~otto~

{ for sale : my book }

Wed, 09 May 2012 22:51:00 -0400

I have some great news. My first book, Steal Me for Your Stories, is on sale — even at Amazon. This collection of short stories took me several years to write and many of the stories first appeared on this blog.

Also, I’m donating everything I make from this book to a trust for my late cousin’s family, so even if you think the stories suck you can at least know it wasn’t a total waste of money.

~O~

REVIEWS

Sara Habein in Word Riot: “Steal Me For Your Stories is full of passion, loneliness, and intoxicated philosophy. It is a series of fucked up small moments that may or may not be true — despite the frequent ‘Hand to God’ insistence — but it doesn’t really matter. They feel true, and that’s good enough. … It is 160 perfect little pages, and I’m so glad that the pages lived up to its excellent title.”

Fwriction Editor Danny Goodman: “A kickass, brilliant new voice in fiction. This collection is a necessary read.”

Poet C.O. Aptowicz: “‘Steal Me For Your Stories’ evoked from me something extremely rare: the beautiful madness of NYC.”

Bong Is Bard: “steal me for your stories is robb’s translation of the babble coming from the world surrounding him. and he is a master interpreter.”

LitStack: “Sexy, cool, quick, brutal, hip, gut wrenching, toe curling stories. Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

Reading Through College: “I expected parties, booze, drunkenness, cynical youth, objectifying and sexuality, and all the other sort of warm fuzzy things male 20-somethings do and think about, combined with some sort of glimpse into the main character’s tormented childhood. Or something.

“What Robb Todd gives us instead—I mean, he does give us all of that, but in addition—is love. And he does it beautifully.”

{ airport }

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 15:05:00 -0500

“At this time we are only pre-boarding our first class passengers, business class passengers, small business class passengers, business school grads, platinum club members, diamond deluxe members, gold medallion members, Captain’s Club members, Mile High Club members, and all premium class passengers and club members, members of the armed forces — excluding the Coast Guard but including the National Guard — passengers needing special assistance, small children needing special medication, insomniac babies, billy goats, donkeys, flightless birds of any kind and any barky animals that fit securely in a purse, Internet moguls, oil barons, royal barons, all royalty, heirs and heiresses, anyone wearing leopard print sweatpants and designer sunglasses, anyone wearing a black turtleneck and wire rim glasses, as well as any of the other fashionable and unfashionable elite class who will have their choice of inflight meals, which include lobster rolls, lobster salad, lobster bisque, lobster thermidor, or, for members of the eco-elite, a copy of the book ‘Consider the Lobster,’ while they recline in leather seats and enjoy free wine, free wi-fi, free hive fives, low carbon footprints, hot towel service, and deep tissue massage, and if you are not boarding the plane yet, please wait a little while longer while we fill it from front to back instead of back to front so you have to squeeze your way with your bags past people who never have to wait for anything and if you are lucky enough not to get bumped from this overbooked flight we will only allow you to sleep in steerage for a moment before we wake you up with a sharp slam to the knee from a beverage cart and spill coffee on your lap and sell you a bag of crushed potato chips at a handsome markup while blocking the aisle to the bathroom for half an hour. Thank you for your patience. We will now begin regular boarding for women who won’t stop talking and men who won’t stop snoring and anyone who can’t fit his or her bag in the overhead compartment but won’t stop trying. We know you have your choice of airlines and, as always, we appreciate your business. Thank you for flying with us.”

{ subway surfboard }

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:30:00 -0500

Black and white photos of hot naked chicks drinking milk poorly. Tit tattoo of a heart with an arrow through it and a blank ribbon across the front waiting to be filled in with a name. Exposed toes and blue gators and zebra heels. Her face, a bruised peach with a long scar, and she begs for change and a man hands her coins and she sees his girlfriend’s bouquet of roses. “Can I have a flower?” Missing teeth. He hands her one. “You’re the first person who has ever given me a flower. Thank you.”

( duck confit burger, avocado milkshake }

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 12:33:02 -0400

German and Thai and Italian all at once on the train and I wonder where the Spanish has gone. There is always Spanish in this constellation. We live in a society whether we like it or not. Look it up.

This conductor cares about his job and the people he serves: “Have a beautiful evening and a warm and cozy weekend.”

After midnight there are fewer people out who do not understand how a sidewalk works. A woman near the curb trains her dog to sit. Her men probably do not understand why she has so much control over them.

The lady holding my arm says, “There are really good dogs out tonight.” There are many of them all at once, lifting their legs, some small, some hairy, some large, men and women with blue plastic bags over their hands picking up poop.

She woke me up this morning by punching me in the back in her sleep. She did not punch me the night before. The night before that she punched me in the chest. The night before that she punched me in the face twice. She has bad dreams. She dreams that I cheat on her and that I try to give her genital diseases on purpose and sometimes she punches me because of things other people do to her in her dreams.

It is all okay, though. I like the way she walks up stairs and I appreciate the way she bends over on the bed to turn off the air conditioner. We do lots of fun things together.

A limo driver crushes an orange parking ticket in his fist and throws it on the ground next to his black stretch (license plate: SH ZAAAM) and does not get a ticket for littering and I drop a ten in a tip jar by mistake and dig it out.

“Yeah, right, man!”

A friend sends a photo to my phone of a happy woman with “What you think about her?” Big smile, looks honest. Usually a good sign. But I am a sucker for a nice label. That is how I buy my wine. And I do not know shit about wine.

Dip into a spot for quick dinner. Duck confit burger and an avocado milkshake, pass on the sweet potato fries. Unheard off, right? RIGHT. You will never find this place and I am not telling, and she and I bounce to a rooftop party in a nice neighborhood on a nice evening.

“I would totally come up here and look into apartments all day long. But you never see people having sex and, let’s be honest: that’s why you look. We do our parts” — he points to the woman next to him — “and leave the blinds open.”

He winks and asks for a lime to plop in his gin and tonic and all the citrus that is left is a used slice.

“I don’t think it was sucked upon. I think it was just squeezed,” I say.

The bottle of wine with the best label is almost empty and I pour it all into a glass. I swirl it and sniff and dab my tongue in it a little. Hints of grape and notes of alcohol. It tastes great.

A woman with an accent that is hard to place tosses a scarf around her neck and announces to the table: “I want to be a dolphin-trainer trainer. But I don’t want to be too famous.” She says if she was a drug dealer, this is what she would tell boys who got in her face: “Get outta here before I make your girlfriend pregnant!” She snarls and laughs.

The conversation switches to poop.

The lady holding my arm says: “My poo game has been really good lately. I’ve been impressed. Usually when I wipe there’s nothing even there and I have to ask, ‘Did that really happen?’ And I check the bowl and it did.”

The dolphin-trainer trainer knows how to say “drop the kids off at the pool” in five languages and does so. Impressed. She says German is the sexiest language even though she does not speak it.

Back on the sidewalk, stumbling home.

“If you love me, you’ll collapse on the ground right now.”

The lady on my arm collapses. I collapse. People step around and over us all at once. A man leans into our view and says, “Excuse me. Sorry. See that tree there?” We tilt our heads but do not sit up. He says, “It’s like a BIG little tree!” He points. “All the way. All the way into the ground!” He points and points. “All the way. Look!” He points. “A big LITTLE tree!” We do not look. He smiles and shakes his head. He stares at us and we stare back and he says, “Okay, thanks,” and walks away.

The sky is large above and she holds a fly swatter so big she swats stars.

~O~

{ I have tried caring about a number of things }

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 17:16:07 -0400

Ring bells on chained bikes. Move.

Please.

Please?

Please!

I have already outlived better men but my perception of your perception of me is not good but it does not matter if anybody else thinks you matter.

Night sounds: clanging radiator, snow shovel scraping sidewalk.

We might be even worse for each other than we are for ourselves. She belches in French and the whole world is in a hurry to slow me down like a crossbred dalmatian-great dane.

Remember: swing for the chopping block, not the wood. Good first-date lesson. Not like this guy who brags to a lady companion, “All my girlfriends have had nice teeth. It must be some kind of subconscious thing.” He is a dentist. “People care so little about their back teeth. You need them to chew. Is that a good enough reason?” She nods and he keeps talking. “Usually the people with really bad teeth only worry about the look and not the function. I don’t know why. You don’t need straight, white teeth. You just need teeth.” She smiles, flashes her teeth, does not say anything. “My dad always said you can tell how rich someone is by how nice their teeth are.”

What do you talk about after this becomes boring? (Instantly.) Gently murdered but there are other things to uncover. Do we save old love letters to prove how much people lie to themselves? Who has seen the pink garbage truck? Why are not more people freaked out that we can see the moon?

So much must be done and, in some ways, I am excited for us to feel bad about the world.

~O~

{ jalapeno-tequila hard candy }

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 23:23:00 -0400

Flames on his arm and a star on his neck. In her sandal: six lady toes. Counted them six times to be sure. Bless you to an old man after he sneezed and he smiled and said thanks and that is a weird things humans do: bless you. Her toes were on her hands.

    * Approximately 10 jalapeno peppers, with seeds
    * 1/4 cup water
    * 369 gallons tequila
    * 1-1/3 cup white sugar
    * 3/4 cup white corn syrup

Cat on a leash in the park. Legalize graffiti (only the good tags). Boxes of diapers in both his hands. “Let sleeping fish die.” Right? Little girl almost fell down the steps but braced herself on a stranger’s leg. Eat the Rich T-shirt. Someone will get rich off of that.

{ bars over business windows }

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 10:59:07 -0400

Always a good selection of crutches at the Salvation Army thrift store. Wood and aluminum. Christian music promotes personal responsibily and postive thinking. Wildfire prayer request.

Every day down here is the longest day of the year. Rhyme.

I order a mysterious lunch from someone who doesnt speak English by pointing at a handwritten menu not in English and trading nods and she serves it in a styrofoam box and the corn tortillas and rice are delicious and I apparently ordered a type of beef stew with potatoes. There is no air conditioning and a woman with gold teeth sets a fan near me and aims it at my face. I say gracias and she flashes the valuable smile. I drink a tall coke in a sweaty glass bottle and even the bottle does not speak English.

A television televises the news from a station across the border. Dogs. The anchor folds his arms and looks pissed. Something about dogs. Lots of dogs.

I drink constantly down here, second-most southernmost, and you have to because the heat is deadly and that is not a joke. Surface of the sun on earth. Death. Medio litro.

The across-the-river weather lady is dressed to party. Cockroach on the wall. My food is gone. Temperatures in Celsius.

Downtown streets, presidents and alphabet. A store rents tires. A sign for a boozeria with “coldest cans in town” written in a hand-drawn icy font, frost on top. I am melting.

Bone-bleaching heat, but art on bleached bones. An old woman’s painted face, charcoal eyebrows.

“How many grandaughters do you have?”

“Almost a baseball team.”

Driving. Neighborhoods. A fuchsia house with lime trim. Why not. Homeowners associations crush individuality and self-expression.

Loose bricks and rubble and broken stone. Murals. Tin can recycling but aluminum.

A dog with lots of ribs is roped to a truck with the doors open, tiny barks and tiny barks and I fold my arms angry in the heat so hot so heat so hot.

~O~

{ the destroyer }

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 11:54:00 -0400

Basically, every time the Internet is slow or a phone call drops I feel that I am the victim of a conspiracy.

{ leather and shoelace }

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 21:22:59 -0400

An old woman and a pregnant woman stood in front of me and I offered the pregnant woman my seat and she said no thanks so I kept sitting.

At the next stop a guy got on and stared at me like, “Why aren’t you giving that pregnant lady your seat?” I got off at the next stop and so did the pregnant lady and the guy nudged the old woman out of the way to grab my place.

The subway steps led to some famous courts and the games were fierce. Basketballs bounced and handballs popped. A man on the sidelines had a lot to say about the evolution of the shoelace.

Outside of a Belgian beer bar, a man with a tattered straw hat sat at a table with his legs crossed. He held a leash that was wrapped around the legs of his chair and he sipped a frothy beer from a tulip glass. He called his dog Robot. “Sit, Robot. Sit.”

Clouds blanketed the sky and cooled things off and everything turned blue.

~O~

{ what to wear to an orgy }

Wed, 18 May 2011 19:27:18 -0400

A woman pushed a stroller to the edge of the curb and when she saw a small opening in the rushing traffic, she ran for it. Her and her infant made it across alive and it excited me for all the possibilities that remained.

A pigeon posed for me on a ledge and I bought a bottle of ranch dressing from a farmer’s stand by a busy subway entrance. I had just been fantasizing about ranch dressing and the universe brought it to me. On the train a woman’s newspaper sat in the seat next to her. “Is that yours?” She snatched it and I sat down next to her and she dug through her purse and wheezed, “Ohhhhhhgoddddd.”

M&Ms rolled around the floor and bounced off my shoes and a baby cried. A man played a panflute. I thought “What to Wear to an Orgy” would be a good title for my book.

A drunken man slurred his way through the crowded train pleading his case. “Someone stole my wallet and cellphone. I just want to get home to Connecticut.” He stumbled into someone and did not say sorry. “Can anyone spare a dollar or a five or ten? If someone gave me a ten I’d go straight home and you’d never have to see me again.” Nobody gave him anything. “The feeling is mutual!” A cigarette was pinned behind his ear. “The reason they call it spare change is because you can spare it. I know times are tough but …” He pushed his way past a couple holding hands. “Thanks for being so understanding. I hope you lose your wallet and cellphone.” He got off the train.

When I got home I Internet-searched “What to Wear to an Orgy” and it has already been taken, some article written during the key-partying ’70s. I dipped a dab of ranch dressing on my finger and it was delicious, the best I have ever had and nothing like what stores sell. I drank it like a drink, straight from the bottle, thick and creamy and herby.

”Aaahhhhhh.”

The sun set behind a hill, trees full and green, clouds catching the deepening colors of a day leaving us for somewhere else. My window filled with weekend motorcycle engines and death sirens and car horns and drunken sidewalks but in the morning it quieted with churchgoers and hangovers and dog walkers and birds chirping Morse code before it gave way to everything starting over.

~O~

{ my book should be out in early 2012 }

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 23:41:00 -0400

I do not like to run for trains but it was right there, I could see it, so I scampered. I swiped my card and the turnstile told me to “please swipe again,” and if turnstiles could laugh they would laugh like MWAHAHAHA. I watched the train doors close and I saw the empty seat where I could have been sitting speed past. A woman with a guitar was singing, really going for it on the high notes. She was trying to own the echoes on the platform. Another train came a few minutes later.

Look for my book early next year from Tiny Hardcore Press. It’s a collection of things that might be stories or maybe they are something else, but there are definitely words involved. Please tell me what to call this thing. Leave suggestions in the comments. The worse the title, the better. Ridiculous blurbs are also welcome.

~O~

{ everything I think about when I am trying not to think }

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 14:30:10 -0400

I never know what to say to a human being when someone it cares about dies. I could be a better it. I am vulnerable to other people’s all-caps and emoticons.

Someone said something on the train this morning that made me reevaluate my existence: “A techno version of The Time of My Life … that’s all I’ve ever wanted.” My priorities must be screwed up but dentists are gotdam liars. Look up “pusillanimous” and use it in a conversation today and use it to describe me.

Another human being said this: “It’s weird watching movies where people aren’t getting shot.”

The subway gave me a card at my work stop with a message when I needed one, in an envelope, unsigned. It was taped to a steel I-beam with chipped paint that revealed a thick rainbow of thin layers, the rings in trees. I snatched it and opened it. The card had a horseshoe and a shamrock and said, “No lies. Just love.”

Lunch could have been better. It was too sweet and not enough spicy. “Filipinos are the Asian Irish,” someone said and someone else said, “Well, Russians are the white Puerto Ricans.”

It occurred to me that “take a nip” might be a nipple reference. I passed the bottle to my friend and he said, “I don’t get art.” See, I will listen to a new song I love on repeat until I hear it when it is not playing but if I listen to a recording of myself reading a story I wrote, it creeps me the fuck out. I hate listening to myself talk when I am not talking.

A human being on the evening train said: “Keep your friends close but your … I don’t get that quote. Why would you keep your enemies closer?”

I walked home and a bunch of birds, a lot of little brown dots, flew at my face and I blinked and while I blinked they must have flown through me. A small girl dropped a large pizza while her mother dug in a purse for keys at the front door of our building. The mother told her it was okay and the girl picked up the box and held it under her arm like a book and the mother calmly told her to hold the box flat and went back to searching for the keys. I had my keys in hand and bags of groceries dangling from fingers and I opened the door and held it for them and the girl was holding the pizza upside down and the mother calmly asked her to turn it over and the little human being screamed, “STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO! I AM HOLDING THE BOX RIGHT!”

):

I heard a song in my elevator head that was not playing and I cried a little even though I did not understand the words. A human being’s morning was still in my sink: orange peels and dirty dishes and coffee grounds and egg shells.

{ jab jab cross hook }

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 22:16:00 -0400

There were a lot of women in the boxing gym and a couple of them could probably knock me out. Maybe all of them. No, there was one I would beat the shit out of for sure. I want to fight her.

I jumped rope on one foot and switched to the other foot. I did this a few times without tangling the rope around my ankles. Other times I tangled the rope around my ankles. Why do kids think jumping rope is for girls?

He said: “Don’t lean in, just use your upper body, turn.”

He said: “Don’t lift your back foot up when you punch.”

Jab cross jab cross jab cross hook jab jab cross jab cross hook jab jab cross hook.

He said: “Hit this big black bag and pretend it’s that guy.” He pointed to the big black conditioning coach.

He said: “Move forward when you jab.”

I threw a cross and missed the center of the big black bag and rolled my wrist. It hurt. I thought it might have been sprained. I kept punching and concentrated on my aim and kept my wrist locked. My fist went a little numb but it was okay when I took the glove off later.

He said: “Hit this bag.” It was a small, round ball attached to the ceiling and the floor with elastic bands. “It’s all about timing, just like life.” Once I hit it and sent it bobbing all over the place, I could not hit it again unless I held out the glove and stopped it.

He said: “That kid is named Rocket.” He pointed to a little kid hanging out by a window. “Can you believe that? What kind of name is Rocket? That’s his real name.” I said he might be named after a famous baseball player who did steroids. I said I knew a kid named Zap. Real birth-certificate name. He asked a guy on a treadmill: “Have you ever heard of a kid named Zap? Real birth-certificate name?”

I stepped through the ropes and bounced around in the ring with another guy with pads on his hands. He called out combinations and I hit the pads. I missed once and almost hit him in the face.

He said: “Keep your elbows in.”

He said: “Breathe when you punch.”

There is a pushup variation that I find almost impossible. You start on your forearms, in a flat pushup position off the ground and launch into a pushup from there, then lower one forearm at a time flat again. It could not do more than two in a row.

Bicycle crunches make me fart.

The store across the street sells coconut water. I chugged a bottle afterward. It has potassium and is the only natural substance that can be injected into your bloodstream safely. It was cold and felt slick going down my throat.

An old lady with a bunch of bags got on the train. It was crowded. There was a seat between me and this dude with a Yankees cap. He was sitting in that leg-spread-wide way that is a dare to anyone who wants to sit down. I said to her, loudly enough for him to hear, “Would you like to sit down?” I pointed at the open seat between us. The guy did not move his legs and she said, “Oh, it’s okay,” and I said, “Are you sure?” and she said, “Is there room?” and I said, “Yeah,” and scrunched my shoulders in and made myself as small as I could, pressing against the steel wall, and she slid in and the guy did not move and I had to lean forward to finish typing this and it made my neck and back hurt. He got off a couple stops later and a little dude took his seat and it was a bit better but was still a squeeze.

The train was fucked and crowded the whole way home, and hot, and I bet I smelled and I bet people thought: that guy smells.

The thing about the old lady: If that empty seat had not been there I would not have stood up and given her mine. Luckily, I was able to deflect whatever bad feelings I have about myself for that onto the guy who would not move his legs. I should thank him for giving me someone to feel superior to.

Crap. Another old lady is standing in front of me. She is watching me type. I am not giving her my seat.

~O~

{ how to survive strong pesticides }

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0500

See, the neighbors upstairs have a pet kleidsdale, er, chleidsdale, er, (Internet search: chlydesdale) clydesdale. I think their horse wears high heels and wakes up to an alarm about a half hour before mine and it clomps around my ceiling for quite a while and I really do not even need to set my alarm any more, see?

A woman was singing and playing the guitar on my subway platform. She is new. She is a nice addition to the mornings. She strummed and sang like she was sitting at campfire during the sixties. Before she arrived the only sounds were the endless off-beat beeps of the turnstile and people chatting and trains grumbling, indecipherable announcements over a mysterious speaker. Now there is also music and the sound of coins hitting her guitar case. Dollar bills do not make much sound when people toss those. (When I see a five-dollar bill in there I wonder if the person took change back or if the singer planted it.) She only sings three songs. “Haleluyeah,” er, (Internet search: Haleluyeah) “Hallelujah,” “Only Fools Rush In,” and “Empire State of Mind” (let’s hear it for just the chorus). I think she only sings those three songs because if the trains are on time you will not hear the whole loop. The trains are rarely on time.

At lunch I took a piss. It was very dark, like an IPA. I have been ill. A cold I cannot beat. I never understood why old men shake their dicks so long at urinals. Now I do. And not because I have a cold.

This dude was sleeping the whole train ride home after work and at his stop his eyes snapped open, no conductor’s announcement or anything, and he grabbed his bag and walked off like the ceiling of his skull was being stomped on by a clydesdale.

It is hard not to love subway performers unless they make it easy. Terrible boom box with blown speakers, loud clapping when people (me) were tired after long days with boring tasks. People (me) were trying to read. But we (I) had to stop everything so they could do a couple back flips and irritate the crap out of us (me). Seen this same act too many times. Save it for the evenings, men. “Show you’re love, show your support. We’re not robbing or killing.” Oh, right. Those are the only other options. Never mind.

I walked home during a downpour, a few blocks. No umbrella. I hate umbrellas. I bought one the other day for a few bucks at a bodega because I was caught in a drizzle and it was cold and I did not have a hoodie or a hat. The umbrella did not cost that much. Less than a good IPA. I opened the umbrella and a few seconds later a slight breeze destroyed it. It did the reverse-umbrella thing and all the metal parts snapped at the joints and the handle broke and it fell to the ground in pieces, a dying robot spider kite, and I got wet. Then I caught a cold. But that is not why I hate umbrellas.

Street lights look better streaked across ripple-wet sidewalks. If you look close, heavy drops explode on asphalt, moon popcorn craters. Remember the time we rode bikes in the park and a storm chased us? The time we walked across the bridge and there were flowers for someone who jumped? The time we saw a deer run down a busy city street? The other time? There were crumbs of Pringles on my chest, many, as I wrote this even though I had been eating grapes and there is not such a thing as a grape crumb, is there?

Before I wrote this I was reading stories written by people who hope to be accepted to a very fine literary magazine but some of the authors were those subway performers. I would reject this story, too, my story, yet someone trusts me with slush. I should be trusted with rain, also, but not with Pringles.

Thanks for listening with your eyes. And, hey, enough about me. Let’s talk about you and all the wonderful things you think about me.

~O~

{ salmon jump into the open mouths of bears }

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 16:45:00 -0500

She asks me how life is and I say, “I’m very much in favor of—” scratch my chin “—life.” And I say, “Definitely not against it.” People underground sing with strangers and my hat was enough in the rain. She says, “Oh, no!” Something she cares about spills and it will have to be remade. A couple on the other side of the tracks kiss like no one is watching and a rat sniffs a rail in a trickle of trash water. It is hard not to find answers in the incoherent, angry rambling of mad men.

Or maybe I just made up a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. I really like the word mumbo-jumbo. A lot. I say “mumbo-jumbo” out loud on the train and people stare at me while I laugh a little. The train is quiet. A woman tries to sit down as the train pulls out and she falls on another woman and says sorry and the woman she fell on smiles and says, “No problem. Everyone could use a little love.” They laugh and it is quiet again except for the rumble and creak of the train, its loose parts jangling a quiet song. At the next stop some guys storm aboard and yell at each other in another language and unleash some “Ayeees!” and “Ooooyas!” and finally they shut the fuck up. People dressed for rain are reading newspapers and books and electronics and the floor is puddled with drying patches of dirty water.

Earbuds. Headphones. Salsa. Techno. Hip-hop. Humidity. Cornrows. Afros. Jewfros. Bald spots.

A woman with a face like a velvet painting digs through an unruly stack of envelops in her bag and cannot find what she is looking for and sighs and zips it up and her hair is limp curls of peroxide blonde and her nails are bare but not chewed upon. A cross-eyed man stares at me with one eye but maybe he is not staring at me. An albino black guy with a thin almost-blonde mustache over his thick lips sits next to me.

This all means something. I do not know what. I will be thinking of you at eleven o’clock, and all the other o’clocks.

~O~

{ Tijuana }

Sat, 19 Feb 2011 01:00:00 -0500

Husks of empty bars
relics of tequila
titties
an old man
a joke about beer
fuck on the first date
rooms for 99 pesos an hour
we wake up sweating
in the thick
unspeaking
inebriation
of difference

~O~

{ faster, pussycat }

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 19:38:00 -0500

An obituary for a B-movie actress could not verify her age, but she was somewhere in her seventies, and the obit said she had big tits and posed nude and stripped before getting into exploitation films.

Her father was Japanese-Filipino and her mother was Cheyenne-Scots-Irish. I searched the Internet for her and added the word “naked” and found many photos of her hefty bare breasts. She was pretty and I bet a lot of people wanted to fuck her a long time ago.

I thought about masturbating to the photos, most of them black and white, but I felt weird looking at the younger tits of an old woman who just died. That feeling went away and I jacked off all over myself.

~O~

{ my novel }

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 16:02:00 -0500

BLURBS:

“Otto M. Attiq uses the same words we all use but he puts them in a different order. Give him money.” ~Someone Who Is a Friend of Mine and Has Not Read the Book Because It Is Not Yet Written

“[ INSERT AMY HEMPEL BLURB HERE ].” ~Amy Hempel

“What is ‘Baboso’ about? It is about everything and nothing. You don’t have to read it, but you will live a lesser life if you do not.” ~Random Blurb Generator

“I don’t like peas.” ~Random five-year-old

“Please do not read this book.” ~Mom

COVER ART:

  .Hump me, please.

             (_,/\ \
            (`a a(  )
            ) \=  ) (
           (.--' '--.)
           / (_\_/_) \
          | / \   / \ |
           \\ / . \ //
            \/\___/\/
            |  \_/  |
             \  /  /
              \/  /
               ( (
               |\ \
               | \ \
              /_Y/_Y

BABOSO
by Otto M. Attiq

Foreword by Some Asshole Who Will Make This Book Seem More Important Than It Is and Will Kind of Guide/Ruin the Reading of the Book

Blahblahblah blahblah blah blahblahblahblahblahblahblah blahblahblahblah blahblah blah blahblah blah blahblahblah blahblah blah bliddy blah blaaaaaaahblahblah bleh.

Page 1

[ INSERT NOVEL HERE ]

The End

~O~

{ there is no such thing as nothing }

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 21:34:00 -0500

The windows of a building across the park cast sunlight onto my wall over my bed in the early morning during the winter and the light from stars is some kind of crazy time travel and whenever I want to go insane I think about outer space. Infinity makes my brain melt. How does infinity even make sense? What is at the edge of outer space? Something has to be beyond the beyond and beyond that, too. If the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into? There has to be something. If the universe is contracting, what is it contracting from? Makes me believe in god a little but as soon as I think I believe that I ask myself what god exists inside of and I am right back where I started so I try not to think about that and just appreciate how beautiful the light is on my wall and I thrown on some warm clothes and big boots and trek out into the snow and muck and slush and wind on my way to the subway.

~O~

{ come and blood and ink and come }

Sat, 25 Dec 2010 18:57:00 -0500

Her present was a coloring book filled with pussies and she said, “You know I needed a vagina morale boost. That was very thoughtful of you. … Write that down. I say the best things in the world.” I wrote that down with all the other great things she had said that day. We used glitter crayons to color some of the many varieties of pussies.

She dug in her purse for birth control pills and popped one in her mouth and said “Now you can jizz in me.”

She took her clothes off and climbed on top of me and I was afraid it would make me late for an appointment but I shut my mouth because when a beautiful naked woman climbs on top of you, that is the most important thing that will happen to you all day — and you never know when you might die.

She rode me hard and came quickly and I was worried about being late and could not come even when I got on top and even from the back but she masturbated while I squeezed her ass and my balls slapped her from behind and she got off again and I was not even close but I did not care because she came twice and that makes me feel better than my own orgasms. I did not shower and just threw on my clothes and we hit the subway and somehow got to the appointment on time and I love this mad mad city.

On the way there, she told me she tells a girlfriend about us in bed and she said, “Is it okay I told her about that?”

“Oh, it’s fine,” I said. “You can tell anyone anything great about me anytime.”

The artist put an outline on my shoulder and a buzzing needle to my skin and it hurt like a motherfucker and I told him I am a big pussy and would probably cry. She got excited when I said that and clapped her hands in small, fast claps. He stuck my shoulder with needles and ink for hours. Every now and then he wiped the blood and black away with towels and squeezed water on it to clean his canvas and it was cool relief.

“It’s like painting a wall with a toothpick,” he said. He also said that living in another city I once called home is like date rape. She wrote that down for me, and we talked about how living in this city is a struggle, too, but it is usually a struggle with yourself and eventually you give in to it and love this city the way you love someone in a relationship — a relationship with someone who drives you crazy at times.

The pain got worse with each passing hour but went from stinging and shooting to burning and throbbing and finally I submitted to it and told myself that there will be permanent art at the end of the temporary pain and there was. He wrapped my shoulder with plastic and tape and told me it would start to ooze in a while so wash it soon and I wondered if I would make it home alive.

She left for work and I went to a deli to buy water-based lotion so the ink on my shoulder would heal properly. A guy in front of me asked the old dude behind the register for “sewstungs” and the old dude said “Eyeno undustend,” and the guy said, “Suesings!” and old dude scratched his head and said “Haen?” and the guy raised his arms and said, “Shoe strings!” and the old dude pointed to a wall and there they were and they both looked like apes inventing spoken language.

I walked to the subway and an SUV almost hit me in the crosswalk and I slapped the back window and yelled and the driver hit the breaks and I was pissed so I rushed to his door and he rolled down the window and he started yapping so I punched him quiet and slung open the door and yanked his ass out of the seat and threw him to the cold concrete and realized he was disabled. I did not see the handicap license plate.

I ran to the subway, breath puffing in the cold air like a smokestack. I almost fell down the slippery steps, rushed through the turnstile and lost myself at the back of a platform. It was empty except for this lady wearing a lot of animal print. I stood near her to make her uncomfortable and I ripped a long rat-a-tat-tat fart with much bass and she looked at me all horrified and I laughed as loud as I could and she screamed and scampered away.

Maybe I am one of the crazy people on the subway that I always encounter on my way home. Maybe I am one of the tests people have to endure to live here and still love it.

The train came. I took a seat and the doors did not close. We just sat there. A woman with a stroller sat next to me while her dude stood next to her.

“If my baby shit herself I’m going to rub it in ya face,” she said, and she laughed. She reached into the stroller to check. “Do I know my baby or do I know my baby?”

The train was still in the station and I kept waiting for someone to come chasing after me, someone other than the crippled guy, and I was anxious for the doors to close. They almost closed but popped back open and closed again and popped back open.

The conductor’s voice scratched over the speakers: “Someone in one of the cars, pull your bag in.” The doors rattled open and shut. “Thank you. Let’s get it together, people. Be responsible. Pull your bags IN.” Yes, thank you people.

A few stops later, someone at the back of the car started preaching: “You know what I got for being a crackhead? Nothing. You know what I for for being a Christian? Eternal life.”

I transfered to another train and a dude was screaming on the other side of a turnstile, “One man! One man! One man! I’m just one man! … Mothafucka.” He wore all black and slung a tiny pink backpack over his shoulder. My shoulder was still burning under the plastic wrap.

A couple in front of me was trying to figure out what the man had been yelling.

“Was it ‘white man’?”

“I thought he was saying, ‘White Plains’.”

I said, “‘One man’,” and the dude slid down the handrail to the platform like a big showoff in a musical and I was really hoping he would bust his ass but he did not.

A hefty woman walking next to me loudly told her girlfriend that a guy tried to pick her up by saying, “Hey there, big girl,” and she said it like she was bragging.

A tall man wearing a bike helmet and a long thick beard and wrap-around sunglasses and striped leg warmers and black boots and a big gray blanket over his shoulders with a hole cut in it for his head walked by. I wrote all that down and my shoulder throbbed and I read several of the things she said to me that day that were great:

… “I just got a weird feeling in my stomach, like something bad is about to happen. Weird! Must be from lack of jizz ingestion.”

… “I’m never going to do anything with my life. I really believe that.” (She said it like an affirmation, smiling.)

… “I guess I feel like anal is a diss to my vagina.”

I could hear her saying all of it in a voice that is diffused light.

The train came. A stranger helped a blind lady with a fancy hat find a seat. At her stop, she called out, “Mark! Mark! Where are you? I need help!” Mark was not on the train.

A homeless guy kept staring at me like I was the reason he was homeless, and I wondered why so many whales commit suicide. Humans like to believe that whales beach themselves by mistake, which is pretty bullshit when you consider how many other human aspects we project onto them such as intelligence and singing and love and blah blah. Why not depression? If whales are so human, then suicide only makes sense.

A few stops from my stop, a drunk guy gave everyone a speech about being a musician and having an expensive mic stolen from his apartment and he said he needs money to buy another one so he can earn a living. He sang a cheesy R&B love song that says love is a two-way street and his voice was awful and annoying and people gave him money anyway, maybe enough to buy another drink.

I got home and drank a cold beer in a hot shower and washed my oozing shoulder and chunks of dried blood and ink circled the drain and I toweled off and sat in my white leather chair and held my half-hard cock in my hand while I read a newspaper online. I squeezed my dick a little, like it was a water balloon and I squeezed it and squeezed it and pumped it up and down a bit too, just enough to keep it at that level, not harder, not softer, just thick and squishy, and I read a story about a scientist who studies cities and he claims he has the madness figured out on a mathematical level, there are equations and such that can predict everything, and I touched the swollen ink on my shoulder and I thought about her riding me and making that face she makes when she climaxes and the way all her muscles tighten and that thin, cool sweat that covers her skin like each pour squeezed a drop to the surface and I stiffened and stroked and came all over myself in hot, thick gobs.

~O~