#ddwrites

"So you’re not planning Jimmy’s untimely demise right now?" Phil asks casually. Dan meets Phil's eyes, trying to gauge how he feels about this. Phil's expression is open, accepting, with no trace of judgement, just pure curiosity.  

"Do you think anyone would miss him?" It’s a genuine question and the answer to it matters quite a bit. Dan might want to kill Jimmy, but he doesn’t want to jeopardize what he and Phil have going for them right now. They're not chaotic twinks in Manchester anymore; they can't just do whatever they want and assume there will be no consequences. 

No matter how good Phil is at hiding evidence. 

"Yeah, Dan," Phil says softly. He reaches out to grab Dan's hips and pull him close. "I think he has too many people who care about him."

Dan pouts; Phil's right. He usually is. "You can't talk to him anymore then," he says instead of running after Jimmy and making him regret calling Phil cute like he really wants to do. 

Phil rolls his eyes, but it's with fondness. "What are you going to do if I do? Tie me up? Hide me away from the world?"

"Don't tempt me," Dan says with narrowed eyes. 

Phil looks thoughtful for a moment, then pulls away from Dan. "Maybe I'll give him a call right now, actually," Phil says loftily as he starts walking toward the couch where his phone is charging. "Have him come back up here and maybe we can– Ack!" Phil squawks as Dan tackles him onto the sofa and pins him there with the full weight of his body. 

Dan looks down at Phil darkly. "You should stop talking right now if you don't want me to commit a crime," Dan says, deadly serious.

"Maybe there's something else I could be doing with my mouth then," Phil says with a playful glint in his eyes. Then he reaches up, laces fingers in Dan's hair and pulls him down so their lips meet in a kiss that they both melt into immediately. 

What does one do when the soft layers they have placed between themselves and the world are stripped away?

When one sickens of drink and excess; when their gut, hung heavy with the ghosts of cocktails past, finally ripens into cyanosis and crippling pain? When the risk of cancer becomes just high enough to chase one away from the smoke and vapor?

When the spirit goes from one's loins from too many years of indulging the cock's every passing fancy. When one must delve deeper into the deranged, diving the depths of depravity just to ignite that damned and damning spark. Even then, only finding a pale shadow of the lust that once pounded there?

Christ, the sepia tones of a world without vice.

Vice lends the world color. And damn me, but I was a fucking virtuouso. I made art of naught but my body, a bottle and a thousand sultry nights.

And yet here I sit in the stinking August heat sinking steadily into my sofa, watching some inane docu series about serial killers and trying to ignore the oompah oompah coming up through my floor.

Have you ever thought about how funny H. H. Holmes would have been to watch in action? Because it makes me laugh until my eyes tear up. This murderous bastard, itching to kill someone, feeling the addiction like a vice at the base of his spine, right? And what does he do, go strangle some folks? Beat a man to hamburger meat barehanded? Nope, he pulls a McCauley Kulkin, sneaks around a tiny hotel setting his little tricks and traps.

In my mind, I can see it so clearly. Holmes, walking down a hallway with arms spread wide showmanly, describing the perks and amenities of America's first Blood and Breakfast. He steps lithely around a loose floorboard, and when the petite granny who rented suite 7B hits it? Wham, two by four full of nails to the face. Of course that doesn't do the job, granny lived through the dust bowl, she's a tough old bird. But it makes her stumble back to the stairs and slip.

That does the trick. The second impact enough to snap her spine, but she keeps ragdolling. Blood sprays from the new holes as she pinwheels down. Holmes steps on a pedal opening a secret door to the cellar where Oma Mendelson lands on a pile of other guests. Splat!

Of course, like all my other lovely little hobbies, the world does not let me keep this. The documentary reveals the long held secret of H. H. Holmes we've all been waiting for on the edge of our seats. He was boring.

Kevin McAllister The Ripper was just a common fucking conman. Every single bloodthirsty kill and bloodstained Victorian drama? Just a desperate attempt to cover up shifty little white collar crimes. The murder hotel? Made up for the papers after the perfectly normal building burnt down. My laughter dies in my throat. Color abandons me. The sepia creeps back in.

Desperate frustration drives me to the bathroom. I rip down a gray box full of nicotine gum, and dump the contents into the sink. Six sheets of blister wrapped bits of gum sit there innocuously. I struggle to pop one out for a full minute, guttural cursing escaping me the whole time.

I catch sight of the mirror, and what awaits on the burnished glass is a vision from pre-history. Hair in disarray, foam flecked lips, blood shot eyes. Forehead jutting like a caveman amongst crude cut features. Breath boils out of me, laced with petty frustration more black and potent than any rage. Finally, I manage to claw the foil off the entire pack in a single motion and a half dozen pieces clatter on the mildew and piss stained floor.

There isn’t a moment of hesitation. I snatch the closest few sticks and cram them in my mouth.

It tastes like inadequacy and artificial fruit.

The music starts pounding again next door.

…

You're not even wearing a hearing aid you old piece of shit.

The sounds of polka damn near drowned that thought.

“I'm sorry Jefe I don't mean to bother, you know” Old Jank was half hollering over the music, which stoked the rage in my stomach even higher. It meant he knew full well how loud it was. His liver-spotted hands pawed at a sweat stained wifebeater, out of which a carpet of graying tangle peaked, and a piss-yellowed pair of Jockeys.

Why did society tolerate old men who gave up common decency at the first excuse?

Old Jank was called Old Jank because the man looked like a Scooby Doo stereotype. He belonged in a shack next to an abandoned gold mine or some defunct amusement park somewhere, not in here stinking up the high rise. Over his shoulder was an apartment piled high with the sort of trash that got you a reality tv intervention. Stacks of old magazines and yellowing newspapers, boxes of trash used as packing material for Hummel figurines. The sort of mess you didn’t end up living in if you had anyone on earth who loved you.

“Just fuckin.. turn it down man. Don’t make me come down here again.” The menace lacing my tone did nothing to him. His shallow unconcerned gaze didn’t waver for a second. Fucker.

Deluding myself into thinking he was intimidated, I turned and stormed away. The fact that the music became slightly quieter fed the poor starving self deception. The fatass-shaped mould in my sofa called to me, and I filled it gratefully.

Ed Gein was up next. Now there was a true American Hero. Killed like, nine people, and grave robbed a dozen more, and made modern fucking art with their bits. I mean, the man wasn’t any good at arts and crafts, a middle aged mom could have made better corpse chachkis, but hey points for style. Maybe if they’d taken a bit longer to catch him, he could have refined his art a bit better.

Of course, in a stunning repeat of their last performance, the documentarian saved the disappointment for right at the end of the episode. Gein wasn’t an artiste. There was no passion. He was just trying to build a fucking mommy-suit. My god, never meet your heroes. No one in this world is worth saving.

In disgust, I killed the boob tube, and flung away the remote. Guess there was nothing to do but nap. Better the dreamless void than the itch growing in my spinal cord. The couch would do well enough for a few hours.

Oompah

OOMPAH

OOMPAH OOMPAH OOMPAH.

THAT MOTHERFUCKER. The slam of my front door rattled the pictures on the wall almost as hard as the bass boosted music beneath my feet. I barely remember the flight down to 14C. Jank was smiling knowingly when he finally opened the door, wearing an apron over his grungy duds that said Cafe Esteban in ancient faded vinyl cursive. After maybe five minutes of knuckle-bruising knocks. I didn’t know what i was going to say, but that fucking smile made up my mind for me. No words. I just cocked my fist back to teach the old fuck a lesson.

GLURK

Jank wasn't standing in front of me, I couldn’t fuckin breathe and everything was bursting with pinpricks of light. The rings of bone that ran round my adams apple felt like they’d gone a few rounds with a cricket bat.

“Can't be acting like fucking animals, Rat-shitkowski” I couldn't breathe enough to get mad. His words sounded.. more than pleasant, the man sounded genuinely excited. I felt his bony hand clench around my shirt, with that long hairy bare leg against the back of my knees, and before my sluggish instincts kicked in, he launched my ass into the apartment. Some kind of body weight momentum type shit, jiu-jitsu maybe?

Take-off to touchdown was maybe a half a second. I rolled onto my back after a second to see Esteban saunter towards me.

“This tantrum shit that young people do in this country? No, good my friend. If you want to hurt me?” He paused to punctuate his point, contemplating me. I shot my left hand out to snag his ankle hoping to yank the old bastard down. Too slow.

Esteban took a half step back, easily dodging my clumsy attempt, then brought his full weight down on the offending limb, heel first. There was an internal snap, and the sepia retreated from the world. The blue in his eyes was electric.

“Just hurt me. Don’t fuck around.”

The smell of over-spiced Cuban beef hit my senses, followed by the sizzle. Then the pain, as the shriveled old scrotum of a man drew up a bare foot and stomped full force on my crotch.

He missed my testicles on the first try, slamming his heel into my public bone, but that must have helped him calibrate his efforts because the second shot caught the fellas. I threw up. Vomit streamed through clenched teeth, painting the front of my hurricanes jersey with that distinctive orange brown. Coughing followed, as the rest slid back down the wrong pipe.

Esteban was so kind as to bury his heel into my diaphragm, and the explosive exhalation blew chunks all over his face. He didn't so much as flinch.

Fists after that. Somewhere around the third blow I realized I was laughing. The pain felt right. This was real life, stripped of all its drab covering and exposed to the cold air of reality. No shrinking back from the pain as the old Cubano threw a vicious jab into my gums. There was a pop and a crack as I parted ways with a lower canine and chipped something else. Hands gripped my throat, pulling me from the grimy linoleum, then bashing me back against it.

He was flagging. Youth had long since abandoned my Jank, and it showed. A few more shots from his bloody knuckles and he was done, pushing himself agonizingly back to his feet, and stumbling away chest heaving.

“I… am glad.. you enjoyed yourself, gringo” he forced out. I choked over my dying laughter and spit a wad of bloody phlegm and enamel onto the floor. “I trust you can see yourself out” he limped away from the little kitchenette, and my amusement died.

He wasn't going to fucking finish me? He was going to turn his back to me and fucking walk away?! I forced my ruptured core to engage, every fiber of muscle in my body protesting. Sitting. Vomit again onto the peeling tile patterned plastic. Roll over. Push myself up? Nope, left wrist is clearly broken, and every shift made whoever had their hand around my balls squeeze.

Fuck it. The pain was just color. Jenk and I had made art together just then. The palette was brown and yellowed white and utterly gorgeous, breathtaking RED. But it wasn't perfect. Esteban had forgotten his main course on the stove. It was starting to smoke and blacken.

I did the old man a favor. I reached out with my right hand and clicked the gas burner off. My hand closed around the handle of the formidable weight of the wrought iron pan. Jank had made his way towards the decaying leather armchair in the living room, but when he heard the music he stilled. I tipped the beef onto a chipped, gold-rimmed China plate.

Five limping strides carried me across the room. He didn’t move, turn around, flee. My mouth curled slightly. Burning grease dripped onto my wrist as I raised it above my head.