Monday, June 25, 2012

"Lithium Lesbos & Stationary Trains"

        **This is just a quick 10-page sample of the current follow-up to "Viaja Bizarro" that I've been working on over the past few months as I battle a spell of the old writer's block after having a newborn. A lot of folks have been nagging me to get the next one out, so until I finish it up, here's just a taste of things to come. This is just the intro. The adventures are soon to follow.....
Thank you.

~ONE~


                        "ARE YOU WEARING MAKEUP, FAGGOT?" My so-called best friend and 300+lb Samoan P.I.C., Cannon, yelled out for all to hear like the town fucking crier as he charged up to me in the outdoor halls of our summer school.
            “What? Hell no, I'm not wearing makeup, bitch! Fuck you!” I practically cowered as I tried turning my head away in a weak attempt to hide a face from which I could feel the icy heat of terror-sweat beginning to surface.
            “Fuck yeah, he is! Look at that shit! His bitch ass got some powdered ruse on & shit. Looks like there’s a big-ass red dot under that shit too!” A brace-faced dick-shit named Corbin, who looked like Toby Turtle from Disney’s Robin Hood wrapped in electrical tape, piped in from my peripheral. The same black fucker that we had tortured for years for having such a white name.
            “Who the fuck are you talkin' to, ass-fucker? With your white ass name your race-hatin' mom gave you,” my defenses were up. Cannon was one thing, but I couldn't take shit from one of the fuckers that I was so used to feeding shit to, “You better go on somewhere with your shiny ass mouth, you fuckin' Black & Decker pecker wrecker!”
            My efforts were pointless. All the clever diss names and all the LSD in the world couldn't save this day from being shitty. I was, in fact…wearing some of my mother's makeup.

           
Sorry. Let me back this up a couple hours to fill you in on the origin of my plight…
            I woke up that morning with my regular ritual of an overlong teenage boy shower (wink, wink) and slappin’ some goop in my bleach-streaked dome fuzz, which looking back now, I can see was probably pretty gay looking, but I lost my virginity shortly after I bleached it the first time so I ended up keeping it from ages 13 to 17. Whatever. Shit got me my first shot at prepubescent chest pudge and funny smelling fingers. Judge all you want. Fuck you. Anyway, I was wrappin’ up the ol’ ritual and had a few minutes to spare before my regularly scheduled departure when I came across a pet toy belonging to my mom’s two cats, Maggot & Angel. It was one of those cheap made-in-China Dollar Tree toys with the suction cup base and a wobbly 18-inch spring with a little furry doodad on the tip. So to kill time, I figured, “Why not suction this thing to my forehead and chase the cats around with it hanging from my face?” Brilliant, right? Well, after doing this for about fifteen minutes I finally decided to pull the thing off and it gave me a little bit of a struggle. It finally released its grasp on me with a *pop* and revealed a perfectly rounded purple hickey. I was horrified! My beautiful face! What was a bleach-headed boy to do?? In a panic, I ran to my mother for advice. She tried soothing me by calmly telling me that it wouldn’t be a problem. Just a quick fix. No biggie. She took me in the bathroom and told me that she could easily remedy this with just a little bit of her concealer. I was far from into going to school with some bitch paint slathered across my face. That’s fucking gay (spending a half-hour in the mirror putting styling gel in your dyed hair and carefully putting each strand in its proper place in order to make it look sloppy was perfectly heterosexual though. Whatever. Again, fuck you.)! My options were minimal though and it sounded better than having what looked like a forehead Bindhi on PCP across my face so I caved. She opened up the little jar thingy and started smearing a tiny wedge of sponge through the powdery slime before lightly patting it above my brow like she was putting the finishing touches on a masterpiece. I looked in the mirror and fell into a panic. “Nobody’s gonna buy this shit!! Look at me! What the fuck? There’s an obvious circle of a different color than my skin staring right back at me!” She managed to convince me that the only reason I could see it was because I knew it was there and I was looking for it. I tested her theory by quickly glancing back and forth at my reflection. I bought it. I was young and evidently impressionable to the degree of retardation. Deep, deep down though, I knew my social doom was imminent.





            “Whatever, nigga! My braces are gonna be off someday. The evidence of your mom suckin’ on your forehead all night is gonna scar you for life!” The extended rubber bands in his mouth connected the top of his laughter to the bottom like a yawning Saint Bernard as he cackled what smelled like sour milk in my face.
            “You know you’re the only person in history named Corbin to ever use that word without the ‘R’ at the end, right? Stankin’-ass Uncle Tom motherfucker. You can’t brush your fuckin’ teeth with that chicken coop in your mouth or what? You look like Flavor Flav had sex with a silverware drawer.” I was grasping at straws to redirect the growing mob’s attention away from the Maybelline blanket covering the eggplant colored portal on my nervous wide-eyed face.
            “Ha ha! My dude Boy George here got mad jokes!” Cannon whooped as he slapped me in the back with his 2-ton meat puppet, “Isn’t that right, white boy?” He playfully punched Corbin in the chest, putting his foul-smelling giggles to rest, “For real, you ain’t foolin’ nobody. You make Carlton Banks look like Desmond Tutu, you white-ass black blender-faced fuck!” He turned his attention back to me, “No joke though, faggot. What’s up with the Revlon? You look gay as fuck.”
            I realized at that moment that I should have come up with a believable story in case I was found out. I didn’t though so I had to improv it on the spot as I stalled by wiping the lady goop from my face with the inside of my shirt. “It’s not makeup, fuckers! It’s…It’s Halloween latex for face effects that I got at Evangeline’s Costume Shop downtown a long time ago and…and I tried using it to cover up a bruise I got yesterday. It’s whatever, man.”
            “A bruise, huh? What’d you get the bruise from?” His disbelief was obvious as he glared at me through a studying frown.
            Shit! I didn’t think that far! I kept going off the cuff and giggled as I started to indicate that I was comfortable with the funny memory I was about to share. “Dude, right? I was taking the trash out last night, right?”
            “Takin’ out the trash. Ok. Trash takin’. Got it. Go on.”
            “Yeah, so, right? I’m takin’ out the trash and I trip, right? Tripped over my own feet! And…and I’m walkin’ pretty fast, right? So I fly forward and slam my dome right into the doorknob, son! Crazy, huh? Shit hurt!” I chuckled to show how silly I felt for such a mistake. My eyes darted around the mob circling me to take inventory of the people that looked like they bought it. The final count was zero.
            Cannon smirked as he rubbed his thumb across my spot of shame. “I dunno, man. That’s a fuckin’ PERFECT circle. You’d think that shit’d be a funny shape or somethin’. You’re hella lying.”
“Hell yeah, bro!” The Wayne Brady Limited Edition garbage disposal chimed back in, “Bro, you’d have to be flying in like a straight-ass line like Superman to have a doorknob make a circle like that, lyin’ ass!”
            I got loud as I returned to the defensive, “Oh, is that right, ‘bro?’ Huh, ‘BRO?’ God, man, you’re so fuckin’ white dude! Shut the fuck up! I said my motherfuckin’ ass was walkin’ fast! I didn’t make science, bitch! The shit just happened! Stupid fuckin’ honky. What the fuck are you doin’ over here anyway, Painted Face? You know damn well nobody likes your Abercrombie ass!”
            “Ha! Who you callin’ ‘Painted Face,’ CoverGirl?”
            “Whatever. Shut up, bitch. It was a Prince Of Thieves reference, dumbfuck. God, you’re a bitch. I hate you. Fuck off.”
            The seemingly endless barrage of transvestite makeup jokes went on for a length of time longer than I’d like to recall until Cannon finally pulled me aside a few minutes before our first bell rang.
            “I understand you’re all gay now & shit. I get that, but do you still want this?” He turned his back to the crowd and slyly pulled out a tiny Ice Drops bottle from the chest pocket of his button-up plaid short-sleeve. The same breath freshening droppers that our suppliers would empty, rinse, and fill with Sacramento’s finest LSD. “Or has your new insatiable thirst for men changed your view on being cool?”
            “DUDE! Fuck you, man! Gimme that shit, you big fat fuck!” I snatched the vial from his beefy appendage and immediately shot two hits under my tongue.
            “My nigga.”
            “Fuck you, bitch. I hope you die in a fire.”
            The bell rang out and the sea of various sheep began funneling their ways into their designated rooms like different colored pennies in a Coin Star.       
            “UGH! This field trip’s gonna be the shizz, me nag!” The behemoth squealed from my left on our way into class as he pumped his fist in the air.
            “Yeah. Fuckin’ train museum. Shwoopety-fuckin-doo.” I grumbled. For those not from the Sacramento area, the train museum downtown is probably the number one location most frequented by elementary school field trips. For some reason, our sophomore year summer school English teacher decided to schlepp us there despite the fact that each of us had been there once a year from ages 6 to 12.
            “Cheer the fuck up, Mary. I ain’t lookin’ at no fuckin trains! Are you kidding me? We’re gonna get fucked up, meet up with Rhino down there, re-up on some shards, & get to adventure schemin’, fool!”
            This gave my soon-to-be-dead brain cells a million little erections. “For real? Rhino’s gonna be out there?”
            “Well, na’mean, I gotta call the nigga, but hell yeah. That fool’s down to go anywhere for the almighty dollar, son! I just gotta hit him up on the payphone before we go to let him know what’s up. You got’cho scrills, right?”
            “Hell yeah! I got paid on Friday & I got 200 bones left to drop on Miss Crystal, bwoi!”
            “Good, good…cuz you owe me for half this vial & that sack from Saturday, fool. I’ll cover you on the meth, but you’re gonna owe me again. I just wanted to be clear that you didn’t spend all your shit on lip gloss & body glitter.”
            “Fuckin’ fuck off, man! It’s Halloween latex! I hope your mom gets raped.” I pulled the hood of my windbreaker up & pulled the front down over the purple yarmulke on my face. “That’s cool though, dude. Right on. So what are we gonna get into when we get down there after we cop that shit?”   
            “Who cares? It’s downtown, fool! We’ll get down on somethin. We’ll start trippin’ by the time we leave, we’ll get spun once that nigga Rhino shows, and then who knows, kid? Buttfuck a homeless crazy? Kill a crackhead hooker in a parking garage? Play in the doo-doo from the dookie-sacks under the horse carriages? It don’t matter, fool! Shit’s gonna get nuts, no doubt.”
            “You lovebirds staying outside to hold hands all day, or do you maybe want to join us?” The crackly, soul-crushing voice of Mr. Vance, the English teacher, butted into our laying of plans from the doorway of his classroom. That old, cranky, balding, gray lipped bastard you could just tell from meeting had never known love and would surely die alone. You know him.
            “I was hopin’ to join you & maybe hold your hand, Mr. Vancy-Vance Vance-Man!” I shot back in a tone of exaggerated excitement.
            “Cute, Smith. Close your mouth and sit down.” He took a double-take at my face, “What’s that on your forehead?”
            “Goddamn it.” I sighed in defeat. My high spirits were murdered. Like I said, soul-crushing.
            Head hanging low, windbreaker hood up like a depressed emo Jedi, I made my way through the aisles of the musty, thick-aired, dimly lit room to my seat with two Vietnamese girls, Kao Dong Vu and Tranny Ho, to my left and to my right was some hill-billy hick fuck named Jared who had a painfully thick southern accent. I don’t know what deep-south shit-hole he came from, but he sure as fuck wasn’t local. When high enough, I could never understand a single word any of these three were saying. I’d just stare with the occasional slow blink. Luckily, my acid hadn’t kicked into gear yet so I was able to make out enough of their nouns and verbs to put together something close to a general idea of what they were trying to get across in my head.
            When I sat down, the two funny named girls started quietly giggling with their hands over their mouths like Asian schoolgirl stereotypes and whispering shit that sounded like rewinding cassettes.
            “What’s funny, ladies? Did you think of something clever to add to your dramatic rose sketches? Huh? Somethin’ hilarious happen on Pokémon yesterday?” I knew exactly what those dumb little bitches were snickering about. I was just trying to beat them to some kind of an insulting punch.
            Tranny straightened her face, “Yo’ soo dumb, Adams. Pokémon ees Jap’hanese. We ah Vietnamese. Whott ees on yo’ fo’head?” The giggling resumed.
             “’Whott?’ Huh? ‘Whott ees on mah fo’head?’ What the fuck is on your fuckin’ forehead, huh? Dumb bitches. Y’all couldn’t even see my fo’head if I stood up, ya non-peripheral havin’ sluts! Hey, you know those GIs that raped your moms gave you fucked up ass names, right? Yours sounds like Cow Dick and yours means Drag-Queen Prostitute in this country. You know that, right?” I took a breath, “And for future reference, there’s only one of me. Just one, stupid. Stop fuckin’ pluralizing my goddamn name.”
            “MEESTAH BANCE!” Cow Dick called out.
            “What did I tell you about that mouth, Spot?” The old sack of wrinkles dropped his pen and stood up as the class filled the room with roars of laughter at the clever moniker the decrepit fuck had just given me.
            “Thank you, sir.” I tightened my lips, “Thank you very much for that.”
I glanced down at my pager under my jacket. 10 minutes in. This trip couldn’t come soon enough.


           
~TWO~

                        We sat there for what felt like days while the old man took roll call and collected permission slips and all that jazz. I counted down each minute, waiting for my brain to hit the warp. Nothing yet. Not even a body-high. 12 minutes in. Watched pots don’t boil. Distract yourself. Don’t look for the trip. Let the trip find you.
            “For real, though, mayne,” My distressed impatience was interrupted from the right by the redneck next to me leaning across the gap between us, “How’d you git dat circle on yer dome ther?”
            “Shut the fuck up, Cowboy Way. Ask your uncle momma how I got it. Don’t you have livestock to fuck somewhere or somethin’? Leave me alone, you funny-talkin’ fuck-stick. I don’t even know what you’re sayin’ to me right now.”
            “Da-yum, girl! You a feisty lil firecracker ain’t you?”
            “Oh, my god, man. Is this really happening?” I sighed under my breath as I buried my spotted face in my hands before checking my pager again. 13 minutes in?? What the fuck?! This shit is ridiculous. I vented my frustration with the fact that time had apparently stopped at my Alabaman adversary, “Swear to God, dude. Shut the fuck up. Get back to you Guns ‘N Ammo or your Ted Nugent picture book before I buttfuck your sister’s face & she calls off your wedding.”
            The drawling buffoon sunk back into his chair shaking his head, “I like you, mayne. You crazy.” He chuckled with his eyes fixed on whatever camouflage-laden magazine he had been thumbing through.
            “Shut up, cunt. I hate you. Go back to the bayou.”
            “Alright,” Vance announced and paused for dramatic effect or something, “Who’s ready?”
            All the giddy little automatons surrounding me cheered out in glee like they were hitting the climax of a rollercoaster. Fuckin’ faggots.
            17 minutes in. Skin’s getting kinda sensitive. This is a good sign. This is early.
             Cannon and I linked eyes through the shuffling dummies to telepathically suggest in unison that we’d take our time and end up the last ones to leave so we could sneak off to the payphone to order a crystal meth delivery. We both nodded.
            20 minutes in. This shit’s pretty good. I think my bones are already laughing.
            We drag our feet along nonchalantly behind the chatty mob of squawk-boxes and inch our way along until we reach a turn at the end of the hall. Once everyone was around the corner, we turned and ran in a full sprint in the opposite direction to the payphone.   
            “Touch my bellybutton, fool,” I exclaimed as I waited for him to dial the number, “Tell me if this shit feels crazy.”
            “Damn, man! Already?” His attention quickly shifted to the phone, “WHAT’S UP, FOOL?!”
            “Yeah, man. EWW! My finger smells funny now. Smell my finger.” I ignored the fact that he was amidst negotiating drop-offs and meeting points as I lifted my sour pointer up to his lip.
            “GET THE FUCK OFF ME, FAGGOT!!” He covered the microphone, “Go stand over there or somethin’. Grown folks is talkin’ here.”
            “Tell Rhino I said ‘Hi!’”        
            “What?” he was laughing at me, “Nobody fuckin cares, homo. GET YOUR FUCKIN’ FINGER OUTTA MY DAMN FACE, FOOL! Yeah, man! This dude’s already wiggin’ out & he’s got a fuckin’ butthole on his face…I dunno, man…Yeah…You’ll see.”
            Luckily for their conversation, I was suddenly redirected to the dancing spots of sunlight on the ground that had broken through the glowing keyholes of the blowing tree a few yards away and was lost in the weird feeling that happened when I’d wiggle my hand around in my armpit. The crazy hadn’t really hit me all the way yet, but the fun fever was certainly starting to envelop my bones.
            I was startled by the sound of the phone clanking down hard onto the hook and the Samoan orangutan behind me booming out, “BOOYAH!”
            “We good?”   
            “Oh yeah, we’re fuckin good, buddy!” He slammed his giant paws down on my shoulders and gave me a shake, “We’re meetin’ him at the Carl’s Jr. down the block from the museum in a couple hours. EIGHTBALL, BITCH! Let’s go catch this bus before they ditch us.”
            “Alright, fun buns! Let’s blow this donkey!”
            My skin started popping and spiking like an EKG hooked to an epileptic. This excited me to no end as we jogged back to the group piled up at the bus loading zone. Other classes had merged with ours so the group was even larger now, making it easier for us to blend into the rear.
            “Where’d y’all git lost at?” The funny haircut havin’ hick blurted out.
            “Shut the fuck up, hill-billy!” I hissed through clenched teeth.
“Yes, Smith. Do I need to put a leash on you two?” Vance was on to us.
            Cannon interjected, “I had to go to the bathroom!”
            “And what about you, Smith? Eh?” Old bastard!
            “Yeah, Smith!” Fuckin’ redneck!
            “I was…umm…protecting him from gang members, sir. Ya’know…buddy system.” I’m so lame.
            “Well, let’s make sure you stay buddies with the class while we’re around the trains, huh, gentlemen? I’m not wasting any time looking for you if you stray off. You hear me?”
            “Won’t be an issue, sir!” I had a hard time keeping eye contact with the man. Too many wrinkles on his face drizzling down around his features like pasty liver-spotted molasses. Wait…what? What time was it?
            About an hour in! Mission control…we have lift-off.
            As the vibrations started settling their way into my vision, we shouldered our way through the masses of different shaped faces to the one of the three buses that had the least amount of dipshits in front of it. We had to get a seat in the back. No two ways about it. There was no way in hell I was going to be surrounded by these obnoxious scoundrels!
            My super-sized companion shoved the funny faced midgets out of our way and we boarded the capsule. SUCCESS! The rear bench was vacant and it was ours. We shimmied our way to the ass of the mighty yellow beast and plopped down with victory dripping from our faces.
            “Damn,” Jared, the hick, followed shortly behind us as he took the seat ahead of us and parked his wheeled carry-on luggage he used for a backpack next to him in the aisle, “Y’all just went straight to the VIP, huh?”
            “Shut the…” I stopped myself from the outburst as I sighed through a tight mouth and aimed my attention at the rippling lake of multicultural features waiting to board outside Cannon’s window. The feeling inside my chest was indescribably hollow as it began to flutter out of control. It wouldn’t be long now before the insanity found its way to me. I wasn’t going to let the nuisance of some inbred soil my transformation.
            “Who’s talkin’ to you, Buffalo Bill? HUH?” Cannon extended a giant arm and shoved Jared deeper into his selected slot, “Nobody! That’s who, faggot!”
            “What’s goin’ on, fellas?” Our new drug-buddy, Chris, said with a shake of the hand and a dap of the fist as he sidled his way into the open spot on the opposite side of the gigantor next to me. I didn’t know Chris too well before our summer classes because he normally attended our school’s rival, Highlands High, where he played football, but Cannon did because they both worked at the Century Cinedome Theatres together. Chris was no stranger to the potions that frequented our minds.
            “What’s up, son?!” Cannon raised an excited tone.
            “Shit, man, I can’t call it. I know I ain’t goin’ to no museum though. I’m finna dip out & hit the mall when we get there.” He seemed to lose his train of thought as a frown fell over him, “What the fuck? What’s on your fuckin’ dome, kid?”
            “Nothin’, goddamn it. It’s nothin’.” I pulled on the edge of my windbreaker hood and changed the subject, “Fuck a mall, man! You should pitch on some meth with us fool!!” I said much more loudly than I should have before noticing more than a few faces turning their gaze toward me from the endless hall of seats ahead of me. “I’m just playin’! Ha! That shit’s hella bad! Bad news that meth is! Not even once, kids. Don’t do it.” The faces faded one by one as did their interest in the spotted junkie buffoon at the back of the bus.
            “You tryin’ to get us hemmed up, fool?” Cannon backhanded me in the chest as he turned to Chris and handed him the vial from his pocket. “So, yeah…As my associate was saying, you wanna get crazy, fool?”
            “Hell yeah! What ch’yall bout to get into?” He answered while unscrewing the cap to the bottle of magic.
            My colossal compadre laid out the agenda for him in a secretive whisper as Chris squirt a couple hits under his tongue and handed it back, never breaking eye-contact. Cannon passed it to me without looking so I squirt another one in my mouth and wrapped it up in the extra sock I kept folded up under the tongue of my shoe as many kids my age did during that time. I can hear you judging me again, you know. A lot of kids did it, okay? It was a good place to stash stuff. I used to keep rubber bands around the ankle of my pants in order to hold them up and show off my kicks too! And yeah…they were Lugz! Whatever. I don’t have to explain myself to you. I was cool, goddamn it!
            Anyway, as I stuffed it back into my shoe, my visions were starting to creep in when I noticed that the black-ribbed stripe leading from below my feet to the front of the bus was at least a couple miles long before it shrank to a few inches and back again. Whelp, not gonna look straight ahead anymore. It came to mind that a packed school bus full of students and faculty would be a pretty awful place to have a meltdown if my vibrations took full control. I quickly shot my eyes straight down in front of me as I continued stuffing my shoe. The extra sock was in its normal position already, but I was lost in the enjoyment of feeling my fingers sliding back and forth in the humid crevasse between the extra sock and the one around my foot. It was wet and dry and hot and moist all at once. The bus began to move as I raised my hands to smell the musty fingers I had been torturing in the abyss of foul bacterial foot fungus and, still hunched over like I was preparing for a plane crash, I noticed the redneck’s suitcase wobbling back and forth as it stood before my feet. I glanced up at the hill-billy and only saw the back of his head. He was busy staring outside, probably enjoying his first ride in one of these horseless carriages. My eyes bounced back down to the suitcase and I watched as my hand slowly started reaching for the zipper of the front pocket without my having any knowledge of how it was doing so without any known consent from my brain. No sense in dwelling on that, I figured. We’ll just see what happens. My independent appendage got the zipper half-way open when it must have noticed Mr. Vance turning in his seat to take stock of everyone’s behavior at the same time that I did. The hand darted back into my shoe and put on a show as it pretended to stuff the sock back in again. As soon as the old man revealed the back of his head to us again, that rebellious hand of mine continued its mission. Once, opened, my fingers stretched out the opening of the pocket to show me the treasures within. I gave a no-look slap to Cannon’s shin with the hand I still had control over as the rogue one pulled out a fold of one dollar bills pressed against a Sony Discman, “Look, fool!” I hissed.
            “Ugh! You grimy, nigga!” He quietly giggled.
            “Take that shit!” Chris whispered with a fist over his mouth. “Matter of fact, give that shit to me!”
            I pretended to ignore his request as I regained control of the disobedient hand and I quickly leaned back into my seat, shoving the loot into the front pocket of my windbreaker.
            “Don’t you have like 72 of those things or somethin’?” Cannon still kept a low tone.
            “Not on me! Besides, what if we wanna smoke that shit instead of snootin’ it down there? I don’t got my pipe. I figure we can use this shit as street currency to get another one.” My logic was solid as it was answered with impressed nods of approval.
            The excitement of the theft set my body into full fluctuation. The windows were an ever-blurry mess of retina-searing color as the monstrosity that carried us roared on. The tide of vibrations and vision trails steadied their rise. The peak would be here in no time and downtown couldn’t show up soon enough.


~THREE~


                        “I need everyone’s attention,” Mr. Vance gathered us as the fleet of blond-colored dragons evacuated themselves around us like a cocoon of claustrophobic nerves. He went on to explain that we need to stay in our groups and that all the groups would meet up at McDonald’s for lunch after the museum tour. He then continued with the “surprise” that if we didn’t give any problems that we could go on to spending the rest of the day at the Downtown Plaza K Street Mall as a reward. The predictable robots of our cocoon cheered in delight at the potential of such a wonderful reward. Big fuckin’ whoop. My two companions and I jittered with impatience, waiting for our opening to disappear like farts in a back-alley gust.  
            As the old man assigned each person to their designated group, my trio was split up among the masses like a family of Jews in the Holocaust. I don’t recall who those fuckers got sent to, but I was stuck with some hippy-dippy dipshit lady who was normally an art instructor or something, but was posing as a history teacher for the summer months. She gathered me and the other five in my group together and made sure she had all of us accounted for. I got bundled together with two kids, Greg & Casey, that I considered associates considering all the business we’d done in school together, some dweebo I didn’t know who must have been an alum of another school, and wrappin’ up the bunch were Cow Dick & Tranny.
            “Hey, Mr. Vance!” I called out, “How come these lesbians get to stay together, but I can’t expand my railroad knowledge with my lovers?”
            “You know why. Now pipe down before you ruin this for everybody, Spot!”
            Uproarious cackles from the peanut gallery of covered mouths and turning grins.
My spine lost its lineage. “Fucker,” I muttered under my breath.
I turned to my new friends and whispered more dramatically than a sane person would have, “Hey, you fuckers wanna bail on this fag-fest & get twisted?”
Casey was a year ahead of us, but making up sophomore classes. He stood about 6’4” and almost had a full beard. Greg was about my height, bald, and never raised his voice over just above a whisper. Neither one could ever be found without their skateboards in hand.
“What’s on your forehead, man?” Greg ignored my offer.
“Shut up, bitch. Answer me.” I had no time for story-telling.
A 20-foot tall Casey seemed interested, “Why? What are you gettin’ into?” he inquired from the sky.
“Adventure, son…Adventure. We’re gonna ditch this shit & do our own thing. We got treats comin’ too, son! You down?”       
They looked at each other and agreed in unison.
For real though, dude,” Casey started, “What is that?”        
“It’s a fuckin’ bruise, alright? Long story. You’re freakin’ me out. Don’t fuckin’ worry about it!”
The groups began merging like cows to the slaughter as we all made our way to the front doors of the massive structure. I quickly shot my gaze around the brush of nameless masks to find the other two thirds of myself. I found Cannon with no trouble as he towered over the army of imps. Seconds later, Chris found his way onto my radar. His eyes drenched in an empty wonder. He had discovered greatness. They nonchalantly made their way over to me and my two new additions. The herd came to a pause as the first of them started into the giant double doors. I squatted down under the canopy of heads and hastily unraveled the diabolic vial of witchcraft from my sock. I calmly slid the tiny container into my pants pocket, all the while, humming Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone” from Top Gun to myself to meet the level of exciting espionage-like thrills I was conjuring in my chemically fogged head. When about half of the herd had disappeared into the darkness ahead, most of the chaperones had too, so we looked at each other for approval before making a clean break for it. As we fled for freedom, I felt as though there were more footsteps clamoring around me than the four pairs in my inner inventory. This scared the shit out of me and with a quick boost of adrenaline, I shot out ahead of the pack. Were we being followed? Were they onto us? I had no time to answer such things and I sure as hell wasn’t looking back. Drowning in terror, I found myself almost yelling the lyrics to my inner soundtrack in a frantic tone as I slid around the corner of the building and slammed my back against the wall like I had reached “base” in a schoolyard game of tag.
“Aww, man!” I was disappointed to find what had followed us. “What the fuck d’you bring this pygmy pole-smoker for?”
Allen fucking Whitney. The straight-edge, drug-free smallest wrestler on our school’s team. Dude always acted like he had roid-rage and walked around with his arms out like a body-builder despite the fact that he was roughly 86 pounds. Major Chihuahua syndrome.
“What’d you say about Allen Whitney?” He said in the third through a snarled lip as he jerked toward my face, “Huh, monkey? HUH? What’s that on your face, huh?”
“Calm down, Keebler,” I sighed as I dipped my shoulder down to push him aside like an annoyed parent ever-jaded by their rambunctious child’s chronic fits of ADHD.
“He heard me talkin’ to this nigga & wanted to tag along,” Cannon pointed to my buddy Spig who was standing next to him, hands in pockets. “I figured he’d be funny to look at once we got goin.”
Spig was our black-Mexican compadre that occasionally took part in our drug addled misadventures (Black + Mexican = Spig. Do the math. It’s a compound word.).
“Fuck you, fat ass!” the miniature poodle retorted, “You’re funny to look at! You wanna get fucked up?”
“See? Just look at him!” Cannon giggled as he bounced the midget off the wall in three rapid successions, “He’s just so adorable!”
“Whatever. Let’s just do this. Our group’s hella big now, man. Is everybody inside yet?” My frustration with the extra load was no match for my jittering hunger of things to come as I impatiently wiped the hollow tingling from my face with a clammy palm.
Spig peeked around the corner, “Yup. Looks like it. So, what we about to do?”     
“Just what I told you, you dumb half-coon fuck!” Cannon blurted in excitement, “Trippy spun fun, son! Let’s blow this fuckin’ donkey, faggots!”
We began our trek to freedom through our own underground railroad of rapid activity and bricked superstructures as we muddled along in a haze of paranoia down the never ending concrete conveyor of brightly lit sidewalk. Our wide-eyed herd looking like a silent cuckoo bell choir of spinning heads ever-looking over shoulders to ensure our escape would be a successful one. As we passed under the judging, shady glare of overlooking skyscrapers, we all seemed to be in an unspoken agreement that the square, black portal that had swallowed our robotic peers into the giant den of unbearable boredom just minutes before would no longer display the sight of interested bodies or curious peeking heads disappearing into its dark abyss. Although the day had started hours beforehand on a note sourer than I’d like to revisit, it was finally time for it to actually begin. The world was now our bitch and we would treat her as such.
By this time, we all had tongues marinating in the nectar of gods unknown to mainstream religion with the exception of our pint-sized pest as he seemed desperate to fit into the middle of our fantastical flock, following along in swift movements with elbows held out for no reason.
“Feel like sittin’. Can’t have that. Gimme a Rhino ETA.” My legs grew weary with noisy vibrations running through them. I was ready to fuel up if we were to continue this wandering venture.
“You talkin’ to me,” Cannon turned to me with a look of psychotic wonder.
“No, dipshit. I’m talking to the army you brought that has no idea what I’m talking about.”
“Oh. I have no idea, fool. See this thing on my wrist? It makes no sense to me. He’s got your beeper number though, faggot.”
“Let’s just go chill in there until your dude shows,” Chris pointed to the empty looking parking garage across the street, “This sun’s fuckin’ killin’ me anyway.”
“Yeah, I got some tree if you wanna blow some,” Casey mumbled down from his distractions in the clouds, “I mean, it won’t push us to run around, but it’ll enhance the trip while we wait at least.”

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**That's all that I'm letting out for now. 
Thanks for coming this far. 
The rest will be here soon enough. Just be patient 
and stay tuned...........
           

           
           
           
           
           
           
           
           






           


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