Bettie Page (photo by Flickr user Olivander)

At 18, Betty left town and rode the rails to LA –
you can’t make it rich when you live in Santa Fe.
Met up with a hustler named Gin Joint Bob,
he put grease in his hair and called it “pomade.”

He showed her the tricks that good crooks like to pull,
like to pick out a mark from a crowd filled with fools.
“Stick with me,” Bob said, “Betty, you’ll go far.”
Bob thought he was boss but Betty was the star.

One day Bob and Betty took up a sweet job
with Peg-Leg Harry, a brain dead slob.
His leg was a peg from a table he owned,
the oak clicked as he walked, sounding like Morse code.

The plan was simple and they would get rich:
knock off Eddie Jones, the banker. What a cinch!
So they killed Rich Eddie with a wrench to the head
and they celebrated with an orgy in bed.

Drunk off of hooch, a soused mass of limbs.
They rolled in their money, all glistening skins.
While Bob and Harry slept, Betty stayed wide awake,
planning her next move; planning out the check mate.

A bigger cut promised, she convinced Gin Joint Bob
to off Peg-Leg Harry with a toaster in the tub.
Another hit on their list, they took the rails out of town,
“Now that we’re rich,” Bob said, “We can both settle down.”

But Betty wasn’t ready for a 50/50 split,
she went to a store for a bottle of arsenic.
One night she slipped the pills in his drink
and as he died she planted a kiss on his lips.

They say she changed her name and traveled the globe,
the cops never caught her, she was too smart and bold.
So she lived the rest of her life as a spinster, alone
but Betty died rich and content in her Santa Fe home.

–

Greg Santos was born and raised in Montreal. He currently lives in New Haven, CT. He is the poetry editor of pax americana. Read his blog at Moondoggy’s Pad.

should I sit back and relax
while you assure me “this won’t hurt a bit,”
and do what you have to do
so that I’ll pull through
with a profound appreciation
for life itself?

or should I just try to heal myself
with words slowly chosen
and printed on a clean, lined page
struggling to make sense of the senseless
and wondering if you left last night
with a twinge of regret?

–

Laura Roberts is the Editor of Black Heart Magazine.

“That is very flattering,” she said, bubbling nervously. “And you are a good enough looking man, but I am a Buddhist and I think that I only want to be with other Buddhists, so you can see how this would be a problem.”

“I am a Buddhist too,” I said. “Or at least, I am more Buddhist than I am anything else. At least I can believe in the Void.”

Golden Buddha (photo by Flickr user Looking for a Lighthouse)

And this, I think, shocked her just enough.

What do you know about the Void?” she said.

“It is the obsidian wall. It is all-consuming,” I said. “And once the shades are drawn, we are cast into it and there is nothing.”

“But how would you know this,” she said. “You are not from the East.”

And I laughed, and said, “Perhaps you have never reached satori. Buddha would not have minded if I were from the West. He would have said, ‘Of course he is from the West, of course he can understand the Void. How would he not? I am Buddha and I have taught him. He has read my teachings and has become Buddha. We are the same, and because I know the Void, he also knows the Void. So it is, perfectly.’”

“You are not Buddhist,” she said. “You have just picked up some lines from the movies. You don’t know anything about the Zen way of thinking.”

“Oh no?” I said. “Perhaps you do not see it, because perhaps you are like a schoolgirl, reaching for her childhood teachings without proper contemplation, while I am a foreign adept who has come to master them.

“Listen,” I said.

And I looked outside at the sky. And I looked at the snow coming down, and I noticed how it settled on the budding trees and I said, gently:

winter sky in spring
but even with falling snow
the birch trees blossom

And I turned back to her, to her open mouth, and said, “As it is, perfectly.” And then she was mine.

I took her home when she was finished her shift and we did not speak much and it was obvious what would happen and when we were through the door we pressed up against each other and pulled off each other’s shoes and jackets and fell down and got up and walked to the bedroom and fell on each other and at some stage the moon shone through the window and we were taken in by its beauty and we turned over to look at it, and she lay in bed, not sure what to do after a certain point. And we kissed, gently, and maybe she wanted to fall asleep, maybe not, but we kissed some more and her tongue darted in and out of my mouth and soon enough her breathing was fast enough and I was hard enough that I pulled off her pants and mine and kissed her legs, licked her thighs up and down and lapped up the cream on her sweet, eggy nub. And then, when she was about to lose herself, I lifted her up by the legs and threw them over my shoulder and lay it into her deep and she gasped because she hadn’t had it for a long time and her ass was tight and solid and it felt so fucking incandescent that I had to slow down the fucking or come so I slowed it down and we fucked and fucked and we were pressed tight and we rolled over each other like that for an endless time and at some point she rolled over me and slid her body back and forth on me and pushed herself up until our hips were clenched together and her breasts were dripping and her ass was trembling and I was inside of her so deep and we pulled the sheets over our heads and sweated and moved and breathed our own air until nothing made sense in the darkness and we bit and gripped our hands and gasped as we were cast into the Void.

And then we lay there together in darkness, smiling Buddhas, luminous and radiating.

–

Mingus Tourette is a writer whose business card reads: “Mingus Tourette
Emphatic Graphomaniac
Chronic Neologist
Thanaphobic Bastard
Purveyor of Fine Apostasy
Effervescent Fuckaroo
&
Notorious Drunkard, Esquire.” He is also the author of the cult poetry book, Nunt.

I clean away the smells of vinegar and of this world
and of her broiled history.

Like a dog, I lick my way into her shameless oyster.
And then I fuck her
And she feeds me oranges.

–

Nikita Sokol is a writer who loves to eat, drink and be merry.

Since I took his advice, I was amazed at how much I could pick up by reading La Gazette on the subway every morning on my way to school. What amazed me even more was how I could go all day long believing a policeman shot three men, only to find out that night at 11 o’clock on Global that the Montreal traffic officer’s funeral arrangements had been made and the three male suspects were still at large. Because of the frequent misunderstandings, I stopped reading and started skimming during my half-hour commutes. I hated the idea of lying to myself all day. Besides, observing other people on the subway was much more interesting to me than foreign words on a page.

One evening, on my way home from a night class, something strange happened to me on the subway. I sat down and minded my own business, and pretended to read the sports section when an odd young woman sat down across from me and stared into my eyes. Now, I was used to girls looking at me. It happened all the time. But she was different. Unlike most others, when my eyes found hers, she refused to look away. Something was wrong with her. Since I was polite and knew enough not to stare, she left me sitting there wondering if she was still staring. Obviously, she didn’t know the rules.

We were supposed to be a society. When someone caught you staring at them, you looked away. You had every right to take another peek; after all, we lived in Canada and people had rights, but to sit and stare? Inexcusable. The only time I allowed someone to get away with it was if they were young. Children could stare all they wanted. Children and I had that understanding. With children, there were no rules.

She wasn’t a child. She had no reason to stare, even if we were on the subway and there was nothing better to look at. I wanted to look back again. I wanted to see if she was still staring at me. She wasn’t overly attractive, so I didn’t have a real reason to look again, but she made me curious and my curiosity always got me into trouble.

Maybe we shared something. Her hair was bleached blonde and stuck in fifty directions off her head; limp spikes. My sideburns curled down my face and followed my jaw as a guide. Two horns of hair spiked down off my chin in perfect cones. Maybe she appreciated the work I put into creating my look. Maybe she understood me for who I was. Maybe she was great in bed; wild.

Usually women with short hair didn’t do anything for me. With her it was different. I wasn’t looking, but I knew she was. Her eyes were on me, and that alone made her more attractive. I decided I would talk to her, say something witty.

Girls like witty. Girls like me.

My eyes bounced up and down along with the train, but I tried hard to look first at her hair. This gave her a chance to see my eyes coming, yet sure enough when I made my way down her pale forehead and into her cutting blue eyes, they were fixed on me. I opened my mouth to say something and changed my mind at the last moment, opting instead for a yawn. Then, I averted my gaze.

What if something was wrong with me? Was that why she was staring? I thought I had gotten all the egg yoke out of my left horn, but now how could I be sure? The panic overcame me so I remained silent. When we reached the next stop she was gone and out of my life. Part of me wondered if she would’ve slept with me. Of course, we would’ve started with coffee and seen where things went from there.

The next few mornings Joseph looked at me as if he knew something was bothering me. Like any good friend, he knew enough not to ask and instead told me how I could win big if I got involved with the football lottery. If I learned anything by moving to Montreal, it was there was big bucks in football. Somebody was winning every week.

Paper in hand, I made sure I took the same car on the subway those next few mornings. I wanted to run into that strange girl again. I wanted to be the one who wouldn’t stop staring. I had it all planned out. I would stare until she had to say something to me. All the possible scenarios played over and over in my head.

“What are you looking at?”

“I was admiring your hair. I think it’s great.”

Or maybe, “How long does it take you to shave in the morning?”

“Half hour. How long does it take you to do your hair?” I was prepared for the obvious first questions.

She didn’t take the same care as I thought she might, so for the next week I traveled in the cars on either side of our original one. She didn’t take those either.

Since I couldn’t find her, I decided I needed a fresh start. I needed a new crush. I needed someone else to look for. I wanted someone to stare at me for me. After a week of finding nobodies, I went home and shaved.

People were tired in the morning, and grumpy about being crammed into a place that took them somewhere they didn’t really want to go. At night, these same people were tired again, this time because it was too late. They only wanted to get home. Nobody wanted to talk to each other. Everyone just wanted to get home, make spaghetti and relax. Maybe rent Back to the Future if they felt spontaneous. Why would these people talk to each other? They were strangers. Besides, a lot of creeps took the subway. So I conformed and went back to pretending to read La Gazette.

School kept me busy, along with scheduled social events: open mics, poker nights, Seinfeld marathons. It got to the point were I didn’t look for anyone on the subway anymore. I was done kidding myself. Who would I meet on a subway?

At least I had Joseph. He always gave me advice on what cigar to buy, or what Italian red wine went well with smoked meat. I enjoyed our conversations, probably because he spoke English, and often convinced myself I needed large size eggs, or one pound of unsalted butter wasn’t enough. Shouldn’t I have two loaves of whole wheat bread in the freezer at all times?

One Sunday evening I found myself craving something from the corner store. I knew Joseph would’ve watched the football game on the tiny television he bolted above the heads of his customers at the front counter. I figured I’d see what he thought about Washington losing again, and if he knew of any cheese I might like to try. We talked about Washington’s poor performance throughout the entire season, let alone that one particular game. Each of us took turns remembering each game the team played, and pointed out exactly why they lost and what they had to do if they were to turn things around. And how someone that wasn’t me won the weekly football lottery.

The bell chimed above the door and Joseph’s attention was taken from me. I decided this was the time to go grab the mild Québécois cheese he had been raving about. I came back to the counter with the cheese and a box of circular crackers. Joe, no doubt, would tell me if they would go well with the cheese. Too busy examining the cracker box, I didn’t notice who stood in front of Joe. When I heard her speak English, I looked up.

“I’m sorry, Tracy, I’m all out of king size. I’ll have more on Friday.” Everything Joe was out of came in on Friday. Never before and rarely after.

“Just give me two packs of regular, then.”

Her accent reminded me of Toronto, the CN Tower, Bluejays games with the dome opened. My eyes went immediately to hers. Her eyes watched her fingers fumble over some coins in her palm. I was drawn to the limp, blonde spikes that jutted out from her pale scalp. It was as if her hair hadn’t grown or been cut in the three months since I last saw her. She was just there, in front of me, perfect.

“Maybe if they run the ball more. They pay all that money for a star running back and they don’t even use him.” My eyes politely moved to Joseph, my head nodded, and then I was back to her, staring.

“Yeah.” I managed. She took her cigarettes and glanced at me. Then she walked out the door and lit a cigarette. My eyes followed her through the front windows of the store until she was no longer in view, and I found myself staring at 1% milk.

“She’s pretty, isn’t she.” Joseph informed me. He wasn’t going to sell me this time. She wasn’t pretty. But to a man who had more hair on his face than his head, maybe she was.

“She just reminds me of someone I knew once. It was a long time ago.”

“Who else do you know who has hair like that? She’s the only one that I know who had her hair done that way and kept it. Everyone else is always changing things. Like you when you had your crazy beard. Not her, she sticks with things. She knows what she likes. I was almost afraid to tell her I’m out of king size.”

“Does she come here often? I mean, I haven’t seen her in here.”

“That’s strange because she lives right around the corner. Probably only a block from you. I’m surprised you haven’t seen her before. It would be hard to forget that hair.”

“No, I’ve never seen her.”

“That’s funny because you live so close. And she’s English too, like you.”

“Come on, you know I don’t need any more English friends. I’m trying to learn French. Why do you think I buy that paper everyday?”

It was better off I didn’t talk to her that day on the subway. The last thing I needed was an English friend who lived close by. I couldn’t stand when friends just popped in without calling first. I decided she would be one of those people. I didn’t need to get mixed up with someone like that. I already had too many distractions. I came to Montreal to go to school and learn French, not to make friends. She wasn’t the person I thought she was. She didn’t even stare anymore.

“Those are excellent crackers with that cheese. You should try a bottle of this Spanish red with them.”

“Sure thing Joseph, but if I don’t like it I’m never going to let you hear the end of it.”

“When have I ever let you down?” And he was right. He hadn’t.

–

Dan Symons is a Montreal writer.