The Minotauress

'At home, all she does is yell at you—'

'Well, I'm kind of lazy, I need yelling at sometimes—'

'—and I'll bet my ass she's cheating on you,' Ajax finished his avalanche.

Dean tempered himself. 'She is not cheat—'

Ajax shook his head right along with his words. 'And all you do is keep making excuses for her. I'm telling you, man. The reason you're having these Jig-Jags, these waking dreams, is because of her. First you move here— drastic enough of a change—then you marry her. Too much change at once, too much shock-repression. She's turned you into something you're not, and now your psyche is rebelling. No offense, pal, but she's turned you into a pussy-whipped putz.'

'Thanks,' Dean said through the frown.

'Non-REM Imagery Syndrome is no joke, Dean,' Ajax cautioned. He sipped his beer and winced. 'Next step is Multiple-Personality Disorder. These Jig-Jags are telling you something, paisan. You better listen.'

Dean let the foam in the bottom of his glass slide into his mouth. 'Fine, Mr. Freud. What are they telling me?'

'Get back to your true nature. These fantasy images? It's the real you, the genuine primordial you, struggling to get away from what you've become since you got married.'

'The caveman, huh?'

'That's right. It's your Id trying to bust out of the cement your wife has poured over you. Everything about your life now is the polar opposite of what your life was.'

Dean's eyes narrowed. 'What my life was?'

'Sure. Come on! You grew up in bumfuck South Dakota, on a ranch. You've told me all the stories. You were a rough and tumble rancher kicking ass in roadhouse bars, bird-dogging chicks and banging beaver. Shit, you were getting laid when you were twelve!'

Dean's shoulders flinched at the volume of Ajax's last exclamation. 'Tell the whole bar why don't you?'

'Fuck the bar,' Ajax came back. 'Talk about black to white. No wonder you're hallucinating. Everything your psyche meant for you to be has been turned inside out. Do yourself a favor. Get back to your roots. Get back to being what you were: a tobacco-chewing, gash-busting, hard-knocking, give-a-shit son of a bitch.'

Dean didn't buy a word of Ajax's advice, but it was true—in the past, he'd been all those things and more. And getting laid at age twelve? True. 'You don't understand anything,' he said. 'All those things I used to be—that's why I moved here, to get away from that.'

'Bullshit,' Ajax put it bluntly. 'Consciously you believe that, but this is your psyche screaming to get out.' Ajax lit a cigarette, sucked smoke like it was syrup. 'You used to be a hardcore redneck motherfucker. Look at you now.'

Hardcore, Dean thought.

Ajax continued to enthuse, 'Man, you used to artificially inseminate cows. You'd stick your arm all the way down the cow's cooze. Now that's hardcore.'

Dean thought about. Ajax had a point. Being married in Seattle was definitely different from what he'd been used to.

'When the cattle got abscesses, you'd stick your hand right in their mouths and pop out the puss. That's hardcore.'

Back on the farm, Dean had discharged that duty too—watching the ranch dogs scuffle to eat the wads of pus—and now that he thought about it... It was kind of... fun...

'Yes sir, a hardcore farmboy motherfucker,' Ajax said. He drained the last of his beer, then winced.

'Hey, Ajax,' Dean asked. 'How come you wince every time you take a sip of beer?'

'Because the beer sucks. All this candyass Northwest microbrew bullshit?' Ajax waved a dismissive hand. 'It's garbage, taste like fruit.'

'Then why do you drink it?'

''Cos it's all they got here.'

Dean shook his head. 'All right, then if you don't like the beer, why do you come here?'

'Are you kidding?' Ajax seemed dismayed. 'I love looking at these tramp Goth waitresses. They put wood in my shorts.' Then he raised his hand, signaled the girl who'd waited on them. 'Hey, toots? When you get a chance?'

She shuffled over like a corpse on tranquilizers. Her nose ring swung like a doorknocker. 'My name's not toots,' she informed him.

'Aw, gee, I'm sorry,' Ajax apologized. 'Just a figure of speech, you know? So what is your name?'

'Vermillia.'

Ajax bit his lip in order to stifle an outburst. 'Another round, please... Vermillia.'

She shuffled away. The back of her PIERCE ME! T-shirt read I HAD MY CLIT SPLIT AT THE DEVIL DAN'S TATTOO AND PIERCING PARLOR!

'Jeeeeesus Christ,' Ajax murmured. 'That fruitcake bitch? I'd stick my head all the way up her gash and suck her cervix.'

Dean shook his head.

'Oh, and speaking of hardcore,' Ajax tacked on. 'What was that other thing you did back on the ranch, the thing you won the statewide championship for?'

Did Dean's eyes actually sparkle for a moment?

'Horn-cranking,' he answered more to himself. 'And I wasn't just the state champ. I was the best horn-