shep.

the alcoholic was thinking up new ways to kill himself when shiva came tromping up the stairs and in through the door, throwing herself around with shrieks and angry fists, fingers whitewalled into weak harmless junkie balls. red hair went screaming along with her in the kitchen, cabinets slamming against their rattling backbones.

"oh god, why're you havin' a fit?" slumped on the couch, shep took a drag of his cigarette and then pointed the lit end to his skin, pressing down to follow suit with a series of burnscars, rounding along with the spiral tattoo around his belly. he exhaled, eyelids twitching as the stink of burned flesh sizzled up into his nose. "did that little twit go out and fuck someone else, make you mad? i met that norma girl, you know."

apparantly they didn't need a dog, shiva was growling enough for an entire pack, rabid with cracked lips and a coated-over tongue, a wild fretting in shit brown eyes. "oh, yeah?" she came around clutching a jar of half-gone peanut butter and stared at him. "whatever. we're not even having sex, so shut up with that shit. i'm fuckin' sick of it. of course he's fuckin' other girls! you think i'm a --"

she dropped the jar in her hand and it bounced off the floor, the big tigerstripe cat running after it to play. shep was always surprised by how fast shiva was, like desperation made her bones and tendons react as fast as a regular person with emotions and feelings, and before he knew it she was tackling him with a hand slapping away the cigarette in his. a shame, the boy was mid-burn.

"what the fuck!" he yelped and grappled to the side, blue eyes moaning wide. "it's gonna burn the couch, shiv!"

"fuck the couch!" she screamed in his face and spat a palm against his chest, the crumpled upwards mass of his shirt lazing down his abdomen. "you gotta quit doin' that shit, man. it's fucked up! you need to.. you need to.. to see a therapist!"

"ohhh a therapist?" he sneered back to her with a vicious curl of lip, both hands reaching for her sides and shoving her into the corner of the couch, leaving her to bounce harmlessly on the cushions. "where'd you get that brilliant fucking idea? tellin' me to see a therapist.."

"well, renton."

shep went snorting, rolling his eyes as he lit another cigarette, squeezing his hands between the cushions in search of the remote control.

"no, seriously! he's been goin' to one and he suggested you do too. you know.. it's not normal that you try to kill yourself." the gutter princess fumbled for a moment as she resurrected the half done smoke knocked from her cousin's hand, putting it to her lips and lighting it up.

"yeah well, it's not like it's even worked. it's just an experiment, shiva." shep twisted his head to the side and tugged the remote from it's cave, switching on the television set, a beautiful glow of daytime programming basking his face and mind in it's useless shit. "besides, it sounds like a big waste of money, and i'm not going to stop, anyhow." he was referring to the burns, the healing wounds on the insides of his wrists, the replacement teeth in his mouth from slamming them together when he tried to take a bath with the toaster. the english muffins had gotten all soggy.

"you've gotta stop! or else i'm gonna move out." that little shit wasted no time with her threat, glaring at him and kicking a foot onto the coffeetable, mounds of paper trash littering to the ground. in the kitchen, the cat was purring fiercely while rolling the peanut butter jar around on the battered tiling.

"move out?" shep took a moment away from fat black women nosediving to the floor because man number seven tested was not the father, meeting the grip of his cousin's eyes. "move out? or do yah mean.. in with someone else?" he dragged angrily at his cigarette, gnashing away smoke and nicotine stench, thinking of junkie fucks he hadn't even met yet but hated, hated because they were taking her away from him.

"no shep, just out!" she softened some, winding both legs underneath her, bloodshot eyes with crusties still rimming around them opening wide and doe-like, leaning forward towards her cousin. "c'mon this isn't right, it's drivin' me crazy -- the fuckin' animals, your fuckin' experiments, i can't take this shit no more."

"alright," shep said as he drew his lips into a controlled line, a heavy weight in form of black fuzz settling around his head from the top, pushing down and buzzing into his ears. he was deaf. he was blind. nothing existed except for the former shell of himself, and anything that came out of his mouth he could not be responsible for it. "get out then, you fucking cunt. i hate you. i hate you, and your fucking life. get out. get out get out get out out out already."

her voice faded, she was nothing but a wall of fake plasma. he didn't feel her steps vibrating her ground, nor hear the front door slam shut, plaster drywall flaking from the wall above his head and snowing onto shocks of blueblack hair.

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ September 22, 2006 05:12 AM: Message edited by: killjoyed ]</font>

<center>http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...joyed/shep.jpg

i am not eighteen and hiding my face anymore.


http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...oyed/shep3.jpg

i tell you, i'm older and walkin' tall.

all around the world everywhere i go
no one understands me no one knows
what i'm tryin' to say
everywhere i go no one understands me
they look at me when i talk to them
and they scratch their head
they go what's he tryin' to say
but you speak my language
oh yeah
you speak my language.</center>

with one parakeet on the top of his head and two on his shoulder, he fed the animals bits of meow mix.

"one for you," he said to the orange tigerstripe, who purred like a '57 chevy.

"one for youuu," he crooned to the boy ferret, then to the girl. "and you too."

"and go get it!" he cried gleefully to shiva's gimpy kitten as he threw a handful of food onto the kitchen floor, the poor ugly thing gangly as he skittered across cracking tile.

<center>http://img1.modelmayhem.com/051205/0...c6fd82bd_m.jpg

sitting on a park bench
eyeing little girls
with bad intent.
snot running down his nose
greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes.
drying in the cold sun
watching as the frilly panties run.
feeling like a dead duck
spitting out pieces of his broken luck.</center>

shep prowled the long hallways of the king avenue multiplex, comforted in his only love of the whirr and click of machines, film running their slippery miles through well-oiled projectors. he thought of who he would bring up to hide underneath the platters with, big white discs that held reels of films, built movies that shined bright through a xenon bulb onto a screen so customers could dish out fistfuls of money for overpriced tickets, cursing at the highschool concessionists as they bought their six dollar medium popcorns.

there was a reason he didn't work downstairs; tattoos and stretched ears didn't go over well with the general public, and neither did the sallow blue abyss of his eyes. then again, all that didn't go over too well with studio executives, either.

stepping out of the elevator, he avoided them and went straight to the radio station dj, slapping a microphone with a strip of blue tape running around it into his hand. "here yah go, just make sure yah stay more towards the middle of the theatre or else the feed won't come in as clear, i've been havin' problems with this house lately."

"okay."

"and remember to turn it off when you're done, i'll come lookin' for it after i start the movie. you fuckin' lose it somewhere along the way and the manager will have my nuts in a cheesegrater, and then i'll come looking for you." the alcoholic fumed fiercely into his face, narrowing his eyes and wagging a finger near his nose. "got it?"

"g-got it." the dj stammered, the bristling black caterpillar on his upper lip quivering briefly.

"good, man." shep grinned broadly, a mouthful of cracking teeth, a few off-color with the rest. he clapped a hand on the poor chap's shoulder. "i'll see yah in a few, then."

as he waited the short moments in the elevator on the way back up to the booth, he clasped his hands together in silent meditation, thinking of a crazy girl with sunspit eyes, her smallboned hands as he went writing his address (and then some) on them in permament marker: 314 raleigh st. #29, scumhole of the earth, bring some colt45's for the picnic. he laughed, a horrible sound spewing from the depths of his throat, wildeyed as the ding up top sounded his arrival and out he went into the midnight hall, tromping to projector sixteen, fingers eager for the slice of a purple soundtrack under them, the kiss of metal filmpath gates and rollers.

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ October 04, 2006 04:09 PM: Message edited by: killjoyed ]</font>

"hey shep?"

"yeah?" he answered the walkie after choking out a rush of smoke, funneling it towards the air vent as the spin of platters sliced through.

"can you come downstairs and help clean theatres?"

the alcoholic twitched at the social aspect of this, the droves of ushers he didn't know, their penguin suits and stupid little black bowties. "uh, i dunno, i've only got a.." he fumbled with his clipboard, nosing down to peer at the times. "..fifteen minute break."

"oh come onnnnnn, shep.." the manager's voice drawled through the speaker sweet as honeysuckle spaying in a summer's breeze, and he swore he could see her southern cheeks bunch as sets of eyelids fluttered, dimples popping cute.

"okay, okay." he pushed to his feet, rolling the end of the joint in his fingers before dropping it among brother and sister cigarette sitting in a lucky strike pack, clutching the walkie while he muttered, stoned eyes lidding as he walked through sets of doors. "ushers where yah at, i've been recruited.."

if he played his cards right, he could see the shuddering curve of her spine in the bask of the moonlight again.

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ October 10, 2006 03:11 PM: Message edited by: killjoyed ]</font>

shep took great care to dive into a hole that would not spit him out whole. intead, it would serrate him into puzzle pieces that could be mutilated in the sadistic hands of women and posions, make him into what they wished as the weeks and years drove on, yanking at his shirt tails and pantslegs with beggar's fingers.

he was too hungover to answer the phone, huffing stale whiskey breath onto his bare chest.

"shep, this is your mother speaking..." she still sou!nded like a tinny bitch over the recorder.

"hi mother," he croaked into the stagnant living room air from a set of cracked lips, a tongue curving out over them. hacks shook at his ribcage, spine curving horribly as he doubled up and spit grey matter onto the rutted hardwood floor with a groan.

"..just calling to see how you were, we haven't talked in a while. how's shiva? your father said that she got a job at the theatre -- how nice of you!.."

the son went snorting, digging onto the table for his pack of cigarettes, eyes crusted over and watering madly, the back of a shaking hand reaching up to swipe riddles of snot away from the bottom of his nose. here it came.

"..you fucking son of a bitch you're just like him! one or the other is lying, and i know it. i know you're there goddamit, i know you're laying in a fucking pool of your own vomit or choking on it, laughing with your friends about what a senseless hag your old ma is!"

shep could hear tears in the back of her throat, and soon they were pushing to her eyes, sobbing frantically. he imagined her makeup smearing, her lips so close to the phone that spittle bled into the tiny little holes.

"s-s-s-ometimes, i just wish that y-y-you could understand, how m-mmuch i just lah-lah-loove you." there was a sharp intake of breath and the click of goodbye, a mechanized voice.

end of message, 2:17 p.m.

and shep had an epiphany at 2:21, pulling a threadbare black shirt over his head and running to his feet, tallying a mental shopping list of supplies, tools to help purge him of immortality for the eleventh time over.

another failure set him back into a pit of remorse, tears lidding through his eyes and arms wrapping around his cousin, telling her that he loved her and that he was sorry and that it would never happen again, that he was going to help her on the road to recovery. she always did the same thing, staring at him through shocked brown eyes, mechanical hands reaching to his hair to smooth back and rake through, put him to sleep like a little baby.

"hey, what's up?" hours later at work and he was shuffing his feet in front of one of the four concession stands, roaming back and forth over the drink choices at the soda fountain.

"not much. working." the uninterested floorstaff on the other side dealt with a customer, not thwarted by shep's cockeyed grin and puppydog pathetic blue eyes, bloodshot like a cracked robin egg.

"oh, okay." he waited and bounced, the multitude of keys at his flank jiggling.

"alright." the concessionist deadset her gaze to him, huffs coming from her mouth as she leaned heavily against her side. "what do you want, huh?"

"just a coke."

"okay. ice?"

"yeah."

the bowtie finished the pour and handed it to him, slant of eyes narrowing as she leered forward, peering at his neck. "what happened to your neck?"

"oh.." shep glanced nervously left, then right, for any management staff that was lurking around, mindlessly putting a palm to the ropeburn stretching like rusted chain underneath his adam's apple. "uh, i just tried to kill myself, is all." he poked a pinkie finger down into the top of his cup, down through the hole in the lid as he tried at a slim smile.

"oh, yeah? doesn't look like you did a very good job." the girl rolled her eyes and turned her back to him, snatching up a broom.

"yeah whatever, i'm trying." shep scowled at the back of her vest, puffy white sleeves jumping in movement of her sweeps.

"uh huh," she snorted and glanced over her shoulder. "why don't you just try a gun next time."

the alcoholic's right eye twitched a couple of times as he stared at the tiling, hard at a dried splotch of sticky red. "you got an icee spill you might wanna clean that, too," he muttered before turning away, sulking off to find a straw.

after an early morning of honing his mind with hallucinogens while he crooned in the o-mouthed face of a gin-breathing girl stretched wide and pliant on his bed, he emerged from the dejected cave that was his room, ignoring the various chitters of creatures milling around in cages. life came to him in simplistic shades of color to represent mood and aura, mostly blues and greens around the apartment and it's surreal grasp around his ankles and wrists.

but here was shiva, bathed in red, her body a crumpled spot of knocking limbs on the couch, two flat palms lighter than the rest of her skin smashed against her slippery eyes, the rathunch of her spine shuddering weakly.

"oh, shiv," he said, but his soothing voice didn't sound like it belonged to him anymore. it was acid's fabrication, a zenlike trance that caused his slow-beating heart to swell in the trap of a scored ribcage. "are you crying?"

"no." she lied badly, smearing her hands over her face. "just.. leave me alone." came the muffled defense, rubbing her fists to her eyes before stretching both arms around her bent knees, tucking them to her chest.

shep approached her like he would a dying animal, eyelids twitching upwards above saucer-wide black abyss pupils, one hand carefully out to show he meant nothing but peace, good intentions as his bare feet slid over a dusty and sticky kitchen floor into the adjoining living room. "why?" he asked plainly, a mess of hair strewn above his head in a greasy halo of blueblack while child's eyes went honing on her, about ready to litter themselves with tears as he watched his cousin attempt to blot hers away. "i haven't seen you in days and i don't know what's goin' on with you." his lips felt like caterpillars, squeezing their way past the finish line. he took a glance around the room, it's white plaster walls with movie and band posters hanging by one corner, the only decorations either could offer, freebies from places of current and past employment.

"i'm havin' a shitty day, alright? that's all." she wound the spit from her throat and leaned forward, chucking it in an ashtray long overdue for a cleaning, a couple butts falling from the table and onto the floor.

"we should clean this place." shep stared at the ashtray, watching as the contents began to flutter like butterfly wings inside a cocoon, a fucking revelation. "it looks like a drug den, but could turn into something much more cohesive, tangible. maybe beautiful."

"yeah?" her tone deadpan, she drove watery brown eyes up at shep, slumping into a corner of the couch as both legs came slapping down, feet propping up onto the coffee table. her shirt was short, the hem riding up above a brother of belts slung around the bones of her hips, the fading black india ink of ancient scripture posed above each jut.

in a moment of holy rapture the halfbreed's cousin dropped to his knees in front of her, four fingers from each hand going to touch the tattoos stationed on a sand dune stomach, a stretch of dehydrated desert underneath a more fragile frame than the stubborn girl would ever admit. "you have the names of gods and goddesses on your body." he whispered while his eyes whipped up their own frenzy, a calm storm behind slightly fluttering lashes. "aren't they protecting you, isn't that what this is all for?"

"raja put them there." she eyed shep warily, cautious of his sudden interest in her, his naive fascination, watching her reflection in his dilated pupils. "your right hand is on shiva, your left is on parvati."

"oh yeah." he rose slow, the tendons in his knees cracking wisely to the clockwork of the rest of his body, the alcholic able to tend to all the movements of muscle and vein within the second framework of his mind, this state vastly different from the usual frenetic wash of lunacy and imbedded intention. "inseperable, there's not one without the other. did you know that?" he brought himself to the opposite corner, sinking in while calm hands tapped out a couple of pall malls from a softpack, lighting both of them before handing one to his cousin.

"yeah." she clipped shortly, taking the cigarette and inhaling inwards, her eyes softening at the corners as she watched him. "why's all this, huh?"

shep, the big mawing divide, the boy who worked so hard at detroying himself was unwillingly creating a bridge over troubled waters. he was open, the walls breathing in tune with the constant rhythm of his mortality. "i don't want you to move out, i want you to stay here."

"i can't stay here." she grit her teeth at a tone that she knew was too brisk for anyone with a head full of acid, spewing smoke that made shep's eyes bug out of his skull. "we fight too much, i can't handle you and your.. your.."

"uh huh? i'm listening." and he felt his heart thump shallower, straining from a day and a half of no sleep and the constant re-introduction of various stimulants.

"your experiments. i can't handle bringin' yah to the hospital all the fuckin' time. yah know your mom called the other day, talked to me 'bout yah?"

"no.." he hushed out, willing the courage to talk from the enlightened touch of his fingertips still greasy with shiva's skin, reincarnations from sanskrit ink screaming thousands of years into his veins, showing him lifetimes of sadness and joy. "what did she say?"

"shep, let's talk about this later."

"no, i want to --"

"..later." the street rat pleaded with her watery eyes and quivering mouth, bringing a palm up to pat the stretch of thin thigh in front of her, hoping that he was highly suggestible, easily distracted. "c'mon, let's talk 'bout all the shit we used to do when i would visit as kids."

"okay." her charm still worked on him, the measuring tape of his body unwinding itself, his neck cradling in her lap while his legs stayed straight and crossed at the ankle, up on the arm of the couch. "i'm thinking that this will be alright, that everything will be okay. my mom, she's a good woman, she doesn't deserve my shit."

"shhh about your mom, shep." she canted her head down at him. "yah got anymore of the shit you're on, by the way?"

"oh, oh you could tell?" he grinned jesterly wide, stretches of unbrushed monster teeth between his lips.

"yah i could tell!" she laughed down at him, sucking on her cigarette. "have yah looked at your eyes lately, man?"

"no, no not lately." he felt a burst of something inside of his chest that made him choke up with admiration, smiling as he dug into a pocket and brought out an ice drops vial, the label old and peeling off the side. "here, when's the last time you did it? just take a couple and you'll be good if it's been a while."

"sure." shiva took it from the clutch of his filthy finger nails, unscrewing the cap with a thumb before handing her cigarette to shep, which he took with deliberate care. close to three with a bit of unintentional spray went to the tip of her tongue, glancing down at her cousin as he examined the possibilities of inhaling the smoke of both palls through one nostril each. "here, open yer mouth yah're gonna get more too, we gotta catch up with each other."

his trapdoor jaw sprang open, a grotesque vision of swirling smoke from the depths of windpipe and ragged tonsil, shiva squeezing two more straight down. "there."

"hey you know, yah never told me what you were cryin' about." shep said as he handed the cigarette back to her, the back of his tongue smoothing more deliverance down into his system, where the eager shell of a once able-body awaited further assasination.

"no, i didn't. and i prob'ly never will."

"shi-shi, you bitch, i love you too. remember when we used to go catch frogs by the creek in the back of my house? remember.. remember that old one missing a leg.."

with the sun beginning to set shep could see everything through the glint of his eye and the moderation in his cousin, his mouth a chattermotor of the past and simpler times. he would find this, this solace in the unlocked secret hatch of his mind, and then he would squeeze it to his chest until the very last bit sputtered out so he could swallow it whole.

to last him for eternity.

"he tried to kill himself?"

"..yeah."

"how? how'd he try?"

"this is why i hate you sometimes, you have the stupidest fucking questions. why don't you go jerk off with a noose around your neck in the closet, see if i stick around to save you this time. it'll just make it all the more exciting."

shep sat on the couch, counting how many steps it took his cousin to make it out of the building, opening his mouth in a yell that jesus christ would shudder for.

between scamming on girls he found at the park or in clothing stores (he would remember that one, whose bitch magic would make him feel his asshole for days), shep could be found in a miserable little hole on the second floor of a tall brown section eight building, trimming the dwindling supply of brain cells from his cerebral cortex, degenerate sparks flying off a web of short circuitry. smoke curled above his head in the den of his room, windows blacking out the waning winter's sun with ragged sheets, the curved C of his spine hunched above the mattress on the floor. when he had hit his tune a palm went to the gritty hardwood floor, pushing to his feet and heading for the door and ripping it open to the rest of the quiet small-apartment world.

grabbing fistfuls of blueblack away from it's wavy fan in his eyes, both tore left and right in their sticky sockets around the interior, mentally checking off things and whether or not that little redhaired rat had changed them around. when an orange cat came up to shove the side of his body against shep's calf, bloodshots trailed down to the creature. "oh, i see she's been starving you." he glared quietly, nodding as his hand dropped down to rake a set of filthy nails to the tiger's ribs, feeling a slim line of muscle instead of fat. "oh yeah pipebomb, i'd call the motherfucking aspca on her."

there was quickly more evidence of foul play: the birds with all their feathers, chirping and grooming each other instead of picking at their down, the turtle was triple the size he was last, and the ferret shit was in the litterbox instead of on the floor. he huffed shortly, crossing both arms across his chest in a tight squeeze, fingertips gripping rib bone while he went to glaring at the zoo. "so you all happy, huh? good, i'm glad." ignored, he stomped across the living room to where shiva's door rose tall and blue, rudely yanking it open until he felt the frame give a little. the princess of shitsmeared lovesongs lay peaceful in her slumber, a wash of sapphire gone strawberry down her back. "hey shi-shi, wake up, it's goddamned three in the afternoon."

"wh-wha?" pushing her fists into bleary eyes, the girl rolled over on a cigarette-burned mattress, threadbare sheets in a crumpled mass at her feet, which still had shoes on them. "what the fuck? shep?"

"yeah, hey," he grinned wild and stepped over to her, dropping down to the ground next to her. "whatcha been up to?"

"what the fuck yah think i've been up to.." she narrowed her eyes and raised up, fingers curling at her stomach as she slumped against his shoulder. "working at the goddamned post office and keeping your things alive."

"yeah, thanks."

"oh! i got a new pet, wanna see?"

"sure," he said, but cut both eyes over to her as she shuffled an awkward mass of limbs to get to her feet, a skeptic's sneer hitting his face as shep took his gaze to the tank along the wall. "not another snake to fight the rattler, is it?"

"fuck no." a grim little smile twitched her lips as she plunged a hand into a plastic container, fingers switching around dead fish and the ghostlike remnants of half-eaten ones, coming up with a flopping one gasping for a breath. "it's a fish, see?"

"that stupid thing?"

"nuh uh, this thing.." shive murmured lowly before stepping over to a large fish tank holding a solitary brown monster, dropping in the feeder. in a flash of scale and chomp of teeth the goldie was gone, orange scales spitting from a splay of predatory gills as the bigger fish struggled to eat.

"what the fuck is it?!"

"a piranha!"

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ February 01, 2007 07:57 PM: Message edited by: killjoyed ]</font>

dear jesse,

i'm sorry it's taken me so long to write you anything. i 've been busy, you know, busy with things that make me forget about buying stamps and shit. shiva is a fucking crazy bitch and so is everything that surrounds her, but i think that she'll do okay in the long run. i wish dad would stop fucking bothering me about her. can i send her off to live with you instead? ha ha. just kidding. fuck, how are you, are you dead yet? jesus.

yeah, i'm still working at the theatre. same old shit, just different days, you know how it goes. holy fuck though, there's this new british chick or some shit like that who just started working there. she's real hot. i swear. i tried to get a picture of her the other day when she was cleaning theatres all alone but i couldn't get a good shot through the port glass.

well listen you know i've never been one for writing shit down and spewing my feelings and all that crap, and plus i have things to do, things that involve lighters and fire and lots of fucking smoke.

love you, bro.

-shep

p.s. do any of your rehab scanners read this shit?
p.p.s. i meant camping.

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ March 09, 2007 02:07 AM: Message edited by: killjoyed ]</font>

<center>
hey.
been tryin' to meet you..
hey.
must be a devil between us
or whores in my head
whores at my door
whores in my bed
but hey.
where have you been..
if you go i will surely die..

we're chained.</center>

<font color="#000000" size="1">[ March 15, 2007 02:35 PM: Message edited by: killjoyed ]</font>

when he had landed in california there was nothing but the foul smells of LAX to meet him, honking horns and the terrible waste of carshit in his nose, but it still made him smile.

hours later at a house party with a mysterious girl at his side, with his fingers curled into fists around baggies of various drugs, he remembered the pain of something that he thought he had left behind years ago, strangled to death in the streets of venice. it was then he felt like consuming everything all at once: the smack, meth, and windowpane, wanting a bottle of two buck chuck in the clamp of his hand to drink the whole night, this girl at his side in his mouth, the gleam of ferality in her eyes as they reflected in the moonlight.

he wanted to tell her how he used to sneer more, how it painted itself in a horrible dripping viscosity across each cracked lip, how he never worried about sweeping the scrags of hair away from his eyes because he was too busy getting loaded to care. he wanted her to make sure that there was nothing in this world that could keep him to her, that he'd end up breaking her spirit and she'd slap a court order in no time, for allegedly molesting her little sister or something equally ridiculous.

but when they were alone in the pothead's bedroom, lost in her relapse heaven of stimulants, him in a giddy haze, he forgot all about that.

about everything.

it was amazing how fast venice had turned into a fucking bigger circus than it already was in a matter a mere years, these days that slipped through neurosis and fingers like oiled water. shep sat on the bench in front of one of the head shops, watching girls stride by in nothing but bikinis and flip-flops, their boyfriends staring threats at him before he even had a chance to get a good look in. the strand clogged with tourists, the alcoholic waned underneath the sun's heat battering down on his back, sighing through puffs of cigarette smoke and trying his best to ignore the ache in his acid-churning stomach.

the pay phone next to him chortled out a tinny ring and he sprang into instant action, skate shoes scuffing the pavement hard as he jerked up and clutched the receiver, putting it to his head. "mister lowell's house of horrors, how may i frighten you?" the grin was already there, he knew who it was.

"shep? the fuck is all that crackling?"

"pay phone, jess! i'm down in fuckin' venice man, where's your place again?"

"santa monica, fourteenth, it's a halfway house though."

"so?" shep dragged off his cigarette, leaning an elbow on the top of the sticker-covered metal. "that's cool with me, man. i just wanna see yah."

"fuck yeah, but i mean, you can't uh, you know, bring anything at all. like, i could go back to jail for that shit if you do." jesse's voice was tinged with reluctance, wary of his brother the loose cannon.

"oh c'mon!" laughing, shep jostled the backpack at his side, sucking in another drag. "you know i already did all of 'em, i met this girl, ohhhh man i gotta tell --"

"when you get here, fucker!" jesse cut through with a chuckle. "here's directions..."

as he read them off, shep's short circuitry did best as it could to decipher it into safe pockets of his mind, wormholes that ate up everything else that normal people could remember, like names, numbers, birthdays, ages. "right! be there in a couple hours, make sure the coca's lined up for me when i get there!" cackling into the line, he crunched the butt of his smoke with thumb and forefinger, flicking it after the sweet wagging ass of some tall black mama.

"shut the fuck up already, man!" and through his own bout of laughter jesse sent his brother a loud dialtone, cutting him off with a language only the two of them could understand.

and underneath the protection of gently waving palm fronds shep started off for the nearest bus stop to connect to a big blue, santa monica singing her lure of narcotic spilled third street promenade, and how he couldn't help but wonder if crazy jerry the dope dealer still ran his ass in front of the run down amc movie theatre.

after the visit with the sobers, there'd have to be a new kind of date.

and maybe he'd find that nineteen year-old.

when the stench of the city and it's impending reminders of aging and responsibility was too much for the lanklimbed shep, he disappeared into a primordial haven, slipping like a wandering shadow through hanging moss and heavy-smelling air. the bite of mosquitos at the back of his ears, he roamed with a cigarette between his lips, keeping a wary eye on the slime-covered surface of the water, everything an eerie green, chasing an empty promise coming from the sour mouth of his cousin.

a slap of a bumped tail to the muck and the bruised boy skittered to the side, bumping a hip into the red-haired rat stalking at his side. "fuck, shi-shi! was that one of 'em?"

"sure," she mumbled with an amused roll of the eyes over at him, tucking a sharpboned elbow down to press against a cotton-wrapped ribcage.

"what're we doing out here, anyhow?" shep brought a couple of fingers up and rubbed them to weary eyelids, using the light step of his desertskinned cousin to guide him forward. "don't tell me you're gonna go gator wranglin' or some shit."

"naah." shiv piped both shoulders in a jerky shrug, pressing palms to her stomach, drumming a manic rhythm of spidering fingers against the hollow cavern. "just gotta check out an area for someone. yah got lost on your way to meet me, right?"

"fuck, sure i did." shep blinked gummy and wet for a couple seconds before taking a hit from his cigarette, smoke littering into a stinking haze as they carried on across the sinking bed of swampland, trying hard not to shuffle a toe into a patch of stagnant water. "why so?" he sliced suspicious eyes over at shiva, trying his best to read the expression of his face, but it gave him nothing but a stony front.

"no reason." she answered quickly, reaching a hand to grab at a trunk as she ducked a firelicked head underneath a low-hanging branch. "yah didn't see anyone or anything 'round, did yah?"

"noooo," shep drawled with a severe cant of his head, following after her without any sort of hesitation, his limbs loosened by the incessant dampness, sweat budding at the juncture of greasy black hair and forehead. "..'cept for renton and that crazy big tittied bitch, and some girl. oh man! she was all hot, too.." he dreamed off for a moment, thinking back to brown hair and the way she crinkled that nose up so cute when she was disgusted.

but shiva stopped in her tracks, eyes gone beady as buckshot while she stared to her cousin.

"RENTON!?"

"..a.. a tragedy, a senseless.. tragedy.."

when a man detonated himself to bits of bone and flesh in the meticulously clean lobby of the post office on eighth street, shep could only imagine the maddening horror of passerbys at the surreality of it all, the defeat of employees and customers that managed to stay alive but lose things like arms, legs, chunks of hair and chipped manicured nails. instead of hunting down his cousin with her soot-choked heart and whimpering veins, he slammed a twinset of needles inbetween his toes and fingers, sending himself into numbing oblivion.

"well if you're not gonna fuckin' ask her, i am." nick broke the silence as he whittled a joint with his fingers, bits of green falling to the thrashed hardwood floor as his sad eyes were caught to the television, CNN catharsis on nonstop terrorist meltdown.

shep merely shrugged, loose shoulders bare as they rolled underneath inked skin.

"..there are currently no leads.."

"think she has anything to do with it?" nick cut a quick glance to his friend before shifting weight on the couch, knowing that the sneering blackhaired mess caddy-corner to him wouldn't respond, he would be too deep inside his own head for days. "'right well, i'm off to find the she-devil. i'm leaving the dog to take care of you." a slip of denim and scuff of shoe to the floor and nick was to his feet, a hand with curled fingers touching the side of his dalmation's face on the way up.

"i'll see you in a bit," murmured the bucktoothed vagrant before disappearing into the outside hallway and shutting the door behind him, leaving shep with the panicked chatter of a wildhaired reporter.

"..i.. i'm just in total shock right now.. phil, can you, can you switch to camera two?.."

mickey the dog took a nervous glance around, whining erratically before slipping up on the couch and huddling next to the doped-up mourner's side, a quivering wet nose shoved between his thigh and the cushions. in some mechanical gesture of comfort, shep found the motor skills to raise his hand and slide a palm across a velveteen span of white and black, coming to rest on the poor creature's head.

"..just, god bless, our hearts go out to all the victims in this horrible, catastrophic event.."