Antidote Illusions - Erik Hofstatter

Antidote Illusions by Erik Hofstatter

Book excerpt

I knelt in what used to be her. The blood. It fled out of her wound-torn land. In almost visa-free rhythm. Then angel embryo fell on death’s brake pedal. Her essence became a slow tourist. She walked on a blue tightrope—my vein. I heard ichor songs play backwards. A seductive requiem to erotic despair. All inside the moribund strip club that was her body. Or maybe she just gave what was due back to the earth.

Grasshoppers, little grasses. They chirped “murder” somewhere outside. I brushed away red-hair eclipse, blocking the white sun of her face—feeling like king astronomer. Those big, calamity-colored eyes. A gateway to cy(psy)clones. She was a sanity taker. I negotiated with thin shavings from my heart.

“Why them peepers?” Boomerang said, Zippo-scorching his fag. He blew out smoke rings. A nicotine party for a ghost exit. I turned my head, looking at her, but curving words his way.

“They spoke for her spirit sometimes.”

“She was a polyamorous mess. Didn’t like guys much but dug that genderless soul-accent of yours.”

“I’m not a guy. I’m a demi-god.” I said, imagining his goblin-grin painted on my back.

“In this neighborhood, why not. You ever got your picture stuck in dead retinas?”

That mood crushing cunt. I collar-grabbed his meaning. Brain slammed it. The last sight myth. Not me. Never me. I was the square-faced polaroid (p) imp/printed on a mascara lane to cocaine heaven.

“Don’t tongue fence me.”

Wrong night. I felt weak. Piñata sluts assembled on condom littered hemi-fields. All I had for mental defense. His question choice hit hard. Doubt owned me. Miss Paranoia loved me. Was he in there? Face naked, floating eternally, in a round pool, her tears, warm still—what was the temperature of emotional turmoil? My cogitation took a knock.

“Oi. Eye-snatching prince. The night ain’t young no more.”

I got up and shrugged away higher calling. They did not belong to me. The screen-slave eyes. Only to the tricksters. The L sisterhood. The flint-hearted she-hounds and their 24/7 hunt for adoration. Deep-seated, needing, feeding, on a compliment-built throne. Digital flattery.

The currency into her knickers, where she kept all her secrets. Ego riches collected in an iPhone bank. But how do you patent hyena lust on a love beggar’s thinking plate?

“Put her in the ground, man. Let the worms take’em.”

***

The ferryman on watered time—always moving oars through rough months. My watch reflection showed half-past human. It was a good night to uncork memories, to let them breathe, to taste that ’94 sweet-red. I missed her shine. That unhinged mind. How she brought me down with a smile arrow. Straight to my knees like Achilles. Then the phone rang/BoomeRANG.

“Yeah?”

“I need you in Shoreditch.”

“To do what?” I said.

“Damaged goods. I want you to sniff out the problem.”

“When?”

“How fast does whore cry travel?”

“From fist to fist? I don’t know.”

The bastard hung up. He pushed me so high on the pimp ladder I got vertigo. Bi-girls rubbed my lamp for summons. I never took E. I took toxic love in a red capsule. You know healthy is boring, right? Bad blood left unclean. The spice between us = unconditional flavour. I thought about quicksilver, sitting on that table, reading my emotional striptease. I drank green fairy advice from a French bottle. She explored my old man anatomy when nights were young. Thoughts re-shuffled to the problem solver I became. I’d leave tomorrow.

***

The monkey on Kamil’s back uncaged the situation. He was an ex-serotonin chaser. The cubed habit buyer. That’s what they said. I parked around the corner and silenced the engine. Tranny outcomes came to life in my well-oiled brain machine. Behind those walls they manufactured scenarios. Special of the day: external fried lies. Fat appetite seekers. Our clientele. I hammer-fisted the door.

A hammerhead shark circled. Bloodthirsty Olga. Forehead like a Chernobyl road. Eyes too far apart. She was perfectly imperfect. Do you remember?

“Sup, TG.”

I pushed past her attitude. “Kamil gave you that racoon make-up, yeah?”

Her right eye bore pirate flag colours soaked in Vodka tears. The house smelled like stolen passports. Daddy playground manifested. I thought about objectives and re-aligning wrongs. She poured herself more antidote illusions.

“Want some?”

“I’ll just drink your aura.” I said.

Her skinny arms, un-tanned by the vegan sun. Face like a misshapen danger sign for lust-starved men. Cheap shark rides beneath adrenaline pale. A one-way ticket to cum ocean—her home. She wore many smiles and I undressed them all. That’s why Boomerang threw me here. I was the higher mind enforcer, the consequence deliverer.

“Where is he?”

Olga nail-tapped her glass, Morse coding thoughts. The dynamic altered slightly. Her light visage changed to dark guilt. She put quarter-truths to bed. They hid under her warm blanket tongue. Peeking.

“I’ll rip your fucking tongue out in a minute. Shake words out of it if I have to.”

“There’s a problem.”

I read torn horoscopes in her eyes. We were star-lings without wings. The unbranched on a tree of life. She pointed at a door where my next headache laid. Maybe I’d borrow her painkiller lips later.

“You gotta fix it, TG.”

Her accent was cut from Ukrainian glass—clean and sharp. She gave words a different anatomy. I followed those giraffe legs (my map) inside a private audition room. I thought about girls that came here. All fathered by poor choices. How they kneeled and slurped on erect hope. Their tragedies told through intense dick sucking—you could hear them.

“He’s right there.” Olga said, hand-gesturing downwards.

The wall spoke second. IN PIMP BLOOD, SHE REMEMBERS HATE. A six-word death sentence sealed in red ink thieved from his criminal veins. Kamil’s life-empty body came to view. His face down, drunk and stupid, like it wanted to organize a coup against its own tyrant emotions. I thought of a naked flesh horizon where knives could sail into. Then I thought about her. Liene. The ship that passed in the night.

“I didn’t kill him.”

“It don’t take Rolls-Royce mind to figure that out.” I said.

“What do you mean?”

She looked at me, alibi in a lie—parachute ready to lip jump. Dumb bitch. I’d had more luck feeding idiom scraps to the three-legged dog outside the bin.

“Come here. I want to fuck you in front of a dead audience.”

***

Bite marks on a scream-washed pillow as I thrusted love into her. The enigma peeler. She dirtied ears and minds with provocative cries. I watched nipples rise from pain sea internalized. When busy hips sank down inches—beneath her face—a secret lust for grinches. My (bomb) shell goddess shone orgasm bright.

“I crown you, King Bareback.” Olga laughed.

Those bravado-blue eyes. I lit a smoke and scrolled for Boomerang digits. I was a spokesman for inarticulate massacres. The dark crowd navigator. His voice came after five rings. Musashi deadly.

“What the fuck is going on up there?”

“Someone made Kamil…redundant.” I said.

Olga took a drag and her tobacco breath found me again. I felt druid peace inside. She kissed nonchalantly, but magnet strong. I tasted nicotine and my favourite mistake. That addictive smell of sexual dualism—her perfume. You know what I mean?

“Good. I never liked the prick.”

“He got pricked for blood in the end.”

“Funny,” Boomerang said, “you just got promoted. Congrats.”

“There’s more.”

“More what?” he said.

“Writing on the wall. In pimp blood, she remembers hate. I heard that phrase before.”

“From me, yeah. So?”

“So how did it get there? And why?”

“What exactly are you asking me here, Tristan?”

I herded selectively bred thoughts for unethical slaughter. Olga shark-toothed my shoulder. We watched sugar cube funeral on Van Gogh absinthe spoon. It burned down heretic fast.

“She in the ground?”

“Permanently, brother. She’s worm food. Now sort this shit out and call me when it’s done.”

Olga mixed our drinks and sank into a corner—legs open for Vincent’s sugared face. She pressed it against her clit. Her moans transmitted loud on pleasure frequency 201.