Lust Demented

{VII}

IT WAS AN ILLUSION THAT I was drinking anything more than air. I watched the drops build at the bottom of the empty cup, but didn’t have the patience to allow them to grow into something substantial. Crushing the cup, I placed it in the gutter, and booted it into the middle of the street. A few cars ran it over. I waited for the avenue to open up, making a point to step on the dirty flat cardboard before slipping through the doors of the poetry club.

Some people are ghosts… able to float aimlessly without ever truly compromising their ideals to the world of flesh. It was no secret that Monika Gloom chose a spectral image to boost her circulation. Nonetheless, her fans were the authentic living dead, feasting on one of their own. I scanned the room for Detective Anderson and found him talking up a thin woman with huge glasses that made her look like the human fly. There was a buzz in the room and the conversations seemed to blend together into some foul concoction of spirit.

“….who could’ve done this?… it doesn’t make sense… writers feign suicide … musicians get drained by love…. painters turn into vegetables…” The auditory select herd had some interesting philosophies on the final days of an artist. A hovering impatience called for an orator to stand above us and make sense of it all.

“What a bore.” Distinguished and distant, Lars Wildman gave off an air of self-destructive royalty. I should have smelled him coming.

“What’s a bore Lars?”

“This fucking senselessness. The easy ending is death. For once I want to see a story that ends with life.” Lars seemed heavily medicated as always.

“I’m sorry about your father.” I could already picture Percy’s body in the ground, maggots eating his skin.

“You hated his guts like everyone else. It was just a matter of time that somebody dealt with him the way he dealt with others.” Lars was Percy’s son. His real name was Clayton Featherton. He probably picked his last name so the day somebody decided to shade in his past with typeset font and pleasant exaggerations there was no chance the title would get fucked up.

“Now Gloom’s gone too.”

“Last time I saw the dark sorceress she attacked me with a steak knife at Peter Lugers. I splashed her eyes with gravy, but she managed to take a piece off the corner of my ear.” Recounting the story, Lars pulled back his hair so I could see the slight deformity the slain scribe marked him with. A questionable tale to say the least. Waiting for my reaction, his eyes became orbs that turned the world into a giant shadow that only he could navigate aimlessly. It was at that moment that Hawaii appeared wearing tiny pink shorts. I hadn’t seen her in some time. She looked pretty much the same as the last time we bumped into each other, except she was wearing shorter shorts. Every time we crossed paths I noticed that her shorts would get shorter. Shorter every time. Hawaii was the bridge between Lars and Gloom. A couple years ago, she dated them both simultaneously and the discovery blossomed into the scuffle over red meat that Lars had just finished lamenting. It made the papers and I remembered lining my kitchen cabinets with the newsprint.

“Farrow the transient outcast and Lars my bitter love.” Hawaii put her arms around both Lars and I. Hawaii had the habit of laughing after everything she said. It might have come off as an obnoxious or an ignorantly stoned gesture if it came from somebody else, but something about her ways was subliminally seductive. It was a gentle orgasmic giggle that forced you to picture her in scenarios reserved only for her.

“How are the girls?” For some reason it made me relax to see Lars cringe. Despite his open-minded demeanor, he struggled with the fact that Hawaii’s main duty outside of spoken word throwdowns was to help chicks rid themselves of unwanted pregnancies.

“They’re fine Farrow. Thanks for asking.” Hawaii smiled, affectionately massaging both of our shoulders. “Truth is I’ve shifted roles at the hospital. I got a transfer to the neonatal intensive care unit about a year or so ago.”

“That’s nice.” Lars stayed suspicious as Monika Gloom’s latest pet got up on the stage.

Kiko seemed to hover above us all, forcing the entire crowd to start at the pointy toes of her stilted blue leather boots and follow floral black lace leggings to her lunar skin mid-thigh, tangling our minds deep in a short black and white anime maid’s dress, slices of fabric missing which allowed her tattoos to burst through bleeding color. Her hair dyed deep blue where it was not jet black, short where it was not spiked up in a fuck the world typhonic wave.

“Why don’t you all shut up?” The room filled into an immediate hush as Kiko snarled, whipping her neck around jaw first.

“You… you just stand there waiting to hear me read the same words that you read to yourself. The same words that you make mean whatever you want them to mean. You think they’re written for you, but these are my words. Monika used to say… Kiko you’re my porcelain muse, stay near me so I can write. Never shatter.” Kiko licked her lips, fighting the endless desert in her mouth.

“I can’t do this.” Choking up with two fingers inserted past the knuckle, Kiko shook Gloom’s latest novel like it was an extension of her fist.

“Pale skin and pale words.” Lars rolled his eyes, twitching on account of the unwanted attention. The gawkers that weren’t wrapped up in Kiko’s trance were staring down Lars from all corners of the room.

“What do we do now?” I was getting restless, short-attention span and all.

“Listen.” Hawaii used a roguish whisper to undress Kiko on stage.

The crowd cynically dished out unintelligible jeers intended as support. Kiko inhaled deeply, opening the hardcover as she exhaled into the microphone, “This is an excerpt from Viscous by Monika Gloom…” Everyone started clapping like their favorite band finally sobered up enough to take stage. Kiko dramatically stared at a sky blocked by a black ceiling. When she was finally ready her eyes fell back on the page. “The uncivilized fathers of New Amsterdam cannot comprehend the biological clock of the immortal undead. I have seen more sunrises than the city’s bridges have been masturbated by river waves. I have tasted more necks than the soil has swallowed plague ridden bones… that’s it… she’s dead… I’m sorry…” Kiko and most of the Gloom groupies in the room seemed to have the passage memorized. Stomachs grumbled to be fed their idol. Heartbroken fans stormed the stage, prying the book from Kiko’s hands. Ripped pages filled the room, twisting and twirling through the air, landing on candles with poofs of smoke.

I noticed Lars shaking his head and found myself shaking mine in agreement. Whatever happened tonight was over and done with. Hawaii gazed in wonder at the strange man making his way across the room. Detective Anderson motioned to me and it seemed like a good time to get some fresh air.

“It was nice seeing you guys. Give Detective Anderson my regards.”

“Who?” Hawaii and Lars exchanged suspicious glances.