This is an excerpt from my recently published novel The Falling Circle, available for Kindle and in paperback on Amazon.com

https://www.amazon.com/Falling-Circle-Jeffrey-Matucha-ebook/dp/B07K7NVKBW/

Graffiti

Preston stood in the hallway, contemplating his new home.

He stood by his bedroom door, studying the front door. The front door actually had a working doorbell that rang in the kitchen. Functioning doorbells was not a thing Preston was used to in his usual living abodes. The hallway walls were simply plastered with graffiti. Some of the graffiti was on the floor, and there were even some on the ceiling. Most of it was writing, but there was some sporadic artwork as well.

He slowly walked down the hall, reading some of the graffiti and checking out some of the art. The graffiti was quite varied. A lot of it was just band names: Teenage Warning, Public Enema, Ibskibit, Meatbangers, Capture The Flag, DTK, Basic Radio, Anguish, Gas Boy and Kid Skidmark, Insaints, The Misinformed, Special Forces, The Ex-Girlfriends, Blatz, Free Chuck, Itchy Fish, Fingerhut, M.U.D, Sinister Sisters of Satan, Dick Flipper, Amsterdam Hamsterdamage, Hat Confusion, The Ninjas Of Bob, and a whole slew of obscure hit and run punk, thrash, and new wave bands. Preston recognized almost all of them. A lot of the bands that were written on the walls didn’t even exist anymore.

Then there were the graffiti signatures: Puke was here, Johnny Puke was here, Mittens 86′, Gerbily Fresh pimpin’ in 87′, Jeff was here, which Jeff was here?, Jeff V.O.D. was here, Nuph Boy rules, Eds Monkey was here, Alphonse J Piston the III rules, Annie Archy was here, Scab was here, Screamer was here, Spider was here and beat up Scab an Screamer, Johnny Trouble was here.

He read some other scribblings. “Kill for Mike’s Band” “Speed kills, but sleep sucks.” “Kraft is the cheesiest.” “Orthodoxy is the death of intelligence.” “I have met Jesus and he has metal fangs.” “The revolution begins Tuesday.” “Juliet hates Fred.” “If speed kills why don’t I die?” “Justin is a homo.” “Saber is a hetero.” “Gust sucks.” “Saber swallows.” “Gust gargles it first.” “Juliet owes Sasha a dollar.” “Jesus owes me a dollar.”

Near the kitchen entrance was a very well painted Steal Your Face with an anarchist circle A instead of a lightning bolt in the forehead.

He knew he could spend a long time reading the walls and looking over all of it. His cursory look over had not put much of a dent in the amount of material he could look over. He thought about how strange it was that the inside of Throb Long was so disheveled, yet the outside was so clean and unchaotic. He knew a few places that were like that, but not to the extreme of Throb Long.

In the kitchen Mark had shown him where he could keep his food. He had a spot reserved for him in the fridge, the lower right hand shelves. All of the tall items such as milk cartons and forty ouncers went on the top shelf of the fridge. He also got the lower right portion of the food storage cupboard. The other cupboard was full of glasses and dishes.

His food storage sections were conspicuously bare. He had spent nearly every dime he had on the first month’s rent. He had a few dollars left over, and he could have gotten a decent haul over at Canned Foods, but he desperately needed a new pair of shoes. The shoes he had were starting to split from their soles, and a large hole had been worn open in his left shoe from all of the walking he had been doing for the past three weeks. He planned on going out that afternoon to find the closest Salvation Army or Goodwill. He might have to cruise the second hand joints for awhile, because Preston had a large shoe size, and finding used shoes in his size was a difficult mission.

He wanted to get some decent shoes before he had to go to work tomorrow. 

https://www.amazon.com/Falling-Circle-Jeffrey-Matucha-ebook/dp/B07K7NVKBW/