The Last Time: Part 1
You never know these days when you do anything if it’s for the last time. So I just keep jerking off in defiance of death. It’s the perfect quarantine pastime. It’s not an antidote to loneliness, though. Never was. Trust me. I’m an expert in both.
Since the crisis started my dog walking gigs have dried up like pooch piss on a sunny sidewalk, and of course my private eye days are long behind me, unless you count my existential examination of life. That’s an ongoing mystery. Few clues to share right now, sorry. The world is always one step ahead of me, making it hard to follow. I was always lousy at surveillance, anyway.
Now everyone is getting laid off. I’m still trying to get laid, or get off. That was always hard to do, even before social distancing, one trend I actually pioneered, but as usual nobody knows it but me.
I got my share of poon tang, I guess. But as I grow older, I find myself masturbating to memories of sex more than actually creating new ones. Life is not a gourmet buffet. Like presidential elections, it’s often a case of choosing between bad and worse. Like growing old vs. dying young. Not sure, but I think I’m in the high risk demographic for this thing. My underlying condition is I’m a loser by nature. That tends to undermine one’s chances of beating anything, except one’s self.
On the bright side of this noir equation, I’m a pretty pessimistic person anyway. I doubt I’d ever test positive for anything, except negativity.
I’m lost in this morbid contemplation of my own doom mixed with mental images of Bettie Page when the phone rings again.
Since the crisis started my dog walking gigs have dried up like pooch piss on a sunny sidewalk, and of course my private eye days are long behind me, unless you count my existential examination of life. That’s an ongoing mystery. Few clues to share right now, sorry. The world is always one step ahead of me, making it hard to follow. I was always lousy at surveillance, anyway.
Now everyone is getting laid off. I’m still trying to get laid, or get off. That was always hard to do, even before social distancing, one trend I actually pioneered, but as usual nobody knows it but me.
I got my share of poon tang, I guess. But as I grow older, I find myself masturbating to memories of sex more than actually creating new ones. Life is not a gourmet buffet. Like presidential elections, it’s often a case of choosing between bad and worse. Like growing old vs. dying young. Not sure, but I think I’m in the high risk demographic for this thing. My underlying condition is I’m a loser by nature. That tends to undermine one’s chances of beating anything, except one’s self.
On the bright side of this noir equation, I’m a pretty pessimistic person anyway. I doubt I’d ever test positive for anything, except negativity.
I’m lost in this morbid contemplation of my own doom mixed with mental images of Bettie Page when the phone rings again.
The Last Time: Part 2
.My smartphone. Yes, I have one, though it’s smarter than me . Not entirely sure how it works, but it takes pictures and I can talk on it, too. Look at me, figuring things out for myself.
I answer it because what the hell, a voice is a voice, and that’s always good these days, especially if it’s coming from outside your own head. Not sure who it could be. I hardly know anyone in Seattle even though I’ve been here for years. Hard to maintain associates in this gloomy town, even if I wanted to. Relationships hit icebergs even in the warmest conditions. It’s called the Seattle freeze. Ironically, that’s one reason I moved here from San Francisco so long ago. Some like it cool. I’ve always avoided eye contact, except for actual eye contacts, unless there was a hot body attached. Now all anyone lusts after is antibodies.
I suppose that’s crude and sexist. But in a global pandemic, it’s petty to pick on our human faults and foibles. We’re all going to die anyway. If not this, something. So what if we’re bastards. Nature doesn’t care. It’s not personal.
Okay, maybe it is.
I answer it because what the hell, a voice is a voice, and that’s always good these days, especially if it’s coming from outside your own head. Not sure who it could be. I hardly know anyone in Seattle even though I’ve been here for years. Hard to maintain associates in this gloomy town, even if I wanted to. Relationships hit icebergs even in the warmest conditions. It’s called the Seattle freeze. Ironically, that’s one reason I moved here from San Francisco so long ago. Some like it cool. I’ve always avoided eye contact, except for actual eye contacts, unless there was a hot body attached. Now all anyone lusts after is antibodies.
I suppose that’s crude and sexist. But in a global pandemic, it’s petty to pick on our human faults and foibles. We’re all going to die anyway. If not this, something. So what if we’re bastards. Nature doesn’t care. It’s not personal.
Okay, maybe it is.
The Last Time: Part 3
I’m half hoping it’s my missing wife on the line. But no, just music again. So maybe it is her. Once more, like old times, it’s the sound of a scratchy 45, not the kind you shoot yourself with after swilling a bottle of tears. Sinatra singing “The Last Dance.” I put it to my ear and get up and dance around the dingy little room by myself, Billy Idol style, the cheap dive’s red neon sign beaming from outside the window like a satanic spotlight. Once the song ends, as it always does, the caller, no ID, hangs up. I try dialing *69 but that doesn’t work on these fancy 21st pocket computers.
Years ago, in the previous century, pre-pandemic—the cultural divide in our common consciousness— a stalker I labeled The Phone Phantom used to leave me these mysterious musical messages on something called an answering machine. I had no idea who it was, though I had my suspicions, until I met Val, my missing wife, who confessed. She was courting me from the shadows of my consciousness long before we got met ’n’ married. I hope she’s still on my trail, wherever she’s hiding now.
I remember the last time we kissed, the last time we made love, the last time we watched movies together. The last time we laughed. I wish I had her here with me now, I mean in physical form, not this spiritual jazz. Solitude for me was a thing of the past, I thought. Now it’s everyone’s present. A present we’d all like to re-gift.
So I jerk off again, thinking of Val and Bettie Page and all my many lovers, real or imagined, trying to get a grip on reality, but it keeps slipping through my sticky fingers, despite my ennui-induced erections.
I can’t remember the last time anything was this hard.
Years ago, in the previous century, pre-pandemic—the cultural divide in our common consciousness— a stalker I labeled The Phone Phantom used to leave me these mysterious musical messages on something called an answering machine. I had no idea who it was, though I had my suspicions, until I met Val, my missing wife, who confessed. She was courting me from the shadows of my consciousness long before we got met ’n’ married. I hope she’s still on my trail, wherever she’s hiding now.
I remember the last time we kissed, the last time we made love, the last time we watched movies together. The last time we laughed. I wish I had her here with me now, I mean in physical form, not this spiritual jazz. Solitude for me was a thing of the past, I thought. Now it’s everyone’s present. A present we’d all like to re-gift.
So I jerk off again, thinking of Val and Bettie Page and all my many lovers, real or imagined, trying to get a grip on reality, but it keeps slipping through my sticky fingers, despite my ennui-induced erections.
I can’t remember the last time anything was this hard.
Next!
We're rolled onto the treadmill as soon as we’re spit out of the oven. Death is already waiting to pop us into its mouth one by one, like Lucy and Ethel in that chocolate factory bit. Something is going to eat us alive, sooner or later. Just a matter of when we get snatched off the assembly line. Then we’re chewed up and swallowed back into the beast of the belly, shat and flushed down the cosmic drain into the eternal sewer.
I don’t know about you, but I’m afraid of Death. Life scares me too, but Life is a foe I know. It’s the unknown killer lurking in the shadows that keeps me perpetually paranoid. Sometimes that paranoia flares into panic, which isn’t helped by all the chaos and suffering on TV. I turned off the news to watch giallo movies instead. Stylized sex and murder, Italian style, is so soothing by comparison. Sometimes I just stare into space, waiting to disappear.
Like now, gazing with passive sadness at the eerily tranquil still life of Puget Sound outside my window, which is as deceptively quiet and peaceful as a beautiful butchered corpse floating face down in the water, an oblivious heron hitching a ride on her ice cold back as they both float in the misty sunlight.
I don’t have a thermometer other than my dick, but I know I have a fever and chills. Not the kind I get watching Edwige Fenech stretched out nude. More the kind that means I just got slashed down the middle by an unseen stalker. I don’t have a cough. But my throat is sore as hell, I got pink eye, and I’m shitting more than Satan after a day’s worth of devouring sweet little souls.
I think back on my life as I sit there in the dark, a blanket around my shivering shoulders, jazz on the radio, a near empty bottle of bourbon on the nightstand. I’m too tired to even dream of better times.
Doesn’t stop me from hallucinating them, though.
I don’t know about you, but I’m afraid of Death. Life scares me too, but Life is a foe I know. It’s the unknown killer lurking in the shadows that keeps me perpetually paranoid. Sometimes that paranoia flares into panic, which isn’t helped by all the chaos and suffering on TV. I turned off the news to watch giallo movies instead. Stylized sex and murder, Italian style, is so soothing by comparison. Sometimes I just stare into space, waiting to disappear.
Like now, gazing with passive sadness at the eerily tranquil still life of Puget Sound outside my window, which is as deceptively quiet and peaceful as a beautiful butchered corpse floating face down in the water, an oblivious heron hitching a ride on her ice cold back as they both float in the misty sunlight.
I don’t have a thermometer other than my dick, but I know I have a fever and chills. Not the kind I get watching Edwige Fenech stretched out nude. More the kind that means I just got slashed down the middle by an unseen stalker. I don’t have a cough. But my throat is sore as hell, I got pink eye, and I’m shitting more than Satan after a day’s worth of devouring sweet little souls.
I think back on my life as I sit there in the dark, a blanket around my shivering shoulders, jazz on the radio, a near empty bottle of bourbon on the nightstand. I’m too tired to even dream of better times.
Doesn’t stop me from hallucinating them, though.
Temperature Check
I was thrusting my thermometer into her furiously when I woke up and realized I’d been humping my pillow, which was now soaking wet, and not just from sweat. My dream girl had evaporated in the gray light of day again.
I’ve been there too many times. I’ve been here, too. Now I don’t know the difference between here and there.
Everybody knows the truth, and the truth is, nobody knows.
My cellphone pings, meaning I got a text message, so it ain’t music again.
It says, “Test results positive.”
The sender is Unknown. I suspect the nature of the test being referenced. I just don’t remember being tested. I’ve already been self-diagnosed as a chronic hypochondriac. It’s a fatal condition that is simply taking its time, because eventually, my fear of dying, especially alone, will confront my actual agent of Death.
My little dark room is full of monsters. Most of the time they’re invisible, but after I shiver and sweat enough, trying to sleep, I can see them, eyes wide open. I grew up watching horror movies. Now that I’m living a dystopian nightmare, they’re mere manifestations of the ghouls haunting my psyche all along. They don’t scare me. I just want them to leave me alone.
I’m gonna be killed by a monster, I’d rather it be one of those bosomy lesbian vampires from an old Hammer flick. Of course, since she’s a lesbian, she won’t enjoy the sex as much as I will, but she’ll enjoy my demise much more, so it’ll even out. I don’t believe in taking advantage of women. The pleasure must be mutual.
I feel my forehead. It’s on fire. I swig the rest of the bourbon then rub the bottle all over my face, pretending it’s the fleshy breast of an undead succubus, cold and firm. But empty, devoid of soul.
I sucked it dry, beating it to the punch. But it’s the only medicine I have. Now it’s gone. Time to venture out for a refill. Wish me luck.
I’ve been there too many times. I’ve been here, too. Now I don’t know the difference between here and there.
Everybody knows the truth, and the truth is, nobody knows.
My cellphone pings, meaning I got a text message, so it ain’t music again.
It says, “Test results positive.”
The sender is Unknown. I suspect the nature of the test being referenced. I just don’t remember being tested. I’ve already been self-diagnosed as a chronic hypochondriac. It’s a fatal condition that is simply taking its time, because eventually, my fear of dying, especially alone, will confront my actual agent of Death.
My little dark room is full of monsters. Most of the time they’re invisible, but after I shiver and sweat enough, trying to sleep, I can see them, eyes wide open. I grew up watching horror movies. Now that I’m living a dystopian nightmare, they’re mere manifestations of the ghouls haunting my psyche all along. They don’t scare me. I just want them to leave me alone.
I’m gonna be killed by a monster, I’d rather it be one of those bosomy lesbian vampires from an old Hammer flick. Of course, since she’s a lesbian, she won’t enjoy the sex as much as I will, but she’ll enjoy my demise much more, so it’ll even out. I don’t believe in taking advantage of women. The pleasure must be mutual.
I feel my forehead. It’s on fire. I swig the rest of the bourbon then rub the bottle all over my face, pretending it’s the fleshy breast of an undead succubus, cold and firm. But empty, devoid of soul.
I sucked it dry, beating it to the punch. But it’s the only medicine I have. Now it’s gone. Time to venture out for a refill. Wish me luck.
The World Before
Wait. I can’t leave my room. I’m sick, contagious. Plus I hate people. Been trying to avoid them all my life. Now they do it for me. Makes it easier.
I’m even social distancing in my dreams. Except for the wet ones.
There’s nobody out there on the streets. It’s dark now. Maybe it’s safe to sneak into a market and grab some groceries and booze.
I can’t remember how I even wound up in this hotel, alone. Last thing I recall is being home with my wife. There was no pandemic. The only plague on Earth was humanity. Now Nature was reasserting dominance. The air is cleaner, animals are happier. Only people are suffering. I have empathy only because I’m one of them.
I could just sit here and stare at myself fading away in the dirty mirror. Or just watch TV. They only have three channels. News, horror movies, and porn. The essentials.
At least I have some cash. Fuck it. I go down to the front desk. The dude is wearing a mask. Not the surgical kind. He looks likes a mutation, a hideous freak. I just keep walking, outside into the silent night.
I see a neon sign that says OPEN. It’s actually a bar. The news said they were all closed. I’m curious. I go to the door and see another sign: INFECTED ONLY.
A big bouncer comes out and stops me once I pull on the handle. He’s a monster. Literally. He looks me over carefully, sizing up my signs of physical illness. I see a stripper dancing on a stage behind him. Her body is perfect. Her face is a nightmare.
I’m reminded of Times Square in the late 70s and early 80s, when I was a young hotshot journalist, before I became a private eye. It was a neon-lit hellhole, full of smut and vermin and viruses and bodily fluids, everyone crammed together, sweating, bleeding, cumming.
Dying.
Feels like home again as I walk inside.
I’m even social distancing in my dreams. Except for the wet ones.
There’s nobody out there on the streets. It’s dark now. Maybe it’s safe to sneak into a market and grab some groceries and booze.
I can’t remember how I even wound up in this hotel, alone. Last thing I recall is being home with my wife. There was no pandemic. The only plague on Earth was humanity. Now Nature was reasserting dominance. The air is cleaner, animals are happier. Only people are suffering. I have empathy only because I’m one of them.
I could just sit here and stare at myself fading away in the dirty mirror. Or just watch TV. They only have three channels. News, horror movies, and porn. The essentials.
At least I have some cash. Fuck it. I go down to the front desk. The dude is wearing a mask. Not the surgical kind. He looks likes a mutation, a hideous freak. I just keep walking, outside into the silent night.
I see a neon sign that says OPEN. It’s actually a bar. The news said they were all closed. I’m curious. I go to the door and see another sign: INFECTED ONLY.
A big bouncer comes out and stops me once I pull on the handle. He’s a monster. Literally. He looks me over carefully, sizing up my signs of physical illness. I see a stripper dancing on a stage behind him. Her body is perfect. Her face is a nightmare.
I’m reminded of Times Square in the late 70s and early 80s, when I was a young hotshot journalist, before I became a private eye. It was a neon-lit hellhole, full of smut and vermin and viruses and bodily fluids, everyone crammed together, sweating, bleeding, cumming.
Dying.
Feels like home again as I walk inside.
Dead Dreams
If you live your life in constant fear of dying, you might as well already be dead. I was dead inside anyway. The rest would catch up soon enough, one way or another. Maybe I shouldn’t be patronizing this place, even though it’s a sanctuary for Infected only. I’m not even positive I’m positive for the virus. But the bouncer seemed to think so, and I need the company, and the booze. It’s my only medicine.
What the hell. Life has always been a series of calculated risks.
I’m just sitting on a stool staring at my drink, wondering why I’m even here. I don’t mean the bar. The planet. The shapely but grotesque stripper on stage keeps gyrating to songs by The Cramps. The bar is dark and ancient, lined with leather booths and velvet paintings of naked Tahitian girls. There’s a tiki statue inside a glowing fountain in one corner. It’s leering at me, like Death. I give it a nod. It just keeps grinning.
There’s hardly anyone else around. The few here are in booths, hidden in shadows. I’m almost alone at the bar. One guy sits at the other end, his deformed face mostly hidden from me as he contemplates his own drink without sipping, as if wondering whether to dive into a pool of acid or just hope things get better.
Like me, he’s probably thinking of everything that might’ve been, pre-pandemic. But it wasn’t the virus that killed off our dreams. It was Life itself.
I sip my tropical bourbon cocktail, recalling my mother dying in an insane asylum, my dirty cop father getting shot down in an alley, my older brother jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge. My many long lost loves. My self-aborted career as a journalist, my long, fruitless so-called career as a private eye. My days as a dog walker.
All gone now.
Then the guy at the end of the bar looks up at me and says, “I need someone to find the cure. You want a job?”
What the hell. Life has always been a series of calculated risks.
I’m just sitting on a stool staring at my drink, wondering why I’m even here. I don’t mean the bar. The planet. The shapely but grotesque stripper on stage keeps gyrating to songs by The Cramps. The bar is dark and ancient, lined with leather booths and velvet paintings of naked Tahitian girls. There’s a tiki statue inside a glowing fountain in one corner. It’s leering at me, like Death. I give it a nod. It just keeps grinning.
There’s hardly anyone else around. The few here are in booths, hidden in shadows. I’m almost alone at the bar. One guy sits at the other end, his deformed face mostly hidden from me as he contemplates his own drink without sipping, as if wondering whether to dive into a pool of acid or just hope things get better.
Like me, he’s probably thinking of everything that might’ve been, pre-pandemic. But it wasn’t the virus that killed off our dreams. It was Life itself.
I sip my tropical bourbon cocktail, recalling my mother dying in an insane asylum, my dirty cop father getting shot down in an alley, my older brother jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge. My many long lost loves. My self-aborted career as a journalist, my long, fruitless so-called career as a private eye. My days as a dog walker.
All gone now.
Then the guy at the end of the bar looks up at me and says, “I need someone to find the cure. You want a job?”
Last Call
The guy with the fucked-up face sidles over next to me. He’s wearing an overcoat and he smells bad. I social distance another seat down, but he doesn’t follow me. He gets it.
He motions to the bartender to refill both of our tiki mugs. The bartender also has a corpse-like countenance, doesn’t talk much. When I ordered my cocktail I just pointed to the menu and he nodded. I miss my old pal Doc Schlock, proprietor of The Drive-Inn down in San Francisco, above which was my studio apartment/office, long ago and far away, like the song. Doc was my best friend, next to my missing wife.
Doc is dead, though I still see him sometimes.
My wife may still be alive, but I never see her. Not lately.
“What’s the name of this joint, anyway?” I ask the zombie bartender.
“Last Call.”
“No, I meant, what’s this place called.”
He just stares at me like I took a crap on the floor.
Fuck-face laughs. “I hear you’re a dick.”
“Used to be. How did you know?”
“Grapevine.”
“Only sour grapes left here, pal.”
“You still for hire?”
“Retired.”
“This is a global emergency, if you haven’t noticed.”
“I’m not a scientist, pal. Can’t save the world. Sorry.”
“Don’t need to be an epidemiologist. Just smart.”
“Then you’re shit out of luck. I’m as dumb as they come.”
I look over at the stripper, who is inside the fountain, humping the tiki as an old-style saxophone riffs out of nowhere.
Fuck-face doesn’t seem to notice her. He taps my shoulder and says, “Listen. This job pays well. You can move out of that dump.”
“I don’t even know how I got there.”
“You mean you have amnesia?”
“Only recently. I woke up into this nightmare. Life is just a dream, anyway. I just fell asleep on the remote.”
“This is real life. And it’s getting more real by the minute. Wake up and smell the death.”
“Smell it often. I never inhale.”
He punches me in the kisser, and I go down.
He motions to the bartender to refill both of our tiki mugs. The bartender also has a corpse-like countenance, doesn’t talk much. When I ordered my cocktail I just pointed to the menu and he nodded. I miss my old pal Doc Schlock, proprietor of The Drive-Inn down in San Francisco, above which was my studio apartment/office, long ago and far away, like the song. Doc was my best friend, next to my missing wife.
Doc is dead, though I still see him sometimes.
My wife may still be alive, but I never see her. Not lately.
“What’s the name of this joint, anyway?” I ask the zombie bartender.
“Last Call.”
“No, I meant, what’s this place called.”
He just stares at me like I took a crap on the floor.
Fuck-face laughs. “I hear you’re a dick.”
“Used to be. How did you know?”
“Grapevine.”
“Only sour grapes left here, pal.”
“You still for hire?”
“Retired.”
“This is a global emergency, if you haven’t noticed.”
“I’m not a scientist, pal. Can’t save the world. Sorry.”
“Don’t need to be an epidemiologist. Just smart.”
“Then you’re shit out of luck. I’m as dumb as they come.”
I look over at the stripper, who is inside the fountain, humping the tiki as an old-style saxophone riffs out of nowhere.
Fuck-face doesn’t seem to notice her. He taps my shoulder and says, “Listen. This job pays well. You can move out of that dump.”
“I don’t even know how I got there.”
“You mean you have amnesia?”
“Only recently. I woke up into this nightmare. Life is just a dream, anyway. I just fell asleep on the remote.”
“This is real life. And it’s getting more real by the minute. Wake up and smell the death.”
“Smell it often. I never inhale.”
He punches me in the kisser, and I go down.
Voodoo Virus
The crazy, ugly guy who knocked me off my stool and wants to hire me to solve the Case of the End of the World is named Doctor Floyd Something. Or Doctor Something Floyd. There are three parts but I only caught two when he introduced himself after hitting me. I’m already drunk. I decide to order a sandwich with my next drink, but because I’m vegan, all I can eat is bread with pickles and tomatoes; side of chips, so that’s almost a meal. Still, the bourbon went to my head, but that was the intended destination anyway.
“Sorry for that,” he says sincerely. “I’m on edge. And desperate. I don’t understand your attitude.”
“I don’t need you to understand. Just don’t wanna be a detective anymore. No future in it.”
“No future in anything, for any us.”
“There you go. Why bother. I can’t even enjoy my own misery in peace these days. Too much company.”
“What else you need to do with whatever time you have left?”
“Remember.”
“What?”
“Everything.”
“Why?”
“I want to remember my life while I’m still alive to remember it.”
“Is it worth remembering?”
“It’s a long joke on me with no punchline. But it’s the only story I got.”
“You still have time to change the ending.”
“Hey pal, I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, or how you know my personal and professional business. I also don’t care. Nothing surprises me anymore and I stopped wasting questions due to an answer shortage. Despite what you might’ve heard, I possess no secret exorcism spell against viral virility, my volatile new friend.”
“Your wife sent me.”
The stripper had worked her way across the room and instead of undulating against the tiki in the fountain, she’s rubbing up against me in time with a Les Baxter tune. Little Elvis sits up straight in my pants, leaking through my rumpled sharkskin suit. I loosen my skinny tie and kiss her, despite her freakish facial features.
“I ain’t got a wife anymore,” I tell Dr. Floyd.
“Sorry for that,” he says sincerely. “I’m on edge. And desperate. I don’t understand your attitude.”
“I don’t need you to understand. Just don’t wanna be a detective anymore. No future in it.”
“No future in anything, for any us.”
“There you go. Why bother. I can’t even enjoy my own misery in peace these days. Too much company.”
“What else you need to do with whatever time you have left?”
“Remember.”
“What?”
“Everything.”
“Why?”
“I want to remember my life while I’m still alive to remember it.”
“Is it worth remembering?”
“It’s a long joke on me with no punchline. But it’s the only story I got.”
“You still have time to change the ending.”
“Hey pal, I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, or how you know my personal and professional business. I also don’t care. Nothing surprises me anymore and I stopped wasting questions due to an answer shortage. Despite what you might’ve heard, I possess no secret exorcism spell against viral virility, my volatile new friend.”
“Your wife sent me.”
The stripper had worked her way across the room and instead of undulating against the tiki in the fountain, she’s rubbing up against me in time with a Les Baxter tune. Little Elvis sits up straight in my pants, leaking through my rumpled sharkskin suit. I loosen my skinny tie and kiss her, despite her freakish facial features.
“I ain’t got a wife anymore,” I tell Dr. Floyd.