Tiny Dancer #1

The room is dark and you don’t remember how you got there. “Not again.” You think over your pounding head ache as your arms start to tremble. Scratch that, you’ve had head aches before and this was no head ache. This was Armageddon. This was a commet going off course just enough to land right ontop of you before destroying the entire planet. The taste of blood is still warm in your mouth even through you can feel it dried and cracking around your face. You must have spilled hot coffee on yourself because the skin on your pecks sting and your chest hare smells like vanilla late. In a panic you try to stand but you can’t because you’re legs have atrophy from not being used in such a long while. You move your hands across your chest and tears begin to form in the narrow corners of your eyes. Yes, the answer is yes you are wearing the bright burnt orange vest that your distant aunt had sent you for your birthday before this whole big ordeal took hold of you and spun so wildly out of control. What happened though, what started all of this madness. You swore off of it five years ago, and you hid the damned vest away, so what was it that brought it back out? The last thing you remember doing was lifting at the gym. Heavy lifting as always. You know this because you almost broke your own personal record. Also, you were having a bad day so you did an hour of cardio afterwords. Then what? Oh shit, that’s right. It’s all starting to come back. You went out with the guys to that Mexican place they love but you hate. You had a couple beers. You must have because the tacos there taste like dog food. After the beers you probably had a marg, or two. Somehow you drank till you blacked out but the energy drinks you downed before your work out kept you from passing out. That’s when they must have started talking about old times. They undoubtedly mentioned the burnt orange vest and the tiny dancer. Right now, cold and alone, bathed in the darkness, you are wearing the vest so there’s absolutely no denying what happened. You drove to your place with the guys, still black out drunk. You found the God damned vest and put it back on for one last time.  They gave you equil parts methanfedamine and phencyclidine. Then topped it all off with a couple fat doses of gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid. It’s all starting to come back to you isn’t yours. You transformed into “tiny dancer” and busted moves all down the streets of the city wearing nothing but the burnt orange vest and frute of the loom tighty whities. The guys brought out the worst in you. You found a nice patio still serving dinner and you brought the freak so hard that some guy tried to stop you. He stood up and threw his napkin down in opposition to your wounderous jigging. That’s when you brought him down with a smoldering right hook to the jaw, never missing a beat. His wife stood up and started crying and you freak danced all over her. Think of what the crowd of people thought when you reached down and took the bottle of chilled champaign from the tin of ice and chugged every last drop. Think of what the onlookers thought when you launched the bottle across the street. It explodes in front of a group of screening teenagers as you smile and drop it like its hot. Making your way through the streets you dance and dance and sweat cascades from every pour like a river of meryment, but you had no idea that any of this was going on. 

The Crying Girl

“How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.”

-William Butler Yeats

I.

Getting out of the shower I turned to the mirror to wipe it down with the towel. Through the fogged surface I saw my wet dark brown hair hanging down in my face. I saw my body standing there, chiseled, like one of those warrior statues you see at the museums.

I took pride in my appearance. I work out an hour a day after I wake up. I used to weigh two hundred eighty pounds. I was kind of a joke back then, even to my family and friends. My reputation haunted me everywhere I went. I couldn’t hold a job, a relationship, or even have a social life. That’s why I decided to move away from home and start a new life in St. Louis.

I take about two hours to get ready. It’s kind of a big deal to me to look as good as I can because I never want to feel ugly again. My whole life was spent being verbally abused for what I looked like.

First I look through my closet for something I haven’t worn in a while. I like to keep it fresh. After I finally find a couple outfits I try them on, accessorize, pose in the mirror, and repeat until I am confident I look perfect.

Then I put on Clive Christian #1 or Tom Ford Private Blend to my pulse points. These parts of my body produce a great amount of heat. The heat warms the oils in the cologne through the whole day, which makes the scent last. I also apply a couple sprays on my chest and neck. It’s important to put cologne on your neck because if a woman hugs you, they will smell that eight hundred dollar investment. It’s important to apply to your chest because when they are on top of you the scent will rise from your chest to their face and drive them like rocket fuel.

I get in my car and check my hair. A deep part into a perfect comb over that was relatively new to me. I was getting so board with my last haircut. Even my beautician thought I needed to switch it up, and I don’t pay her top dollar to lie to me.

By the time I checked my watch I was already late. She gets home soon.

I sat in my car in the parking lot of her shitty apartment complex. I thought I was late but she was actually running a little behind schedule for once. I took my pillbox out from my pocket to retrieve a Xanex. Then I turned the music up a bit in my car.

I sat there a bit longer and she still had not come home. I wondered if she had other plans or not. I started to wonder what she would be wearing. Would it be the black banded skirt, or the high wasted jeans shorts? I wondered if she was just having a “whatever” day, wearing leggings and a Nirvana t-shirt. Whatever she would be wearing, I could never prepare myself for the impact she would have on the fabric of my being. She shook my spirit to the core with the way she looked. She was a queen.

She was oxygen.

I sat waiting as I felt the drugs start to kick in like a chill wave washing up to shore.

Suddenly I saw her piece of shit blue car pulling into the parking lot. I saw a flash of her face in the sunlight through her tinted windows. She looked like she was screaming. Most of the time when I see her she is so composed.

She pulled quickly into a parking spot and slammed on the breaks. She looked like she was folding her arms on her steering wheel and burying her face in them. It looked as though she was crying her eyes out.

The poor thing sat there for a while before she finally opened the door to her car. Her long legs stepped out into the sun shine. Her skin looked so soft, as the light danced across her thighs and dived down onto her beautiful exotic feet. She stood up from the vehicle and flipped her brown to blond ombre hair. Then I saw her eye make up. It was running. She checked her phone, crossed her arms on the roof of her car, and buried her face in them.

Worried, I got out of my car quickly and started to approach her. Everything inside me was nervous. My palms were sweating and my knees were shaking a little bit. I cleared my throat as I came closer.

“Hey.” I said to her.

She jumped a little before she looked up at me. Surprised, she took a step back. I had startled her. The girl was obviously taken off guard. God, what a time I chose to walk over. Of all the wrong decisions I could have made in my life it had to happen now. My mouth was dry. Now was the time. After three months of watching her, this was the moment.

“Hey.” She said with tears still in her beautiful blue eyes.

“I was walking by and noticed you were crying. I guess I just wanted to see if you were alright.” I said as my soul was screaming out into the vastness of space.

“Me? Yeah, I’m alright. Sorry.” She said.

“No don’t be sorry. It’s okay to cry. Sometimes things happen and you can’t control it. Shit just happens that catches you off guard.” I took a cigarette from the pack in my pocket and lit it. She stood there looking at me; as if she knew I had more to say. “The world is kind of a shitty place, mostly because of the people who are in it.”

She slid her hands across her face and tucked a strand of hair behind her hear. “Yeah, people really do suck.” She softly muttered through her sadness.

“You actually look like you need to have some fun. You’re already all dressed up so it’s perfect timing. We can go get a drink or something.”

She stood there for a second, looking at me. Then she turned to look across the street before looking down at her phone.

She opened those precious ruby red lips of hers and granted my one true wish like a shooting star blazing a trail of light across the midnight sky. “Yeah sure, I cold use a drink.”

We sat at the bar, drowning in neon light. I was drinking a rum and coke and she was drinking a PBR. I had her talking for a second about her life. She currently had no job, but she was going through school. She moved out of her house at a young age to live with her boyfriend but they broke up, she has been bouncing around ever since then. She said this apartment was the first steady place she has had in a long time. When I asked how she paid for it she said she didn’t. She told me her boyfriend paid for it which was typical behavior of a man desperately trying to hold on to a girl like this.

She was a wild horse running free in a vast field of flowers. She was the brightest star in the sky, never growing dim, never burning out. She was a perfect sonnet in the back of some great writers mind. He contemplates her beauty but can never properly formulate the right words to put it down on paper. She was all of these things, but most of all. She is here with me, at this shitty dive bar, in the middle of the afternoon. If I could hold on to this one moment forever I would.

“So don’t get mad at me for asking a serious question, but what were you crying about?” I asked.

“Oh, its nothing don’t worry about it.” She said, calm and relaxed. As if she had finally found comfort in my presence. “It’s just my boyfriend. He is being kind of an asshole today.”

“Yeah? Why is that?” I asked her.

“Well, I found out he was fucking this other girl and I kind of over reacted so he slapped me. It’s alright though, we kind of have an agreement.”

I felt a heavy load come down over me. I don’t know if it was anger or sadness, but it was bad. I could have shouted out about how she doesn’t deserve to be treated like that, but I swallowed those words. I kept swallowing and swallowing. I pushed them deep into the bottom of my gut. I kept the rage at bay to preserve this moment. I regained my sanity and replied to her.

“You don’t deserve that from anyone. I don’t care what kind of deal you have. No man should ever hit a woman. No man should ever cheat because it can really mess with a woman emotionally.” I said.

“I know, but seriously it’s okay. He probably knows that what he did was wrong.” She assumed, which was probably completely inaccurate. The guy was probably at his place right now giving it to some other broad. The fucking piece of shit clearly doesn’t even realize that he has a diamond wrapped around his finger. She is a ten.

We were about to order some more drinks when her phone rang. She pulled it out from her purse. “It’s him.” She said before immediately answering it. The conversation was quick.

“Hello. Yeah. Sure. I know you would never. Okay, I’m on my way. Alright bye.” She hung up the phone and stood up.

She looked at me and smiled before speaking to me, “I don’t know what to say, this was all so weird and spontaneous.”

“Say what you feel.” I stood up and brought forth my wallet to pay the tab.

“I just wanted to say thank you for talking with me. It really means a whole lot to me. It’s not every day you meet a complete stranger that would go out of their way to help you.” She said.

I gave the bar tender my credit card and looked over at her, taking one last drag from my cigarette. “I could say a million things to you right now. I could tell you how beautiful you are. I could tell you that you deserve better. I could tell you it’s been great sitting here getting to know you. I could tell you that I’ve never done this kind of thing before. I could honestly say anything but it doesn’t matter. No matter what I say you’re still going to escape from my clutching hands like sand falling in an hour glass. This was our time.” Her broken heart made her eyes glaze over. “I want you to know that right now you have the chance to walk away from that guy. The sun will set and when the morning comes it’s going to be a whole new day. You can start fresh and new and leave that bastard in the dark.” I said to her. She wiped away the tears that were starting to form in her eyes and reached out to grab my hand.

“It’s been really nice. It has.” She said, her voice shaking like a child in the cold of the night. Her blue eyes gazed into mine and struck me. In my heart it felt something like a first kiss between two lovers. Then she turned around and walked out the door as darkness set across the city. There was something inside this woman that was drawing her to this piece of shit guy.

I snuck outside and sat in my car until she left the parking lot. Then I started to follow her.

I flipped through the radio stations restlessly. Anxiety set into my bones and shook my frame as I paced her car from a distance. The little red lights on the back of her car floated in the darkness ahead of me as we coasted though the city streets.

She drove for a while before stopping in some piece of shit neighborhood. The houses were old and run down. Some of them looked abandoned complete with boarded up windows and eviction notices.

Above her car a streetlight hung. It was flickering like a broken halo as moths gathered around it to spend their final hours.

Large rain drops began splattering across my windshield. They seeped down under my hood and pulled the flickering light along with it. Streams of illumination turned into pounding showers and when I gazed beyond the rain fall I saw a thin man walking from the house she was parked in front of. He had a brown paper bag of some sort. I sat there for a short while, biting my fingernails and patting my knees. In the flickering light of the street lamp I saw her silhouette disappear into his lap. The pounding rain struck hard against my windshield as the drops slowly danced with each other before eventually becoming one.

The man crossed his arms behind his head for a moment then touched the roof of her car. Then he quickly put his arms down and leaned his head back slowly. Not long after that I saw her silhouette emerge again. He raised his hand to her cheek and held it there for a moment before getting out of the car without the paper bag. It couldn’t have been money. If he wanted to give her money he would have no reason to put it in a bag like that.

It took me a moment before I realized. She was not obsessed with this guy. She was obsessed with his product. He was a drug dealer and she was sucking his cock for a fix. What I presume to be the truth shook me to the core and enraged me.

She said she caught him giving it to some other girl. How many more women were there beyond those two?

I backed up and pulled away as he walked back inside the shanty old house.

II.

“Hello.” The voice quickly said through a wall of sleep.

“Hey Jake, it’s me. I know it’s late but I really need your help man.” I said quickly before he could hang up on me. I was parked on the side of the road in front of some shady strip club.

“You know how fucking late it is man. I got work in the morning. I gotta be at the shop early as fuck tomorrow and you’re calling me out of the blue like this? What’s it been like three weeks I don’t hear from you and all of a sudden you’re calling me in the middle of the night?”

“I know Jake. Listen I’m sorry. I wouldn’t call you this late if I didn’t need your help.”

“What are you in the slammer.” He said, “The fuck did you do kid?”

“No Jake I need a gun. Bring me a gun. I’ll pay you double I don’t care. Just bring me a gun down to the Penthouse. I got cash and I know you need it.”

“Listen, I won’t ask.” He sounded hesitant for a second before finally speaking up. “You pay double. I’ll see you in fifteen.”

The call ended and I lowered my cell phone slowly and put it into the center counsel. I watched the neon lights that were mounted on the strip club. They flickered and moved through the water on my windshield. It was almost hypnotic. I watched the straight lines of bright color change shape and contort.

I thought about what life would be like if I had her by my side. She was the personification of every wish I had ever made. When she walked the curves of her body shifted the tectonic plates of my heart. She shook me like nobody else ever had. In my wings I would fly away with her. In my arms I would hold her, and protect her. In my bed I would fuck her to make her feel the same way as I do. Night after night with her in my head. She would never be alone again and never be mislead or mistreated. I watched her because I knew there was something about her presence that sang like a song bird. Calling out to me.

BANG BANG BANG

There was a knock on my window. I saw Jake standing out there in the rain. I turned my car off and joined him.

“Alright lets make this quick you son of a bitch. I got work in the morning.” He said as we walked over to his car, still running.

Exhaust fumes rose up from under his car as he opened the trunk. A dim yellow light illuminated the merchandise. He started from the top left hand corner and spoke quietly.

“That’s a standard nine millimeter. Twelve shots but not a lot of fire power and not very accurate, but it gets the job done and it’s affordable. It’s semi automatic so you have to worry about it jamming, just don’t spam the trigger. Next in line there is a Colt Python. It’s a .357 magnum with a lot of punch, very reliable all around.” He moved his hand down to the next row of weapons. “Right there you got the MAC-10. It’s really compact and it’s fully automatic. This clip is modified to fit fifty, forty five caliber bullets. I’ll also throw in this homemade silencer I had made for it. Next, you got a couple standard hunting shotguns. I got buck shot for those. ”

I reached down and picked up one of the shotguns. “I’ll take this, the MAC-10, and the Python.” I said putting the gun back down before retreating my wallet.

“What the fuck man, you going to war?” Jake asked me. “Fuck, whatever man, twenty five hundred for the lot.” He said as he reached over to bag up the weapons.

“You’re an expensive date my friend.” I said, counting the hundreds in my wallet.

“Go to hell boy.” He said, getting back in his car. “Next time, if there is a next time, you can call someone else to come save your ass.”

The rest of that night I couldn’t sleep. I took valerian root and melatonin, thinking that would help. There was just too much on my mind. That poor girl was banging heroin into her arm, snorting coke, or basing crack. Who knows whats causing the addiction. The sight left me in a fit of anger. Her hunched over on that couch with a needle in her arm, the thought of it made me sick. The love of my life was a slave to some abusive drug dealer. I cried in my bed until the natural supplements took hold of me.

III.

I sat in my car under the blinking streetlight. My palms were sweaty and my heart was racing like it has never done before. I gripped the steering wheel till my knuckles were white. I was grinding my teeth and opening my eyes as wide as I could.

Just then I saw the front door open to the house. A large man came out and stood on the porch. Behind him came the tall skinny guy from the other night. He was the drug dealer. He slowly strutted up to my car. So typical, he was wearing a white beater and sagging blue jeans. His arms were covered in faded prison tattoos. I rolled my window down as he approached. He slowly leaned over and rested his hands on my car, looking in with a sinister gaze.

“You lost?” the tall thin man asked me.

“Nah man, I was looking for some shit man.” I said turning to look him in the eyes. “I need a fix is all.”

He spoke through a sudden burst of sarcastic laughter, “I don’t know you mother fucker. Now, why don’t you get your ass out of here before I blast your ass mother fucker. I got more important stuff to take care of than your junky ass.” His face became expressionless and he gazed into my car at me.

“Nah man, I need a fix right now.” I said again.

He backed up from the window suddenly, “You hear me mother fucker?!” he yelled as he reached his hand behind him.

I pulled the silenced MAC-10 out from between the seat and the door as fast as I could, but I wasn’t fast enough. He revealed a small pistol and began shooting. I heard glass shattering as bullets flew by me. One hit me in the arm as I brought up my weapon. I fired it without aiming and filled his white beater with several red holes.

I opened the driver side door and fell to the ground outside, still wet from the night before. He looked at me through the passenger side window and fell slowly to the ground. The larger man was running from the porch to my car with a shotgun drawn. He let one shell go and it shattered my windshield but did not hit me.

The bullet was lodged into my arm. I could feel the sting from the heat and smell the wound burning. All I could think was the fact that there was no time to think. I brought the MAC-10 up from my side as the large man’s shadow grew in size under the flickering street light. As he came around the corner I held the trigger down. I shot low, missed a few times, but as the gun raised from recoil a round hit him under the eye. Falling to the ground he pulled the trigger, hitting my leg with part of the spread.

I overcame the burning pain from both wounds and sat up. I took my shoe off; it was already starting to fill with blood. I pulled up my pant leg revealing dozens of small wounds but no major damage. I took a second to catch my breath but eventually I came to my feet.

I peaked over the side of my car and I saw every light in the house turned on. There was also screaming from inside, it sounded like a baby. I stood up and started to slowly make my way up to the porch. The wound in my leg burned like fire. I heard another gunshot. Quickly, I hobbled to the right to take cover behind a pretty decent sized tree in the front yard. I peaked out for a second to see where it was coming form and another shot rang out into the night sky. This time I saw him. He was on the second floor, shooting out of a window to the left of the house.

Using the tree as cover, I stood up and took my shirt off. I wadded it up and threw it to the left of me to draw the shooters attention. Shots rang out once more as I peaked out of the right. I pulled the trigger of the Colt Python several times and opened up the chest of the shooter in the window. His body went limp on the windowsill and his blood dripped down the front of the house to the ground. I left the weapon on the ground and brought out the shotgun.

The air was still as I approached the house. All I could hear was the sound of a baby crying, distant sirens, the flickering of the streetlight, and the panting of my own breath. My heart was racing like never before. My vision went blurry for a moment and I felt like I was growing week. I was losing more blood than I thought.

On the porch I stood to the right of the door. I slowly turned the knob and threw it open. The sound of the baby crying grew louder. I turned quickly with the shotgun drawn. The front room was cleared.

The house was like something you would have seen in a cop drama. Everything was dusty. The air was thick and the smell was rancid. I turned the corner into the living room. The coffee table was covered in needles and a couple small packets of either coke or heroin. There were empty beer cans and stains all over the dirty floor. The television was tuned to the discovery channel, but the volume was turned down all the way to clear the airwaves for whatever random rap song was blasting over the radio.

I followed the screams of the baby into the next room where an infant child sat in a high chair. It was dirty and naked. I walked past it and walked into the next room.

The light was turned off and the loud bass from the stereo shook the walls around me. I felt around the walls for a light switch for a while before finally finding it.

When I turned the lights on I saw here laying there on the ground. There was thick yellow foam dripping from her mouth as she lay on her back. Her dress and hair were covered in vomit. I fell to my knees and pulled her into my arms, screaming.

A rubber tube was tied to her upper arm just above a bloody, black, infected hole in her arm.

“No God damn it! No!” I yelled as I pulled her close to me, rocking back and forth. Her body was stiff and cold. She was too far gone. It looked like she had been dead for hours.

Her eyes were open and lifeless inside that magnificent shell. Dried blood caked her nose. Her body was limp and cold. The love of my life had been taken from me before I could save her form this.

I felt a rush of gravity come over me as the volume of the baby’s cries became distorted and muffled. Her dress was now covered in my blood as I held her.

Hunched over her lifeless body my vision faded to black. I joined the love of my life on the other side. I saw her in her new wings and they fit her well. Then like two birds we flew.

First Birthday

My friend Tim’s dad was on heroin so he was nodding off all the time when he was not selling drugs to people. One night he called from someone’s house to tell Tim that there was money for pizza and that he would be home in the morning. We ended up jamming death metal all night, eating pizza, smoking his dad’s whole stash of weed, and ordering movies off the porn channel. This was actually the first time that I had ever even seen porn so I decided that I wanted to record it.So, when Tim passed out I bought more and more. I recorded them on old VHS tapes that said “First birthday” and “Jim’s wedding”

A few weeks later Tim brought it up at school. His dad actually beat the shit out of him because there was so much porn ordered off the television. He said he never wanted to talk to me again. I understood, I was a shit head little kid and a bad friend. All my friends actually hated me for one reason or another so it was no sweat off my back.

I felt bad because I had never actually watched the porn on the tapes. I tried telling Tim he could have them back if he wanted. He said no and to leave him alone. So I did. But, other kids wanted to see what the big deal was about these porn tapes. So at lunch I sold them to a kid I knew named Jake.

Jake had come back to me later that day and told me that the principle had overheard him talking about the VHS tapes with some friends so he took it away. What a bummer for Jake. He wanted the money back but I didn’t give it to him. That was my twenty dollars after all. I earned it.

I went to Tim’s house to give him some of the money I made by selling the tapes, but I saw a couple police cars there so I hid in some bushes. Some old lady was walking Tim to her car. His shirt had blood all over it, and his face was all bruised up. It looked like his piece of shit dad beat him really bad.

The next morning I woke up and my mom was acting all crazy to me asking me questions like “Did Tim’s dad ever touch you? Did he touch your privates?” It was so creepy, the things she was asking me. I remember feeling so uncomfortable.

Dad sat me down and told me about something they saw on the news that morning. Someone handed over porno tapes to the police. At the end of the tapes there was footage of Tim being molested by his father. Dad said it was an incest film and they were acting like it was Tim’s birthday. Tim was taken to a foster care while his father was taken to jail.

Somehow it never got back to me. I don’t know how or why. The principle never even asked Jake about the tapes. I guess he just contacted the police and gave it to them. He probably never said anything because he didn’t want anyone to know he was watching a porno he took from a kid at school. Worthless and alone in his big empty house with only his disgusting dog to keep him company.

I saw Tim just a few days ago while I was sitting at a stop light. I guess that’s what inspired me to write this. His family was coming out of some ritzy upscale restaurant. He was wearing a five hundred dollar suite and a he was driving a Rolls Royce. Had a beautiful lady in his arms and a couple nice looking kids. He looked up at me and we locked eyes for a moment. The light turned green and he watched me as I drove off.