Champagne For My Real Friends, Real Pain For My Sham Friends — a PUNK NOIR Magazine Series
Issue 3
“One fake friend can do more damage than five enemies.” ~ Anonymous
Fluff
by
Cindy Rosmus
“Fluff?” you said, on the way over. “What’s that?”
They all laughed. Lars and his “entourage.” Your online-turned-IRL boyfriend, CEO of Shangri-La Productions, and his cast, all jammed into Lars’s ominous black van. The kind masked killers would jump out of, with MAC-11s.
From behind you, Joey explained. “S’what you do,” he said, “to keep me hard.”
A month ago, you were home, itching for what? Fame? Fun? True love? Maybe all three. “Come out here!” Lars had typed. “I’ll make you a star!”
Yeah, right, you thought.
When you didn’t reply, Lars typed, “Please? Love like THIS (He’d typed all caps) . . . I can’t lose you!”
Like a dope, you came. “Welcome,” Lars greeted you, “to the Wonderful World of Fetish Porn!”
Weird shit, he filmed. For anyone who paid. As innocent as nudies in a balloon-filled room to hardcore scat stuff. The first you watched was Joey jerking off into a bowl of oatmeal, and one of Lars’s crew eating it.
“Cos you refused.” Lars glared at me. “But next time . . . you fluff.”
Between beatings, he raped you.
Same sleazy motel. Lights and equipment set up. Inside the cramped room, the cast got “ready.” The setting: a bed and case of cheap champagne. The kind that looked fake, like bubble bath.
Except for you, everyone was nude. Even Lars, behind the camera.
“What’s this one about?” you asked Joey.
“Pop the corks, pour champagne over us.”
“And then?”
“We lick it off.” Almost shyly, he looked away. Huge hard-on, and all.
Out of all these creeps, he was the nicest. And really cute. Long-haired, with big dark eyes. Like a legit star.
In another time, you might’ve loved him.
“OK,” you said.
He smiled. “But you don’t have to.”
Bio:
Cindy Rosmus originally hails from the Ironbound section of Newark, NJ, once voted the “unfriendliest city on the planet.” She talks like Anybody’s from West Side Story and everybody from Saturday Night Fever. Her noir/horror/bizarro stories have been published in places like Shotgun Honey, Megazine, Dark Dossier, Danse Macabre, The Rye Whiskey Review, Under the Bleachers, Punk Noir, and Rock and a Hard Place. She is the editor/art director of Yellow Mama and has published seven collections of short stories. Cindy is a Gemini, a Christian, and an animal rights advocate.
Blood Brothers
by
Michael Wegener
I’m holding on to his woman as we watch his kid race across the soccer field.
A lifetime ago, Mateo asked me to take care of his son should anything ever happen to him. So that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve also been taking care of his wife, which sure as shit was not something he asked of me. It’s almost been a year now since the Philly job went sideways, and she’s beginning to let him go. And let me in. Standing huddled against me—back of her head resting on my chest, ass pressed against my groin—her body should feel perfect in my arms. Instead, she feels and smells like blood and sweat and death. Like Mateo did when I pulled him in front of me to shield me from the hail of bullets ventilating the back of the getaway van, tearing Mateo inside out, blood gushing over me that wasn’t mine but might just as well have been. Now, her warmth against me is his life pouring onto me all over again. That’s how he haunts me. And it is not just her.
The boy is almost thirteen. He doesn’t know what I did. Nobody does. And yet, sometimes when he looks at me, his eyes are twin barrels of a shotgun cocked somewhere in his head. I see my death on his face. It is unclear to me how, but I’m certain that, someday, he’ll know. And on occasion, when the night is dark and the air too thick to clear vile thoughts and I feel too small to believe God is listening—I think about forever closing those shotgun eyes before they see right through me.
I breathe in in the coppery smell of her hair. The boy races, and together we cheer.
Bio:
Michael Wegener is a trained chemist and works a day job as a medical writer. His short crime and horror fiction have appeared in Mickey Finn Vol. 3: 21st Century Noir (edited by Michael Bracken), Unnerving Magazine, the Starlite Pulp Review, The Yard, Shotgun Honey, Literary Garage, the SNAFU: Contagion anthology and Schlock! Webzine. He lives in Brunswick, Germany. You may stalk him on IG (@_michael_wegener_) or Bluesky (@michaelwegener.bsky.social).
Karak the Barbarian
by
Patrick Whitehurst
Karak told everyone, “Mine is the name of a barbarian. That’s me, Karak the Conqueror!”
When he threatened his babysitter with his barbarian skills and then choked on his McDonald’s cheeseburger, things changed.
Face turned blue, that hunk of greasy meat lodged in his throat, and Fran was right there.
His babysitter may have had what Karak called a “girl’s” name, but he made up for it with muscle. Scooped the ten-year-old Karak off the floor, flipped him over, and fuck…
Hit him so hard the greasy burger turned into a bullet.
“Dude, I’d never let anything happen to my little man,” Fran said. His dirty blonde hair, feathered to perfection, never fell out of place.
Even now, a decade later, Karak cringed when he remembered it.
With his back on the sidewalk, a knee in his chest, and a switchblade at his throat, he was more like a timid kitten than a warrior. His girl, Gini, ran off when he got jumped. She hauled ass down Cannery Row toward the Monterey Bay Aquarium and disappeared into the night without looking back.
When the man popped open the blade, Karak froze.
“Gimme your wallet, asshole,” he said.
That’s when it all came back to him. The burger, the barbarian shit, and the teenager who saved him.
“Holy shit. Fran? Fran, it’s me, Karak!”
The blade paused at his Adams Apple. Bloodshot eyes regarded him. His dirty blonde hair looked like it hadn’t been combed in weeks.
“Karak? Karak the barbarian…”
“Saved my life when I was a kid. You said…”
“Don’t give a fuck.”
The knife pressed down, broke the skin, went through the jugular and Fran got the wallet.
Bio:
Patrick Whitehurst is the author of several works of fiction and nonfiction, including Monterey Noir and Murder and Mayhem in Tucson. Cutting his teeth as a news reporter on the crime beat, he uses that eye for detail to explore dark history and gritty crime fiction. Find him at patrickwhitehurst.com.
Bobby Plays the Blues
by
Jesse Binger
We’re forty minutes into our set when I see Bobby nodding out. He still nails the bass line but eight beers and a half bottle of Absolut have put him in that place between euphoria and well, crash.
Later, the two of us chat up two groupies. Brunette’s the busty star.
Bobby ends up with the blonde. Second fiddle.
Outside our motel, Bobby’s flailing. It’s all fuck you and you don’t respect me. The other guys trying to hold him back. It’s a fist first then a broken bottle. Sixteen hours at the ER. Pissed ain’t even the word.
***
A pre-release party and we’re playing Bobby’s song. The one he wrote on one of his week-long benders. Brought to me with teary eyes, played awkwardly on my Takamine with twitchy fingers. But it was beautiful then and it’s beautiful now.
Almost wish Bobby was here to see it. But Todd Bends plays a mean bass. Might not be able to walk the dog on a fretless but he shows up on time, hits the high harmony and doesn’t try to fuck up the lead singer.
***
I see him through the crowded bar. Thinner, hollowed-out eyes, head’s shaved now. I nod to him but he doesn’t break eyesight. I hear he’s got another band; even writing all the songs now. He laughs that Bobby laugh. Like he means it.
***
The chick from Rolling Stone’s journalist-cute. She asks the question I’ve been expecting. “Your first bass player, Rob Cafasso?” My mind grinds deep. Bobby and I wrestling on my bedroom floor, paging through old Cream magazines. The first song we learned—Van Morrison’s Gloria. But I say the first thing that comes to my mind, “Drugs, don’t do them, kids.”
And the smirk on my face sickens me.
Bio:
Jesse Binger is a crime fiction writer from New Jersey. His short stories are published or forthcoming at Cowboy Jamboree, Bending Genres, Bristol Noir, Close to the Bone, Revolution John, Pistol Jim Press, Underbelly Press, Villain Era, Yellow Mama and Literary Garage.
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Hitting the sweet spots with humour and harmony. Bless you all.