Dog Oil Press

Hiatus & Kind Hearts And Coronets

We're taking another one week hiatus here at Dog Oil Press but we'll be back next Saturday. In the meantime, try out this trailer from the very understated and very dark black comedy, Kind Hearts And Coronets, in which Alec Guiness plays eight people who all meet with an untimely demise.

DOP #56 - The Mailbox Has Bad Breath

The Mailbox Has Bad Breath
by P. Francis Booth

Gary walked to the end of the lane, opened the mailbox and nearly barfed at the nauseating stench that wafted forth.

“Too early.”

He confirmed that the box was empty, shuddering again at the appalling smell.

“That’s rank.”

“So whaddya want? I can’t exactly brush my teeth.”

“Hold on.”

Gary returned a few minutes later with window cleaner and rags.

“What are you doing?”

“Cleaning you up.”

“Like hell. Do you brush your teeth with Windex?”

“Well…”

“No. Go get a bottle of Lavoris, or something…and a nice soft brush.”

“You’ve gotta knock this off. They’re gonna blame me”

“Don’t be paranoid.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re a mailbox.” Gary sighed. “I’ll be back.”

He was coming past the barn when the truck pulled up. He quickened his pace, but he was too late.

He opened the box. There was a new smell – several, actually – mingling with the familiar ones. It made his skin crawl.

“That’s the third mailman this year.”

“Mail carrier. She was kind of plump…very nice change. The others were so bony.”

“This has got to stop! I mean it!”

“Don’t be hysterical. We’ve all gotta eat. Got a mint?”

P. Francis Booth has spent many sleepless nights pondering the meaning of the lyrics to Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport. A breakthrough is inevitable.

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.

Monthly Hiatus & Natural Born Killers

As the title of this post suggests, it's time for our monthly hiatus. Tune in next Saturday for another fine piece of original black humor. In the meantime, be sure to amuse yourself with these trailers from the very darkly humorous Natural Born Killers. 

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.

Monthly Hiatus & Morbid Sites

It's time for our monthly hiatus. Tune in next week for a new work of darkly humorous fiction. In the meantime, take a look at this trio of web sites with a morbid bent. 

The Mutter Museum
...a medical museum located in the Center City area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It contains a collection of medical oddities, anatomical and pathological specimens, wax models, and antique medical equipment. (Wikipedia)

Death Reference Desk
We aim to consolidate in one place the best the web and your local libraries have to offer on death and dying studies.

Morbid Anatomy
Surveying the interstices of art and medicine, death and culture.