Ch. 11
So me, my funky dj friend ISH FISH, and this dude named DAN DAN who freestyles and plays the uke, were all going to my house to jam. I didn’t really know DAN DAN, but me and Ishy go way back. Shit there was this one time I was tripping balls and Ishy was dabbing out and I swear he looked like a black Buddha mix with Malcolm X floating on a cloud. It fit him pretty well. Ishy was a prophetic dude. Not I guess in any profound way, but more so like a prophet of chillness. A sultan of swag if you will. Well we were jamming and things, I don’t know, just felt like they were turning around for I… I mean me. Things seemed more lucid these days with lucy. Less pixelated. Me and Ishy were in the car waiting for this guy DAN DAN to get his uke. He was a hipster fellow at about the age of 22. He had a frazzley underdeveloped beard and pretty decent taste in music. I liked him well enough. ISH FISH on the other hand was one hell of a big black groovy fellow. He DJed a lot for our frat parties and he was freshmen buddies with JoJo, so that's how I first met his crazy ass. Hey Ishy what’s taking this mother fucker so long, I says to him. I don’t know my brother how long has it been he, says to me. I don’t know, I says. Like 10-12 mins. Ya man I thought he was just going to be a second, but maybe he needed to wank it or something, he says to me with a sinister chuckle. He just needed to what, I boomed in a laugh of a response. You know beat his meat brother Ishy replied. I knew what you meant Ishy, but why the hell would he tell us he’s just going to grab his uke and then just randomly start wanking it, I asks still laughing. And that was when Ish sat up a little more straight, and slowly turned his gaze out the window. I don’t know man… Dan Dan has always had something wrong with him. Something he doesn’t like to talk about. What the fuck are you trying to tell me Ishy, I asks him. He paused for a moment still looking out the window. I’m just fucking with you brother I don’t know where I was going with that, he says again with that sinister little laugh of his. God damn Ishy I thought you were about to get way too real with me there for a second, I says to him with an air of relief in my tone. I know I got that lil white ass of yours for a sec didn’t I, he says to me. What the fuck did you just say, I asks. Nothing brother. Nothing he remarks rather quickly. Just honk the fucking horn I guess. See if that hurries his ass up he continues.
So with a stroke of fate I honk the horn and out comes Dan Dan in a rush. Sorry guys my girlfriend called me I ended up having to wank it for a sec, he said in all seriousness. God damn, Ishy says, with the smoothest of tones. God Damn, he says again. I swear I laughed the whole way home with tears in my mother fucking eyes. What’s a matter with you, Chancey asks me as we pull up. I just laughed so hard I think I busted my taint. What the fuck did you just say, he says to me. My taint it hurts, I says. Ya the man’s taint hurts. Give the motherfucker some room, Ishy barks jokingly. What the fuck, says Chancey. What the fuck.
I was on the edge of the road. The car was rumbling now. I had not yet hit gravel, but was coasting on the border of insane clarity and those fucking rivets that wake you the fuck up when you pass out driving. What had I just done? What had I just attempted to do? Was it a darker image of me? Was I the shaded one or merely one to cast my gaze upon its actions? For I think, but do not see. I believe, but do not act. I think of my own demise driving down this road. I believe myself to fail. I see not my own beauty I says to myself swerving left to right.. And I lash out in fierce acts upon my own flesh and blood. I cannibalize my worth sake for sake of my own deprecation. Devour I do the loveliness that is a human being filled with the tragic joy that is his livelihood. Devour I do my own joy. How fucking sick is that, I scream for no one to hear. How do you think that fucking feels God? How the fuck do you think I feel right now, I yell voice now raspy. It’s fucking numbing agony is what it is, I whisper. For I seek my own life here in this present hour. But a jerk to left might do it. But a jerk to the right would definitely put an end to such vile yet subtle reflections. I was going 75 mph. Ya that should do it. Fuck. I’m not going to do it. I can’t go this way. Life is given conditionally, but is unconditionally taken away. Tragedy? Redemption? Salvation or Perdition? What will your death mean? What would mine mean if it just ended now? Wrapped around a tree with but some poor smuck behind me to find my fucked up corpse. Shit, with my luck I’d survive and live out my death in a wheelchair to boot. WHAT WILL YOUR DEATH MEAN?????????? Will you be a hero of your tale or the fucking douchebag villain? Will you be king or caretaker? Friend or Foe? Will you glide over cherry lit clouds or plummet into hell? Who are you? Who do you claim to be? What depravity do you seek? But who am I to ask this of you when I myself dare not tread on said gruesome paths? For I am a hypocrite. This I know too truly of myself. I present… I ask that of others I dare not do myself. I ask that they might ask the questions I fear the most.
In my sight I beg for blindness. He who hath seen the face of God died not from God’s utter magnanimity, but died by his own hand. Suicide is all there is for one who beholds the divinity of divinities. Suicide for nothing ever could be seen magnanimous again. What else could ever compare? What would there be besides a fading memory of the incomprehensible? This must be why God hides from us. Why Moses but saw the undertow of divine spirit’s passing for his face would have brought this poor jew but Abraham’s knife. This is why he lets us die. All things must fade if they are ever to be held as brilliant... even if it is for a moment. For to see the eternal glory is to forever shatter your world to and for the beautiful. What could ever hold meaning again? Who could ever retain their own self in such a state as this? Where is there room for man in the seas of eternity if he not make room for his own stay? What be he who is capable of such things? What but God’s passing shadow, his flickers of love give man his meaning unless he is but to wander into darker spaces... Where the grass whistles silent amongst the brush and the wind howls from caverns that bellow below.
Living here in this townhouse is an interesting affair. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a piece of shit. So in short, proper college housing. The hot water went out constantly. Even when I did manage to pay the gas bill the shit would still sporadically switch to arctic drops. And you know that fucking shit you see in the movies when some jackass flushes the toilet to fluctuate the temp on some poor bastard, well ya that… well that didn’t happen at our place, but the sentiment was shared to some extent. The shower sounded like dancing boots from the living room as water pounded the fuck out of the bathtub above. I wonder how close that fucker is to the thin plaster that lay below it and right above my fucking head. Talk about irony. Diagnosed with cancer dies by bathtub busting through the fucking roof on top of his fucking head. That’s why i’ll never quit smoking… have I already told you about this? Fuck it if I have or have not you’re gunna fucking hear now.
Talk about true irony. If I quit smoking I swear to god I’m gunna get hit by a bus or something. Irony. Irony. Irony. O’ how you like to fuck me in the asshole prison fucking gang rape style… that was a little too far. I have a tendency to toe the line… well more like pole vault over it. Like that time I got kicked out of a bath and body works for calling my buddy Matt a cunt next to some old couple. They didn’t take to kindly to it, but hell I didn’t fucking see them standing there. They should have known better for fucksake. But back to the apartment. It was well worn. Ya know my belongings. All hammy downs naturally. It’s a true college affair when the newest thing one posses is his target bought futon and a foot stool. there wasn’t much room in this place for anything more new than that. Wanna smoke, Bobby asks me as I awoken from my own thoughts. Ya sure, I says to him. God Dammit, I says in utter annoyance. What, he asks me. I’m out of goddamn cigs again. I swear to god I had half a pack when I went to bed, I says all pissed off like. Chill man I got you, he says to me. Thanks bro, I reply. Good ole Bobby always having my back when I need him.
As we make our way out the front door Chancey appeared out of the late night fog that was rustling in from the top of the stairs. Back from work already, I asks him. What do you mean already fucker, it’s 4 in the goddamn morning, he says to me, laughing his regular Chancey laugh. 4 in the morning, I says back to him, with an air of suspicion as I quickly pull out my phone. Well hot damn you’re right, I says. God damn I need to get my sleep schedule on straight. Ain’t that the truth, Bobby chimed in. Want to smoke a bowl, Chancey asks, already expecting the answer. Ya sure, I says. You down, Bobby I asks. Fuck that shit, Bobby says in all seriousness. I didn’t think so, I says to him. I didn’t think so one bit, I says with a chuckle.
See Bobby has never had much luck with the ganj. It seems every time he’s ever smoked the shit he either gets the spins of terror or he ends up puking on my front porch, with the former usually leading to the latter. So little to say, he’s not much a fan of the ole smokeroo as far as pot is concerned. Well I guess I’ll get the festivities started for us, Chancey says to me, as he goes into pack da bowl. Alright bud I’ll be in in a sec, I says to him. As Chancey exits into the house I flick my cig and make my way to the door when Bobby grabs me by the arm. What the fuck man, I says to him as he rolls up my sleeve. What the fuck are those, he asks me with a tonal mixture of concern and anger. Uhh I mumble trying to find some way to explain away the two fresh gashes on my arm. Uhh what, he asks. It's just been a rough couple of weeks, I says as I roll back down my sleeve. A rough couple of weeks huh, he asks. Please don’t tell Mom and Dad man, I says pretty pathetically. What am I supposed to do dude, he asks me in all sincerity. I don’t know, I says as I look down. I don’t know. Bud why, he asks, as the initial anger eased naturally into brotherly concern. Why in the world do you do this to yourself. I don’t know, I says in the blankest of tones. Look I can tell them or you can, he says to me, returning to a more stern vocality. The choice is yours. Would you just fucking drop it Bobby! You fucking know I’m doing this. You fucking know, I practically yell at him. So just fucking drop it. After that he didn’t say anything. He just walked away.
I shouldn’t have yelled at him like that. There are few people in this world that care about me as much as Bobby does, and even fewer that would confront me like he did. Part of me resented him for that and part of me felt relieved. I knew he would tell Mom and Dad for which I would both hate and thank him. I should have called for him before he finally left out of sight. I should have apologized, but that required more than I was able to give at this moment. So inside I went. To smoke away all that pain and anguish that seeped inside me. Away. Away. From the rotting body and decaying soul that were dying inside of me. Away. Away. From my despair of being me.
I’m dying. Well no fucking shit I’m dying. I’ve said this over and over as if something might change. That I might at least gain something by saying it. That repetition might save me and I may be rescued from my own fate. Kierkegaard has a lot to say about repetition, but I don’t know if I have time to get into that right now, nor am I sure how exactly it would apply. Hell I don’t even know why I am bringing it up at the moment. Maybe to flaunt my unrecognized intellect, or something along those fucking lines. Egotism lingering even in my most intimate thoughts. What I’m trying to say, I guess, is that no one chooses to have cancer. No one chooses to die. Fuck why would they. Maybe that’s why we as a species developed hope, or maybe it’s one of God’s gifts to us to keep us from killing ourselves and getting the whole shebackel over with. Dying on our terms. That’s something not even the universe can steal away from us if we take advantage of it early enough. Not that I’m advising fucking offing yourself or anything. Just a thought I ponder on sometimes like the stoics of times past. No, dying is but the being into which we are thrown. And thrown we are into the chasms of our own finitude… chasms… chasms… chasms of darken light.
I have an itch. One that only a cuban hooker could get at in a Tijuana whore fucking house, I says to Clefus. God damn. What were we talking about. Well we were talking about my prostate in general I guess, and how I was getting fucked by a cuban hooker in Tijuana with a strapon to fix the whole ordeal. Clefus and Chancey were on the futon losing their shit as a haze of smoke and the dim light of embers filled the room. Please be disturbed. I mean seriously please. We are disturbing fucking people. I mean fucking seriously feel free. Someone ought to. But that someone wasn’t fucking us. We relish in the moments we felt in one another’s terribly offensive presence. We knew we were loved by one another and that made us free. Free to do what we pleased and say whatever the fuck we felt like saying. We were beyond shame for we were the shameless. The shameless ones, regretful of nothing and we fucking loved every second of being so. Their we were sitting, those people I loved and myself. There we were. There sitting. Sitting and watching. Profaning against the gods.
I have trouble participating these days, as I so often sit in the corner trying to grasp it all in ink as if telling my story might give me some solace in my fate’s fulfillment. For my life is but a story, and to my utter dismay I can not capture it all on paper. It is a curse and o’ such a blessing to see the narratives of men flow before your eyes, but the pen is feeble to make of men what they truly are. It distorts them. Blurs their hearts and forgets their names. Most tragically, whatever beauties I may stir in ink but pale in comparison to the magnanimity that is my friends. My disturbing ass friends. They are beautiful and make me feel like I am too. Shut the fuck up, Clefus I says. I’m not gunna actually call a fucking hooker you sick piece of shit. God I loved that fucker. His name maybe Clefus Cratt, but his true identity is divided, quite equally, into those two names of his. Sober he is the loveable first name Clefus, but when even the slightest bit drunk out comes the unpredictable, coke loving wildman Cratt. And O’ how drunk and stoned he was right now. Reason was beyond him in moments like this. Not that he didn’t recognize its existence and due soundness, but it was beyond his will, for he was truly a creature of rampant desire to which he more than joyfully submitted to with a devilish smile upon him.
Hey buddddddy, he sings in my direction. What the fuck do you want Cratt, I say with all curiousity. I’ve got some drugs for you, he continues to sing. What kind of drugs, I sing along with him. My favorite kind of drugs, Cratt says with immense joy. O’ God Dammit Cratt, I says. Why the fuck do you waste your money on coke all the time when you fucking know you can get addy for like a quarter of the price in bulk I asks him. Because buddy you just don’t understand what coke is all about, he says to me. O’ please enlighten me, I says to him. See bud you’re absolutely 100 % right, coke is way over priced, he snarks in my direction kinda playfully like. Ok, I says to him, waiting for the kicker. But it’s not about doing the coke ya see, he says to me. Ok now you’ve lost me, I says. Bud it’s really not that hard, he says to me. See not only is this shit expensive, but it doesn’t last that long either. I know this Cratt, get to the fucking point will ya, I says, a little agitated. Fine, fine I’ll stop stringing ya along. Ok the shits expensive. Check. It don’t last that long, which makes it even more expensive if you want to party for a while. Check. Got it, he says, kinda twitchy. No fucker I really don’t, laughing with confusion at this point. Its this simple bud, he says to me, finally gaining some semblance of mental fluidity. Dude were at Miami. Coke isn’t about doing coke it’s about how you do it, and the fact that you can afford to do it without the slightest air of personal consequence.
So being a classist asshole is the real high you get off on huh, I says to him. Exactly, he smirks. Exactly, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you the whole time. God damn Cratt you’re a piece of fucking work, I says to him, as condescending as possible. That I am bud, he says to me, as he pulls out a crisp 100 dollar bill and begins to roll it up into a nice tight snooter. That I fucking am, he says, one last time before railing the line he had laid out before the two of us. Fuck me mother fucker fuck me good and fucking hard, he yelled, as he pointed his nose to the ceiling as if look on high towards the divine. God damn that good huh, I asks him. That mother fucking good, he yells, as he jumps up and starts to dance around like Muhammad Ali or some shit. You down, he asks, as he assumingly lays me out a line. Ehh sure I guess, but not for all that bullshit you just spouted my way, I says to him as he passes me the hundo. I really don’t like coke, as I said earlier, but to be honest I was out of addy and kinda starting to get the itch for something to numb the old death throes. Fuck it man let's do some drugs TONIGHT, I sing triumphantly! As I slowly lower my head, snooter perfectly placed on my right nostril, I acquire a semblance of concern for myself and what I was about to do… WELLL FUCKKKK that went away quick, as the sugary powder ascended up my nose. FUCKKKKK, I yell. FUCK, I yell. Let’s go fuck some bitches Cratt, you crazy motherfucker, I says to him. I guess coke really brings out the chauvinistic pig in me, I silently thought to myself. He bust out laughing. That’s my boy. That’s my boy. Let’s go… I says, as I begin to stutter with absolute energy of the gods. Lets go fucking do something, I yell. Alright, alright buddy, he says to me. I’ve got just the idea. What’s that, I asks him, catching my whits a little. O’ you’ll see, he says to me. O’ you’ll see.
Get in the car you fuck, Cratt says to me, as we make our way to my sexy little fiesta. Alright Alright, I says, to the little coked out asian I called friend as we came ever closer to the doors of my car. Little did I know how epic it was about to get. Well at least as epic as anything seems when you just shoved drugs responsible for someone’s death up your nose holes. I don’t know if it was God or Satan responsible for this, but as we both got our asses into that car, and I began to crank the keys forward in the ignition, a song of titanic proportion came on. Free for all was playing by the legendary but overly conservative Ted Nugent. As the jamming of the motor city madman penetrated my throbbing skull I slammed on the gas… well as much as that’ll get you in a fucking fiesta, but hell at least it wasn’t a prius. Anyway I digress, so we were off. Me and Clefus were now, in this moment, driving up to KIA, the bar Cratt works at and that I had previous done a stent as a bitch boy in their employment.
Anyway, I digress again. We arrived, and let me tell you CLUB WAS ROLLING UP ON A TUESDAY... wait, I think it is actually Monday. Whatever, the point still stands. We may have been one of few people in there, given it was 9 PM on a Monday, but hell we were high as mother fucking kites as far as we and trimmering arms were concerned. We finished up our first round… well rounds of shots and naturally moved to the bathroom to keep our little nose party in action. What the fuck, we hear behind us, as Chancey slumps his way over to us. God man you look like shit, I says to him. Why the fuck does Stewy have you working right now anyway, I asks. Besides me and Clefus, there is like 4 and a half other people in this fucking joint. Dude you act like I get a say in this shit, he says to me. Stewy is not even working tonight because he’s going out with you fuckers, he says to us with a sigh. Well bud I’ve been right where you’re standing and I’ll be frank with your ass… you ain’t getting out of this one, Clefus says to Chancey. Fuck, Chacey says. The hard truth is that while we’re out having the time of our lives you are going to be stuck here by yourself, he says with a cruel chuckle. Well fuck you Clefus, Chancey says, almost too tired to muster any plausible amount of anger.
Well wait, wait, my dear friend Clefus pronounces in Chancey’s general direction. Though you are fucked and cannot join on yonder night’s adventures it does not necessarily mean you have to feel fucked, but instead it would be my distinct honor to give you your official right of passage for working at this fine establishment. I don’t know why the fuck he’s talking like that buddy, but he’s right, I says to him. What, haven’t you been working here for like 2 weeks now, I asks him. Ya, Chancey says to us. But I don’t have a fucking clue what you are… o shit did you guys get fucking coke tonight, he says with the most worried grin. I can’t, he says. Why not, I asks him. My first week here I did some coke we found in the bar while riding the elevator up from a trash run. Seriously, he asks me, half shocked. Ya man, welcome to the inner life of KIA, I says to him. Ya, Cratt does blow in the back room all the time, on and off the clock, I says to him with a laugh. And the Bossman is ok with this, he asks. Me and Cratt simultaneously look at one another and bust out in a riot of laughter. No fucking way, we says to him. But you do it anyway, he asks. Do you fucking know us, Cratt asks, completely confused and almost half insulted. I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation right now, he barks. Get your ass in the fucking bathroom and do these drugs like a goddamn adult now would ya. Well I’m glad we have that settled, I says, as me and Cratt make our way to the bathroom. Goddammit you two are going to get me fired, Chancey says, as he airs his last grievances before he submits to the rite of the coco. Ah I’ve been fired like 3 times already and I’m still here, Cratt says. The man has a point, I says to Chancey. The man has a point, I says again. Goddammit, Chancey says one last time. Goddamn right, Cratt says, with a coked out joy unknown to the normal sane minds that surrounded us in this here bar.