It’s the first day and Soulhuntre is already beginning to crack.
“Blog” he breathes into my phone.. “Blog. Blog.” I knew this tone all too well- and my repulsion at his obscene vices was only overshadowed by my fear and revulsion at his vengeful flailing if he was interrupted in his abominable practices. His time among the Tcho-Tchos and the swarthy inbred jungle guides he hired to translate had given him a taste for certain… activities that no sane man could condone. I had seen Kimiko’s eyes… I knew the horrors this twisted brute was capable of, and wanted no part of them.

I can only post Rizzo’s report of last night’s “activities”- and why I had no time to satisfy Soulhuntre’s perverse cravings for “Blog” and opium.

This festered in my mailbox this morning:

I awoke with a start, unsure of where I was, what that goddamn taste in my
mouth was, or why I had a dead hooker in the bed with me. As I sat up the
disjointed memories came flooding back with the head rush: The night had
started over at Flagg’s, having many mudslides with Nick, as well as the odd
Singapore Sling, – Good God, did I let him TOUCH me??? – and then a quick
descent into hell, which must have started with the odd-shaped mushrooms in
Lynna’s spaghetti sauce. How did I let them talk to me about the style of
Hunter S. Thompson? It always starts with the literary criticism.

She was beginning to reek. I stumbled into my workshop. Normally surgically
clean, it was now a jungle of used rubber gloves, beer bottles, ticker tape
and half-eaten beanie babies. I retched, and it was unnoticeable among the
detritus. From the other room I heard a brief tink-jingle-tink and a
surreptitious scuttle, which turned into a full-tilt sprint as a disheveled
hooker made a run for the door, my car keys clenched firmly in her left hand.
I turned to berate Pepe – it was HIS turn to watch that one! – but the
bastard was nowhere to be found. I tracked him to the living room by his
trail of goulash and we began to argue vociferously over whose turn it was to
watch the hookers, and whether we had one, two or three of them. I chased
the bastard into the bedroom. The dead hooker was gone. Ha! For the first
time since I awoke, fortune had smiled upon me. Not only did we not have to
throw her out, but this proves my argument with Pepe – we obviously had 3
hookers. The other one must have been dragging the dead one out while Pepe’s
bitch stole my car keys. Goddamn Pepe. This never would have happened if he
had stayed away from my crayon box.

He refused to concede my point or even agree that the last Crayon Debacle was
remotely his fault. What a swine! I show him the hospitality of my home and
this is how he repays me?!?! I began to chase him around the apartment with
an X-acto knife and a bottle of vodka. It’s thirsty work, that chasing.

I awoke again, lying sideways across my bed with small triangle-shaped cuts
on my shins and forearms and the sun in my eyes. That goddamn Pepe must have
left the shade up. The only thing driving me is the few hours of sleep I
managed to convince my body to accept before the relentless July sunshine
ripped me from sweet slumber. Worst of all, my recollection of the past 2 days
was arriving rapidly.

I don’t know what hit me harder, the realization that I can’t write worth a
damn, no matter how little sleep I get, or the fact that I don’t know anyone
named Pepe.

Good christ! The swarthy little brute was trying to crucify me! I was not at fault for his filthy habits, his cruel temper or his overwhelming need for strong drink. I knew the stories- the twisted little bastard would swill turpentine in the back of the auto shop where he and his “engineer” associates would build hidey- holes in the bodies of the sports cars of swarthy colombian “businessmen” – no questions asked, cash on the barrelhead. No names, no names…. My neighbors already peeked fearfully at me through the curtains, and having some perverse soiree’ where no one but myself in attendance was over 5’4″ would already suggest some unhealthy lusts – but I had kept my hands off the midgets since my circus incident in ’89… I could not afford to buy another judge…

I was rudely awakened by the sound of a cursing mexican dumping dead hookers
over my back fence. Alerted by the racheting of the pump action, he dropped
behind the black steel door in time to avoud the worst of the spread of
buckshot.

“Kill!” I screamed, but the hounds were too busy worrying the corpses to
spring the gate and run the filthy foriegn brute down. I knew where he was
heading- I’d seen the high cut short-shorts that the dirty little wetback
was forced to wear… how many times had I seen Riso hurl curses at him for
imaginary offenses, cuffing the cringing illegal into a sniveling, pathetic
cur, his little brown legs bruised from kicks and unidentifiable engine
parts. I’ve seen what a camshaft will do to a man’s shins… I knew I had to
tread carefully.

I waited a few minutes, then grabbed the telephone. The ringing of
the phone would drill through Rizzo’s throbbing skull like a bit through a
cheap men’s room stall… a glory hole of hangover misery- better than the
swarthy brute deserved.

“Hola?” sniveled Rizzo’s “manservent” Pepe — out of breath from his sprint
from my back gate. I knew he would answer- he knew that if the savage wop he
was indentured to had to answer his own telephone, it would be the bleach
for him again. “Hola? Allo?”

“INS, you quivering lettuce picker. You put Rizzo on the telephone or you are
going right back across the border.”

“Home?” he said, faint hope creeping into his voice, his broken spirit
twitching like a bird in the grill of a speeding pickup. “Ju sand me home?
No senor Rizzo?… No… toucheeng?”

I slammed the phone down, cursing. It was the wrong tactic to take, and I
new it- I had underestimated the brutish sicilains degenerate crulety; the
filthy yoke he had saddled Pepe with. Kicking mudslide bottles out of
the way, I looked out the back window as the dogs fought over the aged and pickled whore-meat Pepe had dropped into my
yard. One bottle was encrusted half way down it’s length with a substance I
could not- would not identify. My mind was taken back to the capering and
gleeful Trombino and his “bottle trick”. The living room would have to be
repainted.

“Fuck Pepe. It’s the american dream he wanted… let him enjoy it.”

The dogs were fed for a few days, and it was not worth crossing Rizzo or his
giggling, twisted gimp Trombino… that savage, toothy thug would end up
slithering out from under my bed like the feral weasel he was, knife in his
teeth and baby oil gleaming along his wiry little frame.

“It makes me sleeepery…” he once leered at me in a drunken frenzy, vomit curling along
his chin as he rubbed the bulk of his convulsive expectorations into his
chest “So I can sliiiiide…”

No. I’d clean up the garbage and hose down the smouldering embers of my
couch, putting salve on the lighter burns Trombino had left on Zoe while
Rizzo and I gambled for Andrew’s “salad tossing” services. It was not worth the
endless supply of twisted rage that the undersized italian duo had saved,
cursing a world far too tall… I want back to my room to avail myself again
of the services I had won from Rizzo at dice– when he saw me come in, still
unshowered, Andrew struggled against the duct tape and began to whine like
the whipped cur he was….