MENAGERIES OF

MONSTROCITIES
THE GREAT MORAL EXHIBITION
OF THE DAY

The Carousel is one of those anomalies that you personally believe arose in the
working class towns back east, during a time when men worked three shifts through the
day and night and so there was a need for bars to be open at six am in the morning to
take on the workers coming off the midnight shit, the men that would come in black faced
at seven am to sit down and drink themselves to sleep. This was also a time when the
skies were always dark and so bars open in the morning still had that atmosphere that is
needed to feel really comfortable about being in the bar which is darkness all around.
And so when some rust belt people moved themselves out West, they opened bars, why
not, all towns needed bars, and when they did they brought with them the habit or the
notion that a bar should be open at 6 am to slake the working mules thirst whenever he

needed it, and so as its sign said, the Carousel was open every day at 6 am although
rarely did anyone arrive there to drink that early unless they had been drinking all night
before in which case they had to be refused service or given a cup of coffee which they
would cradle in their hands while they muttered something or other as they nodded off in
a booth or at the counter until the bartender would have to throw them out the door. The
carousel was also an anomaly for a working mans bar in that instead of the standard
sportsabilia or gamehunting clutter, it was decorated with pictures and murals that better
suited a childrens imagination than a drunk, horny man with nowhere else to go. The
building itself was round, like a water tower, its concrete walls painted with huge murals
showing giant prancing horses from a spinning carousel, their nostrils flaring, hooves up
high, behind them the other animals, the lions and bears and behind them the organ
pipes the lights and if you looked real carefully a clown who seemed to be in the center of
the mural, perhaps running the entire circular and circulating contraption. Inside, the
booths looked like the flare-backed seats you can still find on some refurbished carousels,
the seats secured to floor and ceiling with metal poles that had a screw shape groove
running from top to bottom. In dusty picture frames were photos of old carousels from
Coney Island, Venice, CA and places in Europe the names of which were written in a
fading sepia ink and a sloppy scrawl so that the actual city or country name was no
longer legible. The sign outside near the road said Come to the Carousel as two clowns,
with white painted faces and gloved hands, invited you in, pointing the way. And to some
extent this choice of theme and dcor might have worked, it did for you, as that was the
only reason you choose to stop and go in one night, the circus lights blinking around the
perimeter, the deep entryway like the entrance to a side show, the man outside, a midget

or dwarf actually, smoking a cigarette, but otherwise standing there as if part of the
theme and dcor, you never saw him again but he was part of the allure, part of the
fantasy that you was about to join the circus.
That was when you met Colleen, the bartender that night, a small, lithe, pretty
woman who looked out of place in a bar, but in her short black sequined jacket and pink
frilled skirt looked perfectly at home in a carnival. She would have been the woman
ringmaster if this place had really been a circus, or the lion tamer in black leather, or the
woman who ran the horses and made them jump over barrels and through huge rings of
fire. She came right up to you as if she had been waiting for you, that was part of her
charm, to always know not what the customer wanted to drink but to know what he was
expecting even someone she had never seen before, and said to you so are you drinking
tonight or just here to watch the pretty gals? Im glad to be in a place where I dont have
to drink to see pretty gals, you said. Well, thats the nicest thing Ive heard all night, she
said. I get even nicer when I drink, you said. I get nicer when you drink too, she smiled.
So your plan was to have a drink and leave, but after this introduction did she
do this on purpose you began to wonder, just to get you to stay here and spend more
money you felt you couldnt leave just yet and so you put a few songs on the jukebox
and made yourself comfortable at the bar. It wasnt long until others started coming in,
and it was only when someone else spoke with her that you learned her name was
Colleen as everyone that entered seemed to be a regular of some sort and so called
themselves out by name or made some reference to something that had happened the
night before or a year before, didnt matter, it was something that linked them together,
and before you had finished a second beer you were no longer sitting alone but were

surrounded side and back by people who ignored you and talked right past you as if you
were a passenger on a bus sitting in the wrong seat.
The guy who took the stool next to you came into the bar with a certain bravado
but quickly drank himself into a quiet stupor. It wasnt until he had started nodding off
onto the bar that he and you even looked at each other. Colleen came over to him with
another beer in her hand, the beer had foamed and flowed out the opening and as she set
it down said to him: Hey Henry, looks like Im happy to see you. It was an old joke and
instead of laughing with her, he just looked at you, smiled and nodded his head. His eyes
had gone sloppy and his words were so slurred you had to assign their meaning when he
spoke to you. Hed stare at you for a long time, his head bobbing, his hands shaking as
you watched the words visibly work their way to his mouth much like a belch climbing its
way up the esophagus and he would then close his eyes upon the effort and open his jaw
to let out what sounded to you like: let me buy you a drink, or was it: let me sit here and
think. But such was the magic of communication among people in this bar that within
seconds Colleen had returned with a beer for you as well. Henry got this for you, hes
one of our special customers, she said to you, aint that right Henry? Henry didnt so
much acknowledge her as kept looking at you with that stunned openmouth expression on
his face, still nodding, closing his eyes slightly as if to tell you, see I told you so. You
suddenly realized you were jealous of Henry while on your way to developing a crush on
Colleen. Your jealousy was that you did not have what it would take to even get past the
drunken Henry here in garnering Colleens attention let alone affection. Not with your
newspaper shirt and unwashed hair. So you raised your beer bottle towards Henry,
waited while he moved like a slow loris to find his beer which he eventually did, but then

seemed to have forgotten why he picked it up and so set it back down and proceeded to
start nodding off again. You shrugged and drank from your beer anyway. Thanks Henry,
you said. When you turned back around she was gone and a minute later she was ringing
the bell and kicking those high kicks that got everyone in the place going and suddenly
the music seemed even louder as if that were possible, the air hotter, the people pushing
and shoving, the laughter rolling through in waves like a train, and all you could do was
wait for Colleen to notice that you were staring at her and hope that she would look back
at me in a way she would look at Henry. But she never did and you felt your chances slip
away to nothing. For you, you were discovering that you were a stranger in a gathering
of freaks. At first you were appalled and embarrassed, but then like the feeling you get
from a shot of good tequila, a spill of warmth came over you as if to say, relax, these
people like that guy over there with piece of his skull missing, or that woman with ears
like two fruit bats had taken roost on the sides of her head, or the old man whose fingers
were twisted like a pretzel and were attached to muscles that wound up his arm in a
screwlike fashion, or the man with front teeth that crossed , or the girl with what was
really an extra finger, and the guy who snapped and bit at the air as if he had Tourettes
but was really indeed trying to catch a fly with his tongue these people were
comfortable displaying their imperfections in public, applaud them for this, dont vomit
and retch over what probably took them a lifetime to achieve: be proud, be one of them,
let them be one with you!
Finally, Henry collapsed onto the bar, and a shout went up among the patrons as
if this marked an event that night. For some reason when Colleen walked over to check
on the comatose man, you offered to take him home. You stayed for hours, even after the

crowd had left, leaving you alone finally with Colleen, who now that Henry was gone,
actually stopped and set herself down next to you. You talked a bit. She asked you what
you did. A writer, you said. For the paper, she asked. No, you said, then looking down
and with a blush noticing once again that you had your work shirt on. She never brought
it up again. And you left happy, awake.
On this, the following night, playing on the jukebox: Tangled up in Blue. The
lights behind the bar have turned to red casting out the warmth like a fire. Smell of
disinfectant. Smoke from the cigarette of a guy at the bar. Colleen smiles this time as he
enters the bar, dries her hands and straightens down her skirt.
-

Snooky, she shouted.

Yea, the man says.

You know you cant smoke in here. She walks toward Zim.

Hola again, Zim said, taking a seat at the bar.

Hola guapo, she said.

A bottlefly darts in and out of the light.

Damn horsefly, she said. Been bugging me all night. Scares me. Those things will

suck your blood you know.

-

Only the females, Zim said. I think, that is.

Lymphatic filariasis such as loiasis most often consists of asymptomatic

microfilaremia. Some patients develop lymphatic dysfunction causing lymphedema.

Episodic angioedema (Calabar swellings) in the arms and legs, caused by immune
reactions are common. The swellings may last for 1-3 days, and may be accompanied by
localized urticaria (skin eruptions) and pruritus (itching). Subconjunctival migration of

an adult worm to the eyes can also occur frequently, in this is the reason Loa loa is also
called the "African eye worm." The passage over the eyeball can be sensed, but it usually
takes less than 15 min. Eosinophilia is often prominent in filarial infections. Dead worms
may cause chronic abscesses, which may lead to the formation of granulomatous
reactions and fibrosis.1
She floated in front of him, a fresh smile danced across her face, a daring warmth
from eyes to cheeks to mouth to neck. Her hands found the bartop. She had curly hair,
down to her shoulders, a warm gilding of fiery light. Around her neck a golden crucifix,
a diamond in the center scintillated.
-

Where are your friends? She asked, her breasts rounder it seemed,2 breathing warmly

towards him, he thought.

-

Thought you could tell me? Zim said, wait, on second thought, I dont want to know.

But I will take a Guinness.

She winked, smiled then walked lithely over to the beer taps, grabbed a pint glass,
pulled down the tap, let the foam run for a second, then placed the glass under the slow
stream. She stooped to pick up something from the floor, bending like a switchblade from
the waist, legs straight, spreading her rump for Zim, her skirt rising up to show the back
of her thighs: Degas.3 Kiss her there: behind the knees. Special smell there: in the crux.
Smell her all the way from knee to his Chinese lover, how she stood in front of the
mirror as she prepared to leave, the way she put on her panties, bending down with
straight legs to step into them one foot at a time, her ass, her legs, the dark plum of a
pudendum. She was embarrassed. She had thought her period was over. But the blood
1

Wiki: Gadfly
Sign of female reception
3
Ballerina studies: The present position for monkeys.
2

gushed out all night, soaking the sheets and the bedcovers. I hope this didnt ruin
everything, she said timidly, as he shook his head seeing all too well that it had been
ruined for her. She pulled up her panties over her strong, well shaped legs, then stood up
again. Colleen turned around and smiled.
A number of people had wandered into the bar since he had left, gathered in quiet
knots here and there, talking below the music. Huddled around known agendas. At the
other end of the bar, in front of the restrooms and next to the juke box, sat Snooky, in
white shirt and dark pants, his suit jacket draped across the adjacent chair. Zim studied
the familiar stranger, frail, beaten, bent down into his drink: the pomade slickened hair,
the hooked nose, the dark and shadowed eyes of the brush salesman. Lives out of his
trunk. How do they do that. Doors slam on your arms full of miracle cleaners, scratchless
scrubbers, perfectly perfect polishers, magic stain removers, wart removers, wood oil,
leather oil, snake oil, silver cleaners, pot cleaners, hand creams, hand gloves, pudgloves,
dusters, toilet brushes, bottom ticklers, sweet and pretty pussywipes A gold band on his
wedding finger.
-

Just work today or did you get some writing done? she said.

Well, he said. Work, mopstly. My writing is making its way across town today.

What do you mean?

Put it on top of my car. Forgot it was there. Drove off. Heard it fly off, hit the trunk.

Bam! Looked in the mirror and there it was: scattered across the road.
-

All of it?

Got some of it back. Most of it is gone.

Wondering whos reading it?

I am sure it will find other uses.

Colleen goes to pour his beer. Zim: She remembers my writing. Huh. Perhaps

picks one thing to remember about each customer. Start a conversation: bigger tips.
Think shes flirting though. What to do.
The tarbrew raised a flat head to the top of the glass, she lifted the tap, wiped the
bottom of the glass on a cloth and walked back over to Zim, flicked a coaster down in
front of him and placed the beer down center on.
-

But there are always new stories to tell, right? she said.

Not sure, he said. And sometimes I think I have what I need.

Do you really?

Sometimes I think I could forever seek to find something to say about even the

simplest things I know. Just the simplest things period.

-

Do you really think you have all you need? She said, her breath so close he could feel

it. Mustard. Burnt fleshblood.

-

So you know about London and Joyce thats interesting, he said cautiously.

I have, she said, was working on my dissertation in English, on Woolf. Years ago.

Never finished.
-

What was it about? Zim asked, your dissertation.

Inner monologues, she said. Women versus men. What is expressed, what never gets

expressed. Richness of the interior. Women have much nicer interiors, you know.
-

I bet, he said.

Woolf, Faulkner, Joyce I used to love to get lost in their sentences, paths that lead

you somewhere, anywhere, didnt really care where you ended up. You know what I
mean?
-

Sure, sometimes I feel like I have been lost for years. Still trying to get out.

But that was a lifetime ago, before I became a barmaid. A mom. A workaday.

You have a kid

Yep, a daughter, shes 13 now.

Where is she?

With my mom. Always when I work. Shes great.

She dances too? Zim asked, thinking: no boyfriend.

No, she said and walked away to check on some drinkers at the other end of the bar.

Ffooot!
Then she returned.

Kelly, my daughter, no she doesnt dance, not anymore. She has a nervous system

disorder.4 Losing her muscle control, her coordination. May not actually be walking at all
much longer. But right now it is one day at a time.
-

I didnt know he said.

Weve known for a while but its just now beginning to appear. Something you notice

one day, a strange jerk or an awkward step, then something else the next. Brain is
fighting to compensate I guess. I smell that damn sewer backing up again!
Flaws hidden in the most beautiful. Crooked, missing bits of ATCG. Anything
That Can Gowrong. All Things Created by God. Asstonguecuntgoo. Adenine for the

Freidrichs Ataxia

10

tonsils. Thymine is yours and mine. Cytosine is invisible. Guanine makes me poop.
Monk: Mix all the crips and morph together to create the beggars of Spain.5
A number of theories propose that RNA, or an RNA-like substance, played a role
in the origin of life. Usually, such hypotheses presume that the Watson-Crick bases were
readily available on prebiotic Earth, for spontaneous incorporation into a replicator.
Cytosine, however, has not been reported in analyses of meteorites nor is it among the
products of electric spark discharge experiments. The reported prebiotic syntheses of
cytosine involve the reaction of cyanoacetylene (or its hydrolysis product,
cyanoacetaldehyde), with cyanate, cyanogen, or urea. These substances undergo side
reactions with common nucleophiles that appear to proceed more rapidly than cytosine
formation. To favor cytosine formation, reactant concentrations are required that are
implausible in a natural setting. Furthermore, cytosine is consumed by deamination (the
half-life for deamination at 25C is

340 yr) and other reactions. No reactions have

been described thus far that would produce cytosine, even in a specialized local setting,
at a rate sufficient to compensate for its decomposition. On the basis of this evidence, it
appears quite unlikely that cytosine played a role in the origin of life. Theories that
involve replicators that function without the Watson-Crick pairs, or no replicator at all,
remain as viable alternatives.
-

Im sorry he said.

No, dont be, she said. Shes my little hero.

I bet.

So anywayhey! Im leaving.

What do you mean?

Science fiction Monk likes on future with human engineering

11

Last nights tonight, she said, her bottom lip pushed up tight.

Why is that?

Long story, she said, her hands were delicate but boney, thin, blue veined, told her age

better than her stories. The owner here, she said looking up at the ceiling: the blowfly
battling about, just not a good thing for me.
-

I see, he said. Fondled, kissed, cornered, fingered, raped, bloodied: womanhood.

Where you going? he asked.

Bar downtown, friend owns it. Its good for me to get out of here.

You should be in a different place, this is a little too cowboy for you.

Maybe, but I love these people, she said, they are all losers, each in their own way.

But sometimes, I think I see them at their best, when they are happy, when they forget
about the other stuff of life. I will miss that. Not sure I care to tend bar for a bunch of
spoiled kids and grown men who think they are kids. I learn about life here, even the lies
are truths about people.
On his PDA: email arrives from sis: Need to come home. Mom worse than we
thought. How could she hide this from us. Didnt hide it. Saved it. Right time for
everything. What home?
You remember back to this morning: knocking on a door on Athens Street. Door
opens to reveal a family getting ready for a funeral. Can I help you, the guy said. Good
morning, you said, I am here to collect for the newspaper, maybe you didnt know but
your payment is past due, I would hate to have to cancel your delivery, its only twenty
five dollars and I can get it all back in line. Fuck this, the guy says to another guy,
probably his brother, then looking back at you with a dogs snarl on his face: were

12

getting ready for our fathers funeral and here you come round to ask for money for the
paper, what kind of shit are you anyway. Sorry, you said, I didnt know there was a
funeral. Well that is why we are dressed in these black suits fuck face, the guy said, not
cuz there is church today, no, but because our father is laid out in a fucking coffin and we
need to spend the day looking at his cold, dead face. Just then this guys bear of a brother
comes over, says: whats the matter Tommy. Hey Don, this fuck here says Dad owes
twenty five bucks for the paper, he is knocking on the door to collect twenty five bucks
form a dead man. Is that right, the other guys says to you. Im afraid so, you said, Im
sorry, I didnt know. Well, why dont you fuck off, the first guy steps forward and says to
you. You backed up seeing this guy coming at me, when suddenly behind you is another
guy, a relative you guess, also dressed in black, a tall, beefy guy with his hair slicked
back. Where the fuck you going paperboy, the guy to your back says. Sorry guys, you
said. But as you moved they all moved kind of wedging you in, circling you. You knew
this was kind of a game you had experienced at least once as a kid, with the bullies at
school. You think you were supposed to fall down or something, fall down and they
would laugh at you, spit at you perhaps, but leave you alone, keep standing and stay
upright with their pushes and shoves and sooner or later one of them would snap off, let
one fly and there youd go, broken bloody nose, busted lip, whatever, but shit if you were
going to fall down. Suddenly she appeared, stepped out of the room past a knot of kids
and teenagers which had gathered by the door to see the paperboy get creamed, she came
through them all kind of like a gazelle, lithe and upright. Hold on, hold on, she said,
pushing the guys back. She handed you a twenty and a five. Here, she said, he didnt
mean to be late on the payment, he never missed a payment on anything his life, it was a

13

mistake. You looked at her as if she had done this in order to tell you something, as if
there was a message in these words, this gesture, the money she handed to you. But there
was nothing more than that act. She handed you the money, the guys parted, the kids
disappeared back inside the house, the beasts behind you sidled past and walked inside,
pulling the door shut with a few glances and maybe a snarl but nothing more. Decided it
was time to go home.
Were these the people she was talking about, Zim wondered, the guys who
gathered around the waxen remains of their father, never showing a sign of
embarrassment that the mortician had done such a fucking horrible job and the man in the
casket looked nothing like their Dad, yet how every person who came by told them not
once, but at least twice, my they did a good job on your dad, they did a great job, he looks
just like he is sleeping, anymore lifelike and I would ask him to get up, quit fucking
around, you are not dead, get up old boy, we got things to do! They wouldnt forget the
paperboy, no, they d get drunk, theyd go out, theyd lose the line that defined what
mattered and what did not matter, what was real and not real, what was important and
what was not, and they would find someone, someone else, who knows who it would be,
but they would find him and they would take out their grief and their hostility and their
sadness and their frustration and their rage and their betrayal, and their feelings of
uselessness, of abandonment, of uncertainty, of deliverance, and whoever they found
would be a sorry bloke indeed. Was this who she would miss?
-

But sometimes it is good to try something new, she said, you know what I mean?
She walked around the bar to attend to the couple in the booth, her movements

sprite and electric. Thoughts of the camel trader: a gazelle, the joy he felt when he

14

watched her run, prance. Now here Colleen: tiny dancer. Her body cant help but find
grace in each step, he thought, her legs, her waist, her shoulders, her arms all constantly
in some choreographed space, how she moves through the night, how she fulfills each
moment with her movement, never a wasted moment, never a fear that life could have
been better spent, he thought, while she pours cheap vodka, helps all the others blur their
lives, while she nurses them, he thought while he drank his beer, gives her customers the
anesthesia they desire, the breath of yellow fog, while she dances she fulfills herself, she
wastes not, wants not, he thought while he drank his beer, she is indeed like a nurse,
administrating to all the pained souls, gives them a few libations, and so for a few hours
their lives seem bearable, like the brush salesman, who he could see out of the corner of
his eye, afraid to look in that direction as there was no other reason to look in that
direction than to look at the brush salesmen and to do so would be to risk starting a
conversion, which he certainly did not want to do with him, this guy, this brush salesmen,
who more than once a month he saw carrying his suitcase on the streets, always brisk
with his walk, always prepared and ready and willing to knock on another door, a man
who knows his place in life, a man who accepts, no believes in his vocation, a man who
has accepted the idea of limitation, who knows no humiliation, a slight hunch to his back,
with that he walks a little crooked, perhaps an injury from long ago, probably should not
be carrying a heavy case up and down streets, up and down staircases, from door to door,
house to house, but he knows he must, he knows there is no choice, and so he will forever
carry on with bag and brushes, never a complaint, but who cares for her, he thought
while he drank his beer, who cares for Colleen, administers to her moods and needs, what
happens inside her as she inhales all these stories, the sorrow, the pain of these, her

15

patients, where does she go to exhale the demons, the poisons, must be a side to her, he
thought while drinking his beer, I dont know, maybe no one knows, or who am I but
another one of her patients here, another usurper upon a stool, a sadsack, the paperboy,
the pitiful boy in green, a boy, a boy I say and yet in me she surely sees an old man,
wrinkled, puffy, slouched upon the stool, eyes gummed in rheum looking her over like all
the other eyes she sees, he thought while drinking his beer, part of her ministrations, part
of the deal, her deal, the deal she was cast, she can ignore us, she can forget us, but she
always remembers at least one thing about each one of us, and then she has her
movement, her dance, the music in her musculature, the harmony, the delivery, the
intimacy she has with no one but beauty, he thinks while drinking his beer, and into that
she can always escape, that is where she goes to recover, where she goes to escape us, to
escape it all, to escape what plagues us, we are but her job, dance is her avocation,
perhaps all saints are like her, he thinks, find peace through inner harmony, while
trudging through the dreary entrails of the world, what is this bar anyway, but a kind of
hell, the lights behind the bar like fires, brimstone below, the smoke, the stench of tossed
beer, of vomit, of blood drying in the cracks and corners, the waste of insects, the spittle,
the drools from these fools mouths, flakes of skin, scents of sex, the sickly smell of
disease cloaked in cheap cologne, and who here, he thinks while he drinks his beer,
doesnt belong in hell, these miscreants, adulterers, child beaters, wife mashers, thieves,
betrayers, con artists, would steal your tip off the counter if you turn your back, rob your
pockets in the loo, theyve lost their arms, their eyes, their sense of balance for a reason,
gave it away, sold it, traded it for what? he thought while he drank his beer, for another
chance? for a chance they blew? theyve lost lives, kids, friends, toes, fingers, savings,

16

cars repossessed, houses foreclosed, furniture reclaimed, luggage lost, watches

disappeared before they could gather up enough dough to buy it out of hock, they sold all
this, he thought while he drank his beer, for what? Another day? Another beer? Another
fuck? For what and who what do they have to sell, there is nothing left, they are bankrupt
from pocket to soul and why shouldnt they be in hell, he thought while he drank his beer,
like this brush salesman here, who sits alone probably because he lost his wife, lost her to
another man while he carted his suitcase from door to door, from town to town, she was
probably his teenage sweetheart, his only love, he probably lost her to cancer, no lost her
to some accident, a simple accident, she slipped and fell, she was struck by a car, maybe
she had an aneurism, the simplest and most foolish way to die was how she died, because
that for him, the brush salesman, would be the perfect reason to believe he was in hell, he
thought while he drank his beer, why shouldnt hell be this darkness upon a childs
dream, hell is not fire and cold., hell is a shadow upon what was, it is a dream faded
beyond reach, it is here, a circus that plays its music in a time that no longer exists, it is a
carousel you can never ride, it is a place that resurfaces from your earliest childhood,
where the dragons, the bears, even the horses with their curled lips, furiedblack eyes and
raised hooves caused fear in your four year old heart, hell gives you that fear back, that
feeling you felt when your four year old eyes saw hell for the first time and still you rode,
hell is the bridge between that moment at four and the moment these memories begin to
dim, the time of realization that all has been a farce, time a farce, time just a door that
opens from a moment at four to the moment now, he thought while drinking his beer, just
like the dream he had, the dream he cannot recall, awoke to his own moaning, the

17

memory, no the feeling of lying alone at the base of your own skull, looking downward,
clawing, clawing
-

Can I get you another Guinness? She asked.

Uhh, yea, he said, hey, and guess what Colleen?

What?

Guess what day this is?

Sadie Hawkins?

No, its my birthday, Zim said.

My god! Why didnt you say so! Here, this ones on me Zim. Happy birthday.

Which one is it? she called out while standing at the beer taps.
-

Four zeeeero, he said, looking across the bar.

Wooo-weee so youre a Taurus, she said. Im Cancer, a good match. So between

your birthday and my lastday, we could make this a good night for both of us. Dont you
think?
A question that made Zim gulp, blush, choke, feel the foam and chill of beer up
from this throat tickle into his nasal cavity: Need to sneeze, dont send a flume across the
bar. Hold it, hold it. This woman was being moved, something internal, driving, pushing,
and why did he not take it
To see whether estrus was really lost during human evolution (as researchers
often claim), we examined ovulatory cycle effects on tip earnings by professional lap
dancers working in gentlemen's clubs. Eighteen dancers recorded their menstrual
periods, work shifts, and tip earnings for 60 days on a study web site. A mixed-model
analysis of 296 work shifts (representing about 5300 lap dances) showed an interaction

18

between cycle phase and hormonal contraception use. Normally cycling participants
earned about US$335 per 5-h shift during estrus, US$260 per shift during the luteal
phase, and US$185 per shift during menstruation. By contrast, participants using
contraceptive pills showed no estrous earnings peak. These results constitute the first
direct economic evidence for the existence and importance of estrus in contemporary
human females, in a real-world work setting. These results have clear implications for
human evolution, sexuality, and economics.6
The brush salesman smiled at Zim. The salesman raised his hand again for
Colleen. She danced away. The horsefly darts across the light, strikes the mirror with a
carapaceous crack, bounces back out, tangles in Colleens hair.
-

My god, she said, shaking her hair in a frenzy. Knocks it away, black chitin body

dives across the bar, vanished into the darkness. Colleen looks down at her hand.
-

What happened? Zim asked.

Either cut myself or the beast has jaws instead of a sucker, Colleen said, holding up

her hand for a moment and a rivulet darkly spills a few drops to the floor. She put it under
the running tap.
-

How bad is it? Zim asked.

Im fine. Just need to stop the bleeding.

Loa loa, the salesman cried out.

What, Zim asked.

Gadfly, the salesman said. Oestrida. Bumfly to some. Youll never catch it. Fastest

insect in the world. Dermatobia hominis. Means it specifically attacks humans. I got the
only thing to stop them. Forty percent diethyltoluamidae. DEET. No smell.
6

Wiki: estrus

19

Horsefly, you mean? Zim said. Thinking: that is how he survives: knows a bit of

everything. Has to. Little hooks with sales bait he throws out. One eventually will catch
something.
-

Yep, you see it flying around, the salesman said, means love is in the air.
He often saw the mousey man from afar, he thought while he drank his beer,

scurrying across the streets, like a rat, sniffing out its prey. Sells brushes. Carries a big
black suitcase filled with brushes cloths and ointments, which he lifts from the trunk of
his car, carries it up the walk, sets it down on the door step and rings the bell. Straightens
his tie, pushes down his jacket and waits for the door to open, all of this he saw from
afar, but never heard what he said, never heard the brush salesman pitch. Most of the
times, it seemed, the few times he watched from afar, the door closed right way, cutting
him off right in midsentence, but even the rudest did not even phase him, he did not
swear, make a look, point a finger at the bitch inside, he simply picked up his suitcase,
and walked to the next door, pushed down his jacket, straightened his back as best he
could, pressed the bell, and here this new person at the door might let him talk, and so it
seemed if they let him talk well that was it, it was all over, there was no escape, he had
you, he thought while he drank his beer, you were his, you would buy not just a brush,
but a brush and a cleaner and a mop and a deodorizer and this and that and so he
continued on through the day, stoically facing slammed doors until someone, and there
would be someone, would let him talk and then they were history, they were toast, he had
them, victims until they pulled out that checkbook. Ruthless, had to be, go for the kill he
would. Just to survive.

20

After the commotion died down, Colleen came over to Zim and set a shot glass in
front of him.
-

Snookys buying you a drink.

She lifted a bottle of Jameson whiskey off the glass shelves in front of a mirror

behind her and poured a glass for Zim to the rim. Zim raised the spilling glass to the
salesmans direction
-

Thank you, Zim said.

Irish lad, I guessed? The brush salesman barked.

Only at opportune times, Zim said.

We gotta take care of our own, mate. Cheers.

Eat our own I think someone said. So we can all eat.

Ive seen you before, the salesman asked, his voice nearly a shout across the bar.

Maybe, Zim said, I have been around.

Yea, Ive seen you. What do you do?

Work for the paper.

You a writer then?

No, a paperboy.

Ha! Thats right. Now I got you, the salesman said turning back to his drink,

returning to a kind of sleep.

-

You hungry? Colleen asked Zim, I have some leftover prime rib, make you a

sandwich? Its a little bloody for bread. It is all I can give you at the moment.
Our data confirm the importance of assessing the social context of sexual
behavior. Having a regular sexual partner increased the amount of sexual activity overall

21

as well as the desire for sexual intimacy. Nonetheless, the menstrual cycle effect on
sexual activity was equally strong in women with and without regular sexual partners.
Unpartnered women had the same number of sexual fantasies as those with partners
(except around ovulation) and, perhaps consequently, were more likely to feel lonely. This
hypothesis is supported by the finding that unpartnered women felt less lonely during the
periovulatory phase when they were more likely to have sexual activity. Future studies
are needed to determine whether this periovulatory drop in loneliness is indeed a
consequence of increased sexual activity or a direct hormonal effect of the ovarian axis.
In addition, future studies could explore specific aspects of sexual motivation in more
detail than we were able to here, due to our commitment to keep participants free of
potentially biasing information regarding study goals and hypotheses.7
-

No, Im okay, Zim gulped. Thanks.

Got plans?

Huh?

For your birthday?

Not really

Remember they told us the Internet would change everything? The brush salesman

suddenly bellowed, turning his head back to Zim, the greased down head twisting
awkwardly on that crooked back.
-

Im feeling a little crazy tonight, she said.

Remember they said thered be no more paper, no more newspaper, no more

magazines. Bullshit, huh. We use more paper now than we did before. Thats right.
More trees than ever before. And you still got a job dont you.
7

Article from scientific journal on human estrus.

22

Im ready, she said, for a change. Time to do something different.

They also said people would buy everything from their computer, groceries, clothes,

everything. Ha. We consume more now that ever before. Cant go on forever. Laws of
science tell us we will run out of food someday. You know what I do?
-

No, Zim lied.

Sell necessities. The necessities of life. Whatever that may be. You need it, I got it.

Whatever color you want.

-

What do you say, she asked.

Water?

Nah! Just because youd die without water, doesnt mean you need it. I sell what you

need, and if you are having some problems figuring out what you need, I will tell you
what you need. The Internet cant do that. Only I can do that. And the Internet cant tell
you what you want if you dont know what you want. Only I can do that too.
-

Can I get you another Guiness? Colleen asked.

No thanks, he said. But I was wondering... he began, only to watch her walk away as

if she knew he was about to ask a question she did not want to hear, or a question that
would venture beyond the rules of her ministrations here, and so she walked briskly over
to the salesman who has once again raised his hand as if to rescue her from Zims
question and took it upon himself to interrupt, raised his hand, for he was indeed looking
at him not her, with a look in his bleating, predator eyes as if to say, sorry bloke, not
allowed in here, not now, not ever, and so she not only walked over to the brush
salesman, she stopped, dropped her elbows to the bar, folded her arms in front of her and
began to chat.

23

Zim gets a buzz on his phone. Looks down a text from Javier: Dudes looking for
you. Not good. Sorry.
Javier the worrywart. And so Zim pulled out a wad of bills from his front pocket,
found a five and slapped it to the counter. He felt emboldened and ultimately correct
with the whiskey and black now flowing to his head. He didnt bother to look at her as
he walked towards the exit. Poor Godley, forgot to walk her. Bladder the size of the
moon right now. Could burst I suppose. Ok she pees in the hall.
-

See you later? Colleen called out as he was about to enter the tunnel that exited the

bar. Zim raised his hand, his back to her, a smile cracking on his face she could not see.
-

Thanks for the drink, he shouted. May love me. Games they play.

What Zim didnt know: Released from the cryptic message it wrote on the tissue
bit as the British intelligence knew only too well, sperm makes a good invisible ink
two hundred willies of the two hundred million released per wank, on the bit of tp, the
hardy buggers enlivened by the moist and acidic effluvia that now surrounded them,
surrounded and protected by their putrescine, spermine, spemidine and cadaverine which
convey their tastiness as well as the ability to counteract the acidic vaginal goos, the
sample of bullmilk finds its way past slough and bloody broken bits, the 35 milliliters of
blood flow: the messes: what rituals: mikvah and ghusl: keep them home, out of the
kitchen: flies buzzing the bloodthickened floors of menstrual huts. The evolutionary
advantage: the energy cost of rebuilding the endometrium offsets the cost of continuously
maintaining the uterine lining: which ancients (men) believed was the female bodys way
to rid itself of evil sprits, which modern scholars (women) believe is the way to rid it of

24

evil sperm, and evolutionists (gay) debate why it exists at all, all this blood letting and
smell letting for the attraction of predators and in some cases causing an allergic
reaction of swelling of the genitals, itching of the vulvular layers, blisters and general
difficulty in breathing, which can by the way be treated with continued exposure to the
allergen. Bukakke benefits. High level of macrophages in menstrual blood: Do not eat.
But in this case our fellows press on like good soldiers following the chemical maze with
the strength, swimming past broken endometrial chunks and to find their way with the
help of the changing cervix, a few of them anyway, a few thousand of them that is, since
many sperm a fertilization takes, swimming like salmon up the stream, fighting the waves
of radiata menorrheal, entering finally the ampulla of the fallopian tube, smelling the
nearness of their target which they find and attack with a ferocity only the near dying can
muster surrounded the jelly coat until one herculean uniflagellate breaks through the
coronal radiate and then pierces the zona pellucida which causes a cortical reaction by
which glycol proteins link and harden making the entire matrix impermeable and
preventing the uncomfortable polyspermy from until one penetrates the membrane and
finds safe harbor within, eats its own tail, fuses male to female and like a seismic shock,
a wave emanates outward cooling the raging breakdown of tissue and restoring to life the
surrounds, an antidepressant whether taken vaginally or orally, bringing to her chest and
arms a warmth, to her face a glow.

Walking outside once again down a now busy Main Street, then turns up Avocado
towards his apartment. Within blocks the noise fades away. Up above, in the frondskirt
of a palm tree, he hears a rustling. A rat most likely. Thats why they trim the fronds.

25

Trunks like gnawed corncobs. Suddenly a more violent flutter. Careful it doesnt leap
and land on you. From the tree, a parrot squawks then takes flight, its wings struggling
noisily against the still night air. Crossing the street ahead, an emaciated dog, her teats
swinging from ribs that looked like stripes in the street light. See her here all the time.
Mechanics pet. Sears Roebuck guy. Always grease under his nails, in the pores of his
nose. Never has the money for the paper. Gotta have it though he says. Ill leave it for
you under the mat. Tomorrow ok? Keep giving it to him but never pays. Keeps his dog
this way. Looks like her: like a burnt match. Like owner, like pet. Both of them
starving. Supposed to make you live longer. Animals snarling behind fences as he walks,
breathing up dust, cant see even a shadow. Strange sideshow. Passes a small grocery
store: Hand painted ads in the window: beer, gallons of vodka, whole leg of lamb,
chicken breasts. Headlights on an approaching car, highbeams. Too bright. Like eyes.
He looks down as the car passes: painted dolphins on the curbs above the sewers: we live
here too.

From the shadows a figure appears. A tall fellow with long hair, dreadlocks as he
gets closer, a snake around his neck, hangs down to his belly, his shirt open. Flip flops
slap as he walks.
[momentary rage that is dissipated by the guys kindness]
Says hi. Did he say hi or Irie? Marley more famous than any black man. Except
maybe Will Smith. Bet even more than Smith. Whos making that money?
Zim arrives at this apartment. Door open, light on and music from Bulls lair.
-

Monk? Zim calls.

26

No, its me! Truman says without appearing from the room. Bull went to work.

Ok, Im going to take Godley for a walk.

Cool, Truman yells, hey Bull said I could crash here. Hope thats ok.

Sure, Zim said. Thinking: might as well take my room. But dont tell him that.

Allow the sweat and pimplepuss in there once you know you are gone for good.
Collared and leashed, Godley yanks and pulls Zim outside. Poor girl, Zim thinks,
shut in with her own smells all day.
-

Im so sorry girl, Zim said. Godley squatted and urinated a long stream. Mist from

the cooler grass. Dead spot there tomorrow. Wait and see. Only girl dogs kill the grass.
Must be a hormone or something. Experiment: Ask Colleen to piss beside you on the
grass.
-

Tomorrow girl, Zim said, well go to the park. Walk you for hours. Play ball.
Passes by a fenced in dog. Godley goes ape. Zim can barely restrain her. Whoa.

So dog aggressive. Where does all the strength come? Different muscle fibers, must be.
Attack mode: a trigger for that could be. When do I become the target? Why a dog and
not me? Lights go on in the owners house.
-

Missy! The dogs master shouts. Come here.

Zim pulls Godley along. She sounds like she is choking as she struggles against

him. Cant see through the fence and trees. What do people do at night? How many
fornicating you think? Most? Half? Ten percent? Maybe fucking is overstated. Less
than one percent do it all. The rest seek out situations where it is no longer a need:
marriage, commitement.

27

On the neighboring yard, Godley begins sniffing the ground, moves about in
wide, then shorter circles. Her ritual, he thinks. Forgot a bag. Last time she shit on this
womans yard, she threatened to have animal control sent out. Godley found a spot on
the grass and arched. Dogs: remind us of our own biology. Their orifice always hanging
out. Cute buttons. Wonder what it looks like with us.
-

Hey you! The womans voice creid out. What are you doing?

Sorry, Zim said.

That dog better not be shitting on my yard, she yelled, do you hear me.
Zim looked around desparately, Godley still pinching it off.

Cmon girl, Zim whispered, looking for a piece of paper, a large leaf, anything. The

door slams
-

Hey, did you hear me?

Godley finishes. Kicks up two clumps of grass with kicks of her rear feet. White

ghost of the woman appearing, coming closer rapidly. Nothing anywhere. Zim reaches
down, grabs the warm coils and tosses them into the shrubbery.
-

I said, did you hear me?

Sorry, Zim said, hear you what? Looking at the smudges on his hand. Want to: but

dont wipe.
-

Is your dog defecating on my yard again?

No, we are just taking a walk.

I saw him defecating, she said, I know when a dog is defecating. So it has got to be

here. She circled the grass. Probably urintated all over there. Here! Ha! No it is a leaf.
Well if I find it, I will know who did it!

28

It wouldnt be her, Zim said politely. Walks on.

Remember to go to the ATM to withdraw the cash for Bull. Donations for the

monk. Need to drive, too far to walk back and forth. Perhaps cruise up the mount
tonight. Kill some time. Clear skies. Hell to heaven in one night. Why not.
This street part of Snookys route: saw him here last. What could be harder:
selling destitute mothers overpriced brushes for toilet, tabletop, blinds and mirrors. My
job piece of cake compared. Remember selling the kiosks a few years ago: electronic
advertisement the way of the future. Ride the wave of people jumping on the Internet.
Couldnt sell a thing. Seemed so logical. Great pitch. Millions of eyeballs. Moths to a
flame. Click and catch. Reams of information. Gazillion leads. Hot: qualified:
guaranteed. Failed at that too: and I am not bad to tell the truth. Funny thing: never
happened. No one cares about information. Information age: died. Salesmen drinking
our poison. Still see some of the booths at the mall. Cold and dark. No one wants to surf
in public. Only at home: porn. Cell phones will be big for that: just wait. Your eyes
only. Through a keyhole. Someone called me the best salesperson they had ever met.
Old guy. Had seen a lot. But I cant sell a thing. Dont know how any one who does.
Trick is: gotta get someone to buy something they dont need, dont want. Snooky.
Special breed alright. The best are like predators: ruthless really.
Zim looked across the street at an apartment building. On the lower floor, one
window lit from the inside. An apartment you would never forget. White drapes were
drawn. Shadows appearing, suddenly up and across the window as if some animal
running about inside. At times the shadow of a human figure appears, other times the
shadow seems to be of another being, a beast on all fours, playing perhaps, struggling? In

29

a fight? It was a woman who portrayed these images, a woman he saw once a month,
who never paid her bill and always seemed to welcome him when he arrived to collect
her check. She crawled across the carpet like a broken animal, she grunted and growled,
shook her head in pleasure when he appeared. He both dreaded and looked forward to
the day each month he had to ring her doorbell.
Bam! Backfire from a car.

* * *

Piece of paper scuttles across the street. My curse. You made the copies, ready to
send them out to agents and publishers, friends and naywishers. Coming back to your
car, you saw the old man faint in the middle of the street. You ran to his rescue, of
course, helped him up, back to the curb. Something told you the old man was faking his
affliction. Looking around at the others watching not helping, then at his smiling face
you realized that you were the latest to be caught up in his act. Here you thought you
were the hero. You wanted to be a doctor right: that innate desire to help someone, all
that was so you could be a hero. A joke on you now. Angry you go back to your car.
Too full of wounded pride, too swollen with rage to notice the manuscripts and computer
on your roof. Get in and drive away. Then you hear a boom as the computer and copies
fall from the roof to the back trunk. You look in your mirror and at first you think you hit
a pidegon or a gull. The white wings fluttering across the road are not birds wings. They
are pages racing away. The old man still standing by the road. Laughing it seems. Paper
and computer all gone. Your vanity had caused this, your pride, your need to be

30

recognized and heroized. At the same time maybe another round of punishment for not
finishing medical school. Armed with no knowledge, he was a hack, and cold not even
tell a sick person from a healthy one. He was at the mercy of human deviousness.
Zim walks on. Passes another tattoo parlor. A strip mall. Lights on in the check
cashing place. Next to that a place that offers loans on car titles. One door further down:
an army recruitment center. All it needs here is a liquor store. One stop shop for low
lifes like me. The neon lights of another Tattoo shop. Should stop in and get one. What
would it be? What beast? What do I feel like? Cant though. Not with Godley. Maybe
some other time.
What were these feelings for Colleen buds of love or simple bulge of lust? Yes,
these hormones we call love. Rut and heat. Can smell it in each other. Something wrong
with these feelings, these thoughts. Never lead to anything good. Nothing lasting. Yet
unstoppable. From either side. One story not lost, still in progress: Eating Gilbertas
Grape. Maybe sit down and finish it off. New inspiration.
Sits down at a light bus stop shelter. Godley, panting, lies down on the cool
concrete. Pad of paper from his back pocket, limp and slightly wet. Will do. Bam!
Fireworks probably lit by some teenager on the hill. Roman candle looks like.8 The bits
of light fall like distant burning pages.

The Slug9
So do you like my vagina, she said
8
9

Ulysses, Blooms roman candle of ejaculation

See poem by Jewish poet

31

 while he was deep in thought, his lips moving as if in prayer, perhaps mumbling
across a landscape of moles, soft creases and coarse hair, over a hard and fleshy mound,
then finally the lips swollen and dry, parting only with some effort releasing their aroma
of things withheld, things unknown, things familiar like smoke, like old wine, like life
passed over teeth and gum, passed through bloody canals, through orifices that gather
mold and grow musty and hiss when disturbed, angry until the blood returns and then all
grows warmer and asks for a loving touch, a leaning embrace and a sign of remembrance,
he whispers

thank you for all you have given me

and so he prayed for he knew that despite any and all, with this descent countered a
rise within him, divining an unknown promise, from thought to flesh, fat to bone, a
transmogrification, a sudden possibility, this was an ocean in which he swam and in its
darkness he felt and groped and sought to find, sought to take hold and capture that place
he knew not, that moment he understood not, for this was an act of desperation, a risk
taken, an act without a known outcome, an unknown journey that he hoped would lead to
somewhere and in that place he would find a beginning, a chance to unite, to bring about
the impossible, by tongue upon nerves and teeth upon flesh and by sharing in the solemn
liquids he could somehow break through fear and he could come back up with love
painting his face, with joy filling his mouth, scented with passion and wafting the aroma
of gentle kindness and find there not a beginning but an unending place to rest, to drink,
to eat and hope against hope that from that struggle to create something that would
marvel and glow and satisfy and create and justify and prove wrong and alter the

32

purposeless future otherwise dimly glimpsed, that this was an act creating the possibility
of real love

I love it, he said.

.and suddenly with that he tasted the taste upon his tongue and smelled the air within
his nostrils felt the warm darkness of this place and so she had with this simple question
made it real put flesh upon the flesh and tented the flesh with bone and tendon those
straining tendons that he could snap with his teeth and the soft fatty spots where he could
push with nose and move with his tongue it was all so real now he could smell today and
perhaps even yesterday he could taste a week of change he could taste a decade of love
he could taste and smell the remnants of life of love of waste of urine of stress of worry
of desire of just getting by of passing time of shedding of sloughing of growing of
renewal of bitter pungent dank of life ended and juices of life beginning while outside
there was music playing and the quiet rhythm that she now boldly gave to hands that
caressed and shoulders that rolled and breasts that swayed and roiled and rose up like a
wave and a stomach that arched and breathed and hips that rocked and thrust and thighs
that opened and closed and knees that rose and grabbed and feet that clawed and flexed

thats good, she said.

while his tongue a slug that after crossing the dry concrete finally reached a damp
hoarding of rotten joy deep into the sloppy wetness the wonderful slime that all men seek
who ever imagined a law against this what could be more natural almost as natural as
mouth upon mouth but here there was a sense of gaining sustenance of acquiring nutrient

33

and so the slug leaves behind its trail of slime and slides over the mound and then
between the hairy fold finds the warm fountain of juice and there it begins cautiously
pulling up strings and vines and cleaning off the surrounding tangle until finally losing
itself in the greed of all that comes oozing forth gushing forth pushing forth the slug finds
itself in blissful repose

give me the strength to complete this task

and then finally when prayer seems a useless medium and faced with the prospect of
rising from that lowered repose and coming up mop faced and slime tongued with
nothing more than disappointment then suddenly the world around him begins to rock
again the earth once dormant is pushed deep into his face and into his mouth is fed heavy
wads of sod of wet rot and the under belly of fungi unfold and greet him about chin and
cheek and streams become rivers and sustenance comes forth without pride and the air
grows dark and warm and filled with salty tears musty spores unclean heat milksour
breath and he clenches hard upon the focus of his concentration and holds tight while the
earth moves and roils and he braces for the pain when limbs and bones strike his face and
still he holds on still he maintains his commitment still he fights to hold the sweating
underbelly of a beast that kicks and fights and now screams and sighs and hisses and
from all places of darkness express upon him the juice the wet the clods the broken bits
that can no longer be held down the sticks the branches the clumps of grass the feathers
the stones the pebbles a grape the detritus of a thousand lovers comes pouring down upon
him and in a mighty expulsion she arches in a final attempt to bury to smother and to
drown but his mind is too set on survival and so holds on as she gives up her last gasp her

34

last roil her last arch and with a soft warm exhalation of relief all comes to a descending
calm and the quivers that cross the flesh are gentle and kind and stroke his face like
tender caresses as all that was brought forth slinks back inside to hide to curl up and rest
in a sleep like a dream like memories that he cannot ever truly express.

* * *

HUMANE SOCIETY'S REPORT.

El Cajon, Cal., January 1, 1912.
D. GOCHENAUER, M.D., Health Officer:
Dear Sir: I herewith tender you a report of the work done by the Humane Society of this
city, for the year ending December 31, 1912:
June 21. Found junk-store man using horse unfit for labor, and had it stabled and cared
for.
June 25. Killed a dog on Florence Heights, dragging its hind quarters on the ground.
July 2. Took a horse with sore back from a Chinaman from Sweetwater dam, and had it
cared for.
July 22. Horses under watering carts were ill-treated by drivers when pulling out from
watering place on H street. The place was soft and in bad repair. Had it fixed.
July 31. Found a mule in very bad condition in a brickyard. Shot it, and had it removed.
August 1. Found a Chinaman at the end of Fourth street working a lame horse. Had its
shoes removed, and the animal cared for.
August 4. Shot a ruptured dog.
August 4. Found a junk-store man, on I street, working a horse with a sore shoulder. Had
it stabled and attended to.
August 6. Took a lame horse from a First street car. and had it stabled.

35

August 9. Took a foundered and lame horse from an Italian on D street. Had its shoes
removed and had it stabled.
August 9. Found a horse with sore shoulder in a milk-wagon. Had it put in stable.
August 15. Found two horses, near Atlantic and Grape streets, suffering from glanders.
Shot them, and had the premises white-washed.
August 17. Fruit-vender's horse going lame on Fifth street. Had it stabled and attended to.
August 19. Horse going lame in wagon belonging to grocer on 3rd street. Had it stabled.
August 20. Found grocer on Columbia street working lame horse. Had it stabled and leg
poulticed.
September 2. Found a man working gray house on D street, and as he repeated the
offense two days after, he was prosecuted.
September 20. Found a crippled horse near Thirty-second street and National avenue,
Shot it, and had it removed.
September 21. Took lame horse from D street car, and had the animal stabled.
September 22. Found a lame horse on First street, and had it put in stable.
September 29. Stopped lassoing of cattle at rodeo, as they were conducted in a brutal
manner.
October 12. A cow was run over by a Coronado motor, and had its leg broken. Shot it,
and had it removed.
October 13. Found a Chinese laundry-man driving a horse with a sore back. Had it
stabled.
RECAPITULATION.
15 horses taken from vehicles and attended to.
5 horses killed.
1 cow killed.
3 dogs killed.
2 prosecutions.

WILLARD N. FOS,
Secretary
36

9/12/08
Chaos patterns of life: plants, animals, populations
Labyrinth womans fallopian tubes, blood vessels, brain circuits
Feminism -- Animal rights/liberation.
People as animals, not half animals.

37