The junk traders choked the streets with their junk trucks, on an ungodly hot day. Broken asphalt was everywhere crumpled from battles fought here 6 years ago. Bullet shells still littered these paths amongst the broken buildings that had yet to be revitalized
These streets still had blood lust running down the broken asphalt veins. But the lust was shoved aside for the struggle of empty bellies that never stayed full. Scrapers made enough to survive into a new day. The streets always provided the materials and wages to rebuild the fallen city of angels
A city that god loved and hated. It had seen so many rebirths, held soo many loves in her arms. The children always came from everywhere in the world to live amongst the angel flights
He always reran this thought while passing mangled buildings on the way back to his apartment. Always drawing too hard on his cigarette while in this thought, he'd always feel sick when he got to his dark room
To pour himself a drink of some whiskey that always survived the renovations of America. He'd try to silence the madness he knew of his whole life from the beginning, the desert he hated, and the angry job that wasn't a career (the only thing he was partially good at made him sick)
The search for truth in this loved/hated city made everything harder to swallow there was no magic pill that made it easier... he'd just cope...
Sleep always grasped at him like a neglected love. He had never been able to devout more than a few drunken eye blinks. He'd never make it to the bed anyways. Either from passing out on the couch watching infomercials or from rushing out the door for work, always with a drink in hand in both cases
Tonight was always the same, stuck in the kitchen cracking eggs into a burnt skillet filled with leftover spiced bits in it. A coffee cup of water and whiskey always got more attention than the burning meal. He didn't taste it any ways between the smoking and drinking, it was the lackadaisical attitude which allowed him to eat everything, even if spoiled.
He'd stare out into the living room letting the warmth take him. He knew he should be livelier just in case a call jerked him out of his nothing routine, but the poison in the cup grew stronger with less water each refill.
most of the souls he knew young and old had a ritual like that, something they held on to like grim death. nothing in the world would ever change that for them.
***
The music never changed it always stayed the same. Till someone passed then that record would be taken out of the jukebox forever retired
The drink was always served neat, never with ice. The water would stretch it out just a little longer. The Jameson Irish whiskey was always at hand while in between these walls
Fights would always be finished before they even be they started when he would start to growl... “Ok Juan you can smoke” tobacco always in the other free hand, clenched tight, drawn too hard and killed quicker, burning the knuckles on cold nights.
With burning days, bleak nights again and again. The choking coughs would start again in the cold; the blood would’ve concerned him if it didn’t already happen before it was all the same as long as it didn’t stop the ritual.
The fits were stronger tonight but he stifled them to the point where it was only a slight shoulder shrug, cool water and a few minutes alone always pushed them away.
A solitary porcelain sink waited below a dim 40 watts yellow light bulb. That only blessed the small broken room with enough light to turn the cold faucet on. He preferred not to see the room anyways. It was all broken with kids writing their names on the walls from tonight and from before this… something never changed through the broken mess for progress.
Silently staring at in the mirror, staring at someone who expected an answer… the reply would never come while the flinching shoulders lurched stronger. To stand resolved cured the inevitable for now.
His barstool sat empty waiting for the return, bodies moved away from him avoiding the fierce for that came with john’s smoking. Hair trigger to everyone around him. Like if everyone drank his drink, and left him nothing, but spit.
Juan, john’s real name never wanted company but everyone knew his name and this ritual that came with him. His way was too sour and hard to follow. The bitterness burned thicker than the cigarette smoke the held him in the center of it.
Knocking on the bar caught Tortuga’s attention to see Juan’s one stained index finger in the air that made the motion pointing down in front of him on the bar. This signal meant he expected another drink soon.
The drink would sit without complaint till Juan gave it the love it was created for. Fresh air would need to be taken before he could love the remaining love in the world for him.
This part of town always grew back faster and darker than any other part of downtown. The cold air mixed with the smoke on his breath it showed his life in obvious motions against the orange lights of the city.
Silence was everywhere around him; his lungs gave up on fighting the smoke for now. The world grew easier with long embracing draws. His minds world would draw in that silence as well while he stood against the rubble hidden in the shadow of the rebirth of the never dying almighty…
Those tagging kids always came around always forever asking for cigarettes or money that they would use to look for a cheap high that most people didn’t know about.
Juan never pitied them because he believed they did it to themselves their own private hell, and he wouldn’t help them by make himself poorer. He’d just swat them away with his free hand that was the only help he was willing to give them. They’d always try same ones every time. Some kind of addiction to the either the abuse, or to the ritual.
They would always stare at his six shooter at his side, and say “oye vaquero can I bum…” that’s as far as they’d get with him, before he would belt them in the mouth.
There was always the one kid who seemed smarter than the rest who always stood 2 or 3 paces behind the kids who always got smacked every time. On one occasion Juan grabbed him in his frustration and pistol whipped the young hungry kid; when one kid tried to reach for the cigarette out of his mouth. That was the only kid that learned the lesson to leave him alone even though the kids never reached at him again.
The fits started in stronger than earlier when he backhanded one and kicked another one in the stomach, this time was much worse than before because the blood came out like a spray in the first cough and he dropped to his knees.
Sucking in cold air from a blood filled mouth he said “Awe… Shit!” then dropping his cigarette he gasped for air… air that burned in his chest like fire even in the cold air, Fire did not belong there. His stomach following the lead gave over to the over whelming pain. The kids seeing the blood ran away before he even got to drop his cigarette.
Everything was losing his attention quickly as the pain he felt was beginning to become more than he could handle. The part of the world he could still grasp was his saying something he couldn’t understand and the sensation of falling back slowly.
He couldn’t rationalize anything in this experience nothing had ever come close. There was only the pain in every part of his body. He tried and fought with everything in his soul to stand normally. Flailing in his mind against this overbearing sensation for real or in the heart was something that couldn’t be defined from the words that away from the blood on his lips.
This struggle was all he knew from the beginning... his beginning the only struggle that mattered. There was nothing else here just this fight for sharp painful breaths and the process to stand ignoring the pain.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Stupid voices spoke outside uncaringly of those who listened as if no one else was there who listened as if no one else was there to hear them reveal their hearts, even decades after they spoke last.
Everything around him was like this the idiot box just had been louder but not loud enough to call his attention away from the attempt to silence the breathing madness inside. Staying up all night somewhere between remembering…
Disturbances outside the normal always drew anger with more irritation than days sitting summer heat. Tonight’s call was not a different part of the night’s slow drip. Screaming sounds of electronics followed reaching through intentional broken views of the world.
“Yeah?!” Mumbling, fumbling, irritation.
“Vincent! You need to get downtown now!” trembling irritation always came from this voice at this time of night. Mothers to some, mothers to all, never approving.
“I’ll be there after I shower, Sharon.” He knew she disapproved of most of the things he did but she was his work superior, not his mother. But out of respect he gave indifferent meekness.
“Vincent… it’s important. You need to be here at the scene…” Sharon said in a tearing voice.
Before Vincent cut in yelling “Yeah I’ll be there like I always am” before he hung up. The liquor always gave him the truth he feared to say by daylight sober. In his mind he had a good laugh about it.
Sitting up to turn off the constant light of the TV he spilled his coffee that everything sank to the bottom of. His single couch had all the same marks on it from the nights before. Stepping down on the ground his bare foot stepped on to his empty plate he barely finished before trying to give up on this day. If he wasn’t awake with frustration already the fork on the plate woke up everything inside of him with screaming nerves. The shower excuse wasn’t a lie anymore.
Water was always soothing even though it could take him in other ways. The alcohol was only brushed off the skin not off the soul. Cold energy drinks would mask some of the obvious; cigarettes would be the other winning factor to hiding it.
Driving like this half living half attempting was always the mortal challenge but the hypnotic road would force the body into attention for the time being and the journey would always be forgotten again without any passing nostalgia.
Only if the cranky old man wasn’t there, he could actually get some work done. Things were always tense always taught eternally, ready to snap with a slap to the face. Everything slipped when knew the old man was there. Always afraid of the criticism, that always came wither spoken or just a facial expression. It always made his hands clip corners justifying the sound of disapproval the sigh the hiss or some kind of curse that was barked in his limited vocabulary.
There was always the gloom he felt when the old man was near, the bark and the disapproving grunts always fumbled Vincent’s simplest actions, but he had to endure the demeaning and vulgar looks. Respect, was what the angry burnt old man deserved, after years of carrying everyone and surviving everything that had happened after the war.
Lines drawn between the plebs and the authority always written in yellow score the scene, flashed in red and blue lights twisting in constant revolution.
There was always the hurdle of the idiot uniform police officers, unsure of what to do after something had actually happened. As if action was all they knew or understand in these untamed streets. White sheets would be the only thing they could ever think of. And that would be the barrier between the elements that may have been the reason this sorry person was here.
Travelers had to break it down clinically cold as such to look aside, to do their work. It was only to make it to the next day intact, cynicism was easier and healthier.
Walking the familiar routine he could do almost blindfolded. The faint smell of blood and vomit in the air mixed with the beer and/or some other kind of vice.
Indifference claimed all in this frame of mind… till a lost uniform reached out and grabbed Vincent by his wrist and said “Vincent.” Followed by “please wait”
“get your damn hands off me!” followed by Vincent snapping his arm away to make a fist before noticing it was a dumb female uniform, staring at him with idiot eyes.
He glared at her with an added frustration that he couldn’t release at her. She didn’t know him to be so familiar and say his first name “Stupid girl!” he spat at her before he turned back to work that was laying a few feet away.
The old man would’ve pushed that stupid girl for touching him. Always on end never happy, just always effective… he never gained friends for it. The old man had a job to do and would smack or push anyone out of the way who bothered him.
His job was to travel back to the final gasps of this sad burnt soul, for justice and for peace. Their mysteries would linger like blood stained hands invisible to others till they put to rest.
This was for the travelers, his cross to bear, his penance, imagined or true, buying karma in advance. Coldness was how he’d carry on as in only giving the prescribed amount of respect.
Vincent could rest easy again after the old man would light a cigarette because it meant the old man was done and would be leaving soon. And all the simple functions would all come back again, like speaking like a person again, no longer the silent pending anger would show on his face.
His tools he pulled from his breast pocket that also drew out his coffin nails he had next to his lighter to the ground, just a few feet away from the white sheet that protected the world from seeing another shit bricker cut open and spilt crappy paisa beer and blood all over the side walk.
He could smell the cheap beer that smelled like trash even when it was still in the can. There was no way to romantized this in his head. This is what the world had for him, shit and the smell of shit in a can, the die was cast and it always kept him in the middle of this shit forever. Another night, like the rest before.
He’d breathe a sigh after looking around over his shoulders, and not seeing the old man giving him daggers. Then he’d pull away the sheet to see the face he dreaded seeing the whole night.
Blank, silent with the life missing poured out with blood from his mouth in his final breath all over the front of his shirt. Lost, Vincent froze on the ground losing everything in his mind seeing Juan (John) Salvatore under the sheet a victim of a regrettable night. Everything was silent here, there wasn’t a siren, there wasn’t homeless or wastes being questioned, no idiot uniforms stopping him from this pain of this moment.
This old man he watched, waiting for him sit up and belittle him for staring at him for laying still. After everything they survived together, his savior, his mentor, and his only father figure couldn’t say anything anymore.
The struggle against the night was over now, sleep…
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