My next moment of consciousness was that of being transported through a large basement. I could see pipes and conduits crisscrossing a couple stories up. Maybe it was the ceiling of a warehouse or industrial building.
"Geh..." I grunted. "Fuggggh." I couldn't quite talk. Lying on a moving platform, I felt like I was on a gurney, on my back. I was rolling through this industrial looking building. Electric whirring. Glancing further up, I tilted my head backwards. I could see Belle's long curly hair hanging over the back of the seat that I was propped up against. I was in a golf cart looking vehicle! The electric whirring was now understood by me and I was travelling backwards through a bleak and basement looking environment.
"Our impressive friend is waking up." It was the Preacher's voice. I cranked my head over and he was driving the golf cart vehicle.
"Freghhhhhh. Schmeeeeghhhhhh."
"Oh, Joe! Perfect timing." Belle exclaimed.
All of a sudden, perfect blue-black speckled sky. Above me, I saw stars and seats, the seats of the field at Mile high stadium! They are unmistakable. The freaking Broncos south end! The jumbotron! What the fuck!? I was in a real stupid dream.
"Oh Christian is a total geek," Belle said.
"Beeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhh," I wailed.
"Shut up Joe. Compose yourself. Don't meet the Lion like you met me." She said.
The Preacher laughed in his Charlton Heston voice and said, "Don't make him feel that way. We really put him through the Gauntlet today. Don't get him all riled up. Oh, look! He's playing X-Box!"
"Okay...Joe. Just breathe a bit more, you'll be fine." Belle said.
"Fahhhhhhghhh, Beeehhhhhhh, I Keeeeyaahhhh yuuuuuuuuuuuuuu. Shuggggghhhh meeeyaht topherugh...Sheeeeee!"
The Preacher said, "He needs an hour, at the very least."
"No. He'll be fine," Belle said.
"You're the expert, 12. Aren't you?"
"There is no number after 9. My tree is from 8 as well, old friend," She said.
"Heh! I am surprised to hear you say that yet, don't forget what you just said, witch. You act like you haven't been taking certain liberties? Lucinda and Marcella are becoming quite outspoken. You enjoy their company. You are as old as them, perhaps older." The Preacher spat.
"Don't be like that. Don't speak out of both sides of your mouth, David. It's not nice. You know who I am. You know what we are to become. We are the Bastards, men and women. Don't chastise me. This is just Joe. The Lion will tell him. Don't tell me you're still upset about back then. We made wonderful things. Don't try to make me more than I am. You were there when all of this started."
The preacher sighed as we rolled across the field in this weird golf cart. It was as if I was an injured player being taken back on to the field...of course that never happens, but I had discerned at this point that I was on a six wheeled electric John Deer thing. The same type of vehicle that carted Terrell Davis off during game 4 of the 1999 season, and I was being carted on to the field at Mile High.
Too much!
Great, gaping holes in my memory. Some of them hovered just below the surface of a lake of absinthe. Memories like talking with the Preacher after my vomit explosion. He and Belle were very happy with me after my puke blast. I, quite intelligently, kept on drinking...I could feel it. The hours spent drinking hung on to the fringes of my being and my euphoria was terrible. I was totally messed up, and must have fallen asleep again, but perhaps not from the drug, I think.
This time, it may have been pure booze. I squinted my eyes shut and tried to remember the intervening moments, but could only catch hazy sketches that were impossible.
Speaking of impossible, I was looking at the Bronco's South Stands as if I was a quarterback. (Sigh.) How the fuck did I get here?
Well, good luck for me; I am great on booze. If that is the only thing that is messing my mind up right now, I am at some advantage. To wit: My vocabulary was coming back to me. "PREACHER! Wha da fuhhhh...man?" I tried to move my body to crank around and get after him, but the best movement I could create was a fist into the air meant to turn my body around and at the very least, fuck with his driving.
I was totally unsuccessful. I had no strength and barely propped myself up in the back of this little pick-up truck golf cart.
My speech was returning with every attempt I made at faking sobriety, but I was still completely hammered. I kept struggling, and to my credit, was now winning the battle of my consciousness. My mind remembered that I was infiltrating this cult to exonerate myself, not join it.
Hoping I didn't give too much information while I was totally blacked out, this was to be another of a series of strange and horrific events I was to endure. It seemed as if many hours had passed between my last real memories. The sky seemed to be getting blue, and at this time of the year, that means that it was a little past 5 in the morning, but, I was correctly asking myself, on what day?
Steadying my shoulder against the bed of the John Deer thing, I took a few deep breaths as the Preacher stopped the golf cart somewhere near the 30 yard line on the other side. All I could hear was two dudes rapidly saying things like: "Nice one!"
"Suck this!"
"Oh!"
"Oh! You're my bitch, asshat."
"Nice, Asshat! I'm glad you troll Craigslist"
"Oooooh! FUCK YOU! I win! If this was Mortal Combat, I'd rip your whole spinal cord out of your body like a Predator and show you your whole corpse before you lose consciousness! SUCK IT BITCH! AAAAHHHH HAHAHAHAHAHHA!"
(Defeated) "Psssshhhhh."
I cranked my head around and did my best to roll out of the golf cart's bed. I was confused by what I saw. Somebody was playing Tekken on the northwest Jumbotron at Mile Hi Stadium. It was two dudes. They both had controllers in their hands and were talking mad shit to each other. I fell out of the bed of the golf cart. The grass at the thirty yard line was plush and short. The fall still hurt.
"Heh heh. Who's this numb nuts, Preacher?"
"Uh. He had a bit of a reaction," The Preacher intoned.
"Don't we all?" Said a third voice...Spoiler Alert: Whip.
"Whip! Help him up!" Belle shrieked.
A strong back and arms hefted me up off of the ground and I found myself somewhat hugging a full grown man. He whispered, "Dude, just put your feet under you."
I complied and leaned against him for a moment. The full weight of my body was realized and I felt much better. The preacher was behind this Whip guy and so was a golden haired shirtless bronzed dude muff, sitting there beaming at me with these giant white Chicklet teeth.
Seriously, he looked like a cartoon of Icarus or Zeus or Christ our lord.
Bronzed, blonde hair, ripped and sinewy with bright white teeth, he said, "Did you see that shit? Two triple combos and one little flaw, then I eight hit him here! Oh, lord!" He watched the replay. "And then... SPLAT, SPLAT, WHAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" The golden god looking dude performed the last two punches and the same spinning heel kick that the character on the Jumbotron unloaded on his unwitting victim.
Whip just sighed and said, "How do you even get me to play this?"
The golden god said, "Shit, Whip...you're the only one that'll stay up with me half the time."
Swaying on my feet, I managed a bit of a snort.
"Funny? Can you even talk right now?" Whip said. He was a good looking man with a cleft chin and light hair. He looked somewhat Slavic or German with high cheekbones and a wide forehead. What was interesting about this dude was that even though he was a pretty big dude he said this with warmth and not malice. He invited me into conversation with his mannerisms instead of challenging me. He was wearing a dress shirt and blue jeans with a dark blue blazer as the golden god was wearing the white linen flowy pants with no shirt....
I managed this: "You assholes are playing PlayStation on the Broncos Jumbotron?!" Apparently, I enjoy stating the obvious. My mouth slurred and fucked up, but I left my hand rolling in mid air as if I wanted someone to take over my words...Belle didn't miss a beat.
"Chris! Do you forget that you are inviting people over to meet you for the first time, and here you are playing your PlayStation? I'm beginning to have a problem with you." Belle crossed her arms at the golden god, Chris. He just blanched a bit and shrugged.
Whip threw up his arms and the controller..."OH MY GOD! Thank you, Belle, for saying exactly what I'm thinking! Isn't this just a bit indulgent? C’mon! You think I know shit about Tekken?!"
"Doesn't EVERYONE?!" Chris said.
Whip: Dude. You. Knew. Your. Own. Finishing. Move. Youperformeditandshit!"
Chris: No! That was just a combo; I didn't get to do anything good there.
I piped up, gesturing towards the jumbotron as Whip's girl character continued to get knocked out over and over again from different camera angles. Further, I was gesturing at the long cords that seemingly came out from a turf covered trap door on the ground and fed the PlayStation on a little antique table. "I mean, that'ssss a cool set up!" I slurred.
"You want some!?" Chris yelled, flexing his bare chest at me and indicating the PlayStation and the awesome trap door.
Belle: You have much better things to do, Lion.
Chris: Don't call me that!
Preacher: Seriously, we do have better things to do, Christian.
Chris: Don't call me that, either! Look. You two fuck heads need to go away. Belle, Preacher, take Whip and get the fuck out of here! Joe and I are gonna play some Tekken, and drink some absinthe, so fuck off, all of you! Stop playing with people's minds so much before they get to me. Shit! I'd much rather you not even dose 'em...
Belle: (Scoffs) Well! You know that's not true!
Chris: Shut up, witch! Yes I do. NOW GIT!"
They all filed into the pickup truck golf cart and rolled away wordlessly. I stood there swaying and regarding my new shirtless Christ-looking friend with an arched eyebrow and a renewed sense of horror.
He walked over to Whip's controller and tossed it at me. I caught it and stared up at the Jumbotron. I like games. I like them a lot and I had quite a bit of Tekken experience at this point, Wyatt likes it a lot, and I dated this 35 year old with a 13 year old daughter for a awhile. After a few months, the daughter and I had a better relationship than the mother amd I had. It was all based on video games. Heh. I knew some Tekken. I chose the boxer, Steve Fox and he chose Marshall Law, the obvious choice.
3, 2, 1, FIGHT!
The cool thing about Tekken, is that if you time a hit right, you can counter punch another player, my character, the boxer, is really good at this. So when he jumped into me and I blocked, I counter punched him and combo punched his Law character through a piece of concrete and came after him with a 1 2 3, then as he tried to jump away, I rapid punched, destroying a piece of concrete, and a lot of his health.
"OHHHHH, WHIPPITY POW!" I exclaimed.
Chris grunted and to his credit came back with a flurry of punches and low kicks that tore my guy asunder and then he tossed me into some random piece of breakable videogamery. He jumped after my guy to hit me while I was down but I was too fast, my dude not only got up, but sidestepped and counterpunched him again, and he was going for another wild ride! 1 2 3 4!! Combo and big toss! Joe wins! "BLEAHHHHHHGH!!!!"
I did my best to mimic my boxer's move as I took out Marshall Law.
He reached over at the table next to the trap door that was impossibly coming out of the field and unmercifully produced two more shots of green goo that we, unfortunately slugged down.
Christian. The Lion, he glowered at me and chucked his controller into the air. It landed in the soft grass at Mile High. He plucked a cell phone out of his front pocket and flipped it open.
DWEET! "Miguel! Que se hacien!"
DWEET! (static) "Que?"
DWEET! "No seas tonto...motherfucker"
DWEET! (static) "Okay, okay, okay!!"
DWEET! "Gracias!"
DWEET! (static) "No se tan Malo!"
DWEET! "Okay."
"Only I can mess with Miguel." He said. I nodded. "Come with me."
"Aw, c'mon we got at least another fight in us!" I pleaded, emboldened by my solid victory.
"Perhaps we do, but upstairs!" I shrugged and followed him into a door on the East side of the stadium. "Here's the deal...I don't like to lose." I dismissed him.
"Aw...you woulda been fine...."
"Nope. You were gonna beat me at Tekken."
"Who cares, man?" We started walking in the bowels of Mile High Stadium again, with the ceiling striated with pipes and vent, but this time, I believe we were headed down to the Broncos locker room!
"It doesn't matter, man. It’s just pride." Christian said to me.
"Pride, it's a personal thing," I said. “Often times it just comes down to thinking you’re right all the time.”
"Okay. Yeah,” he nodded. "Maybe, when you know you're right, it's the obsession, the original sin, the negative connotation of the word."
"Last person I knew that was right was my dad," I said.
The Lion laughed.
"What's with you anyway?" I asked. "What's with the shirtless awesome dude thing? It's like 58 degrees out here."
"Heh, heh. You're right. It's out of habit. With most men, I intimidate them, with most women, I intoxicate them."
"It's a douche-move...I can't imagine how you pull it off and still get people to call you whatever-the-lion-fuck."
"The title doesn't much matter anymore, but you are very intimidating with your wife beater and scars.... oooohhhh.... scary!" Again, I was realizing that I was pretty much naked on top and also wet and grass stained. I peered down at my wife beater and it looked somewhere between the end of act 2 and the middle of act 3 of Bruce Willis's original Die Hard wife beater. I laughed out loud at the thought.
"Okay. Sorry, but Jesus, dude. I been through the gauntlet tonight. It was a lot!"
"I know, Joe. You would have never met me if I didn't know that you were in trouble." Christian smirked at me, pushing his shoulder-length blonde hair out of his eyes. He was tan and beautiful, a boxy and hard face with peircing blue eyes, an utter cartoon of himself, but thankfully, shorter than me; he had a crooked boxer's nose with full lips and a small scar above his eybrow that cut into his eyebrow...a beautiful man.
Why is he saying this to me? Why is he smiling at me with giant white chicklet teeth? How does one shave or wax their person to the point of utter hairlessness!?
I looked at him with a secret disgust and jealousy. We were stopped in front of the home team locker room. "That's right, the Broncos!" He whispered to me next to the door and smirked at me again. He pounded on the door, pretended to listen for a reply and he continued walking around the corner.
I was more than a little deflated, because I wanted to see the Broncos locker room but followed him around the corner and into a waiting elevator. The Lion hit a floor and we started upwards.
"I'm sorry, Joe."
"What?"
"This isn't the best way. We know about you."
"What exactly do you think you know about me?"
"Quite a bit...from your own admission." My chest went icy. I wondered what I said in front of Belle and the Preacher that he could have gleaned via fancy cell phone conversation. How destroyed was I in front of both Belle and the Preacher that led me here!? I should play dumb, (Which, so far, has not been difficult.) and continue trying to get information.
We got out of the elevator on a new floor and I just stopped. The Lion-Christian kept walking for a bit and stopped. He turned around to face me and snorted at me. He said, "Look, man. I'm not trying to bust your balls. I know some shit about you, yes. Right now, its time to relax, maybe catch some shuteye, and so let's go. We'll talk a bit like little kids. We'll talk like we're at a slumber party in pajamas." Chris was walking down a giant hallway filled with murals of Broncos past and present, he turned into a door on the righthand wall, it went (DWEET) and he opened the door.
"Heh." I laughed. "I'm in the hall of champions. This is fucking sweet. Where are you taking me Chris, because I wouldn’t mind checking this shit out."
"To my apartment, butthole. You like Fantasy Football?"
"You live...at Broncos?"
He laughed at me..."Yeah. It's the only place that I can fit my car."
"Okey doke. Chris. What do you know about me? And yes…I LOVE Fantasy Football!"
"I know that you aren't quite what you seem to be, and that you admitted to being in a bit of trouble. Does that intrigue you or not?"
"Not."
"I know that you found Jacob, and that he is dead."
"Who is Jacob?"
"I believe that he was posed like a Buddha in his own house; does that ring a bell?"
"Well yahh, ittt seeeeemmmmmms to meeeee that..."
...
Much after that fades into a blur; we were hanging out in the Lion's box seats that looked out over the whole of Mile High stadium. His suite actually had two twin beds and a generous amount of alcohol and food in the mini-fridge along with easy chairs, multiple televisions, a wet bar, an X-Box AND a PlayStation! I couldn't believe it.
More insane conversation, as we drank and talked.
Lion: Why do you think you are here?
Joe: (Coughing, choking on absinthe) Jesus, dude, the last time someone asked me that...
Lion: What?
Joe: (After a moment of consideration) It was the Preacher, and he was about to tell me I was going to barf for a few hours.
Lion: (Laughing) You are NOT about to barf! .... Are you?
Joe: You tell me, weirdo.
Lion: Well it won’t be from the drug...
Joe: (Unimpressed) Great.
Lion: No that only happens once. (Getting up and taking a seat directly in front of Joe) Seriously. Why are you here?
Joe: I'm not really going to skip the obvious here, Chris. You invited me.
Lion: Yep.
Joe: For however many hours I have been at this, (pointing to the absinthe glass in my hand) all of it has deposited me thusly, and I'm going to admit, there are some holes in my memory...
Lion: Its Thursday morning.
Joe: WHAT?! Oh. Fuck. Two Days?! Two FULL days?! WELL THAT'S JUST THE FUCKING POINT OF IT ALL, ISN'T IT?! Why am I HERE?! Because every moment that I have spent in the last TWO FULL DAYS has been under your supervision, and now HERE I AM. SO FUCKING BLOW MY MIND OR SOMETHING, DUDE, CUZ I'M APPARENTLY COMPLETELY RAPT!
Lion: Very good.
Joe: Damn right.
Lion: (Sighing) I am sorry if you feel as if you have been apprehended and are in danger. You're not.
Joe: No. You're recruiting me.
Lion: (Excited) YES! YES! In a way, I want your help.
Joe: (Exasperated) What. Do. You. Want?
Lion: Okay, I'll just tell you. If indeed, you haven't seen enough to believe me, then, you will think me crazy or something, but I believe that you have seen enough, and maybe I can convince you to help me. To join with me. If not, then, well there's no real way to know what they'll do about poor old dead Jacob. Will you have an open mind?
Joe: Try me. I'm talking to a shirtless Jesus that lives in Mile Hi stadium.
Lion: (Smirking) That Belle's a trip, huh?
Joe: I'm not sure I know what you're referring to.
Lion: Cut the crap! (Laughing) You know, HAGFACE! (Leaning over and squishing his face together) BOOOGAH BOOOGAH BOOOGAH!
Joe: (Bored) Yeah, well there's that.
Lion: Ok. Here it goes. We want you to help us against the forces of evil.
Joe: (Rolling eyes) HA!
Lion: (Casually) We are a movement existing in many states and countries and we are committed to stopping several geopolitical corporate entities that are essentially controlling everything. Everything in the world. They own everything. They elect entire governments, cause massive swings in economy, cause natural disasters, start wars, and generally do it all on the back of you and I.
Joe: (Arches eyebrow) Why?
Lion: Why? Why do they do such things? That's a stupid fucking question.
Joe: (Getting up to leave) Nope. Wrong answer.
Lion: (Somewhat desperate) Why does anyone do anything at all, Joe? Money, sex, power, comfort. If you were the one calling the shots, building the world, wouldn't you be happy that you were always right? WHY?! JESUS, Joe!
Joe: (Exasperated. Sitting back down.) Okay. So what? It's common knowledge that this is the case. Hello? Ever watch X-Files?
Lion: Things are getting bad, though.
Joe: What makes you think that you and your trippy friends can do shit about it?
Lion: (Stares at Joe sadly) I don't know.
Joe: What makes this time different then any other time in history?
Lion: (Very confidently) I am here.
Joe: (Slightly taken aback. Sighs) You, huh? Jesus, I hope we’re not hinging life as we know it on your Tekken game, cuz we’re fucked. (Christian smirks. Joe sighs.) What do you mean getting bad?
Lion: I don't wish to shock or bore you with the details at this time. I think we have less than a decade before our country is no longer. You've been through a lot. The winding road that has brought you here is depleting your energy, I can see it. It is very important that you are here, and I want you. I need you, and I know you've seen enough tonight to entertain my ideas, to know that we are on to something extraordinary. Things that are impossible are not. Your individual energy is enough to spawn a universe. There are people that would have you subjugated at the heel of a boot, or at a crash of a stock market, or in the breaking of a levy, or under the thumb of your own indifference! I want you to read this. (He hands Joe a small leather bound book.) It is our manifesto.
Joe: You wrote it?
Lion: I contributed.
Joe: You know, Hitler had a manifesto.
Lion: As I said, this the work of me and a great many people, I have carried it for a time and added to it, and you are to keep it give it to the next person that you will find to be worthy. Always add to it as things are revealed. My copy is mostly current. Now it is your copy. There are political, scientific and metaphysical chapters in there, and once new things are revealed, add your revelations. There are many of these books in our...ahem...cult.
Joe: Ah yes. Funny.
Lion: The Preacher might have seen fit to give you his because you are from 8, but I am giving you mine.
Joe: Whoopdedoo.
Lion: (Disdain and sadness) I am one.
Joe: (Takes a moment) As in 7 less than 8? Alpha?
Lion: Will you read it?
Joe: Yes.
Lion: (Pleadingly) Will you help me?
Joe: (Sighing) I'll do my fucking best.
Lion: (Hugging Joe tenderly) I know that you will.
Joe: (Disengaging) You said earlier that you knew about me stumbling onto, who was it, Jacob? How?
Lion: Let's not dwell. Let's celebrate! To your enlightenment!
(Overbearing Lion toasts Joe and they both slam some more absinthe)
Lion: I know you must be afraid. We will protect you. Let's go fly around and get breakfast, my boy! I promise! I'll put a shirt on! WEEEEEEEEEE!
More blurry memories.
...
Chris and I left in a helicopter that landed in the middle of the stadium. We went somewhere in the Foothills that had a fucking helipad and ate pancakes. I was definitely in some sort of blur out, like a blackout, but with a general memory of weird. I remember riding in a helicopter and wearing those headsets. I remember being very impressed. I remember being very nauseas. Why did I keep drinking that goddamned absinthe!?
I woke up. Here. In very slippery sheets. Nelson's hairy arm, thankfully, was gone. I was alone, grinding my teeth together, wondering if I only had an interesting dream, wondering where that lovely soft and naked woman had gone. Where was Belle?
Like I said, the things that happened that night were told to the best of my recollection, but it wasn't a night. It was twoish nights. It felt like a dream, but really, it didn't matter. Somehow, they already knew. They knew the most important thing. I needed to know who Jacob was, or, at the very least, how they knew I was there for Jacob's last bloated viewing. How did they know so quickly? Had I told them in a ripped blaze, thinking they were my friends?
Did I really sleep in the same bed with Nelson? Was it just a dream?
I was alone now, but not in a place that I knew. Dare I open my eyes? Maybe I should grind my teeth together a bit more and keep clenching my lids shut. Perhaps this is a dream as well.
Dear Reader, at points I will opine about whether or not I knew fantasy from reality. There are moments of time that are lost. So when you judge, just know that at some point, I was trying to find the truth, and got lost hence. The warning about trying to survive, you know, the one where you lose it all, and forget who you are, still stands, and I am sorry if some of the details are hazy, but as I said, it's the best that I can do, and now, as write this, everyone is dead. I wish I could remember for sure, but I can only tell my story from my point of view.
I'll tell you what: You may hate me after this story is done, but I will continue to tell it in the hope that some day you will understand what I have done.
Don't lose yourself. Don't be so ready to impress. I don't know when I lost my mind and told them about the Gruesome Buddha, but apparently I did, and now he has a name: Jacob.
Perhaps this was the right thing to do at the time, and even though, at some point, I had decided to confide in my pseudo-captors about this dark and horrible secret, it must have been the right thing to do.
It's possible that they could help me. It's also possible that they could frame me, but at least I knew where I stood. It appeared that I was on the proper trail, and that now, I have a little homework. I flipped open the manifesto book at some point and glanced at the first page. "The Treatise of the Bastard Party".
A little light reading, anyone?
There is no way that you wake under the influence of substance and doubt the slivers that seem real and tangible, no matter how much you have forgotten, or claim to have.
So, yeah. There was a man in my bed at some point. His name’s Nelson.
And I'm waking up, but I dare not open my eyes. I’m still thinking about my skinny little punk Betty Paige girl.
Jaime...perhaps California is still in our future.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Friday, July 29, 2011
Chapter 28--"The Gauntlet- (The Preacher)"
I can truly say that I don't fully remember the proceeding moments, but far more strange things have occurred since beginning this letter to you my dear reader that I am now far more inclined to trust my first instincts so my recollection, after much personal deliberation, and straining to remember and interviewing the folks who saw me in the height of my amazing 3 day semi-blackout is this:
We walked through a bar. The lights were red and deceiving. Every tattoo was black; every bruise had a chance to disappear into the flesh by pulling the light from the deadly edges of a purple contusion. Oh man, but the flesh was on display. Half naked people made out and outright fucked and copulated in every single way in every single shadowy corner. You could hear cries of ecstasy and grunts of passion from every dark part of this bar. Belle was unaffected, but Nelson cast eyes about the room as if he was trying to catch someone, or maybe just a glance from a horny girl. We stopped to take a piss and there was this girl. She told me that I was in danger. I laughed and blithely said, "You have no idea." We kissed and grinded.
Nelson, Belle and I tried to stop for a quick drink before we entered that smaller room, at the end of the bar. The drink orders were taken, but they didn't arrive. We waited, but then were ushered by three very half-naked girls; drinkless, into this little room filled with cushions and half naked Abercrombie and Fitch models. At the end of the room was a man, sitting on a throne of pillows of sorts. Unlike everyone else in the room, he was alone, fully clothed in more flowy white linens, and untouched.
He introduced himself to me. I didn’t care to give him my name, partly because I was so distracted by euphoria and my surroundings. He asked me questions. Chunks of our conversation are hazy details. Even to this day, his first memory is a bit of a blur, but we did talk a lot, he was very interested in me.
A silver fox of a man, shining grey hair and the jaw line of a fit and thin young man, he regarded me with old eyes. He had very old, wrinkled and wise eyes. Some snippets:
"How do you feel?"
"Amazing." I was reeling.
"Why?"
"Well, if you don't know, than you don't, right?" I wasn't sure if he was privy to my drug use.
"I'm not sure I do, then."
"You look like a square, so why should I care?" I said this like a lyrical Shakespeare stanza, and traced a box in the air. God, I'm fuckin funny.
"Aren't you amazed?"
"Maybe." I said glancing about the room. "Maybe I'm just not amazed by you."
"Well, you should be. Didn't you just say you felt amazing?"
"Yes."
"That's probably a proper description of your current ecstasy, from a person such as yourself."
"Humph. A person such as myself? Wow. You may be kind of an amazing sociopathic asshole
then? Since you seem to be able to ask people to grope each other on command, half naked in your bar, I'm supposed to be like: Oh wow dude, you're so awesome and shit. Cool! Your awesome weird drug makes underage models come into your fucked ass little bar and hang in your chill room? I mean...like...wow."
"Heh. Who is this asshole, Belle?"
"Joe," She said.
"What is so great about him, besides the fact that he has amazing tolerance for absinthe?" He was addressing Belle.
"Don't you judge, Preacher! He thought the floor was grape jelly and that Ito was Sulu from Star Trek, earlier. So what if everyone doesn't have that same awe for you. Perhaps you are losing your gravitas."
"Shut up, witch. If you remember properly, your tree is from 8 as well, or have you forgotten that?"
"No."
"Well then, Joseph? Is that your name? I always prefer calling people by their given name."
"No. Nice try. My given name is Jehosiphat. My friends call me Fat Joe or Fatty Joe Bang McGruffrin. You can call me Phatty J..B...M....Swizz." I crunked out my fingers in a ghetto pose.
"Oh. You are quite hilarious."
"Maybe. I noticed I may be a bit quicker-on-the-uptake than you."
"The scars that are evident on your body do not indicate that, Joseph. Funnier, but not quicker."
I realized at this point that I was only wearing my shitty wife-beater t-shirt and my caterpillar pink scars were absolutely out. What happened to my shirt? At Johnny's house, I changed into a less revealing black t-shirt, with the white wife-beater underneath. The t-shirt under t-shirt thing was a weird habit that I had obtained from Wyatt. He told me that his grandfather had always done it, and fuck all if my memories don't include my grandfather in two t-shirts as well...Anyway, my top t-shirt was gone and my wife beater was in full effect, giving the t-shirt on t-shirt habit an interesting hint of practical legitimacy... My Grandfather must have been a wily bastard.
There was a slight remembrance of pinning that one girl up against the wall near the bathroom? She said I was in danger; she stripped off my shirt and cut fingernail scratches into my back that reeked of jasmine as I grinded into her. Did she cut me? This black-eyed girl, she told me her name was Kudra. I could still smell essential oils ground into my skin. She reminded me of a book I read once. Kudra. Hm.
"Just Joe, please. I said to the Preacher."
"Okay, Joseph. Let's take a walk," The Preacher said.
"My tree is from 8, mystical man, dude."
"Indeed it is. I am 8. Let me show you something."
I shrugged. For some reason I kind of liked the weird old fart. Belle gestured for me to go with him, and I shot her a "No duh" look and followed him through a hallway at the end of the room away from the writhing Abercrombie and Fitch convention.
"Love and lust are interesting things. They are symbiotic, how one can spark the other. Some would argue that they are polar opposites. I would say they are base instinct. People are fond of saying that humans have no instincts, that we have lost them and it is what separates us from animals, but I believe what we so often mistake for feelings, we should call instinct. For what is a feeling but an uncontrollable urge?"
"Heh." I scoffed. "Okay, I get it. You're a super deep dude."
"No. Sorry. I felt like I should explain my voyeurism. My interest in that room back there."
"No need to explain that...You could load the spank bank for years in that room."
"Spank bank?" He stopped walking for a second and peered at me with those icy blue craggily eyes. His jaw tightened, and he continued. "Love and lust are both signs of a healthy human existence. They are instincts that are to be obeyed in varying degrees as we make our way across this planet. They...these instincts, spawn children and progress the species. That room is a celebration...of life.
"Yeah it's pretty hot." I said dead pan as we strolled further down the long dark hallway.
He turned to me again as the hallway opened up into an outdoor atrium, a courtyard in the middle of the building. He said, "I know that you are far more interested in what I say than you are letting on." He grabbed my shoulders jovially. I don't care to be touched very much in a paternal way, but the Preacher somehow did it without making me flinch. "Your walls are so tall, but such walls tumble over easily." He even shook me a bit as he said this, and I smiled weakly and shied away from his gaze. This guy was smushy love.
The Preacher put his arm around me again and ushered me forth as we walked through an open archway and onto a wrought iron balcony that looked out over an impressive courtyard that was somehow nestled between the buildings surrounding us. There was a fountain in the center made of large straight planes of slate and lush gardens with little benches and places to sit. Even though it was night, and I was seeing incredible things, the gardens glowed with their own ethereal aura and there were large floodlights on the roofs of the buildings surrounding that casted a purple tinted light over the whole affair. The floodlights cast a cool light making the interior of the atrium look like evening or dawn without the sun cresting the horizon. I wasn't expecting to walk into to this scene and was surprised.
My jaw just hung open, as the preacher finally approved of my awe. There was a slight mist hovering over the ground. Ivy grew on the walls of this perfectly square atrium in the middle of these buildings giving you the impression that you were surrounded by a verdant forest. As we walked down the iron stairway that clung to the far wall, the air got heavier and denser with each step downward. The humidity was probably three times as dense at the bottom as it was at the top of the stairway. We reached the soft grass and stone paths below. The air smelled of fresh flowers and earth.
I turned to the preacher and said, "Now THIS room is a celebration of life."
He laughed heartily. "Indeed it is, but as it has no ceiling, it is clearly not a room."
We both walked towards the fountain and I sat on a stone bench in front of it. The fountain was a 20 foot tall tiered slate geometric marvel that looked like steps from the side I viewed it and had another kind of waterfall splashing from the other side. The water was held in a rectangular slate cauldron that had to be at least three feet deep. The trickling water reverberated off of the walls surrounding us giving the water a much amplified sound.
I took in the sheer floral beauty of the place inwardly thinking that with all the chemicals floating around in my body right now that if I strode too close to the flowers they may instantly wilt at my presence and die. I felt like a tumor in this place, filled with poison. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath feeling as if I could expel it all with a sigh. My head flopped over into my chest as I gave way to euphoric feeling that I hadn't felt yet. Spinning.
The preacher sat down next to me and again put his arm around me. "Tut tut. Be careful. You'll hyperventilate."
"Whoa."
"You don't realize it, but you're breathing rather deeply. Slow down."
"Ok."
"Joseph. Why are you here?"
"Nelson gave me a card, and the rest, as they say, is history."
"Yes. Nelson. No....the card is really...sort of a litmus test."
"Hm."
"Do you doubt it? What type of person follows tiny print on a card to a website then follows a website to a clandestine meeting?" I smirked at his words. My first thought was a person who is a tad desperate and just a little sad. "Ah, a glimmer of understanding there? Yes, you are a person who deciphers a bit of a puzzle, and despite the fact that the meaning of the puzzle could be dangerous or strange, you still came to meet your destiny, and now you are here with me. Tell me, did you read the rules and regulations that our website offered to you?"
"No, but I printed them."
"I'm assuming you never read it."
"Preacher, it was like 20 pages long, in really, really tiny type!" I protested.
He started laughing at me, "I'm not judging you."
"So what? Did I sign away my first born?"
"Technically, I don't believe that you can do that by checking a box on the internet. No, but you did agree to do some rather silly things." He proffered with a slight chortle.
"Great." I said bleakly.
"So. Why are you here?"
"You tell me, mystic answer man. Furthermore, how bout you tell me why you gotta toy with people like that?" I leveled my eyes at him, trying to look menacing, but the Preacher was glowing. His features seemed chiseled out of stone and ancient, the wisps of hair that had come out of his pony tail danced around his head like white delicate flower tendrils. Any menacing that I was to be doing was for the future, away from the effects of this terrible and amazing drug.
"Oh. Joseph. You are smarter than this, but I'll humor you because you do not currently look to be in a very healthy state." My head drooped back to my chest. No, indeed I felt very intoxicated. "Well. Think about it, Joseph. You are interested enough to decipher the card, compelled enough by the message on the website to meet strangers at a strange location, and, how shall I say...reckless enough not to read the rules and regulations. Pretty simple. You are our kind of people. You fit a certain type of personality profile that we as an organization are trying to attract."
"Organizthathion?" My words were slurring. "Oh man! Are you guyths a cult!? Are you going to ritualisthicly eat me err sun fin!?"
"HA HAHAHAHAHA! Oh, Joseph! You ARE a catch! You're just so yummy! OH! HAH HAH AH AHAHA. I DIDN'T MEAN IT LIKE THAT! OHHH HOHOHOHOHO!" He got serious and took my head in his hands and looked into my eyes deeply. My head wobbled about and the vision of his face was too much to look at. It filled me with horror. "Tut tut tut...it's okay. What you are about to go through is much like someone who takes peyote. They get very sick before the trip begins."
I squeaked, "Trip...hasn't...begun!?" I was spinning in fractal kaleidoscopes.
"No, my boy. The absinthe helps with the nausea that the drug creates, but never does anyone any favors. This being your first time, without the absinthe your insides would roil and burn. Now you are about vomit and hallucinate most terribly. It is why I brought you here. To this place of beauty. Don't worry. You will survive, and this will be your most serious reaction to this drug. After subsequent doses, you will fare much better."
"WHAT?!"
"You will need this." From his hippie robe he produced a large bottle of water and set it on the bench as he walked away towards the stairs. I spun around to try and catch him, but he was already at the base of the stairs looking blissfully towards me.
"Don't leave me here!" I pulled up my trouser leg and pulled out my .25. While sitting on the bench I braced myself and aimed down the barrel at the Preacher.
"Oh. I rather don't like guns." He was glowing and churning as if he was suspended in water. The ivy behind him climbed the walls and flexed and twisted. He disappeared and appeared up on the balcony. My gun was ripped from my hand. It was just gone. "Let it be." He said from the iron balcony and he flicked a lever on his way through the archway and into the dark recesses of that sexy nightclub. A counterweight was unfurled and the stairway lifted into the air on a pivot and I was trapped in the atrium garden.
Alone.
Strange, moments like these are. This lonely drug blaze. People I don't know. Places I don't know. Will I die here? He said I would not.
I tried to be my father's son. Intuitive, smart and capable. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure my father would never have found himself in a situation like this, because he probably had more of that smart and capable thing going for him. Nonetheless, I began to track back through the Preacher's and my conversation, trying to piece together what had just happened. My mind was spinning as was my head, body and inner ear. My nausea was ever-present and my ass felt like it was melding into the stone of the bench that I was sitting on. If I moved too much, or breathed too deeply, it made me feel sicker and sicker. I just held my head in my hands and tried to think. I clamped my eyes shut and began to drool from my mouth uncontrollably. The barf was close.
My eventual theory was this: The Preacher, Belle, and Nelson did not want to hurt me. This would be a really elaborate way to kill and eat me if they wanted to, and most likely this is not the case, even though this was my current paranoia.
Belle and the Preacher had both spoke of my promise or interest.
So maybe this is the worse part of the experience. Why would the Preacher stick me in a pristine garden to contemplate if I was just meant for ritual sacrifice?
I began to think of my father and what amazing gifts that he had given me. He had paid a lot of attention to me as a child. He taught me to play chess and fix things, use tools and to lust after women and talk to them gruffly. He taught me how to cook, fight, eat and run fast and hit a hanging curve ball. He taught me things that were important and as I became more intelligent and capable, he began to drift away. Why would I hate a father for doing that? A terrible question, but I did begin to hate him for not paying attention and moving in with his new family.
What a terrible son I was. What terrible things had I held him accountable for when he truly performed in all aspects of fatherhood? What a scared little boy I was. And now I still am. Do I get a lifeline call-a-friend right now? I reached into my pocket and pulled out Belle's cell phone and flipped it open, but to my horror the thing was a mismotch of alien looking symbols and lights. It tumbled from my hands.
I felt as if I could be on the edge of death, and how I wished, at this point, that I could be in the basement of my father's house, the one with his new wife and kids, raiding the fridge and silently tiptoeing downstairs to sleep in a warm bed, accidentally dosed by this strange drug. He would know what to do. He could nurse me back to health.
My parents. Oh how if they only knew what terrible things I've done. I have earned their slow disavowment. Yes I have. Perhaps they sense the evil in me to spite their best work.
The insides of my eyelids were a firework explosion of fractals, a rollercoaster ride through my digestive tract. This is the path of your food. It was going the wrong way.
I vomited black bile. It was an explosion of tar colored sludge. I could hear it splatter all over the slate paver stones beneath me. The puke was an impossible amount, as I vomited I felt as if I was in danger of puking my soul into this garden. As I did this I was impressed about how puking could make me feel so light and refreshed and so frightened at the same time. Was I dying? Would I die here without family or friends to know?
What would become of me? The memory of who I am, would it be just an empty casket somewhere? Would I disappear? It was clear to me at this point that I could completely vomit my entire being, turn inside out and end up as a piece of human sludge-matter, scattered on the stones in front of me, to be power washed away by some morning gardener into the streets. The crows would have me then.
The crows.
These terrible and beautiful creatures.
I began to see giant flocks of them above me. I knew they were waiting to come take me out, swarm me and pluck and peck me to death because I was weak and dying. I stood up, to hide underneath the retracted iron staircase, vomited some more and began to walk towards it. I fell over, completely spinning as if in the worst drunken state and smacked my cheek against the grass. It was wet and soft. Possibly with my own vomit. I was so alone and grasped for the last word that I could think of that seemed human and real at this point. I knew I was going to be eaten by the wraiths of my transgressions, I screamed out, "JAIME!!"
I lost consciousness.
We walked through a bar. The lights were red and deceiving. Every tattoo was black; every bruise had a chance to disappear into the flesh by pulling the light from the deadly edges of a purple contusion. Oh man, but the flesh was on display. Half naked people made out and outright fucked and copulated in every single way in every single shadowy corner. You could hear cries of ecstasy and grunts of passion from every dark part of this bar. Belle was unaffected, but Nelson cast eyes about the room as if he was trying to catch someone, or maybe just a glance from a horny girl. We stopped to take a piss and there was this girl. She told me that I was in danger. I laughed and blithely said, "You have no idea." We kissed and grinded.
Nelson, Belle and I tried to stop for a quick drink before we entered that smaller room, at the end of the bar. The drink orders were taken, but they didn't arrive. We waited, but then were ushered by three very half-naked girls; drinkless, into this little room filled with cushions and half naked Abercrombie and Fitch models. At the end of the room was a man, sitting on a throne of pillows of sorts. Unlike everyone else in the room, he was alone, fully clothed in more flowy white linens, and untouched.
He introduced himself to me. I didn’t care to give him my name, partly because I was so distracted by euphoria and my surroundings. He asked me questions. Chunks of our conversation are hazy details. Even to this day, his first memory is a bit of a blur, but we did talk a lot, he was very interested in me.
A silver fox of a man, shining grey hair and the jaw line of a fit and thin young man, he regarded me with old eyes. He had very old, wrinkled and wise eyes. Some snippets:
"How do you feel?"
"Amazing." I was reeling.
"Why?"
"Well, if you don't know, than you don't, right?" I wasn't sure if he was privy to my drug use.
"I'm not sure I do, then."
"You look like a square, so why should I care?" I said this like a lyrical Shakespeare stanza, and traced a box in the air. God, I'm fuckin funny.
"Aren't you amazed?"
"Maybe." I said glancing about the room. "Maybe I'm just not amazed by you."
"Well, you should be. Didn't you just say you felt amazing?"
"Yes."
"That's probably a proper description of your current ecstasy, from a person such as yourself."
"Humph. A person such as myself? Wow. You may be kind of an amazing sociopathic asshole
then? Since you seem to be able to ask people to grope each other on command, half naked in your bar, I'm supposed to be like: Oh wow dude, you're so awesome and shit. Cool! Your awesome weird drug makes underage models come into your fucked ass little bar and hang in your chill room? I mean...like...wow."
"Heh. Who is this asshole, Belle?"
"Joe," She said.
"What is so great about him, besides the fact that he has amazing tolerance for absinthe?" He was addressing Belle.
"Don't you judge, Preacher! He thought the floor was grape jelly and that Ito was Sulu from Star Trek, earlier. So what if everyone doesn't have that same awe for you. Perhaps you are losing your gravitas."
"Shut up, witch. If you remember properly, your tree is from 8 as well, or have you forgotten that?"
"No."
"Well then, Joseph? Is that your name? I always prefer calling people by their given name."
"No. Nice try. My given name is Jehosiphat. My friends call me Fat Joe or Fatty Joe Bang McGruffrin. You can call me Phatty J..B...M....Swizz." I crunked out my fingers in a ghetto pose.
"Oh. You are quite hilarious."
"Maybe. I noticed I may be a bit quicker-on-the-uptake than you."
"The scars that are evident on your body do not indicate that, Joseph. Funnier, but not quicker."
I realized at this point that I was only wearing my shitty wife-beater t-shirt and my caterpillar pink scars were absolutely out. What happened to my shirt? At Johnny's house, I changed into a less revealing black t-shirt, with the white wife-beater underneath. The t-shirt under t-shirt thing was a weird habit that I had obtained from Wyatt. He told me that his grandfather had always done it, and fuck all if my memories don't include my grandfather in two t-shirts as well...Anyway, my top t-shirt was gone and my wife beater was in full effect, giving the t-shirt on t-shirt habit an interesting hint of practical legitimacy... My Grandfather must have been a wily bastard.
There was a slight remembrance of pinning that one girl up against the wall near the bathroom? She said I was in danger; she stripped off my shirt and cut fingernail scratches into my back that reeked of jasmine as I grinded into her. Did she cut me? This black-eyed girl, she told me her name was Kudra. I could still smell essential oils ground into my skin. She reminded me of a book I read once. Kudra. Hm.
"Just Joe, please. I said to the Preacher."
"Okay, Joseph. Let's take a walk," The Preacher said.
"My tree is from 8, mystical man, dude."
"Indeed it is. I am 8. Let me show you something."
I shrugged. For some reason I kind of liked the weird old fart. Belle gestured for me to go with him, and I shot her a "No duh" look and followed him through a hallway at the end of the room away from the writhing Abercrombie and Fitch convention.
"Love and lust are interesting things. They are symbiotic, how one can spark the other. Some would argue that they are polar opposites. I would say they are base instinct. People are fond of saying that humans have no instincts, that we have lost them and it is what separates us from animals, but I believe what we so often mistake for feelings, we should call instinct. For what is a feeling but an uncontrollable urge?"
"Heh." I scoffed. "Okay, I get it. You're a super deep dude."
"No. Sorry. I felt like I should explain my voyeurism. My interest in that room back there."
"No need to explain that...You could load the spank bank for years in that room."
"Spank bank?" He stopped walking for a second and peered at me with those icy blue craggily eyes. His jaw tightened, and he continued. "Love and lust are both signs of a healthy human existence. They are instincts that are to be obeyed in varying degrees as we make our way across this planet. They...these instincts, spawn children and progress the species. That room is a celebration...of life.
"Yeah it's pretty hot." I said dead pan as we strolled further down the long dark hallway.
He turned to me again as the hallway opened up into an outdoor atrium, a courtyard in the middle of the building. He said, "I know that you are far more interested in what I say than you are letting on." He grabbed my shoulders jovially. I don't care to be touched very much in a paternal way, but the Preacher somehow did it without making me flinch. "Your walls are so tall, but such walls tumble over easily." He even shook me a bit as he said this, and I smiled weakly and shied away from his gaze. This guy was smushy love.
The Preacher put his arm around me again and ushered me forth as we walked through an open archway and onto a wrought iron balcony that looked out over an impressive courtyard that was somehow nestled between the buildings surrounding us. There was a fountain in the center made of large straight planes of slate and lush gardens with little benches and places to sit. Even though it was night, and I was seeing incredible things, the gardens glowed with their own ethereal aura and there were large floodlights on the roofs of the buildings surrounding that casted a purple tinted light over the whole affair. The floodlights cast a cool light making the interior of the atrium look like evening or dawn without the sun cresting the horizon. I wasn't expecting to walk into to this scene and was surprised.
My jaw just hung open, as the preacher finally approved of my awe. There was a slight mist hovering over the ground. Ivy grew on the walls of this perfectly square atrium in the middle of these buildings giving you the impression that you were surrounded by a verdant forest. As we walked down the iron stairway that clung to the far wall, the air got heavier and denser with each step downward. The humidity was probably three times as dense at the bottom as it was at the top of the stairway. We reached the soft grass and stone paths below. The air smelled of fresh flowers and earth.
I turned to the preacher and said, "Now THIS room is a celebration of life."
He laughed heartily. "Indeed it is, but as it has no ceiling, it is clearly not a room."
We both walked towards the fountain and I sat on a stone bench in front of it. The fountain was a 20 foot tall tiered slate geometric marvel that looked like steps from the side I viewed it and had another kind of waterfall splashing from the other side. The water was held in a rectangular slate cauldron that had to be at least three feet deep. The trickling water reverberated off of the walls surrounding us giving the water a much amplified sound.
I took in the sheer floral beauty of the place inwardly thinking that with all the chemicals floating around in my body right now that if I strode too close to the flowers they may instantly wilt at my presence and die. I felt like a tumor in this place, filled with poison. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath feeling as if I could expel it all with a sigh. My head flopped over into my chest as I gave way to euphoric feeling that I hadn't felt yet. Spinning.
The preacher sat down next to me and again put his arm around me. "Tut tut. Be careful. You'll hyperventilate."
"Whoa."
"You don't realize it, but you're breathing rather deeply. Slow down."
"Ok."
"Joseph. Why are you here?"
"Nelson gave me a card, and the rest, as they say, is history."
"Yes. Nelson. No....the card is really...sort of a litmus test."
"Hm."
"Do you doubt it? What type of person follows tiny print on a card to a website then follows a website to a clandestine meeting?" I smirked at his words. My first thought was a person who is a tad desperate and just a little sad. "Ah, a glimmer of understanding there? Yes, you are a person who deciphers a bit of a puzzle, and despite the fact that the meaning of the puzzle could be dangerous or strange, you still came to meet your destiny, and now you are here with me. Tell me, did you read the rules and regulations that our website offered to you?"
"No, but I printed them."
"I'm assuming you never read it."
"Preacher, it was like 20 pages long, in really, really tiny type!" I protested.
He started laughing at me, "I'm not judging you."
"So what? Did I sign away my first born?"
"Technically, I don't believe that you can do that by checking a box on the internet. No, but you did agree to do some rather silly things." He proffered with a slight chortle.
"Great." I said bleakly.
"So. Why are you here?"
"You tell me, mystic answer man. Furthermore, how bout you tell me why you gotta toy with people like that?" I leveled my eyes at him, trying to look menacing, but the Preacher was glowing. His features seemed chiseled out of stone and ancient, the wisps of hair that had come out of his pony tail danced around his head like white delicate flower tendrils. Any menacing that I was to be doing was for the future, away from the effects of this terrible and amazing drug.
"Oh. Joseph. You are smarter than this, but I'll humor you because you do not currently look to be in a very healthy state." My head drooped back to my chest. No, indeed I felt very intoxicated. "Well. Think about it, Joseph. You are interested enough to decipher the card, compelled enough by the message on the website to meet strangers at a strange location, and, how shall I say...reckless enough not to read the rules and regulations. Pretty simple. You are our kind of people. You fit a certain type of personality profile that we as an organization are trying to attract."
"Organizthathion?" My words were slurring. "Oh man! Are you guyths a cult!? Are you going to ritualisthicly eat me err sun fin!?"
"HA HAHAHAHAHA! Oh, Joseph! You ARE a catch! You're just so yummy! OH! HAH HAH AH AHAHA. I DIDN'T MEAN IT LIKE THAT! OHHH HOHOHOHOHO!" He got serious and took my head in his hands and looked into my eyes deeply. My head wobbled about and the vision of his face was too much to look at. It filled me with horror. "Tut tut tut...it's okay. What you are about to go through is much like someone who takes peyote. They get very sick before the trip begins."
I squeaked, "Trip...hasn't...begun!?" I was spinning in fractal kaleidoscopes.
"No, my boy. The absinthe helps with the nausea that the drug creates, but never does anyone any favors. This being your first time, without the absinthe your insides would roil and burn. Now you are about vomit and hallucinate most terribly. It is why I brought you here. To this place of beauty. Don't worry. You will survive, and this will be your most serious reaction to this drug. After subsequent doses, you will fare much better."
"WHAT?!"
"You will need this." From his hippie robe he produced a large bottle of water and set it on the bench as he walked away towards the stairs. I spun around to try and catch him, but he was already at the base of the stairs looking blissfully towards me.
"Don't leave me here!" I pulled up my trouser leg and pulled out my .25. While sitting on the bench I braced myself and aimed down the barrel at the Preacher.
"Oh. I rather don't like guns." He was glowing and churning as if he was suspended in water. The ivy behind him climbed the walls and flexed and twisted. He disappeared and appeared up on the balcony. My gun was ripped from my hand. It was just gone. "Let it be." He said from the iron balcony and he flicked a lever on his way through the archway and into the dark recesses of that sexy nightclub. A counterweight was unfurled and the stairway lifted into the air on a pivot and I was trapped in the atrium garden.
Alone.
Strange, moments like these are. This lonely drug blaze. People I don't know. Places I don't know. Will I die here? He said I would not.
I tried to be my father's son. Intuitive, smart and capable. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure my father would never have found himself in a situation like this, because he probably had more of that smart and capable thing going for him. Nonetheless, I began to track back through the Preacher's and my conversation, trying to piece together what had just happened. My mind was spinning as was my head, body and inner ear. My nausea was ever-present and my ass felt like it was melding into the stone of the bench that I was sitting on. If I moved too much, or breathed too deeply, it made me feel sicker and sicker. I just held my head in my hands and tried to think. I clamped my eyes shut and began to drool from my mouth uncontrollably. The barf was close.
My eventual theory was this: The Preacher, Belle, and Nelson did not want to hurt me. This would be a really elaborate way to kill and eat me if they wanted to, and most likely this is not the case, even though this was my current paranoia.
Belle and the Preacher had both spoke of my promise or interest.
So maybe this is the worse part of the experience. Why would the Preacher stick me in a pristine garden to contemplate if I was just meant for ritual sacrifice?
I began to think of my father and what amazing gifts that he had given me. He had paid a lot of attention to me as a child. He taught me to play chess and fix things, use tools and to lust after women and talk to them gruffly. He taught me how to cook, fight, eat and run fast and hit a hanging curve ball. He taught me things that were important and as I became more intelligent and capable, he began to drift away. Why would I hate a father for doing that? A terrible question, but I did begin to hate him for not paying attention and moving in with his new family.
What a terrible son I was. What terrible things had I held him accountable for when he truly performed in all aspects of fatherhood? What a scared little boy I was. And now I still am. Do I get a lifeline call-a-friend right now? I reached into my pocket and pulled out Belle's cell phone and flipped it open, but to my horror the thing was a mismotch of alien looking symbols and lights. It tumbled from my hands.
I felt as if I could be on the edge of death, and how I wished, at this point, that I could be in the basement of my father's house, the one with his new wife and kids, raiding the fridge and silently tiptoeing downstairs to sleep in a warm bed, accidentally dosed by this strange drug. He would know what to do. He could nurse me back to health.
My parents. Oh how if they only knew what terrible things I've done. I have earned their slow disavowment. Yes I have. Perhaps they sense the evil in me to spite their best work.
The insides of my eyelids were a firework explosion of fractals, a rollercoaster ride through my digestive tract. This is the path of your food. It was going the wrong way.
I vomited black bile. It was an explosion of tar colored sludge. I could hear it splatter all over the slate paver stones beneath me. The puke was an impossible amount, as I vomited I felt as if I was in danger of puking my soul into this garden. As I did this I was impressed about how puking could make me feel so light and refreshed and so frightened at the same time. Was I dying? Would I die here without family or friends to know?
What would become of me? The memory of who I am, would it be just an empty casket somewhere? Would I disappear? It was clear to me at this point that I could completely vomit my entire being, turn inside out and end up as a piece of human sludge-matter, scattered on the stones in front of me, to be power washed away by some morning gardener into the streets. The crows would have me then.
The crows.
These terrible and beautiful creatures.
I began to see giant flocks of them above me. I knew they were waiting to come take me out, swarm me and pluck and peck me to death because I was weak and dying. I stood up, to hide underneath the retracted iron staircase, vomited some more and began to walk towards it. I fell over, completely spinning as if in the worst drunken state and smacked my cheek against the grass. It was wet and soft. Possibly with my own vomit. I was so alone and grasped for the last word that I could think of that seemed human and real at this point. I knew I was going to be eaten by the wraiths of my transgressions, I screamed out, "JAIME!!"
I lost consciousness.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Chapter 27--"The Gauntlet- (Flight of the Drunkards)"
Dear reader, do you want to know one of the interesting things about life? It's the fact that as it all crumbles around you, you will find strength. You will find courage and obstinance. You will inexorably try to find a way to live, but it will be at some cost. First, it will be at the cost of all your comfortable ways. Then it will be at the cost of sex, food, water, and shelter. Finally, it will be at the cost of friends and loved ones. To spite them, or perhaps, because of them, you will always try and find a way. The only problem is that you don't know who you are after you make that decision to survive. You just don't know who you are anymore.
Did I wake up in Nelson's arms and fall back to sleep? Currently, I am wrapped up in sexy feeling sheets, wondering if I'll ever find my way out again. I am not really unable to move, but unwilling, wrapped in a sleepy bliss that is unlikely to be fought, but my mind is wrestling over the details of an amazing dream that I had that night previous. As I grind my teeth together, I wonder how much is real, or fantasy.
The Gauntlet:
After having that surreal moment with Belle, she began to scurry around the room and pack a small jeweled bag with tiny items, little pieces of bric-a-brac from the shelves in our candlelit room full of books. She dutifully blew out every candle as she paced and placed herself about the room. I found myself puckering my lips together and empathetically blowing into the air as I watched her do this, but I was becoming increasingly light headed, while she seemed unaffected, bobbing around the room and sticking things in her little rhinestone encrusted bag. Then, she put a couple of books in there. They were small at first and then, larger and larger books began to impossibly fill this small jeweled handbag that she was carrying!
Skeptically, I was still sitting on the stool, waving my hand in front of my face, trying to pull myself together. It was a bad idea, the tracers from my fingertips were at least 6 inches long and my hand was looking like a construction of mirror panes. Drugs err bad. The room was breathing, pulsing walls, pushing in and out and the floor looked like grape jelly. I was afraid to take my feet off of the stool and walk.
Belle took a moment from her exodus and marveled over at me. I grinned and tried to ask her about the mystical properties of her bag, and what came out sounded something like this, "You're so pretty and magic. How did your bag know what you wanted to take? Are we in danger? Why are we leaving so fast? The floor doesn't look traversable...How are you walking like that?" Imagine that kind of babble through a scotch and absinthe induced drug blaze.
Belle kept smiling at me, starting to glow in her linen white dress. She said, "Oh wow. You are so ready for this." I found myself agreeing while teetering on top of my stool. All the while I wondered how Belle was walking on all this grape jelly. She flipped her phone open, "Neeeelllllssssooonnnnnnnnnnn." She sang into her phone. It bleeped back at her after a second and Nelson's voice shot through the room like a static crusted ricochet.
"Yep."
She pushed a button on her phone and it bleeped, "Side on Floyd, heading west," [BLEEP] she said cheerfully.
"Shit. I think I want one of those," I said blandly as I tried to crawl my way up the stool even further. The grape jelly floor appeared to be winning the battle against reality. I was concerned about the floor which was obviously completely untraversable, but was referring to her phone.
"I mean, I never really wanted one before, but that seems really handy." My eyes bugged out of my head at the floor which seemed to be churning underneath me. I tried to retreat further up the stool.
"You want one? Here." Belle strode across the room and handed me her phone. I flipped it open. It made a little tweet sound.
"Scotty! Man, I need transporter power NOW! Grape jelly...winning the battle. Beneath me...a veritable cauldron of...preserves, man! Scotty! Get me...out of here!"
[Bleep] "What? Joe? Is that you?" It was Nelson. Belle just snickered and continued around the room stuffing impossible things in her bag and blowing out the candles that were everywhere.
"Nelson...man. Get me out of here! This is your captain! It's an order from...Starfleet command. Energize! ....Energize Nelson!" My Captain Kirk impersonation was killing; her phone opened up just like a Starfleet communicator thingee! "Whoops!" The stool nearly tipped over. I was almost perched on top of the thing, holding her phone and screaming like an orangutan idiot.
"Push the button," Belle said.
"Huh?"
"Push the button to talk, Captain!"
I glanced down and saw the button on the side of the flip phone and clicked it. It went [Bleep]. "Scotty! Get us out of here, man! Energize!" [Bleep]
[Bleep] (Nelson: without missing a beat, in a Scottish accent no less) "I canna mik ta driver geh annuh fister! Ya canna change teh laws of physics!"
[Bleep] "Dammit, man...you have to...try."
Belle was laughing hysterically as she packed the last of her stuff and the absinthe set up in another bag, "You guys are fuckin stoooooopid! HA HA HA AH HA!"
[Bleep] "Shittlecrift at yir coordinits, Ciptin."
I pushed the button once more. [Bleep] "Mr. Scotty...you...amazing...bastard!" I flipped the phone shut and Belle took my hand and pulled me off of the stool as it fell over into the grape jelly. I began to slog through it as I hit the floor. Belle was pulling on me.
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
"All this grape jelly!" I was up to my thighs and my fingertips slogged through it and I tasted them. The grape Jelly was on my fingers. "It's delicious...wait!"
"Oh god..." She tugged on me even harder and got me through the living room into the kitchen where the floor was much more stable. We hurdled out the back door and hung a left.
"Thank you, " I panted. "What's your name, lady?" Belle just rolled her eyes and bounded out the side gate with me in hand across Floyd St. and into a gleaming white limousine.
"Whoa..."
It was a white stretched town car that had cool blue lighting on the inside. We climbed in the back. Nelson was perched next to the driver's window and had another decanter and absinthe setup next to him along with a generously appointed limo bar of clear and brown liquors. I settled into the back seat with Belle, who was looking so amazingly beautiful with her full and curly blue tinted hair, and her even more beautiful giant translucent blue eyes, high cheekbones, and white-white-blue teeth. She was still gripping my hand.
"Drinks!" I exclaimed. Nelson went about making some more absinthes. "Sulu!..." To my surprise the driver cranked his head around so that we could see him through the driver window and he was of course, an Asian dude.
I winced.
He said, "Yes Captain?" What a cool ass dude...
"Knock it off!" Bella was getting mad, she squeezed my hand. "Ito! To the club!"
Ito just stared for a moment at Belle.
I said, "Sulu! Third star to the left...and on until the club. Warp factor...your discretion."
"Yes sir!" Ito said and rolled up the driver screen. Belle just sighed and laid back into the plush leather seats. She looked as if she was put out.
"What?!” I implored as she was scowling at me. “Sulu's the bomb, lady."
"Don't encourage those boys," She said seriously.
Nelson came across the limo with some more absinthes and leered at us. His features were looking very reptilian and I somewhat recoiled in horror. The blue light was like black light and made his white linen outfit glow and his dead front tooth, not. The two glasses in his hand looked like glowing green nuclear waste, but Belle and I accepted them anyway.
"Something about the absinthe," she said. She was blue and beautiful; the drinks were glowing green. It looked like just about the perfect Captain Kirk conquest.
"Truly, the final frontier." I said. "I need to get back to Earth."
"Okay. Just wait a night. I'll take you back."
We entwined our arms like newlyweds and shot down those generous glasses full of green goo and she kissed me afterwards. It was a deep and liquorice tasting kiss that roiled my insides. My tongue was numb but even so, I felt this slurping wetness that reached far into my mouth. I dropped my glass and crushed one of her breasts in my hand. If I were more prude, I'd feel like a dirty boy, but I didn't care. I felt the chance for the darkest wettest sex that I could imagine.
I needed to feel her. Nelson, no doubt, was not very happy about this.
Did I wake up in Nelson's arms and fall back to sleep? Currently, I am wrapped up in sexy feeling sheets, wondering if I'll ever find my way out again. I am not really unable to move, but unwilling, wrapped in a sleepy bliss that is unlikely to be fought, but my mind is wrestling over the details of an amazing dream that I had that night previous. As I grind my teeth together, I wonder how much is real, or fantasy.
The Gauntlet:
After having that surreal moment with Belle, she began to scurry around the room and pack a small jeweled bag with tiny items, little pieces of bric-a-brac from the shelves in our candlelit room full of books. She dutifully blew out every candle as she paced and placed herself about the room. I found myself puckering my lips together and empathetically blowing into the air as I watched her do this, but I was becoming increasingly light headed, while she seemed unaffected, bobbing around the room and sticking things in her little rhinestone encrusted bag. Then, she put a couple of books in there. They were small at first and then, larger and larger books began to impossibly fill this small jeweled handbag that she was carrying!
Skeptically, I was still sitting on the stool, waving my hand in front of my face, trying to pull myself together. It was a bad idea, the tracers from my fingertips were at least 6 inches long and my hand was looking like a construction of mirror panes. Drugs err bad. The room was breathing, pulsing walls, pushing in and out and the floor looked like grape jelly. I was afraid to take my feet off of the stool and walk.
Belle took a moment from her exodus and marveled over at me. I grinned and tried to ask her about the mystical properties of her bag, and what came out sounded something like this, "You're so pretty and magic. How did your bag know what you wanted to take? Are we in danger? Why are we leaving so fast? The floor doesn't look traversable...How are you walking like that?" Imagine that kind of babble through a scotch and absinthe induced drug blaze.
Belle kept smiling at me, starting to glow in her linen white dress. She said, "Oh wow. You are so ready for this." I found myself agreeing while teetering on top of my stool. All the while I wondered how Belle was walking on all this grape jelly. She flipped her phone open, "Neeeelllllssssooonnnnnnnnnnn." She sang into her phone. It bleeped back at her after a second and Nelson's voice shot through the room like a static crusted ricochet.
"Yep."
She pushed a button on her phone and it bleeped, "Side on Floyd, heading west," [BLEEP] she said cheerfully.
"Shit. I think I want one of those," I said blandly as I tried to crawl my way up the stool even further. The grape jelly floor appeared to be winning the battle against reality. I was concerned about the floor which was obviously completely untraversable, but was referring to her phone.
"I mean, I never really wanted one before, but that seems really handy." My eyes bugged out of my head at the floor which seemed to be churning underneath me. I tried to retreat further up the stool.
"You want one? Here." Belle strode across the room and handed me her phone. I flipped it open. It made a little tweet sound.
"Scotty! Man, I need transporter power NOW! Grape jelly...winning the battle. Beneath me...a veritable cauldron of...preserves, man! Scotty! Get me...out of here!"
[Bleep] "What? Joe? Is that you?" It was Nelson. Belle just snickered and continued around the room stuffing impossible things in her bag and blowing out the candles that were everywhere.
"Nelson...man. Get me out of here! This is your captain! It's an order from...Starfleet command. Energize! ....Energize Nelson!" My Captain Kirk impersonation was killing; her phone opened up just like a Starfleet communicator thingee! "Whoops!" The stool nearly tipped over. I was almost perched on top of the thing, holding her phone and screaming like an orangutan idiot.
"Push the button," Belle said.
"Huh?"
"Push the button to talk, Captain!"
I glanced down and saw the button on the side of the flip phone and clicked it. It went [Bleep]. "Scotty! Get us out of here, man! Energize!" [Bleep]
[Bleep] (Nelson: without missing a beat, in a Scottish accent no less) "I canna mik ta driver geh annuh fister! Ya canna change teh laws of physics!"
[Bleep] "Dammit, man...you have to...try."
Belle was laughing hysterically as she packed the last of her stuff and the absinthe set up in another bag, "You guys are fuckin stoooooopid! HA HA HA AH HA!"
[Bleep] "Shittlecrift at yir coordinits, Ciptin."
I pushed the button once more. [Bleep] "Mr. Scotty...you...amazing...bastard!" I flipped the phone shut and Belle took my hand and pulled me off of the stool as it fell over into the grape jelly. I began to slog through it as I hit the floor. Belle was pulling on me.
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
"All this grape jelly!" I was up to my thighs and my fingertips slogged through it and I tasted them. The grape Jelly was on my fingers. "It's delicious...wait!"
"Oh god..." She tugged on me even harder and got me through the living room into the kitchen where the floor was much more stable. We hurdled out the back door and hung a left.
"Thank you, " I panted. "What's your name, lady?" Belle just rolled her eyes and bounded out the side gate with me in hand across Floyd St. and into a gleaming white limousine.
"Whoa..."
It was a white stretched town car that had cool blue lighting on the inside. We climbed in the back. Nelson was perched next to the driver's window and had another decanter and absinthe setup next to him along with a generously appointed limo bar of clear and brown liquors. I settled into the back seat with Belle, who was looking so amazingly beautiful with her full and curly blue tinted hair, and her even more beautiful giant translucent blue eyes, high cheekbones, and white-white-blue teeth. She was still gripping my hand.
"Drinks!" I exclaimed. Nelson went about making some more absinthes. "Sulu!..." To my surprise the driver cranked his head around so that we could see him through the driver window and he was of course, an Asian dude.
I winced.
He said, "Yes Captain?" What a cool ass dude...
"Knock it off!" Bella was getting mad, she squeezed my hand. "Ito! To the club!"
Ito just stared for a moment at Belle.
I said, "Sulu! Third star to the left...and on until the club. Warp factor...your discretion."
"Yes sir!" Ito said and rolled up the driver screen. Belle just sighed and laid back into the plush leather seats. She looked as if she was put out.
"What?!” I implored as she was scowling at me. “Sulu's the bomb, lady."
"Don't encourage those boys," She said seriously.
Nelson came across the limo with some more absinthes and leered at us. His features were looking very reptilian and I somewhat recoiled in horror. The blue light was like black light and made his white linen outfit glow and his dead front tooth, not. The two glasses in his hand looked like glowing green nuclear waste, but Belle and I accepted them anyway.
"Something about the absinthe," she said. She was blue and beautiful; the drinks were glowing green. It looked like just about the perfect Captain Kirk conquest.
"Truly, the final frontier." I said. "I need to get back to Earth."
"Okay. Just wait a night. I'll take you back."
We entwined our arms like newlyweds and shot down those generous glasses full of green goo and she kissed me afterwards. It was a deep and liquorice tasting kiss that roiled my insides. My tongue was numb but even so, I felt this slurping wetness that reached far into my mouth. I dropped my glass and crushed one of her breasts in my hand. If I were more prude, I'd feel like a dirty boy, but I didn't care. I felt the chance for the darkest wettest sex that I could imagine.
I needed to feel her. Nelson, no doubt, was not very happy about this.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Chapter 26 "The American Dream"
The interesting thing about the cab ride into Englewood was the middle aged dude named Dan who was driving me. He had completely tricked out his cab to perform like a race car. He called his cab "The Nascab". Y'know, like Nascar? It had big twenty inch rims and the engine purred with the throaty growl of a classic muscle car. We bounded south down Washington St. like a yellow blur. My destiny in this cow town was waiting ahead of us.
Johnny had become very wasted by the time I had left, and was insisting on coming with me. I thought the idea sounded terrible as I watched him flail around the living room with one eye closed so he didn't tip over. He was bellowing about how it would be like old times, because I needed backup. Johnny as my back up in his current state was laughable, so I secretly called the cab and kept peering out the window as he continued to drink more scotch and pontificate grandiosely.
The cab arrived, and Johnny ran into his room to put on some clothes, and I quietly walked to my bags, stuck my .25 in my sock and the butterfly knife in my back pocket and slithered out the door, leaving Johnny at home.
I arrived a few minutes early and instructed Mr. "Nascab" Dan to drop me off about a half a block east of the place on Floyd St. I walked the rest of the way to observe the tiny little carriage house that was 3300 S Logan St.
It was a tiny little blue house with a small wooden front porch and a front yard that sloped down into the sidewalk's level. There seemed to be a light on in the center of the place, but otherwise it appeared pretty dark. The porch light wasn't even on. It hardly looked like a house that was expecting visitors. I was looking more for signs of police officers hiding in the shadows, but I saw not one sign of them.
So, I knocked on the door. I heard a woman's voice from inside say, "Come in!"
I did. As I crossed the threshold of the door the cuff of my jeans snagged on the pointy nails of the exposed carpet strip on the floor and I stumbled. I realized at this point that I had drank far too much scotch at Johnny's house.
Looking up, I could see that this room was completely stripped to the bare floor boards. They were old and distressed; there was nothing in the way of furnishings. Across from me was a doorway covered with a tapestry. That was the room where the light was coming from. The warm and inviting light was filtering through the thin tapestry that was emblazoned with a large sun, which might have looked like one of Willam Blake's illustrations. The sun was very mystical looking and had a human face.
"Hello?" I called out.
"Come in to us," said the same female voice.
"Okay, but this is creepy."
"Don't be frightened, Nelson is here," she said.
"Yeah. Come on in, Joe," said Nelson. His voice is somewhat memorable with a slightly raspy quality.
I pushed the tapestry aside and walked into this weird scene. The room's walls were completely covered with bookcases with lots of different sized books and there were at least a hundred lit candles placed around the room upon the shelves. The floor in here was stripped as well, but was covered with three rather large and thick looking Turkish carpets. Upon them were a plethora of large cushions and pillows. Nelson was sitting on the floor without a shirt. He was wearing some white or beige loose and flowing pants. Same slimy and thin looking hair, same dead front tooth, but Nelson looked really good. He appeared to be this tan, fat, and smooth Buddha in the candlelight with his necklace of wooden beads.
I arched an eyebrow as I cautiously entered the room thinking back to the Gruesome Buddha the night before.
Next to Nelson was one of the most beautiful looking creatures I have ever seen in my entire life. She was also sitting on the floor, Indian style, with very long light brown loosely curled hair with little blonde highlights. She was also wearing a beige or white loosely flowing dress that swirled all around her. She looked to be very young and elfin in appearance, and was petite and lithe with sharp angular features and huge shining blue eyes. Her voice, however, was very old, stern, and matriarchal.
She said, "I am Belle’. You must be Joe. What is your number, Joe?"
"My number is 05-10,999-8," I replied dutifully.
"Your tree is of 8? But that would be the case wouldn't it, Nelson, since that is your tree as well?" Nelson just nodded. "That is The Preacher's tree. You should be very proud. Don't worry about the 05 part of your number, that merely indicates the year, so when you have to say it again, just say 10,999 tree 8. That will be fine. Why don't you have a seat?"
She was indicating a place in front of her on the floor. I sat on the thick rug and pulled a cushion under my ass. Nelson was beaming at me. Between Belle’ and I there was a bottle of absinthe and a little contraption that hung over one of several generously proportioned cocktail glasses all on a silver tray, and a silver bowl of sugar cubes, a small silver spoon, a glass decanter of ice water that was sweating cool condensation, and a small silver lighter.
"A drink?" She asked indicating the absinthe. I just nodded, and she went to work smiling sweetly. I wouldn't have known anything about what she was about to do, except for the bottle in front of me was so green, and the label on the bottle said the word absinthe as big as life. The bottle looked 100 years old and the rest of the verbiage on the bottle appeared to be in French.
"Sugar?" She gazed at me, so demurely. Her smile was white and disarming with rounded and feminine looking teeth behind very small and soft lips. I glanced at Nelson. He was still smiling like an idiot and nodded at me. I shrugged and nodded at Belle’ who placed a sugar cube in the strainer contraption above my glass and poured a generous portion of the green fairy over my sugar cube, through the strainer and into the glass. Then she lit the sugar with the lighter and it combusted into a blue flame.
"You like it a little crunchy, don't you?" She asked. I shrugged and looked at Nelson who was not paying me any attention and gazing at Belle’. Ignoring me, she said, "I like it that way too." She waited as the sugar turned slightly brown on the edges and tapped the cube just once with the silver spoon and it disintegrated into a neat pile, still flaming. She then squeezed two little silver toggles together and the strainer opened like a clamshell and the sugar fell flaming into the glass, igniting the rest of the absinthe inside. "Ooooh!" She giggled, "That never happens; that's good luck! Usually the flame extinguishes because of the fall into the glass, but not yours."
Belle’ was inspecting my glass of absinthe and then she slightly blew into the glass and the flame extinguished. She poured in a tiny dribble of ice water from the decanter, stuck the spoon in and swirled it once. "Here. Drink."
I had never had absinthe before this moment, and I'm here to tell you that it is good. Very strong alcohol content with a bitter licorice flavor, it burns good, and the caramelized sugar at the end is a crunchy little sweet treat that extinguishes the burning on your tongue. My eyes watered slightly and I blew a breath out. "Wow!" The green fairy of absinthe has almost an instant intoxicating effect as it warms your innards and spreads to your extremities. Nelson and Belle’ were so happy to see my reaction.
Belle’ excitedly turned to Nelson and said, "Would you like one too, Nelson?"
He nodded and she went about the same process again, but this time instead of handing him the glass, she put it up to his lips and poured it down his gullet. Then she lightly kissed him on the cheek and stood up and began inspecting the bookcases that lined the wall of the room. She was utterly perfect. The candles showed her silhouette through that flimsy white dress revealing a beautiful woman's body, petite but with full breasts, a tiny waist, and an ample firm ass. Her nipples stood up proud through the sheer fabric of her dress. I couldn't believe it.
She turned to face me and said, "I'd like you to pick a book. Oh! You are SO quiet! Is he always like this, Nelson?"
"Practically never," said Nelson as he smirked at me.
"That's funny. What happened to your poor little head?" Belle’ asked as she bent her strong, young body over me. Her dress was loose and I stared down into her cleavage as her grapefruit breasts hung without the help of a brassiere. She took her hands and caressed my forehead and hair. Let me tell you boys, this girl's touch was electric with her fingernails cutting hot slices of hair and skin. Belle’ blew on my forehead bruise and her breath smelled like cinnamon. Then she kissed my forehead with these warm, ample soft lips that were like a shot of heroin.
I was in a very strange place, with very strange people, with very strange things happening, but Belle's touch was like a Valium IV drip. Smooth, intoxicating and calming was her way.
She took my face in her hands with her giddy and saintly smile and her huge blue eyes shining with the flame of a hundred candles. "Go ahead. Pick a book." She indicated the hundreds of books on the shelves around the room. "Pick something that speaks to you."
I got up, rather wobbly and faced her. She was short and looked up at me like a little white fairy. "Any book?" I asked. She was holding my fingers in her warm and tiny hands.
"Anything," she said, "But make sure you make at least one trip around the room. You don't want to miss anything. Take your time; I'll make you another drink."
"Dude. What did happen to your forehead?" Nelson asked.
"It's a long story, Nels."
"Shhhh! This is important, Nelson!" Belle’ admonished. "We have plenty of time to get to know the stories that will come." She emphasized the word 'come' and was not-so-subconsciously playing with the tie strings on the bosom of her dress. She then swished it as she twirled away from me and sat back down next to Nelson and started to work on another drink. Nelson lit a stick of incense with the silver lighter and handed it back to Belle’. I started to inspect the books that were lining the walls.
There were so many books here. There were hardcover, paperback, the size of a wallet, the size of an atlas, old, new, dog eared and limp, shiny and stiff. They ranged all genres, eras, subject matter. The only system that they seemed to be arranged by was convenience of shelf size. It was a very cool collection of books. I pulled one here and there and thumbed through them. Read title after title on the spines of them, but was wondering what might jump out at me, but hardly anything did. I was feeling numb and drunk; I thought that perhaps my picker was offline.
Belle’ made some more drinks for Nelson and herself that they sipped on and then finally attended to me. She gave me one more other-worldly shot o' the green goo and I just glugged it down unappreciatively and continued on with my search for a book that screamed out at me. This shot hit hard and I began to swirl around in the knowledge that I was trying to infiltrate and expose this weird ass cult and not join it. Inwardly, I cursed myself for already loving it.
Fuck.
Crap. If it's not one thing, it's another. I'm cursing myself for being drunk and dumb and disconnected, when it's totally my ass on the line. I need to go to rehab. I need to figure my life out. I'm such a fuck up.
Where in god's name is that feeling of contentment? Of purpose? Closeness? If you were to think about it too much, my life looks like a lonely parade through the streets that have no name. I truly am alone.
Am I this hideous person that is so self-centered and paranoid that I can't find some true connection with a single person? What the hell is wrong with me? I have been such a selfish and opportunistic prick.
I laugh when I think about the concept of The American Dream, because it's so linked to these things that money can buy, like a house, a car, life insurance, a sleep number bed, side-by-side burial plots, when in reality, anything that truly gives you contentment or comfort is a feeling brought about by genuine admiration, love, patience and perseverance and a little luck. This feeling or state of being that you could never buy with money like friendship, a trusted lover, a good family, mechanic or dentist. Trust.
I've seen a few people in my travels that appeared to me to glow with some kind of inner light. They radiated power, and oddly enough, contentment. They had purpose. They had friends. Somehow they had figured out this thing we like to call life. They annoyed the shit out of me.
Jesus, did I make some terrible mistakes?
So here I am. Before god and everyone else, cursing myself and crusading for forgiveness, a little redemption, playing secret agent, willing cult-member, blasted out of my head.
Fuck.
I snorted and laughed. I was holding a book in my hand. It was a large, but thin paperback that was titled War All the Time. The perfect synergy of those four words seemed to speak to me, as if they meant what nobody ever wanted to admit. To live life, and to truly love what and who you are, you must be prepared to fight battles. I surely loved myself to the point of unfortunate survival...but nobody really loved me.
I fight many battles only to end up congratulating myself. There are many battles to fight, and they are often. Luckily, I don't have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or any mental instability, and this book's title summed it up neat and tidy for me. War all the time. Be a warrior. Be ready for the fight. Keep your muscles tense and your gaze sharp. Don't let your guard down. A constant state of readiness. It was perfect. No matter how proud and strong I was, it felt like this could be the reason that I haven't been close to anyone in years, and yet it could be the only reason that I was still alive.
It made me feel like I knew what I must learn...if not here, then in California. In a very decisive and perfect moment, I turned to Belle’ and began to speak, but she cut me off and said, "You have found it? Come over to me."
I did and once again sat in front of her and Nelson. She snatched the book from me and glanced at the cover. "OH! Interesting!" She said, and fanned her face with the book and made it seem, by her expression, that it was overly hot in the room, but she said, "This book has much history. You are not the first, and by what seems to be a strange popularity, I believe you won't be the last! Wow! I can't believe it, can you, Nelson?" He shrugged. "How many powerful souls have been so drawn to this very paperback?" She fanned her face with it again.
"What?" I asked.
"Oh, I dunno, this just seems to be a favorite book, lately. Strange how that is the case with as many books that line these walls." She sipped some absinthe.
"Well, to be honest, I just..."
"It doesn't matter," said Belle’, smoothly. "I will hand it to you; I want you to open it up to what ever page you choose, and then read it to me."
She did so and I sat for a moment considering the book. It was by a dude called Charles Bukowski. I had never heard of him, and I was amazed to find that it appeared that I was holding a book of poetry. I had never been one for poetry, but was wondering how I could have chosen this very compilation like a few others apparently had done before me, out of a room filled with hundreds of books.
"So this book is...um...popular?"
"Yes."
"What do you mean? How popular?"
Belle’ just smiled at me and said, "It doesn't matter, silly boy." Then she reached over to me and caressed my face. Unbelievable how electric her touch was, and how it found every unshaved piece of stubble on my jaw line with perfectly sharp and manicured fingernails.
I shuttered and sneered at her slightly. I caught her hand on my face with a quick and unexpected violent move and pushed it back towards her. My eyes apologized to hers, and she looked at me as if my apology was accepted. Dutifully, I looked down at the book and began to shuffle the pages for a random opening. To what? I wasn't sure yet.
The Miracle Was the Shortest Time by Charles Bukowski.
you know
it was very good
it was
better than
anything
it was like
something
we could
pick up
hold
look at
and then laugh
about.
we were on the
moon
we were in the
god damned moon,
we had it
we were in the garden
we were in the
endless pit
never such a place
as that
it was deep
and
it was light
and
it was high
it got so near
to insanity
we laughed so
hard
your laughter
and
mine
I remember when
your eyes
said love
loudly
now
as these walls
so quietly
shift.
"Oh. That is a lonely poem," Belle’ blinked sympathetically. "Yes, you are the second person to read this very poem. Considering the sheer number of pages in this room, that is of note. Nelson!" She turned to him and snapped. Nelson jolted. "Note that!" For a moment, Nelson looked at me very confused and began to pat himself down for something to write with. Belle’ squealed with delight and exclaimed, "Oh Nelson, you are such a literal and loyal young man. Never mind. Do you wonder what his power is, Nelson?" Nelson shrugged again. "I do too."
"What do you mean?" I asked her.
"Everyone has a power all their own, Joe. What would you say is yours?"
"Hmmf." I replied intelligently and pointed to the absinthe bottle.
"No more for you," Belle’ chided. I was intensely drunk and was aware of it. It's a funny thing regarding my drug of choice, alcohol, you remember and experience everything so vividly and beastially right up until you blackout, and then you chug along for another hour or so. Those of you that have the same problems I have are nodding in agreement as you read this. Addiction is a bitch.
I adore listening to Loveline. Dr Drew is so cut and dry about addiction and abuse. He's almost like a crazy psychic when he pegs a problem from a 14 year old girl after talking to her for 9 seconds. He says something to the effect of, "Daddy left you didn't he? At about age 8? You have abandonment issues. You're in this relationship because you are re-enacting the same trauma that you felt at age 8."
The 14 year-old invariably admits to this amazing prediction, has no life experience and tries to explain a story even further to make the larger issue special and quantify why she is particularly special. Dr Drew will bring her back to the larger issue, and it will normally fall on deaf ears while he prescribes his medication in the form of therapy, or some other thing. It's amazing. Dr. Drew has special powers. I do not. Right?
But then I mumble this: "I can slow down time with my mind."
God damn it.
"Pardon me?" says Belle’, her eyes wide. Even Nelson swallows and grunts.
"I can slow down time with my mind." I leveled my gaze at Belle’, who, to her credit, actually looked as if she believed me.
"I gotta see that," she said.
"Me too," Nelson scoffed.
"I'm not sure if you could ever experience it like I do, guys," I admitted.
"Do you have control over it?" Belle’ asked.
I shrugged, "Sometimes."
"You are quite an interesting boy."
"You are an interesting woman, Belle’." I'm sure I was leering at her in a very retarded looking way.
"No doubt." Her eyes were probing me and I was leaning closer towards her involuntarily. My eyes were undressing her and kneading her softest parts. It made her even more beautiful and swelled her presence. Nelson was shrinking away in my soddened mind. Belle’ and I were the only two people in the room. Our eyes were swirling between each other. I had forgotten why I had come to this place. I was hungry for Belle's skin and she was returning my obvious desire with an openness I could only mistake for love at first sight. But, as I stated, I was hammered at this point.
"But that is not why we are here, silly boy. I am so interested in you, but..." She paused for dramatic effect. "I think you will need to show me how this works, your power, but first..." Belle’ nodded at Nelson who took a small silver box out of the front pocket of his poofy pants and opened it on the tray. There were three large white capsules in there. Belle’ took one for her and handed another to me. Nelson picked out his own.
"Belle’," I implored. "Sometimes I can't just turn it on. Sometimes it just happens on its own. I'm not sure if I can show how I do it. It just is."
"Do you think you are special?"
"Um.."
"How many times do you think I have done this very thing?" She said regarding her pill in the candlelight.
"Honestly, I don't know, baby," I said.
She giggled and pushed her perfect tits together and leaned towards me. "What is your number again?"
"10,999."
"What if I told you that my number was 62, and that I have held every new member in my hand since then?"
"Sounds like you're an old slut, then. Look at you Nelson, you're a man whore, what do you think about that?" Nelson and Belle’ both rolled their eyes at me and basically said in unison:
"Take your pill, asshole."
"You guys first," I said. Then I reached over and took Belle's pill from her fingertips and handed her mine. She accepted it, and put it on her tongue, and took a tug from the absinthe bottle. What an awesome bitch.
Nelson, untwisted his capsule and snorted both sides up each nostril with a loud snort and grimaced and stuck his tongue out at me like Gene Simmons would.
"So what the fuck is this shit, ecstasy?"
"Sort of," Belle’ giggled. "I have an idea. It will help with your fears."
"Ok. Lay it on me, baby."
"I like when a man calls me baby. It implies intimacy, and strangely enough, a submissiveness, for what exactly do you care for more than a baby? What exactly would you give your life so willingly for?" I smirked at her words. She continued, "We are going to throw books at you, and I want you to catch them."
I snorted a laugh. "Okay, then. Fire away, crazy lady."
Belle’, with inhuman speed grabbed War All The Time and flung it at my head. It bounced unceremoniously off of my Jazzy bruise and thumped to the floor.
"NO FAIR!" I shouted. Nelson laughed maniacally.
"Oh yes, you are the master of time."
"Apparently."
"Would you like to try again?"
"Fuck this."
"I'll make a deal with you. Nelson and I will throw a book at you at the same time. You must catch them both, but you must steady yourself so that we can see the extent of your awesomeness. Win or lose...you will take your pill."
"Oh. Whatever." I stood up and readied myself for the coming onslaught of literature. Belle’ picked the paperback, War All The Time back up and prepared. She was a lefty. Nelson seemed to be enjoying this moment and looked at the shelf behind him for the largest volume he could find. Whatever he found it was the size of a small dictionary and hardbound. That fuckstick.
"Are you ready?" Belle’ asked. I had backed up a little and was standing against the other wall of the room across from them eagerly holding their book projectiles.
"OK. Give me a sec..." I ran my hands over my face, and took a deep breath. I almost consider the feeling of conjuring slow time like pressing inwards while expelling outwards. It's a strange feeling, like pushing to shit out your chi and yet reveling in its expulsion. It's like riding a surfboard on the outer tendrils of methane on one of your own farts, if that makes any sense. Time began to ice down. A frozen breath had escaped my lips as it happened. I said, "WAIT!"
They had already wound up and both had flung literature at my waiting and tender dome. Belle’ had flung hers like a knife and it cart wheeled through the air at an amazing velocity. Nelson shot putted his massive book and it tumbled towards me and began to open in midair, the pages shuffling like a deck of cards.
My hands rose in defense at first and then became taut and massively slow. I recognized the feeling of full control and easily watched Belle’s book into my right hand as I pinched it with two fingers and my thumb near my right shoulder. Funny, though, the sheer velocity at which Belle’ had thrown War All The Time caused my right hand to be flung backwards to compensate. That is a strange feeling in slow time...being overpowered by something that appears to be slow moving.
Nelson's large ass book presented an entirely different problem. It was thrown lower and slower and was going to hit me near my left hip. It had also opened in midair and was tumbling towards me like a ten pound butterfly. I began to strike with my left hand like an uppercut judging its spin and timing. I had to grab the spine. It was hard to do.
I grabbed the spine and pushed hard against the will of my muscles and more impressively, the fabric of time, and snatched it perfectly snapping the large book shut as I did so.
A warm rush filtered through my body from the skin on into my guts and I found myself in an impossibly awkward position with one high velocity book behind my right ear and another heavy one snatched out of the air with my left and most of my momentum devoted to that hulking mass. As time collapsed, my muscle tone and weight had feathered and faltered my knees and I crumpled to the ground, and yet, I was holding both books firmly in my grasp!
I smiled broadly, and got to my feet again.
Nelson and Belle’ just stared with their mouths open. Belle’ was the first to speak.
"That was fuckin’ cool."
"Jeez. I shouldn't be able to do that as drunk as I am."
"Oh, you are a neat boy," Belle’ said.
"Yeah, that was pretty fucking cool, Red," said Nelson. Belle’ picked up my pill from the tray.
"So. Now you'll take this?"
"Only if you show me your power, Belle’." I arched an eyebrow at her. She blanched and turned away from me.
Nelson looked intrigued and stared at her for a response. She waited and sighed.
Finally she said, "Nelson. Go get the car. Tell him we are going to the club. Go."
Nelson was visibly disappointed but exited out the back door quickly. Belle’ turned to me and indicated a stool in the corner and ran her fingers uncomfortably through her curly, long and sandy hair. There was a light like an artist or engineer would use that was attached to a movable armature so you could move it about and position it to light a scene or surface. It was attached to one of the book shelves next to the stool, but it was currently off. I sat on the stool facing her and she walked up to me.
She whispered, "It's something about fire, or something like that. Only light bulbs. The sun is okay, but it's best with fire. She pulled the strings of the bosom of her dress down and revealed more breast flesh and she put a leg over mine and straddled me on the stool. She pressed herself close to me and I felt the softness of her pressing up against very live and sensitive areas.
She grabbed the light and positioned it above our heads like a halo and pressed closer to me, breathing on my lips, an absinthe soaked sugar cube cinnamon smell. I was intoxicated by her. My mind was devolving. I made an animalistic sound and grabbed under her dress and rested my hand on her naked hip and the top of her bunched up ass. No under panties. What a whore. Grinding. I bit her neck and she shuttered and pulled away. Belle’ put her finger across my lips and said, "You need to see this. My power may be a blessing, but it is most certainly a curse. You don't know how fortunate that you are." She began to whisper, "We need you. I do not reveal this often...um...there is something about the fire." Belle’ swept her hand across the room. Candles upon candles.
She put her hands on my shoulders, and squared me up. Reaching up, she turned on the light and her face took on deep crevasses and the wrinkles and liver spots of an old haggard woman. Belle’, in the light of this single light bulb, had jowls. Her earlobes hung and sagged and her neck sagged away her sleek jaw line! I recoiled.
She still sat with those same eyes staring at me. Those same crystalline eyes, yet now rimmed and bagged. Sagging. She had seen this reaction before, in probably many initiates in her creepy club and she sat there patiently watching me work through my horror. The light had changed her into a wretch. A succubus of a beast, she was old and craggily.
I stammered, "HOW OLD ARE YOU?!" She was still on top of me. We were still somewhat embracing. She flung her arms into the air and smashed the light so that the armature flung against the wall and broke the light bulb. Her face returned to beautiful and graceful.
"I don't know!" Belle’ flung her arms around me and sobbed heavily. "I don't know how old I am, Joe."
She looked at me and gave the pill. I took it. I had never felt so alive and so close to someone in a very long time. She had revealed a part of herself that she most likely hadn’t to someone so new to her funky cult. I felt special. I took it. Swallowed it right there. It is the last thing that I remember doing until....
I am in bed. Naked. Face full of hair and pillows. Her hair. Curly and sandy. So long.
What's her name?
....Belle’.
She's getting up and walking across the room, and what's this? Another sweet smelling girl rolls into me from where Belle’ had left. She was short, dark haired, naked, and round and soft all over.
She flings a leg over me and buries her head in my chest. What the fuck?
Where am I and what time is it? Do I even care? My eyelids are heavy but Belle’ has lit a candle and there is more light.
What the fuck happened?
Belle’ climbs back into bed and spoons the girl that is wrapped all over me.
Oh, Belle’. You need the candles.
What is wrong with me. The pill? God, who cares?
Just then, somebody behind me farted. I flung my head backwards and clonked it on someone else's skull. Holy crap!
Much to my dismay Belle’ said, "Oh Nelson, that's just nasty." A hairy forearm flopped over my shoulder and I heard Nelson snort.
Johnny had become very wasted by the time I had left, and was insisting on coming with me. I thought the idea sounded terrible as I watched him flail around the living room with one eye closed so he didn't tip over. He was bellowing about how it would be like old times, because I needed backup. Johnny as my back up in his current state was laughable, so I secretly called the cab and kept peering out the window as he continued to drink more scotch and pontificate grandiosely.
The cab arrived, and Johnny ran into his room to put on some clothes, and I quietly walked to my bags, stuck my .25 in my sock and the butterfly knife in my back pocket and slithered out the door, leaving Johnny at home.
I arrived a few minutes early and instructed Mr. "Nascab" Dan to drop me off about a half a block east of the place on Floyd St. I walked the rest of the way to observe the tiny little carriage house that was 3300 S Logan St.
It was a tiny little blue house with a small wooden front porch and a front yard that sloped down into the sidewalk's level. There seemed to be a light on in the center of the place, but otherwise it appeared pretty dark. The porch light wasn't even on. It hardly looked like a house that was expecting visitors. I was looking more for signs of police officers hiding in the shadows, but I saw not one sign of them.
So, I knocked on the door. I heard a woman's voice from inside say, "Come in!"
I did. As I crossed the threshold of the door the cuff of my jeans snagged on the pointy nails of the exposed carpet strip on the floor and I stumbled. I realized at this point that I had drank far too much scotch at Johnny's house.
Looking up, I could see that this room was completely stripped to the bare floor boards. They were old and distressed; there was nothing in the way of furnishings. Across from me was a doorway covered with a tapestry. That was the room where the light was coming from. The warm and inviting light was filtering through the thin tapestry that was emblazoned with a large sun, which might have looked like one of Willam Blake's illustrations. The sun was very mystical looking and had a human face.
"Hello?" I called out.
"Come in to us," said the same female voice.
"Okay, but this is creepy."
"Don't be frightened, Nelson is here," she said.
"Yeah. Come on in, Joe," said Nelson. His voice is somewhat memorable with a slightly raspy quality.
I pushed the tapestry aside and walked into this weird scene. The room's walls were completely covered with bookcases with lots of different sized books and there were at least a hundred lit candles placed around the room upon the shelves. The floor in here was stripped as well, but was covered with three rather large and thick looking Turkish carpets. Upon them were a plethora of large cushions and pillows. Nelson was sitting on the floor without a shirt. He was wearing some white or beige loose and flowing pants. Same slimy and thin looking hair, same dead front tooth, but Nelson looked really good. He appeared to be this tan, fat, and smooth Buddha in the candlelight with his necklace of wooden beads.
I arched an eyebrow as I cautiously entered the room thinking back to the Gruesome Buddha the night before.
Next to Nelson was one of the most beautiful looking creatures I have ever seen in my entire life. She was also sitting on the floor, Indian style, with very long light brown loosely curled hair with little blonde highlights. She was also wearing a beige or white loosely flowing dress that swirled all around her. She looked to be very young and elfin in appearance, and was petite and lithe with sharp angular features and huge shining blue eyes. Her voice, however, was very old, stern, and matriarchal.
She said, "I am Belle’. You must be Joe. What is your number, Joe?"
"My number is 05-10,999-8," I replied dutifully.
"Your tree is of 8? But that would be the case wouldn't it, Nelson, since that is your tree as well?" Nelson just nodded. "That is The Preacher's tree. You should be very proud. Don't worry about the 05 part of your number, that merely indicates the year, so when you have to say it again, just say 10,999 tree 8. That will be fine. Why don't you have a seat?"
She was indicating a place in front of her on the floor. I sat on the thick rug and pulled a cushion under my ass. Nelson was beaming at me. Between Belle’ and I there was a bottle of absinthe and a little contraption that hung over one of several generously proportioned cocktail glasses all on a silver tray, and a silver bowl of sugar cubes, a small silver spoon, a glass decanter of ice water that was sweating cool condensation, and a small silver lighter.
"A drink?" She asked indicating the absinthe. I just nodded, and she went to work smiling sweetly. I wouldn't have known anything about what she was about to do, except for the bottle in front of me was so green, and the label on the bottle said the word absinthe as big as life. The bottle looked 100 years old and the rest of the verbiage on the bottle appeared to be in French.
"Sugar?" She gazed at me, so demurely. Her smile was white and disarming with rounded and feminine looking teeth behind very small and soft lips. I glanced at Nelson. He was still smiling like an idiot and nodded at me. I shrugged and nodded at Belle’ who placed a sugar cube in the strainer contraption above my glass and poured a generous portion of the green fairy over my sugar cube, through the strainer and into the glass. Then she lit the sugar with the lighter and it combusted into a blue flame.
"You like it a little crunchy, don't you?" She asked. I shrugged and looked at Nelson who was not paying me any attention and gazing at Belle’. Ignoring me, she said, "I like it that way too." She waited as the sugar turned slightly brown on the edges and tapped the cube just once with the silver spoon and it disintegrated into a neat pile, still flaming. She then squeezed two little silver toggles together and the strainer opened like a clamshell and the sugar fell flaming into the glass, igniting the rest of the absinthe inside. "Ooooh!" She giggled, "That never happens; that's good luck! Usually the flame extinguishes because of the fall into the glass, but not yours."
Belle’ was inspecting my glass of absinthe and then she slightly blew into the glass and the flame extinguished. She poured in a tiny dribble of ice water from the decanter, stuck the spoon in and swirled it once. "Here. Drink."
I had never had absinthe before this moment, and I'm here to tell you that it is good. Very strong alcohol content with a bitter licorice flavor, it burns good, and the caramelized sugar at the end is a crunchy little sweet treat that extinguishes the burning on your tongue. My eyes watered slightly and I blew a breath out. "Wow!" The green fairy of absinthe has almost an instant intoxicating effect as it warms your innards and spreads to your extremities. Nelson and Belle’ were so happy to see my reaction.
Belle’ excitedly turned to Nelson and said, "Would you like one too, Nelson?"
He nodded and she went about the same process again, but this time instead of handing him the glass, she put it up to his lips and poured it down his gullet. Then she lightly kissed him on the cheek and stood up and began inspecting the bookcases that lined the wall of the room. She was utterly perfect. The candles showed her silhouette through that flimsy white dress revealing a beautiful woman's body, petite but with full breasts, a tiny waist, and an ample firm ass. Her nipples stood up proud through the sheer fabric of her dress. I couldn't believe it.
She turned to face me and said, "I'd like you to pick a book. Oh! You are SO quiet! Is he always like this, Nelson?"
"Practically never," said Nelson as he smirked at me.
"That's funny. What happened to your poor little head?" Belle’ asked as she bent her strong, young body over me. Her dress was loose and I stared down into her cleavage as her grapefruit breasts hung without the help of a brassiere. She took her hands and caressed my forehead and hair. Let me tell you boys, this girl's touch was electric with her fingernails cutting hot slices of hair and skin. Belle’ blew on my forehead bruise and her breath smelled like cinnamon. Then she kissed my forehead with these warm, ample soft lips that were like a shot of heroin.
I was in a very strange place, with very strange people, with very strange things happening, but Belle's touch was like a Valium IV drip. Smooth, intoxicating and calming was her way.
She took my face in her hands with her giddy and saintly smile and her huge blue eyes shining with the flame of a hundred candles. "Go ahead. Pick a book." She indicated the hundreds of books on the shelves around the room. "Pick something that speaks to you."
I got up, rather wobbly and faced her. She was short and looked up at me like a little white fairy. "Any book?" I asked. She was holding my fingers in her warm and tiny hands.
"Anything," she said, "But make sure you make at least one trip around the room. You don't want to miss anything. Take your time; I'll make you another drink."
"Dude. What did happen to your forehead?" Nelson asked.
"It's a long story, Nels."
"Shhhh! This is important, Nelson!" Belle’ admonished. "We have plenty of time to get to know the stories that will come." She emphasized the word 'come' and was not-so-subconsciously playing with the tie strings on the bosom of her dress. She then swished it as she twirled away from me and sat back down next to Nelson and started to work on another drink. Nelson lit a stick of incense with the silver lighter and handed it back to Belle’. I started to inspect the books that were lining the walls.
There were so many books here. There were hardcover, paperback, the size of a wallet, the size of an atlas, old, new, dog eared and limp, shiny and stiff. They ranged all genres, eras, subject matter. The only system that they seemed to be arranged by was convenience of shelf size. It was a very cool collection of books. I pulled one here and there and thumbed through them. Read title after title on the spines of them, but was wondering what might jump out at me, but hardly anything did. I was feeling numb and drunk; I thought that perhaps my picker was offline.
Belle’ made some more drinks for Nelson and herself that they sipped on and then finally attended to me. She gave me one more other-worldly shot o' the green goo and I just glugged it down unappreciatively and continued on with my search for a book that screamed out at me. This shot hit hard and I began to swirl around in the knowledge that I was trying to infiltrate and expose this weird ass cult and not join it. Inwardly, I cursed myself for already loving it.
Fuck.
Crap. If it's not one thing, it's another. I'm cursing myself for being drunk and dumb and disconnected, when it's totally my ass on the line. I need to go to rehab. I need to figure my life out. I'm such a fuck up.
Where in god's name is that feeling of contentment? Of purpose? Closeness? If you were to think about it too much, my life looks like a lonely parade through the streets that have no name. I truly am alone.
Am I this hideous person that is so self-centered and paranoid that I can't find some true connection with a single person? What the hell is wrong with me? I have been such a selfish and opportunistic prick.
I laugh when I think about the concept of The American Dream, because it's so linked to these things that money can buy, like a house, a car, life insurance, a sleep number bed, side-by-side burial plots, when in reality, anything that truly gives you contentment or comfort is a feeling brought about by genuine admiration, love, patience and perseverance and a little luck. This feeling or state of being that you could never buy with money like friendship, a trusted lover, a good family, mechanic or dentist. Trust.
I've seen a few people in my travels that appeared to me to glow with some kind of inner light. They radiated power, and oddly enough, contentment. They had purpose. They had friends. Somehow they had figured out this thing we like to call life. They annoyed the shit out of me.
Jesus, did I make some terrible mistakes?
So here I am. Before god and everyone else, cursing myself and crusading for forgiveness, a little redemption, playing secret agent, willing cult-member, blasted out of my head.
Fuck.
I snorted and laughed. I was holding a book in my hand. It was a large, but thin paperback that was titled War All the Time. The perfect synergy of those four words seemed to speak to me, as if they meant what nobody ever wanted to admit. To live life, and to truly love what and who you are, you must be prepared to fight battles. I surely loved myself to the point of unfortunate survival...but nobody really loved me.
I fight many battles only to end up congratulating myself. There are many battles to fight, and they are often. Luckily, I don't have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or any mental instability, and this book's title summed it up neat and tidy for me. War all the time. Be a warrior. Be ready for the fight. Keep your muscles tense and your gaze sharp. Don't let your guard down. A constant state of readiness. It was perfect. No matter how proud and strong I was, it felt like this could be the reason that I haven't been close to anyone in years, and yet it could be the only reason that I was still alive.
It made me feel like I knew what I must learn...if not here, then in California. In a very decisive and perfect moment, I turned to Belle’ and began to speak, but she cut me off and said, "You have found it? Come over to me."
I did and once again sat in front of her and Nelson. She snatched the book from me and glanced at the cover. "OH! Interesting!" She said, and fanned her face with the book and made it seem, by her expression, that it was overly hot in the room, but she said, "This book has much history. You are not the first, and by what seems to be a strange popularity, I believe you won't be the last! Wow! I can't believe it, can you, Nelson?" He shrugged. "How many powerful souls have been so drawn to this very paperback?" She fanned her face with it again.
"What?" I asked.
"Oh, I dunno, this just seems to be a favorite book, lately. Strange how that is the case with as many books that line these walls." She sipped some absinthe.
"Well, to be honest, I just..."
"It doesn't matter," said Belle’, smoothly. "I will hand it to you; I want you to open it up to what ever page you choose, and then read it to me."
She did so and I sat for a moment considering the book. It was by a dude called Charles Bukowski. I had never heard of him, and I was amazed to find that it appeared that I was holding a book of poetry. I had never been one for poetry, but was wondering how I could have chosen this very compilation like a few others apparently had done before me, out of a room filled with hundreds of books.
"So this book is...um...popular?"
"Yes."
"What do you mean? How popular?"
Belle’ just smiled at me and said, "It doesn't matter, silly boy." Then she reached over to me and caressed my face. Unbelievable how electric her touch was, and how it found every unshaved piece of stubble on my jaw line with perfectly sharp and manicured fingernails.
I shuttered and sneered at her slightly. I caught her hand on my face with a quick and unexpected violent move and pushed it back towards her. My eyes apologized to hers, and she looked at me as if my apology was accepted. Dutifully, I looked down at the book and began to shuffle the pages for a random opening. To what? I wasn't sure yet.
The Miracle Was the Shortest Time by Charles Bukowski.
you know
it was very good
it was
better than
anything
it was like
something
we could
pick up
hold
look at
and then laugh
about.
we were on the
moon
we were in the
god damned moon,
we had it
we were in the garden
we were in the
endless pit
never such a place
as that
it was deep
and
it was light
and
it was high
it got so near
to insanity
we laughed so
hard
your laughter
and
mine
I remember when
your eyes
said love
loudly
now
as these walls
so quietly
shift.
"Oh. That is a lonely poem," Belle’ blinked sympathetically. "Yes, you are the second person to read this very poem. Considering the sheer number of pages in this room, that is of note. Nelson!" She turned to him and snapped. Nelson jolted. "Note that!" For a moment, Nelson looked at me very confused and began to pat himself down for something to write with. Belle’ squealed with delight and exclaimed, "Oh Nelson, you are such a literal and loyal young man. Never mind. Do you wonder what his power is, Nelson?" Nelson shrugged again. "I do too."
"What do you mean?" I asked her.
"Everyone has a power all their own, Joe. What would you say is yours?"
"Hmmf." I replied intelligently and pointed to the absinthe bottle.
"No more for you," Belle’ chided. I was intensely drunk and was aware of it. It's a funny thing regarding my drug of choice, alcohol, you remember and experience everything so vividly and beastially right up until you blackout, and then you chug along for another hour or so. Those of you that have the same problems I have are nodding in agreement as you read this. Addiction is a bitch.
I adore listening to Loveline. Dr Drew is so cut and dry about addiction and abuse. He's almost like a crazy psychic when he pegs a problem from a 14 year old girl after talking to her for 9 seconds. He says something to the effect of, "Daddy left you didn't he? At about age 8? You have abandonment issues. You're in this relationship because you are re-enacting the same trauma that you felt at age 8."
The 14 year-old invariably admits to this amazing prediction, has no life experience and tries to explain a story even further to make the larger issue special and quantify why she is particularly special. Dr Drew will bring her back to the larger issue, and it will normally fall on deaf ears while he prescribes his medication in the form of therapy, or some other thing. It's amazing. Dr. Drew has special powers. I do not. Right?
But then I mumble this: "I can slow down time with my mind."
God damn it.
"Pardon me?" says Belle’, her eyes wide. Even Nelson swallows and grunts.
"I can slow down time with my mind." I leveled my gaze at Belle’, who, to her credit, actually looked as if she believed me.
"I gotta see that," she said.
"Me too," Nelson scoffed.
"I'm not sure if you could ever experience it like I do, guys," I admitted.
"Do you have control over it?" Belle’ asked.
I shrugged, "Sometimes."
"You are quite an interesting boy."
"You are an interesting woman, Belle’." I'm sure I was leering at her in a very retarded looking way.
"No doubt." Her eyes were probing me and I was leaning closer towards her involuntarily. My eyes were undressing her and kneading her softest parts. It made her even more beautiful and swelled her presence. Nelson was shrinking away in my soddened mind. Belle’ and I were the only two people in the room. Our eyes were swirling between each other. I had forgotten why I had come to this place. I was hungry for Belle's skin and she was returning my obvious desire with an openness I could only mistake for love at first sight. But, as I stated, I was hammered at this point.
"But that is not why we are here, silly boy. I am so interested in you, but..." She paused for dramatic effect. "I think you will need to show me how this works, your power, but first..." Belle’ nodded at Nelson who took a small silver box out of the front pocket of his poofy pants and opened it on the tray. There were three large white capsules in there. Belle’ took one for her and handed another to me. Nelson picked out his own.
"Belle’," I implored. "Sometimes I can't just turn it on. Sometimes it just happens on its own. I'm not sure if I can show how I do it. It just is."
"Do you think you are special?"
"Um.."
"How many times do you think I have done this very thing?" She said regarding her pill in the candlelight.
"Honestly, I don't know, baby," I said.
She giggled and pushed her perfect tits together and leaned towards me. "What is your number again?"
"10,999."
"What if I told you that my number was 62, and that I have held every new member in my hand since then?"
"Sounds like you're an old slut, then. Look at you Nelson, you're a man whore, what do you think about that?" Nelson and Belle’ both rolled their eyes at me and basically said in unison:
"Take your pill, asshole."
"You guys first," I said. Then I reached over and took Belle's pill from her fingertips and handed her mine. She accepted it, and put it on her tongue, and took a tug from the absinthe bottle. What an awesome bitch.
Nelson, untwisted his capsule and snorted both sides up each nostril with a loud snort and grimaced and stuck his tongue out at me like Gene Simmons would.
"So what the fuck is this shit, ecstasy?"
"Sort of," Belle’ giggled. "I have an idea. It will help with your fears."
"Ok. Lay it on me, baby."
"I like when a man calls me baby. It implies intimacy, and strangely enough, a submissiveness, for what exactly do you care for more than a baby? What exactly would you give your life so willingly for?" I smirked at her words. She continued, "We are going to throw books at you, and I want you to catch them."
I snorted a laugh. "Okay, then. Fire away, crazy lady."
Belle’, with inhuman speed grabbed War All The Time and flung it at my head. It bounced unceremoniously off of my Jazzy bruise and thumped to the floor.
"NO FAIR!" I shouted. Nelson laughed maniacally.
"Oh yes, you are the master of time."
"Apparently."
"Would you like to try again?"
"Fuck this."
"I'll make a deal with you. Nelson and I will throw a book at you at the same time. You must catch them both, but you must steady yourself so that we can see the extent of your awesomeness. Win or lose...you will take your pill."
"Oh. Whatever." I stood up and readied myself for the coming onslaught of literature. Belle’ picked the paperback, War All The Time back up and prepared. She was a lefty. Nelson seemed to be enjoying this moment and looked at the shelf behind him for the largest volume he could find. Whatever he found it was the size of a small dictionary and hardbound. That fuckstick.
"Are you ready?" Belle’ asked. I had backed up a little and was standing against the other wall of the room across from them eagerly holding their book projectiles.
"OK. Give me a sec..." I ran my hands over my face, and took a deep breath. I almost consider the feeling of conjuring slow time like pressing inwards while expelling outwards. It's a strange feeling, like pushing to shit out your chi and yet reveling in its expulsion. It's like riding a surfboard on the outer tendrils of methane on one of your own farts, if that makes any sense. Time began to ice down. A frozen breath had escaped my lips as it happened. I said, "WAIT!"
They had already wound up and both had flung literature at my waiting and tender dome. Belle’ had flung hers like a knife and it cart wheeled through the air at an amazing velocity. Nelson shot putted his massive book and it tumbled towards me and began to open in midair, the pages shuffling like a deck of cards.
My hands rose in defense at first and then became taut and massively slow. I recognized the feeling of full control and easily watched Belle’s book into my right hand as I pinched it with two fingers and my thumb near my right shoulder. Funny, though, the sheer velocity at which Belle’ had thrown War All The Time caused my right hand to be flung backwards to compensate. That is a strange feeling in slow time...being overpowered by something that appears to be slow moving.
Nelson's large ass book presented an entirely different problem. It was thrown lower and slower and was going to hit me near my left hip. It had also opened in midair and was tumbling towards me like a ten pound butterfly. I began to strike with my left hand like an uppercut judging its spin and timing. I had to grab the spine. It was hard to do.
I grabbed the spine and pushed hard against the will of my muscles and more impressively, the fabric of time, and snatched it perfectly snapping the large book shut as I did so.
A warm rush filtered through my body from the skin on into my guts and I found myself in an impossibly awkward position with one high velocity book behind my right ear and another heavy one snatched out of the air with my left and most of my momentum devoted to that hulking mass. As time collapsed, my muscle tone and weight had feathered and faltered my knees and I crumpled to the ground, and yet, I was holding both books firmly in my grasp!
I smiled broadly, and got to my feet again.
Nelson and Belle’ just stared with their mouths open. Belle’ was the first to speak.
"That was fuckin’ cool."
"Jeez. I shouldn't be able to do that as drunk as I am."
"Oh, you are a neat boy," Belle’ said.
"Yeah, that was pretty fucking cool, Red," said Nelson. Belle’ picked up my pill from the tray.
"So. Now you'll take this?"
"Only if you show me your power, Belle’." I arched an eyebrow at her. She blanched and turned away from me.
Nelson looked intrigued and stared at her for a response. She waited and sighed.
Finally she said, "Nelson. Go get the car. Tell him we are going to the club. Go."
Nelson was visibly disappointed but exited out the back door quickly. Belle’ turned to me and indicated a stool in the corner and ran her fingers uncomfortably through her curly, long and sandy hair. There was a light like an artist or engineer would use that was attached to a movable armature so you could move it about and position it to light a scene or surface. It was attached to one of the book shelves next to the stool, but it was currently off. I sat on the stool facing her and she walked up to me.
She whispered, "It's something about fire, or something like that. Only light bulbs. The sun is okay, but it's best with fire. She pulled the strings of the bosom of her dress down and revealed more breast flesh and she put a leg over mine and straddled me on the stool. She pressed herself close to me and I felt the softness of her pressing up against very live and sensitive areas.
She grabbed the light and positioned it above our heads like a halo and pressed closer to me, breathing on my lips, an absinthe soaked sugar cube cinnamon smell. I was intoxicated by her. My mind was devolving. I made an animalistic sound and grabbed under her dress and rested my hand on her naked hip and the top of her bunched up ass. No under panties. What a whore. Grinding. I bit her neck and she shuttered and pulled away. Belle’ put her finger across my lips and said, "You need to see this. My power may be a blessing, but it is most certainly a curse. You don't know how fortunate that you are." She began to whisper, "We need you. I do not reveal this often...um...there is something about the fire." Belle’ swept her hand across the room. Candles upon candles.
She put her hands on my shoulders, and squared me up. Reaching up, she turned on the light and her face took on deep crevasses and the wrinkles and liver spots of an old haggard woman. Belle’, in the light of this single light bulb, had jowls. Her earlobes hung and sagged and her neck sagged away her sleek jaw line! I recoiled.
She still sat with those same eyes staring at me. Those same crystalline eyes, yet now rimmed and bagged. Sagging. She had seen this reaction before, in probably many initiates in her creepy club and she sat there patiently watching me work through my horror. The light had changed her into a wretch. A succubus of a beast, she was old and craggily.
I stammered, "HOW OLD ARE YOU?!" She was still on top of me. We were still somewhat embracing. She flung her arms into the air and smashed the light so that the armature flung against the wall and broke the light bulb. Her face returned to beautiful and graceful.
"I don't know!" Belle’ flung her arms around me and sobbed heavily. "I don't know how old I am, Joe."
She looked at me and gave the pill. I took it. I had never felt so alive and so close to someone in a very long time. She had revealed a part of herself that she most likely hadn’t to someone so new to her funky cult. I felt special. I took it. Swallowed it right there. It is the last thing that I remember doing until....
I am in bed. Naked. Face full of hair and pillows. Her hair. Curly and sandy. So long.
What's her name?
....Belle’.
She's getting up and walking across the room, and what's this? Another sweet smelling girl rolls into me from where Belle’ had left. She was short, dark haired, naked, and round and soft all over.
She flings a leg over me and buries her head in my chest. What the fuck?
Where am I and what time is it? Do I even care? My eyelids are heavy but Belle’ has lit a candle and there is more light.
What the fuck happened?
Belle’ climbs back into bed and spoons the girl that is wrapped all over me.
Oh, Belle’. You need the candles.
What is wrong with me. The pill? God, who cares?
Just then, somebody behind me farted. I flung my head backwards and clonked it on someone else's skull. Holy crap!
Much to my dismay Belle’ said, "Oh Nelson, that's just nasty." A hairy forearm flopped over my shoulder and I heard Nelson snort.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Chapter 25 "Johnny"
My histrionics were short-lived. I began to formulate an idea that began as an itch in the back of my brain. This wasn't as hopeless and terrible as I had originally and selfishly thought. There were still a few outs. Wiping my eyes and gingerly tapping on my bruised forehead, I looked across the room at my phone. I gathered up my stuff, looked at the number from my pager and dialed Johnny.
"What?!"
"Johnny?"
He belched as a reply.
"Can I come over?"
"Yeah, man! I thought you guys were coming over yesterday!"
"Sweet. I'll be there in a bit."
I checked outside again. The Shabby Detective was still there smoking in his nondescript police cruiser. I prepared to jump through my shower window again.
...
“That's the shittiest story I ever heard," Johnny sighed and got up from a papasan chair in the corner of his living room. He was wearing a short kimono robe and boxer shorts. His bare white legs strode across the room purposefully to the small table that had a decanter and ice set up. He put a few more fingers of Glenlivet in his glass and swirled it around. "You are right about one thing. You have to go check out this cult before you blow town. Might find out something that's useful. Might be able to give the cops something other than you."
I nodded. "Nelson's cult may be the key to this whole thing. It's at 9 tonight."
"Really, dude? Jaime, from Kitty Mistress? She's hot but not as hot as that singer!" His eyebrows went up and down, leering while subconsciously pumping his pelvis. It didn't surprise me when Johnny knew exactly who the bass player from Kitty Mistress was. He knew just about everyone in Denver in some way.
"What's with the scotch, Johnny?" I regarded my own glass with a little disdain. He just looked at me, grinned broadly and shrugged rather grandiosely. Johnny was a pretty boy. Not in the way that you'd call effeminate but pretty. He was youthful looking and well featured. He looked like Billy Cruddup, or Jim Kaviezel, or maybe a little like Tom Cruise from Top Gun with his short cropped haircut. His smile was infectious and dirty, with small flat pearly white square teeth. His smile made you want to think dirty thoughts.
Johnny lived in a house in Washington Park with two other dudes. Will, was in a band, and Demetrius was a black dude, he was a rapper, neither of them ever seemed to have any money and they were always fucked up. Currently, they were playing video games in Demetrius' bedroom. Johnny had the run of the upstairs dining room and front room of their charming little bungalow on York St. I was sitting on the couch watching him pace back and forth in his Kimono.
Johnny was agitated. After he got the gist of most of my story, he instructed Will to move his car and to move mine into the carriage house style garage on the south end of the house and to close the barn doors. Will shrugged and did it while catching my keys as he walked out the door. Apparently the boys at 461 S York St. weren't too adverse to harboring friends on the run. I was grateful. Will came back in and asked me if I wanted to sell my car. I told him I'd get back to him on that, and wondered where he'd find the money.
Pacing the dining room, Johnny laughed. "You serious? He had a dick the size of a Dustbuster?! In width, or length?"
"Both!" I choked on my scotch.
We both laughed.
Will came out of the bedroom with an empty Gatorade bottle. "Shut up assholes. You guys are being way TOOOOO LOUD!" He had a sly grin on his face. Will was a big lumbering dude that could have been a brother of mine because we both looked Irish and gorilla-ish. He had a head that looked too small for his body with a chinstrap beard and short dirty blonde hair. He wasn't fat, but he wasn't skinny either.
"Fuck off, Will," Johnny said. Will walked up and put his arm around Johnny.
"Scotch me, dude," Will said and held up his Gatorade bottle.
"Fuck you, get a proper glass," Johnny said with a little malice in his voice.
You never knew when Johnny was going to switch on, but when he did, he was an evil pirate of a man. A little violent, a little disturbing, yet always entertaining. We used to call him One-Eyed-Johnny. I sensed the scotch was doing a number on him. I glugged at mine, anticipating another interesting night.
Will just narrowed his eyes at him, looked over at me and said, "You see what I put up with?" And he slouched into the kitchen in bare feet, wife beater and Chongler shorts.
"How did Faith look?"
"Oh, Johnny, dude, cracked out as usual. I don't understand your infatuation there, buddy. Dade would freak if you ever got near that mess. Don't even."
He was already dismissing me by waving his hands in the air and pacing faster. Will was done crashing around in the kitchen and reemerged with a cocktail glass. "What's it like to fight a naked man?" Johnny asked honestly.
"HELLA DISTURBING, YO!"
Will looked at me in amazement. His giant eyebrows were pegged to his hairline. "Dude, you fought a naked man?"
"Yeah.".
"How Greek of you," Johnny interjected, in an English accent. "His new little girlfriend decided to get one last 'pop' from her ex. (When Johnny popped his cheek it made a sound like a wine bottle uncorking...I winced when he did it.) She's the bassist Betty Page lookin’ bitch from Kitty Mistress."
Will's face contorted and he fell to his knees. He kept holding the glass up to Johnny while he covered his mouth and let out a not-so-secretive stifled laugh. Johnny relented and took his glass over to the decanter and went to work.
Will yelled hysterically and flopped on the floor, pointing at me and now was fully laughing. "OOOOOHHHH SHIT! Jaime?! No shit?! Jaime?! AHHHH HAHAHAHAHAHAH! Did he do that to your head, bro?! AHHHH HAHAHAHAHHA!? Jazzy strikes again!"
I was rubbing the bridge of my nose and part of my silly looking egg shaped forehead bruise when Johnny came over and dribbled another snort of scotch into my glass. "So you know these two, Will," I asked politely but was glaring two holes into his head.
"Yep," He looked at me and composed himself and got up from the floor. Johnny handed him his scotch. Will took me in for a second and sort of sensed that he was being an ass and then said, "So you fought Jazzy, naked?" He had taken on a more empathic tone and nervously took a hit of scotch. "Yeah. I know Jazzy and Jaime. I went to college with Jazzy. He was my roommate." Then he laughed again, "What'd he do to your head? Hit you with his cock?"
"So you've seen it?" I muttered.
"I've heard stories," Will nodded.
"You went up to Greeley too, right? How come I never ran into you assholes?"
"Dunno, man. Jazzy got arrested for those Bronco riots. You had to be there, man."
"I was, I got tear gassed."
"We all did, bro. You remember the mad cow riots?" Will asked.
"Oh shit yes."
"That was Jazzy."
"Really? How did we never meet? …You remember the Greeley Vampire?"
"Heh. Yep. How bout the hostage crisis? With the sniper?" I nodded and laughed. Then Will asked me, "Ever heard of the Ft. Collins Ninja?"
"Yeah."
"I know that guy."
"Yeah?" I scoffed. "I'd for sure like to meet him"
Will shrugged, "It's possible, great story." He sighed, "So what happened with Jazzy?"
"I walked in on them, he threw a punch, forehead," I pointed to my goose egg. "I threw him, broke a closet. Jaime was just sitting there, mortified."
"She's a psycho," Will said. "As a matter of fact, I thought that they were patching things up last time I saw them. Did you sleep with her?"
Johnny said, "The story is much more complex than just that, Will." I nodded in agreement and glanced over at my two duffle bags which were sitting next to the front door.
Will arched an eyebrow at me and shrugged a little, "Bitches, bro."
"Bitches," I said. I hoisted my glass to him and we both took a tug. He turned around and lumbered back into Demetrius' room.
"Here's the thing," Johnny said. "This is a zero-sum situation. You're already going to cut bait. You don't have much to lose. You gotta go to this thing and see what the cult is all about. You may get it quick, you may not, but don't linger here. I'd much rather have you in town, because if you ever decide to use me again for one of your capers, I'm in, you know that."
He was referring to a little con job I had set up with him where we purposefully skimmed credit card numbers from repeat customers at different retail stores in the Cherry Creek area. We had nearly twenty accomplices that knew Johnny. They all took one or two targeted credit card numbers each. We placed phone orders. We also set up a robbery from a willing accomplice that nabbed nearly all of the same credit card numbers that we skimmed. Every one of the customers that we targeted went to the same place everyday. We nabbed the card unit from a Starbucks worker that worked at a store in the same neighborhood of all the rest of these stores.
We made it obvious and it looked as if the theft of the unit recalled all the credit card info and we were sophisticated hacker types, but really we had got the numbers the old fashioned way. The Starbucks worker was Johnny himself. It was brilliant. Net money after we fenced all the shit we bought was about four-thousand dollars each, the accomplices got anywhere from 100 to 500 dollars and were so loyal to Johnny that it was going to go without a hitch, except things got violent.
Johnny was exceptionally fucked up one night as we tried to sell some jewelry to a shady guy in Five Points. He decided he wanted to keep Johnny as collateral as I got the rest of the shit. That got weird and Johnny ended up hitting the guy in the head with an iron. He yelled at me, "RUN!" So we did. I decided Johnny was not the best partner in crime, but a valued connection since he apparently knew everyone.
He was right, though, confirming my suspicions. I needed to see what this cult was all about. It may be nothing; it may be coincidence the Gruesome Buddha had a chevron headband. It may be something to go on. It didn't take long for the cops to find me, I, most likely, am suspect number one.
"OK. I'm going. I have to see."
"That's my boy," Johnny said. "You may wanna roll around in a different car."
"Yep."
"You got a few hours. Cab?"
"Cab," I said.
"Scotch?"
"Yep. Scotch me." He poured me another and leered at me.
"What?!"
"Johnny?"
He belched as a reply.
"Can I come over?"
"Yeah, man! I thought you guys were coming over yesterday!"
"Sweet. I'll be there in a bit."
I checked outside again. The Shabby Detective was still there smoking in his nondescript police cruiser. I prepared to jump through my shower window again.
...
“That's the shittiest story I ever heard," Johnny sighed and got up from a papasan chair in the corner of his living room. He was wearing a short kimono robe and boxer shorts. His bare white legs strode across the room purposefully to the small table that had a decanter and ice set up. He put a few more fingers of Glenlivet in his glass and swirled it around. "You are right about one thing. You have to go check out this cult before you blow town. Might find out something that's useful. Might be able to give the cops something other than you."
I nodded. "Nelson's cult may be the key to this whole thing. It's at 9 tonight."
"Really, dude? Jaime, from Kitty Mistress? She's hot but not as hot as that singer!" His eyebrows went up and down, leering while subconsciously pumping his pelvis. It didn't surprise me when Johnny knew exactly who the bass player from Kitty Mistress was. He knew just about everyone in Denver in some way.
"What's with the scotch, Johnny?" I regarded my own glass with a little disdain. He just looked at me, grinned broadly and shrugged rather grandiosely. Johnny was a pretty boy. Not in the way that you'd call effeminate but pretty. He was youthful looking and well featured. He looked like Billy Cruddup, or Jim Kaviezel, or maybe a little like Tom Cruise from Top Gun with his short cropped haircut. His smile was infectious and dirty, with small flat pearly white square teeth. His smile made you want to think dirty thoughts.
Johnny lived in a house in Washington Park with two other dudes. Will, was in a band, and Demetrius was a black dude, he was a rapper, neither of them ever seemed to have any money and they were always fucked up. Currently, they were playing video games in Demetrius' bedroom. Johnny had the run of the upstairs dining room and front room of their charming little bungalow on York St. I was sitting on the couch watching him pace back and forth in his Kimono.
Johnny was agitated. After he got the gist of most of my story, he instructed Will to move his car and to move mine into the carriage house style garage on the south end of the house and to close the barn doors. Will shrugged and did it while catching my keys as he walked out the door. Apparently the boys at 461 S York St. weren't too adverse to harboring friends on the run. I was grateful. Will came back in and asked me if I wanted to sell my car. I told him I'd get back to him on that, and wondered where he'd find the money.
Pacing the dining room, Johnny laughed. "You serious? He had a dick the size of a Dustbuster?! In width, or length?"
"Both!" I choked on my scotch.
We both laughed.
Will came out of the bedroom with an empty Gatorade bottle. "Shut up assholes. You guys are being way TOOOOO LOUD!" He had a sly grin on his face. Will was a big lumbering dude that could have been a brother of mine because we both looked Irish and gorilla-ish. He had a head that looked too small for his body with a chinstrap beard and short dirty blonde hair. He wasn't fat, but he wasn't skinny either.
"Fuck off, Will," Johnny said. Will walked up and put his arm around Johnny.
"Scotch me, dude," Will said and held up his Gatorade bottle.
"Fuck you, get a proper glass," Johnny said with a little malice in his voice.
You never knew when Johnny was going to switch on, but when he did, he was an evil pirate of a man. A little violent, a little disturbing, yet always entertaining. We used to call him One-Eyed-Johnny. I sensed the scotch was doing a number on him. I glugged at mine, anticipating another interesting night.
Will just narrowed his eyes at him, looked over at me and said, "You see what I put up with?" And he slouched into the kitchen in bare feet, wife beater and Chongler shorts.
"How did Faith look?"
"Oh, Johnny, dude, cracked out as usual. I don't understand your infatuation there, buddy. Dade would freak if you ever got near that mess. Don't even."
He was already dismissing me by waving his hands in the air and pacing faster. Will was done crashing around in the kitchen and reemerged with a cocktail glass. "What's it like to fight a naked man?" Johnny asked honestly.
"HELLA DISTURBING, YO!"
Will looked at me in amazement. His giant eyebrows were pegged to his hairline. "Dude, you fought a naked man?"
"Yeah.".
"How Greek of you," Johnny interjected, in an English accent. "His new little girlfriend decided to get one last 'pop' from her ex. (When Johnny popped his cheek it made a sound like a wine bottle uncorking...I winced when he did it.) She's the bassist Betty Page lookin’ bitch from Kitty Mistress."
Will's face contorted and he fell to his knees. He kept holding the glass up to Johnny while he covered his mouth and let out a not-so-secretive stifled laugh. Johnny relented and took his glass over to the decanter and went to work.
Will yelled hysterically and flopped on the floor, pointing at me and now was fully laughing. "OOOOOHHHH SHIT! Jaime?! No shit?! Jaime?! AHHHH HAHAHAHAHAHAH! Did he do that to your head, bro?! AHHHH HAHAHAHAHHA!? Jazzy strikes again!"
I was rubbing the bridge of my nose and part of my silly looking egg shaped forehead bruise when Johnny came over and dribbled another snort of scotch into my glass. "So you know these two, Will," I asked politely but was glaring two holes into his head.
"Yep," He looked at me and composed himself and got up from the floor. Johnny handed him his scotch. Will took me in for a second and sort of sensed that he was being an ass and then said, "So you fought Jazzy, naked?" He had taken on a more empathic tone and nervously took a hit of scotch. "Yeah. I know Jazzy and Jaime. I went to college with Jazzy. He was my roommate." Then he laughed again, "What'd he do to your head? Hit you with his cock?"
"So you've seen it?" I muttered.
"I've heard stories," Will nodded.
"You went up to Greeley too, right? How come I never ran into you assholes?"
"Dunno, man. Jazzy got arrested for those Bronco riots. You had to be there, man."
"I was, I got tear gassed."
"We all did, bro. You remember the mad cow riots?" Will asked.
"Oh shit yes."
"That was Jazzy."
"Really? How did we never meet? …You remember the Greeley Vampire?"
"Heh. Yep. How bout the hostage crisis? With the sniper?" I nodded and laughed. Then Will asked me, "Ever heard of the Ft. Collins Ninja?"
"Yeah."
"I know that guy."
"Yeah?" I scoffed. "I'd for sure like to meet him"
Will shrugged, "It's possible, great story." He sighed, "So what happened with Jazzy?"
"I walked in on them, he threw a punch, forehead," I pointed to my goose egg. "I threw him, broke a closet. Jaime was just sitting there, mortified."
"She's a psycho," Will said. "As a matter of fact, I thought that they were patching things up last time I saw them. Did you sleep with her?"
Johnny said, "The story is much more complex than just that, Will." I nodded in agreement and glanced over at my two duffle bags which were sitting next to the front door.
Will arched an eyebrow at me and shrugged a little, "Bitches, bro."
"Bitches," I said. I hoisted my glass to him and we both took a tug. He turned around and lumbered back into Demetrius' room.
"Here's the thing," Johnny said. "This is a zero-sum situation. You're already going to cut bait. You don't have much to lose. You gotta go to this thing and see what the cult is all about. You may get it quick, you may not, but don't linger here. I'd much rather have you in town, because if you ever decide to use me again for one of your capers, I'm in, you know that."
He was referring to a little con job I had set up with him where we purposefully skimmed credit card numbers from repeat customers at different retail stores in the Cherry Creek area. We had nearly twenty accomplices that knew Johnny. They all took one or two targeted credit card numbers each. We placed phone orders. We also set up a robbery from a willing accomplice that nabbed nearly all of the same credit card numbers that we skimmed. Every one of the customers that we targeted went to the same place everyday. We nabbed the card unit from a Starbucks worker that worked at a store in the same neighborhood of all the rest of these stores.
We made it obvious and it looked as if the theft of the unit recalled all the credit card info and we were sophisticated hacker types, but really we had got the numbers the old fashioned way. The Starbucks worker was Johnny himself. It was brilliant. Net money after we fenced all the shit we bought was about four-thousand dollars each, the accomplices got anywhere from 100 to 500 dollars and were so loyal to Johnny that it was going to go without a hitch, except things got violent.
Johnny was exceptionally fucked up one night as we tried to sell some jewelry to a shady guy in Five Points. He decided he wanted to keep Johnny as collateral as I got the rest of the shit. That got weird and Johnny ended up hitting the guy in the head with an iron. He yelled at me, "RUN!" So we did. I decided Johnny was not the best partner in crime, but a valued connection since he apparently knew everyone.
He was right, though, confirming my suspicions. I needed to see what this cult was all about. It may be nothing; it may be coincidence the Gruesome Buddha had a chevron headband. It may be something to go on. It didn't take long for the cops to find me, I, most likely, am suspect number one.
"OK. I'm going. I have to see."
"That's my boy," Johnny said. "You may wanna roll around in a different car."
"Yep."
"You got a few hours. Cab?"
"Cab," I said.
"Scotch?"
"Yep. Scotch me." He poured me another and leered at me.
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