Twist & Shout

The old man was convinced that the neighborhood was being overrun with communists. not that I cared or anything, I mean I was pretty sure that I would have become a fascist or even a Taoist if I thought that it would have led me to the pot of gold that rested at the top of Janey Kaplan’s insanely long legs. I wasn’t particularly proud of it, but everything I did was designed to get me into her pants. That was all I lived for really, I mean I used to think that I was destined for something more, but I wasn’t. It didn’t concern me much though, I mean the truth was it was the only thing that made me feel that I was truly free. I had no idea what the hell we were doing, but I knew that sometimes shit just happened, I mean at one point I actually believed that I would write some kind of masterpiece or something that would touch the very soul of humanity, but the reality was that I hadn’t written a damn thing worth reading. It seemed that the only thing that made it worth my while to get out of bed in the morning were the thoughts of Janey Kaplan’s ass. I didn’t plan for any of it to happen really, but I had absolutely no intention of stopping whatever it was that was going on between us. It brought an incredible sense of urgency that was usually accompanied by a fluttering heartbeat, and an erection that began long before I ever got near her. I could feel it crawling out of the primordial lust that had first enveloped me in my adolescence, leaving me unable to control its exuberance. I was sure that I was a prisoner to my urges and a slave to my libido, but man, how I wished it didn’t make me feel so fucking stupid.

The police cordoned off half the neighborhood one weekend after the city found a skeleton in the park behind our houses when they were trying to build a community centre. There were cops and guys in lab coats everywhere, tearing the neighborhood park to pieces as they tried to discover whose bones they now had in their possession. It was all pretty exciting really, and it was the first time I was ever alone with Janey Kaplan. She seemed more freaked out than she was interested, I mean she seemed genuinely upset and frightened and it felt like she wanted me to hug her. “I hope its me and not the bones out there that’s got you all hot and bothered.” she said holding me close. “Come along and let me see if I can get you to twist and shout.” Whatever she did, I would have given up a kidney to have her do it again, I mean hell, I was fourteen years old and Janey Kaplan seemed to know everything almost anybody would ever need to know about getting laid.

The old man believed that the Kaplans were among the communists who were taking over the neighborhood, I mean the story of how old man Kaplan went out for a pack of cigarettes a few years back and never came home was all very mysterious and everything, and the rumors that he had been abducted by the KGB were still floating around. I was pretty sure that if he was abducted, it was more than likely by aliens. It seemed that shit like that happened all of the time back then, I mean nobody seemed to think too much about it, and there really wasn’t much of an investigation or anything. Anyway, I was at the Kaplan house a lot, which really concerned the old man, but made me feel that sacrificing myself so that Janey could continue to develop her skills was the proper and neighborly thing to do. And she really didn’t seem to mind, I mean she was always a more than willing participant in the dance without pants. We were pretty fucked up the afternoon the police came, I mean I don’t remember what we were on or anything, but Janey thought that she had one of those Bermuda Vaginas in which things just seemed to disappear. I was a bit worried at first, but once she took off her pants, I was willing to risk it all for even a short trip. The police had all kinds of  questions to ask her about the bones that were discovered in the park. Janey said that she knew nothing, but the police didn’t seem to believe her. They took her down to the station for questioning, but I had a feeling that I would never be with her again.  Someone said that the skeleton found at the park was what was left of old man Kaplan, and  there was more than enough evidence to indict Janey. She was held in custody without bail, and charged with murder. I thought that I would have felt weird somehow, I mean I’d been sleeping with a suspected murderess and everything, but the only thing I noticed was my libido trying to come up with any kind of a plan to break her out. The trial didn’t last long. I mean they had old man Kaplan’s bones, and a pretty believable story to explain how they made it to the park. The Crown believed that Janey had killed him and after burying him in the park, report him missing. The defense proposed that old man Kaplan wandered off and got himself killed while he took a shortcut through the park that was often  filled with junkies and assorted criminals at that time of night. He was robbed and killed, and buried out there in the park. Neither side raised the possibility of his abduction and subsequent murder by the KGB, or extraterrestrials. When it was over, Janey was sent to prison for twenty five years. I went up to visit her a couple of times, hoping for one of those conjugal visits, but the magic seemed to have left her vagina. She had been keeping herself amused with her cellmate, a former Walmart cashier who lost her fucking mind and began shooting at customers in the cash line at a store in suburban Newark. I suppose that they deserved each other, but I couldn’t help but wish that things had turned out differently. I’m not sure exactly what I expected, I mean Janey was old enough to be my mother, but man could she ever twist so fine.

The Truth Can’t Set You Free

They used to line up in front of the red brick house on Renoak Avenue, patiently waiting their turn with Alisa Bobick’s mouth. She was, without a doubt, the neighborhood mouth that everyone of us wanted to slip into, primarily because she’d let us. One after another, she kept the line moving until all those who had been waiting were satisfied. It wasn’t much of a challenge really, but it was what it was. The problem with growing up in Bathurst Village back then was that everyone was pretty much the same. It was hard to tell the neighborhood girls apart, I mean they all looked and acted the same. The constant giggle that emanated from the couches in the corners of the basements at every house party held in the neighborhood was almost enough to make us think that those girls, and possibly us as well, would remain virgins until the end of time. Alisa Bobick stood out from the crowd even while kneeling, always eager and willing to offer her services to those of us who had been frustrated by her friends who giggled, and then screamed at the thought of even catching a glimpse of what lay inside a pair of Levi’s. By the time we entered junior year in high school though, most of the neighborhood girls were willing to open their minds and their legs, which worked out just fine, as Alisa Bobick met a rock star who made her think that it may be time to get up off of  her knees.

None of us really knew much about Daz Larkin other than he had spent the last few years keeping time across galaxies as the drummer for the coolest psychedelic jam band this side of the Gamma Quadrant, Aragon Nixx and The Pirate Satellites. Afraid to lose him to her reputation, Alisa was determined to keep her past a secret. We thought they might actually be able to make it work, I mean despite the fact that Daz was about to boldly go where so many others had gone before. And as they grew closer, it became more and more difficult for her to keep her secret from him, I mean there were all sorts of hormonally impaired boys inquiring if she would, or if she  could, and she was running out of places to hide them. We all believed that it was only a matter of time before Daz found out. It just seemed that it would have been so much easier to just tell him the truth, but she had no idea how he’d  react. Its always the uncertainty really, I mean no matter how well you think you know someone, you never can tell how they’ll react to that kind of news.

It wouldn’t really have made any difference anyway, I mean Daz had his own closet where he was hiding a skeleton or two that he’d collected over the years. It was hard to say if anyone knew exactly what was in there, but we were pretty sure that Nixx knew, I mean he almost always did. He was after all,  a Sci-Fi Private Eye. It wouldn’t have mattered much though, I mean we all have things we desperately want to hide, and so we spend an enormous amount of energy trying to make sure no one finds out what they are. The truth, which is always important although often not believable, was that the reports of the real Daz Larkin having died several years ago in a truffle foraging mishap were in fact true. The drummer for Aragon Nixx and The Pirate Satellites was nothing more than a look alike. He was, in reality Regis Sealy, an imposter and unsuccessful waterbed salesman from Mario’s Mattress Maniacs, in Hoboken, New Jersey.  Farberman said that he had heard about this kind of thing happening before. I suppose it didn’t really matter much in the general scheme of things, but man, some of us just hated being lied to like that.

Just before the Gamma Gamma Haze Festival, the shit finally hit the fan and everything began to unravel. Alisa wound up involved in a sex scandal with some keyboard player from Enid, Oklahoma and the sound girl for a progressive punk band, that lasted for almost two days. I suppose she just couldn’t help herself, I mean its really not that easy to stop being what we really are.  As for Daz Larkin, well he found himself curled up with Madame Sonya, the psychic fortune teller and part time pyrotechnic engineer who was able to extract his secret, and was only willing to keep it to herself in exchange for a large cash   and several passes to the festival. Daz was unable to provide either and so he disappeared into the darkness of the night sky. No one knew where he went, and none of us ever heard from him again. Rumors circulated for years that he was seen in a Jack In The Box in Boise, Idaho, or at a Chipotle’s on one of Saturn’s moons, but none of the sightings were ever verified. Daz Larkin vanished without a trace, and he took Regis Sealy with him. Alisa finally came to terms with who she really was, and headed off into the world of rock ‘n’ roll as a  groupie named Honey Divine. Every so often we’d hear that she was back in town with some over the hill metal band trying to salvage a career with one more mediocre album release. Farberman said that he heard there were numerous songs written about her and her exploits between the sheets in numerous hotel rooms, although we never really sure which ones. After the smoke cleared, Nixx and the Pirate Satellites were able to entice a drummer from the remnants of the Spiders From Mars, and headed off on an galactic tour. Following the first few performances, several reviews were very clear to note that the new guy sounded a hell of a lot like Daz Larkin. I suppose it was possible, I mean Nixx could find anything, but we just didn’t know. We were certain though that even if we knew the truth, it would almost be impossible to know if  it was really the truth. It wouldn’t really have mattered anyway, I mean it rarely does.

The Pearl Of Penetanguishene

Nobody knew what it was at the time, but something happened to Lori Lix. We had propelled ourselves into a world of hallucinogens and psychedelics, and swam around in the sounds and colors that only we could detect, but Lori never came back. The compass inside her head just shut off, and she simply lost her way. As a result, she wound up spending years inside the walls and fences of The Asylum where she watched life pass her by. And after a decade or so of being separated from her self and rebuilt from the ground up, she got the bright idea that it was okay for her to be returned to a world that she was completely unprepared to manage. As she stood at the fence that surrounded The Asylum, she looked down at the sleepy, little town of Penetanguishene that sat like a painting that had purposely been hung for the world to enjoy, she couldn’t remember if she had seen it before. All she knew was that it was just as lonely at the bottom as they said it was at the top, and that she needed to get the hell out of there. On a day like any other really, Lori Lix stood at the highway heading south with her thumb out, hoping to wind up anywhere other than where she had just been.

None of us had really thought about her much in the ten years or so since she went into The Asylum, except Tate I suppose, I mean he had been banging her since junior year. Not that he had been waiting for her or saving himself for her or any kind of bullshit like that, but I guess he must have felt guilty about not even trying to find out how she was doing up there. None of us did, and none of us were particularly proud of the fact that we had abandoned our friend. It was a weird time though, I mean  I’m not making excuses or anything, but we were all out of control. I suppose that Lori just couldn’t manage the pace, I mean it was all moving insanely fast. We had no idea that she was coming home, and I’d like to believe that if we did we would have organized some sort of celebration or something, I mean I suppose it would have been the least we could do. As it turned out, the reunion was quite accidental and a bit unnerving, I mean we had absolutely no time to prepare or rehearse what we were going to say.

We were at Fran’s, enjoying our evening as we watched Tate, who had developed a thing for some waitress, try to get lucky. It was always the same thing everytime we went there, I mean If she was working, we had to sit in her section, but that was Tate, I mean he was always trying to get in there and everything. None of us could believe our eyes when Lori Lix walked in and sat down alone at the counter. I think Farberman saw her first, but it didn’t take long for her to notice us. The universe seemed to stand still, if just for a moment, as if it were trying to give us all a little bit of time to figure out what the fuck we were going to say to one another. I don’t think any of us had ever been that uncomfortable before, I mean even though it felt like such a long time ago, the scars still hadn’t healed. As soon as we saw her, it all came rushing back, I mean the betrayal and the guilt were as palpable as if it had all happened yesterday. It was Lori who made the first move, I mean she’d always been more decisive, if not messed up than the rest of us, and as she walked towards us, Tate took a dive and slid under the table. “What the hell am I gonna say?” he asked as he disappeared below. Before anyone could answer, Lori was there, standing at our table. She looked great, I mean she always did, but ten years hadn’t really seemed to changed her at all. She was as hot as she was the last time I saw her, I mean I would have done her right there under the table at Fran’s, if Tate wasn’t already occupying the space.

“Its nice to see that some things never change,” she said. “I mean you guys are all still hanging out together.”

“Have a seat.” someone said, offering her the chair vacated by Tate’s voyage to the floor.

“That’s okay.” she said. ” But Tate’s gonna need it as soon as he comes up for air. He can’t stay down there forever.” She could always make me laugh, and as melodramatically as he could, Tate clawed his way up off the floor and sat in the empty chair. He had a hard time looking at her, I mean he must have been embarrassed as hell being caught hiding under the table. Lori didn’t seem to care either way, I mean she didn’t even seem to mind the attention he was giving to the waitress who was continuously hovering around Tate. I suppose she was just glad to be back, I mean it was ten years ago and I guess she was over it. I hoped she was, I mean with Tate back in his chair the space under the table had become available. We didn’t really talk about her stay at The Asylum, I mean I don’t think any of us knew how to bring it up or anything. There was so much that I wanted to know though, and I suppose Lori could sense it, I mean she answered before I even had a chance to ask. “It wasn’t as horrible as you might think.” she blurted out as we stood outside smoking a cigarette. “But it wasn’t about getting us well.” she continued, “It was just about keeping quiet.”

She said that the inmates were always wasted, being regularly plied with drugs and electroshock, which seems to happen often when those in charge are just as disturbed as those they have been asked to care for. It never really surprised me, I mean its the circle of life, really. Sooner or later, the monkeys always wind up running the zoo. Lori talked about how they were stripped of what made them unique until they were all vacant and hollow, in order for the monkeys to rebuild them in a more socially acceptable way. I wasn’t sure if she was any better than before she went up to The Asylum, I mean she said she was, but it was hard to believe most of what she was telling me. She said that the women were forced to service any of the staff who were interested, and it would often go on for hours and hours, sometimes long after one of them had already passed out. She told me there was this on guard who was much older than her, who would sometimes sit and talk with her, and occasionally bring her books to read, like Hemmingway, and Steinbeck. One day he brought her a stone that he said he found on the beach years ago, and had been carrying it with him ever since. He called it the Penetanguishene Pearl, and said that it had kept him safe for years, and he wanted Lori to have it. She pulled a wad of tissue out of her jacket pocket and showed me the pearl that lay inside. It was a pebble really, I mean it wasn’t a pearl. It was nothing more than some worthless, little stones that line beaches all over the place. Lori was convinced though that it had brought her luck, and it brought me home. It was difficult to listen to her talk about the magic it possessed, I mean I knew she had lost her mind and everything, but I had genuinely hoped that while at The Asylum she had found it.

“There was all kinds of weird shit was going on around there” she said ” but I knew that as long as I had the pearl, I’d be safe. All I wanted though, was to get the hell out of there, you know, and I thought that’s why he gave me the pearl. I knew that if I just hung on to it and thought about what I really wanted hard enough, it would happen.”

“And you really believe that?” I asked.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” she replied. She was, I mean there was no doubt about it, but I wasn’t convinced that the pearl had anything to do with it. “I wished and hoped for a way out” she continued “and then one day I was able to walk out of the front gate and make my way back home.” It was hard to believe that they had let her out, I mean I was sure that she was still lost in the colors and sounds that no one else could detect. Whatever claims she wanted to make, whatever she chose to believe, I was certain that she had somehow escaped from The Asylum, I mean it was becoming quite obvious that she was still in need of help, and it was equally obvious that someone would be looking for her. Its not that it hasn’t happened before, I mean I’m pretty sure that shit like that happens all of the time, but Lori Lix was still as lost as she was ten years earlier. It was only a matter of time before they found her, I mean sooner or later she was going back.

 It didn’t take long for the authorities to find her, I mean she was only out for about a week when they showed up to find her standing in front of some greenhouses at Allen Gardens, where the old Larry’s Hideaway used to stand. We all thought that Farberman had called the authorities, but it turned out that she called herself, I mean it wasn’t what she had thought it would be. Nothing made much sense for her, I mean she couldn’t seem to find a way to feel like she belonged. Before they drove her away, she gave me the pebble, informing me that she no longer needed it, I mean she understood that what she wanted was the past, and she could never have that again. She was planning on resigning herself to the present with goals towards the future. “Carry the pearl with you” she told me, “and everything you want will just happen. Its magic, you know.” I suppose it must have appeared that way to her, but I was beginning to hope that it really was, I mean all I would really want to happen was for Lori Lix to find her way out of the darkness and come home for good. I suppose that’s why I still carry that Penetanguishene Pearl wrapped in tissue in my pocket.

A Petroff In A Pear Tree

Nobody cried when Daniel Petroff passed away, I mean hell, there wasn’t even a memorial service for him. It was sad really, I mean even though he was pretty fucked up, he still deserved to have someone love him enough to cry when he was gone. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor bastard, I mean sometimes the choices we make in life really aren’t our choices at all. I was pretty sure that Daniel Petroff never planned to spend his life drifting through space believing that he was God. There was a time when his life was filled with as much hope and promise as any other. When we were in college there was a girl, although Monica Vibrato was no ordinary girl, I mean she was the stuff that wet dreams were made of. There were stories written on bathroom walls at The Rolling Hills Golf And Country Club that spelled out in iambic pentameter exactly what she was willing to do. Petroff would stand quietly nearby and watch her sitting by the pool as she soaked up the sun and about half a dozen Whiskey Sours, while beads of sweat danced down her chest and came to rest in her cleavage. He was head over heels, and after a couple of weeks of innocuous flirtation and fantasy, he was sure that she felt the same. She didn’t, and I’m not even sure she knew he was alive, but during the Canada Day weekend that summer Daniel Petroff’s life changed.

A bunch of us spent the weekend at someone’s cottage on Lake Simcoe where we wandered around the far reaches of our minds, wired on peyote and psilocybin as Spirit and The 13th Floor Elevators carried us through the darkness and delivered us into the light on the other side. Somewhere along the way Petroff got lost, I mean he stepped into the darkness but never came out. Not that anyone really cared, but he simply disappeared. When the smoke cleared, and the winged horses flew off, he stepped out of a brilliant, white light in calm confusion. It happened sometimes, I mean Aragon Nixx, who always seemed to be around whenever we ventured into time and space, said that it was almost inevitable that someone wouldn’t be able to find his way back from the hallucination he had disappeared in. Petroff was completely unaware that something may have been wrong, as he reached for Monica Vibrato with an outstretched hand and a solemn promise to give her the light he was certain was his very essence. She didn’t hear a word though, I mean she busy doing Nixx in the back seat of the Chevy Vega her father bought her as a graduation present. It didn’t really matter anyway, I mean she would never have believed that Petroff was who he thought he was.

The auditions for the background Apostle positions were completed and the heavenly chorus that was to be an integral part of the upcoming tour was assembled. Monica Vibrato had thought about giving it a try, but there just wasn’t enough room in the back seat of her Chevy Vega to set up a microphone for an audition. That was the last time Petroff saw Monica, I mean he hovered inches above the lake to rousing choruses of ‘hallelujah’ and ‘amen’ as he headed out on the road with the Apostles. When I think about it, it always reminds me that there are more times than we care to remember when life just doesn’t work out the way we want it to, I mean you can’t always be lucky enough to dodge the bird shit if you want to feel the sun on your face. I heard Petroff on the radio several times over the years as he spoke about how to save your soul on his syndicated radio show ‘Salvation Showdown’, or some other bullshit that sounded like that, and I saw him on the news a few times as he was being carted off to Queen Street Mental Health for insisting that he was God. I never really understood it, I mean it was weird, but he was completely harmless. All he really wanted was to spread love and peace. I just couldn’t understand why people were so afraid of  him, I mean it was the same thing over two thousand years ago.

Monica Vibrato, a little upset that she never got the chance to at least try out for the travelling Apostles, drove off into the sunset with Aragon Nixx, but he eventually abandoned her somewhere in Algonquin Park where she was rescued  by Tobias Tremolo, and got to know him the way David knew Bathsheba. They stayed together for almost two years, until Tobias was killed by police while attempting to shoot a guy who was trying to pass himself off as God. Nixx was always Nixx, When he’d had enough of the idiocy and short sightedness that we continuously display, he headed back across time and space and settled down with some female he found on Sherman’s Planet. It always seemed to work out for Nixx, I mean he never had any   expectations or preconceived notions to fuck anything up. The rest of us, well, we could stand to learn a thing or two from the Sci-Fi Private Eye, I mean we’re just so damn confused, and lost, and unhappy, that I suppose we just never seem to find a way out of it all, unless of course we fill our minds with peyote, or psilocybin. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I don’t believe for a minute that Nixx or for that matter, Petroff were wrong, I mean I don’t think that there were very many choices available to us, although spending the rest of my life in a hotel room with Franny Glass would have done me as much good as it did Salinger. As for Petroff, he died of natural causes, quite prematurely really, I mean his heart simply stopped. And while there is no medical evidence to confirm the theory, most of us believed that died from a broken heart when he learned that he had been betrayed. Everything else was just icing on the cake, I mean he was dead long before he was crucified on a pear tree.