Social Studies #2

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Social Studies #1

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ARMY (excerpt from Killer of Killers)

1.

“First” he says, “you will fight with your hands.”

I am sent to the ground, my nose broken. I don’t think he moved, maybe the slight stitch of a shoulder. I stand again and he resumes his posture his arms out stretched so his body becomes a T.  This time he blasts shoulder into my chest and I roll backwards on the wet marble. We are in a massive gothic hangar with long gilded arches supporting the curved glass of the artificial sky.

“I wonder aloud if you were worth keeping” he says

“I’m starting to wonder the same.”

“Fight me.”

“This is a compound. You are ARMY. There is no fighting ARMY.”

“And all of ARMY smiles to hear. But it’s your fight that’s kept you alive thus. Stand and fight or I will end you like a lame mutt.”

I press on the bridge of my nose and force much of the thicker blood out of my nostrils. I wont be smelling for a while. I stand and the man smiles, knowing all along how things will go.

I make for his face with a quick left-right, stepping in properly. He taps away each of my fists as if swatting away fat flies. He twists his hips, spinning his upper body. His eyes follow me to the ground as he knee trips up my back leg.

His face is deadly serious during those moments of action. He smiles now, but this isn’t a smiling time and I fear wont become one for a very long time, if ever again. It hadn’t occurred to me before but I’ve come to realize something I’d somehow missed.

I was becoming ARMY.

This must be how it happens.

Death is nothing next to this life.

2.

Dimes fly by and still this man beats me, from rise to fall. I thought the first day was a sort of passing, but I can’t remember how long it’s been since then. The time is lost; I have no sense of it. I haven’t even touched him yet. But I will, someday. I will touch him with a real laster.

3.

This man passes my limits, leaving no area unhit. He is careful not to break my bones, but he causes optimum pain with each hit. He is a master of pain. I have been becoming harder to hit, but he isn’t stretched a bit. I have come to see he’s barely trying. He could punch his arm right through me. I am on the ground gushing blood. I will taste blood forever. I try to stop my heart with my mind, as the massive room spins around me.

At the end of the session, however many it’s been, he says:

“Sleep there, when you wake up we’ll get you squared.”

4.

I wake to the sound of horns, glory horns, I think they call them. For the glory of ARMY. The ground is bobbing. I am being carried on a length of cloth. I am too weak to resist these strange men in rubber suits. They look through their goggles with bored eyes, routine eyes. I fall away from the world and into the sky and rip through the clouds into outer space, achieving a great arc before falling back down, tearing through the heavens, to the ground, where I wake up in a sort of shock. I am, as a fact, being shocked. Tiny pads are stuck to my body with wires running from them. I am half submerged in a large tube. A round red orb watches me as little machines tick away my progress. This is a laugh, I must say, my thoughts are clearer then ever as my body is jolted relentlessly. I feel the juice cutting through my body. I can’t understand why they are doing this. How is this training? More tubes are coming out of my arms pumping some milky liquids in and other darker liquids out. This goes on for many days, half-asleep/half-awake, until I feel the like killing GOD and GODESS. 

5.

I awake in a small cubey room. Everything is levels of tan. Everything is rounded and safe, yet sturdy. There’s even a small light next to me. I am on a generous cot. Above me is a small reb ord, like the one in the shock-tube.

I feel rested like I never thought possible. My body no longer feels sore, quite the flip actually, I feel strong. My skin feels tight, my arms and chest are cut of the fat. I feel like tussling. On the square in front of me it says: FOR THE GLORY OF ARMY. On the table is a tan book with military lettering: SRM (SIMPLE READY MANUAL). I open the small book and flip through the pages, which are as thin as those of a holy book, but untearable. I enjoy the simple language and crisp diagrams of this book. I stop at a section about bomb making and begin to read. That door will eventually slide open and I assume I will be further trained- but for what?

“I wonder aloud”

6...

Screen Grabs: The Last Picture Show

Screen Grabs: Cocaine Cowboys

10 More Movies You Should See

1.   In the Name of the Father (1993)

2.   Motorama (1991)

3.   The Last Picture Show (1971)

4.   Carnage (2002)

5.   Blind Chance (1987)

6.   Knife in the Water (1962)

7.   That Osbscure Object of Desire (1977)

8.   The Lives of Others (2006)

9.   Control (2007)

10. The Killers (1964)

Aging Gracefully...

My fat spilled onto the floor and the next morning I went to the Institute. My new husband, Lloyd, said I had rolled off of the bed and became somewhat belligerent while they were trying to load me into the wheelchair. Since I was already there I figured it was time to sand the bump again. It tends to rise up like bored French film students in the summertime. They altered my skin-cinches so any excess fat would sit right, and then they sanded the ugly bump. I was sitting in an efficient chair facing a wall of pamphlets. At this point my chin was bandaged and my cheekbones were still a bit swollen from the lift the previous month, but the pain from when they killed my batwings was totally gone. I was feeling a bit glossy, finding everyone handsome. I remembered the noises that were somehow recorded. I recall that poignant crunch. I can almost see the monitors that make my head look like a rubber stunt-head.  The pamphlets funny little drawings jumped out at me. There was this one that stood out from the others. It said: 

HAVE YOU EVER WANTED TO SPY ON SOMEONE’S DREAMS?

When I came back to I was extremely thirsty. The Nurse boys all threw me looks that were bold at first and then retreated back to boyish innocence once they tasted me. After my next seven-step surgery plan I’ll make all the little boys clench. It’s just a matter of time and technology and Sharpie marker ink. Jason always needlessly reassured me that what had been done so far was absolutely necessary. He’s a little boy, but he’s also the best on this coast. I know he loves touching me, molding me into his masterpiece. They used my ear lift for their ad in Impressive Lifts Quarterly. During my forehead reshaping they found a hole in my skull and somehow mistakenly cut a nerve, so there is some numbness but it’s not like I go around feeling things with my forehead. Jason told me that I would look twenty-five when everything settled. It was so excited to look my natural age again instead of this misleading bag on a coat rack that’s been skulking around the Valley wearing oversized buggy sunglasses. What I looked forward to was Penny Albert’s face at the next Charity for Whatever Dinner.

As I sat there laughing at the tanned Nurse boys and being gently sat back by the little bitches and sometimes the doctors. I tried to call some one (possibly my daughter, although I can’t imagine why) but found that I didn’t have any pockets. I noticed a band-aid on my arm that wasn’t there before. It had Barney Rubble and Dino and the main guy and his redheaded wife. I passed the time scrunching my toes and trying to breath through my nose, even though they told me not to.

Jason walked in and I didn’t find it strange that he was at least a foot taller than usual. He was looking at me with that love that sculptor’s feel for their finest work. I can’t wait to see the look on your face. You’ve been seeing the same Fin cunt since the divorce, tauting her around like she’s a fucking blue-ribbon show pony. Her face is smooth and fair and her long hair emits morning sunshine. I’ve seen her in magazines, couldn’t be a day over seventeen. We’ll see how that little cocksucker likes it when I’m hotter than she’ll ever be. Even some little bitch raised inside of a glacier with her Finnish genes won’t be able to out-fuck me. Jason said something, but I didn’t catch it.

What?

Are you ready?

What, dear? How did it go?

We haven’t started yet.

But we did, you did Jason-love, I remember it.

I’m sure it’s the juice; you’re juiced up pretty good.

That may be, but I know what I know. If I could lift my arms, I’d touch the bandage.

I said something else about sanding the bump. Jason only smiled like I was frat party rape fodder, silly-talking on the couch that’s been screwed on a million times. My words were as pointless as a translation of a conversation between kittens. Maybe I’d had a flashback of one of the other bump sandings. He continued smiling as two of the bitches came in and pulled powdered white rubber gloves onto his hands. One of the little bitches was grinning at me as if a bird shit in my hair. I tried to say something but the juice was doing its work and I drooled onto my paper bib. That same little bitch let laugh a little slip, scrunching up her little skank face. I made a mental note to follow that bitch home someday and scratch LITTLE BITCH or SKANK BITCH into her car’s hood with my keys. Then one of the Nurse boys came in and started rubbing brown fluid all over my arm with a little round sponge. He only looked up at me once but I made it count. The little son of a bitch didn’t know it yet, but not a month would pass before he'd be eating my pussy.

Just relax.

Jason leaned in and might have kissed my cheek, I couldn’t tell. I could see his black chest hair coming out from his v-neck scrubs. I felt totally unashamed just staring at his face. He had a movie-star head. I could tell he’s going to be a gorgeous older man when he forms his smile lines and his hair streaks with silver. Men have it so easy. After I’m done he’s going to fuck me, for sure. I can tell he’s just waiting until I’m perfect, building up his juice for me. All these little tight body boys are going to cream their pants wishing they could slide inside me. I’m going to fuck every last one of them. I’ll do it on a glass table right in front of you and Penny Albert and every last little Fin bitch. 

Then we’ll see who looks ‘worn out’.