I want to be like Evan Weiss’ 52 song album and write a new story every week and only be able to start it and work on it that week for a whole year.  God that would be so cool.  

The summer Hank turned eleven the Devil came for his soul.  Some fifteen years prior his dad’s brother, Uncle Jake, entered into a proposition with said Devil, promising the soul of his first born child in exchange for a few gambling wins.  But Jake was already a widower at that point, and never really intended to procreate again.  He was destined to wander the earth alone, so when the opportunity presented itself he smugly thought he’d at least always be able to say he got one over on the Devil. 

Unfortunately a cornerstone of his plan was that ol’ Lucifer could never move in to repossess on that loan so long as he was still alive to potentially reproduce.  But it turns out the Devil lacks as long-term patience on his investments as anticipated, and indeed exercised a small unassuming clause to the deal.  Pretty much a default protection clause, and at age eleven that collateral asset matured as it were. 

Hank was at school, just like your average day, playing pirate-themed nonsense on those weird geodesic domes they have on playgrounds, and the Long Arm of Hell came and snatched him away.  The Long Arm of Hell was a cheaply suited accountant from Fresno, as it happened, but it turns out moonlighting as a reaper attracts a pretty jaded and bored crowd.  Kind of like process servers.  So when the Accountant sucked up Hank’s soul, rolled it up in his briefcase, and delivered it to an underworld branch office in Clovis, he got a little closer to chipping away at the second mortgage and last month’s alimony check. 

So it was a pretty sad affair for Hank’s parents and his friends on the playground alike, but no one knew the reason behind it.  No one except Uncle Jake, who received a one line memo via fax (no cover letter) and the kids on the playground.  They were there when the papers were served.  Unfortunately none of them really cared.  Hank was kind of a bad friend, so they figured he was being taken off to train to become a Prince of Darkness or something and moved on.  Bruce was like the only one who cared.  They had been best friends as long as either could remember, but mostly out of convenience.  Bruce secretly dreaded most of his interactions with Hank for fear of being made the shrinking violet, steamrolled by petty, bossy demands because, well quite frankly, as previously stated, Hank was a bad friend. 

“But he didn’t deserve to go all the way to H-E-double hockey sticks like that,” Bruce would argue with all the other kids, “I mean, he’s just like use.”  And on a good day he could get them to agree because even under the jungle rule of the playground everyone could agree; the way he went down, it was pretty messed up.  But that’s as far as it ever got, thoughts of justice or vengeance succumbing ultimately to apathy and the draw of foursquare. 

So Bruce was at the end of his rope the month after that when he visited the Black District downtown.  “Are you sure about this, lad?” the Shadow Man asked, “Anyone under 18’s liable to see some things he’ll regret down there.  Things that warp one and such.” 

“Is this about the fee, mister, because I told you it’s all the money I had in my piggy bank,” Bruce asked, earnestly in disbelief because he was aware the amount could scarcely buy a fistful of candy bars. 

“No, no, a child’s hopes and dreams are all the payment I need.”  The Shadow Man reached into his many pockets and produced a small parcel.  “Are you clear on the procedure?” he hissed. 

“Well, yes, I know that you told me not to take notes on what the procedure was.” 

“I prefer my clientele don’t come to rely on written instructions, as they won’t do you any good once it begins, other than having already hindered your memory of them.  As such I was hoping that and everything else would be well-understood today so that our business may actually proceed…” 

“No, I have it all down, I swear.  Can’t take anything with you, I memorized all the maps you gave me, the files, the way to get out…” 

“Fine, fine, it’s no skin off my sunken, serpentine nose if you do not take my services with matching professionalism.” 

“Actually…” Bruce frowned, “that is something I haven’t been clear on.  I mean, I know what has to happen for me to get there, but once it’s over, how do I know I’m going to go to… that place?  How do I know you won’t just pocket my hopes and dreams and walk away.” 

“This is a word-of-mouth business model, lad,” said the Shadow Man, “You don’t last long in such a competitive, niche industry unless you provide solid results.  You found out about me somehow, a referral or something, am I right?” 

“No, not really.” 

“Oh, well still.  If I flubbed some guy’s job and sent him to the wrong place and he got out again, you’d have heard about it, I assure you.” 

“If you say so… But still, like, do you think that’s where I’ll end up?  I mean, I’m not like a saint or anything, I don’t pray a lot—“ 

“Laddy, you really didn’t ask around,” he unwrapped the bundled parcel and brandished a shiny revolver from within, “It’s kind of a big rule.  Just to be safe, anyone who kills themselves, no matter the circumstances, doesn’t get kicked anywhere at first.  Bureaucracy will sit on you for a few days before any sort of judgment can be made as to where you’re to end up.” 

“It takes that long?” 

“Well usually it would take like an afternoon, but that’s why we’re meeting today.  It’s Friday, and after five they just put you in holding until Monday.  But if you haven’t gotten on the move by the time they’re measuring your heart against a feather it’s too late, they’ll already have you processed and in the system and you’ll never get out.” 

“Okay.” 

“Okay, so if we’re all good we should just go ahead.  I have to oversee a sexual humiliation at city hall and I have to pick up my son from soccer practice before then.”

“Okay, so… So wait.  It has to be me, I mean, I have to be the one who pulls the trigger?” 

“Well, yes, that is generally what it means to take one’s own life.  Unless you have a lake and a cannonball we can tie around your leg, man when I lived in Salt Lake that was all we ever did.” 

“Well I just, I mean isn’t it pretty much the same thing since I’m hiring you to do it?  I mean, that’s like I’m paying you to take my life.” 

The Shadow Man sighed.  “Yeah, you’re not exactly wrong, lad, but it’s just such a gray area already, and in my experience it doesn’t help to muddy the waters any.  I mean, what are you, like seven?” 

“No—“

“It just doesn’t look right kid, I’m liable to end up fingered for buying your life, you might get cut loose, mostly to save face, it’s just no good.” 

Bruce frowned, but reached out his little hands and grasped the gun.  The Shadow Man kept it in his hand to keep it steady, but Bruce had his finger against the trigger.  He put the barrel to his forehead and pushed the little bit of metal all the way back.  Cut to gray. 

I saw the greatest minds of my generation lost to originality

The beatniks saw the world of my grandfather and gave them a way out from themselves

It was sinister

Beat poets taught Hippies taught Punk Rock taught Grunge, but Grunge raised white suburban kids spittin shit like dey rollin in Compton when they’re hobknobbing on culs-de-sac between dad’s tee times

So even Jay-Z’s problems just become 

99 BITCHES

Everyone’s a Kerouac without going on the road.  

I musta graduated with two dozen Ginsbergs to hear them tell it

My roommate’s been Hunter S. since day one

He smokes I guess

But the madness, the loathing, the talent, the homosexual tendencies, the lying awake at night waiting for death or sleep 

It’s not like I’m their supervisors, but if this was a performance evaluation I’d circle those columns Room for Improvement

I am not Keroauac.  I am not Thompson.  

Ain’t nobody Ginsberg, let him rest.  

I am manic-depressive journalism teacher lunches under a filthy tree August 13th 2010 Old Lady Henchmaw nights on a mattress waiting for the Inland Empire to swallow me

I am the poet of my generation

Fuck me if I don’t believe it

It’s not mine to give away.  

I can’t stop myself from making every line of dialogue a really good lyric from a pop-punk song.  

Also I can’t stop myself from writing dialogue while I should be doing this book review.  

“Of course.” (Edgar)

“What?” (Roger)

“It makes perfect sense.” 

“What?” 

“They’re going to build a school.” 

“A school?  Where?” 

“A state school” 

“State school.  Like a College?” 

“Yeah, right here in Las Colinas.” 

“Seriously?  I mean, like, here?” 

“Yeah, man, think about it: half the town is unemployed labor.  Cheap land, cheap materials, cheap construction.  They could throw up a campus practically overnight, I mean, like, five years, but still.” 

“Yeah, and who’re they gonna get to go to it?” 

“That’s the thing of it, seems so unlikely, right?  You’d never expect them to be planning a new college in the middle of nowhere, but think about it: Where do all the kids you know who’re graduated going?  Hippies go west to Santa Cruz to become marine biologists-”

“Hippies who can’t get into Santa Cruz go north to Chico to become weed botanists-”

“And the rest sit tight and commute to the nearest JC and show up at homecoming games for the next thirty years.” 

“Or until they’re old enough to go into the Air Force…”

“…And then go to homecoming games for thirty years.”

“Yeah, so-”

“Yeah, so what does that tell us?  It tells us that like long-stretch prison inmates and snakes raised in captivity, Colinas kids can’t be released into the wild because they can’t cope with the real world.” 

“Alright, institutionalization, a little bit depressing, but why build a college for us?”

“Because, man,” Edgar pulled out a massive, 70s-era state parks map, “our school; two-hundred kids a year, all getting the end-of-the-night-at-the-bar treatment.  You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.  Two-hundred kids who need to find a new home and looking for one as similar to this place as possible.  But, but,” he traced a bit of chalk in a wide, sweeping circle covering a third of the state with Santa Brigida as its epicenter, “surrounded on all sides by tiny little towns, cow-towns and bedroom communities full of latch-key kids just like us whose parents commute to cities with actual colleges.  Kids who haven’t been on a million field trips to colleges around the state since elementary school.  Kids who need a place to go to school but don’t need to run halfway across the world,” he rubbed his hand about the map, rubbing the chalk into a faint solid circle, “that’s easily a hundred thousand students looking for a brighter future.  Enough prospective freshmen to clog the coffers with tuition and board checks.” 

“UC Santa Brigida?” 

“Foothills.  Motherfuckin’ CSU Foothills.” 

…

The sun was half-set, and the ‘one foot out the door’ mentality showed in the quality of his light hitting the living room wall in stripes through the blinds.  Donna stared at each stripe in between nervous glances at each of her parents before her, heads bowed, across from each other on different sofas, bookending the coffee table.  It felt like they had already been down a long time, but the stripes had crept up the wall and faded away before her father’s lips stopped moving silently and his head leveled toward her. 

“Donna.” 

“Yes.” 

“Do you know what your mother and I were just doing?” he asked with an air of impatience as he lit a match. 

“Praying.” 

“Yes, praying for you,” he flourished his hand away from the candle wick as he said it, nearly extinguishing the flame to gesture directly to her.  He went back to lighting the candle, “I thought maybe you’d forgotten what it looked like, the way you’ve been forgetting everything else we taught you.” 

“I’m sorry?” 

“We know you went to that party, Donna, whether you thought you could outsmart us or we wouldn’t find out, we did anyway, so you best start explaining yourself.” 

Donna looked him in the eyes, her expression one of nothing more than contemplation, blank over a machine of whirling cogs.  “Well… yes.  I did go to a party.” 

“Okay, and you thought your parents would be too stupid to find out.  Is that it?” 

“I wasn’t trying to hide it from you.  I didn’t know you’d care.” 

“Oh, I’m sure.  I’m sure your hoity-toity townie friends didn’t tell you, ‘come along, Donna, we’ve got a realer smasher going on tonight, we’re going to drink and carry on and curse and spit and piss on everything this town was built on, and you can come too if you just convince those apes what raised you you’re just fixin’ to study the night!’”  His screed built exponentially from a ramble to a frothing crescendo and died down again.  “That’s right, Donna, we know you drank the other night, right under our noses, not mindin’ us for the whole town to see.  How your mother and I can ever show our faces again at church on Sundy’s I have no idea.  By the grace of God, I suppose.” 

“Wait,” Donna broke in, “I didn’t lie to y’all to drink, and I didn’t drink to mind ya, neither.  I’m 21, I haven’t done anything illegal, so if anyone at church has anything to say about it you can tell ‘em it was the same as you or any of them having a beer like I know they will when they get home-“

“Same as any o’ us?  Child, you think you’re the same as me, the company you’ve decided to keep and the way you’ve started to conduct yourself; unwomanly, carrying on all night, with men.  Like a whore.” 

“What!”

“You’ve forgotten yourself, young lady!  I knew it the minute you applied to that school I’d lost you.  Lost you to the city slickers who get sent off to our town cuz they don’t know how to mind their parents neither!”  He threw up his hands at this, pivoting away to face the wall.  For the first time, Donna’s mother took the opportunity to chime in. 

“Donna, sweetheart, we miss you so much.  You’re here in your room every night, but you haven’t been the same ever since you started in over at that place.  We love you, Donna, and we want the power of God’s love to shine on you just like ours does.  Your father and I, when we ask you this, it’s not that…”  The succinct ending Donna’s mother was hoping for didn’t seem to be presenting itself.  

“Wait, what is it you’re asking me?”

“Ah, shit, askin’ nothin’!” her father interjected, “Donna, we’re telling you.  If you don’t leave that school and come back to going back to services every Sunday and take that job back you had over the summer working desks and telephone over at the factory you’re not welcome to stay in this house anymore.” 

Donna came as close to standing up as one can while remaining in her seat.  “WHAT?” 

Her mother stood and stepped to her side.  “Sweeheart, please.  What we’re asking, it’s not to punish you.  It’s for you and your sisters we’ve done everything we’ve ever done, made so many sacrifices.  We’ll always be there for you, we just need to be able to help you, and we do, we really do need you to come home, sweetheart, come home and stay home with us to help you.  Please, darling, please; won’t you come back and live the good, humble Christian life you were born to, here with your family?” 

Donna’s eyes watered and her brows drew back against her eyes like stage curtains.  She dropped her eyeline down to her sensible shoes against the coral carpet. 

“Hell no.”  

Eve wasn’t wrong.  The basement echoed with the muffled frivolities of the floor above, but its own inhabitants supplied only the tamest of merry din.  The staircase spat them out at the back corner of yet another cheap couch scooted inconveniently to the edge of the one psychedelic rug to dampen the totality of the concrete floor.  The couch faced a washer-dryer set serving, in effect, as another sofa and, in the corner across from both was wedged the makeshift wet bar, constructed of folding particle board tables kitty-cornered against washbasins of ice and a moving dolly-mounted keg, and apparently tended by Indiana’s best Randy Mantooth impersonator.

“Keg?” Donna offered. 

“Yeah, uh, I suppose,” Eve nodded, “That was the plan.” 

They eased across the cramped floorplan to the boozing station.  The options seemed limited to a bucket of cold beer cans and the contents of the keg, and Donna wondered what could possibly be so complicated about the whole affair that would require someone to man it all night until she knelt to reach into the wash basin. 

“Whoa there, missy,” Randy Mantooth held up his hands haltingly, “I’m afraid the PBR’s only for gentlemen this particular evening on accounta it’s ladies night here tonight, and ladies get to drink from the keg for free.  A pull top’ll cost ya a buck’n a quarter, so we lowly dogs of men are taking that bullet for y’all tonight.” 

Donna clammed at this warrant for a response.  A keg could have anything in it.  Communal drinking is how you end up in the backseat of a boy’s car forgetting how to use the words God gave you a mouth for, mother’d always said, or at the bottom of an opium den like Cousin Pete ‘cause you got too hyped up on Panama Red that one night someone asked you to try it-

“They just do that to make it easier for girls to lose track of how much they’ve had already.”  Eve was at Donna’s side, light in her ear.  “And to get girls to actually show up.  Don’t worry, a first timer like you won’t be binging under my watch.” 

“First timer?” Randy Mantooth’s eyebrows shot as high as the kid who took their coats.  “Aw hell, forget what I said.  I can’t have your first time be drinking that rot gut they put in the keg, you’re liable to never drink again and tell your grandchildren ‘bout the time that evil man made you drink that bitter gasoline water.  And I wouldn’t blame you, either, no; you’d best just grab yourself a Blue Ribbon outta the tub.” 

Donna’s silence remained long-running. 

“Thanks, it’ll help,” Eve intervened on her behalf as she leaned around to the wash basin and placed a cold aluminum can in Donna’s hand. 

Donna pulled the metal ring, heard the quick pop, smelled the fizz, stared at the kidney-shaped opening. 

“Really now, Donna, if this is going to be some big ordeal that you’re worried you’re going to regret after tonight,” Eve fretted, “I don’t want you to feel like you don’t have the opportunity to say no.” 

Donna raised the can to her eye level at arm’s length, a near-toast.  “It’s okay, shepherd.”  The aluminum went to her lips.  The bottom hinged up slightly and briefly.  Donna swallowed.  The can came down to default position.  Eve’s voice broke an equally slight and brief silence. 

“So, whaddaya think, slick?” 

Donna’s face grimaced.  “I didn’t even taste anything.  It just feels like someone painted my throat with liquid bread.” 

Eve smiled, “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t worry too much about that.  Everything’s going to get better from there.” 

… 

As they entered the house, Donna’s nose cringed with the light but omnipresent septic smell of alcohol.  She didn’t get the three steps in to reach Eve’s side before the first red Solo cup jockey elbowed past here obliviously. 

“Thanks, shepherd Evey.  Did all those almost-anthropology-major classes tell you predators only congregate at drinking holes too?” 

“These are dumbasses, Donna,” (Donna cringed), “not hoodlums.  They might stampede you like wildebeests if you spook ‘em,” Eve made a dramatic roaring bear stance, “but they’re not cheetahs or lions or that junk.” 

“Since when does anthropology have so many animals in it?” 

“Well, I’m a little bit zoology major too-”

A scrawny kid in a pinstripe button up injected himself in their two-woman circle of conversation.  “Hey, how you girls doing tonight?” He spoke with the rapid cadence of the recently and thankfully drinking but not yet intoxicated.  “You look lovely, both of you.  Two of God’s most divine, gracious creatures, I’m so glad you could make it out tonight.”  His volume, however, was wholly that of the completely intoxicated.  “I really am, I’m just so glad you could come-” 

Eve’s brow was furrowed, “Wait, is this your house?” 

“Me?  Oh, no, no.  Lord no.  But I know where they’re keeping the coats, would you ladies like me to take yours?” 

Eve whipped hers off and hastened Donna to do the same. 

“Groovy.  Really though, you both enjoy yourselves, okay?  Make yourselves at home.”  He scampered off mid-repetitive thought. 

“Well,” Eve cleared her throat, scanning the room, “he was friendly.” 

“Should we have given him our coats?” 

“Don’t worry, lamb, in half an hour when you tell me you need to leave I’ll be the one who asks the big scary happy kid to get them back out for us.” 

Donna didn’t respond. 

“Alright, well,” Eve pointed to an ajar door half-obscured by the lime green Victorian wallpaper corner leading to the hallway, “the scenery might be a little too not-your-speed up her, why don’t we go to the basement.  It should be a little mellower there.”  …

“Lighten up, it’s a party not a funeral,” Eve giggled as Donna followed her from the campus to the vacant lot across the street. 

“I wouldn’t wear anything with flowers on it to a funeral,” Donna retorted.   

They trod the knee-high April grass to the streetlamp that held the lot back from spilling on forever over Main Street.  They took a right past a hunting shop and a liquor store.  Donna considered Eve’s intentions.  They’d known each other for the better part of a year now and Eve was the closest friend she’d made at the college.  But Eve was a transplant, and for as much as that made her a more palatable friend, there were some things about Hoosier Life you could never explain to a transplant.  Not that Illinois didn’t have its share of Hoosiers-at-heart; people in one-horse towns like Danville or Greencastle who spent weekdays working with the hands and Sundays with them clapped together, head down, on their knees; but Eve’s dad worked in Chicago and she spent her pubescent years in one of the nameless suburbs that sit outside the city and long for its rhythm and libertinism.  Donna wondered if Eve could even imagine the repressed night of Brady Bunch reruns undoubtedly going on in her own parents’ home no more than five blocks in the other direction.  Eve had been to parties, perhaps even been one of the ‘party girls’ her parents warned her and her sisters about throughout high school, and someone who sought that kind of atmosphere to ‘let loose’ in made Donna question how far they’d be willing to let loose. 

“You’ve been to this house before?” Donna asked. 

“Yeah, once, but I know the guys who’re putting on,” Eve glanced over, “I mean, I’ve been to a few parties with them if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

“No, I’m not worried.  I just thought I’d ask, I mean…” Donna mustered herself to a voice of slight self-assurance, “I assume there is going to be alcohol there.” 

“See, sounds to me exactly like you are worried.  Donna, the only reason these kids can get enough kids together on a given Friday night to have what anyone could call a ‘party’ is alcohol.  If you were an anthropology major you’d know: animals only congregate around a watering hole.” 

“You’re not an anthropology major.”

Eve smirked, “I’m undeclared; I’m a little bit of every major.” 

“Well, all the same, I’m not worried.  Not about drinking, anyway.  I’ve been around people who drink before.  It’s just… I’ve been around the kids who go to DePauw too.  Sober.  And I know how stupid they act.  I’m just a little concerned about how the sort of people who go to these things will act when they’re desperate to, you know… blow off steam.”  Donna shrugged. 

Eve shrugged back.  “I think I understand.  People lose their ‘aw shucks’ expression and their better manners when they’re more than a few in, but don’t worry.  I wouldn’t have forced you to come tonight if it was like a lions’ den in there, I just think you might enjoy yourself.  And it’s not like I’m going to force bourbon down your throat or anything, if you don’t want to drink you won’t drink tonight.  I’m on your side, little lamb, just think of ol’ Evey as your shepherd.”  …

I wonder if when I’m finally an independently wealthy writer with a cute wife and three kids (living the dream) I’ll still rise at midnight to shower and shave, if I’ll still think clearer at 2 o’clock in the morning than 2 in the afternoon, if I’ll finally sleep all day like I want to now.  Or is this really just an affectation, an immature reaction to the realities of daylight like my dad seems to think?  If it is, I wouldn’t be surprised.  I just don’t want the rest of me to go down the drain when that stopper gets pulled.  

The weekends always wreck me

But my weekdays are spent clinging to them 

Like a waterlogged rat to the rocks that sunk its ship

And I don’t even know what land is in that metaphor, but I know I need to find it.

I think I hate Jacob Williams because I’m subconsciously aware of how similar we both are.  And our similarities don’t tend to be the parts of myself I’m proud of.  And it frightens me.  

Last night I went to Santa Cruz with my dad, and it was foggier than I’d ever pictured it but I thought it was beautiful.  I’ve been thinking about it all day.  

Donna took a step forward to the edge of the wash basin.  “Whoa there, missy.”

One guy hanging out in the corner behind the alcohol station apparently fancied himself the attendant.  “I’m afraid the Blue Ribbon’s only for gentlemen this particular evening.  It’s ladies’ night, don’t you know.  But don’t worry, that’s just because the Blue Ribbon’s cost ya a buck, but the keg’s on reserve for ladies like you…” he paused as his face oscillated between sly smiles and the wandering eyes of disinterest, “…to drink for free.”  His arm extended a waiting empty plastic cup. 

Donna took it and stared down to its ridged bottom until Laura came up behind her shoulder and said lightly, “They just do that to make it easier for girls to lose track of how much they’ve had.  Don’t worry, you’ll only have one.  No one’s leaving here with you tonight but me.”  Laura winked but Donna couldn’t see it.  When an approving nod finally came, Laura took the cup from her hand and expertly filled it from the keg’s tap, anticipating any number of rookie mistakes, and returned it to Donna’s grasp. 

“Okay,” Donna said at the frothy liquid, “You want to do this.”  She tilted her head back and felt a wall of thick foam coat the back of her throat.  The taste, like a watery cream made from distilled bread, went southbound to her stomach like any other food, but its abrasive sensation took a hard northturn to her forehead.  “Ew.” 

“Yeah, well, I didn’t think you’d want to marry it right off, but…” 

Donna took another swig. 

“…But you’ll get your drinking feet same as any other red-blooded child of the Midwest.” 

Donna stopped drinking, but her stare became suddenly distant beneath her slightly furrowed brow. 

“My nose is warm.” 

Laura wasn’t wrong.  No one was being hoisted off the concrete floor and dangled over a jock’s head with her ass being spanked like a bongo drum in the basement, but the people and the scenery were pretty much the same.  Tamer energy, but still dripping with the potential.  Donna and Laura filed past yet another cheap couch to where the keg stood beside a wash basin full of ice and Pabst Blue Ribbon. 

“Whaddya say, Donna?  It’s kind of why we came here.” 

“Oh… I don’t know, I said I’m not really a drinking girl and I wasn’t trying to make fun when I said that-”

“Have you ever had a drink before, Donna?” 

“No-”

“Donna, trust me.  You’re imagining this as whiskey or white lightning or something.  These are just beers, they won’t knock you on your fanny, they’ll just sort of ease up to you,” Laura leaned in at Donna’s side and whispered near her ear, “and say ‘Hey, Donna, welcome to drinking.  This is what it’s like to have a moment in life where you’re not worrying.’” 

“Okay, I mean… Okay, but just enough to, to feel it.”  Donna frowned.  “Just, not too much, you know?” 

“Of course not, darling.  I’m not here to force anything down your throat.”