Your space reflects whatever goes on within It betrays you, it baits you and it says From all these overturned items Flung and fallen, frayed and forgotten You will find creative conductors The other world looking out with faces Only you see. Somehow here You discover daring and dumbfounded Divinity as you drag dirty socks Spread eagle magazines to respective piles A half dozen dog eared books Doodles, lost keys, somebody’s number Scribbled on a scrap Tattered old photos Rotting yogurt, a dead plant , mouse traps Your favorite blue jeans in distress A single shoe, a legal pad full of your own writing Which you can’t read unless beyond sober You tell people you know where everything is Which is true because it is all on the floor Occasionally under and in your unmade bed Mouse droppings, angry unsent letters, Circulars, unpaid bills, threats from the IRS A dagger, open tubes of paint stuck in shag carpet Your ID, a to do list from another life Still not finished or even started Roaches, dead lighters, A jar of vaseline , a broken Buddha Your grandmother’s rosary Stiff Kleenex , a dog whistle, dead batteries A burnt out sex toy Stained painted shit , Even an invitation to someone’s wedding They’ve already divorced you think Twinkie wrappers, bits of broken plastic Smooth pebbles wrapped in a page of hieroglyphics Some kind of spell, a few wired gizmos Mementos, momentous mint tins adorned With sugar skulls or played out memes Dead roses, a long lost BIC lighter Ticket stubs, wisdom teeth, coins from other countries You have never been to, a blank video case Recipes for beet soup and sour dough bread You still plan to make, so many things that make no sense Until you’ve sorted them and assigned them to a drawer A box, the waste basket or a more immediate spot For no particular reason.

You wrestle with lawless disorder feeling a little deranged , vexed Because you let things get so beyond messy The voices of critics wonder How do you live like this? You no longer try to explain You shrug instead and ignore them You’ve never met a tidy genius Iconoclasts are not anal retentive Order is artless Not what you’re after And you know this now Deconstructing the rubble Left in the wake impulses And inspiration that takes hold every time You remember things fall apart Rough beasts slouch Back and forth to Bethlehem While you avoid Bedlam By singing Bedbugs and Ballyhoo Wooing a new opus

They kill the messenger. That’s a stone cold fact. I didn’t ask to carry it Nor did I have anything To do with the bad news I’m delivering, what’s more Good News is never rewarded

Not even a bloody thank you. The pay is lousy , no benefits I pause to ruminate and rest on a rock Realizing no one will look for me If I never show up or go back Nobody cares if the messenger is lost, We are expendable and Only fools are dependable So I’m going languish awhile Figure out survival Maybe it will all blow over If I burn the declaration That one kingdom sent To the other declaring war For no good reason . I refuse to be it’s first casualty

Little Grimm fell under his brothers’ influence before he could speak; by five this blue eyed lad outdid the older boys, driving poor mother to madness with wild tales. At first all were amused his animated antics . He had a way of telling tall tales,that made you almost believe they were the god’s honest truth as he insisted. Such a wee child weaving grotesque fairy tales was was disturbing . Mother wondered if the boy was possessed, given the vocabulary and such morbid ideas. While all her sons were fond of telling strange stories with supernatural creatures, their evil witches and monsters were conquered, the princess was spared, everyone lived happily ever after. Little brothers were vivid and scary. Adding details about swallowing flies and sliding head first into cow pies was just boys being boys. His stories gave the others nightmares. Father encouraged the boys, telling them it was good as long as they did chores and studied. “They’re good boys, love,” he’d reassure his wife, who was one of six sisters in a strictly religious home with a sour father.

It was Grandpa Finley who began the official controversy about Baby Grimm, but defending him was made impossible boy himself made. It was as if he delighted in taking things further when warned to rein them in.

He was an oddity, taking lonely walks at dawn and before dusk without fail. He rateky spoke of what he did or where he went but it wasn’t uncommon for the family to sit down to supper and find themselves listening to the boys beguiling misadventures, which were lush with details and compelling beauty. At first first adorned with flowers and towering trees then suddenly violent, they couldn’t help but listen. On his 5th Christmas, the boy hopped into his grandfathers lap, telling him and about what happened on his walk. “You ever notice how the sky has a magical light before the sun sets? When I see it, I feel lovely, immortal. Afterwards, I know it’s time for supper; it is my favorite time of the day. Today, I met a little green man, sitting on a rock, eyes closed , a sweet smile in his face. I crept closer to study his nose. His funny cap hid his queer ears. “ His mother forced a smile but shot her son a stern look as she passed. Her father was already wearing a bitter expression. “Then the green man opened his eyes, and seeing me gave him a start. I laughed till I hurt. . “That’s impolite,” he scolded. I told him little boys aren’t supposed to be polite. We’re made of snails, boogers, frogs and farts.” You know what he told me? ‘That’s a curse. You’re a warlock!’ I didn’t know how to take that. What do you think papa? “ the child’s hand touched his grandfather’s face. “I think you’re spoiled,” the old man pushed his grandson off, grumbling as he stormed into the other room. “He ruined it” he cried ; his brothers beseeched him to tell the rest. This touched mother, who was ashamed she let her father worry her so. What is life if it has no whimsy? Listening,she worked on roasted vegetables, scones. Roasted Goose wafted through the house, Grandma diligently rolling dough for cookies. She was easier to contend with now that she was deaf. Even she was much happier now. Baby Grimm had a golden voice, intuitively grasping lyric, he was hypnotic.His brothers eager for every word. Father came in, his arms heavy with wood for the fire. He poked embers, warmed himself, and fell under his son’s spell,giggling as Baby Grimm wins a battle of wits with his green man. In a cranky voice the child spoke the little green man’s part. “You ghastly boy, imagination will get you in trouble. No can love you.” “Hey,” The eldest Grimm soon exclaimed, “That little green man sounds like grandpa.” The other sons agreed, “it sure does.” Father arched an eye brow. “No,” the boy protested, “it’s the little green man I met on my walk this evening.” “Son, it’s one thing to make up stories but iquite another to lie, worse yet to mock your elders.” “I’m tnot ! See, he’s an elf, a fugitive as well. Santa Clause is not nice he says.the poor thing had callouses worse than father’s and he was so skinny you nearly see right through him. Theres chains around his wrists . Santa chains to a pipe iin a basement. They sleep on straw . There’s rats. Santa whips them. “ “That’s a lie,” his brothers protested. Grandfather burst in angry as Mother rushed in for the kitchen. “That’s not a nice thing to say about Santa.” . “I didn’t say it. The elf did, but I believe him.” “See?” The grandfather relished this,”You let these whippersnappers libe out fantasy like Santa Clause and they become disrespectful, dishonest and disturbed.” “Santa is real,” the middle boy stubbornly insisted as the other pouted. “Supper is almost ready,” said Mother diplomatically. “You boys wash up.” Just as Grandfather was about to lecture Mother and Father, there was a timid knock upon the door. Mother wiped her hands on her apron and went to see who it was, too grateful to complain. A shriek brought her husband, father then her sons to the entrance. She was crimson faced and apologetic to the visitor. Her youngest son slipped past the others and grinned. “There you are,” he greeted a small green creature and pulled him towards the fire. “I’m chilled to the bone.” The elf sniffed, “and hungry. My it smells delicious.” “I told you,” the youngest Grimm said, sneaking a glance at his family. All, but Grandfather were wearing womderous expressions. This was not just a Merry Christmas, it was a story they’d share forever.

Ava Gentry considered workshops and readings, contests and exercises as well as writing prompts beneath her. She was after all, a professional writer despite her lack of any notable success. She’d earned a BA and two masters degrees in literature and writing programs, the creative writing program being very competitive. She had beaten out thousands and been accepted with the department chair waving her out of state tuition and making sure she had copies of her the novels she would need for the course. By the end of this coursework she was given the teaching assistantship and won scholarships and fellowships others coveted. When she read with the class, she seemed to stand out. No one was more aggressively sought out for publication in the literary journals that featured poets of an earnest bent. Notably, Ava had lined her bathroom with rejection letters from more academic publications, which found her carnality and illicit topics beneath them. Some of the working class, transgressive hipster had started out as dismissive because she was in the program and already over educated, so Ava began omitting details about her her degrees and emphasized her experience as a barmaid, a loose woman and an occasional victim of social injustice. When this made won he’d favor among the editors who resented academia after the academics declared her too corporal and candid, Ava decided it was all a bunch of bullshit and lost interest in being published . “There’s nothing in it for me.” She and a Mexican grad student who wrote about dog fights in the Barrio and teaching hard core high school kids in East L.A. Taco—a nickname the young poet was known by and only Ava had bothered to question—nodded as he leaned into his beer. He’d never met anyone like Ava before. She was as marginalized as any Mexican or brother, even appeared to look like a blend of the two with Jewess and Gypsy thrown in. In a way she unnerved him because he had never imagined there was anyone more oppressed and under appreciated than himself and those like him. “You’re the best poet in the class,” he said sadly. “I know,” she confessed, not so much with pride but with a dismal understanding that this was a curse. Hearing her own self-pity, she smacked at him and added, “You know I hate superlatives. I mean it’s all about what you like when you talk poetry and art in general. I think you, me, Sam and JD are the stand outs. Sam has that sense of humor and self awareness that gives him an in no matter where he submits. JD is so tight and in control, beautiful command of words. You don’t think any of that is going to come out of a guy from Texas.” Taco chuckled. He had hated JD that first night in the workshop. Taco was pissed off when JD quietly and adeptly ticked off a few reasons why the poem he’d submitted to the professor for the first round was weak. Like they all would do except Ava, who was too honest to offer consolation if the work was without distinction, JD pointed out elements of the poem was worth reworking. Had Ava not followed JD to echo those sentiments and offer simple changes to fix the draft, Taco would have tossed the poem and held a grudge against JD indefinitely. “Well?” Taco wanted to know, “why do I make the grade?” She sighed. “You know why. You and I know why we are that’s List sand so do Sam and JD. It’s unseemly to seek out flattery unless you’re an honorable mention or less.” “You are brutalist!” “Thanks. Everyone else thinks I’m a bitch.” “Bitches are a dime a dozen,” Taco swallowed the last gulp of his draft. “You better get your ass on home. You may have an assignment in south central tomorrow.” “You read my mind, amiga.” He was slipping on his battered jean jacket and cradling the motor cycle helmet as he tosses a crumbled five onto the bar. “Thanks for indulging me. I needed to vent,” she slid off the chair and followed him out to the parking lot where they had said their good nights. This was the last time she really spoke to Taco or anyone else in the program except Doc. Doc was their professor, the grand poobah of the MFA program, though he wasn’t an especially gifted poet. No one appreciated poetry more than he did and few had such an easy going demeanor and could boast the level of excellence he achieved with his students: within the university, he was held in contempt by the liberal academics because the feminists despised him, called him a chauvinist.

He was probably was a chauvinist and when he hit in her, which he did years after she graduated and he retired, Ava felt profoundly sad and full of self doubt. She always wondered if his desire to fuck her was why she was welcomed into that program, which did very little for her professionally as the PhDs and department chairs doling out underpaid part time positions at two year schools always made a point of telling her an MFA meant nothing. “It’s a good thing you did that MA and held the TA too.”

Working for less than migrant worker and scrambling from one college to another to make her nut was easy for awhile, even when she was tutoring Chinese kids for $15 an hour, writing papers for rich illiterate coeds and tending bar on the boulevard near her rent controlled hovel. Somehow she managed to keep writing. In fact her cloud and devices were full of unfinished novella, poetry collections she illustrated beautifully, all kinds of articles she referred to as rants as well as some roundly rejected short stories about her rough first third. A fan of Neal Cassidy, whose claim to fame was inspiring the beat movement with Jack, Ava Gentry divided life into thirds. She was embarking on the her final third when she got her first bout of writers block. Like Taco , she had surrendered to the lure of the school district and its benefits, which she ended up loving so much she was willing to put aside her liters ambitions. The fact that she wrote and never submitted suggested she’d done this ages ago. Yet the way her students lives and voices occupied her mind when she wasn’t among them, made her scribble and type more frantically than ever before. The school district would push her out ten years into her unlikely career as a high school teacher in the hood, making up something about her punching another teacher in a faculty meeting. Her colleagues wrote letters saying this never happened and the hearing at the district headquarters was a farce, with the union rep ready to throw her under the bus as her accused, a notoriously unfit teacher in every sense smirked at the judge and lied through her teeth. When the judge winked at her after the tribunal, Ava was sure she would prevail. But weeks later a judgement was rendered in language that was decidedly unlike any legal document she’d ever read before. She eventually resigned, believing she’d now write at last and become who and what she wanted to be since the first third’s early stages. Being a fired teacher with tenure made any future work as a teacher impossible and at that point she was aware of too much to stay on without becoming complicit in the gruesome crimes of public education. The pension was enough to cover rent and utilities, and Ava got work here and there doing this and that. She shamelessly accepted food stamps, deferred to public transportation and allowed some sugar daddies to enjoy the joy of her company, no more than that, and she made ends meet.

Everything was set up so she could finally flourish, and suddenly Ava found herself beset by writers block. It was even worst than that though as she could’ve returned to any one of a thousand unfinished pieces to edit I’d nothing else, but she couldn’t bring herself to open the documents much less decided the inspired scribble she left in stacks of notebooks hidden in her closet, occasionally, she ran a cross something and when her eyes fell upon it, she didn’t recognize it. She was reading because it was good, sometimes very good, but she felt it wasn’t hers. Whatever it was, it didn’t compel her to finish reading it much less dive in an work on it again. About all she write were lists of things to do and groceries got buy. She couldn’t bother to read or revise them either, she just repeatedly wrote the lists down and tossed them out when she had enough energy to find some small amount of order in her growing chaos. She wrote angry letters to people who betrayed her, which she threw out and write again only to toss them. She thought this effort would release her rage but it didn’t do anything but obsess her. Memories of Taco and the MFA program we’re ignited an unlikely and desperate remedy she happened across one day while downloading noisy games on her cell phone, which became an anecdote for the venomous letters. The app was for writers, offering prompts and little contests with small prizes to create a kind of online workshop.while she could readily imagine the losers who played bingo and solitaire all day, she couldn’t fathom the sorts who participated the online writers game. She simply assumed they couldn’t write. She proved herself right by reading the submissions, noting that the most cliched and dreadful responses to the generic prompts were by far the worst efforts of the lot . She paid for a year of the writing app because upon reading one simple writing assignment she felt a jolt of inspiration and tapped out a story far too long to be considered in the contest. She never finished it either, but was surprised to feel that jolt again when she read the latest prompt. The situation became a minor habit and every now and then she’d sit down to transcribe an exchange she shared with a neighbor or overheard on the bus. These things went nowhere, but could eventually be useful. While they didn’t fill,her with the same raw purpose as her former inspiration, the prompts begat stunning unfinished paragraphs that unraveled with sleek ease and made her remember why she was a good writer. It wasn’t just the lurid dimensions of her life in the lower caste or her extreme lexicon. It was her empathy and insight for human beings. At some point she was exploring the various sections of the app and she realized her unfinished work had posted automatically for all to read. She was again stunned when she didn’t recognize her own work but pleasantly surprised by how good it was. It didn’t sound like her at all, and she couldn’t remember writing it at all, but it gave her hope until she read the statistics. People had read the fragments which offered compelling titles but weren’t completed. She knew from experience that people rarely read the work of their peers in workshops or other situations unless they were being graded as they offered commentary of an elevated sort. To do this one had to be serious. Still, no one offered her a single annotation or explanation on why they didn’t like the work. One person had given the weakest example a positive mark, and this was all. Ava was unnerved by how little passion she felt as she read the more recent winning stories. The first place story was so badly written and predictable it could’ve been filler in Women’s Daily or a C paper in some adult school writing seminar. Like the games she wasted hours on now, her compulsive reaction was merely an aspect of her own sinking confidence. She didn’t need these half wits to tell her she was good. In fact, if they had actually praised the writing, Ava would be worried considering how poor the quality of their winning work was. Still, she kept going back for more, and the writing prompts subverted her addiction to games that she deplored. It wasn’t like anyone knew she was wasting the last third on those annoying games or the writing prompts. Ava was sequestered with her misery, rarely leaving the apartment and only vaguely communicating with people she knew or didn’t really know on social media. That too had become an addiction which she cut herself FB from cold turkey . She noticed that this was always easy, but admitted this was because she already had a new distraction in place, It was like the coke head who quit snorting low to smoke crack. When he was a full blown crack head, he found crank, which “saved his life.” He’d itemize all the reasons frank was better than crack , which cost more, drive him into desperate situations to score and was a constant need he couldn’t neglect. It was like her friends who were bad at romantic relationships. They’d have some asshole who beat them up, cheated and couldn’t find a job. They kept going back for more until something really bad went down. They’d be heartbroken but knew they couldn’t go back again. To head the urge off at the pass, they’d find a new lover only to discover her was a new version of the last. Ava reasoned that if she was guilty of the same treachery at least she aimed hers in the right direction. Sure enough, she was banging away prompt responses all day and well into the night. Unlike her many future opuses and beloved projects, the short stories were not passionate or part of her daily thinking. She didn’t even feel inclined to congratulate herself when she was writing well, which she noted she was. She was doing much better with these exercises than she was with her own ignitions, she knew this because of the way the characters took off,speaking on their behalf as the story unfolded without her interference. These prompts were predictable stuff. Write about something that happens after nuclear devastation. Tell a story where two characters who have a conflict run into each other in unlikely circumstances. Write a story about a character who is lost and meets people who cannot communicate.
She occasionally veered off into such unlikely directions she wondered if this was why no one liked her submissions. She began to study the prompts closely and when she was done deconstructing them, decided they were too broad to be so picky. Most of them conceded one merely need to include an element within the thousand words allotted. Notably, the winners tended to dwell heavily within the guidelines, which she saw as counterintuitive. Rather than drive herself into another funk, she avoided dwelling on her obvious exclusion from the winners circle. She felt obligated to read the submissions though, and some new quest began to occupy her thoughts. She wanted to know who wrote these things, good or bad. She could only take so much. A snob, maybe a con issuer, Ava had stopped reading voraciously as the years unraveled. Her eyesight was failing and her patience was contingent on the quality of the writing, she heard this book or that writer was excellent but more often than not she was disappointed. After getting her BA, she began reading student papers, had a seven foot pile of books she was supposed to read for her coursework ( but often didn’t , knowing the papers she had to write were expected to have a barrow thesis, which she figured out had to be tied into her professor’s critical bent and easily fashioned out of the sources she cited and read instead of tomes like Finegan’s Wake and Chaucer’s wor, allowing her to offer impressive contributions to the class discussions which figured heavily in the grading process since the instructors had to read so many papers, write critical papers, syllabi and academic shit just to survive the semester. Cutting corner was the only way anyone could do it all, though she took more pleasure in reading texts from the high school curriculum which allowed her to have fresh perspective thanks to the students.they actually read the books like her undergraduates . Most of the kids in sophomore Anglian were not plebe bound. She thought about how much better the kids from hoods responded to literature than the kids rom the burbs, but couldn’t quite figure it out beyond the obvious. She knew her 15 yea olds had lived much more than most of her fellow educators, but no one believed this was why they had astute insights about Holden Canfield or Atticus Finch. “It’s all the dope they smoke,” some bitter old English teacher snarked once. She considered herself the best teacher in the department but refused to read the essays she assigned in her AP classes. All the students were stoned. College kids, high school kids. Even she was stoned for fucks sake. She was pretty sure the further one went in school, the less joy they took in reading though she still devoured a great read in one sitting once in while. Reading the top contenders on the app was not like getting through Proust or a novel by Willa Cather, which was worse than a catheter she’d told a favorite Writng professor when he corrected the way she said the author of Oh Pioneers ‘ name. The way Proust goes on about the cookie, she thought as she finished a quick read of a very armature story about a woman confronting the loss of her looks. The writer of this self indulgent short story had the cavalier diction of someone ho always won.
Ava assumed she was a woman hitting middle age, maybe dumped by her husband during his midlife crisis and running around with a woman half their age. She was getting alimony and her half of the assets. Her kids were all but grown. Pretty girl problems, Ava thought. Why was her ennui more profound than the ache of loneliness felt by an out of work spinster who had been fat all her life. Was it because she had lost more even though she still had tremendously more than the fat lovelorn character? In the past, Ava would have been angry about that, especially as she realized the editors and readers who voted on the story were all entities white bitches of the same ilk. “No wonder I will never make it,” she said out loud one night as she actually finished a showy about a waitress who spend her life waiting for the three horsemen of the apocalypse. It came in at under a 1000 words with the waitress driving up to the apparition of Pestilence, Disease and War in her old truck as she flees the city. She realizes the apocalypse I may be upon her at last but the god damned horsemen are a holograph. Realizing she’s part of some cosmic joke, she leaves anyway , feeling free for the first time in her life since the nightmares began when she was a wee girl. Ava thought the character was a lot like her even a anabolic doppelgänger of sorts. The story itself was mediocre and she bet someone would read it and leave one of the rare pithy criticisms she got. “I hate when stories open up with dreams.” Or something to that effect. She got up, her knees aching as she stretched, and noticed a familiar buzzing in her ears. Her joints popped amid she she yawned so wide and so long tears spring forth in her eyes. She hit the lights and wandered to her unmade bed. When she got in, she realized she was shivering and took great pleasure in the warmth of her blankets as well as the pillow that cracked her now empty head. She was asleep before any doubts or dreams could pounce on tomorrow, which she may sleep well into , Godswilling.

We are awful short sighted creatures. We have a habitual aversion to what is inevitable. Happiness, for example, is not sustainable or constant. Sometimes we aren’t even aware we are experiencing it because people never know what they got till it’s gone. We avoid sadness, shame, dread, and all things we decide are unwanted. We fail to descend that desire is the source of all suffering even when all you want is to avoid disappointment. The only way to pull this off is to forgo any expectations. Because we need hope, we are dogged by its shadow, which is despair. If I were to say I found Beauty in the grief I felt when I lost someone I loved more than anyone or anything in this world, it may sound shady. But weeping was wonderful in its way. That I could feel that loss so profoundly gave credence to love. When I stopped crying, when he wasn’t in my daily thoughts any more, when I went on without him to love others in other ways, this was worse than pain.

Betrayed by those we love, we may fall into ugly ways. But when we realize we loved with only the joy love itself affords us, not in exchange for their love or even their compassion, we can be touched by the beauty love in and of itself becomes. Later, we may be gracious and grateful or dearest wishes were ignored. Loving is never lost even when you discover it’s a lie. Acceptance moves us beyond the pain, and is realized in the beauty of letting go.

That we can feel so deeply, is beautiful because it is not something every can bear, or fathom. Remember weeping is as vital as laughter. One without the other is a pantomime, and a lot of have neither as our souls flatline. Here’s the thing, you cannot dwell on the knife in you back, nor quit when you fall. Walk it off, your champions will say. Keep going, especially when you’re in hell. All those people who pretend they have perfect lives are the most miserable of all. .

Imagine all of us, the whole fucking world, flipping switches, fumbling for flash lights, lighting candles, cussing as we open fuse boxes, ask neighbors if there’s a another black out or Nuclear meltdown. The longer the lights are gone the angrier some are at PGE. “Bastards,” screams old ladies and rednecks. Wives demand to know what their husbands did with the money for the utility bill this time, workers languish in a dark limbo and for some generators kick on making them feel smug about the investment as the solar panels do little more than flicker. There is only so long the cell phones can stay charged and now no one can send information out about why electricity has forsaken them all. “Thank god for propane,” someone says. “And battered for flash lights.” . Horders are gratified. “See I told you those broken emergency candies and kerosine lanterns would save the day,” Grammarians will gleefully ask, “No where’s your spell check? “ Bibliophiles will mock tech freaks. “The cloud is beyond reach. But my copy of Ham on Rye is right here, with my book lights.”

After a week or two, we come to terms with it. We go on with our lives. We have a huge feast to avoid wasting food, we have a lot of bar b ques and give up on distance learning. We listen to records, use solar charges that take a day to get a full battery but there’s no texting or calling . No internet, no face book, to snap chat nothing. We can listen to music we keep and books we’ve downloaded. We can pay candy crush, photoshop, read kindle books. We can’t shop, look up trivia or find love anymore. We all go through various withdrawals. We become feral in our ways, retreating at sundown because we fear darkness. We cannot reach our friend in Spain. Our psycho ex can no longer stalk us. The banks have no idea who’s money is who’s. Money is piss. Squatter find homes and bankers discover leisure. For a long time everyone just languishes. Cleaning guns, gathering and hunting food. Looting. Reading. Fucking. Swimming, sight seeing, coloring, flying kites in a plot to capture lightening again.

The starlet was blonde. This was the word she embodied, with her big hair towering above her face like a carnal crown of spun sugar melting into the glittery, glossy colors of her heavy war paint. Her false eyelashes made her eyes droop , making her myopic curse even more debilitating as she stumbled around the suite groping for the corkscrew, as her manicured claws gripped a new bottle of something bubbly. In her pink kitten heels, her lack of balance was even more baffling because somehow her top heaviness pivoted in the pointed little slippers, which revealed painted toe nails. “Ah Geez,” she whispered breathlessly when the right foot sunk into the familiar chill of Pepe’s droppings. “Bad dog,” he pink pout repeated as the chihuahua yipped and began zipping around biting her ankles. The blurry actress kicked the poo shoe off, the shit splattering as it twirled in the air then landed upon the white love seat. Between the cushions she saw the silvery glint of the corkscrew and stepped out of the other pink furry shoe to fetch it. “Pepe, you’re a genius. I’m so thirsty.” The tiny dog yapped incessant. She opened the champagne with rare expertise and didn’t bother with a flute. She was in a hurry. She went to the wall where a large full length mirror hung majestically. “You’re a hot mess,” she consoled herself. The bikini underneath her frilly little frock was made of string which made its way into her crevices and felt intrusive. She was headed out to the swimming pool to meet producers, directors, horny agents and whoever had a part of her. Bloody heel, I need some shoes,” she knew there was Jimmy Choos, a pair of leather boots, ballet flats in the bag. “Fuck it, “ I’ll treat myself to some designer flip flops in the gift shop, “ she began to touch up her makeup. Then realized there was a shitty pink slipper on her love seat. What if someone like Quentin T wanted to come back to her room for a drink?”
She picked up the shoe, scurried to the kitchenette scooping up its mate as she went. She threw both into a plastic laundry bag and dragged a wad of paper towels back to the couch to clean up the dog shit. The brown smear wasn’t going away so she tossed a shawl over the arm and spritzed Chanel all over the room until Pepe sought cover under the table. “Serves you right,” she gloated, tipping back the bubbles and belching when she came up for air. “Air,” she said, pulling back the curtains to open the large windows then leaving the sliding door Ajar. She looked over the balcony to see the pool, which was surrounded by bikini clad rivals and slick well groomed men with high balls and low morals. “Just my type,” she said as she threw things into a wicker tote. “Sunglasses, key card, Cosmo, sun block, lip gloss, phone, diaphragm, spray bottle, towel, script..” she looked around lost, “Gift shop...” she movies easier with bar feet, which no one noticed down in the lobby. Her boobs were what no one could take their eyes off of. Worth every cent, she reminded herself, though she hadn’t paid them off yet. The gift shop was overpriced and tacky but she saw a pair of fifty dollar flip flops adorned with gory rhinestone and cursive letters that spelled out Star. She went to the counter with her new pot wear and impulsively added gum, a Godiva candy bar and tiny bottle of nail glitter, which a bored young woman rang up wordlessly. “Oh,” the blonde remembered, I need a couple packs of Virginia Slims, menthols, a big bottle of Evian and some plugs. She went around pulling the water and tampons off the shelves, distracted by big earrings and glittering phone charms. The cashier rang up the smokes, and just seemed to randomly charge the starlet for the waiter and “plugs.” Which had no prices. She bagged these things up as the girl rummaged around in the wicker tote until she found a c note, still rolled up from the blow she was hovering with some camera man and a grip the night before. She took the bag of goodies, threw it in the bag and tore the plastic tag off between the flip flops, which she dropped and slid into. The girl was ready to count back her change. “You keep it,” she told her. The cashier didn’t argue. “Thanks,” she muttered because silly little starlets were rarely so generous. Creep men had to be, which meant the lousy gig in the gift shop was lucrative. “Wish me luck,” the blonde sang as she left. Outside the LA smog and sun were brutal, but not as bad as the traffic crawling along outside on Sunset. She took the last lounger with good rays and a nice line of vision to what was going on poolside. A cabana boy with a big blinding white smile asked her if she wanted a drink. “Oooh,” she cooed, “Strawberry Daiquiri.”
“Should I start a tab, Miss?” “Good idea,” she laid back to read about mind blowing orgasms and eye liner tricks of the trade.

Barbara Gordon was in a strange state, her usual pragmatic and perky personality was in shreds like her under things. She still stung from the night before. Wallowing in afterglow, the moony brunette was in her skin tight body amour, spike heeled utility boots. In dreamy repose, she hardly heard her father,use his key to enter her little flat beneath the library. He ordered his men stay in the hall and crept to her bedroom, peering in the open door to see the formidable figure of a female in the darkness. “Barbara,” he croaked as a full moon hung over him like a halo . Barbara sat up, “Dad! Don’t come in here,” she realized there was no way out of this unless she became one with her inner bat. He kept creeping in slowly, his old tired eyes adjusting to the light. Barbara reflexively shot up and hung from the low ceiling cloaked in her cape and bat wings. “Barbara,” he wondered, “is that you?” He was aiming a high beam flash light upwards. “I recognize your perfume.” “Guano,” she hissed. “Dad, you can’t be that clueless. You’re a cop for Gotham’s sake. Who did you think Batgirl was?” “I never think about who any of you cape wearing weirdos are,” the commissioner grumbled. “I’m your little girl, dad. How could you not know me anywhere?” “How can you ask that?” Bat girl fell from the ceiling landing before him. “My daughter isn’t anything like you. She’s demure, a school girl. You’re some kind of mutant like Bruce Wayne...” “What has he got to do with this?” Her guts were churning. “Batgirl would know,” the old man shrugged. “Why would I know?” She pleaded. “It is you. Barbra, there’s no heroes and villains, don’t you get it? They’re Arkham’s awful legacy. You’re not like them. Bats, cats, clowns, penguins, poison flower girls, wise asses, orphans and mad doctors in charge of the snake Pitt.” “I don’t want to have secrets. Daddy, I want you to know I’m fighting crime. I’m in love.” “ Dear, you’re delusional. Batshit crazy as they say. You and the rest of the caped crusaders are agents of chaos, galvanizing evil in your rush to save the day, don’t you see that? We wish you bats would just stop..” “How can we with Joker and Harley Quinn menacing our fair city.” “Dear girl, you need help. You’re starting to sound like him...” “Who?” “That bat,”he shook his head. “I thought he was a hero. I thought he protected the city from the dark villainy of ...” “Of human kind, Barbara. You cannot vanquish evil much less turn Gotham into a safe place to live.” “How can you say that?” She squealed. “I’m not out of my fucking gourd, baby girl. Here I thought you had such a good head n your shoulders. What is this nonsense about being in love? Please tell me it’s not Bruce Wayne’s Ward. Or that bird brained sidekick to that psycho Batman.” “Daddy! How can you think I’d become involved with someone so utterly...” “What?” “Young.” The commissioner’s face grew red. “So let’s hear it lass. No more secrets you said.” “Batman is my lover,” she stated stridently. “He’s your what?” “My lover,” she spat, “and what about your secrets, daddy?” Manicured hands on her hips, she glared at him. “It’s pretty pathetic, lass. I basically accommodate your boyfriend’s nocturnal antics. It’s theater. Bruce Wayne is Batman, a bloody billionaire . I let him demolish buildings, beat up thugs and chase slippery fiends like the Joker. I even let him bang cat woman on the rooftops when she is in heat.” “Daddy, I know all about Selena.” “Does she know about you, Batgirl? I seriously doubt that. She’s a true blue psychopath and you’re just a mouse with wings to her.” “She’s not going to come after me, dad. Cat Woman is a booty call.” “Maybe that is what the Bat is to the cat. What I want to know is where that leaves you?” “I can take care of myself,” she argued. “Don’t you see? Joker has guys who take a beating from the boy wonder and let Bat Man drag them to me for their punishment. I send a nurse in to patch them up and give them cotton candy made with laughing gas, a purple and green town car whisks them back to the sewer where the clown rules.”