do you think we can lift this shadow

have we come 'round
have we come 'round again?
if you need a little song to help you move along
into the next 
verse or two, or three

of course we'll come 'round
we always come round again
we'll go around, we'll come back 'round again
when you need a little song to help you move along
into the next
world or two, or three
--

Marius Vega almost doesn't answer when he sees it's his cousin Brande on the caller ID. He lets it ring nine times -- once for every baseless, manipulative purpose for which the man could possibly be calling; once for each uncomfortable silence they've endured as blood bretheren, once for every poison tincture the black sheep has injected into the family tree.


Once for every horrible fate he can imagine befalling the damned alchemist at that moment, nine crises that could be averted if only he, the patriarch, would answer the phone. And the phone can't ring enough times to quantify the number of sleepless nights he'd endure in that case, and so it's this and no other reason that prompts him finally to pick up.

Aden Brande had been prepared to wait, and so it's with no particular urgency he's speaking: "Remember I asked you about that Bennett Estate?"

"You upset my mother, Brande," is all Marius says, and of course cousin knows what he's done -- Vega might as well have been saying, instead, this better be good, so they are relatives, so it is understood.

"I'm sorry," Brande replies succinctly, a little too quickly, so that Vega is too quickly silent, too quickly leaves a void for devils to wind into. Continues the hell-addled alchemist: "I acted in anger. I have had... a disruptive year, and in my mind I thought I was protecting Mercedes."

Blood is something the Vega understands, and so is anger, he doesn't hang up. Brande's Madness is something he doesn't, but he's aware of it, of course, and so this rationale is for the moment, permissible, pending. The fact that he is upset with his mother, too, will only occur to him later -- some sick late-night gut-knife about Brande, some shard of him, being right, of ventilating sickness that had accumulated in his eaves, for the better. 

"My sister is dead," says the alchemist with uncommon finality, sobriety. "I have sown a crop now I've no choice but to reap, but there are things I can accept in order to live among men."

Marius continues to listen to this. He isn't sure, maybe, exactly what the alchemist is saying, but he listens in a way that throbs, gilt-flecks in the blood, Hamlet's vengeful tincture creeping in through the ear and never so well-scented, so merciful.

"I've become involved with my patient," he says, and this is sort-of-not a lie, and Brande tells his cousin: "And she in turn is under the stewardship of a very old, very good family, and I've been invited to a party there." 

Invited to a party is a stretch, and although he doesn't know that, it's even hard for Marius to believe, and yet he says, bluntly: "Good for you." Marius, too, deals only in half-lies and not full ones, and this the cousins have in common.

"I'd like to invite you," Brande says carefully. And perhaps that precision truly is due to care, the delicate treading round a fresh wound, and maybe the regret in his tone is real. It's too complex to tell. "It's been a long time since I've..." Pause, and it's mirthless-rueful, but his cousin can imagine his wan smile, like the one he used to give when young, conflicted about a boat trip or a whorehouse trip or about anything, really. "...been a socialite," Brande concludes, wryly.

"You aren't ever going to be any kind of socialite, you fucking Brande," says Marius, clipped. "Anyone who ever knew you wants nothing to do with you now."

Perhaps the silence on the line is the alchemist, pragmatic, calculating whether this is actually true. He does want, of course, to know the location of Naomi's baby's burial site, but there are so many reasons he can't ask her. He's wondering if Marius could do it, but perhaps the Vega will interpret his cousin's silence as repentance -- even though he knows better by now, has made the mistake of assigning repentance to Brande five, six, seven times too many.

"It's true," says Brande, though who knows what he means is true. "It's a good family," he asserts. "And Shannon's going."

"What for? You seeing her?" Skeptical, and maybe Brande could say yes and sow brilliant illusions of his changed-ness -- he is seeing Shannon, if only literally; just as he is involved with Milla in ways he takes care to allow others only to imagine at. Half lies, gilded, and blood is more important to Vega than gold, so he cannot be sure.

"No," he says. "But I would like you to meet my girlfriend."

I would like you to meet my girlfriend is new enough, is different enough, to satiate.

Vega says, a little darkly: "Fine. When?"

"I'll let you know," says Brande.

"Can I bring Jill?"

Pause. Genteel Brande says: "It's up to you." What he means is it's up to her, of course, and even Vega knows this, so he might as well let him have his pride. 

Vega hangs up the phone and frowns and determines to buy Jill an expensive piece of jewelry. They're neither of them too good at going out as a couple, and truth be told, he's preparing himself to go without her. Brande can't change that much.
--

of course you've seen everyone just comes around
and comes right back again
several time frames have been ignored
we brought them back to see and hear 

and we go round our world in circles
just like you knew that we would

it's way out there somewhere not far away
do you think we can lift this shadow
do you think, do you think do you think
do you think at all?

because it's way out there somewhere
not far away
(we've been there too)

[-- circulatory system, 'the spinning continuous' (download)]

Post a comment

it's alright, it's alright, it's alright

I can't sleep when I think about the times we're living in
I can't sleep when I think about the future I was born into
Outsiders dressed up like Sunday morning
With no Berlin wall what the hell you gonna do

It's a new year, I'm glad to be here
It's a fresh spring, so let's sing
In 2080 I'll surely be dead
So don't look ahead, ever look ahead
It's a new year, I'm glad to be here
It's a fresh spring, so let's sing
And the moon shines bright on the water tonight
So we won't drown in the summer sound

If you find me I'll be sitting by the water fountain
Picket signs, letdowns, meltdown on Monday morning
But it's alright, it's alright, it's alright, it's alright
It's alright
Cause in no time, they'll be gone, I guess I'll still be standing here
--

So I hired a new kid, this casino punk. Not sure why -- Lang tells me he's altogether unstable, thinks he's going to have ego issues, or temper problems, but I kind of like him. Something about his face I can't put my finger on; maybe it's because he looks like a Vega.


I mean, this ain't a fuckin' beauty contest, but I don't have any ugly people around me. C'mon.

Speaking of beauty. Jill and I haven't talked -- really talked -- since the lakehouse. I think she doesn't like that shit any more than I do, and I wonder if she's mad that she didn't get to meet Mama, or if she understands. I don't know. I tried to tell her about Augustus, and I'm still not sure, really, how she took it. She knows that Brande was involved in what went down this summer, but I don't know if she knows what happened, unless that asshole told her, and she better be staying away from -- Either way, I am fucking loath to even discuss it with her; I don't want to say his fucking name in our bed, or where my boy can hear it.

Or my sister. God forbid. My sister, and that's where it's gonna end. 

If Mama and Marshall could

I thought Mama was

 I don't know, I just don't know, and I don't want to talk about it. I'm sorry, Baby.

I'm usually okay with things I don't know. In my lifestyle, if I tried to know everything, I'd go crazy. Maybe that's why the fucking old man was like that -- control freak. So I don't know what she's thinking, or who she's talking to on the phone or where she goes with only Sev to look after her, but it's gotta be all right. You don't see me trying to push her on it, either. 

I just fucking won't. 

I mean, there are things I've been unable to tell her, ask her. She has her right to them too. I am not my father, and she is not my.

I tell myself this. I keep telling myself and when I have a minute with her I hold her like I'm gonna break her and I screw her until she screams because I can't. 

It's alright, or it's gonna be all right. 
--

Yeah, yeah, we can all grab at the chance to be handsome farmers
Yeah you can have twenty-one sons 
And be blood when they marry my daughters
And the pain that we left at the station will stay in a jar behind us
We can pickle the pain into blue ribbon winners at county contests

[-- yeasayer, '2080' (download)]

Post a comment

departure

Sev,


I have to get Mama back to Sicily. She's She can't be here anymore. I'm going home directly from there for that business meeting I told you about. Jill and the kids are in your hands -- no, I didn't get to ask do what I said I would, but this is the wrong place for it anyway. Make sure they get home okay.

I might have some things I need to talk about. Dunno. Can you just make sure Jill isn't doesn't  --

Can you find out who she's on the phone to

Fuck, whatever. You know what to do. 

And tell her I love her and to kiss the boy from me. Let's all get the fuck home as soon as we can.

-- V

Post a comment

hands over your eyes

My Father And My Aunt
My Father And My Aunt

It's the same master suite that has played home to the Vega heads of house for summers unending; the space has hardly changed except for the subtle effects of disuse. A little ghostlike maid, an unsettling, inhuman-looking girl in black lace, embroidered gloves, had of course tidied the space for the long-awaited return of the matriarch Luciana, but she has not been allowed in here since then. It would unsettle the mother too much.


It's her son who sits beside her now; even Vega can bow his head sometimes, it seems. The woman's white, white hand (the skin is still so smooth, even though the bones of the graceful thing have begun to show) clutches her son's tight, too tight.

She is holding a black-haired baby, and she is overcome.

"Marius," says Luciana, strangled with a wellspring of emotions it has been too long since she knew how to express. And she says her son's name again, and again, proud, overwhelmed, her dark eyes fixated on the infant's delicate face as she holds him to a bosom made for children -- even at her age, like a living Madonna. Vega is not especially sensitive to imagery, but in that moment, he wishes to capture it; his mother, his child. 

"His mother named him Lucian, Mama," Vega tells her carefully. He watches her eyes brimming, he keeps his own voice level. "His mother's here. I want you to be able to meet her, Mama... can you do that?"

She doesn't seem to hear him; is it difficult for her, the passing of time, the evolution of her family dynasty? 

"Mama?"

It seems that Luciana will answer, and yet all of a sudden, there is the flash of a camera. Mother and son look up to see the long, lean shape of an interloper in the frame of the door; Aden Brande, nephew and cousin, had stole in so silently, coming on like a bad omen.

"May I intrude?" Asks the black sheep with uncommon elegance, politesse. And yet he passes into the room without awaiting permission, placing the camera on the nightstand presumably as a gift to his cousin. Brande's aunt, his cousin Vega, stare at him silently.

"Marshall," says Luciana, conflicted, but smiling, purse-lipped. She holds the baby close.

"That's just Aden, Mama," says Marius, darkly. And Brande smiles, crookedly, and he stands over where Marius sits, and looks down at him. Looks down at the baby, too, his first time seeing it; reflexive twitch of something negative, undefinable, at the maternal scene. Discreetly presses the edge of his hand to his upper lip, as if to repress a wave of nausea.

"Brande, when are you leaving?" Asks Marius directly. "I don't want you near my kid, and my sister's coming, so you should probably get out of here."

"Where is Mercedes, the dear little thing?" Luciana asks dazedly, pet-pet-petting Lucian's downy crown adoringly.

"Your sister?" Says Brande, mildly, ignoring her, as if he did not know to whom Marius referred. 

And Vega cannot, he will not, lose his temper in front of his mother, in front of the baby. And he won't lose his temper for Brande's sake, that's for sure. "Nettie's on her way here to see her mother and her nephew. I don't think you should be here when she arrives."

"Neither do I," says Brande, easily; that's too easy, Vega reflects, and Luciana is gazing at Brande in the strangest way.

"Marshall," she says again.

There's a long silence; Only briefly does Lucian agitate, shifting, squeezing tiny fists, as if to hide against his pale, lovely grandmother.

"Marius," says Brande, and he lifts his chin. The citrines are impassive, unearthly, and the electric line of his shoulders is straight. "Antoinette is not your sister."

"Marshall," says Luciana again, more urgently. In the way of babies, perhaps Lucian perceives something; he makes a sound, a muffled little noise as if tears are imminent. "Marshall," says Luciana again, with distinct anxiety, adoration, a strange, unfamiliar cocktail.

Vega -- he is becoming more comfortable holding him -- leans in as if to retrieve the child, but something about his mother's stricken body language stops him. "The fu-- what are you talking about, Brande?" Weary, Marius Vega is so weary of the mad. 

"She's my father's child," says Brande, glacial, expressionless except for the luminous way in which he watches Marius for a reaction. "Isn't she, Aunt Luciana?"

She says only, despondently. "Marshall, please--"

Says Marius, "Mama?" 

Lucian's crying. 

Says Brande -- and only now does he allow himself the razor's edge of his subtlest, most vicious smile -- through the mask of that kind of frozen, sick fury is the only way he can produce words like these, can acknowledge a fact like this, so distasteful as to shake the foundation of his being. Of course, of course -- the cruelest, the most bitter of ironies. "She's my half-sister."

Marius has no answer; it's hard to tell whether he's more shocked at the fact or at the circumstances under which Brande chose to believe them. He forgets himself; he says, "motherfucker," under his breath, although it isn't clear whether he means Brande or Brande's father, and Lucian cries louder. In just a few minutes, one of the attentive staff whose life's occupation is the care and comfort of the child of Marius Vega and Jill Lockhart will come in, summoned by the sound, to retrieve the baby.

Luciana's crying. "Marshall," she says, "Wh-what -- why --"

Vega wants to ask his mother if it's true, but she's too fragile for confrontations, he knows. She's too weak. He can see it in her face right now, and it sickens him, because in her eyes, in her tears, he knows Brande is not lying. And he can't hate his mother, and so he hates his cousin, a stone that hardens in his gut.

"This is what you wanted me to know, Brande? This is what this has all been about?" Fathomless, fathomless.

Silence; the revelation is effective enough on its own without Brande repeating it, and it's sickening enough to taste in his own mouth, so he says nothing. 

Mother and infant cry. Says Marius, hoarsely: "Does Antoinette know?"

"I think she knows," says Brande. "I think," he adds, reflective, as if something had occurred to him for the first time, "maybe she always has."

Silence, except for the crying of the young and old. Vega's coal black eyes, the inheritance of his father, meet the ill yellow eyes of his cousin, who'd inherited his from his own. So had Antoinette, come to think of it. Come to think of it, she looks more like a Brande -- she is more of a Brande --  than Mercedes, born of an unrelated mother, had ever been.

Says Brande, "I trust this is the end of your self-righteousness."

Silence and crying.

Then Marius says, "I think you'd better go, Brande."

"Fair enough."

Marius has reclaimed his son from his mother's arms; Luciana is overcome again, though with a certain immutable grief, she has curled over on herself, she is trying to remember the rosary, her prayers for forgiveness, and it is impossible, impossible for her son to watch.

Marius says, "You'd better go far from me. I don't think I want to see your face for a while. And stay away from my sister."

My sister. The slow, smokewisp curl of Brande's crooked lips is impossibly cold. "Advise her to stay away from me," he reciprocates simply. Gilded gaze falls on the crumpled Luciana, and there is nothing evident in the eyes save for a pale, detached sort of fascination, subtle revulsion. "Lovely to see you again, Aunt," he says, low.

And then, says Brande: "Congratulations on your new family, Marius."

It doesn't seem that he's insincere. Just distanced, ambiguous, impassive. And the gesture of farewell that he makes with one black hand is similar to a benediction, archaic, silent, before the alchemist leaves the room, its air clotted with ghosts that for once, for merciful once, have nothing to do with him. It's liberating. 

Post a comment

tiny vipers

Shin calls me around midnight to tell me something I really don't want to hear.


"Where are you?" I ask him, and Sev stands up because he figures there's something going on.

He's about five miles outside the city, he says, on the I-80 North. He's been at one of the hotels, he says, and some guy we don't know tried to fuck him over.

"Who?" I ask, because some guy we don't know is not a good enough answer for me and he knows it.

"We don't have a name yet," he tells me. "All we have is a phone number."

"How the hell do you have a phone number without a name?"

He pauses. Then he says, "Antoinette."

Ah, fuck. "This some friend of hers, then?"

"I don't think so," he tells me. "She was the one who decided to bail him out."

Shin tells me about how this guy's a genius at cards and Nette pulled one of her usual tricks to cozy up to him. I feel like this guy and I need to have a talk, and so I get the number from Shin, and fine, I'll handle it from here. I don't blame him for not starting a scene with Nettie.

I ask Shin about what my sister did, if she gave this guy a stupid fake name or not, if she let on how she knew him, anything.

"You can ask her yourself," he says.

Then he tells me that Nette is also on the I-80, and that's why he's tailing her.

She's on her way here, he says.

Post a comment

two-headed boy

Daddy, please hear this song that I sing,
in your heart there's a spark that just screams
for a lover to bring
a child to your chest
that could lay as you sleep,
and love all you have left
like your boy used to be, long ago,
wrapped in sheets warm and wet.

--

In the months since he's been born, Lucian Augustus Vega is transforming, slowly, from a red-faced, wrinkled little alien, something shaped after the nebulous concept of infant, into something that is quite strikingly, fascinatingly, compellingly like a miniature human being.


Marius Vega cannot recall where he learned about the evolutionary principle by which babies most distinctly resemble their fathers at birth, even if they will ultimately take on an equal share of their parents' traits as they age. A mother will, of course, never have any doubt as to whether a child is hers or not -- the pains of labor are not the kinds of things one easily mistakes. But in humans, a father must see himself in the face of his offspring before he can feel completely assured, before he can feel attached, before he can become a man who would upend the world to provide for a child.

If you asked him directly, Marius would never concede, consciously or otherwise, to having been unsure; the lingering awareness that Brande had her first only stings him sometimes. Like in his hedonist's throes with Jill, when he catches the perfect angle of her -- an arranged picture-frame of arched spine, hands-and-knees with hips rising, and with the pride of the early conquistadors he wraps a fistful of those inkspill curls as if to seize his victory prize, this is mine to map and mark -- sometimes, only sometimes does he remember, like the nagging intrusion of a foreign insect in his new land, that his cousin has seen this too, has heard those little sounds of hers.

Or when they have occasions to discuss him, rarities that Marius would prefer were even rarer, and she has her distinct way of saying Aden, familiar, and he wonders in spite of the bile knot in his gut how she sounded whispering it in the dark.

Blister, please, with those wings in your spine,
love to be with a brother of mine,
how he'd love to find your tongue in his teeth
in a struggle to find
secret songs that you keep
wrapped in boxes so tight,
sounding only at night as you sleep.

He's unsure, sometimes, although he would never acknowledge this, when she goes away for days -- he believes the things she says, and of course, he'd believe the longing in her when she leaves, the mad-hungry gratitude in her when she returns even if he didn't trust her words, but even still, they're reminders that she doesn't belong to him, that she didn't begin here in this house.

Sylvie, cautiously permitting, wise little thing, her mother's new man to buy her sweets, to lift her up high until she laughs because he's so, so high up, reminds him -- this is Jill's hair, Jill's doll-face, lashes, witching little grin, but she's someone else's daughter. No matter how new-made, how born-again Jill Lockhart had been when she returned to his empire (where, to him, the world begins and ends and all things are his), the possessive instinct -- instinct, that's what it is, some animal thing coded into his blood -- will always be thwarted by these reminders.

And perhaps, he reflects, cradling Lucian (who is still, tip to tail, much shorter than his forearm), it's a good thing never to be fully assured of these things. His father had been; not long from now, Marius Vega will be able to hear his widowed mother's sepulchral weeping upstairs even still. This house makes him remember the insomnia that he sometimes struggled with as a young teenager, the era when he knew how long past midnight he lay awake by the bell toll of his mother's strange, hollow noises bleeding through the walls no matter how hard he covered his ears.

Even if it takes the shape of uncertainty, it is a relief to be unlike his father. Holding Lucian now in the armchair by the parlor window, where he can see the sleeping baby's every feature in the delicate moonlight, it is also a mixed feeling to see how like to him the child is.

The blackness of the downy crown, the shape of the nose, the brow. Marius could even absurdly swear the tiny hands, balled into blanket-clutching fists as they were, were miniature facsimiles of his own. How strange, how very strange, this perfectly-made little thing -- his son undoubtedly, made by him. With her. He's taken to holding Lucian when he can do so privately, concentrate in silence on his fascination, and simply stare, expecting, perhaps, to eventually become accustomed to it -- but it never fades, this divine firecracker taut in his breast, a ferocity of emotion he'd not known was possible before. 

There are the painful things, too; holding Lucian, Marius is once in a while nagged by the realization that the baby's mother has done this before. Has had children with another man who'd probably held the babies with this same all-consuming, breath-stealing love, and yet where's that man now? Who is he but someone with whom he occasionally overhears Jill speaking on the phone, her tone terse, fatigued?

And no matter how sure he is, there are the strange things -- Marius blames himself, blames himself deeply for the fact his child by Jill can't be separated, in his mind, from thoughts of his cousin, without whom the woman would never have had another baby. Blames that resentment, that paranoia, for the fact that Lucian sometimes feels, or smells, or something, just a little bit like Brande's influence, and that thought, the, the -- sensation of it -- is so unsettling he can hardly bear it, must force it away, must prevent it arising.

And there are painful things, too; how Mama would love him can never be purely a joyful feeling. There are the things that Marius actively wishes not to think about, that his steelblack strength of will does everything possible to prohibit: things like, did his father ever hold him like this, ever love him this much? The idea that he didn't is too sorrowful to carry, and yet the idea that he did is even worse, given the way it all turned out. 

The idea that Lucian could ever hate him that much was the worst of all. But holding his son, sitting up late thinking in a way he hasn't done since he was young while Jill slept, Marius felt sure that if his son grew to decide, by whatever process Lucian saw fit, that it was time for his father to suffer, that he would accept that fate. Because he loved him that much.

For a number of years following the death of Augustus Vega, Marius had been surprised at how unburdened he felt. Only rarely would he be haunted by the very last memories of his father, plagued by the vague possibility that Augustus could have, should have been able to put up more of a fight than that.

Holding his son, Marius understood, and as heavy as it sat on his breast, when he glimpsed these dark, sad allusions to concepts like "fate", he felt he understood Brande, too. And as bitterly as it ached in him, it was peaceful, it was as right and as pure as Lucian's face at rest, as Jill's was when at last he came up to make love to her again and found her in repose, looking blissfully unguarded because she felt safe with him, and that was enough.

--

And in my dreams you're alive and you're crying,
as your mouth moves in mine, soft and sweet,
rings of flowers round your eyes
and I’ll love you for the rest of your life (when you’re ready)

Brother, see we are one and the same,
and you left with your head filled with flames
and you watched as your brains
fell out through your teeth,
push the pieces in place
make your smile sweet to see,
don’t you take this away
I’m still wanting my face on your cheek.

And when we break
we’ll wait for our miracle,
God is a place where some holy spectacle lies.
And when we break
we’ll wait for our miracle,
God is a place you will wait for the rest of your life.

Two-headed boy,
she is all you could need,
she will feed you tomatoes
and radio wire,
and retire to sheets safe and clean,
but don’t hate her when she gets up to leave.

[-- neutral milk hotel, 'two headed boy pt. 2', one of my favorite songs of all time. (listen)]

Post a comment

overture

I told her.


I guess we're all in, now.

Post a comment

here it comes like a natural disaster

Mesteno calls me because apparently my sister is sniffing around making a nuisance of herself. I feel pretty sorry for Mesteno. What was he saying about 'her type?' Man, I had no idea Nette was going to fuck around with my associates on her own. Makes me wonder what all else she does and who she talks to without my knowing. 


Fuck. Me. I've had a fucking forty-eight hour headache thinking about the shit I've gotta talk about with Jill, and how meeting Mama is going to go, and now it seems I'm going to have to worry about Nette coming up here, too.

Even Nettie isn't dumb enough to mess with Brande. I hope. 

Ugh. Maybe I drank too much, but I think I'm gonna be fucking sick. My woman and my child are here -- why does it feel like everything is wrong?

Post a comment

house of diamonds

I made it halfway through screwing Jill in every room of this house before she had to go again, and left the kids here. Dunno what it is she had to take care of, and I made it a point not to ask. Kinda like I've made it a point not to pull her cell phone records, read her diary, or shit like that. Look at my self-restraint -- shut up, Kane, it's a fucking exercise in trust.


I had Severin go with her. That's an exercise in trust, too.

Damn me if I know what the fuck Brande has been doing. He spent almost all night in the kitchen with that Shannon girl, and then he slept in Merci the guest room with that other chick. What a bastard, right? The girlfriend of his, there's probably something wrong with her. Well, I mean, obviously there's something fucking wrong with her if she's doing it with my cousin, but I mean, she's quiet. Whenever I see her she's, I dunno --  a little bit out of it, or something, and she hasn't come out of that room very much. Though, I think that's her I saw swimming with him from the window early this morning.

Has Brande ever had a normal woman? Well, I mean, there was Jill  -- I'm pretty sure it wasn't normal, but I'm not interested in thinking about it. Then there was that chick from the goddamn private high school he obsessed on all last year and didn't call me for months, and God only knows who else. I know Akina and Hinoto like to hook up with him, but Shin's sisters like some weird shit, that's for sure. I can't do Akina anymore these days, she's like my sister, man, so more power to her.

Naomi was normal. Probably ain't anymore.

When Sev came back with my woman, I still didn't ask any questions. I deserve a fucking medal -- shut the fuck up, Kane, seriously, I'll put my fist through your face, four-eyes.

Just kidding, Brother, you know I love you. 

I went in the kitchen and found out Shannon has been cooking for Brande again, because there were leftovers in the fridge. How he keeps getting women to do things for him, I'll never get it, but man, whatever she made was awesome. Fuck Brande, man, I ate the entire thing.

I think about how maybe it would be cool to have like, a couple wives, or a wife and some hot maids or something, like Dad did. Like, I'd have one that was totally just hot and dirty, and one that was sophisticated, to take to parties and stuff, and one that was sweet to cook for me -- Kane, seriously, pour another drink and quit fucking laughing.

Then my woman turns out to be wearing one of those lace things and the really high shoes, and of course she missed me, so I nail her real quick in the kitchen just to unload the gun and then we go out on the boat where no one can hear all those fucking awesome things she says to me, and I figure I probably only need one woman.

--

and your sister marries a nice young man
and they build a house of diamonds
but the sun is snuffed by the curtains
can someone come untie you?
but there is too much work to do
yes, they all admire you

you are free
you are already free
you are already free 

you are free from the greed of your culture
you are free from the lust for the luster 
of the diamond houses in the city's cluster
from your own ego
from your own blunder
yes you own the stars, you own the thunder
but you have to share it all
yes you own the stars, you own the thunder
but you have to share

you are free
you are already free
you are already free

[bowerbirds, 'house of diamonds']

Post a comment

bells in the crooked port

I need to tell Jill about, y'know. My parents. Always thought that'd happen, but now I'm not sure how to say it.


Should I tell her before or after she meets Mama?

Can't even think straight right now. Priority one's nailing that girl until she can't talk, and then I'll be able to deal with it. Holy hell.

Also, what do people talk about with four year olds? Like, what are people supposed to do with them? With babies, I understand it. They just sleep and shit and you have to deal with it and then they lie there and look cute. But four? That's too young to think about what they're gonna be, and it's too old for you to just put them in a crib or something. 

Sylvie. I guess she's fine if I just give her some ice cream or something, right? Jill probably thinks I'm an idiot. 

Post a comment

Read more from Marius Augustus Vega »

Marius Augustus Vega

About Me

Marius Augustus Vega
United States
View my profile
Oh, You Handsome Devil

Photos

View more of my photos

Neighborhood

Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.

View my neighbors

Archives

Play Me, Babycakes