Gears: A Collection - Alex Pruteanu

bong is taking a break from the normal bard to suggest a book well worth reading, not only for the gorgeous stories told therein but for a meaningful glimpse into just how short fiction is done and done proper.



gears is 372 pages without a word wasted. concise and brilliantly effective, piece after piece.


check out the gears give away on goodreads and the gears: a collection page to purchase.

BongisBard Shares: Short Lean Cuts - Alex M. Pruteanu

I've followed Alex M. Pruteanu for a couple years now? Alex consistently bangs out bits of short flash that immediately rip and plunk the reader into another mindset, another scene. He writes the common line of the too self aware: being the banality of both hope and despair. Capturing such inversion isn't an easy feat in writing. To break it down and bleed it out is an entirely brittle process and Alex has mastered such constructive nihilism with "Short Lean Cuts".

"It has nothing to do with altruism, this record I'm leaving here. Nothing has anything to do with unselfish regard or devotion to others. the key to salvation is how much attention you get. You realize that if there'd been a low turnout at the crucifixion, they'd have rescheduled. You realize that if Jesus Christ had died in a hole, or some shit prison with no witnesses or no one there to mourn or torture Him, we wouldn't be saved."

See, that's the kind of mind blow i read for. Exactly that.

And funny, of course. One should always lol while reading a man who's 'breaking down'.
Example - one of my favorite lines (ever):
"I'm too fat for this kind of jihad"
I mean, that should be like america's collective fb status - eternally.

The thing that "Short Lean Cuts" displays so effectively is the one truth people mostly can't stand to recognize. I won't specify, because truth is subjective and there's yer trouble. huh? Whatever no one ever gets it.

I found each chapter to be a standalone layer. I was a little pissed when it ended. I wanted more, it felt abrupt but surely that was the intention. I read it twice and will surely read it again. Yes - it is that entertaining, I partake in no literary circle jerks. It's hard to find something on the internets worth reading more than once.


 “Short Lean Cuts,” available as an e-book at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Paperback is now available from Amazon Publishers.

Nth Week in Rehab - Alex Pruteanu

I’ll tell you this.
the last time I burned rock in the glass dick
they found me in a Santa suit walking up and down Military Trail
throwing bags of shit at cars and reciting Kierkegaard outloud.
I woke up in the drunk tank
in Hallandale Beach Florida
next to a Cuban tranny
who was urinating in my hair entertaining the other men.
Over here
the addiction you have
is replaced with the addiction to God.
The Twelve Steps.
A higher power.
I don’t know what’s worse
living in the suburbs paying bills and clocking in and out of a state job
mowing your lawn every Friday
taking the kids and wife to the mall
snapping family portraits and sending them to grandma
or putting in a 12-hour shift on the kill floor of an abattoir
taking hits of whiskey during breaks
and smoking meth at happy hour.

(“oh how men suffer for children.”)

4th Week in Rehab - Alex M. Pruteanu

Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Every place is the same.  Fucking fuck.
God.  He’s everywhere. Here.  Before. Before that. And sixteen times before that.
Fuck.
It’s like nothing can be done without God.
god.
They have no faith in anyone in these facilities.  Why am I here. Why am I here.
?
Hey man.
(a large black woman with a hair net)
You ok?
I don’t know.
Fucking God.
God bless you, she says and leaves.
And all I want is a drink. Anything. Vodka. Gin. Bourbon. Grain.
Grain. 180 proof.
They come in and out of my life in here, slide in and out, like transients.  And they all spew the same old jive. God this. God that.  Carrying little printed Bibles.
Fuck God.
God left a long time ago, you pitiful, spineless fucks.  There’s no one here. We’re all alone.  God hasn’t been here in millenia.
She comes and touches my cheek.  She looks down in between my legs.
Alexandra.
She says she’s devoted her life to God and to the Twelve Steps and that each day is better than the last.
Another one.
Good luck lady.
But I still want to fuck her.
What did you say? She says.
I don’t know.
What?
What did you say? Just now.
I don’t know. Nothing.
Are you all right?
No.
Are they giving you meds?
Librium and…
in florida one morning high on meth i spotted a krispy kreme truck instead of going to work i followed the van all the way up military trail from ft lauderdale to west palm beach hoping it would lead me to the krispy kreme factory when instead it went to a storage facility it was a private moving truck bought from the franchise but not changed over to reflect its new status i lost my job as a doorman in boca raton and afterwards i went to a bar which served romanian visinata and got drunk on nearly one gallon of it
…diazepam.
They’re giving you diazepam?
Yes.
That’s good.  Have you found Jesus yet?
What?
Jesus. Have you found Him.
I don’t know.  Which annex is he staying in?
I laugh.  My face hurts. My head feels as if it’s in a vise.
She looks in between my legs again.
I want to fuck her.  This Jesus freak. This Bible thumper.  Is it wrong? Is it sinful?
What?
I don’t know, I say.  Why?
She laughs.  Why are you here?
I signed myself in.
Without Jesus you’re nothing.
All right, He co-signed.
I still want to fuck her.  More so now.  I hate her.  Alexandra.  I hate these people who find meaning in all the wrong corners.
What’s that on your cheek, she says.
A burn mark.  I burned myself with a hot knife sharpener.
Why?
I don’t know.  I need the pain. To keep me from going insane.
She puts up her hand and makes a “stop” motion.  And she shakes her head.
You don’t want to help yourself; I can tell that, she says.
And leaves.
–
Mark is the ex counselor who landed in here after a bad relapse in his garage.  He was caught by his wife drinking vodka out of a milk jug painted black, which supposedly held a spare gallon of gasoline for his boat.  Mark is a good guy.  But he’s also a God guy.  He smokes incessantly.  I like his voice.  He’s calm and settled.  I guess that’s what happens when you let Him into your heart.  I don’t know.  I don’t know about that.  Mark snapped one afternoon during a counseling session with a sixteen-year-old goth girl in Tallahassee, Florida.  She told him about being sodomized by her father with a toilet paper roll dispenser.  She confided in him that she liked it.  And that’s when he closed down his practice.  Mark is a good guy.  He reads from his Bible every morning.  He takes long breaths.  He doesn’t push anything on me.  He has a nine-year-old daughter.  He’s divorced.  His wife and kid live somewhere in Utah.
We’re in Erie, Pennsylvania, I think.
I play cards with Mark.  And backgammon.  He lets me win at backgammon. I can tell.  He makes one wrong move.  I tell him about my grandfather.
He tells me about the house they renovated before his relapse in the garage.
He was a professional chef, before he had his practice.  He met his wife at Florida State.  They were both MSW candidates.
Double sixes, he says.  Lucky man.
I move my pieces on points.
Mark is a nice man.  He doesn’t push God on me.  But I can tell he doesn’t understand how I live like this.  Without anything.  I can tell he doesn’t understand how I can ever get better, without God.  And it’s all right; because I don’t understand how he lives like he does either.
Wanna take a smoke break?
I say yes.
We go out.  He lights his Salem.  Then mine.  We stand there.  And don’t say anything the entire time.