Nothing Matters: A Noir Love Story Read online

  can’t see central barrier or traffic signs hit crowd

  of traffic cones that go spinning & swirling off into the distance,

  raspberry syrup in a vanilla shake—shit!—

  haemospermia fucking haemospermia!

  chuckle, start to cough, spit, close windows

  driver’s side shatters, covers face with glass

  look

  nothing

  look back, see rip in headrest to right, bullet embedded in passenger seat

  ahead,

  see two shapes,

  rectangles moving together,

  slowing moving aside to let me thru middle

  fuck that

  take out gun

  check it

  full clip

  come on, then

  two cars slow either side filling squeeze

  can’t see jack, can’t see jill,

  so no idea who they could be

  move in & sparks fly

  smell burning

  window of car to left slips down,

  see open-mouth surprise of dan wesson razorback

  accelerate brake accelerate again

  two cars stay

  car to right falls back, punches, comes level

  window down, empty-eyed stare of purdy

  nice

  look up at sky but it’s not there just

  drops

  of rain

  mist

  mist fucking everywhere

  bite bottom lip until blood

  cars move in,

  clamp in their metal embrace

  movie-type stunt

  stop

  duck

  they shoot each other

  game over

  but, no,

  it doesn’t work like that in real life

  dip down,

  they shoot each other & take off an ear

  really wouldn’t do

  have to be practical common-sensical

  put foot down & drag cars along

  terrible screeching

  don’t have to steer

  they’re the ones in control of where we go from here

  both arms where they have only two between them

  take out one on right two shots

  one goes fucking nowhere, other goes in temple

  boom

  car veers off,

  lost in mist

  jerk steering wheel to left,

  other car slices along barrier

  sparks lighting up gloom

  pull wheel to right,

  put foot down on brake, last moment,

  turn wheel left again,

  catch rear right bumper,

  off goes car,

  spastic dance until broadsides & flips,

  one, two, three, four times,

  lands on roof in centre reservation

  watch tail disappear

  into mist,

  looping over bridge’s balustrade,

  leaving snail trail of glistening slime

  slow down park behind get out

  smoke mingling with fog

  driver upside down

  looks like neck broken

  take out cock,

  stroke it

  fasterfasterfaster fasterfasterfasterfasterfasterfasterfasterfasterfasterfasterfasterfast- juggernaut surges by in blur of rain & mist

  come over driver’s eyes

  wa-ho-ha!

  zip up

  check his pockets

  nothing except protruding bones & gristle

  say,

  “who the fuck are you?”

  could be one of many could be anyone could be someone

  that’s the problem

  walk back to car get in

  fuck was that all about? eh?

  look ahead,

  see two flashing orange lights above me,

  a giant tiger with serious blinking problems

  nictitating in the rain

  can hear sirens fuck

  sirens fuck sirens fuckfuck Z

  better get a move on absquatulateskedaddleshoot

  move on move

  they won’t have a clue in this stuff

  cameras aren’t going to pick out anything

  no witnesses well, two dead ones

  no evidence not a secreter

  turn car back onto highway,

  head slowly towards next off-ramp

  a hobo camp—right now, envious

  of tics on female dog’s teats; desirous

  of calluses on feet of children, hankering

  for a sup of that shiny liquid; longing

  for feel of burning coals in sun-tattooed palm of hand sound horn

  men drink their children

  play in rain dogs

  piss against washing-line poles

  grab absinthe, take a swig, wipe mouth,

  slot bottle into crotch holster snug

  the clash’s “lover’s rock” plays

  mouth moves in contractions

  & spasms as it reacts to mick’s guitar

  paul’s bass

  must look ridiculous but don’t give a shit,

  drumming steering wheel

  right think about this

  think about Z

  spend some time in desert living on bread & water,

  before I visit…

  Sunset Debris

  …my bar, a music bar

  somewhere on the road between LA and Barstow,

  a stop for truckers, fuckers, and no-luckers.

  We have booths with personal jukeboxes, a stage

  for bands and dancers, rockers and strippers, shockers and dippers,

  the lonely and the never befriended.

  I bankrolled it through my dead husband’s leavings

  (he upped and died of shock, the third that never happened)—

  eventually—

  after X greased a few cops,

  threatened the insurance investigators,

  took a cut, set fire to it,

  watched my face in the glow of the flames, watched

  the green turn black, watched

  the metaphor for exchange turn to ash, watched

  my lust for him shrivel and die.

  The thing is,

  once he had done what I asked of him,

  he was no longer

  necessary. He stayed around

  until I found something else for him to do, someone

  else for him to do, somewhere else

  for him to be.

  Not here.

  There.

  That was always important. I wanted him

  close but distant.

  He was distant but close.

  Proximity is relative.

  I saw him through the reverse end of an emotional telescope.

  His proximal philosophy was to share pulses.

  Gone but not forgotten. Forgotten

  but not gone.

  Never anywhere between.

  The Gourd worked as bouncer and bodyguard,

  trouncer and fuck buddy.

  He has a brother who works along similar lines.

  The music that pulses from the speakers jumps

  from country to thrash-metal, from punk

  to bluegrass, from jungle to avant-garde—

  Boredoms to Schoenburg,

  Johnny Cash to Black Flag,

  pumping out full volume, the walls throbbing

  like a womb, the tomblike lighting.

  The dancers come in all ages and shapes—

  skinny Latvians, big-assed Latinas,

  black girls with legs as long as,

  Chinese and Thais, Japs and Malays,

  Russian girls as cool as lilac ice,

  Mex girls as hot as baked jalapenos.

  At the end of the show,

  the girls who have danced that night

  form a chorus, a forest of flesh, humanity

  camouflaged with sex, the varicolored limbs,

  the multi
plicity and heft of breasts and asses,

  the dust of their skin cells filling the light.

  The customers stomp and shout,

  whistle and hoot,

  the primeval language of need.

  There are other needs,

  other primal desires. All my life,

  I’ve tried to cater for and sustain my drives. Beneath

  the dance floor, the shiny boards slick with beer and saliva, beneath

  the bar with its bottles like giant precious stones, beneath

  the stiletto heels of my dancers—

  the pit.

  A place for violence not sex.

  Cockfights, knife-fights, bare-knuckle boxing—

  the smell of blood, shit, and urine.

  The smell of our ancestors.

  I enjoy them all.

  Stand at the back watching the crowd’s facial expressions,

  the grimaces and grins,

  the fear and the horror,

  the pain and the gory—

  dogs with spines exposed, headless roosters,

  Mexicans with knife slashed and blood red tic-tac-toe scars

  on their muscled abdomens,

  willing cuts,

  spilling guts.

  I thought X couldn’t find me. Wouldn’t find me.

  For hours, I imagined him pushing

  open the door, screwing

  his eyes up adjusting to the light or lack of, walking

  to the bar, rapping

  the wood with his tattooed knuckles—

  HOPE on the left, my name on the right.

  Invisible. Unsaid. Always.

  He orders bourbon and beer,

  leans on his elbows with his back to the bar,

  the inverted-cross necklace catching the light.

  I am sitting at the end of the bar.

  And he can’t see me.

  Couldn’t.

  I fix him in my vision with my astigmatic eye,

  feel the greys in it pool and ripple,

  imagine him trapped there. My lips

  pulse and flush at the memory of the taste of him—

  the ever-decreasing intimacy.

  I know where we’ll die. Where we’ll escape.

  There’s an abandoned theme park in the mountains.

  No barb-wire, no electric fences, no guard dogs.

  But above it, always just out of sight…

  But I knew he’d stepped over.

  Never three, he’d said.

  Two at the most.

  But now he has taken the third, taken the third who walked beside,

  the third mind, the third eye, the third man—

  triangulated his sins: sex, violence, jealousy—

  the unholy trinity.

  Stepped up, stepped over, stepped off.

  When he looks in the shaving mirror, he sees my face.

  When he looks in the rear-view mirror,

  I am one of those objects that may appear closer.

  Was closer. Close. Closest.

  Not long ago,

  two men came to me with a business proposition—

  they’d help finance the bar,

  bring in better-looking girls, more violent dogs,

  champion roosters, psycho boxers,

  bring in the crowds,

  all they wanted was use of the cellar bar for one night a month,

  no questions asked, no answers given—

  two faggots with muscles upon muscles.

  I closed the bar one night a month, gave them access,

  saw the black garbage bags wet with sticky saliva,

  the spill of black blood and white powder,

  the impenetrable eggs,

  the splashes of dark red urine,

  the burned women’s clothing,

  the collection of cheap jewelry scattered in the Sunset Debris dumpsters.

  One night,

  the faggots brought me a present.

  Straining on its leash, spit running down its jaw,

  its white teeth glistening,

  its pink and grey gums trembling,

  its stub of a tail vibrating.

  I bent down and scratched its head,

  its hair short, a strawberry blond

  and I said,

  “And what’s your name, big boy?”

  And one of the faggots said,

  “Pinker. He’s an American pit-bull. You could do with some protection.”

  I rubbed the dogs ears and looked into his eyes.

  He gulped and wagged some more.

  “The only thing I need protecting against is myself,” I said.

  “Then he’ll help.”

  “He has pedigree and he’s a champion fighter—

  his mother Aristar was state champion

  and his father Heine won thirty-eight consecutive fights.

  Take him.

  He likes you.”

  The dog jumped up at me, licking my face.

  “He needs a lot of exercise. Preferably against other dogs.”

  “Yeah, reminds me of someone I used to know,” I said,

  and rubbed Pinker’s belly.

  The dog flipped over on his back,

  legs in the air, eyes

  wide and staring, little

  cock pulsing pink out of its hood.

  “Spitting image,” I said.

  “Peas in a pod,” one of the faggots said.

  “Monozygotic,” said the other.

  I smiled, rubbed the dog’s ears, “Dead Ringers,” I said,

  “Dead ringers.”

  Pinker now sleeps at the end of my bed,

  licking his wounds while I sharpen his claws with a nail file.

  Sometimes at night,

  he cocks his head and listens to the coyotes

  fucking and fighting.

  In the morning,

  he scratches at the door,

  jumps up at the wire-mesh

  and watches…

  Anything But Lucky

  …yellow & black brindle dogs

  leaving at daylight,

  white-tipped tails pointing east towards rising sun

  watch them recede into bubbling heat,

  step out of motel room onto already baking tarmac

  fucking weather

  door of thunderbird shrieks,

  a night thing,

  climb into red soupy driving seat,

  hotwire engine, fishtail

  out onto road,

  long & black,

  a squaw’s ponytail

  bats turn into birds,

  moon dissolves into liquid day

  after five hours of driving thru arid desert, past

  hitch-hiking limbs of cacti, bloated

  coyote carcasses, leprous

  bodies of armadillos,

  turn off,

  roadhouse’s neon sign blinking

  in gathering dusk:

  the ok ear

  wipe black leather cowboy boots on calves of levis, brush

  dust & insects from boredoms t-shirt, run

  hand over long black hair, adjust

  inverted-cross necklace, walk

  up wooden steps, push

  open swing doors

  Z has to be here

  gotta put a stop to this once & for all

  the beating wasn’t enough

  since then, had to deal with the gourd,

  the nameless car jockeys

  room rocks from jukebox groove, men

  stand at bar elbows dampening in spilled beer, heads

  shadowed by cowboy hats, chins

  bobbing to country rock

  small stage,

  pole in centre,

  mex girl strutting mex stuff

  stripped to waist,

  leather chaps tied over tight denim

  shorts, motorcycle boots

  grips pole with

  muscled thighs,

  squirms

  down,

  muscular


  serpent,

  movements

  explicit,

  generative

  projective

  pubic hair

  spilling out

  of pants,

  trail of coffee

  granules carried

  by ants

  escutcheon

  innate grammar

  of her sex,

  yet poverty

  of stimulus

  in her thrusts

  gets me thirsty

  order beer,

  look around room,

  spot Z sitting on stool at far end of bar

  brazen

  feigning invisibility

  wears denim dress—legs long & feet shapely

  hair, chestnut brown, hangs to shoulders

  eyes—

  moonstone, smoke of pale sapphires, ash of newly milled steel, new rain

  pouting lips

  strong nose

  walk up to her, take Z’s hand

  say,

  “I really want to kiss you,” spitting on floor, missing pea-green blahniks

  Z looks thru me,

  eyes silver mountain lakes reflecting sky

  says

  “that wouldn’t be a very good idea,”

  feel strong hands under armpits,

  dragged across dance floor

  look around

  fuck think

  think, fuck

  man on right says,

  “what are you doing here, loser?”

  look at ugly face spattered with moles & growths—

  the gourd’s brother?

  the gourd 2 punches me in solar plexus,

  feel vomit rise but swallow back

  man on left, thin & greasy as french fry,

  yanks head back,

  whispers in ear,

  “Z wants you to fuck off

  but before you fuck off, Z wants us to fuck you up”

  unseen punch cracks nose, bird’s egg

  bundled towards basement stairs

  smell blood & faeces rising from blackness

  watch as Z climbs gracefully from bar stool,

  floats across dance floor,

  smiling Z’s dirty innocent smile,

  beautiful astigmatic eyes watching me

  follows two goons down into what smells like a dog-fight pit

  they strip me,

  tie me to post

  hands bound with rope

  on knees,

  watch Z’s long legs approach

  room stinks of urine, faeces, blood, & sweat

  from Z’s purse,

  Z takes scalpel,

  draws heart in blood where mine once was

  look up at Z’s face,

  palimpsestual slate of Z’s eyes

  Z smiles,

  slices a teardrop into cheek,

  feel brine of it roll down into corner of mouth,

  taste color,

  density