Headful of ghosts.

[greedy fly]

Quinn bladed her tongue across her lips, staring at him from across the restaurant table. He looked tired, but hardly despondent. In fact, he just looked drained of life and passion, completely.

"So Vera left."

This surprised her, he seemed to be infatuated with that girl, and she was a sweet one. A keeper.

"Oh? You don't sound too upset."

He just jolted his shoulder.

"I don't really care anymore."

"Sol, I thought you really liked her."

"I did, but, it's inevitable. I can't keep a relationship, why try?"

"That's really...not a good way of looking at things, I remember you used to scold me for saying shit like that. I mean, she seemed like the one."

"They all seem like the one until they dump yew."

"Well, in that case, remember Gretchen? My friend Gretchen? She's really fucking in love with you, maybe I could set you two up on a date...you know, the hot blonde one, I knew you were checking her ou--"

"No."

".. Why not?"

"Because I don't want to see anyone, anymore."

"Uh. You're twenty-four. You're acting like you're having a midlife crisis."

"No. I'm done. Relationships don't work out, anyway. It's not even just me. I observe a lot of people, everyone goes through these bursts. They think they're in love one minute, and the next they're not. People are just so empty, it baffles me. So I think I'll just be empty like them."

" 'Sounds like you should give ol' Judas a call."

"No."

"Why?"

"I think I genuinely loathe him."

"But you two are like brothers!"

"Were like brothers."

"What about uhh..uhhh..." She was reaching here. "Why don't you go talk to Gin? He's been pretty upset lately, depressed, a little put-off since his boyfriend's in jail. I think you just need to talk to a guy that knows what it's like. Enough girls."

"Are yew proposing that I fuck Gin?"

"No, no! Jesus! No, Sol!"

"Oh. Because---no."

"Just go and talk to him. Be a friend."

"I think I'm just going to go home."

"Or Marlowe! Talk to Marlowe! He's your friend, right?"

"Yeh..."

"Go talk to him!"

"I don't feel like talking much at this point. I'm tired. I want to go to bed."

And those were very severe words coming from an insomniac.

[greedy fly]

Sweatslicked, grabbing her hip for dear life, his sighs and prase came in feverish spurts. He told her that she was his godess, and that he felt swollen inside; a finished tapestry that had been frayed since birth. Vera. His forecast for the future.

And now a calm had descended over both of them. The moon glimmered full; coming in strands through the blinds, as she, exhausted, relaxed in the comfort zone of her own strawberry fields. He was still awake, however -- twenty-three minutes past three. Solomon was all strung-out and haywire with bliss. Thinking.

His cheek spanned rough over her naked abdomen, his sun-nourished body curled into itself. Thank God, she didn't return back to Italy. Thank God she had the courage to tell him, because it was exactly what he needed.

He wondered about his future child.

Where would they raise him?

Where would they raise her?

London? Rome? Paris? Phildelphia?

He knew that he couldn't spend the rest of his life choking on these uprooted settings. So many memories were nestled in the wild faces of these graffiti'd walls, but not enough of them just specificially belonged to him and Vera. He knew that he'd be a good father. Vera quit smoking just hours abefore, and now so would he. Perhaps, now, he'd pursue his dreams as both an artist and musician because the inspiration was ubiquitous.

A gravel palm took a smooth skii slope over warm abdominal girl-flesh, before he plotted a kiss to his future first-born. This girl -- this mysterious woman -- he'd figure her out; unravel her strings and satin scarlet ribbon until he could cleanse away all smudged sins and kiss at her secrets. He'd tell her everything too, and would take all the necessary steps to being the best man he could be.

When Marie had died, she took his unborn child with her, and it was hard to forgive himself. But now, twenty-five digital red minutes past three, he felt as though his ghosts were truly forgiven. The tear shed, and he swallowed a melodic sigh.

Solomon Stills had always worn his heart on his sleeve, but now it seemed that it was tucked into her womb.

[greedy fly]

This is something you'll always remember your mother by ...


Solomon muttered it to the canvas as he began to work with feverish caramel ringlets of hair bobbing rebellious mischief past his brow's ledging; his ashen mouth wired in a tight, concentrated line.

His paintbrush was sometimes diluted in an abandoned jelly jar or paper towels. Sometimes, it was mixed on cardboard, but for the most part he managed to mesh swirls of colors along his inner wrist. (Long slow rope is hanging.)

Black and white were the most prominent hues reigning throughout the piece. Spiked bottle-green, pink for her lips and the rouge of her cheeks, buttermilk flesh tones spilling onto the canvas to highlight her skin with that exquisite incandescence it always seemed to possess. The brushstrokes were like windswept rain; slanted to one side, downpouring onto the textured white, filling piece-by-piece until his baby became a whole.

She was cradling her kneecaps to her chest in a black dress, with her cheek tilted against them, her sultry eyes locked on the viewer. She held a casual, hunched, toothache sweetness that no one could touch. The girl was a goddess-- darker than Persphone, yet more beautiful than Aphrodite.

When he finished, summer-sweaty, and swiping the sheens from above his brows; (slick across his dipping widow's peak) he left the fold-out metal chair vacant in the corner of his room, letting the stinging smell of paint dissipate thanks to an open, ventilating window. The city sounds poured inside, and the sun plunged behind sky-kissing buildings.

[greedy fly]

The shadows spill, and the rain is beating sickly into my head. For the past three days, I have held her, I've been her shoulder to cry on, I've even felt my eyes burn when I knew she was asleep. She can't look at me in the eyes, any more. There's only so many ways you can tell a woman it's not her fault and that she's still impeccable no matter what happened. Once a woman's mind is made up, they don't want to listen to you.

So I watched her walk out the door, feeling dead. Without the child on its way, I feel sluggish and dead. I helped her pack, but I didn't beg her to stay. We've been together because we had something in the future to look forward to--something to share. It came so early in our relationship that we never had time to fully develop. We were hanging by angel wings and threadbare wires.

I didn't tell her I loved her when she left. Because honestly, I don't know if I did, but I knew that eventually, I'd grow to love her with everything I have. But I care deeply for her, I really do. It's the saddest fucking thing in the world is to have something so close--to have something ready to brighten your future, and then to have it snuffed by this omnipotent hand that no one in the world understands.

Goodbye, Vera.

<font color="#EE0000" size="1">[ March 25, 2005 01:36 AM: Message edited by: softcore jukebox ]</font>

[greedy fly]

The thunderclaps outside his window rumbled, and his attention momentarily strayed; swinging over to the open blinds, the smoky shades of the city, the symphonic shower of the rain. Shifting around on the edge of his bed, bare save for his unbuckled jeans and an acoustic guitar smiling shapely walnut shades in his lap, his cat's black tail twitched along the polished body and swirled along the fretboard. She fled to the other side of the bed to clean herself in vain with a rough tongue, before he offered another strum, irritated by the sound. Once more, he twinged the tuners, gave another twang, and scribbled chords in his notebook.

His apartment was so fucking still. No one had visited him in two days; it was Labor Day weekend, and he had three days of alone time vacation from work. In these three days he made no attempt to party, to get to know anyone, to socialize, to practice with his band, to kick his drug habit. No. He just sat around; a victim of his own white walls. Solomon wasn't exactly depressed as much as he felt that he was just merely useless.

When he had no one to talk to, he found himself talking to himself, because it was too fucking crazy to talk to the cat. Sometimes, he'd wander onto the balcony, sleek and sinewy like a feline, and peer over the back alleyways of downtown Philadelphia.

But tonight, he wrote songs. Not about lost lovers that were jut as good as dead to him now, or ballads or angsty anthems-- just about simple things; like crawling up into a shell, and listening to the rain, forgetting about the world and its issues.

Forgetting about voting, bills, censorship, police cars, drug runs, love, hate, life, death, gossip, work, sex, eating, surviving--love. Love, again.

"Sounds like shite," he rasped when he played the song over with a clumsy spell of fingerpicking and ghastly lyrics whispered beneath the undercurrent of liquor-flavored breath. But, he didn't tear off the page, and throw his guitar aside and forget about it. He spent hours until he got it right. Hours until the am drained the sky dry, and the sound of rain was just replaced by the thicket of urban noise, moaning sirens, and make-believe punks slurring over paperbagged forties.

Soon, he sprawled out in his bed, his arms tucked behind his skull, staring up at all the scars on the ceiling. He counted every crack, and tried to make up metaphors for what they stood for.

That one.. stands for the time I taught Marie how to play ..

That one's for... the time I punched Jude in the face cos he asked for it..

And that one for the time I threw Kate into the bushes.

For the time I woke up with War kissing me.

Or the time Paiva told me about the roof and her summer dress..

And that one's for the time Vera put my head to her stomach...

And this went on for hours, sometimes it was repetition, sometimes it scrolled different lovers. But what didn't occur to him was that maybe it was time to leave love alone and live for himself. You couldn't tell a lovefool to stop wanting to be loved.

[greedy fly]

The two brown grocery bags were huddled against his chest, stained in a black cardigan split at the collar to reveal the black-and-white striped shirt beneath. His embrace was lazy, his stare trotting over urban powerlines and decay. The moon shone like a half-broken jewel, but the stars were smothered in soaked smog and ink. The streets were lined with cars, because it was a Saturday night and the city was alive. Bass rhythms strained into unlistening ears, frazzled-haired old men were trying to thrust stale flowers against car windows.

Solomon rounded a corner off the mainstream lights and flare off of South Street, trudging past the willowy, historic townhouses where the sidewalks were still cracked, but the music was dull. He knew better to drive on a Saturday night. Traffic was mindblowing to the impatient; as was the endless circle of city driving. He had his paint supplies in a plastic bag dangling from his wrist, and his groceries drained his wallet of any excess cash.

He thought he was alone until he paused at the corner of ninth due to a slew of oncoming cars, but there were three long-legged girls pacing like caged lions up and down the street. It was his nature to shoot a glimpse, but it didn't linger for long because the cars cleared and he started to cross.

All he could think about was how fucking hungry he was, because once again he was binging on the days where he forgot to eat. His memory was blank, his showcase of priorities jumbled and out-of-order. The streetlights were bare and just barely sugarcoated him in orange sleaze as he blurred past pretty homes and cigarette-smoker stoops. But he heard heels clacking against the pavement behind him, like a harlot parade and it dawned on him that they were probably yelling at him for quite some time. He paused, glancing over his shoulder.

The girls were smiling, the latino one was bold, and stood in front of the other two who were grinning wolfishly, but still somewhat sheepish. The girl in front doubled her arms across her chest, and lifted a chiseled brow.

"Hey, hon."

Solomon had no problem with replying; he was no snob. "Hey."

"What're you up to tonight?" A chorusline of giggles.

"I'm cooking dinner," he volunteered, lifting up his bag.

More laughter. His mouth spawned a subtle, crooked smirk.

"What else?"

"Nothing."

"Well, do you wanna do something else?"

"Not especially." He paused for a second, transferring his weight to his other foot. "Yew gurls hungry?"

The trio's stares shot between one another, skeptical.

"Why?" Chimed a slightly overweight blonde girl in the back, clasping her hand to the nape of her neck.

"Cos I'll cook yew all dinner." He could've cared less about what his junkie neighbors thought about him bringing three hookers in his apartment. His intentions were completely chaste, because Solomon Stills did not pay for his sex.

And after a football puddle and some murmurs they turned to him and took him up for the offer. He hadn't cooked dinner for anyone in months, and that night he learned three new names, got piss-drunk on the leftover alcohol in his fridge, and of course, made spaghetti.

Such was the life of a lonely man.

[greedy fly]

"Solly, baby, it's Stace. I know you have work off tomorrow cos it's your birthday, so are we going to party or what? Drinks are on me an' Nikki. Listen, give me a call and we'll make plans."

"Well, wot th'fook are yir plans fir t'day? Give ays a call, by the way, if Syme staggers over drunk, doon answer the door. He's been actin'a'real poof today."

"Happy biiirrrthddaaay tooo yooou. Happy biiirtthhdaaay toooo yoooou... happy birthday Mister Sollermoooooon. Happy biiirthday tooo youuuu. I didn't buy you a present, but I could give you a wicked blowjob. Ha, just kidding. It's Gin. Long time, no talk. Give me a call, man."

"Hey, bitchtits open your door." Quinn didn't need to say it was her. "We're gettin' trashed tonight." There was a long pause. "Dude, you're not going out with Jill are you? Because that's not even cool."

"Hey Sol, it's Johnny C. Uhhh.. do you have any idea where the show even is next week? Uh... I was trying to tell this chick and like... I don't even know where it is. Call me. Oh yeah, happy birthday, by the way."

The message machine seemed to beep for hours, as Solomon teetered on midline of thirty. Twenty-five-years-old. He knocked back his beer, splashing his lashes in a trance as he used his thumb to smear away the last hint of charcoal from his canvas. As far as his plans went for later that night, they were all entangled and chaotic. Women were petty, and he'd end up ditching someone in the end. Whether it be Stacy and Nikki because they didn't get along with Jill, or Jill because she didn't get along with Quinn. The boys probably wanted to get sloshed and act like bachelors alone without the vulture-like presence of women, but Solomon didn't know quite what he wanted. But, Gin. Gin was always good to have around, and he fit in with every clique just like Solomon. He was always a surefire way to have fun and almost get arrested.

Dismounting his metal fold-out chair, he drew open the blinds in the living room, his forehead nudging the glass pane. His cat fumbled to greet him, brushing her coarse whiskers against his pantleg, her tail quivering in the pale, pastel afternoon glow.

His friends babbled through powerlines, but he was emotionally disconnected, or at least he would be until the pulsing temptation of the nightlife coursed like mad electricity through his veins.

<font color="#EA2539" size="1">[ November 20, 2004 06:38 AM: Message edited by: citizen erased ]</font>

[greedy fly]

My life is so fucked up and dramatic. I think I should write a screenplay someday and call it: "My True Fucking Story." I bet no one would believe it. It'd have every character in it, my Mum, Marie, to Jude and then Kate and then Judas and all the fucked-up relationships in between. It'd touch on Vera, and the baby. It'd touch on how I never pleased Kate (and God how I wish I could've--I wish I could've been a good person for her) and how many times I fucked over Jude by being indesicive. I know how Jude and Kate have both bonded wherever they happen to be now, and it's over a mutual hatred for me and the mistakes I've made. Or at least that's what Jill tells me. I don't think my mistakes were ever that big. I fucked up sometimes, I'll give them that. I lied. I stole. I cheated. But I loved them both in the end. In my screenplay, there'd be a different ending. In the ending, I live happily ever after. I tell Alice I'm so fucking sorry for ruining her marriage with the only guy she ever loved. I'd marry Kate, and give her lots of children to decorate our big, big house in Jersey with. We'd have her photographs all over the walls. Or I would've never told Marie I didn't love her to make her go. Or maybe I wouldn't have let Vera walk out that door on me. Maybe, I would've taken Jude back when he came back to Philly only to be sucker-punched in the face with my new love. I don't know. But the ending would be magical. I'd change it all if I could.

But it's too late now, and it's very cold in here.

<font color="#EA2539" size="1">[ November 02, 2004 01:00 AM: Message edited by: citizen erased ]</font>

[greedy fly]

Rainsoaked misery-colored autumn leaves were matted to the soles of his decrepit sneakers, as he paved his usual morning prowl down the path from the mouth of his apartment building. He had a cigarette curled in his fingers, coppertone snakelike strands stifled by a woven beanie, his eyes trained on the empty street.

It was eight forty-seven am, time for work. As usual, Solomon had been up since the highlights of sunrise. Today, it was cloudy, and the rain was coming down in a lazy drizzle, moistening his cardigan-clad shoulders. Stuffing his free hand in his pocket to insulate the natural boiling warm flooding through his veins, he peered out onto the bare urban (decay) street; deadbeat and stubbled.

The puddled alleyway beside his building caged the small, private parking lot for the folks who lived there. He heard a screeching peel of tires, but didn't seem to react when the rubber ruggedly burnt its smell into the brittle air, and his car... drove by. He just followed it with his eyes, stoically and unresponsive as it sped seventy miles-per-hour down the street, dodging the red traffic light. After it turned the corner, he simply sighed, and studied his burning cigarette, taking another drag, pivoting to walk to work.

[greedy fly]

Prelude:

Jonny Rockefellar idled alongside the curve, stabbing his palm into the horn to obnoxiously blare and alert Solomon. Three stories up, he could make out the switchblade blur of skin beyond pearl-white blinds, and a moment later, he appeared, smoking a cigarette, dressed in denim and a black beanie. He swung open the door, crumbled in the seat next to him, and exhaled a stale nicotine strand.

"Hey."

"Hey."

They grunted at one another, as Jonny kicked clutch and switch gears, with the Brit hovering over the cd player, pinching the dial until the volume became audible. Thrashy guitars and sloppy bass halted to signify the ending of a song, and the unwinding bridge of silence in between made Solomon part his lips to speak, but he was interrupted by Glenn Danzing's foggy voice. Misfits.

Well, I got something to say! I killed your baby today!
And it doesn't matter that much to me---as long as it's dead.

From the passenger's seat, Solomon's brow leapt up, his stare was black-tar and intense, almost as though he were questioning Jonny's music sense. He placidly cinched knuckles around his cigarette, and by the time the string of vocals started battering the Caddy's tired, coughing speakers, he threw his hand up in the air. And almost as though they had read each other's mind, Jonny did the same thing, and they catapulted forward in their seats at a redlight to wildly mouth the next verse, dressed in scowls and crinkled noses.

Well, I got something to say! I raped your mother today!
And it doesn't matter that much to me---as long as she's spread!

He twisted around in his seat, nearly lunging into the back to sift through the aluminum spraypaint bottles, scrutinizing colors, and giving raunchy shakes that split the hazy air with rattles.

"Christ, Sol, get down. There's a godamn cop behind me."

"Hold on, I'm just checking." His legs and ass were in the air, his shirt riding up, his balance disintegrating.

Jonny made it a point to anchor the brakes sharply at the next light, and through the rectangular watchful eye of his rearview, he caught Solomon fling in the backseat in a mangled mass of limbs and resonating laughter.

"That's what you get."


<center>- - - - - - - - - - -</center>

Midnight or sometime after: The moon lit up the sky like a sphere of sparked gasoline, filtering off into smaller fires that freckled the surrounding b(l)ackdrop. The setup was amazingly pretty even though it was undoubtedly seedy. The forms that held up the bridge, which was not for vehicles but a railway for a train, was surrounded by rocks on either side of the underpass. There was a faint trickle of water running through the middle that hinted at it being a stream at one time, long before it dried out and became the dirt road for drug deals and bums who needed shelter from the rain. The Cadillac was parked sideways with the driver's door still ajar and Jonny was propped to a sit on the hood, jerking a can of spray paint back and forth to rattle the silence.

With a quirked springload off his index finger, his second cigarette blemished urban weeds and marsh, slinking from the car. Water vapor gusted out like icicle reminders of just how unstable the weather was being. He hoisted up his twice-studded belt, gathered two cans; red and black, and studied their unmarred canvas, with glistening eyes. Now that he was walking home from work, he passed through nearly everyday, and the swirl of ideas to pollute the underpass had been nagging at his brain for a week. Trudging on uneven ground, jumpstarting the cans in either hand, he ambled past Jonny; for once without the arrogant armor and tough veneer. "I'll get the rest later." For now, he'd start out simplistic. It was pure artwork- the single shot of this curious-eyed, lanky creature walking lone into the dank, pitch dark, before he halted on the other side of the bridge, choosing a wall. He set down the red can beside his foot, and with his elbow bent, and his forefinger pricking the nozzle, the faint shh bled into the air (which was eerily silent; no lyrics from police sirens, no bellowing teenagers) as he etched out bloated, capital letters.

The road was pebbles and grated gravel and he could hear it crunch when feet shifted from lightweight to deadweight against the ground. Jonny had been jerk-fisting a can of orange paint but pocketed it into sagging denim when he stood. Walking around the hood and hanging half in the car, he grabbed a neon'esque sky blue and stuck that at the hip on the other side. He could've been in a cheap Western flick with a holster full of spray-paint with the way his shadow looked against the bridge. When he procured the third can, because he was aware of his silhouette, he did a quickqraw with the can of white, smiling stupidly at his black reflection before finally following after Solomon's path. Unloading all three cans to the floor, he uncapped the white and started spraying a sex-sheen of color against a cobblestone topography of bridge-wall. Eyes squinted to keep out the static of the graffiti.

He spelled out every verse with a feverish whipping of his denim-frayed arm, backpedaling, zooming in closer, lowering his height to crippled, bowed knees, scrawling Jim Morrison love-notes. Hello, I love you. Won't you tell me your name? She's walking down the street Blind to every eye she meets. Do you think you'll be the guy To make the queen of the angels sigh? He paused momentarily to starshoot a glance over to his partner-in-crime, minding the dusky cans, before he shifted back into continuation. She holds her head so high Like a statue to the sky Her arms are wicked, and her legs long When she moves, my brain screams out this song. Because it was not artwork, the letters were growing increasingly big, and sloppy, which only ignited a deliciously wicked grin on the biblical tyrant's chopt lips. "Wot other colors do we have?"

Jonny was drawing caricatures of baggy pants'ed duo: A boy and a girl, both with cropped hair but swelled, rounded body lines. They could've been thugs if they weren't so damned colorful. When Solomon spoke, his index finger stopped the continuous jab against the plastic piece and he turned his chin against his shoulder. "Ah, orange, like three blues, green, white, black, red, and.." He hitched both eyebrows, throwing up two free fingers to make quotation marks with his hand "..pearled raspberry."

"How the fuck can raspberry be pearled?" Blared with gritty demand, accompanied with his aristocratic nose paper-wrinkling before he ditched his one can and replaced it with a bloody red. He marked a very patient, medical cross, surrounded each corner by thinner red lines, and crouched down to add white to the mix. Eventually, after mapping out every angle symmetrically, he furnished the backdrop with careful strokes of navy blue, and prodded a trademark salute off his brows at Jonny: the Union Jack. "Now, they're gonna know who did it, 'aye?"

"I don't know. I don't name the shit. That red your using is vampire red and last I checked, vampires wuddn't red." Jonny abandoned his piece midway to start a tagging that was becoming something of a mark for the boy. He was drawing his favorite card from the deck--mostly because it had the first letter of his name stapled at the corners. Jack of Hearts. With a plump heart only halfway done, he turned to Solomon, laughing like an idiot when he made his proclamation. "Your ass is grass now, son. Which is probably the name of that green. Ass Is Grass Green." If it wasn't, it certainly should be.

"But the blood they suck is," off-handedly. Broomsticking imaginary dirt from his ass with slicing palms, he rewound to admire his artwork, and opted to light up a cigarette that very second, pricking his thumb against the light from his inner jacket pocket, and carving cheekbones until they sank around the filter. "Yeh, right." His daze went up in flames, and he reached for black again, to use up a good portion of the can working on the sultry, smoky silhouette of a woman. It should've belonged on a trucker flap, except she was standing, smaller-boned, with one foot extended forward. "Black can be like.... " He was scrawling the modest curve of her breast from her side profile, and trailed off. Whatever he might've been saying completely dissipated in midair.

When Solomon lit up, Jonny stopped to read the can, trying to figure out if they were flammable. Deciding that the print was too small and it was too dark to read it, he also decided that he didn't care. "Black can be.." Prompting him to finish while making the lopsided rectangle that was the outside of his playing card.

He punctuated his picture with a long, classic sixties flip outline of her hair, and then swerved around to admire Jonny's crooked card. "Wot?" Mr. Stills naturally had forgotten what they were talking about. ADD caused minor side effects like numbing amnesia. Glittery-eyed, and pinching his thumb and forefinger around the wedge of his Marlboro, he quirked a brow. "'The fuck is that skeleton.. shite you're drawing?" Tim Burton's 1996 pop-culture didn't exactly thrive on the mainstream in Europe. "I like it. --Wot've yew have in your backseat?" Alcohol-wise.

Jonny clutched the can to his chest, turning on the heel of his boot to stare at Solomon like he had completely lost his mind. "That, Solomon, is Jack Skellington. He's the Jack of Hearts-- or pumpkins-- but pumpkins aren't on playing cards so.." He trailed off, crouching to his haunches and recapping the bottle to shove it in his pocket. "Got a couple forties, three six packs of Bud, and I stashed a can of Red Stripe in the back of Sybel's fridge and dragged that along too. Grab me a beer, yeah?"

" ... You're fuckin' gonzo," and that was his summary before he pivoted on heel, boot-clapping his way back to the car, to throw open the backseat, murmuring about how Bud was utter bullshit. But he crammed a Miller Lite forty in his hand, unwound the cap, and started loading up after he ditched his cigarette. His shoulder nudged to the very edge of the underpass, the banal beer knotted in his left hand, waggling back and forth in between greedy swigs. This wouldn't even loosen his sobriety, but if he had that other forty and that Red Stripe, maybe he'd come apart.

Well Bud wasn't his first pick either but it was sacrilege to drink Corona without the lime and he could barely make the car transport itself, let alone a portable kitchen. So, he happily ignored the murmurs and crumbled to an Indian sit, scrawling orange along the bridge bottom.

Phlegmatically erasing the space between them, he set the beer next to Jonny's lotus-fold on filthy cement, and spread his shoulderblades in crucifixion pose against an empty patch of the wall. "Well, it's coming along...." His gaze bannered over the arched ceiling. He fucking well wished he could reach that far. "So, how are things with Sybel?" It was an innocent question, especially after their little spat last night.

President?s bullet-ridden body in the street. Ride, Johnny ride. Kennedy?s shattered head hits concrete. Ride, Johnny ride. So how's things going wit--Wait. Distracted by Solomon's question, he started to scrawl it instead of the rest of the lyrics, quickly drawing an orange line right through the middle of the misplaced words. The can quieted for him to speak because he could barely make himself do both at once. "Good. They're going good. You see Abellona today?" Johnny?s wife is floundering.

"More Misfits..." Side-angling charcoal eyes and lilac-hooding to circulate over the scribbled words, he noticed the flaw that became intermeshed, and snickered into the mouth of his bottle. "Good job." But, he soon let it go, nodding along. "Yeh, I saw her twice today. In the morning, later on at the tavern. It seems to be the place where we accidentally-on-purpose meet up." Then he started to crumble to the ground, shuffle-slithering down the wall, knocking his knobby knees skywards. "Kind of like Paiva."

"My brain is fried." he admitted, trading spray-paint for a beer bottle. Uncapping it, he nodded it in salute and angled himself Solomon-ways. "Paiva?" The air was chilly and his cheeks and nose were red, using his knuckles of the same hand that held the bottle of Bud to sweep across his nostrils and dry the bottom. "I haven't heard that name in forever. She okay?"

"Yeh, some gurl I used to date last year that I met there---" Then suddenly, he extended his forefinger in a knowing jab towards Jonny, the realization startling him. "In fact, I think we met through yew. Or because of yew. Yew were busy being a cunt, I was busy being a terrorist." But Jonny's last addition drew a stoic stab of his shoulders. "I suppose so." Plugging his mouth for an adam's apple-twitching, droughted sip. " 'Last I heard she went and got married to some guy, and it wasn't that Meesha cunt..." A year later, he was still bitter-tongued with resentment for the man that stole his girl, and ditched her anyway. It was a pure testosterone boxing match to see who could get the girl, and in the end, he didn't seem to want her, anyway. "Someone else."

"Oh." It was all he could really say about Paiva getting hitched. Dragging his knees into a needlepoint and pushing his thighs a good distance apart, the heel of his boots knocking the toes in a back-and-forth sway. "God. Meesha. Man, you're dragging my memory right through the mud." Elbows rested sloppily on either jointed cap, the beer sloshing around the inside of the bottle. "Meesha was friends with that other guy with the weird French name. And they were both friends with the suit."

Snorting humorlessly into his bottle, he shifted around, soon resiliently knotting his lean legs in indian-style. "I don't know anyone else. I didn't even know Meesha. I'm not really bitter about it, anymore. I guess he wasn't a bad guy, I wouldn't know." Sometimes, he was too apologetic by nature, but he lied -- his grudges were neverending.

"Not bitter? You just called Meesha a cunt, Solomon."

"Shut the fuck up."

Three six packs later...

His shoulders prodded to his ears and he tilted the bottle to his mouth, not coming up for air until half of it was emptied into his belly. "Sybel's great," he decided when it was time to catch his breath.

He broke out into a wolfish simper at the boyish declaration. "Sybel's pretty...." He started, just to see if he could rile Jonny up, it was the Scorpio's favorite fucking past-time. "I mean, she has those big brown eyes, and a really soft mouth...."

Jonny, for a second or six, got completely lost in the description of the girl-- throwing a look to the trucking silhouette that was making eyes (with no eyes) at him. "Yeah.." His voice trailed----Waitasecond. "What?"

As soon as Jonny whirled a paranoid double-glance at him, he nearly choked on the acidic mouthful of sloshing beer, and rocked back and forth with his laughter, struggling to swallow. "I'm just kidding, mate." He grew all stone-casted and serious for a moment, smearing the grin off his face. "Just kidding. ---" Then, he added more side-commentary. "But I mean, she has nice legs."

The laughter spilled into seriousness and Jonny plugged his mouth with the beer, content that the conversation was ending. Until, well, it wasn't ending. "Don't look at her legs or I'll punch you in the fucking mouth. Cheers, mate."

His grin refused to fade. It was so fucking funny prodding at Jonny, he took things so seriously, and let it chigger-climb under his skin. "Yew punch me in the mouth, I'll bash a chair over your head." Ah, sweet nostalgia. It only piqued more laughter at how ridiculous last year was.

He was forcefucked right into that, cracking a grin because it was absolutely necessary. Having a chair bashed over your head and a Judas spitting in your face was not a fun experience. "She does have great legs though, yeah? How old is Abellona, Solomon? She looks twelve."

Jude spit in Solomon's face in a more metaphorical way just after the holidays, but neither of them mentioned that. It was fucking sacred. "Hn?" Oh yeah, Sybel. He just absently tilted a nod, listening to the lulls of police sirens in the distance. "She's not twelve. I don't know how old she is. She's just a fuckin' cute gurl. Quirky." Wait---police sirens?

"I know she's not twelve but she looks twelve." Jonny, too, was serenaded by the lovely music that lit with a lightshow in red, white, and blue. He was grinning into the mouth of the bottle until he saw Solomon's face drop. "Shit."

He didn't have time to protest and crack Jonny in the jaw for telling him that the winsome thing prancing around like fuckin' tinkerbell on speed looked twelve. In his own opinion, she was the sweetest looking thing that ever tripped out of an alleyway and landed on tavern porchboards. "Fuck," he spat, letting his half-imbibed forty collapse in a ramshackle splash of glinting glass on the asphalt, extending a rough hand to jolt Jonny to his feet. Inside, he was debating with himself --would it be easier to book or drive the fuck away? He hadn't run from cops in a good three years, it seemed like such an expired past-time.

Looking twelve wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Unless, you know, you actually were twelve. Regardless, next time Jonny ran into Abellona he was going to ask for her ID, just to make sure that Solomon wasn't arrested for statutory rape in two weeks. That way, when Jonny finally lost it and shot someone in the eyeball for looking at Sybel sideways, Solomon could still be there to bail him out. Fisting the mans palm and leaving the beer bottle for dead on the ground, he stared at the bottles of paint, the tagged up walls, the Cadillac, and then the dirt road. "Shit."

They were on the verge of standing there like stoned deers in headlights unless one of them fucking reacted. Fortunately, it was Solomon, who turned apathy on the sprawled-out evidence, and roped Jonny's upper bicep so hard that he could've tore muscle tissue. "Get the fuck." Darting for the car, he hiked open the passenger door, and without minding Jonny's forehead, he threw him into the passenger's seat. Stick or no stick; Solomon Stills still was the most chaotic driver in this city, because he never really quite learnt. Rounding the hood, he dove into the front seat, and pawed at the ignition. "FUCKIN' GIVE ME THE KEYS, YE'CUNT." His cockney radiated like nuclear blitzes in desperate times.

"The fuck!" Jonny was being manhandled like a bitch and tossed shotgun, jerking his hips from the seat all lush-eyed and trying to find the keys. "I don't have the keys!" He flailed his arm, rubbing at his forehead. "They're still in the ignition you fucking moron. Go, go, go!"

They dwindled down to utter morons with a few drinks diluting their normal headset. But, they chose to brand the bridge when they were completely sober-- and that was a rare little sidenote, seeing as how Solomon hadn't gotten in trouble in so long. "Oh..." ..Disintegrating into dumbfounded, jaw-ajar silence for a good five seconds, he finally reacted upon an electric synapse and twitched the ignition until the engine revved. He blindly kicked the clutch and took the stick in hand for a firm shift of gears and mudcaked, squealing tires. It was cinematic the way the decrepit Caddy zoomed out haphazardly into the street, swerving between two vacant lanes, as he kicked it all the way into fifth gear, tailpipes sickly-smoking, and there was a strange trembling in the engine. He cut around a prime-red stop sign, and anchored the pedal until they were nearly grazing walls in a narrow alleyway. "Fuck--- there goes your side-mirror, man. Don't worry, we can tape it back on...."

Blitzed-veined, Jonny was trying to decipher how far--or how close--the cops actually were. The sound of glass and metal breaking against brick dragged his thoughts from the gutter they flowed into and had him tilting droopy eyelids into something a bit more sharp; a bit more narrowed. "Dude, did you know that Lowes was doing two-for-one with duct tape last week? It's how I got the bag taped up where the back window should b--" Trailing, both hands slammed against the dashboard and his cheek ended up flat against the front windshield when the car gave out; black smoke seething up in toxic fumes from the hood. After three minutes of not a damned word, he finally added. "Oh, I forgot to tell you not to take it past forty-five."

"Jonny! It'd be a miracle if yew could find anyone that fuckin' well cared!"

"I care."

Disconcerted, and a thousand miles beyond flustered, he felt the pedal giving out from beneath him, and the drunken boy just swore if he kept pumping it eagerly, it'd stay that way. Then, like an accident propelled them, his chest mashed with the steering wheel, and thank God for the forearm visoring his beanie-trimmed brows, or he would've been sporting black-and-yellow patches in the morning. "Wot the fuck----" ... Together, they sat there; drunk, and comfortably numb before he swung open the door, and clambered out. "Do yew have a screwdriver?" The police sirens were demonically crescendoing in the distance.

Jonny sat there in the passenger seat--probably waiting for the car to explode. "Yeah, sure Solomon," he mumbled, "I have one in my back pocket." His head pounded and he peeled himself from the window, jarring the door open and spilling out of the car. The space to stand in was narrow and most of it was being taken up by the car. They were stuck. In an alleyway. With a smoking Caddy. Cupping a hand over his mouth to keep from inhaling the smoke, he fished out his pack of cigarettes casually. "Think we should try and fix it?" At least if it caught on fire, they wouldn't have to take their lighters out.

His intoxicated vocabulary was quite prim and extensive. "Well, if we don't fuckin' unscrew your license plates, we're fucked!" Throwing his arms in an attention-swaying flail, as if they were puppetted by the smoggy sky, he stood in front of the smokescreened hood of the car, and gave it a weak dent with his cocooned fist. "Get the fuck out of the car." Oh, the police were filling up his ears. "We have to..." Vacantly hitchhike-thumbing over his shoulder, he breathlessly ran ragged. "Run."

"Fuck." Solomon started running and Jonny booked in the other direction, booking behind the car to try and pull the license plate off. That didn't work--so he kicked it, which was ineffective too. But maybe if we both kick it at the same time... "Hey, Solomon. Get back here! I need your help!"

He wasn't running, he was stalling in place, ripping off his beanie so he could fork through the rioting, curly snakepit of his hair; leashing the roots. But, when Jonny bellowed for a collaborative effort, he staggered and wedged himself between chafing alleyway wall, and the roasted car to join him in the back.

"Okay, Sol. I have a plan. If you grab the license plate and pull really hard--and then I pull you, we can both pull it off!"

Solomon just skeptically stared at him.

Well, it's not like Solomon was coming up with any plans, was it? Dropping to his haunches, rust and car-paint peeled beneath his fingers when he dug his hands into the small space and tried his damndest to pull along with the Brit.

Thank God for the rust and the sloppy screwdrive job, because after the two boys ripped their hardest, it clattered to the glass-glitzy pavement, and Solomon tucked it under his arm, and started to skirt by, slamming down the street. He could barely run, because his head was spinning full of cheap booze. At one point, he faltered, and kept himself from falling face-first with his hand scraping the ground, launching him back into a wobbly stand again.

..Or not. The only trouble drunk-Jonny had with running was the unlaced Timberland, stuttering floppy on his foot whenever it hit a crack in the concrete. And somewhere, in the back of his mind, he was truly deeply honestly absolutely concerned about how many times he'd broken his mother's back. And then he wondered if he left any marks on Sybel's back. Goddamn, that's a pretty back. She also has a nice backside. And nice lips. And the way she kissed---- And in the middle of all of that, he managed to catch up to Solomon and took a sharp left down another alley, jumping up to latch fingers around the bottom rail of a fire escape until it unwound and crawled to a more tolerable height. Up, up, up, up, up.

Solomon wasn't thinking about pretty girls. He was thinking about how much it would've sucked to get apprehended a second time--and public sex wasn't even involved this time! It was just a petty graffiti session. He took Jonny's lead, clasping the edges of the fire escape, with a license plate dangling between grating teeth, his long legs scissoring to swallow two at a time.

On the third floor of the building he stopped and cupped both hands to an unlit window, pressing his forehead up against his palms and looking inside. "What the fuck are we supposed to do?" He could bust in and add breaking and entering onto their list of crimes for the night.

"... ah.." His breath unfurled in a vaporized sheet against window glass, and he decided to, in the feverish, heat of the moment to rap at it with a ginger rattle of knuckles. "Maybe, they're nice. I mean..." He was panting from too many cigarette breaks. "Yeh..."

Solomon knocked. Nice. "Yeah and what are we supposed to say when they come to the window? Oh, hi! We're out at three o' clock in the morning, on your fire escape, knocking on your window because we didn't do anything wrong! But we're sure that you're a nice couple and if you wait a couple of minutes we can run back to our broke down car, which is probably on fire, and get you a beer!"

"If a chick answers, we'll be alright, Jonny." Overlapping the cynicism with his tangy reassurance, the blinds suddenly parted, shot up, with a dark face on the other end. The man wrenched open the window sill halfway, and narrowed his slumber-clouded eyes into slits at Solomon's facial structure. "Solomon? ---What the fuck ...are you doing, it's like... four am, man..." Solomon clasped a grateful hand to his shoulder, quaking out a thoughtful mound of breath, still cradling the license plate to is chest, which Tyrome eyed with a suspiciously-twitching brow. "Praise-the-fuckin' Lord, Ty'...let us in. The cops ..." Aimlessly. Tyrome stood back, thoroughly confused. They were two lucky boys, only because they managed to unhinge the license plates, and run into Solomon's drug dealer.

"Wow, you niggas is fuckin' trashed."

He whispered aside to Solomon. "..can I say the n-word?"

"I know," Solomon squirmed through the window, and thudded obnoxiously on the floor, crawling on hands-and-knees like a war soldier in a bloodied trench. He just ignored Jonny.

Jonny was used to being ignored. "Sup, Rome," he said ever-so-casually while climbing through the window and tripping over Solomon.


He started to splatter the floor with his star-splayed hand, echoing off the walls, and muffling his laughter in the sleeve of his denim jacket. The lush' features were pinkening from laughing so hard, and his ribcage was growing sore, so he curled up into a fetal position, launching and cracking up. It was the first time in a long time that he had actually done that---and it wasn't just because he was trashed.

In a pile of drunken bones and blackened lungs--and for no apparent reason--Solomon's laughter prompted Jonny's and the kid had to keep his forehead pinned to the oriental rug thrown out over the floor to hide the stupid grin that came along with all of the amplified noise.

And together, the duo kept rioting into more outbreaks of laughter, whilst successfully annoying the fuck out of their savior. Everything panned out; they were on the borders of unconscious, sleep realms, and got away with acting like royal idiots.

<font color="#EA2539" size="1">[ November 20, 2004 04:03 AM: Message edited by: citizen erased ]</font>