dobermans

“Why are you like that?”

Huh. Quite a tough question to answer, for sure, he thought. “I guess because that’s the way I’m supposed to be…” he said.

“That’s a cop out. You choose to be the way you are.”

“But you’re the one who believes in fate. In destiny. Not me.”

“Fuck you asshole.”

“That’s better. We can go back to drinking now.”

“I hope you drown in that glass, you sick fuck.”

That made him feel good. To be called a sick fuck. He was certainly sick. But a fuck? That means there’s a chance, right?


Lots of shit in my eyes. Pollen. Sawdust. Dirt. Sweat.

It’s a good day for eye drops.


This old pair of flip flops.

They were given to me by my ex.

The only pair I’d ever owned up until last summer, when I got a two dollar pair at wal-mart.

Now, I’m throwing them away. Putting them in the trash. Another reminder I’m finally at ease with tossing. I’m amazed at how I hold on to things. Give a reason, but know full well what the real one is.

Well, another anchor gone. Cast away. Cut the rope. All that nonsense.


The words come out a lot easier when I’m drunk. Yet lately, I haven’t enjoyed drinking. It hurts. Physically now. Not just mentally. It had to happen, sooner or later, would’ve rather it been later to be quite honest. It’s a shame because I like being drunk. I like tapping that vein that doesn’t seem to want to open up unless it’s been liquored up a bit. Like a cheap whore. Of course, I have no idea what a cheap whore is like, so maybe it’s completely different? New goal: fuck a cheap whore. It may change my perspective on life. Probably not. Definitely not. But how can I know unless I do it?


The lady told me she had a job for me. I was broke, wearing dirty clothes and hadn’t brushed my teeth in six days. So I said “Ok.”

We drove to her house. Me in the back of her beat up old Toyota truck. The day was nice. A tad warm, but still nice. I didn’t notice how bad I smelled while we were moving.

The city isn’t coming back the way I’d thought it would. I don’t think it ever could. In a decade or so, not much of what I loved about this place will be here anymore. Just the river and the music.

The car stops at an abandoned warehouse. The sign out front says “J.H. McClintock and Son.” It looks like there used to be an s at the end of Son, but someone obliterated it with a hammer or some other tool. I want to believe it was the son. Reality tells me it most likely was dad. Of course, mom or wife or girlfriend could have played a role. Sounds like a good idea for a book. I pull out my notepad and scribble it down. It’s just another random thought that will soon be lost. I have boxes of notes just like that one. I haven’t read most of them in years. The old “when I get old” or “when I get the time” excuses just don’t matter anymore. They’ve become the fact of the matter now. I sigh.

“You ok young man?” the old lady asks.

For a second I smile. She called me young. Ha. I was in a bar last week with a friend of mine. He’s 31. His wife is 25. The waitress asked me if I was his dad. Guess old hits hard when it does. And according to one fat, manly-looking waitress at a chain restaurant, I have been struck.

“I’m great ma’am,” I reply. “What do you need done here? Doesn’t look like anyone’s been here since the storm?”

“Well, my son lived here for two years after the storm,” she said. “But one day, he stopped coming around. That was five years ago. I haven’t been inside at all. I wanted someone to go in and see if he’s in there.”

“Whoah, you mean he may be living in there still?”

“No. No. No. I think he died in there years ago. Because he never was the kind of kid to disappear. He always told his mother where he was going.”

She handed me the keys to a giant set of locks. All kinds of them. Deadbolts and chains and pad locks and combination locks and levers. It was crazy.

Finally, after 30 minutes of jimmying with locks and WD-40, the door was open. I peered inside. It was dark. It smelled. Not of a dead man, but of old rotting paper.

“What was this place?” I asked.

“An old book binding factory. But people stopped buying books. Then they stopped reading. So, printing folks like us just blew away.”

“Yeah, I was a newspaperman myself before it all went to shit.”

“Oh? That’s lovely. I miss my paper.”

“I miss the paycheck. And, of course, the smell of a freshly printed paper with my byline in it.”

“Sad times we live in. Sad, sad times.”

“Ma’am? I’m going to go in now.”

“Ok, young man. Just be careful. We used to have Dobermans that watched the place for us. They could be feral ones in there still.”

“I seriously doubt it. This place was sealed up tight. Like a …” I caught myself before saying what I was thinking. I looked at the old lady, she was short, grey haired and looked like she had lived a great life. I once hoped that I could look like that one day. Doubtful now.

Inside, the place was like a time capsule. Books strewn about. Some finished. Some not. A giant press was still loaded up with a roll of paper. Looks like they shut it down in the middle of a run, expecting to come back the next day. Then the locksmith showed up instead.

An office was in the back. The door was slightly ajar. I peered in. On a cot, there was what appeared to be a suit. It was covered in dust. I put my flashlight on it. There was her son. A note was beside him.

“Mom, I’m sorry. I had to. Love Jeremy.”

The Drip, Chapter 2

Johnny pulled into his driveway. He sighed because he wasn’t really in the mood for this right now.

“See ya,” Alison said with a smile. She must not be mad, he thought.

“Burger tonight?”

“We’ll see,” she winked. They’d meet at Matty’s bar, he new that, and they’d not get that burger. That would be too much like an honest-to-goodness date. They weren’t there yet. Or at least he thought so.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Johnny said to Alison as she started off in the other direction. “Why you running away sweet thing?”

She turned, still jogging, and flipped him off.

“Why is your broad so mean to me?” Johnny asked, looking at her ass as she jogged away. His sunglasses were down on the edge of his nose. Not expensive ones, instead, more like the cheap one’s you get in a tourist trap surf shop in Myrtle Beach, complete with the neon sides. Johnny slapped him on the back and let out a hearty chuckle, definitely happy with himself at the moment.

“You’re a douche,” he replied.

“Man, it’s no wonder you have no friends.”

“I am what I am.”

“Fuck that Popeye shit, man,” Johnny said, reaching into his front shirt pocket. “You mind if I smoke up?”

“Nah,” he said, but Johnny had already struck a match and began a puff. He thought it would be nice to catch a little bit of a buzz before the day got a little more involved.

Johnny took a long drag on the joint, sat there for a long while, then finally exhaled the beautifully pungent smoke from his shit. Johnny always had good shit, he gave him that much credit. Johnny repeated this five times. Never offering once.

“Man, I need some advice,” Johnny said, bleary-eyed.

“I’m all ears, ya douche bag,” he said, leaning back into his recliner resigned to not getting any of the good shit. He took a sip on his Shiner that had been sitting out a little too long. It was warm. But, still tasted the same. Like soap water. From the first time he’d had one all those years ago because a girl said it was the only beer she’d drink. It eventually grew on him. She started drinking Michelob Ultras while away in Florida. It should have been a sign.

“I got another bitch pregnant,” Johnny said absent-mindedly, as if he really didn’t give a shit. However, he could tell Johnny was trying to sound that way. So it made it sound even more desperate.

He sighed. This wasn’t what he was expecting. He was hoping for a traffic ticket or something. Maybe an STD. This guy, he’s dumb as a bag of hammers, and he gets laid all the time. Everyone knows he’s got eight frigging kids already. But they also know he’s loaded. He never wears a rubber, and now is apparently about to have his ninth and tenth kids. Johnny’s 27 and has had kids with five different women now. He thought to himself about when he was 27. He’d had sex with four woman at that point. Total.

“Who’d ya go and knock up this time John Boy?” he said.

“That skinny blond at the corner of General Pershing, man. She is so cute.”

“Wear a fucking rubber, dude. Wear a fucking rubber.”

“That advise shoulda come last month, man,” JOhnny said. “But seriously, I need some advise about this one.”

Johnny sounded serious. A rarity.

“Have at it kid,” he said.

“I’m not a kid.”

He always called youngsters kids. Alison pointed this out to him one night at the bar. She thought it was funny that he called 15 year olds, 25 year olds and 35 year olds kids. It was a habit he picked up working at small newspapers. He always seemed to be one of the old guys. It’s why so many of his friends are all younger than he. Hell, he’d never had sex with anyone younger than 28 before he turned 40. Funny world.

“Anyway,” he said, pausing to hopefully elicit the continuing of this session. It didn’t work.

“Dude, what’s your fucking question?” he said, finally, too exasperated from watching him smoke up and not share, all the while trying to get advice out of him on a beautiful fucking day in paradise. Hell, he had some writing to do. Especially since Johnny chased Alison away.

“Let me finish this j, man,” Johnny said. He took one last hit off the tiny roach, looking at it, then at George. A look of horror came over him.

“Shit, I didn’t offer you any,” Johnny said.

“Never mind it,” he said.

“After a few seconds past, finally Johnny started to talking. Johnny explained to him that over the last month, Johnny’d stopped hitting on other women. Was always thinking about the Pershing blonde, as Johnny called her. But she never returned his phone calls anymore. Until she broke the news about being preggo.

“I think I love this one,” Johnny finally finished with. “But she wants an abortion, man. How can I stop her?”

Now, this he didn’t’ expect. If Johnny knew his history, he’d never as this question of him. But no one knew his history. Except for him.

“Why do you think you love her?” he finally asked.

“She’s so beautiful. So funny. So everything.”

“And you met her how?”

“Drunkenly at Matty’s, I was on fire at darts and she came up to me real strong.”

“Were you flashing bills?”

“Of course.”

“Did you tell her about your trust fund?”

“No.”

“You know, she’s a hooker.”

“Fuck you, man!”

“She is.”

“You don’t fucking mean that!”

“Yes, I do.”

“You don’t’ fucking know that!” he was getting mad. What I said next, made him madder.

“Yes, actually, I do know.”

The pupils in his eyes shank to nothing. Johnny got up, flicked his roach at him and stomped off.”

“Maybe you can change her? Like Christian Slater or Richard Gere?” He regretted saying that as soon as Christian came out of his mouth. But it kept coming no matter.

Johnny looked at him. An evil look, really. Chills raced up his spine.

“I’ll show you,” Johnny said, struggling to open the door of his El Camino. Finally, he slung it open and jumped in, gunning the engine before the door even closed. Robert Palmer’s sweet voice rang out as he pulled away in a puff of smoke and burnt rubber.

Ha. Rubber, he thought. Finishing the rest of his Shiner.