Friday, October 28, 2005

The Real Shizzle


I'vizzle got a nizzle rizzle Pizzle Wizzle wizzle my grizzle sizzle instructor bizzle thizzle shizzle up in Mizzle Shizzle turnizzle out to bizzle too much for hizzle so hizzle wizzle forcizzle into rizzle aftizzle just a fizzle monthizzle Now hizzle sizzle prosthizzle nizzle on thizzle bizzle Hizzle got quizzle a buizzle goizzle now. All thizzle old lizzle wizzle nizzle on thizzle chizzle instizzle of thizzle bizzle Gizzle hizzle a vizzle.

I've got a new renter. PiKKeL WeeZeL was my grandmother's salsa instructor before they shacked up in Miami. She turned out to be too much for him, so he was forced into retirement after just a few monthes. Now he sells prosthetic nipples on the beach. He's got quite a buisiness going now. All the old ladies want nipples on their chests instead of their bellies. Give him a visit.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Let Them Eat Venison


PART II

Conclusion of previous post.

"Look man, the van's not hurt very bad. Lets just get out of here." Will reasoned. He was as anxious to get going as I was, but when it came down to it, we drove 24/7 to get nowhere in particular. There was no schedule to maintain. No deadline to meet.

" Look guys, you know as well as I do that there are hungry people in the world. This thing could feed a family for a week or more. Don't you feel obligated to get it to someone that needs it?" Justin was almost crying. His drug twisted sense of civic duty was eating at his conscience.

" So, are you really suggesting that we load up this puddle of road kill and try to find someone willing to eat it?" I asked, just for clarification. Was it just the drugs, or did this seem logical to him?

"It's not going in my van. We live in this damn thing, and I'm not going to have blood all over my living room. No fucking way." Will said as he held the head lamp of his home where it used to be. It was about five inches in front of the metal that used to cradle it. The fender had been pushed in and the bumper had a bit of a twist to it now, but other than that, it was in good shape.

"Lets go. It's too mangled to eat. I just want sleep."

"No! Man, how many times have you been hungry? This is the right fucking thing to do, and you want to just go on with your lives and say tough shit to hungry people. We can put it on top of the van. Lets do this." Justin was crying now. Were we all that spun? We did too many drugs.

"O.K. Fine. It's going on top though." Will was on board, which meant so were the rest of us. His van, his decision.

What remained of the deer was almost reduced to pudding. It's trip through the ringer had crushed all the bones and left its spine broken and exposed. It had been sitting on the side of the road for 15 minutes now and was surrounded by a dark pool of blood. The head was missing an almost perfect circle in the place where there had once been an antler. It was summer and the deer's ears were covered in fat, swollen ticks that I knew would eventually drop off as the blood cooled. As we all stood around it Justin backed the van up to where we were. Traffic was picking up now with the coming of the light.

Thinking swiftly, I climbed to the roof of the van. The others gathered around the pot roast that would eventually be hoisted to the roof. I motioned to Will silently and he joined me on top. One of the others pulled a blue plastic tarp from the van and laid it out next to the carcass. They all gingerly pushed and pulled until it laid in the center of the tarp, and their hands were all stained red. The plastic was folded in half and they began to lift. Will and I were on our stomachs, reaching down to grasp the corners of the tarp.

Once we were in control of the weight of it, the others were forced to get underneath to push it up as we pulled. I rose to my knees, pulling hard at the dead weight as I went. The extra pull on my side made the tarp tilt toward Justin, spilling the blood that had pooled on the tarp. It dribbled out, hitting him squarely in the face and down his chest. He stepped back in disgust, almost getting run down by a passing truck. I smiled a little on the inside.

After much effort the deer was almost on the van roof. Everyone stood beneath it pushing to raise it the last few inches. I heard Will mutter a few curse words as he struggled to hold the corners of the tarp. We continued to pull until the tarp rested in the center of the roof. The mess had coated them all in blood and gore, while Will and I were still clean. The roof and back of the van dripped with what used to be the deer, it's hair stuck to everything.


Will drove slowly at first since the cargo was not secured to the van with anything but gravity. We left the highway at the next exit and drove into the suburbs of St. Louis. We endured the sickened stares of the local population at the stoplight and parked in the parking lot of a grocery store to find a pay phone.

Just as we were climbing from the vehicle to search a phone book for the number to a shelter or free kitchen, the sound of sirens could be heard in the distance. I instantly new what was next. Three police cars screamed into the lot and stopped in a tactical triangle around us and our blood soaked van, blocking any possibility of escape. From routine practice, we all knew the drill. Stop. Slowly extend your arms out to the sides and move to your knees. Then, palms on the ground, belly down, don't do anything quickly.

After a through search, we were all permitted to sit with our backs against a fence and answer questions. We explained the origin of the deer, and tried to explain why it was on top of our van. Hearing it all said outloud, made the shame of stupidity evident on our faces, most of all Justin.

"Who the hell did you think would want to eat road kill?" Pig #1 asked as pigs #2 through #6 laughed at us.

"Your Mom likes meat." The crowd of shoppers that had gathered choked a giggle at my wit. Pig #1 accidentally stepped on my hand. I shut up.

"You boys should load back up in your smelly little hippy van and leave. If I find your girlfriend up there on the side of the road, I'll put you all in jail for the holiday. Understand? The county line is another 8 miles down I-70. You hang on to her till then. After that it's not my problem." The police all got in their cars and drove slowly away, blowing kisses to me as they went.

By now I was barely functioning. I needed sleep and was in a rage as I drove up the ramp to I-70. The police had followed us to the ramp before going another route. I didn't care if the deer fell off or not. I drove highway speed for 8 miles until I passed a sign that indicated we were entering the next county. As soon as I was past the sign I put my full weight ontop of my right foot, which was planted firmly on the brake pedal. As the van skidded to a stop on the side of the road, Bambi earned his wings. The tarp wrapped meat blob flew through the air in front of the van, sliding through the grass and stopping a few yards from the road. I pulled back into traffic and headed for St. Louis. Blood still dripped from the roof and now ran down the windsheild.

PART III WILL BE POSTED BY MONDAY

Friday, October 21, 2005

Nightblind and Braindead


I always drove at night. Will and the others were day people, and would switch out driving duties throughout the day. Myself, I preferred the quiet and solitude of the night. It offered time for reflection and contemplation of the swirling soup that was my drug skewed mind. I also stayed awake during the day, which often left me too tired to drive at night without some sort of chemical crutch to keep me from falling out the door onto the cracked pavement that was perpetually whizzing past. Not one to waste valuable driving time sleeping, I frequently took LSD to stay awake for my night drives. This sometimes wasn't even enough after three or four days of not sleeping.

July 3, 1994 Missouri

I had been awake for more than just a few days by now. Each night I would consume double the dose of LSD as the day before. The human body builds tolerance to the drug incredibly quickly. A dose of one hit would have to be doubled to two the next day to achieve the same high. Day three would be four hits, then eight... I was on about day five or six and it would soon be time for a few days off to let my head clean out. It just wouldn't work another day without selling an organ.

As I drove east on US 70 the sleep deprivation and hallucinogens were creeping up on me. I would see all manner of things wander onto the roadway. Sometimes I would imagine a hitchhiker walking into my path of travel. Some times it was an animal scurrying across the road. Each time I would stifle a scream and get ready to swerve around it only to see it dissolve into a shadow or a sign at the edge of the road. After a few times, I would regain control and would not be so quick to believe my eyes, only to freak out and try to dodge my imagination again after a little while. Other that this, it was a fairly uneventful night as we approached St. Louis.


Just as dawn was starting to turn the sky from black to a dark navy blue I was near the limit of my abilities. I was swerving around imaginary roadkill victims with more and more frequency, and finding it harder and harder to recover from my fright between incidents. Just as my racing heart would begin to beat at a somewhat normal rhythm, something else would scramble onto the road. I was terrified that I would run something, or someone over, but knew the whole time that there was nothing there to run over.

I pulled off the road into a rest area for a break. I got out and smoked a cigarette and walked around the van to clear my mind. The air was warm, but still felt cool enough to freshen me up. I walked barefoot across the small, sharp pebbles on the concrete it an attempt to stimulate brain activity. Everyone else was sleeping like the dead inside the van. At this time of day, on the 4th of July, there was little traffic on the road and only a few cars at the rest area. All was quiet as I got back in.

On the highway again, I could see the anonymously dark shapes and forms turning into trees and houses. I was sure my mind was awake enough to drive until the others were awake, but I prepared myself for the unexpected. It had been a long night and I was sure that I would still be tormented by hallucinations, no matter how awake I felt.

Just a few miles down the road I was starting to feel the weight of sleep pressing my chin into my chest. I shook my head from side to side and slapped my cheeks to wake up. Coming over a slight hill I saw movement in the trees at the side of the highway. It bolted toward the road. My first thought was that it was a kid. I could see the blue of denim flash against the dark green of the trees in the gloom. Refusing to play the victim to my sleep starved brain again, I didn't flinch. My hands gripped the steering wheel and I pressed the gas pedal down a fraction of an inch just to prove to myself that the boy was not there. He was running up the embankment in long bounding strides. Too long to be those of a kid. Our trajectories were locked. Neither of us slowed or changed course. All the previous hallucinations had lasted just a heart beat, but this one lived on. I could count the steps up the hill toward the road. This was lasting too long. Was he really there? I lifted my foot slightly, not knowing if he would suddenly be transformed into a bush or sprint onto the road and meet the grill of the van at sixty miles an hour. At last I snapped into reality. I pulled the wheel to the left and floored the brake pedal as he crossed the narrow gravel shoulder and reached the pavement. It was too late.

Just before his head slammed into the front right corner of the van, the boy became a young deer. It's head made first contact just above the headlight, the bumper hitting at it's shoulder. The deer folded in half as it was pressed down, under the bumper. The wheel was locked. It had stopped turning and screamed across the pavement, leaving a long arc of black rubber that curved to the left. I let my foot rise from the brakes in an attempt to regain control of the van. As the wheel started turning the deer's folded corpse forced it up. The van was almost airborne as the front wheel bounced over dead flesh. The front of the vehicle was not yet back to earth as the back wheel began it's flight. With both wheels off the ground, the van drifted toward the median of the divided highway. By pulling the steering wheel to the right, I forced it into a steady course and guided it to the side and stopped.

Screams of panic and confusion rose from the pile of passengers in the back. "What the fuck was that? What did you hit?"

"It was a kid! I hit a fucking little boy that ran into the road!" I screamed. "Wait! No! It was a deer! It was a deer!"

"You stupid fucker! You hit a kid?"

"No! I thought it was a kid, but it was a deer. It wasn't a kid. It wasn't a kid. It was a deer."

They all jumped from the side door. Some went to the front of the van to survey the damage, the others back toward the bloodied mass on the side of the road. I climbed out and smoked. I was so sure that it was a kid, but a kid in my mind. I was so confused. It had lasted so long. Him running up that hill, then it was a deer. It was a deer when it went under the van. Oh please. I prayed that it was still a deer when it came out the back.

"Holy shit man. You creamed that thing." Will told me as he came back to the van.

"Was it a deer?"

"Yeah. It WAS a deer. Why were you screaming that it was a little boy? How much acid did you eat last night? You need some sleep."

"It was a deer. It was a deer. OK. It was a deer. You should drive now Will."

"No wait guys. We can't just leave this deer here like this. We have to do something with it." Justin said.

"It's off the road. Lets go before we have cops here." Will replied in a still sleepy voice.

"No man. It's just not right." Justin argued.

TO BE CONTINUED

Thursday, October 20, 2005

I Am the Bloglord


I am the Bloglord. Not in the Lord of all Blogs sense, but the landlord renting some shit to someone sense. It's over there on the left under Patrons. Down a bit more. THERE.

HAUNTED HOUSE DRESSING the official site of writer Jeremy C. Shipp

Jeremy and I first met back in 71, when I was serving time for rodent pandering out of the back room of a Wal-Mart pet section. He was a volunteer with the prison chaplain, and would bring me books. He is a published author, and quite often the books he brought were his own. What I really remember him for was the tight little prison jumpsuit he wore. It fit him like a latex glove that had been stretched over a too ripe melon. He had cut the legs short, very short, and would always travel with the books stacked on the bottom shelf of the cart, creating the necessity for him to bend over to fetch one. Everyone knew Jeremy. He was the ray of hope in our gray lonely days.

Once I was paroled we never saw each other again, until yesterday when he bid to rent my blog. I've missed him endlessly all these years. Welcome Jeremy.

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Why Do Today...What Can Be Put Off Till Tomorrow



In my last post I said I would be posting on Fridays. It's now Sunday Tuesday Thursday a week later on Saturday. My lack of motivation got me thinking about procrastination and it's effect on my life. Avoiding things seems to be one of my special talents. I've always done it, and Mrs Denotsko will testify to my proficiency at it. 'In a minute' seems to be my catchphrase. Through my contemplation I started to remember a lot of major transformations in my life that were brought on by procrastination. I guess most of the pivotal decisions of my past were induced by the avoidance of making a decision. If that makes sense to anyone but me. Let me elaborate.

Sixth Grade: 1985

We were given six weeks to prepare a project for the science fair. Science was the one class that I consistently pulled an A in, but through procrastination, I had successfully avoided the task until the day before the fair was to begin. I knew that most of my classmates had been feverishly working on such things as growing beans upsidedown in the dark and splitting atoms, so there was no chance of building a winning project in 24 hours. I had been given an electronics kit the previous Christmas that allowed one to build 101 electronic gizmos, so that was were I started. My favorite gizmo was a High Voltage Generator. It was powered by a AAA battery and could generate about 12 volts of harmless pulsing electricity. Through a little trial and error I found that by replacing the AAA battery with a 9 volt battery and some of the other components with beefier ones, I could generate about 36 volts of pulsing, muscle cramping voltage. Holding the wires between my fingers would cause the muscles in my arms to flex and relax with steady rhythm. It was relatively painless, but quite a strange sensation. This would be my science fair entry.

The next day, I sat at my table in the gym with my stuff. Looking around the room, I could see elaborate diorama displays that obviously took many, many hours to build. I had no display, no hypothesis, no experiment, no conclusion, no research. I only had a square piece of cardboard with a shoe box and two metal bottle caps glued to it. The box contained all the guts of the device. There were two wires hidden beneath the cardboard and attached to the bottom side of the caps, which I had filled with salt water. A simple, hand written sign said "Place fingers in bottle caps." For a long time, no one even noticed me sitting there. It was definitely not the most eye catching display and showed very little potential.

It was a small school, where everyone new everyone. I was known to be a good student, but everyone that knew me also knew my potential for evil. The lack of embellishment displayed by my sign, combined with the malicious smile on my face eventually drew someone to my table. Mrs. Murkley was a third grade teacher and looked as if she was the result of a bulldog, waterbuffalo love affair. I had puked into her lap once after a chili eating contest, and she had hated me ever since. There were rumors that she was a fugitive from the law for eating a kid in Texas. She looked like she could have eaten 3 or 4 kids.

She had passed by a few times and given me that stern, disapproving, if you would just apply yourself you could do so much better, eyes burning a hole through my soul stare. She always made my blood run cold when she looked at me. This time she stopped and really looked at my display.

"What is this supposed to be?"

"A science fair. Where have you been?"

"You're not funny. Why did you even bring this? Her face was framed by fat flabby cheeks that drooped and swung from side to side. If she was capable of running, I'm sure you could hear them slapping against the triple chin that girdled her invisible neck.

"Well, read the sign."

"I read the sign Brian. What does it do?"

I answered with silence. Hoping she would lose interest and leave. She scared me and I wasn't sure how long I could maintain the tough guy act. I would eventually twitch or sweat and she would pounce on the display of weakness and destroy me. She stared into my eyes for what seemed like forever. Scanning my face for anything that would hint at the function of my project.

She stepped closer, looking at the shoebox. "What's in the box?"

"My secret ingredient." Like fishing, I fed out a little line. Would she bite?

"What's in the bottle caps?"

"Water."

Before I could even realize what was happening, she had her index fingers in the caps. As they broke the surface of the water her eyes opened wide. An electric current as small as 100 milliamps can kill if it travels the right path through the body. I had no clue at the time, but my shocker applied voltage perfectly along the right path. Flowing electrons follow the path of least resistance. In the human body, veins and arteries filled with salty blood are that path. An arc of current quickly traveled up the brachial artery into her armpit, across her heart, and out the other arm. She dropped like a stone. I sat staring at her, frozen with confusion.

Mr. Douglas, the P.E. teacher and Mrs. Coffee, the school nurse turned to see where the GLRUUUMPHH sound had come from. They saw Mrs. Murkley on her fat, beanbag knees. She was clutching her chest and sweating, but her eyes never left mine. She was growing redder and redder. As she began to see-saw into unconsciousness she seized and convulsed. Pulsating waves of body fat ran the length of her body. She looked like puddle that had just caught a stone.

Both witnesses were CPR instructors and immediately went to work. Mr. Douglas rolled her onto her back and began chest compressions as I was pulled from my chair and pushed toward the door. All the students were sent to the far end of the gym and we were all ushered into the hall. No one had seen what preceded the collapse. No one knew but me and her.

Mrs. Murkley recovered. She was hospitalized for a few weeks and had heart surgery. Not because of damage I had caused, but due to the thick bacon grease that clogged her heart. I had just precipitated the discovery of it. She was still in the hospital when summer vacation started and I was never asked about the incident. The next year I moved on to junior high school and never saw her again. She lived for another ten years and finally died after I was out of school.

It was this event that began a lifetime of fascination with electricity. If it wasn't for almost killing Mrs. Murkley that day, I might have been a lawyer or something.



Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Urgent Update to Follow...

Apathy has a name, and it is Brian. It's come to my attention that I'm not a very reliable blogger. When it comes down to it...I suck at it. I can't find any reason to keep the world updated on my boring ass life daily or even bi-weekly. It would just kill me to sit at my computer all day and try to make it sound interesting and funny. It can't be done, but god knows some of you people sure try your best. Who cares if your cat just had kittens. Did you learn nothing from Bob Barker? Hell, I'm fixed and I'm not even a pet.

Whats up with all the shitty sniping? "I hate mommy blogs." "I hate blogs with bikini girls." "I hate blogs about politics." WHO FUCKING CARES!!!!! They're blogs. If you can't make it through the day without some blog action....It's time for a break people. You probably have bumper stickers that say witty things like 'I'D RATHER BE BLOGGING' 'BLOGGERS DO IT WITH THEIR FINGERS' 'YOUR BLOG OR MINE' 'MY OTHER BLOG IS COOLER THAN YOURS BECAUSE MY BLOG IS AN HONOR ROLL BLOG AT BLOGEXPLOSION.COM AND IF YOU CAN READ THIS MY FONT IS SUITABLE AND PLEASING TO THE EYES BECAUSE I HAVE NO FUCKING LIFE!'

A WORD OF NOTE: You don't all suck.


Starting Friday, this blog will only be updated weekly. You can expect the same high quality crappy stories as before, only now you don't have to wait anxiously for the wreck to happen. Friday will be the day to come by. I will also be offering a new feature to you. Just kidding, no new features.