GOOD MORNING CIGARETTES. You may not like it … but the world has been wrung through Photoshop. You can see it from the balcony. Filter over filter of false impression. This is the light switch. This is the way to the apartment block. I disappear with no care and finish. Mia Goth shows potential tenants around the apartment. There is activity. FADE OUT − (softly). I run up the steps. INT. TOWER STAIRWELL – NIGHT. DISSOLVE TO shot of Mia Goth. Her hand with cigarette lighter. She puffs. I insist she continues. She has the cheeks for it. We head for the consulting-room. Hotel manager measures her height. She is invisible. Mia Goth won’t join me in reading the Sunday newspaper. I sink into the patio recliner on the front porch. Rubbish by the wayside. Kitchenettes on the side of the road. A doll. Three inches in height. Mia Goth crosses in front of the fountain. She hurries away. My cabin is at the back of the hotel. I talk at random to Mia Goth. I try to distract her. Listen did I tell you about the … my voice trails off. On the porch … I look at the houses. They look cold. The tower clock stands still. CUT TO: (interrupting) − don’t tell me how to be sorry. Mia Goth prevents herself from being nasty. She drops a bottle of amyl. She steps on the staircase. Somebody walks down the stairs. The soda is not perfect. The scotch is superb. I drop my negligee and leave the room. EXT. THE FIGURE OF ST. SEBASTIAN. Hotel manager walks with a heavy automatic. WIPE TO an altar with bloodied chickens. I walk to the dining table. I advise the hotel manager to stop throwing guests out. They’re my friends. The hotel manager will stop … but will resume tomorrow. In the lobby … there is a corner with no furniture. An old version of Mia Goth. I can do nothing. I take a deep breath. Dirty coffee cups. Mia Goth is on my arm. I am. I think that she was.

WITHSTAND THE SHOCK OF THE OPERATION. A barnyard made of lumber. A barnyard empty … not full of anything … except straw … hay bales … open windows. Inside the car you felt chilly. You turned on the heater. Day after day … you heard the sparrows and shivered inside the automobile. Sometimes you moved back inside the barnyard. There are hundreds of them … hay bales inside the barn. Your broken hand. A shrunken high clamour of two women screaming. Drunken men called by gracious names. They’re dirty and require a bath. Your eyes all heavy-lensed … a hangover from your time on the battlefield. In the barnyard you look to the ceiling. Ladder-like stairs … scowled cockroaches scurry from the woods. They drip into the cellar. I permit the houseguests who are occupying the rooms on the second floor to take precautions to keep their clothes dry. Mind droops into loose ears. You moved to golden America. Syrupy solution flowing toward the open back door of the barnyard. Detergent. Bourbon. Your original business was selling dynamite to detectives and servants. Inside the beer joint you grab a bystander and push him into the vineyards and groves of citrus. You push him onto a shining path. You keep a low profile. You enter the hospital. A cab crosses the sidewalk. The cab drives onto the onramp for the tollway. Letters in envelopes written in black ink sit on the table. Drunk in the honeymoon suite on the Lipari Islands. A friend meets a friend. A narrow platform in front of the open … double … back-door. Body on the floor.

THE HYPHY OF ORPHEUM. I busted in wearing boxer shorts. I ran a long way to get to the train. Damn train tracks. My clopping hoofs in sports socks. They make me ashamed of myself. The shadow of the buildings opposite. The Parque Leyema … a park in San Telmo. It was usually the park I slept in. I got an apartment. I come to this apartment with an electric fan. I screw it into the wall. The plaster is peeling. I get a drink of water. Sleeping in … in the morning. Buenos Aires indeed. Two men in a disco. Dancefloor dilapidated. Neither of them beautiful. Drunk in the barranca. They lose their high heels. I need to get to the airport. I have to board the aeroplane before the ticket booth closes. I’m leaving South America to get back home. I purchase my drink. Ice blocks in a tumbler. Cinzano Rosso. In spite of my cynical nature … I get along with these two men. Drag queens during these afternoons. Appearances of inexpensive make-up. Joking remarks about the customs regulations. British American Tobacco. Contemptible cigarettes already rolled. Perspiring in the night. Heavy shipping on the big seas. Sexual denouement. Ejaculation from one of the drag queens. My balls in their manicured hands. Our underpants around our ankles. We’re near a repaired fence across Loyola Avenue from the tavern. We fuck. Flesh against flesh. The crosswalk. The fuck was nothing special anyway. I was forgotten. The waiter took my non-interest as an alien response.

CROOKS VS. CROOKS. Your voice was urgent. A woman’s voice. You expected your life to burn … but it went on miserably brooding. Three times you were suspected of arson. Three times nothing eventuated. You always held your men closely in your arms. You loved your arms. Your men. You called your men thieves and let them talk to you with indefinable undertones which crept upon you slowly. They moved like remodelled answering machines sitting on another shelf. One day you realised that people were more than wives … or husbands. All up … even as physical adults … people were hungry … unclothed children crawling on their hands within rifles and empty cartridges. Your childhood moved like a surly … stiff-haired affliction … running from violence and abuse without a word of explanation. No judgement in your bones. No cigarettes in your lungs. No hamburgers in your stomach … no French fries in your brain. You light a candle. I see your shoulder. I make little progress in disrobing. One hundred hot dogs wrapped in your pig cop report. Your eyes have the look of old eyes … crunched and hastened in silence that hung over the assembled cockroaches. More cockroaches than we knew. Your skin felt chilly … yet you were unaware. You were seldom unaware … but for a period there you were.

EPILOGUE. Belfie Hell is anti-roman … anti-novel … anti-anti-novel. A collection of pieces in which our protagonist eats a piece of cake. In which a horrible sickness … an allotted dryness affects her entire muscular system. The wax hardens in her ears. It was written over a period of years … the day following today. I awoke wrong … incorrect … nightmarish … scared … drained from a blessing … hounded by pig cops … held in riots not anticipated. My shipmates began to read my mind. I bathed in a parody of my real self. I was shrewd … inept … but I was calculating pride … thus I had to speak … put word down. George Shearing stumbled into the betting ring. One may realise in a dim way that we’re no longer on the floor during any religious service. WE’RE RUNNING BLOOD WE’RE RUNNING BLOOD WE’RE RUNNING BLOOD WE’RE RUNNING BLOOD. And I have it on good authority that the underage guy has obvious parapsychology (PSI) effects. After a few minutes he’s finally sucked into the centre … the brandy drives with the clearness of ice … the ice drowns in the eddy. This is the novel….

THE PARALYTIC CLEARED AN IRRITABLE FEELING. I’m done with the military. Screw them blokes. They buried a schoolteacher in a box. It was all across the newspaper. There are five fourth floors in these buildings. Cement. Unperfumed foundations. All chaos and noise on the freeway. The car flatlined during the last gasoline intake. All chaos and noise. The pig cop times me running around the block. Gasoline. They got the schoolteacher right between the eyes. All chaos and noise. On the boulevard. Ordered by a commander. Direct … right between the eyes. I felt sorry for him … felt sorry for the schoolteacher … a trickle of blood from the bullet hole … then placed into a tiny box. Unperfumed chaos. A petite woman … an onlooker … slaps herself to react with sadness … shock. Cancer shades the military’s brain. They’re pipped by a terminal illness … all their killing. A soothing wind. Internal organs placed behind her eye. A water fountain wholly formed from our awakening lives. I wipe the shit from my tear ducts. A human dose of instant oddness. New Orleans. A red rubber leather lash came upon me. Parasites on my mantra. A man with jeans that have 1000 zippers on them. Internal organs behind my eyes. Split eyelid days. The military’s conversations take on a darker scream. Two screaming captives dash across the freeway. The first of them cries into the intercom. It is hot. Ardour and eaten beings. The knot night of me. Sweating in New Orleans. Malaria. Internal organs placed behind her eye. A water fountain wholly formed from my awakening life. I wipe the sleet from my tear ducts. A human dose of instant oddness. Sweating in New Orleans. Malaria…

THE GIRL WITH AN AREA OF SOLID … UNRELIEVED BLACK SWELL. I only broadcast to keep Shia LeBeouf informed. The pig cops are alarmed. The day after today … the pig cops will wake. They will realise they are wrong. Incorrect. Nightmarish. Scared. Drained. These riots are not anticipated. The images inside the pig cop’s head are bad. They have no steadiness. The crackling of flames. The riots are mischievous. The pig cop is interrupted by a pig cop siren. The siren moves into his mind. Deeper. He stays in the hotel. The riots continue. It is April. There is an interval from the violence. The pig cop ventures out and looks at the ruins. People chase the pig cop. A mob harasses him. He begs for clemency. He tells them he will build a new New Orleans. He will build them new dwellings. A cow herd moves into the outer reaches of downtown. “Would you kill the first person that ever attacked you?” the pig cop asks me. The pig cop pins me down. He tries to take a bite … a big chunk of my throat. I push him off me. He’s ineffectual. He grovels on the carpet. He crawls into the bathroom … shuddering against the white-tiled wall … splashing himself in massage oils. He’s damp. He has a lysergic urge to kill … to embrace … to possess the bitterness. Elections of local politicians. There’s the danger of hostility. A general outbreak. Bloodshed. The pig cops are under restraint. Subsequent events of viciousness. Eagles embroidered on my jacket. They’re holding symbols of lightning. I spit from the back window of the cab. Saliva on the leather upholstery of the taxi. A girl crossing at the traffic light. She has black hair swelling beneath her baseball cap. The black swell.

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Shane Jesse Christmass is the author of the books: The Sex Shops of Sherman Oaks (Amphetamine Sulphate, 2021) Latex, Texas (Self Fuck, 2021) Xerox Over Manhattan (Apocalypse Party, 2019) Belfie Hell (Inside The Castle, 2018) Yeezus In Furs (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2018) Napalm Recipe: Volume One (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2017) Police Force As A Corrupt Breeze (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2016) He was a member of the band Mattress Grave and is currently a member in Snake Milker. Twitter: @SJXSJC