posted: March 8, 2010

Antonin Dvorak smiled as his ship steered to a NYC pier. Ready for his new job as director of the National Conservatory, he was greeted by a 300-voice chorus and an orchestra of 87. He already loved this America!

Dash Winkwittle could see it all, could hear it all: brass drowning out gulls, confetti drifting to the harbor, voices lifted in harmony. Was the day sunny or gray? Sunny!

Dash poured a shot of whisky. Even when he drank alone, Dash allowed for the formality of a glass.

At home, Dash loved to listen to Dvorak's Eighth Symphony, its moods careering between jaunty and pensive, perfectly reflecting, to his mind, the Bohemian terrain.

Stairs creaked, warning him of an approach. Feet off his desk, he put the bottle and glass in a lower drawer, popped a mint, straightened his tie. By the time he heard a knock, Dash looked busy with papers. "Come in!" The door opened and he beheld Helen Foont.

"Yes, how may I help you?"

"I need a detective to locate someone, my husband, my former husband. I've had the marriage annulled." Chin tucked into her throat, her head bobbled, slightly, side to side, her eyes off to the left.

Hmm, this might be interesting...

As motioned to, Helen sat beside his desk. Noticing a framed yellowing photograph on the desktop, a bald man with a snowy beard, she said, "Who's that?"

Dash laughed and said, "That, my inquisitive one, is Daniel DeLeon, a noted Marxist of yore."

"Are you a Communist?"

"Brainardville's one and only!" From his jacket he removed his wallet, flipped it open, displaying his membership card for Socialist Labor Party. "We're not Marxist-Leninists, we're Marxist-DeLeonists. Like Marx, The SLP prefers ballots to bullets. As obscure as we are, one could argue that our legacy lives in socialist democracies like Denmark. The Socialist Labor Party is America's oldest Marxist party, dating back to 1876, long before those CPUSA Neanderthals."

"Huh! Denmark! Isn't that where they made Hagstrom guitars? In the sixties?"

"No, that was Sweden. But another fine example of a socialist democracy worthy of Orwell's approval!"

"My! A Marxist in Brainardville? You must have big balls." A little flustered at her boldness, Dash smiled in response, a dazed smile.

After a moment, he said, "Yeah, I guess."

Helen got up and sat in his lap, like a girl on Santa's. Settling in, she put her arms around his neck. They kissed. She said, "Mmm..." A thumb under his chin, four fingers on his cheek, "Too much tongue. A little less tongue and I think we're in business."

He kissed her again, sealing the deal.

The day after he buried Esmerelda, Davy got up early, dressed and went for a walk, his automatic in a jacket pocket. On a quiet suburban street he stole a late-model Buick sedan and drove back to that awful neighborhood, where those boys must live. He noodled around for about a half-hour that Saturday, not into the dreaded development - he didn't dare - but orbiting around and around its regions until he saw four boys, not three, riding bikes on a deserted country road. Certain these were the same little assholes, plus a friend - whom they'd certainly told all about the dead woman in the car - he steeled himself for the kill, lowered his window, picked up the .45.

No other cars on the road, no houses in sight: ideal. He approached them, slowed down and shot the straggler. POP! The kid never knew what hit him. The others, startled, veered around, one keeled over. Davy shot them, also: one, two, three, as easy as A, B, C.

POP! POP! POP!

To be extra sure they were dead, he made a U-turn and ran over 'em: WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP!

Coming to a farmhouse, Davy pulled in the driveway, got out and emptied the gun, firing its final rounds at the house. Clapboard flew apart; one pane of glass, then another, shattered.

Laughing, Davy thought, What if there's baby inside - a one day old baby - and I just killed it? The notion of a human being seeing only a single day on earth struck him as impossibly hilarious, sending him into the first laughing fit he'd enjoyed since he couldn't remember when. He proclaimed, "An' th' bay-bay wuz own-wee wun day ode!"

Standing up straight, Davy wondered, "What if I killed someone inside and that someone was a... murderer?!" He doubled over in hysterics, arms hung loosely at his sides, his hands weak, so weak he dropped the gun and, hitting a stone, it fired!

Shit! I thought it was empty! Then, head thrown back, arms spread wide, he yelled, "I didn't know it was loaded!" That sent him over the edge, down Niagara Falls, in gales of laughter.       

What if a cop comes along and asks me what I'm doing, shooting at a house - there could be people inside! I'll tell him, Officer, I didn't know the house was loaded!

That did it: he fell down laughing, curled into a fetal position at the roadside, hugged his knees to his chest, laughing so hard all the wind was knocked out of him, no air left to laugh out, so he just shook spasmodically in hilarity. He laughed so hard that tears, snot and spit flew out of his face. He'd never laughed so hard.

"Oh.. God! This... hurts!"

After several minutes, Davy stretched out, face down to the earth, gasping for air, shaking his head, laughing, but coming to his senses a bit. Davy picked up the .45, and stumbled back to the car, smiling, occasionally chuckling, and drove back towards Evendale until, nearing that development, he saw three boys on bikes, chugging Red Bull. One boy tossed his empty to the road.

Wait! These are the little shitheads! I'm positive! THESE are the bastards!

Damn, the slimeballs just slid right into the development!

But he didn't dare scour that neighborhood, not now, not never. Not that neighborhood. 

I'll have to track them down tomorrow; I'm too beat for any more of this nonsense.

Davy ditched the car, in the same spot he'd found it, the wheels gorey. A cap and sunglasses he found on the seat acting as an impromptu disguise, he hoofed it homeward.

Nearing the mock-Tudor, he tossed the cap, sunglasses and his .45 down a sewer drain.

Arriving home spent, he went inside, popped a handful of reds and smoked some righteous weed, attaining one of the finest highs he'd ever experienced, mellow and dreamy. Seeking a safety zone, Davy put on headphones and retreated into a Beatle CD womb of melody, setting it play ad infinitum, one grand and seemingly endless song. "The two of us riding nowhere, spending someone else's hard-earned pay... into a paper cup... in my hour of darkness, she is standing right in front of me... for some California grass...We're on our way home! We're going home! ...And the BBC, BB King and Doris Day!"

Within an hour, the bodies of four boys were not only discovered, it was determined that the road kills weren't the result of some hit-and-run drunk: they'd been shot before being crushed. This was cold-blooded murder. Word spread like wildfire: TV, radio, rumor. The entire county was aflame; state and local cops descended in even greater numbers, a horde of mad yellowjackets. Between these four murders and that of Mrs Lattimore, speculation fanned like a mean virus about a Mansonesque killer cult, about a Satanic group, about gang initiation rites. The populace demanded that the stupid cops do something! Who was next to die? Murdered! DO something! FUCKING DO SOMETHING!

Getting up to take a leak, Davy heard the doorbell chime. He opened the door to Lieutenant Bern Bernhart, fedora in one hand, badge in the other, teeth and gold cufflinks in a sparkle contest.

From upstairs Darlene shouted, "Who's there, sweetheart?"

Metaphors: A Novel, Noir

posted: March 3, 2010

I've joined Zina Saunders and Randy Enos as an illustrator contributing to to Barry Schiffman's blog, The Last Round. The article is about a 'Viagra' for women.

posted: March 2, 2010

Here's the illo I created for last Sunday's NYT Book Review. Nick Blechman's the AD; the book, "Evening's Empire," is a novel by Bill Flanagan and was reviewed by Ben Sisario.

posted: March 1, 2010

Disconsolate and bewildered, Davy wandered home, slumped through the front door, up the stairs. On the landing, Esmerelda greeted him, barefoot and bathrobed, a few steps outside their bedroom door.

"Where were you? You didn't tell me you were going out? You're such an asshole?"

He swung at the air in anger and frustration; she teetered then toppled, cartwheeling down the stairs, landing on the hardwood floor, a twisted rag doll, limbs at impossible angles, emerald eyes as dull as newsprint, the dazzle gone in a breath.

Down steps he raced, knowing it was too late. Her wrist revealed no pulse. But I didn't hit her! I didn't even touch her - I don't think...

His mind, first numb, then racing with ideas, pieces falling into place with the naturalness of a breeze. As he moved, the plan hatched, always one step ahead of him. Davy dragged her by cooling armpits, heels scraping, through the kitchen to the attached garage, propped her up in the Mustang's passenger seat. Dashing back inside, he changed to jeans and a work shirt, laced up hiking boots, grabbed a pair of work gloves. In the upstairs bathroom, he popped a couple of bennies, pocketed the bottle for the stamina he'd need. He made a thermos of coffee, put it in a knapsack.

Backing out of the garage, onto the street, he waved at a passing back-and-white, giving the cop a manly "happy to see you in the 'hood; we appreciate it, buddy" wave, before driving out of Evendale, a shovel in the trunk. On the first sharp turn, Ezzy slid against him, flopped down, face in his lap. Shuddering, he slammed her away with one arm, against the door, her head clonking the window.

Pulling over, motor running, Davy got out, ran around to her side, opened the door and strapped her clumsy carcass into place. That stupid cop didn't even notice she wasn't wearing her seat belt? What are we paying these chumps for?

Confused by so many things: What'd happened to Darlene? Was she abducted? Murdered? What? WHAT? And now a corpse on his hands! He felt naked sitting in their car with her husk. Anyone could look in the windows - clear as glass, you know - and see him with a cadaver. At a stop sign, a mom and two little ones crossed the street. They smiled him, he sat there and smiled back. See that nice couple in the car? They obey the traffic signs.

At a Kwik Mart, he parked, away from foot traffic, and trotted in. Purchasing chewing gum and three gallons of green Gatorade for the task ahead, he felt the pills kicking in, elevating him to a euphoria that he knew would ultimately drop him, vastly diminished, into a black abyss. Stepping out with his bag, he saw some boys on bicycles circling his car. Davy jogged over, "Hey! Get away from that car! G'wan!"

They peddled off, taunting, "Ah, blow it out your shorts! Your broad's a real stiff!"

How much had they seen? How much had they noticed? How much, if interrogated in a day or two, would surface? How much? How soon?

"Yeah, we waved at her, just tryin' to be friendly, but she didn't do nothin'. That's when we figured, maybe, she was, y'know, dead. So I went to my pop..."

Even as an adolescent, Davy'd detested teen boys. Whereas a young girl entering teendom takes on the first blush of womanhood, blending all that's cute from childhood with something hinting at adult, transcendently loitering on a verge; the thirteen-year-old boy is a monstrosity: his nose a twisted deformity; cheeks mottled with eruptions of pus; that awful mustache forcing its way to a greasy surface; soft eyebrows mutating into briar patches; the honking voice, cousin to a braying mule.
Representatives of this lower strain, now, had the power to ruin him...

Davy saw the little bastards escaping down the main road, taking a hard left into a development, something that was snazzy forty years ago, gone to seed and weed and peeled paint, dotted with foreclosure signs. He hopped in the Mustang and followed, entering the belly of dystopian suburbia, but the boys were nowhere to be seen, not a hint. Everywhere Davy glanced, people were in their yards, walking dogs, peering into his windows, suspicious of the outsider. He turned around, slowly, in a cul-de-sac, all the while feeling as if Esmerelda was a blinking radioactive lime-green billboard, shouting, "He killed me! Call the coppers! Please! Someone! Call the police!"

His heart, the size of a basketball, thumped away at his breastplate, dribbled down court.

Davy trolled, sharp eyes scanning for those boys, ready to run them over if he found them is a lonely spot. Where are those little shits?!

Despite it only being April, despite nothing to speak of in the way of growth, people wiled away their evenings atop lawn tractors, buzzing infant growth down to dirt with a blithe venom worthy of fighter jets napalming Vietnamese tots. A chubby pink-faced man steered his mower into the street, came alongside Davy's left, staring into the creeping car, his face painted with, it seemed to Davy, astonishment. The man began waving. Was he shouting, "This pervert's driving around with a dead lady in his car! And he's looking for our boys! He wants to molest 'em!"?

A woman with two dogs, each as large as a pony, approached Davy from the right, the canines snapping and snarling, foam dripping from fangs. What was she yelling? Was it, "I've got his licence plate number! I'm gonna call 911!"? Sweating ice cubes, Davy managed his cool, maintained it until he was back on the county route, out of the jaws of the fermenting lynch mob.

A few miles outside of town, bouncing down a deserted dirt road, past its last farm, past its last double-wide, the road narrowing to little more than a path, Davy parked. The amphetamine now had full control of him. Removing the key, he wondered how long we'd continue using car keys. They seemed, suddenly, anachronistic in the digital age. Soon we'll have swipe cards instead. Swipe: that's on odd word when you really think about it. It's, actually, perfect in its own little way, on several levels.

Someday, surely, we'll simply think our cars on and off.

Not a soul to be seen, he put the Gatorade into the knapsack with the thermos, then hauled Ezzy out, to the edge of the woodland, went back and closed doors. The keys? Yes, right here, okay. He picked her up and carried her, as if over a bridal threshold, into the woods, tripping over roots, cursing, for a quarter mile, or so, until he found a glen. Gasping for air, he dropped her, sat and sweated, but only for a minute. The sun was dwindling.

Davy mapped out a rectangle, six feet long by three feet wide, drawing its perimeter with a branch. Then he jotted back to get the shovel and knapsack. That settled, he began to dig after washing down more speed with black coffee.

Dig and dig and dig, down, down, down, working like a dervish, the full silver moon providing ample light for his buzzing eyes. Around two in the morning, Hercules rested in the hole, inhaled deeply of the earthen smells unleashed by his digging and spring's thaw. He lay there, for just a few moments, there was still much work to be done. Flying high, the cold wet ground didn't bother him in the least.

Thoughts had been sprinting through his mind all night. He'd been careful as he possibly could not to harm earthworms as he slammed the shovel into ground, thinking about parking lots, gargantuan and ugly American parking lots for shopping centers and malls, acres and acres of pavement burying worms and insects alive. No one ever writes about this, not even environmentalists, and they should, someone should! Do insects record holocausts, somehow, in their insect histories? Ants have to. Ants are so communal, they must share a collective conscious. Except, there are warring ants, right? Black ants versus red ants? So, maybe, just specific species of ants share a specific mind? It's as if all black ants are simply tiny pieces of one gigantic black ant, each of them teeny ant soldiers (or ambassadors) sent forth to do this or that for the good of all the other black ants, from time immemorial. Excluding the ones that stay inside the anthill all day, the queen and her handmaidens, or whatever the hell they are. Drones? Is there an ant king? There's got to be, right? Someone has to make the babies with the queen, right? It stands to reason on some sort of level. Who can deny it? No one, that's who. Are people, however indirectly, evolved from ants? We always talk about evolving from apes, but what about before apes? Back, back, back, way back. We must spring from ants. Then why don't we - except in the rarest of cases - share their overwhelming sense of solidarity? It's as if ants, in the own peculiar and adorable way, are, in actuality, more highly evolved than people. Most people, anyway. How could anyone kill an ant? Even if it's in one's home? It's an ant, for crying out loud! Pure and innocent! They're so cute! Those little antennae! And they walk in single-file rows, more orderly than an abacus. They boast an intelligence that's beyond our comprehension. What are the implications of ants regarding mankind? (And furhther: what's so kind about mankind?) Ants are the true Communists, when you think about it, but without the violence and repression associated with way too much of Communisim, not that Tito was so frightful...

On all fours, Davy crawled around looking for an ant to kiss, but the moon for all its might wasn't providing enough light for that task. He muttered, Dig we must! Shoulder to the wheel, he labored away, wondering, now, about blood. Isn't it more than a bodily fluid; isn't it more like an organ, in a way?

Davy realized that he was no longer thinking entirely in questions; the spell of Esmerelda broken!

Later, lying in the finished grave - it as precisely right-angled as if machine tooled - staring at the moon, chewing gum like a fiend, he thought more about ants - and worms and humanity and the Mercury space program and the Apollo space program, especially the moon landing (what if there was a microscopic lunar civilization, every bit as advanced as ours, thriving right where Neil Armstrong stepped, crushing it into the dust?) and the rise and fall of Elvis Aron Presley and the advances in underwater travel and what life must've been like, truly like, in medieval China (end of the Han and beginning of the Tang eras, for instance) and the conclusions that could be drawn from Martin Luther regarding The Enlightenment and The American Revolution and Freemasonry and, for that matter, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: wheels on top of wheels on top of wheels on top of wheels, spinning, spinning, spinning, when his reverie was disturbed by, "Hiya, Davy! Long time no see!"

He sprang to his feet. "Lizzy! What are you doing here? How did you find me?"

"YouTube for starters, darling! You were pretty easy to locate. I've been in Evendale for weeks, shadowing you. You never noticed! Ha ha! By the by, I'm so sorry I ever left you. It was terrible of me, perfectly dreadful, as I'm so sure you realize." That Main Line lockjaw! His knees weakened! (What a wonderful country this is, that he, a boarding house child of borderline poverty, could wed, however miserably and temporarily, Philadelphia royalty!)

Standing in the hole, he stared at her feet. Still with those sneakers, he just adored those sneakers! His eyes traveled up to her eyes.

She came down to his level, sat on the edge of the grave, feet dangling. He rested his cheek against her warm knees. To Lizzy's right was Esmerelda's carcass. "Looks like you're in a bit of a jam, Davy. How will explain her absence to your friends and neighbors?" She jiggled Ezzy's foot. "How're ya doin' there? Kinda quiet, you sad tomato!"

"W-why I'll tell them we've separated. My God, Lizzy... I can't believe this! I haven't seen you in so many years..." He put a hand to his temple, trying to take it all in, sort it all out...

After a moment or two, he said, "Why did you leave me, Lizzy? Why did you do that, leave me for such a douchebag?"

"Beecause he had money."

"But I was making money!"

"But he had money. Oodles of it. No times of scrimping, we could piss it away like drunken sailors! We didn't work; we traveled. Do the math!"

"Davy, don't listen to her! She's no good for you, never was! Just a little hussy! I never trusted her, never liked her, not one iota!"

"Mother! You're dead!"

"There's no such thing as death!"

"Davy, if you want, I'll wetwork both these bitches right here and now. I'll show them there is, most assuredly, such a thing as death. We can toss 'em in with Ezzy! A three-fer!"

"Darlene!" You're okay! And you're here!"

Triumphant with a .357 Magnum in hand, Darlene was itching to pull the trigger.

Davy shook his head, closed his eyes and opened them to the first rays of dawn, Lizzy, Mother and Darlene vanished, like vampires banished.

He clawed his way out, rolled Esmerelda into her grave. The body landed, face down, with a thud. He shoveled dirt in, his arms and legs shaking violently with exhaustion. By noon she was covered, and he'd spread leaves and branches over the spot, artistically blending it in with the surroundings. Davy gathered the Gatorade empties, put them in the knapsack with the drained thermos, brushed mud and debris from his clothes while hobbling back to the car, careful not to step on bugs.

Mission accomplished, he was breathing easier, if exhausted to the marrow. He drove along, mixing in with the early morning traffic, just another commuter.

Safe at home, he shaved and showered, put on a white terry cloth bathrobe, it so thick he hardly needed to towel down after a shower, and shaved two more times with a fresh blade. Life is good! Trying to chase the cottonmouth away, he drank gallons of orange juice and gobbled vitamin tablets. He knew he should eat, but his stomach was a tight raw knot. Parched, he drank still more juice. The doorbell rang.

Standing there was a plainclothes cop, fedora in one hand, badge in the other, gold cufflinks sparkling almost as brightly as his teeth. Introducing himself as Lieutenant Bern Bernhart, he waltzed in as if he owned the joint, started upstairs. Looking straight ahead, Bernhart said, "We'd like to ask you some questions, Mr Voltaire. You and your wife. Where is she?" Davy trailed behind him.

We? Davy noticed there were two cops, not just one. The second cop, a step behind Davy, snorted. Ridicule? Disgust?

"W-why she's n-not there. I mean, she's not here! And you can't just come in here! Where's your warrant?"

Looking about, Davy saw that there were, in reality, four cops. Where'd they come from? The door's closed.

"What's the matter Mr Voltaire? Where's Esmerelda, you commie punk? We'd like to ask her some nice simple questions, some nice little questions. You seem awfully nervous, my friend. How so with the jitters? Do I need a warrant for a little friendly chit-chat?"

"S-she's not here, I tell you. We... we're separated. She's with her folks."

"And that is where?"

"Why... California."

There were now eight cops. No, sixteen. They were all over the place, like cockroaches in a slumlord's tenement. Thirty-two of them. Sixty-four. The house was shoulder-to-shoulder with cops, cops inspecting walls with magnifying glasses, cops on the floor with microscopes, cops tripping over cops, it was a Friday rush-hour subway of police. Claustrophobia gripped Davy's throat, punched his stomach.

"California? Really, Mr Raboy, or Mr Voltaire, or whatever the fuck you call yourself these days, can't you be more precise? Where, exactly, in that huge state? How about an address and a phone number! And what happened to your beard? Why did you shave it off? Answer me!"

"This isn't Nazi Germany! You can't just storm in here with the Gestapo! This is still America!"

"Don't talk to me about America. You think it's clever to wave the Soviet flag about? You think Stalin's enslavement and murder of millions of poor and proudly anti-Semitic Ukrainians was a joke for you and your snotty egghead pals to laugh at?" Bernhart, now facing Davy, stepped down, elbowing cops out of his angry way. Towering over Davy by a step, Bernhart gave him a shove, knocking Davy into the arms of officers. Every cop froze, turned and stared at Davy. There was a hush of anticipation.

"And what was up with that beard, anyway? What were you trying to hide behind it? Or did you think it was cool to look like Karl Marx or your little boyfriend, Che Guevara?!"

"No! It's not like that at all! I'm proud to be an American! And I have nothing to hide! My life's an open book!"

"He's a punk!" a flatfoot shouted from above. Another, standing behind Davy's right ear bellowed, "A commie punk! Let's strip him and beat him with our nightsticks! It'll be fun!" He pawed at the robe, revealing flesh. "Hey! Looky that shoulder! He's a regular Ava Gardner! Or a Tina Louise! Let's make believe we're on Gilligan's Island and he's Ginger and we're all horny Skippers!"

As a leering unit, they closed in for the kill, roaring for blood. Davy crouched and screamed, closed his eyes and screamed, clutched his head with both hands and screamed again. When he opened his eyes the house was empty, quiet but for its hum.

The phone rang. Cold sweat drenching terry cloth, Davy tripped down stairs to answer it, listened, heard a voice, her voice!

"Darlene! What is going on? Where were you yesterday? I waited at the library for hours!"

"Harold's detective! I had to give him the dodge. I'm sorry, sweetheart! Look, I'm around the corner, at the phone booth."

Davy couldn't recall a phone booth around the corner. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time he saw a pay phone.

"Davy, I'm coming right over, this very minute. Take me upstairs and fuck me!"

"I don't think I c-can! I'm a wreck! I'm fraught! You wouldn't believe what just happened..."

She huffed, "Well, you had your opportunity, buster! Don't say you never had your chance."

"Darlene! WAIT!"

*click*

Stunned, easing the phone into its cradle, Davy turned and said, "Mother!"

"Bernhart was right: you are a punk! You just let that girl just slip through your fingers! Let me tell you, Kenneth would've had me in his greedy mitts and hammered away like a team of JFKs working on a Vegas chorine's case! He wasn't good for nothing else, not a cent in child support, but he could nail me like a son of a bitch! For hours and hours! Hard as a rock, with frequency, that Kenneth!"

"Mother, please! You've got to stay dead!"

"Punk!"

"Mother, please! I'm a man! A flesh and blood man! A victim of circumstances, circumstances beyond my control!"

"You're a victim of your wet-noodle spine is what you are - punk!"

"Mother, I must say, you are rather ravishing. I never noticed it, hardly, as a kid, but you resemble Kim Novak. Really! You should've been on the cover of Life..."

The doorbell chimed, causing Davy to start. He loped over, almost drunkenly, opened the door a crack to see who it was - "Darlene!" - and swung it wide open, hugging her with love and trepidation, sunshine blasting the foyer.

"Oh, Davy! I'm so sorry! Putting you on the spot like that! Can you ever forgive me?"

"Yes! YES! Come in! Mother's here! We'll have tea! I'll make a nice pot of tea and we can sit around the dining table, drink tea and eat crumpets and have a conversation of the highest order!"

A few months prior, Helen Raboy, nee Foont, left a Planned Parenthood clinic outside of Miami, the deed done. Her smile was satisfied, her eyes were furious. A score to settle, murder clutched her heart like a miser clenching his last quarter.

Metaphors: A Novel, Noir

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