This Dead Desert

Abstract

I. Charlie Bright Cleaning out His Closet. Finds / Leather pimp style jacket / at least ten years old / best worn with bell bottoms / dirty toothbrush / first aid kit / twenty foot long red silk scarf / black top hat / white gloves / McClintock High School ring / three hundred mandarin yellow business cards reading charlie bright magician illusionist childrens parties school events weddings These among other things. [New River 1987 and the air curving softly around him. Generating. Generating. Generating heat. Standing shirt stripped sweating New River air curving softly around him.] So Charlie Bright goes into his closet his chest bare belt unbuckled sweating cause it's like a hundred and twenty outside, it's motherfucking July his kids are smashing eggs onto the sidewalk are they gonna fry are they gonna fry and Charlie's unbuckling in the closet pressing face against nylon rayon polyester acetate too many man made fabrics in this closet and too many Payless women's shoes on clearance 10E always last to go. Charlie Bright s-l-i-d-e-s belt out from belt loops khaki baggy cutoffs a belt a belt a belt a rhythm panting a belt a belt a belt a snap it. Brown cowhide silver buckled one and one quarter inch wide forty inch long brown cowhide leather GENUINE LEATHER stamped on the nappy suede side sliding it skin side along shoulder, neck, chest, belly, the sensation of it. Charlie Bright has a hard on in the muffed out black of the closet the pants get unzipped and he caresses his cock with the belt. Charlie Bright thirty three drunk as a skunk chin like a chunk of granite eyes like shards of smoked glass. His smile shimmers at you, light on water, reflecting wavering delighting Charles Miller Bright. Charlie Bright magician electrician think about Letty the Mexican girl with the eye liner and the solid mass of bangs like a grove of black shrub shooting effortlessly high her mouth is red red two velvet pillows one on top of the other and when she opens them you see beautiful ivory snarl of a smile, she says hey charlie hey vato hey charlie my friend It's like 1985 or something. Letty's lips a beautiful white chipped snarl between them, Letty's Mexican, Charlie goes, uh uhhh Letty listening: Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam / after that / the Cover Girls / Letty's smiling / Charlie's dying / Letty all wetback bitch tongue and teeth eyeliner like the Lone Ranger's mask around the two black points she looks up at Charlie from. Meanwhile Charlie's kids are smashing eggs onto the sidewalk it's motherfucking one nineteen in the shade the kids bleating smash em fry em and later Donnie's got a tube of glue and is watching Inspector Gadget in the living room air condition cool going hnnnnnh ha hnnnnh ha and / Charlie Bright loved by his own right hand. He groans tearing at his wife's nylon work blouses with his teeth and the heat truthfully one hundred and twelve degrees and the kids smashing eggs on the sidewalk and the sprinkler on quickening the tpfft tpfft tpfft tpfft spitting white white spray rainbowing over the lawn. II. Gretchen Bright Fails P.E. Gets a U for Unsatisfactory Performance listen Charlie says. im gonna get the belt didnt i say last time if you flunked you were gonna get the belt Gretchen looks up at him, his face a rock block hers melting grease fat now salt tears running mixing with the sweat, disgusting heifer of a kid. whens the last time you took a goddamn shower he says and he thinks about taking a shower himself. The white spray falling over him, cooling him. do better next time he says. It's too hot. He pulls a buck out of her ear and gives it to her. III. History of Half Sight. The one kid not his own that's over now got his eye speared through with a stick by a bully, now has a glass one like some seven year old white Sammy Davis Jr. …