Amidoingitrite?

How Many Streets Must a Thug Roll Down?

troymharris — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 23:09:45 +0000

Let me clear the air about one thing before I begin: I don’t hate rap music. I actually quite like rap. Atmosphere are one of my favorite artists of all time, genre be damned. What I do believe, however, is that what most people perceive as rap music is not, in fact, rap music. This is not said with the intent of slighting artists like Black-Eyed Peas. But the type of “rap” that Black-Eyed Peas make and the rap that artists like Talib Kwali make can’t be compared in good conscience. What we are seeing in the rap genre–nay, in the entirety of hip hop culture–is a sudden divergence of one culture into two increasingly different ones.
Normally, I’m the last one to delve into the subject of subgenres(what exactly is the real difference between Techno and House music, anyways?). But there are times when these subgenres make themselves necessary. The very fact that rap has entered into the mainstream in such a major way is the catalyst that incites the need for a split in genres of rap. This commercialization is the pivotal moment–in any culture–when a schism occurs. One can always watch the two sects of a culture react to the popularization to that culture. And in most instances, it plays out the same way: One sect embraces said commercialism, and the other sect vanishes into obscurity, only to come back in twenty years as the definition of the culture that shunned it to begin with. It happened with punk music. It happened with metal. And it happened–and in many ways it is still happening–with rap. One could of course make the argument that this sort of dichotomy is still occurring with metal, but certainly not to the violent degree that the hip hop culture is breaking in two. If we look at two famous rappers–one from each subgenre of rap–we can obviously see this break. In any normal conversation, it’s practically impossible to mention El-P and Lil’ Wayne in the same sentence. But both of them have achieved their own forms of transcendence.
For all intents and purposes, rap became a viable commodity around the time people started going to clubs to hear it. This fact is blatantly obvious; I doubt anyone has ever been in a night club has heard any less than three of Weezy’s hits on any given occasion in said night club. His music, and that music which emulates it, is almost condescendingly straightforward. Any given club rap album is made up of songs that are essentially about being in a club. And only in a night club atmosphere could anybody sell a song that is about exactly what people are doing that very instant with such a degree of success. But if all the self references are to be believed, even Lil’ Wayne doesn’t recognize this fork in the road of hip hop. Weezy has made more than a few comments about being “the greatest rapper alive.” Of course, this could be easily pawned off as a manifestation of that self confidence which comes along with the hip hop mentality. Even underground rap artists have similar lines. In the Atmosphere song “52 pickup,” Slug refers to himself as a “dope fucking rapper.” But the fact that Lil’ Wayne refers to himself as a rapper at all brings to light the fact that he has made at least a subconscious decision to reject the separation of club rap and underground hip hop. If you look at the money that he has pulled in merely from being a hip hop producer, it’s obvious that Lil’ Wayne has transcended the title of rapper. He’s become a mogul in the truest sense of the word. Lil’ Wayne is club hip hop.
If you were to go ask any one of the tweens who worship Lil’ Wayne who El-P is, more often than not you’ll wind up getting a blank stare. Most aficionados of the underground rap circuit will, when asked the same question, launch into a tirade about how El-P was ripped off by the mainstream rap scene. This is a fact that neither El nor the man who borrowed heavily from his doctrine(a kid from Detroit named Marshall Mathers), deny. If you went back and asked those same middle schoolers fawning over Lil’ Wayne about Eminem, they’d be able to recite you his entire discography backwards while hanging upside-down and doing Sudoku. In his defense, Eminem has taken El-P’s style and grown into something that is very much his own. But the fact remains that Marshal himself has admitted to essentially hijacking El-P’s flow and propensity to rap about absolute off-the-wall subjects. In his own way, El-P has transcended the title of rapper, as well. He has become the unwilling mentor to the voice of a very lost and very pissed off generation.
These two reflections are, in essence, bizzaro images of one another. And there is of course a degree of crossover. At their core, though, these two styles of rap are on a path that is ever diverging. A possible explanation for this is that they have managed to do something that other styles of music that have dichotomized in a similar fashion failed to do. Both styles of rap music are still commercially viable. Punk rock was certainly never able to do this. Bands like Blink 182 went commercial and thrived, while hardcore punkers like Dead Kennedys managed to make a significant statement before they self destructed. Metal–and for that matter, rock in general–has fragmented to such a degree that it’s almost all melded back together to everyone except the artists themselves. Yet somehow, these two very distinct styles of rap have managed to be independently successful. I would posit that this is due to the hip hop culture’s relative openness to commercialism. Maybe one day we could all learn from hip hop’s ability to coexist. We can only hope that a certain five foot five emcee had it right when he said, “pop punk is dead, and hip hop is the way of the future.”

If You Listen Closely, You Won’t Hear a Thing

troymharris — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 18:13:07 +0000

I hate this place. It’s crowded, hot, and noisy as all fuck. Sweat is dripping off my body, and all I’ve done is walk through the door. People are gathering in throngs around a central, raised area. What’s happening there is unbeknownst to me. I’m not interested in whatever it is that’s captured everyone’s attention tonight, I just want something to drink. After elbowing my way through a group of people that are packed together like refugees in Haiti, I finally make my way to the counter. I kindly tell the lady that I’d like a beer, and much to my chagrin, she can’t hear a word I’m saying. Hell is a dance club.
I like to consider myself a reasonable man. I take opportunities to try and experience new things. So when a couple of my friends invited me to go to a club in Killeen, Texas, I thought it might be a neat experience. Mind you, I’ve been in dance clubs before, but never American dance clubs. In the year or so that I was in the Republic of Korea, I donated plenty of my time(and my paycheck) to the clubs. And the one unifying thing I found about every club I was in was how much I fucking hated it. The beer is too expensive, the music is too loud, and the mood is too intense. I’m the kind of person who would much rather find a quiet little hole-in-the-wall bar to relax and have a conversation with someone at a reasonable volume. And yet, I found myself thinking that things would somehow be different. Through some convoluted, somewhat drunken thought process, I was able to convince myself that in America, dance clubs would be clean, well-to-do establishments with people who thoroughly enjoyed intelligent conversation and valued independent thought. At the very least, I believed that there wouldn’t be any women there who wanted nothing other than for you to buy drinks from them. It’s only been a week, and I’m beginning to suspect that I’m expecting way too much from Killeen. Perhaps it’s because I’m naïve, but I was hoping that the clubs in Korea were merely a bastardization of Western culture. Turns out, they’re pretty much dead on. If you sub out the juicy girls of Korea for the walking shot sellers of America, you’ve pretty much got the same damn thing. American clubs are just as loud, just as smoke-filled(in Texas, at least), and even more crowded than their Korean counter-parts. It’s impossible to have a conversation without shouting. The speakers are blasting the latest Lil’ Wayne song so loud that you can feel it rattling your bones, and everyone who is anyone is out on the dance floor dry humping each other to it while the rest of us stand around and watch, wishing we had someone to go out and dry hump but too diffident to perform simulated sex acts with someone who is probably way out of our league anyway. And as I stood there, cradling my beer for fear of it being spilled on the next person who irreverently runs into me, I began to understand why Al Qaeda hates everything that Western culture represents. This club isn’t meant to be a bastion of knowledge, and its patrons certainly aren’t here because they’re in need of intellectual stimulus.
And that’s the whole point.
Suddenly, I’m starting to piece it all together. I’ve realized that the lack of intellect is the entire reason people go to dance clubs to begin with. In every day situations, people have to articulate what it is they desire. They need to come up with a way of saying things that makes them sound intelligent and respectable. They go to their jobs, where they’re expected to act like young(or not so young) professionals. In the household, in the work place, etc. these people have to have a degree of humanity to them.
This is not the case in dance clubs. Dance clubs are a place where hormones run wild. Everyone wants to be one of the people out on the dance floor, where they’ll undoubtedly be molested at some point in the nights proceedings. No matter how much they’re ridiculed, everybody secretly desires to be the couple in the dark corner making out like the world’s ending and this is their last chance to get laid, because it means that there is someone else out there that understands them. And it means that this understanding was reached(presumably) with a minimal amount of conversation. This, at our core, is what everyone wants. We want to be understood and to be loved, if only for a night. Dance clubs provide this opportunity–no matter how fleeting–for a nominal fee. One could posit that dance clubs are the fast food industry of hook-ups.
This, of course, creates a bit of a logic fault. How can someone be loved in the space of only one night? Perhaps a better analogy is that dance clubs can be offered up as being the drug dealers in the industry of hook-ups. Because in the space of one evening, being loved is equivalent only to feeling loved, these clubs provide people with a place to feel loved, even if they aren’t truly being loved. It seems indeed like a fleeting opportunity to find any basis for even a friendship at a place where you can’t so much as hear someone tell you their likes and dislikes, much less a place where you’d find your soul mate.
And yet, not more than twenty minutes after this thought crosses my mind, I find myself engaged in a thought provoking–albeit ear shattering–conversation with a woman about different forms of art. She is a painter, and she agrees with me that judging any artist by one piece of their work–be it good or bad–is the equivalent of giving someone a job based solely on one look at their resumé. She also agrees with me that this kind of one-stop judgmentality is the only reason for M. Night Shyamalan’s massive success. It all goes to show that life is full of irony.

meversuseverything!

troymharris — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:45:53 +0000

So I’ve decided to start working on some actual music. I should be able to start putting some tracks down next week sometime. check for updates from meversuseverything! at my facebook page, here. meversuseverything!

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The Worst Story You’ll Ever Hear(Part 3)

troymharris — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 13:59:11 +0000

IX.
Fortunately for myself, I didn’t have to go in to work the next day. I slept until about three in the afternoon. When I woke up, I could hear the vacuum running. Alexis must have taken the day off of work. I took a moment to recap what I’d done to end up in her bed, but with clothes still on. It all came back soon enough. An alcohol induced pity party. Hello, My name is Stephen, and I’m a low-life. I lit a cigarette and headed for my room. I was thinking about what a bitch it was going to be to re-organize, but as I opened the door, I found that it had already been done. Alexis must have gotten it in her head to clean my shit up. My room was more than reorganized, it was actually clean. She was adding insult to injury. I went and took a shower. It’s always nice to take a shower after a night of heavy drinking. It lets you clean off the stench of what a failure you’ve become. If I had any beers left, it’d be time to crack one.
I walked into the kitchen and made myself a peanut butter sandwich. Alexis was out on the balcony on her cell phone. She looked calm enough. I remembered about unplugging the phone last night, and quickly plugged it back into the wall. I ate the sandwich, knowing it was a bad idea. For some reason, food doesn’t sit well with me after a good binge. Call me crazy, but even questionably suicidal people should try and take care of themselves from time to time. Alexis came back in from the patio. She was all dolled up in a nice looking dress and heels. She had her hair pinned up and make up on. Her hair being up, I noticed her cheekbones and strong jaw line. “What’s the occasion?” I asked.
“We’re going to a reunion,” she said.
“That’s lovely. You’re bringing Jason in kind of fast,” I said. “Trying to get him to stick around?”
“Who said anything about Jason?” she asked.
“Well he called here last night trying patch shit up with you, so I figured he must have come by last night or gotten your cell or something,” I said.
“Oh, well he didn’t. And besides, ‘we’ doesn’t mean him and me. It means me and you. Get dressed,” she said.
“Wait, what? What are you pulling here, Alex?”
“You need to get out a little, Steve. Besides, it is kind of your fault that Jason isn’t going with me to this.” Fuck. How long was she going to be lording that over me?
“Your point? And why would you want to subject your family to me, anyway?”
“Because you’re the closest thing to a boyfriend I have. And I told my mom and sisters I was bringing my boyfriend along today.” I cringed when she said the word “boyfriend.” Alexis and I, we had strict parameters with our friendship. We substituted friend-like care for one another with compulsive sex. This was a serious infraction of those rules. “That’s low, Alex,” I said.
“Oh, I know. But is it really going to kill you to socialize with people for a day?” I took a cigarette from my pocket. “And put something nice on.”
I came out of my room twenty minutes later with a pair of jeans and a button up shirt on. The shirt had an ink stain on it, and the jeans were frayed around the boot line. A definite no-go. After I tried khaki shorts with the crotch ripped out of them and a polo shirt that had an unraveling collar on it, Alex came in and told me she would be picking my attire for the day. I knew it was a bad idea. I didn’t know she was going to get into my closet and find my old suit from high school prom. “You really expect me to wear that fucking thing?” I asked her. She looked at me and put her hands on her hips. Fifteen minutes later, I was tying the only tie I owned. It was plain black. I hadn’t worn it since my senior prom. The one where I went with some broad whose name I couldn’t quite remember. I left after a half hour, because Rosalyn was there with that asshole Travis, and I’d run into them at the refreshment counter. When they asked me who I came with, I told them, and they told me they’d seen her making out with some dude over by the photo booth. I saw them dancing when I turned around to have a look at the photo booth. This fucking guy, he had his hands all over her ass. Rosalyn looked upset at the prospect that I’d been set up like that. Travis smirked and said I really knew how to pick dates. I wish I could sit here straight faced and tell you that I’d punched him or poured grape juice on his shirt. Instead, I left like a whiny bitch and got drunk alone instead of going to an after party with the group we’d gone with.
An hour later, I was stepping out of Alexis’ car, which was parked in the driveway of her grandparents’ house. They had one of those really long driveways that were all gravel. I had sunglasses on to alleviate the sun’s affect on my vicious hangover. I had day beard, and a cigarette hung loosely from my lips. I would have fit perfectly in a movie about bank robbing or gun running. Alexis looked at me, hands on her hips. “Seriously, Steve, you can’t smoke in front of my family. They still think I quit,” she said.
“As far as I can tell, that only means that you can’t smoke in front of your family,” I said, dragging heavily on the smoke in my mouth. “Besides, I think your aunt or mom or someone’s already seen me.” I motioned towards the woman standing on the porch, where a middle-aged Hispanic woman was standing with her hands on her hips. It was uncanny how much she looked like Alexis. I pitched the cigarette butt into the road and we walked up to the house. The woman greeted us, she gave Alexis a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Oh, Alexis,” she said in a distinctly I-told-you-so tone that was distinguishable despite the language barrier, “¿un novio lo que fuma?”
“Ya se, abuela,” Alexis said with a sigh. My rudimentary Spanish was sufficient enough to know that Alexis was talking to her grandmother. Shocking. “This is Stephen,” Alexis said. Then, with the slightest hesitation, “mi novio. And Stephen, this is my grandma Marquez.” I extended my hand for a handshake. Abuela Marquez went straight for the hug. It threw me off at first, mostly because the old woman didn’t have the same scent that most old people have. You know, that strange mixture of flowers and imminent death. “Come, come,” she said. We walked inside and it all began. I was introduced to aunts and uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, all of them. Names were being thrown at me so fast I couldn’t remember any of them. We went out into the back yard where a massive barbecue was already underway. Alexis’ family took family reunions very seriously. Three giant grills had food cooking on them. There were coolers upon coolers stocked with water and soda and beer. Alexis’ father and uncles were manning the grills. A few of her older cousins were sitting around at card tables playing spades and drinking beers. One of them saw me looking in their direction and waved me over. I went and stood next to the table. “Hey, have a beer, man,” one of them said. I recognized him after a second. He was Eduardo, and he was Alexis’ brother. “What’s the deal?” I took a swig of beer and smirked. “You know, I owe Alexis one or two,” I said.
“So you two, you’re dating now?”
“Oh, no, man,” I said. “Just came along for the company.” Eduardo looked around at his cousins and laughed a bit. He said something in Spanish, and the rest of them laughed even harder. “No, ese, I mean you’re dating now.”
“I don’t think I follow.” I took out a cigarette and offered him one, which he took.
“It’s like this, vato. Abuela Marquez, she thinks you are her boyfriend, so now you are.” He laughed. The rest of them laughed as well. “Which, that makes you family now. Grab a chair, man.” I pulled up a chair and watched them play. I’m no great spades player, but I understand how the game works. A few hands went by, they all made their bids, and Eduardo’s team was crushing the other team. “So, you still got that job down there on 72nd and David?” Eduardo asked after a couple of minutes.
“Yeah, I do. Pays like shit, though.”
“¿De verdad?”
“Yeah, man,” I said. “I can’t pick up the hours. Probably going to have to start looking for a new job soon.”
“You got a car, man?”
“Yeah,” Eduardo stubbed out the cigarette and took a piece of paper out of the notebook they were using to keep score on. He jotted down a phone number and handed the paper to me.
“Mira, I got this guy I know. He does work in transportation. That’s my number, vato, Drop me a line later if you need some work. I could maybe line some shit up for you.” I put the piece of paper in my jacket pocket. “Thanks, man,” I said. I shook his hand. “No problem. Hey, you’re family now.” Everyone at the table laughed. Everyone except me.
As I was walking away from the table, Alexis came over to me and took my arm. “What were you and Eduardo talking about?”
“Nothing important,” I said. “Just bullshit.” But she wasn’t having any of it.
“I’m serious,” She said.
“Wow, I’m starting to think it’s not just your grandma who thinks we’re dating,” I said with a smirk.
“Oh, shut up. It’s not like she’s going to keep tabs on you.”
“Maybe not, but How many dinners am I going to have to show up at before we break up?” She paused for a second, like she had some smart ass remark to come back at me with, then said, “Probably two or three.”
“Awesome. At least it got Eduardo to cut me a break,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing big. He just said he might know of a new job for me.”
“Oh, Jesus, Stephen. This so-called transport guy he knows?”
“Yeah, why?”
“The guy doesn’t ship speakers around. He’s a drug runner.”
“Oh,” I said. I stopped to grab a beer out of the cooler.
“Whatever you do, just don’t call him about it, okay?”
“Fair enough,” I said.
“I’m being serious. Look, I know money’s tight right now, but I’m sure you’ll pick up those hours, and I’m sure the hospital will call me back soon. We’ll get by fine. Just promise me you won’t call him, okay?”

X.
My first deal with Eduardo was a few days later. I’d called him after finding out my hours at the gas station were being cut from 25 to 15 a week. I was barely covering my half of the rent on 25. I met him in a parking lot at some abandoned warehouse somewhere. I got out of my car and zipped up the old bomber jacket I’d gotten several years ago as a present from my mom. Eduardo was wearing a thermal undershirt under a button up black shirt. It was 11:30 at night, and the fucking guy was wearing sunglasses. He was probably fucked up on coke or some shit. There was another guy who waited until Eduardo and I had exchanged pleasantries before he stepped out of Eduardo’s SUV. He was wearing a black suit and also had shades on. He stood a good six and a half feet, easy. He had a backpack in his left hand. Eduardo smiled. “This is the guy I was telling you about, man. He can get this shit done for you, no problem.”
“I’m sure he can,” the tall man said. He tossed the bag to me. I caught it. It wasn’t as heavy as I expected it to be. “There is a 7/11 on the corner of Glenn and Pike. The buyer will meet you there in twenty minutes. Call Eduardo when you make the deal, then bring the money back here.” He spoke in a flat voice. It was almost like listening to the weather channel. I nodded. “Glenn and Pike, call Eduardo,” I repeated. I lit a cigarette. “And Stephen, I’ll know if the take is short.” There was an awkward pause. I nodded again. “Glenn and Pike, twenty minutes,” I said.
I don’t think I’ve obeyed traffic laws so strictly ever as I did on the way over to that fucking store. I got over there at 11:45 pm. I killed the engine and sat in my car, smoking. A couple minutes later, an old car pulled up next to me. There was a guy in it wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. He looked at me and nodded. I grabbed the bag and stepped out of my car at the same time he stepped out of his. We walked around to the trunk of his car. He popped it. “Well,” he said in a gruff voice, “let’s see it.” I opened the backpack and took out a plastic wrapped bundle of grayish white powder. He took it and turned it over in his hand a couple times, then put it on the electronic scale that was in his trunk. The scale read out to 507 grams. The man nodded. He took a knife and cut the bundle slightly. He scooped a bit of crank with his finger and rubbed it on his gums, then nodded again. I was looking around at the streets constantly. “Relax, kid, look at the fuckin’ neighborhood you’re in. You don’t have to worry about cops.” I sighed. “One thing though,” he said, “What if I decided to turn this knife on you?” I eyed him suspiciously. His face didn’t flinch. He could have used that fucking knife to cut the tension in the air. “Relax, junior,” he said to me after a few moments, “I’m just fucking with you.” He tossed me an envelope and slammed the trunk of his car shut. Then he got in and drove away. I went immediately to the pay phone at the back of the parking lot and called Eduardo. He picked up on the third ring.
“Yeah, vato?”
“I took care of it,” I said.
“Good. Come by my place. We’ll meet you there.”
I hung up the phone and got into my car, lighting a cigarette. My hands were shaking from the adrenaline rush. On the way to Eduardo’s I didn’t so much as look at the envelope sitting on the passenger’s seat of my car. When I got there, he answered the door and ushered me in quickly. The tall guy was sitting in the living room. I laid the envelope down on the coffee table. Stretch took it calmly and counted it. “Did you count the take?” He asked me.
“Well, no,” I said.
“Why not? How would you know if you’d been ripped off?” I began stuttering, but he cut me off. “Relax, it’s all here.” I heard a door down the hallway open and then the guy who I’d just made the deal with at 7/11 walked into the living room. “What’s going on, junior?” He said.
“What the–” I began, but the tall guy cut me off.
“You didn’t think I was just going to hand you half a key on blind trust, did you?” I stood there, jaw dropped. “Congratulations, Stephen. You passed the test.” Eduardo came out of the kitchen with drinks for us all. Hello, my name is Stephen, and I am now officially a drug mule.

The Worst Story You’ll Ever Hear(part 2)

troymharris — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:56:35 +0000

V.
Work was a gas station on the edge of the city limits. I took over the cash register from the guy who worked thirds there. He said he worked the graveyard shift because he was up anyways. “Business sucked tonight,” Vic said. I cracked open an energy drink and took a big gulp. “Of course it did,” I said. “You work thirds, Vic.” He cracked a smile. “God, I love it when you come in, Steve.” His voice was gruff from chain smoking all night. “Why’s that?” I said. He stroked his beard, combing some piece of crust or other out of it. “Because you remind me that my life isn’t so bad.” he said.
Vic was a fat man in his mid thirties with a thin, receding line of graying brown hair and a patchy, wiry that matched. He was going through a quite nasty divorce. Vic said that he went home one night about four months ago and found his wife in bed with another man. Now, when I say in bed, I use the term loosely. What he really saw was his wife with a ball gag in her mouth and a latex thong and spike heels on being whipped mercilessly by their neighbor, whose wife was working an extra shift at the post office so their kid could go to college. Vic said that his problem with the whole ordeal was the fact that his wife was cheating on him with someone who was older than him. He said he’d be able to understand if it were a fit, young guy in his twenties with a giant schlong and ripped abs, but not some saggy balled 45 year old dude.
The shittiest thing about him saying his life wasn’t so bad when he compared it to mine was that it was true.
I went outside and smoked a cigarette with Vic. He got in his car and left, and I went inside. I finished my energy drink and leaned on the counter. Twenty of the longest minutes of my life passed before I had my first customer. Early mornings like this, most people just bought a paper or smokes or coffee. They don’t want to talk about the president or gas prices or goddamn football. They’re not like the customers who come in on the last three hours of my shift. Ever since Rosalyn broke me the way she did, all I want is for people to shut the fuck up. I used to be such a nice guy, too.
I got off work at three in the afternoon. Chugging the last of my third energy drink, I lit a cigarette and started working towards my car. There was no love lost between Rebecca and me. She worked afternoons, and had a nice, normal little life. The fact that she was one of Cassandra’s best friends didn’t help matters. On the occasion I tried to talk to her, she usually just flipped me off. If she was in a good mood.
I decided to go to my friend Ronny’s house after work. He was sitting in his living room drinking a beer and playing video games. Ronny hadn’t worked since he got hurt on site at his old construction job last year. Workman’s comp had set him up pretty cheery. It’s the least they could do for the poor sod. Ronny had been working on a bridge construction job, welding aluminum pans into place along the L beams when the generator that was attached to his welder exploded. To start things off, he was electrocuted from the short that ran through the wire. The heat of the electricity had melted the welder to his hand. It took several surgeries to fix, and by fix I mean the doctors did just enough that he didn’t have to have his hand cut off. The explosion from the generator had thrown shrapnel everywhere. A few of the other workers had caught some small pieces, but Ronny got the worst of it. The left side of his face was all fucked up from scar tissue. He had bald spots on his scalp where hair wouldn’t grow anymore because of the damage done to the hair follicles.   He had a twitch in his neck now. The shrapnel that hit his left arm had ruined the sleeve tattoo he had. It was such a beautiful piece, too. Much better than my own shitty murals spread on my arms and chest. Ronny had sunk at least fifteen hundred dollars into that arm. And now it looked like nothing like the gothic artwork he’d meticulously worked on with his tattoo artist. Now it just looked like scorched skin. That was the part that pissed Ronny off the most about the whole incident. He always had a positive disposition about it though. At least it didn’t fuck up my jerking off hand, he’d always say.
I let myself in through the back door and grabbed a beer from the fridge. “Hey, man,” Ronny said. “You got any smokes?” I tossed him my pack from my jacket pocket. He lit one and threw the pack onto the chair he was leaning against. “Thanks,” he said. I helped myself to one as well. “Fuckin’ Alexis called here a few times today, man.” Fuck. I’d totally forgotten that I was supposed to call her. Oh well. I’d take care of it later. I took a swig of beer and watched as he played. He was pulling some old lady out of her car. He took out a baseball bat and promptly beat the old woman to death with it, then took the little cartoon stacks of money that popped up from her bloody corpse. Then he got in the car and drove off at break neck pace in rush hour traffic. “So what’s goin’ on?” He asked. I grunted, waving my hand in front of my face nonchalantly. “Fucking work,” I said. Ronny worked the controller awkwardly with his deformed left hand groping at one of the joysticks and his right doing all the real work. “Getting some new ink done?” I said, motioning towards the fresh work on his right arm. It was the outline of a half sleeve on his right arm. Ronny had never bothered getting any corrective work done on his left. The scar tissue wouldn’t have held the ink, anyways. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s gonna be the Tree of Life. Like, you know, from Celtic myth.” Ronny was as Irish as his great grandfather, who had stepped off the boat into America in the twenties sometime. “Cool,” I said. Ronny looked back at me for the first time since I’d walked in the door. “Jesus, dude, you look like hell.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Long fucking day at work.”
“It shows. Anything exciting happen?”
“Does it ever?” I crushed the beer can and tossed it in the trashcan sitting next to the chair. Ronny was running over pedestrians at a crowded outdoor mall. He hopped out of the car and collected all the little cartoon money, then got back into the car and drove off. I went and grabbed a couple more beers from the fridge. Ronny had switched games while I was in the kitchen. Now he was on an alien planet, blowing away cosmic bad guys. He used a chain saw to cut one’s head off. I tossed him a beer. “Thanks,” he said. He caught it with his good hand, which allowed for the alien scum to start blasting him. “Oh, fuck, fucking shit!” he said. He grasped the controller and started blasting away, throwing grenades and hacking with his chainsaw, but all to no avail. The aliens tackled him to the ground and started sucking his brains out. “Christ,” he muttered. He reached up with his mangled hand and switched the game system off. Ronny cracked open his beer and took a healthy gulp of it. “So what time’d you start drinking today?” I asked.
“About noon,” he said.
“Right on, right on,” I said. He smiled and stood up, helping himself to another of my cigarettes. I did the same. “So, I take it Nicole’s not going to be coming by today, then?” I asked.
“Nah. She’s got some shit she’s doin’ with her mom today for her birthday,” he said.
“Wait, Nicole’s or her mom’s?”
“Her mom’s. They went to Michigan to some fuckin’ spa or some shit.”
“Sounds like a bitching good time,” I said. He grunted and took another drink of beer. We walked out into his back yard and sat on the patio, smoking and drinking beers. Ronny had always done right by me, but I didn’t feel like he deserved to have my problems dumped on him, just the same. “You must be sweating up a fuckin’ storm, man,” he said to me. I hadn’t realized my coat was still on. I was still coming down from the smack, so I didn’t really notice the heat of the day. “Nah, man,” I replied. “I’ve been feeling kinda sick the last couple of days.” Ronny nodded. I stayed and had a few more beers, then left around six o’clock.
VI
On the drive home, I started feeling the beers. It wasn’t enough to make me a danger to anyone. It was just enough to get my mind wandering. I started thinking about the video game Ronny had been playing, where he was running people over at a shopping mall and beating old ladies to death for their stacks of cartoon cash. I lit a cigarette. It’s a sad realization of our culture. We are more free within the constructs we make than in the real world. Trapping ourselves in the four walls of our houses, we can go anywhere we want. We can commit any sort of atrocities against little pixels on our television screens and no one bats an eye. We can turn on the television and travel to anywhere on the planet. We can go to the crowded streets of Los Angeles to track down murderers, or we can go on solitary trips to the Sahara or the Amazon. In the real world, trips like that take loads of schooling and cash. We’re self contained prisons, and it’s not even because we’re afraid of the consequences of real life; it’s because real life is just too damned expensive. A fifty dollar video game or a life sentence? A twelve hundred dollar television or eighty thousand dollars worth of college?
I pulled into the parking lot of my apartment complex and got out of the car. Alexis’ car wasn’t anywhere in the parking lot. I shrugged and went upstairs. I unlocked the door and went inside. There was a note on the counter from Alexis. “Went to work early today. Leftovers in the fridge,” it read. She’d signed it.   I tossed the note into the garbage, which was full. The note slid off of a paper plate and onto the ground next to the trash. I sighed and tied the garbage bag off and took it out of the trash can. I walked the trash out to the dumpster in the parking lot and threw it in. It, too, was overflowing. Like a miniature version of the apartment complex itself; stuffed to the brink with shit.
When I went back into the apartment, the phone was ringing. I took it off the hook and answered, “Hello?”
“Yes, he..hello? Is Alex there?” the voice on the other end was shaky.
“No, she isn’t. Can I take a message?”
“Does she have a cell phone?” the voice asked.
“She does,” I said, “but I’m not going to give it out to some dude on the phone.”
“It’s Jason. Is this her roommate?”
“I thought you couldn’t take her shit anymore, Jason,” I said. I swear to God, if smirks could transmit via telephone, mine would have been a yell.
“Look, man, you were real fucked up last night, and I was drunk, and I just…I don’t know man. But you’re alive at least, so does that mean she has to keep taking care of you?” And his would have been a cut on the hand.
“Fuck you, man,” I said.
“Look, listen, just tell her-”
“No, you listen, fuck stick. Alexis thought you were nice, but I see through you.” There was an awkward pause. Somehow this was running more smoothly in my head.
“Whatever, junky,” he said.
“Don’t call here anymore.” He started saying something else, but I hung up the phone. A few seconds later it started ringing again, and I ignored it. I went for a cigarette and found the box empty in my pocket. I went to my room to get a new one out of the carton on my dresser. Jason’s voice was shouting something over the answering machine. I went to the phone and picked it up and promptly hung it up, then disconnected it from the wall. I didn’t bother listening to the half-message he’d left, just erased it. Why had I just done that? Alexis didn’t need protecting. She was an adult, fully capable of making her own decisions. I rubbed my forehead and sank back into our shitty couch. The springs creaked in defiance. The heater in the apartment clicked on. Sitting there in the dark in our cramped little apartment, my thoughts drifted. Alexis would be getting off work in a few hours. I didn’t know what she had planned for the night. I didn’t really care, either. Not really. I went to the fridge and took out a beer. There isn’t ever anything worth doing in this city, anyways.   I gulped the entire beer down and grabbed another. This is how it’s going to start, I thought. I don’t necessarily have a Zen-like view into my own soul, but I know myself. And at that moment, I knew myself well enough to know that another bout of depression was imminent.

VII.
They always start the same. Round One: Three or four beers, then two cigarettes. Take a step out onto the balcony and watch the traffic on the highway passing by our apartment. Think about everything that’s gone wrong in your life. The failed adulthood. The fact that you’re living with someone you can vaguely call a friend that you fuck occasionally when you’re feeling down, but not this down. Drink a beer. Think about how the only girl you’ve ever loved is not only marrying someone else, but the fact that she doesn’t even really love you. Smoke a cigarette. Think about how she doesn’t call you anymore, and the only contact the two of you have is when you call her drunk and leave a voicemail she probably doesn’t even listen to. Drink another beer. She probably doesn’t even like you anymore. Probably she forgot your fucking name. Have a beer. Now go inside and put on a play list of your most depressing songs. Make sure it’s dark in your apartment. Smoke a cigarette. Turn it up fucking loud so you don’t have to hear yourself think about how her boyfriend’s probably railing her right now. He’s probably got her held up against the wall of their apartment, or maybe on their bed or couch. Think about jumping. Chicken out. Then have a beer. Had enough yet? Well, we’re just getting started.
Round Two: Now think about how she probably tells him that she loves him every day, before he leaves for work. To his good job. To his career. Think about how she cooks for him, and how she doesn’t have to worry about working because he’s pulling down a respectable salary. Smoke a cigarette. Drink a beer. Think about how he’s a college graduate and played football and baseball and was on the student government. Think about how handsome he is. Think about how charismatic he is. Drink a beer. Think about how if it weren’t for the girl you’re in love with being in love with him, he’d probably be a guy you could sit down and have a beer with. Speaking of which, have yourself a beer. Smoke a cigarette. Think about how she’s probably not even in love with him, but in love with what he represents. Think about how much she’s always valued stability and reliability and trustworthiness and honor. Think about how unstable and unreliable and untrustworthy and dishonorable you are. Drink another beer. If you’re keeping count of the beers you’ve had, you haven’t had enough. You should be fucking numb by now, but it’s not enough. Go get your cell phone and call her. Leave a message. Drink a beer.
Round Three: Now go to your bedroom. You may have to crawl to get there, it’s alright. It’s of dire importance that you have a cigarette right now. And a beer. Open the top drawer of your dresser, where you keep your heroin. Carefully remove your underwear until you get to…right where you…where the fuck is your stash?
VIII.
Okay, so this wasn’t part of the game. I’d torn everything out of my top drawer, and it wasn’t there. I know I had some junk left. I sat on my bed, sifting through underwear and undershirts. Even if I didn’t have any smack left over from last night’s binge, I knew damn well there were some needles in here. The cigarette hanging from my lips was scattering ashes all over my bed. No matter; my whole room was a mess. I threw everything off my bed, starting to sift through the rubbish on the floor. Nothing. I took the drawers out of my dresser, one by one, and dumped them out, sifting through their contents. No heroin. I flipped the dresser itself over, looking underneath it in a drunken stupor-turning-to-rage. Nothing. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck! I started ripping through my closet, tearing clothes down off their hangers. Ratty old jeans, faded and torn shirts. No luck there, either. I slammed my fist into the wall of my closet, and the cheap drywall gave way. I didn’t expect it to, and as my fist lunged forward, I lost my balance and toppled into my closet, sliding down the wall like drool on a baby’s face. After a minute, I pulled myself back onto the floor of my room and just laid there, breathing heavy. Guess I was just going to have to go on the beers for tonight. About that time, I heard Alexis say, “I threw it out.”
“You what?” I said. My words were heavily slurred.
“Your stash. I threw it out,” she said.
“Well, why?” I asked. But I already knew.
“I was worried about you,” she said. She didn’t move from the doorway, just stood there, leaning on the wall with her arms crossed. I sat up and threw my arms in the air. “What the hell’s there to worry about? I’m havin’ a party here!” I said.
“A party? Where’s everyone else, Stephen?”
“It’s a party of one,” I said. I reached for my cigarettes. If I weren’t so drunk, I’d have been able to see the genuine concern on Alexis’ face. As it stood, I could barely see the damn wall in front of me. Then Alexis was helping me up, we stopped by the bathroom. My stomach was churning, and my face must have given it away, because Alexis opened the door. I stumbled in and unleashed the beer I’d been drinking over the past several hours into the toilet. It was then that I noticed I hadn’t eaten that day. When you binge drink, things like food and general health slip your mind. I flushed the toilet and stumbled back out into the hallway, where Alexis helped me into her bed. “Listen, Alexis,” I slurred, “I really don’t think I can-” She touched her finger to my lips.
“I know,” she said. The room was spinning. I propped myself up on my elbows in her bed. “You need to rest,” she said. “Are you actually trying to kill yourself?” she asked. I looked at her, head swimming. She ran one of her hands through my hair. Her maternal instincts must have kicked in. Hello, my name is Stephen, and I’m a fucking child. She laid my head back on the pillow, and I passed out.

The Worst Story You’ll Ever Hear (Pt. 1)

troymharris — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 03:19:16 +0000

I got bored, so I started writing again. Here’s the first part of a short story I’m working on. Some feedback would be appreciated.

The Worst Story You’ll Ever Hear

Part One

I.
If I could take it all back, I would. The peculiar thing about life is that we all fantasize about how it should be. We read stories, watch movies, listen to music, all of them telling us how things should be, or how things would be if the creators were in charge. We all watch the news about wars and stocks and death, all the while thinking about how depressing it is that we live in such a world. A real world. We read our little fucking online articles about taking action against the corporate globe, never realizing the irony of how we’re receiving this information. Looking at my lot in life now, I realize the mistake that has been the last umpteen years of my life.
This isn’t a story about the guns or the bomb or the chair. In fact, it’s not a story at all. It’s a warning. Take what you’re about to read to heart. Because it doesn’t take guns or bombs to change your life. All it takes is a wrong move. Any wrong move. One too many beers and a set of car keys. One false step off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic. One call to U-Haul and a three hundred dollar down payment. One proposal.
What unfolds here is a tale of things gone wrong. And the bitch of it all is that I’ve got no one to blame but myself. It’s an account of a life self-destructed. It’s depression, it’s unrequited love, and it’s a self induced tragedy. Hello, my name is Stephen, and I’m about to tell you the worst story you’ll ever hear.

II.
I first met the love of my life in the community theater troupe. We were both in the drama club’s spring production of Bye Bye Birdie. I didn’t know it then, but it would be the last time in my life things were ever so simple. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. We were living in a shit neighborhood in northern Indiana. I didn’t give a damn about the play, or that the rest of the goons I used to hang with when I played football in high school called me a faggot when I saw them at parties. I didn’t care that I had a dead end job and still hadn‘t gotten accepted to any universities. None of it mattered. What mattered to me was her. Her name is Rosalyn Carter, and I don’t know if it was my stupidity that led me to infatuation or my infatuation that led me to stupidity. She’d talk to me, and I felt like I was on top of the world, and the moment she’d leave I’d be tossed from my high horse into the inevitable pile of shit it had left for me. The fact that she was leaving because her boyfriend wanted to get a quick fuck session in the bathroom before he went home never seemed to help matters. I’m not sure why I always seem to fall for fucked up chicks. I guess it’s because damaged people have an affinity for damaged people.
I’d go home at night and look for something to fill my time with. At first it was internet porn. Half the time I wasn’t even watching it to jerk off to. I just needed a reminder that people fucked for money or drugs more often than they fucked because they actually loved each other. A majority of the time, mattress actors and actresses don’t even know each other. Other times, they don’t care for each other. If you ever watch an amateur porno, you might find a couple who are in love, and put their sex on the internet just because. Most of the time, these are videos that are uploaded by jaded ex-boyfriends. The fucking that goes on in porno flicks is more of a bestial satisfaction. It’s about control. And sitting there, with the mouse or my dick in my hand, I was the one in control. I could rewind to any part of the flick that I wanted to. Most of the time, I’d just skip to the end. Girl begs for the guy to jizz on her tits or face or ass, guy obliges, roll credits. It’s so much more simple than actual love. Porn doesn’t have an opinion. Porn doesn’t care if you decide to watch baseball instead. Porn doesn’t have any psychotic ex boyfriends or girlfriends. You can’t piss porn off by getting too drunk to get a hard on.
I tried dating someone else to get my mind off of Rosalyn. 12 months, 4 girls, with at least 4 months of down time. You do the math.
Cassandra had no personality whatsoever, and was clingy as all hell. If I didn’t spend time with her every day, she’d become convinced I was cheating on her. I never did cheat on her; it’s not my style. I did consistently lie to her about having to be at work, though. And then I’d go home and drink beer and watch baseball. It didn’t help that every time she tried to give me a hand job it felt like an Indian burn on my rod. And she refused to blow me. She said it was degrading. And we never had sex because she said it was against her religion. I tried all kinds of ways to teach her how to give a proper handy. I tried showing her on the steering wheel of my car. We worked on rhythm by listening to techno music together. The bitch was in marching band in high school, so it is to this day inconceivable to me that she couldn’t get the simple rhythm down for stroking me off. I broke up with her on a Friday evening after a silent dinner, and bought my first pack of cigarettes on the way home. All of this happened over the course of 3 months. I realized it would never work out after the first, but it was just too much fun to mock her for those last two.
For those of you keeping score, that’s one break-up for me, with a strong head of steam built up for Rosalyn and her boyfriend, Travis.
Sara was alright enough. She didn’t mind my smoking or drinking, and she didn’t mind me hanging out with my friends most of the time. But she was more retarded than the kid who won the Special Olympics. And rather than admit her stupidity and try and educate herself, she’d try and hide it by laughing at things I’d say that weren’t meant as jokes. And every time I would tell her a joke, she’d stare with the look of an acid junky. I broke it off after 3 weeks.
Two bad relationships later for me, and Rosalyn and Travis were still going steady.
I met Lacey at a house party one night. She fucked like a stallion, and had a good sense of humor. I thought I’d finally found someone. Not to love, but to help me forget about Rosalyn. We went out, had fun a lot, had a lot in common. Most nights we’d go get drunk and come back home to pass out on my bed. Sex optional. And it never mattered. She could tell it didn’t matter. After a while, I guess she got sick of it, because she just up and left. No goodbye, no I’ll call you, no I’m breaking up with you. Just gone.
Three wrecks for me, and Rosalyn and Travis were talking about getting engaged.
Alexis was a girl who occasionally came by the store that I worked at. We’d make small talk every now and again, about the weather, about movies and books. Small talk turned into relationship talk when she started complaining about her boyfriend, and I’d told her at least she had someone to complain about. She’d laughed and when I got off work an hour she was waiting in the parking lot. We went out for drinks and then went back to her place. This started happening more and more frequently over the next couple of months. I don’t know if I’d call it a relationship so much as a booty call, but it did open my mind up to the wonders of joyless, compulsive sex. Like all the fucking in all those pornos I watched. Not for love, but for control. Alexis and I weren’t compatible for one another, but it didn’t matter. She loved sport fucking more than I did. Being as we never were really together, we never really broke up. Although her now ex-boyfriend did try and stab me once at the store when I got off work one night. He’s doing time upstate now for attempted murder, and Alexis and I had a short time where we almost considered dating. It was a gimme shot, I know. In the end, we decided to stay fuck buddies.
Three and a half break ups for me. Travis and Rosalyn’s wedding date was set. Fuck.

III.
So dating the problem away was out. And for all our trying, Alexis and I couldn’t fuck our problems away, either. There were times when I’d sit in our apartment and stare at the wall. She’d come in and ask me what I was doing, and I’d tell her nothing. There really aren’t many times in our society anymore where we can honestly say we’re not doing anything. Even when we say it, we’re usually doing something menial. Perhaps even less than nothing. But whenever Alexis would ask me what I was doing, I’d be able to honestly and without remorse say, “I’m doing nothing.” Maybe doing nothing would be better than what we ended up doing.
After the attempts at jerking my problems away and loving my problems away and fucking them away, I decided to try something else. Alexis and I had been smoking a lot of weed anyways, but I started smoking more than is safe or even remotely reasonable, and I had started throwing some smack into the mix. When you take marijuana and mix it with heroin, it takes away any iota of will to live you once had. Not only that, but it takes away your will to move and think and speak. If it weren’t for my autonomic nervous system, I wouldn’t have been able to bring myself to even breathe. So I had virtually no will to stay alive, but I couldn’t bring myself to get up and go to the kitchen to get a knife to cut myself with. So I’d just sit around, stoned out of my head staring at this wallet picture of Rosalyn I had. It made my wall staring sessions seem somewhat productive.
One night, Alexis came in with one of her new boyfriends during one of these episodes. It was a particularly bad one; I had no clothes on. I was laying on the floor, dick-and-balls naked with a roach burning a hole in the carpet and a tourniquet around my arm and a needle still sticking in my antecubetal fossa, plunger pushed clear in. The picture of Rosalyn was sitting on my nose, facing me. I can’t imagine how embarrassed Alexis must have been when she said to her boyfriend, “Jason, this is…uh…this is my roommate.” They had gone out drinking, but I’m sure this sobered the two of them up quite a bit, because Alexis didn’t sound sloppy, the way she usually does when she’s drunk. And I’ve never known Alexis to be a social drinker.
There were several moments of awkward silence. Hell, it could have been hours. Junk fucks up your perception of time. Then Alexis said, “Steve, are you…you know, okay?” God damn, I tried to form words, but whatever sound came out must not have been good, because they both rushed over at that moment and began taking the paraphernalia apart. “God, Steve! How much of that shit did you take?” Alexis said.
“Should we, you know, call the cops?” Her boyfriend was saying.
“No, no! he can’t go to jail!”
“Sheesh, alright,” he said. He must have backed away, because I felt the footsteps through the thin, shitty carpeting. I felt like I was sinking into it. Everything felt so slow. It felt good.
Hello, my name is Stephen, and I’m overdosing. This was the best I’d felt in years. Alexis was running to the kitchen and digging through something. The guy Jason, he was staring at me and taking a nervous drink of beer. “He doesn’t look so good,” he said. I started laughing at the irony. I heard ceramic crashing on the kitchen floor. She must have knocked over the sugar jar. That sucked. Not that it really mattered, though. It wasn’t as if I was going to be needing it to make coffee anymore.
Alexis was reaching her fingers into my mouth, rubbing something on my gums and teeth. She was slapping me, like she occasionally did when we were fucking. Like when she’d come home and tell me about how awful her day was at work, how some old guy had treated her like shit when she told him the store didn’t’ accept personal checks. And how her boss had told her she needed her to cover a shift for her this weekend because he was going on vacation again. She’d take her coat off and toss it on the ratty couch, then take her pack of cigarettes out of her purse and light one, dropping the purse to the floor and the cigarettes in the purse. I was going to miss the way she held her cigarettes between her lips while she undid her blouse and unbuckled her belt. I was going to miss how she almost never took her bra off during sex. I was going to miss how we never kissed.
Another slap, hard this time. “Ow, Jesus!” I said. “That fucking hurt!” I raised my hand to my cheek where she’d hit me. I could feel it. I could feel where she’d slapped me. Motherfucker.
“Oh, fuck this,” Jason said. He chugged the rest of his beer. “I’m out of here. I can’t deal with your shit anymore, Alex.” And he was gone.

IV.
I was still naked, sitting on the floor several minutes later. Alexis was sitting there next to me. She offered me a cigarette, and I took it, lighting it. “I didn’t know you did coke,” I said.
“Yeah, and thanks for chasing off another one,” she said, blowing a puff of smoke up towards the ceiling. I looked at the heavy nicotine stains on my hand as I took a drag. The cocaine had helped balance out the dopamine rush from the smack. Narcan would also have worked, but it’s a lot harder to get ahold of than good old fashioned crank. She must have noticed me staring at my hand, because she was staring at it, too. “He was so nice, too,” she said, taking my hand and putting it on the floor between her legs. “Sorry,” I said. I moved my hand and scratched my head, then put it in my lap. I was still feeling loopy from the drug cocktail. I started chuckling a little bit. Alexis laughed a little bit, too. “Oh, it probably would have ended soon anyways. I can never hold on to the nice ones,” she said. She looked at me and bit her bottom lip. “But you did kind of chase off my dick for the night.” I laughed and shook my head. “I didn’t mean it,” I replied. She put her hand on my rod and started working it. “Well, you do sort of, you know, owe me.” But nothing was happening. It just sat there, like an overcooked spaghetti noodle. I looked down, confused. Alexis shrugged. “Must be the dope,” she said, and passed me a little bag. “Snort some.” I took the bag and turned it over in my hands. “Look, you need to take some anyways, so you don’t slip off from the heroin.” I sighed.
An hour later, after we’d finished, I decided to put some pants on. I was up and moving around again, which was a good thing…sort of. I was making some coffee. Alexis had thrown away the tourniquet and needle. She came into the kitchen, holding the picture of Rosalyn. She put it down on the counter. “Man, this chica, she must have really fucked you up, huh?” I looked at the picture, then lit one of my own cigarettes. I poured myself a cup of coffee, debated scooping some sugar off of the floor, but there were already ants crawling in it. I took a sip of the coffee. It was bitter as hell. I’d have to deal, though. “Want to talk about it?” Alexis said, and she rubbed my arm softly. It was the closest thing to love I’d ever gotten from her. I wasn’t sure if I liked it. I shook my head. “Well, I don’t want to have to walk in on you like that again,” she said. “I don’t know if I could put up with it.” She lit a cigarette and put the lighter on the counter top, turning to the cupboard for a cup of instant noodles.
I looked at the clock. It was 4:37 in the morning. I had to be at work in a half hour. Alexis gave me a bag of coke for work, just in case, she said. I was headed for the door, when Alexis stopped me. She picked up Rosalyn’s picture. “Do you want to take this with you?” she asked. I took the picture from her and looked at it for a moment. Then took the cigarette out of my mouth and put it to the picture, burning through Rosalyn’s smiling face. Ashes from the cigarette, or maybe from the picture, flaked down on to the counter top next to Alexis’ lighter. I picked up the lighter and put the flame to the corner of the picture. The picture burned, the finish on the picture curling up and deforming it. I held it until the flame burned my fingertips, then I dropped it into the sink. Smoke rolled up the stained wall. Alexis turned on the faucet, putting the picture out. It felt good. I felt the first bit of real release I’d experienced in a long time. Not like when Alexis and I boned. This was deeper. This was nice. I opened the door. “Stephen,” Alexis said. I turned back and looked at her. She was frowning, looking up at me through her bangs, like she did when she’d done something that needed apologizing for. “Call me when you get to work, okay?” I walked out the door and heard it lock behind me.

They Do Exist…!

troymharris — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:09:57 +0000

Check out this awesome car I found.

cool car, bro.

Work.

troymharris — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:43:15 +0000

July 28th. Six days without a cigarette. It still sucks, but I’m getting better at it I think.

We had our first day of actual work today. It was pretty sweet. We spent the whole day unloading storage containers and sorting through the shit we need and the shit we don’t, and tossing the shit we don’t. The rest of the unit is getting ready to go to a field exercise in Kunsan next month. It lasts from like the 3rd until the 20th. From everything I’ve gathered I won’t be going. Not sure yet though. I’ll keep you updated.

I might be moving into my new barracks this week. It seems as though the renovators are getting ready to start on the other half of the building, which means my half should be done. Now the problem is just room availability. We’ll see on that one.

I started a myspace to put my music up on that i’ve been writing out of boredom here. I’ve decided against any post production whatsoever, so you know it’s good quality. Enjoy it.

It’s been a boring several days, so it’s a boring post. Sorry.

times from leave. I miss it already.

Here goes nothing(part deux)

troymharris — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 01:17:49 +0000

Day one as a non-smoker. What a day to pick. I wake up at 5 this morning to get all my things together for checking out of Yongsan and making the trip down to Camp Carroll. After turning in linens and having breakfast, I clean my room and take all of my stuff downstairs. I have my room cleared and I’m good to go, or so I thought…

I get on the bus to get to Camp Carroll, and find my name not on the roster. After about fifteen minutes, the powers that be figure out that I’m supposed to be on the bus going to Osan air base. So I hurry up and get all my shit off of the first bus and onto the second, and subsequently look like a jackass in front of everyone. After holding up the bus a good 20 minutes, I board and have to sit with all my luggage in a two-person seat, because all of the undercarriage space is taken up. I sleep most of the bus ride to Osan.

I wake up just as we are checking into the air base, and as the gate guard comes by to check my ID, I realize I’m missing my wallet. My ID card, my debit card, my SOFA card, everything. Gone. I, once again, look like an incredible ass in front of everyone on the bus as I’m hauling all of my fucking luggage off the bus to wait at the guard shack for someone to come vouch for me, which evidently my unit rep couldn’t do. I wait around for a good 15 minutes while one of the Korean guards takes a smoke break(God, it sucked), until these two warrant officers come up and ask me what the problem seems to be. I explain to them my situation, and they agree to take me to the front gate so that I can be checked in with my fingerprints. I get checked into the base and proceed to wait a few minutes for a couple of privates to come pick me up and take me to brigade headquarters.

It’s about 1200 at this point, and I can’t go get anything to eat because that would require my possession of an ID card. I find out upon arrival to brigade HQ that I am, in fact, going to be going to Camp Carroll, which is a 3 hour bus ride. I wait for about 20 minutes until I’m called into the brigade sergeant major’s office. I’ll say it again: The Brigade Sergeant Major’s office. I proceed to tell him what’s happened, and luckily he’s more concerned about the fact that I was left seemingly to fend for myself at the gates. He sets up an appointment for me to get a new ID card. I spend about 45 minutes filling out the necessary paperwork to get one. This includes a memo from the Deputy Commander of the brigade, and a police report.

I get to the ID processing center at about 1315, where I wait in line for about 30 minutes and am told I need a picture ID in order to get a new military ID. I want to scream at him. I want to tell him that if I had my picture ID, I wouldn’t be in this fucking predicament to begin with. Instead, I look down at the floor awkwardly while he types my social security number into the system. Fortunately, my driver’s license is on record, so I’m good to go. By 1400, I’m out the door with a brand spanking new ID card registered official.

I go and get something to eat at the back door of the DFAC, and sit on my hands for an hour and a half until we leave for the bus station. The bus arrives at 1600 and I begin my 3 hour trek to Camp Carroll, which is where I sit now, typing this. I picked a hell of a day to quit smoking.

here goes nothing.

troymharris — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 10:07:35 +0000

July 22, 2009. My last day as a smoker. here goes nothing…

at least I'm going out in a haze of glory...