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."

Chapter 19 "Rude Awakening"

I had a dream after we fell asleep. It was about crows. It was about deer. The crows were killing one of their own. One of them had taken ill and the others were ferociously attacking him. The black, floppy, and flapping mass was at the bottom of a grassy hill, so green. People who say that they only dream in black and white are full of shit or unimaginative. I'm not sure which is worse.

On the top of the grassy hill was a small herd of doe surrounding a giant stag with at least ten antler points. He coldly watched the crows as they took the life of their ill brother. I felt like the stag understood the necessity of the crow’s actions but abhorred their kind and their methods. I was transfixed by the squawking, black oily writhing mass that had become the crows' instrument of death. It was upsetting to watch. I wanted to leave this place. I wanted to run away from the harsh nature of this reality. This painful slashing death and the cold stare of the stag, his imperiousness and his power. He had the power to stop this carnage before him and did nothing.

I suddenly became aware that I was dreaming. A wry smile crossed my lips as I realized I could be anywhere I wanted and I floated up. With the altitude came a rush to the head and my vision clouded over white. I woke up. She was gone.

I sat up in her bed and experienced that strange sensation of my surroundings being upset and unfamiliar, like if you were to wake up sleeping sideways on your own bed. I glanced over at her cartoonish snake lamp. She must have turned it on. The room still smelled like like sex and girl breath, the bed still warm. I turned the clock radio, located on the bedside table, towards me. It was 7:38.

Flipping my naked legs over the side of the bed, I called out, "Jaime?"

Silence. A dog barked three times somewhere. The neighbor took a few clonky steps somewhere. Jaime was somewhere, but not here. It was eerie. I stood up and yawned, It occurred to me a man wearing a wife beater and no pants in any situation was fairly comical, but against my better judgment I walked out into her living room, balls and all.

"Jaime?"

There was a stool pulled into the center of the living room, away from the bar countertop on the edge of her kitchen area. The living room and kitchen were all one big room with counters and a raised bar dividing them. Her refrigerator thudded and whirred to life as I looked upon a neat folded pile of my clothes that was on top of the stool. On top of this pile were the dog collar and a note.

Interesting first date.
You are quite yummy.
Eats and drinks in the fridge.
Make me some tacos, sucka.
Lock the knob if you leave.
The card fell out of your shirt pocket, my nordic prince!

Love, Jaime.

I snorted. "Nordic prince...fuck me," I sighed.

Good god, her signature looked like fucking calligraphy. It was illuminated original King James bible shit. She also drew this stylized bass guitar on the note next to her signature that looked like it was made of water or blood...if you were so inclined.

There I stood with my dick out, my ass flapping in the wind, and I sighed like a little girl and read the note four or five times. Out of a strange inclination I sniffed the 1/4 sheet of yellow lined paper. It smelled like her tongue tasted. Under the note was Nelson's card! The chevron. The swinger's connection! It was right at home, camouflaged and yet reflecting silver sunlight on top of my god-awful flashy silver shirt. I wondered if Jaime had any recollection of what had happened last night. My clothes were all there, socks, pants and my distress beacon of a shirt. I glanced to my left. A computer! Internet! Hastily, I pulled on the lower half of my ensemble leaving the shirt and dog collar on the stool, with Nelson's card secured between my teeth, I sat down in front of the computer.

It was on with the warp drive screen saver. I grabbed the mouse and shook it. Windows came up with the username and password screen. The user name was SubSonicSiren...password???

Eh. Shit.

I hit the enter key, and her desktop came up. Sweet! I took a look at her modem. Going strong. Clicked on Explorer and was taken immediately to her band's website. Kitty Mistress. A dank little Ska-sounding rhythm came up as the website loaded pictures and text in front of me. I was so interested in the pics. It took me about a minute to realize that Jaime...beautiful, perplexing and epileptic as she was, was an amazing bass player. She held the whole thing down against some solid but pedestrian drumming and less than nifty guitar work. The singer, however, had a sassy and sometimes achingly lovely voice that had a ton of character. Her lyrics, in this particular song were about douche bags and were acid drenched, pointy, and smart. I gleaned from the homepage that her name was Sonia, and she was really, really beautiful. Shaved head, but looked like a tattooed and pierced, tribal Sinead O'Connor.

I glanced across the room at her microwave. 7:42. Work in 15-ish minutes! Let's hope I will be able to check this stuff out later. The cheveron headband on the dead man was calling to me as I started to get my head around the enormity of this morning. Punch in the website on the card, Red.

http://www.666666999999.org

A simple white screen appeared with a small field in black futuristic looking font that matched Nelson’s card. All that was written was, CARD NUMBER. I was to enter a number. Squinting at the card, I was somewhat confused, and I turned it over. On the back there was a small series of numbers that were dead center in the middle of the card. The numbers were so small that I couldn't read them. Red on silver, just beyond my exceptional vision. I sighed and opened a drawer or two on her desk, not knowing if I'd find anything to help. Looking on top of the desk, I found, sticking upright in a blue coffee mug, the most hideous pair of glasses that I had ever seen. These were black, plastic framed Steve Erkle glasses from a bygone era. I chuckled at both my luck and the mental image of Jaime surfing the internet in her Pajamas with these horrific things on.

Holding these birth control glasses up to the card, I got the numbers.

10999-08-05.

I punched 'em in. The screen changed. It read,

YOU HAVE BEEN INVITED TO SOMETHING WONDERFUL...Those words faded away into another line.

THE BROTHER OR SISTER WHO HAS BROUGHT YOU TO THIS MOMENT HAS FAITH IN YOU...Fade.

YOU ARE NUMBER 10,999

YOUR TREE IS FROM 8

DO NOT FORGET THIS YOU WILL NEED TO COMMUNICATE THIS OFTEN IN THE COMING DAYS

DO YOU WISH TO CONTINUE? CLICK YES/NO

"Ah...fuck me in the tits. God damn it, Nelson!"

It is possible at this point that when I click on 'yes,' Jaime's computer will be flooded with viruses, spyware, or I could possibly be directed to some of the nastiest amateur internet swinger porn that money should never buy. Any of this could be behind that single click, but it took me less than half a second to click 'yes' anyway. To my relief the text simply continued.

WE ARE AN EVOLUTION OF THOUGHT. WE ARE NOT THE SAME WORLD ANYMORE.

IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO USHER IN EVERYTHING THAT YOU HAVE ALREADY KNOWN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE.

IT IS A SECRET THAT IS ON THE TIP OF YOUR TONGUE.

AS YOU READ THIS, YOU ALREADY KNOW WHAT IT IS BUT IT CAN'T BE PUT INTO WORDS.

YOU ARE SPECIAL. YOU MUST MEET US.

DO YOU WISH TO CONTINUE? CLICK YES/NO

I clicked yes and another screen came up with legal garbaldy gook that looked to be about 7 or 8 single spaced type written pages. "GAH!" My frustration was peaking and it was starting to stick its unlubricated 'fuck stick', thank you Nelson, into an unhappy place. I clicked on the toolbar and hit print and Jaime's lovely printer came to life and dedicatedly started printing out all of the agreement.

HAVE YOU READ THE AGREEMENT? DO YOU AGREE TO TERMS? YES/NO

Hastily, I hit yes. The screen went blank, then simply read,

3300 S LOGAN ST ENGLEWOOD TONIGHT AT 9PM REMEMBER YOU ARE NUMBER 10,999 YOUR TREE IS FROM 8.

I jotted this down on the first page of the agreement with a stubby art pencil from her blue coffee cup.

YOU HAVE BEEN CALLED TO BE PART OF SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL AND REVOLUTIONARY.

THIS IS THE ONLY TIME WE WILL ASK AND THE ONLY TIME THAT YOU WILL BE ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE.

DO NOT BE LATE.

The screen went white, and automatically redirected back to Jaime's band's website...the song about douche bags started playing again I quickly closed out the screen and grabbed the rest of the agreement from the printer, my shirt and dog collar off of the stool, locked the doorknob and bounded out the door, down the stairs towards work. I pulled my pager from my pocket and found I had about nine minutes to get to work.

If you were to ask Dean, I was already late.

Chapter 18 "Clawing for the Inevitable"

I tip toed my way back into Jaime's 4-plex. She lived up on Gaylord St. I got a better look at the front room of her house. I had discerned she really had just moved into her apartment recently. There were still some boxes in the corner next to her couch and there were some documents on a small desk that seemed to indicate her new lease and bills. I didn't snoop too much. I wasn't interested in anything more than her warm body and a little less than an hour of sleep before I had to report to work. Slipping off my shoes on the tiled kitchen floor, I opened a couple of cabinets to find a glass and filled it with water from her sink. I filled the Taco Bell cup once and chugged its entire contents. I filled it again and drank about a third of it. I was completely dehydrated and wondered how much my system could take before I completely broke down. I drank quite a bit yesterday, it only served to numb me to the shock of horrible things and delay my adrenal response. One could only wonder how much an abused body, with a moderately alcohol-compromised immune system such as mine, could take.

I began to wonder why I drink alcohol as much as I do. The glib responses to that question that I usually come up with are Irish genealogy, and general thugishness. These reasons pretend to be popular sentiment, but I never believe much of what people say about me anyway. Would I be more attractive or less attractive if I drank less? Well, I suppose that question should really read something like this: Who would I attract if I drank less? Who am I attracting now? Where is the Nancy to my Sid? The answers to either question are rather damning. A smarter question to ask would be, why do I drink like I do? Then you could ask: Who taught me this behavior? Could it be unlearned? Who am I without it? Just then I had this glimmer there was a hole in my chest the size of a fist that begged to be filled with something. That hole was dug out by something or someone that I hadn't completely grasped at the time. Also, at the time, I was just becoming aware of its existence. The Fisthole was mostly a cause to action, a lack of something that I kept burning for every night. A drink. A drug. A connection. Vindication. Trust. Sex.

Dear reader, I have the wonderful view of hindsight. Now, as I ask this question, I am still embroiled in the bitter war that became the reasons to write you this letter. Just know this: I am not any closer to answering many of the questions that I pose about myself. It's disgusting. There are many people, however, that never ask themselves questions like these. Thus, I know there are some people I like and interact with in my life, but will never become more than a passing acquaintance to me because I already know where they are going to end. They end at themselves, bubble headed, and posing, and eating their own words in the mirror. Myopia and narcissism should have a baby, a new word with its own combined definition. A synonym could be...American. That word is somewhat of a universal descriptor of a great many things. Often good. Sometimes bad.

I'm wondering this, because even now I'm struggling with some of these questions and, because of hindsight, I know Jaime will betray me. It makes what's about to happen so much more entertaining. I am standing in the living room of her 4-plex and I am prepared for this, but it doesn't matter. That hole in my chest is begging for something. It might as well be breathing and soft and warm. Do I have you rapt, or annoyed? Ah hell, stop reading whenever you want. She will betray me, more than once.

I pulled off my flashy silver shirt and tossed it into a corner of the living room. I hoped it would be lost for the ages, as much paranoia as it caused me over the last 12 hours. I ran my hands over my body for a second, wondering if I was possibly some kind of nasty version of myself, but no, I was emaciated and dehydrated making my torso feel very skinny and taught. Nice. Ya know, you got good days and bad.

I sighed heavily as I entered her room, thinking I am the worst narcissist you ever met, and swung the door shut behind me. It screeched at the end of its journey and Jaime shuddered a little but was still curled up with most of the blankets pinched between her thighs. Still snoring lightly. Fuck, I wish I had that kinda peace right about now. I clicked off the snake light and was enveloped in complete blackness. She had completely blanked out her windows. The darkness had an instant and intoxicating effect on me. If there was a version of a sideways NesTea plunge, I had executed it perfectly and landed as a 230lb feather on Jaime's bed.

Her digital alarm clock was still glowing red and as I rebounded (feather-like) off the bed the red light was completely extinguished! There was utter blackness and a hot blast of air, then an enveloping exhale. My eyes were open wide and my pupils were straining for light, but it was impossible. I felt her hot tongue on my neck and her cold little fingers reaching down into my jeans, and finding no underwear, clawing for the inevitable...

She was lightly combing back a little of the hair that resides down there, sending immediate involuntary convulsions to my spine and I arched up my neck against her mouth. She bit down and grabbed a fist full of my hair and somehow destroyed the wall of covers and blankets between us. She had one hand down my pants and was just grazing the base of my member with her fingernails! Ouch, but you'd be amazed what kind of pain a man will put up with for some sex. {If you're a woman, you just chuckle a little about that sentiment}. It was driving me into an uncontrolled frenzy, my tongue dipped out of my mouth and I was giving these large open mouth kisses to anywhere that I could find exposed flesh on her; which wasn't easy since I was essentially trying to tear this black hooded sweatshirt with the neck torn out of it off of her body at the same time. She somehow flipped the button of my pants and pulled them down to my ankles with her feet and toes and mounted me in one motion.

So graceful.

I shuddered and she arched her whole body into the air, I have never felt so fully inside. We started a rhythm. Blue black and sighing underneath the sheet. Her underwear was only pushed to the side and I could feel it. I held her close and she rode me into the sweetest little death. It probably only lasted five minutes, but at the end, we both twitched and clenched in unison and without speaking we fell asleep in each other's arms.