The Horror Library - The Best in Horror Fiction

+PAIN+ - Chapters 5.5 - 8
By R.J. Cavender

Printer-friendly version

For previous chapters please view the VAULT

+++

CHAPTER 5.5

+++

I've known some assholes in my life, mind you. But, Bryson Pavochek was by far the biggest prick who'd ever attended Buena High. To this day, he still remains the biggest asshole I've ever met.

He wasn't just an asshole, he was the asshole. Everyone knew it, even his friends. I often wonder if his friends befriended him out of fear alone. His nickname was actually 'Asshole'. But, very few people could get away with calling him that. He'd kick your ass for a lot less, for sure.

He was part of a 'posse' called The Critters. Now, by 'posse' I mean a group of white boys from good neighborhoods who think that they're cool enough to give a title to themselves and their clique. These are the kinds of guys who have running contests of the girls they've fucked throughout the year, and have money in an accumulative pool for whoever has the most confirmed 'kills' by graduation.

These are the kinds of kids who drive sports cars, but don't have to work thanks to their excessively rich parents. These are guys who wear trendy clothing, and like to talk excessively about their trendy clothing. These are the rich kids with parents who can bail them out of anything in a small town. These are spoiled kids with good genetics, solid alibis, and perfectly straight teeth.

Worst of them all was Bryson Pavochek. He was almost universally feared and hated by the entire school. He seemed destined to be a cop, just like his dear old dad who was the Chief of police for Sierra Vista. I think that scared people the most, that someday Bryson would wield some sort of power over this town.

At first glance you probably wouldn't peg Bryson as a bully, so you'd have to assume something happened to him in his life to make him that way. Not that I ever cared about the cause of his problems, shortcomings, or his general rotten nature. It's not that I ever pitied him. It's just that I always wonder what makes people the way they are. It must have been something really bad to create a horrible shithead like Bryson.

Bryson, for better use of a term, was pure evil. His every comment was full of sarcasm and ignorance. His face could go stone cold sober in an instant if the wrong thing was said in mixed company. He picked on everyone, even the retarded kids who darted out of his way in the halls.

His eyes were black. Pure fucking black and emotionless. His hair, parted on the side with the precision of a surgeon. His smile was perfect. He wore the most fashionable and expensive clothes. He was always looking for a fight. He'd scan the crowded hallways at Buena, looking for his next victim, waiting for someone to bump into him or hold eye contact for a nanosecond too long.

He'd pursue girls like a hungry shark looking for an easy meal. He liked them blonde and stupid. He'd worked his ways through the best and the brightest of the naive sluts of Buena, then wormed his way through the most vulnerable of the underclassmen. When he wasn't looking for an easy lay, he had his feelers out for an easy fight.

I saw Bryson totally annihilate guys twice his size. It was always an unfair advantage, as he'd inevitably bust out with his moved he'd learned in Karate class. He was a vicious and rabid fighter. He was a black belt in Karate and word had it that he'd trained on several other martial arts in private classes out of town, as no other instructors in the area would take him as a student.

There were many rumors abound about Pavochek, as the more you knew about the enemy, the better you could protect yourself from their attacks and advances. He was something so big and scary that he almost became an urban legend with anyone younger than him. I fucking hated him, but I wasn't scared of him. Almost everyone else was.

He'd ridden my bus in elementary school all the way through middle school. He'd tried to intimidate me, but quickly backed off. One day, as he was thumping my friend Joey in the back of the head, I took action. I punched him square in the nose and bend all his fingers back until he cried out and begged for mercy. I made Bryson Pavochek piss his pants that day.

I had ammunition on this fucker until the day that either her or I died. Or at least until graduation day, if nothing else. To fuck with me, would be social suicide for someone in a 'cool' clique like that. He never messed with me again. Somehow, I had an insurance policy for an indefinite period of time. He never even so much as looked in my direction. I was invisible to him.

If you've never seen a super violent fight, I suggest you do. There's something so horribly gratifying about it. But, I was always rooting for the other guy. I would have payed good money to see Pavochek get his rich white-bread ass thoroughly stomped. What bothered me the most about Pavochek, is that I was directly responsible for him taking karate classes. After I bloodied his nose on the bus, his father insisted that his son 'learned to defend himself'.

It wasn't until he fucked with a girl I knew that I was spurred into action. It was a classic case of 'too little, too late'.

+++

CHAPTER SIX

+++

I was taking an English 102 course at the community college a few months before Crystal disappeared. The instructor was a big fan of free writing exercises. Maybe that's why I keep up with this blog every day, just keeping in practice. Just someone to listen to me. A voice.

The assignment for our class was to set a timer at home for 10 minutes, and just begin writing. 'Don't second guess or censor yourself' she told us. We were to let our words flow and confront an emotion or problem that was troubling us.

Here's what happened with mine.

***

NOT TO FEEL

by

XXXXXX XXXXXXXX

What's it like? I mean...really? What IS it like, for you? How the hell do people even live like this? Do you grind your teeth and plot their death on a daily basis? Do you nod impatiently, your sweaty, shaking hands slowly curling into fists while you avoid making eye contact? I wonder how I can maintain this composure each day? I wonder a lot of things. I wonder how long will it be before I snap.

So much talk so little said. These people are like little scrambling insects going from cubicle to cubicle in this ant farm just looking for a big crumb to take home. I wanna squash them.
It's too hot to work. A swamp cooler is no substitute for air condition.

I want to smash things. I lift the phone and dial.

Do you feel the slowly tightening noose of your necktie? Do you still recognize yourself in the men's lavatory mirror when you go to splash cold water on your face ten times a day.? I bet my co-workers would be surprised to find out that I brought a gun to work today.

Oh, I'm not going to use it. It's just nice to know it's there. It's comforting to know that when Susan comes over to my desk in her cheap power-suit reeking of drugstore perfume, I could splatter her head all over the N through Z filing cabinets if I wanted to. Not that I would. It's just nice to know I could. It's just a matter of self-restraint.

When Shawneen leaves her cubicle and breathes her shit-breath in my general direction while showing me pictures of her misshapen kids, it's just nice to know I could knock out both of her knees and put one between her eyes faster than she could say. 'William is still a little cross-eyed from the surgery.'

Is it like that for you? Can you feel your heartbeat in you temples? Can you feel the sweat trickling down your sides, underneath your cheap scratchy dress shirt?

I wait for the poison to start working. No one has so much as coughed yet. The office is silent for just a moment. It's always calmest, before the fur flies. Of course I didn't poison the coffee this morning. Not today. But, it's nice to know I could.

Gina is up in her 'box' like a queen-bee of the small-town corporate variety. I'd like to know what she'd see from her perch, four-and-a-half-feet elevated above all of her agents and protected by several layers of bullet-proof glass. I'd want her to know how easily her safe fortress had been penetrated.

She'd have just a split second to realize that someone in her office had betrayed her.
It would start with one person, a grizzly domino effect would follow.

Susan topples over first, hiccuping for air and holding her throat. Amy does the same, the lye melting her larynx as her fake nails claw the flesh of her neck. Gina looks at her cup, coughing. A little trickle of blood escapes her lips. I would just stay seated behind my desk.

Gina would undoubtedly try to get an outside line to call for help. I'd spring from my corner and rip the receiver from her grip, unloading three shots into her skull. Her brains would paint the front of my khaki slacks. Her newest facelift crumples into a pile of spattered mush.

I'd enter Aimee's cubicle, and pull her reasonable skirt down to her ankles. I'd rip her panties off. With two saliva slick fingers, I'd begin to penetrate the tight trespass of her glowing white ass. She'd gargle and cry as she choked, so I'd have to punch her in the back of her head until she shuts up. I'd take her from behind as she suffocates on her own tissue. I'd hear both her arms snap as I bent them backwards, ejaculating deep within the recess of her smooth and perfect asscrack. She slides off my still erect cock, and crumbles to the floor. I kick off my pants, now stalking the office naked from the waist down and throbbing.

Marc (with a "C") enters the scene, running back from his daily 10:15 trip to the crapper. He see's my gun before anything else. Pop! He's down. Head shattered and split. I am the Alpha Male. I piss all over his desk , files, and papers. I grab a donut from the receptionists desk. I shoot her in the head next, as she cries and cowers under her desk.

I turn the sign from 'Yes, we are Open' to 'Sorry, We Are Closed.' I rape and kill the rest of the office. Consider yourself lucky I spared you the details.

I drive home, with one stop along the way for dinner.

I pull up to the Drive-Thru window smeared with the blood, shit, and gristle of my former co-workers. They hand me my food without so much as a bat of the eyelashes. I wonder how I made it through the day. I dread going into work tomorrow. I eat three cheese burgers on my way home.

I check my messages once I'm home. Check my e-mail. I've saved one last bullet for myself. I put on my favorite song. I end my life with a distant 'Pop'. I fall to the floor.

I wake up the next morning and get ready for work.

***

I had no idea we'd be reading to the entire class. I wasn't asked to read again.

Some people left the room when I read my story. Just walked out, looking a pale shade of grey. I don't really understand what's so different about my story. I feel like a monster. It was satire. I only went back twice after that, and it was like I was made of glass. No one would even make eye contact. I didn't tell Crystal why I stopped going to class.

It was my first sign that I might not be a 'people person' anymore.

+++

CHAPTER 6.5

+++

I was 27 at the time, and I was as clean as I've been in forever.

Unknown to me, while I was in Hacienda detoxing, God had done something beautiful for me. He helped me kick. He was smuggling me extra meds, the combination of which seemed to satisfy me and gradually ween me off of the harder drugs my body was craving.

He'd told me he couldn't get the opiates and stimulants, and had instead blasted me with sedatives and mood modification drugs. He'd smuggle me in Beefeater and Everclear and even sometimes weed.

I wasn't clean. I wasn't sober. But, I wasn't spiraling either.

I moved back to my hometown, fifty miles and a lifetime away from Tucson. I tried to maintain, but when you're not doing drugs you spend your time concentrating on the fact that you're NOT doing drugs. Regardless, I was ready to start a new chapter in my life. Good or bad.

I moved into an efficiency apartment. I got my Mustang out of storage. I got a job at an insurance office. I sat at a desk and earned an honest living.

I'd gained 120 pounds.

It was inevitable. I was always hungry. On the right drugs, I didn't eat or sleep for days sometimes. But now I couldn't help myself. It's like food was now my drug of choice and I had to have it. Lots of it. Well, the weed probably didn't help either. Because instead of something reasonable to eat, I'd just give in to my cravings and eat a whole pizza then make myself sick on ice cream afterwards. Or get baked and accidentally eat a whole bag of chips and half a pack of cookies. I drank beer like it was water.

My job in Sierra Vista didn't help matters much. I just sat on my ass in a cubicle adding names and policies to a database. Even though I did virtually nothing at my job, by the time I spent eight hours doing it I was exhausted. I'd come home and watch TV.

It was a level of boredom and dissatisfaction I never thought a person could feel. My depression was building by the day. I graduated to hard liquor every night, and I drank like a drunk on a bender. I smoked more reefer than a reggae band. God sent me meds overnight once a week. By this time, they were half-placebo anyway. I had no idea. He just said they were generic equivalents, and I never bothered to look up the new pills. I figured I was part of a test market.

I was just a dope-pig with a new drug to gobble. I hadn't learned a fucking thing.

I was getting close to the end of my rope. I needed something to believe in.

Then Crystal came into my life.

The moment I met her, there was a shift in my world. There was an electrical charge. Call it love at first sight if you want to. I wouldn't even know what to call it. It was something purely unnatural to me. It was an emotion I never knew. It was biological magic.

She was absolutely perfect. She was beautiful. She was a beautiful and perfect little freak. Her skin was nearly transparent. Her hair a light blonde streaked with robin's egg blue. She looked like a pixie. She had a silver loop in her eyebrow and two through her bottom lip. She had stories. She had drama. She had a smile that could melt the ice around my heart. She was so fragile. So helpless. So much none of these things. She was an inescapable trap. She was the perfect girl.

I slow danced with her in her living room that first night.

No language on earth could express how perfect she was for me. No one else could ever understand our love. My heart lept for the first time when I saw her face. It was like the blasting echo of a choir. It was like watching an angel wake up. She made me want to cry. She was destined to be mine. It was all I'd ever care about. She was the only thing I would ever care about.

Her face so white, alabaster and tiny. She was like a little ivory angel perched atop a tombstone. I should have known better. She was bound to break my heart..

She giggled at my jokes and wrinkled up her sweet ashen nose. She said we were 'off the clock' for a good eighty percent of the night. She always thought she'd missed her calling as a club DJ. She had a bigger book collection than I did. She loved the arts and was eager to discuss them. She made me do some finger painting.

She was happy to an extent.

I was happy to be around her, I almost didn't recognize the feeling. I could tell she was lonesome too. She never had to say it. She just seemed to enjoy my company more than would be expected. It's like I never had a chance to be a stranger to her. It was like we already knew each other without ever saying a word.

She was albino. I knew nothing about it until I met her. She had an array of contact lenses, all colors, but the irises of her eyes were actually pink. Most of her entire body was a frosted white, the most intimate of places a light pink at the darkest. The same color her cheeks would turn when she blushed.

She was born without vocal chords, and she never uttered even the smallest sound. The sounds that remind me of Crystal are the squeaking of a marker on a dry-erase board, her snapping her fingers to get my attention, and the sound of her sighing slightly through her nose.

She never made a sound.

She had a lot to say, though. She wrote it all out.

Her penmanship was beautiful. Everything about her was. She was her own perfect little thing.

On our first night together, I learned all of her secrets. She told me of the little lies she'd told in her life. She told me of her regrets. She told me I was different, and there was something very special happening to her tonight. Sometimes she'd start giggling during a lapdance and would have to stop, holding her sides and laughing. Laughter is the sexiest thing ever, even if it's silent. Our entire night felt like there might be parents in the other room, like we were doing this on the sneak..

She sent her bodyguard home for the night. He gave me a hard stare as he walked past, but no real worry or anger seemed to accompany it. There seemed to almost be a nod of respect as he passed me, like maybe no one had ever stayed the night with her before. Like maybe I should see that in his stare, and realize how lucky I was. Maybe it was envy I saw.

She lit every candle in the house. A warm glow filled the room, followed by the smell of vanilla, wax, and wick. It's a smell I'll always associate with her.

She played her music for me. She played underground and club bands I'd never heard of. Our first night together was much like show-and-tell. The direction of the conversation got shifted every few minutes, but it was simply like looking at another facet of the same jewel. She was fucking perfect.

'Pervfect', to coin a phrase. She liked to make up her own words and definitions. She even made up her own language once when she was a eight. She loved to tell me stories. As the night grew on I was fascinated by almost every new thing I learned about her.

She held my hands. She kissed my neck. She danced for me, and made me fall in love. You can't really help it when you fall in love or with who. Maybe it's a smile, or a touch, or a smell. We're subject to all the same laws of nature as the animals are.

All I could do was surrender. She was my everything. I knew it then. I know it now.

She made me forget everything else. She made me feel comfortable. She pampered me. She made me feel like a powerful giant. She let me hold her close in my arms, and nuzzled her face into my chest. She let me be who I'd become, for good or for bad.

In our first night together she changed her outfit six times. She put on a show for me. She lived in her own perfect little world. It was a world of smiles and rainbows and glittery stickers and secrets and telling secrets. It was a world I was perfectly willing to live in

Granted, I had her pegged as mildly schizophrenic at first. But, it was the sort of madness I found exhilarating. It was like having your life hijacked by a inescapable force of nature. Or a hyperactive children's television show. She was the sort of bizarre I understood and appreciated.

I knew I wanted to be with her forever. I actually knew it that very first night.

By the end of our first week together, I'd asked her to stop dancing. She wanted to stop. I was 'her man now' she'd said. I loved the way that sounded. as dumb as it was. As much of a bullshit ego thing it was, I was actually someone's something for the first time ever. I was proud.

The following week she moved in with me. The week after that we were looking for a larger apartment to start our life together in.

Things turned into a whirlwind romance, and it was like someone had queued the soap-opera music. It wasn't real life. I couldn't have been so lucky. Time seemed to be suspended indefinitely. She made life almost painless. She made my life fun.

In the ten years I spent with Crystal, she amazed me almost every day. She was the best thing I ever had in my life. She was everything a woman should be. She grew from the girl who had floored me, to the woman I adored. We grew together as a couple. She seemed to love me endlessly. She proved it every day.

We went through the same trials and tribulations any couple would go through. Nothing is perfect forever. We struggled with bills and finances and all the same strains any relationship endures. But, in our best moments we experienced things hardly any one else does.

You can collect so many memories with someone over ten years.

I remember our first Fourth of July together, eating pb and j's with the crust cut off, as we sat on the hood of my old Mustang. She packed us a picnic lunch, complete with chips, soda, and homemade chocolate chip cookies.

I remember the midnight trip to the supermarket to get the pregnancy test. We were fighting when the topic came up. When the stick showed a negative response, she'd burst into tears. We had great make-up sex

Sometimes she'd cry all afternoon. For no good reason. She was just having her period and sad. I tried to help as much as I could. She finally laughed when I brought her a bag full of candy bars, one of each kind, from the gas station up the street.

I remember how she'd wake me up, giving me Eskimo kisses. I'd wake every other morning nose-to-nose with an angel. I would always wake up smiling. It's hard not to wake up happy when you awake to something so cute and close enough to made you cross-eyed.

I remember the look she'd get on her face taking photos around the house.

I remember she'd wake me up to make love to her when it would rain in the middle of the night.

I remember her lovingly mouthing my name. The way her eyes would sparkle when she told me she loved me, her hands holding my face.

I remember her wrapped in blankets on the balcony, her body reclined back against mine as we watched the meteor shower fill the pitch black desert sky. The falling stars reflecting in her twinkling little eyes.

I remember her vacuuming the house topless, gyrating her little body to techno music.

I remember her cutting her finger washing the dishes, me kissing her boo-boo and applying a bandage as she pouted like a little girl. I can't even type this right now without wanting to cry, just thinking of her pain. Her hurt would wash over me until I had tears in my own eyes and she was the one consoling me.

She was magic. She was pure. She wasn't even like anything I'd ever known before.

Life with her was like living with another life form. She was an alien in this world. She was like a tourist in her own life. She was ceaselessly impressed with even the slightest of things. She was so much more of a kid than any kid I'd ever met. She collected rocks and shells. She wore bright and tiny clothes from the juniors department. She took pictures constantly with her digital camera.

She giggled silently. She was the best listener ever. She was my best friend. She was the only girl who every really knew me. At one point, she was everything I'd ever wanted in a woman.

She was also the very first women I'd ever made love to.

+++

CHAPTER SEVEN

+++

The Storage Unit wasn't really a storage unit, at least not a commercial one. It was a thirty-by-twelve travel trailer buried ten feet under the desert floor somewhere near the Arizona/Mexico border.

It was something God did a few years before he died. It was a great place for him to stash any large shipments of product that would come in above and beyond what he wanted to keep around the house. The location was perfect. If you didn't know what you were looking for, you'd never find The Unit. I was one of three people that even knew this hidden space existed. I'm the only one of the three who is still alive.

God hired a small crew from south of the border, and promised them they would all be paid well and in cash. Overnight they had dug the hole with a backhoe and set the trailer in with a crane. They worked in complete darkness, so as to not attract any attention other than the sound. There was no one around for miles, so light would attract more attention that any sound would. Once God had the job done and the equipment returned, he killed each one of the workers that dug the hole. A bullet to the head each.

He made sure there was a gap of about ten feet at the end of the trailer. He threw all of their bodies down there, and filled it up with cement. He had the Mexican Mafia after him for this. I think they're the ones that did him in eventually. On a hot day you can smell the bodies rotting.

+++

CHAPTER 7.5

+++

There are some codes you'll need before we begin.

Base – The Home Office. (Always call the office over the radio by saying your Number, then followed by "Base". Example: #15 to Base. Base this is #15.)

10-4 -- Message Received. Used to end commands/transmissions. ("10-4 Base.")

10-6 – Stand By. (Please 10-6 for a moment Base.) Use when busy driving or making change.

10-7 – Out of Service. (Use when exiting the vehicle for awhile. Always give a location you'll be 10-7 at. "Base, I'll be 10-7 for a few minutes at Gina's Diner.")

10-8 – Back In Service. (Use when getting back in vehicle after you've been gone. "Base, I'm 10-8 at Gina's.")

10-9 – Repeat Message. (Could you 10-9 that? I couldn't hear.)

10-17 – Picked Up. (Use to let office know where you pick up customers, but be sure to let Base know HOW MANY passengers you have picked up. "Base, #15 is 10-17 with FOUR at Gina's."

10-18 – Dropped Off/Still More in Cab. (Use to let Base know HOW MANY passengers you've DROPPED OFF and WHERE. "Base, #15 is 10-18 TWO at The Wagon Wheel Motel."

10-18 Light – Cab Empty/What's My Next Call? (Use this to let Base know you have dropped off the last of your customers, and are ready for another fare. "Base, #15 is 10-18 Light, what else have we got?")

10-19 – Return to Base. (Used by Base to ask a driver to return to the office "Base to #15, please 10-19 ASAP!")

10-20 – Your Location. (Used by Base or other drivers to ask or tell a location. "Hey, #15...what's your 10-20?")

10-21 – Next Pick Up. (Used by a driver to let Base know they are on their way to the next stop. "Base, #15 is 10-18 Light at The Wagon Wheel, 10-21 on to the call on Santa Maria.")

10-100 – Nature Break. (Base, I need to stop for a 10-100 at the Little General gas station.")

10-57 – Back Up/Bad Customer (Base, that was a total 10-57. Mark that address down.")

10-37 – Time Call Pick Up. (Base, I'm 10-21 for my 10PM 10-37 on Santa Maria.")

88 Gas It Up. (Driver #15, could you 88 that vehicle and bring it to the 10-19 ASAP?")

Code 1 – Stopped by the Cops. (Base, I'm going to be 10-7 in Huachuca City, stopped by a Code1.")

Code 1.5 - Stopped by an MP (Military Police), state your street location on Fort Huachuca. You don't need to say 'Code 1.5 ON FORT' because you'd have to be on Fort for this code. An MP cannot pull you over unless they are on Fort.

Code 2 – Send another Cab Immediately. (Base, we have a major Code 2 at the Mall.")

Code 4 – Another Company Stole Our Fare! (Base, never mind the Code 2 at the Mall. The passengers got into a Code 4 instead. Disregard the Mall.")

Code 5 – Shove It! (Use Sparingly.)

9-99 – Trouble/Call Police (Code 9-99! Code 9-99! We have trouble out here on Moson Road, Mile marker 175! Send back-up/Police!")

101 – Your Spouse ("Driver #15, your 101 Called. Please call home ASAP.")

102 – Parent/Child ("Driver #15, your 102 called and needs to be picked up from School/Home.")

Home 20 – Your Home Residence. ("Base, Driver #15 is going to be 10-7 at my Home 20.")

That's how it is possible to say: "Number 15, I need you to 10-19 after you 18 at your destination. Your 101 has called and said there is a 9-99 at your home 20. Your 102 was stopped on a CODE 1 and .........."

These codes are used daily, so be sure to have them memorized. They are used for your safety and protection. Always refrain from profanity and attitude while talking on the radio's. Use of profane language could result in up to a $1500 fine from The FCC.

Be Safe, Be Sane, and Buckle Up. It's the Law!

***

I've been driving cab every weekend since Crystal left. I go to the places I think she might go to. I have groups of people out here on the weekends who are my eyes and ears for the town. I just want to make sure she's safe and all right.

When she left, I never once saw her again. Her stuff just slowly began to disappear from the apartment when I was gone. Some clothing one day, her CD collection the next. By the end of the first month, only a few items here and there still remained in our home to remind me of her at all.

The night Crystal left was a living nightmare. In one single second, I mercilessly and irreversibly broke both our hearts and shattered our world into oblivion. I felt like my soul had died. I wanted to follow her, to plead with her, but it was no use. It was over.

First was the crashing wave of despair. It was unrelenting, the most painful thing I've ever experienced. It lasted for weeks. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I quit my job. It was impossible to function in a workplace environment. I was having a complete mental breakdown.

I was in love. And she was gone.

She had nowhere to go to, as far as I know. But, then again I'm not sure who all of her friends were at the time she left. I tried to call her multiple times, but her phone had been shut off. She had no parents to turn to, they had abandoned her as a baby. After that she went from bad foster home to bad foster home until she turned sixteen and legally emancipated herself. She didn't have any other family that I knew of. I had no idea where she was, and that worried me. Was she just out there on the street? Sleeping in the park?

She just disappeared. Past a certain point, I just wanted to know she was alive and safe. I began to get frightened when a month had gone by without seeing or hearing from her. I at least expected to run into her at her favorite bars. She quit working at The Loft. No one there had any information on where she went at all. It was like everyone we'd both known were suddenly not friends of mine anymore. Like everyone knew what I had done.

I went up to the Loft to see if she was working, they asked me to leave. She no longer worker there, Maggie informed me, and I was no longer welcome or allowed in their establishment. She said she was sorry, but she didn't say it with a smile.

When I'd quit my job, I spent weeks just passing out fliers and pounding the streets. To this day, I still haven't come one inch closer to finding her. The police have showed little to no interest. They just assumed it was a domestic situation and she didn't want to talk to me, which might be totally dead on.

The officer who spoke to me at the police station made it clear that there was little they could do.
"If there's no sign of foul play, there's no sign of a crime." He said, " She left you, she took her shit and she moved out. She also moved on, and so should you. You can keep passing out those fliers, but if she shows up in here with a restraining order against you, I'll hand you your ass."

I spend nearly two hundred dollars a week printing up fliers and taking out ads looking for her. The ads have been circulating around town for almost six months, and I am still left without even the smallest clue or a lead as to what has happened to her. I have her picture circulating on the internet at my blog space, in the National Database for Missing Persons, and almost anywhere else that'll let me put it up. I'm nearly certain that she's dead. You just can't give up hope easily when you love someone.

No matter what has happened, I just need to know. I need to know what happened to my girl.

So, I'm out here driving every weekend. I mean, I can't imagine she'd be going out during the week. She didn't really go out drinking much until our last year together. In between calls I stop in bars and restaurants that I know she liked. I drop more flyers off to each place. I talk to the owners of the bars and see if anyone has seen or heard anything. It's like she disappeared into thin air.

It's only 9pm and I haven't had the vehicle empty in four hours. One group even had to nearly double-overload me, thirteen soldiers in a seven-passenger vehicle. If I crash this van it'll be considered a national tragedy. The double back seat is nothing but asses and elbows and Class A uniforms. They all laugh and scream like school kids every time I hit a bump or cut a corner too tight. This whole group is going to Iraq in a matter of months. I give them a free ride just for making me laugh and protecting our country. They each tip me anyway.

Most of my customers are military, they tend to be pretty well behaved for the most part. It's generally a bars-to-barracks gig. Or bar-to-bar service. I drive around the AIT students, MP's, Officer's and Private's. On a good night I'll have a party of cute Air Force girls keep my as their 'personal chauffeur', and take them all bar hopping for the evening. I call these my 'Girls Getting Shitty' groups. Sometimes they flash me for a tip. It's always appreciated.

On a bad night, I'll have to clean up puke. It's a fifty dollar cleaning fee, to which I add my own twenty dollar tip, as I have to clean up your barf. I have a running record for the most customers getting sick of anyone I work with, and possibly for all of Angel Cab's history.

People have just gotten into the habit of calling me Angel. When I roll up to pick them up, I always say 'Your Angel has come to take you to the other side.' It's cryptic, but most of my customers will agree, when I come to pick them up it's a relief. It's impossible to get a cab in this town.

It has a lot to do with the military dynamic. Everyone gets off work at nearly the same time. It's military life on a fort. Now, most of the students aren't allowed to have their cars if they're only going to be here for three to twelve weeks for training. So, the cab companies are flooded. There will be a group of twenty waiting at the barracks pavilion area all needing to go to the mall, or out to eat, or get drunk or tattooed.

Most of my best customers just have me on speed-dial on their cell phones, they just hit my button and I can usually make it there with 20 minutes. A half-hour on a bad night. That beats any service in town. At first my boss didn't like it, as I was the only cabbie with a cell phone. But, when he saw I was bringing in as much if not more than even the best drivers, he just let me do my thing.

People tell me, in Sierra Vista it's harder to get back to Ft. Huachuca than any other fort they have ever been stationed at. Some nights it would be an hour between cabs coming back to even the busiest stops like the mall. People were missing their bed checks. Which I think is hilarious, because you're in the military and you have a bedtime. That's classic.

So I roll up to The Shack, a booming house club on the edge of town. It's one of those cheap-drink-two-for-one meat markets. I roll up onto a group of permanent party soldiers that called me a few minutes before. I roll down the passenger window to a choir of drunks yelling 'Angel! Buddy!'. It's dead at this club, so I take them all out to the titty bar. I know the group leader, the one who called me. But, only know a few of the other five. One of them had facial scars, and I wonder if it's from the war. I mean, you never ask shit like that.

It's early on a Friday, and I've already made enough money to pay the boss his daily share and pay for the fliers I'd be printing up for the month. I don't do this for the money, if I did I'd be working full time. Just after Crystal left, I did some searching on the internet for information about the overseas fan clubs that still are die hard collectors of my music. It was amazing to find that there were over three hundred registered fan clubs online, most of them in Asian and Scandinavian countries.

It got my wheels turning. I began to clear out the excess collectibles I had. I sold things on auction sites, and sent items directly to customers. The response was astounding. Most of my music has been out of print for years, due to the record company not wanting to invest any more money into me.

I started acting as my own agent and manager. I sold bootleg copies of our concerts, bootleg video's not available outside the U.S. and personalized fan memorabilia. I signed copies of posters, sold personalized guitar picks, and bandana's.

Soon, I was unloading a large secret stash of my recorded solo project that never made it past the demo phase. I sold solo shows I recorded on my ghetto-blaster when I was playing anonymously in Tucson bars on open mic nights. These people were superfans. They'd have bought strands of my hair and nail clippings if I'd offered them. I was asked once, so I know.

I've taken the money and made plans to take care of Richie. And to keep looking for Crystal once I'm gone. These are the two important things in my life. Nothing will chance once I'm gone.

A little bit later, I'm riding with Adam. He's tweaking and hasn't stopped talking for twelve minutes straight. The radio is blaring with demands and commands I haven't heard because of his babbling. I tell them I have a loud group, and I turn the CB down. Out of sight, I grip the handle of my Chipawah knife, and imagine what Adams head would look like in the middle of the road about to go under the tires of the cab.

Thump.

We hit a bump.

I have seven different weapons hidden inside this otherwise innocent looking soccer-mom van. All within reach. I've never had to use any of them yet, but I feel the urge to almost every night I drive. A few drivers have been robbed in the past, even in this small town, so it's always better to be safe than sorry.

I'm driving down Fry Boulevard, lovingly renamed French Fry Boulevard by locals for all the numerous fast food restaurants that have spouted up on the main strip in the last ten years. I think there must be one of each. We have two of the seafood places, all three chicken places, five of the chain pizza places, and the top seven burger joints. Every chain has been represented.

It's amazing what can happen to a place in a span of ten years. It's amazing what can not happen to a place in a span of ten years. What happened to my hometown over the last ten years is enough to turn my stomach. It's what's happening everywhere in the U.S.

Everything has become a Mac-something or a TGF-whatever's. Nothing but corporate places to eat. Corporate places to shop. Corporate places of mass entertainment. Gone are the days of local movie theaters, small sandwich shops, and friendly neighborhood small businesses.

R & M Cinema went away when the Cinneplex went into the new mall. The new mall wiped out any local clothing stores. The 24 Hour SuperMart took care of everything else. And, then Sierra Vista became just like anyplace else. Pizza that'll taste, look, and smell the same no matter where you go in the world. Hamburgers that were made and frozen months ago in a factory somewhere, each of identical size, shape, weight, consistency, and questionable meat content.

I bought my first bike from the friendly Scottish local who owned M&N Cycling. His lively commercials used to chime from the radio when I was a kid, 'Come on in, to M&N! Come on Duune, and check us Ooot'! I guess his accent doesn't transfer well to the page, but that's what it sounded like he was saying.

I used to buy my clothes from Mama at Off the Rack, a affordable mens store that mom would take me to for school clothes that was owned by Mama Lynn. She was a sweet Korean woman who spoke very little English and made most of the clothes herself. She always had a discount and a friendly smile for a regular customer.

Lamont used to make my Sandwiches to go on Friday's when I'd stop in Sips-n-Subs after school. Living in a small Arizona town, I didn't meet too many black folks, so it was probably pretty positive that the first I'd known personally was one of the nicest guys ever. I think it might have kept me from being prejudice like some small town folks can be.

Lamont worked three jobs when the business went under. I heard he killed himself and made it look like an accident, so his family would get the insurance money. He used to give me extra cheese and not charge me because he thought I was too skinny for my age. Sometimes he'd throw in a cookie for free and I wouldn't even notice it until I got home and opened up my lunch.

Every time I drive down Fry Boulevard, I just get this sick and sinking feeling in my stomach. I guess it's right, how they say 'You can't go home again.' Who ever said that anyway? Whoever it was, they must have lived it. This place is no longer my childhood home, it's just a billboard advertising a better life, where there once used to be a real community. It's a closed gene pool with a convenience store and a bar on every corner. It's a good place to buy stuff.

I fucking hate it here. I wish the entire fucking mess would just catch fire and burn down, taking everyone in this horrid little shitville with it. Oh I mean, I don't always feel that way. But, I feel it more often than is probably heathy or normal or right.

I guess I just have memories here, and they've all been torn down and replaced with the same shit you can find anywhere else in the world.. It's like the American dream went into overdrive, and small town America is the one and only target for annihilation.

Gone is the personality of anyplace.

+++

CHAPTER EIGHT

+++

I was prepared to kill Richie. I visited him at the group home he was staying at in town. The girl who answered the door was a stocky little blonde with a bright smile and a tired look in her eyes. She escorted me past the other residents who were wandering around the living room and took me to the bedroom where Richie was.

He was strapped down into the bed. He had mittens on his hand, either to keep himself from scratching or to help his hands heal. He was rocking against his restraints. He was feeling the air in front of him like he was reading a secret braille message. I could see his fingers working manically beneath the mittens. I swear he knows something about the world around him that I don't.

I took the needle out and prepared it. I pull it up and flick the syringe for bubbles. I tied off Richie's arm, and found the vein. I have to do it. It's only humane. He's my flesh and blood. He's my baby brother.

Is he really suffering?

I don't believe in God. But, I think there is a possibility of something. Something else. Not the Christian face of God, but some eternal truth that's more knowing than myself or something. I don't know. I just couldn't make that call. It's was too grey an area.

It killed me to see my brother like that. He's not even alive. But, I just couldn't do it. It wasn't my place. Maybe he loved being alive. I talked to him.

I asked him to give me a sign. He wasn't deaf yet, the last of his senses that wasn't completely lost. I talked to him and asked him what to do. He rocked. Nothing changed about the way her rocked, he didn't understand a thing I said. I reconsidered for a moment.

I left at the end of the hour. I considered saving the needle for myself. So, I did. It sits in a little wooden cigar box on the table across the room. I'm looking at that cigar box right now.

+++