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This isn't going to be one of those stories where a guy, me, wakes up, looks around and has no idea where he is. Damn, that's retarded. I am in my shady ass cousin's apartment and he is taking the seeds out of about two pounds of high grade weed because he is a psychopath. His only two friends, Danny and Kingpin are beating each other up on an X-Box. Before you get too excited, Kingpin is called that because he works at a bowling alley. Danny's been unemployed since we met him. So I've been up for about three days so I think about taking a piss so I walk into the bathroom and think no, I have to live a different life than this. I see a goat standing in the bath. The smell is ancient and almost evil. I ask Danny what the fuck is in the bathroom because Kingpin is a psychopath and might hammer a nail in my hand or something if he thinks I'm disrespecting him. Danny looks confused and then says I imagine a toilet. One of them pauses their game and suddenly I'm running back into the bathroom. This sounds so lame but I feel like if I even talk to them they will lessen my life force. So of course I look again and of course there is no goat and now I think maybe my cousin and his friends are fucking with me. Watch me meltdown like I was the next thing on T.V. Shitheads.
Puke and rally. I vomit in the toilet and sink about 3 times each and feel saintly. Just enough pain to make me appreciate normal. There's banging on the door but there's also loud music on so maybe the two sounds are related. Then I hear a friendly voice. I feel my face go warm. I eat some toothpaste. I open the door and see Pam. She's in panties and a wifebeater and tells me to get the fuck out she's shitting. Funny thing is, this is the girl I lost my virginity to. At the time my cousin just told her to strip. She just kind of laid there and let me do whatever but it was still awesome. So now Danny is saying he wants to buy me a birthday present. Uh-oh, this won't end well.
The present turns out to be a Glock. Like the niggaz my cousin said which I didn't like but what am I going to do? Apparently some bastard had raped Kingpin's sister which is weird because if you saw her, you might buy the guy that did the deed dinner or something. So these crazy crackers are saying the word respect every third word and I know we're about to fuck up our lives even worse than they already are.
How much control of the scenes, these scenes, do I really have? Could I at this point say nah guys think I'll relive good times and take a shower with Pam. Who knows, maybe they'd laugh and call me a real motherfucker and handle their own business. Probably not though, lately more and more of my daily life is somehow or other about respect. Fuck respect I wish I could tell these knuckleheads. Shooting someone who raped someone doesn't get you respect; people who really understand life like Donald Trump or Bill Gates, they get respect. People like Danny, Kingpin, my cousin, we just peck at each other like pigeons. Needless to say, we're all in the truck headed for revenge like it's biblical times and there's not a 99.9% chance this chapter of our lives ends with us getting arrested.
Ha, that bitch shot me. Yep, we all just strolled up to this supposed rapist's trailer with my cousin in the lead. My plan was to knock this guy out with an uppercut and try to convince my supposed friends that killing him would be absolutely stupid. Anyway, I didn't even have my gun out and this guy came from out back and must have saw three guys with guns and me with none and thought fuck it.
So either I'm dead or dictating this into a tape recorder as I'm handcuffed to a hospital bed. My long lost sister brought me this and some psychiatrist or something thought it might be good for me. I don't know, I'm probably dead.
Peter Schwartz is a painter, poet and writer. He's also an associate art editor for Mad Hatters' Review. His artwork can be seen all over the Internet but specifically at www.sitrahahra.com. He's had hundreds of paintings, poems, and stories published both online and in print and is constantly submitting new work as if his very life depended on it. His last show was at the Amsterdam Whitney Gallery in Chelsea NYC and went well enough for them to invite him back.