What If?

I just left my best friend Nicks place. I’ve got a little wooden table and chairs set in the back of my truck ready to be placed in the area behind my house. With any luck in the future it will be used for card games, BBQs, and drunken arguments about religion, politics, and who has the biggest Wang.

Its dark now and I want to get my daughter home to bed, snug in her blankets.

I have a habit of thinking too much. I have this thing that doesn’t allow me to enjoy company when things aren’t going well because there is this light in the back of my head that is always turned on. Was it a shitty day? Why? Who? When? Why? Why? WHY?

I am driving an old Toyota truck down the freeway thinking about where I am going to throw this table. I am thinking about the conversation that Nick and I had while Emma slept soundly on his bed. I am thinking about the weekend, and hoping that Emma doesn’t freak out when she wakes up and realizes that she is in my new place and not with Momma in her crib/bed combo.

I wonder about life, and how I got here. I wonder what I’m going to wear tomorrow. I wonder when I will be able to eat a meal again, as I have been living off of maybe a meal every couple of days and Cigarettes are the only thing keeping me from hunger pains. I have lost my appetite. I don’t care to eat or sleep well. I don’t really care how shitty I feel, or think about why I have been bruising so easily. I don’t bother with why it’s getting harder for me to walk up the stares or that I’ve lost nearly 25 lbs.

When I am with Emma it all goes away, and I am a super hero. Ready and able to do anything she needs me to do.

I think about these things while driving down the 10 freeway. I am leaving the city of Rosemead, and am passing through San Gabriel. After that it’s on to Alhambra, and then I am in The City of Los Angeles. I have driven this freeway all my life, and all my memories are the same.

I think of the car rides to and from my father’s who had me on the weekends. I think about when it all ended with him, and how much I loved those car-rides. I think about all the times he let me rent Highlander II and Big Trouble in Little China (Jack Burton is God in my eyes). I sat listening to his rock music while he had the windows down, it was cold but I didn’t complain because he didn’t complain. Now I don’t mind the cold.

All this goes through my brain in a matter of seconds. I am paying attention to the road and notice that there is a large Semi in my lane in front of me. It’s the slow lane, second from the first lane that allows you to jump on and off the freeway. Seeing as how I am just a bit faster than him, but not that much faster I decide to pass him on the left. You don’t think about why you think something. Your brain just reacts. “I think I will go left”.

But I don’t got left, for whatever reason I go to the right, on the slow lane. Maybe it’s because there would have bee another vehicle in my lane trying to pass him too. Maybe it was the SUV one lane over to the left of that vehicle. I don’t know. I passed on the right when I meant to go left.

So I do. Just as I pass the Semi truck I hear screeching tires behind me. I do not slow down or move I just glance into my rear view mirror and relax. I mentally prepare myself for what I am going to see. I make ready the clutch in case I need to shift, move, brake, or dart anywhere. The vehicle on the left side of the Semi truck is spinning out of control in what I can only describe as a Ballet. In order to avoid hitting him, the vehicle further left is swerving, and has begun spinning as well. Two SUV’s who have not hit anything (at least, I haven’t heard a collision) but I see smoke from burning tires, and the Semi has not been touched. They are moving at full speed all while spinning 360 degrees.

Traffic stopped and I am alone still driving. I look at the back seat to see my daughter stretch. Music is playing but I cant hear it.

Had I not gone to the right when I did, I would have heard a collision.

Breakfast of Champions

The soles of my feet are black with filth. It doesn’t take much for dust and dirt to adhere to my size 13s. I shuffle over to my television and say “Good Morning” to the local news casters. They accompany the dawn. They make me laugh at witty banter and make me sad that an entire family had been gunned down last night while I dreamt of Vanessa and Emma.

I need to mop this place.

Linoleum covers the entire house making it cold and uninviting. Previous tenants cared nothing for the nice old Mexican Woman in the front house who charged little rent and asked even less questions. Half painted rooms and broken pipes are left. Water heaters need replacing, along with broken tile and rotten wood. I’m home.

Dig for clean clothes, dig for toiletries, and dig for answers I’ll never find.

Make a list of things that need to be done. Sometime between work and more work and being Poppa to a little angel I need to do any one/all of the following…

Unpack (never!)
Clean (fuck that)
Buy paint (no wait, I actually want to do that)
Quit smoking (Tomorrow)
Grow up (…)
Move on (TBD)

There is no gas running in this house. Instead of a long, warm, silent shower there is a short, angry, yelling fiasco of soap, shampoo, and obscenities. Laughing at oneself isn’t as easy as it seems when hypothermia sets in.

There is a chill in the air this morning. The sounds of the 5 freeway carry across the wall behind me. The masses flock to the Valley to begin their days as real estate agents and porn stars. I think of this and look up at the gigantic Christmas lights left cracked and dangling in the light. It’s June.

Cigarettes: the breakfast of champions. Grandmother leaves early to water plants. Dog leaves early to scratch and bark. I leave early for work.

They told me to work hard and study. They made it seem like life consisted of tests and interviews. Others told me it consisted of freedom and privacy. Some looked forward to parties and fucking. People who knew what they were talking about told us that life consisted of these things, and maybe there would even be marriages and divorces. Break ups and make ups. Life and death. I always new better though. There is one thing they don’t prepare you for.

All the time in between.

Periplaneta Americana

Tattoos hurt. Anyone who says that they don’t are fucking morons. There is something to be said about a needle that pierces your skin over and over. Sometimes there aren’t a bunch of nerves in that area of your body, and the pain isn’t quite that bad. Other times the flesh is soft and tender like a sheet of plastic covering defrosted poultry. When the needles hit, it’s a bit of a shock if you don’t expect it.

You deal with it. You grit your teeth knowing that when you are done you will have a beautiful new addition to your body that you put countless hours of thought into (considering you’re not loaded).

In that sense, I feel that current situations reflect my tattoos. I love them, even the one I got when I was 15 (a single dull needle ((by needle I mean a long piece of wire my step brother had filed down for me)) did about 2 hours of work on a very large part of my lower back. It is scarred and discolored and fucking huge.)

Wake up.

Replace the pain with thoughts of good things. Tell yourself to STOP. Don’t think of the pain or that which pains you. Force yourself to get through it because you have come too damn far to give up.

I accept pain. I accept the way things are and I accept that they hurt and I accept that this is the way I am supposed to feel. I wallow in it like a pig in shit. I allow this wave of mud and slime and bile to envelope me. I live in it knowing that this is the way I am supposed to feel.

Then

I get up; shower it all off in a bath of Clorox. Look at myself in the mirror and tell myself that this is not what I want. Others want me to fail. Others are doing all they can to see me fall because they are selfish, and they are pain and they are the ones who don’t realize that they deserve to hurt like this.

I can’t imagine what its like to fail. I’d done enough of it really, so all I can do is get over the failure and move. Go. Move the fuck on until its all behind me. It still hurts, it still nags. But what the fuck am I supposed to do?

I bounce back.

I always do in some manner. I am life’s cockroach. Bomb me to fucking hell, leak me some radiation, and flood me with water. When you are gone and your are buried I will remain in some odd, grotesque form. You can’t see me because I’m no bigger than your thumb. I’m an insignificant speck in your eyes. Look closer. Much closer.

Grab me by the antennae for just a moment, and try to fight your urge to squeal in disgust. Put me under the microscope. Hell, pin me down with a needle if you have to I don’t mind. I will bear the pain.

Zoom that microscope on me and focus real hard. I won’t squirm and I won’t run because I want you to see this. I’ve got a little brown body that shines in the light. I’ve got 3 legs on each side and they aren’t flailing, they are waving. Zoom closer. Can you see it now?

It’s my middle fucking finger and its pointed right at you.

I Wonder Whats Next (random thoughts)

I’m at my cousins telling him that my life is falling apart. He always said that he never had to worry about me. That he knew I had a good head on my shoulders and somehow I always fucking pull through. He tells me he’s sorry that I am going what I am going through. I think of all the ways I could have stopped a number of things. There is nothing I can do but bear the pain of it all.

Pasadena is a nice part of Los Angeles depending on what side of the freeway you’re on. Depending on the East or West end that you’re living on life can be quite nice to you. There is the Rose Bowl, then nice homes, then crack houses and drug deals made in the open, and then a number of very nice homes once again.

I’m in the office of a very good private defense lawyer. He is the type of man I want to be. He overcame abuse at all levels of insanity. He pulled himself up by working multiple jobs, and doing multiple roles as a big brother and mentor. He set examples that I don’t think he realizes he set for young kids like me who looked up to him and his scars, scooters, and waist length hair.

Achievements line the walls, but before you think to yourself that all lawyers have that shit to make themselves feel better you should know that each and every one of those were earned through work.

Through blood.

Anguish.

I’m looking down the barrel of a Baby Glock 9mm pistol. It feels strange in my hands. It looks strange to me. I wonder what it’s for. What are its intentions? Where has it been before it fell into my life? Real guns used to scare me but not anymore.

There are a number of things I think I missed growing up. Normalcy being one of them…

Moving far too often to really connect with anyone at all really takes its toll on a child. I told myself that I would never do the same to anyone who relied on me given the chance. It wasn’t my choice though in the end.

Your life can crash around you and fight as you may, it just won’t be enough.

I’m now in a car in the middle of the night driving through K-Town. I see Asian communities pass me by in a blur of neon and grit. I’m told about holes in the wall that serve the best Korean BBQ in town. High end but well worth it. The owner is of such notoriety that she can call any boutique off of Rodeo Drive after hours and shop to her hearts content.

I pass million dollar homes and hear talks of important dates and times and procedures that I don’t understand fully because I am not educated enough. A 100 dollar bill exchanges hands. I scratch your back you scratch mine.

I pass through Hancock Park. Homeless people line the streets. Stories of loose connections to the Hillside Strangler fill my ears. Private investigations that scare men shitless make me laugh. There is a division of the LAPD devoted to Baby Killers. Heads cut off and body parts strewn about. Wire and plastic bags hold limbs and men and women deal with such things on a daily basis for a number of years.

I am empty and this night is all I’ve got. Dodger Stadium passes me by. Downtown is in the distance and it makes me feel at home. I don’t even know where home is anymore.

Men are not who you think they are. Men who have it all figured out in your mind actually want more. They do more. They are after more than one would think. They want bigger and better and they want restaurants and wives. They want better and admit that they are not proud of who they are.

If they are not than what hope do I have?

I woke up this morning in someone else’s home. I could have been in my own bed but it would be empty. My daughters’ bed is empty. What reason do I have to sit in such an empty place? I pat Filo on his head and he purrs and meows that old gnarled meow that comes with age to a feline.

I get to work early and smoke myself sick.

I wonder what’s next.

Leo's Revenge

I swear on all that is good and holy in this world that I am the reason the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie was created. I know it may sound crazy but its not. I willed that shit to happen.

Me.

I did it with my mind.

I had the toys.

I had the shows on VHS that Burger King released.

I wanted to make sweet, sweet love to April O’Neal in the worst of ways when I was far too young to know about such things.

I thought Raphael was the shit because of how sarcastic he was.

I thought Leo was cool because of his badass dual Katanas.

Donatello got much respect for me for being so smart. I mean, at that age, I could have sworn it didn’t get much worse than long division. Then Don comes in and blows my mind with his knowledge of books, computers, and Dimension X. He had all the answers.

Then of course there is Michelangelo and who didn’t love him?

I didn’t.

I know right?

Blasphemy!

Hear me out for just a moment. I’ll tell you right now that guy was cool and I don’t dispute this for a second, but Mike was a fucking tool of the highest order. Always eating his fucking pizza whilst Ralph was spitting out kick ass one liners like nobody’s business. Donatello was memorizing PI to 50 digits while Mike said things like “Dude” and “Totally”.

Fucking loafer.

It was then that I realized that this lazy mother fucker did what no person or Turtle ever did for me. He made me cynical. So while all my buddies rocked a pair of Nunchaku I sat by realizing that for whatever reason I chose a different path. In a sense Mike had the most influence on my life and I will forever be grateful.

With such a pull on me like I never knew and while I was playing the different versions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video games I realized that I wanted nothing more in the world than to see them on the silver screen. I wanted to see them live action and kicking ass like no other. It wasn’t too long after thinking this that the movie came to be. If I had died right then I would have died the happiest 9 year old in existence.

Then the death of innocence hit like a kick to the balls.

It started with the sequel, and the fact that Vanilla Ice damn near destroyed the movie. Then, immediately after that came the geniuses who decided that time traveling samurai Ninja Turtles would be appropriate. I watched and enjoyed but all the while a little bit of my childhood died. It was a slow agonizing death. Festering and rotting with the skin still attached. Turning black and blue and green but the worst was yet to come.

My mother moved us to Texas. I was still holding on to the few toys I had. One of them being my Leonardo action figure; we are living with family I never knew who in all honesty aren’t really my family at all. I come home from school and I find Leo.

On the floor.

He looks like a wounded burn victim. His body still has the fine plastic sheen that I knew and loved but something had gone horribly wrong. He smelled of permanent marker. I asked my cousin what unfortunate circumstances had could have possibly lead to such a thing. I found out that my cousins G.I. Joe had a falling out with poor old Leo. Leo was tied to a stake and burned alive which is the reason he looks like a blackened marshmallow.

Dead to me.

This cousin was my cousin no longer. I told my mom but all I got was a “Its just a toy” and with that my world crashed. I never got another Leo toy. I wanted my old one.

I got older. Vanilla Ice became the hack we all knew he was. Fresh Prince of Bel-Air came in to sweep me off my feet and take me into prepubescent hilarity and I said goodbye to the Turtles.

It all happened so quickly. At least, I can honestly say it was over before I fully realized. No more Turtles. The show disappeared from memory. Mc Donald’s abandoned the collector’s gems that were Fraggle Rock and the transforming dinosaurs.

Then I go into Mc Donald’s today and my childhood came back to me.


Thats right Bitches.

He's back.

He doesnt have the moves he once did, he's had some work done (what with the latest Turtle movie being CG) but you know what?

He's mine.

I went into Micky D's and says "Happy Meal Please" and I told myself I was getting Leo. I willed Leo into my Happy Meal Bag. Its 1989 all over again and I am eagerly anticipating the release of the flick. I'm back in my living room practicing my jump kicks. I'm back at the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coming Out Of Their Shell Tour with my cousin Tony and my sister Leslie and I'm rocking out.

I pay the 3 dollars and whatever change with my debit card (thats how I roll) I get him upstairs and place him neatly on my computer.

He's looking at me right now.

He's saying "Zombie, its been a long time"

I say "Yeah man. It has..."

Leo winks and says "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

I know exactly what he means. I look left, I look right. I whisper so that only Leo can hear me

"G.I. Joe is gonna fucking pay".

They Still Make You?

1-Holy Lord do they really make people as ignorant as you? Did you just use the words “My black friend” in a sentence? Did you just say something negative about Asian people (not that you would ever say Asian. You said “China People” if I remember correctly). Not only did you say something negative, but you said it to a dude whose wife is Asian!

2-Did you really just mention something about your cock in front of one of the oldest women in the office? Hell, did you really just mention something about your cock in front of one of the oldest women in existence? Does it not strike you as odd that not a single one of your antics is actually taken seriously because of how much joy you get out of making people uncomfortable?

3-Okay okay okay, I know you just interrupted me because you want to get this over quickly. So do you know what I am going to do? I’m going to smile and make sure you hear my smiling voice over the phone while you complain to me for fucking up your file. After your done ranting to me for far too long I am going to fill you in that had you not interrupted me, I would have told you that you’ve called the wrong damn department, and I never worked on this file.

4-For the love of all is good and holy in the world, please stop looking and staring at my food every time you pass by it. Its not that this bothers me because it doesn’t, but last time I checked you are in your 40’s and you crunch your nose and make a funny face every single time you decide that this food is icky. Wow.

5-I know that it is important to have a positive view of ones self. I know that obesity is not something to treat in a rude manner, I have to say this as nicely as possible. You are a good 600 pounds, and you don’t need to be wearing the worlds smallest jean jacket.

Fuck this I’m out…

Better You Than Me

I’m waiting for the elevator to begin my work day. On my way to the elevator lobby I notice the strong smell of citrus cleaner which means that the janitor on duty is either hard at work has just finished cleaning up a fine mess some moron has left.

I am right, and I notice that this man is on his knees, toiling away at some scuff marks on the tile. So, naturally I go around him and leave to his job. Far be it for me to bother someone in the middle of working hard. I continue my wait for the elevator.

Enter another person ready to begin her day at the office. An older women looking like any other generally cranky lady. It astounds me that at this hour some people manage to be condescending without even trying.

She looks down at the gentleman (I say gentleman because even though he is on hands and knees, he sees her and smiles good morning).

I know what’s coming.

Hag: Tough job…

Janitor: ::smiles:: Someone’s gotta do it though

Hag: Well, I’m sorry its you but I’m glad it isn’t me ::smiles::

At this point my eyes shoot open at my janitor friend and he has this blank look on his face. It says a lot this look. It says mostly that “I’m thinking of filling your ears with some of this citrus smelling goodness till your eyes fall out of our face”

I don’t blame him.

I snicker, but when she turns to me I am looking right at her with the most incredulous look I can muster and she at the very least has the decency to blush.

The elevator door opens, and I tell her ladies first. She enters, and holds the door for me but I tell her I think I’ll wait for the next one.

The last thing she hears is me saying how much I think some people are just assholes.