SCREAMING BATFISH BLUES #12

SCREAMING BATFISH BLUES #12

BATFISH

ST.PETER SECURITY HOSPITAL

That never did happen there, getting cornholed that is, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t worry about it. There seemed to be a lot of the guys doing each other, and Earl, the gang enforcer, was forcing himself on a few of the weaker ones on the unit. But I was pretty much left alone.

I guess it hadn’t taken long for news of my sucker punch to the back of Ray’s head to travel through the hospital grapevine and that I wouldn’t be a real easy one to take.

When I first walked through the door of that unit I knew right away that this was going to be a world that I had never known in my wildest dreams existed.

I figured that out after this client walked up to me and said “I knew you were coming.”

I was surprised. “How’s that?”

“How do you think? I could smell your asshole.”

Jumping Jesus!!

I had been on the unit for about a week when lo and behold who walks through the door but old Dan, my one eyed buddy from the county jail in Duluth. He acted like he didn’t even remember me, which I don’t think he did at first. Took him about two days to do it. I think he was still trying to get over the initial shock of his life time commitment to the place.

Dan had a companion along with him who was absolutely guaranteed that he would be serving a life sentence. His name was Cedar and although I didn’t know him personally, I had read about him.

One of the staff had left an alternative newspaper called the City Pages, out on the unit, which I had snatched up. In it was an article about this body that was found in the Mississippi River that had been missing its head, feet, and hands. The really strange part about it was that the body had already been embalmed. Turns out that these two idiots had broken in to the crypt of a young boy and had removed the parts and thrown the torso in the river.

They had a hell of a time at parties throwing the head on people’s laps and scaring the shit out of them. Cedar had been mentioned in the article, but only that he was an old former buddy of the two morons.

No, Cedar’s reputation more than preceded him. Cedar had been born to a hippie couple who had some problems with parenting skills. He was a tad too boisterous for them so they decided to medicate him with LSD, even though he was only three at the time.

It would affect him in his adult life since he started to believe that his grandmother was a witch and needed to be killed. So one night after an evening of partying, he beat the old gal half to death, tore out her eyes, and in the final insult, gave her a swirly in her toilet. For the uninformed, a swirly is when you stick someone’s head in the bowl and flush. She died several days later.

Cedar had been on the classification unit for a month prior to coming to Unit 800 and the medications he was on seemed to work wonderfully. He could carry on amusing conversations, knew rock and roll like it was nobodies business, and was obviously pleased when I mentioned to him that I had read his name in the City Pages.

He had smiled and said, “Shit, those clowns are just riding on my coat tails.”

The staff had found a joint on him, hence his trip to Unit 800. Medication wasn’t the only that was keeping him under control.

He had been given a series of ECT treatments, electro convulsive therapy shock treatment, before being brought to our unit. Every week he still made the trip for his dose of the electric juice. Thinking about that worried me.

I don’t know how it happened, but he would become the only person in the whole fucking joint that I would ever be able to trust.

We became chums and began to spend the days together discussing The Allman Brothers Band-both the new and old version, good pot, and most importantly, how to break out of the St. Peter Security Hospital.

But after three weeks on the unit it was becoming painfully obvious that jig was about up. Let me tell you, it’s goddamn hard to play crazy and I just wasn’t up to the task. From the little things like the staff noticing that I’d always ask for the television channel to be changed from cartoons, which the other clients watched like it was the word of God, to football, hockey, or boxing. Or when we went out to the yard how I’d run the inner perimeter doing my road work. The average nut just doesn’t do that. I just wasn’t fitting in.

The other nuts noticed it too. They gave me a lot of space. Everybody but Cedar, and for some unknown reason, Bob. And although Bob himself always had a load of shit in his pants and an odor of urine about him, he smelled a rat was on the unit.

I had been on the unit a month to the day when the unit shrink sat me down on his rounds and told me that he felt “I was full of crap and that it was time to face my responsibilities.” His recommendation to the court was going to be that I was fit to stand trial.

Jesus Christ, the prick only talked to me once a week. And then for only ten minutes. How in the hell could a guy fake he was ready for a permanent straightjacket in that amount of time?

I didn’t have the strength to argue with or try to bullshit him. He was just a typical government employee looking for an easy pension. The thought of pulling him over the desk and whipping the shit out of him passed through my mind. That would let the bastards know I was crazy.

But I couldn’t do it. I knew that he had a wife and kids at home.I had needed more time. Sitting in the jail in Duluth it had sounded so easy. It was a hospital, a fucking hospital! How hard could it be to escape from a hospital? I had underestimated everything. Security was much tighter than I thought it would be. And it wasn’t just a hospital. It was a prison with thick glass instead of bars. To top it off, the place was full of goddamn lunatics. How could you possibly form any sort of escape plan while living in that sort of environment?

I had looked and looked and still could not find a detect a chink in the hospital armor. A way where I could get the fuck out of here.

The past eight years hit me hard and I walked out of his office without a word. I went and sat down in the day room with the rest of lunatics. It was all rushing back in a steady stream through my head, like a bad acid trip. Albert Lea, my drunk parents, my dead brother, all the drugs, all the booze, Rose dead, the drunk admiral sitting there in his Fruit of the Looms, AWOL, Zak hanging in his locker, L.A., the dead bodies on Wonderland Avenue, half dicked blacks and one eyed Indians, it all ran together.

Shit, maybe I am nuts.

Norm and his diminutive biker lackey stood up and walked off like I smelled like Bob. Muttering some shit under their breath.

Fuck ‘em, at least I’d be out of here. Prison would probably be better anyway. Get this

shit all over with. They call Stillwater a gladiator school. Well it’ll be better to get carried out of there than rot in here. They were going to catch up to me sooner or later anyhow. How much longer could this nightmare go on?

Cedar came over to join me. “You know I've been pondering this escape shit all this time and all of a sudden, right out of nowhere, it hits me right between the motherfucking eyes, dude. All you need to break out of here man is a crack torch. It’s as simple as that.”

Sweet Jesus! Without a word I stood up and walked to my cell.

I was snorkeling on Oahu’s north shore. Warm, crystal blue water,me and a good Navy buddy named Tom. We had smoked a big fat number of a weed called Mango and were just floating on the surface like a couple of jelly fish. I had a spear with like a rubber band on the end that you stretched out to propel the spear forward, but hadn’t found anything to take yet. Then I saw this fish, this strange fish, swimming along the bottom. It

was almost translucent and it looked like a bat. A clear underwater bat swimming along like it was looking for its cave or attic to go hang upside down in. I dove down so I was over it as I pulled the band on the spear back. It was a perfect shot, right through its back. But I could hear this weird sound in the distance and I looked around but there was nothing there. It had a weird high pitch, kind of like it sounds when you’re inside a house and an outside water faucet is on. And then I saw what it was. The batfish had his mouth open and he was the one that was making the noise.

His little mouth was open and he was screaming. Screaming because I had shot him in the back and now he was dying a horrible death.

I awoke with a start. It had gotten dark outside. Someone was standing in my cell, in the dark. Cells aren’t locked in the hospital at night. Only on the sex offender’s unit or if the doctor writes up an order in your chart, something to do about patient rights.

It was Cedar standing there, quietly, just watching me. I was hoping he didn’t think that I was a witch and try to kill me. Or worse, give me a swirly.

“A torch is what I really thought we would need. That glass will fucking melt, man. But we don’t need my crack torch. The sons of bitches have the torches on the units, man. Just waiting for us. Those fucking cans of Right Guard!”

Cedar turned to walk out of my cell. “By the way you missed supper. Chicken Kiev. Tasted like shit.”

SALT ON THE NUTS: THE ADVENTURES OF A WHITE TRASH SAILOR #6

DROPPING LSD, THE 

PUSSYCAT THEATER, AND SHIPPING OUT 

"Sir! Sir! Wake up. You're disturbing the 
other passengers."

I blearily pulled my face away from the 
window that I had stuck to from dried drool and 
looked up at the stewardess who was shaking my 
shoulder. I had been dreaming about the porno 
movie I had seen at the Pussycat Theater on 
Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis that had kicked 
the previous night off and realized that I might have 
been shouting out things like "hairy snatch" and "let 
me stick in your ass, big momma." 

Passengers were looking at me in horror. By the stench surrounding me I must have been also farting like a circus 
elephant. If I had pulled the same stunt after 9/11 
my ass would sitting in a jail cell right now. 
Jesus Christ, what a day and a half it had 
been. 

It all started off when I had checked into the 
downtown Radisson Hotel. When I found my room 
and opened the door I discovered that I had 
company. And my company appeared to be both 
lonely and stoned. He was also talking a mile a 
minute and appeared to be some sort of drug fiend.

"Hey, buddy! Guess we'll be bunking 
together. Cool! My name's Bobby. You're Navy, 
huh. Me, I'm joining the Marines. Just like my 
brother, which by the way reminds me. Do you like 
to party?" When I nodded at him (I had yet to utter 
more than a single word), he reached into his pocket 
and pulled out a glass vial and handed it to me. 
"Acid, dude. My brother is stationed out in Frisco 
and he sent it to me. Owsley acid. They call it that 
cause some freak named Owsley makes it. Suppose 
to be the best in the country. The Hells fucking 
Angels get their acid from this dude. There's enough 
for both of us. Let's drop it and make a Fucking-A-Dilly-
bar party for our last night."

We washed the tabs down with a swig out of 
Bobby's can of Schlitz malt liquor. The good old 
Bull. The LSD took about fifteen minutes to kick in 
as we chatted. And it kicked like a mule.

"Fuck, Bobby," I stuttered. "This is some 
potent shit! We better get some food in us and a 
couple of beers to try to mellow out some or this is 
going to be a long night."

Bobby had started making this weird look 
with his face like a chipmunk chattering and he kept 
repeating "Yes, dude, yes! Fucking A yes!" It was 
really starting to freak me out. I realized that I may 
have made a huge mistake. We stumbled down to the dining room 
where our government issued meal tickets got us 
this greasy and goddamn nasty Mexican dinner 
which we both inhaled. 

I don't know how since it was like eating a dead squirrel and didn't taste much better than it looked. We damn near got 
thrown out of the joint because Bobby kept 
whistling at this hot little waitress and flicking his 
tongue out at her like Linda Blair when she had the 
lead role as Satan - which I was starting to think 
Bobby wasn't too far off from - in The Exorcist. 

After we finished our rotgut meal we 
staggered out on to the streets of Minneapolis to 
find a bar that was lacking in the skills of checking 
the identifications of underage drinkers. It took 
about half a block to find. The place was dark and 
dank and all of the customers appeared to be about 
ninety fucking years old. They were drinking Old 
Style beer, obviously the house special, and were 
glued to the television which seemed to be playing 
an endless loop of Leave It To Beaver, Maude, and 
Good Times reruns.

"Cold beer for our men and hot whores for 
our horses," Bobby yelled out as he slapped a 
twenty on the bar. The bartender, who looked like 
an old queen from the silent film era, popped two 
cold ones down and gave a sly wink and swished 
back down to the other end.

"Fuck, I think we may be in some sort of 
retirement home homo bar," I slurred out, I was so 
high I couldn't tell if I was really talking or not. "Is 
there a parrot on the bartender's shoulder?" Behind 
the bar there appeared to be a giant purple lizard 
wearing a turban and it was crawling slowly across 
the wall.

"Who gives a shit?" said Bobby, "As long as 
the old bastard keeps bringing these beers," he 
belched out. "Maybe he'll blow us if we tip him 
enough." I looked at Bobby in horror not knowing if 
he actually had said that and meant it, or if I was 
now having auditory hallucinations.

"You boys having a good time tonight? You 
two can sure put the beer away." The old fart ran his 
tongue over his yellowed dentures. I looked down at 
the bar in front of me. I couldn't believe that I had 
drank that much and not taken a piss. We must have 
been on about our fourteenth beer apiece by the 
amount of empties in front of us and it appeared that 
the old geisha boy was ready to make his move. I 
had totally lost track of time and just where the hell 
I was. How many fucking episodes of Leave It To 
Beaver are there?

"I guess were doing OK," I babbled.

Bobby responded by opening his mouth and 
barfing a geyser of beer and bad Mexican food all 
over the old queer. We both vaulted off of our 
stools and ran out the door screaming and laughing 
like hyenas and tore down the block until we found 
ourselves, like a vision from God, in front of the 
legendary PussyCat theater. Deep Throat had 
played non-stop there for years. It was a double 
feature, the second show was called I Cream On 
Jeanne. I was hoping that Barbara Eden was really 
in it. She had been the subject of many of my stroke 
dreams. Thinking back, how in even my LSD 
addled mind did I think that Barbara Eden would be 
performing in a porno film?

"I gotta see this flick," Bobby said, "I heard 
this chick Linda Lovelace can go down on a mule 
and not bat an eye."

After getting our tickets I went to take a leak 
while Bobby went to the concession stand. Like I'd 
eat anything that was sold in a porno theater! The 
walls of the bathroom were covered with graffiti 
and with the phone numbers of men who either 
wanted me to call them so they could blow me or 
visa versa.

"What in the hell is wrong with this 
goddamn town," I wondered as I pissed all over my 
shoes looking at all the amateur porno scrawled on 
the walls. The majority of them poorly done 
renditions of stick men with massive cocks, balls, 
and exposed assholes. If the theater was showing 
just regular old porno flicks - guy on girl, girl on 
girl - why was all the graffiti homo related? Another 
question for the ages.

Bobby was waiting for me in the lobby, 
rocking from one foot to the other. He had bought a 
box of World War II era malted milk balls and was 
eating them with his mouth wide open. I had to 
swallow back my gag reflex. What a disgusting 
sight!

The theater was one of those old time places 
that had gone to shit and now showed only skin 
flicks around the clock. Fucking place must have 
held two thousand people at one time in it's glory 
years and now there were about fifteen in the whole 
joint. Me and Bobby, eleven single men, and two 
either really ugly women or two transvestites who 
were wildly making out.

I didn't give a shit though! Man, once I 
started to watch that Linda Lovelace, who was short 
in the tit department but fine in the ass and bush, get 
down with old Harry Reems, I was sporting a piece 
of wood that Rod Carew could have used to knock 
out a homer at the old Met stadium. The urge to 
jerk-off off was intense. I just had to beat my meat, 
just had to, but I couldn't with Bobby next to me. 
What shitty luck I was having.

"Look at them ugly chicks swapping spit," 
Bobby yelled out. 

No one in the audience as much 
as turned around. "Goddamn that ain't right! What 
would Jesus do if he saw that?" (If that dumb 
asshole had only been able to see into the future he 
could've thrown a trademark on that one. 
Advertising firms could have dosed Bobby with 
acid and he would envision future marketing 
slogans). Suddenly without warning he stood up and 
stepped out into the aisle and hurled a milk ball - that was probably petrified - as hard as he could at the two spit swappers. It shot 
over their heads by fifteen feet. The place was 
cavernous, no one even heard it hit. Or cared for 
that matter. Everyone else in the theater was too busy spanking their monkey.

The next time he wound up like he was 
trying out for the Yankees, even going through the 
whole wind up with the kick and everything, but his 
throw was way over their heads. Eventually 
throwing the box empty, Bobby turned and ran up 
the aisle for more ammo. Eureka! I took the 
opportunity to un-zip and pull out my crank. I'm 
sure this was illegal but since I had noticed about 
everyone in the place appeared to be either beating 
their hogs or someone else's it must not be  
enforced too often. 

I was really getting into it when out of the 
corner of my eye I spied Bobby moving down the 
center aisle firing malted milk balls like a submachine 
gun. His hand would dip into the box, he'd 
fire, and then take another step down the aisle. The 
acid in my brain gave the milk balls the visual effect 
of being shout out of a bazooka along with a bright 
orange tracer. Very cool looking. But he was still 
way off the mark and I was about on mine when 
suddenly...

"What the fuck?" someone shouted. The two 
transvestites were out of their seats and running up 
the aisle towards Bobby. Obviously he had finally 
hit his target. The sons of bitches were a lot bigger 
than they looked sitting down. They charged up the 
aisle looking like linebackers wearing nylons, wigs, 
nightclub dresses, and high heels. The three of them 
went down in a pile of punches, curses, and kicks.

I don't know if it was the combination of the 
acid, sweet Linda up on the screen giving it her all, 
or the adrenaline of the fight - but I shot to my feet 
and shot a huge load that arched 
over at least two rows and landed right on this old 
dude's neck!

He stood and shrieked like a wounded deer, 
with his pants hanging down to his knees, his white 
ass glowing in the dark as white as the moon.

"What the hell was that?" 

He screamed out again as if battery acid had been poured on his neck. Without stopping to look, I bolted up the 
aisle as I jammed my prick back into my jeans at 
the same time. I ran straight through the lobby and 
out the left side lobby doors just as two cops came 
in the right side of the lobby. I sprinted like an 
Olympic track and field star packing a full load of 
steroids, all the way back to the hotel.

And I never saw Bobby again.

I was leaning against the front of the hotel 
trying to catch my breath when I heard her voice. 
"Do you want to party?" I couldn't decide if I was 
still hallucinating or not. For I was looking at 
another vision sent straight from heaven. My second 
in about an hour. A gorgeous blonde Amazon! She 
was incredible! Playboy shit! I mean she was that 
hot. Long blond hair. Huge jugs in a halter top. 
Shapely legs pouring out of denim hot pants. Must 
have been close to six feet tall. She was the whole 
fucking package! A vision from God - if you believe in that sort of thing.

The power of speech had left me. I could 
only nod numbly. In my drug and alcohol soaked 
brain pan I knew that she was a hooker but I didn't 
give a shit.

"Give me your room key." I handed it over 
without question. She ran her tongue around her lips 
and perfect white teeth (she was no speed whore) and turned and walked across the lobby as I followed along. Staying 
slightly behind her so that I could check out her 
gorgeous ass, obviously she was wearing no 
panties. We stepped into the elevator and as soon as 
the door closed she turned and grabbed my crotch 
and stuck her tongue in my ear. "I'm going to wear 
that big cock of yours down to a matchstick," she 
hoarsely whispered.

"Do you have someone else in the room 
with you?" She was standing by Bobby's bed and 
looking at all the empties of malt liquor scattered 
about. "It'll be extra if he wants to watch."

I don't think he'll be back tonight." Fucker 
had to be in jail by now. I was hoping anyway. 
She smiled coyly at me. "Good. It's 50 for a 
blow job. A hundred for a suck and a fuck. And a 
hundred a half hour for any extras. Do you have the 
cash?" 

I walked over and flashed the remainder of 
the wad I had stolen from la Favor, Mike, and 
Angel.

She smiled again. "That's a start." She 
started stripping off her clothes. She looked over at 
me. "Well just don't stand there, get those clothes 
off so we can get this party started." 

My crank was already so hard I thought I'd pass out. The blonde 
had perfect jugs with tollhouse cookie nipples and 
her trim was shaved into a heart. There was a tattoo 
of Curious George beating his meat on 
her ass. She opened her pocketbook and pulled out a 
couple of horse sized pills. "Have you ever taken a 
Quaalude?" She pulled a beer out of the cooler and 
popped the top and washed one down. "Makes 
fucking twice as good. Here, take this one. On the 
house."

*** 

The ringing of the phone brought me out of 
my coma. I was laying on floor of my room buck 
naked. The phone stopped ringing and quickly 
started up again. I staggered to my feet and had to 
hold the sides of my head to keep from passing out.

"Hello," I gasped into the phone. 
It was my wake up call. "Good morning! It's 
five o'clock! Rise and shine! The bus leaves for the 
induction center in..."

"Fuck off!" I snarled and slammed the 
phone down. I barely made it into the bathroom 
before I puked into the bathtub. Standing up I 
caught a glance of myself in the mirror before I 
passed out. I'm damn lucky I didn't kill myself hitting my head on the tile counter - not that I would have cared at that point.

I'll never know what really happened that 
historic night. It was one for ages that's for sure. But 
I do know how fucking shocked the security guards 
looked when they found me passed out on the 
bathroom floor. I guess the woman who had given 
me the wake up call had been a little concerned 
about how I had answered her call. Security found 
me laying in a pool of my own barf and looking like 
I had been dragged behind a car. All my clothes, 
money, and other personal shit had been stolen. The 
guards were kind enough to dig through a lost and 
found bag to scrounge me up some Viking 
sweat pants and a matching t-shirt along with a 
packet of underwear (size medium - irregular) and 
black socks that were stuffed in a sweaty smelling 
gym bag. For shoes they gave me a pair of old 
shower shoes. I wound up looking like a member of 
a group home for retards. 

Quite a way to start your military career.

To be continued.....