Dirtbag

About Dirtbag

Dirtbag is a midlife survival story about the power of music. What happens when life causes you to lose track of what you truly love? Drift away from your first love and you will feel every bend and kink it takes to make you look like something—someone—else. The story follows a misanthropic ex-music producer who’s trying to find his way back into the industry. He believes his dreams are within grasp, when he overhears the golden voice of a Cambodian janitor. The resulting partnership forces this “Dirtbag” to consider how life’s changes can warp or make you. This is not a self-help book. It’s a story about the dangers of giving up on what you love, and how two men—with radically different experiences—were saved by the power of music. kckingauthor.substack.com (https://kckingauthor.substack.com/s/dirtbag?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

K.C. King

Category

fiction · music

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

5 Dec 2025

Latest episode

31 Jan 2026

Latest episodes

6 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   31 Jan 2026

   Dirtbag: EP 6 (Epilogue)

   Dirtbag: Epilogue New Year’s Eve Setlist: Bird of a Feather: Billie Eilish. “He’s here!” my daughter yells from the living room. “Who? Pannah?” I yell back from the kitchen. The dog skitters across the linoleum floor to see if whoever just arrived will pet him. “No, it’s Cassander!” “Who?” “My boyfriend, Dad. Get the net.” I choke on my beer, and it drips from my nose into the casserole I just pulled out of the oven. Oh well, no one will know. Where did she get that attitude? I shake extra cornflakes from the box onto the casserole and turn the oven off. She greets whoever is at the door. “Come on in. Oh, it’s so good to see you,” my daughter says. I peek into the living room and see a young man with a Clark Kent chin. “Dad, this is my boyfriend, Cassander.” I walk forward and offer my hand. Cassander steps forward, and we shake. “Welcome to our home, Cassander. Happy New Year,” I say. With your Superman-looking ass. “Happy New Year, sir.” Cassander shakes long black hair from his eyes, then lets go of my hand and sets his folded coat on the couch. “I brought something from home,” he says, patting his pockets. He pulls out a small twisted paper package. “These are tradition in my house for the new—” He’s interrupted by a knock at the door. I step past him and open the door to Koeh and Pannah. “You passed your drivers test?” I say. Koeh smiles, and I dap him up. “Good s**t, kid!” “I passed last week.” Pannah pats his son’s head but has to reach to do it. I collect their coats, and they step into the living room. “Yeah,” Koeh continues, “and with the advance from the record company, I was able to buy a new car.” “That’s yours?” I peer through the frosty window. “Dad still hasn’t fixed the van, so I guess I’m his chauffeur.” Koeh rolls his eyes. “He has the money now, stubborn old man.” “Lay off, kid. Maybe he likes spending time with his boy.” Pannah sits on the couch, and the others make their way into the kitchen for drinks and snacks. I plop next to Pannah on the other end of the couch. Not much to say, I think. I want to ask him if he’s happy that his voice is on the radio, that his album is rising up the Billboard Top 100. Not having the means of communication can be frustrating, but moments like these are fine. His cheeks are red, and his eyes squint into happy slits. My daughter hands him a small plate of cookies and a mug of dark black coffee. He takes a bite, dropping crumbs on his old worn corduroys and smiles up at his handsome son. I start to think I know what he’s thinking. The night hums by in comfort and ease. We play a party game Cassander insists is the best game he’s ever played. I want to judge him more than I do. My daughter is smiling, looking from him to me; she smiles deeper. Family filters in, and by 10 p.m. Cassander and my daughter are cuddling on a couch watching a music video. Billie Elish bats witchy eyes on the TV. I pass through the living room as she sings: “…Might not be long, but baby, I Don′t wanna say goodbye.” and into the kitchen where Koeh, Pannah, and my wife are playing clubs trump. I’m distracted. D major B minor, Christmasy—I think. E minor A major— why does this song remind me of— It hit me. “Last Christmas, I gave you my heart..”I hum the rest to myself in subtle satisfaction. I don’t have the heart to tell my daughter that every song is just another song. At around 11 o’clock, my brother arrives with his family. “Pretty late to show up,” I say. “Wasnt sure you were going to make it.” He chuckles and ushers his harried-looking wife through my front door. His two teenage children follow behind holding tablets. “Yeah, sorry,” he says, coming in for a hug. “Happy New Year. We’re late because of Jessica’s office party.” His wife takes off her coat and smooths her hair. “Yeah, sorry it went long,” she explains. “She’s trying to curry favor with her new boss.” He takes her coat and tosses it on the growing pile on the couch. “It’s not like you even need that job.” “Oh, don’t get me started,” his wife rebukes, walking away from the conversation and into the kitchen to greet the others. My brother drops to a knee to pet our new dog. “Cute, we have doodles too.” I get my brother and his family a plate of food and sit down for small talk and catch-up. It’s almost midnight, and I’m craving a cigarette so I throw on my shell jacket and try to creep away unnoticed. Outside in the cold moonlight, I light up and inhale deeply. Peaceful. The springs of the back door creak open, and I curl my fingers into a claw around my cigarette, just in case it’s my daughter. It’s just my brother. I blow out a smoky sigh of relief. “How ya doing?” he asks again. “Fine,” I say. He steps under the porch light next to me. “Sorry we couldn’t cut you a better deal for the record. I had my best lawyer on it.” “It doesn’t matter,” I reply—and to my surprise, I mean it. “I’m not pressed.” “That’s good,” he says. “You seem different.” He grabs for my cigarette, and I pull it away. He’s testing the water between us. “I feel different.” “That’s good, bro,” he says. “I was worried. You were kind of spiraling.” I inwardly sneer. What would he know about it? I think. I decide not to pick a fight. “Yeah, man, I just think… I don’t know. Life…” I draw deep from my cigarette and hold it in front of my face, watching the white turn to orange, then gray. “I can’t really articulate it.” He snatches the cigarette from in front of my eyes and takes a drag. “Well, whatever it is, I’m glad you’re happy again.” He holds his breath for a second, then exhales. His voice sounds deeper with the smoke in his lungs. “I’m glad you’re making music again, man. I always thought you had a gift—don’t get me wrong, there were times I thought you were just being pretentious and making s**t up.” He leans against the siding of my house and looks up at the moon. “Another year,” he sighs. I take my cigarette back from him and throw it into my now-empty beer can. We go back inside, and everyone is gathering together to sing Auld Lang Syne. I’m between my daughter and Pannah. I hold their hands. Pannah doesn’t know this song, so we all sing it. And as we drone the last note out, we all smile and shout, “Happy New Year!” There’s a loud pop behind us, and confetti rains down from the ceiling. We all turn to see Cassander smiling, handsome-faced, holding the husk of a party popper. I feel Pannah’s hand squeeze mine. I look to him. His other hand is grasping his chest, and he’s convulsing. His eyes flutter, and he falls to the ground. I’m still holding his hand. “Someone call an ambulance!” I scream. I’m still holding his hand. The ambulance arrives and takes him to the hospital. I’m still holding his hand. My fear is confirmed as they hook up his monitor. His dead heart hums a B-flat. Perfect pitch. I’m still holding his hand. I’m still holding his hand. THE END. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kckingauthor.substack.com (https://kckingauthor.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

2. 

   23 Jan 2026

   Dirtbag: EP 5

   PART 2 A Return to Form Chicago, November–December 2025 Set list: Hotel California, The Eagles—or Bossa Bros Thinking Out Loud, Ed Sheeran Landslide, Fleetwood Mac What a Fool Believes, The Doobie Brothers House of the Rising Sun, The Animals The Wire, HAIM You Are the Sunshine of My Life, Stevie Wonder “You’re up early for a Sunday?” My wife comes into the kitchen. I can hear her open the cupboard behind me, where we keep the coffee cups. I stare out the window at the rising sun, just above the fence in our backyard. My wife pulls back a chair and sits down next to me. Steam from the coffee fogs her glasses. This tiny thing, this silly little gesture, reminds me that I love her. “I need to tell you a story,” I say, reaching for my wife’s hands. The next two hours pass by as I fill her in on Pannah: falling asleep at the office, going to find him with our daughter, karaoke, and finally his story of escape. “So the Vietnamese army invaded right in the nick of time?” My wife’s eyes grow wide. I wonder what mine look like. This is the third night I haven’t been able to sleep. “Yeah, a miracle. He was able to secure safe passage to Vietnam by showing the soldiers where the cache of hot dogs was.” I rub my face. My wife sets down a fresh cup of coffee in front of me. “He stayed there till Koeh was born. Then his wife got cancer, and they moved to Canada so she could see a specialist. After she died, they came here for Koeh to go to school.” “Wow, and all this time he didn’t learn English?” “Yeah. Koeh says that he’s stubborn about it, old-dog-new-tricks and all that. But actually, Koeh thinks the real reason his father doesn’t learn English is that he doesn’t want to know what the lyrics to his favorite songs mean—like they may not be as good as they are in his heart.” My wife brushes blonde hair from her forehead and warms her hands around her mug. “What next?” she asks. “I dunno. I guess we record an album.” “Why do you think he wanted to tell you all that?” My wife takes my hand in hers and traces the lines of my palm. Her hands are warm from her mug. “Not sure.” “Go to sleep. It’s Sunday. Nothing important to do. You need to rest.” She stands up and smiles down at me, and I look up at her. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep, but I don’t pull my eyes away. I study her irises—like if I keep looking, I can see who she really is—and that would somehow tell me who I am. That doesn’t happen. But I do see something I haven’t seen in a while: love. I leave her in the kitchen and pad down the hallway to the bathroom. As I piss, something deep and revelatory squeezes my temples. Was it that her love hadn’t been there before, or was it that I hadn’t looked long enough, hard enough, to see it? All the time I thought she was avoiding me, annoyed with me, secretly disappointed in me. Maybe I was scared to linger, to look at her and see what I feared in those eyes. I collapse into the bed and sleep all day. “The studio is on fire?!” It’s early in the morning, and I’m yelling at my brother on speakerphone. “Well, it’s not currently on fire, of course, but there was a fire, and they are closed for repairs.” “Hold on, I’m dropping off my kid,” I say. “Bye, Dad.” My daughter waves at me, walking backward. “Bye—oh, I’m still picking you up, right?” She smiles and nods. “Yep.” I pull out of the lot. “Hey, bro,” I ask. “Yeah?” “Do you own a dog?” “Yeah, two. Why?” “Never mind.” I sulk. “Anyway, thanks for trying to hook it up. I’ll just have to tap another resource. Let me know when we can get the deposit back.” “Hey! Wait. Don’t hang up.” “Yeah?” I turn onto the highway—no SBs today. “Didn’t you read the contract?” I feel a prick of dread on the back of my neck. “Yes.” I half-lie. There were way too many pages to fully read what was referred to me by my brothers as a standard boilerplate studio rental agreement. “So, you know that the deposit is non-refundable, right?” I feel my guts wallop. “What! For real?! That was a couple grand out the bank! How do I explain this to my wife? This expense, not to mention the musicians I hired—it’s close to 15k!” “Well, you can hope that the renovations get finished and you can keep your spot.” “Fine.” I wipe cold sweat from my forehead as I park at work. What the f**k am I supposed to do? “Hey, bro, what has you so excited to record again? You with a new band?” “Not exactly.” White noise builds up between us like accumulating snow. He wants an answer and won’t hang up till I give it. “Okay, I’ll send you the demo. It’s rough. I recorded it in my basement.” “I’ll be gentle, little bro.” He hangs up. I get to work, and my supervisor is standing by my cubicle. “So, how is the brain fog? Are you managing?” “Oh, yeah, actually I started taking cold showers,” I lie. “I’m much more focused now.” To my horror, she pulls up a chair and sits, settling in for a fuller explanation. When I fail to give one, she scoots closer and drops her voice to a whisper. “Can I be honest?” I’m not sure what to say to that, but I nod. “Covid really messed me up too.” What is this b***h talking about? I feel my hackles rise. “That kind of radical change, the fear, the uncertainty. Powerful paradigm changes can really affect your mind, your relationships.” “Yeah.” I half-fake curiosity. I say half-fake because this is the first real conversation I’ve ever had at work. “Yup. The stay-at-home order was announced a week after I put my mother in a home. She died of Covid a month later.” My supervisor looks around conspiratorially. “I’m not supposed to share details about my life that are this personal. But that tragedy did something to me. I couldn’t enjoy what I enjoyed before. I didn’t think the same. I started to fixate on the strangest house projects, I made weird business investments, tried my hand at writing romantasy novels.” “Romantasy?” I ask, leaning back in my chair. “It’s a mix of romance and fantasy.” “And people like that?” I chuckle and scratch my scalp through my hat. “So many. You’d be amazed. Anyway, back to what I was saying—some psychologists call it ‘shaking the snow globe.’ When your life goes through a big change, your mind changes with it—you change. Sometimes for good and sometimes for the worse.” “Did you change for the better?” I ask. “My husband left me, my mom died, I lost a couple thousand dollars and hours of my life I can’t get back.” She pauses. “I changed, that’s all. No good, no bad, it just is what it is.” This pep talk was falling flat. I feel a prickly need to show her that her efforts weren’t in vain, so I nod my head. “But that’s not what I wanted to tell you,” she continues. “When life shakes the snow globe, it’s useless to ask whether you’re changing for better or worse. What matters is knowing that change is coming. You’re allowed to be afraid of it. But don’t waste time fearing that you’ll stay the same. That never happens.”**** I sit there with my mouth open. She looks concerned. “Brain fog again?” “Uh, no. Sorry. Thanks for saying that. That really helps.” Amazed, I realize I’m not lying. “No problem. Glad you’re back in the office.” She stands and walks away. “So I get to meet the band?” My daughter buckles up in the front seat. “Where are they from? How did you get them to join?” “You’re amped up,” I say. “I just really want Mr. P to be a famous singer.” She looks out the window and waves to her friends in the schoolyard. “My roommate back in college played bass in a punk band. He reached out to his sister, who is a classically trained jazz guitarist.” “Don’t you know someone involved with—” “I reached out,” I interrupt, “but haven’t heard anything. That guy is super busy. He probably has better things to do.” We drive into the heart of the city, into a blacktop lot behind a row of connected high street shops. The dumpsters are overflowing and covered with graffiti. “What a dump,” my daughter says, stepping out of the van. “It’s a place to practice. In this industry, you take what you can get.” My bassist is leaning against the back door of one of the shops. He sees me and waves through a fog of vape smoke. As he makes his way toward us, my daughter walks around the van to stand next to me. “Will Mr. P and Koeh be here?” she whispers. “Not tonight. I need to see if these guys have the right chemistry first. Plus, he’s cleaning my office building right now, remember.” “Hey!” My bassist reaches us and daps me up. “It’s been a while, man. Ready to jam?” My daughter cuts her eyes at this. “Come on in, man. The owner is real chill. He lets us play shows here sometimes—as well as practice.” We walk through a back door and into a shabby laundromat. Off to one side of a long bar is a dinky stage, complete with PA speakers and a drum set. We pass by rows of double-decker washing machines toward the stage. A very large man sits at the bar with his back to us. “Hey, Manny! Cool if we practice?” The man at the bar doesn’t turn around but simply grunts his consent and sips from a rocks glass. My daughter perches on an amp, kicking her legs in the air. My bassist slings his instrument over his shoulder and then pulls his long orange hair free from the strap, flipping it back. “You didn’t tell me you found a drummer,” he says. “I didn’t. Not yet,” I say, confused. A toilet flushes somewhere on the other side of the laundromat. “No way,” I say, dumbfounded. “Is that him!” screams my daughter. “Taylor Swift’s drummer?!” I cant believe my eyes. My college roommate who now plays in Taylor Swifts band comes out of the bathroom. He smiles and wipes his hands with a paper towel. “Hey, bro, sorry I didn’t respond. I wanted to surprise you. Me and the rest of the band got time off for Thanksgiving, so… is this your daughter?” The bell at the front door rings. A tall woman with black hair and a guitar case comes through and walks toward us. My bassist waves her over and helps her organize and plug in her pedals. She wears Victorian lace and a lot of eye shadow. The guitarist. We settle in, and after the band tunes and fiddles for a while, I give them the set list and sheet music. They read and shuffle the pages, nodding to silent beats in their heads. The drummer starts a 4/4 beat with his bass drum and clicks the rim of the snare, keeping time. The bassist pongs along with the low thump and sets the groundwork for the hook. The guitarist starts with one note, quiet but resonant. Her finger quivers on the fretboard, casting a haunting tremolo. The drummer crashes, making the air around us thrum. The bassist picks up pace and begins a countermelody, while the guitarist sweeps the jazz chords around the dingy store. The hair on the back of my neck prickles, and I soak up that thick-throated feeling I always get when the music washes over me. It’s perfect, I think. I look over, and my daughter is swaying from side to side on the amp. She turns and notices me. She smiles and then points to the band. I can’t hear her, but I read her lips. “They rock!” In between track one and track two, the artists talk shop and make minor adjustments. The drummer flips his crash upside down and tests it. The sound is like a baking sheet falling to the ground. The guitarist depresses a pedal on the floor with her foot. She chops a chord, and the note echoes, folding into itself before it fades to nothing. The bassist starts with a slinking, subversive reggae line. It sounds like something coming up out of a swamp. This time the guitar matches the snare with its echoing chops. I get a text from my wife asking about dinner. The band’s really in a groove. I don’t want to stop their flow. “That Mom?” “Yeah, she wants to know about dinner.” “Here, give me the phone.” I pass my daughter my phone. The owner is scowling at us in the mirror behind the bar. I wonder how long we have until he kicks us out. I run to the bathroom. As the door closes behind me, I hear the band start up a bossa nova rendition of “Hotel California.” I finish my piss. A chill goes up my spine, despite not loving The Eagles. Then a sudden dread wakes me out of my good vibe. What if the studio isn’t fixed up in time? All this practice will be for nothing. When I come out, my daughter is waiting for me with my phone. “What’s the deal?” I ask. “We gotta head?” “Nope. Mom’s coming with pizza.” I shoot her a look. “Here?” “What?” She puts her hands up defensively. “She told me that you told her everything on Sunday. Besides, I know Mom. She’ll feel much better about the expenses if she feels part of it.” I scratch my head and consider this. “How much pizza is she buying?” My daughter turns her attention back to the band and smiles as the guitarist throttles her instrument and perfectly executes the scalding, ascending solo. The owner is still sitting at the bar, but I think I catch a glimpse of his foot tapping. The back door opens, and a blast of December air cuts through the heat from the band and makes the large windows in the front sweat. My wife walks in carrying big white boxes in her arms. My daughter—who moments ago was spinning belly-down on the barstool—sees her coming, stands up, and yells, “Pizza!” Everyone stops playing and gathers around a sticky table to get a slice. “We need someone to play keys,” says the guitarist. Her brother chimes in through a mouthful of cheese and sauce: “I wouldn’t be salty if we had a brass section too.” Things are falling into place, but we have a lot of work to do. The wife bought deep dish from the good place. That’s more money toward the project—money I can’t afford to spend. Pannah and Koeh show up near the end. I swell with pride and confidence as Pannah leads the band in a swinging version of Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud”—which is a total rip-off of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get it On.” I don’t mention it. The players all seem to approve of Pannah, they see what I see. I watch Koeh. He smiles and nods along to the beat. We make eye contact and the smile shifts, just fractionally, into something forced. After we finish the rest of the set list with Pannah and pack up, it’s almost 10 p.m. I walk with my daughter and wife toward the back door. The owner stops us. “Hey!” He frowns down at my daughter. Is he pissed that we brought in a minor? An uncomfortable moment passes. He crosses his arms over his chest, jerks his chin, and says, “Cool tail.” Then he smiles at me and my wife and walks back to his seat at the bar. Friday morning, I’m driving my daughter to school, and it’s one of those super bright—even with sunglasses—kind of mornings. We’re early, so we stop for coffee. “Do you like going to work?” My daughter collects her bright pink drink at the Starbucks pickup counter. “Not really.” I grab my light roast, and we walk back to the car. “If you don’t like it, why do you work there?” “Well…” I scratch my head through my hat. “It was a safe bet after the studio closed.” “Why did it close?” A thousand bitter responses pool in my head. “Covid, mainly. We couldn’t get people in. The arts suffered during that time.” “Mom called it a pivot.” My daughter sips her neon drink. “Did she?” We never really talked about it. I didn’t want to. Moments later, I drop her at the gate. “Bye.” “Bye.” On my way to work, I get a text from Drummer: Drummer: That singer. Where did you find him? He’s amazing, man. This makes me feel lighter as I step through the glass door of the office. When I get to my desk, there’s a snow globe next to my monitor. The next two hours are a blur. My supervisor’s supervisor is talking at me again, but this time he uses phrases like, “not a good fit” and “different direction” and “bad economy.” Before I know it, I’m drunk in a Chili’s with three other losers who got “let go.” Butt rock blares through the speakers of the bar. “I heard they canned the supervisor too,” says Ape-Drape. That must be why she had that talk with me, I think. She was lubing me up for the forthcoming ass-pounding I would receive. “She said change is inevitable,” I slur. “Who?” asks Barn-Face from HR. “The supervisor,” I reply, impatiently. “Hold up—did she tell you about this before, and you didn’t think to tell us?” Ape-Drape asks, incredulous. My hackles rise. How did I end up drinking with these dipshits? “No,” I reply. “She just gave me a stupid pep talk last week about how change isn’t good or bad—it just happens.” “That’s stupid,” says another A-hole from a separate department, downing his Red Bull vodka. “Yeah.” I stand up because I need to go to the bathroom. “She told me, ‘Don’t waste time worrying that you will stay the same or never change’—some crap like that.” I head to the bathroom, still being sonically soaked by the anthems of divorced dads around the world. Mid-piss, I feel my phone buzz in my pocket. I pull it out and drop it on the ground. “F**k!” I quickly shake off and zip up. As I bend down to retrieve my phone, I hit my head on the porcelain on the way up. “Double f**k!” I drop my phone in a puddle of what I hope is condensation. I reach for it again, taking care not to drop my hat in the urinal. A ring of dried piss clings like hard candy to the drain. Standing, I see that my brother has texted me: Brother: Sorry, bro. The studio is a no-go. One of the repairmen hit a sewer main. Looks like this renovation project just got bumped back to next month. I listened to the track—it’s pretty good, but maybe this is the universe’s way of saying not to quit your day job, lol. See you at Christmas. I leave the bar without paying, walk across the industrial complex, pass the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Chili’s, Fridays, Applebee’s, and O’Charley’s. I trudge through a frozen lawn, crispy with frost. Once at my van, I wrench open the passenger door. I know I’m not walking straight. I know I’m not thinking straight. But it doesn’t matter now. I grab the snow globe out of the cardboard box that contained all the crap on my desk. Moving quickly in the cold, I cross the employee lot and make my way over to the large glass doors of my former place of employment. I chuck the snow globe, causing a splintering crack to appear in my reflection. That probably cost me my severance package, but I don’t care. I breathe heavily. I hate this company. I hate my coworkers. I hate this stupid rat race. I hate myself. I can hear the feedback of distorted guitars building—calling me back into my car. It’s a song I’ve heard many times. Stupidly, I rifle in my pocket for my phone, blinking against the blurry, drunken film over my eyes. Opening Spotify, I walk back to the van. I have to type and retype the title a number of times, which only feeds my rage. Funny—“rage” was the word I was trying to spell. The chunky feedback becomes a reality as I plug my phone into the aux cord. The distinct cowbell signals the coming crush that is Rage Against the Machine’s magnum opus. I’m lost in the music once more. I turn the key in the ignition, rev the engine, and punch the gas. F**k you, I won’t do what you tell me! My speedometer crests as I recklessly speed around the lot, nearly clipping my ex-coworkers’ cars. I see them peering down at me from the desiccated husk of the office building. I’m screaming, “F**k you, I won’t do what you tell me!” Just before the song ends, I feel a loss of control as my minivan crashes into a parking block, popping my front left tire. The van careens out of the lot and down an embankment into a man-made lake. The song stops. I hear bubbles. Hours later, my wife comes to pick me up. “You smell like goose s**t,” she says, not looking at me as I drop into the passenger seat of her car. My daughter laughs from the backseat. My wife is not laughing. “The van is totaled, but I guess that doesn’t matter since you don’t have a job anymore. It’s not like you have to be anywhere.” She flicks her turn signal a little too hard as we leave the place I used to work. She’s got that quiet, cold reserve that lets me know she’s thinking every bad thought I have about myself. My daughter looks nervous in the rearview mirror. She’s fidgeting—maybe trying to think of something to bridge the gap between her parents. “At least we still have the band and we’re still recording this weekend, right?” She looks hopeful, and some dark part of me wants to destroy that hope. I find pleasure in the idea. “No,” I say. “The studio burned down. The deposit’s nonrefundable. We can’t keep this going.” My wife gives me a sidelong glance that lets me know she’s added this failure to the top of Mr. Dirtbag’s mountain of failure. We walk inside our home, each of us quiet, wrapped up in our own thoughts. I go down to the basement and throw a blanket on the couch. I try to sleep the shame away. It doesn’t work. Bassist: Sorry, man. Bassist: Me and my sis got an offer to tour with The Refused. I don’t respond. Bassist: Plus, with the studio falling through… I throw my phone. Days go by. A month. Despite being very busy at the hospital, my wife makes time to form a plan with me. She feigns understanding, but I can tell she’s just trying to keep the peace and not upset me too much. I nod along and tell her what she wants to hear, but the distance between us is growing. It feels just like last time. I send out my résumé. I wake up late. I smoke too much weed. I dig up an old video game console and move an old TV into my basement study. My wife comes down and lets me know she’s not mad. She asks me to sleep in the bedroom again. I tell her I have a cold. My daughter comes down too. “So…” “So what?” I reply, not looking up from my game. “What about Mr. P?” “What about him?” I say. She stands in front of the screen, hands on her hips. I pause the game and stare up at her. “You’re just not going to call him? What about the record?” “Call him? I don’t speak his language! The studio burned—” “You could record here.” She cuts me off, gesturing around the studio. “It was a dumb idea to begin with,” I say weakly. “A waste of time.” “A waste,” she repeats. Her voice catches. I can’t bring myself to check, but I know she’s crying. My daughter’s hands fall to her sides, and she walks out of the room, tail swishing limply behind her. A doctor would say I’m depressed. Let them say whatever they want. I smoke my weed pen and play video games. After a while, I start feeling a pull to “make things right” with my wife. I realize that the only reason I’m considering this noble path of humility is simply because I’m horny—so I jerk off into the downstairs toilet. I stay a grub, a goblin, a dirtbag. Daughter: I’m meeting Mr. P and Koeh at the laundromat. I pick up my controller and unpause my game. My phone buzzes again. Daughter: Manny says he can sing tonight. I give in. Me: Who’s Manny? Sing what? There’s no band anymore. Daughter: Manny owns the laundromat. He has a karaoke setup. The Drummer said he might show up. Fat chance. I toss my phone on the carpet. His boss is back on tour—they play a packed-out stadium tonight, actually. I lean over to pick up my phone and type a response to this effect, but then delete it and resume my game. It’s ten p.m., and no one is home. Feeling an urge to smoke a cigarette, I emerge from my cave and shuffle past the dining room table to the sliding back doors. I light up and exhale into the cloudy, freezing December night. I idly wonder what percent of the smoke is steam from my breath when the floodlights on the side of my house flick on. There, poking his head around the corner, is Pannah. “I got you, motherfucker,” he says in broken English. And maybe it’s the weed, but my guts freeze with sudden fear. He steps out from around the corner and reaches into his pocket. I raise one leg and stick my hands out, covering my face. “Please, don’t shoot!” I scream. He produces a flip phone from his pocket. I relax. Pannah moves closer, and I recognize the weaving guitar of Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide. Pannah sits down on a deck chair and pats the space next to him. I sit and take another calming drag of my cigarette. He lets Stevie take the first verse but then places a hand on my back and sings the chorus. “Well, I’ve been ‘fraid of changing, ’cause I’ve built my life around you. But time makes you bolder, even children get older, and I’m getting older too.” I hitch, drop the cig, and put my hands in my face. I’m sobbing as he rubs my back. My face is freezing, my tears are hot, Pannah’s voice—it cuts deep and spills my soul’s guts like bloody entrails freezing on snowy ground. He couldn’t know what this song means to me— And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills, well, the landslide will bring it down. Oh, the landslide will bring it down. “Man,” I say, wiping my eyes and nose with the crusty sleeves of my hoodie. “That was exactly what I needed to hear.” He smiles and shivers in his coat. “Come on in. Come inside, it’s cold.” He looks apprehensive and cocks his head back toward the front of my house. “Oh, right, the karaoke show.” He nods and gestures for me to follow him. “Right, OK. Let me get a coat.” I go back into the house, brush my teeth, slather on deodorant, and grab my boots. Moments later, I come out of the house with a shell jacket, fully expecting to see Pannah ready to go in his work van. He throws me a motorcycle helmet and, opening the visor of his own, inclines his shining head toward the back of his electric scooter. People honk at us as we turn onto the high street and weave our way through weekend bar traffic toward the laundromat. I catch my reflection in the shop windows. My cheeks are raw and red. The lights of the shops are bright. We push through the front door of the laundromat. The warmth and the smell of dryer sheets are a welcome comfort. “They’re here!” I recognize my daughter’s voice and look for her among the tawdry crowd. I see my wife and a fellow nurse at the bar talking to the owner, Manny. Then I see my daughter on her speaker perch, talking to some punks who look like they came stock with the building. Koeh is there and waves us over. “I knew you’d make it,” he says. “Pay up.” He holds his hand out to my daughter, who slaps five bucks into his waiting palm. She gives me a “my bad” look. The lights dim, and I wheel around to see that Manny has left his place at the bar and is fiddling with a PA soundboard and an ancient-looking laptop. He points at me, beckoning with a curling finger. “All yours, chief,” he says. “What? You want me to—” “That’s what I told the girl.” He looks longingly back toward the bar. “Your wife’s nurse friend is real cute, and I think I may have a shot.” He lumbers off, leaving me with the tech. It takes a while to hammer out the EQ and load the setlist into a YouTube playlist of instrumental versions of our songs. It’s almost eleven o’clock when I give Pannah the thumbs-up. More people arrive and buzz around the bar area—late-night delivery drivers, a couple more punks, and, to my surprise, my daughter’s friends and their parents. Sperry Dad buys me a beer. I get a text from my brother: You owe me. Merry Christmas. The f**k is he talking about? It’s late. Maybe he’s drunk. I dim the lights and direct a beam toward the spinning disco ball. “Check,” I say into the mic. Heads turn; someone coughs. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Wiener Man himself!” My daughter and Koeh laugh super loud. Everyone else seems confused, and a squeak of feedback jolts me back. “It’s with great pleasure, I introduce to you my dear friend, Pannah. Please welcome him to the stage.” People clap half-heartedly; many stand with drinks and can’t clap. The first song is one of his favorites. I fought him on adding it, but it doesn’t matter now. Honky-tonk piano and spacey ’80s synth plink out over the crowd. The Doobie Brothers’ song winds up: He came from somewhere back in her long ago. The sentimental fool don’t see, tryin’ hard to recreate what had yet to be created… It’s jarring to hear the track without Michael McDonald’s throaty white-soul signature sound. The song plays joyfully, a calliope from a carousel, but as the chorus washes over us, Pannah’s voice shifts to a reaching falsetto, juxtaposing the pathos of the verse in a sharp minor key. “The wise man has the power,” he keens, “to reason away…” Something catches my attention. The front door opens, and I recognize a face—an old man’s face—but before I can get a better look, he ducks into the growing crowd and out of sight. Pannah’s flawless falsetto climbs: “What seems to be is always better than nothing, than nothing at all.” He finishes the song with a curt bow and wipes his forehead. Koeh hands him a glass of water. The opening bar of a slower Simon and Garfunkel song plays. “Want a Swedish Fish?” a voice from behind me says. I turn to see the speaker inches from my ear. He holds a crumpled plastic bag of candy and shakes it around. I’m dumbfounded. I stick out my hand toward the bag slowly, taking in the world-weary eyes and sagging—yet still boyish—dimples of a living legend. “Go ahead,” Bill Murray says. “Pick any color you want. I don’t care.” I crack a smile and grab a gummy. He smiles too and puts the bag back into his coat pocket, sidling up to me like we were old friends. “Did you put together this little shindig?” I nod, chewing the sweet and changing the lights from blue to red. Bill Murray blinks slowly, indulgently, and leans over the railing that surrounds the sound booth. “It’s cool.” “Why are you here, Mr. Murray?” His mouth curls, conspiratorial, and he looks from side to side. “You mean like philosophically, existentially?” I struggle to reply, and he quickly puts me out of my misery. “Your brother is my accounts manager. We were at a show tonight and…” As he speaks, he’s looking over the heads of the concertgoers. “Your brother told me a rumor that there’s a certain Cambodian man who can sing a rendition of House of the Rising Sun in a way that can turn you inside out and—” Bill Murray interrupts himself and raises his hand. “Over here!” He flags down two newcomers. Big, tough-looking guys with sunglasses approach, and Bill steps over to them, cups his hand over his mouth, and shouts into the big man’s ear, then walks back to my booth. “To answer your question, kid, I’m here because—” He points at my microphone. “Do you mind?” I know my mouth is open. My body moves on its own, and I hand him the mic. He takes it. “Thanks, man. I mean that.” I slide the volume down to blend in the next track. “I’m here because I like your brother,” Bill Murray tosses the microphone up and catches it, testing its weight, “and I love karaoke.” “What are you going to do?” I ask. “It’s cool, playa. I’ll hop in when the time is right.” He turns and disappears into the crowd. I press play on the laptop, but nothing happens. I press it again. Pannah looks toward me from the stage. I panic. Something’s wrong with the PA. All of a sudden, warm and deep guitar emerges from nowhere. A moment later, a lone musician takes the stage, picking a beautiful and immediately recognizable arpeggio. He has a swooping Euro-mullet and dark eyelashes. He plays the riff perfectly and effortlessly. Where the hell did this guy come from? There once was a house in New Orleans, they called the Rising Sun… Pannah doesn’t miss a beat. He smiles and nods to the guitarist, who returns his nod with an infinitesimal smirk. I feel that chill in my spine again, as if the notes were climbing it like a ladder. One of Murray’s guys steps onto the stage holding a bass drum and stool. Pannah pays him no mind, and the man sets the equipment upright and goes to retrieve more. A bass guitar can be heard now, filling in the depth of the melody. A new player steps into the light. He’s tall and has a long, straight nose. I catch a glimpse of Murray in the front row. He winks at me, steps up on the stage, and howls: “The only thing a gambler needs is a suitcase and a trunk!” Pannah steps back, startled, and grabs at his chest. My own heart leaps, remembering that he doesn’t do well with surprises. But my fear is quickly assuaged as Pannah recovers composure and sings the harmony with Bill: “And the only time he is satisfied is when he is a drunk.” Murray leans out over the crowd and steals a beer out of the hands of a punk with red liberty spikes. He chugs from the can as the guitarist starts the scorching solo. By now, the drum set is complete and the crowd is under a spell. It’s like everyone saw the Chicago legend, but no one believed it until now. Someone yells, “It’s Bill Murray!” Pannah and Murray struggle to be heard over the crowd. People shout, cheer, and hold out their phones, no doubt recording the celebrity in his natural environment. By the end of the song, Bill is sweating and breathing hard, and Pannah comes to his side to support him. They sway together like drunks and sing the last verse: “There is a house in New Orleans, they call the Rising Sun. And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy, and God, I know I’m one. Dear God, I know I’m one.” I look at Pannah and he points at me. Why do I feel like that last line is a warning? The next thing that happens, no one will ever believe… She walked through the crowd, a head above the rest. At first, I thought she was my wife because of the blond hair, but my wife was still at the bar with her friend—and my wife ain’t that tall. Another surprise shocks me when I look back to the stage and see a drummer—the Drummer—sitting down behind his completed kit and tightening the understrap of his snare. He stomps on the kick drum and clacks his sticks together: Boom bap. Boom boom bap. No way. The guitarist takes his hand from his instrument, letting it hang, and claps along with the beat, and the crowd follows suit. I couldn’t see her face from the booth, but Pannah could, and I thought he might actually have a heart attack. His eyes widened, and he hands this woman his microphone. Bill Murray, having regained his breath, stretches and grunts into his mic. “Ladies and gentlemen, do I have a treat for you.” He sits down on a stool and wipes his brow as the tall blond turns around. The crowd gasps. The band keeps up the beat. “You may not have heard of her, but I promise you, you will.” Taylor Swift laughs like a bro into her mic. She brushes away yellow bangs. “Hey, guys.” How is this happening? Am I dreaming? Taylor continues to address the crowd: “My friend Bill and my band”—she turns around to look at Drummer—“told me that there was a show in the city tonight.” People cheer and whistle; she can barely get a word in. She looks down at Pannah, who is standing there, awestruck. “Do you mind if I sing a song?” The crowd screams their consent, but the starlet is looking at Pannah for an answer. He smiles and nods. Oh s**t, I think, he doesn’t know what she is saying. Wanting to save him the embarrassment, I make my way through the crowd. Koeh saves the day by whispering into his father’s ear and leading him offstage. Taylor, stage to herself, starts a long-legged prowl. She nods at Guitarist, who lets his guitar squeal out the intro to HAIM’s “The Wire.” “You know I’m bad at communication. It’s the hardest thing for me to do…” Stuck in the middle of the crowd, I crane my neck toward the bar. “Hey.” I gamble, squeezing between my wife and Manny. “Hey.” She still seems pissed. “You like the band?” It’s the first thing I ever asked her. She looks at me, and I can tell immediately that humor isn’t going to work. “Listen, I’m sorry I’ve been so unhinged. This whole thing—the drunk driving, the car—it’s my fault.” “Then why do I feel like it’s mine?” she barks, letting her anger out. “I don’t care about the car; you hated that car. I don’t care about the job; you hated that job.” She takes off her glasses. “But why did you move downstairs?” She rubs at her eyes, composing herself. “Always keep your heart locked tight, don’t let your mind retire…” Taylor sings. “I didn’t realize that hurt you,” I say, and I feel my cheeks start to burn. “I always feel like I’m in your way. Like something you have to put up with.” Taylor sashays over to the bassist and playfully hip-checks him, singing: “I couldn’t take it. I tried hard not to fake it, but I fumbled right when it came down to the wire.” “Put up with you,” she tastes the words. “Well yeah, I’ve had to put up with you. But I feel like this started before…” “It did. I see it now. When I lost my job in the music industry, I thought I lost the only thing keeping you around.” She squints her eyes at this. “Besides our daughter, of course,” I add quickly. “But I was in a slump, and it made me believe not that change had brought something new and unpleasant, but that all the good before was fake. I’d never really changed. I’m a dirtbag, and though sometimes it’s easier to hide, I’ll always be a dirtbag.” “Do you still think that?” she asks. The band cuts out, and Taylor claps, keeping the beat. “Always keep your heart locked tight.” “No,” I say. “Good,” she says, placing a hand on mine. “Actually, I don’t know!” I stand up and grab both her hands with desperation. “Maybe it doesn’t matter what I think! Pannah showed me that I still care—care about you, care about our kid! I thought maybe life had ground me down, but it took this silly little man to make me realize that life isn’t just about enduring change or clinging to what’s already gone. It’s about holding on to each other and to what you love, so you don’t lose everything in the landslide.” Taylor finishes the song. “Thank you, thank you.” She blows ruby-red kisses at the crowd and tries to hand the mic back to Pannah, but he is talking closely to Bill Murray and Koeh. She taps Bill on the shoulder. He turns and holds her hand up like the winner of a prizefight. “Everyone, what did you think?!” Feedback squeals, and the crowd flinches. “Yeah, she’s a little green, but I think with some coaching, she could be a real star. Thanks again, Taylor.” She winks and heads out with the two security guys. “Now,” Murray’s voice drops low, “we’re going to slow things down for you with a silky rendition of one of my personal favorites sung by the man of the hour, Mr. Pannah! Let’s give him a round of applause!” The crowd claps obediently as Murray goes around the stage giving instructions to each musician. Drummer pulls bongo onto his lap. Bill Murray continues to purr into the mic: “Grab someone you love—or maybe just someone close by. Take them by the hand and let Mr. Wonder do the talking.” Guitarist gives the jazzy piano intro the old college try, but once Pannah sings the first line of You Are the Sunshine of My Life, the music is a fleeting afterthought. I’m being pulled into the mass of people. My wife is ahead of me, still holding my hand, leading me to the middle of the dancefloor. Looking back at me, she stops and then curls into my arms. Her beautiful eyes look up at me. She puts a hand on my shoulder, and her hips brush against mine. Close again, dancing in a bar. Just like before, except this time we’re both sober. Pannah sings: “It feels like this is the beginning, though I’ve loved you for a million years. And if I thought our love was ending, I’d find myself drowning in my tears.” “Can I tell you why I’m still mad at you?” my wife says into my ear. Not the most romantic thing to say at a time like this, but I’m sure I deserve it. “What?” “Why would you listen to an old Cambodian man? Why do his words carry so much weight—you don’t even speak the same language? Why was Pannah the one to wake you up…and not me?” “But it was you,” I say. “What do you mean?” “Well, it wasn’t your words per se—Stevie Nicks wrote the lyrics.” I’m floundering, and her brow furrows even more. “Pannah sang our wedding song.” “He did? But you hate that song,” she pouts. “I did. That’s because it’s about a woman leaving her husband because they grew apart. I thought no song choice could be less romantic.” She snatches my hat from my head and tosses it into the darkness. “Well, I’m still mad you didn’t say anything before we had our first dance to it.” “I was afraid to say anything that would cause you to second-guess marrying me,” I admit. “But when Pannah sang it, the tone changed. The landslide became something to watch out for—a tragedy, like a hurricane, earthquake, or blizzard. Everything you love can be lost or change and bring you down—” She’s kissing me now as Stevie Wonder sings: “You are the sunshine of my life, that’s why I’ll always be around.” This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kckingauthor.substack.com (https://kckingauthor.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

3. 

   10 Jan 2026

   Dirtbag: EP 4

   Content Warning: This episode contains violence against children and explicit language. Cambodia1975 Set list: Simon & Garfunkle, The Sound of Silence After a moment, we compose ourselves and muster enough courage to stand around the crater that used to be a dog and a land mine. “Goodbye, Samnang. You were a good boy.” Meng is crying, leaving the eulogy to Siem, who is wringing sweat from his black pajama top. I peer into the hole and direct my flashlight to its center. There, shining bright in the reflection of my beam, is a bit of riveted metal. It’s round and reminds me of a submarine hatch in a James Bond film. I drop down into the hole. “Pannah! What are you doing?” “What? It’s not like there is another mine under this one. This might be the safest place in this whole field. I need to look at this.” I brush away moist soil and roots from the wheel and discover that it is some kind of door. Siem drops down to help me clear away the debris. Meng is still crying. After a concerted effort, we uncover a hatch wide and tall enough for a person to crouch through. “Well,” says Siem, “what now?” “You open it,” I say. “No. You are the one who spotted it and came down here first.” I shine my flashlight at the metal of the door. The reflected light illuminates Siem’s face. He looks mad, but he’s always squinting like that, so it’s hard to tell. I grasp the thick metal rods in the center of the wheel and pull down, wrenching counterclockwise. “It’s no use. I’m not strong enough.” I look back at Siem, who sighs and grabs the rods with me. We strain against the metal, but it’s still stuck fast. We are blinking sweat from our eyes and breathing too hard to notice Meng as he slides down the bank of the crater. He places his hands on ours, and together we give it one last try. The wheel gives slightly and we lose our balance, falling into a muddy heap. I hear the hiss of released air as I wipe mud from my eyes. We pick ourselves up and stare into the open door of a bunker. Flickering light strobes out of the aperture. Our mouths hang open in surprise and wonder. I step into the hatch and shine my light around. The walls are lined, floor to ceiling, with tins of Oscar Mayer Cocktail Weenies. “We’re rich,” I say. Meng sniffles, mumbles something, and rubs his nose with a muddy sleeve. “What was that, Meng?” I ask. “I said, thank you, Samnang.” All three of us sit together in the hatch wearing only our underwear. We left our clothes, smeared with dog guts, on the roadside. Siem wears his glasses now. “Do you think they will believe that we’re dead?” he says through a mouthful of wieners. “I doubt they will spend much time making sure,” I say. “Come on, Meng, eat the food!” “I don’t eat meat,” Meng says quietly. “You can’t possibly care about piety now! Besides, I’ve seen you eat crickets,” I argue. Siem chuckles. “Yeah, are you a monk, Meng?” Meng starts to cry again. “No,” he sniffles and wipes his nose with the back of his skinny bare arm, “but my father was.” We stop chewing. “He was, until they killed him.” Silence falls between us. “Well, what do we do now?” I ask. “Isn’t it obvious?” shouts Siem. He doesn’t squint anymore, now that he has his glasses. “There’s no going back now.” Siem stands and scratches his crotch. “If the Khmer Rouge finds us with this, they will kill us,” he says. “We can stay in here and hide until—” “Until when, Pannah? Until all of Kampuchea is one big farm? Until Pol Pot and his thugs kill everyone they don’t like? People who wear glasses and go to school? Priests?” He glances at Meng. “I am hungry,” admits Meng, and he reaches for a tin. “I suppose they were going to kill us with these mines anyway,” I admit. Siem’s face is red with anger. “This is a way to fight back against them!” he says, gesturing at the sting rows of tin. Meng’s hands are shaking as he pulls the ring tab off the wieners. “Fight back? How?” I ask, standing up to face him. “People are starving, Pannah! The Organization doesn’t care about us!” “But what are we going to do, Siem? We are just teenagers—not even. I’m twelve.” “I know why you’re afraid, Pannah.” Siem steps closer to me. “You’re from the country. You’re scared to act because you are one of them! The Angkar is for people like you. Your people helped put them in power!” Before I know what I’m doing, I push him in the chest. It was a feeble push, but something softens in my friend’s face. “So, you can fight.” He steps closer and places a hand on my bare shoulder. “They took away my family. They took away my dreams.” Siem takes off his glasses and shakes them in my face. “They would have killed me because I got good grades and wore glasses. What did they take from you, Pannah?” I search his brown eyes. I know the answer, but I’m afraid to say it. “They took away his singing,” whispers Meng, “and his music.” Meng drops the empty tin, looking up at us. I sit down heavily next to Meng and hand him another. “What are you suggesting exactly?” I ask. “That we sneak around the labor camps and compounds delivering tins of wieners to our starving countrymen?” We all three look at each other. Meng’s teeth sink—with no resistance—into the meat, and his face melts with happiness. He stands, mouth full, and says: “Let’s do it.” Chicago late August 2025 * I Will Survive, Gloria Gaynor * There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back, Shawn Mendes * Semi-Charmed Kind of Life, Third Eye Blind * Yesterday, The Beatles I’m in hell! Saturday night with three pre-pubescent furries! All her friends, they wear animal tails. I thought I told her no weirdos. The worst part is meeting these girls’ parents. You think there’d be some sort of organic camaraderie, a sympathetic half-smile, like yeah, we all have to forgo Saturday nights to drive our weird kid around to do weird things. Tonight is just your turn. Maybe they feel this way—no one treats me badly—but I feel a creeping, subtle judgment. It makes me feel gross and self-protective. I wonder if they think I like spending my time toting twelve-year-old girls around to karaoke bars. I’m not the creep.You are.Sperry-dad. I’m not pining for lost youth. You are.Hipster mom with bird tattoos. Yeah, we were all cool once. Get over yourself. I scratch my scalp through my cap and turn down the blaring K-pop my daughter and her friends are blasting into my stereo from their phones. It would have helped the optics if my wife had actually come with us. She got called into work for an “emergency.” It may be better this way. Now I don’t have to explain Mr. P’s presence. “Mr.!” One of her weird friends pokes my shoulder. She is wearing sharp triangles of pink makeup on the sides of her eyes. How did that become popular? It’s like if Elsa from Frozen got pink eye. “Did you use to play in a band?” I eye my daughter in the rearview. “Yeah, I did for a bit in college.” “Did you play with anyone important, like on-the-radio popular?” “Some. I doubt you would know any of them—” They are not listening anymore. The other friend is showing them something on “her” phone. Kids today are so free to express themselves–which is great–in theory, but they are so weird. I honestly don’t know if I envy them. After filing into the Karaoke bar, we are ushered into a small private room by a very young Asian man wearing a white shirt and black tie. The girls rush in and grab the remote and tambourines, and the young attendant hands me sticky laminated drink menus. As he turns to leave, I look down the narrow hall and see Mr. P entering the building. He sees me too. Who the f**k is that behind him? A young man is following beside him. Is this dude his agent, lawyer? The young man overtakes Mr. P in the hall and offers me his hand. He is handsome, with soft features, clear dark tan skin, and a streak of blond in his straight black hair. They are both holding motorcycle helmets. “Hello, I’m Koeh, Mr. P’s son. I hope it’s okay that I’m here. My father asked me to come along because, well—” He turns back to his father for a second, as if to ask a silent question. The boy continues, blushing slightly. “He said that while he’s impressed that a twelve-year-old white girl can speak any Khmer, it was still hard to understand her.” Mr. P bows and smiles a conspiratorial smile. This makes sense. I nod and shake his hand. “That and his van broke down, so we rode here on electric scooters.” says Koeh with a smile full of straight white teeth. “No, that’s fine.” I answer. “The more the merrier. Come on in.” I open our door, and the girls have already turned down the lights, turned on a disco ball, and my daughter is belting out the chorus of some Japanese pop song. I give the two Cambodians a withering smile. We sit in the corner. Koeh is polite, and his English is excellent.“I understand you want my father to sing on a record,” he says. Mr. P gets up and waddles toward the girls.“Mr. P!” they scream and wave him closer. His waddle becomes a playful waltz, and he doffs an imaginary cap. My daughter hands him the remote.“Sing! Sing! You pick next!” “There’s something you need to understand about my fath—” Koeh starts. I put my finger up to silence him. “Sorry, one sec,” I say. “I know this song.” The tell-tale piano intro makes my spine tingle in anticipation. Great choice, Mr P. “First I was afraid, I was petrified!” Perfect English. Did the lights dim lower on their own? Jesus. This guy’s voice… It’s not Gloria Gaynor, but it’s just as haunting. I feel a lump starting in my throat, and I blink back tears. “I should’ve changed that stupid lock, I should’ve made you leave your key…” He’s legit angry. This man has lived a life. He has survived. “If I’d known for just one second, you’d be back to bother me!” The girls squeal. They can barely keep their phones up to record this potentially viral video due to the giggling. If he’s offended by their laughter, he doesn’t show it. I steal a glance at Koeh. He’s giving me a knowing smile. Once the song is finished, I get up too quickly to make an order. I need to keep Mr. P around, keep him singing. Each time I hear him, I get a clearer vision of what he’s capable of—and my place in the dream. I order bottomless Cokes and, at the insistence of my daughter, some kind of nasty seaweed crackers. The night passes in a blur of screaming, giggling, and arguing over who’s next and what song. I find that I’m actually having fun. Koeh sings a Shawn Mendes song. He’s done this before. The girls feign a swoon as he shimmies his shoulder and leans in singing: “Oh, I’ve been shaking, I love it when you go crazy. You take all my inhibitions. Baby’s there’s nothing holding me back.” The girls clap to the beat. He’s good, but not as good as his dad. Mr. P seems to be having a great time. I sing Semi-Charmed Kind of Life, by Third Eye Blind for old times sake. My daughter sits next to me; she leans against me as Mr. P closes out the night with Yesterday by the Beatles. “I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday…” We sit in reverent silence for a long, slumped moment. The attendant comes in and turns on the lights. “Time to go. Arigato!” In the parking lot, the girls push past me and race to the van, their animal tails flow behind them. I walk slowly with Mr. P and Koeh. “As I said before—” Koeh skips ahead of me, turns, and places a hand on my chest. I stop. “There is something you need to know about my father. He has a history with singing.” Mr P. is off to the side, casting a faraway look out at the night sky. “He is willing to sing for your recording…” I am elated. My daughter leans out the driver’s side and yells:“Dad, can I drive?” Koeh grabs my hand.“He will sing, if you’re willing to hear his story.” Cambodia 1975 Stand By Me, (cover) Florence and the Machine They call us the Weiner Man. Reverent whispers among the people reverberate off the brutal walls of the killing camps. For the past two weeks, the Establishment has been moving people into death camps and killing families in open fields. We wait until the dead of the night, and with a satchel of wieners, we creep out into the countryside. Aided by our map and flashlights, we visit each settlement and distribute the goods to the needy. The Khmer Rouge think we are Vietnamese spies. According to reports, battles have taken place near the border. The common people think we are a benevolent spirit or the reincarnation of their deposed king. If we were to visit more than one community in a night, folks may figure out that there is more than just one “Weiner Man,” but as it takes all three of us to do the job right, they may never know. The rumors of the Weiner Man grow and grow… until we get caught. I realize, as they march us up onto a raised platform in front of a crowd of emaciated townsfolk, this could never have continued. It was honestly a miracle that we hadn’t been caught sooner. The flabby-faced commander looks skinnier now. His black shirt is ripped at the top and his skin clings to his rib cage. His eyes are dead. He pulls out a pistol and walks behind Meng. I squeeze my eyelids shut and start to sing. “If the sky that we look upon should tumble and fall, and the mountains should crumble to the sea.” BAP!—I keep my eyes closed. “I won’t cry. I won’t cry. No, I won’t shed a tear, just as—” BAP!—I keep my eyes closed. “Just as long as you stand, stand by me.” This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kckingauthor.substack.com (https://kckingauthor.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

4. 

   1 Jan 2026

   Dirtbag: EP 3

   Warning: explicit language, violence. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kckingauthor.substack.com (https://kckingauthor.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

5. 

   17 Dec 2025

   Dirtbag: EP2

   Cambodia 1975 Sophomore Slump: The Weiner-man Cometh. Setlist: * I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You, Elvis Presley * Love Will Keep Us Together, Captain and Tennille * Stand by Me, Ben E. King We walk for a whole day to a farm that serves as a basecamp for the teenaged Army. I trudge alongside the boy who used to wear glasses. His name is Siem. Once settled in our new home the leader of the camp— a pudgy faced man with lank hair—tells us: “Your talents are required of you, in service of the Establishment. So, we will be holding a talent competition and forming dance troops.” This is great news, I think. Last week, when the soldiers took over the city, we had been strictly forbidden from singing, smiling and dancing. Now, they give the attractive girl soldiers red dresses and ask them to dance. I am a great singer, and I ask to be part of the talent troupe. The leaders require me to audition. I stand up and begin to sing my favorite Elvis Presley song from the bottom of my heart. “Wise man say, only fools rush in..” I let my voice drop to match his pitch and warble that last bit, just like The King. I love Elvis. My thick dark hair is like his. I sing with my eyes closed. I soon discover that is not a good idea. Before I get to the second chorus— “I can’t help falling in love with…” —I hear angry murmuring and rushing feet. I open my eyes and see the butt of a gun rocketing toward my forehead. So, I won’t be singing with the talent troupe. Instead, they send me out into the countryside with a broken nose and three other boys—Siem is one of them, I am happy about this. They command that we discover the location of lost land mines. The four of us are more than up to the task… but our superiors never tell us what the mines look like. How are we going to find them? I suppose it will be obvious. When we are far enough away, I sing. Siem and two other boys, Meng and Koeh, love it when I sing. We spend our days walking the fields and recording all the ground we’ve covered in a small notebook. The other boys back at camp are working laboriously, planting rice or unloading trucks. We are lucky to have this job. We find crickets and eat them. Higher-ups say that all food is to be shared with the collective, but my friends and I keep it a secret. This is a big deal because many of the other kids are starving. Occasionally, we come across fruit trees. Those are the best days. We eat, walk, and I sing. Today I’m singing “Love Will Keep Us Together” by Captain & Tennille. It was a huge hit and everyone was listening to it before the Khmer Rouge took over and burned the Russian Market. While I don’t understand English, the melody gives me a sense of hope. Just then, my foot sinks into the mud. I hear a click and then feel Koeh’s shoulder ram into my side. There is a deafening explosion and I’m flung into the air, tumbling like a Chinese acrobat. I land, blind from grit and deaf because of the explosion. Koeh is gone. Pulp. My cheeks are shredded and burning, my tears hurt. I am forever in his debt. I swear if I am ever blessed with a son, I will name him Koeh. I hum “Stand by Me” by Ben E. King as I wash bits of my friend off of me in the brown river. Little by little, my hearing comes back, and I notice that I’m slightly out of tune. I wasn’t sure before, but now I know that I no longer want to be a part of Pol Pot’s army. Chicago, Late August 2025Set list: * Fortnight, Taylor Swift feat. Post Malone I can’t sleep. I toss and turn until two in the morning. My wife pretends to be asleep. She has to get up soon for her shift at the hospital. She rolls over to the outer edge of the bed and sighs. I can sense the passive aggression radiating from her like steam off piss. I get up, go to the bathroom, then head down to the basement, where, years ago, I fixed up a small studio. It was that song. I can’t get it out of my head. I think of ways to change it, match it to the voice I’d heard. By the time the birds were chirping, I’ve made a couple of passable demo tracks and upload them to Drive. I play them back to myself on repeat in the car. I’m wearing headphones this time. On the way to drop my kid off at school, I don’t even notice the doodle-nova crossing in front of us. “Mr. P sings that song.” My daughter is speaking. I take off my headphones. She’s speaking to me—something about this song. “What?”“Mr. P, at school.” What is she talking about? “Can you hear the song even with my headphones on?” “Yeah, that and you played it all night long. Your office is right below my room.” she says, looking out the window. I furrow my brow. “I’m surprised you know it. It’s an old one.”“Well, I wouldn’t know about it unless I’d heard him sing it.”“Yeah.” I stare blearily out the window. I got a late start. I won’t be able to make my detour to S.B.’s. Her car door slams, waking me out of my reverie.“Bye.”“Bye.” I daydream about recording this track. What favors could I call in? I’m still tight with the touring drummer for Taylor Swift, and he owes me a favor. What about that bassist from Pittsburgh? How much of this can I simply program on my own? Could I make it work without that voice? No. I need to find out who this mysterious singer is. I spend the first half of work in a daze. I finish the workload, of course. Anyone could do this job. Give a chimp some adderall and it would get done. But every fifteen minutes, I get up from my desk to stretch, then pop through the exit, down the stairwell just in case. By lunch, I’m completely drained, sleep-deprived, and my calves burn. The last part of my day I stare at my screen, depressed, deflated. Knuckle-dragger comes up and raps “shave and a haircut” on my cubicle. He’s asking me some benign questions about fantasy football. I just look at him. His mouth hangs open, then forms a thin line. His eyebrows, clinging to that ugly Stone Age ape-drape, let me know he’s offended. He walks away. I lay my head down. I’m so tired I don’t even notice when I fall asleep at my desk. I wake up to the sound of jingling keys, and then the hum of a vacuum. As I lift my head a string of drool connects my chin to the bottom of my keyboard. I look at my watch—7 p.m.! No one even thought to wake me up? What was my boss doing? Shouldn’t I get chewed out? F**k. My wife is going to be pissed. I grab my keys and my briefcase and stand up. As I turn, I almost run right over a small brown man. He is old and startled. He steadies himself on a cleaning cart. The janitor. His initial look of shock melts into a placating smile. “Damn, I’m sorry.” He nods and bows. “I didn’t keep you from leaving, did I? I mean, no, you don’t clean the cubicles, do you?” He nods and bows again, leading me to believe the only thing he’s understood is that I finished my sentence. “Sorry again.” I head for the door, but something crinkles my eyes together in subconscious concentration. I turn. The gravitational pull, the inertia of fate, causes my eyes to zoom in on his name tag. Pannah, it says. Like Hannah but with a P. Mr. P? Where had I heard that? I shake my head and walk to the exit. As the door closes behind me, I stop at the foot of the stairs. But what if it is? I’m already late. I crouch low against the painted cinderblock wall. I wait, and wait some more. After twenty minutes, I can hear a radio, sometimes louder, sometimes quieter. I peek out the small rectangular window in the metal door. Mr. P is cleaning, and he has a small portable radio attached to his cart. He is emptying trash—not singing. This is stupid. This is a waste of time. What am I doing here? I should just go. I curse myself with every deep, interpersonal curse word I can think of. Dirtbag is still the one that stings the most. I make it down the first flight of stairs before I hear it again. There is no mistake. It’s the same voice, but this time he sings a different song. A female pop icon, on her sixth album, decided to bring in a rowdy R&B singer in on the track. The lyrics are familiar to me: “And for a fortnight there, we were forever Run into you sometimes…” The song is fine—not her best—the album is fine. This man, this little foreign man, has re-created it. He sings both parts as if it were written that way. The song means something totally different now. Am I crying? He is old. He is slow. He is singing with the voice of an angel. His eyes are closed. He belts out the final chorus as it reaches its climactic key change. I barge open the door. “I got you, motherfucker!” I exclaim. The poor old man falls backward. I can’t see him now as he scurries away between cubicles. “F**k! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you!” I call out. I can’t see him, but I can hear his keys jingling and muffled shuffling. I give chase. “Hey! Come back!” I hear whimpering, and I follow the pathetic sound. Rounding a corner, I see his reflection in the glass of a conference room. He darts into the employee break room on all fours. There is no escape from there. I slowly walk towards the door, hands outstretched in a gesture of surrender. I keep my voice calm and measured. If he doesn’t know what I’m saying, at least he can understand that I mean him no harm. He’s in the corner, shaking, hands over his face. He speaks a language I don’t recognize. I crouch and pull out my phone. Man, it’s weird to see old people cry. I feel bad thinking it, but it’s almost cute. I get that same nasty thrill when I see dogs whimper. I pull up the demo track. I tap play and slide my phone towards him. He stops shivering and peeks out from behind his small brown hands. “Do you know this song?” He nods. I think he might understand what I said this time. “Do you work at the school? The middle school on Broadview?”He nods. I found him. “Mr. P, I’m going to make you a star,” I whisper under my breath. He wipes away tears from his cheeks and smiles at me. I stand up, walk towards him and extend a hand. He takes my hand. I lift him up. He smiles his silly smile up at me. Then, without warning, his eyes flutter, and he falls. His face brushes my knee on the way down and then lands with a thud on the linoleum floor. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kckingauthor.substack.com (https://kckingauthor.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

6. 

   5 Dec 2025

   Dirtbag: EP 1

   Part 1 Cambodia 1975 “ch’kai!” Blood splatters the machete wielding commander as he hacks the head off a man who used to sell cassette tapes in the market. A boy next to me pockets his glasses and squints back toward the mess. “The dogs have been put down! A new era begins with you!” The children around me chant: “Angkar! Angkar! Ankar!” Kids at my school called me ch’kai because I grew up in the country. Most of those kids and their parents are dead now. I think I would be too if they knew that my aunt and uncle worked in the market, but I have the dark skin and blunt features of a country boy. Even though I’m only twelve years old they tell me that I’m a vital part of Pol Pot’s army. “You are strong! Cambodian men are strong. One of us is like ten of the Vietnamese soldiers. We fight for the Angkar (Establishment) to make the new Kampuchea great again. Angkar!” They all chant, “Angkar! Angkar! Angkar!” My name is Pannah, which means “wise.” My name is not ch’kai. Ch’kai means dog. The bloody commander continues: “The metropolitan bourgeoisie are influenced by the Chinese… or the French… or are secretly Vietnamese in disguise! The new leader of Kampuchea, Pol Pot, loves and protects you now from foreign influence.” I can’t see my aunt and uncle anymore in the crowd. They sold promotional movie posters out of the stall next to the now-headless man. The commander kicks the corpse at his feet and signals to his lieutenants dressed in black shirts and pants. They push us, like cattle, out of the city. The man they beheaded—the man I watched die in front of me as a twelve year old boy— was killed for hiding a tape in his bag. I wonder what tape it was? What music was worth his life? I used to think music saved my life. It was only a month ago that I came to work for my family in Phnom Penh. I would go to the cassette stall and listen to so many tapes. Now, it seems, music may get me killed. Debut Album: You’re Such a F**king Dirtbag Chicago, Late August 2025Set list: * Let’s Stay Together, Al Green My daughter and I walk to the van. It’s starting to get cold in the mornings; I can see my breath. She has headphones in, so the drive to school will be quiet. Feeling spacey—one too many beers last night. I woke up today with one word in mind, surfacing like the murky fortune in an eight ball: “Dirtbag.” My older brother used to call me a dirtbag. Not the crème de la crème of insults, but coming from him—what I mean is, when he called me “dirtbag,” it felt like a curse—not a cuss—but like something a gypsy might do. Stopped at a light, a dog walker crosses the street in front of our van. I look on in disgust. This guy, what am I looking at here? I swear, if I see another goldendoodle, I’m going to vomit. You’d never catch me dead walking a doodle. I crane my neck over the steering wheel as the impossibly handsome dog walker turns around the block and out of sight. I swear, these stupid f*****g dogs could make Hercules look like a pussy. I steer my minivan into the schoolyard. It’s Monday, and I’m looking down the barrel of another hopeless week at work. I park and she steps out quickly. My twelve-year-old daughter is in her last year of middle school. To say she’s eccentric is a nice way of saying she dresses like a kid I would’ve made fun of back when I was in school. Today she insists on wearing a top hat… and a raccoon tail. I wonder what the teachers think of her. I guess I would know if I showed up to the conferences. I watch her walk toward a gaggle of equally weird friends. Bye. Okay. Out the lot. I can’t help myself. I circle back. Goddamn! Look at this guy walking this golden f*****g doodle! The dog-walker has a chin that could sink ships. He is white, but perhaps slightly Mediterranean, with effortlessly tanned skin and thick dark hair. Ray-Bans, a linen short-sleeve button-up. I wish I had that kind of hair. All the men in my family end up looking like… well, like bald. We all have the same blotchy reddish skin under patchy beards, shiny foreheads, and receding hairlines. Last Christmas my brother clapped me on the back, brought me in close for a hug, put his mouth to my ear, and whispered, “Oh, it’s so good to see I’m not the only one losing hair.” That’s what he said. A*****e. I started wearing my knit hat more after that. I used to do that in college. I thought it was artsy, but I realize that I should’ve shown off my hair more then. Whatever. Now that the kid is dropped off, it is time for my morning treat. Starbucks! Drive-through this time because I’m already late for work. I creep the minivan around slowly, peering through the windows into the coffeehouse lounge. I’m not really here for the coffee. I’m here to catch a glimpse of the clientele. I swear, if I had a whole day to myself, I would just post up at S.B.’s and ogle the hot college girls going in and out. Wait—jackpot! A leggy brunette in a tight-fitting athletic-wear dress walks quickly across the street, skips up the curb, and enters the coffee shop. The car behind me honks. I raise my hand in a gesture of apology and pull out onto the high street. What’s the deal with female fashion today? It’s like, in the past two months, everyone decided that dressing like a tennis pro was the sexiest thing in the world. More like tennis-ho. I chuckle to myself and merge on the highway. One part of my brain fires up the autopilot, effortlessly navigating to work, while the other part of my brain wonders if my wife would ever wear a tennis skirt like that. S**t, I really am late… I guess my brother was right. I’m a dirtbag. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe if I were more like him, I would have a record deal. Maybe I would be driving a new Range Rover instead of this shitty Dodge. I tell you what, no matter how much money I would’ve hypothetically made, I would never buy a goldendoodle. F*****g doodles. Who is walking who, b***h? F*****g biceps. I could go to the gym, but I’m not going to—because I’m late for work. Everyone at the returns center is exactly the same. The small-talk is what kills me. It’s not the monotony. Moving numbers from one cell to the next, I can do that. If it were just me and four walls, alone, clock in, clock out. Do your time. Go home. I could do that, no problem. No, the thing that makes the job unbearable is how disinteresting all these plodding lobotomites are. All they care about is b******t contest shows. Who gets kicked off what island? Who will be going home—gah, I wish you would. This knuckle-dragger is talking up a storm with the lady from I.T., whose face is as blunt as the broad side of a barn. Moooooooooooooo! It’s all the same s**t with different wrapping paper. Get the net. Speaking of: I think about the suicide nets on the top of skyscrapers in Japan. I bet the guy who came up with it is super rich. I wonder if he ever felt like jumping before he had his billion dollar idea. I smile at them–my co–workers– even though I hate them, which makes me hate them more. I hate them because they make me hate me. I feel like I betray myself on a soul-deep level every day by just responding to their standard salutations.“How you doing?” they say.“Oh, you know, hanging in there,” I reply, smiling like an idiot at the idiot parade. No one here understands art. I bet none of these people have read a book in the past ten years. I mean, I don’t read books anymore either—I listen to podcasts—so I guess I can’t say anything. Music is my true passion. I used to own a recording studio—back when I was cool. That’s when I met my wife, actually. I’m sitting in the break room now. I let the moments tick by, making love to my plastic spoon. I finished the SnackPack long ago, and now I simply suck the plastic, feeling its curve on my tongue. I’m a million miles away. I’ve been done with my lunch for a while now, but if they give me thirty minutes for lunch, I am taking every goddamn minute of it for myself. Mercifully, no one is in here. I need to think. I need to strategize. I need to daydream about not being here, not doing this. I know that if I quit my job, it would worry my wife. It might mean we could not afford the city taxes and would have to move our kid out of her school. I wonder what she would think about that—not my wife—the kid. She seems to have some friends. Weird ones. But what if I broke out? What if I found a niche? What if I found a local talent I could cling to? What if I found someone I could make into a star. I’m jittery—too much coffee. I need to get out of here. I “quit” smoking twenty years ago, but I always keep an emergency pack in the glove compartment. I’m walking down the stairwell to the parking garage when I hear it for the first time—singing. I have never heard singing so obviously pleasant yet subtly disturbing. The accent is unplaceable, the authority enough to bend the knees of kings. Where is this sound coming from? The song is an oldie. A soul classic. The kind of song you never get tired of, whether you hear it perusing the aisles of a thrift store or watching someone at their wedding take their lover into their arms for their first dance. It echoes up to me from the bottom of the stairwell. I scramble after the sweet sound, grasping the handrails, taking each step three at a time, looking down the center every so often to see if I can spy the singer. The song stops at the sound of my clattering Rockports. I reach the bottom floor. I gasp and watch the door shut its last centimeter and then clunk. I’m alone, with only the subsonic suggestion of that beautiful song bouncing off the merciless concrete. Whoever it was is gone. I look at my watch. My break is over. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kckingauthor.substack.com (https://kckingauthor.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

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