The Bullets of Sodom – Dustin Cole
May 1, 2026
Here he was not free, but a mote in the dark of absolute freedom.
—Samuel Beckett
There’s snakes in the ditch right here. I share the shoulder of the road with a reserve dog. He’s whatever anyone wants to call him. He still has his balls. He knows what’s in the ditch.
Children in mismatched sweatsuits make fun of me. Their faces are stained with Kool Aid. This road is bad. The dog is gone away.
I check my words. I walk a bit further and cry. It gives me a sore throat. There’s no more pity for anything.
The birds scream at each other. The birds aren’t friendly. They’re not lovely.
I hear dirt bikes at the skatepark. They go round and round the bowl and pile up. Then it’s quiet.
Around here is an old subdivision. It’s a field of curving streets with no houses. There’s willow coming up through the pavement. I smoke my last smoke. I throw away the pack. I feel that smooth Green Queen in my pocket.
It’s not time yet. The sky is dirty bright. I hear a helicopter. I can’t see it. Somewhere nearby there’s a dagger I hid in case I had enough. I know roughly where it is.
A cat limps around the basement foundation I’m sitting on. There’s a long scar down his face where his left eye was. He’s the white hazy colour of cigarette smoke. He headbutts my leg and makes me pet his long skeletal body. I wish he could talk so I didn’t have to.
Downtown I bum 2 smokes. I smoke the one. I put the other in behind my ear but it falls out twice and I smoke it.
I go a ways past the reserve towards the refinery. There’s a guy welding on a derrick in one of the yards. I stare at the flash. I tried a few times to get a job on the rigs. They just laughed and said I was a 1980s model. I just laughed.
I drift around town like a scrap piece of paper.
Behind the gas station I watch him cut the top off a milk jug to make it into a bowl. He pours something green in it from a different jug. I think it’s antifreeze. He looks at me. He smiles at me, not a tooth to his name. I can’t remember his name. His coveralls say Bill but people call him something else, Denny, Dickey, Dudley. I don’t know.
In my mom and dad’s everything is clean. My blankets are folded up on one side of the couch. I never did that.
In my mom’s office there’s a picture of my dad about the same age as I am now, not a stitch of grey in his trimmed goatee. He’s driving a boat. He looks out at the water.
I find my money in the filing cabinet. It was my grandpa’s money from before he died. I peel off a Green Queen to go with the other one.
I find my speaker in the porch. It’s up neat on a shelf in a plastic bag with the charge cord. I take it down and shut the door behind me. A few raindrops fade out of the dust. It doesn’t rain.
Out on the street a kid wanders up to me. He’s about the same height and twice as skinny. He has a Nike shoebox. There’s a black snake inside moving on dead grass. The kid’s left eye looks at me while the right eye wanders and then his right eye looks at me while his left eye wanders. I tell him to put it back. He closes the lid and goes on. He walks like he’s trying to be quiet.
Downtown I wish my legs would fall off. I’d buy new machine legs with grandpa’s money. I’d turn myself into a damn machine. I’d get a brain chip and computer eyes and watch the raining code.
Behind the restaurant where I used to work I see him rooting around in the dumpster. I see his shoulders turning a few degrees this way. They pivot back. I can tell it’s him by his bike laying there.
Hi Greg.
What.
What’d you find?
I can’t find nothing talking to you.
The kitchen manager stands at the back door. He looks at me. He’s got a cunty little smile. I tell him to get back to work. He says something in Tagalog. I don’t say anything.
It’s Pre-roll Wednesday. I go in. They remember me from when I worked there for 5 days. I pay in small change. I see the girl who fired me. She turns her back. The bells above the exit are tangled on their strings.
I get an 8-pack of Wildcat from the beer store fridge. I let the cool air cool me. The magnetic gasket sucks the door closed. The cashiers are twins. They’re tall and fat and they’re cheeks are coloured with red patches. One watches the other put coins in the cup of my hand. I put the beer in with the speaker.
The Hindu sells me a few loose cigs in the store next to the boarded-up cinema. He knows my name.
It’s dead downtown. Everybody’s at work.
I go in that brief clearing on the far side of the Rodeo Grounds. It’s surrounded by woods and quiet. There’s a couch with cardboard for cushions and a big fire pit made from the tire rim of an old log skidder.
I break sticks over my knee. The bigger ones I lean on a stump and step on them. I build up a thirst. I drink a Wildcat. I get a fire going. I pile up wood.
There’s a dirt bike somewhere but I can’t see it going. I remember the speaker. I put on some music. My dad calls it nigger noise.
I untwist the pre-roll and squeeze out a plug into the stone pipe I keep in the fob pocket of my jeans. The smoke is hot.
I’m loving life after 3 more Wildcats.
I reach down into a space where the frame of the couch is coming apart and the material is ripped. I pull out a Ziploc bag. Inside it there’s a spiral notebook and some pens.
The cover has a picture of Paris Hilton. Below it there’s a poem of sorts:
I am successful
I am a bad bitch
I am a divine creature
I am the galaxy
I am magnificent
I am confident
I am all at once
I write a poem and tear it out of the notebook and lay it on the fire. I write poem after poem, tear out the pages and lay them on the fire. The flames catch the pages and turn them into fists of ash.
It’s close to dark. It’s warm. A mother bear and her cubs wend there way through the woods. They are coming from the dump. I’m down wind. She raises her head. Her nose twerks. She grunts at the cubs and they turn to the highway.
I see the streetlights come on around the cul de sac on the other side of the Rodeo Grounds. The white paint of the grandstands is flaking. The bullpens are rusting.
I take the long way. I smoke 2 smokes. The speaker’s dead. Gabber bottoms out my phone. It almost sounds better that way.
People stand in a puddle of ice blue neon light in front of the bar.
Hi Zach.
Yo Zach.
What’s up Zach.
Hey.
I know them from here. There’s Robert. I sit with him. He’s watching a playoff game on the big screen. I don’t watch hockey. It’s a faggot sport full of closet faggots.
Kayla brings me what I always have. Robert asks for another one. He’s got a railway pension. He’s about as old as you can get.
How are you man?
Pretty good.
You look even better than that.
I’m half cut.
Same.
Right on.
They’re losing.
Good.
I’ll get his, Kayla.
Our bottles clink. The period ends. The big screen cuts to ex-jocks in headsets, cuts to commercials. They don’t even try to appeal to the public anymore. There’s one for adult diapers and one for air fresheners with a 2 note jingle. Something’s in theatres now.
A group of white men in suits don’t look happy. An Arab man works on a drilling rig in bare feet and no hard hat. A rabbi is flayed and crucified on the main rotor of an Apache. Sand and slaughter, long pans and crash zooms, shell casings on assembly lines worked by children in rags, torture cams, sex cams, body cams, a rapid montage of gore.
The title appears in severe block caps filled with a city on fire.
One critic calls it a resurrection of the war film. One critic calls it canon.
Let’s go see that movie.
I’d check it.
I love war shit.
Too bad the Rex shut down.
I’ll drive us into the city.
When?
Tomorrow.
What time?
Noon.
You won’t go.
I will.
You’ll bail.
I’ll meet you at the gas station tomorrow at noon.
I doubt that.
I bet you 20 dollars.
We shake on it. Robert goes to the restroom. There’s a girl on the dancefloor. I don’t know her. I dance but not to this garbage.
I come in from a smoke. There’s a boiler maker where I’m sitting. Robert is watching the 3rd period. The preview for that movie comes on again. The way Robert smiles I figure I lost the bet. He buys us another round.
Outside I don’t have any balance. I vomit. It gets all over my jeans. The parking lot spins. I lay there hoping it stops. I hear people laughing. It starts to rain but not hard. It smells good hitting the pavement.
I knock over a rack in the 7-Eleven. I wake up the cashier. Her eyes are puffy. She says it’s okay, she will clean it. I buy a blue Gatorade.
Damn the rain feels good and the cold juice. It doesn’t take long to get to my mom and dad’s. The dark green treetops shimmer behind yellow streetlights. The rain falters and tapers as I come through the trailer court. I can’t find my key but there’s a hidden key.
I lay down on the couch. It’s the living room but my dad built an addition with all the recreations. I hope things don’t start spinning. I sit up and finish my Gatorade.
Zach is that you.
It’s just me.
The door at the end of the hall shuts quietly. I sit there in the dark. All the picutres are black squares. I lay down. The room doesn’t spin but it rolls. I go outside and get sick. The key is still in the door. I lay back down.
In my dream people try talking to me. They say one word, an adjective, somewhat or extreme or 5th. They say this stuff like it means something. It’s a subway station. There’s never any trains, though, just people walking everywhere. I can’t see the floor.
I smell coffee and my mom’s perfume, her cigarette. The cuckoo clock doesn’t work and my phone’s dead. The microwave says 11:20.
Have some coffee.
Will do.
Any plans today?
Me and Robert are going to the city.
What for?
There’s a movie playing.
What kind of movie?
It’s a war movie. It’s a horror movie.
When are you leaving?
Noon.
Will he pick you up?
I’m going to meet him at the gas station.
Make some breakfast if you want.
I’m good. But I need cash.
Don’t take anymore of that money.
Why?
You need to save it.
For what?
For your future.
There is no future.
What about tomorrow and the next day?
What about them?
That’s the future.
Those are just the same days.
The same days to buy more beer and smokes.
I’m just going to spend it.
Don’t spend anymore.
By the time it’s gone they’ll be rolling out UBI.
Don’t spend anymore of that money.
She takes an uncreased brown bill from her wallet with the silver snap. I thank her. She goes back to her phone. I get out my suitcase from beside the wall unit. I get out a clean set of clothes and transfer pockets from the dirty jeans to the clean jeans. My head hurts. In the bathroom I brush my teeth and finish my coffee. She tells me to enjoy the show.
A different cashier is working at 7-Eleven. She’s local, gothic. I see her sometimes at the bar. I buy Pall Malls and a cheap pair of sunglasses.
There’s a shortcut through some woods. The creek is dry. I stand in the shade of a big pine and finish my cig. I pack a bowl. All around me birds that won’t quit. I puke in the nettles.
I wasn’t always this way. It happened gradually, by degrees.
I didn’t see. I pretended not to see. It amounts to the same thing.
Through the trees I see the refinery on the edge of town. The breeze shifts. I smell sour crude.
I take my time walking the trail. It comes out in the lot behind the gas station. I see the cat laying by some junk tires. He looks like he’s asleep. His legs are straight out, cock stiff. The eye is open. His teeth are bared in a tight rictus. I get startled by bursts of an impact wrench coming from the garage. There’s an Impala up on the hoist.
Out front Robert’s waiting in his truck. He drives a 2010 Sierra. It’s got leather, power. The CD player works.
I pass him that Green Queen I never ended up spending. He takes it, holds it, and gives it back, tells me to get us some snacks. I leave my sunglasses on the dash.
I get chips and dip, some pop and beef jerky, a couple waters, a pack of Twizzlers. I tell the cashier there’s a dead cat out back. She looks at me like I’m crazy.
Sour cream and onion, my favourite.
You want dip?
I’m driving.
I fuck with dip.
Pass me a water.
Can I charge my phone?
Adapter’s in the cupholder.
That one eyed cat is dead out back.
9 lives run out.
I think the mechanic poisoned him.
Doogy?
That’s his name?
The feller with no teeth?
Yeah him.
That’s Doogy.
I seen him leave out some antifreeze yesterday.
That stuff tastes sweet. Cats and dogs drink that.
It looked painful.
Oh it’s painful.
You got any Tylenol?
I swallow a Tylenol. We’re on the highway. The pipeline slants underground. Every so often there’s a valve that tells you it’s still there. The flames on the flare stacks pulse and list. I look down a road between some holding tanks. They go on and on.
Robert reaches back and pulls out a CD wallet. He tells me to put in something. I flip through. I take out a burnt disc with Feel Good Folk Tunes sharpied on it. I can’t take anything loud.
The guitars and voices are soft. The motor croons. I put on my sunglasses. I put the seat back. It’s heated and Robert has the A/C on just subtle. I fall asleep and see out from the dark red tube region of a snake. I kiss the dark. I use my tongue.