Poison Spur

Originally posted as comments to a Facebook status that I thought was quite clever but left others scratching their heads.  I'm rather proud of this little fiction snippet, considering it took less than 20 minutes for me to knock it out.

I decided to give it a home here rather than let it get buried under all the other crap I have on my profile page.  Enjoy.

Perhaps I can explain:

It was a rainy day at the funeral, as all funeral days should be. The procession had gone from the chapel to the cemetery and laid the man in the ground.

His mousy wife, shrunk even smaller from the loss of the only man she had ever loved, waved off all offers for a ride home and trudged off on her own. I followed her, letting the pounding rain mask the sound of my footsteps so that she would not notice me.

About a mile away, she turned into an alley. When she stopped at its dead end, I ducked behind a dumpster and peered around the side to see what she was going to do next.

Thinking she was all alone, she ran her hand down along the inside of her leg and then pulled it up inside the hem of her black dress. When her fingers hit home, she let out a moan that sounded a little like a tea kettle coming to a boil. As she climaxed, she threw back her head and let out a banshee-like wail that chilled my blood.

After it was over, she pulled her hand away and brought the nectar of her labors to the quivering lips that now silently mouthed the name of her dead husband.

It was hot.

I put my notebook in my backpack, locked the screen on my computer, and gave my boss my solemn word that my current project would be done first thing in the morning.  It was the end of my Monday and there was someplace I needed to be.

That place was Tres Agaves, a bar/restaurant around the corner from where I work.  I had probably walked by there hundreds of times but never set foot inside.  I'm not a big fan of tequila and the whole bar-restaurant thing detracts from the joy of drinking on an empty stomach.  However, this was a special occasion.  It was a reunion of people from the dot com where I worked close to ten years ago.

Back in 1999, I was going to be a millionaire.  It wasn't a total given.  I had to do a satisfactory job until I was fully vested but if I managed to pull that off, it was a done deal.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with all that wealth.  It didn't matter if I did anything at all with it.  The important thing is that I did some worthwhile with myself and had a million to prove it.  If someone dared tell me otherwise, all I had to do was affect my best withering sneer and say, "Fuck you, I'm rich."

Well, we all know how well that turned out for most of us.

The funny thing is despite the fact that the company did a nose dive along with every other dot com with a bong-hit business plan, I have very fond memories of that time.  What made them that way were my co-workers.

They were a good bunch to work with, smart, interesting, and very tolerant of my weirdness.  They also liked to drink.  A lot.  Those heady early days of long hours and rosy predictions, the CEO and one of the founders would take us all to some bar at the end of each, toss his credit card to the bartender, and let us have at it.  A lot of lasting friendships were formed during those times and despite the amount of liquor involved, there were no fistfights.

We got our product to market in record time and then without even stopping for a breath, rewrote it in another programming language.  We were ready to go public.  In the spring of 2000, we filed our S-1 with the SEC.  The IPO was just a few months away and after that, ka-ching!

And then the unthinkable happened.  No, not 9/11.  This was what we thought was unthinkable before the real unthinkable shit went down. The market started to tank.  That bubble that we hoped would stick around for a few more years was beginning to rupture.

We lowered our expectations and moved on, fixing bugs, adding features, and making the system run faster.  If we had some paying customers, it would have been perfect.

Company funds began to dwindle.  First came a small round of layoffs, then a big one, followed by round three that pretty much eliminated everybody.  In the months that followed, we'd meet up at our old watering holes to swap horror stories about our respective job searches and to reminisce about old times.

As time progressed, both the frequency of the reunions and number of attendees diminished as we settled into lives in a post dot-com reality.

Then came the announcement that there would be one last hurrah, a chance to catch up with old friends and colleagues who once shared a failed dream.  The turnout was impressive.

I wouldn't say that the years have been unkind to any of us but they have been truthful.  We were all to some extent victims of thickening middles, graying and/or thinning hair, and the relentless pull of gravity.  None of that mattered and we were there for more than simple nostalgia.  It was good to hear about people's new jobs, how their kids growing up, and all the things that reassured us that despite the disappointments, life did indeed go on. 

Sid Vicious died thirty years ago today.  I barely paid attention to news of his death because my appreciation for both punk rock and nihilistic stupidity was still in an embryonic state.  It wasn't until a couple of years later when I was in college that I started to idolize the sorry bastard.

Looking back, he was a pretty unworthy object of admiration.  Sid was and incoherent junkie who was musically talentless and had appalling taste in women.  Perhaps it was because he had brand-name appeal and I was too young and stupid to realize that a crucial element to rebellion is the ability to think for oneself.

What impressed me most was his level of self destruction.  Sid may not have been able to define the word "dissipation" but he lived the concept with every fiber of his being.  He managed to cross over to the great beyond before reaching his 22nd birthday and in the process of doing so, held the door open for Nancy Spungen and said, "After you."

I had heard or read the phrase "Sid died for your sins" somewhere and took it to heart, though not in the way I should have.  I took drugs.  I cut myself.  I bought a bass guitar that I never bothered to learn how to play.  I was missing the point entirely.

You don't become a Christian by hopping up on the cross yourself.  There's no need.  Someone already took one for the team.  In this sense, Sid was very much like Jesus.

I eventually got wise to this notion though more by default than anything else.  As a frat boy a San Diego State, heroin was not readily available.  Cocaine in lethal quantity was far beyond my budget.  Forced to get by on beer, pot, and low-grade speed, I had no exit strategy.

So unlike Sid Vicious, I have survived long enough to know better.  Drugs have lost their charm and I have finally figured out that even life seems unbearable, it will improve if you are willing to stick around for another day.

There is one thing I still have in common with Sid though.  I never did learn how to play that damn bass.

If you're acquainted with my ramblings on Facebook, you probably already know about "Shurder."  If not, I'll try to quickly bring you up to speed.

Facebook has this chain-letter type thing where you write a note with 25 things about yourself and tag 25 of your friends to do the same thing.  This process repeats itself until everybody has tagged everyone else and we're sick and tired of each other's self-absorbed drivel.

When my turn came along, I did what I usually do, candy coat my bloated ego with a layer of self-deprecation and dysfunction.  One item stood out, at least for me:

20. I have a recurring dream where I have done a terrible crime. I can't describe the nature of this offense because, though very real in the dream sense, it does not exist in the material realm. All I can say is that it combines the worst elements of murder and shitting one's pants. For lack of a better term, I'll call it "shurder." When I wake up from such a dream and return to reality, I get a huge feeling of relief. I may not be perfect but I am no shurderer.

In the interests of brevity, I had glossed over how horrifying this dream truly is.  Some of you might say, "Hey, I've crapped in my pants.  It's not a good experience but it's not the end of the world."  Others might (you never know) voice a similar sentiment about killing someone.

Ah, where to begin.

Let's start with the killing part.  I have never taken a human life and never want to.  If I ever did, I imagine it would go down something like this:

"Please don't shoot me.  I won't tell."

"You got that right, honey."

*BLAM*

And that would be that.  There wouldn't be any hard feelings, at least not on my end.  It would be an act of self defense, of the quality of life if not of life itself. 

Not so with shurder.  There is a hatred of my victim that encompasses every bit of ill will not only for that person but also for the rest of world and especially for myself.  The killing itself is not just to end a life but to introduce pain beyond belief, let the person hold out some hope for survival only to snatch it away with the final assault.  This scenario runs backward, forward sideways in every way possible and even ways that are not.

Next comes the shit.  I'm not talking about a healthy log of processed oat bran I marvel at in the toilet before flushing.  The shit of shurder is that almost rust colored third-world sewer al fresco plague sludge that is responsible for so much disease and misery. 

It comes from the asshole of both the victim and myself, as well as spontaneously appearing from its own elemental plane.  Fouling everything it touches and unable to be washed away, it becomes as much a part of the murder as any stab wound or blunt-force trauma.

And in my dream, I am the guilty one.  There is no forgiveness for a crime like this.  Nothing I have done nor will ever do can redeem me until I shake myself awake.

Fortunately, years can pass between having this dream again.  Maybe it'll go away forever someday.  Maybe it already has.  Then again, maybe it will come back, but this time I will never wake up.

The story isn't done.  Here, enjoy this instead.  It's far more awesome than anything I could do anyway.

I'm currently working on finishing a story that's chock full of wit and poignancy.  In the meantime, amuse yourself with a good book.  Perhaps this one:

People around these parts are pretty happy that Obama is now president.  I haven't seen folks this fired up since...well...since ever.  I wasn't born yet when Kennedy was inaugurated.  As for Bill Clinton in 1992, I think we all would have liked to feel wonderful about him, but there was something about the guy that made you want to take a shower after he shook your hand.

Believe it or not, I did not attend the festivities at in Argus.  Instead, I schlepped across the bay for my friend Kim's party in Oakland.

Overall, it was a fun evening.  Kim's friend's are intelligent people and nice folks overall.  There was plenty of food and drink and I managed to avoid making a complete ass of myself by staying away from hard liquor and sticking to beer.

My choice of beverage turned out to be a wise move indeed.  An ex-girlfriend in attendance made some comment about how I had passed out in the fetal position in the walkway of her house at a party some years ago.  That particular story always reminds me of why I think of myself as damaged and just not good enough for normal human interaction.

I'm not sure why this is.  I've done far worse.  Maybe her habit of bringing up that night lends my indiscretion importance it wouldn't ordinarily have. 

With just few beers in my system, I was content  to turn away from her and engage others in conversation topics with a heightened level of crassness.  This is known as the "nothing bothers me, I joke about fontanel fucking" defense and it has served me well over the years. 

If whiskey were introduced into the equation, it could have been much worse.  When I young, I might have engaged in some sort of alcoholic performance art like carving "Blow Me" into my forearm with a steak knife or dropping my pants and taking a shit in the kitchen sink to show how much better I am than everybody else.  As an older and somewhat wiser man, I would probably say some things I genuinely regretted.

Of course, not letting inconsequential stuff get to me at all would have been the wise move but I'll save that life lesson for another day.

 

There's really not much to tell but I thought I would chime in to assure you that Poison Spur will continue.  Expect updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

I will be discontinuing the pulp reviews for the foreseeable future.  I know some of you enjoyed those entries but my heart just isn't in it anymore.  I would rather create my own sleazy fiction than showcase decades-old contributions by others.

For aficionados of toilet humor, degrading sex, and senseless violence, fear not.  The Spur will move forward with your needs in mind.

I approached the new year with high hopes indeed.  I was already on the fast track to success with one of my self-improvement objectives, having smoked my last cigarette during the wee hours of December 20.

What remained on my resolution list was to write more, drink less, and lose enough weight so I don't reel in horror everytime I catch my reflection in a full-length mirror.  All of these seemed easily within reach with my victory over nicotine a near certainty.

There is just one little problem.  Quitting smoking takes a lot out of a person.  For the past three weeks, I've been irritable, scatterbrained, and unable to write for shit.  I'll get it sorted out eventually but through the month of January, I apologize in advance if my prose comes off as schizophrenic and retarded.

Thank you for your patience.

I spent the better part of the afternoon looking through my recent status reports, bugs in the ticket-tracking system, anything to prove that I was an employee worth keeping around.  There was no shortage of accomplishments but mostly trivial code fixes a trained monkey could do.  Those are the sort of tasks I usually get assigned.

I'm not a bad programmer.  It's just that in my current job, my colleagues are a lot better than I am.  I'm OK with this.  I manage to pull my own weight despite my comparative limitations and try not to think about how my neck will be the first on the block when the time comes for the axe to fall.

Shortly before lunch, I received an email from the VP of engineering scheduling a one-on-one meeting with me.  It was to take place in two day's time and no explanation was given.  I could only guess as to what it was about.

So fearing the worst, the rest of the day was devoted to putting together a case for my continued employment.  What I assembled would surely vindicate my performance and in a healthy economy my job would be secure.  However, these are troubled times.

After work, I went to the bar to talk to my friend Alex about what he thought might be going on.  Alex is a fairly high-ranking boss at another company and so I thought he might have some insight.

He shrugged.

"Who can say what they're thinking," he said.  "The important thing to remember is that no matter what happens, it's too late to do anything about it now so you're better off not worrying."

I've never excelled at not-worrying and Alex was mistaken in assuming there was nothing I could do.  I could get drunk.  I'm very good at that.

First came whiskey, then Jagermeister, then more whiskey.  After a while, my job worries didn't bother me, at least not for the moment.  All I wanted was to have a pleasant evening and engage in witty conversation.  I turned to a friend of mine who was eating her dinner at the bar.

"I see you're eating a pupusa," I said.  "A poo-poo-sa.  Have you ever heard of the website ratemypoo.com?  From the name alone, I don't think any explanation about what the site is about is necessary.  But let me elaborate.  Every kind of corn-studded, worm-ridden butt loaf you can imagine is put online for people to vote on.  How about that?"

"Would you mind changing the subject?" she asked.  "I'm trying to eat."

I took the hint and switched gears, launching into a detailed description of the painful bowel movement I experienced after eating conch fritters in Key West.

She then asked me if I wanted to get smacked.  An interesting proposal given my proclivities, but I decided to play it cool by giving her a Sarah Palin wink and saying that there were plenty of guys who pay top dollar for that sort of thing.

I put on my jacket, bid her goodnight, and left.  On the way home, one of my feet got in the way of the other and I fell flat on my face.  My knee hurt like hell from where it hit the pavement but I didn't care.  I was feeling jaunty.

When morning came, the worries I had drunk away returned along with a sore knee and a formidable hangover.  I got up, showered, and went to work.  On the way to my desk, I said hello to my boss and a coworker who had been out yesterday at a conference in Santa Cruz.

"Hey, do you know anything about this one-on-one meeting?" my coworker asked.

"Yeah," my boss said.  "He wants to get a feel of how the tech team is doing.  He's scheduling them with everybody."