We live in a city of ghosts. Face it or get out. The only way to solve anything in
this twisted sideshow attraction is to keep one foot in each world. We aren’t here to
make friends. We aren’t even here to be liked. We spike our drinks with arsenic and
comb our hair with a fish ribcage. We know every bar fly by smell, every specter by
intuition, and every relic that cake walks Sunset Strip. We know all worth knowing, and
some not. We use our fists instead of guns and our insecurities instead of our wits. We
see faces that aren’t there and hear voices that don’t belong to anyone. We allow the
strangeness to exist. Our only obligation is to keep up the lie. Keep the circus lit. And
the great Ferris wheel tumbling. We won’t solve your case…but we’ll make it interesting.
We are Two Dead Boys Detective Agency and this is our mission statement.
twodeadboysdetectiveagency@gmail.com
I’ve seen the enemy…and we are it…
A jawless infant twists its arms toward her charred tits and unwelcoming womb. She lays on my bed. Her legs contort and bend and welcome me into her. Light breaks in on our little world through a rip in the curtain and all of a sudden it’s not okay to be crude. Frayed furniture will soon be our kindling and we’ll exist off of each other. Muscles react separately from the brain function. Get thee to a mouth organ. Ancient pornographic photos plastered on the wall with spots of what I imagine to be blood and a little hatchet rest on the bureau. Phone rings and it’s my partner. I let it go to voicemail and allow myself to exist in a time where this didn’t happen. The world is cruel. I leave her in the bed and go outside and walk past the cars. Past the little shops. The little apartment windows. I walk till pavement is far behind me. Into the hills. Into another time. I see the cemetery gates and the lady in blue waltzing amongst the tombstones. She recognizes me from the corner of her cats eye. Her lifeless heart aflutter by my presence…she sighs in relief and accepts me with open arms.
It’s always midnight if you don’t know how your vcr works. If you lost the manual. Or noon. Those who choose noon and those who choose midnight: Noon is a fed time. Noon is a warm time. Noon is lunch breaks with friends. Midnight is keen or be killed. Midnight is hungry. Midnight is sharp and chilled. Midnight is keeping your hands in the pockets as a bluff. Midnight is insane heart beats and walking too fast to be slowed. Midnight is visible breath. Midnight is places to be. Midnight is happening. Tonight.
I build my gallows high enough so that my feet never have to touch the ground. Twisted copper on the asphalt with a cocktail of broken glass. A war zoned tenant building with a good natured preacher sprawled faceless on the cities lawn. A middle finger to good intentions. A word is a word is a word. Shapeless models drilling holes in my head while a curvaceous waitress remains disinterested in what I’m selling and this girl to my left is criminally young. A series of ill decisions make a road map that leads to where I sit. The roof is leaking and the phone hasn’t made a noise since March. The roaches collect the dust from angels and rear their ugly little domes in self defense. Strong getting stronger and making their stance against the bottom of my shoe. Filed down my front tooth to a lethal sharpness to make a point. Punctured the silicon lip I was kissing. Went to the bathroom to clean myself but ended up washing more than just dirt away. Building my pyramid of debt and laughing in defeat. Walks get weirder and days get longer and even the royal court has an opinion of me. “He has a wit about him but his general dumbness is overwhelming. His cockeyed cynicism suggests he has never been enlightened. In our opinion he is a royal waste of time. Mr. McGaffey where do we stand with that machine? You know the one that gets rid of the human equivalent of a dust bunny?” Walk down Hollywood BLVD for three blocks so you can really rub it in. “Spit shine the sidewalk for us rube! Then curb stomp that starlet.” Trash bins and Glasgow grins. Keep building them higher you aren’t going anywhere but down. No cellphone reception by the Hollywood sign. And too much cellphone reception downtown amongst the capitol. And every prophet Boyle Heights has to offer is a dick. Nowhere to go. Nothing to take in. Go East and buy land. Stalk the property of the wealthy uptown but know your place you gilded sot. You ungrateful pariah. You psychologically abrupt nomad. Build my gallows high so that even when I fall I never have to hit the ground. The Mitchum look alike hobo plays my requiem on his bent trumpet but every other note is coming out flat…
There’s power in a name. I know that you of all people understand that. When people know your name, they gain insight into something that you’ve carried with you your entire life. The moment they hear you say it, they know whether or not you carry it proudly. They can tell if you’re at all uncomfortable inside your own name. It shows. And it spells out the difference between someone who could kill if they had to, and someone who could not. So what does it mean when a person withholds their name?
She’s under the sea by now.
No, don’t say that.
She’s been stripped for parts.
She’s a doornail.
Stop it.
The city has her. The city doesn’t care if we want her back.
She’s tire dust. She’s all breathed up.
She’s in the lungs of our children.
She’s gone. She never fucking was.
She’s always been missing.
Then why are we out here?
Why are we this fucking cold? Up this fucking early?
She’s become a hypothetical.
She’s become a hope.
There’s not even a picture anymore.
Well, maybe there is, but we looked under the seat for an hour and couldn’t find it.
It’s too early to get drunk.
And it’s too early to be drunk.
And what good are we if anything should happen in our sleeping bags, with the warmth of irish coffee and snacking garbage encasing us. In a car with one working door.
Are we ready for action you think?
In a moment’s notice?
If the man in the house comes out?
See’s our auspicious stake-out?
Big red and blue Larvae, crammed into the front of a 4X4 with 18 bottles of chocolate milk and lots of jerky.
For shame.
If she’s dead, we killed her
With our lack of subtlety.
There’s sfumatic blooming around the tail lights of all the cars in front of us, and a city of old joints aches for rain already.
What’s one more hand written name on these old steps, if it keeps the investigation alive?
The mist smells like stale sentences, in from Santa Monica.
Who are we going to see?
We check our wrists for the first name, written backwards for descretionary purposes.
The transfat flavored street lamps of LA.
The fake popcorn butter white balance.
The time wasted on bad sources and freckled bloggers w/ boyfriends in bands with names from books about bad people.
The time spent on waiting.
The thing about movies is there’s no waiting.
And few people wish there was.
And if the door person’s one who does and she’s into eye contact, then we’re golden.
And who are we here to see?
Check the palmistry files.
Classified under the left chi-crease, this dame is a card carrying singer song-writer and
PROUD
if facebook’s any guide.
Videos of two thirds of a face and most of a popguard.
Resting on laurels.
Picking wedgies in public to establish dominion.
Renting eye contact.
As steep as netflix is all of a sudden.
Who are we here to see??
The door person is asking.
and Band names have become difficult to retain for me since the DaDa Jazz quote ‘Movement’.
Then Jeptha’s making tea later on at his place.
And we’re Swapping James Mason croaks.
Conversing, caught in herzong potholes.
We say, almost at the same time:
Let’s imagine hand writing can actually tell you something about a person other than how early on they learned to let people in.
Let’s imagine that if we ask the tables and chairs and palpably evocotive desks in this room what has taken place before them, we will be able to hear and be answered.
Let’s imagine that writing our names is what keeps us alive, like breath.
Let’s pretend that names hold power.
And let’s figure out who we’re here to see.
