The Merger

I was 26 and my little brother was 12. Our dad was out of town on business and my brother needed a guardian to accompany him to the cub scouts' movie night. Mom suggested that I take him and seeing as I had no real plans going on that evening, I said why not.

The school auditorium was actually the gym converted into an auditorium by ways of 12 rows of folding chairs. There were about 20 seats to a row with aisles to the sides and center. The screen was set on a small stage in front and it was about six by six feet. It reminded me of one of those prison movie scenes where they watch movies.

Anyway, the scoutmaster announced that the movie will be such and such a thing and everyone was allowed to sit wherever they wanted. But, he said, in the event of a disturbance, we would be relocated. His speech was way too precise to indicate any type of fun. All the kids got excited and quickly started forming groups. My little brother was off like a shot. We were 14 years apart and didn't really share much common ground in any sense, so I let him go.

I didn't mind. I found an open seat in between two kids three-quarters of the way to the back on the right and sat down. The kid to the left of me was a geek with a weird smell. I couldn't see to the back, nor did I care. In front was just a bunch of fat asses. The kid to the right of me was just some random asshole. Pretty normal looking, whatever.

The movie started. It was boring, but the kids liked it. I just let the projection bounce off my face. They were attentive and laughed whenever the stuff that twelve year old boys were supposed to laugh at happened. All of a sudden, the kid to the right of me nudged me on the shoulder. At first I was going to ignore him, but I knew he'd be persistent - he was twelve for god's sakes.

'What?', I whispered as I leaned down towards him.

'Are you in the lightning club?', he asked, eyeing me. I did a mental check. Immediately I realized that, no, I was not in the lightning club. I told him so. I leaned back and asked him to tell me what the lightning club was.

He paused for a moment and said, 'the lightning club is where you have two girls sneak over to sleep over and then you have sex with one of them without waking the other one up.'

I had to look around to see if anyone had heard him say it. No one had. I was appalled. I leaned back in and whispered, 'and YOU'RE in the lightning club?'

'Yeah,' he said. 'They call me 'The Merger', he said all the while looking forward at the flickering screen.

This was just getting bizarre. I pressed forward. 'Why do they call you 'The Merger'?'

He whispered, 'Cus this one time I had two girls sneak over and I had sex with one of them and then waited for the two of them go to sleep and then I woke the other one up and had sex with her and then in the morning, I made them do it to each other while I watched and jerked off - '

My reaction was as equally as loud as it was immediate.

'No, you DIDN'T,' I bellowed as I slapped my knee and leaned back hard.

All of the kids and parents turned around in their seats away from the screen. I just kinda slumped back and my chair creaked a little. The kid sat there like nothing had happened. The movie played on. Slowly, all the heads started to turn back towards the moving screen.

When the last of the heads turned around, I leaned up to the kid and whispered, 'no, you didn't''.

'Yeah, I did,' he defiantly retorted. 'That's how I got into the lightning club'.

I leaned back harder in my folding chair harder and said 'No shit?'.

'Yeah,' he said again, face forward.

'Okay, kid. What's a vagina look like?' I asked him as I looked back to the screen.

He balked. 'Uhh.. It was too dark. I.. I couldn't see,' he said with a bit of false confidence.

'So it was too dark the morning after you made them screw each other while you yanked it? You're full of crap, kid'. I crossed my arms. I was done with his story.

This cocky little prick looked like he still had baby teeth. With our eyes fixed on the screen and the projections flickering off his face he said in a voice just barely above a whisper, 'Whatever man, you don't HAVE to believe me'. I started to boil. This kid thought he WON for god's sakes.

After a few moments I nudged him as I started to stand up. 'Move,' I said.

'Where are you going?' he asked as he shuffled his ankles back.

'I'm going to go MERGE a toilet with my shit,' I said.

We were only seven or eight seats from the right aisle, so getting out of the row and auditorium and into the hallway wasn't too awkward. I walked thirty paces down the hall to the boys' room and went in.

It was horrible. Most of the toilets were clogged with feces and were overflowing into the drains on the floor that were clogged with pulpy white soggy toilet paper mixed with piss and god knows what. I gagged and backed out slowly. As I bounced off the door on the way out, it banged and echoed out into the hallway in front of me. I coughed.

The girls' room was just next door and I figured that since it was a boy scout meeting and girls tend to keep their facilities in better shape, it was far safer a bet.

It was. The pink walls were a bit off-setting but the scent was purely anti-septic. The hallway door closed silently behind me as I walked to the farthest stall. I opened the window to my left and entered the stall. While turning around, I pulled a cigarette from my pack and threw the latch to the stall door shut. I dropped trow, sat down on the throne, lit the cigarette and hung my right arm out the window with it into the night. I took a few drags and admired the beautiful firs that surrounded the school grounds.

I sat there hearing the children's din mix with the cinema's furor and the father's grunts through the door from the hallway. I looked away from the trees and up to the stars. I took another drag and said 'no, you didn't''.

I began to shit.

Garage Stomp Rock Lyrics.

I wanna take you on a

rain date a

rain date

wanna take you on a

rain date a

rain date

rain

rain

rain

rain

RAIIIINNNN

I'm gonna tie you to a

train track

a train track on a mother fucking

rain date a

rain date

sick, we're going on a

rain date

a rain date.

behhh beh beh behhhh

you made me sit in your damned driveway and smoke dope with no engine power with my dome light on!

that battery shit cost me 300 bucks nine years ago and I want my money back!

y'all burnt my alternator out over some crack and I still ain't happy bout that!

behhh

Me and Kenny shot junk and decided to rob the hardware store.

We got so fucked up we broke into the TV repair store next door by mistake.

We broke into the wrong goddamned store.

So by the time the cops showed up, we were in the back alley blacking out and laughing.

Breaking windows, escaping into the night.

We ran.

Their flashlights cast long weird shadows on the alley walls.

Me and Kenny made it back to his moms house.

Under the fence and in through the first floor window.

We laughed about the broken glass, the botched job and the dumb fuck cops.

Then Ken's mom yelled at us to shut the fuck up.

We sniffed some more dope and got quiet.

Real, real quiet.

eating fish in bermuda.

Quick, catch the high-heeled running switchblade!

Put a skirt on her and let her get paid to ignore me.

I'm having so much fun that I couldn't tell you about

the time I watched her shoot the TV.

Chasing glamour is a run of the roughest route

because there is no path, reason or rhyme.

That woman's crazy -

You've got a rifle.

My Oil.

I will not let anything short of death stand between us.

And if her bell's vibrations are up for the taking

they're mine.

They're mine so that you may live as long as your little heart chooses to.

I can't decide which side of the barrel I'm more terrified of.

We're all doomed to die with homeless hearts.

Dead meat wrapped inside of garbage.

Mummified sad facts reanimated by radioactivity.

We are all just ideas forgotten by a god who forgot to remember why we are.

Night Terrors

5.14.010


Last night a blinking red traffic light came before me in a dream and told me

that I was gonna die one month before my ninety-ninth birthday.

It even asked me if I was okay with the fact.

All I know is that my sleep is so lonely

& that pulsing crimson bastard reminded me of some weird torture -

like being tied to a board.

The rest is just details.

Painful details all so bloody and violent

like let downs shot straight into the vein.

Doomed to ninety-nine?

No -

that's like you're saying you're condemned to life.

So bring it harder.

It's gonna take more than ten tanks to kill this

beautiful monster.

Vivian was a seamstress. She was a friend of a friend and I would take my clothes that needed mending to her. Her method was immaculate. Even the most tattered junk I would throw at her would come back good as new; her stitching was invisible. It was almost like the clothes had repaired themselves. I always wondered how she did it but, hell, I don't know square one about sewing so I decided not to really not care.

It was on a Saturday afternoon in late April when Janice, our mutual friend, called me on the phone and told me that she and Vyvian were going out for dinner and drinks. She asked if I would come along. I had just been sitting around my apartment all day and now, in the early dusk, was starting to develop a mild case of cabin fever. I told her 'sure'. We agreed to meet at the place at 7. I walked from the kitchen, through the living room, and into the bedroom. After setting out some clean clothes, I reached across the bed and took 30 bucks out of the nightstand. After a brief moment of hesitation, I turned the 30 to 50. Hit the bathroom, disrobed and showered. I put my fresh clothes on, a button up for the crisp night air.