The Marquez Ranch was a dark and dusty expanse of land. It was scattered with rocks and arid grassless dirtstomps, and Señor Marquez done turnt into a bustling hotbed of activity. He and his men raised cattle and goats in their grassier pastures, and they prospected for gold in the creekbeds.
From Zeke the Cowboy
Category: Settings
Goodman Ranch
Goodman Ranch was swathed in sunlight, its soil a burnished bronze. The ranch stretched far in every direction, cows herding and sheepdogs barking off into the horizon. The pasture-land this side of town was scrawny and hardscrabble, which was why Mr. Goodman’s ranch had to be so big — the cows ranged far and wide.
From Zeke the Cowboy
Lily Avenue Tenement
He went to the Lily Avenue tenement. That was just outside Bensonhurst, but it was an Italian building — wops, fresh off the boat, ain’t none of ’em speak a lick of English. It reeked of olive oil, salami and sweat-soaked cotton in there.
Rocky liked that smell. He didn’t even mind the crowds. A man could rent the right to sleep in the hall for a dollar a week, and that was what dozens of them did. They choked the place like build-up in a pipe. Mister Gregarian owned this building, so they paid their rent to him.
When they paid.
The Caraldo family lived in a real apartment, a fourth-floor boxflat, not sprawled out in the halls like the deadbeats Rocky weaved around on his way up the stairs.From Rocky the Ex-Con
The House Party
Speaking of that, there weren’t no food at this party. Ain’t a proper party according to Thumper’s notions. Inside the fridge got only a bottle of ketchup, a empty pack of cigarettes and a casserole dish with memories of lasagna and a note that said ‘sorry’.
From Thumper on Parole
Puffin Books
Puffin Books was in downtown Birmingham, in a building that was a refrigerator warehouse back before.
From Thumper on Parole
The bra catalogue
He got a magazine in his other hand, a bra catalogue for ladies. Or maybe it was a gentleman’s interest magazine disguised as a bra catalogue. Lem be looking at one page, but Steel could see the opposite page, and there was a bootyful blonde there showing off her brand-new bra by holding it up for the camera. Her actual tits was bouncing free as a bitch on a spree. Steel got eyes only for that Pueto Rican babe, who prolly got a cooey voice like a pigeon. She prolly mean as hell till a nigga get her clothes off, then she be hot and soft as rice pudding. Spanish girls was like that.
On the other nigga hand, he ain’t have that magazine in prison. The Puerto Rican lady bragging about the high quality of the gussets of her bra got his motor going good, revving like a Hyundai.
Lem picked up his bra catalogue, petting his long meat with one hand — still no hardon though, he be straight-up petting!– and he found a page with a hot chick on it but with no chicks at all on the other page. That way he could aim the hot chick at his own old-nigga eyeballs and the other page at Steel, so Steel got his own nigga-meat in hand and all he be looking at was a page advertising additional bra catalogues. Ain’t no pictures though.
He flipped to a new page, which did got a female on the opposite page, but she was fully clothed, holding up a bra splattered in paint or some shit — showing off the easy-clean nature of whatever bra this catalogue was advertising.From Steel the Roughneck
Kaskatuk, Alaska
By the time they made it onto the streets of Kaskatuk, Alaska, Steel was ready for tits. Still, the first thing he drank in the bar was a ginger ale and rum, heavy on the ginger. Gotta keep the belly well-y! Lem straight-up chugged a drink he called a “five in one”, which was five shots of whiskey in a glass fulla crushed ice.
You know the goddamn bar don’t even have crushed ice? Fuckin’ Kaskatuk, Alaska, is literally covered in gray snow, it’s some real Frozen shit — Elsa could have this nigga dick for real, Steel would let her go to town all over him, he never even paid no attention to that movie cuz he was wondering if Elsa was old enough for him to wanna fuck her — if the town from Frozen had a ghetto, it would be Kaskatuk. If icebergs could get addicted to meth, this is where they’d go after getting kicked outta rehab.
But they “only got ice in cubes”, and apparently crushing technology ain’t make it this far north! Lem’s five in one only got one ice cube in it, so seemably they barely even got ice in cubes. Town’s fuckin’ mayor is a glacier! One ice cube!
Just kidding, the town don’t got a mayor. It got a “representative administrator” instead, cuz the locals was all on their way to or recovering from a suicide attempt. Not a nice town, but Steel did abide.
One those feather-Indian alcoholics came over and drank with Steel and Lem for awhile. He was nice enough but depressing. He made a nigga sleepy like a warm glass of milk and a blowjob from a sad white girl. He eventually offered to jerk ’em off for a bottle of vodka, but Steel and Lem told him to whisk off.
There was plentya hos in Kaskatuk, and before nightfall, Steel and Lem done gone balls-deep in ’em!From Steel the Roughneck
The Suburbs
A few desperate-limb oaks remaindered from the trees that done got teared down to build Oaken Grove. Thereabout around, the houses was big and spread wide like grassy yawns. The nicest homes was built at odd angles to the road. Most them yards sported trim lawns and spartan scatters of elegant blossoms. Lotta sculpted hedges and little decorative evergreen jawns too. They was pretty yards, as perfectly plotted as a Jewish murder, but you could tell ain’t nobody ever play or cook out or jaw a spell there.
College
The lawn — the quad, though Thumper ain’t never heard it called that — was clipped clean, crawling with college kids playing frisbee and taking phone-photos of theyselfs playing frisbee. A few picnicked on blankets spread out on the grass and took phone-photos of theyselfs picnicking. One foursome used they phone to play something that sounded like a water-brain retard screaming obscenities over a romantic movie soundtrack and then took phone-photos of theyselfs listening to it.
Central Pest Control
Now, at last, he returned to the “workshop”, which was what they called the company headquarters where the trucks was parked overnight. It was basically just a warehouse with a locker room and shower attached, and there was a tiny little room — a glorified closet — that served as Mr. Taggart’s office. The office had a window that opened on the locker room and shower… The shower smelled like bleach and sun-baked linoleum, which was nice — it was reminiscent of the prison shower, but cleaner and not crowded with Hispanic bikers, and the hot water was always plentiful. It was a better shower than the one at Tyrell’s apartment building.
From Tyrell the Ex-Con