Saturday, December 14, 2019

The Disturbing Weddings of Nero


Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was the fifth emperor of Rome and the last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, which fell due to the sheer incompetence and outrageous behavior of their emperor. His treatment of Christians is the basis for being named the Beast of the Apocalpyse in the Book of Revelations (if you add up all the roman numerals in his full, it add up to 666). Having ruled for thirteen years and eight months, his obscene activities have cemented his infamy nearly two thousand years later.

The boy Sporus mentioned here may have been what is called a “puer delicates”. That is, child-slave chosen by his master for his beauty as a "boy toy" and castrated to preserve that beauty. Which was an understood, if not standard, tradition in Roman society. Thus Nero’s action were not totally without precedent, but one did not marry such people.

This text comes from Suetonius’s 12 Caesars, written in 121 BCE. One criticism of this work is that the author did focus on rumor and old gossip as much as he did on historical facts. On the other hand, much of the material on Nero’s scandal ridden reign has been backed up by many, many other contemporary sources. So we may assume most of what is written below is true.
 

“Having tried to turn the boy Sporus into a girl by castration, he went through a wedding ceremony with him- dowry, bridal veil, and all- took him to his palace with a great crowd in attendance, and treated him as a wife. A rather amusing joke is still going the rounds: the world would have been a happier place had Nero’s father, Domitius, married that sort of wife. He dressed Sporus in fine clothes normally worn by an empress, and took him his own litter not only to every Greek assize [judicial court] and fair but actually through the Street of the Sigillaria at Rome, kissing him amorously now and then.

“The lecherous passion he felt for his mother, Agrippina, was notorious, but her enemies would not let him consummate it, fearing that if he did she would become even more powerful and ruthless than hitherto. So he found a new mistress said to be her spitting image; some say that he did in fact commit incest with Agrippina every time they rode in the same litter - the stains on the clothes proved it.

“Nero practiced every kind of obscenity, and after defiling almost every part of his body finally invented a novel game: He was released from a cage dressed in the skins of wild animals, and attacked the private parts of men and women who stood bound by the stakes. After working up sufficient excitement by this means, he was dispatched –shall we say? - by his freedman Doryphorus. Doryphorus now married him - just as he himself had been married to Sporus. And on the wedding night, [Nero] imitated the screams and moans of a girl being deflowered.”
For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 
 
 

Saturday, December 7, 2019

11th Century Crusade Against Homosexuality


 
The following excerpt is from Pietro Damiani’s Book of Gomorrah (1048) which is mostly a writing denouncing the vices of the clergy, homosexuality being among the foremost. Damiani was a zealot for monastic and clerical reform and introduced a more severe discipline, including the practice of self-flagellation, into the house, which, under his rule, quickly attained celebrity, and became a model for other foundations.


“A cleric or monk who seduces youths or young boys or is found kissing or in any other impure situations is to be publically flogged and lose his tonsure [The practice of cutting or shaving some or all of the hair on the scalp as a sign of religious devotion or humility]. When his hair has been shorn his face to is be foully besmeared with spit and he is to be bound in iron chains. For six months he will languish in prisonlike confinement and on three days of the week shall fast on barley bread in the evening. After this he will spend another six months under the custodial care of a spiritual elder, remaining in a segregated cell, giving himself to manual work and prayers, subject to vigils and prayers. He may go for walks but always under the custodial care of two spiritual brethren, and he shall never associate with youths in private conversation more in counselling them.
Clerical tonsure
 
“… To publish this crime, this enormous crime, is it not enough to be whipped in public, to lose his tonsure, to be shamefully shaven, to be smeared with spit, to be cruelly imprisoned for a long time and to be bound in iron chains besides? Yet finally he is also ordered to be struck with a fast of barley bread since it is right that whoever acts like a horse and a mule not eat the food of men but is to feed on the grain of mules.

 For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 
 
 
 

Saturday, November 30, 2019

A Woman Describes Sex with the Devil- 1662 Witchcraft Trial.


Isobel Gowdie, aka the Witch of Auldearn, was a Scottish woman who confessed to witchcraft during the Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661- 1662. The confessions include details of charms and rhymes, claims she was a member of a coven in the service of the Devil, and that she met with the fairy queen and king. Apart from her confessions it is unknown why she was arrested or came forward, though it has been suggested that she suffered from ergotism, a dementia from long term poisoning by bad wheat.
Her ultimate fate is unknown, but she was most likely ultimately put to death. Her confessions are quite fanciful and an interesting read (if you can wade through all the old-time spelling and syntax- most of which I have cleaned up for this entry), but I will be content in presenting to you one of the most choice bits. Sex with the Infernal.
“First as I was going between the towns of Druwdewin and The Headis, the Devil met with me and there I covenanted with him and promised to meet him in the night time, in the Kirk of Aulderne, which I did. He stood at the reader’s desk, and a black book in his hand, where I came before him and renounced Jesus Christ and my baptism; and all between the sole of my foot and the crown of my head.  I got up freely and went over to the Devil. Margaret Brodie, in Aulderne, held me up to the Devil, until he re-baptized me, and marked me in the shoulder, and with his mouth sucked out my blood at that place, and sprouted it in his hand, and sprinkling it upon my head and face, he said, ‘I baptize ye, Janet, to myself, in my own name!’ Within a while we all left.
 
“And within a few days, he came to me, in the New Ward’s of Inshoch and there had carnal copulation with me. He was a very huge, black, rough man; and I found his nature [semen] within me all cold as spring well water. He will lie all heavy upon us, when he had carnal dealing with us, like a sack of barley malt. His member is exceedingly great and long; no man’s member is as long and big as his. He would be among us like a stud horse among mares. He would lie with us in the presence of the multitude; neither of us had any kind of shame; but especially he has no shame at all. He would lie and have carnal dealing with us in the shape of a deer or any other shape that he would be in. We would never refuse him. He would come to my house-top in the shape of a crow, or like a deer, or in any other shape now and then.
“I would recognize his voice, at the first hearing of it, and would go forth and have carnal copulation with him. The youngest and lustiest women will have very great pleasure in their carnal copulation with him, yea much more than their own husbands; and they will have an exceedingly great desire for it with him, as much as he can give them and more, and never think shame of it. He is abler for us that way any man can be (Alas! That I should compare him to any man!) only he is heavy like a barely malt; a huge nature, very cold as ice.”
For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 
 
 

Friday, October 25, 2019

Charles II: Trapped in a Brothel


King Charles II of England had many problem to face after being restored to the throne following the death of Oliver Cromwell: The Great Plague of 1665, the Great Fire of 1666, major conflicts with Parliament, and so on. But he also had a nasty habit of traveling incognito to the brothels of London. One friend of his the Earl of Rochester decided to teach the King a little lesson on the dangers of his nocturnal adventures.  
This account of the tale was recorded by Theophilus Cibber, a well-known poet, playwright, and actor in London. He was also known to exaggeration, so one must take this account with a grain of salt.
 
[Rochester] agreed to go out one night with him to visit a celebrated house of intrigue, where he told his majesty the finest women in England were to be found. The King [didn’t hesitate] to assume his usual disguise and accompany him, and while he was engaged with one of the ladies of pleasure, being before instructed by Rochester how to behave, she pick’d his pocket of all his money and watch, which the king did not immediately miss. Neither she nor the people of the house were made acquainted with the quality of their visitor, nor had the least suspicion of who he was.
When the intrigue was ended, the King enquired for Rochester but was told he had quitted the house, without taking leave. But into what embarrassment was he thrown when upon searching his pockets, in order to discharge the reckoning, he found his money gone; he was then reduced to ask the jezebel to give him credit until tomorrow, as the gentlemen who came with him had not returned, who was to have pay’d for both. The consequence of this request was, he was abused, laughed at; and the old woman told him, that she had often been served such dirty tricks, and would not permit him to stir till the reckoning was paid, and then called one of her bullies to take care of him.

Theophilus Cibber

 
In this ridiculous distress stood the British monarch, the prisoner of a bawd, and the life upon whom the nation’s hopes were fixed, put in the power of a ruffian. After many altercations the King at last proposed that she should accept a ring which he took off his finger, in pledge for her money, which she likewise refused, and told him that she was no judge of the value of the ring, she did not choose to accept such a pledge. The King then desired that a jeweler might be called to give his opinion on the value of it but he was answered that the expedient was impractical as no jeweler could then be supposed to be out of bed. After much entreaty, his Majesty at last prevailed upon the fellow to knock up a jeweler and show him the ring, which as soon as he had inspected, he stood amazed and enquired, which eyes fixed upon the fellow: who he had got in his house? To which [the man] answered,
“A black looking ugly son of whore who had no money in his pocket and was obliged to pawn his ring.”
“The ring,” says the jeweler, “is so immensely rich that but one man in the nation could afford to wear it; and that one is the King.”
Charles II
            The jeweler being astonished at this incident, went out with the bully, in order to be fully satisfied of so extraordinary an affair; and as soon as he entered the room, he fell on his knees, and with the utmost respect presented the ring to his Majesty. The old jezebel and the bully finding the extraordinary quality of their guest were now confounded and asked pardon most submissively on their knees. The King in his best natured manner forgave them, and laughing asked them whether the ring would bear another bottle.
Thus ended this adventure, in which the King learned how dangerous it was to risk his person in night frolics.
-Theophilus Cibber
 For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Sneak Peak- Jaloon: Assassin's Cape

 

Now Available on Amazon in print and ebook. 



The Phentari assassin chuckled. Stupid alien. Falling for such a simple trick. Her dependence on gadgets would be her undoing. After gaining the target’s data number from the planet’s hypernet’s central directory, he had sent Jaloon a call using a fol probe. It registered as a familiar number on their datapad, then attached a virus to the device after it was answered. This allowed him to track her all over the city, the whole system if needed. 

His father had sold him the device and, until now, the assassin thought he had been ripped off. Surely no one could be so naive as to not have system protections built into their personal devices. Protection against the invisible eye and the lords-above-who-would-eat-you was one of the primal traits pounded into him as a child. But his father assured him that these lesser species, even ones that the Phentari people were friendly with, like the Orions, were incredibly lax and stupid. It was simply one more sign of how the Phentari were destined to dominate the other races in the Alliance. 

Even as the target zipped around the underground transport system, the probe perfectly followed her across the city. He patted his hidden rifle, carefully stored in false items about his person. This was easy. Track her until she stopped. Wait for an opportunity. Pull trigger. Reap the rewards. 
 


***

Jimune ran The Gizzemn- which was an insect on the Orion homeworld often ground up and injected into female genitalia as an aphrodisiac. It was also Orion slang for a digital whorehouse. If one supplied an image and voice pattern, maybe some raw footage of a person moving, they could have their fantasy molded for a reasonable fee. 

A reusable polydropaline blob was dropped over a wire skeleton and shaped with digital guidance by lasers and micro-scalpels into as perfect a copy as could be. A modulator that mimicked voices was installed with an operator talking dirty on the other end, feeding the client’s experience.  It felt and looked real, unless you expected the simulation to move, then you were disappointed. 

It wasn’t always used for sex. If your boss was giving you trouble, you could recreate the bastard and beat him up. Decapitate that pesky neighbor. Rip the tongue out of that lying politician. Or gun down that one guy who took your parking space. The only limit was your perverted imagination.  

Jaloon was called in because the run-off from the polydropaline was quite sticky and, if not properly maintained, could build up and clog the nozzles. Lo and behold, her cheap cousin didn’t schedule regular maintenance and things became fouled up during a session with  a borough president’s aide when the thing melted on the woman. Threats were made. Permits might be pulled. Hence, the emergency call from Jimune to his cousin. 

She crawled into the filthy works and shot suction probes down the gunked up lines, using a forced vacuum to get the stuff moving. All the while Jimune loitered around, trying to make small talk as if they had a healthy relationship. 

“Are you going to that Gullges Day party over at Uncle Poy’s place?”

“No,” Jaloon said, very annoyed and equally dirty. A lot of sticky fluid was leaking all over her. “Last time I talked to him, he got me and his son mixed up in a smuggling deal with gangsters that nearly sent us crashing into the side of a planet on a dead ship.” 

“Yeah well, he didn’t know that was how things would play out.” 

 “Besides no one celebrates that here. That’s from the old planet, Taos. I’d have to take an unpaid day off work and I can’t afford it right now.” 

“Take a sick day.” 

“I’ve used them all for the year and all my vacation time too.” 

“Then claim some religious shit. A feast day for a dead guy like the Heyzeusians do.” 

“Company clamped down on that. Any religious functions have to come out of personal leave days.” 

“Isn’t that illegal?” 

“Not if they do it to every religion uniformly.  No discrimination, everyone gets screwed.” She pulled herself from inside the machine and rubbed filthy hands on already filthy overalls. “Looks like we’re all set.”

He lead her to the front waiting room, a small affair with a few gelatinous contour chairs and a virtual receptionist. They touched credit sticks and the money was exchanged. 

“You got everything?” he asked.

She checked her overall pockets. “Yeah, I think…”

Crack. Tinkle. 

A small hole popped into the storefront flexglass window. Odd. She stuck her lower thumb in it. Perfectly round. Jimune shuffled behind her. Something splattered on the floor. She turned. 

Her cousin had a corresponding hole in the center of his throat. Blood pumped out of it in spurts. Confusion wracked his face. He teetered, then fell face first on the floor.


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Now Available on Amazon in print and ebook. 



Friday, September 13, 2019

Jaloon: Assassin's Cape - Sneak Peak

Coming soon, my new novella- consisting of three short stories with the same protagonist, the alien female Jaloon Roe. A technician on the planet Commonwealth, she has to navigate off-world gangsters, alien assassins, and worst of all, her own family.
Below is the concept art from the book and a sample of the book itself.

 
 

Assassins Cape 

The Phentari assassin flexed its four tentacles and yawned, its feeding mandibles quivered back and forth. Planetfall at last. The trip had taken two weeks, from stargate to stargate, until the correct connection was made and he had entered the Andromeda Galaxy via the gate on Commonwealth. Longest trek he ever took. The assassin was feeling cramped. 
The converter mask chafed around the sides of his mouth. Its edges bonded molecularly with the Phentari’s skin, preventing it from being accidentally jarred loose. His race’s natural habitat was a methane rich atmosphere and the device converted the local gases to ones he could breath. First time the alien ever had to wear one and he hated it. 
He surveyed the world around the landing platform. It was cold and stark. What vegetation existed was spindly and weak, barely surviving as it crawled up between cement blocks. Nothing like the lush steamy swamps of equatorial Phena, with blue vines thicker than steel beams, and the waters so vibrant you could stick your face into free running rivers and come up with a fish stuck on each mandible. 
The assassin pulled a black cape closer around his shoulders and rubbed his tentacles rapidly to generate heat. He’d have to make the best of it; endure the discomfort, the weird smells, the odd aliens. For his life began today. Normally on a cape such as his, a dward, there would be red hash marks indicating the number of personal kills. The Phentari had none. This was his first job as a professional assassin\bounty hunter (the terms meant the same thing in the Phentari tongue). He could hardly wait to sew in his first red stripe. 
He pulled up his target’s image on his datapad. Yes indeed, once he killed this Jaloon Roe, Orion female, things would finally start rolling for him.
***
Jaloon stared at the bank balance on her datapad and decided that it would take more than fifty gallons of utoban to wash away her blues. She owed her corporate masters a lot of credits for “inappropriately destroyed equipment” from a past job. Or they claimed she did. Personally, she didn’t feel all that responsible. A lot of people had died on that misadventure and she had lost the bottom half of her left leg, but all they cared about was their stinking tools and gadgets. 
She kicked over the wastepaper basket, then felt guilty about making more work for the cleaners so she replaced the two balled up papers back in the cylinder. Her bargain basement cybernetic leg scraped against the stump. 
Time for another readjustment
A chute opened in the wall and a soft bubble, containing twenty solo field goggles, emerged from it. It floated over to her workstation and popped, leaving the gear safely on the bench. 
Until her debt was paid off, this was where she was stuck. Doing the shit work. Cleaning and maintaining every else’s soiled gear. The overlords at Space Systems Development Corporation didn’t want to risk her dying out in the field and leaving a hole in their budget, so they took half her paycheck and benched the Grade C technician for the time being. 
 I could quit. I could sue
But they had ten thousand lawyers and she could barely make rent. In a perverse way the situation gave her some job security. As long as she owed them money, they would keep renewing her contract. 
She dove into work, cleaning and maintaining the goggles. The standard field goggles could be switched to low-light vision, IR and UV scans, atmospheric chemical analysis, long range and microscopic viewing. All of this was controlled by voice command. She had to check that each of the linkages still connected to their microprocessor and that information displayed was correct. A long and tedious job which took her the rest of her shift to muddle through. 
“Your numbers are down,” her human supervisor chastised her later on. “You should cleared at least three times as many units.” 
“Sorry about that Gomez,” she said with fake sincerity.
“It’s Mister Gomez,” he said. “I’m marking your dereliction down on your daily report.” 
She didn’t reply, but swear words flew in her mind. The beetle-backed little turd of a man shuffled away. A nasty little shrub of a mustache twitched under his acne scarred nose.
Honorifics such as Mister or Miss didn’t translate well into Galactic Basic, the artificial bureaucratic language of the Alliance, which is what they were speaking. So many different races with a rainbow of languages came through the stargate that Galactic Basic accidentally had become the planet’s official language. Still, this middle manager insisted on having some petty leg up over his subordinates and the regular worker suffered as a result. 
She punched out via DNA scan and left the sterilized corporate glamour of the SSDC offices for the grimy utilitarian concrete and metal pipe ridden city of Commonwealth.  
Commonwealth. City and planet shared the same name, and technically the entire continent did too. Its purpose was to maintain a trade foothold for the Galactic Alliance by guarding the stargate, allowing travel between the two galaxies, and in doing so the planet had become a trade power in the Alliance. 
Commonwealth was the only city on the planet. There were a plethora of mining camps and agricultural hubs across the continent, but these all connected back to the capital city by shuttle or high-speed tube train.  Religious nuts and idiot neo-communist groups had occasionally landed to set up some doomed utopia on another continent, but those who survived almost never had contact with the outside. Only the city of Commonwealth mattered. 
And what a city it was. Now in its one hundredth year, it had spread out from the initial explorer landing platforms and pylon geothermic taps, which converted the planet’s natural heat into energy to power the stargate, and covered approximately 5,426 square kilometers.  Over all Commonwealth was broken down into 32 municipal boroughs. 
The weather outside mirrored Jaloon’s mood. Greasy rain sprinkled down from gasoline scented clouds. Streets were devoid of almost all decorations. A multi-hue of alien species wandered about, running from dry spot to dry spot. She decided to grab some fast food from the corner Horrokroshcu King before catching the tube back to her corporate apartment tube. 
The herd animal’s meat tasted especially processed today. Even hot, it stuck in her throat. She tossed the rest in a dumpster. Vermin from a dozen planets started a war over her trash. Roars, snarls, and hisses echoed out of the bin. She backed away. 
The ecosystem of the planet was in constant flux. Each new race accidentally brought with it a host little scavengers and parasites. Some flourished, others went extinct. There were a few civil servants whose entire job it was to track the invasion, growth patterns, death rates, and factional wars of one invading animal against another. It was like watching a galactic war in miniature. Whole nations blossomed and sputtered out under the city’s dermis. 
Nothing could be done about the vermin. Inspections, gassings, sterilization programs only went so far. With the amount of trade Commonwealth had running through it, alien species were bound to slip through. You could never be a hundred percent. 
Time to go home. She started a slow walk towards the tube trains, when her datapad lit up. Incoming call. She groaned. It was her sleazy cousin, Jimune. A wanna-be ladies’ man who had spent most of his teen years trying to convince Jaloon to star in an “art film” that he would direct. He had since given up on film stardom, but his current occupation was no less shady. 
“Well there she is,” Jimune Roe said over the datapad. “You’re still looking pretty fit.” 
“What do you want?” she asked. “It’s been a long day, my hands are worn down to the last layer of skin, and I ate a bad sandwich. So get to it.” 
“Jeez, you haven’t changed. Still the icicle up your cunt.” 
“HANGING UP NOW!” 
“No wait. I want to hire you to fix something.” Her finger paused over the disconnect symbol. “I know you need the money.” 
They negotiated a price. Not much, but enough for her to be able to afford a higher caliber of crappy food for a while. It was well worth an hour of her life. 
Directly after she hung up on her cousin, another call came in from her mother. Very odd. Usually by this time her parents were blacked out or too drunk to use any device correctly. She answered. The call beeped, a red dot appeared briefly on her screen, then hung up. Sounded like her mother. Jaloon tossed the call from her mind and went into the tubes. 
 For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 
 

 

Saturday, September 7, 2019

Pope Alexander IV's Smutty Story [True Tale]


Franciscan monk Salimbene de Adam’s Cronica covered the years 1167–1287 and the people he met in his travels about the courts of Europe. In it he describes everyday life vividly and gives unrivalled detail into internal disputes in the Franciscan order at the time, which include many lusty, prank filled, violent episodes of life in the religious order. Including this hysterical little snippet.

One, Brother Bonaventure asked Pope Alexander IV [the Borgia pope- that was Alexander VI] whether or not it pleased him that the Francian Friar Minors heard confession, and the pope answered, “It pleaseth me very much. And I will give you a horrible example on the subject. There was a certain woman who confessed to the priest of her church. But this priest, wishing to know her carnally, began to solicit her sexually. And so in the very church itself behind the altar near the place where the Lord’s body is kept, he sought to rape her, but the lady said to him, “This is neither the time nor the place for the work of Venus. Let us seek a more convenient time when we can do this thing together.”

“She said this, however, merely in order to get away from him. Yet anticipating such future pleasure, the priest desisted from his actions and simply talked with her in a friendly fashion. As she was leaving, however, he said to her, ‘Remember our bargain, keep in mind our tryst.’ And she answered, ‘Oh, I will remember well.’

“When she arrived home, however, she made a pie which appeared beautiful on the outside but which was filled with human excrement and sent it to the priest as a gift, along with a vase full of fine white wine. And this was the woman’s only fault, she should have sent her own urine to the priest in the vase, just as she sent her own excrement in the pie.

“When the priest saw this fine pastry, he thought it would make a fine gift for his bishop, and so he sent it to him. Thus when the bishop was dining with his household, he ordered his servant to cut the pie and place it on the table before his guests. When the servant cut the pie in the other room, however, he discovered some excrement and was horrified. Then he set the pie aside to show the bishop later, and to the bishop’s insistence that the pie be brought to the table, he said, ‘You have enough for now. Another time, the Lord willing you have better.’ What more can one say? When the bishop saw such a pie, he was ‘exceedingly angry’ at the priest.

“He had the offender brought before him and said, ‘Tell me, priest, where did you learn to send such fine pies to your bishop? In what way have I offended you? How have I earned such an insult? Why have you sent me a pie filled with human excrement? When the priest heard this, he was stupefied, and he said to the Bishop, ‘Father, truly I did not make the pie myself. Such and such a lady sent it to me, and, thinking that such a fine gift was worthy only of you. I sent it to you in order to honor you, believing the whole time it was a splendid pie.’

“When the bishop heard this, ‘he was satisfied’. But after the priest left, the bishop sent for the lady in order to find out the truth of the matter. And ‘she confessed and did not deny’ that she was the one who made the pie, but that she did it to get back at the priest, who had attempted to seduce her in the church right behind the altar. Then the bishop praised the lady highly for her deed and punished the priest grievously.”

 For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 
 

Saturday, August 31, 2019

Walt Whiman's Lover Tells How They Met


Walt Whitman, one of the greatest poets of Americana and author of Leaves of Grass, is now openly acknowledged as homosexual, though the man absolutely denied it (understandably so) during his lifetime.
Peter Doyle was conductor on a railroad and met Whitman in Washington, D.C.. While shying away from any specifics, he admits his close relationship to Whitman during an 1895 interview with Whitman’s literary executors, three years after the poet’s death.
“You ask where I first met him? It is a curious story. We felt to each other at one. I was a conductor. The night was very stormy, - he had been over to see Burroughs before he came down to take the car – the storm was awful. Walt had his blanket – it was thrown round his shoulders- he seemed like an old sea-captain. He was the only passenger, it was a lonely night, so I thought I would go in and talk with him. Something in me made me do it and something in me had the same effect on him.
“Anyway I went into the car. We were familiar at once – I put my hand on his knee- we understood. He did not get out at the end of the trip – in fact went all the way back with me. I think the year of this was 1866. From that time on we were the biggest sort of friends. I stayed in Washington until 1872, when I went on the Pennsylvania railroad. Walt was then in the Attorney-General’s office. I wuld frequently go out to the Treasury to see Walt; Hubley Ashton [Assistant Attorney General at the time and one of the founders of the American Bar Association] was commonly there- he would be leaning familiarly on the desk where Walt would be writing. They were fast friends – talked a good deal together.
Peter Doyle & Walt Whitman
 
“Walt rode with me often – often at noon, always at night. He rode round with me on the last trip – sometimes rode for several trips. Everybody knew him. He had a way of taking the measure of the driver’s hands – had calf-skin gloves made for them every winter in Georgetown- these gloves were his personal presents to the men. He saluted the men on the other cars as we passed- threw up his hand. They cried to him,
“’Hullo, Walt!’
“And he would reply, ‘Ah there!’ or something like.
“He was welcome always as flowers in May. Everybody appreciated his attentions, he seemed to appreciate our attentions to him. Teach the boys to read, write, or cypher? I never heard of, or saw that. There must be some mistake. He did not make much of what people call learning. But he gave us papers, books, and other such articles too.
“In his habits he was very temperate. He did not smoke. People seemed to think it odd that he didn’t, for everyone in Washington smoked. But he seemed to have a positive dislike for tobacco. He was a very moderate drinker. You might have thought something different, to see the ruddiness of his complexion – but his complexion had no whiskey in it. We might take a drink or two together- nothing more.  
 
“It was our practice to go to a hotel on Washington Avenue after I was done with my car. I remember the place well – there on the corner. Like as not I would go to sleep – lay my hands on my head on the table. Walt would stay there, wait, watch, keep me undisturbed – would wake me when the hour of closing came. In his eating he was vigorous, had big appetite, but was simple in his tastes, not caring for any great dishes.
“I never knew a case of Walt’s being bothered up by a woman. In fact, he had nothing special to do with any woman except Mrs. O’Connor and Mrs. Burroughs. His disposition was different. Woman in that sense never came into his head. Walt was too clean, he hated anything which was not clean. No trace of any dissipation in him.
“I ought to know about him those years – we were awfully close together. In the afternoon I would go up to the Treasury building and wait for him to get through if he were busy. Then we’d stroll out together, often without any plan, going wherever we happened to get. This occurred days in and out, months running. Towards women, Walt had a good way – he very easily attracted them. But he did that with men, too. And it was an irresistible attraction. I’ve had many tell me – men and women. He had an easy gentle way – the same for all, no matter who they were or what their sex.”

For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst. 

Saturday, August 17, 2019

The Golden Trough

The following excised excerpt is from my upcoming novel Sunday Morning at the Peak of Hell. It has been cut because it doesn't fit the narrative of the story any more, but I still think it has potential as a disconnected piece of flash fiction. Enjoy. 




The Golden Trough is open for business! The already fat customers are packed single file into a maze of cold iron bars with flaking lead based white paint. They are whipped along by a cadre of rail thin menial workers wearing cheap Casper the Friendly Ghost masks. The customers huff through one at a time and are then forced to wait in line again for the cashier. They mutter non sequiturs, while looking at their cell phones, or their shoes, or the ceiling, or their fat beer guts, but never at each other or anyone around them. Direct eye contact is verboten!
The toll for this establishment is $31.41. Exact change is required. Outside the customers must display this amount to the thick suited guards, armed with truncheons and Mace. If the customer is off by one cent, they are given a healthy dose of stick and spray and sent on their way. Once the amount has been verified, the customer must swallow it before being let in. When they reach the register, they are slapped on the back of and forced to regurgitate all of the money onto the counter.
The manager is a hirsute man wearing a stained wife-beater shirt, with five chins and surprisingly spindly arms. Stinking of old oil and spoiled tomatoes, he anoints each person who pays on the forehead with a stamp in blue ink, reading “valued customer.”
The inside is one large gleaming white room, with plain patternless, easily stained, linoleum glued to the floor. On the leeward side, a large aluminum tough, spray painted gold, is sunk into the floor, with “friendly” waiters there to attend to whatever is needed. Each of the “friendly” waiters cheeks have been pierced with twine that is pulled back and tied behind the head, forcing the waiter to smile no matter how obnoxious or stupid the valued customer is.
         Three feet in front the trough are a series of holes exactly 14 inches apart. The valued customer crawls (walking is so exhausting) up and positions their anus exactly behind a hole. Then a “friendly" waiter pulls down the valued customer’s trousers and brown streaked underthings (“Anything to make it easier for the customer”), and pulls up two plastic tubes from the hole. One is inserted into the rectum, while the other is slapped on the penis or into the vaginal shunt.
Thus the valued customer isn’t discomforted by having to handle such unsavory bodily functions, which one would not like to think about at the dinner trough. They must merely pause their gorging for a brief moment, flex what muscles are need to get the ball rolling, and automatic suction machines take over the rest of the process.
To cut costs, The Golden Trough only hires one “friendly” waiter per estimated one hundred and fifty customers. So occasionally, the customers must wait. They shift about, getting annoyed, making little huffing noises, but they dare not raise their voice above the low decibel range, lest they are picked out from the herd by The Scum Who Rule. They could start eating, if they wished or even apply the tubes to themselves, but they don’t. They prefer to wait and delay their pleasure, they're paying someone else to deal with these problems, not to do it themselves.
For more readings, try books by Rex Hurst.