Jake invited his friend Greg over the next night his parents went away. Jake offered Greg a drink. Greg accepted and was happily surprised when Jake carried a case of beer out of the kitchen. With abandon common to teens, Greg drank can after can of beer, continuing even as his speech slurred. Always the accommodating host, Jake went to get a large soup pot from the kitchen. He instructed Greg that if he was going to be sick that he should use the pot instead of the bathroom. Well, minutes later Greg was violently vomiting into the stainless steel pot. Greg stopped puking when his stomach was empty and the pot was half full. Jake took the pot into the kitchen. Jake returned to a sleeping Greg on the couch. When he was certain that Greg was comatose for the night Jake returned to the kitchen. He stared down into the pot of frothy soup. He peeked out the doorway to see if Greg had moved. He hadn't. When Jake was satisfied that Greg would not wake up, he returned to the pot to test his theory.

Jake lifted the rim of the pot to his lips and drank. The sour stench was horrid. He continued to drink the warm vile, thick, slimy, syrupy, sour c.o.c.ktail. He put the pot down expecting his body to revolt against this offering and just as with the baby's vomit, it didn't. He went to the pantry and grabbed a package of chocolate cupcakes-something he had craved ever since he became ill. He ate the two in single bites and then waited nervously for his body to reject them. But they didn't! He went back to the pantry and continued to eat and sample everything that he'd been craving for months.

Then he went back for seconds...

And thirds...

Until he was full. He was full! He couldn't believe that he was experiencing being satisfied by food again. He was so happy and proud of his solution!

He found his own cure when all those doctors failed him and had predicted a short life attached to an intravenous bag. He cleaned up the pot and the wrappers from his feeding frenzy and settled down in the chair in the living room next to where Greg lay pa.s.sed out. He thought about what had happened with his nephew and now again tonight. If he were going to survive with his affliction he needed to continue to consume the regurgitation of others. He needed to devise a guise that would allow him to do this, and this is how the parties came to be. He was never going to return to the mercy of just surviving on fluids again. He was going to be d.a.m.ned if he did or dead if he didn't. He chose the drinking of the vile fluid instead of the slow wasting death of the intravenous bag.

In the months that followed he devised a more pleasant way to make the liquid deposits from his party guests more palatable for consumption. He began to create menus for his guests that would alter their contribution so as to increase their appet.i.tes and his cravings. Many nights his friends would arrive to a table full of delectable chocolate treats-chocolate cakes, pies, eclairs, and puddings. In return Jake would reap the benefits of the menu served. After the party he sat down to his feast with a mug full of the frothy chocolaty flavored vomit. He would change the menu every week to satisfy his cravings. One week he only served fruit and enjoyed a fruity "vomit smoothie" with his meal. Other times he went the ethnic route.

Jake was able to continue the pattern for about three months when something in his body changed. Food digestion that would normally require one or two mugs of regurgitation was now taking eight to ten full mugs. He consumed increasing quant.i.ties of vomit and less food during a feeding, resulting in taking in fewer usable nutrients as each week pa.s.sed! Jake continued the daily intravenous sessions but without real food he felt himself withering away. He wasn't sure how to increase the potency in the stomach acids which he was stealing from the vomit. He continued to throw the weekly parties, only to get less and less satisfaction from his feedings. His illness reached a new high when after the last party his feast he lasted only three mouthfuls before he vomited. Attempting to soothe his stomach he drank another mug full. He consumed nearly twelve helpings of the puke before he rendered himself too full to eat anything else. He went to bed that evening hungry for the first time. He didn't know what to do. He attended school during the week hoping in some strange way that his condition might reverse, allowing him to resume the vomit shakes to digest his food. He waited anxiously for the weekend to arrive.

The party-goers came puked and left. Jake was anxious to attempt to eat something. When he thought the house was empty he headed to the patio to feed from the barrel but he was distracted by the sound of snoring. He turned and found Jodi, a girl he knew from science cla.s.s, asleep on the couch. He liked her and thought she was both funny and attractive. She had told him that her parents were getting a divorce and she was going through a rough time. She had started to attend his parties to drown her sorrows in alcohol. The ache in his belly reminded him that it was time to eat. It also reminded him of his problem of getting less and less satisfaction from the contents of the barrel. He convinced himself that drinking directly from someone without their stomach contents being diluted in the "community" barrel could provide a chance to eat normally again. He went to the bas.e.m.e.nt and gathered rope and duct tape. He gently tied the girl's hands and feet to the couch. Then moved quickly and placed the tape over her mouth to keep her silent during his meal. She awoke as Jake applied the tape to her lips. Her eyes widened as she found herself bound and gagged as well. In an attempt to scream, She was only able to muster out a low-pitched moan. She struggled at her bindings only to have Jake tighten them accordingly as he noticed her movements loosen their grip.

Jake went into the kitchen and brought back a filet knife. He looked down at Jodi and slowly cut her blouse from her waist to the bottom of her bra. Her bare belly was now exposed to him.

He knelt at her side, took the knife and dragged the blade gently across the skin of her belly. A small trickle of blood oozed from the wound.

Jodi continued her m.u.f.fled pleas as tears streamed down her cheeks. He cut two more slits in the skin as to form a flap. He wanted to be careful as not to cut to deep so as not to damage the stomach and its contents within. Jodi remained conscious until Jake began cutting and peeling away the muscle tissue that covered her stomach. He lifted the last layer of flesh, exposing her stomach to him, and the loss of blood anesthetized Jodi as she bled out. Jake knew his time was growing short as she expired.

His mouth watered at the antic.i.p.ation of devouring the life-giving liquid beneath his hand as he unearthed it from its prison of flesh. He squealed in delight as the contents of her stomach moved around under the pressure of his touch. He took the knife and placed a small puncture on the surface of the stomach. Air escaped from the hole, and a spurt of fluid sprayed upward. He couldn't wait any longer. He leaned over his victim and enlarged the incision with the knife. He was amazed at how easy the lining of the stomach cut. The contents began to flow faster than he expected. He reached down in an attempt to keep the fluids from escaping too quickly. He pressed his mouth down to the opening and slurped its contents. He felt invigorated then, carnivorous, tearing at the flesh. Without hesitation he buried his face into the liquid-filled pillow of the stomach beneath. He submerged his entire face into the warm fluid. He drank as if he never eaten before. Unexpectedly he was surprised to feel the surface of his skin begin to burn. He never thought about the effects of the stomach acids coming in contact with his skin. He quickly ignored the thought and was more concerned with the walls of the stomach collapsing and the remaining contents spilling, wasted, onto the floor. The liquid continued to burn his face and eyes as he ate. The stomach fluids and other chewy contents quickly satisfied his hunger. His skin continued to burn as the acids digested his face as he ate. He lifted his face from his feast and inhaled deeply. What a feeling! He thought. He felt great. He looked down at the human buffet before him. His vision began to blur and deteriorate as the burning fluid dripped down his head into his eyes. Ignoring this, he plunged his head down a second time feasting on his victim.

As he finished the liquid contents he came across the remnants of his victim's last meal at the bottom of her stomach. He chewed the soft gooey morsels as he sucked them into his mouth.

When all was gone he heard the voice of someone calling Jodi's name from outside. A moment later the girl's father walked through the front door with the view of Jake kneeling at the side of the human buffet that once was his daughter.

After the trial Jake was found to be clinically insane. His addiction to eating or drinking from his victims didn't bode well with the jury. They sentenced him life in the New Jersey State Mental Inst.i.tution. His blind, skeletal frame lay day-in and day-out strapped to his bunk, sustained by nutrition catheters taped to his arms.

Back to TOC.

Is there anyone more p.r.o.ne to substance abuse than rock 'n rollers? Possibly, but perhaps it's just not as widely publicized. Keith Richards once remarked that "musicians don't necessarily get started on drugs because they're all plentiful and fun-or that they seem ent.i.tled to them. A lot of times it's because you're in Des Moines one night and you have to be in Chicago the next, all pumped and ready to go."

Or, as Ken Goldman writes, there might be another reason.

Smokin'.

By Ken Goldman.

Grinding his axe in the heaviest b.a.l.l.s-out band on the charts had not significantly altered ba.s.sist Zacherly Cooper's pursuit of the young Badda.s.s groupies, although the thrill of the hunt had long since disappeared. There was no question that he would be b.u.mping bones with the young girls following every concert during the Badda.s.s Kickka.s.s Tour 2K1; there remained only the uncertainty of how much aggravation this latest cooz pot would cause when time came to toss her b.u.t.t out of his hotel room.

"You f.u.c.k like you play-p.i.s.sed," the nubile blonde informed him as she squirmed back into a silk thong so thin the ba.s.sist could have flossed with it. During their time in bed her smiles of pleasure had faded in inverse proportion to her tolerance for pain. "I'm just glad you're not into Pete Townshend or you might have broken me against the G.o.dd.a.m.ned headboard."

The girl got that part right. Zacherly felt p.i.s.sed enough to do much worse than providing some groupie a s.h.i.tty f.u.c.k. The band had fallen on hard times since its lead guitarist chewed the muzzle of his .38. Almost as disastrous were the media's talking heads who a.s.serted that the surviving Badda.s.s members had lost it the night Raymond 'Kinky' Wisznewski offed himself. One MTV a.s.swipe claimed Zacherly Cooper was fooling himself if he expected there might be a second act in his future.

On the warm April evening that was Kinky's last, some clever cop covering the crime scene remarked that the effect of Wisznewski's shattered brains on the wall of his hotel suite looked like a dripping Rorschach painted in gray matter. Zack personally felt his buddy's splatters resembled the finger paintings of a zoo ape, but he had been high enough to swear to reporters that he had witnessed the Holy Virgin's image dripping down the blood soaked wall. Having lost his best friend as well as his meal ticket, the Badda.s.s ba.s.sist immediately scored the best weed in the western hemisphere, intending to keep himself eight miles high for many months to come. With enough reefer to choke a horse Zacherly Cooper's agenda was to disappear behind a thick wall of smoke. In the world of heavy metal this pa.s.sed for grief.

Wisznewski would forever be a tough act to follow. How could any mortal hope to produce a metallic mindf.u.c.k like the opening bars of his cla.s.sic "Saint d.a.m.nation"?

"A fallen man, lost and alone, I discovered an angel dusting the streets of h.e.l.l.

Curse me Father, for I wish to sin . . ."

Cooper knew better than to compete with lyrics like these, but his career as a solo act would need a jump start if he intended to pick up the dropped gauntlet of his band mate.

You f.u.c.k like you play...

The girl didn't mean that as a compliment.

And what if he played like he f.u.c.ked? What if there were no second act?

Insisting the band complete its contracted twenty-six city concert tour as a tribute to the fallen Badda.s.s, Zacherly soon realized the group's soul had departed along with Kinky. Someone had to kill the band proper before their fans decided to. Onstage at the Cleveland Coliseum Zack informed their legions this tour would be the group's last. The other three band members understood the logic of his decision, and given the market value on studio musicians no surviving Badda.s.s was going to die poor.

Dying forgotten was a different matter.

The prospect of not being remembered had terrified Wisznewski. The golden guitar-shaped urn Zack lugged to each concert attested to that fact. In his last note to him the late rocker insisted Zacherly carry his ashes onstage during each of the band's concerts. That ritual had been among Kinky's final requests, and the gimmick became his smartest career move. For months the ceremony proved a showstopper, and placing the garish urn alongside Maxie's drum kit added significant theatricality to Badda.s.s' final set when the band really got smokin'. The crowd roared, many of the body pierced enthusiasts lighting matches or propelling themselves into frenzied mosh pits.

But the scenes didn't take long to turn ugly. Several among the road crew suffered crushed bones keeping the brawls off-stage, and often the fracas carried into the streets and onto the eleven o'clock news. In city after city the focus of the Kickka.s.s Tour 2K1 shifted to the more demonstrative ticket holders' displays of machismo, and more than a few head bangers left the stadium area with fewer teeth than they had arrived with.

Kinky would have loved it.

The media ghouls reporting on the unholy mess made the inevitable comparisons that followed the departures of Kurt, Elvis, Jim, and Jimmie. Wisznewski had earned his official membership into that exclusive club of rock martyrdom from which no one's card ever expired. If the Righteous Brothers were correct maybe Heaven did have itself one h.e.l.l of a band, although to hear Geraldo's version Kinky Wisznewski more likely played the lounge downstairs.

"So, you got a name?" Zack asked the girl reaching for her tube top on the floor.

"Tuesday."

"No. Tell me now."

She offered an abbreviated smile while forcing a rogue t.i.t to behave itself inside her spandex.

"Tuesday's my real name. You know, like Ruby Tuesday? My mother was into that sort of s.h.i.t because I was conceived at Woodstock."

"You look pretty good for thirty-two."

"I don't mean the actual concert, just where it took place. My folks met there and that's where my old man liked to get laid, at least before he split. I was born on a Tuesday and the name just sort of happened. The 60's are in my genes."

"Give me a few minutes and I can be back in your jeans too."

Zack's attempt at inebriated cleverness failed miserably. The girl offered no cheerleader smile like those he had come to expect from the jailbait who steamed their panties for him, the worshipful star-f.u.c.kers who spent an hour with his d.i.c.k in their mouth, then asked for his autograph. He whacked the young blonde hard enough on her a.s.s to leave a pink impression of his palm, so hard she turned to stare at him making sure he was just being playful.

"So, Tuesday, I f.u.c.k like I'm p.i.s.sed, huh? You wouldn't tell Mick Jagger he's a bad lay, would you?" He flashed the famous sneer at her, a Billy Idol/Elvis hybrid that had graced last April's cover of Rolling Stone's memorial issue to Kinky. The girl returned his expression with a grin much too c.o.c.ky for such a young kid, a smile Zack considered enhancing with a little more Badda.s.s meat despite his exhaustion.

"You're not Mick Jagger, Zack. I've f.u.c.ked Mick. Trust me. You're probably more along the lines of Peter Tork."

Whether the girl's s.e.xual encounters were true or not, he felt amused that Tuesday had added his name to her personal chart even if his performance with her had peaked significantly below the Billboard top ten. But somewhere inside him an uncertainty birthed itself, an uneasy stirring that suggested his name already was in serious danger of becoming past tense on the charts that mattered.

"You don't have to leave so soon, you know. We could talk a little, maybe get to know each other?"

The girl stared at him as if he had made another bad joke. After f.u.c.king like wolverines, most musicians just wanted to sleep into next week. The perfect woman was the one who knew when to slip back into her jeans and disappear into the night.

Half dressed, Tuesday shrugged and sat on the bed alongside him. "All right, maybe I can spare a few minutes. But only if you'll answer some questions for me. Okay?"

He pulled a fresh bottle of Southern Comfort from his travel bag.

"Janis' drink of choice. Enjoy," he said, holding out the bottle for her.

The girl took an impressive slug without grimacing and handed it back to him, smiling as if she had just earned herself an honorary p.e.n.i.s. Zack put away several mouthfuls of the stuff, shaking his head to regain some semblance of equilibrium.

"And your question is...?" he finally got around to asking.

"Your drummer. He's kind of cute. What room is he in?"

"f.u.c.k you. Ask another question."

"Badda.s.s can't cut it without your pal, can they? You guys are bailing out before the money stops, isn't that the plan?"

The girl had landed her sucker punch, and Zacherly didn't feel so much like talking after all. He had no clever rejoinder for her. But by not answering he had answered, and Tuesday knew it. Suddenly he needed the Southern Comfort for more than his thirst.

"Why'd he do it?" she continued like some kid doing a poor imitation of Barbara Walters. "What made Kinky put that gun into his mouth when he had so much-?"

"-to live for?" Zack interrupted. He could not help glancing at the golden urn on his nightstand. "Christ, Tuesday, I'm going to f.u.c.kin' kill the next person who asks me that question. You don't know jacks.h.i.t about Kink. No one does. That guy's brain shifted into hyperdrive every time he tried forcing one note of music from it, and he was convinced he could never top whatever he did last. He was one of those quiet sufferers, okay? High blood pressure, a heart murmur, and pimples. He had a wife somewhere, but G.o.d knows where she is. When Kink was still a kid his father used to go after him with a broken bottle of Jack Daniels. Last year his mother was diagnosed with Alzheimers, on top of which Kinky had been a little overdrawn at the bank. He had a Chinese menu of problems, and you're asking me why he did it? Some people just implode when the air gets sucked out of them."

Cooper turned from the girl and rifled through the drawer of the nightstand, but whatever he searched for he didn't find. He muttered, "s.h.i.t" and shifted his attention back to Tuesday.

"Legends never die, you know? Only aging musicians do. Maybe Rock and Roll remembers its dead, but it's not so considerate towards the living. Had he lived 'Fat Elvis' would've become a bad joke on Leno, but who remembers him that way now? Raymond knew all that, being the kind of guy who always left his fans wanting more. Did you know 'Badda.s.s to the Bone' went to number one the day after Kinky pulled the trigger?"

"Yeah," the girl said, only half smiling. "Number one with a bullet."

"Better to burn out than to fade away. Kinky said that long before any of the others did."

"The gospel according to People Magazine," she added. "I do read, you know."

"I still have the last note he scrawled just before he died. Christ, it was pathetic the way he begged me to keep a part of him with me. He was that afraid of being forgotten. I quoted him when I penned 'Tonight I Put a Bullet in My Soul.' You want to see what he wrote?"

"I already have the CD. Thanks anyway." She leaned closer. "Being remembered in the Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame like some sort of dinosaur fossil? This was so important to him?"

"Not only to him." Zack hesitated a moment, considering his next words. He leaned forward, his voice almost a whisper. "Can you keep a secret?"

For several minutes he rifled feverishly through his travel bag, finally locating a crumpled pack of rolling papers. The discovery calmed Zack enough to vent a musty chamber inside himself he had kept sealed for a long time.

"We were just a couple of greasy dropouts in a garage band. Every day Kinky'd show me how to bring life to a new chord or how to work a crowd of teenage girls who creamed their jeans for us. Most times he'd just get me through another f.u.c.king night with some new lyric. More than anything else those memories have kept me going these last few months. When I write, it's his words I'm putting on the page. You were right, Tuesday. Maybe I don't want the money to stop, but that's not the point. Raymond Wisznewski was my best friend. I couldn't help him when he needed me most, but he'd always been there for me. He was so worried I would forget him, as if that could ever happen. He's with me more than he could ever know."

Tuesday frowned. "That's it? That's your secret?"

"No. This is . . ."

Zack reached for the golden urn containing the ashes of his partner. He unscrewed its lid, pouring some of the contents into his palm, then sniffed the pile of grey ash.

Methodically he poured Kinky's remains into the rolling paper, then licked the edges and twisted the ends into an expertly rolled bomber of a joint.

"From my private stash, courtesy of my late friend and partner." Lighting the joint he inhaled its contents deep inside. "You listening, Wisznewski? You don't have to worry, buddy. Rock and Roll never forgets." He took another deep draw fully expecting the girl to bolt from his room screaming. He wouldn't have blamed her.

She didn't. Without a word she reached for a hit. Her gesture came more as a relief than a surprise, and her broad smile came as an outright shock.

"To the baddest Badda.s.s of them all," she said, sucking the smoke inside. Like Tuesday had mentioned, the '60's were in her genes. And with a little luck Raymond Wisznewski would soon be in Zack's.

For over an hour they laughed and laughed. Zacherly could not recall a high that had ever felt so good.

He invited Tuesday to spend the night.

Later she climbed into his bed again.

It was a whole lot better the second time.

Back to TOC.

Having lived in Las Vegas for many years, I'd seen the lure of gambling seduce and destroy many normally decent people first-hand. In an effort to appeal to their logic, I'd tell them: "Look at the Strip. There's a Castle, there's a Pyramid, there are replicas of New York and Paris. Do you think they built those by GIVING MONEY AWAY?" When you hear the expression "Easy Money", do yourself a favor and entertain the notion there may be no such thing.

Now, observe as Ryan Willox takes the phenomenon to another level altogether.

A Kiss for the d.a.m.ned.

By Ryan Willox.

Martin had been running for the past fifteen minutes and his legs were tiring. If he stopped for a single breath they would be on him. He had evaded them for too long to simply let them overrun him, so he struggled on.