The Greatest Game

Jay was needy again, and it was only a matter of time. John slurped the cool remainders of beer from the lip of the can and avoided Jay's eyes until the latest soliloquy of woe was done. The pilot hadn't gone over, but he had spent his entire check already on the new CRV, having driven the old blazer to a rattling squeaky death. His agent had promised the show was a surefire hit, otherwise he insisted he would have saved the money.
"What about the royalties from Oak Creek? You still get those, don't you?"
Colin resented Jay's frequent beggary, since he continually worked tending bar at one place or waited tables at another to supplement his own income. He was annoyingly quick to point out that despite his steep car payments, Jay had managed to score enough of what he needed to keep him happily inebriated all the time.
"How much could you get for that quarter in your closet? Or those Klonopin?"
John remained silent, only taking his eyes away from the screen for a fleeting moment to cut them at Colin, who was no teetotaler. Then he continued to mow down enemies, thumbing the controller and sniffing disinterestedly, until the time came, when Colin had finished railing self righteously on.
"Please John. 100 bucks. I'll pay you back I swear."
John breathed out long and took a longer drink, draining the can. Then he clunked it down on the end table and said in a cold hard voice,
"Get a fucking job Jay."
"Come on dude!"
"Do you think I have money to spare? Look at how I live!"
He cranked his head in a frantic motion from side to side, indicating the broken arm chair mechanism held together with duct tape, the carpet pockmarked with cigarette burns, the lamp without a shade that had been found in the dumpster, the vise clamp which substituted for doorknob that had fallen off, the card table and chairs he'd taken from his mother's garage five years prior, the rheumy looking wall paint, veiny with cracks and piebald with scuffs, and the halogen lamp that reeked of singed insect wings whenever it was turned on.

605

The condo has hallways like in Kubrick's The Shining. Geometric patterns in the carpet the color of different kinds of diarrhea. Wallpaper orange and brown stripes with some kind of gold thread woven in. It's all very warm like embers, no clue to how cold and white and stark the actual dwellings are. At least Ellen's place is. So pearly white and hard and shiny. Spatters of blood will burst out on it's surfaces like a hernia. I never noticed the gold in the wallpaper and can't say why I'm seeing it for the first time now, as I wait in front of Ellen's door, my eyes licking the numerals, 605, that have pirouetted in my dreams thousands upon thousands of nights. Sometimes scraped into my back, which is what I see when I look into the mirror in my dreams. The elevator dings, and a lone boy emerges, wearing glasses and swinging his backpack from side to side. As he approaches, I notice it is a Pokémon backpack, and I remember with embarrassment the Star Blazers paraphernalia my mother spent her hard earned money on, and try not to follow that thought with the same pulled thread of little hurts.
The boy is about eight-maybe younger. Too young to be alone and too young to be wearing the cable net scarf that is wound around his neck like a boa constrictor. He stares with determination as he passes me, still swinging his bag. His mud-black eyes popping through the lenses at me. He slows, bringing the stuff of his boots-also Pokémon-to a halt.
"What are you doing?" He asks me.

Ode to the Guy from Carnivale

It started when you were five you and three friends streaks in the Texas dust that had collected on your little faces under a sagebrush tree screaming the lyrics to Fight for Your Right to Party
you were always the King Ad Rock
you ruled your little modular home and bought the two-story with the royalties from playing a child in trouble
the other kids at your small-town junior high called you faggot because actors are faggots
you can fall on cue  having been shoved into the parched dirt enough times your nostrils full of mud you hit a violent growth spurt and sprouted herds of zits the agency called your look reptilian your once baby face now flat and scaly as a copperhead's

you made an excellent villain you died in nearly every film often halfway through practice dying over and over until you didn't know to stop when the lens turned away
there was a franchise and a series but you were always the awkward reptile kid for had bunched into ropes from the shock of flashes in tight shoes and step tuxedos and longnecked models and sushi
Ketel One bought you a new wallet Molson bought you a watch Camel bought you a pair of loafers size 16