V.

Gee ran over to Jimmy excitedly. “They’re going to use it.”

“What?”

“The GIF. The projectionist downloaded it and Skattered Kunts are going to show in their next set.”

Jimmy stifled a laugh with his fist.

“Hey, are these your friends?”

“Yeah. Gee, meet,” Jimmy waved his hand in order, “Danny, Wingnut, and Queef.”

“Well, you kiddies have fun, I see they have a bar an’ I ‘ave cash for a skinful,” Danny said and sauntered over to the over-21 section.

Wingnut asked Gee, “Skattered Kunts, they any good?”

“Well, if you don’t mind New Wave,” Gee said.

Wingnut thought and said, “…” before Jimmy interjected, “None of these knuckleheads would admit it, but they love all retro shit,” and rubbed Wingnut’s fuzzy dome.

They joined Gee’s friends and watched the band take the stage again.

The lights went down and started pulsing. Heavy beats and guitar riffs blasted through the club for another 15 minutes before the lead singer made an announcement, “We have a something special for you guys tonight,” a drumroll sounded, “in honor of Trump and the troops!”

The drum roll built to a crescendo, the lead guitarist ripped out a Hendrix-style solo of “The Star Spangled Banner,” and fleshy images played over the band.

Someone had deep-faked the faces of Trump, Ivanka, and Jared Kushner onto a ménage à trois porno. The Jared-not-Jared ate the Trump-not-Trump’s ass as he fucked the Ivanka-not-Ivanka.

The guitar grew to a growling sonic wall.

Ivanka-not-Ivanka deepthroated Jared-not-Jared, who shared a kiss with Trump-not-Trump.

Danny vaulted over the railing and ran up to his boys and they sang in unison a football chant: “Oh say can’t you see by the dawn’s early light, the Cheeto we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming, whose wide ass and loud mouth through the perilous fight, like a pile of shit we watched so gallantly steaming, and Youtube’s red glare, the Jews screaming on air, gave proof through the night that our Cheeto savior was still there. Oh say does the blowhard shitlord yet save, o’er the land of the buttfucked and the home of the cucked!”

The boys then threw up their hands in a straight-armed salute, crying “Oi! Oi! Oi!” as the music ended.

A space had cleared around them, faces plastered in WTF expressions.

Danny stared back. “Well, fuck. Got humor?”

Nothing happened. The band left the stage and the house music came back on. The skinheads muscled their way over to Gee and her friends.

Gee raised her eyebrows. “Well, that’s something you don’t see every day.”

Jimmy stumbled a little. “Sure, shit. Wooooooo!”

One second, Jimmy was focused on Gee’s disapproving glare. The next, the world was sucked away in a blur and he was airborne. He impacted a wall knocking all the air out of him; it felt like a basketball made of steel suddenly inflated in his guts.

“Fucking Nazi!”

A giant human beach ball with spiked hair slammed against him again. Lefts and rights hooked into Jimmy’s guts. He clasped his hands together over his head and drove them down into the sloppy fuck’s back.

“Naz—!”

Beach Ball belly-flopped to the ground. Jimmy dropped an ax kick to his kidney. The guy spasmed like a crescent, slamming his own face back into the floor loud enough for his breaking teeth to be heard. Wingnut ran up and kicked him in the ass. Danny and Queef weren’t far behind when Jimmy waved his hands for them to stop.

“Time to skedaddle, bros!” Jimmy said.

Too late.

Beach Ball’s friends closed in on them, throwing out the N-word and swinging. Some Marlin Manson-looking motherfucker got in Danny’s face. Danny faked a left and let loose with a right cross into Manson’s teeth.

Queef caught a guy charging in behind the head and gut punched him in the solar plexus.

Some of the attackers broke off and attacked Gee and Sher. Jimmy jerked one guy back by the hair and performed a single-leg takedown.

Jimmy shouted, “Vam-mos chiquitas!” as the doormen made for them.

Sher called out to her friends, “We can’t stay here!”

“Dude, I knew this was a bad idea!” Queef blurted out.

“We ever ‘ave any good ones!” Danny answered.

The crowd pushed in on them; the bouncers pressed forward.

Shouts went up.

“Get the Nazis!”

“Let it go!”

“Fuck them!”

A muscled-out dude in a tight black T-shirt put Danny in a headlock and dragged him towards the entrance.

Danny said, “Okay, okay, we’re going, bro.”

Someone punched Danny in the stomach; he lashed out with a kick. A latex-clad twink crumpled up on the floor.

A multitude of shoves pressed on their backs. Skinny repeated, “Hey, hey, hey, we’re going, we’re going.”

Jimmy’s crew and Gee’s friends were forced out onto the sidewalk, where two police cruisers were waiting.

Silent, the emergency lights flashed. Four patrol officers greeted them. The crowd and the bouncers all backed off Jimmy’s group.

Four skinheads, four goths hung in the gulf on the sidewalk.

Mobile phones came out ready to record.

A rotund patrol sergeant came forward. His nametag read “Bennett.”

“We got a call about a disturbance. And who do we have? The resident loser PENI-wannabe shitheads with some freak losers.”

Some of the crowd booed and hissed.

Danny stepped forward, and in his most posh voice, said, “Now, my good Sergeant Bennett, I take umbrage to being associated with a bunch of common criminals. My friends and I are a club of young working lads, and our Gothic associates are mere bystanders.”

The sergeant pulled his duty belt up and placed his hands akimbo before puffing up his chest, “And the fuck is that supposed to mean, punk?”

“Okay, boomer,” Danny said to the sergeant and bowed, “come on my fellows, we must go and see what the night holds for us. Woooooohooooooo!”

The motley gang of nine ran off into the night.

A couple of people from the club began to follow, and Sergeant Bennett said, “Don’t even think about it.”

VI.

Not knowing where to go, not having a destination, the group gravitated towards the boulevard. Boots tamped the desolate back streets as eight ghosts, eight pale faces, trodded along. Under exotic scented eucalyptus, California fan palms, past tangles of manzanita and sweet-smelling jasmine, they passed until they came to a deserted park.

Dew was collecting on the fresh cut grass, California live oaks sighed in the soft autumn breeze.

They plopped on some benches in the glow of Joe’s Food and Liquor across the street. Neon signs promised blissful respite in the form of Budweiser, Jack Daniels, and other assorted soma.

Danny called to the group, “Hey-oh! Show of hands: who wants some Steel Reserve?”

Several hands went up. The girls threw up both.

Sher asked, “What happened to your accent?”

“Never had one. I’m from Modesto,” Danny quipped.

Gee and Sher, the cool girls they were, rolled a couple of joints. Adequately provisioned, the group chatted away.

Skinny opened first, “So, are you guys like really hardcore racists or something?”

Queef shrugged, Jimmy smirked, and Wingnut spoke, “Maybe I just don’t like the average negro or beaner anymore than they like me. If these Aztlan assholes can claim Aztland and play up their ancestors ripping out hearts, why can’t I channel some bad mofo energy of my own?”

Skinny then said, “Fair enough, but are you even German?”

Wingnut rubbed his fuzz. “Well, like a quarter. But the point is since we was little and in school, all these teachers constantly harp on the all the bad shit whitey did, I’m like, ‘Well, might as well go with the baddest white motherfuckers they keep talking about.’ I’m not out there selling drugs, shooting up a block to settle a score.”

“And it’s fucking hilarious to see people lose their shit,” Jimmy added.

Wingnut agreed, “And that too.”

“But don’t you feel guilty promoting an ideology that murdered millions of people?” Skinny said.

Queef shook his head. “We don’t promote shit, we just are. Fuck, I don’t know a word of German. Plus, that shit happened like what, a hundred years ago? Check the history books; World War II was nothing but a murderfest.”

“What Queef-man said. I don’t give a shit about politics. Democrats want war, the Republicans want war, so they send the poor. Army press gangs don’t seem to fuck with racialists. Either—”

Jimmy butted in, “Yo, Skinny, which side of the boulevard you live on?”

Skinny said, “South of the boulevard off Pico. Why?”

Jimmy continued, “Okay, you feelin’ much white privilege down there?”

Skinny thought for a moment. “I can sorta see what you’re saying. But we still have it better than people of color. You or I can’t understand what it’s like to be a minority.”

“I got to stop you there, because holmes, I’m half-Mexican. But I see pics from the Middle East, and it seems like combat units are still like 90 percent white. Guys who look like me even though, what, white guys are less than half the draft age population,” Jimmy said.

Wingnut grabbed his sack. “They ain’t getting my white nuts.”

“Yeah man, like, ‘white guys save the world like in doubleya doubleya two, just don’t expect any privilege.’” Queef sucked in a lungful of pot. “Thanks.” And he handed the spliff back to Sher, who added, “You do know the chances of being drafted are low?”

Sher took a drag and blew a massive cloud of pot smoke past her blue-black lips.

Danny returned, carrying a case of Steel Reserve under each arm.

“I leave you guys for a few minutes and shit goes all political. Fucking pot, man,” he said, digging into the cases passing out cans.

He offered the first beer from the case to Sher. Taking it, she said, “Oh, my savior!”

“A beer girl. I thought you’d turn it down and complain I didn’t get any Vlad,” Danny said.

Sher giggled.

In turn, Danny doled out the libations, saying, “I wonder how many counts of ‘corruption of a minor’ I’d get? Probably count each can against me.”

When Danny got to the fourth member of the goth quartet, he said, “Don’t talk much, do you? What’s your name?”

The kid, slightly built and dressed in Corcoran tanker boots and a black hoodie—the only bright spot was a silver Celtic cross around his neck—answered in a papery-thin voice, “Azazel.” Sinking back within himself, Azazel took his beer in silence.

Sher said, “Azie’s always been anti-social. Back in school, they labeled him S.E.D.”

“Yeah, sophomore year, some Chad was picking on Azie. So Azie flips his shit and pounds the fuck out of him,” Skinny said.

“Solid bro,” Danny said as he gave Azie a light punch in the shoulder. “So what were you little yobbos talking about?”

Wingnut cracked a huge a grin and said, “Niggers.”

“Oh, God.” Sher rolled her eyes.

“Everyone’s favorite big pimpin’, muh-diking, ooking, dope-slinging, bitch-ass home boys? Yeah, what the fuck about them?” Danny said.

Everyone laughed.

Steel Reserve flowed.

They talked some more.

Real heart-to-heart stuff.

Jimmy and Skinny were gassed. On his fourth beer, Skinny noticed something.

He giggled and looked at Jimmy. “Um, hey, where’s Sher?”

Bleary-eyed, Jimmy worked up enough focus to look around. “Shit, dude, you’re right. Let’s go look for her.”

***

For all installments of “On the Boulevard Under the Swastika: A Heartwarming Tale of Hate,” click here.

Previous installments:

  1. Part 1