Old Friends, New Poison, and The Beggining of The End: Getting My Ass Kicked at The Library (4135 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.97 on 73 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Isaac Bickerstaff (View user info) at 2005-11-28 12:17:24 EST
I will forever shut my eyes when that song comes on and I'll fight against it; don't take me back there, I'll think, not to that night. But the song will always win, like music always does, and there I'll be, right back in the middle of that carnage, standing bemused and bleeding over the splintered detritus of really bad news.
Anytime New York is at my back (even now with the Galaxy rumbling underneath me in a spastic, pissed off merengue) it always feels like surrender, kid; like running from the dragons. Part of me quivers a coward's relief, out of harm's way, the battle well behind me; my jacked-up eye notwithstanding. But I got business up the road, brothers and sisters: business overdue, a meeting my heart never expected, and aint prepared to take.
Last night at The Library, JD sat in silence; his empties a Stonehenge on the table in front of him, an altar to his buzz. Taro the Hunchback stroked his wiry whiskers and waited for his muse, the fair-weather bitch, "It's the Black Earth Curse," he said.
We all three kept glancing at the chair the Girl just left, her lipstick clinging to the abandoned stemware in waxy scarlet eloquence, a reminder of her permanence, or lack thereof. Taro said, "It's going after her."
I could see the impulses flicker across JD's face in carnival exaggeration: say something funny, lighten the mood, break this silence if it takes an axe. The rest of the parish was occupied with passing the night in the routine gestures of hepcat predilection, the clinking of glasses and sporadic bursts of tired laughter. Outside, the vanilla world was busy pretending that our troubles were different from their own.
"I'm out of quarters," JD managed.
The booth next to us laughed in that unconcerned way: like they didn't know, like they hadn't heard what the Girl had told us, like they had the nerve to have their own lives, free of medical terminology and chemo schedules. Even the word's familiarity made me cringe:
Thymic carcinoma.
Thymic.
Isaac.
See?
But right now I'm tryin not to think about last night, so I slap my swollen eye once to help me stay awake and fuck me if that wasn't a mistake because it starts bleeding again and I'm still going eighty on the turnpike and don't really know where the exit is and can't see for fuck to find it, and inside I'm already mourning the death of the song from last night, ruined for me even now.
I hope they try to stop me, ya know? I hope when I get there they call the cops and the army and there's tanks and planes and I get to go hardcore on a platoon of jack booted high-and-tights cause I want them all; I'll own 'em and don't think I won't, I'll own anyone who won't let me take him home.
It was their laughter that did it, man; the choreographed cool of the perfectly crafted East Village hipster gloom; the giggling of their lacquered bitches in their weekend push-ups and Kanji tats. They were a whetstone sharpening my rage and I felt the heat rising like an itch, like a hungry fucking itch that was so close to joy that I shivered as I stood my decrepit ass up and headed for the jukebox, Taro having pressed two quarters into my palm, a wise and gentle cue to bail the fuck out.
The Jukebox is the heart of a place like this, right? It gives the whole room its guts, its groove, and if the mood is slow and silky then the box is to blame, hard edge fast and the same holds true. I always pause when I'm throwing good coin at the box; it's a serious responsibility and anyone who don't think so is a guy that I won't hang with. You can't just pick the pulse of a place and not think hard first; you think Chapman would have pulled the trigger on Lennon if he'd come from a bar with a box playing the right shit?
But I wasn't in the DJ state of mind, bitches, so check me out as I just handed Taro's silver to the boychick leaning over the box, "Play something fucked," I said, "I need cheering up," and I shot right past into the neon graffiti bathroom. And as I turned to slide the lock, I heard JD's voice rising outside, the Italian cadence getting stronger with his growing ire, and my last vision of the bar as I pulled the door closed was of the whole booth next to ours rising, shoulders pulled in angry façade, jackets dropped in showy gestures of supposed menace. I wondered what JD had said but it didn't really matter I guess: the scrap was as inevitable as Carmen taking the knife from Don Jose, that thing you wait for with equal parts fever and resignation.
How different am I now from when they first took him? Have the years and indignities made me less impulsive, more thoughtful? His memory lies across a lingering chasm of time, another verse altogether, before a dislocated hip and a dead African became trite banalities: songs to be sung in drunken slurs. And with his return I can go back; I can H.G. Wells my shit over that breach back to the moment when it all went wrong, when my offenses against veracity became too numerous to recall, and maybe it all won't end this way. But now I'm staring down 2 hundred miles of highway, long and boring like a fucking Yes song.
I know I aint fooling you, but let me tell it just the same, cool?
The Galaxy does its job with perfect nonchalance, slugging me through the muck-thick New Jersey air into the deeper garb of the true Garden State. And when I get there, the giant iron gate with brightly colored block letters is open, and why wouldn't it be? They don't expect trouble here, man. This is gonna be as big a surprise to them as it was to me. And I'm wondering how she made the deal, how the Girl secured his space here to save his life, and it concerns me that she fooled me for so long and with such ease.
It had been a "good news, bad news" sorta night; you know the kind, the kind that always turns out "bad news" all the way around and let's be honest. "I didn't tell you cause you'd do something stupid," she said last night, after the "good news, he's alive" part. Man, was she right cause here I am.
She always is.
A few minutes after the "bad news" part, the Girl left, had to work in the morning, and Taro nodded a little thoughtfully, that whore muse of his circling wearily before splitting town for the suburbs. "She'll be okay," he said, meaning the Girl, or the muse, whatever. And we all three just sat there in a dumbass funk, like minor chords in a Dylan songbook, waiting to get strummed.
I park the Galaxy as the sun is coming up and I gravel walk my way into the office, my brains churning an awake-all-night mosh pit of seething delirium. I'm cataloguing through the scenarios in my head, trying to come up with all the worst ones to immunize myself against them: I can't find him, he's locked up, he's dead. I dismiss each of these as they occur to me knowing that once I imagine it, it'll never go down that way; and I try not to think of cowboy security and po-lice men, cause so badly I want them to try.
To stop me, I mean.
Behind the granola desk is a big girl whose name I'm sure is like Crystal or Star and has spent more than one summer at the Renn Faire. She's all sparkly glad ovation and thankfully only stares at my swollen eye for a second when I say, "I'd like to adopt a dog."
A good bar bathroom is like a sacristy, kid, and the one at The Library is full on hallowed. Half the time I don't even need the plumbing, just the quiet and the mirror and the get-the-fuck-away-from-me. The voices outside were rising to shouts and I could hear Jamey the bartender's voice as she hollered sterile concern at the escalating conflict: like throwing panties at Tom Jones, right, you think he notices that shit? And above the yelling, louder than all of it, I could hear Taro's silence, an ominous cloud of ancient woolgathering: his is the quiet after the final chord, right before the audience screams out its primal analysis. Anything can happen in that millisecond of hush and it burns with tempestuous potential, a tiny black hole of fiery embryonics.
So I knelt the familiar posture of venerable self-renunciation, and took a long moment to gaze at my reflection in the clear water of the porcelain bowl, a strangely fitting fun-house mirror of iodine-colored filth: when did my hair get so long? And in a geyser of goth-fag angst, I spewed my fucking guts across the walls.
Moonstone or Blossom or whatever, lump-shuffles me past the cats and rabbits, around the turtles and a sad horse or two, over to the dog runs. And every beast in there, varmint or pure bred, looks me in the eye and invites me to stay; brothers in redundancy are we, they say, the dregs: the withered and rude and wretched and homely, the fucked up and graceless and vulgar and lame. The unwanted. We are the one-hit wonders of the world, our albums at discount prices, gathering dust on the shelves at Target. I can feel the impatience of the place, wishing we would all hurry up and die, leave room and resources for those that contribute. "Take your time," says Magic, and she cheerily walks away from me as I turn to the kennel marked "VICIOUS" and politely let myself in.
Vomiting, fighting, fucking; they're all the same, man, they're all just transitions; bridges from one moment to the next, one mood to another: a quick birthing of body fluids and pent up emotional clutter that rockets you to the next sensibility in a fervent, cathartic spooge. Of the three, I guess I'm best at the first, and I was really laying down a virtuoso performance, kid, I mean going for broke. And right when my spine was starting to ache and my belly was hanging in a droopy, paunchy ellipse, some nancy fuck slick-hair dandy started pounding on the door behind me, all fired up because he needed to piss or fix his spikes or whatever.
I probably should have taken a moment to sleeve the crusted funk from my lips, but seriously why bother, who am I trying to impress? And when I creaked the door open and saw the boychick from the jukebox, this wispy lank of a silk-skinned herm trying to stare me down, I felt bad for what I had planned to do to him. And I saw JD over his shoulder, staring down three bridge and tunnel types from the next booth; his infectious confidence seeping out in thick black currents and I heard him say, "If someone's gonna kick my ass, you'd better hurry up, cause in about three seconds the Devil himself is gonna bust out of that bathroom and then everyone in here is fucked."
But JD was three seconds too late.
"Vicious," man, what a word that is. Does anyone actually use that word? And if they do, do they use it right? Let's call it like we see it, man, have you ever known a vicious animal? I mean seriously, are they even capable? That being said, I've known a dozen vicious bitches, can name them for you right the fuck now if you want, and Maldanado, man, that cat was vicious. But an animal? A dog? C'mon.
I see him right off, he's sorta listlessly picking at a plastic bone thing over on the far side of the field and I get all loopy bugs-in-my-stomach at how much he looks exactly like I remember. "Jack," I say, and just hearing the word out loud makes the bugs take flight.
His head pops up, his eyes go feeding time clear, and he trots over to where I'm standing, rousing the other pups in the field with him, and suddenly I'm standing in the middle of a heap of fur; hungry hounds with questioning eyes. "Who's the most vicious motherfucker here?" they ask me. And I aint even gotta answer, so I just sit down in the middle of the whole pack, and let nature play out.
Those Gotti wannabe faggots started with rough words and sharp gesticulations, gritty badges of their corpulent balls; they ignored the coquettish pleas of their faceted sluts and played out the litany like any great dramatist: pushing and posturing and making demands.
I was almost sorry to see it end.
But the box chugged out a diabolical backbeat, a heartbeat, a beatdown; and I was a frontman, a rock star in fact. I lanced through the room in a florid construction, as certain of my future as Pete Best must have been, as bulletproof as Tupac. My big right hand is the high "c" at the end of the Nessun Dorma, patiently waiting to bring down the house.
I shot my thumb into someone's mouth and yanked him to the floor by his cheek, the ripping sound as the flesh pulled away from his skull made him choke and I did something bad to his spine, I forget what, and I quickly got bored by his lack of mettle and turned to find someone more spirited.
One of them tried to turn and go, surprised by how real it had suddenly gotten. He went down screaming about his broken rib, screeching and threatening and I wanted to tell him to relax, his rib was fine, it's his kidney that's fucked; but he'll know soon enough by the blood in his shorts and trust me when I tell you, kid, that that's a fucking surprise you never look forward to.
At least the third guy tried to step up, tried to aid his buddies. You gotta at least give him that; that and some Percocet and a cast and a drainage tube.
And some reconstructive.
I heard Jamey's voice again, and my name, and Taro's silence, and then things got jacked in a really bad way, a slippery way, a slippery, broken and really just bad fucking way.
"They told me some crazy guy was out here singing to Jack." It's Heaven again, she's standing outside the gate and she looks at me with her round face and pink mouth while I pretend to rub fatigue from my eyes, and then force them back to her. She thinks for a second and pushes her hair back, then, "You're him, aren't you..."
She holds up a folder, a file, an old manila file folder that says "Jack: male, white w/black- pointer x" on it, and a date that I successfully avoid gleaning. The folder falls open in her hands and I see the old clipping, the headline I've seen a thousand times, mostly when I least want to: "Prize Fighter Gets Four Years" and I'm struck with a sudden notion to cover his eyes, like I don't want Jack to see it, like it might upset him if he knew. The clipping is old and yellow, crumbling in a prophetic way that haunts the cells of my bones and under other circumstances I might have shuddered; but not now.
"Yeah." I say. "I'm him."
His muzzle has some gray in it, but not as much as mine, and his eyes are deep and brown and perfect and I know I remind him of someone he used to know, but he can't put his paw on it. I give him a scratch and only after a long while do I realize that all the other hounds are standing a few feet back, keeping a respectful distance. But it's not me they're regarding, it's Jack, and it's suddenly clear who the big dog is.
"Is that blood on your shirt?"
Looking back on it, I probably shouldn't have bit that guy's face, or torn that other buck's little finger back up his arm like that, and there was no reason to throw the table at the puking boychick, that was just excessive and let's be honest. And when that bottle clocked me on the eye and I felt it go all juicy and open, I remembered not to hit chicks; so I kicked that whore in the mouth, and that was a bad idea I guess, with all the hair and teeth and such.
Particularly I remember the screaming, JD's mostly, and the sirens and I remember opening my hand at one point and discovering someone's nose ring. And I remember that everything seemed wet, thick and slippery and viscous and whiskey and it all translates into medallions on my clothes, bright red medallions spilling across me in angry slashes; medallions to my viciousness that I've carried with me from a vicious fucking city to this place; this "sanctuary."
"It's okay," I say, trying to sound reassuring. "It's not mine."
JD threw his keys at me, "Get the fuck outa here, Twink, the feds are coming." And all of a sudden I'm Sinatra at the Palace and I can't remember the words to the song I just started. I think I just stood there cause his keys bounced off my chest and splashed into something at my feet. Jamey was howling inconsolable and was running around with a phone pressed to her ear, slipping and trembling and pale and babbling and, you know, unhappy. And I looked around for the first time since I came shrieking out of the bathroom, I looked around at the broken glass and broken collarbone and broken promises and you know what I did? I grabbed JD's keys and I ran. I ran out of that manic ass metaphor like a bitch, like a mewling, vomiting cowardly little bitch; like Michael Hutchence ran away, like Cobain.
"You can take him," she says.
I look up at her. She says it again, impatient this time, fidgeting a little like she knows she's breaking the rules and doesn't want to get caught. "I won't stop you. Take him."
I stand up slowly, trying not to let Jack see me wince. I reach down and put my palm on his chest and I feel the steady thump, noble and true, and I squeeze my eyes closed, trying with what little I've got left to shut out the memory of how I got here; pleading silently with the gods to make it okay for him to come home with me, to make me suddenly worthy.
But then my eyes fall open and the medallions are there; dried emblems, their heraldry clotted and crusty. No, I think: the medallions spell out 24601, and Taro is right, the Black Earth Curse, like Javert, is always near.
I pull my hand away and silently salute this new monarch: Mighty Jack, the King of the Vicious Hounds; his regal sovereignty won't be challenged today, by me or anyone else.
"Nah," I say.
User Reviews
Submitted by orph (user info) at 2008-05-09 11:01:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Brilliant
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2007-12-14 15:36:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I think my hammer just hit a nail.
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-05-26 19:07:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
So much to say, none of it enough.
Submitted by cshape (user info) at 2007-01-08 18:13:59 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
"...like minor chords in a Dylan songbook, waiting to get strummed."
This cunt shits golden similes.
Submitted by cshape (user info) at 2007-01-08 09:56:22 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Has this fucker got published yet?
'Cause it's imminent.
Submitted by interloper (user info) at 2006-11-16 18:51:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I think this may be my favorite post on Uber. Either way, it's the reason I decided to actually register and start posting.
Submitted by Bob_Dole (user info) at 2006-09-05 02:58:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No comment can do justice here. +2 is nuff said.
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2006-09-05 02:36:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-09-03 22:14:52 (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-07-08 16:47:26 (#)
Ranking: 1
There are a solid 15 posts of +2 streaks with 30 or more reviews. That is stupid. I am weeding it all out by giving every one of them a +1; that way posts that have 1.99 with 200+ reviews gets best ever.
__________________________________________
Darko, why can't you even be original? That was Rad's trick, and you are only copying your
betters. Besides, if anyone deserves straight +2s, it is Bickerstaff.
You couldn't write one-millionth this well.
Oh, and to those who will tell me to mind my own business when it isn't my post,
fuck you.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bubba, stop being an asshole. This guy doesnt need an apologetic moron camping on his posts. It makes you look bad, and him.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-09-03 22:14:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-07-08 16:47:26 (#)
Ranking: 1
There are a solid 15 posts of +2 streaks with 30 or more reviews. That is stupid. I am weeding it all out by giving every one of them a +1; that way posts that have 1.99 with 200+ reviews gets best ever.
__________________________________________
Darko, why can't you even be original? That was Rad's trick, and you are only copying your
betters. Besides, if anyone deserves straight +2s, it is Bickerstaff.
You couldn't write one-millionth this well.
Oh, and to those who will tell me to mind my own business when it isn't my post,
fuck you.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-09-02 23:29:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-08-30 23:46:54 (#)
Ranking: 1
Brilliant, just a bit disjointed. I was never really around for your prime Uber-career, but people have nothing but respect for you.
__________
???? This was NOT disjointed, if you've progressed beyond Sam I Am or Dick and Jane.
This is what writing is all about.
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-08-30 23:46:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Brilliant, just a bit disjointed. I was never really around for your prime Uber-career, but people have nothing but respect for you.
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2006-08-30 19:06:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
dammit how did I miss this?
Submitted by delboy (user info) at 2006-08-29 08:09:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Maltese (user info) at 2006-07-24 06:45:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This sucked fucking ghey ass, but I could never be cold enough to break such a wonderous +2 streak.
Submitted by the_lone_stranger (user info) at 2006-07-13 23:51:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is great. No, really man. This is just great.
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-07-08 17:11:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2s all around for someone getting pissed at me enough for not one but two uberboard messages!
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-07-08 16:47:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
There are a solid 15 posts of +2 streaks with 30 or more reviews. That is stupid. I am weeding it all out by giving every one of them a +1; that way posts that have 1.99 with 200+ reviews gets best ever.
Submitted by bigbabylons (user info) at 2006-06-23 08:32:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
God Damm man, i have just gone back and read all your stuff.
Where the hell are you.
Submitted by Average_Dan (user info) at 2006-06-23 04:15:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Dammit, I wanted the last review!
Submitted by fun_with_needles (user info) at 2006-06-23 04:02:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
!!!!!!!!!
Submitted by Average_Dan (user info) at 2006-06-23 03:00:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
My God,
This is some of the most amazing shit I have ever seen. Can you do me a favor, and email me?
Average.Dan.at.gmail.com
I have something that may interest you...
or not, but either way, you won't know unless you do.
Submitted by gina (user info) at 2006-06-21 19:55:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
dick. you owe me for not spillin.
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2006-06-10 02:17:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Incredible. I'm trying to think of something to write here that might convey my awe, but nothing I can say satisfies me. Let's try this: You write real good.
Submitted by theshadypeach (user info) at 2006-05-01 13:12:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Still godly. Hundreds of us are just waiting on our toes for you to finish this.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2006-04-18 00:21:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Still the best.
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2006-04-10 10:47:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Greening - Yeah. I know who it is.
Not an alter. Just a guy. No huge mystery.
Submitted by jgreening (user info) at 2006-04-10 10:39:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Has ANYONE made ANY headway into finding out who this really is?
Issac Bickerstaff was a pseudonym for Jonathan Swift, I know that much, but as for who's behind it...
ANY ideas?
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2006-04-10 10:20:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You haven't wrote anything new in ages...You post less than Shlongy does.
Which is a shame.
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2006-04-02 06:42:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Still makes me cry on the re-read.
The trick is to go back and read "Chinese menus" and then read this one right after it; the years between, the end of the Girl, all of it is like a punch to the gut.
Jesus, man, finish it. Please.
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2006-04-02 05:24:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by pen_name (user info) at 2006-04-01 06:23:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
still great
Submitted by EchoBoxing (user info) at 2006-03-24 13:19:59 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-03-12 23:22:53 (#)
Ranking: 2
This is the very definition of awesome: something that inspires awe.
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2006-03-19 10:53:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Please post some more stuff.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-03-12 23:22:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This is the very definition of awesome: something that inspires awe.
Submitted by charminglybeef (user info) at 2006-03-03 22:11:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Fuck ghola. This post doesn't need any reach-around +2's.
Insane style. You fuck english like it's your jail-house lover.
I am in awe.
Submitted by gina (user info) at 2006-02-24 22:06:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by belowground (user info) at 2006-02-07 16:17:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by SiskelandFatboy (user info) at 2005-11-28 14:10:09 (#)
Ranking: 2
I feel guilty about every +2 I have ever given, everytime I read something from you.
Submitted by Agent_Smith (user info) at 2006-02-07 15:57:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by creep_firebombing (user info) at 2006-02-07 15:42:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Every now and then with what seems like forever in between, I get this burst of creativity. It's like my life is walking around in a foreign land where I don't understand the language, but sometimes I get to spend an hour or two at home where I can finally express what's capped tightly inside me. What stories come out are what makes me feel like I actually have a shred of talent in the world of writing. I take great pride in them. They make me feel worthwhile. Not being able to create more like them on a whim makes me feel like a failure sometimes.
When I see your writing, I see a person that is at home. I see a person with a gift. I see a level of skill and knowlege that I fear I'll never reach.
I see someone I admire.
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-02-03 21:20:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
i just felt the need to +2 something of yours.
cause you left a kickass review under my lame hitwhoring post.
Submitted by Grownasskid (user info) at 2006-02-01 20:09:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by theshadypeach (user info) at 2005-12-03 01:29:40 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
We all know it's good. You don't even need to listen to me.
Submitted by NotSteve (user info) at 2005-12-01 09:04:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
"I remembered not to hit chicks; so I kicked that whore in the mouth"
I had a similar experience except the whore cost me half of two front teeth. Fucking import bottles.
Submitted by ruthless (user info) at 2005-11-30 16:00:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
The Library is my favorite bar.
Submitted by Flaahgra (user info) at 2005-11-29 23:53:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
If your writing was a person, I would have sex with it. In the pooper. Twenty times.
Submitted by madddonkey255 (user info) at 2005-11-29 21:10:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
pretty sweet
Submitted by polyamorousaj (user info) at 2005-11-29 14:19:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Damned good, but I like 'getting my ass kicked in chinatown' better.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2005-11-29 13:59:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2005-11-29 03:13:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
All good things must come to an end.
Submitted by jgreening (user info) at 2005-11-29 00:10:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-11-28 19:55:31 (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh shit,
I just realized... "the beginning of the end"... this series is coming to a close.
---------------------------
BITE YOUR TOUNGE, GOD DAMNIT!
Shit should NEVER end... Ever.
We need to find him, kidnap him, and force him to write evey living moment for the rest of his life.
Submitted by pen_name (user info) at 2005-11-28 20:34:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-11-28 19:55:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh shit,
I just realized... "the beginning of the end"... this series is coming to a close.
Submitted by bob (user info) at 2005-11-28 18:59:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
isaac woo!
Submitted by Bob_Dole (user info) at 2005-11-28 18:41:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
wow
Submitted by DanielH (user info) at 2005-11-28 18:27:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Outstanding.
The non-linear swirl of form transcends prose, much like Charlie Parker using the upper intervals of a chord as the melody line in a jazz solo. Your use of words is evocative and Imagist as any canvas abstract, making the story less relevant than the music of ideas it follows. + + + +
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-11-28 17:44:04 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm so damned thankful, and morose, and green with envy after reading this... is there somewhere where I can read more of your stuff?
Email it to me if you don't want it displayed here...
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-11-28 17:37:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This is the Twink at his most flawed. This is the train wreck of who he is; his weaknesses and mistakes spread all across the tracks and fields on either side.
I had to read this three times to make sense of the luggage and bodies in all their bits and pieces, and I'm glad I did, cuz I think I can see the pattern in the destruction.
I think I can see the conductor trying to put the pieces together. It's an impossible task. No matter how hard he tries, he'll never get those chests to start rising and falling again. He'll never figure out what shirt goes in what bag. He'll never get the stains off his hands, but he's trying and that's what counts, cuz that's all any of us can do really...
Yeah, I like this alot. Alot more than the other's. It's darker and missing a bit of the nobility that the other's have, but it isn't without nobility either.
It's a different side of the beasts face I think. It may woo the princess from time-to-time but it's still is what it is, and no amount of singing is going to keep it down forever...
and this:
"A good bar bathroom is like a sacristy, kid, and the one at The Library is full on hallowed. Half the time I don't even need the plumbing, just the quiet and the mirror and the get-the-fuck-away-from-me. The voices outside were rising to shouts and I could hear Jamey the bartender's voice as she hollered sterile concern at the escalating conflict: like throwing panties at Tom Jones, right, you think he notices that shit? And above the yelling, louder than all of it, I could hear Taro's silence, an ominous cloud of ancient woolgathering: his is the quiet after the final chord, right before the audience screams out its primal analysis. Anything can happen in that millisecond of hush and it burns with tempestuous potential, a tiny black hole of fiery embryonics."
Possibly one of the best things I've ever read...
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2005-11-28 16:43:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
pop pop pop
Submitted by Davros (user info) at 2005-11-28 16:28:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by SiskelandFatboy (user info) at 2005-11-28 14:10:09 (#)
Ranking: 2
I feel guilty about every +2 I have ever given, everytime I read something from you.
------------
Says it all.
-Dave
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2005-11-28 14:52:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Another story that pulled me in and kept me hooked even though I've never found the narrator a sympathetic character at all. That's the mark of a good tale, and let's be honest.
So, with the stipulation that you're getting held to a different standard than most other people here, I have to just say that this phrase left me scratching my head and broke the mood a little bit:
"that's a fucking surprise you never look forward to."
Submitted by Phinch (user info) at 2005-11-28 14:44:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by SiskelandFatboy (user info) at 2005-11-28 14:10:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I feel guilty about every +2 I have ever given, everytime I read something from you.
Submitted by NotSteve (user info) at 2005-11-28 13:43:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2005-11-28 12:53:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
damn. Just...damn.
Submitted by zakalwe (user info) at 2005-11-28 12:46:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2005-11-28 12:45:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I wish this fucker would fess up, I want to know whose alter he is.
story rocked as hard as usual.
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2005-11-28 12:44:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2005-11-28 12:42:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Slightly more disjointed than usual, but that might just be the drugs that are confusing me. Still utterly awesome, and thank you for posting.
Submitted by leilani (user info) at 2005-11-28 12:41:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
i <3 the library and its jukebox.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2005-11-28 12:40:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
The tone has changed. The nature of it all has become unreal and abstract.
Someone reminded me of Gormenghast earlier and this reminds me of it again. The book wasn't particularly well written with far too many uses of the word 'smouldering' but the incredible thing was seeing a veteran's twisted past on the page and walking through the book with him to his deathbed.
In the end, during the final chapters of the final book, real and unreal merge. The charachters become German soldiers, the page numbers are prisoner identity codes. He died before he could finish it and I remember thinking that the cobbled together and confused ending was the greatest trinute he could have had, after all it was an ending.
You're not dying are you Issac?
Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2005-11-28 12:36:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
You're setting the bar. And setting it high.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-11-28 12:28:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
auto +2 for Javert
p.s. for all you n00bs out there, THIS is the Gold Standar5d that you should aspire to.
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2005-11-28 12:27:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
You made a typo in the title and didn't repost... I do believe you're making progress.
This story makes me cry. And wish I had a dog. Or an older brother like you.