A Little Black Book of Noir Stories by Tom Piccirilli

Author:Tom Piccirilli [Piccirilli, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: noir, suspense short stories
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2020-07-03T00:00:00+00:00

Inside the Works

Art, sex, and madness crawled and spun side by side down deep inside the Works; the walls dripped with drama, floors covered in genius, soul, and a phalanx of talent. Torn pages of poetry lay strewn in the halls beside broken guitars and drum sticks, soiled ballet slippers, condoms used and unopened, splatters of paint and blood as rats squeaked in the shadows.

The door to Fruggy Fred’s suite was open. He lay in bed with a couple of empty bottles of Tequila, crushed lemons, and two sleeping members of his band, the Wrong-Faced Babies, saw me coming through the door, but he was far too wasted to do anything more than grin and mumble. Most of Fruggy’s four hundred pounds were in the bed, with only a few of his outer pale and bloated rolls hanging over the sides of the mattress like tumors. His tongue lolled onto one of the Babies’ shoulders, their hairy, sweaty chests sliding against one other with each breath.

I slapped his door shut and kept going, amazed at the amount of renovation d’Outremal had put into the Works in the months I’d been gone. It didn’t take long to realize he’d not only bought out the entire warehouse, but the whole city block, even the rubble of the projects at the end of the street where a vast twisted vegetable garden now crept among the brick dust and dog shit. From what I could see, he’d split the place into nearly thirty separate areas including communal living quarters, private suites, a small museum and showroom, theater stage, sound rooms, and a bar. I couldn’t see it, but someone had mentioned there was now also an abortion clinic. A combination tattoo and piercing station was packed with clients. Small classes of five to ten people were being given in rape prevention, tap dance, horticulture, and how to correctly camouflage a cannabis garden.

Scattered in the darkened corners and corridors of the Works people were sleeping, sketching, going through scenes of Edward Albee plays, dropping acid, masturbating and making love. Two women, hands locked behind their backs, leaned forward kissing passionately, murmuring sonnets; I watched for a while. d’Outremal had opened the doors wide but the chemistry hadn’t changed much. Keyboards clattered and whispers of music rang in the studios, which still hadn’t been properly sound-proofed. The remaining Wrong-Faced Babies, drummer and bassist, were laying down some final tracks, and the bass thrummed.

This type of artistic coalition hadn’t been seen since Warhol’s Factory, and though the Works wasn’t so self-indulgent as that, it reeked of the same posture. Retro-Sixties counter-culture meets Generation X, Y, and Z, along with a stew of malcontents, curious voyeurs, lost souls, and geniuses.

I cut across the show room, surprised at how much more art had been added, the amazing quality of some of the pieces, set side by side those composed by the blatantly insane.

Hiding behind a statue of Kali, the death-mother, entwined with Moses, her four hands stroking an erection that peeked out between the stone tablets, sat Brandenburg.

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