Dog Oil Press

DOP #55 - Growing Up

Growing Up
by Cherstin Haga

I brought a box-cutter to a kid's 6th birthday party because I wasn't really sure what to expect. I never carry a purse, so I tucked the box cutter deep into my back pocket, which was both obvious and cliché. I settled on duct-taping it to my calf: fucking ingenious. I popped two Xanax and we hit the road.

Their driveway and surrounding yard resembled a used car lot, mini-vans in every make, model, and color. I parked in a prime location. We reached the front door where my son handed over the wrapped gift in exchange for entry to their domicile.

In the backyard, the sixteen-foot towers supporting the inflatable bounce house did nothing to convince me that the boy's father wasn't suffering from erectile dysfunction. Brandon's mom was asked to leave after she supposedly made a comment about Chris's mom needing, quote, medication. Everyone knew that was bullshit. Chris's mom couldn't afford Lexapro even if she got a third job.

By the time the cake was served, Matthew's mom had been escorted out of the house. She broke the cardinal rule and whispered. The remaining moms made a pact and the hostess collected the plastic utensils. We finished eating cake by hand, leaning back periodically to glance at our children, who were playing quietly with modeling clay and bubbles. In the staging area, the women were still eyeballing their neighbors, fake plastic smiles matching fake silicone breasts.

When the lesbian's kid got hurt, things got bad. As if the kid's busted lip wasn't bad enough, one of the bigger kids decided to make the kindergartner cry harder by calling him names. Like sissy. And baby. Even fag. The kindergartner had no idea what a fag was, but his mom sure did. Lesbomom went ballistic on the name-calling second grader, only to be accidentally elbowed in the teeth by bald, impotent, cocksucking Gerald. I think there was some sort of irony there but, by that point, the Xanax had peaked and I was too stoned to catch it.

After the party, my son and I walked to our van, holding hands, when Kevin's mom pulled up alongside us, her window down. On edge, still expecting trouble, I opened my rear passenger door with the key fob, just like on TV, and instructed my son to climb in and put his seatbelt on. Sizing me up, Kevin's mom saw an opportunity. She parked her van and stepped out, engine running.

Instead of fighting, she told me about another birthday party coming up in a few weeks. Smiling, she nonchalantly moved her jacket aside to reveal the snub-nosed pistol tucked into the waistband of her designer jeans. She suggested, in a roundabout way, that if we carpooled, we'd have a better chance at getting out of the next party unscathed. For the next five minutes, we worked on our secret handshake. It was only kindergarten. I gave her my number and drove home in tears.

Cherstin is the happily-unwed mom your parents tried to warn you about. She loves frozen dinners, quoting lyrics, and all things caffeinated. More.

DOP #54 - The Short Hello

The Short Hello: Marlowe Goes Home For the Holidays
by Bruce Boston
after Raymond Chandler

I split open his skull as if it were a canned ham. I broke his collarbone and stepped on his face. When he stopped wriggling, I tossed him into the corner. Let the maid take care of it in the morning, I thought.

I lit a Camel and it was good. I coughed and took another drag, French inhaling. I thought about the insides of my nostrils. After three years of French inhaling they were black as the Carlsbad, horny as any potato casserole. I thought about mustard and mother's milk, slowly contemplated artichokes and olive branches. I dropped the half-smoked butt underfoot and ground it into the carpet. When I looked up she was standing by the sideboard.

No leggy young blond, let me tell you. The legs were there, but the hair was white and she must have been sixty if she were a day. Her hands had the color of cheap tuna. A veil suspended from the front of her pillbox hat was supposed to be hiding her wrinkles. It was also doing a good job on chin, mouth, nose and eyes. A dozen or so white flecks scattered upon the netting resembled nothing more than a spray of pigeon droppings. My hand sidled into my pocket, gripping the pearl-handled gat.

"What's up, toots?" I asked her.

A sally of wind shifted through the open window. Her veil billowed, lifted. The wrinkles were there all right. From their center, two beady eyes fixed me.

"Go wash your hands," she said, "Dinner's ready. And don't call me toots."

I pulled the trigger. I couldn't stop firing until I'd turned the entire place to Swiss cheese.

Bruce Boston is the author of 45 books and chapbooks. His most recent are the best-of fiction collection Masque of Dreams (Wildside, 2009) and the sf/speculative poetry collection, North Left of Earth (Sam's Dot, 2009). For more information, visit his website.

DOP #53 - My Room

My Room
by Anthony J. Rapino

I have forgotten everything but this circle of artificial day. One naked bulb hangs in my solitary room, humming a yellow hue. Shadowy crevices hide hard edges. From the secret corners, sound comes. My twilight hearing acute, scampering quickness still eludes me in hidden pockets.

Reflective eyes give away location. I leap into the abyss and grasp fur. Teeth tear me, screams rise like sirens.

Blind and panicked I clutch the head and twist. It is quiet; I am safe. I drag the body, and in the light, the shape is familiar.

Then I remember--I have a cat.

Anthony J. Rapino is a regular contributor to Dark Scribe Magazine. His newest fiction can be found in Nossa Morte and Scalped.

DOP #52 - Motherly Love

Motherly Love
by Jilly Gagnon

Of course I would never actually kill Mother. That goes without saying.

Sure, some people may find her voice shrill, piercing in a way that perversely lingers, repenetrating your consciousness for hours, even days after the fact, but to me, it's redolent of full-throated birdsong. Every time I hear a crow, or a seagull, or the sharp keening cry of a hunting buzzard, I think of dear Mother, and laugh quietly to myself, my eyelids twitching merrily at the memory of her cherished voice ringing, and ringing, and ringing in my ears.

DOP #51 - You Don’t Have To Be So Unreasonable About It

You Don’t Have To Be So Unreasonable About It
by Graeme Dixon

Regarding the walrus you ordered
at three o'clock in the morning,
Sir.

It is in the lobby.
Perhaps you can hear it.
We can.

Kindly collect it
as I regret to inform you
we will have to shoot it otherwise.

Regards,
The Management

Graeme Dixon lives in a town in England you probably haven't heard of. He is okay with words but finds sentences troubling.

DOP #50 - Ways Of Dying

Ways of Dying
by Walter Campbell

Their bet was pretty standard guy stuff, really. Both contestants would come up with the worst possible way to die, and the loser would buy the winner a burrito.

Jeff had won their previous, more cheerful bet on the best possible way to die. Phil’s answer — smothered under ten gorgeous, large-breasted women — was no doubt a great way to die, but it had lacked the creativity of dying from a heart attack during the final throes of passion with the nation’s hottest woman after saving her from a gang of bikers in a three-hour fist fight in the middle of Times Square.

“That, my friends,” Jeff announced to his empty apartment, “is how you get a free plate a nachos.” As he chopped onions for a stir-fry, Jeff knew the burrito would be his, too.

DOP #48 - The Real McCoy

The Real McCoy
by James Neenan

The neon bar signs beckon to me like a needle to a junkie. What day is it? Friday? Saturday? Who the hell cares. It’s time to drink. Time to wallow away the miseries of another long week.

The bar smells like stale cotton candy and peanut shells. There’s a man in the corner with a knight’s helmet on. It’s a goddamn circus in here. I’d like to roundhouse the shit out of this idiot. No time: I need a drink.

I slam a shot of Malibu. Another shot of Malibu. I pound a Mike’s Hard. “I’m fucking hard,” I tell myself.

Jezebel dances up on stage. The lights are dim as she meringues to If You Like Pina Colada. The fuck wearing the knight’s helmet is pounding on the stage screaming for her to shake it. I want to break his arm in twenty-seven places. If I grew a toe for every time I’ve broken someone’s arm; I’d have a shitload of toes to stand on. All the better to roundhouse with, my dear.

I signal for another shot. I slam it back like apple juice. Jezebel stops dancing. The knight helmet still pounds on the stage for more. This fucker’s going down.

“You finished, jackass?”

“What’s with the Karate getup?” he asks, motioning to my black belt.

“If you knew the answer to that, you’d already be dead.”

The fear in his eyes shines out like a nightlight from a pussy ass five-year-old’s bedroom.

I swing. He catches my arm and snaps it in twenty-seven places.

“Fuck.”

“All finished, Karate Kid?” he asks.

I walk away like the bigger man that I am. If I had a finger for every time this sort of thing has happened. I’d have twelve fingers. Twelve massive middle fingers to stick into his face while screaming, “Real fucking McCoy!”

I signal for a cab outside the bar.

“Where to?” he asks.

“My mother’s house.”

“What’s with the Karate getup?”

I smirk. “If you knew the answer to that, you’d already be dead.”

James is a creative writing/education major at the University of Colorado, Boulder. When he's not trouncing through horribly boring lit texts he inhabits a convenient, liminal space in which bumping uglies refers to hip-checking patrons of Walmart...try it sometime.

DOP #47 - The Truth about Scooby-Doo

The Truth about Scooby-Doo
by David Hughes

To who sees diary if not burned upon maybe scheme fail: English not supergood, apparently I am being talking dog. I say last entry upwards reasoning described: tonight leash-master Shaggy will be chopped up and put in bucket. Then Daphne joins him, then Velma, then Fred when he finished watching. It Fred’s idea to put on leash, drag bare feet along pointy ground to find scary people.

Five years exactly since taken from house. Still I have belt around neck like dog. I boy not dog. Still new grownups name myself as “Scooby-Doo,” as talking dog. Purebred talking dog apparently betterer to handle than inbred talking boy.

Still I have no idea as to exact motivation behind capture. I eat vegetables required, I do homework. Perhaps not pleased that I take second grade as 15-year-old. I scary to see in front of mommy. Mommy not describe myself as scary. Don’t know. Just put on black tights break into window and drive me far far far that way for two days in green van.

Then we find ghost people and take off faces. I no want to find ghost people, take off faces. They make me. I tell jokes. “TELL JOKE SCOOBY. DO FUNNY THING SCOOBY. WE GIVE YOU SCOOBY SNACK.” Scooby snacks composed made with chicken bone plus old cereal.

Shaggy pull on leash. Acts like I obeying when not. Kicks face often.

Velma seem nice at first. I work out deal with Velma to go away. She lie, she tells Shaggy. Shaggy and Velma kick face more. Cut nose still sick. Scars in reflection pool now black and hurting.

Daphne angry a lot but mostly tell me things and not kick face too often. Makes me cry more than face kick. “FUCK YOU RETARDED DOG.” I be not dog. Not sure if other thing, but I know I be not dog. Fred likes her. They take off clothes for each other and refuse me sleep quiet.

Fred worst of all. Fred gets weird look across face back in van at night. Uses same rusty doctor things to fill my veins with things I can’t pronounce. Says I have rabies and needing shots. Shots burn like fire only skin not protect. Most of areas still brown underneath plus hurts to breathe. I get hurt and tired and I see things things I see not exist.

They keep hacksaw in van “IN CASE YOU GET TOO BAD SCOOBY!” They got too bad, they got too bad, I done being polite, I stronger. Tonight I go home after making stream in back woods red with the all four of them.

David Hughes is a Graphic Design/Playwriting student at Columbia College Chicago with a love of Finnish Folk Metal.

DOP #46 - Over Poe's Dead Body

Over Poe's Dead Body
by Bree Katz

I didn't actually want to bring the professor along when we rightfully brought Poe back from stinking Philadelphia. But she just jumped in the trunk "to warm his bed for him," no different from every other fangirl I ever met. She spent the whole drive from Baltimore giddily relating the chronology of all the dead guy's stories. Plus something about how he'd boinked his dead, underage cousin or maybe hadn't because he was afraid of vaginal teeth. I told Jax to take the shovel and stick it one of her sets of teeth, upper or lower, to get her to shut up, but he only hit her over the head with it.

When we got to the museum they'd displayed the body in, the professor started making these moaning noises, so I hit her with the shovel again. We dragged Poe out to the car. The professor was of course no use at all, just chattered incoherently the whole time. One of the garbage bags we'd put Poe in tore as we were loading him in the trunk. I said, "I don't want no car that smells like no dead guy." The perfessor went all crazy and offered me a blank check for the car. It would've been a good deal, too, if she hadn't insisted that all he needed "to heal him" was "a woman's touch" and insisted on going "night-night" with him when we put him six feet under Baltimore's grit. And good for her and all, but even with all the Febreeze in the
world, Poe still lives on.

Bree Katz teaches English as a second language to unsuspecting young adults. In her generous amounts of free time, she writes absurd plays, stares at her computer screen while drooling, and yells at passing cars.

DOP #45 - there are a lot of bugs

there are a lot of bugs
by josh byer

there are a lot of bugs
that collided with my
windshield today

i killed them
with this car

by accident

i wonder if they were
reincarnated people
those insects

who might i have hit?
shit,
hope it wasn’t ghandi

hey, ghandi

sorry if it was
no, seriously

Josh Byer has a headache. Recent work can be seen in the anthologies "Journey Prize Stories #17" (McClelland & Stewart) and "Can'tlit" (ECW Press).