Unwanted Wants Pt. V (Final Chapter)

If you haven´t already, please read Part I

 

Sitting on a park bench with a beer stealthfully concealed in a paper bag, Sean passed a joint to Justin, “How we gonna play this?” he asked.

“I don´t know. She ain´t biting. How about we take the money and run?”

“That´s what I was thinking. That Amanda bitch is loaded. I saw her house. I thinking ten large and we call it a day” Sean said.

“Ten? I was thinking five. You think she´ll go for ten?”

“Hell yeah! She dropped a grand on that cable box I hooked up. People never pay more than five hundred. I said ‘a thousand’ and she was like ‘ok’” Sean continued “Ten G´s to these people ain´t like 10 G´s to us”

“Ok. Good. Let´s set this up” Justin said.

*           *          *          *          *          *

Sean nervously sipped on a bottle of water as Amanda stirred a fifteen dollar, diabetes inducing iced coffee.

“So, how much?” Amanda asked.

Sean hesitated, then asserted “Ten thousand dollars and I guarantee your problem is over”

“Ok” Amanda said, relieved. She thought it was going to cost a lot more. Sean perceived her relief and immediately regretted not asking for more. Amanda continued “One thing, Suzy insists on being present. Not by your side or anything. She´ll be hiding somewhere. Watching”

Sean choked on his water. “Why? It could get ugly. I don´t want anyone to get hurt” he lied.

“Something about her stupid therapist telling her it will give her closure to see it”

Sean´s mind raced. All he could think of saying was “Ok”

*          *          *          *          *          *

Sean and Justin rehearsed their routine a thousand times. Only yelling, no violence. That´s how it was going to go down. They both agreed to go into this drug free, as well. This was going to be professional. They were going to earn this money. They wanted so badly to deserve it.

*          *         *         *          *          *

The day came. Suzy told Sean exactly where it was to take place. There was a little park, close to the apartment, where Justin goes to smoke a joint every week night. She was going to sit in a parked car. She didn´t tell Sean, but she was concealing a five inch blade that she bought at a head shop the day before. It was for her protection if things got out of hand.

Suzy sat in the car as Sean approached Justin. Suzy figured Justin must be high already because he was not smoking at the moment. She saw some small talk, then wild hand gestures. Then they started to yell at each other. Suzy was rooting for Sean but a boiling rage washed over her.

Consciously she thought her rage was aimed at Justin but it really was at herself and all of the other guys like Justin. She felt electricity run through her body. She was trembling. She felt for the knife. It was there.

The next thing she knew she was walking towards them, knife in hand, blade exposed. Midway to them she realized she would be easily over powered by Justin. She decided to sneak up from behind.

As she came out from a bush behind the bench Sean screamed “What the fuck, Suzy?”

Justin turned around in time to see the knife plunge deep into his neck. Suzy wailed. She took it out and stuck it right back in. This time it was lodged. She couldn´t pull it out. She momentarily snapped out of her trance “What am I doing?” she said to nobody in particular.

“Get the fuck out of here, Suzy” Sean cried “We´ll touch bases later” he said, barely audible due to how much ground he had covered in his retreat from the scene.

Suzy stood over Justin. He was gurgling blood and gasping for air. She bent over and kissed his bloody lips.

“Good bye Justin” she said, emotionless. “There will be no more Justins”

The Swimming Hole

 

Terry was an eccentric man. He inherited a very large estate when his grandfather died. It was a sprawling piece of land with a main house, a beautiful mansion that was a sixties take on modernism and a garage with a two bedroom apartment above it. He made the apartment his home while letting nature retake the mansion. He only entered it to get tools from the basement. The mansion always made him feel uneasy. When he did go in, he always felt he could not get out fast enough.

His grandfather was a self made man. A Greek immigrant, he went from cleaning the floors of restaurants to building a restaurant supply empire. His name was on the donor list of every major building back in town. The mansion was the location of the most extravagant parties that the local society enjoyed for two decades. His grandfather fell ill and the parties stopped. Then the guests stopped. When people wanted to feel alive, they came from all around to drink and dance until the early hours of the morning. When he was sick, nobody wanted to go and be reminded of their own frailties.

It took over two more decades for the illness to finally claim Terry´s grandfather. The estate fell into disrepair. Terry didn´t mind. When he got the news that he had inherited the estate, the timing was perfect. He was being evicted from yet another flop house for his strange behavior and not to mention, heavy drinking.

Terry didn´t work. He didn´t have too. Along with the estate he inherited a few bonds. These mere pieces of paper were worth more than a few million dollars. He cashed them in and with the help of an advisor, invested them in a way where the principle was never touched and he could live off the interest.

To keep himself busy, Terry would come up with projects around the estate. Some that made sense and some that didn´t. An example of the former was a vegetable garden which was quite productive considering Terry´s agricultural education came from a few borrowed library books. An example of the latter would be when he tried to build a mirror system on the top of a hill that would send beams of light into outer space trying to make contact with aliens.

With the news of an impending heat wave, Terry got the idea to dig out a swimming pool. There was a back hoe in the garage that he became quite proficient in its use. He surveyed his land and found the perfect spot. It was at the foot of the hill where his alien communication system stood in decay.

Terry marked out a twenty food by eight foot rectangle and started digging. For more than three days, a few hours a day, his hole in the ground started to take the shape of a proper swimming pool. At the deep end he got to almost six feet deep while maintaining a somewhat perfect rectangle shape. On the fourth day as he started digging out the deep end, he noticed the earth was getting a little muddy. He felt it odd as it hadn´t rained in weeks. The more he dug, the muddier the earth. He got to a point where water started to bubble up. He dug a little further and more water started seeping up. It started making digging difficult and now Terry was getting frustrated. If he struck water, how was he ever going to finish the pool with cement as he planned.

Terry decided to call it a day. He put the back hoe back in the garage cursing as he removed mud from the shovel. The cursing grew harsher with every sip of rye he took, thinking the rye would calm him down a little.

He woke up the next day, feeling a little rough, with an empty liter of rye on his bed stand. He decided to walk over to the pool. To his surprise, it was completely full of water. At first, Terry cursed his fate. Then he thought to himself, he was not going to receive guests so who cares how rough the pool is. It is a swimming hole now. And he would not have to fill it. He never even took into consideration the plumbing aspect of this job so this was a blessing in disguise.

It was unusually hot so Terry got down to his underwear and decided to test the water. The first thing he noticed was that the water was cool to the touch but absolutely refreshing in a way he had never felt before. The next thing he noticed was that his hangover was completely gone. In fact, he had not been without a hangover in so long that the feeling was foreign to him. He lived his life in a constant cycle of being hung over or drunk.

Terry suffered from a terrible skin rash that when it flared up, it oozed puss and blood. He wanted to be careful not to get it wet as water sometimes led to an outbreak. Due to the viscosity of the mud below his feet, he slipped and was submerged to his neck. He sprang back up and immediately examined his should to see how the rash would react to the water. To his surprise, there was no reaction. Terry felt relieved. He sat down waist deep in the water and felt the cool refreshing water on his legs. He looked back to his shoulder to make sure the rash was not getting wet. To his surprise, the rash was completely gone.

Terry jumped up and cried “What the…..?”

Terry ran back to his house not even caring that he was tracking mud foot prints all over the floor as he made his way to the bathroom, the only room with a mirror. He confirmed what he had seen. The rash was completely gone.

This was cause for celebration so Terry went to town and bought a more sophisticated drink than his usual rye. It was gone in no time and there was little time before the liquor store closed. He set off for town once again. To avoid another DUI he took his bike. Night was falling fast.

Terry was on the dirt road leading back to his house taking nips along the way. He could have sworn he heard music in the near distance but that would have been impossible. He hadn´t a neighbor for miles around him in any direction. He was feeling pretty good and he knew that when he felt pretty good, his mind had a tendency to play tricks on him. As he approached his home, the music grew louder. It sounded like jazz. He heard the murmur of a crowd. He took another nip and shrugged it off. It would not have been the strangest aural hallucination he has had in the near past.

As he came to the hill that led down to part of the property where the structures stood, Terry froze dead in his tracks. The mansion was completely lit up. There were people going in and out the front door smoking cigarettes, with drinks in their hands. The men wearing thin ties and neat suits. The women wore skimpy dresses with collars and ironed straight hair. There was laughing and dancing.

To his ultimate shock, through the huge glass window of the great room he saw none other than his grandfather with a martini glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He was entertaining two beautiful young ladies who were laughing hysterically at every utterance he made. Terry was paralyzed. Thoughts were going round and round in his head but not one would stop long enough for him to focus on it.

His gaze wandered over to the makeshift swimming pool. It was gushing water. It was bubbling from the point where he had first seen the water with the force of a broken water main. He followed the small stream that came out of the shallow end with his eyes. It made its ways right up to the house. It seemed to touch the walls and run all the way to the other side of the house and ran off at the far end.

Terry turned his bike around and started peddling furiously for town. He didn’t make it too far. His front tire hit a rock and it sent him flying over the handle bars. He tried to brace himself as he fell but a fallen tree branch had gotten between his head and the ground. Terry was out cold. He slightly came to, dragged himself towards the bushes and laid down. He mustered all his available strength to bring the bottle to his lips. The whole night Terry slipped in and out of consciousness. A few times when he was awake he heard cars roll by with big band music playing and people hanging out the windows letting the world know they were at that moment having the time of their lives.

At sunrise, Terry came to. He felt awful. His head was pounding. His mouth felt as though he had been chewing sand the night before. He vomited where he laid a few times. He then remembered the pool. He thought that it could make him feel better again. He also remembered the scene from the night before so he was a little anxious to return to that part of the property as he had no idea what was in store from him. With the strength of an invalid, and the movements of one, Terry made his was back home. He left his bicycle lay. He didn´t have the strength to roll it back.

When he got to the apex of the hill that over looked the house he let out an audible gasp. The mansion was back in its dilapidated state. There was no sign of a grand ball. There was no sign that merriment and mirth had transpired there for years, decades even. Then his gaze went over to the pool.

The crooked rectangle, not much more than two feet deep at one end and four feet at the deep end was completely dry.

 

Giving it up

“That´s it, you either give it up or give me up! I´m outta here if you don´t stop it” April said.

Bruno could not hear her because of the Wifi signal that buzzed in his head and scrambled his thoughts. At least he thought it did, along with many other things that were going through his mind that indeed were not true, at least not in this dimension. In fact, there was nothing for him to give up. He was having what his doctors called episodes of psychotic behavior and he was blaming his actions on heroin use. The truth was, Bruno didn´t even drink coffee, let alone do drugs.

Bruno was in a semi-lucid state for the moment. He had to think of a way out of this. He loved April and didn´t want to lose her. On the other hand, due to past experience, he knew that this could go on for at least another few weeks and up to a few months. He didn´t want her to know about this side of him, yet. He had an idea.

“April, I choose you. I´ll go to rehab” he said.

Tears welled up in April´s eyes, “Oh, I love you. You´ll get through this. I´ll be there for you” she said.

Bruno had no money. During this last episode, he lost his job and spent every last dime he had in Atlantic City. When he was in this state he was more likely to engage in high risk behaviors. April was not that bright, so it was easy to get her to believe things.

“Give me 70 bucks so I can get a bus ticket” Bruno asked in a commanding tone.

“For what?” she asked.

“For bus fare to get to rehab” he answered.

“Oh yeah, of course. Here´s $200. I made good tips last night” she said and handing him a crumpled up wad of bills with pride that swirled in her stomach. “When are you going to go?” she asked.

“I think I should go immediately before temptation makes me change my mind” he said. What he really meant was, before he loses his feeble, finger tip only, current grip on reality.

“But if you go tonight, I cannot see you off. Make it tomorrow” she whined.

“No, it´s gotta be tonight” he said.

“Ok. Where are you going?” she asked.

Bruno looked around for an idea. Eureka. A bag of gold fish crackers. “Pepperidge Farms” he said looking at April crooked to see if she bought it, he nervously added “it´s a government run thing, free even” he said, now convinced she believed him.

After a long embrace, April said to Bruno, “Get better”

“I will” he answered.

On his way to the bus terminal, where he intended to buy a ticket to Akron, Ohio and wait out this episode with an aunt, the city started to turn into a jungle. “Oh shit” he whispered to himself as he felt reality become rather slippery.

As the cab pulled up to the terminal, Bruno was already planning how he would enter without getting attacked by the jaguar he saw following them for the past three traffic lights.

He skillfully made it through the front door of the terminal and as he wheezed deeply to catch his breath he said to the cashier, “One ticket to Atlantic City, please”

The Typewriter

 

 

Clack, clack, clack went the sound of his typewriter. Frank was furiously pounding away on the vintage keys that set him back a small fortune in a little boutique shop in a gentrified, once artistic part of the city. A small mountain of cigarette butts spilled out of one of the empty cardboard coffee cups that surrounded his work space. He was writing for hours but nothing of quality found its way to the endless reams of paper.

“It´s all shit!” he screamed, though the only sentient being to hear these words were his cat and his neighbor. The walls were paper thin in his tiny one bedroom apartment in a converted candy factory in another gentrified, once artistic part of the city.

Frank had some success of late selling a few stories here and there but the well seemed to have dried up. Everything he came up with was derivative of something he had already read or had already written. He had recently gone off his mood stabilizers in hope that it would spark some hidden creativity.

With a deft sweep of his arm, the typewriter went flying across the room. It would have taken out the cat if it didn´t have such keen reflexes. He sat there staring at the typewriter, upside down on the floor for some time.

Clack, clack, clack. The keys of the typewriter started moving by themselves. Frank sat up straight. The clicking stopped. He slowly walked over to the downed typewriter and turned it over. He saw a sentence on the page after where he had stopped.

Just keep going.

Those three extra words on the page he hadn´t written. Frank was perplexed. Surely this wasn´t for real. He decided his mind was playing tricks on him and he decided to go to bed for the night.

When Frank awoke he walked over to the typewriter on the floor. He looked at the page and there were more words.

You suffer for your work. Now others must suffer for your work. Make them pay and you will reap the profits.

“What does that mean?” he asked himself out loud. He felt stupid for saying these words because he knew exactly what it meant. He needed new life experiences to draw from as inspiration. He knew that hurting people would evoke deep emotions that he could use to write.

Frank always had a violent streak that he used to punish only himself. He had never even thought of hurting anyone else but he figured that this must be a sign from above. Frank decided he would go to the park late at night and do some harm to homeless people. This way, he could do what the typewriter told him to with minimal risks with the law. Frank was also a coward and a weakling. A sleeping homeless person would offer the least resistance.

That night, Frank filled the pockets of his parka with a small bottle of rubbing alcohol, some rags and a box of strike anywhere matches. He also slipped two mini bottles of vodka he had obtained from his last flight into the breast pocket for a little added courage. He then set off for the park.

He found his first victim. It was a woman sleeping under a makeshift tent made of a cardboard box. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out one of the mini bottles. He was not a drinker and could barely get the vile liquid down his throat. A little even made its way back up and he had to swallow it a second time. He took a deep breath just to keep it down.

From behind him he heard a voice say “Having a party and didn´t even invite me?” Then he felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck, saw a bright light then nothing. The metal pipe that had just smashed his brain stem cut off communication from his brain to his body. The homeless man slipped of Frank´s parka, then the rest of his clothes. He was left unconscious and stripped to his underwear in the harsh cold in the middle of the park.

When Frank came to he was in a white room with bright lights. His hands were restrained with fur lined leather cuffs. He looked to his right and he saw his case worker, John, sitting on the chair besides him.

“How do you feel Frank?” John asked.

“Terrible. What happened?” he asked.

“That´s what I would like to know. The only facts I have are, you were found in Jefferson Park in your underwear, barely breathing. You had alcohol on your breath. A nice homeless woman saw you around midnight and got the attention of a nearby police officer” he said. “Have you been taking your meds?”

“Well, uh, no” he sheepishly answered. “But…”

“But nothing Frank. How many times do we have to go through this. You must take your medications”

“Am I in trouble, John?” Frank asked.

“No, of course not”” John said with genuine concern in his voice.

Off the hook again. Frank thought. Mental disease has its advantages. This will make a great story.