Songs About My Father's Crotch

By Dustin Reade

My father's crotch sang many songs, and the first of them all, was me.

Now it is my turn to sing, and I will sing to you of many things.

Here are my stories. Here are my songs.

I will sing of a man who wrestles furniture, and of a sister who disappears.

I will sing of modern day cannibalism, and Dwayne Johnson's elbow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Planet Bizarro
• Release date: Sep 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9781915546135

Book preview

Songs About My Father's Crotch

Dustin Reade

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Planet Bizarro Press

Copyright © 2022 by Dustin Reade

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by copyright law.

Front cover illustration by Jim Agpalza

Edited by Matthew A. Clarke

Proofread by Nick Clements

Contents

An Introduction from the Author

1. Living Room

2. Amputee Theater

3. Night Butterfly

4. Changing Grandpa

5. The Entire Polish Army

6. Songs About My Father’s Crotch

7. The Unbearding

8. House Party

9. Clouds and Feathers

10. Procession

11. I Am a Train

About the Author

Also available from Planet Bizarro

An Introduction from the Author

Yesterday, in America, people set off fireworks. They did this because it was the Fourth of July, and they were celebrating their independence. I did not watch the fireworks. I did not celebrate independence. Just the opposite, in fact: I was engaged in the final steps of robbing these stories of their independence.

For years, these stories had enjoyed the freedom of the presses. They languished on some online eZine easy street, or enjoyed the buffet in some small press anthology, all moving about completely removed from their creator. NO MORE! In one fell swoop, I yielded the might of Planet Bizarro Press and scooped them up, forcing them all under the collective roof of this very book! Tra-la-la!

Now, while I must admit that not all of these gathered tales were living it up in other places, the above metaphor still applies. Six of these stories were never before published, and appear—here—for the very first time. That doesn’t mean they weren’t independent, though. They may have lived a solitary life in various flash drives and computer files, but it was undeniably a freedom of a sort.

Until a few months ago, of course, when I snuck into their room in the middle of the night and stuffed a bag over their heads and forced them into this book.

That metaphor may read a bit dark. My apologies.

Of the stories I gathered in the wild, I started with the Unbearding, which had previously been spending its time in The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction #9, published in 2013. Night Butterfly was next, and I had to go crate digging through Bizarro Pulp Press’s Bizarro Bizarro anthology, likewise published in 2013, to find it. While I was rooting around in Bizarro Pulp’s basement, I found the Surreal Worlds anthology they published in 2015, and therein found my surrealist party anthem, House Party. Finally, I took a trip to the Rooster Republic and chloroformed The Entire Polish Army, which had been on a date in the Tall Tales With Short Cocks Volume 5 anthology, published in 2016. After that it was a simple matter of smashing them all together into the glutinous, pulpy mess you now hold in your hands.

And there you have it: Songs About My Father’s Crotch. He may have sung them first by singing me into the world, but I sang them better, and I am singing them still. Though, I should mention—or acknowledge, if you will—that I did not ever sing them wholly alone. No book is written in a vacuum (though I would like to read it if it was), and I could not have done it without the kindness, patience and help from the following people: Matt and Everyone at Planet Bizarro, Jim, Kevin S. (for accepting my first book), Kevin D. (for rejecting it), Bix and Daniel, Kingston, The King, Gary (for the BizCon tickets), and, of course, Shailah (for everything). I think that’s everyone.

Consider yourselves introduced.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go mow my lawn.

Dustin Reade

July 5th, 2022

Living Room

Jim Brewer walked into his living room and knew something was off. The air didn’t feel quite right, and things were not in their usual places. The remote on the table beside the chair was missing, and the empty carton of Junior Mints atop the bookcase was on the floor. They had been moved. Jim sniffed and nodded his head as though coming to a final decision about something. He lumbered over and started the awkward process of retrieving the empty box of Junior Mints, when the sofa cleared its throat.

Now, Jim Brewer was a simple man. He worked at a Lumber Yard just off the highway and he enjoyed beer and meat and potatoes. Those were literally the only things he enjoyed, and without them, his life would mainly consist of yelling at the radio and sneering at people driving the other way. He was not what you would call an imaginative person.

So when the sofa cleared its throat and lurched the bulk of its weight forward a few inches as though taking its first timid, gangly steps, Jim Brewer accepted it without question. He held up the box of Junior Mints.

Did you do this? he asked the sofa. Did you move my Junior Mints?

I’m afraid so, sir, the sofa said in a thick, refined English accent. You see, I was having a rather heated debate with the bookshelf on the inherently violent nature of man when the shelf became—shall we say—unwarrantedly hostile.

"That’s fucking bullshit, the bookshelf said. You were talking shit in that snooty-ass voice of yours, and I was just trying to get you to shut up for a minute and let me talk!"

Quiet! Jim said, holding his hands up to the bookshelf. I ain’t trying to hear all that.

Jim Brewer climbed to his feet and waved the empty box of Junior Mints in front of the sofa’s…uh, face.

I don’t much care for my things touching my other things, he said, putting his hands to his hips and adjusting his jeans, even if they is my things.

Forgive me, sir, The sofa said. As I said, it was quite uncalled for. However, I believe you will find everything is more or less in the exact condition it was in before the ensuing argument.

Ain’t the point, Jim said, placing the empty box of Junior Mints under his armpit. "This box belongs to me, and so do you."

"And so do YOU!" He hollered, spinning suddenly and giving the bookshelf a heavy kick.

The bookshelf began crying like a baby. Books fell to the floor, along with a few crumpled burger wrappers that had been stuffed between the Stephen King and the Dean Koontz section. Jim wasn’t much of a reader, but Stephen King was famous, and Dean Koontz was sort of famous like Stephen King was, so he bought the books and put them on the shelf so they would be on a shelf in his home, should anyone ever stop by that took an interest in such things.

Sir, please! the sofa begged. Violence begets only more of the same!

I don’t need no backtalk! Jim screamed, turning his attention to the entertainment center. He wasn’t sure if it was alive, but it didn’t really matter. He had a point to prove.

As it turns out, the entertainment center was alive. Very much so, and it wasn’t the kind of furniture to take abuse lightly. If a piece of furniture could be said to live up to the typical New Yorker stereotype, then the attitude of the entertainment center would be much easier to describe.

Aye! the entertainment center screamed. What’s this you’re doing over here? You think I gotta take dis? You just fucked wit’ da wrong guy, Jack!

Jim braced himself for a counter-attack, but the entertainment center, being an entertainment center and not an actual angry New Yorker, did nothing. It was an entertainment center.

After a moment of stilled anticipation, the sofa said, Jolly good show, old chap! You see, Sir Jim, the entertainment center is practicing restraint. He could easily swing his doors open and pop you one on the Jack Johnson. Yet, he does not. I applaud his decision to abstain from…

The doors of the entertainment center suddenly flew open, walloping Jim right in the Jack Johnson.

Jim’s body fell to the floor like a brick, if brick crumpled like dirty laundry and bled a lot.

My word! the sofa said, shocked by what it had just seen, such brutality!

Thanks for the suggestion, stretch, the entertainment center said. I was just thinkin’ of rollin’ over his toes, but your idea was better.

Is he unconscious? the bookshelf asked, sniffing somehow.

Fuck yes, he’s unconscious! the floor said. Motherfucker laid him out cold! POW!

Pow! the entertainment center parroted happily.

Jim awoke hours later to find the living room empty, every bit of furniture gone. There was a trail leading out the door, and the grass on the front lawn had been disturbed. Jim walked into the kitchen and grabbed an ice pack from the freezer.

Are you alive too? he asked the fridge.

Nope, the fridge said.

So it’s just the living room, then?

Looks like it.

Good, Jim said, resting his back against the cool door and slowly sliding down to the floor. That’s doable.

What is? the fridge asked.

Shut up, Jim said, throwing the ice pack on the ground and climbing to his feet.

He left the kitchen and walked down the long hall to his bedroom. The bed moaned seductively as he sat upon it. The voice was soft and feminine, and Jim reminded himself to fuck the stuffing out of it later. One of the pillows said, Don’t be getting any ideas, man. And Jim made a mental note to fuck them, too. Then he reached under the bed and pulled out his rifle.

He spent a few moments running his hand up and down the barrel, and then he fished around under the bed for a box of ammo. Stuffing the bullets into his jeans, he headed out the door.

As soon as he had gone, the fridge looked at the microwave and said, Shit just got real.

The trail was easy to follow. The sofa practically hemorrhaged evidence of its trajectory through the world. Loose change, stale potato chips, crayons, and the like were scattered in a straight line through the street. Jim followed them carefully, reading the signs until he came to a dark patch of trees on the outskirts of town. This patch of wilderness was cut off from the nearby homes by a railroad track. Jim asked a sleeping hobo if he had seen any furniture come through, and the man told him he had. Jim asked him what kind.

A sofa, he said, and some other shit. Real cheap stuff, if you ask me. I wouldn’t be caught dead with furniture like that. None of it matched. Not one piece.

Jim shot the hobo in the face to help him get back to sleep. Then he placed the body on the railroad tracks and ran off into the woods after his runaway belongings.

The sun went behind the clouds, shrouding the woods in spooky darkness like in old Disney