Short Story: Disgusting Steve and Horny Dave

Disgusting Steve and Horny Dave walked into the warehouse. It smelled of old beer, sweat, and something rotten that no one had bothered to throw away. The lights flickered. Someone was playing a slow jazz record that skipped now and then. The whole place had the feel of something that had been alive once but had long since given up.

Steve walked to a table covered in things that would make a lesser man gag. Old fruit, something that had once been meat, a puddle of grease. He stared at it all like a priest before an altar. He picked up a soft, brown banana and turned it over in his hands.

"This is the truth of things," he said. "We all end up like this."

Horny Dave laughed. He was always laughing. It was not a pleasant laugh, but it had energy.

"You’re always thinking about rot, Steve," he said. "Me, I think about life. I think about flesh that isn’t falling apart. I think about heat and sweat and motion."

Steve looked at him. "It all ends up the same."

"Maybe," Dave said. "But not before it gets good first."

They had been hired for a performance called Eros and Entropy, an art show for people who liked the sound of their own thoughts. Steve was supposed to disgust them. Dave was supposed to arouse them. Neither had any illusions that they were anything more than animals in a circus, but the money was good.

Steve started his piece. He held up a crumbling piece of bread and spoke about how everything decayed. Cities. Love. Beauty. "It all goes," he said. "You can fight it, but it wins."

Dave stepped in. He put a hand on Steve’s shoulder like a man comforting a friend. "That’s why you don’t fight it," he said. "You use it while it’s fresh."

The audience watched, half-smiling, half-confused.

After the show, they walked the streets. Steve stopped by a dumpster and stared at something inside. "Look at that," he said. "Look at how the mold spreads. It makes patterns. It has its own kind of beauty."

Dave leaned in. "You ever notice how the people who throw things away always want them back later?"

Steve thought about that. "Yeah."

They walked on. The night was hot, and the city smelled of sweat and gasoline. Steve thought about rot. Dave thought about desire. They didn’t say much else, but they both knew they were talking about the same thing.