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

Putting little cracks in the drywall.

Then she goes into the kitchen and gets the bottle of Jim Beam she had under the sink from before she was pregnant and starts swigging from the bottle.

Kathy sits down in her chair.

The baby is crying.

Her boy is crying.

She finishes the bottle and smashes it against the coffee table and passes out.

*

It is Wednesday, ten in the morning.

There is a knock at the door.

Kathy looks up from her chair.

The baby is sleeping.

She walks to the door and opens it.

Kathy has a huge smile on her face.

There is some powder visible in her nose.

The fat woman looks at her like she is going to kill her.

The fat woman calls the police.

The police come and take Kathy away.

And they take her baby and boy away.

Kathy laughs in the back of the cop car.

She can’t stop laughing.

*

The police don’t keep Kathy for very long.

The prisons of Youngstown are too full.

So they send her home.

Without her children.

*

Kathy’s mother calls her on the phone.

Kathy: “They took my fucking kids, those fucking assholes!”

Mother: “You’ll get them back, don’t worry.”

Kathy: “This is what you fucking wanted from the beginning, bitch, isn’t it. So you could have the fucking kids. No bitch, I’m not gonna let that happen!”

Mother: “Wouldn’t it be better if they were with family?”

Kathy: “I don’t give a fuck who they’re with, as long as it ain’t you!”

Mother: “I’m your mother, show some respect!”

Kathy: “All you deserve from me is your ass kicked!”

Mother: “This is your fault, Kathy. You’re the fucking junkie, not me.”

Kathy: “I should really just fucking kill you, shouldn’t I. I should just drive down to your fucking house and rip your fucking head off!”

Mother: “I’m your mother and I love you.”

Kathy hangs up.

*

Kathy is lying down on Viper’s couch drinking rum and Coke.

Viper is sitting in an armchair, drink in hand.

Kathy says, “They took my man, they took my children, what else does this fucking world want from me. I want my fucking kids back. I ain’t got nothing, Viper. Nothing. No kids, no man, barely any money. I only got one twenty on me. This is fucking bullshit!”

Viper looks at her and says calmly, “Do you need those kids? Do you need Joe? Or maybe a better question would be, do they need you?”

Kathy sits there and stares and eventually says, “You know if anybody else would have said that I would have broken their nose?”

“I know.”

“I don’t know, I don’t wanna be one of those bitches with their kids taken away. I don’t wanna be like my mother. A shitty mother.”

“So you’re saying keeping those kids has nothing to do with kids. You’re keeping them so you aren’t one of the women who has their kids taken away and so you aren’t like your mother, that’s all.”

Several minutes pass till Kathy says, “I don’t fucking know. I hate people, I hate women, I hate men, I fucking hate everyone! What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck!”

“Yeah.”

“But I’m Kathy. I’m tough-ass Kathy, and to be a tough-ass bitch, you need a tough-ass dude in the pen. And if he ain’t in the pen, you just aren’t as tough. But bitches know that if your dude is in the pen, you’re fucking tough. And I’m Kathy who keeps her kids, who has them and still does drugs, and never lets them get taken away. I have my fucking kids!”

“You don’t have shit!”

“You know, I would have killed you by now if you were someone else.”

“Yeah, I know. But you came here for me to tell you this. You knew exactly what I was gonna say.”

“Yeah, bitch.”

Laughter.

“So since you don’t have your kids anymore, you wanna move in and eat my pussy all the time?”

Kathy takes a big gulp of her drink, smiles, and says, “Yes.”

Viper pushes down her pants and thong, points to her pussy and says, “Listen bitch, come over and lick my pussy before I beat your ass.”

Kathy gets on her knees and crawls over to Viper.

Viper grabs her by the hair and smacks her across the face.

Then brutally pushes Kathy’s face into her pussy.

THE IMMACULATE CHERRY POPPING

I lost my virginity in a church.

It was with a female named Taylor.

She was a big girl. Nice and round. With big baby cheeks.

Long brown hair and a shitty personality.

Something was wrong with her mentally.

She never told the truth. Was always stoned. And suffering from delusions of grandeur.

She had a rich dad and a white trash mom.

Her parents were divorced.

Her dad loved Jesus and big houses.

Her mom loved beer and weed.

They both sucked as people.

The church was big.

One of those evangelical churches on a back street that upper class white people go to.

The type of people who drive SUVs, vote Republican, and have portraits of Ronald Reagan in their living rooms.

The kind of church that has tambourines, dancers, live music, and tongues.

Actually the week before I lost my virginity I was anointed with the gift of tongues at the church. I was like, “Ekky, boo, shick, licky, me, tutu.”

It was great, I felt really connected to the Lord. Yeah, just like that.

On some random Sunday when I was fifteen, I went to church.

I don’t know why I was there.

Taylor probably invited me.

She always did stupid shit like that.

There isn’t much to do on a Sunday morning anyway.

Which is probably the motivation behind most of the congregation.

All the assholes had piled into their seats and the service began.

I was sitting next to Taylor and she said, “This sucks, let’s take a walk.”

It sounded better than listening to some weirdo talk about how God condemns homosexuals, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Catholics, Mormons, people who have had abortions, people who have premarital sex, and the poor to eternal damnation.

So I said, “All right.”

Why not?

So we got up and walked out of the service.

We went up some stairs.

Walked down a hallway.

She talked the whole time about shit that doesn’t matter to anyone, not even her.

We went into a room with a piano.

She locked the door.

We weren’t going out.

I didn’t really even like her.

I think she loved me, but in a blockbuster movie scary kind of way.

She was like most people I’ve met. They only love people who won’t love them back, because if they were actually in a relationship everyone would find out they’re an asshole.

We sat on the floor.

She said, “You’re really weird.”

“Oh yeah,” I said.

“My father is such a fuck head.”

When she got to talking about her father, it didn’t end for a while.

When people start bitching about their parents, you have to be prepared to hear a lot of strange and disgusting sentences.

She had the habit of analyzing everything they did wrong, and just stopping there. Never analyzing herself, just her parents.

I didn’t care though.

I was too busy hating my parents to hate someone else’s.

She eventually got around to the sex.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if we had sex?” she said.

“In a church?” I asked.

“Yeah, that would be awesome.”

“Hmm, do you have a condom?”

“Yeah.”

Taylor reached into her purse and pulled one out.

She always carried condoms around like she was this big slut.

She used to talk about all the guys she fucked.

I never believed her.