SWAGAZINE ISSN: 1522-7707 Issue #3, Winter 1997 Recurrence Edited by Zeylan Cover artwork by Kia Issue artwork by Kia and Zeylan http://www.swagazine.com/ ----- In this issue... POETRY Smooth as a shadow Fireflies Cat Poems Coils Darkness Nothing to be Rubber Woman White Walled Cell French Quarter One half Midnight Rant Untitled Melt me Sex PROSE Time Babe Glue A Story Ram Nam SUBMISSION INFORMATION How to submit your work to us ----- Smooth as a shadow by Voodoo Slide Rule Smooth as a shadow she walks away while I hold myself together with zippers of smiles and laughter which fumble apart when she's gone. Kareen deals several cards, stripping anonymity from the suits and numbers, mingling with chance. The table widens whenever she loses, so her opponents cannot win. The leaves belong to the wind, their colors give it form as it rides through the streets and sweeps away summer. It comes and goes, she says, poisonous but trite. Vivid things change around me, so I smile, I condescend, but I am sinking. ----- Fireflies by Zeylan Silhouette moon and the lightning clashes nobody sees her in fleeting dashes as angry fireflies drown in the nighttime sky Her dewdrop eyes and her satin posture leave a cleft in an upward offer passing someone she thought she walked by And they are forgiving But she is through living She walks outside The inside falls as she leaves Dizzying sadness is nothing sacred to the woman who sees the fireflies naked as they skip to the light within her eye Misty breathing and glowing embers dance in her wake as she remembers all the reasons the night air made her cry And they are forgiving But she is through living She walks outside The inside falls as she leaves They all let go of the violet memory and still it grabs a hold of every thing that they once held to her for a lie Her footsteps shatter the sanctuary within the firefly aviary the buzzing dissent forges a history And all is forgiven But still she won't give in She's walking out The inside falls as she leaves ----- Cat Poems by "Bill the Cat" Tfffft. Cat Poem Time! Bill was walkin' sideways from the liquor he'd consumed; the beach he deemed his hideaway, where he could be subsumed. Seagulls look like vultures if you've had enough ta drink; sand makes short-lived sculptures like the lies you tell your shrink. A blotch of redness caught his eyes - an ambling crustacean; in the crab he recognized his brother and his twin. Spfffffffffffft! If Bill were another Earth, it's one without a star; the deity who gave it birth's a demon in a bar. His atmosphere is toxic, it's a problem he can't solve - something always blocks it, so his creatures can't evolve. His magma's not uplifting and his mountains have eroded; his continents are drifting and his inner core's imploded. Bill is not too good with words, he tends ta not be focused; his thoughts resemble grazing herds, or better, swarms of locusts. Each sentence is disjointed so he tends ta not be verbal; his mind is best anointed with a remedy that's herbal. When the cat is sputtering, it's of something profane; his mind is in the gutter, and his gutter's down the drain. Spftft. Each door-bell makes him pasty, and each phone-call leaves him white; he's like a toxic waste-heap, and it's not a pretty sight. Drugs of all varieties he constantly ingests, ta stifle the anxiety that's writhing in his chest. He slurs his speech while praying and he lights a cigarette; his friends are often saying that it's time to see his vet. Girls with eyes like those of cats are said to be seductive; when you rub their welcome mats, the answer is eruptive. He met her at an ethnic dance and took her to the Med; her green eyes never looked askance, they grinned at him instead. Fate, it seemed, had paired us off - it's what the gods had willed; somehow, young Miss Tarasoff within a month was killed. AcK! Better start to sing your hymns, this cat's in need of saving; snails are crawling up his limbs, their oily tendrils waving. Pray to all your deities, appease them through your toil; Bill's headed for the Pleiades, or maybe just the soil. Channel spirits' voices, whose presence makes you quake; Bill the Cat's made choices that a wise cat would not make. Pfbt. Bill's oozed through hairy nostrils and the throbbing valves of hearts; a refugee of hostels, he's a patron of the arts. Like a beverage from the Rhine he claims to have matured; like the fish on which you dine he thinks that he was lured. Now he's got a painful ache from shoulder to his shin; like a spider or a snake he yearns ta shed his skin. Tffspft.? He's picked through bales of cotton, and he's heard Achilles' lyre; been smiled upon by Aten, and he's walked through beds of fire. He's slept in Clytaemnestra's bed and Polyphemus' cave; he's watched Jesus raise the dead and once or twice been saved. He's been made a saint and he's been used as a spitoon; now he exists faintly in a crusty brown cocoon. Certain types of incidents are certain to occur; Bill will pay for insolence, and pay with more than fur. Glee won't be Bill's greeting to the things the future holds; all these years of cheating fate are bound ta take their toll. Bill the Cat will not observe his fate with some elation; certain things, he don't deserve - and these include salvation. Phffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft! Some seek explanations for what drove this cat insane; Bill explains with patience, it's an implant in his brain. Alien abduction he endured when he was two, led to Bill's corruption and he wishes he could sue. Creatures sampled of his seed, their painful tests were sundry; did the beings wish ta breed, or were they merely hungry? No, Bill wasn't dreamin' as one day you all shall learn; better save your semen for the time when they return. Spft-fpbt. Bill don't like the ocean, 'cause he knows what it conceals; waves mix fetid potions, to the wretched sounds of seals. Though we all have tasted of these waters cold and coarse, mountains will be wasted by the waves' pernicious force. At the beach you find delight, for look what God's bequeathed: empty shells and parasites, and mounds of rotting weeds. aCk. Pungent smoke pervades Bill's room, and make the cat feel placid; Bill's no longer feelin' glum, his nerves are rendered flaccid. Carpet greets gray ashes like a desert welcomes rain; the past returns in flashes to Bill's dry and lifeless brain. Sometimes yellow, sometimes red, the Catnip ember burns; entities Bill left for dead emerge from rusted urns. Spfpt. For everyone you wound, for every time you lie; know that you are doomed, consider suicide. Make a tombstone in your wrist, slice it to the bone; marble, phyllite, slate, and schist: carve away the stone. Make yourself a monument impervious ta rain; sample the emolliement that works on every pain. aspct. Spiders make their webs, and insidious trapdoors; tides may rise or ebb, eating slowly at the moors. Pitcher plants get sticky, to entrap the winged fly; have youself a quickie, and increase your chance ta die. Find a thing that gives you mirth and you will soon be cut; the goddess who bestowed your birth is really just a slut. AcK. When he's in Emergency, he dresses up in white; he knows that every surgery is just another bite. His brain, so lush and ample has the ore they want ta mine; each doctor wants a sample of a product so sublime. If you have been wonderin' why you've not heard an "ack," specialists are plunderin' a cat that's on his back. Pfhbttackspht Bill's a lazy acre, there's a blight upon his field; he's gonna meet his maker and he knows his fate is sealed. He's used up all his rations, and he's due for quite a fast; he's made a few oblations but these efforts were half-assed. Bill has lost the need ta spawn, he has no urge ta grow; he's like a weed in someone's lawn - a lawn due for a mow. tpfk. Often Bill hears thunder and he's always feelin cold; his mind is getting younger while his body's getting old. No one hears his speeches, and his deeds remain unseen; waves erode Bill's beaches and his winds are cold and mean. He's got no concentration and his mind is strewn with muck; since the operation he's not had the best of luck. Spffpfpt. Bill the Cat's got talents that he has not seen elsewhere; his chemicals aren't balanced but few things in life are fair. His DNA unravel to begin a brand-new dance; his chromosomes are baffled but perhaps they have a chance. His feelings, always bottled, mingle with formaldehyde; his skin is red and mottled, cause he swallows so much pride. Bill's inclined ta travel just ta find some decent rates; he fears a pounding gavel and the sound does not elate. His manner's often surly as he packs away his things; his gates are never pearly and his hosts are never kings. He offers up a final "ack" and waves his magic wand; his girlfriend once had hair of black, but - Presto! - now she's blonde. Spft. Bill's sometimes prone ta avarice, beneath his friendly guise; why does he look cadaverous? his blood's all in his eyes. His lids are always wilted like those damn venetian blinds; his speech is often stilted like a product of no mind. He knows that satan's seed has spawned, and fatal seeds are strewn; when you ask him what he's on, he wonders how you knew. Bill may be erratic, every mood deserves its turn; his signal's mostly static and his speech is undiscerned; his nature is ta nurture an he hates the sight o' pain; unporoveked, he'll torture you, then dine upon your brain. He knows no hint of solar rays, through catnip-fog he peers; he offers tender words of praise like natives throw their spears. aCk Bill's dropped a lot of classes and he's gained a lot of weight; he's full of cold molasses, so forgive him when he's late. Frequently he falls asleep, with spasms he'll awake; certain things are hard ta keep, but not so hard ta take. Something's happened to Bill's health, each move he makes his strained; keep your questions to yourself, some things can't be explained. AcK. ----- Time Babe by Colin Campbell Billy Clawson peered dimly around as he swept the floors of the Physics Department at Stanford University. He was a 200-pound shrimp, barely five feet three inches tall, bloated of gut, with a withered arm from a botched polio shot and a touch of cerebral ataxia that left him with poor coordination and poor balance. In 2035 he was 40 years old. He lifted a wastebasket and dumped it into his wheeled trash bin, ran the dry mop over the classroom floor, lifted junk with a dustpan. He finished in the room and snapped the light off, but then Dr. Rundle was in the doorway. "Oh, Billy, could you give me a hand over in the psychotemporal projection lab?" "Okay," said Billy, looking away to hide his walleye. "This will only take a minute and you'll be right back." Dr. Rundle unlocked a door into a lab that wasn't on Billy's cleanup schedule. "This ain't one a my rooms," Billy said. "If you want something cleaned up, you got to file a request form before I can do it." "No, no, I don't want you to clean anything. I want you to help me in calibrating a piece of scientific equipment," Dr. Rundle said, pushing Billy toward what looked like a dentist's chair. "You know I've always thought of you as more than just a janitor around here. You're one of the staff." Billy looked at him. Dr. Rundle had never spoken to him before, although they'd passed in the halls a thousand times. "We're on the verge of a breakthrough here," Dr. Rundle said, "and I'd like you to help us. You've heard about our time-travel project?" "Yeah, I heard something." There were always rumors around the campus. Dr. Rundle was excited. "We've made the breakthrough. We can send people back in time, but until now it's been random--we didn't know when or where they'd wind up, and the science results have been less than useful. "We can't send back physical objects, can't send cameras or tape recorders back. All we can do is send back the awareness of today's researcher. Contact on the quantum level with awareness-states of defined charges in previous eras." Billy stared at him. "Our subjects have gone back and they find themselves in a tribe at unknown location, unknown time, unknown language. The useful results have been few. But I think I've made a breakthrough here. I think I can send somebody back on a brief enough pulse to land somewhere in the modern era, where the traveler will be able to report the exact minute and day and year and location where they landed. Once we have a reference jump, we should be able to hit any era in the last 30,000 years, and that's what we're really after. "And I'd like to send you back to, say, exactly 100 years before you were born. It'll only take a minute, and it will be a big verification for us. I'll be able to present the results to the meeting of the American Academy of the Physical Sciences tomorrow if it pans out. What is your birthday and place of birth?" "Uh, February 6, 1995," Billy said. "I was born in Baltimore, but then my Mom moved here because--" "Yes, yes," Dr. Rundle said, leaning over his computer console, "just climb into the chair, please. Do you know the time of birth?" "It was 4:45 in the morning," Billy said as he eased into the chair. "My mom worked all evening and then the labor pains started when she got home from her job cleaning the bar, and..." "Yeah, okay, let's just pull this headset down over...breathe this sedative," sprrt, "okay, here you go..." Dr. Rundle pulled a lever and a huge lightning bolt seemed to hit Billy, coruscating over his entire skin surface. Billy's perception narrowed down to an onrushing white tunnel in the middle of a great darkness, and he approached closer and closer to the brightness at the end of the tunnel. Billy slid back through time in a warm amniotic dream and then he was forced through a red tunnel into the cold open air and he screamed, and all his memory was left behind. He was expelled into a shocking new world of vivid color and chaotic motion and intense skin sensation and loud noise, and he screamed. He was a newborn baby. He no longer knew he was Billy. His consciousness had been projected back into the past, but his brain and memory were far in the future, and he had no way to access those memories. All he had was the moment-to moment experiences of his host. It was like a continuous dream. The world was vibrant with color and smell and sound. He was uncritical, memoryless, and he began absorbing it all with gusto. Soon he learned that he was Georgie. Georgie was walking and talking by the time he was 7 months old, and was a positive bother before that because he was an incessant crawler. He was always wriggling down the stairs and into the turbulent tavern on the street floor of the house, where Georgie's intrusion always meant a lot of attention and fun until Mom took him back upstairs. The bar patrons gave him bits of food and candy. Maybe that was one of the reasons he grew so big, so fast. He was tottering out into the streets and playing in the horseshit and dodging the hooves of the horses when he was 2, despite his mother's attempts to control him. By the time he was 4, he was playing in the streets with the 6-year-olds and dominating them. He was big and fast and mean, and he was quick-witted and cute and could get away with anything. He exploited it to the hilt. He listened to the rough talk of the longshoremen and waterfront bums who drank at the saloon. By the age of five he knew more curse words than most 20-year-olds, and he started chewing tobacco when he was 7. When he wasn't in the saloon, he was out on the neighborhood streets. He got into fights, he threw rocks at passing horse-drawn buggies, he hung around the shipyards and docks and got into every kind of mischief possible. On June 13, 1902, when George was 7, his parents placed him into St. Mary's Industrial School in Baltimore, an orphanage and reform school. He was listed as "incorrigible." At St. Mary's, Brother Matthias encouraged George to play baseball. It was Georgie's first spring-training season. When Brother Matthias hit a fungo 350 feet (using a mushball, of course, a 1903 baseball), George decided that the sight of the ball soaring that majestic distance into the air was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He was the best of all the kids. When he was 9 he played with the 12 year olds. When he was 12 he played with the 16 year olds. He became their star catcher, even though he was left-handed. One day he laughed out loud at a mistake the pitcher made, and so Brother Matthias chewed him out in front of the team after the game. "You think pitching is so easy, George? Okay, you're pitching tomorrow's game." Georgie spent an uneasy night worrying, but then after throwing one pitch he discovered that pitching a baseball was the most natural thing he'd ever done. The St. Mary's Reformatory team went on to win the championship, and Georgie saw his name in the newspapers for the first time. The day after Georgie turned 18, Brother Matthias introduced him to the owner of the Baltimore Redbirds in the American Association, and Georgie signed a professional contract. He did O.K. in the minor leagues as a pitcher and was brought up to the Boston Red Sox in September of 1914 when they had the pennant in hand and wanted to take a look at rookies. The next season he was invited to spring training with the Red Sox. He was amazed at the food players were served, as much as they wanted. Even the veterans on the club were awed when they saw him chomp down a breakfast omelet made with 18 eggs and three big slices of ham, along with six pieces of buttered toast. He was selected to join the club, and when the team returned to Boston to begin the 1915 season, George was overwhelmed by the size of the city. The first day in the hotel in Boston, George spent the whole morning riding up and down in the elevator--he'd never seen one before. He was so entranced by it that he almost cut his head off trying to look at the mechanism while it operated. His teammates laughed at him. "This guy is really a babe in the woods," they said, and the nickname stuck. His skills were dominant in the major leagues and he became known as one of the top pitchers. He finished the season with 18 wins and only 8 losses. The next year, he won 23 games and led the league in shutouts and earned run average, and the Red Sox went to the World Series, where George set records for shutout innings pitched. He was still a demanding thug, of course. George was a singularly self-absorbed guy, a stranger to his teammates. Other people were just obstacles and impediments to him. He knocked aside opponents with ease on the way to toward the rewards of money, booze, food and women. George had always been a pretty good hitter, for a pitcher, and in 1918 the team manager started putting him into right field on the days when he wasn't pitching. He hit 11 home runs that year while winning 13 games as a pitcher, and the next year he pitched only half a schedule. This time he hit 29 home runs, setting an awesome new record--nobody had ever hit 20 before, let alone nearly 30. In 1920 he was sold to the New York Yankees. He set aside pitching forever. Babe Ruth became the biggest slugger the game had ever seen. At the celebration party after the Yankees won the American League pennant, he drank quarts and quarts of beer, and kept yelling "I can outhit, outpitch, outdrink, outsmoke, outeat and outfuck any man who ever lived." And he could prove it. He caroused through the league until he was 40 years old and his reflexes faded. He spent another ten years carousing, smoking and drinking and wenching. Then his raspy throat got worse and worse, and it turned out to be throat cancer, and he died in 1948 at age 53. And then Billy woke up in the time travel chair at Stanford. He opened his eyes. He heard a wall clock ticking and papers rustling. He was in some kind of dentist's chair. At first he still thought he was Babe Ruth and he kept clearing his throat and breathing hard. He stared around the lab in fright. He sat up and saw a man writing at a desk. "I, uh..." The man turned around, and Babe saw that it was Dr. Rundle, who said "Ah, Billy, you're back. Good. Now all I need to know is the date and place of birth of your, um, time traveling vehicle, and you can go home for the rest of the day." And Babe tried to explain. "Yeah, wow, I was dying of cancer, and now here I am--what the heck is going on?" Dr. Rundle was accustomed to that, of course. Every subject woke up immediately after dying. "Forget all that. What I need to know is the exact date of birth of the person you wound up in, and the time of day and the geographical location." The Billy memories began to come back, and Babe stood up and looked down at himself. His body was lumpy and grotesque and 40 years old, but he was glad he wasn't really dead. He looked at his clothing, looked around the room. It had been 53 years since he'd sat down in the chair, and it was hard to recall if things were the same. He looked at the clock on the wall and was shocked to discover that only one hour had passed. The impact of time traveling this way is extreme in the first few minutes after the traveler returns, when he is absolutely certain he has just died. Only slowly does the subject realize who he really is, what has really happened. This is the time when the subject is supposed to write down or dictate as much as possible before the memory starts to fade. But Billy was just a test subject, not one of Dr. Rundle's fellow researchers. "Well? Do you remember your target's birthdate?" "Yes, it was February 6, 1895, in Baltimore." "So my projection system has turned out to be very accurate. Very good, Billy, you can take the rest of the day off." "And you know what, Doc, this guy you sent me into was some remarkable athlete. Did you ever hear of a guy named--" "I'm sure I never heard of him, Billy." Dr. Rundle stared at the computer screen and compared Billy's information to the parameters Rundle had set up before the time-shoot. "I've brought a lot of time travelers back, and many were convinced they've lived some theatrically important life. But that's not what we're after. We're after the roots of mankind's history." "But this guy was really something special. He--" "I don't care how remarkable you think this man was, Billy, he's been gone for a hundred years. When you were experiencing 1940, did you hear anybody talk about the best-known athletes of 1820?" "Who cares about them, I was the best known athlete of the 1920s!" Rundle shrugged. "You've proven my point. That's all over now. Face it, you're Billy Clawson, janitor. Go. Go home, Billy." Billy considered it, fuming. He calmed down. "Why didn't you tell me what was going to happen? You sent me back completely unprepared." "No preparation could have helped. You arrive memoryless." "But why send me? Why not one of your researchers?" "Frankly, the risks are too great. I have already seen several fine men nearly destroyed by the ugly, brutal lives they were forced to live. In your case, I figured it wouldn't be too much different from your actual life." Billy took the bus home, as usual, but he was dazed and disoriented. He'd never heard of Babe Ruth until today. He'd never held a baseball in his hand in his life. He was barely aware of the existence of the game. It was a fact of the earth, yes, he knew there was such a thing as the game of baseball, but he'd grown up in a hospital, a place where they kept birth defects alive, a place where walking was the apex of sport. The memories were so vivid, so acute, and they made his real life as Billy Clawson seem so irrelevant. He'd never had a drink of alcohol in his life, but when he got off the bus he stopped at the corner liquor store and bought a quart of bourbon, which the Babe used to polish off in one night, and Billy tried to do it, too. But he passed out rapidly and overslept the next day, missing work for the first time in his life. He slept late into the morning, awakening repeatedly after erotic dreams, then falling asleep back into the dreams. Except he didn't miss work, as it turned out. Around 10:30 he was roused from his bed by a knock at the door. Nobody ever knocked at Billy's door. He wondered who it could be, and he stumbled around the apartment pulling on clothing and when he opened the door, Dr. Rundle was there. "Billy, I was hoping to find you here! I know I said some bad things yesterday and I'm sorry, but I was so overwhelmed by your successful jump I wasn't really listening. It's entirely likely your host could have been a successful athlete. The important thing is that I need to send you back to that exact moment to make sure I have a repeatable calibration. So please come to work now. I'll give you a ride." Billy stared at him. He didn't relish the idea of dying of throat cancer again. But the idea of being a young stupendo-man again was tempting. Besides, it was for the cause of Science and the University and History and everything. Billy Clawson was a virgin, even though he was 40, and a Babe memory came back to him. The time when he told the teammates to count the cigar butts. His roommate, centerfielder Bob Meusel, was half asleep one night when Babe came in with a girl, went into his own suite and made love to her in his usual noisy fashion. "Babe was the noisiest fucker in North America," Meusel said. Afterwards the Babe came out to the living room of the suite, lit a cigar, and sat in a chair by the window smoking it contemplatively. When he finished the cigar he went back into the bedroom and did it again. And then came out and smoked another cigar. Over and over. In the morning Meusel asked, "How many times did you lay that girl last night?" Ruth glanced at the ashtray, and so did Meusel. There were seven butts in the tray. "Count the cigars," said the Babe. Billy, remembering, continued to stare at Dr. Rundle. "Well, okay," he said. At the lab, Dr. Rundle said, "This time I want to send two of you at once, you to our established base time of 1895, and our explorer to a time a fixed multiple of your trip in both years and miles. I want to see if it will work. We're aiming at Mohenjo-Daro in India in 2500 BC" They had two chairs now, and another guy was waiting nervously in one of them. Billy felt a bit superior--he wasn't nervous when he made his first trip. Then again, Billy hadn't known what he was in for--this new volunteer was fully prepped. He was going to Mohenjo-Daro to attempt to time-ride a court scribe and thus bring home the knowledge to translate the surviving scripts. "This is why we need you, Billy," Doctor Rundle said. "The last time we aimed at Mohenjo-Daro, the volunteer was born into a slave family in the Kingdom of Gleesh. Where on the globe is Gleesh? Why, Gleesh was at the center of the universe, and the king was The Great God Gleesh and the dazzling imperial city the most important core of Gleesh. At least, that's what the volunteer heard; all he ever saw was the pig farm where he lived until he was 7, and then he fell in the pig pen and the pigs ate him. He could speak and translate the rural language, but it had no correlation with any known language and the details of the culture the volunteer described didn't match any known previous civilization. "Even if the host lived to be an adult we usually get little information. A time-jumper might spend 30 years in a life and never know if it was south or north of the equator, New World or Old World, Egyptian or Chinese, Iron Age or Neolithic. Village life was essentially the same world-wide, and although the reports of the scientific time-jumpers have been interesting, they were not that useful. If only we could ride a host who was a scribe of the court!" So blam back Billy went, sliding down the auroral vortex to the beckoning radiance, ejecting wet and screaming into a cold strange new universe, memoryless, overwhelmed with sensory input, into a brain that had not yet grown its language circuits. Again he left behind his 2035 consciousness. He grew up as Babe Ruth, with no sense of deja vu, no sense of presage; he simply lived for the moment, slugging the home runs, screwing the flappers, drinking the booze, smoking the cigars, living life to the hilt, enjoying the same intoxicating success. He was utterly and only Babe Ruth. Simply growing up with healthy arms, legs, eyes and reflexes would have been enough for Billy. But he'd left his Billy memories a century in the future; all he knew was what Babe knew. It wasn't as though he were a separate personality riding unseen inside Babe; he WAS the Babe, with no memory of other existence or knowledge of the future. He couldn't make decisions that the Babe didn't make. He smoked and drank and fucked and then wheezed his last desperate breaths in 1948 again, and then woke in 2035, disoriented as if waking from a dream of falling. Billy heard the clock ticking, and opened his eyes and looked around. He was alone in the psychotemporal transfer room. The other chair was empty. He stood up, careened dizzily, and pushed open a door. He saw an open door down the hall and a sussurus of voices, and he tottered toward the sound. He plunged into a room of people and saw Dr. Rundle, who stopped talking and then said, "Ah, it is our prize traveler Billy Clawson!" and the room burst into applause. "It worked, it worked," Dr. Rundle said. "Now we can know the date and location of each time jumper! Dr. Jones traveled back to exactly the time and place we wanted!" He turned and gestured to somebody, who took Billy by the arm. "Now please go home." The guy escorted Billy to the bus stop, and Billy rode home again at an unusual time of day for him, dazed by the roaring Babe Ruth memories. After the Yankees clinched the 1928 pennant with a win in Detroit, Babe rented some hotel rooms and threw a party. At one point Babe climbed on a chair, a beer in one hand and a sandwich in the other, and shouted, "Any girl who doesn't want to fuck can leave now." And very few of them left. His appetite was enormous. One night in 1919 a reporter noted that for dinner the Babe he had an entire chicken, potatoes, spinach, corn, peas, beans, bread, butter, pie, ice cream and four cups of coffee. Ty Cobb once said, "I've seen him at midnight, propped up in bed, order six club sandwiches, a platter of pig's knuckles and a pitcher of beer. He'd down all that while smoking a big black cigar." In a St. Louis whorehouse the Babe announced to was going to go to bed with every girl in the house during the night. And he did. Babe's penis wasn't extraordinary in size. What was extraordinary was his ability to keep doing it all the time. He was continually with women, morning and night. He was very noisy in bed, visceral grunts and whoops accompanying his erotic exertions. "He was the noisiest fucker in North America," one friend recalled. With these memories reverberating in his brain, Billy almost missed his bus stop. When he got home he saw the half-full bottle of whisky left over from last night, and he began drinking it the way the Babe would. The next day was Saturday, and at noon there was a knock at his door. It was Dr. Rundle again. "After you went home we tried it again with Dr. Smith, but without you in the circuit, he landed at random. We tried using Dr. Jones as a simultaneous calibrator, but his trip to 25000BC was just too large to be useful as a unit of measure. Your 140-year trip is highly useful, and we'd like you to make another trip today. We're aiming for the caves of Lescoux, France, 25,000 years ago." It became a daily thing for Billy. He'd go to the university in the morning and hit 714 home runs, have sex with 4,328 different women, and do it again in the afternoon, and then go home. Each time he woke after dying, he was just as surprised, but it is harder and harder for him to reconcile himself with being this crippled shrimp. Billy went through the Babe's life again. And again. And again. And more and more as Billy he was seeing himself through Ruthian eyes, seeing all his personal flaws and inadequacies. He hadn't been that unhappy with his life, but now it seemed so tiny and dreary. Billy Clawson was a dim bulb in his own body, but Babe was very canny. Sure, he didn't have much schooling, but he had the genius that the world pays off on. Other people saw a babe in the woods--but Babe got everything he wanted, when he wanted it. Babe could be world-famous and yet still have his privacy, because in those long ago days there wasn't any media intruding on him. There weren't any radio broadcasts when he started. Oh, sure, the newspaper boys were onto him, but they weren't about to report his alcoholism and sexual promiscuity. He was legendary enough on the ball field. In the off season he could go to Hollywood and make movies and screw starlets, and again the scribes looked the other way. The world was one vast playground for The Babe, and that's why Billy kept going back to re-live his life. It was a completely primitive era, of course, but the Babe didn't know that--it was as modern as could be, as far as he was concerned. Movies and telephones and radio and airplanes and horseless carriages--how modern could you get? And Billy, with his memory left parked in 2035, had no recollection of the ultra-wired, interactive, nanotech and biotech era he was born into. In 2035, Billy was letting the Babe Ruth aspect of his personality come to the fore, but it was having a negative effect on his life, because while the Babe was over six feet tall and good-looking in a coarse way, Billy was an ugly shrimp. Billy began to smoke cigars, because that's what the Babe did, but in 2035 cigars were not popular. Barely legal. Then, on a crisp September morning, Billy arrived at the University and went to the psychotemporal displacement department as usual, eager to hit home runs and fuck prodigiously again, only to be stopped by a strange guard. "Sorry, the University has shut down this department and Dr. Rundle is under investigation," the guard told him. Billy went to the Human Resource department to find out what was going on, and discoverd that he had been fired, and nobody would say a word about anything. He went home and spent the day examining his life. He'd spent 40 years as Billy Clawson, and, over the last three months, 9,593 years as Babe Ruth. He stared shapeless mutant in the mirror and wept. That afternoon he encountered his neighbor Joe in the hallway outside his apartment. Joe had only one arm and worked as a toll-booth attendant on the Golden Gate Bridge on the night shift. Billy knew that Joe was a sports fan. "Hey, Joe," he said, "did you ever hear of an old-time baseball player named Babe Ruth?" "Nope," Joe said, "but we could look him up on the Net." A few minutes later he said, "Yeah, here he is. Oh, he was one a them pre-millennium players. I guess they were okay in their day, but things are so different today. We pretty much consider that the modern game didn't start until 2001. The most home runs he ever hit in a year was 60. I guess they thought that was a lot in the old days." "They hit more now?" "Hell yeah. Today we got the best players, it's a lot better game than they had back then." "Is there still a New York Yankees team?" "Sure. In fact, they're in town this weekend to play the A's." Billy had never been to a baseball game, but now he asked Joe "Are you going to go to the game?" "I wasn't planning on it...why? You want to go? I thought you hated sports." They took the BART subway to the Oakland Coliseum. Joe filled Billy's ear about the big rules changes that had changed baseball from a dying, ho-hum sport into the best game on Earth, how the league changed dramatically in the 21st century. Designated offense and designated defense, for instance. Managers no longer had to worry about their #1 slugger running into a fence or diving and breaking their arm any more. Everything seemed familiar enough to Billy's Babe memories as they bought tickets and went through the turnstiles, but he was shocked when he saw the field. "But...this is a football field," he said to Joe. "This is high degree baseball--they can play it in football stadiums. It's still 90 feet from base to base, but the angles are 120 degrees instead of 90 degrees at first and third, and 60 degrees at 2nd and home." A long, narrow playing field. The infielders wore shin guards and chest protectors and face masks, and the pitcher threw from behind a deflector cage. The fielders did not come to bat--the offensive and defensive teams were completely specialized, just like football. They were late and the game was already under way. Joe pointed out a big young guy in the batter's box. It was early in September and the Athletics had a chance to get into the playoffs, and this kid was a big reason why. "He's only the third rookie in history to hit 70 home runs in a season, and there are still 30 games left--he might set a new rookie record." Billy Clawson watched the game but couldn't see it the way Babe Ruth saw it--the colors were dimmer, the sounds and smells more faded. Babe Ruth had the world's best sensorium, and only now did Billy realize just how dull his own senses were. Even when the Babe was old and dying of cancer he could still see the spin on the ball coming to the plate. When he was a player he could see the spin from his outfield position and know whether the pitch was a fastball or a curve, and thus be able to know what direction the ball was likely to go if the batter hit it. Billy's ears couldn't hear the nuances of the crack of the bat hitting the ball--more information that was invisible to Billy. Even the Babe's sense of smell had helped him...coming to the plate the wind would bring him a whiff of the pitcher and he'd know the pitcher was scared, or tired, or over-amped. Billy looked at the field and saw nothing of the old game that he recognized, nothing the Babe recognized, either. The batter swung and hit a foul that carried to the section where Billy and Joe were sitting. The ball rattled around and stopped at Billy's feet. Billy grabbed it. The ball didn't have stitches, wasn't made of leather--it was bright orange, plastic, dimpled like a golf ball. Billy held the ball up and Joe clapped him on the back. "Way to go!" To Billy it was all incomprehensible, but to the Babe Ruth it was an outrage. The A's beat the Yanks 28-27 in extra innings and Joe babbled about the game all during the train ride back to the apartment building. But Billy was quiet. He kept looking at the bright orange plastic baseball and wondering how it would look if he were looking through Babe Ruth's eyes. That night he went to a bar, the first time Billy had ever done such a thing, had a few drinks, and tried to pick up a girl. and was told off very nastily. He tried to outdrink somebody, but he couldn't. He challenged another man to a fight, but when he tried to move, tried to use the Babe's legendary agility, it wasn't there, and he stumbled and fell, and the bouncer carried him out to the street while the patrons all laughed. He took the bus to Golden Gate Park and walked a couple of despondent miles to the bridge, walked halfway across, and then jumped over the side, plummeting through the fog until he hit the water with a tremendous impact. He kicked and struggled for a few moments in the icy water, and then Billy Clawson faded away.... And then he woke. He heard a clock ticking. He tried to turn his head but couldn't. He opened his eyes and saw that he was not in Dr. Rundle's office. He heard a woman apparently talking on the phone. "Yes, the time-jump people were kind enough to bring a unit here to the hospital and we gave poor little Matty a trip. It's the only kind of experience he's ever going to have, so we gave him the life of that Billy Clawson guy who made so many hundreds of jumps in the research days back in 2035..." Billy explored his memories. First 53 years of Billy, check. Then 9,535 years of Babe Ruth. And now....the 17 years of Matoya Scherfnagle, 18, who has been quadriplegic since a diving accident when he was 8. The woman--Billy now realized it was Matoya's mother--continued after a pause. "Yes, Dr. Rundle himself helped us. It seemed like quite a good deal--Matty gets all those previous trips for the price of a single jump." Billy yelled "Kill me! Kill me!" but the respirator tubes in his throat made it impossible, and in any event the mouth and tongue muscles were too atrophied to form language. ----- Coils by Airalin And so all life Perception is within my hearing So I sit down to a blank page All white with lines of blue sky and a red line of love But it's all leftevers from the crock of shit life tried to feed me I stand firm on my ground of value Airalin drops down from herself creating clouds in the doorway Sometimes saying things to a computer screen is easier than saying them to paper or voice or face one strives to live without illusion only to find life itslef not worth living the mortal paradox no less and so it is impaled upon me And I can no longer turn my head away Funny how darkness is blinding Interesting how easy it is to wear a mask logical that others can not face you without a face so does that make us the gods? Yes. Yes it does. And company is all one needs and all one never gets for you must put on a mask to deal with others without faces but then you yourself can never find a face when you're wearing a mask again the mortal paradox it all leads back to Life we exist and think and feel and rationalize our universe therefore we are a paradox i used to wonder who or what could be so cruel as to give us this ability of higher thought merely so we could find out that we are nothing but now i know there's nothing there to show us nothing we are a paradox but yet we live and die and so everyday we knowingly self-destruct why. that is the Ultimate question and there is no answer because there is nothing to answer us and so all life goes on and I finish listening to perception ----- Glue by Bryant Stith Aaron lived in a small studio apartment with almost no furniture -- just a single round dining table, two chairs, and a mattress on the floor. He said living in simplicity made him more focused, and that it was an aid to meditation. Marie suspected he was stingy: there was no art on the walls, there were no photographs anywhere -- if the worn carpet didn't give off a faintly annoying odor of sweat, the apartment would seemed uninhabited. The ceiling was extremely low, and had the texture of lizard skin. There were two windows, both of which were closed. The air moved slowly: only in response to their breathing. Marie lay on the mattress on the floor unable to sleep. Partly because of his dry, rattling snore -- which made the mattress vibrate slightly -- but mainly because she wasn't tired. They had talked about their families over dinner. She had wanted to get to know more about him, so she asked about his family. This was her usual way of getting to know people; if you can get someone to talk candidly about their family, they'll reveal all kinds of intimate things about themselves -- their hopes, their fears, their core values -- even childhood traumas, or broken dreams. Since he didn't have a wife or children or any siblings, he talked about his parents. She too talked about her parents -- because she didn't want him to know she had a husband and a child. He told her a strange story about his father, which had been told to him by his mother. During his youth his father, Max, had been an extraordinarily brilliant man; he had become an associate professor at an Ivy League school by the time he was twenty-eight; he was a member of MENSA; he had been consulted by his state's congressmen on various issues; he had numerous articles in scholarly journals, and had even been consulted by conrgessmen on issues in his field. But one day his father, still a bachelor though he had wanted to get married for years, realized that people despised him for his talent. Sure, they pretended to envy him, pretended to enjoy his brilliant wit, his ingenious commentaries about everything -- but secretly they just despised him. His intellectual infallibility was oppressive to other people. No one wanted to be around him. But what could he do? He had been born this way. If he pretended to be stupid, he would be perpetrating a lie. People would entrust more to him, since people tend to feel less threatened by stupid people -- and that would make him guilty of a sort of fraud. Overwhelmed by loneliness and self-pity, Max started sniffing model glue. He wanted to give himself brain damage to reduce his IQ to that of a normal -- of only slightly above-average -- man. For several weeks he got himself high sniffing model glue, three or four times a day. He actually began to enjoy it; he felt like his psyche was drifting through matter like a disembodied idea, a single complex thought escaped from any particular mind, adrift on directionless waves of matter. And then, one afternoon, he ingested glue fumes for too long, and lost consciousness. It wasn't until two days later that his mailman found him on his back lawn, still unconscious, with the tube of model glue cemented to his fingers. Max was taken to the hospital, but it was too late: he had suffered severe brain damage. He now had the mental capacity of a three-year-old. He had gone from one extreme to another. Now Max could barely fathom what he had once done for a living; he was totally incapable of grasping the ideas that he had once introduced to the world. He could no longer recognize words. None of his colleagues had ever truly liked him, so no one mourned. In private, many people were pleased to see him destroyed in this bizarre way. Some people smirked: for him to end up like this, he must have really been an idiot to begin with. But one woman pitied him, and saw in him a pure, elevated -- even if slightly artificial -- simplicity: manhood distilled into a sort of renewed boyhood. She fell in love with him, and they had a child. They named him "Aaron," simply because it sounded good -- no because Aaron, in the Biblical story of Exodus, was the mouthpiece of Moses, who had a speech impediment: Max couldn't expect Aaron to express for him the thoughts that he would have if he hadn't destroyed his mind, because he had no notion any longer what those ideas might have been. After the birth of his child, Max held the baby in his arms -- gently, following his wife's instructions -- and repeated the boy's name over and over, softly: "Aaron, Aaron...Aaron." He smiled with insuppressible joy -- the joy of a child who has just been given the best toy in the world. Aaron told Marie that he judged his mother to be entirely mediocre; not utterly talentless, but not by any means gifted. Aaron didn't know whether to consider himself the product of a brilliant man and a mediocre woman, or an idiot and a mediocre woman.. He said he found that ambiguity liberating. But Aaron went on to say that when he became an adolescent he began to think the story about his father was entirely made up -- that his father was an idiot from the very beginning, and that his mother lied because she wanted him to have a deeper respect for his father than he would if he thought Max was simply a mentally retarded adult. So once, when he was fifteen, Aaron took the bus to the university library, and after fumbling for quite a while, figured out how to look up authors' names in the on-line card catalog. Punching in the name Max Turnweiler, he called up no less than seven articles -- all in political science journals. His mind buzzing, Aaron raced up the stairs to the third floor, where he unshelved the worn, hard-cover volumes. Some of the articles by Max Turnweiler were published alongside critical responses. The responses were always highly respectful, even if mildly critical. The journals radiated learning and dignity, and Aaron was overwhelmed with pride for his father, who had once been a shining star in this world of erudition and scholarly wisdom. For a brief moment, Aaron smiled a sublime smile. But then he began to feel profoundly sad about his father. Standing in the isle in the library he began weeping. Aaron realized his father was a completely different person now, and he couldn't shake the sense that he was much, much less of a person. Despite his father's dissolution, Aaron didn't lose his sense of pride in his father. But when he was twenty-five, during his last semester of collge, he found a flier tacked to a billboard in the political science building. It advertised an upcoming lecture, in honor of a recently-deceased political science scholar, whose name was Max Turnweiler. Aaron felt himself going numb. His mother had made up the story after all; she had simply done a little research beforehand. She had discovered that someone else had the same first and last names as her husband, and had scripted her wild story around the coincidence. Aaron told Marie that he was never able to forgive his mother. As for his father, he wondered how important it really was that this man had the intellectual capacity of a three-year-old: In what sense did it matter? It was impossible to have a very serious conversation with Max; he simply couldn't make sense of abstract or complicated thoughts. All he could offer was a purely emotional love. And Aaron realized that somehow that wasn't enough. Maybe it would be enough from a baby brother, but not from a parent. There were degrees of self-consciousness within love itself that Max could not attain, and that left his relationship with Aaron unfulfilled. Aaron said that eventually, shortly after college, he came to the conclusion that Max was not his father at all. They had no physical features in common, and furthermore he was aware that his mother had had frequent extramarital affairs -- sometimes seeing several different men in a single week. Whenever Aaron brought up the question of why she had stuck with Max, she fell back on her story, and insisted that it was for him, her son; she wanted him to be able to grow up with his father. But Aaron doubted profoundly that Mad was his father, so what were her true reasons for staying with him? The thing that disturbed Aaron the most was that he felt it was impossible to completely define himself, not knowing who his real father was. Somehow he felt that he could not know himself. He felt that without being able to observe his bloodlines, any conclusions he drew about the origins of his own actions and thoughts were inherently arbitrary. Marie asked, "Didn't you ever question Max directly?" "No," Aaron said. "My mother wouldn't allow that. She told me that it would bring back very disturbing memories for him, and that it could plunge him into suicidal depression. She also threatened me in really graphic, awful ways about what would happen if I ever asked him." Marie paused. "Ways...like what?" Aaron said nothing for a moment, then told her he didn't want to talk about it. They sat silently for a while, Marie sipping the coffee he had made her, Aaron drinking a tall glass of milk. "So you? What you about you?" He asked. She told him stories that she had told lots of other guys -- about how her parents were a perfect couple, and how she always feared she'd never be able to live up to their example (she didn't tell him that in fact, she never could); about how she, the youngest child, was always treated so specially, and how she had used the unequal affection her parents rained on her as a psychological weapon against her siblings...She found herself embellishing these stories, which she had told so many times, to keep herself from getting bored. They made love with very little segue: they had had their deep conversation; they'd gotten over the hurdle. She found sex with him surprisingly -- and unexplainably -- passionate. He held her in his arms afterwards for quite a while -- his embrace seemed genuinely caring, too desperate to be a routine signal -- and it seemed to legitimize their earlier conversation. But then he fell asleep, fell away from her, and began snoring in an incredibly annoying fashion. She lay there a long time, unable to sleep. She tried to think what his childhood with the retarded man must have been like, but she couldn't really focus. She got up to get a drink of water, and standing at the sink in the tiny kitchen, she looked over his small studio -- its bare simplicity, its lack of character -- and for a moment watched his body: a series of angular clumps under the grey blanket, emitting a somber racket, remaining almost perfectly still. After a moment she began to feel intensely lonely. She put down the glass and, as quickly as she could, gathered her clothing from the floor, got dressed, and left his apartment. ----- Darkness by Code Zero The black bitter feeling of unwantedness That lurks in us all. Darkness is the unknown, And therefore the assumed horrid. Darkness possess' no light, Or rather, No light is found in It, For Darkness has swallowed it. Darkness is the purity of the empty void. It is the gap in our feelings. Darkness is nothingness. It possess' no good or evil, But is the justifier, And that sinking feeling of undecidedness. From the beginning to the end of time, Darkness is the form of our natural state. Darkness is the vision of Unidealistic Surealistic Dreams. ----- Nothing to be by David Leston thought i was running away that's not what this is about it's about self control; about choosing my fights i was alone to from the start i'm scared to beleive the things i do and now i must compromise; change my beleifs now i lie here, no where to go but down to the thunderous reality that is my own that's where i'll be tomorrow; that's where i belong pretending to be someone you're not? after a while you don't know who you are it's time to voice your opinion; to reasure yourself they thought i was running away that's not what this is about it's about the search for truth; the truth within myself ----- Rubber Woman by Zeylan Rubber woman Leather brassiere Blow her up slowly and bring her here Floating gently Bobbing so slightly She squeaks as I hold her ever so tightly None can compare She is the one And then I can pop her when I am done Bite on her breast Tear through the fabric She's shrinking away just like it was magic Slips through my grasp The air starts to go With a noise (sounds like farting) she flies out the window My girl is gone My lover belated I fucked her too hard and now she's deflated. ----- White Walled Cell by Airalin turn on the light in this my white walled cell see the filthy rotting gates of my hell everywhere you go the walls are all spattered with blood have you found all the ashes swept under this rug running around and around on my little rat's wheel the only feeling i have is what i can steal lying listless twitching on the floor a girl's being beaten splashing blood from the punches is the source of this horror can't you see you're breaking your toys well that's what you get when you belong to a little boy your spirit is creeping away violated by sexuality's play i am just the biggest fool i am just life's worthless whore emotion's dirty slut my marionette strings can't be cut entrails and tendons bind me to this breath nothing more than a heart beating sears me into this flesh how can you explain something that is no words how can you listen to me when i'm incapable of being heard?! i don't understand what's light in all this violence my ears bleed quietly from all this silence pry shut the coffin in my head I'll laugh at you when i'm finally dead ----- French Quarter New Orleans by Lack of Sleep Red-velvety Feel the walking, in A friendly smile By what isn't really Not even a worry Jack straight No white horse around Down the hatch Watered down No matter as I Reassure That beauty is For it is Truth. 'Tis yet another place That I could love It's red-velvety feel Drunken feel Like a glove. Red walls Old framed mirrors Red, green Lights as the music plays No place to dance The great feel stays For the clutter of noise Surrounds None the less I love this French Quarter New Orleans. ----- One half by Rogozhin One half of one percent of us owns ninety percent of the wealth. Wetlands stalked by camera eyes in dying days brace for a long, long night. In the howl of winded reeds, of feral manes, in the thrilled-to-be-dying blood of rivers running though stone -- petrified years wait tongue-less for the life that defers lies, and die. ----- Midnight Rant by Swagman Hmm, midnight rant. All alone at the keyboard and the only comfort is the clackity clack of keystrokes. Yabbida, yabbida, yabbida, I could go on forever but will only for a little while instead. My right first molar is split down the middle. It had a big filling that's started to fragment, leaving a jagged chasm which fills with food on the first bite and the second bite pounds it into the gap between the teeth and the third grinds it into the subcutaneous pocket between teeth and gum. It will inflame in less than a day. Salt water irrigation, hydrogen peroxide rinse, saline flush, incessant flossing and the pain still won't subside. The dentist won't see me 'cause I owe him too much money. I shouldn't owe him so much money. I shouldn't have the right side of my face on fire. I shouldn't let the oil in my car get low on the dipstick. I shouldn't wear red lace brassieres under my white work shirts. And I should never go walking on the beach in black velvet spike pumps. However I shall never wear panties under my skirts, I shall never wear skirts and the reason Levi's have buttons is so you never get your Johnson caught in the zipper, unlike my canvas boat shorts with the thousand tooth monster brass zipper from hell with a penchant for nibbling on my intimate privates not when you're zipping up, but giving you a painful pinch as you unzip and aren't expecting any pain. There is no justice sometimes. At least I don't get nasty marks on my tits where the underwire pinches at the ends. Oh my, what am I talking about. Nevermind, more than a mouthful is a waste, bullshit. I love to watch them bounce in cadence. I like how sometimes they sway in slow step gyration, precious jiggling pools demanding attention, yet other ones scream silently, "Don't look at me!" I'd say I much prefer the perky pointers with shoulders thrown back in a dare to stare strut and a soft unassuming smile of acknowledgment when you are caught entranced and staring as you pass each other on a crowded street. Wiggle while you work, it's the dangle of the little stone, or diamond, or silver cross, or golden starfish, or glass lightning pendant resplendent at the edge of the cleavage that's invitational in tank tops too short to cover the stud pierced carefully in your navel, accentuating the flatness of your all too young belly. Do you know what you're doing? I'm not sure you do, but I don't really care, I really do. No matter. Biology and psychology mix it up in tantric centers outside the libido as well, I just know they do. ----- untitled by Johnson Kinds Occasionally, without warning, people otherwise completely healthy begin hallucinating in a lurid, freakish manner; They find themselves trapped in deranged inner worlds cramped with screaming phantasms Unreal things leaking like radioactive scum from their heads down into their guts. Screw work. Screw religion. Screw you. We share our worth like twins sipping from the same cantaloupe-cup, shaded by memories of Mother. Snakes bathing in our laps, licking sugars from our bellybuttons, hissing blissful music. You know, people rely on me though daily my brain slides along like a giant, fattened slug, leaving my body scrambling behind it in a blurred streak of constant, tormented activity. One day I will go to pieces. My body will become a hospital for a soul shedding its clothes, shaking claws at a hostile storm, sprouting leathery wings, seeing fabulous things, Seeing fabulous things. ----- A Story by Mr. Pube I don't know when I started wanting to make films. I never really gave much thought to what career I was to pursue since I always assumed my parents would be supporting me. When I was young, I was completely indifferent. I couldn't have given any less of a shit if I wanted to and trust me I didn't. I was probably the only kid in the history of the world who didn't know what they wanted to be when they grew up. Kids today confuse the hell out of me. My sister's son already knows what he wants to be. A fireman. You should see this fat fuck sometime. Derek is only 7 and weighs, jeeze, I don't know... a good 3 or 4 hundred pounds. Not that I ever get to see him anymore. I had a little talk with Derek on my last visit. "Hey Derek," I said. "You say you want to be a fireman?" "That's right." He responded as his triple chin jiggled slightly. "I'm going to join the L.A. county fire department and put out fires and rescue people and save stuff from burning and making sure nobody gets hurt and if they do I help them and then I put out the fires and I climb up a big white ladder so that the fires don't hurt anybody because that's not good because if they didn't get put out they would hurt somebody and that..." "Shut up, Derek." I interrupted. "Lemme explain something to you: You're fat. Your monstrous ass isn't ever going to be getting up one of those big white ladders so you might as well forget about it. Now I know this hurts to hear but it's a sad fucking fact of life. It's something that you're going to just have to live with, wide load, so you should start facing reality." Since then my sister and I haven't been on very good terms. Excuse me for believing in telling the truth to children. Playing video games and watching T.V. isn't ever going to teach you what the real world is about. Movies, however, now those are even worse. Don't get me wrong, I love to be in the business but it's all full of shit. Just look at my movie "Lean and Deliver your Mind". Do you really think some dorky little white man is going to go to an inner city high school and win the students over because he knows how to rap? It's not going to happen. Speaking of rap, I would say the music industry has to be the phoniest field of them all. All these flash in the pan crooners act like they want to change the world with their lyrics and heal racial tensions. Bullshit. What they really want is a little platinum record hanging over their bed and a big wet glistening whatever attached to the person next to them. And what's with all these people who were teen idols like 800 years ago but still manage to get their annoying old faces on television? I mean, Hotel California is a great tune and all but SHUT THE FUCK UP! I suppose we've got our share of that type in Hollywood but at least we don't have any of the freaks the music industry does. Big spiky haired andr ogynous weirdos... Come to think of it, we've got those too. I still say, it's a pretty messed up society in which a black man can become a child molesting white woman and people continue to buy his(her?) records regardless. I had a friend who'd have a lot to say about this particular subject. Jim was his name. I met Jim when I was 24. I had just written my first script "Major Innings" about an infamously poor baseball team that gets a new manager and wins the World Series. I reasoned that since four other screenwriters had written similar scripts and made some money, I might as well too. Honestly, I know it sounds shitty, but within a month after writing I had begun negotiating with Miramax. Everyone at the studio loved it, including the would-be producers/brothers Robert and Harry Firestein. Unfortunately for me, their love extended elsewhere. Just the day before I came into the studio an unheard of writer by the name of Jim Majors brought in an outline for a script "in progress". I can't quite remember, but I think it's safe to assume it was about drug addiction. I don't think Jim could be able to write 20 pages about anything else. So for the next week he and I waited patiently as the producers reviewed our work and came to their decision. During that time we began hanging out together. We went out to eat, caught a Lakers game and ironically enough watched a movie or two. It was as if I was dating again. I found Jim to be a pretty witty and intelligent guy despite the toxins he had introduced to his body. We both expected the end of the week to be the last we would see each of each other as one of us would have a job and the other would be once again "whoring" their script. However, that was not the case. As the two of us were frolicking around town, someone submitted a script for a three hour long Holocaust documentary. Bob and Harry probably spunked all over themselves with joy. Needless to say the funds that would have gone to either Jim's or my film were rerouted. The end of the week marked both the reception of our first rejection letters. About a month after I got my rejection letter my agent out in Anaheim came back from his vacation and I decided to make a visit. Jim, who had basically moved in with me, strung along. He was actually sort of anxious to meet the guy. Now Jules Angelos isn't a man most people want to do business with. I'm guessing it's because he's a blood sucking, buttfucking leech. So why did I decide to hire him? Simply put, I was stupid. It was a long miserable drive from Whittier to Anaheim that day. The sky had that lovely shade of brown that us here in L.A. have grown accustomed to. I remember the 605 was bumper to bumper for a good 10 miles that afternoon, allowing Jim and I some time to talk. Unfortunately for him he brought up his memories of high school. I say "unfortunately" because I'm not a good person to have a conversation about school with. Let's just say I have some big feelings on the subject. In my opinion, school, High school especially, is a big fat waste of time. Now I did fairly well in school, graduated and all but I can honestly say I didn't learn a single fucking thing of value the whole time I was there. Everything I've learned that has come to use later on has been picked up out in the real world. Allow me to elaborate. Have I ever used Geometry? No. Have I ever talked the guy at 7-11 into giving me a free big gulp? Yes. Chemistry? No. How to drive a car? Yes. European history? No. Sex? Yes. When it comes down to it there are only three things you need to learn in life: social skills, how to drive, and how to have sex. None of these you'll learn in school. Well maybe the second one. OK, possibly the first one too. And I guess for some of us the last one. After two hours of pure misery in my cramped little Pacer, we finally reached Jules's office. Jim and I both relaxed in the car a few minutes, passing a joint and savoring the feeling of coming to a journey's end. Once the car began to fill with smoke we decided it would be wise to make our exit. Although we were both two healthy young men, I think we both felt a little vulnerable in that dark underground lot. "Hey, there's my boy! How you been buddy?" Jules said, his face lighting up as we walked through his door. "And who is this?" "This is Jim." I answered. "Oh, Jim Majors! Right, right, right. You told me about him. You're a screenwriter too aren't you Jim?" Jules asked. "What? Oh...um, yeah. I am." Jim said, trying to shake off the cloud in his brain. "Are you looking for an agent? I mean, as your friend here could tell you I'm one heavy hitter. Aren't I?" "Look, Jules," I began slowly. "I didn't get the deal. The studio is picking up some stupid tear jerking three hour documentary on the.." "Holocaust." He interrupted. "How'd you know that?" Jim asked. "It's a script from one of my other clients. He's a great guy, we've done some work together before. I felt this was a good oppor-" "Wait. What did you say? That guy is your client?" I asked in disbelief. "Well, yeah." Jules said nonchalantly. "Are you fucking with me? What's wrong with you? You're putting your own clients up against each other, are you the dumbedest shit that ever lived?" By now I was practically screaming. "Look, you still got a chance with Paramount. I never dreamed they'd pick up one script and not the other." That did it for me. For the first time since 7th grade I punched somebody. I mean, really punched somebody. Jules entire body leaned backwards causing his swivel chair to collapse beneath him. It looked like his whole goddamn face was inverted. "You retard!" I yelled. "Since day one you have been nothing but a problem for me. You throw out scripts you decide I wouldn't want to rewrite, reject producers you decide I wouldn't want to work with, and send my scripts to shitty actors you decide I'd like to fill my roles. The worst part is, this whole time you've been costing me money! Fucking hell! If this was Monopoly you'd be goddamn fucking luxury tax!" "Staying on this Monopoly theme," Jules said as blood streamed from his nose, "Exactly what square would you be?" "I'd be fucking Boardwalk and Jim would be Park Place. And we'd all have fucking hotels!" My anger was causing me to carry this analogy out too far. Jim and I both sensed it was the right time to leave and we simultaneously walked out the door. The walk to the elevator was spent in silence. My head still rang from the loudness of my own voice and the anger that had been behind it. Where was I to go from here? I had no job, no agent, nothing. For the first time in three years I was a starving artist. "Are you the thimble?" Jim asked suddenly, as the elevator doors pushed shut. "What?" I asked. "Are you the thimble? Because if you aren't, I want it." Jim said, keeping his eyes on the floor numbers. There was a tiny hint of a smile forming on his face. "Shut up. Obviously I'm not in the mood." "It's cool, no problem." Jim said. The elevator reached the bottom floor and the both of us walked out. I felt totally disoriented and took about twenty seconds to figure out where I had left the car. The bright Anaheim sun barely poked through the cracks of the ceiling, allowing us just enough light to avoid tripping. Through the darkness Jim spoke up again. "You know I think I'd rather be Free Parking." He said, laughing slightly. "Shut up Jim." I shot back, giggling a little. "Do you play with the money under free parking or no? I know some people don't do that..." he asked, laughing loudly. "Shut the fuck up, this isn't funny!" It was though. Jim had a way of taking serious moments and pissing all over them. "Both of you shut the fuck up." A foreign voice said from behind us. Needless to say, we both turned around as quickly as possible. Instead of coming face to face with the expected security guard or doorman we ended up looking straight into the eyes of a criminal. "Give me your fucking keys." He said, visibly jittering. We knew he wasn't shaking from fear; it had to be the coke. Even without his shakiness it was clear the guy was an addict. He was a very tall and slender black man with sunken bloodshot eyes and the biggest fucking handgun either Jim and I had ever seen. My hands instinctively went down toward my pocket. I didn't even think of putting up a fight. I may have been able to beat the shit out of this guy under normal circumstances, however, at that moment there was the unpleasant matter of the gun pointed at me. "No." Jim said My mind raced. What had he just said? What the hell did he think he was doing? This wasn't his car, this wasn't his life being threatened, why was he doing this? "What did you say?" the man asked. "I said no. Don't you understand? This man here that you're trying to rob is my best friend. He worked for years to get enough money to buy this car and he isn't about to blow it all away by just handing over the keys to your dumb ass." Jim finished with a confident smile. "Shut up, Jim. It's OK." I said taking the keys out of my pocket. "No. I wont let you do it. If you want those keys you're just going to have shoot him because I know that my friend here is too strong of a person to give in to your threats." That was it for me. I grabbed the gun out of our assailant's hands and shot Jim three times in the face. He fell into a little heap on the pavement. "What an asshole." The robber said. "Tell me about it... Wanna go get some coffee?" I asked. "Sure!" He responded, smiling widely. With that the two of us went off in my little pacer toward the nearest Denny's. Both of us knew that the sun never set on those who rode into it so with that in mind we got married the following year. ----- Melt me by Zeylan Melt me, undressed is your fear of my youth and way Find me posessed, I am near. My choice is to stay. But we, distressed, are not clear what course we must play. Sadly I rest with a tear on eye, stand at bay And he is blessed in this year while I was away. Fury is best in his ear, not my dying day To be the best is his cheer, you cry for his sway You see, caressed I appear a lie, you would say, and we have guessed it is here. Goodbye. You leave today. ----- Sex by Swagman Sex safe sex safety first sex puritanical sex premarital sex young sex only talking about it sex oral sex front porch sex back seat drive in movie sex bust a cherry sex in your dreams sex self indulgent autoerotic fantasy sex hetero sex homo sex hot tin roof sex poetic sex adorational sex recreational sex responsible sex mercy sex institutionally sanctioned procreational bedroom sex kitchen table sex hump my nose jungle rock hothouse sex phone booth 3:00 am west of Phoenix desert road sex 3 women 2 men everybody all at once sex wrapped in a blanket on a cold night only the important parts showing sex every inch every available orifice sex get a rash for 3 days sex new lover firstime can't believe it's happening sex colored condom glow in the dark sex of course I'm not pretending you're someone else sex ragged edge go forever sex airplane bathroom "Occupado" sex flaccid pointless sex forgot their name sex I'll give you three days to get off my face sex sneak out afterwards sex wet glue smell like fuck sex I won't tell if you don't tell sex only in it for the money sex of course I'll respect you in the morning sex standing in a pile of clothes front door sex lunchtime nooner sex the kids are watching the Disney channel we won't be bothered sex fresh after work sex with the light on sex stationary sex kinder gentler sex one last time for oldtime's sake sex cosmic oneness whole universe sex feminine sex masculine sex enough sex forget sex go to sleep ----- Ram Nam by Sizzle "I love the Colonel," Monika said, gazing out the window of my car. It was just after one o'clock; the bars were still open, our friends were still drinking in them, but we wanted to go to her house to have sex. We were enveloped in a carressing daze: with the abundant alcohol in our blood, the warmth of our unconcealed affection for each other, the ubiquitous flash and glow of Hollywood neon -- I felt like my mind was descending into a sort of therapeutic quicksand. "The Colonel?" "Colonel Sanders." "You like...you really like fried chicken, huh?" "Oh, no, I'm vegetarian." She gave me a playful glare. "You knew that! I told you that when we first met." I noticed my fingers gripping the wheel more tightly. "Well, I don't understand: if you're vegetarian, then--" "Didn't I tell you that already? I must have. I always try to tell people that when I first meet them so I don't get dragged to steakhouses and all that bullshit." "No, no, you did; I mean, I took you to Healthy Choice, right?" She laughed. "So what I mean is, does K.F.C. serve anything other than fried chicken?" "Oh, no, I mean: I love him for his philosophy, not for his food." I changed the subject. I asked her about school. She was a med student: I asked her to explain ulcers to me. She began speaking in a steady, melodic flow. About five minutes later a bubble of anxiety popped inside my head. I had never been to her apartment before, and I was worried. What if she had images of the Colonel plastered all over her apartment? A life-sized dummy standing guard beside her bed? I once knew a woman who had a print of Alan Alda from M*A*S*H in every room of her home; I knew a guy who accumulated Star Trek souvenirs like gerbils breeding out of control; I've known women who carried around pictures of an Anglo Jesus looking tortured by loneliness or orgasmic with the Love of God; I've known at least a half-dozen Elvis freaks (with Elvis posters, pillows, bedsheets, shower curtains, T-shirts, cups, mugs, tattooes -- fingernail stencils of the king, their hair greased with luminescent ooze in his honor, his records spinning constantly, sounding like supermarket muzak with amateur vocal overdubs -- or not spinning at all, as if to suggest that Elvis-as-musician misses the point). By now, I'd learned to totally overlook people's pop culture obsessions: I simply didn't want to know anymore. I didn't want to ask why. And what if Monika said to me at some inopportune moment, "You remind me of the Colonel." What then? How could I possibly keep an erection? I understood why people worshipped some stars: some have dazzling wit, which makes them beguiling; some -- but not many -- have compassion, which makes them seem like figures of enduring purity in a sickly corrupt world; some are insightful critics of our society, and speak as if from a semi-divine point of critical distance (which is probably a lot easier to do if you're wealthy like most stars -- or at least, a lot easier to do speciously). Sometimes people worship celebrities just because lots of other people seem to be worshipping them. I admit, I didn't want to know what it was about the Colonel. But Monika's capacity for worshipping a cultural icon may have been inviting to me: if a woman can worship a star (of sorts) surely she could also learn to worship a man in real life (for example, me): the Colonel may be a charismatic figure, but can he bring her to orgasm? I hoped not. And if I could get her to see the dark side of the Colonel, it would be a benchmark: something by which I could gauge the level of her affection for me. Monika's heart was a battleground: It was me versus the Colonel. It would be a strenuous battle. Her opinion of the Colonel was based only on the idealized figure of the Him portrayed in K.F.C. advertisements: the grandfatherly figure with the string-tie, the soft, wispy facial hair, the loving eyes offering nourishment at a competitive price. How could I, a real-life man with real-life problems, compete with brilliant suggestive advertising? I developed a strategy. If I found myself losing ground to the Colonel, I could twist this grandfatherly image to my own advantage: I could tell her, making up some bogus historical data, that the Colonel was, in fact, a Colonel in the Confederate army: that he had fought to preserve the institution of slavery -- that he had opposed the Union we now adore. I could say that he had beta-tested his chicken recipe on the corpses of Union soldiers, serving deep-fried human flesh to the loyal minions of Robert E. Lee before they rushed onto the battlefield to slaughter Lincoln's brave young troops. Why is it, I could ask, that the images of the Colonel always stop at the chin? So as to not show the tail, the pitchfork, the demons grovelling at his feet? My worries about her love of the Colonel were misplaced.. Her apartment betrayed no signs of her secret devotion. No busts of the Colonel loomed over her desk; no Warholish paintings of the red-and-white K.F.C. wrappings adorned her walls. She gave me a marguerita (minus the lime juice, triple-sec, ice and salt), then another; I was seeing double when we made love. Indeed, the only indication of her professed "love" of the Colonel was a T-shirt she was wearing when I woke up the next morning. In streaky red letters, it announced: Eleven herbs and spices. I asked her to explain. "I hate monotony," she said. "Monotony?" "People are boring. They're goddam boring." "You mean...I'm not sure what you mean." "There are so many ways people can be. Most people are into something, or something else. But something. You know what I mean? I'm into everything." "How is...how is the Colonel 'everything'?" Monika told me about Ram Nam. It's the name of a religious feast, she said. She went to a Vedanta temple in Hollywood -- a sort of religious group that tried to unify the central themes of all of the world's religions in a positive message about the value of human life. "Every month, they serve food to anyone who comes into the church. The feast is called Ram Nam. If you show up, they feed you." "Lots of religious groups do things like that. It's a cult-induction technique; it's called love-bombing. Give non-believers food, shower them with affection, they start to feel that they're valued. What does that have to do with Kentucky Fried Chicken?" "That's what the Colonel does. Serves food with eleven herbs and spices for everyone who cares to show up." "But you pay for it." "It's still love." "Not if you have to pay for it. It's how the Colonel makes money." "It's still love. We can't all be religious." And like that, I lost the battle. What's so fucked up about those elusive wonderful moments when all the senses seem to gel around your affection for someone is this: they don't recur. The blend is only right once. I celebrated Ram Nam like a funeral. I went to K.F.C. and ordered the remains of a chicken sparking with the aromatic crisp of a mysterious batter, a dollop of translucent mashed potatoes, a gooey nest of cole slaw, and chewed without tasting. I imagined throwing the tray across the room, shouting curses at the false religion of commercial culture. The Colonel looked down at me from every corner, his complacent smile mocking me. I imagined a voice, a voice like Elvis's, muffled slightly by the whisps of a grotesque goatee. "You don't please them, boy. You're not high-minded enough. Where you see brain-death, a fixation on vacuous advertising ploys, they see eleven herbs and spices: they experience tastes that reverberate right to their souls. You? You are their starvation." ----- SUBMISSION INFORMATION Swagazine originated within the online community in Santa Barbara at a now defunct BBS we knew as Swagland. The personalities who graced our electronic medium shared messages of such considerable talent that we decided to pool our efforts, take on the world, and start a magazine of our own. Now, several years later, the BBS world has migrated to the Internet and so has our publication. While it is still our intent to spotlight local talent from the Santa Barbara area, we will consider submissions from anyone, anywhere. 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