SHITSHOOTER

Jenkin Benson

"Anger makes the mouth swell and blackens the blood in the veins" by Pieter van der Heyden

the parched possum

9/29/normalis tempus

the micropolitan is laminated by methane and

oleic acid, a chartreuse polyvinyl.

he suckles the alum lip. and then begins to really hale at it. i preempt another. i am a bauxite salesman.

“my cousin’s gay. or, like, bi or trans or gendercute or something along those lines. he likes genitals. and that’s fine. i mean, god’ll sort that out whether it’s pearly or going from it all.”

two more wattled swigs. i twinge him a grapefruity tallboy 8.7% alcohol. amidst percents and gullets, both of us.

i should pause and admit that i desire to inform you that i am a confessor.

i originate in a thimbleful, a plot of the horizontal plane between rut island, illinois and fort cullings, colorado. it is a drought and drought has taught me about the aquifers and how the aquifers have been daubletted with 143,750,000 gallons of sapience. we celebrate a lot. it pleases me. i want to continue forward with opening the sluice. like a fistula in a steer.

“i just `hnnng` wait .”

the oaf belches. but, it doesn’t sound like emission. it’s a moan, like he’s been clubbed in his ectoplasm. absolutely no eructation of nitrogen. it’s monody.

“people’r too up their chutes nowif youask me.”

his tongue dispossesses any duodenic elegance; bile colognes the frenulum. all of ‘em.

oaf leans in down to the internuclei, mine: epiphainein within the dew point. of course. i comprehend. he is my uncle-in-enforcement, or my step-cousin-of-record, or possesses a surname that’s adjacent to any surname that i know which i have.

“causs back inmy days’f someone insulted youreal hard, you’d jus shruggit off and maybe and maybe stick your chestout if it came to blows time .”

the oaf grips the now empty tallboy, his thenar snuffing the boron. he squeezes it like a public transport strap and he’s afraid of thinking about public. the bus is going somewhere prone to flash floods.

i fire a shotglass over to him, an ounce of mule pissy sap, a local whiskey. the townies call it “scotlick.” 43% abv.

he leers through me.

like a deputy city planner superintendent realtor on billboard prosecutor hvac contractor on billboard driving school instructor local blues rock guitarist feral cat torturer monsanto stockholder storage center landlord trooper truther.

i refill and deliver.

“but itellya some ofit now ifs i was about themen’nd someone tolrd mee shitoff i wulld fuccck inn .”

the oaf is rocking on his stool now. his head is down. i can see his cervicals strain against his neck’s skin’s fidelity. they want to free themselves and immediately get devoured like when baby sea turtles hatch.

the micropolitan is an assize where we all will to acknowledge wrongly. for example: i have been interpellated that the oaf is a father who drills love an intimate coach a joebama w. trump voter a husband that has certainly googled “ectopic” a man who is not furtively a parthenogenetic ben cameron.

“ iid prollyfuhkin `uhhgh` .”

he holds his side like he just ran 800 meters in red wing boots. a few strafes of spit concede down his jaw.

“fuggkin realdoit frr justa once punchandapunch.“

i drool some ancient, unrequested creme brulee vodka into two dainty cylinders, shetland shots really, just over 1.5 ounces.

he double pincers them, acting on erectus instinct. the oaf slarps one. he schlaps the other, his tongue anneliding the glass’s sphincter. he’s not able to sway the second shot into his palate.

and i witness the autolysis of his clade and comport how there are so many portraits in chambers of commerces. when cudding raw on untampered statistics, how can we capture or purchase that the wallys and the rays shouldn’t too also sensate what it means to get the against of a wray.

he relinquishes the vessel and convexes disward.

it is very plausible that the oaf is near consummately dead. or, orbiting the out orbiting the lees.

an outline approaches. they are wearing a coen brothers gag tshirt: “the big lebrewski.” a screenprint of the dude holds up malt, sertolic, “to health”ing in queue.

the outline outbursts, “somebody call the ambulance or some shit!”

figures begin crowding the oaf. one of them starts fleshedly palpating their smartphone. another quivers out dumbshitly,

“is his head all busted tf up?”

then a munlogue from behind our peripheries:

“they’re coming they’re on the coming they’re coming the way they’re.”

now all is hued in prolactin. my prostate grins. my grin has never.

none of their attentions pivot to me. i toddle to the bar’s service flap, hinge it up, and lank at the perimeter of the worry, my motion opaque and flaccid. i am adjacent and far from their mass.

i swivel to the exit.

i am blocks gone.

there is hardware in my hand.

Jenkin Benson is a graduate student, musician, and poet. New Mundo Press published his debut full-length book of poems are we rocking with this? August 2025. Publications and music here: https://linktr.ee/jenkinbenson.