damian dressick : “that’s a code 60, dispatch”

You can’t, in all good conscience, say you’re surprised to find Chuck Palahniuk shaking a naked, upside-down hooker in an attempt to rattle free a stolen gram of cocaine. You’re also not shocked this is occurring at a book signing in a crowded mall outside Indianapolis. Nor are you astonished, not really, that he is shouting, “Give back my stash, you lowlife slit!”

 

What does shock the loose monkey shit right out of you is Chuck’s not realizing that because the bitch is upside down, he’s only shaking the coke further into her nose. Funny how sometimes conceptions of one’s heroes can be simultaneously expanded and blown apart.

 

 "Whom the Gods would destroy,” you reflect. Or perhaps, the God within each of us must destroy the man or, more precisely, the humanity—so as to be revealed, the way cyanide leaching facilitates gold extraction.

 

Sure, you’re also wondering if maybe you shouldn’t have chased that pint of bonded whiskey with a quarter sheet of blotter acid. But topping all of this off is—of course—now’s most salient question, “How the hell did Chuck talk you into holding this goddamn whore’s other fucking leg? Chuck? Chuck? You there buddy? Chuck?”

 

Nominated for a  Pushcart Prize, Damian Dressick’s short fiction has either appeared or is slated to appear in McSweeney’s (online), Vestal Review, Caketrain, Flashquake, 3711 Atlantic, Contrary Magazine, Word Riot, The Kennesaw Review, The Worchester Review, Ghoti, & Storyglossia. Damian teaches creative writing & literature at Robert Morris University & coordinates Pittsburgh's UPWords Reading Series.

 

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