"You're a Bad Man Aren't You?" (excerpt)
Oh, he was a bad man. He had been terrible since the day he was born, before even then, perhaps. He had cried constantly as a small baby, masturbated obsessively as a young teen, and become the kind of man as an adult who only truly enjoyed himself when he was hurting other people. Now, he wanted to know, what was so wrong with that?
This badness, after all, had taken him to where he was today, sitting in his car in an empty parking lot with his brain like a dog running in a circle on a chain in the yard of his mind. Because, these days, he was King Shit of Turd Hill, a paid propagator of evil, a guy unabashedly enough in touch with his, well, bad self, really, that he made a living off it. Everyone else, he thought, could go and fuck themselves.
He was a pornographer, and he was not ashamed. In fact, he was terrifically proud. He told those who stood around him while he worked that porn stars were like game pieces, and porn sets were like chessboards, and he was like the god who moved them around. He would add, after a pause, But in this game, somebody always gets fucked in the ass! Then, he would laugh, and everyone else would laugh right along with him.
His life was hilarious, actually. Put that in your mouth, put this in your vagina, put the other thing up your butt. The variations were endless. It was their willingness that staggered the mind. The people in front of him were as malleable as freshly pulverized meat. Having been punched by their mothers, screwed by their fathers, and screamed at by their lovers, they stood limply before him and just did whatever he said.
Read the Daze Reader interview with Susannah Breslin here.
You're a Bad Man, Aren't You? is available at Powell's and Amazon.
