Squid Pulp Blues (14 page)

Is this where I sleep every night? Fuck, this is crazy. This can’t be happening. I
gotta
remember something.

Chris hoped that slowly the details of his life would trickle back to him until the whole jigsaw puzzle was complete. Then he could go on.

But what if my life isn’t worth remembering? What if I wanted to forget?

He stood up and walked around to the front of the building. A trace of memory flashed through his mind because he recognized the strip mall and could see the sign for
Krauszer’s
. Another piece of the puzzle. He walked over and went inside.

There were a few customers in the store and one guy behind the counter. Chris walked down the aisles for a few minutes, hoping to jog his memory again but nothing came. He walked up to the counter and looked at the middle-aged guy with a beer gut who was sitting on a stool looking grouchy.

Chris said, “Excuse me?”

“Yeah?”
The guy didn’t look in the mood for questions.

“Do you know me?”

“What?”

“Have I been here before?”

“The fuck should I know?” the guy said, squinting and getting impatient.

Chris was embarrassed. He said, “Sorry,” and walked out of the store, feeling like a complete jack-ass.
That was stupid. If he knew me he would’ve said something when I walked in. So what the hell do I do now?

He sat on the curb in front of the store. Another sliver of the past came back but this time in the form of a feeling and not an image. Chris had the distinct impression that he was supposed to be waiting for someone here, someone who was supposed to give him something.

Guess I’ll just wait here and hopefully whoever it is will come by and give me whatever it is they’re supposed to give me.
Shit, I hope it’s something good.

Chapter Three

 
Simon had seen enough movies to know that when a guy you don’t know hands you an envelope, it can’t be good. Most likely the guy mistook him for a
hitman
and inside the envelope was a picture of the target as well as half of the fee, the other half which would be delivered after the hit. He didn’t want to believe this but the situation was so similar to a set up of a movie or a book that he couldn’t help but smile at the absurdity of it all.

Still, if it turned out that he was correct, he knew he was in deep shit. It ever ended well in the movies. The guy who was mistaken for a
hitman
would be hunted down by both the man paying for the hit as well as the real assassin. In the movies, the heroes were resourceful and destined to come out on top but this was real life. Simon knew he possessed no attributes that would help him in that situation. No strength. No special skills. No martial arts training. No military background. No real determination. He would be doomed.

Here goes nothing.

Simon tore open the envelope.

The first thing he noticed was that there was no money inside. Part of him was disappointed. Even if the whole mistaken-for-a-
hitman
thing had happened, at least he’d have some extra cash in the meantime. It would be a short-lived fantasy, he knew that, but he was disappointed nonetheless.

The second thing he noticed was that there were photographs, just like he had expected.

Son of a bitch.

Then he looked at them. There was a cold fist of dread in the pit of his stomach. His eyes bugged out of his head and he was aware of the sensation. He would have never thought it was possible for eyes to do such a thing but the shock of what he was looking at was too strong. His hands shook and the pictures fell to the ground.

Simon quickly bent down to scoop them up but before he did, he looked at the position of the photographs and imagined them as tarot cards.
 
If they were, he wondered, what the hell would they be telling me?

They’d probably be telling me to get the fuck
outta
here.

He didn’t want to think about it anymore and so he picked them up. Once they were back in the black envelope, he put them away in his pocket. Fear was slowly coming forward like a blood red tide.

What the fuck am I
gonna
do now?

Simon was sure that the guy who handed him the pictures would come back once he found out that he gave them to the wrong person. It was only a matter of time. But Simon didn’t live in town and if he left right after the book signing, what are the chances that the guy would find him?
 

Okay, after I finish up at the comic shop, I get the fuck out. I throw the photos out or I drop them off at the police station or something and that’s it. I’m gone.

While he planned his escape, Simon saw a child staring at him from across the parking lot. The child walked closer and Simon soon realized that it wasn’t a child but a dwarf.

She was dressed in a tight, green dress and black cowboy boots. Simon watched as she made her way over to him, fixing her long blond hair in the process as if wanting to make sure she looked pretty for him.

The dwarf said, “Hey sweetie,
wanna
date?”

What the fuck is this?

“Um, no thanks,” Simon said.

“A blow is twenty, half-and-half is forty-five. I know it’s early but I’m real good,” she said as she tweaked her hardened nipple through her dress. “Really
fuckin
’ good.”

Simon said, “Yeah, um, no thanks.”

The dwarf’s face squinted in anger. “What the fuck is your problem? You a
fuckin
’ homo or
somethin
’?”

“No, I just don’t want a date, okay.” Simon started walking away. The last thing he wanted was for her to make a scene or bite him in the thigh or something.

The dwarf followed close behind but was now bald, her blond wig in her hand. She said, “How’s this? You like ‘
em
bald? I’m bald everywhere, you know.”

“Jesus Christ, leave me alone,” Simon said, picking up the pace. He wanted to get into his car but imagined her jumping in with him, forcing him to fuck her. The thought made him sick not because she was a dwarf but because she was so goddamn aggressive.

“You look like you’re into squid. I can get squid if that’s what you like. Only cost you seventy-five, best price on the street. How about it?”

Simon said, “What the hell is wrong with you?” He walked faster and decided that getting into his car would be the best thing. Once he reached it, the dwarf stopped following him and walked away muttering under her breath.

The relief was short lived once Simon remembered the envelope in his pocket.
I just need to make sure that I can get out of town after the book signing without the guy seeing me.
He thought about the photographs again and instinctively shook his head in disgust and denial. How can anyone take pictures like that? Where would anyone even get the idea to do those things let alone grab a camera and document it? He asked those questions but didn’t really want to know the answers.

Simon started the car and went on his way to the comic shop, hoping that maybe Chaps would get there early but he knew that was unlikely. Maybe one of the guys at Zip Comics was there early and would let Simon in. He hoped so or he’d have to sit in his car, hoping another dwarf hooker didn’t accost him in the parking lot.

When he got to the comic shop, he saw that the lights were off but walked up and knocked on the door anyway. There was no answer. Simon went back to his car and put the seat back, hoping he wouldn’t fall asleep and dream of the photographs. As if to protect himself from their influence, he put the photographs in the glove compartment.

Chaps better be here by
9:30
or I’m
gonna
beat his ass.

Chapter Four

Having enough to worry about, Chris tried to ignore the stomach pains.

He didn’t know his name or anything else specific about himself so having diarrhea would just have to wait. The pains came in waves, sharp knives one minute and then dormant the next. He walked away from the strip mall, hoping to find something that would help him regain his past or at least lead him on the right path.

His stomach started gurgling. It was like someone was boiling water but in this case the water was in danger of erupting out of his ass. Chris stopped walking and bent over, holding his stomach. He thought if he could withstand the pains and hold it in, it’d go away. Once he felt the spasm in his colon, he knew he was wrong.

Chris was now on a main road and there was cars passing him, making it impossible for him to just take down his pants and get it over with. He ran across the street to a gas station. The man working there was a tall Sikh with a nametag that said his name was JIMBO.

Chris said, “Can I use your bathroom please?”

“Customers only.”

“Oh come on, please. Here,” Chris said, pulling out money from his pockets. “I’ll pay you, please, just let me use it.”

Jimbo
said, “It’s out of order.”

“Fuck!” Chris walked over to the side of the gas station with
Jimbo
slowly following him asking him what he thought he was doing. Without any other option available, Chris pulled his pants down. He crouched down and leaned against the wall and relaxed his sphincter muscles.

Jimbo
was a few feet away but stopped when he saw what was happening. He watched in disgust and gross fascination as Chris’s ass emptied itself on the ground, quickly forming a greenish black pile of shit. For ten years,
Jimbo
had worked at the gas station and had dealt with junkies and longheads but never did he ever see anything like this.

Chris was feeling faint and tried to keep himself from falling into his own shit. His stomach kept churning and Chris felt like his ass had become an assembly line that would never stop producing. With a grunt, he pushed out what he hoped would be the last of what was festering in his bowels.

For
Jimbo
, there was no way to stop staring; the sight of it was hypnotic. The thick curls of feces started to tremble and lift off the ground like tentacles. He was surprised to see the man stand up and run off after shitting.
Jimbo
wanted to go after him, make him clean it up. However, the sight of the living-shit tentacles kept him cemented in place.

The wet sounds of shit-hitting-cement got louder. The tentacles got closer and before they wrapped around his leg,
Jimbo
thought he saw the hypnotic and crystalline eyes of a squid. He blinked, thinking it was his imagination but when he looked again, they were still there.

Jimbo’s
body was wrapped in tentacles. A car pulled up to the gas station for gas and after thirty seconds, the driver got out and said, “Anybody here?”
 
Jimbo
tried to answer but could only manage a faint cough as his mouth was filled with the warm tip of a tentacle.

The car drove away and
Jimbo
lied down. He wanted to feel the soothing cold of the cement and not the burning stink that was now gripping him like a family of pythons.
Jimbo
felt himself loosing consciousness which he didn’t think was possible. He always thought it was a sudden blink into la-la land rather than a gradual descent into sleep. It was not as unpleasant as he had imagined. He finally succumbed to it, falling into dreams of squid and debauchery.

Several streets over, Chris was running away. Of all the things that he had forgotten and couldn’t remember, he wished he could get rid of the memory of shitting against a gas station wall. That guy watching him do it made it even worse.

Why the hell was he just standing there watching? Must be a pervert or something, getting off on me taking a shit.

Chris stopped running and realized how uncomfortable he now was. He had run off without wiping his ass and his ass now felt sloppy and wet. There had to be somewhere that he could clean himself off. He walked two more blocks and saw something promising: a carnival. It was closed and there didn’t seem to be anyone around so Chris hopped the fence and looked around for a portable toilet.

He found at Johnny-On-The-Spot in the corner next to a hotdog stand and a place that sold fried Oreos. Chris went into the portable toilet and locked the door. The carnival wasn’t open yet so the toilet was clean and smelt like disinfectant. Chris pulled down his pants and realized that these sort of portable toilets don’t have sinks.

“Son of a bitch.”

He sat down and leaned against the wall, exhausted from the experience at the gas station and from racking his brain for his identity. Now he just wanted to sleep again in hopes of waking up with his memories intact and his ass clean.

Maybe this whole thing is a dream. Some drugs I took or bad squid I ate or something.

Then he fell asleep.

*
                     
*
                     
*

The tape player squeaked and the music stopped playing. Harry slammed a fist into it to no avail. “Motherfucker.” After hearing the Judas Priest song on the radio, he dug around his car for one of their tapes and was happy to find it under some magazines.

He hated having to replace the tape player again. It was the third one he had bought in the six years he had the car.
Fucking car must hate tape decks.
The squeaking stopped only to be replaced by a clicking sound. Harry slammed his fist into it again but only succeeded in cutting his knuckle.

As he drove past the video store, Harry thought he saw someone he recognized so he pulled the car into the parking lot.
Shit, yeah, it’s Liam.
He could see the guy leaning against his car.

Harry parked two spaces away and got out.

He said, “Hey, you son of a bitch, what’s up?”

“Look who it is. What’s
goin
’ on, Harry?” Liam Holt was an extremely friendly, unassuming guy; Harry always thought he was too nice to be in the sort of business he was in. He also observed that the niceness often covered up the dormant force of a volcano. More than a few times Harry had witnessed Liam explode, like the time he carved Ronnie Winkler’s eyes out with a Godzilla toy. It was an unexpected act of violence that made Harry fear and respect the guy even more.