The New Flesh

I stand in front of the mirror, admiring my new boxer-briefs. I'm particularly taken with how big they make my package look. Of course, it doesn't really matter; I'd still jerk off four times a day even if they had “Baby Dick” embroidered on the front.

“What the fuck are you doing in there?” my mother screams from the living room. Anytime I spend more than fifteen minutes in my room with the door shut, she starts screaming. Sometimes, when I'm jerking off, I listen to help finish, spiting her Jack-Daniels-and-Marlboro-voice with a fresh load of rumpus.

Don't ask why I call it that.

Not today, though. I turn sideways and watch as the semi-chub recedes. Stupid bitch. I look around the room for my pants, and spot them laying on the bed. I've been wearing them for at least a month, but they don't smell more than two weeks old, despite the stains, a few of which I can identify. I pull them on and walk out.

“Too good to wear a shirt? Were you born in a barn, or something?” my mother says, coughing. She's holding a Marlboro in one hand, and a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon in the other, so the phlegm wad flies freely from her mouth, landing half in the ash-tray on her lap. The other half stains her lime green house dress, staining it like my pants.

“What the- that doesn't even make any sense,” I say, not even sure why I bothered. She never listens to me. As if to prove my own point, I say, “mind if I borrow Ford Fairlane?” That's what she calls her vibrator. She had a thing for Andrew Dice Clay in the eighties.

The sound of her coughing and choking drowns me out. She grinds out the cigarette and lights another. I watch her blow out a cloud of smoke, and walk over, pulling one from her pack. I don't even like to smoke, but I take them to piss her off.

“Are you going to put on a goddamn shirt or not?” She chokes again, loosing another blood-flecked hunk of slime. This one lands on the rim of her beer can. My cock swells a little as she raises it to her mouth, the snot-glob sliding onto her lips and chin.

Even I can't explain that one.

What I can explain is why she demands I wear a shirt. She will never admit it, but she's horribly offended by the swastika tattoo on my chest. No, I'm not a skinhead or a neo-Nazi. I'm not even remotely racist. When I was ten, my mother had an affair. When my father found out, they spent the rest of the evening screaming at each other. The last thing I heard my father say before he abandoned us was “You fucked that dirty-Jew-piece-of-shit.”

I never forgot that.

Five years later, I sat in my room with a safety pin and ink, stabbing my chest over and over. The swastika wasn't because I liked Hitler or hated Jewish people. I didn't even hate the Jewish man my mother fucked. I hated her for fucking him. Hell, I didn't even know for sure the guy was Jewish. What I do know is that it kills my mother to see it, and that's enough for me.

“Need another beer?” I say to my mother. I walk toward the kitchen, knowing the answer. I remove a can of Pabst from the fridge, open it quietly, and gulp half of it. Stifling a belch, I quietly slip my cock from my pants, and refill it. I set the can down, turn on the water, and finish pissing in the sink.

“You think water grows on fucking trees? Turn it off!” my mother shouts. Instead of shouting back about how stupid she is, I settle for serving her the piss-beer. My only explanation for her never noticing is that I do this at least three times a day.

“Sorry about the water. I was thirsty.” I hand her the beer. She stares at me, confused. “It's a beer, mom. Take it.” I see a spark of recognition in her eyes, like she knows I jerk off in my room while she screams at me, like she knows I'm counting the days until she dies, like she knows I drink half her beer and piss in the cans before giving them to her.

But when she takes a drink of the beer, grimaces slightly, and says, “It's warm,” I know she's totally fucking clueless.

Stupid bitch.

 

"The KKK Took My Daddy Away"

Copyright: © 2011 Chris Bowsman

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Chris Bowsman has had several of his short story and flash fiction pieces published, and spends a considerable amount of time wondering if going by "Christopher" would increase his authorly success.