Mark Daniel Rogers

Mahdakis accidentally stumbles upon a much needed change in his life and unconsciously slams a door shut behind him while bumbling his way through another, opening him up to an unsullied colorful world of sobriety and optimism; a world filled with shiny happy people exuding positive reinforcement.This phenomenon, of course, sickens him.Yet, despite his reluctance to adapt, he inexplicably finds himself playing with some high school seniors in a local F.A.G.G. Metal band (Female-Aspirant Guy Group) and socializing amongst young F.A.G.G. Metal ilk.While degrading to him at first, he slowly begins to feel an invigorating sense of purpose and motivation as he warily feeds off the refreshing bombastic innocence of these F.A.G.G.'s.On Other Fronts: After getting reinstated as a mortal being by the superhero committee, Pumpkinhead seeks validation as a Middle-Earth Wizard......The Norford Police Department sets up a sting operation to put Jack Scentoola away once and for all......Charlotte Cummings starts to show very vivid true colors......Snowy McPeet returns from his capture in a top secret government lab......Goiter has a coming out party......Mahdakis and Nicki leave for Cincinnati, to start life anew. While they find solace in one another, they don't find much of anything else......Captain H. has his hands full when the AIDS virus hits close to home and new promotions are being given to some and death sentences to others.

Martians, nymphomaniacs, drug dealers, federal agents, and ghosts all partake in their share of heartbreak, suicide, murder, cocaine abuse, car crashes, and incontinence as pandemonium and infidelity run rampant in this era's final installment of the B.U.R.N.O.U.T.S. Chronicles; an era which drives some to psychiatric furlough's, some to newly invested lives of crime, and some to the Missing Persons database. It is an era that Mahdakis finds his creativity drowning in an overwhelming wave of F.A.G.G. Metal music; music he feels threatens his chances of any musical future, as male musicians dressing like women, are now the only ones being signed to recording contracts because genuine women are inexplicably drawn to them and their hokey love songs.But perhaps this is merely an excuse he uses to rationalize his apathetic behavior towards growing up and becoming a responsible Human Being; denial shrouding any chance of clear thinking, as the only real drowning being done is that by his own hand; drowning in a self-made sea of scotch and LSD, accentuated by the formidable, yet intoxicating, sexuality of Jezebel Crowley, as their love hits a volatile peak in a no holds barred wrestling match of the hearts. But, caught up in the intensity of his passionate frenzy, he injudiciously underestimates his opponent's will and desire for independence...and victory. For Jezebel too, finds herself trapped in the same furious liaison of orgasmic euphoria from which she secretly desires no escape....but unlike him, begins to understand the dire consequences if she does not.Desperate to remember himself, he returns to The Mountains for answers.

In search of fame and fortune, Mahdakis, an offbeat sixteen-year-old poet/musician, runs away from his home in the dismal rural settings of The Mountains, and catapults himself towards the bright lights and Promised Land of Philadelphia. But a funny thing or two happen on the way to The City of Brotherly Love; not the least of which being a five-year detour into Norford, a large culturally and financially diverse suburbanite city in northern Delaware. It is here, in a purgatory of his own creation, he must learn to successfully walk the fine line of sanity and madness, lest he become nothing more than another tragic teenage statistic; a feat only compounded by incessant wrestling with the demons of his murderous past. As the assortment of characters he encounters become increasingly more bizarre, Mahdakis accepts the possibility that these B.U.R.N.O.U.T.S. he relents to calling friends, may represent nothing more than pinball bumpers, deterring or directing his one shot at ultimate glory and musical success. What he doesn't count on is the ferocious passion, stuffed inside each and every one of these people, like a jack-in-the-box waiting to be sprung free, and how that passion would forever scar and bless him, simultaneously. It is while running through the maze of these friendships, towards tomorrow's dream, and from yesterday's sorrow, that Mahdakis discovers who he really is, who he really was, and how there is no escaping either.