Monkey Wrench in Hell

Booby hatch. My new place was a booby hatch--a small, sterile, ill-fitting studio that reminded me of a square, white stale room that I envision being the habitat of some lowly resident of an insane asylum. I took the first shabbily furnished apartment I could get, not out of financial need but simply out of laziness. It didn't matter anyway. When I lived alone I'd be home for 7 hours a day to sleep and out making money, fucking, or partying, the rest of the time. I couldn't sit still for a minute at this point in my life. I felt an unnerving anxiety along with the feeling of "missing out" if I was idle for even a moment. I was by nature lazy but only when it came to the mundane. Had to keep moving. Run or die like a rabbit...or run or die like a wolf who can't find its rabbit. Fear and desire...all enmeshed into one. My motivations...my obsessive motivations were entwined in intense yet ambiguous inclinations. What I ran towards and what I ran away from were the same thing yet still a mystery to me...consciously, anyway. Regardless, I just knew I had to keep moving at all costs.

I reconnected with my old partner in crime, Collin the Juggernaut. Oh, sure, we had an abrupt falling out but we'd be just as quick to make up. It became an expected pattern between us. Besides, we needed each other to justify ourselves being as fucked up as we were. We were similar in the fact that we both liked to run in the same direction...... everywhere and nowhere. All the same games were available to us since before we originally departed to L.A. We got an exotic dancer slash stud agency up and running again and did some local straight and gay bar gigs as well. On nights off of work or during work (literally "during" work) we would get drunk, eat pills and hunt pussy. Same old, same old. Money, drugs, booze, girls and no responsibilities... all flowing very nicely.........and I was miserable.

Looking back, I want to kick my own ass for being "miserable." I could have had the time of my life but I couldn't stop thinking of the girl I left in North Hollywood, Californieeyay. What a sap I was! Did I really love her? Was I just guilt-ridden? Was I simply a friggin' drama queen? Unable to subdue the incessant thought of her with alcohol and other substances, I tried to bury myself in as much pussy as possible and it almost got out of hand. Well, it did get out of hand but nearly to the point of potential imprisonment.

Not only would I hook up with girls at clubs, at gigs, at laundromats and at grocery stores or what have you, I would also rent porn on a daily basis and if pussy was running thin for more than 48 hours, I would simply find some hot, convincing she-male to play with. I became very bold at this point and could’ve given a rat’s ass what anyone thought of my tastes or shenanigans. I assume it safe to say that I was a full-fledged nymphomaniac. How one measures that, I don’t know, but however it’s classified, I was probably there.

One typical Saturday night I was performing at a household for a baby shower of all things. The girls requested I start dressed like a pregnant woman from which I would strip out of and transform into a man. Well, to the tune of a song called, “Push It” or “Push it Real Good,” some cheesy dance tune of the era, I played out their request, though after throwing off my wig, wiping clean my lipstick and hopping out of my pregnant lady moo moo, I hardly felt like a man let alone some stud. Regardless, the pay was good and the ridiculousness of it all allowed the girls to let down their defenses to a naked avenger such as myself. My friend, Sherman the Derelict, was there mc’ing for the occasion that took place in a suburban living room just outside of Minneapolis. As a matter of fact, most of the private shows I did took place in the “conservative” burbs where bored housewives were prone to lose their fuckin’ minds when properly presented with some naked deviltry.
The show was cut slightly short after the Derelict got half-naked with a 45 or 46 year old woman who resembled a younger version of his mother, I suppose. The woman he was with was the owner of the house so the rest of the small crowd felt it permission to do whatever the fuck they wanted. While I stood in front of the stereo staring and laughing at my friend going at it with his substitute mother, 2 girls who were twins yet not completely identical, pulled down my neon orange and green tiger-striped thong and exposed me to the party. Luckily I was at half-mast and then bragged that I was still only limp.

“What’s that?”

“Uhh…it’s a cock strap. It keeps me…plump.”

“You’re not totally limp then, cheater. Why don’t you show us what it looks like all the way hard!”

“I only do that in private.” I said it like I was shy or something. I’m standing in a strangers living room with family pictures on the wall naked as a jaybird with a half boner, a moo-moo, too-too thing around my ankles and I’m, “shy?” Yeah. Right.

The 2 girls pushed me into one of the bedrooms as I hopped along to keep my balance long enough to be plopped on the bed.

“Ever been with 2 girls at once before?”

“Nope. I only do 3 and up.”

“Ever been with 2 twins before?”

“Hmm. You know, I don’t think so. Do girls with multiple personalities count?”

It was fun. They were both cheerful, a little catty in a good way, and sexy as hell. I don’t normally mess around with too many blonds, I like darker girls but what the hell. I made an exception. They both tore off their clothes and we went at it. What a pig I was. Am. Was. Now, to cut to the chase for reasons of avoiding having this sound too much like a short sex story out of Penthouse Forum or some shit, and also to avoid short circuiting my keypad with substances old memories can provoke, I took turns on both of them, asses propped up, faces down like most men like it…well me anyway.

With no rubber and no regard, I pulled out of one of the girls and gave yet even another dose of essence back to the world from which I got it. At that exact moment or say a fraction before, the entire party of girls busted up in the room to witness my ejaculation. Hot while happening but uncomfortable afterward--after the drive is gone. Well, it wasn’t the first time I was caught in mid-stride so I thought nothing of it until the owner of the house took me off to the side and told me the age of the girls. They were both…..um, well not too young but of a younger age than expected. Fuck. I didn’t even think of it! It wasn’t even an issue nor was protection, for that matter. Fuck!

I offered her money back but she said not to worry about it and told me to just be real friendly on my way out. Everyone was in such a frenzy that they didn’t seem to mind that I bopped their neighbors' high school twin daughters. I didn’t feel guilty per say, I mean it was consensual but still...it was cutting it a bit close. I left quickly but carefully not wanting to give off the energy that I did anything wrong or that I was running away because of it. Sherman kissed his new girlfriend slash “milf” goodbye and we were out. Nothing funky came from it and I never heard from the girls again. My "performance" must have been up to par. Whew.

The next day, I had nothing to do and spent morning to night completely alone with the exception of a 2 hour intensive, self-punishing workout at the gym. The night before was a bit of a reality check and I was fed up and sick of my self-absorption and self-denial in regards to dealing with my emotions related to my last girlfriend, Ruby. Banging everything in sight was not healing my wounds. It was simply self-perpetuating and turned into a drug type fix. For me to not feel any inner pain I had to get a little kinkier each time. I was over it, so I turned to the next thing I know always gets me through--physically punishing myself. At the end of my workout, something in me broke through my stubborn, relentless ego and finally lifted out of my body. A moment of clarity they call it...a moment where I actually considered taking responsibility for my emotions! What a concept. What a goddamn concept!

Later that day I had heard good news from the bank in regards to a mortgage loan I had applied for. Earlier in the week I had checked out a quadri-plex just for the hell of it to see if my funds and credit could put me back into the "real" world. Lately because of all the turmoil, I considered going back into the mainstream common type "safe" life. The life I always despised. This would happen to me on occasion when things got too nutso-freako. I'd get a bit righteous, a bit holy even and attempt a jump back into the mainstream...a jump back into doing the right thing, the straight and narrow. Hell, I even went and bought a tie, for what I don't know but it felt right. Crazy, ridiculous statements would enter my head. Statements like, "I'll never drink or party again," or "From now on every time I have sex I'll where a rubber," or "I'm no longer exchanging bodily fluids for cash because it's wrong"...you know, stupid, unrealistic thoughts. Regardless, my emotions were in check and I had an approved loan and $10,000 to put down on a 4-unit building. This along with my new moral outlook seemed to be the stable beginnings of the blue prints to having my shit together. I was on my way! A piece of the American pie was in the oven, brother!

A few days later, the Juggernaut showed up at my apartment and asked me if he could stay at my place for a couple weeks. He was kicked out of his previous pad and apparently his shitty credit and "wonderfully uplifting and humble personality" had deterred him from landing a new place.

"No problem, dude. I'm leaving here anyway as soon as I can move into my own apartment. So stay here and in a month you can stay in one of the units in the quadri-plex."

"Cool. Thanks, brother."

Life was good. I felt calm and stable and, for once, didn't feel like I needed anything. I went a whole week or two without drinkin', druggin' or sexin'. Due to abstaining from these habits along with my hardcore workouts and already high metabolism at the time, my body was as clean as a young nun's snatch...I'm sorry, that was the old me...as clean as a whistle. I felt I owed it to myself to participate in some light debauch, nothing serious just a simple porn video rental and with no sex enhancing drugs, I might ad...practically a saint. I entered the adult video store and headed toward my favorite sections, though this time I avoided looking for any videos whose actresses resembled my now official ex-girlfriend, Ruby. Hmm, what have we here, "Anal Gang Bang 4....Girls Who Eat Cum 18....Strap-on Soul Sisters....She-male Asian Midget MILFs"....? They were all good. How could one possibly decide. So I took my time and wandered around the store and just before deciding on "Black Cherry Poppers", I saw her. Her! Ruby! On the goddamn cover of a fucking porn vid! Damn, man, it didn't take her long did it. I grabbed the video before anyone else did, threw down more cash than it was worth and left without waiting for the change. I had to see this fucker and I had to see it now!

When I got home, Collin the bastard Juggernaut bitch was there. I forgot all about him. Goddamn it. I had to get him out of there but I couldn't tell him why, not until I saw the video first. He had his head deep in the fridge and all I could see was his ass.

"What are you doing, Collin. All I got in there is half used condiments and maybe some moldy bread. You know I never buy groceries. You're going to have to go out to get something to eat."

"Oh, okay. No problem old chap. I'll be back in an hour or so. See ya, brother."

That was too easy, I thought to myself and why the fuck was he so friendly? He was never this cordial unless, of course, he had a bottle of vicodin but I'm sure we were out...unless the big, little bastard was holding out on me! Oh, that's right. I quit anyway. Well, fuck him. He was out of the apartment and I was alone to attend to my secret little shocking video.

I watched it from front to back but the only sighting of Ruby in the video was of her with another girl in a bathtub, a fairly boring vanilla type scene. It was the one I witnessed live when she and I lived together in L.A. No surprises and nothing shocking. Damn it! Disappointment and relief had hit me all in the same motion, not oscillating back n’ forth but united as one emotional wave. Weird shit. Apparently her picture on the cover was more of an advertising lure than anything. It was a great picture and one of a series we had done when we lived together, pictures that had earned Ruby a spot in Penthouse Magazine about a year back. So, anyway, I put away the Vaseline, washed my hands and gave her a call, the first one since my return to the Twin Cities. I had to call her. I had to know how involved she was about to get in the L.A. porn scene. I told myself that I was concerned that she would be getting involved with some of the scumbags and users of the industry which was probably true to a degree but the more significant reason of my concern was pure, raw, primal jealousy. Jealousy based on ego, control and obsession and it had only just begun to swelter.

"Ruby?"

"Who's this?"

"It's Adam."

"Oh. What's up?"

She sounded too...cheerful. I mean, she should've been mad at me or at least been cautious in her approach to the conversation but instead her tone was a bit giddy and distant. It annoyed me.

"I saw you on..."

"Oh, I know isn't it neat. The neighbor I’ll be moving next door to does movies and she knows some of the people in the industry. She showed my pictures to them and they used a number of them for movie covers.

"Okay. So is that as far as you're gonna take it?

"She introduced me to some pornstar named Peter Nord…or something like that. I don't know what I'm going to do yet. I'm supposed to go with her and meet with some people at a studio in Van Nuys next week....and why do you care, anyway."

"Peter Nord...you mean Peter North. He's an old school pornstar...and I care because you're gonna get yourself caught up in some bullshit predator situation that's why! We tried to do a movie before and you know the degenerate lowlife scumbag user fucks we ran into! Get your head out of your ass."

"I don't know if I'm going to do it and you can't tell me what to do anymore, any fuckin' way!"

"Oh, so rebel against me and go get gang banged for everyone to see. Yea, that'll fuckin' teach me right! Stupid fuckin' bitch!!"

Click. I was pissed. Beyond pissed....raging lunatic pissed....destroying what little I had in my apartment pissed. After trying to call her back several gazillion times, I finally gave up and proceeded to assault my living quarters, dressers, nightstands, lamps and even the drywall didn't stand a chance. KilldestroyfuckingwrecksmashkillFUCK!!!! After I expended enough energy to calm me for the moment, I flopped by body onto the various bits and pieces of wreckage and tried to compose myself with a self little talk...'okay, man, let it go...she's not yours anymore... let her go...it's not your business... fuck the bitch, she ain't worth it, fuck her....fuck her....fuck her...FUCK!!!' It just started up again. This time I had only the fridge and stove to attack and the stove deemed too heavy so the fridge it was. I tipped it over and started kicking it, ripping at it with bloody fists, tearing at it, scratching it, pounding, smashing, anything....until something unexpected that fell out of the freezer had captured my attention enough to halt my rage.

"COLLIN YOU MOTHERFUCKER!!!" I yelled into the air as loud as I could and I've got a fairly powerful larynx so I'm sure the neighbors heard it all. Out of the freezer had fallen a bag of, yet to be cut, pure cocaine, by the looks of it, probably about a quarter pound of the shit, 3 or 4 ounces at least. That big short degenerate fuck! He was using my place to store his stash that he was selling. No wonder the cocksucker was all friendly to me. I don't like more drugs than I can claim were of personal use, in my house. I'm not, nor was ever a dealer, only a resilient user. It was a pet-peeve of mine. I hated drugs in the house for more than a couple hours unless they were in my body, of course. So I took the bag and stood over the toilet with all the intention of sending it where it belonged--in the sewer. The drug addict part of my mind made me hesitate long enough for the Juggernaut to return to save his prized stash. As my nerve got up enough to finally decide to let it go, Collin walked in on me as I just began tipping the open side of the bag over the already flushed toilet.

"DON'T Adam!!"

"Fuck you!! Why shouldn't I?! You could've asked me you piece of shit!"

"You would've said no and if you drop that in I will literally fucking kill you!!"

"Look at my apartment, tough guy. Do you really think I give a shit right now!!"

"Just put it down and I'll give you some of the prof...hey, what the hell did you do to the apartment? What happened? Have a little episode did we?"

"Yea, I'm upset about that bitch in L.A." I ended up telling him a reader’s digest version of the entire story, gesturing dramatically with the bag of cocaine in my hand the whole time. He was listening to me but his eyes and head would turn wherever the bag would go. HE actually had to calm ME down this time...not out of love or concern but to peacefully and safely get his drugs out of the hands of his crazed and obsessed, not giving a shit friend. Nothing he said could've changed my mind other than the only one thing he did say...

"Fine. Dump it. Fuck it. But why not do a bunch of the shit first. I mean, we got nothing to lose anyway, right? Let's just get super high. Fuck this life and all the bitches it."

(Ding)

“Sniff…snort…snorkle…sniff…tip the head back and sniff…snort……”

What a mess. What an ungodly friggin’ mess. My apartment and my head as well. We blasted through at least an 8-ball or more of the shit each. Up all night and into the next morning. Blowing our fuckin’ minds! I was too high to care, too high to even come close to figuring out my next move. I went to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. My pants were still on. I went in there only to be alone. I was exhausted and nervous as hell at the same time, a known and well understood feeling to any of those who have done way too much cocaine for one day…or one day to night to another day in this case. I heard Collin’s careful, slow footsteps and then a slam of the apartment door ending with his sped up foot sounds. He took off with the rest of his stash. It would be years before I’d ever see him again. I didn’t care that he left. He was never really my friend. We just used each other for power and energy….and had a few laughs in between. I was glad he was gone. I just hung my head into my hands and sat with my tight veins and shaking muscles on the toilet….for hours. Not being able to rest yet not being able to move.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to sleep. I had to settle down. It was Friday, early afternoon and I hadn’t slept since Wednesday night. Through the destruction in my apartment, I found a half liter of tequila and a tattered but still in tact little box which inside contained a few things I was saving for a special occasion. Apparently this was that occasion. In the box, was a single special joint of high quality grade and about a quarter ounce of psilocybin mushrooms. To my pleasant surprise there was also two and a half vicodins in the mix which I had no clue how the fuck got there. All was fair game but the shrooms. My plan was to down the tequila as fast as possible without puking and toke off the joint in between….oh, yea, and the pills were already shoved down my esophagus before I even made the plan. After all was consumed, I would simply drift into an incoherent, safe oblivion, relieving myself of any emotionally cataclysmic thoughts of Ruby and any residual feelings of anxiety and guilt from the coke. The pills were digested, the tequila was finished and the joint was a smoldering roach now staining my thumb and index finger. Ahhhh. Relief. Comfortably numb as Pink Floyd would agree….slipping…and slipping…into a peaceful dreamlike state of……….

”BANG BANG BOOM! Get up Mr. stripper boy! Get the fuck up Mr. Applefag!”

“Who the fuck is it!!!” I snapped to my feet and forgetting the state of my room in my half-reverie, fell in the garbage face first.

“It’s Dooooo, Dooooo, I said Doooofek!”

“Dan? Dan Dufek?”

“Yea, man. It’s me. But not just Dufek….Doooofek, as in the man who can get things done, baby!”

Dan Dufek was an old friend of Sherman the Derelict’s and another former fundamental Christian gone bad which to me is, of course, a step in the right direction. I like him but I have to rip on him. Basically, he was a relatively rich suburban kid/ guy who got off on being a part of anything that was hip or trendy or that worked. He was one of those “Do you know who I am!” kind of guys when confronted by an adversary, and whenever he drank booze, I mean Pinocchio juice, his nose would grow a little longer with every drink. He had long well-groomed hair, he wasn’t bad looking, had an expensive vehicle, he sold art for a living, had chics at his side, money to blow and the smallest penis I had ever seen.

He pissed me off one night in regards to a situation involving the abandonment of an under-aged girl in a motel room located in the boonies. He lied to me about her age, her willingness for a three-way and after my refusal to participate in the entire situation, ditched the child far from home in the countryside motor lodge. This was against my wishes, I might add, not only for obvious unethical reasons of leaving someone stranded but the implications that could’ve come from such a move could not have been good. I mean, two of age dudes, one a player and the other a stripper taking a 15 year old girl to a motel, hanging with her and fleeing after an hour just simply looked BAD. He thought it was funny which pissed me off even the more. The only thing he questioned was the size of his cock as being responsible in which Dan, in his drunken state, felt compelled to show me that night. “Do you think it’s really that small, Applesnatch?” He said this with his pants around his ankles attempting to piss in his bathroom while leaning up against the sink, slurring and drunk as fuck. All in all, I still liked the guy mainly because underneath his cheese and attempt at coolness he always had an underlying smirk. A smirk telling me that deep down he knew it was all bullshit and he was just having fun. Besides this particular situation, he had a big heart most the time. Most all of us got a bit of good and a bit of evil in us. We’ll forgive it by saying we’re not perfect, I suppose. Part of the human condition.

“Are you gonna open the goddamn door or what, Adamu bitch!”

“I’m comin’ ya bastard. I’ll be right there.” I forced myself to crawl through the rubble that covered my apartment floor. From my hands and knees, I unlocked the door to allow Dufek to let himself in.

“Hey! Wake up I got a surp….what the hell happened in here? You get robbed?”

“Yea. Of my dignity.”

I told Dan what happened and after I waited for him to stop laughing, we both agreed that a change of atmosphere was in order. We first headed over to his place in Apple Valley where he pulled out a “surprise” he had waiting for me.

“More cocaine!? Du, I’ve been up since Wednesday. There’s no fucking way in hell I’m gonna do another line! I mean, NO WAY!”

“Sniff…snort…snorkle…sniff…tip the head back and sniff…snort………FUCK!”

I could never say, “No”, to the shit. I made Dufek agree to eat my special occasion mushrooms with me being that he “forced” me to do lines. In my mind he had to do something he didn’t necessarily want to do as well just so we were even….or something. Whatever. We downed them in the form of peanut butter and jelly mushroom sandwiches and headed to Lake Calhoun doing bumps off a mirror he had stashed in between his seats.
We hung down by the lake laughing our asses off unable to socialize with any girls hanging out down there but nevertheless laughing our asses off. It’s always great to laugh but my emotional pain and my agony from sleep deprivation were lingering in the background poking at the bottom of every thought and feeling. We watched the sunset, warded off the mosquitoes that were always part of the humid summer Minnesota dusk and sat on the hood of his truck until night fall.

I was confused, wired and more anxious than ever. Dufek was quite the opposite and seemed to be getting off on the whole scene. He even found my misery amusing seeing it as just another colorful part of the evening’s collage. It didn’t bother me. In fact, I was really glad that my negativity wasn’t bringing him down. Somehow him making fun of my pain I saw as a form of non-judgment and compassion. I’m glad he didn’t give a fuck. I tried not to give a fuck but was too overcome and regardless of his good company, I needed to be alone.

“Well Applegate, thank you for the magic mushies and take care of your wretched ass. I never took these things before but I have to say they’re pretty awesome! Are you sure you don’t need a ride back home?”

“No, man. I need to walk. I need to walk and think.”

I did one last fat line of coke before shaking hands with my friend and seeing him off. It was a weird handshake. One of those hand shakes that came with a certain mutual stare and underlying sadness delivering in us a silent understanding that we would never see each other again. For the first time since seeing Dufek that day and night I saw a slight drop in his smile. One that told me he finally felt how far away I really had gone….and was going. Our party was over and I had to walk.

And walk I did….for miles. I walked around Lake Calhoun then Lake Harriet then through the cemetery and then repeated the circle until finally ending up in the cemetery once again. The simple idea of doubling up and doubling back was enough of a stimulus to push me to the idea I was about to pursue. As I sat in the bone yard, leaning the back of my exhausted carcass against the base of a tall stone pylon, I realized what I had to do, in my mind, to stay alive. I had a plan. And no matter how wretched in my life I ever become, as long as I have a mission or a plan I always seem to endure even if that plan is unsound. People like my father…people like me need missions and not just little missions but ones that are or at least seem to us to be epic in proportion. The Sun was up. It was Saturday morning and I haven’t slept since Wednesday and in spite of it, my legs were in full sprint to my apartment ready to fill my car of clothes and photo albums, the only things I would ever keep lugging around with me over the years. I was going back to California and I was going back that day.

Utah. I made it to Utah nonstop (minus the necessity of getting gas) with no problems….or hardly a thought. My mind was so focused yet so tired that somehow it made way for the perfect driving brain mode. Dark Zen cross country traveling zombie man until…….Utah, that is. When driving through the desert something began to malfunction, not in my vehicle but in my body. My vision in my right eye became blurred and the right side of my body was starting to tingle. I shook my head and arm trying to snap myself out of it but the condition only worsened. My right arm and the right side of my face had become completely numb, I lost all vision in my right eye and the corner of my mouth curled upward involuntarily. Blind, paralyzed and retarded, I managed to pull the car safely over to the side of the dusty desert highway. With the car door open and the car still running, I dropped to the ground. I couldn’t move. I was face up with the Sun blaring in my only functional eye and I couldn’t move even a small finger or toe. I wasn’t scared but grateful that my body had finally become tired enough and fucked up enough to outweigh my intense and aberrant motivation. It felt good to not move….to not think….to not care. These simple thoughts and non-thoughts made me feel better….made my body feel better. Once again, comfortably numb I laid there and basked in the power of the Sun. No cars drove by. No people were within miles. It was wonderful and it was completely acceptable to me as a great way to die. I was ready. I was willing. I had no fear. My vision and my consciousness began to slowly fade into a beautiful silence, my body in full acceptance of its demise.

From a will outside of my own or of some other ungodly or godly power, my body jumped up instantly to an upright standing position. Son of a bitch! I was almost out! And peacefully at that. Fuck! My arm was tingly but functional, my eye was only slightly blurred and my retarded smirk had subsided. I looked at my running car and checked out the clock. Though it felt like an eternity on the ground, from what I remember, it was 1pm and some odd minutes when I pulled over. The clock said 12:13pm. It made no sense and at first I shrugged it off as my mind simply just being out of whack. I personally think I had died and it was some mystical reversal of time throwing me back into the dimension that I didn’t die in. I swear to god I can never prove the shit because the dimensional shift creates its own past as well. In the original dimension I was in, my body lies dead in the red dirt on the side of the highway. The “me” I just entered in the dimension I just entered it in never even stopped or had any bodily malfunctions to speak of. My consciousness simply jumped and united with another probable self of mine….one that fits the ultimate goal of getting back to Cali. Fucking amazing! How to prove it? Fuck it. I don’t have to. Call me nuts…who cares….back to the mission at hand.

The rest of the road trip went smooth and when entering Nevada I finally got ahold of Ruby. She became friendly after I told her what I was doing and how close I was. She was waiting for her apartment to open up and was staying at a fairly decent hotel near the beach. It was perfect. She was nurturing, she had an awesome Indian meal prepared and a giant bed waiting for me. When she saw how wretched I was, she laughed and gave me a hug. It was Sunday evening. It took me only 30 hours to get to L.A. and I hadn’t eaten but some beef jerky since Wednesday….oh and some mushrooms, of course. Everything she had prepared I had finished. It was a huge amount of food and the sheer weight of it in my belly forced me onto the bed. Ruby offered me sex but I was too tired for it to even be an option. I hadn’t slept since Wednesday as well. Four and a half days and nothing but a collapse in the desert which actually lost me about an hour. I actually had “minus” amount of sleep. I stared up at the ceiling, paralyzed from total exhaustion. This was the farthest I ever pushed myself to date. Too tired to shower, Ruby wiped me down with a warm clean cloth as I lay there. The last thing I remember before going into a 24 hour slumber was Ruby placing her head on my chest. It was warm, she felt silky, I was happy and for a few seconds before slipping away into unconsciousness I felt absolutely wonderful.

“Wonderfulness” is defined in the Webster’s College Dictionary as an adjective describing something capable of eliciting wonder, astonishment, excellence, greatness and marvelousness. All the feelings of which I felt none of within days of my arrival. Feelings of which were felt for possibly only 5 to 10 seconds in my reverie in that first night of sleep in the hotel room. Ruby had been dancing and clubbing a lot since I was gone and I was forced to meet all of her superficial, fake, bullshit friends some of which I got that vibe where deep down you know there was some kind of sex thing involved. A couple of her “friends” were in the porn biz and took an immediate disliking to me. Fights almost broke out with the young dipshits and I used the word “cunt” numerous times to her female acquaintances. Ruby was too young for me, I realized. The people she attracted were simply too fuckin’ stupid. I can’t stand unintelligence but I will accept it if the person has good intention as I would expect from someone more abstract than I. False liberal acting cocksuckers who are really judgmental deep down, I want to kill. They were just playin’ that California laid back bullshit, using it as an excuse to treat their friends shitty, fuck you over and as a blanket to cover themselves from not owning up to any of it. Ruby was ignorant to the whole scene and just wanted friends. What a weak bitch. Why the fuck did I change my whole goddamn life and come back to Cali for this shit. I made it all up in my head. It was all a self-induced insecure mental charade. I had no clue what the hell I was going to do now.

I held my composure, refrained from the mouth watering temptation of murdering one of these ignorant, smiling fucks and helped Ruby and her brother Sanjay move into their new place in Redondo Beach. The only saving grace to my trip was rollerblading from Redondo to Malibu and back everyday. I was in great shape. Pissed off and bottled up but in great shape. I used the rage inside of me against my body like I always did but this time it got me lean and fucking mean as hell…a different kind of mean. I’ve always had anger and rage but this was the first time a real salty and dark bitterness had started to surface in me. It was unhealthy and something that unfortunately, would grow over the years to come.

Another saving grace and probably a healthier one was befriending and becoming a mentor to Ruby’s little brother, Sanjay. He was only 105 pounds soaking wet and had lost the function of his ankle and most of his one leg from polio that he was never vaccinated for or treated for when he was a baby in India. He was missing his quadriceps muscles and other muscles in his lower leg that forced him to use a permanent cast. Sanjay was a good looking kid and the positive side to his light weight and his gimp leg was that he could climb the fuck out of a cliff at high speed by pulling his body up only using his arms which were ridiculously strong. A lot of the meat in his legs was gone so they were light and when he climbed they would dangle lifeless as he ascended. I don’t know. I thought it was awesome.

Sanjay was only 16 but he had a lot of obstacles already presented to him in his fresh life—kidnapping, orphanages, foster homes, abandonment….he made me feel guilty for being such a bitch about petty things. Anyway, I liked the little fucker and I stopped being a racist dick and saying shit like, “Hey, little Punjab” or “dothead”, after I got to know him. I was never prejudice in my life. I just like sayin’ shit that you’re not supposed to say or that people give too much power to….like the word “nigger”, for instance. It gains power when you make it soooo important that you have to say, “the ‘N’ word” in place of it. People who do that are truly prejudice and do it as a cover. They remind me of one group that maybe in fact I am prejudice against--newscasters! Yes, newscasters. I hate them plastic cake-haired cockfuckers! Talking carbon-based knuckleheads. Puppets on a corporate elitist string feeding the public lies and biased bullshit at best. Robots of secret devils hiding behind false morality and “N-word” jargon. They are the real niggers and the real slaves. Actually to lesser or greater degrees we are all paid slaves and niggers in America, anyway…..white or black. Shit, no one’s beingness or “who” someone “is” is their body or their skin color any fucking wa…..Oops. I’m going off track. I guess just thinking about Ruby’s friends is pissing me off. Sorry. I’ll focus…………fucking newscasters.

Ruby wanted to have privacy in her world and her questionable business so she posed and manipulated the idea to Sanjay that he should move back to India and stay with some relatives. She just wanted him out of the way which showed me even more that her intentions were to partake in something a gulf away from her cultures values and Sanjay’s judgment. Regardless of her reasons, Sanjay agreed and started the procedure though one thing was missing. His passport and identification. Ruby had only 2 blood relatives in California and the states for that matter and they were total enemies. The bad thing was that they had Sanjay’s ID and passport and we had to retrieve them. The good thing was that I had a stupidly simple yet genius plan.

“They live in Alhambra, right? Let’s go. I’ll get Sanjay’s documents back in 5 minutes tops.”

“How are you going to do that? They said they didn’t have his stuff before they hung up on us.”

“They have it. If you’re enemies like you say, then they have it. They wouldn’t get rid of it because it’s like having control over you by possessing it. You know what I mean? They sound petty so they probably get off on the fact that they determine how Sanjay travels or what not so therefore they got it. I know they do. We just need to hit a Toys R’ Us on the way there.”

“Ok.” Ruby was into it. She grew to love scamming even if it was as petty and funny as this was about to be.

It was simple. I gathered a fake gun, a plastic badge, big lens 70’s-style sun glasses and obtained a cheap tan-colored sport coat from a second hand clothing store. Her relatives were of course foreign and most likely based their knowledge of America on cheesy movies which included cheesy cop movies. They had no idea how contrived my detective slash civil officer costume was in reality. I knocked on their door, introduced myself as Officer McCallahan and asked them politely to hand over Sanjay’s papers. After they denied having them I simply grabbed my handcuffs and raised my voice while putting my other hand on the cowboy looking toy holster that held my Lethal Weapon squirt gun. The act scared them shitless and after arguing with each other in Hindustani for a few seconds they handed over Sanjay’s passport and other papers after which apologizing to me with their heads down. It was fucking awesome and so satisfying.

The three of us laughed our asses off when we got back in the car and I was the hero of the moment. It felt good for a change. I usually feel like the bad guy or the villain or in the least, the asshole. Things stayed friendly for a couple days after but Ruby’s new arrogant attitude combined with her low IQ was too much for me too bare. I couldn’t stand her. All we did was fight and the single bedroom beach flat was too crowded for the 3 of us. I had to go, once again, packing my Eclipse with clothes and photo albums. I headed east, not knowing where I was going….just east, simply because going in the other direction would land me in the ocean within a couple of blocks. I had no plan other than leaving.
When waving goodbye to both of them, I saw them staring at me with a look of fear in their eyes. A look telling me that my abrupt departure was eliciting bad memories and feelings of abandonment in them. Signs I witnessed that would increase as I drove away were ones such as the small droops in the corners of their mouth, a slight lowering of their eyelids and the slow motion bow of their heads. The subtlety made it all the more powerful. I didn’t know how lonely they were, how needy they were until that moment…that moment as I drove away. It broke my heart and I cried but I kept driving….no not crying, balling my eyes out…..driving and balling yet still driving. I had stopped Ruby’s momentum of her involvement in the sex industry. I had thrown a monkey wrench into her dark destiny but was it worth it, I thought. I did it for myself, I felt and not for her. Though I sacrificed myself, I was no hero. It was too much for me to take at the time. I wasn’t ready. I had to keep moving. Had to. It was terrible.

I finally got back out into the desert, with tears and thoughts both subsided by the calming effect of the empty landscape. With my mind momentarily clear, I decided I would not be going back to the Midwest. I knew a dancer acquaintance in Dallas, Texas and pulled over to an isolated little gas station to give him a call. The post was silent and me and the old wrinkled desert man working the register were the only ones there. It was depressing. I got a pocket worth of change, rummaged through my bags to find my book of numbers and called my Texas connection. I couldn’t believe it. It was a long shot but he actually answered his phone. His name was Giovanni, his dance name anyway. His real name was Pedro. He was a Venezuelan stripper I met in Minneapolis when I first started dancing. I told him my situation and he said I could stay with him for awhile and that he’d also hook me up with some dance gigs. Dallas was hot for strippers at that time. It fell into place so easy that it slid me out of the idea of driving back to L.A. within 30 seconds of our conversation. I filled the tank and headed back into the desert this time going deeper south and to another place I’ve never been. I cried once again for Ruby, for Sanjay and also for my alternate body double that I had left dead in the red dirt of Southwest Utah, pecked by vultures and by now a bug ridden and decomposed version of my original self.

(Minneapolis, Utah & L.A., Summer 1992) . . . . . . aa

©2002-2012 Mr. Applegate.net