Coast Left Past: Short Fiction Stories

By Gabriel Leif Bellman

Coast Left Past is a collection of over 200 early stories written on the West (left) Coast. Temporally grouped, printed on pulp, it represents a myriad of comedic stories, philosophical rants, and refined sugar-sweet epiphanies from the authors past. Coast is fresh and raw at a time in world history that is dominated by bad sushi. Containing the abandonment of youth and the libido of a moose, here is a book to make you remember what the inside of a damp butterfly, the life of a sad writer, the taste of cold purple, and the smell of a late Thursday night feels like

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 15, 2002
• ISBN: 9781462824618

Gabriel Leif Bellman

Gabriel Leif Bellman was born in Eugene, Oregon. He was awarded a Bachelors from USCs School of Cinematic Arts (95), a Masters from New York University (99), and a Juris Doctorate from U. C. Hastings ('05). He has been a high-school teacher; MTV producer; umbrella salesman; restaurant host; dishwasher; lumber feeder; assembly liner; slam poet; warehouse stacker; SOMA magazine correspondent; opera composer at Juilliard, groundskeeper; and Playboy assistant. He has worked construction (Mexico); lived abroad (Spain, Ireland, Holland); and devoted extensive time to traveling (Europe, North Africa, the United States, Middle East, and Caribbean). He directed a film while traveling with the circus in Ireland (Duffys Irish Circus 2005). He has worked with female prisoners in California. Currently, Mr. Bellman lives in San Francisco where he is an attorney. One of the underrated 3-point shooters of his generation, Mr. Bellman won the Los Angeles city hoops championship in 1995. His agent gladly fields calls about his NBA availability (he will only sign with a title contender).

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Copyright ©2001 by Gabriel Leif Bellman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-7-XLIBRIS

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

Contents

SHE WAS

Aldwin’s date

A day; a life

another day

Broccoli

Caleb vomit

FRANK

El dorado woman

Granville popcorn

Gunfíght west

Jesses chocolate vanilla

The eye of the eskimo

Oland osland

Peruvian perquat (bones, foots, and rocks)

Rafting riffs

Love yells roy

Sea galley

Stripes the cat

The pep rally

Twimmin’pooh and udder stuff

Wane’s revelation

Amazing

BOBO

Bullfrogs, sir

Elvis overdose

Grandma’s cave

SHUTUP, NO YOU

Stern constitution

Interview

Lazy monty

Lennie’s frosty

Miami joe

Sprained soul

Surrounded hockey

Working at the umbrella shop

Word up, phat boy

3 a.m. funk

Adams exhibit a

Adriel alone

sniffs

Atomic wedding lie

Auster s duffel petals

Banana slug

Barnes decay

C-u 48

Flying stones

Winner

He’s leaving

Dunno’

Dead ones

Malt-soaked cat

Mathmammals

Mutha

Rabbit dentist

Rainbow ennus

Shes come undone

Siggy

S.o.s. convulsions

Ode to a dead man and a live bumpersticker

The four horsie men

Thus spoke fredethustra

X marks the rot

Sun bath

Cheshire kat

El pescado

Bee windsey

Blind bastard

Bobbys plan

Brothers keeper

Closet

Once in a while

Ecuador

El dorado shed

Expressionism

Fishkabob

Gangster’s foot or: how I learned to

stop worrying and eat my vegetables

Give it away

Golden orb thingy

Gustavs bear

High school invitation

Investment

Jimmy’s finder

Juan

K. killer

Letters and weird birds

Malcolm strike

Male prostitute

Cash

Moon docks

Flighting impotence

Orange

Ouiji wild

Phallus pholly

Prison jimmy

Phobic posse pizza

Spider sauce

No wonder stevie

Stocked

Truckblue

Four-thirty baby

Anna marbles

Oh what a night!

Bounced

Carrots and oceans

Chico’s canadian caper

CLARK COUNTY

Clarky

Cluck-cluck

Commonality commotion

Corduroy pants

Dig ma’ soul

Ethereal

Ferdinand who made it

Fork-lips

Funny bash

Harrison bus

Herberts odyssey

Krishna’s rhabar flick

M&mboy

Mornin

Number67

Oral sleep

Poor knows bob

Purple

Condiments

Scream dance

Sid’s party

Skin da’ cat

Somebodys shucks

Sports: the whole story

The lonely wolfs limbo club

This book is dedicated to my West Coast past.

To my parents for unconditional love. Thank you.

To my crazy friends. You make life worthwhile.

To the miraculous women who saved me from time alone. You

are my only hope.

To the beach and dunking under a frothy wave. You are proof of

a god.

To my cynicism. You are not true.

To the past, left looming, sitting in our souls, squirting out on

occasion-reminding us that we are only the people we are and

nobody else. You have not ruined us.

We are wonderful.

We will be okay.

SHE WAS

There was a mole on her belly, a little round one, so that it looked like she had two belly buttons. Of course, her button was bigger than her mole, but her lips were as big as her bracelets, so it didn’t mean much that her mole was small. Her hands were as wide as boxcars, and she had trouble greeting people, afraid that they would be put off by her wide hands. Her hands were not large, but they were very, very wide.

She had shoulders as broad as steamboats, and buttocks like down pillows. Her nose twitched whenever she smelled something warm. She had ears that hung to the sides of her head like baby monkeys, as if any moment they would spring away into the trees. Her hips were thick as tires, her feet soft as nails and tough as a baby’s bottom. A baby who’d been spanked a lot, so that the bottom was leathery as an old man who spent all his days in the sun, yes, her feet were rough and she walked barefoot into the room and I noticed her right away.

It was hard to miss her. She had a nose like a neon sign, and her nipples stuck out from behind her shirt like two grapes playing hide-and-go-seek in a cloth factory. She wore a sombrero on her head and leather pants with cowboy boots. She was a walking contradiction. Her legs, it seemed when she walked, moved in opposite direction, and were it not for her swivel-chair thighs, she might have split like a piñata.

I asked her if she was ‘Hello’ and she told me she was.

Hello right back to you, the words formed like bubbles out of the ass of a deer who’d been drinking from a bubble bath. I was smitten.

I’m smitten, I whispered to myself, and she might have heard me, for she gave me a sideways smile like a boomerang stuck to a wall next to a poster of some football players. She didn’t belong in a place like this. She should be roaming somewhere. She was the roaming type. I’ll bet in some of her past lives she had been a roamer or an animal who roamed, or maybe she had lived in Rome, because I was getting some serious vibes on the roaming issue.

What brings you here? I gathered my courage and spilled out the words.

Who, me? she answered with the grace of a cobweb and I was in love.

How was I supposed to answer a question like that? She was wearing a shirt made from the sticks of umbrellas. It must have weighed twenty pounds, made from thirty umbrella handles, all bound together with rope. It didn’t look comfortable, but with the leather pants, the cowboy boots, and the beautiful sun-orange sombrero on her head, she was a vision.

She was like no girl I’d ever seen.

She had eyes like the back of a photograph you were holding up to the light, almost visible but shielded behind a layer of film-stock-paper. She made the next move, with wombat precision. She grabbed my thumb like a hungry hippo and proceeded to wrestle it.

So, a thumb wrestler, are you? I nearly choked on my own words and when she turned to answer she nearly knocked off my glasses with her umbrella. This tamale was too hot for the plate.

Maybe, and she pinned me like that. As she gloated I looked down at her nails, and noticed they were painted different colors. They were either gray, or brown, or a really brown shade of green, but there was no pattern. Her thumbs weren’t painted at all.

Who does your nails?

Who doesn’t?

Do you always answer questions with questions?

Do you?

I don’t know, I made my play, do you?

Maybe. What about you?

Could be, what about you?

It was a Mexican face-off, and who would crack first?

I don’t remember, could you refresh my memory?

About what?

Don’t you remember?

Remember what?

What did you say?

Excuse me?

What?

What?

And we kissed, her sombrero falling to the ground and my glasses squishing up against my nose and she stepped on my toes and the umbrella sticks clacked against my chest and she smelled like grapefruit-peels and tasted twice as sweet and I got so excited I grabbed her by an umbrella handle, jumped out of my shoes and socks and left the bar barefoot, stepped on a rusty can, stopped by the emergency ward for a tetanus shot, and then we went to her place an evening of card playing.

By morning she had taken me for six thousand dollars in brilliant go-fish and crazy-eights play.

I kissed her on the cheek as the sun came up, limped to the bus stop, and never saw her again.

The last image I saw is one of her smiling as she waited outside the bank for me to gather together the six thousand (I sold my mutual funds). She was bouncy like a bathtub and giggling like a babbling brook. She rocked on her heels, stood on her toes, crossed her eyes, made farting noises with her armpit, and goddammit if I didn’t love her.

I handed her the cashier’s check, and she made a noise similar to a ‘whoop!’ or a ‘skippity-do’ and she high-fived me right in the middle of my chest, leaving me only a red hand-print bruise to remember her by.

She turned and walked away, and I told the empty seat next to me in the bus that I didn’t even know her name, and it made the two bus-transfers go by that much quicker to think to myself what it might have been.

It might have been Gloria.

Maybe it was Jo-Jo, short for Jo-Anne.

Oh, the thrill of it! It could have been anything, but I was sure it was Jo-Jo, for if ever there was a Jo-Jo, it was her, she was her, Jo-Jo was Jo-Jo, sure as sugar, baby.

Sure as sugar.

Aldwin’s date

Tell your daughters I want my car back.

-Aldwin Huckleby,

-the day after.

It was a bad date, plain and simple. Aldwin had been on some bad dates lately but this one took the cake. Chocolate frosting and all.

It started off on the wrong foot to begin with. Which, if you are right-footed like Aldwin, is your left foot. He had stubbed it coming down the driveway. That’s why he dropped the chocolates. He had no idea that the roses they landed in were prize-winning. He just wanted to get a feel and get to bed early.

The door opened up and it was like an old Horror film. Shadows, screaming, and hair and fangs. Plus she was fat. Her name was Callula, which when translated from Latin means Little beautiful one. Wrong on all three counts. Big ugly two. She wanted to bring her twin sister, Caludra along. Thought it would be fun.

At that point Aldwin started sweating. He wasn’t sure who to give the chocolates to. Didn’t matter. They were one step ahead of him. Best of three, rock-paper-scissors. Caludra eked out Callula in the third game, scissors to rock. Aldwin was ready to go home.

But if lunar eclipses have taught us anything, they have taught us that night can get darker. And it did.

One the way to the movie, Caludra wiped some chocolate on Callula’s dress. Callula started crying, and so did Aldwin. They stopped at a gas station, and Callula went into the bathroom to wash off her dress. She didn’t come out.

Meanwhile, Caludra (who hadn’t had sex since she had gotten a football player drunk and raped him in high-school) was getting horny from all the chocolate. She moved into the front seat next to Aldwin.

Let my sister try and move me, she dared. And Aldwin knew that her sister wouldn’t even try. You can move a rock, but you can’t move a mountain. Especially a mountain that loves chocolate.

While Aldwin waited for Callula to come out of the Texaco restroom, it started to get warm in the car. The windows were steaming up, from Caludra’s breathing and digesting. Aldwin started to roll down his window, when a huge paw stopped him.

Leave it rolled up, the beast snarled. And then, in the coziest ‘Love thy neighbor-a lot’ voice, I’m cold.

That’s when it happened.

Caludra snuggled up against him, and before Aldwin knew it, the radio was on and two of the fattest, wettest lips he had smelled in years were planting saliva-flowers on his face. He closed his eyes and thought about baseball.

And just as Roger Clemens was ripping a fastball inside for strike three, there was a hit. Callula had come out of the bathroom, and Caludra had been punched in the head.

Twins have a certain knowledge. They don’t know everything about each other, but they have a pretty good idea. Like a scientist and an artist. Each one knows how the other one works, and both of them hate each other.

Callula had seen Caludra with men before. Actually, it was just the one man, the football player in high-school. Still, she wasn’t going to let Aldwin get scored on by the same pass-play.

Ow! You bitch!

Bitch? I’ll show you a bitch!

And it went back and forth like that until Aldwin managed to slide out of the door. He went into the gas station and waited for it to end. Like a nine-month old baby at a baseball game. He didn’t really know what was happening, and all he really wanted was to put a tit in his mouth.

The windows were so steamed that it was impossible to see anything inside the car. And except for the occasional honk of the horn, and the rocking back and forth, the car might just as well have been empty.

After about ten minutes Aldwin started to get really bored. So he started walking around the gas station. Every time he’d come all the way around, he’d try and walk as close to the car as he could (without being seen, Lord knows he didn’t want those juicy lips on his face, not in public anyway).

On the first time around he thought he saw what might have been a slap. The sound confirmed it.

On the second time around, it appeared that somebody had somebody else in some kind of headlock. But the windows were so fogged up it was hard to tell.

And on the third time around, the car was gone.

The first thought that came to Aldwin was Thank God. The next was Oh, shit! My car! And the gas station attendant looked up from a greased copy of Penthouse and said he hadn’t seen a thing. He looked down at the magazine again, where a dark-haired South American women was completely naked underneath a waterfall, her mouth open as the water bounced off her full body. Then the attendant paused. And repeated himself. Hadn’t seen a thing.

A day; a life

I read the news today, oh boy … about a lucky man who made the grade.

And though the news was rather sad, well I just had to laugh …

-A Day in the Life, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

John and Yoko sat down for a cup of tea. It was a blue-bird morning, and the light coming through the windows soaked into the lovers as they poured the hot water into the two cups.

Fine morning.

Yes. Fine.

It was nice to be alive for a fine morning. Not every morning was fine. Mornings after fine evenings were usually not very fine, especially if the fine evening had been made so by an illicit substance. But this was a fine morning. Clean.

What do you fancy we do this day? John asked. His mind was all ready moving and clicking. Was this a day to DO? Or a day to BE? He hadn’t quite decided yet.

Yoko quietly sipped her tea. She knew that it didn’t matter what she said. Not really. They would both be in love and doing something later anyway, so it didn’t really matter if they talked about it first or not. This was how she felt about words. They were good for some things, but without music, words merely passed like ticks on a watch. She looked out the window and then smiled at John.

John looked at the paper briefly. He didn’t want to read the darn thing, but just to look at it, as a whole. He never read a single article. Not the whole way through. He just liked to look at the whole paper, spread out like a bird. Each feather a different color. When he looked at the whole paper this way, he thought he could tell what kind of bird the day was going to be. And on this particular morning, the paper looked like a peacock.

Brilliant shades of red. Shiny silvers and blue. Golden yellows and greens. The words looked like watercolors to him. Some days they all looked black. Crows. Ravens. But today the words glittered. He sipped from his cup.

This was definitely a day to BE. To look at the colors. Hear the rustling. Days like this were savored on the tongue like a rich chocolate.

John needed to see. He wanted to feel the air outside. He wanted to be alongside the trees as they swayed in the wind, because it helped him feel like his roots were firm. And there were times when he felt like he had no roots at all.

Sometimes John felt so sick with John that it was necessary just to stay inside all day. To lay in bed, read, hide, avoid. Sometimes John felt life was so far away from him that it was in somebody else. And the only thing worse than being desperate is to see somebody else who isn’t. It isn’t chaos that scares us, but the possibility of order.

But on this day John Lennon felt like a part of that order. He was alive. He was loved. He had made people happy, and was still working for a cause which he believed in. Love and peace. He was no longer working for money, but the satisfaction of creation. The fulfillment of art. The atonement.

Life was very much what happens to you when you are busy making other plans. And John Lennon was very much a part of those other plans.

So when John Lennon walked out of his apartment that morning to go for a walk in the park, life happened to him.

He was murdered. Killed before he had a chance to die. Death, it seems, also happens while you are busy making other plans.

Just to walk in the park, stand amongst the trees, think back among the years, inhale and exhale the life that was within him

and without him. There were places he’d remembered, in all his life, though some remained even without him. Some are dead and some are living. In his life, he’d loved them all.

another day

The car pulled out of the driveway and headed towards the freeway. Another day of work. Another monotonous, monogamous, maladjusted day in the life of a mescaline addict.

When Darlene pulled her Chevy Nova out of her driveway that morning, she was feeling pretty damn good. She had just finished a breakfast of two bloody mary’s. And she was still coming down off the speedball from the night before. She was wired from the coke and reds as well. Plus, the sheet of acid she had downed with an English Muffin wasn’t helping the situation any. She was drunk, wired, and hallucinating beyond belief. It was 9 a.m.

By that time her stomach was rumbling from the four cups of straight coffee beans, so she made herself a mini-pizza out of Magic Mushrooms. Then the LSD kicked in. Right as she was peaking, she rolled a joint so fat that it took both hands to carry it. And she was seeing Santa Claus from the doses, and she didn’t like that so she took two shots of Tequila and passed out, with her eyes open from all the cocaine.

When she awoke, if you can call it that, the Magic Mushrooms were making things seem a little stranger than usual. Like that B57 bomber she thought she was stuck to. But, with another speedball, a few lines, and shot of heroine here and there, she managed to forget about the airplane. Because now, she was an airplane. And she was so high up, she couldn’t see the ground.

So she ate about two pounds of Hash brownies, just to help her collect her thoughts. Chased it with a shot of Bacardi 151. It was around noon.

She was late for work.

A sheet of acid, four hits of Angel Dust, and nine Quaaludes later, she was running down the freeway naked. She was late, but she made it to work.

People were laughing at her for being naked, and all the Doses made the people look like Hyenas, and the office looked like a giant Fern plant. So she decided to pop about six tablets of morphine and half a bottle of Sudafed. Chased with two capfuls of Ni-Quill.

Soon, she was in her office doing lines. When the dust cleared, her boss was sitting in front of her. And he looked strangely like a building. She loaded up her bong, and as he was saying something about a problem he began to look more and more like a building, something that Frank Lloyd Wright might have designed. She began to laugh and laugh, and her boss got angry and somehow flew out of the room on what looked like a giant goose, but it was hard to tell.

Two bong hits, six more Mushrooms, a cigar laced with opium, and four Valiums later, she began to get control of the situation. Get control, Darlene, she said to herself. Literally, because she could see herself sitting next to herself. Then she saw two more of herselves running down the hallway with signs that said Free the Otters. This scared her and she began to cry for about an hour.

She woke up and it was 6:30p.m. She couldn’t remember a thing past that last speedball, so she took four Advils just in case a headache was coming. She opened up her bag, and saw her prescription drugs.

Oh, shit.

She had forgotten to take her prescriptions for the last week.

Seventeen Prozacs, forty Lithium tablets, and two shots of Seltzer water later, she was caught up.

There.

Then she puked all over the floor. But not from all the prescription drugs. She had forgotten that she had spiked the Seltzer water with Everclear, and as she was dry-heaving she managed to

pull out a breathalyzer and see that her blood-alcohol content was

.90.

She woke up lying naked in her own puke at 8:45p.m.

She had to get home. But she needed to get home fast, so she dropped another sheet of acid, did two lines of Cocaine, one shot of Heroine, two puffs of raw Opium, and started her journey home.

She noticed that she was on the Nile River, but thought nothing of it. Also, she noticed that all the cars on the freeway had been turned into Candy-Canes. Still, she drove her elephant home, took one step out of the car, and passed out again, with her eyes open.

When she woke up it was 7:30p.m., which was kind of strange since she had just gone back in time two hours.

But it didn’t matter at this point, because she had loaded up her pipe with enough Peyote to furnish and Indian reservation for nine years. By the time the smoke signals ceased, she was flying through the woods seeing through the eyes of a Cheetah, and she didn’t worry about anything else.

As she killed and ate a small rabbit, she managed to sneak a peek at a clock, and it was 2 a.m. It was getting late, and she needed some sleep, so she overdosed on a combination of LSD, PCP, Antibiotics, Aspirin, and half of a laced Meatloaf.

When she woke up looking sheet white and shivering uncontrollably, it was 8 a.m. again.

Time to get ready for another day.

Broccoli

The meaning of life? Cubby had brought back a girl to his apartment for the sole purpose of sticking his salami sandwich into her Coney Island, and maybe afterwards she would want to have sex. And this is the thanks he gets?

Before I fuck you, I want you to tell me the meaning of life, she repeated, with her best husky-I-want-your-tattoo voice.

Hmm. Cubby wanted to have intercourse with her alright. Like a bear in the woods. He had floodlights in his backyard for just such an occasion. But first he had to think fast.

Uh, he stammered, Uh … he was on the ropes, dodge, duck, dodge, duck, duck, soup, duck, duck: Goose! He answered her: Broccoli.

Broccoli? What does the meaning of life have to do with broccoli? Her nipples were no longer hard.

Uh, well … It’s because they are green, and the world is green, you know, with all the trees and grass and Kermit the Frog and, well, it’s a vegetable, and there are really only three types of people on this earth …

Her nipples were starting to get hard again as she listened. She started to take off her shoes.

… Animal, mineral, and vegetable … and broccoli is definitely a vegetable, I mean I suppose it is because who am I to question the genius of the FDA, and …

As Cubby spoke, the girl removed articles of clothing. Then, she put the articles back where she found them, and started taking off her own clothes. Pretty soon she was naked, and not just butt-naked. If body parts regulated how naked a person was, on a scale of hand-naked to butt-naked, she was none of the above. She was labia-naked. And that was only half of it (her mother’s side). Cubby started to get excited.

Can we fuck now? he blurted.

Her nipples sagged again. Like two ripe tomatoes that had spent all spring basking in the sun, and then the day before you pick them, somebody comes up with two dictionaries and smashes them together right on the tomatoes. Well, maybe they weren’t as bad as the tomatoes, but her nipples weren’t asking to be licked either.

I thought you were going to explain the broccoli … and as she said this a slight perk of the left nipple told Cubby that if he was going to go down south he was going to have to start up north. But since plane tickets are too expensive, he decided he could talk his way into her pants, she was wearing jeans, and if any pants can be talked into, it’s jeans. They’re better listeners. Always have been.

Uh … yeah the broccoli … That got a stir out of her. Cubby started talking, staring at her naked body. She was dancing to the tone of his voice, much like his grandfather had done after he got back from World War II. The broccoli has to do with the soul. That would get her.

She panted.

He said it again: The soul is nourished by the vegetables … and again, on the word ‘soul’ she panted. This time she even moved her hand down towards where Cubby had come from, albeit from a different lady (he hoped, after all, he was adopted, and stranger things have happened). As he watched her fingers walk the dog tickle the flower and play the banjo, Cubby started getting impatient again.

And that’s the meaning of life. He ripped off all his clothes like a sleeping bag filled with urine. Naked in less than three seconds. Something even Oregon Senator Bob Packwood couldn’t have reproduced (no matter how many times he tried).

Her nipples stood out, and for a second it seemed that they might be going for it. But then the left one started to soften, and the right one followed. C’mon, Cubby, tell me the meaning of life. Forget the broccoli for now … She moved towards him.

They were both naked, but it was about as sexless as any Disney movie except NEVER CRY WOLF (where you see the guy’s naked butt cheek). There was no attraction between these two bodies. Like pro golfer Arnold Palmer and car mogul Lee Iaccoca. The attraction just wasn’t there.

You want to know the meaning of life? Cubby took a step back. Her nipples were listening. His weaner stirred. You want to know the meaning of life? Now his voice was raised, and that wasn’t the only thing.

Yes! she cried, Yes! Yes! Yes! Give it to me! Give me the meaning of life and I will fuck you until the mole on your inner thigh rubs off on my face!

The meaning of life … He yelled. Her nipples were about as hard as his willy, and all three of them wanted to hear what he had to say. The meaning of life …

It’s not quite sure what Cubby said after this lead up, but whatever it was it must have been to the liking of at least two nipples (maybe more) because Cubby got laid on that night.

He fucked the bimbo until his mole rubbed off on her face. That was his fee for sharing the meaning of life with a girl picked up in a bar. And it wasn’t such a bad deal. After all, there were no real losers, kind of like that old child game spin-the-bottle (that is, unless you are playing against the men’s Sumo wrestling team).

He got what he wanted (minus one mole) and she got what she wanted to hear. Isn’t that what it’s all about (minus one mole).

Maybe after he finished with the broccoli that’s what he told her.

Caleb vomit

He ordered a Hammerhead-Terminator-Rattlesnake-Red. It was the meanest sounding beer on the menu. And this was his day (not his menu). The bartender brought it, and his friends sat with their weak American beers as Caleb took the first swig of the Dark-Brown liquid that looked more like coffee than beer.

Then the whole place erupted into cheers.

It was Caleb’s 21st birthday. He was 21. And to many Americans that meant one thing. Passed out in your own vomit.

But for Caleb it was much more than that. It wasn’t just passed out in his own vomit, but in the pool of vomit that had been left there from the guy before, and the guy before him. It was all a big communal pile of vomit, with Caleb in the middle doing his best to avoid sinking to the bottom by grabbing onto any chunks that floated his way. And those chunks just happened to be his friends.

Caleb clasped his buddy Paul on the shoulder and smiled. It was one of those drunk smiles that is supposed to say You’re one of my best friends, and I love you, did I ever tell you that? but it ends up just looking like I’m drunk, and other people looking probably think I’m gay. Paul clasped his hand back on Caleb’s shoulder, just hard enough to nudge him out of his stupor.

Paul … Caleb smiled again. He sounded like he was about to gargle.

Yeah. Paul was smiling and looking at the rest of his friends. Everyone was ready for a cue: a dumb phrase, a stupid remark, anything, to start laughing at Caleb. People love to laugh at drunk people. It makes them feel sober.

Paul, you mean that with me. Caleb stammered. How he was retaining his balance had a lot to do with Paul’s sturdy shoulder.

Is that right, Caleb. Everyone began to smile, it was obvious a zinger was about to come out.

Yeah, that is … right … I … Paul. Caleb broke into that wide grin again, and Everybody started laughing.

Caleb, you are fucked up!

He’s drunk! Caleb’s drunk!

Paul, move your shoulder!

Somebody getting this on film?

After the laughter and recycled look how drunk one-liner comments died out. It was quiet for a moment.

Half an hour later, Caleb was puking his brain out into the toilet bowl of a bar named The Uterus. It was a fitting place for him to end up, at about 4 a.m. on his 21st birthday. He had come 21 years from one Uterus, only to end up barfing in another. The irony was so thick you could have spread it onto Caleb’s body, like his friends did with the whipped cream after he passed out.

As everybody was laughing and talking around the bar, looking for a camera, and bragging to other guys and especially girls (who love that kind of thing) about what they did to their friends, a stranger walked into the bathroom. The stranger was a salesman, in town for a few days, who had gone by himself to the bar for a few drinks. He had to use the urinal. Right away the stench of barf was overpowering, and he gagged. He might of even tossed cookies himself had it not been for the whipped cream sprayed all over Caleb’s body. Whipped cream has a way of making things better.

Are you alright? The stranger looked at the back of a leg which might just as easily have been the inside of a doughnut.

Caleb was out cold. You could have sprayed even more whipped cream on this guy and he wouldn’t wake up. The stranger’s id thought about doing this, but since he didn’t have access to any whipped cream, and he was an hones salesman, his super-ego managed to keep the id in check. But this didn’t help Caleb’s ego any.

By this time Caleb’s friends had come in, laughing and still drunker, and the stranger had little time to intervene. Photos were being taken, more whipped cream and some ketchup had miraculously appeared, and Caleb’s limp body was being pulled back and forth through piles of what could have been two parts vomit, one part whipped cream.

It reminded the stranger of his own youth, and his own 21st birthday. Ahh, the joys of being young. To be able to pass out and let your friends treat you like a pile of dogshit again. No, those days were passed for the salesman, and they were ending for young Caleb. Gone would be the times you would awaken to find crap all over you body, and laugh as your friends told you what they did to you after you passed out. Nope, from now on, it would be different.

From now on, Caleb would have to be awake, wide-eyed, and dead sober when shit got smeared on him. He was 21 now. An adult. And nobody waits for an adult to pass out before they drag him through vomit. That’s not how it works. With adults, the joy is not in dragging the body through the vomit, but in hearing the screams as it happens.

FRANK

The other day, I talked to Frank. Yes, well, and he talked to me on that same day, in fact in the same time frame. You might say we ‘conversed.’ We ‘conversation-ed.’ I knew you would want to know, since you have always talked to Frank, I mean had always talked to Frank in the past, and now that you do not like Frank or me anymore, I have dutifully fulfilled my part. What is my part? Oh, don’t be so ambitious, I mean innocent. You were never the ambitious type, eschewing as you did, I repeat, eschewing as you did, your career in favor of making more money by work. I know you don’t think I know what ‘eschew’ means, and for but one simple talk with Frank, you might have been correct. In any case, hello.

I thought a lot about what you said. I mean, I thought a lot about the sex we had. I miss you. I know you wouldn’t hate me like you do if you saw me listening to Frank the other day, when I talked to him, and he, in turn (Frank always was the courteous type) talked back (not like a rude step-child, but as a Polish-mentor type) to me. I am aware that Frank is entirely from Honduras. This manner about Frank has not eluded me, nor am I under any false illusions that he has been or ever will be a Polish-mentor to me. Ones hopes, Babette, die very hard.

Why have I called you Babette, you ask, and truthfully it is because I thought it sounded quite ‘arty’ to say it. I felt that maybe you might find it burningly romantic and skip back to me immediately. This is not to say that I want you back; indeed your dental habits still are at odds with mine. In no way will I back down from my comments about flossing, or brushing after lunch for that matter. I mean this. Still, given that the world is ripe with dentists, or is it rife, in any fashion, there are many dentists. I have taken the liberty of making an appointment for you with Dr. Muntz. I know you do not approve of his magnesium technique, but as he is a cousin I receive a 15 percent discount. That can add up to a lot of money. Just for the record, 15 percent of 10 million dollars is 1.5 million dollars, hardly the kind of money to scoff at. You appointment is for next Wednesday, at 8:115. I know its early, but I wasn’t sure if you are working again. Don’t feel that just by going you are recommitting yourself to our relationship. Yet, without this step, any attempt at rekindling our dormant flame would be in vain. I do not joke when it comes to flossing, as you know all to well (I’m sorry about the mirror, again, I only meant for it to be a symbolic gesture).

I’m not sure whether to send this to you by mail or to give it to Frank. He offered to wire it to his ‘computer’ somehow, and send it to you that way. On the positive side, it would save 32 cents in postage, yet I can’t help but wonder if Frank wishes to have it only so he might steal from it and woo some of the girls that Frank is wooing, or rather trying to woo. I don not object to wooing others with my words, but Babette ( I know I said it again, but damn it I miss you and doesn’t Babette sound better, quite honestly than your own, hideously plain name?)-I lost my train of thought …

Oh yes, whether to hand this to Frank or not. As you know, I am not especially adept at handing over things. Remember as I’m sure you do, that I have dropped exactly two trophies in a span of exactly two trophy presentations (congratulations and once again, I apologize to the West Side Little Tykes Bowling Club). Taking this into account, I resolve to mail this to you, as soon as I get two pennies together for the stamp. As you know, I dislike pennies very much, and although my ‘rid us of pennies’ bill never made it past the schoolboard (who quite honestly wasn’t sure why I had brought it to them in the first place-the ingrates) I still champion penniless spending. As a postage stamp costs thirty two cents, if I cannot raise two pennies, I will be forced with the unsavory option of receiving three pennies back in change for of my nickels (which as you of all people know I am quite fond of, and could stand to keep anyway-yes I still have my nickel-farm, and no the ‘queen’ has not moved yet-I am convinced she is biding her time and honestly I thought I heard something in the cage the other day, but when I looked all the nickels were still, the tricksters!)

I’m not sure if you care to hear what Frank and I talked about, the other day, when we spoke. So, I just won’t tell you what we talked about (here’s a hint: YOU!) and wait for your timely reply (have you fixed your watch battery yet?)

I know we have had our differences.

I hope to receive your letter today. I know that is an unrealistic dream, since I doubtfully will get around to sending this letter until at least next Friday (I’ll have to reschedule your dental appointment) but then, I always have been a dreamer, haven’t I, little Babette?

P.S. Frank called you many bad names and although I was reluctant to laugh initially, it seemed that they were, after all, quite accurate. Anyway, I wait for your letter.

Yours,

Gene.

El dorado woman

She walked up to me so gracefully, and took my crown of thorns. Come in, she said, I’ll give you shelter from the storm.-Bob Dylan

It was the summer before my last year in college. I was just at that point where you are sick of being young, but you don’t want to grow up either. It’s like that nausea point right before you throw up. Everyone knows where it is. That point where one more minute of rollercoaster, one more chili dog, one more mile of running, one more year of having your laundry done for you. One more, and you’ll barf like it was Easter Sunday and the Pope was naked. One more, and you just won’t be able to hold down all the bullshit that Whitey has been feeding you.

It was that summer. And I was living at home.

Living at home after going away to college is