Andersen Prunty's Blog, page 24

Coming in 2011

The Sorrow King will be published as a trade paperback and digital edition through Grindhouse Press.

Dark Regions Press will be releasing a collection of my short stories.

Fill the Grand Canyon and Live Forever will be serialized on the Interwebs. This will be what I started writing for NaNoWriMo only with a middle and end and stuff. Provided it has 7 followers, there will be a Boring and Pointless, Volume Two next year.

Have a great 2011. As always, thanks for reading.

Godspeed, You Vicious Creeps

This will probably be my last post for 2010 and, if I die before 2011, my last post ever.

2010 was supposed to be a year of relative slack, where I focused on writing books more than anything else. But things happen and I found myself in the throes of one of my busiest years ever. I did a reading in March with D. Harlan Wilson, John Edward Lawson, and Michael Arnzen, attended Mo*Con in May, Context in August, and Horrorfind in September when I had originally not planned on attending any conventions. I also founded Grindhouse Press and assisted taskmaster Gregory Seymour with editing and reading submissions for Atlatl Press. These are all books I either published, helped edit, or had released this year:

The Beard by me (okay, this was late 2009)
Morning is Dead by me
House of Fallen Trees by Gina Ranalli
They Had Goat Heads by D. Harlan Wilson
Vampires in Devil Town by Wayne Hixon
The Horribles by Nathaniel Lambert
My Fake War by me
Slag Attack by me
The Sorrow King by me
The Brothers Crunk by William Pauley III (coming soon!)

I've also spent the last couple of months helping to renovate a house and just moved last weekend.

With any luck, next year will be just as busy. I should have at least a book or two coming out and will definitely keep you posted as that information becomes available.

So I'm going to duck back into my hole and continue the work of 3,000 space cadets. I hope you all have a creative holiday season.

2010 Top 40

Here are 40 songs I really like. Most of them are from 2010. They're not in any particular order.

Books Read 2010

Here's a list of the books I read in 2010, for creeps who are into that sort of thing:

1. How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely
2. Shoplifting from American Apparel by Tao Lin
3. The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI by Ronald Kessler (audio)
4. Last Days by Brian Evenson
5. Depraved by Bryan Smith
6. Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson (audio)
7. Vacation by Deb Olin Unferth
8. Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo (audio)
9. Darkness on the Edge of Town by Brian Keene
10. Grifter's Game by Lawrence Block
11. Fade to Blonde by Max Phillips
12. The Summer I Died by Ryan C. Thomas
13. The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost
14. Chilly Scenes of Winter by Ann Beattie
15. Dreams in Black and White by John R. Little
16. Loath Letters by Christy Stewart
17. The Mental Floss History of the World by Mental Floss
18. Nocturne by Steve Gerlach
19. Friday Night in Beast House/The Wilds by Richard Laymon
20. A Dark Matter by Peter Straub
21. Going Monstering by Edward Lee
22. Heretics by Greg F. Gifune
23. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
24. Grundish and Askew by Lance Carbuncle
25. Hide and Seek by Jack Ketchum
26. Doom Magnetic! by William Pauley III
27. Blaze of Glory by Weston Ochse
28. Teatro Grottesco by Thomas Ligotti
29. Hard Boiled Vampire Killers by Jim Gavin
30. Orgy of Souls by Wrath James White and Maurice Broaddus
31. The People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn (audio)
32. The Resurrectionist by Wrath James White
33. A Million Versions of Right by Matthew Revert
34. Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
35. The Deputy by Victor Gischler
36. House of Fallen Trees by Gina Ranalli
37. Minor Robberies by Deb Olin Unferth
38. My Heart Said No, but the Camera Crew Said Yes! by Bradley Sands
39. Horns by Joe Hill
40. Rabid Child by Pete Risley
41. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
42. Feast by R. Scott McCoy
43. Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis
44. The Stranger by Ronald Damian Malfi
45. Joyride by Jack Ketchum
46. At the End of Church Street by Gregory L. Hall
47. King Scratch by Jordan Krall
48. Role Models by John Waters
49. They Had Goat Heads by D. Harlan Wilson
50. Vampires in Devil Town by Wayne Hixon
51. Catching Hell by Greg F. Gifune
52. Blockade Billy by Stephen King
53. The Complete Drive-in by Joe R. Lansdale
54. Codename Prague by D. Harlan Wilson
55. The Horribles by Nathaniel Lambert
56. A Gathering of Crows by Brian Keene
57. The Third House by Andy Deane
58. The Black Train by Edward Lee
59. Praise the Dead by Gina Ranalli
60. The Innswich Horror by Edward Lee
61. The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft
62. Kutter by Jeff Strand
63. The Brothers Crunk by William Pauley III
64. An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England by Brock Clarke
65. The Horns of Evangelina by Chuck Morgue
66. The Scheme for Full Employment by Magnus Mills
67. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (did not finish/still kind of reading)
68. Richard Yates by Tao Lin
69. Nightmare Seasons by Charles L. Grant
70. Dweller by Jeff Strand
71. Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis
72. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
73. The Disappearance by Bentley Little
74. Tunneling to the Center of the Earth by Kevin Wilson
75. The 13th by John Everson
76. Museum of the Weird by Amelia Gray
77. The Cannibal's Guide to Ethical Living by Mykle Hansen
78. Night of the Assholes by Kevin L. Donihe
79. The Informers by Bret Easton Ellis
80. Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

Moving, NaNoWriMo Fail, and the Making of My Fake War

I moved. This house has fewer bear traps and a bigger smile.

I did NaNoWriMo for like 4 days and gave up. November was a terrible month to attempt this. Boring and Pointless: This Could Go On Forever (my NaNo novel) is going to continue, probably in some kind of onlne serial format. I will probably begin posting them in January. It'll be just like a weekly TV show only more boring and not as loud (I recommend listening to music really loud while reading it, to give it more of that TV feel). If it has more than two readers, it'll probably be an annual kind of thing.

I wrote the story behind the story of My Fake War and posted it on Amazon as a review. Only like 2 out of a hundred people found the review helpful. It looks like Amazon has removed the review. Because I think it highly informs the novel (If you haven't read it yet, you really should. Reading it will make you glow and give you the ability to shoot lightning bolts from your fingertips.) I'm reposting the review here. Also, while you're on Amazon, you should check out my zombie bromance, Morning is Dead. As of this second, it's real cheap (under 8 dollars).

THE MAKING OF MY FAKE WAR

I began writing My Fake War in 1978 at the suggestion of Kurt Vonnegut (RIP). We were in the library of Truman Capote's New York apartment comparing tweed blazers. His had buttons. Mine had duct tape. Vonnegut kept making me smoke unfiltered Pall Malls and I tried to tell him that I had TB so he would stop. He didn't. I told him he looked like he should be in porn and he told me I looked like a paper bag. I don't remember much of what else happened that night but I awoke the next morning with the desire to write my magnum opus. Actually, it would be my first book. Or my fifth or something. Things were hazy then. I imagined it to be 1,503 pages long. I decided to take three years off for research and preparation. I divided those three years between Los Angeles, Tijuana, and Tibet. I decided to get busy writing and then realized my lease had expired and I no longer had a home. I called my agent and harangued her until she gave me the number of J.D. Salinger's agent. I called J.D. Salinger's agent and harangued him until he put me in touch with J.D. Salinger. I told the agent I was a very powerful man. I told him I was the King of Datsuns. J.D. (or "Jerry", as I called him) allowed me to stay in the basement of his New Hampshire home provided I didn't "talk too much." I spent a week in Jerry's basement, writing, drinking Miller High Life, and punching myself in the mouth every time I spoke out loud. At the end of the week I had finished five pages. By this time I was feeling burned out and fatigued. It was 1981. I decided to take the next twenty-eight years off. I explored the Great Ohio Desert. I was nearly consumed by an airborne toxic event. I was told this was not an exit. I moved to a modest house in posh Dayton, Ohio, and picked up where I had left off. I decided I was too lazy to write and decided to amass a sweatshop of unemployed elderly from around the neighborhood. They were non-threatening but cranky. I put them in my basement, gave them old typewriters and told them to get to work. Most of them had arthritis. A couple of them had no hands. I was a bad recruiter. Their work ethic was poor, their ingenuity non-existent. I told them I would do it myself. They made coffee for me while I worked for the next six months. The coffee they made was sub-par. I suspect it was instant. By the time I was finished I had my 1,503 pages. I submitted it to my editor and she suggested I "whittle it down." She also pointed out the fact that there was no evident research and suggested I had come unhinged from reality. I laughed but was quickly consumed by a black wave of depression. I told my sweatshop to get to whittling. They were finished sometime later and I was able to submit it to my editor under the original title: A Treatise on Porn Enthusiasm. She made me change the title and a month later it was on the New York Times Bestseller List. Success, Mr. Prunty! Raging success!

Fuck Black Friday, This Shit Is Free

Stay home. Save money. Read a book.

Vampires in Devil Town by Wayne Hixon

Morning is Dead by me.

From now until ???!

Day 4

11.8.2010



12.



Estelle blares the horn and I start climbing into the Jeep when she tells me I have to sit in the back because Clarence is in the passenger seat. I don't see anyone but I do what she says. She seems really on edge. I sit in the back and wonder why the top has been removed from the Jeep and really wish for the millionth time that I had a coat. She rips through the side yard and bounces into the alley. We drive through a series of alleys. I never realized Dayton had so many alleys but it seems like a half an hour before we're on any type of main road. And then it's only to bound up onto 35. My arms are wrapped around myself and my teeth are chattering and the speed of the highway isn't helping at all. By the time we reach 75 South my blood is pumping and I'm starting to feel less like a corpse.

"Where are we going?" I ask, knowing I should just enjoy the ride but, given my past experiences with Estelle, I know that wherever we're going could lead to savagery and horror. I think I'm okay with this.

"Clarence has a cane!" she yells. Spit mists out of her mouth and spritzes my face. It smells like Listerine and death.

"What!"

"Clarence! Has! A! Cane!"

"Great!"

"And it has a skull on it!"

"Clarence sounds like a badass!"

"What!"

I repeat myself but it doesn't elicit any response. The rearview mirror frames Estelle's wild eyes. We're in the fast lane and doing well over a hundred. There are very few other cars on the highway. She stops and tells me I have to drive.

"I don't want to drive."

"The arthritis in my knees is really fucking with me. Get behind that fucking wheel or I'll cut your face."

She slides over into the passenger seat.

"What about Clarence?"

"Clarence got out a half hour ago. He's a limp dicked mother fucker. By that I mean he's my son and I have had sex with him."

"Therefore you know all about his erectile dysfunction and his penchant for relations with mothers."

"The next time I hear fancy talk like that I'm biting your ear off. Get this bitch moving. It's stolen."

I slam on the gas. Eventually we pass a stadium-sized church with the skeleton of what used to be a giant Jesus until it got struck by lightning in front of it. Estelle stands up and rips off her top. She's not wearing a bra and she bounces around. "Look at these, Jesus!" she shouts. It's just like Mardi Gras.

"Drive faster!" she says. She's still standing up, her breasts and loose skin flapping in the wind. I try to turn on the heat and she karate chops my hand away.

We pull off an exit somewhere in Cincinnati. She spits directions at me and I robotically maneuver the Jeep until we're in front of a dilapidated Victorian house. It's the only house with any lights on.

Great! Maybe she's taking me along to another one of her parties. I really wish Buddy were here. Estelle hops out of the Jeep and winces. She buttons up her floral-patterned polyester church dress and I realize how conservatively she's dressed. She goes around to the back of the Jeep and grabs a couple five-gallon cans of gasoline.

"Grab those." She points at a couple of road side flares.

"What are we doing?"

"We're having fun. We're making the night glow. We're aging and regressing." Then she growls at me and lashes out at my cheek with a claw. It hurts. I think it's bleeding but I'm holding these flares and too preoccupied to check. We walk up onto the porch. She sets down the gas cans and tries the door. It's locked. She tells me to kick it in. Says it'll be a blast, a really big time, a fiesta, arena rock.

I kick the door several times. I can't kick it open. I'm chubby and weak and not a master of kicking open doors. The door opens anyway and an old man stands on the other side.

"Why the banging?" he says.

Before he can say anything else, Estelle throws herself on him like a wild cat, gouging his eyes, kneeing him in the groin.

"Grab the gas! Splash it around!" she says.

And the next few seconds are filled with people screaming and running from the house and I'm splashing the gas all around the perimeter of the room I'm standing in, the fumes enveloping me, and I'm having a really good time and immediately want to move to another house and do it again. I look back at Estelle and she's continuing to rip at the poor old guy's face and when he seems immobilized she grabs one of the flares and sparks it up and tosses it into the room. I run through the open door and head for the Jeep. Estelle's limping along behind me, silhouetted in the hell orange glow of the house. I sit in the passenger seat. My hands are shaking. My nerves are shot. I can't possibly drive. And I begin to wonder if what I just had, what I just experienced was, in fact, fun. Or was it just something I felt and I'm confusing that for fun? Or did I just do whatever Estelle wanted me to do?

Estelle gets behind the wheel and we swing through another series of alleys and then we're at a parking garage and we're driving to the top of it and then we're out of the Jeep and standing against the concrete barrier and Estelle is pointing at the burning house and mouthing the word, "Beautiful."

I think of the mutilated man inside, rolling around on the floor and screaming.

Estelle moves a hand with knuckles the size of walnuts over my cock. It's unresponsive. She reaches into her giant purse and pulls out some pills and tells me to take them so she doesn't have to rip out my tongue and I do it.

In a few minutes I'm rock hard.

She crawls up onto the hood up the Jeep, hikes up her skirt, and slides down a huge pair of underwear.

She says, "I'll let you wear my wig."

She says, "You'll have to get the lube out of my purse. You'll need a lot."

She says, "Yeah, that's it."

She says, "Yeah, just like it's 1939. I'm the magic paper bag."

She says, "Fill me while the world burns."

She says, "Faster. Harder. You need to lose some weight or you're going to break my hips."

She says, "Come on my tits. Spray 'em with that shit."

And I'm doing everything she says and I'm looking at a lighted sign beyond the Jeep that says, "Roof," and has an arrow pointing up and the light is blinking and then it's going dark and then we're lying in a puddle of grease covered with a crocheted blanket that smells like mothballs and gasoline and I ask, "Who was that man?"



13.



I'm still wearing the wig, but my shirt is off and my pants are down around my ankles. She lights one of those long cigarettes and hands it to me before lighting another one for herself.

"Don't ask me questions like that."

"And the guy from last night—"

She presses her cigarette into my thigh and I bark out in pain. She exhales a languorous blue plume.

"Besides," she says, "you only want to know about them to make yourself feel better. You think if I had a good reason to do what I did then you could feel like they deserved it and then you would feel less guilty. Let me tell you some things. I'm a product of the Depression. Everyone my age is a product of the Depression. We grew up with nothing but when we became adults we had the opportunity to give our children almost everything they wanted and we did that. Mostly material things because those were exactly what we didn't have. And then they grew up with everything and wanted more and more and gave their children—people like you—everything. But you wanted more. You wanted to feel important and special so they had to give something else to their kids. Attention. But a parent's attention is never enough so they had to make you feel like everyone else paid attention to you too. Like anyone cared. No one cares. They've never cared. We are all just a speck of cosmic dust."

Preachy, I think. And then say, "But why kill other people? If we're all just specks of dust, why not just leave people alone?"

"Because some dust needs vacuumed up."

"You're so nihilistic."

"I am nothing. Yours is the generation that wants to be labeled. But you're all just consumers, really."

I take a drag from the cigarette. "I'm just fat and sad and.. cold."

She stands up. "You're bumming me out. You can get your own ride home."

She snaps up the afghan and before I can even stand up and pull up my pants, she's in the Jeep and speeding away and I wonder if I'll ever see her again.



14.



She forgot to take the wig so I leave it on for warmth. I can't find my shirt anywhere. I wish I had a cell phone. Agatha has a cell phone. I need a pay phone. I wonder if pay phones even exist anymore. I wonder what I said that set Estelle off. She seemed bitter. She's probably the angriest, most bitter person I've ever met.

I begin walking down the ramp of the parking garage. I'm really far up. I find a staircase and take it, thinking an attendant who sees me on the ramp might have some questions or something. I don't think it's a crime to wander through a parking garage. I'm pretty sure it's a crime to light houses and people on fire. I'm also pretty sure I still smell like gas.

The stairwell is brightly lighted but it has a really odd smell to it. A few stories down I come across a man bundled into a sleeping bag. I stand over him for a second. There is an atrocious smell wafting up from him. I wish it was Buddy. Maybe this homeless person could be my friend. Maybe he's not really homeless at all. Maybe he just likes sleeping in parking garages. I just had sex with a really old person in a parking garage. People do stranger things. I prefer to think that's what this guy's doing. It's just an experiment. He has a warm home and a loving family to go back to and he doesn't have any mental problems or addictions or anything.

I nudge him with my foot.

He pulls down the sleeping bag and tells me he thinks he's going blind. Then he becomes defensive and asks me what the fuck I want.

"Do you have a phone?"

"Yeah, I gotta phone," he says. "Do you need to call the President?"

"No, I don't think so. I need to call someone to give me a ride back to Dayton." Then I think maybe this isn't really true. I don't really know many people and those I do know don't drive.

"You wanna take a ride in my sleeping bag?"

"Are you inviting me to have sex with you because, if you are, I have to decline. I just had sex up there and then she left me. That's why I need a ride."

"Damn bitch."

"That's a misogynistic statement and a really derogatory term."

He mocks me and pulls out his phone. I'm glad "phone" wasn't code for something else like drugs or his shoe.

He says, "Let me update my Facebook page first." He stands up and wraps a smelly arm around my shoulders and we both smile into the phone and he takes a picture but it doesn't flash because it's already so bright in the stairwell. Then he types in something and hands me the phone.

"What'd you type?" I ask.

"New friends. LOL."

"Super."

"Who you callin'?"

"Well, first I'm going to try my wife or my ex-wife or my former roommate and then I'm going to call my BFF Buddy. He's a standup guy but he has a chemical dependency problem and he might even be dying of cancer so I'm not sure he'll be up for the drive. He sleeps a lot."

"Good luck. I'm gonna take a piss."

"All right."

The guy pulls down his filthy pants and begins urinating onto his sleeping bag.

I call home. It rings and rings. Maybe Buddy is still sleeping. Maybe Buddy is having sex with that sad cheerleader I saw him with this morning. Maybe Buddy is dissolving a person in acid in the bath tub. Jesus. Buddy wouldn't do a thing like that. The voice mail prompt comes on and I say, "Hey Buddy, this is Andy. I'm in the Nati and need a ride back to Dayton. If you can help me out in a couple seconds give me a call at this number. Otherwise maybe just, I don't know, drive down I-75 or something. Man, fuck it, I don't want to be a pain in the ass. Just forget about it." I press END and call Agatha. It rings and rings. I imagine her phone in the bottom most layer of coats and give her a while to get it. It doesn't go to voice mail or anything. Just rings and rings. I hand the phone back to the possibly homeless guy and say, "Thanks." I search in my pockets until I find a dollar and hand that to him too.

"Thanks, man. God bless you."

"Yeah, right."

I wonder around town until I come to a bar called Aluminum Can Drinks. There is a cab in front of it. Why didn't I think of calling a cab? I walk to the cab and hop in the back.

"I need a ride to Dayton."

"That's far away."

"I know."

"I can do it."

"Thanks."

He pulls away from the curb. The ride is completely uneventful. The cab is warm. I sleep all the way home. When I get home it's just before dawn and I go upstairs and get in bed next to Buddy.

NaNoWriMo Day 3

11.5.10



7.



But it is good. In fact, it's great.

"Andy, dude, come in and have a seat." Mr. Elevator says things like dude to make himself sound younger. He also does things like flash me the hang loose sign when we pass each other. No one does that anymore. It's either refreshing or terrifying.

I inspect the expensive leather chair for droppings before sitting down and crossing my legs. I try not to stare at the piles of shit on the floor or the half-empty bottle of scotch resting on the corner of his desk which explains both the looseness of his stool and the especially cloying vapors filling the office. He sits on his desk in front of me. He has a lot of pubic hair. He stares at me with his mouth open.

"What's up?" I ask.

"In the world of elevators, everything is up... And then down."

"Of course."

He takes a slug from his bottle of scotch, misses the desk on the return, and sends it shattering on the floor. He waves a dismissive hand.

"You ever heard of Dubai?" he says.

"Yes." I think I have.

"Well we've got really good news." He's practically shouting. "They're building a hotel that goes up into space and they want us to provide the elevator. They're paying us in gold. That means a raise for everybody!"

I smile and say, "That's great news, sir."

"As you can see I've been shitting in my office." He motions to the nearest pile of shit. "And... I think that has something to do with you but... why are you here?"

"Candy said you wanted to see me."

"To tell you about the raise, my man!"

"I'm very appreciative. My wife left me. This will help with the mortgage or rent or, well, I haven't got that figured out yet. She handled everything—"

He's just staring at me and nodding and I decide to quit talking. I stand up and leave thinking eventually he'll remember why he called me in there and that it probably has something to do with the piles of shit and I don't really feel like dealing with it.

Back in the office I take a phone call because I see Candy staring at me from her desk and know she's probably going to want me to do something horrible and answering the phone, even though it means talking to someone who probably has a really stupid problem, seems like the lesser of two evils. It's a person calling from somewhere overseas. I can't really understand them. I get the gist of it. Someone is stuck in one of their elevators. One of our elevators. And apparently has been for a couple of days. I tell him we just build and install them and ask if they've notified any sort of emergency services. He tells me that it's our name on the elevator and therefore we must deal with it. I tell him we will and hang up. I'm not going to do anything. I breathe deeply, trying to center myself, and stand up to go outside and take a break. Candy is standing right behind me. She's stealthy even though she looks like someone who should squeak when she walks.

"What'd Mr. El want?"

"Oh, you know, he just wanted to chat."

"You're full of shit."

"Bowels." I don't know what else to say.

"Speaking of shit.. Have you visited the restrooms lately?"

"Of course. I clean them like every day."

"The ladies' restroom is awash in menstrual blood. I don't even want to know what the guys' restroom looks like."

"Spotless." This is probably a lie. Thirty guys use the same restroom. It has one toilet, one urinal, and one sink. I stopped going in there roughly a week after I stopped cleaning it. That was about three weeks ago. I imagine what it must look like. Pubic hair and man splatter everywhere.

"I can smell it all the way out here."

"That's something else."

"It's your job. It's like the only thing you do."

"I was getting ready to go on break. I'll take care of it."

She trundles back to her desk. I go outside. One of the guys from the back is squatting down in the grassy area behind the parking lot. He's holding a newspaper and there's a roll of toilet paper to his right. I get in my car and drive home. I'll tell them I got sick if they ask. Eventually someone else will clean the restroom. On the way home I notice a billboard that usually carries an advertisement for The Super Slutty Teen Show now bears only one word:

COMPLICIT



8.



The rest of the drive home, I wonder what I'm going to do about Buddy. I decide I'm going to act like we're best friends.



9.



I'm so excited by this revelation I don't even bother shutting the front door. Buddy isn't downstairs so I rush up to the bedroom. He's still in bed. The towels are all thrown off him and he's wearing only his white briefs. I don't want to make him feel weird so I strip down to my boxer briefs and jump beside him on the bed, playfully prodding him.

"Hey, bro, wake up!" I say.

He rolls over. He's really groggy. I notice he has a mustache for perhaps the first time. I grab a pillow and hit him with it, not too hard.

"What.."

"Yeah, bro, it's time to get up. Wanna go downstairs and watch Man vs. Food?" I hit him with the pillow again.

"Brush teeth."

"Yeah, man, we'll brush our fucking teeth together."

I rush off to the bathroom, grab all the toothbrushes and toothpaste and a glass of water, and for the next few minutes we are putting toothpaste on toothbrushes and some of it is spilling on the bed and we're both smiling and brushing the holy fuck out of our teeth and there's water everywhere and I feel like we've established some kind of bond that will make our coexistence something peaceful and long lasting.

Even though the house is freezing, neither one of us bothers putting on any clothes. Buddy takes a bunch of pills that are in the nightstand and I go around the house opening all the blinds, letting the sunlight in. It's early afternoon and school must be letting out because there are yellow school buses everywhere and dog faced children running down the sidewalks, laughing and tackling each other, throwing cell phones like footballs, texting wildly, clothes either so tight they might as well not be wearing any or so large they're flapping in the breeze and encumbering movement. And they're all saying "fuck" and "shit" and "pussy" as loudly as they possibly can. I think to myself that civilization has ten years, tops. But I still feel good. I got a raise. I have a new best friend. The sun is out.

I turn on the TV and the closing frame of what I'm pretty sure is a snuff film flickers across it before the word "DANGER" appears in red block letters on a yellow background. I click the TV off. I'm covered in goose bumps and remember that I forgot to close the door. I notice a folded piece of paper lying on the floor just in front of the frame. I unfold it. It says, in palsied handwriting: "I had a really great time last night." And it's signed "Estelle" with a phone number under it and has what is either a lipstick kiss or a dirty anus mark at the bottom.

I'm not sure I want to pursue this thing with Estelle. She seems aggressive. I wish Buddy would come downstairs so we could eat bagels, drink beer, and give each other fist bumps.

I go to the bottom of the stairs and shout "Buddy!" repeatedly. Then I feel stupid. He probably thinks I'm retarded or something. Then I remember something that Agatha said about retarded people only being here for people to laugh at. She was very cruel. I wonder where she is now with all those coats. Probably Alaska. I wish I lived inside of a bear.



10.



Buddy comes downstairs. He's wearing his underwear and a t-shirt that says: PROGRESSIVELY DUMBER.

"Hey, cool shirt. Is that a band or something?"

He stares at me. Buddy really rocks the mustache. I think about growing one but I think my mouth is too small. My father always had a mustache. I never saw him without one. It made me distrust him. He eventually drowned himself in protest of children.

"What took you so long? I'm afraid Man vs. Food isn't on anymore. I would have DVRed it but I couldn't find the remote control."

"Blood mouth."

"Aw, man, did we brush our teeth too hard?"

He points into his mouth. I get up close and look in, stick the tip of my index finger against his mustache. He has a giant sore on his tongue. It's bloody.

"That looks bad," I say. "It almost looks like cancer. Do you want to go to the doctor?"

"I will just sit down." He moves over to the couch and sits down. I fight the urge to sit on his lap.

"Yeah, just sit down there on that comfortable old couch."

I move to sit down next to him but he quickly sprawls out, taking up the whole couch. He stares at the ceiling.

"I know it's rough as fuck being terminally ill and shit. I'll go to the store and get some beer. I'll buy a six pack and make them put each can in a paper bag. That way we'll have six paper bags. And then I'll come back and we'll drink the fuck out of that beer. But first I need to put on some clothes because it's cold outside and I'm only wearing my underwear." I'm talking really loud now. Holding my hands away from my hips, palms out. Possibly just talking to hear myself talk but it feels like my ears are clogged up and there is a ringing somewhere deep inside my head and I imagine my brain lined with the same kind of sores as the one on Buddy's tongue but I feel really energized and I just want to go outside and run around the block in my underwear until I can't run anymore. I put on my clothes and try to fist bump Buddy on the my way out but he's already asleep so I just bump my other fist and then do that thing where you open up your hand and waggle your fingers to simulate an explosion.



11.



I can't buy beer from the first place I go into because there are like fifty people inside and I think they're having a tea party convention because they all have camouflage faces and are wearing Sarah Palin t-shirts and brandishing Bibles and talking about why no one should buy anything from terrorists and that Mexicans are taking all of our jobs and everything they say seems really nasty and self-interested and the Indian clerk looks afraid and it all just seems too heavy.

The next place I go to is better. They give me bags for all the cans and when I ask if I can have bags for my hands, she gives me those too and even calls me "Hon."

I rush home to Buddy, surprised to find him awake. He's watching a documentary about the Grand Canyon and looks terrified. I tell him maybe we should change the channel. He changes it to static, which was something I hadn't seen in a while.

"I got some brewskies!" I shout because the static is up very loud. I take all the beers out of the bags and throw the bags around the room. I crack one open and hand it to Buddy. "Let's pound the shit out of these!"

He's trying to choke down the first one but it's probably really hurting that sore in his mouth. I'm on my third one before he's even half-finished with his. He says, "Agatha," and looks sad and I realize I don't know how to respond to that. After all, she's my wife. Maybe. Then he says, "Bed," and I tell him it's not even dark out but he's going up the stairs and I pound two more beers and think about finishing his but I imagine that it's full of gross tongue sore germs and I just leave it because I don't want to catch his cancer but now the static on the TV is really loud and I feel like doing something, I feel like exploding, so I pick up the phone and call Estelle and just as I'm saying, "I really want to see you," the static on the TV fades and is replaced by a commercial for guilt.

Estelle tells me we'll burn down the world and I wonder if that's what I want and ten minutes later when she rips through the front yard in a Jeep with vanity plates that say "2DEEP" I realize I might not have a choice.

Day Two (Because like 1 person asked for it)

11.4.10



3.



The blue dawn slants through the window and the sound of birds is everywhere. I'm lying on the floor. My skin feels crusted over and it's very cold. I struggle to stand up. Old people are lying passed out all around me. The stench of something like burning carpet stings my nostrils. I have to get out. My chest feels tight. I feel like I've done something horrible. I look for Estelle. She's in the corner, slumped against the wall, her shoes off and her lingerie twisted around her. Her false teeth are jutting from her mouth, a string of drool connecting them to her wrinkled chest. I nudge her with my foot. She snaps awake.

"I need to go," I say.

"You can take my car. Keys are in the purse." She waves her hand toward a gigantic orange purse.

"Thanks."

I rifle through the purse until I come up with the keys. This smell is really bad. It makes me think there might be a fire somewhere in the house or apartment or wherever. I cross what I think is the living room but end up in another room that is almost exactly like it except there aren't so many people on the floor. There is only a man in a wheelchair laughing and pointing at a small television. The only thing on the screen of the television is something in block letters that says:

PLOT IS A CON

I open the door to this room and it leads to the outside and a wooden landing that begins a steep and rickety set of stairs. It's even colder outside and I wish I had a jacket. I forget exactly what Estelle's car looks like and all the cars parked on the curb are huge. Most of them are unlocked. Some of them are filled with horrible things and stains and smells that come from some kind of insane underworld.

I finally find Estelle's car and fire the engine. There is a blood stain on the windshield and I remember the man we hit in the parking lot last night. I wonder who he is. Before pulling away, I get out of the car and remove the license plates with a survival knife I find in the glove compartment.

I head for what I hope is home. Last night is hazy. I'm not exactly sure where I am. I'm not at all sure of what happened last night. We went back to Estelle's place and she reached into her gigantic purse and pulled out a bunch of pills and said, "Here take these," and I did and then I kind of blacked out. I think I remember chanting at one point in the evening. There may or may not have been a man there wearing horns. It might have actually been the Devil. I don't believe in the Devil. But there was chanting and an orange strobe light and there might have been a sacrifice.

I'm shivering in the car. I turn on the heater. I turn on the windshield washers to try and get some of the blood out. I can never remember a time when cars were this large. Maybe when I was a very small boy. But that might have only been because I was so small and everything seemed larger.

Some memory suddenly washes over me and I remember being in high school, sitting in the passenger seat of my best friend's car and two amazingly beautiful and absolutely ripe girls sat in the back seat and we were all smoking cigarettes laced with marijuana and laughing and the world seemed absolutely alive and open and stretched out before us. And I wonder what happened to that feeling. I wonder what happened to my best friend. I'm on the verge of crying so I turn on the radio. It's an episode of Fresh Air and Terry Gross is interviewing cancer and I think that doesn't really help very much.

Maybe I should go home and get my car before going to work. Maybe I should ditch this car.

A block away from my house I pull Estelle's car into an abandoned house's driveway, cautiously look around to make sure no one is watching me, and get out, leaving the keys in the ignition. I walk home with my hands in my pockets.



4.



I get close to the house and see Buddy standing in the front yard in his underwear, his breath pluming out from the side of his mouth. There is a girl dressed in a cheerleader's outfit in front of him. She is crying and he is stroking her cheek with the back of his hand. She's holding one pom pom down by her knees. He kisses her on the forehead and she walks away, stopping to shove the pom pom into the sewer before catching a bus that stops at the corner. Buddy waves as she gets on.

He looks at me and says, "It is cold."

I don't know that I've ever heard him speak before. He sounds robotic.

"Agatha took all the coats," I say. "Who was that?"

"Girl."

"What's her name?"

Buddy stares at me and doesn't answer. He turns and goes into the house. I follow him. I need to grab my keys. I go upstairs, thinking maybe I'll take a shower to try and get this crust off me. Buddy is already in bed. There's a trail of blood leading into the bathroom. I weigh myself, sigh, and hop in the shower. When I get out there is no towel. I let the steam out of the bathroom and walk through the freezing upstairs. I can't find a towel anywhere. I use a t-shirt to dry off and then get dressed. I glance over at Buddy one last time and realize he is using all of the towels to cover himself. I wonder how I can get Buddy out of the house.





5.



Someone has broken all of the windows in my car. The stereo has already been stolen so they stole the passenger seat and replaced it with a mutilated raccoon. I open the passenger side door, grab one of the many fast food bags on the floor, and remove the raccoon. I think about shoving it down into the sewer but decide not to. I imagine the raccoon's family coming along and finding it and deciding to give it a proper burial or perhaps a cremation.

The drive to the elevator factory where I work is freezing. I stop at McDonald's on the way because I'm really hungry but also kind of sick and think McDonald's will either fill me up or make me vomit. I once ate at McDonald's every day for a month, trying to win their Monopoly sweepstakes. I really need a million dollars. I need to stop working at the elevator factory. I need to start playing the lottery. A few years ago I self-published a book called Dick Swap about two guys who ritualistically trade penises but, when one of the penises goes missing, an absurd bromance of epic proportions ensues. So far it's only sold twelve copies and I haven't written anything else.

I order the number two and eat it on the way to the elevator factory. I take a deep breath and go inside. I'm only an hour late today. I feel good about things.



6.



The elevator factory towers fifty stories into the air. There is only one floor at ground level. The height is just an elevator shaft. There's a warehouse part where blue collar men assemble the elevators. The rest of my coworkers are just people of various weights who take the elevator to the top and then ride it back down. Occasionally there are fatalities. My job is mostly to answer the phones and also clean the restrooms, which I don't like to do and haven't done for a very long time. When I go inside the office manager is waiting for me. Her name is Candy. She looks like a man in drag. She tells me the boss would like to see me. I go back to his office and he opens the door and he's not wearing any pants and his office smells like shit and I see actual piles of shit on his floor and I know it isn't going to be good.

NaNoWriMo Day One

I'm attempting NaNoWriMo for the first time in a few years. I thought about finishing one of the projects I'm currently working on or beginning something new, with absolutely no idea of where it's going. Since the latter seemed like the worse choice, it's the one I decided to go with. It's not often I begin writing something with absolutely no idea of where it's going. Therefore, to take the pressure off, I've decided to call it Boring and Pointless. While I don't plan on posting my output to this blog every day, I thought I would post what I just wrote. Here it is:

Boring and Pointless

by Andersen Prunty

11.3.10

1.

I stayed behind.

2.

Agatha is either my wife or my roommate. I vaguely recall getting married a year or more ago at a bar in Las Vegas. That may not be accurate. Regardless, we sleep in the same bed and sometimes I think we have sex but she could be lying to me. That is, the vagina might not be real. It might not be her. It's usually dark.
She has another sleeping partner who she calls Buddy but I think he's real. I think she's having an affair.
I try bringing this up to her. We're in the bedroom. Buddy is sprawled out on the bed behind us, naked and snoring, one hand cupping his genitals.
"Not here," she says. "Let's go downstairs."
We go downstairs. She points to the closet and says, "There's the closet. Why don't we go try on coats and talk about this later."
I follow her to the closet. She pulls out all the coats and piles them on the floor. We try them on. I take off each coat before putting on the next. She just layers them. Most of the coats are too tight.
"You've gained weight," she says. "You look like a gorilla."
"You're really wearing a lot of coats."
"Because I can. You could only wear like one coat. Barely. Fatso."
"That hurts."
"I can't be with anyone this sensitive. I think I need to go."
"What do you want from me?"
"I need to go."
She leaves the house. I watch her disappear into the night. I shut the door and go upstairs next to Buddy and fall asleep.
The phone rings. Buddy stops snoring and barks out like he's in pain, like something terrible is happening to him in his sleep. I answer the phone.
"Hello."
"This is Estelle."
"Hi Estelle." I don't know anyone named Estelle.
"I feel wild."
"You sound really old."
"I'm like sixty-five or eighty."
"Jesus."
"Yeah." She sounds orgasmic.
"Can I help you?"
"I wanna get sick and nasty."
"That's pretty gross."
"That's just what I want."
"Okay."
"Want me to come over?"
"I'll meet you."
"On the corner?"
"Sure. On the corner. Do you know where it is?"
"Oh yeah."
"Hot."
"You bet."
I hang up the phone and wonder if I should tell Buddy I'm leaving. I guess it doesn't really matter. I head out to the corner. It's chilly outside and most of the houses are abandoned. There are many dogs barking. Barking and barking and barking and it's late at night but the birds haven't started chirping yet. A car roars down the street and screeches to a halt at the corner. It's something gigantic and dark colored. Maybe a Cadillac or a Buick. The door swings open, scraping the sidewalk. Estelle hops out. She's dressed inappropriately. Slinky lingerie and fishnets it looked like she bought at the stripper store. Her white hair is curled tight.
"Hey," I say.
She stumbles around on her high heels, drunk, and shouts, "Get in the car, Porky!"
I do what she says. The door's really heavy. The door itself is bigger than a lot of cars. Inside it's full of wood and ashtrays, most of them overflowing.
"You know," I say. "I'm not really that fat. I'm only about twenty pounds overweight."
"I don't care." She seems really angry.
"It's just.. you called me Porky. My wife left me because I was too fat."
"I was talkin' about that fat cock. I call all my boys Porky."
"Oh... okay. Hey, is that a wig?"
"This?" She points at her head.
"Yeah."
"It sure ain't my real hair."
"Well, I mean, is it like a wig or did you scalp somebody?"
She peels out from the curb. "Wig." Her wrinkly mouth draws tight.
"Can I try it on?"
She grabs it off her head and throws it into my lap. I put it on and bend the mammoth rearview mirror to look at it. I look pretty good. She drives over a possum and laughs. I laugh too. Estelle's fun.
She lights up a really long cigarette and passes the pack over to me. The pack has a smiling horse on it with the word "Magic" written across the horse's stomach. I light one up and crack the window.
"So what're we doing?" I ask Estelle.
"I told you I feel wild."
"I know but I don't know what that entails. When I feel wild I get scared and think the best thing I should probably do is take some deep breaths or maybe a nap or something."
She makes something that might be a smirk but with all the wrinkles in her face I can't really tell. She doesn't say anything. I try to turn the radio on and she smacks my hand away and tells me if I try to do it again, she'll burn my face. Without her wig she looks ghoulish and creepy. Eventually we're in an even worse section of town. She pulls the car into the parking lot of an all night grocery store and kills the headlights. The grocery store is lighted in a way that makes it look terrifying. I don't want to go in. It has one large window in the front but it's too dirty to see through.
An old man walks out of the grocery store. He isn't carrying any bags or anything and I think this seems strange. Estelle guns the car, blasting the headlights. The man's eyes widen and his legs bend as he begins his attempt to dive away but the car hits him, throwing him up onto the hood and over the roof and we are out of the parking lot and speeding along an alley behind the grocery store and there are trashcans full of fire and hollow-eyed men leaned up against garages and the moon shines overhead and we are both laughing and laughing and laughing and then Estelle digs a claw-like hand into my thigh and says, "Give me back my fucking wig."