Mark Matthews's Blog, page 14
December 30, 2014
DARK AND DAMAGED GOODS: BEST OF 2014
Writing, Running, Reading, and Chasing the Dragon in 2014.
The obligatory summary.
Writing:
MILK-BLOOD was released in 2014, and received some incredible reviews. The book is unique, challenging, (I like to think) and this is reflected in 41 Five Star Reviews ("OMG, what did I just read!") to 7 One Star Reviews ("Awful. Triple Thumbs Down"). It was consistently a best-selling Drug Dependency book on Amazon. After it got some attention from a Horror Writers Association recommended reading list, I was inspired to join the HWA.
Running:
I am dark and damaged goods, and never caught the dragon, barely chased after him, and he is safely in the distance. My favorite 3 run picks are easy: The Brooksie Way Half-Marathon and the seemingly only 2 training runs I took to prepare. The evil voices in the back of my head tell me I better have enjoyed it, for it was the last time I will cross any finish line.
Reading:
Looking back at the books I have read, and it's also been a dark year of reading.
Here are a few of my favorite reads from 2014:
*We Are All Completely Fine
A therapy group commences, and the participants share one common issue: all of them were involved in some sort of monstrous trauma, or been a part of the 'monster' world that exists parallel to ours.
I loved this book. The kind of book you read where the author wrote it just for you. The group dynamics were so spot on, and the author referencing "Yalom", who is the guru for therapy group dynamics and progression, showed that he did his homework. What worked so well for me is that, from my experience working in mental health, the unique affliction felt by the participants of the group are so true to how people feel in therapy: the sense of oddness, that nobody can relate to them because of their oddness, the initial mistrust, ways that trust is gained through self-disclosure and confrontation and identifying ourselves in others. Also, how the group dynamics start to bleed into interactions outside of the group, and behavior gets 'practiced' and then reported back to others. Some PHD student somewhere should use this book for a thesis.
*Corrosion
Yeah it came out in 2013, but, I read it in 2014, and the author's 2014 follow up novel, Factory Town, was close enough in tone to be a sequel. I loved them both, and this author is now on my auto-buy list.
Corrosion was unforgettable and a bit mesmerizing with a unique narration that hit its mark with me. I couldn’t help but think of what effort this must have taken to write. There is a message in here that spoke to me about how the presumed back story of a character can completely change your perspective. In the field of mental health therapy, there is a technique known as “Narrative Therapy”, where one changes the narrative of their own personal history in order to rewrite themselves and give themselves a new identity. Well, this takes that to new dark depths.
*The End of the World Running Club
Another book that seems to be written specifically for me.
I don’t really do running clubs. I run as I dream—alone. But if I did join a club, it would certainly be to run through a post-apocalyptic wasteland with some new found mates, trying to reach my family before they shipped off forever. Any club that helps a runner make a friend of the pain and sets their beast free is right on. This is part of the scenario in this novel. It is a wonderful, harrowing, epic, witty, and emotional story of the apocalypse and one man’s attempt to be the father he wanted to be after the world ends. I almost cried at the end of this book. Well, I did cry, but nobody saw. If a tear falls in the forest….
*The End in All Beginnings "What Becomes God"
A collection of Novellas, really, and everyone will have their own favorite, mine is the first piece called "What Becomes God" about a terminally ill boy and his friend. It highlights Taffs ability to tend to his characters and write about the universal human experiences with the macabre as the backdrop.
Horror works best when the fantastic, the macabre, the twisted, (you name it) is used to bring forth the most basic of human emotions and relationships and throw a spotlight on it through speculation. That is what I found inside all of these novellas. Writing about things that splatter only impresses me if I care about the character. These stories don't splatter, they slowly creep into your heart, and they are smart and rewarding. The situations the humans find themselves in are familiar: childhood friendships, family ties, lost loves, and the things that are important and hold us together (or tear us apart). The writing itself is the kind that makes me marvel at the writer's talent. The plot twists and depth of characters kept me reading.
There are a few hundred books that I am sure would be up here if I had more time, but they are set for 2015.
*Lastly, I want to give a shout out to one of the coolest movies I saw in 2014,Guardians of the Galaxy. I am no longer the Eggman, or the Walrus, I am Groot. Koo Koo Kachoo.
[image error]
Writing:
MILK-BLOOD was released in 2014, and received some incredible reviews. The book is unique, challenging, (I like to think) and this is reflected in 41 Five Star Reviews ("OMG, what did I just read!") to 7 One Star Reviews ("Awful. Triple Thumbs Down"). It was consistently a best-selling Drug Dependency book on Amazon. After it got some attention from a Horror Writers Association recommended reading list, I was inspired to join the HWA.
Running:
I am dark and damaged goods, and never caught the dragon, barely chased after him, and he is safely in the distance. My favorite 3 run picks are easy: The Brooksie Way Half-Marathon and the seemingly only 2 training runs I took to prepare. The evil voices in the back of my head tell me I better have enjoyed it, for it was the last time I will cross any finish line.
Reading:
Looking back at the books I have read, and it's also been a dark year of reading.
Here are a few of my favorite reads from 2014:
*We Are All Completely Fine
A therapy group commences, and the participants share one common issue: all of them were involved in some sort of monstrous trauma, or been a part of the 'monster' world that exists parallel to ours.
I loved this book. The kind of book you read where the author wrote it just for you. The group dynamics were so spot on, and the author referencing "Yalom", who is the guru for therapy group dynamics and progression, showed that he did his homework. What worked so well for me is that, from my experience working in mental health, the unique affliction felt by the participants of the group are so true to how people feel in therapy: the sense of oddness, that nobody can relate to them because of their oddness, the initial mistrust, ways that trust is gained through self-disclosure and confrontation and identifying ourselves in others. Also, how the group dynamics start to bleed into interactions outside of the group, and behavior gets 'practiced' and then reported back to others. Some PHD student somewhere should use this book for a thesis.
*Corrosion
Yeah it came out in 2013, but, I read it in 2014, and the author's 2014 follow up novel, Factory Town, was close enough in tone to be a sequel. I loved them both, and this author is now on my auto-buy list.
Corrosion was unforgettable and a bit mesmerizing with a unique narration that hit its mark with me. I couldn’t help but think of what effort this must have taken to write. There is a message in here that spoke to me about how the presumed back story of a character can completely change your perspective. In the field of mental health therapy, there is a technique known as “Narrative Therapy”, where one changes the narrative of their own personal history in order to rewrite themselves and give themselves a new identity. Well, this takes that to new dark depths.
*The End of the World Running Club
Another book that seems to be written specifically for me.
I don’t really do running clubs. I run as I dream—alone. But if I did join a club, it would certainly be to run through a post-apocalyptic wasteland with some new found mates, trying to reach my family before they shipped off forever. Any club that helps a runner make a friend of the pain and sets their beast free is right on. This is part of the scenario in this novel. It is a wonderful, harrowing, epic, witty, and emotional story of the apocalypse and one man’s attempt to be the father he wanted to be after the world ends. I almost cried at the end of this book. Well, I did cry, but nobody saw. If a tear falls in the forest….
*The End in All Beginnings "What Becomes God"
A collection of Novellas, really, and everyone will have their own favorite, mine is the first piece called "What Becomes God" about a terminally ill boy and his friend. It highlights Taffs ability to tend to his characters and write about the universal human experiences with the macabre as the backdrop.
Horror works best when the fantastic, the macabre, the twisted, (you name it) is used to bring forth the most basic of human emotions and relationships and throw a spotlight on it through speculation. That is what I found inside all of these novellas. Writing about things that splatter only impresses me if I care about the character. These stories don't splatter, they slowly creep into your heart, and they are smart and rewarding. The situations the humans find themselves in are familiar: childhood friendships, family ties, lost loves, and the things that are important and hold us together (or tear us apart). The writing itself is the kind that makes me marvel at the writer's talent. The plot twists and depth of characters kept me reading.
There are a few hundred books that I am sure would be up here if I had more time, but they are set for 2015.
*Lastly, I want to give a shout out to one of the coolest movies I saw in 2014,Guardians of the Galaxy. I am no longer the Eggman, or the Walrus, I am Groot. Koo Koo Kachoo.
[image error]
December 26, 2014
Harbaugh, Like Winter, is Coming
A lovely gift from my wife. It's an "action figure." It's a "figurine." Really, it's a "doll."
But he's one of my heroes. Jon Snow now graces the top of my desk. I have the urge to tell his backstory to those in my house (A bastard child, raised like a son to the king, but never feeling fully validated, he proved his worth and valor fighting on the wall as a member of the Night's Watch) Nobody in my house wants to hear that. Instead, after building the Barbie Dreamhouse on Christmas morning, a gift from Santa, I staged an attack on the Barbie stronghold.
"You know nothing Jon Snow," said Ygritte Barbie.
Here's another hero I expect to be a Christmas Present. Waiting until the NFL season is over and his head coach status at the University of Michigan can be official.
I won't be convinced he's the new head coach until the press conference, but I have been following the rumors and updates like a desperate thirsty fanboy. So many NFL experts said it could never happen, but then changed their tune to say it might happen. None of them understand Michigan Football. They never walked up to the Big House on a Saturday afternoon and felt the incredible powerful presence that is Michigan Football. Once it infects you, it's part of your blood. Jim has that infection.
You know nothing NFL experts. Harbaugh, like Winter, is coming
[image error]
But he's one of my heroes. Jon Snow now graces the top of my desk. I have the urge to tell his backstory to those in my house (A bastard child, raised like a son to the king, but never feeling fully validated, he proved his worth and valor fighting on the wall as a member of the Night's Watch) Nobody in my house wants to hear that. Instead, after building the Barbie Dreamhouse on Christmas morning, a gift from Santa, I staged an attack on the Barbie stronghold.
"You know nothing Jon Snow," said Ygritte Barbie.
Here's another hero I expect to be a Christmas Present. Waiting until the NFL season is over and his head coach status at the University of Michigan can be official.
I won't be convinced he's the new head coach until the press conference, but I have been following the rumors and updates like a desperate thirsty fanboy. So many NFL experts said it could never happen, but then changed their tune to say it might happen. None of them understand Michigan Football. They never walked up to the Big House on a Saturday afternoon and felt the incredible powerful presence that is Michigan Football. Once it infects you, it's part of your blood. Jim has that infection. You know nothing NFL experts. Harbaugh, like Winter, is coming
[image error]
December 23, 2014
Jesus, Christmas, Nativity Scenes, and The Polar Express
Merry Christmas! Christian or not, may salvation be part of your lexicon.
Unless, of course, you are a devout nihilist, then may you find unmeaning and a slow self-destruction to your heart's content.
I've been both Christian and Nihilist, sometimes in the same day. Praying for salvation, pondering over amazing grace, or deciding that the only noble thing for the human race to do is stop reproducing and walk hand in hand to extinction. Perhaps this is evident of a weakness of faith as it is ever-wavering, but I prefer it over blindly following the religion of my parents.
I was raised Catholic, took my first holy communion, went to confession. I took a class called The Bible as Literature at University of Michigan with world-renowned lecturer Ralph Williams which blew my freaking mind. I harrowed Hell in my addiction, found redemptive suffering, was filled with the glory of heaven and gratitude so many times in my life. I've identified with the christian allegory, attended church (infrequently) at Renaissance Unity listening to Marianne Williamson speak. I started to identify as a 'metaphysical Christian,' meaning I subscribe more to the metaphysics of the crucifixion rather than a literal interpretation. That the concept of all our souls experience of harrowing hell, redemptive suffering, and ascending to heavens to our father (and mother) who love us like none other and had to sacrifice us, temporary.... well, that rings true for me, and I have faith it wasn't just made up. Like the stories that demonstrate the larger truths, which were made up.
At times, I have little belief, and figure death is the end, but take comfort that the lack of consciousness when we die and everything ceases is a sort of heaven. Other times, I subscribe to what I know of Buddhism. or Kabalah. But Christianity is perhaps the most constant of these, even if Ive wanted to go Piscene from the book "The Life of Pi" and follow a multitude of religions, even if they contradict each other.
"All spiritual facts I realize are true" ~Allen Ginsberg
Perhaps this is why I like the concept of the 12 steps of AA. The only words underlined in all the steps are God as we understood him. If your understanding changes, then the steps evolve alongside of you.
For some reason this year, my attention has been especially drawn to nativity scenes. I grew up with a nativity scene all my life, and used to play with the three wise men, and stare at the faces of all who surrounded baby Jesus. I made backstories in my brain, and all of those visiting Jesus were immensely kind. I told my kids the other day that the three wise men come alive at night and surround my bed, watching over me, same way they do Jesus in the nativity scene.
My daughter became particularly mad when I filled baby Jesus's place on the manger first with a C3PO doll, then a little block head boston marathon character. Not because she was offended, more because she didn't think of it herself.
I just found out this year that some folks don't put the baby Jesus in the manger until Christmas day (for he wasn't born yet, duh!). I never realized this. So, now when I see a nativity scene, I try to see if they include the little fellow or not.
Doesn't life start at immaculate conception? For me, what the scene represents is what matters. The metaphysics of Jesus was there all along, not just the body of the baby which was born. And, as grandiose as it is, I got to believe there is something to the point that we all have more Jesus in us than we realize, that when we were born, we were surrounded by immense kindness and are capable of Jesus-like miracles. Also, like Jesus, this world will crucify us. We are bearing a cross right now, and soon will be nailed to it. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
The musical The Book of Mormon is a great illustration of the dangers of literal interpretations of religious texts. So are all the people who have died because of religious wars (religion is dangerous to the worlds' health). December 25th just happens to be the same date of celebration for God's throughout all of history.
One thing about Christmas is, rarely is something that happens on December 25th the defining moment for me. Last night, the family and I watched Polar Express. My girls were riveted, we oohed and ashhhed, and were perfectly quiet during that tremendous moment. "The First Gift of Christmas". After the movie and the kids off to bed, I said to my wife "I'm good. That was my Christmas moment. It can be over now."
(Christ was a bit of a vagabond Hobo in his time, right? Well, the dude on top of the polar express train, was he Holy Ghost or Hobo? He provided spiritual lessons on faith, and saved lives in times of need. Put that man in a manger)
I've received as much spiritual revelations from running through a church parking lot on a snowy winter Sunday than I have inside. Chances are, those inside were feeling what I felt, a connection to life, to other humans, and a feeling of the amazing grace of the human experience.
Whoever is lying on that manger, doesn't matter, important thing is that the manger exists, that immense kindness exists, and something is born to give meaning and hope to your life. Christian or not, Merry Salvation of your Spirit.
Unless, of course, you are a devout nihilist, then may you find unmeaning and a slow self-destruction to your heart's content.
I've been both Christian and Nihilist, sometimes in the same day. Praying for salvation, pondering over amazing grace, or deciding that the only noble thing for the human race to do is stop reproducing and walk hand in hand to extinction. Perhaps this is evident of a weakness of faith as it is ever-wavering, but I prefer it over blindly following the religion of my parents.
I was raised Catholic, took my first holy communion, went to confession. I took a class called The Bible as Literature at University of Michigan with world-renowned lecturer Ralph Williams which blew my freaking mind. I harrowed Hell in my addiction, found redemptive suffering, was filled with the glory of heaven and gratitude so many times in my life. I've identified with the christian allegory, attended church (infrequently) at Renaissance Unity listening to Marianne Williamson speak. I started to identify as a 'metaphysical Christian,' meaning I subscribe more to the metaphysics of the crucifixion rather than a literal interpretation. That the concept of all our souls experience of harrowing hell, redemptive suffering, and ascending to heavens to our father (and mother) who love us like none other and had to sacrifice us, temporary.... well, that rings true for me, and I have faith it wasn't just made up. Like the stories that demonstrate the larger truths, which were made up.
At times, I have little belief, and figure death is the end, but take comfort that the lack of consciousness when we die and everything ceases is a sort of heaven. Other times, I subscribe to what I know of Buddhism. or Kabalah. But Christianity is perhaps the most constant of these, even if Ive wanted to go Piscene from the book "The Life of Pi" and follow a multitude of religions, even if they contradict each other.
"All spiritual facts I realize are true" ~Allen Ginsberg
Perhaps this is why I like the concept of the 12 steps of AA. The only words underlined in all the steps are God as we understood him. If your understanding changes, then the steps evolve alongside of you.
For some reason this year, my attention has been especially drawn to nativity scenes. I grew up with a nativity scene all my life, and used to play with the three wise men, and stare at the faces of all who surrounded baby Jesus. I made backstories in my brain, and all of those visiting Jesus were immensely kind. I told my kids the other day that the three wise men come alive at night and surround my bed, watching over me, same way they do Jesus in the nativity scene.
My daughter became particularly mad when I filled baby Jesus's place on the manger first with a C3PO doll, then a little block head boston marathon character. Not because she was offended, more because she didn't think of it herself.
I just found out this year that some folks don't put the baby Jesus in the manger until Christmas day (for he wasn't born yet, duh!). I never realized this. So, now when I see a nativity scene, I try to see if they include the little fellow or not. Doesn't life start at immaculate conception? For me, what the scene represents is what matters. The metaphysics of Jesus was there all along, not just the body of the baby which was born. And, as grandiose as it is, I got to believe there is something to the point that we all have more Jesus in us than we realize, that when we were born, we were surrounded by immense kindness and are capable of Jesus-like miracles. Also, like Jesus, this world will crucify us. We are bearing a cross right now, and soon will be nailed to it. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
The musical The Book of Mormon is a great illustration of the dangers of literal interpretations of religious texts. So are all the people who have died because of religious wars (religion is dangerous to the worlds' health). December 25th just happens to be the same date of celebration for God's throughout all of history.
One thing about Christmas is, rarely is something that happens on December 25th the defining moment for me. Last night, the family and I watched Polar Express. My girls were riveted, we oohed and ashhhed, and were perfectly quiet during that tremendous moment. "The First Gift of Christmas". After the movie and the kids off to bed, I said to my wife "I'm good. That was my Christmas moment. It can be over now."
(Christ was a bit of a vagabond Hobo in his time, right? Well, the dude on top of the polar express train, was he Holy Ghost or Hobo? He provided spiritual lessons on faith, and saved lives in times of need. Put that man in a manger)
I've received as much spiritual revelations from running through a church parking lot on a snowy winter Sunday than I have inside. Chances are, those inside were feeling what I felt, a connection to life, to other humans, and a feeling of the amazing grace of the human experience.
Whoever is lying on that manger, doesn't matter, important thing is that the manger exists, that immense kindness exists, and something is born to give meaning and hope to your life. Christian or not, Merry Salvation of your Spirit.
December 16, 2014
Graston Technique, Disney Marathon, and I'm A Damn Poser
If you’ve been reading this blog looking for running thoughts, you have been seriously let down. Running isn't happening much in my world, just a few strides at a time. I am verging on taking the word "running" out of this blog altogether, for I feel like a poser. I just can't do it. I am damaged, not injured. There’s a difference. Injuries heal, maybe need treatment, but they heal. This damage doesn't. As soon as January hits, and my insurance renews, I've a Physical Therapist lined up who uses the Graston Technique. It is designed for Scar tissue and uses medieval tools to work them out. Here they are:
Check out this blog post on using the Graston technique. The results seem promising, but a bit alarming. But if these bruises help me, then, "Thank you sir, may I have another."
The ART massages I was getting certainly were helping grind out the scar tissue, and at least seemed to give me a correct diagnosis after a $1,500 MRI gave me bullcrap. The massages got me through two half marathons this fall. But as good as I am pushing through pain, and even enjoy it, this can't be pushed through. I've had injuries hurt more than this, but none as evil an insidious as things are now.
Without running, the writing mojo also dries up. Everything decays. Creativity. My spirit. My fitness level. I wish this was a stress fracture I knew would heal with 6 months off, but no, there is no ab exercise in the world nor stablizer muscle enhancer nor extended time off that is gonna fix this. Certain types of stretching that shred some scar tissue up, yes.
On January 11th, I am signed up to run the Disney Marathon. 21 days away, and my taper is supposed to start now, but instead I'll be getting my first DNF, which will be a DNS, of course.
If you are reading this, and have any experience with the Graston Technique, then please let me know.
Or if you want to go get my bib from the Disney expo, please do, and carry it across the finish line.
Check out this blog post on using the Graston technique. The results seem promising, but a bit alarming. But if these bruises help me, then, "Thank you sir, may I have another."The ART massages I was getting certainly were helping grind out the scar tissue, and at least seemed to give me a correct diagnosis after a $1,500 MRI gave me bullcrap. The massages got me through two half marathons this fall. But as good as I am pushing through pain, and even enjoy it, this can't be pushed through. I've had injuries hurt more than this, but none as evil an insidious as things are now.
Without running, the writing mojo also dries up. Everything decays. Creativity. My spirit. My fitness level. I wish this was a stress fracture I knew would heal with 6 months off, but no, there is no ab exercise in the world nor stablizer muscle enhancer nor extended time off that is gonna fix this. Certain types of stretching that shred some scar tissue up, yes.
On January 11th, I am signed up to run the Disney Marathon. 21 days away, and my taper is supposed to start now, but instead I'll be getting my first DNF, which will be a DNS, of course.
If you are reading this, and have any experience with the Graston Technique, then please let me know.
Or if you want to go get my bib from the Disney expo, please do, and carry it across the finish line.
December 10, 2014
HAPPY FESTIVUS!! HERE'S SOME .99 CENT READS
MILK-BLOOD is .99 Cents from now until the end of the year.
I dropped the price yesterday, and it went to the top 3 Drug Dependency books on amazon overnight.
MILK-BLOOD .99 Cents on Amazon
Also, Books of the Dead Press is having a 5 year anniversary sale! They have a huge list of books on sale, check them all out here:
The list includes On the Lips of Children for .99 Cents on amazon
On the Lips of Children
I dropped the price yesterday, and it went to the top 3 Drug Dependency books on amazon overnight.
MILK-BLOOD .99 Cents on Amazon
Also, Books of the Dead Press is having a 5 year anniversary sale! They have a huge list of books on sale, check them all out here:
The list includes On the Lips of Children for .99 Cents on amazon
On the Lips of Children
December 3, 2014
The Damage Done - A little story about the big Horrors of Heroin
The following is the story of Jervis, one of the main characters of
MILK-BLOOD
. Promise it is worth a read.
After years of suffering with mental illness, heroin has opened up the gates of heaven for Jervis Samsa. It is all that makes life bearable. But when he gets trapped in his basement without a scrap of dope to shoot, he needs to go to any lengths to get high. The results are something monstrous, and his basement bedroom becomes a hell for those who enter.
The Damage Done Jervis Samsa lay awake on his bed, twitching in and out of detox dreams. Poison sweat ran from his pores and dampened the sheets. He wanted to scratch and itch away at the flesh that covered him and then rip out the muscles that cramped in pain. The lifeblood was gone from his veins. No dope for a day now. Not since yesterday when he popped a vein with Tara, and he hoped she’d return with some cash but never did. Now he had nothing.
Millions of tiny cramping cells fought for life in his body. He imagined them like little desperate amoebas, squirming in frantic fear before they imploded to their death. Inside his legs the cells were butchering each other, sucking at each other’s marrow like little cannibals since no heroin life blood was available to feed on. But the darkest of pain was in his back. He was sure that if he cut open a vertebrae, black burning liquid would boil out of him. It was torture.
He opened his eyes and saw Tara’s black hoodie crumpled up on the carpet. He traced the orange letters of “Slipknot” written in flames on the sleeve. Tara was twenty years older than he was and using heroin for all those years, but she could still get away with wearing a Slipknot hoodie. Her fingerprints were stamped everywhere in his basement bedroom; Pantene hair conditioner in his shower, a pink razor on the counter, the scent of her pale white skin and faded tattoos. But he hadn’t seen her eyes in a while. Gone. She was gone.
Probably a dirty drug screen and probation violation and it meant Tara was now spending the weekend in jail. County lockup. He pictured her with the orange smock on and just as bogue and sick as he was. Maybe a nurse came to her aid with some Suboxone, but probably not. He’d seen what she was like bogue, and to kick in jail was the worst. She’d be stuck in holding for the first 24 hours taking wet shits alongside twenty other inmates who shared the same toilet.
In days past, they would lie together in his basement bedroom. With the tip of her fingernail, Tara would give a soft caress of his back. Black hair would dangle like a curtain, and her pale, clammy skin would stick to his. She soothed his soul like none other and mothered him like his own mother never knew how. And, more importantly, she would help him come up with ways to get dope. Always needing money for dope. And Tara had a brain and a body that always came up with something.
But now Tara was in a fucking city jail smock. Without his dope, Jervis would feel like a monster, like the red-devil the voices inside had told him he was. For years the atoms of his brain had been turning on him, but when he found the H , it was the perfect medicine.
Loud bangs blasted from the basement door. Bang bang bang bang. His mother was pounding louder than she ever had and it felt like a hammer to his brain. Each pound vibrated his skull and unfocused his eyes. She would stop soon. He tried to let the sounds smash through his body. Finally, his mother stopped; but not before some Neil Young lyrics came into his thoughts.
I caught you knockin’ at my cellar door…I love you baby, can I have some more…
Neil Young understood what a burden life was. How ugly it was. Life was pain, and the suffering was only interrupted by the beauty of a heroin high—even in this underworld of his. This basement was a pithole his mother exiled him to while she lived in the world above him, and without a scrap of Heroin to shoot, it felt like he’d been buried alive.
Baseboard windows let rays of light shine through and dust danced in the sunbeams, all of them part of Jervis’s aching cells, amoebas floating and imploding everywhere. He wanted to flail his arms and legs and fists. He couldn’t stay still, just moved muscles back and forth trying to appease the shaking inside.
Cotton, spoon, and lighter sat on his desk next to used, sad-looking needles. Those needles once shined, newly bought from the drug store while dope was in his pocket and his girl Tara was by his side.
Life was shiny and beautiful with money and dope on days like those. They would go to the park and call it a perfect day. They would listen to Linkin Park and 50 Cent, watch movies on DVD as if in timeless slow motion; Drugstore Cowboy, Trainspotting, Sid and Nancy. It made him feel important, like he wasn’t stupid, like he wasn’t special needs, like what they were doing in real life was interesting enough to be watched by someone.
Next to his works was the picture of his dad on the dresser. Tara framed the picture because she said it showed him as a happy soul. The picture was his dad holding up a fish with a surprised look on his face. Look at me...what do I do with this damn thing? Dad was no happy soul, but a dark-spirited God ready to scold him or beat him if needed. Growing up, Jervis always felt safest when dad was nodding out from dope or in prison for 90 days. Last fall, when Jervis came home after a stay at the psych hospital, dad was home from prison, but not alive. Mom had the ashes.
“You take him. In the basement. You take him and bury him with you down there.”
The gold-colored urn had been sitting on his dresser ever since, next to the picture of the happy soul with a fish on his hook.
No, that picture was all wrong. Dad was a dark soul, and life was a burden for him. Shot a million dollars of smack into his arm and needed constant medicine for his affliction. His body morphed into a tarry bit of heroin yellow before he died, hacked apart like an army of chickens had been pecking at him. The glowing dark heroin aura surrounded him. Now all of it was burnt up into the urn, and all that remained of Dad sat on his dresser.
“Your father left us with nothing. No life insurance. Nothing,” his mother reminded him more than once. “All I got is a rusted out Toyota and his junkie kid.”
Dad would never take this shit from Mom if he were alive. Jervis had seen the way his mom ducked when Dad so much as moved his arm. The back of his hand flew over mom’s grill enough times to make both of them obey. No way would his dad ever be stuck in a basement like this. He’d seen his dad in the sickest of moments shoot a move and always pull twenty bucks out from somewhere. Jervis felt like a damn let down to his famous dad, the legendary wizard of smack.
Muscles bubbled and boiled, his back tensed, and his spine curled. Each cell inside was being tortured. Constant slippery snake-like movements were all he could do to try and soothe them.
How to get some dope money?
Last week he gathered the metal from the neighbor’s back forty and got sixty-seven dollars from the scrap yard. The week before, he had called his uncle Zack crying about owing the dealers money.
“They are going to kill me if I don’t pay. You don’t know these people.” That and promises to go to rehab got him two hundred and fifty bucks. He checked into rehab and checked out hours later to go fix up.
Right now he was out of options. Way too sick and sweaty to boost from Home Depot. No credit with the dealers...nothing. Tara. If only Tara could help him out. Lyrics from Neil young kept playing in his mind…
I know that some of you don’t understand. Milk-Blood to keep from running out...
Milk-Blood. He needed to learn how to Milk-Blood: leaving some blood in the needle with just a trace of heroin inside for moments like these. If only he had a bit of Tara’s dope blood with him, but he didn’t have shit and no way to get it. The chamber was empty.
Mom was his only hope. Just two days ago, he hit up mom’s gold jewelry locked in the cabinet. Dug deep for that one. Unscrewed the locks on the hinges and grabbed jewelry that hadn’t been worn in years. He tightened the screws back on good enough so she’d never know it was gone. The pawn shop gave him a hundred and twenty bucks for the gold.
He needed to shoot a move just like that. Now.
He would go upstairs and figure this out. Mom doesn’t want me to hurt like this. I am dying. I can’t live in this pain. It’s not right. I need something. If only she knew how I bad I feel. I will explain it to her so she understands. She loves me. She gave birth to me. We can talk about detox and going back to rehab again but first I need something to get me through. Just twenty bucks. Or fifty bucks. And when Tara comes back we will go to detox together like she says sometimes.
He lifted his empty shell off the bed and dragged the weight up the stairs, happy to have a purpose and a plan. His sweaty hands tried to twist the doorknob but could not. It was stuck solid. Didn’t turn. What the hell is that? He twisted harder and palms spun around the knob, and yes, the damn thing was locked.
He made a fist and pounded, three times solid. Bamm, Bamm, Bammm, and the smacking felt good.
“Mom, what happened? Mom! Mooommmm...what is this? Unlock the door!”
Then he noticed the door jam. Tiny ends of nails were splintered through. They were pounded through the wood, angled from the door into the frame. The door wasn’t just locked, it was nailed shut.
“Mom! What the fuck is this?!”
He pounded harder, and with each pound he noticed another nail.
Energy surged in him as his dying cells fought for life. He smashed his body into the door, bamm, bamm, bammm, but it wouldn’t give. The door was on the top of the stairs and he couldn’t get any leverage, and certainly not a running start. He needed an axe or something.
“Mom, come on. Please. I know, Mom, you’re right. I’m hurt, Mom. I really am...I’m hurt bad.”
Silence.
The tears started to come. Real tears. This was so unfair and he wanted to kill her right then and there. Why would she do this me? How can she make me suffer?
As if to answer, his mother spoke from the other side of the door.
“You think you’ll steal from me? You think you’ll steal? You think you’re slick? I went through this with your dad, so I know how to handle you. That gold was your grandmother’s, you little piece of shit. You should have shoved it up your ass instead of your veins. Now look at you, you dumb fuck. I’ll open up in three days. Three days you can stay down there, and you can come up when you’re no longer full of poison. You got a toilet and you got water. You’re fine.”
“What? What are you talking about? Mom come on, open up and show me. What got ripped off? I didn’t steal a goddamn thing. Maybe it was Tara. She maybe did that, she does those things. Damn Tara, she’s in jail, Mom. Come on.”
“Oh she ain’t in jail, that old slut who’s been getting you high with her velvet purse.”
“You stupid bitch! Mom, open this thing up before I smack the shit out of you.”
Oh, I said that all wrong, he thought, and he knew it wasn’t going to work. But still he pounded an exclamation point on the door. The solid wood now hurt his hand.
“Mom, I’m hurt. I am hurt realbad, I’m bleeding.” He looked about for something to cut himself with. He knew how to cut himself real well—voices had convinced him to do so many times in the past—but right now he just needed dope.
For an hour he sat next to the door, giving it a bang every few minutes. Boom, like a slow, deathly drum beat. Boom, boom...but nothing. Screams went unanswered. His brain was being scattered. His insides quivered like every cell inside wanted to throw up. It was all so crazy and he needed to get out soon—and where the hell was Tara?
Revenge fantasies filled the moosh in his head and he went back downstairs to search through his arsenal. The room had already been scoured for dope. No vicodins, no percocets. No weed. No liquor. Nothing.
He needed something. Something to cut himself with, something to make her sad enough, or angry enough, or scared enough.
Something to make her open the door.
Dad. There was Dad and what was left of him.
He went to the urn and opened the top. More than once he had taken the ashes out and sifted through the grey matter. Chunky, sooty, meatier than a cigarette ash; like the stuff that fell onto the bottom of a grill over time. He had become familiar with the ashes. One time, when he was high on coke, he turned Dad’s ashes into a pile on his CD cover. Then he chopped and snorted the cocaine lines right next to the pile of grey ashes. The electrical spark of cocaine seemed to bring both of them to life.
Time to let Dad out of the urn again. Jervis’s fingers were cold, wet with sweat, and shaky when he poured out the ashes. His finger dabbed at their dryness. So rich, delicate, and flakey. He saw himself blowing the ashes under the door at Mom as a big way of saying Fuck You Mom. Here’s Dad back at you, he’s still here, remember him? Smell his smoky breath, get ready for his fists to pound.
Jervis stared at the chunks of ash. They became hazy, infected the black of his mind, and it all swirled in his head until the voices came.
JUST SHOOT IT.
What?
BOIL IT UP AND SHOOT IT.
Woozy. He needed water. He was so thirsty and needed water because all his liquid had seeped out from his pores, but he knew if he drank anything it would just come out in diarrhea detox shits. He’d be sitting curled up on the toilet and rocking back and forth with arms wrapped around his own chest. There wasn’t a hug in the world that could warm his coldness, but he did know how to stop the voices.
Dope saved his life when he stumbled on it years ago. Mental health teams would visit his home after he’d cut himself, or he’d have to go to hospitals and do group therapy when all he really wanted was out of this life. They pushed lithium and zyprexa, but heroin was the only thing that put the evil to rest and opened up the gates of heaven. It stopped the voices inside that wouldn’t leave him be. It rolled back his confusion, made life beautiful, and turned him into a happy being when before he had felt like a rotting apple.
SON, YOU NEED SOMETHING TO FIX WITH. SHOOT SOME. A LITTLE PART OF IT IN EVERYONE.
The voice flickered like a candle in his dark head. It was time to curl back up in bed like a fetus, but instead the voices kept coming.
MILK-BLOOD TO KEEP FROM RUNNING OUT.
A spoon blackened from days of flame was within reach. He grabbed the metal spoon and used it to push the ashes into shapes. He mixed them around as if they were a bowl of Cheerios. Tiny piles, little mountains, rivers in between, a small land where his father was God. Eyes transfixed at the grey nothingness pile for who knows how long, until he finally scooped some up on his spoon.
ASHES OF BURNT UP SMACK. GO AHEAD, BOIL IT AND FIX UP.
Bullshit.
BOIL IT AND FIX UP.
Memories flashed before him of crushing, boiling and shooting up Vicodin, of shooting up cocaine, of hitting his veins with whatever got him high. Fixing up was as automatic and involuntary as breathing, and soon water was in the spoon. The ashy matter soaked in the water until the mixture became a dark pool of liquid.
There’s got to be dope left in there, he told himself.
THERE IS. THERE IS.
Where else would it go?
IT’S HERE.
No time for cotton filter. This is Dad. Fuck you Mom. Fuck you.
The syringe tip was old and used, but it drew the chunky liquid. The 26 gauge needle would let anything pass.
Hands shook. He held the syringe in the air, snapped it for bubbles, and felt his blood start to warm in anticipation.
The pinprick aimed for its mark. The needle puncture was bliss. He drew back and saw red blood swirl in the dark oily liquid of the barrel. Yes… ahhh. Angelic music filled his ears. His breath hitched as if in orgasm when he pushed the plunger in. The warmth of the womb had returned to surround him again. He felt it spread through his back. Like an army it fought back the evil sickness that had invaded his body. His back loosened as if sprouting wings and ready to fly.
He looked at his flesh and imagined he could see the new ash-blood traveling dark and fast through his body. No, he wasn’t imagining it; he could really see it, couldn’t he? Lifeblood was going to the center of his brain. He was being reborn.
The surge was ecstatic, and as he felt it course through his body, the pile spoke to him again and again, summoning him to consume the flesh of his father into his veins. There was at least three days of daddy smack left in the pile to be shot until the cellar door was opened and he was let free.
Music filled the basement for the days he was down there. His soul hummed on fire. Instruments played from inside of him as if using his veins as strings. Cramping gave way to strength, sweat and shakes left and precision and laser focus grew. His veins soaked in the pile of ash-blood and ages seem to pass through him. Unlived memories built in his brain, unfelt sensations of a history larger than his years. Blue veins were being filled with shades of grey and black. Old skin was discarded and new skin sprouted forth. The high wasn’t the floating, beautiful buzz he remembered; it was an infiltration of the dust of life from all around him giving him power. Dead cells of his old body were being blown away and left floating in the air.
Beams of golden sunlight from baseboard windows faded into grey and then darkened to black at nightfall. The sun rose and fell over three days and the pile was dwindling. The banging noises returned from upstairs. Boom, boom, boom.
I caught you knockin’ at my cellar door, I love you baby can I have some more…
The noise didn’t make him flinch, not this time. The air and light of the upstairs world did worry him, but his body was powerful and ready. Ready for the steps that were coming down the hallway.
“Jervis, come on up now. Damn it, you must be hungry. Come on up, the door is open. Let’s talk about this.”
He said nothing. He felt so large standing there and she had become so small.
“Jervis. Jervis,” she said his name with each step.
“Jervis, what is going on? Don’t you want to come out?”
She turned the corner from the stairs and Jervis saw her face freeze. Whatever she saw shocked her eyes open wide. She seemed unable to breathe. Lines in her face spoke to him with their history, and those eyes summoned a voice from his gut that he didn’t recognize as his own.
“THE GOLD. IT WAS NEVER YOURS. IT CAME FROM ME AND BELONGED TO THE BOY. IT WAS HIS BIRTHRIGHT.”
The ashes made his heart burn and the words came out with power. Rage built and fired through his nerves. His flesh gleamed with a pulsating redness from the blood boiling beneath. His muscles ripped and he cocked back a fist ready to strike.
He didn’t know how long he beat on her, but he felt the meat go mushy with each strike like it was dough and could be beaten no more. He stood over her for minutes, or maybe days, or maybe hours. Waiting for her to move. She couldn’t be done...her life couldn’t be over. Could it? She’d always been there, always had something to say. But now her blood was set free and running like a river on the floor. Finally, both his parents were dead.
A voice from up the stairs woke him from his trance. Somebody was calling his name. It was an angel, or his girl, Tara. The patter of her feet descended, and soon he was looking at her face. It seemed fresh, more alive—younger even—but shocked. Neither of them could speak. The air of death in the basement gagged them both.
“Jervis? Jervis? Is that you? What happened? You don’t look right. And what the fuck did you do?”
“I…I… didn’t do anything. I was trapped. I had to get out, you see. Where were you?”
“Detox, like I told you. Me first, you second. We agreed. You don’t remember?”
“You never said that.”
“I did too. I did say that. I did and you agreed. I said that. I left you voicemails every day to come get me. But when you didn’t, I knew that meant you loved me and wanted me to stay.”
Tara bent down to the body on the ground.
“Your mom…she’s…what did you do Jervis?”
“I don’t know...I don’t know, Tara. I don’t know what’s happening to me. What’s happening to me?”
The strength had left him. He put his arms to his side and pleaded. He wanted a hug, but she looked at him like she was too scared to get close. Cramps flooded back into his muscles. The army of strength retreated out of his blood. The implosion of cramping cells was returning and nausea spread from his gut to his body. He needed to be held. He needed the warmth of the womb of his mother or his girlfriend or his heroin.
Finally, he forced himself against her and fell into her arms. A sober energy filled his hands when they embraced.
Detox. Now he remembered. She went there like she said, like they had planned. But he had lied. He never planned on going. He thought she was full of shit, that she wasn’t going, that she’d be back to get high. But she did go get clean. She was something different now.
The black strings of her hair brushed against his cheek and seemed to have grown softer. Her skin against his own seemed more pure. Three days clean had made her more alive; younger, even. But the history of shooting smack was still there and couldn’t be erased. He sniffed at the base of her neck and it came out of her pores. He felt the dope in her flesh at his fingertips. It was there in each and every cell, and always in her soul. A quarter century of smack at least. No detox could get that out of her.
“JERVIS. YOU KNOW WHAT SHE HAS IN HER BLOOD DON’T YOU?”
The sickness came back in a wave of black nausea. He needed to do something. Now. Get high now and stop the evil and swing the gates of heaven back open.
Tara wasn’t going to get high with him anymore, he could feel it. But she would get him high. All of her. Every last cell. He was more worried about how he could burn her up into ashes than how he was going to kill her. That part would be easy. But she needed to be ash. Just thinking of what her boiled up ashes would look like in the chamber of the syringe made his blood warm. Soon enough, that heat would spark a flame, and burn her body into tiny bits.
His hands clutched around her neck. How soft her flesh was. His thumbs pressed against her windpipe. How easy to crack. He began to squeeze.
**Jervis lives on. Check him out in MILK-BLOOD , available on Amazon for $2.99**
After years of suffering with mental illness, heroin has opened up the gates of heaven for Jervis Samsa. It is all that makes life bearable. But when he gets trapped in his basement without a scrap of dope to shoot, he needs to go to any lengths to get high. The results are something monstrous, and his basement bedroom becomes a hell for those who enter.
The Damage Done Jervis Samsa lay awake on his bed, twitching in and out of detox dreams. Poison sweat ran from his pores and dampened the sheets. He wanted to scratch and itch away at the flesh that covered him and then rip out the muscles that cramped in pain. The lifeblood was gone from his veins. No dope for a day now. Not since yesterday when he popped a vein with Tara, and he hoped she’d return with some cash but never did. Now he had nothing.
Millions of tiny cramping cells fought for life in his body. He imagined them like little desperate amoebas, squirming in frantic fear before they imploded to their death. Inside his legs the cells were butchering each other, sucking at each other’s marrow like little cannibals since no heroin life blood was available to feed on. But the darkest of pain was in his back. He was sure that if he cut open a vertebrae, black burning liquid would boil out of him. It was torture.
He opened his eyes and saw Tara’s black hoodie crumpled up on the carpet. He traced the orange letters of “Slipknot” written in flames on the sleeve. Tara was twenty years older than he was and using heroin for all those years, but she could still get away with wearing a Slipknot hoodie. Her fingerprints were stamped everywhere in his basement bedroom; Pantene hair conditioner in his shower, a pink razor on the counter, the scent of her pale white skin and faded tattoos. But he hadn’t seen her eyes in a while. Gone. She was gone.
Probably a dirty drug screen and probation violation and it meant Tara was now spending the weekend in jail. County lockup. He pictured her with the orange smock on and just as bogue and sick as he was. Maybe a nurse came to her aid with some Suboxone, but probably not. He’d seen what she was like bogue, and to kick in jail was the worst. She’d be stuck in holding for the first 24 hours taking wet shits alongside twenty other inmates who shared the same toilet.
In days past, they would lie together in his basement bedroom. With the tip of her fingernail, Tara would give a soft caress of his back. Black hair would dangle like a curtain, and her pale, clammy skin would stick to his. She soothed his soul like none other and mothered him like his own mother never knew how. And, more importantly, she would help him come up with ways to get dope. Always needing money for dope. And Tara had a brain and a body that always came up with something.
But now Tara was in a fucking city jail smock. Without his dope, Jervis would feel like a monster, like the red-devil the voices inside had told him he was. For years the atoms of his brain had been turning on him, but when he found the H , it was the perfect medicine.
Loud bangs blasted from the basement door. Bang bang bang bang. His mother was pounding louder than she ever had and it felt like a hammer to his brain. Each pound vibrated his skull and unfocused his eyes. She would stop soon. He tried to let the sounds smash through his body. Finally, his mother stopped; but not before some Neil Young lyrics came into his thoughts.
I caught you knockin’ at my cellar door…I love you baby, can I have some more…
Neil Young understood what a burden life was. How ugly it was. Life was pain, and the suffering was only interrupted by the beauty of a heroin high—even in this underworld of his. This basement was a pithole his mother exiled him to while she lived in the world above him, and without a scrap of Heroin to shoot, it felt like he’d been buried alive.
Baseboard windows let rays of light shine through and dust danced in the sunbeams, all of them part of Jervis’s aching cells, amoebas floating and imploding everywhere. He wanted to flail his arms and legs and fists. He couldn’t stay still, just moved muscles back and forth trying to appease the shaking inside.
Cotton, spoon, and lighter sat on his desk next to used, sad-looking needles. Those needles once shined, newly bought from the drug store while dope was in his pocket and his girl Tara was by his side.
Life was shiny and beautiful with money and dope on days like those. They would go to the park and call it a perfect day. They would listen to Linkin Park and 50 Cent, watch movies on DVD as if in timeless slow motion; Drugstore Cowboy, Trainspotting, Sid and Nancy. It made him feel important, like he wasn’t stupid, like he wasn’t special needs, like what they were doing in real life was interesting enough to be watched by someone.
Next to his works was the picture of his dad on the dresser. Tara framed the picture because she said it showed him as a happy soul. The picture was his dad holding up a fish with a surprised look on his face. Look at me...what do I do with this damn thing? Dad was no happy soul, but a dark-spirited God ready to scold him or beat him if needed. Growing up, Jervis always felt safest when dad was nodding out from dope or in prison for 90 days. Last fall, when Jervis came home after a stay at the psych hospital, dad was home from prison, but not alive. Mom had the ashes.
“You take him. In the basement. You take him and bury him with you down there.”
The gold-colored urn had been sitting on his dresser ever since, next to the picture of the happy soul with a fish on his hook.
No, that picture was all wrong. Dad was a dark soul, and life was a burden for him. Shot a million dollars of smack into his arm and needed constant medicine for his affliction. His body morphed into a tarry bit of heroin yellow before he died, hacked apart like an army of chickens had been pecking at him. The glowing dark heroin aura surrounded him. Now all of it was burnt up into the urn, and all that remained of Dad sat on his dresser.
“Your father left us with nothing. No life insurance. Nothing,” his mother reminded him more than once. “All I got is a rusted out Toyota and his junkie kid.”
Dad would never take this shit from Mom if he were alive. Jervis had seen the way his mom ducked when Dad so much as moved his arm. The back of his hand flew over mom’s grill enough times to make both of them obey. No way would his dad ever be stuck in a basement like this. He’d seen his dad in the sickest of moments shoot a move and always pull twenty bucks out from somewhere. Jervis felt like a damn let down to his famous dad, the legendary wizard of smack.
Muscles bubbled and boiled, his back tensed, and his spine curled. Each cell inside was being tortured. Constant slippery snake-like movements were all he could do to try and soothe them.
How to get some dope money?
Last week he gathered the metal from the neighbor’s back forty and got sixty-seven dollars from the scrap yard. The week before, he had called his uncle Zack crying about owing the dealers money.
“They are going to kill me if I don’t pay. You don’t know these people.” That and promises to go to rehab got him two hundred and fifty bucks. He checked into rehab and checked out hours later to go fix up.
Right now he was out of options. Way too sick and sweaty to boost from Home Depot. No credit with the dealers...nothing. Tara. If only Tara could help him out. Lyrics from Neil young kept playing in his mind…
I know that some of you don’t understand. Milk-Blood to keep from running out...
Milk-Blood. He needed to learn how to Milk-Blood: leaving some blood in the needle with just a trace of heroin inside for moments like these. If only he had a bit of Tara’s dope blood with him, but he didn’t have shit and no way to get it. The chamber was empty.
Mom was his only hope. Just two days ago, he hit up mom’s gold jewelry locked in the cabinet. Dug deep for that one. Unscrewed the locks on the hinges and grabbed jewelry that hadn’t been worn in years. He tightened the screws back on good enough so she’d never know it was gone. The pawn shop gave him a hundred and twenty bucks for the gold.
He needed to shoot a move just like that. Now.
He would go upstairs and figure this out. Mom doesn’t want me to hurt like this. I am dying. I can’t live in this pain. It’s not right. I need something. If only she knew how I bad I feel. I will explain it to her so she understands. She loves me. She gave birth to me. We can talk about detox and going back to rehab again but first I need something to get me through. Just twenty bucks. Or fifty bucks. And when Tara comes back we will go to detox together like she says sometimes.
He lifted his empty shell off the bed and dragged the weight up the stairs, happy to have a purpose and a plan. His sweaty hands tried to twist the doorknob but could not. It was stuck solid. Didn’t turn. What the hell is that? He twisted harder and palms spun around the knob, and yes, the damn thing was locked.
He made a fist and pounded, three times solid. Bamm, Bamm, Bammm, and the smacking felt good.
“Mom, what happened? Mom! Mooommmm...what is this? Unlock the door!”
Then he noticed the door jam. Tiny ends of nails were splintered through. They were pounded through the wood, angled from the door into the frame. The door wasn’t just locked, it was nailed shut.
“Mom! What the fuck is this?!”
He pounded harder, and with each pound he noticed another nail.
Energy surged in him as his dying cells fought for life. He smashed his body into the door, bamm, bamm, bammm, but it wouldn’t give. The door was on the top of the stairs and he couldn’t get any leverage, and certainly not a running start. He needed an axe or something.
“Mom, come on. Please. I know, Mom, you’re right. I’m hurt, Mom. I really am...I’m hurt bad.”
Silence.
The tears started to come. Real tears. This was so unfair and he wanted to kill her right then and there. Why would she do this me? How can she make me suffer?
As if to answer, his mother spoke from the other side of the door.
“You think you’ll steal from me? You think you’ll steal? You think you’re slick? I went through this with your dad, so I know how to handle you. That gold was your grandmother’s, you little piece of shit. You should have shoved it up your ass instead of your veins. Now look at you, you dumb fuck. I’ll open up in three days. Three days you can stay down there, and you can come up when you’re no longer full of poison. You got a toilet and you got water. You’re fine.”
“What? What are you talking about? Mom come on, open up and show me. What got ripped off? I didn’t steal a goddamn thing. Maybe it was Tara. She maybe did that, she does those things. Damn Tara, she’s in jail, Mom. Come on.”
“Oh she ain’t in jail, that old slut who’s been getting you high with her velvet purse.”
“You stupid bitch! Mom, open this thing up before I smack the shit out of you.”
Oh, I said that all wrong, he thought, and he knew it wasn’t going to work. But still he pounded an exclamation point on the door. The solid wood now hurt his hand.
“Mom, I’m hurt. I am hurt realbad, I’m bleeding.” He looked about for something to cut himself with. He knew how to cut himself real well—voices had convinced him to do so many times in the past—but right now he just needed dope.
For an hour he sat next to the door, giving it a bang every few minutes. Boom, like a slow, deathly drum beat. Boom, boom...but nothing. Screams went unanswered. His brain was being scattered. His insides quivered like every cell inside wanted to throw up. It was all so crazy and he needed to get out soon—and where the hell was Tara?
Revenge fantasies filled the moosh in his head and he went back downstairs to search through his arsenal. The room had already been scoured for dope. No vicodins, no percocets. No weed. No liquor. Nothing.
He needed something. Something to cut himself with, something to make her sad enough, or angry enough, or scared enough.
Something to make her open the door.
Dad. There was Dad and what was left of him.
He went to the urn and opened the top. More than once he had taken the ashes out and sifted through the grey matter. Chunky, sooty, meatier than a cigarette ash; like the stuff that fell onto the bottom of a grill over time. He had become familiar with the ashes. One time, when he was high on coke, he turned Dad’s ashes into a pile on his CD cover. Then he chopped and snorted the cocaine lines right next to the pile of grey ashes. The electrical spark of cocaine seemed to bring both of them to life.
Time to let Dad out of the urn again. Jervis’s fingers were cold, wet with sweat, and shaky when he poured out the ashes. His finger dabbed at their dryness. So rich, delicate, and flakey. He saw himself blowing the ashes under the door at Mom as a big way of saying Fuck You Mom. Here’s Dad back at you, he’s still here, remember him? Smell his smoky breath, get ready for his fists to pound.
Jervis stared at the chunks of ash. They became hazy, infected the black of his mind, and it all swirled in his head until the voices came.
JUST SHOOT IT.
What?
BOIL IT UP AND SHOOT IT.
Woozy. He needed water. He was so thirsty and needed water because all his liquid had seeped out from his pores, but he knew if he drank anything it would just come out in diarrhea detox shits. He’d be sitting curled up on the toilet and rocking back and forth with arms wrapped around his own chest. There wasn’t a hug in the world that could warm his coldness, but he did know how to stop the voices.
Dope saved his life when he stumbled on it years ago. Mental health teams would visit his home after he’d cut himself, or he’d have to go to hospitals and do group therapy when all he really wanted was out of this life. They pushed lithium and zyprexa, but heroin was the only thing that put the evil to rest and opened up the gates of heaven. It stopped the voices inside that wouldn’t leave him be. It rolled back his confusion, made life beautiful, and turned him into a happy being when before he had felt like a rotting apple.
SON, YOU NEED SOMETHING TO FIX WITH. SHOOT SOME. A LITTLE PART OF IT IN EVERYONE.
The voice flickered like a candle in his dark head. It was time to curl back up in bed like a fetus, but instead the voices kept coming.
MILK-BLOOD TO KEEP FROM RUNNING OUT.
A spoon blackened from days of flame was within reach. He grabbed the metal spoon and used it to push the ashes into shapes. He mixed them around as if they were a bowl of Cheerios. Tiny piles, little mountains, rivers in between, a small land where his father was God. Eyes transfixed at the grey nothingness pile for who knows how long, until he finally scooped some up on his spoon.
ASHES OF BURNT UP SMACK. GO AHEAD, BOIL IT AND FIX UP.
Bullshit.
BOIL IT AND FIX UP.
Memories flashed before him of crushing, boiling and shooting up Vicodin, of shooting up cocaine, of hitting his veins with whatever got him high. Fixing up was as automatic and involuntary as breathing, and soon water was in the spoon. The ashy matter soaked in the water until the mixture became a dark pool of liquid.
There’s got to be dope left in there, he told himself.
THERE IS. THERE IS.
Where else would it go?
IT’S HERE.
No time for cotton filter. This is Dad. Fuck you Mom. Fuck you.
The syringe tip was old and used, but it drew the chunky liquid. The 26 gauge needle would let anything pass.
Hands shook. He held the syringe in the air, snapped it for bubbles, and felt his blood start to warm in anticipation.
The pinprick aimed for its mark. The needle puncture was bliss. He drew back and saw red blood swirl in the dark oily liquid of the barrel. Yes… ahhh. Angelic music filled his ears. His breath hitched as if in orgasm when he pushed the plunger in. The warmth of the womb had returned to surround him again. He felt it spread through his back. Like an army it fought back the evil sickness that had invaded his body. His back loosened as if sprouting wings and ready to fly.
He looked at his flesh and imagined he could see the new ash-blood traveling dark and fast through his body. No, he wasn’t imagining it; he could really see it, couldn’t he? Lifeblood was going to the center of his brain. He was being reborn.
The surge was ecstatic, and as he felt it course through his body, the pile spoke to him again and again, summoning him to consume the flesh of his father into his veins. There was at least three days of daddy smack left in the pile to be shot until the cellar door was opened and he was let free.
Music filled the basement for the days he was down there. His soul hummed on fire. Instruments played from inside of him as if using his veins as strings. Cramping gave way to strength, sweat and shakes left and precision and laser focus grew. His veins soaked in the pile of ash-blood and ages seem to pass through him. Unlived memories built in his brain, unfelt sensations of a history larger than his years. Blue veins were being filled with shades of grey and black. Old skin was discarded and new skin sprouted forth. The high wasn’t the floating, beautiful buzz he remembered; it was an infiltration of the dust of life from all around him giving him power. Dead cells of his old body were being blown away and left floating in the air.
Beams of golden sunlight from baseboard windows faded into grey and then darkened to black at nightfall. The sun rose and fell over three days and the pile was dwindling. The banging noises returned from upstairs. Boom, boom, boom.
I caught you knockin’ at my cellar door, I love you baby can I have some more…
The noise didn’t make him flinch, not this time. The air and light of the upstairs world did worry him, but his body was powerful and ready. Ready for the steps that were coming down the hallway.
“Jervis, come on up now. Damn it, you must be hungry. Come on up, the door is open. Let’s talk about this.”
He said nothing. He felt so large standing there and she had become so small.
“Jervis. Jervis,” she said his name with each step.
“Jervis, what is going on? Don’t you want to come out?”
She turned the corner from the stairs and Jervis saw her face freeze. Whatever she saw shocked her eyes open wide. She seemed unable to breathe. Lines in her face spoke to him with their history, and those eyes summoned a voice from his gut that he didn’t recognize as his own.
“THE GOLD. IT WAS NEVER YOURS. IT CAME FROM ME AND BELONGED TO THE BOY. IT WAS HIS BIRTHRIGHT.”
The ashes made his heart burn and the words came out with power. Rage built and fired through his nerves. His flesh gleamed with a pulsating redness from the blood boiling beneath. His muscles ripped and he cocked back a fist ready to strike.
He didn’t know how long he beat on her, but he felt the meat go mushy with each strike like it was dough and could be beaten no more. He stood over her for minutes, or maybe days, or maybe hours. Waiting for her to move. She couldn’t be done...her life couldn’t be over. Could it? She’d always been there, always had something to say. But now her blood was set free and running like a river on the floor. Finally, both his parents were dead.
A voice from up the stairs woke him from his trance. Somebody was calling his name. It was an angel, or his girl, Tara. The patter of her feet descended, and soon he was looking at her face. It seemed fresh, more alive—younger even—but shocked. Neither of them could speak. The air of death in the basement gagged them both.
“Jervis? Jervis? Is that you? What happened? You don’t look right. And what the fuck did you do?”
“I…I… didn’t do anything. I was trapped. I had to get out, you see. Where were you?”
“Detox, like I told you. Me first, you second. We agreed. You don’t remember?”
“You never said that.”
“I did too. I did say that. I did and you agreed. I said that. I left you voicemails every day to come get me. But when you didn’t, I knew that meant you loved me and wanted me to stay.”
Tara bent down to the body on the ground.
“Your mom…she’s…what did you do Jervis?”
“I don’t know...I don’t know, Tara. I don’t know what’s happening to me. What’s happening to me?”
The strength had left him. He put his arms to his side and pleaded. He wanted a hug, but she looked at him like she was too scared to get close. Cramps flooded back into his muscles. The army of strength retreated out of his blood. The implosion of cramping cells was returning and nausea spread from his gut to his body. He needed to be held. He needed the warmth of the womb of his mother or his girlfriend or his heroin.
Finally, he forced himself against her and fell into her arms. A sober energy filled his hands when they embraced.
Detox. Now he remembered. She went there like she said, like they had planned. But he had lied. He never planned on going. He thought she was full of shit, that she wasn’t going, that she’d be back to get high. But she did go get clean. She was something different now.
The black strings of her hair brushed against his cheek and seemed to have grown softer. Her skin against his own seemed more pure. Three days clean had made her more alive; younger, even. But the history of shooting smack was still there and couldn’t be erased. He sniffed at the base of her neck and it came out of her pores. He felt the dope in her flesh at his fingertips. It was there in each and every cell, and always in her soul. A quarter century of smack at least. No detox could get that out of her.
“JERVIS. YOU KNOW WHAT SHE HAS IN HER BLOOD DON’T YOU?”
The sickness came back in a wave of black nausea. He needed to do something. Now. Get high now and stop the evil and swing the gates of heaven back open.
Tara wasn’t going to get high with him anymore, he could feel it. But she would get him high. All of her. Every last cell. He was more worried about how he could burn her up into ashes than how he was going to kill her. That part would be easy. But she needed to be ash. Just thinking of what her boiled up ashes would look like in the chamber of the syringe made his blood warm. Soon enough, that heat would spark a flame, and burn her body into tiny bits.
His hands clutched around her neck. How soft her flesh was. His thumbs pressed against her windpipe. How easy to crack. He began to squeeze.
**Jervis lives on. Check him out in MILK-BLOOD , available on Amazon for $2.99**
December 1, 2014
RUNWELL and GIVING TUESDAY
Black Friday is dead. A team of marketers in some board room killed the beast slowly when they started opening up stores on Thanksgiving. Small Business Saturday is silently growing bigger each year, Cyber Monday continues to operate with stealth in the background.
And behind all of these is Giving Tuesday: a chance for the world to come together for one common purpose: to celebrate generosity and to give. And with the rise of the Selfie, comes the "Unselfie"
As a Runwell Advocate, I took an #UnSelfie to show my support. Runwell is dedicated to fighting addiction through an active lifestyle, most notably through Running and the power that it plays in peoples lives to help maintain recovery from addiction. Thing is, I was a Runwell advocate before I knew it existed, espousing the high of the run to help recovering alcoholics and addicts like myself.
Check out their page to get involved, become an ambassador, or run your next event raising funds to fight addiction.
November 24, 2014
MOCKINGJAY
I saw MockingJay, part one yesterday. It was a great, emotional movie, but not the kind you need to see twice. They have done the book justice, with just slight modifications and adding in one completely new scene, from what I could tell, in order to make the book into two movies rather than one. One complaint: the song Katniss sings about the Hanging Tree seems 're-interpreted' in the movie.
Two movies means bigger bucks, of course, but I completely forgive them for this money grab, unlike Peter Jackson who took a pretty simple book, The Hobbit, and turned it into three movies. Turning Mockingjay into two movies instead of cramming the whole book into one works for me, although on leaving the theater, my perceptive daughter said; “never saw a movie that ended in a cliff-hanger.” The last image was a powerful one. This third book is especially more complex, as it should be in sort of a maturity of ideas kind of way. I poked my daughter’s brain and explained some things, but it is hard to tell if the themes of propaganda war and media guiding reality, not reflecting reality, was understood.
What is clear is the message that it is human relations that drive us, and love for others, not for State, that are the base of our actions. Jennifer Lawrence is an incredible, constantly emoting actress who captures the conflicts and imperfections of Katniss. Phillip Seymour Hoffman came back from the grave to wink at us and looked so healthy on the screen. Haymitch is the lovable drunk, still drug-seeking even after being forcibly detoxed, but seems to be one of the few characters to live outside of the clutches of the state. Gale: well, he’s a Hunk, can’t really carry a scene IMAO (In My Arrogant Opinion). Like Katniss, I only give him attention when he’s wounded and clearly acting wounded.
Book before movie, was the message around this house, so I dutifully read ¾ of the book, with the rest of it to wait until next year around the holiday, when a wonderful female protagonist role model will be waiting.
Two movies means bigger bucks, of course, but I completely forgive them for this money grab, unlike Peter Jackson who took a pretty simple book, The Hobbit, and turned it into three movies. Turning Mockingjay into two movies instead of cramming the whole book into one works for me, although on leaving the theater, my perceptive daughter said; “never saw a movie that ended in a cliff-hanger.” The last image was a powerful one. This third book is especially more complex, as it should be in sort of a maturity of ideas kind of way. I poked my daughter’s brain and explained some things, but it is hard to tell if the themes of propaganda war and media guiding reality, not reflecting reality, was understood.
What is clear is the message that it is human relations that drive us, and love for others, not for State, that are the base of our actions. Jennifer Lawrence is an incredible, constantly emoting actress who captures the conflicts and imperfections of Katniss. Phillip Seymour Hoffman came back from the grave to wink at us and looked so healthy on the screen. Haymitch is the lovable drunk, still drug-seeking even after being forcibly detoxed, but seems to be one of the few characters to live outside of the clutches of the state. Gale: well, he’s a Hunk, can’t really carry a scene IMAO (In My Arrogant Opinion). Like Katniss, I only give him attention when he’s wounded and clearly acting wounded.
Book before movie, was the message around this house, so I dutifully read ¾ of the book, with the rest of it to wait until next year around the holiday, when a wonderful female protagonist role model will be waiting.
November 20, 2014
Random Thoughts On the Emptiness of Being Where Nothing Much Happens But Wet Socks
First off, a big thanks to ultra-marathon runner Kevin Jones for hooking up my fangirl daughter with posters straight from LionsGate for MockingJay. So shines a good deed in a weary world.Beyond that, this blog has been pretty empty lately. My meta-artsy side is actually trying to make a statement that nothing much happens in this world when you walk out your door. People don't change. Sure, they struggle, but they do not have epiphanies and nothing much is resolved. In other words, the lack of blog updates is, in fact, a reflection of the real world and true art.
I dressed up as Nicholas Cage and pointed this out in class. Take a minute to watch the results:
Okay, Thanks.
November 7, 2014
THE HORROR WRITERS ASSOCIATION, SELF-PUBLISHERS, and SNEETCHES ON THE BEACHES
Tell me I can’t go somewhere, and I will want to go more. Rope something off with a Police Line Do Not Cross and suddenly I DO WANT TO CROSS. At times my subversive self has served me well. When I learned I had to run a qualifying time in order to run the Boston Marathon, I ran multiple marathons over ten years, failing many times, until I finally nailed the qualifier.
Well, after writing a couple pieces of Horror/Dark Fiction, I looked into a “Horror Writers Association” membership. I wanted to be among other writers who I could look up to and model myself after. HWA seemed like the perfect place to learn from others, rub elbows, and hopefully climb up and stand on the shoulders of some Giants. (And Milk-Blood received a reading list recommendation. Even more reason.)
As of a few months ago, the HWA wouldn’t let me in. Full membership is based largely on cash advances for a novel, of which small publishers only offer modest amounts, if any at all. On the lips of Children wasn’t bona fide even though it’s gotten some incredible reviews by credible sources and been nominated for small-fry awards.
My most recent release, MILK-BLOOD , also wasn’t bona fide and wouldn’t be eligible since it was self-published. Doesn’t matter about the praise and sales number it has generated. Sorry son, you’re self-published, you got no stars upon thars, and we aren’t letting you in.
It is like the Boston Marathon saying “no matter how fast a marathon you run, you do not qualify unless you are sponsored by a shoe company.”
Well, kudos to the Horror Writers Association which has changed the rule regarding self-published authors. Self-published authors are now allowed full membership as long as they meet similar criteria as traditionally published authors must achieve. They are even allowed to vote. This is not insignificant. I give a ton of credit to the HWA, because, from my understanding, most other genre specific associations are not as progressive.
Poking around a few blogs and message boards, there has been some dissidence over this. Not a ton, just mild unease.
The funny thing is, I can understand there being resistance. As a reader, I also have a negative prejudice against self-published work and approach it with more caution. I expect readers to approach my book with the same sense of skepticism, and therefore I need to earn the right to be read. The only thing more annoying than overly smug traditionally published writer guy is overly offendable, chip on their shoulder, let me always tell you how Indie is best, self-pub guy.
One of things being published by Books of the Dead Press did for me was provide some credibility. I still did tons of my own marketing, but when I was able to mention that On the Lips of Children was published by Books of The Dead Press, people listened. Throughout the process, I learned much more about preparing a book to publish and realized what an impatient idiot I had been with previous works. I also read a ton on the subject, and reached out to writers who I saw were “doing it right” (thanks Joe Hart) and hired an excellent, well-respected editor and brilliant cover artist.
I also started my own imprint name: Wicked Run Press. It drove home the point that publishing was a business and I had to act like one. Expectations for the manuscript needed to be higher, and if they weren’t met, I would send it back to the author to rewrite. I reached out to five beta-readers who helped in so many ways, rewrote again (and again), took part in weeks long editing process, and then added more proofreading time.
Once the manuscript was done, there were cover reveals, paying for advertising, sending out arc copies, and approaching bloggers— It is a shit-load of work, but, I love it! I really do. I love the control, love that success or failure depends on me, that I can price it to sell while getting a majority of the share, and I can take a picture of my hairy butt and put it on the cover if I want.
The problem is, of course, that lots of self-published authors have published their hairy butts and think it’s a piece of art. Then again, I’ve read traditionally published books that also seem jam-packed full of ass.
Here’s something I think we often miss: Many of the small traditional publishing companies out there are just self-publishers, doing the same thing that a good self-publisher does, except publishing work someone else writes. The process is the same. KDP doesn’t treat them any different. As self-publishers raise their standards and gain acceptance as mainstream, the differentiation will pass by the wayside, and all the sneetches will live together in peace on the beaches.
As of now, I am just an affiliate member of HWA, which has a meager baseline of required earnings to qualify, but if the next few months are like the last four since MILK-BLOOD was released, I’ll be as HWA membered as can be soon. So far, the welcoming committee has been a big warm hug.
