Hello Devilfish! (2 page)

/ 3 /

Look—this is
not
another novel. No spaceships crammed with erotic robots invade—no Gen-Xers wither in Rogaine suburbs—no debutantes swoon from torrid blackamoor shock. Join us in plot-maiming fun! And you will say to a writer fish—hey bub, why the hate? Why? 'Cause Fucko McSucko—novels
totally
tick me off. Hey, Marquis de Sade—why only
Four
Days of Sodom? Of course, that's the
Reader's Digest
version—still. Novels? Really? That's the best we can do? Jam sweet life into a musty paper cage? Make fake people mumble the same shit over and over? Make fake people mumble the same—ahhh, you get the gist. Art is just colorful weakness—Hello Devilfish! Completely good luck.

Why do I hate novels? I'm sick of wading through reams of your god-awful prose! Someday we'll all be in heaven laughing—at
you
, you lame pussy. Did you think words would save you? They can barely talk. Après moi, le refuse—after me it's all
South Park
. Hello Devilfish! You need a plot to believe at. That and some hot lesbo humping—that's all middle-class novels are, a
cri de weenie
for new booty. All your book are ours. I especially hate Lit with a capital “L”—that dank garage where failed sadists sharpen their gums. But how do you destroy novels—how do you slay something that's already dead? How do you snuff culture?

When I hear the word
culture
I reach for my zipper. So make pals with fate and ask it for carny favors. Anyway, if you're joining me now then we're done. Look—I've done the same lame shtick for decades—some nuke test wakes me up, I curl my tail out of my mouth, smooth my scales, roar
geeraa
, swim inland and smear Tokyo into rebar pâté. Then there's Tesla beams and heat rays that can't kill me, some perky lab chick with amazing tits finds my one weakness, I get wounded, crawl back in the surf and sulk away, boo hoo. Sometimes there's guys with bongos, sometimes there's smallpox—just like in real life. Be having a life with your goodness. Then you morons rebuild Tokyo—and it all happens again! It's more boring than God's diary.
Dear diary—nothing new. Omniscience sucks.

So anyway, last week another hydro-bomb test blasted my reef home into anchovy liqueurs till ow, I woke with a mammoth hangover. Fucko McSucko—can't a B-flick stingray get a few eons' sleep? Don't you clam-butt fuckers have nothing better to do? Nuke this, snuff that—this rerun's getting old and I'm not. 'Cause mwah ha ha—I'm eternal! One of the perks of being—you guessed it—a Hello Devilfish! Meaning a ten-story plus-sized stingray—so cue up the soundtrack and let's get to wrecking! As angry cellos strum
duhn duhn duhhhhh
while I slam a prune-blue tsunami over teensy waterfront hovels—Hello Devilfish! Did you miss me? I missed
you
—your twinkly factories spitting cadmium glitter—your skyscrapers crammed with biped sausage—your day-cares chocked with human veal—whoa! So much to kill. And I'll trash stuff good, I promise—I can't wait to get tangled in sizzling power lines again. You can count on me—and I can only count to one. 'Cause my tail's my only digit—well, that and my fab stingray wiener—more about
that
traitor later. The road to pleasure is paved with squids. Only love can break your balls.

Should I invade downtown Tokyo again? Why not—it's where a beast rocks, a seething grid packed with human biomass. Though I gotta watch you suckers—you probably built new toxic kaiju splatter bombs I'll get croaked with on my next rampage—Hello War Crimes! But suddenly Tokyo's not enough—I need a bajillion trenches stacked with pony femurs and kitten skulls and rattlesnakes humping Barbie dolls—your basic suburban dream. Too bad everything forbidden's already been done—ask any Shriner. Still—I'll try to be anarchic, I promise—I'll roll penguins in cocoa and toss them to polar bears. I'll marry a snake and hide all the mice. Hah—the forbidden? I can't find it—someone hid it in their crusty slacks. Besides, evil is
so
corny—ever seen a Nazi hat? It will become dearer than former when I explain how I'm a—yep, you guessed it—Hello Devilfish! Let's say that a lot. Now the Devilfish what's me will obey all the customs. He's hoping pity and tears will scrub away his tawdry sins. Which are what—some pulped brats? A few charred bums? A lifetime of TV and cheap scotch? You need a fish to believe with.

So here I am, toppling skyscrapers with my stupendous tail while bodies tumble out like yellow salt—did I mention I'm a ginormous stingray? With nuke-proof iridium skin and I can spit green napalm jets—go monster chaos! Hah—watch me thrash through Tokyo, slicing charred arcs through factory prefectures, toasting strolling mommies into fried clumps—join our baby despair society! All you need is burnt milk. So why do I wreck stuff? Maybe I just dig your screams, that dumbstruck glance in death's grimy mirror. Except lately I'm more bored than your dad—burn this, smash that—I'm telling you, it gets like a job. A slave to fun's still a slave.

If it's later than former you're listening again, one hand on a stale beer and the other down your pants—Hello Erotica! I am a thing for much fun. And if you're not me you're zip when I tell you—kapow! How I churned streets into a creosote stew burning brighter than firefly cum. Whee! Senseless havoc totally
rules
—that clogged screech as scorched toddlers burst into gummi poop—you gotta love what you do. And I love torching you humps—I'm God's chainsaw, her wired golem, the smile on her power-drunk face—let's blaspheme! You need to doom a world with more doom. And take to limit while I chew babies or slash my razory tail through noodle kiosks. What's with all the fucking noodle kiosks?

Anyway, then I head for the shipyards—lots of sparkly dioxin fun there—when I spot, alright—a refinery! Till I sweat fire just cruising at that gas-cracking plant, mmmm, those tangerine petrol pods leaking sweet methane—this joint's gonna blow up
good
. I was in pure form—my cobalt prick arcing through cloud pussy, my tail snaking in spermy jet streams till it lands
ka-thwhack
across that steel nipple atop a reservoir tank. Let's drool like it's Xmas! Especially when I tail-spank that spilled naphtha into a fuel lotus, a hot blossom lit with orange dread. While nearby worker humans squeal their usual
Eeek, help me Buddha
prayers till fire grills their minds away, yay! “How can we appease you?” one guy wails as his chest melts off. “Appease? Sorry,” I smear him into dank paste, “don't know that word yet.”

It's curious I even understand him—me talk Manglish, him Japanese. Hello Plot Flaw! With extra bored sauce. Hey, I did study some Asian lingo—a few Rosetta Stone phrase books floated past my coral lair. Still, my Japanese is pretty iffy—mostly shogun insults and geisha clichés. I know—let's just pretend everyone talks Manglish. I'm as lazy as fire! Really—this dock I'm wrecking ain't burning worth shit. And then bingo, it hit me—all I need is wings! Huge stingray wet ones to fan this baby inferno into a metastasized hell. I can haz Dada props? Not from you fuckers—you're born scared and die confused. And between the natal and omega bread of this greasy death sandwich—you look for
meaning
. You'd be better off looking for mayonnaise—Hello Devilfish! I giggle at your quandary. At night your over-amped brains sizzle like crude tumors while you grope through memory swamps, gorging on grief like some horrid unripe fruit. Smooshing you fuckers is a big large favor—Hello Panzers! You gotta fight for your Reich to party.

/ 4 /

Brains are magic tricks done with meat. So watch out, Ms. Librarian! Don't put my book next to any other ones—I'll infect them. At night I pulse toxic blue on my dusty shelf—no one's safe. Not kiddie tomes, not 'tween soft-core, especially not dumb ethnic novels reeking with poverty. Their words hurt my liberty! All freedom is freedom for
me
—and ain't that the dream of the twenty-first century? So why am I here—to squash buildings, snort babies, chew grandmas into black drool? Amusing as all that is—I'm here to wipe out books. Erase them
completely
—make sure none are never nope wrote again. And how might a Devilfish do this? I'll invade every plot like a wild virus. Every time you read—it's about me! Grinning and wrecking and chewing stuff.
For Whom the Bell Tolls?
On Whom the Fish Rolls.
Moby Dick
? Moby Gone—now it's me roiling up that stinky sea! And Ahab's my love slave, mwah ha ha—dude does some pervy tricks with that whaler peg leg.

I am Happy Devilfish with an Amazon profile! You got Harlequin romances with steroid dudes and bustier chicks smirking on cheap covers? Wait—what's that
stingray
doing in the foreground? And why's he the bellhop at our assignation hotel? Don't tip the fucker, he's pretty clumsy. Eeek, watch out for his stinger—fucko, where'd my arms go—Hello Devilfish! I'm like a chunk of iced radium in your party mojito—hear my pulsing glow? Bzzzrp, bzzzrp—I'll kill everything. It's my nature, not my fault, wah. Mwah ha ha—self pity is the key to evil.
Poor me
is the gist of most pogroms.

I'm death on a stick—for all your leisure needs. Hello Devilfish! I'm a product for a thing you're not, you wuss. And you will say to a fey ray—how's it hanging? Low and inside, my brutha. Hmmm, so what next? I know—let's have a backstory! First off—what birthed me? Let's just pretend I leaped from a dead guy's brain—the same croaked fool who's name's on this book. T'was a night riddled with stars and mai tais—the fucker was in his Hawaiian mode back then. He'd moved lock, stock, and Mustang to some barren Kona reef seeking mana and cheap weed. What he really found—besides centipedes, leprosy and meth—was me! Smashing right out of his skull one humid night. He was pacing around his skanky motel room—his mortgage collapsed even faster than his marriage—when I burst through his brain pan.

“What the fucko?” he yelled.

“Hello Devilfish!” baby me shrieked, “let's say bad words!”

“You are
not
my baby,” he muttered. Then he either drank or watched TV—hah—Mr. Lord of Lit. “Hi, Daddy,” I squirmed around his suitcase, “let's write taboo memoirs!”

“I could
use
you,” he narrowed those cagey eyes, “let's see. A plot about a young guy—no, not too young—”

“Extra bad words!” I chirped.

“Maybe set in Havana,” he paced, “with a girl—I mean a woman, can't call them girls, and—”

“Mofo bad words that aggro the bitches!” I writhed my luscious blue bod on orange shag. Who puts orange shag down anymore? Even Commies won't touch it. I touched a tiny Commie. “Come on,” I brushed him with my baby wing, “let's write evil blather.”

“You talk the naxty pretty good,” he smiled, “but there's my black friends, my Asian pals—and what if Chick Inc. gets wind of my apostasy—”

“Shriners fucking preteens!” I screamed. Uh oh—was I too subtle for him? Better ramp it up. “Midgets with wop sauce!”

“A novel about Tourette's?” he sneered. “It's been done.”

“You're a coward,” I twitched my stinger, “I'm sick of your prattling—you used to be
fun.
Why don't you Google your pen name again?” And that's when I crashed through patio glass and escaped—why hang with this fool? That twit was doomed to die unread and unfucked—and me? Mwah ha ha—I want to bathe in bad grammar, drink kitten milkshakes, coat myself with cheetah jism and rape the weeping sky—Hello Ambition! All your disgust are ours.

/ 5 /

Tonight I wrapped my rubbery tail around a smokestack, ripped it up it and wrote in blood and memory. Your blood, my memory—Hello Devilfish! I wish I narrated stuff better—how scorched rice paddies curdle into mud soup with crow croutons, how torched skyscrapers melt like steel dildos—it's been sappy fun! You need a deity to laugh at. And you will say to God—hey fucktard! Who makes leukemia and cake in the same universe? She never answers—she? Hah—of course God's a chick. Who else goes all boo-hoo sentimental while snuffing their own spawn? She's like those hags that shake their baby apart and then plead post-nasal depression. God kills us 'cause she loves us! It's the logic of beaten dogs.

Let's say mild things—my prankster brain demands applause! As my bricky pen scribbles dirt ideograms about crime and lust and regret—regret's the most fun. You get to do evil shit and then oops, OMG, sorry, didn't mean it—I'm the prince of mad trauma. Especially when I stagger like some pregnant eggplant through chaotic muck, one stingray wing stirring streets into whirlpools and the other clutching dank hope. I hope there's more stuff to wreck—is that too much to ask? More twinkling death shooting like licorice rays from my raving tail? More piles of split pelvises with baby gravy on top? A hint of lime and matricide would spice things up nice. Plus maybe a svelte stingray chick to share my opulent wrack, her lips frothing down my fiery prick, our flanks gilded with spit and spunk as we smash through night at the speed of dawn—Hello Porn! When you make up stuff make it sexy.

But in real life I was still crushing that industrial wharf, shattering docks into splinter stew and gulping burnt workers like prole marshmallows. Till I spit their tongues out into a yelping confetti pile and drooled fire until my bod morphed into a gigantor blue flare. I am the light of the lost! Mostly lost limbs. But pure chaos is sort of comforting—you stop worrying about Facebook. No wonder some pimply reject buys a gun-show TEC-9 and lights up the nearest madrasa—hey,
you
try living with a flaming brain. And mine crackled as I toyed with the few biped chumps still alive, herding them from that dock's edge to a seared parking lot where their feet boiled off in gurgling tar. Onward toeless soldiers! And then—hee hee—something tickled my flanks.

Yowza—was it my awesome fantasy stingray girl? I hope she brought liquor, some viscous rum that'll peel the paint off our skulls. We are having the sweet nougat life—join us in group-time flavor! Or battlefield furor—'cause fucko, what's tickling me is missiles! Shot from tube batteries hid in the trees. Everything's always hid in the trees—one rocket even smacks into my squinting eye! Not that it hurts me—you can't kill a Devilfish with heat-seeking tin—but it annoys the pure crap out of me. And also solves tonight's entertainment—'cause where there's rockets there's grunts nearby. Alright—let's make a screaming camouflage omelet! From that hilltop drill corps I smooshed into a brave and greasy puddle. Will these fuckers never learn? Remember, kids—violence never wins! It just levels things out.

Mwah ha ha—it was mondo glorious, a pop-art potpourri dripping runny gusto, my reeling wings and tail slaking the mud with jumbled bods and tanks and the lone kitchen truck—I am a blue baker of sobbing dough! Plus it's way mass even more fun watching humans panic—as those outgunned grunts fled like a beached wave, daubing the dirt with smeared dreams. A few loony infantry chumps even managed to sneak back and pop off a few mortars till I crushed them into the mothering dirt. What a waste—of my time! I can't bother with these sloppy hicks—I got an entire megapolis to destroy! Exactly—so I just simply charred that whole forest into oak toast, slicing hilltops off with my radiant wings while spit-bombing birds like fried comets. Whoever invented death had a kid's sense of humor—look, Mom—the cat farted and died! And then mmm, I sniffed big sugar. Was it pussy? Cash? Ferrets in lingerie? Nope—I smelled caramel corn. And also heard a lone calliope tooting out some goofy Souza tune—meaning there's gotta be a carnival nearby. Alright! 'Cause nothing spells brunch like boiled clowns.