Devious! What up Player!? What up doe—what’s good? What’s new? Right now just the mixtape, The Cracktory Vol. 1. How’s life in Detroit? I guess it’s pretty safe to say it’s rough in Detroit for everybody. When did you start rapping? I was like fifteen-sixteen and at around seventeen I started to take it seriously. Why hip-hop? Because that’s the best form of expression where I grew up. What do you value most in life? My family and my craft. Where can I get my hands on The Cracktory Vol. 1? Basically, anywhere they sell local Hip Hop music or from myself personally. Are you currently working on any new material? Yes, The Cracktory Vol. 2—Chef Joy RD. Has the business side of things changed your perceptions of hiphop? No, because I came in knowing what to expect. You have to be prepared to change with the times. How did you get linked up with Gotchaback Ent.? A mutual friend of mine linked me and Big Herk up—we’ve been working together ever since. Do you have any shows coming up here soon? Not off hand, but we’re constantly networking, so anything’s possible. What motivates you to make a new track? I’ve got an open mind, so it can be anything from a new experience to
reminiscing about something that happened in the past. Help us out with your creative process... I do a lot of rhymin’ and brain stormin’ until I come up with something hot. Then I critique it, write it down and run with it. If it wasn’t for music, what else do you think you would be doing? I would probably be somewhere hustlin’ to feed my family. Who inspires you to do more? My kids. Has the Internet helped you as a musician? Yes, because you can network and cover more ground without always having to put in the actual footwork. Where else can we find you on the net? YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter etc. What’s next? The Cracktory Vol.2—Chef Joy RD, my album and more hot material. The sky’s the limit and don’t forget Big Herk’s album—OverDose and Young Herk’s mixtape—In My Blood. Any shout-outs? Shout-out to my camp, the neighborhood I grew up in, my whole family, Big Re, The Whole Hartwell and Carlin Streets, Real Sire, Raw Deal, Killa Will, BackStreet The Kushmen, Young Cash, John, Big Herk, Young Herk, Cuzzo, Uncle Tos, Lil’ Lo, Ty Skillz, Whosane, Don P, J-Oneal, Ya-Yo and everybody that had something to do with this Cracktory project. If I forgot anybody, my bad—y’all know what it is.
Paul! How the heck are you? All good—life’s crazy, but brilliant. How’s Cape Town? Cape Town’s beautiful—busy transitioning into winter, but the vibe of the city is still very much alive. When did you get your start with photography? I got my first camera at the age of fifteen. Not really sure why I got one… I think I was starting to do art & design at school and got a camera—I didn’t think I could draw too well. Was it love with first picture? Yeah, pretty much… The camera never really left my hand for the next few years. Didn’t really know what I was doing, but did it a lot and had a lot of fun. Has much changed since then? Not much really, I’m still taking photos all the time and having a lot fun. I’ve learnt a bit, but still learning more every shoot. I guess the biggest change would be that people now pay me to take photos. Have you had any formal training with photography? Nope. Watched quite a few YouTube videos on it and spent a lot of money on books, but those books tended to be about just the lives of famous photographers and not really the technical stuff. What’s up with Photoshop? Photoshop is crazy—it’s my best friend and worst enemy. I think it plays an important role in my photography, but it’s also a
natural part of my process of creating images. It’s not like you do a shoot and then see what you can do in Photoshop. Usually, the editing of each shot has all been decided or discussed before the photographs have even been taken. Personal vs. professional photography… Go! Poor vs. not poor—no, not quite... I guess my personal stuff is where I play and discover, then my paid jobs are where I show off what I’ve learnt through my personal stuff. What camera(s) do you shoot with? In order of ownership: Canon Powershot G5, Canon 350D, Canon 5D MK 2, Canon 60D and somewhere along the way I was given a Canon AV-1. Of your entire body of work, would you care to announce a favorite? I like my Screamers series a lot, but the Sketch Assembly work was an amazing creative collaboration project that churned out some very pleasing images. You’ve described yourself as an all-around creative individual, what else do you create? I create ideas and concepts. The mediums vary—often due to collaboration with others: whether it be painters, illustrators or web designers. I’m also starting to make some films now. They’re just short personal stories, but they’re going somewhere nice. Do you take you camera with you
everywhere you go? Pretty much... I guess it’s almost like safety blanket type of thing. But yeah, it’s always near. What have you learned about yourself through photography? Lots. [laughs] I dunno, it’s been such a big part of my growing up. I’m pretty sure if I never had started taking pictures that I’d be a completely different person. I’d probably be rich, successful and sad—now I’m poor and happy. How do you feel when you know you’ve just captured a great shot? Happy, but properly happy. I think the best feeling is when you’re working on getting a shot, struggling through it and then you have a breakthrough. That’s when I am the happiest—then capturing the shot is easy. ...Missed a great shot? A bit sad, but there will always be another one. I haven’t missed any life changing shots yet, thankfully. Walk us through a day in the life of Mr. Paul Ward... I don’t really have a set routine, but I’ll try my best… I usually work till about 2AM or 3AM, so when I wake up at 8AM, I’m tired and disorientated—breakfast is a blur. I usually have to spend my mornings writing emails or doing some sort of admin. Then I have a badly cooked lunch—my creativity doesn’t flow into the kitchen. Afternoons I’ll usually be editing photos, preparing for future shoots, or on those great days— actually have a shoot. I’ll also try to sneak an hour of gym in there
too. Most evenings I’m out taking photos in Cape Town, usually of creative events or interesting parties—then it starts all over again. Are you doing what you love? Yes—most definitely. What does happiness mean to you? I dunno, but it’s important. I know I‘m happiest when I’m creating and I intend on doing so for the rest of my life. Where do you see yourself headed in the future? The road ahead is uncertain, but excitingly so. I would like to be able to see the world a bit and get paid to take photos along the way. I’m very excited about the future, as I am about the present and as I was about the past. Life is good and I feel as long as I keep working hard and making rad stuff that it will stay that way in whatever way or form it sees fit. What’s next? I’m busy shooting some different fashion things, which will be pretty cool, working on some film projects and I’ve also got a music video in the pipeline. So all of that’s gonna be really challenging and exciting—quite amped. Any shout-outs? I have got a great network of friends and family who support me, who I will always be thankful for and indebted to. Create and Inspire.
Timid! What’s up man? Wazzzuuuppp!? What’s new? I’m staying busy on several fronts— there are a few things that I won’t speak on until they materialize, but I have some new music coming this year. I’m also working with the “Don’t Give Up, Japan” project, performing to raise money for disaster victims in Japan. Sales and money raised through performances from the song “Don’t Give Up” will go to Red Cross Japan. We’ve also have been honored with an invitation to perform at the ‘11 McDonald’s Gospelfest. How’s LI (Valley Stream)? Finally warming up—I can come out of my cave now. What’s your first memory of hip-hop? Don’t know my first memory, but one of my best is a powerful example of the power that hip-hop can hold… I was at a party thrown by hip-hop icon Uncle Ralph McDaniels: the place was packed, good crowd, smiling faces, legends in the building and all—an all around good vibe. The manager on duty made it clear to Uncle Ralph that he didn’t really want us or our music there, so at the height of the night, Uncle Ralph got on the mic and shut the party down, explaining how they didn’t want our business. What followed was a mass exodus of hip-hoppers walking peacefully out to the street with no second thoughts—that’s just how much respect people have for Uncle Ralph. We finished the party in the street with a truck stereo bumping
our music. That’s hip-hop to me. It doesn’t beg to use your venue or your record deal. It’s independent and strong. It’s a lesson. How’d you get your start with hiphop? I’ve been into hip-hop since I was a kid—I grew up with it. I used to DJ at first. Then I linked up with a partner of mine from VA that rapped and we put together a demo. A lil’ later on I grabbed the mic and here we are today. What’s changed since then? An appreciation for what hip-hop was and a greater realization for what it can and should be. What led you to choose the name Timid for yourself? It was written next to a picture of my face on a piece of toast—divine intervention. Also, just to clarify, it’s Timid, not Timid MC—although some of my Internet accounts have that listed because suckers beat me to the punch on grabbing the username. How has LI, or New York in general, helped to develop your style? It’s good to touch base with the place where hip-hop was born. I’ve met some good people, icons and legends here. I’ve seen them hold down stages. I take influence from the sum of all my experiences and then I learn and grow from them. How do you gather inspiration for making a new track? From something in the news, a recent occurrence I’ve been exposed to or from what inspiration I get from the beat itself. A lot of times it comes from my supreme disgust of aspects of society and our utter failure to live
up to the potential we have as human beings. [sigh] Talking like that I guess it’s no surprise someone put me on a list called Eschatology on Twitter. Oh, and women too… What’s the greatest reward you’ve received through your music? Validation from someone that gets the message you intended to communicate—that’s a good feeling. I had just got off stage once and a guy from the crowd approached me about “Let Freedom Ring” saying, “People may want to party and wild out but that’s the stuff that everyone thinks about when they are alone at home.” That’s deep and a good look. Also, when my young cousin is bumping me on her iPod—that’s the good stuff. Are you working on any new material? I’ve got several upcoming releases for this year. My singles with Edo G and Lin Que will be out this year— doing some collabs with cats overseas as well. Do you have any upcoming shows? I’ve got several upcoming charity performances with the “Don’t Give Up, Japan” project over the next couple months and some other tentative tour dates in the works. I’m also planning some trips overseas. What makes you stand out as an artist? Fantastic moustache and I bring a different perspective than other artists out. I have lived in all major areas of the US and bring those experiences as well as a global view in my music. I take a mentality of the bigger picture not just the block.
Where do you see all of your hard work going? Hopefully into the minds and hearts of those listening. What’s cracking with your group The Fam? The Fam is busy working on individual projects at the moment— I was in the studio recently with Pizon... Has the Internet helped you to reach a larger audience? Definitely—foreign countries mainly, I love going overseas! Where else can we find you on the net? My website: http://timidmc.com, http://twitter.com/timidmc and there’s dust on my http://myspace. com/timid account, but it’s still active. I’m also at http://youyube. com/timidmc. Would you say you’re doing what you love? I love it when I’m on stage or just bumping a new joint—still has the fresh track smell on it. What’s next? I’m focused on getting these singles out and other projects I have in the works as well as the “Don’t Give Up, Japan” project I’m working with. My current album—No Time For The Jibba Jabba is still on sale with another video to come from it soon. We’ve also got The Fam’s project—Family Business dropping in the near future. Who knows, maybe a Presidential run in ‘16. Any shout-outs? Much respect to UNDR RPBLC MGZN and all those that follow, appreciate, listen, attend, buy and support what I’m doing.
Amrei! How are you my dear? Hey—I am doing well. Have you always been a creative individual? I would say so, yes. Like many other artists, I didn’t really connect that well with others in my childhood and enjoyed my time alone. Since a very early age I’ve loved drawing and creating little stories around different characters. I guess I was kind of living in my own world and still sort of do now. What’s you first memory of art? My first memory of art—as art that has the ability to invade minds and question ideologies—is the installation “Show Your Wound” by Joseph Beuys, which I saw in an exhibition at a very young age. The moment still haunts me to this day. My first memory of art that is universal and transgressive is my first memory as a human being. How do you feel about art today? With the digital revolution and the arrival of the Internet, art has definitely experienced democratization. It offers a way for everybody to freely express and discuss their opinion with instant access to all sorts of information. However, the art market is still the same as it ever was: opinions are being created and manipulated based on financial interests. But even all the frustration and negative aspects of the art business can never take away one’s true and honest love for art. What are you trying to express through your work? I am not really sure if I could easily tell—all I know is that I need
to create. I think my aim is to open up to people and show them a world into which they can submerge and maybe find something about themself somewhere in there. To question their mindset about what is beautiful, what is human and what is true. When did you decide to become an artist? I am not sure if this is something that can be decided consciously. If the need to create is something that is within you, there is no way to suppress it. In the end, it all comes down to the decision about what life one wants to live. It’s undeniable that the decision to be an artist will have consequences and most of all, the financial hardships that one will have to face. Why are misbalance and imperfection inherent in your work? I think “perfection” is a very peculiar concept within humanity, the expression of “perfectionism” even more. “Perfectionism” is, in fact, a paradox, because obviously there is no such thing as perfection. Everything will reveal an imperfection under close observation. I am interested in how a system reacts to the invasion of a misplaced element, especially within the human mind. Irritating thoughts, a trauma, a recurring memory, how something you lived in your childhood can influence our whole adult life. It goes hand in hand with the question of how much in control we are of our own thoughts and of our evolution. What position does Freud’s concept of Uncanny take through
your art? I very much enjoy the mental and even physical sensation that is caused by the confrontation with the uncanny. It’s just such an odd concept, to be attracted and repulsed by something at the same time, something that seems equally as familiar as strange. I really wish to provoke a similar irritation with my work. Your work with Manish Arora is astounding. What was it like to see your art take new form through fashion? It was absolutely amazing and surpassed my imagination. I arrived in Paris not knowing what to expect at all. Of course I was worried a little, giving away my work in such a way was a huge step for me. I had been dreaming of emphasizing the tangible aspects of my work for quite a while and it was so incredible for me to be confronted with the possibilities on such an immense scale. Do you plan to work more with fashion in the future? I would definitely love to! But, of course, it depends on the individual circumstances and project. With Manish Arora there was absolute creative freedom and trust, so that was like the ideal case—and a rare one I fear. Are you a spiritual person? Everyone is, to a greater or lesser extent. I guess it depends on how you define spirituality. I would say that being spiritual means to maintain sensitivity, curiosity and innocence towards one’s self and the
world around us. I don’t like the abuse that surrounds spirituality, mostly the abuse of insecure, vulnerable people and of one’s own ego. What do you do for fun? I am a total cinema addict— watching movies is probably what keeps my mind at ease the most. But then there’s also music and literature—I can’t go on without all three of them. There are just too many wonderful things out there to be discovered. I am always eager to keep myself as less cynical as possible, to be able to love as many things as I can. What beauty do you see in origami? I think origami is a wonderful symbol for the boundaries of our own perception. A limited being would only perceive a flat piece of paper, but a creative being is able to see beyond that and create a three dimensional, tangible shape. Origami unifies mathematics, the human mind and art in absolute harmony. It requires time and concentration and an immense capacity of abstract thinking. I really admire the people who master it. What’s next? I would love to have a show by the end of the year. I am also planning to create a little clothing collection too. We will see… Any shout-outs? A big shout out goes to my Belio Family and especially to Pablo IA who always believed in me. Lots of love to all of those who still dare to dream—against all odds.
Tind! What up!? Everything is going according to no plan. How’s Athens? A great place to be if you are a pirate, ninja or Gaulois… Still a nice place to wonder at nights, still a place with little treasures hidden around, still a place where you can shamelessly drink beers and sing “Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!” Not a place to mix business and fun, not a place to get the job done, not a place to bitch about. “After all, every society gets the visual environment it deserves.” -David Carson When did you get your start in screen-printing? My mother breastfed me with pantone colors and fluo inks and my father sang me lullabies in the darkroom while he developed film (true story). How often do you print? I screen-print (among other things) with my father for a living, earning just enough money to experiment more—I’m always trying to print with new inks and different materials. So one could say not as often I want, but as often as I need to. After all, screen-printing is just the medium—it’s the process and the randomness of it. The little mistakes that occur are always far superior to the art itself. What’s the most rewarding aspect of the screen-printing process for you? Cleaning up and taking care of
my tools. When all work has been completed and you know it’s a job well done, you then have to prepare your tools for the next print. Clean them well, treat them well and keep them handy where they belong. It’s like sharpening your pencils or your knives! Do you have any technical training? Nope, just fifteen or so years on the job itself... Like Obelix, I fell into the pot of magic potion when I was little—but instead of potion there was ink (true story). Do politics play a role in your work? When you bring your work into the public eye—be it a canvas in an art gallery or a file on a social networking site, you are an active political being whether you admit it or not. A matter of moments ago I stumbled upon your Keep Calm and Print On screen-printing workshop streaming live via Ustream, care to share a bit about what’s going on there? It started out as an idea and has now grown into something with a life of its own. How can people and ideas be combined with designs and prints? It’s an ongoing project without an end in sight: one result introduces the idea of another. Tune in at http://keepcalmandprinton.com for more… Is this the first workshop? Yeah, kind of... It’s the first planned workshop, but we always share our knowledge/experience when people stop by our place. We
also make the best filter coffee in town, served with love and always hawt—just like our ideas! How many folks are involved? It ended up involving twenty-eight designers (students, professional graphic designers and artists) as well as four speakers under the patronage of the Greek Designers Association. We also had three key sponsors who provided some of the materials used. What is the goal of Keep Calm and Print On? As Master Yoda said to young Luke: “Do or do not, there is no try.” I’m really feeling the space theme of your “Die Rakete” posters, now are all of the fifty limited edition prints unique, one-of-a-kind pieces? Yeah, almost every print I do ends up limited and unique. I like mixing colors and materials and still can’t fix my mind to specific color combinations. When printing I always have this urge to mix it up a bit—it doesn’t always work but it’s still very fascinating. The gold/silver leafing really pops on each of those posters. Did you go in with a predetermined theme for each poster chosen ahead of time, or did you simply flip the script mixing colors and techniques with each and every go around? I try new materials when screenprinting and just like an ant, I gather up new stuff to try. I also use my gut feeling—I find it’s the best way to deal with the process of screen-printing—all between and outside of it. Screen-printing requires, above all else, curiosity.
Mix, experiment, take a step back and repeat. Is it safe to say that we can expect to see more and more funky prints from you in the future? I have things and themes I’m gonna try out. Spoiler alert: next print will involve glow-in-the-dark ink. How does your typographic work differ from your screen-print design? Actually at the moment they’re becoming more and more alike— both are about experimentation. Lately I haven’t been working under many deadlines, so I’m taking the opportunity to explore as many different approaches as much as I can. I also caught a slick video of yours boasting a Lensbaby experiment, where all the taillights from cars passing by were made to say Tind—fresh! What’s up with that? Just experimenting or procrastinating if you like! The technique is called bokeh, the aesthetic quality of the blur. It’s customizing your aperture so it can form shapes with light through the out-of-focus areas in the image. It’s based on stenciling, the origins of silk-screen. Are you doing what you love? Well, I love what I am doing. It’s both creative and technical, plus it gives time to experiment more, so when the moment comes I’ll know what I can best use for a project. Do you have any upcoming art shows? Not at the moment, but I’ve got a few collaborations coming up.
Tune into http://tind.gr for more. Which came first the chicken or the egg? What would Darwin say? What do you do for fun? I screen-print stuff. What else? [laughs] I enjoy listening to music loud, I spend countless hours on the Internets and drink cheep beer with my partners in crime in the smallest Athenian joints. I love doing the dishes, eating fish soup and over-complicating things. I lure people into collaborations, I challenge and like being challenged in order to take things another step further. Where do you see screen-printing headed in the future? Growing up in the 80s there were books in the local supermarkets that depicted pictures of the future, which seemed totally mechanical and automated. Now where’s that future!? One can only speculate what it may hold and that’s kind of silly. The only thing for sure is that even if an EMP hits Earth and all the electronics are gone you can still screen-print!!! What’s next? Designing and producing custom handmade small/medium/largescale portable, personal silk-screen printing tools—just for the love of it. After the workshop will be the homework: take what you learnt and do it yourself. Print the world/ spread the word. Any shout-outs? To my partners in crime and to all people out there who keep doing stuff “for the love of the game”.
The following is an excerpt from Summer ‘08 by Evan Ray Parks
California I had never had an oyster. The two of us, Alex and I, stood on Brian’s deck and sighed at the sight of Bodega Bay at sundown. We were toothy and ignorant of the struggle Brian was having with a net of homegrown oysters that had been growing in the bay under his house. A ship bobbed in the backyard, chalky with rust. Streaks of the original yellow sobbed an SOS to the jungle of plant life it mothered from its hull. A few men in their early thirties, dressed as pirates, had apparently swam to the ship for an exclusive, undisturbed campaign for debauchery or absurdity. It was hard to tell which. One of the men was naked except for a pirate hat and a bottle of champagne. During breaks, before and after which he chased a friend around deck; he knocked his ribs like a xylophone. From the cabin, a fat belly slipped in and out of a striped black and white t-shirt. Like a prisoner, the rest of his body was not visible. The last, the one being chased and assaulted with champagne foam, wore suspenders anchored to his brief underwear. This one, to escape his assailant, shimmied a rusted cable to its mast and swung there by one arm, slopping liquor to the deck with the
other. None of them noticed that I was staring at them. “Would you guys be able to help me pull this net up? Thanks.“ Brian was a Buddhist. He moved to his amateur oyster farm from a house across the bay. He knew the owners so the rent was cheap. In the front yard, bike spokes and grayed two by fours were scattered in a tangle of ice plant. A fleet of ceramic frogs kept watch from atop the bar-b-que. Brian disappeared for anything that could hold and transport oysters. As we waited, Alex and I were rapt with the pirate hat pirate. He shook a new bottle of champagne and popped it open. The cork hit the acrobat’s testicles, loosing a suspender. He released the cable to clutch his groin, falling into a geyser of champagne foam and giggles. We sighed and turned our attention to the oysters. “How many do you think he’ll give us?” “I don’t know. That fat one looks good though.” “Three or four?” “Sounds about right.” “Oysters are expensive, aren‘t they?” “If they’re not local.” Brian’s flip-flops and plastic grocery bags rounded the corner before he did. Squatting at the net, he sifted through his harvest and filled the two bags. “You having an oyster party or something?” I asked, playing coy. “I do have oyster parties every now and then! How did you know? I place a few on the grill,
crack some fresh, and make a dipping sauce for the guests. We all have fun! But no, these are for you guys. Don’t feel guilty, now. I have more. I can’t believe neither of you have had an oyster!” Alex was vegetarian, but willing to experience any local culture we wandered through. Brian cracked two. “Since neither of you have ever had an oyster, I’m asking that you try at least one of them on the half shell. Raw. It’s my favorite.” “You know that there’s a kind of parasite that lives in bay water, I forget what it’s called, but it lives all over the place, in fish and clams and stuff like that. If you eat the food or drink the water raw, the parasite gives you digestion problems, then moves up to your brain and kills you.” Informative Alex. “I’ve never had any problems,” Brain managed from his scrunched face. “I read about it, but I don’t know if it’s common or not.” Alex slurped the oyster. As the cream filled booger slid into my belly, like a very small child, Brian inspected our reactions and decided we enjoyed them. He was thrilled to be able to share something so dear to his life with people as ephemeral as us. His hands were in a kind of prayer at his chest, motioning upward to his smile. His eyes were wet. Something splashed in the bay, probably a bottle of liquor. I looked at the ship and noticed that the man in suspenders was missing. Upon his request, we fol-
lowed Brian past his Buddha doorknocker and into his kitchen. “I’m going to whip you guys up a nice sauce that I make for my guests. It’s delicious. Oh, there’s a grill out front somewhere. If one of you will grab it on our way out you won’t have to eat all those oysters raw.“ He pulled a copper bottom pot from a cupboard near his shins. “Oh! Go ahead and check out the house if you‘d like.” Alex and I strolled to his bookshelf. “Can I use the restroom?” “Of course!” I pissed and found Alex in the living room. The back wall was a window above the bay, where the ship’s remaining passengers were visible. The naked one saw us staring at him through the window. He waved emphatically, with an entire arm, tilted his head back and poured in liquor from a foot above his mouth. He missed, mostly, leaned to wipe his face but puked and rolled over the railing. The sun was setting and the fat, black and white shirted belly swayed up with the ship, and down. On the short drive back to the sleep spot that Brian had showed to us, he explained that a friend had lived there in a camper for a few years with no trouble from the sheriff, and that we shouldn’t have a problem sleeping for the night. Relieved of the law, I flew out of the car. Our bag of oysters crinkled. Musty had claimed a molding mattress that the owner of
the camper had left behind. Chum was fumbling with his hammock in a few sturdy bushes. “Guys! You’re back! Check out my hammock spot! It’s in, like, a cave of bushes! Don’t even think rain could get through these bad boys,” slapping and leaning on a branch. Chum danced from the bush on one side of his hammock to the other, describing the placement of his masterful knots, shaking the branches to prove their strength and pointing to the marvelous limbs that the hammock was anchored to, smiling rosily. Brian chuckled sardonically. “You know Chum, you tied your hammock to a nest of poison oak.” Chum’s face darkened. His eyebrows arced as thunderheads, his perspiration, freezing bolts from Zeus. His chin tapped his sternum, as if a noose had been slipped from his muddy neck after ten minutes hanging from the gallows. He untied his hammock. “You ok Chum?” He stomped his foot, “I’m fine!” and, stripping, bundled his gear into his arms and ran to the edge of our sleep spot. His gear exploded from his chest and, for a moment, hung above the cliff like confetti. A pant leg, a tarp and medical supplies settled to the bay like the innumerable beads that followed them. Chum kicked a necklace from the cliff. He down climbed gently, scanning for his shoes in the water. The tangle in the surf crunched as he ran through and dove onto his sleeping bag, waving in the bay.
He used his gear to scrub his skin raw. I giggled from the cliff. As he climbed back to us, and I stood above him, two bodies and a huge, black and white belly floated by on a riptide, and then a pirate hat. Chum had calmed, but was grumpy. He curled into a ball in his wet bedroll. Musty creaked on the box spring with Gemini, his dog, who squirmed with him inside his sleeping bag. Alex and I collected a few armfuls of dry to semi-dry wood, checked for rogue twigs of poison oak, and built the oyster’s fire. “How do we get the grill on?” “Just toss it on top, I guess.” After the grill was stabilized I placed our first oysters at the edges, where it was cool, then tossed them to the center where the fire had broken past the iron bars. They popped slowly, like stovetop popcorn, one by one, and we pulled them off, offering the first few to Musty and Chum. “We don’t eat meat, Alex.” “This is the first meat I’ve had in three years! Come on, you’ve gotta eat the local’s cuisine. It’s the culture around here!” Alex laughed, tauntingly, “Don’t you guys want to experience the culture?” “Dude! I don’t eat meat!” I devoured most of the first set and the iron was fully heated. The fire and red iron grill worked into the shells’ lips, tearing them open. I bent to one that hadn’t yet popped. It shook and snarled and popped and a web of tanned,
viscous strings stretched and tugged at the spaces between the lips, but snapped. A tiny cloud of darkened steam was spit onto my pant leg. It worked into the wrinkles. The oysters popped into a rhythm now; in twos, threes and fours, piano chords I had never imagined. My stomach curled onto a windowsill, cooling pink and wove into my ribs; my sweat: drops distending skin. I could hardly stand, my salted muscles acting as a part of my skeleton. A log popped and the smoke cleared from Jelly Roll’s fingertips. He sat as a translucent miniature behind an organ of oyster shells. “Jesus Christ,” I cracked my jaw, “what was in those god damned oysters?” I asked Jelly Roll Morton and his oyster organ. “Sea water,” replied Alex. I turned to laugh, creakily, when Alex taunted Chum with another oyster but turned quickly back to the fire when some explosive twang, like a piano string snapping, tugged at my reflexes. “Fuck! I forgot about the sauce!” Alex held the shattered jar of homemade sauce by two fingers and dipped an oyster into the shining, oily mess. Musty laughed, Chum sighed, and Alex looked at me, wondering at how we managed to build a fire around a jar of sauce, and chewed. Sated, I slipped into sleep at the pace of Jelly Roll’s smoldering ragtime, twitching at the thought of the bodies, and caught Musty cooing at his dog. “Gemini. Gemini, what are
you doing!? No, that’s the zipper! Lay down Gemini. Go to sleep.” “Shit. You wanna hitch under that tree, dude?” “Yeah, I’m down,” grabbing our packs we dragged to the shade. “Think we’ll beat Chum and Musty to Oregon?” “I dunno. They got the first ride.” On the northern outskirts of Laytonville, an old, light brown Cadillac pulled onto the highway’s shoulder. Sunset sunshine burned into our retinas, reflected from the two or three windows facing west. A furry man, all fat or muscle, broke a passenger side window in an attempt to burst from the car. Shaking and flapping his hands with excitement, he slipped in some of the glass as he ran toward us. “Ding Ding Ding! Oh my god! I can’t believe I found you guys!“ He gave me a bear hug that lifted me from the ground. I heard pebbles dropping from the soles of my shoes as he swung me from side to side, rubbing his cobwebbed, beer soaked beard on my face. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! Ding Ding Ding! Get the fuck in here!” He threw me aside. “Nice to meet you, too,” I said, “But before we get in, where is it that you guys are headed?” “Ding! The Autonomous Mutant Fest, brothers!...in Oregon...,” he looked worried, “Why? Where are guys you going?” “We’re supposed to meet a
couple friends up there, actually. Think we can ride with y’all?” “I said, ‘Get the fuck in here’ didn’t I? Ding Ding!” As we approached, the windows of the car appeared to be plated with gold foil. I couldn’t see the driver beyond the reflected light, even with a hand over my eyes, so I opened the door behind him and found an obese bulldog panting puddles onto my seat. I told the driver that his dog had a huge cock. “Yeah, that’s Kachunga. Please be careful not to sit on his balls, ok? We’ve had a few accidents,” and, shifting to his dog voice, “haven’t we Kachunga!? Yes we have. Yes we have.” He eyeballed the two of us, his eyes flicking between Alex and I seven times in a few seconds, and in the highpitched voice he used for his dog he said, “I’m Sam. Do you guys TINAG?” “Nah. We’re not gay. Alex, didn’t you say you tea bagged a girl once, though?” Sam’s eyes jerked to each of the quarter hours and his voice leveled to something more regular, “TINAG, not teabag. Get in.” The dented brown Cadillac crunched over its broken window and Sam smiled at Kachunga in the rearview mirror heading north. “So what’s this TINAG thing, Sam?” “Before I explain, and thus initiate you, allow me to first find a Dutch Brother’s Coffee outlet.” He pulled a dirty monocle from his glove box, breathed on it and, without cleaning the grime, squeaked it
into his left eye socket. “They give out free coffee on father’s day.” “Da-da-ding! Da-ding ding ding! I want a regular.” “You‘ll get what I give you.” Oregon Sam was on the road for a couple of hours, his eye pressing against the monocle looking for coffee. Alex chatted with Kachunga in the way Sam had done. I ignored them and flipped through a bent deck of Tarot cards I found in a tissue box at my feet. Something was poking at my ass cheeks. I reached past the popcorn into the folds of the seat, ignored the change near the seatbelt an “DUTCH BROOOOSSS!” Sam jerked the wheel to the right; my face slammed into the window, then to the left, skidded a U-turn in the middle of the freeway and took the first exit. I freed the torso of a Superman action figure from the bowels of my seat, stared at the arm that tried to finger bang me, and decided to give it to Kachunga. He latched onto it and shook his head, smacking ropes of drool to the backseat windows. “Let me have, uh... four coffees, one with three extra shots of espresso. Oh, please.” “So, Alex and I have been with you guys for a few of the coffee stops, but how many have you guys made so far?” “Like, fourteen or fifteen.”
“Jesus Christ! I had one cup earlier and could barely handle the come down. What’d you get?” “A coffee for each of us. Three extra shots in mine.” “I can‘t drink anymore coffee, dude. You can have it.” “Sweet! Alex, you gonna drink yours?” “Hell yeah.” Sam watched Ding Ding Ding reach for a twenty being handed to him from the driver‘s side of someone’s car. He was flying a sign that asked for gas money. “’God bless’ gets them every time.” “At least you’re using the money for gas.” “Well, and beer.” “So what’s this TINAG thing you mentioned a few hours ago?” “Four coffees! One three shots deep!” “Hold up a sec.” Sam grabbed the order and sat down at a table. I followed him. He peeked over his shoulders, focused on the line outside the coffee shop and leaned in a little farther. “Alright. So, you know what paper and pencil RPGs are, right?” “Yeah. Like AD&D and shit.” “Yeah, but they don’t make AD&D anymore, it’s back to just D&D. Anyway, it’s just a game. You know? You role-play. It can be fun, like; I get assigned powers for certain classes and races and build up to higher levels, more powerful ones and FUCK! Alright,” lowering his voice, “so, but TINAG stands for,” he paused for suspense, “This Is Not A Game.” Sam left it at that. His fingers were spread wide; the
grime in his palm lines was facing us. I stared at his brown smile. “It isn’t a game?” “It isn’t a game. Isn’t that awesome!?” “So, you just pick a character or a personality and then become that character or personality in real life?” Sam tore the greasy monocle from the lint in a pocket, breathed on it and pressed it to his eyeball. “So, what do you gentlemen do?” Alex gave me a sidelong glance. “Well, I rock climb and go to school. Trying to get Evan into climbing a bit. We brought some shoes-” “Excellent! And you, what do you do?” I suppressed a snort. “I travel, I guess. I read some. On the Internet a lot.” “How very boring. These aren’t stories at all. Start over. You first, Alex, isn’t it?” “Yeah. You cut me off last time, though. Anyway. I was drinking some whiskey with a few friends at a river in my hometown. All of us were smashed, rolling around on the riverbank, laughing. Someone jumped in, then everyone did, but I didn’t feel like swimming, so I ran down stream, started exploring. Found a couple bird’s nests. Then I stumbled across this like thirtyfoot rock I had never seen before. Tripped me out cause I’d been down there a lot and never seen this thing, but when I was drunk I just came across it. Anyway, I started climbing it, by myself, with no one
around to help me if I fell. No one would have even found me.” “Did you have climbing shoes with you?” “Nah. I was running around barefoot. Yeah, so I was almost to the top, drunk as fuck, and I reached for one of the last holds, grabbed it and it broke. I was just dangling there by one hand, like thirty feet off the ground with a bunch of sharp ass rocks below me. I seriously almost slipped off and broke my neck, or got impaled by the sharp ass rocks. I don’t even remember climbing down. I didn‘t climb for a while after that. Came real close to dying.” Sam clapped two of his fingers against the palm of his opposite hand. “Ah, marvelous, marvelous. And you, Evan? What’s your story?” clapping still. “I took a shit once, grabbed it, ran it to the kitchen sink and threw it into the garbage disposal. It broke in half mid-air, though. Half of it burrowed into an old pile of spaghetti,” Sam stopped clapping, “while the other part hit the prongs of a fork. The goddamned fork flew all the way across the room. I don’t remember what happened to it.” “...Fascinating.” Slightly offended, I continued, “Shit is hilarious, dude. I mean, it’s ugly and it stinks. It’s an ironic child, for god’s sake.” “It can also be very practical, though. Say you used your own shit to build sculpture. Wouldn’t that be one of the purest forms of art? I mean, you would be forming the medium inside you, and with
it, forming an object that formed in your mind, thus creating with both your mind and your body. Piss, blood and feces. Pure art.” “I... I cannot comment on such a crude presentation.” Disgusted, he flipped his hair, turned his head away from me, removed his monocle and laughed. “Something else just came to mind. Alright, you know how girls can compliment each other’s tits and it’s fine? They can even call each other’s tits a tit and still be considered perfectly strait to the woman they complimented and to those that heard the compliment. But if I was to compliment a man’s penis things would be completely different. It doesn’t bother me that it‘s like that, and I wouldn’t compliment someone’s dick, but I would sound like a queer if I did. Watch.” I yelled to a middle-aged woman walking to her car in a gold dress, “Hey baby, nice tits!” “Fuck you asshole!” Sam let out an effeminate giggle and covered his mouth with a napkin. “See? Now, Sam, say we were in the army or something, taking a shower after PT, and I walked up to you and said, ‘Hey Sam, that’s a beautiful cock you’ve got there,’ wouldn’t you, and everyone else that heard me, think I was gay?” Sam giggled, hid his blushing face with dirty knuckles and flung a wrist in my direction, “Oh, stop it! I’m not gay, you know, until I get around other gay guys. You really think I have a nice
cock?” He winked at me, yanked the crusted monocle from another pocket and placed it on his eyeball. “What the-” Ding Ding Ding ran toward us from across the parking lot, yelling, “Let’s get the hell out of here! Da-da-ding ding! Mutant Fest, baby! Da-da-ding!” “Wonder where Chum and Musty are.” “And Beautiful Cock.” Alex laughed, “What? Who the fuck is Beautiful Cock?” “Sam. Remember, he thought I was complimenting his dick when I was trying to make a point?” “Nah, I think he knew what you were talking about.” “You should have seen the look he gave me, dude. I don’t know about that guy. I mean, he’s cool and shit, but doesn’t it seem like TINAGing is kind of an excuse to be schizophrenic?” “Yeah, I was thinking about that. Just pick up a character and start acting like someone else in real life. After like six months of that shit there‘d be no coming back.” A log broke in the fire. The sparks tried puncturing my eyeballs. “Speaking of Beautiful Cock, why’d you tell that lady in the parking lot she had nice tits?” “Cause she had nice tits,” I scratched my eyebrows. “I know, but you were making a point about women telling
women they had nice tits, not men telling women.” “Oh, yeah. I dunno.” The fire pit was dug a few feet into the ground. The logs rolled on top of one another like mindless participants of an orgy. I imagined filling the fire pit with cum, impregnating the camp around us with stars and laid my tarp under a pine tree near the fire. Death metal and newly mixed trance music blasted from opposite corners of the meadow. I curled into my sleeping bag and was wafted immediately into a string of dichotomized dreams, woven thickly by the soundtrack. I woke periodically to crackling. Beating drums in a foot march emptied my dreams into the pine needles dropping on my forehead. Tatty punks, hippies and circus folk paraded around the tree we slept under. They stamped a circle, around and around the tree. A few of their faces were painted as eccentrically as their clothes and scarred, naked bodies. One man’s cheeks were white, his nose blue, while the rest of his face was the color of peas; they may have been peas. Another, decorated to hide their androgyny, was draped in a frayed, metallic red fabric. Its painted breasts were naked and subject to the ringmaster’s lash, or the myriad juggling knives pulsing in the branches of sunlight. Tossing an attractive but muscular arm to the clouds it released a cacophony of birds. A sphere of feathers settled. A bluebird died. Metal music thumped from the woods. A man
of four and a half feet, wearing the clothes of an Arabian court, rolled a calliope into the procession and coaxed a few keys into notes; the trance was pushed from the march. A pair of green corduroys ripped on the overgrown nails of clown. The pair was dislodged from the marching as they tumbled into a fight. I yawned myself awake and listened to the comedy routines. While on my elbows, thinking of repacking my sleeping bag, I noticed that blue and red foam was gurgling from the parade’s ankles. Just as I fingered a dab of it to raise to my nose, confetti burst from every member’s shoulders and froze as a clown’s freckles would among an acrobat’s branches. I remembered Chum’s clothing. The birds returned, a few of them new, sinking to the foam like confetti. They hobbled, marching, distracted and gorging on the blue and red mass while the bare chested bird keeper caught a few that he’d never seen. Others pecked at his ankles. The parade disbanded, a trail of face paint and tiny hats leading to another camp, birds in toe, pecking. A circle of dead owls, canaries, seagulls and ibises spasmed posthumously on the bird keeper’s foam. I stepped over them and wondered if I had any ramen. “One hell of a wake up call.” “A wake up call.” “Did you just echo me?” “Echo, me. Do we have any ramen?” “I have a chicken and an oriental.”
The parade marched into the tree line, wild screams of the calliope trailing behind them. Chum broke past the parade and ran to us, panting. “Can’t believe... I found you guys.” “Where’s Musty?” Panting, “He stayed in Eugene. Oh, God. Glad I found you guys. What’s up?” Someone screamed. “Suck my dick with fire!” “He should have asked the circus. Oi! The circus went that way, man.” The under sexed fat man was rolling in patties of sheep shit. “You!” He pointed at me, lurching closer, “Suck my dick with fire!” “Nah. I don’t even suck normal dicks.” “I am the naked Bob Marley. You will do as I say!” “Oh? Do you know any of his songs? “Whose songs?” “...Your songs, dude.” “No. ...Man, look at my fucking balls. I‘m lost and I‘m-” “-On fire?” “I just have to find my tent.” He held his dick by his dick head and stretched it as far as he could from his body, stared at it and realigned a vein as if it were a compass. He gave up, frustrated, “I’m not getting anything.” Corey spun to Alex, and then to naked Bob Marley, approaching him with a deal. “Hey man, we’ll take you to the meadow if you give us some-
thing in return. Like, that vile of acid you‘re clutching?” “I’m vile!” “No, man, well, yeah, you are, but if you give us that vile...” Naked Bob Marley studied the vile like a child would baby powder then handed it to Chum. Because we were in the meadow, we led him around the tree line for twenty minutes before bringing him to the place that we found him. “Do you think you can you find you way from here?” He stretched his cock as far from his body as possible, studied it, released it and shook our hands as it snapped back to him, jiggling from his bellybutton to his thigh. “Yeah, thanks!” and he bounded into the woods. Curious of Marley’s direction, we followed to where he disappeared in the tree line. A man sat cross-legged, above us on a rock, a sapling pine columned either side of him. He was smiling and his teeth were lacquered red with blood from a missing tooth. It dripped to his chin and coagulated in a puddle between his legs on the rock. He couldn’t have seen through the tears in his eyes, as he was rigid and unaware of the three of us. “Hey man, what happened?” I thought my question would startle him from his trance but he continued staring ahead. I gave Alex a long, unsure, sidelong glace before the man, allowing only his head to move, slowly dropped his face to us. We stared into his teary cataracts. I wished I had a blanket. “I am Shiva,” he said, misting blood to our heads.
His neck cranked to its original position and a tear, as if pulled by a string, fell to the pool between his legs. “Why are you bleeding?” Again, he lowered his head to us, smiling, “I was warming by the fire of a friendly camp, eating macaroni, when a man larger than myself asked for my shorts.” I noticed then that he wasn’t wearing pants, but was pissing an unending stream of pus down the face of the rock. It collected at our feet. I took a step back. “I told him no, that he couldn’t have my shorts, that they were my shorts and that I needed them.” He paused and his head rose to its customary position. He stared forward, smiling. “That is all I remember before climbing onto this rock.” “Damn. Do you need anything? Water?” Shiva didn’t answer, so Chum spoke up. “I have an extra pair of shorts it you want um, Shiva. I’ll have to dig-” Shiva smashed his fists into the rock on either side of him. The saplings crushed under his buried knuckles. His head fell backward and his neck bulged. When his cheeks ballooned I flinched and vomit squeezed through his lips, arcing to each of our heads. We backed away, wiping our eyelids and staring at the fountain. The vomit was a rainbow of myriad tope materials, some digested, others, like golf balls, rolled from his mouth to the puddle of pus that had collected at our feet. The pud-
dle grew, from a pool to a pond, and when the banks of the pond slipped, to a river. The putrefaction collected into yellow waves that pounded our chests downstream. They pulled us from our feet and battered us with chunks of macaroni and dislodged testicles. I spun in the pus, twisted, breaking the surface of the rot with an open mouth that carved a path for the three of us. I watched the trees blur and the deer hooves my cheeks are a stepping stone. Alex’s arm glittered while grabbing at the canopy. We choked synchronously, but puking only added to the river, now a blue water river I plunked to the bottom of the bank and saw that our putrid vehicle was a trickle now. I panted while watching granola pile onto a pair of boots in front of me. “What happened to you three?” crunching on granola. “Shiva turned into a fountain.” Crunch, crunch, crunch, “Huh? Y’all camp here if ya want to. All this riverbank is mine. Anybody stay here without my permission and I gut um, but y’all look like you need some rest.” Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. “Y’all hungry?” I looked from the granola boots to a pair of acid washed jeans, to a neon shirt cut at the sleeves and finally to a blond ponytail flopped carelessly over his shoulder. I squinted past the particles of vomit that were stuck to my eyelashes and asked his name. “Eric.” A steel pipe, obese and com-
pletely rusted, ran the length of the river, not tapering or losing weight for as far as I could see. Behind Eric a jet of water blasted from a valve. The whistle of air pressure leveling faded. Crunch, crunch, crunch, “Don’t mind that thing. I always mean to fix it. Don’t know how, though. Well, make yourselves comfortable, I‘ll be back in a few.” The three of us walked up and down the pipe looking for a place to camp, spinning when water jetted from the valve. The pipe was over a mile long and disappeared into the side of a mountain. Huge piles of trash and forgotten gear (like sleeping bags and camping stoves and tarps and rope) insulated most of the alcoves and inhabitable spots to camp. Alex pointed to a restaurant sitting on a cliff above the pipe. “I thought we were in the middle of the Oregon woods?” “We were.” Near an end of the pipe we found a spot with an acceptable amount of trash to hang our hammocks from. Alex found an old tetherball pole jutting from the crack of a granite boulder; he anchored one side of his hammock to a bend in the steel. The other end of his hammock swung from the bell of a saxophone that had been partially covered by a mound of cement; half of a banjo head, flute keys, the cracked neck of a lute and a piano lid all peaked from the lump of instruments. Chum strung his from a low hanging tree branch to a stack of dry wall. I tied mine from his dry wall rope to a badly rusted phone booth. We crawled into hammocks
and swung, formulated hypotheses regarding our location and yawned and scratched as pine needles blanketed our torsos. A few dropped past me. How many people would think us lazy, I wondered, resting on a river, jobless, begging for rides and slopping through trashcans for food? Swinging by a river is fine. I yawned and rolled to my side in the hammock. Eric returned with a twelve pack of beer. An armful of gas station grub was cradled in his other arm. He told us that he had a deal worked out with a gas station attendant that ‘worked down the street’, but none of us could fathom, even considering our ride in the putrid river, that we had drifted that close to civilization. Eric asked that we enjoy ourselves and left us. Alex furthered his carnivorous diet by gnashing at a cheeseburger in his right hand; with his left, he picked a sausage burrito from the pile and rotated bites. Chum ate our leftover buns and complained that gas stations didn’t sell or throw out tofu. Halfway into my meatloaf sandwich I realized it was far too sweet to be healthy, or close to fresh. I kicked it aside and finished my corndog. The next morning I woke with a leg dangling from my hammock and a string of cheese attached to my chest from my beard. A flute was playing somewhere in the trees. Chum and Alex sat up. Without discussing it, we packed and followed the music. Entranced, we splashed through a puddle of vomit, walked past Eric
without acknowledgment and stumbled back to the Autonomous Mutant Fest. My string of cheese broke. The flute was played by a potbelly leaning on his calloused elbow. He stared at Chum while he pissed into a bedpan. Behind us, a calliope erupted. We spun to the circus’s stage. They called, “Come one, come all!” and we obeyed. A clown snorted coke off a tight rope he was walking with his hands. A kid from the trains played his guitar, announced his birthday and gulped down whiskey. After his songs he drank with us. Patched overalls rolled kegs of home brew into the crowd. I bartered a marker for infinite beer, hummed Bohemian Rhapsody into a thirty person sing along and the calliope joined, and it was dark, and I swam beside a fire and he punched my friend and I punched him and I fell with him and watched him bloody under four pairs of boots. And I ate raw pasta. And I woke in the meadow, covered in dew, the stars fading, without Alex and Chum. Idaho Fuck meatloaf. I could hardly move. Alex and Chum dragged me from onramp to onramp like a couple of pack mules. We’d find a spot with enough room on the shoulder for a car to pull onto, smiling at my thumb while squatting on my bag, when my insides bubbled into a pincushion. I pictured my grandmother
in the fetal position, knitting in my colon. If I moved enough to nudge an elbow or delay a stitch, she’d deliberately stab at my tissues, or carve her initials into membranes with needles and crocheting tools. She’d sometimes yell that she was trying to concentrate on a particularly difficult pattern and that I didn’t have to be such an asshole. At these times, when my grandmother was prolific, Chum and Alex would each grab an ass cheek and press. They scooted me to a restaurant, and once a bookstore. During these waddling marathons I felt my sphincter ease, but never informed them of the danger. If they couldn’t withstand a blast of my diarrhea, what kind of friends were they? Surely we’re to hold each other’s ass cheeks firm against the other. After shitting at a gas station near an onramp in Idaho, and in a lighter mood, we caught a ride heading east. We were on the road with the driver for five minutes, listening to his geological categories, when my grandmother grew bored with the conversation and jabbed at my prostate. I asked the driver if he could pull into the next rest stop. Chum and Alex rolled their eyes, but mine were contorted and bloodshot. The driver complied, pityingly, and I ran to the restrooms, pressing my own ass cheeks. Overalls slipped from my body like gel and a foul mixture of foreign organisms propelled by blurbs and pockets of gas. I wiped my face. The toilet paper clumped on my forehead. Someone wheezed in the stall over and based on the rasp I figured he was ninety. I sensed tension and
heard his glasses hit the floor. A gaseous baseline was his formal introduction, followed quickly by sighs of relief and a brass ensemble. He toyed with jazz theory before coughing and sopping his face with a technology far more advanced than my toilet paper. Handkerchief? I was dealing with a professional. My grandmother took pride in my diarrhea and wouldn’t be outdone by a sagging old man. She ground into my backbone, twirled my intestines and flailed her arms with a total disregard for the mittens she’d been working on. I began with an E, wavering as a flute would, that drowned in an onslaught of didgeridoos, mistuned harps and electric guitars. It was messy, and I knew it. I hardly finished before the old man was plucking “Nashville Blues” with an ass hair banjo. My grandmother must have been dehydrated or unconscious from the battle, so I tried supplementing the old man’s tune with a few good wipes of the ass, which, obviously, was supposed to be a washboard, but it didn’t sound right. The old pro laughed; from his ass, but I knew what he meant. A handkerchief sailed over the stall and landed on my lap. “Good luck, kid,” as he washed his hands and his spurs clinked to his car. Alex, Chum and I filled our water jugs at a gas station outside Boise. As I clipped my orange juice jug to my pack my grandmother
rolled to her side, fast asleep in my colon. She was likely being chased by giant crocheting needles and, as a result, kicked my asshole. I ran to the restroom, squeezing my ass cheeks, and locked the door behind me. I struggled with a strap of the overalls, distracted by my pulsing anus, but finally pulled them to my ankles. Shit showered to the toilet seat, which I later cleaned, sat down and fired a few rhythmic squirts at the toilet. My grandmother dreamed of hand pumping a well. I hoped that she’d fall in, that I’d shit her out and laugh as I buried her with toilet paper, but I cringed and another vile river flowed into the toilet. I heard a knock at the door. I squeaked, “Occupied.” Realizing a newspaper was resting in the sink, I turned to the comics and folded to Blondie. Another knock at the door. “Occupied.” “Mom, I have to peeeeeee!” Brats. I used to piss in cereal bags when I was their age. I read Slylock Fox for a few minutes; decorating the inner bowl of the toilet each time I discovered a clue. I scanned Dilbert. Knock, knock, knock. “There’s someone in here! Fuck!” I shrugged my shirt’s collar into a more comfortable position and thought about farting in their peanut butter. As enthralled as I was with Haggard the Horrible, I had forgotten to wipe. Layers of diarrhea were cooling on my ass cheeks and distracted me from the comics. I wiped, sighed and patted my face with the old man’s hand-
kerchief. A solid turd swung from an ass hair and back flipped to the water. I peeked through my legs and discovered that it was one of my grandmother’s mittens. “Must be recovering,” I thought, relieved. I flipped the paper and started the first panel of Pearls Before Swine before another set of knocks. “God damn it!” “Sir, it’s been nearly half an hour since you entered these facilities and other people need to use the restroom.” “Alright, I’ll be right out.” I heard the mom thank the attendant and say that she would wait for her kids in the car. I stood to wipe, and to admire what I’d made, but couldn’t have photographed the activity. My feces had coagulated around my grandmother’s mitten. Half-digested noodles spiraled from the base of one turd to its peak and, connecting to the peak of another, spiraled to its base. A steamboat tugged through a thickening swamp, boarding passengers at ports. A gothic cathedral assembled itself from a pile of rotting vegetables. I straitened a flying buttress and wiped it on my forehead. “...My asshole is a city planner,” I thought, rubbing a bus stop into my beard. Myriad government buildings sprinkled the bowl (capital buildings, law offices and elementary school yards); piles of cornhusks from a field in Iowa— pockmarked continents, fecal people drowning on land and their pets. I heard a frustrated buzzing, like billions of
bees needing to pollinate but suffering from some unknown genetic defect. I dipped my hands into the toilet bowl, past the diarrhea, to a patch of water underneath. I uprooted my fecal cathedral and smeared it on my forehead, admiring the granular scrub. I dipped again, this time for a schoolyard, then a jazz club. I caked my face and my forearms. I gridlocked my neck. I wiped my ass and reached for the door, but remembered the poor bees and flushed out of sympathy. A knock. I unlocked the door, flung it open and stared at the kids. A car dealership slipped from my face to one of the boy’s lemon lime soft drinks, splashing. Carbonation attached to their faces and one by one the bubbles burst, releasing particles of feces that orbited the boy’s heads. They smelt inside of me, saw my grandmother hanging limp from my anus and screamed. I screamed back and they ran to their parent’s SUV, crying. I walked past the cashiers, now on the telephone, outside to Chum and Alex. “What the fuck!? What the fuck is that dude? Is that shit?“ “We have to go.“ “Wait, what the fuck!?“ I told them how, at first, I hovered gracefully above the toilet seat; how my legs cramped; how shit streamed from my asshole to the toilet. I told them how I read the comics with a purple face and about the knocks and how my hard on swung from left to right. “That doesn’t explain why you’re covered in shit.”
“So.”