My cars came and went; you knew them all by sound. Come running up the street when I’d come home from work. Run along the high cinder block fence at eye level with me. I’d go in the door and you’d run up the stairs outside. I’d go to the base of the stairs and you’d run down them and run into the door. You loved that game.
Cars broke, girls left me. Hard jobs, hard days, and I’d put my face in your fur and you’d purr and it would be OK.
When I first got you home I let you out of the box in a dark quiet room. So you wouldn’t be scared. First day or so I’d just sit there and talk to you. When you trusted me enough I put out my hand. I don’t think you’d been petted before. You walked around me in a circle with your tail up, beside yourself with pleasure. Six weeks ago I started brushing you at night to entice you in earlier. You’d act just the same.
When you were little and I fed you, petted you, I’d make that ch-ch-ch sound so you’d know it meant good things, and I called you in with that every night. I want to make that sound now. Have you come in. Where are you, I can’t sleep if you’re out. Coyote might get you. I’ll go out in the dark and walk around. Call for as long as it takes for you to come. You’d come running up, follow me inside. Get in bed, knead the blanket with your claws and lay with me in the cold. Bud you can’t be gone. I come home and it’s not home now. Just stuff. Coming up the driveway without you running in the corner of my eye, scared of running you over. You weaving yourself into my legs while I was on the toilet. You crunching Meow Mix next to me while I was in the bath. Rustling the blinds perched in the bedroom window sill, always next to me. You stayed with me.
I moved your food bowl and I want to collapse. Leaving the door open waiting for you to come bounding in. You can’t be gone. Don’t be gone. They let me say goodbye but you’d already left. Brain swollen up from being shaken, on a respirator with a clip holding out your tongue. They let me touch you but you weren’t there. They’ll give me your ashes in a clay pot. It will have a nice paw print, the vet said. An expert at watching people cry. But I don’t think she’d seen anything like it.
God, I wish it was me. But then how would your life be after. I was the only one you trusted. It was a joke with the girls: the cat hates you. The man across the street came with a card. He said Bud was in my yard for years but never let me pet him. When you got fleas I gave you a bath myself because you’d have hated the groomer. I didn’t want you to be scared.
I’m sorry you were hurt and scared when you died, Bud.
I moved your food bowl and I want to put it back. Closed the door and now you can’t come in. I’m not ready for you to go. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. I love you forever and I can’t let you go, I can’t.
You were a sweetheart. You were a tough bastard. You were a lap dog. You were a wild murderous savage; you’d uproot the gophers with their earth mover claws, laugh off the mockingbirds dive bombing you. You gave the dogs hell until they moved in with that killing machine. I think about killing him but he’s just an animal too.
You had a good life and a good home. You loved me and I loved you. I’ll let your ashes go in the park. When night comes and the wind blows in over the grass you’ll come home.
Just Stroke My Butthole and Tell Me How Great I Am
I had a Tinder date but I canceled and went to get jerked off at a whorehouse in Rosemead. I’d heard it was a hooker town. I was there already, for Alcoholics Anonymous’ General Service Area 5 Assembly All Districts Pre-Conference Committee Workshop… the real title’s even longer but I stopped reading. It’s two days long. You sit at a table with ugly old men with white nostril hair. Discuss how AA can reach more psychiatrists and clergymen. The girl was pimply and probably 30 but she had big Chinese titties. Ass like she deadlifts regularly. And she wouldn’t even jack me off.
She drizzled hot oil on me and stroked my ass crack and inguinal crease for an hour. When it became clear that she wasn’t grasping at my angry red penis in its little sheet tent I asked. She said eef I do that I go to jail. Instead she swabbed my balls with her palm while I jerked myself off. Cupped her cinder block ass in my other hand through her knockoff Juicy sweats. White terrycloth.
Cops cracking down in Rosemead. God forbid a man gets what he wants. But then who cares about a handjob. She tickled my oily asshole. Told me I have a nice body. I can’t believe you’re 40, she said. I do have a nice body. I do look fucking good for a middle aged weirdo who’s smoked for 20 years and did black tar heroin under the freeway overpass with homeless wife killers. I know this but need to be told. Dates never say it anymore. They’re too busy with I’m not usually like this. Have you been tested. Shut up and savor my magnificence.
The date– she was a student of Hugo Schwyzer. She’d have fucked me. I could text her now, have her come out to the duck pond. But I don’t want the hour of talking before my apartment. I don’t want a date and I don’t want a hooker either. I need girls to want me but I’m sick of dancing. Only ones who come right to your place are mannish pigs built like Artie Lange. Giant sweaty pubic fat pads with razor bumps.
Even this would be fine, if I didn’t have to chase it. But Vladimir Harkonnen makes you message first.
What do I want. My mind wants a smart girl like Nikol. My body wants a 15 year old who picks rice, cries because deek too long. My heart wants Angela to tell me I’m sick of these other guys. Let’s buy a house in Montana and you just fill me full of children. I’ll stop sending cunty texts that I’m leaving you every time I have PMS. Maybe she’s right, it’s ending. We’ll be friends. She’ll marry a rich guy. Too bad. You turn 40 and start making a little dough, your dad dies, your cat dies, you realize the only thing that matters is taking care of someone else. At that moment there’s a pretty girl in your house. You want to take her out to a cabin in a meadow somewhere. The smell of her neck makes you want to merge with her on a cellular level. Forgive everything. Work hard make money change the tires and cut the grass forever if she was just there and it sure feels like it was meant to be but it isn’t. Nothing’s meant to be. The universe isn’t even cruel, just random. And you lost. The work hard part will be there. But the coming home to someone: you’re fucked. Now and forever. Your kid’s college fund money chopped up into eighty bucks after tip until they pass some new sex trafficking law and then to the robots. Plus she’d bug the fuck out of you after 3 weeks. Who are you kidding.
I’ll never be a young man again and soon I’ll be dead. Let’s face it: I have nothing to live for. I exist because my sudden death would make other people sad. I’m of service to other alcoholics who are probably lying and using me. Showing my letters to the parole board. Having me meet their rehab counselor so they can get checkout privileges and go smoke speed. I’m alive to not ruin my mother’s life with my suicide. I’m alive to contribute to the tax base by working diligently until my body is broken. I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children. And now my watch begins– and it keeps fucking going and going and going. At least the Night’s Watch can suck each other’s dicks. At least the rent’s free.
Shit’s bad, then it’s good, then it’s bad. It all doesn’t matter. You can attach feelings to anything. Money, women, food, body image, whateverthefuck. I have more money than I’ve ever had. I feel poorer than ever. I’ve gotten better pussy than any man on Earth. Young Vietnamese girls coming over fucking me raw for hours and then moving in because they like my stupid web site and non-best-selling ebook. The unsurpassable pussy dream. Now I fight for an obese Mexican to let me get a middle finger in her yoga pants after a walk around the duck pond. Doesn’t matter.