In the post-apocalyptic dawn, Mingus walks down streets of dirty glass-eyed homeless, bottles of Old Texas Pistil Water & Gunk, echoes of bird-to-tiger couplings from the open windows of 3rd class Limbo Hotels, the slow burn of irradiated nights. No e-beam intended. Mingus is young but old inside. He has swallowed nails to protest the hunger of the living. He is amateur detective and post-psychedelic cub scout with one cheek bandaged in the shape of an X. He is one of us, the generation of slow scavenger withdrawal, dark-alley, green-eye blight, not meant to survive. In his head, the metallic ring of a woman with machine parts: Please stay the night. Like so many of us hiding in post-club hype and drape, he is looking for the father who had him through a woman's slippery coasts, then abandoned him to the post-war after-dark overlooked on S-game boxes. The father, he's been told, can unlock a million DNA mutations and bathing-ape recessive tendencies. There are distant voices laughing. There are rolling tin cans that contain microwavable secrets. There is the open city in the shape of a girl's softly-creased deceptive hands. Despite the tendency towards meltdown, there is still need. There is still time, what little of it, to unlock and mate.
To save the frogs from planned obsolescence, Mingus must locate the heart of the chirp which could be mistaken for A-minor guilt trips. Or the core of the ticking, not lotus-sabotage. In a downtown cafe where they hand out first impressions for free, a piebald Berber plays jazz troubadour on digital High-Whistle. At a table, a free woman tells Mingus that with the right amount of Scold she can locate the ticking. She reassures him—It's not froggy. He hands over the warm exchange. She tells him to close his eyes. Can you see it? she asks. Yes, says, Mingus, voice like a river virgin, no flack and no drill dreams. He pictures a ceramic doll in the shape of his mother. Thick stretch of red lips, too much gloss, the eyes opaque blue, screaming and wide as something you never want to see. There are cracks and they are multiplying like war children. The ticking is getting louder. He realizes that the ticking that was always his was her. He opens his eyes. The free woman explodes. A voice within him squeaks: Mama.
Stiff men in falling elevators are planning your crucifixion in shards. The Tinker from Walrus Street solves the code you stole from The Opposition living in our very basements: You Were Not Meant for this Life. Move upstairs. There's a growing trend among Giza-eyed girls. They wear the night like cheap leather in a European hotel. By morning, they're sand in the pair of sandals you stole from a flea market. You suspect that your own thoughts are nothing but someone's recycled rejection slips. In gilt-edged mirrors, mother-clones keep telling you to check yourself, that your jokes are tasteless. A young prostitute says Your arachnid wires are showing. She shops sheep. You had to put yours down. Yesterday's blue-boy drops in from the cold and expires on your floor with a semolina smile. In his hand is a wrinkled paper containing cryptograms. Your parched lover with the gangrenous voice solves it: World. Grotesque Tea. Rough trade. Spit. Grind. Metallic piss. Your lover's voice returns inside your head. You grow so poor from her amputations.
Kyle Hemmings is the author of several chapbooks of poetry and prose: Avenue C, Cat People, and Anime Junkie (Scars Publications). His latest e-books are You Never Die in Wholes from Good Story Press and The Truth about Onions from Good Samaritan. He lives and writes in New Jersey.
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