No More Baloney, You Mongrel Dog

By Allen Taylor

My wife likes it when I beg.

She cuts her baloney up into small strips and dangles them in my face.

“Speak!” she commands. “Rollover. Beg.”

I always do as she commands. She loves me on all fours.

When the neighbors come over to play pinochle or gin rummy on Friday nights, she forces me to shake hands. When I do as she commands she rewards me with cheese and baloney, which she dangles in the air and expects me to jump for. I always do.

The neighbors are in awe of our tricks. I can speak, beg, rollover, shake, and jump clothed or unclothed. It's always an exciting evening, especially if I do such things before we play cards. We then have something to talk about as we drink cherry marmalades and outbid each other.

One night, right in the middle of our pinochle game, I disrobed and crawled under the table. Everyone waited in anticipation to see what neat little trick I might perform. I jammed my snout into my wife's crotch and she rubbed my ears. The neighbors laughed and fed me potato chips under the table.

I figured if the neighbors enjoyed watching they might enjoy participating all the more. So I snarled and sunk my face into Rhonda Hurley's crotch. Her panties were wet and there was a hole in her stockings. Her skirt was much too short and I didn't like the smell. She squealed and yelled, “No, you dirty dog!” I thought she was asking for more and did it again.

It hurt when my wife kicked me. She jabbed her heel into my rib and screamed, “I told you not the neighbors!”

She had. I didn't believe her.

I turned and crotch-rushed Adam, Rhonda's overly large husband. He could have been a linebacker. His fly was open. I seized the moment. What else could I do? His penis looked like a slab of baloney.

Adam rose from the table with a thunderous yell. Cards flew everywhere. The table busted in two. Rhonda fell backwards on her fat ass and broke the wooden chair she occupied. My wife beat me over the head with a kielbasa and then spanked my bare ass with it. I thought it was a game. Imagine my surprise – and Adam's as well – when a loud “snap!” resulted in my mouth being gorged by a large piece of meat. Adam's penis.

My wife shoved the kielbasa up my ass. “I told you no fucking with the neighbors! No fucking with my friends! No.” Kielbasa “fucking” deeper “with” into “the” my “company” ass.

My wife means business. She metes out discipline with unprincipled joy. And unbounding love. She towered over me in the vastness of our living room, me with a 15-inch kielbasa dangling from my rear and a 12-inch dick slapping my cheeks as I shook my head from side to side seeking the understanding of a beast, and Rhonda lay sobbing at my side like some smarmy schoolgirl with mud on her dress. Neither I nor Adam slept that night and my wife promised me no more baloney.

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BIO: Allen Taylor is a published poet and fiction writer. He's also been to war, but he doesn't brag about it. You can read his poems that somewhat depict the horror and comedy of it all at http://rumsfeldssandbox.com. He is webmaster at http://www.world-class-poetry.com and he can be found at various places on the Web, including a run-down cyber shack.

Ploppelganger

By Danger Slater

This is not my shit.

Sure, it looks like my shit. It’s got the same color and a similar gradient. And it came out of my ass, all right. I’m not arguing that.

But this is not my shit. It’s an imposter.

*

“It certainly smells like yours,” says my wife, whom I have called into the bathroom.

“Very funny,” I say. “Joke all you want, but do you know what this means?”

“You need more fiber?”

“When someone sees their own doppelganger, it’s an omen. A bad omen.”

“Honey,” she says, “this isn’t your doppelganger. It’s a pile of shit.”

“IT’S SOMEONE ELSE’S SHIT COMING OUT OF MY BODY! IT JUST LOOKS LIKE MINE!”

“What you’re saying is impossible. You can’t shit someone else’s shit.”

“LOOK AT IT!”

“God, Steve,” she turns to the door. “It’s disgusting. No.”

I want to grab her. I want to hold her there and force her to look in the bowl. To make her see. To make her realize. But it’s no use.

So I let her go.

*

“So you’re saying your doppelganger shit in your toilet?” Eddie says.

“No. How many times do I have to go over this? My shit’s doppelganger came out of my ass.”

“Is that even a thing?” asks Rex.

“Apparently,” Eddie goes. They’re both laughing at me.

I’m getting frustrated now. “Look, I didn’t bring it up so you guys could make fun of me.”

“Oh relax. We’re just playing,” says Eddie. “Here, I’ll get the next round. Waitress…”

A young redhead steps up to the table.

“Can I get another beer, and – Steve, what are you having?”

“Whiskey.”

“And a whiskey?”

The redhead snaps her gum and turns away.

“Oh wait, miss…” Eddie calls after her.

She stops.

“Could you make his a double?”

Rex nearly spits up from laughing so hard.

“Fucking hilarious,” I growl, getting up.

“Oh c’mon, man. Don’t leave,” Eddie says, still giggling.

“I’ve gotta take a piss, if that’s all right with you.”

“By all means,” says Eddie.

“Just let us know if you got an extra dick down there or something,” Rex adds.

I’ve never really noticed it before, but my friends are kind of douchebags.

*

BRAVES LOSE TO MARLINS.

That’s what the newspaper article taped above the urinal is headlined. I’m reading it. Pissing. Kind of rocking on my feet a bit. I guess I’m a little drunk. Oh well. It’s been a weird day, and like Eddie said, I need to relax.

A guy pushes his way through the swinging door and steps up to the urinal next to me. He unbuttons his jacket, throws his tie over his shoulder and unzips his fly. The sound of water splattering against porcelain, and a massive sigh of relief. “Oh thank God,” he goes.

I keep my eyes straight ahead. Staring at that article. But I know he’s looking at me. I can feel it. Like hot knives his gaze burns into the side of my head.

“Did you ever have to go so bad that you can hardly take it?” he finally says.

“Huh? Oh…um…no.”

“Sometimes I can’t even believe my body can hold all that pee. I wonder where it’s all coming from. How is it possible? But then I realize how complex the human body is. There’s a lot going on underneath our skin. Things we’ll never understand. There could be whole cities, whole civilizations, whole universes living inside us.”

I don’t respond.

He lets out a satisfied moan as he drips dry. He then zips up his pants and washes his hands. I’m still standing at the urinal, facing the wall, even though I’m done.

“Just hang in there, Steve,” the mysterious stranger says.

A wave of terror shoots up my spine and I almost squish my own dick right there in my hands. How did he know my name?

Slowly I turn and face the man. He’s wearing a pair of black-framed glasses and he has a thick, bushy moustache; he’s got a conspicuous mole on his cheek and his hair is all slicked back. But still, his identity is unmistakable.

He is me.

I try and talk but no words come out. I’m in shock. Other Steve just smiles.

“Like I said, there are things we’ll never understand. But that’s okay. It’s these kind of things that keep us from drowning. Otherwise it’d just be the same-old shit, day after day. And that’s no way to live. Aren’t I right, buddy?”

I feel a knot forming in my gut. Something terrible, twisting inside me. Working its way through my intestines like a sandpaper snake. Oh man. This is going to be one for the record books. I look to the toilet stall, then back to Other Steve.

He winks and nods okay.

“Thank you,” is all I can manage to say before I disappear behind the partition and noisily proceed to shit my brains out.

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BIO: Danger_Slater is the world's most flammable writer! He enjoys long walks on beached whales and candlelit babies! He writes with a lot of exclamation points! His short fiction can be found in various anthologies and on the internets and debut novel is called LOVE ME, which it's available through the Jersey Devil Press! For links to his work and all things dangerous. visit his website: www.dangerslater.blogspot.com

Incident At Klown Burger

By Douglas Hackle

Waldo finished overloading the plastic food tray with grease burgers, burnt fries, and paper cups filled with flat, syrupy cola. Like every other Klown Burger employee, he was dressed as a clown: greasepaint, rainbow afro wig, oversized polka-dotted bowtie, baggy pants, suspenders, big floppy shoes—the whole nine.

“Take that to table seven, boy,” his dweeby-looking manager ordered, arms akimbo, watching and waiting for Waldo to make the tiniest mistake.

As if Waldo needed to be reminded where to take the order. Table seven was where his ex-wife Eileen, his three kids, and Eileen’s new husband were sitting. It was their favorite table.

They came into Klown Burger to eat and make fun of him two or three times a day.

Waldo had lost custody of the kids, was denied visitation rights too. Eileen had told the judge that Waldo was verbally, physically, and sexually abusive to her and the children, a crack head and an alcoholic to boot. All lies. Waldo had never been anything but a hard-working, loving father and a devoted husband. He hadn’t taken a drink since college and certainly had never smoked crack. He damn sure had never touched a hair on those kids’ heads or had ever spoken an unkind word to them.

Sure, he’d lost his job as a financial analyst at Morgenstern & Cruthers, but that wasn’t his fault. Rather, the firm’s president promoted his eldest son, Rick Morgenstern, to VP. And the very first thing Rick did as VP was fire Waldo. For no legitimate reason. Rick also happened to be Eileen’s new beau. Prior to their split, Eileen had been cheating on Waldo with Rick for the better part of a year, a fact they were fond of reminding him whenever they dined at Klown Burger.

The economy was still shit.

Waldo had a hefty child support check to write out every month.

And Klown Burger was the only place hiring. In the world. Literally.

“Make sure you’re smiling, boy,” his manager said as Waldo slogged by bearing the overflowing tray.

“Yes, sir.”

All Klown Burger employees had big blood-red smiles painted on their faces, but they were also required to smile for real, creating smiles within smiles. Not smiling for real could get you written up, fired even. All Klown Burger employees were also forbidden to take their clown gear off—ever. Even when they were off the clock. Video cameras were installed at their homes to enforce the policy, even in their bathrooms.

As Waldo approached the table, Rick was the first to point and laugh at their favorite lanky Klown Burger clown. The brawny senior executive was wearing a custom-printed muscle shirt, the front of which showed two side-by-side pictures: one of Waldo’s tiny penis (a pic Eileen had likely snapped sometime before the divorce while Waldo was asleep in bed), the other a shot of Rick’s ridiculous cucumber cock. The captions “Waldo’s dick” and “Rick’s dick” were printed below each respective full-color image.

Eileen joined Rick in the laughter. (The woman was so enamored of her new husband’s ridiculous cucumber cock that she had recently gotten a life-sized tattoo of it on her neck and face; the swollen helmet of the tattooed penis was positioned suggestively at the corner of her mouth.)

Waldo’s two oldest children—Ashley (seven) and Toby (just turned ten)—were next to join in the chorus of scornful laughter. Without reason or cause, they hated their real daddy just as much as Eileen did. The only person at the table who did not hate him was Baby Josh. Whenever Baby Josh smiled up at Waldo in his clown costume, the smile was all beautiful, untainted innocence. Even now from his highchair, Baby Josh looked up and smiled at the funny clown that was his real daddy.

How Waldo longed to hold him—it had been over three months. He wondered if his baby boy even remembered who he was.

“Oh, Waldo,” Rick said, suppressing his hearty laughter for a second. “We’re gonna need your child support check two weeks early this month. Got that, fuckface?”

“Yes, sir,” Waldo replied wimpily, careful to show respect; his hawk-eyed manager was still watching from the counter.

Waldo gingerly placed the food tray on the table. “Would you like any ketchup today, folks?” he mumbled morosely.

“I hate you, Daddy,” Ashley giggled in reply.

“Me too,” Toby said getting up from his seat, brandishing the wood baseball bat he’d been concealing under the table.

Before Waldo had a chance to react, his son cracked him on the side of the head with the bat. Everyone laughed as the clown toppled over, smacked the grimy floor. And not just Waldo’s ex-family—every grease-dripping mouth in the dining area burst into shrieking laughter too.

Waldo defensively cradled his head in his arms, curled into fetal position as Toby mercilessly brought the bat down on his father’s knee, his hip, his ribcage. With each strike, the mad laughter of the dining room crescendoed. Eileen, Rick, and Ashley sprang from their chairs to assist Toby, began stomping the fallen clown with their heels. Other joined in as well—a veritable mob of grease-fed children and parents. Even the manager, armed with a broomstick, jumped into the fray.

Someone must have called the cops, because two boys in blue soon burst through the glass doors, batons drawn, badges glinting.

“Hey, what’s going on here?” one officer shouted as the pair marched toward the mob.

“Look!” said the other. “See that guy they’re beatin’ up on? He’s that fuckin’ clownfag!”

“Yeah, you’re right!” the first cop concurred, a goofy smile plastered to his fat face.

The cops joined in too, ruthlessly clubbing Waldo with their batons.

The beating and lunatic laughter went on for hours. It went on until there was nothing left of Waldo but a pile of blood, guts, bones, shit, and the tears of a clown.

Not sure what happened next.

It doesn’t matter.

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Bio: Douglas Hackle writes fictions that are bizarre, darkly humorous, horrific, veiny, vainglorious, stupid or some combination thereof. His stories have [vein poppet] appeared in several online and print publications. Douglas resides in Northeast Ohio with his wife and little boy, and he’s not exactly sure how that blasted vein poppet be gettin' all up in his bio n' shit.

Visit him at: http://douglashackle.wordpress.com/

48 reasons NOT to work at a Home Depot

By Devlin De La Chapa

He was a self-proclaimed (1)Do-It-Yourself killer. He killed the mother. Chopped up the father. Hung the son. Pissed on the dog. Stepped on the cat. Cut fresh (2)flowers from the (3)garden and arranged them in a vase in the living daughter’s (4)kitchen on top of the (5)island butcher’s block next to the brain mattered (6)stained machete. The daughter squirmed beneath his firm grasp on her throat and pelvis. She was the reason why he was there in this (7)dreadful place of (8)Home Depot memorabilia from previous Do-It-Yourself (9)Workshops. He swore he saw (10)Homer running behind the (11)fridge after Barbie and Ken with (12)paint brushes and (13)utility knives because Homer caught them fornicating in his (14)orange apron pockets and beneath his (15)orange painters hat. He could smell Ken’s (16)plastic melted cum sticking to his bald head as Barbie begged from somewhere within the (17)nuts and (18)bolts department to have her hard plastic breasts (19)buffed and (20)sanded and (21)sprayed by instant gold tanning (22)products real women would kill for in a Walgreens drug store if it promised a date with look-alike-Kens. Barbie was lucky. “Ken is a fag!” the killer once told his sister when he was a little boy dressed like GI Joe chasing little girls in pink (23)floral dresses chopping off pigtails while droplets of blood wept on those pretty blossoming flowers then shooting at boys who dared to steal his glory as the globe-trotting-pigtail-chopping-military-man. The daughter squirmed a second time. She had gold hair. A ponytail instead of pigtails. As he originally thought she had in the (24)makeshift park on the jungle Jim on the swings on the Rocket that went sky high from a kid’s eye. “A kid’s eye” the killer thought slipping his (25)calloused hands over the daughter’s face. (26)Mashing her skull he then thought of mashed potatoes at the Golden Corral on 75^th Avenue where the majority of diners were illegals, aliens disguised as Americans sloughing over the endless buffet because they had green cards that permitted them to. The killer thought “Since when did America succumb to these atrocities particularly (27)signs translated from English to Spanish?” And he went on to ponder on why there wasn’t any signs translating on how to get back to the alien river mother-fucking-ships yet there were signs on how to eat at a buffet: Please use a (28)clean plate when visiting the buffet. Por favor a usar un limpio plato cuando visitando el bufete cada vez. Mashed potatoes? The killer’s stomach growled picking up the machete finishing off the daughter on the kitchen’s butcher block obviously (29)made by the (30)Homersapians of (31)Home Depot. The head rolled and landed in the stepped on cat’s (32)litter box. The dog whimpered. One of the (33)roses wilted in the waterless vase. Homer chased after Ken who chased after Barbie. The killer was going insane with maddening hunger. “This was supposed to be an easy fucking (34) job!” The killer bitched. He then spat on Homer as he rushed passed him. “What?” Homer sounded (35)orangey offended rubbing the slime smell of ingested (36)lead and tobacco (37)wood from his bald head “This is your fucking fault!” The killer rampaged. “Turning me into a fucking (38)carpenter. A (39)gardener. A baby-sitter!” The killer scooped up Homer and Ken and Barbie and shoved them into his (40)tool bag and zipped the zipper shut. There was muffling. Barbie squealing. Homer (41)screwing Ken in his ass as usual. The killer grunted. He detested killing on an empty stomach. It fucked with his (42)lunch hour. “So how’d it go. . .at the Johnson (43)residence with their newly (44)installed butcher’s block?” a freckled face albino toon in his late teens with gold bling on one front tooth probed. The killer snuck-a-peek at manchild’s hands only to find they were grotesquely big and hairy (45)green, the obvious signs of good times raped and wasted on palm (46)Rosie and her five little (47)friends. He made a mental note to take manchild up on his previous offer of (48)retiling his bedroom. “Well, they were so ecstatic the woman just about had herself a heart attack. The man just about fell to pieces. Their son almost tripped over his shoelaces and just about hung himself. And the daughter. . .well, she just about lost her head! Those Do-It-Yourself projects can be a real killer, know what I mean?”

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BIO: DEVLIN DE LA CHAPA has been featured in Mademoiselle, Fangoria, Bloodlines, Orion Headless, The Camel Saloon, BoySlut, The Rainbow Rose, Catfishgringoriver, PostCard Shorts, The Carnage Conservatory, Black-Listed Magazine, Let’s Fuck Later, Dead Snakes, and is scheduled to appear in Horror Sleaze Trash, Daily Love, Weirdyear, Drunken Absurdity, Raven Images, Catapult To Mars and Short Fast and Deadly. She was recently awarded Editors Choice at The Camel Saloon. Devlin edits at http://boyslut.wordpress.com and lives in downtown Phoenix, Arizona.