BETTY

Betty’s hopped up on Ritalin. Her long breasts alive inside her teal turtleneck, dog-snout nipples erect. The pill box is embossed with grapes, a gift from the old man. She tosses it out the window, maybe he’ll die today. The Ritalin is prescribed for one of her step-grandsons, only he doesn’t know it. Nor do his parents.
Betty likes pills. She wants her reality enhanced and the Ritalin does this, it also helps balance the sedative effects of the alcohol she drinks every fucking minute of the day. Betty’s a functional alcoholic, no one knows her not drunk, even her husband.
I kill a bitch she said to herself, and she had. She’d shot Roxy, the crazy beach whore who had invaded the gallery. Shot her execution style right in front of the boys.
She knew she wouldn’t get arrested for it, those boys had her back. She had to kill someone and better it wasn’t her meal ticket, her husband, or her meal tickets meal ticket, Madonna. She would go down for that, a long time, but what fun it would be.

ROXIE

Roxie was wrapped up like a burrito in a smelly beige carpet remnant. She didn’t know where she was but she thought she smelled beach through the cat piss stink of the rug.
Roxie got out of fixes, it’s what she did, with God’s help of course, so she said a quick prayer--to remind the Lord that regardless of present circumstances she was a good Christian girl—and started rolling back and forth
It was not easy, and took all her residual strength, but eventually the rug unfurled and spit her out onto the pavement. She wobbled to her feet. She was on the parkway, near the volleyball courts.
“Thanks for the help” she said to a bum on a bench.

She heard music and looked for the source. It was the Dixie Chicks, she liked country music and started a slow line dance. A large van posing as a ghetto blaster was parked on the grass behind her. The music came from within giant fake speakers.
She tried the doors, and found them all locked. She sat on the steps and took inventory. Her tube top was inside out and she’d lost a flip flop. She looked at her reflection in the side of the van so she could check the state of her face. Her eyes were dark holes and her mouth a colorless slit.
She knew already her bridge was gone, she could feel its absence. She always took it out for blow jobs—it was her signature—but she’d never misplaced it. She checked her pockets with no luck. It could be in the carpet.

FRANK

Frank’s scrotum was crushed numbly into the crusty surface of the old corrugated drainage pipe that he straddled. He’d tossed his uniform into the water and was naked except for his combat boots. The boots Leon the bandleader didn’t want him to wear, but had given in on eventually, after Frank agreed to at least decorate them with the white spats the other players wore.
Frank couldn’t play his instrument and was only in the band because Leon wanted to bone him. Leon would never use the word bone, he’d say romance but either way Leon didn’t know that Frank knew this about him.
Frank needed to travel with the band so had perfected the art of looking like he was playing the snare drum without actually playing it. This had not been easy. It took a lot of finesse to repeatedly almost hit the drum-skin. Ratatatat he synced his soundless movements to the beat of the other drummers.
When he threw the uniform in the river he hadn’t thought ahead. He was hidden by bushes right now, and most of the crowd was up at the parade route, but soon they would return. Frank had faith though. Not the kind of faith they preached at camp but more like faith that things would get sorted out. They always did.
A large fish breaks the surface to snap up a mouthful of bird crap. It rolls over exposing thick yellowing scales that resemble an old man’s toenails. Frank blinks at the sight of its fur covered belly.
Not sure he saw what he saw he angles his head to see into the water without glare from the sun. The fish was not alone, there were more.