It was a sickness of sorts—a fetish I was never proud of—and I blame the Internet, which is where pathetic, hormonal men with nothing better to do with their time run amok.
So I’d make excuses:
“Aspiring writer researching subject matter” was fine by me.
My first story, a romantic yarn about a…
Have you read my story, “Dirty Laundry,” in issue #7 of The Weekenders yet?
No?
Would you like to?
Maybe?
Well, if you do decide, just click here or something.
Thanks.
I have sorely been neglecting my literary duties, as well as this “tumblr” thing. Apologies. Here is what I’ve recently been up to. Pull up a chair. Don’t fall asleep, if you can help it. Here goes:
My flash story, “The Bitch of Sentiment,” appears in the winter 2012 issue of Emerge Literary Journal, which includes lots of great writers, I’m sure; I have yet to read it—they refuse to send me a contributor’s copy, so I’ll just have to save up $7.98 so I can buy the damn thing myself. Note: My being cheap should not deter you from enjoying such a fine piece of literally merit, which I assume it is. Pick one up here!
My story, “Clothes for a Summer Funeral,” a brief love story between two men, was recently featured on Asbury Pulp (“Fact & Fiction on the Jersey Shore”), along with a classy illustration by Jay Boucher. Read it here!
My band, the Ex-Boogeymen, has just released a split album with our friends, Waylon Thornton and the Heavy Hands. It is called Only Darkness Holds the Power, and it is available to stream/download here. You can also read an interview with Reverend Liaison (my Ex-Boogeymen alter ego) about the album at: www.leadusdown.com!
Also, sadly, the editors over at Pressgang Books rejected my manuscript for The Mustache He’s Always Wanted but Could Never Grow and Other Stories: “Our readers found a lot to love in the stories of your sample, often in your humor and the hooks your unique and fascinating situations offered. They did agree, though, that there was often too much exposition before said hooks, which led to an uneven read.” I had to go look up the word “exposition” after reading this.
Finally… my story, “Wanting,” will appear in the upcoming Fast Forward Press anthology, Flash 101: Surviving the Fiction Apocalypse. Not sure when this bad boy is coming out, but I’ll keep you posted!
Currently listening to: Tegan and Sara Heartthrob
Currently reading: Dan Fante Chump Change
LOCO MASK II
by Brian Alan Ellis
My old-ass Chevy Cavalier began overheating as I pulled into the municipal fairgrounds. I knew it would. It was about as stoked to meet Mom’s current boyfriend, Jack, as I was. She hadn’t said much, and with hertrack record, that’s exactly what I expected:
Not much.
There was Bucky, who drunkenly drove Mom’s Pathfinder into a jewelry store window; Warren, I remember, ran off with a thirteen-year-old cousin of his; Charles died sitting up—he’d had a heart attack on Mom’s sofa while reading Soap Opera Digest; as for Dad, well, he was neglectful and has spent the last fifteen years or so in solitude, painting horses—he doesn’t care for much else.
I sat and let the engine cool. I couldn’t decide, like the Clash song says, whether to stay or go. Shakespeare shit. Enough to make a man existentially queasy.
I sat awhile.
Mom had on one of her silly straw hats. This meant she was happy. When she pulled me into her, I got a good whiff of the dollar-store perfume she nearly drowns herself with on special occasions. Then I kissed one of her jolly, beer-reddened cheeks, and suspected her of being reckless.
She said, “Ronald, my boy,” stepping away to straighten the brim of her Happiness hat, “I can’t wait for you to meet Jack.”
Crack. Smack. Lack. Whack. Nothing good to rhyme with. A bad omen.
Jack-off.
“Well, where is he?” I asked. I didn’t see him.
“Over there,” she said, pointing to a bunch of screaming imbeciles. “He’s performing!”
“Performing what,” I said, “lobotomies?”
A big son-of-a-bitch, announced as Loco Mask II, wearing a sequined blue hood with crazy yellow dragons stitched onto the sides, charged through the curtain and down the aisle towards a shoddily built ring. On his way there, an old woman in the crowd lobbed a plastic cup of beer at him. It exploded against his greasy pectorals.
Mom said to me, “That’s Jack. He’s what you call a ‘heel’.”
Jack, the heel, stopped to get in the old woman’s face. It looked like he was about to clock her one. The crowd booed.
Jack’s opponent, already in the ring, dressed in fatigues and waving an American flag above his head, was named Corporal Crusher.
Mom said, “That’s Bruce, Jack’s best friend. He’s a ‘baby-face’… a good-guy, G.I. Joe-type.” She was a sudden expert.
The bell rang. Jack and his buddy Bruce tossed each other around awhile. Mom knew all the moves—everything from a “Cobra Clutch” to a “Flying Insiguri.” No holds were barred; even ordinary household items were used as weapons: folding chairs, ladders, and even a cheese-grater which Jack had introduced to the referee’s skull.
Mom went bananas, loving every minute of the choreographed bloodshed that had the crowd on their fat feet; only when Jack was slammed through a fiberboard table did she show any real concern.
After the match, Loco Mask II stood proudly in the center of the ring, arms raised, as trash thrown by rabid questionables accumulated. He wasn’t the moral victor. Not by a long shot. He was Mom’s new man.
One by one the cars drove off till only Jack’s rusted Sanford-and-Son mobile remained. I knew it was his because Mom had pointed it out. Standing beside it was a guy who looked about my age, maybe a little older, but he was big, built like a stallion in one of Dad’s paintings. His ratty blonde hair was tied into a ponytail, and he wore a pink tank-top with baggy zebra-striped pants tucked into cowboy boots. His left arm was bandaged.
A specimen of inbreeding?
I wondered.
I said to Mom, “Is that Jack’s son or something?”
She laughed nervously. “No, no, no,” she said, “that’s… well… that’s Jack.”
So I shook Jack’s hand. It sounded like a shit-ton of firecrackers had gone off; it was quite a grip. He said, “Please to meet you, Ronald,” before spitting tobacco juice at my feet.
Instead of a championship belt, he wore a fanny-pack around his waist. I shook my head. Then I noticed blood starting to seep through the bandages wrapping his arm. “Dude, you’re… uh…”
“Oh, it’s nothin’,” he said, dabbing it with an entire roll of paper towels.
I tried being cordial. “Quite a show out there,” I said. “It looked like you were really about to hit that old woman.”
“That was Miriam,” he said, grinning. “She was my kindergarten teacher.”
I had nothing.
“Listen,” Mom said to me, “we’re heading back to the house to get cleaned up. Then we’ll grab some food, maybe go bowling. How ’bout it?”
I thought maybe I could take him. Without the hood-and-cheese-grater gag, Jack wasn’t so threatening. Still.
“Ronald?”
“Oh. Sure, Mom. How ’bout it?”
The Chevy gave me some trouble on the way, but not much. Having to stare at Jack’s license plate the whole time, that was the real trouble:
LOCOMSK2
Christ.
I considered running Jack off the road but knew Mom would’ve probably had a breakdown. Her and my car. Both.
When we got to Mom’s, Duker came running up to greet me, stopped to leak, and continued on. I shook him behind the ears. Old boy.
I snooped around while Jack showered and Mom got ready. Propped behind a folded-up Ping-Pong table was a family portrait Dad had done years ago—before going mad with horses. In it my hair is combed, and I’m half-smiling; Duker, only a puppy, is in my arms, and his tongue is out; Mom has on one of her hats; Dad looks stoic, distant, almost gone.
I must have been eleven or twelve, then.
Dad didn’t know about Jack or Bucky or Warren. He knew about Charles, though; no use keeping that one a secret. He said of Charles: “Serves him right. The same would have probably happened to me too, had I stuck around.”
I saw Jack’s wrestling boots resting against the bathroom door. I picked one of them up, looked it over. Then I smelled it. It smelled as you would expect: not like roses. I put it back.
Mom came out of her bedroom wearing a tan button-down Roy Rogers shirt and white denim jeans. Classy as always. “Well,” she said, brushing a towel through wet curls, “what do you think of Jack?”
“Well, I’m afraid to ask how old he is,” I said.
“Oh, Ronald, you know age doesn’t matter much. But if you must know,” she said, “he’s twenty-eight.”
“Jesus,” I said. “He’s only got three years on me! That doesn’t bother you any?”
“Nope,” she said. “I’m past all that. I love Jack.”
“Yeah, well, at least he has a really great job,” I said. “How much those gorillas get paid, anyway?”
“More than painting roomfuls of horses, that’s for damn sure…” Mom let the bitterness fade as quickly as it had surfaced. “Oh, Ronald, can’t you just give it a chance? I promise you, Jack’s really great.”
“Well, I suppose,” I said. I lied.
Mom got me in her arms and squeezed. “We’re all gonna have so much fun tonight, just you wait!”
“So your mom tells me you’re in school?”
“That’s right,” I said, picking senselessly at a basket of soggy fries. “Communications. Not as exciting as what you’re doing, I’m sure.”
“Eh, probably hurts less,” said Jack. “But hey, if communicating doesn’t work out, and it’s okay with your mom, I can teach you to be a wrassler like me.”
Mom said, “Oh, Jack, don’t…”
“Why the hell not? I could always use a tag partner. The Loco Mask Connection. Nice ring to it, huh?” Jack nudged me while sipping his beer.
“What happened to Loco Mask I?” I asked.
“Retired.” From his pocket Jack pulled out the sequined blue hood. He was damn proud of it. He said, “It’s an honor to carry on the legacy,” and then paused to reminisce. “A big draw in the southeast territories, that Loco.” Then he turned to Mom, who was glowing, and winked.
I pictured a seedy motel room. Shades down. Ratt playing in the background. Loco Mask II lowering his muscular frame upon my dear old mother, ready to put her in his infamous “Love” hold.
I gripped the table. I nearly fainted.
Mom said, “Ronald, what’s wrong? You look like a ghost done gotcha.” She laughed.
“I’m fine,” I told her, “just dehydrated.”
Just mortified.
Jack nailed his sixth strike of our last game. Another Turkey. He went up to Mom, gave her some tongue, and then slapped her on the ass. The fucker.
I started to grow balls. I said to him, “I see you’re not as lousy a bowler as you are a wrestler.”
Jack flashed his tobacco-speckled teeth. “Only one way to find out,” he said.
A challenge.
Mom looked on, smiling. “Oh, you boys, I swear…”
I didn’t respond. I drank my beer. I drank it like it tasted bad.
While Mom was at the jukebox, no doubt searching Kenny Chesney, I asked Jack if he wanted to take a shot. A peace offering. He shrugged, nodded, and then followed me to the bar.
I said to the old man behind the bar, “Two shots of Kentucky Gentlemen.” He poured them, and I raised my glass for a toast. “To mothers!” I said, smugly.
Jack didn’t like it. He looked straight through me while downing his shot, and then calmly walked off without saying “Thanks” or “Fuck you” or anything.
It was like the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. I couldn’t get through. So I got drunk, gloriously drunk, and watched from the bar as Mom slow-danced with Jack to a Gretchen Wilson ballad.
Mom was happy; she had the hat to prove it. Still, I knew in my heart that Jack was a brute. I could picture him getting belligerent and knocking Mom around the way he did his opponents. I didn’t like him.
Clutching chairs and tables for balance, I tottered onto the dance floor. From there I got Jack in a rear chokehold and brought him to the ground. His legs were kicking, and I could feel his head growing hot with anger as tobacco juice ran down my arm. Mom screamed for help, but nobody did anything. Not that they needed to. Jack simply reached behind and flipped me onto a table which, unlike the one he’d gone through earlier, did not break. So I lay sprawled on top of it, watching the ceiling spin as pain shook my spine, thinking I would soon end up like Charles.
Mom got me in her arms again. Her hat was off, and she was sobbing. “Ronald, my boy, what’s gotten into you? Jack’s sorry. I swear he is. He didn’t mean nothin’. Oh God!”
I felt bad. I should have let the two of them alone. Mom was a grown-ass woman, and she could do whatever the hell she wanted, which she usually did. I was just her son, and I was shit-faced, and everyone in the bar watched as I carefully got up off the table and onto my feet. I bet they all thought I couldn’t do it. A few of them clapped.
First thing I did was apologize to Jack. I said, “Sorry, dude. You won,” and I raised his arm. Then I turned and kissed Mom’s tear-soaked face. I said, “Put your damn hat back on,” and she did, and I staggered off.
“Ronald, come back!”
I looked around the parking lot. I couldn’t remember driving there myself. Mom was shouting. “Ronald, honey, please come back!” It wouldn’t stop. Relieved, I got into my Cavalier and sped off, leaving smoke and crap rubber. Mom’s voice kept on.
It didn’t take long for the engine to burn up, and when it did I pulled the car to the side of the road. I waited awhile. Then I tried starting it. When the damn thing wouldn’t turn over, I got out and walked.
I walked a long time. I didn’t know where I was going, what direction. Cars whizzed by, blinding me. They didn’t stop. They had places to be. They didn’t overheat.
Delirious, I imagined Dad coming to rescue me on one of those horses he’d spent so much time capturing on canvas. He’d say, “Hop on, son,” and I would, and the horse would be a Tri-Star Pictures horse—a magical white thing sprouting wings—and it would kick its legs up and make horse sounds, and we’d be off.
I saw a set of lights up ahead, brighter than any before it, and it was then that I decided I would quit school. To hell with communications, I thought. I would quit school to become a professional wrestler. I would train hard. And I would say my prayers. And I would eat my vitamins. And I would challenge Jack to a steel cage grudge match. I’d pile-drive him on his thick head. And I too would wear a hood. I’d be known as Loco Mask Assassin. I would be the first.
For Austen Minor
A slightly revised version of this story appears in the current issue of Flare: the Flagler Revew.
© 2012 Brian Alan Ellis
My story, “Ideas for a Clown-And-Poet Play”, is featured in the latest issue of Spittoon!
You will also find my story, “Coming on Wet Grass”, featured at Subtle Fiction! Though is there anything subtle about pissing angels and masturbating apparitions?
Man, shit is wild! Wooooooooo!
And look for my story “Loco Mask II” in the upcoming issue of the Flagler Review!
My story, “Jerry’s TV” (featured in the Fast Forward Press anthology, The Incredible Shrinking Story), will be performed by members of the Buntport Theatre Company as part of the Very, Very, VERY Short Stories production held January 21 at the Denver Civic Center! A very cool honor, and if you happen to be in the area, check it out! Visit storiesonstage.org, for more information!
Don’t ask me the fuck why, but I totally watched Twenty, Cameron Crowe’s new Pearl Jam documentary. It’s two hours long, it’s Pearl Jam, and for some reason (I’m insane) I didn’t hate it. I guess you can only watch Anvil: The Story of Anvil so many times.
Actually, fuck that: Anvil is acceptable viewing always. Still, Pearl Jam?!
Sure, like every dip-shit 12 year-old in the ’90s, I owned Ten. But I hardly ever listened to it. In fact, I didn’t really like it all. Then I got vs. when it came out and listened to it even less than Ten. I was under some strange impression that it was uncool not to like Pearl Jam, which is ridiculous, because albums like Pretty Hate Machine and In Utero murdered their albums. Then Vitalogy came out. My friend Steve and I listened to it (neither of us digging it but pretending we did) while trying to figure out the hidden message encoded within the cassette (yes, cassette) booklet. Twenty years later I’ve finally cracked the code:
Kids are fucking stupid!
The documentary, for some reason, is absurdly watchable—especially the Mother Love Bone portion. Their singer, the late Andrew Wood, talks about wanting to tour with Warrant, which is funny: Mother Love Bone always seemed like an edgier version of the Bullet Boys, who were basically an edgier Warrant.
Plus the grunge commercialization segments (similar to the ones in Hype!) were very funny.
Should I blame myself for falling victim to this slick, nostalgic hogwash, or should Cameron Crowe be held accountable for making a band like Pearl Jam appear interesting for 120 minutes (pun intended)?
Fuck you, Cameron!
Next time I’m watching Anvil. Again.
Things have really been poppin’ off over at Brian Alan Ellis land. Four new stories have been published: “Leftover Heels” in Obsession #1, “An Object Never Before Put To Use” in Epiphany #10, “For Pain With Sleeplessness” in Diverse Arts Project #1, and “Rosewater” in The Fine Line #3. Enjoy them. Give them love. Or you could just stream stupid movies on Netflix, like:
ROCKULA (1990), starring (unbelievably) Bo “Fuckin’” Diddley, Toni “Hey Mickey” Basil, Thomas “She’s Blinded Me With Science” Dolby, the chick from Night of the Comet, and the dude from Summer School/Ski School (you’ll wish he’d gone to Acting School, instead).
Christ, it’s surreal.
After a horrendous seperation, Netflix and I finally got back together. We had great make-up sex:
Strange Powers: Stephen Merrit and the Magnetic Fields
Thumbs up!
Then we cuddled:
OMG! The Top 50 Incidents in WWE History
Very entertaining, though the “Montreal Screwjob” incident should have placed much higher. Also:
No Gobbledy Gooker!? Tsk.
My personal top 3, which all took place in 1991, when I was an impressionable ten year-old, were strangely omitted. Here they are:
3. UNDERTAKER LOCKS ULTIMATE WARRIOR IN A CASKET
That shit was fucked up, and should have definitely been included in the top 50. Strangely, the Papa Shango/Ultimate Warrior voodoo food-poisoning angle of ’92 was left off as well:
2. SGT. SLAUGHTER TURNS ON HIS COUNTRY
There was nothing more evil to a pre-pubescent WWF “Mark” than seeing a former GI. Joe cartoon character bro down with Saddam Hussein, the most evil man on the planet at that time. Burning a “Hulk Rules” tank-top on national TV is one thing, but when you actually set Hulk Hogan on fire after WrestleMania, Jesus Christ! Plus, those pointy Iron Sheik boots Slaughter wore (a “personal gift” from Mr. Hussein) gave me many a-nightmare.
1. EARTHQUAKE SQUASHES DAMIEN
It took 20 years to convince myself that Earthquake actually sat on a bag of pillows instead of Damien, the pet python of Jake “The Snake” Roberts. Still, seeing this, I was forever changed as a human being. R.I.P. Old friend. (Note: A week later, Roberts got a new snake, called Lucifer. See a connection here? Then Lucifer was quickly replaced by a terrifying (and this time nameless) Cobra with which Roberts used to attack the late, great “Macho Man” Randy Savage. Ohhhhh yeaaaah!)
Man, WWF was awesome back then. In fact, if you ask me, 1991 was the real “Attitude” era.
Just ask Tugboat, who, that same year, turned on his buddies, the Bushwakers:
You can almost taste the deception.
Eric and Bruce, you guys are solid Kiss members in your own right, but I’m sorry: made up as Peter and Ace, respectively, you two look fucking ridiculous.
Though not as ridiculous as these:
