Josephine The Outlaw King

1: The truth about Josephine Lillywhite. . .

You must be certain that as you read this there is no other truth as solid as this slab of granite-like proof.

He left her, bleeding on a grey gravel rough of a path.
Good and dead, he thought. He could jerk away now. He could go on. She’ll not have that baby in her belly, the one from the other. She’ll not be around to see him gloat over the sympathy he’ll receive. Finally still, all that life soaked to mud.

After no stir dusted up around her fall, she dared peek out. The blood was more than the gash and she couldn’t feel it anymore. Her baby kicked. Her heart beat. Nothing was still as he had thought.

She knew the news would reach her love and he’d believe it. He’d set out, too. He’d try to kill back that mourning. And if the one who gave her her first child should find out she still stirred, he’d surely finish it up. Real snake like, he’d finish it and put a new back on. A faster one no doubt. Real snake like.

She’d head out underneath another call, engraved with a new kind of love. Life just got bigger and Josephine multiplied to three on Tuesday night, both wounds healed, both children lovely.

And he was sure she thought no more.
One real heart broken, one false heart light because of one slightly missed bullet.

He never could find her heart, not even with a gun.

2:Josephine, each break makes the heart good inside

So what if 24 hours rain through her, flooded into a bunch of 12 month bundles of storms?  So what if she’s barely wet?  And who gives a damn if it comes out of her eyes when you’re not looking and dribbles into years and years?

Each break in the heart makes it good inside.  Each cheat and mistake makes it sweet and warm.  This a woman.  This is your woman.  She burns from the day she’s born.

You know her.  She comes into a room not knowing it wasn’t as bright as when she entered.  There’s no darkness when fire’s in you.  There’s no coldness that lasts, either.  She burns, your woman.  She fills up every day, like clockwork, automatically. 

Maybe you didn’t recognize her.  She was the one that looked at you with humor, with an eye that cut you back and molded you right.  In an instant.  Maybe you didn’t feel the owner of you as she grabbed the back of your neck and pulled you to her.  She looks so deep she may be looking past you into your future.  Her confidence is in the swagger of that hip.  She doesn’t even know she carries you with every swing and swang. 

Do you know her now?  She looks different all the time.  She’s small and big all at once and she can be your cat if you back her into a wall. She trusts you completely.  And depending on how this day is heating up, she’ll forgive you for awhile.  For lessons unlearned and untouched only. 

See?  That’s her.  She smiles.  Alot.  She loves.  Alot.  She breaks even more and builds a bigger rage of flames.  That’s why she gets brighter, hotter and so much more easy to see.

And if I were you, I’d let her know everyday your not lazy in your tending.  She needs only this:  protection.  To keep the fire lit, to show you the way so you can protect her from whatever’s out to get her.  That is your job.  And it’s your job to define it and to stop it way before it gets to her.  If you fail, she’ll snuff.  She’ll have to start all over again. 

And so will you.

3: You become immaculate to Josephine. . .

When YOU open your woman’s heart, when you peel back the paper thin iron and steel that protects it, when you find the lock underneath and pull the key from your pocket, when you do all that and get inside that dark, red and  loud beating thing you’ll find everything you never knew you wanted.

You’ll see your face as she sees it, beautiful and pale.  You’ll glimpse old tears that dried into tiny, whispy, swirly ghosts.  You’ll see the reflection of somebody you may or may not recognize but I effing bet you’ll instantly like that creature.   You’ll watch as pearls, diamondsand rubies drop from the gash and splash like hot water at your feet.  You won’t care how they got there or why she kept them because you’re now aware of the biggest, warmest place.  Life does exist and it beats so well here.  You’re home.

When SHE opens your heart to you, the inside might drip differently.  It won’t peel back as easily and the steel skin around the keyhole will only bend back so much.  She’ll trick the lock and make it snap open suddenly.  She’ll reluctantly push the old words and letters that made her cry under an ancient bed and show you around instead of letting you wander.  She’ll lead you to the same reflection and she’ll wonder if you believe it.  She does.  Her doubt in you will cloud the reflection and you’ll pretend to know what she sees in you but it’ll just be more words she’ll put under that bed later on.  She’ll push you past the scars so fast that you’ll wonder if they were actually healed or still pulsing tiny bits of pain.  And she’ll usher you out as quickly as she let you in and hope that the next time she has to peel it back it will bend easier and it won’t be locked up at all.

When her heart opens all on it’s own it’s because of a glance you’ve given her or an unexpected touch, gasp or kiss. That goddamn pump will look as clear as glass for a moment.  It’ll turn clean and new and you’ll both inhale ice.  It’ll feel sharp.  And everybody will want to watch you as
you
become
immaculate. 

4: Josephine’s Saint Mattered in her World

Well that woman thing didn't love him.  She couldn't see how he mattered in this world.

That thing sensed it.  That's why she was attracted to him.  She could almost taste something worth eating but she wasn't good enough to define it, nurture it, appreciate it, love it.

She came to him with damage from a badly timed birth.  She was too much of a coward to address it so it just sort of mutated into some very obvious behaviour.

He knew all of this and still loved her.  His heart was good.  His soul was, too.  He was all he should be and humble enough not to feel complete.

He was young.

She was young, too, but so effing old the cracks swallowed people within two blocks of her.  She hid it with her own special pancake and it worked most of the time. 

He believed her when she said she'd jumped over the divides, why wouldn't he?

She figured she'd get some of his sweet rub-off if she could at least have his name.  So he gave it to her.  Why wouldn't he?

She took it.  She took it and wore it when she met other men in the hole she couldn't fill no matter what, who, why or where.  She showed it proudly as if it were HER secret but it was never whispered in her ear.   It was never shouted from his rooftop, either.  She still owned nothing that resembled an answer.  She wasn't bad but deep down, she knew she wasn't good enough for him.  How long could she hide that?

Not very.  It seeped out on the sunsetted honeymoon.  It swirled for years as he paid her angry debts, loving his duty while still loving her.  This made his worth even more bewildering.  He did not crumble when he learned of her "sharing".  He merely faded away.  The worst thing she could think of and yet she had run to that ruin as fast as the ring could roll.

It was his damage repaired that made him pulse.  A boy who became a man by growing his heart big, growing his heart well, in spite of the bully of life.  He held that heart open. 

It's light grew strong shoulders.  It made tender hands.  It gave him generous ears and sincere actions.  It gave him his strength. 

She couldn't love him, that thing.  She couldn't see how he mattered in this world because she doesn't know what really matters.

But Josephine did.

She could see him and god damn. . . he could surely see her.

That Josephine.  What a lucky girl.

5: Miss Josephine, a figure like two hearts

Josephine was small but not frail by any means.
A figure like two hearts.  One right side up, one upside down.

She was pale pale.  Black, silksoft hair that licked the top of her breasts when she bounced over her filled thighs if you were ever lucky enough to witness this feat. 

And that vehicle always snapped back saluting, reporting for duty sir, even after both babies.
Maybe because she kept it encased in a steely-white skin that only seemed vulnerable after it freckled in the sun.  She never questioned the payment, owning it like it was bought and paid for.

Both her children favored others.  They shared her knowing eye but the shape and color glowed differently.  Her boy was golden and blue, tall and beautiful.  She wanted to raise him a gentleman and it was working. 
The newborn was moonfaced with the same blue eyes neither their father’s or mother posessed.  Josephine’s eyes should’ve been dark but they’d faded to hazel after too much exposure to the flash of an exposed life.

She’d gather them up and take them with her.  A false absence will serve her well, at least halfway.  She’d find the jealous one and end him with her own weapon.

She knew her love would mind his path and not try to join her.  She hoped he’d stay  far from this last battle. 
Another sacrifice for innocence,
so it seemed,
so it goes,
so it will be done.

6: Josephine finds work

Deeper into the desert is where she had to go.  Toward the guilty and away from  the saint. 

Needing money, Josephine finds a red den.  New at something again, she was never comfortable with that.  For the babies, she rationalized and reasoned.  It crashed against the stones of "no" she’d kept in her head since forever but the banging would be a necessary distraction if she was really going to go through with this.

He came in, eyed them all and chose our snow white.  The banging in her head grew louder as he parted his thick drape of a mustache and leared through capped teeth, spurting from a fat cheek. 
Thick with entitlement, he was.  Expensive clothes and shoes a lucky life had brought him, undeserved she could tell.  She sniffed no kindness from him, just twat covering cologne that seemed unfamiliar but not unknown.

She walked ahead of him to the angry room and he smacked her heart shaped ass through the doorway, swinging his hard, hairy arm like a croquet mallet. 

That stinging swat ignited something unexpected.  Passed repulsion and pride.  It conjured a vision of sizzling wives, so powerful and too pretty chasing these cowards all the way here. 

Exposing a phoney crown, strutting like Dukes, they were. Sauntering and pointing filthy sausages at their quest for the evening, their latest escape.  I’m no sovereign cave, Josephine spat at the rocks rolling in her head.

The sting lingered as it spilled everything over she’d held in to keep tight and sane.  If only they knew how everything they do here makes everything they own small.  Falsely crowned and head of nothing.

He grabbed at her and tried a kiss.  It was hard and punctured her cushion lips like a prick naturally would.  He squeezed and pulled and pushed and tried to get passed the pale steel. 

She hadn’t lost her senses and they hadn’t dulled yet, either.  Something lit up and started to burn in her cavities.  Uncontainable.  A new logic appeared.

Her reverse was not what he’d paid for.  Full speed ahead is what he wanted but this might be fun if she can keep it up without flattening his puffiness. 

He lurched forward and pulled his smooth, manicured hand back slapping her fine bone.  He’d convinced himself this was the game and she’d play no matter what.  He’d laid down the card to make sure of it.  He’d signed with no amount given.
This was better than he thought.
Better than he bought.

Josephine had felt the slap before, this wasn’t new.  It wasn’t as loud as the ringing of the stones, anyway.  The new logic became clear.  Take your skin back, dear.  Take it back and don’t forget to leave full.

The vintage pitcher looked close and it looked heavy, hearty and inviting.  It almost smiled with a shiny answer.  He was sweating slime now, hard and showing.  He tugged his pants away, his undertrow, pushed down and off with the shoes, the socks.  He pushed back the unbuttoned shirt as if to bare a real man’s chest, only to reveal a simple baboon. 

She couldn’t help but stare.  There it was, his reason for living, leaving, loving and lying.  He looked proud and he felt the power she always ignited in the lesser.  False to the cruel,  true to the kind.  That’s how it affected all.  Finally she found a use for it.  On this night, she found a confounding calling.

Take back your skin, dear. 

The pitcher splintered against a sharper toothed chair except for the finest shard that jutted from the handle still in her hand.  It was smooth in it’s entry and re-entry.  He still greased over, still stayed hard as he crumpled at her feet.  A true king had cum in him.  How does it feel, darling?

"Do you like it"? she whispered, brows arching over the center of her royal nose.  "Do you like when I fuck you"?

"You’re killing me", he sputtered and she nodded like an aristocrat.  "I’m taking back my skin, dear". 

He passed and she showered in the room that he paid for.  She gathered herself and his wallet and strode out as if covered in golden robes and dipped in marble.

A new logic was needed, wasn’t it.  How else would you be able to go deeper towards a familiar danger and still stay intact?

The stones had stopped slamming, not even a tap.

Deeper in the desert, the three of the them rode.  The Royal Family of Rock and Roll.

7: Josephine on the back of a 1964 Suicide Machine

The first time was an ambush.  So not fair but par for the course, right?  Let it be a known battle next time and let the toll of the last surprise be laid on the greasy, diamond banded’s gushing belly.
There.  Done and done.

The bedtime stories she told her babies had changed.  The hero’s were their mirror images and their enemies looked like anybody and everybody only shinier.  As they slipped deep into their velvet, she imagined what their crowns would be made of.  Not gold, not for them.  The purest silver, white hot and light for their tiny heads.  Her burden would not be theirs.  She promised that.

She sunk her foot deep into the gas pedal of the ’64 Lincoln, the one the saint gave her as an engagement present. This black dragon with it’s flapping wings, suicide style pelted the gritty, hot wind and she sang a song of the tallest nature.  She grew with each mile, big enough to fight any and every battle. 

King’s fight for the greater good.  There’s no guilt.  Check mark it under the "sacrifice" category.  Their subject’s trust is what makes them so strong and their conviction makes them courageous.

She wasn’t tired or hungry at all.  Sated with that blood, probably.

Full of spark and bolts of lightning she sped on knowing he was out there celebrating her demise.  She’d always protected him under her roof but that’s over.  He’s unshielded now and she knows his prior gashes and scrapes.  She taught him everything he knows.  She just didn’t teach him everything SHE knows. 
And that just might give her an extra fist.

8: Josephine's Guilty Monster can't seem to sleep

His first clue that she housed a sacred heart, that she indeed had a crown, was that his own very particular taste in company had been completely defined by her existence. 

He positively favored the palest of skin and darkest of hair.  Big eyes as wide set as her smile and a warm, faraway look, the kind Josephine wore when she was gone, baby gone. 

Most importantly was the ignorance of her reign.  It gave her a humble, generous glow and she lit up a room like a barrel of firecrackers.   And because she didn’t know she owned it, they never failed to explode.

His next clue was that he lay soft between the finest of thighs.  No image of his hero could prop him up and he confessed this to himself immediately as if to rid his cock of the curse. 

It didn’t work.  It wasn’t the look or the feel of her but the essence of Josephine that haunted him.  The power.  It was like plugging in to some great company of energy he couldn’t afford, knowing he’d never be rich enough to pay the bill.

He knew one day he’d get shut off so he never even attempted a remittance.  Fool.  She never charged even one half of what she paid him and was patient with collection, always.  Fool again. Over and over.

Losing this, his religion, his maker, his king he was now a subject with nothing and nobody to serve.  It made him even angrier than he expected to be.  Emptier. It made him lash out at the very thing he worshipped.  Kill it and it will be gone.  No more ghostly wisps from that being. 

He’d planned it pretty well.  Getting a pistol was easy as long as you assure them you won’t kill a god.  As long as you assure them that toothpick you’re chewing on isn’t the femur of Jesus.

He was as good as a game show host, convincing them to look the other way, towards maybe even a better prize as he stole yet another moment of grief.

He knew their son was safe with Josephine’s mother that day. The baby inside her wasn’t a finished prince or princess so he’d take it, too.  It would kill the Sainted Thief.  Two birds with one stone.  It made him almost feel like he’d just fucked her.  Nice to revisit the rush, he groaned.

His head pounded as usual but it didn’t deter him from this one, final act. 

He was hidden, she was out in the open and he fired quickly and accurately.  She went down, barely a twitch and not a bit of sound.  He half expected a roar that would rumble the world into war.  Silence was all he heard.  It rang so loud it broke a barrier in his heart.

Blood is stickier and thicker than he thought.  He left her there, in her personal mess.  It was better this way.   Better for him, of course, that’s all that mattered. 

He rode away waiting for the lightness.  Surely when the curse lifted he’d feel it, right?  His head would rise, his cock would, too and there would be no more lifeless bit for him to trouble over. 
No more half hearted parting of the milky white seas. 
And so, he waited.

9: Josephine's Saint is broken

His love for her was ancient.  When she touched him it seeped into cracks he didn’t even know he needed filled.  Some kind of cement, that woman made. 

He couldn’t figure out which dust she mixed with what blood that made him but he knew she had created him,  just as sure as she had created her monster.  He had to forgive her for that.

What faulty powders did she grind for that one?  A cowardly mix. She was so something.  Her mold so unique.  Curved and cornered.  Substance defined.  She made him porous.  Every bubble burst to create yet another hole.  Why didn’t she abandon it?  He was so frightened that deep down, she knew he’d be her demise and that she had even welcomed it.  He knew that because we all know that.  We know our end’s recipe. 

Well it didn’t matter now, didn’t matter what clock, calendar or newfangled timepiece she used to measure the value of her time. The monster had disassembled her, springs and all.
He stopped their child from ever ticking.  He’d go against his grain and find him, end the creation  himself.  A new duty he never wanted. It steamed his eyes open, even when they needed to shut.

That vile, pulsing thing still walked in a coward’s shadow while her veins poured out onto blessed hot sand, into the ruddy mud leaving her the stillest still.   A sudden portrait he couldn’t tear up, rip or erase.

Life will always been wrong here.  He hurt so hard he could feel his tubes and cells scream.  He’d end him, it and he’d end his heart as well. 

Where would he find a balloon of faulty meat and irreverent bone?  And how would he peirce it dead enough?  Dead enough for the three of them.  That’s alot of blade.  He’d forge it himself if he had to. 

A new train of thought had left his rational station.  The beginning of his end

10: Josephine rode everything like it was wild

She owned her agony.  She rode it.  Imagine how twisted it was to bend behind her every day for the flogging?  She took the lashes hoping it would even the rails, the sways, the swoons. 

The coaster actually started out a straight and fine road but the spikes bent it with and up and down, up and down.  It left her sometimes dizzy and swooning but never piteous.

The Whipsmart was such a perfect blackened skin and it never wore out.  It never softened, it never frayed and she counted on that.  It was as familiar as the open hand and the cinching ties. 

Imagine the flying up and crashing forward and down without a safety?  Intoxicating.  Frightening.  Still, she rode it, bucking all the way.

She rode everything like it was wild.  She assumed.  She was almost always right. 

He made her fall off over and over and every time she got back on she took in a new discipline.  She owned that pain.  She was the ruler of such frantic jerking around. 

She got off each round with a new strut.  How’d she do that?  Where’d she get the gold?

11: Josephine armed with every precious failure

There’s a cleanliness she must always keep at home.  She douses the children with the purest love, almost perfectly clear it is and she even swears tidy.

But out into the battle, into the filth she carries a different weapon against the dirty devils and devilettes.  She becomes them and washes their sweat and blood away before she crosses her threshold. 

Their sludge never sticks.  She’s armed with every precious failure, cradled in a steel sack of speed and power. 

Oh, but this fight still hurts.  It reels in her head and heart like ripped and grated shards.  The separation from the Saint is the hardest blow.

She misses him so much.  She misses him on her mouth, in her mouth.  His perfect skin against hers.  She misses him filling her.  God she misses that.
She misses the surrounding of his hold and the calm of his voice.
She aches like this.  She rails against the wait.  Patience is not her virtue.  Time’s a slowing enemy and getting to the Monster before he does is the real race.  She feels like she carries a dead bag of bodies on her back and in a very clear way, she does.

The babies sleep and she schemes.  The Monster continues to live without conscience.  It makes her shiver all the way down to the very foundation she’s built herself on. 

He could rationalize the insult of innocence, he could.  She’ll make him shut up for good. . .

12: The Monster speaks of Josephine's "Death"

Completely worth killing, he hissed. The monster sat above everybody in his room twisting with complaints of bruises and cuts from the last embrace he gave to Josephine.
Totally worth a good killing. She knew it was coming. How could she not?

She walked up to ME. She said my name in that way nobody could mimic. Nobody could master. She touched me like the mother/lover even I didn’t know I needed.

She let me ride her.

She let me give her our son.

She let me suck blood that’s sweet and taught me all of my needs. Or made them rise to the surface like that cum-warm cream I left inside of her.

She wanted my murder. She begged for it. She made it all so easy, even the final shot.

She turned, looked at the barrel and then at me, cocked her head to the side like she always did with a "fuck you". The pistol spit at her like it was cast for that task.

She went down odd, though. Surprisingly, she went down smooth. Not a jump-back jolt but a slide into the velvet.

And I felt hungry. I could’ve eaten her myself, right then and there, warm and still pulsing but I didn’t. I held back, just for her.

I wanted to leave her whole, in all that ripped and torn history she left me with.

She didn’t close her eyes.

It made me mad but I held that in, too.

And I brought it back with me and stacked it with all the other madness.

She needed killing. She earned it.

13: Getting rid of this Outlaw King

She was the bane of his existence. She knew that. As long as she breathed and pulsed, fucked and fought, he’d feel her blade of breath sear through his thin skin.
She knew it and rather enjoyed it at first.
Then it turned. It made her feel bad for what she owned.

Then another day brought on another twist: It made her even more.

She grew silent in his presence. She removed her enthusiasm and kept her bright light muted.
No more midnight talks about what really brought her about.

He pretended not to notice and if he admitted it now, he was relieved. No more reminders of how he was NOT her. All he ever wanted to be.

Around the novices, he WAS all that she was. They couldn’t see through his ruse. It was thick and it stung like a salt wall. Without her presence, they’d look upward towards him. They’d adore him.

Not like all the times she’d enter his rooms. The pain of their eyes ripping themselves from him and then, casting downward killed little bits of him.
It hurt so bad.
She was his king, not theirs. He didn’t want to share his room or his ruler. He could never be happy like this. He’d convinced himself that ridding this realm of her would not only propel him upwards, it would make him whole. Finally. He’d correct the mistake of meeting her, wanting her and feeling like all the other subjects about her.

She felt only elation with the fine of breathing. Kings don’t mean to rule. They’re just born high. She didn’t notice the head turning and gasps ever. She just loved the possibilites of the simple things. And this made it all the more heavier to bear for him.

It felt like a sack of toothpick chewing devils on his back. Poking, prodding, laughing and with every prick, making him carry the burden of his truth.


She tried to hide her sense of knowing. It didn’t work. She tried to take the sack and bury it for him but he couldn’t let it out of his grip.

Kings and their freakish strength.

He hated all that he loved about her.

And she knew it.

14: Josephine's your wreck

Don’t think she didn’t know she was their wreck. From the time he blew full into his young wife on a cold and sentimental Christmas, they both felt the weight of the mistake. They now owned a regret that they hung on an altar of existence they wanted to just get rid of.  Just rip it out, something, someone. The moment their creature proclaimed the hottest summer she came into was a-okay with her, they knew they just couldn’t like her, let alone love her.  They just couldn’t. And don’t think she didn’t know. Still she hoped.  All the time.  She was still allowed to do that, at least, right.  With every new discovery of the simplest things, reporting them with such genuine glee, she knew she’d bring a slap down but at least it was a touch of some kind.  The humiliation goes away with the fading red-hot cheek.  Weird. Most of the time, they turned their back turned to her.  Her pure thankfulness  of just being here made them wince. Let her run wild and do her own damage.  That would take the responsibility off of them if something happened. Dont’ think she didn’t know. What she didn’t know was a certain kind of love.  She didn’t know just HOW certain it was.  She gave herself away at 14 to a cause that didn’t want her and she just kept giving.  It was odd that she was intimate with unconditional without ever having met it. She was a fool of the most foolish kind. It was her nature. It was her beast. Don’t think she didn’t know. . . Look at that, they thought. That accident. A horrible mistake. A stubborn one, too. It stays and stays and stays. Each and every magnet that came to her through this life, they were left in the same blanket of wrap-around pain that she knitted oh so quickly to protect them. They were left thinking they belonged with her. Left with shiny scars that sensed less and less as her time went on. Don’t think she didn’t know. Didn’t know how worthless this was. How worthless she was. To give out a gift nobody really wanted.  To feel that need to keep doing it.  She felt so nothing most of the time.  In her head, that jumbled skull, that thick wrap of bone protected the one singular thought that she didn’t deserve a thing. Then came the baby boys.  She was something.  She was their mother.  And that was so. . so. . . something. . . Don’t think she didn’t know. . .

15: Josephine reunites with Baby Dagger

Josephine knew that girl.  The one in the booth on the left.  The one she was going to deliberately sit behind, she and the boys.

She was with somebody, nobody Josephine recognized but still he was familiar.

Slicked back greasy and not in a good way.  Dirty with a low slung
brow that made Josephine almost snarl that sideways smirk that fell across her full lips when she was utterly disgusted.

They slid inside the red vinyl and the black hair on Josehpine’s neck stuck straight when she felt the girl’s voice in her nape.

Her name was Baby Dagger when they used to battle.  She looked thinner and her hair wasn’t yellow anymore but that was definitely her.  She’d dyed it black as Josephine’s.  She had a look Josephine had never seen slashing across her flat face.  It was defeat.  She’d been broke like a spirited pony and Josephine felt her white skin flush.

The boys chittered and chattered, letting their fingers fall like new onto the same old thing they always ordered:  a grill cheese sandwich and chocolate milk. 

That made Josephine smirk in a good way.  Both corners up, eyes crinkling in the corners as if it was the first time they’d ever ordered that.

She ordered a steak and fries.  What the hell.  She figured she’d need the knife by the end of the meal.
For the rare and the cooked.

The rumble of Baby Dagger’s monster made her swing from that same fallen star she knew with her own creature.
Josephine was disturbed.

Gaddamnit, she found her own monster.  Goddamnit.

Josephine thought she’d taught her to stay away from such waste but her own shining example obviously wasn’t enough.
He rumbled low and she shuddered.  Josephine could feel it through the vinyl.  He was opening her store with punches and lies and setting her price in his register.

She’d come to this and this was what was never supposed to happen again.

Josephine ordered and the boys colored their menus like pros.

Baby Dagger’s monster had slit on his last threat right to her throat.

Josephine jerked during their entire exchange.  ..
She could smell the skunky metal of fear from her former soldier.
She could trace a line from herself to this woman and see where she’d fallen off.  The same hole where Josephine had settled with her own creature.
Their eyes met and Josephine lifted her head in defiance for both of them.
The Dirty Monster caught the glimpse and decided it was harmless.
He lowered his growl but Josephine’s hearing was always cued into that hideous frequency.  He could mouth it with his asshole and she’d still decypher it.

Baby Dagger was pleading.  Her look was helpless and she was too tired to fight anymore.

The Monster started towards the men’s room, ironic.  No man would occupy it when he was inside. 

She told her eldest she’d be right back, to watch his little brother and be good.
She lifted her hips off of the hot red plastic and slid the steak knife down the front of her 501’s like wiping crumbs from a cupcake.  The blade laid against the thick of it and it felt almost fine.

She shot a look at Baby Dagger and  she coaxed a
soft smile that only a mother knew how to keep warm even during the coldest of intentions.

She waited outside the Mensroom door.

He came out and almost jumped at the site of her.  Nobody else could see it but Josephine did.  Most assuredly she did.

"What might you want, little lady, hmmm"?  He had an almost fake drawl and and even phonier snear that couldn’t hide his damage.

"Whatcha got"? Josephine said with the last word dropping a few notes.  She  was already impatient for his wheeze and whimper. 

He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back into the bathroom.  Nobody saw or cared.

Josephine let him push her tits against the linoleum tile glued on the wall and she even let him twist her arm into the pose.
So what?  It’s when it’s new and a surprise that you’re in danger.
This dance was old and tired and overused by his kind.

Her other arm was still free. 

He was almost disappointed that her struggle didn’t exist but that still didn’t stop him.

Josephine was scared, don’t misunderstand.
Without that fear, she couldn’t be this brave.

He had his cock out quickly and she felt him jerking it alive.
She grabbed it with her free hand and he released her twisted right with a gutteral groan. 

He felt he had what was coming to him.  The bullying had earned him all of this.  This is how women need to be treated in order to understand their weakness of power.

This is what they really liked.

These creatures have always been so one celled.

With her right free she reached down her jean’s to "help" him find his way in.  She slid the now hot blade, serrated and dull up, out and down on his wanting.

Off it went but not without some sawing and  a tug or two. 

His eyes bulged and he slobbered a bit.

He fell to his knees, how he should’ve greeted the King in the first place,
He drew his deepest breath to scream a note so high it served not one ear.

Josephine lowered her chin, knife in one hand, worthless cock in the other, arms outstretched like his new saviour.

Her eyes stared into his as they glazed. 
She nodded and gave him a scolding look only a mother could give and said softly, "Enough".

He went faster than she thought he would. 

She washed off what little bit of his filth had splattered and went back to the table where her sons were already finished.

Baby Dagger’s eyes were wide and Josephine nodded and smiled again.

Josephine held out her hand and welcomed Baby Dagger back into her life.

She introduced the once and soon-to-be beauty to her boys and paid the check. Both of them.

Josephine would do what she was born to do.
She’d sacrifice for the greater good.
She was no saint, no sinner.
She was both of those things and more and it didn’t matter either way.

Josephine is
the mother of sons.
She is
no ordinary woman.
They are
not ordinary boys.
They are Princes.
Princes of The Outlaw King.

The four of them crawled in to the ’64 Lincoln and drove to their new home, wherever that was going to be. . .

16: Josephine, your basic woman

She couldn’t help but wonder as she held his face in her hands if he’d ever once been told he was beautiful.
Had he ever been noticed like this?

Did he know what it felt like to be looked at like this?

She kissed him over and over.

He felt different and he wondered if he’d ever felt loved like this.

No.

Not like this.

When he walked by he felt her eyes watching him. He felt appreciated without having to do anything. For once, not having to work. What man gets to feel that ever?

She was curious. Had he ever been told how lovely his skin was and how amazing his profile played against a stark background of anything?

He looked good in every color.

Had he ever been called an angel? Had he ever been touched and traced and brought in so close that he’d fade inside her, wading in her blood, peering out of her very eyes, seeing somebody that looked a bit like him?

And if this was a true thing, how could he settle for anything less?

He’d catch her watching him. He felt her hunger. It was good. It was nice. To affect. To move. To be just a man.

17: Josephine melting like Dali clockwork

Josephine didn't have her siblings burden of parental love.
Her father had her sister, her Mom, her brother.

A perfect square, tightly edged and bound by symmetry she witnessed from the outside.

What lopsided Josephine was that she didn't knock on the wall or bust it down with rebellion.

Instead, she pretended she was inside of the square.

Wait, not only inside but dead center.

The sun that their angular galaxy could circle. She was not odd or alone there. She was their necessity of a warm existence.

Josephine's bloated, upside down, red balloon was a fantastic thing to flick their heated pins and needles.

The pretense didn't make bitter in her.
It made drunk in her head and in her heart waking with a smile and a plan to win her share of their special burden.

And like melted Dali clockwork, she draped over the shoulder of another impossible hour of a man, one after the other until these men stretched into years and wasted smiles and plans.

Until one day. That day. When her head blew apart with what she thought was a beautiful moment.
The ones she needed never liked, loved, needed nor wanted her.

She was a blurry wasted mistake and instead of the beatings or torture that common people practiced, they'd honed the art of apathy and disdain.

Tons of eye rolling and better-than-her talk went on moments before every holiday she bound into.

She stopped pretending. The heart deflated, still pumping but no common substance to bind her to her people.

They didn't know how she mattered in this world.

And if they didn't know, she couldn't possibly fathom any worth staring back at her from a shiny, reflective thing.

She bent. She broke. She shrank.

Please let me know I matter in this world.

Speak my language, make me hear it.

A wish, a prayer, it settled into the dust around her.

18: Josephine’s short and sweet for the day

Out of sync, pretty much the whole time she’s been stop-starting on this flat planet.

Like a gear too small compared to the biggies around her. Trying to keep up and do her job and more, but still can’t find a gracious hole in the toothy structure.

But every now and then there’s a slip. The earth curses her when it happens but she gladly takes the groove for the ride that is exactly ONE revolution.

One turn around the wonderful merry-go-round forbidden to commoners like her.
She takes it and she smiles and laughs the whole time, throwing her head back.

She fucks and thinks and springs about, free from all of her out of sync upbringing.

She breezes and breathes you. She becomes understated in this overstated place and loves it.

When she feels the slow of it she knows they’ve found a need to repair the whole damn machine.

They cast her out again and she smooths the steel skin, stands up and keeps toiling, watching it jumpstart back to life, this time without her. . .

She waits for the gracious hole, the one her cog can fit into for at least one revolution. .

She waits, she baits and she barters hiding the sorrow of knowing what it’s like to be you. . .if only for a revolution.

19: Between clit and crown, she soars and drowns, Josephine

A woman’s religion is a bit different from a man’s.
Her holy trinity is based on reaching a state of divine creation.

She prays to the nothingness expecting nothing, hoping for something.

She worships what is honest and real. She believes in her divine curves, her determined profile.

Her bible is written and re-written everyday. Sometimes by those who don’t really care much for women and sometimes it’s scratched out by a desperate voice that only she can hear.

Josephine named her god at three. Finding this magic and trying to demonstrate to her somewhat curious and bewildered friend, she named it the "greatest feeling in the world". An innocent moniker only a 5 year old could come up with. Simple and true.

Too bad they were caught with coconut half shells masking taped to their chests and fingers in each other by her not so religious mother.

Coming wasn’t only seeing god, you understand. It was feeling god, having god.

Heaven, enlightenment. All if it as it crawled up her body only to blast out of the top of her head, freeing what put her here in the first place.

But this god was a frustrating, short god, one that pulled away as soon as she felt that ever-flying, floating freedom.

As soon as she knew all the answers in the universe, this god would shut the window she flew out of everytime she flooded herself.

The God, coming.

The Saviour, the Jesus of her Trinity, was music.

This Jesus used her and she liked it. She needed it. This Jesus gave her a life after being born. After all the devils tried to sway her into submission and boredom, this Jesus didn’t smack her hand away when she reached out.

He pulled her up by the shorthairs, the woolies, and showed her what it was gonna take to serve him proper.

And on her knees, she felt more power than he ever would. Now that’s a good saviour. And that was a good way to pray.

The Holy Spirit of her Trinity was creation.

Whether she created a situation, a child, a good family life, a wonderful meal or all of the above. All of it lended to her debt. The one she owed the saviour.
And when she needed strength, she went straight back to her god.
Sometimes three or four times a day.

And there’s a church around every corner.

Back to the god she went to get a glimpse of what makes her this kind of woman.

Neither sinner nor saint. She glimpsed the horror and euphoria, the charm and the triumph.

All there, between clit and crown, she soars and drowns and she lays it down, her own flowing river of being. . .

20: Josephine on top

 

You know, she’d been thinking.  She’d been thinking what a get-get world this is.  This big fat circle spinning back to one more gimme-gimme.

She’d been thinking about get-getting.  A brief break for a woman since it’s mostly giving.   Out, in, up.

She thought about this at a funny time as she sat upon him,  this lucky man indeed. 

She said it almost out loud, "You know, I’ve been thinking".

When a man gets inside a woman he gets to see God.  When a woman slides down, all plump-bottomed and hipped, dipping waist, soft tits, ah man, what a feeling.  What luck to have a woman surround you with full red lips and flooding thighs.  You get to see your maker, feel her.  And you get to come through her window.  A four leaf clover of a moment.

But that’s not the charm she was thinking of.

The unnamed miracle is that God sees him.  Looks at him in a way he’d never figured existed.  God looks at him.  With a knowing and a curiosity all at the same time. 

The man, he never forgets it.

It’s not the lovely, lush softness of the swallow.  It’s the way the gaze breathes through him, a slight storm happens somewhere inside and does damage.  It rustles, shakes and topples what he built before her.

When God sees you things go away.  Things you carried in a strong black sack of a soul.

When God sees you, looks down on you it’s a disassembly of some sort.  It’s a sorting out and throwing away of everything you gripped.

It’s when something else is concieved, birthed and left screaming in your skull, it is.

"You see God", Josephine whispered, "But God sees you right back".

21: Josephine inside

It was like he was cheating.  Even if her leaving had been justified, so what. It felt wrong and not in the good way, brother.   Wrong in the weak way. 

Inside anyone but her and he felt like a liar.  He felt almost nothing.
From an atom bomb to a firecracker, this wasn’t good.
Why did he need so much boom? 
You know a man can conjure up just enough to get there but wilting’s a possibility now and it never was with Josephine.
Did she realize the hold her gaze snapped?  Captured. 
But he wanted her trap, he needed it.  Slammed tight.  She moved inside of him as he did in her.  It’s sort of a premeditated revenge.  Yeah, he thought, that’s what it is.  Like she knew it even before I left the gate.

He wasn’t cheating. Geezus.  He  kept telling himself that as he deflated out of this one.
He was mad.  He wasn’t even sure who he was mad at but goddamn it he was mad at somebody.  He looked down on her and slid off.  He looked down on her even from his side of her bed.
She  looked up at him.  Is it me? 
This made him even madder.  God effing damn it.
He didn’t speak, didn’t want to.
He didn’t want to do anything with her.
Not tonight anyway.
He’d just go home and get Josephine out of him.  He’d come back when he was clean again, when his blood spanked his veins like he owned it, not like she did with her damn waves.
Josephine left scars of shorelines. 

Yeah, this one’ll do until time shot Josephine out.  Stroke.
Faster.  Drive. Faster.
It might take awhile he thought, so in the meantime inside the crayon colored version he’d go, just to to get away from the image of Josephine that stained so bright and clear.  Flash.  Crash. Boom. Done and out.  Again.

22: Josephine shot in the back

You can never be the one constant thing he needs, she breathed.


Exhaust yourself, rewrap your present a million different ways until you spin into dusty, old comfort, complacency, she said but you’ll still be too familiar to keep him happy.

His audience must be innocent of him. They can’t know too much. He can’t keep it from his closest ones but he can keep it from those adoring masses that he craves.
Let him have his "show". Let him have first timers with eyes of wonder.
It makes him feel reborn, restarted.
You dress and bathe him, keep him fed. That’s all the duty he has left for you. Except on a generous night, maybe.

Her ghost only haunts you because of what she knows. And what you’re sure she knows.
You can take the learning or not. It’s not her game and never was. Not her program.

Crawl away with your skin knowing it’s good or great, even.

Your shine will blur. Brushed aluminum’s so fine to some but he needs the chrome. All the time.
The watching of a neverending new, he needs.

She whispered to them now...

You can only be new to him for a time. And the time he gives gets shorter. He’ll end you as you face him with yet another gift that can’t satisfy.

She walked away taking her bloody footsteps with her. She wandered from it all so easily this time, no tiptoeing, just a simple turn.
Her back is all you see these days so you’re just not sure if she was ever in your presence.

The whiff of cherry vanilla...ah, she was here, I know it....

23: Josephine beyond the velvet

You won’t slip under that sweet velvet here.  Not tonight dear, she thought.

She was even too tired to touch herself.  She just bent the elbow away and leaned on it like a kickstand.
She looked at the baby boy in the bassinette.  He’d been up for months.  Every hour or so.  That means she was up.
She rolled over and thought about a time when she felt guiltless.
It never occured to her that it didn’t exist in her past.
She was lousy with it.
She deserved it.
She snapped the elastic on her p.j.’s shut.
She stranded her black hair out of her face and listened to what silence looked like.
She blacked.  She blued.  She bawled with no stuttering shoulders, no tears.
Her newborn brought those.  He deserved them.
She was a thief.  She stole things.  Needful things.  She took them and felt they belonged to her even before they hit the bottom of her pocket.
She stole time and lives and hearts and futures.
She wasn’t without sin, not even close.
What made her think she even deserved the goodness she had?

She rolled over and touched the soft curl on top of his lovely moonface. 
God help anybody who’d try to steal what was hers.  To thief her right back.
She’d take their final belonging, she would.
Why was she so mad?  A rage filled her and filled her good.

The velvet faded to orange yellow and morning came back to her again.
How much does another day cost, she wondered.

24: Josephine’s extra purr

Josephine likes her dusk.  It’s her dawn.  It’s when everything begins for her.  Just as those pins start to prick glowing holes into her patent leather sky, she can breathe a bit.

She can plan her way back to the Saint that seeks her.  And back to the Monster that tried to kill her, that still thinks her dead with red mud.

Baby Dagger watches the boys like they’re her own.  She owes so Josephine trusts.

She kisses them and slips into the Lincoln skin.  It smells of oil, leather, cigarettes and ego, all belonging to the former owner, a doctor she never knew but who left a nameplate stating he was here once.

Josephine would leave much more than an etched piece of brass.  She’d leave princes who will leave kings.  She drove with a gliding bounce almost like her tushy swagger.

She hears purring, extra purring.  The engine yes, and something else.  It sounds black.  It sounds familiar.  She tilts the mirror.  Nothing in the back seat.  She cocks her head, shakes it.  Conscience?  Don’t be ridiculous.  At the time, they deserved it.  They had it coming.  We all have it coming.

What’s that throaty buzz? 

She pulled over and opened the trunk because that’s where you go when you really want to push yourself over the edge, right?

It pops open too dramatically for her but there’s nothing in it’s jaws.  Empty. She hikes up a boot to check the status of the blade.  Still a good sharp there, buckled tight.

She knew she’d probably have to use it tonight but for some reason, didn’t want to.  She got back into skin and there it was again.  She knew that sound.  Tape being pulled across magnets.  It was a recorder and she could see it’s red eye on the floorboard.  What now?

25: Josephine knew the brush of the watch

Josephine slammed the door of the 64 over and over. She must be mad.
Come see your girl, put yourself out in the open!
She screamed it in her head and then through the red lips.
Come to your old friend and embrace her.
Somebody dared leave a tape recorder. That means they can get as close as they want. That means they know where she is.
It also means they fear her enough to plan but are stupid enough not be that scared.
Who could that be? An old, beat up flame perhaps?
Who cares, she spat. I have my boys and my revenge to keep me busy.
I’ll rid the bump in the road if he so much as bounces me any which way.
Why a damn tape recorder? What was he hoping to hear? Or did he just want her to hear the purring, old fashioned hum?
Who cares? I have my boys and my revenge.
She slammed the door once more, smoothed the trim and opened it gently, finally.
So they know she’s alive. They want to play.
Games are for cowards, she growled.
She picked up the recorder and turned it over and over. She pressed rewind. To the beginning, yeah.
She pressed play. Click...
I’m going to get you...
Stop. Rewind. Play. I’m going to get you, the black plastic thing said.
Stop. Rewind. Play. Stop. Rewind. Play.
Josephine didn’t know this voice.
She stared out. Down. She looked over her shoulder. She felt the eyes. She knew the brush of the watch.
She knew the glaze of a lurk.
She pressed Play and Record. The red light came on.
Not if I see you first, she whispered low, she whispered fresh.
Click. Stop.

She got out of the car, placed the plastic thing next to the road and sped off back to the house.

Not if I see you first, she grinned.

Wanna hear what Josephine sounds like? Click on the pic and she'll take you there...

26: Josephine eye’s the sweet Larain

Eyeing the sweet "Larain" crane shifting the offramp where she gets off, Josephine wondered when and where he gets off.

Placing a recorder on her seat.  1/4 inch tape terrorist.  What’s next?  A VHS?
She snickered.  1/2" tape.  That all ya got, cowboy?

How "Lost Highway" of him.  Very Lynch-ey.
I’ll show you Lynch-ey.
If this was anybody else, it’d feel dreamy.
But this whole nightmare, it was hers. 
Josephine had a funny way of looking at things.  All blame on her.  Then she could concentrate on fixin’ what was broke.
In this case, another heart. 
Another promise.
Not just his but hers.
She owned that. 
But he didn’t have to shoot her and leave her to mud.
Now that’s just a little out of line.

She came through the door and her oldest boy slammed a hug that should bruise, but strangely never did.
Everything meant this.  Her baby squeeled and she scooped up his fatty-fat and kissed his moonface.
She missed her Saint and knew he was feeling twice that.
The Monster still roamed with his empty gun and she still planned for her return.
As soon as she took care of this incher.
Something about the intrusion didn’t make her shake at all.  It was startling but not threatening.  She didn’t know how to straighten that in her head but she trusted her gut and her gut said, this is just for attention.
She guessed they’d tried other ways and failed and now they’ll try to make her shiver a bit.
There shakes only inspired her earthquakes.  Usually enough for the land to crumble in the middle, leave a nice hole in the shape of a "J".

Damn, another battle in the middle of her war.  She felt tired all of the sudden.
The boys followed her into the kitchen while she made them dinner and between their chatter and Baby Dagger’s news report of the day, she could push her thoughts aside and just listen to the symphony of noise.....
And a sweet noise it was..

Wanna hear what Josephine sounds like? Click on the pic and she'll take you there...

27: Josephine the Curious

27: Josephine the Curious

Josephine’s father looked at her with such disdain.
She reminded him he was a failure.
Such promise wasted, he thought.
He thought it so he maybe thought she couldn’t see it in his eyes?
She did. Hurt so bad but that hurt’s not a priority, is it dear...is it.
That’s a luxury Josephine just couldn’t afford.
Indeed she was a king, yeah. Born to rule, but rule what?
A baby King with no hand me down castle, no dented and jeweled crown.
She’d have to find her land on her own. Find her voice and purpose.
She’d have to start from scratch, learn how to make the paper to write her manifesto on.
King’s are meant to battle through for the greater good. Doesn’t mean you’ll come out soon or well, does it.
No, Daddy, it doesn’t.
He didn’t know any of this. He never believed for all of his own reasons Josephine understood even if he didn’t return that favor.


She was not the genius they thought.
Not the kind they wanted anyway.
She was too curious.
What was out there at night? What crawled home in the morning? Should I try it? Should I spill over too, she asked?
I wanna fuck, too. I want to know what it’s like, I want to kiss and kiss deep and not be afraid of skin.


That was the most fatal decision: To seek whatever made her back away. Spring into it, dive in and swim around no matter how muck and mired it leaves you.
She couldn’t help it. This is her nature.


She was born thinking she was nothing and for no apparent reason except that it was some sort of faulty vein running crooked through her.

To her credit, she tried to bleed it out, slitting it from any side, punching holes in it trying to make it dry up somehow.
It always healed and filled up again.
She never blamed her parents, her atmosphere, her upbringing, her circumstances.
She blamed herself.
Bad choices, she flogged. Bad karma, whip. Stupid judgement, she beat.
Beat, beat and beat again.
Scars don’t bleed anymore anyway. They just get all shiny slick.
Everything slides right off them, cool blades and sharp pointy remarks, slip right off.
Her mother agreed with her father. It made Mom sad, though, not mad. She lowered her head when Josephine smiled. It reminded her of all that promise, so bright.
Josephine had to get away. She couldn’t keep disappointing them.

She ran right into a Monster’s arms. Anything big enough to catch a flying failure was what was needed at the time, she guessed.
She didn’t know and didn’t care at this point. She needed a ruler’s rest.

In his defense, he wasn’t a Monster when she met him. She made him that way.
A Cutting Creator, she left him heady and longing.
Just like God did when he created her.

28: Josephine’s Monster, now sealed tight

 

The Monster bit his nails and smoked another cigarette.  He never used to do that with Josephine.

Didn’t need to.  Now he did.

The Saint seethed and fumed and grieved and waited. 

He’d lost everything.  Hope had sweet breath, didn’t it?  She left it there for him, so strong he could smell cherry vanilla forever. 

So could the Monster.  It affected them both the same.

***********************************************************

Josephine had no time for any more nonsense.

The tape maker marked her doorstep with red lipstick.  It said simply and sadly, meet me.

She took out her own lipstick, much darker and redder and then put it back.  Not gonna waste good Mac on the porch, for chrissakes.  Not gonna waste it on a desperate thing like this thing.

I can’t create anymore monsters, she sighed and returned the lipstick to it’s left buttcheek pocket.

These creatures come up every now and then and this one had revealed himself as just another thing.

She did what she always did with the little one’s, she threw him back.

Absence of gesture always scared them the most.  He’d feel the slap of a good mama and go away.  Probably. 

Maybe.

She just didn’t care right now.

************************************

The Monster couldn’t shake the memory of a left Josephine.  The crack of the gun, a pop in her ears, in his.  The blood making mud.  She still looked like she was pulsed.  She did.  So much so he leaned over her.  He stared at her pale skin, black hair softing over her big eyes.  He layed over her and brushed her hair away.  The eyes were closed to him.

At that moment one thought crossed his mind.  What man wouldn’t think it, he twisted?  Still warm.  One last time, Josephine.  Touching her.  He was intoxicated.  Touching her, he was who he was only more so.  Inside your God, you’re all that you should be.  What have I done?  I’ve given up that chance, that feeling..he panicked.

One thought, over and over.  He grew hard.  Once more.  He struggled.  He swung his head about like a beast.  He looked up and then down.  Tears streamed down his face, would she ever know his suffering?

Would she miss this?  Whisper it like that.  Touch her like a whisper.  Like that.  He moaned and reeled.  One thought, one more time, one last wound. 

The Monster, now sealed.

29: Josephine’s Penny Brides

Josephine didn’t sell hot dogs for a buck fifty.  Her stand was a smart operation:

rare and bloody fresh for lots and lots. 

She had lovely Betties.  If she was gonna have them she at least wanted them to be something she’d really like to gander at as well.  She like the number eight.  It was like a racetrack and she liked ’em built for speed. Yeah.  Va Va Voom.

If you were fair, your hair was black.  Dark skinned, platinum locks.  Red hair was the default.  Went with everything.  Nothing in-between, extremes only.  Something you wouldn’t see everyday.

Modern day pin ups.  Jumping off the garage wall, fingerprints, pin pricks and all.

Soft curls and waves brushed into framing old-odd perfection.

Bobby pins and rollers.  Scarves, merry widows, stockings, pumps.

Curves.  Must have curves.  In and outs for the in and out.

Gardens of tattoos.  Exotic flowers, lilies, orchids, roses stained their skin blossoming under sparrows and dragons.  Lots of tradition.  Lots of customers is what that tongue translated.

Josephine knew how to make money.   She lassoed the two blazing, square planets and painted them accordingly.  One for her, one for the women and their customers.

She saw to the financial arrangement through cameras and Baby Dagger.  No wheeling dealing.  A price, chosen by Josephine given to the girl was non-negotiable.  Don’t even try it here.

None of them fingered Josephine. Hiding out in plain site, that’s the secret to being invisible.

Josephine wasn’t one of them.  Neither were the creatures she attracted, the monsters she made.  They didn’t like the force of money being the leg spreader, the mouth opener.

Josephine didn’t like that kind of exchange, either. 

100 percent sinner-saint pie.  She could care less if you did or didn’t, there wasn’t a gavel and robe in

Josephine’s character.  What was, just was.  Simple.

She was not her penny bride’es friend, either.

She was not their caretaker.  She was their boss.

She negotiated the trade.  She did not want to know them.  That was a gift she didn’t give out easily.

She would take care of them monetarily as long as they took care of her in exactly the same manner.  It’s just money, my girls, my Betties, my Penny Brides.

I can make you quite comfortable, you’ll make me rich. 

You bang bang, I bang bang but I take responsibility for each missed shot.

Betties were not to fraternize with her boys, no.  Only Baby Dagger earning her 10 percent of the place could speak and care for them and only tell them things that Josephine allowed.  Everybody there knew the consequences if you made The Boss mad.

Disappearing was not a sweet slip away if it came from Josephine.

Don’t you dare talk about it, either.

That wasn’t up for chit-chatter.

Now paint your toes and fingers the bloody red that I require and get back on your backs.

Soon, you won’t need me anymore, I won’t need you and our roads will split apart.

Night night my kittens...

30: Josephine saw him first

30: Josephine saw him first   Josephine’s pacing impatience had hurt her alot.  She needed to overcome the stealing of her own terror tick tocking minutes. She hated waiting, why should she?  Well, she must, like the rest of the racers but why did it have to be painful, huh? The boys all tucked, the girls bouncing, rocking, screaming and earning.. She liked this time of night. She always sang softly to the boys and tonight they wanted to join in:  loudly! This made her laugh and wish these times could stretch to Mars or Jupiter. She went out onto the porch and looked out at the red orange dropping unmixed onto the sand and rocks. She like it balancing there, casting some sort of romantic glow that even the lonely could appreciate. She missed romance. She missed kissing. She missed the fucking and loving of a man.  Her man. She sighed hard and let it go even though a sound was interrupting it. She heard it and she knew what made it.  She saw him before he could see her. The creature, the new one, the new little one. She waited.  She hated waiting. What, she growled low and soft just enough for his species to hear. She wouldn’t even turn towards his fumbling.  Fuck him trying to make her work during her sunset. Bring your weapon?  You wouldn’t come to such a sharptooth unarmed, would you?  I’ve been watching you. You’re soft, I can tell. Oh, of course you can tell.  You’re my soulmate.  Fuck this creature and the sights he was stealing.  Besides, he was too close to her baby boys. And? Save me, Josephine. I’m pretty sure that’s your Jesus’ job, or at least your Daddy’s.  Go on, now.  He stood up, came closer.  She looked at him then through him. Her eyes became dreamy.  He crumpled a little, being so close to her breathing, feeling the fuzzy vibration of her voice so close to his skin.  I’m supposed to be with you.  I’ve heard you singing and the way you talk, it’s the only thing that makes sense to me. So he’s heard her lullabies has he?  Well that’s too close.  A lion yawns when and enemy is near and this one made her feel drowsy. Something caught her eye, her instincts twitched. Silver and black, tucked in non-Levi jeans. Two sins against her.  How dare he. I have a place for us. Each sentence he dared speak brought him a step further. You’ll love it, I promise.  A place for us, the boys, it’s where we’re supposed to be.  Together, always. You need a man, Josephine, you need me. With that he grabbed her, grabbed her and spun her around, her back pressed against his chest. She felt his fear and smelled skunky and metallic. She hated that smell, especially on men. Pungently afraid of what he was doing, no conviction. He pinned a hand in between him and her, unknowingly of course.  Mistake, of course.  Amateur, of course. Josephine felt she deserved experts and this brought out a bit of her temper. She felt the silly, just bought gun in his pants.  She grabbed it so easily. He felt it jerk out and she turned quickly on him. Who waits for you, Josephine asked. She wanted an answer. Nobody, he said.  Happy to be alone, what an imbecile.  That idea bought him a gun.  That one thought made him feel special.  It’s such a stupid philosophy, such a waste of a life. Pop, pop, pop in the head.  Out he spilled all over her goddamn porch.  Creatures are messy. Maybe he heard Josephine’s last words to him, maybe he didn’t... I saw you first...

31: Josephine and her goddamn kingdom

 

Josephine felt Baby Dagger behind her.  No horror, no shivers.  Josephine nodded toward the ended creature and BeeDee started the clearing.

Josephine slipped through the door to see the boys still sleeping.  Those boys knew just what to dream through, knew how to keep it deep in the velvet, just like mama.

She smiled and took another look through the window towards the sky now black and sparkly.  She loved warm nights.  All nights should be warm.  Leftover sun. 

BeeDee was whistling while she worked.  That made Josephine laugh out loud.  Hopefully it wasn’t callousness that jiggled her.  Hopefully it was just relief. 

The Penny Brides had just begun their shifts.  She walked into the dark kitchen and made sure none of them were "curious".

They knew curiosity around here was a bit dangerous.  Keep to your business, Brides, she thought.  Her face darkened slightly. 

BeeDee was whistling still.  At least she enjoyed the work, the status, the money.  It was nice to see appreciation.

Josephine’s mind crawled out of the now.  Sliding into the maybe’s, the best case scenarios.  What if, what if, what if, she tapped. 

If he somehow knew she’d be back?  If they both knew she still took in the air, still let it out slowly?

What of the kingdom she battles for? 

The facade is beaten some, but still lovely. 

She began to sing along with BeeDee’s mindless whistling, what an obscure song to choose, yet very apropos. 

Once you come, you never go back, she had written that song, Josephine did.  Taught it to BeeDee a million years ago on the guitar...

She remembered. 

And so did Josephine...

32: Josephine and all her brokehearts

Josephine sighed at the end of this day.  She was tired.  She’d been tired for months now.  She wasn’t where she was supposed to be. Back in baby’s arms is where she was supposed to be.  That’s where everybody should be, right? Everybody here, brokeheart pro’s, all of us.  At givin’ ’em and gettin’ ’em, eh?  Yeah.  It’s okay, Josephine assured herself.   The hot and the cold of it is what made the rosy cheeked courage they all shared so downright lovely.  Made them swell, made them a-okay, alright now. That dark outline against the fair skin, the bright light behind the dark one’s, the contrast is always there, the heaven and hell of it all. Josephine understood the gods and devils and preferred to take turns riding on the snow white wing and burning back of those brothers.  They were incomplete without the straddle of a good woman anyway, connecting them, reminding them of their half lights. So she slid between clean sheets.  She felt the down and the deep of the day and she wanted more than anything to come.  It eased her uneasiness.  There was no weight even close to being close to her.  She turned on her side.  She punched the pillow.  The other side’s just as needy.  When a woman ends up like this she gets antsy.  She gets real  antsy and she does things like fingering the phone pad on her outdated cell.  The call and hang up deal is a thing of the past with caller ID and such.  But just to hear his voice.  He’d know it was her on the other end.  That’s why she couldn’t, that’s why she wouldn’t. The call she’d make isn’t the call you’d think she’d dial.  She’s a brokeheart, dears.

33: Nobody waits for William

Josephine’s grandmother had lost herself inside her head say, oh, about ten years ago.  She wasn’t completely lost, more like, well, stuck.  She still thought Josephine was a struggling 19 year old musician.  Secretly, Josephine sort of liked that stubborn stick.    In Sweet Marie’s head she had a second chance at everything that came after the van with the faulty wheel bearings that barely made it to the black plywood stages.  The stages they’d crowd with borrowed Marshall’s and a sparkly five piece kit, yeah. Who was Josephine kidding. She wouldn’t have changed a thing. Every misstep marched heavy and danced her hard toward the throne she was born to sit upon.  Her grandma was from France, the countryside.  She was very catholic, church every day, saints in every room.  Jesus on the dash AND atop the black and white T.V.  Right next to the horse her husband had carved when he was a smitten, dashing black eyed suitor. He looked a bit like Errol Flynn to Josephine.  He really did.  He at least sported the same mustache. Marie was fair with silky black hair and grey blue eyes that just chilled people.  They didn’t faze Josephine.   This thin little woman scared her husband, her children, non catholic strangers and Josephine’s siblings. Blew ’em clear across the country with that crystal glare, she did.  Not Miss Josephine.  She moved in with the buck o’ five  tyrant.  Not only did she love her, she liked her.  She got her.  This woman wasn’t scary, she was just scared and scared frozen, she was. She didn’t want to lose control.  Josephine knew the story about trying to keep a tight grip and keep it still. Nobody had that strength of hand and she knew it.  When  she went down that path in the dark she did it silently.   She’d return to the light of grandma’s lovely two bedroom home with the Jacaranda tree in the front yard and the garage in the back without a hint of journey on her heels.    She respected Sweet Marie’s fear and would never think to bring her out of it.  She was old enough to have earned it and Josephine was young enough to realize that everybody’s pain is their own.  It was arrogant, not heroic, even rude to try and pry it from her grip.  Nope,  that wouldn’t be polite. Marie called Josephine to announce her birthday. It’s time for "The Cake". Mmmm, that sort of sweet, white, white, white cake.  Angel’s Food with home made whipping cream, very little sugar, a bit of vanilla frothed in with strawberries. I’ll be over straight away Sweet Marie! Josephine’s birthday was actually a few months passed but that’s okay.  There was cake now so everything was alright. When she got there she saw a strange air.  She opened the door and heard a man’s rumble in the next room sliding talk talk over the hardwood floors Marie kept immaculate. What the hell? She found Marie in the kitchen putting strawberry slices all over the cake, one for each bite, she’d say. "Who’s that, Gramma"?  "Oh, that’s William.  He helps me out around here". Josephine got all stiff.  There was something stupid going on. William peeked through the doorway. A short man, balding, cheap glasses and a liar’s grin.  Okay teeth, though.  His button up shirt was pressed and tucked.  Slacks, brown of course, what else?  His type had a uniform. He slicked in and squeeled, "Oh hey, this must be the beautiful Josephine!  She’s lovelier than her pictures, Marie, my goodness.  You passed on the pretty gene, that’s for sure". Out stretched his hand.  Josephine didn’t take her eyes off his as she grabbed his mitt with both of hers and squeezed.  He looked at her almost confused but never lost the slippery smirk.  Amateur. "I take care of your Grandma here.  Since all you kids are doing you’re own thing, you know, living your lives, not much time for the older one’s these days, eh"? Josephine gaze remained locked.  Blank.  Black.  The Black Look, her mom called it.  Not a tell anywhere on her face, in her gesture. Marie continued, "He was here so often fixing things, I gave him your room".  "I see".  And Josephine did see.  She saw the snake evidence all over the cleanest, most modest house in town. She saw the scales, the trail of promises and implied attraction. William wanted to show her around the house as if it was his now, show her all that he’d done.  He’d show her everything but the actual repair he was toiling over. Marie beckoned.  Cake.  This William had been preparing for Josephine.  He had the story all sewn up, he did.  Oh, he smiled real big as he went for more coffee in Marie’s Nova car Josephine asked all about William .  Over the cream and bright berries, the soft white cake she got the necessaries. Family? He had none.  There’s the lonely they shared.  Wife? Never married.  Never found the right woman.  Marie felt she was the only right woman.  Two ribbons to bind them.  History?  Vague and ever changing.  All of it can be explained away by an intuitive and intelligent woman like Marie.  He revealed her relevance.  3 soft bonds.  All faulty.  All predictable. Amateur. "Grandma, I’m staying the night, is that okay?"  "Of course, my Girl!  I’m glad to have you here.  We can go to church together in the morning"! Oh man.  "Absolutely.  But not early Mass Grandma, okay"? "Six a.m. Josephine". There’s no arguing that one with Marie.  Josephine needed her Grandmother taken care of.  She’d hire somebody.  She had lots of money from the Penny Bride endeavor.  A fine nurse.  Somebody she’d check on.  Often.  William was a squatter.  Squatters bring their bag of tricks with them always. Where would he keep them?  She searched "his" room.  She found the computer.  Printouts of free lawyering,  How-to’s and tutorial’s of When-Should-I’s  stuffed in the fake drawer where Josephine used to keep her twisted nail games.  They were gone now. Practiced signatures, canceled checks.  It was all there.  She was surprised she didn’t find the arsenic. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He was so. Ashamed, she was.  This never should have happened.  Josephine had officially been hiding out too long. After dinner they sat around and she let William run his slimy mouth.  Oh the tales he told of suffering.  Oh poor, poor William. He was getting more and more nervous.  There was no Josephine.  Just a silent woman.  There wasn’t any evidence of the perceived personality.  Hard to know when to swerve, when to turn. When to stop. He felt Josephine was just waiting.  Waiting for something. Josephine was waiting for Marie’s sleep, that’s all.  That strong, unmoving slumber that used to let Josephine sneak out into that fear filled night without her ever knowing how close she came to it. When the dog eared burgundy book with the gold holy rubbed off from the fervently religious fingers of her grandmother rest, well then she was done waiting. As William smoked, outside of course (Grandma didn’t allow it period) Josephine made her way into the garage.  She went to the old gray cabinets her grandfather had built.  She knew it would still be there.  She loved that pistol.  It was a gift she never used.  It was empty and hungry.  She filled it and tucked it in the jeans. Love these jeans, she thought. Behind the garage was the alley. "William, help me with the trash cans". "Sure, sure no problem"! He set it out, set it upright and brushed his lousy hands off on his lousy brown trousers.  He thought it was time to let her know who was in control now.  Didn’t he know, didn’t he learn from Marie, from Josephine there was no such thing?  Stupid.  He was just stupid. "Eh, listen, Josephine.  Your grandmother depends on me, she loves me like a son.  I’m here for her all the time, I take care of everything around here.  I’ve earned all of this, right?  Wouldn’t you agree"?  He was close to her face, you don’t get close to Josephine’s face. "You all deserted her and I was here.  You know, she wants me to have this house when she’s gone".  Beat.  Another beat.  "You don’t have a problem with that, do ya"? Enough. He wasn’t going to coax any fancy movie banter here.  There wasn’t going to be a choreographed spar. Josephine’s hand slid fast down inside the front of those amazing jeans.  She showed the gift to William’s stupid face, closer than what he got to hers. He blinked.  He gulped a bit.  None of this meant anything to Josephine.  "In your head, you’re dead, in your spine, well you know."  She couldn’t think of a rhyme.  See, in real life there’s no "Asta La Vista, Baby" and when you try , you  mess it up just like that. Let’s just end this thing. He stuttered a what, a why.  Meant nothing. "In your head or spine, pick one, jesus"! Josephine was annoyed. A no, a please, a stop. Josephine brought her voice down.  Low it was and sort of whispery.  Who waits for you, William? Before he could answer, she chose the ending spot for him.  His heart.  It was somewhere in between and that seemed right. It popped through the pressed shirt and out the back of the William that Was. He left here and she made her call. Take him to the desert, Bee Dee. Nobody waits for William....

34: Josephine never could stand a Betty with a question

 

It wasn’t a silent coldness or some dopey damage that Josephine possessed. Or that possessed her.  It wasn’t some delusion of importance or cause.

It was plain old fashioned toe tapping, finger pounding impatience.  That’s all it was. 

She just didn’t want to wait in line, online, over the line, under the line or anywhere near the goddamn line.

She wanted people to get to the point and make it.  Don’t beat around the bush, don’t explain the how why when you got there.  Just fucking say it.

Her clocked was ticked off and done done done.

When it came to the antics and tomfoolery of her inner circle she really didn’t have it for them.

She’d look silently past there outline as they fumbled.  Come to me when you’re ready, she thought.

She’d turn on the boot heel.  Swagger and stomp, a beat they never forgot.

When one of her Penny Brides, one of her faves actually, came to her asking blue questions, questions that would never come to her bright but simple mind she grew very silent.  She even tapped her toe as the Betty rambled through the matte red. 

Were you ever married, Josephine?

Cause you see, I thought you used to wear a ring....or something..stutter and stammer.

Do you still play guitar?  I thought I heard you one night..after a party....one night.

Neither of these questions pertained to this life now.  Josephine pounded a finger on the dark wood.  The happy wood. 

Josephine even cocked her head to the side. 

Get back to the bed, Betty, Josephine smoldered.

Betty got shivered.  Jesus, what a shake, went straight down to her toes and back up again.  Pushed her hair straight up, that look did.

Josephine knew it wasn’t those fat reds that were doin’ the askin’, yeah.  Somebody else was using that mouth.  You pay to fill, not empty.  God damn it.

Josephine didn’t want another "job". 

She watched as the Betty skittered back. 

Who waits for you?

She pushed back the curtain and tapped her own blood red smack. ...

35: The Brides all afluff and aflutter

 

The Penny Brides, all afluff and aflutter, they were surprised to see Josephine in the bed house.

She rarely came back there, even when there was a new girl to introduce.

The heel-toe boot beat sounded so pointy.  It was a hurting sound.  Rattled the lovely Betties a bit. 

They were treated very well here.  They did what they came to do and got paid more than any other bed they’d filled.  It was good here. 

There was a tension tonight.  All clients were held off for a tick while Josephine inspected.  What was she looking for?  Even the King herself didn’t know but she knew she’d find the answer to the question asking somewhere between the crisp white softness and the hard wood hardwood.

She liked the smell of the bounce, Josephine did.  Powdery.  Dusty vanilla and cherry red air.  The curves were so nice.  Women who owned some round, that’s the ideal in her head.  She owned it herself so maybe it was just familiar. 

She summoned them, all the lovely Betty Bettes to the lounge.  Relax. 

She left them there with the fire and the booze, told them to pour and warm for a bit while she walked out of the middle of their soft and sweet.  They’re quite clean, she pondered.

Her Asking Betty’s room was just as neat as it should be.  Josephine was there for the mess.  She knew it would be hidden.  Is it a mess if it doesn’t show?  It’s gonna be, she thought.

Paper, paper.  Notes.  Scribbles and scrawls.  There it was, a declaration of love with a tag on the end.  If you find out about your boss. ...la la la... Don’t be careless.... la dee la da...warning from an outsider daring to be in.

Tra la la la la.

It was in a healthy hand, a man’s hand for sure.  She knew him.  She knew his name, social, address. She now knew he was a numbskull, a nincompooop. 

She found the date he’d circled for her, the one where he’d show again for a sweet fuck and a fortune of favor.

What do you know.  That’s tomorrow.

Josephine knew who waited for him...

36: Josephine was a Catholic baby dontcha know

Josephine got grumpy for a second.  Oh for chrissakes.  He’s a converter!  Fuck him!

He just wanted to switch the hardest he could find for the sure softness of a heaven he believed happened after this life.

Big sigh.  Big, big sigh.  She saw the pamphlets, the cross of steel.  Easy to convert the loveless but the loved, oh the loved who still reject the proposition of forgiveness and peace, now that’s a guaranteed jump up to the clouds and such.  They’re treasures.  Golden tickets, yeah.

Josephine tried gods as a child.  A catholic baby, baptized, communized, confirmed  and I’m sure, eulogized.  You know, because of the Monster’s gun. 

She tried to feel that thing she saw in the believers eyes.  It alluded her, every incarnation of this bigger being every single time.  So she just started challenging it.  Got a bit boring.  Then she ignored it.  Now that’s true faith, Goddamn it.  You can reject something you don’t actually believe exists.  This just pissed her off in a really dumb way.

She swaggered on back to the Betties and told them to start it up.  She took Bee Dee by the elbow and led her back to the house.  They bleeped up ol’ the computer and brought up the evening’s client list.

There he was, sure enough.  He’d be here in 45 minutes.

And you know,

he’ll be early.

He’d never even entered this dear Betty.  Never felt the tender squeeze of the perfect white thighs, never tipped her hourglass. It’s not that rare, some just like the company of a whore.  Josephine did.  Their attention to detail was intoxicating.  These were modern day geishas, painted permanently this time around, commited, well read and well kept.  She could’ve really shown him god.

Oh, he just wanted to speak of his lord, you know, the white one, the one with the long brown flowing locks.  The one that looked like Shooter Jennings.   Surely a whore would go for a guy like that.  Stupid.  He was that. Coulda felt what being saved really felt like if he’d only had the nerve.

She called her curious Betty to the lounge and met her there.  I need you to go to Sweet Georgia’s bed.  She’s throwing a "party".  Good fun, good fees, good hearted man. 

She reminded Josephine of her ten o’clock request.  Not to worry, we’ll take care of him and take care of him well.  Indeed.

Betty was a bit relieved, actually.  She had nothing for him, not what he’d asked for, hoped for and she hated to disappoint. 

Josephine, matched the nighttime with her black tee, jeans and boots, black hair and black look. She kept it all in check so at any time she could really melt into the last sky.  The blurriest of darks she was,  making the edges all hazy and quiet.  No stark horizons on her.  Just an almost there quality.  More a silhouette than a shadow.  Just as quiet.

She sank into the big chair in Betty’s room.  All the rooms had one.  They looked like comfortable thrones. Josephine had handpicked a different one for each room for  whatever reigning might occur.

she let the leftover light make a bit of glow through the crack in the door.  She sank in the chair so elegantly, one leg outstretched, one cocked up and ready in case a pounce was necessary.  Her head was heavy to one side bearing the imaginary crown of harvested jewels. 

Her reach was relaxed as her red manicure held the arms like a shotgun.  There was no need for a weapon...

Not tonight....

37: The Church of Josephine

Josephine waited.  The bouncing faded off into a predictable rhythm.  It was nice.  The slit of light stayed sort of faded.  That kind of glow was really nice.

She heard his voice.  A southern California lilt to it,  a waster, she could hear it.  The "dude" wanted to come out of that distorted mouth so bad.  You can hear restraint when it’s not natural.   It blows the strands in your ears wrong.  It makes your neck jerk and tear a bit.  Ah, Josephine hated that.  It twitched inside her spine. 

Only her head cocked, nothing else.  She still held the arms of the soft throne, ten drips of red varnish visible even in the half light. 

The light grew wider and then spread open.

He whispered for his Betty.  Josephine had a half smile from the half light.  She squinted just a bit.  Not like Clint or anything but enough for her focus to look cool.

He was surprised.  Scared.  No wait, it’s a treat, just what I need, he thought.

Hello was all that came out of that crooked mouth. 

He really wanted his squawk back.  He really wanted to say Dude, hey, cool you’re here.

The Jesus wouldn’t like that, no way.   All of his gods landlords never said Dude, not even during the late sermons, the one’s where even they were tired of the good book’s orders.

Hello.  Josephine had a fine greeting.  It was perfectly even until it got to the end of the last vowel and then it dipped slightly in volume. 

He wanted to turn on a light.  Sure.  She stood up as he went for the switch on the pale yellow lamp Betty had brought with her.

She stood well, too.  She was quite petite but it was like no one ever told her.  She acted big, yeah.  No, she acted Tall.  Tall Girl she was once called.  Yeah.  She liked that.

Her curves were more inviting then the Converter had ever suspected.  The talk of the Betties wasn’t about her loveliness.  It was more about her silence. It was about the voice she made so clear and memorable by only using it sparingly.  It was reverence.  Like a sort of Jesus.  A pin up looking Jesus at that.

He was like cellophane.  She could see the veins and meat as they popped and jumped, the heart.  She could see the heart. 

Well? 

He started to speech her.  She didn’t care for any kind of speeches.  They all started and ended the same. 

His Jesus could save her, take her from all of this.  His Guy could really show her the warmth of a love she’d never known which was so obvious seeing that this is her chosen field.

Josephine heard, oh, maybe every 8th word.  It ended with the same kind of thud that all  the preachy gobs drop.  She yawned like a Lion.  He didn’t see it. 

She took a step forward and walked past him, turned into his back.  She was this close, this fucking close.

He was scared of his Saviour.  He was scared of this world.  This time, this place.  He could tremble if he wasn’t so stiff.

Josephine’s whiff was so sweet.  Soft.  That’s the only word for it.  Cherry Vanilla.  He almost said the m’s out loud.

What are you afraid of, Miss Josephine?

She paused the perfect amount of seconds.  She let the last letters of her name drip off of his tongue.  His tongue wanted to taste her so bad.  Worse than the Dude slipping from it, he wanted it to slip in her.   Over her.  What a welling of this thing, this thing she conjured, what was it?

Then it came again.  Her voice, so rare to the air it was. 

Shhhhhhhh.  I’m tired. 

She wrapped her arms around his waist. 

So unexpected.

He felt her on his back, like a hillside, curves aplenty.  He held her hands above his belt.  She laid her head between his blades and closed her eyes and sighed.

He felt peace.  He did, he felt it!  Just like the Jesus promised only he never delivered it like this!  She was rescuing him, wasn’t she?  She was, he was chosen special.  He was picked.

No words.  No fucking words.  No sounds past between them.

This moment took him for everything he had, everything he stood for was never invented.

Now he existed.

She loosened and came to his front, to his face. 

She saved her speak.  She gave him silence so he could hear his own voice again, not that of the Landlord’s.

He’d hope for her and he’d wait forever. 

He’d have to.... 

38: Josephine and her terrible awful temper

It wasn’t a like or a love it was definitely a lust. Finally, Josephine got past the Iggy Beat and heard the Iggy Prose.

Lust for life.

She didn’t enjoy it on special occasions, visit it on birthdays and holidays.

She didn’t fall for it and coddle it’s existence.

She burned for it. She sought it out and ravaged it up.

Getting this breath and blood wasn’t something to sneeze at. She knew that at birth. Gave her sunshine hope in the mornings after black days the night before.

Every single morning, every one.

The chance to have it just one more time. Now that’s something to hold on to.

Devouring it was natural. Can you imagine the energy it would take to keep this up?

It was just pumping there inside of her like an extra organ of some sort.

She couldn’t stand the wasteful things that pissed it away. Washing through them with stupid comments about supposed rivals. Flooding the market with ideas they barely had the strength to utter let alone execute.

Ah, so maddening! Clenched fists shoved down in her jeans couldn’t push the weird rush of disgust away from her.

Her head in her hands, she winced and shook it off.

If you were the lucky one underneath her, well good for you!

But if you dare stand in front of Josephine spewing your "I’m Gonna’s" and "This Time’s", well, you put your ego in grave danger, my friend.

Good luck to you and that extra large jugular sticking out so far she could pop it with a swift slap.

All the important little promises made my people who give themselves way too much credit.

Give themselves prop-ups with no history of anything remotely familiar to their grandiose statements to back it up.

How humiliating.

You’re one goal should be to never let anybody down.

That’s simple. Don’t make promises to yourself or anyone else you can’t keep.

Easy, right?

Just love life. Or at least like it. But don’t pretend you have an appetite for it and then push yourself away from a table that wasn’t set for the likes of you.

39: Bang Bang ...that's a bad noise

What I do is good.

What I don’t do is probably even better.

What I haven’t done yet is always best.

That skull-bouncy always made her smile that sideways smile.

Don’t know why, really, thought Josephine scratching under a bobby-pinned pin curl.

What kept her from running up on a Monster such as him? She knew the broken buttons and the red blinking one’s that still worked when pushed just so. Why didn’t she extinct him just like that?

She tapped her foot outside of the Lincoln and just sat there. Her boot was of course dusty, what else?

It had a worn spot under the big toe, yeah, so what? Neatness wasn’t part of her finery anyway.

She brushed muffin crumbs off her chest. Everything always landed there.

She watched the Monster load up a nothing into his car. They laughed and kissed. She felt a twinge of pity for the gal but it disappeared when she thought, eh, she’s a grown up.

She’d known where he was all along and saw that the self deluded mechanism he came factory installed with was still struttin’ along, humming perfectly in sync with his tales of woe and pain.

He’d probably run through the entire library of whoppers already with this one because she almost, almost had an eye roll on her face, there.

What was this since their last blow, three or four good time gals? Their lovespans were getting shorter. Josephine wondered if it made him nervous. When he was nervous, he was weaker than ever. It’s because he never knew why he shook, he just did.

Made him sweat and even throw up sometimes. Ridiculous fop. He’d replaced all the lovely parts with cheap ones. Such a shame to see an overhaul done by the owner. Like operating on yourself or something.

It can’t work. It’ll always run rough and break down when you needed it most.

He’d never be alone. Always needed an accomplice of some sort. Nothing wrong with that except well, you know, he was rotten. If you end up the dead half of a pair, a live one can’t bring you back, no sir.

You need to be rebuilt and this Monster was probably ready for the junkyard.

One problem. He’d left a legacy.

He didn’t deserve one but he had one all the same. That’s how this life is.

Her son weighed so heavy on her mind these long nights.

She wanted it made right.

She clicked a little pistol she kept in her boot and clicked it again.

Bang bang is an unhealthy noise. She didn’t bang bang tonight. She just clicked.

40: Monday Night is Beauty Night at Josephine’s

Monday night the beds were turned and washed. The girls saw no customers on Mondays, the place saw no faces on flesh or paper.

It was Beauty Night, a night of rest and recuperation of the highest sort.

Their doctor came in to check to their insides, iron out their bugs, anything that hung a crawl on.

The two lovely hairdressers Flo and Toppy came in to tend to the lovely locks. Sets, rollers, roots, trims, fresh new do’s for everybody on Monday.
Reds, Blacks and Platinums all the same hues, all perfectly individual and unique.

The Three Chestnut Girls came in and painted the tootsies red and the fingertips as well.
Massages for everything that crumpled, curled, kicked and caught.
Monday’s were swell.

Their faces were creamed, vacuumed, peeled and scrubbed. They were softened, soaked, stained and flooded with rich smelling liquids and tonics from all over the world. Bella saw to it.
Monday’s were divoon.

All of this was part of the deal with Josephine. It was necessary for the work and just damn good business.
The Betties, The Penny Brides, all perfumed and powdered settled in the dust and the glow of pampering by their Mistress Josephine. A divine cloud of caring it was, that’s a fact.

Josephine even joined in on Beauty Night.
She liked all the push and pull, the rubbing up, down and sideways. She liked her hair tugged gently into a stunning coif of her time.
She wanted to feel the group, her crowd, her ladies, exhale.
She wanted to breathe a bit heavy herself.


Top to bottom, bottom to top everybody looked like the figure on the cover a dime store novel. Naughty and really, really nice.
It’s Monday night, goddamnit and Monday night is
Beauty Night!

41: Josephine’s Most Satisfying Factory

Beauty Night was great for the gossip, the Talkie Talkersons Free For All!
Even better for a lesson taught and learned the good old fashioned way: from the elder, the experienced or both, whatever you brought with you this evening on this fine, odd, powdered and perfumed night of nights.

The Penny Brides were not only unusual in their fineness but their ages. Their time here ranged from the sea to the desert. From 26 to 61. All beautiful women, all offering their own sense of "business" and "pleasure".
This was the most satisfying factory around and it was such a simple concept:
Don’t try and please everybody.
Everybody can’t all be your somebody.

Find your audience.
You’ll know what they want because you’re part of them.
You’re the out in fronter, the one to be heard and to be seen.

Remember,
they’re yours and they’ve been waiting for you.

Josephine was half french and half greek and her chips and paper sense brewed fantastically throughout her entire life. She always had enough to live on however much she felt she deserved at the time. Pour it out and on, honey.

Money’s always there for the taking. Ideas, energy to work them out, that’s all it took. That was the roll and the rock of it.

Her Penny Brides were all magnificent. She knew it and they knew it. They all made lots. That really is the point, yeah?

Hard work, Hard Pay, Hard Play. It all makes such good sense.

This Monday Night was a lesson of order. It seemed to Josephine that it wasn’t the thing or the absence of the thing that held the bloody value. It was the order in which it came.

Do they need you and want you or do they want you and need you?
What’s the damn difference?
Hush the mouth and listen again.

Does their need make them want you? Do you provide something they can’t live without?

Well lovelies, that’s business. And good business it is.

Or does their want of you make them need you? Is your mere existence what they need to get them some happiness?
That’s love, Betties, pure and simple.

Know the order of things.
Then you’ll recognized true disorder more quickly.
You won’t waste your precious time.
Time is freedom.
Money buys you time.

Disorder, disorder, disorder all around us.
It’s up to us to make sense of it all and set it straight.

42: The Monster, The Saint and Josephine, the Unholy Trinity

The Saint, he had a pace on. He knew Josephine was still beating and battling. He knew she was waiting for her time. He knew she still beat for him.

He didn’t know he had a moonfaced boy. He thought the Monster had taken him. This made the pace in him thicken.

He’d pelted a ditch with his wingtips and cursed over and over. He cried when they couldn’t see him, too. He hated this waiting. He just wanted his woman in his arms. He wanted his family back.

The Monster had some wishful thinking going on, too. Hopefully, he thought, the animals ate what was left. Wistfully, he prayed to a god of rationalization that would let him know he did the right thing by himself, he, the one who deserves everything for nothing. The Entitled One.

The Monster was as deeply hidden as Josephine. The difference was the camouflage. He thought he was safe. Josephine knew indeed that she wasn’t.

Hammers down on a different kind of armor, it does.

So the Unholy Trinity here was Josephine, The Saint and The Monster. Touching at the points and shooting out towards the other. It was an exhausting triangle.

The Saint waited for a sign.

Josephine waited to give it.

The Monster waited for nothing.

43: Josephine and the collision of crime, stars and joy

There was a spike of confidence in Josephine’s actions lately. She rubbed the dishes hard and quick, sewed the holes with finer stitches.

She was getting closer to her reveal. She felt the rumblings of a merger. The Three Stars will collide soon.

She heard her man calling to her in agony and could barely stand it.

She needed a signal sent through a desert sky, shouting outward towards a clump of granulated sugar-lit buildings.

The city where her saint lived and breathed and paced and waited so patiently. She needed to call out, spurt a picture, a silhouette, anything, something.

He didn’t know he had a moonfaced boy.

The papers had reported the incident of blood turning to mud in the desert.

The amount signaled death and the death of a particular woman indeed.

This death was not to be believed by The Saint.

It went against Josephine’s habits.

She wouldn’t die unheard. It just wasn’t her way.

He had to keep listening.

The Monster had cackled when he read the conservative Black And White. He’d been questioned briefly but he wasn’t a stupid creation. He was indeed a divine mountain of tall tales honed to crystal snow cone clarity and perfection. He even believed the stories he told himself, he was indeed magnificent.

He told them over and over, too, to all of his new Josephine Wishes.

He had left his boy in safety. Covered in blood and a final ending, he dropped him off saying he wouldn’t be back for awhile.

He was picked up, though, wasn’t he...

Josephine introduced him to his moonfaced brother that shared the same gray blue eyes as Josephine’s mother and grandmother. The Boy was very happy. He missed people, though. He was still a boy. He missed his father and The Saint terrifically.

Josephine explained to his temporary keeper to keep their mouth clamped shut tightly or else.

They didn’t know the specifics but they knew the crime wasn’t complete and whenever that happens, there’s a circle that aches to be closed, filled with something. Usually bodies.

They didn’t want to be the plug, did they now.

Josephine’s heart broke a little when she explained to her boy that his path would never be free of burdens and the like. With all the joy comes these types of things, my beautiful son.

Life, for the most part, is very, very hard.

44: Everything’s Gonna Be Alright, Josephine

Everything’s gonna be alright.
Yeah, it is.
That’s all anybody ever really wants to hear.

The dune’s blow the finest dust only at our feet.
It hisses a little bit of a tickle there, you feel it?

The earth’s finally taking the steps for us. Isn’t that nice for once? It’s taking tiny marches all over our toes, swaggering right over our walkers.
Yeah, everything’s gonna be alright.

Josephine let that warm breeze of her desert sort of brush past her. She breathed deep and let her eyes droop in that opiate dopey way. She made a plan.

A plan that involved nothing but timing and common sense, like any other good plan.
The key is patience. She’d acquired some of that from the supposed end of a road thing that left her with a bullet here and there.

Yep, she had a pocketful.

The plan was to get back, take back and lay back when it’s all done. See? Simple.

She heard a pop.
It came from the bedding house and she waited for a scream or gasp. The natural aftershock.

The droop left her hazel gaze and she swore so fucking deep it vibrated her lovely tits.

God damn it.

She brushed off the sand and stomped inside the old boots that were gonna take her there.

She felt for the pistol, just in case. Of course it was there. The fable of it never faultered.

Here starts another tale. The beginning, well, she didn’t witness that but the middle and the end were about to be written with thick, short lead.

She could almost smell where it was coming from because the two powders had a distinct perfume.
Gawd, was she starting to prefer the pop one over the baby talc?

She stood next to Betty. She was shaking but she had a conviction going on there.
She looked down at what the problem was.
On his back, slacks still on. Expensive ones. Pressed and well fitting.
He turned over half way and glared, ready to lunge.
Wouldn’t if I were you, fella.

Betty had quite a low murmur, there. Good for you, woman, good for you.
Josephine gave her the "okay, now tell me what the hell happened" look. She could do that, you know, just with a semi-sideways stare, mid-eyebrow raise up. That said it all.

"He wanted to stick me with this! This fucking old broken coke bottle, a COKE BOTTLE"!

How vulgar.

Josephine didn’t like this kind of dichotomy.
Expensive slacks, manicure, tailored everywhere, from his hairline to his hem.
Cheap old west crimes and antics.
Yeah, Josephine didn’t care much for him.

Not that it mattered.

It dawned on Josephine all of the sudden that Betty had blown a hole in his left butt cheek and she couldn’t help but laugh out loud. A rare thing for her during one of these moments.

"You fucking whore" the preppy grown up growled.
"That’s the preferred kind, dumb dumb", Josephine sighed.

And now Betty laughed out loud.

"So now what"?

Josephine turned her back on the man and stood shoulder to shoulder with Betty. She leaned into her ear and whispered "Everything’s gonna be alright".
Then she looked back over her shoulder and smiled that sideways smile at the graduate.
She then turned back and whispered again a question she asked way too many times.
Betty answered.
"A Wife, two little girls and one of those little dogs that ladies carry around in their purses".
Josephine gave her eyeballs a roll.
She hated pet accessories.
Her back still to him she told him to get up.
She grabbed his jacket and took his wallet.
She threw it to him as he tried to balance.
"Get yourself to the hospital, dumb dumb. Make up a good story, make yourself a hero for all I care but I wouldn’t make any of the villains fair skinned, black haired, red lipped beauties, yeah"?
He knew what she meant as she waved the wallet and stuck it in her back pocket.
She melted back into her dark and warm desert.
Baby Dagger would clean up what needed to be scrubbed and burned and another tale would not be told about our Josephine.
Everything’s gonna be alright.

45: Josephine, the Cocksman and the New Brute

He was sorta boastful, wasn’t he.
Josephine wasn’t asking, she was stating an annoying fact.

He’d come in wanting at least three at a time he said. Black, white and red, at the very least, he bellowed.

Josephine was behind the bar and she instantly thought him cheap.
Not in his attire but in his manner.

He was setting a mood in her that she wasn’t comfortable with. She wanted him over just because. Just because he spoke about a big cock he supposedly owned. How he used it and used it well, swung it like a veiny club or something. Very cheap.
Not a cocksman..... like her Saint.

She drew in a breath and refused to let it out on time. It held that memory of him, didn’t it.

Her Saint kept the ownership of his wares to himself he did, and he wasn’t about to tout his skills, put them out in the air like so much silth. No, indeed.

When Josephine would tease him about it or bring it up to him in the heat, he’d smile and lay her down. Damn, she missed him.

That’s why she didn’t like this one. He was so not her man. He made The Saint seem even farther away in time and in miles.
She sighed right at him as he spoke.
She didn’t notice his speech was directed at her, that it was getting closer to her faraway stare, crowding the pictures in her head.

"What about you? You’re the Headmistress here, or whatever it is you Madames like to be called nowadays".
He didn’t want an answer. He felt this was flattery all the way.

Josephine brought in the background and focused in on his stupid face. Gawd, it really was that stupid, wasn’t it. Again, not a question.

He layed his arm in front of him as if a plate would be set before his mouth filled with the eaties.
He spoke over he elbow at Josephine again.
The Brides watched, boy did they watch.

He asked Josephine again. "What about you"?

Josephine made her face flat, blank as a bust. She didn’t show disgust, impatience, anger or even a slight amusement.

"What about me"? Her voice was soft but kind of firm, actually.
The Brides first inclination was to duck.

Maybe it was the leftover reverie of the memory of her wonderful mate that made her slow to any kind of black anger.
Maybe it was the way he tried to smell good that coaxed a pity out of her.

"Yeah, you must have something these ladies don’t have. I like to go to the best, the top of things. I’ll pay the price of ten for one of you".

Josephine guessed this was his way of seduction. She guessed his wealth was quite new because he couldn’t keep it crumpled in the market like well worn dollar dealers do. New money, always over excited, under schooled, too crisp to keep quiet.

The Brides were on some kind of edge. They waited for the quiet temper to whisper the Clod’s last heard sentence.

’Listen to me. Don’t falter, don’t interrupt, try not to breathe right now".
Josephine was quite petite but she got real tall all of the sudden.

’You’ll need to be quiet from now on until you come. You’ll come in one of those beds back there, a bed filled with the three, five or ten you choose and not one of them will be me. You’ll stay very quiet and you’ll get to yell out your new voice, the one that came with all crisp one dollars you think bought you real freedom and courage. You’ll groan the loud one and you’ll feel like a king, the kind you imagined strolled the wallstreets and pinky ringed alleys.
You’ll not say a word to me again. You’ll come and you’ll come to your senses".

She was like a scolding mama, one that didn’t want to embarass but one that needed to teach and teach now.

His first impulse was to lunge. Maybe to choke or squeeze. Something stopped him.

Josephine’s eyes had concern over them in the arch of her brows and those hazels never left him. The head didn’t cock, the smile never came but the blank stare of the reach of her pistol didn’t either.

He just nodded, that’s all he did was shake his stupid head.

A cluster of Brides escorted him to his bed where he did indeed come and come loudly. He wanted Josephine to hear him obey her.
She did.
She did hear him.

46: Sir Majesty’s got a recipe he does

The Monster had taken to calling himself
Sir Majesty.

Honestly. Not a majestic bone in his body.

Although there was a time...
A time when Sir could’ve been said before his name, his momma given one.
But he blew that a long time ago.
All those selfish decisions that made his actions laws in his lawless life.
Unruly. Unnecessary.

He went around with his chest puffed out, his phone untouched when it came to calling ’round about his son.
He felt the boy was better off without either one of them. That’s how he made it okay. A new selfish law passed in his wild west of a life. Bang bang, shoot ’em up, Sir Majesty!

He’d come to the convenient conclusion that Josephine was a freak just like him. In a bad way.
It just made everything so much easier, to think that they were two bad ingredients and that the mix would somehow cook better in another oven.

One far from their messed up kitchen.

He didn’t know Josephine had their son. Safe and warm and loved.
Of course the boy asked after his father. Josephine was very careful with this one.
He’s dead, she’d say. Suicide.
She would not tell him of her father’s attempt at ending his mother. She’d never speak of the foul he’d spanked out of the park. How hard it was for her.
Her temper would flare sometimes.
The love of her boy always won out. She was a true momma and good at it.

This boy, well this boy of hers, he was a dear. Kind, big hearted, sentimental.
Impatient like his momma, though. Dammit. A bullet nobody could dodge down Josephine’s string of relatives. They all shot the same trait straight through the line of children.
It was corralling that trait, training it to spark and spin without burning the dizzy, that was the trick.
Josephine learned that trick quickly.

This golden boy wasn’t a bad mix. He was sweetcake a punkin pie.
A perfect recipe, he was.
He would rise one day to be as great as he was born to be, the first prince of Josephine.

47: A Valentine’s Valentine for Josephine

She started building a new part, a piece that would withstand all of this.

She starting making a new fleshy flesh. A Valentine’s valentine.

Just like any other organ, it had a purpose. Well, not every organ. That goddamn appendix. What a waste of the ol’ soft and pink, eh?

She started with the thicker kind of wrap. A good and sturdy skin to keep in the uneven pumping, maybe rectify it’s bump biddy biddy bump.

This new thing she was casting, well it was going to make her better.

She wanted it to be, you know, unburstable so she could breathe even deeper, so deep there’d be no end to the air.

It’d have to be small, too, so you couldn’t detect it under her soft, white skin.

And it would turn into a shiny thing, a mirror for her critics to cast their ugly stones. Guess they should see exactly what they look like in action. Throw ’em if ya got ’em. Capture the picture mid-lob. It’s a limp wristed effort at best. She’d played an inning or two on that team. Stark raving hideous.

Oh, and it has to be easily removable.

It would have to tick to a new clock’s minutes, flip easily across the new calendar she was facing.

Assembling it’s not that hard.

Placing it above her heart, that would be painful.

Painful, yeah, but really quite necessary.

She’d remove it only when she was sure her new life had worn out it’s welcome so deep in her chest.

Then she could get back to the soft and sweet, the fucking and kissing, the heartdrops falling all about her and her family.

Josephine was made a Valentine’s valentine..

48: Josephine and Rosaline, The Art of The Taking, part 1

They crossed sighs like swords, such an audacious sneet. A quick whip through the sheath.

Taking in a lighted breath and letting it out right at the same time well, way too many times this warm and lost night.

Rosaline, pronounced Row-suh-leen looked across at Josephine. She may have been the only Penny Bride that wasn’t exactly frightened of The King.

She looked through the wavy fire haze and took in the glow halo that sat upon Josephine’s head. Rosaline was lost in her wanting and waiting for a regular of which she had so many.

Rosaline was 59 and had become a lovely bride out of curiosity and waste.

Gawd she was stunning!

Josephine almost gasped the first time she laid eyes on her.

She’d come rolling up in a ’63 Coupe De Ville. White and clean, thick whitewalls, amen.

She had jet black hair coiffed just so and deep red lips a plenty.

Her skin may have thinned from the sweeping tong of the big tick tock but that made it vampire transparent and that lady kept it an unholy pale. Another amen, brothers and sisters.

Her figure was the va va voom and then some. Round hips, rounder tits, small waist and the legs of a stallion. Whinney stomp.

Snort and rear up my friends, the woman’s burden was lifetime sex appeal! No other way to put it.

Because she didn’t fear Miss King she had enough room in any room to like her.

She liked her in the paying room, the playing room and the saying room.

She liked her in the eating room, the sleeping room, and the keeping room.

She made good on all her checks, thought Rosaline.

Now this amazing sigh held a lot of longing. It sank heavy into the air.

They were missing something awful bad: the art of the taking.....

49: The Art of the Taking, Part Two

This longing always made Josephine think about that song by the Raspberries, the one that really had the 1970’s ladies in an uproar.

It had a girl pleading, "please, go all the way...it feels so right being with you here tonight".

Josephine made up her mind that the girl begging for the taking in the song begged in her head. ’Cause that’s how it should be when this is all going on.

The Art of The Taking must be met with the proper Art of the Receiving.

While the soft kisses get deeper, the memorizing of each others sculpture is revealed and the warmth that burns in the best way, when that starts to get to you and he’s not giving in, well, damn it,

you beg in your head.

Do it, take me, please, just fucking do it and other way dirtier stuff. You want him in you in the worst way which is you know, the worst way...in the best way. You follow.

You want him to make the big move as he holds back 1, 3, 7 minutes more and you’re dying now, that’s for sure!

Please, go all the way. You never mouth it. God forbid YOU TAKE it from him, heavens no!

It must be his idea.

And he knows what a tease he is..he’s got to hear your head screams.

Please, go all the way.. Please.

It’s so loud you’re bottles are breaking, your beads are bursting!

Sigh. Sigh again.

The door rings the 4 notes of the C Major 7 chord, plucked from C to B, Josephine’s favorite and Rosaline’s

call to arms.

Her client’s here, a real Daddy-O he is.

She gives his sideburned cheek a sweep of her lips and smooths his pomp a bit. He’s so ready, she’s so willing tonight.

With a nod, Josephine sees her off and takes to her empty bed with the echoes of "Please, go all the way"...

50: Animal Man, Josephine Momma

Impatience is dangerous. Not being able to wait...

Wanting to lay down as far away from the gaping tear of a highway that goes through the desert hills there.

Stupid huge truck climbing up her rear on this, her desert highway, not good.
First thought: Is it anybody she might know?

Second thought: Bet you can guess. Who waits for you, Mr. Too Big Pickup?

The hair’s on her neck still laid flat.

Just another asshole.

He kept sneaking up the Lincoln’s tail trying to start a contest or something. Her babies were in this Continental and there’s no way this playful danger was going to come near them.

She was exploding inside. This kind of thing always seemed to shake that volcano mad loose. She hated this guy instantly. Hated.

Visions of a quick gun just shooting. Shooting straight at him and then the visions get more cruel, shooting slowly, showing the metal first. Smiling.

Stop it. He’ll pass us in a second.

Nope, he didn’t. Wasn’t planning on it at all.

He got next to her, looked the Continental up and down. Yeah, that’s right, a ’64, ya doof.

Now go.

He wouldn’t. Isn’t it fun to play with me, he thought. She knew he was feeling ever so cute now.

This made the temper lava ooze over the edges of reason.

God damn it.

Babies. My baby boys, my princes,

she thought.

He wove before and after her drive, he slowed and sped in all the wrong places.

This just wasn’t funny anymore.

There’s no one maneuver that would halt this, nothing she had in her pocket or skull. There was only quick white safety for her boys and she was determined to stay on this track until she saw the bright of it.

He was drinking. Oh, of course he was! Beer, cheap, cheap, cheap.

What was he saving that shiny dime for? A set of steel sacked nuts to hang off the tow ball there?

I bet he was.

Thunder in her, the boys playing to themselves, strapped to the old, fine leather.

Then a lovely thing occured.

He sped past, looking and laughing over his shoulder.

He was in front of her, two cars length maybe?

He was ahead, he thought. He turned back to gloat through the cab window.

Josephine saw him heading for the edge. She saw him overcorrecting that big dumb vehicle.

She watched it roll, so quiet since the windows were rolled up.

She watched it go over once, twice, land upside down.

Now that’s a shame.

What a wave of happiness! Such delight she hadn’t felt in a long time, such satisfaction!

She pulled to the side far enough away.

She ordered the boys to stay put and they would.

Her boot hit the dust like it always did, with caution and conviction.

She bowed to see underneath.

She saw some blood and then some movement.

She was smiling. She couldn’t help it.

She smiled, bowing to the side, head cocked, stooping down to the overturned truck and shaky, bloody driver.

He was in some sort of shock. His arm was gone. Hmmm, imagine that.

Wonder where it landed.

She looked to the left where everything else had flown out.

She saw it, there it was.

Hanging off a tumbleweed with, what?!

The beer can still clenched in it’s homeless fist!

She couldn’t help it, she laughed and slapped a knee!

He stumbled just outside of the heap.

He fell.

She supposed he would’ve reached out to her if he could but you know, the one arm was over there and the one he had left was indeed busted beyond repair.

His legs looked like stringy, jean meat.

He told her to fucking get some help, bitch.

He said it loud but through his rotten teeth.

He actually had the nerve and energy.

She started to seethe again.

He started the death shaking thing.

He was bleeding out.

Animal.

Poor thing.

She walked over, he layed at her feet.

He shook out the rest of the blood from his veins but he still had breath.

Poor, stinking animal.

He spat another cuss at her.

She cocked her head. The boys couldn’t see the details from there.

And he couldn’t see the boot heel as it layed heavy on his neck.

All you had to do was stop.

You couldn’t stop, she said.

Shakey shake and shake again.

It vibrated a bit up her leg as she watched her boys getting curious.

The shuttering stopped.

Poor animal.

They never know when to stop.

That’s what separates them from humans, she supposed.

She let the walk in the dust back to the Lincoln take the red off her soles.

The bright of the safe white was warm and nice now.