He sat next to a dented parking meter on the curb. Across the street was a boarded up adult video store, and behind him, a dashed line of pubs. He mapped out Taco Bell wrapping over his thighs, and picked away at the freckles of shredded cheese, flicking it sidelong into a gutter. Right when he clamped down on his first bite of the lukewarm bean burrito, he saw a familiar face jaywalking towards him.
Normally, Syme didn?t mind being rude, but there was something about the way Warren Corgan innocently churned the Nikon that dangled around his neck in his hands and had his black eyes cocked obliviously at the corded power lines. So he decided to stay planted where he was.
?Hello.?
?Hey,? he replied, his mouth full, eyes squinting up at him.
?Aren?t you really um, into animal rights stuff??
This piqued his interest; he actually corrected his dented posture for a moment in curiosity. ?Yeah, why??
Warren hitched his camera up to his left eye and took a picture over Syme?s shoulder.
?What? It?s an ugly brick bar. I don?t see the aesthetic in it, man. I mean, shouldn?t you be out taking pictures of abandoned buildings or something??
The photographer blissfully ignored him ? or maybe he didn?t hear him at all ? and let his chin fall to leer down at him. ?Well, I?ve heard of this dog-fighting thing. I?m going to go take pictures of it. You can come if you want.?
Balling up the printed paper, Syme arrowed upright. He was a scarecrow, mild breezes were threats to his brittle bones and effeminate muscle tone.
?Yeah,? he replied, smoothing his hands on the back of his jeans. He thought he could handle it.
It was a long walk, the skyline degraded into nothing but a military of pigeon-winged rooftops. For the most part, they stayed stifled in a comfortable silence. Warren ducked into a corner bar with Syme lagging behind.
There was nothing genuine about it. It was infested with every mundane ingredient that made up a dive-bar; a pool table, neon lights, two locals milking their frothy beer.
?Excuse me,? Warren warmed up to the bartender. ?Where is the dog-fighting??
The trucker cap next to him choked on his beer, and the bartender?s hollow eyes shot wide. ?Shh, Christ. In the back. It?s in the back. They?re not taking bets, anymore.?
They threaded through the greasy kitchen, the lights were blinking whitewhitewhite, and reminiscent of a hospital. Warren popped out of the back door into a tight cobblestone alleyway.
Naturally, the two lone white boys were out of their element. That was, until a gangly man with gray splattered across his beer tread over to Syme, and engulfed him in a short-lived hug, and spanned his hand on his frail lower back to introduce him. All that he could do was stare with an unhinged jaw at the two rottweilers straining on their leashes, salivating and brutal.
?How you doin?? I didn?t know you were into this shit, ain?t taking no more bets, but. Heyhey, Ben. Ben. This is my little Australian nigga, you believe he is just fucking, like, banging out South Philly and making Jerome look like a fool??
Meanwhile, Warren was preoccupied offering the organizer a fistful of money, gunning off surly nods at the instructions: shoot only from the waist down, no faces.
The banter receded, and all the men and troubled youth began to cram around in a vicious circle. Their money was sweating holes into their hands, their heartbeats rattling in greed-panic mode. A lot of men dropped to their haunches excitedly, or kept their hands braced on their knee. It was like a filthy, secondhand boxing match?save for the fact that it wasn?t staged and someone(thing) was going to die.
When the squatting men relieved the leashes, the rabid dogs lunged at each other, and both tangoed to tear out the throat. As a humane person, Syme naturally felt sick, but he also felt rage hammering down his chest like a panic attack. He pinballed glances around at all the men howling, he felt his eyes widen with horror, and he watched everyone eat it up.
Warren was maneuvering deftly around the circle, ducking away from chaotic fists to capture good shots.
Time was bent for Syme. It felt like it lasted at least fifteen minutes, but in reality, the dog was down in a matter of seconds. It collapsed on its side, the blood camouflaging with its dark fur, gushing from a crescent-shaped slit in its throat. It was breathing frantically, all the froth that had collected into the corner of its mouth threading into a ball of saliva.
Then his new acquaintance, Ben shot him at point-blank range. No one seemed to notice; they were all too busy flagging each other down, collecting money, shrieking with lunacy, waiting for the next batch.
Warren shuffled over to him, slicking the black bootlaces of hair from his sweat-sheened brow. ?It?s?hey---? His palms both shot up like a hostage negotiator. ?No, you don?t want to??
Syme had always kept a stout butterfly knife in his pocket in case of emergencies. After all, he pushed to scum more rotten than he.
They were eye-to-eye when Syme sidled up to Ben?s chest, their heartbeats strapped together for an intimate moment. He fisted the knife, and impaled his stomach, he could actually feel the punctured organs stirring when he drug it at a horizon like a Japanese samurai committing seppuku.
Instead of waiting around to see if his intestines poured out like ferocious tapeworms on the pavement, Syme wheeled on his heel and he booked down the alleyway as fast as he could. As he ripped around one blind corner and flew across a busy street, he might have had one apologetic thought dedicated to Warren because he had brought him along.
His gray t-shirt was matted down with a Rorschach-blot of sweat by the time he clawed open the graffiti-markered phone booth. He was trembling while he pawed at the phone, and thumbed in quarters. It wasn?t the law he was worried about, it was the fact that he knew that if he took two steps backwards he was going to get shot.
He seemed maniacally aware of the blood stamped all over his hands and the front of his shirt. It made the phone slippery.
Through a wild grin, he waited for him to answer.
?Hello??
?Dad??
?Syme. Jesus Christ. You have your Mum worried sick, do you ever think to call? It?s been years, it?s been fucking year??
?Dad, not right now,? he heaved breathlessly, prodding a one-minute sign at an impatient prostitute pacing the width of the booth like a caged lion. ?Listen---ONE FUCKING MINUTE,? he seethed. ?I need money. I need to get out of here right now, I need you to wire me money. Western Union or some shit, I?m in trouble.?
?What kind of trouble, Syme? It?s not anything serious is it? Drugs? Are you on drugs? Tell me what?s going on.?
She kept battering the window, belting out a hectic blend of English and Spanish.
?ONE FUCKING?? He left the phone unguarded for a second, and left it dangling. He kicked open the booth and began pelting her violently with change. She was running away, still waving her finger at him, and screaming.
?GET. GET, HOOR.?
And it was his luck that a cop car came caterpillar-crawling down the narrow street, and only summoned its sirens when she frantically waved them down.
?This motherfucker over here, he was throwin? shit at me, offica. He has blood all over his hands, I don?t know what he been doin?.?
Syme hung up abruptly on his father, and nailed his chin to his chest. But he knew he couldn?t be discreet. As soon as he tried to swing out of the phone booth, he had two police officers jogging up behind him.
But even as they smoothed his blond skull into the backseat of the car, he didn?t regret it.
<center>http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v9...ieljohns-1.jpg</center>
<font color="#f22735" size="1">[ July 30, 2007 07:29 PM: Message edited by: methadrone ]</font>
