Doomsday in America – John Padula
April 4, 2025
What do girls do? Do they work stable jobs and go out on weekends with all their friends?
Walking through town, to the train, looking so cool like they always do, and come home and have something nice for dinner? Do they spend their evenings in their bedrooms, wearing socks and sweatpants, still wrapped in warm coats, lying across their beds, hanging out with their friend who brings over a bottle of wine, door closed with the lights on, what do they do? Do they watch TV? Do they try on different clothes, spray on new perfumes, brush makeup onto each others’ faces and look at themselves in the mirror looking so pretty?
Do they fuck? Secretly, for fun, totally un-seriously. Do girls get together in bedrooms, all over the country, smile and say, “hey, check this out,” and fuck each other so casually they cum between lines of a poem too ethereal for me to understand?
Do girls walk out in the middle of the night, on a week night, and creep around streetlights and slide into back alleys to smoke meth and break into acid lit city basements and pull their lover’s hair out during chemsex, and do girls bite down on a towel when they shove chunks of broken glass into their perfect thighs and do they lay their heads in each others’ laps on the long long train rides home, reeking of lavender and vomit, the most delicate sparkling noses, slightly upturned, gushing blood all over their dresses, the seats, all the way down the aisle, gushing out of the train car door, into the dark black tunnels, just like the abandoned ones where the trains don’t come through no more, those are the ones that make for good spots for her and her friends in their fur coats and good shoes to hang around in, shoot heroin and kiss.
And when they get home at five in the morning, looking like ghosts, do they hug a stuffed animal and fall asleep in their clothes?
A simple computer error, a one that should’ve been a zero, and all our own bombs will fall down on top of us.
It’s Doomsday in America. I left the oven on when I left for work and by now I’ve pumped enough methane out to blow up the entire country with the strike of a match.
The Anti-Septic Shock Troops wipe down every inch of their panzer armor with isopropyl wet wipes before during and after every operation. They keep the world clean through their hard work and determination.
Just the other day I saw a squad take a fire hose and clean a homeless man away. They washed his homeless skin away to the homeless muscle, rinsed the homeless muscle down to the homeless bone, sanitized the homeless bone into homeless dust and vacuumed up what was left.
That homeless man once asked me if I had a couple bucks, and even though I was trying my best to politely ignore him, he persisted. “Hey, excuse me sir, I’m really hungry, do you have a couple bucks?”
“Sorry, I don’t have cash on me.”
“Could you buy me a sandwich, then? There’s a store right here. Come on, man. Please?”
I was so happy when the Shock Troop cleaned him. I immediately went home and scrubbed my toilet out of respect for those brave men and women who are actually making a difference in our community.
I do respect the Anti-Septic Shock Troops. But, I also fear them. I know it’s just a matter of time before they find me dirty; hidden-jews of the soul. And when they do they’ll cleanse the stow-aways along with every other part of me. But for now, I’ll just scrub my toilet until that judgment day comes.
It’s Devastation in America. I slept through my alarm, didn’t show up to work. Turns out the Big Loser Machine only needed one more jammed cog before it broke entirely. The world economy has collapsed.
On Friday I go out, meet someone new, I say, let’s get out of this place, I know a better bar around the corner, drink and kiss in the dark, let’s go back to my place.
Fuck. Go to bed. Fuck. Wake up. Fuck.
You want to get breakfast?
Yeah, I know a good cafe around the corner. Drink and kiss, last night’s liquor on her breath down my throat.
Let’s go to the park. You ever see a little bird on the sidewalk, and you walk toward it, and it gets nervous, and it runs away, down the sidewalk, on those thin little legs? Why do they do that? Don’t they know they can fly? They always do, at a certain point, they always fly away, but why not fly away to begin with? Little birds always make a big show of running down the sidewalk? Do you like me?
We got to go to the store. I can’t be out in the sun this sober. It’s not even noon. We pay five hundred dollars for a fifth, on account of the world economy collapsing. Our picnic basket is a plastic bag full of booze and cigarettes and I’m blowing smoke into baby strollers just to make you laugh. You want to see a party trick? I lean in for a kiss, lock lips, and I blow into her mouth as hard as I can.
Fuck you fuck you! She’s hitting me, I grab her around the waist and roll her in the grass.
Oh hey, what you got going on?
Nothing much, just hanging out in the park with some dork.
No way, I’m doing the same thing.
Two o clock. Back to the bedroom. Pull her pants down, wowza!
That is not a penis! I poke around inquisitively like a man who does not understand what a woman is. Both hands full, so you call these breasts. Intriguing, I’ll have to run some tests, I squeeze as hard as I can and try to rip them off. Jeez-Louise, they’re on there good, huh?
Five o clock, time to leave. I tell her I’m on the way to the world’s biggest party. She tells me she’s going to some house show, implies I should come.
I go out of my way to be oblivious. Well, have fun, I’m going to the biggest party in the world.
Eleven, hanging around, doing massive party stuff.
Hey, how’s the world’s biggest party?
Massive. How’s the show?
Pretty cool, there’s a rooftop and everything.
Damn, I wish I could’ve been invited, I wish I knew someone who was there who could invite me.
I’ve been trying to invite you! Come here!
Well, I don’t know, I am at the world’s biggest party, smoking the world’s biggest cigar, sitting in the world’s biggest armchair, but maybe I’ll pull through.
It’s midnight, get to the house show, show’s over, everyone’s just hanging around, she’s fucked up. Sitting on a couch outside, sitting next to her, talking to some losers.
Nice to meet you, says one.
We’ve met before, I say, at the reading.
Wait, really? I don’t remember you.
Yes you do.
Are you fucking with me?
No.
She jumps off the roof, lands on the fire escape below. Head in her arms trying to will herself out of being too fucked up. Better than hanging around though.
You saved me, she says.
We’re leaving the party.
You saved me, you’re my hero.
Yeah, you hungry? I’m so hungry.
We’re eating chicken over rice on a street barricade, all the blood on the streets is mostly dried.
That guy totally dismissed you.
I don’t care.
That’s just how he is.
You know him.
Yeah, we have history.
Oh, that’s cool.
But fuck him, you’re with me tonight.
Lucky me.
Lucky you.
She kisses me, she says, everything I’ve ever wanted, all I’ve ever had to do is want it, think about it, and I get it.
Yeah?
Yeah. One day, I wanted a six figure job, thought about it, then I got one. Worked there for a week, hated it, quit. Got four thousand dollars.
How’d you do that?
That’s just how it works. The hard part isn’t getting what you want, the hard part is figuring out what’s worth wanting.
There’s no birds out tonight, which is weird, cause they’re everywhere during the day. I never see bats in the city, we had bats in the attic back home. I wonder if they take over floors of empty office space, sleep in drop ceilings, probably enough rats inside to keep them fed.
Waiting for the train, the subway smells like piss but her perfume smells nice. More liquor, stolen this time, walk through the park, back to my place, in bed, no fucking, I’ll fuck you in the morning, I want to sleep.
This was fun, I had a good time.
Yeah, me too.
Sunday morning, 8AM. I’m leaving, she says, goodbye.
Goodbye.
She’s gone. I don’t love her, I don’t talk to her, I don’t see her, thats fine, but I still don’t know what she does. Maybe she goes back to her boyfriend, and maybe he beats the brakes off her, and maybe I think that’s sad, but I don’t really care.
It’s Judgment Day in America, I’ve overdrawn on my credit card. And I forgot to brush my teeth last night. The Anti-Septic Shock Troops let me off easy, they simply set me on fire and my filthy clothes and hair and skin are burned away.
Years from now, I’m half asleep in a rocking chair on my front porch overlooking a great yard. Humble gardens dotted throughout, tomatoes here, tulips there. Next to me is my old dog, Bo. He’s half asleep.
The sun’s just setting but the heat hangs around. In a close-by patch of flowers, just beyond the gravel walkway, I see a little angel taking sips of dew off the petal of a daisy.
I give Bo a few scratches, “you see that, boy?”
I’m pointing at the angel, how its skin shines with the sunset, its delicate little wings, floating just above the ground. Bo sees it.
I whisper into Bo’s ear, “kill it.”
Before the angel can finish its drink, Bo’s down the porch steps, pounces, and wraps his teeth around the angel’s neck.
The Angel speaks a single note, perfect and beautiful, in total harmony with the sounds of the birds chirping, the creek in the back, the wind in the trees, but only for a second, Bo has bitten through its vocal chords and shakes the weightless creature like a rattle snake, snapping its neck, feathers and halo flying in all different directions. Bo doesn’t stop until he’s sure it’s dead.
“Bring it here, boy.”
He drops the angel at my feet, I run its pockets. A vial of Fentanyl and the Elliot Rodger Manifesto. I knew it. I take the limp body and throw it in the angel pit. Hundreds of dead angels with their Harps and Holy words, their deaths are finally justified, now that I have proof that there really are some bad ones.
I believe now that I do know what angels do, but I do not feel any better for having learned it.