Out of Control

By Frank Geiger

OUT OF CONTROL is a devastating ridicule of all that is false, phony, primitive, vicious, and corrupt in current American life - the abuses of power, hero worship, aimless violence, materialistic obsession, intolerance, and every form of hypocrisy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 17, 2003
• ISBN: 9781462830862

Book preview

INVOCATION

The age demanded an image Of its accelerated grimace, Something for the modern stage . . .

Ezra Pound

WHO’S SCREWING WHO?

The coke comes off the small rock, and I cut it up fine and form it into a peak with the razor blade, one slope shorter than the other to accommodate my half-collapsed left nasal passage. The result of one too many long climbs.

I need an edge for the monumental task ahead. The monumental task ahead is writing a short piece for the tabloid I loosely refer to as my employer.

As I’m working the peak into a finer and finer snow cap, the downstairs door buzzer goes off, startling me, and I nearly lose the whole shitload on the floor.

I’m getting it together again when the buzzer lets out three, long, irritating blasts. And already I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t answer it at all. It could be any number of undesirables I never want to see again, all claiming I owe them money or coke I can’t ever remembering borrowing, depending on how good they can lie and con.

But the buzzer goes off again, and this time doesn’t let up, and I suspect whoever it is, they know me intimately, know that sometimes I don’t like answering doors or phones, depending on my mood; and they aren’t going away.

Gently I lay down the mirror, go over and hit the lock button, and let them in downstairs. I don’t even care who it is. I’ll put up with any sort of assholes at this point. Anything to stop the buzzer. The stiff who designed it must have been an ex-Nazi psychological torture and brainwashing expert.

I snatch up the clear plastic straw and I’m on my knees, working my way up the peak, then down the other side. And the rush is there. And once again I’m reminded of its purity. Then over to the sink for a few drops of water down each nostril, and

I’m already shoving the evidence behind a stack of magazines when I hear a knock at the apartment door.

Who is it?

Alvita.

I look out to see if it’s really her. It is and she’s alone. I open the door and let her in.

She’s wearing the latest hip, off-beat, left-field, radical chic with high heels, no less. The silver bracelets look flashy against her brown skin. Her curly hair is boyishly short as always. She saunters over and takes a seat on the couch, shakes out a cigarette, and lights up, all without saying a word.

Alvita is a Cuban bisexual lesbian. She is also my ex-wife. My pet name for her was Vita. I started calling her Vita one time when we were fucking passionately, and the name stuck.

I study her, looking for some sign of why she’s gone to the trouble of sleuthing me out. I try to check her vibes but the old sensors are out of wack. Too many months apart, too many days and nights alone. Got to fine-tune the system with a little conversation.

Lose your way?

Not at all, she says with her Hispanic accent, glancing around the apartment.

How did you find me?

I ran into Vincent.

I nod, still trying to scope her out. I’m surprised you didn’t bring along your new roommate.

Not nice to talk about people when they’re not around.

The fat fucking sow.

Oddly enough she ignores my indiscretion, stands, and makes her way over to the window. Outside, a shadow roof creeps slowly up the building across the street, and the noise of the city slows to a hum. I can feel it through the walls and floors like electrical impulses.

She turns, takes a drag on her cigarette, and exhales. The smoke hangs blue gray in the waning window light, giving her the aura of an apparition, a dream vision from my subconscious memory.

Together with the coke, it triggers a spasm of old lust, and suddenly I don’t care anymore why she’s come around, only that she’s here. The only thing I can think of now is how to get next to her on the couch, and my poor neglected cock is already stirring at the prospect.

As though reading my mind she says, You find yourself another woman yet?

I’d be afraid you’d start putting the make on her.

Maybe coming up here was the wrong thing to do, she says.

Relax. Calm down. You’re here now.

Really, I should go.

The smoke swirls. The vision is fading. She’s walking. I got to think fast.

Want some candy, little girl?

This stops her in her tracks. You holding? she says, full of phony innocence.

I reach down, move the magazines, and pull out the mirror. And suddenly it occurs to me that maybe she was after the blow the whole time, and how good she is at conning and manipulating people, including me. She always seems to be one move ahead.

You always got something, she says, her eyes glowing.

I say nothing to discredit the myth. Instead, I go about my business, cutting off a piece of the remaining rock with the razor blade and working it into a peak. When I finish, I hand her the straw.

The whole thing? she says, trying to be coy.

I shrug. Knock yourself out.

She kneels, hunches over the mirror, and one slope disappears. You sure you don’t want some? she says over her shoulder.

Just had some.

She shoots down the other side and it’s gone.

The soapy fresh odor of her is like a drug. It runs through me silent and deep like the hum in the darkening streets below. Her oval face is floating in front of me. I lean over and kiss her and she doesn’t resist. Her red-lipstick mouth parts, and the taste

of her cigarette is there mingling with the sweet saliva of her tongue as I suck on it. My hand moves to her waist, but now she pulls away.

"This is good stuff, she says. She moves over to the couch, sits, throws her head back, pinches her nose and sniffs. Wow."

I stand. What did you really come up here for?

She smiles, reaches up, and runs her fingers over the bulge in my pants. Look like something else came up.

You always have that effect on me.

I feel her other hand slipping around my waist, and I reach down and move her hand gently to my ass.

You still wearing that gun?

I let her hand go. Always.

Except when you fuck some new bitch.

You sound jealous, I say, sitting down with her. I like it. Tell me more.

She settles back, waiting. I begin kissing her lips, slowly at first, not even directly on the lips but just around them. She responds by licking my face like a cat. In the next moment we’re sucking each other’s tongues, slippery smooth like liquid silver.

Her hands unzip my fly and take out my cock. She holds it with one hand at the base, shaking it until it begins to swell with gratitude. With the other hand, she starts tugging gently at my sack.

I begin working my way down, pulling up her blouse and licking both her breasts, lingering to suck first one nipple, then the other, until they both grow hard and erect, at attention.

My hands move on to her pants. She stands, and the pants come down slowly with little wiggles from her behind.

I kiss her belly, already engrossed in her purple bikini underwear, and the thick thatch of black pubic hair that shows all around it. My hands slide up the backs of her thighs to her ass cheeks, and with my mouth I begin looking for her cunt lips right through the panties. She lifts her leg to give me a better angle, holding my head in her hands. After a few moments of my tonguing she opens her legs wider, adjusting herself on the couch.

The purple grows darker with my saliva where my tongue lingers longer and longer. I pull the panties tight so there is only a thin strand of material between her legs. Her cunt lips begin to swell, protruding from her dark bush. I work my way up and down from her bush to her clit, and the taste of her pussy mingles with the fresh lotion taste of her skin.

All the while she’s playing with my cock, alternately teasing it gently and jerking it off, until I’m steel hard and about ready to shoot. But before I do I want to fuck her, and I start to move her into position. She quickly ceases her game, grabbing my cock at the base and shaking it out until the urge to climax subsides. Like a grand master she knows how to get the most out of her instrument, playing it out as long as she can before the final curtain.

She leans back, and I pull off her panties. She adjusts herself again, one leg arched high on the back of the couch. I go down on her again, gently sucking at her pussy, slowly licking the hair away, then flicking her swollen clit with the end of my tongue. The pink sea shell cunt lips open, my tongue laps deep inside her, my chin wet with her secretions. I tongue down into her ass, finding her other hole between the fleshy cheeks and rimming her. She reaches up and grabs her leg behind one knee, splitting herself further and giving me more room to operate. Her orchid cunt puckers, turning itself inside out in heat.

Don’t stop, she moans. Don’t stop.

With an arm around each of her thighs, my tongue sucks and licks at her clit, which sticks out now like a tiny cock. She moves in rhythm, never missing a stroke. The wet runs down into her ass. She’s moving faster now, bucking. I move my hand to her belly to try to steady her.

I get so excited getting her excited, I nearly lose it. I’m trying to hold back from shooting my own load when she lets go.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh-

I lie with my head on her inner thigh, sucking the tender flesh there, waiting for her to recover, watching her cunt lips make little pulsing movements and begin to shrink. A pearl of

cum appears at the tip of my cock and drips down the side. Street noise drifts up through the open window.

She moves down and pulls me up. I sit on the couch, my cock lolling to one side, waiting. I still want to fuck her but she has something else in mind. She leans over-a hand on each of my thighs-finds it with her mouth and takes it in. Her head moves slowly up and down, never touching it with her hands. Everything with her mouth and tongue and face, making soft, wet sucking noises when she pulls away and it plops out. She tongues it down to the base, then runs her half-open mouth up one side, lingering over the head, sticking the tip of her tongue in my pee hole just enough to make me flinch, then moving down the other side, then back up again. The head disappears between her oval lips and she can feel me getting ready because she grabs it and doesn’t let up now, her mouth and hand and head all working to make it happen.

As I pump out the first load, her mouth comes away just enough for air, her tongue still flicking at the sensitive spot under the head. Cum spurts over her upper lip, drips down the sides of her mouth and over her chin until I’m drained. She holds it there at the base, rolling it around on her pursed lips like a flexible lipstick tube, spreading the jissom, squeezing out the last drops, intermittently slipping it into her mouth and sucking it clean.

We both lie back exhausted . . .

I lay out another mountain peak for Vita. She makes the climb, then retires to the toilet to freshen up and wash off the dried cum. Can’t afford to go home with my smell on her. The Great White Sow might root out her terrible secret. She was with a man. Oh, my God! How could you do this to me? I knew you were nothing but a cheap little slut! I can hear it all now. But it’s humiliating for me as well. Not only is the woman Vita lives with a full-blown dyke, but she’s bordering on obese and homely to boot. I could almost forgive her if the other cunt

was at least good looking, or even had a good body. Maybe try to talk them into doing a threesome. But no such luck. I wouldn’t get into bed with that fat ugly white bitch if she gave the best ass fuck in the Zone.

I’m wondering who’s screwing who when Vita comes back out.

I’ve got to go, she informs me.

Go, I say, lighting up a cigarette. Thanks for a good time.

You always give good head, she concedes. The best.

Likewise.

I pay my way, she adds.

The coke? Hey, give me a fucking break, will you?

She pinches her nose and sniffs. It’s better for you than money, she says, meaning the sex. You take the money and run out and buy more coke. I know you.

You think you know me, I tell her kindly. But you don’t know shit.

Be that way then. You think you’re going to hurt me?

Naw. I know that can’t be done.

You tried to find out plenty of times.

Don’t forget to tell the sow I said hello.

She stops at the door and turns. You better put it down, honey. You beginning to look like something crawled out of the sewer. With that parting shot, she walks out and slams the door.

I half expect her to barge back in, bend over, and fart as a final exclamation point. A final show of contempt-leaving me with a last whiff of her lovely bouquet.

I try to get a fleeting glimpse of her at the window. The heat of the city rises in a phosphorescent haze in the dusk. Below is all movement-people on the sidewalks, traffic in the streets. Headlights and taillights snake up and down the avenue. I look

for her, but she’s already disappeared.

I’m sitting in front of the keyboard trying to get started, waiting for the proverbial journalistic juices to flow, aka the old

cerebral hemorrhage, when the two blades I sublet the apartment to come home.

Dan and Danny. They think it’s real cute that both of them have the same first name. A real conversation piece, what? Hi, I’m Dan. And I’m Danny. Sounds gay right off.

Danny is a young lad from Delaware who yearned for a life free of provincial prejudices, pedestrian morality, and small town hang-ups. Got tired of waiting around the local pizza joint and tasty freeze for something to happen. Always had suspicions about himself but could never chance telling anybody for fear of ridicule or retaliation.

There was a teacher he was drawn to. Understanding. Easy to talk to. They had things in common. At times he felt on the verge of letting himself go, of blurting it out just to be honest for once . . . But no. There was always the fear. The inhibitions. His mother and father. His brother and sister. He had to get away. Someplace where nobody knew him and he wouldn’t have to hide his true feelings. He moved to the bright lights and big city. Then he met Dan.

Dan was from Wisconsin, by way of St. Louis, by way of Florida, by way of a wife and three kids. He’s the older, more mature, more worldly type. He took Danny under his wing. Showed him the ins and outs of living the gay life in a metropolitan area. Confided to me Danny was a virgin when he took him in, meaning I suppose, Dan broke him in right.

There have been a few spats, a few short separations, but they’ve managed to stay together mainly because neither of them can make it on their own. Real symbiotic. Only drawback is they both live in vague fear of their families one day dropping in on them. Somewhere in Florida there’s a court order for child support that Dan would like to continue to ignore. And Danny hasn’t come out of the closet yet with his family, either. It’s always a shocker when you bring your girl home to meet the family and she turns out to be a guy.

As soon as they get in the door, they start bothering me.

Let’s be quiet, says Dan. It looks like he’s working.

That would be something new, Danny replies.

Now stop it, you silly ass. Let the poor man do his thing with the little words.

Well, I’m not stopping him, am I?

After all, Dan adds. "It is his place, too."

Danny just can’t let it go. Just can’t stop running his mouth. It’s just that when he comes back from wherever it is he gallivants all the time, well, it’s like have a stranger in the place.

I look up. Hey. Give me a fucking break, will you?

You don’t have to curse at him, do you? Dan says.

Protective as a mother hen. Very touching.

Now he insults us, says Danny.

Since they’ve already ruined my privacy, my focus, I decide to throw a scare into them. Hey, by the way, there was a phone call for one of you. I wrote it down somewhere. I make a big pretext of rummaging through the papers on my table. Well, I don’t know where it is now. But don’t panic. I remember most of it. Something to the effect you’re going to have company. It was from your wife and kids.

Dan jumps up with a look of pure terror, the blood draining from his face. How could they have found me, after all this time?

Danny assumes the proper pained expression. It’s all right, Dan. We’ll get through it. But the strained tone of his voice betrays him. He knows it’s not all right, just like he knows what a couple of phony fucks they really are. In another few moments he’ll be crying big crocodile tears. I’ve seen it all before.

Me? I’m trying to keep a straight face.

I just can’t believe it, Dan whines, stomping his foot in a petulant pout. All I ever wanted to do was live my own life, without all the interference, all the entanglements.

Maybe you should have thought about that before you got married and had three kids, I point out.

Now Danny jumps up in a huff, coming to his man’s defense like typical trailer trash muff. Why do you always have to be so . . . so . . . ? He’s so worked up he’s strapped for words, like a nasty little bitch having a tantrum.

My initial impulse is to smack him in his big head. Instead, I offer some help on the subject. How about cruel, or vicious, or inhuman, or mean spirited, or callous, or unfeeling, or uncaring, or insensitive, or at the very least, vindictive?

Where’s the message? Dan demands, ever the macho man.

What message? I say.

I knew he was lying, Danny says like a perfect queer. I knew it all the time.

I can’t hold back a good chuckle.

You dirty, filthy prick, shouts Danny.

Thank you, I reply with phony sincerity. That’s the nicest thing anybody has said to me all day.

I suspected as much all along, Dan says, relieved, already beginning to rationalize. I mean, why would they travel all this way, just to . . . The money they’d get out of me would hardly cover their expenses.

The smug, self-satisfied smirk on his kisser makes me want to kick him in the nuts. Yeah, I remind him. And a couple of minutes ago you were on the verge of jumping out the window. And Danny was ready to jump along with you. A double suicide.

Danny cocks his head to one side. You really are a hateful man, do you know that?

You’re too kind, I reply dryly.

I just hope one of these days you have to go through the sort of trauma that I have. Then, maybe, you’ll understand.

What’s the matter, your hemorrhoids acting up again?

Dan turns his back on me, folds his arms in front, and starts tapping his foot.

Danny darts over and switches on the television, then turns and watches me, waiting to see what effect it will have, knowing I can work my way through most any sort of distraction when I’m writing except TV.

I try to act like it doesn’t bother me, but it’s tough. Even a hack like me has limits. I light up a cigarette and blow the smoke in their direction, knowing it will irritate them. But it doesn’t work this time. They never move, never react.

Instead, I suffer through a few of their usual inanities. All the while they’re talking and giggling and glancing back at me to see what I’m doing. Then the ABC movie of the week flashes on, and Danny lets out with a squeal, you’d think he shot a load in his underwear. It just about makes my hair stand on end.

I start to call him a cocksucker, then catch myself. I have to admit it’s the one positive thing either of them ever did for me. Whenever I called Danny a cocksucker, he thanked me.

You cocksucker.

Thank you.

It cured me of using the term real fast.

Once the movie is in gear, it’s not long before the two of them are heavy into it on the couch. There’s necking and petting. Sucking sounds. You’d think they were back in high school in the back seat of a car with nowhere else to go.

Want me to douse you two with cold water? I say finally.

We pay for the use of this place, just like you do, Dan shouts over his shoulder. We have as much right to do what we want as you do. Why don’t you go into your room to work?

Because the computer is set up out here.

Oh, well. That’s a problem, Danny chimes.

Whether it’s because I make them self-conscious, or simply because they get too heated up swapping spit, I can’t tell, but mercifully they eventually turn off the tube and move into their own room for the hard-core stuff.

As I sit at the table and shake out the rock on the mirror next to the keyboard, I hear them fucking and sucking on the bed, and casually wonder who’s screwing who?

STREET HASSLE

Outside the door, the streets are alive and teeming with the workaday world. Taxi drivers race up and down the avenues, honking their horns and shouting obscenities at pedestrians and fellow motorists alike in an effort to beat one another to a fare. It’s understood that anybody caught between the curbs is fair game. Let the walker beware. But every now and then some irate, overzealous driver goes up on the sidewalk after an individual, which usually results in a mass hit-and-run.

The pavement is constantly under repair in one place or another. Huge potholes are everywhere. Yellow barriers, repair crews, and equipment are ever present dangers. Breakdowns from tire blowouts, bent wheels, and cracked suspensions are common. Traffic in general is so heavy, it’s often backed up to the next sector.

Motorists take smoke breaks, coffee breaks, phone breaks, and piss breaks, standing outside their cars, waiting for the traffic to unsnarl. This often gives rise to road rage and at least one impatient motorist going off.

The term was first coined by Professor Lindquist, noted sociologist, psychologist, anthropologist, etcetera, etcetera, himself a motorist and observer of this phenomenon. Going off occurs when an individual reaches the end of his patience, and in turn, loses all sense of propriety. It takes many forms, but usually entails leaping out of one’s car like an enraged ape, snarling, farting, and foaming at the mouth.

He’s going off! shouts an observant bystander.

And the afflicted motorist is given plenty of room because anything is liable to go down, from smashing out windshields and headlights in nearby vehicles, to attacking other drivers, to running off down the boulevard and abandoning the vehicle.

According to Lindquist, it’s not uncommon for an acutely disturbed individual to pass through all three phases before the phobia runs its course.

These massive traffic jams are apt to produce difficulties for everybody concerned. Bands of rabble make their way through the streets checking for unlocked car doors. Men have been dragged out, robbed, and beaten senseless. Women have been gang-raped in the back seat of their minivans and SUVs.

Besides the enormous traffic problems, this particular sector of the Zone is noted for the hands off policy of its cops. Due to charges of police brutality and soaring insurance rates, police officers with the best records-those that actively engage in stopping crime-have been mostly relegated to desk jobs—taking inventory in the supply room, dispatching traffic reports, taking phone complaints, handing out badges to visitors at the entrance to city hall.

Which leaves nothing but fuckups on the beat. Some can’t read or write enough to issue a simple summons. Others haven’t fired a shot since training academy. Many are grossly overweight, or just simply out of condition. Many more are on the take-running scams