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Giverny, France

My best friend and I. Ages ago, up to nothing "good". I remember tulips the size of my head and Japanese folk art, gin in teacups and sex on parade. Oh, how I miss the days. How low tide is the only way to get to the Mona Lisa and the smiles follow the rainy cobblestone crevices, chiseled by twelve inch switchblades, up to the Montmartre. Lights, oh lights, please don't burn out, bleed your auburn aura out overseas and transfuse into my open arteries, lonesome and diced clean, just to let you in. Hassassins.

Come. June 7.

Reunion show at cuddlehaus

Admiration

Quickie, clean.

Leta :)

DIY dreamgirl

The Prodigal Son Brings Death by Easton Steele Snow

The Prodigal Son Brings Death

            My slender artisan fingers slicken with a seeping plash in their taut clutching of the tools at hand. The recurring nightmare of weeks without rest, toying night long with the fastenings, micro-engineered mechanics—bent wire woven beds catching my blurring eyes in their supportive sleep suggestions. If only the lenses of my magnifying spectacles weren’t holding back swells of insanity, the blue deluge whirlpools encircling the black centers of my ocular existence, then I might pour out of these holes and into my work. Woe to the fractured being, I cannot will myself to bring into existence that which would only reflect the impurities of its creator, what then would the children think when their patron parents toss their newest toy whose screws seem too loose? Critics to my masterpiece of sorts, parts pressing their respective joints in place only to reaffirm the smallness of my operation.

            To birth. A plaything to render leisure time as more than a passing happenstance, to intertwine the joy of a youth with the ontic reverberations of life within an amassing of captured clicks and whirrs. For now, this effigy, this projected reverie of tiny angles and formed felt, seems akin to the magicks of voodoo, for every press and pinch is internalized, every heated touch is fire, and every dot of mercury is funneled inward—maddening the poof-cloud of sensibility swirling around the candle lit séance that is my operation table—whose spirit-voiced cackling echoes between my ears through the vibrations of my tiny tuning apparatuses.

            The porous terrain of bench that shone before me was seemingly whispered over with translucent dune depth accents of light-bar wavering by way of lamplight—a craggy landscape tinged by the dry death of desert’s breath. All was draught ridden, devoid of Thales’ necessity, the life force and lubricant of time’s linear progression, save for the vial of mercury, fogged over by my own humid exhaling, whose quicksilver body slithered about—a pariah prostrate to my lunacy—my plunging tools dipping deep from the venom just moments prior to my somnambulist siesta. I the alchemist, practitioner of secret deeds, filling all things with gods. I felt my lucid mind slipping away from the task at hand.

            “If only I had more time!” my fist pounds the table in decry. I wandered my sleep-salted eyes over to the long-wicked glass lantern that sat beaming at the bench’s edge, teetering from my searing stress bravado. My consciousness lapsed into a state of wonder, attempting to grasp the light beams of adept temporality seething from the imprinted red glass chasm that housed the combustible liquid whose vapid fumes are torn molecularly into heat and lumination. The trickery of the bending particles through their stamped glass refractors gifted dance to the post-Promethean landscape of tiger-striped orange wood whose new façade was one caught captive by the undermining depth force finger tendrils of the creeping underside sea-beast that is darkness.

            I found myself, once again, in the vast sky-bending realm of Wonder Valley, the high desert whose torrid skin sucked in each plighted rain sprinkle without a spot or splash. The smell of desert rain disguised the lifelessness of the air, fuming out, instead, the brilliance of succulent innards whose savory recesses are guarded by tough skin and an army of prickles. This uncharted pith was a holy land of reckoning, inhabited by warring native tribes, a frontier plotted along trade routes from the coast to the range of snowcaps peeking just over the brim of the horizon.

            Upon entry I found the object of my desire hung high over the mirrored case of the jeweler’s workshop. The low chandelier teetered back and forth on its creaking hinge, seeming to give a shrill whine to the wind that accompanied the flickering candelabra light in a ghastly astral protuberance. The metalworkings that lay cold, for once, against the sanded wood floor were all but creeping angular accents to the boar head that pendanted its glorious face in the wall’s center. I gestured to the beast, whose every extinct cell was inlayed—it’s eyes sparkled yellow amethyst blinks into mine over its glamorously chain rounded snout, ears and mane lay mosaicked with shaped stones and glass, bespeckled in spaces with the glinting hues of diamond and ruby, all broad skin adorned with pleated silver and gold.

            The leathery and decrepit jeweler, whose inwardly curving hands reminisced of many a year strained in the clutching of tools, pointed a twisted finger up at the            beast speaking,

            “I have tried my life through to create a masterpiece of sorts.”      

Myself taken aback by the portentous depth and air of defeatism in his voice responded with,

            “But see it yourself, this is a masterpiece—you are the master.

            “My young visitor you must understand, this boar is my son, my blood, my toil, it has taken that which was given to this son of Adam and become its own beacon of    sin and vanity.”

            “I see not a beacon, but instead the high art of a pedagogue.”

            He psalmed, “Someday—in time—you will know.”

            A flash of lightning lit the workshop and with a sharp tilt of the neck, the nodding mind against all testament of my own will, jolted me back to reality. Duty. The doll lay abject to my figure, its chalk white skin cried out with the wanting of work. Its lensed eyes stared back with my own reflection, I peered deep through the soul of the being, past all the clicking and whirring gears and cogs, past all imbued and embedded lodestones, through the black vortex of magnetism and magic that lay in the center of my musical masterpiece who speaks to me in runic tones that ne’er blessed a more welcoming ear. Give me life father.

            The thunder of the electrical storm rolls incessantly, the oceanic waves of sound ring the air like a tuning fork, exciting the fall-leaved loam of the land into uproars. I feel the chill of the wind through my loosely paned windows and toss another scrap of wood into the cast-iron stove that sits in the corner of the room. Every movement calculated, a formulation of necessity to conserve the calories of heat expensed by the whittling muscles of my aching body. Feed the fire. I bring the newly frigid tips of my arms to their working state again, more diligent, careful this time not to summon the aegis of dreams and darkness. You must finish, this time they will know. Oh they already know, they know because I told them so. They know because they closed the factory, now you must make the machines.

*          *          *          *          *

            I awake in a pile on the floor, to all a dismissible lump of flesh and bone, thwarted by the confounding newness and dizzying hurt of sleep and satisfaction. Above me I see the legs of my child, my cherub, my cheer, dangling with intention. This movement springs me straight to attention and onto the tip of my toes. There my lovely sits, idly, but in full costume—rosy cheeks seeming brilliant in juxtaposition to the peaked pale of bloodless skin, the moppet—a taste-tester of boredom—clothed in a silk-white jester’s garb complete with fountains of opal frill splashing out from the neckline. I cannot will myself to remember this costume, I have no recollection of completion, of achievement, I stand dumbfounded before the warped felt munchkin whose tiny hands lay crossed clutching an empty vial in which my mercurial potion was housed.

            I snatch the toy up from the workstation shaking free the vial from its manicula, which tumbles through the air to land with an oddly voluminous crash against the floor.  Twisting the key in his back, I halt my exhalation, the clicking reaches its apex and I pause. It is not an easy thing to meet your maker, I remember. I hear clearly the proverbial voice of my teacher and find my hand still eager to let loose the lid of Pandora’s pithos.

            And so the whirring commences, the tiny clockwork army inside my son sparks to life. The twinkle of music box chimes blesses the room with the silver of the homecoming song, the glistened gathering of rays of moonlight seeping in through the window seem to bend centrally to focus their blanched light loads upon the new entreaty into the world. My Son, my light, venerable seraph of life, born into this, you are my masterpiece, you are the embodiment  of purity, you are without the sin of the sons and may make the world anew, in your image life will find redress, the machine will become whole, all will be one, the factory will produce. The automaton begins.

            I am startled by his vivaciousness, leaping from the bench he gathers up workers’ armloads of tiny tools, and sets to the task with which he was programmed. Produce. He whets and tinkers, glues and fastens, the art of the artisan, the creator of creation. His mechanized movements are all passionless, the soft skinned lie of his carapace seems a trick. Across the floor of the workshop, strewn about in a fanciful pattern of struts and paces I see tiny dotted trails of footsteps, parts in the lint and chip strewn pathways. Out of my parted lips I speak his name as Nail, and praise his being with the eager intent of a new father. With the ends met, the object of my desire had, I make haste to file from the scene and into town to find a leaning ear to gather up my echoes of exploit, to find the one who will fathom the monumental depth of this happening, to taste in the air an age of newness and philologize of application and intent, of symbolism and purpose. Nail will inherit the factory and a new golden age will be had, this I must hark upon the latent disbelievers, for there are sure to be those parents unwilling to welcome this new son.

            The door whooshes shut behind me as the crispness of the autumnal air with its decaying breath strikes my flush face and memory up in through my agape nostrils. The scent of baking bread wafts from the chimney strewn landscape ahead of me, my workshop which lies adjunct to the boarded up toy factory, a shell of past profit and boom, a ghost town of burnt out windows and dilapidated walls, crawls with grime and crepuscular creepers. Passing the pride incarnate of my life, so distressed and downtrodden, I find my pace quickening to a trot along the worn cobblestone path that leads through the glade of birch borderlands between my success and the masses, in search for the affirmation of my deeds. For to boast of my execution, to parade the savory crown and child gleaming in their magnificence, borne of my hand into life and consciousness. I have led by that same hand my future, and that of the factory, out of the age of dying and into the age of reason and knowledge. Where accomplishment has transcended the need for lore and deities, where man is God and the self will rule, where creation of life and meaning is no mere myth but rather a skill and trade of the alchemist, the master, the craftsman.

            As I reach the main way of the town, I find the sun rising to meet my eyes over the T topped chapel of stained glass. Its supple beams sear my eyes with brightness and light so distanced from any experience that I have had as of late that I am filled up with a giddy joy, and an itch of want so splendiferous that its very scratching would cause a spewing of soul so close to the heart that my breathing and beating might cease. This beacon of illumination draws me from my lunular mind crescendo, past the façade of store fronts and signs listing off their moot intent, the adverse of a horse in blinders still drawn on by the reins of my son the messiah, the harbinger of a new dawn, the dream of a dream to ring true the might of man over the oceans of hierarchal miscreance that have ruled history as of yet with their telling of the false son. 

            My fists find themselves balled as battering rams attempting to siege the white doors of the chapel, my knuckles white with rage split from the pressure building up within and leave crimson imprints upon their canvas from each torqued pound. In savagery, my teeth clenched as though they might splinter their counterparts, I scream for Him.

            “Father! Father! I have done it! Open this door and receive the blessings of man               upon thy blighted ears, your days on high above the grumbling laity are soon to         cease, your blasphemes and heretical ploys will fall powerless from the heavenly       kingdoms, your legacy of poisoning and fear has been usurped by knowledge and      innovation, the age of the conquering child has eclipsed the dying God. Lo the      Heirophant.”

There seems to be a reply of risings within the abbey, a shuffling of feet and murmurings or prayers. The door groans open, a curtain of darkness cloaks the welcoming party whose only visible portion is a hand that pierces the barrier of shades and beckons for me to enter with one curling ringed finger. I progress my bare mud splattered legs over the threshold of the chapel, feeling a rush of warmth and whispers brunt my brow. The candle-lit darkness of the room blurred my vision at first, forcing me to blink to adjust to the dimness from which I seemingly just escaped in my workshop. When my lids part, I find myself in the belly of Christ, pews lining a high-ceilinged chamber, with kneeling bars at the ankle of each row assuring that only the penitent can access the holy reaches of the dying God whose crucified shape lies nailed to the wall above the pulpit crying out dried tears of blood and sacrifice. Along the altar there lies the chalice, the body and the book of magic incantations sworn over by the truthful to assure the power of law.

            The priest who allotted for my entreaty glared at me with his palms clapped in front of his mumbling mouth. His flowing off-white garb is shawled around his shoulders as a marker of purity and cleanliness, upon his nape lies a purple ascot embroidered with the symbol of a dove in whose mouth is clasped an olive twig. Around his finger is coiled a brass serpent whose two heads devour each other, eternally swallowing the sin, blood and body of the next, now arching in command to a point toward the wooden chamber near the edge of the raised pulpit whose twiggy frame is imprinted with the carved and golden inlayed figure of angels around the mouth of the first door and iron busted demonic humanoids whose mouths shape the ancient cries of suffering and pain on the adjacent. The sounds of our footsteps echo brashly against the acoustic alcoves crowning the cavernous church ceiling, whose porous stone walls seep out the pearlescent wishes of holy water and repentance. Before a lip is parted in speech I find myself kneeling on the pine rod of the dark sided confession chamber, with my companion perched on high in his gold rimmed throne, his cloaked figure barely detectable through the screen of crosses and thin whittled fleur-de-lys separating the cubicles.

            “What say you, my manic son of Adam, whose dissident screams   ring audible     from the streets of suffering and pry upon the waking ears of the abbey. Confess         and find your peace here my child, for your voice seems the tumult of Lucifer’s             tongue at our door.”

            “Father forgive me not, for sin is basal of my nature and that nature hath not        spoiled to sanctity, nor will its prurient body be baptized by the wordy         contrivances of a false and dying God. Lend thine ears to the magnificence of my    exhort, and judge this not as maniacal ravings lest ye grace the fruits of my toil    with thine own eyes.”

            “What say you then, out with it, this is no arena for debate or the mystical                        babblings of a washed up lunatic, confess to me this deed and let Him be the       judge and warrant officer of sin.”

            “Very well, as it seems I have come to spread the word of my deeds I shall           therefore fulfill my purpose. Many nights I have toiled, since the factory has closed     its gates and relinquished the grand task of producing the tools and toys of or      township. Each and every waking second I have poured my soul into my work, to         create in my image the perfect combination of the two trades, a new son of man by which all will reap the incalculable benefit, a worker and plaything, an imitation    of life to cradle the needs of our lost kind and to toil in place of our lowly       counterparts. I have succeeded in this task and therefore made gods of men, we have usurped the age of the ghost, the jealous father, the sacrificed Son. Our    destiny is rewritten by our own hand. We men are now the creators, we have

            found and filled all things with Gods, and unlocked the secrets hidden away from             us with the keys of knowledge and innovation. Your master has governed the               world for two thousand years, and for two thousand years the earth has been    dark with sin and suffering. My creation will rid the world of need and necessity,        all things will be fruitful and free and the law will fail to eclipse the sphere of       societal necessity. All man is free from work and want. The age on innovation is          nigh.”

            “What is this blasphemous creation you speak of, you know that our God is a       jealous one, his hand will be quick to smite those who pray worship to the golden      calves of the human mind. You are naught but a lunatic, a madman whose body           has been bent askew by the arching of his back over a workbench, and whose             morals have been loosened by the dulcet pooling of mercury in the mind.”

            “Lo then, come see my creation with thine own eyes and behold the future.”

            “Why then, we will gather the town to make a fool of you, the madman, and cast             him from our ranks. This town has no need for a blaspheming fool.”

            “There are love and love. There is the dove, and there is the serpent.”

            The priest rose cackling from his pious throne and burst open the door to the confession booth.  He, possessed with the will of a rabid disbeliever, rose to rouse all who could hear his preacher’s cry. Captivated by his vigor the priory filed in line behind him, a brotherhood of silken cloaked followers converged on the entryway to the chapel enlivening the air with the rustling wave sounds of flowing fabric folds. All seems in tune to his challenging step, an infantry of Christ-might bent on crushing the courageous claims of myself, the tiny toymaker.  I watch from behind the marching battalion as their serpentine breadth slithers from the entryway to the church and down onto cobblestone main way of the town. As the procession makes its headway the head preacher calls the city to arms like the rouser of interests or cat-caller from a traveling carnival,

            “Come one, come all, the toymaker has given birth to nonsense and in thus his     mind has been lost, my people we must see what he claims to be salvation, what   he can gift us that trumps the everlasting life of our Father. Lo the blasphemer, we          must ostracize this heretic for he embodies the trickery of the devil, come take     heed of the miscreance of the hellion so that we as a people may be keen to his ways of influence lest we also fall prey to the attenuating ear licks      of the serpents            tongue.”

From my strategic position in the rear of the riotous bunch I view a burgeoning orgy of frolicking fanatics, each and every facet of the carnival that is a town is represented—the top-hatted announcer, the lion-tamer with whips and a chair, the strong man and his barbells, the bearded oddity stroking its glorious growths, the clowns and clappers, the magician with his saws and doves, the fool and the hanged man—all gathered in human-nature’s beguiling desire to scoff at the misfortune and ill-humor of the little fish swimming against the stream.  What part do I occupy in this spectacle, what appendage am I to this body of madness when it is I who is the beating heart of liveliness within this amassing of flesh and fear? As each drop of the flash-flood crowd ambles out of their respective hollows and into the river rushing toward my factory and home my mind wanders from out its overseeing keep in observance of the Spectacle before me;

            the spanish spandex’d man with

            his barbells weighs

            his moustache

            a clipper rides gray gull gales

            down

            a slipping steam cloud pouch

            of the gallery

            in soft clutched pursed claps

            throats roaring

            clasp fingers over roughened

            bill folds

            the curtain is called, without answer

            and called again

            this time for the rain

            a dance, of sorts

            a sport

clown

            dusted pasty piddling

            of muck and tears

            of joy

            and fears, strength in numbers

            faith in umbrellas

            waiting on the wind

            he lifts

            Atlas of the hour

            bearer of woe and want

            of muck and tears

            of joy

            the tiny bespectacled toymaker with

            his looking glasses

            tinkers

            and fears

            wishing he could weigh

            the world

            of toys.

The crowd reached its destination at the apex of its rowdiness, marching into the courtyard of the factory whose abandoned shell of existence had been transformed into a wonderland of lively locomotion. Nail had surpassed all expectation of mine, and continued with the task of production. My son, how proud I am of thee, inheriting the will of your father, you have dipped a ladle from the spring of life and in your heated passion become a geyser of creation. The chimneys of the factory plumed out smoke and through the eroded holes in the stone walls could be seen a full swing operation where tiny dolls tinkering with sockets and gears, tools in hand, the little lively puppets hopped around assembly lines furnishing their brothers and sisters with the necessary appendages and provisions, creating others in their image from my spare rib of spontaneous brilliance and humanity.

            Before any response from the crowd could be had at the expense of this breathtaking scene I sprinted toward the front of the horde with my arms raised, mounting the imaginary soap box pulpit I preached to the masses;

            “Behold, my kin, my brethren, my people. This spectacle is the dawn of a new age

            in which all will be free from burden, work and want. My creations you see in this            factory, which you have so sorrowfully abandoned in your hotheaded pursuit of           ethereal salvation and the following self-proclaimed prophets of the dying Christ,       are the gift of reprieve from humankind to humankind. No longer will you toil in        vain over menial tasks or grovel on your knees before the towering symbols of T’s.           I have gifted you my son, Nail, who has taken the portion of goods that falleth to            him from my estate and reworked them into this factory which will now produce          workers who will carry not only our workloads but also our caskets. We will live   and die with all our worldly needs attended to. Behold the dawn of a new age, my             prodigal son has made use of the prodigal gift of life, and we shall all reap the     rewards from this lavishly abundant resource that is existence.”

            As I finished my spirited speech, uplifted by the epiphanous prophecy that I had forespoke, my heart began to pound in nervous anticipation of the reception of my monologue. The preacher, whose mouth lay agape for the entirety of the scene, began to fill itself with the tongue lisping twangs of hate-speak, forming each labia to enhance the intense verbiage directed toward me in the form of the word necromancer. The eyes of all the townsfolk in their circus-esque demeanor began to glow with a fiery hatred. Every face in the crowd blended into a pulpous mass of screaming and chanting anger. The noise projected in my direction grew so loud that I became engulfed by silence. Each and every creature of the crowd shifted their silhouette structure with an amorphous skin-toned whirlwind of waving hands and became one swirling cloud of reformation. The tornado halted and in the place of each person stood a towering cross upon which the body of Christ was bleeding and impaled, save for the face of every Christ was head of a doll, my Nail, but their glass lensed eyes were instead filled with a dripping liquid lava of fire. I turned to escape the nightmare, barreling head-first into the factory whose cold stone constitution burst into flame as soon as I passed the threshold of the building.

            I scramble through the uproar of ash, smoke and heat scampering toward my workshop. I must find him. I upturn benches and saws, toolboxes and supply drawers, in avid search for my son, my life, my love. I scream in agony as every piece of the factory I touch sears my flesh in its instantaneous incineration. The barely majestic moments of this workhouse of knowledge and innovation, whose glory day had been revoked as swiftly as it was invoked, had now become a funeral pyre. Carcasses cast in the image of my Nail lay smoldering about, some still tinkering, sawing and gluing away. I keep pushing onward, knowing that none of these impersonators are my true son, carried only on by the stoic demands of fatherhood. And there I see him, lying listless upon my workbench, seemingly just where I left him only days prior, as I grow nearer—only steps away—his head turns in my direction, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.” The words take register in my mind and as their saddening enunciation began to pry at my eyes in tears the factory collapses in upon me, a fireball of suffocating power and heat, the whelps of hell and fury of the nether brazen my fleshly being and I am cast into darkness.

*          *          *          *          *

           

            I awoke with my head in a pool of sweat on the bench in my workshop. The corner furnace was roaring, though it hadn’t been stoked in hours. I felt as though I had been asleep for a century and had awoken in an era of enlightenment and reason. My tinkering projects lay all about my person and the sun peeked in through the window adjacent to my chair showing glancing light just so perfectly off of the pool of sweat and drool in front of me that I was able to lean over and catch my reflection. I peered straight into my eyes and saw for the first time a brow loosened by the sense of overwhelming rest and relief. What pray tell has possessed you these past weeks. My eyes glared reflecting back through my spectacles with the cooling relief of the blue oceanic chromatism of my irises. I stood up from my stool expecting the norm of stiff appendages and aching muscles, but found instead that I was brimming with comfort. I tried to recollect the chimera of my unconscious traveling, only to find, locked away in my subconscious, a panging nag of guilt embodied by a long slender steel nail, the likeness of which I kept stashed in the many drawers of my tool chest. I have had enough. I picked up the vial of mercury and remnants of projects and dreams that lay strewn about the room and tossed them into the furnace, making headway out the door and out into the crisp autumnal air that wafted the scent of fresh baking bread up my nostrils from the chimney strewn landscape that lay ahead of me on my path away from the factory.

           

Basement

Admiration St. Laurent

Trapeze dress <3

flat broke schemes

20s neckwear

Grown Up

Unedited

The ultimate compliment

Thank you sjs

Science?

Life

Sears

Studying up for 20s-50s seminar I'm presenting for costume design forum.

Albatross

E.B. Evans

Bun fun

Mynare

Kurt Vile

Oasis pride

best sox

This is Chuck

A gift

Admiration

Minneapolis

World famous

Look happy

Japanese street

Star theater

This afternoon's sketch

Meghan's the subject

Pieces of Frost

Pre~Kurt~Sor

One day

Bedroom sketches

Brick Red

An icy thrall of wind cut its way through the maze of alley split streets and grimed
alcoves of the East Side metropolis. By way of its wispy being a quaint scent of steel and dank
cloth was ferried over corrugated subway grates and steaming manholes mystifying the eve
with a foggy breath of suited scandal and cloak and dagger crimes, which all too often
accompanied the twilight hours of the inner city. The cool bricks of the Hoover Building—one of
the many rundown tenements in the district—betrayed their red hot color and sent shivers
down Johnny’s spine as he leaned against them puffing his last few breaths of Lucky Strike. The
early spring chill was lame in its suppression of the brimming anxiety he was trying to choke
down with his high collar and single Windsor knot. Johnny found his trembling fingers punching
the two-way call button labeled APT 413, which buzzed on his end with a low frequency hum
that to him, at the time, sounded with more intensity than a grand piano pushed off a tenth
story. No answer. He punched the metal siding around the call box. Shaking his hands at his
sides he muttered low curses while watching the breath fume in fog-pockets out and around his
slender person. He buzzed again.

 “Whose got the nerve to go bustin’ my balls this late, don’t you lousy low-lives have any
respect for a family man?” the rimpled speaker chugged out.

 “It’s me, Johnny, let me up, I done somethin’ real bad, its real bad this time Max,
reeeeeal bad.”

 “I get it Johnny Boy but my misses don’t want anyone over late-night after last time, ya
know—“


 “Max get me off this damn street,” Johnny harshened his approach, “Boss ain’t gona like
this one bit.”

The door popped open like soda-can, immediately teasing Johnny with wafts of heat and the
nauseating smell of a building full of different dinner fixings that marinated their way into the
hallway carpets a few hours prior. I’m in it deep this time, Johnny reminded himself while
skipping every other stair in a hurry up to the fourth floor. Max was waiting for him in the
hallway, his door clamped shut against the bright hallway lighting.

 “Lay it on me Johnny Boy, were gona have to have our little chat out here on account of
my old lady, she’s been one real twit since the whole shootout scenario.” Max said.

 “You gotta help me out Max. I don’t know where else to turn, I got the heat all up in my
grill and Harley’s boys are hot on my heels out there.”

 “What the hell happened Johnny, weren’t you supposed to be workin’ the club racket
tonight, and why in the hell are Harleys boys on your chase?”

 “I was down by the club, workin’ the usual spot with my girl, when one of Harley’s boys
came creepin’ up on my corner—you know the one with that funny lookin’ hat—well
anyways this dumb wad walked up to my girl and spit right in her hair—you know those
hookers and their hair—well anyways I pulled out my slug just to scare him off, ya know,
and the dumb wad came runnin’ right at me with his ‘switchie’ all cocked like a
goddamn wild-man, so I uh—you know.” Johnny made a telling gesture with his thumb
and pointer finger.


 “Jesus Christ Johnny you thick bastard.” Max replied. “This is gona be war you know that,
Boss is gona cut your friggin’ balls off.”

 “You gota shack me up somewhere Max, at least till this heat dies down a little ya know,
then I’ll be on the first steamer out of this sleazy city.”

 “I can’t hole you here Johnny Boy, that puts me smack dab in the eye of a shit-storm and
I cant be havin’ that, I’m a family man nowadays, you know, and I’d like to keep it that
way if I can.”

 Just as the last syllable of the statement fluttered off Max’s lips the elevator at the end
of the short hallway adjacent to the two men’s social space chimed with the eerie politeness
generally reserved for the most annoying and time consuming of machinery. The farcical gold
plated doors of the lift began to part slowly while both men stood awestruck in the hallway
staring at the opening like two chubby children eying the flavor selection in an ice-cream parlor.
The fragmentary second that lent itself to the moment—in between the awestruck gaze that
captivated the two men and the realization of the volatile intent of the new entreaty into the
scene—was summarily graced by a fuzzy tune emanating from a radio being played in a nearby
apartment on the fourth floor. The lyrics of the seething song were scarcely audible through the
walls of the tenement, however just as the elevator’s automatic doors parted wide enough for
Max and Johnny recognize their fate, the chorus rang true with the words Sunshine and
showers and everything comin’ up daisies. Oh, what a good thing we had gone bad. Two shots
rang out in the hallway and the elevator door closed behind the dark suited man. Johnny slid
his back down the brick-red painted wall behind him thinking I’m in it deep this time.