wrote this after reading Poppy Z Brite's Lost Souls in near-ninety degree sun, which really affected the way i was thinking. that and heat. so i wrote this little ditty in a small composition book that cost me fifty cents, and a dollar-something mechanical pencil i had to run into CVS to buy.

not beta'd, and transcribed nearly exactly from the way it was written, with just spelling corrections, because i'm horrible when i scribble.

and, i'm only a day away from my vacation, so there's a possibility that i won't get to reply to your reviews for a week or so.

sunday, 15 june, 2008. 1:05 pm.

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Hungry, fat, and lazy.

Aware.

Of the street, the cars, the heat. Especially the heat. It sucked up and spit back dank moisture. Upper lip, forearms, head temples scalp. Underarms--and did the sweat shine through cloth? There was work later, had to think of that.

Arizona black and white ice tea, and it’d been sweet-cold in the shop but heat sapped the strap and nothing snapped back but warm tea and ginger honey.

Sweet faintness around the mouth and eyes and dizzy skived off and left only hunger. Low, grumbly, persisting to call itself Darla. It was Sheila yesterday.

There was the smell of heated cedar chips, musky and rich. Potent. Portent. Vivid and wet--obscene--and he wondered what the hell he noticed for.

Anyway.

The sun was hot and he was frothy, and long hair in braids frizzed and flew in the wind. Not breeze. That made the sitting wait more drunk and foolish and good. He didn’t need to intoxicate to feel the loss of inhibition, an inert buzz that shrouded his mental vision with over-bright spots of Technicolor gone slightly rancid.

He was dressed like a fag, but not intentionally outright; this was just how his style pervaded when he woke up.

This is how the cookie crumbles.

It is eaten. Piecemeal.

And that is the vision of himself. Piecemeal, bit by bit, until he looks in the mirror and sees a whole person.

That is him.

And he wished people would stop looking at him as if he had a roar instead of purr, his inward hum mistaken for a smokescreen caterwauler. Why were they so petrified? His shine? His translucent veneer?

He was shy wrapped in vellum and set afire, pushed into a candy-roasted-marshmallow bonfire pit.

What had he to fear?

Everything. Nothing.

He feared disease, but more than that , pain.

Hunger was pain and he detested it, the way it governed his body, his concept of boredom. Food was fun but mostly boring, and he ate because his body told him to.

He was fat.

Dark.

It was fucking hot.

And what else could you think of a chubby guy who sits alone in the shade of barber shop buildings?

Long, long jeans and flat black tennis shoes, full-raglan of an obscure little league team. Hair--long, dark, ruthless; twisted and braided and tied off with matching hair bands. Small; folded over, they fit on your finger.

What could you think, but a fag?

Well, at the most, a breeding fag.

One of those quiet metrosexual or boisterous flamboyant men who--if you saw one with a woman, kissing her--you wonder how often he’s sneaked away from work or taken a fictitious business trip to carouse a bally bar for a bit of humiliation and the bitter pickle before he goes back to his sweet, darling wife and fucks her.

Breeding.

She never knows, but maybe she suspects. Maybe she fucks other men because gentle is sweet but rough is taffy on special occasions.

Bitter, like Mexican hot chocolate.

He’s not a breeder, even a closeted one. He’s a fag. A friend of Dorothy--but the movie was terrible and he was the Cowardly Lion in high school but never, ever went onstage.

Take that Mr. Tin Man--you only need a heart and he only needs some courage, and he dated all the scarecrows in high school. Well, in his head he did. Romantic chamomile and lusty propositions and nobody ever propositioned him.

Maybe because they were afraid of him, or thought him a dweebie. Maybe he was.

He knows he was.

But he drinks his tea and reads Poppy Z. Brite and wants to cry, but it’s too hot and he’s too lazy to work up some honest tears. Dishonest tears.

So he closes the book and looks at the cars, the street, the heat.

And he mumbles about ‘change’ and ‘line’ and he murders the time before work. He doesn’t even have to pay a dime for the fuckin’ rhyme which is sugar line wrapped in time and he says STOP.

He does.

He gets up, dusts his rump, and does a stretch to click back the spine. He opens the Lunchable he bought with the tea and eats on a picnic bench in the sun.

Hot, sweaty; tenfold.

But his thoughts aren’t as cozy and he’ll think about how he’s lonely--later. At home in bed, silence and dark red of the clock numbers twitching as the slaughter of time continues.

Four.

Right hand, the fan, and sleep.

That’s just how the cookie crumbles.

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a/n: el fin