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Never Done

Billy always smelled like pickled bologna, crappy cologne, and crappy patchouli.

He was a homeless friend who was sleeping on my couch when I lived in Missouri. He had just hitchhiked back from Oregon.

One day my friend, not Billy, but Samantha came over to play. Billy was snoring on the couch when she came over. I was sitting in my blue robe that I hadn’t washed since I got it as a Christmas gift two years before. Staring at the walls. We sat on the other couch and stared at him.

“He looks sort of like an overweight migrant worker that you see in the fields picking corn and shit.” Samantha said.

“I always thought he looked more like one of those truckers you see coming out of a truck stop bathroom, rubbing their gut, and buckling his country western belt buckle,” I said.

Billy kept snoring, with a slight drool that would dribble down the left side of his cheek, and then slurp back up into his mouth.

Samantha and me smiled at each other, and she pulled out the toys she brought with her. We both had our own crayons; we played with her barbies for a while too. Her toys were vast and different…crack cocaine, meth am fed eeemines, angel dust, xtacy, heroin, and really good pot, and she always had a bottle of Canadian Mist on her, plus she loved to fuck, she was always up for a session after playing.

But she wouldn’t give me any of those things, until she made me say the magic words from Jack and the Beanstalk, then... We would color, then play with her dolls, and her barbies, and sometimes play a game of duck duck goose. Samantha was a wonderful human being. And once we were done playing, we would start in on the grown up games as she called them. She was one person, like no other I had ever met. I don’t want to get into all that, and what happened to Samantha years later. I just want to remember this day.

“So, has he looked for a job yet?” she asked, as we both still stared at the couch guest.

“He said he had an interview at taco bell two days ago, but he never went," I said

“Don’t blame the guy.”

“Ya, me neither, but we all have to work, don’t we?”

“I suppose.” Samantha said, adjusting her nylons.

“Will you take me to the zoo later?” I asked her.

“You love to see those monkeys swing around, don’t you?”

“I guess so.”

“Maybe you should quit your job at the bookstore, and get a job cleaning up animal shit at the local zoo,” she said.

“Ya, maybe I should.”

“Lets fuck with your couch guest.”

“Ok, what you got in mind?”

“Not sure yet,” Samantha said.

“I got an idea, why don’t you go put on my old mall security uniform in my room. Billy has warrants out, and has broken his probation. you can pretend you’re a cop who has found him, and I’ll pretend I’m freaking out and shit about all the drugs all over the table?”

“Fucking perfect!” she said, kissing me.

Samantha came out of my room all dressed in the rent a cop outfit.

“Why does it smell like pickled bologna?” she asked.

I could tell she was loving this, she liked sick little games.

“Ready?” I asked her, grinning.

Her big puppy dog eyes grinned back at me filled with craziness.

“Action!” I yelled.

“Don’t fucking move you dirt ball smelling no job scum bag fucking drunk!” Samantha yelled perfectly.

Billy opened his eyes wide, and scared, made this weird motion with his arm to grab the blanket near his feet.

I just kept going... “Shit man, shit man! They found us! Shit man,” rubbing my hand through my hair, pacing around.

“Don’t move a muscle grease ball!” Samantha yelled, pointing my .45 at him.

Billy looked at me in a panic as I paced around mumbling, “drugs, no, drugs, yes, no, ummm, living in a wiggly world.”

He tried to speak, but it was more like a stunned grunt, “Gurgahwha,” as I saw piss filling his boxers and getting all over my garbage picked couch.

“You are both going to fucking jail!” Samantha yelled.

Billy started scratching his sleepy head real quick like, probably wondering if he was having some horrible nightmare.

Then Samantha and me couldn’t hold it in any longer, we looked at each and just started busting up with laughter.

“You pissed on my fucking couch you idiot!” I said, still laughing.

“Bloop, bloop, blooop! “ Samantha screamed, still laughing.

Billy still didn’t seem to know what was going on. He kept making all these strange motions with his hands, like he wanted to grab the blanket still, or cover himself up.

“Come on Billy, let's get you cleaned up,” Samantha said, helping him up off the couch.

She led him to my bathroom, and I poked him in his belly with my finger, as they passed, still laughing.

“What the fuck is going on?” he mumbled, half smiling himself now.

Samantha took him in my bathroom, and pulled off his pissed-in boxers, wiped off his main vein, and started sucking on his dick. Billy looked over at me, still stunned. I lit a cigarette, my mood changing.

“This is my friend, her name is Samantha,” I told Billy, as he looked down at her, still stunned.

Billy was speechless.

“We still going to the zoo Samantha?” I asked.

“Gurgle, no, gurgle, no, you go aheadz.” She smuckered.

“Hey Billy, tonight, we got to go garbage pick a new couch, you owe me one, asshole, I’m going to the zoo, you kids have fun,” I said, giving Billy the thumbs up. He still looked a little scared, but looked pleased I was going away.

I drove to the zoo in my blue robe. It started Raining out, but the zoo was still open. I stared at the monkeys swinging around. I looked at some guy cleaning huge elephant turds to my right. But mostly I just stared at the monkeys, and threw them peanuts. I bet Billy was feeling ok right about now I thought, as the rain came down harder and harder. I pulled a Barbie doll out of my Robe pocket, and threw it in the monkey’s cage.


Bullet brained icicle hot water bottle drip meditationly medication.
Scram cakes baked in butter blooded codorsel dorfed el lean yo’s.
Echo brained guitar sunk my battle shit for stained cookie breath.
Rising smoke a chocolate bearded ginger snap line break open.
Pretty pens with many colors sit inside skeletal soup bones.
Return loose bolts down back road river raft mayonnaise wrong turn.
Blind men see deaf people hearing on swing set St. Louis arch cow.
Checkerboard coke bottle glass eyed guys buying pawnshop specials.
Where was it?
Banjo tambourine ho down barbecue shin dig hamms in a can.
Naked sunshine, hips like hot sand in Hawaiian sea-water pips.
Never ending steps to enlightenment, if such a step existed.
Munchkins with check books, heads like bowling balls, armpits of lesbian fur.
Books like silicone breast plates from microwave breakfast burrito tummy ache leak.
You say, “ toe mate oh”
I say, “Tah maw Tew”

Mr. Phuck woke up at about 4 a.m., after going to bed, or passing out from whiskey only a few hours before. He went outside in the dark with a flashlight, and began feeding his animals. He had chickens, goats, a cow named Betsy, geese, and a turtle with wings, that would sometimes fly around the chicken coop, sending the roosters into a frenzy.

Mr. Phuck was 77 years old. The best thing to happen to him in the last few years was the invention of viagra, and the corner liquor store they built recently, 5 minutes from his barnyard overhead.

Mr. Phuck went over to Betsy and began squeezing fresh milk from her saggy nipples into his favorite drinking glass. “MOOOOOOO!” Betsy groaned.

Then he gathered up some fresh eggs into a tin bucket.

Mr. Phuck froze for a minute and looked up at the moon, while hungry chickens pecked at his freckly old man legs. Still looking up at the stars, he mumbled… “What the phuck am I doing up at this hour?”

“MOOOOOOOO, MOOOOOOO,” Betsy answered.

Mr. Phuck went back in side his barnyard, cracked open the fresh eggs in a tin frying pan. He liked them scrambled. Mr. Phuck got out some vodka, some cheap imitation Kaluha, and mixed himself a strong one in the fresh milk.

Mr. Phuck ate all his eggs, drank all his drink, and went back outside to check on his crops. He hiked over the private land, up over the wall, where humpty dumpty use to sit, and through the woods. He watered all the blossoming skunky smelling ripe green tomato plants, and even picked a few, to eat later.

Mr. Phuck went back to his barnyard, carrying some huge sticky stinking green sappy red tomatos in a tin bucket. He turned on his TV, flipping from station to station in disgust. Then Mr. Phuck opened a book by a man named Dr. Goose. Those were his favorite books. His eyes lit up like the fourth of July, as he flipped from page to page, smiling at the thought of his own geese.

Mr. Phuck suddenly began to cry and laugh at the same time as his viagra kicked in. Mr. Phuck put some fucking music on, and mixed another drink, while eating a tomato.

Mr. Phuck looked out his barnyard window, up into the sky, and mumbled… "What the fuck am I doing up at this hour?”

The Jesus Lizard’s song ‘Nub’ made Mr. Phuck start dancing around. He let is flying turtle in, gave him a tomato too. They laughed and cried till the sun came up, as Betsy groaned… “MOOOOOOOO!!!!”


Mervin woke up to the sounds of KC and the Sunshine Band, his blinking stereo system that had been flashing before his eyelids all night long. Mervin was 25 years old, a good age to turn one way or another, as far as lifestyles of the poor and un –famous. An age that would also consume someone into a world not everyone cares to visit. Mervin worked at a golf glove-packaging factory that rich men owned in some suburban southern California town. Mervin never gave the future much thought. Just sort of lived from day to day, doing what he needed to do to feel happiness, which rarely came. Mervin went back to sleep for a while and awoke only when shoved.


The sheep that look like over used goat nipples are grazing in a meadow field beyond a sudden runny- nose- dribbling Texas cold streak. I sit in this chair with wheels, slouching down, eating Echinacea, and drinking vitamin C with a spiked straw.

And outside cars drive around doing things, going places, like maggots feasting on chicken bones in a garbage can. Schedules, responsibilities, people, aliens, and the cylindrical resplendent globe bellows an echoing scream in the distant streetlights of ear drummed wandering.

A truckload of love is waiting at the top of a choo choo freight train, attached to some messed up gut hut out in Egyptian sandstorms, I rev up my big wheel and hit the streets in search of that yearning fast lane.

Attacked by knives. Swollen thoughts. Beautiful smiles. Water soaked socks. Intense sugary sour yelps blaze across the field of Hindu cows, between the goats pink milker. Rolling around in the farmer’s dried roach field. She’s automatic. She’s fizzling electric fireballs of desire.

Sniffing every corner and lifting a leg, squirting scents in the whiskers of another coyote cat turd. Now I’m running naked from my own shadow, and the man in dark glasses who is playing blues guitar in the other room is singing about the endless life cycle, the timeless state fairs, the coasters near hot dog stands, dart throwing prize losers, and winners. She’s dangerous. The straw is a toxic embryo.

A fluffy greenish balled up sack of herbal veins is dancing around next to me with a dirty cowboy hat on. The motions. The sun rising from cold creaks, sheiks, torn clouds, planes flying over, with gassed up pilots, and terrorist passengers. Tourists with visa’s. He takes his glasses off, lays guitar on lap, slides across the railroad, screaming about my baby now. She shakes like a loose mind. When my baby walks, people stop and stare. Red Devils. Turquoise angels in tuxedoes. torpedoes, toes, shoes, feet, nails.

Gypsy- ripped -black -cat -eyed -stupid -brilliant –curdling- interruptions from British long distant relatives. Double strokes, triple nervous break downs flow in the family tree. I’m going to invent an ice that never melts, that way I would never have to move to make another drink. Lazy, Lovely, Lumpy, loser, lover, winner, whiner, whipped, worms, words.

Alone is everything, alone and alive. Satisfaction is everywhere; I’m a bundle of joy wrapped in a torture bag, hung upside down, with hungry rodents, nibbling like machines on my flesh. Never needed crutches. Never wanted molders. She talked way to much. She complained even more.

Smoking Nyquil. Sipping my soul. Illusions in the skips. Looking out the window, smelling the air. Eating saltines. Fucking up again, and again. Lapping on luxurious silk Burning down walls around me. Swimming in Morphine. A second past. A zillion years ago.

The man in the other room is suddenly playing a kazoo upside down between my books. We laugh. We rev up our big wheels. Head out to that sometimes-invisible fast lane between the plastic tourists, the terrorists, the teachers discount.

She never even knew about the hospital TV’s turning into elephants, cat scans, wheel chairs, the ice sippin' conclusions in the never-asked questions. She fucked like a goddess virgin porn star. Inventions, decay, sunrises, rain, goats nipples in fields next door, catching my shadow. People, aliens, cures, annihilation, candy lands. My final bait- stuck in- spilled milky sky- hasn’t shaved in days. Vitamin C- shriveling Hindu cow burgers. I just pulled a three of clubs out of my skull that seemed to be attached to this luscious ladies red lips that kissed and held softer then a 30 year old teddy bear with burnt feet, a slouch of a Herby with striped over alls that had made every move with the troubled moving van in the going away mapland inside what some would label life.


In a stinky small apartment somewhere in the ghetto of Lansing, Michigan lurks a man, a super troll if you will. There are over-flowing ashtrays, and spilt beer cans all over the stained floor. It smells like burnt corn nuts mixed with ramen skidded marks. This shirtless flabby man is curled up on a green garbage picked couch, smoking, drinking, and eating a half-cooked hamburger with a sweaty remote control in his hand. His fingers have black resin goop on them; his eyes are tired and red. His girlfriend gets home from her 9-hour shift waiting tables. Ruth slams the front door behind her. Interrupting his peace. It’s a beautiful sunny day outside. But Marvin wouldn’t know. He never opens the window blinds and usually sleeps till 3 p.m. There is a special room with needles and empty foiled up scores that seems to be always wanting attention from the two. Wanting the Love.

Ruth: Is that all you're going to do all day long! Is sit around getting drunk, eating all my food?!

Marvin: Well, I was maybe going to take a nap in a little while, of course, if that’s ok with you mom.

Ruth: God, your such a hopeless case. Why can’t you get your act together, and don’t call me your fucking mother, asshole!

Marvin: Then don’t act like her. Man, chill the fuck out, and get off your high-horse, who gives a shit what I feel like doing, it’s my choice, from day to day, nobody else’s.

Ruth: I’m sick of your false promises about getting a dam job, and I’m just so sick of you never leaving my house, which I pay rent for!”

Marvin: Oh shit Ruth, your fucking Daddy pays the rent. Let’s not kid ourselves. Bad day at the office? Last night you were sucking my dick, telling me how much you love me, you come home from work like some mad evil bitch, have a drink, and save your whining for some one who gives a shit. You’re like a broken record, with a scratched surface. The day is almost over anyway. Soon it will be the night.

Ruth: You make me sick!


Ruth stomps into her room, ripping her uniform off, frustrated with her life, and her free loading boyfriend. She is trying to think of what she can bitch about next, as she puts on some dirty clothes that were crumpled up in the back of her closet. Marvin turns the TV off, lights a smoke, preparing himself for the next round.


Ruth: I’m just sick of this shit, all you care about is getting loaded. I could meet a guy that has a good job, which could make me feel happy! A guy that is going places.

Marvin laughs like a mad man.

Marvin: A man who is going places? A man with a future? I’ve told you I’m waiting for the right moment to apply for a job! You sound like a materialistic cunt spurting out a brainwashed fountain of piss. You’re only thoughts- from your yuppie - scum bucket parents. I really expected more from you Ruthless.

Ruth: FUCK YOU! I’m going to fucking strangle your loser ass!

Ruth runs at Marvin. Marvin is laughing still. Well, more like a stressed out chuckle. He refuses to buckle to her craziness. She jumps on him, swinging wild girly punches at his burnt out face. He keeps laughing.

Marvin: That’s right darling, get it all out, let it all go my love.

Ruth: I fucking hate you.

Marvin grabs her arm, turning it behind her spasmatic back. He throws her to the stained carpet. Puts both his knees on her breasts, while still twisting her arm behind her back., and screams… “what don’t you understand about love!”

They kiss in a sweaty passionate ball of mixed emotions on the floor, ripping each other’s clothes off. Marvin wipes a tear from Ruth’s eye. She is exhausted with it all. Marvin is amazed by it all.

Ruth: I love you Marvin, whatever happens in the future, I love you for now.

Marvin: You got any extra cigarettes and five bucks I can borrow?


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