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54 Stories by D. Austin Nash
v1. 12/11/99
No one likes a Christmas tree in summertime.
Here are some even MORE stories by D. Austin Nash
v1. 12/11/99
Love Alive, but no birds
Jesus, here are some even more stories by D. Austin Nash
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One of the sad things we all do
She took me to the place across the street
from the party after work
and birds flew by in the dark
unseen but heard
and probably in love more
than most
I never thought it happened that
way between people
once the magic of pushing the button
was lost to the swinging sword of
knowledge and/or common sense
There we were holding on in the hangover
of fiery chorus, holding on to each other
and hardly knowing who we were
feeling each others loneliness
and fear
Mother leave the light on for the
dancing girl and go
go with one foot after the other
poisoned against the moon, green
and Grandmotherly
Mother the carriage is here
leave the light on for us for we are
young and know what we do
as we once more escape into one another
Cross your legs against death my dear
and let me touch you like I've always wanted
Oh mother what is my name and why was it
given to me
We are now old enough to turn the light on ourselves
and she holds me on top of her and says that
no I'm not hurting her and it feels good
on top of her and her underneath me
on top of her child and under my own fears of
her lack of independence
I almost cried at the realization that dusting through
the silence were our unspoken words
whispering what we could not say
of what we were doing here in this hotel
and what we meant to each other and
that it was probably nothing
for many
good
reasons
Sad Berlin
I can feel her above me in a quiet room reading Keroauc over a glass of Jasmine tea
Asking questions to herself that everyone asks and not having the answers because she is one of them. I don't make small talk to her, just tell her a story of Cleopatra and of Christmas time, of history and love between women, of love alive but with no birds to sing it. Of bitter ends and unreal beginnings. I tell her the story of how when I am king she will become queen.
She folds a corner of a page and looks over the book and through the dirty window onto Griggs St. and runs a thoughtful hand up her thigh. I can feel her through the ceiling and I wrap myself around her to keep her warm. She's just fortunate that I cannot do without. I am always there, in a photograph on the table next to her bed; I am the jester with cherry blossoms like confettee on my eye lashes, still sad even after she smiles, turning in a slow circle beneath clouds of angry vultures and selling the final handful of tickets to hear the last laugh. I am a consequential character in the book she holds, and the face in the folds of her blue terry cloth robe. I am the rim of the glass where she kisses most often and the rain that mists in through the window and the air thin drapery onto her feet.
She looses herself to me, waiting by the phone while her carnation wilts in a vase, and I whisper 'keep your heart inside my love, for the Romans are about', and she is sweet enough to let me be there with my hand on top of hers helping her press it in softly as she
relaxes and the book falls away. I hear it hit the floor and use up the last bit of my strength to hold her tightly around her small shoulders as her robe falls gently open to one side. She can feel it welling up inside of her and she doesn't know where I come from or why I am there because we give each other santuary not names. Nobody is ever really there for her and nothing is ever resolved; the good are not rewarded and the bad not punished.
So I reward her with this winter of words she will never read, laying over to rest like a lone snow goose too weak to fly, here in our sad Berlin....
Always a treat but nothing special
Who fucked who, and what did it do? What about that flimsy rendezvous between those two? What was his name? Hers was Belle and I heard she got rung. Why not lick and tell about something so strictly personal. Were my eyes deceiving me or did I see K coming out of Mercury with J last Saturday? She claims she only let him 'hot dog bun' her.
I was going to ask S next door out on a date two nights ago, and I didn't mean to overhear her, but I was listening through the wall and it sounded good. Then through the keyhole I saw T come out of there looking sheepish and tucking in his shirt. Too late again. Man I've got no guts. I can't make myself follow up old T. Who would want to?
Well, who fucked who, and how did she do it? I thought she spent all of her time on the phone? No? I guess not. I heard that she took her ex to Bermuda over her current beau and he was pissed. I brought it up of course. Said "Hey Pandora, who did you let into your box?" She assured me that she didn't do it to him. Didn't let him 'ride the big bike'. She told you that too, huh? That's not the way I see it, no, you'll never convince me of that. Things aren't that clean these days, never were. What? No I didn't know she was screwing C for three months. She negotiated her salary with him didn't she? That's a sneaky trick. Classical lines though. My boss may want to keep a look out behind him from now on. You work with her...I'm beginning to think you didn't play your cards right. I thought there was only supposed to be one winner in a game of poker but it's beginning to look like we're the only one's who lost.
You and me pal. We couldn't screw a dead dog in the ass between the two of us. What I don't get, however, is when you have to sit and listen to them cry. Where are all these people with hurt feelings? They might say...well, here's an example:
"I got invited to X's party and D didn't, and I'm pretty sure her feelings are going to be hurt, but hey? What do you do ya'know."
Somewhere I feel like there's a place for people in heaven, and hell. Then there's a big gathering at the 'Hurt Feelings Ballroom'. Picture this. I come home dragging my feet and I say. "Guess what Jef. My feelings got hurt today." Sob. Snivel. "Aw come on pal. Does your pussy hurt today?" Slap on the back. "Knock it off. It'll be Ok. Just you and me...you and me...and me.
I had lunch with R today. She's made for a good time I tell you. A little loud, but I wouldn't say unrefined. She's on her way to Miami tomorrow for ten days where I doubt she'll do much standing. When she comes back I think I'll try and tuck a screw under her hem. She told me she took the ball bearings out of it. The one's that keep it from blowing up in the wind. She says all girls sew them in like that these days. Of course 'all' is always a lie.
I really miss you baby and if you'll believe me I'll tell you that the only reason I fucked A was because I thought you fucked M because X told me so.
So tell me. Who the hell did screw you?
Short moments are her love
I have a friend. He will probably never get it right. His name is Eye and he tells me a story of how fucked up it is again. I ask him how fucked up it is and he says do you remember that party I saw you at two nights ago, and I say yes. Eye says that she was there and that he can never have her the way he wants to but that having her any way at all is better. Eye tells a story of a woman, or girl actually, who was born in France at a tender age of three, she remembers nothing before that. Her father was a symphony conductor and taught her to play a very palpable and healing cello and she plays it for herself. It makes her feel sad, the way she likes it.
Her mother pushed her father away when the girl was too young to know why and took to the streets of Paris where it was legal to take to the streets. The girls' mother let her do it too because desperate times were at hand. The girl became beautiful and got in bad in only a short time and so they moved to the states, California Eye thinks it was, to where the mothers sister lived. The girl ran away to the East and took her childhood with her being that it was the only thing she had to give to others and she gave and she gave and still does. She was spoiled of any love at a young age Eye says. Eye tells me that she was at that party two nights ago and I ask why he didn't point her out to me and he says that part of the time he couldn't find her and that part of him wasn't so sure that I hadn't already met her. Part was shame. Lots of people meet her Eye says.
Eye explains to me, laying out some detail but not much. He says he comes home last night to find her naked in the only room he has picking leaves off of the various plants growing about the dwelling, and pinning them onto strings tied around her waist. He asks her what she's doing and she looks at him like he's a fool and claims that she's immortal and that her real name is Eve. He tells her that immortal can be stopped by a desert or a pile of dried bones where immortality has no path to follow, thus it stops. But Eye says that nothing stops and that he plies her for details that he wishes would make everything stop. And everything does but he is only killing himself when he asks her why she dissappears on him on late nights when the feelings and the wine flow freely and why she has to do the things to him that she does. She replies that she doesn't really do them to him, it's just the way that she is, and has to be to survive herself. That the way to feel good is to never give in to anyone--out of love.
Eye drops his head a little and asks if I really want to go on with this and I say that we are friends still after all the while's and he says that he feels her most when she's in situations where other people can control her, that she gets herself into places that she might not be able to get out of and that he is almost sure she does it on purpose. She has only to say it to him at this point. Eye has recently found her favorite panties balled up on the side walk in the rain by the liquer store and that he's not sure why he lives this way. Except that he loves her.
Eye tells her the night before, when she is pinning on the final leaf, the brown one that leaves the plants naked, that he notices when people are trying to get her alone, and he asks how she feels when men gather around her like they know something he doesn't. Then she says it, dropps the skirt to the floor and says that they do know something he doesn't, something he never seemed to catch onto, and asks him why he thinks they stay away from him. She says that it's only a moment to her. She is drawn to these moments and yes she lets them kiss her sometimes out fear, and yes the one's where she's gone for any length of time she probably let them fuck her in some closet or on a balcony standing up, or behind the poolhouse in the long grass on her knees. Anybody can fuck her if they are forceful enough. It's the only way she can do it now. Small quantities and short moments are her love.
Eye weeps and says that he's been learning to play cello from her for eight months and that he feels blind and stupid and scared. He is getting quite good and can play simple things with taut feeling and I tell him that the simple things are always the most beautiful and it's a shame that all things are not more simple. Eye says that when he can play the piece that makes him feel as beautiful as the diamond sparkling ocean, that he will poison himself while playing and fade off into a beautiful diamond death. I tell him that from what he's told me, I think he's on the right track and I am not going to say a word about it, and that she'll kill many after him and that I think I know who she is after all.
slut
I woke in the morning and the early October
sun was screaming through the window like
an inpromptu super nova.
She was laying beside me now even though she
wasn't when I fell asleep at 2:30 am.
She tossed still in sleep and farted without
waking up and i thought 'she is killing me slowly
on purpose', but then i do the same
to myself.
I went to the crapper to..., well, crap where i could
be alone for a few minutes to think about what
would be said when i saw her next. The usual i hope.
I've been to bed with more good books and
bottles
than women, but you can't get a woman at a
library or a liquor store, and for that matter you
can't get a book or a bottle on a street corner, so I guess that's
even up.
As far as sex goes I'm pretty self sufficient and much
like everyone else.
I'd like to stick my thumb in her ass and make her
hop around the room like a fucking rabbit for a while.
My walls are pink and the porcelain in my life is
cold as maybe porcelain should be.
But i cannot see myself as a victim because i
can leave, a victim is
helpless.
I give more of myself to those who don't expect a lot
from me and almost everything seems to
turn brown when it
dies.
My laundry bag on the floor cries out
for dirty socks and a new life to
live, while i pick my nose in the
mirror, attentive to every
sound
in my cave and i leave before i
hear one.
I feel like i want to find something alive and kill it,
and i hope someone feels the same about me.
Out on the walk now ,
i feel like I've been kicked in the
ass
by the laughing mule on Sheer Madness Avenue.
Don't believe the saints and the politicians because
any bum can tell you that they're lying.
You're never more free than when lowly, lost, or dying.
Love alive but with no birds
No I am not afraid no I am not afraid no I am not afraid
of the dragons breathing forests of green fire
nor am I afraid of steam rolling cement mixers
or a thunderstorm in Spring
man's fears are feathered by his own frail mind and will be
used by it as a weapon to destroy
only himself on a evil cold day
in May
I am afraid of small smiling girls in dresses
with flowers in their hands rising up to please me
when I feel bad
of hanging the phone up on distant friends at 3:30am
who may very likely do themselvs harm having little to hold
onto alone
Lock me up in the north tower and dangle
me from the highest stone sill by my dirty
stockings raining dust into your eyes
and let an aged crow have its way with
my own as dusk falls to the knees
of dark
My love died in January when I found a single gray wing from
a pigeon on the sidewalk
grounded and the saddest sad
it looked like it may have fallen from a smiling
Angel come to save us all...
but just a sad wing...
A prophet once said, "With no woman, there can be
no love
I know this to be a truth, I've had the woman
I mixed the poison and she cast down the spell
which found it's own way of destroying us
it was easier that way
the best that could be done for me was the
worst for her, and I can't have it like that
and live with myself
I would rather she died first and save
the sadness that comes after
for myself to bear, I am strong like that and in
no other way
it's a silly kind of magic
chasing the dirty skirted whore
of dillusion down an ally strewn with
memories that have not yet happened to some
there is a love poem in me and it fights me first
to get out and then to stay in when I let it
it's my own little secret and our own
little piece of hell and I know that everybody has
their own piece on a foggy afternoon when one can possibly
stare at the sun and not get burned, halos of hell around candy chandeliers
Listen bird...
I walk through China town at noon and at night almost
every day and sometimes at night I stop and look up at the old
yellow brick building standing knee deep in broken glass
and a few pass around me and I couldn't care what they
think, I just can't let them make me care
I 'm not strong enough and feel drunk on the summer sweetness of
hate and swells of anger and mostly with the drone of myself on
fire in the dark,
nobody cared to put me out but you bird
I watch the warm light from your old window drip down the
fire escape and over the dirty dumpster lovers crawled from between
nowhere and the laboring harbor of Boston
the curtains are the same and the perspective of the overhead
light is the same and sometimes I think
I can see your small face cupped in your hands lean over the sill
peering at me through my blue gloom
to tell me I'm pretty at this time of the night
and I want to wave to you and blow the velvet of
green sage through your hair and the room of insanity but
I always move on to save some shame and myself from
a vision that almost comes true and a wise man sitting
on the curb says to me
that there's no such thing as a happy ending
or a Christmas tree in summer
or the truth
and it is at these moments that I realize
that I no longer know where you
are.
candy land
Love is not always wrong, but it's usually not right either
Very rarely is love right and good at the same time
I would know little about it, save for my objective point of view
that does little to no good for someone who believes
Love seems to me like getting the longest slide down from the top
of a chutes and ladders game, what a fun ride that is
That's the beauty of the game; the worst kick in the ass is still fun
I always found myself secretly wanting it
as even everybody else did, so it wasn't really a secret
I always preferred getting the gumdrop short cut in candy land
it had less of a duration, but did a lot more good, sweet and holy,
begging a clue from god
Put out the fire, play the violin, fall through the glass between the movies
and the miles that separate
they are really just sugar cain fields at harvest
At some point you're no longer getting laid
And Charley looked into the water at the
face looking up at him
she had been beautiful in her day and she smiled
a soft smile through the
water
not yet he decided, not yet
Charley listened for her from the kitchen
listened for any special sound she might
make
the special sounds that women make in a home
beckoning him from his sick thoughts
and read the morning paper to try to escape
from himself, trying to
see if it was true, that
somebody bombed a building with children in
it in Oaklahoma
if oj really did it, or if Knute G. is a commie
and he listened to the hiss of the water
on the stove
hissing with love
hissing with the words
the words that could and had
made Charley crack before
He went back into the kitchen and
impatiently poured another Vodka and
lime, lime and lime and
she was still there, smiling
he stirred the water and the smile began
to boil off
of her face
almost, he thought
and tomorrow, the
pussy
The sun shining down
Walking through china town
on a Wednesday afternoon
the sun shining down on my face like it
has done so seldom in the last
several months of winter, on
the way to an eye doctor appointment
and feeling good, no longer at work
there is an older Chinese man yelling
at a young girl, cornered in the doorway
of a drooping restaurant
in china town with the sun shining down
in glorious gold beams of love
people stop and watch the man yelling
he is tense, and I stop and watch too
when he hauled off and slapped her in front of
everybody, I don't know why I was surprised
the man was shaking and on the edge of control
and it had been easy to see it coming
I froze in a lesser state of shock, and then began walking
again, in the sun shining down around me in
china town on a Wednesday afternoon
I felt very bad for the humiliation the girl had
suffered at the hands of a man so small
and then very bad that I had stood and watch
it happen and not helped her
wondering which one of us was the smaller
the sun wasn't quite so warm, and maybe it
never should have been warm, and
shining down on
me
Open window on Yorkshire
it was the summer of 78 and their names were Terri and Tammy Soltice. They were twins, and they used to sit with me when my parents went away at night. One would sit, and the other would sneak over with her boyfriend and God how I wanted something from them. I wasn't sure what, but I saw something they were having---and wanted to be a part.
More than a quarter century old now, which isn't much, but I had that part of life on my own. The part where I found out about women. The part where I fought on the edge of
the cornfields in Southwest MI. The part where I felt the fire burning, the fire the fire that made my head crazed.
I recognize that part of my life as a part that everybody has but am able to identify with it better by remembering before when I was watching somebody else have it.
Terri, that time I shot you in the crotch with my suction cup dart gun. I didn't mean it like that you seventies girl. I know I just wanted you, at 9 years old.
And Tammy, that time I spit a live fish at you at the beach? The same.
And the time I was on my bicycle after dark, and peeking in your windows and hearing laughter and 'Good-bye Stranger' over fumes of pot (pot?).
you gave to me even though you didn't mean to, and I took, not knowing any better.
and I had a dream (day) about the two of you today, and I had no ill intent.
Hey there amanda,
I spoke with lisa today and she said that some thing I wrote about butterflies and wine was being passed around and I thought I would send you the one that I fixed without the word "load" in it. Even though that's what it really is. A load. Load. Load. Load. I changed some other stuff too and in general believe that this piece has made some improvements since its birth. It really is better without the word load. Tell me one thing though, this piece is a sort of 'whackoff journal', and the way it is now i'm not sure that that point gets across.
I also wanted to apologize for my apparent disinterest at your house at that last dinner party you had. Personally I didn't feel anything abnormal, I'm just like that sometimes. I really did have a good time but it was pointed out to me that my attitude may have been received as 'stodgy' or just 'prick' in general. I've been a poor performer at adult functions lately but it's something I work on.
Be good over the holidays. I'm going home to MI for a week, then i'm moving to central square the very weekend following, and then going to CA for a few days for work so I wont be around much. I'm going to try surfing. Can you imagine? Two horns up dude.
'All knobs to the right and faders to the north!'
(Mike Roche, Kalamazoo 1995)
The Butterflies In My Wine
10/18/95 - 6:35 pm
A Mockingbird never stops singing.
Zip...ahhh. This one is for Robin because she tries so hard and deserves better. Robin has a man on her back as I lay on my own. She says that there exists a particular situation she is unable to rid herself of for reasons which she may very well die with a secret still. I only want to touch certain parts of her situation. Robin needs so very badly to be taken out away from her life and away from herself and treated like the fertile and warm woman that she is. I'm going to let her tell me about how long it's been since she had a good strapping lay and let her hold my hand. I am going to breath down her neck and tell her maybe tomorrow bird. I will pull her through crowds and hide her in corners and let her play with me until I have to hold her hands to her side and send her home. I'm going to let her in on her own secrets and teach her to be good to herself like I do when I am alone. I'm going to let her do these things till she can't stand it and gets angry with my lack of response. Then I'm going to take her somewhere quiet and secluded and pet her like a kitten wrapping around my leg and watch her and wait. And then I'm going to take and fuck her good and proper and she'll know that I had it in mind all along. Well anyway...this one's for Robin. Shoot the moon...
10/19/95 - 6:23 pm
Someday you'll find it dove, in a basket of plastic flowers you will.
This rub is for Donna. It's the one I thought she wanted. I even heard roomers. Donna, thanks for wearing those pants like that and not being afraid to play the 'Can you touch your elbows behind you back' game. Donna wanted me to take her to a woman store and buy a toy for her because she was afraid to do it alone. We were going out for a few drinks afterward but it never happened. Donna is a big hockey fan. One day she told me in a bar after work that it is because hockey makes her come. I said 'No shit?' She said 'I shit you not'. Said that when something really exciting happens that she gushes a glassful and there is nothing that can stop it. Well Donna...I thought you and I might be good for one and I haven't talked to you in a while, but hockey seasons' about to start and you may just catch me giving you the wink in the hallway. For now I'll just have one for you and me and without you...bombs away.
10/20/95 - 10:47 pm
The night we burned a highway.
Tonight I have a special one in me. It is for Joby for being sweet, blond, and easy in a checkered sundress at only nineteen. Joby was voted most likely to be laid in her highschool class of 87'. She was like a popsical that never stopped melting because she wasn't really that cold after all. Joby, even though I thought I hated you for a long time, and the realization that I no longer know where you are sometimes hurts, this stroll through the ancient scrolls is for the good times, and they were many. For the time in NW Ohio in the piano room when I didn't know you could play. For the night we burned a highway in SW Michigan in your daddies pickup. For the time we got caught by my mom and she couldn't say anything because we were just kids. And for the last time, when you cried because you thought you could have me one last time without feeling it and you were wrong. I didn't know it's what you were doing at the time, but thank you for loving without control, I still remember your face as I left that night...cut er' loose with the lambs.
10/21/95 - 7:38 pm
A woman walks in front.
This one is for Kristen. I don't know Kristen very well, or at least I don't know what she thinks about, but she turned me a leg one day while I was dreaming and visions burn when they are the first thing I see. Kristen, if you're listening, I just wanted to say thank you for starting up the dirty talk on Saturday night, and on Tuesday afternoon, and Thursday morning. I can't actually say if you close the bar, but I like to think that you do. Pull the plug for the good it will do baby. Pull the plug.
10/22/95 - 6:56 pm
A face in the crowd.
This one is for Kim D. Kim, every so often I see your eyes in the streets of a vibrant and dangerous Italy. Even though we never got back against the mattress, we only missed by one beer too many, and I think it may be better that way. Every so often on the side walk I think of the chances that I could run into you and hear about your new life and find that mattress and abscond with my share of your magic sins. But the probabilities of magic are always far off. It is possible that slimness of chance is the one requirement. But I can see you laughing at that and likely little short of death would keep us off the mattress now. If you ever decide to abandon your baby Cleveland, look up my alley in Boston. And when you reach out in the darkness, may your arms find me in dance, with you...slowly around the room. Let her fly...
10/23/95 - 10:45 pm
I want for you to love.
This load is the most delicate of all. It goes out to Carol, fifteen thousand miles away from me, and staring over a forever table of candles on an island in the darkest sea into the eyes of an ambassador from Mexico. Carolyn, I know you wouldn't really want this load in a paper cup, but you know that's not what it's all about. Short and sweet, let the rest wonder...cock the hammer of love.
One more for the whore
Tommy ran around the house in the dark. He jumped the juniper hedge and landed in the birdbath and went down hard. He got up and limped another lap, watching the moths around the light above the garage. He began to sweat and breath hard. His throat began to dry and crack, and he stopped. At the front door he asked, "Can I come in now honey? I'm all worn out for sure this time."
"O.k. But you know the rules, right?"
"Sure thing babe. Please don't tell 'em to me again wench."
"Fuck you."
"Would you really?"
"No...you're too ugly."
"What about before we were married?"
"I needed the security. Now I don't."
Tommy went into the bathroom to clean up and take a piss. He stared in the mirror, red faced, and thought about how many baseball players he could name while trying to get his hard on down. He ended up sitting down and leaning as far forward as he could, his ass way back on the porcelain and pushing down on the top of his cock. No luck on the piss. He tried harder and left a small glob of shit on the back of the rim, and decided to
leave it there. Tommy gathered his wits and paced back in forth in the bathroom, his head began bobbing up and down and he turned a finger in his ear, like he was prone to do in times of anxiety. When Tommy was a child, he used to put his finger in his mouth and suck on it, and more and more often he noticed an unaccounted for bitter taste. He was fourteen before he figured out it was from the ear wax. So he stopped putting his finger in his mouth that day.
Tommy walked into the living room, into the kitchen, and opened up a beer. He could see Jane watching Letterman on the couch in her forever short skirt with her legs crossed high, a bag of Chips Ahoy cookies in her lap. Her blouse was unbuttoned low in the summer heat and bore the triangular, furry crest, of the New Women's' Council. He drank some of the beer, eyes never wavering over the top of the can. Yes, tonight's the night. He began to pace around the kitchen, head bobbing and finger screwed in his ear, and decided on doing a hand stand to test his dexterity and in hope that some of the blood might rush to his head. He dove in, and walked around the kitchen for a while on his hands. His dick seemed to be in its normal position from this perspective, but upon righting himself, he realized that it still wasn't. I hurt. What the hell? he thought. It was Wednesday at 10 pm and she was still putting it to him. TV pretty much ruled her these days.
This shit on 'Sally' in the morning started innocently enough, but was now far beyond control. It was still a laugher until the highest ranking general and the President of the United States were simultaneously killed in a freak airplane crash. Times were good and no one thought much of it when their wives stepped in and assumed their late husbands duties. Controlling the military had been a crucial step for the NWC.
The new thing was for women to hold back the power that they did have. Pussy. Maybe this wasn't so new a concept, but the recent widespread acceptance by the females of the species would indicate a revolution. All the signs were there. They were now, after only three years, prevalent in government, the churches, and rising like fire in the workplace. The propaganda began in publications like Women's Day, and Mademoiselle. Slogans simple and straight forward like, "Hold it to their head like a gun," and "If you cant beat 'em, cut 'em off." Of course these ads were always accompanied by the hairy triangle crest of the NWC. It was quite a while before these ads were discovered by men, as they were not run in D-Cup or Sports Illustrated. Men were only in better physical shape due to the recognized method of castration, exercise till exhaustion.
Tommy walked into the living room and took a seat next to Jane on the couch and stared up her legs. He coughed, she paid no attention, and his mind wandered. Jane laughed at one of Dave's jokes about a dog with a big ass. Work this afternoon, women all over the place. Work in the morning, women all over the place. One woman had enticed Tommy into a little piece of ass in the mail room at the plant, and then laughed and run
out past him and asked, "You didn't think I was serious! Did you?" Tommy was very serious and felt very stupid at that moment. She was now one of Tommy's superiors, his former superior still pretended to be in charge, but he wasn't getting any either and was growing thin like the rest of the men. He held the same gray worried look beneath a transparent mask that was common among the men at the Realism Oscillating Devices (ROD) plant.
Jane reached for the soda on the coffee table and Tommy caught a shot down the short sleeve of her blouse at her uncovered breasts. His dick went off like Toucan Sam's nose following some Fruit Loops, and his shorts began to jump around. His shorts twitched and jumped, and Tommy tried desperately to conceal the his action, the loose shorts giving him no help. Jumping and twitching like a squirril in a laundry sack. His head began to bob and he made a wry face, dropping his head sheepishly. He crossed his legs like hers, and looked away, knowing that the scolding was on the way.
"Hey!" yelled Jane. "Can't you do something about that!? That's abnormal! Get away from me you creep!"
"But honey? God damn it. We've been married four months now! I am but a man and you said I could have some ass on Wednesdays after we were married! What the hell do you expect me to do? I'm going fucking crazy!"
"You don't have any of the compassion and understanding of our purpose that you lied and said you had before we made that deal! You think I'm going to put up with that kind of disrespect! What do you expect me to do in a situation like this! OUT! OUT, NOW...You know what to do!" she screamed.
Tommy's shorts still jumped around uncontrollably and Jane screamed when his dick popped out the top over the elastic and she threw the remote control to the tv at it and ran from the room. The new accepted fashion for men was to wear a pair of undershorts, tighty-whities, with a special strap to hold it against his leg, and baggy trousers to conceal the ever raging "abnormality." Tommy was not wearing his regulation shorts tonight and was at risk of apprehension by the authorities if his wife so chose.
He rose, ashamed with his hands over his crotch, and whimpered as he hobbled out the front door. He stepped under the moth dance lamp over the garage and dropped his shorts. He looked at his balls in the light. Yup...they were a dull blackish-blue, and the hairs were falling out at a faster rate than ever. Tommy was having a weak moment. He couldn't help it and proceeded once again to try and get it off on his own, but the electric shock mechanism implanted on his wrist connected with the one in his staff, and he got a shock. It was a good one. Worse than usual. She must have turned up the voltage on the remote. "God damn it," Tommy said.
There were stories in the underground papers about young men, who still had some will and human strength that could take the shock and get all the way through a piece of their own ass. They were dehumanized in public, as it registered on the remote and the signal was simultaneously transmitted to the sensors on each block, and the offender's name and numbers were displayed on all of the billbones across the city. The ones who could and were able to withstand revocation of the rest of their civil rights were silently admired by the rest of the lower class. Tommy jogged on.
One day, maybe. One day and he would have things his way. When he got the biggest job, the respect, and the power, she would be at his feet. No...she would be waiting in line at his feet. But for now, things were far out of his control and the only thing to do was to wait, and hope, and not destroy the only chance he had. Tommy watched Mr. Gardener jog around his house, and made sure to wave at him on every pass between the drive ways. He picked up a Frisbee off of the driveway and tossed it to Mr. Gardener on the next lap. Mr. Gardener tossed it back on the pass after that. Other men were jogging around their own small pieces of home, restricted from the roads and public areas after dark. This came about when rape became extensive.
Tommy stopped in the front yard and looked in the window. Jane was stuffing another cookie in her mouth and rocked her head back at what was presumably another funny joke from Dave Letterman. Dave, as man of the year, was one of the few in society who
was still allowed to speak his mind as long as he stayed within the strict guidelines provided him by the NWC. Jane answered the phone by the couch, and began to delve into exultant conversation. She looked as happy as a woman on a commercial for the 'Bead Pleaser'. Tommy silently seethed and hated his life for the way it was. It was all fine when the Promise was still real, but like any other declaration, technology and change eventually eliminated the need for compromise. The dildo factories, where Tommy and most of the other men worked, were constantly expanding and in need of labor. This gave a boost to the economy and, as the NWC upheld, the economy was never in so great a shape when the men were in control. Miss President Marsha McClintock was rising in popularity as a president never had. That whore.
A NWC patrol car drove slowly past Tommy's house, and he began jogging again to avoid causing suspicion. He ran for another fifteen minutes and finally stopped, catching the Frisbee, and sat down on a lawn chair. Mr. Gardener stopped to see what the trouble was with the Frisbee. He needed it too.
"Tommy. Pal, what's the trouble?" asked Gardener.
"I can't take it anymore Larry. I'm really beginning to see what's happening to us. Don't you see? I'm loosing it man...I'm really fucking loosing it." replied Tommy.
"It's not so bad. I hardly have to think anymore. I'm in great shape, and hell...I got a piece of ass just three months ago. Best three minutes I've ever had I
think...hey...wait a minute," Gardener paused in thought and scratched his chin. He had a rod as usual.
"I think I'm going to do it tonight," said Tommy.
"Yeah! is she gonna' let you?"
"No, of course not. I mean finish the game. You know?"
"No...I don't," Larry admitted.
"I'm going to join the apathetic. I'm going to cut it off and be done with this fucking bullshit. Hell...I was thinking about it before we got into this mess anyway!"
"Don't do it man! How do you think you'll feel when you can't get it up anymore? Ass is the only thing most of us live for!"
"But we don't get any anymore you asshole!"
"Next thing you know you'll be painting pictures of flowers and writing horrible poetry like that fag Chekov down the street!" Larry shouted in excitement.
"I'll probably love it. No more running, no more blueballs, no more laying awake all night dreaming about pussy. Maybe I'll join one of the communes in the desert in Arizona and eat cactus buds and practice telepathy. Who knows?" Tommy looked at the stars in contemplation.
After a while Gardener said, "O.k. man, but I'll miss tossing the biscuit with you out here. Lucy said I could have some next week if I got promoted and a 45% raise at
work." Gardener jogged off around the far corner of his house and followed the well worn rut in the ground.
Tommy stood, shaking a bit in revelation, and opened the side door to the garage. He left the light off to avoid detection and worked by the incandescence of the mercury flood outside. Inside, he looked at the lawn tools and junk collected at its perimeter. There were his old golf clubs. The mice nested there now. He gazed over the lawn tools and the remote Black & Decker generator he bought and never used. It was not that long ago that Tommy slipped through afternoons unnoticed, lost to everyone in this garage. Tommy selected a pair of well oiled hedge clipping shears and stood in front of the new Lexus by the garage door. He stared out at the ugly hell world, where ignorance and irrationality ruled. Maybe God was a woman.
The night time was strangely soothing, and Tommy watched the ridiculous men run around their houses while adrenaline and natural endomorphines took over his body. This is where he ceased to be one of them. This was the final ballet with the tools of love. Then in a moment of glory, Tommy ripped down his shorts, placed the shears, closed his eyes and gave them a good snap. He wasn't thinking very much about anything.
He cried out in pain and blood spurted on the inside of the garage door and behind him on the hood of the white car. Jane would be pissed. He took off his shirt and applied it to the wound to begin the long process of healing. The remote sensors had detected the detachment and already he could hear the sirens. Tommy laughed a sick laugh, somewhat in relief, somewhat in victory, and one part sadness. He sank to the floor dizzy in contemplatance of what he had just done. He noticed that he didn't feel any different, didn't feel like singing or playing a harp, as Jane ran out of the house. He heard the squad cars pull into the driveway. Tommy looked down at his dick laying quietly in its innocence on the sealed concrete by the eerie whitish-blue light of the lamp.
"I'm sorry scrubby...I know it isn't your fault...but we all have to make sacrifice in times of war," he apologized tenderly. He picked up the little dicky and wrapped it in his blood soaked T-shirt.
It was then that his face flashed hot in the dreaded hell of realization. The realization that he was now deformed for real, and life would be dramatically different, for better or worse, that he would no longer pee standing up, and that he had cut off the wrong part. He cried out in anguish and began to sob loud and pitifully. That's were Tommy lost himself.
When they came in the garage, his head was bobbing madly, one finger was in his ear, and he had taken off one shoe and removed the two-year old oder-eater, and was
feverishly sucking on it. The NWC police took the oder-eater away from him, though he fought like Linus, and dragged him by his elbows outside to the car. Tommy's head bobbed like an extra dumb pigeon, and he still had the finger in his ear. Then, for the first time in 22 years, he put it in his mouth.
Ugly against the sky
I wait below the fire for blades like your eyes
and this love that I practice is for you...
a young girl sits on a bench with a pale blue hat
she doesn't look up, keeps a hand over her eyes
she is crying
I cross the street, being careful of the cracks
and stop sad under a sick tree and watch her
in pieces between the droning cars and trucks
watch people walk by her, she never looks up
feels no shame, and
I wonder what terrible thing happened to her
it is beginning to rain and the wind is picking up
I wait below the fire for blades like your eyes
and this love that I practice is for you...
The men build the bombs and the woman say
no--
no to more than just the bombs
the insane wander the streets under moonlight meant
for a king to own and they feel it and hide in dark
stairways outside of dark bars next to dark
piles of garbage...waiting for pickup
please wash the light streaming in through the
dirty window, into my chipped slate eyes
and give me your hand from the other side of the fire
I wait below the fire for blades like your eyes
and this love that I practice is for you...
A man walks by me on Boylston street
I have seen him make a girl at a bank cry with
his harshness
he is silver and green and has a telescopic piece on
his glasses
he carries a white cane and I hated him then
a year later I saw the same man in a dollar store buying
25 boxes of crayons and explaining to a girl that
he
was an elementary school teacher and she would be
surprised at what the school could and would not
afford
I wait below the fire for blades like your eyes
and this love that I practice is for you
I move on and the wind picks up
the rain comes down in sheets of blue glass and I
remember that a wise man once told me that you
can only get so wet...and I
can no longer see where I am going
I think of the crying girl and the love she must have
lost
few other things make one care less about anything else
and I think of the school teacher, and the love he must have eventually
found
Now I sit in this dirty room
and for the first time I realize that I no longer know
who you are
being alone is only hard when I think that my first love
we found together
and the wind blows the
rain in my face and it streams down and I reach up
and cover my own eyes
frustration, conversation, and the moment in time
And Bobby panted,
"Up and down, up and down, up and down,
isn't there anything more to this that I should be
thinking about."
"No, your train of thought is exactly
where it should be. This gives life, and
takes it too. What more are you looking
for?"
"It seems...due to the esoteric nature
of the things I hold real, that of my own
volition I would choose something not
so facile, to represent the possible greatest
want of all season."
"You do just fine, I think you think too
much and have difficulty enjoying the
simple pleasures of life like you should.
Put a latch on it, and have a good time."
"But..." pant, breeeath..."I can only do this
for a part of my life. Simple things are easy
when the good things are free. What if I build
on it and am left with nothing for the last
half?"
"I am the last half, you don't know me
now. You don't appreciate what I
can be. You may, you will, you just
don't. Speed up."
"When it's over, I can't imagine why
I started. I don't feel the same. It
only takes a slight moment in time
to kill me."
"Think about the long run, even the short.
You will feel it again and again. The feeling
you have is a lie. I will never lie to
you."
"Sometimes it seems to be an exercise
of some sort...I don't like to exercise. I sit
and I drink, and I think, and I hate and love
with equal violence."
"Lay next to me and feel my warmth,
move slowly and carefully if you know
what's good for you. You love me,
don't stop."
"I don't know if I like this all of the
time. Few things make me think about what is
and what I can accomplish with them. I feel a
disadvantage happening that I will be sorry for."
"Oh hell, get off me you prick!"
I stayed up with her till 4 am
watching the pink sky blanket
the sleeping city
in May
Lightning
whole and fast
taking first one picture of us
through the window, then
another
my eyes were closed
She asked what was on my mind
and I said "I'm wondering if it would make
a difference if I took a cab home tonight
or at six in the morning--how about you"
br>
"I was wondering what I mean to you and if
it bothers you that I live with Lex, him being
a homo and all...just silly girl stuff..." she said
"Yeah,...that is girl stuff...
I don't mind that you live with Lex"
I worked and worked at her sober
and she kept me going
and thought I might have a chance at
breaking a ten month dry spell
in this place of uncrossed memories
under a pink sky at night
in May
She kept me up till four, and I left at
six for work, and she didn't fuck me
and neither did I
or maybe I did
What ever happened to the easy women
the whores, so kind and understanding
slight of hip and easy to tell
'I love you' to?
I lay there in the dark, staring out the window
at the pink sky and the lightning and
hearing the rain- thinking through the silence
I can't hear it when it
rains at my place--I can hear her thinking
similar things next to me
thinking, thinking--God oh God...
...this poor girl
she wants to make me
love her
first...
Victoria
Her brother and I had been childhood
friends, till I was thirteen and they moved
away
I called him up in Allentown, PA
and she answered the phone
she said she was now twenty four
and quite beautiful
I believe it
I hadn't seen her for ten years and
she was fourteen then
she said she'd been through some hard
times
an engagement broken off in Colorado
wrecking her life in one way and
another
I tried to tell her that she was just another
one, dead in the gravy pot on Thanksgiving
and one has only to loose
a single war to become a part
of history
and she said that she had only lost
a battle--and not the
war
Well...Victoria...you made me feel
fucking weird
talking to you through the wires
I knew you as a bothersom younger sister
and you sounded like a goddess
tonight
but don't ever resign yourself to
fighting battles
always fight the war
just hope that when you're
70
you can say you won
one
out of
three
Violet
There is a young girl with a black fur cap and a green muff riding a pony somewhere next to a frozen pond. It is three days till Christmas and there are roasted nuts and warm bricks awaiting her feet by a fire. The pony slips on the banks of the creek and runs from the wolf's dark eyes below the water. The girl is unaware of most things happening around her and ponders nothing but doll houses and warm strong hands. Will she grow up like her mother? Will she always have a place to sleep? Will her father and brother protect and love her? Will she laugh on the steps of the church on Sunday? Or will she learn to explain absenteeism, and the reasons she doesn't talk? Will she hide the things she holds precious and give up her virtue because it is her only strength? Will she run away from her friends?
The light is growing bright on the icy horizon and the pony knows the way home. On the trail it falls to its knees in a dark woven hole once again and struggles, unable to get up. The girl falls and rises in the briars next to the trail and struggles to free herself and her pony, both wide eyed with terror. Strong hands can be cold and more dangerous than good. She falls again to her knees while crying, knowing that she will get home late for supper and have to lie to explaine the marks on her face. "Don't cry baby, it will be ok."
She pulls down her dress, ripped and snagged on the claw black thorns and chases after her pony, sobbing. It is snowing like in a fairy tale and she follows the trail and the large footprints coming toward her.
Home again, she lets the pony in the barn, he is unharmed and doesn't understand the terror that they feel together. He is a helpless guardian in a story of love, and torn by fraying rope and stupidity. He knickers softly and reminds her of the drop of blood at the corner of her mouth, and wipes it away with a gentle nudge, sending her into the orange glowing house until the sun rises tomorrow and the humans go to work.
"Honey, where have you been? Your dress is torn again. Are you ok? Your father is still out looking for you."
"I'm ok, I fell off my pony." She was only 11 years old.
D.A. NASH WROTE MANY MORE STORIES. None of these are posted here yet (nor will most likely ever be.)
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