1: Deacon Blues

"I'm going back for what's left," he said shortly after breakfast. They watched him leave, quiet about the shared certainty that not a thing had been "left".

The sky was a solid sheet of blue but outside it still smelled of rain. His balding tires had trouble negotiating the mud.

He had to use a window; it never crossed his mind that the old place would be locked tight. Inside, he was shocked at the emptiness of it. The place was nothing but walls and passageways, with no suggestion as to where one should stand or what one should do.

Light came in from windows, holes, and cracks and traversed entire rooms uninterrupted, breaking against the walls.

The heat got to him and he took off his hat. Extending his arm he used it to catch the light here and there, becoming the interruption.

He turned around and noticed he had tracked a looping line of mud. He heard himself say, "I am the endpoint."

6: Two Against Nature

Evan got out of the car and the surveyed the street. It was a crap scene. something starring Lee Majors on the way out. Extras casting had no real budget and Wardrobe was all newbies. These tiny towns were all the same: no hope for a decent meal or real conversation. Just a place for beer and cigarettes. And maybe some flashback candy, a Charleston Chew perhaps.

Kadrey always got out of the bus at these insignificant places. Sure, the man always needed a pee or a cigarette or soup, but there was real excitement for him in visiting these alien colonies. The tide of civilization had receded but these folks and edifices had held on to the soil with quixotic determination. A fascinating stain on the land.

13: Don't Take Me Alive

Evan decided to look up an old buddy. Since we were in town and all.




His family had no news and no curiosity. I think there was a peak of lassitude in their answers but I won't swear to that.

He was not at work where they told us he'd dropped by if and when he was needed.

He was nowhere. And if he was somewhere then we had no idea of what that looked like.

14: Gaucho

Right before daybreak, Evan found him in the sliver of space between two warehouses; Kadrey was crying.
"Kadrey, It smells like jizz and fried chicken. How you even breathing in here?"
"Please. Please don't tell anybody."
"Who'm I gonna tell. You're everyone I know."

15: Bad Sneakers

Drinking in worn out clubs with young ladies.

Trailing the music by half a beat.

Pissing in badly lighted johns crowded with scoundrels.

Smelling like smoke and vinegar.

Feeling like ashes and leather.

Forgetting what day it is.

Only Evan is having fun

20: What a Shame about Me

The heavy silver ball rolls up his spine

Rumbling

Picking up speed and mean

The gray loosens up

Ready to embrace the coming destruction

The end is blind

Skin gets the final solo

The silver ball makes no decision

It shakes a memory loose

It took a week to heal

And is propelled through the gray

Until it hits another cluster

The cold gritty wall at his back

Hot breath rushing out his nose

Waiting for Carl to give up

It's getting darker in his own head

And all sound is collapsing into pink

Standing in a stream

Water is not

One thing

But many snakes

Each with a slightly different coldness

The silver ball is the same

All over and to the core

There is a clear separation

Between the pole pushing up against his leg

And the leg giving up

What was a closed circuit is open

To the whole world

And the world to it

Communicating through pain

The silver ball

Does not loose speed

After a collision

Fifteen thousand pounds

Fifty four miles an hour

Feet off the ground

23: Black Cow

fucking nosebleed every fucking time in the parking lots no exception to all this abject retardity just once one fucking time it would be nice a straight line through a parking lot at peak hours a simple understanding of civility it wouldn't kill you how do the old fucks do it without a stroke and a change of diapers every fucking time was that fun asshole was that your idea of entertainment can't afford cable never learned to make a fist and shake your wrist asshole cumsmear i swear i understand the nra your taurus vs me and smith and wesson how would you feel whose idea was it to arm this entire country with 2 ton bullets just once respect the idea of a motherfucker trying to get to point b keep your fucking paw on the right pedal look think a little reminder that we built pyramids and invented cake and holland all out of dirt and twigs what do you do for a living what do you do with your fucking brain all day you're allowed access all day just once across the lot fucking nosebleed this was a nice shirt

26: Night by Night

On the way down

The body is the instrument

Fell by drink, fatigue, or violence

That describes an arc

A shift in perspective

With point of view doggedly intact

A paradox for moron

A short trip with a Keystone punchline

On the way out

There is usually a quiz

A pretty pointless one word query

With answers that devolve into explanations

Then strengthen into stories

Anecdotes illustrated by scar tissue

Bunched up beneath epidermis

Discreet but fully present

On the way up

There is nothing

A blank page

An empty glass

A clearing of the throat

A kind word toward your mother

To set up the night's entertainment

31: Babylon Sisters

Bones are slow-built cathedrals revealed only at the architect's exit.

It's day five on the Malibu coast where camping is surprisingly affordable. Kadrey pours himself out of the tent a good hour before sunset because nobody's yet bothered to design a tent for smokers. Evan's there, of course, drawing something in the back pages of whatever he's reading this week.

Kadrey's been a bitch all week but Evan chances a greeting anyway, "Hey Dracula." Kadrey answers through the filter, his words spurting from the tobacco, "Whazit? What the hell are you talking about?" Evan stands and faces Kadrey, "Two weeks in California. Two weeks and you are still lilly-white. I think you had more of a tan in Michigan."

A couple of screeching kids run in between them, their frequencies liquefying thoughts and molars. Kadrey knows they live four tents down, he knows their parents are usually reduced to pinot grigio containers by nine P.M., he has a warm cannibal thought.

He starts walking away from the field of tents and Evan follows. Thirty feet from the highway he stops and speaks.

"I'm tired of this fucking water. And I'm tired of these rocks. I want to get back into the car. I want to keep going."

"Keep going," Evan shouts over the traffic, "there is nowhere to go. This is it. We ran out of country."

"So? We go back."

"We go back why, Kadrey? We do what? It takes me a week with both of my feet in one little spot to feel like I've stopped. All of this movement, Kadrey. All of this for no real reason."

"What are you saying? You can't do this anymore? You don't want to?"

"Driving is getting scary. I keep thinking that we keep avoiding disaster by just a little bit, feet probably, but we keep running we're gonna end up smack dab in the middle of fucked."

"I thought I was the pussy."

"You've been the pussy. Now you're aiming for retard. Did we loose anything on the road, Kadrey?"

"You're not curious? How about Joanie, and Olly, and The Casbah, and that grave in the desert. How about we go back and make sure we kept all of our promises and nobody is worst off in our wake."

"How about we go back and erase every dumb ass thing we ever done. Come on Kadrey there's forward and there is stop. There is no time travel."

"That's it? You're settling?"

"No, no. I never said that."

"Well I'm not. In two days I'll be headed East. It would make sense if you came along."

"What will you do till then?"

"Right now I'm gonna cross this road, go down that cliff and jack off into the Ocean."

Sand gives to any pressure but it's foolish thinking it will remember.

32: Chain Lightning

Money's like rain.

Office buildings make for decent shelter.

Before the endeavor or after the failure.

They feed on light and dust.

34: Pretzel Logic

Time

is written

on skin

and

Skin

turns to

Shit

Time

is written

on skin

and

Skin

turns to

Shit

Time

is written

on skin

and

Skin

turns to

Shit

37: Black Friday

SCENE - Lobby of an abandoned building. Three chairs and a broken table emphasize the desolation of the place. An inch of dust covers everything. It is pitch black.

[Evan and Kadrey run into the room holding flashlights. Kadrey stops suddenly]

Kadrey: Wait. Wait! [whispering] why the fuck are we running?

Evan: [Stopping. Catching his breath] I don't... I don't know. That was a real ruckus.

Kadrey: Quite the commotion. Quite the commotion. But I'm not looking to get my throat slit.

Evan: What are we looking for?

Kadrey: Only the correct exit. [he shines his beam on the floor] What's this.

Evan: [augmenting Kadrey's beam with his own] I think it's blood.

[Kadrey is still. Evan moves his beam along the crimson trail. It goes into the next room.]

Evan: What do we do?

Kadrey: The correct exit.

Evan: We leave? Now? What if someone needs us?

Kadrey: That question only has the one answer. I only have the one life.

Evan: What's that worth?

Kadrey: What?

Evan: A life.

Kadrey: That's not fair Evan. I see no life here demanding consideration. It's curiosity. You want me to gamble for your curiosity.

Evan: You're no kind of man.

[Evan goes into the next room. Kadrey is left alone and in silence for about two minutes. His beam stays fixed on the spot where they first saw the blood]

Kadrey: Evan, damn you, make a sound.

Evan: [Coming out of the room, looking queasy] There's most of a man in there...

Kadrey: My God.

Evan: Alone. Whoever, whatever did this... He doesn't have much of a face left...

Kadrey: What can we do?

Evan: I don't know. I don't see a whole lot of options.

Kadrey: Can we take him somewhere? Or do we have to...

Evan: Damn it Kadrey! He's not some fucking horse.

[There is a long silence]

Evan: You get our shit packed up, I'm going to drive down to that truck stop and make a call.

Kadrey: Are we going to wait with him?

Evan: I've got no answers for cops.

Kadrey: For a little bit then.

Evan: You do what you want. I'm not going back in there.

[Evan leaves. Kadrey raises his beam to the entrance of the next room. As we hear Evan's car start up Kadrey starts walking towards the entrance. He turns his flashlight off and goes in.]

Kadrey: Hello?

38: West of Hollywood

Evan is sitting on the trunk of the civic blinking at the sun. He's hungry, but he's not yet ready to do anything about that.

Kadrey is twenty feet away, crouched down to create a shield against the wind. He sees the sparks and smells the gas but the fire won't come.

The cold is past the skin now and burrowing into muscle but Evan refuses to get off the trunk. He sits up and holds himself.

Kadrey, unlit cigarette between his lips, is standing defeated. He says something but the wind allows no bridge.

Evan sees Kadrey, twenty feet away, saying something. Or maybe just moving his lips. He wonders how close they need to be to beat the wind.

42: Caves of Altimira

There must be

a place

where

a man can

stand

that is more

than

dirt

Where the ground

does not

swallow

but cradles

a body

and covers

red weary eyes

with

cool

earth