Badbadbad Read online

  badbadbad

  a transmedia novel

  Jesús Ángel García

  Critical Acclaim

  “A dark, erotic and fun adventure… a momentum-gaining rollercoaster of faith and desire which spirals into the most entertaining kind of destruction.”—Jon Reiss (Vol. 1 Brooklyn)

  “Jesus Angel Garcia blows religion up blimp-size and lights taboos like Molotov cocktails tossed on a manicured, Christian lawn in his biblical, technologically charged landscape.... bursting at the seams with fascinating women who are outrageous in their demands and crackling with desire.”—Antonia Crane (The Rumpus)

  “The prose is as razor sharp as you’d expect in old hardboiled paperbacks, with the same juxtaposition of opposites creating the same tension we’ve come to love from the genre, and the cover is designed with the same campy grittiness in mind. badbadbad, however, isn’t a pulp novel, but a taut psychological examination, a blueprint into madness.... This is an important distinction to note because the novel is shot through with this sentiment, this idea of covertness, of hidden layers, of people masquerading as things they’re not.”—Nik Korpon (Electric Literature’s The Outlet)

  “Garcia is a vigorous and hugely talented writer... [who] aims to unsettle your assumptions about class, about gender, about sex, about religion, about identity: in short, about yourself, and what it means to be human in an inhuman world.”—James Greer (North of Onhava)

  “badbadbad comes across as the combined literary effort of Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut and Robert Anton Wilson: subtle word play, bizarre humor and unorthodox paradoxes, packaged in sizzling verbal pyrotechnics. (5 stars)”—Randall Radic (Seattle Post Intelligencer)

  “Think of badbadbad as a well studied mix in between... American Psycho and Heath Lowrance’s The Bastard Hand… a novel that has the purest goals: to examine what we do with the darkest human emotions and the most painful longings.”—Benoit Lelievre (Dead End Follies)

  “Finally, badbadbad degenerates into a blur of violence, obsession, addiction, paranoia, and deception, all told by a narrator who refuses to analyze his actions and motivations and past, or even to define himself, leaving the reader to pass judgment. It is in this process, when we are called to be judge and jury... that starts us wondering about what truly defines who we are and what we do.”—Robert Kloss (Red Fez)

  “The writing is top-notch, smart and carefully playful, transcending its pulp-fiction clothing. Any author who can write the line, ‘We embraced like lovers at the threshold of the void,’ and have it sound like the perfect words at the perfect time, is doing something right.”—Todd Hebert (Not About Religion)

  “The pain that goes on in this story is so real, so alive... Jesús brings you along, not only as a witness, but as a companion out there in the dark with the flourishes and leanings of a beat poet. Despite badbadbad being García’s debut novel, he handles the narrative with the hands of an experienced guide, making the turn toward the next page all the more reason to find out what happens next, what’s around the next corner, where is that next wow moment.”—Sean P. Ferguson (The Velvet/Ferghova)

  “The novel is its own experiment in splicing together elements of religion, technology and 21st century personality crisis. The story of badbadbad is the age-old conflict between want and need, of the search for paradise and lunch, one man’s sudden awakening to life’s duality.”—Mark Bromberg (Bellemeade Books: Writing About Reading)

  “A narrative wherein the desires of disparate communities are revealed to be not so different after all—wherein addiction, manipulation, and insincerity exist alongside transcendence, radical freedom, and utter authenticity.”—Spencer Dew (decomP)

  “The prose, dialogue and characters are rock solid, the sex scenes refreshingly unembarrassing, and this shit’s often funny and wicked smahht.”—Nerd of Noir (Spinetingler)

  “JAG starts over as both a servant of God and a sexual messiah in a double life worthy of Ed Wood.”—Jedidiah Ayres (Ransom Notes: Barnes & Noble Mystery Blog)

  “Simultaneously funny and horrifying: the pages turn on their own, and the reader has a good time on one wild ride.”—Jason Lee Miller (Gloom Cupboard)

  “badbadbad reveals a new brand of lust for life and a new kind of lost generation.”—Karen Lillis (Karen the Small Press Librarian)

  Advance Praise

  “An exhilarating and frightening book, badbadbad is about the laying of hands—to heal, to arouse, to end—a weird, funny, fucked-up love letter of love and violence from a Son to a son. Jesús Ángel García’s protagonist was made in the likeness of God, and God is an animal.”—Lindsay Hunter, author of Daddy’s

  “If Philip Roth and Flannery O'Connor had a disinherited love child who worked simultaneously for Jimmy Swaggart and The Advocate, he might grow up to write a novel like Jesús Ángel García’s badbadbad.”—Kyle Minor, author of In the Devil’s Territory

  “Jesús Ángel García has given us a story that not only mimics but answers our manic, semi-virtual lives and the question of how to redeem ourselves: a rollicking, sexy, razor-witted romp with heart.”—MelissaFebos, author of Whip Smart

  “badbadbad is a blasphemous literary adventure. Jesús Ángel García is more than a powerful new voice of our generation; his cult is bent on taking over heaven and earth.”—Tony DuShane, author of Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk

  “Jesús Ángel García successfully merges the pulpy feel of those old-fashioned gas station novels with something as dark and surreal as a David Lynch film.”—Michael Seidlinger, author of The Day We Delay

  “badbadbad is a strange, off-trail romp through a Deep South inhabited by Born Again preachers and twisted badbadbad girls. The ghosts of Elmer Gantry and Chester Himes haunt this hip-hop vision of the new South.”—Jonathan Woods, author of Bad Juju

  “Wholly unique . . . often funny, and profane, and strange, even sexy. . . . badbadbad reads like a fever dream.”—Ryan Sloan, author of The Plagiarists

  “I loved your book . . . paralleling sex and faith as desperate grasps at redemption.”—Moxie Mezcal, author of Concrete Underground

  “The story shows an appreciation for the vulnerability of women.”—Lauren Becker, editor of Corium Magazine

  “A Mulholland Drive mindfuck.”—Ashley McCall, critic at Sacramento Book Review

  “Amazing music descriptions, sexy sex scenes, and at times laugh-out-loud hilarious.”—Joy Lusco, TV writer for The Wire

  Copyright © 2011 by Jesús Ángel García

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by an information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  First eBook Edition, November 23, 2011

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons or institutions—living, dead or otherwise—is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  García, Jesús Ángel.

  badbadbad / Jesús Ángel García – first ebook edition

  1. Intimacy in e-culture – Fiction. 2. Sexual morality – Fiction.

  3. Transmedia novel – Fiction. 4. Psychology of loss – Identity Politics.

  5. Fallenangels – Social Media.

  + + +

  Also available in paperback from New Pulp Press.

  _____________

  This first-edition ebook published by PostPulp Productions.

  Transmedia (soundtrack and documentary film) available at badbadbad.net.

  a confession

  to my little brother

  ~

  f
or my son

  Table of Contents

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  ONE

  It started with a hamburger. Whopper, large fries, Diet Coke. No, something with more meat. A political exchange, at the bus stop outside Piggly Wiggly.

  “You’re a fan,” I said, pointing at her badge, The President Is the Commander-in-Chief. It was pinned at quarter-thigh where the denim fringe of her Daisy Dukes peeked out like tendrils. This girl was live.

  “The president know what good for us,” she said and I believed her. I gazed at her belly ring, a simple hoop, fake gold, then down to the button fly, unbuttoned, her candy cane triangle below. “We should trust every decision he make. He know right from wrong.”

  “I’ll take your word,” I said. “Me, I’m not much into politics.”

  “Me neither,” she whispered. “This for work.”

  I zoomed in on the red-white stripes of her two-piece. “You’re a lifeguard.”

  She poked me in the chest. “Yeah right.”

  “Life’s a beach,” I said.

  She had never been to the beach, if we’re to believe what she told me, and I don’t see why we shouldn’t. I talked big on my full tank of gas, tried to persuade her to get her feet wet. She insisted she was on the clock.

  “You could call it training,” I said. She stared at me with anime eyes. “I’ll drown and you save me.”

  “Shut up,” she said, taking my hand in hers.

  I was fortune’s son.

  Now there’s French fries in her teeth, between her lips, glossed with orange, outlined black like her eyes, and her hair, streaked with fire strands, midnight at the oasis. She glanced up at me, switched the radio to Nelly, rocked her blouse off her shoulder, mocha cream, silk with sweat, pink glitter. Her top too big for her size, I expected she’d tumble out at the next speed bump. I punched the pedal, stopped short at a crosswalk, apologized for the rock ‘n’ roll.

  She grinned, digging her fingers into the bag, peeling wax paper from the meat. Her nails were long, slick with swirls. Sparkly letters spelled R-O-Y-A-L on each hand. She bit into the burger with a girlish eyeroll. Her appetite was man-size, her cheeks chipmunked. I’d never before seen such freckles. She was a saint who didn’t know it, hadn’t yet answered the call. A superhero at nineteen, she tagged herself a whore. “I’m just a hoe,” she said.

  So naïve, out of practice, I didn’t realize, didn’t let myself know. I pegged her for a bop, that’s all. She was at the bus stop, had never been to the beach. She said she was hungry. At least I could feed her.

  We passed a blockbuster billboard. She said she’d never seen a movie.

  “Shut up,” I said.

  “God’s truth.”

  I promised her beach and a movie.

  “I sposed to be workin,” she told me again. Then she asked if I wanted to have personal fun. I wasn’t sure what that would look like. “What it look like to you?” she said. I told her something sweet like you and me and the beach and the movies. She waved me on, not taking me serious. I revved the engine, amped the sounds.

  When not watching the road I watched her mouth as she opened wide and chewed and sipped. After another verse she singsonged: “Personal fu-un?”

  I tugged at my shirt front as the chorus steamed over us. “Not for coinage,” I said. “You’re not a slot machine.”

  She said she could be. “Zing zing?” Then she jiggled with conviction, bunnyhopping in her seat to the rhyme and the beat. She was fast, this live girl, a seasoned professional.

  “No, you’d have to really get with me,” I struggled to explain. “Both of us together, same time and place, that sort of fun.”

  She shrugged. “No fun for the hoe, nope.” She popped her p like a school kid. Her lips were split cumquats. She didn’t like sex. “Don’t have to,” she said.

  “So what, I’m supposed to pretend?”

  “You pay for the privilege of bein happy.”

  “I don’t pay for sex.” Once I heard myself I knew I sounded like a narrow bastard. I tried to take it back.

  “That’s what all y’all think,” she said. “But y’all dead wrong.”

  I fumbled for the words. She spread her legs, wagged her knees, kissing the bag between her thighs. “I need something real.” That’s me sounding off again. I couldn’t help myself. Fries in her mouth, her lips on the straw. “I have to do . . . it has to be . . . right.”

  “All kindsa right,” she said. She was truthtelling. “Like right now.” She pulled a greasy fry to her teeth, tapped it three times, spun it round like a magic wand then fed it my way, nails trailing on my cheek.

  We drove for a couple more songs. She recollected how she’d come down south to Gethsemane from Newark where she first pulled a train. Head only. Always with a wrap. She was done with school by tenth grade. Her mama couldn’t care for her and all her little brothers and sisters and her cousins were moving in. So she left with this guy who’s supportive of her work. When I said she could do something else, she clapped her knees. The bag between her thighs gasped. “This what I do,” she said. “You don’t want personal fun, fine. Take me back where I got on.”

  “No beach?”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “No action adventure? Romantic comedy?”

  She tore off another mouthful, rang her man up on a cell phone. “He a fuckin faggot.” Her voice was hard. “Where we at?” I’d cut across a gap in the median, heading back now the way we’d come. “Where we at?” She wanted to know how long. I told her two songs. Ten minutes max.

  I scanned the preset stations while she kept on the phone, laughing too loud, acting, I could tell, though not sure who’s the audience. She half-leaned out the window like a dog, hair whipped back in black lightning bolts. Traffic, wind noise, busted CD player, no good songs on the FM. She sideways glared at me. “Fuckin faggot.” The only words I could make out. Then: “Castles Made of Sand.” I needed this music.

  I pushed the volume, fixed my mind on the six-string and the haze of the highway. Midafternoon, mid March, already it was hard to breathe with the air conditioner beat. I expected the engine to give out any day. I’d need a miracle, same as this girl, who in truth was a lot like me. She didn’t have it in her to change her path. I figured she’d be dead in no time and she couldn’t care less.

  When the DJ called a Two for Tuesday Hendrix Doubleshot, I thought God’s on my side. It could happen. Then I recognized the opening alarm of “Crosstown Traffic.”

  I can’t not see the ex when I hear this tune. She ground me into the glassphalt, hit-and-run, left for roadkill.

  I let the guitar play. Music is the master of the universe. I’d run tracks across her back, I promised myself.

  But I never said nothing, I swear, bro. Not a word, and I had every right. She stole away with my infant son. I would never see him again, she told me. I couldn’t let that be.

  I was a good husband, a good father. I was there for her and for my son, always for him. She was nowhere.

  Now she’s holed up with her folks out here among the churches, malls and office parks, high school football stadiums, paintball forests, wild boar kills, games with Glocks, rifles, AKs, bows and arrows. Kids in this town still play cowboys and Indians, I know it. I won’t let my son grow up like that. />
  I took the next exit, told her sorry for the upset. She was off the phone now. “No worries,” she said. “My man at the stop. He waitin.” She looked out her window.

  My stomach flipped. I didn’t like her tone. I didn’t want to know her man and I sure as hell didn’t want him knowing me. Coming up on an intersection, I slowed before the light, pulled over to the curb. I would let her off here.

  “Devil fool!” she yelled at me, rubbernecking nearly out of her seat. “White man with a young black girl, you trippin, keep on.”

  I swerved into traffic, breath tight, beet-faced. “Damn faggot.” She speed-dialed. “Where you at?” I crossed the light as the yellow turned. “Fool bitch tryin to punk me out. Sheeeit.”

  I bounded into the parking lot, barely braking, front fender scraping on a drop and rise in the pavement. “Please,” I said. “I don’t want trouble.”

  She looked at me like I was nothing. Less than.

  I tried another tack. “Get . . . the fuck out.” I meant to sound like there was something behind my words.