It is hard as hell to get back into writing something after setting it aside for a long time.

Ahem.

Ok, so.  It has been a long time since I have been doing any writing with any kind of regularity, and as is often the case the long absence has been gnawing at over this time until nublike I am first to set fingers to keyboard and start pouring out ideas into the silent void of pixelated code, some attempt and literary communication to scratch that itch, that insistent drumbeat telling me to create verbally that for some forsaken reason I always end up deigning to slough off like a weight on my back or walk off like a cramp in my leg.  For some reason the protracted activity of sitting and thinking and typing and writing and putting thoughts into sentences and building them into paragraphs is something that invariably ends up bugging me.  Maybe my chair isn't comfortable enough or maybe I just can't sit still or maybe I am just lazy and undriven.  I can't think of anyway to trick my mind into doing it on a more regular basis.  I seem to be stuck in this cycle of typing typing typing for a week or two and then getting tired of it and going off and doing something like watching television or maybe reading a book, or just fucking around on the internet surfing tumblrs for hours and hours and hours or refreshing the same criticism websites over and over and over hoping that finally this time this one will have some new content for me to lie back and read on my laptop and then I will have that to do instead of writing and yet each and every time all the time that I am doing all of that I am thinking, you should be writing, you should be doing something constructive, this is not constructive, this is not getting you where you want to go in your life.  You don't get points for idling.  Even now a part of me, having written all this in one sitting is want to get, up walk around, pace for pacing's sake, maybe open up the firefox browser in the lower left hand corner and see, in one of those websites, any one of them, has maybe update one little thing, one new photo that they are reblogging from somewhere else on the internet.  A part of me, becoming so aware of this tendency, this seeming procrastination, has given up on ever making any progress on this writing thing, has, in fact, accepted that it is not to be, that writing is not my fate.  And, in fact, this part has been liberating.  A writer writes, after all, and keeps writing and writes every day.  I do not.  I am not a writer.  So if I am not a writer, what am I?  I just freed up the rest of my life!  What do I want to do with it?  Focus on a career?  Well, in truth, I have made some recent headway with that, enough to give me some momentary contentment in my forward momentum through time.  Start a family?  Well, that ties into a host of insecurities and eccentricities that I haven't even begun to grapple with, and in some small way do not want to, though I know my ignoring of them is stunting my development as a fully-fledged, fully-engaged person.  I think somewhat I am waiting to deal with the second thing until I get a little farther ahead in the first thing, build up enough self-confidence to feel I can move ahead with it.  But really, even counting those two things, what do I want to spend time doing?  What do I want to do, right now, that I actually find fulfilling?  And the most obvious direct answer to this, is something artistic.  And I basically have two avenues for accomplishing this, drumming and writing.  Well, three, but the third is drawing and that I find more aggravating and am poorer at than the other two.  I don't have a working situation to play the drums regularly, and don't seem to be working too hard to be find one, and have just been playing hand drums on my legs and desktops all the time.  This is a momentary respite, but is doesn't actually feel like accomplishment, and I think I crave that sense of accomplishment, the production of something.  Unfortunately,  accomplishing something more with drumming would involve forming a band, proactively hunting for one, and that involves a lot of social work and interaction and ringleading that I do note feel up to as someone who is still completely out in lunch on melodic music theory, or I could glom onto a band with a bunch of strangers, and I don't feel like setting up my kit in some stranger's den.   So that leaves writing.  Obviously I am a nascent and a neophyte at that activity, still developing, still unpolished, and unpublished, but I do get a little tinge of satisfaction at each short piece I finish and published on the internet, throwing out into the world like spare change.  And every little piece I do create gets me closer to some goal, makes me teach myself new things and come to innately understand more aspects of narrative structure and dramatic weights and characterization and imbuing theme and utilizing language, and even if I am not destined to be a Writer in the occupation sense, that doesn't mean I can't you know write, and thus be a writer, in the general sense.   It's ok if that is not my identity, and I think in some way holding on to that particular dream is holding me back from actually reaching it, at least, for me, because of the odd backwards-forwards way my mind is wired where my hopes become work becomes stress becomes something to flee from.  It's only when I stop wanting it, when it stops being a goal, that it becomes something that I am comfortable in doing, when I realize that if there some egotistical part of myself that thinks I deserve it, that that part is wrong, for I don't deserve it, there are many many people more deserving of that something, people who actually, you know, write, and enjoy it and do it and keep doing it whether it brings them something or not, and that the fact that I beat myself up over whether a small (and I think it might actually be quite small) part of myself deserves something is a sign of my own further neuroses, after all, some people think they deserve it and use that impetus to work harder until they do really deserve it, it is only when I realize all that they I can nevermind the bollocks and just get down and get back to the fun and the the creativity, the creation, of writing.  Of taking thoughts in my head that are floating around and setting them down in cold concrete prose.  When I can get down to doing that I'll be happy.  

Superheroes and Supervillians and their DnD alignments

Superman: Lawful Good
Batman: Lawful Good
Spiderman: Neutral Good
Captain America: Probably Lawful Good, but maybe Neutral
Punisher: Lawful Neutral
Daredevil: Lawful Good, duh
Wonder Woman: Lawful Good
Wolverine: Chaotic Good (but often pretty close to Neutral)
Professor X: Neutral Good
Cyclops: Lawful Good
The Hulk: Chaotic Neutral

Doctor Doom: Lawful Evil
Joker: oh boy is he ever Chaotic Evil
Green Goblin: Chaotic Evil
Galactus: True Neutral
Thanos: Neutral Evil
Bullseye: Chaotic Evil
Lex Luthor: Lawful Evil
Magneto: Lawful Neutral
Sabretooth: Chaotic Evil
Venom: Chaotic Neutral
Carnage: Chaotic Evil
Doomsday: Neutral Evil
Darkseid: Lawful Evil

Dead Billy (part 4)

‘Guys?  It’s me, Billy.  The door’s locked, guys.  Guys, can you unlock the door? The door’s locked.  We never lock the door.’

Gavin and Sean were looking right at each other.  Neither of them was blinking.  Gavin raised a finger to his lips.  Sean nodded weakly.

‘Hey, guys, you’re there, right?  It’s me, Billy.  I heard you talking.  You’re in the living room, right?  Just unlock the door, guys.’

Slowly, shaking, Gavin turned around and started walking, quietly, not turning back to look at Sean. 

‘Why didn’t you take the knife out, guys?  It hurts so bad.  Please open the door and take it out.’

Gavin walked right past the door and over to the microwave.  He took out his Hot Pocket.  He stood there at the counter, facing the cabinets, eating his Hot Pocket.

‘Guys, please open the door and take out the knife.’

Gavin dropped his Hot Pocket, turned around and ran.  He ran through the kitchen, out the door and down the street.  He didn’t turn around or look back.  He just kept running. 

Dead Billy (part 3)

Gavin found Sean in the kitchen, staring out through blinds held open between two fingers, the room lit only by streetlights.  The cupboards were paint-flecked and scratched, the counters dirty, the sink full of dishes and silverware that were starting to smell rank.  There was a butcher’s block in the middle of the floor a little above belt-height, upon it only a large carving knife.  Gavin closed the basement door behind him and locked it with the old skeleton that was still perched in the lock.  He took the key out and put it on the little nail nearby, then walked over to turn on the lights.  

‘No, don’t!  They’ll know we’re here!’

‘Who’ll know we’re here?’

‘The people outside!’

‘What people?’  Gavin walked over to one of the windows and peered out.  The street was lit by the dim amber of the streetlights and the passing reds and whites of the cars that occasionally drove through the neighborhood.  Most of the other house lights on the street were out, it being long past most normal peoples’ bedtimes, but there was an occasional window light here or there, mostly on the second floors, if the house had a second floor.  Not that there were any silhouettes in them or anything.  Gavin checked the cars that were parked along the street, but they all looked empty, and absolutely none had their lights on.   ‘There are no people.  And even if there are, so what?  We turn the lights on, what’s that matter to them?’

Sean gave Gavin a look like Gavin had just grown an extra head. ‘I told you. They’ll know were here!’

‘Well they won’t need fucking lights to know that, Sean!  We fucking live here!’

‘They’ll know we’re up to something!’

‘Up to something?  In our own place?  Why would they care?  We’re always up to something in our own place.  So are they.  And we’ve never been bothered yet.’

Sean didn’t say anything, just went back to staring out the window.  Gavin sighed.  He took his finger off the light switch, walked over to the stove and used it to light a cigarette.  A real one.  Sean took another hit on his meth pipe.  Gavin took drags in silence, trying not to shake or stare at the basement door.

After a couple more hits, Sean said, ‘We got to get rid of the body.’

A quick sharp drag from Gavin.  ‘How?’

Sean hesitated. ‘I think I saw some show once?  Where they filled this big plastic tub with some chemical, and then put the body in it.  That shit dissolved everything, skin, hair, bone.  Then they just poured it down the toilet. It worked great!’

Gavin grimaced.  He didn’t like the look of their toilet already.  He would never be able to stomach using it if they poured Billy down it. ‘What was the chemical?’

‘Uh, I don’t know.’

‘Well, what was the show?’

‘I can’t remember,’ whispered Sean in defeat.

‘Probably just a television show anyways.’

Sean took another hit.

‘Okay,’ he said, shaking anew, ‘why don’t we chop him up and feed the parts into the furnace?’

Gavin shook his head.  ‘We don’t have that kind of furnace.  There’s no opening for you to shovel things in.’

‘Fuck.’  Sean set down his pipe and picked up the carving knife. Gavin slid over to the far wall. ‘We are going to have to chop him up,’ said Sean, holding out the knife.

‘Well, don’t use that.  Use a meat cleaver, or a saw.  With plastic underneath.’

‘After that, we drag him out to the car, right?  In bags?  Then drive him to the dump and through the parts in there.’

Gavin shook his head again.  ‘We can’t risk anyone finding the parts.  They’ll know we did it. There can’t be a body.’

‘Oh shit,’ said Sean.  He set the knife back down, put his head in his hands and started sobbing. 

Gavin reached over the butcher’s block and scooped up the pipe.  ‘You’ve had enough of this tonight. I’m going to bed.’  He walked out of the kitchen, down the hallway towards his room.

In the morning, Sean woke up to sounds coming from below.  He jumped into his pants and ran down to investigate.  The door was unlocked again.  Downstairs, the television was on.  It was Saturday, and cartoons were playing.  Sean was on the couch, still wrapped in his blanket, eating a bowl of Count Chocula. 

‘What the fuck are you doing?’

‘He looks better,’ said Sean, motioning towards the body. ‘I mean, he doesn’t look worse.’

Gavin looked at Billy.  His face was white like a silent film star’s.  His eyes were made of glass, and his mouth was tilted open like he was about to start drooling.  He almost seemed like he had been stuffed and posed. The hunting knife was still jutting out of his stomach.  It hadn’t settled or anything. 

‘We should really pull that thing out,’ said Gavin.  He didn’t.

‘He hasn’t even started smelling,’ chipped in Sean.  ‘Maybe he’ll just stay like that.’

‘He just hasn’t started decomposing yet.  Wait a couple days, and everyone on this street will know that something in here is dead.’

‘So we have a couple of days.’

Gavin looked over at the coffee table.  There was a pipe there, loaded with weed.  From the look of his eyes Sean had taken a few tokes.  Gavin walked over, picked it up, and took one himself.  ‘Yeah, we have a couple days.’ He looked around.  ‘C’mon man, we have a TV upstairs.  Let’s get out of here.  This place is giving me bad vibes.’

When they were back upstairs, Gavin locked the door again, and hung the skeleton key back on the nail.  He made himself a bowl of Captain Crunch as Sean watched cartoons.  When, he was finished, he put on his brown bomber jacket and combat boots, filled up his pockets with product, and told Sean he was going out.  He rode the El Train for a couple of hours, just going from one stop to the end, then getting off and taking another line to somewhere else.  Eventually he ended up at the Quad of the campus.  Saturday was college day, at least for him.  He hung out around the periphery, in the shadows, waiting, and when one of the students came up to him, they would shake hands, and Gavin would pass them a small plastic bag, and they would pass him a ten or a twenty.  He was all out, around five o’clock, he took the El back downtown to a bar he liked, had a beer and watched nothing on TV, watched some of the cougars hit on the young professionals.  None came near him though.  He respected that, the sense of a mark they had.  They knew he was the kind of trouble they didn’t want.  Not that he minded.  Gavin’s taste in strange ran a lot younger.  There was this one girl he had been thinking about a lot lately, late at night before bed, this little street urchin girl he had seen in a squatter’s nest near the bombed out industrial district.  Short, pale, skinny, with purple hair and wide eyes.  Didn’t say a word.  She was maybe sixteen, if that. 

Gavin only dealt pot.  He got it from this old hippie, the kind who had gotten into the drug trade long ago and who was lowdown enough and professional enough and dealt with harmless enough product that no one had bothered to get rid of him when the organization above him got shaken up, which was rare as it was.  Pot wasn’t like Coke or Horse or Meth.  No one really got into shooting matches about it.  That’s why Gavin kept to it, and not Meth and Coke like Sean.  Though Sean spent more time using than dealing. 

Billy though.  Billy had been different.  Billy had been hardcore into psychedelics, acid, shrooms, peyote, prescription antipsychotics.  That and the occasional hit of heroin, they were almost like a religion for him.  He was always listening to Timothy Leary tapes, videos of Ram Dass, whoever that was.  Oh, and reading books by Anton LeVey, Alistair Crowley.  Black magic, black metal, and opiate and psychedelic drugs.  That was Billy, in a nutshell.  Intense motherfucker.  He was always staring at you, making eye contact and not blinking, like he could hold that eye contact, he could convince you of anything, because whatever he was talking about was something he had to convince you of.   And now he was just staring at the floor, at nothing at all.  Because he had gotten it into his head to perform an actual black magic ritual and stick a hunting knife in his chest.  ‘Dumb motherfucker,’ Gavin whispered to himself.  ‘Stupid, stupid, needy dumb crazy motherfucker.’ He finished his beer, paid his tab and left. 

He got back to the house a little after sundown.  Sean was still watching television.  What had been cartoons was now an edited-for-television movie.  They used to have cable, but after the three of them kept forgetting to pay the bill it had gotten cut off.  Gavin went to his room, took the wad of twenties and tens out, put them in a rubber band and hid them in his sock drawer, in one of his socks.  He went out to the kitchen, took a Hot Pocket out of the freezer and put it in the microwave. 

‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Sean. He was smoking a massive blunt.

‘Yeah?’ said Gavin, leaning against the archway between hallway and living room. ‘What about?’

‘About Billy,’ said Sean, with a look like, ‘what else would I be thinking about?’

‘Yes, but, what about Billy have you been thinking?’

‘So, this magic book, that Billy used?  He got it from Damien, right? In fact, he maybe stole it, right?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Well, Damien might be angry at Billy.  And we don’t want him angry at us, do we?’

‘No...’ 

‘Right.  So we should give him the book back.  Tell him we had nothing to do with it, honest, it was all Billy.  He’ll be really angry probably, because the book is probably really expensive, right?  So then we tell him that Billy is dead…’

Gavin caught on.  ‘And ask him if he knows anything about what to do with a body like Billy’s…’

‘Yeah.  I mean, either he knows some occult shit for dealing with this kind of thing, or, you know, he deals heroin.  He probably knows people who know how to deal with bodies, make them disappear.’

Gavin ran his fingers down his jaw. ‘It’s risky.  He might decide to blame us anyways. Throw us in with Billy.’

Sean shook his head.  ‘He wouldn’t.  He would have to kill us, yeah? But why would he want to do that?  That’s two more bodies to deal with, which become his deal not ours.  And he needs someone who knows Billy’s clientele.  And that’s us. He helps us with Billy, we can move into Billy’s territory, and Damien will know we’re loyal, because he has dirt on us.’

‘If he had dirt on us, why doesn’t he just go over to the police?’

Sean shook his head again.  ‘Heroin dealers are never gonna mix it up with pigs, especially when a body’s involved.’

Gavin nodded his head.  ‘Yeah, yeah, that might work…’

The basement door shook. 

Gavin looked at the basement door.  Then he looked at Sean.  Sean was looking at him.  The basement door shook again.  The knob was turning back and forth.

Neither of them moved.

‘Guys?’ called out Billy weakly.  ‘Guys?  Are you there?  The door’s locked.  Are you there?  Guys?’

The microwave dinged.  Gavin’s Hot Pocket was done.