Wrecking the edges

Scab earned his name after his father opened his bedroom door and caught him jacking off to a magazine called Chicks With Dicks. He tried to toss the mag and zip up, but he caught his dick in his zipper and his father had to cut his pants with scissors to build pressure for the zipper to pop open. But the zipper had a hold on him, and his father had to rip it away. It left a scab that was constantly broken because Scab couldn’t stop jacking off. He told a few of us the story after he was kicked out of the house. His father was a lifer in the Air Force. He was already apprehensive about Scab because Scab played the cello. Scab’s mother sneaked him money when she could. He was juggled between the families of friends, then he was allowed back in the house until the day he graduated, but by then his father was dead. His mother followed two years after. He stayed with me for awhile, then with somebody else after I left Arizona, then he eventually met a girl and lived with her, until she discovered that he also liked men. He actually closed his eyes one day and pointed to the map. He had set his finger on Philly, quit his job and moved. His little brother was living with him. I hadn’t seen him since he was shipped off to live with their grandmother in Tulsa after their mother died. He stood in the kitchen and ran his mouth about his new punk band, about how it went against the mainstream and underground, how it was against anything stock or ordinary, as well as false and forced for trend.

“Alright. So what’s the fucking band called?”

“Wreckedge, as in wrecking the fucking edges: straight edge, emo, rap metal, gangster, R&B, hip-hop, destroying all that bullshit. Even taking it beyond the realm of thrash.”

“You’ve got a lot of balls to be able to say that.”

“Fuck you. You’ll see.”

“You’re standing there with an eyebrow ring and eyeliner, telling me that you’re part of something different. You’re an idiot.”

“No,” he paused and acted like he was scratching his balls, “maybe I’m doing this on purpose to reach everybody and help re-educate them.”

“Talk about bullshit.”

“You’re a hopeless cynic. I understand why you’re a writer. But your perception of music is retarded.”

I sat there and drank my coffee. He lit a smoke and walked out of the kitchen. I cracked my neck and rolled a sheet through. I started a letter to Emily, telling her about Philadelphia. Right now she was getting ready for work. Blitz walked back in and put a tape in the cassette player, “What are you writing?”

“A letter to my girlfriend.”

“Check this shit out. This is Wreckedge.”

He hit play. It was awful. Blitz played rhythm guitar and sang. The band was out of key and the lyrics were laughable, something about burning down the world and how they were the chosen few, a lot of shit like that. I reached over and hit stop. He looked at me, “Why’d you stop it?”

“It sounds like everything else. Only worse.”

He gave me a hurt look. I tilted my cup at him.

“Just being honest.”

He stood up and ejected the tape. He held it and glared at me, “You’re a dick. You have no ear for the original.”

I nodded to the tape in his hand, “Likewise.”

He punched the wall and walked out. Scab walked through in his boxers. He brewed a new pot and waited by the counter. It was useless to talk to him before he tasted coffee. He pulled the pot off the heater and held his cup under the drip. He walked past the hit on the wall and sat down. He drank his coffee.

“You saw my little brother, huh?”

“We had a conversation about his God complex.”

“I heard.”

“I didn’t mean to fuck with him.”

“Don’t worry about it. We go round and round over that shit.”

The doorbell rang. Nobody got up. There was a wait, another ring and the door opened. A young girl walked in. Scab and I stared at her. She was there for Blitz. She was barely dressed. Her body was great to the point where it was cruel for us to look at it. I lit a smoke. She stood in the kitchen and stared at us.

“Where’s Blitz?”

Scab looked into his cup, “He’s on the shitter.”

Blitz screamed from his room: “No, I’m not! Shut the fuck up!”

I walked over and poured a coffee. She looked at Scab, “So, I take it you’re Craig?”

“Right. This here’s my buddy Henry from Portland.”

“Maine?”

“Oregon.”

“Oh.”

Scab looked at me and smiled. I shook my head at him. He nodded at me.

“Henry’s a writer.”

“Oh? For a living?”

“That’s right,” he said, “novels published and everything.”

I poured the sugar in, “Don’t listen to him.”

She cocked her head at me. I was in town to do a reading. I had to read that afternoon.

“What’s your last name?”

Scab told her. She laughed, “Oh my god! Wait, you guys are fucking with me.”

“That’s right. I told you not to listen to him.”

She ran over and pulled my wallet from my pocket. She read my license.

I sat down. She walked over and gave me my wallet, “Can I please give you a hug?”

Scab smiled at me. I stood up. I wasn’t wearing a shirt, and I could feel her navel ring and tits press into me.

“I’m Samantha.”

“Of course,” I said. Scab laughed. I sat back down. Samantha sat next to me at the table, “I never do this. I never geek out like this. I had no idea you were so young.”

I pulled the letter out and flipped it over, “Young my ass.”

“How old are you?”

“I could be your father.”

“I doubt it.”

“How old are you, Samantha?”

“Twenty-three.”

“Well, if we were in Kentucky I could be.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-six.”

“That’s not too bad.”

Scab got up and poured another cup. He lit one of my smokes, “Henry doesn’t believe in aging.”

She reached over and touched my arm, “I can’t believe you’re sitting right here. I have so many questions for you. I mean, I’ve read everything of yours I could find.”

I looked at the diamond in her navel. I wanted to fuck her so badly I could barely swallow. But I had Emily, and I couldn’t do that to her. I grabbed a shirt from my suitcase and put it on.

“You can ask me.”

Scab sat down. The phone rang. He held it over to me, “Emily.”

I answered, “Hi, beautiful.”

Samantha smiled. Emily was behind the bar getting ready to open.

“I just got to work. How’s Scab doing?”

“He’s good. I started writing you a letter today.”

“Shit, I have to go. Fuckface just got here.”

“I’ll talk to you.”

We hung up. Fuckface was her boss, the bar manager. His real name was Todd. Todd was a real prick. Emily wouldn’t quit her job. She made good money there. Samantha looked at Scab, “How did you two meet?”

“Grew up together. He went on to become a famous writer and I went on to become a sleeper.”

“Blitz said you played the cello for a living.”

“I scrape by.”

Samantha focused on me again.

“I think your writing is amazing.”

I smiled at her. Scab shook his head, “He’s one of those queers who can’t take a compliment.”

She laughed and squeezed my arm, “Oh, he’s just humble.”

Blitz walked in and shot her a cold stare. She walked over to him. Her jeans were loose and low. Scab and I watched her ass cheeks wobble around her thong. It was torture. She hugged Blitz, “You never told me you knew Henry Struyveint.”

Blitz shot me a bitter nod, “This dude’s a dick.”

I put out my smoke, “Thank you, Blitz.”

Samantha laughed. Scab looked into the newspaper, “He’s just pussyhurt because Henry doesn’t like Wreckedge.”

Samantha cocked her head at me. She was pigeon toed and soaked with sex.

“Why don’t you like it?”

“I have go to take a shower.”

Scab laughed. Blitz shook his head, “Fuck all this. I’m outta here. Sam, you can stay here and suck his dick. I don’t give a fuck. I’m on a mission.”

He grabbed his guitar from the couch and slammed the front door. Scab smiled into the paper. Samantha looked at me, “Are you staying here?”

“Two days.”

“I want to talk to you about your writing. I’ll see you later. Bye, Craig.”

“See you, sweetheart.”

She went after Blitz.

I looked at Scab, “I’ll be hitting the ceiling tonight.”

“Man, fuck that. Emily blows her away.”

“No, she does. And she gives me balance. But still.”

“I hear you.”

“How long has Blitz been here?”

“Oh, fuck. It’s gotta be half a year since he showed up here.”

“Does he have a plan?”

“Never does. He gets to one place then shoots to the next. No roots, no address. I expect no less.”

“He’s changed.”

“He’s changed into a little bitch.”

I laughed. Scab nodded at the counter, “Well, hell, he fits right in here. They think Blitz is a cool nickname he’s earned. They think it’s cool and he lets them think that. I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t want anybody to know that my father was an uber jock and named me after a football play. But he’s let it go to his head.”

I rolled the sheet back through. Scab stretched, “I heard you tell Blitz you were writing a letter to Emily.”

“I was.”

“You’ll be back before she even gets it.”

“I know.”

Scab told me he’d met a girl and he was happy with her. He met her through some personals in a fetish or sex magazine. She was a full-on woman with a cock above her pussy. Scab told me the cock was functional but she couldn’t get off with it, and that he’d fought the notion of being bisexual after the last guy he was with bored him within half an hour. He said he did a week of soul searching and he figured out that he liked the body of a woman, but also a cock, but that having to see a guy’s bare torso or ass to get to the cock was always an obstacle which became too large to hurdle:

“I never thought of myself as bisexual because I never liked to take it up the ass or even give it up the ass. I didn’t even like kissing another guy. I just liked sucking a hard dick. I use to always fantasize that I was sucking some dude’s dick while I fucked his girlfriend or his wife. Now I have it both ways, with the same woman.”

I stared into my cup, “Fucking freaks.”

“You’ll meet her.”

He got up and poured another cup, started a new pot. He sat back down and opened the paper, “Just don’t tell her you know she has a dick. She doesn’t think it’s anybody’s business.”

“Got it.”

“She’s my girlfriend, man. She has a good job with a nice boutique and a good head on her shoulders. I feel ashamed sometimes that I actually had to get intimate with a few guys just to suck their cocks.”

“It’s a rough method.”

I looked around. The place wasn’t all that bad. He didn’t like it. He had a basement and an upstairs. He told me there was a ghost in the apartment, that the ghost mostly hung out at the top of the staircase and it slept in the basement at the base of the stairs. He said when he was in his room on-line he could feel it watching him, but it also liked to stand behind him while he was at his computer. I walked to the window. I saw four black girls playing skip-rope rhymes down on Fitzwater. They were fast and good. I’d never seen it in the flesh. I walked over to the coffee pot, topped him off and emptied it into my cup and started a new pot. It was a small machine. Scab put away three pots every morning.

“What time is it?”

“Almost noon.”

“There goes my shower.”

“What time is the reading?”

“Half an hour.”

“At least it’s close.”

I sat down and opened my briefcase. I pulled out the story I was going to read. It was a 40 page poem about building barns up and down highway 5 when I was 30. I closed the case and drank my coffee. Scab looked at me, “What’s it like?”

“It’s different. It’s smaller than you’d think it would be. I haven’t reached a rock star level yet. It’s inevitable, though. They’ve been pushing me to the teeth. It’s getting to where I hear about my writing everywhere.”

“Any enemies?”

“The usual underground bullshit. Writers who think they’re better, harder. I get love/hate stare-downs in coffee shops. But overall I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I actually like it. I didn’t think I would.”

Scab looked at my wrist. My publisher had sent me a Rolex Presidential. I looked at him, “And if the writing flops I can sell the watch. Fuck it.”

My cell phone rang.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Struyveint ?”

“Yes.”

“This is Dagmar from the Book Cellars. You’re reading here today.”

“Right.”

“Listen, the person reading before you had to cancel. We have a full house here and some people are starting to leave.”

“What happened?”

“Well, Harold Percy, you know who that is?”

“Hairy Pussy. Dark poetry and bad hair.”

She laughed, “Right. He said he had to cancel because he was in the middle of his best work and he didn’t want to break out of his zone to read today.”

“Yet he could break out and call.”

“Well, he’s the local fame around here. I think he’s uncomfortable because he didn’t get to be the featured reader.”

“What’s the crowd like?”

“Most of his camp left. You can imagine them. But now we’re hanging. A lot of people just started coming in. Maybe I panicked.”

“I know an opener. I’ll send him down. He can warm them up with his cello.”

Scab looked at me and shook his head. I smiled at him, “He’s accomplished. His fee is one-hundred dollars per half hour.”

“Awesome. Thank you, Mr. Struyveint.”

I hung up, “Scab, grab your shit and head down there. I’ll meet you.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Just do it. You’ll make some money.”

He got on the phone and called his girlfriend. She was driving over to get him.

He walked out of his room with his cello and his gear, “You want a ride?”

“I’m walking it. I’ll meet you down there.”

I walked out and made my way up 18th, through Rittenhouse Park. I walked past the freaks and watched a mime. I lit up and walked toward the bookstore. Half an hour had passed. The streets of Philly were dirty and warm. There was an edge to the town that I didn’t like. It wasn’t a refined entitlement like Portland, but there was something like a parade to it, maybe an overdone front. The bookstore was crowded. I tossed my smoke and cracked my neck.

The reading went by. It was the usual bullshit, answer questions and deflect contact. A guy in a wheelchair gave me heavy attitude. He was obsessed with the dead midget from Fantasy Island. He’d written the unauthorized biography. There were a lot of literary Amazonian whores. They wouldn’t give me the time of day if I hadn’t been published. All their men they’d push aside to fuck a rising writer. If it weren’t for Emily I could have them. But it wasn’t on Emily. I shook hands and waited for the remaining shadows to drop away so I could leave by myself. It was cooling off in the park. I dialed the bar back home. The prick was gone, so she had time. I sat on a bench and talked to her. I heard a small engine behind me. It grew louder then stopped. I smelled a clove cigarette. I heard some people walk into the bar. Emily asked me about Scab’s woman. I told her she was normal, even beautiful. I told her I couldn’t get past the cock. She laughed. I hung up with her and lit a smoke. I heard the small engine again. It rolled up to the side of the bench. I put my lighter in my pocket. I didn’t want to look over. I tasted the bitter chalk of the clove. I reached down into my briefcase and pulled out my story. I was trying to look occupied.

“Hey, man,” he was smiling straight ahead. I glanced at him.

“Hey, alright, Eugene. You found me.”

“I wasn’t looking for you. But since we’re both here I thought I’d give this to you.”

He handed me a fat manuscript. I looked at the cover. It said: HERVÉ. I flipped through the pages. It was single spaced and hard to read. The sentences were close together.

“Have you sent this off to anybody?”

“No. I don’t know how to get it started.”

“First of all you, since you’re using a typewriter, you have to double space your lines and space twice after each period.”

“Oh.”

I felt bad, “You’re really into this Hervé guy.”

“He was an unsung hero.”

“How’d you get the chair?”

His eyes lit up, “I was twenty-nine. I drove a disposal truck. I went off the road. It wasn’t my fault. The steering column locked up on me. I got a nice settlement. Not that I wouldn’t rather be walking.”

“Were you wearing your seatbelt?”

“No. If I’d have had it on I wouldn’t have sustained such serious injuries.”

“Sorry.”

“Well, I’m a painter. I was watching the E Channel and they were running a special on Hervé. He committed suicide.”

“I think I remember hearing about it.”

“He was a great French painter, his paintings even hung in the big museums. One night he was drinking and listening to his opera albums and he ran out of booze, so he drank turpentine.”

“Jesus.”

“I know. See, no one took him seriously because he was a midget, well, a dwarf, or in his case whatever it’s called when you just stop growing. Nobody takes midgets seriously.” He tossed his clove, “Anyhow, I’ve always dabbled in writing. I researched Hervé and decided to write that book. The more I learned about him the more I grew to love him. You know, on a purely fan-based level. He was ahead of his time.”

I started to get the creeps. I stood and shook his hand, “Thanks for the book. I’ll get into it on the plane.”

“I wrote my number and contacts on the last page. You taking off?”

“I should go. I have to meet up with my buddy and his lady.”

“You can’t have another smoke with me?”

I looked at his feet on the pedals of his chair. They were pigeon toed and useless. But I thought of Samantha standing in the kitchen.

“One more smoke.”

I sat down. We stared at the same group of women.

“So you can’t have sex anymore?”

He put his hand on his stomach, “There’s nothing from here on down. I have a piss bag attached to my leg. I still think about it once in awhile. I miss the company of a woman, the intimacy. Before this happened I had four going at one time, juggling. I guess it’s some form of payback.”

“You lost all the urges?”

“It happens to most people who lose what I’ve lost.”

“That’s good, then.”

“It’s a blessing. I just sublimated all that energy into my work.”

I thought about it. He looked over at me, “So you promise to read the book?”

“I’ll get into it on the plane.”

“Do you get a lot of people like me, you know, approaching you and handing you unsolicited work?”

“I can safely say I’ve never met anyone like you.”

He laughed. I stood and shook his hand again, “I have to go, Eugene. You take good care.”

He smiled. I walked off a few blocks and threw the book in a waste basket.

Back at the apartment I drank with Scab and Mara. Mara was alright. I liked her hair. When she wasn’t staring at me I glanced to her crotch. I couldn’t see anything. Scab had made a hundred dollars. He ordered a pizza. Mara sat next to me on the couch. She was getting drunk. She put her arm around me and crossed her legs. I scratched my nose and laughed politely. She took my hand into hers, “I want to know where all of that writing comes from.”

I squeezed her hand, freed mine, and patted her on her knee, “It comes from the same place. I really don’t have an answer.”

“Oh, what a load of shit! You’re among friends here. Don’t give me that evasive bullshit.”

Scab smiled and nodded into his drink. She had me cornered. Scab really got off on it. She uncrossed her legs and cleared her throat, then crossed them the other way.

“I mean, you have to have some kind of fucking process with it.”

Scab looked at her and stared at me. I picked up my drink. She made them strong. Blitz walked in with Samantha. He set his guitar case on the floor, “Mara, can I make a couple of drinks for me and Sam?”

“Of course.”

Samantha sat across from us in the chair.

“Hi, Henry.”

“Hi, Samantha.”

Blitz called from the kitchen, his voice heightened to Samantha’s pitch, “Yeah. Hi, Henry!” It was evil and bitter. I raised an eyebrow to the kitchen, “That suits you perfectly, Blitz. Maybe you could make me a drink while your little bitch ass is in there and forward lateral it to me.”

Samantha looked over her shoulder at him, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Blitz walked in and held the drink to me, “It doesn’t mean anything. Here’s your drink, cocksucker.”

I took the drink and smiled. Scab rubbed his eyes. I saw Blitz again as the same teenage boy who used to hide from himself. He brought Samantha her drink and stood against the doorway from the kitchen. He flashed his eyes on Samantha and stared at me. I let him know that I was backing off. Mara leaned forward and shook my leg, “Look, I don’t write. I don’t even read as much as I used to. Apart from your writing, I don’t buy books. But you’re here and I have questions.”

I took a drink and stared into the kitchen, just over Blitz’s shoulder. Scab finally stepped in, “Jesus Christ, Mara. Give the guy a fucking break. He’s off the clock.”

“No, I’m not trying to interrogate him. If he’s half as instinctive as I think he is then he understands. We buy his work.”

“That’s your fucking choice,” Blitz said.

The little fucker had read my mind. An argument broke out in the apartment between them. Mara threw her hand up, “Oh, forget it!”

Samantha raised her hand, “I have questions!”

Scab and I laughed. Samantha sat forward, “That story you read today, it was a long poem, right?”

“Right.”

“Do you still write poetry? Do you think that novelists are failed poets? Who said that?”

“Faulkner. That’s a bunch of bullshit.”

“Why?”

“How many great poets wrote great novels? Maybe one or two. I don’t get tangled in a certain type of writing. Classification is for people like Harold Percy. I sidestep all of that garbage.”

Mara shook her head, “What about Salinger or Bukowski?”

“What about them?”

“Well, Salinger turned into a recluse, and Bukowski had an open hatred for a lot of his readers.”

“Their problems.”

“But you have to admit money and fame changes people.”

“It changed my life but it didn’t change me. Being poor and stuck doesn’t mean you’re doing something great, and just because you’re talented doesn’t mean you’re special. It means you have to work twice as hard because you exist on two planes, but I’d have to say the writing has gotten better since I’ve been doing it for a living.”

Samantha smiled at Mara. Blitz looked confused. Mara got up and made herself a drink. Scab looked across to me, “Dude, I’m sorry.”

I waved him off, “I don’t give a fuck. She pours a strong one.”

Samantha sipped her drink and smiled at me. Mara sat, looked at me and nodded.

“I’m done.”

Blitz laughed. Scab got up and poured a few more. I lit up and looked at Mara.

We sat in an Irish pub down 18th. I walked out to the mailbox and dropped off Emily’s letter. We had shown up there early but the bar became crowded. We sat at our table and drank. Emily called and told me that she was busted for selling to a minor. She said the kid had a full beard and his license was the best fake she’d ever seen. She said she was taking it to court. Todd let her go that night. She was crying. Todd had been trying to get in her pants since he’d hired her. She told me that the bar was packed and she read the license and made his drink and half a minute later the place was silent and she was fired. It was pure and simple entrapment. I told her to use my credit card and fly up to Philly for a week. We made plans and hung up. I told the table what had happened back home. A guy and his wife walked up with a bar napkin and a pen. He tapped me on the shoulder, “We really hate to do this, but can we have an autograph?”

I took the napkin and signed it. The guy put his hand out, “Thank you so much. We’re big readers.”

I shook his hand. They walked off. Scab looked at me, “So Emily’s flying up?”

“She’ll be here the day after tomorrow.”

We started talking about Arizona, about growing up together, telling Mara and Samantha about Phoenix and the way it was for us. I was getting drunk. A few more people had approached the table with books or notebook paper to be signed. People were sending drinks to the table. We ordered food. I had the New York strip with fries. I grew angry thinking about Emily. She had poured her soul into that place. Emily refused to live off the money from my writing. She wouldn’t let me buy her a car, she wouldn’t let me foot every bill when we went out. She’d been with me long before anything had happened for me, and that made her more than my girl. It made her blood. The more we sat at the table the more people approached us. They were leaving and returning with others. The first couple from earlier came back with a book. I grabbed the pen and started signing it. The pen died on me. I shook it but it was emptied out. Mara reached into her backpack. I grabbed the steak knife from the table, “I got it.”

I poked a hole in my fingertip and let some blood form. I finished it in crimson. I handed it back to them, “Here you go.”

They walked off. I dipped my finger in my drink and sucked the opening clean. I smiled at Scab. Blitz broke out laughing.

“Fucking hardcore, man!”

We closed the bar and walked back. We played music and finished off the rest of the bourbon from earlier. Scab took Mara to his room and Blitz took Samantha to his. I closed my eyes on the couch and spun into sleep, spent the next morning listening to music, eating healthy and sleeping off a good part of the afternoon, only to close the same bar the next night with Scab and Mara and Mara’s constant mouth. Nature did right by making her pussy the dominant of her two sexes.

I slept for maybe five hours. When I drank a lot I usually woke up early and charged. I always figured it was because I had trouble sleeping regularly, and the alcohol sent me into a brief coma. I brewed some coffee and sat behind the typer. I looked at my watch. Just past ten. Philly was bright. I opened the blinds slightly and worked my way into a story. I always felt like writing after a night of hard drinking. It made the other world more clear, it had a way of letting the unimportant drop to the sides. I drank my coffee and lit up. I picked out some Jeff Buckley and played it low next to the machine. A couple of hours passed around me. The cut on my fingertip wasn’t painful but it was aggravated by the keys. I was writing about a labor job I had worked when I was twenty-four. I was cutting wood for an overweight, alcoholic framer. Blitz and Samantha came into the kitchen. Samantha stopped when she saw me. She stood in the doorway and froze there, trying to be quiet. I laughed and stopped the story.

“Morning, you two.”

Blitz poured two coffees.

“Maybe for you. I have to be at work in an hour.”

He handed Samantha a coffee. She walked out the front door to get a pack of smokes for Blitz and a paper for the table. Blitz cracked his back and sat down.

“What are you writing?”

“I’m just fucking around.”

“Man, don’t you feel hungover?”

“Only slightly. One day when you’re a man you’ll be able to deal with a hangover.”

“Why do you always have to give me shit?”

“Why not?”

“Whatever. Fuckin’ dick.”

“Part of the reason I don’t feel sick is because I downed six ibuprofens and a big glass of water before I passed out.”

“That really works?”

“Think about it. Hangovers are the result of dehydration, mostly.”

“See? Why’d you have to tell me to think about it? Why couldn’t you just say it helps with dehydration?”

“Jesus. Somebody’s sensitive this morning.”

I walked over and refilled my cup. Blitz drank his coffee and turned down the music, “You hate Wreckedge yet you listen to this East Village coffee house bullshit.”

I put my arms around him and kissed the top of his greasy head. He tried to wrestle loose but I had him. I let go and sat down. He shook his head at the table, “Fuckin’ fag.”

Samantha walked in with the paper. She sat down and tossed Blitz his smokes. Blitz lit up and looked at me, “When’s your birthday?”

“October. Why?”

“I’m going to buy you a razor.”

I scratched my beard. Samantha laughed at the paper, “Oh my god!”

She turned it to me on the table. It was the photo from the back of my last book, and a write-up about me signing the autograph in blood the night before. The reporter had a good time with it. He interviewed the couple and went on about me being dramatic, how if I couldn’t handle fame then I should get a real job. One like his, maybe. Samantha scowled, “What a bunch of bullshit. You weren’t being dramatic. You were only fucking with them.”

I slid it back over to her. Blitz sat next to her and read the article.

“Dude, this is fucking insane. With all the bullshit happening after dark in Philadelphia, they have to run that shitty story. Never mind all the little girls who were mugged and raped, let’s run a story about a drunken writer cutting loose in an Irish pub.”

I nodded at the paper, “Maybe Saturday Night Live can make a good skit out of it.”

Samantha laughed, “It says that you were unavailable for comment. What an asshole. I’m going to write a letter to this newspaper.”

“Let it go. It’ll be forgotten when everybody has a couple of hours worth of sitcoms in their heads.”

Blitz nodded, “I heard that.”

Samantha looked at the paper, “I mean, I was right there. It was a small deal, and here it is now, larger than life. They’re acting like you burned down a church. The couple even mentioned a lawsuit. They called it a biological attack.”

“Shit, good luck getting one over on my lawyer. He’d love to jump on this. They’ll bail out. It’s sad.”

I took a shower. She took Blitz to work. He’d found a job in a music store. It was perfect for him. He could hob-knob with all the other indie-rock clones trying to break through and get famous. Scab and Mara stumbled downstairs. I had a fresh pot waiting for him. He smiled, “My savior.” He set Mara a cup on the table. She gripped it. Her eyes were red and remorseful.

“Good morning, Henry.”

“Mornin’, sunshine.”

“Henry, listen. About the last two nights, I didn’t mean to give you a lot of shit. I was pretty lit up early on.”

“It’s alright, Mara.”

“I never drink like that, let alone two days’ worth.”

Scab sat down, “Samantha get Blitz to work alright?”

“They left a few minutes ago.”

“You’ve been up for awhile?”

“I’ve been writing.”

Scab flipped through the paper and saw the write-up. He showed Mara. She sneered, “Fucking vultures.”

Scab walked to the fridge and pulled out the eggs, “Omelets?”

“Damned right.”

“Not for me,” Mara said, “the last thing I want right now is food.”

“It’ll sop up your hangover.”

She looked at me, “It’ll make me puke.”

Scab smiled, “You afraid to puke?”

“Who isn’t?”

Mara stretched and yawned. I glanced up her bed shirt, but it was too low on her thighs. Scab poured the eggs.

We spent the day inside, watching movies and drinking coffee. I passed out on the couch a few times. Everybody was back at the apartment. It was a mellow night. I ordered Chinese food for us, then I called Emily. She was flying in the next afternoon. I told her I’d borrow Mara’s car to pick her up, but she wanted to take a cab into the city. She’d never been to the East Coast. We talked about renting a car on Friday, taking a day or two and staying in Manhattan. It was another perk to the job. Having money was still new. I gave her directions to the apartment, hung up and walked with Scab to the store for smokes.

We sat in the same bar. It was just after eight. The bar was dead. I walked the drinks over and sat across from Scab. He used my phone to call the apartment and told Mara we were having a quick drink. He handed it back over. I put the phone in my pocket, “You two are getting pretty serious.”

“We are. We’ve talked about moving in together. She wants to leave her place. There’s plenty of room where I am. Blitz is all for it. Not that I give a flying fuck what he thinks.”

“Does he know about her?”

“Oh, fuck no. You’re the only one who knows. Sometimes I even forget she has a cock. She’s starting to think about getting it removed.”

“How do you feel about it?”

“The more I think about it, the more I like the idea. I think I’m actually over the whole hard cock trip. I wanted it because it seemed so impossible to attain. Fuck, man, I haven’t even touched her cock in weeks. Straight, regular sex. I never would have thought.”

“Can she have children?”

“No, but that’s another reason why I love her. She made her first comments a few days ago in bed about how her cock is getting in the way of a full-on relationship. She has to constantly tuck and tape it, especially when she gets all dolled up.”

“What a pain in the ass.”

My phone rang. I set it on the table and it stopped. It rang back. Scab grabbed it and turned it off. He waved for two more drinks.

We ended up closing the bar and stumbling back into the apartment. Mara was on the couch watching TV. She pointed at me, “You’re a bad influence on my boyfriend. I like it.”

She walked him upstairs. I took the cushions from the couch and made camp in the dark basement. Ghost or no ghost, I was sleeping twelve good goddamned hours.

Emily crawled onto the cushions with me. I had to piss but I slid her clothes off, and had long and tortured sex. I ran upstairs and pissed, then took a fast shower. We ate breakfast. It was good to have her there. She met Mara and Samantha.

“Do all of you live here?”

Scab ran the dishwasher, “We all might as well.”

Samantha and Mara watched Emily flip through the story I had started the day before. She read the pages and tucked her hair behind her ear. She never knew how hot that made me. Or maybe she did.

That night we went out to the pub again. We closed it, and walked back up 18th in our group. Up ahead I saw the wheelchair coming toward us. I laughed, “I know that guy.”

He slowed down and steered off to my left. I felt one freezing slice into my side. The sidewalk came up and hit me on my knees. I heard Emily scream. I fell to my shoulder and saw one of his wheels. Then I felt the weight of his torso and freezing slices into my stomach and ribs. I heard him cursing me. I saw Scab rolling around with him on the sidewalk. I turned on my back and burned there. The wounds were fire now. I couldn’t swallow. The liquor had turned the wounds into hoses. I could feel blood pouring out of me. I saw Blitz wrapping me with his jacket. Emily had my head in her hands. She was telling me to stay with her. I felt the pain leave my body. There was this weird numbness, a calm that hovered over me. I was fully aware of everything going on around me. I looked into Emily’s eyes and stayed there. I heard yelling and sirens. A plastic mouth went over my own and I faded out.

Emily’s bloodshot eyes. She held my hand. I fell back to sleep for awhile, and when I awoke I felt cleaner, like a lot of time had passed me. I looked around the room. Scab and Blitz and Samantha were there. I saw Mara behind them. Everybody except for Emily wore different clothes. It was good there. I was pumped up with a lot of morphine. Eugene had missed most of my major organs. He almost got my heart, but he was drunk and in bad aim. I asked Emily how bad it was. She told me some of my large intestine was gone now. But I was going to make a complete recovery. I found out that Eugene tried to kill me because someone had rescued his manuscript from the trash and mailed it back to him. I should have been less reckless. I spent one week in total at the hospital. This time I made the front page. Back at Scab’s we sat at the table and drank coffee. Eugene was locked down for a long time. I now had an open hatred for one of my readers. Scab brewed a new pot. Samantha had to take Blitz to work in an hour.