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.

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.

Chapter 24 "You've Got A Stalker"

This was the last straw. I'm moving to California. Guido's loyal red velvet interior was dank smelling and hot. A wave of despair overtook me and I wailed loudly inside the car. I punched at the carpeted dashboard, scuffing my knuckles red and chaffed.

My mom lived in Vegas. I'll stop on the way, take a dip in her pool and then, "Go West, young man. Go West." It might interest you to know that I went to college in the town named after the man who coined that phrase. Horace Greeley. I wonder if he stopped going west at the imposing and impressive Rocky Mountains and just said, "Fuck it." and proceeded to tell every young man to go forth and email him about what they had seen. I think email at that time was called the Pony Express.

My family had been spiraling away from one another for the past several years. My mom and dad divorced when I was in high school and slowly began to phase out family number 1 for family number 2. Dad was still a successful dentist here in Denver, but I rarely saw him. He married a hot little 40 year-old number with two younger kids and had been completely taken by her active and outdoor lifestyle. He instantly gravitated towards her life, even though he was a little over 10 years her senior and began "Dad's life, Version 2.0".

My mom lingered in Colorado for a few years and met a swarthy biker who just happened to have a multi-million dollar dot com, and when he sold it they basically just moved away and retired in Las Vegas. Both my parents were the tanned, skinny and disturbingly happy versions of themselves that I never knew while they were raising us boys. My first Christmas alone was four years ago. I didn't really register it at the time. I got stoned, watched a movie marathon, masturbated a few times and went to sleep.

That year, you heard me actually brag to people. Christmas: how free and unperturbed I was.

I'm not going to lie. I wanted to talk to my mom. Cry. Get some sage advice. Screw it. When I move out to California, I'm getting a cell phone. I'm even going to get one of those ear bud contraptions.

After an especially odd emotional outburst, I calmly pulled ole Guido out into the street and drove towards my apartment. I needed a shower and I needed some stuff and then I was to become a vapor trail on I-70. Or would I take the scenic route 50? Hmmm. What to do with the cats? Decisions, decisions...

On the way over, I randomly wailed and punched. I couldn't stand the radio because my thoughts were so loud. 99.5 FM got punched into silence rather quickly. As I rolled up to my apartment on Josephine St, I pulled into the 7-11 to get a pack of smokes. My mouth was dry, and filled with foamed adrenalin. I needed one. Bad.

After exiting the store, on a strange urge, I broke the pack open and furiously sucked on one. My house was less than fifty yards away, yet I needed a smoke to calm my nerves. What a horrific nicotine-addicted cliché, but it's true.

Milo Methy MotherFucker, another one of my semi-homeless and degenerate neighborhood train wrecks, stumbled up to me and simply held out his hand to take a cigarette, I obliged and also gave him about a buck or so in change. He nodded and said, "Fucking women, man."

I laughed a little maniacally, and rubbed my forehead. It was sore and swollen from Jazzy's ill-fated attempt to kill me.

"Oooooh, what the fuck happened to your head, man?"

"Long story, Milo. Piss off."

"I think you got a stalker there, Joe," He said, pointing towards my apartment.

"You're my stalker, Milo. If you ever throw another forty ounce into the dumpster at 3 AM, I'm coming out of my apartment, and sticking my foot straight up your ass."

"No. That fucker's been over there for at least..." He scratched his head and looked at his forearm which unfortunately did not have a watch. "Um. 4 hours. I smell bacon. Bacon, bacon, bacon, Suuuuuuieeeeeee hog!" I glanced over to where he was pointing and I'll be damned if I didn't see a strange little man in a shabby suit walking away from my door, down the porch and proceeded to sit in a very cop-looking, unmarked Crown Victoria.

At this point, complete and utter numbness. Scientific curiosity. Breathing slowed. Eyes squinted. There was nothing left in my tank. It was just whooshing air in my ears and an even more deflated and ridiculous feeling. This couldn't possibly get any worse and yet it was continuing to get progressively worse. Perhaps, even exponentially worse.

Milo's eyes widened and he sucked on his cigarette. He cocked his head and said, "Witness our hero Joe...Street Name: Red...Nicotine Savior...Peering into a place unknown...His own house."

"Milo. Piss off, bro."

"He has entered a world...just off of the edge...of the Twilight Zone." He sang the Twilight Zone song, "Dee dee dee dee dee dee dee deeeeeee," every syllable showing off his wrecked, black front teeth and then he held his arms out like an airplane and spun away, making airplane sounds, walking towards Colfax Ave.

I actually envied Milo for a moment. All this time, I imagined his life as a bad dream, when in actuality; mine was becoming a complete nightmare. Somebody said to me the other night that Karma's a bitch. I nodded subconsciously while I stared across the street.

That was totally a cop. Not just any cop. He appeared to be a detective. He lit a cigarette and flipped the radio and looked over in my direction. I just peered downward and then gave him the view of my profile. Hunching my shoulders, I turned west and started to walk around the backside of 7-11.

I cut back behind 7-11 and walked a full block and a half up the street. I cut across Josephine St, with my back turned and out of view of this unmarked police cruiser, dashing into the largely unknown courtyard behind my apartment. There was a window through to my shower. I ripped the screen off, opened the tiny window, shoved the screen in, and dove, headfirst through it. It took some wriggling, I cut myself on the window sill, and I was WAY to big for it, but eventually I clattered into my tub, upside down and on my shoulders. I imagined what that pork-pie Jazzy felt like when I launched him into the closet at Jaime's house. Heh.

Yet, I had landed on the cool enameled iron of my super sweet bathtub, and spun over, taking a few rings of the shower curtain with me. They popped with a very satisfying, plastic 'click' and my feet landed with a not-so-satisfying 'ka-klang-wump!'

My grey cat was sitting on the sink. She looked at me and said, "Mee." She continued to try and lick the dripping water from the faucet.

I'm leaving a key for Wyatt. He'll figure this out. I needed to pack a small bag that I could fit through the tiny window. I needed to leave the key, feed and water my cats for a few days and collect any phone numbers and shit I may need.

My search trough the house was quick, silent and decisive. I decided to destroy anything that looked like identification, or bills, or personal writings. While I quickly decided on a fairly large red duffle bag, clothes, and my .25 caliber, I put several personal notes and papers in another, smaller black duffle bag. The .25 was a teensy weensy black Smith and Wesson with a brown polished wooden handle. It was a little gun, but easily concealed. I called it my "belly popper". I had a half a box of ammo and only one clip for it. 7 shots with one in the chamber, I wished that I had listened to my dad and bought a shotgun at one point. I felt like I may have needed it. I loaded it fully, without hesitation, and stuck it in my sock and stuck a butterfly knife into my pocket.

I carefully placed a key into the window well of my kitchen and slammed the window down behind it. Wyatt would have to claim that key by mutilating the screen. The duffle bags went on my couch and I made the last quick sweep of my apartment, every now and then peering out the blinds at the detective. I found a few more odds and ends in terms of bills and stuff with my handwriting on it, was satisfied and sat down on my couch. My orange cat came up and sat on my lap. She squirreled around and rubbed her face on my hands and knees and purred. So happy, cat. I hung my head, petted her, and for the second time in as many days, wept.

Chapter 23 "Jazzy Rides a Cock Horse"

At first I thought that I'd go and find Jaime, but after steaming and cursing in the direction of her house I decided to go get my car, Guido. His hulking v-8, velvet embrace was probably just waiting for me up past Colorado Blvd. Honestly, I thought that this was it. I'm moving. I'm taking my ass as far away from this high prairie that was doing me no good. Its nasty, shifting weather and arid climate made me long for the sea. I needed breaking waves and hippie surfers, women in shorts and bikini tops. I thought about San Diego. Tara and I had gone there on a road trip once, just to see where the corner of this great country ended, next to a third world country, bordering an unstable tectonic plate and beaches upon beaches.

When I first drove the streets of southern California, I was struck by the palm trees. They looked like these amazing testaments to time. Sometimes they were trimmed and pretty with a few palms sticking out of their tops. Often they were untrimmed, showing years worth of dead and grey palms, flattened against its long and thin trunk. They sprung up so dignified and strong against the encroachment of humanity. They broke and shattered sidewalks, growing out at odd angles out of freeway underpasses or rocky cliffs that gave way to the sea. I marveled at their tenacity and the fact that Californian workers had not just mowed over so many of them in their progress to build.

Yet, there was an old and weathered quality to California. There was this over abundance of small roads everywhere and tiny parking lots. All the roads were called the 5 or the 405 or the 190 and consisted, in many places, of far too few lanes for the bustling population. It was if everything that stood was built in a precise manner, to serve a smaller populace a long time ago.

Many buildings had gone through major renovations, instead of being scraped from the earth and rebuilt. There seemed to be a respect for what was already there, or maybe there was a lack of money making everything look like a slower and older time. Everything seemed to reflect the growth and architectural genre of the 50s and 60s instead of looking scrubbed and shiny and new and constructed for growth like the majority of buildings in Colorado were built. If you drive around Denver, everything is built for convenience and every parking lot is built for overflow. The lots are designed for the biggest day of shopping mayhem and are mostly empty every other day of the week.

I wanted to go to California and disappear on some beach somewhere.

California seemed overwhelmed with humanity, yet it was stylish and beautiful to me. California seemed like a place where I could disappear into a life was much more relaxed and had less infrastructure to notice my crime-ridden life. It also had, to my knowledge, an amazing identity theft underworld as people clamored for fake IDs...I could truly disappear.

By the time I got to Guido, a little less than an hour walking in a huff had elapsed and I had become a little more docile. I resumed my earlier holier-than-thou attitude. I would survive like a feral cat with 9 lives. I believed this based on my intelligence, cunning and overall lack of concern for most people on this planet. Plus, I was mostly Irish. Lucky. Screw King Soopers.

Guido started right up on this fine day, and I accelerated down the street turning around and screeching the tires as I goosed it towards Jaime's house. I decided I should definitely appraise her of my decision. Think about it. I had just left my fingerprints at the scene of a murder where a dog who mauled a co-worker and good friend, had lived. Not only that, I filled out a police report and an inter-office incident report that ended up putting me on suspension/termination...This was beginning to look like Karma's sweet revenge. I wanted to tell her. I wanted to ask her to come with me. I wanted her so badly. I needed a partner in crime, and although Wyatt was a pretty man, I needed someone a little more feminine to disperse my, um, me-ness. I wanted a Bonnie to my Clyde. Jaime seemed perfect.

I pulled up and parked right in front of her 4-plex and strolled right up the stairs to find her door cracked. I didn't leave it this way, so the back of neck prickled and went cold. I put a fingertip on the door and nudged it open and listened through the crack. I heard nothing at first, then a little bit of music coming from inside. It was muffled; it sounded like some kind of punk music. Nudging my way through the door, I glanced down the living room/kitchen combo at her bedroom. The door was shut. I didn't leave it like that either.

"Jaime," I called out.

All I heard was the punk music coming from her room. Thinking to myself that I may have caught her unaware, I started to tiptoe through the room. All of a sudden she screamed out from her room, "AAAAAGH! YOU FUCKER! AAAAGH!"

My feet graced lightly across the rest of the room in three strides and I placed the tips of my fingers on the doorknob of her room and slowly leaned against it to hear anything Then I heard a man laugh and then I heard Jaime yell, "OH GOD! YOU FUCK! AHHHHHHGH!!!"

Shit. I'm not sure what I expected. I wondered if the killers that slaughtered the Gruesome Buddha had found us somehow. I wondered if she was being collared by the police. I thought I could hear her fighting.

The truth was much worse.

I slammed through the door, looked to the right to her bed where I had heard most of the noise and commotion coming from, and I saw her on all fours with the same shirt she was wearing from last night. Presently, she was being fucked by a somewhat chubby and tall boy. Doggy style.

"Oh, Jazzy!" She moaned.

"WHAT THE FUCK!" Is what I said.

I'm not sure exactly what happened first. Jaime's eyes got real big. I imagine my expression looked something like terror, anger and enlightenment. (Go ahead and try looking like that when you look at yourself in the mirror. If you can perfect it, you can win an Oscar.) Jazzy was completely confused, stopped his furious humping and grabbed on to her ass for a second, and looked at me with a very confused expression. Her snake tattoo, I think, was mocking me. Smiling snakes.

Even if my eyes showed terror and what not, my heart had just exploded like the Death Star and was trickling in chunks and pieces through my veins and arteries to my abdominal cavity, settling somewhere near my balls. Speaking of my testicles, they instantly shrank up into me for a few very important reasons.

One, naked Jazzy was disconnecting himself from Jaime and moving to kill me.

Two, his dick was the size of a fucking Dust buster! It was at least 12 inches long and as thick as a novelty candle that would have been labeled, Vanilla, or Pumpkin Spice, or Dong of Destruction.

Three, I was so transfixed by the dick as it was removed from Jaime that I didn't really have any time to defend myself against the coming onslaught. I wish I could have taken a picture of my face as I watched this giant mule sized penis come at me. It must have been really funny.

I said something to the effect of, "G...G...Guhhhh."

I just ogled it While he got up lazily and wound up for a haymaker that bashed against my forehead. I saw stars but remained completely upright. My head rebounded and I was still looking at Jazzy's gigantic cock as he tried to throw another straight punch, to my head. This one, I just tilted my head to the side and his fist went dangerously too far past my face and over my shoulder. I took advantage and grabbed his arm and locked it against his elbow. I had an inkling to pull his shoulder over and he had pressed his body close to me and tried to throw close punches with his left hand. Oh God, his cock was pressed up against my family jewels. We were face to face in some kind of strange manly embrace, and he was smirking. It was like he was saying, "Yep. That's my cock."The blow to the head had done me no good, and I was slightly punchy. His cock was pressing up against my own and along with his cocky (no pun intended) expression, I was thrown into a rage. My would-be girlfriend? You fucking chubby, donkey dick, pasty, hairy, knuckle dragger! I may have said this thought out loud, but the details to me now are a little hazy. Ok. I said it out loud, more like...grunted it.

With my shoulder lock, I spun and slammed my other arm under his armpit and made nearly a full turn as I gained the leverage to throw the Donkey Dick. Time started to ice down. The slowing of time feels like a full breath of oxygen. The room chills. It feels like a great relief.

When I remember to do it, it can be very useful. When it happens due to emotional explosions, it may be even more useful.

To wit: His face and my face were together as I spun him around by his arm. I could watch tiny pieces of spittle jump out of his mouth in slow motion as he fought against me, as I ducked and tossed him with masterful control of every twitch of every muscle in my body. Jaime yelped, "You guys!"

In slow time, you have very minute and pinpoint control over the things you do. Even though you are moving as fast as anything else, your reaction time is amazing, you can change intent of direction in a seeming instant or pull every muscle tight that exhibits enough force and leverage to whip snap and throw a full size man (no pun intended) over your shoulder and into Jaime's closet.

In this emotionally initiated example of slow time, the problem is you often don't have the greatest control over it and you don't know when it will end. There have been a couple of times where it lasted long enough after an "event," I thought slow time would never end, and I would be living a true Twilight Zone episode for the rest of my existence. It always seemed more dangerous when slow time was experienced by pure adrenaline burst. It was always better to initiate it by concentration.

This was one of those moments where adrenalin and passion mixed in such a way...needless to say I wish I could have shut it off at some point during this confrontation.

Oh god, do I have to tell you that Jazzy's giant cock missed my face by several inches in slow motion and Jaime's horrified face mimicked the strain of her seizure the other night?

Every goddamned detail was etched into my brain.

Jazzy crashed, upside down, into the sliding closet doors. The big, flat, square doors crunched inwards off of their flimsy tracks, spun, and kind of made a tee-pee over his body. Real Time had resumed. I was still wearing a horrified expression as I turned towards Jaime rubbing my forehead where I had caught the full brunt of Jazzy's haymaker right hook.

I eloquently intoned, "What the fuck, bitch?"

"Oh, fuck. Joe. I...." She had crunched up the covers around her.

"So. What? You're like a total slut or something?"

"Jazzy's my ex-boyfriend!"

Jazzy implored from the floor as he began to get up. "Ex-Boyfriend!? What the fuck, Jaime?"

I grabbed a shoe from the floor and furiously flung it at him. It smacked him right in the face and I screamed, "IF YOU GET UP, I'LL STOMP YOUR SKULL INTO THE DOWNSTAIRS APARTMENT!" He leaned back on his elbow and relented, his member now resembling a big floppy sausage of sorts.

I looked at Jaime again with disgust. I was wondering if she remembered anything that had happened during the previous night. Perhaps her seizure had wiped out all the memories. She knew in the morning about me, though. She had written a note. I chewed on the side of my cheek, and did not know how to proceed. She called me Jazzy last night. What the fuck?

Even though we had a lot to talk about and figure out, namely, a murder and my untimely termination, or rather, suspension, I was disgusted and hurt. Jaime's right hand was up to her mouth, her eyes showed fear and were rimmed with tears.

"Enjoy my sloppy seconds, Donkey," I said to Jazzy and curled my lip at Jaime and strode from the room.

I could hear Jazzy say, "What the fuck, bitch?" I heard him getting up again. "What the fuck, motherfucker!? I love that girl!"

On a whim, I picked up a small glass vase full of marbles off an end table and hurled it through the open door into the room. The vase exploded next to Jazzy's head and spun one of the closet doors around so that it had started to fall on him. He stumbled and ducked and sat hard on his ass again as glass and marbles flew everywhere."GODDAMN IT, RED!" I heard Jaime yell.

I blew a breath out and flung open the door, it smacked against the wall and I mumbled, "My name is Joe."

I exited the apartment with my mouth dry and my heart racing. My mind throbbed with every heartbeat, my vision clouded on the fringes, a white cloud. Worse still, I felt betrayed, my heart thumped and ached and bled into my body cavity. From there my blood was separated from the racing tunnels that made up my veins. It instantly turned cold inside the crevasses of my body and began to rot and turn blue like a bruise. Or at least, that's how it felt.

Chapter 22 "My Name is Joe"

I'm bristling in my chair in front of Gerard's desk. This is starting to look like an inquisition; my mind is reeling to figure out why I could be in trouble. I glance over at Franny, and mumble, "What's this all about?" She shrugs and leans over to me like a lawyer would and mumbles back into my ear.

"Your guess is as good as mine right now. I'm assuming they'll want to revisit your report. Obviously this has something to do with Dade."

I scoffed, "Well, no shit, Franny." She nodded gravely and elbowed me.

"I got your back, kid."

Franny. Jaime’s boss. Has my back. The thought was comical. In any situation other than this, Franny, as mousy, rotund, and short as she was, could have anyone's back. Still, in this contrived workplace, interrogation, her words comforted me a little. I imagined Franny as some kind of superhero by night, the Ninja Beach ball. She would bounce around smashing her pendulous body into criminals and using numchucks to bash evil-doers over the head.

My eyes narrowed as I regarded Gerard. He was still reading my reports. I decided there was no reason in the world this situation should intimidate me, yet I was feeling very surrounded. I was reminded of the dream I had about the enemies that wouldn't die or injure. Everyone in the room was surely getting ready to pounce.

Gerard finally looked up at me and said, "This really is just a formality." I only nodded a reply. "What we need to do, is ask you a few questions so that we have a bigger picture of what happened to Dade yesterday. This is one of the larger incidents to happen at King Soopers. The district guys need some answers because, you know, Dade will probably lawyer up."

Now that makes sense. I let out a bit of a sigh through my nose and said, "What do you need to know?"

Gerard took a small tape recorder out of his desk and held up a tiny tape and looked at me. "We're going to attach this to your original report, ok?" I looked at Franny. She nodded. I shrugged at Gerard. "Is that a yes?" he barked. I nodded. "Red, you're going to have to be a little more vocal for this to work." He slapped the tape into the recorder, turned it on and set it lightly on his desk. "May 28th 2005. 4:11 PM. This is an audio addendum for transcription regarding the incident on May 27th 2005 with Dade Simpson. Report number 658947. Dean Worley, Gerard Jackson, Francine Ferrel, union rep. Everyone say their names for the record."

We all said our full names and Gerard continued, "Let's start when you left work on May 26th."

"Okey doke."

"What time did you leave work?"

"About 8 or so. Late shift."

"Were you in a hurry?" Franny nudged me ever so slightly. It was obvious to me, but imperceptible to everyone else in the room. I began to really understand why Franny has about 6 children and a very loving husband. She was very even-tempered and subtle. I had suspected this about her, and imagined that being quite sexy to the right man.

"Not particularly," I replied. Acting nebulous and evasive was my demeanor at this point.

Gerard shifted some papers on his desk and said, "It is the testimony of Dean Worely in incident report numbered 658945 that your slicer was not cleaned and that there was a few unwashed pieces in the sink."

I snorted and peered at Dean who avoided my eye contact and I decided to be a bit indignant, "So what?"

"Just answer to that," Gerard said monotonously.

"Darrell from meats used the slicer that night after I had left," I said, indicating Franny, who must have known about that. She nodded and I continued, "And the dishes...well, maybe I left those, but that's the way stuff works normally, Mona usually..."

Dean blurted, "Isn't that part of your closing responsibilities?"

Gerard cut his hand through the air to silence Dean and said, "Is there a possibility that you didn't close properly because you were in a hurry for some reason?"

"No."

"Did you take out the trash?"

"Of course."

"Do you remember locking the dumpster?"

Ah ha! This was it. This was how they were gonna do it. Protocol says that we are to lock the dumpsters after we use them, but nobody ever does. As a matter of fact, no one but management has a key for the lock, and for the past 2 months, the lock has been missing. This is going to be my fault that a Rottweiler crawled into the dumpster to meet Dade later. I decided I was running into every little piece of bad luck I could find lately.

My lip curled. Dean folded his hands over his stomach and looked at me rather satisfyingly. I turned my head over to Franny who shook her head in disgust and then arched an eyebrow at me. Her eyes said that whatever my reply that she'd back me.

After a long silence, I said, "Yep."

Gerard smirked at me over his half glasses as Dean scoffed, "Well, that's a bold face lie."

I just laughed, "Why, Dean!? Why, you fat fuck? Because I don't even have that key? Because you haven't made me a key in two years?! Me and Mona have to ask you for everything!"

"So it is your testimony that you can't lock and in fact, didn't lock the dumpster?" said Gerard.

I sighed and then laughed again. "This is a fucking witch hunt."

Gerard smirked at me again. "Would you rather amend your previous testimony? You didn't lock the dumpster, did you?"

"You fuckers." Franny bashed me in the ribs with her elbow. This time, it was very obvious.

Gerard said, "Can I see your dumpster key?"

I was caught. I couldn't produce that key, because I did not have it. I never have had it. Dean does, but that fuck face always leaves at 3:30 or 4 every day so there was no possibility that I locked the dumpster with his key as I should have. It didn't really matter because there wasn't even a lock. I surmised that if this was the thrust of their case against me, I had an out or two.

"Do you have a dumpster key?" I asked Fran. She turned and looked at me and nodded. She saw where I was going with this. She leaned over the desk to speak into the tape recorder and said extra loud...

"NO! I HAVE NEVER HAD A KEY TO THE DUMPSTER!"

"Fuckin-A! Franny has worked here longer than I have!"

Dean piped up, "As Franny's supervisor, Franny works nearly the same hours that I do, and not only does she not have to lock the dumpster because of her shift, I have done it for years for her if it has been required, she has not been issued a key."

"That's the thing, though, isn't it Dean!?” Gerard cut his hand through the air again, but I cut him off, "No Gerry! No fuckin’ way! Dean is the worst of the worst! I need stuff from him all of the time, but he never..."

"QUIET, RED!" Gerard's voice exploded through the office like a bomb. "DID YOU LOCK THE DUMPSTER?!"

I was quiet for almost a minute, "No."

Franny sighed and got up from her chair. "Gerry. We're gonna..."

Gerard reached down and clicked off the tape recorder and said, "Do what you do, Franny. Alright you two, get out." He was indicating both Dean and Franny and they scurried out, and Gerard slammed his office door behind them.

"Sign this." Gerard tossed a paper he was holding across the desk at me. It was a document that said that I was ok with the audio addendum that he had recorded thus far.

"If you think I'm signing that, you're crazy."

He sneered at me, "I'm crazy, huh?"

"Yep. No fuckin’ way, Gerry."

"What's your problem, Red?" He said as he rolled up one of his sleeves past his sinuous old-man forearm.

"Don't you already have what you need, Gerry?"

"It's not like that, Red. You're on suspension, until further investigation."

"NO, IT REALLY IS LIKE THAT, GERRY! I think you're covering your own ass, old man." As I said this, I wasn't expecting what happened next. Gerard grabbed me by the shirt collar with both hands and pulled me close to his face over his shitty working man's desk.

I had an inclination to head butt him, or spit in his face, but I had respected the man for a few years and was somewhat dumbfounded about how things had turned out between him and I. Oddly enough, he was still dominating me at this point. He was surprisingly strong, and intense. I started to melt a bit. He started in on me.

"You little punk!" Hilarious, since I was at least 6 inches taller and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. I actually laughed a bit and grabbed his wrists, squeezed, and began to pull his hands off of me. He pulled me closer and my feet scrambled under his desk for a moment.

"Listen to me. You will be fired from here if you don't cooperate. What do you think? That you are God's great gift here? Do you think that you have made enough money for this company to offset what you have cost this company? It's simple numbers, buck-o."

"Really?! As if you think that Dade's lawsuit is a done deal?! You just need a fall-guy for your shitty underling, Dean!" I started to press my knees against his desk for leverage.

"No. You know what? You're a slacker. You're exactly what I DON'T need here. I don't need to impress the union, because you know what? I can make this decision, whether the union likes it or not. You wanna know why I can make that decision? I make those decisions on a daily basis. I can do what ever I want. This is my store. I AM YOUR BOSS! You need to play ball or all of this...it's over.”

I wrenched my hands up, using my knees against his desk as leverage. The thin sheet of cheap, pressed steel made a 'poink' sound as I pulled and pressed. My shirt collar ripped, but I continued my upward thrust and then slammed his fists down onto his desk and pulled him closer to me. "Fuck you, Gerry. Fuck your little world."

I spun around and ripped his office door open; it slammed against the other wall and rebounded with a shudder. I strode into the break room and faced the lockers. My original thought was to open my locker and clean out the things that resided there. They were items that I could care less about, like the small stick of horrific Speed Stick and pieces of King Soopers uniform. Out of some strange rage I grabbed onto the locker bank that contained mine , with my fingertips. Two of the young teenagers that ran the registers were sitting at one of the break room tables, chewing their gum, and looked at me with blank expressions.

I leaned and pulled and shoved my feet into the lockers in front of me, hanging like a monkey by my fingertips. I shook my body and the bank of lockers started to give way. They came out of the wall anchors from the flimsy drywall and wrenched with a squeaky sound and the whole bay of lockers toppled over. The two teenagers barely moved or reacted and chewed their gum. It all came crashing to floor in a very satisfying clatter.

Gerry called after me as I rebounded and crouched, stood up and headed for the door. "That's not gonna help your cause, Red."

I stopped in my tracks and turned around to face him. "Fuck you, Gerry. My name is Joe." I turned around and walked out.

Chapter 21 "The Crazy Badger"

In downtown Denver, Juri Nevedyev's eyes glowed blue reflecting the monitor before him on his small desk on the 3rd floor of a glass and tan stuccoed building on Cherokee St. He was puzzling over some paper reports and photographs that he had just transferred to his computer. Juri frowned as he clicked on the mouse repeatedly, cycling photo after photo. As he did this with his right hand, he reached into his desk drawer with his left hand. His fingers tiptoed over a coffee cup, a folded newspaper, his Sig Sauer model P229 9mm pistol and holster, a half eaten bag of pistachios and finally, what he was looking for.

It was a gift from an old partner of his. A rather large, black, and ungainly ionizer ashtray. It had a little fan in it and an air ionizer that supposedly kept cigarette smoke at bay. He flicked it on and set it on the desk. It, like the computer monitor before him, glows an eerie blue. He stood up and looked down the small row of cubicles in the center of the office. It was a little before six and everyone was pretty much gone.

He tapped a Marlboro out of the pack in his front shirt pocket and dangled it from his lip. He was still transfixed by the images on the computer in front of him.

"No. This doesn't look right," he whispered. Even whispering, Juri had a very noticeable Russian accent. He lit the cigarette and blew a rolling, glowing blue cloud towards the ashtray. It whirred as it dutifully tried to suck up his pollution. He smirked and cut deep lines into his tan face around his eyes, as he continued to cycle through the photographs. "This is not right at all."

Juri prided himself on being a relatively simple man. Not simple in the sense that he was mildly retarded, but more like efficient. He was relatively medium in stature and in build, stayed in shape, but was not "ripped" or "jacked", had short cropped dark hair, and brown eyes. He was 46, but had the energy of a much younger man and women always said he looked younger than he was and that he was quite handsome. He had angular, chiseled features and the flat nose of a boxer. Although ladies liked him, he had never married. He ate very little, slept very little and for a Russian, drank very little. Juri often thought of himself as an evolved human, a survivor type with very little structurally or mentally wrong with him that would cull from humanity prematurely.

He was clever and decisive too. Juri lived outside of Moscow as a child, and when he was 14 both of his parents were killed in a car accident.

He was at school the next day, and pretended as if he had not lost both of his parents. He was a little young for the services and a little old for the orphanage, and under communist rule, he was not exactly sure what the local Ministry would have done with him, so he kept a mournful secret for a few years and kept the few who knew the secret of his tragic emancipation at bay with bribes and favors. He stayed with friends and relatives on a seemingly random, but regimented schedule as to not arouse the communist suspicion of nosy neighbors. He lived like a ghost passing through the last compulsory years of Soviet high school, as a little teenage Juri in parenthesis. He finished school and joined the Army.

In Soviet Russia, basic training for the Infantry was a crucible of blood, pain and cruelty. He always had laughed at the ideal of an American drill sergeant. Chest puffed out, red faced, barking orders and insults at the recruits. For punishment...exercise, calisthenics. American drill sergeants reminded him of lovable bulldogs or maybe even dachshunds.

Drill sergeants in the Russian Army are called "Father" or "Comrade Sergeant" and they are many and they are more like Sharks. The Sergeants are stern and quick, less likely to remand you words than with physical violence.

If that wasn't bad enough, the worst treatment came after the training from your own army brothers on your first assignment. The "Grandfathers" are 2nd year troops that you would meet in your first infantry assignment.

They call their right of hazing, Diedovshina, which means "Rule of the Grandfathers" They sense weakness and pain and smell blood. They swarm and pounce and expose your every flaw.

They steal from the first year troops and treat them like slaves. They will beat you and create more pain and more blood until you think that you will break. One of them shoved a razor blade into Juri's mouth once and slashed his cheek open. Juri doesn't even remember why the confrontation with the Grandfather got to that level. It started as a seemingly good natured ribbing about the cleanliness of his teeth, but it probably had more to do with the new toothpaste that his uncle had sent him which was stolen from him that night along with all of his money.

Juri's first 2 year assignment was a security detail near a cauldron of missile silos on the coldest, windblown plain that they could find outside of Tomsk in Siberia.

One day, one of the first years in his unit went a little crazy and stabbed a Grandfather and a cook in the kitchen and escaped out of the camp into the other worldly frozen tundra. 18 year-old Juri and seven other men, all first years, were given rifles and were told to hunt him down. As an added cruelty, they were not to take their winter coats or hats. They were to be dressed as the mad escapee to "add an element of urgency to their search". The Grandfather in charge of the watch thought that he was particularly brilliant. The crazy escapee was wearing fatigue pants and a standard issue T-shirt.

The chase, spurned on by the cold, did not take long. The footprints of the mad first year's path were clearly visible through the dehydrated, hard and crunchy snow. They chased him into a small grove of trees in a ravine about two kilometers away from the camp. There, he was pacing back and forth, tired and frozen from his flight, but still with disturbing amounts of energy. He had a pistol. The pack of eight hunters caught up with him there. That Crazy Badger was screaming about racist devils and hunters and prey. He was also screaming about the Grandfathers. Two of the more level headed and probably warmer guys in Juri's team tried to calm the crazy badger and bring him around. Juri could feel his thoughts growing dim and his body began to numb. It was probably -7C and the wind made it so much worse. His thoughts were comical as two of his comrades futilely tried to argue with this insane animal of a man that was now squarely in Juri's Kalashnikov rifle's sights.

Then it happened. The Crazy Badger's voice grew to a fever pitch on a particularly passionate tirade and he flailed and gesticulated with that damn pistol in his hand for the last time. 3 shots rang out in almost synchronous succession. Juri's rifle rocked back into his shoulder and the muzzle flared. His ears popped, muffled and then rang from the almost unreal concussion of his shot. In the distance, three perfect holes flared by red shredded meat and pink spray appeared on the T-shirt of the Crazy Badger before he crumpled to the ground.

To this day, Juri doesn't know if he fired first, or was startled into firing by one of the other two men in his unit who fired as well, but the end result was the same. The Crazy Badger was dead. Curiously, Juri and the two others that fired the deadly shots did the exact same thing. They dumbly turned around and started trudging back to the camp leaving the others to haul the body back. In some sick way, they felt that they had earned that. Each one of them gripped their rifles tighter and headed back to camp with one thing on their mind. They felt they might be killers now. They felt that they had now learned what the Army had repeatedly bashed into their skulls over and over, and that as sick as it sounds, they had now instantly matriculated from this hell into a much deeper one. Now, they were elevated above the rest of them, even the grandfathers. They had mortally spilled the blood of a comrade. None of the three could ever be touched or stolen from at the point of a knife or butt of a rifle, or at the heel of a boot. The Grandfathers now seemed like little boys without the watchful eye of a mother, and in that instant, Juri and the two other first years had become something that the fraternal order of Grandfathers or the Diedovshina couldn't teach or remotely understand.

None of them can remember who fired first, or the one who did wouldn't admit it. Perhaps it was the twitch of a frozen, trembling finger. It didn't matter. The Crazy Badger was dead.

Juri was never hazed again, nor were his two assassin brothers.

The old civilian cook that was stabbed died. The hated Grandfather made a full recovery.

Juri spent 5 years in the Army and was decorated as a security officer. After he left the regular army, he ran security details for the Cultural Ministry. On one particular assignment, he accompanied a prestigious ballet company to Reykjavik, Iceland to keep an eye on the dance company during a two week run of shows. Soviet security for such artistic outreach involved more of a herding of the artists so that they would not stray and defect, read or watch any unapproved material and essentially act like good communists rather than protecting the artists from outside threats to their person.

During the run of the highly touted and popular show, Juri fell madly in love with one of the dancers and she convinced him to run away with her. Svettlana.

They disappeared one night into the sterile and frozen streets of Reykjavik. They eventually forged some passports and flew to Canada. From there, they stole a car and drove then walked across the border into Maine and into the arms of US authorities. In the 80s, defectors were treated kindly and debriefed by the CIA and FBI and whoever else wanted to interview them, and in return the government set them up with Aperican papers, fake identities and told them to go their merry way. US authorities were particularly interested in Juri's military experience, but out of duty and a sense of honor he did not reveal any secrets that he deemed sensitive and played a little stupid.

So Juri and his dancer lover, Svettlana Nobrova, left for New York. Svettlana had to dance. Things fell apart rapidly, as Svettlana embraced and exclaimed her defector status to anyone who would listen and used her Soviet fame to garner special auditions and eventually jobs of some notoriety. Juri never felt safe, and would constantly tell her to use her fake identity. New York was a bustling town full of immigrants, any one of which could carry the blade of the Soviet sickle in their back pocket to cut their happy little life to shreds.

Svettlana ended up leaving him for another dancer and started touring the US with a very famous ballet troupe. Juri looked at a map of the US and decided that he would like to start a quiet new life somewhere in the middle of this great land. He chose Denver, Colorado. He decided to go to a place where he could buy a pick-up truck and he could hike, ski and fish. It was a place where he couldn't stare over a vast ocean and imagine the dark wraiths of his motherland coming for him.

After about six months in Colorado, he received a call in the middle of the night. It was a hang-up. A few days later, he read in the paper that his noted dancer and lover Svettlana was found dead in a hotel near San Franscisco of a drug overdose. That never was true for Juri. She would never...

He decided to do what he knew best and enrolled in the police academy and was a highly decorated Denver police officer as he became a full US citizen and changed his name back from his assumed identity to his given Russian name. Glastnost was all the rage and the Berlin wall fell, so it was excellent timing. The fake identity of one Henry Chinaski never suited him.

Juri was promoted to detective and eventually, Homicide. His no nonsense approach and discerning eye made him especially suited to the work, and deep down he believed that it often took a killer to catch one. He was especially suited to sniffing out the cold blooded when the murder was a crime of passion, rage, or a horrific deed spawned by dumb luck.

As he reviewed these ghastly preliminary photos on his computer, he decided that what he was looking at was far from dumb luck. This was murder with a flavor that Juri couldn't taste. This was a planned and meticulous act with a distinct flair for the dramatic. He grunted as he thought that long dead Svettlana may have more insight into this strange killing than he did.

Currently, he was looking at a picture of a somewhat decayed and bloated corpse that was posed like a Chinese Buddha. Ritualistic killing. Oddly enough, not the first one he has seen in the past three months. Juri's brain was raking over photograph after photograph of the crime scene as he calmly puffed on his cigarette. A room full of pot. Iguana. Dead chunks of meat. Candles. Runes on wood floor. A blood-soaked headband with the chevron on it. A single branch of a pot plant wrapped in Mylar on the floor...

"Yo Mayo!" He exclaimed. "YOU ARE NOT RIGHT!" He pointed at the screen and stood up triumphantly. His boss, Lieutenant Adler had been standing behind him and coughed preemptively and surprised him.

Adler was an older man that looked like a fatter, greyer Radar O'Reilley from MASH, complete with the round wire rim glasses that were from a bygone era. Adler was from a bygone era, when Denver was a much sweeter, and slower place to live. His era was spawned when burnt out hippies became inspired by the nostalgic art from the misunderstood generation before them. Those hippies searched out the old dusty stomping grounds of Kerouac, Ansell Adams and Georgia O’Keefe for a quiet contemplation of the massive canopy of sky and the rugged mountains that cut huge powerful silhouettes into them.

"How's it going, Juri?" Adler intoned.

"Life is shit." Juri shot back, and pointed at the screen, "Why is this here?" He pointed at the close up of the single branch of pot. Adler put another thick folder on his desk.

"You know you can't smoke in here, Juri. Next time I'll write you the citation myself." Adler said with an aw-shucks grin. Juri impatiently stubbed out the cigarette.

"You can't smoke anywhere in this god damned country! Perhaps I should stick them up my ass. That would be better!" Adler just nodded as if to say 'yep' and trudged off.

Juri picked up the phone on his desk and said in his best English accent, "Hello. Evidence Room? This is detective Nevedyev."

Chapter 20 "Addendum"

I only paused once while running to work to rinse my head off in a sprinkler, soaked my head and face as best I could. This was a process that took a few minutes off my journey but well worth it in terms of helping me ditch my scummy appearance and knocking the last of the cobwebs out of my head. It didn't do much for my stink that I was pretty sure was edging on the wrong side of European, but whatever.

As a high powered sharp and biting jet of water slashed into my face and teeth, I thought that being special and chosen by Nelson to be part of anything larger than a church acapella group is a strange and dubious honor. Furthermore, the guy's a salesman. Most likely, his meeting at 9 tonight would involve pyramid schemes, supplements, fruit juices, or tracts of land in Florida.

Single guys will be coming to the door at 9PM sharp, saying something to the effect of, "Hi! I'm Gary! I'm here for my threesome!"

Nelson welcomes them in by saying something to the effect of, "That's right gentlemen, threesomes await every one of you if you follow my five step plan...let's get started!" And the sales pitch begins.

I shot through a couple of yards, hopped a fence, almost got hit by a bus, and arrived at work promptly at 8:01. Dashing into the loading dock, I swiped my badge and launched myself up the stairs into the employee lounge. My employee locker was seldom used but I kept a couple of essentials in there. I quickly pulled off my wife beater wiped my face and shoulders off with it, tossed the dog collar in and pulled on a semi crusty polo shirt. Bam. A little deodorant. It was the green Speedstick, which for some reason is the most pungent and funky smelling deodorant devised by the good people at Colgate-Palmolive. It masks nearly all other funk with its own dipped in Old Spice kinda funk. Pulled on an extra hairnet from my locker, and a visor that looked really stupid, but would shade my eyes and keep me from having to directly look at somebody. Apron, name tag, pow, bang, zoom...15 seconds of flurried activity produces the visage of a model employee.

I hadn't noticed, but Gerard Jackson's office door was open and he was staring at me with a cautious looking arched eyebrow.

"Howdy, Mr. Jackson." I chirrped. Imagine a cross between the Greek looking cop on Law and Order and Gene Hackman. That's what Gerard Jackson, the store manager looked like. He frowned at me slightly and closed a folder on his desk.

"Heard you guys had quite an interesting day yesterday." His gruff voice had an edge of menace because the question was so casual.

"You have no idea.." I mumbled back as I slammed my locker shut.

"Huh!?" Gerard actually grunted this as a challenge. He sounded like a drill sergeant.

"Uh, yeah it was pretty intense! I had trouble sleeping last night because.." He cut me off.

"--Come up and see me later today. You have to fill out an Incident Report."

"You got it." I replied. He nodded at me as if to say 'get the fuck to work'. He arched his eyebrow again as I bounded down the stairs toward the deli.

Jaime wasn't working today and I thought for sure that she had to, but her boss Franny, a mousy beach ball of a woman, said she had the next 2 days off. Weird. Where does a slightly deranged Jaime go at 7 in the morning on her day off? I didn't dwell on it terribly, and went to my business. Since Dade was gone, we had to pick up some of the slack. Mona and I worked wordlessly for 3 or 4 solid hours until she disappeared upstairs and I got some alone time smoking cigarettes next to the dumpster. Dean was suspiciously nice and accommodating, helping out where he could without getting in the way or being an asshole. It was turning out to be a pretty nice day at work!

I even made some of my Krab Salad which is one my own deli inventions involving chunks of imitation crab, macaroni noodles, mayonnaise, peas and spinach flashed with green onions, leeks, and garlic. It's finished off with lots of white pepper and a handful of parmesan cheese. Some customers really love it. Mona groans at me for not using red onions and such, but I don't care for powerful crunchy onions in my Krab Salad. I won't abide it. No I won't.

After our rush through the morning hours, Mona came downstairs and slapped a small pile of papers on the steel prep table in front of me.

"Okey doke, there Slim Stinky...Gerry says to take this shit and fill it out. Police report." She held a few pieces of official looking documents to my face while squinting at me with her grey and wrinkled eyes. "Then this." She held up the familiar looking White/Yellow/Pink King Soopers Incident Report. "Press hard with a ball point pen, girly pants!" Then she laughed and wrung her wrists as if to emphasize her bulging forearms, then she slapped my ass.

I giggled a little as I looked over my new assignment of papers. "Slim Stinky? What the fuck, Mona?"

"You smell like my ex-husband after a night of poker and drinkin’."

"Well that's just great."

She laughed heartily, and said, "Well you're still as cute as ever."

"Aw, well that's nice of you."

She disappeared through the door to the counter, and I continued to look over the papers. There was a handwritten sticky note from Gerard on the front.

Write what happened
in your own words
about yesterday's incident
involving Dade.

Okey Doke. The forms took me about 30 minutes or so to fill out. I wrote small and deliberately so I wouldn't have to add extra pages, and as soon as I was done Dean magically appeared to whisk them away to the office upstairs. He only stopped to ask me if I was late this morning. I deadpanned, "Yes, one minute." He snorted and disappeared upstairs with the two reports. I wish I had a chance to reread them, but I didn't. They were basically the same rendition of the story that I knew to be true edited for space. The police form was longer.

This is why I was very surprised that when four o clock rolled around Gerard summoned me to his office and then summoned Franny as my Union Representative and then he sat us down in front of his steel and Formica desk. He thumbed through my reports looking alternately at me and the reports through half glasses. He was frowning. This was not looking good for some reason, the hairs on the back of my neck were charged with the energy in the room.
Dean walked in and sat in a seat next to Gerard's desk. He was looking grim and smug at the same time.

Gerard said, "We need to addend these. There's some information missing on these reports."