Noah Cicero - The Collected Works of Noah Cicero Vol. I

“That’s a beautiful dream.”

“You think? Why are you traveling?”

“Because I just graduated college, and I want to see America.”

“America ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“I don’t know, I just want to do it.”

“I guess you have a dream just like me.”

“I’m going to just sit here and get drunk. That’s my plan.”

“I have to get on my train in fifteen minutes… I suppose I’ll see you later.”

She gets up and leaves.

I just sit there and drink.

A fat man with a beard sits next to me. He looks like a hick from somewhere out in the country.

“Hey kid,” he says.

“Yeah, what do you need?” I say in a drunken voice.

“Ever hunt for bear?”

“Nope.”

“I have, it’s fun as hell. I shot one too, and killed it. They make great burgers.”

“They do?”

“Yeah, they make great burgers.”

“I killed five bunny rabbits with a pellet gun once.”

“You did, how’d you do it?”

“I ran around the yard shooting them until they died. My neighbor paid me fifteen dollars to do it.”

“That’s cool. I should try killing a bear with a pellet gun.”

“I don’t think it would work.”

“Neither do I.”

“I used to kill birds too. One time I killed a rooster.”

“A rooster? Why’d you kill a rooster?”

“It pissed me off.”

“Yeah, my rooster pisses me off too.”

Eventually I get on the train.

I’m drunk as hell.

The train is slightly crowded.

There’s a fat woman talking about her well-adjusted grandkids.

I want her to shut up.

I talk to no one.

I’ve never been good at striking up small talk.

Actually I hate small talk.

I also hate people who talk small talk.

The lounge opens up.

They have two-dollar whiskey sours.

I run down there and buy one.

Then I go to the smoking section.

The smoking section is almost full.

There’s every race of the world in it.

We’re all smoking for America.

A guy in his fifties wearing a beret covered with military pins is sitting in the corner of the smoking section. He keeps flirting with a Mexican girl who doesn’t understand English.

The girl just sits there smiling.

I’m drunk and I don’t care about anything.

I get up and walk around the car.

No one is paying attention to me.

I sit back down.

I start talking to an Asian woman next to me.

“Do you love yourself?” I say.

“No, I hate myself,” she says.

“Why do you think about yourself so often then.”

“Because I don’t care about other people.”

“Neither do I. I try to care, but I can’t,” I say.

“It’s not worth caring too much about other people. You have to just let them go.”

“I know, you can’t change anybody. And you can’t make them happy.”

“Humans are goofy, but they’re also cruel,” she says.

“I know, they’re animals. I’m one of them, and I don’t know anything about them. Fuck it.”

I stand up and go back to my seat. I sit there for a long time.

Years pass as I’m sitting there.

I eventually get up and go back to the lounge.

I wobble down the aisle.

I order another drink and sit at a table.

An old man sits near me.

He says, “Who are you?”

“I’m me.”

“That’s convenient.”

“No, it’s frustrating.”

“Do you suffer?”

“Of course.”

“Someday you’ll die.”

“I believe it,” I say.

“There’s no God.”

“Perhaps.”

The old man stops talking.

I drink my whiskey sour.

I’m exhausted.

I go to the smoking section for one last cigarette.

I sit down and look at all the animals.

There’s a young girl with dreads.

I reach out and hold her hand.

She looks at me and smiles.

In a small rented house.

Kathy sits on her couch.

Eight months pregnant.

She bends over.

Using a rolled up dollar she sniffs a line of coke off the coffee table.

Her belly protrudes.

Kathy is beautiful.

Five ten, long legs, soft skin, thick lips, large blue eyes.

The body and face of a movie star.

Kathy’s four-year-old runs through the living room.

She looks at him.

Stares.

Looks angry.

Kathy gets up and sprints at the boy.

Smacks him straight across the face.

The boy flies into the wall.

The boy does not cry.

He crawls to his bedroom.

The boy looks scared, that is all.

Kathy goes back to the couch.

A small woman named Lisa is sitting too.

Lisa says, “What’s with that whore Judy, fucking bitch, goes home with a different guy every night.”

“She’s a fucking whore, what can you say,” says Kathy.

“At least five men come into the bar every night, she talks to them, then they leave. It’s bullshit, that damn strip joint is a fucking whore house.”

“Most strip joints are whore houses, Lisa.”

“That ain’t fucking right.”

Lisa sniffs a line.

Kathy sniffs a line.

The television is on.

Jay Leno is giving his Monday Headlines.

Kathy and Lisa sit back and watch.

“I love Leno’s Monday Headlines,” says Kathy.

“Yeah, so do I.”

Kathy gets a notebook and pen.

She begins to write to her boyfriend in prison.

Dear Joe,

You are a fucking asshole. I hope somebody butt-fucks the shit out of you. I hope they butt-fuck you so hard your guts fall out of your asshole. I hope you piss off the blacks and they shank you with a toothbrush.

Love,

Kathy

*

Kathy is at work.

Eight months pregnant.

She is a stripper.

The bar is small.

Grungy.

Men usually go there alone.

Miserable men.

Men who work hard.

But can’t figure out why they work so hard.

They are divorced.

Their children are in other states.

If the men were not there.

They would be sitting at home.

Watching television.

Alone.

Most make around sixty thousand a year but have no one to spend their money on.

So they go to this strip joint in Youngstown.

And give their money to the girls.

Kathy is sitting next to a man named Chris.

Chris works construction.

He works hard.

He’s sunburnt.

Has several tattoos.

Lives in a small apartment.

He had a wife, but his wife, who people say was a wretched bitch, got pregnant but not with Chris’s baby.

They got divorced.

He hasn’t been laid in five months.

“You are really beautiful,” Chris says to Kathy.

“Why, thank you,” says Kathy.

Kathy puts her hand on Chris’s knee.

Chris feels her hand on his knee and enjoys it.

He hasn’t been touched by a girl in so long.

To him, her hand touching his knee is as big as actually fucking.

Chris smiles at Kathy.

The song is about to end so Kathy asks, “Would you like a dance?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Chris moves his chair around.

Kathy stands up and dances.

She rubs her butt on his crotch.

Chris puts his hands on her legs.

They are so long and soft, he thinks.

Kathy smiles during the whole dance.

She knows what lonely men want most is a smile.

The legs are good, the tits are good, the ass is good, but it’s the smile they love most.

The dance is over and Chris hands her five dollars.

She gives Chris a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

Kathy walks away and sits by Viper, another dancer.

Viper is a blonde white girl with a big ass.