Brit and Nina and the boy crying as they drive.
Like, legit, thinks Shane, we’re ready to die.
Craig,
I wonder where this is going, and I really wonder what it all means. You’re searching for something, and while me and Shane and Nina are running from something, maybe searching and running are like flipside of the same coin kinda deal, you know?
My dad gave me your first book. People think people like us don’t read shit. That we’re dumb, don’t they? Like because dad was a mechanic he was dumb. But we both know that’s not true don’t we, Craig? Just look at you, and look at your people. The people who maybe read your first book or your second would otherwise think you’re like dirt, don’t you think? I know that’s probably something that energizes you. That like anger or whatever you wanna call it.
Sometimes I close my eyes, and I can see you. You’re working your job and you’re serving these people at the fancy resto. And most likely these people are treating you like garbage. I guess that’s a common enough thing. Dad always talked about that sort of thing, you know? Like, people hating on you, I guess. Because of your job.
There’s this dive you like to go to when you get off work at night, and you like to go there alone, but you always run into someone you know, but this one time you were sitting at the bar alone and some baby-boomer guy asked you what you did for a living and you told him you’re a waiter and the first thing he said was, You must have higher aspirations than that, and you were just drunk enough to threaten breaking your beer bottle over his head. You don’t do that very often because you’re not much of a tough guy are you?
But something you love is that these people who can spend the mad bucks to eat at where you work prolly don’t read shit, and they def don’t know about your work—but then sometimes, someone will recognize you or something. Like maybe they like indy shit. And you’ll get this swell of pride up until the point this random person will start talking about you as though you were some kind of weird trinket they found at the antique shop or the like curiosity store or like that boutique-fashion-outlet, one-of-a-kind, special-order number. And then you go back to your anger again.
Listen to me, okay? I want you to know that you’re good. And we’re good too over here where we are. We really are good, too, despite your misgivings. Okay? At least. I am. I’m like you. And I’m scared. I’m more like you maybe than anyone you’ve ever met.
Brit
The best thing that could ever happen to you is finding, like, a suitcase of cash in the trunk of a car you just stole.
Ever notice how the universe provides?
Except not for everyone—maybe it’s just God’s people—like, yo, who do you pray to, dawg?
Shane prays to green, except it’s not green because this is the North and our money is bullshit.
Brown, red, green, purple, blue and then, like, a bunch of lame-ass coins.
Like our money is Gay Pride or some shit?
Like rainbows and jingle-bells?
But anyway, this here suitcase is filled to the top with like everlasting bundles of twenties, so at least those motherfuckers are green.
Like evergreen—the Northern forest, G—money—shit’ll never die, know what I mean?
They’d pulled into the parking lot of a TexaBucks and popped the trunk just to see, right, like Leo might have a fucking body back there—who knows?—and then like, BAM, when he opened the case he heard the girls’ pussies start dripping simultaneously, you know?
Legit—the big-ass Falls are, like, right there up the highway, but it’s also right here.
Like Love Canal, know what I mean? Love Canal and the Hooker Company—you can’t make this shit up.
Like, serious puddles on the asphalt from the girls.
And then Nina and Brit are dancing around super excited—trucker dudes and fat moms and dads and old people all staring at them—Shane’s like, Yo, like fucking chill.
But no Agents, and no drones—just welfare cases and fucking dumb-ass motherfuckers hawking TexaBucks crack-addict coffee shit and working on their English conversational and missing Sri Lanka or wherever, yo, like I’m serious.
The girls are like—Let’s stay at the MEGAHILTON!
And Shane’s like—Naw, naw, naw. We need to be spooks. Like total ghosts.
So they ended up at a cheap motel, where, on the bed, Nina counted out the money and the kid watched cartoons and Shane and Brit both paced and paced and paced the floor til the sun came up.
There’s one hundred grand give or take, but like Shane says, No planes. But how long before Leo’s Caddy is on the radar of the pigs?
There’s something going on that Shane’ll never mention, but Nina’s worried as fuck about.
And that’s that Shane’s dad is bat-shit crazy.
Not just cause he moved to the Island, which is like, fucked up, no—
Here’s a picture of Shane’s dad with a Royal Wedding Commemorative Plate.
That should say it all.
That princess bitch who died, you know? Fairy tales that get like totally fucked up.
But Nina thought she was hot anyway. Like that 80s hair-style. Like cool, you know—like retro. Like bowl cut, you know? Munching some royal pussy—MINT. But Nina’d be like, Yo, Di, you gotta shave that shit, yo, know what I mean? Like fucking pube Amazon. Like 1983 or whatever.
And the way Shane talks about that princess bitch, it’s like all mysterious like. Shane thinks she was murdered because her bloodline went back to like the Egyptians or whatever, and those guys were like half-lizard people or some shit like that.
But yeah, Shane’s dad is seriously fucked, man.
Here’s another one of Shane’s dad with his prized Royal Daulton Queen Mother Statuette.
Shane’s like—Yo, don’t make fun. It’s cause he believes in the royal family, right? He’s from Cornwall, you know. That monarchy shit—he loves it.
Also, Nina’s like one quarter Arab, so she’s pretty sure Shane’s dad is like, Shane, your girlfriend’s a terrorist. Even though her family back in Beirut had to bail cause of the war, right? Like 1983, motherfucker.
And Nina’s kid sister down south was in a protest organized by Tariq(e), so there’s that too.
Like, trouble, you know?
Like, what would Sissy call it? Familial tensions or whatever.
Intergenerational conflict.
But really, Nina has no idea how fucked Shane’s dad is.
Shane’s at the table in the motel room when it occurs to him. Making ham and cheese sandwiches for everyone, the loaf of white bread at his elbow. Heard of those scientists, G? Like, time travel?
Shit’s fucked—like, the multiverse, yo.
He remembers one time back at the crib, the Orton Park bus pulling up down there on the corner—he pulled a bag of bread from a cupboard and saw that something had eaten a hole from one end straight through to the other. Like a mouse or whatever—or a giant-ass cockroach.
Verse—his poetry, yo—will that shit survive a nuclear holocaust? Like forever?
So like how can this infinite thing be expanding, he’d like to know—that’s how fucked the universe is.
But anyway, that tunnel eaten through the bread was how those scientists talked about space-time, right? Like you could meet another you in some alternate reality or whatever except maybe it’d be you from the past or the future or maybe you were dead in that one, who knows?
So yeah—it’s like this—bread, mayo, cheese, ham, bread—it’s simple as shit but not because there’s this universe and then the one right next door, right—and that mouse motherfucker back in T Dot was, or like is, or like will be, a fucking CHRONONAUT if you know what I mean. Cute little mouse space suit except it’s more like time suit or whatever. Like that’s a Lockheed/Disney co-pro blockbuster yo for sure—with TexaBucks fucking fill ups and coffee and ammo thrown in or some shit for good measure—like travel, G—that’s dope, and that’s what I’m thinking about right now wat
ching the girls sleep and the kid, Carter, is like glued to the TV screen and, based on the way he crams that sandwich into his mouth, like starved—just like his mother.
Brit thinks about how sad it must be to live in a trailer park.
Your mom a hot MILF banging the guy who bullied you in high school.
There was one thing, one possession, she knew she couldn’t leave behind when they split the apartment, and it wasn’t the Shit Journal, it wasn’t her Hitachi, her fun wand, her pipe—it was the print-out copy of the script from 8 Mile—dogeared, crumpled, a patina of stains on the pages whose provenance she couldn’t guess (Tommy, Shane, Nina, Dad, Craig?)—here she is, now, in the bathroom of the motel room, clutching it to her breast, only seven of her fake nails still intact—seven red berets, seven gunshot wounds—and the missing ones—a pinkie, a thumb, an index finger—were those her, Shane, and Nina?
In the next room, the boy with cartoons on bust—BLAM BLAM BLAM goes a gun on the television.
Eminem went west to escape, and they are going east.
The 7-0-9 is a shithole. Like everywhere else.
I’m nothing: not even lame enough to be a real poet like Shane. Like I’m nothing compared to Shane.
A wet red hole is what I am.
She brings her painted mouth down to the cover page and kisses it.
A red wet hole and when I die they’ll take my body and bronze my pussy.
I’m through—like done. Like legit, man. Like this—we’re going into the very dark heart—the jungle, the past, the deep south on a raft, except not—except a heart made of bullshit—7-0-9, the Rock, the Nova—like the end, fuckers—the end.
Cornwall—where Shane’s dad’s from.
And the Rock, where they’re going.
Here’s Nina and Brit checking out the road map of the North North American Zone.
Brit thinking she should see her dad, but maybe not.
She’d be like, Good bye, and he’d be like, I’m going to save you.
And at the edge of the map—nothing.
A white border.
Lines that mean highways and roads and rivers and tributaries which are really all just veins and arteries or whatever. And marked between borders of the provinces, those checkpoints where they, like, scan your eyes with a laser and can read every email and text you ever wrote.
That time Brit got the clap—blood making the toilet water pink—it’s there for any motherfucker to read on a screen somewhere, you know?
How to get through? That’s what the girls are wondering, and also: beyond the white edge of the map there’s those other shitty provinces and then the real end of the road.
Shane’s like, Don’t worry, you’ll love it. Nothing ever happens there. It’s, like, chill.
But the girls ain’t buying it.
Brit slides her hand under the map and up Nina’s thigh as Shane speaks.
It’s like pre-modern, yo, Shane says. It’s like the Dark Ages, or like pirate days, right?
It’s like real. That’s why Dad loves it. And it’s as close to home as you can get.
It’s like the past, Shane says. Like time travel.
He holds up the loaf of bread in its plastic bag as if to prove something.
His eyes so hot just then, the girls not listening.
Nina’s sister would say: What you’re doing is disrupting hetero-normative relationships.
And Nina would say: That’s bullshit.
Nina’s sister: a Gender Studies major with a minor in Poli Sci.
Brit sucks two fingers and pushes them in.
Nina’s pelvis rising off the mattress.
After the orgasm comes, she sees the shadows in the room darkened in its bright motherfucking aftermath—like, the best.
Tsar Bomba—3800 Hiroshimas.
But that was long ago.
And these days, Shane says, they’ve got something called the Twinkie that makes the Tsar Bomba look like a baby fart.
Shane says, Listen, Michael Jackson ain’t dead.
After the Pepsi commercial they chipped that motherfucker and pimped his brain.
Likewise, you don’t know shit about Hitler.
Hitler died of old age in 1986 in Brazil.
You don’t like what I’m saying to you but it’s only cause you’re ignorant of the facts. Or what later became the facts.
Watch Tariq(e)’s speech from the bomb crater down south, or the CEO’s State of the Union.
Everybody’s chipped, G.
One word for you—CLONE LAB.
Reptiles, yo. They chip you, they pimp your brain, and if you don’t do what you’re told, you’re dead meat. Like meat on a hook. Like Whitney Houston dead—her and her whole family one-two-three.
Or what’s worse is the theatre down in the basement of CLONE LAB where they’ve got you strapped in and rich people watch dude cut strips off and eat you and they applaud and shit like that.
Some of them can’t even eat, like, real food anymore cause they’ve got an addiction to human flesh and that’s it.
Celebrities—show me one who hasn’t been gaped by a Green-lighter, and I will show you a clone cause clones don’t have sex organs.
You ever seen Hostel? That’s basically the whole story.
Straight up—if you’re righteous you know what I’m saying and you watch for the signs and even those closest to you—like the way Nina and Brit are with me and vice versa—even then you gotta watch and listen close because even Eminem was took. There’s this photo of him and, like, how’d his hairline change so much so quick?
And then Proof was shot outside that club in Detroit and Slim Shady is like Elvis Presley and who did Elvis give up to those motherfuckers for his career?
His twin brother that died at birth, G.
Because this cult shit goes deeper than language or even consciousness, so how do you guard against that?
And they chipped MJ and cloned him and then they bleached the clone’s skin and if you look at his nose you see it’s basically like a robot’s nose.
The cult. The House of the New Swamp. The government. Your mayor, your fucking representative.
And like Tariq(e), yo—totally in on it all—holding hands with the CEO all the way to the gates of Hell.
Like it’s right in front of your face, and you can’t see it.
It’s the eyes, yo. It’s always something about the eyes is how you know—like before they were elected, the CEO’s eyes were, like, more human than they are now. And that’s another way they get you is they make you do sex torture with another man and Tupac is the same thing too and like Tupac is my boy but it’s too bad because it’s a proven fact he was in on it so it’s the worst thing but also the best thing to be on the run right now because it means they haven’t took us yet and I know for sure they haven’t gotten any of us except maybe the boy, who may have been chipped and pimped and cloned and planted there at Nina’s grandma’s, because one thing about those fucking reptiles, yo, those bitches have got long-term plans for all of us and whatever the Ktulu shit is they’re planning has got fuck all to do with me so like I said listen up and hear me because none of us are gonna get tooken on this trip and once we get to the 7-0-9 and the old house and Dad we’ll be safe as houses like Dad likes to say, so fuck you and open your damn eyes to the truth.
Leo’s Cadillac goes through the guardrail beside the road and rumbles through the underbrush, the sound of the limbs of the trees like claws on the paint and the chrome.
Night—plum-coloured air and Nina can’t believe how loud it is, the trunk popping open and the tail lights of the car like the eyes of the devil—like the YouTube vid of that interview with Nicki Minaj that Shane made her watch.
In the vid it’s some lame affect—like Photoshop or whatever—but this is real, like so real she sees the glow from those eyes on the faces of her boy and on Shane and Brit’s faces as the Caddy plummets over a ridge and then there’s this boom and crunch and a weird silence once the car is stopped
and she sees its headlights shine again for a moment in the distance and then it’s gone.
And there’s something about that instant—the white light from the car on the trunks of the trees off down the distance—like a camera flash or an epiphany, that makes Nina, like, scared shitless for some reason.
Like, how the truth fucks up your shit, and you don’t wanna see it.
She thinks she’d follow Shane anywhere, do anything for him, but maybe there ain’t any cult after them and the world is just basically a giant shithole with people killing each other all the time either slowly, like starvation style, or with drone strikes or sarin gas or whatever and there’s no plan or web to it other than just killing to grow your bank roll.
But there’s also now this soft hissing sound, and Brit’s like, It’s the tires spinning in the air, and Nina realizes how quiet it is until a transport truck comes hurtling out of the night around the near corner, the four of them gripped briefly in the shock and roar of its engine, and Nina thinks, Like, hey, the truth’s just like that too, you know? Sudden as fuck.
Like, whatever—like Shane saying to them back at the motel—This shit ain’t safe no more, and so now, here they are ditching that sucker in the woods, a shiver going through Nina as Carter, eyes big and glossy, takes hold of her hand and likewise. The next day at that truck-stop restaurant in the next town, Carter’s hands are small and pink mashing French fries in his mouth and they all feel hunted, the suitcase of cash under the table.
Shane outside at the, like, only payphone left on the face of the earth—calling home—slamming the receiver into its holder until the damn thing snaps off and the end you listen to dangles from its wire and every patron stares at him as he comes back in.
Chill, Shakey, she says.
He’s bitten his nails down to nothing.
Under his eyes it’s blue and grey like the bottom of an ashtray or some shit.
Shane drums his fingers on the table top. Slams his open palm down and the cups and saucers rattle in their places.
Skeet Love Page 4