A-Rod In Germany


“It’s my knee, Doctor...”

“Ya, I can see it.” This German doctor was looking over the MRI’s, the X-rays, the CT scans... used to be on paper but now it’s a laptop, now he has to navigate with arrows and the mousepad-

“Can somebody get me a Red Bull?”

The Doctor, shaking his head, scratching his beard, calling for his secretary Mina. Mina, dark hair and lipstick, pausing to look at the superstar in the leather chair, an extra blink. A-Rod’s eyes were on his iPhone.

“Can you get a Red Bull soda for our patient please?”

Mina nodded, and turned to get her coat with an extra bit of swivel just in case, and then out into the hallway and the cold of Magdeburg Street, a slow snow starting to fall on a Friday morning.

Dr. Zummayer waited until the door closed, and only a German accent can stop a man from texting.

“So you want to undergo the therapy?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“It’s much more than the plasma, you understand-”

“Hm-I’m beginning to see that.”

The Doctor stood up.

“This is mental. This is spiritual. This is total. This is not about committing yourself for your job, for your game, or your image. This is now about your soul... you must find it... together we will heal it. You live in a cannibalistic culture... a very dangerous time... if you are not prepared to surrender yourself to the treatment, to the specifications... you need not waste my time. Or yours.”

The laptop digitally chirped an incoming message for the Doctor.

“If you fight me... you will win. But you will never play like a champion again. You must learn how to lose. You must learn how to let go... ”

Alex stood up then, his cell phone falling to the carpet. “I'll do it," and then, "I'll do it."

He looked down at his cell. "Will I get my swing back?”

The Doctor took a breath before smiling. “I promise nothing.”



The Circus Murders


.

“I’m not going to the circus this year, Dad.” And Fructose meant it.

Dad took the hookah from his mouth and sat straight up. “What?!?”

“I’m not going to the circus this year. I don’t ever want to go to the circus again!” Fructose threw his car keys down on the sofa, where they bounced and landed on the living room carpet.

Dad looked heartbroken. “No circus? Why the hell not?”

“Do you remember what happened last year? Mom got eaten by a lion! And the year before that? Uncle Ray was crushed by that elephant! Do you remember the year the bear got loose, cracked your vertebrae in half and put you in that wheelchair?!?”

Dad looked down, almost surprised, almost as if he’d forgotten he was paralyzed. “Was that how this happened?”

“Do you remember when the clown went nuts and started shooting into the crowd and killed my fiancĂ©?”

“That clown saved you from a bad marriage...”

“Do you remember when the tent collapsed and put Tommy in a coma? Do you remember when Aunt Christie choked to death on a candy apple and the bearded lady just stood there laughing? I’m starting to get a phobia about the circus, Dad... I just don’t want to go anymore.”

“Welp, that’s your choice,” he said, taking a long drag on his waterpipe, “but if you don’t go you’ll miss the puppets and the horses, the dancing bears and the clowns... you’ll miss the trapeze artists and the tightrope walkers. You’ll miss the whole show!”

Neither of them spoke as the apple smoked slow in the hookah bowl.

Dad added with a wink, “And you’ll miss the cotton candy.”

Fructose sighed, agitated. “And what happens if you don’t survive?”

Dad smiled back. “Next year you go without me.”

Fructose stared into the smoke, hypnotized. A smile unfolded on his face and he bent to get his keys. "Let's go to the goddamn circus."

 
.

Christmas Wonderings





On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me: blistering gonorrhea





Holiday Tip #405: Christmas Carolers don't seem to like being greeted at the door with a boiling pan of olive oil






Frosty just doesn’t look right since the gastric bypass...






Candy Canes are perfect for those hard-to-reach places





...but he was no longer just a cow, he was now The Cow That Saved Christmas. The End.




Good news for jealous Jews: Christmas has been cancelled!







Shame on you, Santa Claus, for raping my daughter yet again








Christmas: When Jesus came back from the dead to turn water into eggnog










And though it’s been said many times, many ways, I need you to back your Kia off of my granddaughter







I’ve been kind of a Grinch since I woke up to find Santa’s charred corpse in the chimney





Shitneck’s heartfelt speech filled us all with the true spirit of Christmas




Bad News: That wasn’t figgy pudding




Grandma's Pot Party



She invited me, and my girlfriend, “Bryan don’t you be late,” and I said “Okay, Nana,” because I’m always five when we talk on the phone.

And there I was at the Community Room of Cedar Woods Retirement Home, standing in the middle of two dozen elderly in a haze of pot smoke. An old man named Frank passed the joint to Helene, who inhaled with a puff of Chanel No 5, and laughed out a cloud of scorched weed, a storm forming over the punch bowl and slowly dissolving, “Just The Two Of Us” playing on the super-strong sub-woofers.

And there we were out on the dance floor, my Grandmother and I, all of us, dancing, like it was 1990-something. The folks in the motorized carts took the steel drum solo, and we just stopped caring. Some old guy had his hand on my girlfriend’s thigh- but what do you expect with the tango? Sweet green smoke blew through the room, and the old people had forgotten their age. A bald man in a vest kissed his wife's bare shoulder. 

Everyone was moving... The lights were bright, then the lights went out and we were in black and white, spinning in a circle, moving as a plural. Some guy named Nicholas exhaled and everybody had it. I swear I could feel the room moving, grooving to the tilting of the ocean, feeling the sea water splash in my face from just over the rails.

Nana had the hula-hoop in full swing and her neighbors were cheering her on... my next partner was a brown-haired beauty in a one-piece swimsuit named Frances, and I knew she had done this before.

Choreography comes easy when you let it... we all looked like we’d been rehearsing for weeks. My grandmother caught me dipping my girlfriend, and I saw something magical in her eyes, and that perfume was so strong and why is it that every story has to have an ending?

Wonderings...








Stop looking at my crotch, ladies- my eyes are up here








I move once a week just to piss off my mailman






Testicles grow back, right?





Figure-skating would be much more interesting if the audience was armed with hunting rifles






Tsunamis are devastating, but you’ll never boogie board better







Duck sex is surprisingly provocative






If I wanted my heart warmed I’d buy a blowtorch






The early bird gets the worm… and McMuffin diarrhea










July’s lemonade tastes like April’s Tang





If dentists have the highest suicide rate how come mine is still alive?







Wild weekends start with magic markers















A part of me wants to make love to you... the penis part

 

Christmas In December

.

“Merry Christmas, Cocksucker...”

This was Santa, doing his thing, spreading the joy of the holiday season. He slammed Cocksucker's neck with the butt of his gun, knocking him to the floor.

Cocksucker was speechless- on his knees, petrified- and unable to speak. He had been hiding from Santa for almost a year but it was too late: Christmas Eve had found him. 

"Please," he said to the fat man. "Don't do this."

Santa scoffed and slipped the gun between Cocksucker’s lips, pulling the trigger, exploding blood and brain all over the decorated tree. Hot red liquid drip from the dangling ornaments and blinking white lights, the only illumination in the midnight den.

Santa exhaled hard, dropping the pistol, stepping over the body. There was a plate of cookies on the mantle and Santa could smell cinnamon and all-spice over the metal scent of plasma... he hadn't eaten all day, and nobody would miss it. He stood by the stockings, eating all 14 cookies: oatmeal raisin, peanut butter, chocolate crinkles and molasses swamp, washing them down with the cool glass of milk left out just for him. The lights on the tree blink on and off in 3/4 time.

Santa noticed the stockings hanging empty, with each family member’s name embroidered on the cuff. “When in Rome...” he reasoned, and pulled his sack from beneath the arch of the brick chimney.

He pulled out a handful of prizes, filling the socks, topping each one off with a candy cane. He smiled to himself, suddenly feeling warm and lighthearted, and his eyes found the plastic tablecloth beneath the tree.

Oh, why not?

He grabbed his other sack- full of presents- and laid everything out. The two dozen boxes in festive green wrapping held toys, games and gadgets, books and sweaters and gift cards- every child’s inner-child wet dream come true. Santa laughed to himself, and his round belly jiggled under his red suit.

His work was done- he felt a sense  of pride- but before he left there was one last job to be done. He headed for the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and took a hot shit in the lettuce crisper, just so no one would ever forget that Santa Claus would always be calling the shots.

Back in the living room Cocksucker refused to die, twitching, making spasm and forming foamy words through eyes of red blood. Santa put his heavy boot to Cocksucker's throat and crushed it- windpipe, voicebox, the works- before putting his finger to his nose and rising magically up the chimney.

But he was heard to exclaim, ere he drove out of sight, "Merry Christmas, Cocksucker! And to all a good night!" 

THE END


m

m,

Binary Adventure

,


110 1010 101010 10010110 001 0 101 0101011 11010010 11110111010 001001 100100 01010 0001 101 1010110101 110101.

0001 00001 101010 100110 1010 00 10 0 0 10 1 0 10 10 101 01 01 01 0111 001010 01010- 001 00 110 0010- 10100 100 100 10010 10010 0 01001 10 10 10 0. 1010 10 1010 101 0101  101101101111 01001 10 1 001 001 01001 010 1001 001001 010001 10100 1001 001 001 0001 0 0110 11000 1000 0001 0010 0100 100 000 10101 11010 001 001010101 01 01  010010 01 0 1010 0, 010 10001 01 0,  01 00101 0 0100... 

“100 1011 00101 010, 0 001 01010 11101 110001 1001, 100010 01 0,” 010 1 1010 10 010, 100101 1010 10010 10 1 01 0 01 01 01 11001 001 0 1 01 00 10, “ 10 10 01 101- 0 0111 01 0110 00 1 10 0?”

1 01010 010 11010 10101110 11101001 011011 010 1010 010 110100 11110 000010 10 0100100 1000 010 0 010 01,  01 0 1010 0 01 010 1011010 0 10 0 0110 010010 0 1001101010, 10 0110 0 0 0 10 01 11101 1 1 0 0 1 0 000 0101101 101010 1101 0101 01 01 0 01, 0 1010 01 0 110100. 0110 11000 110001 10100, 1000100 001101010 100 100100 10010, 1001 10 1010100111:


01001010110 100101010101
01000000010 00 10101001010

 
“101001 1010 101101 010 1010 11110 00101, 11001 101010 100!” 10 101 1010 01 10 010 10 10, 10 0101 01110 01 0 010 01 01 10010 0 1010 10 0 101 11 01 10 00 10 10 001 01, “010110 10010 010, 1011 101 01010 010110 1100 01010 01001, 100110 1010101 0110 101101 10101: 0110011010 0001010001."


0101 100.

Frosty The Child Molester


“Thumpety thump thump
Thumpety thump thump
Look at Frosty go”
- Jack Rollins & Steve Nelson

He stood at the counter, across from the Indian man with the accent so strange, the Indian man who wouldn’t lower his cell phone to card a nine year-old with a crate of beer, or to raise an eyebrow at a priest with a box of condoms, but here was Berbert- according to the name tag- tilting his Blackberry away from his chin, cocking his neck and interrupting his call and asking Frosty point-blank:

“What do you need with all this Reeses Pieces?”

Frosty slipped a fifty from his wallet toward Berbert, who accepted it, but asked again without breaking eye contact:

“What are you going to do with all those Reeses Pieces?”

Frosty flashed him a warm smile. “Nunyo,” he said proudly.

“Nunyo?” asked Berbert.

“Nunyo fucking business.” He beamed back at Berbert, who babbled profanity in a language not yet discovered. Berbert handed Frosty his change- sixty-seven cents- and reached beneath the counter for a plastic bag. Frosty raised his reusable canvas shopping bag, and with that Berbert was back on his Blackberry, lost in a conversation with no beginning, middle or end. Maybe he was talking to another convenience store clerk somewhere?

Frosty scooped up all thirty bags of Pieces and headed out to his car, the sleigh bell on the door jingling as he made his exit. He checked his watch: 2:49. Perfect; he was right on time. He got into his Kia Paloma and cruised down Neptune Avenue, finding a station playing Electric Light Orchestra.

Frosty loved Electric Light Orchestra.

He turned off Roxbury Road and drove past the Ridgeway Theater. He flashed back to his days in the darkened auditorium, enjoying action pictures, reaching accidentally into the bucket of popcorn which the strange man beside him had offered to share. As a kid he loved hot buttered popcorn, but when he went to reach in the strange man’s popcorn bucket he found it wasn’t popcorn that the strange man had in his hot buttered popcorn bucket of –it was- hot buttered popcorn- something else- in the bucket of- something else, something else-


His brakes whined to a stop at the same instant the school bell rang, audible even from the parking lot. There was a moment of silence, of strange quiet, and then the children began to emerge from the doors of Davenport Elementary. They sprang out like snakes from a can- full of energy and running for their lives. Frosty licked his lips because he just couldn’t stop himself.

Boy children… girl children… androgynous children who could be boy children and girl children at the same time. Frosty felt like a boy today and tore open a bag of pieces… he poured a pile in his palm and stuck his hand out the window. A six year-old wandered by and Frosty asked, “Want some candy, little boy…?”

The boy covered his mouth and walked directly past Frosty’s car. That was bizarre…

The next boy walking by had already made eye contact with his mother, who was eyeing Frosty suspiciously. He retracted his arm into the car and dumped the pieces into his ashtray… even in the winter the damn things melted so fast! If they weren’t so effective he would switch over to fun-size Snickers, if only for the ease of-

Frosty saw him. A beautiful boy, a boy he simply had to have. He was nine years old with light brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap. He walked with a proud posture, taller than his four-foot five frame, and he almost seemed to be walking directly towards Frosty’s car. Frosty took a deep breath and got into character.

“Excuse me? Son?”

The boy stopped, alarmed.

“I’m supposed to give you a ride. What’s your name?”

The boy arched an eyebrow but answered anyway. “Logan.”

“Yeah, Logan- my name is Mr. Whitman- your Mother asked me to give you a ride. Home today.” Frosty cursed himself- that hesitation may have cost him his prize.

“Where’s my Mother?” Logan asked, wary.

Frosty decided to go for broke… he took a shot. “She had to pick up your sister… your sister got sick at school.”

The next moment seemed to last an eternity. Finally Logan’s face relaxed. “Is my sister okay?”

“Oh yeah,” Frosty said, his heart pounding in his chest, “she’s fine.” He could barely keep the grin from his face.

They pulled out of the parking lot, Frosty chatting about baseball and Logan carefully fastening his seat belt. After a few minutes on the road Frosty felt ready, and he pulled into the Rite-Aid plaza, in the back parking lot, back by the dumpsters behind the Yarn Barn. There was no other car in site.

“I need to take a break from driving for a few minutes, Logan.” Frosty put his foot on the brake, letting the car idle to keep the heater going.

“Okay,” said Logan, uneasy.

Frosty popped open a fresh bag of pieces… he held it up to Logan. “You want some candy?”

“I’m diabetic.” The boy said this as if it were the most obvious fact in the world.

“Should I have guessed?” Frosty snapped, and Logan shot him a panicked look. He suddenly felt very uncomfortable in this strange car and tight-fitting seatbelt.

Frosty kept his cool. “A lot of people are diabetic,” he said smiling, calming, “like me. I’m a diabetic also!” He reached for the tupperware in the back seat, popping the top and taking a deep sniff. “Do you know what this is?”

“No,” said Logan, with more fear in his voice than he knew he was feeling.

“This,” said Frosty, “is seafood salad. It’s delicious. Do you like seafood salad, Logan?”

“Is it imitation crabmeat?”

The kid better be good.

“No, it’s the real thing,” said Frosty. He pulled a stainless-steel fork out of the center console and handed it to the boy. “Just a few bites of this and you’ll be… it’s delicious.”

“I don’t feel like it,” Logan said.

Frosty put his hand on the boy’s knee. “You’re gonna love it, Logan… just take a bite and enjoy the taste…”

Logan bristled in his seat, a shiver of cold fear running down the back of his neck to the base of his spine. He tried unbuckling the seatbelt but it wouldn’t budge.

Frosty stroked Logan’s thigh through his denim jeans. “It’s delicious, Logan… tuna, onion, celery… crab and lobster…” There was a musical quality to Frosty’s voice- a sinister lullaby in a minor key- and Logan saw in him something he hadn’t noticed before. He saw Danger. He looked up to see Frosty staring at him, two eyes made out of coal.

“Just relax, buddy,” Frosty said. He ruffled the boy’s hair.

“I want to go home now,” Logan said, but Frosty was just getting started. “I’ll take you home in just a little bit…” Logan tried his seatbelt again but it wouldn’t budge. It felt like it was bolted closed... and tightening around him.

Frosty’s fingers found Logan’s belt buckle, and he began to unhook it slowly. Logan felt sick… paralyzed.

“Please,” Logan pleaded, “Stop…” His speech was slow... he could barely muster the power to protest. He felt like he was underwater... awake in a nightmare...

“Relax…” Frosty went straight to his work, unhooking the clasp and pulling the boy’s belt through the loops in his jeans.

“Please…” But Logan’s mouth was so dry the word was just a mumble.

“We’re gonna have a little fun,” Frosty said, salivating.

“No,” said Logan, but that didn’t make it stop.

“I’m gonna make you feel good,” Frosty whispered, un-tucking the child’s shirt, “and you’re gonna make me feel good too. Just trust me, Logan...”

Frosty’s fingers found the zipper of Logan’s pants, and-

Logan plunged the metal fork into Frosty’s right thigh, and Frosty howled like an animal caught in a trap. His leg jerked involuntarily, slamming the gas pedal and sending the car flying over the icy pavement. Frosty was too distracted to steer, and Logan braced for the worst..

It was probably in the boy’s favor that he’d been wearing his seatbelt, because as the car smashed into the brick wall of the Yarn Barn Frosty flew out of his seat and directly through the windshield, which had spider-webbed and fallen out of its frame. Logan couldn’t be sure whether or not Frosty’s head had collided with the wall directly but he knew there was blood all over the dashboard... and he knew that it wasn’t his own.

In the impact Frosty had bitten off his own tongue, and it lay there on the dashboard, mocking the boy, taunting him, and Logan only felt better when he definitively recognized that Frosty’s skull had cracked open and that there was hot brain dripping down the car’s grill.

Logan released his seatbelt, which flew open like a hand, and stepped out of the car. He could already hear sounds from the front of the shopping center, could already hear the excited shrieks and worried voices from the people who’d felt the crash. He knew that the adults would be here soon, doing what adults do, so he walked off in the opposite direction, away from the car, away from the people, away from the child molester and his bags of Reese’s Pieces.

The force of the crash had popped Frosty’s trunk open, and who should appear but twelve year-old Katie Zelic, missing from the middle school since Friday afternoon. She climbed out slowly, wincing in the bright sunlight, sore and disoriented. She looked at the wreck- unable to process- and staggered away from the car. She sat down on the freezing pavement, too traumatized to move any further. Katie licked her dry, chapped lips and waited for the customers and employees to come around the corner and find her, to pronounce Frosty dead, to call the police in a vain pantomime of making sense out of the senseless, to return her to her home.

She sat, waiting.

Frosty’s car radio was still working, a Christmas song:

O come, let us adore him,
O come, let us adore him,
O Come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord

Katie couldn’t stop herself from laughing.




.