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

Delphine put some on her middle finger. She smeared it around.

Then kind of eased her middle finger about half an inch in.

Pushed the tube up my anus and squeezed.

Delphine let it sit in my asshole for a little bit, then took it out.

But something unexpected happened. I got really hard and horny.

I looked back at her and said, “Delphine, I’m really horny now.”

She was like, “Oh, yeah, whatcha gonna do about it?”

“Penetrate your vagina.”

And we went to the living room to have our first sex of the year 2005.

There’s this middle-aged black guy.

Who looks like shit.

Who wears a baseball cap down low almost over his eyes.

He is always on Belmont asking for three dollars.

I saw him last night.

This is what happened.

Delphine and I were walking to the Denny’s door.

We saw 3 Dollars.

We knew instantly what was going to happen.

We got closer to the door.

3 Dollars said, “Did you see those cops down there, they got somebody.”

For some reason 3 Dollars likes to have a conversation.

Then ask you for the three dollars.

I said back to 3 Dollars, “No, man. Where was it? Did you see it?” Delphine and I continued walking toward Denny’s.

The whole time, 3 Dollars kept trying to bring the conversation back to him so he could ask us for three dollars.

He was like, “Yeah, I saw. But, wait. Hold on! I saw it. Hey, where you going?”

We went into Denny’s and left him to ask someone else for three dollars.

When I was about twelve.

I pissed off my father.

About what, who the fuck knows.

I was sitting in my bedroom and he came in and started saying shit to me.

Then he left.

I yelled, “You’re fucking stupid!”

Which was true.

He didn’t know much of anything, and had no interest in knowing about anything.

He was down the hall when I called him stupid.

He turned around.

Bolted at me.

Jumped on me.

Starting punching me in the face and chest.

Screaming obscenities at my head.

His face was full of anger.

Throbbing hatred.

Terror.

Horror.

I remember looking up at his face.

His anger had nothing to do with me.

I set something off in him.

Some pain.

Some terror of the past.

A truth he could not stand to take.

I was beaten brutally by my father several times, and I don’t think I ever did anything that bad.

His anger was at the world.

At other people.

At his employers.

They had stolen his life.

His time.

His work.

All stolen.

I didn’t know what his anger was derived from when I was twelve, but in my twenty-forth year of human existence I’m starting to learn.

At Willow Lake, a camp outside of Youngstown where supposedly the biggest cement pool in the world was (at least that is what the sign says.)

In the humid and shitty heat of Ohio, John and Tessa hung out for the night camping, drinking and smoking weed.

They were just friends.

Tessa wouldn’t date John because she only dated guys who made her look cool.

John was a dork and couldn’t perform that function for her.

Tessa was four eleven, skinny, and looked like a twelve-year-old.

John was six three, muscular. White trash.

Tessa got extremely drunk and stoned.

She told John, “I gotta go to sleep, I’m so tired John, so fucked up.” Tessa left the fire and John and went inside the tent to sleep.

She unzipped her sleeping bag and got inside, zipped it back up, and immediately passed out.

John sat around the fire and thought, I wanna fuck Tessa so bad.

Why won’t she fuck me.

I paid her way.

I bought the beer and the weed.

She fucking owes me.

I don’t understand.

I’m sexy, aren’t I?

I’m more attractive than her last boyfriend.

Why won’t she fuck me?

John sat there for an hour thinking these thoughts while drinking American beer and taking hits off the bowl.

He eventually got up and went into the tent.

He lay beside her, thinking, “Why doesn’t she fuck me, why doesn’t she fuck me, why doesn’t she fuck me, I love her so much, why doesn’t she fuck me!”

Eventually his thoughts led to this: She won’t fuck me, I’ll fuck her. As soon as I put it in, she’ll love me, she’ll know that I love her. It’ll be just like it is in the movies.

John slowly unzipped her sleeping bag.

Then he crawled in beside her.

Got on top of her.

Kissed her face.

He unbuttoned her pants and pushed them down.

The whole time, Tessa remained sleeping.

John pushed her pants and underwear all the way past her feet.

Took his hard dick out.

Tessa woke up.

Looked at John and said not in terror but like she was speaking to a fly, “Get off of me you asshole, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

John got scared and ran out of the tent.

John ran into the woods near the campsite.

He sat on the ground with his legs crossed, lit a joint, and cried.

Tessa thought in her head as she went back to sleep, That John, what a fucking loser.

*

My mother also said that all novels should have at least one rape. So there’s one, Mom. Do you like it?

Joe and I were sitting around at my house drinking BV and Coke, bullshitting for no apparent reason.

Monco: “So, how’s your dad?”

Joe: “He’s a crazy fucking asshole.”

Monco: “Where’s he working nowadays?”

Joe: “He sweeps the floor at a hardware store.”

Monco: “From having a good job at a distribution center to sweeping floors, that’s a damn shame.”

Joe: “Ain’t that the truth. How’s your dad?”

Monco: “Haven’t seen the asshole for a while, but I assume he’s still working at K-mart.”

Joe: “Goes from working at the family store, working with his family and friends, to working at the corporate shithole that put him out of work.”

Monco: “Yup.”

Joe: “That’s a damn shame.”

Monco: “Ain’t that the truth.”

Joe: “Is John’s dad’s work still locked-out?”

Monco: “No, I saw on the news the other day, that place is done. They’ve been locked-out so long they gotta close.”

Joe: “Well fuck me, Jesus.”

Monco: “You hear about Jack’s dad. I hear he collects the money from pop machines now.”

Joe: “That’s what I heard too. The man goes from being three years away from his retirement at the steel mill to collecting quarters.”

Monco: “Fuck me Jesus.”

Joe: “Yes, fuck me Jesus.”

1. People who say “these” or “those” people are always “these” or “those” people.

2. If you feel like you are in a movie but aren’t even the star and sometimes not even an extra, it is because the people around you are play-acting and you aren’t.

3. If you feel alienated, you’re right.

4. Before mowing the lawn, check and see if you have enough gas. It looks funny half-finished.

5. If you are having sex with someone and they start crying and you know it doesn’t have anything to do with you, leave!

6. People who say that Republican-Christians have warped what the Bible conveys have not read the Bible. They follow it perfectly.

7. Religion is campy.

8. If you are hungry and have little money, eat three slices of bread. Wait twenty minutes and you feel like you are full.

9. There is no reason to care what other people think about you. Because seeing how this world is, it is obvious humans are not good thinkers.