tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20784506962085477152024-03-05T11:06:56.015-08:00Super-Hero Shared HousingUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-64745074402831597182013-06-17T00:01:00.000-07:002013-09-22T15:46:57.268-07:00MUDMAN – Friend of the World's Detritus! <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisjxeaW8YsG_UTKAiqW8w_MMr2pCScAnPguPkP1iHFbAIJYHiXjyB5fK2GXDBVWZD4_cWH57BbGwTEfZwRhZJkkp-WhdADR_GSu7A09KYQnx_96RF8si3MkL6KJ_SBjHpgZ9uufVCmV0c/s1600/killedyou.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisjxeaW8YsG_UTKAiqW8w_MMr2pCScAnPguPkP1iHFbAIJYHiXjyB5fK2GXDBVWZD4_cWH57BbGwTEfZwRhZJkkp-WhdADR_GSu7A09KYQnx_96RF8si3MkL6KJ_SBjHpgZ9uufVCmV0c/s320/killedyou.jpg" width="320" /></a><br /><em>(<a href="http://sharedhousing.blogspot.com/2010/09/no-10-creet.html">MudMan tells 'em 'bout it</a> from issue 10, Creet)</em></div>
<br />
The body of this slow-talking, fault-finding cultural critic draws dust and dirt molecules to itself as if possessing the gravity of the sun. Also unfortunately born a sweaty, sweaty man, the accrual of this debris gives him the appearance of being covered in mud. Dungeon master. Lover of graph paper. Encyclopedic knowledge of b-movies like Robot Holocaust, Robot Monster, Plan 9 from Outer Space, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, etcetera etcetera. Quietly decisive in moments of crisis. 8-bit Nintendo expert. Host of late-night cable access TV movie show. Probably, honestly, the coolest guy in the house. Basement bedroom, just past the washer and dryer. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPBwMluTzd3enuf9Bs0q2Jb0dNq0TAKHGHPaN1xshRrnEltSebgd_Q5nu-QYmu8C4l66yfKOnfhr2kxiJAtp_zWXpHtMaIrTZk_BAmpp63UNl-kIk_p1HN9i43hwJ85QRteqSuCCny1dQ/s1600/issue3heinlein.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPBwMluTzd3enuf9Bs0q2Jb0dNq0TAKHGHPaN1xshRrnEltSebgd_Q5nu-QYmu8C4l66yfKOnfhr2kxiJAtp_zWXpHtMaIrTZk_BAmpp63UNl-kIk_p1HN9i43hwJ85QRteqSuCCny1dQ/s320/issue3heinlein.jpg" width="320" /></a><br /><em>(<a href="http://sharedhousing.blogspot.com/2008/12/no-3-cold-beer-war.html">MudMan explains it all</a> from issue 3, the Cold Beer War)</em></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-29000983464524139292013-06-15T18:06:00.000-07:002013-09-22T15:42:07.506-07:00JERRY RIG – Furniture Roboticist! <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0YwOAUTb21HrZnTQnfZig5XTMDauz5G6THy9OoFD3nSwG1Rp0VX8QVDajRUAXPhE8vrDOeQtbKR_WqcdPWOGsBoj_8OL6iGESctUOvABESHhfYay_KDdTUbXt_Vd1ox3X4BzPHCTBEQ0/s1600/Issue2poisoned.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0YwOAUTb21HrZnTQnfZig5XTMDauz5G6THy9OoFD3nSwG1Rp0VX8QVDajRUAXPhE8vrDOeQtbKR_WqcdPWOGsBoj_8OL6iGESctUOvABESHhfYay_KDdTUbXt_Vd1ox3X4BzPHCTBEQ0/s320/Issue2poisoned.jpg" width="320" /></a><br /><em>(<a href="http://sharedhousing.blogspot.com/2010/05/no-2-poisoned.html">Jerry Rig cracks the case</a> from issue 2, Poisoned)</em></div>
<br />
Abrasive inventor, most recently of miniature robotic doll furniture, or furnimicrobots, which are despised and feared by El Humidor. Ambiguously ambitious, demonstratively and demonstrably delusional. One-time worker in the G.I. Joe motor pool. Lonely lover of wordplay. A heavy-set guy in sweatpants and, all too often, a lab coat. Can never keep a thought to himself and wears Pokemon gear like it’s something to be proud about. Fanny packs in public. World's Biggest Fan: Hot Pockets. Sucks at Contra. Former member of agony rock band Send More Cops. Chairman: High Style logo committee. Second story bedroom, overlooking back yard.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnAybq2r3yxAliKTaUXOC_bw3OWywH_AXvU4_YtdXGEIM_7kr9mx_12SYMeBaYGTOcl50YJxK3ewn9orZ7-DCTI9CcjK8jtK784HZ1gruu5K3ga77reDLnwz3SJUiLz2WtMQddLGd72ac/s1600/issue8furnimicrobots.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnAybq2r3yxAliKTaUXOC_bw3OWywH_AXvU4_YtdXGEIM_7kr9mx_12SYMeBaYGTOcl50YJxK3ewn9orZ7-DCTI9CcjK8jtK784HZ1gruu5K3ga77reDLnwz3SJUiLz2WtMQddLGd72ac/s320/issue8furnimicrobots.jpg" width="320" /></a><br /><em>(<a href="http://sharedhousing.blogspot.com/2009/02/no-8-field-tactics-for-urban-recluses.html">Jerry commands the troops</a> from issue 8, Field Tactics for Urban Recluses)</em></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj19n89tFA4chp7iPuEvKApK4OXcbIeSnj-RY0T4vFPvN5zzrUi94DqJ8RoYOvoH1N2QlJbiYTnigx7uAKo0hmCw4Zxqb_mOoW0HLNq6mBXnhK5fA4DcFyjA0rApdf-RFicDmU-Jl-B4OM/s1600/wantedtovomit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj19n89tFA4chp7iPuEvKApK4OXcbIeSnj-RY0T4vFPvN5zzrUi94DqJ8RoYOvoH1N2QlJbiYTnigx7uAKo0hmCw4Zxqb_mOoW0HLNq6mBXnhK5fA4DcFyjA0rApdf-RFicDmU-Jl-B4OM/s320/wantedtovomit.jpg" width="222" /></a><br /><em>(<a href="http://sharedhousing.blogspot.com/2010/09/no-14-rags-and-bones.html">Jerry's got a hangover</a>, from issue 14, Rags and Bones)</em></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-71310997198540085292013-06-13T12:47:00.000-07:002013-09-22T13:58:11.395-07:00No. 17 - Attack of the Raftermen!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
(<em>continued from No. 15)</em> </div>
<br />
Silently, almost sheepishly, Humidor and Aecca/Decca and Mudman and Jerry Rig walk through the southern approaches of the eastside industrial district to their final destination. A triangle of dried blood splays down from Aecca's nose over his mouth and onto his shirt. Mudman sports an impressive bruise on his cheek just below his eye, which is starting to swell. Humidor's pants are torn and ripped at the knees and shins, cuts and scrapes just visible through a mix of blood and grit. Rig is unwounded, but like all the others his hands and clothes are covered in a fine black powdery dirt acquired from transversing the railyards.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoY2DvU9jEzUlyrQPeBAtWQLwTkSSHZl0_ElJxw6NMYZ6fbf5ETWXHLstUJFkQqPttcVCDoidd1OXMQGCSoqiBCbZ4E-MTNbk7YvbhOGkqXAO727akOTI0SQPTAhnsWJKBmk8BlttwHYc/s1600/16_Page_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="554" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoY2DvU9jEzUlyrQPeBAtWQLwTkSSHZl0_ElJxw6NMYZ6fbf5ETWXHLstUJFkQqPttcVCDoidd1OXMQGCSoqiBCbZ4E-MTNbk7YvbhOGkqXAO727akOTI0SQPTAhnsWJKBmk8BlttwHYc/s640/16_Page_1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
They hardly cut the figures they had hoped to at Punk Hotel, which now looms before them as they come around a corner. Where once two large houses had stood for decades, an enterprising landlord had purchased and melded the two together. The half on the corner sported a little roofed turret, the other had probably been more modest in appearance. The connecting segment jutted out all the way to the sidewalk, where concrete stoop led up to the hotel's European-courtyard styled double doors. <br />
<br />
The party was in full swing, as it should as midnight drew near. An easy dozen people were arrayed on the stoop and sidewalk, smoking or talking privately or getting some air. Everyone held a red or blue plastic cup of beer. Every time someone went in or out of the front doors the great cacophony of humanity socializing from within would boom out, like a hurricane in a box. Doors closed, there was only the humming drone of muted music and voices.<br />
<br />
"The fuck happened to you guys? Fall down getting the mail?" Jukeboxer’s usually dour face was grinning hard enough to split. As the foursome drew closer she got a better look at them in the dim streetlights. "Jesus, what DID happen to you guys?"<br />
<br />
"Aecca lost a fight with the sidewalk," says Rig.<br />
<br />
"The rest was collateral damage, really," says Mudman. Aecca scowls. Humidor's already eyeing the scene.<br />
<br />
"How's the party going?" Rig asks.<br />
<br />
"S'kay," Juke gestures at the Punk Hotel's proud sign, a collection of mismatched letters from other businesses, screwed on to a frame of 2x4s and hung by cheap rope from eyebolts in the windowframe above the doors. Snaps her fingers. "Rafterman's gonna play at midnight!" Four sets of eyes meet Jukeboxer's, wary of bullshitting.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLBkysk2NZaTjqmLF-z1fZq2VqLdEh1WhdWH2RF1vcRSL6g5reCfioIzufLMxO1LTzMYQqf6HL-Eqy6GKtGC7Wk-h1Y_nMaj2Pwsl5tucRDORy9fW6MZo_4VrMep8BvrDVHc1UOhy1o_I/s1600/16_Page_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLBkysk2NZaTjqmLF-z1fZq2VqLdEh1WhdWH2RF1vcRSL6g5reCfioIzufLMxO1LTzMYQqf6HL-Eqy6GKtGC7Wk-h1Y_nMaj2Pwsl5tucRDORy9fW6MZo_4VrMep8BvrDVHc1UOhy1o_I/s400/16_Page_2.jpg" width="388" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
"Bullshit," says Aecca, his previous dumpy mood vanishing.<br />
<br />
"Its true," Juke nods furiously, "Wastrel had the Hotel keep it secret, not on the flyer and stuff."<br />
<br />
"Wastrel's here?" Aecca eyes shift across the hotel's windows, almost expecting to see someone looking back.<br />
<br />
"Yeah, back from Olympia, or Astoria, or wherever he was or goes. Yeah, see you around later," Jukeboxer nods at Rig and Mudman, who are drifting towards the front door. Humidor's long since vanished. "You should really go clean yourself up a bit, Aeck" Juke grimaces as she eyes Aecca, "you look disgusting." <br />
<br />
Aecca looks down at his blood-stained shirt, "I thought it was pretty punk rock, but yeah, good idea. I'll catch ya later." Juke nods in response, takes a sip from her cup, turns and walks toward another group of celebrants standing at the corner. Aecca mounts the stoop and pushes through to the front door. <br />
<br />
Beyond the immediate foyer, Aecca is greeted by a large room that stetches all the way to the back of the building where a staircase clings to the wall. This space, along with the apartment directly above, comprise the connecting structure between the two older buildings. The usual clutter of bicycles and debris has been moved elsewhere to makeway for a sweaty mass of party-goers in various states of intoxication. Aecca makes his way through the throng, smiling and nodding at the various ejaculatory exclamations at his appearance. About two-thirds through the crowd, he pauses. He could go down the hall to the right and wait to get in the hotel's only "public" bathroom and wash up, or could go left where he knows the keg will be. Judging in favor of personal hygiene, veers right, wincing when he bangs his shin against the low stage made out of a couple of old ping-pong tabletops and some cinderblocks.<br />
<br />
"Aecca. Jesus. What happened to your face?" <br />
<br />
"Tripped on the way here," Aecca grins, gives a casual handshake to the Pocketeer, "y'know, you could have called us that there was party here tonight, y'know? We came straight from the Pillbox."<br />
<br />
'Teer smiles and figets with the collection of two inch long dreadlock stubs which punctuate his head in neat rows, "hey man, I was on my way to the 'Box and Juke and Ritch pulled up and were just like 'get in the car!' So," a shrug, shuffles forward with the line.<br />
<br />
"S'kay. You seen Rafterman play before?"<br />
<br />
"Nah, I'm fucking stoked though! I've heard a million stories. Everyone says they have to be seen to be believed," the line moves again. <br />
<br />
"Yeah, it's like a rock and roll crucifixion."<br />
<br />
"Wow. Strong praise," Pocketeer is next for the loo.<br />
<br />
"I shit you not. I've seen grown men cry and women swoon at Rafterman shows."<br />
<br />
"Wow. How many times you seen 'em?" the bathroom door opens, 'Teer steps into the breach.<br />
<br />
"Four times," the door closes. Aecca turns, smiles at the couple behind him. "Geez, you get punched or somethin'?" the fella asks. "One of those booby traps, with the log on vines, my face," replies Aecca, grinning broadly. He hears a flush. "I could be in there for a while, so consider yourself warned."<br />
<br />
The water going down the drain is pink in color for quite a while. Aecca's face is once more clean. His shirt is soaking wet but the heat of the crowd will dry it out and the night is warm. Ignoring the banging at the locked door, he tenderly palpates the cut on his upper lip. Maybe someone has some liquid skin or superglue or something he could borrow, cause the cut is deep and could scar bad. Wastrel would have some, or point at someone across the room who he knew did. As he wipes his hands on his pants (no way he's touching the pair of hand towels hanging on hooks by the sink) he hears the familiar whine and screech of microphone feedback. A spattering of swears and cheers. Sound check, he thinks.<br />
<br />
"Way to take your time, fuckface!"<br />
<br />
Aecca ignores the insults and does his best beeline down the hallway, back across the hallway in front of the little stage, now arrayed with mics and amps and a drum set. The hall is more crowded now, as people filter down from upstairs from the private apartments of the residents and from outside. Aecca makes fleeting eye contact with Mudman, whose ear is cantilevered in the direction of Jukeboxer, who herself gesticulates emphatically regarding some exciting anecdote recalled over the din of the crowd, all the while her mouth squarely aimed at Mudman’s poised ear. Aecca smiles slightly, to which Mudman replies with a small grin and the merest of head-nods. <br />
<br />
Pushing on, Aecca heads down the hallway and gets in line for the keg. Glimpsing over his shoulder, he espies Humidor on the stairs, in full smoke-puppetry directorial mode. An audience of six or so giggle and smile and ooh and aah as Humidor’s employs his telekinetic sway of smoke to bend and shape the ample cigarette smoke into some silent-film shadow-theatre tale of derring-do. <br />
<br />
"We meet again."<br />
<br />
'Teer turns, smirks, "hey, how could I forget a face like that? Jesus, that's a hell of a cut you got there."<br />
<br />
"No shit, yeah?" Aecca delicately prods at his wound, "I need to find some antibiotic ointment or some liquid skin or something."<br />
<br />
'Teer snorts, "yeah I'd hardly call this an antiseptic environment," a hand pans across the great panorama of the Punk Hotel's interior.<br />
<br />
"Man, I remember the last Rafterman show I saw here. Wait, was it here? Yeah, it was here. Hey, oh my gawd, I totally forgot about this." Aecca produces a can of beer from his pants cargo pocket, long forgotten from the evening's early provisioning stop.<br />
<br />
"How do you forget you have a beer in your pocket? Especially when you're in line? To get beer!" 'Teer absently rubs an eyelid in mild exasperation.<br />
<br />
Aecca cracks the beer open, thumbs at his face, "easy to forget when you're busy plowing your face into the pavement!" he takes a deep swig, his first beer since what seems like forever, hands the can to 'Teer, who accepts, drinks. Rig parades by, back towards the main hall, a pair of beers in hand. As he passes Aecca, his eyes lock onto Aecca’s upper lip as if for the first time. A snicker, then a chortle. The briefest of pauses, as if to say something, then a shaking of the head, and Rig continues down the hall. The corner of Aecca’s eye twitches in time to some internal clock of rage, then fades.<br />
<br />
"Anyway, Rafterman show. Its crowded. Rafterman's well into there set. Women, fainting. Men, crying. Its hot as hell. Booze and beer, everywhere. I look over, and the guy next to me, he's got his dick out, and he's just pissing on the floor like its no big deal."<br />
<br />
"Whaa?"<br />
<br />
"Yep. You'd think that'd be a slipping hazard, but there's so many people, pressed so close together, its like, impossible to slip, the crowd just holds you up. And besides, as the crowd jostled me around I was always on the lookout to make sure I wasn't stepping in piss, but its like the stuff evaporated or something, or was mopped up by being stepped in ten million times. Shit. What time you got?" Pocketeer looks at his wrist, which has no watch on it, then shrugs. <br />
<br />
"You ladies gonna get some beer or hit on boys all night?"<br />
<br />
'Teer and Aecca's heads snap around to find themselves at the front of the line, the four or five people in front of them having acquired their beers surprisingly fast. The two grinning line-mates stride forward and then slow at the sight of the source of the inquiry.<br />
<br />
An imposing giant of a man, if not for poor posture, stands before them. Framed by a cruel overbite made crueler by impossibly thin lips, and a haircut that looks like his mom was possibly the world's biggest Ringo Starr fan, beady eyes regard Aecca and 'Teer.<br />
<br />
"Oh, hey, Ogre."<br />
<br />
Ogre nods at 'Teer, "hey, you guys are gonna need cups," he nods at a bag of blue plastic recepticles. As Aecca and 'Teer grapple with the bag, Ogre reaches over to three mismatched plastic beer pitchers sitting on a plank atop a broken radiator. The pitcher closest to the front has a sheaf of paper duct-taped to it, "TIPS" scrawled in sharpie. The middle pitcher appears to be foamy slop from the keg. Ogre picks up the third and takes a long quaffe. As he tips his head back, the true size of his stature is hinted at, as he actually straightens his back a little. He shrinks a good twelve inches as he sets his to-scale mug back down and returns to his preferred slouch. Aecca and 'Teer profer empty cups in his direction, which he begins to fill from the keg's hose, occasionally pumping the tap for good measure.<br />
<br />
"Aecca, right?"<br />
<br />
"Yeah," Aecca adjusts the tilt on his cup to minimize foam.<br />
<br />
"The fuck happened to your face?"<br />
<br />
Aecca considers a reply, stirring the head of foam with his finger while 'Teer gets his cup filled, then, not coming up with any funny retort, nor sure such a retort to be a wise course of action, simply says, "I tripped."<br />
<br />
Ogre considers this answer but says nothing more.<br />
<br />
"Okay," Aecca says, as he and 'Teer head back down the hallway. Mingling into the fringes of the crowd waiting for Rafterman to play, Aecca intones, "is that guy, like, slow, or somethin'?"<br />
<br />
"Y'know," 'Teer says confidentially, "I can never tell. I think he's actually just a boring person."<br />
<br />
"Oh."<br />
<br />
The two pause in an eddy at the edge of the swirling crowd, take survey. At that moment there’s a spattering of applause and cheers as Rafterman’s drummer, a lanky chap with hollow cheeks and a magnificent red mullet wearing a white matador’s jacket, crawls onto the stage and begins to arrange himself. Aecca taps a distracted ‘Teer on the shoulder, and signals at a nearly invisible open spot against the wall by the entry to the hallway leading to the bathroom. The two of them shoulder and slide and shimmy their way through the mob, and then alight precariously atop a pile of bicycle wheels stacked against the wall. <br />
<br />
Now that the drummer’s arrived, the room is packed. People are giddy, even scared. Yelps and curses fly at squashed toes and elbowed ribs, splashed beer and cigarette burns. With every passing minute, even more people pack into the space, now crowding and hanging off the stairs. A few of the more dimunitive girls perch on the shoulders of husky men, the girls’ fingers caressing the ceiling. The collective lust whumps and expands again when Rafterman’s lead guitar is suddenly seen on stage. A slighty built woman with whispy brown hair whose guitar almost seems a bit too big for her, wearing gray jeans and a black denim jacket with the collar and sleeves cut off, she flashes the crowd an infectious smile that yet again, impossibly, ratchets the excitement up a notch. Aecca’s breath is ragged, not just because of the impending show, but at the potent electricity in the room. He’s wearing his usual rubber-soled shoes, but the ambient charge of static electric in the room is massive. Should it come to him (if not for his precautions) his hair would be fairly trying to jump of his scalp, Jacob’s Ladders would course between his fingertips, he could probably start fires with his caress.<br />
<br />
His reverie is muted by a wild cheer as the bass player catapults himself onto the stage. A lean, mean,Visigoth of man, easily over six feet tall, sporting dirty blonde muttonchop sideburns, paisley pants and violently pink buttondown dress shirt, topped with a little navy blue cap with a little red puffy ball on top that would be more at home on the head of a drummer of Scottish bagpipe band, the bassist hollers if anyone is thirsty and produces a 12 pack of beer and starts tossing fresh beers to outstretched and raised hands. Then he produces another twelve, and yet another, then a goofy smile and shrug when than one is gone. The crowd’s laments pass as he straps on his bass and thrums a few chords, then starts strumming a simple bummm. bum-bum. bummm, bum-bum. The lead guitarist starts clapping her hands above her head, inciting the crowd to follow her lead with her wild grin. <br />
<br />
And then, there he is, Rafterman’s lead singer and rhythm guitar. He wears a modest black vest over a forest green long sleeve dress shirt with ample collars from which springs his long neck and arch-featured face, the seemingly oversized mouth of the great rock and roll vocalists, deep-set eyes surveying the crowd from beneath a heap of corkscrew curls. <br />
<br />
Cheers and applause greet him, but the bassist’s thrum and the lead guitar’s clapping return the crowd to their beat. The lead singer’s cuts into the electricity of the humid air.<br />
<br />
"I tell everybody we want everybody to do. Tell ya we want everybody to clap their hands. Warming up like this. C'mon Hands up in the air an' warming up. Everybody c'mon. Hey. All right.”<br />
<br />
Clap clap clap clap clap clap clap.<br />
<br />
Let me hear it now. I think we're getting ready to do the hard way."<br />
<br />
The bass stops. Clap clap clap clap. The lead guitarist lets out a guttural, primal “yeahhhhhhhh!!!” Clap clap clap clap.<br />
<br />
"Alright alright hey!"<br />
<br />
Clap clap clap clap.<br />
<br />
Rafterman's building tank of anticipation crescendos and explodes into a rocking, romantic ballad called Denim Dreams and Sex Jeans. Packed gill to gill, the crowd is largely incapable of dancing or thrashing about to Rafterman's rock and roll melodies – and it’s the good stuff, too. Rafterman's talent is evenly spread, no one player trying to prop up the others. The crowd feeds off this joyous democracy, which is entirely evident in the band's stage persona. Standing shoulder to shoulder, heads bob and hands clap (Rafterman is nothing if not a crowd participatory experience) and feet stomp. Fellas and girls with a bit more room, whether it be atop someone's shoulders or a alight a coffee table, freely air guitar or sing along (the lyrics are simple and easy to pick up after a listen or two, and Born Again Hard might be the best selling local independent EP ever).<br />
<br />
As the band launches into the bottom third of its set, Humidor and Mudman emerge out into the cooler, open night. They run into Creet and her friend Levy. Levy's a friend of Creet's, lives out in eastern Hinterland area, just up Church Row, in an apartment above a biker bar. A bit on the short side, she has dark hair down just past her ears that flips up and out around the perimeter, and has a rather general hunted, haunted look to her. She’s sporting a kung-fu-style dark blue coat with bright red stitching. It’s the type of fashion Humidor finds exotic, and irresistible. Creet catches his admiring glances, “Humidor, this is my friend Levy.”<br />
<br />
“Pleased,” Humidor nods his head quickly in a sort of abbreviated bow.<br />
<br />
“What’s your excuse?” Levy disdain is exaggerated and probably false.<br />
<br />
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<br />
Creet jumps in, “he can control smoke,” waves her fingers in front of her like she’s a magician, “with the power of his mind!” Levy’s stoney mask breaks as she laughs at her friend. Humidor laughs uncomfortably, unsure of whether these two women are sharing some sort of inside joke. Perhaps about him. Levy suddenly offers a Humidor a handshake. Creet smiles, “Levy can read the secret language of cities!”<br />
<br />
"You can read the secret language of cities?"<br />
<br />
"Yep."<br />
<br />
"How do you manage that?"<br />
<br />
"Well, its not linear, like, left to right, or up and down like our written languages, buts its like 360 degrees, and curvey tossy-turny, and its atemporal, so old scribblings and new ones are around at the same time. In some ways its real time and in others its historical."<br />
<br />
"So, sometimes you can see, erm, read, what the city's writing right at this moment? This very moment?"<br />
<br />
"Yeah."<br />
<br />
"Like spying on someone's journal?"<br />
<br />
"Like spying, yeah. Like spying on somone's journal over their shoulder without them necessarily knowing you're there, but then like every other page, every other paragraph, heck, every other sentence, they ink it over, they tear it out, they set it on fire, so you have a stream of consciousness AND you have fragmentary pieces of old stuff. Sometimes I think William S. Burroughs could read city."<br />
<br />
"Whoa."<br />
<br />
"Wait. 'Not necessarily know you're there?'"<br />
<br />
"Yeah, its like you're spying on someone writing in their journal on the bus, and then all of a sudden they just turn and look you dead in the eye, y'know?"<br />
<br />
"The city KNOWS you're there."<br />
<br />
"Yep. Its why I try to avoid peeping as much as possible. At least on purpose."<br />
<br />
"What's it do then, when it, uh, 'sees' you?"<br />
<br />
"It usually writes something snarky, like 'like what you see?' or something, then goes quiet for awhile til it thinks no one's looking anymore."<br />
<br />
"Is it writing right now?"<br />
<br />
A pause, eyes darting at the sidewalk, at the telephone poles and wires, at traffic signals and clutters of litter. "Yes…"<br />
<br />
Hushed, "…what's it saying?"<br />
<br />
"…Stop pissing on my face, fuckers!"<br />
<br />
Due to his unassuming yet attentive quiet nature, and the fact his dirt-covered skin causes him to blend into the night, Mudman slips away from the conversation. He crosses the street and shambles towards a dual-purpose parking strip and loading dock in front of a industrial/commercial space. The lot is like a hundred others except for the presence of a rather bedraggled monkey puzzle tree growing out front on a narrow strip of otherwise barren earth – a reminder of the area's well-to-do residential past. Beneath the tree's hanging branches two men talk, each holding a cup of beer.<br />
<br />
The taller, skinnier one, with cylindrical face and lantern jaw, black hair in a monk's cut, finishes a detailed yarn to his companion, a stocky fellow with an explosion of bleached hair, all higgledy-piggidly with gel product, his eyes attentive but red and glassy with booze.<br />
<br />
Treading closer, Mudman makes out the tall skinny guy to be Ritch, who, having finished whatever he was saying, now listens closely to the other man, the man called Wastrel. Now under the umbrella shadow of the monkey puzzle, Mudman dimley sees that Wastrel's upper body describes a lazy orbit above some undetermined pivot point below his waistline. Wastrel's musky scent of stale beer, sweat, second-hand smoke, and slept-in clothes wafts in the air.<br />
<br />
"Well, Ritch," Wastrel was saying, "I'd say you do just what you're thinking of doing, there," he reaches up and sloppily pats Ritch on the upper arm, "now, if. If you'll excuse me, I haven't seen my good friend. My good friend Muds-man here in a while and would like to see what he done and whom he's seen and what to whom!" Ritch smiles, waves at Mudman, oblivious to Mudman's bruised cheek in the low light. Ritch then looks at Wastrel with eyes of deep significance, and heads back to the party. <br />
<br />
"Muds, how's it going? How is the High Style, these days? You guys holding down the fort?"<br />
<br />
"Not the same without you, Wastrel."<br />
<br />
"Well, hey," Wastrel shrugs, falters back on his heels a bit, "whoa, think my buzz is plateauing," Wastrel puts his index finger on Mudman's collarbone like he's holding down the pause button on a tape recorder and promptly downs the rest of his beer. Wastrel's biochemistry is all reverse-upside-down-backwards-opposite when it comes to alcohol. The specifics are hazy. Rig speculates Wastrel has a biological symbiotic relationship with alcohol, specifically, beer, although its unclear what services he and the beer are exactly rendering for each other. Wastrel lowers his cup and wipes his lips with his forearm, "so, what were we talking about?"<br />
<br />
"You could have told me."<br />
<br />
"Told you what? Hey, what's that?" Wastrel squints, "that a bruise on your cheek, there? What is that?"<br />
<br />
"Aecca/Decca hit me with a traffic cone."<br />
<br />
"Why'd he do that?"<br />
<br />
"To get even."<br />
<br />
"With you?"<br />
<br />
"With the sidewalk."<br />
<br />
"Oh," Wastrel reaches down a picks up a full cup of beer from the ground, "pretty in character, really, then.," Mudman notices at least two more full beers resting in the darkness, "wait, I should have told you about what?"<br />
<br />
"The party. You should have told me about the party," Mudman glances towards Punk Hotel as applause is heard. Rafterman must be done playing.<br />
<br />
"I left a flyer at the Pillbox. With Sling. I knew he'd show it to you guys."<br />
<br />
"A little haphazard."<br />
<br />
"Well, you got here, yeah?"<br />
<br />
"A little last minute," Mudman hears angry yelling from the direction of Punk Hotel.<br />
<br />
"Pfft. Not my fault you didn't get to the 'Box earlier," Wastrel peers and cranes at the growing commotion. The entire party begins to spill out Punk Hotel and into the street, led by Aecca and followed closely by Deadbeat, who accosts Aecca about being a liar, about the tag "Master of Static Electricity" being a total joke. <br />
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<br />
<br />
Wastrel puts an arm around Mudman's shoulders, "y'know, some parties are good, great even, but with a little narrative, some gentle prodding, then can become legendary!"<br />
<br />
Mudman furrows his brow, "this is one of your dioramas?" Wastrel responds by with a sidelong glance and devious smile.<br />
<br />
"Aecca's a nice guy," says Mudman, "he doesn't deserve this." Aecca's stopped in the middle of the street, fists clenched, breathing fast and shallow.<br />
<br />
"And what," asks Wastrel, trying to look over the top of the crowd, "of poor Deadbeat?"<br />
<br />
Mudman considers, as Deadbeat continues to loudly and coarsely berate Aecca, then concedes, "he deserves to be manipulated."<br />
<br />
"Besides, Muds," Wastrel sways in his semi-stupor, "Aecca needs to impress."<br />
<br />
The crowd has encircled Deadbeat and Aecca. Humidor and Rig end up side by side on the very inside of the circle. Humidor asks how it started. Rig says the band finished a song and then when the applause died down everyone noticed that Aecca and Deadbeat were yelling, screaming at each other, and then Aecca tried to just disengage and walk out but Deadbeat just kept it coming and followed him, saying something about Aecca being a DI washout and a never-was. Humidor's face crinkles in anger at this last piece of information, his eyes darken.<br />
<br />
Rig and Humidor, and the murmuring crowd, and Deadbeat go quiet when suddenly and silently Aecca unlaces his boots and kicks them off. <br />
<br />
Then it begins.<br />
<br />
The air starts to smell of ozone. Aecca's hair, everyone's hair, stands on end, fairly jumps about to some unknown rhythm, their clothes cling to their bodies. People giggle and holler. Tiny bits of trash pinwheel gently toward Aecca and spin in circles around him. <br />
<br />
Creet appears at Humidor's side, "what's happening?"<br />
<br />
"He's polarizing," Rig says in a distant, abstract tone. <br />
<br />
Under the monkey puzzle tree, Wastrel's grins ear to ear. "No one. No one will forget this party, now, Muds." His eyes fix drunkenly on the ground at his feet and sways with the waves of a rolling blackout.<br />
<br />
Deadbeat's still standing unmoved and scowling at Aecca, but a trace of anxiety begins to sneak into the corners of his eyes and mouth. <br />
<br />
The atmosphere on the street is now silent but electric. Debris hypnotically orbits Aecca in two tapering clouds, like the top and the bottom of an hourglass.<br />
<br />
"The air's so… still," murmur's Creet.<br />
<br />
"Any second now…" says a mesmerized Rig.<br />
<br />
"Magnificent, isn't it?" says Wastrel to Mudma, snapping out of his glassy-eyed drunken reverie. <br />
<br />
Mudman looks on with a discerned, almost mournful expression, "I still don't like it."<br />
<br />
Wastrel ignores him, "the crowd is the note, the power, yet unformed, and Aecca the chord yet unstrummed, the hand that strikes it."<br />
<br />
Aecca's twinges minutely, and, for split second he smiles at Deadbeat the smallest of dastardly smiles. Then there's a barely audible crinkle noise, and in an instant, a blue bolt of superheated air fairly leaps from Aecca's stomach, throwing him and Deadbeat to the ground in opposite directions like they'd each been hit by bus. <br />
<br />
The air temperature on the crowded street jumps a good ten or fifteen degrees, and those closest to Aecca momentarily see the floating debris around him ignite, burn, and disintegrate, like cinders from an open fire. The lightening bolt arcs magnificently a good 50 or 60 feet into the air, and then jaggedely plummets back to earth and violently conducts itself down the length of a streetlamp into the ground. The lamp explodes, showering broken safety glass bits and pieces onto the crowd beneath it. People scream and howl in fear, run in random directions, tripping and falling over each other.<br />
<br />
Then the lamppost groans and cracks, and begins a slow, drunken fall to the street, a section of it splinted and burning about five feet up from the pavement. The top of the lamppost catches on another set of electrical wires, hangs suspended for a split second, then the broken off lower half canterlivers out and under the wire, like a man clothes-lined onto his back, hitting the street with a loud, final clang.<br />
<br />
People scatter or go back inside. When the fire department shows up and a few police cruisers lurk about, even more people begin to dissipate. Aecca sits on the curb across from Punk Hotel, his boots still off, the belly of his shirt is blackened and burnt, with a hole the size of a softball centered roughly around his navel. Mudman and Rig sit to either side of him. They all sip beer from plastic cups. The upright stump of the remaining street lamp smolders 30 feet or so down from them. The fire department and some electric company workers have the rest of the lamp over to the side of the road. A fire marshal and a utility worker listen incredously to Wastrel's tale of a flukey, spontaneous electrical explosion, of an arc of lightening that nearly killed his buddy (pointing at Aecca for effect).<br />
<br />
"I'll never understand why it shots out of your belly button," Rig says and shakes his head.<br />
<br />
"Yeah, let's just not talk about it, huh?" Aecca's voice is thick, like he's got an awful sinus infection. He looks at his feet and wiggles his toes. His feet are covered in a fine black soot. You'd think he was wearing ballet slippers.<br />
<br />
Creet crosses the street, two cups of beer in her hands. She gives one to Aecca. "Thanks" he says, setting it down on the curb next to him, taking another sip of the one he's still working on. Creet plops roughly to the curb next to his cup, not-so-discreetly bumping Mudman over to make room for herself. <br />
<br />
"You okay?" Creet's mouth crooks into her distinctive smirk.<br />
<br />
Aecca shrugs, stares at his feet and smudges some of the soot off with his thumb, "its not the first time, but its never really easier, so…" he shrugs again.<br />
<br />
"I had no idea," she rubs the back of her neck, "you never told me that it was like that," indicates the broken lamppost.<br />
<br />
"Yeah, well," Aecca smiles absently, "I guess I always hope the last time is the last time, y'know?"<br />
<br />
Creet smiles warmly at this confession. Aecca smiles back, sharing the tiny intimacy.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
Humidor emerges from the mingling remnants of the party, wearing a shit-eating grin to which everyone's gaze it drawn. He smokes his cigarette flamboyantly (even by his standards) as he stops in front of his assembled housemates, striking a faux-casual pose which screams I-have-news. His smokey exhalations form into a cloudy tail which spirals behind him, as if he was being followed by a transparent vortex. His eyes flick across his audience.<br />
<br />
"Well? What is it?" Rig asks at last.<br />
<br />
Humidor smiles, nay, verily beams with self-satisfaction. He pulls his free hand from his pocket where it had been at rest, and with a jingle produces a set of keys with a flip his wrist.<br />
<br />
"You got your keys back," Mudman states, not asks.<br />
<br />
"Indeedy, and I'm giving all of the Raftermen a ride to the 'Box."<br />
<br />
"Yeah?"<br />
<br />
"Yes! Ritch Jukeboxer and Pockster have already absconded. I have agreed to rendevous with them there shortly."<br />
<br />
"Ah, here! Here you are!" Wastrel stumbles up and wraps an arm around Humidor's shoulders, <br />
sir! Your payment due!" he pushes a wad of cash into Humidor's front shirt pocket, "fifty buck, as promised! For use of the van."<br />
<br />
"Housemateys!" Humidor cries, "Assemble!" .<br />
<br />
"Bet we're all here."<br />
<br />
"Tonight!" continues Humidor, "the beers are are on me!"<br />
<br />
The other housemates' sit in dumb silence, then Mudman says "everyone in the van before Humidor forgets what he just said."<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-26882201013119161522013-06-02T16:51:00.000-07:002013-06-09T14:39:31.784-07:00No. 16: Grounded
<p>The smooth black monolith squatting serene<br>
The heart-master dynamo of a squalid house<br>
A lurker not at the threshold but at the center, where teem<br>
Full four failed men, friends, each a souse
</p><p align=center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTOYaUvH5xAlldBIivM8-j80I6n-1PWhQ86qkmTe5STDWNt6ahjf5ij4BnrO8oNF8AmeWBik1XyX4KqKCeuekMuBZRZSlPkgJ4RoGQE3R0ye00Xet1Y8fqva0-_UYOLsRvy84_FdCoUlU/s1600/Yoyodyne.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTOYaUvH5xAlldBIivM8-j80I6n-1PWhQ86qkmTe5STDWNt6ahjf5ij4BnrO8oNF8AmeWBik1XyX4KqKCeuekMuBZRZSlPkgJ4RoGQE3R0ye00Xet1Y8fqva0-_UYOLsRvy84_FdCoUlU/s320/Yoyodyne.jpg" /></a></p>
<p>Ever thus desperate for a noonish elixir<br>
With strong flavor and stronger power<br>
To uplift and overcome—fuel to conquer last night's mixture<br>
Of folly and liquor. Each day's foul routine repeated first: one dour<br>
<p>Figure shambles into a fetid kitchen, himself rancid as any forgotten dish,<br>
Shifts through drifts of filth to fetch filter<br>
And find bean or grounds according to which<br>
Sad wretch first fled sleep to flinch the day. A welter<br>
<p>Of debris on the counter faces whichever one of four<br>
Founds the day. Woe betide the step<br>
Of that becalmed wretch who finds no brown reason to live to pour<br>
'Pon arising, who must scrounge the couch for cash and trek<br>
<p>Instanter out to 'plenish the go-juice supply,<br>
In iron accord with the one law of the High Style.<br>
"If you get up first, you make a pot of coffee." No need to describe<br>
The punishments for this frank sin; any violator would greet exile.<br>
<p>Let all that passed be prologue only, though,<br>
A mere sketch of regularity, lines of a still life<br>
Like ruts in the exhausted earth, a ditch-image existence in a field better left fallow.<br>
Because today is no stock gift of same, but a novel slice—<br>
<p>Nearly an attack, this new obstacle now, this new failure<br>
This morning of things broken (besides the men<br>
(A known quantity, and one none too large)) following the sure<br>
Setbacks suffered last night, then the stumbling back to this den...<br>
<p>The coffee maker's busted. That's what's different.<br>
There's little enough coffee, but that's not the problem. The money's fucking spent.<br>
There's no more replacing the ancient Braun than there is overpaying rent.<br>
Like a cattle-gunned child stands MudMan silent, staring at where once happiness came from, where hope went.</p>
<p align=center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1_jMaSC_NqabnDd68Im2XJUZTTRC8SkGzkQWy1NPoWabdQvpSPZz7kOJwlmf2J2XZw5vOoFGgeIsszr5EeBJX4znYeRNQQBYcQG3ZbXOwr9aBZSQ6bMYu2MrWfmZfnTPjyOEvAs4UNfI/s1600/AkkasMug.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1_jMaSC_NqabnDd68Im2XJUZTTRC8SkGzkQWy1NPoWabdQvpSPZz7kOJwlmf2J2XZw5vOoFGgeIsszr5EeBJX4znYeRNQQBYcQG3ZbXOwr9aBZSQ6bMYu2MrWfmZfnTPjyOEvAs4UNfI/s320/AkkasMug.jpg" /></a></p>
<p>A few times he tries what makes sense.<br>
Checks the cord and plug, jogs the switch.<br>
There's power to the outlet, he means to check (twice). When<br>
Did it last work? Doesn't matter. No good now to wish<br>
<p>Now were then, with then's things working still.<br>
MudMan's morals founder on a challenge this big.<br>
Would yours? A feint, he thinks: go back to bed, let somebody else uncover this rotten deal.<br>
He slumps to turn and slip down the stairs. "Oh. Hi, Rig."<br>
<p>"'Man. Coffee yet? Man, my goddamned head.<br>
Shit, it's not even on, you must have—"<br>
Rig flips the switch, sees no light, stops. Looks at what's dead.<br>
MudMan stands mute to history, knows there are no words for some facts.<br>
<p>Jerry recapitulates MudMan's actions with plug, cord, and outlet,<br>
To of course no particular avail. That's not how these things work!<br>
The futility doesn't stop him. He pauses, and the friends stale the air with cigarette<br>
Smoke. "The hell are we gonna do?" Rig sighs. "This one hurts."<br>
<p>Humidor slumbers. Dekka, like always, keeps to his bed.<br>
He hates making coffee—for anybody else, anyway—<br>
So he's careful to avoid stirring before there's something to stir, playing dead<br>
To the world. Let others prepare potions at the break of day.<br>
<p>"I'm gonna find a tape—" "No. There's no point.<br>
That won't fix this." "Helps me think."<br>
Rig slouches out; 'Man left, bereft, wishes his exit had been so adroit.<br>
No coffee. Nothing to drink. Maybe a drink?<br>
<p>Bleak. Harsh realm for sure. A lamestain unlikely to be caught<br>
On the flippety-flop. Or anywhere else. Almost<br>
Unnoticed, MudMan's second beer is half gone.<br>
Rig noisily munches on toast.<br>
<p>Some horrible blare rackets away and the coffee maker sits, inert.<br>
"We'll clean it up!" Rig blurts. "Act like it's new<br>
And return it for exchange." "Without a box? Wrapped in your shirt?"<br>
MudMan's far from buying this shit. Few<br>
<p>Retailers would mistake the questioned unit<br>
For anything made in recent times<br>
Anyway. Even if divested of the crust of years accrued to it,<br>
Its like hasn't haunted shelves since cigarettes cost just dimes.<br>
<p>An impasse. Rig spits crumbs. "Well? You solve this,<br>
Then, dick." MudMan opens his fourth.<br>
The center is not holding. The house is cracking. The risk<br>
Is that the coffee/beer cycle—the last strong support<br>
<p>Of any kind of reasonable life these men know—<br>
Will collapse forever, and they will be lost.<br>
Humidor's on the couch already, already crying. Rig: "I'll fix—" "No."<br>
"We've lost enough today. We can't stand the cost<br>
<p>Of some stupid fire or any more broken shit<br>
From you kit-bashing our stuff for parts."<br>
Thus Akka/Dekka, roused and moved to roust or rout. Rig takes the hit<br>
Silently but sour, fingers his wallet and departs.<br>
<p>He'll buy his own coffee. Gawp at the girl<br>
Working the counter, if there is one,<br>
Heaving his heavy load about the place, hiding a grotesque whirl<br>
Of emotions. A ghastly attempt to flirt. Dumb.<br>
<p>He'll be half-mute and will say nothing smart<br>
As his sausagy body, smock-stuffed, phocine<br>
And hardly gainly, repels faintly. Rig didn't start <br>
The day with a hot shower. Or a cold one. He nor his clothes are clean.<br>
<p>Gross. Leave him his self-hewn hell. Contemplate the High Style<br>
Anew. Humidor has uncovered surprises. Two,<br>
In fact. First, he revealed Akka/Dekka's own coffee machine, hidden the while.<br>
Second, an admission his footfall had known Dekka's little room.<br>
<p>A violation uncool. Chamber of Solitude! But protocol be screwed<br>
For the moment, as the small tool gets shoved<br>
Onto the counter and stoked with solid and liquid that coffee might brew.<br>
"Smaller than the house pot," notes 'Man, "But enough."<br>
<p>Fuming Dekka stomps a sulk away. Humidor anxiously flits.<br>
MudMan's hands dole the groups—use the very last<br>
To full fill the hopper, topped to the brim. Turning back, he jars his wrist<br>
Against the unfamiliar dimensions of the new maker. With a blast<br>
<p>The carafe falls. On the floor it irrefixably shatters!<br>
Stumbling back, Humidor flails in shock<br>
And strikes the machine's basket. It too falls. Grounds scatter<br>
Amidst broken glass and into standing water. Fuck.<br>
<p>Everything's ruined. No coffee. No money. A pair of<br>
devices down with no prospect of change.<br>
Let alone bills. The 'mates despair of<br>
Resolving this with money. Their minds are made strange<br>
<p>With lack of coffee and so many awful blows<br>
Delivered by this shitty world in one day.<br>
They retire from the fray as from life. Hosed,<br>
They yield. MudMan and Humidor run away<br>
<p>Now from everything. The night now to fall will be the end.<br>
The end of all things. The end of sobriety.<br>
The end of any bond to bind the friends.<br>
Coffee—the ritual and the drug—was the last anchor to the world they flee<br>
<p>And sure the only world they'll see again<br>
Will be at the bottom of cans, tops endlessly popped.<br>
Without coffee, eternal night of yellow beer descends.<br>
What little forward motion these men could caffeinated muster now forever stops.<br>
<p>Hours later, all wallow in something like fate—or frank doom. <br>
Rig sits in a state trooper's car. Long story. He's ripped. <br>
So are his pants, and the other 'mates. MudMan and Akka are sad at the bar, Humidor same in his room. <br>
Unseen in the Chamber of Solitude sits a circuit breaker only tripped.</p><p align=center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLA39Qh3DF5IqNDgtAFGuJx-dmjwPRHoUNi_VI6VR3jLxhjJiEjYSCgg7cVa6h77an6ca7zTG03dpIb_5kMRRW6eVOnIF9EGG9Nlug9p_9W8PbIOhEffpMSsLibO801Lh1g-bgUAxH0k8/s1600/Noodles.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLA39Qh3DF5IqNDgtAFGuJx-dmjwPRHoUNi_VI6VR3jLxhjJiEjYSCgg7cVa6h77an6ca7zTG03dpIb_5kMRRW6eVOnIF9EGG9Nlug9p_9W8PbIOhEffpMSsLibO801Lh1g-bgUAxH0k8/s320/Noodles.jpg" /></a></p>
<p><em>Words & drawings by C. Collision</em></p>Chris Collisionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16584073887456341125noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-49418600845301198662013-05-08T12:01:00.005-07:002013-09-22T15:30:09.267-07:00EL HUMIDOR – Smoke-Mentalist of the Sky Pirates!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc2zcbSwEF8vj67JfSH3sw9m7PPhd6o3IXesChmGKlhTqw14N4wfGmvQsdPd29vhFXqp75IJNLWcOCyIwxMRFSoYa7iHj8c_jP94hHXUobO9BzauCdANmoTYmeYzD26u0vTiz_PWEWwL4/s1600/elhum-i-dor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc2zcbSwEF8vj67JfSH3sw9m7PPhd6o3IXesChmGKlhTqw14N4wfGmvQsdPd29vhFXqp75IJNLWcOCyIwxMRFSoYa7iHj8c_jP94hHXUobO9BzauCdANmoTYmeYzD26u0vTiz_PWEWwL4/s320/elhum-i-dor.jpg" width="248" /></a><br /><em>(<a href="http://sharedhousing.blogspot.com/2010/09/no-10-creet.html">Introduce yourself</a>, Hummy [from issue 10, Creet])</em></div>
<br />
Not an actual sky pirate. A self-styled citizen of the world, he speaks with bizarre accents and rhythms, reflections of somewhat confusing social and cultural origins. He talks and thinks like he's part of several elaborate fantasies happening at the same time. Never been employed. El Humidor is an adept fumokinetic – he can control smoke with his mind. (Usually the smoke exhaled from smoking an Oggie brand cigarette). Typically creates smoke-figurines which play out escapist fantasies. Favorite themes involve biplanes, dirigibles, and general airborne adventure. Also, generic fantasy and 1950s-style pin-ups. Humidor's skinny and wears whatever was cheapest at the surplus store, usually Swiss, Czech, and other army gear from tiny, boring, socialist-type countries. Average day consists of being the last to wake up, drinking coffee made from left-over grounds, laying on the couch smoking, foraging in the streets for dropped change and returnables, laying on couch. Terrible with directions. Owns a van he calls the 'Valiant,' which he apparently 'won' from someone in a game of Magic. Obsessed with hanging out at the Pillbox Tavern during afternoon hours, with the godawful old Liverspot Gang daycrowd (they tend to buy him at least two beers, for reason unknown). Quick healer, in the event of a hangover. Second story bedroom, overlooking side yard.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv4WSMVCrXscQmLywJne628a_s3zF8ZrXpiqqoyXUspaWRvPCDZr6Sfx1Tp2v5pPt8wZYheJxEXbZhWAMGqHVJHEjCOmLhwu7mkQjDQfJ35Z7izEklQOR5KENh233KYyzxfILybZYLFH8/s1600/fruitbeer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv4WSMVCrXscQmLywJne628a_s3zF8ZrXpiqqoyXUspaWRvPCDZr6Sfx1Tp2v5pPt8wZYheJxEXbZhWAMGqHVJHEjCOmLhwu7mkQjDQfJ35Z7izEklQOR5KENh233KYyzxfILybZYLFH8/s320/fruitbeer.jpg" width="233" /></a><br /><em>(<a href="http://sharedhousing.blogspot.com/2010/09/no-13-with-heights-and-malt-liquor.html">El Humidor waxes rhapsodic</a> from issue 13, With Heights and Malt Liquor)</em><br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYYDMUFRVo2IM2RQ0bgf51Ukiyc_ashof7A4esRG6cBirsxpIXJ3a2Eai_6ctos5F-32OjhPAu4CIIEjAujZNLfRBKqXpGBbIh3aXOj91ZGDAGvcz0Fj_VBIfXpiurclyzOZR12CMoX70/s1600/tatertots.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYYDMUFRVo2IM2RQ0bgf51Ukiyc_ashof7A4esRG6cBirsxpIXJ3a2Eai_6ctos5F-32OjhPAu4CIIEjAujZNLfRBKqXpGBbIh3aXOj91ZGDAGvcz0Fj_VBIfXpiurclyzOZR12CMoX70/s320/tatertots.jpg" width="320" /></a><br /><em>(<a href="http://sharedhousing.blogspot.com/2010/09/no-11-citizens-emerge.html">El Humidor returns</a> with the spoils of war, from issue 11, Citizens Emerge)</em></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-71157012175085855812013-05-04T21:07:00.003-07:002013-09-22T15:21:24.757-07:00AECCA/DECCA – Master of Static Electricity!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOYnU5C5GIZjM6mB-uIo5R4MSIKHccwpJjubXyIRi1QI_jrvNecJ4BT05d-T9j9e_quYeoFAu8u4XB_oZLhEqVzxEEZ7wF6A0gi_CVE3G_a_aOqG5juud7r-vrtl81hcnyFYHve9LP1Xs/s1600/aecca_rages.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOYnU5C5GIZjM6mB-uIo5R4MSIKHccwpJjubXyIRi1QI_jrvNecJ4BT05d-T9j9e_quYeoFAu8u4XB_oZLhEqVzxEEZ7wF6A0gi_CVE3G_a_aOqG5juud7r-vrtl81hcnyFYHve9LP1Xs/s320/aecca_rages.jpg" width="229" /></a>
<br /><em>(<a href="http://sharedhousing.blogspot.com/2010/05/no-15-eastside-transversal.html">Akka rampant</a> from issue 15, Eastside Transversal)</em><br /><br /></div>
"Master" might be an exaggeration. Aecca/Decca's corpus acts as a super magnet for static electricity, turning him into an overloaded (and grumpy) battery of useless electrical power. Rubber socks and, for social occasions, thin strips of rubber super-glued to his fingertips allow him to live a relatively normal life. Once a level-headed guy, Aecca gets pretty edgy because of his condition and a diet consisting largely of coffee and beer. And a world filled with slowness and obstacles. Dedicated diarist. Adequate DIY bike mechanic. On-the-fly battalion cook extraordinaire. Can be a bit of a bully. Probably the closest thing the housemates of the High Style have to a leader, largely due to being the loudest voice. Second-story bedroom, overlooking front yard (this would be called the "master" bedroom if the house were for sale).
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqTlfim6ao2nHqO-NFCm7wAUr-0wMVclG-dWgVh4n1FRuHJqsih-yq8ESWu1vXi8T2Rwo0FK_ZpWnXhisfxu0oRXVV8eKpDv35B1uG3O3JfKC6RxjclvQTXqadV7gClsjNuO_qFjFpfVs/s1600/gotanymoney.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqTlfim6ao2nHqO-NFCm7wAUr-0wMVclG-dWgVh4n1FRuHJqsih-yq8ESWu1vXi8T2Rwo0FK_ZpWnXhisfxu0oRXVV8eKpDv35B1uG3O3JfKC6RxjclvQTXqadV7gClsjNuO_qFjFpfVs/s320/gotanymoney.jpg" width="320" /></a><br /><em>(<a href="http://sharedhousing.blogspot.com/2010/09/no-13-with-heights-and-malt-liquor.html">Akka collects dough</a> for a beer run, from issue 13, With Heights and Malt Liquor)</em></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyAKmHVnx8OOztPKwJ-6pk1AKYiD6pKvbQ9O3x-vDhwcH70fQVHLUvMYNQrxkxvu30n5RsRDQJrGvRjnCwyXJcn8s7N_IUSC67WdnYu2YnzcgvbC624jpi-qYuc0Px86CiWH3yJTX8_LA/s1600/issue3nicelife.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyAKmHVnx8OOztPKwJ-6pk1AKYiD6pKvbQ9O3x-vDhwcH70fQVHLUvMYNQrxkxvu30n5RsRDQJrGvRjnCwyXJcn8s7N_IUSC67WdnYu2YnzcgvbC624jpi-qYuc0Px86CiWH3yJTX8_LA/s320/issue3nicelife.jpg" width="320" /></a>
<br /><em>(<a href="http://sharedhousing.blogspot.com/2008/12/no-3-cold-beer-war.html">Akka holds out</a> on Jerry, from issue 3, the Cold Beer War)</em></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-3365638588086886302010-11-04T12:56:00.000-07:002013-06-09T14:37:56.477-07:00No. 15 - Eastside Transversal<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgit0guv3X9Te-NMkGLLSZJjfVU77klLrbCwI2avD7S03HtVPetqee4qOjD2IpGBAy9jTHNE35PgtyP71tP5uxoolLJwHzDCRB3aRQLcxEYNY4qsNNyHCtlK4RGV33DhNqd666YDzUaB4s/s1600/15+Frontispiece.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgit0guv3X9Te-NMkGLLSZJjfVU77klLrbCwI2avD7S03HtVPetqee4qOjD2IpGBAy9jTHNE35PgtyP71tP5uxoolLJwHzDCRB3aRQLcxEYNY4qsNNyHCtlK4RGV33DhNqd666YDzUaB4s/s640/15+Frontispiece.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br /><br />
With a combination of relief and dread, Sling greets the familiar noises of further customers opening the heavy steel-plated front door of the Pillbox Tavern. Sling nods at the guys from the house called High Style, all squinty as they adjust to the dim lighting. The 'Box is entirely lit by neon beer signs, a regular light bulb nowhere to be seen. The squints give way to movements floaty and lazy, the first steps of a well-practiced and beloved dance. <br />
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<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/tzykDjuT5OxnxSFRkSE6nO-482ji6tvarqvF5QRj5zs?feat=blogger" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" width="100%"><img border="0" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ8j7WfLEgo9aqqAOwCseb1iJRtJ3LL3iV-oZmtdnw6X1H_5292_xW57LTg1F0dENTYvfLtqmvdQl1o1iI484JyVvBVMzrnofW45vUSMTQbr_y87IjOhAOb9ixgqi1gpcYxiasNeag7Fvl/s400/pillbox.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />
Sling reaches for the fridge door, starts pulling out four cans of beer. Sling's arms are long. They come down just past his knees. Ideal arms for a bartender, he can pass a beer to a customer over another customer's head like a crane loading a cargo ship. Most regulars get used to it. El Humidor always gawks in joyful fascination.<br />
<br />
Sling nods hello at Mudman, who thumbs at Aecca/Decca since he's holding Mud's money tonight (stays cleaner that way). Mudman and Sling get along grand, probably because both are visually freakish, Sling with his unnatural wingspan, Mudman with his covered in sweat-soaked dirt skin. They also both speak only when they have something to say. Mudman grabs his beer and takes first sip and idles his way to an available booth back by the dart board.<br />
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<br />
<br />
The remaining beers distributed and dollars collected, Aecca meanders to the jukebox and feeds it a crinkled dollar. He reads the machine's catalog with the concentration of a medieval scholar. Humidor and Rig settle down at the booth with Mudman but after a sip or two Rig gets back up and has a go at the pinball machine. Humidor talks. Mudman nods occasionally. Aecca joins them as the chords of the seventies spill out of the jukebox's speakers. Rig curses as the pinball gutters his third and final ball and slides into the booth as Humidor's lecture winds down.<br />
<br />
Conspiratorial glances and asides. El Humidor gets up, heads back to the restroom, taking another swig from his beer.<br />
<br />
Awkwardly, the remaining housemates continue the previous dialog. Mudman gets up and heads to the bathroom, beer dangling in hand at his side. Seconds after, the door closes, Humidor exits and returns to his seat, and launches into an anecdote about a Steven Seagal movie and a bag of Arby's. Aecca chuckles unnaturally at the anecdote, rises, takes a drink from his beer with a forced casualness, and heads for the toilets. <br />
<br />
Oddly, as before, Mudman exits mere moments after Aecca enters the bathroom. Mudman sits down and resumes drinking. Humidor restarts his story to bring Mudman up to speed. Mudman nods in acknowledgement. Jerry Rig excuses himself and beelines for the bathroom, beer in hand.<br />
<br />
Pushing the door open, Rig steps in far enough to let it close behind him. Aecca peers over his shoulder from the stall, then turns to face Rig. "C'mon, hurry up," he hisses, and holds out an open thirty-six ounce can of malt liquor. In his other hand, Aecca's beer can is topped with the frothy foamy head of a refill. <br />
<br />
Rig takes the malt liquor and turns sideways so Aecca can sidestep past him. Rig does his best to pour the malt liquor contents into his empty twelve ounce can. "Jesus Christ, Jerry, go in the stall!" Aecca whispers through a snarl. Still pouring, Rig tries to slip into the stall in a smooth motion, but jostles his twelve-ounce can. Foam quickly begins to rise out of the twelve-ouncer. Half-way through the stall-door, Rig stops pouring and quickly sips at the top of his over-foaming can.<br />
<br />
The door squeaks open, held open by Sling's long arm. The arm begins to bend and seems to almost draw Sling into the doorway. Sling appraises the scene before him, Rig frozen mid-sip, halfway into the stall, Aecca pressed up against the wall to let Rig past. Rig and Aecca, children caught at mischief, await the sure-to-come reprimand.<br />
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<a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/Aef7TAGIWx14tu_LCVTDne-482ji6tvarqvF5QRj5zs?feat=blogger" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" width="100%"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgk9Km6R3D6GuklSc3GbsOEiWUnmTv_PgFwwfBfnp3-FuQoarG9zP5SoWLrEtto4ouROAT9FHx24T1txxFk9JDzIZCkVpjgbn5jHmZ4MSe0eDURLt9MUFFT1OjR1Qk0jel3adISZ3gSLft/s400/caught.jpg" width="350" /></a></div>
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<br />
Sling's mouth crinkles in disapproval, "geez, guys, here I was thinking you were doing drugs in here or something." Rig and Aecca exhale a little. Sling reaches out, takes the can of malt liquor from Rig, starts pouring it into the sink. Sling angles his elbow up to form a sort of bridge that Rig and Aecca can pass under. They shuffle out of the bathroom with guilty gaits, make their way back to the booth. Mud and Humidor give them exasperated looks.<br />
<br />
Sling finishes dumping the malt liquor and tosses the can out the open back door into the parking lot. He walks up the booth and picks up the two ashtrays on the table. He empties one into the other and places the empty one in front of El Humidor. "Seriously, if you guys want to do shit like that just drink in the bushes out back like everyone else." One of the Liverspot Gang, seated in earshot at a video slots machine, gruffaws loudly. The housemates gaze at their beercans, eyes downcast in shame. Sling turns, swaps the full ashtray with a clean one sitting on the bar, sets it down with a slight clatter, and strolls back to his post behind the bar.<br />
<br />
"Jerald Rig. You are about as subtle as a hand grenade," Humidor says, pulling a fresh cigarette out of its pack.<br />
<br />
"Real subtle," Mudman says, a slight nod in agreement.<br />
<br />
"I knew you'd fuck it up, axelrod," Aecca lightly backhands Rig on the upperarm.<br />
<br />
"It was your stupid fucking idea," growls Rig.<br />
<br />
They finish their tainted beers, sharing only grumpy expressions and killjoy attitudes. Sling stares at them from behind the bar, his arms folded across his chest in disapproval. The cans before them empty, cash is ponied up and Mudman buys another round with a healthy tip as penance. Sling forgives them by ceasing to stare at them.<br />
<br />
The mood lightens slightly. Aecca recounts the time him and Humidor set off little firecrackers behind the bar. They'd light them individually and throw them away quickly before they went off. They giggled and swore when they wouldn't throw fast enough and burnt their finger tips. Then Sling had come out back and yelled at them to knock it off.<br />
<br />
The jukebox finishes Aecca original four-song selection and goes mute. Rig gets up and heads over to reload it. Something grabs Humidor's attention. He rises from his slouch and peers around the bar like a meerkat. "Where IS everyone?" <br />
<br />
Aecca looks around, says, "I don't know if I've EVER seen it this empty?"<br />
<br />
Rig returns from the Jukebox, looks up at the wall clock. "Yeah, its after 10. On a Friday. But no Pocketeer."<br />
<br />
"No Jukeboxer," says Mudman.<br />
<br />
"Hey, Sling!" Aecca hollers, the night's previous transgression forgotten, "where is everybody?"<br />
<br />
Sling looks up, then reaches behind the bar, snags a small piece of paper, holds it up between two fingers and shakes it twice, then slides it onto the bar facing towards the housemates.<br />
<br />
Rig waddles over and picks up the paper. Reads it as he slowly walks back to the booth. Rig loves a mystery.<br />
<br />
"Well, what is it?" Aecca's eyes begin to glaze into a rage. Rig also loves to make dramatic expositions, usually by withholding information to build suspense. Aecca hate this habit. Rig's mouth hangs open slackjawed. He plops into his seat and faces the front of the paper towards his roomies. It’s a party flyer.<br />
<br />
"Christ!" Aecca throws his hands in the air, "How did we not know about this?" <br />
<br />
"There's a Punk Hotel party tonight? For real?" Humidor examines the flyer, glimpses at the wall clock. "It starts in, like, now."<br />
<br />
"We have to leave," Mudman's can, freshly emptied, rattles out of his hand onto the table, his other hand wiping beer from his lips. He stands up, looks at the others expectantly.<br />
<br />
Three chugged beers later, the flatmates burst out the Pillbox's entrance onto the street. <br />
<br />
"I can't believe we didn't find out about this 'til now!"<br />
<br />
"Must have been planned that way, keep it secret 'til the last minute."<br />
<br />
"That's Wastrel's style, for sure!"<br />
<br />
"Or it was a last minute thing anyways."<br />
<br />
"How we getting there?"<br />
<br />
"Uh, the van, I suppose."<br />
<br />
El Humidor stops walking. "It is out. On loan."<br />
<br />
"What?"<br />
<br />
"How could you do this? In our hour of need?"<br />
<br />
"El Humidor has favors to pay, favors to earn." He stands in silence.<br />
<br />
"Bikes?" Mudman addresses Aecca, the house's resident bike engineer, their ride captain.<br />
<br />
"Pump's fucked. Flat tire on each and every one. We ain't got no wheels, man!" Aecca's pacing in a tight loop, the crisis escalating.<br />
<br />
"Well, there's the bus…" offers Rig weakly.<br />
<br />
"I have not that kind of money!" Humidor is almost insulted.<br />
<br />
"Jesus, Rig, pay the two buck fare?"<br />
<br />
"Well, fuck, guys" Rig, getting defensive, getting panicky, "how else the fuck do you propose we get there? We're running late already!"<br />
<br />
"Walk," Mudman stares at the sidewalk, at his feet, really, "we'll have to walk it." He looks up, eyes flinty determination.<br />
<br />
The others' resolve hardens. Jaws go grim.<br />
<br />
Rig's science-brain kicks in. "Right. Its, like, thirty-two blocks due west and about, uh, 20 blocks or so north from there, so…" he thrums his chin with his fingers. The others wait for the pending judgment. "…so… its gotta be like 5 miles, tops, about an hour or so walk."<br />
<br />
"An hour! Five miles!" Humidor, interminably lazy.<br />
<br />
"Can it, Humey," Aecca says, "we'll be there a little after midnight, then. There'll be plenty of partying left to do."<br />
<br />
"A long walk home, too, maybe…" muses Rig with a shrug, picking absently at a fingernail.<br />
<br />
A spate of silence, the brink of decision. This is no leisurely stroll. Almost all the way to the river. And a long drunk, tired death march back, most likely. But a Punk Hotel party! One does not miss one of those.<br />
<br />
Without saying a word, their minds are made up. They begin to walk. The exact route is decided as they go. That way too steep. Too much traffic here. Dead ends there. A convenience store on the way that way, for Humidor to get smokes. <br />
<br />
As is the character of their loose friendship, the conversation rambles in and out of topics, starts and stops with fits and nonsequitors. Verbal abuse is carefully doled out, but never to the point of true hurt feelings. El Humidor relates a tale about a guy he met whose chosen fashion styling was "soviet cowboy." <br />
<br />
Walking briskly, moving away from the main roads to quiet streets of small houses, the sidewalks crowded by mossy fences and overgrown rosebushes and trees whose roots push up and crack the concrete, the conversation turns to the subject of Deadbeat and Creep. Deadbeat was an ex-housemate of Mudman's and a subject of unabiding spite for Aecca. Creep is affluent and give everyone the heebie-jeebies. In Aecca's opinion they represent the ying and yang of everything dispisicable in his social universe: a go-nowhere do-nothing hipster derelict and his everpresent rich slumming-it-around friend who will split town the second there's more money to be made working for the family business.<br />
<br />
"Gawd I can't stand those guys," Aecca angrily cracks his walking beer aquired at the last convenience store.<br />
<br />
"Creep's such a snake in the grass, I swear!" Rig grimaces at the heavens, if he could see them through the thick foliage from all the trees lining the streets – the occasional street light is invariably obscured by crowding branches. "You can just tell the guy's up to something, whatever, whenever it is."<br />
<br />
"Exactly," Aecca nods, high on hate, "he asks for a pack of matches and it feels like he just stole your tombstone!"<br />
<br />
"Oh, El Humidor gets along with him just fine! Just the other night we…" <br />
<br />
"Yeah, Humey, we know," Rig cuts short the anecdote.<br />
<br />
"You just like hanging out with him because he picks up your tab at fancy bars downtown," Aecca sneers. Humidor slows his pace, falls behind the rest. In the dark shadows, murderous miniature daggers of hurt feelings stab out of Humidor's eyes at Rig and Aecca.<br />
<br />
"Don’t act surprised. It’s the only reason Deadbeat hangs out with him all the time, that guy pays for nothing!" Rig's hands swipe outwards palm-down in clean sweep motion.<br />
<br />
"Gawd I hate that guy." Aecca stews in his rage, his anger, his spite. <br />
<br />
Then he trips on an edge of malformed concrete and falls on his face. <br />
<br />
His roommates swear variously and vigorously. Rising to his knees, Aecca grabs at the wet stuff on his upperlip, curses as he realizes its blood. The laughs subside and Rig instructs him to stand up and fishes a penlight out of a pocket, assesses his patient.<br />
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<br />
<br />
"Ah, dude, you cut your upper lip something fierce," Rig crinkles the side of his mouth. Aecca, still cupping a hand to his mouth, in which a puddle of blood periodically overflows, steps out onto the street and finds a parked car. He brings his face up to its side-view mirror.<br />
<br />
"Ah shit, you gotta be fucking kidding me!" Aecca's speech is pickled with spatters and sputters of blood and saliva. "Fuck! Shit! Fuck! Fucking shit!" <br />
<br />
Aecca rages a few car lengths down the street, cuts back up onto the sidewalk. "Shitting fuck! Fucking sidewalk! Fucking tree! All broken up! Shit! Goddamn it! God fucking damn it all to fucking hell!"<br />
<br />
Aecca continues his blitzkrieg of profanity, at which Rig sniggers. Humidor laughs out loud. <br />
<br />
Not satisfied with making his displeasure verbally present, Aecca snatches an orange road safety pillar – a bright orange plastic tube 4 inches in diameter and a good four feet long threaded through a heavy recycled tire black octagonal base - and begins to physically assault the very sidewalk itself. <br />
<br />
"Piece of shit sidewalk! Motherfucking fucker! Fuck! Shit! Aaaaaaaaarghh shit!” the plastic tube thwacks loudly on each impact, “goddamn it! Goddamn it to fucking hell! Fucking shit sidewalk!"<br />
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<br />
<br />
Humidor can barely keep his balance he's laughing so hard, and Rig is dangerously close to hyperventilating. Mudman, wary of local residents who might be a bit nervous about a profanity-spewing safety-pylon wielding psycho lurching around their neighborhood and might call the cops, attempts to approach Aecca and talk him down. "Aecca. Hey. Try to keep—"<br />
<br />
Mudman's head snaps back, hands grasping up at his face, then his whole body doubles over in smarting gasps as an errant backswing by Aecca catches Mudman in the vicinity of his left eye.<br />
<br />
Aecca freezes, his pylon slack, nostrils still flaring, chest heaving, still-wild eyes gazing at Mud. "Shit, Mud', you okay?"<br />
<br />
Mudman straightens, uncovers his hands from his face. His fingers play over the area around his left eye. "Jesus, Aecca, calm the fuck down, huh?" In the shadows and through the perma-dirt one can make out a rapidly forming bumpy bruise under Mudman's left eye. <br />
<br />
Humidor looks from Aecca to Mudman and back, grins, "don't you two make a pretty couple?"<br />
<br />
"Get bent," Mudman examines his fingers, "I'm bleeding a bit."<br />
<br />
"I think I've stopped," Aecca dabs at his nose, takes note of the mess on his shirt.<br />
<br />
"I was just going to say, with the noise you were making, a neighbor's gonna call the cops on us," Mudman glances at the small bungalows nestled back from the street in overgrown shrubbery. As if on cue, the curtain in the front window of the house before them flutters, as if someone had been watching them. They peer up and down the street nervously, awaiting the inevitable silhouette of a police cruiser.<br />
<br />
"Me thinks it might be prudent to beat a stealthy retreat,” says Rig, but Humidor's already gone. Feet on heat, they near-sprint through the dark, cutting irregularly west and north and west.<br />
<br />
"Which way?"<br />
<br />
"The trainyard's up ahead, we can cut through there!"<br />
<br />
They run awkwardly down a street penned in by the high walls of warehouses and machine shops which doensn’t dead-ending so much as disappear under the gravel track beds of the train yards. From here they can just follow the tracks north and end up a few blocks from Punk Hotel. Their headlong sprint gives way to a light jog and errant wary glances over shoulders for signs of pursuit. Humidor pauses at the base of the track bed, waits for the others to catch up. The four stand, catching their breath.<br />
<br />
"I think we're okay." <br />
<br />
"Yeah."<br />
<br />
Humidor grins at their escape, a grin returned met with smiles high on adrenaline. Humidor turns on a heel, "lets go," and bounds flamoboyantly up the trackbed. On his second leaping step he loses his footing on the sliding gravel and falls forward heavily, catches himself on his hands.<br />
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<br />
<br />
As the others climb up to the tracks, Humidor gets back up to his feet. "Shit. Look at my pants." The knees and shins of his trouser legs are torn, revealing scraped and cut skin, blood mixed with dirt and grit. By the light of distant streetlights, Rig glances from Humidor's thrashed pants to the puffy bruise under Mudman's eye to the mess of blood on Aecca's face and shirt. Rig smirks, chuckles, "what? You guys fall down getting the fucking mail?" Rig turns and starts walking down the tracks due north.<br />
<br />
Tired, weary, bloodied, the expedition moves along the tracks, across empty lots, through shadows cast by cyclopean industrial machine surplus. Old cranes and railroad trucks rust in waiting for purposes unknown or forgotten. They tread lightly more than once as they come across makeshift shacks and hamlets fabricated of discarded pallets, cardboard and plastic sheeting. At one point they hug the rough ground beneath them when Humidor catches glimpse of a prowling police car, seeking troublemakers, vagrants, vandals, and trespassers. The gravel of the track bed leaves their hands and clothes covered in a fine, black dust which smudges when they attempt to wipe it off.<br />
<br />
At last, they climb clumsily up an embankment by a viaduct and over a guardrail. They blink at the increased light from close-by streetlights and smile, because on top of the distant sounds of a streetcar pulling away from its stop, and the background industrial noises of nighttime manufacturing, they can hear the distinct sounds a party – a big party! – in progress. Laughter, cheers, muted music. Crossing the street, they make their way to Punk Hotel.<br />
<br />
<em>Words & drawings by D.D. Tinzeroes</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-85138242783431399532009-10-23T12:51:00.000-07:002013-06-09T14:36:04.158-07:00No. 14 - Rags and Bones<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrMSLO-sSBM06HGKWpRG6IQcQlmonZr8Xq3r-MRWifcsfjKYjMFwpbsQ2rPRvl_XS9uKNYT-mhYe4qVi0TnyBHOqAhdA0Y7ogvmjnaGAFY0TKf2JyYazW7YZVyEXJGMsgFP9PIyrgIRjs/s1600/issue14cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="1" qx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrMSLO-sSBM06HGKWpRG6IQcQlmonZr8Xq3r-MRWifcsfjKYjMFwpbsQ2rPRvl_XS9uKNYT-mhYe4qVi0TnyBHOqAhdA0Y7ogvmjnaGAFY0TKf2JyYazW7YZVyEXJGMsgFP9PIyrgIRjs/s640/issue14cover.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br />
<br />
Your mom is right: breakfast is the most powerpacked meal of the day. Jerry Rig never quite learned that, so he was taken entirely off-guard by the totipotent combination of egg scrambled and imbricated with soft, wet potato. Wrapping it in an oven-warmed tortilla had proven far too puissant for his gin-wracked morning body, and he had made for the dubious comforts of the porch couch, bolstered by running the boom box' power cord through the window and fortifying himself with his all-Boston mix tape and the cleanishest glass from the kitchen (for a lengthy series of red beers). <br />
<br />
It wasn't like he wanted to vomit, or die, or go back to bed, exactly. It was like his <i>heart</i> wanted to vomit, his eyes wanted to die, his neck felt made of splintering beestung granite. Flickers of flashback guttered over and through him like choppy seas surging amongst chunks of calving iceberg. <br />
<br />
<br />
<center>o0o</center><br />
<br />
"I dunno. I loved the first one as much as anybody, but I genuinely think identity-fuckery combined with musings about that which is real versus the ersatz and the simple sadness that the satisfactions of the latter may well be more profound and accessible than the former is/was a bad choice for sequels--indeed, for a franchise. A certain dilution has occurred, and the subtlety of the original formulations has been lost, has become mere obfuscation..." <br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
Humidor stared, straddling the beach cruiser he insisted upon riding everywhere. "Akka/Dekka...I am stunning. That was...easily...the most nuanced thing you have ever said. On <i>anything</i>." <br />
<br />
Dekka shrugged and yanked at his backpack straps. Squinted into the early evening sun and muttered around a cigarette. "'Man said it. I just read the note he passed me." <br />
<br />
The four grunted quietly as their respective bikes creaked under them, empty beers forgottenly stuffed and leaking their can-leavings in four men's bags, the last single-screen theatre in Portland receding behind them, the marquee grimly inflicting TOTAL RECALL 3 on any eye turned to the east on this sunday afternoon. Any eye at all: the letters were vast pillars of an eternal eldritch flame, dozens of cubits high. <br />
<br />
<br />
<center>o0o</center><br />
<br />
"Fuck <i>you</i>, buddy!" <br />
<br />
Rig rolled his eyes and adjusted his fanny pack. A stub of cigar worked its way around his mouth as the dank, starkly underlit club shook itself to pieces around him. Leather squeaked inaudibly everywhere, piercings gleamed and flashed, fishnets more a uniform than an accessory. Rig liked the flesh parade, bodies colliding as though they were in a large, invisible rock tumbler turned on its side, but mostly he just filed away the flickering cleavage and pale thigh meat for lonely later use. His mind fixed on strange, pointless things as he strained to avoid the things that actually bothered him. How had nobody ever noticed that the main riff in this tune was lifted directly from "woodpeckers from Mars"? Did nobody have <i>ears</i>? <br />
<br />
In this way and by maintaining a very strict regimen of one tallboy per song was Jerry Rig able to avoid thinking about how a cover band--Hedgehog's Dilemma--had become a huge success playing songs his own band had never had a whole lot of luck playing, even as that cover band cavorted photogenically on the chest-high stage at Duckworth's. It <br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
had been a long day. Bike ride to their favored theatre for a free noontime screening, mile upon mile to the east. A brief post-film visit to the graveyard, a hustling exit before being rousted by the paracops, some amiably unsuccessful attempts to grill in the back-yard, followed by a sighing abandonation of tantrum-stricken Akka/Dekka, who'd climbed up on the roof for no reason anybody understood as everyone else jettisoned themselves into the remains of the sunday. Energy expended leaves a void to fill with alcohol; this cavity sours quickly, home to a sullen rage, the lashing pout of the naturally overlooked and underappreciated. <br />
<br />
<br />
<center>o0o</center><br />
<br />
Rig had passed out on the couch, running the boom box cord out the window. He came to to a monday afternoon spalled by the flinty tenor of Akka/Dekka, raised yet beyond its usual car alarm heights. "My loan!? Her birthday? This is bullshit! What do you expect to talk about next--period panties, the glass ceiling and mascara ads? This is asshole shit walking!" <br />
<br />
As Rig fussed with his musty lab coat, sweat-moist from drunken, overfed couchsleep, Dekka's unfocused eyes strayed to the corner where walls and ceiling met. One arm hung limply from a bum, bruised shoulder. Almost no time passed. "Uh-huh. Okay, yeah. You're right. I will. Today, I promise. Today. TODAY. Right now. Love you too, mom." <br />
<br />
Scowling, Akka/Dekka hung up the phone and repaired to his war room. All the rage and despair locked within that craggy frame would have to wait another day. Afternoon lost time like shedding hair and evening slid over the High Style like mustard on a biscuit. Sweating and shaky, Dekka clambered out of the stifling, repurposed mud room. "Ha-HAH!" his rough cry, a flat lozenge held above his head with his working arm. "They said it couldn't be done. They later retracted that statement and lengthily questioned my abilities, my suitability for the task. And yet I stand. Here I stand--<i>victorious</i>." <br />
<br />
Jerry, drinking on the porch and enjoying Boston's late period, nearly audibly ignored Dekka. Humidor was long <br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
gone to the bar and Mudman lurked below, still playing games alone. Grumpy and underappreciated, Dekka intoned "Yup. Cool. Is. The. Word. What I got right here is probably the best thank-you note any man ever wrote to his aunt. For kicking down a little cash when she makes like a million dollars a minute. And I am currently between jobs. Which she expects to be paid back in like 2 months." When this proclamation somehow failed to win the spectacular response it merited, Akka/Dekka dropped his envelope hand and went to rummage the couch for stamp change. Still grumbling. <br />
<br />
<center>o0o</center><br />
<br />
His night both ruined and fulfilled, his face lumpier and bloodier than usual, Rig slumped on the ped access platform of the Steel Bridge. About a third of the way across it (going east) there's a spot of black between two lights. Rig was treating his soul to one of his beloved punk rock picnics, a Black & Mild smoldering, bebourboned Plaid coffee half <br />
<br />
forgotten, a filthy handkerchief around a fistful of ice held to his bleeding brow. Occasionally he'd toe the rear tire of his jounced and battered mountain bike to hear its comforting ticks. As the ice melted through the handkerchief, blood from his eyebrow seeped around and covered the stains from the 5 fluids from all 4 of his body's front's primary emitters of same. <br />
<br />
<br />
<center>o0o</center><br />
<br />
It started in a tavern. It always starts in a tavern. Humidor hadn't noticed anything odd or interesting about the Pillbox when he's stopped in as afternoon lost a savage match against evening. Had he noticed two pairs of ember-eyes hotly glowing from corner shadows, he would simply have waved to Jukeboxer and Ritch Tapestry. <br />
<br />
Who sat beclouded by smoke and gloom. Back by the pinball machines. <br />
<br />
Humidor approached the bar. All he heard was two old men at talk. "Wow, your <i>ex</i>?" <br />
<br />
"Yeah. Dating my girlfriend's stepson." <br />
<br />
"They came in here?" <br />
<br />
"Right up in here. Said they didn't know I drank here. I felt like a Mexican in a bookstore, for sure." <br />
<br />
"..." <br />
<br />
"Awkward. I felt very awkward." <br />
<br />
"You're a fucking asshole." <br />
<br />
Armed with a tall yellow beer, Humidor beat a retreat to the <br />
<br />
pinball forest. "Humidor. Sit." Ritch Tapestry stood over the pinball machine like a stalk of bamboo. The ball hurtled through the gates and switches, careened off throbbing obstacles and caused lights to strobe. The score mounted, grew intimidating. Though his hands were in the customary and appropriate place on the table, his fingers never moved, the buttons never were pressed, and his eyes always burned, never straying from Humidor's wan, swarthy face. <br />
<br />
Jukeboxer leaned forward creepily and got to the crux. "It is time, El Humidor. To be tutored in the ways of power. For example, you can walk down the street drinking a beer. Right out in the open." <br />
<br />
"No! That's not true! That's impossible!" <br />
<br />
"You know it to be true." <br />
<br />
Time passed. Humidor's mind was further blown. The jukebox transmorphed into a pulsing vortex--something like a screen saver or a particularly good visualizer--eldritch spectra frying eyeballs over comet/planet collision drumbeats. A phalanx of guitars grinding like cavalries churning across the steppes. The portal didn't open so much as simply appear; by its very presence the dingy tavern was <i>changed</i>. <br />
<br />
Humidor in a strangled voice asked "You mean...like some kind of...Eternal Champion?" <br />
<br />
After a pause, Jukeboxer answered him. "Yes. No. Well, an <i>overnight</i> champion, one could say. A midnight warrior of a sort, chosen to battle once--" <br />
<br />
"And only once." Tapestry followed his interruption with a freight train of a glance and a brief monologue. "You must understand. Grim forces abound. Occasionally a man is <br />
<br />
selected to help another throw one or another dire yoke. You wear the mantle of the midnight warrior like a rank, and sally forth on some yet unknown sortie, like so many before you, so many yet to come. No one knows who will be chosen, or when, or where. Except us. Jukeboxer and I have the honor of introducing you to tonight's task." <br />
<br />
Cued, Jukeboxer said "There are <i>ways</i>, Humidor, ways of power you have been introduced to. Ways any of us can, for one moment, hold the whip hand." <br />
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<br />
"Yes. And save another." Tapestry sat back and smoked. Jukeboxer glanced at the portal somehow disgorging Creet. <br />
<br />
Humidor knew why he had been chosen. "What...what must I do?" <br />
<br />
"Her. Buy her a beer." At Jukeboxer's point, El Humidor steeled himself and swallowed hard. Then he swallowed beer. A lot of beer. Then got up, squared his shoulders and his recollection of his bank balance and headed to the bar and the slim young lady waiting there. <br />
<br />
<center>o0o</center><br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka woke up in free fall. <br />
<br />
"Fu--" whump. <br />
<br />
When a man falls asleep on the roof, he will sometimes wake up on the ground, or nearly so. <br />
<br />
<br />
<center>o0o</center><br />
<br />
Creet smiled. "Hey, El Humidor." <br />
<br />
"You have on me a disadvantage. I think we haven't never met." <br />
<br />
"Oh, I was at a party at your house a while back. Don't get out much now." <br />
<br />
"No?" <br />
<br />
"Nah. Dumb desk day job thing. Dress code, the whole bit." <br />
<br />
Humidor finally caught the bartender's eye. Thickly he thumbed at his envelope, impressed at a distant remove by the bulk of his rent money. "Hey..." distracted by the jukebox, omnipresent as the surf and powerful as summer thunder, "Can I get another? And whatever she's drinking? And some quarters?" <br />
<br />
Receding to the shadows, Jukeboxer mumbled a question at Ritch Tapestry. "You think he's got a shot?" <br />
<br />
"I think he'd better." <br />
<br />
<br />
<center>o0o</center><br />
<br />
Gorgeous late-summer monday afternoon in Portland. Cloudless sky, everything's clear, blue and green. The air has a magic sweetness rarely attainable by lesser cities, even near Jerry's cigar, on a porch that could be promoted to ramshackle with a few free hours and a pressure washer. "These Dreams" blared, because Jerry's view of "all-Boston mix tape" is as whimsical as everything else. <br />
<br />
Dekka and Humidor mounted the porch from opposite directions, both struck by Rig's struck face. <br />
<br />
"The fuck happened to you?" Akka/Dekka gently inquires. "You fall down getting the mail again?" <br />
<br />
<br />
<center>o0o</center><br />
<br />
Pinball, jukebox and vast accessible alcohol took the night out back behind the barn, shoved a rifle in its mouth, delivered an Oscar-worthy disquisition on the topic of renting oneself, and loosed two shots. The second was just for effect. Creet and El Humidor laughed with newly-won familiarity as last call happened, and delivered their orders with glee. Somehow they'd spent most--55, maybe 60%--of the night talking about Creet's "dumb day job". <br />
<br />
"Seriously. Not one person there will drink a beer at lunch. At least three people have told me they don't understand why I'd rollerblade to work instead of owning a car. They decorate their cubes and can't understand why I dress the way I do. I get there in a good mood from my ride; by lunch I'm furious. Every night I roll into my pad and just go to bed I'm so tired from dealing with all the bullshit." <br />
<br />
Humidor shoved his cigarettes across the table. Creet spoke around one, absently clicking her Zippo a few times after lighting the tube. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
"It's like getting beat up. My <i>life</i> is getting abused. Bruised. They won't let me be who I am when I'm there. By the time I get home, I'm too exhausted to be who I want to be." <br />
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<br />
Humidor cleared his throat quietly. Now was the crucial moment--as the midnight champion, he needed to strike a blow for the forces of freedom. He could just <i>tell</i>. <br />
<br />
"Would you excuse me for a moment?" Creet's eyes were focused on some dimension unknown to most as she unfolded her lanky frame and vanished out the front door. Humidor slumped, crushed by the weight of failure as Jukeboxer and Ritch Tapestry appeared behind him, radiating thrill and not a little surprise as the bar's get-out lights suddenly shed harsh illumination on outing's end. <br />
<br />
"Good man." <br />
<br />
"Well done." And they were gone. Confused, Humidor finished his quarter-inch of beer, eyed the surround, shrugged and downed Creet's last inch. As he attained the pavement, Creet rushed him. "Wanna hit the Plaid? We have like 6 minutes." <br />
<br />
"Thought you worked in the morning, not?" <br />
<br />
Creet moved her cell phone like a tambourine. "Nope. I just called them and quit. Let's grab a sixer; I want to show you that anime I told you about." <br />
<br />
"O-ohkay." <br />
<br />
<br />
<center>o0o</center><br />
<br />
"Well, I don't entirely know. I remember going in to La Dolce 'Gina for a second, and getting kicked out for getting blood on the stage." <br />
<br />
"The hell did you get the dough to go to a peeler bar?" <br />
<br />
"I wasn't there for long." <br />
<br />
Rig was lying. He'd been there for about a hundred bucks. And he knew perfectly well what had happened to his face, now that a raft of red beers had reassembled his sundered memories. As Hedgehog's Dilemma had wound up their second to last number, Rig's voice had unleashed the mightiest known heckle. "You're not very good!" The words wheeled around the room like predatory birds. The Bowie knockoff known as Kludge had hurled his keytar to the ground and leapt feetfirst onto Rig's grinning, furious face. He'd hung out alone on the bridge for a bit, then paid to look at naked women. But your roommates don't need to know everything.<br />
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<em>Words by C. Collision, drawings by D.D. Tinzeroes</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-10706368847172292192009-08-25T12:49:00.000-07:002013-06-09T14:34:18.002-07:00No. 13 - With Heights and Malt Liquor<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQinE9Eb8WaigrJGTnzyRaEKfKKfZrYIYKl0kO_uuiscTTpsrQumKBUdFG1fPl-pSs1luZ0uBrJ0E8WbGokB357HYgyCU-n8XrK4icGEkKAbFPf6y2APCx4S0bWQTA6CMFndXaqpuqYlI/s1600/issue%252013cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQinE9Eb8WaigrJGTnzyRaEKfKKfZrYIYKl0kO_uuiscTTpsrQumKBUdFG1fPl-pSs1luZ0uBrJ0E8WbGokB357HYgyCU-n8XrK4icGEkKAbFPf6y2APCx4S0bWQTA6CMFndXaqpuqYlI/s640/issue%252013cover.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br />
Aecca/Decca closes the fridge door, gives the kitchen a cursory looking over. Not seeing what he's looking for, he walks through the passageway to the front foyer and pulls a balled-up hoodie out from between two legs of the banister. <br />
<br />
"Where you going?" <br />
<br />
Aecca turns to face the ever-inquiring Jerry Rig Rig and Mudman sit in the living room, half-watching teevee, half-reading comic books and magazines. El Humidor lays on the crusty sofa, half-conscious. Some part of his lizard brain goes through the motions of smoking a cigarette. <br />
<br />
"Plaid. To get beer," Aecca responds, pulling on his hoodie, fishing into his pants pockets for wadded up dollar bills, "you losers got any money?" <br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
"Did someone say beer run?" <br />
<br />
Everyone startles at El Humidor's light-speed lurch into full lucidity and an upright seated position. <br />
<br />
"If, IF you're buying in," Aecca quickly stipulates. El Humidor pauses for a heartbeat, his eyes jumping from housemate to housemate, whom shoot icy contempt back at him. Too many times has El Humidor "gone in on" a beer run, only to not spend a dime and merely provide "safe passage" for the beer in question. His housemates are now usually quick to make sure he actually coughs up a few bucks or some pocket change in advance. Mudman, curiously, accepts personal checks. <br />
<br />
"Yes, yes, El Humidor shall pay." The contents of Humidor's pockets spill onto the coffee table. <br />
<br />
"Got enough matches?" Mudman picks up one of the numerous matchbooks which seem to make a majority of the junk through which Humidor now sifts, plucking the occasional dollar. <br />
<br />
"El Humidor is NEVER without his goodest friend, the flame, my muddy companion! Ah ha! Four! Four dollars!" El Humidor's eyes light up in vindication. <br />
<br />
"Well then, let's go ladies," Aecca puts his hand on the front door knob, waits expectantly for Humidor to pull on his surplus Czech army summer jacket thing. <br />
<br />
"I'll come," Mudman intones, slowly but smoothly moving to join Aecca at the foot of the stairs. <br />
<br />
"Well, shit," says Rig, still half-watching the teevee, half-reading an old issue of Portland Mecha Quarterly. The other three look blankly at him front where they stand by the front door. Aecca sighs, rolls his eyes. El Humidor taps a sneakered foot. <br />
<br />
"Hold on, I'll come, too," says Rig. <br />
<br />
As Rig readies himself, the remaining housemates meander out onto the front porch and lawn. El Humidor gets out a cigarette and begins to fiddle with it, a sort of pre-expedition ritual. Mudman gives cash to Aecca, who does his best to brush the half-dry dirt off. Cashiers' have refused honest money from Mudman before. <br />
<br />
Rig emerges at last from the house and the foursome head down the street, Aecca and Mudman taking the lead, Humidor and Rig the rear. As the sidewalk narrows and widens, the group alternates between walking four abreast, or two by two, or occasionally, say, El Humidor walking backwards addressing a cluster of the other three. <br />
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<br />
<br />
Conversation rambles and goes no where. The housemates beat a strange route, from side street to alley, then to bizarre muddy pathway between an overgrown blackberry patch and a suspect apartment building, and through an unexpected open field. The 'mates grow silent passing through here, eyes dancing over old concrete foundations which jut from the <br />
<br />
ground, daydreaming that the earth has dislodged some marvelous artifact from its skin. Conversation resumes as they head back up a side street and onto the semi-major arterial avenue along which lay the major landmarks of the housemates' geographical and economic reality: the bar, the Safeway, the Plaid, a video rental joint. <br />
<br />
Their destination in sight, Humidor casually suggests pushing on a few more blocks to the 'Box for a beer or two, maybe some pinball, then hitting up the Plaid on their way back to the house. The suggestion is ignored by the other three. Its only half past three in the afternoon, and Humidor's mild obsession with the daytime crowd at the Pillbox Tavern is not shared. <br />
<br />
Avenue traffic is evaded and the Plaid door goes ding-ding as the four enter and make their way to the beer coolers. Rig puts a hand on the handle of one of the doors, as if he already knows what he's doing, but just stands in anticipation as they wait in a row in front of the humming glass doors, eyes darting from price to price, minds running an obscure calculus of price and preference and quantity. Everyone sort of shuffles or leans their way into physical proximity of what they want to buy. <br />
<br />
"Why... hello there... darlings!" El Humidor croons. <br />
<br />
The other three glance to see what it is that Humidor is obsessing over this time, only to see Humidor standing <br />
<br />
slackjawed at the end of the row of coolers in front of a sales display of 32 ounce bottles. <br />
<br />
"What it is?" says Aecca, stepping out of the orbit of a 12-pack of Oly. <br />
<br />
"That's new," posits Mudman, looking away from a fistful of Mickeys hand grenades. <br />
<br />
"Malt liquor?" says a skeptical Rig, "that's not really our area..." <br />
<br />
Humidor turns to face the other three. His eyes are saucers. He looks a little faint. "A buck oh five," he says. <br />
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<br />
<br />
Aecca takes a sudden step back, as if the words were a shove. Rig starts scratching at his chin in thought. Mudman grabs one of the bottles and reads the label. <br />
<br />
Mudman: "Seven point five percent." <br />
<br />
Aecca: "At a dollar five each?!" <br />
<br />
Mudman: "Sandoon. Funny name..." <br />
<br />
Rig: "And five cents deposit..." <br />
<br />
Humidor starts piling bottles into his arms. The others break rank and do the same. <br />
<br />
Five minutes later the four biggest grins ever seen emerge from the Plaid. A plastic bag clutched in every man's hand, clinking with the sound of high-content low-cost liquid intoxicants. Briskly they walk, making the trek back in considerably less time. Upon arrival the usually sullen, argumentative High Style is momentarily filled with laughter and joviality. <br />
<br />
Aecca squats on his haunches finding empty spots in the miasma of the house fridge, the other three taking turns passing him 32 ounce bottles out of the plastic bags. Aecca occasionally mutters and curses a "what the fuck is this?" as he examines some forgotten to-go box or brown paper bag, before thrusting it into the air behind him, where upon someone unceremoniously takes it and throws it into an overflowing trash can. <br />
<br />
"Probably should take the trash out," Rig meekly suggests, as himself, Mudman and Humidor grab a bottle and mob out into the living room. Mudman alights to an overturned milkcrate next to the house's Frankenstein stereo arrangement and digs through an old shoebox full of cassette tapes labeled in a variety of styles and legibility and interpretation. His fingers hover for a moment before fishing out a tape and popping it in the deck. Staccato punk rhythms and intelligible lyrics bang out of the mismatched speakers. <br />
<br />
"What's this? We are listening to?" asks Humidor, peeling the plastic wrapping off a new pack of cigarettes. <br />
<br />
Mudman cracks the cap of his 32, "Polish punk comp tape." <br />
<br />
"I found that in the Crocodile bargain bin," says Rig. <br />
<br />
Aecca emerges from the kitchen, his stocking of the fridge complete, "we should try and get a second fridge. For beer only." He sits down in the chair by the window, nod at Humidor, who tosses him a cigarette. <br />
<br />
Aecca opens his beer, pauses. Everyone briefly glances at each other, then takes the first gulp. Faces sour. <br />
<br />
"Oh!" <br />
<br />
"The fuck?" <br />
<br />
"Beer with the flavor of fruit? Will this land never cease to amaze me?" Humidor takes a second, enthusiastic pull. <br />
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<br />
<br />
Mudman eyes the label on his bottle, reads aloud: "Tropical Splash." <br />
<br />
"Whatever the fuck that means," says Aecca, half-absently taking another slug. <br />
<br />
"Nectar! Sweet sweet nectar!" El Humidor's a third of the way into his bottle already (that's a little under 12 ounces for those keeping score at home). <br />
<br />
"I admit, once you get past the, uh, taste," muses Rig, eyeballing the bottle's contents through its narrow aperture, "its not too, uh, bad." <br />
<br />
Decca shrugs, "beggars can't be choosers, I suppose." <br />
<br />
"At these prices, I guess you could say it sweetens the deal!" Rig looks around the room. Answered with silence. "Oh, c'mon, gimme a gruffaw, huh? A gruffaw!?" <br />
<br />
"Who wants another?" El Humidor's up and heading for the kitchen, his empty 32 slowly spinning on its side on the floor. <br />
<br />
"Geez, Humey, pace yourself a litt--" begins Rig. <br />
<br />
Humidor freezes, spins on a heel, screams! "Humidor said. WHO. WANTS. ANOTHER?" <br />
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<br />
<br />
Silence. Broken only the gulps of the other three mates sipping their 32s. <br />
<br />
"Well, if you're up." <br />
<br />
"Yeah." <br />
<br />
"Me, too." <br />
<br />
"Very well!" The grin and the flourish return to Humidor's demeanor. He struts to the kitchen and returns clinking, four more bottles clutched to his person. <br />
<br />
Their palettes now accustomed to syrupy sweet malt liquor, the four cohabitants consume their second bottles in a slurry of non sequitors and inside jokes. Somehow, the old discussion of rearranging the main floor is flushed out into the open, batted somewhat disinterestedly around like the shuttlecock of bored daughters of magnates of industry, then abruptly discontinued as the focus shifts to where a band should set up to play in the living room. Aecca's a fan of bands playing before the big front window, since that way he can watch from the stairs' banister. Rig makes his typical and actually quite reasonable case for having them set up right in front of where the teevee is, so that the crowd forms a sort of ring around the band. More interactive that way, personal. Not an army of ears arrayed before a false altar. Mudman shrugs and mentions that he's always liked basement shows. The low ceilings, the physical and symbolic descent into noise and chaos. Humidor, as always, the idea of a band playing in the kitchen hilariously novel. <br />
<br />
"Speaking of the kitchen," hints Aecca. <br />
<br />
"Yes! Yes!" Humidor practically leaps up and heads for the kitchen to retrieve more bottles. <br />
<br />
Rig snaps his fingers, "y'know, we should get a second fridge. For, like, beer only. A beer fridge." He absently sets a bottle cap down on his miniature robotic sofa. It clatters away across the floor into the bike graveyard. <br />
<br />
"An excee-lent idea my frumpy frontificating friend!" says Humidor, distributing another round of brown bottles to his fellow renters. El Humidor's vocabulary becomes quite inventive when under the thumb of a few drinks. <br />
<br />
"Frontificating?" Mudman, frowning, furrowing his brow. <br />
<br />
Aecca leans forward, puts his empty on the coffee table, "and who, exactly, will put beer in this dedicated beer fridge?" <br />
<br />
"Well. Uh..." Rig scratches his chin, looks distractedly at the corner of the ceiling. <br />
<br />
"Did not the Crooked House have a second fridge, dear Mudman?" Humidor asks. Mudman nods. <br />
<br />
"And was there beer in it?" Aecca asks. <br />
<br />
"No. But it was nice for parties," this answer draws slow, approving nods from everyone. <br />
<br />
"I can't believe you, you lived, in that, that hellhole," Rig's eyes glaze over with fear. <br />
<br />
"Humidor, are you okay?" Mudman's been watching Humidor with great interest ever since Humidor started rubbing his eyes, shaking his head. <br />
<br />
"Thees stuff," says Humidor, gesturing at the bottle in his grasp, "its, not feeling so good, anymore for me." <br />
<br />
"Its all that fucking sugar in it," says Aecca, rubbing his temples, "I can taste the sweetness in my skull." <br />
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<br />
<br />
"Yeah I feel like, like I just ate a jar of melted twizzlers and chased it with a pint of tequila," Rig tenderly palpates his stomach. <br />
<br />
"Humidor's hands, they are cold," his eyes darting back and forth, Humidor shakily brings a cigarette to his lips. He strikes a match and brings it up to his face. He freezes. <br />
<br />
Within a few heartbeats everyone's watching the frozen Humidor, all swaying slightly in a boozy breeze. <br />
<br />
Humidor springs up and back off his seat. "Fuck! Jesus! Keep away! Away from El Humidor!!" He backs up against the wall, his eyes fixed at something in the direction of the front door. <br />
<br />
"Christ, Humey, what the fuck is your problem?!" swears Rig dismissively (as is usually the case with things involving Humidor), but nonetheless he, along with Aecca/Decca and Mudman, follow Humidor's terrified gaze. <br />
<br />
The room is full of gasps and stifled screams as the housemates look upon the monstrosity in their living room. A towering eight or nine feet of alien organics, insectoid spheres set upon a conical head, massive body all plunging edges and space-age triangular knobs and ridges, the creature-thing coldly regarded the scared shitless flatmates with masklike hollow eyes from which behind peered nothing. <br />
<br />
"Is that thing for real?" squeals Rig, "oh shit!" <br />
<br />
Everyone shrieks, again, as the thing whips his gaze over to Rig. Humidor lets loose a staggered series of deep sobs as it actually takes a step forward. As it takes a second step Mudman scurries on all fours past it and into the adjunct bicycle graveyard. <br />
<br />
"Jesus Christ what do we do!?" implores Aecca, scrambling backwards but still prone on the floor. <br />
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<br />
<br />
"Um, um, I dunno. What do you want? We mean you no harm!" Rig's talking fast, his eyes pondering escape routes, then the thing takes a quick step right over Rig's defenses (the coffee table), bends over and reaches at Rig's head with a pointy tri-appendaged hand thing. Rig slips out of its clutch, losing his cap in the process. The creature pauses to examine Rig's baseball cap. <br />
<br />
Rig joins Aecca and the sobbing Humidor together, their backs to rear of the house. The insect-alien-monster turns to face them and raises its arms up and emits a long, low, loud scream laugh. The threesome pale and go all weak in the knees. <br />
<br />
Mudman comes out of the kitchen into the room. He's holding a used coffee can. He looks hard at the bug-demon-thing, blinks hard. Turns the can over and empties its contents of old batteries and broken pencils onto the floor. As this trash clatters on the floor the Aecca and Rig glance back at Mudman. <br />
<br />
"Mud'! What do we do!" screams Aecca. <br />
<br />
"We're fucked! Fucked, I say!" prophesies Rig. <br />
<br />
El Humidor breaks out of his panic, "is this El End of El Humidor?" <br />
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<br />
<br />
Mudman drops to his knees, puts the coffee can on the ground in front of him, and unceremoniously jams his index and middle fingers into the back of this throat. He gags, and lets loose a current of frothy red stomach contents into the can. Shaking, he looks up and wipes vomit from his cheek, the rises and brings the can over to his friends. They are fleetingly skeptical, but Rig and Aecca both take to their knees and begin retching. Humidor shrugs and pukes onto his own lap. <br />
<br />
Panting, sweating, convulsing, the housemates peer around their suddenly quiet domicile. <br />
<br />
They are alone. <br />
<br />
"What was in that stuff?" Aecca stands, begins gathering the remaining half-empty Sandoons. <br />
<br />
Still sitting on the floor, Rig flops his back against the teevee stand, picks up one of the empty 32s, "Sandoon...," he says, musing. <br />
<br />
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," says Aecca, "some fiendish plot, I'm sure. Hey, Mudman, get the rest of these out of the fridge." <br />
<br />
"What... are you... doing?" murmurs a weak, vomit-covered El Humidor. Humidor does not take puking well. His recoveries tend to be weak and slow. <br />
<br />
"Flushing this vile demonshit down the fucking toilet, that's what I'm doing." Aecca stands with a commanding air before the bathroom, one half-empty held out above the bowl. Silence. Lower lips are chewed. Nervous glances at the yet unopened bottles Mudman now clutches. <br />
<br />
"Toss unopened beer?" Rig nervously toying with his hat, which he has retrieved from the floor. <br />
<br />
"It is not natural. It is not done. Taboo!" Humidor seems re-energized, slightly. <br />
<br />
"Being visited by a fucking, jesus, were you guys NOT JUST HERE fucking now when that, that THING was here? You guys are crazy! We are flushing this shit down the toilet." <br />
<br />
He tips the bottle, its contents splash against the porcelain. <br />
<br />
Silence follows, as bottle after bottle is dumped. Shame, too, a little, when the coffee can's contents are dumped. Everyone cleans up the debris in quiet reflection. <br />
<br />
Then, Humidor bounds back downstairs in a clean change of clothes, and sing-songs: "So, who is want-ing to go the World Fam-ous Pillbox? El Hum-i-dor is buy-ing!" <br />
<br />
"Really?" <br />
<br />
"No." <br />
<br />
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<em>Words & drawings by D.D. Tinzeroes</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-81315424939554951962009-06-05T12:45:00.000-07:002013-06-09T14:33:04.464-07:00No. 12 - Spent Hours in the High Style<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsggHRXPHSpInuT_alTpZ8HeJFClxbHrr74uhYWVIvIJVywLZWDfEfSiRcLpsjBCLISqmTufj7JNPNwMNgubNbHrbvgRNroaZnKonc9tbXarr57BocpdN42F6Vuk8qQT96rBG2FiVlZNU/s1600/issue12cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsggHRXPHSpInuT_alTpZ8HeJFClxbHrr74uhYWVIvIJVywLZWDfEfSiRcLpsjBCLISqmTufj7JNPNwMNgubNbHrbvgRNroaZnKonc9tbXarr57BocpdN42F6Vuk8qQT96rBG2FiVlZNU/s640/issue12cover.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br />
Lucky men never wake up already grim. Akka/Dekka woke up quickly that morning, and it actually <u>was</u> morning, though barely. Saturday. Cold outside, not a cloud in the winter sky. Dekka transitioned from motionless, dreamless unconciousness to an emotion-free, open-eyed mode of assessment, inhabiting that clean, desolate space where no illusions are possible. <br />
<br />
For long seconds he lay, burritoed in a tattered sleeping sack, the pulsing heat pump at the base of a heaped pile of rags. His eyes moved deliberately from site to site, and without sighing he rose and pulled on his boots. <br />
<br />
Minutes later, he found himself in the midst of a project of reinvention and salvation. A project in which the external realities of habitual environment were to be made over in an image of limitless potential and achieved uptopia. A huge pile of reeking fabric sat in a garbage bag in his doorway, next to a depressingly small pile of quarters. <br />
<br />
"Akka! Dekka! Akka/Dekka! How am I to interpret to this grotesque talmud?" <br />
<br />
Dekka turned his head evenly, and said nothing. Just stared. Half-hunched before the High Style's pitted porcelain throne, he held a tilted gurgling 40, its deep amber contents sloshing into the bowl. <br />
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<br />
<br />
"How can you just...abandon this beer to the untender embracement of a sewer? Look there! Two more bottles, nearly full! And that jug of wine...that...that..." <br />
<br />
Humidor gulped, reeling. Dekka turned away, set down the re-emptied empty, took up the jug of what looked not entirely unlike Chardonnay, but that was labeled "Merlot". "That is not...wine. Is...it." <br />
<br />
Dekka, an unusually cruel smile playing across his grainy features, growled "Not any more." In Dekka's room, the window stood open, and a chafing breeze flapped the ridiculous curtain, actually a pair of hoodys too decayed to wear. El Humidor fled into the kitchen, herding his thoughts away from the ghastly sight of Akka/Dekka dumping his piss jars. A biyearly cleaning cycle can be a horrifying spectacle, especially immediately upon rising of a sunny winter's afternoon; indeed was El Humidor horrified. <br />
<br />
"Well...I think...what happens is he just jumps right in the shower, without wanting to wait--" <br />
<br />
"The single thing, perhaps, about which I care the very least in the <i>entire Marvel Universe</i> is the how/why issue attending Akka/Dekka's habit of leaving a slurry of waste to rot in wait in our toilet. No, all that moves me is the brute fact, that simple property of bare existence--" <br />
<br />
"Just flush it, Jerry. What's the big deal?" <br />
<br />
Choking on an overwhelmed yelp, El Humidor grabbed the nearest abandoned beer (no sweat glinted from that cylinder, indicating an inarguable up-for-grabsness) and dumped it onto a bowl of cold cereal. Shuddering and shaken, he ate his champion's breakfast before the television, hoping against hope for a Smallville rerun. <br />
<br />
Sunday "morning". Three men jostled in a kitchen, their fiefdoms established and not so much contested as ignored as they each in their several ways went about the business of preparation of coffee. <br />
<br />
MudMan watched impassively as his French press shoved the grounds and grit down and packed it into sludge. One day--when money wasn't so tight--he hoped to be able to discard the trawled liquid entirely, and enjoy only the silty coagulate left behind. <br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka frowned at a saucepan on the stove, flicking a fork in delicate loops, always just below the surface of the winking water. With his other hand, he shook grains of instant coffee into the 'pan, waiting for the perfect color. When he'd see it, he'd pull the 'pan from the stove and stalk into the living room, pulling vast swigs directly from the rim. His view on coffee from mugs is, perhaps, too raw for this venue. ("Base faggotry", he calls coffee mugs filled with anything but bourbon.) <br />
<br />
El Humidor stood near the stove as well, his tongue bitten and poking through the corner of his mouth, as he poked and prodded at a camping-style percolator. As it bubbled and burbled atop the burner, he finished peeling the flimsy foil from a Cadbury egg, and he cracked the egg, poured its contents into the percolator's basket, and followed the contents up with the shells. Arguably the brokest member of the house, his "grounds" are nothing but what few leavings he can wheedle MudMan into surrendering. <br />
<br />
Afternoon. Jerry was on the couch, his stout trunk slumped exactly like a beer can, first thumb-indented, then discarded. The NES squatted under a tangle of cable; nothing was where it always was. The VCR had been plugged in. Grainy, over-saturated images spooled--industrial footage, scratched nature film, pyrotechnic displays, the inevitable nightmare-masked gogo dancers flanking an onstage barrel fire, and the briefest imaginable shots of men hurling themselves against various devices, some recognizably musical, some not, some of each category obviously homemade. <br />
<br />
A voice like a human and a robot trying to make a third thing crested from the house speakers, rhythmic and with modulated speed (altogether like an angry, chain-mailed snake). <br />
<blockquote>
<i>cocaine and competitors<br />handjobs in the wings<br />mismatched with discreditors<br />no-one wants to win<br />you can drink your pack of cigarettes<br />while you smoke another wine</i> </blockquote>
Pops and hisses betrayed the age of the spinning ten-incher; Jerry, inert, flipped its sleeve to see the back cover. <br />
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<br />
<br />
A wide photo, the top third six young--so! young--men under a bridge, most not rock-angular, all with the requisite mixtures of diffidence and hostility, all wearing urban assault gear (pockets, patches, zippers, studs, hardpoints with tools dangling). <br />
<br />
Jerry hadn't been thinner, then, much. Maybe in the face, but the hair product budget had evidently once been much higher than in recenter times. On the screen, a chopped, stuttering stock loop of a car going over a cliff and bursting into tumbling, jagged flame. Rig's scratchy voice joined the amplifed version for the one rendition of the chorus where all instrumentation dropped out and apparently the whole band joined in: <br />
<br />
clock and work your load of pain<br />
all there is is less <br />
<br />
As the instruments returned and all but the inhuman voice dropped out, Jerry Rig wept and the record sleeve fell from his hand. <br />
<br />
He wept for the things life only loaned, and always were repossessed: success, affections, chances in life. For knowledge, for learning, for fear and regret and for himself Jerry Rig wept. Some sunday afternoons are like that. <br />
<br />
An hour later, he'd eaten a cold can of concentrate soup, straight from the can, with a fork, and hooked the NES back up. The stereo still blared, a jackhammer insturmental with tattoo-needle washes of shrill static. <br />
<br />
Soundless MudMan entered from his basement by way of the kitchen. Startled and only slightly still tear-stained Rig "Oh, hey...didn't know you were home." <br />
<br />
"Asleep." Belched, scratched richly, with thorough and focused depth. "What you listening to?" <br />
<br />
"Oh, uh, it's--" <br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
Taking up the sleeve and reading "'Send More Cops'. Wasn't Airport Dick--" <br />
<br />
Humidor and Akka/Dekka entered, frantically flailing and exasperated, respectively. Rig snatched the platter from the turntable, thrilled, sick and relieved to evade having to have a discussion about his touring days in an agony rock band, manning one of the many keyboard-like instruments before getting ditched, on a tour, as a joke, while buying parts at a Nebraska Radio Shack. Evade discussion of the van accident he'd missed; evade discussion of surviving and guilt and absurd tragedies like your bandmates losing their lives at a roadside freakshow; evade explaining how it came to be be that a 7-legged horse turned out to be completely full of Roman candles, easily sparked by a roadie's cigar ash. Flushed with adrenaline, Jerry tossed the album behind the couch and grabbed a camouflage beer to help with his game face. <br />
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<br />
<br />
El Humidor sprawled on the couch, arms raised and outstretched. He seemed to stare at the rotting, filthy ceiling fan, but in truth his eyes saw nothing but trauma and despair. "It...it's <i>awful</i>. Awful out there. Some rotten scheme... Dozens of men and women stacked one upon the other, like logs cut to size for shipping--" <br />
<br />
"Or those wonderful square watermelons!" Jerry, at least trying for excited about another triumph of rational man. <br />
<br />
"Every one of them positively <i>broadcasting</i> upon one another, spilling onto everybody but everybody with these fields erected... Everybody like a creamed corn." <br />
<br />
(Nobody really knew what to make of this simile.) <br />
<br />
"Each person with some grotesque device to numb the agony of passing time, and fearsome arrays of kit-bashed gadgetry projecting power and isolated anxiety upon their surrounding unfellows even while insulating them from the power projections of others. A depraved--and terribly, awfully sad--escalating standoff; an arms race of arm's length. All of them locking themselves into eternal moments of total stasis and solitude precisely because they find themselves in a bustling, lively metropolis! And should they emerge from these fortifications of retreat, they maintain only an aggressive and tenuous connection to someone far away while brushing away any contact with any mammal actually present." <br />
<br />
"It has become, friends, truly, madly, deeply worse than ever we could have imagined. Clearly, some deviant foe has--" <br />
<br />
"I think he means 'devious'--" <br />
<br />
"Not now, Jerry." <br />
<br />
"Enacted her terrible scheme, and the world has become populated by these desolate, dessicated, deserted humans. Now more than ever are we <i>needed</i>, chums!" <br />
<br />
Breathless. Exhausted. "Though I do confess I known't where to begin our mounted resistance." Spent, Humidor collapsed utterly on the soiled surface of the sofa. Rapid thin gouts of smoke twirled around the ceiling's bare bulb, agitated like a nest of oroborouses. <br />
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<br />
<br />
After no lenghthy pause, Rig ungently "The hell's he on about?" <br />
<br />
"I took him down to the Manpower office with me the other morning. Guess he hadn't been on a bus in a while. Commuters...cell phones and walkmen are hard on everybody." (A shrug.) <br />
<br />
"The what office?" <br />
<br />
"Temp agency office." <br />
<br />
"The what?" <br />
<br />
"His job, Jerry." <br />
<br />
"His what?" <br />
<br />
"Not now, Jerry." <br />
<br />
Stung, feeling his playfulness rejected, Jerry retreated to the kitchen, boiled some water. Threeish minutes later, fortified with a massive mug of instant oatmeal mixed with instant coffee and topped off with a dollop of raspberry yogurt, he made his way upstairs to the workshop. Eight hours later, he'd finished his first sectional. As it lumbered its desperately ungainly way around the mid-tornado hobby shop that is his room, Jerry Rig snored lightly. <br />
<br />
In his dream, he was on stage with Send More Cops, a triumphant reunion tour in full swing--fans older and still avid, the music more tightly cacophonous than ever. Hidden between two of the three drumsets, Jerry smiled broadly and added his caterwaul to the din. <br />
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<br />
<br />
Two floors below, MudMan frowned happily at graph-paper scrawls. El Humidor, sightless eyes again apparently pointed at the ceiling, imagined ways for his beloved BiPlane Heroes to board stately airships, sweet sea-cows of the skies. <i>Like some fearsome predator</i>, he conjectured, <i>one-half mosquito, the other spider...</i> <br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka stood barefoot in his room. For the first time, his feet trod upon hard wood. Maybe now he could call her. Just to hang out. (But there's no sense in <i>not</i> being prepared.) <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<center></center><em>Words by C. Collision, drawings by D.D. Tinzeroes</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-63925919782163863402009-05-05T12:40:00.000-07:002013-06-09T14:30:44.730-07:00No. 11 - Citizens Emerge<br />
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<br />
<b>1. AFTERNOON. YESTERDAY.</b> <br />
<br />
"Why is there no beer?" <br />
<br />
"I did the dishes." <br />
<br />
"Well. I purely, sincerely and thoroughly do not give one shit about the ass-diddling dishes, being that I haven't any desire to cook right at the moment...but I surely do have a desire to drink a beer...and thus do I append one complaint to you, sir: I do wish you had not finished drinking all the beer." <br />
<br />
"Dishes needed to be done." A shrug. Akka/Dekka left the kitchen oblivious to the narrowed eyes and knotted neck muscles brandished by Jerry Rig. Rig inhaled, shudderingly, exhaled furiously: "This. Ain't. Over." <br />
<br />
El Humidor's face appeared at the window, wide-eyed and disheveled. A general air of pleading. Distracted, "What's up with Humidor?" <br />
<br />
"He's locked out." <br />
<br />
Mudman shambles in from the front. "Why is the front door unlocked?" <br />
<br />
Dekka, uncharacteristically philosophical, "Well, he thinks he's locked out." <br />
<br />
"Should I go tell him the door's open?" <br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
"No, 'Man! If we do that, he'll never learn." <br />
<br />
From the living room, an ironic "Tough but fair." <br />
<br />
This wholly unacceptable mention of fairness caused Rig to remember his rage and storm into the living room, launching a salvo, "Anyways, what's this bullshit about dishes equaling beer?" <br />
<br />
Shaking his head, Mudman made his way downstairs, to drink from a private reserve of cellar-temperature brew. <br />
<br />
"I cooked for everybody yesterday. I did dishes for everybody today. So I helped myself to 'everybody's' beer." <br />
<br />
"That's preposterous." <br />
<br />
"How do you mean?" <br />
<br />
"I cook all the time. Nobody does my dishes. I don't take anybody's beer." <br />
<br />
"Yeah, Jerry...but you don't cook for other people." <br />
<br />
"Nobody asks you to cook. Nobody asked you to do the dishes." <br />
<br />
"You eat the food I cook." <br />
<br />
"That doesn't obligate me to clean the dishes you freely dirtied." <br />
<br />
"Whatever. Bitch all you want about not having any beer, but you're bitching with a clean kitchen and a full belly." <br />
<br />
There are some battles that must be postponed. On his way out the door for a sixer, Rig spat "Don't think you're taxing any of these beers for some imaginary debt..." <br />
<br />
<b>2. EVENING. DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY.</b> <br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka stood at the stove, his posture erect, his face a chiseled mask of intensity. His tongue jutted from his mouth's corner as he worked his multi-tool's can opener around the lip of a can. <br />
<br />
"What are you doing?" <br />
<br />
"Something wonderful." <br />
<br />
Dekka's history remains largely a matter of conjecture. What was then known was that he was something of a survivalist, certainly no boy scout but generally prepared. And in that house, he was by far the finest cook. <br />
<br />
Rig mused, not for the first time, "Somebody should really buy a can opener," as Akka/Dekka slit open a brick of Velveeta. He deposited same like a buoy atop a sea of recently decanned chili, and set the burner on stun. By way <br />
<br />
of stirring, he'd poke at the slumping, miry cheese with his knife blade. Rig and Akka/Dekka loafed and leaned at their leisure as the cauldron heated. <br />
<br />
No overt greetings were issued upon El Humidor's arrival. This was not to be taken as reflecting any lack of affection or esteem; men such as these knew, always, that their bonds would ever be mysterious to the undisciplined rabble they were sworn to defend. When their dire tasks were accomplished, why, then there would be time aplenty for revelry, relaxation, and for the unfettered commerce of pleasantries offered and accepted. Such times, however, were scarce and desired, therefore precious, and this time was decidedly not such a time. <br />
<br />
In an even tone, perhaps clipped and harsh to a civilian, Dekka said merely "Did you meet with success?" <br />
<br />
Excitedly, for he possessed an energy and surging ebullience no propriety could constrain, "I did!" Humidor held a sandbag aloft. "The tater tots are here!" <br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
"And the chips?" <br />
<br />
"...chips?" <br />
<br />
"Tortilla chips. For the <i>nachos</i>." <br />
<br />
"You're making nachos?" <br />
<br />
"Not now, Jerry. Humidor, I asked you to pick up some tortilla chips. I specified this--we agreed that potato chips are delicious but that tactically speaking, <i>on an operational level</i>, at this time, tortilla chips were the best option." <br />
<br />
"I...I must have misheard you." The depths of El Humidor's chagrin knew no bounds. The duration of his chagrin, however, was bounded by the limits of the last sentence he'd uttered. Brightening--much as a star brightens when it goes nova--"They were on sale! And this will probably work too!" <br />
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<br />
<br />
"You... <i>misheard</i> 'tortilla chips' as 'tater tots'?" <br />
<br />
"Not now, Jerry," quoted Humidor with an immense air of satisfaction. <br />
<br />
"Well, needs must as the devil does." Humidor and Rig exchanged bewildered looks as Dekka bent to the oven controls. "We shall press them into service. A cook goes to the kitchen with the ingredients he was, not the ingredients he might want to have, or the ingredients he might wish to have." <br />
<br />
"Give it here." Akka/Dekka tore open the bulging sack with his bare hands, and scattered the tiny cylinders across a battered baking sheet. Somehow more like depth charges consigned to hostile seas than an aerial bombardment. <br />
<br />
"Well. <i>This</i> is something I know a little about." Rig turned his cap around so that the bill faced backward, always his response to a situation's descent into chaos, where he was most comfortably effective. <br />
<br />
A plate nearly clean was shaken free of crumbs and set atop a moraine of...crap on the kitchen table. The fridge, larder, and cupboards were accessed. A small daub of fancy mustard was sprinkled with some bar's pepper shaker, liberated in a campaign forgotten by all who weren't there. This hillock covered in hot sauce, then adorned with a curling squirt of store-brand BBQ sauce. <br />
<br />
Dekka watched with the clinical eyes of a seasoned veteran, understanding the rationale of every move even as it began. Whatever his faults, Jerry Rig had ideas of undeniable flair, Akka/Dekka admitted silently to himself. And it was beginning to look like his panache was going to salvage another dicey situation. Hardly the first time a skilled operator on the front lines had neatly circumvented a <br />
<br />
logistical foul-up, and surely not the last. <br />
<br />
"I... do not think this will be a soup I will enjoy very much." <br />
<br />
"Maybe not. But as a dipping sauce for tots, it'll do." <br />
<br />
Yes, thought Dekka. This was a unit you could be proud of, a unit to get things done no mater what came. I hope there's still beer, though. <br />
<br />
<b>3. YESTERDAY. EVENING.</b> <br />
<br />
The living room. Jerry was sprawled across the couch, toying idly with a warm beer. Akka had a ten-speed upside-down, and frowned at the bike chain he was cleaning with a toothbrush. Spatters of road grime, WD-40 residue, and orange cleaner mostly missed the magazine he'd opened under the bike seat, soiling the putty-colored carpet. Shifting on an overturned milk crate, he said "We going to the 'Box tonight?" <br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
"No dinero. Prolly just watch Smackdown. Jesus, Mud, you suck at <i>Contra</i>." <br />
<br />
"I think that controller's fucked." <br />
<br />
"What's fucked is watching this guy flail around with reflexes like... a field of corn." <br />
<br />
"What?" <br />
<br />
"Shut it. Give it here. You may as well use the code." <br />
<br />
Long minutes passed as Rig stabbed at the controller pad, attempting to conjure the fabled thirty lives of Konami. Rig's stubby fingers barynya'd across the controller's face. <br />
<br />
"The whole point of the game is the one! Hit! Kill! One hit! So you have to not get hit! You have to know where the hit is going to be and then you have to not be there!" <br />
<br />
With a tight squeal of indignant frustration, he flicked the controller to the ground, somewhat near Mudman, and sliced his way from the couch. From the kitchen he sniped "I think that controller's fucked." <br />
<br />
Akka rose and clumsily flipped his bike over. Leaning against the pile, he toed the magazine shut. "High Society. Nice. I ever tell you guys about my buddy whose girlfriend was in Gallery?" <br />
<br />
"Maybe once. Maybe every time you wear your Gallery shirt." <br />
<br />
Shrugged, settled his bulk into the room's comfy chair. "Heya, 'Man, look like you got it going pretty good there." <br />
<br />
"..." <br />
<br />
In truth, Mudman was playing well, exercising those two primal urges experienced by every man: the urge to move right and the urge to deal death. <br />
<br />
"We should get a PlayStation or something. I'm sick of these games." Rig's words hung in the air like a zeppelin. No one cared to respond to his characteristic displeasure with the NES and their paltry game selection; no one dared to respond to a suggestion of fiscal extravagance along the lines of "We should clad our bikes with golden armor after we finish building that second helicopter pad." <br />
<br />
They sat for some time in that strange reverie, the satisfaction of watching somebody else play video games. The sun set, somewhere outside. Eventually, Mudman initiated the console's power-down sequence, and rose, exactly like the slime monster what killed Tasha Yar. Silent and solemn, he retired to his basement rooms, where he would draw dungeons on graph paper until sunrise. <br />
<br />
El Humidor burst through the front door (no, not "just like Kramer") to no acknowledgement whatever. Shortly, the queer clickings and beepings from the kitchen gave notice that he was renewing his ancient engagement with his great foe, the microwave. Its strange glyphs entranced and baffled him, and no amount of patient explaining could impart to him the difference between "cook" and "defrost". <br />
<br />
Minutes, thumps, and beeps later, El Humidor wafted into the living room with a steaming Hot Pocket and two inches of a 40. Empties littered the squalid space like shell casings in a besieged pillbox. <br />
<br />
"We're out of beer. Jerry, you should wrangle the empties and go get some refreshments before Smackdown." <br />
<br />
Deadly, grating: "I beg your pardon?" <br />
<br />
"I cooked. You clean." <br />
<br />
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<em>Words by C. Collision, drawings by D.D. Tinzeroes</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-79939437007204122142009-04-21T12:25:00.000-07:002013-06-09T14:21:08.732-07:00No. 6 - Severed! --That bloody teat now forsaken OR Four against many<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
A field, near a castle. Four men at their respective gallops. "Harder than it looks, castle defense. Requires a man who actually <i>quivers</i> at thoughts like 'overlapping fields of fire', a man who <i>never</i> overreaches his resources, neither tactically nor operationally, a man possessing the subtlest understanding of terrain and advantage."<br />
<br />
"Your point, Deckard?"<br />
<br />
"I don't believe they <i>have</i> such a man, men. Let us mount a mighty siege of Castle Super Star, and let none survive our onslaught!"<br />
<br />
In that too-familiar real world, Acca/Dekka's boots were in the oven, warming so he could wax them. He was growing a moustache, frowning and at concentration, sitting crosslegged in front of the coffee table, his back to the dark tv.<br />
<br />
All the housemates stared at a smoky tableau manipulated by El Humidor's fumokinesis. A castle jutted from a cliff face, two rugged towers belching clouds of arrows, enough to blot out the smoke-figured sun. A fog, this cloud of wood, feather, bone and stone, a cloud of men's evil urges toward men given form and flight. These arrows end lives not easily known nor numbered.<br />
<br />
Overkill, then, for the lives at stake at the moment are four.<br />
<br />
Thorec Zentsoeir, stately and lithe, mounted the parapet, and frowningly surveyed the 'scape. "You backup archers--fire! Redouble all efforts, redoubtable defenders!"<br />
<br />
Four tiny, clear figures scrambled to the summit of a grassy knoll, shields held above their heads to ward off that hellish hail of arrow. They surged robustly through this life-seeking, yet life-ending, mass of pointed sticks.<br />
<br />
"By all the hells of all the gods of Lankhmar, Deckard, your assessments of enemy forces never cease to amaze!"<br />
<br />
"Enough of that mewling, Whigg--they can't keep this up for long."<br />
<br />
"What makes you say that?"<br />
<br />
Deckard produced a small box from his belt (both intricately tooled and jeweled), and simultaneously Madstadon pointed out in his slow, nearly impeded way "You've never been to Lankhmar, Whigg."<br />
<br />
Responding to Deckard's practiced, frantic operations, the box began to emit a profoundly irritating hum. He and Madstadon traded a look, the latter grating "Won't be long now."<br />
<br />
Pacing those parapets, Thorec Zentsoeir was just in time to see the airship heave into view, all wicked points and cannons grimly gleaming. Thorec had defended this castle--and defended it well--for a decade and a half. It were only fatigue running deep as depsair that distracted him now, lead him into error. For he diverted fully half of his force to focus on the airship. "Concentrate all forward fire on that Super Star destroyer!"<br />
<br />
Sensing the letup in the arrows' barrage, the four men atop the grassy knoll signal'd the ship and hurl't themselves forward as one.<br />
<br />
Hugh Mann, mad geometer and wizard of information, still at a dead run, shoved a hand into both of his floppy, voluminous sleeves. Whipping the hands out, he produced from each sleeve a pair of daggers. Each pigsticker had a forearm's length of gaily-colored ribbon tied to a ring on the handle, and oh! how they fluttered as Mann hurled them, two apiece from each hand. They curved into arcs and landed in various spots just shy of the inevitable moat.<br />
<br />
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<br />
The skeleton crew still aboard the airship Enterprise (faceless ensigns, mostly) recognized their signal, and they did hustle to an especial cannon. As it roared and flashed, something like a bolo assaulted the air in a brutal trajectory. It all makes sense in a second, as, in quick succession, four cannonballs embedded themselves in the loamy earth, each one near a knife. From each cannonball protruded a length of chain, stretching to a grisly hook embedded near the top of the castle's wall.<br />
<br />
Four men fairly <i>flew</i> up the chains, running up them like gangplanks, an acrobatic display discomfiting those watchers defending the castle. The wide, nearly naked Madstadon got there first, swinging his staff with devastating effect. Skulls cracked and spurted, stove in like shattered bowls of brain-curds and blood-whey, as Thorec, bigger and broader even than Madstadon, bellowed "Na'magh kaplatch!" and leapt from his parapet into the fray. He sported a huge, double-headed battle-axe...in each hand. <br />
<br />
Hugh slipped in gore as soon as he attained the wall. Torii Whigg has a bat'leth, and he's been gutting people all over the place, in a red-eyed frenzy. He's been deeply annoyed by Thorec biting his Klingon style and shouting the Klingon equivalent to "get off my lawn". <br />
<br />
<br />
Interested in stealing thunder, Torii shakes his bat'leth like a Sand Person shaking his...stick...and screams "Them what I would destroy I first make mad! --All your mothers wear secondhand combat boots!"<br />
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<br />
<br />
He spun and offered a two-handed shove of the wicked weapon into the mouth of the man standing before him. The air near his fingers was sullied by a slurry of frothing blood and tiny fragments of teeth. A quarter-spin, a diagonal upward slash, organs and offal arcing in a horrific splatter of airborne life-now-ended.<br />
<br />
Scant meters away, Deckard is an archer by trade, and ill-suited for close-quarters work such as this. As such, he was wheeling and flashing, dancing between combatants and using his cloak like a matador's cape to direct and misdirect his attackers. Strove for the high ground, and a few free seconds with which to rain pointy death upon his foes. Mann understood all this in a wizard's flash, helped by Deckard yowling "Get me out of here!", and his perfected strategy mind suggested a path to the summit. <br />
<br />
<br />
Coolly, a constant blur of motion, he seemed to pause to say "To the turret?"<br />
<br />
"And step on it!"<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
Headlong he rushed, pell-mell Deckard followed in the wake thrown up by Hugh's flickering kunai. A half-dozen corpses littered their path, knives barely visible protruding from eyes and throats rivering blood.<br />
<br />
"Deckard, keep an eye on our six whilst I rummage my trick-bag for some device apropos!"<br />
<br />
Atop the parapet, Deckard broke the seal on a frothing jug of hell-violence, introducing a score of lackeys to fate with his infallible arrows of bone and ash. For his part, using Deckard's small box, Hugh Mann beckoned closer their airship, the Enterprise.<br />
<br />
At the bottom of the parapet, Thorec slammed his shoulder into the nearly ruined staircase. "Get down here!"<br />
<br />
As Mann and Deckard reeled on the assaulted platform, Mann wondered "Time to go?". "Let's beat feet!" Mann manipulated one last time the magic box, and the airship disgorged two chains for Deckard and Hugh to climb.<br />
<br />
Winded and frustrated, fell Thorec paused to find a foe to fell. Madstadon yodeled his barbarian's challenge, and Thorec did not in any wise deny him. After some athletic posturing and mutual bellowing, the two began a slow circling, with feints. Madstadon growled "You and me, pal...just you and me," and Thorec, stretched to his full height, chin-nodded and gestured around the surround, as if to say that all had become battlefield for just those two. Circling, then, and searches for the fatal opening. Surrounded by Thorec's remaining men...and Torii Whigg.<br />
<br />
Wicked attacks raked the air, and ears rang from the ringing clouts of clashing weapons, hurled by the taut sinews and thews of those two vast men, Madstadon and Thorec Zentsoeir. They were not evenly matched, for though Madstadon had momentum on his side, no man alive could hope to stand long against the matchless Thorec. Grinning, he tossed his head. "Yield, now, and I shall allow your comrades to withdraw. You cannot take this castle."<br />
<br />
Madstadon, sweating and trembling with fatigue, mutters the traditional curse of his savage tribe: "Eat me raw and unsalted, dick." His staff fell from nerveless fingers. Grimly, rejected, Thorec raised the the axe, every inch the executioner.<br />
<br />
Thorec then was ripped open from kidney to lung...by Whigg's bat'leth. From behind.<br />
<br />
As Death leached the color from his world, noble, half-mad Thorec Zentsoeir grasped for Torii Whigg's hand and croak't a question attending all too much of life from beginning to end: "Why?" <br />
<br />
Whigg cradled Thorec in a cruel, mocking <i>pietas</i> pose as the question wheeled in the air like a carrion bird.<br />
<br />
"Hey, man, it was a nice castle. We just wanted to fuck it up."<br />
<br />
A yawning chasm, vertigo, meaninglessness buffeted Thorec and he became one with an infinite nothing. His last moment alive stretched into an eternal keening note of sad wonder, that life could be made to mean so very little.<br />
<br />
The Enterprise hung off the castle, Deckard and Mann leaning over the railing, enjoying the carnage vista below over their mugs of strong drink. Madstadon and Whigg stretched their weary limbs amidst the desolate, worthless horror. Those two yet living were ankle-deep in entrails, and Thorec Zentsoeir's discarded clay could be seen face down in offal. <br />
<br />
The scene then wavered, collapsed, and drifted away. It was, after all, never more than smoky figuration.<br />
<br />
"Geez. Bit of a downer ending, don't you think?"<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
El Humidor simply shrugged, his long face drawn with fatigue. Jer stood, seeming a giant surrounded by a vile rodeo of tiny, cavorting furniture robots--"To-morrow, I'll show you a play that's a bit peppier! I'll use my little guys to--"<br />
<br />
"Cable fixed tomorrow."<br />
<br />
"Really, 'Man?"<br />
<br />
"Yeah. Paid the bill."<br />
<br />
"Oh! Nevermind, then."<br />
<br />
<em>Words by C. Collision, drawings by D.D. Tinzeroes</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-17263327154130580432009-03-25T12:38:00.000-07:002013-06-09T14:29:14.325-07:00No. 10 - Creet<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglHoWw5hfrEI4I7f-BdQbz4lQFSHJfkXMV1FiWEsAe7-Sv1-DZ-aZm62nehks6olKv7w3gZStmVwxTtPTXxCXGST4Hkr8IsKt6Cir4PvbYb7sozbKVCrOY6tHHbWetrAKD9DV9eaej_Eg/s1600/issue10cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglHoWw5hfrEI4I7f-BdQbz4lQFSHJfkXMV1FiWEsAe7-Sv1-DZ-aZm62nehks6olKv7w3gZStmVwxTtPTXxCXGST4Hkr8IsKt6Cir4PvbYb7sozbKVCrOY6tHHbWetrAKD9DV9eaej_Eg/s640/issue10cover.jpg" width="400" /></a>
<br />
<br />
<b>SATURDAY, 4:15 A.M.</b> <br />
<br />
Down a quiet residential street, Aecca/Decca walks alone. His hands are balled up in his front pockets, his arms squeezed tight to his sides in an attempt to ward off the early morning chill that precedes the onset of sunrise. A hazy, dreamy expression hangs on his face, as he recalls the evening's events. <br />
<br />
<b>FRIDAY, 10:07 P.M.</b> <br />
<br />
He had just emerged from the side of the house, bladder freshly drained into the adjacent overgrown hedgerow. Scooping up his beer from it perch on the corner of the porch where he'd placed it, he was mid-step on his way back into the house, when he noticed someone rollerblading back and forth on the sidewalk in front. <br />
<br />
"Hey," she said, noticing his gaze, "c'mere!" waving him over. Decca pauses briefly enough to make sure she's talking to him, and then heads down the walkway. <br />
<br />
"What's up?" he says. <br />
<br />
"Nothin'. How's the party?" she asks. <br />
<br />
"S'kay," he replies around a sip of beer, "I think we'd call it a success." <br />
<br />
"Oh, you live here?" she says. She hasn't stopped moving this whole time, instead in a constant series of languid figure eights and slow spins and backwards skating. Aecca finds it somewhat hypnotizing. <br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
"Yeah," he answers, "uh, I'm Aecca/Decca, but people call me Aecca. Or Decca." <br />
<br />
"I'm Creet," she says with a grin, "people call me Creet." <br />
<br />
"Nice to meet you," says Aecca. He finds himself attracted to her. With her skates on she's about as tall as him, but without them she'd probably qualify as petite. She's wearing tan cargo pants, a plain yellow t-shirt. Her black hair in a short pixie cut. She's Indian. Sub-continent India Indian. <br />
<br />
"Likewise," she says, "you gonna offer me a beer or what?" a little of that mirthful grin again. <br />
<br />
"Yeah, c'mon in," Aecca says, turning to head back to the house. <br />
<br />
"Don't like houses.'Specially crowded ones," Creet says, a hint of apology in her voice, "can you get me a beer and bring it out here?" <br />
<br />
"Yeah, sure," says Aecca. Over five minutes later Aecca remerges from the crowded house, and tries to conceal his relief that Creet's still waiting outside, and also that no one else is talking to her. They chat amiable for the next forty minutes, interrupted only by occasional concentrated bursts of yelling and cheering from the house. She asks if they'd rented the house for long (yes), if this was their first party (no), if he was from Portland originally (no). <br />
<br />
At some point, Aecca feels Creet's eyes looking over his shoulder. He looks behind himself and finds El Humidor and Mudman standing at the end of the walk looking back. He turns, greets them, "oh, hey guys." <br />
<br />
"Hey," says Mudman. <br />
<br />
"Uhhhhhhh," says El Humidor, steeping to the sidewalk, "we're, off, uh, to get that second keg." <br />
<br />
"Cool," says Aecca, noticing that Humidor's eyes are darting back and forth between himself and Creet, "uh, this is Creet." He looks at Creet, motions at other two, "these are my housemates, El Humidor and Mudman." <br />
<br />
"Nice to meet you," says Creet. That charming smile, again. <br />
<br />
Humidor walks backwards, toward his van parked down the street, jingling his keys, "we'll, uh, be back soon." <br />
<br />
"Yeah. Soon," says Mudman. <br />
<br />
"Okay," says Aecca, turning away from them. <br />
<br />
"They seem... interesting," says Creet, arching her eyebrows. <br />
<br />
"Yeah. They're okay, I guess," Aecca scratches the back of his scalp. <br />
<br />
"So, there's no more beer inside, I'm guessing," say Creet, eyeballing the insides of her plastic cup. <br />
<br />
"Well, there'll be more, trust me," says Aecca, a confident, knowing smile. <br />
<br />
"Mhmm," Creet seems unimpressed, "there was a sixer of talls in my fridge when I left. Wanna have one of those?" <br />
<br />
"Uh," Aecca hesitates, looks at the house. Rig's still in there. The others will be back with the second keg soon enough. The party will survive without him. "Yeah, sure." <br />
<br />
"Its not far," Creet reassures. <br />
<br />
The two walk to Creed's place. Well, Aecca walks briskly, while Creet skates around him. Turns out she lives in the basement of an old Victorian house, one of those one's with the little garage that connects to the basement, and the house is up on top on a little raised manmade hillock. Creet produces a small key from a cargo pocket, unlocks the old garage doors. Aecca steps into darkness Creet follows, Aecca hears a deadbolt thrown. Creet flips on the lights and skates through the open door that separates the garage and the basement, tugging at a shoelace. A few uncovered bulbs light up from the basement ceiling. <br />
<br />
Aecca walks casually to the middling area of the space, while Creet skates over to a mini-fridge plugged in in the corner. "Now," she says, opening the fridge, "the beer!" Five tallboys of beer can be seen in the crowded fridge. "Hey!" Creet sends one tall boy somersaulting through space across the room. Aecca barely catches it. "Have a seat," says Creet, rolling over to a boombox, shuffling through a shoebox of mix tapes. <br />
<br />
Cracking open the cold beer, Aecca moves over to a chair covered with a blanket. He plops down. And curses in shock and pain. He lifts up the blanket. <br />
<br />
"Oh sorry," says Creet as Aecca discovers the 'chair' is actually cinderblocks arranged to look like a chair, "I forgot, I don't have any normal furniture down here. I let my housemates keep it all upstairs." <br />
<br />
"Uh, its okay, I just got caught by surprise, that's all," Aecca looks around for somewhere more comfortable. Realizing suddenly that there's nothing else to sit on (Creet appears to sleep in a sort of nest of sheets and blankets on the floor in the corner), he settles for sitting on the floor with his back to a vertical support beam. <br />
<br />
"So," says Creet, as she inserts her selected tape and opens her beer, "you haven't told me yet what your powers are." <br />
<br />
"Uh, oh, really?" Aecca sips at his beer, "well..." <br />
<br />
Aecca/Decca explains that he constantly attracts static electricity, like a lightning rod. And he couldn't discharge it in energy bolts or anything cool or destructive like that. Instead, it just discharged the old fashioned way by giving him a mighty jolt whenever he touched a doorknob or whatever other random thing. <br />
<br />
Every hair on his body stands on end 24 hours a day. <br />
<br />
Rubber socks and shoes, and occasionally rubber pads glued to his fingertips, helped in small facets to allow him some degree of normalcy, but the rest of existence was now an endless parade of essentially random electric shocks. For a long time he had not slept more than 3 hours at a time, although recently he'd gotten the hang of just not rolling around much in his sleep. Bathing was fine but toweling off not an option. His last girlfriend left him when she couldn't stand the random convulsions and yelps during foreplay anymore. <br />
<br />
Aecca stopped talking at this point, embarrassed he'd broached the subject of girlfriends and sex. Thankfully, Creet took the opening to explain her power. <br />
<br />
Creet is blessed with the ability to be invulnerable to concrete. For her, falling face first into a sidewalk or the street or anything made of concrete (or cement or asphalt) is akin to falling into an ocean of pillows. <br />
<br />
"Get out!" says Aecca/Decca. <br />
<br />
"Yep, check it," says Creet, and before Aecca can object, she rises from the floor where she's been laying on her stomach, pads barefoot back a few steps, spreads her arms, and falls face-first smack into the floor. <br />
<br />
Aecca cries out, startles forward. <br />
<br />
But then Creet springs up, grinning, arms spread: no bloody nose, no marks at all, "taa-daa!!" she says. <br />
<br />
"Jesus..." murmurs Aecca, understanding now her lack of regular furnishings. <br />
<br />
"Wanna 'nother beer?" <br />
<br />
"Sure," Aecca glances at her clock. Its quarter past two. <br />
<br />
Not surprisingly, she continues, this has translated into a lifetime of street-sporting. In no particular order, she's casually competent at roller skating, inline skating, skateboarding, long boarding, razoring, and street hockey. She mainly supports herself competing in sports of this nature, namely long boarding, which requires less trick-learning and more just reckless abandon, which she's fine with given the asphalt doesn't hurt. <br />
<br />
Her problem, she confesses, is that she tends to feel a bit paranoid when NOT standing on a poured surface. Since moving out on her own she's opted to rent basement rooms and garage apartments. Her dream abode is a large, openspace loft with concrete floors where she can actually build a poured-concrete bed. For time being she makes due with cinderblock chairs, sofas, and even a bed. Regular "soft" beds & chairs give her the willies. <br />
<br />
"We should form a team," Aecca suggests, smiling. <br />
<br />
Creet chuckles, "oh yeah? What's your angle?" All the good teams have an angle. <br />
<br />
"Everyone's paranoid of household furnishings." <br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
"Yeah!" Creet laughs, sips more beer, "and we could get a guy who can control dust bunnies but is terrified of vacuum cleaners!" <br />
<br />
Aecca's turn to chuckle, now, "We could call ourselves The Living Room Set!" <br />
<br />
They continue in this vein for the remainder of their second beers. At about 3:15 A.M. Creet pours half of the last beer into one of Aecca's empties. As 4:00 creeps closer, the beer is gone. The conversation's losing its momentum. Aecca's <br />
<br />
putting the finishing flourishes on his retelling of how El Humidor once threw up on the floor after donating plasma. Creet smiles thinly, looking tired. <br />
<br />
"I have to call it a night," she says, standing. <br />
<br />
"Oh, okay," says Aecca, also standing up. <br />
<br />
"Thanks for coming over," she says with a tired but sunny smile. A little part of Aecca wilts. <br />
<br />
"Yeah, it was fun. We should, uh, do it again, sometime." <br />
<br />
She shows him out. He waves good bye, and begins his walk home. <br />
<br />
At first he walks slowly, head down, lips pursing and eyebrows arching and head tilting as he reviews and replays the evening's conversations in head. He feels silly for thinking he was gonna get laid. But Creet's cool, regardless. Like, too cool for school cool. As in, too cool to hang with him, cool. So its kinda a win-win. He feels good about himself. Then the pre-dawn chill and damp starts to get to him. <br />
<br />
<b>SATURDAY, 4:15 A.M.</b> <br />
<br />
Hands are balled up in his front pockets, arms squeezed tight to his sides in an attempt to retain a little body heat, Aecca/Decca emerges from a unimproved footpath slotted between two high walls of blackberry brambles, then cuts diagonally across a church parking lot and comes around a corner to bring the house into view. The cacophony of voices and yells is gone, replaced by the occasional laugh or murmur of drunken late night conversation. The front door is open and all the lights in the house are on. <br />
<br />
The yard stinks like spilled beer and cigarette butts. Worse than usual. <br />
<br />
Aecca heads up the steps and into the house. He closes the door behind him, hesitates, and locks it with a shrug (who else is coming over, after all). He starts to head for the kitchen, because he hears voices floating through the back door from the back yard, but detours through the living room to kill the analog hiss of the not-playing-anything stereo. <br />
<br />
Looping back into the kitchen he checks the second keg with a rattling shake. Hearing a reassuring slosh, he grabs a nearby plastic cup. Finding it full of cigarette butts and spent matches, he grabs another and rinses it out pretty good, and pours himself a beer. <br />
<br />
Emerging from the backdoor, Aecca surveys the backyard from the top of the steps. At the base of the stairs, Jerry Rig, chuckling, tears at the corners of his eyes, refilling a mason jar with beer from a plastic pitcher ("BEER $" note still clinging on) nods to Decca. In the approximate center of the back yard El Humidor stands on top of a cinder block. He's wearing a real combat helmet (which that Mudman found in the basement) and brandishing a fencing foil (which Aecca found in a hall closet) in the air like its Excalibur, both presumed to have been left behind by previous renters. <br />
<br />
Humidor, mid-sentence, apparently, is taking a deep draught form his beer cup. Lowering his cup, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, he continues, <br />
<br />
"So just give it your best shot, Man of Mud! I dare ya! I'm armored!" taps the helmet with the foil. He then initiates a sort of taunting chicken dance, "I. Am. El. Humidor. El. Hum-i-dor. El. Hum-i-dor. El. Hum-i-dor." <br />
<br />
Mudman is off towards the far back corner of the yard, by a pile of broken concrete. Once, long ago, there was a paved driveway into the back yard. The owner busted it up and left all the fragments in a pile. Rig likes to call it "The Ruins of Troy VIIb," some sort of academic reference the rest of the 'mates either don't get or ignore. Mudman's giggling through Humidor's tirade. <br />
<br />
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<br />
"Ah yeah? Let's see your smoke obfuscate THIS!" and in a surprisingly graceful and fluid motion, Mudman scoops up a broken piece of concrete (but surprisingly large: about the size of a cantaloupe, or a very large zucchini), turns, and overhands it right at El Humidor. The concrete rock dully clangs into Humidor's helmet, a few inches above his left eye. Humidor goes down off his perch like a sack of potatoes, the helmet coming off in the process. He hits the ground pretty hard. <br />
<br />
If the backyard was a room the air would have been sucked out of it. But then El Humidor sits back up, looks around. Getting up, he picks up his helmet. Looking at Mudman, his hands playing across the helmet's surface, "Hey!" he starts to laugh, "Mudman, look at this!" <br />
<br />
Grinning broadly, El Humidor holds up the helmet. There's a nice, solid, inch-across dent where the rock hit. Mudman laughs, deep and long, "I could have fucking killed you!" <br />
<br />
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<br />
Everyone laughs hysterically. "I could be brain damaged!" adds El Humidor, setting off a cascading effect of hyena howls. Somewhere nearby, a dog barks in response, as the sun begins its slow creep over the Portland horizon. <br />
<br />
<em>Words & drawings by D.D. Tinzeroes</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-45478768936595686762009-02-27T12:33:00.000-08:002013-06-09T14:27:58.717-07:00No. 9 - Where the Hoopla Is<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFgbXBZSV4MhpN0__GxAfxrHM6ihQYj6o229Sq8K9h2sSyUZmOIhG0gUb2yXiuQT4UZaLeG93Md74ce5ZPvDq_Ai-s0C4bOvVAh5kFC5TKViQbr73aQwiMpC-8OMbIX1F3rZEgHtHL2A4/s1600/issue9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFgbXBZSV4MhpN0__GxAfxrHM6ihQYj6o229Sq8K9h2sSyUZmOIhG0gUb2yXiuQT4UZaLeG93Md74ce5ZPvDq_Ai-s0C4bOvVAh5kFC5TKViQbr73aQwiMpC-8OMbIX1F3rZEgHtHL2A4/s640/issue9.jpg" width="400" /></a>
<br />
<b>FRIDAY NIGHT, 11:00 P.M.</b> <br />
<br />
Afforded a modicum of privacy by the overgrown hedgerow bordering one side of the house, El Humidor enjoys a long, beer-fueled pee, a cigarette smoldering from his lower lip. Zipping up, he walks up the side of house back to the front, turns, and makes his way back the front stoop, from which billows clouds of blue smoke. He shoulders (politely) through the crowd of smokers and squeezes in the front door. <br />
<br />
Nodding hellos, smiling broadly and saying "hey" at party-goers male and female alike, El Humidor makes his way through the morass of sweaty humanity in the front rooms of house. The stereo is blasting but what's playing is almost undistinguishable from the din of voices. <br />
<br />
"So I told him of course I would but that I would naturally have to do the same for my husband--" <br />
<br />
"Never mind." <br />
<br />
"You're going to want to disinfect that, before. And after." <br />
<br />
"Him? Sweetheart, nobody's ever been that drunk." <br />
<br />
"Your mom." <br />
<br />
"What are you trying to kiss me for? You didn't buy me any drinks." <br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
"...my mom. Once." <br />
<br />
"I rubbed it up to half mast, but nobody saluted. Truck stops are such a waste of time anymore." <br />
<br />
"Like you were never broke enough to do that!" <br />
<br />
"I think the bathroom is clear." <br />
<br />
Humidor pauses to light a girl's cigarette in the passageway between foyer and kitchen, chats amiable for a minute or two until his red plastic beer cup runneth empty. Excusing himself, but promising to return, he pushes on to the kitchen. <br />
<br />
The kitchen floor is slippery with a mix of spilled beer and dirt and grime. Someone's lighting a cigarette on the electric stovetop. El Humidor pauses at the sink, where a guest has procured a bottle of cheap whiskey. Cupboards are ransacked for suitable substitute shot glasses. A menagerie of mason jars, coffee mugs, and measuring cups result. A round is poured. A toast is proposed. An awkward silence follows when no can think of what to toast too, followed by just taking the shots to a general shrug. <br />
<br />
Yelling his thanks for the drink, El Humidor resumes his migration. Aecca/Decca's Chamber of Reflections (the pantry) has been reappropriated as a sort of beer docking station, at the front of which sits a keg. Behind the keg lean Mudman and Jerry Rig. Rig's manning the tap and pouring beers. Mudman's saying hello to party-goers and pointing at the empty plastic pitcher full of cash, a paper scrap marked "BEER $" taped to its front. <br />
<br />
Being a housemate, El Humidor cuts to the front of the pseudo-line and squeezes around the keg and into the alcove with Rig and Mudman. Rig nods and fills El Humidor's outstretched cup. Refilled, El Humidor perches on the desk at the back of the pantry and drinks. Mudman kicks the base of the keg and looks back at Humidor meaningfully. El Humidor nods, winks, signals at his beer. <br />
<br />
When he's done with his beer he grabs a second plastic beer pitcher from a shelf and heads out into the crowd. He slowly makes his way back to front of the house, and eventually reaches "the sweet spot." The sweet spot is an vantage point along the wall between front door and the front window, from whence one can see all the way back on the right, through living room/dining room to the door of the bathroom, and, on the left, through the passageway by the stairs through the kitchen to the door of the pantry. El Humidor steps up onto a convenient chair, elevating him a few feet above the sea of drunken souls. He catches the attention of someone by the stereo and makes a turn-it-down gesture. The music cuts and is met with a disappointed groan from the mob. <br />
<br />
"Ladies and genteelmen!!" shouts El Humidor, "it has come to my attentshone, hey, SHUT UP! It has come to the Keg is Empty! We already have a lot of money!" he points back towards the pantry. Mudman, grinning, hoists the pitcher of cash up like a grail. "But we need more to GET A SECOND KEG!" He pauses as a spirited cheer rises from the crowd. He holds out the empty pitcher as a steady slew of ones and an occasional fiver are tossed in. After a few minutes Humidor sits down at the top of the stairs, joined by Rig and Mudman. <br />
<br />
"Man, where the fuck is Aecca?" asks Rig, pausing to sip his beer. They're counting the money. <br />
<br />
"Outside?" suggests Mudman. <br />
<br />
"Well, I am not venturing to thee public house on my own," says Humidor, "oh, okay, I count sixty-two dollars." <br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
Mudman holds up a stack of bills, "eighty-five and some loose change." <br />
<br />
They both look at Rig. Rig's face breaks into a slow, wide, smile. "One. Hundred. Eleven." <br />
<br />
El Humidor whistles. Rig slaps the pile of cash into Humidor's hand. <br />
<br />
"Two Fifty-eight. Good haul. Good plan, Rig," says Mudman, handing his pile to Humidor. <br />
<br />
"Yeah. Thanks," says Rig, then turns at Humidor, "now, remember, make a big show of taking the cash with you when you go." <br />
<br />
"Yes yes yes, El Humidor remembers!" replies Humidor, "but who is, how you say, riding shotgun with I? Where IS Aecca/Decca?" <br />
<br />
"I'll go," says Mudman. <br />
<br />
"Good, let us go, you and I, then," says El Humidor, standing. <br />
<br />
The three housemates trundle down the stairs. Holding the fistful of money in the air, El Humidor declares loudly over the again blasting music that more beer will be on the way, for which he receives a loud cheer from the crowd. El Humidor makes a theatrical exit through the front door, Mudman in tow. <br />
<br />
"Be back before you know it!" says Humidor as they pass through the porch throng, "here, hold this," he says, handing the stack of cash to Mudman and fishing his van keys out of his pocket. El Humidor comes to a stop as he reaches the sidewalk, his attention drawn to the left as if by some black hole of gravity. Mudman, starting to count the cash for the zillionth time, almost bumps into him from behind, follows his gaze. The two stand there, soaking up the scene before them. <br />
<br />
"Oh, hey guys," says Aecca Decca. Decca's standing out in front on the sidewalk, beer in one hand, other hand casually stuffed in a back pocket. The girl he's talking to smiles slightly gives a tiny wave to Mudman and El Humidor, rocks back and forth on the roller blades she's wearing. Cargo pants, plain yellow t-shirt, pixie haircut. Bengali features. <br />
<br />
"Hey," says Mudman. <br />
<br />
"Uhhhhh," says El Humidor, steeping off the walkway and on to the sidewalk, "we're, off, uh, to get that second keg," suspicious eyes looking at Aecca, then the girl, then Aecca. <br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
"Cool," says Aecca, noticing Humidor's looks, "uh, this is Creet." He motions at the girl, then looks at her, "these are housemates, El Humidor and Mudman." <br />
<br />
"Nice to meet you," says Creet, a friendly grin. <br />
<br />
"We'll, uh, be back soon," says Humidor, jingling his keys as he walks backwards to his van. <br />
<br />
"Yeah. Soon," says Mudman. <br />
<br />
"Okay," says Aecca, turning his body to face Creet again. El Humidor and Mudman walk a few car lengths down the street and clamor into El Humidors dilapidated van. They drive to the bar from whence the procured the kegs. They park in the back, head inside, order themselves up a couple of beers. <br />
<br />
"We drink these, then we head back, agreed?" asks El Humidor. Mudman nods. <br />
<br />
The two drink in silence. El Humidor spins around on his barstool so he's facing away from the bar, look around the place. "Where IS everyone? It is Friday night!" he asks with a healthy dose of sarcasm. <br />
<br />
"At our party," says Mudman, with a boastful tone. <br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
"Oh, right! I forget! Silly me. Silly El Humidor," he claps the empty beer down on the bar, "shall we go?" <br />
<br />
Mudman shoots the rest of his beer in a long swallow, "yeah." <br />
<br />
The two get up. El Humidor leaves a whole five dollar bill as tip! They return to the van and head back home. Mudman throws open the back door of the van and the two of them wrestle the keg out. With no small amount of wrangling, they manage to actually lift the keg up to their shoulders: El Humidor in front, Mudman behind. Then, like heroes bearing the spoils of war, they begin their march back into the awaiting party. As the cheers begin to rise, first from the front porch, then from inside the house as the word of the second kegs arrival spreads, Mudman murmurs to El Humidor, "I don't see Aecca/Decca." <br />
<br />
"What?" Humidor says over his shoulder. The crowd has spilled down the steps, buoying the two of them now into the house, like an amoeba absorbing some protozoa. <br />
<br />
"Aecca/Decca. Is he here?" repeats Mudman over the growing din. <br />
<br />
The keg has now been entirely separated from Mudman and El Humidor, and is sort of bobbling its way back towards the pantry, where Jerry Rig can be seen holding the tap above his head like a poised sacrificial dagger. As the crowd's bum-rush jostling begins to push El Humidor and Mudman away from each other, Humidor hollers at Mudman. <br />
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<br />
"Fuck that guy, let's get drunk!"<br />
<br />
<em>Words & drawings by D.D. Tinzeroes</em></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-38689532798142679062009-02-09T12:43:00.000-08:002013-06-09T14:26:34.317-07:00No. 8 - Field Tactics for Urban Recluses<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXBnYsdkh6XUCNmqK-P-OU8OpkRbhkTyGub6Z0UvmrBW9d1VEMTjpVA9GYP9V0rK0vODSythmkHaQ1mbSB0-nB8uxnUKNw_0Gmuh0AUaKQMPb7FdD97lpThRx2RPlW6MmRDIEyt8S37pA/s1600/issue8cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXBnYsdkh6XUCNmqK-P-OU8OpkRbhkTyGub6Z0UvmrBW9d1VEMTjpVA9GYP9V0rK0vODSythmkHaQ1mbSB0-nB8uxnUKNw_0Gmuh0AUaKQMPb7FdD97lpThRx2RPlW6MmRDIEyt8S37pA/s400/issue8cover.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
<br />
THURSDAY, Mid-Afternoon.<br />
<br />
The shared house's living room is relatively clutter-free. Mudman watches on as a cloud of cigarette smoke bends and dances to El Humidor's fumokinesis - a rather impressive fully animate model of the solar system. Aecca/Decca slouches in a chair, half-listening to someone on the phone and half-watching Jerry Rig count through and organize a pile of one, five, and ten dollar bills.<br />
<br />
"Hey, yeah, still here" says Aecca to the phone, pauses," yeah? Awesome! Okay. See you then!" He hangs up. The other three housemates glance at him.<br />
<br />
Decca slaps his hands together, then spreads them out palms up, "we have a keg tap."<br />
<br />
"Excellent," says Rig, patting the sides of the pile of cash into a neat rectangle, "with the money we save from not having to rent a tap, we can totally afford two kegs!"<br />
<br />
"Two kegs?" monotones Mudman.<br />
<br />
"Up front?" says El Humidor, his solar system spinning away into puffs of dissipating smoke. "I know not if like this idea..."<br />
<br />
"Yeah, Jer," agrees Aecca, absently toying with phone cord, "I mean, I think the party'll be a success what with the flyers and all, but we might as well just wait til the first keg kicks and do a collection to get a second, then we're not out the cash up front. 'Sides, Humidor's good at buggin' people for money."<br />
<br />
"My life's truest calling," confesses El Humidor with a slight nod.<br />
<br />
"Okay, okay, fine," says Jerry Rig, then snaps his fingers three times. From beneath sofas and behind tv-stands his brood of miniature robotic furniture scramble across the room to him. El Humidor appears visibly terrified, and assumes a decidedly guarded posture. A three-inch tall Louis XIV chair jumps up and down at Rig's left foot. Not even looking, Rig lowers his left arm to a few inches above the floor, and the little chair scurries up his sweatshirt sleeve to his shoulder, where it perches. <br />
<br />
Rig pulls the coffee table closer and begins setting his animate doll furniture atop it, "but first, I would you hear me out," he sets down the largest of the 'bots, a six inch tall wardrobe, "for I have a plan!" <br />
<br />
El Humidor scoots his chair back a few inches, "does this plan involve the destruction of these unholy furniture familiars?"<br />
<br />
"For zillioneth time, Humidor," sighs Rig, "they certainly can't hurt you! They aren't out to get you! They do not steal your cigarettes, lighters, or spare change! They do not spy on you in your sleep!"<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
"I do not like the way they look at me," states El Humidor, "their eyes are filled with devious contempt for me."<br />
<br />
"Ugh," Jerry Rig runs his hands across his face in exasperation, "to the extent that the furnimicrobots have 'eyes,' they certainly can't be filled with 'devious contempt.' Seriously, what does that even mean?!"<br />
<br />
"Get on with it," says Mudman.<br />
<br />
"Huh? What?" says Rig, somewhat shrilly. His seemingly never ending defense of the innocence of his tiny furniture automatons has gotten him somewhat worked up.<br />
<br />
"Your plan," explains Mudman, "get on with it."<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
"Oh, right," Jerry Rig arranges himself, claps his hands twice, "Furnimicrobots! Command Pattern: Pongo-Alpha-Redneck-Tiberius-Yankee!!" The robotic furniture freeze for a split second, then appear to scurry chaotically, quickly followed by the clear taking up of predefined positions. At one side sits the little five inch long sofa. At the other sits the wardrobe, the Louis XIV chair, a 3½" x 3½" <br />
<br />
kitchen table, and a high-backed upholstered sitting chair.<br />
<br />
"For the purposes of this demonstration," explains Rig, "let us say that," his hand dart about the clutter of the coffee table, "this lighter, and this pack of matches are our two kegs of beer," holds them up for illustration. "Now, before the party, possibly tomorrow, El Humidor and Aecca/Decca will take the Battle Wagon to the bar to get..." <br />
<br />
"Battle Wagon?" says Aecca.<br />
<br />
"We have a wagon?" asks Humidor.<br />
<br />
"For battling?" further postulates Mudman.<br />
<br />
Jerry Rig sighs, "El Humidor's van."<br />
<br />
"Oh, the Valiant, you mean," says El Humidor.<br />
<br />
"The what-now?" asks Aecca.<br />
<br />
"The Valiant," repeats El Humidor, "my van."<br />
<br />
"You call your van the Valiant?" Aecca says.<br />
<br />
"And a fine ship she be," beams Humidor, "I won her in a game of cards."<br />
<br />
"But you suck at poker," says Mudman.<br />
<br />
"It was a game of Magic," explains Humidor.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
"You don't know how to play Magic," says Mudman<br />
<br />
"Sometimes, in a not-knowing...is the best of knowings all," says El Humidor with a philosophical flourish.<br />
<br />
"That. That really doesn't make any sense," says a bewildered Mudman.<br />
<br />
El Humidor brings his hands together at the fingertips, "and yet I am the one with a van."<br />
<br />
"Okay, guys! Fine! El Humidor and Aecca/Decca will take the Valiant," pauses, glances at El Humidor, who nods approvingly, "to the bar to get the keg." The Louis XIV and the high back walk over to the sofa, and the three pieces move to the far edge of the table, where Rig positions the lighter and the pack of matches on the sofa.<br />
<br />
"Which of us is the fancy chair?" asks Aecca/Decca.<br />
<br />
"It doesn't matter," replies Rig, struggling to get the lighter to stay on the little sofa.<br />
<br />
"They are both sort of fancy..." opines Mudman.<br />
<br />
"I mean that one," says Aecca, leaning out of his seat and pointing the Louis XIV.<br />
<br />
"It really doesn't matter, got it!" Rig wedges the lighter and the matchbook on to the sofa securely.<br />
<br />
"Its Humidor, isn't it?" Aecca says accusingly, with a little hurt in his voice.<br />
<br />
"Damn straight it is," says El Humidor smugly, momentarily forgetting his disgust of the miniature animatronic furnishings.<br />
<br />
"Yeah, it is, Aecca, okay?!" Rig snaps with a hiss, "because Humidor's good at wooing people from their money, like you said yourself! And Louis XIV chairs are good at wooing people from their money, in their own way!! Is that alright!?"<br />
<br />
Aecca leans back in his seat, crosses his arms, sulks, "yes."<br />
<br />
"Okay," continues Rig, composing himself, "so, we have two kegs in the van, and we come back to the house," the sofa and two chairs click and clack their way back to the sofa's starting point. "And this here, this is the crucial part, okay? We take a keg and bring it in the house, put it on ice, tap it, everything," Rig takes the pack of matches, lays it suspended between the highback and the Louis XIV. With surprising agility, the two chairs then carry the matches over to the table and the warbdrobe, then walk away from eachother, dropping the matchbook between them. The four little robots then arrange themselves in a semicircle around it. Seated in a semicircle around the coffee table, watching the semicircle of Lilliputian robotic furniture set around a matchbook, the four housemates sit in silence.<br />
<br />
"Then what?" asks Mudman.<br />
<br />
"Oh," says Rig, snapping to, "we leave the second keg in the van." <br />
<br />
"The Valiant," says El Humidor.<br />
<br />
"We leave the second keg in the Valiant," says Rig.<br />
<br />
Aecca/Decca's face is creased in illumination, "so..."<br />
<br />
"We bring the first keg in, and let the party at it," as Jerry Rig speaks, the robots do a sort of stilted approximation of drunken mingling, as understood by robotic furniture. El Humidor's white-knuckled left hand clutches and claws at the arm of his chair. "When that first keg kicks," continues Rig, "we'll have Humidor go about and do his money-collecting thing," the little Louis XIV proceeds to walk in a tight circle like a bug with all its left legs pulled off. El Humidor's life appears to be flashing before his eyes.<br />
<br />
"Then, when the money's collected," Jerry Rig's voice rising, as he works to his conclusion, "Humidor and Aecca get back in the van," the pair of chairs clatter back to the diminutive sofa, "go and just drive around for 10-15 minutes," the three pieces of furniture move around their side of the coffee table in a tiny procession. "Then, they come back and just unload the keg that's been in the back of the van," Rig transfers the lighter to the two chairs as he did with the matchbook earlier, "I mean, the Valiant, the whole time! And no one's the wiser!" The two chairs carry the lighter back to the other furniture and drop it, stop moving.<br />
<br />
The living room in silent. Rig looks to and from the other housemates with an expectant look on his face. The other three sit with thoughtful looks on their faces. The demonstration programming apparently complete, Jerry Rig's miniscule furniture go back to their apparently-aimless wanderings.<br />
<br />
Aecca breaks the reverie, "so... by pretending to not already have the second keg, we essentially guarantee that we'll raise the money for the second keg...."<br />
<br />
"Exactly!" says Rig, "see, if we just had both kegs sitting out the whole time, there's no way we'd raise enough in donations to cover the total expense! People will donate towards a keg based on two things: an initial gesture of thanks to the keg providers, and blind, brutal necessity!"<br />
<br />
"And if there's two kegs, people will only make that first kind of donation, once," says Aecca, nodding his head in understanding.<br />
<br />
"And if they think there isn't a second keg, they're much more likely to make a second donation!" says El Humidor, relaxed now that the little chairs and such have moved along. <br />
<br />
"And when the second keg arrives..." says Rig.<br />
<br />
"... it will be welcomed as if a victorious conquerer," concludes Mudman.<br />
<br />
"Good plan, Jer," says Aecca.<br />
<br />
"Yeah. Good plan,' agrees Mudman.<br />
<br />
"I concur," says El Humidor, "and I must say, the outlook of this party continues to improve!"<br />
<br />
"Then the plan is approved?" asks Aecca.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
"Did you cut your hair?" asks Mudman, gesturing at Aecca's scalp.<br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
"Huh?" Aecca touches his palm to the top of his head, "oh, yeah. Since it always sticks up I figured I'd just cut it short. Took the scissors to it last night."</div>
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"Looks good on you," says Mudman.</div>
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"Uh, thanks," says Aecca, blushing slightly, "so, right, all in favor of Rig's plan? Say aye," then followed by the reply, from all four housemates, in unison.</div>
<br />
"AYE!" <br /><em>Words & drawings by D.D. Tinzeroes</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-2448525278732189662009-02-01T12:38:00.000-08:002013-09-22T14:21:55.160-07:00No. 7 - A Broadsheet for the Soul<br />
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<br />
<br />
WEDNESDAY. 5:58 A.M.<br />
<br />
Dawn's inexorable rosy fingers stretch out over the sleepy grid of east Portland, greeted by dew-laden blades of grass. The soldiers of morn: joggers, dog walkers, the coffee-seekers, make their way into the brave new day. A couple, thermoses in hand, wave across the street to a woman walking her golden retriever. The wave is returned, the walk resumed, the dog's lease tugged when he pauses for too long to sniff at one lawn. An uneasy look of mild disgust from the canine's owner at the dwelling.<br />
<br />
The old Portland craftsman's lawn is unkempt. Its porch, littered in empty and almost-empty beer cans and bottles. Ashtrays bristle with cigarette butts. A bottle which had been conscripted as an ashtray lays on its side, its ashy, butty, beery sludge-liquid pooled on the porch. A fart toots. El Humidor stirs. Mudman and Aecca Decca exchange snickering glances as Humidor continues his drunken slumber on what may be the world's most disgusting porch couch.<br />
<br />
Aecca stretches, yawns, "so, we're in agreement, then?"<br />
<br />
Mudman looks absently at his beer can, then looks determinedly up at Decca. A curt affirmative nod, "yes." He swigs the last of his beverage.<br />
<br />
"It's decided. I'm gonna sleep, then," Aecca gets up, goes in the house. Morning programming drones on as Jerry Rig snores on the sofa. Aecca heads up the stairs. Mudman continues to sit on the porch, slumped in exhaustion.<br />
<br />
WEDNESDAY, 2:10 P.M.<br />
<br />
El Humidor pads down the stairs, grunts in the direction the sprawled figures of Rig and Mudman and heads out the front door immediately to light a cigarette. He stands in front of the big picture-paned window, staring into the living room vacantly at the teevee on which an afternoon cable matinee flickers. <br />
<br />
Butting out in a nearby beer can, he comes back inside, gets his own coffee (he doesn't warm it up, however) and perches on the edge of a chair.<br />
<br />
"What," he asks, "the fuck are we watching?"<br />
<br />
"Robot Holocaust," answers Jerry Rig.<br />
<br />
El Humidor arches his eyebrows in disbelief, "robot... holocaust..?"<br />
<br />
"Yeah," says Rig, "Y'know. Last city still stood? The remaining home of what was left of civilization? Society all but destroyed by the Robot Rebellion of '33? Blah blah blah?" <br />
<br />
"What is that?" says El Humidor, "What is that you just said? Is that from the back of an ACE book? Del Rey? Something?"<br />
<br />
"Robot Holocaust. 1987. U.S.-Italian co-production," recites Mudman, "brainchild of Tim Kincaid, who wrote and directed. Starring Norris Culf."<br />
<br />
"Exactly," nods Rig.<br />
<br />
"Is this the one with the monkey in a diving helmet?" asks El Humidor, peering at the screen.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
"That's Robot Monster," snorts Jerry Rig, "moron!"<br />
<br />
"1953. Directed by Phil Tucker. George Barrows as Ro-Man," says Mudman, not looking away from the t.v.<br />
<br />
"I liked that movie," says El Humidor, with a fond smile, "how did the monkey say?..., 'Ro-Man want be Hu-Man! Something?" looking to the others for assistance.<br />
<br />
"To be like the hu-man! To laugh! Feel! Want! Why are these things not in the plan?" recites Mudman.<br />
<br />
"How do you do that?" asks Jerry Rig.<br />
<br />
"Like, it's like you're a crappy movie idiot savant," agrees El Humidor.<br />
<br />
Mudman shrugs.<br />
<br />
Humidor and Rig fall silent, and all three continue watching Robot Holocaust.<br />
<br />
About an hour passes. Aecca sloths his way down the stairs, yawning. He sluffs into the living room, stands glassy-eyed staring at the t.v. for 30 seconds.<br />
<br />
"Robot Holocaust?" he asks.<br />
<br />
"Yep," says Rig.<br />
<br />
"Can you believe Spielberg's doing a remake?" asks El Humidor. Aecca gives Humidor with a wry look. El Humidor smiles mischievously.<br />
<br />
Aecca heads to the kitchen. He pours a mug of coffee, tests its temp with his index finger. Rattles the cup into the microwave. As the 'wave hums away, he makes some toast. A minute or two later he returns to the living room, takes a seat. He finishes a sip of his coffee, his eyes shift around, "you're probably wondering why I've called you all here."<br />
<br />
A pattering of guffaws at an old standby line. However, the invocation is also met with the steeling of eyes and the tightening of jaws.<br />
<br />
"Last night, words were spoken, and those words were transformed by will into action, my housemates," continues Decca, "and so we must now venture down this path of action which we have determined. We are throwing... a party." <br />
<br />
"We're getting a keg," adds Jerry Rig.<br />
<br />
"Off the hook, it's going to be, yes," says El Humidor.<br />
<br />
"Rager," finishes Mudman.<br />
<br />
A few seconds of silence, grim, determined expressions.<br />
<br />
"When?" ask Mudman.<br />
<br />
"Saturday," offers Rig.<br />
<br />
"No, Friday," says Aecca.<br />
<br />
Rig scoffs, "crazy. That's in two days."<br />
<br />
"Yes, it must be Friday night.," interjects El Humidor, "Friday night is like our Holy Day, no? That is our bar night, our porch session night, our catapult into the weekend."<br />
<br />
The others nod in righteous agreement.<br />
<br />
"Okay, fine, Friday, then," says Rig, "less competition than a Saturday night. Our venture is more likely to succeed!"<br />
<br />
"Yes. Let us not repeat the last party we threw, yes," says Humidor, shaking his head, as if to cut off a flow of bad memories.<br />
<br />
"Like, give it a theme?" asks Mudman,<br />
<br />
"No," scolds Aecca, "he means let's throw a party where people actually show up."<br />
<br />
"Yes that is what I mean, Mudman," affirms Humidor, "there were, what? Eight guests at the last shindiggy?"<br />
<br />
"Including or not including when Jukebox Hermit left and then came back?" asks Rig.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
El Humidor, repeating in a childish, mocking tone, "including or not including when Jukebox Hermit left and then came back?"<br />
<br />
"ENOUGH!" commands Aecca/Decca, "what is done is done! We have to move forward! Forward, I say!"<br />
<br />
The other housemates quiet down, El Humidor sneaking a final sneer in at Rig.<br />
<br />
"Now," continues Aecca, "how, my companions are we going to prevent such failure this time around."<br />
<br />
Silence. Deep concentration.<br />
<br />
"More beer?" asks Rig, eyebrows arched.<br />
<br />
"Didn't work for our New Years Bash," says Aecca, pouting his lips.<br />
<br />
"A full cocktail bar, perhaps?" suggests El Humidor, "a saucy lounge act or two?"<br />
<br />
"We can't afford liquor," Rig says with a sigh.<br />
<br />
"And unless you are referring to yourself, we don't know anyone who does 'saucy lounge acts,'" adds Aecca. An air of defeatism begins to swirl about the dingy living room.<br />
<br />
"We need flyers," says Mudman.<br />
<br />
"Heroes whose powers include flying aren't trying to figure out how to get people to attend their kegger, Mudman," says Aecca.<br />
<br />
<br />
"No. Flyers. We should put up some flyers," repeats Mudman.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
"Humph!" grunts Rig, scratching his chin.<br />
<br />
"The moodman might be on to sometheeng, I theenk," says El Humidor, fishing a cigarette out of a front pocket.<br />
<br />
"Where do we put these flyers?" asks Aecca.<br />
<br />
"Coffee shop?" suggests Rig.<br />
<br />
"Plaid, perhaps?" adds Humidor.<br />
<br />
"Yeah, yeah," says Aecca, "and, like, the library and some telephone poles and stuff."<br />
<br />
"The bar," says Mudman.<br />
<br />
The other three 'mates stare at Mudman in abject awe, jaws slack.<br />
<br />
<br />
"Brilliant," says Humidor, phoneticizing it out, <em>bril-eee-ant</em>.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
"Guys," grins Aecca, "I think this party is gonna be a hit."<br />
<br />
WEDNESDAY. 11:17 P.M.<br />
<br />
All is quiet in front a neighborhood convenience store. Not a plaid or a sev, but one of those independent ones in an older building. The relative silence is slowly broken by the approach ball-bearing roll of small hard-plastic wheels. Off an adjunct side street rolls a young Bengali woman in roller blades. Cargo pants, plain red t-shirt, pixie haircut. She pulls into an inertia-killing tight turn which ends with her tugging on the mart's door. <br />
<br />
Closed. Like, at ten. She pouts her lower lip. Skates in a lazy circle. Something on the nearby telephone pole catches her eye. She skates closer, takes a gander.<br />
<br />
It's the flyer for a house party on Friday. <br />
<br />
<em>Words & drawings by D.D. Tinzeroes</em><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-847307193774155642009-01-10T22:02:00.000-08:002013-06-09T14:19:26.207-07:00No. 5 - Ogress<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjto4oMPQ3xVG64tY51llPOiKI7x7AwKX4-jxmJBbozw_RUWGcNPfZJNjZsIhnoMZuOjvRuwVbq1aGMLwFtyU8IwmCLeu1hhMhsFHPHR_yx7Lsehq0mviemckxW_6Loj67wv87gNY_FR-4/s1600/issue5cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjto4oMPQ3xVG64tY51llPOiKI7x7AwKX4-jxmJBbozw_RUWGcNPfZJNjZsIhnoMZuOjvRuwVbq1aGMLwFtyU8IwmCLeu1hhMhsFHPHR_yx7Lsehq0mviemckxW_6Loj67wv87gNY_FR-4/s640/issue5cover.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br />
<br />
In the darkened living room of the Super-Hero Shared House, a digital clock, bookshelved by an ashtray, empty beer cans, and discount comic books, flashes from 2:25 to 2:36. The front door opens, and a haggard Aecca Decca enters, and closes and locks the door with studied concentration through unfocused eyes. <br />
<br />
He passes through the kitchen with a staggered cadence, opens the fridge, stares, pulls out a bag of soft tortillas, removes one and a bag of shredded cheddar. The cheese is spread on the tortilla as if rationed, and then thrown in the toaster oven. Decca throws the cheese back in the fridge, pours a pint of water, takes a long, deep pull, and goes to the bathroom. <br />
<br />
Reemerging, he snags his toasted quesadilla, heads into the pantry room in the back of the house. A torn piece of cardboard from a beer box hangs above the doorway, "CHAMBER OF REFLECTIONS" scribbled in thick permanent marker. Aecca/Decca closes the door behind him, sheets of red transparent plastic taped to its outward-facing side, behind him. He bends over and plugs a cord into a socket. Outside the door, X-mas lights blink the words "IN USE." <br />
<br />
Aecca tugs at a shoelace overhead and an overhead bulb, also covered in red plastic bathes the room in crimson. Sitting down at the desk crammed in the back between an expired case of canned vegetables and a stack of old skin mags, he keys open a drawer and removes a spiral notebook.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlS17yXBbyybprPxc7GyVgDKJTvpoTplrNmE6IP0iBCoYyJcaGwgrX58sDS0UUHQ9z1wCYHn67cWJuh5Lc9oz65majSRHylZdExjyMyDh1U77ari-aO0QZArcuEsvlULV2eaZpGQhMCA0/s1600/issue5sanctum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" qx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlS17yXBbyybprPxc7GyVgDKJTvpoTplrNmE6IP0iBCoYyJcaGwgrX58sDS0UUHQ9z1wCYHn67cWJuh5Lc9oz65majSRHylZdExjyMyDh1U77ari-aO0QZArcuEsvlULV2eaZpGQhMCA0/s400/issue5sanctum.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br />
<br />
"War Journal" is written on the cover. He opens to a tabbed page and fishes a pen out of a broken coffee mug. He begins to scrawl and scribble furiously. <br />
<br />
Five minutes later, Mudman, Jerry Rig, and El Humidor arrive home, a couple 12 packs of cheap swill in tow. Mudman tosses one box in the fridge, while Rig opens the other on the coffee table in the living room. Humidor tinkers with the CD player, which is leaning at a 45 degree angle against the wall because the tray is messed up. After a few failed attempts he fishes an cassette out of a shoebox, looks at the faded hand-written labels, shrugs, and pops it in the 'deck. Nodding in approval when some metal begins to emerge from the mismatched speakers, he snatches a beer out of the box and perches on the nearby chair.<br />
<br />
Rig's on the sofa. Mudman, as is his style, on a wooden barstool, a foot on the coffee table. Rig and Mudman are talking about the night's events: the merits of tipping a full`dollar even when just buying the cheapest beer; mocking the "amateur" drinkers while wishing the cute female ones would stick around longer; recounting the evening's bouts over the jukebox and the pinball machines. As all three of the 'mates delve into their second beer and the verisimilitudes and vagaries of the nights pinball matches the IN USE light goes off and Aecca exits the Chamber of Reflection.<br />
<br />
Plopping down next to Jerry Rig, Aecca/Decca cracks a beer and tries to tune into the conversation in progress. El Humidor was just saying...<br />
<br />
"So you are telling me there are, in fact, two additional episodes in the original sequencing of the Evangelion?"<br />
<br />
Rig, nodding, "yep. First time I saw that series, it was on the VHS on borrowed from a friend who had borrowed it from a friend in some valued possession swap resembling a hostage trade. Like, 'you can borrow this but I'm gonna need something equally special to you in collateral,'" solemn nods around the coffee table at this time-proven tactic, "and that series of tapes ended with a two-part final episode that's basically a series of stills and a ton of voice-over postulating what happens."<br />
<br />
Mudman, now, "so the movies basically replace those episodes in the canon?"<br />
<br />
Rig, again, "exactly, or that would seem to be the intent of the creators, as later DVD releases of the original TV series simply drop those two episodes altogether."<br />
<br />
El Humidor tacks a slightly different direction, "I knew this guy once, he would buy VHS sets of anime from the mall store, take them home, make a copy, put the <u>copy</u> back in the packaging, re-shrink wrap it, and <i>return</i> it for <u>trade</u> value, and then get <u>another</u> box set and run the whole scheme again. Shelves upon shelves of unboxed anime, glistening black plastic."<br />
<br />
"The re-shrinkwrap scheme's old, but I've never heard of swapping the tape for a copy," opines Rig, "ballsy."<br />
<br />
"Is this <u>bullshit</u> what you guys were yucking it up about the whole time I needed your help?!" Aecca/Decca suddenly cuts in.<br />
<br />
"Uh, what is this you are talking about?" queries El Humidor.<br />
<br />
"Dudes," Aecca looking around at all of them, "I was totally cornered, and needed you guys to give me an exit strategy, and you totally left me hanging!"<br />
<br />
"What are you talking about?" asks Rig.<br />
<br />
"You were talking the bartender," Humidor exhales a puff of smoke.<br />
<br />
"The Ogress..." intones Mudman.<br />
<br />
Rig and Humidor, together, "what?"<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj39MBwmYhMDupbl9xjpzMUINifxxrSYgJA7dqCaLPYfpkP-llFhycSiRGmoN8auerjmhyphenhyphenouQQU2SBxxizbjIiU_2UHep4a5LJJC8FGdGmbvF9AeDDSZRp9KacRi9sQID88AQ159w0O5k/s1600/issue5ogress.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="308" qx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj39MBwmYhMDupbl9xjpzMUINifxxrSYgJA7dqCaLPYfpkP-llFhycSiRGmoN8auerjmhyphenhyphenouQQU2SBxxizbjIiU_2UHep4a5LJJC8FGdGmbvF9AeDDSZRp9KacRi9sQID88AQ159w0O5k/s400/issue5ogress.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br />
<br />
"He was in the net of an Ogress," clarifies Mudman. Then, "a she-ogre".<br />
<br />
"Uh," says Aecca, "kinda, yeah, she was totally a she-ogre."<br />
<br />
"You were talking? To a woman?" bewilders El Humidor. A pattering of chuckles.<br />
<br />
"So," Aecca's demeanor shifting to oratory-mode, "we were all sitting at the bar, then Humidor and Mudman went and played pinball. Me and Rig keep chatting for a bit, remember? And then you went and put quarters in the jukebox, and then started watching their pinball game. I chat with the bartender for a bit, and then he goes away, and I'm sorta staying put, finishing the beer I'm on so I can get another and thinking about getting up and playing some pinball, and the person next to me, who I haven't paid much attention to me, says something. Hey, gimme one of those."<br />
<br />
El Humidor tosses Decca a cigarette, brings another new one to his lips, "who was sitting next to you, I cannot remember?" he muses, picking up his lighter.<br />
<br />
"Older barfly, I recall," offers Rig, "but not a regular."<br />
<br />
"She-ogre," repeats Mudman.<br />
<br />
The cassette deck noisily clicks to a stop before the song on the mix tape has ended.<br />
<br />
Humidor and Aecca light up, the space above the coffee table shadowed in blue smoke, Decca shakes out his match, ashes a few times and continues, "so I says, 'sorry,' and she says, 'you're cute!'"<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWIfPNM27thc3uZ3GjtjiEof_24jFp4P-ZsktqSm2HUbn9pccoLEkJ5poqWDr9dfNf-TiL9xVjaiq2cT14PhqPmcYkID3SjtrH45MFk3BOdC_oKY5_hAFXRahfUPLeEcC5Q87YNmq1z2M/s1600/issue5cute.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="303" qx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWIfPNM27thc3uZ3GjtjiEof_24jFp4P-ZsktqSm2HUbn9pccoLEkJ5poqWDr9dfNf-TiL9xVjaiq2cT14PhqPmcYkID3SjtrH45MFk3BOdC_oKY5_hAFXRahfUPLeEcC5Q87YNmq1z2M/s400/issue5cute.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br />
<br />
"Heyyyyy! Yeah!" says Humidor. Rig seems lost in memory. <br />
<br />
"So now I'm actually making eye contact, and she's like, 40? Maybe a real rough late 30s? Her hairs all mussed. She's got too much make up on. She looks kinda wasted."<br />
<br />
"Your type, through and through, Humidor!" chortles Jerry Rig.<br />
<br />
"Kiss my ass, Rig," counters Humidor.<br />
<br />
"And she's got a lazy eye, though maybe that's the drunk thing. She tells me I'm cute, again, slurred, and I notice her`lips are kinda permanently in a sort of snarl, which gives me a good look at her snagly teeth."<br />
<br />
"Good. God. Jesus," swears El Humidors, his faces recoiling with disgust.<br />
<br />
"Now I remember her," says Rig, shuddering, "when you were talking to me she was ogling you, but you couldn't see cause you were looking at me. It creeped me out!"<br />
<br />
"You're telling me!" agrees Aecca, pulling the second to last beer out of the box, "I was like..." he holds his hand up in front of his face, a few inches from his nose, puts on his best terrified expression.<br />
<br />
"I'll be honest," testifies Rig, looking around the table, "I went to the jukebox to get away from her. I could tell she was on the prowl. I was hoping by being by yourself you would follow over to the pinball or the jukebox."<br />
<br />
"Yeah, that was stupid of me," Aecca, shaking his head.<br />
<br />
Humidor cracks the last beer, "so, how did you respond to zee advances..." swirling his cigarette in the air, as if hoping to lasso a word, "of dis, dis... 'she-ogre,' as Mudman describes her." When the evening begins to lapse into early, early morning, El Humidor, twice-saddled by exhaustion and intoxication (he and his co-hort housemates have been drinking steadily since late afternoon), begins to slip into a bizarre accent, possibly entirely of his own invention.<br />
<br />
"Well," Aecca Decca swigs more of his beer, "hey, while you're up?" at Jerry Rig, who's headed to retrieve a new beer from the second twelve-pack from the fridge. "Well, I do, after all, want to be respectful to, um, my (ahem!) elders," pauses for effect, looking about. Rig deposits the second box of beer on the coffee table. "But I'm trying very hard to not`let her get too close to me, cause I'm totally freaked she's gonna try and plant a wet one on me."<br />
<br />
Decca exhales, butts his cigarette out, takes a drink. The room is oddly quiet.<br />
<br />
"So I'm trying to exit the situation gracefully, and to be polite, but without making too much eye contact, and after finishing that first beer and getting the second, I'm finally able to jingle some quarters in my hand (which I received as change for the second beer) and join you fellows at the pinball."<br />
<br />
"The veery definition of tactful retreat, yes," nods El Humidor, now slouching, arms partially crossed across his torso. The clock flashes over to 3:11. They always do this, buy too much beer right after bar o'clock, get the "after-party" rolling strong, then flame out quickly.<br />
<br />
"So yeah, I kept the corner of my eye on her for a game or two and she kept looking over at me and then she finally left."<br />
<br />
"A bullet dodged," concludes Mudman.<br />
<br />
"Yeah, like, thank god, y'know. Man, that face," Aecca shudders, somewhat.<br />
<br />
An awkward silence. Everyone's tired, but no one wants to admit it, or to surrender the night.<br />
<br />
Jerry Rig snaps his fingers, "I've got it."<br />
<br />
The other three arch eyebrows, swivel heads in Rig's direction.<br />
<br />
"What?" El Humidor fishes the last cigarette out of its crumpled pack.<br />
<br />
"I know... who she, the 'she-ogre,' is."<br />
<br />
"If you met herr before," Humidor, lazily lighting his cigarette in fully reclined position, as if a Roman emperor, "how could you forgeet a face like that, no?"<br />
<br />
"She works at the Safeway!" declares Rig loudly, sending a minature robotic wardrobe, previously hidden under an endtable, scurrying across the floor and into the kitchen. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEPH3i05xpB6Y1JsjKJkLe79OpUEPGC87uESkbRHSAL5o32VZEdPItGShM-vjxgZhXbyWwxGSk-PcLjte1FOi3flOf_cxutUR4e5RgLSsHEtAd8fmn0BuA5nP_1O6Ycug6NPhBW7RFTuw/s1600/issue5safeway.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" qx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEPH3i05xpB6Y1JsjKJkLe79OpUEPGC87uESkbRHSAL5o32VZEdPItGShM-vjxgZhXbyWwxGSk-PcLjte1FOi3flOf_cxutUR4e5RgLSsHEtAd8fmn0BuA5nP_1O6Ycug6NPhBW7RFTuw/s640/issue5safeway.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br />
<br />
El Humidor, who has never liked Rig's "furnimircobots," startles, attempts propel himself up from his slouchy recline on the floor in front of the sofa. Cursing, "ah, jeezhus, fugging little dollhouse freek things," he manages to bang his knee mightily into the coffee table. <br />
<br />
A cascading cacophony ensues: the half-dozen plus empty beer cans, two ashtrays, assorted cassettes, lighters, bottle openers, empty boxes of cigarettes, tv remotes, and the box with the remaining full beers all scatter off the table and onto the floor. Lunging, the housemates swear and snatch at 'wounded soldiers' spilling their stale innards out on the floor or at unopened cans beginning slow rolls into the bathroom.<br />
<br />
The effect is immediate. The after-party is over. As spilt beer is swabbed up of the already sticky floor, lazy obscenities and tired accusations spark dully about the room. El Humidor, in a sulky huff, goes out onto the porch with the un-spilt remainder of his beer for a smoke. Jerry Rig flips the TV on to catch whatever animated nostalgia is available. Mudman quietly slips away to his basement abode.<br />
<br />
As the clock blinks over to 3:35, Aecca begins to trundle up the stairwell, to kick off his shoes and collapse into bed, when he is intercepted by Humidor, returning from his nightcap smoke.<br />
<br />
"Hey, so what did happen, to the Ogre-lady?" Humidor asks.<br />
<br />
Aecca shakes his head sleepily, "Top it all off, I think she stole my hoodie." <br />
<br />
<em>Words & drawings by D.D. Tinzeroes</em> <br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-2811783035440267102008-12-21T21:40:00.000-08:002013-06-09T14:17:58.556-07:00No. 4 - Blues Dragon<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib2hZyo7ZUD5OA9nr7FtRXQmpDO_NiAG_DEdUcY2kRY3XMxxJznX5U8iYM2glem_KN3RYk2iY7Eh7pTL_M1rbz-EBlbUgcRGn_jWK6BVUrqePS2t9uuVf4iN8YqgGIgmWQSc2uRAjkTp4/s1600/issue4cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib2hZyo7ZUD5OA9nr7FtRXQmpDO_NiAG_DEdUcY2kRY3XMxxJznX5U8iYM2glem_KN3RYk2iY7Eh7pTL_M1rbz-EBlbUgcRGn_jWK6BVUrqePS2t9uuVf4iN8YqgGIgmWQSc2uRAjkTp4/s640/issue4cover.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br />
<br />
<br />
<i>A ranger, a thief, and a dwarf cautiously make their way down a stone corridor. The light of the torch carried by the thief flickers upon the walls, textured as if of hand-hewn clay.</i><br />
<br />
<i>"We must proceed with caution," whispers the dwarf, who is revealed to bear the very semblance of Jerry Rig! "The runes at the entrance were of ancient vintage..."</i><br />
<br />
<i>"Yes, I keep my bow at ready," affirms the ranger, Aecca Decca.</i><br />
<br />
<i>"Why can't I get this lighter to work?" queries the thief.</i><br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5cV78alQvXu_MpZuFmfd53SMtDqGLYqbfQzf8C0jTd0-7wV5opmc4edYmQvvgqvJMxxiruQ4ZAgqCvrcdks0grbEmZyS2fAVIho-wCA8VDu0DbS9bqlJ7XIK4W3ALG7dSk1ZCC1J9KLM/s1600/issue4justplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5cV78alQvXu_MpZuFmfd53SMtDqGLYqbfQzf8C0jTd0-7wV5opmc4edYmQvvgqvJMxxiruQ4ZAgqCvrcdks0grbEmZyS2fAVIho-wCA8VDu0DbS9bqlJ7XIK4W3ALG7dSk1ZCC1J9KLM/s400/issue4justplay.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
"El Humidor! You HAVE to stay in character!" chastises Jerry.<br />
<br />
The setting changes to reveal the housemates arranged around the living room coffee table, acquired from the curb on garbage day. One leg, broken, is duct taped in place. Decca is cross-legged at one end, slouching, sheets of paper in front of him. Rig is upright on his knees, waving a pencil demonstratively at El Humidor, who sits on a stool opposite of Aecca, hands on his knees, elbows out, like a feudal daimyo. Across from Rig, El Humidor furiously clicks a lighter repeatedly.<br />
<br />
Aecca, sighing, "just use a match, man..."<br />
<br />
Humidor continues striking the lighter, brow furrowed in concentration.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIX5hOr23kwBV02C_AVXG0LUzC0mmFsz-mkynZ0OUekrc7zUeYEct0u976YzupFmXpHlvJyFMlZuIgeY6Fwowo3yfYAx-pr5Bzn919QsnulLGy1UIEsItADC9K9d4uVkfM-0LrOHpuFEM/s1600/issue4justplay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIX5hOr23kwBV02C_AVXG0LUzC0mmFsz-mkynZ0OUekrc7zUeYEct0u976YzupFmXpHlvJyFMlZuIgeY6Fwowo3yfYAx-pr5Bzn919QsnulLGy1UIEsItADC9K9d4uVkfM-0LrOHpuFEM/s400/issue4justplay.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
"I swear, we've been making our way down this corridor the last 45 minutes!" complains Jerry, "its either 'hold on, I have to go the bathroom' or 'let me getta beer' or 'I have to go the store to get more smokes.' Can we JUST play??"<br />
<br />
"A'yup! Got it!" puffs El Humidor victoriously, "Dungeon Master Mudman, you may continue!"<br />
<br />
Mudman looks down behind his DM screen, "Okay, you're going down the corridor..."<br />
<br />
"With caution!" Jerry reminds.<br />
<br />
"Yes. With caution."<br />
<br />
<i>The band of three move down the corridor. They reach a fork, two paths before them. The dwarf attempts to read ancient runes carved in the stone. The ranger examines the dirt to see if anything has passed through here recently. The thief takes a big drag of his cigarette and looks for an ashtray.</i><br />
<br />
Back in the living room, Mudman sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose, "For the last time, there are no cigarettes in ancient Nammud. You may smoke a pipe, but not cigarettes."<br />
<br />
"Huh? Well, okay, I'll take my pipe tobacco and verily I shall swaddle it in parchment in the manner of a small cylinder and I shall FUCKING SMOKE IT, then!"<br />
<br />
"Jesus, Humidor, take it easy," mutters Aecca.<br />
<br />
"Yeah, let his thief smoke his giant rollie, Mudman, I don't care," concurs Rig.<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<center><br /> </center>"Okay. Fine," Mudman snarls. <br />
<br />
<i>The thief ashes his oversized hand-rolled tobacco-filled parchment cylinder on the ground and says he thinks the stolen treasure they'd been hired by the nearby town's Assassin's Guildmaster to retrieve is down the right-hand corridor. The dwarf shrugs and the ranger says "whatever" and cracks open a can of beer he has retrieved from his satchel.</i><br />
<br />
"There are no beer cans in Nammud," Mudman tells Aecca.<br />
<br />
"If Humidor the Thief here can smoke while dungeon crawling," Aecca counters, "then Aecca Decca, Ranger of the high plains of Saot Rettub," Decca gesticulating wildly, slowly rising to his feet, beer in hand, "can drink a beer from a, uh, a wooden mug with a, uh, a waxen sealed top, magically cooled and preserved with a, um, okay, a cold-air cantrip!"<br />
<br />
Decca remains standing, beer held aloft like a grail. Rig and Humidor (ciggie dangling from lower lip) look at Mudman, awaiting the passing of judgment.<br />
<br />
Mudman scratches his forehead. "Okay."<br />
<br />
Aecca fist-pumps, proclaims a "yes" through a grin, drops back into his sitting position.<br />
<br />
<i>The ranger, bow in one hand, mug of magically-cooled beer in the other; the thief, lighting another one of his parchment-rolled pipe-tobacco cylinders; and the dwarf continue cautiously down the corridor on the right, which leads to a spiraling set of stairs. After descending 40-50 feet, the party enters masive hall carved from the living rock. A cyclopean throne sits at the opposite end of the hall, upon which rests the dusty bones of a giant forgotten king, his crown dusty on a bleached skull.</i><br />
<br />
<i>"There it is, the crown of Noisilloc, Ancient King of Ayancilot!" exclaims the Ranger, cracking another brewskie.</i><br />
<br />
<i>"Our quest is at an end!" concurs the thief, adding, "can you hand me those matches?"</i><br />
<br />
<i>The dwarf tosses some matches at the thief, "you need to slow down, man, you smoked 10 of those in the last 20 minutes."</i><br />
<br />
<i>"Whatever," Thief says, "hey, Ranger-danger, gimme a beer, there."</i><br />
<br />
<i>The party arrives at the throne. They pause as they make an awareness roll. The dwarf inspects carvings on the throne. The thief approaches the skeleton and eyeballs the crown,</i><br />
<br />
<i>the item they'd been hired to retrieve. The ranger steps back and sips his beer while keeping a lookout. The ranger makes another awareness roll, which he evidently fails as he doesn't notice anything.</i><br />
<br />
<i>The dwarf concludes the carvings are not majickal, just plain old runes. The thief doesn't think he sees any traps that will go off if he lifts the crown. The ranger makes yet another awareness roll, which, again, he apparently fails </i><br />
<br />
"Another friggin' 2? What's wrong with these dice!?" shouts Aecca.<br />
<br />
<i>Suddenly, the ground quakes, and the very rock by the Ranger bursts open! A toothed maw, then an entire scaled head, and a long, sea-blue neck emerges. The Ranger fails his initiative roll.</i><br />
<br />
"GOD. DAMN. IT," curses Aecca.<br />
<br />
<i>The blue dragon summarily snaps down and clamps its jaws around the ranger's midsection. It shakes him once to the left, once to the right, and then dive-burrows, Ranger still in mouth, back into the rock from whence it came.</i><br />
<br />
"Blue dragon?" exclaims Aecca, "Blue dragon! AKA the <u>lamest</u> dragon? What's its breath attack? Smooth jazz?"<br />
<br />
Mudman: "You should know."<br />
<br />
Decca takes another hit off his beer, "What? Jazz?"<br />
<br />
Mudman: "No. Electric."<br />
<br />
Decca, now up and pacing: "Electronic music?"<br />
<br />
Mudman: (sighs) "Electrical breath weapon. And it burrows."<br />
<br />
Rig: "That's why it just grabbed your Ranger and disappeared down a hole in the ground."<br />
<br />
Decca, kicking at an empty beer can, "A burrowing dragon!"<br />
<br />
Rig: "I actually like blue dragons as a DM. Electrical breath weapon and burrowing ability. Also, because it lacks in intelligence and magical power as compared to others, it has pumped armor and strength. Adventurers always forget it can burrow (travel in ground almost as good as it can on ground or in the air) and when buffing for elemental protection, people only think of cold and fire and never electrical (or sonic for that matter)."<br />
<br />
"I'm a fucking ranger" screams Aecca, "how do I, of all people, not notice a dragon BURRROWING UP BENEATH MY OWN TWO FEET!?"<br />
<br />
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"You failed your awareness rolls," shrugs Mudman.<br />
<br />
"Three times, I recall," adds El Humidor. "In the parlance of Nammud, that would be 'thrice,' I believe, yes?"<br />
<br />
Aecca Decca, icicles stabbing from his eyes at Humidor, in a low growl, "but I have a 17 awareness."<br />
<br />
"Then you failed your initiative," continues Mudman.<br />
<br />
"Seven. Teen," Aecca now staring blankly at the wall, sipping his beer.<br />
<br />
"Jerry, what's your dwarf doing?" asks dungeon master Mudman.<br />
<br />
"Charting the shortest route back the way we came."<br />
<br />
"Humidor, your thief?"<br />
<br />
"Snatched Noisilloc's crown, running as though there's the beer is free at the brewery."<br />
<br />
"17. Three tries."<br />
<br />
Mudman rolls a die behind his DM screen. Looks at his graph-paper map of the dungeon, "okay, make awareness rolls," the 2 surviving members do so, Mudman inspects results, "okay. The thief's probably 15 feet in front of the dwarf, and the 2 of you are almost all the way up that spiral staircase when you notice faint rumbling in the rock."<br />
<br />
"Guess ranger-meat's not very filling, no?" says El Humidor, grinning impishly, looking at Aecca, taking a long, languishing drag of his cigarette, a slow exhale. The cloud of smoke, as if with a mind of its own, centers over the table, takes the shape of a dragon lounging on its back, picking its teeth with some longbow arrows.<br />
<br />
"Fucker," murmurs Aecca.<br />
<br />
"Aecca," says Rig, brows furrowed, "are you... crying?"<br />
<br />
Aecca/Decca, staring absently at a corner, "no."<br />
<br />
"Indeed, yes, you are," says Humidor.<br />
<br />
"Me and my Ranger have been through a lot, ok!" snaps back Aecca. "I mean, I've leveled him up to 26 over, like, 9 sessions the past 7 or so months. He had a seventeen awareness! SEVENTEEN!" Sobs, continues, "he could put an arrow through a goblin's eye at 100 paces!"<br />
<br />
"Jeez, Aecca," consoles Jerry Rig, "you wanna make an omelette you gotta break a few eggs, right? Party members die. It happens. We all knew the risks when we took the job."<br />
<br />
"Yes. The risks. Think of the risks," El Humidor, nodding.<br />
<br />
"Whatever!" retorts Decca, "that dragon swallowed me up and the first thing you guys did was grab the crown and run out of there!"<br />
<br />
"I figured, at least the dragon's occupied," shrugs Jerry.<br />
<br />
"Hey, and more of the bounty for me!" explains Humidor, then glimpses at Rig, "I mean, uh, US, more bounty for US!"<br />
<br />
Decca looks at Rig and Humidor, who return his gaze, nonpulsed. Aecca turns to Mudman, the Dungeon Master, an look of last appeal on his face. Mudman stares expressionless, his face behind a mask of sweat-wet dirt, rolling a 20-sider betwixt his thumb and index finger.<br />
<br />
"Sooo..." says Aecca Decca.<br />
<br />
Mudman renders his judgment, "Humidor, Jerry, roll for initiative. You can see the exit of the dungeon ahead of you."<br />
<br />
"Right, see you fuckers at the bar," Aecca stands abruptly, tosses his empty beer can on the floor, turns, and heads for the front door. Humidor and Rig toss their dice on the table.<br />
<br />
"Until later this evening, my dear Aecca!" cries Humidor, "Eureka! A TWENTY!"<br />
<br />
"A seventeen!" says Rig, "we might get out of this by speed of foot afterall!"<br />
<br />
Aecca-Decca slams the door behind him.<br />
<br />
"Okay," says Mudman, "the dragon bursts from the ground behind you, what are you doing?"<br />
<br />
<i>With fleeting feet, the thief, crown in hand, runs into daylight first, hanging a hard left. Behind him the dwarf chugs a furious pace, a roaring, trundling Blue Dragon right behind him, its teeth and jaws still stained with the Ranger's blood and guts. The thief practically slides into a crouch by a tree and tinkers with some rope and a wooden stake.</i><br />
<br />
"Awesome, Humidor!" says Rig, "great idea setting a trap ahead of time! This dragon's not going to know what hit it!"<br />
<br />
"Make a dex roll, to see how quickly you get it armed," commands Mudman.<br />
<br />
"A 16," reports Humidor.<br />
<br />
"Okay, just tell me when you want to arm the trap. Your discretion."<br />
<br />
"I arm it instantly," Humidor orders, fishing another cigarette out of a crumpled softpack.<br />
<br />
"Uh," says Rig.<br />
<br />
"Roll for awareness, Rig," says Mudman.<br />
<br />
"Shit. An eight," curses Rig, "El Humidor, why didn't you wait?"<br />
<br />
<i>The dwarf, dragon on his heels, runs through the entrance of the cavern. And trips over a well-camoflaged wire. As his face hits the dirt, his left foot is drawn up behind him, followed by the rest of his body, up into the air. The blue dragon storms out of the cave to find his prey dangling upside down in front of him from a high tree branch. Already a good 50 yards into the woods, the Thief faintly hears the dwarf cursing the thief's ancestors, the roar of the dragon, the cawing and fluttering of the woods' birds in response, then silence.</i><br />
<br />
"El Humidor," says Rig, sullenly, "you fucking traitorous son of a bitch."<br />
<br />
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<br />
"The thief," intones El Humidor, lighting his cigarette, leaning back against the sofa, "looks out for the thief," takes a drag, "No one else. Yes?" Smirks. Exhales.<br />
<br />
END <br />
<em>Words & drawings by D.D. Tinzeroes</em> <br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-16408726994321892312008-12-12T23:30:00.000-08:002013-06-09T14:11:59.437-07:00No. 3 - The Cold Beer War<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4NQoI2VyNr7IRXXwIaCM6LE39U-ldj8v7ulTbPZcArT6iWmTHITn9pDqKeZsbIA5Um73EJ1gzJY3qvj3roUrSyXQsSkePApMdR2wqLMIGsXr9ua0HGgsc0h2Q_v7y0i-xmcumqRD8p80/s1600/issue3cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4NQoI2VyNr7IRXXwIaCM6LE39U-ldj8v7ulTbPZcArT6iWmTHITn9pDqKeZsbIA5Um73EJ1gzJY3qvj3roUrSyXQsSkePApMdR2wqLMIGsXr9ua0HGgsc0h2Q_v7y0i-xmcumqRD8p80/s640/issue3cover.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br />
<br />
The house was empty, queerly unoccupied. Early afternoon's sunlight lit stale tendrils of smoke, as flies cavorted around the ruined kitchen to a soundtrack of a rattling, buzzing fridge and a shrill squall from the answering machine. A tense, clipped voice, a woman's voice, stalked flatly through the desolate rooms.<br />
<br />
The message ran:<br />
"You see, what's been done here--and it's really quite clever--is that Thucydides has been dragged out of the Peloponnese and shoved roughly into the bodies of four dreary myths living out their lives behind the scenes of an ill-omened millineal nexus. City-states once were actors, bodies, bounded willful entities making decisions and taking action. Over time, the locus of intentionality, deliberative causality, has shifted (in)to individuals. This change is more apparent than real, however.<br />
<br />
Real change is impossible.<br />
<br />
Thucydides knew this when he sought to understand and explain the war between Athens and Sparta: He knew understanding of that war would be an understanding of future wars. Not all, perhaps, but some.<br />
<br />
<br />
Later, Hegel claimed history <u>repeats</u>. Marx then said history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. The question posed by no one nonetheless remains: Is the tragic event the first event or the first <u>repetition</u>?<br />
<br />
I leave this matter for the schoolmen and the brutal pedants.<br />
<br />
What I require from you is the resolution of another element at sea here in this muffled syntax. Put most starkly, gentlemen, it is your charge to determine whether we live in tragic times, or farcical ones.<br />
<br />
Good luck, four gentlemen. May the force prosper long."<br />
<br />
Some hours later, an image e'en more startling than an empty house. In the bicycle graveyard, less rubble than normal. Mudman sat in a comfy chair, a light-blue sheet stretched and tacked upon the wall behind him, with a vague butterfly emblem in browns and reds. Candles flickered, shadows danced across Mudman's smoking jacket. Glints gleamed in his swirling wine.<br />
<br />
Mudman's soliloquy: "Rob't Heinlein has one of his mouthpieces opine that all wars are the result of population pressure. Unconfused scholars and anybody with an actual <u>feel</u> for history will understand that there is no such <br />
thing as population pressures. There is only, always and ever, always already, competition for resources."<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
Akka/Dekka stormed in from the kitchen and, predictably, ruined the spell by demanding "What the hell is a '<i>subscription</i>'?"<br />
<br />
Jerry, following, began an impossibly dull and lengthy exposition, moving Akka/Dekka and himself into the living room, so as to marshal his army of ambulatory, doll-sized furniture into a sort of three-dimensional Power Point presentation. Rig has been <u>way</u> out front on the trend of pedagogical puppetry.<br />
<br />
Humidor, smoking again, remained in the kitchen, sighing heavily, over and over. Mudman heaved himself from the chair, and approached Humidor, speaking in his slow, nearly impeded way. Asked what goes on. <br />
<br />
Humidor: "These dishes, they are covered in filth! Yet here they sit...upon the rack of drying! As though...as though to have been cleaned!!"<br />
<br />
Mudman: "Silt."<br />
<br />
Humidor: "What?"<br />
<br />
Mudman: "That's silt. Not...filth."<br />
<br />
Humidor: "And...can you tell me what might be this swampy mess where I do remember one sink?"<br />
<br />
Mudman: "I uh...I did...the dishes."<br />
<br />
Humidor: "Aha!"<br />
<br />
Humidor: "Mudman...may I ask of you an question?"<br />
<br />
Mudman: "Yes."<br />
<br />
Humidor: "Is this puddle the result of you standing before the sink, on one mission of cleanliness?"<br />
<br />
Mudman: "What puddle?"<br />
<br />
Humidor: "The puddle in which I very <i>stand</i>!!"<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
Mudman: "Why are you standing in a puddle?"<br />
<br />
Humidor: "DON'T DO THE DISHES!!"<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka and Rig have come into the kitchen.<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka: "Damnit! Dishes <i>need</i> to be done! Why not let the 'Man take care of it?"<br />
<br />
Rig: "He's MADE of MUD, moron. Only two things argue against him cleaning things...<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka: "..."<br />
<br />
Rig: "HISTORY! And SCIENCE!"<br />
<br />
As Dekka went into his pre-rant routine, equal parts pro-wrestling mugging for the audience and Dragon-Ball style charging for a special move, he was jarringly deflated by a Loud BEEP from somewhere in the bicycle graveyard.<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka: "What the hell was that?"<br />
<br />
Humidor: "What?"<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka: "Oh. Answering machine message."<br />
<br />
Humidor: "We have a phone?"<br />
<br />
Rig: "We have an answering machine?"<br />
<br />
Mudman: "We have a message?"<br />
<br />
They decamped to what in a normal house would be the dining room. In this house, it's primarily a graveyard for bicycles. But it's where the phone jack is...and the beep certainly signaled a mystery of no small note.<br />
<br />
Upon the message's emplayment, Rig tossed in a nigh-instantaneous "I don't get it," which met with grudging agreement. Standing around, the four, in a sort of motionless milling. Humidor, galvanized, ejaculated "That's Sarah!" <br />
<br />
Much guilty shifting of feet, avoision of eye contact with a woman who wasn't even there.<br />
<br />
The mood <i>soured</i>. Everybody grumpied up.<br />
<br />
Rig (nastily): "Hey <i>Kevin</i>, got that fiver you owe me?"<br />
<br />
Humidor: "I blush to confess that this...<i>fiver</i> of which you speak is as unknown to me as successful breeding must have been of your parents."<br />
<br />
Rig: "I didn't <u>give</u> you five dollars. I <u>loaned</u> them to you. And I didn't do it to hear you flip me a load of smart talk!"<br />
<br />
Humidor: "Nor did I take your money in order to be bullied, sir!"<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
A pause.<br />
<br />
Humidor: "Did I just admit to taking your money?"<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka, Rig (unison): "Yes."<br />
<br />
Humidor: "Does that mean I owe you this money?"<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka, Rig (unison): "Yes."<br />
<br />
Humidor, bafflingly, swiveled to face the empty living room, and began speaking, quite as loudly as normal. "A tactical error, to be sure...but perhaps not such a grave one as it may seem before the grim-jawed eyes of <u>history</u>. A brief alliance...<u>this</u> I require above all else!"<br />
<br />
He swung back around, with his least ingratiating smile rolling queasily across his chiseled features. "Akka/Dekka, my ancient comrade, do you recall the thrilling days of our shared youth?"<br />
<br />
He was met with a flat, clear stare.<br />
<br />
Humidor cleared his throat, rallied for a second effort: "Long and profitable has been our partnership, has it not?"<br />
<br />
Dekka left to grab a beer from the fridge.<br />
<br />
Humidor, nearing desperation with Rig grinning menacingly, "Ah, look. Is it true that I owe you a five dollars as well, Akka/Dekka?"<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka, somewhat distracted upon his return. "Yes. Yes it is."<br />
<br />
Humidor: "Is it conceivable to you that I might not <u>have</u> this five in dollars?"<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka: "Yes. Yes it is."<br />
<br />
Humidor: "Aha! Then cash sing goddess, O Muse of rhetoric, of wretched posey, and pray help me persuade the most noble and notable Akka/Dekka that by the fortune of fate I do I do I <u>do</u> have five dollars!"<br />
<br />
Humidor: "And! Dekka! Don't ya get it man, I can't pay you...unless..."<br />
<br />
Rig: "Wait a minute."<br />
<br />
Humidor: "Yes! Jury the Rig has seen thru to the core of the crux of the nub of the thrust of my very <i>gist</i>! I propose, Akka/Dekka, to pay <u>you</u>!! And not him! Help me, please! Take my money to you, and protect me, for they are my only and last five of dollars!"<br />
<br />
Rig: "This is <i>bullshit</i>."<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka (evenly): "I might have known you'd say that, Jerry."<br />
<br />
Rig (aggressive): "Because it's the truth."<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka: "Oh? Is it really the bullshit <i>truth</i>, Jerry?"<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka: "Or is it just the latest coverup? The latest distraction from what's really important?"<br />
<br />
Rig: "What are you <u>talking</u> about?"<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka fired an empty beer can at Rig's head. It went wide, clattered to the floor. "Does <i>this</i> look familiar? <br />
<br />
Rig picked it up, held it before his face, made a show of inspecting it with all his sciencegeneering acument and equipment.<br />
<br />
Rig (dripping sarcasm): "Well, speaking scientifically, I'd have to identify this as an empty beer can. Of course, I shall have to postpone any firm committment until the results come back from the lab, but--"<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka: "That was the <u>last</u> beer, Jerry! Last night, you had the last beer. You took it upon yourself to drink the ultimate beer, the final beer, the beer after which would come no more beers." Nobody heard the door open, close.<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka: "And now, as for the fridge, there are no beers at all. No Pabst. No Hamm's. Not even a single breakfast Oly, and this...this was <u>your</u> doing. A conscious act. An adult decision."<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka: "Jerry, we had a pact. We had a league, we had an alliance. Very simple it was between us, between all four of us. He who takes the last beer, it is he who shall cause to be placed in the refrigerator not less than one sixpack of tallboys and preferably one full half-rack of twelve-ouncers!"<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka: "It is <u>he</u>, Jerry, and he is you and I am that that I am and what I am is a man who has no beer and the fault lies with you, man, with you!"<br />
<br />
Rig: "It was four in the morning. There was no more beer to be <u>had</u>, for fu--"<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka: "I have no interest in your excuses, nor your lies. Our alliance lies on the barren earth, rent asunder by your late-night piracy. You have made a sham of our pact and you have made an enemy of me in the process. Humidor?"<br />
<br />
Humidor: "<i>El</i> Humidor, yes?"<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka held out his hand to Humidor without taking his steely eyes from the fidgety Rig. "Give me my money. Jerry won't be bothering you any more. You see, Jerry, you're not dealing with El Loseador here any more. You're dealing with me now. And there's nothing in this world you can force me to do."<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka: "Have a nice life, Jerry. You'll never see these five dollars."<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
Rig: "Then it seems you've left me no choice."<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka: "Perhaps not. Perhaps I've left you as much choice as you've left me beer."<br />
<br />
A lengthy pause, a tense standoff.<br />
<br />
Rig: "I'm calling Sarah. She'll make you pay me. She can make you <u>both</u> pay me. Then you'll be sorry! You two think you're so strong? Well, when Sarah's on my side then I guess <u>we'll</u> be in charge!"<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka: "But why would she side with you? She could as well side with me, you know. I did her a favor once. Helped her kick out a bad housemate. Kinda...reminds me of somebody. You know?"<br />
<br />
Rig: "She'll side with me because I have a <u>job</u>! Because I can help pay <u>bills</u>! What can <u>you</u> do?"<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka: "Well, for starters...I can do <i>this</i>."<br />
<br />
Akka/Dekka picked up a tiny armoire, and as it squealed horribly, ripped it to shreds. As the remainder of the ambulatory robots fled for the relative safety of the basement, where nobody ever really goes, Rig used the point of a compass to puncture tires all over the graveyard. As Humidor stuffed a shred of his shirt into a fuming bottle and fumbled with his Zippo, Mudman reentered the house, with a full case of beer.<br />
<br />
"Oh...hey, 'Man," muttered Akka. The crisis passed, a silent consensus was reached, to quit the graveyard, and speak no more of five dollars or of robots murdered or bike tires popped. Smackdown! became watched, it was learnt that Mudman had been rehearsing the introduction to his cable access presentation of <u>Galaxy of Terror</u>, and no little time passed.<br />
<br />
Somewhere around four, a careful observer would have noted one beer, standing alone in the fridge. Humidor reached into the fridge, and his hand closed 'round the coveted cylinder.<br />
<br />
END. <br />
<em>Words by C. Collision, drawings by D.D. Tinzeroes</em><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-37830886248362349922008-11-14T21:44:00.000-08:002013-06-09T14:15:57.706-07:00No. 2 - Poisoned<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB-MJvwlAwNhPmCXPtPZijJ2rg4GcbNF-aIligxtzUSpuJFE3b_YR_JG5hzaSwr33U5D92jag0JK0laNCeyFqlBaafrttRjmjXxwtLS4WovgZ8bG4V5xfmsJ2ybLCa5idLcexo48JBJd0/s1600/shshissue2cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB-MJvwlAwNhPmCXPtPZijJ2rg4GcbNF-aIligxtzUSpuJFE3b_YR_JG5hzaSwr33U5D92jag0JK0laNCeyFqlBaafrttRjmjXxwtLS4WovgZ8bG4V5xfmsJ2ybLCa5idLcexo48JBJd0/s640/shshissue2cover.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br />
<br />
Jerry Rig and Aecca/Decca lounge in the Super-Hero Shared House living room – Rig absently interacting with one of his Furnimicrobots (the Louis XIV chair, in this case), Decca fishing the last of a few stuffed olives out of a small jar, the newspaper open on his lap, chortling and chuckling occasionally. In the kitchen, Mudman stands slack in front of the open refrigerator, hoping that, if he looks long enough, some long-forgotten can of beer will appear from behind the multitude of condiments or sharpie-labelled fast food paper bags:<br />
<br />
EL HUMIDOR'S LUNCH!<br />
<br />
PROP. OF AECCA/DECCA!<br />
<br />
J.RIG SCIENCE EXPERiment – DO NOT EAT!!<br />
<br />
"You know," Jerry Rig declares from the other room, "Mudman, in the time you've been standing in front of the fridge, you could have gone to the store, procured a twelver, returned here to the house, and be drinking one of those cans of beer."<br />
<br />
Mudman replies, "yeah, you're probably right," and continues to stand in front of the fridge. <br />
<br />
Decca laughs again. <br />
<br />
Rig extorts "Seriously! Really, now!? Are the obituaries really that funny?!?" <br />
<br />
Decca wipes a tear from his eye and begins to respond when the front door is thrown open and El Humidor staggers in, his face ghost-white, his mustache mussed. <br />
<br />
"Yeesh," says Rig, "its only 2:00, Humidor!"<br />
<br />
El Humidor sways his way into the living room, eyelids fluttering.<br />
<br />
"You are SUCH a fucking lightweight! I swear!" says Rig, but is cut short as El Humidor abruptly collapses onto a small dingy sofa.<br />
<br />
With grave countenances, El Humidor's three housemates gather about him. <br />
<br />
"El Humidor! El Humidor!" cries Aecca/Decca, shaking him by the shoulders. <br />
<br />
"Let me try" says Jerry Rig, pushing Decca aside. "Snap out of it, man!" Rig orders, throttling Humidor by the collar. <br />
<br />
"No. You're doing it wrong" interjects Mudman, shouldering Rig out of the way. Mudman proceeds to slap the shit out of El Humidor's face. <br />
<br />
El Humidor moans. "Just as I thought!" says Rig, "he's been… poisoned!"<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq3K4uyvmcrz5H1ZCfkNjOQR6kjRJIPKUBYDMLo360_i50AH-8KlZ5k9EdWAXZqH2C11Mr4WodkdRpXYgJZ7LWbLKsMze6HitGwnoPbDhxC6i8Jvg3kIIhoFMsDU1sUFB0LJ0-XCaN4yw/s1600/Issue2poisoned.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq3K4uyvmcrz5H1ZCfkNjOQR6kjRJIPKUBYDMLo360_i50AH-8KlZ5k9EdWAXZqH2C11Mr4WodkdRpXYgJZ7LWbLKsMze6HitGwnoPbDhxC6i8Jvg3kIIhoFMsDU1sUFB0LJ0-XCaN4yw/s400/Issue2poisoned.jpg" width="400" /></a>
<br />
<br />
"But who would do such a dastardly deed?" queries Decca, clenching his fists.<br />
<br />
"Hmm," Rig ponders, "villains with a grudge… against El Humidor…" Rig strikes a thoughtful pose.<br />
<br />
The trio stands in concentration.<br />
<br />
"I can't think of anyone," Mudman offers, finally tiring of slapping El Humidor silly.<br />
<br />
Decca, "nope."<br />
<br />
Rig, "me neither."<br />
<br />
"Then it must be someone poisoning Rig to get at one, or all, of us!" concludes Aecca Decca, stepping forward and flourishing in a poor attempt at Shakespearean fashion.<br />
<br />
"The Pocketeer?" offers Rig.<br />
<br />
"Who's that?" Decca retorts.<br />
<br />
"The guy who nobody can beat at pool down at the bar," says Rig.<br />
<br />
"Oh, god, that asshole? I swear, its like he's not even that good, he just gets lucky every single time at the end of the game. Dick!" rants Aecca Decca.<br />
<br />
"How about the Jukeboxer?" posits Rig.<br />
<br />
"That chick who can throw a quarter into the jukebox coin slot from across the room? Who fills up the playlist for the entire evening in like 10 seconds? Who plays the same songs over and over over?" asks Aecca.<br />
<br />
"The very same!" confirms Rig.<br />
<br />
"Hmm. Neither of them seem like the poisoning type," ponders Decca. "Pocketeer's more the bludgeoning type." <br />
<br />
"I agree. And Jukeboxer more the ambush-setting tiger-trap type," confers Rig. "But, if not them, then who?"<br />
<br />
"The Bureau," says Mudman.<br />
<br />
Jerry Rig: "The FBI!?" <br />
<br />
Aecca/Decca: "Get out!!" <br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXE1GjTWuIeeax2yB6kTAiHkO0GBt2PDD6FpIJZISxcfKOuTXFQo6ZhKxeq0CF_BHKZCVXCKZKZx29wJXCkEn_hTHCuRWkrPOiwhY6eiF-ClfGeMLJWLDHGu5azPfQniEVKPklR9h-Clg/s1600/Issue2worse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="312" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXE1GjTWuIeeax2yB6kTAiHkO0GBt2PDD6FpIJZISxcfKOuTXFQo6ZhKxeq0CF_BHKZCVXCKZKZx29wJXCkEn_hTHCuRWkrPOiwhY6eiF-ClfGeMLJWLDHGu5azPfQniEVKPklR9h-Clg/s400/Issue2worse.jpg" width="400" /></a>
<br />
"No," Mudman says, solemnly, letting Humidor slouch onto the sofa, "Worse. The Water Bureau." <br />
<br />
"Gadzooks, man!" exclaims Aecca, slapping his forehead with the palm of his hand. Jerry Rig visibly swoons. <br />
<br />
"Oh man, oh man, oh man," Aecca Decca begins to fidget, frantically dart his eyes about the room, "this is big, man, really big. Wayyy outta our league. But jeez, yeah, I mean they're always sending us those threatening letters and spying on us and calling us all the time. The pieces totally fit. And now its time… to pay the piper!!!"<br />
<br />
Rig, who's had to sit down, his head in his hands, looks up, "are you crazy!?! Listen to yourself, do you realize WHAT you're saying!?"<br />
<br />
An eerie silence falls on the room.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGm-tHLUgWhTOQjeGiDjSM0YfL2sA2htXCNjHuVVmIDklDoRN-r6FWn80-l0OyE2yCZ14iBZNeNkN2bZLPwE-mljflO4EooQBKTssRRRXyB2f70ZnYyRlofRKuzj3dSE2OX8YLXcq8PQY/s1600/Issue2time.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="310" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGm-tHLUgWhTOQjeGiDjSM0YfL2sA2htXCNjHuVVmIDklDoRN-r6FWn80-l0OyE2yCZ14iBZNeNkN2bZLPwE-mljflO4EooQBKTssRRRXyB2f70ZnYyRlofRKuzj3dSE2OX8YLXcq8PQY/s400/Issue2time.jpg" width="400" /></a>
<br />
"Yes," Decca mutters, "my friends, I think the time has come… to pay the water bill."<br />
<br />
"Guys," says Mudman.<br />
<br />
"We’ve been fighting the good fight for a long time," eulogizes Decca, "but let's face it, we were always the underdog: out manned, out gunned, out numbered…"<br />
<br />
"Guys!" says Mudman.<br />
<br />
"Yeesh, I'm soliloquying here, man!" snaps Decca, "what is it?"<br />
<br />
"Look." Mudman holds up an envelope he's pulled from El Humidor's clammy hands. The three gather round to read the ultimatum from their dread nemesis. The envelope's been opened, but lacks addresses of any kind. Mudman opens the flap, and pulls out… fifty dollars and a receipt?<br />
<br />
"Where'd Humidor get this kind of dough? He's already sold all but his most valuable and essential possessions," asks Rig.<br />
<br />
"Yeah, what's the receipt, say, Mudman!?" inquires Aecca.<br />
<br />
Mudman peers at the receipt. Then looks up, looks at Rig, then Aecca, then El Humidor on the dirty sofa, who ceases his moaning, squints through watery eyes, rolls on his side, and vomits violently on the floor.<br />
<br />
"He donated blood plasma today."<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGxY1UiPFh5EcX3IihSnJIxL6uqAVFpKb6gpfRpvErJBYaxF-50dMV692jYGvBxAY2stQ9C1AuWXgzFnPwwhayGH8CiyogkktK__eKQPV2ROb4FOXQ_cY2Y3uz9UVBHYMPl6NunyvT7ck/s1600/issue2donated.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="312" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGxY1UiPFh5EcX3IihSnJIxL6uqAVFpKb6gpfRpvErJBYaxF-50dMV692jYGvBxAY2stQ9C1AuWXgzFnPwwhayGH8CiyogkktK__eKQPV2ROb4FOXQ_cY2Y3uz9UVBHYMPl6NunyvT7ck/s400/issue2donated.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br />
<em>Words & drawings by D.D. Tinzeroes</em><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2078450696208547715.post-21079277427792217472008-10-28T22:19:00.000-07:002013-06-09T14:14:27.413-07:00No. 1 - Subscription<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxz0VSyOcinCSqQ9kpVP6TxZaHHyG4ABGsTkF41O7qlJx-fWC-zZQfZd2Pvsi__GfBJeaPEzfRMlVDxch84k90TqLgsCkhpzN_H09fvoiYQGK1SVuzu4ZBG3ox4UdtCFvadiG5mqOaAzY/s1600/issue1cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxz0VSyOcinCSqQ9kpVP6TxZaHHyG4ABGsTkF41O7qlJx-fWC-zZQfZd2Pvsi__GfBJeaPEzfRMlVDxch84k90TqLgsCkhpzN_H09fvoiYQGK1SVuzu4ZBG3ox4UdtCFvadiG5mqOaAzY/s640/issue1cover.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br />
<br />
<i><br /></i><br />
El Humidor is smoking.<br />
<br />
In bed.<br />
<br />
At ten in the morning.<br />
<br />
With his "fumokinesis," the cigarette smoke drifts and curls into recognizable shapes: a crude, buxom female form, an airship under attack by biplanes, a cowboy fighting a robot. He glances at the clock, butts out the cigarette, and heads downstairs.<br />
<br />
At the bottom of the stairwell he glances as Jerry Rig, still asleep on the couch, Cartoon Network droning along on the TV. Rig's miniscule robot furniture gaze back at El Humidor. At least he thinks they're looking back at him, he can never tell. He's always felt that the miniature wardrobe doesn't like him.<br />
<br />
Scratching his scalp, El Humidor steps out on the porch, looks around, tries to reenter house. Locked himself out. Shrugs, lights a cigarette and begins to watch Cartoon Network through the front window.<br />
<br />
The VCR clock blinks 10:50. Humidor snubs out his cigarette. The clock digitally flips to 11:10, Humidor butts out a out another cigarette, again. Just before noon, Aecca/Decca tiptoes does the stairs (trying not to build up a static charge, he does this by only trying to contact things "point-to-point, no sluffing, shuffling, sliding, or rubbing"), notices Humidor outside the window.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsQPxGrIRimsJeWQfgq0jvxXl-FPB_rxnKDVWoo3cLwdxGGeb0z638S2hPTnrNxKofCLdY1DD266BAfoXOqdsBnJiNNLqa0RFLqy9feWF7Odb34xAGVwcCdsqColjfv9qgazqQAHigx3E/s1600/issue1lockout.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsQPxGrIRimsJeWQfgq0jvxXl-FPB_rxnKDVWoo3cLwdxGGeb0z638S2hPTnrNxKofCLdY1DD266BAfoXOqdsBnJiNNLqa0RFLqy9feWF7Odb34xAGVwcCdsqColjfv9qgazqQAHigx3E/s640/issue1lockout.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br />
<br />
He unlocks the the front door, but blocks El Humidor from re-entry.<br />
<br />
"Lock yourself out again?" Aecca/Decca asks.<br />
<br />
El Humidor stares blankly at Aecca/Decca.<br />
<br />
Aecca/Decca grimaces slightly, "came outside to get the paper, huh?"<br />
<br />
El Humidor maintains his expressionless gaze.<br />
<br />
"Have we ever gotten the paper?" asks Aecca/Decca, with a tired tone of voice which suggests he's made this speech before.<br />
<br />
El Humidor remains unmoved. The two of them stand in the doorway in silence for what seems an eternity. Finally, El Humidor speaks.<br />
<br />
"Can I go in now?"<br />
<br />
El Humidor passes by Aecca/Decca, and plops down into an easy chair, stares dumbly for a few seconds at what's on the teevee, then looks at Jerry Rig, then back at the teevee, the back at Rig, and excitedly asks, "ooh, ooh, is Pokemon on? I LOVE that show! With the Ash and the Pikachu and the Squirtle and the 'gotta catch 'em all!' and the Brock and the Team Rocket!"<br />
<br />
Rig's eyes loll lazily in Humidor's direction, then back to the teevee, "no. Pokemon is on around 8 in the morning. This is twelve-thirty in the afternoon."<br />
<br />
"Hmm," ponders El Humidor, getting out another cigarette, rolling it between his thumb and index finger ruefully, "not even on the Pokemon channel?"<br />
<br />
"There is no Pokemon channel," replies Rig.<br />
<br />
"Are you one hundred percent certain?" asks Humidor, a wry smirk on his face.<br />
<br />
"About one hundred percent certain you're about to find out what's on the me-kicking-your ass channel!" says Aecca/Decca as he walks into the living room, a mug of Yuban coffee in one hand, two in the other. He holds the duo out into the space roughly between Rig and Humidor. Both sit up to reach out and grab a cup.<br />
<br />
El Humidor leans back into his chair, slides his cigarette behind his ear, and blows on his coffee to cool it, "I believe that channel went off the air, for two reasons," raises a finger into the air, "one, low ratings," raises a second finger, "two, it did not exist."<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpe1LLM11BNB3_b7wATv3cT12SemrKEakfzoOgCXDhWU8KfiszL7H8CobfEkd3BfLYVZeHIMwqv94oIOdXYu0-9_SBMxWLZgE1AjnfRVQUq0asR-y0xNF3zwvhw5We1LUCQlItvKH30l4/s1600/issue1lowratings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="317" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpe1LLM11BNB3_b7wATv3cT12SemrKEakfzoOgCXDhWU8KfiszL7H8CobfEkd3BfLYVZeHIMwqv94oIOdXYu0-9_SBMxWLZgE1AjnfRVQUq0asR-y0xNF3zwvhw5We1LUCQlItvKH30l4/s400/issue1lowratings.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br />
"Low ratings, huh? So tell me, was it a bigger ratings flop than El Humidor trying to hit on the bartender down at the tavern last night?" Aecca grins largely. Jerry Rig chortles.<br />
<br />
El Humidor take a big gulp of coffee, set his mug down, pulls his cigarette back out from behind his ear, "Allow me to reply to that comment in two parts: First..."<br />
<br />
Aecca/Decca cuts in, snickering "...I mean, we're talking the live action Thunderbirds movie bad here."<br />
<br />
Rig becomes alarmed, "Hey hey hey, now! Let's not say things we can't take back!"<br />
<br />
"Yes-yes, alright," El Humidor continues, ignoring Aecca/Decca's cheap shots, "first of all, El Humidor will be the first to admit that sometimes he ties one too many on, and that his usually rayzor sharrrp wit will become a wee bit dull, much like an axe that has been chopping for much too long at a stand of bamboo. It becomes chipped and blunt. Very very blunt. And the bamboo? She is tough. She is resilient. But she is tall. And thin. And her bark is so very very smooth, yes. So smooth. But El Humidor? He is blunt. And so his wit, usually so sharp, has become clouded. Clouded as if it had been dipped in a sauce. Some sort of a.. beer sauce. Yes. What can El Humidor say? I did not bring my "A" game to the field that night, eh? Secondly..."<br />
<br />
"Um," says Jerry Rig, on his way to the kitchen, follwed by his brood of miniature robotic furniture. "I really don't think its healthy for you to mix your metaphors like that." <br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh27_9pCYQ02_atToaaBUwN_vAGTK3dQVJHJ-9MH2bF5jMYBqBUUkoG9kpUsXQSSIPgrNDOVSc7NG_Vtc8nFAVkW5kvUB3_Uim-xWui2-Jot_zvU459Hm2dyX_fL12sgNgkdoiSGGjveeA/s1600/issue1metaphors.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh27_9pCYQ02_atToaaBUwN_vAGTK3dQVJHJ-9MH2bF5jMYBqBUUkoG9kpUsXQSSIPgrNDOVSc7NG_Vtc8nFAVkW5kvUB3_Uim-xWui2-Jot_zvU459Hm2dyX_fL12sgNgkdoiSGGjveeA/s400/issue1metaphors.jpg" width="400" /></a>
<br />
Without missing a beat, El Humidor continues on, "... El Humidor would like to offer his sincerest apologies and regrets for getting himself and hees compatriots eighty-sixed from the local public house. But for as long as El Humidor breathes life, he swears he shall seek the redressing of these injustice. It is the way of my people... to seek redress for injustices, and to breathe life. Not to get eighty-sixed."<br />
<div>
</div>
<br />
"Are you done, now?" asks Aecca/Decca, nodding good morning to Mudman, who has emerged from his basement abode. Mudman yawns, nods back, stands by the teevee, staring at the screen, absently scratching his ass.<br />
<br />
"Well," replies El Humidor, "at least I try to talk to the women. El Humidor's recollection is that our friend Aecca/Decca over here spent the evening swilling his own body weight in beer and asking Mudman to pull his finger. Repeatedly. Before falling off his barstool."<br />
<br />
"Heh. Aecca/Decca fall down," chuckles Mudman, recollecting the night before.<br />
<br />
Aecca/Decca stews quietly, staring at the television. Mudman goes in the bathroom and closes the door. Jerry Rig emerges from the kitchen, a freshly micro-waved Hot Pocket clutched in each fist.<br />
<br />
"Hey, Humey," he says, between mouthfuls of melted cheesefood and processed ham, "you seen today's paper? Its not on the porch."<br />
<br />
From the bathroom, the toilet is heard to flush.<br />
<br />
El Humidor concurs, " Yes. El Humidor is aware of that. Tell me about it!"<br />
<br />
Aecca/Decca becomes nervous after noticing El Humidor walking on the rug with wool socks on, and hurriedly makes his way goes to the kitchen, as the toilet is again heard to flush.<br />
<br />
"Well, you see," Rig explains, " I woke up. And I went outside to see if the paper was here yet." Pauses to wolf-down half of his hot pocket in a manner that makes El Humidor's face contort in shock and disgust. "So I'm outside, and I look around. And its not there. Not on the porch, not on the walk, and not in the yard. Its. Just. Not. There." Rig pauses for dramatic effect, then starts in on his second Hot Pocket.<br />
<br />
Mudman emerges from the bathroom, pauses, turns, and closes the door behind him.<br />
<br />
"That's not what El Humidor meant," says El Humidor, "not at all."<br />
<br />
"Oh," says Jerry Rig, finishing the last bite of his Hot Pocket, "So... Do you have the paper?"<br />
<br />
Mudman says, "we don't have a subscription."<br />
<br />
Rig and Humidor: "huh?"<br />
<br />
Mudman, "to the newspaper."<br />
<br />
In unison, again, "what?"<br />
<br />
"A subscription. We don't have a subscription to the newspaper."<br />
<br />
El Humidor exclaims, "oh, well that explains that, then."<br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
Rig: "scientifically, yes."</div>
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
<br /></div>
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
Mudman notes, dryly, "another mystery solved, huh, guys?"<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAZSaz2PWfpBuM_6JB1MUQAQIUA6dHtsbnlTDgFsIUg_Jl_ewOpr3g6ORxxjYUoWWce0Iws6hQtARAPELPcXthHtO7jj7fhr5CiqHzn14Hz6_Iju82FJQbeleBD8TM7nWuDTTulRMs114/s1600/issue1thatexplainsthat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAZSaz2PWfpBuM_6JB1MUQAQIUA6dHtsbnlTDgFsIUg_Jl_ewOpr3g6ORxxjYUoWWce0Iws6hQtARAPELPcXthHtO7jj7fhr5CiqHzn14Hz6_Iju82FJQbeleBD8TM7nWuDTTulRMs114/s400/issue1thatexplainsthat.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
<br />
High-fives are distributed mightily betwixt the three, followed by each striking various "finishing move" poses of their own design.<br />
<br />
<br />
<em>Words by C. Collision & D.D. Tinzeroes, drawings by D.D. Tinzeroes</em><br />
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