PUG HATES HIS NAKEDNESS

reviling the mirror perversion, mercury blasphemy, this stain, this ache, this blot on his soul. Pug is true to his stigma—chases those parked cars, bashes his fool nose in---pokes, heaves. Pug huffs and crawls, humps cruel linoleum. Climbs, laughing, cursing his forsaken flab, his opaque, his fishwhite. Mounts porcelain face first, groans, retches---cascade of resentment and broken expectations. Purulent dream. Shuddering. Pug natters, ugly powdered hailstones, pelted with psychic pains, learns no lessons, hands over his head, sputters, rattles. Blessed mess, immaculate decline.

Muscles grind, constrict and Pug bites at the strings of a liquid rainbow, vivid filth. Permanent stains in toilet, in sets color, decoration. Bitter bane, gastric walls of acrid colors...shit tube wells in revulsion, forever a graffiti salad. Pug heaves, pulls remnants of spew away from his flat, unrequited face—Pug pelts off-sterile white from his drudgery and existential bathroom woe. Throws darts at his own eyes---conjures thorns for your braincake.

Hitting the floor with a meaty pug thud, Pug whispers curses to his dull, limp pallor, throws hatred and disdain toward his genitalia dangling sorry—exercise in vile science Pug cools forehead on cold appliance---fever broken reverie, indulgence suicide. Pug hates full-on, jealousy smashes bugs in multitudes----

Copyright 1991 C.F. Roberts, 2019 Molotov Editions


THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:
THE GUN CLUB-Mother Juno
SWANS-Leaving Meaning
KING CRIMSON-Larks' Tongues in Aspic

THE WINDSHIELD OF A MOVING CAR IS HARD, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU DROP ON TOP OF IT FROM THIRTY FEET

Okay, so, note: I said I was going to do this thing over a year ago. It was the most outrageously stupid idea for a short story imaginable.......if you knew me back then you'll remember the quote: "I'm going to write a story about a guy who legally changes his name to Howard the Duck. And I'm going to make it good. And I'm going to get it published."

        And I did, too. Here ya go. 

Howard the Duck stumbles through the intersection of North Street and Mission Boulevard. He coughs. The light changes halfway through his crossing, because the light, the confounded crossing sign, is never up long enough for anyone trying to cross the street. He coughs again, almost trips, and cars begin honking. He finally makes it across and the stream of traffic headed up Mission Boulevard continues on its way. A van full of kids in baseball caps is one of the vehicles that rolls past him. As it goes by, the door slides open and one of the kids leans out bodily. The kid yells, “hey, buddy! Fuck you!!!!”

It sounds, probably due to the wind, the general street ambiance and what have you, as though the kid yelled “puck you.” or maybe “buck you,” but Howard the Duck gets the point.

He doubles over and lets loose a loud, hacking cough and then he tries to flip the kid the bird. The door has closed back up and the van is now safely in the distance, well past his revenge.

Most of the suffering in the world is created by kids wearing baseball caps, Howard the Duck thinks. He looks down at the base of his hand and notices a wad of blood. Goddammit, He thinks, and tries to wipe it off on his jacket. He keeps walking.

Howard the Duck has problems. First and foremost, he has Tuberculosis. He is dying. He's also a pedestrian, which only belabors the point.

There are other problems, though, that only create greater impact in his life.

A. Howard the Duck has a price on his head. He is almost sure of it.

B. He is a walking copyright infringement. And he must allow that this is not an accident of birth but a choice he made, a moral stand that has had ramifications in his life.

100. Nobody understands him----not his girlfriend, or the guys at work....not even his best friend.

All of which brings him back to his primary goal. He's walking to McDonald's. He's going to meet his friend Spider-Man, to tell him he disapproves of his lifestyle choices.

Howard the Duck shakes his head. Skippy, he corrects himself, not Spider-Man. I refuse to call

him Spider-Man.

Skippy does not understand the weight and the stress of being a walking copyright infringement. Skippy is young, of course, and only sees the glitz and glamour of naming yourself after your favorite character. Howard the Duck realizes all of this and hopes to make Skippy aware of some of the pitfalls he has to live with.

He hears a shout back toward the intersection. He half-turns. He's always looking over his shoulder these days, because he knows Marvel Comics are following him and he is sure that they mean to kill him.

Nothing. This time.

Besides, he thinks, changing your name legally to “Spider-Man” is stupid. Spider-Man is a popular character consumed by the masses for no good reason and to no good end. There is nothing special, risky or meaningful about such a move.

Changing one's name legally to “Howard the Duck” is a bold and deeply personal move that invites hardship and misunderstanding.

A. Few if any people hear “Howard the Duck” and think of Steve Gerber's brilliant, existential satirical comic. They usually think of the horrid '80s movie if they think of anything.

B. There is nothing fun or glamorous about filling out paperwork and signing it as “Howard the Duck”. Try renting an apartment that way. Buying a car. Shit, try VOTING.

100. And again, the afformentioned understanding that you are a marked man, your days are numbered and Marvel Comics are trying to kill you. And in the case of Howard the Duck, it's just an arrogant grab for intellectual property. There's not even a goddamned profit motive.

He will set Skippy straight on this and more, if it's the last thing he does. And it might be.

His real last given name is “Vlierboom”. He hates it. The guys at the factory simply call him “Boom”, which he's fine with. They can't pronounce “Vlierboom”. Past the bosses who hand him his paycheck and the personnel department who he had to clear the change with he has no desire to share this with his co-workers for all the obvious reasons. He doesn't need any of the wise guys pointing out that he is not actually a duck. He knows that.

It's a point that Jessie, his girlfriend, makes frequently. “I'd be happy to meet you in the middle and call you 'Howard the Man',” she tells him. “I mean, you are a man, you know.”

“That's not the point,” he retorts, “I'm trapped in a world I never made. I literally am that character.”

“You're making a world you never made by calling yourself a duck,” she says. She always falls back on that one and he thinks it's all beside the point but then they smoke up another big fatty, he hacks up a lung and she starts talking to him about how he needs to see a doctor. So nothing is really ever solved in this circular exchange.

It might be a problem of the therapist in question. Jessie says she's a playwrite, although she's never written a play in the whole time he's known her.

Howard the Duck busts his hump for a couple of miles before finally reaching the big intersection and heading to McDonald's on the other side of the street. He winds himself getting across the intersection but makes it in good time. He crumples up by the light post. “Uh-hriiiii-hriiiii-hriiiiii-hriiii,” he coughs.

To get to McDonald's from the corner he has to hike up a steep hill and cross a couple of different parking lots. He thinks that motorists don't know the painstaking difficulty required in going everywhere on foot----needing to walk miles for a futile meeting at McDonalds because your best friend has made a stupid life decision. Of course, the whole process only exacerbates the coughing. He

tries to apply some thought to this. Spider-Man. Why Spider-Man? And for the love of God, how the hell did Skippy slip that one past Judge Dunn?

Judge Dunn hates legal name changes. Jessie had actually told him this back when he first decided to change his name to Howard the Duck. She had a friend, she said, named April Morgan, who decided, for religious reasons, that she wanted to change her name to Purple Vanguard Trixie Diatribe 6. Yes, the number six, that was her last name. Judge Dunn grudgingly gave it to her but not before forcing her to give a long, detailed explanation as to why she wanted the name change and what it meant.

“Later on, like a year later,” Jessie told him, “she thought maybe her choice went a little far and she was having trouble getting jobs...she went back and got it shortened to just 'Trixie Diatribe', and the Judge yelled at her about how much of a burden she was putting on taxpayers. She gave her the name change but told her she didn't ever want to see her in her court again.”

Howard the Duck encountered similar wrath. He explained to the judge that he wanted the name change because he was trapped in a world he'd never made. She told him that such frivolous petitions like his were putting state taxpayers into a world they'd never made, but she grudgingly granted him the name change.

He does not know Trixie Diatribe.

After a herculean hike (and another good, hard cough), Howard the Duck finally makes McDonald's. Skippy is sitting in the booth closest to the exit. He's sipping on a shake. “Took ya long enough,” says Skippy.

“You know how far I had to walk,” rasps Howard the Duck, and this causes him to lurch into another coughing fit.

“You oughtta take a Riccola,” Skippy adds. Howard the Duck stops and regards Skippy's hairy moonface, peering at him guilelessly from underneath a mop of greasy, brown hair. He stops short of ripping him a new one.

“You eating, smart guy?”

Skippy looks down at his shake and then looks back up. “Nah, I'm good. Been waiting for you. For a while.” He holds up his wristwatch for emphasis.

“Alright, well, I've had a long walk, so I'm getting something.” Skippy nods agreeably and Howard the Duck gets in line.

His McDonald's order looks like this:

A. Quarter Pounder, no cheese.

B. 10-piece McNuggets.

100. Sweet-and-Sour Sauce.
     D. Hot Mustard Sauce
     E. Large Fries.
     F. Medium Diet Coke.

Howard the Duck does not drink Diet Coke because he believes it will make him thin. He drinks Diet Coke because regular coke drinks are too sugary for him.

Upon receiving his order he sits down with Skippy at the booth by the exit.

“Skippy,” he says, and then, seeing Skippy frown, he corrects himself. “Sorry....'Spider-Man'.” Skippy's face softens slightly---apology expected.

“Been missing you at Munchkin, dude,” Skippy says, glazing over the faux pas. “Where ya been?”

“Sick,” says Howard the Duck, coughing again.

“Yeah, no shit,” remarks Skippy. “You oughtta take something for that.”

“I have TB,” Howard the Duck grunts.

Skippy takes another sip off his shake. “Sucks,” he says.

“Yeah,” Howard the Duck says. He tears into the burger and begins coughing again. This time it seems like the ketchup is setting it off, but everything sets it off. The cold air. The car exhaust. The food. You name it.

“Damn, dude,” Skippy says again.

“I'm dying,” says Howard the Duck.

“I guess,” Skippy muses.

“You're a goddamned idiot,” says Howard the Duck.

“What do you mean?”

“First and foremost, you don't listen to anything anyone tells you. That's just for starters.”

“Huh?! Dude, I have absolutely no idea what you mean!”

“I bet you don't, but that's just for starters!”

“What the hell, pal???? We haven't seen you for weeks at Munchkin.....months, maybe----and then you're all yellin' and attackin' and callin' names?”

Howard the Duck regards Skippy with a hard look and several vignettes go through his head:

A. Impalement

B. Castration

100. Waterboarding, however hot, hip and trendy that may come off.

All of the above scenarios are accompanied by happy whistling music. There are a multitude of grievances at work in his head right now, but he puts them all aside in favor of one, which in his mind represents everything.

“Spider-Man,” he sighs.

Skippy smiles. “That's my name, don't wear it out!”

“Are you on crack, you fuckin' moron?! Seriously, are you sure your parents weren't related? Answer that for me, will ya?”

“Dude!”

“Don't 'Dude' me again, okay, ya mongoloid? Just what the fuck is wrong with you???”

“What do you mean??? Dude, what's up your ass????”

“Okay, so first off, I have to know, how hard did Judge Dunn jump down your throat when you told her you wanted to change your name to Spider-Man?!”

“Not at all! Man, she was a stand-up Judge!”

“Yeah, I'll bet she was.”

“Listen, just because she was a cooze to you doesn't mean she didn't learn something and lighten the hell up, man.....”

“Yeah? Yeah? What, exactly, do you figure she learned, huh?”

Skippy stammers for a few seconds and licks his lips. “Ah, maybe she got more tolerant of other peoples' individuality? And maybe you could re-learn some of that?”

“Oh, really? And whose individuality did she get more tolerant of? Explain that to me, will ya?”

“People like US, dude!!!! People who have their own ideas! People who don't march to everyone else's drummer, you know?”

“People like us,” crabs Howard the Duck, half under his breath. “Explain to me, exactly, how calling yourself 'Spider Man' helps you assert your individuality.”

“Well,” says Spider-Man, look a little nonplussed, “you know!” He gestures frantically to Howard, as if that should speak for itself.

“No,” Howard the Duck smiles. “I don't. How about you explain it to me?”

Spider-Man now has a look of concern and frustration on his moonface. It reads a mix of “you should understand this already, dude,” coupled with a dash of “I thought you were my friend”.

“You know....being the Hero. Being your OWN hero! What you always tried to tell me!”

Howard the Duck is not placated. “I don't remember ever telling you that.”

“Well, not in so many words....”

“It's my moral obligation to call you on your shit, genius,” Howard the Duck sneers. “I'm dying, do you understand that? I'm DYING. And on top of that my life is shit. Marvel Comics are coming to kill me. And if they're coming to kill me, you'd better believe they're coming to kill you! Do you have any clue as to the can of worms you've popped upon yourself?”

Skippy cocks his head, not unlike one of those pug dogs who doesn't understand what it's being told by its owners. “No one's going to kill you, my friend! How could you think something like that?!”

“Fuck you!” Howard the Duck says though gritted teeth. The dumpy employee cleaning tables across the way stares their way and it's over. Howard the Duck knows he's been made. “Calling yourself 'Spider-Man'-----what kinds of sacrifices does that really require you to make? How much harder has it made your life? Do you have any idea of the cliff you're headed for???”

Again, the quizzical expression. “What are you talking about? You're starting to worry me, bro!”

“Why 'Spider-Man'?!” Howard the Duck is trying his damndest not to scream in Skippy's face right there in the restaurant now. “Justify that to me, will you please? Why the hell was it such a big deal for you to call yourself 'Spider-Man'? What made you think that was such a good idea?”

Skippy stammers, “it's just my own personal choice!” He waits expectantly, as if that should be a satisfactory response.

“I get that part. What the hell is so great about Spider-Man to where you're going to change your name to that?”

Skippy looks agog as if to say, how can you even ask that? “Dude! What's so great about Spider-Man? What's so great about Howard the Duck? So, see how easy that is?”

“You're avoiding the question! What the fuck does goddamn Spider-Man say about you?”

Skippy looks contemplative for the first time ever and he chews into his answer with some level of deliberation. “Well,” he says, as if thinking about it for the first time ever, “Spider-Man is cool.”

Howard the Duck fights back a scream. “Please continue.”

Skippy searches for the words. “Spider-Man is a badass. And by taking the name I become a badass!” He smiles hopefully.

“Kill me,” groans Howard the Duck. He lets loose a frail, spluttering cough.

Now Skippy goes on the offensive. “Listen, where do you get off? I made a personal choice that's very important to me. Spider-Man is cool, everyone knows that! What the hell's so great about calling yourself Howard the Duck?! I saw that movie when I was a kid----it sucked ass!”

Howard the Duck affixes a dead stare on Skippy.

“Yeah, you heard me,” Skippy says, more emboldened. “I saw that movie. Howard the Duck sucks ass. So don't go trying to judge me!”

Howard the Duck gets up out of his seat. He suffers an explosive coughing fit.

“That's right, buddy,” grins Skippy. “So how do you like it?” Howard the Duck hobbles out the door, hacking uncontrollably.

With great difficulty, he makes it across the parking lot and into the woods out in back of the shopping plaza. He finds a treestump in a clearing and rolls himself a cigarette. He smokes and coughs and smokes and coughs and then he just sits there for several hours, thinking and yet trying not to think because thinking hurts too much.

It's getting dark. He's wasted his entire day on this worthless errand. He hobbles at least a mile to the Gas Mart. There's at least one good reason to stop there---they've got one of the few still-functioning payphones----hell, maybe the very last----in town.

He sees that it's fifty cents per call and he wistfully remembers back when a dime was required.

He stops for a second and remembers when there were payphones.

Howard the Duck doesn't have a cell phone. He dislikes and distrusts them. He had a little flip phone at one point---he got rid of it because it was problematic and everyone was looking at him as if they thought he was a drug dealer.

He dials up Jessie. “I need to see you,” he wheezes

“That's cool,” she says, her aloof, baked tones coming across the phone line. “Dude, this is amazing---I have to show you!”

“What?” Howard the Duck is irritated. His head's still back in McDonald's with Skippy, who legally changed his name because he thought it would be cool.

Spider-Man, he corrects himself.

Jessie disrupts his personal hell. “I'm back! I'm done! I wrote a musical! A whole musical! It's finished!”

Howard the Duck is not in the headspace for this. “What?”

“I wrote a musical-----big, broadway, all the bells and whistles-----I wrote a musical based on WATERSHIP DOWN!”

It's as if someone hit him in the face with a brick. “WATERSHIP DOWN???”

“Omigod, babe, it's so amazing....I feel like it came out of me through some other force----this is going to change everything!”

“Hold on, back it up a sec. WATERSHIP DOWN, that's a book about rabbits, isn't it?”

“No! It's an allegory----it's an epic and an exodus about people who leave their homeland and fight to make a new existence.....”

“Epic and an exodus, Jessie----are the characters in the story or are they not rabbits?”

“I....they are but they're not,” long silence. “Dude, you're really harshing my buzz, okay? Come over----I'll play you the songs. They'll make you believe, just like the world is going to believe!”

A harsh wheeze turns into another coughing jag. He manages to eke out “I'm dying,” into the phone.

“God, there you go being negative again! Come to my place! I'm going to play you my songs and....”

“I saw Skippy. He changed his name to Spider-Man.”

“Wow. That's crazy.”

“He doesn't even know. He doesn't even know.....”

“Howard, you need to stop, okay? It's a little weird, just like changing your name to 'The Duck' is a little weird, but it's fine! That's his choice!”

“No, but his reasoning, Christ, it's so dumb! “

“Boy, there's the pot calling the kettle black! Dude! Drop all your crazy no-hope and come hear all the songs. And quit worrying!”

“ 'Kay,” he grumbles. “I'll be over soon.”

“ 'Bout time! Love you!” She coos.

“Yeah,” he grumps and hangs up the phone. He ambles past the front window of the Gas Mart and sees that there's a comic rack in there.....understocked and lonely, but goddammit, it's an According-to-Hoyle comic book rack. A twentyish, unkempt, long haired kid is loitering by it, thumbing through a dog-eared Archie comic.

The kid looks up and stares through the window at him, as does the fat clerk with the muttonchop sideburns behind the counter.

Payphones. Comic book racks. There's something not right about this place....these people. Time to leave.

He worries that they might all be agents of Marvel Comics, sent to watch him. Or apprehend.

He walks along the dark road and hits the trailer park where Jessie lives by eight thirty in the evening. Several things happen:

A. Jessie plugs in her Casio synth and plays Howard the Duck all the songs from her WATERSHIP DOWN musical, in sequence. She talks about how she wants all the actors to wear hats with bunny ears and she shows him some of her choreography ideas.

B. Howard the Duck goes out to the tiny kitchenette, grabs a steak knife and stabs Jessie forty times.

100. He lights a number of glass-encased Catholic saint candles around the house and places them all around the gas stove.

500. He opens up all the gas valves on the stove and heads out.

E. He begins the arduous hike back to his own place. He never gets there. He's found dead by the side of the road the next morning. The eventual autopsy report mentions exposure and exhaustion. And Tuberculosis.

News of the oddball murder/death makes the rounds on all the local news affiliates, everyone has a good laugh over the whole thing and it is quickly forgotten. He is consistently referred to in the reports as “Howard Vlierboom” instead of his legal name, but everyone takes a moment out to laugh over his given name. No mention is ever made of his obsession with an arcane cult comic book character.

Skippy is overcome with grief because of the death of his friend.

A. He belly flops off the overpass on Exit 76 one Saturday morning.

B. He goes straight through the windshield of a Mini-Cooper, accidentally killing a family of four who were visiting from Oregon.

100. Several state highway workers are wounded in the wreck.

The entire region is shocked and saddened by Skippy's death. Roadside tributes are erected in his honor. His sister tearfully tells the local media that he had been very despondent over the last several weeks. She describes him as “an old soul” and says that he loved comic book heroes like Spider-Man.

Spider-Man ephemera pops up along with the usual bouquets and crosses along the spot where Skippy ended his life. Years go by but sad and haunting stories are handed down and exchanged for decades to follow, regarding the tragic story of The Spider-Man of Exit 76.

Copyright 2018 C.F. Roberts, published in UNLIKELY STORIES MARK V. Copyright 2019 Molotov Editions


THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:

ALICE DONUT-Pure Acid Park
WAYNE SHORTER-Juju
SWANS-The Seer
SWANS-To Be Kind
VIC BONDI/ARTICLES OF FAITH-Fortunate Son EP

ENTRY

The story here was "Second Coming" Copyright 1993 C.F. Roberts, 2019 Molotov Editions. Comic by William Landsburg, published in DIMINISHED RESPONSIBILITY, 1994.
As I'm going through a lot of old writings trying to pull things together for collections this one is tentatively falling into the "near miss" category. Maybe that'll change, I don't know. Originally run in mine & Alfred Vitale's maxi-chap, "Fairy Tales from the Urban Holocaust", it was picked up, shortly thereafter, by this William Landsburg cat who wanted to run it in his zine, DIMINISHED RESPONSIBILITY, as a comic. It kind of bears the whole standard Rhett and Link query, "will it comic?" Apparently so, much to my surprise. I like it. My favorite part is on the last page, where the mob attack Jesus and he goes into a karate pose. It cracks me up that the one guy jumping him looks like some kind of mutant potato monster. Nice that some dude thought enough of my story to turn it into a comic. The overall tone of the zine is very anti-religion....Landsburg asked me if I was a big atheist---I told him not necessarily, I just disliked organized religion. Still do, obviously.
      The genesis of the story for me happened at some point in the late 60s or early 70s when my Dad and I were in a car one night and I heard a newscast on the radio telling a story about some guy entering a church during a service and smashing up statuary and causing a ruckus, claiming he was Jesus Christ. Obviously the story stuck with me.
        The ending ties directly into my from-the-ground-up mess of a forthcoming novel, HOME. So I guess at some point you're going to see "Mr. Jesus" turn up at the asylum. What happens after that, God knows. But I guess I ought not dismiss it out-of-hand. Anyway, for now, there it is, "Second Coming".
THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST: 
THE CLASH-Clash on Broadway
THE BUTTHOLE SURFERS-Independent Worm Saloon
HEAVY MEAT-(comp, various artists)

OLD MAN DELPRETE

Another chunk of the “Brookdale Mythos” or “Brookdale Cycle”, here....this one is more or less a kind of “Prequel” to my novel, HELLO, UGLY, taking place in the '60's. Old Man Delprete is kind of a peripheral “character” in the book in that the teenagers who are the main characters bust into what, according to urban legend, is an old, abandoned “murder house”, wherein they find sheets over a lot of the old furniture and they party, socialize, wear the sheets and run around acting like ghosts....they drink a toast to Old Man Delprete, the historic murderer the urban legends are all based around.

This is Old Man Delprete's story.

In the act of compiling short stories for two collections I've decided to drop this one from the list (so I'm putting it here). Reason one is that whenever I revise HELLO I'm probably dropping the section in the Delprete House...it's excessive and heavy-handed and I don't think it adds anything of substance to the story. So “OMD” ends up with less of a context. I also have my doubts as to how well the story, as a whole, “works”...kind of overwritten, and I'm not too sure the multipart, multivoice structure functions well, particularly the kind of dark folk ballad sections---you could tell I was listening to a lot of Nick Cave at the time. Does it work? You tell me....

Nothing earth-shattering went into the guts of this---a little Faulkner here, a little Bloch there, some Selby frosted over the top----the “cake” of it all is my interest in the case of John List, and if you don't know who he is, you should look him up. It's an interesting case and I'm not gonna say anything else.

Oh---yeah---because you can't take such things for granted these days, the “N” word gets used in this story. Sorry, I'm not taking it out. This character's entire motivation is his fear of all the change and social upheaval around him....that's the way he thinks and that's the word he uses. I'm not in the habit of self-censoring for the Politically Dainty, so rather than engage in mealy-mouthed apologetics

I'm doubling down. The word stays. I don't think I should have to lecture you lot like a goddamned grade school teacher but evidently these days you need to preface everything because everyone's like a goddamn child.

And get offa my lawn.

Anyway, enough ranting. Here's “Old Man Delprete”.

OLD MAN DELPRETE

I

Old Man Delprete sits with his wife and two sons in the basement sitting room he has constructed for them. He leans forward in his easy chair and scowls at the television set. His boy Liston once again failed to beat that uppity, loudmouthed commie nigger who'd claimed he was a Muslim rather than fight for his country. Disgrace, yes, a disgrace. And funny business, as far as he could see. That wasn't any kind of a punch. Dirty Italian Mafia Fixers, no doubt---anyone could see the Mafia were in cahoots with the Commies. They ran everything now----ran the U.S. Mail, ran all the shows in Atlantic City, for sure. Just as well, he figures. If this were the old days he'd have most likely gone down to Sully's and shot his mouth off. Old Man Delprete isn't much for going out these days---more content to stay home with the family and watch it all go to hell from the basement.

Still, it's a disgrace about Clay, or whatever it is he's going to call himself now, and he tells his wife so. No reply. No reply needed. She's smiling and she understands. He loves her so much. And the boys. Perfect young men.

Old Man Delprete sits back and reflects upon the ominous state of the world. Portent, he believes the word is. It's different from the old days. Can't tell who your neighbors are. Crime. Immorality. Widespread acceptance of Communism.

Where are our values going? Old Man Delprete asks himself this a lot.

But a man shouldn't dwell on the negatives, he supposes, but instead look on his fortune and thank the Lord for simple things. Home. Family. The things that have real meaning.

Old Man Delprete thinks this and smiles at his wife. He looks at her, closely. Something's wrong.

II

The obsidian cloud settle over the small town of Brookdale. Visitation of the evil and the madness O woe O day O woe to little Brookdale. The shadows clutch n drown poor little Brookdale.

The grass grow long an a monster keeps his little hell in Brookdale. The secret cloaked in a decayin paint on a quiet little street in Brookdale.

III

Old Man Delprete takes a walk over to his workbench and looks for the needed instruments---oh, he must heal his wife---the larger ones----no, he needs the finer ones.

A few minutes later he returns to the sitting room and heals his wife. Magic. The magic of love. He touches up her face, the perfect shade of red, replenishes her winning smile...

Much better.

IV

Mabel Watson put down her teacup. She thought about the friends she'd known all her life, those she'd grown up and gone to school with, how it seemed that all moved away a long time ago. No jobs in Brookdale. No life in Brookdale. Honey, thjis town just isn't going anywhere. It'll die where it is right now.

Even young Agnes had stopped coming over to play Rummy, like she used to.

Mabel's son and daughter said they wanted to move her into a rest home. They said they'd been worried about her.

Terrible. Locking her in a rest home.

She thought about looking for Irv out in the back yard and calling him in for lunch. Then she remembered that, of course, there was no point to that. Irv had been dead for at least five years.

Maybe ten.

Could you blame a girl for getting lonely? And now all this business with the rest home. Just look at the way all her old friends had moved away, as had her children---so long ago.

Even young Agnes had stopped coming over to play Rummy, like she used to.

V

Enter the Electric Man.

Christ, thinks the Electric Man stalking through tall grass headed round back the house to read the meter, don't these people ever mow the lawn?

Finally he finds the meter next to the window and takes the reading

Job done the Electric Man turns to go one stray bored eye peering casually in the basement window

Storefront display

What the----?

VI

Horror, freezing cold, digs deep into Old Man Delprete. It was there. He's sure, this time. Again. The phantom. The pervert. Peeping.

The face. The face in the window.

God almighty, a man and his family aren't safe in their own home anymore.

Old Man Delprete frowns, grimaces with iron resolve.

--I will not, he screams, will not lie down to the decay the immorality swallowing America---they can't do this to me!

Gun

VII

The Electric Man doubles over and weeps.

VIII

The children in the schoolyard loiter and talk.

--Yeah we went downa the cranberry bog yesterday tryin to catch some frogs. Didn't find any.

--Aw, man, the cranberry bog? Down by Delpretes?

--Yeah, An' what about it? Ain't nobody lives down there.

--I hear Old Man Delprete still lives down there.

--Oh he died years ago.

--You mean 'e's a ghost?

--Naw, I don't mean 'e's a ghost. Grow up, will ya? All I'm sayin' is there ain't no Old Man Delprete an' he's just dead, he ain't no boogeyman in his cave, stewin' kids, is all.

---That house is empty an' has been for years. Ain't no Old Man Delprete, he was just this old fart moved away a long time ago.

---Scary house, though.

--Pshaw!

IX

Old Man Delprete finds the pervert cowering by the side of the house. Grovelling. Drooling.

Aims, fires. Justice is dispensed.

X

The boys gather 'round Sully's after work for a few rounds of beer.

--Well, sighs Levesque, godda go back to the missus before she starts suspectin' . Round of laughter from the boys.

--Ah, Levesque, chuckles Thibodeau, ya Missus is in good hands. Another round of laughter. I gotcher Missus right here.

---Seeya. Hi to the wife. Etc.

More drinking. Talking. Reminiscing. The boys grow a little older and smile. They are the old boys of Brookdale. Pushin' for that pension. Every night work. Every day Sully's. They are comfortable. Waiting to die.

--Ah, says LaPierre, ain't the same. Alla good people, the ole folks, movin' outta town...

--Ain't what it used to be.

--Nope.

--Know what we could use around here? Asks Old Jean.

--Some life, cracks Thibodeau.

--We could use ole Delprete.

--Ah, go on.

--No, no! Hear me out!

--Get outta here. Delprete was a crazy old cuss.

--He was one of the boys! An' lemme tell you he had some life in him...

--All Delprete ever did was go on an' on about this'n'that'n'the world goin' to hell an' such.

--Here, here.

--Delprete was a bore. An' he only got worse after his taxidermy business went under. Went buggy. Good riddance.

--No, no! Says Old Jean. Ain't nobody could replace Delprete...ya may have disagreed with his grumpy ass on the time of day, but you remember every conversation you ever had with him, yeah?

--Can ya believe this?!

--Ain't nobody could replace Delprete, nobody. Look at alla you, ya deadasses, you go from here to there an' back again. Whaddya do, huh? Whaddya do? Delprete, he was a character....

---Ah, go on....

XI

Old Man Delprete manages to weigh down the Electric Man using cinderblocks from the cellar. The cranberry bog sucks him down.

XII

A hole opened up where a life once was, and a name, a tiny world, is blotted out in Brookdale.

Ravens in heir solemn ritual pace dropping roses down 'round Brookdale's shame....

XIII

Legend.

The children for generations will ring their laughing, dancing plague circles round, chant the grisly legend of Old Man Delprete.

The stories vary. The number of victims shift. The misdeeds grow and distort and intensify in Legend.

XIV

Old Man Delprete sits and beams at his fine family. Agnes smiling, starry-eyed. The boys now perfect young men. Steadfast. Tall.

When things get too much, one must fight. There are very few things in this world that are of lasting importance. A man must defend and protect those that matter. Nothing must come between a man and his home, his family.

Sometimes, one has to make the hard decisions. One must sacrifice. Sometimes harsh measures must be followed in order to teach those who might make wrong turns, so that they might eventually pursue the right course. He has no doubt about that now.

Old Man Delprete frowns thoughtfully. He figures he ought to tend to the lawn.

Maybe later. It seems to be one of those things he always puts off. Maybe later.

Thooming raps on the front door upstairs. Damned IRS. Best to just ignore it.

XV

cranes in the cranberry bog. The yellow line. Brookdale opens its eyes and screams at its face takes up the mask nails it to its face in terror, never to remove it again.

Smash the mirror, little Brookdale.

XVI

In the tiny room Old Man Delprete sits frail in the wooden chair and he smiles a nervous smile. A parade of men walk in and out.

It all frightens him a little bit.

He asks when he might be allowed to go back to his family.

XVII

A tiny, hunched and humble man crosses the threshold on a gray horizon and shuffles into myth.

copyright 1992 C.F. Roberts,

2019 Molotov Editions

“Old Man Delprete” was picked up and run by a zine out of Maine called GOTHICA. Don't know what ever became of it----the editor, who's apparently one more person from back then who just dropped off the face of the earth, ran a couple of things of mine---she respected me as a writer although for some bizarre reason we never got along. A lot of it may have been our different approaches to the word “Gothic”, which to her meant Anne Rice----to me it meant The Sisters of Mercy and the Cure, or on a literary angle, Goethe, the Bronte Sisters, et. al. So we didn't necessarily get off on the right foot...she always perceived us, for some inexplicable reason, as being diametrically opposed on some ethical or philosophical level. Even her glowing mention of me in editorials were undercut by bizarre little “digs”. Hey, my ethics and philosophies amounted to this: I'm just some fucking guy who writes stories.

However, the lady was kind enough to publish me in her mag, and she also supported a good many writers I knew who were worthy of the attention. So wherever she may be, hats off to her.

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:

THE KINKS-Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)

FAITH NO MORE-King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime

FAITH NO MORE-Angel Dust

REMEMBERING RICHARD

The City of Fayetteville has lost a giant. Richard S. Drake, former GRAPEVINE journalist and editor, founder and editor-in-chief of THE OZARK GAZETTE and long running host of Fayetteville's own ON THE AIR WITH RICHARD S. DRAKE, passed away on 3/ 4/ 19 after a period of illness.

Richard has been a part of my reality for almost a quarter of a decade...certainly not as long as he looms with more old school Fayettevillians, but at this stage in the game I reckon I can shed some of my “New Kid” sheen. I moved here from New Hampshire in early Spring of 1996. I became involved and aware of the close-knit community I adopted and eventually of the little free paper, the OZARK GAZETTE, that could be found in racks everywhere in town. It was a fun and acerbic little publication, very in touch with its grass roots base. I became aware of Community Access Television and the scene (somewhat symbiotic) they had going on----many of my friends were poets and musicians and most of them had appeared on CAT (at that time better known to most locals as “The Open Channel” since that was the name of the previous long-term contractor. I learned that the same passionate and sometimes cranky GAZETTE editor who did a column called “Street Jazz” was the guy behind “On the Air with Richard S. Drake”, and on that access show he conducted intelligent and thoughtful interviews with people of all stripes; activists, writers, historians, artists, academics, musicians and many others.

My roommate had bugged me several times at this point about the notion that we should hit the Open Channel and see what it took to become producers and learn to put out product ourselves. I had my own things distracting me at the time----I was like, “yeah, okay, maybe we can do that,” the idea pretty much remaining an abstract in the back of my brain. One day, either toward the end of 1996 or very early '97, he told me, “I went up to CAT and signed us both up for Orientation.” OKAY. I was on board while barely aware of it.

We signed up and our package covered Studio, Field and Edit classes, which still remain a crux of the curriculum today, although the technology has changed a lot. Studio Training was our first class, and I was blown away when we went in and it was revealed that The Great Man would be our trainer.

“AW, NO WAY! The guy running our classes is the Ozark Gazette guy??? I LOVE that guy!!! ” I was starstruck.

Richard not only taught us the basics of studio production, from set building to interviewing to punching a show in the studio, he gave us an overview of Public Access Television, its history both nationally and locally, and why it was there. Over the years Richard's history with Public Access and his knowledge thereof, as well as his passion for it, would be a constant source of inspiration to me. Having come out of the xerographic zine scene, I found the independent, radical aspects of Public Access very accommodating and very close to home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZOvfItiS3M&index=42&list=PL0cs_SrWxKfUXOl47_dVnqPfM7nrvNehF

       Follow this link to watch ON THE AIR featuring Film Historian Frank Scheide
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czAufQWhJh4&index=26&list=PL0cs_SrWxKfUXOl47_dVnqPfM7nrvNehF
Follow this link to watch Richard's interview with "The Last American"

   We got our Access Producer stripes and went off on our own, helping out Richard and other producers in volunteer gigs but also began forging our own path...and our path (believe it or not, it isn't like we walked into this gig with anything resembling a PLAN) wound up becoming Fayetteville's most controversial public access show. EVER.

In this capacity---and he might have, at varying junctures, been either a dedicated public volunteer, a member of the City's Telecom Board or a member of CAT's Board of Directors.....and he might not have always liked what we were doing, but he frequently found himself in the position of having to defend us, and he did so all the time, like a good First Amendment trooper.

At one point, following our perseverance after a trumped-up obscenity charge in 2003 (wherein a few journalists friendly to the City Administration at the time wrote some conveniently-timed hack jobs on us), Richard (who was writing for the Little Rock Free Press at the time) told me, “I want to do an interview with your cast. I want people to see that you're serious about what you do.”

In many ways Richard became our greatest champion, interviewing us both in print and on television. And he may have even occasionally ribbed us for our lowbrow approach, but he always stood by our right to do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyaNuuW_kRo&list=PL0cs_SrWxKfUXOl47_dVnqPfM7nrvNehF&index=10

     Follow this link to watch Richard interviewing Shannon X. Caine about Obituaries

      I found myself working with Richard on many fronts...I wrote occasionally for the Ozark Gazette, penning anything from letters to the editor to guest articles to poems. When the Gazette fell into trouble I found myself invited to brunch at Uncle Gaylord's, for a meeting of writers, supporters and other hangers-on, to brainstorm and be part of a kind of “owners' co-op” setup to save the paper. Nothing panned out and the Gazette did ultimately fold.

After illness and a coma (which Richard himself has referenced many times on multiple media platforms) Richard was anxious to start doing television again and put “On the Air” back together. He called on me, and I became his cohort, director, chief editor and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer (as I used to call myself) and he and I kept “On the Air” going.

        We faced some interesting challenges in production in the ensuing years. At one point many of the flats, backdrops and other setpieces were jettisoned by the station. Forced to improvise and evolve, we opted for more of a minimalist, "Charlie Rose" look for the show going forward.

     By the end of the oughts I was probably one of the most prolific producers at Access TV, commandeering a number of shows, including “On the Air”, our own long-running show, “The Abbey of the Lemur”, “Intellectual Property” (a questionable show featuring local political meetings), “The Caine Interviews” (another talk show that was a spin-off of TAOTL) and some random other projects, as well as assisting on my wife's show, “Mondo Pazzo”. I had spearheaded two independent film festivals. When my roommate came to me in 1997 and said, “I just enrolled us in orientation at CAT,” I never envisioned all that, even less that I would eventually find myself working in television professionally.

Throughout all of this, Richard remained a constant, providing me with guidance, a conscience and a wall to bounce ideas off of. He taught me a lot of lessons---not to preach to the choir, how one should never accept civility over victory, not to take oneself too seriously and to never condescend to my audience---to enter into any project thinking of my audience as intelligent people capable of critical thought.

A notion that won me some friends but also got me into a lot of trouble----but that's another story for another day.

Richard was a wellspring of historical knowledge, of both Public Access and its various contractors over the years, but also Fayetteville in general...he could tell you about anything from the divisive Incinerator Issue, which galvanized a lot of activists in the community but also set the tone for those activists' relationships to the local newspapers (who sneered at them as “Aginners”) . Those relationships never really changed. He could also tell you about the woman the city had hired at one point to play violin to the flowers growing on the town square at night.

He also frequently found himself in the position of playing Cassandra on the walls of Troy, screaming, “don't bring that horse in here!” Only to be listened to by no one. He shot (and I helped edit) a documentary called “The Death of the Fayetteville Open Channel”, which covered the Great Access War of the early '90's. He detailed how a rogue faction of the Open Channel's Board of directors (of which he freely owned up to being a member) broke off from the main board and wound up losing the Open Channel its contract with the City. The contract was later awarded to Access 4 Fayetteville, who would eventually be known as Community Access Television. A lot of people complained over his constant references to it, saying Richard was “living in the past”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJWuhUtQwe8

    Follow this link to watch "The Death of Fayetteville Open Channel"

 He wasn't. He was urging people not to repeat his mistakes.

It fell on deaf ears.

Fortunately, he was still with us. When a rogue CAT Board began violating its own by-laws, engaging in intimidation and harassment and trying to access personnel files they had no actual right to, Richard threw in with VIPA (The Producer's Group I was, at the time, President of) and after a long public struggle we forced a slew of resignations. Another Access War was cut short and the contractor (known today as FPTV) still exists and is flourishing, thanks in large part to Richard's efforts.

Life went on and we kept doing what we were doing. Richard on some fronts tried to embrace new media but by and large things like YouTube and Podcasting seemed to mystify and alienate him. He mourned the loss of the local newspaper, a point on which he and I agreed to disagree. What good was local journalism if its prime function was to side with regional oligarchs and degrade and demean activists and the disenfranchised? My attitude was (and still is) good riddance. Richard, however, still mourned the death of localism, such as it was.

As he got older he developed more of a curmudgeonly attitude, sometimes coming over like a grumpy old man yelling and shaking his fist at the rain---the thing about Richard, though, is there was never a time when he couldn't step outside himself and see the humor in all of this. This played into a lot of the comedy vignettes he and I put together in the later years. Sometimes the pieces had some heavy, intense meaning going on---sometimes it was just a fun story. Either way we had a ball doing it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhPt1WdMeIA&t=36s

     Follow this link to watch "Richard S. Drake's DVD Commentary" (short comedy bit)

For the most part 2018 saw “On the Air” go on hiatus, with only one episode being produced as both Richard and I endured health problems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rXi66vXWGc&list=PL0cs_SrWxKfUXOl47_dVnqPfM7nrvNehF&index=48&t=1s

     Follow this link to watch "On the Air: The Willow Heights Controversy"

Right up until the end, we were trying to pull it together to start producing new shows. And I mean, right up to several days before he died. His wife, Tracy, informed my wife and I, on March 4^th, that he had passed that morning.

We were very intimidated going into last weekend---this idea of doing a televised memorial had blown up and we were all kind of swept up in it....in the end I think it went well. As daunting and discomforting as it sounded, I can't help feeling that Richard wouldn't have had it any other way.

Special Thanks to FPTV  and Tracy Reeves  Cutaia

Copyright 2019 Molotov Editions

        

THE MEAT FACTORY and Etc.

THE MEAT FACTORY

HOBART, read the logo on the big dish washing machine.

On his first night as a dishwasher for the Chalet, Wolf got to know ole Hobart a lot better than he bargained for. Scotty, Bob and Jeremy, the pukes who were supposed to train him, cut out on Wolf at nine thirty, unceremoniously leaving him holding the bag.

It was a lot to be left with. Restaurant dishes landed, no end in sight. Wolf's hours were supposed to be three to eleven. He was alone and the dishes kept coming.

Wolf was excited about being hired. “Your first real job!” His mother said, embracing him. “I'm so proud of you!” Wolf was nineteen. He'd steered clear of a job until after graduation. He felt that any obligation, even part-time, might hurt him scholastically. Beyond a few neighborhood odd jobs, like mowing lawns, Wolf never looked for work.

Post-graduation lofty ideals were abound in Wolf's head. He wanted to go to college and become a journalist, and maybe from there a famous writer. He wanted to attend the Joe Kubert Art School and become a comic book illustrator. He wanted to sing lead for a heavy metal band, and given his name, Wolf, he figured he had a good stab at that enterprise, even if he couldn't sing.

With all these conflicting possibilities dangling before him, Wolf saw the necessity in taking the year off and making a few bucks. Besides, given learning experiences in “the working world”, it all seemed to lean toward the positive.

He originally applied for anything the Chalet would give him---he fancied himself a bellhop in one of those old fashioned hotel monkey suits, running luggage and begging for tips.

When he was called in for an interview with Joseph Barr, he was told to go to the receiving area. Receiving Area. Where applicants are received for interviews, Wolf imagined. He heeded every word of job interview primer ever handed to him in school. Soft-spoken but firm. Good handshake. Radiate confidence. He had it all down.

When he got there, he discovered the Receiving Area was actually “shipping and receiving”---the loading docks. He found out that Mr. Barr, the honorable interviewer, was really the dock supervisor, Joe Barr, a scruffy, no-nonsense type only three years Wolf's senior.

Wolf came to the quick assumption that he had primed himself for the wrong job. It wasn't one you dressed up and spoke softly for; it was a job lugging crates around on dollies, unloading trucks. As he left the interview he knew he wouldn't land the job, that Barr had pegged him as a softy, which Wolf supposed he was.

Two weeks later, Wolf got a call from Bob LaMontagne, who didn't mention what job he wanted Wolf for, but invited him down for an interview.

LaMontagne's interview wasn't so much an interview as it was a sales pitch, a hard-sell. “We gotcha insurance benefits after ninety days, we got free use a' the health club every Tuesday, ya can't find a better place in this town ta work,” he rattled, showing Wolf around the hotel kitchen. Wolf was delighted over actually being ASKED to work a job, as opposed to the disinterested grilling he'd experienced with Barr.

The job, he discovered on the grand tour, was dishwashing. “An easy job,” LaMontagne told him at least twice. Filling out his signature on the ob description form, he read his official title, “kitchen help”. The job was said in the form to consist of cleaning the kitchen and occasionally assisting the culinary crew with food production. LaMontagne shook his hand and told him to come in on Thursday, and so Wolf had been hired.

Wolf's training consisted of the pukes showing him a few keys steps of operation---loading dirty dihes onto the conveyer belt, taking them clean off the unloading end and storing them on the correct shelves---then popping outside for a smoke that lasted an hour or two while Wolf floundered. The pukes blew out the door for good around half past nine, Wolf holding the bag and uninformed as to what happened next. Dining room waitstaff hauled in an endless barrage of dirty dinnerware and garbage----steaks, lobster, salad, cream and cheese spreads---leftovers that mixed and meshed in the disposal trough. Leftovers blobbed off the dishes as Wolf loaded them and would become stuck in the conveyer belt, only to land in the Hobart's washtubs and boil. The stink rose and filled Wolf's senses. The parade of dirty dishes was unending, carried in, over and over. Waiters and waitresses were still hauling in the dirty wares and food scraps. Eleven o'clock, quitting time, had come and gone.Wolf felt like his head was spinning. It's a meat factory, he thought, a dumping ground. When does it stop, and when do I get to go home, like everybody else?

The first lull in the action that occurred, Wolf shut off the machine and ran. Christ, did he imagine it? As that busboy brought that last tray out to the dish machine, was he laughing at him?

'Hey,” yelled one of the fry cooks as Wolf made his break, “where ya goin'?” Wolf didn't reply.

****

On his second night working, Wolf learned a new word and that word was BANQUET.

At the height of the action there were ten guys working on the Hobart. Even LaMontagne was getting his hands dirty at one point.

There was commotion and traffic everywhere. The kitchen was jamming with wait people carrying trays.

Wolf thought it best to stay on the unloading end of the machine, removing and sorting clean dishes.

LaMontagne was animated, rattling off commands like a gattling gun. He shot a big, harried smile at Wolf. “This is it, son---the big one!”

“Whu-what's going on?” Spluttered Wolf, who was genuinely shaken by all the activity.

“I'm not gonna lie to ya, son; we're gonna be buried,” said LaMontagne, scrubbing a few plates.

“Great,” groaned Wolf. LaMontagne's words from a couple of days prior came back to him-- “It's an easy job!”

The scene was claustrophobic; bodies everywhere, hustling, fighting for an inch of space.

FIRST COURSE: Wait people dropped trays full of champagne glasses onto the counter and placed the glasses twenty-five at a time into plastic racks. The glass racks eventually jammed the expanse of the counter. The saucers and the paper doilies that underlined the cocktails were all pushed haphazardly into the disposal trough along with a few stray glasses, which smashed. More trays landed, faster than they could be dealt with. There was no end in sight.

“Let's go, Wolf,” yelled one of the dishwashers on the loading end. Wolf couldn't keep up. He tore as many clean dishes off the conveyer belt as he could. His progress was slowed because the dishes came out hot and they burned his hands. When too many dishes accumulated on the unloading stand, Wolf would have to stop and put them away. When he did, the belt would crowd to capacity and stop moving. Then the yelling would commence.

“Let's go, Wolf! My grandma unloads faster than you!”

Scotty, an effeminate, pimply-faced teenager who was on hand the day before, came down to the unloading end. “Listen,” he seethed, “I know it's hard. But if you keep stopping, we're going to get killed up there! Now, can you please move this thing?!”

“There are ten of you and one of me,” Wolf complained.

“Goddammit,” Scotty pouted, “pick up the pace!” He stormed back to the counter and whined to LaMontagne. Wolf resigned himself to unloading, unloading, unloading. Meanwhile up front, the counter was jam-packed and several waitresses were bitching, telling the dishwashers to hurry up.

LaMontagne turned and headed toward Wolf. Scotty was whimpering some sour interjection that Wolf could not hear. LaMontagne whirled on Scotty and yelled at him, all unintelligible, except for the last sentence, “if you're not happy with it you can go the hell home!”

Scotty turned back to the work, looking sullen. LaMontagne hopped onto the unloading end to help Wolf. “Come on, Wolf,” he shouted, “let's show 'em how to run this thing!” There was a heavy liquor smell on his breath.

The two toiled and managed to stay ahead of things. Wolf was staggered by the mess on the counter. “Is this that banquet I've been hearing about since I got in?”

“Oh,” chuckled LaMontagne, “this is just the beginning!”

Wolf shuddered. The two worked on. The feeders had glutted the belt with saucers, which were now overlapped, ten to a row where only four should have fit, and one or tow would periodically roll off the side of the conveyer and break on the floor.

“Come on, come on!” LaMontagne hollered to the feeders. “You're going too slow, ya bunch of lightweights! Me and Wolf are falling asleep down here!”

Up front somebody yelled, “come on, y'old fart! We'll bury your ass!”

On the counter, the saucers and glass racks gave way to the second course---salad plates.Hundreds of salad plates came back from the banquet. Most of the salads were half-eaten, if touched at all.

Halfway through the salad course, LaMontagne left. “I'll be right back,” he grumbled. He wandered out back and Wolf was alone again.

“Let's go, Wolf,” urged Jeremy, at the helm of the Hobart. On the other side, waitresses complained and shouted. The Banquet Chef harangued the lot of them in his sharp, annoying voice. “Gawdamn dishwashas! Whaddaya here for? Whadda they pay ya for?!”

LaMontagne returned, wearing a light jacket. “Wolf, I'm going home. Do a good job! Hey,” he shouted to everyone else. “I'm leaving, now! One a you c'mon down here, help Wolf out!” And he was gone.

Wolf was helped, thereafter, by Rob and a tall, vacant-looking kid named Steve. The counter was chock full of dirty pots and pans, salad plates, sauce bowls and dinner plates. More trays were landing than could actually fit on the counter.

“I don't believe this,” muttered Wolf. “Does it get any worse?”

“It should,” Steve deadpanned. “We're hitting the busy season, now. It'll be this way every weekend.”

“Oh, my God,” Wolf said. “How late does this shit go? I'm scheduled to leave at eleven-thirty...”

Steve nudged Rob. “Hey,” he grinned. “He thinks he's leaving at eleven-thirty.” They laughed.

“I don't think it's funny,” bittered Wolf. Oboy, Wolf, he thought. Your first real job.

The onslaught kept going. Gooey stacks of dirty dinner plates landed along with hundreds of little monkey dishes that contained half-eaten chocolate sundaes. When the monkey dishes came through, many of them were still soiled with chocolate syrup and had to be sent back. The backup was incredible.

Finally, amidst squawking and bitching from wait people and cooks, Jeremy shut the dish machine off. “We're all going on break,” he announced.

Glasses broke and a waitress whined. Jeremy's call seemed the equivalent to a declaration of mutiny. Wolf didn't know if it was a good idea to pull out; all he knew was that he wanted to.

“Who's in charge?” Asked Rob.

“I dunno,” said Jeremy. “I'll go find out!”

Wolf and the others stood about and waited for Jeremy. Wolf heard more dishes breaking, wait people snapping and yelling, “what's going on back there?”

“The dishwashers stopped!”

“Why?!”

“They say they're all going on break!”

“All of them at once???”

“They're always on break, the sons of bitches!”

“Come on, you guys,” a waitress shouted. “We need room!”

Jeremy returned, grinning. “What'd they say?” Asked Steve.

Jeremy snickered. “They said, 'please don't go!' “

“Should we go?” Asked Wolf.

“What do YOU think? Wolf didn't know what to think---he just knew he had to get out of this.

A stout, tight-lipped woman in a navy blue pantsuit stepped into the dish area. All eyes turned to her.

“What's going on here?” She demanded.

“I don't know,” said Steve.

She looked at Wolf. “I don't know, either,” he answered. Everyone shrugged their shoulders; nobody knew.

“We're on strike,” cracked Jeremy.

“I see,” said the woman. “Would you gentlemen like to keep your jobs?”

“That's questionable,” said Bob.

“Is it?”

Everyone reconsidered the situation. “No,” they all answered. Wolf was actually still on the fence, but he opted to say nothing.

“Well,” she said, “let's get rolling.”

They turned the Hobart back on.

Inconceivably, it got worse. Eleven -thirty, quarter to twelve and Wolf couldn't believe it was all still coming, wouldn't stop, wouldn't even slow. “Jesus,” he kept repeating, “oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus.....”

Junk piled in upon junk. He'd gone to an orientation meeting earlier that day. He'd felt somewhat secluded there among the newly-hired waitresses, busboys, sales reps and aerobics instructors, being a lowly dishwasher, bottom of the hotel's caste system---the personnel director, a smiling, maternal woman, was pumping the enthusiastic catechism of heavy business, the Chalet Team Brotherhood spiel, how they were all salesmen and women, working to promote a winning, positive image of the Chalet.

Garbage upon garbage. In the disposal trough, wasted food mingled and clashed with scrapped paper, wads of wax from candles, spent cigarettes and ashes and the occasional broken champagne glass. Big pots, pans and soiled, sticky dinnerware bombarded the counter in heaping, unstable piles. Sections of the mess were systematically wiped out, then replaced by more almost immediately.

The catechism of promotion stops here, thought Wolf. We're the toilet cleaners of the universe. Nothing got sold or promoted here. It's just where they brought the leftovers to be destroyed.

Assortments of burning wares rolled out on the conveyer belt in a relentless procession. Wolf blundered through it and eventually learned there was no place left to put anything. The belt stopped with greater frequency while Wolf had to look further and harder for places to put the dishes and pans.

“Hey,” smiled Steve. “Think this is fun? Look over there. We gotta do all that, too.”

Wolf peered over a storage shelf at the pot sink on the other side of the kitchen. In the three big washing tubs, dozens if not hundreds of pots and pans, in all varying shapes and sizes, formed a jumbled mountain that rose three feet above all three tubs.

“I can't believe this,” moaned Wolf. “I can't. Oh, Jesus, oh, esus, how do we ever get out of here?”

“Just leave,” offered Rob.

“Whu—no. No, I can't! Look at all this!”

“Hey,” said Rob, “you've done your eight measley hours. It's all volunteer from here on in. One more or less person won't get this shit done any faster!”

“But you guys---I can't---”

“Sure you can! You did your eight hours. You can get the hell out! Hey, you're new at this!”

Wolf looked at the scrap disaster again. “Huh. Uhh, you sure?”

“Hell yeah---go!”

“I don't wanna shaft you guys...”

“You're not shafting us. Go!”

Wolf headed out of the kitchen. “Hey,” yelled one of the fry cooks after him, “where ya goin'?” Wolf didn't look back and didn't reply.

He ran down the stairs and clocked out. He headed down the hallway and up those last two flights of stairs at a brisk, fearful getaway pace. He hit the night air and was astounded for a moment by the stillness, the quietude. His first real job. Christ. Wolf ran all the way home, the stench of the garbage and the steamwash sticking hard to his senses.

Copyright 1992 C.F. Roberts/2019 Molotov Editions

                                                          ******************

        As I've kinda been spinning my wheels on several novels in the last couple of years I've decided to put more energy into what's working out for me like gangbusters----short prose and short fiction.

      Shit, a good many writers I know and admire have succeeded in banging out book length product for public consumption at this point. Me? NUTHIN'. I feel like that's gotta change.

      To this end, I've started compiling two book-length collections of short stories, which I hope to have completed by the end of the year. Card is subject to change, as we rasslin' fans like to say, but the rough lineup presently looks like this:

1. THE MEAT FACTORY AND OTHER STORIES

NOW:

The Lost Diner

---originally published in SHOCKBOX

The Meat Factory

---previously unpublished

Zoned Industrial

-----Originally published in THE BIRDS WE PILED LOOSELY

Monster Kid

Shit Flavored Shit

----Originally published in VAGABONDS: Anthology of the Mad Ones

Hannibal and Sandi in the Afterglow

Thursday (Sound of Tiny Planets Dying)

The Aquarium

-----Originally published in BLIND IGUANAPRESS

The King of Moths

-----Originally published in FEARLESS

The Scowl

-----Originally Published in ILLITERATI

The Jennifer Tree

---Originally published in ALIEN BUDDHA ZINE

After the Bataan Death March

Acquaintance

-----Originally published in THE MOWER

Maggie and Merrill get Real

-----Originally published in PARAPHILIA

The Mask

Superman, Jesus and Rice Patties

----Originally Published in UNLIKELY STORIES V

Cartoon Land

SPECIAL FOR THE COLLECTION:

Return to the Meat Factory

Love and Desperation in the Meat Factory

Son of the Meat Factory

--- In the works

ALSO SOUGHT/PROJECTED FOR BOTH COLLECTIONS

(i.e., I'm presently hunting to locate this stuff!)

Ghetto Head

---Originally Published in MASSACRE ANNEX (Shockbox Press Chapbook)

Seeing

 ---Previously Unpublished

The Second Wound

----Originally Published in BIZARA

Second Coming

--Originally published in FAIRYTALES FROM THE URBAN HOLOCAUST (Yorkville Press), DIMINISHED CAPACITY

The Night is for Lovers

----Shockbox Press Chapbook

Scorched

------Originally published in FAIRYTALES FROM THE URBAN HOLOCAUST (Yorkville Press)

2. THE EVANGEL: Tales of the Irrational

NOW:

The Great Tradition

---Originally published in FAIRYTALES FROM THE URBAN HOLOCAUST (Yorkville Press)

Snapshot of the Rural Pogroms

Faith

---Originally published in ALIEN BUDDHA ZINE

The Day the Sun got an Eye Gouge

--- Odd Books Chapbook

Boil Order

----Originally Published in CORVUS REVIEW

The Crazy Fuckers

Hubcap Diamond Star Halo

Fat Chance

----Originally Published in THE MOWER

trinityTrinityTRINITY

After Carnival

----Originally published in CRAB FAT MAGAZINE

Hannibal Shooting Fish in a Bucket

Fort Apache the Exchange

Junkyard King

------Originally published in VOX

Old Man Delprete

----Originally Published in GOTHICA

The Windshield of a Moving Car is Hard, especially when you drop on top of it from Thirty Feet

----Originally Published in UNLIKELY STORIES V

The Walk

---Originally published in FAIRYTALES FROM THE URBAN HOLOCAUST (Yorkville Press)

Uncle Drew's Lysergic Backbrain Apocalypse (Slight Return)

Give Up the Sun

----Originally Published in PRESSURE PRESS PRESENTS

Wet

----Originally published in THIS ONE TIME THE ALIEN BUDDHA GOT SO HIGH (Alien Buddha Press)

The Seven Virgins of Eufaula

 ---Presently in the works

The Night they Shut the Geek Show Down

----Molotov Editions Chapbook

The Shrill

-----Originally published in RANT

      Both collections are gonna be bent, because being bent is just in my DNA---but THE MEAT FACTORY will be a little more earthy in tone, whereas THE EVANGEL will be more along the lines of "somebody dropped something in my egg nog---WOAH NELLY!!!"

          Anyway----any takers? 

THIS WEEK'S PLAYLIST:

THE BOLSHOI-Friends

BRIAN JONESTOWN EXPERIENCE-Strung Out in Heaven

Whatever else you got