Sometimes. It

Sometimes. It.

Sometimes, it is most of the time. However. most of the time, it is someone, rather than something that prevents it from being all of the time, but quite regularly it is and then there really is nothing much to talk about and the crowd that had gathered to witness the spectacle, shuffles away silently. But the times that it isn't, then there is nothing more enjoyable. The subtle shades of the human condition truly reveal themselves in the faintest of hues; beautiful. Delicate nuances that litter the heart and the soul and allow one to paint gorgeous masterpieces of emotion all over the floor.

As I vomited.

I woke up a few hours later lying facedown. Could be worse. I thought. I turned over, knocking an empty glass with my hand, the cheap glass shattering the moment it hit the cold tile floor. I need to invest in a heater. Or at least a pair of slippers. Not the type worn by respectable businessmen, wearing their smoking jackets and their Sherlock Holmes pipes listening to their favorite evening news program in their favorite easy chair. On Tuesdays. No, that style is reserved for the few upright men that have achieved something in this life. Me, I would wear the non-slip type. The ones that old women wear in homes with other old women. For I have accomplished the sum culmination of a lifetime achievement equivalent to that of a senile old squaw. With no grandchildren to come visit and politely inform me that I smell like Lysol and yesterdays’ roast beef. Call me Ishabella.

The phone rang. Once. Twice. I glanced at it, hoping that whomever was on the other line was as equally dissatisfied with their particular lot in life as I. I find it easier to talk to the peculiar amongst us. for I am their leader and they respect me. It is an ability that we posses to be able to distinguish each other through the barest amount of conversation. I picked it up and said nothing.

“Hello.”

It was a woman.

“Hi.” I put on my disinterested voice. They respond better to complete and total indifference. Act like I had something better to do. Which isn’t true, I was sitting naked on a cold kitchen floor in February.

“Mr. Clark…”

and the phone went dead.

Shit.

Talk about ruining a good morning masturbation session. She had sounded sexy. I adjusted myself, and began to stand up. Hoping my eyes would become accustomed to the weak light coming from the dirty window above the kitchen sink. That way, I would not have pull shards of glass out of my feet. I liked the window. it offered me a view of the street and the warehouses across my porthole to the world. They were old and unused and it kept things quiet.

I looked around the room for something that could double as a coffee cup and found the remnants of last night’s temporary friend, a bottle with a finger or two left. I located a Styrofoam cup with some cold coffee left in it, threw in some whiskey and nuked the fucker. After a minute, took it out, topped it off with some more ‘creamer’. I reached for a cigarette, wondering where my pants were and if had I gotten naked for an audience or upon my own accord. Many questions on this cold day. As I drank my coffee I wondered what I had to do today. if anything. No real work. Not till Sunday. And my agent, my actual agent had not been returning my calls lately; I thought of when he was trying to get a hold of me, and I ignored his calls. the bastard. We all lose someday.

I dressed. went to the bar. Ate and got drunk. again.

In the abnormal style of living by bobbing and weaving against the beat of life, you are not so much complaining about the current beat. No, it’s not that, so much more of you screaming to anyone who will listen, that dammit, your beat is better. And it’s really not that you want others to dance to yours, it’s just that to you, theirs sucks, and presumably. they would only fuck up yours.

I woke up in my bed. Weird. I rolled over to be greeted with the sight of the back of a brunette head. Weird. I only lived a few blocks away from my bar and must have tempted a debutante back with me. My allegiance to this dive was won upon hard nights with slow drinking. at a dump with terrible service and an equally unhappy clientele. But we all got along through the mutual understanding that the world outside those doors was not our friend. and it helped that we didn’t like the bartenders. who didn’t like us. It was a happy family.

The phone rang. In an attempt to stave off the inevitable uncomfortable moment where I would have to identify my bedmate by name, I jumped up and went to kitchen to answer the phone at this ungodly hour. I picked it up.

“Hello.”

It was her.

“What’s the score here? Why are you calling me?” Might be too much. Alright, I thought, remain aloof.

“Are you sitting down Mr. Clark?”

Why yes I am. Attempting to keep my morning wood active actually, go on please. “I am. what are you doing? And how do you know my name” Subtle, very subtle.

I paced the kitchen, doing double duty of trying to keep her talking and masturbate, when I felt the familiar sharp pain of a piece of glass being forced up into the bottom of my foot. fuck.

“Mr. Clark, I am afraid I have some bad news.”

“Well you had better spit it out before you hang up again.” Trying to balance on one leg and jerk off while holding a phone is a talent, and if there were an Olympic sport, well . . . I woulda been a contender.

“What? You hung up on me last…”

And she was gone.

Somewhere. someone. or something. is fucking with my head. And I don’t appreciate that.

I hobbled over to the table and after clearing one of the seats off of a month or so accumulation of bad stories and unfinished essays, I sat down and took a look at the protruding piece. It wasn’t too deep, and looked strong enough to pull out by itself. After removing the offending member and staunching the blood with a piece of newspaper, I turned and looked at the bed. Who was she? Of course she was laying facing away from me so I couldn’t make out any identifying scars, tattoos or barcodes. She rolled over and by the looks of it, she was attractive. Nice. Maybe I could do something with this morning motivation. She yawned and opened her eyes faintly, attempting to wake up. I went back to bed and fucked her before the awkward questions began.

I woke up and she was gone. Ah well. At least I didn’t have to tell her goodbye. She was fun; perhaps she will want to do that again, sometime. back to bed.

And nothing happens for two days.

I woke up, made some more whiskey with a hint of coffee and jumped into my 1983 BMW en route to my real job. Me and god agreed on one thing. We both hate getting up early on Sundays.

That one. She looks promising. Her haircut was terrible and she had on the type of large glasses usually reserved for sight assistance for the elderly at Bingo. See, I was into delayed revenge. The awkwardness and embarrassment are always sweetened through the years. And you can find one every time. Maybe it’s the one who cannot stop picking her nose. Or the fat boy with a falsetto voice and terrible acne. I mean. I don’t know who any of these little shits are, and they won’t remember me. until they play this tape for their friends at one of those awkward pre-drinking high school basement parties at your parents house. Then. They will say, ‘remember that creepy cameraman?’ ‘Oh, yeah, that one. That guy was weird.’

“All right now class, settle down now.” Ms. Hartline, said, ushering her second grade students, working her way down the line, attempting to keep it straight and quiet. Why can’t those bastards ever listen, dammit?

She walked further down the line to where I was getting my shot and smiled at me, interrupting my simultaneous thought of wondering if my breath smelled half as bad as my mouth tasted and if there were any sounds that force air out in the phrase ‘do you hhhhhhave a piece of gum.’ Damn that body was too perfect to be in a church. The vision of violating her in a confessional/pew/on the altar that refused to go away was almost enough to make me drop my camera. But, as the good people of St. Agnes were about to find out at their children’s first communion, I am a professional.

Watching the kids process in was always my favorite part of the job. Just wondering who. Who is going to meet a creepy older man on the Internet in about, oh, say six years? Who is going to have a restraining order placed upon them by an overzealous parent? And don’t even get me started on the potential jailbait pictures that are going to arise when one of them snaps a shot on their expensive cell phone of their prepubescent breasts and sends it to some poor lucky sap. Ah, the pleasures of youth. Goddamn I needed a cigarette.

I walked out to my car during the homily, Father Don had a tendency to get a little longwinded and nostalgic at the first communions. My humble opinion was that it was the moment of his downfall, and was in so many ways that did not actually include him coming out and telling the students that this peculiar ritual was the reason for his unnatural attraction to small children and angels and single malt scotch. The poor bastard had never experienced the finer things in life, like a woman, holding your hand and saying, ‘poor thing. You poor, poor thing.’ All while drinking cold beer. in Akron. Sublime.

No one ever rewatches the homily anyways, and hell half the audience tunes out the first edition. My trusty and painstaking market research has found that over 83% of first communion tape viewers fast forward through the homily. The small minority consists of hardcore Catholics and Mormons curious of other religions initiation rituals. Mormons are very curious and always on the lookout for new ways to improve their hodgepodge religion. I went to the trusty beamer and found a note on my windshield. Peculiar. Usually the leaflets left on my car were from adult theatres and advertised live sex shows with subtle hints of the debauchery that could be purchased dependent upon the right amount of money and the level of soullessness one possessed. It was folded up piece of printer paper. Odd. It read:

“It seems that they have figured out who I am. Have you?” On the bottom was a large black ink mark, as if someone had written something and then decided better about it. I hate second thoughts.

Now this presented quite a conundrum. I could let this bother me or . . . I rolled it up, lit it on fire and used it to light my cigarette. If I let little nonsense like this throw off my arcadian rhythm then hell, I would have been locked up in a padded room a long time ago. Hmmm.

I walked in and finished filming. A crazed degenerate perhaps am I, but I do have to at least be able to fund my antics.

With a flourish of fanfare and a triumphal march out the main aisle, the service was done. I went and got drunk.

With nothing to do and nowhere to go. And a penchant for extreme violence and paranoid behavior. I was born into a time where such deeds were looked upon with a sense of disdain. A time when open moves against polite society were met with frowns and mutters concerning the sanity of our humble narrator. Wishing for someone that understood the secrets of this foul culture that we innocuously inhabit. And who wants to walk by quietly in the night? Concerning yourself with matters of the heart is always venturing into dangerous waters. full of sharks, barracudas and women claiming paternity. And who listens? Not me, for I am too busy with the mundane details to observe such lofty goals and ideals. Do my pants match my socks? How about my belt? Do they properly identify with my mindset and my particular objectives for the day?

Because I wish to plan ahead. Second thoughts only incur the wrath of khan. They make us wish for pleasant Tuesdays, upon which we realize that the reason for being is the slow and sad death that You can only hope will not be alone. But, hell. One can merely wonder if the thoughts and the minds of the disturbed are worth a damn, because they are not, and you point at your passport, claiming your citizenship, screaming to anyone that will listen that yes, dammit you do belong. They usually rebut that nah, fool, you be wrong.

The herd instinct is so strong in the mentally of the average American that all the lemmings make the leap.

Not me. For I am for a professional. And three lefts make a right.

I need to stop drinking and trying to ramble on. If these things had made sense, then I would have been stopped a long time ago.

The phone rang. I realized I had developed a problem when I dashed up from sucking down my beer and watching porn on mute to answer it. I had been staring at a blank piece of paper for about twenty minutes now, judging by the current sex act preformed. They all follow a basic time structure, usual for keeping track of time. Corny intro, oral sex for the male, oral for the female, vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse, and bam, half hour comes and goes and facial. Nice round, even numbers for the dispossessed. The phone was still ringing.

I picked it up and said nothing.

“Hello, hello? Is anyone there? Can you hear me?”

Christ.

“Yes, This is she.” I shot back. ho hum, let the bastard sit on that.

“This is no time for games, dammit Sam, pull yourself together, we have work to do.”

Damn her voice was sexy.

“What do you want? This is getting to be a bit ridiculous don’t you think? I mean who are you?”

“Meet me outside the Big Boy on 5^th and Jefferson in twenty minutes. Don’t be…”

And she was gone. Man, this is getting obnoxious.

So once I was presented with a choice? Do I go? I don’t want her to get the upper hand, but I do want to figure out what the fuck is going on. And she does have a sexy voice. Perhaps she will match it. My experience says she won’t, but I do have a short memory when it comes to sexy voices.

With the streetlights flashing by like so many warning bells telling me to turn around, I found myself driving the long road into town. I lived in the industrial wasteland known as gamely by the locals as ‘Cancer Corner’ by the locals due to the myriad of infectious products made at one point in the cavernous empty factories, testaments to the western industrial complex. Asbestos? Check. Lead Paint? Yup. We got that, all day. The way to town was paved with the hearts and hopes of many, nameless, unfortunate fools lost to the annals of history. tossed aside with a certain disdain not unlike an empty pack of cigarettes or a used condom.

***

She thought it late enough to call him. It was what was known as the witching hour. Only the true evil of this world was awake. Only the truly restless, uncomfortable with their place in life were conscious of the true ugliness of the hour. She knew he would answer.

“Hello.”

“Hi.”

“Mr. Clark…”

and the phone went dead.

Goddammit. Now how was She supposed to talk to the embodiment of pure iniquity when her phone was cutting out on her? again. But she knew that these things arose when Murphy’s Law was most applicable. And now was such a time for such behavior. She walked from her small kitchen to her equally small sitting room, sitting on the couch, and interrupted the slumber of two ugly cats who shot her a reproachful look. Perhaps she would call again, soon. But maybe he had hung up on her? Maybe he already knew her vicious agenda and couldn’t face the music. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen, her mom always told her. And she listened to her momma. Always had.

She went to sleep watching an infomercial about the benefits of cremating the dead. with visions of sugarplums dancing through her head.

Awake. It was early but maybe now was the time to catch him.

She picked up the phone and dialed his number.

“Hello.”

“What’s the score here? Why are you calling me?”

“Are you sitting down Mr. Clark?”

“I am. what are you doing? And how do you know my name”

“Mr. Clark, I am afraid I have some bad news.”

“Well you had better spit it out before you hang up again.”

“What? You hung up on me last…”

And the line cut out. Damn. the dogs had found out her purpose. A purpose she herself even had the faintest idea of. She only knew he was the only one who could help her. Conventional methods of abortion were unavailable due to the price and she believed him to be the best in the business. He had no track record of professionalism in this area, she just knew. She had seen him at work. The thought struck her at her one of her enemies’ weddings a few months back. that perhaps this was the man who would take the life inside her. Maybe it was his stance. Maybe it was his utter contempt for society that seemed to emanate from his disheveled appearance, one that was sure to win him big points with potential clientele, looking the part of a photographer.

Of course, She lacked the courage and fortitude to be able to do it herself. It had taken her this entire time to work up the gall to merely call him. She had grown tired and despondent and bored with this world and could not bring herself to add another worthless soul to the foul mix of primordial soup. She was ready for the next great adventure and motherhood was not it. Life offered her no thrills. No morning dew cheered her. No reason to be. She was curious of the Bard’s second part of his rhetorical question. To not be.

The girl had done her homework. She had found his website and knew that he was to film the first communion at St. Agnes that Sunday. She found his car and left a note. It read:

“It seems that they have figured out who I am. Have you?”

Ambiguous. Mysterious. She wrote down her name. Thought better of it and crossed it out, sufficiently hiding her identity. There was time. Let him ponder this and get it on his mind. Perhaps then he would be more receptive to her eccentric request. Was it so much to ask? A perfect stranger? ‘Excuse me, you look like the man I want to end my child’s life.” “I want you to surprise me with it.” “I don’t want to know the hour. Come like a thief in the night.”

Sounded reasonable enough. Right?

She let two days go by.

She called him. It was late, but she knew he would be awake. The malicious cannot lie to themselves, therefore, they cannot sleep. She picked up the phone and dialed his number. He answered right as she was about to hang up.

“Hello, hello? Is anyone there? Can you hear me?” She tried to keep the desperation out of her voice.

“Yes, This is she.”

“This is no time for games, dammit Sam, pull yourself together, we have work to do.”

“What do you want? This is getting to be a bit ridiculous don’t you think? I mean who are you?”

“Meet me outside the Big Boy on 5^th in twenty minutes. Don’t be…”

She had no idea why she picked that particular location. It had sounded so romantic in her mind. A perfect setting to plan the perfect murder. She began to get cold feet. Was she really going to go through with this?

Yes. she was.

***

I lit another cigarette and turned up the radio. What the hell did this bitch want? Why on earth would she keep calling me, leaving me notes on my car, which by the way was extremely creepy. How did she know my car? How the hell did she know where I would be. That’s why I am going. Right? I couldn’t rationalize any other reason.

I got there a little early. I hadn’t eaten all day. scotch and cigarettes have been my diet the past couple of days. Its not a diet I recommend, but the soul, she has her own wants, no? I went inside and ordered. and waited. The woman obviously already knew what my car looked like, better to not give her any more of advantage then she already had in this rendezvous. She had all the power, and it made me nervous.

Twenty minutes came and went. What the hell? Had this just been a figment of my imagination? Just more evidence of my increasing instability and overall decline in my sanity? Or was there something more foul afoot? I decided to mull it over a milkshake. Strawberry that is.

***

She pulled into the parking lot, trying to find a spot by his car. She felt more comfortable by his side. She barely knew him but. she knew that he was a kindred spirit. And she drew strength and courage and all those other bullshit feelings that humans feel.

In she walked.

***

He instantly recognized her from across the room. At first he didn’t know whether to see if he could leave without her seeing him or that he should call out. He just knew what she wanted before she even had crossed the ketchup stand.

***

She saw him and headed towards him. He didn’t rise when she got to the table and she sat down.

“Hello, Sam.”

Damn she had a sexy voice. “And you are?”

“Rebecca. And I think you are the only one that I can turn to.” She knew at this point full disclosure was the only way to go about things.

“What the hell do you want? And does it have anything to do with you calling me? Night and day? And who are you? a better question?”

“Do you have any experience in abortion? I can’t go to a doctor due to financial reasons. And I can’t go through with this pregnancy.” She laid it all out on the line.

I was stunned.

How exactly do you answer that question? Years of practice with the lowest levels of human scum have not prepared me for this request. And that’s saying something. I always felt myself prepared for anything. Even boy scouts do not have a merit badge for this shit. I answered the only way I knew how. “I believe I can help you.”

She looked pleased.

I was still confused. “What did you have in mind? Like coat hanger and vacuum type nonsense?”

“That’s why I chose you. I think you can be the one to make the appropriate course of action. I mean hell, you can handle this? Right?”

I said, “Stand up.”

She stood up, unsure of the next move, but for what she was asking him to do, she might as well be able to acquiesce a simple request to stand.

The target was too inviting to pass up. She looked about three or four months pregnant. Still small and petite with an amazing body, but beginning to show with a little bit of a baby bump.

I punched her. hard. in the stomach.

Once. Twice. Three time’s a lady.

She didn’t know what to do. She felt like she had been hit by a train. She doubled over and slumped down into the booth.

I was hoping the bitch wouldn’t scream. I picked up my tray, walked to the garbage and emptied it. I walked out the door without looking back. If I had had the chance, I would of washed my hands.

It was all of the time.