Today is another one of those days when I think I might be dead. I'm pretty sure time isn't moving, or maybe it's just fluctuating back and forth. All I know is I need some cigarettes and I need some vodka. I think the meat industry can wait.
I break the seal on my plastic flask of vodka before I'm even out of the store. I should be a poster child for broken dreams or some shit like that. There is a little kid selling lemonade on the side of the road. Wait, there's a little kid selling lemonade on the side of the road. Why the fuck is a little kid in this part of town selling fucking lemonade on the side of the road? Well I've got vodka, he's got lemonade, let's get this party started. The kid says it's fifty cents but my hands are too cold and my motor functions too degraded to actually grab anything out of my pocket. The kid realizes the futility of his business and tells me to just take the lemonade, I oblige.
I sit around all day, just like every day. My buzz is wearing off and I'm getting a mid-day hangover, just like every day. I know what I'll do to break the monotony, maybe today will be the day I finally die.
Something wakes me up, it's dark, my head is on fucking fire and the compressor to the meat freezer has shut off. The power's out. What's even worse, I'm laying in an ice cold bath tub, I'm surrounded by floating empty beer cans, like all the countless messages sent off in bottles never to be found, never to be heard, to drift alone eternally or sink to an icy grave. I can taste gun metal in my mouth, my gums and teeth hurt from clenching around the barrel of a .45, and I'm perfectly fine, alive and breathing. God damnit.
Well I've stumbled out of the tub, into some dirty clothes and all the way to the fridge. It's completely empty, not a drop of alcohol in this fucking house, just the fumes on my breath. Without thinking I find my way outside.
I think it's pretty late at this point. It's below freezing, there's sleet, and I'm in wet pajamas. Look at me. The power's still out and every store in town is closed. But Jesus Christ, there is silence. My ears and eyes are open and neither can detect a thing. This is beautiful. This is the first time I've found any kind of joy in this town, maybe even in my life for that matter. But all of a sudden I am thrown to the ground. Sharp pain shoots through my body as my moment of clarity shatters into hundreds of pieces. I feel like I was looking into some mirror and it cracked, the crack spread and sprouted like a tree, until the every piece fell to the ground, leaving me god only knows how many years of bad luck. Some dark hooded figure stands over me trembling. He says some shit about the government being after him and disappears into the darkness. I am stone sober; I'm on the cold, wet ground and I am unable to find where I just was. I am pathetic. Out of nowhere I'm in the spotlight. There is some car in front of me shining headlights straight in my face. I now realize that I am in the middle of the road. I step out of the way and a gray minivan slowly pulls past, like the looming side of a freighter while I'm stranded in a life boat. Some thug inside points a gun at me, I close my eyes and pray for my final bang. But when I open my eyes again I am alone. I am left once again to my silent, blind serenity.
I am alone.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Welcome
Blood. Blood on my hands, blood under my nails, blood in my hair. I haven't had a drink all day and I'm starting to get the shakes. My name is Dave Gorlomi, I own Styx Meats and I'm an alcoholic.
I've owned this little corner shop for years now, since way back when this neighborhood was, well, still a total shithole. I think this part of town exists outside of time; it's always been a shithole and it always will be. Anyways, I'm the butcher around here. People need cheap meat and that's what I'm able to give them. I buy a lot of low grade meat or cuts that sat around too long at the supermarket. Don't worry though, nobody dies from food poisoning around here, you usually get shot.
The place next door to me is an "antique store," haha. That place has been a whorehouse front for so long that it used to just be a furniture store. Next door to that there's a bar; they serve crappy, greasy food, there are some crappy, greasy women, and the beer is warm. That's all that this town really is, dead meat, live meat, and alcohol.
Across the way there's a little Jewish deli that doubles as a synagogue on weekends, and as though this town wasn't already about to blow, there's a mosque right across the street. Anyways, at the corner of Katz and Mercy is where everything usually goes down, at the apartment building. You can find anything you need there; girls, drugs, guns, it all depends on how lonely you really are.
There's some more to this town, but all I really know is the liquor store and the blur that happens after it. People come and people go but it's all the same; they all have the same stories and they all sound the same crying. There isn't a sky over this town, just an airtight dome that somebody decorated with a box of crayons, and every time someone takes a breath, the pressure inside increases; it's all ready to blow. The rain in this town wouldn't pass a piss test; the chimneys here would blow over the legal limit. This is the edge of the world and I am Dave the butcher.
I've owned this little corner shop for years now, since way back when this neighborhood was, well, still a total shithole. I think this part of town exists outside of time; it's always been a shithole and it always will be. Anyways, I'm the butcher around here. People need cheap meat and that's what I'm able to give them. I buy a lot of low grade meat or cuts that sat around too long at the supermarket. Don't worry though, nobody dies from food poisoning around here, you usually get shot.
The place next door to me is an "antique store," haha. That place has been a whorehouse front for so long that it used to just be a furniture store. Next door to that there's a bar; they serve crappy, greasy food, there are some crappy, greasy women, and the beer is warm. That's all that this town really is, dead meat, live meat, and alcohol.
Across the way there's a little Jewish deli that doubles as a synagogue on weekends, and as though this town wasn't already about to blow, there's a mosque right across the street. Anyways, at the corner of Katz and Mercy is where everything usually goes down, at the apartment building. You can find anything you need there; girls, drugs, guns, it all depends on how lonely you really are.
There's some more to this town, but all I really know is the liquor store and the blur that happens after it. People come and people go but it's all the same; they all have the same stories and they all sound the same crying. There isn't a sky over this town, just an airtight dome that somebody decorated with a box of crayons, and every time someone takes a breath, the pressure inside increases; it's all ready to blow. The rain in this town wouldn't pass a piss test; the chimneys here would blow over the legal limit. This is the edge of the world and I am Dave the butcher.
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