sat down with us, and started suggesting this mondo burger with everything on it.
I had the menu in front of me, it wasn't there.
"How much does a burger like that cost?"
"Oh, lemme see. Lemme see," he said like he was coming up with the damn price on the spot. "7.99."
"Fuck that," I was thinking. "Fuck that," I said. "You just came up with that price on the spot, man. You are trying to rob us good."
He had on this stupid, shiny, shit suit, and he kinda nuzzled his head in both sides of the shiny blazer, and then lifted his head up with this dumb grin and his stupid chiseled blonde hair that went up like an anime guy or something, and said, "Yeah, alright, but it's the price. That's the price. It's a good burger, and I really think it's worth it."
I started thinking about all the higher class people who were still around now while Law wasn't. How would all those folk be getting around? Like...I'm sure they had to pay lots of higher prices, but since they had all their money and the stores wanted to keep their money, they must get good shit no matter what. They must still be living the same past checkpoints and all.
And that's when "Jenny from the Block" walked by, and my jaw almost dropped into my seat. Holy shit, and my legs stood for me without me telling them or nothing, and I was walking over, I was chasing her down basically, going, "Hey!"
And she turned back, I guess she was curious. She smiled when saw me, but she was a little thrown off, "Hey," she said.
People seemed so much friendlier after Law left, like just when you couldn't trust anybody, everybody was there and trustworthy.
"You're..."
"Yeah, I am. Or I used to be." She laughed, "It's so hard to tell whether I'm still her."
I laughed at that. How do you stop being J-Lo?
"Oh, really? But like...how do you stop being you?" I asked.
"Well," she laughed again, "no one watches TV anymore, so I guess I'm just not that big of a deal anymore" and there was this weird look on her face like she was being sarcastic.
I would have followed up with, "You're still a big deal to me," but since I just met her that didn't seem to be good, so I got hung up for a second, and she started to leave. I was gonna go with, "Yeah, it's pretty crazy since Law left," but everybody said that, and she was just going to nod and say, "Yeah, so I gotta go."
"Hey, so...you doing anything now?"
She laughed. I should've gone with "So, you really are 'Jenny from the Block' now, huh?" but that would just get a laugh, I dunno. What do you say to women like this?
"Umm..." She said. "I guess I was on my way out."
"Well, I need some help here, this guy," I leaned in a little bit, knowingly, looking around, "asshole," she smiled. "This guy, he wants to charge me $7.99 for the biggest-mouth bigger in the history of burgers."
She thought for a bit. "Well, $7.99 used to be market price or whatever, right?"
"I know, but..." and we both kinda nodded at each other, and said, "Times have changed."
"They sure have," she said. Maybe it wasn't that she looked old, she just looked tired.
And, yeah, like I guessed there would be, we had that pause of nothing much else to say, but...she acted differently then, maybe she just wanted a chance to say what had been on her mind the whole time.
"Sometimes I don't get it. One day, everything is the same and then...something just shifts like the Earth goes off-course...."
I didn't know how to respond considering me and Hungry Nine had kinda been a part of that, and now he says several members of the FBI are looking for him, but that's Hungry Nine and he's...I don't even wanna go into it right now.
"Yeah, like everyone just got knocked on the head by something, everyone woke up on the wrong side of the bed and stayed there."
"I heard that's what some people did."
"On the wrong side of the bed? I mean...I do that, but..."
"No, I mean...some people just laid there, didn't go to work, just glued to the TV."
"Yeah, like everyone just knew..."
"That the law didn't matter anymore."
"Just took off."
She laughed, "Yeah, got lost."
This is when I started to feel uncomfortable, but then I thought, hey, maybe this is my chance?
"Have a drink with me."
She laughed. "Like you're old enough."
I shrugged, "Have a drink with me none the less."
The store owner was still breathing, I realized that fact about then. Maybe Hungry Nine wasn't as hard as he said. For whatever reason, he kept leaving this shit behind for me.
He was breathing very hard, wheezing in and out. They're always doing this. It gives me this pain in my heart and I know if things were different I'd be sitting behind bars by now.
I walked over to him, behind the counter, and knelt down. He looked at me with this hope, and grabbed on to my leg again, thinking that I was the one who didn't want in on this, who didn't want to rob the place, the guy along for the ride. It's always painful. I mean, given the wrong set of circumstances, this would be me. So, I got sloppy, I made a mistake. I sat down cross-legged, picked up his head, and laid it in my lap.
I hate that Hungry Nine always goes for the organs, doesn't hit the head, leaves the face pretty much alone. Looking over the old dude, it was almost like some of his insides had caved in, broken ribs, and the throttling Nine gave to the dude's neck was not cool, not the way I wanna die.
"You...why?" He tried to look up at me, but his neck wouldn't move or it was too painful. "You...deliquent" he got angry in his raspy call. "call the..." He grimaced "stupid kid."
I guess he wanted to keep to his principles. Maybe he thought he still had a chance. So, we sat there, and I thought about J-Lo, and he cursed a bit at various shit, and I thought, Damn, I mean just the way J-Lo looks made you feel good.
She sat down with me and my mom in the burger joint. My mom didn't really know who she was, but they still seemed to get along. I think J-Lo was impressed that I was taking care of my mom like that.
I wanted to tell her, "I figure she's family. I figure family's still important, right? I mean, something has to be," but you know, with my moms around she might get upset and that might cause another stupid issue.
J-Lo was stuck on how Law left and everything, so she asked a lot about my mom's experiences, and thank god 'cause mom was the best wingman I've ever had, a boy's best friend. Strange her being so nice.
"...everything just started to go, but there my son was, always there to say, 'it's gonna be alright,' and 'look, I'll fix everything.'"
J-Lo kinda looked at me with a warmth in her eyes that was nice, and then she caught herself, I think, and she looked back to my mom, then down like she didn't have nobody looking out for her. My mom kept flashing cheap smiles. If she thought she was fucking with me, she was doing a poor job. J-lo came home with us that night
The manager stuck around while we were talking, which was ok, I guess. He had to have his douchebag comments every now and then about how his investment strategies had made him the man he was today despite "the turmoil." He kept calling it "The Turmoil." J-Lo bought into his bullshit every now and then, and I had to let her 'cause otherwise I'd look too threatening. She kept looking to me to join the conversation about Law leaving, but I guess I didn't really have all that much to say. The times had changed, and you gotta roll with shit like that.
I wanted to ask the video store owner if he had any last words, anything he wished had happened before he went, but I think he had gotten angry at me for not going for help. It seemed that way, anyway. He would like shake, and like try to move his arms around, try to say something like "it's just not right," or "Why is this happening?" but he never took his head outta my lap. I think that was important to him, reminded him of something.
He cried a little bit, or just let out like stifled sobs. I wanted to ask him if he had a girl, if he had someone that made him feel warm. I wanted to ask him why everyone wanted Law back. I mean, the guys I know always talk about how scared they were, how scary everyone looked to them. When Law left, I stopped watching TV. You could tell people who still did though. They still looked afraid, always looked over their shoulder, believed the worst about everybody. It was bad. They couldn't just deal like the rest of us.
This dude still had a TV sitting at the top of his shop. It was on. I wanted to ask him if I could turn it off, it seemed reasonable enough.
"Hey, sir, can I turn that off?"
He looked at me, kinda confused at first, but then just tried to shake his head and muttered some more in a husky breath. So, I ignored him, and killed the TV with the remote.
It got quieter. The dude could hear his shallow, heavy breaths now, and it seemed to scare him. He heard the sobs too, and got proud, I guess, kinda tried to stop them and be a man. He started feeling around his body. My legs were really starting to cramp. I guess I figured that was as good a time as any to kill a dude, so I slit his throat. I stood up, bringing his body with me, and slammed his head to the ground. Man, that shit was loud. I stomped it in for good measure, and hoped that going extra hard on his head had brought some measure of peace to the old dude. I mean, what the fuck do I know about death except you don't get to choose how you go?
Then I went next door to this apartment, figuring that was as good a place as any to hide out for a bit. I was tracking a little blood on my shoes, so I made it look like they were running in another direction. I didn't try very hard. It didn't seem that important. The cops these days weren't that tough really. They yell a lot about you being a little punk, that you're gonna get it, the fall of civilization, blah blah blah, but once you get the gun away, it's over for 'em nine out of ten times.
The one time I was wrong, I was scared to shit. The cop fucking decked me, and everything started spinning, and I didn't really know what to do but wait for what I had coming, but the cop just looked at me. We both just looked at each other. I was dazed as shit, so I saw the cop in twos and threes. The cop hesitated. Fucking stupid, right? Why would you hesitate? Why wouldn't you just finish the job? But that's Hungry Nine. He just like hesitates for weird reasons. That time, I think that's when he realized that Law was really gone, there was no point in fighting for it, beating up little kids, and that moment was probably pretty poignant or something for him.
Like that day when everyone kind of woke up crooked, when I realized that paying $1.99 for a pen that cost 3 cents to make was robbery. I had worked hard for my money, and these people were stealing it. And, in my head, Law snapped. I just couldn't believe it anymore. I grabbed all the pens I fucking wanted. I grabbed $5 orange juice, $50 alcohol, $20 meat, I grabbed everything I ever wanted, and I pushed my cart out the door of the supermarket, and no one stopped me. It must have snapped in all their heads too. It wasn't their stuff. The manager screamed at me for a bit when I was rolling the cart out the door, but then stopped, and got a funny look on his face.
And I went home.
Hungry Nine had beaten me over, had the chance to end it for me, and I was so fucking dazed I didn't know if I cared. I don't even remember what he and that other cop had chased me down for. He said later that "I just looked like trouble." I mean they jumped me, not the other way around, but I made them pay. I got his partner down pretty quick, but Nines was much tougher, and got me, and then he waited. I was coughing blood. I felt heavy and breathed wheezy like that old dude did, and then he lifted me up. He brushed me off. He took the badge off of his doubled-over partner, who we left for dead, and that was it.
"You're my liutenant now," he said. "give me your number."
"Oh," I said, and coughed some more blood, "Ok." So then I started running with Hungry Nine.
The cops showed up to the video store like I figured some well-meaning citizen would cause, but did 911 even work anymore? Citizen, right? When was the last time anybody voted? I mean, for real though. With every four years some new guy with the same last name? And now their names might as well be carved in trees or be some stupid graffiti no one understands
We...me and Hungry Nine have been setting up these police traps for weeks. Raid a store, wait for the cops, take the cops down. Some of these cops have started fucking with people. They respond to crime calls, but God knows what they did after that. Not follow protocol for sure. Not protect and serve. The stories weren't good.
I start off by sneaking around, and raiding their cop car which looks messed up anyway like they've never cleaned the thing or like they jacked it from a checkpoint. I jacked open the window with a hanger I grabbed from that apartment and again, it looked like someone had done this before so then I'm really thinking these cops aren't who they pretend to be, then pulling open the lock, opening the door real real carefully, hoping they don't notice, hoping they're too busy with the mess I made. One of them whistles real high while the other says, "Fuck." Maybe I should have hidden body parts around the store, play hide-and-seek with a leg or something. Shit would be straight creepy to walk into.
When I check the computer, at a glance 'cause I'm too busy looking for the shotgun I think they've got hidden, I notice that these are the officers we've been most wanting: Parker and Scott. Hungry told me they used to be meter maids, but they stole a police cruiser and are running vigilante around the town.
They raid the video store just like we would, and I watch from the car as they throw down a good copy of "Century Maid Deluxe" that I hadn't seen before, not that I'm really into those harem animes, I just heard the animation was good.
The shotgun was hung behind the backseat, partially loaded. I grab it and check it, five shots to prove my point: "Get the fuck out."
I wish Hungry Nine had stuck around. He fucking never does. Nines told me to "free them of their burdens as police officers," "take away their superiority complex, and they'll crumble into human beings," but if this is so important why is he never here and why does he talk like me one second and then like fifty other people the next 'cause he's fucking hopped up on that shit and keeps pretending he isn't.
I approach the video store cautiously, hoping they don't notice, please please please don't notice, these men they don't know what they do, Lord. And all that makes me think of the church down the street where they sell non-gov drugs. Pretty good, but if J-Lo knew what would she think?
When I'm pretty sure their backs are completely turned to the entrance, I walk in. The protect-and-servers busted down the door, so glass litters the floor. I note the assholes have vests, think, "good," and raise the shotgun, but then I make a mistake. I shouldn't have. I thought I knew better, but something in me turned on me and I looked over the counter at the old man again.
Like a cracked egg, his head just looked shattered, but his eyes were looking out, and they had tears, his hand was awkwardly folded towards his eye like he had tried to wipe them away before he died. The fucking...crazy old, fucking, he had...I was wrong. I had given him more pain, we killed him, and what had we done it for in the end? To teach these self-righteous pig pricks a lesson? For a couple of movies?
The fake cops were turning around now, they had noticed me, noticed the shotty. I wanted to tell them that I didn't want the gat. I never wanted it. I watched a movie once about how guns had ruined the streets. I agree. I can take a man or woman as a man or woman but no man or woman takes a gun well even when they have a gun. It's bullshit.
Even so, they've noticed I've got the shotgun level. They've noticed me looking at the old man. They're slowing reaching for the weapons.
"Just take it easy, son" the one on the left says, still reaching for his piece, asshole. "Take it easy."
I raise the shotgun higher, and they pause, and I'm shaking. Fuck, I'm fucking shaking. This shit never happens in a real fight, but now I've got this stupid fucking gun, piece of shit gun, and they're more calm than me!
"I don't want this fucking gun!" I couldn't hold it in. I was too fucking upset that things had gone so poorly.
"That's ok, son. Just take it easy."
"Fucking stop reaching for that pistol. Assholes! Goddamn, you're just going to make this worse!"
The talky one on the left nodded to his partner, and they stopped, which calmed me a down a bit, but not really 'cause these fuckers can't be trusted.
"Oh, goddamn. Goddamn," I said. 
"No need to use that kind of language, son. Let's just talk this through."
Alright, they piss me off. I know they piss me off, but I don't have to buy into it. It's at this moment that I am hit again with how fucking stupid I am. Of course, this was going to happen eventually. Of course, I was going to fuck up, plan badly, act badly, get caught, I just didn't want to think about it. I was fine without Nines before, doing the same shit, and now I needed him. This was his mission, his "shepherding" of his stupid flock, and I went along with it like a fool. I didn't want this, and now I can't walk away.
If I fire at the cop on the left, the cop on the right is sure to have enough time between the shots to take me down, not to mention that the first shot on the cop on the left won't take him out. He'll of course, want to get me, and reach for his pistol with enough time to take me out like a point guard passing to the center. If I don't get between the two, they get the basket and I lie in a pool of blood with the old man clawing at my throat. If I hit the guy on the right, the guy on the left, who's already antsy as shit with his hands will get me with the pistol.
"What's your name, son?"
They really piss me off.
"What's your name?"
"Look, man..."
"Let's just talk. Just talking, no big deal, all the time in the world."
"Look, man...you're a fucking..." Then it hits me. "You know Hungry Nine?"
"Hungry...?" They look at each other. "Mickel? Bill Mickel?"
"Yeah, sure, whatever, you know that asshole?"
They laugh, they stop reaching for their guns, and I know this is it. There's no other way I would get out of this, I tell myself. They can't be laughing for a good reason. Hungry Nine is an asshole.
So, I shoot. I take a shot at what I figure is the top part of the left cop's vest, hoping to rip some shards in his face or that the gun will jump enough when I fire that the shotgun will blow holes through his skull and that will distract him enough to leave me alone. The gun jumps like I thought it would, it sprays, it looks like it hits the cop somewhere, but I don't really wanna see the result so I look towards the other cop. I have trouble recovering my aim to get a shot at the guy on the right before he can pull his pistol up. I pray to God a little bit for the split second difference that'll let me fire first. I wince, tilt my head to the right in a stupid attempt to dodge where I think the cop is aiming while I fire the shotgun again.
The cop's left side of his face just disappears in red and his screams make my blood curl. I'm really sorry. I want to tell him. I'm really sorry.
I have fucked up.
The cop to the left is now struggling for his pistol, which I try to shoot away from him but end up blowing more holes in a few of his fingers which severs one or two and his ammo belt which lights up and blood starts to leak from his hip as he goes down.
So, they're down. I've done the job I said I would. I've laid the trap, I've trapped the officers, and now they're bloody, and probably dying on the floor of a video store. I feel like I've watched a football game I had nothing riding on, either side could have won, and I would have cheered all the same.
Even so, I take the guns off the screaming, cursing officers, they scrambling to grab at me as I do it, yelling cusses far worse than anything I've ever said. I get it. The will for revenge, but they're done already. I wish they knew it. I walk out. I gotta walk out.
I reach the car, and angrily break the other window. Someone has stepped out into the street, which I didn't know people did anymore when shit like this happened.
"Walk the fuck away!" I yell and my voice is louder than I've ever heard it.
The glass of the window broke apart and shards are stuck in my arm which doesn't seem to hurt so I'm hyped up. I'm tired of this shotgun. I want it away. I'm tired of these cops with guns. I drop it all in the car except for one of the pistols.
And I walk down the street. I can see some of the neighborhood people peeking out, and I wanna wave the gun at them but I'm embarrassed and if they have guns, this could be a bigger problem. They're all watching. Fine. Watch me try some more stupid shit, people. I take a shot at the gas tank from what I figure is a fair distance away, and fold up a little to avoid getting hit by exploded cop car.
But I miss.
Of course I miss.
I cannot get over the way the blood sprayed out of that man's face, the way they thought I was going to ease up, the way those fingers just broke off, and I blame the guns. I blame them for Hungry Nine, for the old man behind the store, for the crying baby I can hear now in the house I was hiding in, for the erection I lost when I thought pooing was more important than fucking J-Lo.
I was just thinking that to make myself laugh, and it doesn't work.
I shoot again. Nothing happens. This whole Law thing is fucked.
I've only heard about shooting a car's gas tank. I knew a guy who shot a gastank at a monster truck rally one time. He was a vet, used to be a sharpshooter. He was two hundred feet away with some kind of rifle. I don't know, the point is he brought the "Ford Crusher" to its knees. Last rally we saw around here.
But why the fuck was he shooting at a monster truck?
I shoot at the cop car again. Nothing happens for a second, and then liquid starts leaking out of the tank.
Nothing.
Mistakes were made. Nothing went right today.
Maybe they'll be more cops on the way now. I take the pistol with me, along with my copy of "And They Died Tomorrow," and I start walking home in the middle of the street, asking for trouble.

At my limit

Not what you might
call a breakdown
Accurate as could be
A trial, a test, a final showdown
Flawless despondency

My head started falling out
And I couldn't
Even retrieve it

These walls
have been
crumbling
(I stumble)
down
down
down
down
down

I've been alright.
How 'bout you?
This is nothing.
Nothing new.
We'll make it out.
We'll make it through.
Want something done
then you should
do it now.

Out of control
spinning
spinning madly
Dear God,
Who'd call this house a home?

More like a flesh/blood cage.

My hands
started
crawling 'round
and I couldn't
keep it together.

These walls are
a prison
spiraling
down
down
down
down
down

You were there
right when it happened
Savor the moment
forever knowing

You just
keep it now
locked at home
in the prettiest box
you could hope
to afford.

They'll come find it soon.

My legs have walked the fuck off
and they won't
be coming back again, will they?

These walls are rebelling
the pieces fall
down
down
down
down
down

Not what you might
call a breakdown
Accurate as could be
A trial, a test, the final showdown
Flawless despondency

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