WHERE JANICE IS NOT

You ordered it with peppers and now you’re taking them out. I don’t get it. It’s too hot. Want a sip of my tequila? Two misanthropic old hazards smoke cigars across from us. Corpulent slobs. Try to pick up these two straws without knocking any of them down. Or touching any of them.

Lord Claudius von Vile Silencer crawls in the closet surrounded by porn tapes and gaudy rhinestone clothes. Watch this one, he says.

The fog tonight is out of control. We all have to take a piss. As we park the car, a brittle haired woman wearing tight tight jeans passes by. Look, a whore, waxes Andrew Marvell. Fucking cunt! I’m sweating and falling apart. She passes away, blurring into the fog. We pole through the murky blitz, vaulting over the boardwalk rails, racing through the sand as beach pours into our shoes. We all have to take a piss. The featureless figure of a fisherman poles far to our left. Notice there are no birds. The horizon line of the ocean flickers, obscured by the fog; the waves lunge from a gauzy grey void. Too far away, a couple grazes on the coastline. Our urine dissolves into the salty sea.

What time is it? asks a young fella with a flaccid hair-do. I only do tattoos. Passing the bottle of tequila, Andrew Marvell possesses the time. The first train arrives without Djangus Khan. That pudgy girl on the platform, the one smoking, she reminds me of someone. Imagine having to kiss her. I slap down another shot. Andrew Marvell blows smoke past his sideburns. The next train arrives and Khan disembarks, swinging his bags. He does not carry a watch.

By the jetty, in the sand, the shell skeletons of three horseshoe crabs symmetrically arranged in a trench amongst some burnt driftwood. Some kind of sacrifice? As we leave the beach, two young squeekers on swings stare at us. The fog is so thick, we can’t make out any details. With no hope of meeting them.

Andrew Marvell, the size of a freight train, he lifts me over his head, bellowing my name. His muscles/ chunky fists of meat. What? No beer? A naked woman blinks across the television. He screams again, CUNT! The word goes through me intravenously, I flinch, and he drops me down the staircase.

The bright pink room. The huge bed. Djangus Khan and Claudius, motionless, tangled in the bedspread. As Claudius senses me, sees me in the mirror, his gilled head gradually levitates. I leap between the two of them on the mattress. Djangus awakes, staring into my face and screams in alarm. Dawn light is so bright, the shades on the skylights are open. I’ll close them. Flipping every light switch on the panel. I don’t think they can be closed, clucks Claudius.

The maid surveys the scene. She remains a terrifying force.

Tequila, pored on the table top.

You freaks are so lame sitting around like this on a SATURDAY night. Let’s find a whore. God, I need a good lay, gurgles Andrew Marvell. There’s some in Rome. There’s more than one, Andrew Marvell. Beware, if you have one more shot, you’ll vomit.

I’m sitting on the toilet with the shits. The kittylitter box smells awful. It’s yellow in here, my balls are tolling between my legs.

A woman ripples through television waves, masturbating with a dildo. Passing the tequila bottle. A man enters and she wraps her lips around him. Lord Claud slows down the image with remote control, frame by excruciating frame as the ejaculation occurs. Ugh. I’m sweating. What are we doing here, dying? I toss another shot. All share the perspiring bottle.

Caravan of men, seeking ghosts of female forms in the Undersea Square Mall. Fictitious femmes pass before us. I decide to call the woman who is not here, but no one answers.

Djangus hands over the magazine, groaning with disgust and rubbing his eyes. The magazine with no cover. Inside? A bevy of pink, naked women that I don’t recognize. Spreading their flesh. Hairy omelets of lust. Bearing clams and crust.

The table, sticky and flimsy. The café, hazy and pretty. Two women with box-like pocketbook projections sit behind Djangus Khan. Claudus grits, I wanna…!! pounding his fist into his palm. Crushing maize. Andrew Marvell arrives, blowing smoke. I must have coffee in the morning. Can I get you anything? softly speaks the transparent waitress. Yeahhhhhh, smiles Andrew Marvell.

A separation. I go with Claudius, Djangus goes with Andrew Marvell. At this point, a vague, particular pang to write Janice in Rome.

Djangus Khan and Andrew Marvell arrive at Heartbreakers.

Claudius and I stroll through mock Roman ruins.

Centurions will not accept the accurate ID of Djangus Khan. Andrew Marvell goes in anyway, leaving Khan in the chariot. Smoky lights, booze glaze, the pink ripples of cellulite in the mirror.

Lord Claud discusses his romantic difficulties. Janice is mentioned. But she is not here.

Another shot of tequila vanishes and dissolves.

Claudius and I close our eyes and race through a field of fine Roman grass.

Djangus Khan pouts in the parking lot.

A woman is always dancing, but none of us are able to see her.

The men converge. We’re all together in this bonding ritual.

In one moment, all fifteen tequila shots splatter my brains all over the broken empire. I spread out my sleeping bag on the floor, as a grave tarp, and fall through my pillow. Play me something of yourself, Andrew Marvell, something you would play if no one else could hear you, something that you wrote yourself.

Dropping down the car window, Andrew Marvell vomits profusely, transforming into a heap of macho meat, sputtering chunks of peppers onto maroon sideburns, dotting them with pink saliva.

All the men stand over me. Shaking me, pouring water over me. But I cannot be revived. I miss her too much.