He sold ecstasy, heroin, acid, and coke to punk high school kids. His house smelt like Vicks vaporub. Over and over I watched him single out the sad loner girls, get them addicted to meth, and make them his until absolutely no one wanted them.

He sold ecstasy, heroin, acid, and coke to punk high school kids. His house smelt like Vicks vaporub. Over and over I watched him single out the sad loner girls, get them addicted to meth, and make them his until absolutely no one wanted them.
—

My mother was a private investigator for abused children. Regardless of the situation, she rarely let me stay home from school. Even when I was legitimately ill, she’d make me go to work with her. She’d take me to migrant trailer parks rooted deep in the orange groves, secluded orange grove ghettos, and typical “perfect family” style development housing communities. I saw piss-soaked babies left alone on coffee tables, middle schoolers with black eyes, and kids cooped up in filthy homes crammed full of caged rabbits and animal shit.
—

Target practice.
—

They used to color ketamine orange with food dye and sell it to the preps as horse tranquilizer for three times the price. I remember watching them feed lines of it to some kid at party until he overdosed and foamed orange at the mouth.
—

In 9th grade she was the prettiest girl on my school bus. I had a huge crush on her but could never gather the courage to act on it.

At the end of that year she died in a car accident where the bus would drop me off.
—

Like most strippers I know, the more blow she did, the more adoringly she spoke of her son.

One time she fucked my friend while I nodded off in the bathroom sitting on the toilet, resting my head on the toilet paper dispenser. As the sun came up she asked if she could borrow his Danzig shirt and a pair of sweats to look more presentable for a custody hearing.
—

“… he once dared me to peak into a gas station bathroom known for being a cruising spot. Inside the walls were pock marked with glory holes. A wafting mix of urinal cake, locker room musk, cheap beer, and cologne seemed to add to the nervous excitement of shifty townies looking to cheat on their wives and butt-fuck in the abandoned trailers out by the canals.”
—

On weekends after hunting alligators, they’d butcher their catches in the garage. The creepiest part was glimpsing the dusty Bowflex standing in the corner like a mean S&M toy.
—

Her real name was Janet Jackson. She was obsessed with riding horses, whiskey sours, parrots, and I Dream of Jeannie memorabilia. She earned a comfortable living selling hand-raised parrots from her home. Her living room and patio were fashioned into a giant incubator. Every inch of the floor and upholstery was caked in hardened layers of newspaper and bird shit. For my 9th birthday, my parents bought me a lovebird from her. It was like having a well trained dog. The bird would sit on my shoulder, eat food from my hand. I could even take it outside and it wouldn’t fly away.

After a hurricane killed off all the birds in her patio, Janet picked up a pill habit and skipped town shortly after. No one knew she was gone until the smell of decomposing birds filled the street.

Lovebirds are known to mourn the loss of a mate. Those were the first to die.
—

Have A Nice Day Cafe!
—

“I remember tripping so heavily that her kisses felt like raw meat and teeth against my mouth.”
—

“… and looking back, every day was overcast.”

-PAUL K
Twitter.com/XOPK

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