SOC #25: Black Tequila

I was having a conversation with one of my current co-workers the other night and this memory popped into my head from my Santa Barbara days. It was a Sunday, my roommate and I went to a barbecue at his cousin's apartment. As soon as we walked into the place, and speaking in Spanish, he introduced me to his cousin's family. His aunt shook my hand and immediately handed me a beer from a nearly empty 24 pack box. On the kitchen counter behind her there were two more full boxes. My roommate said, "She said if you want another, don't be shy." I noticed his aunt had a black tear tattoo on her left cheek, indication of a rough childhood, but these days I could tell she was in high spirits and enjoying life the best she could. We made our way to the porch where my roommate began grilling a steak for the both of us. As he was heating up the meat we both smoked a joint, having a good time, the beer tasting better the more I toked. The family inside were chattering in Spanish and having a good time. Not even 20 minutes of sitting, smoking, barbecuing, and drinking on the porch did we begin to hear women crying from inside the apartment. I asked, "The fuck they crying about?" My roommate simply replied, "Memories." I said, "Good ones, I hope." My roommate said, "All memories are good because they are in the past." I said, "Good point. Never thought of it that way. Most of the time for me the past is a thorn in my brain, a persistent migraine that not even drugs can numb." My roommate suggested, "You should just change the way you think by changing the way you do things. You seem to be stuck in a routine. Maybe you should change things up." I said, "It was worse when I was back home. Pissing in the bathroom even had a fucking schedule. Same exact time every fucking day." My roommate inquired, "How about shitting?" I chuckled and was about to say something when an empty bottle of expensive tequila shot out of the open sliding-glass door, shattering to pieces against the porch fence. A woman inside wailed from the kitchen, spouting words in Spanish faster than a machine gun as she cried. From what I could discern from my extremely limited Spanish vocabulary, the woman was saying things like: "Why?!" and "Why, God, you Bastard?!" There was the sound of the kitchen table being pushed around while the other women tried to hold her still and calm her down. The struggling made it's way outside to the porch. It was my roommates aunt trying to push other female members of her family off her. The ladies tried to pull her back inside when my roommates aunt suddenly unveiled a switchblade from her jacket pocket, waving it at her siblings, then putting it up to her throat. I asked aloud, "Is this really happening?" I turned my attention to my roommate standing at the grill, flipping the steak, his back to the drama. Without looking at me, he said, "Memories. Just memories. Someone died, someone else was raped, blah, blah." By the time I looked back over to the ladies they had somehow got the knife away from his aunt, and took her back inside. I said to my roommate, "Did that just happen, man?" My roommate replied, "She gets like that when she drinks tequila." I wondered, "How many shots of tequila does it take to put a knife to your own throat? 'Tis the question." My roommate said, "She wasn't doing shots. They all were drinking full cups of it." Astonished, I said, "Fucking memories."

The Orange Bridge

            "I stared into the Abyss, and like Nietzsche said, it stared back. Not only did it

             simply look upon my form, it spoke to me."

                                                             - Elmore Patric, Words of Wisdom 

    SMASH! Shatter. 

    The sound of Elmore's aluminum baseball-bat breaking his car window reverberated throughout the three-story parking garage. If there was anyone around, they would have panicked, and called the Transit Rail police. Luckily for Elmore the place was empty at that moment while he continued to walk around his car and pound dents into the doors, hood, and the trunk. Why was he doing this? It was the end of the line for him. The rock bottom of his depression had crushed his soul. His plan was to take the Transit to the city, walk to that fucking infamous orange bridge, and jump off. So far that year there had been nine suicides on that bridge. He wanted to be number ten.
    It had been two weeks since his girlfriend Claire dumped him after admitting she had cheated on him with an older man. Elmore forgave her, and offered her a second chance because he loved her too much, but she preferred the lifestyle of a money-grubbing slut. He had given her his soul for the past seven years, and she tossed it aside like a dirty rag.
    "Cunt!" Elmore yelled as he delivered one last swing with the bat into the passenger window, the glass shattering into the car. He then dropped the aluminum bat onto the pavement before walking to the stairwell, made his way to the platform, and waited for the train.
    Sitting on a bench, nothing was on his mind but that damn bridge. He thought about how windy it was going to be, if a strong gust of wind could sweep in, somehow cushioning his fall to prevent the smack on the surface of the water from killing him. He hoped not. On a documentary he once watched about the suicides on the orange bridge, a young man, about Elmore's age had survived the fall by changing his mind in mid-fall, adjusting his body so he'd land on his feet. His back broke of course, preventing him from swimming, but as the young man was about to sink a Sea Lion swam around his limp body, keeping him afloat. Though it was the Sea Lion that kept him from dying, the young man said it was God that saved him.
    Fucking dumb bastard, Elmore had thought, a fucking living thing saves your life, and you give credit to something that's not REAL!
    Elmore thought to himself on the Transit platform that if he somehow was still alive after the fall, and a Sea Lion came to his aide, he'd break it's fucking neck with his bare hands.
    The train arrived at the station.
    One year later when Elmore tried to think about that day of his failed attempt at suicide, he realized he couldn't remember the train ride to the Market Street station, walking on the sidewalk, or lighting a cigarette. But what he does remember is when he was about to finish the cigarette he saw the sign outside Tony's Italian Restaurant, decided to have one last meal before his death, and get drunk to feel good about it.
    A sexy blond hostess wearing a white shirt and black slacks stood behind a glossy wood podium, giving a bright, friendly smile to Elmore's stoic face.
    "Good evening, sir," she greeted. "Welcome to Tony's. How many in your party?"
    "Just me," Elmore said, holding up one finger, pointing at himself. "Is it too early for dinner?"
    "We've just started serving it, sir. Follow me, please." The hostess held the menu as she led Elmore through the restaurant to a booth with high partitions.
    Elmore sat down, immediately feeling relief from the near total privacy the spot permitted.
    "Wow," Elmore said. "This is really nice." He almost bared a smile.
    "We strive to make our customers feel the best," the hostess said, placing the menu on the table before Elmore. "Your waiter will be with you shortly."
    Looking through the menu, Elmore scoffed at the pretentiousness of the restaurant industry and their one page menus. He searched for a plate that had the simplest wording, and found it. It made more sense to him than someone giving the middle-finger. He then looked at the wine selection and searched for the most expensive bottle. Being it was his last hours amongst the living, he was going all out
    "Hello, sir," a girl said. "My name is Lilian. I'll be your waitress."
    "I'll start with your most expensive bottle of wine," Elmore said, still looking at the wine menu. "The ce-cedad- the one that costs a hundred-thirty."
    "Is your name Elmore?" the waitress asked. "Elmore Patric?"
    "Yes, that's me," Elmore said, still browsing the list of wines. "Maybe I'll have the Coppola. I heard it's shit, but at least I can pronounce it."
    "I'm Lilian Palmer," the waitress said. "I use to be your neighbor. I lived around the corner. Well, I just recently moved back home."
    Elmore finally looked up at her, and a slow breeze of recognition came over him; it had been years since he had seen her. She was all grown up, with long dirty-blond hair in a pony-tail, thin, fit, and tall. And a nice rack to boot. She wore a black shirt and black slacks.
    "Whoa," Elmore uttered. "The last time I saw you you had a mohawk. You've really changed."
    "Yeah, one of those teenage phases that fade once you make it passed the threshold into your twenties. I see you haven't changed much. You still got the same hair style."
    "I'm not one for trends, I guess," Elmore said, running a hand through his hair. "So why'd you move back home? You finish college?"
    "I never went to college. I moved in with a guy, and-" Lilian squinted her eyes, a little too personal for her to explain to a near stranger. She simply said, "It's a long story."
    "You're right," Elmore said, putting a hand up, "none of my business. My girl just left me, and all I got to say about it-" Elmore stopped himself in a minor fit of rage, then almost under his breath, he said, "Fucking-whore-bitch."
    Lilian smiled and laughed, nodding her head.
    "Sorry about that," Elmore said. "You must understand, it's very emotional for men."
    "It's okay, Elmore. So you want the Ca' del Baio Barbaresco Valgrande bottle? Good choice."
    "Is that how you say it?" Elmore said. "Damn, I was way off. Yes. And to eat I'll have the meal on the menu that begins with the words: 'Full Belly Farm Melon.'"
    "A lot of the unsophisticated order that all the time," Lilian said, raising her brow.
    "Well, I'm no sophisticated fool. And Lilian, for your honesty, I'll overtip."
    She giggled, then said, "I'll be right back with your bottle of wine, Elmore."
    This chance meeting with Lilian Palmer set in motion a change of attitude in Elmore. It wasn't the excellent food, nor was it the inebriation of the superb wine. Much like that young man that survived the fall from the orange bridge, Elmore was going to give living a life one more shot.
    He was surprised Lilian decided to serve him when she could have asked someone else as a favor to take her place. Like most of his neighbors, the Palmer family avoided talking to him after his episode three years earlier when he suffered a mental breakdown, walking around the neighborhood with his shirt off, knocking on front doors, trying to find out who was delivering him to his destiny. The event caused neighborhood gossip in which people feared Elmore was going to shoot them, or break in their homes and rape them. The event embarrassed Elmore so much he became a drunk, which of course led his girlfriend Claire to slowly distance herself from him so she'd find an old fart with lots of money to fuck.
    Elmore couldn't keep his eyes off Lilian as he drank and ate. An overwhelming sensation of faith poured over him, like the first breath of fresh air for a man buried alive climbing out of his grave. Lilian eventually did notice him staring at her, and when their eyes met from across the restaurant she met his gaze with a smile and a flick of her brow.
    If there was a God, Elmore thought, it would not be a thing, but a moment that would save a life.
    Lilian made her way to Elmore's booth with the check folder.
    The moment arrived. Elmore did not care for the consequence, good or bad.
    "Will there be anything else, Elmore? Dessert maybe?" Lilian asked, placing the check folder on the table.
    "No dessert," Elmore replied. "But I would like your phone number."
    Lilian grinned, leaned forward, and opened the check folder. Elmore looked down and saw a phone number written down on a separate sheet of receipt paper.
    "It's right there," she said softly. "I get off at nine-thirty. Will you still be around?"
    Elmore nodded, Yes.
    "Text me your number. There's a bar on Broadway called: Score Sports Bar. We can have some drinks, catch up. Sound cool, Elmore?"
    "Yes, very cool," Elmore said, picking up the check folder.
    Elmore Patric never made it to the orange bridge. He had totally forgotten about it until a year later when two Detectives knocked on the front door.
 
    

SOC #24: Night at the decrepit Hangover Hotel

"Abandon sobriety those who enter," was written on the wall in purple spray paint as we entered the stairwell from outside the abandoned hotel. With me was Josh and three of his friends: Ken, Mark, and Anthony. I held a flashlight and an eighteen pack of Lagunitas. Ken had two pizzas. Mark and Anthony held six packs of IPA's in each arm. I howled, "Any vacancies!" My voice echoed up the stairwell and all about the hopefully empty hotel. There was no answer. Josh said there might be others with their own booze. He said, "Cool, we got the place to ourselves. Fuckin' better be that way the rest of the night." I asked, "Which floor you guys want to go to?" Mark replied, "Tip top, brotha. The Presidential suite." Ken said, "There ain't no fucking Presidential suite in this shit hotel. We're not in New York, man. The place is only three stories high." I settled it, "Third floor then." We made our way to the third floor. Some of the doors to the rooms were open, and the ones that were closed weren't locked. The place had been abandoned ten years earlier due to a financial downfall, so the condition of the place wasn't as decrepit as most people thought. It was just the smell of the fucking place that was nasty. It smelled of piss, shit, and hopefully not poisonous mold, all intermingling with each other in the dusty atmosphere. I found a room that was the least smelly, due to the fact it's window had been smashed by previous party goers. There was still furniture in the room. The only things missing was a television, a mattress for the bed, and lamps. I looked about the floor of the room with the flashlight and saw syringes, condom wrappers, used condoms, and some beer cans and beer bottles. I warned, "Watch out for needles and condoms, comrades." Ken said, "Shit. Thanks, man. I almost sat down." I shined the flashlight on the dilapidating carpets for them as all three of them kicked away the trash, making themselves a clearing for the fresh batch of beers. Luckily there were usable chairs still in the hotel for us to sit. I checked out the graffiti on the walls and found something that seemed out of place from the rest of the symbols. I said, "Hey, Josh, check it out." Opening a beer, he looked at what I shined the flashlight on. He said, "You don't usually see that in places like this. I mean, maybe a pentagram, but not Jesus on the cross." I said, "We picked the right room. Like seeing a shooting star explode in space." Anthony said, "What the fuck you blathering about, fool?" I turned to him, gesturing to the drawing of Jesus, saying, "It's a sign, Anthony. Go to church tomorrow. All of us must go to church, and confess our sins." Anthony gave me the finger, and said, "I got no fucking sins." I yelled in a faux-sermon, "Don't make sign of false idols in the presence of our Lord and Savior." I stopped the preaching tone. "Now give me a beer, please." Anthony tossed me a Lagunitas. I said, "Thank you, sir." I opened it, then held it up to Christ. "Here's to you. Thanks for dying." Later on, I think when I was on my sixth beer, we started a game of throwing Ken's pocket knife at the image of Jesus on the cross. If we weren't able to make it stick in the wall, or if we missed Jesus completely, we had to chug the rest of our beer. At one point while I was downing my beer, Anthony smacked me in the nuts, and to his disappointment, I still finished it without any spillage. He said, "Damn, fool." I said, "I can't feel my body, you idiot." We all laughed in unison. Later, in our drunken haze, we explored the hotel. As we made our way down each hall, looking into each room, Josh told us a tale of why the hotel was really closed down. He said, "It wasn't because the owner went bankrupt or some shit like that, there was a murder here. A woman was tortured and killed by a Witch in a room on the second floor. This floor." Ken said, "A fucking Witch?! It's the twenty-first century, man. There aren't witches these days, just bitches." Josh said, "No, I'm serious. The bitch practiced Satanic witchcraft. She got a prostitute from craigslist, one who plays on both teams, and performed something called 'The Blue Sacrifice.'" Mark said, "Yeah, I heard about it too. And I know which room it happened in. It's the one at the end of the hall, on the left. The Witch got caught because she got carried away and sloppy. A pool of blood formed at the bottom of the door. A guy was leaving his room and saw it, then called the cops." I said, "Bullshit." We arrived at the room Mark said the murder occurred. The door was closed. I shined the flashlight on the foot of the door, and there was a dark stain in the old carpet. Ken said, "Whoa. You were right, Josh." Anthony said, "Fuck this," and ran down the hallway. Mark told me, "Open it. Lets see if they left the body inside." I turned the door knob, but before I even pushed open the door, it was pulled from my grasp from the other side. A woman with long black hair, and wearing a blue dress jumped at us from the dark room, screaming, and reaching out for us. We took the fuck off down the hallway. I screamed, "The fuck, fuck, FUUUUCK!" I woke up. Sorry to disappoint, but that didn't happen. HA! HA! We simply got horribly drunk, and passed out. My head hurt as if it were being crushed, and a used condom was stuck on my cheek as I sat up on the floor. The sun shined through the broken window right on my face. I said aloud, "This is the last time I hang out with kids under twenty-one. Who's fucking idea was it to party at an abandoned hotel? I mean, what the fuck?" Josh, in his sleep, said, "Keep it down. Me sleep." He was curled up on the floor in the corner of the room. He turned over, and I saw a syringe stuck in his arm.

SOC #23: Manifestos suck.

I've only glanced over two manifestos written by criminals that have shot innocent people. The Los Angeles ex-cop who shot other cops, and that one kid who went on a rampage in Isla Vista where I once partied at 4 years ago. And dear God, how these people are boring writers. I mean, if they were willing to commit those tragedies, better leave things unsaid if they can't write worth shit. The first line of the Isla Vista shooter was, "It was on that day I took a breath of life." And that's all I could read. Toneless and as lively as a burnt puppet. I guess that is what these mass-shooters are, nothing more than mindless buffoons with nothing ahead of them in life, if there even was in the first place. People have asked me why my first novel was about such a subject matter such as I've just described. Someone years ago was afraid I'd carry out such an act as the narrator, Ronnie Filbert, did in the first chapter of the novel. Ignorant bitch. Anyway, I guess I'll tell those who want to know why I wrote it. It was the first story I imagined that was worth telling. There you go, that simple. And I'll tell you where it stemmed from. First I'll tell you that one of my favorite novels is American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. Stephen King said it was "bad fiction," but fuck him; he's a pussy for taking his novel Rage out of print. That's just my personal opinion when it comes to an author censoring his own work. The reason American Psycho is one of my favorite works of fiction is because of it's complete, total, and devout desire in honesty when it came to Patrick Bateman's narration of the murders he committed, the sex scenes, and the awkward, heavily detailed descriptions of the cloths he wore. When Ellis was interviewing real Wall Street guys during his research for the book, he realized how boring those fuckers were; all they seemed to talk about was what they bought with their money, so Ellis asked himself, "What if one of these guys was a serial killer?" And thus he created Patrick Bateman. Ellis' basis for writing the story of American Psycho was due to his disappointment of adults, how they lived, how they thought, and how the world was run and controlled by their weakness and greed. I don't think my book Rosemary and Despair comes close to American Psycho; it's not nearly as long, nor is it detailed in it's narration. I kept what Ronnie Filbert told the readers as simple and to the point as I could; I didn't want the dude to philosophize any of his ideas because he himself knew what he was doing was ultimately pointless and inane. Now I want to get into the conception of when I came up with the original story: it was when I was a sophomore in high school, I had this English teacher that no one liked because most kids in the classroom thought she was "weird." She wasn't a bad teacher, she did her job well enough, but due to her weird nature I guess, the students who didn't want to learn caused disruptions, interrupted her, and so on and so forth, to the point the vice principal called her stupid one day. "Wow," I thought. "Like the insane controlling the insane asylum." All I wanted to do was go to school, learn, then go the fuck home. It's so fucking simple. Due to this frustration, and my imagination running wild during that time, this scene popped into my head of a kid sitting quiet in the classroom while other asshole students argued with the teacher, tension building in the kid as he listened, annoyed, rubbing his thumb against his bottom lip. Then, BAM! He slams his hands on his desk over and over again as if it were gunfire. Right then and there, I decided my first story was going to be about a school shooting from the point-of-view of the shooter. The original title was simply "School Shooting." It took me nearly a year to come up with a title I liked, and once I did, the story of Ronnie's High School romance with Rosemary came immediately to fruition. It might not be an excellent novel, but I'm extremely proud of what I've accomplished. People have joked around with me, asking, "Hey, man, what's the title of your manifesto again?" I reply, "It's not a manifesto, fool. Manifestos fucking suck."