Dharma Influencer

Old soul is what they called you on the set. You could land your mark, hit your note, dance any jig they wanted. Every lifetime you’ve lived, you remember every one, you’ve always been an entertainer. You wake up in your mother’s womb, know what will happen, as soon as you are born, perfect, clear eyed, well-behaved. In every life, you were like a god, and every life, you strive for a longer godhood. Sometimes, it works out and you don’t die too early, your followers getting ahead of themselves, greedy for your godhood or your money. You can’t be too paranoid. You still need to build a new following every time. And although people and customs change, they don’t change that much. Your goal is always to build a name for yourself. Your parents duped into making you a child star and then when you get tired of being used by parents and studios, you’ve died young a couple of times but this time you think you will get out of Hollywood before that happens, take the money and start early, with social media, you can build your own empire without any interference. Children can do anything nowadays with social media and you intend to get your godhood sooner than later.

 Bait Dog

His dog could’ve been a bait dog. That’s what they call anything tinier than a pittie. I hate that they call them that. I hate that he calls him that. Bait Dog is running around the parking lot next to his patch of bushes behind the office building he prefers to camp out at. I have brought his mail to him because he doesn’t have an address, doesn’t want to live with me to get clean, doesn’t want to owe me shit even though I am bringing him is fucking mail. As I walk up to the camo netting he has strung up to be invisible to the parking lot which works only if you aren’t looking directly at it, I get hit with that dead smell, that smell you get when a dog or cat gets hit by a car, and I fucking hope he isn’t dead in there, or he hasn’t killed something, again, and left it out as camouflage so no one will fuck with him or his shit. I push the netting aside and see bare feet, lined with grime, poking out from the shabby tent he got from the Salvation Army, at least it’s a roof and four walls, he told me when I drove him back from taking him shopping and showering at my place because he wanted hot water and not to use the showers down at the beach. I don’t want to peek in the tent to see if it is him, but I do anyway because he's still my brother, even if he’s a dick. I hold my breath and lower my head and poke it between the tent flaps, flies already swirling inside, when a hand grabs me by the back of my neck pulling me out before I can get a good look at the body in my brother’s tent, stripped to its dirty underwear, fluid pooling beneath it, what the fuck are you doing my brother growls at me as Bait Dog yips hello around his ankles and my breath rushes out into his face.