Love it All, f**k it all episode 1
“Love it All, F**k it All” is a fictional fantasy noir version of Northern California with a lizard-man brothel owner, wolf-head soldiers, and under-lake vampires. It includes elements of extortion, rape, violence, dismemberment, blood, graphic language, death, substance abuse, and sexual activities. Readers sensitive to these elements, please take note and prepare.
“Love is the only currency for love: tears, receipts of pain. Blackness thick and tangible, sunlight deadly.”
-Walter Thursby
Coins of Pain
Floyd
Hours after the attack.
5 a.m.
Under the crashing obsidian sky and pounding steel rain, Floyd's Shovelhead Harley rips across the valley floor like a chainsaw of revenge. His shaking headlight a glint of hope, a penny-fountain wish tossed to the damned water of Lake Berryessa.
A cold growl fills his helmet. “One in a billionaire's ass-hair this’ll work.” Wet gales pound his chest and rattle teardrop mirrors. “Maybe’s better than impossible, but worry is no action. Work is action, and god damn it, this better fucking work!”
He leans into the storm and forces the glowing speedometer to one ten. The roads are slick, the turns sharp, the cliffs steep. Rain hisses on the hot engine, the sky thunder-smashes again. “You said anything, lady.” Floyd drives — hard. Grinding his bike through daggers of rain.
His cargo sloshes around his lap, two salvaged 23-gallon can liners snatched before Roland lit his dumpster fire. He squeezes the sloppy double-lined sacks, ignoring the chewed-on bones and trying not to think of the cold, familiar parts he feels through the plastic. The shoulder he tapped in busy service, the neck he kissed the night they finally got together, the waist he pressed tightly to his, the chest he fell asleep on.
“She deserved better than this, Roland!” Behind Floyd’s tinted visor, tears carve erosion lines into his cheeks like rain on the hard Foothill soil. Through gritted teeth, “You said anything, lady,” is what he’ll say when he finds her. "Nows no time for manners, nows time for action.” He grumbles in a lower tone, “And if you can’t deliver…” The V-twin buzzsaw rumbles and spits as he chisels into the twisting Berryessa Highlands.
“And if this bitch can’t deliver.” Floyd charges past Putah Creek, the weeping Devil’s Gate, then onto Spanish Flat. He banks a turn, stomps the clutch, and shifts to fifth. The engine roars fire. “You said anything, lady.” He squeezes the throttle of the growling bike, downshifts, and leans into another hairpin turn. “And if you can’t deliver, I’ll bury you both out here.”
“Violence is a fire inside us. Grow it, contain it? Let it go, burn it all.”
-Alfonso Forcade
Night of the Attack
Roland
Winter 2017
2 a.m.
Hours before.
Assembled from collected scraps of Roland Desmund’s journal. Four Bar Isabell-branded matchbooks, used 3” x 5” server book, and black G2 Gel Point pen.
In the silent hour between the end of their shift and before the 9 ta 5’ers scrape outta bed, outside of Sacramento’s downtown, closer to the homeless camps than the capitol, behind what most might think is an abandoned industrial building, he kicks open the back door, and throws a long, fluorescent rectangle across the dim parking lot. Roland Desmund’s stretched shadow fills the shape and lights a cigarette. As the petal of flame steadies, he flips open the black and red Bar Isabell matchbook and scrawls. “The match head combusts like an inspired thought: furious, sudden, bright.”
“Damn.” He exhales blue smoke, “I shouldn’t be using the branded matches.”
He counts on his thin scaley fingers and looks to sit. “After, what? Fourteen hours? Yeah, seems like a grand idea. But, shit. Where’s the milk crate?” So he leans. On the cinderblock wall, under the buzzing floodlight. His long lucky shadow sighs and stretches across the asphalt — feet kicked up, resting its weary tail.
What smoke he can't hold off the borrowed Parliament meanders past a lonely moth drunkenly chasing dreams; it caresses the hips of a rust-orange bulb, then sails off to icy cobalt moonlight, to distant stars, and beyond.
His phone’s empty. Isabell still hasn’t gotten back. “After tonight, this week, this year, my broken — no not broken: soggy ’n torn like a cocktail napkin in the dump sink, marinated with squeezed lime wedges, plastic straws, whiskey-wilted ice, and spent mint leaves — used up and tossed off, either way, love is gone, and my limp, broken heart needs a drink.”
Inside, through the loading dock, past cases of bourbon that got delivered today but not put away, past boxes of paper products, a mop bucket, and a bag of clean plastic-wrapped linens, his eyes water after his snout burns with the shiny smell of cleaning supplies. “Finally. Didn’t think housekeeping could ever get rid’a that smell.”
Big Floyd, head of security, fills the lobby doorway and dabs sweat off his bald head. “Bar and kitchen are shut down. Just staff’s left fucking ‘round in the Cardroom. Gotta lock this door, then I’m done. Need anything else?”
“Nah, that's it. Let’s get a drink.”
“Don’t have’ta ask me twice.” Floyd checks the back door. “Damn, boss, was up ‘til sunrise on Reddit last night, lookin’ up all that 'bout space cats n’ shit.”
“Ha! Yeah, with Last Name Walter, Iz and I joke about it all the time. Cats living in nine different dimensions.” Floyd has his phone out and looks to be pullin’ up the thread about cats being multidimensional. “Floyd, it’s late. I need a drink. Make sure we’re all locked up, see ya at the bar.”
Floyd shakes the back door handle again and strides across the marble rotunda to the Cardroom. Sex workers, card dealers, cocktailers, servers, bartenders, bussers, line cooks, dishwashers, hosts, and housekeeping are all cooling off from a busy night, gathered like two a.m. refugees from the Island of Misfit Toys. Watching stupid videos on their phones, telling stories of mistakes made during service, times they lost it, and the great tips they all got. Done workin’, only interested in finding creative ways to untangle the knotted fishing line of stress a busy night ties to your soul.
War Truck
The Captain
Just down the street
2 a.m.
The silent hour between midnight and dawn is never really just that. A few blocks from the ambitious brothel, thick steel belted tires of a growling war machine flatten an empty garbage can, smashing what little peace there is in this world. The truck clips the corner by the dingy lotto store as a scampering rat darts into a group of weeds. The dump truck misses and rolls off the sidewalk, thumping to the street.
A shaggy, pawlike hand grinds the shifter, spooling the turbocharge, popping and blowing off the wastegate. This dark beast of a ride barrels over another pile of whatever, spewing more trash across the street. Inside the truck's cabin, a reminiscent reek of rotten vegetables and greasy excrement fog the windshield. Sweat streaks inside the glass. The four hundred-pound driver pants, licks his lips, muffles a bark, and wants to howl. He shifts again and stomps the gas to a new account, ignoring the wrong-way sign.
The behemoth truck launches over another curb, slamming three canine soldiers into the cargo bay’s ceiling. One of the toppled hound-men barks, another bites the shoulder of one, making him get off his lap. The bitten one yips. The human guy in front shouts to the brown furry driver through the stench, “I heard they have food. We should eat.”
The driver’s ears perk at the word “eat.”
