Squid Pulp Blues

by Jordan Krall

“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.

  Harry and Liam shook hands.

  “So where’s Henry?” Harry asked.

  “Hank’s in the store looking for porn.”

  Harry laughed. “And you’re not in there with him? What’s the matter? You sick?”

  “I can’t stand looking at porn with him. He takes too goddamn long trying to decide whether he wants fucking ‘Golden Oldies Part 12’ or ‘Spit Swappers Part 23’. It’s a pain in the ass, know what I mean?”

  Harry said, “Yeah, I hear ya. Hey listen, you know anything about Kreese’s needing a bouncer or anything?”

  “Why? Terry not giving you enough to do?”

  “I just want to explore my options. I’m not really digging the way shit’s happening.”

  Liam frowned. “Well, you know I don’t want to fuck with your shit or anything but you shouldn’t fuck around with Terry. I mean, he’s a hard motherfucker. Look at the shit he put Robert through when he wanted to leave.”

  “Yeah, but Robert still left and he’s doing pretty good I think. Doing his own business without having to deal with Terry’s shit.”

  “But he’s locked up now.”

  “For what? What happened?”

  Liam said, “You didn’t hear? He got into a car accident and started killing a bunch of people.”

  “Weird.”

  “Yeah but this whole town’s pretty fucked up so I’m not completely surprised, know what I mean?”

  “I do but listen,” Harry said, wishing he’d have kept his mouth shut, “forget I mentioned anything about Terry or bouncing at Kreese’s, okay?”

  Liam said, “Sure but remember I’m just looking out for you, man.”

  “I appreciate it. Say hi to Henry for me when he gets done picking out his porn.”

  “That could be days, man, days.”

  Chapter Five

  At five minutes to ten, Simon saw two guys go up to the door of Zip Comics. One of them, the fatter guy, had a set of keys that he used to unlock the door. Simon looked at his watch and saw that Chaps was twenty-five minutes late but thought he might be in the parking lot somewhere.

  He got out of the car and walked to the comic shop. Before he went in, he took a look around the lot to see if his friend was parked somewhere. There was no sign of him. What the fuck is wrong with that guy?

  Simon walked into the comic shop and a skinny guy wearing a Kate Bush t-shirt said, “Hey, Simon Palmer, how are ya?” He held out his hand and Simon took it. As they shook hands, Simon wondered if the guy knew his hands were sweaty.

  “I’m Scott. We talked over the phone.”

  Simon said, “Yeah, thanks for having me.”

  “No problem. Once I heard you were doing a book tour, I called your publisher right away to get them to let you come up here. Thompson is a small town and all but there’re a lot of LeRoux fans in the area.”

  The fat guy came out of the back room wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Adam West’s face on it. A scraggly beard covered the lower half of his face and a tattoo of a whiskey bottle decorated his right arm. “Simon, hi, I’m Peter.”

  They shook hands and Simon was relieved to find that Peter’s palms were dry. “Hi, Peter. I was just telling Scott that I appreciate you guys hosting this.”

  “Don’t mention it. We’re excited to have you. We’re big fans, big fans.”

  Peter took Simon to the back of the store where they had set up a table complete with Fauntleroy LeRoux merchandise surrounding it. Behind the table were several LeRoux posters which Simon remembered having done under duress. He didn’t like the merchandising as much as he liked simply writing and drawing the thing.

  Peter said, “You have anything in the car you want me to help you with?”

  “Yeah, I got some extra copies of the new issue plus the trade paperback and an exclusive one-shot that’s only available on the book tour.”

  “Awesome. You mind if we bought a couple of those before the signing?”

  “No, not at all. Oh, but before we do that, can I use your phone.”

  Simon was handed the phone and he waited until he was away from Peter and Scott to make the call. It rang several times until finally Chaps picked up and said, “Hello?”

  “Where the hell are you?”

  “Oh shit, Simon, sorry, man. I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about? You said you were eating breakfast and then coming to the comic shop.”

  Chaps said, “I know, I just got distracted. I started playing my French horn and got into the zone, you know? Doing some recording, getting some things down on tape.”

  “You’re blowing me off because you want to play your goddamn horn? Are you kidding me?”

  “Don’t get so upset. Try to be more understanding,” Chaps said. He sighed and went on. “I’m really sorry about this, though.”

  Simon wanted to say, “Fuck you.” He wanted to tell the guy what a complete and utter jack-ass he was. Instead, he just said, “Okay, I’ll talk to you later,” and hung up the phone.

  Peter walked over to him and said, “Hey, you wanna see something?” He held open a tattered phonebook-sized comic. Simon looked at it.

  It was a rough, ultra-violent montage of sex and death. There was so much happening on the pages but Simon could make out a few things: a woman being sawed in half with a polka-dotted femur bone, a smiling man carrying a bag of teeth, a twisted body that was a cross between a toilet and a woman, a half-man half-crab lying in a bathtub bleeding to death.

  Peter said, “It’s Turkish. They’re really giving the Japanese a run for their money, let me tell you. I can’t even sell some of the shit the Turks publish.”

  “Wow, pretty cool,” Simon said despite thinking the art looked too rough and assumed that the writing was probably less than stellar.

  “You can have this one if you want,” Peter said.

  “Nah, that’s okay.”

  “No, seriously, man. This might be worth money someday. Just take it.” He handed it to Simon who felt he had no choice but to take it. In social situations like this, he would have rather just kept refusing but knew that if he had to spend the next six hours in the shop with the two of them, he’d better stay on good terms.

  He said, “Thanks,” and took the book, looking closer at the batter
ed condition of it. Shit, I hope the guy didn’t jerk off to this.

  Scott said, “We got some cool as hell bootlegs, too. Ever hear of Death Laid an Egg?”

  “Nah, never heard of it. Any good?”

  Scott became animated. He said, “Oh my god, man, you have to see this. It’s a crazy as hell giallo. You know what a giallo is, right? Italian thriller? Like Dario Argento? Well this is a weird, psychedelic one with headless mutant chickens and shit like that. The beginning alone is worth the price. You wanna see it?”

  Simon said, “Now?”

  “No, maybe after we close we can hang out and watch. We got a T.V. in the back.”

  “Oh, after the signing I gotta get going but thanks anyway.”

  “Well just let me know if you change your mind.”

  Simon nodded and slowly moved away from the guy. He didn’t want to chit-chat about the shit they stocked in the store. They were nice enough guys but were the type that would talk your ear off if you let them. He flipped through the Turkish comic book again, landing on a page where a crudely drawn man in a diaper was eating a bowl full of human toes. This is gonna be one hell of a day.

  * * *

  While asleep in the portable toilet, Chris dreamt of his father.

  He didn’t recognize the man but something told him that it was his father. It was one of those moments of intuition that often occurred in dreams and Chris was fascinated and scared at the same time.

  The man was wearing a green suit two sizes too small for his body. He stood on a wheelbarrow, screaming and complaining about corn husks and sinister skin blemishes. Chris was floating around the wheelbarrow, though there was no water in sight. He wanted to talk to the man but the words stopped at his throat.

  He felt something at his feet. There was something moving in between his toes. Chris looked down (though it really wasn’t like looking down; it was as if he had eyes on several parts of his body) and saw a polka-dotted squid. Again he wanted to scream, to verbalize his discomfort and fear but his dream-physiology wouldn’t allow it.

  The squid moved up Chris’s body, rubbing up against his torso and his chest. It moved up to his neck and nibbled on it with tiny teeth that looked like pencil erasers. It let out a squeak and said, “Do you know your name?”

  Chris wanted to tell the thing that no, he didn’t know his name but again, the words wouldn’t come.

  Again, it said, “Do you know your name?”

  He tried dream-swimming away from it but as much as it felt like he was moving, the squid stayed with him, asking again, “Do you know your name, Chris?”

  It took him a second but Chris realized what the squid had managed to accomplish. Its cryptic questions turned into an ironic revelation. It provided him one of the pieces of the puzzle.

  I know my name now. Chris. My name is Chris. Can the squid hear me? Am I talking? What’s wrong with me? Am I talking?

  If the squid heard him, it made no indication but instead asked again, “Do you know your name?”

  Yes, yes I do. My name is Chris.

  The squid trembled and moved away from him, floating through the air and attached itself to the man on the wheelbarrow. Chris wanted to make contact with his father, wanted to ask him so many questions that he couldn’t even concentrate.

  I gotta pee, where’s the bathroom?

  He left his father and walked through a restaurant where he stared at the Mexican waitresses in tight skirts and low-cut blouses. When he passed one of them, he saw a door that he knew was the bathroom but when he went through it, he was in a library. He turned to go back to the restaurant but the door was gone and he then forgot about the restaurant and instead started looking for a book on bathrooms.

  I gotta pee, where’s the bathroom?

  A woman was standing by a stack of books. Chris somehow knew that she was waiting for something and so he went up to her in the hopes that she was waiting for him. The woman looked at him impatiently. She reached down and took off her blue and white sneaker.

  Placing the opening of it to Chris’s nose, she said, “Breathe in.”

  Chris sniffed the sneaker and got a whiff of warm sweat. He felt his nose grow and actually touch the moist sole of her sneaker. The laces felt rough against his forehead.

  “Keep breathing,” she said. “You have to pee.”

  Chris remembered his quest for a restroom. He wanted to pull away from the sneaker but felt himself growing lightheaded from the smell. He slowly awoke and found himself staring at the label that declared that the portable toilet he was in was a Johnny-On-The-Spot V.I.P. exclusive model #2332.

  Shit, that was all a dream.

  Chris remembered the sexy Mexican waitresses and the woman making him sniff her shoe. He knew there was something else he was forgetting, something that happened before the waitresses.

  I remember a squid, yeah, and the squid talked to me and it said something to me that made me happy. What was it?

  He got frustrated at not being able to recall anything else and soon realized that he had pissed his pants during the dream. He looked at the Johnny-On-The-Spot label again and smiled sourly at the irony.

  Chapter Six

  Harry drove around trying to kill some time and find something worthwhile to do. He passed the strip mall again and saw something he liked. Pulling over the car, he rolled down his window and waved the dwarf over.

  She walked over and said, “Yeah, honey. What ya want? Lemme guess. You look like a guy likes his dick sucked. Am I right?”

  “Nah, not that. How about you hop in and we’ll talk about it.” Harry unlocked the passenger side door and watched her climb in.

  The dwarf said, “So what do you want?”

  “How much for,” Harry said, “having you, maybe like, spit in my hand a little bit.”

  She laughed. “Jesus Christ, why you so nervous? You think that’s the weirdest thing anyone’s ever asked me to do? You’re in Thompson, you know. How about we say for twenty I’ll put a shit-load of spit into your little hand there?”

  Immediately Harry regretted having picked up the hooker. The fantasies in his head were one thing but when someone else actually said it aloud, he felt embarrassed. He knew he shouldn’t have been uncomfortable, though, since he knew that the level of depravity in the town was high above even his own interests. He also felt justified in his fetishes since he wasn’t able to fuck the normal way and had to rely on more creative measures to satisfy his sexual urges.

  Harry held out his hand and watched the dwarf spit a ball of drool into his palm. It was yellowish and bubbly and reminded Harry of whiskey vomit. She hocked up another one and forcefully sent it into his hand. Some of it sprinkled Harry’s lips and he thought about licking it off but was worried about what the dwarf might say though he knew that was ridiculous.

  Who the fuck cares what she thinks? I should just go ahead and lick it off. Goddamn, why can’t I do it? Don’t be a pussy, man, come on, just do it, do it.

  Harry sent his tongue out like a snake’s, lapping up the tiny beads of her spit. Luckily, she had her head back, gargling some more phlegm in her throat. With a hocking sound, she spat out another load but missed his hand. The bulk of it landed on his chin.

  She said, “Shit, sorry about that.”

  Lick it off, lick it off. Just do it. Who cares what she thinks?

  The dwarf made a move to wipe it off. Harry knocked her hand away.

  He said, “No, don’t worry about it.” Harry moved his tongue out again and tried to reach her drool. He couldn’t reach so he moved it into his mouth with his fingers.

  The dwarf said, “Shit, why didn’t you say so?” She started spitting into Harry’s face, practically covering his jaw. “You happy now?” She wiped the sides of her mouth. “That’ll be twenty.”

  Harry took the cash from his wallet and handed it to her. When she left the car, he wondered if she’d be telling her fellow hookers about him. A part of him felt embarrassed about that but another part felt special
. Then he decided that in comparison to all of the other shit she would probably do today, his request probably wasn’t worth talking about.

  He looked at his watch and decided he might as well go over to the comic shop and see if he can get his hands on some of those adult comics. With the stale smell of the dwarf’s spit lingering in his nostrils, Harry drove away.

  * * *

  Once the time arrived for the book signing, Simon was fairly impressed with the turnout. He didn’t think people would travel to a small, somewhat shitty town like Thompson to get an autograph from him. Sure The Adventures of Fauntleroy LeRoux was nearly a century old and he was the newest artist and writer to take over the storyline. But Simon couldn’t help but be surprised that it brought such a diverse fan base.

  The shop was crowded with fans of Fauntleroy as well as people wanting to see what the hubbub was about. Simon imagined that a good quarter of the people getting autographs have probably never even read an issue. They see some guy signing autographs and they figure, “Hey, it’s gotta be worth money someday, right?”

  He didn’t mind. He liked his job and this was a part of it. The hardest part was still to come, though. The question-and-answer period.

  Shit.

  Peter hushed the crowd and asked if anyone had any questions for Simon. A woman in her fifties raised her hand and said, “Have you ever used any of the original Fauntleroy comic strips from the 30s and 40s as inspiration?”

  Simon said, “Um, not really. I mean, of course I’ve read them before and I’ve always been a big fan but I try not to use them as inspiration because I want to present something new, um, something fresh that I think the, uh, readers will enjoy.”

  I sound like a real douchebag. .

  Peter said, “Next question.”

  A young guy in a Cary Grant Dropped Acid t-shirt said, “I heard that a lot of celebrities used to read the comic strip back in the day. Do you know if that’s true? And if it is, do you know which celebrities?”