JACK ON FIRE

It's quite a feeling. It sounds gross. If you haven't done it then you can't really talk. You're in a Las Vegas hotel, you and a famous telepath are sharing a hot tub filled with champagne. It doesn't matter how many cigars you accidentally drop into the froth, you keep drinking and light another.

48 hours later, you're in the desert watching your best friend being skinned alive. The telepath shoots you a text:

Whassup. Picking
up bad vibes but
ur far away. Lay
the scoop down
on a brotha

Vultures circle. "This is payment," you think. Caught up in the rapture of the telepath's glitz, you quit writing the New England Scene Report column for a famous punk zine without giving notice, sold your roommate's bike, and wrote "Happy Hallowe'en" on the mirror before leaving. In the distance still, The Enforcers were edging closer.

to be continued