Free Technicolor Pulp by Arty Nelson Page A

are not alone… I cry… We fuck!” I love industrial music. It captures something in me that I can’t quite grasp
     alone in a bathtub… It really does. Sitting in this apartment listening to the theme song of the death row chain gang moving
     through a toxic jungle after an acid rain, banging and building a road to hip-hop nowhere, running alongside a pair of tittery
     London Paul Lynne sound-alikes.
    Sounds from the street fill up the front window. Every once in awhile, a cry earns the right to be part of the tribal mega-symphony—loud
     enough and angry enough to filter into the picture. Searing horns, nursed by double-decker engines straining, muted cries,
     footsteps fast and hard, keep time true down in the square. Dinner’s calling for everyone, including my trio. We’re holding
     out for the chemical option. I take another drag off the spliff. I’m still not used to the tobacco mixed with the hashish.
     It makes me uneasy. I’m rushed. The couch is too soft and I’m sinking into it, drowning in the lint of a thousand drug deals.
     I look around for a wooden chair to save me. I jump up and begin to circle the room, pretending to study the acrylic veneer
     of the mannequins,checking the frayed nooses that secure them into the ceiling.
    No one in the room is speaking. Music rules any conversational attempts there might be. I pace silently, tied down and tortured
     in my cerebral sofa. A single chirp runs the industrial gauntlet and I look up at a tree that runs alongside the window, a
     lone blackbird jumping about on its skeletal limbs. I walk over to the glass as other birds begin to congregate on the limbs
     of the tree. They’re chirping, looking into the flat. They look at me and babble on. Are they compelled to swarm this fucking
     distorted den? Do they yearn to stroke this evil? I look at Donald and Louis, staring off—blank pages. Christian moves in
     and out of the room like a two-legged cock priming a cesspool… Needing a taste of the bitter… To be part of the ceremony of
     lifeless mannequins and golden walls and the music… I’m in a trance. The birds shriek and scream. I look at the baby slung
     over Christian’s shoulder, helpless, looking at me, silent. I’m afraid to look back up at him. The night is black by now and
     the streets are dying down except for an occasional scream. Only the birds. It’s all the fucking blackbirds.
    “CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…CHEEEEEEEEEEE
    EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
    Wrenching me, every muscle coiling on my neck with each scream! Gathering still. No one in the room looking at the window
     but me. The birds know, they know about the drugs and the sodomy. They smell it and they love it. They smell us. Wesmell it and we love it. I smell it and I love it and I hate myself for it. Deep down, I can’t take it. I hate the rooms where
     I live! Unfocused and drawn into the void. Music shouts under the birds, careening off every wall, off every chair, invading
     me and raping every ritual mannequin. Laying them down on their sides and fucking them. The sky above the tree, deep red,
     crying yellow and orange tears. The birds drawing ropes around the muted face of the sky and landing back on the withering
     tree. I take it all personally, so stupid to think it’s my world and they’re making me feel wrong. Not letting me breathe…
     Or smile… Or laugh anymore! The birds begin to grow in front of my eyes. Each bird swelling, feathers shedding for scales,
     teeth surge under cracking beaks. Shrieks turn to howls and finally, growls. Lindsey… My anger turning outward and rising
     up in flying beasts. Coming down to me, crashing in through the window. Time stops, Donald and Louis frozen, Christian and
     the lost babe gone from my sight. Ray’s corpse drawn up into the sky by vultures of guilt, swooping and diving. Virus… Rotten
     apples falling down, being grabbed up by lovely children… I’m a victim… I’m a villain… No relief in