the linear mind of the male belly dancer 
Kondor 1
Anyplace
1984
My
G.G. handed me a jet-black Chinese SKS (he called it “Florence
“He
was the kind of man who respected the word itself—RESPECT. Respect the man and you may live another day
above ground. He did not look for
trouble but trouble did find him. He was
the kind of man who watched a Shaolin monk as a child teach his students in the
middle of a dusty landscape without interruption. He was the kind of man who did not except
truth; only knowledge. He was the kind
of man who drank a bottle of Bourbon to forget that he too cannot live forever. He was the kind of man who kept an eye on his
enemies and a closer eye on his prescribed friends. He was the kind of man who killed his enemy
with a knife before they could draw their pistols. He was the kind of man who spoke in fable and
prophetic rhetoric unlike anyone. The
man’s questions were the answers for many who were witness to his aura. He was
the kind of man who backed down from no creature and the idea of being
outnumbered only fueled the fire of
invincibility that he possessed
and unleashed anywhere necessary. I
cannot tell you how proud you should be to be a part of his bloodline!”
My
G.G. paused in thick silence and my thoughts were stuck in the glue of
reminiscence. I turned back around to
the red oak stump and picked up the fully loaded SKS. The safety button clicked
off where my thumb was and I fully braced myself as I aimed towards the
target. I didn’t remember unloading
thirty rounds of steaming metal slugs into the preferred target. I instead drifted off into thoughts of my
ancestor as I blew a foot diameter whole in the side of a washing machine. “He was the kind of man who would have died
for you” said my G.G. as the bluish smoke flowed from the barrel of my empty
hand cannon and into the same atmosphere that once filled the lungs of my
ancestor.
***The Linear Mind of the Male
Belly-dancer***
1800 something
All that is heard before the blade
of Jesus’ stiletto pierced the chest bone of another victim is silence. The victim deserved his sentence. Lewdness and sneak-thievery were his crimes
of passion. Time stood still as the
blade tumbled through the emaciated desert air.
The sharp stainless steel blade made a slicing noise with every
somersault toward flesh; bone, and warm blood. The accuracy and power to which
the thirteen and a half inch dagger is thrown is from a distance of twenty
seven feet. Jesus gave his drunken
victim a chance to step outside into the dark blue desert sky so the
performance in the local tavern would have no distractions. Jesus let the reprobate have a pistol instead
of a precision blade. The blade shone
like a mirror with a soul reflection.
Jesus and
the dead man walking each took fifty-four paces back from the other. As Jesus walked backwards he chuckled to
himself and remembered the time a Shaolin Monk told him, “Walking backwards is
only good for losing weight” then he would slice his finger across his throat
and smile. The soon to be dead man
stared intently into the eyes of his savior for what seemed like an eternity. Jesus goes into the mind’s eye of his victim—his
curse—and . . .
In a flash the arm
of Jesus moved with the speed of a cheetah and the inertia from the steel blade
sank into the gunslinger’s chest. It
happened so fast that the victim did not have time to raise his pistol and
instead shot himself in the leg. Bloody
chunks of femur and virtue leak from the back of the leg. The earth toned desert street turn red with
redemption. The man fell to his knees
regurgitating blood and steel residue.
The dead man’s forward motion from standing-to kneeling-to supine was
one fluid motion of demise. He had
fallen forward onto the white marble. The handle stuck into the soft desert street
and held the dead man’s upper torso off the ground a bit. The tip of Jesus’ blade
poked through its dying victim’s back.
The blade had sliced through the man’s denim shirt as it partially
exited through the upper back—but only three inches. The tip of the blade was shiny and innocent but
the dull red color of flowing blood soaked the guilty desert sand below.
The revelation of the kill is a satisfied addiction and as
Jesus walks toward the bleeding corpse his heart thumps. He checks the pockets of a man who had no use
for money. The victim is as still as
road-kill from a wagon wheel—respect the serenity of the dead always. Jesus rolled his dying target over and grabbed
the white marble handle that balanced his precision blade and tugged. The blade was stuck in the sternum and could
not be dislodged. Like the samurai,
Jesus’ weapon was his soul and had to be removed from the warm corpse—because a
blade is set if the corpse cools. More
monk rhetoric from Jesus’ childhood: The monk, who is fluent in the morals of
bushido as well as the martial arts and makes his own weapons. He believes the blade to be an extension of
himself and therefore only wants the finest steel—it was like a mirror—cold
steel in a cold corpse is blasphemous—no honor in this—just bad memories.
It is almost time for Jesus to perform in the local
tavern—a kind of performance that did not exist as a genre then. He takes a second to repent:
He whistles for his
horse. As his horse, Butternut,
clip-clops toward its master, Jesus quickly ties a rope to the end of the
marble handle attached to a rotting corpse.
He then ties the other end of the rope to the browned Corinthian leather
saddle atop Butternut. The victim had a
healthy skeleton. The chest plate
squeezes the steel between its marrow—three men could not have pulled out that
knife! Jesus takes the dead gunslinger’s
pistol—still five shots left—and walks behind Butternut. He prays the pull from his faithful horse will
dislodge the blade. Jesus stares into
the sky for a small eternity. He
then takes the pistol and points toward the endless violet sky and shoots once
into the air. Butternut does not move. The crowd is disillusioned at the sight of a
horse tied to a dead man. Even more
peculiar for the crowd is the man shooting into the air. He shot twice more and the horse still
did not move. By this time an even
larger crowd has turned into most of the town.
This meant that no one was watching the troupe inside the tavern—steeling
an audience, thought Jesus, especially when he was not performing in the first
place is disrespectful. Enough! Jesus quickly grabs the double barrel eight
gauged shotgun from his saddle bag and fires both barrels into the air. Butternut jumps three feet into the air and
takes off towards the open desert. The
backwards thrust from the shotgun throws Jesus against the collecting
onlookers. The bystanders do not help
Jesus to his feet. They instead back away
and let the assuming performance unravel. The slack of the rope tightens and
Jesus stares at the marble handle of the blade hypnotically. A loud snap is heard as the rope yanks the
marble handle and unfortunately the dead gunslinger, as well. The crowd gasps as Butternut drags a dead man
out of town leaving a trail of dust and death behind. The townspeople begin to clap and cheer; men
throw their hats in the air. This surely
is part of the show, they surmise.
II
Jesus was a male belly dancer in the
early 1800’s. He traveled from town to
town with a young troupe of beautiful female dancers (the dancers that the
crowd should have been watching instead of a senseless showdown outside). Jesus loved his costume and his dancers. He would be the first one to admit he needed
to work on his physique, but it did not discourage him when he performed in
front of twenty seven drunkards who were just looking for a reason to be pissed
off. Confrontation is his salvation.
One must remember in the early 1800’s the
Wild West was just that—wild.
It was difficult for Jesus to keep
a troupe of dancers. Many of the dancers
were young girls in their teens that had to leave home because of plague
stricken parents. They are lost sheep
in a desert of wolves. Jesus would
enter a town and see the soil from buried parents on their hands. No one stayed long with Jesus. Tormented souls always seemed to find him in
every town.
Jesus was known to be very fast with a pistol and a
shotgun. But the weapon of choice was a
beautiful weapon of steel; white marble, and animosity. He could throw the
marble handled blade and split a flea’s eyelash where it sat without placing a
scratch on the dog. For those reasons,
and those reasons only, Jesus flaunted his gyrating midriff with little worry
about his own self preservation. Jesus’
performances never went without incident. There was always a group of hombres
that thought men who belly danced should be hanged from a hook and displayed in
the town square. The Heckler Brothers
had done that deed before. A definition
of a real man, in their tunnel vision, read best with hatred and jealousy. If someone is superior—eliminate them.
In a small saloon outside of Laramie
As Jesus walked on stage, the Heckler brothers (R. I. P.)
barked at Jesus and asked if he had a boyfriend he wore that dress for. Jesus noticed the Hecklers put their hands on
their pistols when they spoke. He sensed
their hostility—it smelled like sin. He
knew the two brothers were there for one thing—his head!
“I offer no harm unless harm is given”—more monk
rhetoric. Jesus knew these men were not
meant to see tomorrow.
Jesus was very excited to perform. Not only had he loved to dance, but it was
the first time he had danced to African drumming. One of the new dancers, a very beautiful
black girl, had suggested the drums. The
mocha beauty numbs the pain of previous loves gone by. Now, Jesus did not want to worry about the
evil intentions between two idiots while he vibrated his pelvis to the
thunderous hands of the chocolate beauty—he just wanted to dance! Why was he forsaken (with every dance)?
The saloon was
like any other—soft wood held together by dust, railroad spikes, and manure. There is a skylight above the tiny stage
inside where Jesus shall dance. All
the internal accoutrements were surrounded by three legged tables made of
sawdust and chairs that could not relax.
The bright desert atmosphere falls through the skylight and onto
Jesus and the chocolate beauty. There was a bar of sorts. The bar of sorts was long and straight and
made of slate stone. There was one long
mirror hanging parallel to the wall that the barkeep was usually leaning
against. The dead calm mirror was
spotless. The barkeep has no
reflection. The walls and ceiling were the color of fresh cut pine. The smell of gunfire and booze mixed with
burning tobacco added to its allure.
The reflection from the glorious mirror in no
way distorted the true beauty of the drummer. The
sound of her African drums hypnotized and mesmerized the audience. Every beat of her drum flowed into the
next. Every beat made its own sound but
melted together as one. The stale, smoky;
desert air that filled the tavern was thick and hot. The sweat beaded all over the chocolate
beauty’s skin. Her hands moved faster
and faster as Jesus tried to keep up with every beat. Jesus’ hips had never moved like that
before. He watched sweat drip off the
chocolate beauty’s lips onto her glistening hands that pounded the drums. The crowd cheered and cheered as the dancer
and the drummer became one. It was by
far the best performance Jesus had done and the most intense. Jesus allowed his body to take over his mind
and the drummer to take over his heart.
The two women seated between the
Heckler brothers whispered in each others ears as they felt each pelvic thrust
of Jesus’ dance repertoire violate their femininity. Jesus noticed the two women gawking and
sensed that something less than good was going to happen. He watched the brothers anger build with
every word whispered by the two girlfriends.
Jesus had only a throwing star,
given to him by the Shaolin monk, underneath his blue sequin head band. Jesus
usually had a compact nickel-plated three-shooter strapped to his left outer
thigh, but had given it to the drummer for protection on her first
performance. The three-shooter saved
Jesus more than once. The shape of the
little gun looked like one half inch tube on top of two. It was called a three-shooter because it
had three barrels—the Holy Trinity.
Jesus modified the gun so all three chambers unloaded at once, if
necessary. One time it is. One
evening after an uneventful performance Jesus spotted The Horse Killin’
Triplets headed towards Butternut! Death oozes toward the horse.
The Horse Killin’ Triplets were each born with a separate
handicap. One was deaf. One was dumb. One was blind in one eye. All were rotten and loved to kill anything
resembling a horse. Bizarre indeed, but
they were separated from their parents when they were only three. The hatred for horses is a mystery but the
legend of the three is known throughout.
Their parents were self proclaimed wizards. They believed to become closer to the Archangel of witchcraft the firstborn must be sacrificed
at age three. In this case the firstborn
was three in one; obviously a sign of their power, thought they. The rotten age
of three came upon the trio. The witch
parents gathered the brothers, rode up a mountainside, and dropped the three
year olds off in the middle of the woods like a package. . .
The Triplets were at
a distance of discomfort from Butternut. Jesus attentively whistled for Butternut to
move. The Triplets were no more than
thirty-nine paces away from Butternut with knives in hand as visions of death
and carnage resonated in their skulls.
Jesus whistled again but the horse did not budge. The Killers lunged toward Butternut. The unholy trinity seemed to float above the
ground and had reached a distance of three paces from the horse. Jesus aimed and fired all three chambers of
the three-shooter. The noise of the
pistol was sinful. The sound made the
Triplets stop in their tracks as three airborne metal slugs prepared for bloody
penetration. The slugs gently tore
through the Adam’s apple of each. The three landed on top of each other in a
small puddle of their own blood and sin.
Pray their parents are dead. Jesus
shook out
his
wrist. The three-shooter packed a punch
on ignition. Aiming was futile. Jesus stared at his faithful servant
Butternut—still alive! He ran up to Butternut and muttered, “Lucky horse! I was
aimin’ for you.” Butternut deserved to die with some dignity. A mercy killing by one’s master was far more
dignified. . .
Suddenly the Heckler
brothers leaped up from their chairs and pulled their pistols. Jesus was two steps ahead of the drunken
brothers and already released a throwing star tucked under his blue sequin
headband into the thick and smoky air of the tavern. The star stuck in the eye of the younger
brother and drumming was replaced with gunfire.
Jesus watched the older brother fall to the ground like a sack of
potatoes from the hole in his forehead. Jesus
thinks he hears two pistols firing simultaneously. Another shot was heard and the younger
brother fell on top of his deceased sibling.
Jesus snapped to and saw the drumming black beauty fall to the floor. He had heard three shots, because there
laid a dying black woman.
Jesus looked into the oval eyes of the drumming beauty and
asked, “Tell me your name so that I may give a proper burial to the person who
saved my life.” The cold and dark head
with two glazed eyes lay lifeless in the hands of Jesus and whispered, “My name
was Destiny.” Jesus held the woman in his arms as she fought for a few more
tastes of life; it was delicious until the bitter end.
Jesus buried Destiny and kneeled by
her grave. The desert soil stained his
hands but the grave made them dirty. He
had no dancers and his costume was gone.
He had lost almost everything since he had to leave his last performance
in such a hurry. The vision of Destiny
dead in his arms stayed with him every mile Butternut galloped. Jesus hoped the next town was a peaceful
one. He had plenty of jerky, beans, and
gold coins collected from the saddlebags of the Heckler brothers. Dead men had no use for gold.
The sun set and Jesus was
exhausted. This was as good as any place
to stop for the night. It was a full
moon and the view went on forever in any direction. Jesus laid a blanket on the cool desert
ground and stretched out his tired beaten body.
He had no idea where he was or how long it would take to get somewhere. Jesus did not sleep well that night. The cold chill of death crept along his spine
until the first warm beam of the morning sunrise shone through his closed
eyelids.
Jesus awoke with Butternut and his
knife by his side. He had a restless
night, but for some reason he felt well rested.
A trustworthy horse and a good blade is all that Jesus needed in his
life from now on, he decided. Jesus rode
for two more days until he came to a small town. As the distance shortened between Jesus and
the small town, a sign caught his attention.
The sign read, “Welcome to Purgatory
Falls Purgatory Falls
The town was too quiet.
Jesus rode Butternut through the middle of town with one hand on his
knife and the other close to the double-barreled shotgun. He was ready for anything. Jesus dismounted from Butternut and entered
the local tavern. There behind the
barkeep hung a sign that read, “Welcome to Hell!” The barkeep was a skinny Chinese man who was
blind in one eye. The blind eye was a
result of being burnt with a cattle prod as punishment for staring at Sheriff
Heckler’s wife. When Jesus came up to
the bar to order a drink the Chinese bartender said something in his native
tongue (“Beware of the dead.”) to Jesus and had already poured the double shot
of Bourbon into an icy glass. The cold
glass filled with spirits drew Jesus closer.
That was the only thing Jesus drank.
Snap out of it. Jesus knew
if he had reached for the drink, it proved who he was. Bounty hunters were everywhere in these
parts. One never knew who the Judas
could be. Jesus scanned the little dive
for any “extra-suspicious” looking hombres.
Everyone looked suspicious. It was an attempted set-up by someone to get
him killed. He knew he had to leave
before someone figured out who he wasn’t.
Jesus waved off the drink and acted like he had no money. Sweating, he walked backwards away from the
bar until he was half way to the door when the end of a shovel smashed into his
face with alarming speed. The shovel
belonged to Sheriff Heckler; so did the pain.
“It is gonna feel
good to hang this dancin’ piece of shit who took my boys from me…shoot his damn
horse too” proclaimed the sheriff. Sheriff
Heckler tied a noose around Jesus’ neck as he lay unconscious on the filthy
tavern floor. Jesus’ nose was broken and
his teeth were scattered all over the dirt floor. The floor was cold like a grave and so were
the sheriff’s intentions.
III
Jesus is awakened by the sound of
African drumbeats, or is it the pounding of his heart? The whole town of Purgatory
It was a good feeling to have his faithful servant beneath
him, he chuckled to himself. His head
raised and his vision spread parallel to the horizon. Jesus could see Destiny
in the distance. She was alive! She is a dark angel. She motioned Jesus and Butternut to hurry.
The desert air was cool and fresh as it flowed through the long black hair of
Jesus. He could see Destiny with
outstretched arms. Butternut coasted
across the sands of time toward the chocolate beauty. The earth was crystal clear—Jesus could see
for miles. Destiny awaited in the
distance.
A few feet from the drummer, Jesus noticed there was a
giant scar around the neck of Destiny and her eyes were vacant black holes. Those eyes fixed on Jesus’ throat made his
neck feel like it was on fire. Jesus
could hear the noise of constricting fibers around his neckline and the crack
of tension. The burning sensation was
breathtaking. His resurrection was
over.
Much
respect to Ambrose Bierce
Chapter TWO. . . J e s u s
the assassin
That story is entirely true. Jesus was an ancestor of mine. I know this because my great-grandfather
would sit me in his lap and say, “Let me tell you about my great-great-grandfather…”
I always thought this to be a
strange thing to tell a six year old before going to bed, but I loved it. I loved my great-grandfather as well. He was very spry for the age of seventy-two. My great-grandfather was a former bodybuilder
in the fifties and sixties and still had a barrel chest that jumped when he
moved his arms. I can remember my
great-grandfather lifting weights with my uncle and me when we were in our
teens. Great-grandfather always owned an
exotic car as well. He was a cool guy
and a sharp dresser. It was not until
the age of twenty that I found out my great grandfather was a contract killer
for a paranoid billionaire named Gregory Oxford Davis. Through the years my gramps eliminated the
competition for Mr. Davis like a faithful servant without ever being injured,
only to be killed by great-grandma herself.
After fifty-four years of marriage and believing him to work for
Prudential Insurance, Gramps told her the truth and she stabbed him with a
kitchen knife until he was dead. It
always seemed beautiful to me—living love turning to stagnant death. My gramps had so much love for great-grandma
that he never tried to stop her, because he only knew how to give that
love to her and not retaliation.
I guess it is in the bloodline of my
family—the killing part that is—because here I sit in downtown Harrisburg, PA,
waiting for a dead man walking to get in his car so I can drive up beside him
at a stoplight and shoot him between the eyes; or walk up to him in the parking
lot and do the deed, instead. And to pass
time, I reminisce of my late great-grandfather and his unconditional love. The fact that I just gulped down two Bourbons
on the rocks an hour ago at the local strip club makes me reminisce
uncontrollably. I should not be
drinking. I have trouble controlling my
anger when I get the devil juice in me.
I remember one time I was in some shitty little redneck town in northern
Florida
THE FIGHT: The head butt hurt my brain and sobered up my
adrenalin. How dare that
motherfucker. I was mad. I tended to blank out when angered
excessively. I remembered next having a
kung-fu grip on his throat and jerking my arm back as hard as I could. My hand went with my arm and so did a tennis
ball size of throat meat from the pisser.
I will never forget the stream of blood that shot across the parking
lot. I do not like to kill for free—I didn’t then and I don’t now. My services demand respect. With respect comes money. Right? Or is it the other way around?
II
I will be getting twenty-seven grand and change when I eliminate
this wheel pisser. I see my twenty-seven
grand target walking to his German S.U.V. with a cellular phone attached to his
ear and a big smirk on his face. I can
only imagine what he is talking about on the phone. But, of course, he does not get in his
monochromatic, white collar, penis-envy mobile, but instead paces and yammers
on the phone. Hell, I’ve got all
day. My ride is plenty comfortable. And it is American made. I have plenty of money saved. I could own any vehicle I wanted. I chose a big Chevy with a big engine. In my line of work I need something tough and
reliable…mostly tough.
Mr. Davis, my boss,
has an office with framed pictures of every man he had eliminated. There are hundreds of framed souls on every
wall in the office. The office is
Purgatory for the damned. Personally, I
always thought it to be having a false sense of security when walls of the dead
are displayed for all to see that go into the office of G.
O. D. or Gregory Oxford Davis. I always
wonder who Gregory Oxford Davis’ boss is.
I do not care how powerful someone is, there is always a
puppet-master. A good contract killer
never asks questions about things that may get him killed. I only do what I am told, and that is
it. Everything else must stay balled up
inside my soul. Mr. Davis likes to have
a picture of all my victims, and whatever the boss wants . . . one dead man
is another man’s life-force.
I focus on the target. Who the hell is this guy talking to on the
phone? I cannot stand people who are
attached to cell phones like a warm teat from their own mother. People like this just love to have their
senseless conversations of babble in public to feel important. Jesus Christ, now he is walking back inside
his building. I had better take a quick
spin around the block, so I do not get noticed by someone who knows the dead
man walking, and later points me out in a lineup. I turn the key and listen to the warm sound
of my 350 cubic-inch engine as it snaps to attention. I grab my remote control for my stereo
system—that’s right, I have a remote for my truck stereo. I like to listen to music that brings on the
apocalypse. My selection today is a
crazy Brazilian band that is the definition of adrenalin music. I need the extra adrenalin rush before I do
the deed. I love how some music
heightens my desire to kill. The music
sounds so good. Every beat flows into
the next as I round the corner and head back to the walking, soon to be dead,
twenty-seven grand pisser; nursing on his cellular teat. I had better turn down my music. I make sure my sleeves are down and my hat is
on. I park my cherry red Chevy a short
block away. I always have a remote for
my door locks, because I have to do the deed and then leave the premises
quickly, but not too quickly. If a cop
is around it is harder for him to look at a walking man in a crowd than a
running man. My great grandfather told
me this. He also told me to never kill a
police officer, because he is just doing his job. And the lack of morals approach shall only be
used for the deed at hand. Accept what
you are and hide it as long as you can.
Use it in your work. Work stays
with work and true life stays at home—one cannot exist without the other.
I should not be focusing on my
beloved great-gramps. My thoughts must
not exist. I go numb as I twist a
silencer on my nickel-plated .38 snub-nose.
The little pistol packs a wallop at close range. I’ve used this pistol to kill a lot of wheel
pissers. No one can trace the bullets,
or I should say slugs. I will never give
my weapon up. Everything I use to kill
with is homemade. I have my own machine
shop where I do everything from the bullets to the weapons themselves. I have even made a knife out of
titanium. It is the lightest thirteen
and a half inch blade around, I’m sure. The fact that I make everything is why
the bullets, and whatever else, are untraceable. I make a new barrel for each weapon that I
fire, if it kills someone. Gramps also
told me to never use a holster, because it is more to get rid of in an
emergency. I need to be focusing on the
weapon of death in my inside left pocket.
I begin my inconspicuous walking toward the general area of the cellular
teat-sucker who only has a few more seconds to live. Something feels out of the ordinary. My bourbon buzz goes away as a sharp and
numbing pain shoots through my shoulder.
I fall to the ground from a sniper round in my deltoid. I have been set up. I am pissed off. I grab the .38 from my inside pocket and
shoot my intended target in the upper thighs.
Two slugs in each leg always bring a man to his knees. He stays on his knees and begins screaming,
“Kill him. Kill him!”
As the blood flows freely from my shoulder, I unload two
more rounds into the cellular wheel-pissing teat-suckers forehead. As his skull explodes into bloody chunks of
bone, I hear a third shot being fired.
The sniper’s bullet pierces my chest-bone and goes through my heart. As I lay dying on the pavement the police
arrive. I have to remember like gramps
told me; police officers are just doing their job. A Latino looking officer runs up to my side
and kicks my weapon away. The officer
than asks, “What’s your name?”
With the last four breaths of air I have left before
visiting the grim reaper, I mutter, “My name was Jesus.”
III
As I leave my body and enter my death, I see someone in the
distance. The distance from which I can
see is unending. My eyesight is perfect
in every way. I feel so clean and
pure. The never-ending distance between
the stranger and me is decreasing. My
understanding of myself is increasing. I
feel strong. Every joint in my body
moves as smooth as silk. The
sniper-wound on my left shoulder is gone.
A vision of my abusive parents smacks my soul senseless. My wounds, the horrible wounds from my death,
were nowhere in sight—my perfect sight!
I can now see the stranger is a woman.
She is so far away, but the distance grows shorter. My fingernails are gone. My fingers are fabulous phalanges of soft
skin, with bones of stainless steel underneath.
My finger tips are so smooth, like chocolate heating to a boil. I see the stranger has a face of an older
woman. She is so far from being near,
but the distance is less. I realize that
I have no clothing on. My body is smooth
and solid. My teeth feel like
titanium. My genitals are no
longer. By no longer, I mean there is
nothing there. Those Ken-dolls are no
joke. Little do people know that their
children might be playing with the model for a dead man’s walking soul? I have nothing but life in my lungs—eternal
life? The old lady is looking less and
less attractive as the distance shortens.
I guess the angel wings do not appear for awhile. My tattoos are gone. The Chinese symbol was a dark blue, and it
covered one side of my chest completely.
My Gemini tattoo on my lower left forearm exists no longer. I look back up from where my tattoo was to
the saturating odor of death. The
stranger is standing in front of me. The
cold chill of death creeps up my spine.
The stranger is black and rotten looking. Purplish–brown liquid spews from her mouth
when she speaks to me. Her hair is now
bright red and flaming. Her voice
rattles my cold spine with every word.
The language she speaks is incomprehensible. What language is it? The white ground beneath me is suddenly an
open grave filled with rotten corpses. I
sense deep in my heart that these are my wheel-pissers that were first-hand
witnesses to the deed. I sense the
rotten blood-spitting, flaming-haired, grandma from hell, is just that—my
great-great-great grandmother. She was
the wife of my belly-dancing ancestor.
Why don’t I know anything about her?
The rotten looking flaming haired woman, who is an ancestor, continues
to point at the grave and spit death in liquid form. I hear a woman’s soothing voice say Gregory Oxford Davis Oxford Davis
C H A P ter 3
( three )
“So what do you think so far?” I ask.
“What a wonderful beginning, it is like a movie!” says a
regular customer to the coffee shop.
“Well, it is what I want to do one day—make movies.
. .”, I say as I hand a triple mocha breve latte to the outstretched hand of a
customer, whose name has slipped my mind.
I am really bad with names and I am too embarrassed to ask.
When I see someone
read my work and have a noticeable reaction, whether it is positive or
negative, I feel high. It is the
cheapest drug around. It is an escape
from what most people call reality. I think
life has not even begun. Reality is a
delusional concept that was man-made to keep the human race subservient. I am a barista by day and a self-indulged
narcissist at night. I am a master at
the art of espresso drink making. I have
seduced women with my caffeinated concoctions.
I do not drink alcohol, nor do I frequent the bar. My only social venue is the coffee shop in
which I am a slave to. Sometimes toward
the evening hours it becomes slow-paced.
I turn some Augustus Pablo reggae on the house speakers and head to the
back to smoke a bowl. It is my only
vice. I quit booze, cocaine, pills, and
whatever else there is that does not involve needles. After the puff-puff, I medicate my bleeding
eyes with some Visine. I turn the hot
water on and throw it on my face. I wash
my mouth out as well. I feel much
better, and I am ready for a few more hours of work. I walk out to the front. I am a little too stoned. I hope that it does not get busy.
An adrenaline rush shoots through my body as I watch who
slides inside the coffee shop. It is
“Crazy Mimi”. This girl is sexy and
trashy at the same time. She has the
flattest midriff I have ever seen, and she loves to show it off. She has on shorts, which look like two pieces
of denim dental floss tied in a knot.
She has legs that go up to the ceiling.
Her hair is a long wavy mess. Her
teeth have a tinge of green in them, but her face is beautiful. She loves to manipulate men with her
pussy. She looks right through me and
walks behind the counter where I stand.
“Can I have an avocado?” she asks in a childish voice.
This chick loves the avocado. I cut one in half and remove the ping-pong
ball size pit. She likes to have me fill
the void where the pit was with lemon juice.
I cannot wait until she is done with her beloved fruit, so that I can
fill another void for her.
Mimi quickly engulfs the avocado and then asks for a cup of
French-Sumatra house coffee.
“How about a kiss, first”, I say, trembling with
excitement.
She licks her lips and grabs my hips. She pulls me close as our tongues become
entangled. Her dirty hands slide
underneath my untucked T-shirt, and rub my chest. I flex my chest as both of her filthy hands
pinch my nipples. I am flush. I am about to slide my hands under her shirt
when the coffee shop phone rings. I let
the phone ring one time as I unzip Mimi’s dental floss shorts, instead. She pushes her mouth against mine even
harder. It almost hurts, but her soft
lips make it tolerable. A second ring is
heard as I begin to slide my hand between her shorts and her bare skin. Mimi does not wear underwear. Her skin is hot and moist as my hand goes
lower between her legs. The phone rings
a third time and I push Mimi away to pick up the phone.
II
As I say hello,
Crazy Mimi comes closer again and begins to rub my chest. I recognize the voice on the other line, but
the tone is unfamiliar to me. It is my
Dad but his voice is monotone. I have
not heard his voice sound like this since I wrecked my car into the neighbor’s
garage. It was “dollar pitchers nite” at
the local shit-hole and I still spent forty dollars. It was seven in the morning and I was still
passed out in my demolished car. My Dad
was leaving for work when he noticed, what used to be a nice Volkswagen
Sirocco, embedded in the neighbor’s garage door and I was passed out in the
back seat. The way my Dad’s voice crept
up my spine with every scolding word left a lasting impression. This time the voice on the phone is
worse. I hope my younger brother is
alright. He is in the Army and is
currently in Iraq
“It is not good news. . .he was killed today in Iraq
I say nothing. I
feel nothing. I am nothing. I hang up the phone.
I push what’s her name out the door and lock up everything. I turn off the lights and fall to my
knees. The emotional river of confusion
and uncertainty opens its dam and I burst into tears. I do not cry, often, nor do I like other
people to see me cry. I think it shows
weakness and lack of self control. I do
not care about my theories on machismo at this point, I cry for my brother’s
soul. The pain worsens with every
sobbing yelp that I choke on. My brother
is gone. He died in an unfamiliar
place. Up until his death, he dealt with
many near death experiences. He would
always manage to call Dad at least once a week.
It was a scary place to be—death was everywhere. My brother’s unit was always being ambushed
by crazy radicals who did not give a shit about life or death. One more day gone by, meant one more day
closer to leaving that chill of death that swept through the hot desert air of Iraq
I refuse to let that word bring me down—death. My mind wants to think of the future that
will not be with my brother. That
fucking five letter word, death, wants to keep me from becoming a better
person.
Who the hell am I to think that my brother is not happy
where he is now. He is hanging out right
now with my great-grandparents, and my beloved uncle. They are watching me. Everyone important to me, who is no longer
part of this brief existence, is cheering me on to make the most of what got
taken away from them. They are all
cheering. I must make every one of them
proud of whom I am and will become. I
cherish my memories and the time spent with my bro, but I refuse to think about
the future without him. Instead I think
of the future I will make for myself, because of him. I frame a picture of my bro in his Class A
military uniform. The framed picture
sweetens my soul.
III
I must keep busy. If
I give myself any time to daydream I become filled with visions of my
brother. I think about when he was six,
and the little guy doing chin-ups. He
took Kung-fu classes when he was young, also.
I used to watch sometimes. I was
always amazed at how such a little person could remember so many intricate
movements. I was eleven years older than
my brother. I used to change his
diapers. I showed him how to play
basketball. We made basketball videos,
along with my even younger second brother.
All three of us would wrestle for hours.
One of my brothers would always get hurt and end up crying. That is how we knew when it was time to stop. I was much older, so I always got on my knees
when we would “Kung-fu it up”. I must
continue to write my story. I have
dreams and aspirations of becoming a screenwriter. My brother is one of my inspirations. I will not let his untimely demise be an excuse
for my shortcomings. I am still on this
spherical concept of reality and nothing will bring me down. Destroy Every Arrogant Thought
Hastily. My wheel-pisser is
death. When it comes, I will be to busy
lookin’ good, just like my bro who died with his battle dress uniform on, and
Kevlar vest, helmet, eye goggles, and a big-ass machine gun in front of him.
The
newspaper article reads, “Local Soldier Killed”. I cross out the word “Killed” and replace it
with “Lives 4-ever”. I hold back my
tears for another day, and focus on my screenplay.
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