A long story I wrote in December, 2009.
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Leighton the facial tissue heiress slipped on a fish Friday, fell on her head, and died. The End.
A fish, a foot, a fall, a cracked noggin, a coroner, a morgue, a casket. Or maybe a burn-n-urn. I'd like to know who's going to get all that money. A Branzino head killed Leighton after she Astaired on it for about eighteen inches straight. Part of a fish can do as much or more damage as/than a whole fish can. Not going to spare you this kind of detail about fish parts. Not after what happened after Meece took off. If Meece had already come back, the fish head wouldn't have been sitting there with involuntary manslaughter on its mind in the first place.
Here's my version of the unfortunate mishap, more or less, as told to the cops: I felt shitty, so I went to bed on the early side, knocking myself out with a Seroquel while watching the first third of Sunset Boulevard.
The poor dope - he always wanted a pool. Well, in the end, he got himself a pool.
It got to be somewhere between four and five in the morning when there was a noise downstairs that woke me up.
Meece ran away two days ago, so he could have been responsible for detonating the clanging thud symphony of asshats downstairs -Meece the cat, who would have been taking a moment to cheerfully trumpet his return.
Comeback? I hate that word. It's a return, a return to the millions of people who have never forgiven me for deserting the screen.
Meece is Meece because he's made of mice. He's the plural of mice- a regular Cary Grant- and taint's Kryptonite. Maybe one of the canyon coyotes didn't eat him after all. I was an inch of hopeful for a few seconds about that possibility.
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Camcorder, advertainment, Chinglish. Those are all portmanteaus, but this explaining bullshit is for pussies. Seriously. Which reminds me. I found Meece Sunday, hanging by the neck from some razor wire by the garage, his eyes pecked out by crows.
***********
After the Big Noise Downstairs, here's what I saw in the kitchen: the fish head dotting the exclamation point drawn with a bloody smudge at a diagonal to the room, near the center island. Dead Leighton had cracked her dome on my Wolf stove en route to the Spanish tile floor, but not before grabbing at the lifesaver that is my All-Clad four quart copper core sauté pan, which was fraternizing with an unapologetic crowd of miscellaneous tools, above a cutting board configuration that would make you cry.
The name of this dish? "Wild Kaplooey, served with other local, sustainable, assorted onomatopoeia". The secret recipe? Take one stinking rich corpse, place or let fall atop a fresh, wild-caught blood pool, which will at the time of service reflect the likeness of a backyard lemon tree and the glare of a Saturday morning sun. Sprinkle liberally with small flying insects. Garnish with I don't give a fuck.
It was my fish head, alright, because I made dinner and went to bed without cleaning. Jimena could take care of it tomorrow, and so what? That's what I pay her for. Just the thought of her having to bend down and pick up the shrapnel of my exploded chef hard-on is worth the $300 a week I pay her. You haven't seen her little busy hands, so you don't know. Simple accident is all. Woman breaks in, walks through dark kitchen on way toward living room location of dead, stuffed zebra for express purpose of stealing said, slips on fish head, is killed by side effects of gravity. Blah blah hematoma blah fracture blahblah brain matter. Blame Canada, lol.
I'd like the coffin to be white, and I want it specially lined with satin. White... or pink.... Maybe red! Bright flaming red! Let's make it gay!
****
Nine years ago I strangled my girlfriend. They gave me a light sentence because the chick made me momentarily crazy due to breaking up with me, so I killed her in some kind of black out... She was taking advantage of my good nature by kicking it with a boxer briefs model, so I lost my mind for about five minutes while I cut off her ungrateful air supply. The jury recognized she was a careless slutbag who needed to stop screwing over unsuspecting saps. The fall out was that they were going to look at me cross-eyed over the Leighton thing, and I knew it.
A big old stove had been left in the yard to rust, so Teddy drove it. Teddy was four years old, and so small he could get inside and use the oven's tempered glass window as a windshield, scanning the horizon for other stoves he could pass, holding his left hand in a steering fist as he clutched the wheel, making the race car sounds while shifting with his voice and using a little potato of a right hand to operate the stick.
Chefs, knives, meat, blood: they all go together. The violence necessary to make food for innocent bodies to consume causes law enforcement to figure they've got a viable suspect in a chef. I'm banking on this fact for my pitch to the networks. A show about chef crimes. Bad ass cooks committing heinous acts...! Ta-da!
*************
I probably shouldn't have married her. Bond, I mean. Bond: my ex-cunt, who was the shake in my milk for a couple years. She makes more scratch than I ever have. Bond? What the hell kinda name is that? The name "Bond" got her acting jobs, since it couldn't have been talent so much. Then again, she does have a couple talents. Rack and ruin come to mind. Such a twat-tastic babe should've had a skull and crossbones tattooed on her labial shutters. She hated the midwest, I kid you not. You've never heard someone sputter more bullshit vitriol than Bond did about the midwest.. Shit, could you BE more obvious?
Baby. Your self-loathing is showing.
Bond called me Edward. She liked me best as Edward, which is my legal name now, after all, but everyone calls me Teddy. Chick obviously wanted to marry a prepster fag or something; so she calls me Edward like that's gonna wash me. Okay so Teddy also sounds preppy now that I think of it, but it also brings to mind that infamous turd of a midget, Teddy Roosevelt, with his brushtache and cigar. Now, THAT guy! He rated. Especially for a small POTUS. Probably got a lot of ass, too. I guess you could say he was a role model. My mom wanted to name me Lennox, though. What is it with women, anyway? It's like they spend all this time trying to get under your skin, and when they do, they lasso your nutsack and slam it into a vice, spending the rest of the time tightening until you say Uncle. But if you say Uncle, you're dead.
*********
Me and Bond met at either Pinochet's Lounge or Peggy Lee's Egyptian Theater-which was my pet name for Bonzo's-I don't remember which, because I was drinking hella in those days, and no, I didn't pull the JV move of introducing myself as Albert Broccoli when we met, even though it would've been cool since I'm Julia Child and her name is Bond. You better know who Albert Broccoli is.
Wanna hear a metaphor you can use when you want someone to understand that certain shit just doesn't change? Whatever. I like to call it my Theory Of Unwavering Phenomena As It Relates To The Stupidity Of Inebriation, and it's real simple:
Expecting to make good choices when you're drunk is like expecting ice cubes not to float in liquid, or for ice not to slide down the body of a warm, dry hooker. Well fuck. The float-or-sink thing isn't a negotiable law of physics on this planet, allowing you the latitude to carte blanche go fuck some bar hag or whoever if you're tanked and are expecting good results. Or smoke too much, or do rails all night.
Sure. Ice doesn't float sometimes. Good luck with that.
Should have come up with my Theory Of Unwavering Phenomena before Bond shook my tree. Live and learn. Anyway, I know what I'm talking about. Go get a Q Tip, clean out your earholes, scrape off the primeval eye crust that proves you're pimp enough to sleep in a cave rather than be chased by tigers all night, and I'll keep talking until, well, we'll see.
******
I read the paper. Stupid waste of time, like you care, but I read the paper. I like to drink two double espressos at the butcher block while doing this in _____________ Brasserie's Nazi-kissed, sparkling kitchen which we'll call Chez Penis to protect the random people who work there. I gnaw at a hunk of bread and sit there like a pig in shit, conveying utter indifference to newbie waitresses as they sign in. Oh, I'm sorrrry. Servers. OMG. Achtung. Yavul. Schnell! Steely intimidation gets so many things done around the work place. Rodents find it off-putting, for one thing. Bludgeon a mouse with a bus tub in full view of their cowering ilk, or even cast sideward glances suggesting you are conceiving of a bludgeoning, and the varmints go packing right quick. I've dialed it to a science, believe me on this one. Underlings of any stripe will grovel and skulk and bend to your will 24/7 if you maintain a consistent "The Claw" countenance when interacting with them. Hey, it's my goddamn place, so suck it. I almost got on Iron Chef.
**********
What the fuck was Leighton doing slipping on a fish head in my home kitchen anyway? Five'll get you twenty Leighton is -was- Bond's close personal ass-doucher, which is a couple levels deeper than ass-kissing. On the glad-handing spectrum of the obsequious, an ass doucher trumps whatever is between doucher and kisser. Frienema? Extra credit if you use it in a sentence.
***************
Leighton broke in to MY house to steal MY goddamn taxidermied zebra. And no, not just the head this time, like with the fish head she rode in on. I have the real deal: a full body, stuffed African zebra from 1926. That motherfucker casts shame upon my Greyhound skull/Maltese Falcon duo, pin-lit in a corner cubby across the room.
I'd like the coffin to be white, and I want it specially lined with satin. White... or pink.... Maybe red! Bright flaming red! Let's make it gay!
****
Nine years ago I strangled my girlfriend. They gave me a light sentence because the chick made me momentarily crazy due to breaking up with me, so I killed her in some kind of black out... She was taking advantage of my good nature by kicking it with a boxer briefs model, so I lost my mind for about five minutes while I cut off her ungrateful air supply. The jury recognized she was a careless slutbag who needed to stop screwing over unsuspecting saps. The fall out was that they were going to look at me cross-eyed over the Leighton thing, and I knew it.
A big old stove had been left in the yard to rust, so Teddy drove it. Teddy was four years old, and so small he could get inside and use the oven's tempered glass window as a windshield, scanning the horizon for other stoves he could pass, holding his left hand in a steering fist as he clutched the wheel, making the race car sounds while shifting with his voice and using a little potato of a right hand to operate the stick.
Chefs, knives, meat, blood: they all go together. The violence necessary to make food for innocent bodies to consume causes law enforcement to figure they've got a viable suspect in a chef. I'm banking on this fact for my pitch to the networks. A show about chef crimes. Bad ass cooks committing heinous acts...! Ta-da!
*************
I probably shouldn't have married her. Bond, I mean. Bond: my ex-cunt, who was the shake in my milk for a couple years. She makes more scratch than I ever have. Bond? What the hell kinda name is that? The name "Bond" got her acting jobs, since it couldn't have been talent so much. Then again, she does have a couple talents. Rack and ruin come to mind. Such a twat-tastic babe should've had a skull and crossbones tattooed on her labial shutters. She hated the midwest, I kid you not. You've never heard someone sputter more bullshit vitriol than Bond did about the midwest.. Shit, could you BE more obvious?
Baby. Your self-loathing is showing.
Bond called me Edward. She liked me best as Edward, which is my legal name now, after all, but everyone calls me Teddy. Chick obviously wanted to marry a prepster fag or something; so she calls me Edward like that's gonna wash me. Okay so Teddy also sounds preppy now that I think of it, but it also brings to mind that infamous turd of a midget, Teddy Roosevelt, with his brushtache and cigar. Now, THAT guy! He rated. Especially for a small POTUS. Probably got a lot of ass, too. I guess you could say he was a role model. My mom wanted to name me Lennox, though. What is it with women, anyway? It's like they spend all this time trying to get under your skin, and when they do, they lasso your nutsack and slam it into a vice, spending the rest of the time tightening until you say Uncle. But if you say Uncle, you're dead.
*********
Me and Bond met at either Pinochet's Lounge or Peggy Lee's Egyptian Theater-which was my pet name for Bonzo's-I don't remember which, because I was drinking hella in those days, and no, I didn't pull the JV move of introducing myself as Albert Broccoli when we met, even though it would've been cool since I'm Julia Child and her name is Bond. You better know who Albert Broccoli is.
Wanna hear a metaphor you can use when you want someone to understand that certain shit just doesn't change? Whatever. I like to call it my Theory Of Unwavering Phenomena As It Relates To The Stupidity Of Inebriation, and it's real simple:
Expecting to make good choices when you're drunk is like expecting ice cubes not to float in liquid, or for ice not to slide down the body of a warm, dry hooker. Well fuck. The float-or-sink thing isn't a negotiable law of physics on this planet, allowing you the latitude to carte blanche go fuck some bar hag or whoever if you're tanked and are expecting good results. Or smoke too much, or do rails all night.
Sure. Ice doesn't float sometimes. Good luck with that.
Should have come up with my Theory Of Unwavering Phenomena before Bond shook my tree. Live and learn. Anyway, I know what I'm talking about. Go get a Q Tip, clean out your earholes, scrape off the primeval eye crust that proves you're pimp enough to sleep in a cave rather than be chased by tigers all night, and I'll keep talking until, well, we'll see.
******
I read the paper. Stupid waste of time, like you care, but I read the paper. I like to drink two double espressos at the butcher block while doing this in _____________ Brasserie's Nazi-kissed, sparkling kitchen which we'll call Chez Penis to protect the random people who work there. I gnaw at a hunk of bread and sit there like a pig in shit, conveying utter indifference to newbie waitresses as they sign in. Oh, I'm sorrrry. Servers. OMG. Achtung. Yavul. Schnell! Steely intimidation gets so many things done around the work place. Rodents find it off-putting, for one thing. Bludgeon a mouse with a bus tub in full view of their cowering ilk, or even cast sideward glances suggesting you are conceiving of a bludgeoning, and the varmints go packing right quick. I've dialed it to a science, believe me on this one. Underlings of any stripe will grovel and skulk and bend to your will 24/7 if you maintain a consistent "The Claw" countenance when interacting with them. Hey, it's my goddamn place, so suck it. I almost got on Iron Chef.
**********
What the fuck was Leighton doing slipping on a fish head in my home kitchen anyway? Five'll get you twenty Leighton is -was- Bond's close personal ass-doucher, which is a couple levels deeper than ass-kissing. On the glad-handing spectrum of the obsequious, an ass doucher trumps whatever is between doucher and kisser. Frienema? Extra credit if you use it in a sentence.
***************
Leighton broke in to MY house to steal MY goddamn taxidermied zebra. And no, not just the head this time, like with the fish head she rode in on. I have the real deal: a full body, stuffed African zebra from 1926. That motherfucker casts shame upon my Greyhound skull/Maltese Falcon duo, pin-lit in a corner cubby across the room.
Ergo, Leighton was not only Bond's ass servicer, but is a suspected dyke, if you ask me. Why else would a bitch do something like that for another bitch? Steal a cumbersome antique safari trophy worth $18,000? Not for money in this case. Leighton was, if nothing else, flush. Inheritance flush. Ivy-covered-great-big-stone-building flush/never-did-a-dish-in-her-life flush. But how the snatch was she supposed to get a huge, crisp animal out of my house? Leighton obviously thought she was above the law, for one thing, and fancied herself a turbo-elite, uber Nancy Drew on steroids. Got taken out by a fuck of a Branzino scrap.
****************
Audiences don't know somebody sits down and writes a picture; they think the actors make it up as they go along.
Bond's an actress. You know her and want her. She runs lines with scene partners all day, drinks and dines with directors and producers at night, and who knows what she's really up to? Drove me batshit, because there would be randy, cokehead actors all up in her decolletage, fans, producers, writers, and rock stars. Her scenes often called for a makeout or a sexy dance or whatever. Dude, it's too hot for you, so just forget it.
"Fuck", said Bond, noticing me. It was hot that day, Mexico hot, a doozy, and the little pods on the tree out back were popping adorably, as they do when it's simmering in the canyon. Cacophony to an ant, this popping, to be sure. Probably ants can't hear, though, so blow me. Poppety-pop, an airplane flying, and the sound a windless day makes. I never can figure out why when it's hot it sounds hot. Figure that out for me, and I let you drive my Alfa from one freeway exit to the next.
In a related story, chicks kicking it is smokin' hot whenever. But it's like temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit were invented for the staging of inter-female love encounters. How about let's put on a show called Hot And Soft Female Love Expressions On Ice? Let it not be said I don't have compassion for a melting set of tits. Or two. Put the bitches on ice, for fuck's sake! This the people will pay to see! Except I didn't have to pay money. 2012 Ducco (doo-ko) Drive is a charming manor in Benedictine Canyon, above Beverly Hills. Got a great kitchen, as you can see, and some jaw-dropping canyon views, plus a good hunk of what passes for a skyline. James Goldstein's house hangs it's ass over my place, and I get to pretend I'm not jealous of his ill-gotten multi-millions every day. Goldstein lives in Jackie Treehorn's motherfucking house. Anyway, Bond used to live here with me in holy matrimony, and it's here where she was bringing her lover.
The worst part of finding the one you love with someone else is that they look like they're having way more fun with the other person than they do with you. Not just fun, but an actual, light drizzle of July 4th love sparks raining down, and buckets of goddamn emotional half-nelson beauty all over the place. I kid you not, I had to witness this shit on that hot day, walking into my own bedroom. It was those two Sapphics, not even on the bed, but fully fucking clothed and just standing there, making out like PhD's of Intimacy Science. Bond was holding Leighton's cerebellum with her wedding ringed hand, as if cradling the last drops of water in the desert so that her newborn baby could partake of it before dying. It was a Grauman's marquee of them in fucking love or something, and I felt my blood pressure blow chunks into my ears as I self-eviscerated- gasping, sweating balls like ass.
****************
Audiences don't know somebody sits down and writes a picture; they think the actors make it up as they go along.
Bond's an actress. You know her and want her. She runs lines with scene partners all day, drinks and dines with directors and producers at night, and who knows what she's really up to? Drove me batshit, because there would be randy, cokehead actors all up in her decolletage, fans, producers, writers, and rock stars. Her scenes often called for a makeout or a sexy dance or whatever. Dude, it's too hot for you, so just forget it.
"Fuck", said Bond, noticing me. It was hot that day, Mexico hot, a doozy, and the little pods on the tree out back were popping adorably, as they do when it's simmering in the canyon. Cacophony to an ant, this popping, to be sure. Probably ants can't hear, though, so blow me. Poppety-pop, an airplane flying, and the sound a windless day makes. I never can figure out why when it's hot it sounds hot. Figure that out for me, and I let you drive my Alfa from one freeway exit to the next.
In a related story, chicks kicking it is smokin' hot whenever. But it's like temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit were invented for the staging of inter-female love encounters. How about let's put on a show called Hot And Soft Female Love Expressions On Ice? Let it not be said I don't have compassion for a melting set of tits. Or two. Put the bitches on ice, for fuck's sake! This the people will pay to see! Except I didn't have to pay money. 2012 Ducco (doo-ko) Drive is a charming manor in Benedictine Canyon, above Beverly Hills. Got a great kitchen, as you can see, and some jaw-dropping canyon views, plus a good hunk of what passes for a skyline. James Goldstein's house hangs it's ass over my place, and I get to pretend I'm not jealous of his ill-gotten multi-millions every day. Goldstein lives in Jackie Treehorn's motherfucking house. Anyway, Bond used to live here with me in holy matrimony, and it's here where she was bringing her lover.
The worst part of finding the one you love with someone else is that they look like they're having way more fun with the other person than they do with you. Not just fun, but an actual, light drizzle of July 4th love sparks raining down, and buckets of goddamn emotional half-nelson beauty all over the place. I kid you not, I had to witness this shit on that hot day, walking into my own bedroom. It was those two Sapphics, not even on the bed, but fully fucking clothed and just standing there, making out like PhD's of Intimacy Science. Bond was holding Leighton's cerebellum with her wedding ringed hand, as if cradling the last drops of water in the desert so that her newborn baby could partake of it before dying. It was a Grauman's marquee of them in fucking love or something, and I felt my blood pressure blow chunks into my ears as I self-eviscerated- gasping, sweating balls like ass.
Bond heard me, saw me, said fuck, and gently released her love hold on that cooze. I was floored by her asshole calmness and I gestated a scream that would not be born and I wanted to get my Hulk on and throw something monumental, but all I had in my hand was the latest iPhone. And I couldn't move. "Fuck".
************
My beloved, white, short haired house cat was weightlessly hanging, held up by the eternal tension of fight, brown-red blood caking his stiff body dry except for the two front paws, which were clean. So white. Jesus. (Cue music) His front paws were frozen in a comical clinging pose like in the "Hang In There, Baby" poster, his individual toes curled inward to form cat paw fists. Insects were rifling through the sale bins of tasty dead meat and the markdown racks of bacterial stank located at each hole in his sorry head and ass.. Fucking comedian. Butchering meat you get used to the look of torn up flesh, but Meece? Forever sucking time into a nowhere I never want to go, when a few days ago he had been conducting ridiculous experiments in paper bag habitability and forced string surrender.
War On String May Be Unwinnable, Cat General Says
He smelled like dirt and rosemary. It occurred to me I could get him stuffed.
********
satiopath: [ say-shee-oh-path} A person, (like the sociopath) who doesn't know what people are supposed to feel in certain situations-- someone who doesn't have an operational gauge for satiety, manifesting in overeating or under eating. Looks at others' food a lot as they eat, looking for cues from normal people on when to start and stop eating, and how much. Watches food channel constantly.
***********
Wanna know what really happened? I killed Leighton because she was fucking my wife. Wait a minute. I killed Leighton because she broke into my house and it was dark, so I didn't recognize her and hit her on the head with a pot, thinking she was a burglar. Or she thought I was a burglar, attacked me because she's a badass, and I had to bonk her in self-defense. Or maybe I should just stick with the fish head scenario.
Just a sec.
What's my ending? Maybe something else from Sunset Boulevard. More quotes. Or, the ending could be the very beginning, since my beginning was my middle. Okay. It has to start with the cat. Uh. Fish plus cat. Cat kills Leighton with his placement of the fish head, and/or cat hangs out in the kitchen waiting to scare her, she slips on the fish head-this is all assuming I myself didn't kill her either accidentally or on purpose, and that she's dead for real, in the first place. But, if Meece has been gone for two days when Leighton dies on the kitchen floor, it could mean he faked his own disappearance. Who strings Meece up by the garage, then? And why? Did I do it while sleepwalking due to Seroquel-induced bullshit or what? Come on, Teddy. Can't we just have some gunplay in the bedroom when I find Leighton and Bond together? Oh shit. More later; gotta go to work. Gonna be really busy tonight. Special some Branzino? Big markup on Branzino; I got a killer deal from Marco.
************
My beloved, white, short haired house cat was weightlessly hanging, held up by the eternal tension of fight, brown-red blood caking his stiff body dry except for the two front paws, which were clean. So white. Jesus. (Cue music) His front paws were frozen in a comical clinging pose like in the "Hang In There, Baby" poster, his individual toes curled inward to form cat paw fists. Insects were rifling through the sale bins of tasty dead meat and the markdown racks of bacterial stank located at each hole in his sorry head and ass.. Fucking comedian. Butchering meat you get used to the look of torn up flesh, but Meece? Forever sucking time into a nowhere I never want to go, when a few days ago he had been conducting ridiculous experiments in paper bag habitability and forced string surrender.
War On String May Be Unwinnable, Cat General Says
He smelled like dirt and rosemary. It occurred to me I could get him stuffed.
********
satiopath: [ say-shee-oh-path} A person, (like the sociopath) who doesn't know what people are supposed to feel in certain situations-- someone who doesn't have an operational gauge for satiety, manifesting in overeating or under eating. Looks at others' food a lot as they eat, looking for cues from normal people on when to start and stop eating, and how much. Watches food channel constantly.
***********
Wanna know what really happened? I killed Leighton because she was fucking my wife. Wait a minute. I killed Leighton because she broke into my house and it was dark, so I didn't recognize her and hit her on the head with a pot, thinking she was a burglar. Or she thought I was a burglar, attacked me because she's a badass, and I had to bonk her in self-defense. Or maybe I should just stick with the fish head scenario.
Just a sec.
What's my ending? Maybe something else from Sunset Boulevard. More quotes. Or, the ending could be the very beginning, since my beginning was my middle. Okay. It has to start with the cat. Uh. Fish plus cat. Cat kills Leighton with his placement of the fish head, and/or cat hangs out in the kitchen waiting to scare her, she slips on the fish head-this is all assuming I myself didn't kill her either accidentally or on purpose, and that she's dead for real, in the first place. But, if Meece has been gone for two days when Leighton dies on the kitchen floor, it could mean he faked his own disappearance. Who strings Meece up by the garage, then? And why? Did I do it while sleepwalking due to Seroquel-induced bullshit or what? Come on, Teddy. Can't we just have some gunplay in the bedroom when I find Leighton and Bond together? Oh shit. More later; gotta go to work. Gonna be really busy tonight. Special some Branzino? Big markup on Branzino; I got a killer deal from Marco.