Free Squid Pulp Blues by Jordan Krall

fighting their little patriotic asses off while I stood there, watching the sun in the sky as it turned into the face of Barbara Stanwyck . You know Barbara Stanwyck , right? I’m not that old, am I?”
    “I don’t think I know her, no.”
    “She was an actress from when I was a kid. Beautiful, beautiful woman. I was looking straight at the sun, being blinded by her face but also by the rays of sunlight. I swear I even felt the heat in this dream, like my skin was going to burn off. Then my troops came back, half of them were blown to bits, being brought in on wheelbarrows, donkeys, and I think even an elephant. Their eyes were falling out of their faces and their cheekbones were all busted up. But the ones that weren’t wounded were even more disfigured. They were the longheads. That’s one thing I never told you about my tour of duty. I was there when that shit happened. I’ve felt guilty about that every day since. I should’ve been one of those longheads. I choose not to go in there and all those boys came out looking like…. that .” He made a face of disgust.
    Peachy’s eyes bugged out of his head in shock. He never gave much attention to what he considered just mutated freaks of war. In fact, he never gave much thought to politics in general and for all he cared, the country could blow itself up along with the rest of the world. But to think his boss was intimately involved; that was incredible. I guess there’s more to Aaron than just money and squid-smelling. Peachy nodded his head and listened as his boss went on.
    “And so I realized this morning as I shook myself out of the dream that not a single thing I do can make a difference. Whether I was a longhead or just a short head, nothing really matters, not a goddamn thing. I might as well be a longhead. Get it? Do you get what I’m saying? I was looking at the sun, at Barbara and the men came back. So even in the sunlight, where everything is lit up, illuminated or whatever, I still was blind to the fact that I was pretty much the same thing as them. What I was doing and what they were doing were the same. But still, I still feel that gnawing guilt, you know? The feeling that my life deviated from its predestined path. But now, I don’t know.”
    Aaron sucked on his cigar and exhaled. A few puffs of cigar smoke enveloped Peachy’s face and he coughed.
    Peachy felt uncomfortable. He knew he had to act sensitively but it was something he wasn’t used to. “I’m…sorry…about everything. But what’s this got to do with anything? I mean, business-wise.”
    “What I’m trying to tell you is that whatever you choose to do, it’ll be done. What’s done is finished. That path I’ve always thought was there in front of me, it doesn’t exist. Everything is done, over with. So with those two assholes,” he rubbed his cigar in the squid-shaped ashtray, “you can do what you like.”
    Peachy contemplated this. Not many people can say that they have received philosophical lectures from their boss. Still, though, he didn’t feel like it was something he would like to hear on a daily basis. After all, the more time one spends with Aaron Jeffords, the more one becomes used to all of his habits and routines. He couldn’t count the number of times he had to sniff Aaron’s squid collection or ride the albino pony that was kept locked up in a large closet in the office. If it wasn’t for the large sums of cash, Peachy would have left years ago.
    He still wasn’t sure though. “Are you serious? I can take those fuckers out?”
    “Yes.” Aaron opened his drawer and took out his pony harness. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
    With a smile, Peachy got up, adjusted his diaper, and left the room.

     
    CHAPTER 3
    A few blocks from where Tommy and Jake were scouting for a new payphone, a man clad in a trench coat, black leather gloves, and a fedora hat stood outside of a go-go bar. He had been standing in the snow for an hour, waiting for Ms. Isabella