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.