Nude Is Out by Susan Tepper

He’s growling, stabbing the remote at the screen, changing channels, cursing the cable company, while I snuggle deeper under the comforter watching the black screen with the white box with the error message flash on: channel after channel after channel. 

“I’m sick of this cable shit,” he says. “This time it’s a 295 error code.”  

“I know. I can see it. You know, I’m really glad I went with the Buffy Comforter.  It has natural eucalyptus. Imagine! I wonder how they get it inside the cloth?  It smells so fresh.” I stretch my legs in the bed. “I wonder what happened to error code 255?”

“How the hell should I know?  It’s the same box with the same you are fucked again message. Only this time the error code is different.”

Yawning I say, “Guess you’ll have to phone them.”  

“You phone them, Ellie!  You phone them for once!”  He chucks the remote across the bedroom.  Bellamy makes a lunge for it.

I push off the comforter and scramble out of bed. “No Bellamy!  Don’t touch it!”  The big yellow lab stands his ground, the remote clamped between his teeth; he’s not giving up so easy.  

“Dammit, Jeremy, did you have to throw it!  He thinks it’s like a ball.”

But he’s on the phone yelling at the cable company, pausing to hiss at me. “You get that remote away from him.”

I start to moan. “I was sooo comfortable.  I was just about to drift off in a cloud of eucalyptus.”

“Our nude?”  I hear him say into the phone. “What nude?”  

Nude?  Automatically I look down my body.  You hear nude and immediately you check: Did I go out of the house without my pants?  That sort of thing.  But all is normal.  Blue nightgown.  Not even sheer.  For a moment I think about those devices – the kind spies use to see long range through windows.  I’ve read the really powerful devices can see clear through entire buildings.  

“What do you mean by our nude is out?” he’s saying into the phone.

I never close the shades. No houses across the way. Just a sloped valley thick with trees, the city lights in the distance. But to be on the safe side I dash around the bedroom pulling down the window shades, at the same time yelling at the dog. “Give me that remote Bellamy! Hand it over!” On his belly he squirms under our four poster. “Now we’ll never get it back.” 

Jeremy covers the phone saying, “Tempt him out with a cookie.” Then saying into the phone, “I don’t have control of my remote at the moment.” Then saying to me, “The cable guy wants me to switch channels.”

“Can’t you do it manually?”

“Oh, yeah, forgot. Manually.”

“Jesus!” I just wanted to doze off to Friends. I had a rough day. One of my travel agent accounts stole millions from a big national tour group. The Asia tour. I’ve been working on it half a year. Everything all in place. That crook! Now we can’t locate her. I figure she skipped the country for China. “That’s like looking for a needle in a haystack,” I mutter to myself; picking a scab I’ve been picking for months on my leg. It starts to bleed. I have this sense I never want it to heal.  

“I’m not sure,” Jeremy’s telling the cable guy.

“Bellamy!” I scream for the dog to emerge. Nothing. “The remote’s going to be full of dog slobber.” I shoot Jeremy my darkest look. He’s way too engaged with the cable guy to notice.  “Jeremy!”

He squints in my direction. “What is it?”

What is it? It’s… everything.  

I can see he’s sparing me about one second to answer him. When I don’t he goes on a long tangent with the cable guy: how we get the black box every other night, the 255 error code, that we can’t see our favorite shows, now it’s the 295 code, we’re paying all this money, what the fuck and blah blah blah. 

Then a few moments of silence.  

“Did the guy hang up on you?” 

“I don’t get this,” Jeremy says into the phone. “We don’t have a nude. No nudes! Just me and Ellie and Bellamy here. What nude is out? Out where?”

“Oh my god that nude thing again? Out where? Oh my god hang up! Just hang up and start over with a new cable guy! A normal one. This guy is a pervert.”

Jeremy waves at me to shush. He’s saying, “Can you spell that please?” He covers the phone to tell me the guy has a strange accent. Then he tells the guy, “All you cable guys sound exactly the same.” 

Suddenly he’s all palsy-walsy with this guy? Then he’s says, “Now I get it.”

I tug on his arm. “Spell what?”

He shrugs me off. He’s nodding into the phone like it’s a tangible presence. He covers the mouth part, telling me, “They have to hide their voices behind this special voice anti-recognition program. Like on the news when an informant’s face is blanked out and the voice sounds muffled. That’s why all these cable guys sound the same when I call. It’s not an accent! It’s for their personal protection.”

Like I could give a shit. I watch Bellamy poke his nose out. When he sees me, he beelines back under.

“Wow,”  I say. “With the kind of service this cable company provides I can believe they need protecting.”  I’m picturing hordes of people stampeding the cable company office screaming about the error codes. Then it hits me: Our monthly bill never has their actual street address, only a PO Box.  Because they totally suck and know they need protection. 

“Ah ha!” Jeremy’s saying into the phone. “Our node.” He winks at me.

“Node?”  

He shakes his head grinning. “Our node is out.”

“What about our nude? I thought our nude was out.”

“Ten four,” he tells the cable guy.

Nude to node. Just one of those nights. Jeremy clicks off looking satisfied. Why? We still have code 295 and no picture. We also don’t have a remote. Exhausted, I lean against the armoire. Picturing a huge transformer board with a million nodes burning bright red. But not our node.  Our’s is out. Cold and dead.  

“Could be a long term problem,” says Jeremy. “Our node being out and all.”

No picture. Nothing to watch.  Yet he seems sort of neutral about the whole thing. Kind of brainwashed.  He stayed on the phone a pretty long time. Was Jeremy indoctrinated into the cable cult? Will we ever have a picture again?  

“Don’t worry,” he says.

Bellamy sticks his head out, the remote clenched in his jaw. When I don’t scold, he comes all the way out, lying down on the floor near my feet, tail thumping. I place my heel against his wide forehead. Soft and squishy like a big stuffed animal. “Bellamy you bad, bad boy! If you made teeth marks in the remote you are in such deep shit!”

His eyes roll then he darts back into hiding.  

“Ellie, way to go.”

“You’re the one who threw the damn thing in the first place!”

“Must you constantly cuss and swear?”  

Me?  He has become so de-charged it’s worrisome. What exactly did that cable guy say to him? It suddenly occurs to me: Get nude.  If it is a long range vision-finder type of thing, I’m going to give these spies their money’s worth. Let them look clear through the bricks of our house. Somebody’s got to have a little fun. I tear off my nightgown swinging it in the air. Bellamy comes out and makes a leap for it. 

“Quick, the remote, he dropped it!” shouts Jeremy.  

The remote. Nothing about my nudity. Not a word. Nothing about my nude being out. Nothing whatsoever.

  END

Susan Tepper is the author of nine published books of fiction and poetry.  Her most recent titles are CONFESS (poetry published by Cervena Barva Press, 2020) and the road novel WHAT DRIVES MEN (Wilderness House Press, 2019).  Tepper has received many honors and awards.  She’s a native New Yorker.  www.susantepper.com

HAIR OF THE PROVERBIAL. By Brian Rihlmann

I’ve been known
to jerk my sore dick
the morning after a
marathon dopefuck session

and it’s no exaggeration to say
I binge write poetry
like I once guzzled booze

it’s been about a three year bender
and I think I’m hungover

but fuck it—
I’ll go on

think of this
as hair of the dog

a triple shot Bloody Mary
in a Big Gulp cup

Brian Rihlmann was born in NJ, and currently lives in Reno, NV. He writes mostly semi autobiographical, confessional free verse, much of it on the so-called "grittier" side.  Folk poetry...for folks. He has been published in Constellate Magazine, Poppy Road Review, and has an upcoming piece in The American Journal Of Poetry.

YOUR ELECTRIC-SHOCK THERAPY. By John Grey

Thanks to Tesla and Edison,
your head is not what it was.
For the better or worse,
your scribbles aren’t saying.

I spoke to your father.
He said there was no other choice.
Either wire you up
or your brain goes back to the store.

Your eyes give no indication.
When I sit by your bedside.
I see them sparkle for a time
but then the blankness

shutters them like a window
prepared for hurricanes.
Except, in your world,
the bad weather finds another way in.

Just the thought of electricity
jolting a defenseless head
conjures up the bolt of lightning
that snapped Frankenstein’s monster awake.

But you’re no monster.
Just some kid doodling on paper.
A hand, a pencil, a dull expression.
No way to know what else is there.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in

Hawaii Pacific Review, Dalhousie Review and Qwerty with work upcoming

in Blueline, Willard and Maple and Clade Song.

Ariel Shart by Tony Podcaster

His days in the Air Force were fun.
He serviced all the planes and many of the servicemen too.
With those painted cocksucker lips straight out of some pin-up mag.
“The Hoboken Hoover” the other men took to calling him.
He could have an entire regiment standing at attention in seconds.

And after he got out, he started writing plays no one would ever see.
Doing podcasts no one would ever hear.
A sad old man sitting down in the basement of the family home
while the kiddies were off to school.
Snorting crack tablets and sending penis pics to random
women on the internet.

And that is when it happened.
One of those epiphany moments, a sudden burst.
Rushing over to the laundry sink, he took off his underpants
and started scrubbing feverishly with an old toothbrush and soap.
But the brown stain would not come out.

Worse still, his wife would be home within the hour
and would want to know why he had been wearing her underwear again.
Why he insisted on shitting her pants instead of his own.

But he had the name for his new publication.
All because of a fart gone too far.
He would call it Ariel Shart.
Make up fake names and comment on all his own posts to fudge the numbers.

As for his wife’s underpants, he could always blame it on the dog.
But he kept scrubbing feverishly anyways.
That constant jerking motion reminding his of his days in the service.
“The Hoboken Hoover” doing his part for freedom.

Tony Podcaster lives in the seventh circle of hell where he eternally snorts crack tablets and masturbates to old penis pics from the war.  His work can be found nowhere which is a great relief to all.

Invasion Of The Crack Tablets by John Patrick Robbins

              

Zero pay, endless hours of taping with a guy who sounds like a reject from the Jersey Shore, over the hill edition.

Writing reviews for shitty metal bands so your publisher can get free music.

Writing books you will never see a nickel from.

I don't think me walking away from that swell deal makes me a drunk so much as not being a dumbass.

Sorry to all the listeners in foreign countries and parallel universes for growing tired of doing all the work for nothing in return.

But if ever you miss the latest episode just slap some paint on the wall and watch it dry.

For it's just about as exciting.

If you didn't drink listening to those shows you certainly do now.

Arrivederci asshole!!!

You must forgive me, I am after all an abusive drunk.

John Patrick Robbins, is chief warlord and head dark sorcerer of the Frat.

When not dealing with bullshit pricks who think it's fun to test his patience. He runs way too many Ezines for which fellow writers piss and moan about because who needs multiple avenues to publish with?

His work has been published in.

The Headboard Review, The Bathroom Wall, The New Yorker, Tiger Beat Magazine, Better Homes And Gardens, The Reformed Inmate Quarterly, Hustler, and the dark hearts of millions.

He is an abusive drunk, a mean spirited occultist and serial killer and that's just his good qualities.

He is currently in Shady Pines mental facility seeking his degree in finger painting.

Vikings Eat Sopranos For Breakfest by Rathnar Kilbane

The sun rose upon the suburban village and the golf course was in full swing.
Fat little men trying to escape their mundane existence and save money and there little blue pills.

Hit the links.

The mighty Rathnar hid in the bushes awaiting the man slugs appearance the smell of pizza and bullshit gave him away before he was even within sight.

The soundtrack from his male bounding romantic comedy the Godfather embraced the air.
And as he pealed his fat ass from the golf cart the mighty Rathnar sounded the horn of battle.


The terror within his eye's was as great as the stink from the shit in adult diapers.

As his council of retired old farts all departed in his steadless chariot.
Minus porky.

Who pleaded at the feet of the mighty Rathnar offering him many of his charms of E sorcery.

But even the Mighty Rathnar knows these charms are no match for the mighty scrolls.

The blow that decapitated the slug was swift.

And finally this boss hog impersonator from the duke of hazard was shut the fuck up.

As blood and tomato sauce sprayed upon the winds.

And we spread his entrails upon the lands of pathetic men knocking balls with sticks.

As we took siege of the country club and pillaged the bar afterward and threw yuppies upon the fire.

Killing truly centers the Viking.
The battle was a bit like fighting women except they usually actually fight back.

Next we shall raid the coast of new Jersey to finally end that shitty reality show.

To kill is the true way of the vikings.
All hail the Rathnar!!!

Rathnar Kilbane is the Viking poet laureate of Iceland he has been so since the age of seven when he killed his father for this title.

He is currently working on his newest scroll and killing his audience at poetry readings.

He enjoys raping and pillaging poetic kingdoms and destroying his enemies.

When not satisfying his constant bloodlust he enjoys collecting fine art and listening to smooth jazz records.


All hail the Rathnar

A Geriatric PDF To Sex by Scott Simmons

You wanna know how your getting old?

It's whenever you shit your pants every time after you get up.

Or  you actually forgot where your actually dick is.

Heres a tip for you:

No amount of fiber can cure verbal diarrhea. 

Scott Simmons is a friendly extraterrestrial who enjoys to cuddle with strangers to in order spread his space rabies in hopes of destroying our plane of existence because he was on Team Jacob and he always will be no matter what you say to him. Also if you are having any sexual relations please feel free to send him instructional video tapes you produce to his mobile P.O. Box.