Carrion

By Ross X

Combat vet turned multi-media artist, Kirk Christopher is a man with a back story he tries his best to obliterate. The rape, torture killing of his niece in a brutal Drug Cartel hit and subsequent interaction with a family he detests opens doors to strange vistas Kirk never imagined. His family's dealings may be worse than anything he'd done in the war. Against a landscape of Satanic and catastrophic events giggling demonically at his back, surviving his own destiny is going to take everything he’s got.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ross X
• Release date: Jun 24, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310770159

Ross X

Ross X (and/or Max West) lives, works and plays in San Francisco. Designer, Writer, Promoter, former CEO of Max West Enterprises and beer drinker. His novels though sometimes compared to "...trying to eat raw oysters at a dog fight!" and "...more than a little deranged!", strongly reflect real-life experiences in the Military, Academic, Tech and Subterranean sectors...

Book preview

CARRION

by

Ross X

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the author, except by reviewers who may quote brief passages.

Copyright 2015 by R.H. Pollette

And Ross X

284 12th Ave. San Francisco CA 94118

ISBN 978-1-312-90629-7

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Title

Author

Contact

Copyright

Reviews

About Ross X

Other Delightful Novels by Ross X/Max West

Upcoming Projects

Excerpt from 'Invariance'

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Prologue:

Through half opened blinds, late afternoon sunlight threw Zebra-stripe shadows into the room where a slim, dark haired girl naked except for a pair of black underpants sat crossed legged on her bed fixing up in an arm. With pointed concentration she aimed the spike past faded track marks hitting the only vein that mattered. On an end table to her left, cotton wad, blackened spoon and still smoking candle stub were tawdry indictments. Behind and above her leering down from the wall, framed lithographs in classical style of midnight trysts between vestal virgins and goats. Letting the tourniquet go she fell back in a tableau of sweet dependency as the world chilled.

Some noise in the hall tried to distract but nothing was more important then coming on. As the Junk surged various arrays of buddies and lovers with a key to the flat surged with her but this was gone quicker than it’d arrived. She was sailing up and away! The Time Machine burped, the cyclotron swirled--far out!

This deep water moment suddenly exploded into violence filled with chaos. She had enough time to register the two dark shapes in unoriginal yet still sinister ski masks, pushing through the bedroom door radiating evil like a nightmare that’d followed her out of the dream; yelling things at her, calling her names, demanding. What were they saying? Their voices came to her thick and phlegm filled. Fuzzy, unfocused, black gloved fists smashed against her face in a stunning blow. She heard it when her head hit the wall but didn’t get it, exactly. After that she felt them yanking at her underwear. Another fist hit her again and that was about it... for a while. At least she was dead before they started chopping things off.

Outside the shabby white stucco building everything appeared to be as ordinary as every other day in the suburbs. What might be muffled screams and pleas or just seagulls in the air someplace, didn’t really disturb. The almost dead sunset turned windows liquid yellow and orange. Two kids passing on their way home warily studied the apartment house, sensing something not right; with a shiver they picked up their pace. People coming home from work, making dinner, watching TV, don’t even want to know who was being busy and with what, right in their midst. Would they have cared if they did? A question for another day...

Chapter 1

Pale light through the dirt-streaked windows of Kirk’s studio played shadow games inside a Plexiglas display case sitting on the cabinet of salvaged Eames storage units. Gold and silver jewelry, war medals, watches, crystals, coins, semiprecious stones, toys, cigarette lighters and jumbles of assorted items winking and luring from across the room--one bright gleam in particular--had his undivided attention. He was on a fix.

Leaning against the kitchen doorframe, weight on the good leg with cane handy, Kirk gulped down a cup of coffee letting his thoughts wander as they were prone to do. Normally Kirk wouldn’t have stopped to linger, he’d seen his little cabinet of curiosities before, like everyday but reinforced by pain meds and slowed down to a more philosophical speed the effect of the shuffling light in and around the case triggered daydreams of souvenir counters in old route 66 ‘Indian’ Trading Posts circa 1973. Outside of the ‘Trading Post’ gift shop a five foot tall piece of tan limestone with the fossil of an Archaeopteryx in it stood guard; Kirk remembered that from a summer trip to New Mexico with his Family. His eidetic memory both relied on and sometimes dreaded for never throwing anything away, tossed him the smell of urinal deodorant cakes in a gas station toilet in Albuquerque. There was a row of three prophylactic dispensers on one wall and they were ‘for sanitary purposes only!’ He’d examined the labels--‘Gentlemen’s Choice’, ‘Swagger’ ‘Troy’ not getting it--what were all these exclusive sanitary purposes? Walking back to the car where they were all impatiently waiting for him, his shadow was long in a classic western sunset and he wanted a Taco.

Briefly Kirk considered if he’d overdone things a bit. He’d kind of forgotten how many of daddy’s little helpers he’d taken and not surprisingly didn’t seem to give a shit. Spaced out in some doorway, his thoughts bobbling downstream, was turning into a job description.

Knocked off his motorcycle by a speeding car three months before, Kirk ended up with lots of damage. He had an ugly shot of broken china in a bag. The left leg now had a titanium rod stuck inside of it holding all the fractured bones in place with nine titanium ‘nails’. His ankle was also doing metal pin time and his left shoulder with its compliment of screws, metal plate and Frankenstein scar, wasn’t too pretty either.

Hey! You’re rich man! Doctor J told him, Each one of those nails costs about five thousand bucks! At least to the insurance company! he laughed. This was actually the first time Kirk had felt appreciation for his insurance company. Kirk’s imagination, always ready for morbid turns, ran a scenario where some guy desperate for cash starts pulling the nails out of his leg and pawning them...for a moment he was lost in the visuals.

Replaying the condition of his shoulder or that little matter of about sixty stitches in total wasn’t very productive. Kirk couldn’t undo it but the other guy’s insurance paid expenses with a taste left over, so there was that. Were there any other benefits besides cash? The damned impact had, for days later, like some evil dial, turned time back to firefights and rockets exploding! The unexpectedness and massive Impact plus the gut realization of just how close death was at all times, was where the two incidents crossed paths; understanding it didn’t make anything cool

On the beach they’d just figure he was a war hero or something! Pulling his shirt collar down so he could see his shoulder in a wall mirror Kirk checked the rather ghastly foot long scar twisting around his left bicep. Pushing his sleeve up he examined the mess of scars and stitch marks where his sliced artery was gushing blood, as the firemen told him, on the street like a burst hydrant.

Damn, he wasn’t going on any fucking beach looking like that! One could get a tan up on the roof if the need arose. The leg wasn’t too bad visually except for stitches where the rod and nails went in. With all that other hardware (a couple of Kevlar patches too!) Kirk wondered where he’d be hauled off to if he got hit again--hospital or body shop.

He didn’t care how high he was he couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t changed in weird ways besides physically. They don’t call that shit ‘trauma’ for nothing! He wasn’t particularly religious in a western sense but a kind of awe at the nearness of Death was prompting hard to explain ‘spiritual’ directions in his processes; what conclusions he could draw from this were yet to be revealed.

Behind the prescription narcotics Kirk was all over the road. Dr. Jerry told him to take as needed and if that happened to be two or three at a time who was counting? An uncomplicated guy, the good doctor was happy to refill as many times as necessary. Digging the med bottle out of his shirt pocket Kirk took a couple more pills tossing them back with what was left of his coffee. The drug put him in some trippy doped out space but loopy and pain free had it all over a number of other really unpleasant options. This issue, if one at all was soon resolved as the meds kicked in.

Several large Ravens were making a lot of noise in one of the Live Oaks closest to his windows. Kirk watched them intently, noting the size of their beaks and iridescence of their feathers before limping to his laptop open on a work table under the skylights

Kirk brought up the program with all his X-rays. He clicked on Tibia/Fibula enlarging and rotating the image. There were a number of lighting options with the ‘Nuclear Medicine’ icon and he tried two or three settling on ‘Hot Metal’. Kirk had seen the X-Rays before at the hospital on a big screen and was impressed by how the rod looked running inside the entire length of his shattered Fibula, from kneecap down with five nails holding the bones together; the ankle had four nails. With a little shudder he set the lighting effect glowing yellow and red, something out of a furnace. From the side similarities to a Samurai sword, gave him the idea. Exporting the image he liked, Kirk experimented until he had an angle and effect that worked--washing out all color. His final product virtually eliminated any outlines of his leg, leaving bone white hardware against a black background. Shadings along the ‘blade’ reinforced the effect although now that he could study it the shape, vertically, also resembled a Japanese stringed instrument, a graceful form; the ER boys had done a nice job.

Kirk waited more than a little distracted, while his printer ran off a few copies. Thinking about his doctors brought up surgery and that reminded him of the fucking hospital! Those crappy Night Nurses! As soon as the sun went down the bullshit began...he’d had a bedside plant...

Using high-end semi gloss stock for resolution he was thinking about commercial possibilities. Clipping them onto a rack, waiting for the ink to dry he looked his product over. Images of a series hanging on walls in Law Offices and your better homes: Knob Hill, Manhattan; Tokyo, began to rise...he already had a couple of outlets--what was needed was scale.

That’d been a lot of work for a guy who’d just been comminuted, he was a little dizzy. And another thing; was he going to have to share credit with Doctor J? Sitting nearby was an Arts magazine one of his friends in London recently sent. Absently Kirk flipped through the slick pages of text and color photos until he came to a section on his work featured in some just opened independent gallery--the blurbs said it was a big deal! He looked at paintings and sculptures from about a year ago as if he were viewing artifacts from some prehistoric site--that stuff was so dead! His agent must’ve set it up. On the plus side a major production company in Japan had just purchased the first time rights to one of Kirk’s screenplays; twenty five thousand, whether they used it or not, more when they did. Maybe he’d finally found a way out of his ‘Artistic’ crap hole to nowhere.

Leaning against a worktable, contemplating with arms folded Kirk was once again fascinated by his display case. Under the right circumstances, the thing became its own dimension. Funny, valuable; watches, plastic toys out of vending machines, opium pipes, stolen hood ornaments, bullets, rare coins, Zippo lighters, arrow heads; the list was long. There were handfuls of Silver Dollars! Somewhat puritanically Kirk reminded himself that at this point in recovery it wasn’t like he was good for much and besides, if he wanted to be fascinated and stand there all fucking day, who was going to say ‘no’? The only advantage to convalescence as far as it went, was he had an excellent excuse to do nothing. Kirk was generally too restless for the joys of ‘doing nothing’ to last but he was willing to explore.

Absent mindedly putting weight on his injured leg he was dragged back to ground zero as only just bearable pain can do. It was so intense he forgot to curse. Wiping sweat Kirk took deep breaths. His smashed up leg had for a few nasty seconds, felt like he’d stuck it in a red hot meat grinder.

All thoughts and flights of fancy related ideas evaporated. He’d never felt so on the ground! That was the kind of sensation nobody wanted twice! Dragging himself with restraint to a near-by couch he flopped carefully. So, damn it, that hurt like fucking hell! Sudden movement was a threat but Kirk soon brightened up. The solution to anymore of that ugly foolishness was to increase his drug dosage, wasn’t that obvious? Taking a handful washing them down with a half a bottle of orange drink he had to smile. The gradual but steady lift toward pain free and higher than a kite was already resetting him to just before he was so cavalier with his fucked up leg. Starting to relax Kirk thoughts fell right back into a familiar loop.

...The display case itself on a black metal base was a square Plexiglas column twenty four inches tall by eight inches deep and wide, opening from the front, with two Plexiglas shelves enclosed; Kirk bought it in the original carton at a garage sale. During the late eighties Camel Cigarette Company distributed to club owners a number of novelty promo-products, the cases were some of the better displays. There was a lock on the door and inside the base was a cashbox for change. At the top a small indirect Florissant light, shining down through clear shelves--presumably stocked with packs of Camels--threw a nice, faintly greenish aquatic glow over all. He’d set it up on the cabinet against the north wall as part display, part night light.

Kirk found himself staring at the bottom shelf, pondering a prophylactic pack in the cellophane wrapper with the words ‘Genuine French Tickler’ in red across the top. On his travels he’d picked this item up in a gas station toilet in Oxford Mississippi. He’d just opened the pack a few days before and pulled out the ridiculous thing with a blue feather attached to the reservoir tip. Wiggling it around one had to wonder why the feather wasn’t pink. Not very original since he was tripping on a rubber, his thoughts came around to Cindy who worked at the Meteor Coffee Shop a few blocks away… Kirk was muttering to himself again. It was amazing how fixated a guy can get on a girl’s navel…" A clip of a girl’s bare stomach while she danced briefly played.

He was feeling like burnt toast. Glancing at a dried crab claw with antique Rosaries draped over it, Kirk figured the way he felt was more like that, kind of husky and dry with pretensions. Sailing, his thoughts traveled far and wide. How many people had handled all that junk in his display? His pile of ‘booty’ came together in this box like flotsam caught in the curve of a riverbank. Gazing at a promotional metallic Lime green and silver Tanquray pen from some art show he couldn’t recall the show.

Under his current state of medication it was entertaining staring at the jumble of objects, each preserving its little aura of ‘provenance’. A lot of the items were antiques--watches, coins, rings--and numbers of people down through the years had no doubt handled them. One could only hope those people, down through the ages handling things and all, had washed their hands after they used the toilet--lave sus manos! he always said.

Chapter 2

Wasting what was left of the morning peering into his little display like a nut job wasn’t going to happen. He hadn’t been able to work properly for months and projects had piled up. Unfocused, Kick told himself he wouldn’t be playing any such games but that certainly didn’t mean he wasn’t prone to slipping away on certain side roads; as a matter of fact he was already on one. The deal about people not washing their hands after using the toilet or scratching their butts or crotches or playing pocket pool before putting on one of those Turquoise necklaces or antique watches, triggered a slightly obsessive fastidiousness. He was wiping everything down first chance he got!

Outside dry leaves scuttled along a walkway, rattled in the gutters. Pale grayish clouds drifted turning the sunlight silver. Suddenly fixed on the Cowry shell wedged between a small crystal ball and a novelty devil lighter his thoughts were walking down allies South of Market.

Old brick warehouse walls hemmed him in and the dusty gravel was scattered with many colors of broken glass. Overhead, between the tops of warehouses the sky was blue and hot. His shadow pooled at his feet in a sandy place. Then he was walking on another beach and it was also a sunny day except he was very far away. Kirk glanced through a window; nothing ‘sunny’ going on today, turning goddamned gloomy if he had to be accurate.

Washed out light hung on a pair of .357 magnum bullets in the corner of his case; ‘His’ and ‘Hers’ was written in black marker on the sides. That’d been an anniversary present. The word ‘anniversary’ cued an obscure memory: Kirk walked along bone white sands under the long thin shadows of Royal Palms. Constant open ended noise from the waves also sounded like cars on a hidden freeway. The overall scene was a classic post card. The rise and fall of turquoise waters coincided with the motion of the planet; molecules doing the temporal gig…Later it was Campfire marshmallows in the blue moonlight where shadows on pale sand were sharp while the adults chased each other around laughing insidiously—Kirk couldn’t recall the name of the plants growing there but he’d smelled them recently in Golden Gate Park. Brown naked Nymphs gilded by the golden sunset splashed in a foaming sea. Warm Orchid scented breezes stir the palms throwing long shadows across white beaches; but over it all or under it all the Devil Fish lurked. Kirk sort of liked thinking about that Devil Fish--just full of mystery and something forbidden. He was the dark side of paradise.

The old islanders were always trying to get a guy going with tales of The Devil Fish, like back in the time of ‘real’ Hawaiians. Part of the ancient rituals was sacrificing virgins or girls who looked like one to The Devil Fish. Kirk was conjuring images of deep sunken grottoes where weak rays of sun filter through the yellow green waters. Just glimpsed in the mouth of a coral shrouded rock cave past the swaying sea polyps, squirmy motion in the shifting emerald shade…It was the kind of furtive movement always suggesting, because obscure, something ugly. He was also getting ideas about rotting skeletons disintegrating in black muck, all that would be left of the naked offerings.

How’d he get on that? Kirk’s thoughts ping-ponged around for a couple of seconds picking up impressions of big pink and orange Hibiscus flowers, Poinsettia and artificial looking white and purple Orchards, perfect and superior; Banana and Mango trees in the backyard; peeing in some sugarcane field at sunset.. Some guy down at the dock who wove hats out of palm leaves for a living wove Kirk a bird and told tales about, The Devil Fish.

...At low tide on Waikiki Beach, out past the sand, an old lava flow where ancient steam bubbles had popped and hardened leaving tea cup to kiddy pool sized holes the larger and deeper of which over the years had filled with sand, turning tidal pools into mini-ecosystems; your own private salt water aquarium. Tiny lagoons where rays from the afternoon sun slanted through crystal clear waters throwing shadows off sea grass or the creatures who lived there or were just passing through in a subtle dance across the bone white sand of the grotto floor. He’d almost drowned when a wave washed him into one. The pools weren’t only crystal clear but deceptively shallow looking… Devil Fish, AKA Giant Kraken with a nasty personality and preternatural intelligence laughed out there just beyond the reef. Kirk thought he could hear the black beak snapping in anticipation:

How’s it goin’ kid? Just sayin’! I’ll be around when it’s your turn!

The treacherous waves kept, washing him back…And all the time with that Devil Fish lurking beyond the reef as you knew it did. Kirk could hear its preternatural chuckles: ‘Heh, heh!’ while Hula Girls danced on a far beach by firelight where a suckling pig was cooking and people were laughing and the pounding drums throbbed--the Big Luau was going on and he wasn’t there! The Luau part didn’t last and Kirk was soon lured like those pearl divers back to thoughts of Big Daddy Devil Fish!

Devil Fish profile and data: In color the ‘Devil Fish’ is a dark rubbery red at head and along tentacles with a blotchy olive green and black marking down to the loathsome fins. In size: He is large--big enough to take down a baby whale or Grizzly Bear if one were near-by; In general shape, menacing and inevitability are the main qualities. A mean and cosmically corrupt expression on its ‘Face’ is de rigor. His eyes have a horrible, chilly calculation and are closer together than is natural. He is alien but not too alien. Why he needs to violate human women is a result of the highly organized central nervous system and the way they taste! And of course there’s the vicious, ravenous beak, black and snapping; holding the young naked girls over it with greedy suckers down there under the waves nibbling and liking what it tasted, stripping the firm brown flesh away, glutting on bloody entrails and the bubbling pain filled cries of it’s sacrifices praying to drown quickly…The sound of bones snapping can be heard as a lone Hibiscus flower floats out to sea on the ebb tide.

And meanwhile in town, she lay back on his bed absently swaying one knee to the bland rhythm of a bamboo blind against the sash, bumping in a soft breeze smelling of coconuts and suntan lotion. Watching him through half closed eyes she languidly scratched one thigh pulling her skirt up a little. He could hear psychic purring and feel her heat from across the room where he stood in the doorway smiling. A bright square of afternoon sunlight was on the wall behind her head catching purple highlights from a few loose strands of hair. Dream amber colored beer bottles and spent gun casings are scattered on the ground in another kind of beach setting: In the background, gunshots and muffled explosions but it’s a long way off, the crashing and sucking of the waves on the brown gritty sand was louder…Kirk didn’t like those thoughts so he went back to the other ones:

…So this Devil Fish, Kirk was at it again. With a little buzz going he thought maybe his beach combing Islander pal Chip who had just shown up, with all that Hawaiian King’s blood he said was flowing through his veins and shit could shed some light on these Island tales ...they say he lurks beyond the reef, what’s up? I mean how would something like that look, really? Is it a cryptozoological Kraken, an Alien undersea monstrosity or merely an oversized mutated Octopod with a taste for Island girls? A taste I don’t mind a little of myself… Chip didn’t seem to have heard staring off into the distance while a couple of gnats buzzed around the slice of orange hanging off his glass.

Don’t you think sometimes you’re better off not knowing--exactly? Chip asked. Kirk shrugged; the guy sounded sincere. That Devil Fish used to be a god to the Hawaiians so maybe it didn’t bother them so much. They probably thought feeding those girls to it was cool! Maybe if Kirk had been of that culture he would’ve dug it too but since he wasn’t it was just wasteful and unnecessary--why’d they always give it the best looking ones? Virgins probably had their own particular taste but how would a fucking squid know if a woman was good looking or not? Deep on the ocean floor where only the faintest green/yellow rays of light filtered glimmering off phosphorescent bones scattered in heaps through the seaweed beds around ‘Its’ grotto. The faint light also picked out squirmy restless motion in dim places where it was difficult to get a good fix on what made them. Studying Kirk while he’d gone through this scenario, Chip said:

Bro! That’s too heavy right now man! I’m just digging the sun, the sea; the simple life! as if to footnote this stray breezes ruffled his long black hair turning him cinemagraphic for a few moments. Kirk laughed.

Did you know you’re going to be dead in about five seconds? Chip looked surprised as he changed into a gun shot G.I. half his face gone, right in front of Kirk though he knew it was coming, he’d seen it already. This beach was distant from Hawaii, but he could smell sand; it was night, gunfire was loud and the Palms were smoking. Nothing pretty here!

Gazing unfocused around his studio Kirk couldn’t seem to stop churning up images. His inner dialog had veered, becoming a sudden battlefield featuring elaborate revenge scenarios in Technicolor where he dispatched the enemy in every conceivable way--from comparatively mild shootings to, at their outer pole, almost atavistic beatings, ripping and tearing, his thoughts were drenched in blood. Was he so caught up? Kirk didn’t feel intense enough at this point to really give a shit but he couldn’t help noticing how violence loops seemed to be going on in the back room a lot of the time. Man! You turn a corner in the Haunted House in Your Mind or open the wrong door and there it is! Primal, lurid and always fresh! Looking at the analog Omega clock on the kitchen wall he noted how only about ten minutes had slipped by while he’d been surfing years!

Four large unfinished canvases leaned against one wall almost forgotten and a metal and glass sculpture project was gathering dust on a work table. Briefly and dispassionately Kirk wasn’t so sure he’d finish the paintings, in his opinion, apart from spray paint, the whole idea of applying color and forms to some surface was rapidly turning into an irrelevancy, coming from some direction that’d culturally run out of steam! At this juncture those paintings were a lost cause. He didn’t find it surprising that this attitude, always lurking had intensified after his accident. He didn’t want to dwell on just how close a thing it was--bleeding out on the streets of San Francisco while a pigeon pecked at his DNA! That was sort of disgusting; Kirk was going to get ‘new ideas’ the first chance he could.

Chapter 3

His laptop on a work table in the middle of the room, winking highlights, seemed to be the only thing dust free though a number of jammy looking finger prints were smeared on the cover. Traffic accidents really take their toll Kirk reminded himself, all he seemed to have done over the last month was stay smacked out on pain pills, sleep and hobble around. But who was complaining? He was finally out of the wheelchair and past wondering if he’d ever walk again. The night he got trapped in his wheelchair between the couch and a work table too loaded to figure out how to get free--he’d been going to the kitchen for potato chips and Onion Dip. After he’d finally worked himself loose he’d found out there was no dip and no chip either--a bummer! Kirk reviewed again Dr. J, examining X-Rays:

I hope we don’t have to go back in and rebuild; you’re pretty busted up! Commanuded! Bone graft isn’t out of the question Bro! He hated that when Dr. J got serious, couldn’t even get a smile out of the guy but Kirk had already decided that he was not spending any more time in a hospital. Whatever anyone else thought he would be walking minus extra operations. On impulse he pulled up his pants leg giving himself a critical examination. Things didn’t look so bad and apart from certain knee flair-ups he’d been walking around just fine. All Kirk could conclude was that his Doctor was trying to market some more cash.

On the walls arraigned around various flat monitors and Tablets used to display video artworks and videos, were pen sketches and Digitals: Digitals made from sketches and sketches made from Digitals all hanging in a crazy quilt display rising above rolls of wire, tools and trash along the baseboards. He looked his work over briefly before pulling most of them down. It was true that this last little adventure in shattered bones hadn’t done much for his motivation--hard to stand on one leg and a cane for hours or sit for too long, especially since he’d been moving away from that paint thing. At the moment he mostly felt like going back to bed.

Yawning in a delightful narcotic haze as he sunk into his pillows some of the fun he’d had the year before percolated into his dreams like toxic waste seeping up from ancient corroded canisters (possibly U.S. Army issue) deep on the ocean floor; floating; floating...Kirk’s last thoughts were of mutated squids, preferably of the giant economy size, not unlike The Devil Fish who’d been living on this hazardous waste for generations; growing smarter, uglier, hungrier and hornier...

You find out what they want by how much money they give you!’ Bret, Kirk’s agent telling it like he thought it was. They were discussing options and drinking micro-brews in a client’s loft in Soma, San Francisco. That’s it! the guy had things all figured out, I can get you portrait work right now while I’m putting that show back together!" Bret had looked at him with a patented ‘why can’t I count on you?’ expression that reminded Kirk of his mother. Bret was really pissed that time. Behind his sickly smile and potential loss of a big show--he’d pushed the BS a little far Kirk had to admit--he was too practical to turn down money or a good agent on principal alone.

Bret may not have had much insight into the shaggy mind of the artist but he was a good businessman and though Kirk would’ve liked to have told him to screw off with his portraits, Kirk had to do his penance. He’d been a little surprised at how many people wanted paintings (it had to be oil paint too!) of themselves--Evidently ‘Selfies’ weren’t everything. Enthusiastic clients were popping out of the woodwork.

The more he tried to move away from that painting crap the more it was in demand--how’d that work? At least he’d paid his bills and that was something. His portrait style, even though Kirk had lost interest in the whole ‘painting’ deal as almost extraneous and near antique, was selling well enough he couldn’t deny. The deal over a New York show that wasn’t quite sunk looked pretty big, bigger than he or Bret had dealt with so far. Kirk’s main problem this time was he didn’t just get to push his artistic dog and pony show he was also seriously messing with his agent’s commission. Kirk tried to explain:

It was Marsha who started it! You look up the definition of ‘Anal’ and there’s an arrow pointing at some Japanese girl blowing cocaine up Marsha’s ass!

Ah fuck you and Marsha! Bret hadn’t been all that sympathetic. So you couldn’t keep it together, try a little charm, you know, how’d that song go? He started singing: ‘Try a little tenderness...’ Kirk hadn’t commented. Bret actually had a pretty good voice but there was nothing to be gained in complimenting him. In the mean time he smoothed everyone’s ruffled feathers and the show was back on. Later Kirk told Bret this was exactly the kind of stuff they loved in his precious New York Art Scene: Attitude and resistance! He knew Kirk was probably right but he’d been more concerned with not going to court over it.

Kirk tried to fall asleep but he was too restless, haunted by how that New York thing had temporarily come unraveled. Was he really such a son-of-a-bitch? That little voice we’re supposed to have told him that he was an even bigger one than he thought. He probably could’ve let up an inch. That so-called Punk Rock attitude worked better with nineteen year olds. The gallery had been accommodating to a point, almost nice, but something had set him off beside the fifty per cent they wanted from the profits—the exposure more than compensated. What set him off at first sight was Marsha, the gallery director. A Coke head if he ever saw one. She was a classic of her type: Kinetic, long and lean, fashion model face and figure, nice skin, Redhead; superior. Her hair was cut like an anime girl. Kirk understood it wasn’t entirely her fault if she was a born bitch, she was from Manhattan; completely self absorbed and ambitious, am-bitch-ious--the kind of gal who could teach an iceberg about being chilly; just his type.

He called her the Bitch Wolf of the SS and