Saturday, November 13, 2010

Snapshots


by Hart D. Fisher



The pain rolls up on me like a warm fog… numbing…



Walking the streets of Champaign, roaming through the convention halls, pounding drinks at the bars and late night parties, all of it was a blur of stills.



I hear things, but I don’t always know where I am. People can tell. It’s best to leave me untouched. Animals. They know. Animals can sense pain. So they give me space. They buy me drinks at the bar. They slap me on the back and tell me a joke at the parties. No one looks me too deeply in the eyes. That’s where my pain always showed.



But I can’t hear them.



I am lost.



It’s…



It’s not something I can explain to them… not over a keg in a backyard or couple of drinks at The Blind Pig… the pictures behind my eyes, it’s not something they want to hear. I’m a fractured man, stumbling through life pretending he’s a hurricane, always moving. When the winds die and the grass lies still I crumble.



So I drink. A lot. I reap the whirlwind on nationwide tv.



The world passes by in snapshots.



Sharp. Vivid. Moments. I lived in the margins now. Between breathes.



Then the pain comes. I can’t hold it back.



The snapshots…



Of her… dead on that fucking floor… I think of it and my legs get weak…



The smell of vodka makes me sick but I drink anyway.



In New York he came up on me in the middle of an interview. Some older guy with short grey hair, glasses, like a stretched out swingin’ Stan Lee. I was in the middle of being interviewed by a local journalist when he jutted his hand between us and said “Fuck You!” with a big shit eatin’ grin on his face. The grin made me think he was a fan.



“Excuse me.” I said to the journalist, fans could be pretty fuckin’ rude but it was part of the game. “Lemme take care of this fan for a second.”



“Oh, I’m not a fan.” His grey panther porno grin grew wider. “I’m Rick Parker and I just wanted to say Fuck You to your face.”



I looked up at him. Okay, he’s not a fan. He’s some jackass who works for Marvel Comics who’s been screaming out in public how I’d wronged the victims’ families by continuing to publish the Jeffrey Dahmer comics. He has decided that he wants to have this debate in the middle of my interview, how very convenient for him.



We go at it. Right there. In front of everyone on the convention floor.



I turn that silly ass grin upside down and fill it with rage and humiliation. I did it calmly and dispassionately. After he’s stormed off to sulk the journalist shrugs his shoulders.



“Jesus. That kind of shit happen to you everywhere you go?”



I nod my head, staring off into space. I would snap in and out of the now. It wasn’t something I talked about with anyone. I just kind of slid in and out of some kind of fractured hole. The comics and the talk shows and all the bread and circuses drew me out of it. I held onto those battles like a lifeline…



In Detroit it’s another screaming face. This one under a balding crown, belly tight under his piss yellow shirt. I’m behind the table. Sitting. Looking up at this face. His hand jabbing down at one of the books on my display table, the one next to The Lazarus Pitts, the one about porn star Traci Lords. We’re arguing. He wants me to take my Traci Lords bio book off of the table. I’m pushing for a reason. There’s no nudity on the cover. No violence. I pushed. He sputtered, red faced and angry. I make him say it out loud.



He wants me to do it because it’s DIRTY.



He’s screaming the word.



“dddddDDDDDIIIIIIIIRRRRRRRTTTTTYYYYYyyyyy….”



Inside I can’t help but laugh. Michelle hated the Traci Lords book because it was so poorly written. I agreed with her. Dirty? That would have made her laugh. I smiled up at the stuttering red faced fool, getting to my feet but there was something not right about my smile. Someone got him away from me quickly.



I stood and smiled at nothing… for… how long?



Fractured. I slip into the hole quickly. I see no way out. I’m in pain all the time. A rip deep twisted down in my guts. Someplace I couldn’t reach, couldn’t fix, just had to endure until the trial…



On the phone it’s a call from Canada. My printer, Quebecor, has decided at the last minute that they can’t publish my book, Cadaver. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. They had approached me, wanting my work. I expressed worry about printing in Canada with the type of horror material I was publishing. Many of our books had been banned in Canada already. The reps at Quebecor assured me there would be no problem. So I sent up a few books to publish.



Now there’s a problem. Now there’s a woman in the film processing department that’s complained about a page of art in Cadaver from the story “Slit of Love”. I couldn’t believe this shit. We were against the wall on the deadline for making our latest release dates before cancellation. I pressed them but they wouldn’t budge. She made an official complaint about it to the high ups. They were so sorry, there was nothing they could do. They’d fedex all of my materials back down to me as fast as possible.



I held the phone, staring at it.



Staring.



Staring out the window with another stranger in my bed. I didn’t know if she was sleeping. I didn’t care. All of those beautiful girls who came to me, tried to keep me in the bed… to ease it… the burning need in my eyes… I could not feel them. I could only hunger like a ghost chasing life… sleeping with them… I could try to lose myself… I tried anyway… Storms called to me… I needed them more than they knew. Fractured. Everything was tilted and knocked off kilter.



Something in my head been broken loose.



I stood in the rain and stared at the sky for hours.



I walked the streets night after night. Fall. Winter. Spring. I walked them.



The windows beckoned me. So many lives burning. So many lights when I felt so dim. I walked faster and faster to make them a blur. To keep my wolves at bay. Thinking about my up coming day in court…. Howling… They were howling… All of them… All wearing her faces, shattered bone and bits of hair all wrong…



Fractured… The pain was overwhelming… I sought out the truth in fire… Sitting on my bed staring down the belly of my beast… roaring back at it… at the gun on my bed… we sat together… eyeing each other… me and the gun....



This wasn’t the first time I reached out to the gun for silence. It never failed me.



The .38 special was dull grey and cool to the touch.



I felt nothing.



Killing thoughts

Circling

Winter windows

Lying

Six slugs

Only one

Walking in a crowd

Alone

Laughing

Breathing in her ear

Alone

Caressed

Deep inside

Already gone

Amputated soul

Not there

No answer

One slug

Run your fingers through my hair just one more time…

Quiver

Intake of breath

Orgasm taste

Alone

Do it

One slug

Killing thoughts

Dirty snow

Soiled

Crisp

One slug

Sitting on the bed

Looking down on the gun



In my room, alone, not alone, crushed, looking down on the gun in my hand, sitting on my bed… It all grew still…



Pavement dreams

Grit kiss

No more

One answer

Killing thoughts

Killing

Heavy

The gun looks heavy on the bed

I pick it up.

It feels like nothing in my hand. Like it is not there…



Sitting on my bed… I pick up a round gently, drop it in its chamber, spin the cylinder and slap it home with a flick of the wrist. In the darkness, I stare deep into… into… I feel nothing. I’m not hot. I’m not cold. I’m not there…bestillbestillBeStillBeSTillBESTILL!



I pick up the gun. Put it to my head. The barrel is cold. I feel cold. All over. I feel nothing but cold. Sitting on my bed I thumb back the hammer. This is it. This is mine. I feel nothing… I am nothing… there is nothing… I think of nothing…



But the beating of my own heart…



Finally… It’s all over… The rushing roar behind my eyes is silent. I hear nothing but her… breathing somewhere in the room, somewhere in the back of my mind when she was alive to be loved…



…the hammer falls…



…everything is still…



…there is grace… all is silent… still… so crystal still… just breathing… our breathing…



Sitting on my bed I do it again. Staring into the darkness, eyes glazed over, out of focus, everything in SHARP focus I jack open the cylinder, give it a spin, feel the blur, feel all of it go blurry SHARP. What he did to her. All alone. When she needed me. Not being there for her. Just like the other girls. In focus like birth. I don’t know if I’m going to make it to his trial. But I have to make it. But I don’t know if I can make it. It’s breaking me. To hold Michelle again, to look her in the eye again, to brush my lips across her lips and tell her I love her softly one more goddamn time… hear her laugh… Unforgettable, yet lost…. I cannot feel it. I pull the hammer back on another chamber. I’m calm with the barrel against my head. It’s all the grace I’ve got. Night after night… Waiting…



Until I get him…



Until I get that murderin’ motherfucker.



I was going to last. I was going to last through this. Chamber after chamber… I was going to make it…



About the Author/Hart D. Fisher



Hart D. Fisher is a legendary horror creator who’s work has been featured on Larry King Live, CNN's Murder By Numbers, Entertainment Tonight, The Jerry Springer Show, The Sally Jesse Raphael Show, CNN Headline News, A&E's Biography, American Justice and in magazines such as Time, Tattoo Savage, Hero Illustrated, People, The Comics Journal, the non-fiction best seller The A-Z Guide to Serial Killers and more. Mr. Fisher is currently producing his internationally syndicated television show, American Horrors, running his post production house Crime Pays and is working on projects with Glenn Danzig, Frank “Obituary” Watkins and more. His first feature film, The Garbage Man, is now available on DVD at Amazon.com, Netflix.com, Americanhorrors.com and more. You can catch Mr. Fisher on the 2nd season of The Verminators currently playing on the Discovery Channel.



ORDER YOUR COPY OF THE GARBAGE MAN TODAY AND GET FREE SHIPPING!

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More about Mr. Fisher and his work can be found at:

http://twitter.com/Hart_fisher

http://www.myspace.com/hartdfisher

http://www.americanhorrors.com

www.youtube.com/crimepayshart

www.boneyardpress.net

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