Soooo, I did no running on Friday or today.  On Friday I woke up and found the muscles of my upper leg hurting something fierce, and that continued on through today.  Friday it was all I could do to keep from noticeably limping.  I figure it is best to err on the side of caution and let my legs heal from whatever is going on rather than possibly aggravate it.  Hopefully I can try jogging again tomorrow.   I guess I was more worn out after the short jog than I thought.  What was it, lack of stretching?  Ugh, I must be really out of shape.

"Yes, it's healthy, but God! At what cost?"

I went jogging today. Or at least, I attempted to go jogging.  Last night I went out and bought sweat pants and a sweatshirt in matching navy blue, costing me 15 bucks, a price that is steep enough fro me to serve as a sufficient motivating factor to actually put something to use.  So this morning I got up, put on the sweats, stepped out the door with nothing else besides my keys and started running down the back alley.  My plan was to run down the alley onto main street, cross through some backroads until I got to Veterans' Acres, the local park, keep to the bike trail until I got to the drinking fountain at the park's edge, a distance, Google Maps informs me, of some 2.4 miles, and then come back again.  Instead, by the time I got to the entrance of the bike trail, I was completely exhausted, overheated, with sweat coming out of my nose, barely able to keep walking.  This was a distance of nearly exactly one mile.  So I ran one mile and was out of it.  Awesome.

I kept walking on for a while and ran a little bit here and there until I got to the top of the hill by the power lines, about an additional half mile.  Then I turned around and about half walked half ran the rest of the distance back, so all told a round trip of about 3 miles with probably around half that distance, maybe more, actually running. (I spent more time walking but probably covered more distance running. Well, jogging.)  All told it took me about 40 minutes.

So yeah.  I thought I would cover a five mile jogging circuit, jogging all the way, and instead I did a three mile jogging circuit, not nearly jogging all the way.  When I got back, I felt exhausted and worn out and like there were just waves and waves of heat coming off my body that just wouldn't stop.  You know, when I do push ups or sit ups, it's troublesome, but kind of nice, because you get that rush of endorphins from it, you know. It makes you feel better and ready to move on to the next thing.  Not so with jogging.  Jogging just makes you feel terrible. 

Sigh. I am probably going to have to keep at it. I already spent fifteen bucks!

Dead Billy (part 6)

They walked over to the basement door, had a short argument over whether to open the window blinds or not, decided on not, then got situated.  Sean standing dead center on the doorframe, bat aloft, Gavin off to the left, gun in right hand, unlocking the door with his left hand across his body.  Putting the key back on the nail.  Sean stepping forward and twisting the handle, then kicking on the back-step, bat held high. 

The door bounced against Billy’s body, lying inert on the staircase. 

They traded several fleeting, nervous glances. 

‘He moved,’ said Gavin, laughing. ‘Fucker moved.’

Sean scooted forward and inched the door all the way open, Gavin aiming the gun into the gloom.  There was no trail of blood going up the steps.  The blood on Billy’s t-shirt and jeans was dried, almost as black as they were.  A layer of crust.  Moving sidewise along the far wall, gun up, Gavin moved down the staircase. 

Billy did not look like he was sleeping.  He was still pale, pale like someone who had bled to death, and there was none of the rise and fall, the subtle vitality the living had even when at rest.  The thing on the staircase may as well have been a chair.  But it was sprawled out and curled up on one side, one arm above its head, the other clutched against its chest, as if holding an invisible blanket or stuffed animal.  Like Billy was trying to get comfortable as sleep took him.  Gavin kicked at it, with his foot. 

It fell over onto its back and slid down the stairs, making a thuddering sound. 

‘Fuck!  Shit!  Fuck!’ cried Sean, running halfway down the stairs, bat aloft.

‘It’s all right!  It’s all right!’ Gavin followed after him.  Stopping just above the body, he turned and looked up.  Blinds or no blinds, sunlight was streaming down the steps through the open doorway, down into the basement.

‘No smoke,’ said Sean, cluing in. ‘Nothing is burning.’

Gavin shrugged.  He crouched down and gently placed  the barrel against Billy’s lips.  Parted them.  Moved it up, then down and around.  Billy’s teeth were cleaner and whiter then they had ever been, not yellow at all, and his canines looked like they had been replaced with a wolf’s. 

Sean gasped.  Gavin pulled up, fell against the wall and started laughing, nervous, high, giddy. 

‘Fuck.’  Sean said it matter-of-factly.  ‘Fuck.  Fuck.  Fuck.’

‘Vampire,’ said Gavin, laughing between tears. ‘Billy’s a fucking vampire.’

‘I was really hoping he’d turn out to just be a zombie,’ said Sean.

‘Well, what do we do with him?’ said Gavin.

‘You mean, what do we do with a vampire?’

‘Do you think he can hear us?’

Gavin looked at Sean carefully.  ‘Hear us?’

‘Like, he’s paralyzed, but has vampire senses, and knows what’s going on around him.’

Gavin gave a kind of oh shit look.  Sean reached down and grasped the big hunting knife still sticking out of Billy’s chest.  ‘Billy!  I’m taking the knife out, OK?  Just like you asked.’  He yanked.  The knife came free with a crack and a tear, but the bleeding didn’t start up again.  The top six inches of the blade were coated in an enamel of dried blood.  Sean motioned with his head up the stairs.  ‘Just sit tight, Billy, we’ll be back.’

‘Well, the obvious question is, should we stake him?’ asked Gavin, after they had gone into the living room, locking the door behind them. 

‘Well, Billy’s our friend, vampire or not, and maybe we should hear what he has to say first.’

‘Has to say first!? What if he has vampire mind powers?’

‘What if staking doesn’t work?’

Gavin thought for a moment. ‘Shit.’

‘I mean, who knows what he’s capable of.’

‘Yeah, yeah.  I see where you’re coming from.  Staking might just make him angry.  And who knows what would happen if we tried cutting his head off.’

‘Let’s hear what he has to say first.’

So Sean went into his room and got a pair of old handcuffs, and they went back down, carried Billy over to the wall and handcuffed him to a thick length of pipe.  It was hard work, carrying him over.  Billy was bigger than them.  Sean was about 5’7”, and Gavin was maybe 5’10” standing straight, but Billy had been 6’3”.  It was a lanky 6’3”, but also a wiry and lean one. 

After locking the door again, they both left the house, wanting out of there for some of the daylight hours.

 Gavin rode the trains, dealt pot, stopped off in an authentic Chinese joint down the street from some high-rises, walked along Lake Michigan. 

Sean went to a diner, had breakfast and coffee, took in a matinee, then made a loop of his drug contacts, chatting, buying, selling, asking about Damien.  How’s Damien doing?  He all right?  He square?  Haven’t heard much about him lately.  Damien’s Damien. Oh, yeah, he fine.  Square, why wouldn’t he be square, man, unless you mean, like, clean.   What’s there to hear?  Then he went to a polish butcher shop, bought a pound of spare ribs and asked for a quart of pig’s blood.

Dead Billy (part 5)

He didn’t come back until the next morning.  He walked in the door and everything was still.  Everything was bright and lit.  Then the blankets moved on the couch and Sean emerged from them, sat up. 

Sean stared at him with a look of absolute betrayal.  ‘Where have you been?’

‘Out,’ he replied.  He wasn’t going to give Sean more than that.  It was best with Sean never to give him any sense you had done something wrong.  If you acted like whatever you had done was no big deal, eventually he would lose his nerve and go along with it. 

Gavin had spent last night on the outskirts of town, in that bombed-out looking squatter’s nest.  He had begged his way in from the others, the homeless junkies and urchins, with promises of pot and speed the next time he came around.  He had huddled under a blanket atop of a pile of rags the whole night, staring off into the darkness of rotting drywall.  The little purple-haired girl had been there, huddled up on the edge of a ratty sofa like a cat.  About halfway to dawn he had picked up the blanket and gone over to join her.  The floor was cold, he told her, and he had left his jacket at home.  Could he huddle with her for warmth?  She kicked at him, hard, making his ribs ache, and he went back to his pile of rags.  He had left before anyone else had even woken up. 

‘You haven’t moved.’

Sean blinked. ‘He was talking all night.  Kept asking for us to open the door.  All night.’ He blinked again.  ‘I couldn’t leave.  I couldn’t move.  I just kept waiting for him to stop, but he didn’t.  I think he knew I was here.  It was like he could smell me.’

Gavin looked over towards the door.  ‘He’s not saying anything now.’

Sean followed the gaze and nodded.  ‘He stopped just around the time it started getting light out.’

‘Around the time it started getting light out.’ Gavin and Sean looked at each other.  Neither moved a muscle, but a kind of understanding passed between them.  It may have been only a word, but it was a word neither was willing to speak just yet. 

Gavin went to his room.  He put on an old army surplus jacket, took the money he had out of his sock and stuck a clip on it, shoved it in his pocket.  In a box in his closet he found his dad’s old service revolver, which his mom didn’t even know was missing. Loaded it.   Placed the heavy metal of the cylinder against it his forehead and thought something like a prayer that wasn’t.  He put it in his pocket.

Going back into the living room, he found Sean, newly dressed in green army pants, imitation Converse, and a Grateful Dead t-shirt.  He was holding a steel baseball bat.  ‘We’re going in, right?’

Gavin nodded, took out the gun. ‘We’re going in.’

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